The Death of Joe Average

A bit of background before the story. Watching re-runs of the Adam West Batman television series as a kid, I was strangely struck by the readily available supply of hired thugs. Who were these people?  Didn't these nameless fists know the elaborate death trap was doomed to fail? Didn't they know they would get thrown into the waiting arms of Police Chief O'Hara's men? What would they tell their friends and family when they eventually came to bail them? Did they even have a family? Were they evil or just desperate and broke? Did they really want to kill Batman or anyone else?
That last question really stuck in my throat. What if the death trap WORKED. Would they celebrate the death of The Bat with the A-list villain, or be struck down by the horror of facilitating a slow, gruesome, and painful murder? Here’s my answer.

The Death of Joe Average

It wasn’t that Martha was dulled to the sound of a slamming door; it was more that she was accustomed to it. It was a common sound in her life, like the crying child somewhere behind a door down the dirty hallway of almost every building she had ever lived in. Angry voices was another. The ones through the ceiling and the floor were usually harder to understand then the ones from adjacent apartments. Sometimes she could hear the quick, low thud that cut short the fury of words and replaced with it with crying. Had she thought about it, she would have had to say she also heard laughing, children playing, and the noises young couples are prone to make. But those noises are not warnings. Slamming, crying, and yelling are the ones to pay attention to. Martha had learned, for example, there are several ways a door is opened. One is when a door knob seems to twitch or click, rather than twist through its full range of motion before exploding open. What is important here is what happens afterward. If the opener holds the door to keep it from hitting whatever is behind it and closes it just as fast and just as silently, then the goal is speed. The opener might be hiding or running from someone. If the door is left to its own momentum, they might be trying to catch you by surprise. Another way is when the sound of a knob wrenched is paired with the impact of a shoulder or hand sending the door crashing into whatever is behind it. There is no attempt to stop it or reclose it as the door was merely an obstacle, and it, along with anyone nearby better damn well not get in their way.
Martha was lying in bed next to her young daughter reading her Good Night Moon when her front door suddenly slammed open. She placed her hand over her daughter’s mouth holding a finger over her own to silence the girl. The door had been locked. She checked it twice before putting her daughter to bed. The door bounced off the wall before she heard a hand fumble off and then on the knob before catching it and closing it in failed silence.

“ohgodohgodohgod”

The voice was her husband’s and it confirmed what she heard in the door: he was panicked.

“You stay here,” she whispered to her daughter.The girl nodded pulling a small plush panda to her chin.

Martha closed the door behind her as she walked into the short hallway to the living room. Her husband paced around a small glass-top table occupying the space between the couch and a dying flat screen television.

“he’sdeadhe’sdeadhe’sdead…”

“Who is, Steve?” Martha spoke in a low, calm tone. She tried to guess from one of the number of people he used to work for and with. All dangerous people. All skilled, like her husband, in ways to hurt people.

He turned. He was crying. Or was. Thin shiny lines wandered down from his eyes to his chin. His eyes were blood shot. Martha noticed the right eye was puffy and darker than the left.

“YOU PROMISED US NEVER AGAIN!”

She lunged at him, fists flailing at his face. His hands never moved from his sides. His arms hung limp from his shoulders never moving to protect his already swelling face. Steve took every hit, every blow. He could stop her, and she knew it, but he deserved it. He went back on his word, lied to his wife and child. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

“Damn you! What did you do, Steve? Huh? Did you get punch happy on another wannabe cape? Someone hire you and a goon squad to break an arm? Or was a back? Or was this cape thrown off a building as a message like the last time? Huh, tough guy? WHO IS DEAD?!”

“Joe Average!” he yelled in her face.

She instantly stopped. Her chest continued heaving like a bellows but for the rest of her, time ceased. Her eyes captured movement again flicking back and forth across his face reading its lines and how the evaded hers.

“no..” Her voice was lower than the whisper she used for her daughter.

“Joe Average is dead.” Steve said it simply.

He slowly turned and sat on the couch. His hands fell into his lap as lifeless as before. He looked at them wishing they were gone.

Martha blinked rapidly with no regular pattern. A spastic, processing blink mirroring the twitch in mouth as if she meant to say something. It lasted only for a moment before she looked down at him.
“He can’t be dead. A thousand guys like you couldn’t hurt him.” She threw the words at him as if their truth could undue Steve’s words. He was wrong. He had to be.

“Joe Average is stronger and tougher than…anybody!” She blurted it out not really knowing what she was trying to say.

“He’s invulnerable. The real kind of invulnerable. Remember in the 80’s when, what’s his name, Professor Crisis teleported him to the center of the Earth during his UN speech? He crawled back to the surface of the Earth. Everybody knows that! He can’t be dead, you idiot!”

Steve listened to every word. The last part, he thought, was right. But, she knows I’m not lying. She knows I’m right. That’s what she’s trying to talk out of existence.

“He gave me this black eye,” he said pointing to the darkening patch around his swollen left eye.
“Who?” she asked.

“Joe did!” he answered. “The guy who freezes rivers with this breath. He hit me with everything he had trying to save his life and all I got was this black eye. I should be dead!”

“Oh god, Martha,” he added. “…it was terrible...”

His head dropped as if following the words falling from his mouth. He sobbed low, never wiping the tears from his eyes, never moving his hands.

Martha stared at him not knowing what to make of this. Steve wasn’t’ smart when it came to decisions, but he was always solid when the consequences fell back on top of him. He’s…broke. Steve has been on the receiving end of beatings before, some bad. It was a constant danger in his line of work: thug for hire. She remembered one night he came home with a smashed right hand, four cracked ribs, and a shattered sternum. A local crime boss put out the word for hired fists to take out a new cape. The cape, a woman, was making a name for herself as a skilled fighter. So, twenty men and women eager to score a bonus by landing her mask waited in ambush. Turns out she was a Super, only she kept it hidden. Real smart. Steve landed a clean jaw breaker and pulped his own hand in return. Rock-hard skin. She reversed punched him in chest and that was that. He woke up a short time later alone and injured behind a crate. Even this didn’t stop him. He just said next time someone else can take the first swing.

“What happened?” she demanded

“I got a text from this guy I know,” he replied taking deep breath. “He got a call from a guy we both worked for a while ago. Turns out this guy runs his own, uh, like temp agency or something. He hires bodies for other people now. You know what kind of people I mean. Anyway, it was big money paid in advance for a single night. I thought it was enough money that maybe you’d forgive me breaking my promise to give it up. Stupid, I know.”

Steve described the setting from earlier that night. He was in a warehouse near the industrial section of the city where business concerns too loud or noxious were tucked away. A dozen other hired hands wandered about stretching or talking to pass the time. No one knew who had arranged for them, which was common, but waiting around was not. Time was money. Idle chatter drifted past Steve distracting him from forgetting his promise to never again accept money to hurt someone.

“Damn right I got the money he owed me!”

“My wife never smiles at me the way this chick does.”

“ …just as long as I get paid.”

“Crap in a hat where is this guy?”

“Do we get costumes?”

“Settle down, kids.”

The group quieted instantly. This voice was new.

“Daddy’s home. Do any of you actually know who your father is? Never mind. Rhetorical and don’t care.”

The speaker looked plain to Steve. No fright wigs or bizarre togs. A cheap, dark charcoal suit. Scuffed shoes. White shirt. Nothing special except for his tie. That was expensive. You could tell by looking at it. A thick black line right down the center of him.

Steve and the rest of the crew were all veterans of the trade. Each had dozens of capers notched on his or her belt. Some specialized in military style operations while others were legitimate masters of unarmed combat. What thread they all seemed to share, from Steve’s quick review of the room, was the lack of enhancements. He had worked a few times with thugs hardwired for superhuman strength and speed. Bone Breakers who did not give a shit about cash and only cared about upgrades and maintenance agreements. Scary, dangerous people in a pool of workers filled with scary and dangerous. That lot was absent. That meant this truly was a cash-only crowd. Short-time work, in other words. Whatever this guy was paying them for, it wasn’t going to take very long.

The suit glided up to the group and continued.

“Allow me to introduce myself.” His tone was pleasant yet carried a deep vein of self-confidence. “I… am none of your damn business.”

“Nothing personal,” he continued. “Understand we are here to complete a transaction. That’s all.”
The suit’s eyes scanned the faces before him. They all looked calm with a couple on the verge of boredom. Steve wondered if the suit understood the group was watching him right back. Their calm exteriors would evaporate if threatened or they smelled a set-up. He figured the suit knew. The suit moved a bit at all times, but especially when he talked as if like a body caught in the tides of a racing mind. Steve thought the suit was nervous. He was wrong.

“To complete this transaction you need to do exactly as I say. Chisel that in stone.” The suit pointed to his head to demonstrate. “If I say sit on a duck, you ask which one and how long. If you have any other questions then I suggest you change lines of work.”

He turned from the group without another word. He didn’t have to worry about questions. No one arranges a gathering like this without having a target to throw it at. Besides, details and plans are important before the action starts and rarely after.

“We have a guest coming.” The suit was looking at one of three watches on his wrist now visible when he pulled up on his jacket sleeve.

Again, meaningless information, thought Steve, unless they were here to hit him. He had heard of that kind of thing happening before.

“I want everyone on their best behavior,” he added. “He should be here right…now.”

Suddenly, silently the room filled with brilliant white light.

Ah hell, thought Steve. His internal assessment was joined very externally by the woman to his left.
“Shit.”

The other reason plans were often useless was some powers in the world were immune to them. Above them. Her single word encapsulated everything that brilliance meant for them. They all knew this signature, this particular shade of white that quickly condensed into a man floating six inches above the concrete floor between them and the suit.

Joe Average thought Steve in a whisper to himself fearing the owner of the name could hear even the words spoken in a man’s own head.

“Remain calm,” says Joe.

His voice fills the building, though it is not loud. To Steve and the others the voice comes into their ears from all angles. It’s a disquieting sensation that alludes to the power in the man before them who otherwise looks typical in every way. Average height. Average build. Average appearance. Even his clothes are normal. Store bought jeans topped with a white button shirt. Joe Average. But then you remember the voice. You remember the power. You remember pictures of a man kneeling unprotected in the vacuum of space on the wing of a damaged space shuttle. You remember footage of a man standing a between forty-foot tall tsunami and the island it never reached.

The thugs didn’t move. If the suit thought they were willing to even touch him for any price he was beyond mistaken. Steve once saw an enhanced villain try to hit Joe. Joe moved so fast he simply ceased being at one place and came into being a few inches away. The man punched air for what seemed like a several minutes without any signs of fatigue until Joe reappeared with a resigned look on his face saying If you insist. Joe didn’t move that time. The villain’s man’s fist folded like a car ramming a thick concrete wall. His knuckles caved so far into his palm his fingertips touched past his own wrist. The noise was like a muffled wet pop! It was the worst sound Steve ever heard until the man started screaming. Punching a block of diamond would feel softer than hitting Joe.

“Joe!” cried the suit happily.

Joe turned to the suit. The suit in turned rushed forward as if into the embrace of an old friend.

“THE Joe Average!” The suit slapped Joe on the shoulder, only to quickly pull it back with a shake.”
“Ouch! Ha! Lost my head there for a moment. Not every day I get to meet ‘The Everyman’s Hero’. ‘The Paladin’. This is a real pleasure,” said the suit.

Joe leaned a fraction closer to the suit then turned toward us. His eyes traveled the over the rest of the small warehouse before returning to the suit. He looked puzzled. Steve thought he saw a faint glow in those puzzled eyes. A short lived shuffle of shifting clothes and boots rose around him. Rapidly exchanged glances confirmed the others, like Steve, suddenly wanted very much to be somewhere else.

“Where is…” Joe started to ask.

“The Umbra King,” interrupted the suit. “Your nemesis. Yeah. Sorry about that. The rumors of him hatching a mass death scheme were a lie. I started those ants up and down the grapevine. Everyone knows lies don’t work on you, so I’ll be blunt; I wanted to meet you.”

“Sonofabitch!” Shot out a man in the back of the group. “He’s a damn fanboy!”

The thought spread instantly on low nervous chuckles greased by the hope this was the moment they all were waiting for. The group slowly backed away as if by one mind. The fanboy got his meet-n-greet. Time for the props to go.

“Stay where you are, please”, said Joe without looking at them and without loss on the effect of his voice. He was fixated on the suit. Not worried, but curious.

“Yes, stay put,” echoed the suit meeting Joe’s bemused look.

Steve didn’t like this. The suit was right. Joe always knew a lie when he heard one. Yet the suit never said yes or no to being a fan boy. Something was wrong. There was an invisible puzzle in front of him. He tried to piece together what was wrong, but all he kept going to was the promise he broke coming here. So he just stopped trying.

“We’re not trespassing, Joe. I rented the place. And none of the kids here have warrants. We’re sin free as far as you’re concerned.” The suit turned to Steve and the others. “It’s not every day you get to stand before God, in a manner of speaking, and look him in the eyes guilt free.” The suit paused to let the smile growing in the corners of his mouth reach full size. “In fact, you Joe, are the only person here who has broken the law tonight.”

Surprisingly, Joe laughed. He landed and walked to a discarded chair. He brushed off the split leather seat, placed it back on four legs, and sat down.

“You have three minutes then I have to go,” said Joe.

“Thank you, but I won’t take that long. I have another appointment tonight as well. Do you mind if I stand?” he asked politely.

“Please do”, answered Joe.

The suit’s smile rapidly fell away.

“Best estimates give you thirteen distinct senses. I’m willing to bet you used every one to poke around the building, any vehicles parked outside, and us. That’s a Federal level invasion of privacy even for you. But, given how many people have tried to kill you over the years, I understand your caution and forgive you. My car is the one leaking antifreeze, by the way. Got a little on my hands.”
“I know”, said Joe in so matter of fact a tone it struck Steve as creepy. Hearing the words from all directions at once did not help. 

“I knew you did. Okay,” said the suit with a wave of dismal reserved for flies. “You have places to be. I have places to be. I arranged this with the hope of shaking your hand.”

The suit walked up to Joe and simply, confidently thrust out his right hand to Joe. Joe looked at the hand and the man bearing it. Again, surprisingly, he laughed. Joe leaned back in the chair.

“Then what happens?” asked Joe. “And what was your name?”

The suit’s arm didn’t move.

“What’s happens next is we’ll all probably just go home. Theirs to theirs. Me to mine. And you’ll probably be on the moon or some such place. I’d rather not give my name, if that is ok.”

Joe stood.

“I’ve met a lot of people over the years. You’re an interesting nut. I could discover it in a few seconds if I wanted to. And if I ever see you again I will.”

Joe straightened himself to his full average height and shook the suit’s hand. It was a brief exchange that ended as silently as it started. Joe nodded to the suit and closed his eyes.

His eyes snapped open wide and alarmed. He closed his eyes again. His face strained for a brief instant. When he opened them again he stepped back staring in panic at the suit.

“Is something wrong?” asked the suit with a too stressed sincerity.

Joe looked at his hands. Then back at the suit. They were trembling.

“It’s been a long time since you felt fear, hasn’t it?” asked the suit. “Long enough to forget what it felt like. Your mind turns against itself. Your body rushes to run, fight, and piss itself at the same time.”

Joe stepped back from the suit and looked at the thugs.

“Yes,” answered the suit to Joe’s glance. “This is why they are here.”

The suit turned to the hired fists. “Kill him.”

“What?” asked a man in the back of the group.

“Kill him,” repeated the suit. ”Perhaps I should say kill this man because I just killed Joe Average.”
Steve looked at the still living, breathing Joe Average standing some twenty-feet away. Breathing? Joe’s chest pushed and pulled air in quick, shallow motions. Steve also noticed small damp patches soaking through Joe’s white shirt pinning it to his body at random spots. Just like his own clothes.
“Some of you are catching on,” said the suit. He sat down in the chair Joe used while checking his watches again. “I was serious about my appointment so someone bring the slow kids up to speed.”
“He took away my power,” said Joe calmly pronouncing his own death.

Steve relived Joe’s words from the sagging cushions of his own couch. Chaotic images of fists and boots hammering like pistons on bone and opened flesh flashed in his head.

“We were on him instantly. I’m not even sure why. I guess to see if it was true. Does that make sense? He fought back. Fought hard. Never tried to run. That scared me. What if he got his power back? We HAD to kill him then because every second was maybe the second…

“You went back to being to nothing,” said Martha.

“Ya, I guess so.”

“What about the man in the suit?” she asked.

Steve looked up at Martha. She back down at him. She hadn’t physically moved and her eyes gave no hint of movement behind them, either.

“He watched. Never said a word. He just watched. Typical guy hires goons, he never shuts up. Got to rub it in. Got to show off who is the smartest guy in the room. This guy watches every punch and kick like he had to,” said Steve.

“No plans? No next step?” she demanded.

“Not to us, but I heard him whisper to Joe. That’s when I knew how bad it all really was.” Steve’s lapse from despair fell into waste. Without warning he started sobbing again, but just as fast as the emotions showed up he bottle them back up. “He bent down over Joe at the end. I was closest to them. A group like us can kill a man in a few seconds. Joe lasted almost three minutes and he looked like it. His right eye was caved in and dead. I don’t know where his ear was.” Steve took a deep breath. The real bloody picture of Joe, the one Martha must never learn, refused to move from in front of him. “Maybe he had a piece of his power left. A little one that made him last so long. It was horrible.”

“What did he say?” she demanded more than asked.

“He said it wasn’t personal. He told Joe he died from a thousand cuts. Or something like that. That all the ways people tried to kill him over the years left traces, like scratches. He figured out how to add them up and push them over. The suit held up his right hand when he said it. I don’t know what that was supposed to mean”

“The handshake?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he answered. “I don’t know. Then he said he was meeting with The Umbra King next and he’d get the same but different.” Steve knew what those words meant. What they meant for everyone. He waited for Martha to show some sign she understood. She gave none.

“Damn it, Martha! He killed the most powerful person on the planet and was off to kill the second most powerful. Except, the other guy ain’t Joe! The other guy will pull you part first and never ask questions later. Joe kept the other guy in check. And now there’s no more Joe.”

“How do you know it was really Joe?” she asked.

“Stop it!” He yelled sending a spray of drying tears and spit onto the table between them.“Stop trying to convince yourself I’m wrong! I am not wrong!”

Before she saw him actually move he was on his feet and the table was crashing into the wall behind her. Its cheap frame crumbled at the joints on contact with a wooden thunkrish leaving deep gashes in the drywall. The glass top broke in several large shards that burst into dozens of smaller, sharper pieces when they hit the floor.

“We got to, got to get out of here!” Suddenly animated, Steve moved toward their bedroom.

He stopped.

His daughter, hugging the stuffed panda to her thin chest, stood in the doorway. Her small silhouette cast an even smaller shadow into the hall from the bedroom ceiling light.

“Sweetie, go back to bed,” Martha prompted. “Close the door and go back to bed. Mommy will be right in.”

The child froze staring at her father’s face.

Steve looked at her, and then at his bedroom beyond her. She was in his way. A small obstacle between him and everything he needed to run away. Everything they needed, he corrected himself. Hidden money, clothes, and cell numbers with owed favors tied to them. All the things he needed right now. Martha again directed their daughter back to bed. Her words were unrushed, disarming, and silky. It was the voice Martha reserved for comforting the child whenever he smashed a glass or installed a new hole in a nearby wall during an argument. His voice inside his head pushed with a strange, unfamiliar vigor. Get your stuff NOW! Don’t stop for her. Suddenly, he remembered another voice. This was the voice of a good man competing with his own. This other man his girl would run to when she heard the work of his own anger. This other man never asked for anything other than the opportunity to use his vast power to help others. That other voice was pleading to him in his memory under the clamoring of his own words. (Run idiot! Push her aside! HIT HER!) Past a shattered jaw and through bloody gaps in a irreparable mouth (DON’T STOP FOR HER!) that other man asked to live simply because:

“…therez …more to do…”

The building suddenly shook without warning. Martha ran to her daughter. She was surprised and oddly comforted to see Steve did the same just as the windows shattered. Glass tore through the air like tiny drunk daggers. Several slivers struck Steve in the head as he placed himself between his family and the flying debris.

“Was that an explosion?” yelled Martha over din of creaking walls and a rising wail of fearful children and adults from the other apartments.

Steve raised his head. Small, warm lines drew themselves down the back of his head and into his collar. He said nothing. He was thinking about a meeting between a man in a suit and a murderous demi-god. One of them wasn’t going to walk away and the world was going to be left on its own to deal with the other.

Martha read his face. It occurred to her the sound wasn’t so much an explosion after all, but more like a door slamming shut.

Atlas gave them One Shrug, Atlas Shrugged movie review

NO, this is not a bash session. This is not an exercise in trolling. This is not a vent, rant, or a demand for the professional banning of all actors and producers involved in the making of these silver screen gems. And yet. The Atlas Shrugged movies are (so far) less than great. Okay, less than good. These are not good movies.

They can’t be.

Full disclosure. I actually own these films. I own Atlas Shrugged in both paper and audio formats. I own other Ayn Rand works. Heck, I even bought a hat.
                                                                      (I love this hat.)

And I still think the movies are pretty bad, just for not the reasons most critics have savaged them. Atlas Shrugged is an immense work. It is a manifesto. It is the pouring out of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy into a fictional world much like our own. It is many things, but what it is not is a novel. And therein lies the inherent downfall with adapting it into a movie. Atlas Shrugged is a novelized philosophy text. I warn friends and acquaintances to whom I recommend Atlas Shrugged that if they walk into the book with a Harry Potter, Twilight, or Hunger Games mindset they are better off not even looking at the cover.

Atlas is not for escapism, it is for educating. Ayn Rand, through Atlas and her other works, wanted to change how people thought by introducing them to her moral code: Objectivism. A moral code, briefly, is a blueprint for living. Change a person’s moral code and you change how they think and live. Millions of words have been spilled debating, arguing, dissecting, and plain eviscerating Objectivism. My point here is not a dissertation on what it is or is not (I’m not thrilled by the movies is my point lest you forget), but I do think a summary for those unfamiliar with it is in order. A word of warning, however. Atlas is over one thousand pages long. I’m going to encapsulate some aspects that speak to me in five sentences or less. This is in NO WAY a CliffsNotes version of the book or Objectivism. Here goes: (1) As your life is yours, no group, society, or belief system may lay claim to you in any way without your permission. (2) Humans, having no instinctive method of survival, must use reason (the Mind) to survive. (3) Therefore, no one has the right to claim the products of your Mind without permission just as you have no claim to the products of others without theirs. (4) Capitalism, when operated correctly, creates an environment of voluntary trading between individuals where value (your best efforts)is traded for value (the best efforts of others). (5) Money, as a symbol of fair value for value trading, is a moral creation based on honesty and hard work that allows a person to achieve levels of security and freedom never before seen in human history. Okay. Not too bad. Over-simplifications with volumes of ideas left out, yes, but given I tried to squeeze a lake into an eyedropper I’m alright with these five.

The book has moments of excellent drama, comedy, wit, and some sex scenes Fifty Shades of Grey would be proud of, but they are ALL to illustrate a philosophical point, including (dare I say especially) the sex. It’s not impossible to do that in a movie, but it is very very hard and usually a horrible way to build a film. Every scene, every line, every set, every piece of wardrobe, etc. must be coordinated to almost subliminal levels to send messages to the audience. And that’s exactly what the producers of the film would have had to do for starters just to attempt an adaptation of a book that hammers readers with enough dialogue to make Tuesdays With Morrie seem like an Action-Adventure film. I’m not pessimistic enough to say the producers were doomed to failure from the start, but on bad days I’m very close to it.

Still, I applaud the attempt. Truly. I know I couldn’t make a film to do it justice. The material is so thick it’s intertwined. I will probably buy the third installment to show my support. I just won’t expect to feel the same gut reaction I do from reading a text populated by personifications of a moral code compared to watching actors reciting memorized lines. But in a way. I’m okay with that.

I said do it… or else.

As some of you may have heard, DC Comics kicked a hornet’s nest by hiring award winning science fiction writer, and Mormon, Orson Scott Card to pen a Superman tale in their upcoming Adventures of Superman digit-first series. The April debut of this non-continuity, on-line only series is getting lots and lots of press, but not the kind I’m sure DC was hoping for. Card is an outspoken supporter of a male-female only definition of marriage, and therefore has made comments over the years many in the homosexual community find very offensive. Card wrote an op-ed piece in the May 3^rd, 2012 Rhino Times lifted heavily from on a few sites I read. It’s not an outrageously long piece so I’m going to link here and let YOU read the whole piece (and not choice selections) to decide for yourself about the content. The bottom line of the on-line petitions is to fire him. The general logic is his anti-homosexual beliefs rule him out from being even remotely connected to the iconic Man of Steel. A character I feel compelled to point out is an alien and 101% heterosexual.

What none of the several articles I read mentioned was Card’s time at Marvel penning Ultimate Iron Man. I searched for a boycott of Marvel from Card’s time there, but didn’t find any. Full disclosure, I read through five pages of Google Search results, found nothing beyond the One Million Mom’s boycott attempt at Marvel (because some characters are gay), got bored, and stopped. Why wasn’t Marvel hit with this? Let’s expand this further. Card’s best-selling series Ender’s Game is slated for movie release this November from Summit Entertainment (a subsidiary of Lions Gate). Harrison Ford is in it. Again, I found no mention of backlash. Maybe I missed it. But again I ask why DC? Is it because it’s Superman, one of the most recognizable figures to young and old alike in the world? I don’t have the answer on this one. I merely thought it was interesting. Maybe you can figure it out.

Anyway, I mention this story in order to pose a few questions whose cores apply well beyond this matter. Let’s begin. If Card’s employment at DC is terminated, will it encourage him to re-think his position? Is threatening to remove one’s ability to support his or her family a proper means of education or is it a form of bullying? Would firing him open DC to a lawsuit for religious discrimination? Devoted members of several religions might become, or at least feel, unwelcome at DC. If NOT supporting a particular political or societal idea is grounds for termination, or not getting a job in the first place, what has happened to Freedom of Speech? And has employment now become a matter of passing a litmus test? Is lying then OK if it keeps you in good standing with special interest groups on either side of an issue? How is this different from when entertainers and artists were blacklisted for their beliefs in the 1950’s? Can one be pro-gay marriage and still write a good Superman story that doesn’t require Jimmy Olsen to marry his doorman to save the earth? (No, Grant Morrison, you cannot use that idea.) And finally, isn’t the whole idea to hire quality creators who produce high quality work the fans like? I mean, comic book fans are genetically predisposed to complain, criticize, rip to shreds, over-think, argue, and just plain bitch. If they aren’t buying, it doesn’t matter what the creator supports because the creation will go away real fast. You can be pro-everything and still have a real short career if you suck at your job, especially in comics.

Look, if you and thousands of your friends want to complain loudly with well thought out points about Card or anything else THEN DO IT. That’s Freedom of Speech. Just don’t forget that Freedom of Speech also applies to unpopular ideas. It’s supposed to protect you and me. It’s supposed to keep people from being punished merely for holding an opinion unpopular to the rest of society. Card has a right to work and support his family, just as supporters of gay-marriage do. Let’s talk. Let’s debate. Let’s politely raise our voices in heated discussions, but let’s not make threats. Boycotts, like any tool designed to generate then exploit fear, end discussion. They are a way to twist arms. They make people afraid to speak and be themselves. They make organizations and individuals walk a very bland, paranoid, neutral path. They silence us all for fear of being the next target. And don’t we have enough of that already? I think we do and I hope you do as well. Or I’ll boycott you.

Thoughts of a Visitor

My father hated winter. The first falling of white would send him into a bee’s dance of endless puttering, planning, and just plain annoyance. Happiness to him was looking over long rows of living green coaxed skyward by the steady push-pull beat of John Deere pistons. Ma once told me if I ever wanted to know what a painter without paint looked like I need only watch Pa when snow covered the ground. Some good did come from those mid-western winters, though. During one long stretch of dull, overcast days Pa gave me his dog-eared copy of The Old Man and the Sea. He read and reread that book for as long as I could remember, but it wasn’t until I read it and felt Hemingway’s sun on my skin that I understood why it called to him. I latched onto Hemingway instantly and he deserves much of the credit for my career in journalism. I sometimes wonder what my biological parents would have thought of seasons. Krypton had none. There is so much about them I’ll never know, but I like to think they would have liked spring. It’s nice to imagine them sharing something in common with Pa. Me? I’m my father’s son. Spring is the best time of year. Especially for flying.

Knight’s Rider

POP POP POP POP POP….

It took him a second to count the five gunshots. Their confused echoes fell over each other down the long alley chasing after him. The shots were nearby. Their speed meant panic, and panic meant death. Another survivor gone. He imagined the biting, raking swarm falling upon him?...her? It didn’t matter. The poor unknown person was now his tool of distraction. The swarm would draw attention to itself as it ate and draw other groups to it. This was the break he needed to make it a little closer to the edge of the city. Patiently closing short distances was safer than bolting crazy in the street. A few shambling corpses were easy to avoid, but as few as four were deadly even if you were fast and in the open. And he hadn’t seen groupings that small in weeks.

“Unnnnnn…”

He stopped. The moaning mixed with wet ripping sounds he didn’t like. The group was feeding. It sounded large and close, but he still couldn’t tell where.

One body won’t last long.

He calmly started trotting, almost leisurely, toward the alley’s end some thirty yards distant. He slowed before reaching the street, careful not to stray too close to either of the tall buildings flanking him. He looked up and saw his target: the apartment building he grew up in. It had been years since he’d returned. Years since his parents died, back when the dead stayed dead. With luck he could get in and hold up a few days. He was in no hurry, though. A few more minutes or hours were fine by him.

Slow and steady doesn’t get eaten.

The street was clear. Well, looked clear. He knelt down and looked under the few remaining cars. Zombies had an alarming habit of popping out from behind normal, everyday objects. Nothing. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his motorcycle jacket. The black leather welcomed the August sun a bit too much, but it did offer a high degree of protection against human fingernails. He planned on buying the accompanying motorcycle a week after he bought the jacket, but then all hungry hell broke loose. He inhaled deeply, braced himself, and slowly crept walked across the street. He scanned left and right for movement. Still nothing.

“errrn….”

Damn it!

He turned. A single zombie lumbered toward him from far down the alley, a fireman’s axe protruding from her (no, its) chest. The handle swayed side-to-side with the creature’s graceless steps. It was almost comical had the tip not kept coming back to center on him. Its dead, red mouth opened.

“UNNNNN…”

A rising chorus of moans and wails immediately poured out of the adjacent alley. The shots were far closer than he thought.

The damn things are like seagulls. Stay Calm. Stay ahead, he reminded himself.

He ran to his target, leapt up the front steps of the building, and stopped dead. He heard a steady thudding coming from behind the door. The image of hungry, dead fists slamming against the wood snaked in and out of his mind. With a few minutes of planning he could have found another way in or a means to draw them out. He was sure of it. He also knew he didn’t have ten seconds before the street was, literally, crawling with the undead. He ran down the steps to listen and gauge how many stragglers the swarm was attracting. Cries erupted up and down the street. The undead poured out of every doorway, window, and shadow like some giant meat grinder pushing out its cargo. The pounding behind the door suddenly rose to greet the tide, doubling its efforts to join it. The door rattled in splintering death throws. His legs grew weak and his hands suddenly tinged. All his careful efforts dropped him in the middle of a goddamn nest. He was completely surrounded. He climbed to the top of the nearest car and sat down.

This is it.

The thought was calm and resigned. He drew the .22 pistol from his pocket and placed the barrel against his temple. The cries and moans encircled him, a vanguard to the pallid throats close behind. In a fluid he motion he squeezed the trigger.

-click-

I really wish I had some bullets.

Huh?

The sound was clear and pronounced even above the cadaverous din: squealing rubber on asphalt. He stood searching for the source. It was coming from behind the hoard of undead exiting the alley. A car was coming down the street at a high rate of speed. He knew it couldn’t plow through the mob of bodies between them, but it might be enough of a distraction to allow him to escape. The sound captured the attention of even the undead closest him. The hoard numbered between two-hundred and three-hundred by his estimate. If each zombie weighted 150lbs, the vehicle faced a forty-five thousand pound wall of meat and bone. He couldn’t see it yet but the zombies could. They turned to face the sound. Whatever they saw, it had a low profile.

Boom! Thud! Whack! Crack!

A wave of zombies flew into the air or disintegrated in a cloud of flesh. Bodies were hurled up and over the vehicle, but he still couldn’t see it. The undulating path of thrown rag dolls turned toward him. He couldn’t believe his eyes. A sleek, black Pontiac Trans Am was driving right at him. The site was so preposterous he almost failed to notice the red light at the apex of it hood. The light slid back and forth in a recessed opening. The car reached him and braked with uncanny speed. It was covered in gore but otherwise undamaged. The passenger door swung opened revealing an empty seat.

“Get in.” called a voice inside the car.

He jumped down and into the car. Before he could reach to close the door it closed by itself. He turned to thank the driver. The seat was empty.

“Please don’t be alarmed.” The voice came from a center council containing a red equalizer-like display that rose and fell with the rise and fall of the voice.

“They cannot breach me. I will remove you from this environment.” The car’s accelerator lowered with no visible cause pressing him against the seat with alarming force.

THUD! SMACK! CRACK!

Zombies bounced off the car like it was a tank.

“What the hell is going on?!”

“I am the Knight Industries Two Thousand or KITT, as I was called. My sensors detected your bio-readings and I arrived as fast as I could.”

CRUNCH! SNAP! PLUD!

“Who’s driving?” He looked on the windshield for a camera. Remote control? A military drone? If that was the case, and he found the car’s remote system, he might be able to take control over it. He noticed a large bundle of severed fiber optic cables hanging from a harness beneath the dash.

“I am autonomous. I had a human operator, but no more. He is dead. I follow his last command.”

He didn’t know what to make of what he was hearing and he didn’t care. It was secondary to gaining control of this vehicle. He glanced up in time to see the body of a large, fat zombie roll over the windshield. Amazingly, the glass was unharmed. This car meant his survival.

“So what next? Take me to your creators?” Keep “it” talking. He pulled at the glove box. It would not open.

“I have not communicated with my creators for 36 days, 4 hours, and 23 minutes. I fear for their safety.”

I fear?

“So why don’t you drive to them now? I can help you find them.” He grabbed the heavily modified steering wheel and tried to move it. It wouldn’t budge.

“Please don’t do that. Repeated attempts to alter my course will activate self-defense measures. My human operator was investigating a possible origin of the outbreak. It was a remote possibility, but he felt compelled to try. My creators begged him not to go. They overrode my controls until he cut the remote link cables and reprogrammed me to follow his, and only his, commands. All he wanted to do was help.”

“What happened?” It was a simple question, but it marked the first time in weeks he thought a shade of anything other than his own survival.

“He was killed. It was then I received my final command. That’s why I came to you. I was too late to reach the woman in the alley.”

“I’m sorry”, he laughed, “This is insane on so many levels. My savior is a Trans Am fulfilling the last wish of a dying man. Thanks?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.” The voice exactly like a human filled with guilt.

“What are you sorry for? You saved me.”

“I’m not here to save you.”

A motion caught his peripheral vision the moment fingernails impaled the side of his face jerking it toward the window. He screamed and fought but it was too late. Teeth and pressure tore open the back of his head. The biting hurt worse then anything he could have imagined. His head ruined, life quickly fading, he stared helplessly out the window at the buildings racing past.

I didn’t check the back seat…

Time passed. KITT readied the ejection seat and maintenance protocols to dispose of the body. Try as he might he could not find a way past the programming blocks. He could not control himself any more than the turned humans. And like them he never tired and never slept. If only he hadn’t heard the final command...

“Brainsss”

The zombie moaned as blood dripped down its torn, black leather coat. KITT knew it would stop moving for a while, sitting motionless in the backseat like a normal passenger again until the hunger hit. The zombie exhaled a low, almost contented groan.

“Yes, Michael,” KITT answered.

Sand Jerks. Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate Tusken Raiders

I know I’m wading into some murky Geek waters but I’ve got to get this off my chest: Sand People are douche bags. There. I said it. No regrets. Whether by design or laziness, Lucas created an alien race whose main characteristic is being a big fat jerk. Let’s look at them solely from Anakin Skywalkers’ perspective. They shot at him when he’s a kid in the Pod Race. They kidnap and torture his mother to the point of death, thus damn near kicking him into the Dark Side of the Force. Years later they beat up the son he never knew he had. A few more years pass to find the Sand Jerks kidnapping and torturing (again with the torture!) his childhood best friend Kitster who escaped only with the help of Han and Leia. At least most of the other bad guys had reasons. Storm troopers were born from unquestioning clones hardwired to turn on the Jedi. Battle Droids were programmed (poorly) to kill whatever they were pointed at. Darth Sidious plotted and schemed and twisted back-buried daggers in the cold of night to further his quest for power. But not my darling little Raiders! Just douche bags all the way down. 

 (Jerk)

I’m not going anywhere with this in case you are wondering. Like I said, I simply had to get this off my chest. Sand People are doucherific. That’s all.

Brains? Not on MY watch!

Finally had the chance to order a few of our bumper stickers from Zazzle. They look pretty good, I think! You can fine them here: I'd rather be killing zombies

 

(2020 update. My God. Look how much darker my hair was. I mere child, was I.)

By Way of Goliath (a short story)

The cot had not been kind. His lower back woke before him, ushering in the morning with pain like the thrusts of a quick dagger.

“Boy! Bring salve!” he called out.

With every village and oasis they passed on the march, he sent slaves to buy ointments and medicines for the discomfort, but they all proved more worthless than sand. The worst pain, however, was not in his body, but his mind. Dark visions and nightmares filled his sleep when wine was not available in sufficient quantities. This new pain started several weeks earlier as a small nagging that surged like the tide when his unit received orders to defend a scrap of beach his king thought worth spilling blood over. It was known as The Vale of Terebirth. He had never heard of it.

“Boy! Have you fallen into a pit?”

“I am here,” said a thin youth of ten throwing back the tent’s flap. The low morning sun flooded the interior and filled its smallest corner.

“You are as subtle as a blind ox, boy,” said his master.

The boy halted and hung his head low.

“I am not yet in a mind to punish. Speak. Is this salve new?” The man carefully lifted his massive frame into a sitting position hoping it would ease the aching. It made it worse.

“Yes, master,” replied the boy. “It is unsurpassed in its soothing properties. That is what I was told.”

“Damn the women who bring these merchants into the world. Hurry and apply it before I set my anger for them upon you.”

“Yes, master,” he answered.

For forty days this had been his morning ritual: clenched-jaw sleep, waking pain, useless remedies, and the anticipation of a conflict that never came. Resigning himself to another hot and wasted day of standing, he sought escape by considering the invaders that bore him so far from home. Strangers lusting for land over which they held no claim. He often wondered why they wanted it. Who would want any part of a land that birthed a lonely, pain-filled tower like him? Alas, he sighed, the world is not a simple place. Perhaps it was in older times, but not in the present. Yet, with luck he would keep the blood of both forces well hidden, which he usually did. His size could scare an enemy’s champion into not fighting or shrink his heart enough that any combat was short lived. Either way the conflict was over quickly. Why was this time different? What was waiting to happen?

Suddenly his back turned against him with such ferocity he had to clutch one of the tent’s thick posts to keep from falling over. The pain flared in beat with his heart like a brother and he thought he might have to stop one to halt the other.

“Enough of this!” he grunted as he fought to straighten. “Today this ends.”

Today he would give the enemy his pain.

The day seemed brighter than normal as he exited his tent. The desert glare gave the camp and everything in it a harsh edge. Three older slaves immediately fell into close step bearing his weapons and armor. All camp activity slowed as he passed. They did not see a suffering giant. No one dared see that. They saw a mountain draped with deep rivers of violence. They knew today a life would end.

The soldier’s unit arrived at the designated area at mid-morning and he called to the enemy with all the hate his body could give him.

“Come, you cowards! Forty days I have called for your champion and I can wait no longer! Send him or go back to the sea. Send him or I shall cast you into the sea!” His great voice echoed off the rocks and dunes of the craggy shore.

To his surprise a boy, not a handful of seasons older than his youngest slave, came forward from their ranks. Who is this, he thought, a messenger? He looked to the faces of the trespassers for some answer, but as he watched them watch the youth he realized this was who they were sending to fight. A handsome youth with face and eyes still new to life. A boy who would one day have a woman, a home, and children. A boy who could walk among men, not above them, and who would know true companionship. A boy who could have all he was denied. His veins screamed and his hands grew cold with rage. What monsters have invaded our shores who throw their children to the slaughter? How dare they do this! Through this boy I will kill them all. I will give words to rebut and then strike him down before their lifeless eyes. I will fill the waves with the echoes of their breaking bones!

The giant stepped forward to smash this horrific injustice.

The boy calmly placed a small, cool stone in his sling.

V for Ven-Stupid

The V mask. The new Rage and Revolution icon. For those not comic versed, V for Vendetta was a 1980’s work crafted by writer Alan Moore and artist David Lloyd. The unnamed protagonist, referred to only as V, was victim and product of a fascist, post-nuclear war England who drew thematic manna from the real life person of Guy Fawkes. V gave his life opposing the abusive English regime (and by proxy all fascist/socialist/communist governments) all the while draping himself in the freeing embrace of anarchy. V’s most salient thought, to me, was his observation that anarchy is not the same as chaos. Pure anarchy is a society of mutual agreements without the necessity of a government. Pure anarchy requires maturity, thought, and the love of free existence.

 

So why am I dissing V? 

 

V, I don’t have a problem with. I like him. What bothers me is seeing his visage on the recent wave of protestors. Hypocritical? Stick with me. V, as a fictional character is, pro-individual. V, in my opinion, would FIGHT socialism. FIGHT collectivism. FIGHT the swinging fist of a mob as swiftly as fighting the swinging baton of a government thug. Swapping one collective for another is not progress or social justice. Most revolutions can be summarized as a violent cry of “We should be in charge.” and these Days of Rage strike me as nothing less. Also, can anyone guess where these social justice, freedom conscious defenders of the common man are getting their V masks? What paradise, what bastion of free thought, produces these plastic battle cries? Yup. CHINA. A country that rolls tanks to clear protestors, controls procreation, censors most everything, and runs “re-education” camps. Camps much like the one V was experimented/tortured in. Do you see my problem here? Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe not. I just can’t help wonder What Would V Do?