Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett gives us a potpourri of pop culture observations. 

I know confessing this will only confirm what most of you already think of me but sometimes while working on my laptop I listen to old-time radio shows, which is how I came across one I never heard before, the April 19th, 1943 episode of The Great Gildersleeve.*  Just to show you how ubiquitous comic books were back in the 1940s, the plot revolved around Gildersleeve trying to steer his ten year old nephew Leroy towards "good" books and away from Captain Wonderman (a thinly disguised Captain Marvel) which he calls "trash."  But Leroy’s comic book guy, Peavey the Pharmacist has the last word when he reveals he looks at them himself -- for the "good girl" art.

As I’ve written before the only thing more difficult than creating a superhero is coming up with a truly memorable villain (after only one appearance it is of course entirely too early to judge Wonder Woman’s newest big bad Genocide but, gosh, that’s one terrible looking character design), and a couple of years ago Grant Morrison did just that when he created Prometheus.  So the tiny sliver of fanboy inside me was amused how in the upcoming Face Of Evil: Prometheus DC will try and rehabilitate the character, the story’s author Sterling Gates going so far as to say the publisher had “sullied” the character.

You’ve got to admire the honesty even if “sullied” is an incredible understatement; having read the stories where Morrison’s incredibly powerful, charismatic character inexplicably became a henchman for Hush, poster boy for how NOT to create a truly memorable villain, they were a clear case of editorial incompetence.  Probably the worst thing about this whole situation is instead of wasting a whole comic book to reestablish his gravitas they could have just used another Morrison concept, Hypertime, and we could pretend those horrible stories never happened.

And probably the only thing more difficult than creating a truly memorable super-villain is creating a really good super-heroine, which is undoubtedly why Mark Waid has reintroduced Tomorrow Woman to the DC Universe through the pages of Trinity.  Best known for dying in her first appearance in Grant Morrison’s JLA she’s nothing but unrealized potential and given the severe shortage of female powerhouses in the DCU she’d be definitely welcome.

And just to show how ubiquitous comic content has become on the Web, if you go to the TNT website you’ll find a Webcomic adaptation of The Librarian: Curse Of The Judas Chalice, third in the not half bad but nowhere near as good as they should be series of fantasy/adventures movies (though the first one did give the world the spectacle of a kung fu fighting Bob Newhart).  “Looks fantastic!” squeals one of the posts.  “Looks like someone hired their nephew!” say I.

Let’s face it; we comic book guys have a certain reputation even amongst ourselves for not going out of our way to give good customer service, which is why I’ve got to commend Kendall Swafford, owner/operator of Up Up And Away Comics.  Several months ago, back when the price of gas was outrageous, instead of driving around looking for a back issue for a friend I called local comic shops and they were the only ones that had one.  So I gave them the address I needed it sent to and my credit card number and thought nothing more of it.

Until it didn’t show up.  I checked to make sure that my card had been charged then called Up Up And Away to see if they had another copy and without being asked Kendall offered to send out another copy, free of charge.  And when that one didn’t show up either I stopped by their store to see if they had a third copy and Kendall gave it to me, likewise free of charge, and that my friends is going above and beyond ordinary customer service.

Well Secret Invasion is finally over and dramaturgically speaking it’s something of a leaden loaf told in bullet point fashion (literally there are pages where it seems like someone is narrating news footage after the fact; “Oh, gosh, here’s the part where Jan dies, sad.  Moving on…”).  Politically speaking though it sure seems like the ending was written before the election results were in, seeing as how Bendis has now President-elect Obama giving the keys to the kingdom to unrepentant serial killer Norman Osborn.  Maybe it’s just me but that sure seems more of a John McCain move.

* The Great Gildersleeve followed the adventures of Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a well intentioned, pompous, middle aged, middle class, overweight windbag and would-be Lothario (no wonder he’s my favorite old –time radio character).  Many of the episodes were written by Tom Whedon, grandfather of Joss Whedon of whom you might have heard.

The opinions expressed in this Talk Back column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.