Masters of the Universe, Gender, and Cautious Optimism

He-Man has always been about gender.

The Waid Street Kids

...or "I'm too out of practice to come up with a decent James Gunn/Speeding Bullet pun." 

So, I just watched Superman (2025). I had the thought, in part because they played a trailer for Ick, starring Brandon Routh, that I've been doing this long enough (*cough* off and on *cough*) to have been able to write immediate post-theater thoughts now for five different Superman-centric movies spread across almost twenty years. 

Oh crap, the 20th anniversary of this blog was two and a half weeks ago. I meant to set a reminder. Hey, would it surprise you that in the two decades since I started writing here, I got an ADHD diagnosis? 

What was I saying? Oh right, Superman. It was good. Not perfect, but, like, really good. Almost everything I disliked feels like nitpicking. And having gone through the Superman film opus a couple of times now, I'd eventually landed on the position of "they've never made a truly good Superman movie." I was literally just telling my mom yesterday that the best Superman movie was Superman III, a position I have argued for (and against) on this very blog. 

And I will reserve final judgment until a second watch, but Richard Pryor may have just slid down the slope to second place. Spoilers after the jump. 

My Revelations

I want to talk about "Masters of the Universe: Revelation." But I can't. Not yet. Because as I made my way through Part 2 of the series a few weeks months ago, I figured out why it wasn't quite clicking with me. And in order to talk about that, I'm going to have to tell a story. 

Way back in 1998, my eighth grade English/Language Arts teacher, the late great Mr. McKissick, assigned us a project: Write a pitch for a TV series. I'm sure it will surprise you to learn that I was just as much of a dork-ass nerd at 14 as I am now, so naturally my pitch was...

"The Power of Grayskull," a weekly hour-long animated series that would serve as a sequel to the original He-Man and She-Ra cartoons, while also introducing the adventures of He-Ro, the hero of Preternia, who fought King Hiss long before the time of He-Man. "The Power of Grayskull" was designed as a kind of anthology series, where each hour-long block would include two to three shorter stories following one of the three main casts, with the Sorceress and the Book of Living Spells as a framing device.

It's worth remembering that in 1998, reviving a cancelled cartoon felt considerably more outlandish than it does today. There were a handful of soft-sequel reboots like "Beast Wars" and "Extreme Ghostbusters" (and "The New Adventures of He-Man" a few years earlier), but they rarely had much connection to their predecessors, for obvious reasons. 

To cast this series, I relied heavily on the original casts, with John Erwin and Melendy Britt reprising their roles as He-Man and She-Ra, respectively, and I filled in the rest of the roles as best I could with the information available on the pre-IMDb Internet. 

But not every character I wanted to use had a consistent voice actor in the original series, and not every voice actor was still around (RIP, Linda Gary). So to flesh out the cast, I looked to other prominent voice actors (i.e., the cast of "Beast Wars"). And when I exhausted that resource, I pulled a "Gargoyles" and filled in the rest with actors from "Star Trek."

In the end, I think I made some ambitious choices (Leonard Nimoy as King Hiss? Sure!), some inspired choices (Nana Visitor and Dana Delaney as Evil-Lyn and Teela? Sounds good!), some choices so on-the-nose that even a Wizard Magazine Casting Call would consider them lazy (Brent Spiner as Roboto? Didn't have to think too hard about that one, did you?), and some really, really ill-considered choices (Jennifer "Kes" Lien as the Sorceress? Oh honey, no). 

Oh! And of course I included Mark Hamill...as Tung Lashor and Twistoid.

I even started writing a pilot script, which I guess would have been one of my earliest pieces of He-Man fanfic. It's clearly an attempt to be a more mature take on the characters, beginning on the eve of Prince Adam and Princess Adora's 25th birthday, with Adora and her OTP Sea Hawk expecting twins. Adam and Teela are in a romantic relationship, and Skeletor returns after a long absence to an Evil-Lyn who is infatuated with him since he magically transformed her hate into love. 

So. Spoilers for "Masters of the Universe: Revelation" follow.

Speaking Geek

I mentioned a few weeks back that I recorded an interview with the Chippewa Valley Geek podcast, and it's up now! Listen to me pontificate, because reading my pontifications was one sense too few!

Mr. Freeze and humility

I've been playing a lot of Arkham City when I've had a little free time here and there, and it's reminded me of a bit of weirdness surrounding one of my favorite Bat-villains, Mr. Freeze. Why "Mister"? Freeze legitimately has a doctorate. Intellectual supervillains are typically more than happy to lord their advanced degrees over society and its protectors--Doctor Octopus, Doctor Light, Doctor Double X, Doctor Sivana, Doctor Phosphorus--even when they don't actually have those degrees (I'm looking at you, dropout Doom). Looking through Wikipedia's list of fictional doctors, the only other villain who does the same is Marvel's Mister Hyde, and he took his name from a story.

Is Victor Fries the most humble supervillain in the DCU? Is this just another part of his tragic life story? Was his doctorate revoked? If so, why is Doctor Light allowed to keep his?

Curioser and curioser, the politics of comic book academia.

"Well, one thing's for sure: nobody's going to be looking at your face."

As is becoming a theme, new pictures have leaked from the set of "Man of Steel," giving us our first really clear look at the new Superman costume. Some key shots (stolen shamelessly from Superman Homepage and ComicVine) here:




Well, one thing's for sure: Ma Kent didn't sew that one. I'll just tackle things the way I did when the first pictures hit. Set your browsers to 'bulleted list'!

• The Hair: Nary an S-curl in sight in these shots. It's a really minor detail, but something about his hair in these shots looks funny, like the part is off, in a way that allowing some of it to hang down on his forehead might alleviate. But it also seems to be the middle of a battle scene, so who knows?
  
• The Cape: Shots with and without the cape. I'm glad it's there and it's fabric (and in at least one shot, it's clearly quite large), but I wouldn't be surprised if it were added with CGI in some of the scenes. I also wouldn't be surprised if, in the hot, humid weather we've been having in these parts, Cavill just wants to have it off as much as possible. It's a little disappointing that it doesn't have a gold shield on it, but it's hardly the first version of the Superman costume to be missing that little detail.
  
• The Boots: Not much new detail on the boots. They look to have the same texture as the rest of the suit, which is okay. They're definitely better than the roboto-boots that New 52 Superman is rocking.
  
• The S-Shield: It's different, in the way that the only official image suggested, looking a lot like some of the variations we saw in the Golden Age, which were eventually adapted into the Earth-2 Superman emblem. I actually like it a lot; it evokes what Morrison and Quitely originally set out to do in All-Star Superman and boil the S-shield down to simpler, more basic elements, and I think it does that job better. The clean curves and size variations make it look somewhat alien, without making it unrecognizable as the Superman symbol. I'll enjoy seeing this on all the licensed goods a lot more than I enjoyed the beveled "Superman Returns" version.
  
• The Belt: Not really a belt, as it turns out, but texturing that suggests a belt. This is, frankly, what I hoped they'd be doing when they removed the briefs from the design: adding some other elements that compensate. It'd be nice to have a bit more color variation to separate things, and the converging lines do seem to draw attention toward Kal's lowercase El, but I think it generally works. The shapes remind me a little of Cosmic Boy's Waid-era costume.
  
• The Texture: I could do without it, but it doesn't really distract from things. It's a little weird that it's uniform over the S-shield, but broken up by the plasticky design elements.
  
• Additional Design Elements: I'll be interested to see what the harder plastic-looking bits do in the final product. Previous shots demonstrated that they're glossier than the rest of the costume, and that might very well be purposeful, to make these lines shine or glow in various sorts of ways under studio lights or in post-production. It could be taken to a ridiculous extreme, of course, but it might be another way to make the costume look otherworldly and break up the blue field. Of course, that's largely speculation. As they are, again, I wish they provided a little more contrast, but they don't really detract.
  
• The Briefs: No briefs, which I still generally think is a bad thing for this costume. The other elements compensate, but still don't quite cover the fact that between the shield and the boots is almost nothing but blue, and there's nothing to tie the main costume in with the cape--which is what the briefs do, for better or worse.
  
• The Colors: I'm still not thrilled with the more muted palette, which I'd hoped we'd get away from after "Superman Returns." But I've seen enough of "Watchmen" and "300" that I know 'bright shiny colors' just aren't Snyder's thing. It's not unexpected, but it would be awfully nice to have a new Superman movie that's as vibrant and colorful as "Captain America: The First Avenger."
  
• Overall: I actually like it, and the more I see of it, the more I like it. There are definitely things I'd change or do differently, but I'm excited to see it in action. And remember, it could be much, much worse.

Low-Content Mode

In about forty-five minutes, I'll be heading down to Gen Con Indy for five-ish days of science education and geeky indulgence. As a result, things will probably be pretty quiet around here. If you're in Indianapolis, feel free to drop by our panels; I think you'll be glad you did.

And in the meantime, since I'm missing out on comics this week, try not to break the Internet or spoil "Superman" #714 too badly.

More Science!

If you'd like a taste of what we're offering at Gen Con, my good friend Don has posted videos from last year. If you enjoy them, then you're sure to love our presentations this year! If you don't enjoy them, then make sure to come by this year and see how much we've improved! Hope to see you there!

More Miscellany

I just read the new original story in "DC Retroactive: JLA - The '70s," and it stands out as one of the best straight-up old-school comic stories I've read in awhile. I know the pendulum has swung and the media has progressed, but I really would like to see more of this kind of thing. Which is part of why I'm glad I asked my shop to pull all the Retro-Active specials, painful though it may be to my wallet. It also makes me really excited to sit down and read the Superman one later tonight, in all likelihood.

---

Apparently today was Mark Waid day, because another trip to the sadly terminal Borders saw me walking out with the latest two volumes of "Irredeemable" and "Captain America: Man Out Of Time." After seeing the film of the latter, I've been in the mood for some more good Cap stories (and if I'd been paid anytime recently, I would have picked up Brubaker's "Red Menace" trade too), and I've never heard a bad word associated with Mark Waid's Captain America. I've got an "Operation: Rebirth" trade around here someplace that I've never managed to read, so there's a good chance I'll be hitting that soon as well.

---

My other attempts to locate good Captain America stories have been somewhat mixed. I picked up the first (or 620th) issue of "Captain America & Bucky," and enjoyed it well enough. It's WWII-era, which I like to see, but I would have liked a little more Captain America and Bucky in it. I'll stick around for the first arc or so, but I'm not sure after that. I've liked every bit of Brubaker's Cap comics that I've read, but I've never gone the extra step of continuing with the series. It's partially the way Marvel organizes their trades without a clear progression from one to the next; I understand the reasons for doing that, and I saw in "Red Menace" today that there was a handy guide on the inside cover, but it does make things slightly less impulse-buy-friendly for the story continuity-minded among us. It's also part of why I've bought so little in the way of Brand New Day-era Spider-Man trades; a lack of numbers and a plethora of trades makes it unclear where I should go next without additional research that I'd rather not do.

Which, I suppose, makes me lazy. Or cheap. Or searching for an excuse. I can handle all that, I guess.

---

I tried to find "The Adventures of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty" at my local shop, since I'd heard good things about it and since I'm always up for Kevin Maguire art, but there seems to be no trade, and my LCS only had the first issue. It works out okay for me; I didn't really have the money for it anyway, but it's definitely something I'll be looking into down the line.

---

Back to Mark Waid, it occurs to me that, when people talk about deconstructionist writers in the superhero genre, Mark Waid doesn't get mentioned often enough. Aside from turning out solid, straightforward superhero comics in a variety of places and styles, he's done quite a bit of work in the deconstruction mode. "Kingdom Come" is an allegory about approaches to superhero storytelling, "Empire" is about what happens when the villain wins, and "Irredeemable" and "Incorruptible" are all about taking common tropes--the ultimate hero, the dastardly villain, the fall from grace, the heel face turn--and applying them in fairly original, extreme ways. It's not his only approach, like it might be for someone like Alan Moore, and I think that's why he might not be as closely identified with the process, but I think he deserves the same kind of consideration.

---

So, I have this now:

So, yeah. Don't be surprised if I end up talking about it soon.

Women in Elevators

I've got feet in two big online communities. Obviously, there are the comic fans, but I'm also pretty active in the science/skepticism blogohedron. Recently, there was a flare-up--one of a series, frankly--that exposed some ugly misogyny, some unfortunately unrecognized privilege, and what the hay, touched on everyone's favorite third rail, the issue of "tone"--or, "I don't disagree with anything you said, but did you have to say it that way?"

The inciting incident was a facepalmingly common one--some dude at a conference played the creep. More specifically, awesome Skepchick Rebecca Watson announced her decision to go to bed at 4 AM, and was followed into the elevator by some guy, who proceeded to proposition her. Bottom line, it was creepy, and that's about the extent of Rebecca's initial comment on the subject, which set the whole blogosphere a-gnashin' about feminism and privilege and misogyny and so forth.

On the whole, I think the conversation has been worthwhile. There have been some truly clueless comments by some otherwise intelligent people, and I hear the comment threads are just brimming with misogyny, but it seems like several good things have come out of this incident: first, a line in the sand has been drawn, saying that prominent women in the community will no longer take this sort of treatment silently. A sizable and vocal block of feminist skeptics has formed, slamming their collective staff on the stone ground and telling the Balrog of misogyny that it shall no longer pass. Second, it's shown that no one is necessarily above privilege, and thus no one is above criticism. Finally, and most importantly, I think there's been a lot done in this situation to educate some of the thicker people who might not have gotten it any of the other times this has gone around (and I count myself somewhat among those thick-headed people). Richard Dawkins aside, I think we can all recall times when confronted with creepy people engaging in behaviors that most folks would recognize as socially unacceptable. Not all such situations have such connotations of sex and rape and objectification, but I would hope that we all know what it's like to meet someone who's a total creeper, and to apply that awkward pressure on them in hopes that they will be less creepy.

If you haven't had such experiences, then I suspect that people around you might have.

I think that's easier for most men to understand. Men might not get why women don't like being ogled and cat-called--even my brain clicks to "gee, it'd be nice if someone ogled me once in a while"¹--but they get what it's like for someone to stand too close to you in the elevator, to take the urinal next to yours when there's one open on the other side of the restroom, to strike up a conversation from the next stall over...to violate any of a bajillion understood-but-unspoken rules of social conduct and trigger that weirded-out feeling.

I realize, of course, that there's a lot more to it for women, but men have fur, and I think this is something that gets through it a little. Which is why I think that this is a great example: most people see why it's a skeevy thing to do, regardless of their privilege, and not just in the intellectual, detached, "women don't necessarily like being hit on" way that's the case with most of these situations. And that's why I think this incident might actually make a difference to the (thick-headed men in the) community in a way that previous incidents haven't.

Boy, I'm rambling here. So, why am I rambling on this blog instead of the other one that would generally be more suited to this sort of thing? Mainly because I really would like to see that kind of difference happen in the nerd community at large. Ragnell linked to this post describing a strangely similar incident from a comic convention several years back. There were notable differences--Karen Healey wasn't directly propositioned, she was wearing a costume, there were multiple men--but the situation is remarkably similar: woman in an elevator receives unwanted and unwarranted advances from strange men. Strange men who apparently saw no problem with making advances toward a strange woman in an elevator.

Karen mentioned in passing another strange situation in that post:

This and like incidents have happened to me, like many women, time and time again: strange men telling me to “smile!”; strange men shouting “Show us your tits!” as they drive past; strange men groping my breasts and ass in crowded train carriages.

It's disturbing, for two reasons. One, it resonates with another such incident I encountered on the skeptical side of the blogosphere. Two, it lays bear the assumption (I think) that's going on here: women's bodies are public. Remember the open source boob project? It's the same kind of thing, but without even the token advances toward consent. A man can expect to have a bubble of personal space, violation of which results in, at the very least, that "weirded out" feeling. Women can expect the same, but must also expect to have that space violated by others (read: men) who view women's bodies as some sort of public resource, subject to public oversight.

I realize that this is a larger problem than the geek community, and my conversation with Ragnell and MadMarvelGirl on Twitter suggests that geek conventions may be better than my experience would suggest. All I know is that at GenCon or Wizard World or C2E2, I encountered my fair share of people with no apparent capacity for self-awareness or self-assessment, people ignorant of basic social mores and courtesies, people with no regard for personal space--you know, creepers. Moreover, I think geek culture shields creepy people, and largely justifies, defends, or validates creepy, socially-awkward behavior.

Yes, I realize that people are different, and I'm not one to say that all social rules, standards, or mores are good or justified or reasonable. I also realize that there are actual conditions (like Asperger's) that may impact someone's social intelligence. That's really beside the point, which is that the important social rules--the ones whose violation will set people off as "creepy" and elicit that weirded-out (or threatened) feeling--exist as a result of people's basic social expectations. Violating someone's personal space or ogling them in an elevator violates the basic social contract, the basic principle that people deserve to be treated as individual persons whose desires should be respected and taken into account.

The point, to reiterate, is that people--regardless of gender or dress or attractiveness or whatever--deserve to be treated like people at all times, deserve to have their wishes taken into account at all times. Cornering someone in an elevator when they're trying to go to bed, and asking them to have sex with you, is a violation of that principle. Telling someone that they should be smiling, as if you own stock in their face, is a violation of that principle.

And people should be able to bring this kind of subject up on comic blogs and forums without being shouted down by misogynists and the clueless-and-defensive.

---

1. My brother likes to eat Ramen noodles. He makes enough money that eating Ramen noodles is one option out of many. I suspect, if he had no choice but to eat Ramen noodles all the time, he'd like it a lot less. There's a difference between wanting a thing, and that thing happening whether you want it to or not.

An Editorial Mistake I Can Forgive

I've been catching up on "Booster Gold" for the last couple of days, it being one of several comic series that I buy but haven't actually read in months, and along the way I came across an interesting editorial error to add to the list. No, it wasn't how Booster cryptically referred to the Perforated Man as "PF" in one word bubble, suggesting an abbreviation in the script that should have been changed for the finished page (or a typo, though when he later calls the guy "P.M.," it seems like it would have been a hell of a typo), it was this bit of signage:

From the context and the following panels, it's clear that this is meant to be the 30th Century version of Sundollar, DC's clever ersatz Starbucks. But if you're the sort of sad, strange person who can kind of, sort of read Interlac (like me), you might notice something strange about this sign. You might have the sneaking suspicion that "sundollar" would be rendered thusly:

Assuming, of course, that we ignore the differences between capital and lowercase letters. Either way, if the bottom image correctly renders "sundollar," then what does the top image say?

"Sunflower." Which means, I suspect, that letterer John J. Hill could have the nerdiest entry to Damn You, Auto Correct ever.

On one hand, this is forgivable. It's a small error in a made-up foreign language with almost no bearing on the plot or issue. On the other hand, I would hope that the foreign language bits are the places where editors are keeping the closest watch, since they would make it easy for all manner of errors, slurs, and blue placeholder text, to slip through.

The backwards cover preview on the letters page--which would be totally unnoticable if not for the moderately recognizable S-shield on the left--is less forgivable.

Come September

You've probably already seen my thoughts on the DC relaunch over at Nerdy Nothings, but I thought I'd do a little wrap-up, to see just how much things are likely to change for me in September, based on the solicitations as they stand and my current pull list. So first, I made a quick list of all the main DCU titles that I've been consistently buying. I included a few books that have recently ended and omitted miniseries, Vertigo, and Johnny DC titles. Here's the current list:

1. Action Comics
   
2. Batman, Inc.
   
3. Birds of Prey
   
4. Booster Gold
   
5. Detective Comics
   
6. Doom Patrol
   
7. Flash
   
8. Freedom Fighters
   
9. Green Lantern
   
10. Green Lantern Corps
    
11. Justice League: Generation Lost
    
12. Power Girl
    
13. Secret Six
    
14. Superboy
    
15. Supergirl
    
16. Superman
    
17. Wonder Woman
    
18. Zatanna

Eighteen regular titles. Now, here's what things will look like in September. New titles in bold, "Batman, Inc." omitted due to hiatus:

1. Action Comics
   
2. All-Star Western
   
3. Animal Man
   
4. Batgirl
   
5. Batman
   
6. Batman & Robin
   
7. Batwing
   
8. Batwoman
9. Birds of Prey
   
10. Blue Beetle
    
11. DC Universe Presents
    
12. Demon Knights
    
13. Flash
    
14. Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.
    
15. The Fury of Firestorm
    
16. Green Lantern
    
17. Green Lantern Corps
    
18. Green Lantern: The New Guardians
    
19. Grifter
    
20. Justice League
    
21. Justice League International
    
22. Legion Lost
    
23. Legion of Superheroes
    
24. Mister Terrific
    
25. Resurrection Man
    
26. Sgt. Rock & the Men of War
    
27. Superboy
    
28. Supergirl
    
29. Superman
    
30. Swamp Thing
    
31. Voodoo
    
32. Wonder Woman
    

From 18 titles up to 31. If DC's goal was to get me to buy more comics, they definitely succeeded. Some of this is lateral motion; "Justice League: Generation Lost" becomes "Justice League International," "Batman" replaces "Detective Comics." "Doom Patrol" and "Freedom Fighters" have already been cancelled; "Secret Six," "Zatanna," "Booster Gold," and "Power Girl" are being left in the pre-relaunch DCU. "DC Universe Presents" is going to replace "Superman/Batman" as "the anthology-style book that I'll buy whenever the creative team or spotlight character appeals to me."

And there are some books that are very much not new to the pull list; I bought "Blue Beetle" and "Firestorm" in their last incarnations, and I've bought "Jonah Hex" (giving way to "All-Star Western"), "Batman & Robin," and "Legion of Superheroes" at various times in the past; the latter are both fairly recent drops from my pile, as is the second Legion title, "Adventure Comics."

A good number of these are provisional; this list assumes that I'm wowed by every single book I pull in September. "Batwing," "Grifter," "Voodoo," "Firestorm," "New Guardians," "Batgirl," "Birds of Prey," "Sgt. Rock," "Mr. Terrific," "Batman & Robin," "Flash," and surprisingly "Superboy," and "Supergirl," are all on the cusp, judging by solicits and past history. If this relaunch goes really poorly, I could be back to eighteen or fewer titles come October. I don't anticipate that, and it's entirely possible that some book not on the list (like "I, Vampire," "Static Shock," "Suicide Squad," or "Teen Titans") might drum up enough buzz that I'll pick it up the following week.

Overall, I'm generally pretty excited. I think reboots are generally a bad idea, but if we must have them, then I'm at least glad to have so many options and so many choices. I just hope that the next few months provide new solicits for new titles featuring new creators, above and beyond the relatively few that are mentioned here.

Something that's been bugging me

I'll admit, I'm way behind on reading the Green Lantern books. I fell off around the time that Geoff Johns decided cutting two pages from the page count was an excuse to increase the number of double-page splashes of aliens flying at things. I haven't bothered to drop the titles yet, but I suspect that will change once I actually sit down and see what's become of them.

But I have seen some of the covers, with the Earth Lanterns becoming Rainbow Brite's posse, and it's brought to mind something that's been rolling around ever since the retcon of Sinestro's power ring (namely, that it's powered by fear, and specifically Parallax). Namely, has anyone referenced the fact that Guy Gardner used Sinestro's ring for a good long time?

Seriously, between his Green Lantern days on the JLI and JLA and his Vuldarian Warrior days, Guy Gardner rocked a yellow ring. It's the ring he had when the JLA fought Doomsday, and for awhile thereafter.

People talk about how great Hal is for conquering fear and all, but given the ring's retcon, wasn't Guy conquering that fear for months or years? There had been talk at various times about how removing the yellow impurity would drive Green Lanterns mad with power, but Guy shouldered the burden pretty well, I think (having not read his solo title at the time, it's possible that there was more drama to it). To date, I think this puts Guy just behind Hal as "Lantern who's worn the most different power rings."

I don't know, I'd just think that this is the kind of thing that would get a passing mention.

C2E2 or Bust!

I'm finally making it back to a comic convention! To give you an idea of how long it's been, the last one I went to was full of "Countdown" teasers and featured the premiere of "Batman: Gotham Knight," the second of DC's current series of direct-to-DVD animated features. So it's been awhile, and I'm stoked. I'm going to get my browse on something fierce, and I've actually got some money to burn. Plus, there's going to be a "Middleman" cast reunion, and I don't think I could possibly miss that.

So I'll be at C2E2 on Saturday, and I'll definitely be at the Middleman panel. Anyone else going?

Have you guys heard that I like Superman?

As if you couldn't tell by the two hundred and twenty little daily fanfics, my obsession has become a little...obsession-y, lately. For instance, my go-to show for background noise and entertainment while I work on other things has been the first season of "The Adventures of Superman," what with George Reeves and all. Taking a bit of a break today, I picked up the last disc of season 3 of "Lois & Clark." And I was hit with an interesting bit of synchronicity.

See, I remarked on Twitter about the "Adventures of Superman" episode I watched last night, where Perry took Jimmy on a fishing trip. Maybe I just haven't had those formative relationships with my employers, but I've never been on a fishing trip with anyone I've worked for. Or with. But hey, if Perry wants to take Jimmy under his wing, that's great. It just feels like a detail from a bygone era, real Andy and Opie stuff.

But then I watch this "Lois and Clark" episode, and Perry's handing out assignments. At the end of the spiel, he says that he wants Lois and Clark to get their story in by one, because nothing is going to stop him and Jimmy from going on their fishing trip.

I swear, if the next Superman comic I flip through has Perry and Jimmy on a fishing trip, I might take it as a sign that I need to cut back. Just so you know.

Putting the call out

I'm trying to track down a comic for a reference, but all my attempts to do so have, so far, been in vain. Here's what I can remember:

• It's a comic from the last fifteen years or so, I'm guessing mid-to-late '90s
  
• I thought it was a Superman comic, but I could be wrong about that
  
• I'm pretty sure Ron Frenz did the art
  
• The plot goes something like this: a big alien monster is tearing stuff up, but is eventually stopped by the hero, whereupon an alien in a spacesuit comes to retrieve it. Turns out the big monster is the alien's pet. The hero remarks that it's kind of like a dog, after which the alien removes its helmet to reveal a very canine-looking face, and says "something like that," or something like that.

At this point, I could probably draw the alien from memory. I remember the panel where it appears vividly, and especially the clearly-photoreferenced dog face, but I can't for the life of me figure out what comic this was in. Google has been no help, and flipping through random issues may take me several more days. Anyone know what this was off the top of their heads?

Just a quick note

I think the Absorbing Man might be my favorite villain in all of Marvel Comics.

Yes, even more than Swarm.

I can pretty much die happy now

If I kept up with my podcasts better, I would have known about this weeks ago, but I don't, so I didn't. Anyway, I got mentioned by name on the only comics podcast I listen to, War Rocket Ajax! Episode #44, if you're curious, in reference to this.

So that's pretty cool. My next goal? Getting an interview. I suppose "becoming a published and popular nerdsphere author" would probably be a good intermediate step.

Bottomless Nerdity

My fianceé and I have been car shopping for a little over a month. My car is getting to be pretty unreliable, and cleaning up the oil slick in the garage every couple of weeks is fairly frustrating. We'd just about given up recently, having heard little from the local agents we had out looking for us.

Until yesterday. I got the call shortly after work that they had found pretty much precisely what we'd been looking for. It was amazing. It's got almost all the features I wanted, and it's a beautiful iridescent blue. We made our down payment, and we'll be picking it up in a week or so. I'm quite excited.

So naturally I was still thinking about the car--and its gorgeous blue color--when I texted her a little later:

I'm thinking "Classy, and Relative Dimension in Space."

Turnabout

I'll be honest, I liked Blackest Night. I didn't care much for the tie-in miniseries that I read (though I thought most of Johns' tie-ins were fairly good), and I thought the ending could have been a lot more daring and interesting and status quo altering than it was. But it was the kind of event comic I tend to like, and my opinion of Geoff Johns is still somewhat positive.

So when word came of "Brightest Day," I was all for it. Limited to 26 issues, it sounded like it'd avoid some of the problems of Countdown, and I was all for following characters like Martian Manhunter and Aquaman in the happier, more optimistic aftermath of Blackest Night.

And on the other side of things, "Justice League: Generation Lost" was announced with Judd Winick at the head. And while I may have associated Geoff Johns with over-the-top gore and violence and unnecessary character deaths, I associated Winick with character derailment, overwrought melodrama, and turning every series into a sociopolitical soapbox. I'm a dyed-in-the-hemp liberal, and I enjoyed the Terry Berg subplot in Green Lantern, but for awhile it seemed like Winick couldn't write anything without making it an outlet for his political views and social causes. After all the crap that the JLI crew has been through in recent years, the last thing I wanted to see happen to them was maudlin Winick.

So naturally I subscribed to "Brightest Day." But I gave "Generation Lost" a chance too, picking up the first issue at the shop.

Four issues later, I came to a decision. By issue 4 of "Brightest Day," it was clear that the series was showcasing the worst of Geoff Johns' dialogue (somehow both stilted and blunt, lacking any real sense of character or nuance) and plotting (story snippets that advance each plot a hair's breadth each issue, causing the book to move at a snail's pace) with none of the optimism implied by the name. In contrast, by issue 4 of "Justice League: Generation Lost," I was willing to assume that Keith Giffen wrote the whole damn thing.

Seriously, Winick and Giffen have put together a pretty compelling story, using an entertaining cast, and they clearly have a plan going forward. The story in "Generation Lost" has already taken a twist or two that I didn't expect (for instance, I expected the mystery of where Max was and what he wanted to last a lot longer), and making the team into a group of underdog outcasts puts them in an intriguing position. And so far every issue has either introduced something significant or moved the main story forward significantly, which is more than I could say for "Brightest Day," where I'm pretty sure Hawkman and Hawkgirl spent three issues walking through a door.

So, good on you, Judd Winick, for largely redeeming my opinion of you. It may just be that Keith Giffen turns pretty much anything he touches into gold, but I'm not so sure about that. The quality of "JL:GL" almost has me considering Winick's run on "Power Girl." Almost.

So, yeah, I switched my subscriptions around two issues ago. And I haven't looked back. If you're not reading "Generation Lost"--and especially if you're reading "Brightest Day"--you're missing out.