Being Mark Steyn Means Never Having To Say You’re Stupid
Because he is somewhat articulate and gives the appearance of thinking before he speaks, it is easy to believe that Mark “The Human” Steyn is only stupid about politics. But, in fact, as with his as-portrayed-by-Arnold-Stang American counterpart James Lileks, the musical theater enthusiast is capable of being stupid about any subject to which he puts his pen, as we see in a recent article he wrote for Macleans (“the National Review of the Frozen North”).
The article concerns legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby, and since politics and superheroes are two of my nerdiest obsessions, naturally I was thrilled when I heard that one of the dumbest political pundits in North America had turned his attention to one of the greatest superhero artists in history. How long would it take for Mark to make a total jackass of himself? One paragraph? Two? As it turns out, he didn’t get any farther than the title:
WHAM! Spider-Man, the Hulk . . .
Astute readers, of course, will be aware that Jack Kirby had nothing to do with Spider-Man. But hey, as I am all too aware, magazine writers do not often have the privilege of writing their own titles and/or headlines. Perhaps this was just an innocent goof on the part of some Maclean’s intern; let’s give Mark the benefit of the doubt and see what he’s got to say.
Let’s go back to the sidewalk, and ask pedestrians if they know Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men…If they’re pretty much anyone under, say, 55 to 60, they’ll say sure. If they’re under 75, maybe the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer don’t ring any bells, but they’ll have heard of Captain America.
Hmm. I’m not sure what he’s trying to establish here. That people over 60 won’t have heard of Spider-Man? That seems kind of odd, given that people born before 1948 would have been adolescents (in other words, comics’ target demographic at the time) when the character debuted to great popularity. He then seems to claim that only people over 75 will have heard of the Fantastic Four or the Silver Surfer, which seems even odder, because if you were born in 1933 or before, you probably didn’t pay much attention to comics in the mid-’60s. But hey, this is arts criticism, not math! Let’s leave the poor guy alone and let him talk.
Who created — or co-created — all of the above? A fellow by the name of Jack Kirby.
Oh, dear. This is a bit harder to work around. Jack Kirby didn’t create or co-create Spider-Man. That task fell to reclusive genius/right-wing Objectivist crank Steve Ditko. Beyond drawing the cover of his first appearance, Kirby never had anything to do with Spidey, and was never even a regular artist on any of his regular titles. Okay, so, Mark has made a pretty egregious factual error about a subject at the very start of a two-page article about that subject in a national magazine. But surely he won’t make it any worse by yammering on about politics, right? Right!
Stan [Lee] was Marvel’s head writer and presiding genius and, to a couple of generations of readers, Mister Comics. (I met him briefly at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles in 2000: yes, he’s a Democrat — why do you think comic-book heroes gave up truth, justice and the American way to sit around on rooftops like Spidey riddled with self-doubt about whether their awesome powers are a blessing or a curse?)
Of course! Stan didn’t make his characters psychologically deep and riddled with anxiety in an attempt to bring more adult, sophisticated writing to a medium that had previously been aimed at children. He didn’t do it because he wanted to make them easier to relate to, more human and resonant. He did it because he’s a dirty filthy stinking liberal! Curiously, no one seems to have tipped Mark that Jack Kirby was also a lifelong Democrat, and much more of a liberal than Stan: Kirby supported unions, was an early champion of civil rights, and was doing a comic that satirized McCarthyism at a time when Marvel was still cranking out tons of books with sinister Commie villains.
Mark goes on to lament how much more money Stan Lee made than Jack Kirby, which has to be the only time in his career he’s stood up for an employee against management. (He also makes it out that Stan is committing some sort of crime by continuing to rake in the bucks — “Jack wasn’t that jolly by the late sixties, and Stan’s still smilin’, still pulling down gazillion-dollar-a-year retainers for ‘consulting’ on this or that” — which is not only suspiciously anti-capitalistic for a movement conservative like Steyn, but also ignores the fact that Stan has the advantage of still being alive. Kirby died 14 years ago, but had he lived, he might just have recouped a lot of the money he felt that Marvel owed him thanks to the groundbreaking efforts of dirty filthy liberal Democrat trial lawyers like Marc Toberoff.) Someone get this guy a copy of Mr. A, quick!
A triple threat to entertainment, that Mark Steyn.
Not OF entertainment. TO entertainment.
Also, is it any wonder even fantasy worlds look fucked up through their eyes?
Yeah, like that matters. Well, Macleans is a Canadiastanian publication, so they might have enough decency to run a real correction next issue, or something. If it were actually in the National Review, they would get a few joshing letters from conservative
nerdy fanboyscomic fans and his ignorance glossed over as always.I think the strike tag is one of those dodgy ones that works in preview but doesn’t actually publish, so “nerdy fanboys” above is supposed to be stricken. Thanks for you cooperation.
Sorry, Mr. Pierce, but translating this:
as this:
doesn’t seem right. You’re both being a little sloppy.
But that doesn’t make Steyn’s article any less idiotic or Steyn any less of an asshole.
You liberals are a bunch of faggots, you all smell like shit.
To hear that Steyn wrote a story that dozens of Canadians will think is true about one of favorite graphic artists, well all I can say is my outrage is spiking at about 5.7 Giga- Malkins.
Barack Obama is the color of shit.
Barack Obama’s wife is a fucking dog. She hates her country and should not be allowed anywhere near the White House.
“Giga-Malkins” lolzers
Malkin is the new Minster of Twisting Panties, pass it on.
“Minister,” of course. I blame Time magazine.
Johnny Coelacanth is gay.
SomeNYGuy, how would you parse that sentence? I’m willing to admit that I’m wrong, but to be fair, it’s a pretty badly written sentence. Let’s look again.
If they’re less than 75 years old, he says, they likely won’t have heard of the Fantastic Four or the Silver Surfer. And since clearly SOME people have heard of the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer, seeing as there was just a big mainstream movie released featuring those two characters, doesn’t that imply that the only people who have heard of them are over 75 years old?
OR: is he just saying that the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer aren’t as popular as Captain America? That’s not only not true, but it doesn’t have anything to do with how old you are, so mentioning the 75 years old figure seems pointless.
I dunno. The way I read it, it seems pretty straightforward: people under 75 may not know the FF, but they know Captain America. To me, that implies that people OVER 75 do know the FF. Frankly, I think he meant to imply something that makes a lot more sense, which is that people who are older than 75 probably don’t know the Fantastic Four but are likely familiar with Captain America. But if that’s the case, the word he wanted to use in front of 75 was “over”, not “under”.
Mark Steyn is a scumbag. And not very smart. But other than that. . .
Mark Steyn shames all of Alpha Flight.
Especially Northstar.
I wonder what people like Steyn would make of Alan Moore?
Look on the bright side. Steyn may be a miserable dumbass, but you have to admit that he’s also a pathetic cheesedick.
I actually agree with Steyn that Stan the Man gets a little more credit than he should.
However also I believe that a better cover would be one where Spidey is kicking Alpha Flight’s asses and Steyn is either Sasquach or Northstar.
Excelsior!
agc:
Tch. Obviously Steyn should be Puck. Short hairy man who everyone hates and contains a demon?
Does the killfile not work anymore? Figures. I finally get it and it’s out of date.
Also, because Puck went around in a ugly costume with the letter P on the front, and then we could keep calling Steyn “P. Steyn”.
I’m not mature, I can live with that.
Actually, Silver Surfer had a pet badger (I think he was called “Roger the Miracle Badger”) that made him pretty special in my eyes when I was a kid. He found Roger in the debris of some planet that he’d destroyed and I always wondered about extra-Earth badgers, you know, why in the vast complexities of the universe, G*d decided to repeat badgers on other planets (what was THAT all about??). I’m not sure if Roger had the same animosity to pelicans that Earth badgers do, but we could sure use his unearthly powers to help rid our planet of this ung*dly scourge. That and if LIE-bruls would bother to pay attention to it.
Well the crucial question is, who would our faous superheroes vote for?
DC:
Batman is totally McCain. C’mon, as cool as he is, you know its true.
Superman: would endorse Obama all the way.
Wonder Woman: Hillary, but she’s not a US citizen.
Green Lantern: Depends on which one. Probably Obama.
Flash: a cop from the midwest? Republican.
J’on J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter: favors immigration reform. Richardson.
Marvel:
Captain America: Truman Democrat. Probably was a fan of Edwards. The Ultimates version of Captain America is a neocon hawk though.
Iron Man/Tony Stark: You can’t GET any more Republican. McCain.
Punisher: Do you gotta ask Frank Castle’s stance on torture? Republican.
Hulk: Whoever has the strongest “Leave Hulk Alone” platform
Reed Richards: McCain
Wolverine’s Canadian
Cyclops, Professor X, other mutants: probably Democrats
Any Marvel heroes who were pro-reg in Civil War: Republican
I am a nerd.
Being Mark Steyn Means Never Having To Say You’re Stupid
Well, only because so many others are ready to say it for you.
Hmm, more
Green Arrow: Nader
Spiderman: Kind of waffly, I’d guess Obama
Thor: not a US citizen
The Authority: themselves (duh, they even did it in the comic)
And as for all the “superheroes”: compared to Bugs Bunny, they’re all a bunch of pussies. X-Ray vision? Ability to leap tall buildings? Silk glands in your wrists? BAH! Bugs is as a god compared to this…he needs a bulldozer, and one magically appears behind the nearest bush. He time travels. He space travels. He has amazing powers of tranvestism.
Top THAT, Superman!
Being Mark Steyn Means Never Having To Say You’re Stupid
Unfortunately for him, it does mean having to be Conrad Black’s human bidet and fluffer, depending upon the time of day.
I just want to know who the sewer snoids are backing.
Completely off topic, other than that it involves laughing one’s ass off, I bring you, The Best Post Evar
Moving from comics to video games can’t be too much of a stretch, and I think at least some of you have as toilet-y a sense of humor as I do. My neighbors must now think that I moonlight strangling mink in the basement, if they didn’t before.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled dipshit-dunking.
I read that whole article and can’t figure out what point he was trying to make. It’s a completely disjointed mess. Was he lamenting that poor Kirby never became the millionaire that Lee did (even though before major Hollywood came a’ knockin’, Marvel teetered on the edge of bankruptcy), or that Lee is a hypocrite for being a millionaire and a Democrat, or what? I can'[t figure it out. Someone explain Mark Steyn’s brain to me, please!
Does Steyn get paid for writing this kind of horrible word-spew that would get a “C-” in a English composition 101 course? Now that is an injustice!
I’m with Jennifer on the Bugs Bunny as Superhero++, but only in those animated cartoons accompanied by offbeat classical music.
For serious comic/animation junkies, I also suggest John Kricfalusi’s blog.
The brain in Steyn is mainly very lame.
Bugs rules. It’s something of a shame that they’ve edited and redone so many of the old greats so that the stuff that adults might find amusing won’t “harm” the kiddies. Fer cryin’ out loud, it was fine for forty-odd years. Bugs has always been a little tasteless. So what? Now you have to buy the DVDs that say they’re actually the originals.
Meh.
Monsssters are the most innnnnnnnteresting people…
The old Tom and Jerry was great too. Who thought it would be a good idea to have them be best buddies? Whoever it was needs to have their head smooshed into a mailbox, etc.
What is it with some of my favorite blogs lately? World-o-Crap is hung up on some boring Batman series. And now you go and nerd out because some dude didn’t get all the facts right about some ancient comic books. I’m starting to feel as if I’m not in on something. As Charlie Brown used to say, “I never know what’s going on”.
Sorry, but I’d have to agree with Leonard Pierce on this one. Drawing attention to Mark Steyn’s ignorance and incompetence is always a worthwhile activity.
And it’s the really old Popeye cartoons for me. As a militant working stiff, he’d be a pro-union lefty.
Shorter Mark Franken Steyn:
Whaaa! A lieburul has tons of money that will never go to WingNut Welfare!
I just want to know who the sewer snoids are backing.
Sewer Snoids! Yow! Those fuckers make me paranoid!
love me some Bug Bunny. Take that, Superman
Oh, and fuck WordPress.
Sieg Hiel!
On some other blogish thing there was someone screaming about how eeeevil Soros was and that he was the #2 (or whatever) highest grossing profiteer from the sub-prime debacle. Right. It was all his fault. Seeing the train coming and getting out of the way is now a crime for these folks. Well, unless you’re a wingnut, for whom there are no crimes.
As to Lee, IIRC, back in the 80s, he was truly hurting for dough. Eventually he got compensated for having his brainchildren made into blockbuster movies, but he labored hard for little for a long, long time. Truly a love of the work, that man has.
Can someone please explain to me what wingnut welfare is?
His horn go Bleet, Bleet!
wordpress is definitely getting a crate of rabid pelicans from me now.
MODOK , I think you forgot Spidy- Obama man all the way.
Ah yes, Soros. Or as the Brown Squirts like to say: “The Jew who somehow managed to survive the Holocaust.”
‘Cos it isn’t at all the evilest fucking thing ever to suggest people who survived that shit did something wrong.
—
I saw WordPress drinkin’ a pina colada at Trader Vick’s.
wait, sorry read further- sorry.
She-Hulk- Hillary backer but is having second thoughts- hell they are Marvel charicters they are ALL having second thoughts
I has a bukit.
Off topic – Ann Althouse linked to FMM.
That makes up for my plans tonight falling through, at least a bit.
Oh, and an Althouse link is apparently worth about as many hits as posting in the comments here.
Ohoh, I also invited her to the Sadlyly drinking next weekend. *crosses fingers*
Our beloved President George Willard Bush, jet pilot hero of the battle of Iraq, is going to be appearing on my favorite show ever, Deal or No Deal:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/18/george-bush-to-appear-on_n_97523.html
Take that, commie IslamoLIE-bruls!
Bush on Deal or No Deal?
Well a short skirt and briefcase is about the only costume he hasn’t pranced around in, in the past 8 years. All he needs is Indian Chief and he can be his own Village People!
Huh? What the fuck is going on? What the fuck are you “people” talking azbout?
WordPress is the brown part of me. The part in back.
What the fuck does this have to do with poop jokes? Or pie? Or sprouts de bruxelles? Or anything that non-twerps know anything about?
[our profanity rating is slipping, chilluns – caint let dat happen!]
MacLean’s sux these days. Steyn is an embarrassment.
I think he should move to the US, maybe work for Faux. He’d fit in there.
Hulk: Whoever has the strongest “Leave Hulk Alone” platform
Given his videos, looked like Mike Gravel.
As for this:
I have to side with SomeNYGuy – I believe what Steyn is proposing is:
(Age – Interest)
Birth-54 – probably into some shit like Pokemon or something concocted by their LIEbural elementary school teachers
55-60 – all kinds of Marvel characters, including Spider-Man, Hulk and the Fantastic Four
61-75 – ONLY CAPTAIN AMERICAN AND NOW HE’S DEAD, KILLED BY LIBERALS OR SOMETHING
Forgot one age group
Over 75 – they like to read about that nice boy John McLain, who stopped the terrorists in Nakatomi plaza and is now running for president.
Thanks anyway, pal, but we’ve already got an ample supply of assholes. In fact, we can spare some. Would you like to have David Brooks? He’s very well-groomed and fully housebroken. How about Smilin’ Bill Kristol? Take either one and I’ll throw in three dozen Texas Republican legislators at no extra cost.
fucking wordpress test
“I also invited her to the Sadlyly drinking next weekend.”
*groan* C’mon, man, we’re supposed to have fun at that gig.
I can’t have any fun when a flabby albino like Ann Althouse is craving all the attention. It’s pathetic. I get embarrassed for her.
Much better for her and Ace et al to just stay the fuck away.
Yeah, like that matters. Well, Macleans is a Canadiastanian publication, so they might have enough decency to run a real correction next issue, or something.
If MacLeans is going to run a correction they should simply eliminate Steyn from their roster of contributors, since he’s the ultimate mistake.
rightwingsnarkle, think of the fun you could have at Ann’s expense. For example, filming her while she embarrasses herself over one too many glasses of red wine. She’ll feel flattered and post the video on her web site, thinking she’s doing herself a favour (because she lacks sense).
“…think of the fun you could have at Ann’s expense.”
I dunno, Lesley. It’s just too easy to ridicule the poor fool. She’s passed the line and gone onto something far beyond self-parody.
Besides, I want to hoist a few with my like-minded Sadly, Nosians. I don’t want to have to make room, physically or in my mind, for her or folks like her. It’s a distraction I’d rather not have to deal with on a precious Sunday afternoon.
Don’t worry, she won’t be there. Just remember, whether she’s there or not, the event is about her. It’s always about her.
Shit Steyn lives in New Hampshire. While his chief patron is somewhat occupied by the prospect of jail, the Shitster still has enough favours in London and Toronto to get wingnut welfare piecework from the Telegraph, NatPo and Macleans. Alas.
I wonder what people like Steyn would make of Alan Moore?
Soylent green.
But only if he could be sure he’d never get brought to trial for it.
You want to see some nifty comic-book related controversy on the Web?
This guy left a message on my blog, alerting me that I was quoted on Wikipedia in the Vince Colletta entry.
(I guess that shows my street cred as a comic-book nerd. Somebody lifted something I wrote for The Jack Kirby Collector and pasted it on Wikipedia.)
His site has been cracking me up, but, yeah, it’s a little over-the-top.
For a little more on just who Vince Colletta is, and what is going on, go here.
Satan’s Dirty Underwear,
Nobody likes my poop jokes.
“It’s always about her.”
Yup, a legend in her own mind.
:: Astute readers, of course, will be aware that Jack Kirby had nothing to do with Spider-Man.
Well, he did draw the cover of Spider-Man’s first appearance!
…
Maybe NY guy and Leonard should look up the works of guitarist”Joe Satriani.”
Believe me, lots of under 75 year olds have been shown the way to the Silver Surfer.
http://www.ibanez.com/forum/yaf_postst70256_Check-it-out-JS-Signature-NAMM-08.aspx
Mark Steyn better lay off Stan Lee or look for big trouble in dark alleys from the Swedish Lurker. His choice. When I was a kid I wrote to Stan Lee about my love for Marvel in general and the Silver Surfer and Spidey in particular, and he wrote me back. Like, in an actual letter, not a “dear svensker, thanks for your great letter” kind of letter. It was like Mr. Sun reached down and shook my hand.
I would have kept the letter, too, but the nihilistic 70s (drugs, sex, roller disco) beckoned and lots of stuff went by the wayside, including the letter, which, sadly, is prolly in a landfill somewhere. Which is where Steyn’s article belongs. Hey, and maybe even Steyn himself!
What’s with this “flavour” in the comments? Y’all getting all Queen Victoria on Murkan spelling or what?
Steyn is probably right that many if not most artists in the fantasy genres are bundles of nerdy resentments. Vincent D’Onofrio probably had it right about all of them when he played the socially retarded creator of the Conan series. What that proves about the soundness of the worldview that doubtlessly many comic book artists have, Steyn only knows.
Fire Bill Maher!
http://www.firebillmaher.com/
Fire the Pope!
The fact is, liberals are all secret faggots.
Gary Ruppert wrote:
And here’s Johnny Rivers performing Secret Faggot Man.
(By the way, Gary, are you aware that if your statement is true, it then follows that all overt faggots are conservatives?)
Mark Steyn was on FOX or some other ignorant hole the other day, saying that America spends too much on education already. Dumbass doesn’t seem to know about the parasite consultant class that sucks up all additional dollars to education.
I guess he just missed Barbara Bush’s donation after Katrina.
.
Why would liberals need to be “secret” faggots?
The only closet cases left are on the right. You know, talking about “family values” in between bouts of snorting meth off of a gay prostitute’s ass?
It’s strictly a right-wing thing.
.
Guy Gardner is a lock for McCain. John Stewart’s in for Obama. Hal…probably a moderate Republican usually, but I doubt he’s terribly impressed by President Sinestro. Kyle’s most likely a Democrat, if only because half his life was written by Judd Winick.
Steve Ditko…now there was a man. I got some inkling of his right-wing tendencies back in the day with the early Creeper and The Question, but only in the last fifteen years did I learn about Mr. A, and I followed your link to Avenging World. Quality Randroid bug-nuttery. Guy never quite figured out that all property ownership is backed up by the threat of force, but hey, “comic book philosphy” is usually used as an insult, nicht wahr?
Regarding Ditko, I got many laffs a few years ago when some ballerina-turned-antifeminist-magazine-writer got a book published that caused a minor scandal. The scandal was due to the book being about how much she loved anal sex. In the book, she lovingly describes the man who introduced her to the peasures of the back door and refers to him throughout as “Mr. A”. How appropriate, thought I…
The fact is, liberals are all secret faggots.
Our favorite place to meet is the invisible disco.
Totally OT, but peeps on this site that introduced me to the Gizoogle might appreciate this:
” …a revolizzles is not a wanna be gangsta party…”
What? YEEEEEEaaaahhhh!
More superhero voting:
Nightcrawler – Huckabee
Mystique – Romney
Deadpool – Ron Paul
Falcon – Obama
Captain America – Eisenhower
Sue Storm – Hillary
Johnny Storm – not registered to vote
Reed Richards – write-in for Dick Cheney
Ben Grimm – write-in for Russ Feingold
Someone should create a comic starring me and my voracious word devouring ways.
From the Watchmen:
The Comedian: write-in for Dick Cheney
Dr. Manhattan: Obama
Rorschach: Write-in for Tancredo, although his character speaks admirably of Harry Truman
Night Owl: Hillary
Ozymandias: would engineer election fraud using a strange hybrid creature of consisting of wordpress, a diebold machine and Michael Bloomberg
It’s not a cartoon, but this image does capture WordPress’ style of processing messages.
The fact is, posters of retarded flames should be neither seen nor heard, until Dada takes their Dell away & spanks them. ESPECIALLY if they’re going on 40.
OFF-TOPIC, BUT ONLY BY MERE INCHES:
Ahhh, Maclean’s Mag … sometime home of Sir Conrad “Guilty On 7 Counts” Black’s possibly-even-scummier spouse’s literally surreal op-eds — if you’re ever curious who Ann Coulter stole her Queen Of Evil schtick from, I have 2 words for you: Barbara Amiel.
Frankly I wouldn’t be too surprised if Malkin got her handy-dandy internment trope from one of Amiel’s op-eds to boot … she is as they say a real fucking piece of work. Her only claim to fame for many years was her shrill boast of having been shagged by Pierre Trudeau – then someone hooked her up with Sir Con & taught her to type. The rest is tragedy. Rest assured she’s frenetically spewing a tome of profound inner martyrdom even as you read these words – something to make “Liberal Fascism” look like “Civil Disobedience” … sadly, yes, the virulent cerebral fungus known as Wingnut Simplex CAN survive Canadian winters.
Dr. Doom – Rudy Giuliani
The Joker – Ron Paul
The Juggernaut – Fred Thompson
The Leader – Mitt Romney
The Red Skull – Mike Huckabee
Sinestro – John McCain
The Atom – Dennis Kucinich
I … I didn’t use copy … & it posted, straight off … looks like the virgin-in-the-volcano-under-a-full-moon trick worked!
Hahahahahahaha!
Suck it, WordPress!
What, this far in comments on a liberal blog without someone mentioning Kirby based Darkseid in part on Nixon? Gawd, but now I feel nerdy.
Bonus points: Mark Steyn is Dave Sim’s favorite columnist.
Small note, folks: the spam prevention plugin causing so much consternation here isn’t WordPress’s fault. It’s Spam Karma 2, and I believe both the Javascript Payload module (which prevents me from posting from work) and the Stopwatch plugin (which causes the timeouts). I may be wrong. I definitely know both plugins are responsible for losing your entered post on reload.
Spam protection can be a pain in the ass to set up properly, but believe me: in its absence, a blog of this size and prominence is impossible to maintain. That’s a large part of the reason that large sites like Pandagon switch from independent hosting to dedicated blog hosts like Blogsome, Blogspot, &c.
Hoosier X: You seriously think Dr Doom would vote for anyone but Dr Doom?
Not Michelle Malkin?
The fact is, America spends too much on public education. We should pay for, and provide, our own. Here in the heartland, we have been successful with home schools and private schools, funded and controlled by the parents directly without all the parasites of liberal indoctrination getting fat off your tax dollars in between.
He would need an evil minion to run the U.S. while Doom was running the world.
And you know Giuliani, as a Republican, would be on board.
And Dr. Doom would get Gary to run the heartland.
(I suspect he already has.)
Dr. Strange – Bill Frist
Professor X – Hillary (he’s got a thang for powerful women)
The Joker – Cindy McCain (he’s got a thang for frozen faced psycho grins)
Two Face – Mitt Romney & Tagg Romney
Rudy Guliani – Worst. Doombot. Ever.
Has this guy ever been right about ANYTHING?
Phoenix – Nixon (rising from the dead)
Wolverine – privilege of voting revoked in 1968
Aquaman – write-in for Namor
I should have put:
The Joker – Mike Gravel
Canadian political opinion writing:political opinion writing:: Flax Chex:Party Chex
I wonder what people like Steyn would make of Alan Moore?
Steyn would probably make poopy in his pants.
From the right angles, Moore is rather scary.
I wonder how Lee and Kirby’s Iron Man fits into Steyn’s neat pigeonholing. How does a superheroic, commie-busting CEO and Vietnam War POW work as liberal propaganda? Was Marvel saying John McCain should have escaped from the Vietcong by building an awesome suit of powered armor?
Really, haven’t we all learned a determined person can see bias anywhere? Batman is a clear attack on the Second Amendment and a NAMBLA figurehead. Superman is an illegal immigrant and a member of the liberal media. He didn’t even build his Fortress of Solitude in America! Wonder Woman… okay, that’s too easy.
Doom Patrol – Dennis Kucinich
The Brotherhood of Dada (assuming they don’t run their own candidate again) – Mike Gravel
Eclipso: Mike Allan
Dr. Fate: Hillary
The Black Panther: Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
The Riddler: McCain
Ultra, the Multi-Alien: Obama
Grant Morrison wins the thread.
I had heard that Sim had turned into a real nutter. Damned shame, I liked the first third or half or whatever of his opus that I read back in the day. It started to get rather unwieldy, though. I haven’t seen it in years. I loved Gerhard’s backgrounds.
I asked a friend of mine who is a serious comic freak about Sim, and got a response that basically said “…we don’t really talk about him.”
You’ve got to be kidding me! – Ultra the Multi-Alien!
(I would have assumed that he – along with Metamorpho – would be for Mitt Romney – the Fab Mormon of a 1001 Changes!)
And is this THE Grant Morrison posting? – if so – I must defer to his opinion on the Brotherhood of Dada, though I think General Immortus and Vandal Savage would vote for their older brother – John McCain.
Black Manta – Alan Keyes
No, of course it bloody isn’t really Grant.
Oh yes, we love us some loose rocks. Ol’ Gravelly showed the true colours of his frilly knickers eons ago with his campaign ads. Pure Dada in action, kiddies, what the world needs now!
Mark Miller and Grant Morrison – what, are you guys
bored with NYCC already! I spoke at the first one – what a fun zoo!
OK, Mr. Miller – tell me your favorite “football” team.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Physics Professor,
Jim
Rangers.
…Celtic?
Well, Celtic is what you cited in the GEEK magazine interview –
Not stalking – I just read it this morning so it was fresh in mind.
I must say that imagining the voting preference of the DC/Marvel universe is a fun diversion from preparing physics lectures.
If you ever have any science questions – feel free to drop me a line.
Cheers,
Jim
Shit Steyn lives in New Hampshire. While his chief patron is somewhat occupied by the prospect of jail, the Shitster still has enough favours in London and Toronto to get wingnut welfare piecework from the Telegraph, NatPo and Macleans. Alas.
A lot of this has faded over the years, particularly when old Conrad got nailed. If you have the courage to look at his website, most of his articles are from a while back, the only regular columns he seems to get now are McLeans (which a kooky, odd, unreadable PoS anyway) and a couple of low circulation papers in CA. A lot of other papers dropped him around about the time of his book, whent hey realised what a bigoted eliminatioist the guys was. Either that, or the realised how unreadable his columns had become.
A lot of this has faded over the years …
How sad. A fading Steyn.
Had to be one or the other since he’s Glaswegian. I mean I’m. I’m Glaswegian. I AM THE REAL MARK MILLAR I AM HIM AND I AM NOT ROD HULL
Being a former comic book geek, yup, I caught the Kirby-Ditko error immediately… but I didn’t know Ditko had done those other wacky comics! And you’re right, Stan Lee’s great contribution to the form was adding a greater degree of realism to superheroes, not that Steyn is pro-reflection, anyway.
Have you ever heard the story that the initial “Him” story in Fantastic Four #65-66 was intended by Kirby as a parody of Objectivism, as a slap at Ditko? Apparently Stan watered it down in the dialog, which annoyed Kirby enough to start him thinking about quitting Marvel, and Ditko was still offended enough that he did quit Marvel.
(Sadly, at least the latter is definitely not true–Ditko left Marvel, abruptly, eighteen months before that FF story was published.)
Tom Tancredo-Ambush Bug
Bizarro Steyn, a Steyn that makes sense.
Which rules Mark out.
As pointed out – Kirby did work on Spider-Man but here’s a much more interesting collaborator with Ditko on the web-headed wonder:
(from Wikipedia – source of all knowledge and not a little bs)
Additionally, Ditko shared a Manhattan studio with noted fetish artist Eric Stanton, an art-school classmate[13] who, in a 1988 interview with Theakston, recalled that although his contribution to Spider-Man was “almost nil”, he and Ditko had “worked on storyboards together and I added a few ideas. But the whole thing was created by Steve on his own… I think I added the business about the webs coming out of his hands”.
Heh – webs coming out of his hands
justme :
On some other blogish thing there was someone screaming about how eeeevil Soros was and that he was the #2 (or whatever) highest grossing profiteer from the sub-prime debacle. Right. It was all his fault. Seeing the train coming and getting out of the way is now a crime for these folks.
I don’t know about the subprime mess, but ever since this interview I’ve thought there’s something dodgy about Soros.
If you don’t want to listen, around 11m30s he’s asked about the apparent contradiction between the ruthlessness of the investment business and his philantropy, and basically his position is that he invests in financial markets where his influence is infinitesimal, so it’s all right.
I find that abdication of responsibility a bit frightening (especially given the points the interviewer makes about the Southasian crisis and the British Pound and such things I don’t know much about) but what I really found shocking is that the reasoning he used to absolve himself of responsibility for his actions, while valid, is exactly the same reasoning used to prove there’s no point in voting. Except that while that reasoning is valid for voting, there’s a chance that it’s not valid for Soros’ investing because his money and fame as an investor might give him more influence on the markets than he credits himself for.
So the question I wanted the interviewer to ask was, why on earth are you encouraging people to vote when by your own reasoning it’s pointless ?
I don’t know whether he’s slightly self-deluded on that particular point or chooses not to think about it, or if he thinks all the good he does with his money makes it worth the consequences.
?