For reasons I'm not going to go into (use your imagination), I was recently trying to think of a superhero name for a painter. And it occurred to me that painters simply aren't super heroes.

Frustrated painters can become super villains (such as Crazy Quilt and Rainbow Raider), but never super heroes. (Sure, some become comic book illustrators -- Captain America and Green Lantern come to mind -- but that's hardly the same thing. Anyone can tell you that comic book illustrators aren't real artists.) Is this because the act of painting, a cathartic translation of thought, beautiful or otherwise, from ephemera to tangible is innately opposed to the destructive violence generally employed for subduing criminals? Or perhaps because painters have to spend so much time in a studio honing their craft that they don't have the opportunity to master gymnastics and Karate, necessary super hero skills? Maybe it's because painters spend all their time looking at things, unable to rouse themselves from marveling at the beautiful shapes formed by stark blue and red police lights to answer the sound of a bank's alarm siren.

Seems to me that the world is ready for a slew of super powered painters, charging forward with their brushes primed to cover man's inhumanity to man with a new veneer of peace and order. Painters would gain their super powers by accidentally coming into contact with experimental radioactive pigments, unusual combinations of toxic turpentine fumes, or still life compositions of creatively arranged alien meteor fragments. Heroes named Action Painter, Cadmium Kid, Color Crusader, Maul Stick, or the White Brush would band together on teams such as the Complementary Colors, Palette of Order, or (my favorite) The New Masters.

But then again, maybe not. Most of the painters I've met are pretentious dicks who I'd never want to see in tights. So maybe the lack of painter heroes is all for the best. Nevermind.

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The annual NBA Slam Dunk competition has become dominated by Superman. Last year, Dwight Howard won after doing a Superman-inspired dunk. This year, Howard added some "S-shield" emblazoned Adidas shoes to complete the heroic motif. However, he placed second to Nate Robinson, who wore day-glo green "Krypto-Nate" Nike shoes.

If their names didn't already give it away, the order of finish would make Adidas the "hero" and Nike the "villain" in this particular comic book. (As all comic readers know, the villain always wins in Act Two in order to increase the drama heading into the third and final act.) And I think that sounds about right. Adidas, you may not be number 1, but anyone competing against Nike fights on the side of angels. (The enemy of my enemy...)

My only problem with all this is just how ugly those Superman shoes looked. I thought they stopped making shoes that hideous in the 80's. It could be argued that Superman's costume, too, is a little out-dated (argued by others, not me; I like to wear my underwear as outerwear), but if he were ever to change, I doubt it would be into those. Those are the sorts of loud shoes we'd expect to find on the fashion-challenged Trickster or Crazy Quilt. By comparison, they make the Rainbow Raider's costume look stylish. Only Bizarro would say that these shoes look good.

On the upside, criminals such as the Ten-Eyed man would be easily incapacitated by the mere awfulness of those shoes appearance. Although, come to think of it, the Ten-Eyed man was never that difficult to defeat anyway, so maybe that's not so much of an upside.

Sorry, Adidas, it's back to the drawing board. Hopefully, when you return for Act Three next year, you'll be able to unveil the hero's triumphant new look for the winner's circle.

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The Brave and the Bold on the Cartoon Network may just be the best Batman cartoon ever. I love Batman Beyond, but it's always better to have Bruce Wayne under the cowl (hint, hint, DC).

In these new cartoons, Batman is simultaneously courageous, serious, and nearly omnipotent but still quite human. His guest stars, a who's who of mostly obscure DC Universe heroes and villains (Bwana Beast? Gentleman Ghost? Guy Gardner? Kiteman? Kick ass!), often steal the show without detracting from Batman's presence.

There's nothing new about The Brave and the Bold. If you were reading comic books before Crisis on Infinite Earths, it'll all seem pretty familiar. (That panel above where Batman and Flash have defeated Dr. Double X and the Rainbow Raider is from The Brave and the Bold #194, published over 25 years ago in 1983!) Several of the episodes have been lifts from previous comic stories, some even from The Brave and the Bold comic itself. But in a modern world in which every story has to threaten the end of humanity opposed by bickering, fallible heroes, it's refreshing to return to a more optimistic point-of-view in which the heroes always win, even if they sometimes need a little help from their friends.

I'm actually quite pleased that in the modern age, where DC's focus is frequently selling sensational stories to a populace demanding death on an epic scale, there are enough people in the business who remember that super heroes used to dress in bright costumes and dole out terrible puns as they overcame Goldbergian death-traps in order to catch common jewel thieves. All to provide readers with some simple, 4-color escapist fantasy for 22 pages. Realism? No. Fun? Yes.

If even Batman can crack an occasional smile, maybe there's still hope that DC comics can survive this modern ("DiDio") era without sacrificing too much of it's colorful classic roster to the bloodlust of it's current editorial staff.

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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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