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THE LAW IS A ASS for 10/30/2001
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 119
Originally written as installment # 108 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 702, May 1, 1987 issue
And, thus, did the laptop change my life. Suddenly, I could take a computer with me on vacation, complete with my word processing program, and write columns or anything else I wanted, even though I was away from home.
No more would vacations be times of idleness. Rather they could be times of continued productivity, with the spark of new environments spurring my creative no new heights.
I miss vacations.
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 119
by
Bob Ingersoll
I'm sitting in sunny central Florida, as I write this, on the second of a two-week vacation. (ATTENTION BURGLARS: Forget about breaking into my empty house. I've calculated the lead time of this article with pinpoint accuracy. By the time you read this, I will be back home. Beside which, I'm a public defender. You ever see what we get paid? You wouldn't find anything worth taking anyway.) Anyway, I've played lots of golf. I've been to Walt Disney World. I've been to Busch Gardens. I've been to the beaches of Clearwater.
So, why do my thoughts dwell on nuclear war?
Because of Justice League # 3, that's why.
Here's the situation: three super-powered extraterrestrials, Wandjina, Silver Sorceress, and Bluejay, (Didja ever wonder how a super-powered extraterrestrial came to have a name as pedestrian as Bluejay?) have come to Earth from their own planet. Their planet was destroyed by nuclear explosions. They want to prevent the same from happening on Earth. Toward this end, they go around destroying nuclear stockpiles before the stockpiles destroy the Earth.
It's a noble pursuit. Rather clichEd, (and soon to be a major motion picture--or Superman IV, anyway) but noble.
The Justice League enters Russian airspace to stop the aliens from destroying the nuclear arsenals of Russia. At the end of the story, the Russians declare the aliens to be their prisoners, take charge of them, and boot the Justice League out of the country. And here's the kicker: Batman says it was because, "The Russians are sorely lacking in super-heroes. In their scramble to avoid a super-human gap with the West, they've no choice but to follow up every possibility." So the Russians have taken these super-powered aliens to be their own resident super-powered combatants.
That's what got my mind to pondering the international law ramifications of the Russians' actions. Suppose, for the sake of argument, (and given the present administration, it's hardly a big supposition) that the United States doesn't want Russia to fill the super-human gap? Suppose the United States wants to maintain its super-human superiority? What does the United States do?
It might just fulminate about the situation. (But that's doubtful. The Carter Administration is long gone.)
The United States could make a formal protest to the United Nations and argue that the Russians' claiming the super-powered aliens for their own constitutes the taking of slaves--an act which cannot be condoned by civilized people, or even the Planet Earth. After all, the super-powered ETs in the good old U S of A are there by choice. They weren't pressed into service by being arrested. (Not yet, anyway. Ret cons of Hawkman or Martian Manhunter could change all that.) There is a problem with this course of action. Not only would it take too much time, it could never be successful as long as Russia retains its veto power.
("Excuse me, Mr. Russian Ambassador, but the Security Council has passed a resolution to censor Russia, until it releases the aliens."
"I understand, Comrade. I vould do da same, vere I in your position. Of course, I veto your resolution."
"That's all right, Mr. Ambassador. Sorry to have bothered you.")
The United States could argue that the aliens attacked U.S. air space first, so the United States has a prior claim on them, then take the situation to the World Court for adjudication. This isn't likely to produce any better results, however. The World Court doesn't really have any more power than the U.N. Besides, it doesn't have any time to settle such petty disputes nowadays. It's got more important matters to handle. Like trying to figure out some new reason why it can't try Magneto this time week.
Finally, the United States can also take more direct actions. Like dispatching the Suicide Squad to free the extraterrestrials from the Red yoke. At which point, the Russians would, no doubt, retaliate by sending the Rocket Red Brigade to free J'onn J'onzz. After all, red and green go so well together.
It would go back and forth like this, until someone finally made a play for the big guy, which is either Superman or Yakov Smirnoff, depending on your point of view. At that point, it would be too late. The only retaliation left would be a full-scale preemptive nuclear strike.
All this, because some comic book writer came up with the concept of a Super-Human Gap. I keep telling the writers they've got to be more responsible; that they've got to think out the full consequences of these cute phrases and concepts they bandy about. But they just don't seem to listen.
******
Now let's talk about theft. Theft's illegal and that involves the law. So when a comic steals something of value from me, I talk about it. However, the theft I'm talking about is the not the theft of property. It's the theft of memories. Given the rate my memory's fading, that's a worse crime anyway.
I was never big on Robin as a kid. Other than the fact that it gave me a role when my older brother played Batman, I had no use for him. I couldn't be him. Maybe I could grow up to become Batman, if I applied myself (Is it too late for that?) But it was already too late for me to be Robin. So, I resented him. In addition, I could never understand why the Dark Knight, a creature of the shadows, would saddle himself with some punk kid who wore a bright red shirt which cried out, "Shoot me!" The entire concept of Robin never worked for me, until Mike Barr and Frank Miller showed me how and why Robin is essential to Batman.
So, now I accept that there should be a Robin. For me, and probably for most of the comic book readers, Robin, the Boy Wonder, will always be Dick Grayson. Jason Todd is only a spoiled brat pretender to the throne, who I regarded as an intrusion.
I put up with Jason Todd, not because I accept him as Robin, but because he's a symbol of Dick Grayson's rite of passage into manhood. Dick--after years of living in Batman's shadow--had finally grown to the point that he could function independently of Batman. He proved this in the excellent Teen Titans/Outsiders cross-over a few years back. When Dick realized this, he adopted a new identity. This freed up the Robin costume for Jason. Jason became Robin, because Dick had outgrown the identity. I liked very much the fact that Batman let Jason become Robin, only after he made sure Dick did not want the identity any longer. It showed that Batman respected Dick and his years of service as Robin.
Now, under the rewritten history of Batman # 408 and 409, Dick's time as Robin has been reduced. He was forced out of the role, before he outgrew it. This maddens me. But what infuriates me is that the rite of passage, the maturation process, and Batman's respect for Dick Grayson are gone.
Now, we learn that Batman ordered Dick to quit, after Dick almost got killed. Batman believed Boy Wondering was too dangerous an occupation for a kid, so ordered Robin to give up the costume. Then before Alfred could convert all the yellow capes to dish rags, Batman did a complete 180 and let Jason Todd become Robin. And he did this without any consideration of Dick or Dick's feelings on the matter.
Why did Dick become Nightwing under the new continuity? Not out of his maturation process. Batman didn't allow it to happen. He became Nightwing because, suddenly, he didn't have an identity of his own to use. It was more an act of spite designed to prove to Batman that Dick Grayson always was and always will be better than some punk imitation.
I have come to the conclusion that this wholesale re-writing of continuity isn't so very good a thing, after all. The concept of Superman is much weaker when he is deprived of the two great tragedies of his life--losing the possibility of living on the utopian planet of Krypton and losing his foster parents. The concept of Batman is cheapened by this callous mistreatment of Dick Grayson, who is far more important to the legend than Jason Todd ever was or ever could be.
******
BOB INGERSOLL, attorney, comic book collector, and CBG's legal analyst doesn't want any of my readers to feel bad, because I used part of my vacation to work on a column. It was either write this column or play another round of golf. If you ever saw me play golf, you'd realize that writing a column is a vacation!
Bob Ingersoll<< 10/23/2001 | 10/30/2001 | 11/06/2001 >>
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