ODD: Yes, I saw Iron Man over the weekend, and yes, in the parlance of my home region, it was wicked good. Or at the very least, it was an entertaining blockbuster action flick with no pretentiousness, pretty good pacing, good acting, some great humor and good characterization. I’ll probably see it again, since Mrs. Ghostal-to-Be wasn’t able to come along this time. Incidentally, somehow I completely missed the fact that there was a post-credit sequence; if anyone else was that oblivious, you can see it here.

END: I’ve become somewhat obsessed with deciphering Grant Morrison’s upcoming “Batman R.I.P.” story arc. It’s largely occasioned by Morrison’s claim that this will be the end of Bruce Wayne’s run as Batman. Of course, we’re talking about Grant (Invisibles) Morrison here, so that could mean Batman fakes the death of Bruce Wayne to become Batman full-time, thus ending “Bruce Wayne’s” career as Batman. Whatever happens, I’ll be impressed, albeit annoyed, if this time next year someone else (Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, or–blecch–Damian Wayne) is Batman. Like Clark Kent and Superman and Peter Parker and Spider-man, Batman and his alter ego are American pop culture institutions. If DC brought back Hal Jordan (and possibly Barry Allen, as is rumored for Final Crisis), can we really believe Morrison when he says this is the end of Bruce Wayne as Batman? (Unless, of course, Bruce Wayne fakes his death; or “Batman: R.I.P.” is about a Bruce Wayne from a parallel universe; or this is just the end of Bruce Wayne’s run as Batman for the next six months, etc.)

Now, confession time. My pal J_Stone said to me that having someone else take up the Bat-mantle might work just fine, given good writing. Wally West, for instance, is the Flash to many of today’s readers. I could come up with all sorts of arguments as to why Batman must remain Bruce Wayne, but there’s a part of me that suspects the real reason is I just prefer the status quo. The status quo is comforting; change, the unknown, is frightening. And nowhere is the status quo more of a literary issue than in comic books, where characters who have been around for decades have barely aged (Batman, who was portrayed as being in his twenties or thirties when created in 1939, is about the same age now).

Novelist and critic Umberto Eco wrote about this issue back in 1972 in his essay “The Myth of Superman,” which is too complicated to summarize easily here in my little Odds ‘N Ends post, but I highly recommend you track down a copy. An easier would be this piece, which I just spent half an hour trying to track down and I’m still not sure it’s the one I remembered reading.

In any event, one thing I always liked about comics (and, for that matter, action cartoons like He-Man, Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) is the way the stories always came back to a certain status quo, which meant that when I sat down to play with my action figures, I didn’t have to worry that whatever story I came up with would be invalidated by the following week’s episode–which, to my insecure young mind, would be an invalidation of my own ideas, perhaps my own self; but more importantly, it would represent a loss of control.

So there it is: the status quo in comics represents control, and big changes–like someone other than Bruce Wayne becoming Batman–bother me because they strongly show just how little control I have. Huh.

ODD: OK, where was I? As a glance at my Flickr photostream will tell you, I finally got my Ramathorr FANtastic Exclusive from the second production run. In most ways the figure is an improvement over the first version–I’ll discuss it in greater depth in another post.

END: I’ll be on vacation from Friday through next Wednesday, but fear not–my loyal cadre of Power Pals should have some content to keep your eyeballs occupied.