The Journey Continues
So here we are, part two, dare we continue? Oh yes we dare. I'm getting the sinking suspicion that there's meant to be a religious subtext to this and that makes it all worse. Religious imagry can be powerful and effective if used right. It's hard to use right. And so far hasn't been, like, at all.
- THE FUCK IS THIS!?!
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- Okay so Batman doesn't like Rock and Roll because that's what he listened to the night his parents died, and his dad said "we don't listen to that in this house"
- This is kinda a problem of mine that pops up quite often, you want a reason why character X doesn't do thing Y, it doesn't have to be complex, Batman might not listen to rock because his family was old money and he was raised by a stuffy British Butler for much of his life. Maybe he was just raised on a lot of classical music and opera and just doesn't like Rock and Roll, but no I suspect this will serve more plot later which makes it even dumber. I know why he doesn't like rock because I saw the Linkara review but that's the other thing, you only needed THAT reason not this "night my parents died" bull shit.
- So the intersting thing I've noticed is that Crowe's insanity realizes he's full of shit. He's going on about needing to live a real life "a laid-off leased-out minimum-wage no health..." life. Jesus Elvis responds: I'd like to play football then guitar.
- We hit the epic moment ladies and gentlemen. So yeah, that just happened.◊
- This is followed by more introspective Batman flashing back and now we see the bloody punker over a body with an arm in the foreground of someone opening a door.
- Apparently this moment was also made a movie, because as we know local punk musicians killing someone and O Ding is something meaningful enough to get a movie.
- So Crowe meets fans who are all "we hate music videos too man!" "we can't find your album the store won't carry it cause you're a criminal." He fucking grenaded a cable company, terrorist might be a better term than criminal.
- Okay so we're only on page 19, Crowe says there will be no peace in the valley till Musicbuster carries his album, and we find out the store is at the... MOST EVIL PLACE OF ALL!... ... ... ... ... THE MALL *music sting*
- So we have a couple of unemployed guys at starbucks bitching about how Crowe's terrorism is over saturated in the media, and how the media is controlled by the government, the world's going to hell and everyone's having their lives destroyed by the economy.
- New Aesop of the comic: the spread and cultural imperialism of the big cities destroying the peace and joy of the small town.
- So yeah, Crowe kicks in the door and demands the store order and give away the album. Now if he was supposed to be a demented tragic hero shouldn't he offer to pay? he doesn't want his ill-gotten corrupted money.
- seriously the corruption of modern consumer culture is a new theme there's been a lot of ham fisted bitching about it. I won't get into an economics debate here but seriously comic...
- The security guards whip out guns there's much freeking out and batman appears throwing his batarange. So here's a problem I have, he knows Crowe is headed for "THE SOURCE" so besides the obligatory Highlander reference he might know to go towards Memphis or where ever Elvis was from, how would he know to stop at this mall, why is he going cross country as batman? why not drive less obvious in a luxury car as bruce wayne? How did he get there so fast, this hasn't been going on long enough for him to have heard on a police scrambler and to mobilize and react.
- So Crowe's girlfriend Kicks Robin's ASS then gets out of there. Batman in his super high powered car has to avoid a cop and hits a telephone pole, mind you maybe 10 feet from starting so I doubt he was going that fast, it's time to back up and put it back in gear, dude's driving a heavy convertible from the 50s/early 60s I think you got him.
- So Robin is siding with Crowe now and wanting Batman to stop the cops from beating up the crowd.
- I remind you this guy blew up a room, with people in it, and then attempted an armed robbery. Opinions on the music industry aside these are fairly heinous acts. Walking out on a contract trashing a studio beating up a record executive? victimless crimes to the mind of a young person, understandable to side with that. Terrorism over the current direction of music? Kinda extreme guy.
- Crowe drives to a drive in theater showing elvis movies and pays for one. So the girlfriend calls someone mysterious
- "yeah it's going just how we thought, he'll be ready for the next show."
- So this break down and terrorism were planned?
- Okay so we cut to some guy on the couch takling to his friend who wants him to join on a cross country terrorism spree like their favorite rocker did apperntly. He says no more adventure because he's tied down with a wife kid and car payments.
- so dude man gets up takes a step while his wife is... working from the house phone? that's not how customer relations works, unless this is like a weird 900 number to do customer relations call service you usually have to be at like an office. So guy takes a step trips on his kid's toy, stis down on the couch where he was instead of getting ot work, his wife has disappeared and he's now watching coverage of the Crowe thing. People are being idiots on TV so that's realistic at least, a gun materializes in his hand and he shoots the TV then points the snub nose at his toe and says "Lets rock"
And that's the end of part two. Clearly this story isn't just religious, it's also about the transformation of American society into something consumerist and vile for being urban, the need for change and rebellion against the status quo, the permissive American society holding back the true music being drowned in modern consumerism which is destroying the old jobs by bringing in more machines and technology.
Comments
zam
Since: Dec, 1969
Feb 4th 2011 at 4:51:54 PM
I'm sorry but I can't stop thinking about how Linkara has done this.
Still pretty cool Live blog.
EponymousKid
Since: Dec, 1969
Feb 4th 2011 at 5:21:05 PM
Agreed. I mean, no offense, but there's lots of comics that could use praise, mockery, criticism, or simple comment that haven't already been done. I'm just saying, think about that next time.
That said, I also agree that this is pretty good. You're being funny, but you're also analyzing the comic intelligently. Too often you get one or the other.
MEPT72
Since: Dec, 1969
Feb 4th 2011 at 5:34:14 PM
I realize it's been done before, there was no forethought on this. I am thinking about going through other books in my collection (mostly good) and taking a critical look through and putting it up here.
