Greg Berlanti, the DC TV Universe and Warner Brothers’ Critical Misunderstanding of their Intellectual Property, Part 2: How Titans Bloodied Up

Part 1 is here.

One of DC’s greatest strengths is also its greatest weakness in a twenty-first century media-saturated America. The biggest of the big DC heroes—Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman—are routinely compared with and likened to mythological gods and heroes. It’s been the subject of no telling how many master’s theses, stacks of pop culture non-fiction publishing, and long boxes full of comics, all written by the flavor of the month, eager to dazzle us all with “their take” on fill-in-the-blank character that’s been around for fifty or more years.

DC even floated a separate line for these “imaginary stories,” called “Elseworlds,” which has been and continues to be extremely popular. After all, myths are made to be interpreted and re-interpreted, right? So, the idea of setting Batman in, say, 19^th Century London fighting Jack the Ripper (Gotham by Gaslight) sounds frankly awesome, doesn’t it? And in The Nail, the Justice League are outlaws in a topsy-turvy world, made very different when the rocket ship discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent ends up in a another family's back yard (with artwork by Alan Davis and Paul Neary, easily two of the best working comic book artists to this day). Sounds cool, right? Oh, and let’s not forget the most famous Elseworlds of all—the one that arguably spawned the need for an Elseworlds bullet in the first place—Batman: The Dark Knight, by Frank Miller.

How can you not love that?

Greg Berlanti, the DC TV Universe and Warner Brothers’ Critical Misunderstanding of their Intellectual Property, Part 1

As a lifelong comic book reader, I love me some Doom Patrol, both the silver age wackiness and the Grant Morrison drug-fueled fever dreaminess. So when I saw that the DC Universe app was going to have its own Doom Patrol show, I broke down and sprang for a subscription.

There’s not much else on the App right now, but their schedule for shows premiering in 2019 is ambitious to say the least. Aside from watching Doom Patrol, the thing I was most excited about was the old Spirit pilot starring Sam Jones as Denny Colt. I hadn’t seen it since 1987 and I’m looking forward to revisiting it. I made the decision to wait, not immediately watch it, because I might need a palate cleanser.

Turns out, it was a good call. Seeing that Doom Patrol was going to be a weekly show, and only two episodes were online, I figured I’d be more frustrated than gratified. With nothing left to lose, I decided to try out Titans. 

Health update: Here We Go Again...

In all of the excitement about my harrowing incident, I forgot to mention that Cathy started chemotherapy again yesterday.

This was expected, part of the overall treatment plan: Chemo, Surgery, and more Chemo. We knew this was coming, and we knew it would be part of the overall plan. Cathy, bless her heart, is weathering it as best as she can. I am holding up less well. But we are united in our fervent desire for this to be over and done with so we can get on with being real people again.

Cathy has a minimum of three cycles of chemotherapy, which is three weeks' worth of treatments at a time. After three cycles, they will take a ct scan and maybe even a biopsy to see how everything is clearing up. If she's not clear, she gets another cycle, up to a maximum of six cycles. If she is clear, then we go into defensive mode, wherein we have a check-up every three months to see how the markers look. That will last up to five years before they pronounce her as "in remission."

Mind you, those are maximums and worst case scenarios. Given that she has responded very well to the chemo drugs she is on, this could be over sooner. We are hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. If this whole thing has taught us anything, it's taught us that.

The worst of the symptoms for Cathy is the neropathy. Her feet have gone partially numb at the soles and toes and when it flares up, it makes walking very hard for her. This puts the kibosh on the exercise they say she needs to have in order to keep up her strength. She did some yoga at the start of her chemo and I suspect she'll take it up again.

My infusions continue apace. I've got three more weeks of them, and I'm already getting grumpy about the daily visit to the hospital. Not their fault, by the way; they've been nothing but pleasant. I just hate that I have to do it.

I will be done in April, hopefully with all of it. Cathy's got a little farther to go, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Cathy's GoFundMe page has officially become our communal GoFundMe page. I'm hate asking, especially since so many of you have given so generously, but for those of you that haven't and can spare just $10, it would mean the world to both of us. At this rate, I'm sending the wedding comic pdf out to everyone who gives anything. Just follow this link. Thank you.

The Spiritual Gift of Sarcasm

All was not gloom and doom at the hospital.

Yeah, okay, I'm not buying it, either. For most of the stay, I vacillated back and forth between various states of fear and boredom. That's a screwed up Venn Diagram, let me tell you. Every single doctor who visited me had a different diagnosis and worse, a suspected prognosis. It was frustrating, to say the least. One doctor comes in and says, "We don't know what you have, or how long you're going to be here." The next day, the surgeon comes in and says, "This wound site looks fine. I don't think you'll need a PICC line or a port. You may be able to go home today." Then the infectious disease specialist visits the day after and says, "You will need constant care for a minimum of four weeks." This multiple choice kind of diagnosis always happened before noon, insuring that I'd have the rest of the day to ponder every decision that may have led to my groin exploding in a fountain of goo.

On the other hand, I did have a captive audience by way of the nurses. None of them had heard any of my scrotal edema jokes, so I got a tight five minute set out of every new nurse that came to visit. After a while, they were just sending new nurses in from other floors. That kept me busy for about two days. After that, I started eyeing the window for a quick exit.

Six Days Closer to Death

Well. That was fun.


For those of you just joining us from another station, I've been recovering from a surgical procedure I had at the end of last year, literally on the 31st of December. It involved removing part of my lower abdominal pannus, which is that thing that hangs down over your belt. In my case, it had developed into panniculitis, which is when the fatty tissue hardens and in my case, blocked my lymph nodes, was pushing my legs apart, had gotten infected, etc. A real mess. And if I was to get healthy, as is my continued intention, it had to go first, so that I could, you know, walk more than ten yards without feeling like my hips were displacing.

The panniculitis got cut off  (in a panniculectomy) and the bottom of my abdomen was stitched back to my stomach and, well, aside from some scrotal edema (about which you probably know way too much), I was more or less okay. Turned out, it was less. A lot less.