Falling apart at the seams?

Got a cluster of different links for ya this morning — not enough for a full post for each, but some fun stuff to click on…

* A list of the best scenes from superhero movies. I can’t agree with all of them — they’ve left out some of my own favorites — but I don’t see anything staggeringly wrong either.

* There have been a lot of action figures of Marvel Comics characters, but this is the first time that Marvel super-writer Stan Lee has gotten the toy treatment.

* Not exactly comics-related, but we were talking about Stephen King just a few days ago… Did you realize that the soon-to-be-released “1408” will be the 99th Stephen King adaptation to make it to film or TV? Michael Sadowski has his picks for the five best King adaptations ever.

Mmmmm, giant Kryptonite monkey…

One thing you should know about comics fans: We really love monkeys.

“What’s so strange about that?” I hear you ask. “All red-blooded Americans love monkeys!”

This is indeed true. But it still must be said: comic book fans really, really love monkeys.

A lot of this stems from comics’ “Silver Age” in the late-1950s to ’60s. DC Comics had an editor named Julius Schwartz, who had a method for spurring writers’ creativity in which he’d send them some utterly outrageous cover (Green Lantern giving away free power rings to passersby, the Justice League getting turned into trees, the Flash being transformed into a life-sized wooden puppet), then tell the writers to come up with a story based on that cover image. As it turned out, the covers that had DC characters interacting with a gorilla or monkey nearly always sold more copies than other comics, so you saw more and more DC comic books with monkey guest stars, monkey villains, like Gorilla Grodd, Monsieur Mallah, and Titano, or even monkey superheroes, like Detective Chimp or Beppo the Super-Monkey.

So, based on this noble, banana-eating heritage, comic book fans really love monkeys.

There are, however, limits.

DC decided to really push the envelope of monkey-love back in 1999. Back then, all of DC’s annuals would revolve around central themes — one year, it was pulp fiction, the next it was “DC One Million” with new versions of DC’s heroes in the far flung future. Well, in 1999, the theme was “JLApe” after the evil Gorilla Grodd succeeded in one of his oldest schemes: he turned the members of the Justice League into gorillas.

The Justice League of Apes?

Someone’s made monkeys of the JLA…

Green Lantern channels Charlton Heston

All in all, it doesn’t seem that bad, does it? Well, unfortunately, despite all the funky monkey art, the series as a whole just wasn’t very well written, but then again, lots of comics aren’t well written. The biggest problem is that, rather than being a single comic with a bunch of gorillas in it, it was seven or eight comics, in the space of a month, with a bunch of gorillas in ’em. That’s like chain-smoking Cuban cigars for a month, or guzzling bottles of fine champagne for a month — when you over-indulge in a luxury, it stops feeling luxurious.

So to summarize:

A few super-monkeys = good!

A whole bunch of super-monkeys over a dozen comics all in the same month = Let us not speak of this again.

This article is a few weeks old, but it certainly seems relevant for this blog: a little kid named Liam Hoekstra is a superhuman prodigy!

Liam Hoekstra was hanging upside down by his feet when he performed an inverted sit-up, his shirt falling away to expose rippled abdominal muscles.

It was a display of raw power one might expect to see from an Olympic gymnast.

Liam is 19 months old.

(…)

Liam can run like the wind, has the agility of a cat, lifts pieces of furniture that most children his age couldn’t push across a slick floor and eats like there is no tomorrow — without gaining weight.

“He’s hungry for a full meal about every hour because of his rapid metabolism,” Hoekstra said. “He’s already eating me out of house and home.”

The kid has a genetic condition called myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, which means that he’s got abnormal growth of his skeletal muscles. He’s immensely strong for his age, quick as lightning, has a light-speed metabolism, and almost no body fat. The condition doesn’t affect his heart, and as far as anyone knows, it has no negative side effects. Scientists think it’s pretty rare, but it’s only been discovered in the last few years, so they don’t yet know exactly how many people have it. The biggest problem for Liam is that a kid his age needs some body fat to develop properly, and his metabolism is cranked so high, it’s hard for him to put on fat at all.

Even better? The kid has the potential to be a real superhero — no, not flying around and fighting supervillains, but studying him could lead scientists and doctors to important new treatments.

Liam’s condition is more than a medical rarity: It could help scientists unlock the secrets of muscle growth and muscle deterioration. Research on adults who share Liam’s condition could lead to new treatments for debilitating ailments, such as muscular dystrophy and osteoporosis.

If researchers can control how the body produces and uses myostatin, the protein could become a powerful weapon in the pharmaceutical arsenal. It also could become a hot commodity among athletes looking to gain an edge, perhaps illegally, on the competition, experts said.

Give him another couple of decades, and there’s a pretty good chance we’ll see playing pro football. Don’t bet against him…

UPDATE: I just found an interesting photo of Liam:

That is a 19-month-old toddler doing a chin-up.

I would not want to be anywhere near when he has a temper tantrum.

Okay, comics fans, this one’s all for you.

What was your first comic book?

I actually have a lot of trouble remembering my first one, but I think the very first one I got probably starred this guy.

That’s Super Goof, who made his first appearance back in the ’60s. Obviously, it was Disney’s Goofy. He had to eat Super Goobers to gain his amazing powers — superstrength, flight, bulletproof skin, etc. And apparently, the goobers also caused his costume appear. Either that, or it made his clothes disappear, since his costume was just some flannel long underwear.

But here’s the cool thing — as far as I can remember, the second comic book I ever owned was this one:

Yes, that’s the classic Detective Comics #408, from 1971, with the cover story of “The House that Haunted Batman” illustrated by Neal Adams. Brilliant stuff, with a villain (Hugo Strange, perhaps?) trying to drive Batman insane with a fake haunted house, including that lurid dissolving Robin bit.

Anyway, enough of my big firsts — what were your first comics?

Retired-Man loves comics. Don’t you want to be cool like Retired-Man?

I know most of y’all reading this have probably never read a comic book in years, if ever. Heck, many of y’all will probably never read a comic in your life. But I’m hoping some of y’all may at some point decide to buy some comic books and see what all the fuss is about.

Well, first, you may have trouble reading them. No, seriously. “Oh, come on! They’re just funnybooks! I can read quantum physics at a 20th-grade level, fer cryin’ out loud!” Well, that’s as may be, but I’ve still known people who just couldn’t wrap their brains around the concept of simultaneously reading and looking at artwork. It didn’t mean they weren’t smart; it didn’t mean they couldn’t read. It just meant they were more comfortable reading text by itself without having to deal with distracting artwork. If you fall into this category, don’t sweat it. There are greater tragedies in life.

Second, don’t just run to the local comics shop and grab any handful of brightly colored comics off the shelf. Superman and Batman may be the best-known superheroes on the planet, but that doesn’t mean they’re everyone’s cup o’ grog. If you enjoyed, for example, the Spider-Man movies, pick up a Spider-Man comic instead.

And don’t feel that you have to buy superhero comics. If you’re into “Law and Order,” you may find any of the myriad crime comics (like “Sin City” and “Stray Bullets”) more to your liking. If you like horror movies, look for some horror comics (like “The Walking Dead” or any of the various “Hellboy” spinoffs). Are you into fantasy? Try the “Conan” comics or go digging for some old issues of Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman.” Be aware of what you like and look for comics that are already similar to what you prefer reading.

You may have an easier time if you used to read comics years ago and would like to get back into the habit. If you used to read books like “Justice League of America,” “Iron Man” or “Green Lantern,” those comics are still around — pick them up and see if you still like them. Of course, some comics have changed a lot over the years. There have been several different superheroes calling themselves the Flash over the past couple decades, and the X-Men have had so many members, you may not recognize them at all. If you still prefer the old comics from your youth, both Marvel and DC sell some very affordable collections of black-and-white comics reprints.

Still not sure what you’d like? Unwilling to buy comics that you may end up disliking? Here in Lubbock, we’re fortunate that our municipal library has comics you can check out. Most of what they have are what’s called trade paperbacks (or TPBs) which are several issues’ worth of a comic bound together in book format. That way, you can get a whole Wonder Woman or X-Men storyarc at once, instead of trying to make sense of a single random issue.

And if you’re still not sure what you’d like to read, talk to your friendly neighborhood comic shop employee or librarian. Tell ’em you’re new to comics and would like some guidance about some good comics to start with, and they’ll be happy to give you a hand.

Remember, there are lots of places to find comics, even here in the deepest, darkest wilds of Lubbock. Most of the chain bookstores have at least a few comics or comics anthologies, and Star Books and Comics over at 2014 34th Street is probably the best comic shop you’re gonna find between Dallas and Albuquerque. Check ’em out.

Ya know what? Writing long reviews of comics takes an extra-long time. So in the interest of getting these durn reviews finished sometime this century, I’m gonna shorten the reviews of the rest of the past week’s haul.

The Trials of Shazam #7

 

The kid in camo on the cover is Freddie Freeman, who used to be Captain Marvel Jr. until he lost his powers. (Yeah, there’s been an outbreak of members of the Marvel Family losing their powers. Just roll with it.) However, he’s being given the chance to earn his powers back by completing tests for the “gods of magic” — Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury. However, a woman named Sabina is trying to intervene in the tests because she wants all those powers for herself.

In this issue, Freddie and Sabina have both managed to grab half of the strength of Hercules and are duking it out to take all of it. We also get some of Sabina’s background in the midst of all the fighting. For the most part, however, this is a slugfest all the way through. No complaints — it’s a good slugfest.

Howard Porter’s art continues to be outstanding, and I particularly like the interpretation we see of Atlas, the next god on the list. This is a fairly low-key comic — it’s not getting the kind of attention that some other books are — but it’s been an excellent read from the very beginning.

Verdict: Go get it.

B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls #4

 

This is a spin-off from Mike Mignola’s action/horror series “Hellboy” — Big Red doesn’t appear in this, but if you’re familiar with the movie, you should be familiar with at least some of the stars in this one. The focus of this particular story has been Abe Sapien, the department’s fishman, and his quest to discover his own origins. He’s already discovered that he used to be a human named Langdon Everett Caul, back in the 1860s, and he’s been kidnapped in South America by a bunch of old guys wearing nifty steampunk powered armor and attended by a towering powerhouse named Edward and a bunch of genetically engineered animal hybrids. Oh, and there’s a mummy. Wearing a nice Victorian-era dress. The story is written by Mignola, but illustrated by John Arcudi, who does a good job of aping Mignola’s distinctive style.

In this issue, the mummy, Panya, tells Abe how she was discovered to be alive during a mummy-unwrapping party in the late 1850s (Believe it or not, the Victorians really used to have parties where they’d unwrap mummies. For fun. They also thought it was rude to say “leg” in mixed company. The Victorians were all crazy.) Instead of running amok, strangling butlers, and cursing random explorers like a normal mummy, Panya was educated in Western ways and became a part of high society. Eventually, she’s declared to be a treasure worth hoarding, and is taken prisoner by several competing conspiratorial mystical associations until the present day, when she’s being held in opulent surroundings by the Oannes Society. After that, the Society members tell Abe that he used to be one of them, and that their plans involve transferring their minds out of their impossibly aged bodies and into superhumanly powerful bodies like Edward’s. And then, they plan to kill everyone in Eastern Asia and use their spirits to vastly empower their new bodies, allowing all of those spirits to live forever.

Abe is not impressed, manages to kill one of the host bodies while it’s still being grown in its glass tube, and goes on the run. But the island he’s being held on isn’t that large, and there aren’t many places to hide.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. Heck, you should go get every “BPRD” and “Hellboy” comic you can. I think it’s been very well established at this point that Mike Mignola is the best creator of horror comics of the modern age, so just about everything he comes up with is worth reading. Arcudi’s art is also outstanding — like I said before, it’s very similar to Mignola’s style, but he’s better with detail work (If you really want to see Arcudi’s detail artwork unleashed, check out the previous series, “B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine.”)

And this issue would get an enthusiastic recommendation from me even if it didn’t feature the image below:

 

That is a female mummy and some Victorian mad scientists operating a horse with a steam-powered Babbage engine in place of its head.

And that is awesome.

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #12

 

This is one of Marvel’s new all-ages comics, and it’s actually a week or two old, but I’d heard good things about it, so I picked it up. The members of the Avengers in this one include Avenger regulars like Captain America, Iron Man and Giant-Man… uhh, I mean Giant-Girl, plus popular Marvel characters like Spider-Man, Storm, Wolverine, and Hulk. Every issue has a self-contained story, so you don’t have to worry about too much continuity. The stories combine action with a great deal of humor, and they are fun for both kids and adults.

In this issue, the Avengers are trying to control a number of different natural disasters, caused by the coming of Ego, the Living Planet. This is an actual villain from ’60s Marvel books, which suggests pretty strongly that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were nuttier than a whole bag full of fruit bats. So what is Ego doing getting this close to Earth?

 

Ego is in luuuuuv.

This does not sit well with the Avengers.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. Go get it. Be sure and check out the back issues, too — they’re all good.

DC’s new motto: “We’ve got anime girls punching Robin clones!”

This is a review of DC’s “Countdown #46”. It features Mary Marvel, Jimmy Olsen, a bunch of bad guys with no fashion sense, multiple characters who used to be dead, an alien pornographer, and a demon with dead babies stuck all over him.

But to get this to make even a little sense, we must first discuss the backstory.

Once upon a time, there was the “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” back in 1985, where DC got rid of all their hundreds of alternate universes and trimmed them down to just one. This was fine for a while, until DC realized that alternate universes were actually fun. This led to last year’s “Infinite Crisis” in which some of the good guys from the 1985 series came back as bad guys to try to recreate some of the “multiverse.” They failed, so there was still just one universe. This led immediately to “52,” a weekly comic book that recreated the multiverse. In connection with “52,” an old Captain Marvel villain-turned-hero named Black Adam let his sense of vengeance get out of hand and took on every superhero on Earth. In order to stop Black Adam, who had powers very similar to Captain Marvel’s, they had to change his transforming magic word from “Shazam” to… something else which is being kept secret so he can never change back again.

Anyway, all this led to “Countdown,” another weekly comic like “52” except that the issue numbers are counting backwards, from #51 to #0. So far in this series, we’ve followed Mary Marvel, who has lost her powers and is unable to get them back; Jason Todd, who was the second Robin before he got killed and only recently came back to life under unknown circumstances; Jimmy Olsen, who is following some ill-defined story and has suddenly started getting random superpowers; the Trickster and the Piper, two outcast members of the Flash’s “Rogues Gallery;” and the Monitors, a bunch of gaudily-dressed reality cops who have decided to kill off everyone who “doesn’t belong” in the DC universe. Recently, Mary Marvel has run into Black Adam, who has somehow managed to get his powers back again, and then he gave all his powers to Mary, which means she now has a black costume like Black Adam’s. Why? Apparently, Black Adam wanted to make comic book geeks turn red and breathe funny. “Countdown” has really not been a very good series, so far.

ANYWAY: In this issue, Jimmy Olsen meets up with Sleez, a creepy little freak from the alien world of Apokolips who specializes in mind-controlling people and filming them while they, umm, make whoopie. (Yes, I apparently have to say “make whoopie” or the Lubbock mayor will have me arrested.). Sleez has decided to tell Jimmy how he can kill the evil alien despot Darkseid when someone appears in a flash of light and blows a hole in Sleez’s chest. Elsewhere, the Rogues very pointlessly fight with each other, Mary Marvel fights a demon, and a new character named Forerunner (shown on the cover) shows up to beat up Jason Todd and Donna Troy, another character who used to be dead.

So now that all that rigamarole is over, how was it? It wasn’t too bad, especially compared to how thoroughly lousy the first few issues of “Countdown” have been. We’ve finally started seeing a little progress on the plots they’ve been setting up, and the action quotient has started to increase a bit. But it’s still not a very good comic book. They’re still absolutely wasting pages on the story with the Rogues — there hasn’t been any plot development at all, and the characterization for all of them is really, really poor.

We don’t know much about Forerunner yet, but I promise to like her if she’ll just continue beating up Jason Todd and Donna Troy for the rest of the series. Sleez was a mostly useless character, so I don’t really mind that he’s been killed. The Mary Marvel story seems to be picking up, plus it includes the goofiest concept for a demon I’ve ever seen. This is him below…

Child Protective Services just hates this guy.

He calls himself “Pharyngula, the Harvester of Stillborn Souls,” and yes, he’s a demon with a body made of dead babies. I’m really not sure if that’s the best or worst character concept I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly the thing I remembered the most after I finished the story, so I guess that makes it a good thing.

Verdict: a thumbs-up, but just barely. And if you’re likely to dislike demons with babies velcroed all over them, you should probably skip this one.

Like Clint Eastwood, just younger. And with a hawk. And in a comic book.

Kevin Brake, the A-J’s computer wrangler, saw that I had a comics blog yesterday and apparently ran home to get me a copy of “The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #1.” I knew that if I didn’t read and review it, Kevin would probably take away my computer, so I made sure it was the first thing I read when I got home.

First of all, this is not a new comic — it’s several months old at this point. I didn’t pick it up when it first came out because it’s based on Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” novels; I read the first of those novels when it came out, and I hated it. I didn’t — still don’t — think it was well-written. I thought his mesh of fantasy, sci-fi, and Westerns wasn’t all that appealing, and the similarities to Robert Browning’s “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” just plain honked me off. Man alive, did I ever hate Robert Browning. And Longfellow. DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON LONGFELLOW. (Gaaah, high school English classes made me want to strangle people.) (Oh my, I’ve gotten off on a tangent now. This must be why my high school English teachers wanted to strangle me.)

Anyway, the “Dark Tower” comic has several advantages over the novels — first of all, they’re not written by Stephen King, though he does supervise their creation. King is a good prose writer, but he’s written a comic or two in the past and was not particularly good at it. The comic is plotted by Robin Furth, and the script written by Peter David.

The story here focuses on the Gunslinger from the novels, Roland Deschain — namely, we learn about Roland’s childhood and how he came to be a gunslinger. We see him being trained by a man named Cort. Roland is goaded into picking a fight with Cort, a rite-of-passage for young people wanting to become gunslingers. If they can defeat him, they earn the right to carry a gun; if not, they are permanently exiled. Cort is a very powerful man and difficult to beat in battle, but Roland picks an unusual weapon for his duel…

Much as I disliked King’s novel, I loved this story. It immerses you in the skewed language and culture of Roland’s world, and it’s much easier to get interested in Roland when you know about his past than when you’re just reading about him riding silently through the desert.

And the art is probably the best thing about this book. See the cover I put up there? It’s a gorgeous work of art, ain’t it? Usually, when you see a comic cover that looks that good, the art on the inside looks completely different. But not here. The entire comic, every single page, every single panel is that beautifully rendered. Jae Lee and Richard Isanove are credited for the art, and they sure earned their paychecks on this.

I’m still not sure that I’m interested in reading the rest of the comic series — it is still based on the only Stephen King book I hate more than “The Tommyknockers” (DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON “THE TOMMYKNOCKERS.”) but if you’re into “The Dark Tower” I think it’s definitely worth a read.

 

Yow, lookit that hand! Hulk could use some lotion.

Thursdays are New Comics Days here in Lubbock, so let’s start digging through this week’s haul. First up tonight is the first issue of the new “World War Hulk” limited series from Marvel.

Yowza! It’s a good one!

Backstory first: About a year or so ago, some of the Marvel Universe’s bigwigs — Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Mr. Fantastic, and Black Bolt — decided that the Hulk was just too dangerous to the planet, so they sneaked him into a spaceship and zapped him into outer space. Hulk ended up on a distant planet where he was forced to serve as a gladiator, but later ended up being crowned king. He got a wife, had a kid on the way, and then the spaceship he traveled in blows up, kills his wife, and destroys most of his adopted planet.

Unsurprisingly, this angers Hulk, who grabs some of his drinkin’ buddies and sets off back for Earth to, more than likely, beat a large number of superheroes into fairly squishy goo. Hulk scares the golly-gee-whilikers out of everyone on the planet and takes on Black Bolt and Iron Man, emerging mostly unscathed and angrier than ever.

Anyway, like I said, it’s a good one. John Romita, Jr. handles the artwork while Greg Pak takes care of the story. With Romita working the pencils, the action is absolutely wonderful. We get treated to multiple scenes that are entirely jaw-dropping in intensity. Even with all that fighting, we get some good writing and dialogue work in, too. Hulk’s first words in his broadcast to the planet (“Puny humans. I’ve come to smash.”) are both familiar and chilling — this version of the Hulk is a great deal angrier, more intelligent, and a lot more dangerous than most of us are used to.

This one gets a big thumbs-up from me, and I expect I’ll be picking up the rest of the series, too.

Read this blog… or we shoot the Flash!

Hi there. My name’s Scott Slemmons. I’m the guy who does the online updating for FrenshipToday.com, plus I’m a general low-level flunky for LubbockOnline. Really, seriously low-level. Technically, the company cat can fire me.

So anyway, I decided I wanted to do a comics blog. ‘Cause, ya know, I read a lot of comics, and I like getting to write about why they work, and why they don’t work, and assorted and sundry other geeky stuff.

So I give a heads-up to Scott Phillips, LubbockOnline’s weblog guru and the guy who stole my first name. “Hey, Phillips,” says I. “I’d like to do a comic book weblog. When do I start?”

“Oh, hey, look at that,” Scott replies, suddenly looking over at the big TV mounted on the wall of the newsroom. “Anna Nicole Smith died.” The TV is currently switched off.

“Don’t change the subject,” I say. “I think it’d be pretty cool. Comics are pretty big business, and an important American cultural touchstone. They inspire movies, TV shows, novels. Sure, there’s a lot of dreck out there, but there are a lot of really wonderful comics, too. I could do reviews, analysis, historical stuff. I could also just geek out over cool comics and make fun of the dreck. I think it’d work.”

“Whoa, it’s lunchtime already?” says Scott, turning and sprinting for the door. “Better get going.” Of course, it’s just 9:15 a.m.

Well, okay, fine. Phillips is taking an early, early lunch break. “Hey, Judy! Scott Phillips said I could have a comic book weblog! Ain’t that great! No, no need to mention it to him. Could you make one of those awesome top-of-the-page headers for it? Muchos gracias!”

So, by hook and/or crook, I’ve got my comic book blog. But first, let’s make a few things clear, so we don’t misunderstand each other.

(A) I think of the modern-day comic book as a mostly adult medium. Some of the books I read include characters who cuss a lot, or indulge in really graphic violence, or run around without pants. If I recommend a comic book, that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for your kid. I believe that parents should review comics before they buy them for their kids to make sure there’s nothing there they won’t like.

(B) And because I think of comics as something adults can enjoy reading, I plan on talking about them as an adult. No, that doesn’t mean I plan on throwing F-bombs around or posting gory or pornographic pictures. But from time to time, we’ll be talking about politics in comics, religion in comics, race in comics, controversial comics, you name it. Honestly, at some point, we’ll discuss sex in comics — no, not porn, but the issues of sex, sexuality, body images, misogyny and more are currently very big in the comics industry, and there’s not much of a way to avoid ’em. There is more to comics than just escapist entertainment.

(C) But hey, escapist entertainment ain’t bad either, so we’ll try to have fun, too.

(D) Comics fans, I plan on talking about some stuff that you already know about. Yes, we all know that Alan Moore is awesome, that Grant Morrison’s JLA was the best ever, that MODOK fills our hearts with joy, that Rob Liefeld fills our hearts with rage. But there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll have an unusual number of readers who aren’t (or at least, aren’t yet) comics fans. So you comics readers will need to be patient while I explain some of the awesome stuff to the newbies.

(E) And non-comics fans, I’ll try to make sure everything makes some sort of sense. But sometimes, I’m just gonna post pictures of MODOK over and over and over, and if you complain, I’ll shoot you with my atomic zamboni pistol, see if I don’t.

(F) You probably won’t see me reviewing a lot of comic book movies or TV shows. The last comic book movies I saw and enjoyed were “V for Vendetta” and “Hellboy,” and I don’t watch “Heroes” or “Smallville” at all. I’ve had my heart broken by too many badly adapted comic book movies, and I now tend to avoid them altogether. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

(G) I prefer DC Comics to Marvel. I’ve picked up a few long runs of Marvel’s books from time to time, but I just tend to gravitate toward DC’s stuff. I don’t think there’s any deep reason why — from childhood, I’ve always been a DC reader more than a Marvel reader.

(H) I reserve the right to blog about non-comics subjects from time to time. I like comics, but I like other stuff, too.

There we go — introductions are out of the way. Better get this posted before Phillips gets back from lunch…