tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post6210514799633445268..comments2024-02-16T11:41:37.696-05:00Comments on Todd Seavey: Tell Me What You Remember, Mr. SavageTodd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-56176466627979384092008-05-07T10:22:00.000-04:002008-05-07T10:22:00.000-04:00Regarding that e-mail exchange tracing the etymolo...Regarding that e-mail exchange tracing the etymology of the “I’m X, bitch” catchphrase:<br><br>Even if one was so isolated as to totally miss the whole David Chapelle/Rick James thing, surely any good nerd would recognize the iteration “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch” from the last X-Men movie, which line was stuck in there as a nod to an earlier viral video/YouTube meme that itself was wildly popular.<br><br>Regardless, that nerdism implies a lack of awareness of other pop culture phenomena is an interesting concept. But it don’t gotta be that way, honest…Ali Kokmennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-74048871503135297732008-05-06T07:58:00.000-04:002008-05-06T07:58:00.000-04:00that’s very funny.that’s very funny.Jacob T. Levyhttp://jacobtlevy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-70118355291513034152008-05-06T06:41:00.000-04:002008-05-06T06:41:00.000-04:00The e-mail exchange below (read bottom-up) is pret...The e-mail exchange below (read bottom-up) is pretty good evidence that nerdism has its price in lost knowledge of other areas of the pop spectrum, by the way: <br><br>On May 6, 2008, at 7:31 AM, Todd Seavey wrote: <br><br>Ah, so _that’s_ where the line in the comic book _Countdown to Final Crisis_, uttered by Wonder Woman’s sister, “I’m Donna Troy, bitch!” came from. Now the DC Universe makes sense to me. A lot of things make sense to me now. <br><br>On May 5, 2008, at 11:32 PM, Nybakken Scott wrote:<br><br>Todd, it falls to me to point out that this episode first aired *five years ago*, and was an instant media sensation, spawning a catchphrase (“I’m Rick James, bitch!”) that was repeated by every male between the ages of 18-35 for *two solid years*, and has so thoroughly entrenched itself into American pop culture that when Dave Chappelle discontinued work on the third season of the show, it was national news for weeks. As always, Wikipedia has more:<br><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappelle" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappelle</a>’s_Show<br><br> –Scott<br><br> On 5/4/08 8:02 PM, “Todd Seavey” wrote:<br><br>I don’t know if this is typical of his show (I’m not even sure I’m spelling his name correctly), but last night for the first time I watched a whole _Chapelle’s Show_ episode, and though it wasn’t all that funny, I found it fascinating just because it was a narrative structure you genuinely don’t see on TV very often: a non-fiction framing sequence with heavily fictionalized flashback sequences — specifically, Eddie Murphy’s older brother Charlie, who seemed fairly dumb but likable in an Eddie-like way, telling true stories about all the times he had to beat up Rick James to punish him for misbehavior, with Chapelle playing Rick James in exaggerated fashion in the flashbacks, which were all barbarously simple, such as the time Eddie and Charles beat on James’s legs to punish him for grinding his mud-covered boots into Eddie’s couch, due to all the cocaine he had consumed. That’s television.Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-32553435572842612162008-05-04T08:52:00.000-04:002008-05-04T08:52:00.000-04:00I suppose if this (Earth-1?) version of the LoSH h...I suppose if this (Earth-1?) version of the LoSH had its history start deviating from what’s on record right after Crisis on Infinite Earths, there’s a certain logic to that — does that work?Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-43100215433769962132008-05-04T06:15:00.000-04:002008-05-04T06:15:00.000-04:00You read that in a monologue from Starman,whose sc...You read that in a monologue from Starman,whose schizophrenia seems linked to an awareness of multiple timelines and earths. I don’t think anyone else has referred to KK’s original death.<br><br>Anyway, I don’t think internal consistency is particularly possible at this point. The present Superman and Wonder Woman seem to have both their pre-Crisis and post-Crisis histories in their heads, more or less, and while it’s ok for Power Girl to be a hard case, giving up o the continuity of those two is a way of giving up on the whole history-fixing enterprise. Now there’s just a nostalgia well that contains any published stories Geoff Johns wants to make reference to.Jacob T. Levyhttp://jacobtlevy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-26904623868983135642008-05-03T21:45:00.000-04:002008-05-03T21:45:00.000-04:00I didn’t read those stories, but I think I read so...I didn’t read those stories, but I think I read somewhere that Karate Kid says at some point (perhaps elsewhere) that he _did_ die, presumably in the LSH-LSV war, then came back (only to die again in _Countdown…_). That may reconcile your Sensor Girl problem, though they never promised you the new continuity would exactly match the old (even said explicitly it wouldn’t in fact) — and I’ve said ever since 1985 that I don’t mind change as long as we end up somewhere that’s _internally_ consistent.<br><br>Truth be told, I also don’t even mind them saying “certain events and characters are just inherently weird and difficult to pin down, like something out of quantum mechanics, due to the time travel stuff involved” — but simply dodging the questions is not the same thing as pleading Hypertime.Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-54808348212305034602008-05-03T21:29:00.000-04:002008-05-03T21:29:00.000-04:00This whole conversation gives me a headache.This whole conversation gives me a headache.T.A.B.http://theanonymousblogger.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-1952206346508332852008-05-03T18:02:00.000-04:002008-05-03T18:02:00.000-04:00You didn’t read the Johns-written Action issues wi...You didn’t read the Johns-written Action issues with the Legion, I take it. What we have is a Legion roughly consistent with the Levitz Legion through Crisis that hung out with Clark Kent (not Superboy) from Smallville. But then there was a divergence from the published storyline at some indeterminate time after Crisis but before the great LSH-LSV war when Karate Kid was killed. The Legion we’ve seen everywhere except the LSH book for the last two years has been that one– supposedly the Levitz Legion that, instead of the LSV plotline and everything that came after, lived through a xenophobic anti-alien takeover of earth led by a Duplicate Boy knockoff who kidnapped Sun Boy, had the sun turned red, etc. The Legion had to go underground, and the mildly-dystopic future they were living in meant that some of their personalities became more extreme than we remember from Levitz days. (The plotline had lots of elements that were vaguely like the Giffen 5 years later era– earth vs. the UP, for example– but the Giffen stuff is definitely not in their continuity.) Lightning Lad was certainly a short-fuse hothead sometimes in the Levitz era; now he’s moreso.<br><br>The big difficulty with reconciling the whole thing with the Levitz era up through Crisis is the coexistence of Karate Kid and Sensor Girl.Jacob T. Levyhttp://jacobtlevy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-59535706428512975932008-05-03T17:25:00.000-04:002008-05-03T17:25:00.000-04:00Oh, and I won’t give it away here, but it is also ...Oh, and I won’t give it away here, but it is also nice to see a character I’ve twice praised on this site reappearing at the end, further confirming that there are some people who think like me (or rather my demo/psych-profile) in charge at DC lately.Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-73746958801685660742008-05-03T17:23:00.000-04:002008-05-03T17:23:00.000-04:00On the bright side, the new issue (#864) of _Actio...On the bright side, the new issue (#864) of _Action Comics_, as both you and Michael Malice told me, does a nice job not only of setting up the impending _Final Crisis_ companion miniseries _Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds_ but does a very good job of showing the kind of creepiness and ominous confusion that can result from time being periodically rewritten (specifically, the three versions of the Legion — with the dark-Giffen and SW6 versions circa 1990 falling through the cracks, for good or ill). <br><br>The most amazing thing about the issue may be that it actually followed up on two major developments from the awful, weekly, year-long series _Countdown to Final Crisis_, the events of which played so little role in this week’s _DC Universe: Zero_ one-shot that I thought for sure a consensus had been quietly reached among fans and creators alike to just never speak of _Countdown…_ again (for the most part, we still won’t, I’m guessing). <br><br>The most confusing thing about the issue, though, is Lightning Lad: Is the “main” one that we see throughout the issue actually consistent with the way they’ve been depicting the grown-up quasi-pre-Crisis-on-Infinite-Earths Lightning Lad in recent stories (which I didn’t read)? He doesn’t remind _me_ of the Lightning Lad I remember from pre-1985 — but he clearly mourns fallen quasi-pre-Crisis comrades, so I’ll assume he’s not supposed to be a “fourth” version of LL unless you tell me otherwise.Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-18901964569443083512008-05-03T13:36:00.000-04:002008-05-03T13:36:00.000-04:00During the post-COIE and pre-IC years there was at...During the post-COIE and pre-IC years there was at least a possibility of a coherent answer and the aspiration to find one. Constant energy was poured into Hawkmen and Legions and Valors trying to work out a coherent unified timeline (or rather one pre-ZH and one post-ZH timeline). We had a Secret Origins patch for what the Crisis was that killed the Flash, and so on. Now I don’t think there are even possible answers, since we don’t even know what the life story of Superman and Wonder Woman look like.Jacob T. Levyhttp://jacobtlevy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com