This time of night, with all the Whos here in Mannionville all a-snooze and three hours or so of time by myself ahead of me, I tend to revert. I go back to one of two me's. Either I'm the twenty-three year old me, full of unspecified longings, urgent voices in my head telling me it's now or never, and what I want is out there somewhere in the night, waiting, hoping, looking for whatever I'm looking for too. Then Patti Smith takes over.
Fortunately for my pride, my marriage, and my lawyer who hates to get phone calls waking him up in the middle of the night, I never make it out the door, even with Smith wailing in my mind's inner ear and setting my soul on fire.
Or...
I turn twelve.
The darkness and the quiet of the house, the feelings of coziness, the combined and complementary senses of freedom and responsibility (because such nights only happened when my parents went out and left me to watch my brothers and sisters), knowing I can do pretty much what I want and I'm in charge so I have to be somewhat good, which is a relief to a twelve year old, not having to make really hard choices, a glass of milk and plate of cookies on the floor beside me as I stretch out to watch whatever TV show I feel like watching---all this was my great delight then and all this is here with me now, the darkness, the coziness, the freedom,the responsibility, the milk, and the cookies.
Plus we just finished watching Stargate:Continuum. Had my twelve year old self on the edge of his seat. At the end the kid stood up and cheered.
So tonight I'm twelve.
And this has been bothering the twelve year old me for a week now.
How come Batman didn't know the Joker was lying?
When I was twelve one of the things I liked about Batman was his billing: "The World's Greatest Detective."
I don't think he ever did much actual detecting, but the point was that in addition to being a dark knight of vengeance, Batman was pretty smart. I remember one comic book that ended with Batman explaining to Robin how he was able to thwart that issue's bad guy by "staying one step ahead of Johnny Two-Step." This bad guy, Johnny Two-Step, earned his moniker by being essentially a great chess player. He had his opponent's game figured out at least two moves in advance. Batman won by out-thinking him.
So how come he couldn't get one step ahead of the Joker? It was an obvious move!
But in my comic books Batman's in his thirties. He's been at the Batgame for years. He's learned a few things.
How old is he supposed to be in Batman Begins? Early 20's? And only a year has passed when The Dark Knight opens. Is he still making rookie mistakes?
Still, the twelve year old me thinks he should have known. The Joker wasn't going to make it easy for him.
By the way, Stargate: Continuum was pretty cool. Better even than Stargate: Ark of Truth. Together they add up to an almost satisfying end to the series. Only almost because I wish the show wasn't done.
SG 1's troubles with Ba'al are handled much better than the last battle with the Ori, probably because the Ba'al subplot was always fairly tame and modest and therefore it could be wrapped up in what's essentially a single long episode. The Ori needed and deserved more time.
But Continuum finishes with one of the main characters managing to get one step ahead of one of the villains. It's the right main character and the right villain and the look on that villain's face when the realization dawns that the main character's there and a step ahead is priceless.
Now, excuse me, I have to run out to the store. The twelve year old me has decided against cookies. For some reason, he wants cake.
3 "thoughts"
1 lying about what???
2 He did figure out that the joker was up to something during the final sequence in the tower. he figured that the ones who the cops were set up to shoot and dressed as henchmen weren't really henchpeople.
3 how do you stay one step ahead of chaos?
Posted by: greginak | Saturday, August 02, 2008 at 09:01 PM
greginak: I'm pretty sure Lance means the Rachel/Dent scene where he has to pick who to save.
Lance: I'm pretty sure there is an "INCONCEIVABLE!" joke in there somewhere ;)
Posted by: dan k | Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 04:10 PM