The Killing Joke

I am clearly not the first person to draw the parallel between a certain recently terminated real-world supervillain and a certain archetypal/unkillable comic book supervillain. (Nor did I ever put much thought into the blockbuster movie that made much of that parallel.) But hey, here's the first visual that looked blog-worthy in a search that yielded 993,000 results as of tonight:



(There was also this, for instance, and I expect a lot more in the days ahead.)

In other semi-breaking news, I gotta say recent events do make this development in superhero land seem even more provocative. What both of these stories make me think about is a soundbite from Martin Luther King that has been floating around Facebook all day today:

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that."

But enough seriousness for now. Let's get back to horniness, shall we? You already know I am a bigger Batfan than Superfan, but allow me to linger on this tasty bit of hand-drawn manmeat before I disappear back into the shadows for an unspecified amount of time, as I am wont to do:

My life as a bottom, Part 2: Cast of characters

As I said in Part 1 of this post, the basic structure of my defeat at the hands of a villain is always more or less the same, and the specifics--when they are worth talking about at all--are generally pretty different. So who are the men who have broken the Bat? I've already said plenty about the one I call "the Monk," so let's meet a few of those who have arrived in his wake, over the last 4 or 5 years, in roughly ascending order of intensity ... (Some of these aliases are the ones we really use, and others are modified, just to throw you off. My aim here is not to betray any confidences, only to shed light on a larger phenomenon from my own perspective.)

a. Catch and Release: This is a handy grab-bag of villains who have managed to ensnare Batman over the years, had their way with me, and then disappeared. Here we find several rogue cops, an amoral ex-superhero, and a semi-literate wrestling fanatic whose mistyped/incoherent instructions, utter disregard for the laws of physics, and vast vocabulary of obscure (to me, at least) wrestling holds are notorious amongst my crimefighting colleagues and me. These tend to be situations that are not ideal for one reason or another, which is often clear from the get-go, but eventually I end up giving in to them anyway, usually when a better match is simply not on the horizon for a long time. While these scenarios don't hold much longterm interest for me (or for the other player, needless to say), there is still something grimly erotic about Batman sinking so low that he is bested by someone he clearly feels superior to.

b. Turnabout is fair play: In a couple of cases, I have started out dominating opponents, only to have them turn the tables on me in a fairly decisive way. Also in this category, I suppose, would be two villains who made pretty fast work of me, only to cave in when I managed to escape their clutches, each soon turning into a total submissive himself. This table-turning scenario enables me to enjoy the best of both worlds: the power of being in charge, and the thrill of losing my grip. There's also the fact that men who have subbed (to me, or anyone else, for that matter) often have unique insight into how to play both roles, and they tend to know just how to twist the knife when they seek revenge. On the other hand, having an adversary who enjoys bottoming himself always holds out the hope that Batman will rise again.

c. Officer Daddy: Technically a member of category b, this rogue cop (what can I say? Good Guy Gone Bad is a motif that turns me on) currently enjoys a fascinating relationship with me. We sparred for months, I won, and then--in a move that surprised even me--I found myself turning myself over to him, relinquishing the reins. I'm not sure he particularly wanted this exchange of power, but he's certainly risen to the opportunity. A turning point, after I started fighting back again, came when he pointed out that he hadn't overpowered me (the usual scenario) but that I was the one who had surrendered. As a result, our storyline is the most consensual one of all of these--all the more so because he enjoys scenes in which I'm the "active" one (to use that genteel distinction for who bones whom) and he's the "passive" one. He prefers his "bois" to be manly and strong, and that makes for an appealing, fairly unique, setup to me. The perpetual problem I run into, though, is the moment in a scene with him when I want to just completely take charge, which is no longer my allowed role. There's a powerful degree of tenderness in our interactions; he's the best Daddy I know (although, as is often the case, I am at least 5 or 6 years older than him). This one is about balance, I think--within myself, and in my dealings with him.

d. Mr. S: Relatively new to me, this handsome guy has a terrific feel for how to satisfy my hunger for humiliation. That's a side of myself I'm not entirely comfortable with, but one that (for that very reason?) excites me a great deal. Consequently, I allow myself to try things with him that wouldn't normally appeal to me, precisely because they don't appeal. I absolutely love having my limits pushed and boundaries tested by a roleplayer I trust--although at the moment I think we are negotiating what I am willing to do and what I'm not, when it comes to following orders for offline activity. (Wearing chastity devices to work for a week as a lesson in obedience = mildly hot. Wearing them on a private weekend with the Hub = not so much.) Another interesting aspect of this case is the fact that Mr. S, who I imagine can be as much a bottom as a top depending on whom he's with, tells me he's learning more about how to assume the dom role through his encounters with me. I am more than happy to be his guinea pig at the moment.

e. Machette: That's my own, misspelled pet name for a longtime villain who wears no costume and adopts no rigid persona. We've been playing for at least 3 years now, in a storyline that has taken many zigs and zags. Early on, he was a more traditional comic-book-style nemesis, but he felt disappointed that I never seemed to allow myself (in character) to "enjoy" our scenes (which, I've always maintained, would be totally out of character for a Batman in the clutches of a foe). He wanted to connect with the "real" me, the one who has a regular name, holds a regular job, and does not wear a mask, and it took at least a year before I chose to let down my guard that much around him. (Those kinds of revelations are not generally part of my online life as "Batfan60"--I figure the internet, or at least this part of it, is for fantasy, not reality, and it always seems a little pedestrian to drop the bat-persona; I get to play the "real" me all day long in public, after all.) This led to a fairly long period when the artifice of Batman/villain fell away and we interacted as two ordinary guys saying hello now and then (which normally bores the crap out of me with most online acquaintances, I must say). I even--voluntarily!--lifted the mask once or twice, an unheard-of development and erotic in its own way. With the recent emergence of the Recon superhero chatroom, we're (mostly) back to being adversaries again, though the only kind of scene he seems interested in doing with me at this stage is one in which other people are involved, either as his accomplices, my compatriots, or voyeuristic bystanders (innocent or otherwise). That's okay by me, because we're pretty much on the same wavelength in terms of scenarios for Batman's interactions in public. (For a while, he delighted in demonstrating his mastery over me by forcing me to recite the "I'm a little teapot" song to onlookers, which I admit I found an appealing form of ridicule.)

f. Lycra Lord: Hmmm, how do I neatly summarize a "coexistence" (as we began calling it early on, when we realized the uncanny number of things we had in common) that has become every bit as charged and complicated as the Monk saga? I have only myself to blame for not writing about each twist and turn here as they happened over the last two years, but I think that was the result of my preferring to simply live through the experience for a change instead of retelling and analyzing it here in real time. Very long story very short, what began as a typical (if particularly hot) hero/villain scenario soon took a number of turns for the surreal as we unmasked each other (verbally and then in more literal ways) and learned we work in more or less the same field, have various non-lycra-related interests in common, live a county away from each other, have longterm relationships that started around the same time, had parents who each had the same medical procedure on the same day, and--the capper--even share the same birthday. I used to think there was a novel in this, but the coincidences are so many and so far-fetched no one would buy them. As you can surely imagine, the coexistence far surpasses my usual level of roleplay interaction; safe to think of it as an actual friendship, complete with a work dimension for both of us--and yet there remains, at its core, an element of top/bottom dynamic, all the richer because I have to admit it's not just "Batman" he's affected but the honest-to-god real me underneath and aside from the role. LL is the person who introduced me to the term "edgeplay," and that concept is the best possible way to explain the dynamic between us (other than simply liking each other and liking to flirt with each other, if you want to get pedestrian about it again). Both in specific fantasy scenes and in the sheer outrageousness of our coexistence, I have gone to the outer limit--the edge--of where I can take online roleplay and remain a (very) happily married man. I have always had a very solid rule against actual physical contact with any of my make-believe friends, and yet there I was, a year and a half ago now, in my car, driving 45 minutes to meet him. There was a work-related (or, more accurately, work-enabled) reason to do so, and no lines were crossed--but still, I was wearing what he had "ordered" me to wear, and I had one of the most intense J/O sessions of my life with him when I got home that night. (I also felt obliged to tell the Hub about it a few days later, and his response confirmed that I have got a very special spouse indeed.) The vast majority of our conversations are PG-13 these days, but there is no getting around the erotic charge of spending time with someone who has such unprecedented access to (and, it's safe to say, understanding of/appreciation for) both my inner fantasies and my outer façade.

So that's the lineup. As for what it all means, stay tuned: same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Who watches the Watchmen when they take their clothes off? I do! I do!

I admit I was one of those people with major reservations about the Watchmen movie. In fact, I was one of those people who didn't even want a movie to be made from the book(s).

Surprise, surprise: I liked it. A lot. Not without reservations, mind you, but given how low my expectations were going in, I left feeling pretty satisfied. It's been about 20 years or more since I read Alan Moore's original, so I was roughly halfway between a hardcore fan and a total newbie. I was joined by the Hub (who had never heard of the book, let alone read it), a friend of his who'd just finished reading the book 2 hours before the movie, and the friend's wife (who was in the same boat as the Hub)--and every one of them enjoyed it, too. Sure, it's damn violent, but the thing's about (among other subjects) how to deal with a violent world, so that didn't bother me too much. I also thought the movie did a great job at least raising the thorny moral dilemmas explored in much more detail in the book. And I appreciated the presence of a sense of humor that did not involve wisecracking heroes punctuating their gutpunches with punchlines.

But let's be honest. My favorite thing about the movie was the chance to see Patrick Wilson naked yet again (see also: Angels in America, Little Children, and this troubling spectacle). I had my doubts when I heard he would be playing Nite Owl, but I'll be damned if he didn't end up looking almost exactly like the comic book character (who is supposed to be a bit of a schlub, but I found him cute, too). Did I mention he was naked?



(Bummer! Just learned from IMDB that his 2003 New Year's Resolution was "To be in a movie or a play which doesn't require me to take off my clothes. Unless, of course, I don't get another job... In which case I'll be half-naked and whole-heartedly depressed for the rest of my career." Hey, that Plan B works for me.)

As icing on the (beef)cake, the updated outfit (shall we call it an "owlsuit"?) he wears when he finally suits up is mighty swell, too:



Not sure I bought how quickly the meek retired crimefighter transforms (back) into an asskicking, jailbreaking hero, but that scene struck me as the only one totally untrue to the spirit of the original. Not bad odds, all things considered.

Bonus for readers who actually value literary value over hunkitude: Here's a link to Beaucoup Kevin's list of graphic novels he recommends to folks who've been introduced to the medium via Alan Moore's opus.

Bonus for readers who are as shallow as me: Oh yes, there is also that gigantic blue penis in the movie.

Meanwhile, back in the real (?) world ...

I must admit, I'm disheartened by the recent murder of two policemen by the so-called "Real IRA" (brilliant name, btw, which has now inserted itself sans quotation marks into coverage of the story, thus lending legitimacy to a splinter group that doesn't appear to deserve any). It seemed for so long lately like Northern Ireland was a workable, inspirational example of actual change in a situation that had been deadlocked for decades, if not centuries--a case for diplomacy and compromise as an end to violence. (I thought it was a very smart move, a few years ago, when reps from Ireland tried to lend their experience to participants in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, not that it appears to have done much good.) This NPR interview with BBC correspondent Audrey Carville struck me, as an outsider, as a very good analysis of the situation--the economic context in which the incident took place, the ironies involved (like the image of a former IRA leader now working with the same British police whose murders he once plotted), and just what is at stake right now. I try very hard to keep an open mind to every side of a story, particularly those that unfold on the other side of the world from me, but this feels to me like a pretty clearcut case of a small minority doing everything it can to undo years of hard work for the sheer hell of it.

On a lighter note, we have "Eye-borg," the superhero-ish moniker of filmmaker Rob Spence, a self-described Six Million Dollar Man fan who is outfitting his empty eye socket with a camera. The first interview I heard with him (which I can't find at the moment) explicitly raised the possibility that he could use his new "superpower" for good or for evil. And at Spence's website, you'll find the following video intro; note the many references to Luke Skywalker, Neo, and other fictional precedents:


EYEBORG-- The Two Week Trial from eyeborg on Vimeo.

Maybe Eye-borg can lend his services to "the Troubles."

No shit, Sherlock

Lots of recent odds and ends, connections between which I largely leave to you:

1. An episode of the public radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge devoted to Sherlock Holmes and other fictional detectives. For the record, I admit to a mild Holmes fetish, particularly when he is portrayed by Jeremy Brett or Basil Rathbone, and particularly in the WWII-era Rathbone films like SH and the Woman in Green and Dressed to Kill. The real reason I like that series--films in which Holmes is moved into the present day, surely to the horror of true A. C. Doyle fans--is that they are lower than the "real" stories on detective work and higher on, you guessed it, delightfully kinky deathtraps. In many of them (I think there are at least four made back-to-back in the mid-1940s) Moriarty gets to be a Joker-style archnemesis bent on our hero's demise, more overtly than in the canonical novels and tales.

2. Another public radio show, RadioLab, recently rebroadcast an episode devoted to the subject of morality. This summary lays out the terrain:

we’ll explore where our sense of right and wrong come from. We peer inside the brains of people contemplating moral dilemmas, watch chimps at a primate research center share blackberries, observe a playgroup of 3 year-olds fighting over toys, and tour the country’s first penitentiary, Eastern State Prison. Also: the story of land grabbing, indentured servitude and slum lording in the fourth grade.

3. And speaking of morality (see, these items are connected after all!), here's a nice piece on the demise of (and ethics of) the pirated-comic-panels extravaganza Scans Daily from Johnny Bacardi. I admit it--I visited often (though never daily) in search of images that floated my bat-boat. But apparently I didn't check it that often, or I would have known that SD was no more. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

4. Finally, a link that has nothing to do with morality, but if I don't post it now I'll forget about it: Bat-Blog tipped me off to a Flash animation of Batman's utility belt. Here's a direct link to the project, which was originally intended for tech geeks and vanilla-flavored comics fanboys, but I say, bring on the belt-fetishists, too!

I assure you, the animated version is more fun than this mere frame grab:

"I'm just a kid trying to make a difference"

News quiz:

1. Is the self-description in the subject line a quote from
a. the anonymous 14-year-old boy who spent 5 hours in uniform (sans badge and gun) on patrol with the Chicago police department, or
b. the 15-year-old Southern California boy who has become an international phenomenon with his "no-cussing" campaign?

2. Which of the above two were you more like in your mid-teens?
3. Which one of the two would you rather have a conversation with today?

The real answer to #1, and my personal answers to #2 and 3, are in the comments. Feel free to leave your own, as well.

As a reward--or possible punishment--for your score, here's the "Don't Cuss" music video:



Shit yeah!

A new year, a new leaf

When my British counterpart/colleague noticed I'd been posting more updates here lately, he asked if I was making up for lost time. Could be--though I've also promised myself that in 2009 I'm going to devote a little time each day to at least one of the many blogs and sites I'm involved with (as Batfan and in my Bruce Wayne existence). Go ahead, call it a resolution if you must. Lord knows I'm way behind with this one and especially this one.

To that end, I made quite a few tweaks to the sidebar on the right tonight. In addition to plenty more links and even a few new categories of them, you can now find the latest updates from the blogs I check most often for H&V-related info, subscribe to this one, and even become a "follower" of H&V. (Yikes.)

While I'm at it, here's more of my ongoing attempt to finally share some items I've been steadily bookmarking for years. (Just call me the Axl Rose of batbloggery.) No overriding theme this time, just odds and ends:

•If, like me, you sometimes take pleasure in obscure comic book heroes and villains from long-forgotten publishers, check out this regularly updated collection of them, which also includes new characters evoking the moldy oldies. The entire Flashback Universe blog from which that list comes is fun, and I've added it to the links sidebar.

•Here's a funny Conan O'Brien/Jim Gaffigan superhero cartoon. (True confession: I wouldn't kick either of these two out of my bed, whether in costume or out. Not sure I'd want them shooting deathrays out of their nipples, though.)

•Despite the horrendous reviews the new Spirit movie has been getting, I will naturally be seeing it. And I will always have a not-so-soft spot in my, er, heart for Sam Jones in the equally ill-fated 1987 tv movie, paid tribute to here. I mean, would you feast your eyes on this man, for the love of God?



•Nice collection of boot-fetish videos on YouTube, which will also point you to plenty of related works. Here's an enjoyable example of Stand & Model attitude:



Minimal, yes, but face it: Had Warhol shot this, it would be playing in museums the world over.

*A reader sent me a link to his 26-chapter BDSM-themed serial, which took him more than two years to complete. I've only dipped in to random chapters thus far, which means I have plenty more to ... chew on.

•Speaking of fiction, here's a reservoir of comics-related fanfic I found somewhere long ago, including some Bat ones. The broader-based home page of the site is now in my links list, too. Oh, and here's a weird, potentially hilarious assignment for your own ill-conceived fanfic.

•Courtesy of another online buddy, here's a Universal Studios Spider-Man getting dressed and doing his duty for the girls and boys, and a few of us oldsters, too. Bonus points for UnderArmour usage beneath the spideysuit:



•I forget exactly why I bookmarked this in the first place--I think it was for a post I was going to write (two years ago) about (male) rape fantasies--but now that I look more closely, I see these are all (?) women victims, so I feel kind of creepy sharing it with you sans political comment. Anyway, here's a semi-famous list, updated here and here.

This looks like a good place to stop for now, but trust me, I've got plenty more where these came from, and this appears to be one of those periods when I'm feeling the impluse to blog again, so stay tuned.

The horror! The horror!

I come late to the web phenom which is Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog--my first exposure came not through any viral campaign or bloggery but this "oral history" of the project in Entertainment Weekly and this interview with Dr. Horrible himself, Neil Patrick Harris, on Fresh Air. And yesterday I finally tracked the thing down and watched all 45 delightful minutes.

I've never gotten the whole Joss Whedon cult--I'm sure he's very clever, but the concepts behind Buffy and Firefly didn't do much for me. Now, you do a musical about a budding supervillain's quest for acceptance by his peers (one of whom is a horse, another a Thomas Jefferson impersonator) and I am there. (Is it possible I have never written about my affection for The Tick here?) No lycra, sadly (the low-rent outfits are fetish-free for me, aside from Captain Hammer's studly leather gauntlets), but the songs are catchy and the cast--particularly Harris--is a joy to watch.

I particularly enjoy Whedon's reversal of the good guy/bad guy dynamic; you totally root for Dr. Horrible, while ostensible hero Captain Hammer is an arrogant, self-obsessed bully. (I never got around to seeing Hancock, since the reviews were all so mediocre, but Hammer seems like a variation on the same basic concept.) Perhaps it's the musical-comedy aspect of the project that made the connection in my mind, but I couldn't help thinking of Broadway's Wicked, in which all the "good" folks in Oz are exposed as bubbleheads (or worse--far worse) and the "evildoers" are tragically misunderstood. (War on terror, anyone?) The fact that moral ambiguity can still do well at the box office bodes well in the era of you're-either-with-us-or-you're-with-the-terrorists.

PS. All the press suggests that your chance to watch for free is done and that you must now purchase the thing via iTunes (or wait for the promised DVD), but that's not true as of yesterday. Look, it's right here!

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.)

The Knight After 10: Circle game

Robin has turned in his resignation. Superman claims he, too, is ready to switch sides. And Batman--yours truly--has willingly composed a loyalty oath to his former archenemy and hunts down his longtime allies with abandon.

As radical as the events of DC's latest Crisis and Marvel's Wars may be (and I still haven't read either one), I don't think they involve quite as fundamental a shakeup as this. In the nearly four months since my "enlightenment," everything has changed. The old divisions of my Yahoo buddy list--Heroes/Villains--no longer apply. Most of the men in those two categories have been redesignated Friends or Enemies (and most of the old "heroes" are now "enemies"), while the Monk, with whom my relationship is infinitely more complicated, gets a category of his own. I myself have been labelled a fool, a traitor, a puppet, and far worse--and I love it all.

My personal Extreme Makeover (which, admittedly, still probably looks a lot like classic Stockholm Syndrome to the naked eye) dovetails beautifully with the premise of a book I found in a used book sale at a local church around the same time I returned to the Monk's welcoming embrace. I picked up Carol Pearson's The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By for its title, of course, and was hooked by the brief explanation of its "six heroic archetypes" on the back cover:

the Innocent, who learns to trust; the Orphan, to mourn; the Wanderer, to find and name personal truth; the Warrior, to assert that truth in order to change the world; the Martyr, to love, to commit, to let go; and, finally, the Magician, who learns to recognize and receive the abundance of the universe.

Having read roughly half the book by now (it's only 176 pages, but it's been a very busy summer), I wouldn't say those are the clearest capsule descriptions of the six stages for my purposes here, but they give you a rough idea. And perhaps, like me, you can immediately sense how accurately they capture the trajectory of the comic book Batman (as well as many other mythic superheroes): from Innocent to trust-seeking Orphan to clarity-oriented Wanderer to power-ful Warrior. (That is, of course, the trajectory of Batman Begins, while Superman Returns focuses on role 5, the Martyr, which accounts for its much-discussed similarity to the Christ story.)

Pearson's book came out in 1986, and its opening chapters are a little heavy on New Age jibberjabber, but if you can look past that stuff, she's really on to something. If I quoted every passage that resonated for me, this entry would be at least ten times longer than it already is. Perhaps I'll devote another post to some key passages, but what I really want to call attention to for the time being is her insistence that life is not a linear progression from Innocent to Magician, and that the Magician phase is not meant to be the final or highest form of existence. Rather, we repeat the journey over and over throughout various dimensions of our lives, learning new lessons each time, and we can exist simultaneously at different points on "the Hero's Wheel." For example, one might be a Wanderer in one's career path while working out Martyr issues in a relationship and feeling like an Orphan on the spiritual front. And so on. You may find all of this a little too tidy, but Pearson does a convincing job of laying out the journey.

Parallels to my Bat-life are crystal clear to me: like many people my age, I first encountered the character as a pre-teen, enchanted by good-guy Adam West and his bad-guy adversaries on the tv show and in the relatively simple DC comics of the early-to-mid-1960s. My innocence was shattered in 1970 when my older brother (a clear father figure and the Batman to my Robin) died and various other awful things happened. leaving me to feel like an orphan for a good two decades or so, until I adopted the mantle of the Bat myself, embracing in adult life the central myth of my childhood. During this Wanderer phase (amply documented in this blog, along with the online conquests of my Warrior period), I came to see how immersing myself in superhero fantasy was not only sexually exciting but a valuable tool of spiritual exploration. Then I met the Monk--the villain that every myth requires, battled him, was defeated and caged by him (thus becoming a Martyr), then escaped his clutches and wandered a bit more, only to conclude that perhaps he was not a villain after all but a teacher, one I could gladly serve. Enter the Magician phase, in which, to use more of Pearson's handy oversimplifications, the hero "takes responsibility for his life" (ie, for the actions I performed as Ratman, when I was still a captive) and "confronts the Shadow." That pretty much sums up where I think I'm at these days, at least on the Bat-front. (My Bruce Wayne life is a whole 'nother story, believe me--but then, I've long been able to use the lessons I've learned in Bat-fantasy as a template for my work as a teacher, an artist, and a member of a longterm couple.)

There is much, much more I'd like to say about all this, and I know I promised plenty more links last time (because in addition to Pearson I've been encountering lots of other material that helps shed light on the saga, too), but this will have to do for now. Life has calmed down ever so slightly for a wee bit, so I will try to write here more often. The Monk saga doesn't move as quickly these days, now that I'm a willing student of magic rather than a captive warrior struggling to free myself, so I'd like to devote more time to the lessons I'm learning from all this rather than simply recapping plot developments.

Stay tuned for more thrilling adventures, dear reader--and best wishes on your own journeys around the Hero's Wheel.

PS. The "soul-stealing" tagline above comes from this bizarre 1973 Brave and the Bold story I came across at Dial B for Blog. Check it out!

Super readers, double agents, and other "guilty" pleasures

Here's an interesting article on modern-day superhero comics from the Boston Phoenix by Douglas Wolk from a few months back. Lots of sensible observations, mainly about the way that the readership of comics has aged and grown more sophisticated over the years, leading to the rise of the "super reader"--the kind who gets all the inside jokes and external references in every issue of, say, Superman. Superhero comics now cater to these readers, which means you have to know all kinds of backstory in order to follow a storyline. (Wolk theorizes that this explains the recent popularity of translated manga among American kids: stories that stand alone, no baggage you're expected to know from the outset, etc.)

In a sidenote, he mentions a book I don't know but want to check out: Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips’s Sleeper, which he describes this way: "superhero joins the villains’ team as a double agent and becomes so morally compromised that he no longer knows what side he’s on." My favorite theme! Anybody know this one?

Sympathy for the Devil

From a strictly fetishistic point of view--which is probably not the demographic they're aiming for--the WB's animated series The Batman has gotten a lot better in its second season. Way more death traps, injections of deadly substances, near-unmaskings, etc., and ample portrayals of our hero in the batsuit sans mask, gloves, etc.

Don't get me wrong: the show is still prrretttttttty bad in all other respects, like plot, dialogue, voice acting, etc. But I'm fairly shallow when it comes to getting my cartoon-superhero rocks off, and the first season was so thoroughly devoid of kink (and remarkably awful in every other way) that just about anything would be an improvement.

They're already into self-parody, with the episode "The Laughing Bat" featuring the Joker running around pretending to be the Batman (true to the show's ineptitude, it's never made clear exactly why he's doing this, or even if he's aware that he's not really Bats), then dosing the real BM with a poison that makes him giggle uncontrollably at other people's misfortune, thus reversing their time-honored roles. And, yes, this one features the obligatory Adam West cameo. (This time he plays the mayor; needless to say, it's not nearly as clever as his casting as The Grey Ghost in the beloved B:TAS, but we all know how left out Adam feels when they don't invite him to drop by.)

Another recent episode alllllllmost pulled off something truly surprising and moving. (Spoiler alert, for the five of you out there who actually might care about this show.) In part one of a two-parter, Joker captures one of those two police detectives whose lives have been intersecting with Batman's since the beginning of the series; J tortures him until he breaks, then gasses him with an untested compound that seems to mess up his complexion pretty badly. In part two, Batman has a brand-new enemy: Clayface!

Never mind that this is only the 200th completely different origin story for CF (and the cop is only the 201st person to assume the role). The big problem is the poor guy's abrupt (and, once again, badly explained) transformation into a sci-fi villain. The writers have provided some interesting tidbits, like CF's inability to speak coherently, leading everyone on the police force to assume he's simply a run-of-the-mill monster instead of a once-trusted colleague, and the police commissioner's longstanding war on "freaks," which includes both BM and CF, but these don't really go anywhere. And the dude also seems to figure out his poorly defined powers mighty quickly. Let's just say it pales in comparison to the origin story for Mr. Freeze in Sub-Zero, which remains the most single moving tweak to the classic Rogue's Gallery. Even so, there's an element of tragedy to this revised Clayface (the episode ends on a particularly poignant note) that is far beyond the usual grasp of the new series, and that's gotta be worth something. It's cool that they've taken a recurring character and completely pulled the rug out from under him.

Speaking of humanized super-villains, I still haven't seen Revenge of the Sith. (Let's face it, I'm just not that big of a Star Wars fan--and I get a little nervous every time one of these new movies opens and everyone laughs at the geeks who dress up like their favorite characters--little too close to home for moi.) But it certainly fits in with a larger trend in popular culture: bad guy as fallen hero, i.e., tragic victim rather than malicious perpetrator. As a reader of Paradise Lost in my English Major youth, I ain't gonna claim this trend is in any way NEW, but it does seem to have a distinctly twenty-first-century urgency nowadays. Film noir brought us the Anti-Hero and the concept got refined in the 60s and 70s, only to vanish during the Reagan era; now we have the Good Man Who is Driven to Evil Even Though He Knows Better. Episode Three is the only one of the SW movies, old or new, that I've actually been eager to see, because I can't wait to see Anakin's transformation into Vader.

If you've followed my own exploits in online bat-fantasy as chronicled here, you can surely guess why I'm so fascinated by this trope: because I've lived through it myself (at least in the virtual realm). As of this writing I've been Monk-free for about two months and my "Ratman" days are but a distant memory--but there's no getting around the fact that I was indeed broken, turned to the Dark Side, did things I'm not proud of and can't undo, yadda yadda yadda. But maybe I'll save the update on that front for some future "Knightfall" installment (or not: there really haven't been too many developments in the saga for a while, thanks in large part to my overly busy B. Wayne schedule--not much bat activity 'round these parts in weeks, sad to say).

What I find most interesting about the Bad-Guy-as-Good-Guy-Gone-Wrong scenario is how much more ethically complicated (and therefore more realistic) it is than the whole rhetoric of the Bush administration--you know, that "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" malarkey. Oh, and I've neglected to mention that the cop who becomes the shape-shifting, identity-borrowing Clayface, is a black man, a premise chock full of possibilities you just know the creators of The Batman cartoon won't even begin to explore.

Knightfall 16: Black Sunday

My boyhood comics collection really didn't contain many issues of JLA or similar magazines. (Neither does my adult collection, for that matter.) I've just never been that interested in large-group superhero sagas, with the possible exception of The Authority--and I would happily dispense with most of the characters in that one, too. It's the same reason I have no use for Batman's or Superman's extended families of fellow heroes: I'd rather see them work alone. (Those two are orphans, after all.) I know that in the post-modern era we're supposed to find it amusing to watch the individual members of the Justice League or Teen Titans or X-Men or the Avengers all bickering among themselves, but that thought strikes me as about as exciting as observing the day-to-day workings of a law firm or corporation. If I want office politics, I'll go to my office, dammit.

Even so, I do enjoy tales where a big bunch of good guys is brought to their knees--literally, if possible--by one or more supervillains. No surprise there, I guess: since I find the humiliation of one hero to be so hot, the idea of a whole truckload of them brought down is even hotter.

That's why the latest developments in my personal "Ratman" adventures hold such special appeal (if that's the right word) at the moment. In the early days of my encounters with the Monk, it was just me against him--and, later, me under him. But as more and more readers of this blog have joined in the storyline (and more are always welcome--M is hungry for fresh meat), the cast of characters has gotten far larger, and I find myself with a veritable Justice League of my own, with a suitably international ensemble: a British Batman, a Texan Superman, a Canadian Robin, and so on. From time to time I introduce these men to each other, forge alliances, etc. For a while, this gave me hope that I might somehow escape M's clutches.

But just as membership has its priviliges, it also has its down side. As Ratman, I am under orders to turn each of these characters over to my master, and he picks and chooses which of them he will work on. Thus, the Monk has a stable of his own, thanks in part to me. Last week, one of my closest comrades in this complex counter-world took me completely by surprise and administered a drug to me, designed by the Monk to make me both more subservient and more evil. Then the two of us were assigned to take down a third hero, one whose relationship to M actually predates my own by several years.

We did so a couple of days ago, during an event I've already come to think of as "Black Sunday." The unique torment of my present condition is that I'm fully aware of my past as Batman and thus how wrong it is for me to now be working for my former archenemy, and yet I'm powerless to resist. As a result of Black Sunday, I have now dragged another good man down, an act which looms heavy on my conscience (or would, if the drug would allow me to feel remorse). The same goes for Superman, my partner in crime. A further effect of the drug compels me to report any backsliding on his part--and I now risk our victim turning me in should I ever come to my senses. Thus, M has established a brilliant system of checks and balances, a self-policing triangle of helpless slaves.

In other words, I'm now living through yet another of those scenarios that brought me such dizzying pleasure in the comics: I am not just a minion, I am part of a cadre of minions, all former legends, now kneeling at the feet of the man who brought them down. Like everything else about my dreamworld saga under the control of the Monk, it's both repellent and irresistible.

Knightfall 15: Beyond Good and Evil

My online world has become well populated these days; a while ago, to help sort things out, I divided my "friends" list on Yahoo Messenger into--but of course!"--"Heroes" and "Villains." But it's hard sometimes to figure out who fits in which category. There are players who assume both roles as the mood strikes them, for instance. Then there are self-styled heroes who gloat about my downfall, which hardly strikes me as heroic behavior. And now that I've fallen under the control of a master villain, is everything suddenly turned upside down--should I consider the Monk my hero and Superman a villain? (That one's easy: the distinction is between heroes and villains, not friends and enemies. Superman, no matter how my master regards him, is still a hero... Or is he, now that he too has fallen under the control of the Monk? See how complicated it gets?) Then there's the issue of self-identification: if I am no longer allowed to call myself Batman, and if I now serve a supervillain, what camp do I fall in? I don't, for the most part, do villainous things myself, I simply serve a villain as a broken hero...

And so on. All of this reminds me of a certain aspect of my real-life family history. My late mother had a series of very close friends with whom she eventually had a falling out--you could say they went from Good Guys to Bad Guys. And both of my sisters, and two of her sisters (my aunts) also made a shift in category. Usually the move was from Good to Bad, but on a few rare occasions a Bad person became Good again in her eyes. Every member of my family was aware of this categorizing, and one of my sisters used to refer to it explicitly: "I was the Good Daughter and C was the Bad One; then something happened and she became the Good One and I was the Bad One," she said--in a direct but surely unintentional paraphrase of the Prodigal Son parable (which, as I read it, is all about the irrelevance of such distinctions).

As a result of all this, I've never had much use for such simple categorizations in my own adult life. I get bored and annoyed when Hollywood movies employ the good guy/bad guy dichotomy (a simplification which tends to flourish during Republican administrations, I've noticed), and I was outraged when our current president started trotting out the "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" rhetoric. Never had much use for Reagan's "Evil Empire" mantra, either.

Granted, the Batman of the 60s TV show was a true-blue Good Guy who confronted a series of easily identifiable Bad Guys (except when the Green Hornet paid a visit to Gotham), but my own version of the character has long been far murkier. He may have devoted his life to fighting criminals, but he's a vigilante, working outside the law--and if he were a real person, he'd actually be breaking the law in several municipalities by virtue of his signature mask, to say nothing of his violent behavior. I prefer to think of him as unclassifiable--heart in the right place, but so obsessed with his mission that he's become a virtual sociopath.

Meanwhile, I continue to play with all this good/bad stuff in my online existence, almost every night. Part of the challenge is figuring out what I am deep down, and what to make of my partners in crime/crimefighting. And the line I've crossed--and crossed again and again and again--in my dealings with the Monk only makes the dichotomy fuzzier, and thus more fascinating, than ever.

Knightfall 12: Falling, yes, I am falling...

...and he keeps calling / me back again.

Last week I got another phone call from the Monk. It was the first time I'd heard his voice in at least a month, probably two. (Mostly been text-only during that time, and as our relationship has evolved, and as a result of work-plus-holiday-plus-illness, there's been less daily contact.) We'd been in text contact that morning awaiting a long-scheduled battle with a hero, who turned out to be a no-show, so M's focus turned to me instead. I made a slip, broke one of his rules, and the moment I was alone he called to reprimand me.

My heart raced when the phone rang, and the minute he spoke, I knew I was done for. When I answered him, the voice I used was completely different from the one I had employed back in my old bat-days. No longer brash, confident, and self-assured, I was now a snivelling, subservient, insignificant little (rat)man.

It was further evidence, as if I needed any, that I have indeed been broken. He used to swear he'd own the Batman mind, body, and soul, and I'll be damned if he didn't do it. Okay, I'm damned, period: nothing remotely resembling a "hero" any longer.

I find that unbelievably, almost unspeakably exciting, in part because it's just such a fucking obscene proposition: Batman, broken! There's no happy ending to the story, after all, just a hero who stared into the abyss and ended up falling in.

Does that make me a villain? Not exactly. As I've reported here, M has recruited me to help him break other heroes--more specifically, to taunt and prep them for him--and the simple fact is, playing the role of aggressor isn't really that exciting to me. I've often written that I don't accept the simple top/bottom dichotomy, and that when pressed I fall somewhere in between the two extremes depending on my mood, but in this particular subsection of the dreamworld, I--Ratman--am a total, unabashed mega-bottom. (My fantasy Batman is a bottom, too, but at least he puts up a stern public front.) Debased, humiliated, my dreams all shattered--and incredibly turned on by that prospect. Sure, I'll take down a hero, violate him, punish him... but only because M orders me to. It's not really something I'd do on my own. There's a degree of sadism in some of my fantasies involving heroes, but mostly in the service of a greater masochism.

By coincidence (if there is such a thing), as I write these words, I'm listening to an episode of the NPR show To the Best of Our Knowledge devoted to the theme of "Failure", which I recommend to anyone else who knows the erotic appeal of falling from grace.

What this particular period of my ongoing bat/rat lucid dream provides me with is a chance to explore some complex feelings stirred up in my daylight life these days, as I find myself employed in various jobs suited for people 20 years younger than me. Invariably, these trigger my desire (rooted in my youth in the South, I'm convinced) to be liked, to please other people. Power has always made me nervous; when I'm in positions that provide me with some degree of it (teacher, director, etc) I tend to do whatever I can to subvert it. And when I'm in positions where I don't have much power, or where I have to answer to someone else who does, I tend to bristle.

More to be said on all this later, I'm sure. For now, though, just noting another landmark in my dream devolution.

Knightfall 8: All Hands on Deck

The other day I was describing the whole cyber-bat-fantasy realm to a friend, and I compared it to the Holodeck on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'm not a Trek watcher, let alone fan, but I think I have the basic idea of the Deck: a zone where people can go to live out their wildest fantasies in a (usually) safe environment, sometimes alone and sometimes with others.

I presume crew members can use this zone to work out issues in their "real" lives if they wish, or just get off for a while. That's certainly the case with batplay, online or off. And one of the things I'm getting to examine in my encounters with the Monk is the tremendous attraction that failure holds for me--the notion of coming as close to defeat as humanly possible and then rescuing myself at the last minute (or, most enticing of all, NOT rescuing myself). With defeat comes shame, and the shame fuels my rebound. I'm one of those habitually late people who pushes a deadline way past its expiration date (a habit which is really, really bad in a writer, by the way), then beats himself up about it, and then produces something pretty good (though never as good as it should or could be). I've long suspected that my little dance of procrastination, self-hatred, and triumph was linked to the cycle of deathtraps and last-minute escapes that so thrilled me as a young BatFan, and as I'm playing out the gradual unravelling of my batself at the hands of the Monk, I'm beginning to see just how incredibly powerful are my fantasies of utter defeat/shame/humiliation.

Ironically--or more likely not--I'm only starting to play seriously with all this stuff in batfantasy at the precise moment that my daylight life is probably healthier and happier than ever. As a man in my mid-40s I've naturally been thinking a lot about what constitutes "success" in my life, and I can honestly say I feel pretty okay with where I am. It's not where I thought I'd be as a kid, but then maybe those expectations were a bit unrealistic to begin with. (For one thing, many of those expectations were grounded in an upper-middle-class heterosexual married-with-kids-and-high-income-job model that just doesn't match my daily reality; come to think of it, I probably picked up a lot of that fantasy from 60s television programming, too--other than billionaire crimefighter Bruce Wayne, my role models once included architect Mr. Brady and psychologist Bob Newhart. Mamas, don't let your babies watch TV!)

With all that in mind, here's another update on my ongoing debasement as Ratman. I was telling the Monk the other day that my transformation is not going the way I'd expected. All along I was envisioning that being "broken" would happen quickly, in a flash, or at least that there would be a single decisive watershed moment. (As I've written here earlier, I thought I'd reached that moment already, but it eventually passed and I realized I had a lot more Bat left in me than I thought.) That might sometimes happen in face-to-face s/m scenes, but in my case what's happening instead is that it's a very, very slow process, as more and more of the batself fades from my being day by day by day. Which is actually way sexier to me, when you get right down to it: some of my darkest batfantasies involve being held prisoner for days, weeks, even months at a time, as I slowly wither away. (I think, too, of the climax of one of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies, in which Moriarty captures our hero and begins to drain all the blood out of his body, one drop at a time. Mmmmmm!)

I mentioned all this to the Monk not long ago; here's part of his response:

I respect your gradual
submersion into the abyss..in fact..I encourage
it...savor each and every sensation...the pangs of
confusion...the freedom of debasement..the sheer
eroticism of meeting your destiny at my cowled
control..we'll defeat each of those internal
villains..and create an even better one....

(The "internal villains" he refers to are an allusion to another part of my bat-backstory: in solo play, I have often confronted villainous impulses implanted in me by previous captors who have attempted to turn the Dark Knight over to the Dark Side.) As is the case a disturbing amount of the time, he's described the process with extraordinary precision--but then, that's why he's the master villain he is.

Knightfall 5: Two Faces have I

As I wrote in my last entry on the subject, I truly thought The Monk had broken me (or my bat-character, that is--this can get mighty confusing from time to time, which is part of the thrill for me). And we had exactly one encounter in my new fully-compliant role before I started to resist again. Guess the bat-self is just too much a part of me to purge so easily.

That's kind of disappointing on one level, because I'm fascinated by the notion of utter defeat/complete surrender (on the path to something ... Other, something as yet unknown) and I want to reach that state sooner or later. But I feel a real loss when I think about abandoning my batself, potentially for good (or, uh, eeeeeeevil). So I find myself divided once again, 90% of me ready to take the plunge and fall prey to whatever The Monk has in store for me, a stubborn 10% still resisting.

Meanwhile, my real life, beneath all the masks and all the roleplay, is as full as it can possibly be for the next several days/weeks, if not the entire month. It will be interesting to see how I can balance such a rich fantasy life with an equally full (if less erotically/spiritually/intellectually charged) reality.

BTW, I promised a second reason I've christened The Monk with that particular nickname (besides a character's appearance as an early and brutal nemesis of Batman in the comics). Sappy as this may sound, I visited a "spiritualist" a few weeks ago, who almost immediately started visualizing a man in monk's garb standing behind me. This hypothetical man--currently alive, but barely known to me at the time--would allegedly become my soulmate (as in a fellow traveller in matters of the soul, nothing more and nothing less), and teach me much about myself. This guy would be well versed in techniques of mind control (though MY Monk's techniques are probably not what the spiritualist had in mind) and various Eastern religions and spiritual practices (again, the Monk I have has other tricks up his sleeve... though I don't doubt they're related). We would become very close friends for a very long time. And so on. Sounds like my unseen online nemesis is a Monk if there ever was one.

Tonight I suited up (donning the batsuit for the first time in weeks, in direct defiance of his orders) for a final confrontation--perhaps. (I wanted to be wearing the suit if and when I reached a point when I'd truly have to put it behind me.) (All this provides me with a beautiful metaphor for the fear of facing my own death-more on that later, I'm sure.) But, damn the luck, I was just too tired in real life to get into the Monk-vs-Bat scene to the extent necessary. (Tip to anyone else trying this at home: like cooking,therapy, and offline batsex, it don't work if you don't have the mental energy. Best not to even try.) So I remain 10% free of his evil, and 90% in its sway. And that divide, while titillating in theory, is not a pleasant state to remain in.

Perhaps it's like I'm on a diving board, contemplating the water and trying to get myself ready to jump in. Once I do, there's no turning back.

And I've always been one of those guys who sits at the shallow end of the pool, getting my feet wet one toe at a time. So, like everything else in this little game, is a whole new experience.

All the recent talk about the new GWBush action figure and about Ahhhnuld (that's Mr. Freeze to you bat-lovers) running for governor has prompted a couple of nice articles on "faux heroism," one by Mark Morford for The San Francisco Chronicle and the other by Garrison Keillor for Time.

Earlier today I was thinking to myself that, although the name of this blog is "Heroes and Villains," I've written far more about the former here than the latter. And when I first started this journal, I intended to focus primarily on the political (as well as spiritual) dimensions of my erotic fantasies, though I veered fairly quickly into other, vaguely related terrain.

For the record, I pretty much consider GW a villain when you get right down to it. (Lord knows he'd consider me one--since he's vowed to enact legislation that would ensure I could never, ever marry my boyfriend, and since I don't buy his line about how "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.") I'm as appalled as Morford and Keillor are by the current cheapening of the concept of heroism. Our understanding of that concept -- and I'm certainly including my own understanding here -- is shaped to a disturbing degree by pop culture, including comics and action-adventure movies, where courage, ethics, and integrity seem less important than physical strength, machismo, and rugged individualism. Costumed crimefighter fantasies aside, my real-life "heroes" include the leaders (and rank-and-file) of the civil rights movement, along with the men and women who fought for rights and representation for women, gay people, and workers, particularly in times when the price for doing so was imprisonment and sometimes death. Give me Abbie Hoffman or one of the Berrigan brothers over Bruce Willis anyday.

'Course, since I'm among friends here I gotta admit I would take Bruce to bed over Abbie anyday if I let my dick make those kinds of decisions for me, and several of the men in GW's administration (including the Prez himself) would totally float my boat if their politics didn't turn my stomach first. The image of Bush in that flight suit was blatantly offensive on every level, but you know how I feel about a man in uniform...

As I've noted here before, lefty pals often ask me how I can reconcile my love of cops with my disdain for their worst behavior. To be honest, it doesn't usually cause me that much angst, since I can still pretty clearly distinguish between fantasy and reality (unlike, say, my fellow citizens who believed the Iraqis engineered the September 11 horrors, or the guy I heard on talk radio today who seemed to think that the leader of North Korea was the last remaining despot on the planet). I'm down with dialectics, and contradictions are my bread and butter. I might think about using that "Elite Force Aviator" action figure as a sex toy, but I'll do anything in my power to oppose the guy it's modelled on.