Just Stay at Home

in my comics this week.

• Well, there's quite a lot going on with the Scarredian of the Universe, isn't there?
• Why Batman gets hit by a rocket launcher.
• I shouldn't have laughed so hard at "he seems sooooo confused." But I did.
• Okay; points for having the balls to call it "Bullets and Bracelets".
• I'm not ashamed to admit I cried when Martha got a strange visitor from another planet.
• "He must be an animal. Who'd a thought." I'da thought; those types often are.
• I've heard of vomiting up blood but... all of it?
• "I suppose." Super-modesty!
• Suffering Sappho! The first page of Hercules is worth the price of admission. Van Lente, you are my hero.
• The Ultra-Humanite's clone-brained gestalti-borgs.
• Brainy's boxers.
• Lycus? And pairing him with a dog? That's sheer mythological genius.
• Kudos to James Robinson for not sweeping the Air Force One incident under the rug.
• It's not often an odontomachus comes up, even in comics.
• The Princess attempts to re-write the original Brainiac story.
• Okay, I give up; what does C.P.T. stand for?
• "I had an hour to spare one day, so I figured out how to miniature weather."
• All cats deserve red rings.
• Doze deles voando em volta do Cristo Redentor. Tourists; they also go for the landmarks.
• "Was that a 'no' ?" Good lord, he's a snotty bastard.
• The Brown Bomber. And he has the best magic words ever.
• 200%? Really?
• The president's joke. If only he were that cool.
• I adore Tatters. You do, too.
• Mento's still-ridiculous hat.
• "Four? That seems excessive." Yes, it does, David Kim. But you are now and always will be my favorite one.
• Thara Ak-Var, Superlesbian?
• Soap company contest.
• Superman: Red or Blue? That's the wittiest political comic book joke in a long time.
• NOT D.C.? GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST!
• "But it annoys you, and that gives me some pleasure." Now THAT is man we came to love pre-Crisis!
• Read Spider-Man. It's good, old-fashioned comic book fun.
• Of course he knows Gaelic. Or at least that one phrase.
• Now that is a Zeus cameo.
• "How's his honey?" is not something I would have ever expected that character to say.
• Two cats/power rings stories in one month?!
• Okay, why was I completely not suprised when Metropolis got its strange visitor from another planet?

Remember the email rumor of the late 90's that said the Voting Rights Act will end in 2007, thus ending black folks' right to vote. A far fetched notion, back then, until we hit the 21st Century and the election—and eight glorious years—of George W. Bush. Although this decade of a Republican White House hasn't proven as tumultuous for African Americans as the last 12 under Reagan and Bush I, voting in hotly-contested presidential elections has. First, there were reports in 2000 of voter suppression and "irregularities" in predominantly-black counties like Gadsden where 12.4 percent of ballots were invalidated because of faulty counting machines). Coincidentally, the recount battle over Florida is how the GOP, uh, stole the contest. Next came the 2004 presidential election—another Bush win—and numerous reports of voter suppression in Ohio. And a month before this year's election the New York Times reports that in at least six states voters are being kicked off the voting rolls or being blocked from registering "in ways that appear to violate federal law."

Now I'm not one to give in to conspiracy theories, but I am one to ring an alarm if a dangerous pattern seems to be developing. And a viable threat to the African-American vote and their voting rights, especially in swing states, is what I see coming, at least every four years. Yes, there's no Jim Crow South or poll tax or Grandfather clauses to overtly keep a certain segment of African-Americans from the polls, but there are new, covert techniques to institute an old result (black voter disenfranchisement). This is what our so-called civil rights leadership need to currently keep their eye on because, while there's a federal law which gives black folks' the right to vote, their are 21st Century means, used by unseen hands, of slowly and covertly taking that right away.

Legs! That's what Cyd Charisse was known for! Her real name was Tula Finklea & contrary to popular belief she was born in Texas! She is considered one of the greatest dancers of the Silver screen. Her father loved ballet & encouraged her to learn to dance. She was soon part of the Ballet Russe at the early age of 14! She came home to the States when her Father became ill and she ended up in Los Angeles. She soon married her dance instructor, Nico Charisse, in Paris in 1939 and she kept that name even after her short marriage ended.

Cyd started out in Hollywood doing very small roles and she felt that she found her true calling. She loved it & was determined to become a star. She became one of MGM's greatest box office draws! A star indeed :)

Cyd worked with some of the most glittering stars in show business, Judy Garland, Kirk Douglas, Esther Williams, Ricardo Montalban, Fred Astaire, & Gene Kelly. Once, when asked who she would prefer to dance with, Astaire or Kelly, she sheepishly replied "It's like comparing apples to oranges, they're both delicious"! She had an intense romance with the legendary Howard Hughes but ended up in a happy marriage to a singer named Tony Martin. Cyd wanted a family more than she wanted fame & gave up the lead role in "An American in Paris" (one of my faves) to have a child with Tony. An interesting side note...Cyd was working on "Something's Gotta Give" with Marilyn Monroe, however, the film was never completed because Marilyn was fired from production & shortly after passed away.

Cyd Charisse had longevity in Hollywood and continued to make films, do ads, and star on the small screen. She is know today for her glittering musicals and sparkling dance moves. Fred Astaire once described her as "beautiful dynamite". Her dancing is fascinating to watch & her films a delight.

Some of her films are:

Ziegfeld Follies

The Harvey Girls (with Judy Garland)

Fiesta

On an Island With You

Brigadoon (Gene Kelly)

The Band Wagon (Fred Astaire)

Easy to Love (Esther Williams & Van Johnson)

Singing in the Rain (with Gene Kelly among many other big stars)

East side, West side (Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck)

Silk Stockings (Fred Astaire)

And many, many more!

Interesting tidbit!...Cyd was in Janet Jacksons "Alright" video.

Cyd and her husband Tony Martin were married for over 60 years until her death this year (2008). A rare thing in Hollywood! She had two sons. Another interesting tidbit...Cyd is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records (2001) for having the "Most Valuable Legs" from an insurance policy MGM reportedly took out on her legs for $5 million! WOW! Charisse was admitted to the hospital on June 16, 2008, after suffering an apparent heart attack. She died the following day, aged 86.

OK, I know she is not French but still dazzling & fun to learn about! I hope you enjoyed it, I think I'm going to go watch "Silk Stockings" now, I love the sets, they are so opulent & the fashion is fantastic!

Photos via LEGS a tribute to Cyd Charisse & The Cyd Charisse Appreciation Page

Fred Astaire once remarked "That Cyd! When you've danced with her you stay danced with."

Bisou Mon Amis!

When I studying Classics in college, our mythostructuralism professor, Christian Wolff, taught us about syncretism, the cultural process of reconciling various version of a myth or merging native mythic belief systems. Sometimes, the different versions of a myth coalesce into one larger story, making for an even grander story.

Comic books, being myth, also experience syncretism. In an ancient society, the need for mythic syncretism would arise as the borders of the society expanded to incorporate formerly independent groups. It could be either a friendly process or the result of conquest, and in either case syncretism was used to help ease the transition to a new unity. That yellow-fanged earth mother figure you guys worship, oh, well, that's...umm.. Juno Gingivitis; yes, it's just another... "aspect" of one of our gods. Welcome aboard!

In comic books, the friendly version is the impulse to reconcile different interpretations of a character. Bob Kane's vampire-slaying Batman, the Batman fighting on a giant cash register, Denny O'Neill's James Bond/Sherlock Holmes version, Paul Dini's guardian of Gotham, either of the Frank Miller Batmen--viewing these as one character takes a syncretic mindset. In fact, it's the very basis for what Grant Morrison has been trying to do with his run on Batman (with debatable success).

That syncretic mindset is a little more ingrained in DC readers than in Marvel readers, by the way. It's out of necessity; DC's characters have been intepreted more broadly and with greater variation than Marvel's more tightly on spec characterization of their (originally) coherent literary world.

But the unfriendly version of syncretism is the need to integrate the beliefs of conquered peoples into your own. You don't want to insult the beliefs of anyone involved, but sometimes too many gods can spoil the broth.

And DC certainly has done its fair share of conquering peoples, such as Charlton and Fawcett. Now with increased connections with Wildstorm, the incoporation of the Dakotaverse, and the usurpation of MLJ characters, the DC Universe truly is a multiverse.

How well do you think DC has managed the process of syncretism? They didn't know quite what to do with the Charlton characters after they acquired them. In the beginning, it seems they were being positioned, as ruder and edgier than the DC characters, as the "Marvel" types within the new DCU. Read Crisis on Infinite Earths again, and you won't even recognize Blue Beetle, except by the costume. At some point, this reversed, and the Charlton characters became more lighthearted (in no small part due to their inclusion in the less than grim JLU).

Fawcett, well, the case could easily be made that the DCU never has successfully integrated those characters. Unable to take them at face value, DC has either insisted on making them hokily square or *snort* dark and edgier.

The Wildstorm "integration" has gone much better because, in fact, while the Wildstorm in now clearly part of the large DC multiverse, it is just as clearly "walled off", so that character interactions can take place in a controlled environment. Usually, the problems with characters from different universes interacting isn't that the characters aren't commensurable. After all, the Punisher has met Archie. It's not that the characters can't be made to work together; it's that the worlds they inhabit cannot be the same world. It's not that we can't picture Superman and the Shield together; it's that we can't imagine that a character as amazing as the Shield wouldn't be turning up all over the place in Superman's world.

The literary concept of the shared universe is already a tough one, and the more "worlds" you add to that universe, the tougher it gets. And the job is about to get a lot tougher... .

How well do you think DC has managed the process of syncretism... and how well will it?

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