Choice dialogue from Monday night's The Big Bang Theory:Penny - “Do you think my nephew would like this (comic book)?”
Sheldon - “Perfect. He just has to be familiar with Infinite Crisis, 52, Countdown, Final Crisis and the re-emergence of the multiverse.”
Penny - “What’s the Multiverse?”
Sheldon - ….exactly.
First of all, with no small shame, I admit that I caught and understood every single Batman comic book reference on last night's show. And yes, any idiot who thinks that back-from-the-dead Jason Todd* should become Batman following the (temporary/stupid) death of Bruce Wayne deserves to not score with Penny.
I'm also pretty sure that the comic book store that the gang visited contained not a single Marvel comic book. It was packed with DC comics trade paperbacks and seemingly nothing but DC product. Of course, CBS made up for it with an episode of How I Met Your Mother that seemingly had posters of X-Men Origins: Wolverine plastered in the background of every exterior shot (to say nothing of a quick sight gag involving plastic Wolverine claws).No real point to this post. The Big Bang Theory has quickly become my wife's favorite show and my second favorite sitcom behind Scrubs, and I just felt like writing about it.
Scott Mendelson
* - As some of you know, Jason Todd was the second Robin, who was murdered by The Joker in 1989, as a result of a telephone poll that let readers decide whether the divisive character would survive an explosion. He inexplicably came back from the dead a few years ago, apparently as a result of the Pre-Crisis Superboy punching at at an interstellar wall a bunch of times (and they say that comics are unfairly ghettoized as a childrens' medium).Anyway, the original idea was for Dick Grayson (Robin #1) to perish in the major DC event of that year, Infinite Crisis. Thus a reanimated Jason Todd would take his place as Nightwing, Grayson's current superhero alias. Alas, the character of Superboy became tangled in a lawsuit involving DC Comics and the heirs of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster over character rights and residuals. Thus, in a completely unrelated coincidence, Dick Grayson was spared and Superboy instead perished in the sixth issue of Infinite Crisis. So now the DC universe was left with two former Robins, one who was supposed to be long dead and another who was supposed to be newly deceased. Strained retconning and terrible storytelling ensued.
I'm sorry for the digression, I just love telling that story for the same reason I love telling the story of New Coke.
