Before I start posting the now complete Final Revision Chapter 6, here's the last in this week's "trilogy" of recaps, following up on the "pilot episode" and Chapters 2-3. So now, the totally revamped Revision 4 final versions of Chapters 4 and 5, getting us all the way to the beginning of the School Arc. As always, some parts contain NSFW material.
Chapter 4: Special Delivery Service (chapter index)
4.1: Public Service Announcement
The self-styled King of America and Emperor of the World, once known as the superhero Super Patriot, has a word with his three sons, the Becket brothers. FBI Director Radisson's televised message is hacked to reveal the revolutionary government's true belief and agenda. And the former Band with No Name lead guitarist who now runs pirate station KCUF pre-empts a Shira love moment with her mom to reveal a shocking MKULTRA-related secret behind the Conservative Revolution as Oliver's High Corporate father, the chairman of Biotron Corporation (makers of the Bioroid), singlehandedly foils an SRO terror attack.
4.2: She's Trouble
Shira's Touhou Online fan-MMO avatar ties up celebrity NPC Marisa and ends up catching a coveted Glitch mon before Marisa's angry BFF Reimu comes to rescue her. "Great Detective" Locke Holmes tries to pin the Spanner Incident on Shira yet again. Radisson faces the wrath of the corporations that make up the Media Industry Association of America (MIAA). The Becket brothers intimidate the chairman of COPCO. And introducing: the Style Underground, the Dictel Park Slasher, and the MIAA's most dangerous Intellectual Property Defender.
4.3: Last Day of Freedom
Shira and Hope discuss their personal strategy against the Seattle Public Education Corporation (SPEC) after what may be their last love moment. At Mudlark House (Willa's house), the Student Union organizers (including Shira and Jennifer) and Teachers Guild dissidents (led by Hope) their collective strategy against SPEC and the self-destruction of trade unionism. At a downtown Bremerton coffee house, two marketing evangelists Shira dubs "John Nike" interrupt a get-together with her friends, so she pranks them. And the future (as of 6.1) fight club "Team Bremelo" make their first tour of gang-infested Dictel Park and meet a couple freakish gang "fuhrers" they'll be messing with in the future...
4.4: The Hand-Off
Remember that Gnostic gospel Team Spanner stole back in Chapter 1? Shira's redheaded sister Desiree delivers it to the Beckets' stripe-haired nemesis, Ariel Shield, who gives her an affectionate reward...
4.5: New Pony Express
Shira's turn to deliver, as a hoverboard courier. She thinks she's delivering human eggs to the Biotron chairman. Little does she know she's delivering someone else's revenge...
4.6: So Much the Worse
Drusilla Becket holds a meeting at her cult headquarters for those most affected by the incident in 4.5, including of course Oliver. At Leila's house, her family try to work out a plan to disentangle her from the marriage arrangement to Oliver forced on her by their clan patriarchs. She remembers the Minty Fresh incident in 3.2 from her perspective. And at Bangor High, Shira has her first battle with the Dictel Park Slasher and rescues a girl, while foiling terrorist bombers...
Interlude 3: One Nation Under Copyright, All Rights Reserved
My first big style experiment since Chapter 1. And the story of two IP Defenders sent after one Rebel Styles, who gives them much more than they bargained for...
Chapter 5: I Lerned Alot In Skool (chapter index)
5.1: Sky Surfer Goes to School
The School Arc begins here! Shira drops in on her hoverboard for the first day of school at Bangor High. Sure enough, she and Jennifer fight their first bullies and meet Leila's twin brother Rob. Also introducing the black English girl named Brandi, who will play a major role later.
5.2: Meet Your Friends While You Still Can
First, Shira and the tutors have to face the condescending Principal Principal and his vice principals. Shira and Leila finally come together for the first time. And of course they meet their friends. Introducing the janitor, Zac Finney, who is much more than he seems...
5.3: The Grand Introduction
In Dictel Stadium, the Student Council are introduced as if they're sports celebrities. In the school's Nike Arena (yes, SPEC signed an exclusive contract with that company), the sports captains are introduced in a way that keeps the company as the star and celebrity — until its logo gets hacked into a scary roaring "Scream Gem", a prank that gets our heroines thrown into the "doghouse"...
5.4: You Think You're All That
The tutors' homeroom teacher is — the Dictel Park Slasher? He disses Leila for pronouncing her name the politically incorrect way ("Layla"), then tries to convince Shira to join him in the Conservative Revolution — but Shira counters that he got hacked. Jennifer confronts Student Council VP Debbie for the first time. Shira and new student Akane (a guy, despite the female Japanese name) duel with mons in the lobby in front of a big crowd. She and Jennifer meet their instant fanclubs. Rob and Connor (Jennifer's brother) flirt. And the Slasher-teacher makes a call to his old Special Forces commander — United Corporations boss Richard Becket...
5.5: The Battle of Dictel Park
In Chapter 5's big action climax, Shira hoverboards a pizza delivery to a mysterious woman with connections to her past — and the Slasher's. The Student Union meet for the first time in a downtown Bangor coffee shop run by anti-Caliphate exiles. The Slasher tries to stop it by brutally attacking its leader, Shira and Jennifer's cousin Karen, leaving her friend Colette in a coma — but she succeeds in luring him back to Dictel Park, where he faces all three cousins — and a deadly surprise...
5.6: In Too Deep
The aftermath of 5.5. Shira gets a major new piece of information from the Buzz. Colette's friends hold a vigil for her at the hospital. Shira takes Leila home for the night, shares a bath and a cigarette, and confesses her love. The villains lick their wounds and plot revenge. And Brandi makes a call of her own...
Interlude 4: The Rules of Tournament
Everything you need to know about the so-called "Law of Social Darwinism" and the Conservative Revolutionary institution or tradition called "Tournament". Cut to the school fighting tournament that created Team Valiant. But Shira is already working to ruin their rep, with the help of unscrupulous school gossips...
There! That brings us up to date. Tomorrow, Chapter 6 begins!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Spanner R4 - The Story So Far: Rebel Rebel's Rampage (Chapters 2 and 3, Interlude 2)
How do I follow up Spanner's spectacular pilot episode? With terrorists, rock 'n' roll, and the video girl of doom! (Note: some parts contain NSFW material.)
Chapter 2: Sex Bomb (chapter index)
2.1: Lethal Lolita
Just as the authorities (and our heroines) are trying to deal with the Spanner incident and its aftermath — enter one Rebel Styles, evil video loli, luring the leaders of Conservative Revolutionary America into madness, murder, and suicide!
2.2: Ghost Hunting
Never fear, the FBI is now on the Styles case! But one senior agent finds out to his horror just how dangerous Rebel Rebel really is...
2.3: Shockley on the Case
Yes, Diana Shockley (Homeland Security Secretary Henry Becket's daughter) is on the Styles case! However, the FBI Director's put scandalous ace detective J. Locke Holmes on her case. And Shira tells them only that Rebel's appearance is an omen of the American Empire's impending doom...
2.4: Rebel's Game
Rogue cop J.T. Sparks keeps track of the Spanner Incident aftermath and Rebel Rebel's ravages, revealing to no one his mad infatuation with Rebel — and Shira. Then in Seattle's Underground City, he confronts serial killer Oliver Thorwald, who Shira already beat — and who is also arranged to be married to Leila Shelley. Meanwhile, Shockley claims Rebel and Spanner are the same, and Shira lets her Buddhist cousin Karen seduce her...
2.5: The Rebel Sell
At the new Game Wars, Shira causes a riot for the sake of marketing and a cheap buck. At COPCO's Seattle field office, the cops on the case discuss Shockley's claim. At the suburban squat called the Penguindrome, Shira and some Wrecking Krewe friends discuss, well, the cops, and the oligarchs known as the Fearsome Foursome. Jennifer picks her up and takes her downtown to... a battle with tattooed gangsters called "Klownz" — and to Sparks.
2.6: The Dangerous Type
Shira and Sparks make love — and trade shocking revelations about each other. Then Secretary Becket goes to his mother, an eccentric old seer, who gazes into Shira's soul — and barely survives...
Interlude 3: The Brown Note
A chapter from the book Shira was reading in 2.5 and 2.6. Reckless reporter Becky Street falls into evil media lord Walter J. Wells' trap and is rescued by the sexy teenage cat burglar called the Civet, and — let's just say it lives up to its title.
Chapter 3: Rock Is Dead (chapter index)
3.1: The Call
The moment Leila dreads and longs for is coming closer: the moment Shira finally claims her for her own. Shira's love moment with her own mother is interrupted by an old enemy: Secretary Becket. And those self-proclaimed heroes, the terrorists of the Socialist Revolutionary Organization we met on the way to New York in 1.3, release a statement to the world, and the official media spread it...
3.2: Stalking Minty Fresh
After a flashback to the pre-coup days when Shira and her twin sister Kira owned their babysitter Amanda Currie (now a perky lamestream news presenter), victory over the SRO terrorists and Caliphate suicide bombers is declared — but who crashes the victory party but Rebel Rebel... And at Seattle Center, Shira stalks bubblegum pop star Minty Fresh to save her life and steal a kiss — and finds Leila...
3.3: Her Name Is Rio
That's the name of Shira's new souped-up, AI-equipped cherry-red Mustang that she'll be able to drive starting on her birthday (coming in Chapter 7). Introducing Shira's sisters Desiree and Charlie, who kill cult recruiters with only their passion for each other. Introducing Willa's brother (and Shira's dad) Ric, and their legendary glampunk band. And introducing Drusilla's acolytes, top-hatted Byron Scofield and Patriot Metal star Jeremiah Light...
3.4: Party Crashers on the Boardwalk
While Shira and Jennifer make love in the back seat, Willa gets some bad news from family lawyer Angela. Flashback: the first Moral Enforcer Willa and Jennifer battled. A Moral Enforcer strike team of muscular bullies attacks the boardwalk festival — and meet their match in Shira, Jennifer, and Leila, who finally meets Shira...
3.5: Your Next Trick
At the ferry terminal, Shira introduces one of the Caliphate suiciders who escaped from Bangor Jail in 3.2 to Rebel Rebel. On the bus, she defeats another and steals a kiss from blonde aristocrat Charmian Fleer (who we'll be seeing more of starting in Chapter 5). At the library, Shira and Jennifer hold a magic show for the kids and make a new friend backstage.
3.6: You Don't Know What Is What"
At the new Winkie's restaurant where a Denny's used to be, Shira and friends have lunch only to get caught between Scofield's Patriot militants and the SRO terrorists — and then a bomb goes off...
Tomorrow: Chapters 4 and 5! Thursday: Chapter 6 begins!
Chapter 2: Sex Bomb (chapter index)
2.1: Lethal Lolita
Just as the authorities (and our heroines) are trying to deal with the Spanner incident and its aftermath — enter one Rebel Styles, evil video loli, luring the leaders of Conservative Revolutionary America into madness, murder, and suicide!
2.2: Ghost Hunting
Never fear, the FBI is now on the Styles case! But one senior agent finds out to his horror just how dangerous Rebel Rebel really is...
2.3: Shockley on the Case
Yes, Diana Shockley (Homeland Security Secretary Henry Becket's daughter) is on the Styles case! However, the FBI Director's put scandalous ace detective J. Locke Holmes on her case. And Shira tells them only that Rebel's appearance is an omen of the American Empire's impending doom...
2.4: Rebel's Game
Rogue cop J.T. Sparks keeps track of the Spanner Incident aftermath and Rebel Rebel's ravages, revealing to no one his mad infatuation with Rebel — and Shira. Then in Seattle's Underground City, he confronts serial killer Oliver Thorwald, who Shira already beat — and who is also arranged to be married to Leila Shelley. Meanwhile, Shockley claims Rebel and Spanner are the same, and Shira lets her Buddhist cousin Karen seduce her...
2.5: The Rebel Sell
At the new Game Wars, Shira causes a riot for the sake of marketing and a cheap buck. At COPCO's Seattle field office, the cops on the case discuss Shockley's claim. At the suburban squat called the Penguindrome, Shira and some Wrecking Krewe friends discuss, well, the cops, and the oligarchs known as the Fearsome Foursome. Jennifer picks her up and takes her downtown to... a battle with tattooed gangsters called "Klownz" — and to Sparks.
2.6: The Dangerous Type
Shira and Sparks make love — and trade shocking revelations about each other. Then Secretary Becket goes to his mother, an eccentric old seer, who gazes into Shira's soul — and barely survives...
Interlude 3: The Brown Note
A chapter from the book Shira was reading in 2.5 and 2.6. Reckless reporter Becky Street falls into evil media lord Walter J. Wells' trap and is rescued by the sexy teenage cat burglar called the Civet, and — let's just say it lives up to its title.
Chapter 3: Rock Is Dead (chapter index)
3.1: The Call
The moment Leila dreads and longs for is coming closer: the moment Shira finally claims her for her own. Shira's love moment with her own mother is interrupted by an old enemy: Secretary Becket. And those self-proclaimed heroes, the terrorists of the Socialist Revolutionary Organization we met on the way to New York in 1.3, release a statement to the world, and the official media spread it...
3.2: Stalking Minty Fresh
After a flashback to the pre-coup days when Shira and her twin sister Kira owned their babysitter Amanda Currie (now a perky lamestream news presenter), victory over the SRO terrorists and Caliphate suicide bombers is declared — but who crashes the victory party but Rebel Rebel... And at Seattle Center, Shira stalks bubblegum pop star Minty Fresh to save her life and steal a kiss — and finds Leila...
3.3: Her Name Is Rio
That's the name of Shira's new souped-up, AI-equipped cherry-red Mustang that she'll be able to drive starting on her birthday (coming in Chapter 7). Introducing Shira's sisters Desiree and Charlie, who kill cult recruiters with only their passion for each other. Introducing Willa's brother (and Shira's dad) Ric, and their legendary glampunk band. And introducing Drusilla's acolytes, top-hatted Byron Scofield and Patriot Metal star Jeremiah Light...
3.4: Party Crashers on the Boardwalk
While Shira and Jennifer make love in the back seat, Willa gets some bad news from family lawyer Angela. Flashback: the first Moral Enforcer Willa and Jennifer battled. A Moral Enforcer strike team of muscular bullies attacks the boardwalk festival — and meet their match in Shira, Jennifer, and Leila, who finally meets Shira...
3.5: Your Next Trick
At the ferry terminal, Shira introduces one of the Caliphate suiciders who escaped from Bangor Jail in 3.2 to Rebel Rebel. On the bus, she defeats another and steals a kiss from blonde aristocrat Charmian Fleer (who we'll be seeing more of starting in Chapter 5). At the library, Shira and Jennifer hold a magic show for the kids and make a new friend backstage.
3.6: You Don't Know What Is What"
At the new Winkie's restaurant where a Denny's used to be, Shira and friends have lunch only to get caught between Scofield's Patriot militants and the SRO terrorists — and then a bomb goes off...
Tomorrow: Chapters 4 and 5! Thursday: Chapter 6 begins!
Monday, August 13, 2012
Spanner R4 - The Story So Far: The Pilot Episode (Intro, Chapter 1, Interlude 1)
For those new to Chaos Angel Spanner or who want to catch up/reread (and for blog subscribers who never got the new version of the story because I updated old posts), here's the complete rundown of the final version of Chapter 1, now not just expanded to "movie" length, but an experiment in storytelling and style. (Note: some parts contain NSFW material.)
Intro: Press the Reset Button
In the far future, sentient Corporations destroy Earth with nanorobotic "gray goo" bomb. The last human alive and her sentient spaceship realized there's only one thing that can be done: press the reset button.
Chapter 1: Spanner in the Works (chapter index)
1.1: The Beginning of the End
Back in the present day (or "twenty minutes into the future"): The Conservative Revolution is explained, and protagonist Shira Thomas announces her presence in a videoblog post.
1.2: I Can See For Miles
Leila Shelley is rescued by her family from a sinister halfway house, Shira battles along with disgruntled private cop J.T. Sparks against a pair of serial-killing mercenaries on an assassination mission, and Keenan Sasser gets bad news about the future from Shira and Sparks.
1.3: Escape to New York
Sexy reporter Amanda Currie resigns herself to being a cheery lamestream newsreader. Ariel Shield (the stripe-haired beauty last seen rescuing her niece Leila) battles politically powerful priestess Drusilla Becket to rescue the latter's granddaughter from her. Will Becket, the vampire super soldier who slew Osama bin Laden, interrogates one of the mercenary hitmen and gets more than he bargained for. Shira's blonde cousin (and childhood love) Jennifer Blair confronts Shira's terrorist half-sister and her friends on the plane to New York. In New York, major antagonist Henry Becket confronts the spectre of Chaos...
1.4: The Secret Meetings
Yesterday, Shira, Jennifer, and their mothers consummate their forbidden love and then gather friends for final planning of a mysterious operation. Today, the day of their mission, after Shira and Jennifer make love, they meet with their contacts for the final time — and invoke the mysterious figure known only as Spanner, who has vowed to put his tag on every subway car in New York...
1.5: The Lost Cause
Yesterday, Shira announces her intention to liberate Leila from an arranged marriage and claim her for her own. Today, the terrorists attempt to crash the mysterious Corporate meeting Henry Becket is guarding — and fail.
1.6: Stalking the Rotten Apple
Yesterday, the legendary hacker group known as the Wrecking Krewe assemble for the operation. Today, Spanner appears and takes his position, ready to strike...
1.7: Enter the Monkeywrench
The Wrecking Krewe make their final plans, sacrifice live iPhones to Eris, and remember the fallen. The United Corporations hold their secret meeting, with a surprising special guest. And Spanner takes out his spanner and strikes.
1.8: The Virus Has Been Spread
The chaotic aftermath.
Interlude 1: Rocket Ready
You are dreaming. Shira, Jennifer, and their friend Harumi have a rocket. Guess where it's going. The first "omaké".
Next: Chapters 2-3 and Interlude 2, followed by Chapters 4-5 and Interludes 3-4.
Revision 4 editing update: Chapter 6 has proved to be as difficult to edit as Chapter 5. It took me nearly a week to get halfway through. Chapter 7 shouldn't be quite so hard, since I did so much of the editing work during this year's NaNoEdMo. Since I've already put the former Interlude 5 ("The Law of Social Darwinism") into the final version of Interlude 3 ("The Rules of Tournament"), I'll need to come up with a completely new Interlude 5 pretty soon, and it'll have to be Leila-related. I will re-post Chapter 6 starting Thursday (8/16).
Intro: Press the Reset Button
In the far future, sentient Corporations destroy Earth with nanorobotic "gray goo" bomb. The last human alive and her sentient spaceship realized there's only one thing that can be done: press the reset button.
Chapter 1: Spanner in the Works (chapter index)
1.1: The Beginning of the End
Back in the present day (or "twenty minutes into the future"): The Conservative Revolution is explained, and protagonist Shira Thomas announces her presence in a videoblog post.
1.2: I Can See For Miles
Leila Shelley is rescued by her family from a sinister halfway house, Shira battles along with disgruntled private cop J.T. Sparks against a pair of serial-killing mercenaries on an assassination mission, and Keenan Sasser gets bad news about the future from Shira and Sparks.
1.3: Escape to New York
Sexy reporter Amanda Currie resigns herself to being a cheery lamestream newsreader. Ariel Shield (the stripe-haired beauty last seen rescuing her niece Leila) battles politically powerful priestess Drusilla Becket to rescue the latter's granddaughter from her. Will Becket, the vampire super soldier who slew Osama bin Laden, interrogates one of the mercenary hitmen and gets more than he bargained for. Shira's blonde cousin (and childhood love) Jennifer Blair confronts Shira's terrorist half-sister and her friends on the plane to New York. In New York, major antagonist Henry Becket confronts the spectre of Chaos...
1.4: The Secret Meetings
Yesterday, Shira, Jennifer, and their mothers consummate their forbidden love and then gather friends for final planning of a mysterious operation. Today, the day of their mission, after Shira and Jennifer make love, they meet with their contacts for the final time — and invoke the mysterious figure known only as Spanner, who has vowed to put his tag on every subway car in New York...
1.5: The Lost Cause
Yesterday, Shira announces her intention to liberate Leila from an arranged marriage and claim her for her own. Today, the terrorists attempt to crash the mysterious Corporate meeting Henry Becket is guarding — and fail.
1.6: Stalking the Rotten Apple
Yesterday, the legendary hacker group known as the Wrecking Krewe assemble for the operation. Today, Spanner appears and takes his position, ready to strike...
1.7: Enter the Monkeywrench
The Wrecking Krewe make their final plans, sacrifice live iPhones to Eris, and remember the fallen. The United Corporations hold their secret meeting, with a surprising special guest. And Spanner takes out his spanner and strikes.
1.8: The Virus Has Been Spread
The chaotic aftermath.
Interlude 1: Rocket Ready
You are dreaming. Shira, Jennifer, and their friend Harumi have a rocket. Guess where it's going. The first "omaké".
Next: Chapters 2-3 and Interlude 2, followed by Chapters 4-5 and Interludes 3-4.
Revision 4 editing update: Chapter 6 has proved to be as difficult to edit as Chapter 5. It took me nearly a week to get halfway through. Chapter 7 shouldn't be quite so hard, since I did so much of the editing work during this year's NaNoEdMo. Since I've already put the former Interlude 5 ("The Law of Social Darwinism") into the final version of Interlude 3 ("The Rules of Tournament"), I'll need to come up with a completely new Interlude 5 pretty soon, and it'll have to be Leila-related. I will re-post Chapter 6 starting Thursday (8/16).
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Spanner Interlude 4: The Rules of Tournament
← ...from previous
the law of social darwinism.
Natural selection has failed. Man has grown weak. His genes are at war with themselves. He is on the verge of extinction.
Compassion, sentiment, and love are the poison that is destroying the Race. The poison has given rise to a conspiracy named Humanism that promotes a doctrine called Liberalism it has enthroned as the dysgenic horror of Communism; the sacrifice of the superior genes of the best so that the worst may live and feed at their expense.
The best must seize control of the machinery of evolution for themselves. They must purge the Race of the poison of blood-destroying sentimentality from the human genome and enthrone once more Eugenics as queen of the sciences forevermore.
The only way to save Man from extinction is to establish a dictatorship that will reverse the damage the cult of Humanism has inflicted upon the Race. It shall purge the Race of the weak, promote profits over people, and raise the best beyond humanity to godhood.
Thus shall Man fulfill his destiny: to wield absolute dominion over Earth and conquer the infinite kingdom of Space.
the conservative revolution.
Shortly after the Corporates and Patriots teamed up to overthrow American democracy, the new ruling Conservative Revolutionary Party found themselves beset on all sides: by rival factions and criminal Syndicates without, by factional and personal rivalries within, and by the masses of “inferior races” and “race traitors” they overthrew. They needed a revolutionary solution.
In the spirit of the Law of Social Darwinism, to strengthen their race, and to cut down on the number of gangsters, dissidents, and other undesirables, the CRP Central Committee decreed a permanent war of all against all. They named it: Tournament.
the rules of tournament.
bangor high school: dictel stadium. 25 august 2014.
Every year, the local Conservative Revolutionary Party committees hold a fighting tournament at every school in America. First Challenge: the contestants fight for a ranked position on the teams that chose them. Team Challenge: the teams fight each other for the championship. Final Challenge: The Team Champions fight each other for the Grand Championship.
The final ranking determines the hierarchy within each school. The winning Team will, along with the Corporate-dominated Student Council, constitute the student level of the school administration. The Grand Champion is crowned Head Boy — and for the next year, his word is law.
Shortly after instituting Tournament, the Party discovered it to be the ideal method of gang control, so they instituted the Gang Rules. But a proper Team that loses to a Syndicate shall lose face...
“Brought to you! exclusively! by the United! States! Police! Foooorce! Defending American interests against terrorism worldwide! Sign up at a U.S. Armed Forces Recruiter near you!” The screens show a black-uniformed USPF soldier saluting in front of the Flag, the cue for the crowd to stand up, salute, and cheer. Then the giant Flag is carried to the middle of the field. “This is America! Let its Manifest Destiny unfurrrrl!” And the Flag is unfurled, and the spectators hold up their hands in worship and cry out their love of the Nation in the Unknown Tongue...
first challenge.
For the Bangor Party committee’s team, called Team Valiant after a comic strip hero. Round one: Ronald Tremayne, arrogant son of the late Chief Shepherd, rips off his shirt, holds out his arms, and roars. But Scotty Waters’ drugs are superior; he throws Ron out of the ring. Kenneth Partridge uses the same drugs against football captain Barton Green; but Bart uses his superior skills and strength to tie him into a submission hold. Donald Murphy attacks his opponent with kick after kick; but R. Becket Skeever is the wrestling team captain: Beck grabs Don’s kicking leg, takes him to the mat with a sweep, and rolls him into a pin. The colorless but effective Lance Walker kicks Egbert Smith out of the ring; Bert is so enraged he defects to a Syndicate team, disqualifying him. Rex Corson pins John Paine.
Round two: Ken pummels Beck, but Beck took more drugs and doesn’t feel a thing; he throws Ken out of the ring, eliminating Ken with a broken leg.
Round three: Lance eliminates Don by throwing him out of the ring. Rex eliminates Ron with a submission hold while laughing at him. Bart and Beck pin John and Scotty.
Round four: Green versus Skeever. Beck makes multiple takedown attempts, but Bart counters by relentlessly punching his head and kneeing his midsection till he gets the knockout by roundhouse kick.
The Team Valiant standings:
Disqualified in advance: Deborah Becket (wrong gender).
Not present: Robert Shelley, Connor Blair, Corwin Belmont Jr., Kio Marques.
team challenge.
First fight: Team Valiant versus Flyen Monkee Klownz. The gang bring all kinds of foreign objects into the ring; but the Valiants pummel them mercilessly and throw all the gang fighters out of the ring.
Second fight: Badd Monsta Klownz. They attempt to overwhelm Team Valiant with overwhelming muscular force. The Valiants finesse them, throw them around, and get six straight pins.
Final fight: Dictel Park Triad. Chinese wushu versus military krav maga. The Triad fighters get the upper hand early with sweeps and flying kicks. The Valiants prevail through brute force, pure hatred, and sheer force of will.
Result: Team Valiant rule over all.
Not present: the team that will become Team Bremelo.
final challenge.
Barton Green versus Syndicate champion “Mad Tad” Gorski: a hundred pounds heavier, all solid muscle. He grabs Bart into a crushing body hold. Bart breaks his nose with a head butt, then focuses on punching and kicking Mad Tad’s joints till the tendons snap. Gorski lies motionless and helpless on the ring floor. Bart is declared Grand Champion.
the coronation.
General “Bud” Peterson, USPF Seattle Commander, gives Bart the trophy. Admiral Alan Fleer, Naval Base Kitsap Commander, gives Bart the sceptre. Princess Drusilla Becket, Chief Shepherd of the Church of America in Cascadia, places the crown upon his head as he kneels before her.
“Bangor High School! Your Tournament Champion for Revolutionary! Year! Threeee! Meet your KIIIIING!!” The platform rises; Bart holds out the sceptre and trophy. “Bangor High! Head Boy! Twenty Fourteen! BAR-TONNN! GREEEEEEN!!!” He throws his head back and howls in triumph.
the consequences.
Millie Kim, rival Central Kitsap High’s biggest gossip, wears its black-and-orange uniform. She gasps, “I didn’t know,” she gasps, “that Tournament Champions can rape anybody they want!”
Shira Thomas’ default Style: baby tee, racing shorts. “Anybody under his dominion, says Rule Three.” The professional disinformation broker winks. “Like a Catholic priest, even.”
As soon as Shira leaves, Millie takes out her Darknet smartphone, the gossip’s best friend, and calls every friend in her address book.
on to the next... →
Back to Chapter 5 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...
[Revision 4 Final, 8/11/12: Combined from the original Revision 1 Interludes "The Rules of Tournament" (Interlude 4) and "The Law of Social Darwinism" (Interlude 3 R1, Interlude 5 R3). Massively revised and expanded.]
Chaos Angel Spanner
Interlude 4: The Rules of Tournament
Interlude 4: The Rules of Tournament
the law of social darwinism.
Natural selection has failed. Man has grown weak. His genes are at war with themselves. He is on the verge of extinction.
Compassion, sentiment, and love are the poison that is destroying the Race. The poison has given rise to a conspiracy named Humanism that promotes a doctrine called Liberalism it has enthroned as the dysgenic horror of Communism; the sacrifice of the superior genes of the best so that the worst may live and feed at their expense.
The best must seize control of the machinery of evolution for themselves. They must purge the Race of the poison of blood-destroying sentimentality from the human genome and enthrone once more Eugenics as queen of the sciences forevermore.
The only way to save Man from extinction is to establish a dictatorship that will reverse the damage the cult of Humanism has inflicted upon the Race. It shall purge the Race of the weak, promote profits over people, and raise the best beyond humanity to godhood.
Thus shall Man fulfill his destiny: to wield absolute dominion over Earth and conquer the infinite kingdom of Space.
the conservative revolution.
Shortly after the Corporates and Patriots teamed up to overthrow American democracy, the new ruling Conservative Revolutionary Party found themselves beset on all sides: by rival factions and criminal Syndicates without, by factional and personal rivalries within, and by the masses of “inferior races” and “race traitors” they overthrew. They needed a revolutionary solution.
In the spirit of the Law of Social Darwinism, to strengthen their race, and to cut down on the number of gangsters, dissidents, and other undesirables, the CRP Central Committee decreed a permanent war of all against all. They named it: Tournament.
the rules of tournament.
- A man must earn the name of Man by fighting in Tournament. Any man who does not dedicate himself to Tournament is declared unworthy of manhood and called a Girl.
- Superiority means superior fighting, in business or in combat. Those who do not fight, and those who lose, are considered Girls and not Men.
- A Man possesses the sovereign right to commit any crime against any man un-Manned by defeat in Tournament, and anyone not a Man.
- Any woman and any male of inferior race who attempts to enter Tournament is subject to punishment unless (s)he can earn the name of Man through victory.
- A gangster is forbidden to turn down a Challenge. Any gangster who does is proclaimed a Girl and loses face.
- A gangster must throw a Challenge to anyone he encounters in order to earn the title of Bad. To not Challenge all comers is to lose the title of Bad and lose face.
- A gangster must fight to the bitter end, to the death if necessary, for to surrender is to lose face.
- Anyone declared a terrorist by the Law shall be designated a gangster and automatically subject to Gang Rules.
- No gangster can leave Tournament except by leaving his gang, thereby losing face. Face can only be restored through victory in Tournament.
- A Champion can turn down any Challenge from fighters beneath him. He fights at his own sovereign will and pleasure.
- Whoever defeats the Champion shall be declared Champion regardless of previous Tournament ranking. Beat the Man, and you shall be the Man.
- If there is no Champion, a Tournament must be held to determine a new Champion, and the social hierarchy shall be determined by the new Tournament ranking.
- All is tournament. There is no escape.
bangor high school: dictel stadium. 25 august 2014.
Every year, the local Conservative Revolutionary Party committees hold a fighting tournament at every school in America. First Challenge: the contestants fight for a ranked position on the teams that chose them. Team Challenge: the teams fight each other for the championship. Final Challenge: The Team Champions fight each other for the Grand Championship.
The final ranking determines the hierarchy within each school. The winning Team will, along with the Corporate-dominated Student Council, constitute the student level of the school administration. The Grand Champion is crowned Head Boy — and for the next year, his word is law.
Shortly after instituting Tournament, the Party discovered it to be the ideal method of gang control, so they instituted the Gang Rules. But a proper Team that loses to a Syndicate shall lose face...
“Brought to you! exclusively! by the United! States! Police! Foooorce! Defending American interests against terrorism worldwide! Sign up at a U.S. Armed Forces Recruiter near you!” The screens show a black-uniformed USPF soldier saluting in front of the Flag, the cue for the crowd to stand up, salute, and cheer. Then the giant Flag is carried to the middle of the field. “This is America! Let its Manifest Destiny unfurrrrl!” And the Flag is unfurled, and the spectators hold up their hands in worship and cry out their love of the Nation in the Unknown Tongue...
first challenge.
For the Bangor Party committee’s team, called Team Valiant after a comic strip hero. Round one: Ronald Tremayne, arrogant son of the late Chief Shepherd, rips off his shirt, holds out his arms, and roars. But Scotty Waters’ drugs are superior; he throws Ron out of the ring. Kenneth Partridge uses the same drugs against football captain Barton Green; but Bart uses his superior skills and strength to tie him into a submission hold. Donald Murphy attacks his opponent with kick after kick; but R. Becket Skeever is the wrestling team captain: Beck grabs Don’s kicking leg, takes him to the mat with a sweep, and rolls him into a pin. The colorless but effective Lance Walker kicks Egbert Smith out of the ring; Bert is so enraged he defects to a Syndicate team, disqualifying him. Rex Corson pins John Paine.
Round two: Ken pummels Beck, but Beck took more drugs and doesn’t feel a thing; he throws Ken out of the ring, eliminating Ken with a broken leg.
Round three: Lance eliminates Don by throwing him out of the ring. Rex eliminates Ron with a submission hold while laughing at him. Bart and Beck pin John and Scotty.
Round four: Green versus Skeever. Beck makes multiple takedown attempts, but Bart counters by relentlessly punching his head and kneeing his midsection till he gets the knockout by roundhouse kick.
The Team Valiant standings:
- Barton Green (Champion)
- R. Becket Skeever (Second)
- Rex Corson
- Lance Walker
- John Paine
- Scotty Waters
Disqualified in advance: Deborah Becket (wrong gender).
Not present: Robert Shelley, Connor Blair, Corwin Belmont Jr., Kio Marques.
team challenge.
First fight: Team Valiant versus Flyen Monkee Klownz. The gang bring all kinds of foreign objects into the ring; but the Valiants pummel them mercilessly and throw all the gang fighters out of the ring.
Second fight: Badd Monsta Klownz. They attempt to overwhelm Team Valiant with overwhelming muscular force. The Valiants finesse them, throw them around, and get six straight pins.
Final fight: Dictel Park Triad. Chinese wushu versus military krav maga. The Triad fighters get the upper hand early with sweeps and flying kicks. The Valiants prevail through brute force, pure hatred, and sheer force of will.
Result: Team Valiant rule over all.
Not present: the team that will become Team Bremelo.
final challenge.
Barton Green versus Syndicate champion “Mad Tad” Gorski: a hundred pounds heavier, all solid muscle. He grabs Bart into a crushing body hold. Bart breaks his nose with a head butt, then focuses on punching and kicking Mad Tad’s joints till the tendons snap. Gorski lies motionless and helpless on the ring floor. Bart is declared Grand Champion.
the coronation.
General “Bud” Peterson, USPF Seattle Commander, gives Bart the trophy. Admiral Alan Fleer, Naval Base Kitsap Commander, gives Bart the sceptre. Princess Drusilla Becket, Chief Shepherd of the Church of America in Cascadia, places the crown upon his head as he kneels before her.
“Bangor High School! Your Tournament Champion for Revolutionary! Year! Threeee! Meet your KIIIIING!!” The platform rises; Bart holds out the sceptre and trophy. “Bangor High! Head Boy! Twenty Fourteen! BAR-TONNN! GREEEEEEN!!!” He throws his head back and howls in triumph.
the consequences.
Millie Kim, rival Central Kitsap High’s biggest gossip, wears its black-and-orange uniform. She gasps, “I didn’t know,” she gasps, “that Tournament Champions can rape anybody they want!”
Shira Thomas’ default Style: baby tee, racing shorts. “Anybody under his dominion, says Rule Three.” The professional disinformation broker winks. “Like a Catholic priest, even.”
As soon as Shira leaves, Millie takes out her Darknet smartphone, the gossip’s best friend, and calls every friend in her address book.
on to the next... →
Back to Chapter 5 index...
Back to Chaos Angel Spanner table of contents...
[Revision 4 Final, 8/11/12: Combined from the original Revision 1 Interludes "The Rules of Tournament" (Interlude 4) and "The Law of Social Darwinism" (Interlude 3 R1, Interlude 5 R3). Massively revised and expanded.]
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Spanner Themes: Superheroes and Revolution
The article: "The Dark Knight Rises: Nightmares of a Ruling Class in Crisis" (Peter Little, The Hooded Utilitarian)
First, a disclosure: I conceived of Chaos Angel Spanner in 1992, when Marvel and DC superheroes ruled the comic-book universe. Once I'd discovered anime and manga that year, I vowed to destroy the superhero universe with what I then conceived of as a comics or OEL manga series. Now on to the movie notes:
Over the past few months I've been learning about the right-wing subtext of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The Dark Knight, for instance, is in part an allegory of the Terror War, starring the Joker as Osama bin Laden. Now it turns out that The Dark Knight Rises is how the American Overclass sees the Occupy movement. Naturally, they see it as a terrorist conspiracy led by... somebody evil. Like Bane. And the common people caught between the Man and the terrorists? Blank-out!
There are three dangerous (and traditional) assumptions behind this:
This seventy-something Cold War superhero, American Crusader III, sees himself as the last hope for Western civilization's survival against the onrushing barbarian hordes. He and his fellow billionaire revolutionaries refuse to realize that roots of their System's destruction lie deep within the structure of the System itself. Devout technocrats that they are, they see the Law of Entropy as not a law of nature but as metaphysical Evil. They see the suffering mundanes chafing under their control not as human beings but as "the threat from below", entropy made manifest; this is why they see liberalism, socialism, and Islamist theocracy as one and the same thing, for they see it metaphysically as entropic Evil, not as the rival alternatives to technocratic Corporatism (and to each other) they see themselves to be.
Like so many left-wing writers, Nolan cannot see his way out of the dilemma. The Corporatist System is failing, but the only alternative he sees is terrorism: either the grand terrorism of a Joker or a Bane, or the petty terrorism of a Catwoman. Like those left-wing writers, he sees the masses as passive and doomed to hopelessness — which is, in fact, one of the prerequisites for the coming of a superhero, for only a superhero can save the masses from enslavement to supervillains.
This is the fundamental premise of the entire superhero genre.
The corollary is that the superhero can never be the protagonist. He is the hero, but not the protagonist. He reacts to the actions of supervillains. Like the white-hatted gunslinger hero of the archetypical Western, the hero must never shoot first; that privilege is reserved for the black hats. The supervillain gets to be the protagonist, but at a cost: he can never be the hero, and he can never be allowed to win. The supervillain is the very archetype of terrorism: Lex Luthor demands $2 billion in 48 hours, or he will nuke Metropolis.
So what happens when a superhero defies that fundamental rule and becomes the protagonist? Watchmen is about precisely that. When Ozymandias — another billionaire superhero, like Batman and Crusader III — concludes that the Cold War will end in nuclear annihilation if he does not act, he creates his own weapon of mass destruction and destroys Manhattan. A superhero protagonist is every bit as deadly as any supervillain. And what is any terrorist in their own mind but a superhero protagonist?
The root of superheroism, and more broadly of terrorism, is substitutionism: the belief that the heroic action of a few can substitute for the collective mass action required to bring down a system as oppressive as Corporatism. Che Guevara, for instance, believed that the working masses were useless and that a small guerrilla faction fighting in rural backwaters and fired by Latin machismo was sufficient to destroy Corporatism. In fact, he wrote the book on it (called Guerrilla Warfare). Never mind that despite the Cuban anomaly, both he and his disciples failed over and over and over. Terrorists, and superheroes such as Batman and the Crusader, believe that the masses are so inherently passive that only a heroic elite, or a heroic superman, can liberate them.
The problem being that once the heroes liberate the passive masses, they remain passive and incapable of heroism. Thus the revolutionary superheroes end up becoming the same kind of oppressors the enemies they overthrew were. That's because they're acting on the identical premises.
This is where Henry Becket and his Conservative Revolution begin. The American Crusader of the Cold War era is now the savior of the American Empire. Now what? Being the black-and-white thinker he is, he can only be offended by the accusation (also thrown at his ancestor Oliver Cromwell) that he is now the oppressor. But he, superheroic defender of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, cannot see himself as anything but the epitome of all that is good and righteous! Therefore, his accusers are by definition evil, in the metaphysical sense. And so he throws the Populists, a category to which the Occupy movement properly belongs, into the same category as the terrorists of Al-Qaeda in America and the Socialist Revolutionary Organization, and sends the United States Police Force (a military branch) to crush them accordingly.
Now you know why Spanner must misdirect. The right-wing vanguardist tyranny of revolutionary righteousness, which could as easily have been left-wing (Green Arrow instead of Batman, the Proletarian instead of the American Crusader), has no tolerance of the unheroic masses; nor can it see them as anything but the passive instrument of the enemy left- (or right-)wing vanguardist tyranny of revolutionary righteousness. It's a black-and-white double bind. Into this stalemate, Spanner throws his monkeywrench.
Now here is the key to understanding Spanner — let's think dialectically, the way Marxists were supposed to once upon a time:
Spanner is really the epic clash between two kinds of heroes: those (both right-wing revolutionaries and left-wing counterrevolutionaries) who believe that only heroes deserve to rule and the unheroic may not even deserve to exist, and those who in effect sacrifice their own heroism in order to call the masses to action. The latter are the protagonists and the heroes of Spanner. To Shira, Jennifer, and Karen, Batman and Bane are just the two sides of Two-Face's defaced coin.
Little writes: "Who is Batman in this context? The dream of a technocratic solution to a problem of social contradictions." What I learned from John Ralston Saul is that the one-size-fits-all technocratic solution eventually ends up being worse than the problem. Little also admits that he agrees with both the tyrants and the terrorists when they insist that the working masses are passive, petty, and malicious "sheeple".
Now a Voltaire quote goes: "When the masses begin to reason, all is lost!" Enter a certain charismatic Charmer with an apparently unrealistic confidence that she can wake the sleepers up...
First, a disclosure: I conceived of Chaos Angel Spanner in 1992, when Marvel and DC superheroes ruled the comic-book universe. Once I'd discovered anime and manga that year, I vowed to destroy the superhero universe with what I then conceived of as a comics or OEL manga series. Now on to the movie notes:
Over the past few months I've been learning about the right-wing subtext of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The Dark Knight, for instance, is in part an allegory of the Terror War, starring the Joker as Osama bin Laden. Now it turns out that The Dark Knight Rises is how the American Overclass sees the Occupy movement. Naturally, they see it as a terrorist conspiracy led by... somebody evil. Like Bane. And the common people caught between the Man and the terrorists? Blank-out!
There are three dangerous (and traditional) assumptions behind this:
- The Overclass is by definition the standard of the good.
- It can only be opposed through terrorism, the political force of metaphysical evil.
- Beneath the level of the financially (and therefore spiritually) blessed, humanity is either soulless (thus passive) or evil (and on the side of the terrorists). The Doctrine of Original Sin is true.
This seventy-something Cold War superhero, American Crusader III, sees himself as the last hope for Western civilization's survival against the onrushing barbarian hordes. He and his fellow billionaire revolutionaries refuse to realize that roots of their System's destruction lie deep within the structure of the System itself. Devout technocrats that they are, they see the Law of Entropy as not a law of nature but as metaphysical Evil. They see the suffering mundanes chafing under their control not as human beings but as "the threat from below", entropy made manifest; this is why they see liberalism, socialism, and Islamist theocracy as one and the same thing, for they see it metaphysically as entropic Evil, not as the rival alternatives to technocratic Corporatism (and to each other) they see themselves to be.
Like so many left-wing writers, Nolan cannot see his way out of the dilemma. The Corporatist System is failing, but the only alternative he sees is terrorism: either the grand terrorism of a Joker or a Bane, or the petty terrorism of a Catwoman. Like those left-wing writers, he sees the masses as passive and doomed to hopelessness — which is, in fact, one of the prerequisites for the coming of a superhero, for only a superhero can save the masses from enslavement to supervillains.
This is the fundamental premise of the entire superhero genre.
The corollary is that the superhero can never be the protagonist. He is the hero, but not the protagonist. He reacts to the actions of supervillains. Like the white-hatted gunslinger hero of the archetypical Western, the hero must never shoot first; that privilege is reserved for the black hats. The supervillain gets to be the protagonist, but at a cost: he can never be the hero, and he can never be allowed to win. The supervillain is the very archetype of terrorism: Lex Luthor demands $2 billion in 48 hours, or he will nuke Metropolis.
So what happens when a superhero defies that fundamental rule and becomes the protagonist? Watchmen is about precisely that. When Ozymandias — another billionaire superhero, like Batman and Crusader III — concludes that the Cold War will end in nuclear annihilation if he does not act, he creates his own weapon of mass destruction and destroys Manhattan. A superhero protagonist is every bit as deadly as any supervillain. And what is any terrorist in their own mind but a superhero protagonist?
The root of superheroism, and more broadly of terrorism, is substitutionism: the belief that the heroic action of a few can substitute for the collective mass action required to bring down a system as oppressive as Corporatism. Che Guevara, for instance, believed that the working masses were useless and that a small guerrilla faction fighting in rural backwaters and fired by Latin machismo was sufficient to destroy Corporatism. In fact, he wrote the book on it (called Guerrilla Warfare). Never mind that despite the Cuban anomaly, both he and his disciples failed over and over and over. Terrorists, and superheroes such as Batman and the Crusader, believe that the masses are so inherently passive that only a heroic elite, or a heroic superman, can liberate them.
The problem being that once the heroes liberate the passive masses, they remain passive and incapable of heroism. Thus the revolutionary superheroes end up becoming the same kind of oppressors the enemies they overthrew were. That's because they're acting on the identical premises.
This is where Henry Becket and his Conservative Revolution begin. The American Crusader of the Cold War era is now the savior of the American Empire. Now what? Being the black-and-white thinker he is, he can only be offended by the accusation (also thrown at his ancestor Oliver Cromwell) that he is now the oppressor. But he, superheroic defender of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, cannot see himself as anything but the epitome of all that is good and righteous! Therefore, his accusers are by definition evil, in the metaphysical sense. And so he throws the Populists, a category to which the Occupy movement properly belongs, into the same category as the terrorists of Al-Qaeda in America and the Socialist Revolutionary Organization, and sends the United States Police Force (a military branch) to crush them accordingly.
Now you know why Spanner must misdirect. The right-wing vanguardist tyranny of revolutionary righteousness, which could as easily have been left-wing (Green Arrow instead of Batman, the Proletarian instead of the American Crusader), has no tolerance of the unheroic masses; nor can it see them as anything but the passive instrument of the enemy left- (or right-)wing vanguardist tyranny of revolutionary righteousness. It's a black-and-white double bind. Into this stalemate, Spanner throws his monkeywrench.
Now here is the key to understanding Spanner — let's think dialectically, the way Marxists were supposed to once upon a time:
- Thesis: the oppressive Corporatist System.
- Antithesis: the terrorist program of violent heroic resistance.
- Synthesis: the collective revolt of the masses, properly against both sides.
Spanner is really the epic clash between two kinds of heroes: those (both right-wing revolutionaries and left-wing counterrevolutionaries) who believe that only heroes deserve to rule and the unheroic may not even deserve to exist, and those who in effect sacrifice their own heroism in order to call the masses to action. The latter are the protagonists and the heroes of Spanner. To Shira, Jennifer, and Karen, Batman and Bane are just the two sides of Two-Face's defaced coin.
Little writes: "Who is Batman in this context? The dream of a technocratic solution to a problem of social contradictions." What I learned from John Ralston Saul is that the one-size-fits-all technocratic solution eventually ends up being worse than the problem. Little also admits that he agrees with both the tyrants and the terrorists when they insist that the working masses are passive, petty, and malicious "sheeple".
Now a Voltaire quote goes: "When the masses begin to reason, all is lost!" Enter a certain charismatic Charmer with an apparently unrealistic confidence that she can wake the sleepers up...
Friday, August 3, 2012
Spanner Interlude 3: One Nation Under Copyright, All Rights Reserved
← ...from previous
Commanded of Chaos Angel Spanner: speak thou unto thy foolish readers, who refuse to believe in Me with absolute faith and obey My commandments without question:
Pretty little headshot, head go splat — martinator1 has won another Achievement! Just a few hundred more violators to terminate before the Gods grant him the greatest Achievement of all: Hero of the Nation.
Martin Martian is an Intellectual Property Defender of the Media Industry Association of America, the instrument of its will. Its will is the Law. The Law speaks to him. With righteous terror he imposes Its implacable Word onto the unclean masses — slobs pirates rebels mudbloods passive mindless sheep. His Word is vengeance that’s never free. With his adoring sidekick “Legs” Leggett, he is the terror of the copyright-pirating masses. At random, just for kicks, he shoots a few of them dead. Leggett warns him, “Stop it, Marty. We’re crusaders for a holy cause. You’re making us look like petty crooks.”
Chaos Angel Spanner — Interlude 3:
One Nation Under Copyright, All Rights Reserved
One Nation Under Copyright, All Rights Reserved
The people are that part of the State
which does not know what it wills.
G. W. F. Hegel
which does not know what it wills.
G. W. F. Hegel
Commanded of Chaos Angel Spanner: speak thou unto thy foolish readers, who refuse to believe in Me with absolute faith and obey My commandments without question:
ALL CONTENT IS UNDER ETERNAL COPYRIGHT
OF THE GIANT CORPORATIONS OF THE
MEDIA INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
(M.I.A.A.)
ALL USE IS PROHIBITED
WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION
ON PAIN OF DEATH
OR WORSE
THUS SAITH THE LAW.
OF THE GIANT CORPORATIONS OF THE
MEDIA INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
(M.I.A.A.)
ALL USE IS PROHIBITED
WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION
ON PAIN OF DEATH
OR WORSE
THUS SAITH THE LAW.
Pretty little headshot, head go splat — martinator1 has won another Achievement! Just a few hundred more violators to terminate before the Gods grant him the greatest Achievement of all: Hero of the Nation.
Martin Martian is an Intellectual Property Defender of the Media Industry Association of America, the instrument of its will. Its will is the Law. The Law speaks to him. With righteous terror he imposes Its implacable Word onto the unclean masses — slobs pirates rebels mudbloods passive mindless sheep. His Word is vengeance that’s never free. With his adoring sidekick “Legs” Leggett, he is the terror of the copyright-pirating masses. At random, just for kicks, he shoots a few of them dead. Leggett warns him, “Stop it, Marty. We’re crusaders for a holy cause. You’re making us look like petty crooks.”
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Spanner R4 Update: The Tough Edits, and an Old Influence Unearthed
First, the influence I'd forgotten. Its name is Sukeban Deka, and Erica Friedman of Yuricon brought it up in a recent blog post that links to her new article on this classic manga, "Hooliganism, High School Crime, and Giant Snakes", in which she declares it "one of the most awesomely outrageous series ever made."
Back in the early 1990s (1993?), during my anime club days, I watched the OVA series. If fortysomething me had seen it back then (or read the original Shinji Wada manga), I would have howled, raised the devil-horns salute, and cried out, "rock 'n' roll!" But twentysomething me was a virgin of sorts, and I saw it just as I had barely begun developing the early Spanner concept with just the five heroines, two mentor figures, and four villains of the "Class of '92". There's a group of characters who can be considered the "Class of Sukeban Deka": the Fleer sisters (the first three, oldest to youngest: Charmian with the long blond princess-curly hair, Christian with the short brown hair with pink highlights, and the less villainous black-haired Julian), their mother whom I would later make part of the villainous Becket clan, and the characters I would much later name Mimi Scott and Polly Parker. A late addition to this "class" is the Fleer sisters' father, Alan Fleer, whom I would make not just an admiral but the son of a fascist Argentine general. The twist on my part is which of the "Class of '92" heroines would get the loaded yo-yo: not Debbie Longmuir (who became another Becket!), she of the impossible aim, but rebel protagonist Shira Thomas herself. And since unlike Sukeban Deka title character Saki Asamiya, a sukeban (roughly "gangster bitch") drafted by the Japanese government and made a deka (cop), Shira is manipulating an American government that hates her skin color and conscience. For this reason, her loaded yo-yo is not government-issue like Saki's, but a Go-Yo, in homage to a now-forgotten American comic called Go-Man.
Back when Sukeban Deka was published, 1978-82 in the shoujo manga anthology Hana to Yume, anything still went in manga, while American comics and television were subject to strict censorship codes. Today Saki would not be allowed to drink and smoke in the censorious new Japanese climate, while on American TV (at least on cable) you get such things as True Blood, Breaking Bad, Diary of a Call Girl, and The Borgias, and American comics can get as outrageous as anything from Europe (case in point: Sin City). A Sukeban Deka could not be published in Japan today, but it sure as hell could make it onto American TV. Japan and America, it seems, have switched places in this one respect. In its original concept and final execution, Chaos Angel Spanner is very much a homage to an age of freedom in Japanese comics and animation that is now lost, and Sukeban Deka is one of its earliest pivotal influences. Saki Asamiya may be gone forever (she dies at the end), but Shira Thomas has only just begun.
Now for the tough edits: it took me over a month to finish the Fourth Revision versions of Chapters 4 and 5. Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised that editing them turned out to be so difficult; after all, it took me about four months to edit Chapter 1. But Chapter 1 is special; its purpose is to sell the novel. Absolute awesomeness was absolutely required. Maybe the problem is that the final edits of Chapters 2 and 3 had gone so smoothly and fast. One scene in particular, "Meeting at Mudlark House" in 4.4 (it's the second big scene), I rewrote over and over and over till I got it right. The first two scenes of 4.6 (before the flashback) also gave me a lot of difficulty. To wrestle these three scenes into shape, I came up with a new trick to help me. It's a three-step process:
For the climactic sequence of Chapter 5 I used a different technique entirely:
Back in the early 1990s (1993?), during my anime club days, I watched the OVA series. If fortysomething me had seen it back then (or read the original Shinji Wada manga), I would have howled, raised the devil-horns salute, and cried out, "rock 'n' roll!" But twentysomething me was a virgin of sorts, and I saw it just as I had barely begun developing the early Spanner concept with just the five heroines, two mentor figures, and four villains of the "Class of '92". There's a group of characters who can be considered the "Class of Sukeban Deka": the Fleer sisters (the first three, oldest to youngest: Charmian with the long blond princess-curly hair, Christian with the short brown hair with pink highlights, and the less villainous black-haired Julian), their mother whom I would later make part of the villainous Becket clan, and the characters I would much later name Mimi Scott and Polly Parker. A late addition to this "class" is the Fleer sisters' father, Alan Fleer, whom I would make not just an admiral but the son of a fascist Argentine general. The twist on my part is which of the "Class of '92" heroines would get the loaded yo-yo: not Debbie Longmuir (who became another Becket!), she of the impossible aim, but rebel protagonist Shira Thomas herself. And since unlike Sukeban Deka title character Saki Asamiya, a sukeban (roughly "gangster bitch") drafted by the Japanese government and made a deka (cop), Shira is manipulating an American government that hates her skin color and conscience. For this reason, her loaded yo-yo is not government-issue like Saki's, but a Go-Yo, in homage to a now-forgotten American comic called Go-Man.
Back when Sukeban Deka was published, 1978-82 in the shoujo manga anthology Hana to Yume, anything still went in manga, while American comics and television were subject to strict censorship codes. Today Saki would not be allowed to drink and smoke in the censorious new Japanese climate, while on American TV (at least on cable) you get such things as True Blood, Breaking Bad, Diary of a Call Girl, and The Borgias, and American comics can get as outrageous as anything from Europe (case in point: Sin City). A Sukeban Deka could not be published in Japan today, but it sure as hell could make it onto American TV. Japan and America, it seems, have switched places in this one respect. In its original concept and final execution, Chaos Angel Spanner is very much a homage to an age of freedom in Japanese comics and animation that is now lost, and Sukeban Deka is one of its earliest pivotal influences. Saki Asamiya may be gone forever (she dies at the end), but Shira Thomas has only just begun.
Now for the tough edits: it took me over a month to finish the Fourth Revision versions of Chapters 4 and 5. Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised that editing them turned out to be so difficult; after all, it took me about four months to edit Chapter 1. But Chapter 1 is special; its purpose is to sell the novel. Absolute awesomeness was absolutely required. Maybe the problem is that the final edits of Chapters 2 and 3 had gone so smoothly and fast. One scene in particular, "Meeting at Mudlark House" in 4.4 (it's the second big scene), I rewrote over and over and over till I got it right. The first two scenes of 4.6 (before the flashback) also gave me a lot of difficulty. To wrestle these three scenes into shape, I came up with a new trick to help me. It's a three-step process:
- take the scene I want to edit in the ebook's HTML file,
- go to the corresponding part of the TV-episode script, and
- start a new text file as a workspace in which I can combine the two versions.
- tear the long scenes into pieces,
- write a new outline around the pieces, and
- rewrite and rearrange until everything feels right at last.
For the climactic sequence of Chapter 5 I used a different technique entirely:
- break up the sequence into its constituent scenes,
- put them in the correct order using the cinematic intercutting technique I first used in Chapter 1, and
- flesh them out.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Spanner Influences: Ayn Rand and Her Un-Capitalistic Sense of Life
The article: "Defending Capitalism Against Ayn Rand" (Steven Farron, Liberty Magazine)
Steven Farron says Ayn Rand is the greatest novelist. My opinion of her fiction is not quite so exalted, but both her fiction and her philosophy were major influences on mine, since I was under her influence for about 15 years. But we agree that she has one big weakness: her sense of life. In his article, he says Rand's sense of life is too heroic for capitalism. In fact, it comes right out of revolutionary Russia.
This, therefore, is a study in the anxiety of influence.
Here's the contradiction:
(Here is where I ransack the bookcase in my computer room to find my copies of The Romantic Manifesto and The Virtue of Selfishness.)
Steven Farron says Ayn Rand is the greatest novelist. My opinion of her fiction is not quite so exalted, but both her fiction and her philosophy were major influences on mine, since I was under her influence for about 15 years. But we agree that she has one big weakness: her sense of life. In his article, he says Rand's sense of life is too heroic for capitalism. In fact, it comes right out of revolutionary Russia.
This, therefore, is a study in the anxiety of influence.
Here's the contradiction:
- Her sense of life is heroic, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche, High Romanticism, British adventure fiction, and (this is rarely mentioned) the heroic environment of the Russian Revolution. Her heroes do not deal with the "penny-ante".
- Capitalism is about making money from anything you can make money from. You can definitely make money off the "penny-ante".
(Here is where I ransack the bookcase in my computer room to find my copies of The Romantic Manifesto and The Virtue of Selfishness.)
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Spanner R4 Update: Corporatism Is the New Communism (Plus: Chapter 4 Progress)
The article: "The New Totalitarianism: How American Corporations Have Made America Like the Soviet Union" (Alternet)
Back last century, when Soviet Communism ruled a third of the earth, there were some big business types such as Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum who developed an infatuation with Communism, while others (a whole lot of them) fell in with the Soviets' Nazi enemies. And then America spent about 30 years or so locked in cold death struggle against the Russian bear. The Cold War imprinted America, big time.
Now this country's sinking into a big-business knockoff of Soviet tyranny. In fact, it's becoming so indistinguishable from China, another Communist former enemy, that I went so far as to rename China's ruling party "Chinese Corporatist Party (Holdings) Limited". America's market choice is getting as restrictive as the official Soviet stores, as the above-linked article points out; conversely, China has the largest shopping malls in the world to go with its ever-growing collection of never-occupied new cities (the biggest mall of all, the South China Mall, is still has only 2 stores).
Congratulations, America! You're now the Union of Corporate Socialist Republics! The only difference between Corporatist America and old Communist Russia is that our all-powerful State is owned by private corporations.
The collapse of this system is what I'm documenting in the five volumes of Chaos Angel Spanner. Henry Becket, Chairman and Secretary General of the Conservative Revolutionary Party of America (as of Chapter 16) backed by his hand-picked Central Committee of Business Leaders and ace political operators, is the antagonist or tragic (super)hero trying to singlehandedly save the collapsing American Empire from certain doom by sheer force of personal will. And yet he follows the failed examples of all the "republican" and "socialist" absolute monarchs he used to fight against as a Cold War superhero. He's trying to save the world through a "People's Republic of Tyranny" by the Great American method of the "Privately Owned Society". The Law of Entropy is laughing in his face all the while.
Prepare for The Great Politics Mess-up, act two. Everything that has gone wrong in the Western world since the 1989 Revolution is because America was totally bummed the Red Menace fell. Everything Dictel Corporation has done since 1989 ruined its business, up to and including pulling off the Conservative Revolution of 2012, has been an attempt to bring back the black-and-white pre-'89 world, when America was righteousness itself battling Absolute Evil. It's revolutionary nostalgia, a militant refusal to look any direction but backward, that fuels the Conservative Revolution. The Germans even have their own East German version called "Ostalgie" (ost [east] + Nostalgie). The Cold War can never end until the surviving Evil Empire follows its symbiotic enemy into the trash can of history.
This is the world our heroines are forced to survive.
Chapter 4 Editing Update
After over two weeks of procrastinating, I finally got around to editing Chapter 4. I finished all the remaining new scenes and did a little editing of existing scenes. I'll have to make one final edit, inserting Shira's redheaded three-years-younger niece Elle and her mother Ruby into the meeting at Mudlark House before I turn to the next phase, removing a full thousand words from the first edit to get the final version under my 15,750-word target representing the 65-page maximum episode script length. After that, I'll make one more scan for typos, and then I'll declare it ready to post. Since Chapter 4 had only five sections in Revisions 2 and 3, I'll probably end up using one of the seven sections of Chapter 5 to make up the difference.
Speaking of Chapter 5: I've already cut down some scenes and added new ones. The biggest addition not yet fully written is the climactic chase for serial-killer fake teacher Mark Bernkastel after Team Bremelo interrupt the assassination mission SPEC Chairman Ross gave him and chase him into gang-ridden Dictel Park across the street from Bangor High. My task for tomorrow is to write out the sequence in full and then retcon the rest of the chapter to lead directly up to it.
Classes at Bangor High start in Chapter 6. Let's start with social studies and history, which SPEC management can't seem to distinguish. What's across the Atlantic in 2014? Used to be a lot of countries there. Now there's only the World Caliphate of Al-Assass, the Islamist empire America's at war against, and the Millennial Messianic Christian Empire of Africa, which America's allied with but is no better at all, merely Christian in its fundamentalism. Part of the African Empire is in the Caribbean, making it contiguous to the Imperial American Homeland itself. Now remember the People's Republic of Fernando Poo from the Illuminatus! trilogy? Some Mexican gangster who claims descent from Becket ancestor Robert Putney Drake conquered Equatorial Guinea from a Colombian gang and renamed it "People's Republic of Fernando Poo" (the namesake island's real name is Bioko) only to find himself under assault by the crusading hordes of mainlanders. The reason this is mentioned in class is because there's not enough gangsters in Latin America to defend it, so he's begging Dictel Corporation to send troops. Figures.
Back last century, when Soviet Communism ruled a third of the earth, there were some big business types such as Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum who developed an infatuation with Communism, while others (a whole lot of them) fell in with the Soviets' Nazi enemies. And then America spent about 30 years or so locked in cold death struggle against the Russian bear. The Cold War imprinted America, big time.
Now this country's sinking into a big-business knockoff of Soviet tyranny. In fact, it's becoming so indistinguishable from China, another Communist former enemy, that I went so far as to rename China's ruling party "Chinese Corporatist Party (Holdings) Limited". America's market choice is getting as restrictive as the official Soviet stores, as the above-linked article points out; conversely, China has the largest shopping malls in the world to go with its ever-growing collection of never-occupied new cities (the biggest mall of all, the South China Mall, is still has only 2 stores).
Congratulations, America! You're now the Union of Corporate Socialist Republics! The only difference between Corporatist America and old Communist Russia is that our all-powerful State is owned by private corporations.
The collapse of this system is what I'm documenting in the five volumes of Chaos Angel Spanner. Henry Becket, Chairman and Secretary General of the Conservative Revolutionary Party of America (as of Chapter 16) backed by his hand-picked Central Committee of Business Leaders and ace political operators, is the antagonist or tragic (super)hero trying to singlehandedly save the collapsing American Empire from certain doom by sheer force of personal will. And yet he follows the failed examples of all the "republican" and "socialist" absolute monarchs he used to fight against as a Cold War superhero. He's trying to save the world through a "People's Republic of Tyranny" by the Great American method of the "Privately Owned Society". The Law of Entropy is laughing in his face all the while.
Prepare for The Great Politics Mess-up, act two. Everything that has gone wrong in the Western world since the 1989 Revolution is because America was totally bummed the Red Menace fell. Everything Dictel Corporation has done since 1989 ruined its business, up to and including pulling off the Conservative Revolution of 2012, has been an attempt to bring back the black-and-white pre-'89 world, when America was righteousness itself battling Absolute Evil. It's revolutionary nostalgia, a militant refusal to look any direction but backward, that fuels the Conservative Revolution. The Germans even have their own East German version called "Ostalgie" (ost [east] + Nostalgie). The Cold War can never end until the surviving Evil Empire follows its symbiotic enemy into the trash can of history.
This is the world our heroines are forced to survive.
Chapter 4 Editing Update
After over two weeks of procrastinating, I finally got around to editing Chapter 4. I finished all the remaining new scenes and did a little editing of existing scenes. I'll have to make one final edit, inserting Shira's redheaded three-years-younger niece Elle and her mother Ruby into the meeting at Mudlark House before I turn to the next phase, removing a full thousand words from the first edit to get the final version under my 15,750-word target representing the 65-page maximum episode script length. After that, I'll make one more scan for typos, and then I'll declare it ready to post. Since Chapter 4 had only five sections in Revisions 2 and 3, I'll probably end up using one of the seven sections of Chapter 5 to make up the difference.
Speaking of Chapter 5: I've already cut down some scenes and added new ones. The biggest addition not yet fully written is the climactic chase for serial-killer fake teacher Mark Bernkastel after Team Bremelo interrupt the assassination mission SPEC Chairman Ross gave him and chase him into gang-ridden Dictel Park across the street from Bangor High. My task for tomorrow is to write out the sequence in full and then retcon the rest of the chapter to lead directly up to it.
Classes at Bangor High start in Chapter 6. Let's start with social studies and history, which SPEC management can't seem to distinguish. What's across the Atlantic in 2014? Used to be a lot of countries there. Now there's only the World Caliphate of Al-Assass, the Islamist empire America's at war against, and the Millennial Messianic Christian Empire of Africa, which America's allied with but is no better at all, merely Christian in its fundamentalism. Part of the African Empire is in the Caribbean, making it contiguous to the Imperial American Homeland itself. Now remember the People's Republic of Fernando Poo from the Illuminatus! trilogy? Some Mexican gangster who claims descent from Becket ancestor Robert Putney Drake conquered Equatorial Guinea from a Colombian gang and renamed it "People's Republic of Fernando Poo" (the namesake island's real name is Bioko) only to find himself under assault by the crusading hordes of mainlanders. The reason this is mentioned in class is because there's not enough gangsters in Latin America to defend it, so he's begging Dictel Corporation to send troops. Figures.
Friday, July 13, 2012
The Sixties Radicals Have Become the Man (Plus: The Latest Spanner R4 Update)
The article: "The Real Class Warfare (Reason)
Nick Gillespie is saying that billionaires and plutocrats aren't screwing you over, which in fact they are. The big surprise here is who among the general public are supporting them. Which generations are voting Republican and most gung-ho for Corporatism? The old.
The Sixties Radicals have become the Man.
For those who don't know their 20th-century history, there was this big youth revolt in the 1960s that took place in America, Europe, and other places such as Japan. Youth were rebelling against authority. The fatal premise of their revolt was the kind of romantic irrationalism that youth are prone to anyway, what with raging hormones and all, reinforced by the rationalism of the technocratic system current during the Cold War era. Some rebels even became madly infatuated with America's Communist enemies: Russia, China, Cuba, Che Guevara (who met his spectacular end in 1967).
Then the rebels grew up, got jobs, even became rich. No, Kurt Anderson (born 1954, by the way), the Sixties didn't make us selfish; that was the Seventies, the "Me Decade", followed by the "Gimme Decade" (the Eighties). Radical after radical turned anti-Communist, pro-Israel neoconservative without compromising their irrationalism one bit; only the nation defined as Better Than America changed.
And so the Baby Boom rebels inevitably became the sanctimonious authority figures their younger selves rebelled against, to the point of adopting the religious piosity of their late elders (and you thought God died in 1966...).
Sure enough, the right-wing turn of the Baby Boomers comes with a Confucian sense of entitlement: you whippersnappers wouldn't even exist without us, so you owe us a debt of perpetual duty. They've redefined "freedom is not free" from "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" to "freedom is slavery". Gerontocracy marked the long decline of the Soviet Union, that "Marxist" and "republican" version of the Russian Empire. Now America's elders, especially the rich ones, are trying to turn "the land of the free and home of the brave" into a Corporatist oligarchy dominated by — surprise! — rich old white men. You know, the same force of tyranny the Sixties Radicals were so determined to destroy back when they were young and had some semblance of conscience?
Now consider the gerontocrats of Spanner. The Becket brothers: born in the 1930s. Their baby sister Drusilla and nephew Walter Brinkman? 1950s. But they were always conservative; they were targets of the Sixties Radicals and were surprised to find them flocking over to their side as neocons. The Conservative Revolutionary Party militants who aren't simply right-wing militia types are the former Sixties (less often Seventies through Nineties) radicals turned conservative in their old age. But they haven't given up their Sixties Radical infatuation with terrorism. They still long to blow shit up, only for the Fascists rather than the Communists. And their Revolution is not just against the democratic "rabble", but even more so the "whippersnappers", who are increasingly non-white, threatening the comforting uniformity of traditional American white-bread-ness (for which threat they also blame those America-hating liberal traitors!!! whom they think are the same Sixties Radicals they themselves used to be). And so they give dominion and offer hero worship to a cabal of self-righteous Cold War superheroes born in the 1930s and whose heads remain stuck in the 1950s.
This is the theme that Willa and Hope, two "Xists" (actually, Hope's technically a late-Boomer born in 1962, but we'll let that slide) who have always refused to heed the siren song of Conservatism and Corporatism no matter how rich they got, introduce in the meeting they hold for the student tutors and dissident teachers at Mudlark House in Chapter 4.
Now for a relevant sidetrack, here's the Cracked list of six movies with political agendas you didn't notice and the Spanner response:
Nick Gillespie is saying that billionaires and plutocrats aren't screwing you over, which in fact they are. The big surprise here is who among the general public are supporting them. Which generations are voting Republican and most gung-ho for Corporatism? The old.
The Sixties Radicals have become the Man.
For those who don't know their 20th-century history, there was this big youth revolt in the 1960s that took place in America, Europe, and other places such as Japan. Youth were rebelling against authority. The fatal premise of their revolt was the kind of romantic irrationalism that youth are prone to anyway, what with raging hormones and all, reinforced by the rationalism of the technocratic system current during the Cold War era. Some rebels even became madly infatuated with America's Communist enemies: Russia, China, Cuba, Che Guevara (who met his spectacular end in 1967).
Then the rebels grew up, got jobs, even became rich. No, Kurt Anderson (born 1954, by the way), the Sixties didn't make us selfish; that was the Seventies, the "Me Decade", followed by the "Gimme Decade" (the Eighties). Radical after radical turned anti-Communist, pro-Israel neoconservative without compromising their irrationalism one bit; only the nation defined as Better Than America changed.
And so the Baby Boom rebels inevitably became the sanctimonious authority figures their younger selves rebelled against, to the point of adopting the religious piosity of their late elders (and you thought God died in 1966...).
Sure enough, the right-wing turn of the Baby Boomers comes with a Confucian sense of entitlement: you whippersnappers wouldn't even exist without us, so you owe us a debt of perpetual duty. They've redefined "freedom is not free" from "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" to "freedom is slavery". Gerontocracy marked the long decline of the Soviet Union, that "Marxist" and "republican" version of the Russian Empire. Now America's elders, especially the rich ones, are trying to turn "the land of the free and home of the brave" into a Corporatist oligarchy dominated by — surprise! — rich old white men. You know, the same force of tyranny the Sixties Radicals were so determined to destroy back when they were young and had some semblance of conscience?
Now consider the gerontocrats of Spanner. The Becket brothers: born in the 1930s. Their baby sister Drusilla and nephew Walter Brinkman? 1950s. But they were always conservative; they were targets of the Sixties Radicals and were surprised to find them flocking over to their side as neocons. The Conservative Revolutionary Party militants who aren't simply right-wing militia types are the former Sixties (less often Seventies through Nineties) radicals turned conservative in their old age. But they haven't given up their Sixties Radical infatuation with terrorism. They still long to blow shit up, only for the Fascists rather than the Communists. And their Revolution is not just against the democratic "rabble", but even more so the "whippersnappers", who are increasingly non-white, threatening the comforting uniformity of traditional American white-bread-ness (for which threat they also blame those America-hating liberal traitors!!! whom they think are the same Sixties Radicals they themselves used to be). And so they give dominion and offer hero worship to a cabal of self-righteous Cold War superheroes born in the 1930s and whose heads remain stuck in the 1950s.
This is the theme that Willa and Hope, two "Xists" (actually, Hope's technically a late-Boomer born in 1962, but we'll let that slide) who have always refused to heed the siren song of Conservatism and Corporatism no matter how rich they got, introduce in the meeting they hold for the student tutors and dissident teachers at Mudlark House in Chapter 4.
Now for a relevant sidetrack, here's the Cracked list of six movies with political agendas you didn't notice and the Spanner response:
- The Dark Knight: Batman kidnaps foreign citizens — just like the CIA! (Nolan was trying to justify Shrub Bush's tyrannical imperial policy in this kinder, gentler version of Frank Miller's infamous Holy Terror.) Spanner: That's what bounty hunters are licensed to do; some are themselves costumed heroes, and they get very self-righteous about it.
- Ghostbusters: If you give the federal government too much power — ghosts! Spanner: True! Plus: rampaging angels, demons, and giant robots!
- Saw VI: Jigsaw pushes for health insurance reform! Spanner: Good luck torturing the chairmen of the entire healthcare industry, Jigsaw. Not that you're any less a villain (and a self-righteous one at that) for it. In fact, you'd fit right in with your fellow Social Darwinists who make up the CRP...
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Government is dumb — but America is the world, and Shrub Bush and America's Heroic Armed Forces are way righteous! Spanner: Michael Bay is an official Party propagandist, just like, say, Frank Miller or Ted Nugent. Unlike them, he loves loves loves to blow shit up.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original): even space aliens love Jesus! (Note: Klaatu was supposed to be a Christ figure anyway, but those earnest Catholics in the Hays Office forced the filmmakers to hammer home the point without the slightest subtlety to prevent the weakening of social control. This was the Cold War, after all, and anything short of pro-Christian propaganda was by definition atheism and therefore Communist treason.) Spanner: What's Jesus? (Remember, God died in 1966 — or at least turned comic-book dead for a few years.) Is there a Space Jesus? (Actually, America is supposed to be Jesus: the Second Coming, the Becket brothers and baby sister Drusilla won't stop telling us, occurred on July 4, 1776...)
- Superman IV: The Quest for Peace: Superman fixes the world — by taking it over! Spanner: Nice job breaking it, heroes! So, who watches the watchers? Also, fuck the sun.
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