Superman v. Muhammad Ali: After Action Letter Written by Batman

[After Action Letter Written by Batman]

Superman-

After reviewing the after-action report collected in this volume, I have to make some critical points about how to handle these situations better in the future. But before I go on, I do want to express how extremely disappointed I am in you and your lack of forethought. You are better than this.

The proposition set forth by invading aliens, one that involves an Earth champion fighting their champion to decide the fate of the Earth, is not within your control. Also, Muhammad Ali being in the area when this proposition was made was also not within your control. I understand this. However, the moment the challenge was made, the ball was in your court, and you threw up a brick that could have kept a hundred little piggies safe from just about any wolf, with the possible exception of the Minnesota Timberwolves, whose rebounding is incredible this season. Those guys are playing out of their heads!

According to what I saw, the alien gave you 24 hours to prepare for battle. However, Ali claimed that he should be the one to represent Earth, the reason being that the alien homeworld, where the fight would take place, is lit by a red sun, the exact thing that takes away your superpowers and makes you a mortal man and nothing more.

Okay, for starters, you have about three weaknesses, and you need to stop broadcasting them. Muhammed Ali does not need to know that you are easily killed when exposed to red sun. Not that he would have much chance to get ahold of some…except when YOU TOOK HIM TO YOUR SECRET FORTRESS AND SPARRED WITH HIM UNDER A LIGHT BULB THAT MIMICS RED SUN.

This is a completely unnecessary risk.

Also, stop keeping things around that can kill you. If there are three things that can kill you, focus on eliminating those three things, not stashing them away in a glass candy dish like an old bitch who lost her love on the Titanic.

So, using some time-slowing device, you and Ali had a couple of weeks to prepare for the fight. He trained you to the best of his ability, and then the two of you fought under the red sun before the main event, Earth’s champion versus the alien champion.

Clark, I don’t need to tell you more than once that fighting two people back to back is not done in boxing. It is just not done. Even though Ali bested you, the energy he spent knocking your ass around the ring a few rounds would have been better spent on the real enemy. Not a wise move.

Secondly, if the alien race wanted to create an honorable boxing match, as they claimed, how does it work that their champion weighs 8,000 lbs. while ours is floating around 200? I know you probably don’t take in much boxing, but this is completely unorthodox, and you allowing Ali to enter such a mismatched fight is putting him at a high level of risk that is completely unacceptable. Next time, why not just have Jimmy Olsen fight, I don’t know, Anti-Monitor. A guy who takes pictures against a guy who absorbs universes? Hey, sounds like a good match.

Now, I understand you’re the feelgood guy, and learning about races and creeds coming together to defeat a common foe was really nice. But for the love of god, you let Ali figure out your secret identity!?

Unfortunately, this is not a situation that can be allowed to stand. I will be forced to pay a little visit Ali and slip him a memory-erasing drug, which will hopefully wipe this entire alien adventure from his mind. It is my sincerest hope that there are no lasting, debilitating effects. But if there are, know they are on your head. The secret of your alter-ego is too important to be known to any man, regardless of his ability to punch other men without being punched by them as much.

You need to start taking more responsibility for your actions and the actions of those you should be protecting.

Yours in Christ,

-B

Weathercraft by Jim Woodring

I guess most people who read a Jim Woodring book know what they're getting into. I guess this stuff is written for people who like to pour over every page of a book time and again, drawing meaning from little hints here and there.

I am not one of these people. I'm not sayin

g that a book that warrants re-reading is not a good one, but I find books that REQUIRE it to be unnecessarily challenging.

This book in particular is one that I can't help but find confusing. If forced at gunpoint to identify a theme, I would say, "Pig Man sticks his head into a hole, finds himself involved in odd tableau. Repeat."

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It's sort of the same way I feel about what they call Language Poetry. Take this excerpt from poet Jorie Graham:

The man held his hands to his heart as
he danced.
He slacked and swirled.
The doorways of the little city
blurred. Something
leaked out,
kindling the doorframes up,
making each entranceway
less true.

Okay, I know that means something. Definitely something. But I don't know what.

Not knowing is okay, but if I don't know SOMETHING I'm not really compelled to take another crack at the mystery, especially when the reward for solving said mystery is solving said mystery and nothing more. And it's not really like a logic problem because there is no right or wrong answer.

Which brings me back to Weathercraft: the book with no right answer.

There's something dirty and pretty about Jim Woodring's art, no doubt. Kind of like Crumb in some ways, but if the human characters in Crumb's stuff occupied a more fantastical world. I can appreciate

that. I can appreciate the level of detail in the drawings, and reading this book does give you a feeling if not a logical path to

retrace how you arrived at that feeling.

By the end, though, I just need more. For me, it's forgettable because there's nothing I really remember other than to say, Dude, that was fucked up.

I guess if you're into it, have a couple shrooms and go to town. This would be a pretty great book to do it with, although I don't know why you couldn't do it with a book that also has a more apparent story, like a Chris Ware book or something from Tony Millionaire.

I don't know what there is to say about this other than it's not bad, but it's definitely not for me.