I’m having a bit of a hard time this week. The last few days almost all I’ve been doing is reading obsessively about the aftermath of the Colorado shooting. So, I’m going to start off with some thoughts on that and then some quick hits on more trivial things.
Since I’m sure everyone reading this is already aware of what happened, I’m going to recap what we currently know about the situation so that there is some context in the unlikely event that anyone wants to read this in the distant future. A man wearing body armor walked in to a crowded midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opened fire into the crowd with several guns that he brought with him. He was arrested by his car and then somehow the police became aware that his apartment was rigged with bombs. Luckily, those were defused without any further loss of life. In the theatre though, 12 people were killed and another 58 were injured.
There are still so many questions left to be answered. So far, it appears to be a motiveless crime. The accused killer was a PhD student and didn’t appear to have any radical causes or passions. That, to me anyway, is one of the things that makes this so scary. If he was obviously crazy, or a religious zealot then I could make some sense of this. It could be rationalized. So far, it’s just senseless.
For comparison sake, the Norwegian douche who shot up that island had an agenda. He was a right-wing loser who wanted to get rid of immigrants and stuff. Now that we know what he wanted, it’s easy to make sure he doesn’t get it. He hasn’t changed anything in Norway, except he’s going to spend a long time in jail. He is pathetic and has devalued his removed any legitimacy that his movement might have had.
The gentleman in Colorado, at least so far, seems to have just wanted to kill and cause chaos. If that’s the case, then his mission has already been accomplished. I hope I’m wrong. I hope he can be mocked and belittled as easily as the Norwegian. Personally, I think that’s the best way to deter these sorts of attacks. These guys want to be feared. They want to be thought of as monsters, and made into more than what they are. If that isn’t accomplished – if we can continue living our lives as we did before – potential copycats will only see the futility of their efforts.
All right, that’s all I want to say about that for now. Let’s move on to the trivial business of my day to day life.
I’ve developed a very real love for Captain Marvel. Not the Marvel version, or even The DC version. I’m all about the OG Fawcett Comics take on the character. A little boy who can turn into a big super-man. DC has the rights to all of those stories, and to the character as he currently stands, and I hate what they are doing in both instances. The original stories have only been reprinted, as far as I know, in super expensive and out of print hardcover archive editions. I would love to read those stories, but I can’t get my hands on them. Why hold them back? What do they get by not having those out available for purchase? In the present, they are making the character dark and gritty. This is a guy with a talking tiger sidekick. Put Grant Morrison on him and let’s see what craziness he can come up with a la All Star Superman!
I guess that’s it for this week. A bit of my trivial, pop-culture, grumbly escapism as an antidote for the horrors of reality. See you next week when there will, hopefully, be more grumbles than horrors.
Graham Becksted is still just Graham Becksted. He is the author of Graham’s Grumbles the second blog by that name that is listed in Google results when you search for Graham’s Grumbles. If you would like to be his 69th follower (thank you, bots), he can be followed on Twitter @GrahamBecksted.
