Desolation Jones and Hitler's sex life by Mike Baron Desolation Jones By Warren Ellis and J.J. Williams III Publisher: Wildstorm Productions (Image Comics), Price: $2.99 U.S. Desolation Jones is a drunk British spy put into the "Desolation Program" as a last ditch effort to save his career. Jones survives, but he's changed. He can't stand sunlight, or dreaming. He has special abilities, as yet unascertained. Jones is an intriguing amalgam of Corum, John Constantine, and Sherlock Holmes. He philosophizes on the nature of the modern city. Like other disgraced British agents, he's trapped in Los Angeles. A syphilitic rou? hires Jones to recover porno tapes featuring Hitler, made during the last days. That's a great idea, but I wondered whether the notoriously asexual Hitler was capable. So I asked an expert. His exegesis appears below. Few people have been more investigated than Hitler. Well, never mind. It's a meaty idea, the personification of evil donning cowboy chaps and spurs. Certainly there would be riding crops. © 2005 Image Comics Jones' boss, Jeronimus Corneliszoon, is another graduate of the Desolation Program. Four times a year he runs down massive quantities of red meat: cattle, antelope, what have you. Personally, I can't see the guy when he's done eating. Does he balloon to five hundred pounds? He must shit the size of a termite mound. Jones' mission takes him to a porn dealer who won't let him leave until he tells all about the Hitler porn. "Jones. You are a weak, skinny little cumstain of a man. I admire your bullshitting skills in creating that big scary rep of yours. But Wood here can break people in half using only his penis." Wood, a leather-faced S&M bully, punches Jones in the stomach. Jones' speech intended to frighten strikes a false note. It would have been better if said only, "Don't touch me again." But Wood won't listen, so Jones must gouge out his eye. Williams devotes two pages to the eye-gouge in exquisite detail. One of the most elegant bits of nastiness I've seen in comics, and certain to become a classic. Williams' work is beyond reproach, whether creating characters or recreating Los Angeles. Jose Villarrubia's colors are excellent. Highly entertaining, sick, I'll be back. Regarding Hitler's sexuality, I asked Frederic Von Milverstudt, journalist, biker, and raconteur. Look, Hitler certainly may have had his kinks, but who doesn't? From what I can tell he has never been portrayed as a sexual beast or even sexually driven, compared with a lot of people; unless, of course, you want to wade around in Freudian poop. No doubt he was a mama's boy; no doubt he was abused (beaten) by his father, who also beat the wife. If this is a precursor to the likelihood of sado-masochism, then so be it. Any number of scholars and cranks have sought to make a case that much of this may have been at the core of his life and politics. Maybe it was. But the idea of him being sexually obsessed to the point of creating porn while the Third Reich crumbles around him I find doubtful. Then again, promoting and effecting the idea of Gotterdammerung can be pretty pornographic in itself. What we know about his sex life is as follows: Anecdotal evidence of a homosexual affair with a boyhood friend in Linz. More anecdotal evidence of same while rooming at a men's hostel in Vienna; possibility of same as a soldier in WWI. Possibility of contracting syphilis as a young man, likely in Vienna or maybe later in Munich. The disease may have been instrumental in his choices in later life (more speculation) to abstain from sexual intercourse with females (and ostensibly males). It also may have been instrumental, should he actually have had it, in the losing of his mind in later years--say, post 1930s, early '40s. Long-time rumors of some sort of intimate relationships with (a) Ernst Roehm and (b) Rudolf Hess; this, principally because they were said to be the only ones among his "intimate" circle to whom he referred, and they in turn to him, with the German word "du," the intimate form of "you." Roehm was a notorious homosexual, whereas Hess, although married with children, was known jokingly among the inner circle as "Mother Hess." Lots more anecdotal evidence from women Hitler "dated," several of them movie-type stars and socialites, that his schtick was machochism--liked to be walked on and kicked. Whatever his schtick, three or more of the several wound up later either trying to commit suicide and/or succeeding. The Geli Raubal mystery. He obviously was smitten with her as early as when she was 15, when she moved with her mother, his half-sister and housekeeper, to his then-small villa in Berchdesgaden; later following him to Munich when he started to become big and had her own apartment (within his floor of apartments). He lavished Geli with gifts and support, trotted her around on his arm to clubs, plays, concerts, the opera, supported her singing lessons, etc. Nobody has the real goods on the nature of their intimacy, but it has been alleged by at least a couple of spinners (Otto Strasser and Hans "Putzi" Hanfstaengl) that Geli and H. were into some sort of "perverted" schtick--possibly S&M, possibly coprophilia. She'd pose nude for his sketches, some of which were of her genitalia and some of which showed up at one point in the possession of somebody who tried to blackmail him (the somebody, a Catholic priest, or at least the go-between between, wound up dead during the Night of the Long Knives in '34). Geli, of course, wound up dead, too--either at H.'s hand (jealous rage), her own, or my best guess, murdered by the SS to get her out of his life at a time when he was about to ascend to ultimate political power. That was in late summer of '31. Geli was 23. Eva Braun. Nothing really concrete here. Some sources say she was only window dressing, or at least a companion in a non-sexual sense; others invoke the coprophilia thing; while still others, housekeepers, dueled over yes or no--that yes, they lived as a normal man and woman, meaning a sexual coupling, or no, there was never so much as one semen stain found in his bed. Mike Baron worked for the Boston Phoenix, Boston After Dark, and the Real Paper. He broke into comics with Nexus, his groundbreaking science fiction title co-created with illustrator Steve Rude. Baron has written Marvel's Punisher, DC's Batman, Deadman, and Flash. Nexus has garnered honors too numerous to mention, including Eisners for both creators. Baron has written Star Wars for Dark Horse, Turok, Dinosaur Hunter and Archer & Armstrong for Valiant, and has three issues of Legends of the Dark Knight in the works. A prolific creator, Baron is at least partly responsible for The Badger, Ginger Fox, Spyke, Feud, and many other comic book titles. He is currently writing Detonator and Night Club (May) for Image, and is a regular contributor to International Studio, Argosy, Nostomania.com and Popular Polar Bear. Baron lives in Colorado with his wife and dogs. He collects rocks. by Mike! Visit our Comic Book News Archive.