Red Sonja News?

Eek, Rich has some scary news up here.

Actually to be fair, I don't dislike Ms. McGowan as much as Rich seems to. I think she can be funny and seemed to do a well enough job in the Grindhouse movies.

Having watched quite a bit of Charmed, however, I can say when it comes to drama or heavy emotion...well, let's just say Ms. McGowan is one that comes to mind when I see someone argue that it's automatically better to cast a "real actor". I don't doubt her resume, but just because acting is someone's primary profession doesn't necessarily mean they're GOOD at it.

To be fair, I'm not sure Red Sonja is a role that really requires a dynamic acting range. I liked the Brigitte Nielsen version a lot and I don't think her acting abilities are anything to write home about.

Of course, Brigitte Nielsen was also a stunning statuesque amazon of a young woman, which rather made up for her deficiencies in certain other aspects. I've always thought Ms. McGowan was very pretty, but she's pretty in a petite and softly curvaceous way, in my opinion. She's far too pampered to be believable as Sonja and I really don't think any amount of physical training can change that. Especially when supposedly they're going to start filming in October. That's only four months away!

I wouldn't mind being wrong though. A new franchise of Sonja movies would be all kinds of awesome and possibly the kick in the pants I'd need to give the comic book series a try.

(...as long as there's no more ripping the heads off babies. No matter how good the in-story reason, that's still a dealbreaker for me. :-P)

Heheh

The problem with visiting friends is that it totally sucks out my ability to post anything coherent.

It totally didn't help that my ex-roommate made me watch "Junior Defenders" I suspect out of the dual reasons of 1) it involves the guy who played the Green Power Ranger back in the Mighty Morphin Power Ranger days* and 2) as her ultimate volley in our long-running contest to see who can make the other watch the stupidest things.

I suspect she's winning. Though I suppose I can always try to find Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter again. That should do it.

It's so depressing how a movie with such an awesome premise: Jesus saving lesbians from vampires, could be so BORING.

*My ex-roommate is very much a fan of all things Power Rangers. In fact, I'm fairly certain that the reason my Con Law grade was so mediocre is that so much of my brain ended up clogged with far too much facts and trivia about a show I don't even like!

Except the season where the kid turned out to be a robot. Kids discovering they're robots is kind of a weak point of mine. I might have a soft spot for the futuristic detective one too, just for that one crazy psychic guy. And POSSIBLY Lost Galaxy, because the Red Ranger got injured constantly in ways that amused me and they actually killed off the Pink Ranger...temporarily. Oh, and I didn't mind the time travelling one, if only because I was quite certain the red ranger and the "quantum ranger" who had a helium voice were happily gay with each other...

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I shared an apartment with this woman for a year. I had to develop some tolerance out of sheer self-defense. Shut up.

Anyway, I suspect Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter will trump for at least a short time. The only catch is I'd have to sit through it too. And again, it's BORING.

Hmm, maybe I'll have to concede. The problem with finding things so bad they'll rot HER brain is that I'LL have to sit through them too.

Though, there's still Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD! Or the Salinger Captain America! Hah! Next trip up here, I'll be ready!

Query

I'm tired so no post, just a miscellaneous query.

The Arrow-Plane. Stupidest hero vehicle/equipment name, yes or no?

If not, name one that's worse. :-)

Gone A-Visiting

Today I'm visiting my former roommate. It's fun. Mostly we hung around watching silly things. I made her watch bad scifi with me, she made me watch the live action zettai kareshi with her.

It's kind of funny how my mind does/does not work. I've never read the manga it's based from, but somehow remembered the premise enough (my artist friend from France had told me about it) to go "This reminds me of a Yuu Watase manga". All I really remembered was the robot guy wrapped in ribbon on the front. I remember my other friend bitching about what a moron the lead character was.

And she still is. Yeesh. I admit though, I'm marginally more sympathetic to a lonely Office Lady than I am a whiny teenager, and I do understand crushing shyness. But by the point she fell on her sword, so to speak, for the jackass company only to be saved by hot robot guy...well, let's just say my sympathy was rapidly dwindling.

Besides, she was awfully mean/dismissive to the poor robot boy. Yeesh. The bartender character looked interesting though, I liked her. And the human guy who I'm guessing will be another part of the love triangle is attractive, as is, of course, the robot boy who is like eight feet tall.

Naturally this is the sort of romance drama that tends to have more relationshippy stuff than explosions, but I did enjoy seeing the robot go all bionic man briefly.

Night's a ridiculous name. And somehow moreso in live action than anime/manga. I'm not saying it's entirely implausable as I could tell many stories about certain Japanese folk's obsession over (mis)using English. And really, it's no different than the way we wear kanji that we only think we know the answer to, or the names often given to Japanese characters in fanfic...

It still sounds dumb when spoken by real people.

I'm probably going to watch more, but to be honest, I'm a little leery. I've liked it so far, and the characters who aren't the lead are interesting. Robotophile that I am, I particularly liked the robot, naturally. But there is the usual shoujo manga pitfall I tend to find, which is that I have no idea why all these guys seem to be so obsessed with the main character. I mean, sure, she's pretty. But this is tv, where the average person on the street would probably win a beauty contest in real life. She's a pushover who isn't very smart, or even very nice when it comes down to it. I don't know why they like her. That gets to be a real problem for me. I don't need to adore the female character in this sort of love triangle, but I do kind of need to be able to guess why the heroes do.

Well, it's the first episode. She might get less annoying. But then I've never really cared for ANY of Yuu Watase's heroines (though I didn't really hate Miaka. She was a ditz, but she was a sweet, accepting and open-minded sort of ditz and I could see why that appealed, the others that I've read though do nothing for me.)

Hopefully there'll be more robot hijinx. And if not...well...there's always bad scifi. :-P

Shiny New MK/DC pictures!!!

For someone who doesn't play fighting games, I do find myself blogging a lot about the MK vs. DC game don't I? But I always adored watching people play Marvel vs. Capcom, so I guess it's the same principle. :-) I'm attracted by shiny objects.

I hope there are alternate costumes. I don't remember if MK tends to do those but they're my favorite part.

And there are new shots up.

I'm still kind of iffy on Batman's design, but I admit, it does look better in action here. I still think Superman looks fantastic. Mostly though, I adore those stages. Especially the clocktower one. Or the one with the batsymbol all lit up. Those look *spectacular*.

I am kind of amused by the commenters bitching about the Flash's gloves being the wrong color. I just tend to assume possible artist screw ups just mean the character's got more than one uniform. *I* don't wear the same clothes every day after all.

I do think the only way the game could look better to me is with alternate costumes. Especially civilian clothes. I have SUCH a thing for superheroes fighting and kicking ass in civvies and being able to get my ass kicked in a fighting game playing Clark Kent instead of Superman would be incredibly awesome to me. :-)

I REALLY want to see Wonder Woman.

Placeholder Post

I don't really have a post today. Though I did have the random thought that "Alien Mountie Women from Mars" would be the best comic book/completely awful B-Movie ever.

I'm not sure it would even have a plot aside from stunningly attractive women painted green wearing bright red coats and Stetsons possibly kicking things in the face. Maybe cyclopses. Cyclopses are cool. There would be all sorts of juvenile "one-eyed monster" jokes.

God willing their mounts would be pterodactils. I love me some pterodactils.

The sequel would involve time travel.

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This is another reason I'm not allowed to write comics. :-)

My "I HATE the Hulk" rant.

I haven't seen the new Hulk movie yet and I have no real interest in doing so no matter how good it is. For that matter, I've never seen the Ang Lee/Eric Bana one either. Mostly because I've never liked the character and in his post here Jim Smith kind of touches onto why.

Now I will admit, I've only read a fraction of the Hulk comics most people have. But all I really remember is seeing this guy feeling sorry for himself, losing it, and attacking his friends. All the fucking time. Occasionally massive property damage insues.

And I'm sorry, I think a superhero is allowed maybe ONE time where their powers go crazy and hurt/kill innocent people before I start getting annoyed. Well, to be fair, it's one thing if they're taking genuine precautions to try to avoid it happening again, but at least in the comics I read, Bruce Banner doesn't do that.

Honestly, it's to the point that I think if someone dies in one of the Hulk's rampages, Bruce Banner should be charged for 2nd Degree Murder. (I'm making the assumption here that people have actually died during a Hulk rampage, mostly because I can't truly conceive of a way they WOULDN'T at some point. Feel free to call me on that lack of imagination. :-)) Because he KNOWS what will inevitably happen and almost never takes any real precautions in the comic book equivalent of driving drunk in car, speeding, in reverse, through a parade of small children. It goes beyond involutary manslaughter at this point. There's a blatant and obscene disregard for human rights there!

There's a point in which a person's individual rights to life and freedom have to be weighed against all of the innocent people he's willfully and knowingly endangering. Rights have limits. A man can kill another in self defense, but the law doesn't recognize the right to take the life of an innocent person to save your own. If someone is holding a gun to your head, tells you to kill that guy over there, and you do, you will be criminally charged. A man can decide to blow up a bridge that he built and owns, on his property, but not when he has reason to know that someone is crossing over it at that very moment. I think Bruce Banner's crossed that line a long time ago. He KNOWS what he's capable of doing as the Hulk. He KNOWS that people have been hurt and possibly died before. He has been willfully choosing his own freedom and self-interest over peoples' lives.

And even if you allow for the defense that he's not in his right mind...homicidally insane people are still LOCKED UP.

Honestly, I have to admit, and I may sound evil for saying this, I'm not sure sending him into space was the wrong thing to do. Morally questionable to say the least. Probably out of character for most of the folks that decided it, sure. But the wrong decision? I don't know. It's certainly very extreme. And nearly inhumanly cruel. But I do believe that the Hulk should have been stopped a long time ago. And if Bruce Banner isn't making a serious attempt to do so, then maybe someone else has to. I don't know if it's a decision that I could make, personally, but I understand it.

Maybe there's some spectacular Hulk run or series out there that manages to redeem the previously mentioned aspects of the character to the point where I would be able to tolerate him. But until I ever stumble across that mythical series, I have to say, I think Bruce Banner's at least as much of a villain as, say, Two Face is. And honestly, I have a lot more sympathy for Harvey Dent because Bruce Banner has the capacity to decide to put himself under military care or on a deserted island or on a secret base or ask Reed Richards to build a negative zone prison to keep himself in. I get that the anger management issues aren't his fault, but he definitely has the capacity to find a way to minimize his exposure and to mitigate the damage for the inevitable fall.

Also, I hate the tv series' stupid sad ending music. It makes me want to knee him in the balls.

It probably doesn't help my lack of sympathy for the character that my first real exposure to him was in Ultimate Avengers the movie. And I realize that the movie is mostly Ultimate continuity (though with a Cap that was more 616 and a Hank that...I'm not sure WHAT he was, but he wasn't Ultimate Hank...thank god) but holy hell was Bruce Banner a hateful monster in it.

You know the usual formula for a story like UA. There's a quiet, shy, misunderstood geek type and a loud, arrogant, obnoxious, snobby hotshot jerk vying for the same position. Much to everyone's surprise the misunderstood geek is chosen. The hotshot rants and raves about how he's the better choice. The geek makes a mistake but manages to redeem himself in the end and prove himself. The jerk either is converted and realizes he's wrong or he remains deluded enough to think he could have been better. The jerk isn't supposed to be RIGHT.

It's predictable and cliched and I have to give UA a bit of credit for subverting the formula.

But I have never wanted a character to fuck off and die SO HARD. And it's funny because I totally WOULD have sympathized if, while doing his own selfish and unauthorized and about to backfire experiments with the serum, he actually managed to DO THE JOB HE WAS HIRED TO DO as well. Then even if that stuff didn't work, I'd be all "Well, it was a side project."

But he didn't even DO HIS JOB. Hank was RIGHT. Hank WOULD have been the better choice. For all his ego, posturing, masculinity issues, inferiority complex, rudeness and jackassery, Hank would have DONE THE DAMN JOB. He probably would have ended up making a robot that would then try to take over fucking NASA that they'd have to stop, but he'd still have DONE THE DAMN JOB HE WAS HIRED TO DO.

I have no idea why that's such a big deal for me. I guess in the end, I have a virtual hard-on for professionalism?

It made me hate Nick Fury and Tony Stark too. (Mostly because I don't remember which of them actually hired Bruce. :-P) Because it's okay to forego the reliable and talented, if unpleasant and obnoxious hotshot for the quiet and misunderstood wild card if the wild card character DESERVES IT. But Hank was RIGHT. And no one ever acknowledged at the end that Hank was right. He WOULD have been the better choice. I honestly thought they all owed him a fucking apology.

Idiots.

From what Jim Smith says I may actually like the Edward Norton version of the character since they do seem to be making a point of giving Bruce a REASON not to turn himself over to the military. I still want the comic book version to get shot into space again. A hell of a lot farther this time. :-)

Miscellaneous Thoughts sparked by the movie Carrie.

Carrie is much less effective as a horror movie if you can't stop imagining it as some X-Men's tragic backstory.

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Piper Laurie however would totally rock as a scary comic book villainess. Egads.

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Also, is it wrong that I kind of want to read a fanfic crossover involving Ralph from the Greatest American Hero teaming up with his possibly-psychotic telekinetic high school prom date?

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It's possible I'm just not the right temperament to appreciate Stephen King.

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Though I always liked the Dead Zone tv series...you know the one where they took the basic premise of the book and CHANGED IT ALL.

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I really liked that one season finale that outright attributed the vastly different events of the movie/book and the tv show to the existance of that attractive physical therapist guy. That was neat.

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Mostly I was shocked that Anthony Michael Hall grew up hot. Yowza.

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I like them creepy and prone to swooning?

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Okay, is it just me or would a comic starring Johnny Smith, Carrie White, the kid from the Shining, and Drew Barrymore's character from Firestarter as a League of Extraordinary Gentleman by way of X-Men style superteam be awesome?

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I'm going to bed.

"Lost in Castration" is a title that will always make me laugh my ass off!

You know, it's funny, I was a huge new-series Battlestar Galactica fan for the entirety of the first season and the miniseries (my interest tends to wax and wane now) but somehow or another, I'd never seen this. (It's also available on Mr. Benedict's website here.

If you haven't seen it, it's the letter that Dirk Benedict apparently sent to the UK magazine Dreamwatch back in 2004. It's quite possibly the funniest thing I've read in a long time.

To be fair, it's a rant. And thus there's some measure of "out of context" that must be applied. I know I've looked back on a few of my own rants and realized after the fact how utterly batshit they make me sound.

At the same time, and I'm saying this as someone who adores the old Battlestar Galactica and the A-Team and shit like that...it's absolutely moronic.

But I'm not linking it here to debate it. I think anyone who reads this blog would be damn sure where I stand on that sort of issue anyway. I'm linking it because it's hilarious.

I think my favorite part is this though:

Witness the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica. It's bleak, miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects, in microcosm, the complete change in the politics and mores of today's world as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of Lorne Greene (Adama) and Fred Astaire (Starbuck's Poppa), and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck). I would guess Lorne is glad he's in that Big Bonanza in the sky and well out of it. Starbuck, alas, has not been so lucky. He's not been left to pass quietly into that trivial world of cancelled TV characters.

Now, and I may be misreading, the impression from the whole letter that I get is that he's quite fond of the old school Battlestar Galactica as a vehicle in which male characters are very much MEN as opposed to the confused, weak and indecisive men and hyperactive no-nonsense women of the new Battlestar Galactica. But I think it's notable which characters he actually mentions from the show:

Starbuck, understandably, the subject of the rant after all.
Adama, the show's very gruff, stern, unyielding patriarch.
And Chameleon, a conman and gambler who appears in ONE EPISODE total.

They're all fairly understandable examples of traditionally masculine traits and roles. But it's kind of funny to me that he never mentions Apollo in the letter. You know. The open, idealistic, nurturing, empathetic and intuitive main character of the show.

I wouldn't say Apollo's a very effeminate character or that he doesn't have a lot of "traditionally masculine" traits, but the omission of the guy who got top billing on the damn show just strikes me as funny.

Actually though, there was one part that made me laugh harder:

Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Han Solo as Han Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars. Women `hand out' babies. And thus the world, for thousands of years, has gone round.

Emphasis is mine. Okay, I'll give you a second to get over the soda-spitting ridiculous idiocy of "women 'hand out' babies" and point you to something that is funny on a smaller scale. The "Faceman is not the same as Facewoman" part.

This is funny to me because I always saw the A-Team as a parody of the action movies/serials. I thought each of the characters corresponded to a specific type of action hero. Except Face. I always saw Face as an extremely clever parody of an action heroine.

I mean face it. Look at any action movie made before or during the time that the A-Team was on tv. What does the lead heroine tend to do?

1. Look pretty.....................Check.

They don't call him "Face" for nothing.

2. Get captured....................Check.

I think it was a toss-up really between him and Murdock as to who gets captured more often, but I'd say it applies.

3. Sneak around....................Check.

Face was often sent in ahead of the others to pick locks or otherwise peer around corners, which often led to getting captured.

4. Flirt her way out of trouble....Check.

Face was remarkably good at that.

5. Be the worst fighter............Check.

To be fair to Mr. Benedict, I think a lot of this may have had to do with the re-emergence of his illness. But still, Face tended to be the worst fighter of the group and most often was the gunner on the makeshift tank than he was actually throwing punches.

6. Whine and grouse about the hardships of the job...................So much check.

Honestly, I always figured that's why Amy and Tawnia didn't last. They were, in a sense, redundant. Faceman DEFINITELY translates to Facewoman, because that's the version we SEE in practically every action movie known to man.

Thinking about it, I'd love to see them redo the A-Team and make some of them girls. Though, not actually Face. He's the woman already so it's better to keep him a man. Subvert the stereotype. But a girl-Murdock with all his disheveled and maybe-crazy competence or even better, a girl-BA would be awesome! Or both! I would totally adore that show!

(On a side note: My mother always tends to come in when I'm watching A-Team and ask "Didn't he also play a gay guy on Battlestar Galactica?" Apparently not everyone has the same definition of "blatant heterosexual" that Mr. Benedict does...)

General Announcement

Hmm. Figured since it's news on WFA, I'll post something here as well.

Basically, real life's a bitch sometimes, so Ragnell and I are taking some time off WFA. Hopefully it won't be for longer than a few weeks. I'm not looking forward to the backlog when we come back though. :-)

PFP will continue to be updated. I can't say it'll be updated with quality, but well, it rarely is anyway, so I daresay you guys shouldn't notice a drop. :-)

For those of you who may be curious, my internship is awesome and reminded me why I wanted to go to law school to begin with. (Law School itself isn't bad, but the droningly tedious aspects can really start to make one wonder why she's bothering sometimes. :-) My internship has made me remember.) There are some devastating moments. Working in Elder Law means that some of that is inevitable. But it feels really good to help people. I've never felt USEFUL in any of my jobs before.

But yeah, hopefully things will settle down and we'll be able to resume WFA coverage soon. :-)

Gratuitous Neptune Perkins Hate Revisited.

Long time visitors of my blog (or folks who have nothing better to do than to spelunk through my blog archives) may or may not be aware that I have an irrational hatred of Dick Grayson A.K.A Nightwing that defies any sort of logic or sense. I admit this and I bask in this. Almost nothing makes me happier than to irrationally hate Dick Grayson. I can't explain it, but well, that's the way it goes.

But the truly observant visitor to this blog may remember that there is one character I hate even more than Dick Grayson and for actually almost rational reasons.

Neptune Perkins.

Now, since I haven't made fun of him in ages. I've decided today is the perfect day to start.

Now as folks may or may not remember, some time back there was a team called Young Justice who were temporarily plagued by a team called Old Justice and the government who, for reasons that were never completely clear, wanted to shut them down presumably for their own safety. Senator (Senator! People actually voted for this dillweed) Neptune Perkins was behind that. This is not particularly notable except that it allowed the following page to be created in Sins of Youth 1:



Now, being a fairly knowledgeable, if still relatively newbie, comic book fan, I actually know that Arthur Curry/Orin of Atlantis/Aquaman is fairly badass and awesome. So I'm not actually going to mock Neptune Perkins for getting utterly owned by Aquaman of all heroes here.

I'm going to mock him for getting utterly owned by the silliest incarnation of Aquaman that didn't involve the real version becoming some kind of undersea tentacle monster. I mean seriously, it's the long hair and stupid-hook-hand version!

It's funny because the 1940s era heroes have such prestige nowadays. Even characters like Sand who are all of twenty-five get their share of respectful nods from the "younger" Silver Age-to-current heroes. Whereas the heroes like Green Arrow, Superman, Batman, Aquaman who ended up transplanted whole in the modern age give up that status. Thus we get fascinating character dynamics such as when Batman and Alan Scott get to team up together.

But anyway, the average 1940s remnant hero always seems to have some level of dignity and seniority. They may fight with the more modern heroes sometimes, they may even be wrong, but they never get utterly owned by their modern counterparts. There is always some amount of respect there even if it's just revolving around the fact that this is one of the earliest superheroes and groundbreakers.

Except Neptune Perkins. Sure Arthur's a king and has an ego the size of Lemuria, Perkins is still a US politician with quite a measure of power and forty years or so more experience as well as All-Star credibility. There is no reason why he shouldn't be able to hold his own.

Except for the fact that he is utterly worthless. Also, he somehow manages to make a widow's peak and stylish grey temples look stupid.

I'm so glad the shark ate him.

I have to admit, I can't quite make fun of this part though:





Because honestly, I totally would have had the same reaction. That would be awesome. Best ability I've heard in ages.

But aside from that? Neptune Perkins totally deserved to get chomped. Heh.

They Call Him Doctor Love...

Something Scipio says here got me thinking. You know what would be the best worst job in the world for Hal Jordan?

Relationship advice columnist. Seriously. It'd be awesome. Okay, admittedly, he'd probably be best utilized in a straight Dan Savage esque sex columnist role, but that wouldn't be nearly as funny.

Imagine it. It'd be all...

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Dear Doctor Love,

I've got this new job and my supervisor is incredibly hot. I'm a good looking guy and fairly good with the ladies, but she doesn't even know I'm alive! What do I do?

-Curiously Overlooked Courtship King

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Dear COCK,

Well, it's simple of course. Step one is to constantly stand in her space and make inappropriate comments regarding your relationship. Don't worry about sexual harassment charges. They're only for ugly guys. She wants it, man.

Step two is to get a secret identity. Find some reason to wander around in spandex and a mask. Save her life and romance her some but never tell her who you are. Mess with her head a lot and court her as both of you.

Step three is to get her either turned into or possessed depending on your retcon into a being that is either the personification of lust or a feminazi amazon queen who probably won't be adverse to a romp in the hay as long as you call her "your majesty" during it. Either way, the coast is clear.

Go forth and...heh...multiply,

-Doctor Love.

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Okay, I'm done now. Heh.

Runaway thought.

I want to disclaim this by saying that I've thoroughly enjoyed the issues of Runaways that I've read and am not trying to disparage the writing/plot/characters or anything like that. It just occurs to me...

The whole "runaway-kid" concept/theme is a bit funny when you consider that most of those kids at least appear to be about 16-17. (I may be mistaken about their ages, do correct me if I am.) That's only a year or two away from legal adulthood. I know personally I was by no means ready to strike out on my own at age 18, but personal maturity aside, I was certainly legally an adult. I don't know if you can really be THAT much of a runaway kid when you're on the cusp of adulthood.

It's also interesting considering the Marvel Universe, Kitty Pryde was younger than that when she became a full X-Man (though to be fair, she did have a mentor), for that matter Scott Summers and company as well as Peter Parker was about the same age when they became the X-Men and Spider-Man the first time. Heck, if you get down to it, Bucky Barnes was that age when he partnered with a Steve Rogers that was only four years older.

I find the Young Avengers kind of interesting in this respect as well, since while most of the Avengers seem to have started their hero careers (like most of the non-sidekick/sidekick-team-derived DC characters) well into their undefined twenties or even thirties, most of the other Marvel heroes seem to have started a lot younger.

Again, I really like the concept of Runaways, especially the whole kids of villains thing and us-against-the-world, I just think if I'm looking at it critically, there's only one that really fits my own personal idea of a "runaway kid" as opposed to a young adult striking out on their own, for perfectly legitimate reasons, a bit earlier than most.

Don't get me wrong, I love the concept behind it and the us-against-the-world and kids-of-villain thing is neat in and of itself. And it's certainly not a deal breaker keeping me from enjoying the comic (my WALLET is the deal breaker right now. :-P) it's just a mild bit of cognitive dissonance I have.

Solicits!

Joy! Solicits are up!

This caught my attention:



I'm torn. It's a lovely statue and that's still my favorite Supergirl costume (I'm a traditionalist at heart.) But I'm not overly fond of her expression. It's awfully empty-looking. I mean, I get that Silver Age Supergirl wasn't really one with the sassy attitude or anything, but it seems sad that such an otherwise lovely statue has such a blank expression.

But then, the whole reason I don't collect figures is that I'm much too picky. Unreasonably so, I admit it. :-)

I do love that Big Barda one though. Also Streaky. Streaky's fun.

The other thing that caught my attention is the Birds of Prey solicit:

BIRDS OF PREY #122
Written by Tony Bedard
Art by Michael O’Hare & John Floyd
Cover by Stephane Roux
Zatanna lends a hand when Manhunter's fears begin to take over her mind, while the Visionary sends his Scavengers after the Birds of Prey! Also: The Joker comes a-calling on Barbara Gordon!

It sounds good, but also like something that could backfire very easily. Hasn't Zatanna learned yet that meddling in people's minds never seems to work? Yeesh, how many times must that girl learn her lesson? :-)

Ooo! Pretty!

Okay, I was looking forward to the Batwoman comic before but this looks stunning!

Rucka writing, Williams drawing Batwoman ought to be a lot of fun. I loved the Question mini, after all, and I think Kate promises to be a really interesting character. If nothing else, it'll be interesting to see a Bat-hero who doesn't, in some form or another, define herself in terms of Batman. At least for now. :-)

Besides, I really do dig her costume design. This ought to be fun!

Odd Internet Thought

I'm remembering back when poor Captain America was lambasted for not knowing what Myspace was (to be fair, as I said then and think now, I kind of get what Floyd and through her Jenkins meant to say with that, though I think it definitely did not work.) I'm also thinking of how a certain vigilante posts at Title Undetermined.

And it got me into thinking about how certain heroes would totally have some sort of blog or myspace page. Or rather, how certain heroes would not in actuality, but it's really amusing to me to try to imagine it.

Like Nightwing or Superboy Prime. To be fair, much as I hate him, I think Dick's clever enough to figure out how to use the internet to improve his crime fighting capacity. As for Superboy Prime...

Well, honestly, I think he'd be a very popular member of our community. (If we can't cheerfully tease ourselves, who can we tease? :-P)

The real thing that would be fun to see is the blog/lj/myspace page of the casual denizen of the Marvel or DC universe. Getting rescued from certain death, being the bystander during an alien invasion, amorous encounters with superheroes and so on.

For that matter, somewhere in the DCU there is totally an "I had sex with Hal Jordan" livejournal community. The members number in the thousands. :-P

Lego Batman

Okay, for the record THIS looks awesome. I'd heard that there was going to be a Lego Batman game much like the Star Wars game and considering how awesome that was, I think it's probably a good sign that this game will be equally great. The little lego Nightwing is possibly the cutest thing I've seen in ages and I say that as someone who loves hating Dick Grayson.

I can't wait to see the lego-ized version of Arkham Asylum. That'll look awesome. Heh, maybe they can put in one of those little glow in the dark ghosts. :-)

The most fun thing'll probably be collecting/purchasing/unlocking the individual characters. I hope there'll be some fun mix and match and customization aspects. Given all the potential comicbook heroes or villains that you figure they can put in there, the possibilities are near endless!

...though in all honesty, I have to say that Bane's chest kind of freaks me out a bit. That is not an aesthetically pleasing design. Funny though. :-)

Night off!

I'm taking the night of posting. Huge thing due tomorrow. :-) Good night everybody!

Non-comic-related: Thoughts on Greek Legends...

I mentioned in my last post that I'm a little too literal-minded for religion most of the time. I don't necessarily think I lack imagination, but I admit, sometimes the symbolism is beyond me and I start focusing on tiny bits that don't make sense to me.

Take the Pandora story from Ancient Greek myth/religion. Ragnell's tried to explain this to me for ages.

Okay, I get the part where she's cursed with curiosity and opens the box and lets out all the evil and slams it shut with hope inside. But why is it a good thing that she slammed hope inside? I thought the big deal with the evils was that they were trapped there and she released them. Wouldn't she then have just trapped hope when she slammed it shut again? Wouldn't it have been better to let hope out too?

Ragnell tried to explain it to me as symbolism, as the box being the human heart. So letting evil out (i.e. acting on that evil upon others) is bad, but keeping hope in the heart is good. Which I kind of get, but still, wouldn't it be better to let hope out?

I mean, assuming that opening the box and letting out the evil means inflicting it on other people. Wouldn't it be better to spread hope to other people instead of selfishly keeping it locked away? I think hope can be spread, as evidenced by politicians' speeches, priests' sermons and the like, so why not let it out too?

Moreover, harboring evil in your heart even unexpressed seems like a bad idea. Anyone who's prone to repression knows how unhappy that sort of thing makes you and how much it festers and poisons...

Maybe it loses something in translation?

Actually, that brings me to another matter I've always been curious about. Prometheus and Epimetheus. Prometheus/forethought is the smart one, right? Steals fire, brings it down, teaches people how to sacrifice, et cetera. Epimetheus/afterthought is the dumb one. He married Pandora, when Prometheus is all "Eek, don't, she's a trap" and I guess helps facilitate the whole unleashing evil thing in that respect.

Though considering that, at least in the stories *I* read, the Pandora thing was in retaliation for Prometheus's actions, then I'd still place as much culpability on him as his brother.

But anyway, if you think about it. Prometheus, who's the smart one, ends up chained to a rock with a vulture eating his organs every day until some thug with a mother complex breaks him out. Epimetheus on the other hand...gets a hot wife and gets to be the father of one of the versions of the human race.

...

So really, if you think about it, who's really the smart one? Mr. Vulture-food? Or guy-with-hot-wife-and-kids?

I'm just saying I know which one sounds better to me.

I think what this says about me is that, origins of my name aside, I would be remarkably ill-suited to life in Ancient Greece. :-P I'd totally have gotten smited.

Without Blog@, I would totally never post

This is kind of neat. I haven't read through them yet, but they look remarkably entertaining. Though not nearly as much fun as reading Chick Tracts. But then, what is?

I love Chick Tracts, by the way. Especially the Dungeons and Dragons/Witchcraft one where the girl kills herself because her character dies in the game. That happens all the time in my RPG group, ya know.

I do like the linked example especially because, and this may well be sacreligious, but it's really a crap illustration of sacrifice. Why not show someone giving a favorite toy to a friend? Or going without a new outfit to help someone else? I really don't think eating food you don't like counts as a sacrifice. Something to endure, maybe, but sacrifice?

Unless maybe it's to pretend to like it to spare the cook's feelings. But then, I'd imagine he/she would hear you tell the Lord you'd eat it for him anyway.

I might be thinking too hard about this. I'm awfully literal minded sometimes which is why I've never done very well in religious education. ("Um, Miss Barbara? Why are we pretending to be cannibals? And why does Jesus taste like cardboard and bad grape juice?")

...come to think of it, wouldn't the Bible make an awesome comic book? I mean there's death, destruction, badassery, rape, sexism, racism, magic and all sorts of fun things like that. It'd be a blast!

Sometimes I suspect that what I ended up getting out of my early religious education was not what I was intended to get from it. Oh well. :-)

Good? Or Awesome?

My rekindled love of old-school Battlestar Galactica has got me thinking of the difference between things that are "good" versus things that are "awesome".

There is a difference. Something can be objectively very good: well written, brilliantly characterized, beautifully drawn or acted depending on the medium, with remarkably creative plots.

I would say examples of this would be things like Farscape or new Battlestar Galactica or maybe even Brubaker's Captain America.

Being "good" doesn't necessarily mean everyone has to like it, of course, but usually even the people who don't like it can appreciate that there's a great deal of skill involved in the craftsmanship.

Now, "awesome" is a different kettle of fish. "Awesome" is remarkably subjective. It's that quality when you watch a tv show, read a comic, and just find yourself going "Whoa" and grinning like a madman while your brain fries.

"Awesome" is not really related to quality. It CAN be a good product, but usually, it's not. There are good parts and gaping flaws and often times suck tremendously. But for whatever reason, you find yourself adoring them. Often because of those flaws.

For me, old school Galactica is Awesome. So is Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD for that matter. Or that old Justice League movie starring the JLI folks.

You don't find something "Awesome" despite its flaws. You find it Awesome because of them. The ultimate of guilty pleasures. It's everything perfect and insane and nonsensical and wonderful and just plain fun.

And the truth is, while I enjoy good quality entertainment, if I get a choice, I will usually take "Awesome" over "good" any day. I'm like that.

Non-Comic: More Miscellaneous Battlestar-type thoughts.

I have no blogpost today. None. Nada. Zip.

Though, since my post about why the new Galactica has kind of lost me along the wayside, I have started watching a lot of episodes of the older series which I hadn't seen in years. Maybe I'll blog about that.

The costumes are insane, the plots make no sense, the writing is atrocious, the dialogue is absurd... God, how I adore it. Seriously.

I mean, hell. The Triad costumes *alone*...

Actually, I was surprised, but I actually like the way the old series handles the initial destruction better than the new series. I freely admit, most of the time my preference for the old series has more to do with my love of the absurd and ridiculous. But I actually think, in terms of emotional impact and quality, the old series did this better. There was a lot more sense of chaos and personal danger. Screaming, explosions, frantic and panicked people running for their lives while the crew watches the monitors helplessly...

I think the general sense of immediate and personal terror comes across a lot better in the old series at that moment.

The other thing I liked better about the old series, and this is more of a personal thing than a general quality thing, but I liked that the first casualty of the resurgence of the war was a character that had become familiar to the audience. He had been introduced as though he would be a major character, with interrelationships already established. Even though I knew that character was going to die (hard to avoid spoilers for a thirty-year old show, even if I hadn't seen new BSG first) I found myself mildly shocked anyway.

I find myself contrasting that with Number Six blowing up the Caprican outpost in New BSG or, even better, the whole baby incident. That last was genuinely shocking as well and gave a peculiar sort of insight into the Cylon's character, which I liked. But at the same time, I couldn't quite help but feel that it was done more for the sake of, well, killing a baby, with the character insight as an afterthought.

I admit, in the sense of realistic storytelling, having strangers be the first victims of the new war is a lot less contrived and much more suitable. But I do think it loses some of the emotional connection as well as robs that particular character of his significance to the overall mythos.

And, I'm sorry but being "that guy who Kara got killed and caused a rift between her and Lee, and Adama and Lee, and her and Adama and is partially the cause of the chip on her shoulder" while personally significant doesn't measure up to "the first victim of the Cylon betrayal."

I wouldn't begin to compare the characters though, since they're completely different animals, names aside. I did like the new BSG's change in having the peace between the Cylons and the humans last for forty years or so. It allowed the series to have a very different dynamic than the first series, in which the peace was new and very short lived. It allowed the characters to develop in different ways. In the old series, the main characters are all experienced soldiers, confident in their skill in battle against the robots. The new series has more desperation though as, except for the oldest of the crew, no one really has any experience against this enemy. I don't really have a preference either way, but I do think the contrast is interesting.

In general though, I find the old version much more entertaining than the new version for a number of reasons:

1) Adama (Lorne Greene version) is so much worse a father than Adama (Edward James Olmos version). Seriously. I mean, verbally, he's a lot more supportive and in general he's a lot less of a jackass to his son. But it seems like every time Apollo ends up stuck on some planet somewhere, Adama's ready and willing to leave him there!

And then there's that bit with Iblis which roughly paraphrased goes something like:

Iblis: You've pissed me off, so I'm going to target a life that means more to you than your own!
Adama: Hmm, now would be a good time to send my son investigate Iblis's lair!

Then again, Bill Adama sent HIS extremely pretty son with two beautiful non-combatant women and one barely post-pubescent kid into a prison ship where they hadn't seen a woman in twenty years or so. So it may be a toss up there.

2) Apollo is quite possibly, quietly, insane. I only noticed it watching this time around, but the man seriously has no filter of "Oh maybe this INCREDIBLY RISKY PLAN would possibly get us killed, so let's not do it!" Admittedly, some of that is just main character/hero-syndrome. But there's something...off about the man. And I don't think it's bad acting. (Honestly, in retrospect, Richard Hatch is quite possibly one of the best actors on the show. That's not saying much, mind you, but there we go.)

It's not that he's not aware of the dangers of the mission. Or that he is aware, gulps, and does it anyway. It's like...he's aware, but it doesn't mean anything. Like when they're flying blind through a nebula of some sort shooting at mines, via the Galactica's sensors. You have Boomer nervously ask "What happens if we miss one?" (namely explosion) And then Apollo's eerily calm/almost cheery "One of us will be the first to know."

Sadly, most of the inherent "okaaaaay"-causing-ness comes from the line delivery, but it's one of many small moments in which I found myself going "...you're not entirely sane, are you?"

3) The fact that even when they're barely scraping by with regards to food, water and fuel, they're never short on hair conditioner. I love the seventies.

4) Capes and King-Tut style fighter helmets. Also, the bridge officers totally wear silver lace.

5) Dirk Benedict trying to cry. Seriously. It's hilarious. The man's not really bad in general, but...yeah...

(In contrast, the fact that Richard Hatch can manage to look pretty even when soaked with tears to the point where they're coming out of his NOSE boggles the mind. It must be the soap opera actor pedigree.)

6) The fact that it becomes painfully apparent, really early on, why for the modern television audiences, ONE of them had to be turned into a girl.

For the record, I'm actually kind of sad that they picked Starbuck to be the girl rather than Apollo. I mean, I can see why they did. I think, ultimately, Starbuck is a bit more stereotypically masculine* than Apollo is, which makes for an interesting dynamic in a female character.

(* in as much as being a 70s heartthrob allows one to be "stereotypically masculine")

At the same time, however, I'd really have liked seeing a female character in the role of the straightforward, good-natured, usually-confident, idealistic, stoic, goal-driven, responsible leader type. The "Captain America" type role, if you will. I love this type of character, but for some reason, it's very hard to think of female characters that fit. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Wonder Woman, though I'm sure there are more out there. Either way, I still find the idea of a female old-school Apollo remarkably appealing.

That said, I'm, possibly paradoxically, less interested in seeing a female version of Lee Adama. Don't get me wrong, I like Lee quite a lot, but he's a lot more Spider-Man than he is Captain America, I think, and thus an archetype we see more often in both male and female forms.

But yeah, anyway, that's how I've been spending the majority of my weekend. :-) I love this incredibly bad, awesome, show!

Search Term that Amused Me

Like every other blogger out there, the search terms that take people to my blog range from the quite apropos (namely "Kalinara", "Pretty Fizzy Paradise", or "Johnny Sorrow is a Sick Fuck") to the entertainingly mind-boggling. Of course I'm egotistical enough to keep track of these things.

The one that made me giggle most today:

why did steven whore tight pants on out for justice

I don't know why. But I am amused nonetheless.

Reaction to MK Batman...

Thank you Blog@Newsarama and my own love of gratuitous comic tie ins for the topic of today's post. :-P

I have to say, honestly, I hate this Batman design.

I like the costume and the colors, mind, but the figure just looks absolutely ridiculous to me. I don't mind muscles, but it looks so...blocky to me. The facial expression could be good, but something about the body looks so incredibly off.

Which is a shame because I think the Superman image is stunning. Still exaggerated proportions, of course, but it looks more...

I'm not exactly sure what word I'm looking for, but I like it a lot better than the Batman version. (Though, to be fair, it's pre-rendered CGI, so perhaps it will look much better later.) I suppose that makes Diana the tie-breaker. I wonder what they're going to do for her... I've always liked the character designs of the MK ladies, so I've got high hopes. :-)

My Anti-Trinity:

Scipio's got an interesting challenge on the Absorbascon:

You must select an "anti-Trinity" of villains to oppose the Trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. You may not use the obvious choices (Joker, Cheetah, Luthor), but you may use anyone else, resurrecting them if need be.

I think personally, I'd pick Harvey Dent/Two-Face for Batman. I don't actually recall if he's heroic or villainous at the moment, but I've always liked the way his divided nature kind of parallels Batman's own schism between Bruce Wayne and Batman. His part of the story would be more psychodrama, I think.

For Wonder Woman, I'd probably pick Dr. Psycho. I think his powers are an interesting counterpoint to hers and given her bondage elements and his hypnosis, it might be interesting to examine some themes of control, power and responsibility. With asskicking, of course.

Superman's hardest because Lex is such the quintessential villain, but I think I would go with General Zod. I like playing up Superman's ties to his home planet versus his adopted planet. Is he an isolated kryptonian on Earth, or is he more a human with near godlike power? I've always liked that sort of thing. It's like the ultimate nature vs. nurture debate. So I would want to use the big Kryptonian villain to play with that.

So yep, I think those would be my anti-Trinity. I'm overfond of amateur psychobabble with my asskicking. :-P

Something I've always wondered...

Okay, I'm going to admit now that I have very little experience with any of the hard sciences and it's been years since my last science class but...

Am I the only one who wondered why Wolverine doesn't act like a giant rod whenever Storm uses her powers? I mean, the man usually has giant metal points aimed straight in the air. Is it just that adamantium isn't a conductor? Or just that he's really short, because honestly, it seems to me that otherwise, the man would be a small, hairy, annoying lightning rod.

Just curious.

She's BAAAAACK

I'm not going to say much tonight, mostly because I've got a very early morning tomorrow. But THIS makes me so unbearably happy! I didn't realize it was going to be out this week!

...I can't decide if I'm annoyed Nightwing's on the cover or not. My irrational hate of Nightwing IS fairly legendary at least in my own mind. On the plus side I can read Manhunter and be happy to see Kate, and maybe Todd will have speaking lines, and I can hate Nightwing all in one issue!

Yep, I'm excited.

Too bad I can't buy comics until probably the weekend. :-( Tell me if it's good, okay?

Edited: And Patrick proves why I shouldn't revisit links while tired! How embarrasing! THIS is the Manhunter solicit. No Nightwing, which makes me happy and oddly disappointed at the same time. Still, the cover is enough to make me very very happy. :-)

I can't wait to read about Kate and Dylan and Chase and Todd and Mr. Bones and so on and so forth again! :-) Like I said, though, tell me if it's good!

And to be fair, I have enjoyed what little of the Tomasi run I've read. I just enjoy irrationally hating Nightwing. :-) And maybe there was some unconscious wishful thinking involved: I do think there would be interesting crossover potential there. What with the Batclan and Manhunter's very very different take on killing and all...

Batmen!

Heh, apparently someone came to my blog using the search terminology "guy gardner batman".

I'm sure they were just looking for scans or summaries or fanfic or something like that, but the notion of Guy Gardner as Batman does amuse the hell out of me.

Okay, to be fair, he doesn't really have the skill set to be Batman in the style of Bruce Wayne, but I'm sure whatever he'd do with it would be vastly entertaining. And you know, he'd totally be a much better mentor to the kids too.

Tim and Dick would be in therapy, Cass would be working with specialists who might actually be able to help the girl learn to read (though with the Navajo crap, maybe that's been fixed. Seriously though, as much as I'm usually willing to suspend disbelief for comics, I've never understood how a man as intelligent as Bruce Wayne with the amount of money and resources he has would allow the girl to remain functionally illiterate. In THIS day and age.) And even Steph would benefit from a mentor that doesn't constantly dick her around with the "I'm training you!" "Go home" "You're Robin!" "You're fired" thing.

Heck, thinking about it, I really would like to see Steph and Guy interact. They're both feisty if a bit abrasive personalities. Both of them have awful fathers. Both have been dicked around by the people that ought to be colleagues and mentors. Both are from very working class origins and are used to being compared unfavorably to others in the profession without ever being given a fair shot.

But I tangent.

Actually, what I'd really like to see is a bunch of elseworld-style one-shots in which we see what ifs of many characters in the DCU where THEY become "Batman". (Kind of like that old Woman-Man bit.) It would amuse me. The Green Lanterns as Batman alone would be priceless. Hal's lecherous dickhead Batman. Guy's loudmouth asshole Batman (complete with the most obnoxious use of a Batarang you can imagine), sensitive new age Kyle-Batman.

Actually, I think that last was done. Terry McGinnis in Batman Returns is totally Kyle if he ended up with a Batsuit instead of a ring. Never mind then. :-)

Non-comic blathering...

I've been thinking about the new Battlestar Galactica lately. My dad watches religiously and he's been urging me to watch it with him. I love watching sci-fi with my dad, so that's not a chore (though of late I've been too beat to do so, stupid adjusting to diurnal-time) but somehow or another I've just lost interest in the entire thing.

It's weird because I adored the first season. I'm the one who got Dad into the show. And at least as of two years ago, I was still bandying about whatever insane, improbable theory popped into my head.

I still think the writing is remarkably good. I think the ideas are gold. And I have no complaints about the performances of the cast. Even the actors who I thought were a bit iffy in the first few episodes (*cough*GracePark*cough*) improved tremendously as time went on.

It may be the characters. I have to admit I don't like Starbuck At All. Don't get me wrong, I think she's fairly groundbreaking as a character. It's very interesting to see an angry, rebellious, drinking, gambling, casual sex having, traumatized-fuck up (or as I call it the "fratboy with the dark past" syndrome) in the form of a female character. It's rare and kind of awesome. At the same time, I don't tend to like the fratboy-with-the-dark-past syndrome in male characters either. And honestly, I always thought the whole abused childhood thing felt tremendously tacked on. A kind of "excuse her behavior after the fact" sort of thing. And to be honest, I don't think an admittedly horrible childhood is an excuse for atrocious behavior as an adult. (The shame of it is, I really adored her in the miniseries and the first season.)

I like most of the other characters though, even if I want to thwap most of them in the head and forcefeed them a clue. And I have to admit, I adore Tom Zarek. Best stunt-casting ever.

Really though, I think my issue is much smaller than that. I think my biggest problem is the complete and utter dearth of friendships in the crew now. A lot of the best early moments that I loved were friendship related: Apollo and Starbuck, Roslin and Billy, Adama and Tigh, Tyrol and Cally when he was still dating Boomer, Boomer and Crashdown, and so on. Now they're all broken. I can't think of any similar lighthearted friendship moments in the later seasons.

I guess that's a stupid reason to lose interest in a show, but, well, part of how I grow to care about characters is through seeing how they care about one another. The little human touches. I know that flaws are supposed to humanize characters, and they do, but I find a lot more connection for crew members throwing impromptu birthday parties for one another than I do for yet another bout of self-destructive spirals of drink and sex.

It strikes me as even more of a shame considering that for all the *substantial* weaknesses of the first series, the friendship between Apollo and Starbuck was so much at the core of that series. This series started with that too, and I was even only slightly dreading the resolution of the unresolved sexual tension with the hope that the friendship would last. It makes me sad that I was very wrong.

Maybe this season will be different and some of the friendship and camaraderie will return even as the series gets even more dark and convoluted. But I doubt it. I still regret the loss though.

A Puzzle Indeed.

So I got to thinking that the Red Skull and Skeletor would make a remarkably entertaining couple. Too meglomaniacs with skulls for heads, desires for world domination, and an obsession with defeating a muscle-bound blond.

It almost makes me consider writing a slash fanfiction.

I wonder...can someone perform fellatio without lips?