Rothenberg: A GOP Gain of at Least Six Senate Seats ‘Seems Very Possible’
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Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty July 16, 2014 Rothenberg: A GOP Gain of at Least Six Senate Seats 'Seems Very Possible' Not much that Roll Call's Stu Rothenberg writes in his latest column is all that surprising, but it's nice to have our impressions confirmed by somebody outside the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Finally, he notes, Colorado's Cory Gardner "may well be the best GOP challenger in the country, and we are moving the race to Tossup/Tilts Democrat [from "Leans Democrat"], which better reflects the overall competitiveness of the contest." What does this all mean? It means that if Republicans work their butt off for the next four months, and avoid any stupid mistakes, they'll take the Senate. Mr. Crist, Aren't You Supposed to Tell the IRS When You Sell a House? I know that there's not a lot that I can say to make you think less of Charlie Crist than you already do, but down in Florida, there are some signs he's not complying with disclosure law . . . or perhaps even tax law:
Don't you hate it when you completely forget to mention the sale of a home? Get It Together, Comics Industry! Marvel Comics announced Tuesday they're turning Thor into a woman. Fans reacted with groans Tuesday, an indicator that Marvel Comics, one of the giants of the industry, ran aground. Before we go any further, let me establish my comics-geek bona-fides: I got into comics after Tim Burton's 1989 Batman. The first graphic novel I ever bought was Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. In DC-world, I was a big fan of the Keith Giffen/J. M. DeMatteis/Kevin Maguire/Adam Hughes years on the Justice League/Justice League International. I mostly collected team books, and had more Marvel than DC in my collection. Probably my favorite comic while collecting was The Uncanny X-Men, before anybody knew who Jim Lee was. I collected most of the late-Chris Claremont era, coming in just before Acts of Vengeance and losing interest around the time they split the team into Blue and Gold teams. I collected some of the Avengers, both regular and West Coast, and occasionally would pick up Captain America or Iron Man during heavily-hyped runs. I know that Rob Liefield draws people with muscles that don't exist and sixty-perfectly-aligned teeth, and loathed the unintentional self-parody that Youngbloods was — but I also think his early work in the final year of The New Mutants provides a glimpse of what could have been had his ego not run away from him. Ninety percent of you have no idea what the preceding paragraphs are about. The other 10 percent are saying, "The geek is strong in this one." Some comic-book writer observed recently that the comics industry has become the R&D department for Hollywood, with so many major studios increasingly financially dependent upon the big-budget summer blockbuster featuring comic-book heroes: Sony has the Spider-Man movies, 20th Century Fox has the X-Men, Warner Brothers has the DC comics, and Marvel Studios has turned into a hit machine. On the television dial this fall, we'll watch Arrow (featuring Green Arrow) and The Flash on the CW, Gotham, the pre-Batman prequel on Fox, and Agents of Shield and Agent Carter on ABC. So if the comics industry hits a creative rut, it has far-reaching ramifications for the entire entertainment world. Thinking back to that late-80s, early-90s "golden age" of my collecting, I note that the best stories featured heroes and teams that had distinct senses of what made them heroic, and often featured conflict among heroic characters. The Avengers enjoyed the backing of governments — U.S., U.N., you name it — and they're the John Wayne sheriffs (particularly Captain America). The X-Men were outlaws — following their own definitions of right and wrong and justice without government sanction. They were the comics equivalent of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name. The world in the X-Men comics was a little more complicated and intriguing, with most of the stories taking place in the shadows. When the X-Men were in a jam, there was often no backup or anyone to call for help, since the government was as likely to try to arrest the X-Men as help them in a crisis. During those years, Marvel's no-powers, just-guns vigilante The Punisher popped up for guest appearances in other books all the time, often spiking sales for that comic. I think some writer theorized that fans liked seeing the Punisher contrast with other heroes — Spider-Man, Daredevil — more than they liked watching the Punisher himself. Drama comes from conflict, and while you can write an enjoyable story of pure good vs. pure evil — Captain America vs. the Red Skull — the messiness and moral complications of real life mean we can appreciate a shade of gray or two. Magneto's extremism stems directly from his experience in a concentration camp. Old-school Wolverine didn't hesitate to kill anybody dumb enough to pick a fight with him. But when the creative well runs dry, it's easier to go for the big, dramatic-shake-up, even if it runs against the nature of the character or what made the comic book originally appealing. Comics fans have seen the shock death (the girlfriend in the refrigerator), the shock reinvention . . .
Now comes the shock gender switch . . . but as the Barenaked Ladies sang, "It's all been done before." ADDENDA: Here's last night's Greta appearance, where I speculated that Lois Lerner is a one-woman walking electromagnetic pulse . . . To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com
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