I did. Last night.

( Cut for those who haven't seen it and may not want to read my ramblings yet )

The other day over on Comic Book Resources, my favourite comic rumour column, Lying in the Gutters, had a 'special report' on why the latest issue of All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, due to arrive in comic stores this past Wednesday, would not actually arrive, and was being recalled due to a printing error.

Go, have a look at the article, see what the 'printing error' is, then c'mon back.

Back? Good.

If you ask me, the only printing error there is what Frank Miller originally wrote.

Y'know, once upon a time, I shared in the 'Frank Miller is one of the best writers in comics' party line. I mean, how could you not look at Batman: The Dark Knight Returns or Batman: Year One or Daredevil: Born Again, the early Sin City stuff, and not think that the man was awesome? But that was then...

Over the years, I became less and less enamoured of his writting. 300 made a much prettier movie than it did an engrosing comic book. And then there was The Dark Knight Strikes Again. I hated this book. The plot was a mess, the characters all hateful characitures of themselves. I couldn't even finish it. To this day I've not read the ending, and when friends of mine have mentioned the horrible way one of my favourite characters comes off (that would be Dick Grayson), I'm doubly glad I didn't read it.

Even his Sin City stuff felt less fresh than it had before. More violence just for violence sake and not the intriguing look at WHY the violence for violence's sake that I thought his earlier works explored quite nicely.

I was starting to believe that Miller, like some other writers who were HUGE in the 80s (Chris Claremont, John Byrne) was just not capable of making the jump to being a relevant writer in the 2000's.

I read one issue of All Start Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and knew, from the moment Batman picked up Robin by the neck, holding him aloft and gritting out the (now) immortal line "I'm the goddamn Batman", that the book wasn't for me. I've heard all sorts of apologist stuff for the title, the main one being that its a satire, and sure, maybe it is, but its definitely not a satire I find funny. Miller's Batman is not one that I care to read about.

My stance though, about not reading ASBaRtBW was pretty much affirmed when I had a look at the dialogue that wasn't fully blacked out by the black boxes placed over them. Believe me, its not that I have a problem with swear words. I use 'em just like everyone else does. Sometimes, you just need to swear. And yes, I have even been known to invoke the c-word, so I'm also not some raving feminist saying that the use of that word in this comic is wrong.

No, what I don't like is the plain and simple PLETHORA of swear words Miller has seen fit to use. It's not shocking or adding to the story or making Batgirl seem real or tough. Swearing has its place in stories and dialogue. Used well, it adds realism or punch or drama or what have you. But in this case, it feels like its lazy, that Miller can't come up with any good dialogue and so is substituting swear words. Basically, I think it makes him sound dumb, just like (and well, maybe I am an elitist snob) I think anyone who uses some form of the word 'fuck' every other word sounds dumb too.

If Miller can't think of anything nice for his characters to say, then maybe they shouldn't say anything at all.

I'm doing something today I don't usually ever do; I'm wearing geek-wear at work. Ok, yes, I have been known to wear my Detroit Red Wing jersey at work before (damn right I wore it after they won the Stanley Cup this year!), which could be counted as a form of geek-wear, but today I'm out and out being geeky with this little number: I do have a light sweatshirt to wear over it if I start feeling abnormally geeky.

So, why the geek-wear? Well its FanExpo weekend in Toronto (other wise known as Toronto ComicCon) and right after work I'm heading over to the con to put my time in at the Snail's booth and get myself some store credit to enable my habit. Jet's off to my parents' place for the weekend, so I can put in lots more time at the con than I've been able to for the past couple of years. Which is both good and bad. The husband's already there, having put set-up time last night as well. The other nice thing about this is Ciaran's back, and I'm really looking forward to seeing him.

Oh, also, tomorrow, Aug. 23rd, is our first wedding anniversary. So yes, Graig and I will celebrate it surrounded by comic books. Which is appropriate considering the first anniversary is paper. And well, we love comic books, they're pretty much the reason we met. So it's all good. After the con, we're planning on going for a nice dinner at Barberian's steak house, which is also where we had our wedding reception.

Pretty much going cold turkey tonight on Olympic coverage though. That's going to be hard. I come into work and usually immediately hop over to CBC for an update on what's going on. Yesterday, I was a little bad and watched a lot of the show-jumping. I love the ponies and was just tickled that Eric Lamaze won gold. This 'morning though, found out our big canoeist, Adam Van Koeverden finished a shocking eighth out of nine kayakers in the K1 1,000 metres. He was considered our best medal bet, but nope, he flamed out spectacularly. Poor guy. We did pick up another silver medal though, in taekwondo, so that's cool. Silver is definitely the colour of Canada for these Olympics. So yeah, being at the con all weekend means I won't be getting my Olympic coverage. That's going to be hard...

And finally, I leave you with my current, favourite song: "Listen to the Radio" by Sloan, off their album "Never Hear the End of It".


Have a good weekend everyone, and if you're at the Con this weekend, drop by the Snail booth and say hi. I'm on the comic book side of course.

Graig was searching around Google for Iron Man images when he came across this...

George talks Iron Man

Yup, that's my friend George, talking up a good game as an "Iron Man expert". Being manager of the Snail comes with its own PR machine; whenever a new comic book movie comes out, you get consulted about it by various Toronto-based media outlets. Which is an awesome perk of the job.

George isn't really an Iron Man expert. He is, however, an authority on Green Lantern :)

As I have discussed before, I am one of those people who generally seems to know where everything is in the house. When something is lost or misplaced, I usually know exactly where it is, or I can find it with a minimum of searching. This makes my son very happy (and sometimes inordiantly lazy; why look for something if Mommy knows where it is?), and kinda freaks my husband out a little I think.

So due to this trait, which was demonstrated in full force this morning because I told Graig that his black and white scarf he was looking for this morning was on the chest at the foot of the bed in our bedroom, he's taken to calling me Layla Miller in these instances. 'Cause I know stuff.*



* Unless you read the current run of X-Factor (or some of the House of M stuff I believe), you're totally not going to get this joke, but I find it funny. And endearing :)

Haven't been up to much of late. Last Friday I finally succumbed to the cold Graig had, so it was good that I had to leave early to pick up Jet from school as they were closing the schools down due to that huge frickin' snow storm we had on Friday.

Y'know, I went through schools in the Toronto District School Board pretty much my entire life and I never had a single snow day. I didn't miss school due to snow until I went to university in Waterloo. Here in T.O, they figure if the TTC's still running, you can get to school or work. Not that I'm complaining mind you, I'll take a snow day now, thank you very much.

I would've liked to have gone outside on Saturday and played in the snow with everyone, but I was feeling miserable, so I parked myself on the couch. Bless my husband and my brother for keeping my son busy so I could sleep.

On Sunday night, Graig and I rented movies, something that we haven't done in a VERY long time. We went to the store with the purpose in mind to get Eastern Promises, but it was all rented out. How annoying. Instead, we came away with The Bourne Ultimatum and 3:10 to Yuma.

( Movies )

And now for something completely different... Over on my husband's blog, he's having a retrospective about comics and the part they've played in his life. So of course, that got me thinking about comics and the part they've played in my life. ( Comics n' Me )

Last night, Graig and I polished off Season 1 of Heroes in anticipation of tonight's premiere. It took us exactly a week to watch all 22 episodes. Overall, I still say I enjoyed it, it is a lot of fun, but I found the finale a little bit of a let down. I guess I've been trained by Lost to expect a huge, kick you in the gut, cliffhanger kinda finale. And the stupidity of no one securing Sylar's body just blew my mind...

Ok, guessing game for my friends: Knowning my taste in superheroes as most of you do, which Heroes character became my favourite? Graig seemed to settle on DL as his favourite, but I'm curious to see if anyone can guess who mine is :)

Despite its rather similar overtones to the X-Men storyline "Days of Future Past", the episode with Hiro in the future was really awesome. About half way through the whole thing, the husband and I had a bit of an epiphany where Graig said "y'know, there are millions of people watching this show who would never dream of picking up a comic book." And we agreed it was kinda sad, for there are so many pieces of this show that borrow from some great comic books, including one of the very best; Watchmen. It is too bad you can't take everyone who watches this show and don't read comic books and... I don't know, make them read Watchmen? I'm not sure what any of that would accomplish, but for some reason, it became an important thought. Will a show like this create any cross-over audience to comic books? Probably doubtful since something like the Spider-Man movies can make millions upon millions at the box office, but doesn't really translate into the same increased readership. Instead, readership will spike a little after a related comic book movie comes out, but after a few months, the numbers level off again it seems.

Anyway...

Sunday, Graig and I started the daunting task of consolidating our comic book collections. I've never consolidated my comic book collection with any one else's before (of course, I've also never been in a relationship with someone who has a larger comic book collection that I do. Until now). My ex and I maintained completely separate collections and I was happy with that. But now, as Graig and I merged all our books and began separating things out in which we have in common, it struck me again, "wow, I really am married. I've never mixed my comics in with anyone else's before". The strangest things strengthen the idea to me that we're married :) We're only into the J's (which, thanks to vast collections of JLA and JSA is a HUGE section), and there's still lots of large blocks of books to come (my entire run of Robin, more X-Books than any two people should own...) But it's been great fun going through the boxes and boxes of stuff, picking out the things that look intreguing and asking "is this any good?" And of course, lots of teasing one another about some particularly bad comics we come across (yes, we both own at least a few issues of the awful, awful Rob Liefeld X-Force. We were both victims of the hype). So far, we have almost one entire long box full of doubles, with more to come. As I said, there are two entire runs of Starman, plus a nearly complete run of Sandman, and a whole lot of overlapping X-stuff from the 90s. Which no one should really want anyway :)

Thanks to my (pre)birthday and troy_duffy, Graig and I have been consuming the 1st season of Heroes since Monday evening, neither of us really having watched it while it was on.

I know, I know. Right now you're all wondering how two superhero junkies such myself and my husband were not watching Heroes while it was on? I can really only say it happened because we were both rather underwhelmed by the pilot episode, and then we just managed to not really... care? I guess. And eventually, the hype surrounding it was driving me to one of my moments of supreme stubborness where I refuse to watch something just because. I know, it makes no sense, but that's how I am sometimes. And yes, I'm well aware its really annoying :) But anyway, it wasn't just me getting stubborn about watching Heroes, Graig was pretty much with me on this one, even going so far as to cancel his order of Season 1 from Amazon.

But now we are watching it and we are enjoying it. It's not bad, its not Lost (which I admit I enjoy far more), and it is fun. I'm having fun trying to fit all the various super powers into DC Heroes terms, and that is keeping me endlessly entertained. The characters are fine, (I'm guessing you're supposed to want to smack Peter Petrelli alot, right?), although that one girl's (Eden?) super big head is very distracting. Every time she's on screen, all I can hear in my head is Mike Myers from So I Married An Axe Murderer bellowing in a bad Scottish Accent "Look at the size of that boy's(girl's) head. It's like an orange on a toothpick." Anyway, other than that, Heroes, not bad on the whole.

What WAS bad this week was the Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special.
I'm still a little surprised at myself for picking this sucker up. Its not like I'm a big fan of weddings, but I do like Ollie and Dinah and superhero weddings can be fun, so what the heck. But this one stunk. It felt cheap and tawdry, from the too much info on GA/BC's sex life (sometimes show/not tell ISN'T the way to go), to the dialogue that had Canary swearing like a fishwife (insert Aquaman joke here if you'd like), to the wedding dress that was obviously supposed to be a rif on her costume, but just came off looking like cheap-Vegas-ho-wedding dress. Heck, it wasn't even Vegas-wedding tacky, it was more like Reno-wedding tacky. And the story was horribly cliche (oh, oh look, the bad guys are going to crash the wedding! Even though the badguys were already beating up the JLA over in the JLA Wedding Special, where it was done MUCH better) and the ending was just so dumb (guess you conviently forgot what her powers are? Or that she's one of the foremost fighters in the DCU?) that I pretty much just dropped the book in disgust and said to Graig, 'Well that was stupid.' Just bleah.

Thank goodness Robin and Captain America were also out this week to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth. Captain America ended on a really great cliffhanger. I'm still enjoying the hell out of that book.

The overall impression I have from this year's FanExpo (i.e. ComicCon Toronto)?

If I never have to hear the song "Freebird" again, I'll be an extremely happy camper.

You see, a few rows over, there was a large area devoted to video games, one such video game being Guitar Hero (which, is actually a video game I enjoy for the most part. Probably the only one...). Unfortunately, I guess they only had a few songs available for the playing public, and the most popular one was Freebird by Lynyrd Skynryd. So we got to hear it played (complete with missed notes from the game) over and over during the three days of the Con until pretty much all the retailers were ready to go over, pull a John Belushi in Animal House, and smash the damn guitar so we wouldn't have to listen to it again. I've never been fond of the song to begin with, but now I LOATHE it.

Other than that though, the con was a nice experience. Graig has now officially 'married' into the Snail crowd so this was his first year participating behind the Snail booth, selling comics to the con going throng.

After attending San Diego this year, I guess I can't really say Toronto has 'throngs' per se, but still, its busy enough on the convention floor to still be annoying and make me want to get right back behind the tables asap where its not crowded. But, Graig and I did manage to find some nice deals, including a (nearly) entire run of Elementals (no Sex Specials though. Damn), and I was able to complete my run of Mark Waid-penned Captain America.

I did brisk business on Sunday, not so much on Saturday (although the sale of Brave and the Bold #11 for $300 was pretty sweet) and overall had the usual nice visit with past and present Snail employees. Graig and I were also allowed to take home the $10, 000 copy of Amazing Spider-Man #1 for safe keeping. While it was really neat to have such an expensive piece of comic history in our grasp for an evening, it was also nerve-wracking 'cause if something happened to it, we'd be dead :) But it was fine and returned to the shelves on Sunday morning.

The gang took great delight in calling me "Mrs. Kent" all weekend. And I couldn't really blame them, of course a bunch of comic book geeks would get a kick out of that.

There were the usual amount of costumes and the usual amount of people who should not be wearing costumes (the at least 160lbs Poison Ivy was... not good) and the usual amount of fun customers and the usual amount of annoying customers. My dear friends kon_el333 and troy_duffy stopped by on Saturday, which was good fun. I didn't get hit on at all this year, but I think the big sparkly rings on my finger and the fact that my husband was right there with me kinda killed all that. For which I am eternally greatful :)

And now, I've got lots credit at the store, which will pay for this comic book habit of mine for at least a good six months or so. That fact alone is worth all the math, the sore feet and the sliced finger this year.

And yeah, of course I was also reminded that every year, Graig's and mine 'honeymoon' will be our tour of duty at the Con. Which suits us just fine :)

In all my comic book reading, I'm not someone who's a huge creator follower. Meaning, I don't automatically read a book because a certain artist or writer is on it. Oh, make no mistake, I have some preferences. As far as writers go, I generally always enjoy a good Mark Waid or Chuck Dixon run, and I can, without hesitation say that Alan Davis is my favourite comic book artist. But generall, I follow comics for the characters, and if the talent on the book does a good job, well, that's a bonus.

However, aside from Alan Davis (and a few others), Mike Wieringo was an artist whose work I truly enjoyed. He co-created Impulse with Mark Waid, and Impulse was truly one of my favourite characters. Wieringo's run on Flash with Waid was a great, great comic book and Wieringo also did a nifty job with another of my favourite characters, Robin.

Mike Wieringo passed away on the weekend, he was only 44 years old.

He was an extremely talented artist, and I'll miss his art greatly.

Well, I finally understand why people live in California...

Holy crap is it beautiful there! Graig and I arrived in San Diego on Wed., and I don't think we saw our first cloud in the sky until Sunday. Just lovely...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Leaving and Arrival - Wednesday
Our flight out of Toronto was at 8:30 am, so that meant having to get up at 5am to make it out to the airport and do all the airporty things you have to do before getting on a plane. Not a problem, we checked in, did the security gauntlet (had a fun time in the lineup for US customs as we played 'spot the Con-goers) and went to the lounge to wait with all the other geeks heading down for the Con. We boarded, chatted with our seatmates who were also going to the Con, and prepared to head out. First snag though; we sat on the tarmac for about 10 minutes as the pilot informed us that there was a problem with the breakers, they had to be reset, and then off we'd go. So they did this, and the pilot said he was 'confident', so all was good. All was good until 45 minutes into the flight when the pilot came back on, said the problem was re-occuring and he was no longer confident, so we were heading back to Toronto. Bummer. So the extra flying time, the time on the ground as they found us a new plane and flight crew, added a good two hours onto our trip. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing (I'm a big fan of the plane working properly, thank you very much), except that Graig was feeling progressively worse. He'd developed a bit of a bug the day before, but was feeling fine that morning. However, he doesn't deal well with airconditioning, and the recycled plane air just rekindled everything. Sigh.

But, eventually we arrived safe and sound in San Diego, to be greeted by the warm Californian sun accompanied by the refreshing, Pacific Ocean breeze. No oppressive Toronto humidity here! We got to our hotel, the Balboa Park Inn, which was a hop and a skip away from the San Diego Zoo, and about a 15 min. bus ride from downtown and the Convention Centre. We needed some food, but Graig needed a nap first, so that's what he did, while I studied some bus routes and whatnot (we brought my lap top with us, and lo and behold, the Inn had wi-fi. Yay!) so we could get down to the Con, and Sea World, another place I was intent on going. After Graig's nap, we realized we weren't really feeling energetic enough to head down to the Con for Preview Night, so we strolled over to University Ave. and had a very nice (and needed) dinner at an Italian restaraunt. Then, back to the inn and much needed sleep, having been up since 5am that morning (our time).

Day One- Thursday
Graig was up early, but unfortunately, it was because he was feeling worse. He tried to get himself going, but after breakfast, it was decided he needed another nap, and then we'd head out to the Con. We still managed to get there just after 10am (when the doors opened), so we didn't feel like we missed anything. Deal lord the place is huge. That first day, we really only did the vendor side of things. We also quickly realized we actually had a pleasant delimma. I get a VERY good price on comic books here. The Snail uses US cover price for everything, but, as a long time customer and ex-employee, I also get a 20% discount. So, for anything to be worth buying for us at the Con, the discount had to be at least 40%. We did find a few booths selling trades for 50% off, so we loaded up; Graig rounding out his Daredevil collection, me getting some Invincible trades and a trade of reprinted Batman stories featuring Ra's Al Ghul from the 70s. I love Neal Adams art. We also bought some geeky t-shirts (Aquaman for Graig, a general DC Superfriends-type shirt for me), and I got a stuffed Aku and Samurai Jack for Jet. By about 3pm though, we'd both had it and were ready to leave the rest of the Con for tomorrow.

*side note* Its funny that neither Graig nor myself were really interested in seeing any of the panels or getting things signed or whatnot. Both of those would involve too much standing in line, and there was just more I wanted to see (both inside and outside of the Con) to bother doing that. So, I suppose we didn't get the 'full' con experience, but what we did get was more than enough for me.

We went and had lunch and decided to head back to the hotel so Graig could have another nap. Since it was vacation, I had one too :) Then I got up and read some of my new trades, and eventually, we headed out to roam around the city again, and came to the realization that house prices in San Diego made us feel much better about house prices in Toronto.

Day Two - Friday
Didn't get up as early on Friday, we were both pretty tired from all the walking the previous day, and Graig still wasn't feeling fantastic, but we were down at the Con by 11am to do the second half. This time we hit the booths of the big (and small) comic publishers, the toy companies, the TV networks and the studios. It was MUCH more crowded on this side. So crowded that there were times we could barely move, and it pretty much solidified the idea that I really didn't want to have anything to do with the Con on Saturday, traditionally the busiest day of any Con (and also, Saturday day passes had been sold out for awhile. In fact, this year was the first year they completely sold out of the four-day passes as well). A lot of this stuff I wasn't really interested in, there was a lot of anime, and video games, and most of the movies being promoted totally didn't interest me either. But this side was also where a lot of artists had set up their booths, and Graig bought an Adam Hughes mini-portfolio, and I bought myself a Charles Vess print. Graig also hit a lot of the smaller publishers in order to make some contacts for the review site he writes for, Rack Raids, and we also bought a few books from them as well. Well, more Graig did than I did, as I'm an unabashed superhero junkie and don't read the indy stuff as much. We took some pictures of various geeky stuff, and then by about 4:30, had seen everything and had enough, so it was off to get some food and go shopping.

Y'see, whenever I'm in the US, there's a few stores I HAVE to hit, the main one being Victoria's Secret, so we headed to a nearby mall (which was all outdoors) to have a look around, and they did indeed have a Victoria's Secret. I also bought a wooden truck for Jet, then we stopped for a smoothie (those being one of the few things Graig could manage 'eating'). We also stopped at a Jack in the Box, as I like to go to one bad, fast food burger chain while in the US, but it was absolutely disgusting and neither of us could finish it and I realized that its probably the In 'N Out Burger chain that I like better, but oh well. Then we headed back to the hotel, pretty exhausted again, and fell asleep watching What Not to Wear.

Day Three - Saturday
As I already mentioned, I had no desire to go to the Con on Saturday. Being of the rather short persuasion, I'm not fond of crowds as I tend to get lost in 'em. So, we chose this day as our day to hit Sea World. I'd been to the Sea World in Orlando years before (I was still a teenager at the time), and I remember loving it. And yes, I still loved it. We saw dolphins and penguins and polar bears and beluga whales and manatees and sea lions and killer whales and SHARKS! I love sharks :) The killer whales are always impressive, but after watching the show, I suddenly realized I had this thought of... is this right? Should we be making these animals do all this for our amusement? Yeah, I know, kinda after the fact to be having these thoughts, but, as the last time I had seen one of these shows was when I was the aforementioned teenager; my thoughts are rather different than they'd been then. But anyway, overall it was a nice day and I picked up a few shark-related souveniers for myself and Jet.

Day Four - Sunday
I have only one word to say for this day and that word is BEACH! There was no way I was going to California and not spending at least one day on the beach. So we packed up that morning and headed off by bus to Coronado, the rather large island just off San Diego. While there, we looked at the Hotel Del Coronado, a beautiful old resort dating from the late 1800s. We also noticed that the beach outside the hotel wasn't as busy as the others, so we rented some chairs and an umbrella and set up camp, dozing and reading and watching the sights, till we went down for our first ever foray into the Pacific Ocean. Which was a hell of a lot warmer than I expected. In fact, it was beautiful, and I loved the feel of sinking into the sand as the surf came in and out. After drying off, we headed down Coronado's main boulevard for dinner, then caught the bus back to the hotel and watched a few shows from the Discovery Channel's Shark Week.

Day Five - Monday and Departure
While I was looking forward to sleeping in my own beds and seeing Jet again, it also means having to return to work, and THAT was not something I was looking forward to. The way home was pretty uneventful, the only thing that happened was I was a dork and discovered, while in the line-up to go through security at the airport, that I'd forgotten to put my pocket knife in my checked luggage. So yeah, that had to go bye-bye, and I was very sad because I LOVE my pocket knife. It is so infinitely useful and I found one with all the right accoutrements on it for me and now I feel wrong not having one. So, this means I'll be heading down to MEC ASAP to purchase a new one. But it won't be that one. Ah well, my own stupidity :) We arrived back at 7:30 our time, headed home, unpacked, and proceeded to relax and dread going back to work today.

Overall, 'twas a lovely vacation. I only wish we'd had more time because there really is a plethora of things to do in San Diego and I would've liked to have done 'em all :)

There will be pictures eventually posted on my Flickr account, and once that happens, I will provide the link for all those who don't already have it.

So, having gone off on the Flash a couple of posts ago, and having dropped the latest DC cross-over/magnum-opus, Countdown, it got me thinking last night that there really are not a lot of comics I'm getting these days that I'm truly excited about reading.

But all is not bleak in comic land, for there are a few titles I still really, really enjoy, and do immeasurably look forward to when they come out.

1) Fables. While Bill Whillingham's run on Robin was... disappointing to say the least, his Fables has been fabulous since day one. We're on issue 63 now, and I feel there have been very, very few mis-steps in this comic book. Of course, with the introduction of Lancelot a couple issues ago, he's now veering into territory very near and dear to my heart, and also territory I'm extremely knowlegeable and critical of, so we'll see how he does. However, so far, Lance has been worked in beautifully, so I have high hopes.

2) Jack of Fables. Its not often that a spin off is every bit as good as the title it was spin off from. But here it is. Jack of Fables is a rollicking, fun, ribald good time, following the exiled Jack Horner (the ubiquitous 'Jack' of all the tales) as he runs around the United States, basically getting into a lot of trouble. Willingham's not using it to retread ground he's covering over in Fables, instead he is using it to open up the Fable world and introduce us to new villians, fables, etc. For the first time though, with this latest issue, it looks as though there may be some cross-over back into Fables. For as Lancelot has just shown up in Fabletown, the sword Excalibur has likewise appeared in Jack of Fables. And is currently been driven through Jack's chest no less. I'm just tickled to see the Arthurian stuff starting to show up in Willingham's creations.

3) Captain America. Ok, so I know I went off on them killing Captain America, but really, for a title where the main character is nowhere to be seen, this book is still alarmingly fantastic. Ed Brubaker has done a fantastic job of making you care about the supporting cast, and about their reactions to Cap's death. The reactions range from mute acceptance, to frustrating impotence, to sworn vengance. I honestly cannot wait to see what happens next.

4) X-Factor. Despite the fact that, as far as Marvel comics go I (was) a big consumer of many things "X", I never read any of the previous incarnations of X-Factor with any regularity. I know I didn't read the first incarnation because it focused on Cyclops and Jean Grey, both of whom I find terribly boring. I only sporadically read the first, celebrated run done by Peter David, but what I did read was pretty damn good. But Graig lent me the first Madrox the Multiple Man trade that leads up to this latest incarnation of X-Factor, and I was hooked. The characters are way more interesting than I ever thought any of them could be before, and its alot of moody, investigative noir type stuff mixed with the X world and just enough dry humour to keep everyone happy. Its great stuff.

Hmm, well, that's pretty much it. There are still other titles I enjoy, such as Robin, Invincible, Green Arrow, etc. but its those four listed above that make me say 'Cool. Its a good week if that's out."

If you haven't read Flash #13 or the latest issue of JLA and are planning to, you may want to skip my rant below, for I spoil all sorts of stuff...

You know, I really do try and not fall into the trap of being a comic book fangirl. I try and not get overly involved in them, 'cause really, they are just stories when it comes right down to it and they shouldn't make me angry. But sometimes, they do. Sometimes they make me so angry that I'm not even sure what to say about them. I try not to be overly fangirlish about things when a character I'm attached to is killed, because really, one of the most pathetic things a comic book fan can grouse about is that "they killed so-and-so! They had no right to do that! They were my favourite character!" and blah blah blah. I try not to do this, but sometimes, like now, I cannot help myself.

( Eulogy for Impulse )

On Friday, during our day of playing (legally booked off) hooky from work, Graig and I saw Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Now, it should be known that I am not a fan of the Fantastic Four. I can count the number of FF comics I've read on one hand, and most of my exposure to them comes from any cross-overs they may have had with X-people and through just general comic book osmosis (where, if you read comics long enough and talk to other people into comics enough, you'll just pick up bits of comic book info/trivia about characters you don't read whether you want to or not).

It should also be known that I didn't really like the first movie. I thought it was pretty dull and the guy who played Dr. Doom just killed it for me through his over-acting. I also discovered that actually seeing the stretching power in action kinda squicked me out. Also, I thought poor 'ol Ioan Gruffudd was having a hell of a time hiding his Welsh accent, and so was just kinda... wooden.

But all this being said, I really enjoyed Rise of the Silver Surfer. I like epics and this feels just plain epic. This is fate of the world kinda stuff and they make sure we know this. The effects are wonderful and they do a really, really good job with the Surfer himself. Despite how 'silly' it might be that this naked silver guy is riding through space on a surf board, it sure doesn't look silly when you see it on the screen. He's shiny and noble and perfectly voiced and is just great. And despite that yes, while I did want to see a giant purple, tuning-fork headed Galactus, I was still quite happy with how they did portray the Planet Devourer, it was appropriately scary. I could've done without Doom again, the actor still bugs me, but overall, I thought everything was pretty good. In a big-budget, summer blockbuster comic book movie kinda way that is :)

I know it came out the week before last, but still, I wanted to talk about Captain America #26.

As some of you may know, I wasn't happy with the decision to kill Cap in issue #25, and yet, I will also agree that it was really, really well done. Don't get me wrong, I still don't like it, but at least it is a good read, and strangely enough, doesn't feel like a big publicity stunt, it actually feels like a logical extension of the Civil War crappola.

There's been quite the hiatus between #25 and 26, so much so that I started to wonder if Marvel was going to continue the book... but it arrived, and wow was it worth the wait.

Ed Brubaker is an amazing writer. He has done something I never thought possible; he's made Bucky (yes that Bucky!) into a really interesting, complex, and dare I say, cool character.

So, issue 26 deals more with immediate feelings after Cap's death. Sharon Carter, Cap's erstwhile girlfriend, who may or may not have been the one who pulled the final trigger, gets into a fight with Tony Stark and quits S.H.I.E.L.D. She's having a hard time dealing with her grief and how she's dealing with it is very, very in character for her. She's grieving for both Steve Rogers and Captain America. Its pretty moving actually.

And there's Cap's friends; some of whom are still underground due to their not registering as heroes, and their anger, fear and saddness is completely palpable. They're upset they couldn't even go to Steve's funeral.

But its Bucky's reaction that is the best. And weirdly, the most surprising. After hearing a bar patron call Cap a 'traitor', Bucky gets into a bar fight and completely lays waste (cause violence is all he knows now), and then comes to a decision that literally made me cry out in disbelief, delight and pure amazement because, even though it makes complete sense, it wasn't what I expected.

I thought Bucky was going to don the costume and become the next Captain America. But nope, that's not what's going to happen.

I didn't think I would like this book once Cap was gone. But Brubaker has insidously gotten me to also care and be interested in the other characters in Cap's life, and I don't think I realized that until he was gone. This book may not have Cap in it, but its still ABOUT Cap and its such a fantastic read.

Oh, and the art by Steve Epting? Its really, really nice too :)

As I said to Graig, this is gonna give me coniptions over who they cast as Nightwing...

Teen Titans Movie

And as Graig said, "It's some blonde guy".

Meanie :) But yeah, with my luck, that's EXACTLY what'll happen...

Believe it or not, I've never really had an idea on who should be cast as Nightwing. Well, I mean, my wonderful boyfriend looks fantastic in his Nightwing costume, but I doubt Hollywood will come knocking on his door. No, to me, Nightwing is perfect in the comic book and that fantasy doesn't have a parallel in the real world. Other than hockey player Michael Pecca (and this was a few years ago now), I've never looked at an actor and said 'oh wow, he should be Nightwing'.

Actually, when it comes right down to it, I'd rather he NOT be represented by someone in the real world. I'd rather not have him identified with whatever flavour of the month, It-boy is going around Hollywood right now. True, I could luck out and the casting will be great (a la Christian Bale in Batman Begins), but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Yeah, let the coniptions begin :)

So, alot of the sites out there that cater to female comic book readers have been up in arms over the newest Mary Jane statue from Marvel. I'm not going to name the sites because I don't want to have people coming over to begin a flame war with me. Why would they begin a flame war with me? Because I'm a female comic book reader who thinks the uproar over this statue is pretty ridiculous.

Sure you could say its tasteless. Its cheesecake for sure. Yes, you can say she's being 'subservient' by doing Peter's laundry (whatever, I do Graig's laundry and I don't feel subservient to him), and yes, that's a pretty 'clever' double entendre in that she's wearing a pearl necklace, and sure, she has a rip in the ass of her jeans (know what? I've got a pair that's ripping in the exact same place, and y'know what? I'm still going to wear them around the house.) But I state again, whatever. So they made it, so some guys are going to buy it, so what? Its not the end of the world.

I guess what I resent is this idea I'm getting (and maybe I'm reading too much into it) that, as a female comic book reader, if I'm not up in arms over this tasteless, misogynistic piece of pornography (their words, not mine), I'm a bad person. That I should turn in my membership as a woman. Stuff like this is supposed to alienate me and make me see that the predominately male world of comic books doesn't actually want my readership. Stuff like this is supposed to disgust me and send me running to the hills...

But I just don't care. As far as I'm concerned, objectification happens in comic books, and frankly, I think it happens both ways. I have a lovely statue of Nightwing and I distinctly remember that when the statue first came out, myself and the female staff members at my local comic book store gathered around it and discussed that Nightwing possesses a mighty big package...

I like superheroes. Hell, you can probably say I have a fetish about them. I like the well muscled male superheroes in their tight spandex costumes. I will freely admit to having a collection of superhero porn on my computer. I can be as disgustingly objectifying as any male comic book fan. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Besides, I've always thought Mary Jane was a bit of a tart ;)

And here she is, in all her porntastic, laundry doing glory:

Perhaps it boded ill that just before the movie started, Graig and I were trying to come up with as many 3rd movie sequels as we could that were no where as good as the others. Of course, we had some differences of opinion (we'll never see eye to eye on Revenge of the Sith), but we picked out some of the obvious ones; Batman Forever, Superman III, Godfather III, etc...

So, did I like Spider-Man 3? No, not really. I think it definitely joins the ranks of 'the first two in the series were pretty good, but it went off the rails in the third one...' There were a few nice moments in it (mainly Bruce Campbell's best cameo yet), but for the most part it was messy, overcrowded and saddled with a script that called for the audience to swallow way too many coicindences. And boy do I hate that. I have no problem suspending my disbelief for comic book science and superheroes and all the trappings that go with them... but the way the symbiote arrived..? Wow that sucked. And even the action set pieces weren't as well done this time either. Once again, they felt messy, and I felt that none of them measured up to the fantastic set peice in Spider-Man 2 where Spidey fought Doc Oc on the subway train. That was magnificent.

Overall, I felt like they got date movie mixed in with my superhero movie, and unlike chocolate and peanut butter, that is not a good combination.

I've realized I probably shouldn't read internet, comic book rumour sites. Y'know like Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters, or SilverBullet's All the Rage. Cause when I do, I see stuff like this:



and I freak out.

As I've mentioned before, I love Captain America. This is not Captain America. Marvel's been saying that someone 'big' is going to be killed in the last issue of Civil War, and so of course, speculation has been rampant about who it will be. And it seems Cap is a favourite speculation. Hence, my freak out.

Fortunately Graig talked me down and reminded me that after Civil War, Cap is due to go to Canada, become USAgent again, and join Omega Flight.

Whew.

Last night, Graig subjected me to The Incredible Hulk Returns, (ok, yes I did agree to watch it) a not so wonderful, made in 1988 continuation of the early 80s series I know most of us watched at one time or another. I do remember liking the original series, but I was like twelve then, and I also knew at that point I liked Ewoks and unicorns, so what did I know? lol.

Anyway, Graig recieved this (packaged with another made-for-tv Hulk movie) as a Christmas gift, and after viewing it, I'm glad he didn't spend any money on it :)

The plot is standard fare for the most part; David Bruce Banner is working for a research company, experimenting with (duh) gamma radiation. He's helped create this new Gamma Transponder, and he hopes, that by subjecting himself to this machine, it will reverse the polarity of the gamma radiation (yay comic book science!) in him, thus 'curing him of his problem.' Which we all know won't work. Banner hasn't hulked out for two years at this point, so he's settled down somewhat and has even gotten himself a woman (and they have this supposed to be serious but its so bad its hilarious scene at the beginning where they talk about his 'monster'). So yeah, pretty basic plot.

Of course, everything goes to hell when some old student or something (the connection this guy has with Banner is really freaking tenuous) named Donald Blake (that should ring some bells for some people) shows up with a bizarre story and an ancient viking war hammer. Yes people, its THAT Donald Blake, and yes, Thor does indeed show up.

Thor is all kinds of cheezy awesomeness. Donald uses the hammer (they never actually call it Mjolnir, therefore foiling my desire to hear how it might actually be pronounced... Not that I would actually take their word for it though, now that I think about it) to summon Thor with really awful, time consuming, lightning special effects. Oh, and anyone can lift the hammer and it looks like it cost a buck fifty at Toys R Us. At one point, after giving Donald his sob story about how he just wants to eat and drink and get some women and have fun; Donald takes Thor to a biker bar so Thor can find some commeraderie and biker babes and drink lots. Its freaking hilarious.

Thor and the Hulk team up of course, against some bad mercenaries hired by the brother of the owner of the company Banner works for (convoluted. I know), and there's lots of flexing and growling and laughing and punching and silliness. The main merc's last name was LeBeau, and it turned out he was cajun, so I had a minor freak out that this guy might actually be Gambit and wow do I ever hate Gambit. But it wasn't. Whew.

Yeah, overall, bad, enjoyable fun, but the main problem as far as we were concerned was that Thor doesn't speak in Thor speak. So of course Graig and I dubbed in our own. Best line I supplied: the reporter who's been doggin' Banner for years shows up again, so Banner and Donald use Thor to throw the reporter off Banner's trail by having Thor pretend to be "Bannion" guy the reporter thinks is Banner. So, Thor answers the door clad only in a towel and his blond, viking glory, holding a pitcher of beer and throws the reporter off the trail. He then comes back in and does NOT say (much to my chagrin) "Verily, 'twas a trick worthy of Loki himself!" Yeah, that would have been awesome.

Now we have to watch the other one. With Daredevil. And John Rhys Davies as Kingpin. I'm cringing already :)