"At The Crossroads": An invitation to a short story

For three days this past fall my dog Tammy and I were trapped in a motel room in the North Carolina mountains.  Hurricane Florence was thrashing the slats out of the state even that far inland.  It was the two of us and the usual hurricane emergency supplies: cans of deviled ham, some crackers, a few six-packs of Coca-Cola... and not much to do.

So I began writing a short story.

In the past few months has come understanding of why I've never been able to crack that block in my mind toward writing narrative fiction.  Yes, there have been the scripts for the various films(?) and other projects.

But anything like a smallish piece of prose?  The connection couldn't be made.  Not until toward the end of this last summer, and maybe someday I'll be able to talk about that.

Suffice it to say, so far I've written three short stories, begun work on another, and have finished the first draft of a one-act stage play (which could easily be adapted into a short film).  And then there's the children's book that's in the works.

A few weeks ago I wound up using one of the stories in conjunction with another project.  It was the one written in that motel room during the hurricane.  And I've contemplated sharing it with a wider audience.  This is the second piece that I've completed so far.  Perhaps the others will appear on some outlet or another later on.  I've uploaded it as an Acrobat file.

So here it is.  Submitted for your approval, I present to you:

"At The Crossroads"

by Robert Christopher Knight

(PDF document download)

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Achivement Unlocked: Fiction Writer!

The biggest regret I've had as a writer, for all of this time, is that I've never been able to compose real narrative fiction.  Screenplays for film projects?  Those have been no problem to sit down and churn out.  But for something even so rudimentary as a short story?

That has eluded me.  It has been sealed away behind a concrete wall and I've been pounding away at it for decades, trying to grasp that arrow to place in my quiver.  And the wall wasn't yielding a centimeter.

Why wasn't it possible?  Nonfiction has never been an issue.  I've always been in my element in regard to exploring ideas and articulating musings upon them.  Fiction however...

I've some thoughts about why that has been.  And it correlates with the bipolar disorder I've had since at least 2000, and with some other matters that only in recent months have come to light.

So maybe that I was able to write my first ever short story two weeks ago is not just a threshold moment in my life, it is a benchmark for an even greater progress.  For how far I have come in the two years since I packed up the car and headed out into America with my dog.  But especially for the better part of this past year.  And there have been some remarkable people who have helped me along, to get to this place I hadn't thought possible.  And I'm hoping sooner than later that can be a tale to be shared.

A few friends have read the first short story.  Two of them said that the ending of it brought them to tears.  Some have suggested that I've been writing fiction all along and had never told anyone.  As if!

In the past few weeks I've begun writing a second short story.  And a one-act play.  And have had ideas for other works of fiction.  No, not a novel.  Not yet.  Let's take small steps toward the bigger stuff.  But they are coming.  And then I'll have to figure out what to do with them.  The play is something that would be neat to see produced on stage.  The notion of making a short film of it has crossed my mind but this... seems more suited for a live performance.  Or maybe I'll make the film after its stage debut.

So anyhoo, that is why I've been a bit slack in blogging lately.  The wall has been toppled and the arrow seized, and I've been spending time getting a feel for it.  Like a fledgling taking first flight.  And time will tell how far I can fly with this.  I'm praying that it might be very far, indeed.

Incidentally, for those wondering: neither the finished story nor the pieces in the works are in the genres of science-fiction or fantasy.  So far these are entirely within the scope of our real world.  And I don't know if I ever will try science-fiction.  Good sci-fi is a tough genre to write.  And the ones I would most be inspired by are the masters like Robert A. Heinlein and Philip Jose Farmer.  Writers who used their work to delve into ideas, and not project ideology.  Too much of the science-fiction in recent decades has been driven by agendas... and that's not my style.  But to use science-fiction as a vehicle for conveying ideas and concepts of the human condition?  That would be not just another arrow, but a silver one.

So if there are periods during which I seem absent or negligent about The Knight Shift: take heart!  I am merely exploring a new area of my abilities, and I'm looking forward to sharing those also in the fullness of time.

Until then, I will share one piece of new fiction with all two of my faithful readers!  And yes it is a work of fantasy and not only that but it's a Star Wars short story!  I doubt that Lucasfilm will be adding it to the official body of lore however.  But do consider this to be my small and humble attempt to bridge the gap between the Expanded Universe fans and the adherents of the new canon.  Because as the song says, "Why can't we be friends?"

Here it is.  A teaser of what's to come.  Or perhaps a grim harbinger.  Click to embiggen and enjoy(?)...

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Lovecraft the prophet

"That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return."

-- from The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

It was 1928 when Howard Phillips Lovecraft published The Call of Cthulhu: his seminal classic which forever altered the nature of horror fiction.

That passage has stuck with me from the first time that I read this short story in the fall of 1996.  And I've thought about it countlessly in the years since.  It has been difficult not to see mankind through the vision of those cultists waiting for when the stars are right: when the incomprehensible horror that is Cthulhu will arise at last from the cyclopean city of R'yleh far below the waters of the Pacific and lay waste to the Earth.  Until then dead Cthulhu waits, dreaming...

Mankind, "free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside."  Men "shouting and killing and revelling in joy."

It has been eighty-five years since Lovecraft wrote those words.  And with each passing year it seems as if humanity... or at least the civilized realm of it... is descending further and further into the barbaric, unrestrained frenzy of pleasure and pain that he described in his tale.

Slaying the innocent for sake of money and convenience.  Government gone lawless.  Men and women descending beneath their nature.  Wars without reason or end.  Conscience and ethics spurned utterly.  Good proclaimed to be evil, and evil to be good.

Perhaps more than we have realized... maybe more than we would like to acknowledge... H.P. Lovecraft had a prescience of far greater clarity than any prophet or futurist of this age.

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The Top Ten Greatest Fictional Statesmen

We deserve better.  We should have demanded better.  We should have had higher expectations from those who asked to be entrusted with crafting laws, with the public treasury, with judicial integrity, with command of the military.

Let's stop the bullcrap and be honest.  I mean, SERIOUSLY honest.  With an election looming in the next few days here in the United States, we have been incrementally conned and conditioned to have practically nobody to cast a vote for other than smooth-talkers and snake-oil salesmen.  Incumbents and challengers ready willing and able to sell their soul for a little scrap of power... and fools that we are, we seem only too willing to give it to them.  Sometimes I wonder if most of us like being treated with such contempt by those who allege to serve we the people.

In short: we have a surplus of politicians and too damned few statesmen.

What is a statesman?  Someone, man or woman, who puts the good of those they serve above his or her own desires and ambitions.  True statesmen are not politicians.  Politicians care only for the trappings of office and don't care how they get it.

For the past several years I have had a rule by which I abide when it comes to casting a ballot.  It is very simple: if a candidate's campaign creates or sanctions even one negative ad aimed at an opponent, I do not vote for that candidate.  To me it indicates that the candidate is a politician, not a statesman.  Statesmen will hold up under scrutiny per their own virtues.  They don't want or even need to attack the virtues of others, even if said virtues are lacking.

Right now, my ballot for next week has some pretty wide open spaces.

How has it come to this?  Could it be that... we as citizens have forgotten what a statesman is supposed to be?  That we can no longer recognize the qualities that make them leaders and not mere "politicians"?

Maybe.  In fact, I would dare say, unfortunately... yes, we have.

So if sincere and selfless and capable leadership cannot be found in our real world, perhaps a look toward movies, books and television is in order.  Assembled here are the top ten men, women, and other beings from fiction who best exemplify the various aspects of statesmanship, along with the qualities for which they are best known.

Who are they?  Find out after the jump!

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The 50 greatest fictional weapons ever

ToyFare and Wizard Universe have compiled their list of the 50 greatest weapons throughout all of fiction. Lightsabers make the list twice (the standard design and Darth Maul's two-bladed terror) and I was glad to see that the BFG9000 from the videogame Doom also made the cut. There are also some things mentioned here that I'd never heard of before, like Hitler's Handgun (exactly what it sounds like, from Marvel Comics' Doctor Strange: The Oath miniseries) and some that are surprisingly obscure in this day and age (like the Target Seeking Bullet Gun from the movie Runaway). And the Tall Man's homicidal Christmas tree balls from Phantasm (left) came in at #24. A great fun read and I'm particularly glad to see what came in at #1 :-)

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J.K. Rowling says: Albus Dumbledore is a homosexual!

Okay, this one blows my mind bigtime (and it takes a hella lot to blow this mind)...

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has "outed" Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School and Harry's principle mentor (yeah I know how weird it looks to read that).

Not only was Dumbledore a gay man, but he had an unrequieted love for Gellert Grindelwald: his one-time accomplice in an ill-spirited bid for conquest of the wizard world, before Dumbledore came to his senses and later defeated Grindelwald during World War II.

I honestly don't know what to make of this. It doesn't really take away from the enjoyment of the books themselves, because this was nothing that was ever, ever a part of the story. It could be like Ridley Scott insisting years later that Deckard was himself a Replicant in the movie Blade Runner, when there was nothing indicating that to be the case either. And looking back on the Harry Potter books, even Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I'm still not seeing any sexual undertones about Dumbledore at all.

Yet Rowling insists that Dumbledore is a homosexual...

Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.

The article also brings this up...

Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.

Let's just hope that Rowling doesn't answer any questions about what Albus's brother Aberforth is doing with all those goats...

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Rowling reveals TONS of post-DEATHLY HALLOWS info during online chat

A few days ago J.K. Rowling did an extensive online chat via Bloomsbury Publishing's website ... and she unloaded a whole heap of answers to questions about the Harry Potter saga in the aftermath of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There is substantially more information that she gives here than she did in her interview with NBC last week. Absolutely must-reading for anyone who's been reading and enjoying these books.

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Harry Potter-verse stories we'd like to see

The saga of Harry Potter is, at last, finished. And let me state this from the outset: I do not have any great desire to see another novel about Harry Potter as a character.

But ever since reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, my mind has been reeling with wonder. J.K. Rowling tied up all the threads throughout seven novels by the end of that book. But whether she wanted to or not, she also sowed the seeds for a lot of further stories from the Potter-verse. She's been doing that from the very beginning but Deathly Hallows somehow maddened the lust to know more about the world that Harry lives in.

Well, Rowling has said something about eventually writing a comprehensive Harry Potter "encyclopedia" that will go a long way to fleshing-out the Wizarding world and its history. And maybe a book about Neville Longbottom that would be sold for charitable causes. But I think there are some fascinating possibilities for more narrative fiction from the world of Harry Potter, with stories that are begging to be told at some point...

- The First War: We've always heard about how bad it was, but we know hardly anything about what happened in the Wizarding world between 1970 and 1981, when Voldemort and his army was tearing everything apart. It's been said that World War II was just a continuation of World War I, with a period of time in between to rest and reload. That's partly why this would be a fascinating read because it was while reading the third Harry Potter book, Prisoner of Azkaban, that I realized that Harry and his generation were being used to fight a proxy war by those that came before, until the young ones grew into their own. Maybe with a rich account of the First War, we can finally get to see a place that I've always wanted to see depicted in the Harry Potter books: the wizard prison of Azkaban. This book should end just when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone begins: in the aftermath of October 31st, 1981.

- Full-length novel about Dumbledore and Grindelwald: The "Obi-Wan Versus Anakin Duel" of the Harry Potter saga, that until we get to "see" it is going to become just as legendary an exercise in imagination. This story deserves a book all to itself as much as the First War does. We know from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald were once friends in youth, who came to share (for the Dumbledore we came to know and love anyway) some very disturbing dreams. The two eventually split, before Grindelwald was defeated by Dumbledore in 1945 (ever since this was mentioned in the first book, some have wondered if this date implies that Grindelwald had something to do with Nazi Germany). A book about Dumbledore and Grindelwald might not only give us a close look at the early years between the two wizards, but also what happened in the World War II years at Hogwarts when Dumbledore was at first reluctant to confront his former friend.

- Hogwarts: The Early Years: Sometime in the late 900s A.D., four of the greatest sorcerers of that age established an academy of magic somewhere north on the isle of Britain. The alliance between Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin – and their eventual falling-out – would carry ramifications that would rock the Wizarding world for the next one thousand years. I'd love to see this story laid out somehow, especially how Slytherin ended up creating the Chamber of Secrets.

- How the magic and non-magic worlds separated: At some point, those who could work real magic decided the time had come to live apart from the Muggles (non-magic folk in the Harry Potter books). The result, in my mind anyway, was that there were two very real realms that grew and evolved in parallel to each other, but with radically different underpinnings: the Muggles rely on technology and science, while the Wizarding people use magic and other forces of nature that mystify us Muggles as much as Arthur Weasley is captivated by ordinary batteries and electrical plugs. This splitting-away might be a fun thing to see, especially with how the Wizarding community ended up with a government so much like Muggle bureaucracy.

- The story of Dean Thomas: J.K. Rowling has hinted a number of times that Harry's fellow Gryffindor classmate Dean Thomas has a much more interesting background than we've yet be let in on. I will admit that he hasn't felt to be much more than a secondary character but his role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows did pique my curiosity about him quite a bit.

- A Marvels-style glimpse of the Wizard world from the viewpoint of a Muggle: In 1993, Kurt Busiek wrote a graphic novel for Marvel Comics called Marvels. Beautifully and realistically illustrated by Alex Ross, it was the story of the events of the Marvel Universe as witnessed by an average "man on the street". Well, what if a British Muggle had managed to witness every major event of the Wizarding world that had happened between World War II and 1998 – from Grindelwald's possible involvement with the Nazis to the destruction wrecked by Voldemort's forces throughout England. And what if that Muggle had somehow been "missed" by the Ministry of Magic's squad of Obliviators, so that he/she not only saw these things... but remembered it all as well?

- Hagrid's biography: Hagrid is, shall we say, one of the more interesting characters in the Harry Potter saga. I'd love to see more about him, especially his life after getting expelled from Hogwarts.

Those are just the ones that came most immediately to mind during the past week. What else could we see turned into more stories from the world of Harry Potter? :-)

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On the eve of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: Final predictions for Harry Potter

A little over 24 hours from now, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released.

So here are my absolute final predictions for the Harry Potter saga before this concluding chapter of the series is published:

- Harry will live.

- Hagrid will die.

- The fatal shot aimed at Voldemort will come from none other than Draco Malfoy, who reconciles with Harry just before passing away from wounds suffered in battle.

- Rufus Scrimgeour will be sacked ...

- ... and Arthur Weasley will become the new Minister of Magic.

- We will finally get to see Azkaban Prison.

- Norbert will return as a full-grown dragon

- Neville will finally confront Bellatrix Lestrange, upon which he goes into a fit of rage and kills Bellatrix with a savage assault of the Cruciatis curse.

- In a perfect world, Harry would hunt Dolores Umbridge down like a dog, and shove that evil quill pen of hers straight and hard up her (vulgar terminology for human anatomy).

- Ron and Hermione will wind up married, and have twin sons they name Albus and Hagrid.

- Wormtail will rescue Harry from an attack by Fenris Greyback by plunging his silver hand into Greyback's chest and ripping his heart out. With Greyback dead, the curse of lycanthropy will be lifted and Remus Lupin will no longer suffer from being a werewolf ...

- ... and Remus will relent to having a relationship with Tonks.

- The Dursleys will barely escape the total destruction of Number 4 Privet Drive that is scheduled for 12:01 a.m. on July 31st, 1997.

- EVERYTHING that was published in The Quibbler will turn out to be absolutely true, including the story that Sirius Black was once a singing sensation and that Cornelius Fudge is after the Gringotts gold.

- Professor McGonagall will be confirmed by the board of governors as the new Headmistress of Hogwarts.

- Professor Sprout will flee the country and Neville will fill in as substitute Herbology teacher at Hogwarts (by this point he will already be of age by wizarding standards) until a permanent replacement is appointed.

- It will be revealed that Snape was working for Dumbledore against Voldemort all along. How this will be possible is something that I have been trying to figure out for two years now and am no closer at understanding: it's just a gut feeling.

- Filch, for the first time in his life, will perform magic. It comes in a moment of madness after he sees his beloved cat Mrs. Norris killed by the Death Eaters. And the magic that Filch does is nothing less than the Avada Kedavera.

- Bill and Fleur will have their wedding but it will be too much of a target of opportunity for the Death Eaters to pass up and an attack ensues.

- "R.A.B." will be revealed to have been Regulus Black, and the strange locket that won’t open at 12 Grimmauld Place will indeed be the Slytherin locket that is the real Horcrux.

- Harry will, at some point, come to Godric's Hollow and meet his father's parents for the first time.

- Luna and Neville will end up getting married.

- Harry and Ginny will end up getting married also.

- Lucius Malfoy will end up bankrupt and destitute.

- Viktor Krum will replace Karkaroff as the head of the Durmstrang school.

- The last we see of the Weasleys' Ford Anglia, it is flying off into the sunset with Ron and Hermione, with the words "JUST MARRIED" written on the rear window.

- Harry will fulfill his dream of becoming an Auror.

- Harry and Ginny will have a son, who they name Sirius.

That's just the stuff that readily comes to mind. This probably isn't even half the predictions that I could come up with: it's still leaving out Grawp and Professor Trelawney and the motorcycle and dozens of other things.

I'll probably be finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows about 48 hours from now. And then we'll see how this all goes down in the end.

EDIT 10:37 p.m. EST: Jenna Olwin has published her own list of predictions for Deathly Hallows. Amazing how some of ours are close similar, and we didn't even compare notes or anything before we did our own lists!

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TRIBULATION HOUSE: Whacked (and wicked funny) Christian novel is a must-read!

A short while after finishing my review of Kingdom Come (thank heaven that's the last we'll ever see of Left Behind... hopefully) I found out about another book that was coming out around the same time. This one also dealt with Pre-Tribulation Rapture theology, but with a twist: it's story was about what happens when Christians obsess about the Rapture to the point of ignoring the work that God has provided to occupy ourselves with until He does come. That alone would have piqued my interest. That the book's page on Amazon described it as a "quirky apocalyptic gangster novel" only fueled my desire to know more. And that this was a Christian satire novel that was - gasp! - said to be uproariously funny settled it in my mind: I absolutely had to read Tribulation House by Chris Well.

It wasn't until two days ago that I found a copy: at the Books A Million in the Concord Mills Mall. Tribulation House is such a genre-bending story that most bookstores, even Christian ones, don't seem to have it in stock. They should though: especially the Christian outlets like LifeWay and Family Christian. With Tribulation House, Chris Well proves that Christian fiction can not only be rollickin' good entertainment when it really wants to be, but that it can share profound wisdom and insight that leaves a person more enlightened for the time spent reading it.

Did I mention already that Tribulation House is also the most hilarious Christian novel that I've ever read?

Did I also say that after the dreck that Left Behind became, that Tribulation House is the most spiritually refreshing Christian fiction that I've read in a very long time?

I can't believe how much more I hate Left Behind now. Not just that series, but a lot of stuff on the "Christian culture" front. We should be giving God nothing short of our best efforts, in everything that we do. Including the entertainment we create. Instead for years now we've had this bass-ackwards approach where we give a blunt-force sermon some thin veneer of "enjoyment" and then expect people to be hooked by The Message, as if that is what's going to draw the crowds. Except it doesn't work and those we are trying to witness to only end up laughing at us that much more. But I'm beginning to sense that a lot of Christians have realized what we're doing wrong, and are now actively working to do something about it. The recent movie Facing the Giants (read my review here) and now Chris Well's Tribulation House "get" it. And I'm especially glad that Well makes a good commentary about that in his novel: maybe others will pick up on it also.

Tribulation House has a number of storylines, at the center of which is Reverend Daniel Glory, the prominent minister of a Kansas City church. Reverend Glory has confidently announced to the world that he has calculated the exact date and time of the Rapture: on October 17th at 5:51 a.m., Jesus will come for the true believers. Which is joyful news for church member Mark Hogan. And since his days on Earth are numbered, why not enjoy them a bit? Hogan immediately begins an insane spending spree that culminates in his lust for a $22,428 dream boat... which he can't get right away because his credit was declined at the showroom. No worries, figures Hogan: he'll just borrow the money he needs from the mob. Then he can buy his boat and enjoy clear sailing right up to the Rapture. And when Jesus comes, he'll be in Heaven and won't have to fret about the gangsters coming to collect what he owes them. And that's exactly what Mark Hogan does.

And then the Rapture doesn't happen. And the details of Pre-Tribulation theology aren't something that organized crime figures usually care to hear about.

Rife with slick dialogue and rich in pop-culture references, Tribulation House is an engrossing tale about family squabbling, Mid-West mafiosos, urban politics, whodunit murder, and an American brand of Christianity that's much too fixated on the Second Coming for its own good. With that much craziness poured into one book, Tribulation House can't help but be a joy to read. This wasn't just the funniest Christian fiction I've read: Tribulation House was one of the funniest books that I've ever read! And the part of me that seeks out opportunity for spiritual growth in this kind of literature... well, I finished Tribulation House feeling quite satiated on that front, too. Chris Well seems to be a Christian writer who is seriously tuned-in to my wavelength (which may or may not be a good thing): some things that he writes about in Tribulation House, in a lot of ways they affirmed a number of things that I've thought about lately. I definitely feel blessed in that regard to have read his book.

Chris Well is the Elmore Leonard of Christian fiction. I don't know if Christian literature realized it had such a vacuum, but I am thrilled beyond belief to discover that Well has found it and filled it. This isn't Well's first book, nor will it be his last: Tribulation House ends with an opening for a sequel, and apparently this is Well's third book set in Kansas City featuring two police detectives - Griggs and Pasch - who investigate organized crime. I will definitely now seek out Forgiving Solomon Long and Deliver Us from Evelyn, along with his next volume when it comes out. I especially like the character of Charlie Pasch, who I identified with a lot so far as Christian struggles go. And in regards to Hank Barton, the candidate for public office in a race filled with over a dozen characters and who also has a wife named Lisa... well, let's just say that my jaw dropped more than a few times at reading about what he goes through (see my posts about running for school board if you want the full skinny).

The last really good novel that I remember reading was Michael Crichton's Next (you can also read my review of that here), and after that has been a six-month run of turkeys like Hannibal Rising and Empire (which was ESPECIALLY disappointing for me, given that it was an Orson Scott Card novel) and Kingdom Come (the Left Behind book by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, not the DC Comics graphic novel masterpiece). Tribulation House by Chris Well finally breaks the streak. I give the biggest props that I can muster to this book. Absolutely recommended!

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Marvel Universe: Maybe it's time for a reboot?

Geoff made this comment on the post about Captain America getting killed in the Marvel Comics...

"Marvel is a crazy universe. I can't believe the did this."

Me neither, Geoff. But it does lend some validity to something I've been thinking for awhile, about the Marvel Comics universe...

It's this "moving time" principle by which Marvel establishes that all of its comics are canon, even though most of them now contradict real-world stuff. I mean, it's like Tony Stark was originally wounded in Vietnam and that's what led him to become Iron Man. The thing of it is it's 2007 and Stark would now have to be, what in his sixties-seventies by now, if he started then? The Fantastic Four's fateful spacelaunch happened because America had to beat "the commies" - as Susan Storm put it - into space. See where the problem there is?

Well, the thing of it is, Captain America is firmly established as a product of World War II. So is Nick Fury. And with more and more years that pass by, well... it's really starting to stretch belief that these guys, even with the Super Soldier Serum and the Infinity Formula would still be fighting the good fight. There's a few other things mucking-up Marvel's moving timeline, but World War II is the big kahuna of them.

So, maybe it is good and proper that Captain America die now. And let him stay dead.

And maybe along with him, Marvel can do something drastic to make these stories last forever, instead of creeping into obsolescence.

So here's my proposal: with Captain America, and the events of the Civil War, let the Marvel Universe as we have come to know and love it... have it stop. Right here. In 2007. Make that the new immovable date in Marvel history. Everything that has happened in the Marvel Universe, let it be reckoned as happening between World War II and 2007.

And then, reboot... or perhaps "reboost" would be a better way to put it... the entire shebang.

No, I'm not talking about something like the Ultimates line (which put me off with that ridiculous "Ga Lak Tus" thing). I mean something more daring... and the more I think about it, more right.

Marvel should start every character in the Marvel Universe as they are now, and then, year by year, chronlogically age them as they would in real life, if their lives really did start at 2007 and proceeded forth.

Yes, I mean let's see them grow. Let's see them age. Let's see them meet all the challenges that come with those things. And then, one by one, let them die.

If Peter Parker were a real person and he was 15 years old in 1962 when Spider-Man first appeared, he would be sixty years old now. Personally, I think an older, wiser Spider-Man would be a wonderful thing to behold. Peter Parker is the paragon of everything that is good and noble about human character and determination. But for him to mean anything as a symbol for us... well, he has to be like us. With all the weaknesses and frailties that come with living a life bereft of things like whole-body cloning and whatnot.

Whether at the hands of one of his enemies, or from illness, Peter Parker should be given the chance to die like the rest of us. All of these characters should. Because that's what it's going to take if they're meant to persist as metaphors for everything that is good, and bad, about humanity.

If Marvel is wise, they will do this. Start a long-term strategy where the characters from this point on will age chronlogically alongside real time. And one by one, let them go into that long twilight.

But as they go, introduce new characters to take up the mantle after them.

Let some new kid pick up the shield and go forth in Captain America's name. Give Spider-Man a child who inherits Parker's abilities. Let there be a new Fantastic Four led by Franklin Richards... with his daddy Reed advising the team as "leader emeritus". As for Hulk: he might be one of the few characters who could persist for some time, what with his gamma-enhanced biology. The same with Wolverine. The fun thing about those guys is that they are going to live a long, long time: well, let's see how they adapt to the changing times and let them be a "cipher" through which we come to see the world around us in the way that only comics can do.

I don't think that this would mean the end of the "classic characters". Not by a longshot. Marvel can still publish stories set within the 1941-2007 timeframe, and this would give them a chance to re-interpret a lot of those pre-existing stories so that very messy thing called Marvel continuity could finally get the cleanup it's been screaming about for ages.

(Hey who knows: maybe in long-term Marvel canon, the "clone saga" really didn't happen after all.)

I really doubt the honchos at Marvel are going to follow through with something like this though. But that's how I would manage things if I were editor-in-chief over there. Use Captain America's death (assuming he stays dead) as an opportunity for some much-needed growth against rising graphic stagnancy.

If nothing else, think of this: the X-Men would die. And they would remain dead... forever!

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What the... CIVIL WAR is over and WHO won?!

Jeri Rowe's article a few days ago at the News & Record was the first time I'd heard from Marvel Comic's Civil War storyline in some time. I did a little follow-up reading and knowing what I know now - yes even considering the DUMBEST thing that Marvel Comics has EVER done - I must say that it sounds like I've missed quite a show, just going by how this ended...

In case you haven't heard, in Civil War #7 the whole thing about superhero registration - which Tony Stark aka Iron Man has led the charge for and which Captain America has led a resistance movement against - comes to a violent crescendo. And... Captain America surrenders! The Superhero Registration Act is now fully enforced. Cap is taken away in shackles and Stark is now the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. (if you know Marvel comics you know how big a deal this is). What's more, each of the fifty states is set to get its own team of superheroes as part of "the Initiative".

Whoa...

If Marvel doesn't "pansy out" and opts to play for keeps with this, it might be the most invigorating thing they have done to their comics line since... well, in a gosh-awful long time that's for sure! What I mean by that is, Iron Man better not decide that superhero registration was a bad thing after all and have Doctor Strange mystically mind-wipe the whole Earth from remembering it ever happened.

If Marvel decides to abide by what they've inflicted on their universe and not to play it safe, then I might forgive them for resurrecting Mar-Vell. I might even forgive them for the legendarily horrible "Clone Saga", too.

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