Wonderful comedy is afoot at the John Byrne message board. It opens with Byrne, a veteran superhero comic creator, devoting a statement to the use of a comic book characters' full name: "What's with the cutesy abbreviations of the character names, people? "Supes"? "Bats"? Do you really feel right using those? Does it really resonate correctly for you when you refer to a super powerful mass murderer as "Mags"? Or a homicidal maniac who would gut you as soon as look at you as "Wolvie"?"

There's plenty more ("Seriously -- would you call Batman "Bats" to his face? Even Superman, who is a much more "approachable" kind of guy -- if he were real, would you actually feel comfortable addressing him as "Supes"?"), the gist of which is that Byrne is absolutely not kidding, documenting a persolality that is chillingly unsettling even by the standards of posters to a comic book message board. If I were an FBI agent interviewing a serial killer for a profile case, and he delivered a monlogue like that, I would leave the meeting sweating and pale, and spend the rest of the week in bed, doubting God and contemplating a career change. Would you trust this man a gun?

Alomst as unsettling is the ensuing debate, with partisans taking the argument seriously on every side imaginable. From "I would consider it the highest compliment if I created a character and the fans started refering to him with a nickname, as long as it was intended as affection and not done with malice" to "That you think calling Batman "Bats" is a term of affection means not one whit to the conversation. I, personally, don't think it's an affectionate term at all. Nor do I think that it's a "fun" term either. Am I taking it too seriously? No. If you think so, more's the poorer for you."

I wonder if social debate was like this before the middle ages, or is speculating that the Earth has two sides and acceptable heresy?