Dan Didio Assigns All Characters Random Kinsey Scores

Justice League members with their assigned Kinsey scores from Dan Didio

In a shocking press release this morning, Dan Didio, co-publisher of DC Comics announced that all DC Superheroes were “slightly gay.”
“I was catching up on Mad Men last night and it suddenly occurred to me that I thought that I had no idea what happened to (Paul) Kinsey. So I look Kinsey up on the internet and the Internet has this Kinsey scale of gayness and it is like Hot danggity dang, I can just make every character sort of gay. And it comes with a numbering system so we can just add it to power charts that the fans like.”
The Kinsey Scale is a 8 number ranging scale from 0 to 6 with X as a non-sexual rating where lower numbers mean more heterosexuality and higher numbers mean more homosexuality meaning a 0 is purely heterosexual and 6 is purely homosexual with the numbers changing through life.
“I love breaking everything into groups and the Kinsey scale let me do that,” explained Didio. “Jim and I ended up rolling bones for each character to assign them sex numbers and now we can get some news for it. Did you know that Batman and Green Arrow are 6’s? They are probably just spooning on the satellite. And Superman is a 5 so he gets in on that too! Shade the Changing Man ended up being a 0 – who knew! And because we are doing this, it is all canon!”
Didio then displayed the famous nu-52 Justice League image with the new Kinsey chart rankings. “We are currently updating a bunch of Wikias that you guys love to run so you can check there.
While the current reaction has been stunned silence, One Million Mom has already planned to continue not buying comics .
“On a sad note, all of the Robins and Flashes are pure Xs. No sex for them!,” concluded Didio.

Marvel Announces “Secret Gauntlet” Game

Upon the news of DC and Marvel announcing new video games, Marvel Core, the extremist branch of Marvel Comics that was left after the ghost of Kirby attacked, announced their own game title Secret Gauntlet.
Said project head Brian Clevinger, creator of Atomic Robo as well the writer for an all ages retelling of The Infinity Gauntlet. “After we got stranded in the Marvel Building by the circling ghost pirate ship, we just started talking about making comics we’d love to see as games. I didn’t really dig the whole Civil War angle that they keep pushing and I think the new event comics lack that big feeling so Jeff (Parker), Matt (Fraction), Greg (Pak), Fred (Van Lente) and a few others talked it out and were like – Secret Wars meets Infinity Gauntlet!”
Secret Wars and The Infinity Gauntlet were two famous series from the 80’s prized for their storytelling ability and generally high sales. While the Secret Wars focuses on a team of heroes and a team of villains fighting in space for the Beyonder, a godlike hero’s promise of power, the Infinity Gauntlet is the opposite. In the Infinity Gauntlet after half of the life in the Universe is wiped out by Thanos using the Infinity Gauntlet a team of superheroes is forced to ban together to defeat the threat to restore the universe.
“Explosions are fantastic! And if we can give a big enough threat for heroes and villains to work together – namely Thanos and the Beyonder as these galactic threats – we can get tons of explosions,” commented Greg Pak, writer of series such as The Incredible Hulk, Alpha Flight and Hercules.
The proposed game would feature the Beyonder summoning the greatest warriors in the universe to fight while accidentally bringing together all of the Infinity Gems – cosmically powered jewels that allow the users to reach omnipotence. Teams of 6 composed of some expected 60 playable characters (with more added via DLC) will then be able to fight for the gems and to achieve that power to either corrupt the world or save.
“Of course, once you get the Gauntlet and the Gems – you team breaks down and it turns into a fighting game,” explained Jeff Parker, writer of Atlas, Hulk and Thunderbolts. “There we want the game to not just be about physical fighting but we want this intellectual level. These are people who want to save the world – but they all have different ideas. If Cap, Iron Man and Flatman had to figure out how to fix the world, could they come up with a use for that Infinite Power?”
“Unfortunately we don’t really have the support or power to do much though, but we’ll figure something out,” commented Matt Fraction, creator of last summer’s event comic Fear Itself. “We do have these drawings that we made on napkins though,” said Fraction as he held up one of Thanos and Spider-man and added “Thwp thwp! Eat a dick Thanos!”

Real Interviews: Mark Andrew Smith

Mark Andrew Smith has been all up in the comics scene for a while so when he announced a new project he’d big Kickstarting with James Stokoe of Orc Stain and Won Ton Soup fame, Nerdcenaries tossed Luke into the interview realm.

Your upcoming project with James Stokoe is called Sullivan’s Sluggers – what is the comic about?

Sullivan’s Sluggers is the story of a baseball team who get an invitation to play a game in a small town. Unknown to them, the town has a curse on it, and after the 7th inning streatch the townsfolk turn into flesh eating monsters. The Sluggers have to utilize all of their baseball skills to survive until morning.

You’ve done a few shorter stories in anthologies like Popgun along with continuing series such Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors and The New Brighton Archelogical Society – how is Sluggers going to be released?

Sullivan’s Sluggers will be a 200 page hardcover book.

A lot of your other work that I’ve read or heard about has been all ages – is there any age range for Sullivan because knowing Stokoe’s work he can do scary really well.

I think Sullivan’s is PG 13. It’s a jump going from all ages to Sullivan’s but I don’t think anyone will confuse Sullivan’s with an all ages book.

How did you end up coming up with the project – what was some of your inspirations as far as movies, comics, tv and all of that?

I’ve always been a baseball fan and a horror fan. In particular I’m a huge fan of ‘Evil Dead’ and ‘Dead Alive’ and just splatter horror as a genre.

You are going to be raising money for the project via Kickstarter – are there any specific reasons for starting the project this way?

I want to connect directly with readers, and set the foundation to do more books like that in the future. I see Kickstarter also as being a direct distribution chanel.

Are there any real cool incentives to look out for?

I always adhere to K.IS.S. or Keep it Simple Smitty. So we’re starting easy and to the point, but it would be great as the Kickstarter progresses to offer up other items.

Are there any artists who are currently out there that you would like to work with?

I would love to work with John Romita Jr.

What comics are you currently enjoying – either old or new?

I’ve read so much in the past year, that now I’m taking suggestions for new books to read 🙂

We’ll definitely be linking to the Kickstarter once it begins and readers, feel free to suggest books below! Personally I recommend the Rocketeer Adventures Vol 2 series.

You can follow Mark Andrew Smith on Tumblr and Twitter!
Edited to add Kickstarter!

Pitch: Cable Messiah

The other night before I went to the Adam WarRock show with my friends, I swore that that I could make an interesting pitch for any character as either a series, miniseries or even a villain of the week thing. Beast Boy came up (team up with Animal Man and Vixen for people connected to the Red, the Red Teamm fighting an alien planet’s Red connected heroes/villains), Vandal Savage (go into how he turned evil, have him go on a crazy 60’s drug trip where he ends up seeing everyone he ever new including other versions of himself that drives him insane) and even Kiteman (Kiteman vs Hawkman, Kiteman creates this giant floating wall of killer kites and death traps – make it insane and stupid and brilliant and have Savage Hawkman just attack it) and then they did brought up Cable. (Technically Cable happened before Kiteman but who cares).

Cable stumped me for a while. I mean the entire idea of the character really keeps coming back to the fact that he is trying to change the future – which he has done a lot and then he is an over the top 90’s character – the poster boy for it. Why is his name Cable? And yet despite Cable’s gruff demeanor he hangs out with Deadpool and keeps doing crazy stuff and he keeps traveling through time.

So what if his time travel didn’t work. What if Cable came from a reality set in the future – but the past reality that he ends up in is a whole different timeline and he can’t return home. Cable does what he is supposed to stop the future plague – but his world is still screwed. He can’t even return home and he really has nothing to do – he saved humanity from the big threat. So he goes Booster Gold.

Cable is a man with digital archives of everything that happened in a similar timeline. He is sort of a cyborg. He is a bit insane but deep down he wants to save the world. – so he creates this giant plan to save the world and then he goes to win big in Vegas.

After a few minutes cheating and then investing money (this is back in the 80s) the now infinitely rich Cable works to just make life better while relaxing. He becomes a celebrity, he helps mutants financially becoming the public face of the pro-mutant and human agenda. Professor Xavier never needs to form the X-men – Cable is there. When Magneto threatens to kill all humans, Cable talks things out with the militant anti-human/mutant parties and the world improves. Supergenius mutants create clean burning energy. What Galactus comes, Cable already made the technology to turn cosmic energy into something that Galactus can harness to feed his hunger. When the Skrulls and Kree come to fight, Earth is ready and they negotiate a treaty with Cable heading the table. When Thanos stops by, Cable kills him knowing there is no real reasoning with a dude who wants to bang Death. Cable becomes the immortal messiah of the world – sent to prevent destruction, who ends up improving the world instead.

Totally different take on the character and it is something I’d check out.

Dear People Who Program Digital Comic Readers

Dear People Who Program Digital Comic Readers,
Please make your products less shitty. Please open up more image types. It can’t be that difficult and it will let you open up digital comics to the future.
I recently made the Socialfist Chapter 1 CBZ file. 90% of the time people tried to use it, there was a problem – not with the file but with the programs running it. Some people had issues opening the files because I made it on a Mac and their computers could read it. That meant that when I zipped the file they stuck in a tiny Mac stamp that prevented the comic from being read in some programs.
Other people had problems because the first several pages were gifs. Why the hell would you not let gifs work in your program? These are basic image files! Does it make sense? I posit that it doesn’t.
I mean if gifs and animated gifs could work in your programs, you could have animations and that would be freaking awesome. That is what the future of digital comics have but it needs you all to come together and standardize gifs and animations.
Just putting this out there.
(Personally I use Simple Comic on my Mac and it does it all.)

Chris Roberson Saved The Man Of Steel

I started working in the local comic shop a few months into Grounded. If you weren’t aware Superman lost his faith in the country and in himself and decided to walk across the country. This was a big thing since J.M.S. was writing it and they even ran a contest for Superman to visit different states and have adventures. We had a giant poster for it and everything.
The problem was this wasn’t Superman. Superman wasn’t being Superman. He’d been really beaten up about losing New Krypton but that was not Superman! Superman walking across the country is not Superman. The fundamental ideas of the Man of Steel were being challenged.
I learned about how bad Grounded was when people talked about Superman being a jerk – it didn’t make sense. When Superman yells at you for expressing distaste in what he does that is not Superman. That is not the archetypal defender of the common people, the anti-establishment hero taking down corruption so that freedom could grow.
I ended up ignoring Superman. When people asked for books I told them All Star Superman but to avoid the comic. It was sad because Superman shouldn’t be a hard person to write for. He is a person who above all believes in good. He is a person who so willingly gives of himself that he would die to save one person he might not even know. He is a person who will fight for those who can’t fight. He isn’t a petty person who gets angry like he was in the comics.
So when I heard Chris Roberson had taken over to do a good job I was surprised. I opened up his first issue and on that first page – he was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He was showing that trifecta of righteous powers. Soon after the Legion of Supermen literally came and said “Superman, you aren’t well. Something is wrong.” And they told the truth.
In the following issues, Superman became Superman again. Following loose instructions from corporate, Chris Roberson reforged the hero. He healed the wounds. He added support and he even shined up his past. He started saving people. He saw his friends in the Justice League, he met up with Super Chief. He had flashback about Lex Luthor stealing 40 cakes. And he hit on Truth, Justice and the American Way. When Superman came out, I was ready for it. More so than All-Star Superman, more so than Superman: The Animated Series, Chris Roberson turning around Grounded made Superman mean something to me. He made me day on those Wednesdays. I laughed, I shared and in the end I cried. Thank you Chris.

If you weren’t aware, Chris Roberson recently severed ties with DC Comics after ending his series iZombie. Besides a pre-agreed run for Fairest, he won’t be working with DC Comics anymore.
Why?
Because he doesn’t agree with how they treat creators. Because he looks at what happened to Siegel and Schuster and doesn’t like it. Because he sees Alan Moore asking a company he helped to remake screw him over time and time again. Because Chris Roberson is in many ways a Superman. He’s not just taking to the comments and complaining. He is not falling in line with corporate policy. I respect Mr. Roberson for that and I look forward to the magic that he will continue to bring in the future.

Thank you Chris.

Mad Love: A Summary and Description of Psychological Problems

(I originally wrote this for my Abnormal Psychology class)

The following paper is a summary of the events of Mad Love, originally published as The Batman Adventures #12: Mad Love in February 1994. Mad Love was written by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm with Timm providing the primary illustrative work. It is followed by a summary and discussion of the mental issues of the primary character, Harley Quinn.
Mad Love is a story of obsession, lovesickness and ultimately unrequited love. The story tells the origin of the Joker’s partner Harleen Quinzel or Harley Quinn, who after fumbling an attempt to kill Batman, is kicked out of the group in a fit of the Joker’s rage. Instead of seeing the Joker’s lack of true affection for her and his ultimate obsession with killing his enemy, Batman, Quinn blames Batman for the misfortune tossed upon her and plots to destroy him with one of the Joker’s own plots.
The story then shifts as Batman reviews Harley’s past. She was a psychology student who was seeking fame and who was willing to use her sexuality as a tool to ultimately get whatever she wanted. Her biggest goal was to write a pop psychology book on one of the many supervillains in Arkham Asylum and she soon received internship position due to her “good grades.” In reality, Arkham Asylum really acts as a holding cell for the various supervillains of Gotham City and soon Harley is introduced and entranced by the Joker who points out how close her name is to the word “Harlequin”. After their meeting she finds a flower in her office from the Joker, Harley feels that the Joker feels the same feelings for her.
Harley then begins an obsessive quest over the next three months to gain some time for one on one time with the Joker as a patient and due to her dedication; she achieves that privilege despite warnings about the Joker from the rest of the staff. In their first meeting the Joker tells Harley how his father beat him as a child. Feeling sympathetic and thinking that she was breaking through to what makes the Joker tick, she organizes more psychological meetings with the Joker slowly becoming the one analyzing her.
After the Joker breaks out of and is then subsequently returned to prison, Harley, who was suffering without the Joker, decides to break the Joker out of prison for good. By robbing a costume store and taking on the person of Harley Quinn she soon returns to the asylum and the pair bust out of the prison. Harley is mentally hoping to marry the Joker after they kill Batman and then start a family meanwhile the Joker is happy to be out of prison again. The two soon begin a life of crime and incarceration that leads back to the current story.
Quinn ends up sending a video to the Gotham Police under the premise that she worries the Joker is going to go too far and she promises to give herself up to the police if Batman will protect her only for the result to turn into a trap. Batman wakes to find himself in a trap he can’t escape from. The premise of the trap – The Death of 1000 Smiles, is that Batman will be lowered upside down into a tank of piranhas where he will be eaten alive. The reason for being hung upside is so that the piranhas will seem to smile since they normally seem to frown.
Batman convinces Harley that the Joker will only believe that she killed Batman if he is there during his demise. Batman then asks what stories the Joker told Harley to gain her trust explaining that the Joker has lied to other people about his abusive past, which Harley refuses to believe. Harley calls the Joker, who is missing her because she kept the place tidy and clean, only to be horrified that she has captured his enemy fearing emasculation if his hench-woman were to kill his nemesis.
Upon reaching the hideout where Harley has Batman, the Joker grows furious as Harley has to explain the joke of her plan and he ends up tossing her out the window where the police find her. Meanwhile the Joker releases Batman from the chains and to him. Batman then reveals that he expected the Joker to not allow anyone else to kill and that was the only way he could escape. Batman then defeats the Joker who disappears before his capture. Meanwhile Harley, after being released from the hospital, decides to give up on the Joker on to return to Arkham to find a flower for her from the Joker and she sees this as a sign that the Joker still loves her.
Ultimately diagnosing Harley is a difficult thing to do because officially romantic obsession or lovesickness is not diagnosed in the DSM. I will note though, that there has been increasing demand though in the psychological community to allow more types of obsession to be allowed into the DSM and there are additionally types of romance afflictions that were previously diagnosed by psychologists due to their being physical and psychological affects. Additionally in the Batman canon Quinn is able to reach some levels of self sufficiency wherein she becomes a fully developed character and villain in her own right, though she does hold a tendency to ally herself with others as opposed to working alone or with just henchmen. For the sake of the paper though I will disregard this information and diagnose simply on mental disorders.
The first step of diagnosing the condition is discerning the symptoms of the character in question. Harley for one dresses in her harlequin costume at all times and even fantasizes about continuing to wear it in old age as it draws attention to her and is part of her. She is frequently consumed with sexual feelings towards the character of the Joker despite there being no fully established cause for romance on his part besides seeing her as a tool to be used. She additionally shows no emotional reservations about hurting other people and can even treat this threatening of other people as a game to play, thus explaining her childlike demeanor towards violence as that attracts attention. She is also frequently laughing while causing violence, which is an example of her being unable to appropriately react to the situation showing a general inability to follow societal norms. Due to the symptoms I would diagnose her with disingenuous histrionic personality disorder.
Disingenuous histrionic personality disorder is a subtype of the histrionic personality disorder diagnosed by Theodore Millon that is essentially histrionic personality disorder combined with antisocial symptoms, both of which are seen in the character of Harley Quinn. Symptoms of histrionic personality disorder according to the DSM-IV-TR 301.50 are as follows.
A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
• is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention
• interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior
• displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions
• consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self
• has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail
• shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion
• is suggestible, i.e., easily influenced by others or circumstances
8. considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are.
Meanwhile antisocial personality disorder symptoms according to the DSM-IV-TR 301.60 are as follows:
A. There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following: 
1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest 
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure 

 3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead 

 4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults 

5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others 

6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations 
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another 
B. The individual is at least age 18 years. 
C. There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years. 
D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode.
As examples of her symptoms as being histrionic, Harley is seen as being clingy after a bad event attempting to get the Joker’s attention from focusing revenge on Batman. After the failed heist she also attempts to use sex for attention (and priorly used it in her life as a college student). She also talks loudly and in a way that someone as well educated would not using onomatopoeias in her speech. Additionally dresses as a clown for theatricality, she is easily influenced by the Joker and she considers her relationship with the Joker as being more intimate and real than it is. These are more than enough symptoms for her to be counted as being histrionic.
Meanwhile for her antisocial tendencies Harley doesn’t follow the law just by being a criminal and killer. Even before she was officially a criminal when she used sex to improve her grades. Also her entire persona is faked for the purposes of improving her standing in the world because she simply wants to be with the Joker so she invented the Harley Quinn person. To a lesser extent didn’t fully plot out the piranha plan or actually plan it out that well. She was just lucky enough that Batman fell into her trap. She was also unable to foresee the Joker’s reaction to her plan or Batman using her. Harley is very aggressive and reckless by the pure fact that she willingly spends time with a murderer. She also ultimately blames Batman and the police system for her failings showing an inability to blame herself for her actions and she has no problem or morality issues with being a criminal.
Ultimately these problems define her personality, her reasons for her relationship and ultimately her downfall, i.e. being captured again. As such, Quinn’s obsession with the Joker simply exacerbates her problems which due once more to the obsession, will be less likely to be curable.

Bibliography:
Boree, C. G. “Personality Disorders.” My Webspace Files. 2007. Web. 29 Aug. 2011. .
Dini, Paul, and Bruce Timm. “Mad Love.” Batman: Mad Love And Other Stories. 1st ed. New York: DC Comics, 2009. 1-38. Print.
Millon, Theodore. “Personality Subtypes Summary.” The Official Website for Theodore Millon, Ph.D., D.Sc. DICANDRIEN, Inc, 2006. Web. 29 Aug. 2011. .

Better Comic Movies – Demons and Spectres

I am really tired of most superhero movies – do we need each hero to have an origin film? Why not show that we can use these characters to tell different stories? To build a universe that goes beyond being every other film? So every week I’ll post a pitch for a different kind of hero film.

Demons And Spectres

Jason Blood and Jim Corrigan are detectives hundreds of years of history together. They fight for justice but even that term has many sides and as the Demon and the Spectre, they can only keep so much of a peace. When something big enough to tip the scales of good and evil enters Civic City, Heaven and Hell’s detectives are going to throw all of Civic City and even the world … into Limbo.

Set the film in the 1920’s but give it heavy shadows and a dark setting. While these two detectives are have a history, they’ve muddied each other. They aren’t white and black – they’re shades of gray and most of the time they’d rather just pay their rent.
Also Method Man voices a CGI Etrigan.