Is Superpimp Gonna Have To Choke A Wonder Bitch?

My first thought when I woke up yesterday morning was “It goddamn well better be Sunday.”
A less than pious thought to have on a Sunday morning, I know, but given my work schedule it is roughly (or perhaps “coarsely”) equivalent to the prayer of the standard five day work-week: Thank God it’s Friday.
Of course, the above-mentioned thought was only my first thought when I woke up for the third and final time.
The first thought I had upon waking up – at around 2 am – was “Who the fuck is calling me at 2 am?”
In recent months my friend Kevin has been known to take such poorly-timed opportunities to reach out, reach out and touch someone, reach out, reach out and just say “hi,” but I’m assuming it wasn’t him because my Caller ID didn’t say it was him.
Instead it said, “Unknown Caller.”
It has become my official policy to not answer phone calls that come in when people who know me should know that I’m sleeping and have to be up in a couple of hours, so I let it ring and then checked to see if the person left voice mail (which is the other part of the policy) before going back to sleep.
“Unknown Caller” usually only shows up on calls from my parents’ number back home in Michigan, where they have a local phone company that uses equipment from the 1920s that is, in all honesty, little more than upgraded telegraph equipment. However, it wouldn’t have been a call from there, as my mom and dad are currently in Tucson.
It must have bee a wrong number, as whoever it was didn’t leave me a voice mail.
So, to the person who decided to dial my number at 2 am, whoever you were, and wherever you may be, let me send you out a great big “Blow me.”
I briefly woke up again about two hours later, and then fell asleep again until I was awoken by the sound of static (to the tune of “Rocky Mountain High,” as my clock radio seems to randomly tune in to stations other than the DC rock station I have it tuned to), and my thoughts turned to speculation as to whether or not it was the end of my work week, which, luckily, it was.
In a (relatively) recent issue of “Superman” that I read, a major focus of the action is a conflict between Superman and Wonder Woman.

---Begin nerdy storyline recap---
The context for the fight involves a “doomsday weapon” which was recently activated, causing one million people to instantly vanish. Superman has taken the device into his possession, which has may people, most notably his friends and colleagues in the super hero community, concerned, for various reasons.
In this issue, we learn just why Superman has kept the device himself, and why his friends are so concerned. You see, among the million people who vanished is Lois Lane.
In this issue, we learn that Superman has modified the device so that it won’t have as widespread an effect, and will, in fact, only cause one person to vanish. It’s his belief that the people who vanished are not dead, but were instead simply transported “somewhere else.” It’s his intention to use the device to transport himself to that “somewhere else,” and, ideally, find a way to bring everyone (especially his wife) back to earth.
The other heroes have figured this out and, concerned that it’s a suicide mission, have resolved to stop him, sending their biggest powerhouse to beat some sense into him.
---End nerdy storyline recap---

In any case, in the course of the ensuing battle, Superman gives WW the back of his hand, sending her flying across the room and smashing into a wall.
…
Now, because 1. this is just a comic book and not real life and 2. Wonder Woman is strong enough to take it, I am able to find myself laughing at the fact that Superman reached back like a pimp and smacked the Wonder Ho.
The fact that I’m also considerably more cynical than I was as a child and that my typical response to things that offend my sensibilities is to be amused by them (which is probably why I find Chick Tracts so entertaining even as I find them infuriating) also contributes to my superficially amused reaction to this scene.
However, when I was a kid my parents ingrained the notion that a man should never, ever, under any circumstances hit a woman so deeply into my mind that, even in a two-dimensional fictional representation, I cringe at the sight of a man striking a woman.
This deeply-seated belief coupled with the fact that the Superman whose adventures I read about while growing up never would have made such a Superpimp move makes me more than a little unhappy about the whole thing.
So, despite the fact that I’ve laughed about this scene (FYI: WW was none the worse for wear, and the issue ended with Superman successfully vanishing himself, though we have to wait until the next issue to find out where he vanished to), I’ve also found myself disturbed by it on a much deeper level.
After all, this proscription against men hitting women is completely embedded into the very core of my personality. This is the sort of thing that, to get back to comics, would become the psychological basis for a super-villain’s gimmick, like the Penguin’s use of umbrellas, which was a result of his mother constantly harping on him to never go anywhere without an umbrella “just in case.”
(I’m not saying that this is an idea that my parents pounded into me; it just managed to resonate with me in some fashion, and has always stuck with me)
Of course, holding a deep-seated belief that it’s always wrong for a man to hit a woman isn’t something that can easily be turned into a gimmick. I mean, there’s no way to hide a sword in a belief, or convert it into a machine gun or some kind of mini-helicopter the way you can with an umbrella.
This limitation of my signature deeply-engrained psychological remnant of childhood could go a long way towards explaining why I never pursued a career in super villainy, even though I did score in the 97th percentile on the VERSUS tests (Vocational Evil Response Standardized Universal Super-Villain) when I was a kid
Ah yes, everyone remembers the old VERSUS tests with their detailed instructions, like fill in the circles completely or get shot with a Death Ray, and once the test begins, you have 30 minutes to answer all questions before you get dropped into a tank full of ravenous piranhas. Good times…
In any case, despite my gut reaction to it, I’m willing to let the pimp-slapping slide and give old Blue Boy the benefit of the doubt. After all, he did it in the name of love (and not in the you-know-I-love-you-baby-so-why-you-gots-to-make-me-hit-you kind of way), and I’m sure he only used the precise amount of force necessary to knock WW down on her star-spangled ass without doing any real damage.
In any case, it’s already been a long day, nothing is likely to happen on the mortgage front, and I don’t feel like doing a damn thing, so that all spells “nap time” for me.