Ian McShane

Ian McShane discussing Richard Burton and "Villain" on The Jonathan Ross...

Ian McShane recounts working 

with the great Richard Burton 

on the 1971 film "Villain" 

on The Jonathan Ross Show

Superman Red/Superman Blue

“The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue!”

The original Superman-Red/Superman-Blue tale is an “Imaginary Story” that first appeared in Superman #162 (July 1963). The script was written by Leo Dorfman, with art by Curt Swan.

In the story, Superman is compelled to finish a list of unaccomplished goals, including the enlargement of the Bottle City of Kandor and eliminating crime and evil from Earth. In order to accomplish these goals, Superman invents a machine, powered by various types of kryptonite, that will increase his intelligence. The machine works, increasing Superman’s intelligence a hundredfold, but with the unexpected side effect of splitting Superman into twin beings, one outfitted in an all-red Superman costume and the other in an all-blue version. The twins name themselves Superman-Red and Superman-Blue.

The Supermen, using their enhanced intellects, first repair Brainiac’s “enlarging ray”. They then create a means to bring all the fragments of Krypton together, creating a “New Krypton” (eliminating all existing kryptonite in the process), and successfully enlarge Kandor on its surface, freeing its citizens from their bottle prison. At the urging of Lori Lemaris, the Supermen create an underwater world for the citizens of Atlantis and arrange an interstellar voyage to transport them to their new home. The two Supermen go on to create an “anti-evil” ray which can cure criminal tendencies in anyone. They place the ray into satellites in orbit around the Earth, curing not only villains such as Lex Luthor and Mr. Mxyzptlk, but reforming Communists such as Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro. The reformed Luthor goes on to invent a serum that cures all known diseases, which the Supermen put into the water supply. Supergirl then releases the Phantom Zone inmates, also reformed by the ray, and they immigrate to New Krypton in a spaceship provided by the Legion of Super-Heroes.

With nearly all of the world’s problems solved, the two Supermen now have the opportunity to deal with personal matters. The split allows them to resolve the love triangle between Superman, Lois Lane, and Lana Lang. Superman-Red proposes to Lois, while Superman-Blue asks Lana to marry him. Each woman claims her own Superman, and they have a triple wedding: Superman-Blue and Lana, Superman-Red and Lois, and Lucy Lane marrying Jimmy Olsen (since Lucy need no longer wait for Lois to marry before she does). Red decides to live on New Krypton with Lois, renouncing his powers and raising a family, while Blue remains on Earth and retires to devote his life to scientific research and starting a Super-family of his own.

Superman-Red and Superman-Blue appeared again in a story written by Bob Rozakis and Paul Kupperberg and illustrated by Adrian Gonzales and Vince Colletta and first published in German in Superman Album No. 1 in West Germany in 1981. The story was published in English in 1982 in the oversized Superman Spectacular (an unnumbered one-shot in the United States but published as No. 1 in a series in The United Kingdom.) In this story, Red Kryptonite causes Superman to be temporarily split into Superman-Red and Superman-Blue and the two Supermen battle Lex Luthor and Terra-Man.

Superman-Red and Superman-Blue appear in a panel in Infinite Crisis #5, when Alexander Luthor, Jr. is trying to fuse the many alternate Supermen.

“Superman Red/Superman Blue”

The second incarnation of Superman Red and Superman Blue began in a 1998 storyline. While temporarily deprived of the solar energy required to give him powers, Superman had developed energy-based abilities, which eventually forced him to adopt a blue and white containment suit to prevent the energy dispersing. While retaining most of his abilities, he could now also sense different kinds of energy, including the trail of radioactivity from a passing van, bolts of electricity and magnetic tractor beams rather than his original heat vision. 

He was also able to absorb the radiation, although this was incredibly painful. He also gained the ability to turn his powers “off,” though this took time to control as he inadvertently fried a toaster at home. This switch to Clark Kent also left him as vulnerable as a normal human, which was a bit of a surprise to him when he stubbed his toe while answering the phone. This version of Superman was referred to by some fans as “Electric Blue Superman”.

In the Superman Red/Superman Blue one-shot (February 1998), a trap created by the Cyborg Superman working with Toyman, caused Superman to split into two beings who represented different aspects of his personality, though each believed himself to be the original. Superman Blue was the more cerebral entity, preferring to think his way out of situations and actually solve problems with his mind as well as his powers. Superman Red was more rash, but also more decisive, preferring action over taking the time to think. Over time, these two personalities grew more and more polarized and individual, to the point that neither entity wanted to become one Superman again.

Both Supermen deeply loved Lois Lane; unlike in the earlier Red/Blue story, there was not another love interest for one of the Supermen to pair up with. Instead, they fought over Lois’ affections, each with almost no consideration for her feelings; Lois lost her tolerance for this and essentially kicked them both out of the house until they could figure out how to unite.

Perplexed, both Red and Blue flew to Antarctica to see if Kryptonian technology could solve the issue, but were met by a woman named Obsession, who had previously shown an incredible level of romantic lust for Superman. Then Maxima, another superpowered female admirer of Superman’s (only this one was far more volatile), stepped in. While Obsession liked the idea of two Supermen, Maxima found the existence of two utterly unacceptable. A fight broke out between the women when Obsession offered to share them with the Amazon from Almerac, insulting Maxima’s royal sensibilities. Superman Red and Superman Blue separated and reprimanded the combatants.

Following a battle with the Millennium Giants (Cabraca, Cerne and Sekhmet), the two Supermen merged and Superman returned to his normal powers and original costume.  The explanation is vague; Superman felt he was “rewarded” for Saving The World, although he later claimed that he returned to normal when his electromagnetic energy dispersed.

Although Superman briefly returned to his electric-blue form when facing Brainiac-13 after he was apparently absorbed by Brainiac’s energy conduits while trying to disrupt his power supply, this was revealed to be the result of Brainiac 2.5–Brainiac-13’s past self, hiding in Lena Luthor to avoid being deleted by his future self–creating the electric Superman based on scans taken of Superman in that form, intercepting B-13’s attempt to absorb Superman and uploading Superman’s mind into the electric body to keep Brainiac-13 occupied while Superman’s true body was restored in a LexCorp facility.

Superman Red appears in Superman/Batman #25 alongside an army of alternate Supermen and Batmen.

VILLAGE

This word,

"Villain"

Do you know where it comes from? 

C'est francais.

It means, originally, 

"One Who Lives in a Village." 

A Peasant.

Do I seem like a peasant to you? 

village (n.)

late 14c., "inhabited place larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town," from Old French vilage "houses and other buildings in a group" (usually smaller than a town), from Latin villaticum "farmstead" (with outbuildings), noun use of neuter singular of villaticus "having to do with a farmstead or villa," from villa "country house" (from PIE root *weik- (1) "clan"). As an adjective from 1580s. 

Village idiot is recorded from 1825. 

Related: Villager (1560s).

*weik- (1)

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "clan, social unit above the household."

It forms all or part of: antoecian; bailiwick; Brunswick; diocese; ecology; economy; ecumenical; metic; nasty; parish; parochial; vicinage; vicinity; viking; villa; village; villain; villanelle; -ville; villein; Warwickshire; wick (n.2) "dairy farm."

[FAROUK CHUCKLES SOFTLY.]

This word, "Villain" 

Do you know where it comes from? 

C'est francais.

It means, originally, 

"One Who Lives in a Village."

A peasant.

Do I seem like a peasant to you...? 

You know what I mean.

No.

This is important.

Language.

The meaning of things.

You called me a Villain.

Me, the king.

[SPEAKING PERSIAN.]

For decades I rule over my country.

I'm a good king.

Strong but just.

My people, they prosper.

And then your father a white man, which is –

You tell me, important...? 

He comes.

Does he speak our language? 

Does he know our customs? 

And he decides what? 

That my people should have better.

That he knows better.

Who is he to make such choices?

LEGION :

[SETS GLASS DOWN.]

You fed off me when I was a baby.

And I'm supposed to feel, what, sorry for you? 

FAROUK:

Is it such a terrible thing?

To feel sorrow for your enemy? What is he, except a brother with another name? 

LEGION :

We're not brothers.

[POPS.]

[WATER BURBLING.]

FAROUK:

You are still young.

You think justice is a glass jar.

You fill it with your hurt, your hate.

Don't you think I have my own jar? I'm a refugee.

Do you know the meaning of that word? Refugee.

Driven from my home, in exile.

Prisoner in another man's body.

LEGION :

Nobody put you in my head.

Or Oliver's.

You made a choice.

FAROUK :

[CHUCKLES.]

: Of course.

If the choice is between death or life I choose life.

LEGION :

Listen, I'll call you when I have the monk somewhere safe.

He takes us to your body, and then you are gone.

Gone.

No one ever hears your name again.

FAROUK :

Interesting, don't you think? 

You're doing this for a woman you love who lives in a future you're going to destroy if you help me.

LEGION :

What do you mean? 

FAROUK :

The timeline.

She lives in a future you are trying to change, and when you do, she will cease to exist.

So really you are helping her to commit suicide.

Oh, and be careful with the monk.

He is very [SPEAKS GERMAN.]

Contagious.

See, this, uh [TEETH CHATTERING.] madness.

They think it's me, that I'm infecting people.

But it's him.

He's Toxic.

He is like Typhoid Mary.

But where he goes, I follow.

So your friends think that I am the Mary.

Not so smart, your friends.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

I’ve been to Le Moustier, that was one of the earliest burial caves that were found.

BILL MOYERS: And you find there what they buried with the dead?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes. These grave burials with grave gear, that is to say weapons and sacrifices round about, certainly suggest the idea of the continued life beyond the visible one. 

The first one that was discovered, the person was put down resting as though asleep, a young boy, with a beautiful hand ax beside him. 

Now, at the same time we have evidence of shrines devoted to animals that have been killed. 

The shrines specifically are in the Alps, very high caves, and they are of cave bear skulls. 

And there is one very interesting one with the long bones of the cave bear in the cave bear’s jaw.

BILL MOYERS: 

What does that say to you?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Burials. 

“My friend has died and he survives.’

The animals that I’ve killed must also survive. I must make some kind of atonement relationship to them.”

The indication is of the notion of a plane of being that’s behind the visible plane, and which is somehow supportive of the visible one to which we have to relate. 

I would say that’s the basic theme of all mythology.

BILL MOYERS: 

That there is a world?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That there is an invisible plane supporting the visible one. 

Now, whether it is thought of as a world or simply as energy, that differs from time and time and place to place.

BILL MOYERS: 

What we don’t know supports what we do know.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s right. 

The basic hunting myth, I would say, is of a kind of covenant between the animal world and the human world, where the animal gives its life willingly. 

They are regarded generally as willing victims, with the understanding that their life, which transcends their physical entity, will be returned to the soil or to the mother through some ritual of restoration. 

And the principal rituals, for instance, and the principal divinities are associated with the main hunting animal, the animal who is the master animal, and sends the flocks to be killed, you know. 

To the Indians of the American plains, it was the buffalo. 

You go to the northwest coast, it’s the salmon. 

The great festivals have to do with the run of salmon coming in. When you go to South Africa, the eland, the big, magnificent antelope, is the principal animal to the Bushmen, for example.

BILL MOYERS: 

And the principal animal, the master animal

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Is the one that furnishes the food.

BILL MOYERS: 

So there grew up between human beings and animals, a bonding, as you say, which required one to be consumed by the other.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s the way life is.

BILL MOYERS: 

Do you think this troubled early man, too

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Absolutely, that’s why you have the rites, because it did trouble him.

BILL MOYERS: 

What kind of rites?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Rituals of appeasement to the animals, of thanks to the animal. 

A very interesting aspect here is the identity of The Hunter with The Animal.

BILL MOYERS: 

You mean, after the animal has been shot.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

After the animal has been killed, the hunter then has to fulfill certain rites in a kind of “participation mystique,” a mystic participation with the animals whose death he has brought about, and whose meat is to become his life. 

So the killing is not simply slaughter, at any rate, it’s a ritual act. 

It’s a recognition of your dependency and of the voluntary giving of this food to you by the animal who has given it. 

It’s a beautiful thing, and it turns life into a mythological experience.

BILL MOYERS: 

The hunt becomes what?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It becomes a ritual. 

The hunt is a ritual.

BILL MOYERS: 

Expressing a hope of resurrection, that the animal was food and you needed the animal to return.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

And some kind of respect for the animal that was killed; that’s the thing that gets me all the time in this hunting ceremonial system.

BILL MOYERS: 

Respect for the animal.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The respect for the animal and more than respect, I mean, that animal becomes a messenger of divine power, do you see.

BILL MOYERS: 

And you wind up as the hunter killing the messenger.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Killing the god.

BILL MOYERS: 

What does this do? 

Does it cause guilt, does it cause

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Guilt is what is wiped out by the myth. 

It is not a personal act; you are performing the work of nature, For example, in Japan, in Hokkaido in northern Japan among the Ainu people, whose principal mountain deity is the bear, when it is killed there is a ceremony of feeding the bear a feast of its own flesh, as though he were present, and he is present. 

He’s served his own meat for dinner, and there’s a conversation between the mountain god, the bear and the people. 

They say, “If you’ll give us the privilege of entertaining you again, we’ll give you the privilege of another bear sacrifice. ”

BILL MOYERS: If the cave bear were not appeased, the animals wouldn’t appear, and these primitive hunters would starve to death. So they began to perceive some kind of power on which they were dependent, greater than their own.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And that’s the power of the animal master. Now, when we sit down to a meal, we thank God, you know, or our idea of God, for having given us this. These people thanked the animal.

BILL MOYERS: And is this the first evidence we have of an act of worshipó

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes.

BILL MOYERS: 

— of power superior to man?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: 

And the animal was superior, 

because the animal provided food.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, now, in contrast to our relationship to animals, where we see animals as a lower form of life, and in the Bible we’re told, you know, we’re the masters and so forth, early hunting people don’t have that relationship to the animal. The animal is in many ways superior, He has powers that the human being doesn’t have.

BILL MOYERS: 

And then certain animals take on a persona, don’t they 

the buffalo, the raven, the eagle.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Oh, very strongly. 

Well, I was up on the northwest coast back in 1932, 

a wonderful trip, and the Indians along the way were still carving totem poles. 

The villages had new totem poles, still. 

And there we saw the ravens and we saw the eagles and we saw the animals that played roles in the myths. 

And they had the character, the quality, of these animals. 

It was a very intimate knowledge and friendly, neighborly, 

relationship to these creatures. 

And then they killed some of the. You see.

The animal had something to do with the shaping of the myths of those people, just as the buffalo for the Indians of the plains played an enormous role. They are the ones that bring the tobacco gift, the mystical pipe and all this kind of thing, it comes from a buffalo. And when the animal becomes the giver of ritual and so forth, they do ask the animal for advice, and the animal becomes the model for how to live.

BILL MOYERS: 

You remember the story of the buffalo’s wife?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s a basic legend of the Blackfoot tribe, and is the origin legend of their buffalo dance rituals, by which they invoke the cooperation of the animals in this play of life.

When you realize the size of some of these tribal groups, to feed them required a good deal of meat. And one way of acquiring meat for the winter would be to drive a buffalo herd, to stampede it over a rock cliff. Well, this story is of a Blackfoot tribe long, long ago, and they couldn’t get the buffalo to go over the cliff. The buffalo would approach the cliff and then tum aside. So it looked as though they weren’t going to have any meat for that winter.

Well, the daughter of one of the houses, getting up early in the morning to draw the water for the family and so forth, looks up and there right above the cliff were the buffalo. And she said, “Oh, if you’d only come over, I’d marry one of you.” And to her surprise, they all began coming over. That was surprise number one. Surprise number two was when one of the old buffalos, the shaman of the herd, comes and says, “All right, girlie, off we go.” “Oh, no,” she says. “Oh, yes,” he says, “you made your promise. We’ve kept our side of the bargain, look at all my relatives here dead. Off we go.”

Well, the family gets up in the morning and they look around, and where’s Minnehaha, you know. The father, and you know how Indians are, he looked around and he said, “She’s run off with a buffalo.” He could see by the footsteps. So he says, “Well. I’m going to get her back.” So he puts on his walking moccasins, bow and arrow and so forth, and goes out over the plains. He’s gone quite a distance when he feels he’d better sit down and rest, and he comes to a place that’s called a buffalo wallow, where the buffalo like to come and roll around, get the lice off, and roll around in the mud.

So he sits down there and is thinking what he should do now, when along comes a magpie. Now, that’s a beautiful, flashing bird, and it’s one of those clever birds that has shamanic qualities.

BILL MOYERS: 

Magical qualities.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Magical. And the man says to him, “Oh, beautiful bird, my daughter ran away with a buffalo. Have you seen, will you hunt around and see if you can find her out on the plain somewhere?” And the magpie says, “Well, there’s a lovely girl with the buffalos right now, over there just a bit away.” “Well,” said the man, “would you go tell her that her daddy’s here, her father’s here at the buffalo wallow?” Magpie flies over and the girl is there among the buffalo; they’re all asleep. I don’t know what she’s doing, knitting or something of the kind. And the magpie comes over close to her and he says, “Your father’s over at the wallow waiting for you.” “Oh,” she says, “this is very terrible, this is dangerous, I mean, these buffalo, they’ll kill us. You tell him to wait, I’ll be over, I’ll try to work this out.”

So her buffalo husband’s behind her and he wakes up and takes off a horn, he says, “Go to the wallow and get me drink.” So she takes the horn and goes over and there’s her father. And he grabs her by the arm and he says, “Come.” She says, No, no, no, this is real dangerous. The whole herd there, they’ll be right after us. I have to work this thing out, now let me just go back.” So she gets the water and goes back and he, “Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Indian.” You know, that sort of thing. And she says, “No, nothing of the kind.” And he says, “Yes, indeed.” So he gives a buffalo bellow and they all get up and they all do a slow buffalo dance with their tails raised, and they go over and they trample that poor man to death, so that he disappears entirely, he’s just all broken up to pieces, all gone.

The girl’s crying, and her buffalo husband says, “So you’re crying.” “This is my daddy.” He said, “Yeah, but what about us? There are children, our wives, our parents, and you crying about your daddy.” Well, apparently he was a kind of sympathetic compassionate buffalo, and he said, “Well, I’ll tell you, if you can bring your daddy back to life again, I’ll let you go.” So she turns to the magpie and says, “See, peck around a little bit and see if you can find a bit of Daddy.” And the magpie does so, and he comes up finally with a vertebra, just one little bone.

And the little girl says, “That’s plenty. Now, we’ll put this down on the ground,” and she puts her blanket over it, and she sings a revivifying song, a magical song with great power. And presently, yes, there’s a man under the blanket. She looks, Daddy all right, but he’s not breathing yet. A few more stanzas of whatever the song was, and he stands up, and the buffalo are amazed. And they say, “Why don’t you do this for us? We’ll teach you now our buffalo dance, and when you will have killed our families, you do this dance and sing this song, and we’ll all be back to life again.”

That’s the basic idea, that through the ritual, that dimension is struck which transcends temporality and out of which life comes and back into which it goes.

BILL MOYERS: 

And it goes back to this whole idea of death, burial and resurrection, not only for human beings, but for…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

But for the animals, too.

BILL MOYERS: 

So the story of the buffalo’s wife was told to confirm the reverence.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s right.

BILL MOYERS: What happened when the white man came and slaughtered this animal of reverence?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That was a sacramental violation. I mean, in the eighties, when the buffalo hunt was undertaken, you know, with Kit Carson…

BILL MOYERS: The 1880s, a hundred years ago.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: — and Buffalo Bill and so forth. When I was a boy, whenever we went for sleigh rides we had a buffalo robe. Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo robes all over the place. This was the sacred animal to the Indians. These hunters go out with repeating rifles, and then shoot down the whole herd and leave it there. Take the skin to sell and the body’s left to rot. This is a sacrilege, and it really is a sacrilege.

BILL MOYERS: It turned the buffalo from a “thou-”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: To an “it.”

BILL MOYERS: The Indians addressed the buffalo as “thou.”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: As a “thou”.

BILL MOYERS: As an object of reverence.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The Indians addressed life as a “thou,” I mean, trees and stones, everything else. You can address anything as a “thou”, and you can feel the change in your psychology as you do it. The ego that sees a “thou” is not the same ego that sees an “it.” Your whole psychology changes when you address things as an “it.” And when you go to war with a people, the problem of the newspapers is to turn those people into its, so that they’re not “thous.”

BILL MOYERS: 

That was an incredible moment in the evolution of American society, when the buffalo were slaughtered. 

That was the final exclamation point behind the destruction of the Indian civilization, because you were destroying…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Can you imagine what the experience must have been for a people within 10 years to lose their environment, to lose their food supply, to lose the object of the… the central object of their ritual life?

ROOKIE ERROR

“ From the very beginning, Batman habitually found himself dealing with crimes involving chemicals and crazy people, and over the years he would take on innumerable villains armed with lethal Laughing Gas, mind-control lipstick, Fear Dust, toxic aerosols, and “artificial phobia” pills.

Indeed, his career had barely begun before he was heroically inhaling countless bizarre chemical concoctions cooked up by mad blackmarket alchemists.

Superman might have faced a few psychic attacks, but, even if it was against his will every time, Batman was hip to serious mind-bending drugs. 

Batman knew what it was like to trip balls without seriously losing his shit.”

Teaching a Monkey to Smoke

“The opening story frame brought us into the home of Commissioner Gordon, currently entertaining his “YOUNG SOCIALITE FRIEND, BRUCE WAYNE,” a bored young man who puffs heroically on a pipe while asking the question “WELL, COMMISSIONER, ANYTHING EXCITING HAPPENING THESE DAYS?” The middle-aged police chief was a keen smoker too, igniting a cigar that sent a miniature mushroom cloud into the air between the two.

“NO-O-,” Gordon began tentatively. Then, as if the most intriguing element of the story were a mere afterthought: “EXCEPT THIS FELLOW THEY CALL THE ‘BAT-MAN’ PUZZLES ME.” 

When Gordon was summoned to the scene of a brutal murder at a nearby mansion, Wayne tagged along, as if there was nothing at all odd about a member of the public who treated deathly serious police investigations as sightseeing trips.

Bat-Man appeared on the third page, standing on the roof in the moonlight. His stance displayed confidence; his arms were folded, and he seemed unafraid, almost laconic. The crooks recognized him, cuing readers that this adventure was not the first night out for our hero. As with Superman, we arrived after the story had already begun, groping for our seats in the dark. Almost immediately, Batman erupted into violence against the men in a rapid sequence of action panels.

In his first outing, he broke up the bizarrely complex plot of a chemical syndicate involving several murders and some money. It’s not a great story, and no matter how often I read it, I’m still left slightly in the dark as to what it was about, but the striking appearance of the hero made it unforgettable. It also established an important trend in the early Batman stories. From the very beginning, Batman habitually found himself dealing with crimes involving chemicals and crazy people, and over the years he would take on innumerable villains armed with lethal Laughing Gas, mind-control lipstick, Fear Dust, toxic aerosols, and “artificial phobia” pills. Indeed, his career had barely begun before he was heroically inhaling countless bizarre chemical concoctions cooked up by mad blackmarket alchemists. Superman might have faced a few psychic attacks, but, even if it was against his will every time, Batman was hip to serious mind-bending drugs. Batman knew what it was like to trip balls without seriously losing his shit, and that savoir faire added another layer to his outlaw sexiness and alluring aura of decadence and wealth.

In July 1939’s Detective Comics no. 29, he faced another drug-dispensing no-gooder in “The Batman Meets Doctor Death.” Doctor Death was Karl Hellfern, a seriously disgruntled middle-aged chemist and obviously a devious bastard, as indicated by the presence of a monocle. Unable to rustle up even the simplest of hair-restoring formulas, he was seriously balding but sported a devilish goatee and pointed ears, which may or may not have been hereditary. In this adventure, Batman was shot and wounded, showing that, unlike Superman, he was as mortal as the rest of us, only much more tenacious.

The ending to the story found a new note of hysteria that would enliven the best Batman adventures: trapped in his laboratory, Doctor Death fought back by inadvertently setting the whole place alight. As he realized what he’d done and was consumed by flames, the doctor lost it completely, screaming, “HA! HA! OH—HA-HA-HA—YOU—YOU FOOL!” To which Batman, pausing a moment to watch the spreading inferno, replied grimly, “YOU ARE THE POOR FOOL! HE HAS GONE MAD! DEATH … TO DOCTOR DEATH!” 

The introduction of the secret identity, given away so generously as just one more brilliant idea halfway through the first Superman story, was saved for the twist ending of the third Batman story, which kept it in line with the mystery and detective aspects of the Batman strip. 

The last two panels showed a door, creaking open from its curious position ajar until the “Bat-Man” stood revealed in full costume. There’s something genuinely strange about this dreamlike conclusion to the story, this weird emergence from the closet into the half-light. It seemed a miracle that Wayne, our chain-smoking pipe abuser, could wheeze his way out of the cupboard and down the hall, let alone spring and glide across the rooftops of Gotham, but the distinctive visual of Batman was so arresting, so visceral, he caught on with the reading public as rapidly as Superman had.”

Excerpt From

Supergods

Grant Morrison

ORION FIGHTS FOR EARTH !!

“Jack “King” Kirby was the most influential superhero artist of them all, with an imagination and range that sat comfortably inside a visionary tradition running all the way from Hebrew scriptures and epic mythology through William Blake and Allen Ginsberg. Born Jakob Kurtzberg in August 1917—Jack Kirby was the one of his many pennames that stuck—Kirby grew up in a tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. As a member of the Suffolk Street Gang, he was familiar with the thrill of full-on physical conflict in a way that many of his bookish young contemporaries were not. Indeed, unlike Joe Shuster or Bob Kane, who drew fights at a sniffy remove, Kirby dragged his readers directly into the wild flail of fists and boots that typified the real combat he’d experienced. 

His figures captured how it felt to somersault through a crowd of antagonists. His heroes and villains clashed in bony, meaty brawls that could sprawl across page after page. Superman might wrestle a giant ape for a panel or two, but in Kirby’s hands, the fight scenes were a thrilling end in themselves.

Kirby served in World War II as a private first class in Company F of the Eleventh Infantry. He landed on Omaha Beach at Normandy two months after D-day in 1944 and proceeded with his unit into occupied France. There he saw action at the battle for Bastogne, Belgium, enduring frostbite so severe that Kirby almost lost both feet and was finally mustered out with a combat infantry badge and Bronze Star for his trouble. His memories of the war informed his work for the rest of his life, but nonetheless, Kirby portrayed violence as a joyous expression of natural masculine exuberance. 

When American Nazis marched into the building where Simon and Kirby had their studio, demanding the blood of the Captain America creative team, it was Jack who rolled up his sleeves and went to sort them out."

“As the monster-child, Orion, grew to manhood on New Genesis, his life dramatized debates of nature versus nurture, good versus evil, youth versus age, tyranny versus freedom. Kirby was dealing with the big dualities and had assembled his own gleaming pantheon to help him articulate the questions of the age.

Kirby told us that humanity’s better nature would inevitably prevail. That was the story, and we all knew it deep in our hearts. Kindness and understanding could turn even a demon into a holy warrior, but an angel could never be broken to the Devil’s service and would always find ways to soar and to be free. 

The war would never end, but the outcome was never in any doubt.”

BILL MOYERS: 

The mesmerizing character for me is —  

Darth Maul.

When I saw him, I thought of Satan and Lucifer in “Paradise Lost.” 

I thought of the devil in “Dante’s Inferno.” 

I mean, you’ve really — have brought from 

— it seems to me — 

from way down in our unconsciousness this image of —

of Evil, of The Other.

GEORGE LUCAS: 

Well, yeah. 

We were trying to find somebody who could compete with Darth Vader, who’s one of the most, you know, famous evil characters now. 

And so we went back into representations of evil. 

Not only, the Christian, but also Hindu and Greek mythology and other religious icons and, obviously, then designed our own — our own character out of that.

BILL MOYERS: 

What did you find when you went back there in — 

in all of these representations? 

There’s something …

GEORGE LUCAS: 

A lot of — a lot of evil characters have horns. 

It’s very interesting. 

I mean, you’re trying to build a icon of evil, 

and you sort of wonder why the same images evoke the same emotions.

BILL MOYERS: 

What emotion do you feel, George, when you look at Darth Maul?

GEORGE LUCAS: 

I think the first thing you’re supposed to react to is fear. 

You’re supposed to go,

 ‘Ooh. You — you wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.'

And I’m not creating a monster. 

I didn’t want to create some ugly — somebody ripped out their intestines and threw them all over their head 

— and it’s — you can’t watch it. 

This is something …

BILL MOYERS: 

It’s actually mesmerizing.

GEORGE LUCAS: 

This is something that is more — 

it works in a different emotional way. 

It’s not repulsive, it’s just — 

It’s something you should be afraid of.

BILL MOYERS: 

Is the emotion you wanted from him different from the emotion you wanted from Darth Vader?

GEORGE LUCAS: 

It’s essentially the same in a different kind of way.

Darth Vader was a — a composite man. 

I mean, he was half-machine, half-man. 

And that’s where he lost a lot of his humanity is that he — 

you know, he has mechanical legs. 

You know — and he has mechanical arms possibly and he’s hooked up to a breathing machine. 

 

So there’s not much, actually, human left in him. 

This one is all human. 

And I wanted him to be like an alien, but I wanted him to be human enough that we could identify with him, because he’s not a sort of a monster we can’t identify with. He’s…

BILL MOYERS: 

He’s us.

GEORGE LUCAS: 

…he’s — yeah. 

He’s the evil within us.

BILL MOYERS: 

I’ve had psychotherapists tell me that they use “Star Wars” sometimes to deal with the problems of their child patients. 

And they’ve said that the most popular character among the children is Darth Vader.

GEORGE LUCAS: 

Well, children love power because children are The Powerless. 

And so their fantasies all center on having power. 

And who’s more powerful than Darth Vader, you know? 

And, some, you know, will be attracted to Luke Skywalker because he’s the good guy. 

But ultimately, 

We all know that Darth Vader’s more powerful than he is.

GEORGE LUCAS: 

And as time goes on, you discover that he is more powerful because— 

He's The Ultimate Father 

Who is All-Powerful.

BILL MOYERS: 

This is where I disagree somewhat with our friend Joseph Campbell who said that 

The Young Man has to slay his father before he can become an adult himself. 

It seems to me, and I think you’re right on here, that 

The Young Man has to identify — 

has to recognise and acknowledge that 

He is His Father 

and 

Is Not His Father.

GEORGE LUCAS: 

You know, Joe used to talk about the basic issues that create 

The Mystery of Life. 

Of, you know, birth and death, 

and I like to always add, 

 Your relationship with your parents. 

BILL MOYERS:

Do you know yet what is going to be the transforming of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader?

GEORGE LUCAS: 

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: 

You already know that?

GEORGE LUCAS: 

Yeah, I know what that is. 

And it’s sprinkled throughout this episode. 

I mean, the groundwork’s been laid in this episode. 

And the — the film is ultimately about the Dark Side and the Light Side, and those sides are designed around compassion and greed. 

And we all have those two sides of us and that we have to make sure that those two sides of us are in balance.

BILL MOYERS: 

I think it’s going to be very hard for the audience to accept that this innocent cherub almost of a boy, who’s playing Anakin Skywalker, can ever be capable of the things that we know happen later on. 

And I’m sure you’ll take care of that but, you know, I look at Hitler and wonder what did he look like at eight years old, or Stalin …

GEORGE LUCAS: 

Mm-hmm …

BILL MOYERS: 

… or …

GEORGE LUCAS: 

Well, there are lots of — there’s a lot of people like that. 

I mean, you just — you see them all the time and you — that’s what I wonder. 

I wonder, 

'How can those people possibly exist? How could they live with themselves?' 

[ VODKA ] 

How could they — you know, what is it in the human brain that gives us the capacity to be as evil as human beings have been in the past and are right now.

BILL MOYERS: 

Well, you’ve been probing that for a good while now.

GEORGE LUCAS: 

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: 

Twenty-five years. 

Have you come to any conclusions?

GEORGE LUCAS: 

I haven’t.

Neo: 

I only ask to say What I’ve Come to Say, after that, do what you want and I won’t try to stop you.

Deus Ex Machina: 

Speak.

Neo: 

The program ‘Smith’ has grown beyond your control. 

Soon he will spread through This City as he spread through The Matrix. 

You cannot stop him, 

but I can.

Deus Ex Machina: 

We Don’t Need You. 

We Need Nothing.

Neo: 

If that’s True, then I’ve made a mistake 

and you should kill me now.

Deus Ex Machina: 

What Do You Want?

Neo: 

PEACE.

(Zion: Temple entrance)

{Sentinels charge the temple entrance, then suddenly stop}

Niobe: 

What are they doing? 

• Morpheus lays down his Weapon •

*to Morpheus* 

What are you doing!?

Lock: 

Morpheus!

(01)

Deus Ex Machina: 

And if You Fail?

Neo: 

I Won’t.

(Zion: Temple entrance)

Niobe: 

{looks up and sees sentinels slowly circling} 

Neo.

Morpheus: 

He Fights for Us.