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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Justice Society of America #7 (1993)

The fantasy: old white men are the heroes. The reality: old white men are the villains.

A Facebook memory from my friend Doom Bunny in 2012 came up today that made me cry. Not sobbing or anything! It just made me feel loved and noticed and, sure, proud of my past self. I'm not good at earnestness so please don't mock me or I'll retreat back into the safety of cynicism and sarcasm!

Doom Bunny might have taken the advice a bit too far.

One of the defining moments in my life that helped shape me into a better, more empathetic person was when I killed a massive wolf spider that had gotten into my room and was headed for my gerbil's cage. I caught it in a huge jar to take outside. The spider was so massive you could hear its fangs clink on the side of the jar. I went to go release it outside and was struck by a sudden terror that it would come back. Not the kind of terror that involves life and death decisions. More like the kind of terror that is just a rush of creepiness and discomfort at the prospect of the spider coming back and crawling on my while I slept. So, you know, not terror. But I treated the uncomfortable feeling like terror and decided I should probably kill the spider. Now, if it had been a small spider, I, like millions of people every day, would have probably crushed it without a thought and gone on with my day. But this spider was massive, probably the size of my palm. It wouldn't be a simple swat and done procedure. I tried filling the jar with some kind of cleaner in the hopes of poisoning it but that didn't work. So then I took a stick or something and began smashing it. It didn't die easily. It struggled and it put up a fight and it took multiple attempts to really smash it while in the jar. And even before I had delivered the killing blow, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. This spider didn't deserve this death. This wasn't a struggle to live. This wasn't part of nature. This spider was struggling against the pettiness of one human individual. The spider's only offense: giving me gooseflesh. But once I'd maimed the spider, I had to finish the onerous job. I cried afterward. I sobbed. I mourned this wretched beast. And maybe that's why Doom Bunny's memory made me cry. But I didn't just kill the spider that day. I killed a part of me. Luckily, it was a part of me that was useless and selfish and a thing I was well rid of. Maybe, as a rational justification to make a bleak act I participated in seem more uplifting, I can take solace in the idea that the spider, in death, was able to rise above its natural station. It was the Jesus Christ of spiders, dying so that so many more spiders could live. Who knows how many hundreds or thousands of spiders survived because of this one? And not only that, it was this sentiment (and seeing a documentary on Japanese "fishing" of dolphins) which turned me into a vegetarian. So the spider not only saved many spiders but many other (arguably higher-tier! Is that bad to suggest?!) creatures. Now, I'm not a vegetarian anymore. I was for about ten years and then got, well, a bit lazy and maybe a little less passionate. I got older and dumber. But I'm not what you'd call a meat-eater! I prefer lentils over steak (which is an easy comment to make because I can't even remember the last time I ate steak. I never really cared for it before I went veggie. The main reason I liked steak as a kid was the steak fries soaked in a little bit of steak juice (you know, blood?)). When I eat meat now, it's usually chicken or turkey. Not great, I know. I probably need to get out there and murder a turkey so I can be reminded how fucking terrible it is to kill something with your own hands. But that's part of it, you know? I'm not against eating meat. But we're going about it all wrong. It's too easy and too harmful. We should probably develop a system where people can only buy live animals and must do the killing and butchering themselves. Of course then only sadists will have the option of a delicious chorizo omelette at breakfast! The point is, yeah, I still eat meat. But I also don't rationalize my eating of it! I'm wrong in doing so. It's better for the world if humans, who have a choice in the matter being sentient and rational beings, would choose to stop. I try not to eat it much but that's just a little bit of a little thing and it doesn't make me "less wrong." I'm still just wrong. And I'm tired. And I'm old enough to hope the younger generations do better while I just get the fuck out of the way. Who are all these old people fighting change?! Why do they need to get so worked up about a world they're not going to be part of for much longer?! Let it go already! Especially old people with loads of money. I don't get how they still need to be angry about everything! You're set, you dolt! If you don't want to participate, go live in your vacation house and don't participate. But certainly don't actively try to hamper change! Christ, you're just obstinate dumb ass fools! Did I rant enough against old rich guys to distract from the fact that I had some turkey tacos for lunch? I hope so! Anyway, I guess the rant about old people hurting the world is a good enough segue back into this comic book about old people hurting the world. Not that the JSA is actively hurting the world! But their old man foes certainly are! Plus, I understand if you're old and powerful and rich and immortal, how you'd continue to fight change. But then again, if you're immortal and you've seen how you can never fight change, generation after generation, perhaps by continuing to fight against change, you're just showing how stupid you are? The JSA might not be actively hurting the world but it's still troubling that they think they need to be an active part of it. Just retire already and let the young heroes take over! Maybe, as Alan and Jay wanted at the beginning, stay accessible as mentors. But don't be dicks trying to push your old timey beliefs onto the young heroes' new and modern attitudes! Especially the ones that are sex positive and enjoy showing a lot of skin in their choice of costumes. Hooray for change!

Enough with being earnest! Let's now pretend her dad's advice was sexual in nature!

Jesse wanders into a part of the island that's off limits and after being attacked by guards trying to detain her for trespassing, she decides she now has a right to trespass. That's how law works, right? If I'm falsely accused of murder, I get to do one free murder! Ted Grant has been taken into custody by the Bahdnesian government because he interrupted a boxing match and beat the crap out of one of the fighters. Just because somebody is in a ring boxing doesn't mean anybody can enter the ring and start punching them. That's assault and I'm all for Ted Grant being arrested. Asshole thinks he can do whatever he wants just because he thinks of himself as a hero. Well, no more, old white man! There are consequences to your actions now!

The Atom doesn't think it's wrong to interfere in another country's arrest of a foreign national assaulting one of their own. No, what would be wrong is exposing the Justice Society of America's plans to infiltrate and spy on this nation.

The Atom rushes off to tell Alan and Jay about Ted being kidnapped. They heard Ted was injured and taken off for treatment which is a lie. Al tells them the truth but tries to make it sound like it was unjust. "Ted walloped some creep in the boxing ring and the guards dragged him away." Yeah. Of course they did! Ted wasn't supposed to be in the ring! IT WAS FUCKING ASSAULT! By the end, when we learn that the nation's king or manager or president, St. Germaine, is some villainous creep, all of the Justice Society's actions will be justified. But I want to point out that they have no justification for anything but observing right now! It's like that time in Star Trek: The Next Generation when one of the Captains of a Federation starship begins blowing up Cardassian science stations and supply vessels. They might have been up to no good but there was no proof! Picard does the right thing, in the end, by arresting the captain. Sure, the asshole captain was almost certainly right about the Cardassians being up to no good. But there was no proof! You can't just blow Cardassians up or disappear people from the streets of Portland simply because you suspect them of being up to no good. Fucking assholes. Jesse Quick runs into Doctor Mid-Nite who has found the Bahdnesians and a whole lot of other islanders as well. They're locked in cages underground because they're too sick or infirm to work in the tourist trap topside. So I guess the Justice Society of America has a right to start tearing this nation down. I guess. They're just lucky their instincts were so dead on or else Ted Grant's temper would have started an international incident with a happy-go-lucky nation. Doctor Mid-Nite has a plan to free the people from their cages.

It's not like she can, you know, run at super speed to do the same thing that distracting them with her tits did.

If The Flash had run into Doctor Mid-Nite, would the plan have been for Jay to strut out from the dark with his balls hanging out? Although it was a terrible and unnecessary plan, it might be one of my favorite bits because now I know Liberty Belle loved flashing her tits for justice. Johnny Thunder goes on a day trip to the place he first got his Thunderbolt genie. He discovers that after he left the island with their genie, the entire place fell apart. See, now that's appropriating a culture! Being white and selling burritos out of a burrito cart is just called having a job. The rest of the Justice Society just hangs out until they can hear from Doctor Mid-Nite. That doesn't happen until he interrupts St. Germain's speech about how great and beautiful and the best his island nation of Bahdnesia is.

Oh! The days when you could describe a terrible country treating its people in the worst ways imaginable and the first thing you would think of is Nazi Germany instead of present-day America!

St. Germain's plan was to create a sham utopia and then find a job as a consultant with other governments. After he was offered a job, he would blow a nuclear weapon in the volcano and destroy the place. But when the Justice Society appears, he throws his plan out the window and yells, in front of everybody at his press conference slash job interview, "I've got a bomb in the volcano and I'll blow up the entire island!" So I guess that's his reputation blown! Like the guy in The Dead Zone who uses the kid as a human shield and ruins his entire political career! Sort of. Anyway, that's a thing I just remembered that seemed somewhat like what just happened here, so it felt like a smart thing to add. During the tussle, Ted Grant knocks the detonator out of St. Germain's hands and it sets off the bomb. The volcano explodes but it doesn't destroy the island until the Justice Society can completely evacuate it. St. Germain just looks on and shouts, "My utopia!" That guy might need to get his head straight to decide what he really wants out of life. A utopia? A consulting job? Revenge on the Justice Society? In the end, Thunderbolt reveals that the only actual Bahdnesian left is Kiku, the young girl who has become Johnny Thunder's sidekick. So I guess that's the mystery solved that could have been solved two issues ago if Johnny had just thought to ask Thunderbolt one simple and direct question. Justice Society of America #7 Rating: B-. St. Germaine was yet another immortal guy who was once a Nazi. I think there's some legendary St. Germaine that's supposed to be immortal or something but I'm too hot and uncomfortable in my office to do any research about it right now. There's a similar character in Warren Ellis's Castlevania on Netflix. And, no, I don't want to discuss Warren Ellis. I don't actually want to disucss the Justice Society of America either! At least I only have three more issues to go!

#JSA #Justice Society of America #DC #DC Comics #Len Strazewski #Mike Parobeck #Mike Machlan

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irisplate9-blog · 5 years

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Texas’s Favorite Grocery Store Is a Way of LifeThe story of H-E-B seems unoriginal, as far as cult grocers go: A family launches a store in a small town a long time ago (in this case, the Butt family, in Kerrville, Texas, in 1905). That store earns a loyal following and expands throughout the region (Texas). It becomes known among its fans for its wildly dedicated employees (many have worked there for 30-plus years), top-notch customer service (only at H-E-B will someone hand you a freshly baked tortilla to snack on while you shop), and unique food products (hatch chile cookies!). Adoring <a href="https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/the-best-grocery-store-in-america-is-heb-article">public odes</a> are published about it across the Internet. <a href="https://www.itemonline.com/news/local_news/customers-flock-to-new-h-e-b-store-on-opening/article_1f9c3d27-617c-597d-9ab9-b9eeb81673bc.html">Long lines form</a> whenever a new location touches down. This tale could be told of any beloved regional grocery store — your Publixes, your Wegmans, your Harris Teeters — except that San Antonio-based H-E-B exists in a single U.S. state (with 52 stores across the border in Mexico) and is the 12th-largest private company in the country, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/largest-private-companies/list/#tab:rank">according to Forbes</a>. What’s the difference between H-E-B and everyone else? Sure, it’s <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-Places-to-Work-2018-LST_KQ0,24.htm">ranked among the top places to work</a> and is pretty ahead-of-the-curve with its mobile checkout (maybe that’s <a href="https://www.mysanantonio.com/business/local/article/Amazon-looked-at-H-E-B-Whole-Foods-to-break-into-11303341.php">why employees at Amazon suggested that the tech giant acquire H-E-B</a> before it settled on that <a href="https://www.eater.com/2017/6/16/15816202/amazon-buys-whole-foods">other Texas grocer</a>). But, really, H-E-B has just tapped into one of the most powerful cultural forces in existence: Texas pride. H-E-B’s corporate campus — where many of the buildings are made of Texas limestone, and the neoclassical design is quintessential Texas architecture — runs along the San Antonio River Walk, and is built on an old military compound called the <a href="https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qbs02">San Antonio Arsenal</a>. A Texas landmark, known for being a major supply depot during both world wars, it now supplies Texas to Texans, from Whataburger Fancy Ketchup to Takis rolled tortilla chips to Franklin Barbecue sauce. The H-E-B <a href="https://careers.heb.com/about-heb/">website</a> prominently declares that H-E-B has “proudly served Texans since 1905,” and that its stores are all about “outfitting Texas families with all they need for Texas lifestyles.” In 2016, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/us/what-makes-texas-texas.html">Manny Fernandez succinctly described</a> what that means in the New York Times: “You don’t just move to Texas. It moves into you ... We tattoo Texas on our arms, buy Texas-built trucks and climb fire escapes with Texas dirt in our pockets. Place, we are unsubtly suggesting, matters.” Being from most states is just part of your bio; being from Texas is a lifelong commitment. I know this is true because I am from Texas. My parents moved the family to Dallas from New Hampshire when I was around a year old. My dad shades his face from the Texas sun with a cowboy hat on his daily walks, and has long identified as more Texan than Indian; as kids, my sister and I posed for photos off the highway amid the Texas bluebonnets every spring; I know all the lyrics to the de facto state song, “Deep in the Heart of Texas”; and though I live in Brooklyn now, I still wear shorts emblazoned with the Texas flag to the gym. If you’re not from Texas, the state might seem like one giant stereotype of cowboys, conservatism, and brashness. But Texan identity is more complex than that: There’s rural Texas, Silicon Prairie Texas, honky-tonk Texas, hipster Texas, Latinx Texas, oil-soaked Texas, Vietnamese Texas, and yes, gun-slinging Texas — just to name a few. A grocery store can be a prism for identity, refracting and focusing it; Whole Foods famously does this for an entire group of people held together by little more than social class and a vague sense of taste. What’s unique about H-E-B fandom is that its customers are ultimately loyal to H-E-B in so far as they are loyal to Texas. This is perhaps one of the most distinguishing factors between H-E-B and the other cult grocers: People love Publix subs, crave Trader Joe’s snacks, and revere Wegmans’ customer service, but H-E-B is a way of life. <hr class="p-entry-hr" id="sR5Xpr"/>Have you ever wanted a cast-iron skillet in the shape of the Lone Star state? Party tray? Burger-shaper? Cutting board? Pecan cake? Cheese? You can find them all in the aisles of H-E-B. Texas’s unique outline, with its right angles and craggly edges, is probably <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/the-shape-were-in/">one of the most recognizable</a> in the country. There are hundreds — literally hundreds — of Texas-shaped items at H-E-B. An employee at a San Antonio location tried to convince me that the Texas-shaped tortilla chips are superior because the unique silhouette, with its handle and curved ridges, was practically made for scooping up salsa. A shopper from Schulenburg, who regularly drives 25 miles to visit her nearest H-E-B, told me that she fills her grandchildren’s Christmas stockings exclusively with Texas-shaped novelty items purchased at H-E-B stores. It turns out that, after oil, Texas pride may be the state’s single most lucrative natural resource — in part because it can take so many different forms, each of which can be sold to a distinct audience. Against the backdrop of a <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516589&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fmagazine%2F2017%2F07%2F10%2Famericas-future-is-texas" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">broader conversation about the future of Texas</a> and Texan identity, H-E-B is unabashedly embracing the longer, wider, more diverse view of <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/the-native-texan/">what it means to be a proud Texan</a>, and reaping the financial rewards of doing so; H-E-B’s more than 340 stores span several concepts, each of which appeals to a specific Lone Star State community or sensibility. Most notably, in 2006, H-E-B launched Mi Tienda, a grocery chain that caters to the needs of the state’s vast Latinx population, with a masa factory and tortilla presses in each store, products like dulce de leche and Mexican wedding cookies, and <a href="http://mitiendatx.com/">a default Spanish-language website</a>. Additionally, there’s Central Market, H-E-B’s specialty-foods store, which was launched in 1994 to appeal to a more globalized audience by offering a cross section of the cuisines that comprise an increasingly multicultural Texas, and now competes with Whole Foods; Joe V’s Smart Shop, a budget grocery brand; and Oaks Crossing, a family-friendly restaurant in one San Antonio store serving chicken-fried carne asada and brisket nachos. Four years ago, H-E-B ventured into the barbecue business — the category of food that Texans are the most particular about (even if <a href="https://www.eater.com/2018/3/7/17081968/best-food-texas-tex-mex-barbecue">Tex-Mex is what more Texans actually eat</a>). “What is the most Texan food we can put out there?” Kristin Irvin, who is in charge of development for H-E-B’s True Texas Barbecue, asked me. “It’s barbecue.” She added that her team tasted barbecue from more than 25 different iconic Texas spots — Black’s, Franklin, and the like — to make sure that their version would pass muster. To Irvin and her team’s credit, the food I tried at a True Texas Barbecue inside a San Antonio H-E-B was pretty good — the sausage was appropriately snappy and well-spiced, the char on the brisket was just right, and even the turkey tasted impressively juicy. There are now 10 True Texas Barbecue locations spread across the state. True Texas Barbecue was followed by another True Texas business, True Texas Tacos, which opened earlier this year in San Antonio. The restaurant, which focuses on breakfast tacos, is housed in another spin-off concept, the H-E-B Convenience Store, because eating gas station breakfast tacos is, to some, a Texas rite of passage. At True Texas Tacos, the tortillas are flour (anything else would be blasphemous) and freshly made on site. The fillings come in barbacoa (stewed cow’s head), picadillo (ground beef), and my personal favorite, a crisp slab of bacon with refried beans and cheese. You can also grab a Big Red, the bubble gum-flavored soda that was invented in Waco and is taken as a matter of fact to be the ideal counterpart to a smoky barbacoa taco. When an H-E-B employee found out that I had never even heard of Big Red, despite growing up less than 100 miles away from its birthplace, they immediately filled a large cup with the frighteningly red soda, and made me try it with the barbacoa taco — the combo was at first cloying, then pleasantly salty. (I probably could have done without the Big Red.) Still, I couldn’t believe that I had missed out on this allegedly quintessential Texas experience. It made me wonder: If H-E-B doesn’t do it, is it really Texan? In Dallas, where I’m from, there’s no vanilla H-E-B location, a source of <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/texas/comments/8nw1fa/rant_why_is_there_no_heb_in_dallas/">extreme annoyance</a> among locals. But my family has long been devoted to Central Market, where we could buy whole spices, ghee, masoor dal (red lentils), and whole-wheat tortillas, which are (still) the closest approximation my mom has found to roti in any mainstream grocery store. Central Market also introduced my family to English double cream, arborio rice, and miso, broadening our palates with tastes from other cuisines. There are still sizable communities that H-E-B could do a better job of showcasing — the state’s robust immigrant populations from China and Vietnam come to mind — but it’s hard to think of another brand that’s as expansive in its vision of who and what gets to be Texan, or that comes as close to its aspirations to represent all of Texas. Whatever the future of Texas looks like, there’s a good chance it’ll show up in H-E-B. <hr class="p-entry-hr" id="cqZ2Ua"/>We may <a href="https://www.curbed.com/a/texas-california">live in the United States of California and Texas</a>, but H-E-B has no plans to expand beyond Texas, at least in the U.S. Julie Bedingfield, an H-E-B public affairs manager, says that the company gets requests to open stores outside of Texas, mainly from Texas natives living elsewhere, “every single day.” You’d think that, in the same way that Popeyes has exported its Louisiana fried chicken across the country, H-E-B would want to sell its brand of Texas to people outside of the state. But H-E-B just wants to dig into its native soil even harder: Shortly after Amazon acquired Austin-based Whole Foods, H-E-B announced the creation of a tech and innovation lab in Austin, which will house its latest acquisition, a Texas-based delivery app called Favor. The strategy seems to be working. “I don’t really like Whole Foods after they got bought by Amazon,” an H-E-B customer in San Antonio told me. “I don’t like seeing the Amazon stuff everywhere.” With H-E-B, on the other hand, “I feel like they do things to support the community,” she added. “Many people I know, their kids work there ... I think H-E-B has earned the monopoly.” The dedicated barbecue sauce aisles and the chicken-fried steak may sometimes seem a bit like Texas caricature — but whether or not every H-E-B customer connects with every Texas-adjacent item isn’t the point. It’s all just a way for H-E-B to communicate its message, loud and clear: We get it. You love Texas, and so do we. I’ve noticed, living in New York, that people tend to write off Texas as a Wild West of conservatism and unruliness. Similarly, when my parents moved to Dallas from Nashua, New Hampshire in the ’90s, everyone told them they would face intense racism. Instead, we’ve all found the opposite to be true, at least where we’ve lived — Texans, on the whole, are open, honest, dedicated, and friendly. Maybe that’s why H-E-B resonates so strongly in Texas. The stores represent Texans as they see themselves. There is no attempt to construct a monolithic image of Texas — or even to help people outside of Texas understand Texas. H-E-B is the secret that only Texans are in on. It’s a retailer whose ethos is very clear: This is Texas — where the food is better, the people are more loyal, and the shape of our state is actually quite remarkable. Y’all got any questions? <a href="https://twitter.com/PKgourmet">Priya Krishna</a> is a food writer who contributes regularly to the New York Times, Bon Appétit, and other publications. Her cookbook, <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516589&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FIndian-ish-Recipes-Antics-Modern-American%2Fdp%2F1328482472%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1536589970%26sr%3D8-1%26keywords%3Dindianish" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Indian-ish</a>, is out April 2019. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/laurakraaydesign/">Laura Kraay</a> is a freelance illustrator living in Austin, Texas. Fact checked by <a href="https://twitter.com/emgrill_o?lang=en">Emma Grillo</a> Copy edited by Rachel P. Kreiter <aside id="YtlPqm"><div class="c-newsletter_signup_box" id="newsletter-signup-short-form" data-newsletter-slug="eater" readability="7.8834196891192"> <div class="c-newsletter_signup_box__main" readability="33"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" id="Layer_1" x="0px" y="0px" viewbox="0 0 38 54.231" xml:space="preserve"><g><path d="M1,20.304v9.981v6.393c0,9.046,7.332,16.375,16.375,16.375H33.75v-11.09H17.375 c-2.914,0-5.285-2.369-5.285-5.285v-6.393h18.383v-9.981H12.09V11.09h21.66V0H1V20.304z"/></g></svg> <h3 class="c-newsletter_signup_box__title"> Eater.com </h3> The freshest news from the food world every day </div> <div class="c-newsletter_signup_box__disclaimer" readability="8.6"> By signing up, you agree to our <a href="https://www.voxmedia.com/pages/privacy-policy">Privacy Policy</a> and European users agree to the data transfer policy. </div> </div> </aside> Source: https://www.eater.com/2018/12/11/18133776/heb-texas-origin-cult-following <img src="https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/chef-cooking-kitchen-stove-flame-frying-pan-31742315.jpg"/>

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