Eureka Moment, Or Not

So, I don't post a lot about 52, but I'm reading it all, and I did post here about butterfly references -- specifically, the Chang Tzu quote about dreaming you are a butterfly, and Charlie's mumblings about butterflies. Omitted was the most obvious reference, which was Mister Mind actually cocooning in Week Three, to emerge later in an as-yet unidentified form.

But it wasn't until Sunday night, when I was reading my daughter a Disney picture book version of Alice in Wonderland, that I realized that Charlie isn't just a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but he's THAT caterpillar -- from Alice in Wonderland.



Charlie's first and recurrent question -- "Who are you?" -- to which Renee always responds "I don't know", is taken directly from the conversation between Alice and the Caterpillar, complete with smoking and getting lost in the clouds of smoke. And of course, their adventure begins at 520 Kane St. when they fall through the trap door together (down the rabbit hole . . .)



Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. Alice is dreaming, of course, and I have always suspected that Ralph Dibney is dreaming, or hallucinating, or whatever, since his Helmet of Fate experience doesn't line up with the Half-Helmet stuff going on the Helmet of Fate mini.

Which got me thinking about the other threads, and I wonder if I'm extending metaphors too far . . . The Steel/Natasha Everyman stuff doesn't happen until after Dr. Irons starts hallucinating that he is talking to Steel after identifying the "other" Luthor . . . Are Starfire and the space gang trio replaying the Wizard of Oz going after the wicked witch (Lady Styx) after Dorothy bumped her head during the Crisis?

Maybe I'm overanalyzing, but that's just how my mind works, I guess.

Coming in from the Racial Snowstorm (52 #38, Cover Date 1/24/07)

Characters

Main Heroes: Renee Montoya, Will Magnus
Minor Heroes: The Question, Steel, Natasha Irons, Dr. Midnite

Main Villians: Chang Tzu
Minor Villains: The Mad Scientists

P'Shat

The majority of this week's installment revolves around Renee's desperate attempt to get Charlie back to Nanda Parbat before he dies. This involves lots of pulling of a sled through the Himalayan wilderness and low moaning from Charlie. semi-cryptic discussion of butterflies, and a last second reprieve as Nanda Parbat is revealed from the midsts of the white wasteland.

In other news, Chang Tzu reveals that the scientists have recreated the four horesemen of the apocolypse using the "Revelation of Apokalips", a blueprint provided in the Bible of Crime. War, Death, and Pestilence are introduced, but Famine seems to have ridden out earlier.

Also, Steel and Dr. Midnite briefly examine an Everyman corpse, and consider how wise it is to storm Luthor's facility. They are interrupted by Natasha, who has come to her senses and is now working for the good guys from the inside.



Drash


After answering the burning "Who is Supernova" mystery last week -- it turns out that he was secretly Basil Exposition from Austin Powers -- things settled down to a more leisurely pace in Week 38. Of the 20 pages of story (not including the "Origins of Red Tornado"), 13 pages take place wondering in the white wasteland with Montoya, 5 are in Oolong Island with the scientists, and only 2 are with Steel in Metropolis. (No word from space, Ralph, or Skeets this week).

And speaking of coming in from the White Wastelands, I have been impressed with all the rehabilitations of racist stereotypes so far this year. I talked about Ebony before, but, really, if I were going to guess the "least likely to be rehabilitated", it would have to have been the evil Emperor "Egg Fu" (pictured above in all of his non-P.C. glory in his original "Wonder Woman" days.) Now renamed Chang Tzu, I have almost completely forgotten that he was previously named after a menu item from Peking Duck House, despite still being shaped like one of its ingredients.

Chang Tzu, by the way, far from being "One from Column A", was a Taoist philosopher, most famous for stating, "I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man." This ties in very well with Charlie's rantings about butterflies on the Himalayan pages, and I wonder whether or not it was intentional.

I think everyone reading "52" has a favorite thread, and are disappointed when it doesn't appear. For me, the Chang Tzu quote reminds me of my favorite character thread who was absent this week -- Ralph Dibney. The "Helmet of Fate" mini is making me think less and less that Ralph is "really" wandering around with the Helmet. That leaves me to think he is either complete insane, or -- what I think is more likely -- that he's having a Jacob's Ladder/ Donnie Darko moment.