Monday : 30 October 2006
Today was a good day. Kind of busy, but no real problems to speak of.

Tonight was D&D night at ‘. We picked up pretty much right where we left off two weeks ago: Getting ready to have our collective recta served to us on a silver platter by a white dragon. (And, no, I don’t mean the Anne McCaffrey book nor the movie by Wilson Yip Wai-Shun.) As it turns out, we wound up beating the it… while taking something of a beating ourselves. Of course, that was only the prelude to the fight that came after. We were at ground zero of a battle between higher powers. You know, the kind that look at humans/humanoids and don’t really consider us worth a whole lot of notice. Yeah… that kind. We survived the experience, which means that our characters will live to adventure another day. Night. Sometime in the future.

Four-Color Coverage
This weekend’s take was a mixed bag. There were some issues that were good and a few that were… less than great.

  • 52: Week Twenty-Five – This was one of the poor issues. I didn’t really find too much interesting here. A look at the Black Marvel Family (Black Adam, Isis and Osiris, the counterparts of the “Captain Marvel Family”), a glimpse of the former Elongated Man’s mystical journey, another skirmish with Lex Luthor’s supergroup Infinity, Inc. and the sowing of the seeds of what would/will become the new Checkmate.
  • New Avengers #24 – I usually like New Avengers. Really, I do. But, this was an all-Sentry issue. If you don’t know who he is, don’t worry – neither does most of the Marvel Universe… despite the fact that he’s supposed to have been around for decades. (He just made everyone forget about him. No, really… that’s part of his story.) As the rest of the American heroes in the Marvel Universe are embroiled in the so-called “Civil War” (over the Superhuman Registration Act), Sentry decides to go and clear his head. On the moon. This brings him into conflict with the Fantastic Four’s allies/enemies, the Inhumans. And all it really serves to do is for the reader to spend the issue listening to Sentry’s thoughts as he waffles over whether or not he should actually do something and take a side in the war. Sorry… snoozefest.
  • Ultimate Spider-Man #101 – This is Marvel’s take on the old Spider-Man clone saga, set in the Ultimate Universe. It sets up what happened to one character who’s been away for a while; it also sets up what’s happening to another character who has recently disappeared. Oh, and it also shows the not-so-nice side of MUU’s Nick Fury. It was an “okay” issue, but not really anything to write home about.
  • Elephantmen #004 – This was a good issue. It opened strong, slowed down the pace in the middle and then, in a great bit of storytelling, closed on a very stirring note. I believe that I mentioned how impressed I was with this book when I started reading it; this was a good example of “why.”
  • Action Comics #844 – This is the first issue of the open-ended Geoff Johns and Richard Donner run. That’s right, Richard Donner. The same Richard Donner who, in 1978, told the world “You will believe a man can fly.” And we did. Now, he’s co-writing this title with his former production assistant, Geoff Johns. From the way the story is playing out, it seems as though they are trying to tie the comic and movie continuities together. Loosely, but that seems to be the direction this is heading. This seems to take a few pages from Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns script and use it to introduce a possible “son of Superman.” The story was good, although I can see that I’ll have to get used to Adam Kubert’s artwork.
  • Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #23 – Since we’re on the subject of everybody’s favorite Kryptonians, we might as well make this the next stop. Ever since arriving in the 31st Century (back in issue #16), Supergirl has been sure that she’s been dreaming up this entire adventure. So, the Legionnaires do the only thing that they can think of to help prove to her that she’s not delusional: They expose her to Kryptonite, drug her and take her to the the former bottled city of Kandor, which has been returned to its normal size and transplanted to the planet Rokyn. Oh, and Lar Gand – who’s been trapped in the Phantom Zone for 1,000 years – puts in an appearance, too.
  • Justice #8 – The villains are… heroes? The heroes are holed up in the Fortress of Solitude? Batman contemplates torturing a criminal to extract information? Yes, to all of the above. And it’s all good reading. Of course, the Alex Ross artwork doesn’t hurt, either. To quote a review from Newsarama:

    “…if Justice isn’t the coolest live action Challenge of the Superfriends that we’re never gonna get, I don’t know what is. Issue #8 also functions a lot like the other book I covered in that the Justice League of America functions pretty much for the first time in this series as a unit when they get a fairly clear understanding of what they are up against and what they need to do to fix things.”

Stray Toasters

  • While I like the fact that the sun’s coming up “earlier,” I’m not uber-keen on the whole “dark at 6:00 PM” thing. I don’t think that I ever really have been, now that I think about it.
  • Techie Faces Orrin Hatch Nov. 7 – Wired Magazine’s interview with Pete Ashdown, the Utah ISP entreprenuer who is challenging Hatch for his seat in the U.S. Senate.
  • By way of : An acoustic rendition of Hey Ya
  • Our Lady of Perpetual Martyrdom *genuflect*
  • Nightcrawler cinematic trailer for the Marvel Ultimate Alliance game.
  • Why is the “high beam” headlight indicator blue? Who decided that “blue” = “high beams?”
  • By way of MSN Careers and CareerBuilder.com: 10 Most Macabre Jobs
  • “I… I… I want the knife!” *spins prayer wheel*

Namaste.