Article #30
Anarky
asks “Who’s Your Daddy?”
(Or, the Father’s
Day/Batman: The Dark Knight Entry)
Well,
originally this entry was meant for Father’s Day, but extenuating circumstances
have pushed the site update way back.
Still, it seems appropriate that this article falls between June’s
Father’s Day and July 18ths The Dark Knight release. Why will become pretty obvious – all you
sharp cookies out there will figure it out before you even finish reading this.
Anyway,
what we’re dealing with this time is the short lived series entitled Anarky, by
DC, published in the 90s. Anarky, as
many of you may not remember, and you younger readers just don’t know, is,
well, a teenage super-genius anarchist created by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle
back when they were both working on Batman and Detective Comics. Anarky, aka Lonnic Machin, was in the mold of
V from V for Vendetta, and had numerous run-ins with the caped crusader, as
well as his own mini-series and short-lived regular series in 1999. To be honest, I can’t think of many other
appearances after the series was cancelled in 1999 with issue #8. Odd.
Ah yes,
issue #8. Seems Anarky wanted to
discover who his real parents were (guess he was adopted, who knew?). In this fashion, he hunts down his real mom,
who isn’t quite as sharp as she used to be…
Here’s the payoff people!
Guess you can
figure out where I was headed with this article. For those of you new to the site, my last
entry dealt with Mother’s Day and a negligent mom – somehow I think today’s
entry would be worse, don’t you? Hang on
though, there’s more…
Well, if you found out that your
dad could be a jailbird, what would the next step be? Request a blood test from Miss Mitchell to
confirm she really is your mom? Look up
data records trying to corroborate Miss Mitchell’s story? Ask for help from the tights-wearing
super-community? Or, break into prison
to talk to your potentially crazy and incoherent daddy? Well, this being a comic book, what option do
you think our resident genius took?
Give yourself a pat on the back
for choosing “break into prison”. And
about the incoherent part, notice how many straight answers Anarky gets out of
Joker – that would be zero. Really, that
guy’s a wealth of information.
It’s also kind of eerie how that
number 9 is just floating next to Joker.
Reminds me of the White album - creepy.
So, what does a proud poppa do
when he just discovers a long lost son he already claims he knows nothing
about? Why introduce him to his friends
and neighbors of course!
So, the escape’s going fine and
dandy until Anarky decides that, hey, he’s really not that bad a kid, he’s just
come from a (really) broken home. That’s
when he manages to take out his dad’s pals – and his dad as well. Hurrah!
See, although a vegetarian,
Anarky still retains enough muscle protein to defeat Killer Croc, the
Ventriloquist, Two-Face and the Joker – and he’s able to win the long distance
shotgun toss to boot! Guess that proves
my point that you don’t need to eat meat to lead a full and active life and…
uh… what was I talking about again?
Oh yeah. Well, Joker and his gang are caught, but not
after he shoots his son point-blank in the chest. But our genius was wearing body armor, so
it’s alright. Sort of like getting a
good paddling while sporting a hardcover book over your butt. You’ll feel all the emotional sting of your
dad’s reprimand, but none of the physical pain.
So Lonnie escapes and has a
brief chat with his supercomputer buddy…
And
fade to black. Again, the odd thing here
is that Lonnie is supposed to be very, very smart – yet he’s not bright enough
to take a bit of Joker’s blood (he was gushing it from his mouth in an earlier
panel) and do a simple DNA test to see if, indeed, he’s the son of the
beast. In fact, Joker’s certified
insane, so why believe anything he says in the first place? This whole issue seemed odd from the word go,
but I guess it can explain why Anarky hasn’t been seen much lately. He’s probably hunting down the source of
inner peace.
There
is one very interesting concept this story brings up. What do super-criminals do in their spare
times? They must have similar urges in
some respects as the rest of us. So
imagine, if you will, Joker roaming the countryside like a modern day Johnny
Appleseed, planting seed where he may.
Imagine a world full of Joker-spawn growing up and becoming doctors,
lawyers, accountants and what have you – all of them happy and care free until
one day they snap!
Sounds
a bit like reality. Incidently, if any
of you want to hunt down a copy of this beauty, here’s the cover…
Until
next time, this is Killer Croc’s boy signing off…