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ysabetwordsmithAdam West has passed away. Among his more famous appearances, he played Batman on television.
I HAS A SAD. :'''( And I'm trying to figure out how to lower the Batsignal to half-mast.
Somewhere between the dimensions, the egregore of the Joker is crying his eyes out.
EDIT 6/10/17: I got the news about Adam West's passing just minutes before we had to leave the house. Now that I'm home and have had a few minutes to tune in, here is the elegy.
"Velvet Messengers"
-- an elegy for Adam West, (September 19, 1928 – June 9, 2017)
There are no seraphim in
this escort, no solemn Uriel
to close his sooty feathers
around the deceased,
even though the wind
is heavy with wingbeats
and the messengers
silhouette themselves
against the full moon.
(Because of course
the moon was full.)
These angels,
when they come,
have wings of velvet
and voices too high to hear.
* * *
Notes:
Uriel is the angel of death, who along with other angels is believed to escort the souls of the departed. It has been the custom for some centuries to depict angels with feathered wings. Uriel's are often, though not always, dark gray or black.
The Bat Signal appears as a bright disc with a dark bat shape in the center. Similarly, Batman and his gear are often silhouetted against the full moon, in contexts ranging from serious to silly.
Angel voices are often described as too high for humans to hear, or barely within range as a shrill whine or squeak. Bat voices are too high for most humans to hear.
I HAS A SAD. :'''( And I'm trying to figure out how to lower the Batsignal to half-mast.
Somewhere between the dimensions, the egregore of the Joker is crying his eyes out.
EDIT 6/10/17: I got the news about Adam West's passing just minutes before we had to leave the house. Now that I'm home and have had a few minutes to tune in, here is the elegy.
"Velvet Messengers"
-- an elegy for Adam West, (September 19, 1928 – June 9, 2017)
There are no seraphim in
this escort, no solemn Uriel
to close his sooty feathers
around the deceased,
even though the wind
is heavy with wingbeats
and the messengers
silhouette themselves
against the full moon.
(Because of course
the moon was full.)
These angels,
when they come,
have wings of velvet
and voices too high to hear.
* * *
Notes:
Uriel is the angel of death, who along with other angels is believed to escort the souls of the departed. It has been the custom for some centuries to depict angels with feathered wings. Uriel's are often, though not always, dark gray or black.
The Bat Signal appears as a bright disc with a dark bat shape in the center. Similarly, Batman and his gear are often silhouetted against the full moon, in contexts ranging from serious to silly.
Angel voices are often described as too high for humans to hear, or barely within range as a shrill whine or squeak. Bat voices are too high for most humans to hear.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-10 05:09 pm (UTC)*hugs* Shared pain is lessened.
And today I have learnt a new word.
And, yes, I imagine Mark Hamill will have Words... for me he will always be Luke, but for the generations after us? TWENTY-FIVE YEARS? He's The Joker.
Thank you!
Date: 2017-06-11 02:38 am (UTC)Good one.
>> *hugs* Shared pain is lessened. <<
Thanks. *hugs*
>> And today I have learnt a new word. <<
Yeah, I had to do a lot of explaining after the Heath Ledger incident. How does a made-up character manage to kill someone? Well, thoughtforms can take on a life of their own if people feed them power. And when you've got a supervillain that psycho, who has people laying a path from one dimension to another for him, sometimes he can managed to earwig someone. Creepy as fuck, but it makes perfect sense once you know how egregores can work. And they're one of the magic types that doesn't have to be deliberate in order to be effective. 0_o
>> And, yes, I imagine Mark Hamill will have Words... for me he will always be Luke, but for the generations after us? TWENTY-FIVE YEARS? He's The Joker. <<
For me he's both. And have you seen his appearance in The Flash? *fansquee*
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2017-06-11 03:14 am (UTC)Yeah, I'd pretty much ignored D/C after the Batman movies started going south... except, of course, Wonder Woman, which was Required Viewing...
Truth be told? The only bad guys I'm a big fan of? Are yours. A lot of people get off on Vader or Stormtroopers (though I do have respect for the 501st Legion) or the Joker or or or or ...
I guess it is that none of your bad guys are truly evil. Alicia is probably closer to chaotic good than anything... as we've discussed, she *has* morals, they're just *her own*... Shiv is probably somewhere between a true neutral and neutral good... he just doesn't have very many fucks to give period, though that's improving. Mallory started out chaotic neutral... which reminds me. Things should be getting Interesting with her by now...
But none of'em have an interest (anymore) in hurting innocents. I can get behind that...
Gripping hand... yeah. Even the Joker will mourn Adam West.
Kinda reminds me of Amazing Spider-Man #36. If you don't know that issue, and want the tl;dr version, I'll be happy to provide...
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2017-06-11 03:48 am (UTC)LOL yes. Also the line ported over from Star Wars was pure fansquee. :D
>> Yeah, I'd pretty much ignored D/C after the Batman movies started going south... <<
I bailed out of the those after they went from dark fantasy to outright horror. Bleah. And Man of Steel was not Superman but has become a high-water mark for my examples of OOC failwriting.
>> except, of course, Wonder Woman, which was Required Viewing... <<
It's like they took all the quality that should have been spread over the last half-dozen movies and crammed it all into one. Okay, I am happy now. :D
>> Truth be told? The only bad guys I'm a big fan of? Are yours. A lot of people get off on Vader or Stormtroopers (though I do have respect for the 501st Legion) or the Joker or or or or ... <<
I am flattered. Never was into Stormtroopers, but I think Vader was a well-made villain. He had presence. Also his response to doubt was to provide empirical proof. That's never going to get old.
I have loved most of the Jokers, each in a different way. It's like all the different faces of insanity, down through the years.
>> I guess it is that none of your bad guys are truly evil. <<
Most of them are not. There was The Mandible, though, whose tagline was, "The world is corrupt. You'll see! One day I'll kill you all!" He actually did die when someone pulled a killswitch, wiping out all life on the island.
Mr. Pernicious thinks of himself as the human embodiment of evil, but I think he's more pathetic than that. Kind of like how I felt about watching the Kingpin melt down over whether a girl liked him, on Daredevil. Only Mr. Pernicious seems to fixate more on Dr. Doohickey, and you know how hard it is to pry a nerd's attention off his gizmos.
Haboob thought of himself as a holy warrior, although much of what he did was evil. He wouldn't hesitate to harm innocents. But he wouldn't attack holy ground. He was a terrible Muslim, but he still cared about his religion. I also tend to discount him as evil because of the major head injury that granted his powers. He really wasn't sane.
>> Alicia is probably closer to chaotic good than anything... as we've discussed, she *has* morals, they're just *her own*... <<
Except for that part where you don't get to call yourself good if you torture people, and when she gets pissed, she doesn't hesitate to dive into that.
I think Alicia oscillates. She's also very reflective. If you treat her like a child, she tends to behave like one. Her response to things not going her way in this mode is tears and temper tantrum, not mass destruction. If you treat her decently, she's perfectly nice. These factors even hold fairly true under conflict that doesn't get too rough. But if you try to molest her? Or you hurt people she cares about? Or you happen to be a random schmoe on the wrong side of a war she's involved with? She will chew you up and spit you out.
It's why most of the world calls her a supervillain, but to her own people, she is a hero. She's not purely chaotic, because she has plenty of her own structure. She just doesn't care about other people's laws. It's not like they can stop her, and she's seen enough of history to consider laws more as fashion than as actual barriers. I think everyone's tendency to ignore laws while trying to hurt her has greatly contributed to this. Imagine how much less mayhem there would be if people would stop bothering her.
>> Shiv is probably somewhere between a true neutral and neutral good... he just doesn't have very many fucks to give period, though that's improving. <<
True. Shiv hasn't had the chance to explore good as an option until recently. He has a real mean streak, and he'll blithely harass strangers in a category he dislikes, such as cops or social workers. But he doesn't tend to harm random bystanders. He's mostly motivated by self-interest. He's starting to get attached to people, though, and that's helping.
>> Mallory started out chaotic neutral... <<
LOL yes. She wasn't evil, just mischievous and despairing. With better support, she's drifting away from the dark side. But her background is still there, and in a lot of cases, she still thinks like a supervillain. That's awkward.
>>which reminds me. Things should be getting Interesting with her by now... <<
Yes indeed. Feel free to prompt for that.
>>But none of'em have an interest (anymore) in hurting innocents. I can get behind that... <<
Largely true, although not universally true. They also all have reasons for what they do.
>> Gripping hand... yeah. Even the Joker will mourn Adam West. <<
They were so closely tied together. In some iterations, they both acknowledged this; in others, they didn't see it, but it was still there. Without Batman, the Joker's real audience is gone. That's heartbreaking.
>> Kinda reminds me of Amazing Spider-Man #36. If you don't know that issue, and want the tl;dr version, I'll be happy to provide...<<
I don't know it by the number.
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2017-06-11 04:24 am (UTC)I agree that Vader was a well-made villain. I just don't *like* him. And I don't like *all* of your villains; just, the ones that I like, are yours. Haboob... ugh. I forget, did he get Charlied?
ASM 36. A controversial issue, but there was no way it *couldn't* be controversial. Marvel realised that after New York, they were going to have to get *somebody* to address the situation in-universe. Spidey, being the actual New Yorker, was chosen, and their best Spidey writer at the time was JMS. They drop this thing in his inbox one day, "we want you to write an issue dealing with What Happened." He's like, "Oh, shit, I .... can I have 24 hours to think about it?" And he thought about it. And thought about it. And it got late. Finally about 4am, the words started pouring out, and he turned in his rough draft for an answer.
The cover was all black. Just the title, the issue number, and the barcode. Basically it was about pitching in on the cleanup, and Peter's reaction, with a hint of breaking the fourth wall at the end... the controversial part, though? The supervillains pitched in with the heroes to help clean up. And the heroes didn't balk. There were a lot of people that had a problem with that... but I didn't, I Got It. Just as in T-America, there are *some things* even the supervillains don't hold with, and there was a huge mess to clean up in *their town*. So *of course* they pitched in. And because (unlike certain DC heroes mentioned previously in this thread) Marvel characters Get It that the world isn't all black and white, they welcomed the help. (Actually, there are two DC characters that work in shades of grey that come to mind: Our dearly departed Bats... and the Green Arrow, who also happens to be a flaming liberal. (To my knowledge Ollie isn't flaming in *other* ways, though he looks the part... ;) )
ASM 36 is what briefly got me back into comics. I realised about a year later that I had neither time, bucks, nor space for such a habit.... but I did learn to respect the storytelling going on in that 'verse, which was a quantum leap over the '70's and '80's... at the time I was in, you had JMS, Kevin Smith, Brian Michael Bendis, and Neil Gaiman all writing comic books. Among others. If you expected to sell, you had to keep up with *that lot*.
It was pretty flippin' glorious.
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2017-06-11 10:37 am (UTC)As to the details of just who works on the cleanup (which is part of what intrigues me)...yup. We New Yorkers are fiercely protective of our own: the only ones allowed to terrorize us are us! Those outsiders, coming in and trying to lay waste to this great city so many villains call home? Fuggedaboudit! So yeah, EVERYONE pitching in sounds very true to me! #bornbredandproud
Thank you for telling us all (well, Ysabetwordsmith, but by extension all of us) about this amazing ish!
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2017-06-11 01:49 pm (UTC)And, yeah. Last I checked ASM 36 was rara avis; you could get it, but nowhere near face.
I miss New York. Can't afford to live there, but to visit? Damn.
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2017-06-11 05:59 pm (UTC)>> I'm still a little peeved at Marvel's physical publishing arm for essentially establishing a distributorship monopoly; basically, if you don't get your comic books from Diamond, you're not getting any comic books. So, yeah. <<
That sucks. >_<
>> I miss New York. Can't afford to live there, but to visit? Damn.<<
Too crowded for my taste, but I can admire it from a distance.
heroic character(s)
Date: 2017-06-12 06:49 am (UTC)SOOTH!
>> It's like they took all the quality that should have been spread over the last half-dozen movies and crammed it all into one. <<
Or maybe, DC <> Marvel? I haven't yet seen WW but I'm planning to do so this week now that concert frenzy is past, and I'm looking forward to it.
[ Discussion of Polychrome villains ]
Aren't you forgetting someone (Contretemps)? I've yet to see any redeeming value there.
Green Arrow ... maybe as depicted in the comics, he's not so bad, but the TV series goes to a lot of truly dark and nasty places. I was interested in the TV series at first, but I've fallen behind, and given what I've heard about recent developments, I'm *not* sure I want to catch up.
Re: heroic character(s)
Date: 2017-06-12 07:07 am (UTC)It doesn't show much onstage yet, but he has his moments. For example, the time Jackie Frost skated into the side of a truck, Contretemps called his healer and kept her alive. He's also a competent businessman. He's just selfish as hell and doesn't feel bound by other people's rules. (Boytoy whispers: "He's good in bed. Really, REALLY good." Of course, that has nothing to do with ethics.)
>> Green Arrow ... maybe as depicted in the comics, he's not so bad, but the TV series goes to a lot of truly dark and nasty places. <<
Yeah, that show is disturbed. However, it's some of the best rendition I've seen for PTSD, from the flashbacks to the way it fucks up cognition and relationships.
>> I was interested in the TV series at first, but I've fallen behind, and given what I've heard about recent developments, I'm *not* sure I want to catch up. <<
Yyyyyeah.
Re: heroic character(s)
Date: 2017-06-12 02:08 pm (UTC)Re: heroic character(s)
Date: 2017-06-12 06:32 pm (UTC)Also ...
Date: 2017-06-11 03:14 am (UTC)Re: Also ...
Date: 2017-06-11 03:15 am (UTC)Re: Also ...
Date: 2017-06-11 03:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-10 05:35 pm (UTC)R.I.P Mr. West.
Yes...
Date: 2017-06-11 03:14 am (UTC)Elegy is up now, refresh the page.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-10 05:53 pm (UTC)Also ...
Date: 2017-06-11 03:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-10 06:09 pm (UTC)You're welcome!
Date: 2017-06-11 03:13 am (UTC)Re: You're welcome!
Date: 2017-06-11 10:30 am (UTC)Also, you may or may not, depending on both your own beliefs and your feelings about cultural depictions of Judeo-Christian beliefs, appreciate this:
http://tinyurl.com/AdamWestBatSignalTribute
Re: You're welcome!
Date: 2017-06-11 01:55 pm (UTC)(Mike Luckovich is a political cartoonist in Atlanta, who's become something of a legend for his memorial pics... if you're up for it, here his his take on what happened after the Towers fell:
http://www.myajc.com/rf/image_lowres/Pub/p7/AJC/2008/09/10/Images/photos.medleyphoto.2215416.jpg )
Re: You're welcome!
Date: 2017-06-11 06:05 pm (UTC)(Mike Luckovich is a political cartoonist in Atlanta, who's become something of a legend for his memorial pics... if you're up for it, here his his take on what happened after the Towers fell: <<
:D I collected art after 9/11. It was two or three years after the fall when I got to make my big contribution to the archive: I wrote a memorial ritual for Llewellyn's Spell-a-Day Almanac.
>> http://www.myajc.com/rf/image_lowres/Pub/p7/AJC/2008/09/10/Images/photos.medleyphoto.2215416.jpg <<
That is adorable.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-11 04:24 am (UTC)Yay!
Date: 2017-06-11 04:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-11 01:52 pm (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2017-06-11 05:49 pm (UTC)I think to predict the last line, you have to know that angels and bats both share that particular trait. Pretty much everyone knows it about bats, but not many people know much about angels nowadays. Although I was direly amused that Supernatural uses a variation of it -- angels speak, and blow the glass out of nearby windows.
Thank you
Date: 2017-06-11 09:52 pm (UTC)My kid has gotten me into watching Supernatural. This, suits R's current headcanon too. ;-)
Re: Thank you
Date: 2017-06-11 10:05 pm (UTC)*hankie*
>>My kid has gotten me into watching Supernatural. This, suits R's current headcanon too. ;-) <<
Yay!
moment(s) of sadness
Date: 2017-06-12 06:50 am (UTC)*hugs*
Re: moment(s) of sadness
Date: 2017-06-12 06:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-06-13 02:10 pm (UTC)