The Hugos: Starship Troopers

Today I learned the meaning of the word 'polemic'. Let me share it with you: it's a reasoned argument presented in attack/defense of a concept or doctrine. Neat-o, right? It's good to learn new things!
The 1959 Robert A. Heinlein novel 'Starship Troopers' was called a polemic in a UK Sci-Fi mag I happened to skim through today, and once my friend Ron read me the definition you see above, I agreed.
The book wasn't a screed: that's the one-sided rants you'll often see here at Mike's Best Blog Ever, the kind that offer no room for argument; i.e. She-Hulk is the best Marvel Comics Super-hero. Full stop!
The doctrine in question in the novel 'Starship Troopers' is militarism. Robert Heinlein, (normally one of my favorite writers) in this novel reminds me of the televised exchange between 'Futurama's evil alien newscaster Morbo and Richard Nixon's thousand-year-old head:

"Morbo! How's the wife and kids?"

"Belligerent and numerous!"

"Good. 'Cause Nixon's pro-war and pro-family."

Heinlein, to be charitable, was not really pro-war. (When would Lazarus Long find time enough for love if he was always face-down in the mud of the battlefield?) But RAH sure as heck was pro-military.
Hence my ambivalence toward this Hugo winner: I have a personal philosophy of total pacifism honed in the fires of being a tremendously privileged doughy white coward who rarely had to fight for anything. Heinlein had buds who died at Pearl Harbor. So who am I to judge?

Starship Troopers tells the tale through long (but interesting) dialogues and classroom scenes, (without much in the way of actual combat sequences) of Juan Rico, Filipino soldier in the Terran Federation fighting in the war against the arachnids of Klendathu. The bugs in question are soulless commie drones, and the Rico in question is a brave and mighty democratic human individual who has earned the right to vote along with his willingness to die and kill to defend the Earth in kick-ass power suits dropped on enemy planets from orbit.

By the way, that dying seems to begin with about a 50/50 chance of dying IN TRAINING. Just in case you wanted to join up for the co-ed shower scenes like in the Verhoeven movie. 

It's not like that movie. 

Among other things, in the book 'Dizzy' Flores is a dude. And, no, Johnny and Dizzy probably don't bunk together in the book either, in case THAT got you interested! This is not a book of sex or romance, except maybe Heinlein's romantic feelings about his country and his military service. Pacifist and Dutch pervert Paul Verhoeven's awesome movie satirizes what Heinlein takes VERY seriously. Yet both book and movie were criticized for 'glorifying fascism'.

Controversial? Yeah. And RAH would have liked that. He was one smart guy. He loved his country and he was too sick to fight in maybe the only war the 20th century NEEDED to fight. I know that bugged him. Doughy, know-nothing socialists like me sitting on our butts out-gassing on topics our public schools and TVs barely prepared us to blather about on blogs all over the 21st Century probably would've bugged him, too. Canadians aren't commies, per se, but, well... I still would have liked to meet him. Don't know what we would have talked about.
He was seemingly fascinated by Mormons.
And until I reached the age of reason I was one of those... ah, it's not important now.
Maybe we'll meet in the waiting room in Mormon hell. I can tell him about the Verhoeven movie.

I gave this book 3 stars out of 4. Low for a Heinlein, but the thing is 'Forever War' and 'Ender's Game' prefer to show war in something of a different light. A nasty one. And I liked them better. They seemed more honest.

(Canada should be thankful I do not literally stand on guard for it. The bugs would probably roll right over me while I apologized and tried to see their point of view.)

What The... What?

She-Hulk. Gorgeous. Hella strong. Wicked sense of humor. Write her seriously at your own peril: her best superpower is her defiance of pessimism. Write her as a monster at your own peril: at heart she's just a good little girl who never let herself dance.

I wanted to call this last post of She-Hulk week "Whither Shulkie?" for added classiness, but experience tells me it'll probably be more like "wither". Lately I just can't afford to keep up with comics. Was "The Last Defenders" good? Or "Savage She-Hulks #1"? Maybe "Girl Comics #1"? I dunno yet. I think Jen Walters is fairly likely to disappear: but then again, you can't REALLY kill a superhero unless you wound the concept so badly everyone loses interest and stops buying it.

Media exposure might help, although Shulkie on TV is sparse and embarrassing ('Enter The She-Hulk' might be a stellar porno title, but the cartoon is just NOT as fun as it sounds). In fact, the TV She-Hulk to beat so far is the 1981 Benny Hill sketch and the Dan Slott-penned 'The Cure' episode of 'Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes'. The latter is not only notable as Jenny's best TV showcase so far, but also the best TV appearance of Squirrel Girl, auditioning for the mighty Fantastic Four.

Maybe it's high time for a She-Hulk live-action MOVIE. There are, however, some minor stumbling blocks. Like, in my buddy Ron's words: 'Unfilmable', 'Impossible', and I'm pretty sure he said 'Garbage' at one point there. For my part, I see three obstacles:

1. Please, Internet, STOP saying Megan Fox for She-Hulk! I need you thinking less Vapid, more Clever and Funny. Think Zooey Deschanel on the one side of thirty, Tina Fey on the other, with the reminder that Jen Walters has usually been depicted in her thirties, and that Shulkie should probably be CG rather than human, crafted by the horniest artists our decadent society has to offer. Think Sigourney Weaver's Na'vi Avatar only curvier, and obviously, more green.

2. Don't just throw it together- have a damn script first. Don't filter it through a committee. Too many cooks and all that. Dear lords of Hollywood, spare the children from any more 'Catwoman', 'Elektra' or 'Superman Returns'!

3. Don't make the mistake nearly EVERY writer who tells a 'Savage She-Hulk' story seems to make. This IS a superhero comic, BUT IT IS NOT AN ACTION FLICK. Not foremost. She-Hulk is first and foremost a ROMANTIC COMEDY. That's what makes it unique. That's the genre where it pops. On paper...

Add those three points together and you've got a box office risk so big it will almost certainly never be taken. Right, Nick Cage? Right, Disney? Huh? I double dare you...?

I will, as usual, have to content myself with 'Iron Man 2' and MAYBE, SOMEDAY, FINALLY a She-Hulk feature-length cartoon? I just beg for one more like Gail Simone's 'Wonder Woman' than the most recent sucktacular 'Dr. Strange' flick or whatever. Sorry, Marvelites.

And speaking of Wonder Women, I figured out the answer to the question I posed myself on Monday: Why is the She-Hulk my favorite over the likes of Silver Surfer or Mary Marvel? I like so many of these great and good bastions of four-color righteousness, I do, and I guess it's because they are pure in heart. She-Hulk is many things. But I wouldn't call her pure!
And who IS, really? We WANT to be. We often TRY to be. But few of us get to be grown-ups without some tarnish. And although, say, Wonder Woman is a great heroine, (and in the William Moulton Marston 1940's characterization was even a little kinky; making with the bondage games) I've got to side with the She-Hulk for having the edge in... naughtiness.

To that end, if I may, next week (or quite soon) I'll post my amateurish 2003 opus "Untold Tales of She-Hulk" over at deviantart.com It's a sort of women-in-prison sexploitation romp, may John Byrne forgive me. The Comics Code Authority surely would- it's approximately as tame as Marsten's stuff, I think. And, hopefully, as fun. Remember: "DON'T MAKE SHOWERING SHE-HULK ANGRY..."
Speaking of forgiveness, a smart husband would probably keep 'The Other Woman' on the down-low. I'm not sure what kind of husband that makes ME... But, hey, don't worry, Sweetness! She-Hulk's only real in some other Dimension! There's no need to turn Green with envy... unless... Wait! That might be GOOD!
As ever, for my flesh-and-blood Giantess. Thank you thirty billion times, luv, for marrying me despite my glaringly obvious character flaws.

Supports, Lifts and Separates

The supporting characters are the staples that hold a comic book together. Or the glue, if you've got a trade paperback. Either way, a tribute now to the little people who've made She-Hulk the perpetually-on-the-verge-of-cancellation superheroine she is today.

Back in 'Savage She-Hulk' in the 1980's David Kraft designed a tepid love triangle when the newly hulkified lady simultaneously dated the card-carrying creep with the unfortunate moustache, 'Zapper' Ridge, and the self-loathing filthy hippie Richard Rory. Yeesh. Archie Andrews gets Betty and Veronica, and Jen had Zap and Rory? She made the right choice in the end: leave L.A. for New York and forget she ever met them.

Morris Walters and Louise Mason were supporting cast in 'Savage She-Hulk' and 'Sensational She-Hulk' respectively. Morris was the trigger-happy Sheriff Daddy who gets his exercise jumping to conclusions and hunting the green monster he thinks killed his daughter. Perfectly sensible, if you want She-Hulk to have a General Ross analogue chasing her so she can pointlessly do everything her famous cousin has done. Weezi was the former golden-age masked heroine Blonde Phantom, plucked from obscurity by Byrne and re-imagined as a silver-haired Angela Lansbury-style mentor who wanted to be Jen's sidekick and thus cheat death by becoming a comic book character again. Moe brought drama and pathos, Weezi brought comic relief and staggering concepts about the nature of faked reality. They were married off and vanished together once more from She-Hulk's life. For better or for worse.

Shulkie's time in the 'Avengers' cemented a fast friendship with Janet Van Dyne, the Wonderful Wasp, crying out for a super gal-pal since the early sixties. More so at that time, fresh out of the worst break-up in Marvel history. (Unless you retroactively count Gwen Stacey and Norman Osborn. Yeeeurgh!) Janny and Jenny, tall and small, on the loose in a mansion full of hunks to rate and date. Best friend Jan is dead now, of course. Dead as a comic book doornail. Expect her return from the grave in 2012.

'Secret Wars' gave us Titania, and 'She-Hulk' gave us Mallory Book. An arch-foe for work, and an arch-foe for play. Great characters, at least once Dan Slott wrote a backstory for Skeeter with some heart in it.

Howard the Duck and Awesome Andy- She-Hulk's soul siblings in funny book exile. Tough as nails on the outside, mushy romantics on the inside, oddball cult favorites who gravitate to the odd girl out.

'Fantastic Four' gave Jen a replacement family worthy of her greatness, and a handsome Indian chief with the best chemistry yet. Stan and Jack's burly buddy of John Storm, dusted off by Byrne, may mostly have been quiet man-candy but he could handle himself around superheroes, and I thought he was quite a catch for Jen, frankly. Still not sure why they broke up.

Luke Cage, John Jameson, Tony Stark, and Hercules: playing to modern portrayal of She-Hulk as a 'cape-chaser', she had one-night stands and one imploded quickie marriage with these famous superstuds. Wish Peter David had slowed down to tell me more about Herc, since banging him had been a long-term fantasy of Jen's and David just dispensed with it in a page where you blink and miss it. Of course, he ALSO didn't explain how Jen met Skrull Jarella, the thunder-stealing, focus-pulling lovelorn sidekick who couldn't die. (Couldn't die? Or WOULDN'T die?)

Speaking of thunder-stealing and focus-pulling, now we have Jen's semi-friendly niece and nephew from barbarian futures, and a cruel Red She-Hulk (or She-Rulk, if you like) here to snap her neck and take her place. Cause that's what Marvel does these days. (O.K., I'm being a bit alarmist, I kind of like Lyra.)

Last but never least, Ben Grimm. The ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing is the idol a' millions, and he has his own family, loves, concerns, and yet-to-be canceled comic. I've enjoyed the flirtatious dynamic between them in such diverse places as Marvel Two In One 88, the '90's Incredible Hulk cartoon, Thing/She-Hulk: The Long Night, and especially the filthy innuendo in Twisted Toyfare Theatre. Ben and Jen is not quite the forbidden-but-often-imagined Superman/Wonder Woman team-up, but I kind of like the idea of an ElseWhatIf World where orange and green Bennifer are shacking up.
Also, I'll settle for friends who let friends crash on their fancy Baxter Building couch.
It's probably safer.

My Favorite Characters: The Jade Giantess

Jennifer Sue Ann Walters. Lady Lawyer. Sexpot Superhero. Avenger, Defender, Liberator, and more. Yes, arguably Marvel Comics' finest female character, but it's undeniable: all the good names were already taken. Wonder Woman? Taken. Green Lantern? Taken. Captain Marvel? Taken a BUNCH of times! Can't be Catwoman. Sprite? Ariel? Shadowcat? Nope, not hardly. She had to settle for SHE-HULK.
Oh, don't get me wrong. She's a girl Hulk. So, it is PRACTICAL. It's just a name devoid of grace, elegance, and dignity.
But, what's in a name? Most of us don't get to choose them. You go with what works. At least you do if you're my favorite comic book superhero OF ALL TIME!
Obviously, I'm not the only one. It just seems like it when she's always getting canceled. Wonder Woman? She's at 600 issues. She-Hulk? Barely broke 100 if you fudge the numbers.
But plenty of people like her. Try shulkie.com. That dude Lingster clearly has great affection for her. (And disdain for Peter David's run on her title, which I wholeheartedly share, sadly.) Plus, Family Guy's Chris Griffin apparently LOVES She-Hulk. It's the sort of thing I learn doing half-assed Google searches for She-Hulk information I didn't have. And I used to think myself QUITE the She-Hulk buff. In the early noughties there was a period when I owned her every comic issue and guest appearance. In the saner days since (girlfriend and wife days, it must be admitted) I culled the issues from my collection that could best be described as shit-tacular (both She-Hulk and others). But I can bypass the list I was GOING to make of 8 better uses of my time with my pants on to bring you:

THE EIGHT GREATEST SHE-HULK STORIES:
(Why eight? Because that's how many fingers I have left with both thumbs up!)

8. Bill Mumy and Miguel Ferrer's Comet Man # 4-
It's only a cameo, but it's a real eye-opener.
(By eye-opener I mean shower scene. Perhaps I'm becoming a tad predictable? No, really. It's not easy to find in used bookstore bins, which are vanishing into the ether themselves, but it's pretty cool. Those guys should write more.)

7. Jeph Loeb & Frank Cho's Lady Liberators guest story in Hulk #7-9-
One of my bookstore co-workers pulled the issue with the LL standing on the Red Hulk and tagged it with the post-it note: "Marvel's idea of female empowerment". Well, yeah. It's a seventies homage. Heck, one day girls'll even get the VOTE! Kidding aside, Frank Cho and Jeph Loeb seem to remember how to have fun. Shulkie working her way down the list of superheroines to phone for help and the LL being the bottom of the proverbial barrel never fails to tickle my funny bone.

6. Dwayne McDuffie's She-Hulk: Ceremony graphic novels 1 & 2-
Something I read today makes me think there's a scene in this that caused John Byrne's departure from Shulkie's title between issue 8 and 31. If true, at least me Bizarro Mike got him Superman out of it! Boo! But whatever the dilemma caused by shaved legs, it was a romantic thrill with fine characterization, some thought behind it, and very sadly one of the last great moments in the Jen/Wyatt Wingfoot relationship. But, by hook or by editorial mandate, a girl's gotta run free! And I prefer to think if there were bits I didn't like, they weren't Dwayne McDuffie's fault. I like that guy!

5. Ty Templeton's Howard the Duck: Media Duckling-
I like THIS guy too. See earlier posts. When I met him I also got the Laurie B. She-Hulk drawing photographed for this post! Sweet! HTD:MD owes something to Steve Gerber's weird run on Sensational She-Hulk, which I admit wasn't my favorite, but c'mon, for every Nosferata the She-Bat it had a BALONEYVERSE! I'll let you guess which one I thought was funny and which one I thought was labored. Cause I don't know anymore.

4. John Byrne's Fantastic Four-
The birth of the modern Shulkie. Confident, sharp-witted, cuddlesome, occasionally sarcasti-bitch but never disappointing. I side with Scott Tipton of Comics 101 in the belief that Jen's time on this FF team was the best this comic had been since Stan and Jack.

3. John Byrne's Sensational She-Hulk trade paperback-
Covered in Comics 101's 2007 posts, nevertheless, it is a treasured part of my collection and they'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. Does Byrne deserve three places on a list of 8? He deserves 4! Maybe someday he'll get to write more She-Hulk. A guy can dream, right?
2. John Byrne's Sensational She-Hulk 1-8, 31-50-
More or less. There's some filler. There's a lot of cheesecake. There is also some of the best funny book work of ALL TIME. In the best sense of the word funny. If the idea of a superheroine who has the power to KNOW she is a comic book character and manipulate her life accordingly doesn't appeal to you... you'll probably just read something else. But I think it's friggin' hilarious.

1. Dan Slott's She-Hulk All FIVE Trades-
Keep them close to your heart at all times to stop stray bullets! Jen's also got a brilliant cameo in Dan and Ty's Spider-Man/Human Torch #4.

By my tinfoil hat reckoning She-Hulk is 35 Marvel years old (for whatever that's worth in a universe where time slows down with every passing company-wide crossover) and they seem to be doing their level best to kill her and finally stamp out lighthearted, fun funnybooks in favor of a dour, grey morass of rain-soaked action scenes. Nice property you bought, there, Disney! Any chance of a She-Hulk movie?
No, I thought not.
See you kids tomorrow. Unless I'm trapped in the Baloneyverse.
(It's a universe made of old baloney.)

I Only Read She-Hulk for the Articles

From naughty librarians to lady lawyers eager to examine their briefs, I think it's universal: dudes dig smart chicks. I know my own admiration for the She-Hulk is focused entirely on her large, powerful, heaving brains.
So, taken from that perspective, this comic is VERY thought-provoking. Reading it is a deep, meaningful experience rife with well-considered messages on Jung's 'shadow side' of the human psyche. Is man inherently evil? Does it do more harm than good to suppress our rages and lusts? Is man merely an animal or instead a spiritual being capable of transcending his baser instincts?
Consider, too, the double standard of gender politics and the inequality still inherent in the relations between the sexes. Tony Stark might have a list of sexual conquests as long as his... arm and he's still a matinee idol. Give a similar checkered past to the She-Hulk and suddenly you've got people yelling 'Slut!'.
(I prefer the term 'Sexually Accessible' myself.)
Because sluts are BAD. Sluts are just... NAUGHTY. And I think it's pretty clear to everyone that She-Hulk is a GOOD GIRL.Is it her fault if a rocket engine blasts her pants off? Or that even unstable molecule costumes can rip in the most EMBARRASSING of places in the midst of an ordinary day's heroics?
It's just the job, that's all.
But men get too hung up on the whole Madonna/Whore angle. Real women tend towards the middle of that scale, neither unreachable perfection nor skanky trash.






In a genre and medium still rather dominated by male creators and readers, most of whom are very handsome, desirable, and brimming with confidence, it only makes sense that they would craft a female character so similar to themselves. Thus, there can occasionally be a danger of objectification, but entirely unintentionally, of course. After all, Wertham fought bravely to defend our minds against that kind of filth and impurity. Comics are safe as houses nowadays!Superheroine costumes NEED to be skimpy: it distracts the villains. That's just shrewd tactics, not cheesecake.
Also, Jen Walters being a shape shifter, she just normally has to deal with clothes that rip or slip. Wardrobe malfunction is a hazard of supernatural combat.
What fan service? Sometimes a gal just wants an all-over tan. Plus they don't make towels big enough for your average glamazon, do they? They're so dinky!
So if a grown woman feels like supplementing her income with a metal bikini photoshoot in a magma pool, who are we to stand in the way? That would be... wait, what's going on here?
I've lost all credibility, haven't I?

And Lo, There Came A Shulkie Week!

Long time readers may recall that I, Mike, have enormous affection bordering on a personality disorder for comic book super-heroine Jennifer 'She-Hulk' Walters. And it's the 30th Anniversary of She-Hulk's first appearance in 1980. YAY! So in the dwindling hopes of garnering as much attention as I apparently got on Legion Week back in November, I'm going to shoot for a post per weekday.
Most people (including my beloved and, let's face it, long-suffering wife) know that 5 posts will barely scratch the surface of how much I can blather on about this PARTICULAR topic. THE SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK.
Her story began in the very early eighties with one visionary and iconic man.Yes, Benjamin J. Hill, creator of the She-Hulk... oh, what? That doesn't count? Sorry, Marvel's legal department is beaming telepathic messages into my cortex suggesting that Stan Lee and John Buscema created She-Hulk in the very early 1980's. Go figure.
I'm pretty sure Stan and Jack created the Hulk, so I imagine Hill's estate's not getting any royalties. But I haven't done any research, so, who the hell knows?
Scott Tipton has a splendid blog history of She-Hulk's comic book appearances. Read them, they're undoubtedly better than mine.
In a nutshell, mousy Los Angelino lawyer Jen Walters is shot by gangsters while her cousin Bruce 'You May Remember Me As Television's Bill Bixby' Banner just HAPPENS to be in town and JUST HAPPENS to have the same blood type and it JUST SO HAPPENS to be gamma irradiated, and hey, presto: you have a green-skinned cash machine who (in theory) appeals to sex-starved teen boys (and roue Benny Hills of all ages) and 'newly' liberated roller-disco girls who, now that it is the eighties, are fully entitled to read comics, too, or at least do lines of coke off of them.
Shulkie's first series lasted longer than it really deserved because, well, 30 years ago they didn't cancel books just because they were terrible. (This tradition has declined in recent years but is ongoing.) The Jade Giantess even got a couple of trade paperbacks before the days when EVERYTHING was suddenly worthy of a trade paperback, and one of those may well have outsold Dazzler's! I kid you. The Disco Dazzler had about 50 issues, just like Jessica Drew's Spider-Woman. She-Hulk had 25. Then Jen did some crossovers, then she joined the Avengers. Tossed from writer to writer, each more confused and befuddled than the last, the Green Glamazon rocketed to recognition (or at least became slightly less obscure) when John Byrne made her a member of the Fantastic Four. Byrne apparently fell in deep and unsettling love with She-Hulk, made her much more vivacious, intelligent, and funny, got her a second, MUCH superior book. Paving the way for Steve Gerber, Dwayne McDuffie, and then some lesser lights who got to ride it into the ground again at issue 60.
All was silence for nigh on ten years. If the decades have a place reserved for them in hell, I hope the 1990's are on the very bottom.
She-Hulk never went entirely away but tended to be the muscle/eye-candy in the Avengers if you couldn't get the X-Gals or Carol Danvers. Then in the noughties, presumably for some kind of legal reason (?) they dusted poor Jenny off again, with some good parts in Busiek & Perez's Avengers, then Geoff Johns 'The Search for She-Hulk' storyline. 2005 saw much rejoicing (mostly by me) when She-Hulk's third volume was launched by Dan Slott. It was 100% worthy of the excessive praise I heaped upon it. Templeton, Loeb, Pak, Van Lente, Parker and others have served her well since. Depending on who was writing, she was strong and clever and sexy, or a mindless violent mess, or some kind of damn bounty hunter in a Torchwood rip-off. Depending on who was reading, she was a role model, Good Girl Art pin-up, silly parody or nothing whatever to write home about, and certainly nothing to keep buying. And if you're keeping score, that's 4 times a She-Hulk series got cancelled.
I cannot stress this point enough: THIS IS MY FAVORITE COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO.
Created by putting boobs on the Hulk so nobody else (except Benny Hill) could do it first. Created just after Girly Thor, Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel and thankfully long before Wolverine-With-Boobs X-23.
Why, oh, why don't I have a sensible favorite superhero like the Silver Surfer or Mary Marvel? Man, oh, man, that would be SO much easier! But, no, I cannot in honesty deny my first comic book crush. And I do mean CRUSH!

My Favorite Characters: Sadistic Scientist of Skaro

Last weekend I enjoyed the crap out of a Toy Fair and snagged myself a 5 inch action figure (some might call them dollies) of one of the best villains in Doctor Who's long history of terribly scary monsters. I speak of Davros, creator of the tyrannical cyborg Daleks. Oh, is he ever a baddun! (Here's his Facebook page. I personally recommend NOT friending him. Dear lord!)
Portrayed with venom by Michael Wisher, David Gooderson, Terry Malloy, Rory Jennings, and Julian Bleach, usually under a batch of icky gooey make-up, he's right up there with Darth Vader in the top boogeymen of my childhood.
Very much the product of his world and his time, Davros was a cunning, backstabbing fascist alien scientist even before chemical weapons from the ongoing race war on his planet robbed him of his legs and hideously mutated him. If I do say so myself, the English have a great talent for mad soliloquy, and Davros is chock full of crazy rants. Try this one, when the Fourth Doctor posed the kooky Kaled a hypothetical question about his willingness to unleash intergalactic genocide. Davros gave it a moment's thought and replied:
"To hold in my hand a capsule that contained such power... to know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes - I would do it. That power would set me up above the gods!"
Charming. Or when the Tenth Doctor faced down Davros centuries later (Davros is essentially a hollow shell on life support, who has better success cheating death than every comic book supervillain combined). I love the sound of a rotter clever and bitter enough to really twist the knife into his opponents' psyches:
"The man who abhors violence, but this is the truth: you take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons... How many have died in your name? The Doctor, the man who keeps on running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself."
Personally, my favorite is from 1989's 'Remembrance of the Daleks', when Davros really gets going on his merciless army of terrible tinker toys:
"The Daleks shall sweep away Gallifrey and its impotent quorum of Time Lords! The Daleks shall become Lords of Time! We shall become all--"
The Seventh Doctor carries on sarcastically: "--powerful! Crush the lesser races! Conquer the galaxy! Unimaginable power! Unlimited rice pudding! Et cetera! Et cetera!"
We haven't seen the last of this vengeful hatemonger. He's crazier than a starcruiser full of Zygon droppings and I love to loathe and fear him.