Anyone who watched the episode of “Ben 10: Ultimate Alien” last night (and I’m warning you right now, I’ll delete any comment to the effect of “Gee, was that on? Why didn’t you give us a heads up?” just on principle) watched an example of Dwayne McDuffie’s social conscience in action.
More after the break.
Continue Reading “Background on “Prisoner Number 775 is Missing””
Because now the news media gets to obsess over an even MORE pointless citizenship story than his place of birth.
In Superman #900, in a back-up story, Superman renounces his American citizenship.
And news media from coast to coast went completely bat guano.
Why do I have a feeling that, when President Obama said the news media needed to focus on important matters rather than silliness, the media going nuts over the decisions of a fictional character in a nine page backup story wasn’t what he had in mind?
PAD
UPDATED April 30th, 8:44 AM:
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I want to make it clear that when I’m talking about overreaction or matters of more importance, I’m not taking issue with the fan reaction. In fact, most of the fan reaction I’ve seen has been in response not to the story, but to the media’s coverage of the story.
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Fans will spend days, even weeks dissecting the latest developments, and that’s SOP. But you don’t see Fox, CNN, Entertainment Weekly and the Associated Press weighing in on whether Utopia is a good idea or is Cyclops just being a paranoid dìçk.
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Furthermore, some members of the media are using it as an excuse to tee off on Obama, liberals, and even comics fans themselves. Witness Cal Thomas of the ever reliable Fox News who declared, “Construed? Would comic book readers have heard of such a word? This storyline sounds as if it was written by an acolyte of the Obama administration.” I don’t which is more appalling. The notion that comics fans, some of the most literate people around, are challenged by any words that are polysyllabic. Or the implication that fans of the Obama administration being intelligent is somehow a bad thing, presumably because presidents and their supporters should always be monosyllabic.
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Hey. Cal Thomas. On behalf of comics fans everywhere: Go defenestrate yourself.
I’m no good at putting these kinds of things together. So I toss the idea out there, in case no one has done it already: Intercut the little girl and reaction shots from “Adventures in Babysitting” with footage from the trailer for “Thor.”
PAD
As a final reminder, tonight is my next episode of “Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.” Airing at 7:30 PM Eastern Time on Cartoon Network, it’s entitled, “Prisoner 775 is Missing.” I should mention that the basic concept for the story was something that the late, great Dwayne McDuffie came up with. He wanted to use science fiction for its classic purpose: As a metaphor to comment on social issues. After it airs, I’ll be putting up specifics of how the episode came about.
PAD
Originally published March 10, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1112
Some random, assorted thoughts:
To be specific, Josepha Sherman, a Connecticut-based writer, hasn’t been heard from in some months and various friends are becoming concerned. Her e-mailbox is overflowing and bouncing back mail, no phone numbers for her work, and she hasn’t posted on her Facebook page since last October. If anyone has direct contact with her, please have her check in with me or any of her other friends immediately.
Thanks.
PAD
UPDATED Thursday, 1:23 PM: After seeing some of the nutbar reactions that the birth certificate has launched, I’ve come to believe that if Obama had been delivered via C-section, there are people who would declare that that makes him ineligible to be president because the Constitution says “natural born” and anything except a vaginal birth is not natural.
Not sure what the point was. Because I’m sure you can clock with an egg-timer how long you’ll see the following two talking points:
1) Why did he wait so long?
2) How do we know it’s not a forgery?
The people who think the whole birther thing is idiotic don’t require it to be convinced, those who are birthers, or just seize upon any pretense to get Obama out, will never be convinced. And conservatives who aren’t birthers but hate Obama and/or liberals will just claim that this is a non-issue that the liberal media has invented.
PAD
Updated 5:56 PM: Having now seen Obama’s actual press conference, I had two further thoughts.
First, I think Obama wanted to speak to broader issues but, as he said in his comments, just wanting to do that wouldn’t have gotten network attention. Discussing national security wouldn’t have gotten the networks to break in; the birth certificate, thanks to idiots like Trump and Fox, is news. Releasing his birth certificate had the same effect as the old gag of writing “SEX” at the top of fliers in high school and then below that, “Okay, now that we’ve got your attention, the AV club will be meeting on Tuesday.”
Second, it was evocative of the sequence in “The American President” toward the end when the president addresses non-issues like his girl friend and flag burning and talks about the need for serious people and serious discussions. Go to youtube if you don’t believe me.
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