Some months, I come to you with nothing.  I had thought about working up a spoof of Tsunami, the Mighty Marvel Market Share blitz that’s coming up (I was gonna call it So Sue Me: Ten Fully Returnable Marvel Titles That Are Impossible To Get Returned) but thought better of it considering Hibbs was just in deposition last week with Marvel’s lawyers.  And I was also thinking of picking on either Chuck Austen or Matt Fraction.  I was going to pick on Austen just because he’s writing 3,700 titles for Marvel now.  He’s Marvel go-to guy, taking over titles in mid-sentence when writers get sacked.  I was gonna maybe write a column spoofing him and have it end with a knock on my door and, wham, there’s Chuck Austen, ready to take over Fanboy Rampage because Hibbs has pink-slipped me, and then me going and complaining to my girlfriend and lying in bed with her, and suddenly there’s a knock on the door and, boom, there’s Chuck Austen, stepping in to fulfill the boyfriend duties because I was such a colossal fanboy (hmmm, there’s a new twist on an old Legion favorite) I took my girlfriend to go see Daredevil on Valentine’s Day.  I nixed this idea mainly because it had the whiff of self-fulfilling prophecy to it:  I don’t even know what Chuck Austen looks like—he could be extravagantly deformed—but I worry my girlfriend might play the Chuck Austen card the next time I ask her to help rearrange my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles videotape collection.  Nobody needs to be in a relationship with that kind of pressure hanging over them.

As for Fraction…if you don’t know, he wrote a year worth of weekly columns for CBR about breaking into comix in which he (basically) spent most of his time running around getting married, running a business, kvetching about the industry, and taking deep bong hits in front of Takashi Miike movies:  in short, doing everything but breaking into comix (Fraction’s one release for the year was The Annotated Mantooth, a remastered version of his mini-miniseries for Double Shot done a few years back).  I was ready to go to town on his column but, again, I reconsidered, this time for several reasons:  (a) I’m still leery of doing FBRs dependent on the reader’s knowledge of comic resources on the ‘Net because there may still be some readers of the newsletter who don’t cybersurf (this used to be known as the Bennett Standard, although it should really be renamed since it hasn’t been applicable for years); (b) Fraction’s column just ended a week or two ago, making my spoof dated; and (c) I realized my main complaint with Fraction was I wanted his gig.  Hey, I could do a weekly column about breaking into comix where I don’t break in!  Particularly if I don’t even have to pretend I’m trying to break in.  Deep bong hits?  Takashi Miike?  Change it to chocolate chip cookie dough in front of the Battle Royale DVD and I’m your man!

But, no.  I put these targets aside so I could spend a few minutes taking the piss on somebody who truly deserves it:  Alan Moore.

Yes, you heard me.  That scruffy sex-magician is in line for a beatdown, Fanboy Rampage style, for trying to destroy American Cinema.  Yes, that’s right.  We all thought Moore was in the process of writing top-notch comix and opening the doors of possibility for pulp adventure and formalist narratives.  But, no.  That is merely the cover for this sleeveless hirsute genius.  In fact, Moore is merely locating himself at the mouth of Hollywood’s creative Nile, so he may more easily poison all the streams of American culture.

I realized this, in fact, at the above-mentioned Valentine’s Day screening of Daredevil (about which, to be frank, I liked about the same or a little better than Spider-Man, but you should keep in mind I thought Spider-Man was a very solid ‘meh’) where I saw, for the first time, the trailer for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie (a.k.a., LXG).

And, Holy Cow, does that movie look like it’s gonna stink.  Big-time.  There’s quick shots of Captain Nemo doing kung-fu spins, and Mina Harker turning into a swarm of bats, and it looks like they figured out a way to work in a car chase in Victorian London—I’m about as far from a history major as you can get, and even I was like:  “car chases?  Before they invented cars?  That takes some brassy ones!” Of course, the trailer is so sloppy, the average audience member wouldn’t even know it takes place in Victorian London: it just looks like it takes place in Blade2ville (“Dear God, Prague is under attack…again!”)

Now, if this was all I had to base my theory on, I wouldn’t put it forward.  But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you Exhibit B:  From Hell.  In which portly elderly detective Abberline is played by Johnny Depp, Irish prostitute Mary Kelly is played by Wisconsinite Heather Graham, and Jack the Ripper is played by Bilbo Baggins. From Hell is notable for having nearly none of what was so appealing about Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s graphic novel (a complex meditation on history and fiction, an astounding magickal history of London, a dramatic narrative that eventually swallows the narrators themselves), and having nearly all of what’s so appealing about Hollywood crime thrillers (the detective who makes deductive leaps based on visions he has of the killings, the affable chubby partner, a whodunit structure, a romance between two sexy stars)—at least to Hollywood.  (Do I have to add it’s also set in Whitechapel, London and filmed in…Prague?)

I suppose if I wanted to stretch my case I could introduce Exhibit C:  1989’s The Return of Swamp Thing, loosely based on Moore’s run on Swamp Thing.  How loosely?  Heather Locklear plays Abby Arcane and Swamp Thing drives a jeep and fires a grenade launcher.  But it doesn’t really count, since it’s not filmed in Prague.  Otherwise, the evidence seems incontrovertible: if this continues unchecked we’ll have film adaptations of Promethea (Sophie Bangs (Thora Birch) discovers she must change into the mythic Promethea (Penelope Cruz) in order to save the life of her mother from the evil Doll (Tom Green); directed by Brett Ratner, filmed on location in Prague),  The Watchmen (Robert DeNiro as Rorschach and Billy Crystal as Nite Owl fight to save an alternate New York changed since Dr. Manhattan (Vin Diesel) first appeared on the scene; directed by Takashi Miike, filmed on location in Prague), V For Vendetta (the mysterious V (Benicio Del Toro) saves helpless Evie (Gwyneth Paltrow) from the fascist clutches of post-war Canada; directed by Oliver Stone, filmed on location on in Vancouver (because Stone believes in being faithful to the material)), The Ballad of Halo Jones (Halo Jones (Ashton Kutcher) rises from being a poor slumdweller to interstellar space hero; directed by Paul Verhoeven, filmed on location in Prague and at ILM in Marin) and The Birth Caul (Charlie Kaufman (John Malkovich) compulsively sweats and masturbates while trying to figure a way to adapt the monologue by Alan Moore (Ralph Fiennes) into a workable film; directed by Spike Jonze on location in Northampton, England, with dream sequences in Prague).  I figure around the time The Birth Caul wins best picture, I’ll have been dead and buried for about three years, choosing to end my life halfway through Watchmen.  My girlfriend, having her first child with Chuck Austen, might think briefly of me while seeing Ralph Fiennes get up and take best actor for playing Alan Moore, but it’ll be too late by then.  Our culture will be so confused by supersmart graphic novels turned into superstupid movies, Emperor Moore of Prague will be able to easily drive his Czech troops into the heart of Washington D.C. and seize control of America. Mark my words.  That’s all I have to say.  Mark my words.