G33K!

It was 20 years ago that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created Watchmen and destroyed, nearly at a stroke, the universe of superheroes we had built up over the 40 years previous. Costumed crusaders were no longer light-hearted and comical, they were dark-hearted and held secrets as great and word-shattering as their powers. Watchmen deconstructed and reshaped the way we see our heroes; innocence was no longer a part of who they were—our saviors would henceforth and forever be as scarred as we.

In his book Soon I Will Be Invincible (Pantheon), Alan Grossman has updated the heroes and antiheroes birthed by the rise of Watchmen and its imitators, and surprisingly, turned the entire genre on its head. Instead of imagining superheroes inhabiting our world, with our moral ambiguities and ever-dwindling supply of people to look up to, Grossman has put us in their world, allowing us to see what normal people would be like if they happened to be struck by cosmic rays/bitten by a radioactive animal/fallen from another planet/etc. What it would be like if you were a nearly-invincible super-villain from the ‘60s who just happened to be the smartest man on Earth (like Doctor Impossible). What it would be like if you were a souped-up cyborg from the ‘90s struggling to make it as a second-tier hero named Fatale.

And if the characters in Watchmen were us, they were the side of us trying to come to grips with a sudden lack of heroes we could believe in. If the characters in SIWBI are us, they are the part of each of us that struggles to make it through the day, to reconcile the choices we’ve made in our lives with the things we’ve given up. The dysfunctionality in Watchmen is monstrous, despair-inducing and emotionally crippling; the despair in

SIWBI is human, embarrassingly familiar and mundanely neurotic. And yet, to see characters with the power to shape the universe and know they have problems with relationships is incredibly comforting, because they no longer fly above us. Through Grossman’s words, he has let us know that all of them—every single hero and villain—are filled with the same foibles and emotional detritus that molds every one of us. They are Peter Parker striking out with the ladies; they are Lex Luthor holding all the aces and somehow never managing to win.

And in that regard, Grossman has given us an admittedly not perfect, but humble portrait of those who would save and destroy us. They may be able to craft a doomsday machine every other week, but in the dark of the night they wonder if they could have done it all differently, and somehow, weirdly, that is reassuring.

NEWS:

_In what must be the most ill-conceived of the latest bout of movie remakes (and believe me, I don’t say that lightly), Warner Brothers has convinced itself it would be a good idea to remake Enter the Dragon. Yeah, because there’s so many martial artists out there that have the charm, panache, physical fitness and moves of Bruce Lee. There is only one way this could possibly turn out well: cast Tony Jaa in it. And if they do that, they might as well just let Tony Jaa do Tony Jaa stuff, except then we’d just end up with Ong-Bak or Tom-Yum-Goong, which we already have, so there’s no need to remake it. Ta-da!

_Due to concerns about the inclusion of certain characters and their copyright status in various countries, Alan Moore’s forthcoming book The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier will only be available in the US. Unless, that is, you have access to Amazon.com or any store in the States willing to ship books up north. I suppose DC is covering their ass by doing this, but seriously—I’ve seen more effective embargoes involving the internet and saying ‘please’.

_And finally, if you think I’m not giving you the daily dose of g33kiness that you need (which would seem to imply you’re not spending enough time in close proximity to me), I encourage you to check out Morgan Webb’s new g33ky news vlog at WebbAlert.com. Because, let’s face it, we all need hot ladies to talk nerdy to us once in a while (or four times a week).

JUST RELEASED:

As time marches on, the thrill of cracking your copy of Deathly Hallows at 12:01am wears off and owning a DVD copy of 300 isn’t what it was a couple of weeks ago (not after watching it a dozen times, anyway). What’s a self-respecting g33k to do? Brace yourself for the next wave of stuff that you need to own. Okay, maybe you don’t need to own the Doctor Strange cartoon DVD, but you know you want to see him lay the smack down on Mordo with the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. You also want to see the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters—even after the mediocre reviews—because it’s got Carl and the Mooninites in it, and one of them will likely lay the smack down on the other (though perhaps not with the Crimson Bands). If you want to pretend to be a faerie who lays the smack down on the human race (and other faeries), you’ll be wanting to pick up the new White Wolf roleplaying game Changeling: The Lost, and if you want to proclaim your love for Satan while not relinquishing your Wednesday trip to the comic shop you’ll want your very own copy of Superman #666. After you’re done all that, go home, turn off the lights, play Bioshock (PC and Xbox) and let its 12 layers of creepiness lay the smack down on your sanity.