Hi there!
A lot of you have been enquiring as to the whereabouts of
The Mole at 1700 – the undercover agent who used to print snippets of information on forthcoming DC titles in the previews section of their comics. Well, it turns out that his cover was blown. Someone I know on the fifth floor says that they saw him being dragged into an elevator, which went down to the subbasement of the building. I’ve heard rumours that Geoff Johns worked him over in the boiler room and then dumped the body in the Mississippi river. I went ahead and queried this since (what with us being based in NYC and all) I figured that it would make more sense to dispose of a body in the Hudson. Anyway I got this memo back:
TO: Wondrous.Platinum.Owl
FROM: Paul Levitz
RE: The secret execution of the Mole at 1700
MESSAGE: You fuck! If Johns says that he dumped the body in the Mississippi then that’s where he dumped the fucking body! Don’t you fucking waste my time again, you fucking fuck!
Hey, that told me!
I hope Paul’s memo clears things up for everyone. I guess that it’s true what they say - Spying don’t pay.
* * *As you probably know the American comics industry is currently embroiled in a Big Tobacco-style lawsuit! It turns out that some of the kids who read our comics back in the 50s and 60s never lost their virginity. Now we are being sued on the grounds that our comic books stunt sexual maturity and cause obesity. As curator of the archives at DC comics and an avid comic book reader myself, let me assure everyone out there that you have as much chance of getting laid as the next overweight, Klingon-speaking, socially-retarded freak in an Aquaman costume.
Hey, I’m just kidding!
* * *You know, people often say to me: “Mister Owl, I bet that you have some great stories about working for a world-renowned comic book publisher. Why don’t I rock rhythmically back-and-forth on your lap while you tell me all about it.”
Well to be honest kiddo it’s slim pickings. When it comes to amusing anecdotes and interesting personalities, comic book publishing is on par with the sheet metal-working industry.
Sure, there’s a few famous stories like that incident during the war when DC claimed that its comics were inked using the blood of slain German soldiers and sold all those full length Superman posters on the guarantee that eight pints of Nazi gore was used to colour each cape. Then later it was revealed that they were really using cows’ blood.
I'm afraid that stories like that are pretty thin on the ground. Having said that, every few years or so, something of note does happen. Today I thought that I would throw open the archives and shine some light on one of the lesser-known incidents in the long history of DC comics. So make yourself a glass of Tang, pull up a beanbag, sit back and enjoy:
THE PLOT TO GIVE BATMAN ECZEMA!In 1992 a teenage writer by the name of Augustine Lee approached DC comics with an audacious plan. He boldly claimed that if his idea was taken on board it would change the face of comics forever, while the actual covers would remain as they were, and would still feature large-breasted women in tight catsuits.
Up until this time superheroes had always been portrayed as the embodiment of everything that was noble and good about the human race. Lee’s concept was simple: What if these costumed paragons were in fact weak, simpering individuals, riddled with human frailties? What if Wonder Woman caught a cold and couldn’t stop sneezing? What if Superman was dyslexic and borderline illiterate? What if Batman had eczema?
Lee seemed particularly willing to explore the Batman angle. As part of his proposal to DC he submitted a detailed script for a six issue arc, provisionally titled
The Skin Deep. The story follows Batman as he struggles to come to terms with an outbreak of eczema on his back which, in his ignorance, he blames on The Joker.
There are many moving scenes in the script, including this touching interaction between Batman and Commissioner Gordon:
COMMISIONER GORDON: “I’m giving myself 24 more hours to hunt down the source of this eczema, then I’m throwing myself off the force.”
Batman stands silhouetted in profile. His hands are planted rigidly on the edge of Gordon’s desk and he is hunched-over. All that we can see of his facial features is the white slit of one eye and his lower jaw, which has cemented into a hardened scowl.
BATMAN: “Jim, you don’t have to do this.”
COMMISIONER GORDON: (eyes lowered, brow furrowed with age and concern) “Yes I do Bruce.”
In the climatic scene Batman very nearly kills The Joker, who is only saved by the timely intervention of Alfred the Butler:
BATMAN: “Joker, you gave me eczema.”
JOKER: “It warms my heart that you’ve finally found an itch you can scratch!”
ROBIN: “Batman, I’ll distract him with a series of acrobatic leaps and tumbles, while you deploy the Batnet!”
BATMAN: “Not this time Robin. This time he’s going to pay. Hand me the Batzooka.”
ALFRED: “Batman stop! Even though I have no personal connection to you per-se and know nothing of the man who lurks beneath your mysterious black cowl, I have been researching your family tree. Your eczema is an hereditary condition! Your grandfather ‘Batgrandad’ had it, as did his grandfather!”
At the end of Lee’s arc Batman’s eczema is cured by a new steroid cream developed by Wayne Industries. A final, full-page panel shows Robin, naked but for a white bath towel wrapped around his waist, massaging the salve into the muscular contours of Bruce Wayne’s bare back.
Lee conceded that if DC didn’t want to make Batman’s eczema part of the continuity it could be incorporated into an other worlds story – perhaps a hard-bound graphic novel, featuring indecipherable photo-artwork from Dave Mckean. However, after a long discussion, his concept of physically flawed superheroes was rejected by DC. As is the case for all rejectees who have deigned to show up at DC Headquarters in person, he was soundly beaten for wasting everyone’s time and then thrown into the street from a first-storey window, with the understanding that, if he made a second unsuccessful submission, he would be departing from the building via the second floor.
Who knows what might have happened had Lee been a little less smarmy and had not behaved like such an obnoxious prick when Neil Gaiman bought him a Pepsi, instead of the Diet Doctor Pepper he ordered?
It might be that one of our greatest comic book heroes could count a nasty skin condition as one of his recurring enemies.
