Recommended Bathroom Reading

It must be pretty gratifying to take a lame-@$$ character from the 80s and make him cool. Kudos to Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker (and David Aja whose cover art makes me wonder what Jae Lee is getting into these days). I breezed through "The Last Iron Fist Story" graphic novel and will probably get caught up with the current storyline when I get a chance. It's a good read (not better than Y, sorry) and might actually get me going to the comic book store on a regular basis again. Maybe I'll pick up some issues of Black Panther while I'm at it (the Christopher Priest issues anyway).

So Daniel Rand is the current in a long line of Iron Fists whose sole purpose is to, uh, do wicked Kung-Fu on all would-be enemies of their mystical homeland, K'un L'un. Okay, I can work with that. The only thing I remember of the original Iron Fist comic is him punching through the hood of a car, because his fist was, you know, as tough as iron. Fraction and Brubaker expand extensively on what an Iron Fist can actually do. Now we've got hypnosis, chi-powered weaponry, invulnerability and who knows what else. Okay, I'm on board.

My only gripe is the whole billionaire/vigilante angle. I don't know if that was in the original, but don't we have enough of those? Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, Warren Worthington, Richie Rich...I guess it's about having all that free time.

Speaking of the Eighties, as I'm writing this, I'm watching Friday the 13th Part VI and the movie blows but has two highlights. First, there's a shot of a bunch of little campers in their bunks sleeping and one kid who looks about eight has Sartre's No Exit resting on his chest. Second, it has an awesome theme song in the credits by Alice Cooper called "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)". Sample lyrics:

You're with your baby
And you're parked alone
On a summer night
You're deep in love
But you're deeper in the woods
You think you're doin' alright

Did you hear that voice
Did you see that face
Or was it just a dream
This can't be real
That only happens, babe
On the movie screen

Oh, but he's back
He's the man behind the mask
And he's out of control
He's back
The man behind the mask
And he crawled out of his hole

You're swimmin' with your girl
Out on lovers' lake
And the wind blows cold
It chills your bones
But you're still on the lake
That's a bad mistake

But the moon was full
And you had a chance
To be all alone
But you're not alone
This is your last dance
And your last romance

Wow...much like our beloved hockey-masked walking abattoir, the Eighties will never die.