The French, Eat-Man, and other sordid tales


Just a quick note on the present (as I've decided to babble purely about safe topics like the distant past and comic books, I shall keep these references to the present brief), my salary's going up by $6k/year. Mmm. Raise. You may all feel jealous of my mightiness now.

Anyway, today's sordid tale of the past comes from the depths of my youth, and the earliest recorded instance of me being a surly little bastiche. Now, you must note that I don't actually remember this particular incident, as I was a young 'un at the time, but it just sounds so... like something I would do. I'm sure you'll agree when you read this missive.

A while after I was born, for no readily discernible reason, my parents decided that going and pottering around Europe for a bit would be a cool thing to do. I think it was because of one of those programs where research sciency types tend to get pinballed around between universities, but that's not really relevant to our tale (don't you love good, thorough background research?). Suffice to say that at the ripe young age of, well, darn young, I found myself in France seeing the sights.

Or, rather, being surly about being dragged around to all these damn Chateaus of people whose names I couldn't even pronounce. Keen Lewey the WHAT? Anyway, my parents, having a fine appreciation for the arts, just loved Chateaus, and we saw a lot of them.

After about the third or fourth chateau, I had gone from bored to cranky to out and out surly, and was just no fun to be around at all. But, damn it, my parents were determined to immerse themselves in chateauy french goodness. Something had to be done about it. But what?

One of these chateaus had a marvelously huge, delicately manicured lawn that streched mightily over a vast space in wide, green goodness. Many polite signs indicated in various languages to keep the hell off the grass. Even in my youth, I must have realized its importance, its pristine splendour, the effort that must have gone into its maintenance.

I say this because I proceeded to demonstrate how surly I was by scurrying out into the middle of this massive lawn, pulling down my pants (you have to remember that I was rather young at the time) and proceeding to urinate in front of a crowd of bemused spectators. The French are fond of children, and apparently though this was absolutely hillarious (they also were quite insistant that my parents were not going to be allowed to go out and get me, after all, the *signs* say *keep off the grass*). I was allowed to complete my task and toddle back.

We didn't visit any more chateaus that day.

And now, more comic book reviews.

Daredevil #6: And here I thought the Marvel Knights imprint was supposed to be good. What the hell is up with all this millennium crap? Anyway, everyone's favorite Man Without Fear goes after the guy who ordered his girlfriend killed, despite the fact that it's obviously a setup. Oh, and a baby who's apparently the antichrist fits into this somehow. And there are many angel and devil and whatnot allusions. Someone needs to tell these writers that it's been done already, thanks, and I'd rather it just go away. I think I reached my saturation point for neo-Christian millenial crap when they turned Punisher into some kind of reincarnated spirit of angelic vengeance or the like. Um. Hello? This would be fine in a 'What If?', because then you know it would go away at the end of the arc. When I want allusions to the antichrist, I'll turn on the All Religious Rants Channel, or better yet, pick up one of the zillions of books that ALREADY BEAT THIS CLICHE TO DEATH. Ahem. Good art, though.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #3: Our party of brave Victorian public-domain adventurers continues their investigation into the stolen Cavorite (an anti-gravity material), eventually tracking down the man who masterminded the theft... the Nefalious Doctol Fu Manchu!! Or, rather, someone who looks and acts *just like* him, but who we can't actually *call* the Nefarious Doctor Fu Manchu because he's not in the public domain yet. It seems the Doctor is building a giant, anti-gravity Dreadnaught with all that Cavorite... This is obviously a bad, bad thing. Many shotguns are set out on stage, and no doubt they'll all be fired by the end of the plot arc. Mm-mm. Nothing like good ol' fashioned Victorian adventure.

Earth-X #3: It's Kingdom Come in the Marvel Universe, with the exception of the fact that it sucks. Whups. I'm a mutant, you're a mutant, everyone's a mutant, and it's all Reed Richards' fault! Oh, and a telepathic kid who wants to be the Red Skull figures in here somewhere. I bet it's Franklin 'God-Boy' Richards. Everyone's surly in this book, pretty much, except for those who are clueless (Luna) or angstful (Reed). Uatu, the Watcher, continues to be an ass, but this is to be expected from a hypocritical pug like him. I never liked the Watcher, and I hope by the end of this, someone delivers unto him a good, swift kick in the head. I'll probably end up buying this whole thing because I like a good deconstructionist story-line, but hey, that doesn't mean I can't surl about it. I'm not even entirely sure what's going on any more. There's some main plot about trying to reverse the forced mutation of all humanity, but there also seem to be a zillion subplots about the Red Skull, Hydra, and other stock superhero stuff. Yadda.

In other news, one of the little book-size anime graphic novels has been staring at me every time I go into the local comic book stores, and I finally couldn't take it any more and bought the accursed thing. It's name is... 'Eat-Man'!

Eat-Man (also known as 'Bolt Crank', which actually qualifies as a surprisingly relevant name as faux-english anime character names go), has a bottomless stomach and an appetite for metal. Mmm. Metal. It seems that Mr. Crank can reconstruct any device he eats and output it through his hand. In fact, he can send pretty much anything he eats or drinks out through his hand, often with amusing results. It's not clear wether he actually has to eat *real* food, or wether he runs on any handy fuel. None of this is actually explained much, it's just shown, which is probably a good thing because any attempt at an explanation would just sound stupid.

Eat-Man's adventures mostly consist of wandering aimlessly and getting into trouble, like all true heroes seem to do. Along the way, he seems to, somehow, always end up with a nubile young woman of varying levels of competance tagging along (or, in one case, ditching his ungrateful butt way out in the wilderness). Like most anime heroes, Bolt is supremely competant, and always has a plan, or a device up his sleeve (literally). Unfortunately, he likes to leave the screws that make up whatever his latest weapon of choice is until last so that he can munch them as a snack as he goes. This often results in amusement when he drops or misplaces one at an inopportune time and has to hunt around... Always said that boy had a screw loose.

Good, solid, if even more bizarre than normal anime adventure. At least there are no panty shots (the nubile secondary characters are often *already* in battle bikinis, so they don't count). Plus you get to see Eat-Man chowing down on miscellaneous bits of metal, to the amusement of all concerned. Eeeeeeeat.

Today's Moral: "If you are what you eat, the only true humans are cannibals."

Next Time: Big ol' book o' manga.

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