Episode 198 of the Letters Page: Creative Process: Villainous Holiday Plots

Just rename these villains Krampus

Wow, that was the best Cult of Gloom letter since the Iron Legacy episode! It’s amazing they got all the hero names to work in “On Donner, on Blitzen, …”

We are totally getting a moment in the RPG when Skyscraper challenges Loo (spelling?) to a duel for KNYFE’s love. “I challenge you fairy-champion to a death-battle for the singular heart of the Paige Huntly!”

Also great that we finally have Santa in Sentinel Comics, and even better, it’s weird alien dimension-hopping Santa! Now we just need him to meet Guise and see if Guise fanboys over him or is disappointed and decides that he is a better Santa.

It’s Lugh, Dil_Ninja.

Assuming it isn’t all a gag, I have no idea what episode might have gotten C&A in legal trouble. Did they do an episode about fictional presidential assassinations or something? I know how a Cracked.com got in trouble for something like that, but this is the first I’ve heard about it happening to the Greater-Than Guys.

They’re jokingly referring to this episode

I mentioned Lugh before they spelled it in the episode, by the way.

Honestly, I’m a little bit offended by the KNYFE story, since she’s a Scottish character getting cursed by the (Irish, by the way) fairy folk, so that she can only see magic things when she’s drunk. It’d be kind of like having a character who’s from Botswana being bespelled by the Yoruba (aka more or less Nigerian) gods, so that he can see all sorts of crazy stuff but only when he’s playing the drums. I’m not normally the type to complain about every little thing in this vein, and maybe I’m overreacting a bit, but I dunno, it seems questionable.

When they move on to the Boxing Day story, and they start naming low-tier villains that might be behind this, I’m having a real hard time telling which of these they’ve actually mentioned on the show and I just forgot, versus them talking about things that they both know but don’t realize they haven’t publicized yet. I mean, I vaguely recall Mr. Hideous and Skeleton Key (at least one of them inspired the Macabre Spectre), but who the heck are Doctor Rubber and The Entertainer? I’m almost certain these haven’t been described at all, unless it was in a Publishers’ Note or something that I skipped.

By the way, I’d be very disappointed if Crossword doesn’t wear a costume with this on his chest:
[] [] [W] [] []
[C][R][O][S][S]
[] [] [R] [] []
[] [] [D] [] []
Well now that’s strange. Apparently [ plus ] twice doesn’t equal a box, but rather two boxes with a slash between them. I have no idea why the software does that.

All 4 of those villains are from the Wraith’s Rouges Gallery episode. Doctor Rubber is a dude made out of rubber, and the Entertainer is a psychotic game-show host descended from P.T. Barnum.

Huh. I guess I’d better give that ep a(nother?) listen, since I either missed it before or didn’t pay a lot of attention to it.

Wending our way back to my first point above, another slightly charged subject that I hesitate to mention is about the Hannukah Oil thing, which I had never heard of before (I always figured it was just Christmas for Jews, and figured the menorah-candles thing was their equivalent of a Christmas tree). I found an interesting recounting of the story, so I am better educated now, but I also find myself questioning why the Sentinels version of this story involves petroleum, when the original Jewish “miracle” is about lamp oil. Other than both being flammable liquids, the two substances don’t have that much in common, and it’s kind of an accident of English that we refer to something you drill out of the ground by the same word as something that you get by squeezing olives. I don’t know if there’s a similarly dual-purpose word in Hebrew, but certainly there have to be some languages in which there isn’t an umbrella term for the two distinct fluids.

You say you didn’t know anything about Chanukah and then complain what they did wasn’t accurate to that holiday….
As it was they do mention the use of olive oil when talking about the holiday in the episode. A comic villain plot using a whole lot of Olive Oil just doesn’t have the same impact.

Bluto would like a word.

Jest aside though, the reply to the first letter regarding the existence a “musical” issue - did A&C forget about La Comodora and Chrono-Ranger rounding up Las Capitans to the tune of the sea shanty What do you do with a drunken sailor?

I tried to come up with some villainous plot involving olive oil but I’ve got nothing (it’s worth noting I haven’t watched the episode yet because I’m woefully behind).

That’s not exactly what I said, on either count. I said that I just learned about Hannukah, and I pointed out that Hannukah revolves around olive oil, and they’re using crude oil instead for the story.

From what I’ve heard, there are a lot of Sicilian gangsters who have a near-monopoly on the world’s supply of “Extra Virgin” Olive Oil, have exclusive legal right to use that branding, and engage in a lot of price fixing to exploit that exclusivity for profit. Exactly how true that is IRL is debatable, but you could definitely say that it was true for the sake of a comic book. It’s the kind of thing the Chairman would do, if not for the difference in location, and would be a great plot for a Wraith issue where Maia goes vacationing in Italy, trying to get away from crime for a week, only to find out that one of her new friends is entangled in the Olive Mafia’s plots. You could comic book it up by having one of the Oil Barons as a short-term supervillain who looks really cartoonish, and the whole thing would have a patina of “inspired by true events” without constituting an accusation against any exact person in real life.

“It can be a bad issue” is lovely music to my ears. What a story, Mark.

And yeah, someone better tell Portja that Paige is a married woman. <.< What an info bomb!

You said this which tells me you don’t know little on it.

Yes, note the past tense. I no longer think that, as of several hours ago.

I can’t believe they had that whole letter about musical episodes, and the Argent Adept never came up. If such a character never did an issue which heavily revolved around the actual song that Tony was playing while he cast a spell, then this is a hugely missed opportunity.

And we close out on some words of wisdom: “Yay, the world is horrible!” I agree wholeheartedly, which is why we need to get our escapism RIGHT, g-d-it.

This is amazing and I love it.

Now rewatching the Wraith’s Rogues’ Gallery episode. I’m not sure why Christopher is making gorilla noises, but anyway. It seems as though the look of Skeleton Key and the concept of Mister Hideous may have been kind of merged to create Mister Jitters as a character (I feel like this has pretty definitely happened with some Batman and Spider-Man foes, but I can’t think of examples right now). Either way, the Macabre Spectre is clearly based on some or all of these villains.

I can go for that! My wish is rather more involved: that they would record an episode along the lines of the Golden Age radio play, but a mini-musical perhaps scored by Jean-Marc. They did mention how many sitcoms will do a musical episode as a gimmick. I think The Letters Page has been around long enough to go for it now! I acknowledge the effort would be monumental, however. It would distract too much from making games and such, so it may not be worth their while.

Yeah, please no. I hate musicals so much that I can barely even stand the Buffy episode.

Everyone is not talking about what I think is the biggest bombshell of the episode. During the Miss Information era, Freedom Five #666 came out in October. WHAT CHAOS DID SHE CAUSE THAT ISSUE?! We need a writers room, stat!

Avernus first appearance confirmed?

Hanukkah revolves around a guerilla victory over an oppressive regime. The lamp oil is something of an addition to that.

The source I read indicated that while the “Hannukah Miracle” happens against the backdrop of Greek conquerors oppressing the Jews (which is a war I had never even heard of, I knew Jews fought Egypt and Greeks fought Persia, I didn’t know about this one), the specific “miracle” isn’t a military victory of any kind, it’s the fact that they were able to keep their menorah lit for eight days when they had seemingly only had one day worth of olive oil to burn. If all that is incorrect, then either the source mis-told the tale or I mis-read it, both of which are of course possible.

Under a leader with a name that means “The Hammer.”

Good summary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q2FjJAUT0U&t=198s

Also, according to my Jewish in-laws, Hanukkah is a fairly minor holiday. The gift giving seems to be something added to keep the kids from getting mad about missing the winter gift-giving holiday in America.

Many American Jews consider the “main” Hanukkah miracle to be the defeat of a powerful, well-organized, repressive force by a rebel militia. The Maccabees’ rededication of the temple, and the associated miracle of the lamp oil lasting long enough to get a proper resupply, is symbolically important but not what the holiday “revolves” around. The stories told, the songs, the dreidel game, and so on focus on themes like the struggle for freedom or holding on to your beliefs in the face of coercion. Here’s a good overview: Chanukah, explained. It’s November, which means the “holiday… | by Matt Samberg | Nov, 2021 | Medium

Besides, guerilla warfare victory is a much cooler thing to celebrate than an overachieving candelabra.

I dunno. Having the equivalent of your phone at 5% yet lasting for a week is pretty dang miraculous.

As my wife put it when we were discussing various respective holy days, many Jewish holidays can be summed up as “they tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat.”