Black Lanterns and Overkill

My pen name in Overkill was Charles Victor Szasz. It's nuts to type it this many times in an article. Anyway. I submitted this elsewhere and apparently, it didn't take. Here's something about the Question #37.

Go Saints!

I got excited from the first five words: Charles Victor Szasz of Earth.

During a DC Universe-wide event (Something big happens in the fictional universe, to which the monthly series respond and draw upon) Blackest Night, the main artist took some time off and in the place of the main story, 10 cancelled series were brought back for a one-off issue tying into the event.

One of those was the Question, a little known monthly series active in the 80s, starring a C-list hero called the Question. It ran for 36 issues and ended there, influencing most of today's top writers and hadn't been touched since. (The characters were used elsewhere, but not in their own ongoing monthly series.) The series itself was a mix of Mike Royko and Batman, a 200-level philosophy final and Zen Bhudduism that congealed around Charles Victor Szasz, a TV news anchor who went out crusading as the vigilante without a face, the Question, at night.

It ended with him leaving the city because he was too attached to the city and to his lover there to be the Question without emotional pain.

The big event in universe to thank for the one-shot, Blackest Night, is about zombies. Evil zombies feeding off of the emotions for the person, if I had to be specific. In universe, Szasz is dead from lung cancer and his protege, Renee Montoya, is the current Question.

The issue's storyline goes like this: By an incredibly loose definition of a comic book reanimation, Szasz is back as a Black Lantern and it's up to Aristotle Rodor (mentor), Renee and Lady Shiva (kung-fu master, hyper violent) to beat Black Lantern Szasz.

Trouble is, they can't.

Past this point are spoilers, by the way.

The way this is dealt with is what sells me on the book. They don't defeat Black Lantern Szasz in combat. The vision of the Black Lanterns only extends to beings with emotions they can feel. A person who has no emotions will disappear and that's what the group does. They let go of their feelings towards Szasz and Black Lantern Szasz can't see them, so he walks out into the rain.

In short: Szasz had to let go to truly become the Question and his friends had to let go of their feelings for Szasz to survive. If you're aware of the history, it's a callback and if not, it's a unique piece of the larger Blackest Night mystery revealed. This issue, #37, has many different weights on it and shoulders them all. It's one part resolution for the lingering memories of Szasz and one part Blackest Night puzzle piece, set up and done in a way that is reminiscent of the series from years ago.

The issue was done the right way, with the original artist and writer coming back, even titling the issue One More Question. Shame that there's only the one.

Of Sailing Ships and Ceiling Wax, of Cabbages and Kings

Blogger informs me that this post is, internally at least, the one hundredth post to exist on this site. This includes any number of drafts that were never posted, sad forgotten creatures unlikely to ever see the light of day or to serve any purpose except to make me feel like we might have accomplished something here.

To wit: in the seven months (really?) and two days (really really?) this website has existed, we have written on it. Not as much as we should have (I am exceptionally guilty) or, perhaps, as well as we might have (there is ever room for improvement), but we have written.

And we will continue to do so as we pass this largely nonexistent milestone. We are living, as the chinese curse goes, in interesting times. In order that we might survive, I think it is best that we practice being interesting people.

I didn't really have a vision when I came up with the idea for this website, beyond perhaps getting my friends and I to write things that we enjoyed and maybe, one day, being able to buy a pitcher of beer at the Penny Bar with strange coins plucked from the aether. I still feel much the same day: we are here to write and have fun, and perhaps even to better ourselves or create some content worth consuming, if we are capable of such.

In any case, not-quite-nonexistent audience: thank you very much for joining us. Next time I update, I'll try to bring some actual content with me. Would you prefer the update about One Piece I promised you a millenia ago, or would you like to hear about how I want a t-shirt declaring my allegiance to Mike Gravel in the 2012 election?

I figure it will be the last election, coming at the very end of the world. We might as well get it right for once.

Alternately, we could elect him the second Emperor of America. Emperor Norton I has gone far too long without a successor.

I suppose I answered my own question there a little. Still, if you're out there, in the dark, with a keyboard and a working internet connection, consider dropping a comment here and telling me what you would like to hear more about: politics or nerdery.