Because sometimes you just need to blog about Cliff Carmichael.
from Firestorm the Nuclear Man #4 (Sept. 1978) by Gerry Conway, Al Milgrom & Jack Abel
Me: “You know what I like about Firestorm?”
Employee Aaron: “No, what?”
Me: “Well, Ron Raymond [Firestorm’s secret identity — well, one of them] is on the school’s basketball team, and he’s always getting picked on by the school brain, Cliff Carmichael. It’s some kind of weird parallel universe high school where the jocks get bullied by the smart guys.”
Aaron: “So what parallel Earth would that be?”
Me: “I’d call it ‘Earth-Remarkably-Improbable.'”
To be fair, Cliff Carmichael always was one of my favorite antagonists in comics, Asimovian sideburns and all, and that switcharoo on the expected relationship between the smart guy and the athletic guy is clever and amusing. Alas, and almost inevitably, Cliff was turned from a regular everyday jerk into a supervillain, and that was pretty much that.
In other news:
- I’ve suddenly had a bunch of folks sending me this link to a kids book entitled The Swamp Thing, which has nothing to do with big green fella up there in this site’s title banner, aside from the name. It seems to me I’ve seen this before, on one of my many internet searches for “Swamp Thing’ — I may have linked to it before, but trying to Google up occurrences of the phrase “Swamp Thing” on this site seems too much like a fool’s errand to even try. But thanks to you all for the comments and e-mails…it’s good to know you folks are thinking of me!
- A follow-up to my comments yesterday about the less-than-stellar sales debut of Fallen Son: Wolverine: well, movement on this issue improved on Thursday, and we’ve gone from “oh, God, this is going to tank hard” to “well, maybe we can sell through what’s left over of this issue once a Fallen Son one-shot comes out that people actually like, causing them to look for previous installments.”
I think the forthcoming Fallen Son: Avengers one-shot will probably have pretty good sales right out of the gate. At least at our store, people don’t tend to buy every Wolverine series and/or appearance that Marvel cranks out. Contrast that with the Avengers…most of our Avengers-reading customers are more likely to pick up the attendant tie-ins and spinoffs. If they buy the Fallen Son tie-in, and realize it’s part of a series, there’s a chance they’ll want the Wolvie one-shot and the following issues. A small chance, I know…don’t crush my hopes.
- “Bus stop Batman prompts police pursuit of Caped Crusader”
“It’s like something out of a comic book: Police cars mobilize, attempting to track down Batman. But Monday afternoon, the Hesperia Unified School District Police were taking it very seriously.
“‘A school teacher on her way home passed a bus stop and saw a bunch of kids at a bus stop, and there was a person in a Batman costume standing next to a van, playing a flute,’ Chief Bob Mosley, formerly with the Los Angeles Police Department, said Thursday.”
[…]
“Those with information about the Batman incident are asked to call the Hesperia Unified School District Police….”
[…] the school’s basketball team) is constantly harassed by Cliff Carmichael, the school brain. I’ve written about Cliff before, and…man, I kinda miss that particular conflict. I seem to recall a time or two where Cliff […]
[…] Fury of Firestorm didn’t do anything for me at first, which may have more to do with my reaction as a longtime fan to the drastic rearranging of the character’s premise than any particular “flaw” in the book. As more issues have come out, I’m come to appreciate and enjoy the series, though my fanboy jury is still out in regards to the All-New, All-Different Cliff Carmichael. […]