Floppytown: Steve Rogers Super Soldier #3

Inspired by The Singles Jukebox, Matt Springer has wrangled a bunch of people into contributing brief reviews on single issues of comics each week at a new site called Floppytown.  The first post is up today, which is a review of Steve Rogers: Super Soldier #3 and I have a contribution. 

This looks to be a fun project, so swing on by and please contribute as the more will be the merrier. 

It Came From....The Vending Machine...AGAIN

After last week's exposure to the horrors of Mad Basil's Bavarian Bakery's "treats", I decided to play it safe and stick with something out Milton S. Hershey's proud company, the Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme bar.

The bar itself seems to be a white chocolate delivery mechanism for bits of chip-shaped chocolate cookie that are not wholly unlike Oreo wafers. The "cookies" portion provide 90% of the taste, which is quite good, being encased in the viscous, not-quite-solid white chocolate keeps the cookie bits from being too dry. However, it is the white chocolate membrane that provides the biggest minus of the bar, the texture. The cookies are crunchy, but the chocolate is largely tasteless and gel-like, making if feel like you're eating delicious cookies encased in snot. If you can get over that reaction, it is not an unpleasant snack, but really, you should seek psychological help if that is the case.

Comics!

After skipping three weeks, went to the store on Friday and picked up a whole gang of comics that had been languishing in my box, let's talk about them.

Dracula: The Company of Monsters #1

I really love Kurt Busiek's writing and since Marvel's since decided that their cool, old-school Dracula wasn't cool enough and turned him into the refugee from Middle Earth by way of Twilight, I felt like checking out Boom!'s attempt to update him for the current age.

While this issue certainly isn't bad, it's esentially a 22 page info-dump setting up the series. It feels more like a "story-before-the-story" zero issue than the proper start to the book. Our main character is Evan, a middle-managment schlub who is stuck doing research on Vlad The Impaler for his boss and uncle Conrad. The issue goes onto give the history of Vlad as he makes a deal with the devil for immortality and Evan and Conrad fly to a secret dig site in Greece. That's really it, not bad, the art is certainly nice. Scott Godlewski's work elicits a John Romita Jr. vibe that serves the story well. Again, there's nothing bad here, just nithing that compels me to stick with it.

Thor: The Mighty Avenger #3

Can't really explain how much I love this comic. Updating Thor's origin to the present (and most likely bringing it more in line with the up-coming movie) this book has really been doing everything right. After the first two issues briskly introduced out main characters, the third issue begins our main storyline as Thor tries to remember why he's been exiled on Earth. This issue brings Hank Pym & the Wasp to Oklahoma to investigate the death of one of Hank's mentors (who was killed in the previous issue by My. Hyde). This brings them into conflict with Thor, who's having visions brought on by Loki, making him believe he's besieged by Frost Giants, forcing him to slug it out with Giant Man.

Roger Landridge, who does great work on Boom!'s Muppet comics, really comes through here. His characterizations of both Pym and the Wasp are spot on, and makes the usual "two heroes slog it out due to a misunderstanding" plot and does something interesting with it. Both advancing the main storyline and offering up a solid. single-issue story. Chris Samnee again provides excellent visuals and Matt Wilson's coloring is just luscious. Oh yeah, and did I mention that this is an all-ages title? This proves that all-ages, doesn't mean, "for kids only".

Action Comics #892

I've been seeing a lot of people on the internet dismissing this book simply because it's Action Comics and Superman isn't in it, and those people are really missing out. Paul Cornell has been a favorite of mine since his run on Captain Britain & MI-13 over at Marvel, here he's telling the story of Lex Luthor, addicted to the power granted him by the Orange Lantern ring during Blackest Night, he's scouring the Earth for traces of other power rings, determined to have their power for his own.

This issue, Luthor travels to the arctic to search out a plume of black-power-ring energy that has developed, bringing Deathstroke with him as protection. Unfortunately, the energy begins taking over his team, leaving him to out-fight it and out-think it.

This book is turning out to be rather fun. Luthor is an interesting main character, in that he's really the villain of the title, but Cornell does bring through his charisma that you can't help but root for the jerk, at least a little bit. As usual, Pete Woods provides some great art, and while I think he's probably the best Superman artist working today, I don't have a problem with the big blue boyscout sitting this one out for now.

Maybe some more later.  Going to try to dole this out in some smaller chunks.

This Is The Future (and I'm Not Sure I'm Willing To Pay For It)

After reading Matt Springer’s take on the upcoming releases of Apple’s iTV and Google’s GoogleTV do-dads, I went back to my nagging thoughts of giving up my cable and going it alone with nothing but a computer, an internet connection and a prayer for my TV viewing habits.  Matt lays out pretty eloquently the pluses and minuses of each system, but there’s still one thing that keeps me dropping $60 to $100 a month* on my cable bill is live sports.  As both a pitiful Cubs fan and rather angry Bears fan (with a rabid Packers fan girlfriend), without precious cable we would probably be left in the cold with Apple’s set-top box and up to the whims (and fees) of the NFL & MLB with Google. I know that Major League Baseball currently offers an on-line video plan for a reasonable fee that gives you the ability to watch just about any game going on....except games that are blacked out in your area.  That’s no fucking help.  


My other concern is that if you find a way to get these games, legally, live on-line you will most likely still have to pay a nominal fee for them.  But you’ll still have to deal with the ads.  Part of the plus of iTV is that with your 99 cents, you buy your way out of having to watch commercials.  With live sports, you’re stuck with those commercials, or almost even worst, stuck watching a blank screen on your TV/computer while those ads role and the teams pick their noses on the sidelines.  And there’s the rub, even if you’re paying to not have ads, you’re still stuck with them, and that just bugs me.  If those advertisers are paying the NFL (and the TV station or on-line provider), why the hell am I going to compensate them a second time?  


I’m sure these concerns have been thought of at Google & Apple HQ, but I’m sure they’re waiting to see how the cards fall and whether the general public flees the increasingly higher and higher cable & satellite bills for the new frontier of the internet and whether they balk at the idea of paying both for access to the content and ads during the content they already paid for.  Hulu is already giving this a try with their new, $10 a month plan, but screw that.  If I’m paying them $120 a year, I ain’t putting up with commercials just so I can watch Ironside (Raymond Burr is the shit, y’all).  I could go on for a while, but I’ll save it for my usual soapboxing at the corner of LaGrange Rd. & Ogden Ave. between 4:30 & 5:00 PM, doing my best to drown out the suburban street preacher on the opposite corner.


*Depending upon whether the fine CSR at Comcast has pity on me and throws a deal at me

It Came From....The Vending Machine

Basil’s Bavarian Bakery Duplex Sandwich Cremes

Oh, what a horrible cookie. I like to think that Basil, having learned the secrets to the baking arts in late 30’s Bavaria and hearing the drums of war, he escaped from Germany, hiding out in a specially baked pastry that sadly destroyed his sense of smell and taste. Returning to England during the blitz, he found that his talents as a baker of tasty treats was of little use as shit was getting blown up all the time. Choosing to leave his homeland once again he struck out across the ocean for America, dodging Jerry’s U-Boats all the while. Once firmly ensconced in the US of A, he set to baking the best possible cookies for the men and women fighting for freedom across the Atlantic. Sadly, due to his tragic lack of both taste and smell, his cookies came out horribly, being rejected even for use on POW’s. The only bright spot was that they were found to have a half-life of close to 2,000 years, so they were packaged and placed into office vending machines that were becoming all the rage. And there they sat until and unsuspecting schlub (me) bought them for the hefty price of $1.00 this afternoon.

At first the cookie seems like your average Oreo knock-off, ala the Hydrox cookies your Grandma always tried to pass off on you. I will say that the center is rather creamy, comparing favorably to the sometimes chalky center of an Oreo. However, the cookies that surround it, at first, taste not bad but quickly devolve into something thoroughly unappetizing. Along with that, there’s just so darn many of them. The package contains 15 cookies, which really isn’t bad for a dollar (the recommended serving size is 3 cookies*), but oh God whatever you don’t try to eat them all. These things hit your stomach and immediately begin to expand like an alien egg gestating in your GI tract waiting until that 3:30 conference call you have coming up to burst forth from you and slither into ventilation ducts to go back to its vending machine nest.

 The Horrific Aftermath

According to fellow vending machinologist Matt Springer, Basil has since gotten the backing of the Biscomerica Corporation, funding his sad attempts to make the world atone for his tragic loss of senses. Damn you Basil, only a strike force made up of Little Debbie, Tony the Tiger, Twinkie the Kid and Kool-Aid Man could hope to storm your hollowed-out volcano fortress in Rialto, CA and make you pay for the horrors you’ve unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace. You mad bastard.

*HA HA HA HA HA HA HAH HA HAHA HA

Review: Batman Odyssey #1

Neal Adams has returned to Batman with Batman: Odyssey, the first of two mini-series touching on the high-points of his career. While the art is certainly very nice, the story itself is lacking.

Batman starts the story, relating to Robin (Dick Grayson, though he’s drawn wearing Tim Drake’s costume) one of the earliest adventures of his career, back when he packed guns as part of his repertoire. The hook of the story is to explain to Robin why they don’t carry guns, though the phrase “Batman doesn’t kill” would seem to be good enough explanation for me. From there, Man-Bat wanders into the Batcave with some important information. Bats yells at him for using the Man-Bat serum instead of simply coming as his human self, stopping him from relaying some information that he thinks Batman needs to know. From there, Batman shows off his new Batmobile to Robin while driving/flying/boating to stop the Riddler who is, apparently, committing two simultaneous crimes.

This book is a mess, the Batman featured here seems to hew closest to Frank Miller’s “G--damn Batman” from his All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder’, berating Robin, while lamenting in his internal monologue that he should be more supportive of the boy. While I realize that historically that Batman did sport guns back in the day, I had long thought that had been retconned out, so it was just jarring to see them show up here as a plot point, the same for Dick wearing Tim’s costume. I realize that this was the first issue of a 12 issue story-arc, so it’s natural for it to throw out a lot of plot threads that will be followed up on over the coming issues, but there was a haphazardness to this that felt like it was throwing a ton of stuff at the wall, just to see what will stick. It felt like Adams drew a bunch of pages and then waited a year before worrying about grafting a plot onto it.

As for the art itself, it’s certainly very nice. Though not as smooth as his 70’s work, Adams can still draw the heck out of a Batman comic. The scenes with Batman driving his “new” Batmobile (actually a retooled model of Adams classic coup model from the 70’s) are just gorgeous, if only the dialogue written over them was not so clunky.

I had high hopes for this book, and I still do, but I can’t say that I’m not more than a little disappointed at the opening issue to this series. Hopefully, though Adams stumbled out of the gate, he’ll get back up and charge to the finish.

Batman: Odyssey Part 1
Neal Adams - Story & Art
Michael Golden - Inking (pp. 19 & 20)
Continuity Studios - Color
Rob Leigh - Letters
Mike Marts - Editor

Review @ PopSyndicate: Zatanna #2

This week at Popsyndicate I review Zatanna #2:

After a slow week at the comics shop, I cast around on twitter to see if anyone had a good recommendation for a comic to review this week. The overwhelming favorite was Zatanna #2, and they were right. In current comics, it's very odd for the second issue of a new series to be a perfect jumping on point, but this one is jsut about perfect.

Zatanna, returning home after a rough night with the Justice League, just wants to fall asleep, but a nightmare-imp named Fuseli has other ideas. Since Z's home is impervious to both physical and mystical breaking & entering, Fuseli enters her mind via the nightmares of others, eventually entering into Zatanna's turning them against her. This leads to some frankly, beautiful full-page spreads by Stephanie Roux depicting their battle through the dream-scape.

Head on over here to read the full review.

Review @ PopSyndicate: Hawkeye & Mockingbird #1

In Marvel's most glaring ploy to get my business, they've brought back the main characters of the first superhero comic I started reading in earnest, West Coast Avengers: Hawkeye & Mockingbird.

As Marvel continues their roll-out of The Heroic Age, Hawkeye & Mockingbird picks up where they left off from the New Avengers: Reunion mini-series with the heroes reunited in body, if not in spirit.

Following up on the events of their miniseries, Hawkeye (no longer using the Ronin identity) & Mockingbird are running the underground law-enforcement organization WCA (get the acronym?) and open the issue hunting down a shipment of stolen weapons.  After a car chase, they stop the shipment, and run into two blasts from their past.  First Crossfire, the villain behind the plot that got these two together in the first place, shows up, somehow involved with the weapons.  Also, conveniently, teh granddaughter of the Phantom Rider (who Mockingbird threw off a cliff in the Old West) shows up and is not too happy to see her back in the land of this living. 

Read the rest here.  Also, if you're interested, check out where it started in Avengers: Hawkeye, West Coast Avengers: Assembled & New Avengers: Reunion.

Review @ PopSyndicate: Secret Avengers #1

Almost forgot to mention that I have a review up at PopSyndicate for Secret Avengers #1:
 

As The Heroic Age dawns on the Marvel Universe, Ed Brubaker tries his hand at writing his own Avengers team, bent on cleaning up the messes of the previous administration.

As in our own universe, the problem with suddenly deciding that things are going to be better now is that there are still problems left behind.  Under the care of Norman Osborn, powerful artifacts were sold off to the highest bidder, or just neglected so that any random do-no-gooder could grab them where they were left lying around.  Steve Rogers (the former Captain America), now in charge of the nation’s national security, has assembled a group of agents with the intention of using them to gather these objects.  Unfortunately, these things never are as easy as they seem.  When stealing back the Serpent Crown from Roxxon Oil, they discover that this was not the crown they were looking for, and that it may be related to Roxxon’s efforts to find oil on Mars, efforts that were suddenly abandoned and scrubbed from their records.

Head on over to read the full review.

Summer Reading: Grimjack Omnibus

Summer Reading is a series that I plan to update on Monday's during the Summer that highlights some books that are good for throwing into your bag while on the way to the beach, vacation, or even to work.

I've been enjoying the recent trend of releasing Omnibuses (omnibi?) of older, very influential work by some of the smaller publishers.  I've long wanted to give Grimjack a try, I've enjoyed both of the creators work for a while and this has always been th work that many have cited as their seminal work.

Grimjack is a pretty simple set-up.  A mercenary named John Gaunt (nicknamed Grimjack) lives in the city of Cynosure, a city that is the nexus of many realities, all in a constant state of phasing in and out of phase with each other.  Gaunt has had a long and checkered past, having been a criminal, a cop and now a man for hire.  Both the setting and Gaunt's history allow for incredible flexibility in story telling.   In this book alone, we get westerns, science fiction, noir detective mysteries and political intrigue.  All of the stories are grounded by the presence of Grimjack, who could very easily be written off as a typical Eastwoodian "Man With A Dark Past Who Does Good", but the character is very well written by John Ostrander (Suicide Squad, Hawkworld) so that the character shines through.  Also, the art by Timothy Truman (Scout, Hawkworld) is incredibly detailed and clear.  The art makes it worth while to re-read the book just to see the easter eggs sprinkled through out.  For stories that are over 25 years old, it feels very fresh and new.

As for the format, IDW Comics prints the first 8 Grimjack stories that were originally backups in the First Comics series Starslayer and the first 13 issues of Grimjack's solo title (along with a brief framing sequence that I believe was created for the last re-print of these stories) here in a 6x9 softcover.  It's a great package and I wish Marvel & DC would modify their Showcase/Essential series to this format.  I'd gladly pay the extra money for color pages and the smaller trim size which makes for a much more portable read. Both IDW and Dark Horse are publishing a lot of books in this format and I look forward to grabbing more of them.

Reviews @ PopSyndicate: Siege #4

Also this week @ PopSyndicate, I review the rather lackluster conclusion to Siege: 

Marvel's event comic to end all of their event comics (or so they say) comes to a close, not with a bang, but with a whimper. This is especially disappointing following on how strong the three previous issues were. Where did it all go wrong?

Check it out!

Reviews @ PopSyndicate: Sweet Tooth Vol. 1

This week I'm reviewing Sweet Tooth Vol. 1 over at PopSyndicate:

Jeff Lemire's new Vertigo series releases it's first collection this week. A post-apocalyptic adventure featuring a strange, and very sweet protagonist who shows us that even at the end of the world, there's still time for candy.


Gus lives by five rules his Father has imposed upon him:
5. Never have a fire in daytime, cause people can see the smoke.
4. If I ever see anyone other than my Dad, I run and keep running.
3. Always say my prayers so as God don't decide to come make me sick too.
2. Never forget to pray for Momma, cause she was the prettiest lady God ever made.
1. Never, EVER leave the woods.

Head on over here to check out the full review.

Thoughts on IRON MAN 2

Overall, I enjoyed the heck out of the movie. It was fun, though it had some fat that could have easily been trimmed. There was also one moment at the end that bugged the shit out of me. But, if you enjoyed the first one, this delivers more of the same. Maybe a little bit too much more. But you'll have a good time. Anyway, here are some SPOILERIFIC bullet points:

• Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer was great as the anti-Tony Stark, Justin Hammer, but was almost a little too cartoonish.  And the fact that he didn't get punched in the face at least once was a little disappointing.  Regardless, Rockwell is fast becoming an actor who improves anything he's cast in. 
• Scarlett Johansen was really good, but I went in thinking she was going to be really bad, so I guess low expectation paid off there.
• The final battle just went on...and on.  After a while it was just metal crashing into other metal with some explosions.  They could have cut it down by half and made it better.
• Two dudes in Iron Man suits drunkenly duking it out to "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk?  YES.
• The biggest thing that bugged me was that they built up Pepper Potts over the course of the movie as being a strong, capable leader (especially towards the end when she took over the situation) to then have her freak out with the, "I'm a girl! I can't do this, save me Tony!" reaction at the end.  It was just a completely puzzling choice, unless they thought they had somehow emasculated Tony by making him no longer CEO. 
• During the opening at Stark Expo, when Tony checked his blood toxicity for the first time, my girlfriend leaned over to me and asked, "Is his suit killing him?" I was confused for a second, looked up at the screen and saw the awful, shiny tux he was wearing in that scene and almost replied, "Well, it's certainly killing me."
• The shout-outs to future Marvel movies were distracting and far from subtle.  I half expected Agent Coulson's last line to be, "I'm needed in New Mexico." *turns to camera* "Where you can seem me next Summer in The Mighty Thor!" 
• And yeah, the easter egg after the credits was OK, but not nearly as cool as the last one.

Review @ Popsyndicate: Free Comic Book Day Round Up

Today over at Popsyndicate, I offer up a round up of my favorite books from last Saturday's Free Comic Book Day:

Another Free Comic Book Day has come and pass, and by the anecdotal evidence of the giant crowd I experienced at my local comics shop, and the glowing notices I have seen around my circle on twitter, it looks to have been a success. After reading through the pile, the rather large pile I might add, of books I picked up, it also looks to have been one of the best in terms of the actual comics that were produced for the day. Almost all of the larger publishers actually produced new content for their books and most of those were full issues of series. Here's a run-down of some of the highlights of the books I picked up.

Overall, it was a pretty great haul, with some minor disappointments.  Head on over here to read the full run down.

Review @ PopSyndicate: The Brave & The Bold #33

Today at PopSyndicate, my review is up for The Brave & The Bold #33, and I am less than enthused.

J. Michael Straczynski continues his mining of continuity for new stories and comes up with mixed results.

There are fewer books that I've gone into this year that I wanted to like more than this one.  It featured three characters who I enjoy quite a bit (Wonder Woman, Zatanna, & Batgirl) but who rarely seem to socialize, and that was part of the hook for me, them socializing.  As much as I love punching in comic books, I also enjoy seeing heroes living and interacting in situations where they're just having fun and not trying to save the universe.  

Head on over here to read the full review.

Buy My Stuff...Please

So it's come to this, I've got way too much stuff.  So why don't you help me out, dear internet person and take some of this stuff off of my hands!  Below is a list of books I'm ready to say goodbye to, all are in good shape, some minor shelf-wear but other than that almost like new. Pricing is: Over-Sized HC's are $10, HC's are $7, and soft covers are $5.  Prices are negotiable, especially if you're buying several. If you're in the Chicago area, I'm sure we can work something out to meet up, if not, I'll be happy to ship anywhere in the US, however shipping will be extra.  You can pay via Paypal or just shoot me a check.  If you're interested, send me an e-mail at jurbanciz [at] gmail [dot] com and we'll work it out.

[Edit: obviously stuff that has a strikethrough has been claimed.]


Hardcovers

Justice League: The Lightning Saga
JSA:  The Next Age
Wolverine: Enemy of the State Vol. 1 (Premier)
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 2 (over-sized)
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 3 (over-sized, missing dust jacket)
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 4 (over-sized)
Batman: Hush Vol.1
Batman: Hush Vol. 2
Superman/Batman:  Supergirl
The Walking Dead:  Book One (over-sized)
The Best American Comics 2006
Justice Vol. 1
Identity Crisis
Secret War (over-sized)
Uncanny X-Men: Manifest Destiny (over-sized)
Ultimate X-Men Vol. 1 (over-sized)
Ultimate X-Men Vol. 2 (over-sized)
Captain America: The New Deal (over-sized)
Marvel Zombies (over-sized)
Catwoman: When in Rome


TPB's

Outsiders Vol. 3-5
Hawkman Vol. 3
Teen Titans (recent series) Vol. 4, 6 & 7
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 9 - 16
Avengers: The Search for She-Hulk
Avengers: Red Zone
Avengers: World Trust
Supreme Power Vol. 1 - 3
Supreme Power: Nighthawk
Supreme Power: Hyperion 
Superman: Birthright
Girls Vol. 1 & 2
Noble Causes Vol. 1
Batman: City of Crime
Green Arrow: Moving Targets
Captain Britain:  Vampire State
Rising Stars Vol. 1
Justice League International: The Secret Gospel of Maxwell Lord
Wanted
Sachs & Violens
Grendel: Devil's Legacy
Rex Mundi Vol. 1
Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DCU Vol. 1
Gotham Central Vol. 1-5
Chosen
Fallen Angel Vol. 1-2
Amazing Joy Buzzards Vol. 1 & 2
Starman: To Reach the Stars
Starman: Sons of the Father
Starman: Stars My Destination
Starman: A Starry Knight
Starman: A Wicked Inclination
Starman: Grand Guiginol
X-Men: Phoenix: Endsong
Ultimate X-Men Vol 5 - 15
Top Cow's Best of Warren Ellis (includes Down & 2 Witchblade stories)
Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol. 4-6
Wolverine: Enemy of the State Vol. 2
Teen Titans/Outsiders: The Insiders
X-Men: Supernovas

True Geek Confession: Lois & Clark

Following up on last year's cross-blog event, "My Scott & Jean", the Alert Nerds have thrown down the gauntlet once again. This year's event is "True Geek Confessions" and I'll let them explain it:

Unpopular opinions: we can haz them. Sometimes you stand alone in loving a super niche-y run of a popular comic book series. Sometimes you’re the only person on the entire planet to ’ship a certain ’ship. Sometimes you simply Do Not Get a movie the rest of your geeky brethren is falling all over themselves about. And because a lot of fandom is about sharing loves and hates and communing with your fellow geeks, this can feel awfully lonely.

For a while there, I didn't think I really had one, but reading through Dan Faust's excellent post on the Family West, I realized that I had a similar love that largely goes unshared by the geek community: the marriage of Clark Kent & Lois Lane. Even as child, the dysfunctional love triangle that existed between Lois, Clark & Superman bugged me. Superman always seemed like kind of a dick, and Lois was necessarily portrayed wither as clueless, or as a shrill harpy, bent on getting Superman to marry her*. As befits the premiere investigative journalist of a major metropolitan newspaper, it seemed silly that Lois wouldn't be able to defeat Clark's cunning disguise of horn-rimmed glasses and brylcream eventually.

So in 1996 it happened, though Lois didn't figure it out for herself, the reveal was well done, with her slapping Clark for leading her on as two separate men for years, but their love won through and they were married. though the writing of their marriage hasn't always been perfect, there have been some wonderful moments that make me so happy that DC allowed them to "take the plunge". A personal favorite is the moment in Superman: Up, Up and Away by Kurt Busiek & Geoff Johns. After Superman lost his powers post-Infinite Crisis, he and Lois got to spend a blissful year as a "normal" couple, but eventually his powers started to reemerge. Though Clark thinks that his wife will be angry or upset that she will be "losing" her husband once again to the craziness of the superhero lifestyle, she only has three words for him: "Go get 'em".

Lois and Clark as a married couple compliment each other really well, she's not the hand-wringing wife, waiting for her man to come home from the fight, she's out there on the street getting the story, and though she needs saving every once in a while, she does a fair bit of saving her man's ass as well. It's nice to get to see my childhood heroes get to behave, and grow, like adults.

*Not to say that Silver Age Lois stories weren't freaking hilarious.

2010 Media Journal 2

Movies:

Raiders of the Lost Ark: Rewatched this again this week, and holy shit, I forgot how great this movie is. It's one flaw is that after the amazing truck chase after the ark, the whole movie just kind of groans to a close. I mean, the whole "dudes faces melting off from viewin the glory of God" thing is pretty boss, but after Indy chucks a guy through the windshield of the truck, you can't really top that. I think I'm going to have to watch the other three over the next few days/weeks (yes, I even own Crystal Skull, don't judge me) to see how they feel. Raiders just has a different look to it than the others as far as I can remember. It looks and feels more organic. While Spielberg was going after those old school movie serials, it also has a strong noir vibe to it. Especially with his use of shadows. More on this as I watch the rest.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Wild Wild World of Batwoman: Since me and my girlfriend are big fans of MST3K, we watch a lot of it, and this may very well be the worst movie we've seen yet. Worse than Manos: The Hand of Fate. Yes. really. Mike & the 'Bots do their best, but it wasn't quite enough. You'll want to avoid this one at all costs. I'd give you a plot description...but I think I'd pull something in my brain if I even tried to igure it out.

Comics:

X-Factor: Nation X - A fun little one-shot. Apparently the X-Men have set up their on little island somewhere so they can just stay away from everyone who hates & fears them? X-Factor gets invited to come live with them and they stop by mostly to just tell them that it's a stupid idea and have a (good-natured) fight. Not much to speck of, but a good way to pass the time. Can anyone explain to me why Dazzler is now blonde?

Stumptown #2 - Another very good issue of this book. While the first issue seemed more self-contained, this one gets deeper into the story, so it doesn't hit as hard, but still very well done.

Sports:

So my girlfriend is a Packers fan, and needless to say, Sunday was gutting. The game was probably the best game I saw all year, but did not have the desired outcome

So that's it for this week.

Review @ PopSyndicate - Siege #1

Over at PopSyndicate.com I offer my thoughts on Siege #1:

I have not been a fan of Marvel Comics’s recent run of “event” comics.
Starting with Avengers: Disassembled five years ago, Marvel, with Brian Michael
Bendis at the helm has put out a series of ever-escalating events that seemed to
be leading…somewhere, but just never quite got there. It was incredibly
frustrating because they always seemed to be stories that had a beginning, a
middle, and then a “to be continued” that was in no way a satisfying
ending. While I understand that in on-going comic books, there really is
no such thing as “The End” since Spider-Man is still going to come out next
month whatever happens, but each one of these events simply ran into the next,
constantly losing momentum until it seemed the endgame was to simply get people
not to care anymore. So with Siege, we’re faced with what Marvel claims to
be the end. This is where it was all leading and, frankly, it’s pretty
darn good.

Head on over to read it in full.

Also, I am still going to be doing my weekly media journals, but I'm switching the scheduling so they'll publish wednesday mornings. Just works better for me, and this is all about me, after all.

2010 Media Journal 1

Hey all, this year I'm going to attempt to post once a week with my thoughts about new comics/books/movies/TV shows I've read and seen each week. I probably won't post too many full-on reviews, but mostly just random thoughts associated with what I've been up to. Mostly this is to help me remember what I've been up to and also help organize my thoughts.

Comics

It was a slow week this week, with only one new release, but I took the opportunity to pick up a few books I had been eyeing.

20th Century Boys Vol. 2 - The near-universal acclaim that has been following this book on the internet made me very excited to pick it up, but the first volume left me kind of cold. It was certainly good, but it was a rather slow burn of a story and I didn't feel compelled to keep on going. Vol 2 still didn't make me a full-fledged addict, but it definitely has e eager to grab volume three. The only thing that bugged me about this volume is that it used a story-telling trick that has always bugged me. A character has information that is pertinent to the plot, he even tells other people this information, but the author covers up what he's saying so that the reveal is hidden from the reader. I understand that it's important to show the reader that the information has been discovered, but it just feels like such a tease.

Sugar Shock One-Shot: The shop was giving this one-shot by Joss Whedon & Fabio Moon out for free during their New Year's Eve Eve sale and it's a fun little book (collecting stories that were originally put up on MySpace). The story is about a punk-rock band called to perform (maybe) at a galactic battle of the bands and it reads lie The Amazing Joy Buzzards had it been written by Whedon. There's not to muc heft there, but certainly worth the price I paid.

TV

Doctor Who: The End of Time 1 & 2: Though I'm not a huge Doctor Who fan, David Tennant's run on the series has been a favorite of mine and these final two episodes were certainly very good, if a tad melancholy. A lot of people on twitter were complaining that the Doctor came off rather unheroic as he met his end, especially compared with his direct predecessor, however it felt fitting to me. Tennant's Doctor always was the reluctant hero who seemed that he'd always prefer be out having fun instead of saving the universe, so his final words seemed right to me. Also, Timothy Dalton chewed the hell out of the scenery in that episode and probably took some home in a to-go container.

Re-watched the ending of Battlestar: Galactica this week and was still really impressed with it, though I could have done without the "present day" coda. Still, really good.

Can't think of too much else I watched other than a few bowl games and repeated watchings of this one episode of The Batman that my youngest has become fascinated with.

Movies:

For Christmas I got myself a Blu-ray player that also is compatible with Netflix Watch Instantly, so I'm going to be watching a lot of movies, some of which will not be very good, such as:

American Ninja: BeaucoupKevin was twittering about watching this yesterday ad so I threw it on late last night, thinking I'd be asleep in a few minutes. But shit, it was fascinating. In discussing it on twitter, Kevin said that it was "such an artifact" and it was. It hearkened back to watching awful movies just like it on cable on at my friends' houses back in grade school. Plus, there was a ninja that shot lasers at the end, that shit was off the hook.

Chocolate: The plot of this Thai martial arts movie: an autistic girl is able to repeat just about any movement she sees someone perform, so fo course she watches a bunch kung-fu movies so she can go collect the money owed to her former-gangster-mother in order to pay for her mother's cancer medicine. It was shockingly not nearly as exploitative as I thought it would end up being and was quite a good movie.

So that's about it for this week. Hopefully I'll have more for you in seven days.