Apart they’ve been content to merely make fun of Nightwing and Eduardo Risso (sorry, I mean Dave Johnson) … but what happens when they join forces?! That’s the stirring question that will be answered this week as Tucker Stone and Noah Berlatsky have joined forces to take on the black and white phonebook collection known as Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold Batman Team-Ups 2.
The pair will trade off reviewing three issues (or chapters if you prefer) at a time. Stone covered #88-90 yesterday, Berlatsky will examine issues #91-93 today and so on. It should make for some fun reading. Here, for example, is what Tucker had to say about issue #89:
Look, you either ride this bull because you fucking like this bull or you don’t. It’s a metaphor! It’s an allegory! It’s all rife with the meaning of the Heroic Saga, as written by Joseph Campbell “The Dumbest Literary Philosopher In The Bargain Bin Of Literary Philosophy” and popularized by George Lucas, the patron saint of “If something has a double meaning, it’s clearly, oh so clearly, better then Tolstoy.” No. Don’t get your pretension in here. Take it and shove it up your ass, and take Mallard Fillmore with you: those are your comics. Not for us, for us, it’s Bob Fucking Haney, and Haney understands you, 1970. Haney is going to teach you that when it wears spandex, and when it punches shit, that it is to scream like a housewife, worry about Dick Grayson, and entertain. This is entertainment, it’s pure. If Stan Lee knew that a bunch of people with way more time on their hands then they had sense were going to write terrible books about how Spider-man defined a culture, he would’ve jumped out a window and shot up the floors he passed on the way down. And we would be a better race of knuckle-draggers for it.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Well, if the above is an example of the general tone, and level of wit, of this project, I’ll stick to re-reading the old comics. As daft, disposable entertainment, they worked fine for me as a kid, and now I can look back on them with a wry smile.
I mean, sure, mock the odd issue, but pour a bucket of negativity on an entire run?
November 19th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I think you’re misinterpreting: “Now, that stuff on its own–yes, it’s kind of silly. It’s even sort of…well, dumb. But it works, and I’d gather that it works because the story moves quickly, and there’s zero pretension to it.”
November 19th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Ta, OBL, that quote puts another perspective on things, but what I read here didn’t encourage me to go the site; too shouty and sweary!
November 19th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Haven’t I read this exact same thing, but funnier, on The Invincible Super-Blog?
November 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I don’t get it.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I mean, sure, mock the odd issue, but pour a bucket of negativity on an entire run?
Actually, he’s mocking modern comics in comparison to Haney’s Brave and the Bold.
Here’s a diagram:
Haney’s Brave and the Bold > Most Modern Superhero Comics.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:17 am
I’d rather just listen to Tom vs the Flash. By the way, if you don’t listen to Tom vs the Flash, you’re a certifiable moron.