A hearty "Thank You" to my good friend Mike Foster who e-mailed me the identity of the Mystery Villain:

So I pulled out the Invasion series with all the tie-ins today. Didn't get far when I saw a cover of the series he premiered in. One quick search later: Strobe. Power of the Atom issue 3. (Wed 12/27/2006)

According to dcuguide.com ("The Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe"), Strobe first appeared in Power of the Atom #3 in October 1988, just a few months before the DC Universe-spanning Invasion event.

A villain wearing an advanced suit of armor that could throw concussion blasts and deliver blinding flashes of light. Strobe fought the Atom (II) [Ray Palmer], who turned him over to the authorities [PotA #3]. Breaking free from prison, Strobe took another identity as the samurai-inspired Edg the Destroyer [PotA #12], but was once again defeated by the Atom, subsequently returning to his Strobe identity [PotA #13].

Strobe certainly belongs to the same clique of loser villains as Rainbow Raider. In the issue, Strobe was angry that Atom's heroics were stealing headlines from his bank robberies, so he decided to throw down with a Justice Leaguer. (That's a bad idea. Villains with light-inspired gimmicks have a long history of bad luck with the JLA in particular and other DC Universe heroes in general.) I postulate that if Strobe is robbing banks for public attention, he probably is in the wrong line of work. Try robbing television studios next time, Strobe. Of course, Strobe loses his fight to Atom, and he practically disappears from the DC Universe.

Mike, you found a character who has only appeared in 4 books in the 80-year history of DC Comics. Congrats, man. Consider yourself the Indiana Jones of the comic book vault.

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I know that in some situations you have little choice but to turn to crime. For example, there's Jean Valjean from Les Misérables who is forced to steal bread or starve to death. But I'm pretty sure that color-blindness isn't a very good reason to go stealing from people.

This here is the Rainbow Raider. His birth name, as you can see, is Roy G. Bivolo. And yes, he's been colorblind since birth, so he has no idea how bad his costume looks. A reason to be bitter? Sure. A reason to dress like a gay flag and steal paintings? No, probably not.

Comic books have always supported the "nurture over nature" theory of psychological development. I mean, giving your colorblind child a name like Roy G. Bivolo, you have to know that he's going to end up in a nuthouse. (Why can't you name him Dave? You probably need to stay away from Robert, though, because Bobby Bivolo is not a huge improvement.) If villains were intrinsically genetically bad and couldn't be cured, then heroes would have to come up with a better solution than catching them and locking them in cages, now wouldn't they? Comic book heroes love to give villains second, third, even fourth or more chances in order to learn their lesson. I mean, I've lost count of the number of times that Harvey Dent has had plastic surgery and yet he ALWAYS returns to a life of split personalities and Evil with a capital "E." It's never really his fault, of course. He wants to be good. But comic book writers are just conspiring against him.

There are dozens of characters like poor old Roy who feel they got a short end of the stick. I think most of them are probably Flash villains. (Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd, Mirror Master, Pied Piper, Weather Wizard... and those are just the ones with the alliterative names! For a man who claims to be the fastest man alive, he sure has a lot of crap hanging on to him.) And they all just want revenge on the world for having their ridiculous theories, names, physical appearance, or whatever laughed at. What they really need is a hug.

In hindsight, I suppose that makes comics much superior to the real world, where those same people climb clock towers with rifles or run for political office.

Why do I mention this now? I don't need a reason, that's why.

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In the movie Robocop, when post-resurrection Alex Murphy is having a flashback to his previous life in the now-abandoned house, his son is sitting in front of the tv (watching the show T.J. Lazer - thank you, Shatner!) with a bunch of comic books in front of him. Those are Marvel ROM, Spaceknight comic books. Clearly the design for ROM, a toy turned into a comic, was one of many that influenced the Robocop costume. But I think it's odd that a movie that takes place in the future would depict a boy reading comic books that were canceled before the movie was ever released.

It's perhaps a little more odd that the director of Robocop, Paul Verhoeven (also director of Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man) believed that Robocop was the story of Jesus Christ in the future. Like Jesus, Murphy rose from the dead and saved his people - police, not Christians - from persecution. It should be pointed out that Verhoeven was the director, NOT the writer of Robocop, who got the idea from Blade Runner. I think the fact that Robocop was driven largely by vengeance sort of puts the whole thing outside the realm of comparison. If Paul wanted to make a point, I think he should have made a film where Jesus crawls out of his cave and goes all biblical on the Romans' ass.

As I read back on what I just wrote, I realize that I'm talking about a movie that was released in 1987. That was 19 years ago. It's those sorts of realizations that start to make you feel old. My parents wouldn't let me see Robocop because it was rated R. Yet I was allowed to see Good Morning, Vietnam, even though it was rated R. It's those sorts of realizations that start to make you understand why you're fucked up.

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[The Batman Coloring Page blog entry for September 15, 2006, has been relocated here.]

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A new month means new content. Professor Gradey, my comic book grading Flash animation, is now online. You can reach him through my media page, or you can just follow this link.

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Another update today, though this one is minor. I uploaded the Star Trek Communicator Happy Meal toy with sound. (The previous version had no sound.) There are still a few things to fix for the site intro, but I'll get around to that later.

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Among the truely great books ever published is The Super Dictionary. A learning dictionary for children published in the 70s, it features the great lineup of DC super heroes: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, etc. I often tell people that I learned to read from comic books, but that's not quite true. I learned to read from The Super Dictionary.

Wonder Woman illustrates the entries for "blow" and "bush." I love this book.

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I just posted a new Flash toy over on the media page. It's a "generic television script generator." I got the idea while channel surfing the other day when I realized that I could go through the better part of 100 channels without stopping and still have a damn good idea what was happening on most of the shows.

There is another Flash toy in the works, it just needs a little fine tuning. Really, I made it years ago but never got the polish on it to post online. I'm determined to get it up now. I don't know why I'm making them right now, I just sort of feel possessed to do it. (Probably because my mother is coming to town this weekend and Flash scripting is preferable to house cleaning.)

On a related note, I saw Desperate Housewives for the first time this past week, and I was appalled. This is what America has been going nuts over? It's just a tawdry Sex and the City clone with bad manners. Whatever happened to the good old shows? I know, I know, there were no good old shows. I mean when Ben Jones is trying to pass off the original Dukes of Hazzard as wholesome family entertainment after the phrase "Daisy Dukes" has entrenched itself in the American lexicon, it really opens your eyes to the fact that the more things change, the more they stay the same. However, there was a time when Barbara Eden couldn't show her belly button on Jeannie so they had to actually have the characters (*gasp*) do things to get an audience. Now Debra Messing's bra-less erect nipples are the punchline of half of the gags on Will & Grace (in the syndicated early-evening, after-school hours, no less). Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of erect nipples, but when cheap schoolboy thrills are what pass for Emmy award winning writing, you can't expect me to cheer about it. I certainly understand why they call it the idiot box these days.

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I hatched about a half dozen new ideas for the site yesterday, and I've already begun working on 3 of them. (Though that doesn't count for much, as I have about a half dozen old half-completed modifications sitting uselessly in folders on my desktop. I'm an idea man. A very lazy idea man.) The main page intro movie is still in the works, as are several interactive Flash pages. There's just not enough time for me to work on them all and still play Katamari Damacy! (If you think updates are slow now, just you wait until City of Villains is released. BWAH-HA-HA!)

Anyway, I'm also working on squeezing the old campaigns onto the new site since several of you keep bothering me about them. Keep hassling me and I'll get them added. The link to them will appear on the main page only when Wriphe is out. (I guess you might call it a hidden link, but it's not really. You'll know when it's active.)

Speaking of distractions: is there anyone else in America who is NOT watching Lost? It's like the Melrose Place phenomena of the 2000's. Take a look at this insanity. (Now you know why I live alone.) If you have to watch TV, I recommend that you stick to My Name Is Earl. It's as good as it gets: funny and poignant. by that I mean that it tugs at my heartstrings and I laugh.

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Ah ha! Site basics are complete tonight with the addition of the media/flash page. Should the page actually work as designed (I'm sure it won't, it never does), I'll finally have all the planned pages at Wriphe.com up to full speed. Now I can move on to other projects. Of course I'll keep this site updated, as at least 3 of my planned projects should have artistic merit.

Endorsement: Morrowind. Very engrossing. (I still hate Xbox. I'm playing the PC version. I know it came out forever ago, but that shouldn't stand in the way of good gaming, should it? Maybe one day I'll even play Half-Life.)

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