kylegarret

Discovering Hip Hop at 40

I wrote this eight years ago and I’m still discovering hip hop

Having kids leads to some strange changes in your life.

Like listening to hip hop.

I was born in the mid-70s, so suggesting that I’m a child of the 80s wouldn’t be far off. But puberty wrecked havoc on me, to the point that I became almost a different person. At the very least, I went from a kid who generally did what he was told to a kid who generally tried to do his own thing. By this token, the 80s weren’t so much my decade as the 90s, after puberty, after I’d decided to start making decisions for myself.

Rap music “broke” in the 90s, really. It had been bubbling below the surface of mainstream music for years, but it really broke through in the 90s. That’s when it became popular music. And even now, I have some affection for 90s hip hop.

But that wasn’t me. I was an angry white kid from the suburbs who had no idea why he was angry and seemingly out of no where came an entire genre of music that spoke to me: grunge. And when grunge burned away, I’d already jumped ship to its main influence, punk rock. And punk rock led me to indie rock, which more or less allowed me to mix some sadness in with my anger.

I stayed away from hip hop. I needed music that spoke to me, but I was also for anti everything, which meant that listening to popular music was out of the question. And, like I said, rap had taken over the Top 40.

I dabbled in hip hop over the years. At a certain point, indie rock began embracing lesser known rap acts, I suppose the way that Anthrax embraced Public Enemy. And I liked hip hop. I’ve just never had any idea where to begin with it and, really, no motivation to do so. I was waist deep in minor chords and feelings and adding another style of music to the mix was just too much for me.

But when you have kids, you suddenly find motivation for things, motivation that wasn’t there before.

I started listening to hip hop regularly after our son was born. The internet is great for getting suggestions; there are a hundred streaming music services that will take one song you like and turn it into an entire playlist. So slowly but surely, I waded deeper and deeper into the hip hop waters.

I’m still a novice, I fully admit that, and I doubt anyone would ever accuse me of being anything other than a dabbler. But I’m open to anything. I want to learn.

What does this have to do with my son?

I wasn’t raised on music. My parents loved Abba and Neil Diamond, but beyond that they seldom even talked about music. When I discovered the Beatles, I raided my parents record collection, but I’d never heard of them from my parents and was surprised to find those albums in the house.

I want my son to be exposed to as much as possible. I know that hip hop might seem like a small thing, but I feel like it’s important. I feel like growing up around a diversity of music is important.

It’s more than that. We live in the Bay area and his class at school is fairly diverse. But I know how much more impact parents can have on kids and I don’t want him to see me living on a steady diet of sameness. I want him to experience a wider world that I only ever got glimpses of and I at least want him to feel like that experience is encouraged, not just overtly.

Honestly, it’s been a lot of fun to dig into a new genre of music, particularly something that’s so far removed from what I’ve listened to for most of my life. It’s like learning a new language. I’m starting to become discerning, starting to notice what I like about particularly songs and what I don’t. I can’t really verbalize it yet, but I’ll get there.

And I still can’t dance, but my son doesn’t care.

What I said when my son asked me what make-up was

When our older son was 3, he asked me what make-up was.

I stopped myself.

I almost answered with the first thing that came into my head, but made a change before anything came out of my mouth. That change was not using the word “women.”

I’m assuming he heard the term “make-up” from my wife, probably that morning as she was getting ready for work, which meant he had to ask me about it on the way to school. So, of course, my wife was on my mind when I started to answer. But I managed to modify my answer before it came out of my mouth.

“Make-up is something people put on their face to make it look different,” was my answer, or at least as close to it as I can remember.

“Do you remember that clip we saw of the boy whose face was made to look like Rubble? That was make-up.”

Rubble is a member of the Paw Patrol and the clip was on the Nick, Jr. app. It was a short video of a make-up artist painting the boy to look like Rubble, a dog.

It’s a legitimate question to ask why I stopped myself. At the time, it was because I don’t want my son to grow up assuming that only women can wear make-up. I don’t honestly know any men that wear make-up, but I know they exist and I don’t want my son thinking of them any differently.

But afterwards, I realized that I was more concerned about the idea of teaching him that women wear make-up. Yes, women can wear make-up, just like men can wear make-up, but they don’t HAVE to. I mean, socially speaking they do which is a problem, but I want him to know that it’s not something he should assume.

I realize, of course, that his 3 year old brain will probably not hold on to my explanation. And, really, my answer was less for him than for me. It forced me to think about the answer.

I’m trying my hardest not to instill in him the same assumptions that were introduced to me growing up. To say that my father was opinionated would be an understatement, but I know I have that within me, too. I have very strong opinions and I’m not shy about sharing them. But I don’t want to put any of that on my son. I want him to walk into the world with as few preconceived notions as possible.

I’m left wondering how often such issues are going to come up (frequently) and how well I’m going to deal with them. I caught myself this time, but what if I don’t the next?

Which is, I think, why it’s important that I did catch myself this time, even though my son is only three. This is practice. This is preparation for the coming years when he takes my comments to heart, when my opinions start to influence his way of thinking.

I think the fact that I’m thinking about any of this at all is a good sign.

Micro-inclusiveness: Raising a white boy

I wrote this five years ago. Since then, we’ve had another son, and his experiences have been very similar.

My son is four. He is as white as they come.

His current cartoon fixation is Handy Manny. He’s watched roughly 8 episodes and so far we’ve mostly talked about the fact that Manny and his friends can speak two languages and I try to translate for him in a more deliberate way than they do on the show. Fortunately for both of us, my Spanish covers everything Manny and his friends say.

My son thinks it’s cool that they speak two languages and has said he’d like to learn Spanish. But, you know, he’s four, so we’ll see how that goes.

It helps that he goes to a diverse school. His former best friend was from France and spoke both French and English. He moved away a few months ago and one of his other friends has now stepped into the “best friend” position. He’s Chinese American and speaks English and Mandarin. For my son, speaking two languages isn’t unusual.

He has two other friends that he plays with every day at school. One is a Chinese-American girl, the other an Iranian-American boy. There were probably a half dozen different languages being spoken at the latter’s last birthday party.

This afternoon my son diverged from his Handy Manny fixation and asked to watch something else: Doc McStuffins.

You don’t need me to go on and on about Doc McStuffins. Here’s a decent overview, although even the accolades list doesn’t do it justice. You can check out what Common Sense Media has to say, too, as they are usually pretty good about these things. Neither of those links really drives home how important Doc McStuffins is and how essential it has become.

More to the point, Doc is a black girl, just as Manny is a hispanic man. They are the main characters on their shows. They are not sidekicks, they are not punching bags. They are kind, nice, genuine problem solvers who happen to not be white.

I know that none of this is huge. I know that I can’t suddenly claim that my son will treat every one equally when he’s an adult because I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t specifically tell you what kind of impact these shows are having on him, or even the impact of the fact that he has friends who aren’t all just like him. I don’t know how any of this works.

But I know that I grew up surrounded by white people, watching cartoons about white people, and while I don’t think I am ever consciously prejudiced, I have no doubt that I am guilty of microagressions that I’m not even aware of. I also know that I spent most of my life being completely clueless about anyone who didn’t look like me and even though that’s changed over the last decade or so, I still feel like I missed out on a lot before that.

I think this is how it starts, though. I think watching cartoons with diverse characters is how it starts. Going to a school with diverse students is a start. Being raised by parents who are aware of how important this is is a start.

I think the goal of every parent is for their child to grow up to be better than they were.

In that case, this is definitely a good start.

The key is making sure that continues.

Squadron Supreme is better than Watchmen

Squadron Supreme is a often ignored classic.

It was a groundbreaking superhero story. It took archetypal characters to their organic extremes. Every action had consequences. Change was real and long lasting. These were sophisticated stories featuring complex moral and philosophical issues, told through the genre of brightly colored super beings.

It wasn’t Watchmen.

The comic in question was The Squadron Supreme, a 12 issue limited series written by Mark Gruenwald with pencils by Bob Hall, John Buscema, and Paul Ryan, and inks by an all star cast. It debuted in September of 1985, a full year before Watchmen. There are a lot people (including me), who consider it an unsung classic, deserving of the type of recognition that Watchmen gets. So why is it overlooked?

A Brief History of the Squadron Supreme

The Squadron Supreme were created by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, although it would be fair to say they were actually created by Thomas and John’s brother, Sal. See, the Squadron first appeared in Avengers #85 in 1971 as good versions of a team that Thomas and Sal had introduced just two years earlier in Avengers #69: the Squadron Sinister. Each team had the same four members (although the Supreme version had an additional four), but they weren’t the same. One was bad, one was good.

If you’re confused by that, you’re not alone. Even Marvel’s own production office couldn’t keep the two teams straight, advertising the “Squadron Sinister” on the covers of two issues of the Avengers that actually featured the Squadron Supreme.

Anyway, both teams were created as analogs for DC’s Justice League of America. The common members of the two Squadrons were Hyperion (Superman), Nighthawk (Batman), Whizzer (the Flash), and Doctor Spectrum (Green Lantern). When the Squadron Supreme first appeared, their line-up also included Lady Lark (Black Canary), a different character named Hawkeye who would later go by Golden Archer (Green Arrow), Tom Thumb (the Atom) and Cap’N Hawk (Hawkman). It’s kind of interesting that those were the additions, as opposed to versions of the remaining Justice League founders (Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter).

The Squadron Supreme would make a few more appearances in the Avengers, as well as showing up in an issue of Thor and Spider-man. But their big story line would come with an extended arc in the Defenders. The ranks of the team would fill out here as well, with the additions of Power Princess (Wonder Woman), Amphibian (Aquaman), Arcana (Zatanna), and Nuke (Firestorm). Missing from the ranks is the Skrullian Skymaster (the Martian Manhunter) who would be briefly shown as a founding member in the first issue of the Squadron Supreme series, but would only be revealed in the Squadron’s entry in the Marvel Handbook (at least until the follow-up to the follow-up of the Squadron’s series).

Now, a word about Nighthawk. Nighthawk is Kyle Richmond. On our world (the 616 Earth of the Marvel U), he was a Defender. But here’s the thing: the Defender known as Nighthawk wasn’t actually of our world! He was, in fact, the Nighthawk from the Squadron Sinister who switched sides and ended up joining the Defenders!

I know, right?

But it’s the Squadron SUPREME’s Nighthawk that is important. In the Squadron’s next appearance, Kyle Richmond had become president of the United States of the Squadron’s world. He was soon taken over by the Overmind, who used Richmond to turn the U.S. into a paranoid police state. The Overmind himself was under the influence of Null the Living Darkness, but that’s neither here nor there. The important bit is that the Overmind also took over the Squadron. The Defenders managed to free the Squadron and together they defeated Null.

And that was it.

Because No One Demanded It

In the sixteen years since the Squadron Sinister first appeared, the Squadron Supreme had only made a handful of appearances in the Marvel U, none of which had any lasting impact. It’s hard to imagine there was much of a fan movement to get them their own series.

There also wasn’t much from the Defenders story that would suggest a Squadron Supreme story needed to be told. They’d been taken over by a supervillain, but what superhero hasn’t? But if there was a core idea behind the Squadron’s series, it was to extrapolate the bigger picture from something small. Gruenwald took the germ of the Defenders story and turned it into a virus. The Squadron had been controlled by the Overmind for quite some time, and they’d been busy. They’d helped to build the United States into a fascist country that then spread across the globe by invading and occupying the rest of the world.

But then the Overmind went away and oppressive order turned into complete chaos. The world hadn’t actually ended, but the Squadron Supreme’s earth was about as post-apocalyptic as you could get.

With the world in shambles, the Squadron Supreme decided to get proactive.

But this isn’t The Authority style proactive. No, the Squadron decides to set themselves up as a super power. Federal governments remain, but in reality everyone answers to the Squadron. The Utopia Project initially focuses on feeding the world, building homes, bolstering the economy, and dismantling the military. After all, what good are stealth bombers or even nuclear bombs when you’ve got Hyperion, the stand in for Superman running around?

In a world full of superheroes, there are always supervillains, they always seem to escape from whatever prison they’re locked in. So to break this endless cycle, the Squadron Supreme come up with the Behavior Modification Process. Basically, it’s a machine that changes a person’s mind, removing their criminal impulses and replacing them with a desire to do good. Before Zatanna, Dr. Strange, and Nick Fury began mind wiping, the Squadron Supreme was altering people’s brains.

And then they got rid of death, or at least created world wide system to put people into deep freeze until they could be cured or brought back.

Not every member of the Squadron is on board with their program, though. Nighthawk leaves the team from the start, determined to find a way to stop is former compatriots from ostensibly taking over the world, even if they have the best intentions. He argues that they should be helping humanity, not commanding it.

The series ultimately follows two narratives: The Squadron’s efforts to create a Utopia and Nighthawk’s plans to oppose them. The two story lines come to a head in the finale which was, at the time, one of the most brutal comics I’d ever read.

Name a political issue and there’s a reasonable chance the Squadron Supreme limited series dealt with it. And each issue featured actual change, be it a new development in the Squadron’s plans, the death of a character, or the escalation of a moral dilemma. This was a big time ideological battle taking place in the pages of a superhero comic. It may have lacked the subtlety of a certain other 80s comic that rewrote the rules of superheroes, but it was just as deep.

I’m not doing the series justice, in large part because this lacks context. Superhero stories like this just didn’t exist back in 1985, even though they would become all the rage after Watchmen was released. But the Squadron Supreme series came first, yet isn’t showing up on a Time magazine list any time soon.

The Watchmen Factor

The thematic similarities between the two series are striking.

Both books feature superheroes taken to their extreme ends. In the case of Watchmen, it’s breaking them down to the fragile human beings that they really are. As many of said, it’s a deconstruction of not just the characters, but the genre. If anything, Squadron Supreme is pumping the characters full of steroids, taking the idea of superheroes to the other end of the spectrum, where they place themselves above the rest of the world. In Watchmen, they are down in the gutters with the rest of us, manipulating events in the background. In Squadron Supreme, they are overt, taking over the country and forcing their will upon us.

These behaviors carry over to the way the story is told. Both comics feature secret plots to prevent horrible events from happening, but in Watchmen those plans are kept secret from both the characters and the reader; we only as much as they do. In Squadron Supreme, we see it all. Nothing is hidden. And why would it be? It’s the actions that are important, so we need to see them, as opposed to Watchmen where the driving force is the mystery. If we had all the information in Watchmen, it would lose momentum.

Even these secret plans are set opposite each other. Ozymandias’ goal is to prevent the world from falling into chaos brought by a third World War, a nuclear World War. Nighthawk’s goal is to prevent the world from becoming imprisoned by the extreme order brought by the Squadron Supreme. The beginnings are the same way. When Watchmen opens, there’s a certain status quo, one that involves all (but one) vigilante having retired and Richard Nixon serving yet another term as president. The death of Comedian up ends all of that, introduces chaos into the equation, chaos that eventually pushes the world to the brink of WWIII. In Squadron Supreme, the world has already fallen into chaos, but the Squadron Supreme decides to create order.

It’s also interesting to note that both books deal with analogs of other characters. Moore wanted to use the Charlton superheroes, but was famously told to create new characters instead. Moore wanted to use recognizable characters so that the opening had some emotional resonance. DC obviously didn’t want to ruin their newly acquired IPs. It was an odd decision, though, given that Watchmen doesn’t take place in the mainstream DCU, or even on an alternate Earth, as by this point DC had done away with such things. Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, et al. would have been perfectly fine in the DCU even if Moore had used them.

The fact that Watchmen took place in its own reality, set aside from the DCU, at a time when DC had gotten rid of alternate realities, increased the profile of the book. This must be something special if DC were willing to create a superhero book that was completely removed from the rest of their line.

By that same token, Squadron Supreme was firmly entrenched in the mainstream Marvel U, even if the series took place on an alternate Earth. It had roots in the Avengers. It was seen as just another Marvel comic.

Opposite Ends of the (Doctor) Specturm

Ultimately, the Squadron Supreme and Watchmen are as different at the two men who wrote them, Mark Gruenwald and Alan Moore.

By the time Squadron Supreme debuted, Mark Gruenwald had been working for Marvel for 7 years. He was initially hired as an assistant editor and had moved up the ranks quickly. He was perhaps best known as the editor of the Avengers line of comics, although he would later become synonymous with Captain America, a title he wrote for 10 years. Gruenwald’s run on Cap would feature incredible highs (everything leading up to #350, really) and incredible lows (the newly returned Captain America armor, for example), but the length and depth of his time on the book would ultimately make him one of Captain America’s premiere creators.

Gruenwald wrote superhero stories. He edited superhero stories. He was known as the guy who knew every piece of obscure continuity in the Marvel universe.

Leading up to Watchmen, Alan Moore had made a name for himself in the U.S. with his impressive run on Swamp Thing. He’d also penned the classic Superman stories “For the Man Who Has Everything” and “What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” but the bulk of his work had been on a sophisticated horror title that had parted ways with the Comics Code Authority and would eventually be labeled “Suggested For Mature Readers.”

To say that Moore was coming at Watchmen from a different direction than Gruenwald was approaching Squadron Supreme is an understatement.

The two publishers were in very different places as well. Marvel was being run by Jim Shooter, who had hammered the company into a well oiled machine of family friendly superhero fare. Marvel wasn’t in the habit of taking risks at this point in its history. The fact that the Squadron Supreme even happened was impressive, but the fact that it took place in an alternate reality made that possible.

DC, on the other hand, was being run by Jenette Kahn, who had already broken new ground with Frank Miller’s Ronin and the Dark Knight Returns, not to mention the new direction Moore had taken Swamp Thing. Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC seemed focused on publishing a variety of content that appealed to a wide range of ages.

So when DC, hot on the heels of The Dark Knight Returns, announces that the guy who rejuvenated Swamp Thing would be releasing a brand new limited series that was meant for mature readers, people take notice. The same could not be said for the guy who writes Captain America releasing a new series starring minor characters from an old Avengers story line.

Squadron Supreme is pure superhero story and embraces those elements; everyone runs around in spandex and capes like it’s perfectly natural. There are big, bombastic battles. No one will ever think this is anything other than a superhero comic, even if it’s a truly phenomenal one.

Watchmen simply has some superhero dressing. It’s not the story of supremely powerful beings living among us. It’s the story of regular humans doing insane things for a variety of reasons. It’s just as much a murder mystery and political thriller as it is a superhero story. It’s science fiction. Watchmen stands out from the metric ton of superhero comics being published by the Big Two every month.

Watchmen made its characters less super; Squadron Supreme made them more. They appear to be diametrically opposed, yet did so much to change the way superhero stories are told.

The Post-Gruenwald Era

After the Squadron Supreme limited series, Gruenwald and artists Paul Ryan and Al Williamson abused the Squadron some more with the “Death of Universe” OGN. This particular adventure took place in space, and somehow on their return trip, the Squadron ended up in the mainstream Marvel U. They kicked around for a bit before the Avengers finally sent them home. Sadly, they returned to a very 90s universe in “New World Order.” They would eventually appear again in the Exiles series.

There was also an attempt at creating another version of the team, spear headed by J. Michael Straczynski. The goal, it seemed, was to make them more realistic. It didn’t turn out too well.

The team’s highest profile member is Hyperion, would play a major role in Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run, although Hickman has stated that this is yet another version of Hyperion and not the “Gruenwald version,” as he called it. That’s unfortunate, as this Hyperion is the only survivor of a destroyed Earth, and there’s a part of me that would like to see the Squadron’s earth wrapped up for fear of anyone doing any more harm to the team.

But the original Hyperion did eventually pop up, part of the fall out from Secret Wars. A new team is formed consisting of characters who have lost their alternate realities. The concept in and of itself is fine, but the series was uninspired and ended after less than two years.

The Squadron Supreme had their moment to shine in a complex, epic limited series. If you love superheroes, you owe it to yourself to track down this truly groundbreaking run.

Daycare is killing me.

I wrote this 9 years ago when our first son had begun going to daycare.

When I first started writing about him online, I called him Appleseed. We’d spent months reading those “at this month of your pregnancy your baby is the size of a” articles and for some reason him being the size of an apple seed had stuck with us.

He smells different.

At the end of the day, Appleseed smells like the daycare. It’s similar to how an airplane or a hotel room smells, that attempt to make something sanitized that will never ever be sanitized. I smell it when I kiss his head. He doesn’t smell like us.

I don’t think Nicole has noticed because I’ve done a good job of re-scenting him before she gets home. I sit on the couch with him and give him Sophie the Giraffe, which he promptly sticks in his mouth and gums like crazy. He slobbers everywhere. I kiss his cheeks, his head, the spot where his neck and his head connect which makes him squeal with happiness.

The squeal is muted. There’s less energy to it. His smiles don’t come as quickly. His giggles are harder to come by. And he smells different.

There’s a logical explanation for it. Besides the sensory overload, Appleseed doesn’t sleep at daycare, not like he should. They can rock him to sleep, but he wakes up when they try to put him in the crib. So when I pick him up, he’s tired, too tired to humor his father. After I’ve gotten my fill of drowning him with affection, I decide to rock him to sleep. It doesn’t take long.

The best way to make sure Appleseed will not just sleep, but sleep for a long period of time, is to sleep with him. So I take him into our bedroom, lie him on the bed, crawl in next to him, and tip him over on to his side. He likes to sleep on his side, he just can’t maintain it on his own. We’ll spend the next two hours or so like this.

It’s during this time that the smell fades. Cuddled up in bed, cuddled up next to daddy, he begins to smell like us again.

After the long nap, he starts to perk up. His energy returns. And mommy comes home. The smiles come fast and furious. The giggles and squeals are back. Appleseed has returned.

I know that he’s fine at daycare but that doesn’t mean I like it. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel like simultaneously throwing up and crying when I drop him off, and that’s after I make it out the door. Up until

that point, I feel like taking him back home and skipping work.

He’s in the infant room at his daycare, and the teacher to student ratio maxes out at 4-1, although it’s probably more reasonable to say 3-1, as one of them is almost always asleep. But between diapers, bottles, and tantrums, how much attention can those three really get?

When I drop Appleseed off in the morning, I put him in a boppy and I find him a couple of toys. That’s how I leave him and it has, so far, been how I’ve found him when I come back. It’s a different boppy and they are different toys, but that’s where he is, because he’s a relaxed baby who can hang out like that.

And that’s perfectly fine. I know he screams his head off when they change him or when they put him in a crib. I know he’s happier on the boppy and he’s certainly more quiet.

When I show up, he smiles, he squeals, and he kicks his arms and legs around, so I know he’s happy to see me. I know he’s still him. I know he’s fine.

But I want him to be more than that.

Staying at home with Appleseed was exhausting, and I only had to do it three days a week. It took so much energy to stay engaged with him and I’ll admit that I took a fair number of breaks. When four o’clock rolled around, it was time to watch a little bit of baseball. He’d zone out on it for a few minutes, but then get bored. But those few minutes were nice.

But I did my best, as I know Nicole did. She felt even more pressure than me, I think, to interact with Appleseed every minute he was awake. A lot of that is because of how much stuff she reads on the internet.

Our son his happy and energetic to the point where I’m a bit confused by it. I don’t think we do anything special. We just love the heck out of him to an obnoxious degree. And, apparently, he responds to that.

Going to daycare means he’s no longer getting that as much as he used to, and that makes me sad.

It’s hard for me to think about Appleseed when he’s at daycare because it breaks my heart. I sometimes have to force myself not to think about him because it’s honestly too much. And I resent the fact that I have to stop myself from thinking about my son.

For the first three weeks of daycare, Appleseed will only be there 3 days a week. After that, he’ll be full time, Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM, although as the guy who picks him up, I can guarantee you he’ll never stay that late. I’ll be skipping out of work early a lot more often.

I can’t imagine what it will be like when he’s there every weekday. It seems unbearable.

So the wheels are turning. Maybe we can handle three days a week and maybe that’s all we need to handle. I just need to find a way to only work three days during the week.

Because I don’t want him to be “fine.” I don’t want him to get the bare minimum of attention. I want him to have all the things he’s had for the last 5 months.

He deserves all that and more.

The Ewingverse Avengers, Part 3: Ultimates

A look at the Marvel comics of Al Ewing, part 1

A look at the Marvel comics of Al Ewing, part 2

Ultimate

We saw in New Avengers where White Tiger and Power Man ended up after Mighty Avengers, but what about the rest of the team? Well, Blue Marvel and Spectrum join the Ultimates, the first version of this team to exist in the mainstream Marvel U.

They are joined by Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Miss America.

They are meant to be a team that solves the big problems, that are proactive, that tackle the problems that require the smartest, best thinkers and those with experience dealing with crazy.

It’s a fantastic line-up and one that stays more or less intact throughout this run and the one that follows. I would have loved to have seen occasional guest star the new Giant Man join in some capacity and it seems like Ewing was headed in that direction, but we never get there.

The book is firmly rooted in the cosmic side of the Marvel U, which is really the final step in Ewing’s story. We’ve now gone from the community rooted Mighty Avengers to the global superheroes of the New/U.S. Avengers, and now to the universe spanning (and beyond) adventures of the Ultimates. It’s a great evolution and showcases Ewing’s abilities to write at any level.

The Ultimates are put together by Captain Marvel to fix big problems and they start off with one of the biggest: Galactus. Ewing’s take on Galactus is great. He fleshes out his origin, gives his existence context within the greater Marvel cosmic universe, and then does the unthinkable: makes him a force for good.

The ideas and adventures in the Ultimates stand side by side with some of the best 70s Marvel stories, which is probably the biggest compliment I could give the series.

The first six issue comprise an epic story centered around Galactus, but that spans well past him. We also learn very quickly that with all these long standing Marvel heavy hitters, Miss America is perhaps the most important.

The back half of this twelve issue series features an apparent inevitability for Ewing: a crossover. However, this could be the finest work Ewing has done incorporating an event into one of his books. Captain Marvel plays a pivotal role in Civil War II and Ewing takes full advantage of that, doing a better job with her character than the main series does.

It’s easy to see how the team would fall apart during Civil War II. Captain Marvel wants to be proactive to the point of arresting people before they commit crimes. That’s not something Black Panther would ever be able to stand for. The division doesn’t even split the team in half so much as put everyone at odds with Captain Marvel.

The first series ends with the team going their separate ways.

Squared

Ewing has made a lot of deep dives into Marvel history over the course of his many Avengers books, but he saves the deepest dive for his final story.

Ultimates 2 (although made to look like Ultimates Squared) starts with the band getting back together. While Captain Marvel is trying to patch things up on her own, Miss America has already decided they need to be a team again because they have a job to do.

Miss America has never been as fully utilized as she is in the Ultimates. Her power levels are off the charts and we get enough information about her past to know that she has more experience dealing with inter-dimensional cosmic insanity than that rest of the Ultimates combined. Ewing only gives us hints as to what her life has been like, hints that would turn into one hell of a comic if they were ever dug into.

The deep dive comes in the form of the Troubleshooters, a group made up of new versions of New Universe characters. For those of us who read New Universe books during our early comic book reading days, this is wonderful. The new versions aren’t echoes of what came before, but fully realized alternate manifestations with their own fascinating back story.

And just to keep the other universe feel, Ewing even brings back the original Ultimates, the ones who had just been erased during Secret Wars.

I’m not sure if bringing back the Ultimate was always a part of Ewing’s plans or if he felt the need to include them given that the final issue of Ultimates 2 is renumbered as #100, not #10, so as to include every issue of the Ultimate universe runs as well. It’s a thin connection even with the original team making an appearance.

It’s The Maker who brings back the original Ultimates, which makes perfect sense since he’s been the major villain since New Avengers. Blue Marvel’s history also plays a big part in getting us to the finale. Honestly, the only thing missing is the Plunderer.

It’s a perfect finale for his run, the perfect ceiling to a room he built from the ground up.

It’s just a shame that there was a ceiling at all.

The Ewingverse Avengers, Part 2: The A Stands for Al

A look at the Marvel comics of Al Ewing, part 1

New to You

One of the best parts of Hickman’s Avengers run is his development of Roberto “Sunspot” DeCosta from a two dimensional, rich hot head New Mutant to a three dimensional, rich leader of the Avengers. The fact that more isn’t being done with him right now is a shame. He’s fantastic and his friendship with Sam “Cannonball” Guthrie is wonderful.

At the end of the previous New Avengers series, Sunspot had bought A.I.M. and turned them into Avengers Ideas Mechanics. He puts together a new team featuring former Mighty Avengers White Tiger and Power Man, former Young Avengers Hulkling and Wiccan, former Thunderbolt Songbird, and Squirrel Girl (former Great Lakes Avenger?). Eventually joining the team is Hawkeye, who is added by S.H.I.E.L.D. to keep an eye on A.I.M.

Hawkeye’s addition epitomizes the tone of the book; he’s acting as a double agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. but Bobby is told as much when Hawkeye comes on board. There are double and triple agents, secret agendas, and conspiracy theories all over the place, yet often delivered with a kind of “well, of course this is a twist.” It’s the perfect feel for an Avengers book that is playing outside the lines while embracing a since of whimsy.

The shift to the New Avengers (and eventually U.S.Avengers) is a shift from street level stories to full blown superhero adventures. In the first issue, the team goes to France — they are a globe trotting team, unlike the Mighty Avengers who did most of their work in a single city.

That’s not to say that the Mighty Avengers didn’t have extradimensional adventures, but that wasn’t their objective. They were created to serve the people, the average people. They took after their leader, Luke Cage. The New Avengers were created to to be big, bold superheroes, the kind that Sunspot wanted to be.

Over the course of the series, Bobby proves himself to be smarter than anyone ever gave him credit. It’s not that he’s a master tactician but that he considers all the angles and prepares for every eventuality, in large part simply because he can. He has the time and the resources to prepare for any situation and over time he becomes very good at putting pieces together.

Basically, Sunspot is a lot of fun.

While S.H.I.E.L.D. and A.I.M. are big players in this series, a new acronym plays a major role: W.H.I.S.P.E.R. The World Headquarters for International Scientific/Philosophical Experimentation and Research is the brain child of The Maker, the evil Reed Richards from the now deceased Ultimate universe.

The Maker is a great villain, just crazy enough to be entertaining without being dark. He’s a big science bad guy and, on paper, he is much smarter than anyone on the New Avengers, which makes him an excellent big bad.

As usual, Ewing spends much of the series digging into his cast’s histories. The last volume of Young Avengers had introduced the idea that Wiccan would eventually become The Demiurge, a super powerful god. Ewing not only brings this to fruition, but introduces that stories logical end, then brings heroes from the future back in time to try to stop Wiccan.

That story arc introduces us to the Captain America of the future (noted as 20xx so as to keep it in line with Marvels’ sliding time line), Danielle Cage, the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. We’ll see her again later in Ewing’s Avengers run.

White Tiger’s past comes back to haunt her, too, as the previous White Tiger, once resurrected by the Hand, is freed and given her own White Tiger amulet by The Maker. Given that our White Tiger recently changed the rules of her relationship with the Tiger God, things don’t go well when she faces her aunt.

As is the case with Ewing’s Avengers books, New Avengers becomes mired in crossovers. The first is Avengers: Standoff which, as far as crossovers go, is pretty awful. But it gives Ewing a chance to place the team in a bit of a moral quandary that divides them up. It also gives Bobby another opportunity to prove that he’s always one step ahead.

Speaking of which, The Maker spends the series plotting against Sunspot and his team, while a faction of S.H.I.E.L.D. is also making moves against the New Avengers. Those two stories come together in one very satisfying and entertaining climax, although the results alter the standing of the new A.I.M.

So at the end of the series, Bobby makes a deal with the U.S. government which rolls us into the next Ewing-verse series, U.S. Avengers.

For what it’s worth, New Avengers lasts 18 issues, so it’s the longest run of any of the Ewing Avengers books.

Make Avengers Bizarre Again

U.S. Avengers is a weird book. The line-up is strange. Sunspot now calls himself Citizen V (which is cool) and brings along his best friend Cannonball, Enigma (formerly Pod, which is a long story), Iron Patriot (also a long story), a new Red Hulk, and Squirrel Girl. The team also briefly features the aforementioned Captain America from the future, Danielle Cage, and Smasher, last seen on Hickman’s expanded Avengers team.

The stories are strange, too, in that they seem disjointed, not at all like what we saw in New Avengers which had a very clear through line. This series seems broken up into parts, from a rollicking adventure with time travelers, to big monster fights, to yet another crossover, to a strange alien adventure with the cast of Archie.

I might be overstating to say there’s no through line; it’s more like the through line doesn’t carry as much weight as we’ve seen before. U.S. Avengers starts coming out after Trump was elected and it’s easy to see that this comic regularly attempts to deal with various parts of America.

The initial villain is The Golden Skull. Look at these pages from the end of the first issue:

That’s a pretty clear indictment of America as it currently exists. The U.S. military would get similar treatment, as would America’s fascination with its own, fictional history. The “Secret Empire” crossover actually works thematically, although the fact that it’s such an awful event undermines it.

The problem is that none of it is particularly new and while the ideas are decent, it never seems like Ewing’s heart is in this book. It seems like he enjoys digging into characters and coming up with crazy big ideas, both of which are hampered by what comes off as an inorganic attempt at making a statement.

Still, Ewing has fun with the cast when he can and any book that features a good amount of screen time for Sunspot and Cannonball is always welcome.

The series lasts 12 issues, 5 of which are pulled into Secret Empire, which continues an unbelievable streak of Ewing’s comics. The fact that he has to navigate so many crossovers from series to series is kind of unreal.

U.S. Avengers ends with a note telling us the team will be seen in the big upcoming Avengers “No Surrender” story.

The Ewingverse Avengers, Part 1: The Mighty

Starting with The Mighty Avengers, Al Ewing strung together a series of great Avengers books

Al Ewing should write the New Warriors.

Ewing excels at touching multiple corners of the Marvel U in a single series, something that hasn’t been done well for an extended period of time since the original run of the New Warriors. While I might focus on the Mighty Avengers being a ground level team of heroes, the kind who are focused on fighting in the streets and in their communities, Ewing never limits the series because of that.

There are too many toys in the Marvel U to just stick with any one area.

There was a period after Jonathan Hickman left and before Jason Aaron took over that the Avengers books lacked focus. There were a bunch of new series introduced during this time, most of them short lived, all of them bogged down by line wide events. In Marvel’s defense, they appeared to be trying a lot of different angles, yet never gave the books enough time to find fans.

Writer Al Ewing was perhaps the creator who was trapped in this quicksand the longest, losing the most titles to boot.

Consider: Ewing’s run began with Avengers fighting Plunder and ended with the Avengers facing the First Firmament, the first universe to ever exist. That’s some impressive escalation.

Ewing ultimately worked on what were ostensibly three different teams of Avengers, each connected to the other, each tonally very different. If you think of it in terms of scope, each was a different level, each series getting progressively larger than the last. Taken as a whole they paint a really interesting picture, one that spans over 75 issues.

Mighty Avengers

The most glaring omission from the Hickman era is the Bendis era stalwart Luke Cage. It’s understandable, though, as Luke is a larger than life character who deserves screen time, and Hickman’s epic was already fairly bloated with characters. Better, then, to give Luke his own team that’s more in line with what he wants to do.

And what he wants to do is make a difference in the lives of regular people.

He’s joined initially by the new Power Man and the latest White Tiger, both of whom were most recently seen in Daredevil, a book that takes place on the streets of New York, not in outer space. They’re a good addition given what this team is looking to do.

They’re joined by Spider-man, in this case the Superior Spider-man, Dr. Octopus in Peter Parker’s body.

One of the unfortunate hallmarks of Ewing’s time on the Avengers is being laden with invasive continuity. This usually comes in the form of events, but in this case it’s having to deal with a dickish Spider-man. It’s not great, particularly if you consider how great Spider-man could have been with this group.

That said, an event is what ultimately brings the team together. The Infinity crossover has the main Avengers teams off world as Thanos and his Black Order launch an attack.

The team comes together to fill the void. Joining Cage, Power Man, White Tiger, and Spider-man are Spectrum (formerly Photon formerly Captain Marvel), Blue Marvel, and…Spider Hero. Yes, Spider Hero is ridiculous, but there’s a story reason for it. This is also a perfect example of how great the real Spider-man would have been on this team. Peter Parker’s wit regarding his replacement would have been delightful.

She-Hulk and Falcon eventually join the team as the series progresses, although neither gets the kind of time that the core group gets. This book is really about Cage, Power Man, White Tiger, Spectrum, and Blue Marvel, with Spider Hero supplying some heavy lifting with plot.

So while the Mighty Avengers become a rallying point for the people of New York City when Thanos’ Black Order attacks, the battle is quickly followed by a 70s style supernatural adventure (that’s a hint as to who Spider Hero really is). Ewing also pulls stories from the characters’ pasts, particularly White Tiger and Blue Marvel.

Ewing digs into everyone’s pasts to make their presents more substantial.

In particular, Ewing takes Blue Marvel to the next level, helping him become what should have been a prominent player in the Marvel U. He should be Marvel’s Superman. Marvel should fully embrace that. But no one else seems willing to even touch him.

Over 14 issues, Mighty Avengers is pulled into three Marvel events, Infinity, Inhumanity (barely), and Original Sin. Ewing and company make the best of what they’re given, but it clearly didn’t help sales enough to keep the book afloat.

But you can’t keep a good concept down, so after Mighty Avengers ends, Captain America and the Mighty Avengers begins.

Captain America and the Mighty Avengers

The concept that threads through the two books is that of a community outreach program. The Mighty Avengers considers anyone who is willing to help a member. They have a hotline set up and tips come in from around the city. The Mighty Avengers aren’t just there to help the every day person, they’re there to empower them.

Unfortunately, the second series starts off much like the first in that it’s burdened with another crossover. This time it’s Axis and it’s much worse on the title than any crossovers before. Good guys are acting like bad guys now and the focus of this new title, Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, is starting his tenure as a bad guy.

It’s not great and it undermines the book from the very start.

Cage is also seemingly under the influence, although that leads into a bigger story involving the Beyond Corporation and a welcome change to Spectrum.

The Beyond Corporation is the big bad of the 9 issues of this series, but bare in mind that the first three issues are entangled in Axis and the last two are part of the “Last Days” lead up to Secret Wars. For those who are counting, that leaves four whole issues that Captain America and the Mighty Avengers are free to do whatever they want.

If you’ve been reading good comics over the last few years, you might recognize the name “Beyond Corporation” from the fantastic comic called Nextwave. One of the sticking points for many who read the title was the depiction of Spectrum. Ewing was able to find a balance between Old Monica and New Monica in Mighty Avengers and he embraces her past fully when they face the Beyond Corporation.

There’s also a bit earlier in the series that seemed strange at the time, but plays out when Spectrum changes her appearance. The scene involves a black woman, who is holding her daughter, telling Spectrum that her little girl models herself after her. The woman then says that, because of Spectrum, her daughter finally agreed to let her relax her hair. Power Man, another person of color, makes a sarcastic comment about Monica being an example.

The subtext here would appear to be that Spectrum is hiding who she really is in order to belong.

Monica’s hair wasn’t relaxed during Nextwave. In fact, it had never been portrayed like that until this series. When confronted with the Beyond Corporation, she embraces her past and lets herself be herself, including her time with Nextwave when she was a total badass.

While events tangled up both of these titles, the last event actually helps underscore what these comics were all about:

The series ends with Secret Wars, but the characters return after, this time on two different teams.

What is ADHD Part 1: Not what you think

“You don’t act like you have ADHD.”

Our older son has ADHD. He had numerous assessments done and they all got the same results. The fact that I have ADHD really only helped us know what the signs are.

He recently started a camp with a teacher he hadn’t seen in a few years. He mentioned to her that he has ADHD.

She was surprised because he didn’t act like he had ADHD.

She’s a perfectly nice person and she’s not alone. Since the 1980s, a false image has been cultivated of what ADHD is, but I suppose every “new” phenomenon is misrepresented at first.

Look at climate change. People jumped all over the idea of “global warming” without the slightest concept of what that actually meant. But it was an easy way to digest it and, more importantly, it was an easy way to “disprove” and mock it. Record lows? Then there’s no global warming! But, you know, that’s not at all how that works or what global warming means.

So it was with what was originally called ADD, then ADHD. Attention Deficit Disorder, then Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The addition of the H actually made the situation worse, not better. It only served to play up the stereotypes and falsehoods of what someone with ADHD is like or, more important, what someone WITHOUT ADHD is like.

Hey, you can sit still for more than two minutes, there’s no way you have ADHD!

The acronym in and of itself isn’t the problem so much as how little people know about the words that make up those letters.

Worse, ADHD came to prominence as it was being diagnosed in children, whose baseline for things like attention and activity is all over the place until they get older.

It’s more accurate to call ADHD Executive Function Deficit, although there are a number of neurodevelopmental disorders that can fall under that. But that’s what ADHD affects: executive functioning, the systems of the brain that manage the cognitive process. Basically, ADHD causes you to think differently than most people.

That kid vibrating in his seat? It’s entirely possible that they do NOT have ADHD. That kid staring out the window during class? They might not have it, either. That kid raising their hand to answer every question? That kid might actually have it.

The quiet kid? AHDH. The loud kid? Maybe not.

The specific aspect of executive function that ADHD impacts has to do with dopamine.

Most people know dopamine as the all natural feel good drug, but it’s impact isn’t always that overt. Dopamine influences the decisions you make, the tasks you take on, the effort you put in. The average person would never think that “lazy” could be a term used to (inaccurately) describe someone with ADHD, but that’s often the case. For people with ADHD, the simplest task can seem like the worst thing in the world.

Does that kid really, really like answering math questions? Not only will ADHD let that kid answer away, but will, in fact, increase the amount of effort the kid puts into answering math questions. If answering math questions gives the kid a boost of dopamine, then ADHD says “answer ALL the questions so we get more!”

The problem is that since those of us with ADHD operate from a dopamine deficit. Something that would motivate others, something that would make them happy, might not appeal to us at all, or even might repel us.

All of that is to say that the “signs” most people attribute to ADHD are bunk. It also means the stereotype of a person with ADHD is bunk. It’s also a huge problem.

I didn’t get assessed for ADHD until I was in my 40s and even then it wasn’t my idea. My wife had been talking to her therapist about me and her therapist suggested that I might want to get checked out. Since I’m not so dumb as to ignore my wife — particularly when it regards something that could make our life together better — so I got checked out. And, lo and behold, my psychiatrist was like “um, yes, you have ADHD, without question you have it.”

After being diagnosed and learning more about it, I can tell with certainty that I’ve had ADHD my entire life. It’s clear as day to me.

So why didn’t I ever get checked out before?

See everything I’ve written above. I didn’t have any of stereotypical characteristics of someone with ADHD because those stereotypes are wrong. If it weren’t for all the misinformation about ADHD, I might have gotten tested far sooner in life. Even if my parents hadn’t pieced it together, I might have, which means there was a good 20+ years I could have been doing something about it.

Would we have even considered ADHD as a possibility for our older son if a) I didn’t have it and b) we weren’t extremely well read on the subject? I don’t know and the idea that we might have left one of our son’s major needs unaddressed out of ignorance and a belief in the popular narrative just hurts my soul.

You hear “climate change” far more than “global warming” these days.

Someone tell Al Gore we need a documentary.

Album Review: “The Living End” by Sarah and the Sundays

A wonderfully sad happy record from Sarah and the Sundays

There used to be a genre of music called “progressive.” It was a precursor to alternative and is often referred to as “college rock.”

Progressive was understated in a way that alternative was over the top. Progressive songs were spacious and minimal. It was rare for a progressive song to have a big sound. It wasn’t so much that it was understated, but unfettered. Part of this was this was because, at the time — the mid to late 80s — technology was still limited. The core of a song had to do all the heavy lifting. Punctuation had to come in the song writing, not in dynamics. The “loud, quiet, loud” paradigm didn’t exist.

A lot of modern indie rock bands have embraced this sounds, this style of writing. It’s hard to pull off because it’s not a matter of making the music sound lo-fi — if anything, some progressive records were over produced — but making them sound organic. Here’s a bunch of people with some instruments sitting in a room and making music, but it’s not folk or country or even bluegrass. There’s still a plugged in sound to it, still an electricity that comes with rock or pop.

Sarah and the Sundays may have made the perfect modern day progressive record with “The Living End.”

Inevitable R.E.M. References

It’s probably not shocking that the band’s popularity has grown after they released their cover of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” There are certainly similarities to the two bands, from the bluegrass/folk influence to their pop sensibilities. Brendan Whyburn’s guitar sound alone…

But while those early R.E.M. records seem distant, full of abstract ideas and the treading of new ground, Sarah and the Sundays are more specific, in part because they can be. They don’t have to do what R.E.M. did. Their sound isn’t quite so unusual, but that doesn’t make it any less great.

Sarah and the Sundays has a leg up on R.E.M. with regard to that aforementioned pop sensibility, at least compared to R.E.M.’s early days. While both bands can create moody, atmospheric music, Sarah and the Sundays place the hook at the foreground, more so than early R.E.M. did.

Happy Sad Happy

“The Living End” was written during COVID, not long after the band went from being a long distance project to part of the Austin music scene. You’d probably be able to piece together the first part of that based upon the songs, as singer Liam Yorgensen regularly taps into the feelings of sheltering in place.

But the band doesn’t stick to those feelings, even if they reappear throughout the album. They use them as an entry point for other ideas, other experiences. A song like “I’m So Bored” could easily reek of privilege, but it suggests there’s more going on than someone who’s biggest problem is not being able to socialize.

The issue of mental health comes up repeatedly on “The Living End” and, for as effective as it is as a snapshot of the pandemic, it’s perhaps even better as the journal of someone struggling with their own brain. It’s not just a turn of the phrase, either (“here come the chemicals/it’s a bit of a nightmare” from “Coward” or “I’m just a psycho with spare time” from “Vices,” for example); the songs are nothing if not sincere. The music is coming from the band in such an organic way that it doesn’t feel like there’s any distance between the songs and the people.

“Veener” starts off like an aforementioned progressive song, but then drummer Quinn Lane lays down this slow disco beat and we get what is probably the first overt use of vocal effects we hear on the album. But when the chorus kicks in, it’s pure rock, albeit still focused on the hook of the vocals.

The variation could result in something that sounds like an experiment, but the transitions are organic, so it sounds natural.

If their cover “Losing My Religion” is a bit on the nose as far as their influences are concerned, “Miss Mary” is on the ears. It’s impossible to hear Declan Chill’s opening bass line and not think of The Cure. But the song quickly becomes their own, climaxing with the wonderfully catchy chorus: “Do you remember when I said I was moving on/Yeah just forget it/Do you remember how my life just went to shit/because I let it.”

The band also knows the tricky math of how much keyboard is too much keyboard, as Miles Reynolds seem to know exactly which songs need his keys and which need his guitar. “I’m So Bored” lives and dies by a ridiculously hooky keyboard part, but it doesn’t beat you over the head.

It’s hard to pick out just a few stand out songs from “The Living End.” The lounge feel of “Stick Around” is such a mood that it makes this album great by itself. The structure of “Pulling Teeth,” with its dynamic use of a scale, the wonderful 70s rock backing vocals, and the most emotive singing on the record makes it another gem.

It’s hard to find a song that drags or slows this record down at all.

You can get “The Living End” digitally or on vinyl.

There will definitely be a few songs on my 2023 music mix.