Blogotional: Comic Art

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Comic Art

For starters - when your real name is Leonard Snart you can hardly blame a guy for wanting an alias when he decides to "go public" with a criminal career, But I am not at all sure that Captain Cold, even if you have a freezing gun, is a smart choice. For starters, Mr. Freeze was already around - but then the parallels between Batman's and Flash's bench of opponents are numerous, and since they are what we seem to be exploring right now - well here we are.

Secondly, Keystone City, Flash's home base is in the midwest. It gets a little warm there in the summer, so I am thinking Captain Cold's "trademark," and lame, costume is a poor choice. Parka's are difficult with temps in the 80's and relative humidity in the soggies.

But there is one thing you can say for Captain Cold - he's smart. Yes, his cold gun was more or less an accident of invention, but he has managed to organize and ride herd on Flash's "Rogue's Gallery" for quite a while now - turning a whole plethora of lamish villain rip-offs to a potent force that can be quite interesting.

The Flash stories have become all about generations. It has been explored a bit amongst the rogues with a few of them passing the baton, as it were, to offspring. But Snart has not gone there. He is the most complex character of the lot and therefore would make the most interesting of such stories - he wrote giving comic book writers yet another freebie idea.

All I know is that if my dad gave me a freeze gun and a parka, I'd ditch the parka, and the powder blue pretty quick. The parka because purely on comfort grounds, the powder blue because when babies grow up they tend to leave such things behind.