This is Not A Series of Essays About Power Girl (III) - Tragic

Shifting through the mess that is Power Girl's past, one finds that when tragedy hits our girl, it never hits her in small ways.

For instance, we start out with the familiar Superman origin: her home world Krypton destroyed. She makes out a tad better than the Big S, as Power Girl (aka Kara Zor-L) was given a full Kryptonian education on the way to Earth. But let's face it, losing an entire world is something major.

Then it happens again. Kara's Earth is destroyed in a massive multiple dimensional conflict. In fact, it's done so thoroughly that no one remembers it ever existing. Now not only is she one of the last of her kind, she's among the last survivors of an entire universe. Very depressing.

I mentioned last time her baby. Y'know, the rapid grow kid that no one wants to remember. (Except me, apparently). Well, he was the result of unnatural methods.

During her period as a descendent of Atlantis, Kara found herself pregnant without any idea just how it happened. As it turns out, the man who she thought was her grandfather arranged her condition (!) through magical means that transcended millennia (!!) so that her son could fight off a demonic threat. So important was this fight that not only did the kid need to reach manhood in a haste, he also had nothing afterwards. Exit the newborn Super Hero.

Not only depressing but creepy to the extremes. And not in a good way. The only thing worse would be to suggest She Hulk seduce her cousin the Hulk (which was actually suggested in one of the Marvel Comics, sad to say)

These past few months have heaped more on Kara's head. Not only does she now remember the loss of her Universe, but she also loses the two people who acted as her family on that Earth, Clark Kent and Lois Lane-Kent. Which is a odd thing to write - Superman and Lois don't die, damn it! - but it happened nonetheless.

So my girl Kara hasn't had it easy. But neither has Peter Parker. And, by the very nature of his tragedies, he was far more relatable than Power Girl. Which is, of course, only a segue to this little tangent on Spider-man's own history. Something that is less Cullen related...

---

To start with, Peter's parents died in a plane crash when Peter was very young. The hows and whys of the matter are a bit of a stretch, but that's not the point. They were gone before he ever got to know them.

His Uncle Ben Parker and Aunt May raise him as best they could. Ben, as it has been revealed, dies shortly after Spider-man is born. Aunt May lingers on, hovering just on the verge of death. Between this and constant money problems, the Parker Luck was clearly set to "bad".

Then bad things start happening to anyone and everyone around him. Starting with...

• Betty Brant, Peter's first girlfriend, gets the pleasure of seeing her brother shot. That said brother was slime doesn't change things. Later on in the series, her husband is brutally murdered and dressed up as another of Spider-man's foes. So she has no luck what-so-ever. However, in main ways better of than...
  
• Liz Allen, Peter's first crush and for sometime Betty's rival, has a half brother who becomes a Super Villain. While this turns out okay after some time, she goes off and marries...
  
• Harry Osborn, Peter's best friend, begins experimenting with LSD. Bad trip for all concerned. He straightens out and has a happy life with Liz, right up until he decides to follow in the footsteps of his father...
• Norman Osborn, who is, as we all know, the psychotic Super Villain known as the Green Goblin. As the Goblin, Norman, discovers that Peter is Spider-man. A convenient case of amnesia prevents a disastrous situation but this leaves Peter in a bind. Does he seek help for Norman and risk having his secret identity exposed, or does he just sit back and hope for the best? Not the greatest way to treat his best friend's father, but certainly better than what happens to...
• George Stacy. He gets killed by debris thrown about in a battle between Spider-man and his arch foe, Doctor Octopus. Granted, it's a hero's death (he dies rescuing a child), and thus better than what happens to...
  
• Flash Thompson, a bully Peter knew in high school. He eventually becomes good friend with Peter afterwards. Which means that the Green Goblin has to punish him. A traffic accident is arranged, in which Flash is seriously brain damaged. Not that it's that noticeable.

And so on and so forth. It's pretty clear that, like Thomas Magnum, Mike Hammer, and Jessica Fletcher, if you know Peter, you're going to get in some sort of trouble.

But all of this is window dressing compared to the murder of Gwen Stacy. See, Gwen was the One, the girl Peter was going to marry, if he could only figure out a way of telling her he was Spider-man. As she blamed Spider-man for the death of her father, the aforementioned George Stacy, this seemed never to be. Only, in time, she forgave Spider-man, and everything seemed swell again...

Just in time for Harry Osborn's dating life to go into the crapper. Upset, he goes back to the tender care of LCD like the little twit he was. More bad trips, more thrashing about. No wonder he comes to a bad end later on in life.

His father takes this badly. Already stressed by problems at work, Norman starts looking for someone to blame. He lashes out at Harry's friends. They should have been watching out for his boy. Especially that Parker. Oh how he hated that Parker...

Unsurprisingly, the memories of being the Green Goblin return to Norman, and with them comes a focus for his hatred. It's all Parker's fault. Norman dons his costume and heads off to find Peter and continue their struggle.

He finds Gwen instead.

Spider-man, desperate to save his love, finds her with the Green Goblin atop the George Washington Bridge. After an exchange of words, the Goblin knocks his captive over the side, sending her plummeting toward the water below. Acting on instinct, Peter sends out a web-line... but it doesn't do any good. By that point, even if he had jumped after her, she would have died.

Gwen Stacy was doomed.

And from that point on, so was Norman Osborn and his son. Norman would soon be killed in a battle with Spider-man, hoisted by his on petard much like as seen in the movie version. Harry, still suffering from his trip, stumbles over his father's remains. Again, Spider-man is blamed, and he swears vengeance. An oath that would lead him, like his father, to madness and death.

But that was what lay ahead, and besides the point. The death of Gwen Stacy, like the death of Ben Parker, was a major turning point in Peter's history. It underscored Spider-man's basic theme, that with great power comes great responsibility. If Peter had, again, acted, had he risked being discovered and got Norman the help he needed, then Gwen would have lived.

It was that simple. A powerful, important lesson.

One arrogance and foolishness have in recent years utterly ruined.

The included images comes are © by the DC and Marvel, respectively, if no one else
It is in no way the work of Cullen M. M. Waters

This is Not A Series of Essays About Power Girl (II) - The Fall of Spider-Man Begins

Power Girl's history is a bit of a mess. Hell, the character herself is as well.

First she was Superman's cousin (on an alternate Earth; don't ask). Then she was the descendent of an Atlantian Sorcerer. She has a baby who grows up at a rapid rate, becomes a hero, then vanishes from continuity. She's weak against Kryptonite, against wood, against nothing at all. Now she's back to Superman's cousin from another universe.

Which is a lot to take in all at once. Makes me glad I haven't found Hawkman as interesting. Hawkman's continuity issues been known to drive DC fans insane. Really.

But my hero Spider-man had a straight forward history. Bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker gains a wide variety of super powers. He starts off trying to exploit these powers, but after indirectly causing the death of his Uncle Ben (by not stopping a crook when he could), he changes his mind. Instead, he uses his powers and his scientific knowledge to fight crime. Thus Spider-man is born.

Real simple. Too bad it couldn't last.

---

As I said last time, the Nineties weren't the greatest of times for comics. Everything went all grim and gritty. I generally blame Batman for this, as Batman was also sorts of successful with the grim and the grit, but maybe it was the decade. Who knows?

Sadly, this wave of "Gritty Stupidity" swept up my boy Spidey. At one point his parents, long thought dead, return. Only they're not his parents; their robot assassins create to cause further pain and anguish to Peter Parker. This was done by an old friend named Harry Osborn, who had recently died trying to emulate his father, the mad super criminal known as the Green Goblin.

I seem to recall additional traumas, but the net result is Peter having a nervous breakdown. He enters a cocoon made out of his own webbing and spends some quality time there while his wife, Mary Jane, watches helplessly on. When he emerges, he sheds his Parker identity, becoming just Spider-man. Or, as he put it, "the Spider."

And by "put it" I mean literally. Ever sentence he uttered or thought from that point was "the Spider this", "The Spider that."

Seriously.

Someone actually thought this was a good idea and ran with it.

Through multiple titles.

On this, he became more violent, darker, grittier, and pretty much unreadable.

Nevertheless, I kept on reading. Because I was a Spider-Fan. And surely this couldn't last, right? We'd get back to basics, right?

In time Peter does come back to his senses. Can't remember how, but he does. Right in time to go through the "Clone Saga". Which was a mistake that the character has never fully recovered from.

On the web, there's a site devoted to this portion of Spider-man's history called Life of Reilly, named after the clone Ben Reilly. It covers every aspect of the story, but it's a very interesting analysis of a story line going bad. It consists of thirty five good sized parts, so you might see why I'm hesitant to go into detail.

However, in a nutshell, the over-all plot of the "Clone Saga" includes:

• the return of a clone of Spider-man (created by the villain known as the Jackal because he could)
• the revelation that said clone was the actual Peter Parker, who's place had been taken by the one we thought was the real deal (because "Gritty Stupidity" had "ruined" the character.)
  
• a pregnancy for Mary Jane and Peter
• The death of Doctor Octopus in the lamest manner possible (he gets better)
• God-like beings of power whose purpose never really gets any clearer
• the death of Aunt May (she doesn't get better, but she does come back in an achingly stupid manner later on)
• Peter being accused of mass murder then having his name cleared (another clone what done it!)
• Peter losing his powers, retiring, then having everything come back to him and him returning to action (wheee!)
• the death/kidnapping/who knows of Peter and Mary Jane's child
• The revelation that the whole Clone Saga was caused by the Green Goblin (who also recovered from death quite nicely)
• And, finally, the death of the now confirmed clone Ben Reilly (who hasn't returned yet but is feeling much better.)

Oh, and a re-enactment of the death of Gwen Stacy in which Spider-man actually saves the girl. This happens twice, once for Reilly, once for Peter. Just in case we missed it the first time.

That last bit is important. We'll go into great details later.

I quit reading Spider-man maybe half way through the... I guess "story" is the word. Figured I'd come back when things get better.

Only they never did. Competent writers would write the titles and it was like they were newbie hacks with delusions of grandeur. As if all of their skills at the craft were sucked away. They even ended the series, restarted it, and it still was no good.

At one point, I was reading the Manga Spider-man thinking that this was as close to my Spider-man as I could come. And the Manga Spidey is nothing like the original...

Sounds a bit grim, for a fan, doesn't it? And yet I look back on those days with a bit of fondness. I had no idea how bad it could get...

The included image is © by DC if no one else
It is in no way the work of Cullen M. M. Waters

This is Not A Series of Essays About Power Girl (I) - Seriously, It's Not About Power Girl...

...but it damn well could be. I mean, easy. My infatuation with the character hasn't waned an iota since I first spoke of her. True, I've done little to act on this interest. I've not bought a book with her in it, as Money and me aren't always on speaking terms.^* Beyond reading her bio at Wiki and other places, I do little enough to find out about her.

I just look at her pictures.

A lot.

Far too much actually.

But this is really not what I've come here to speak about. Although it's related.

Sort of.

---

I have always liked comic books, specifically those dealing with Super Heroes. As frequent visitors to this site know (all three of you), I've broached this subject with good cheer and, on occasion, a bit of bemusement. I can get behind their silliness, their seriousness, and everything in-between.

I used to be an avid collector, buying a wide variety of titles (all Marvel). That tapered off in the Nineties as all of comicdom entered a stage of "Gritty Stupidity."^** However, I tend to keep up with what was going on in the four-colored world. Hitting review sites, and the like.

Over the years, I found my favorites, some of which I've mentioned, others I have not. Through one such site I found a new hang out called Written World. A part of the reason I'm hooked is because it's written by a female (one Ragnell) and I enjoy reading the opinion of women on subjects I like. Broadens my own perspective.

But more importantly, she's a Power Girl fan. And through her site I can keep track of my girl so much easier.

One of Ragnell's posts deals with a comic urban legend. Allegedly artist Wally Wood decided, as a prank, to drawn Power Girl's breasts a little bigger each issue until someone caught him at it. No one did, and by the time he left the book, she was well endowed. And has been ever since.

An amusing bit of trivia, I had thought, but Ragnell disproves it in as direct a manner as possible by posting images from Wood's run in sequence. I studied the images and decided I was spending too much time looking at Power Girl. Or not enough. I forget.

Oh, and if Wood was enbiggening, he was enbiggening in microscopic amounts. Our girl is 100% all righty...

Sexist? Me?

Any way, all of this triggered an idea for a new essay dealing with Power Girl. Further reading at "Written World" on my heroine inspired further thought, and I was all set to blather on about the woman. Pretty much as I have been doing for the past 14 or so paragraphs.

And then it came to me. I'm doing repeat business on a character I've never collected. And yet there is one Super Hero currently listed in my profile that I haven't had an essay for. I've mentioned him a few times, but never wrote about him.

There is a reason for this.

The included image comes from "Doctor Who" and is © by DC if no one else
It is in no way the work of Cullen M. M. Waters

---

^*And when we are, I blow Money off in favor of owning "Doctor Who", used RPG videogames, Anime, and horror movies of various worth. I'm such a cad.
^** A lot of really good things suffered during this time. "Doctor Who" was among them, with what was, in my opinion, some of the most wrongheaded story lines imaginable. Fortunately this occurred in the novels that followed the actual series. Even more fortunately, the new TV series seems to be ignoring them entirely, favoring the much superior Big Finish Audios. Which, to my immense amusement and irritation, occasionally try and mesh with the aforementioned wrongheaded story lines.

I have no idea what this has to do with anything, but I thought I'd share and, frankly, it doesn't deserve a post of its own...

Cuckoo Clock

I went to the end of my block
To retrieve my cuckoo clock
It had heard I was killing time
And thought that this was out of line

It trembled as I drew near
as if from me it had to fear!
I calmed it down as best I could
Patting gently its fine wood

"You have caused me such a fright!
Killing Time is just not right!"
I convinced it not to run away
And we went home to work and play.

This event helped my hopes to bolster
that I could do likewise for my toaster

---

I'm sure other, better poets have gone down this path before, but the thought crept into my head and I went with it. Nothing else was coming...

Whispered to the Ether

Ideas come and go. Only the ones with the strongest impression remain.

Note I say strongest. Not the best, or even good. Just strongest.

Examining ideas from every angle is the best policy.

Hughes Mearns Poem

Bear in mind that one man's creepy is another man's laff riot. However, I've always thought that this little bit from Hugh Mearns (aka William Hugh Mearns) was creepier than most any poem I have ever read:

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would go away.

Just thnk about it. You're coming downstairs in your house and meet someone who isn't there. Who is he? What is he? Why is he in your house? What does he want there? Will he go away? Has he always been there? Are there more like him? Is there a way to become like him? Are you starting down that path? Half way there?

And, perhaps more importantly, will you meet him in other, more private places? And what does he think of meeting you?

So many little questions for such a little poem. As a kid, I had a book of poems with it in it. It's haunted me for years...

Stephen Crane Poems - With Comments

Technically, Stephen Crane isn't a Fantastic Writer. He does, however have some striking poetry that does fit that particular genre.

Some of which I like quite a bit. Every now and then I look him up for on line. Big production.

In order to cut down on the hassle of looking these up, I've decided to post the bits of his works I found most interesting. To off set the over abundance of not-Cullen writing this will result in, I intend to give a few comments on the works. Some pertenent, some impertanet. Hopeful all entertaining and enlightening. If my comments aren't either, then Crane's words will more than surfice.

Unless otherwise noted, the poems in this essay are from The Black Rider and Other Lines. I believe it is out of copyright stuff as it was pulled from Wikisource. I assume they knows better than to do otherwise. However, if I've done wrong, let me know and I'll pull the article.

Without further ado...

Click here for Stephen Crane and commentary.

---

III
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

How many people are like this in fiction? Didn't Scrooge look upon the misery of his life and feel content?

Also, am I alone in picturing the "creature" as Gollum?

---

IX
I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, "Comrade! Brother!"

Now there's a man with self-hatred issues.

Crane, like a lot of poets, seemed to have a pretty bleak outlook on life. Not me, though. I'm positive.

I'm positive I'm going to screw up. I'm positive I'm going to fail any given relationship. I'm positive my efforts to change things will fail.

I'm also almost positive that I was kidding in the last paragraph.

(Quick thought: is he the one who finds the gates locked in my poem At the Gates of Eternity? Or is he the one who directs people there?)

---

XXIV
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never -"

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

The eternal struggle between the skeptic and the believer, from the skeptic's point of view. Note how the narrator accosts the man not out of wanting to help the man out of his madness, but because he was disturbed by what he was seeing.

---

XXV
Behold, the grave of a wicked man,
And near it, a stern spirit.

There came a drooping maid with violets,
But the spirit grasped her arm.
"No flowers for him," he said.
The maid wept:
"Ah, I loved him."
But the spirit, grim and frowning:
"No flowers for him."

Now, this is it --
If the spirit was just,
Why did the maid weep?

The answer is that the spirit, in his desire for vengence, is far from just. The man was wicked, the maid wasn't. In preventing her expression of remorse, the spirit does more harm to the maid than to the man. In fact, her declaration of love is worth far more than any countless number of flowers.

What an empty gesture on the spirit's part. What an empty thing the spirit is.

---

XLVII
"Think as I think," said a man,
"Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad."

And after I had thought of it,
I said, "I will, then, be a toad."

Dad's favorite, and mine too. I try to keep it in mind when I argue on-line, but far too often I end up calling people toads.

Also, the heart and soul of modern politics, summed up close to a hundred years ago. Depressing, isn't it?

---

Finally, from War is Kind and Other Lines:

XXI
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

---

Tomorrow, I plan to do something simular with one of the creepiest poems out there.