El Secreto Needs YOUR VOTE!

This Sunday on HOUR 42, Peter Pixie and I will be playing Fantasy Hero Football -- and I need your help fielding a team!

The rules are as such: PP said he'll use heroes from the DC Universe, and I get to cherry-pick from any other company. Good times for me, no?

With so many characters available, I wanted to open up the process and solicit help picking the right players -- and, today, the right coach. Here are the contenders:

Norman Osborn (Marvel) I know what you're thinking: How could The Green Goblin even be an option, right? That's the beauty of it -- right now he's the biggest hero in the Marvel U.! Formerly the head of the Thunderbolts, Stormin' Norman made himself out to be the key to Earth's victory over the Secret Invasion, an act which gets him influence over the entire superhero population, including his own team of Avengers. So, who better to run my show than the guy who's effectively running the 616?

Pluses: Coaching philosophy could be Vince Lombardi on Super-Serum
Minuses: Coaching philosophy could also be Vince McMahon on Super-Serum


Rupert Giles (Dark Horse) An assemblage of power needs wisdom to direct it, and good ol' Giles has plenty of that, as well as the magical know-how to tip the scales if need be -- and the occasional bit of ruthlessness to know when to use it. Unlike Osborn, though, Giles is less likely to piss people off. And much less likely to take all the credit when the game's won.

Pluses: Experience managing and motivating the most problematic personnel on Earth -- teenage girls.
Minuses: Prior disdain for American football might make him dismiss the very idea of a Big Game as "rubbish."


Reed Richards (Marvel)A good coach needs to know his or her x's and o's. Why not go with a guy who knows x's, o's, y's, z's and any other variable you can come up with? Mr. Fantastic might be the candidate who "gets" the game the best, not just as a series of applications and probability exercises, but as a game. He'd be a teacher and a fan, and possibly the most heroic coach I could find.

Pluses: "Elastic consciousness" could give team a living playbook, creating new schemes on the fly, confounding any defense.
Minuses: Can a coach be too smart for his own team? It might be the case here.

The Doctor (IDW)How about nearly 1,000 years of experience leading the squad? How about knowledge spanning a whole cosmos? How about creativity that probably rivals Richards'? How about a cute female assistant coach? How about the ability to pluck plays from anywhere in time? How about the ultimate motivator?

Pluses: Combines Giles' wisdom with Richards' theoretical knowledge, topped off by his own innate creativity, curiosity and tenacity.
Minuses: Might share Giles' disdain for American football, or be put off if his Companion fancies one of the players.

So there you have the nominees. Just vote on the handy-dandy gadget on the page and I'll announce the results Sunday night on HOUR 42!

-- ES

Batman, B.I.A.B?

SPOILER ALERT ON



Is Batman/Bruce Wayne dead? Short answer: I don't think so, despite the conclusion reached in this spoiler-rific commentary on Final Crisis #6. Why? There's many reasons beyond "He makes the company too much money."

1. This latest Crisis started with a resurrection nobody wanted expected, Barry Allen. When a character whose primary contribution to comics was dying is resurrected, that doesn't bode well for any other "deaths" that transpire during the story.
2. In the same issue where Batman is seemingly charbroiled by Darkseid, we're introduced to a "Miracle Machine" entrusted to Superman. Gee, I wonder what Clark would wish for regarding his best pal?
3. There's already proof the "Omega Sanction" Darkseid blasted Bats with isn't fatal; in Crisis writer Grant Morrison's much-ballyhooed but ultimately-forgotten Seven Soldiers series, the new Mister Miracle is hit with the Sanction, basically an advanced mind-whammy that forces the recipient into a series of successively worse lives. Not only did Mr. M survive the experience, he escaped. And if he could do it, is there any reason Batman couldn't?
4. There's still one issue left in Final Crisis, so there's still time for a reboot button to be it -- allowing Bruce Wayne to survive, just maybe not as Batman.

So, while there's potential to resurrect the character, rehabilitating him might end up being trickier. Because in that final confrontation, Morrison wrote Batman as shooting Darkseid with the same Magic Bullet that killed Orion. And as hackneyed as the phrase "betrayal of the character" has been made by endless commenters on endless message boards, this is one instance where it might actually stick. For the guy whose entire mission was based on taking down evil without actually killing it to suddenly make a "once-in-a-lifetime exception," as Morrison wrote is going to be really hard to swallow and reconcile for readers, let alone the character whenever he returns.

Be sure to tune in Sunday night, when Peter Pixie and I will discuss this and other heroic topics on Hour 42!


-- ES