lovelockean combat

Years before the Odinson mixed it up with Ego the Living Planet or the Autobots struggled against Unicron's Orsonwellesian might, the Big Red Cheese found himself going mano-a-planeto with a sentient planetary body which may be familiar to most of you...


"Captain Marvel Battles the World" (from Captain Marvel Adventures #148, September 1953; by Otto Binder & C.C. Beck) is narrated by Earth itself. (For some reason I imagine Earth sounding just like Sterling Holloway.) After a quick introduction guaranteed to outrage the creationist crowd...

Teach the controversy!
...the third planet from the sun outlines its grievances with the rapacious parasites that infest its crust:

YEAH!
In retaliation against those who have ravaged and plundered and ripped it and bit it, stuck it with knives, et cetera, et cetera, the Earth plays some meteorological hardball...

President McCain's environmental policy in action.
Forget carbon emissions and CFCs, the real "inconvenient truth" is that the Earth hates the human race...which is why it is our solemn duty to beat the planet into submission for the sake of corporate profits humanity.

Earth's global warming gambit is foiled by Captain Marvel, who evaporates an ice meteor in the upper atmosphere in order to restore Earth's cloud cover (while worsening the greenhouse effect, providing a catalyst for massive tropical storms, and causing massive coastal flooding. Eh, it happens).

Not the type of heavenly body to be put off by a minor setback, Earth attempts to shatter the cities and works of man by slamming a couple of glaciers together with tremedous force, sending destructive shockwaves across the face of the globe. This plan also fails due to Marvel's intervention, which takes the form of a giant felt suppository crammed up the Earth's south pole.

Captain Marvel: Glacial Proctologist
This indignity only serves to further fan the flames of Earth's anger, and in its rage unleash a cataclysm on a continental scale of improbability...

The elation upon finishing the Panama Canal was short-lived.
...which might have worked, except for the fact that wild implausibility is the coin of Marvel's realm and the basis for all transactions conducted therein. Unprecedented devastation unleashed by a rogue continent set adrift? Big deal. It's nothing that can't be fixed with some glue and a little elbow grease...

"It's a shame about the Falklands being obliterated, but no one but the Brits, Argentines, and some puffins gave a rat's ass about them, anyhow."
Realizing that half-measures will not do when faced with the World's Mightiest Mortal, Earth decides to pull out all the stops and simultaneously unleash the entire gamut of global catastrophe in order to put an end to its human infestation problem. Before the fireworks can commence, however, a renegade comet crashes the festivities and threatens to pulverize the poor Earth.

Fortunately for the hapless planet, Marvel isn't the type of guy to hold a grudge, and applies a little Atomic Age know-how (long on infatuation, short on realizing the consequences) to save the day...

Anti-nuke activists are just a bunch of killer comet-loving hippies.
The comet is destroyed (with only a 10,000% increase in global cancer rates following Earth's passage through the plutonium-laced debris cloud; Marvel is a strict utilitarian), and a chastened Earth is treated to a sanctimonious lecture by the Moon, who, it should be pointed out, lobbied hard for restricted community status after the Apollo 11 landing. "I do think humans are cute; I just think they should be cute somewhere else."

"Besides, what do they have -- another century or two left before the species offs itself? I can wait it out."
1919 - Earth Song (from a 1984 EP; collected on The Complete Collection, 2001) - Crunchy goth fare reminiscent of Killing Joke's punkier stuff. Comrade Highlander posted a rip of the entire EP a few months back, and while the hard copy of the collection is currently out of stock, the mp3 version can be downloaded from either Amazon or eMusic.

Blue Cheer - Ecological Blues (from Oh! Pleasant Hope, 1971) - Blue Cheer's heavy-duty blues-rock sound (and their cover of "Summertime Blues" on 1968's Vincebus Eruptum LP in particular) are frequently cited as one of the seminal influences on the heavy metal genre. While it's a valid observation, it does overstate things (as most proto-genre assertions tend to do) and overlooks the bizarro-psych side of the band as represented by this head-scratcher of a musical timepiece.

The Gun Club - Eskimo Blue Day (from Pastoral Hide and Seek, 1990) - ...and occupying the genre shadowlands between today's offerings from 1919 and Blue Cheer comes this swamp-punk-blues cover of one of Jefferson Airplane's better efforts (as opposed to the two tracks by the band that get heavily played on classic rock and oldies format radio).

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.