many a tear has to fall

I was walking home from the 7-11 in Woburn Center when the Patriots won Superbowl XXXVI, I couldn't bring myself to watch the game; memories of 1986 and 1997 were still fresh in my mind. After Adam Vinatieri sealed the Pats' win with a field goal in the last seconds of the final quarter, a massive triumphant roar rose from the row of houses along Main Street. It was the sound of bucking the odds and accomplishing the impossible, louder than an oncoming Red Line train even from my sidewalk vantage point.

It's a good memory, and why I can't fault Giants fans for savoring that same feeling after last night, especially when their team gave it their all...while the Pats, well, I have no fucking clue what the Pats were thinking on the field yesterday. It seemed as if there was some kind of mass amnesia affecting the team, causing them to somehow forget the second half of the season -- where the rest of the NFL copped on to the Pats formula for lopsided wins, thus leading to a late-season war of adaptive tactics -- and place their faith in historic destiny. Destiny, sadly, is a poor substitute for an intelligent offensive strategy, even more so when faced with an exceptionally determined defense.

So the Patriots had a (multiple) record-breaking season, and the Giants pulled off an epic upset victory. Such are the vagaries of sport, and apart from some minor aches stemming from bruised regional pride, it ultimately means very little in the grand scheme of things where my life is concerned. I've still got a pile of work in my inbox, I've still got to decide between two eminently unpalatable choices in tomorrow's Democratic presidential primary, and the CD player in Super Lumina is still broken.

(Boston area FM radio is utter crap, by the way. The "oldies" station, traditionally a safe bet, has taken to playing Billy Joel songs in recent years. My Zune car adapter can't arrive soon enough.)

Granted, I'd probably feel differently if I had money riding on the outcome (an aversion to gambling is the only bit of vestigal Protestantism that has stuck with me over the years) or was one of those curious sorts whose sense of self-worth is enmeshed with the fortunes of the local team (Pal Ken has an interesting piece on that phenomenon up on his site today).

Or, you know, if it had been the Red Sox losing to a New York team. My graciousness does have its limits.

Tommy Edwards - It's All in the Game (from The Complete Hits of Tommy Edwards, 1995) - One of the songs you will NOT hear on the the local oldies station, as it has dropped its catalogue of 50's music from its programming list in favor of disco and easy listening material from the 1970's and early 1980's. (Billy Fucking Joel, for Sheol's sake. "Old" does not equal "oldies," people.)

A side note: The melody of "It's All in the Game" was composed in 1911 by future vice-president Charles Dawes. The instrumental version, titled "Melody in A Major," made the swing orchestra rounds before lyrics were added to the piece in the early 1950's. Thus was an oft-covered pop standard born.

who do you think you are

Mikester's post on a book of pre-Crisis Superman trivia got me to thinking about the awesomeness that is Steve Lombard. A sportscaster and co-worker of Clark Kent's at WGBS-TV, Lombard was the Superman mythos' answer to "Flash" Thompson, an obnoxious jock adversary-slash-rival whose purpose in life is to make life difficult for the hero's civilian identity, thus providing a more readily reader-identifiable conflict than rampaging super-gorillas or old men dressed as carrion birds could.

I'd like to see Luthor try and get away with something like that. (Also, what's up with the perspective in that panel?)
The world was introduced to Steve "The Slinger" Lombard in the pages of Superman v1 #264 (June 1973; story by Cary Bates with art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson), where Lombard, then the star quarterback of the Metropolis Meteors, struts his stuff before the big game...

The Joe Namath/Austin Powers look never fails to wow the sexy ladies.
Lombard's deep thoughts are interrupted by a falling baby -- an astoundingly common occurrence in Metropolis, where the citizens have chosen to put their faith in Kryptonian intervention over child-proofed windows -- and he rushes to make the interception. He succeeds in saving the child, but alas...

I suppose they'll blame this on Bill Belichick, too...
Lombard passes out from the pain, and upon awakening discovers he has been taken to the laboratory of one of the many misguidedly overeager scientists that populated (73% of the total residents, according to the 1970 city census) Metropolis in those wild and woolly days. The scientist heals Lombard's bum knees with a highly experimental device that channels the sun's UV radiation. (No mention is made of what happened to the baby, but I'm sure the kid did just fine after being abandoned on a street corner.)

Unbeknownst to the doctor and patient, however, high levels of sunspot activity have led to an unusual side-effect -- the creation of an energy doppelganger of Lombard, which acting under the QB's subconscious commands, takes Lombard's place on the gridiron and single-handedly wins the title for the Meteors.

Lois Lane and Clark Kent are given job of conducting the post-game interview with Lombard, who is willing to take the credit for his doppelganger's victory. (Hey, there's nothing in the NFL bylaws forbidding substitutions by mentally controlled sunspot-generated duplicates.) After taking a shine to Lois, Lombard engages in some roughhousing with Clark so as to prove his status as Alpha Male and worthiness as a potential mate. Clark, on the other hand, does his best not to give into the impulse to backhand Lombard's vertebrae into trans-Saturnian orbit.

Isn't traditional masculinity grand?
Of course, nothing is ever cut and dried when dealing with physical manifestations of the Id, and while Lombard continues to work his overcompensating mojo on Lois, his other half rampages through the city. The creature's solar-based physiology plays havoc with Superman's own sun-powered abilities, leading to a standoff where the Man of Tomorrow has no choice but to turn to his own repressed feelings of rage in order to gain the edge.

If I were a psychologist, I'd be more than a little concerned about how Superman refers to his alter ego as a separate entity here.
Fortunately for all concerned, the creature is highly susceptible to commands shouted at it when clutched by the ankles, and flies off to harmlessly dissipate in the sun's chromosphere.

Get back, Johnny Unitas! Your mother's waiting for you!
His secret exposed, Lombard decides to do the right thing, and confess his duplicity (or is that "duplicasicity") on national television. Exposed, disgraced, and barred from his chosen profession, there's only one option left for Lombard...

For those generations born after the concept became extinct, this is what "taking responsibility for one's actions" looked like.

...a job in broadcast journalism.

Forget graphic violence and lewd content, fanboys. I got your "realism in comics" right here.
Thus began an illustrious decade-long career of bugging the shit out of Clark Kent, a career which was tragically cut short by the post-Crisis revamp of the Superman mythos. The back to basics approach of John Byrne's Man of Steel had no place for an obnoxious jock foil, and even as decades passed and subsequent creators reintroduced much of Superman's deleted backstory, their fixation tended to be upon nonsensical Silver Age Kryptonian trivia and the convoluted relationship between Lex Luthor and Last Son of Krypton rather than reestablishing Steve Lombard's presence in the franchise....

Steve likes to watch.
...until Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely saw fit to rectify that error in the pages of All-Star Superman with the glorious introduction of Ultimate "All-Star" Steve Lombard. Sporting some seriously broad shoulders, a Jheri-curl mullet, and a wardrobe inspired by the oiliest of 70's lounge lizards, Ultimate "All-Star" Steve Lombard, in light of the rationale behind the series, could be seen to represent the purest, most platonically ideal incarnation of what a Steve Lombard ought to be. Long may he reign.

Jean Knight - Mr. Big Stuff (from Mr. Big Stuff, 1971) - Proving once again that it's not the size that matters, but rather the technique.

The Freeze - Go Team Go (from Land of the Lost, 1984) - Boston hardcore's finest? I'd say "yes." (The band actually hailed from Cape Cod, which somehow makes them even cooler.)