“I am not a pacifist, I like throwing bricks. And when the cops have caught me and I’ve taken a few licks I always feel lucky if I get a bloody nose, because I feel so militant and everybody knows by the time the riot is all through, I’m a better anarchist than you.” From I’m a Better Anarchist Than You, written by David Rovics.
When I was a small child, I was taken to our family dentist for routine check-ups and, of course, because my parents liked the look of naked fear on my face when I would hear the dentist’s drill screaming through the waiting room wall. Eventually, I would stagger out of the office in discomfort. Lucky for me, my dentist had a cardboard box full of “old” comics (well, they certainly are old today) and it contained some great stuff. I was allowed to take home one comic book. Only one.
I fiddled through the box several times, and each time I was most curious about Superman #100. Major anniversary issues were few and far between back then, but both comics fans and normal humans alike tend to be attracted to such stuff.
As you can see from the art, Superman #100 — published in mid-1955 — that cover prominently featured four similarly laudable comics, at least numerically. But inside…
… there was nothing special at all. Nothing. Some ordinary Superman stories, a couple drawn by their main art team of Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye and one by Al Plastino. Normal stories that were, even at that time, rather boring.
Pun not intended.
I probably was six or seven when I copped this prize, but I was confounded when I read it. “This is a 100th issue? It’s no big deal.” DC published Batman #100 the following spring, and it was so pathetically ordinary Superman #100 felt like it was the best anniversary issue of all time. Batman #100 had six “iconic” covers (I loathe that incredibly overused word) seemingly chosen at random: #1, #23, #25, #47, #48, and #61. There were some truly great Batman covers in the first 99 issues, but DC neatly avoided them.
Inside, Batman #100 featured three lackluster stories by Shelly Moldoff and Charlie Paris, promoting the question “if these stories are representative of Batman, then why did the title last so long?”
Anniversaries can be rather sad.
A decade later, Mad Magazine reached its 100th issue and right there on the cover Alfred E. Neuman hit the target squarely in the center. The copy reads “Mad Proudly Celebrates Its 100th Issue,” followed by the standard headshot of Alfred replying “Big deal.”
Alfred speaks truth to power. Anniversaries should be noted and appreciated. They make us feel like we accomplished something important, even though that line in the sand is meaningless to those who do not care.
By way of example, I cite the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, being held this week on the Fourth of July. We had an “official” celebration with music hosted by the terminally insane Donnie Trump, but the best they could find was a artificial plastic version of Milli Vanilli, and even they cancelled, forcing the orange Master of His Universe to shitcan his celebration. There probably will be fireworks; check and see if Fox News and the president are still talking to one another. Either way, the national anthem will be screeched out by Kash Patel’s squeeze, the one the tax payers pay taxes to support.
This, like those anniversary issues of Superman and Batman, is just sad. We have fought hard to maintain the principles and glory upon which our nation was founded, and 77,302,580 bona fide Americans voted to screw all of that up 20 months ago. In a democratic nation, you can vote yourself into a dictatorship. Just ask Germany.
There are real concerts and real celebrations all over the country. If you think some of them are too political, blame Trump and his legion of money-grubbing assholes.
On the Fourth of July, I will be celebrating the principles postulated in our revolutionary endeavors and not the treasonous, anti-American attitudes so forcefully expressed by Trump and his leaden acolytes.
