NEWS: Thank You For Being My Friend, Daniel

CULTURE: Thank You For Being My Friend, Daniel

I just logged on to the site to discover that Daniel Robert Epstein passed away Tuesday night. I am in absolute shock. Dan was my friend. In fact, he's the reason I even have this gig at SG. Only getting to live until the age of 31 is just unfair, especially when that person was as amazing as Dan was. Daniel was not only a brilliant writer, but he was one of the most positive, good-hearted men I have ever known, and my heart goes out to his family and to his wife, Andrea.



A few months ago, I didn't have an article and I asked Dan if he had anything he wanted me to post for him. He sent me something, but I never got the opportunity to post it. I am going to post it now.



Daniel, I love you, I'm going to miss you, and I will never forget you. Thank you for being my friend.



Where Are the Super-Jews?



(By Daniel Robert Epstein)



I'm sitting there in my apartment, thinking to myself what can I write about that won't piss off any famous comic book people. Then it hit me; something that will piss everybody off will work out just fine.



WHERE ARE THE JEWS??!?!?!!?!?!!?



So, where are the Jewish super-heroes in mainstream comic books? The only one that springs to mind is Sabra the super-hero from Israel. I don't know if any of you people know much about Sabra. I believe she made her first appearance in the original Contest of Champions from 1982. She wore a uniform that had the same colors as the Israeli flag and Sabra means a special kind of kosher. I guess that is supposed to tip us off that she is Jewish. Plus, as a cape she wore a great big fur coat. Wow, the Borscht belt comes alive in Sabra the stereotypical Jew and her archenemy was The Arabian Knight, ooh ahh oh.



Now I get it: Jews and Arabs hate each other. Knock us over the head why don't you.



Later Sabra fought The Incredible Hulk a bunch of times. I think that since Hulk (as he allows me to call him) was green, Sabra must have thought Hulk was made of money.



One Jewish super-hero and she has to identify herself through Judaism and she's from Israel. Another question that comes forth is why there is only one person with superpowers in Israel? You would think with all the explosives floating around -- napalm and poison gas from Saddam Hussein -- you'd think at least one person would rise from the ashes of their burned house, raise their arms and cry "SADDAM!!!!!!".



Someone (he knows who it is) tried to convince me that Walter Langkowski, Sasquatch of Alpha Flight, was Jewish. Come on, I don't care if his last name does seem Slavic-like. A six foot blond blue-eyed CANADIAN is Jewish? I don't think so. Sure he is a doctor, but please he's an ex-football player. To misquote Tom Hanks, "There's no Jews in football".



I don't know how it is for the goyim (non-Jews) who peruse this site, but as young kid growing up on Long Island the media inundated me with images of Christmas: Santa Claus on every single sitcom passing out gifts, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, all of them always talking about the spirit of Christmas. I had no clue what they were talking about. All I knew was that in my religion the Persians burned down all of our temples except one and we found a bit of oil that burned for eight days and that's why I received eight gifts in eight days at Chanukah (or with my parents, one big gift and a Sam Goody gift certificate).



But even my favorite medium, the comic book, wasn't safe from this sick and fake sentimentality. Batman meets Santa Claus (by FRANK MILLER, fuckin' a), Spider-Man's web "accidentally" catches on a sled flying over the city, Dr. Doom delivers presents to kids wearing a Santa suit (okay it was drawn by Fred Hembeck, but still).



The worst offender was an issue of DC's The Atom (reading that was my number one problem), anyway The Atom is invited to a Passover Seder, he shows up and it's all very serious. Everyone is wearing yarmulkes, they're very quiet and they explain the story of Eliyahuh. This story is so obviously written by a Jewish writer who doesn't want the goys to know about a real Passover Seder: fighting, laughing, yelling, crying hearts broken and artichoke hearts eaten. Newbies asking for some bread and getting passed Matzo (or as my Greek friend Andy Demetroplis calls it "a big cracker"). It was embarrassing reading this story and I've never forgiven The Atom and I guess that's why his series has been cancelled like eight times.



There are dozens upon dozens of Jewish comic book writers, yet none of them ever tried to create new and exciting Jewish comic book characters. I guess when you think about it, young Jewish kids growing up and fantasizing about having super-powers never imagined themselves flying into church.



I would also imagine that there was a lot of people pressuring writers and artists to make their characters religions ambiguous. But fuck that, fight the power!



So I spoke to one of my favorite Jews and the man who introduced me to comic books, my brother Tom. I said "Tom, think of some Jewish super-heroes for me". He said, "I'm on it". He calls me back a couple of days later and says, "Gargoyle from the Defenders, his name is Isaac".



I did some research and found nothing neither substantiating nor disproving that statement. Since it was a member of the early eighties Defenders, I decided that no one would care. That's like telling me the entire Wolfpack crew is Jewish.



Tom calls me again and says one word, "Magneto" (for a quick side note, its amazing that now since the X-Men movie came out last summer, the entire world knows the correct pronunciation of Magneto. For years many people would argue whether it was Mag-knee-to or Mag-net-to. Believe me this was actually a controversy, which got many a fat kid's blood boiling. Including me). Anyway thanks Tom, the most famous of any of the Jews in the entire comic world and his closest equivalent is Adolf Hitler. Hitler of the mutant world is the famous Jew. Yay! Thanks Tom! All Jews, GOLF CLAP, please.



A big FUCK YOU to Martin Goodman, Stanley Martin Lieber and Jacob Kurtzberg for being afraid.

so good! i can't wait to read Daniel's story in the Troma comic anthology when it comes out...

Jon, thank you for this.

I think Ben Grimm (the Thing) is Jewish.

Yeah , it's really great. Thanks for sharing that Jon.

He is. So are Iceman and Shadowcat from the X-Men, and a few other characters.

Still, great article.

Masada from Youngblood Strikeforce was Jewish, and a very muscular chick, yay Rob Liefeld

Also one of the Young Gods from Marvel who was an Israeli soldier.

oh good remeberance on Shdowcat. Kitty is themost visible Jewish mutant charcter besides Magneto.

+2

+3

RIP DRE.

Don't forget about The Hebrew Hammer, lol, what a long strange trip it's been.

he shall be missed; and I believe you are correct if memmory serves ( the thing is jewish)

I can't find any news on his death? What happened? Why is there no information?

Daniel had a very high fever. No one's sure what the cause of death was yet.

only the good die young

Thank you for posting this. It helps to see his words again, one more time

Dan is dead? What! Holy shit.

For once in my Life, I'm speechless. I may puke.

Brilliant writing, all around.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jon. I still can't grok this, but your printing of that made me laugh so hard I'm no longer physically ill.

Thank you so much.