The Crankshaft Awards! Day 2!

21 thoughts on “The Crankshaft Awards! Day 2!”

1. I voted for “Cindy can get pregnant”

   I was shocked when I first saw it in the strip

2. Cindy can get pregnant. “Dafuq?!” indeed. She had better hurry up and have the thing because at the rate she’s de-aging Masonne is going to have to enroll both her and the kid in preschool at the same time.

3. This was also the one that got my vote. I’m 2 for 2 so far!

   Some of the other ones were almost as baffling, but I’m assuming that in the Funkyverse, slowly but surely everyone’s last name will become ‘Reynolds’. Reynolds will be a comic strip that features a cranky, elderly bus driver named Ed Reynolds; it was spun off from the long running comic Funky Reynolds.

4. I’m glad Cindy getting pregnant won this one.

5. Was “Batton also lived at 425 West Avenue” actually a discontinuity? I don’t see what the contradiction is between the strips shown here.

   1. No contradiction. Just a baffling little plot twist. Jamming young Batton in the same apartment house as both Fred Fairgood and Jeff Murdoch shows how tissue paper thin all these author avatars are. He must make them all himself. Completely. Down to his previous physical addresses.

6. Since, like the Flash, the Funkyverse, and Billy Pilgrim, I have apparently become unstuck in time, I don’t remember when that “Cindy’s Knocked Up” panel ran.

   But wasn’t it around last summer? That kid’s gotta be due right about now. Or, since she’s unstuck in time, maybe a few years from now. Or maybe the pregnancy only lasted a few minutes. Whatever. It’s Called Writing.

   1. It was on May 18th … exactly 9 months ago today.

      Of course, it would be completely on-brand for Batiuk to skip over the actual birth, as that could at least hypothetically be interesting, and just present us at some point with Cindy’s kid who is two years old.

      Then six. Then two again.

      1. Yep, that’s pure Batty. “Imagine how surprised your 97- and 99-year-old parents will be when you tell them their 70-year-old ingenue starlet daughter is with child!” Cut to: years later, when the child is seen playing with a gunmetal rocket ship in the corner of a panel.

         The real thrill will be in the child’s HY-lariously punny name. Bets? How about:

         Belle

         Dorza

         Jamm

         Night

         Ball

         Binks-Jar

         1. You know it’s going to be named “Lisa”, right? Before it dies of cancer, of course.

7. Today’s Crankshaft

   Ed: WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T DRAG ME OUT OF BED!

8. A very deserving winner, and actually one of the biggest “record scratch” moments that TB has ever hatched. Hey! At least the man has proven he can still reach some superlatives. And in classic TB fashion, this absolutely unhinged idea was presented in the most hinged way possible… as a throwaway comment that would be taken for a joke if we ever could trust that TB was telling us a joke.

   I’ve been tossing around the phrase “top-shelf TB” in the comments over the past year or two, but not to try and make it a thing or anything (it sure doesn’t need to be a thing). “Top-shelf TB” is simply what comes to my mind when marking strips and story arcs that illustrate the purest output of the blandly mad storyteller that TB has become. Cindy being pregnant 2 years after her 50 year high school reunion is top-shelf TB.

9. ComicBookHarriet,
   1. Thank you for letting CSROBERTO2854 script 2/18’s Crankshaft. That is very kind of you. I am assuming you had to step in and water down the ‘DAFUQ’ comment to its present form. Gotcha. I understand. The kid is a good writer. I enjoy him.
   Now, how did I know it wasn’t you?
   You have a certain southern belle maiden aura. In other words, you sit atop the Virginal Equinox. Proudly. It is for our attention and appreciation.
   2. DC’s Flashpoint. I must agree with you. DC was firing on all cylinders starting with Infinite Crisis. With the exception of it climax featuring a worm known as Mister Mind, it was a powerhouse series. Then it was followed by the blockbuster weekly 52. Lady Styx is a magnificent villain.
   Hopes were raised with Countdown to Final Crisis that were quickly dashed. (Editor Dan DiDio said CTFC was 52 done right. I wish he published that version. I would have enjoyed reading that version, but alas, he did not.)
   3. Then there was Final Crisis. I am in awe of that series. Didn’t understand a darn thing about it, other than setting up the return of Batman. But it made me think and rethink. Not unlike James Joyce Ulysses. 🤩Joyce is easier to read and follow.🤪
   4. My final point is I just hate the multiverse. If it’s done right, like *Sider-Man: No Way Home*, it is magnificent. But if it is like *Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness*, it is cow pie. (CBH, you might have some familiarity!)
   There are 2 possibilities for a multiverse:
   A. Great opportunity for writers to stretch their creativity in new stories and horizons.
   B. Dreck! Pure dreck! Handled poorly, there are no stakes that matter in a multiverse. If a character dies, he is just an odd version of the main character. Look at the difference: How many Doctor Strange characters died in his podunk movie? Yet look at how SM:NWH handled it. Had any one of the 3 SM died, that would have been Earth shattering. Marvel’s *Infinity Wars* had real deaths. We will see if they can stay dead. So far so good.
   I hope this is worth a Snowbelle photo.
   💝💜💖🫂🌺💐🌹

   1. I was not a fan of Final Crisis or Countdown to Final Crisis at all. I thought both of them gave off the pretentious appearance of depth without actually having any heart.

      For me the peak of DC crossovers in that era was Blackest Night. That was just a beautiful event. Allowing all these DC characters to face their emotions, demons, histories, and failures, in the form of emotionally abusive evil zombies.

      52 the series was also great, and not just because Booster Gold was a central focus.

      The next time SnowBelle and my cell phone are in proximity, I’ll snap a pic just for you.

      1. ComicBookHarriet,
         1. Yes. *Blackest Night* was great. If I remember correctly, it had a nice setup in the Green Lantern comic. I think there were some tie-ins that included Superboy Prime getting his! But what I really remember is the resurrection of Barry Allen. I bet TB had some serious squee over that!
         But I also remember the Orange Lantern lowering the boom on Lex Luthor. Geoff Johns is a very good writer.
         2. The best part of Blackest Night, was all the pretty colors!
         3. 52 was my first introduction to Booster Gold. I fell in love with that character.
         4. At your convenience, I will await the SnowBelle photo. 🤗

10. Today’s Past Batiukverse Strips: A 1993 week-long Funky Winkerbean storyline where there’s a talent show

    

    

    

    

    Les: What movie is he showing?

    Monroe: Either Going Overboard, Coneheads, Jurassic Park, or Return of the Jedi.

    

    I have no idea what song Linda is singing

    

    Ha ha it’s funny because Les is the opposite of funny

    1. I have no idea what song Linda is singing

       I don’t think she does either. According to Grandpa Google, it appears to be at least two different songs. “Verteel” is confusing, because the Spanish language doesn’t have double vowels like that. The correct spelling would be “virtíl” or “vertíl” (note accent) if that word existed.

11. A favorite Ebert quote: “When anything can happen, who cares what happens?”

12. The true worthy winner. I really have no idea what Tom was thinking with this one. It would have been perplexing under the original timeline (where they graduated in 1988, so she’s be mid-50s), but after explicitly having retconned it to 1972? Just… no.

    (I’d also put in an honorable mention for Crazy Harry and Donna having The Eliminator helmet back in the web strips. Did Tom forget that they put it out for the trash and the cat took it? And why are they using it just to go back in time for pizza? At the very least, find another copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, doofuses! Not that it would or should beat out Cindy’s inexplicable pregnancy, but… Tom threatened to give us new web-only Funky strips, and THAT’S what we got?)

    As for DC and it’s ever-resetting timeline… it’s been a problem since Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986, and they STILL haven’t figured it out. CoIE was their first “continuity reset”, and they bungled it right from the get-go. (It’s tempting to place the blame fully on Friend of SoSF John Byrne, but editorial could and should have done something to stop it, so there’s blame to go around, and he’s not the only one who made such radical changes.)

    Basically (for those unfamiliar), prior to CoIE, there were multiple Earths. Earth-1 was where the main current continuity took place. Earth-2 was where the Golden Age characters came from, including the ones like Superman or Batman who they never stopped publishing. (There were other Earths, too, but the difference between Earth-1 and Earth-2 is the most important thing here.) After CoIE, they merged the remaining Earths into one, but did so retroactively; i.e., there had NEVER been multiple Earths. Which was confusing enough, but they really didn’t plan on how to explain away the Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, et. al. who were around in the 1940s but now… weren’t. (Guys like Flash and Green Lantern were easy; Jay Garrick and Alan Scott were around in the 1940s, and Barry Allen and Hal Jordan came around later.)

    Then, to top it off, they brought in Byrne to completely revamp Superman. Even though the Silver Age version had been around at the end of CoIE, now that version never existed, either. Superman had a new origin and new status quo, and you could pretty much assume all his previously published appearances never happened. On the other hand, while Batman underwent minor changes, a lot of HIS adventures DID still happen, at least the ones from the 1960s or so. Except some of those involved a Superman who didn’t exist. (Like, when Dick Grayson retired as Robin, he then adopted the superhero name “Nightwing”, which was the name Superman used as a costumed hero in the Bottled City of Kandor. Except Kandor no longer existed, and Superman never used the Nightwing name… so what was Dick’s inspiration for using it? Even Marv Wolfman and George Perez, the creative team on Teen Titans, pretty much shrugged and said “dunno”.)

    So you had a situation where SOME old stories were still in continuity, and SOME weren’t… and NO ONE seemed to know which were which. (The entire Legion of Super-Heroes, set in the 30th century, had taken inspiration from Superboy… but Superman had no longer been Superboy as a teenager. Not only that, but both Superboy and Supergirl had been recruited into the Legion via time travel, but no only was there no Superboy, only Superman, but there was no Supergirl at all!) (I won’t even get into the shenanigans involved with having both be members of the Legion…)

    And then they did the SAME THING with Wonder Woman. George Perez did a complete revamp, that precluded any previous stories from having happened, even the ones that NEEDED to have happened. And then they did the same thing with Hawkman. (Yeah. Hawkman. The guy who flies with fake wings. THAT GUY caused SO MANY continuity issues that DC had to actually prohibit anyone from using him for YEARS at one point.)

    DC flushed away almost 50 years of continuity, and the problems grew so huge that within 5 years they had to do ANOTHER continuity reset, with Zero Hour. And guess what? THEY DIDN’T PLAN OUT HOW THE NEW CONTINUITY WOULD WORK AHEAD OF TIME. Some previous stories were still in continuity, and some weren’t. Which were which? NO ONE KNEW. So they did ANOTHER reset. And then ANOTHER. And ANOTHER. I think they’re up to EIGHT “hard” resets by now. And EVERY TIME they don’t bother to decide what the new continuity will look like ahead of time, or enforce what has been decided. EVERY TIME. Not even Timemop can clean up the mess that is DC continuity.

    Sorry, bit of a rant there. Anyway, yeah… congratulations, Cindy, on your well-deserved award.

    1. Green Luthor,
       Dynamic read, sir!
       I normally don’t read comics but through Comic Book Resources, I followed the news. My older brother was a Batman collector. Then I heard about Infinite Crisis. I got hooked on that and 52..
       But even earlier, I borrowed his Crisis on Infinite Earths from 1986. Great individual stories, but a true continuity snarl like you said.
       I did read Zero Hour. Hated it. Mainly because they (at the time) ruined the Hal Jordan character. If I remember correctly they let the JSA age except for Alan Scott and I think Starman. Feel free to correct my faulty memory. I did like Scott later being put in charge of their spy organization Checkmate. One part of Zero Hour I did like was Clark Kent Superboy engaging with Superboy Conner Kent.
       You are always a good read. Thanks for letting me bend your ear!

13. It would have made more sense to adopt.

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