Kieslowski is one of my heroes. I just love him tremendously, and I'd found a book of scripts for his Decalogue (or Dekalog), which he'd done in Poland about twenty years ago. In the introduction, he discusses quite frankly that he wished a bunch of other writers and artists would do the Ten Commandments as a theme. He said he wasn't the first person to think of this, and hoped that more people would do it.
- Brian Michael Bendis in conversation

I Am Your God
It doesn't seem as though I talk about religion too often anymore. Of course, that might just be a matter of perspective. Eleven years of Catholic school, remember?

Of course you do. I never let you forget it.

I remember discussing the Big R with Mel, but if memory serves, that was more of a negotiation than a tete a tete. Kate and I exchanged Kairos horror stories on the roof of her gaudy apartment complex in another one of those deleted scenes from "The Restaurant at the End of the District". Prewitt and I have had many a deep philosophical discussion about it, but Prewitt and I talk about everything.

For example, every once in a while, Prewitt gets on me about writing plays. He seems to feel it'd be a great way for me to break into the industry of my choice -- after all, it worked for Aaron Sorkin and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. I, however, gave up my one act dreams when I switched my minor from theatre to history, because to my mind, you can't be a playwright unless you took a couple of classes, who cares how much education Billy Shakespeare had ahead of time...

Anyway, the last time Prewitt made his pitch, he suggested to me that my Catholicism could serve as a wealth of material, as he feels a lot of my strongest work has been that which grappled with my myriad papist issues. At the time, I remember thinking, I don't know... Seems like the whole God issue's kind of been done to death.

I now realize how stupid that is.

The "whole God issue" as I so eloquently put it in my unedited internal monologue can't be done to death because it will be done until death.

On the warm spring day that Mai'keth the First Man killed the last dinosaur and took N'garai as his wife and Ru'tai as his mistress, he whispered thank you to the earth for forming his club, and ever since, mankind has had an uneasy relationship with its creator.

And on the cool autumn night that P'ru-Proo the Everlasting, too senile to remember the name his parents gave him after having walked the earth for a thousand years because he was just too stubborn to die, finally falls to his knees as his cold, black prune of a heart stutters its final thump, he'll look to the full moon and whisper, "Dear God, whose name I do not know, thank you for my life."

Thou Shall Not Swear
The hell I won't.

There's something truly wonderful about a curse word. I don't know what it is, but don't you feel a little thrill when you say one? What do you suppose that's all about?

I think my craziest French teacher once told me that the bad thing about profanity is that it limits your vocabulary, so I always figured I could swear a blue streak as long as I maintained an expansive lexicon and never lost my perspicacity.

Besides, "fuck the fucking fuckers" is a tiny poem. And "sweet shit!" was once my unofficial catch phrase.

Honor the Sabbath
I haven't been to Mass in over a month, and I am vaguely surprised that the roof hasn't caved in on my head. Which really means I've normalized.

I still consider cleaning a toilet on a Sunday morning the holiest sign of one's reverence for the splendor of creation.

Honor Your Father and Mother
My father taught me how to find irreverent humor in every situation and my mother taught me everything that mattered.

It's hard for me not to feel like a disappointment to my parents. I'm not even sure why this is.

I'm pretty non-controversial as kids go. I never went through that awkward rebellious stage that's gotta drive moms and dads batshit insane when their kids hit adolescence. I've never been arrested or threw a crazy party in the house while they were away. I haven't knocked some girl up and I'm not an alcoholic (as of yet).

Actually, I just listed a couple reasons why I think I'm a disappointment to my father. Plus, he had wanted me to get a dual journalism degree or my masters. And now that I think about it, my mom had really wanted me to consider teaching.

Then again, if your kids turn out exactly the way you want them to, you've probably done something wrong...

Thou Shall Not Kill
I think the Prowler should kill somebody.

There's a weird extremism when it comes to comic book characters killing. They either swear never to kill no matter what -- like Superman, Batman, or our pal Spidey -- or they mow through people willy-nilly like Wolverine, the Punisher and Deadpool back in the day.

It seems like there should be a little more middle ground here. I mean sure, Superman's killed, but it was in the most absurd and extreme situation possible. Let's face it: logically, Batman should have offed someone by now. He's just a man. I don't care how well you train, when you confront the criminal element night after night in a gruesome and psychotic war on crime, eventually you're going to land in a kill or be killed situation.

Of course, if a day comes in which I open a Batman comic where The World's Greatest Detective beats the Joker to death with a bat-bludgeon (which you'd think he'd just call a "bat", but the Dark Knight's always been kind of goofy like that), I'll scream bloody murder.

Don't get me wrong. I'd never write a Spider-Man story where he killed somebody. (God, I can no longer write something pithy and self-effacing like "Then again, I probably will never write any type of Spider-Man story at all". That is so weird for me. I feel naked.) Peter Parker shouldn't kill any more than Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne.

Hobie Brown's a different story. He's just a man. He's not even an urban legend. He can have feet of clay. He can be real. Because the reality of the situation is that there are circumstances in which our society feels that killing is justified. (Which I imagine is the reason the Hebrew version of this commandment is "Thou Shall Not Murder". Those Jews are smart. Probably why they're the chosen people and the rest of us are just squatting in it.) Self-defence. Capital punishment. Strategery. Apparantly sometimes a sucka's gotta get kakked.

So somewhere around Prowler #37, just as I'm starting to run out of ideas, I figure Hobie'd find himself in a gruesome and gritty life-or-death situation with some random Hydra flunky, and he'd end up shooting the guy in the head. Hobie's insurmountable guilt about having taken a life would become this dark undercurrent beneath the surface of another year of strained and bizarre storylines, drudging up the lamest characters in the Marvel Universe for my own perverse glee. (I'd love to do a story where the Orange Bowling League happens upon a seemingly retired Bullseye working in a Target Supercenter in Minnesota.)

At some point, Hobie's brother Abe is killed in a car accident, which launches a single issue story inexplicably titled "Abraham, Part 6" where Hobie's convinced that his brother's death was really part of a Hydra plot to get revenge on him for killing the random flunky, so he goes on a tear through the seedy under-belly of the Marvel U, only to learn that Abe's death was in fact a meaningless accident. Hobie just can't reconcile himself with the arbitrary nature of the universe, so in issue #50 (which would actually be shamelessly titled "Prowler No More"), he puts his costume away, quits his freelance gig with SHIELD, begins a steady, alcohol-induced decline in his tiny apartment in Teaneck, New Jersey, and Prowler comes to an end on a serious down note.

This all sets the stage for New Outlaws #1, which I see as Marvel's version of Justice League Elite -- kind of like how Young Avengers is Marvel's version of Teen Titans.

Silver Sable -- who you may or may not remember as the featured guest star in the Kill Bill inspired Prowler storyline "Natchios Bel Grande" -- re-forms the Outlaws -- this superhero team she lead in the early 90's that was comprised of her, Prowler, Sandman, Rocket Racer, and either Puma or Paladin (I don't remember and it's not like these names mean anything to you) -- as a crack squad of misfits willing to take on the fights that the Avengers and X-Men wouldn't waste their time on.

Based out of the rundown Symkarian Embassy in Washington D.C., the New Outlaws would include Sable (which is, of course, implied), the Sandman (who hopefully will be the star of my first Marvel miniseries), Batroc the Leaper (who apparantly I've fallen in love with), She-Hulk (I'm maintaining my hard-on for green-skinned chicks), the Beast (he's always been my favorite X-Man), and Shang-Chi (Iron Fist would do in a pinch, but I fully embrace ugly stereotypes like an Asian guy who knows martial arts). Oh, and October Jones -- former leader of the Orange Bowling League and Hobie's old boss (who hopefully will be introduced in my first Marvel miniseries, becoming to me what Sergeant Tork is to Priest) -- runs intel for the team while Everett K. Ross serves as their liason with the State Department, should that ever become a concern.

Anyhoozle, the New Outlaw's first mission goes tits up in Wakanda when the Mole Man gets his hands on The Cosmic Cube, and they look to be terminally fucked at the end of issue #4 when the Prowler shows up out of nowhere and saves the day, officially joining the team soon after. As the series progresses, however, certain questions start to get raised, because Hobie Brown vehemently declined an invitation for New Outlaws membership in the first issue, and the Prowler that joins them in issue #5 never takes his mask off, ever, and he seems to be certifiably insane (kind of like Spike at the beginning of the last season of Buffy).

It's a mystery that's never resolved however, as the series gets abruptly cancelled with issue #7 and I go DC exclusive, beginning a controversial run on Wonder Woman in which I constantly team her up with Zatanna for no other reason than a fetish for fishnets I plan on developing in 2007.

Of course, the chances of any of this ever seeing print seems unlikely, because if I ever do get the chance to launch an ongoing Prowler series, I bet it wouldn't sell too well. And we all no what low sales do to a fresh, quirky new series...

They kill them.

Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery
During my freshman year in high school, they dragged us to this horrible religious retreat. For a number of years afterward, my personal concept of hell was a re-enactment of that retreat with unbearable heat. (Once I got to college, hell took on different forms.)

At one point during this nightmare, we were broken up into groups and hauled into seperate rooms where Hip Young Christians rapped with us about the Mack Daddy of All Creation. (God damn the mid-90's.) I only remember two things we talked about: the dry-ice fart -- which sinks low and then wafts up rank later on -- and sex out of wedlock.

Basically, the guy polled us on whether or not we thought having sex outside of marriage was a sin. I was the only person who said that I didn't think that it was, and I remember feeling alienated. (Who didn't feel alienated in the mid-90's?)

The true irony of this has only hit me now, almost a decade later: Of all the people in that room, I am probably the only one who still hasn't had sex.

As for the matter of infidelity, I just don't get it. But then again, I've never really been in a position where someone was willing to stake a serious claim over me, so I have trouble with the idea that one person could not be enough.

My favorite issue of Kelly's run on Action Comics is #761. ("For a Thousand Years." Joe's second issue. Did he peak early or did I just latch onto this issue? Now that I think about it, this was the first Superman comic I ever bought...) In it, Superman and Wonder Woman get stuck in Valhalla, fighting a war with the Norse Gods for an entire millenium, and the question that drives the story isn't whether or not they'll win the war but if Clark will stay faithful to Lois (who he remembers less and less as the centuries roll by in blood) or bump uglies with the Amazon Princess. Meanwhile, in Metropolis, Lois is wondering the same thing, because while she's married to Superman, the whole world thinks he should hook up with Wonder Woman.

One of my favorite scenes in this story, which I consider damn near perfect, has Lois asking Perry White for advice on how to handle her doubts, and he explains that if you can't trust your partner, it's probably because you feel like you're doing something wrong. That basic idea Ben Folds captures so succinctly with the line, "If you can't trust, you can't be trusted."

Thou Shall Not Steal
I pride myself on the fact that I've never shoplifted or pocketed cash out of any of the registers I've worked in shitty jobs, because I'm under the impression that this means that I can say with certainty that I've never stolen anything.

This is, of course, completely untrue, as I've stolen more ideas than stars in the sky, and that's a far worse crime then palming some jolly ranchers on the way out of 7-11 or slipping on panties in the fitting room and just walking out of Victoria's Secret or slipping a twenty in my pants during a slow night at Target.

When I was in the fourth grade, I wrote a series of short stories about a street vigilante named "Batkid" that were really just rehashings of my favorite scenes of Batman: The Animated Series.

The first act of The Unhappy Duckling mirrors the plot of Joe Kelly's second issue of Superboy to a big red S, and the best line in For All the Laughter That Lies Ahead was plagiarized from a Hitman story Garth Ennis wrote called "For Tomorrow". (And I stole the title from a CD Erin burned from me, but I don't think that really counts.)

Oh, and every Prowler storyline is based on a movie.

I'm a hack and a crook. Just thought you should know.

Thou Shall Not Lie
I am Lenar Clark, Charming Liar and Aspiring Fabulist, but I wonder: Am I an honest person? I can't tell.

I'm not deluded enough to believe that my unnecessary candor marks me as truthful. Telling anybody who'll listen everything that's on your mind doesn't make you honest. It just makes you self-centered and sometimes an asshole.

But, while I'm constantly spinning yarns and making up outrageous shit on the fly, I'm rarely determined to actively deceive anybody. (Or is it that nobody believes anything I say anymore, so I just can't?)

Plus, when I was tortured on the bus by the Self-Proclaimed Former Playboy Bunny, she started asking me all of these deeply personal questions, it never occurred to me that I could just lie... Well, not until she asked me if I had a girlfriend that third time, and it slowly dawned on me where she was going with this, and I was forced to invent the usual lover who lives in Canada.

I don't know. It just seems that the only person I deceive on a regular basis is myself... And all those assholes I pretend not to mind spending time with.

Thou Shall Not Covet Your Neighbor's Wife
Um, it's not my fault. At this point, women my age are either committed or probably ought to be.

As it stands, I find myself waiting out marriages and long-standing relationships. And of course, honing my craft in the fine art of making quality small talk.

Thou Shall Not Covet Your Neighbor's Goods
I am rarely envious of other people's possessions. I mean, I'm just don't think I'm that materialistic to start with -- and by that, I mean that I'm no more materialist than the average active consumer in a vast capitalist empire.

But it also seems to me that when somebody does have something I want, it's never anything that I couldn't get on my own. Prewitt's got every issue of Y: The Last Man? Big deal, I just hit up e-bay or do the sensible thing and pick up the tradepaperbacks on the cheap. And I've always wanted to compliment somebody's sweater -- you know, say "I love that shirt, where'd you get it?" -- and then run out that night and get one just like it and wear it the next day and when I see them shout "Look! We're sweater buddies! Isn't that neato frito, Jared Leto?"

The only thing I've ever really wanted to take from somebody is a maroon leather chair.

But of course, the greatest commandment is this...
Wear sunscreen.