The Siege of the Zi Charam (My Life as a Teen Titan, Part Thirty-Eight)

You ever see a movie and really like it the first time but then you go and rent it on video and you realize that it’s actually not as good as you thought it was; in fact, it’s barely watchable? That’s how I’ve been feeling about some of these New Titans comics, especially the five part storyline, “The Siege of the Zi Charam.”

Published in the summer of 1995, the storyline was sort of a last gasp on the part of the Titans editors to get people interested in buying the flagging book, which would be cancelled about six months after the storyline ended (in fact, the next storyline, “Meltdown,” was the book’s last), “The Siege of the Zi Charam” is a Titans In Space adventure where the team is transported halfway across the universe to aid various alien races in their fight against another group of aliens called the Protogenitors, and instead of taking place over several issues of New Titans, it goes from New Titans #124 to Green Lantern #65, Darkstars #34, Damage #16, before finally wrapping up in the double-sized New Titans #125.

When the book had changed its lineup after Zero Hour, the editors did their best to create a mini universe, tying in the titles of the individual members with the larger Titans book. Green Lantern was selling well but the other books–Darkstars and Damage–were on the verge of cancellation as well, so crossing them over was probably a good idea to boost sales. But if you’re going to do that, you have to actually produce a story that people are going to want to buy.

As I mentioned, “The Siege of the Zi Charam” is a we’re-caught-in-the-middle-of-a-war storyline and it begins with the Titans being sent by the government to investigate some sort of anomaly in space. The anomaly winds up being some sort of interdimensional portal and the group (well, minus Impulse because he forgot to actually get on the spaceship) is warped halfway across the universe to the Zi Charam, a region that is currently under attack from The Protogenitors, who are a race of golden-skinned aliens with red hair. They all look very much alike and it seems that their M.O. is to go around various planets and systems and wipe everyone out. (more…)

Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 25 — Thirty Years of Neo Maxi Zoom Dweebies

“Dear Mr. Vernon …” On March 24, 1984, five students sat through detention in the Shermer High School library. Now, I take a look at my favorite movie of all time, The Breakfast Club. I break down the movie’s plot and give my review, sharing what makes it so special.

You can listen here:

iTunes: Pop Culture Affidavit

Direct Download

Pop Culture Affidavit podcast page

In the episode, I mention a piece I wrote and posted last year about my changing feelings about Mr. Vernon. Here it is: Sympathy for Richard Vernon

In Country: Marvel Comics’ “The ‘Nam”– Episode 19

IC 19 Cover The storyline involving Lt. Alarnick comes to an explosive end in “The Bombs Bursting …,” a story that sees bad times ahead for Rob and a crucial decision made by Clark. Brought to you by Doug Murray, Wayne Vansant, and Geof Isherwood. As always, in addition to the summary and review of the issue Ill be talking about the storys historical context as well as taking a look at the letters, ‘Nam Notes, and ads.

You can download the episode via iTunes or listen directly at the Two True Freaks website

Two True Freaks Presents: In Country iTunes feed

In Country Episode 19 direct link

Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 24 — A Comedy About Love in the ’90s

1994: The Most Important Year of the Nineties continues with one of the most Nineties of Nineties movies, Reality Bites. I take a look at the Winona Ryder/Ben Stiller/Ethan Hawke classic and also talk about its place in popular culture as well as talk about why it failed at the box office as did so many other attempts ot market to “Generation X.”

You can listen here:

iTunes: Pop Culture Affidavit

Direct Download

Pop Culture Affidavit podcast page

Here are some links to some recent pieces about the movie …

20 Years Later: An Oral History of Reality Bites

Hit Fix interviews the principal players from the movie’s cast and production and they talk about what it was like to make it in 1993-1994.

I Watched Reality Bites and it’s Bascially a Manual for Shitheads

A very funny Jezebel piece that waxes nostalgic about the film … with some perspective.

Here’s also a link to two previous posts about the movie …

Generation X Is …

This post, actually my first column from my high school newspaper in the fall of 1994, is my seventeen-year-old self trying to make sense of my generation, especially after I watched Reality Bites on video.

Being Michael Grates

In this post, I take a look at Reality Bites nearly two decades later and discover how much I identify with Ben Stiller’s character, Michael Grates, the yuppie In Your Face TV executive who competes with Troy Dyer’s (Ethan Hawke) for Lelaina’s (Winona Ryder) affection.

Alllllllllllllrighty Then!

It’s not that I’m trying to figure out what made Jim Carrey funny in the mid-1990s, it’s just that in thinking about what was funny in the mid-1990s, I sometimes amazed that he was so huge.

Maybe I should rephrase that, or at least explain what the heck I’m talking about because that introduction is poor and it looks like I’m starting in the middle of things. Next week’s post will be an episode of the podcast about Reality Bites, the Winona Ryder film about life after graduation. It’s one of those films that has become … well, I don’t want to say seminal because that would be giving it too much credit, but it definitely is one of those films that stuck with much of my generation. More on why next week, but I bring it up because around the same time that Reality Bites hit theaters, so did Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. This film is up there with movies like Billy Madison or Dude, Where’s My Car? or Paul Blart: Mall Cop. You look at them and say, “This is going to be ridiculous.” In essence, you are right, but the ridiculousness of the movie is what nets them tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office.

Such were Jim Carrey movies in the mid-1990s, especially in 1994. The man, who up until that point had been best known for being the white guy on In Living Color (and well, one day I’ll get to Doing Time on Maple Drive) starred in the aforementioned Ace Ventura flick as well as The Mask and Dumb and Dumber, each one of which was an enormous hit and rocketed him to superstardom. I remember that I enjoyed two out of the three of them (I actually have never seen The Mask) because they are, at their core, pretty funny. But as life went on and I got older, I remember that Carrey’s movies, at least to me, didn’t hold up the way that Caddyshack or Airplane! do. So what is it? Has my sense of humor faded or my heart shriveled up and died? I’m not sure.

Let’s do a quick test and look at this scene from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective …

And this one from Dumb and Dumber …

Now, at a glance this stuff is funny. Carrey’s got one of those faces that looks ridiculous to begin with, so he’s not afraid to just act silly and really let loose. And in both scenes, the director just lets him do his schtick. But at the same time, even two watchings of either scene gets annoying after a little while–and this is coming from someone who can watch Chris Farley do the “I killed my sale” scene in Tommy Boy multiple times and thinks that never gets old.

I think perhaps it’s that these scenes are the type of stuff that your annoying younger brother or cousin would find hilarious and repeat over and over and over and over. The tutu bit in the lobby with instant replay goes on way too long and is the type of thing that your hyperactive cousin would repeat out of nowhere in the middle of a conversation.

But hey, maybe that’s what we needed in the mid-1990s. There’s a sense that maybe, after a few years of a crappy economy and serious “message” movies winning Oscars, audiences wanted something totally ridiculous and didn’t want to have to think when they went to the theater. After all, the highest grossing film of the year was Forrest Gump, a feel-good nostalgia-fest and within the next few years we’d have Toy Story, Batman Forever, Independence Day, and Armageddon make huge amounts of money–not exactly thinking man’s movies.

But like I said, I just can’t find them funny anymore (and hey, maybe it’s just because I’m cranky), even though I know that Carrey can be …

(and yes, I know what you’re thinking … I don’t know how Courtney Love stayed in that dress either).

In Country: Marvel Comics’ “The ‘Nam” — Episode 18

IC 18 Cover Another issue, another month, another story. “Back in the Boonies,” issue #17 of The ‘Nam introduces us to two new characters and continues the growing tension between the men of the 23rd and Lieutenant Alarnick. Brought to you by Doug Murray, Wayne Vansant, and Geof Isherwood. As always, in addition to the summary and review of the issue Ill be talking about the storys historical context as well as taking a look at the letters, ‘Nam Notes, and ads.

You can download the episode via iTunes or listen directly at the Two True Freaks website

Two True Freaks Presents: In Country iTunes feed

In Country Episode 18 direct link

Fear the Future (My Life as a Teen Titan, Part Thirty-Seven)

If there is any one good thing that came out of Deathstroke having his own series in the 1990s, it’s that he had unknowingly fathered a daughter, Rose, who would eventually go on to become The Ravager during Geoff Johns’s run on Teen Titans. But in 1995, Rose was still in her early teens and under the care of the latest version of the New Titans. She’d just survived an ordeal where The Ravager (the Wade DeFarge version) killed her mother. The climax of that storyline was earth-shattering, as most of Deathstroke’s supporting cast was dead and Adeline was revealed to not only have gone completely nuts but had also inherited some of Slade’s immortality.

So where do you go from there? Well, apparently, you go into the future.

Deathstroke #51 and 52 are a two-part story where after she gets knocked out in a training exercise by Damage, Rose has a dream. But it’s not a dream, it’s a vision of the future and one where her father’s immortality has helped him achieve some sort of world domination, or at least be a Doctor Doom type of villain. His main enemy is Hawkman, or the latest version of Hawkman, and Hawkman fights with Deathstroke in some sort of virtual reality world. There’s a hint that maybe somehow Steve Dayton as The Crimelord had somehow possessed Deathstroke but Rose wakes up from her vision before we can really see who he is in the future.

And then in the next issue, Deathstroke and Hawkman team up to stop a villain named Ebrax, even though the two of them spend most of their team-up time griping at one another. There’s some implication that the possibility of Slade becoming some sort of huge villain and fighting with Hawkman will come to pass and perhaps they will become enemies as the series goes on. But with only eight more issues to go in the series, Hawkman is never seen again and this doesn’t really go anywhere. In fact, the only thing that does sort of go anywhere is Rose’s burgeoning precognitive powers, which are still around when she is The Ravager, although she’s not so much predicting the future in that role and simply has good anticipatory reflexes.

This two-parter, to me, has not only come to represent the beginning of the end of this series but its lowest point. Two stories that feature Hawkman and set up one confusing, dangling plot thread were also two stories that I barely cared about in 1995 and kind of suffered through when I was rereading for this blog. Looking at what’s ahead, there are a couple of issues that I barely remember reading, one issue that I didn’t actually own until years after the series had been cancelled, and while things slightly improve in the last few issues of the series, you can tell that unless Deathstroke is going to go back to its roots and become a series about a mercenary who is also an action hero, it’s going to wind up being cancelled. The science fiction aspects are clunky, especially anything with “virtual reality,” which clearly dates these issues.

Next Up: The Titans go into outer space and get involved in an intergalactic civil war.

Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 23 — The Album That Changed My Life

Do you have the time to listen to me whine? No? Well, do you have the time to listen to me talk about Green Day’s Dookie, which was released twenty years ago and is one of the most important albums I ever purchased? You do? Great! I’ll give some history on the album, go through it track by track and then explain exactly why, when I was 17 years old, this punk classic changed my life.

You can listen here:

iTunes: Pop Culture Affidavit

Direct Download

Pop Culture Affidavit podcast page

As a bonus, here is the CD cover …

Here is the orignal version of the CD’s back cover …

And here are links to articles and books mentioned the episode …

“Young, Loud, and Snotty” (1994 Spin article)

Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azzerad (Amazon.com)

In Country: Marvel Comics’ “The ‘Nam” — Episode 17

IC 17 Cover The second year of The ‘Nam continues as two long-standing characters leave: Sarge on a chopper and Ramnarain via capture. And in the middle is Rob, trying to keep everything together. It’s “Good for the Goose” by Doug Murray, Wayne Vansant, and Geof Isherwood. As always, in addition to the summary and review of the issue Ill be talking about the storys historical context as well as taking a look at the letters, ‘Nam Notes, and ads.

You can download the episode via iTunes or listen directly at the Two True Freaks website

Two True Freaks Presents: In Country iTunes feed

In Country Episode 17 direct link

Whoomp, There It Was!

Bill Clinton plays the sax (“we’re Animaniacs”) on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1992, probably the most iconic moment in the show’s history.

While this will date this entry years hence, I guess it should be noted that I’m writing it the same week that Jimmy Fallon starts hosting NBC’s long-running late-night talk show, The Tonight Show. In the last few weeks there have been all sorts of farewells to both him on Late Night (which is being taken over by SNL alum Seth Meyers) and Jay Leno. Leno, in 1993, received his first stint as permanent host of The Tonight Show after the retirement of Johnny Carson and the fights behind the camera as well as resulting late night ratings wars between Leno and Letterman (who would go on to do his own show after being passed over for Carson’s) would be one of the more well-known (and notorious) television stories of the 1990s.

One of the biggest casualties of the late night wars of 1993 was The Arsenio Hall Show. Since its debut in 1989, the syndicated talk show had garnered respectable ratings and was very popular among younger audiences, but when three other late-night shows debuted during that year and many of the CBS affiliates that were carrying Hall’s show picked up Letterman’s instead, the ratings started to take a turn for the worst. On May 27, 1994, the final episode of the show aired.

Now, when Arsenio was at his height of popularity, I wasn’t a regular viewer of his show. Staying up that late on a school night was not an option for me in those years, and while I was allowed much later nights in the summer, those were usually spent watching a baseball game. But if I happened to be up and not watching a random movie and had a desire to watch a late night talk show, I would tune in to Arsenio because like a lot of people who were watching his show, I found Carson to be … old.

And that sounds so pedantic, especially considering that Johnny Carson was such a huge legend in comedy and also considering that I would occasionally tape Late Night With David Letterman and Letterman was Carson’s heir apparent. But Hall was cool–he must have been since he hosted the VMAs four times in a row (still a record to this date)–and he had guests that I was familiar with. Granted, I knew who most of the guests on your average Carson episode were, but people I actually might have a chance of watching/listening to with more frequency were on Arsenio.

When Hall’s show went off the air on May 27, I wasn’t watching. However, I had a good reason not to: Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils (“MATTEAU! MATTEAU!” … oh, sorry … that’ll be another post).

I found the final episode of the show on YouTube and while I’m not sure if it’s the entire show (it’s in three parts and a couple of things do seem to be missing), it’s enough to get a feel for what Arsenio was about for its brief life. In what I’ve seen, the episode’s format is what you’d expect from a talk show–a monologue and guests (Arsenio wasn’t really one for comedic bits). The two guests mentioned are Whoopi Goldberg and James Brown. You don’t see much of Brown–I have a feeling that whomever posted the video missed his performance or it was trimmed down in the original broadcast–and Whoopi’s conversation with Arsenio is about how his show was successful and the cultural impact he had. Being a horribly naive 17-year-old white kid from the suburbs in 1994, I wouldn’t have been able to say word one about the cultural impact of a talk show hosted by an African-American but with twenty years of life experience and perspective now behind me, I completely understand what she’s talking about. Hall was not only the first but he was also successful. No, he didn’t have the long runs that Carson and Letterman had, but five years in syndication and holding on to an oft-fickle youth audience is something to be commended.

(more…)