Fifteen Less Than Twenty

Seeing this going on over at my friend Rob's Blog enticed me to jump in. (It also got me to research the term "meme," but that's another story.) It's taken a few days for me to get my answers up here, but Rob's interview with me follows. (And he did it all without those little blue cards!)


1. You've been granted one time-travel jump, then and back. Where do you go, and what do you do?

This was the big toughie. My first thoughts were of History, then I got to thinking about things I'd like to revisit or fiddle with in my past, and then I kinda got stuck. So we'll go with something from my first impulses:

I'd zoom back to the Eighteenth Century and hang out with Benjamin Franklin for a while. Although I know it would likely involve greater chance of disappointment, I think I'd go with the older Franklin. Get the full benefit.

That's assuming that I hadn't already hopped into the Way-Back and set the controls for Gethsemane before I'd thought it through, of course.


2. Which supervillain would you most like to date?

Huh. Well, Knockout was always a lot of fun, at least back in the good old days of the Karl Kesel Superboy book. But she's really a super-strong female fury and would likely squash me to paste with a friendly hug. And she's a chick. And I think current continuity has her involved with Scandal. So it's more likely that we'd just hang out and dish.

So let's look at more likely prospects.

Hmm. I've been reading Countdown, and things seem to be a little complicated with Piper these days. Of course, things are always a little complicated with Piper. I mean, he was a villain, then was good, then was a villain, then kinda good again and now... who knows? So I'm not even sure if it's fair to include him in a "villains" list, anyway. He's a definite VILF, although his wildly inconsistent fashion sense may be cause for concern.

Magneto's a bit old for me. Oh, wait -- I'm thinking of Ian McKellan.

Never mind.

Things with Obsidian are generally too dark, and way too complicated, although I gather life has been going a bit better for him of late. He may well be off the market. (I need the Manhunter trade collections to come out more quickly so I can get caught up in this department.) And he's also somewhere on the villain/hero fence.

(Seems like it's hard to keep these gay bad guys bad. Wonder why?)

I do seem drawn to these "villains" who're more morally ambiguous than outright evil. (Just as well; I could never handle making out with someone who used moustache wax.) That leads me to bachelor supervillain number four:

The Shade.

I can't think of any evident incident that tagged him as gay, but I also have no reason to suspect that his rails run all that straight. Given how long lived he is, I expect he's sampled most everything at the buffet. Probably in a number of combinations. And he did know Oscar Wilde.

Regardless, The Shade is cool. Indeed, outright debonair. He wears black, but not like some pouty Goth; The Shade wears black well. He's had centuries to lose it, but I think he still has enough of his original English accent to be damned sexy. Intimidatingly well read and cultured, he appreciates the arts and possesses the resources to indulge that appreciation. I can't help feeling that, were he courting you, The Shade could be almost unstoppably charming.

And the odd thing is, I believe that if I had reason to feel I could trust him there would be a better-than-even chance that I actually could.

The truth is, in many -- or perhaps most -- cases, much of what makes supervillains villains in the first place kinda turns me off. Sure, it may make them interesting characters. But would you feel okay about giving them the keys to your place? I'm not talking about nutcases here. I might like to go out for drinks with Harvey Dent, but I definitely don't want TwoFace playing with the bar change anywhere near me. And folks like the Joker, Carnage or [shudder] Killer Croc just don't enter into the question. I'm talking about otherwise rational guys who do very bad things. And let's be honest here -- no matter how long you knew him, however much you'd shared, would you ever really trust Lex Luthor?

But as I came to know him during James Robinson's Starman run, The Shade doesn't have impulses or ambitions which I'd define as inherently evil. Aberrant, yes, and certainly outside conventional morality, but not outright evil. And, after all, there's more than a little about me that transgresses what some people consider conventional morality, inclinations and desires that various religious traditions and social conservative crazies would define as aberrant or even evil.

Yeah. I can see having a good time with The Shade.


3. Do you prefer the term "yeti" or "abominable snowman"?

Given the choice, I'll go with "Yeti" over "abominable snowman," the latter being neither complimentary nor wholly accurate.
Given my druthers, though, I'd stick with "Bumble."


4. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate?

Dark chocolate = oh yeah!
Milk chocolate = yummy...
White chocolate = why?


5. Pick a movie director and a comic book. Which two would you put together?

The first combo that came to mind was Terry Gilliam and Transmetropolitan.

Who better to direct the movie of a comic "combining black humor, life-threatening situations, and moral ambiguity?"

Actually, that last sounds like a pretty accurate description of a date with The Shade...



Wanna play? Here’s how!

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions. (They probably won't be the same ones you see above!)

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about comics – I won’t assume you’re a comic reader – or a superhero comic reader – when I pick my questions. (If you are, though – fair game!) [And, anyway, I'm not nearly as serious a comics geek as the folks among whom I believe this started, a fact which I suppose only increases the likelihood of my hitting you with really off-the-wall questions...]