Douglas Ernst Blog

Judge Mindy Glazer meets childhood friend in her courtroom; accused burglar and race-baiters cry

July 5, 2015October 12, 2015by Douglas Ernst5 Comments

Is America a country where a men and women are the authors of their own destiny, or is it a country where the odds are stacked against certain groups to essentially guarantee failure? Let us consider the case of Miami-Dade County Judge Mindy Glazer, who ran into accused burglar Arthur Booth in her courtroom. The two have a very telling history together — they were childhood friends. The exchange between them brought one man (and the country’s many race-baiters) to tears.

A local ABC affiliate reported June 30:

The suspect in front of the bench was Arthur Booth, a classmate of Glazer’s at Nautilus Middle School.

Glazer asked if Booth, who is facing numerous charges including burglary and grand theft, had attended the school.

“Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!” exclaimed Booth before beginning to cry.

Glazer said that Booth was the nicest and best kid in school.

“I used to play football with him, all the kids, and look what has happened,” Glazer said. “I’m so sorry to see this.”

Follow the link and watch the video. It is well worth your time. You can almost see the moment where Mr. Booth’s brain registers just how different his life could have been if he made better choices along the way.

Two American minorities go to the same high school. They’re both intelligent kids. They play the same games, have the same teachers and the same friends, and yet at some point a string of bad decisions sends Mr. Booth’s life into the ditch. He treated his life like a pro golfer who inexplicably decides to swing his club with reckless abandon, and then wonders why his partner winds up with the a large trophy room.

Every day we dip our hands into an endless stream of consciousness, pull out decisions, and then act. We inherently know that the sheer volume of choices that rest squarely on our shoulders means that most trials and tribulations can be overcome. When it comes to discussing racial issues, however, those truths are suddenly denied or turned upside down.

The next time you hear about “white privilege,” I suggest thinking about the race that you’ve run in the ultimate marathon that is life. Think about the mind-bending number of decisions that you have made over the years to get to where you are today. Think about the times you have fallen short of your full potential. Think about your faults. Think about the hard work you put in over the years to recover from your personal and professional mistakes. Then ask if episodic instances of racism or bigotry in the United States has the power to keep anyone from attaining the vast majority of their hopes and dreams.

Hopefully Mr. Booth realizes what Judge Mindy Glazer’s comments highlight: there is no reason why the nicest kid in school should wind up a middle-aged adult with a criminal record unless he long ago decided to walk down a dangerous dead-end road.

Dan Slott’s paranoia hits new high: ASM screenshots now invalid if used on feared Douglas Ernst blog

July 4, 2015July 5, 2015by Douglas Ernst94 Comments

Marvel’s Dan Slott has taken his fear of this very blog to a whole new level. Criticism of The Amazing Spider-Man is now illegitimate if screenshots taken from this blog accompany said feedback. A reader pointed me to recent Comic Book Resources discussion where the writer expertly used his favorite red herring and “poison the well” fallacies.

A user commented:

What are people going to remember about “the best selling comic in 2012, 2013, or 2014”?

– Will it be SlOtto shooting an unarmed man in the face, while his peers and allies stood around drooling on themselves like idiots? (Because, you know, Spider-man always fought crime with guns and a lust for criminal execution like the Punisher, except for the 50 years of stories where didn’t, and there’s nothing weird about that).

– Will it be Peter running around in his web-diaper, in a literal on-panel representation of the painfully regressed man-child he’s become in the dumbed-down, lowest common denominator, post-One More Day comic continuity?

– Will it be Peter claiming “wow Sanjani is so right and I’m wrong” as (SlOtto’s) his company crumbles, and he has to be saved from a villian by the likes of Anna Maria and Clash (a character we’re supposed to care about since he was shoehorned into yet another unneeded reinterpreting of Spider-man’s origin)?

– Will it be this glorious, gag-inducing panel?

Dan Slott’s response:

HA! Look at that link! You pulled that image from “dougernst.files.wordpress.com” Wow! You went all the way to crazy town for that one. You chew over your Spidey-bile with Mr. I-Think-Spider-Man-Should-Kill-North-Koreans? Seriously… wow. Your posts make SO much more sense now.

I thought I was talking to a potentially reasonable person… but if that’s where you dredge up your “intellectual ammo” …you’re a lost cause. Sorry. But good day, sir.

The commenter handled Mr. Slott like a true professional.

No idea what you’re on about here, man, unless you’re trying to get this thread flagged by the NSA. But way to dodge. YOU wrote the panel, so you must find nothing icky / silly / ridiculous about Peter and Silk addressing each other and lolling around together like an old married couple. But it’s all just another day in the silly Slott-Verse for us and Spidey.

See, I’m discussing content, where you keep dissembling and trying to spin off the topic, so much so that Mets could freely thread drift your posts.

Dan. Slott. Nailed. To. The. Wall.

Let us speak of intellectual ammunition, shall we? Dan Slott was blasted away by this young man with an intellectual .50 Caliber Machine Gun. As bits and pieces of Dan’s fragile ego exploded off his psyche, he looked for anything that might save him and found some cover just in time — a link to douglasernstblog.com. Dan Slott’s go-to survival technique when faced with punishing critiques is to bring up this blog and then distort things I said — in 2012.

Here is where it gets fun. Consider Dan Slott’s retort to this young man: “If that’s where you dredge up your ‘intellectual ammo’ …you’re a lost cause.”

Let us pretend this individual did get his intellectual ammunition here. If that is the case, then it is obvious that he is using the kind of nuclear weapons from 2012 that are still reverberating in Dan Slott’s mind three years after detonation. The shock waves from what I’ve said continue to bounce around in Slott’s skull for years, and yet he still strangely attempts to convince others that my reviews of his work are without merit.

I wrote a post in 2012 where I said it was ridiculous that Dan Slott’s Peter Parker would be faced with a possible extinction-level event and — when every single second could mean the death of six billion people — he thought it was a wise decision to berate his teammates about the sanctity of North Korea’s gulag overseers. While billions of lives hung in the balance and time was of the essence, Dan Slott’s Peter Parker decided to harangue Black Widow over how she navigated an army of North Korean torturers. Kudos!

Years later, Marvel’s ASM scribe is still so emotionally scarred by the drubbing he gets here that he has to frame the debate as if I want Peter Parker to snap the necks of emaciated North Korean women living in rural villages outside Pyongyang. Perhaps if Dan Slott actually read comics like Guy Delisle’s “Pyongyang,” (It’s a good bet that he probably isn’t going to make time for books like “Escape from Camp 14”), then he’d know just how foolish he comes across on CBR message boards.

Exit question: If I showed up to defend myself over at CBR and I did so tactfully, then how long would it take before Dan Slott’s moderator buddies banned me anyway?

Dan Slott: Peter Parker should be like Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne — and perhaps boink Shanghai women

June 30, 2015July 1, 2015by Douglas Ernst49 Comments

Marvel has a “new” idea for Peter Parker: Make him sort of like Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne — and have him stuck in love triangles because Dan Slott liked that as a kid.

MTV reported Tuesday:

Move over, Stark Industries: Spider-Man is in charge this time.

“Peter Parker has stepped up,” Slott told MTV News over the phone. “He’s grown. He’s become the Peter Parker we’ve always hoped he was going to be. This company, with Peter’s inventions and Peter’s gumption has gone to new heights.” …

“He’s operating with Parker industries in not just New York, but also Shanghai and San Francisco and London,” Slott said. “He’s going to be a far more global Spider-Man, and with that is going to come all new global threats. Things that will really test Spider-Man like never before. …

“One of the things I always loved was there was always a triangle,” Slott said. “There’s all these characters who are vying for Pete’s attention and I think you’re going to get back to that. You’re going to see all kinds of different characters we know and care about.”

Take a look at Marvel’s promotional material for its upcoming relaunch of The Amazing Spider-Man (yes, fans get another Slottian relaunch): Nothing says “Peter Parker” than James Bond-ish attire and two casino-bimbo wannabes latched onto his arms. Spider-Man even gets his own Nolan-inspired Bat-Spider Mobile…

If Peter Parker has grown up, then why is he still stuck in endless love triangles? Did he grow up into the “Peter Parker we’ve always hoped” he would be, or did he merely pupate into some weird version of himself consistent with Dan Slott’s childhood fantasies?

Here are the different versions of Peter Parker given to fans by Mr. Slott over the years:

Dumbed-down Peter Parker, who acts like a novice superhero when he’s had years of experience.
Dead Peter Parker.
Ghost Peter Parker, whose impotence is only forgotten with time because Doctor Octopus randomly gave the hero his life back.
Where’s Waldo Peter Parker, who became lost in a sea of spider-men during Spider-Verse.
Peter Stark-Wayne-Parker, who perhaps gets to boink women in Shanghai love triangles.

Was Peter Parker always destined to be a jet-setting CEO who flies from New York to London to Shanghai, or was he more likely to lead a life of quiet research conducted by men like Reed Richards? Was Peter Parker always destined for expensive love-triangle tribulations of the world’s billionaire elites, or was he more likely to settle down with a good woman by his side like, again, Reed Richards?

If Dan Slott were a violinist, he would be a third-string musician who weirdly wormed himself into a first chair. His “ear” for ASM indicates that while he understands the “harmonies” and “melodies” that make Spider-Man a winning character, his handling of Peter Parker is almost always off pitch.

The next volume of The Amazing Spider-Man already sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Wired’s Angela Watercutter bashes Tom Holland as Peter Parker — because he’s white

June 23, 2015June 24, 2015by Douglas Ernst28 Comments

Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios announced this afternoon that actor Tom Holland would be the next actor to play Spider-Man on the big screen. Wired’s Angel Watercutter was ready within hours to bash the decision because…he’s white.

Ms. Watercutter said Tuesday for her piece ‘Your New Spider-Man Is a…Fresh-Faced White Dude. Great’:

When Marvel and Sony announced Spider-Man’s inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe earlier this year, fans got excited that we could see a fresh take on the character, rather than just another fresh-faced white dude. (No offense to fresh-faced white dudes.) In particular, the studio had a chance to shift gears and make the new cinematic Spider-Man not Peter Parker, but Miles Morales—the half-black, half-Latino teenager who wears the Spidey suit in the Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man. The prospect of that was virtually nil (though Morales is taking over as the web-slinger in the comics), but there was still a shot that Peter Parker could be re-imagined.

As for Watts, he’s the latest in a series of young and relatively unknown directors to take on a Marvel property. Sure, Joss Whedon and Kenneth Branagh are big deals, but folks like Thor: The Dark World’s Alan Taylor or Joe and Anthony Russo, who will likely direct Holland in his Parker introduction in Captain America: Civil War, were mostly TV directors before joining Marvel. Those directors have all done good work in the MCU, and there’s no reason to believe Watts won’t as well, but if you were expecting this new Spider-Man flick to be directed by a big-name director (or a woman, or a non-white person), that’s not going to happen this time around.

Just as Brian Michael Bendis believes that white superheroes cannot be for “everybody,” Ms. Watercutter seems to define “fresh take” as “anything but a white guy playing a character who has been white since his inception.” And by “fans” who were excited, she really means “fans who subscribe to Angela Watercutter’s race-obsessed worldview.”

Ms. Watercolor is so obsessed with race that she even laments that the next Spider-Man movie is being directed by a white man. How sad is it when a woman can’t look at anything unless she’s wearing a racial View-Master while simultaneously taking on the role of racial bean counter. “Are there too many white people in this story? Why are there so many white people? Is this justified? If I think it’s justified, then is it truly justified — or is that just my white privilege talking? Raceraceraceraceracerace!”

If you think this is an isolated mindset, then think again. It was only a few months ago that Dan Slott weirdly started referencing Jim Crow laws when fans said that Peter Parker should remain white for his cinematic appearances. It was just days ago that Gawker’s Sam Biddle said “Spider-Man is a fucking dork” because he is a straight white male who does not do drugs or have sex as a high school teenager.

The ideal Peter Parker for Wired and Gawker writers is apparently a popular gay black woman who does copious amounts of drugs while engaging in teen orgies. Classic.

Maybe instead of being bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter (or was it Pam?) could snort an arachnid up her nose like a line of cocaine. Maybe that would take away the “fucking dork” status. (If you write for Gawker, then you have to swear because that somehow makes your arguments more valid.)

The one bright spot in all of this is that Stan Lee is speaking up.

Newsarama reported June 22:

“I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that. …

I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly. But again, I don’t see any reason to change the sexual proclivities of a character once they’ve already been established. I have no problem with creating new, homosexual superheroes. It has nothing to do with being anti-gay, or anti-black, or anti-Latino, or anything like that. Latino characters should stay Latino. The Black Panther should certainly not be Swiss. I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it’s so easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to. Hell, I’ll do it myself.”

But hey, what does Stan Lee know? Until he’s a gay black heroin addict his authority on all things Peter Parker is pretty much zero.

Miles Morales now Spider-Man ‘for kids of color’: Marvel enters era of Separate but Equal superheroes

June 21, 2015June 21, 2015by Douglas Ernst57 Comments

One of my favorite G.I. Joe characters as a kid was Roadblock. When I watched the Rocky movies I loved Apollo Creed. My brother introduced me to Marvel’s Iron Man, and I took a liking to James Rhodes. My favorite football player was Marcus Allen. Likewise, I loved G.I. Joe’s Flint, Rocky’s “Italian Stallion,” Iron Man’s Tony Stark, and the New York Yankees’ Don Mattingly. My “heroes” weren’t heroes because they were black or white — they were heroes because they were just “cool.” These days, the politically correct, race-obsessed clowns at Marvel can’t have that. Instead, they have taken a page out of the pre-civil rights era mentality and started creating, for all intents and purposes, a “separate but equal” superhero class.

Here is what Brian Michael Bendis told the New York Daily News on Sunday regarding Marvel’s decision to make Miles Morales the new Spider-Man:

“Our message has to be it’s not Spider-Man with an asterisk, it’s the real Spider-Man for kids of color, for adults of color and everybody else.”

Here is the message Marvel is sending: If a superhero is a white man, then he isn’t for “everybody.” If the superhero is black, then he is for black children, for black adults, and, ummm, “everybody” else — once those first two groups are creatively coddled (usually by liberal white men).

If you think it’s weird to essentially make a separate-but-equal superhero class, then Marvel’s creative teams will probably label you a racist.

To see just how race-warped the minds of these creators are, one needs to only examine Bendis’ next statement:

The enormity of Miles Morales’ place in comic book history didn’t really hit Bendis, a father who has two kids of color among his four children, until recently. His 4-year-old adopted African-American daughter found a Miles Morales Spidey mask in the toy aisle of a department store, put it on and said, “Look daddy, I’m Spider-Man!” he recalls.

“I started crying in the middle of the aisle,” says Bendis. “I realized my kids are going to grow up in a world that has a multi-racial Spider-Man, and an African American Captain America and a female Thor.”

If “Douglas Jr.” put on a “War Machine” mask and said, “Look dad, I’m War Machine!” I would not correct my son and tell him that he was white/asian and couldn’t be James Rhodes. I would not start crying tears of joy because a half-white, half-asian Ernst child was pretending to be a black man. I would only start crying because he liked a character who was in the Air Force instead of an Army guy like Steve Rogers. (I’m joking about the Air Force making me cry. Sort of.)

Decades ago kids played “Cowboys and Indians.” They played “Cops and Robbers.” Fast forward in time and they pretend to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but yet guys like Brian Michael Bendis want us to believe that little children spend odd amounts of time arguing over a superhero’s race.

Many kids of color who when they were playing superheroes with their friends, their friends wouldn’t let them be Batman or Superman because they don’t look like those heroes but they could be Spider-Man because anyone could be under that mask.

What? What neighborhood did Mr. Bendis grow up in, where little white kids were telling black friends they could pretend to have been bitten by a radioactive spider, but they couldn’t pretend to look like Steve Rogers?

What neighborhood did Mr. Bendis grow up in, where a white kid’s imagination allowed him to be a green ninja turtle, but not James Rhodes?

Marvel’s “House of Ideas” is really the “House of Political Correctness” — and it’s not really a house. It’s more like an insane asylum where the race-obsessed inmates are in charge.

Miles Morales is a cool character. I have no doubt that he will have many heart-stopping adventures in the post-Secret Wars Marvel Universe. The problem is that these days it is somehow problematic if popular superheroes are straight white men.

If Marvel’s sales decline in its separate-but-equal universe, then there is no doubt that “racist” and “sexist” white men will be blamed for not embracing She-Thor and suddenly-gay Iceman. Marvel employees can take all the racial palliatives they want, but the truth is much more biting: the creative process does not reward writers whose every move is determined by a complex algorithm of racial calculus mixed with politically correct engineering.

With each passing day, Marvel becomes more and more a shell of its former self. That is why people try out books like “Peter Panzerfaust,” “Deadly Class,” “The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys,” and any number of other books that do not have “Marvel” on the cover.

Indeed, this generation of kids will have a more diverse set of Marvel heroes. It’s just a shame that those Marvel heroes are directed by political activists masquerading as comic book writers.

Lucid dreaming: Charlie Morley is correct — it is possible to know your ‘oceanic unconscious’

June 20, 2015June 13, 2017by Douglas Ernst11 Comments

Regular readers of this blog know that I started to occasionally write on lucid dreaming in 2013. For some odd reason it took me until 2015 to run across an old TedX video by Charlie Morley, whose experiences with the practice mirrored my own. I was impressed by his ability to articulate just how useful lucid dreaming could be for, say, soldiers who suffer from PTSD or just the guy down the street who wants to confront his nightmares. I recently took Mr. Morley’s online course through Awake Academy to see what tricks he might know that I didn’t. I must say that I walked away (or should I say “slept away”?) impressed.

Here is one snippet from Week 2 of the seven-week course that I can vouch for through my own personal experiences:

To believe that your itsy-bitsy me, my, I sense of self that you bring in to the lucid dream state can in any way dominate, subjugate or control the power of the unconscious mind is to ascribe that sense of self and inflated degree of importance. The unconscious mind is awesome in power. As awesomely powerful as the ocean, perhaps. And to quote my friend Robert Waggoner: “Just as no sailor can control the sea, so to does no lucid dreamer control the dream.”

It would be an arrogant sailor to believe that they could control the awesome power of the ocean. And so too, I believe it is an arrogant lucid dreamer who believes that they can in any way control the powerful oceanic unconscious. So drop control. Don’t try it. Instead, turn your attention to making friends. Make an ally out of the unconscious. Be friendly towards it. Go into the dream with open arms saying, “I’m ready to meet the mystery.” If you do that, you’ll still be able to ‘control’ the dream and do whatever you want, but you won’t be doing it from a point of domination or subjugation — You’ll be doing it from a point of friendship.

Two years ago I was having lucid dreams that lasted 10-15 seconds. Over time that got up to perhaps a minute. These days when I have a lucid dream it feels like I’m lucid from 5-7 minutes. Like Mr. Morley says, the unconscious mind is incredibly powerful; the ocean analogy is spot-on. Likewise, it is possible to essentially become “friends” with your own subconscious. It may sound weird, but it is true.

During a recent lucid dream I asked my unconscious mind to impart wisdom. I was given an answer about certain unchanging elements of man’s nature, and when the tutorial was over and I found myself still lucid I casually asked, “So, I was just wondering, what the heck was that earlier dream I had tonight supposed to symbolize?” Again, my unconscious mind answered. I may not always get the answer I want, and some replies are downright mysterious, but I always wake up having learned something about myself.

There is no way I could fit the knowledge from all seven weeks of Mr. Morley’s course into a single blog post. Besides, that would be incredibly unfair to him and all the hard work he put into the project.

I will say this, however: If you want to start lucid dreaming, then a dream journal is a must. If you have the intention to lucid dream and you write down what you can remember at least five days a week, then you will probably be half-way to obtaining your goal. I would be happy to give you some pointers in the comments section below, but if you really want an assortment of tools for your “dream toolbox,” then I suggest checking out Mr. Morley’s course.

Note: If you regularly read and comment on this blog and you want to take the course — but you find it is too expensive — let me know and I will deposit $60 into a PayPal account for you. That is roughly half the course fee. I will do this for the first TWO “regulars” who make such a request. For those of you who are waiting for me to make contact about T-shirts, just know that I have not forgotten about you. I got a little sidetracked and haven’t been able to finish the design to my liking.

Dan Slott stalks online critics he blocks on Twitter — while telling fans that said critics are ‘crazy’

June 4, 2015June 5, 2015by Douglas Ernst77 Comments

Marvel writer Dan Slott has a reputation for weird behavior online. There was the time he stalked The Main Event. There was the time he searched out a random woman to troll on Twitter and made jokes about the quality of her life. He has now taken it to the next level. Dan Slott is simultaneously stalking Twitter accounts he has blocked while telling his fans that the people he is stalking are “crazy.” The Amazing Spider-Man writer cannot get me out of his head, which is why this tweet went up yesterday after my review of Renew Your Vows was posted. Here is what Mr. Slott did: Even though he has blocked my account and the account of Twitter user “Doctor Bizarre,” he obviously found Bizarre’s link to my review and concluded that we are, in fact, the same person. The implication is that I am so “crazy” that I start dummy accounts for the sole purpose of “hating” Dan Slott — even though my ASM reviews stick almost exclusively to his fundamental misunderstanding of Peter Parker as a character.

Where are the Dan Slott fat jokes? Where are the Dan Slott Danny Devito jokes? That’s right — they don’t exist in my writing because I don’t “hate” anyone. And if I were inclined to create dummy accounts, then it would be because Twitter recently blocked me after I complained it did nothing (yes, nothing) to the Islamic radical apologist who threatened to kill me.

Sadly, Dan Slott can not separate in his mind the difference between criticizing a man’s creative work and criticism of the man.

Here is the truth: Years ago I was struggling to make ends meet while trying to get my career started in Washington, D.C. I was contacted, in many ways out of the blue, by a man who runs a website called “Molotov Softball: Weird News for Weirder Times.” This man said he liked my work and offered to pay me just for allowing him to link to my blog. I jokingly asked him if he was Rumpelstiltskin or a guardian angel. (I never got a straight answer, so he may come knocking for a child one day.)

Long story short, this man eventually asked me if I had any creative friends who would be willing to write “weird” pieces under the pen name “Doctor Bizarre.” Those pieces would supplement another writer, whose pen name is Penny Franklin. Molotov Softball got a new contributor soon afterward.

Is Doctor Bizarre an old Army buddy or relative of mine? Am I Doctor Bizarre? Is he really my mysterious benefactor (who I still haven’t met in person and have no idea what he looks like — although his checks always clear)? I wish I could tell you, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter because Dan Slott is the one acting like a crazy person. Again: he blocks people on Twitter, stalks them, and then makes things up to his Twitter followers to gain praise and sympathy.

“Hate”? Where is the hate? Look through Doctor Bizarre’s Twitter feed or read his blog and find any posts that are personally directed at Dan Slott. You will not find them because they do not exist. The blog contains zero references to Dan Slott — again, zero — and the Twitter feed randomly shares links my work here — never personal opinions or “hate.” Dan Slott acts like a troubled man and makes up “hate” out of thin air to receive retweets and “favorites” on his Twitter account.

I have seen Dan Slott use the same tactic on different comic websites. If a user is banned and he suspects someone else of being that banned individual, he will relentlessly harp on the point. Why? Because all he has are personal attacks. He will call people like me “crazy” from afar so his minions lick his ego-wounds, but he won’t come here and actually debate my work on the merits. The few times he did engage me on different websites, he intellectually got his clock cleaned and had to beg the moderator to shut everything down. Ask him about the time he deleted an epic YouTube conversation because he looked like a raving lunatic.

Now, since I’m tired of Dan Slott acting like anyone who goes by a pseudonym online needs to be “exposed” by thin-skinned Marvel writers, I will explain why this is an utterly moronic move on his part. I will use my own life as an example. I encourage regular readers who go by an alias to add their two cents in the comments section.

I currently work for a newspaper.

My writing is seen by many people. People associate me, for the most part, with work on national security matters. If there is a breaking story on the Islamic State group, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, or cool military technology, then there is a good chance that I am writing on it. Do I want to mix tweets on Dan Slott’s Renew Your Vows in with my work on Sunni radical terrorist groups? No. I do not. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that sometimes there needs to be a line of demarcation between an individual’s personal and professional life.

Since I’m assuming that makes sense to the vast majority of readers, I will now move on to exposing Dan Slott’s utter hypocrisy for all the world to see. How interesting is it that Dan Slott likens Twitter to “talking outside,” but yet he seeks to keep his own conversations private from anyone who is inclined to call him out on his “BS”? Again, I cannot stress this enough: Dan Slott blocks accounts and then weirdly reads the accounts that he has blocked. This is the man who puts words in Peter Parker’s mouth. This is the man who actually holds creative clout at Marvel.

Congratulations, Marvel — you employ a man who blocks accounts, stalks said accounts, and then calls the owners of those accounts “crazy.”

If there is a colleague who cares about Dan Slott, then that person will pull him off to the side and tell him that his regular behavior, usually around 1:00 a.m., is not healthy. It is not productive. And it is certainly not professional.

Update: You can’t make this up. At 1:04 a.m., prime Dan Slott weird behavior time, he reads this blog post and then takes to Twitter to say that his previous stalking had nothing — nothing — to do with me, despite his long history of reading this very blog every time a review of his work goes up.

Best case scenario: “Hey guys, I wasn’t stalking Douglas Ernst yesterday — I was stalking another guy. But…reading Douglas Ernst’s blog just now at 1:00 a.m. (i.e., the guy I blocked on Twitter) means nothing. It’s not stalking. Seriously. Trust me.”

Dan Slott needs Damage Control for his damage control.

Update II: In the comments section below, I spoke with Carl about why Dan Slott would continue to read my work even after blocking my Twitter feed. The short answer can be found by tapping into my WordPress stats, which show me where people are coming from. Today, for instance, I had people coming over from Tumblr — “Walloping Web Snappers!” was one such account. Dan Slott knows that this happens often. That is why he will continue to read my reviews as long as he is on ASM.

Renew Your Vows: Dan Slott opts to divorce Peter Parker fans with tale of ‘stupid red and blue suit’

June 3, 2015June 4, 2015by Douglas Ernst34 Comments

Dan Slott was given a golden opportunity to use The Amazing Spider-Man #1: Renew Your Vows to build bridges with Peter Parker fans. Instead, he opted for divorce. Fans who have waited years to see Peter and MJ back together finally got their wish, but unfortunately it was granted by the same guy who saw nothing wrong with turning the character into an afterthought in his own book.

Imagine you’re a fan of Peter Parker. You’ve patiently piled up a mountain of lackluster stories while waiting for another glimpse into the married life he once had. Finally, when Renew Your Vows hits, you open it up and the first thing you get is MJ nagging Peter not to fix his web shooters at the table. You turn to the second page to see a sullen Peter complain about changing diapers. Pensive and sad faces abound on the third page. The reader is told that Peter has “wedded bliss,” even though the evidence doesn’t back that up. Dan Slott then takes the action out of the apartment, and the next time MJ is seen she’s being held hostage by venom. No build up — he just escaped from Ryker’s Island penitentiary.

Question: Why should anyone care about an alternate universe MJ that they’ve “known” for all of three pages when those three pages have done nothing to show younger readers why the couple is so good together?

Answer: They shouldn’t.

A few pages are then allotted to MJ attempting to keep her daughter safe — as any sane mother would do in the same situation —and alternate universe Peter Parker ultimately ends up killing venom. “I did what I had to do,” is all he says before MJ can finish asking if Eddie Brock is dead.

Fans of Peter Parker are apparently supposed to have their minds blown that their hero — even an alternate universe version of the original — would ever be placed in a situation where he might have to kill a man. Correction: A psychopathic madman whose body has fused with an alien symbiote.

The only people this may be shocking to is Dan Slott of the infamous “No one dies” mantra, and those who think a man can be a hero and never — never, never, never — have to make such a difficult choice.

Newsflash: Cops are heroes and sometimes they have to kill. Soldiers are heroes and sometimes they have to kill. Spider-Man is a heroic character, and it makes sense that on a long enough timeline he may — despite his best efforts to avoid it — have to take a (likely super-powered) life to save others.

Only in the mind of Dan Slott would having to do what real heroes do every single day constitute the “death” of Spider-Man.

“That was the day The Avengers died. That every last hero died. Even Spider-Man. It just looked like him standing there. But that was just me. Peter Parker. A dad in a stupid red and blue suit,” the hero thinks while reflecting on his actions and The Avengers’ battle with Regent (aka: lame villain introduced for Secret Wars).

One word: Pathetic.

On the last page it gets worse. Peter says “It’s not a perfect world. But, I look after me and mine. And that’s good enough.”

Imagine a world where cops, firemen, soldiers, doctors and many other kind souls all had the “I look after me and mine” mentality of a married Peter Parker (written by Dan Slott). What would that world look like? It would look like a pretty scary place, which is why no one who fundamentally understands Peter Parker would put those words in his mouth.

If you own The Amazing Spider-Man #1: Renew Your Vows, then I suggest looking through the issue for all the times Peter really looks happy. Try and find a wide smile on his face. You’ll see four — all from pictures hanging on his apartment wall — and he’s not even smiling in his wedding picture. He has a look on his face that says, “Here. I’m married. You got the shot you wanted. Can we move on?” It’s a small detail, but one worth noticing.

Marvel gave fans what they were thirsting for, but its creative team made sure to spike the product with something bitter. Although it should come as no surprise at this point, it really is quite stunning how Marvel uses every opportunity to mend fences with Peter Parker fans to spit in their faces instead.

Exit question: Why does Mr. Slott have a sick fetish with killing Peter Parker, whether it’s outright killing the 616 version, killing off 616’s ghost/memory fragment/soul/whatever he was, killing off countless other versions in Spider-Verse, and now doing so symbolically in Renew Your Vows?

Exit question II: Why is Mr. Slott asking if Renew Your Vows brought back readers? For years Marvel has told us that the number of fans who stayed away from the book post OMD was marginal at best. When guys like me talked about a significant number of fans who were sitting on the sidelines, we were scoffed at. Yet now, suddenly, those numbers are enough to warrant a sales pitch to catch up on “Big Time” and “SSM”? Interesting.

It’s okay to let friends go when they wish you were like Han Solo frozen in carbonite

May 10, 2015May 11, 2015by Douglas Ernst10 Comments

Here is a bit of advice for younger readers of this blog: One day you will have friends who will wish you were like Han Solo frozen in carbonite. You will meet these individuals at a young age, and as both of you become older they will always identify you with a very specific time and a very specific place. They will refuse to accept that people mature and change over the years, and their attempts to keep you in a mental and spiritual state of suspended animation will leave you puzzled as to how to properly respond. If tactful attempts to show them that hanging on too tightly to the past is unhealthy, then you must move on — not necessarily in dramatic fashion — but you must move on.

Cells die in your body every single day. Over the course of many months, all of your cells are replaced with new cells. Physically, you become a different person. Mentally and spiritually, you also go through changes over the course of your life. The “core” of your being (the “you” behind the “you”) basically stays the same, but for all intents and purposes you are a different person. Some of your friends will become attached to the 2015 version of you and, like a favorite car, they will do anything they can to keep you just as you were when you first rolled up their driveway. If you want to become the best version of yourself possible, then placating this desire among those friends must be avoided at all costs.

Although there are probably countless variations of the Boba Fett-type of friend, my own personal experiences come in two varieties:

The friend who wishes the “old” me (i.e., immature prankster) still existed.
The friend who wishes the less knowledgeable version of me still existed.

In an ideal world, the friends we make early on in life would understand that knowledge is a virtue. Everyone would grow and expand at comparable rates, but they would respect the different ways we all branch out. Sadly, that is not the case.

When faced with these situations, you will feel the need to “act the part.” You will feel the need to “go along to get along.” Don’t. It would be weird for frogs to revert back to tadpoles, fish to roe, or butterflies into caterpillars — so why would you ever try to be a version of yourself that no longer exists? If you put on a fraudulent face to make someone happy, then you are doing both yourself and the person who cannot let go of the past a disservice. Only by being true to yourself can you achieve what you were truly meant to achieve and live life without regrets.

Life is much too short for living lies — even little ones that seem well-intentioned. If you have friends in your life who seem to want you to be their personal Han Solo frozen in carbonite, then it is because on many levels they are mentally and spiritually paralyzed. The biggest favor you can do for them if they refuse to see that truth is to walk away.

‘Douglas Ernst C.R.O.N.I.E.S.’ shirts given out to celebrate 1 million page views

May 10, 2015October 10, 2015by Douglas Ernst27 Comments

Douglas Ernst Blog has hit 1 million page views, and to celebrate I’d like to send out “Douglas Ernst C.R.O.N.I.E.S.” shirts inspired by Marvel writer Dan Slott’s personal attacks on anyone who agrees with my analysis of his work on The Amazing Spider-Man.

If Dan Slott wants to call you my “cronies,” then I need to get you some gear. My biggest concern before having them made and shipped out is to make sure that a.) the shirt is made of quality material, and b.) the printing quality isn’t something reminiscent of an “iron-on” kit for children.

Update: The shirts are in, and they receive a passing grade. I’m happy with the first generation shirt.

Since I am a man of my word, I would like to offer a shirt to Magnetic Eye:

I would also like to offer shirts to Carl, Hube, Nate Winchester, Truthwillwin1, and up to three others who will promise me they will try to take a picture next to Dan Slott wearing “Douglas Ernst C.R.O.N.I.E.S.” apparel. The design is subject to change, but the general look and feel will be as displayed in the image above.

If you are interested in receiving a shirt, then let me know and I will contact you via the email address that I see on the back end of WordPress. Once I get your address, then a package will randomly show up at your doorstep in the coming months (i.e., “free” stuff ships based on my work schedule and the condition of my bank account).

This blog started five years ago as a creative outlet. When I first began, I had perhaps five people read a day. Over time that number has grown significantly, all while writing when time allows. I have met really good people while blogging, including a few who I now feel comfortable calling friends. I am incredibly proud of hitting the 1 million mark on what can best be described as a side-project, but it means nothing next to the relationships I’ve formed with a few of you. I mean it when I say that I care about you, the trajectory of your lives, and that I try to find time to pray for you.

As I said when I hit 1,000 blog posts, I cannot thank my regular readers enough for taking time out of their day to entertain my missives. It means a lot to me, and I will never forget your kindness and generosity. You give me time — time you can never reclaim — and for that I will always be grateful.

Best,

Doug