How to spend that $60K that's burning a hole in your utility belt

Bid away.

(Another tip o' the cowl to the Anonymous Donor, who now appears to provide all material for this blog. Although he has not yet donated the above item, in the flesh. Er, rubber.)

... And here's what I don't love about comics

I got about a third of the way through this explanation of (relatively) recent developments in the DC uni/multiverse before throwing my hands up in despair. I was referred to the entry by the Anonymous Donor when I said I didn't get the whole "Superboy Prime" business I've heard a wee bit about.

Hey, look, I just want hot guys in tight outfits to be tied up, like they were in my youth. Is that too much to ask?

Here's what I love about comics

Every few years, some lunatic ties Batman to a chair for an entire issue and taunts him relentlessly. In my spotty memory, the lunatic role has been performed by Scarecrow (multiple times, not always limiting himself to a mere chair), one of several Clayfaces (that whole thing is way too complicated for me to sort out), and someone called the Obeah Man (and the Batman was actually Dick Grayson, if you want to get technical). Now comes Batman issue 674, which I believe is currently on newsstands, if you can find an actual newsstand anywhere.

The intentions are crystal clear on the cover:



That's right: the one and only Grant Morrison is behind this one! The story, which as far as I can tell is more or less self-contained, is a typically trippy Morrisonesque tale of hallucinations and false flashbacks and other twists of the sort that always get me going. But of course what really gets me going about the issue is imagery like this splash page--



--which, you will note, features one of my favorite bat-fetishes, the desecration (in this case, the absolute removal) of the chest emblem. The empty space allows some nice hair to poke through the hole, but that pales in comparison to what happens later. I'm cropping the next panel so as not to spoil anything, but then if you're reading a blog like this and you don't know that our hero is about to do something heroic, you are probably too young and/or innocent to be here at all:



Hooray to Mr. Morrison, and a big thank you to my Anonymous Donor for continuing to slip me the images that make my heart beat so.

Check out that bat-crotch!

From Bat-Blog, a link to a political ad campaign in Brussels depicting superheroes as various minorities. Interesting concept, but I'm a little too distracted by this blind Batman's bunching briefs. Can I get an "amen"?!

Update:The point of the ad campaign was to encourage voters to think about, say, blind people as capable of holding higher office--and, irony of ironies, I posted the above image shortly before New York state got its first sight-impaired, African American governor. Of course, mentioning that here only forces me to admit that if I were really serious about this blog's stated theme, I'd be waxing eloquent on the whole Eliot Spitzer saga, and I just don't have the time or energy to do so. But come on! The man who until about a week ago was frequently portrayed as practically a real-life superhero (or at least the new Eliot Ness, as we were often reminded) falls from grace into utter villainy? A saga worthy of Marvel comics! (Good thing I'm a DC guy from way back, and thus less interested in moral ambiguities than rippling muscles.)