Steve Jackson brings to my attention a Reuters story about Russian president Putin facing serious questions from the public about the Russian Giant Robot defense initiative and its Cthulhu contingency plans:
It was not clear what had prompted 8,600 Russians to ask Putin if he planned to employ “giant, humanoid war robots” or why 7,300 people were interested in the Cthulhu, a cosmic cephalopod invented by novelist H. P. Lovecraft which is said to be sleeping beneath the Pacific Ocean.
Chris Sims’ declares this Badass Week
, and kicks it off with a poll to pick The Toughest Man In Comics: he’s got a fine set of candidates lined up, making this a very tough choice, if you don’t take the wuss’s way out and sulk that Batman isn’t on the list.
But even better, he linked to this absolute comic gem from Dave Campbell, who explains why Thor is one of the biggest smack-talkers in comics:
For some reason, the fact that he’s one of the most powerful beings ever to walk the Earth yet still talks shit does not make Thor a dick. He just gets away with it, pure and simple. Nobody wants to hear Superman brag about how cool he is – he would just come across as a bully – but for Thor, it works.
Why?
Thor really uses cultural relativism to his advantage. Yes, he might go on and on about how great he is, but give him a break, he’s a Viking – that’s the way of his people. Don’t judge, man. What do you have against Vikings anyway? Way to be insensitive to other cultures, dick.
You know another area where Thor gets a free pass just because he comes from a traditional culture? That hammer of his, mjolnir. He’s up there with The Frickin’ Hulk in terms of strength, and yet he still carries a huge stone hammer around.
Again, if this were Superman we were talking about, packing a weapon would seem unsporting and cruel. It would be like, “Why does Superman carry that machete around? It’s not enough that he can shoot heat-beams from his eyes, he has to fly around beheading people with a fucking machete, too? Not cool!”
But hey, Thor’s a Norseman, it wouldn’t be PC to call him on his hammer. I think mjolnir is the Norse word for “overkill.”
That was a pretty long quote, but it gets better. Go read the whole thing.
Hmmph. Why didn’t I hear about this before? IceRocket is a search engine for blogs; Type in “Thoth-Amon and you get both my last blog entry and Shiffer’s entry referencing it; enter בוג’י to get Vered’s friends talking about her or הטור השבועי to see that Yossi ownz0rs that phrase, at least for today.
I added it to Firefox’s search engines, but I find myself feeling embarrassed when I use it: the service’s already problematic icon looks even more disturbing when sized down.
Chris Sim’s Invincible Super-blog is a celebration of the awesome daftness of comic books, in particular the awesome of superheroes punching each other in the face.
Earlier this month, he ran a two-part retrospective on the appearances of Conan in the pages of Marvel’s What If…? series, which features alternate realities based on such burning questions as What If… Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben had Lived? (that’s actually a good one, but the majority are, as Chris points out, rather lame). However, this lameness is not an issue here, Because the answer to pretty much any question that starts with “What if Conan…” is always the same: somebody would get their ass kicked.
In the second part, Chris survey’s Conan’s visit to the 20th century, and gives you the pleasure of seeing Conan tossing a Volkswagen and wearing a pimp suit, but in the first part, where he discusses Conan fighting Thor and (later) Wolverine in the Hyborian Age, I noticed this panel of Conan’s arch-enemy, the Stygian wizard Thoth-Amon, chanting over Thor’s hammer.
Chris describes it as everyone’s favorite Hyborian necromancer, Thoth-Amon, seen here wearing what appears to be Loki’s headgear and talking nonsense
, but of course, it’s not nonsense, it’s Hebrew: בואי ברק, מן השמיים – “come lightning, from the sky”.
Hmm. I tried to check who the writer of that issue (What If…? #39) was. According to the site (in Turkish?), it was Alan Zelenetz. According to Wikipedia (or probably IMDB), Zelenetz was the “Judaica advisor” to the movie Pi, so he probably knows Hebrew.
Now, Thoth-Amon is a Stygian wizard, and Stygia in Conan’s Hyborian age is the ancient evil version of ancient Egypt. So basically, Thoth-Amon is speaking Safat HaAvaddim, The language of the slaves
as it’s called in the Mummy:
From The Mummy screenplay:
Imhotep moves forward, his one hand trying to stop the molten
mummy guts from oozing out of the large shotgun hole in his
side. Beni drops his gun and grabs at the CHAINS around his
neck, RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS AND ICONS dangle from each chain.
Beni holds the first one up: A CHRISTIAN CRUCIFIX. He quickly
makes the sign of-the cross and blesses himself in English:BENI
May the good Lord protect and watch
over me as a shepherd watches over
his flock. And may Satan in all his
forms be vanquished forever.It has no effect on Imhotep, who continues forward. Beni
quickly grabs at the other symbols and icons, holding them
out towards Imhotep, one after the other, trying to slow his
progress: an Islamic Sword and Crescent Moon necklace; a
Hindu Brahma medallion; a small Buddhist Bodhisattva statue.All while blessing himself in Arabic, Hindi, Chinese and
Latin. Nothing works. Imhotep’s skeletal hand reaches for
Beni’s throat. Tears run down Beni’s cheeks he’s so freaked.And that’s when he holds up THE STAR OF DAVID and blesses
himself in HEBREW. Imhotep stops in his tracks. His hand
lowers. His grotesque new eyeballs stare at Beni.IMHOTEP
(subtitled)
The language of the slaves.Looks at him quizzically. Imhotep takes a step back.
IMHOTEP
(in Hebrew — subtitled)
I may have use for you. And the
rewards will be great.