1,326 Words Complaining About Batman

Hey, here’s a quick caveat: the very first comics I read were from The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, followed quickly by TPBs of The Dark Knight Returns, Prey, various ‘of The Demon’ books, and Year One. This comes from a place of love. Ahahahaha!

Well…

Batman is the most poorly-realized supercharacter of the last 30 years. Overexposed is not descriptor enough.

Look, Batman can't punch Darkseid. Or Superman, or anybody like that. Even Spawn… it’s ludicrous, and I’m the last primeval agitator to defend freaking Spawn. ‘No powers’ does not trump ‘actual powers’. Can you defeat a back-alley rapist with a smoke bomb and a sucker punch? Sure, I guess. But a planet-ruling nigh-immortal alien warlord with an army made up of the entire population of Apokolips? Not so much. Just who or what is Batman, anyway? Is he a mysterious, fearsome urban legend spoken of with hushed whispers and darting eyes? Or an idiot in a fetish costume throwing proprietary boomerangs at plant monsters and 3-eyed aliens jerks with cranial fins? I doubt that Bob Kane and Bill Finger envisioned their creation palling around with Captain Atom and delivering terse one-liners to a room full of people who could shuffle him off this mortal coil with a wayward sneeze.

It doesn’t work both ways, even in the realm of comic book logic. Think about Wolverine – you can have him fight the Hulk because his bones don’t break and he heals and all that. Fine, ok. While a ‘street-level’ character at his core, Wolverine’s specific ruleset allows him to sort of ‘scale up’, since the skeleton, healing factor, and claws are all effective against more powerful threats, and even then it mostly plays out as him attacking and getting knocked away repeatedly while Cyclops inevitably saves the day. But even Logan doesn’t go toe-to-toe with Apocalypse. He and the Hulk fight. Once the death-rays and alien fleets come into play, well, that’s a job for Phoenix or the Fantastic Four or whomever. Have Gambit go up against a pissed-off Banner and all that’s left is half a deck of cards and a chunky puddle with a stupid accent (no insult to any real-world Creoles, but Gambit straight-up sucks). 

Imagine Gangbuster taking on Mordru, or Lock-Up trying to slug it out with Mongul, (Richard Dragon vs. the Anti-Monitor? I can keep going) and then explain how the guy who ritually refuses to use the technology at his disposal to arm himself suitably would stand a snowball’s chance in Hell of even surviving long enough to think about throwing jabs at a demigod. Forge once built a gun that had the express capability of killing the Hulk, but that doesn’t mean he can do it. Batman throws novelty shop spy gimmicks and swings on ropes. People lost their shit when Aquaman, one of the most powerful beings on the planet, 'merely' on the Wonder Woman level and godlike in his own element, stabbed Darkseid in the face with his trident (the Trident of Neptune, I might add). Yet where was the outcry when this obsessive sociopath (Batman, not Aquaman) put on some totally rad 90's gauntlets and attempted to bring fisticuffs to a guy who can match Superman on a good day? Batman is beyond effective against other humans (mostly), and shitty metahumans that have gimmicky abilities. Still, old Brucie has been bested by the likes of Bronze Tiger, Lady Shiva, and that guy who led the Mutants gang in The Dark Knight Returns (the comic I blame for planting the seed of this moronic trend). Oh, and that Bane guy. So is he an accomplished hand-to-hand combatant with few peers and a bevy of tools at his disposal? Well, sure. Is he patient, skilled, and using advanced military-level tactics? Of course! But it avails him naught when you’re talking interplanetary monsters. Tony Stark might be a pussy in a business suit, but Iron Man is a regular guy with basically the same resources as Batman, and while he turned that into more than some kind of autistic Halloween, I still don’t see him beating Darkseid or Superman, or even putting up much of a fight.

The point is you can’t just throw an established character into any situation based on popularity and/or visibility with no regard for the myriad stories that have come before (I sound like such a dick, I know). The stories have to make sense inasmuch as following the basic rules/laws/characterizations they have established, or it's just a cheap pop, going for shock value and a comic panel that ends up in the forum signatures of people who write things like “not changing my sig until I get a stand-alone Ten-Eyed Man movie” or some such impotent crap. If you write a story where Batman gains Superman-level powers, fine. It’s been done, but it doesn’t’ stick because the primary value in that sort of story is giving a different take; this is what made so many of the Batman Elseworlds one-shots so much fun. But those renditions of the character are one-offs for a reason, and since we’re talking about regular-continuity (for all 3 months that continuity lasts in the DCU), let’s just tell a story where the characters act and perform in a way that doesn’t crap on the near-century of established canon (not that DC Comics has cared about canon since the first Crisis). Batman IS NOT Superman, or Thor, or Peter Cannon, or Doctor Bong. He’s Batman, just Batman, and that’s fine.

Batman needs to stop fighting oversized starfish in the middle of the day if he wants to keep up the 'urban legend' nonsense, and I think audiences today realize that petty criminals are not part of some secret society of ne’er-do-wells anyway. Maybe mugger-stalking Batman just doesn’t resonate anymore, in a world of modern fears and globalization? Is that why he's put into so many conflicts outside his purview?

If Batman breaks some purse-snatcher's leg, he doesn't get on his ham radio and alert every other petty crook when he gets released from the hospital, or put in a call to Killer Moth (there’s an underused character if there ever was one) from a payphone that costs a nickel. No, he uses a normal phone to call his lawyer and sue the city for allowing a vigilante to assault citizens without any kind of authority or justification. Batman is a nightmare for the legal system even in a city as corrupt as Gotham (which seems to have a police force of 6). The rich have beaten down the poor since time immemorial; Bruce Wayne (who studied law at Gotham University, according to my memories of various Silver Age flashbacks and The Untold Legend of The Batman) is apparently unaware that crime, especially nonviolent crimes and theft, is a last resort for people without resources or options in life. His billions could be better spent on educational programs or even funding the GCPD, but true to form Batman is selfish and narcissistic, more intent on satisfying his (unachievable) personal vendetta than making a lasting difference. ‘Superstitious and cowardly’ is a much more fitting descriptor for Batman himself, as the average criminal is more likely to be desperate and in need of social services than not.

So much of the character is couched in a pre-WWII sensibility about the nature of crime and socioeconomic relationships (I really didn’t think I was going to end up going this way when I started this) that these ideas are probably out of the realm of context for a mainstream superhero book. It’s funny, when I see Captain America get in Thanos’ face, I’m like ‘Cap, you selfless beacon of humanity, you better hope Adam Warlock shows... oh, there he is. Late to the party again, Adam. Now make with the anti-Thanosing, could ya?’, but when Batman is in the same position, I think ‘How is that grappling hook going to stall Imperiex, exactly?’

The Unloved: Episode I

The Unloved: Great Characters, Poor Reputations

Welcome, ahaha, to The Unloved, where I take a look at some less-popular characters from various fantasy worlds (primarily comics), and basically show you how wrong your peer-influenced organic brains can be. The inspiration for this recurring feature will be the star of the next installment, but a certain oft-maligned leader will be today's focus. Without further ado, let's take a gander at...

Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops!

Yeah, Cyclops. Unlike your average team leader/field general types, Cyclops remains one of the X-Men's most maligned characters. While heroic characters like Leonardo, Captain America, and even Superman and Batman manage to avoid too much criticism for their roles on their respective teams, Cyclops never seemed to get a fair shake from fans, is reduced to a jerky caricature in the film universe, and is frequently mentioned as one of the book's least-likable regulars. He isn't Maggot (or that insufferable Cajun prick, Gambit), sure, but he's no Wolverine when it comes to sales numbers. But why?

One of the main reasons, and one that doesn't reflect well on the intelligence of the readers, is that Cyclops comes across as an authoritarian hardass. In particular, Scott has come into frequent conflict with hairy third-wheel Wolverine, the X-Men's most popular (and currently dead) character. Their personalities don't mesh well, with Wolverine putting on his usual 'gruff loner' front and coming and going as he pleases to pursue whatever personal agenda tickles his 6-issue-arc fancy at the time. Additionally, the two have come into conflict over their shared love interest, Jean Grey (she of the excellent code names), and readers have invariably taken Logan's (or James', or whatever) side on the issue.

But replace Wolverine in the love triangle (soundtrack by New Order) with just about anyone else (let's pick Angel, just for fun), and who do you side with? Cyclops and Jean were the item in X-Men, their love story spanning space, time, and even the afterlife (much credit to Chris Claremont, the architect behind the X-Men's enduring relevance and popularity, for making the romance angle something worth reading. Anybody who suffered through the never-ending Spidey/MJ and Supes/Lois tripe over the years knows how dull this could turn out). Wolverine essentially shows up and announces he's crazy about a woman he barely knows, then sets about trying to one-up her devoted boyfriend (and later husband) at every turn. Scott suffers through this with dignity, though certainly not in silence, and during the various times Jean decided to leave for Wolverine, he bore that burden as well as can be expected. When you really boil it down, Wolverine is the jerk here.

Not to forget my earlier point about Wolverine's waxing and waning loyalty to the team, that's a luxury Scott Summers has never had. Losing his mother at a young age, being estranged from his brother, and having a father who left him hanging to play pirate in space with a big alien named Ch'od, Scott has always had to carry the weight of responsibility while those around him, even Jean, continually let him down. For further evidence of his dedication and restraint, note that Cyke has generally ignored the fact that he could blast a certain Canadian pest into mush with the blink of an eye, yet he puts his personal happiness aside for the team, and the dream, almost every time. Has he had moments of weakness? Of course. But when the chips are down and mutantkind is in danger, you won't find Scott Summers dicking around in Madripoor or ruining his own continuity. You'll find him at the front lines, leading the way and putting himself in danger to protect others, even if he harbors serious dislike of those he protects.

I mentioned the dream, and X-Men fans know I'm referring to Xavier's dream of mutant and human integration and peace. Cyclops is the leader of Xavier's team. Now, think about that (if you can, ahaha) for a moment. Charles Xavier, the most powerful and practiced telepath on Earth-616, can access the minds and read the potential of quite literally every mutant on Earth. And yet, even with more powerful (or at least "cooler") candidates all over the world, Scott Summers was the man he chose to lead his team, to carry out the actions that would make the dream a reality, and to represent all the potential for good that mutantkind has to offer. Xavier chose this man to keep the dream going, to safeguard it and an entire race. One day Xavier will die, and he will die having anointed Cyclops the true savior of his kind. Would he have shown the same faith in Colossus? Gambit? Nightcrawler? No. Not even Jean, his protégé, was given that responsibility. Only a man like Scott Summers could handle it, and Xavier got to choose from a pool of every single living mutant.

So, the powers. In superhero comics, you have powers (or maybe a gimmick or gadget, but this is fucking X-Men we're talking about). While I personally, and rightly, believe that powers are secondary to characterization, they are worth mentioning. Cyclops... shoots beams out of his eyes. Due to an injury as a youth/mental block cased by self-doubt, Cyclops needs special lenses to contain his energy. In essence, that means Cyclops is constantly expending power... but he never seems to run out. In more recent years, Cyclops has demonstrated the ability to hold the optic blasts in, and uses his visor to make it easier to control the size and shape of the beam. So what happens if he takes it off? Well, if you're a 60ft Mark IX (or whatever) Sentinel... it reduces you to rubble in just under a second. It's rare that Cyclops ever uses his power to the fullest extent, but if necessary, the guy can level a mountain. "If looks could kill", indeed.

Due to his reliance on solar energy to power the beams, Cyclops has at various times been stuck underground or in other places for long enough that his 'battery' runs dry. While that would seem to make him useless, he is also a dangerous fighter on his own merits, able to take on multiple opponents hand-to-hand and come out on top. With a power set like his, there are many situations where it just isn't practical to unleash a death-beam (like on a spaceship, common enough for the X-Men) and he has to make do with just his physical abilities. Another recurring hindrance, more so in earlier years, is the loss of his visor or glasses. When you can't open your eyes without destroying everything around you, how do you fight? Well, if your name is Scott Summers, the answer is 'pretty damn well'.

Yes, Cyclops has martial arts training, because everybody has martial arts training. Unlike other guys who can back it up with fists when they run out of playing cards or whatever, Cyclops is able to fight blind and in complete darkness. There aren't a lot of guys who can do that; obviously Daredevil, but he has alternate sensory input. Stick, Daredevil's teacher, is a blind martial artist in the great tradition of blind martial artists. I would also put Iron Fist in this group, as the power of Shou-Lao the Undying and his unmatched training probably put him on par with Daredevil at blindfighting. Cyclops himself would rank just below these three, but he has zero special abilities or mystical Oriental tricks. He's just that tough, that skilled, and that dedicated. He knew what his greatest weaknesses were, and he compensates in a way that makes him even more dangerous.

Oh, and Cyclops is a superb field leader, much in the mold of Captain America. While he can't match Cap for on-the-fly strategy (can anyone? no.), he understands the strengths and weaknesses of his team and rarely enters a combat situation without the necessary intel to out a hurting on whoever or whatever the team faces. His generalship is known and respected in-universe.

Cyclops gets a bad rap for being cold and bitter, but he's endured much tragedy in his life. As referenced earlier, his family was either scattered or dead for much of his life, the love of his life spends quite a bit of time either dying, turning evil, or leaving him for an unreliable-if-endearing 'bad boy' that has been overexposed ad nauseum over the last 25 years.

A few highlights:

Master Mold: The most powerful (and largest) Sentinel ever created, Cyclops was forced to fight this mechanical monstrosity on his own, and he won. Strategically crippling the giant robot while scrambling for his life, Cyke led it into an oil field and blew the damn thing up. Again, this is a villain the whole X-team failed to contain to that point. But Cyclops, without teammates to protect, put himself in the line of fire and came out on top.

Apocalypse: The defining villain of the first X-Factor team, we now know that En Sabah Nur is effectively immortal and nearly unmatched in power. Apocalypse is a threat on a much larger scale than almost any X-villain outside of Magneto. But that didn't stop Mr. Summers from reducing him to scrap with one giant blast, letting his full power loose in an attempt to save the life of an infant son he would never truly be able to hold in his arms again. The boy survived in a fashion, becoming the time-hopping badass Cable, and yeah, Apocalypse came back a few dozen more times. But when that issue went to print, Apocalypse's ability to reform himself from virtually nothing wasn't part of his canon yet.

Like Most of the X-Men: Long story short, back in Chris Claremont's heyday the illusion-generating villain Mastermind convinced the X-Men that Cyclops was the returning Dark Phoenix, and he was forced to fight them. All of them. With broken ribs. The team at the time consisted of Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, Shadowcat (and Lockheed), and Nightcrawler. Suffice to say, it was no cakewalk. But Cyclops came out on top in the end. Just like he always does.

While Scott Summers draws breath (or is drawn doing so, at least), the dream will never die. At this point, it's no longer Xavier's dream. It's his.

When Worlds Collude

In 1994, World Championship Wrestling was a big name in pro-wrestling, if still looking up at the then-WWF. In fact, by late 1994 Ted Turner's baby was picking up steam, and a few big names from Connecticut as well, as the stage was set for what became the vaunted Monday Night Wars. It was the calm before the storm, as the wrestling business was struggling to find an identity in a changing marketscape.

And so it was that both the WWF and WCW were trying numerous things to stay ahead of the curve and the competition, having finally given up the ghost of the 'Rock 'n Wrestling' era about 3 years too late. Rising star Eric Bischoff (as opposed to 'I created the NWO and won't let go of it' Eric Bischoff) decided to go the cross-promotional route, and established a working relationship with upstart Mexican promotion AAA (possibly the dumbest acronym ever associated with wrestling). This resulted in the co-promotion and broadcasting of AAA's pay-per-view event, When Worlds Collide, on November 6, 1994. Not the legendary event it could have been, perhaps, but it was a big deal, and emblematic of the potential of Eric Bischoff. It wouldn't be long before WCW pulled ahead in the ratings, and for the first time in their history WWF was forced to acknowledge their competition, even going so far as to establish 'talent exchange' programs that brought in performers from ECW and Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountian Wrestling. AAA enjoyed a brief surge in success, but a variety of factors in its native Mexico forced them to give up a good number of talented performers… many of whom headed back over the border to work for Bischoff and Paul Heyman, comprising a large portion of WCW's great cruiserweight division, and bringing authentic lucha libre action to the varied and chaotic ECW product.

20 years later, the landscape of professional wrestling is much different. WCW is long gone, having collapsed under its own weight in 2000, its legacy owned, and distorted, by WWE, it's imprint on the business fading fast. While WCW was the #2 company in 1994, and a strong #2 at that, that honor now belongs to Antonio Inoki's New Japan Pro Wrestling. On January 4, 2015 at the Tokyo Dome, NJPW will present Wrestle Kingdom, Japan's Wrestlemania, and for the first time a Japanese PPV will be brought to fans in States, thanks to the globetrotting exploits of second generation performer and promoter Jeff Jarrett. Double J's Global Force Wrestling is presenting the broadcast, and to sweeten the deal they've brought in the greatest living wrestling announcer, and in the minds of many, many fans the greatest ever, good old JR, Jim Ross.

So what does this mean? What does this say about the state of the industry now versus back in 1994?

Well… not a whole lot, really. But it's been so long since we had a foreign PPV event brought to the US like this, the differences are really what makes the comparison worthwhile. When Worlds Collide was something of a shot in the dark for WCW, while being a no-brainer for AAA. Jeff Jarrett has already tried going up against WWE; the saga of TNA/Impact Wrestling continues, stumblingly, without him. GFW is a new idea, or perhaps an old idea reworked for today's market. Cross-promotional supercards were a a rare but guaranteed draw back in the territory days; rivalries and backbiting in the seedy world of promoters made the logistics impossible most of the time, but the fans would turn up if they could get the damn shows together. As the business expanded into the 80's, a corporate structure replaced the territory system and WWF began swallowing up the competition, and the NWA was forced to band together to keep alive, leading to the formation of WCW. Currently, the big-business model of promotion has left things stale, and it's impossible to expect anybody to rival WWE, or even come close, by mimicing that business model.

So Jarrett and the GWF have gone back to the territories, so to speak. Today the whole world is fair game, and Jarrett is establishing relationships with promotions in every wrestling hotspot in the world. NJPW is the big one, of course, but if this all goes well we cold be seeing something unfold that combines the NWA-style confederation of promoters with a singular brand delivering their content.

Who wouldn't want to see, just for the sake of argument, the top guys in South Africa, Australia, Germany, Ireland, and Japan face off in an international tournament? Globespanning tag teams? Or maybe just the best matches from all the worldwide partners? A chance for U.S. wrestling fans, who have been stuck with only one style of wrestling for a decade and a half, to see how it's done the world over?

Sounds good to me. Now if only the PPV wasn't at 2 a.m. Ahahaha!

Hurtsville Hall of Fame Hullabaloo... and things without the letter H

Again the cognitive limitations of mortal Man are again dragged, mewling and bloody, into the violet dawn of Hurtsvillian scrutiny. You see, the ballot for the 2015 Hall of Fame has been released, and my preternatural skills of pattern recognition reveal to me that, as is typical, it will be grossly mishandled. Breaking character somewhat, I, The Foiler (ahaha and all that) will expend just the tiniest effort as a gift to you unfortunate, contemptible vermin, in the interests of seeing something done right. Here’s the straight dope on all the new names on the ballot, and a few opinions (or as we call them in Hurtsville, undeniable cosmic truths). The following contest will be scheduled for one fall!

The New Hotness:

Pedro Martinez- One of the few so good he only has to have a first name, Pedro at his best is arguably the most unhittable (the least hittable? Doesn’t sound as good) righty in the last 40 years. He was historically dominant during his peak years, and those just happened to coincide with the biggest offensive seasons in baseball history, giving him a case for some of the best individual seasons ever, era-adjusted or no. Doesn’t have a gaudy win total, but Wins are a misleading stat and Pedro is the man, end of story.

Nomar Garciaparra- Fondly remembered by Jimmy Fallon and Boston fans as the guy they staked all their hopes to before injuries robbed him of his swing, Nomar was the face of the Red Sox until he was traded to the Dodgers mid-2004, leading to the best 10-year run in franchise history. Not a HOFer.

John Smoltz- I wonder if/how is status as part 3 of the pitching Cerberus that was the Atlanta Braves, along with Maddux and Glavine (who were inducted last year) will impact the votes. There will be some who won’t accept 3 members of the same pitching rotation all getting elected. John Smoltz was a very good starter, excelled in the bullpen upon his return from TJ surgery (unlike the ‘you suck at pitching, now you’re a reliever’ story most guys play out), and made a successful return to the rotation, which is unprecedented in modern ball. I think Smoltzie showed not only raw ability but adaptability and dedication to his craft in a way few other pitchers have been in a position to. I also think he has an ERA+ of 125, which is just a hair behind returning (and deserving) candidate Curt Schilling’s 127. For perspective, Greg Maddux has an ERA+ of 132, while Tom Glavine has an ERA+ of 118. Hmm.

Rich Aurilia- A decent hitter for a shortstop, Rich Aurilia had a good year in 2001 at the plate and also has no chance of making the Hall of Fame.

Carlos Delgado- I’m a fan, but Delgado doesn’t have the milestone numbers to impress the old-schoolers, and an in-depth analysis doesn’t change the story much. Delgado was very good, a difference maker in the lineups of several teams, but he’d need 3-4 more big years to really be in the conversation.

Gary Sheffield- He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but he knew what he was doing on the field (even if it was playing badly to force a trade). PR issues, a big mouth, and suspicions about his off-field behavior and clubhouse presence won’t help him either, but I think he will make it in eventually. It will be a crime if he makes it in before Piazza or Bonds, though.

Troy Percival- I love this guy’s name. I also believe saves are a dumb statistic. Percival was a top-tier guy in his role, but it’s probably not enough if Lee Smith still hasn’t made it and John Franco is off the ballot already. The ERA+ of 146 is the highest among any of the other first-time candidates this year, and would be pretty high among the very few relievers to make the Hall. He could very well miss the minimum to appear again, but I’d be interested to see how he looks next year when comparisons to Trevor Hoffman begin.

Aaron Boone- Barely making the service time requirement, Boone had one big moment in an unremarkable career and is very much 2003’s Bucky Dent (or Chris Chambliss, depending on who you’d prefer to insult). If you look at Aaron Boone’s Wikipedia page, the picture they have will make you want to punch him.

Randy Johnson- Not even worth the effort to type out the numbers, the guy was just brilliant for about ¾ of an impressive and lengthy career. Without question the greatest body of work for a lefty starting pitcher. Please shut up about Sandy Koufax. Nicknamed The Big Unit because of his enormous penis, which helped him generate all that torque when he brought his back leg around.

Tony Clark- A switch-hitting first basemen with fewer than 1,000 RBI does not make the Hall of Fame. Also, it never helps to play for the Padres.

Jermaine Dye- A guy with tremendous talent, bad luck, and a streaky career. Despite a lot of missed time, Dye flashed some impressive power and a cannon arm in the outfield, playing a huge part of the White Sox’ championship run in 2005. We’d be having a different conversation if Dye had reached his potential a little bit earlier and didn’t destroy his leg in 2003 with Oakland, but it is what it is, and Dye isn’t a HOFer.

Darin Erstad- Had ‘heart’ and ‘guts’ and ‘knew how to win’, despite not doing all that much of it. Hacky sports analysts like that he was a punter in college. I do not. Darin Erstad’s greatest contribution Major League Baseball is giving the Fire Joe Morgan guys an early target (though he was surpassed in undeserved praise by FJM favorite David Eckstein in short order).

Cliff Floyd- Another guy who couldn’t stay on the field, Cliff Floyd averaged only 95 games per season. Solid at the dish and in the field, Floyd was by all accounts a welcome presence in the clubhouse, where he encouraged his teammates to play while he dealt with yet another injury. He played for the Expos, and will be one of the last former Expos to appear on the ballots (although Tim Raines is still on there). Fun fact: before they became the Washington Nationals, the Montreal Expos (located in Canada) was the only MLB club to wear red, white, and blue.

Brian Giles- Not to be confused with the other Brian Giles, more-recent Brian Giles was a good ballplayer, not great, who will not be appearing on any ballots this year, and probably none in the years to come.

Tom Gordon- They called him Flash Gordon, which is pretty cool. A young sensation for the Royals, Gordon was a lopsided pitcher, with plenty of K’s and an ERA that went from Minnie Minoso to Mo Vaughn pretty quickly. He converted to relief and had a dominant stretch as a closer, but he’s nowhere near the level needed to even get a second look. As is typical, closers are overvalued while relievers are, in broad terms, largely overlooked.

Eddie Guardado- Pitching for 6 teams, Eddie Guardado is notable for 2 things: sticking around long enough to be on this list, and being confused with tragic wrestling superstar Eddie Guerrero during barroom discussions.

Jason Schmidt- A pretty good pitcher for a little while. Honestly, I thought this guy was an infielder until I fact-checked him. That says it all.

Hurtsville Critter Spotlight vol. 2 - The Articulated Python

Welcome to Volume 2 of the Hurtsville Critter Spotlight! Continuing our educational unnature series, it's time to meet one of the premier reptiles in the greater Hurtsville area, the Articulated Python (Pythonidae Articulata).

As the name implies, the Articulated Python is very definitely a snake. A constrictor, the Articulated Python has a typical range of 10 to 16 feet in length and a weight range of 175-250 pounds, large for a snake but far from record-setting. The scale pattern generally features stripes along the back in shades of brown and green, with a lighter brown underbelly.

Unsurprisingly, Hurtsville's Articulated Python sports some characteristics uncommon to the family. The name comes from this serpent's unusual skeletal structure; unlike other snakes, the Articulated Python's spinal vertebrae are composed of a nigh-impossible series of ball-and-socket joints connected by locking hinges, allowing this highly-effective predator to bend itself into many shapes for camouflage and self-amusement purposes. Reports of these snakes posing as staircases, railings, and semi-truck chassis are common enough, and younger individuals have been known to impersonate umbrellas, ratchets, tennis racquets, street signs, and in one famous instance, an entire functioning wheelchair. Much like that Super-Poseable Spider-Man that you made finger its own butt while standing on one foot and curling his toes in the throes of ecstasy, the Hurtsvillian Articulated Python's depravity is only limited by its imagination.

Spending most of its time in the Hurtsville foothills, the Articulated Python generaly subsists on a diet of badgers, deer, tortoises, LARPers, spare tires, and people who like to debate the acuracy of the term 'hobby shop'.

Hurtsville Critter Spotlight vol. 1 - The Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear!

The Glorious Nation of Hurtsville is home to a variety of indigenous creatures, some unique, and some twisted, mutant kinfolk to creatures in the outside lands. In this series, we'll be giving you puny, worthless outsiders a glimpse into Hurtsville's preternatural ecosystem, with each installment spotlighting one of our many unusual and bloodthirsty organisms. Please note that all living things in Hurtsville are carnivorous, including the plants.

Today we take a look at... the Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear (Ursus Maleficarum)!

Visually similar to its more common and less mystical brethren, the Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear is similar in appearance to an over-sized American Black Bear, but with a distinctive purple bandanna tied around its head, Ninja Turtle-style, and the occasional bandolier of edged throwing weapons. Typically weighing between 500 and 700 pounds and averaging between 35 and 50 inches at shoulder height, the Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear is surprisingly agile for such a sizable creature. Atypical of other related species, the Hurtsvillian Stealth Bear walks bipedally, and has been known to ride unicycles unironically.

Sightings rarely leave survivors, but some recovered security footage has been pieced together showing a crack squadron of Hurtsvillian Stealth Bears executing a series of brutal maul-and-grab-and-then-maul-again robberies throughout the countryside and even within Hurtsville city limits. Unlike their cousins, Hurtsvillian Stealth Bears are primarily urban-dwelling predators, operating out of an unknown number of hidden locations which are presumably well-stocked with salmon. They are reported to excel at hiding behind shrubs, telephone poles, and other tall, narrow objects generally not suited for such purposes. 

An Introduction to Hurtsville – The Glorious Nation Welcomes* You!

If you’re reading this, congratulations! You are about to embark on a journey of wonder, discovery, and unbelievable psychological and physical trauma as you explore the unnatural beauty and primordial evil of the Glorious Nation of Hurtsville. Let’s get a few basics out of the way, so that Hurtsville might better insinuate itself into the very core of your being, using you as a host to spread its seeds into the world of Man in inefficient but deliciously subversive and violating fashion.

Well then.

Hurtsville. Where is it? What is it? The answer is, of course, convoluted. Hurtsville is a pandimensional city-state, a bustling metropolis under the tyrannical rule of The Foiler. Like your typical mystical settlement, Hurtsville is unreachable by conventional means, and the whirling mists that make up its barriers can only be traversed, or even seen, if The Foiler expressly wills it to be so.

Currently on the lam in central Indiana, the Glorious Nation of Hurtsville is quite mobile, although there are quite a lot of winches and intricate systems of pulleys involved in transporting a vaguely-sized city, its inhabitants, building, infrastructure, and the surrounding lands from one realm to the next. Hurtsville is also something of a contradiction, hosting specialized technology far advanced than that in use by lesser beings, particularly non-Hurtsvillian humans, but at the same time lacking the associated modern cancers of society like ‘democracy’, ‘equality’ and ‘human rights’.

Trade relations in Hurtsville contribute favorably to our eternal surplus of wealth; in addition to interdimensional trade of goods and services, Hurtsville has a veritable monopoly on shipping with a number of other worlds, many of which are populated by tentacled monstrosities and/or societies based around mid-20^th century character archetypes. Hurtsville is also home to the Quaker Meats Company, the universe’s unrivalled leader in questionable canned foodstuffs.

The population generally falls between 65,535 and 999,999, although it can vary quite a bit depending on just where Hurtsville materializes and what may or may not be considered sentient life in said location; as we will cover further in our upcoming series on the flora and fauna of Hurtsville, there are quite a few chatty Cathys in this most unique of lands, and not all of them are bipedal.

Public transportation is the main method of commute in Hurtsville, consisting mainly of a rapid-transit trolley line and a series of strategically-oriented catapults. Automobiles are rare, as the streets of Hurtsville are as narrow as a medieval village owing to our strict policy of having as many alleyways as possible.

Government in the Glorious Nation of Hurtsville is a pretty straightforward affair, a welcome contrast to the veiled corruption and indolent bureaucracy found in the world of Man. The Foiler acts as tyrannical dictator, as well as the creator and founder of the land. While he (really, ‘it’) employs a veritable army of administrators and legislators, The Foiler is the only voice of authority in the Glorious Nation, ruling by his whim and the fact that his nigh-infinite power can easily transform any dissenters into a plate of eggplant rollatini. Despite appearances, the citizens of Hurtsville enjoy the highest quality of life, if not the longest actual lifespans. The Foiler, being of primordial darkness that he is, has no vices he cannot sate through his own power, and seems to consider government as something akin to a strategy game.

Foiler Fact: the ‘do not disturb’ sign on The Foiler’s office reads ‘reticulating splines’.

This is all just scratching the surface of the rich and brutal history of the Glorious Nation of Hurtsville. Stay tuned for further installments, and be sure to send your questions and topic requests. I am quite literally required to answer, lest my skin be removed and made into a sporty windbreaker, so feel free!

-Kip Casper, Semi-Official Hurtsville Minister of Records and Barista

*usage of verbs, nouns, and/or adjectives subject to interpretation by The Foiler