Preacher: Adaptation Blues

When I was 18 years old, I shared a flat with a couple. Odd pair, a slightly plump bisexual girl and her effeminate, slightly hippy, slightly techno boyfriend. One of the defining moments of this period of my life was discovering Garth Ennis's Preacher comic series. I remember clearly one night finishing one of the volumes and racing over to Books-A-Million (forgive my plebian tendencies, we didn't have a Barnes & Nobles in the roughly-six-horse town I lived in at the time) and begging them to open the doors a minute before their closing time to pick up the next volume.

When I initially heard Preacher was being adapted for television I had very mixed feelings. I felt that television was the best medium for the series, as the story was far too broad to tell within the limitations of a roughly two hour film, but I was wary at the involvement of Seth Rogen. Rogen has made his name in awkward/pothead humour films, which are some of my least favourite genres in existence, with Pineapple Express, Neighbors, Superbad, Knocked Up, and the unfortunate This Is The End, which had to stand up against Edgar Wright's finale of the Cornetto Trilogy, The World's End and really didn't fare well in my eyes. Seth Rogen is not somebody who I trusted to understand Preacher properly.

Picture courtesy Business Insider

As a young Atheist, banished from a church a year prior (for reasons maybe I'll go into later), Preacher was a story that struck a chord with me. A man of God, given a great gift with a terrible knowledge, sets out to hold God accountable. The anger against organized religion that was boiling inside the 18-year-old me resonated with that message at the time. Now, an undisclosed-but-significant amount of time later, I've calmed somewhat, and despite how juvenile and (ironically) preachy Ennis could be at times, now I just want to see the story done justice.

Preacher premiered on AMC last spring. When it first came out, I missed the premiere, so about a month later I watched the first four episodes... and it was rough going. I have to admit, over the years, I've read the series multiple times, and own a trade paperback release of every volume, including the cover collection and the side stories with Cassidy and the Saint. The series had a very high bar for me, and in those first four episode, it did not meet that bar. Annville was there, but it seemed like every single story element in 7 volumes of the comic series had been packed into a single town, and somehow the series still moved at a snail's pace. Aside from a decent joke about Tom Cruise being vaporized by Genesis, nothing really appealed to me. The Reverend Jesse Custer seemed to be a good translation from comic to screen, only losing his wilder hair and white jeans in the process, I was confused by Tulip being black (until I realized that I'd lived 10 years in the armpit of Texas and the demographics actually justified that entirely) and I absolutely hated Cassidy. I was confused why Arseface lived in Annville and why his dad actually spoke to him. I was confused why DeBlanc and Fiore dressed like business-casual cowboys and were in Annville. I was confused why Odin Quincannon's meat-packing plant was located in Annville. And I was confused why it felt like, in the first four episodes, absolutely nothing happened.

This week, I've sat down and watched the remaining six episodes of the first season as well as the first four (that have aired so far) of season 2. I've softened a little, as starting near the end of season 1 the pace has picked up considerably and the "road trip" tone of the comic series is starting to manifest, and I've even gone so far as to purchase the Jesse Custer figure that NECA released (but not the Cassidy figure). Some of the more drastic changes they've made to the series (why is the Saint immune to Genesis? Why did they nerf his guns? Every shot kills and no shot misses. That's the Saint's Colt Walkers. Why was he just in Hell and not a replacement for... well that's getting a little too much into the lore. Read it for yourself, trust me) are bothering me.

Taking his place on the DC Screen Shelf. Anyone tired of my toys yet? 

I have to wonder if Seth Rogen and friends read the books or just a summary of them. Irish vampire? Check. Girlfriend named Tulip that's good with guns? Check. Texas preacher with the Voice of God? Check. But the details, almost every single one, have been changed, and I can't say for the better. I always give a series the first season as a trial ground and assume it's going to suck, and I grant it that the second season, so far, is better than the first, but I have yet to have any confidence in this adaptation. We'll see how it goes from here on out, and I'll check out the episodes as they come, but I'm still wary.

The Salt Mines of Valhalla

I lost my old picture again

It's Thorsday, and you know what that means!

I've written previously about the female Thor situation, in less than complimentary terms. I've outlined valid reasons for not liking this change that extend much further than certain sources who'd have you believe those complaints are simply 'hur durr woman bad bring back manly man.' Today, I'd bring you an example of just how effective it is to make a change like that, and what happens when you release one, just one, issue that doesn't fall into line with what the people who laud you for your poor decision.

Behold, The Mary Sue (archived for your protection): Crusaders of truly the highest calibre, and an honourable website to boot. They obviously genuinely care about the stories and not the naughty bits of the characters in the story.

Tying in with the Secret Wars event, series writer Jason Aaron returns with Thor #1 – a story meant to continue the threads of new!Thor’s heroic journey, but one that fails to be remotely as empowering as her solo series.

Because obviously, stories are only meant to empower characters, not to test them, not to challenge them, or not to *gasp* tell stories about them? 

So let’s just address the most pressing concern of that recap: Jason Aaron decided to follow up the empowering story of Jane Foster becoming Thor and finding her place in both Asgardian and human society with a story that features her being murdered – repeatedly.

No, I think you missed something, TMS. The Jane Foster that because Thor isn't in this story. It doesn't feature her being murdered. You said not a paragraph earlier that it was multiple reality versions of her. 

At no point in this issue do we learn anything about any of these women as characters, about their lived experiences or their perspectives on these brutal crimes. Our empathy is never encouraged by the narrative to align with them.

I remember in Edge of Spider-Verse where all the Spidermen of multiple realities were being brutally slaughtered -- on-panel, mind you -- by a multiversal fox-hunting party of ancient immortals. I'm so glad we got to learn about the hopes, the dreams, the very essence of those Spider-men. No? Oh, and all the Spider-women: Mayday Parker, Ultimate's Jessica Drew, Gwen Stacy, Silk, and (inexplicably, as she's not even a proper Spiderverse character) 616 Spider-woman all suffered losses on their side of the gender divide too, right? No? Oh..

Instead, the focus surrounds the Ultimate-Thor, Thorlief (a coconut for anyone who can crack the naming conventions going on here), and his determination to solve this crime for pretty self-involved/white knight reasoning.

I've been told only misogynists use the term white-knight. You're not a misogynist, TMS, are you?

At this stage of cultural saturation they’re just normalized, and so audiences have grown numbs to the shock of gratuitous female mutilation and excessive male violence dressed up as redemptive justice.

Yeah, it's a good thing men are never blown up, shot, stabbed, mutilated, or otherwise brutally murdered in comics.

Aaron’s use of this particular trope in such an unimaginative and predictable fashion is precisely what makes it so damaging: stripping Jane Foster of her legacy as a brave and meaningful character

...who is letting cancer kill her because she thinks Asgardian science is too magicky.

Imagine if it was Jane Foster having to investigate a series of her own murders? Not only would that reassert her agency, but it would also offer opportunities for a more interesting detective-victim connection because, hey, they’re all the same person.

That actually would be a better story. Too bad she's off doing something *awesome* like fighting in the Secret War thingie that's going on. We could have had her in a b-list miniseries instead of Ultimate Thor, who no one's cared about since like 2004.

There were other ways to tell this story without taking feminism out into the woods and cracking it over the head with a shovel.

Readers, I was torn between "[EXISTENTIAL SIGH]" and "Actually, it's about ethics in shovel-wielding" here, so have both.

Not only does [Storm] suffer verbal abuse from an older Thor (‘drunken and grizzled detective who doesn’t play by the rules!’) who argues she should be facially branded to remind everyone she’s a mutant, but also has to put up with Thorlief hitting on her while at work?

Hey, at least he's not selling her to rub his hammer because it'll grow like the Thor of myth and legend would. Progress!

She’s also dressed in a shoe-string swimming costume outfit with a headdress that looks like a Thanksgiving turkey at Coachella, it’s all very bad.

Which managed to a) still cover more than her most popular recent outfit and b) look like an homage to old-school Jack Kirby Thor comics. Also, you dropped this - she's wearing practically the same headgear as everyone else.

I think she looks kind of awesome. Also, really no love for Mjolnir-wielding Storm? Really? 

Just imagine discovering and loving an empowering, resilient determined hero like Jane Foster as Thor, only to then see her be brutally murdered and replaced with (for all intents and purposes to new readers) the ‘original’ Thor again. While the Jane Foster that readers have followed in Thor is alive in Secret Wars (following the events of the main series), how on earth are people that only want to read her adventures supposed to know that?

She hasn't been replaced. This isn't even the same book. She's off fighting in the Secret Wars (which is a *main* titles, and this is a mini-series. And they could probably find out by looking at the cover. Which, given that comic shops usually sort titles by publisher and title name alphabetically, would probably be at most 2 slots over on the shelf.

We’ve got our safe spaces, Marvel; but why is the rest of your world still so dangerous?

SAFE SPACES FOR EVERYBODY!!

But seriously, though. This is an even clearer example of why you never apologize than when I discussed Shut Up Wesley Wheaton. You can create the most perfect example of something that they'll rally behind, but make one single issue that isn't in lockstep and you'll be dragged under like a pack of hungry wolves are at your heels. Make something, write something, film something, code something... but stop trying to please people that will turn on you the moment they smell blood. 

Morales vs Thor: A Study in Contrast

Pardon me while I plug in my waffle iron once again. This really should be the last time that have to bring up female Thor.

In fixing my poor education on the subject of Peter Parker, I've recently read through the last half of his Ultimate Spider-Man run, into the second volume that culminates in the death of Peter Parker and the rebirth of the character of Spider-Man as Miles Morales. It's something that echoes and contrasts nicely the difference in the handling between Miles Morales and the mystery female Thor.

The main contrast between these two situations is the respect in which the handover from seasoned hero to rookie newcomer is handled. In Spider-Man's case, there was an epic six-issue final battle in which Normon Osborn, as a hulked-out Green Goblin, escapes SHIELD custody, springing some of Spidey's biggest and baddest adversaries in the process and begins a hunt that ends at Aunt May's house. Spidey, Human Torch, and Iceman face off against Goblin, Vulture, Electro, Sandman, and Kraven. Parker is particularly heroic, having just survived being shot through the torso taking a bullet that was meant for Captain America, as he webs himself shut and drags himself to the battle, before crushing Goblin with a truck. Aunt May even gets a shining moment of awesome as she shoots Electro down with her own revolver. And in the end, Parker is given a magnificently noble send-off, in which a young boy is standing in the crowd watching as the life slips away from him, and he finally makes peace with being unable to save his Uncle Ben. A young boy named Miles Morales.

Morales's uncle is the Ultimate universe version of The Prowler, a professional burglar (that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Deadpool) who does a job on Oscorp labs only to unwittingly provide a ride to an enhanced spider that ends up biting his nephew. The first 10 or so issues, as far as I've read, of Morales has him treating Peter Parker's legacy with awe and reverence, and rightly so. He's a young kid, younger even than Parker was, coming from a different background and a different life experience. His Uncle Ben moment comes when, after discovering his powers, he gets to the scene of the final battle too late, and blames himself for Parker dying. His appearances are initially met with hostility, then slow acceptance, particularly with Jessica Drew, Parker's female clone and Spider-Woman of the Marvel Ultimate universe. Morales has a natural and believable amount of self-doubt for someone of his age. A palpable sense of “Who am I to take Spider-Man's place?”

Pictured: The Absorbing Strawman

Pictured: Character Assassination
on a female villain.

The new Thor... does not take this approach.
Contrasting between
Morales and Thor, one subject is treated with a great deal of respect, where the other is not. Where Parker got a hero's death, and a supporting cast that transfers into the new character's life to both keep him grounded and teach him how to be Spider-Man, Thor gets none of these benefits. Where Morales is both well-established and likeable, the new Thor is flippant (in her own mind) and arrogant (in addressing other characters). Morales's book shows minority characters interacting naturally with one another as well as established characters while Thor's book turns a pair of established villains into a strawman anti-feminist critic and a pushover girl-power cheerleader. We get to know Morales as a human being and as a budding hero, where Thor just plops a stranger in front of us and says “We're not going to tell you who this is, but you're going to like her whether you like it or not!”

And finally, Parker is treated with respect. Given a hero's death and a lasting legacy. Thor is turned into a drunken layabout with a deified case of depression. Ultimate Spider-Man is how you go about replacing a hero. Thor is how you go about disrespecting your own property and alienating fans for clickbait attention.  

Greencoats

Since Lomie demanded it, here's my attempt at Green Lantern. It's not a short story/vignette, nor is it in verse.

It is, however, in the 'Verse. Consider it an Elseworlds pitch or suchlike.

"Here's how it is: Earth got used up, so we terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths, some rich and flush with new technologies, some not so much. Central Planets, them was formed the Alliance, waged war to bring everyone under their rule; a few idiots tried to fight it, among them myself.

I'm Malcolm Reynolds. Didn't put much stock in aliens till I met one. He gave me this here ring, told me I was a Green Lantern and his replacement, on account of him bein' busy dyin' at the time.

Best I can reckon, I'm some kind of interstellar sheriff. Not sure if it's karma or irony, givin' me a superweapon and telling me I can't use it 'gainst the Alliance, but rules is rules as they say. Serenity draws a distinction 'tween the gov'ment and corrupt folks, leastwise, so I still get some fun.

Her? No, that's Zoe Alleyne. She was under my command during the Unification War, or as I like to call it, "The War of Core Aggression". We've watched each other's backs for years now, about as close as two people can without ever gettin' horizontal about it.

Serenity is the name of my pretty li'l green ring here. She may say I'm a Green Lantern, but I prefer another name.

Call me Greencoat."

If you do evil,
I swear by my pretty green ring
I will finish you.
-- Charging Oath of Malcolm "Greencoat" Reynolds,
Green Lantern of Sector 8929

Click here for more pictures

Literary Comics Mash-Up Extravaganza

Since it seems that the LCMUE has come to an end, I've decided to collate all the submissions here for easy linkage, and to ensure that if I lose my sidebar these links won't be lost.

• The Punisher, as written by Bret Easton Ellis (Bridgecrew Report)
• Swamp Thing, as written by H.P. Lovecraft (Seth Lindberg)
  
• The X-Men, as written by David Cronenburg (My Fucking Sound)
• Jimmy Olsen, as written by.... Jimmy Olsen (Beaucoup Kevin)
• The Punisher, as written by Lemony Snicket (Chris' Invincible Super-Blog)
  
• New Gods, as written by Henry David Thorough (A Love of Great Trash)
• House of M, as written by Johnathan Swift (A Love of Great Trash)
• Wonder Woman, as written by George Alec Effinger (A Love of Great Trash)
• Metamorpho, as written by Greil Marcus (Armagideon Time)
• Preacher, as written by Cormac McCarthy (Visible Monsters 2)
• Süperman, as written by Friedrich Nietzsche (Fortress of Soliloquy)
• Black Panther, as written by Ernest Hemingway (Selective Continuity)
• Superboy, as written by Stephen King (Sinister Aglets)
• Aquaman, as written by Aaron Sorkin (Political Science [Fiction])

All of my LCMUE writings can be found here.

Iron Man, as written by William Gibson

(Author's note: This is not intended to take place within any established Iron Man continuity. It's sort of a fusion of 70s drunkard Tony with modern technobabble and Gibsonian drug use. )

The bartender had called it a Godlike Southern Candle. "Burns all the way down, then it feels like Jesus settin' your spine on fire, startin' at the prostate," his drawled explanation marking him as a native of the lower end of the BAMA sprawl. Stark didn't care what it was called, he just needed a drink before the shakes began. He swallowed a handful of Etinol, the large white pentagonal pills bitter in his mouth before being washed down by the taste of Goldschläger.

The smart drugs took effect almost immediately, 3000 milligrams of genetically-tailored Acetylcholine blasting through his nervous system like a hot desert wind through Martian box canyons. Blood flow to his brain improved, ATP production increased, oxygen and iron in his blood bound with greater efficiency.

HOMER ACTIVATED, came the nonvoice. A bioware processor, Homer had been surgically implanted on Stark's corpus callosum and was capable of, among other things, stimulating his optic and auditory nerves. The end result was an effect much like delirium tremens. It was greedy, though, demanding greater metabolic efficiency than the human body could normally provide, which is how he had gotten hooked on the Etinol.

No longer in the bar, Stark walked the streets at random, his Alston microfiber silk suit hot against his skin despite the cool Boston night. His sensorium was expanding geometrically, his synapses achieving the superconductor levels of performance necessary to control the latest version of the Iron Man armor.

NANOMACHINES ACTIVATED. QUANTUM ARMOR ON STANDBY. INITIALIZE?

"Go," Stark said. Numbers spooled through his consciousness as Homer began the calculations that would bring the armor into being, a thin lumescence entwining itself around him.

Theoretical armor, he had first called it, because armor that never took a hit was useless weight. Better, he thought, to have a suit that existed only in mathematical theory until such time as he actually needed it, and then only in the sections where it was needed. The quantum nature of being in a state of existence-yet-nonexistence until it was observed to be necessary was what gave it its final name. "Fly," he said, or at least thought he said, and decided that boot jets were necessary.

GRAVITON EMITTERS ACTUALIZED.

The Theoretical Iron Man fell into the sky above.



"Theoretical Armor" and "Quantum Armor" are copyright Erin Palette, 2007.

Aquaman, written so that he does not suck

Latitude 47 ° 9’ S, Longitude 126 ° 43’ W

This ship is The Flying Dutchman. Under her previous captain it was a fishing trawler. Now, under my command, she hunts something larger.

First Mate Marsh -- formerly Captain Marsh -- shambles onto the bridge, his weathered old pea coat clinging unkindly to his gnarled frame. "We be nearin' th' destinaseeun, sirrah." He gurgles the last word, as if caught between 'sir' and 'sire' and finding neither appealing. I allow his mild insult to go unpunished, for I have larger things on my mind.

I have everything on my mind.

Wordlessly I push past him, into the cool South Pacific evening. The stars are beginning to come out. The crew silently falls into step behind me as I make my way to the bow, the smell of the ocean heavy with salt and decay. I place my hands upon the railings and squeeze, feel the metal give slightly under my grip.

"Mr. Marsh," I command, looking not at him but at the ocean before me. "You are to return immediately to port in Massachusetts. You are not to make port anywhere else except to take on essential supplies. Under no circumstances are you to stop or tarry, nor is any member of the crew to embark or debark, excepting that the Law of the Sea demands it. Upon reaching home port you and your crew are to return to your homes until such time as I see fit to release you. There you will spend your days praying that I return alive, and your nights in thanks that I am merciful. Is this clear?"

A unison of thudding echoes behind me as the crew fall to their knees. "Yes, my king. My lord. My master," they blurble.

My own pea coat falls to the deck, and the last light of the setting sun sets my scale armor aflame. "Aquaman will suffice."

The sea welcomes me back as a mother embracing her son.

I plummet downward into the blackened, brackish depths of the Pacific trenches, the speed of my passage heating the frigid waters and sending boiling bubbles surfaceward. Like a meteor I fall, a one-man extinction-level event, for tonight I wage war against a nation, a species, a god. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, said the cultists who became my crew. In his house at R'lyeh dread Cthulhu waits, dreaming.

Before me rise great squirming shapes, fifteen-foot spheres of tar and tentacles and eyes, like great cancerous leukocytes. Membranes the size of kettledrums convulse, churning the water with barely-subsonic throbs that echo Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! in my ears.

I scatter them with a telepathic pulse. Begone, say I, for I am master of all things of the sea and on the sea and in the sea. Serve me, or face my wrath.

The shoggoths choose to serve.

Like Lucifer falling into hell I continue downward, a host of broken angels as my honor guard. Down, to the corpse-city of R'lyeh, in whose great and putrid vaults waits Cthulhu, undead god of madness and the sea, inhuman source of the age-old human terrors of darkness, suffocation, tentacles. Tonight, the stars are right. Tonight, Cthulhu wakes and R'lyeh rises, bringing with it an age of holocaustic savagery.

Tonight, one of us dies.

As I enter the putrid sleeping chamber, a mountain of slime and tentacles rises to greet me. Eyes the size of nightmare, luminous and sickly pale, skewer me with their gaze. Insanity washes over me, through me, becomes me, and I am lost for eternity.

The Waterbearer hand pulses its healing magic, a draught of coolness across my fevered brain, and I am restored. I must act now, else all is lost, for already does R'lyeh begin to rise from its watery grave.

My consciousness spreads itself among the creatures of the sea. Every fish, every cetacean, every mollusk, even among the very krill does my mind expand. This vast spy network is mine to command. I see and hear everything that happens within my oceans. Tonight, though, it will serve a different purpose.

I draw upon every mote of psychic energy available. The trillions of krill lend me their strength. The large, powerful brains of the whales buffer me. The cunning minds of the dolphins lift me up.

And the savage thoughts of the shark drive my attack.

"Fall," I stab into its brain, the weight of the world's seas behind each thrust. "Fall before your master. Before your king."

I am vast.

I contain multitudes.

I am the sea's chosen son.

And this interloper thinks he can defeat me?

Fall before the ruler of this world, or be crushed by its weight!

Shuddering, squirming, broken, Cthulhu bows before me. Before his king. Before his master. As must all things in the sea, and on the sea, and under the sea.

On his throne in risen R'lyeh sits dread Arthur, ruling.


Edit: Some people are calling this a Lovecraft story. It isn't. If I had intended to emulate H.P. Lovecraft, I would have titled it "Aquaman, as written by H.P. Lovecraft." Also, there would have been words like "squamous" and "turgid" and "non-Euclidean" in it. Cthulhu != Lovecraft.

Also, Jack Zodiac can kiss my ass.

Dr. Strange, as written by Hunter S. Thompson (or possibly Warren Ellis)

We were in the Sanctum Sanctorum on Bleecker Street when reality shattered like a cheap mirror dropped from the top of the Empire State Building by some bored tourist who wanted to see if he could dent the sidewalk with it, and the air was filled with the frenzied wailings of a thousands kittens wired to the gills on cocaine and LSD being shoved into a blender and set to "frappe". I was worried that the Master had summoned something beyond his ability to control before I realized that this was Greenwich Village and these kind of things are par for the course here.

My name is Wong. I'm the manservant for Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, which sounds like a plush gig until you realize that whenever a genuine shit-yourself event occurs, it's my job to clean up the shit afterwards. The problem with cleaning up after eldritch events is that there are no OSHA-approved mandates for it. Toxic waste is one thing, but a hazmat suit won't protect against the Crimson Crotchrot of Cyttorak. I try to take the long view regarding my situation; namely, if things ever get so bad that Master can't fix them, I will either die quickly or be in a key position to cozy up to the victor and trade Strange's secrets for a life of obscene comfort. So, there's that.

The only thing that really worries me is the theurgy, and I knew he'd gotten into the strong stuff when I opened the door to his chamber. The room was full of used grimoires; they were hanging everywhere, casually tossed aside like used condoms after a night of frantic, drunken sex with Clea.

But what kind of magick junkie would need all these athames and bolines? Would the presence of a theurgist account for all the uneaten manna? These piles of burnt incense on the bureau? Maybe so. But then why all this mandrake root? The Book of the Vishanti open to ancient Faltine invocations? The Orb of Agamotto being used to scry on sunken R'lyeh, where sleeps dread Cthulhu? and I sincerely did not wish to know what the Wand of Watoomb was doing there, in the corner with the Cloak of Levitation.

No, this was not the behavior of your typical power-hungry sorcerer. It was far too aggressive. There was evidence, in this room, of excessive consumption of almost every type of magick known to civilization since Lemuria fell. It could only be explained as a montage, a sort of exaggerated museum display, put together very carefully to show what might happen if twenty-two seriously disturbed arch-magi —each with a different magickal 'kink' — were forced to watch nonstop showings of "The Craft" and "Practical Magic" until, in an effort to Make It All Stop, used every mote of their power to smite Hollywood from the face of the earth using God's own cigar, with the L.A. Basin as the ashtray.

"Gone," came the slurred, shaken voice of my master. He was in the fetal position inside a sofa-cushion fort. "All gone... reality rebooted... Vishanti don't answer... the In-Betweener looks like Frank Gorshin... all gone... no more magick.... all gone..."

I sighed. There's nothing more disgusting and irresponsible than a Sorcerer Supreme in the depths of theurgical withdrawal.

Spider-Man , as written by Woody Allen

I'm hanging upside-down from the ceiling in my therapist's office, because when I was six I had a recurring fantasy about what would happen if gravity switched and we all had to live on our ceilings. Naturally, I refused to leave the house that summer for fear of falling into the sky.

"Mr. Parker," says my therapist, "I don't think we're going to make much headway if you continue to answer with non-sequiturs."

"Knish," I say back, but my heart's not in it. Dr. Goldstein's office has a hot dog vendor outside, and it's nearly lunchtime, so it's mostly my stomach talking. That, and the esophagus. The mouth, too, but then the mouth is always talking anyway. I have verbal diarrhea.

I get around that by having extensive internal monologues while brooding upside-down.

"Let's talk about your Aunt May," Dr. Goldstein tries.

"Oy! What is it with the always coming back to Aunt May? You're such a nudnik. Why all the tsuris about Aunt May? She's a nice old lady. Even if she is a pain in my tuchis about me settling down with Mary Jane. 'Why should you make trouble for yourself,' she says. 'Her name is slang for marijuana,' she says. 'Why chase after that shiksa, when you could be dating that nice Kitty Pryde,' she says. 'Ma,' I says to her, 'Kitty grew up in Dearborn, Michigan. She'd be a Tigers fan. I watch the Yankees. Ma, it'd be a mixed marriage.' "

"You do realize that you just called your Aunt May 'Ma'?" Through the open window, I can smell the knishes burning downstairs.

"So what?" I'm defensive now, and for a moment I wonder if Doc Goldstein has a set of mechanical arms in his closet. "She raised me since I was a child. She's like a mother to me."

"Have you ever heard of Oedipus, Mr. Parker?"

"Oedipus... wasn't he a Greek racecar driver? Got into a lot of wrecks?" I'm stalling for time now, hoping the session will end soon so that I can go out and buy one of those tasty slightly-burnt knishes. Unless it has tofu in it. I hate tofu knishes. I don't care if they are kosher, Moses would not be caught dead eating tofu.

"Let's cut to the chase, Mr. Parker. You started dressing as Spider-Man because you feel responsible for the death of your Uncle Ben. With him gone, your Aunt May -- your surrogate mother-figure -- is lonely, so you set yourself up as his replacement. Why else would you cover yourself head-to-toe in spandex? Even Daredevil has a cutout for his chin. No, you cover yourself so that nothing of yourself is given away, in the hopes that your Aunt will look at you and see her husband. And that, my friend, is Oedipal."

"Knish," I mutter again. I'm drooling slightly.

"And let's think about why you dress as a spider, Mr. Parker. Do you not see the Little Miss Moffett parallel? Your Aunt May: widowed, smaller than you. You: the spider that sat down beside her."

"What about the curds and whey?" I inquire, my hunger getting the best of me.

"Sometimes cottage cheese is just cottage cheese," the doctor explains, rising. "But sometimes a psychiatrist is The Chameleon."

Oy gevalt. That knish will have to wait.

Batman, as written by Chuck Palahniuk

It's raining buckets in Gotham, like God left the water running in the cold bath where he slit his wrists, and his death throes are making the rain come down in blue-black sheets, drenching the buildings that are his tub's marble-clawed feet.

Stabbing into the sky like a mile-long phosphorescent penis is the Bat-Signal, my emblem embossed across the clouds like a serial killer's trophy mark. "Fetishistic" isn't the right word, but it's the closest that comes to mind.

I am Bruce's rampaging ego.

The Batmobile rips through Gotham's steel canyons, belching smoke as thick as my rage and and black as my mood, my foot permanently against the firewall. More speed, more power, more penetration of the murky streets. I have an erection as hard as iron and I can't satisfy it, so my Batmobile becomes my penis, plowing through moist and cloying alleys like a turbine-powered dildo.

It's always "a" dildo, though. Never "my" dildo. Have to watch how I think, or that mind-reading freak J'onn will narc me out to Clark, and then he'll have to spend several hours talking about "feelings" and "rage" and "psycho-sexual impulses" while I fantasize about bending Diana over that giant penny in the Batcave and taking her roughly from behind.

See also: Amazonian Bondage Fetish.

See also: Diana's recurring rape fantasy.

To get semen stains out, I have to soak my cape in cold salt water, then wash as usual. Same with blood. Anything organic, really.

I arrive at Police Headquarters, propelled to the roof by rage and a Batline. I expect to see Commissioner Gordon there, in a rumpled overcoat, but instead it's Renee Montoya. I appear behind her, my breath on the back of her neck her only clue to my arrival. She whips around, latino eyes blazing a mixture of fear and lust.

I am Bruce's psychological warfare.

She gives me some story about some scum somewhere that need cleaning in a non-police sanctioned way. But I'm not listening. I know where all the scum in this town live. I have a model of Gotham in the Batcave. Some days, when it all gets too much, I take off my shoes and stomp on Crime Alley.

I stomp and I stomp and I stomp until the headless miniature of Joe Chill is firmly embedded in the flesh of my heel.

To get bloodstains out of a fur coat, use cornmeal and brush the coat the wrong way.

To get crime out of Gotham, use Batman.

She tries to show me a file. I don't need it, I say.

How will you know who to bring in, she says.

I'll know them by my hate, I say.

You have to know who you hate, she says.

I know who I hate, and it's myself. But I love my hate, and I love to spread it. I spread it all over the faces of criminals.

"Bukkake" isn't the right word, but it's the first that comes to mind.

I am Bruce's Bukkake of Justice.