2 posts tagged “queer eye on comics”

Gardner Fox was one of the greats. He wrote over 4,000 comic book stories and created the Justice Society, the Justice League, the Flash, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Sandman, and (what’s most important for this review) the new Atom. Plus he created Batman’s utility belt, the Batarang, and DC’s parallel earths concept with his “Flash of Two Worlds!" story. He won the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing in 2007. Few if any writers could claim to have had a greater influence on comics than Gardner Fox. If I were to write one of my snarky reviews about Gardner Fox, I’d sure have to be a mean-spirited prick. Yep. A vicious creep. Really terrible if I did that.

 

So … umm … what’s new with you? I have a new rain barrel. It helps reduce the erosion on the side of my house. Plus it cuts my water bill by …

 

ARRRRGH!!!!

 

I have to say it! Gardner Fox is a deplorable hack! Calling Fox the 9/11 of comic writers would be in bad taste, and yet that still wouldn’t be as tasteless as his run on The Atom. Fox is to comics what FOX is to news.

 

No, Scott! Be good and respectful of this comics legend!

 

Right! Respectful. So I won’t even bring up that Gardner Fox wrote a series of pornovels called Cherry Delight, The Sexecutioner, about a sexy spy who screws her way to justice. (Hey, I just made up porno + novel = pornovel, and that’s at least as clever as the Batarang, so how come I’m not lionized as a visionary?) Nor will I mention that he also wrote what I’m sure was a completely different series of pornovels called The Lady from L.U.S.T. about a sexy spy who screws her way to ... oh, let’s say international peace, and what an international piece she was. And I sure as hell won’t link to the oh so subtly named titles in that series like The Big Snatch, Lay Me Odds, and The Copulation Explosion. Explosion? Eew. Who’s cleaning those sheets?

 

No, none of those cheap attacks for me. I’ll just review one comic, just one, that will completely invalidate any respect Fox garnered with his lauded works. That comic is The Atom #34, a comic so appalling written that after reading just three pages, you’d yearn to be Oedipus.

 

But I should mention that as disappointingly as this comic is written, the art is sublime. It was done by Gil Kane, who is truly one of the great comic artists especially if you like looking up Gwen Stacey’s nostrils. If you have to ask what I mean by that, you’re reading the wrong column. If you know what I mean by that, don’t you think it’s time you got a new hobby? Nah. Me neither.

 

Still, the story is ridiculous. To show you how ridiculous the story is, I’m not even going to talk about the plot. I’ll just introduce you to the story’s villains, the Big Gang. The Big Gang is a group of midgets (or “little people” as we say today), who had worked at various circus sideshows and teamed up to steal the world’s largest objects so they could … umm … own the world’s largest objects. For instance, they stole the world’s largest book, which was so gargantuan that it required a mechanical page-turner, and a drum that was sixteen feet across. I tried to think of reason someone might construct a drum that was sixteen feet in diameter, but the only reason I could think of was to demonstrate one's fervent contempt for the little drummer boy. Strangely, the Big Gang had all the mundane items in their hideout made kiddy-sized, which made the gang look like giants even though the opposite was true. But when they were near their enormous stolen objects, they looked small. But then they battled the Atom and looked like giants again. It was all very confusing, and their small size played no role the story, so I’m not sure why they were made to be little people in the first place. The gang had seven members: Big Bertha, Big Shot, Big Ben, Big Deal, Big Cheese, Big Wig, and Big Head. You have perhaps spotted a theme.

 

Big Bertha is the only female member of the Big Gang. Despite her size, she’s the world’s greatest shot putter, so she’s kind of like the howitzer of that name. While I’m sure being hit by a sixteen pound shot would cause considerable damage, I’m not convinced that is as dangerous as being shot by a bullet, and she didn’t carry more than one sixteen pound shot to put at a time. It seems like anyone with a pistol would be more dangerous than the world’s greatest shot-putting midget.

 

Which brings us to Big Shot, a guy with several pistols! Sounds pretty dangerous until you discover that his guns don’t shoot bullets. They shoot other, less lethal things. For instance, he had a knob gun that shoots what appear to be door knobs. Why does Big Shot have knob gun instead of a regular, you know, killing gun? We’re never told. But “knob gun” sounds suspiciously like sexual euphemism to me. How much you wanna bet the knob gun shows up again in an issue or two of The Lady from L.U.S.T., no doubt wielded by a midget named Big Dick? “Don’t rub my knob gun too hard, lady,” he’ll say. “It’s liable to shoot.”

 

Big Ben’s so-called talent is that he is great at synchronizing the gang’s schedule and timing all their actions. He spends the entire issue fretting over the minor imperfections of their plans and staring at his watch so intently that he ignores the Atom as the Atom beats him senseless. Apparently, Gardner Fox had trouble distinguishing OCD from a super power.

 

Big Deal was a card sharp who says when he joins the band of crooks, “I’ll work out some card tricks that will startle, baffle and confuse those I use ‘em against!” We’ve all seen the horrible things Bullseye can do with cards, but this fiend is apparently planning to wreak havoc with a diabolic game of three-card Monte.

 

Big Cheese makes cheeses with special powers. I kid you not. He created a cheese that emitted a knock-out gas, another that was extra sticky, and … well, the third cheese was just a piece of Limburger that he threw at the Atom. I feel compelled to remind you that all the members of the Big Gang had worked in sideshows. Picture, if you will, the look of utter disappointment on face of the child who paid his last dollar to some slick barker who promised wonders only to discover that he’d paid to watch a midget make cheese.

 

That child would be thrilled compared to the kid who paid to see Big Wig, a midget who tries on wigs. No, really. He’s a bald little person who puts a wig on his head and then takes it off. Then again with another wig. It’s the greatest show on earth! He created specialty criminal wigs, like his explosive throwing wig. He wears only one wig while he’s committing a crime, so unlike a demolitions expert who might carry several bombs, this guy can only carry one bomb that he has to balance on his head. Someone needs to explain to Gardner Fox that like OCD, bald is also not a super power. The only good thing about Big Wig is that he makes of point of saying that he doesn’t buy his wigs; he steals them, which is the perfect intro to this joke!

 

Q: Why does Big Wig steal his wigs?

 

A: Because he doesn’t want toupee.

 

Bwahahaha! Now, that’s comedy!

 

The final member of the group is Big Head, who has a big head, which he tells us “contains more brains than an entire college faculty!” Ah, a giant brain! Finally, something that might pass as a super power and actually threaten our hero! Until you remember two things. First, Big Head is a midget, so he might just have a regular sized head on a small body. Second, he recruited the members of the Big Gang, so this genius thought that the perfect gang for stealing pointlessly large, useless objects would be a shot putter, a bullet-free gun nut, an obsessive neurotic, a card dealer, a cheese maker, and a bald guy because they have dwarfism is common. So many bad ideas that I have to wonder if Big Head was running the McCain campaign. Calling all the members of his gang Big This or Big That is eerily reminiscent of the Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder bullshit, that suggested that someone believed that thematic naming of people alone would somehow lead to success. All things considered, I believe Big Head only assumes he’s a genius; he’s really just hydrocephalic.

 

Something similar might be said for Gardner Fox, who seems to think he’s being clever with this story, which is little more than a collection of desperate and oafish gimmicks strung together with newsprint and staples. Call me Big Bitch if you like, but I don’t think this kind of hack work deserves the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing when anyone could do it if they just eschewed the rules of good scripting and indulged in their most hackneyed impulses. Watch! I could force a lame concept into a story. I’ll create a gang called The Jacks of All Trades! They’re all guys named Jack with special abilities!

 

Jack Knife, who uses special crime knives, but in the place of blades, they have latches and buttons.

 

Black Jack who super power is that he’s African American!

 

Jack Boot who is a shoe salesman who can baffle and confuse you with an enormous selection of reasonably priced boots that may or may not be in your size! Watch out! That boot is using European sizing!

 

Jack Off whose power is best left unsaid but can be seen using his knob gun in an upcumming upcoming issue of The Man from G.I.S.M. entitled Seamen, All Hands on Dick!

 

Jack From Accounting who they recruited because they needed someone to keep the books, but when they tried to call in Jack in the Box, he threw a fit because he didn’t want to be reminded of his years toiling in a cube. (That’s called back story, Fox! Learn from it, bitch!)

 

See? It’s easy! So where’s my Bill Finger Award? Come on! Now that I’ve trashed a legend like Gardner Fox, someone should give me the Finger! Why won’t someone give me the Finger! I deserve the Finger!

 

(You can see this and other reviews by and the gang at Prism Comics at the Queer Eye on Comics page!)

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And see me warn you about Hawkman Special #1. Reading this book was like being 6 years old again ... and watching your ice cream cone fall on the floor.

Let's hope there is no Hawkman Special #2. In fact, let's hope the world ends so no one can publish Hawkman Special #2.

I've done all I can to prevent this crime from happening by warning my readers that this book is like watching paint dry on the Titanic. Boring and terrifying at the same time. It wasn't so much a rollercoaster of thrills so much as it was like being in that sweltering three-hour line to ride the rollercoaster and watching it derail and kill a field-trip's worth of special needs children who you had just convinced to go on the rollercoaster.

But what can you do to stop the senseless tragedy of reading Hawkman Special #1? You can read my review and then tell others to read it, so they too can spread my message of hope, namely that I hope you don't read this comic tragic book.

Thank you, and remember to donate to those already afflicted with having read Hawkman Special #1.