How to make the entire internet hate me.
Yes, as I posted in that Twitter doodad yesterday afternoon, former employee, podcaster, and bon vivant Kid Chris filled in when I found myself shorthanded at the shop, with Employee Aaron in the drunk tank recovering from the flu and Employee Jeff working his second job as a strip-o-gram unable to make it in. However, the call went out, and Kid Chris, from his secret lair somewhere 60 miles south of us, jumped into the Kid Chrismobile and sped his way up to the store to answer my call.
And as usual, when you give Kid Chris and I a chance to put our brains together, we generate some solid ideas for a better future and a stronger America.
To wit:
We’ve developed a comic book rating system based on how many All Star Batmans something is worth. You know, like “this comic is as good as two All Star Batmans.” However, I’m sure you already see the problem, since All Star Batman is itself the pinnacle of comic book excellence. Anything being equivalent to two or more ASBs is only theoretical, and quite impossible given our current level of comic book technology. Like the speed of light, you can only approach the 1.0 of ASB, but never exceed it.*
Therefore, items are ranked by percentages. For example, let us take All Star Superman, the second-best All Star book. No one denies that All Star Superman is swell, and personally I think it nearly achieves perfection. Therefore, under our ASB scale, it’s ranked as follows:
0.99asb
Then let’s take something, like, oh, Incredible Hulk #112, a perfectly acceptable, but not outstanding, superhero book. It’s competently done, and entertaining enough, but not a top-flight example of the medium. Nothing to be ashamed of, certainly, but not compelling reading unless you’re already reading the book. So, it gets…
0.75asb
And then there’s something like, say, Countdown Presents Search for Ray Palmer: Superwoman & Batwoman, where the title is about as long as the plot outline for this issue. Now, I kinda enjoy it, but it only exists for DC Multiverse continuity fanboys, and doesn’t do much to really advance the actual “search for Ray Palmer” at all. As I noted before, every issue is pretty much the same…our team pops in, looks around, “hey, things are different here,” get into a fight or two, find out they just missed Ray, move on. As I said, only DCU fanboys need apply, but that’s me, I’m afraid…I know it’s no good, but I like revisiting these Elseworlds anyway, which is why it gets this high a score:
0.25asb
Now let’s take Ultimates 3 #1:
0.01asb
It was stapled, and the pages were in order. I think.
Hopefully, you get the idea, here. It’s better than my “is this comic better than the tree the paper came from” idea, anyway. And best of all…who’s going to argue about the standard used? Everybody loves All Star Batman.
As if that’s not enough, Kid Chris and I determined that, using the properties of Shade the Changing Man’s M-vest, we can retroactively insert a reason for the actual separation of the Vertigo universe from the regular DC universe, and perhaps use it to reintegrate them together again.
Oh, and Kid Chris has rescinded his statement that Jack Kirby was the Rob Liefeld of the ’70s. In case you were wondering.
