Here is where you should go:

I don't post here anymore.

Go to Http://www.RedMages.net and get caught up!
Web comic that's updated several times a week, and more...

Batman musings

You know what I think would be hilarious?

Retelling All Star Batman and Robin with action figures or dolls.

HeroesCon 2007, summery of sorts

Well, I was really fatigued after the con - imagine that. Anyway, I'll post the highlights.

During the DC Nation panel I asked if there was a point to Amazons Attack. I asked bluntly, for two reasons. First of all I couldn't think of a better way to ask, and nerves were a little fuzzy from actually being called on. Second, I thought Didio could dig into the question with his usual snarky replies. It worked, and he continued to point in my direction when talking about possible upcoming titles and explaining how they will be good to read. I wasn't frustrated/angry about being the butt of his banter - I was laughing and smiles the whole time.

Afterwards I came up and explained my take on it, and he acknowledged that the delays with Wonder Woman messed the timing up, and it didn't have nearly the impact it should have had with other big events going on. I then asked if there was a point to the series, asking if there was a worthwhile reward at the end. He said yes, and mentioned a bit about Wonder Girl, but that fits in with what we all now know about the new miniseries with her. I then went fanboy on him and got my photo with him, just like last year.

The next day at the Countdown and Beyond panel I waited till the lightning round Didio does - quick questions and answers near the end of the panel for those who have yet to attend something he hosts. I asked another sharp question - "Where's Azrael?" Didio paused a moment as voices rose up from the crowd and then responded with "He's Dead! He's the one hero who stays dead!" It was another fun moment I thought.

On the final day I had my photo taken with Rosario Dawson, and I can honestly say she is a truely lovely person. I could have been starstruck by her, but she also felt genuinely enthusiastic about being there and among the comic crowd. She was digging into an Unmasked Joker figure while I was chatting with her briefly with my quarter-minute of fame.

I also arrived with 400 NCGA fliers, and all but maybe 30 vanished by the end of the convention. Here's hoping quite a few emails are sent to the guy on the flier...

If anyone has questions about the con, ask me in the comments section - You'll help jog my memory and I can answer them to the best I'm able...

Kalinara Interview/meme

1. If you could see/make one superhero settle briefly in your hometown who would it be?

Easy, and unexpected answer I think: RoboCop. I just want to see him partolling downtown and around the city limits. And of all the heroes I know, he's the most realistic and most reasuring to those that see him.

2. What comics figure would you least trust to take care of goldfish?

Aquaman, because he would talk to the fish. The fish would then see the world is much bigger, and thus grow to fit its new world. We'd have to call the JLA then, and Aquaman would be too busy to clean his mess up being king of the ocean. Batman would show up and punch the fish though, so I guess it isn't such a big problem. Still, it could all be avoided by keeping Aquaman away from goldfish.

3. Alfred or Jarvis?

Jarvis would be fun as a butler, but you'd never get your hat back from him. Alfred gives better advice anyway. Wait...the Mad Hatter is Jervis Tetch, right? Answer stays the same I guess - Alfred wins. He's immune to Batman's punches and kicks.

4. Robots or Aliens?

Klaatu barada nikto, baby.

5. If you could make one change to the bat titles, what would it be?

Make Paul Dini the sole writerof all Batman related titles, and make it impossible to become fatigued and impossible to rehash old stories as long as they unoriginal.

Thanks Kali!

Simone on Birds of Prey, a conspiracy?

I think so many people are going to post about the obvious, I'll think I'll go a little conspiracy theory-ish.

Gail Simone was announced as the ongoing writer for Wonder Woman today.
She takes over on issue #13.
Today is Friday the 13th, of April.
April is the fourth month of the year.
There will be four writers on the WW relaunch before Simone.
This is 2007.
Two issues before Simone will be part of Amazons Attack.
The seventh issue of WW came out this week.

Sometimes suffering from apophenia is fun!

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!

Strange New Creatures Found in Antarctica

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Happy 666 day, everyone

About this time I wish I was in Hell for all the fun going on today, because it was a typical day at work. When got home I did nothing but lay around too tired to do much of anything.

I packed two shipments worth, which was nice. Just so you know, that doesn't mean two days worth of work - one shipment is the minimum amount we can send over. Basically, I did twice the minimum about of work, or, a little more than what I should have packed.

Anyway, happy number-of-the-beast day. One thing I can thank christianity for is their take on the end times. Celebrate 666 with plenty of sacrifices to the dark one (now accepting any directed my way)!

Saw X-Men 3 last night...

All I can really say is "wow."

Wow, as in impressive special effects.
Wow, as in terrible writing.

I'll try to keep spoilers out.

Honestly, I don't care that Ratner took over directing. I don't care that they killed people off. I don't care that Storm had more screen time due to her having an Oscar and demanding it.

Still, there was little plot except as an excuse to fight. Mutants tossed in that really didn't belong half the time (I'll admit you need many mutants for an army, but they don't all need screen time). Glaring continuity problems. And, contrary to what Piccard was trying to teach the kids early on, there are no ethics or morals involved at the end - it is just one massively pretty battle.

It's sad too, becuase there were several moments where the film touched a very strong core. Angel crashing through the window and escaping over the street protest. Close up on Rogue when the cure is announced. Magneto working his magic is equally fun to watch.

I'll give it a C overall. If it would have been well written and executed it would have been much higher, and only the visuals save it from a worse grade.

All Star Batman & Robin is Awesome!

I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, but I think All Star Batman & Robin is awesome. I can't wait to see how the series wraps up. There is so much that could happen, and I can't wait to read it. Frank Miller is awesome.

Ok, this is where I take a breath at just the right moment and deliver an ill concieved punchline.

By awesome, I mean awesome like a car wreck. As bad as it may be, you can't help but watch as medics arrive and pull the bodies from the mangled wreckage. Issue two was a train colliding with the car wreck. Three was a plane making an emergency landing on top of the train. As for issue 4, I'll say Bizarro tossed a cruise ship on the whole mess becuase nobody wants to go on a cruise when they are sad.

The only redeming point in the issue, or the whole series so far, has been the six page fold out of the batcave. Still, even that was tainted by lots of Frank Miller homages. He is basically tagging with his hand that which he did not create - I seem to remember that being called vandalism. Problem is, DC gave him permission for this monstosity.

Still, I suppose I can be content in the knowledge that Frank Miller got Batman. Imagine what he would have created given access to Superman or Wonder Woman. Wait, he did have Superman running (running! Frank, the man can fly) and I think Wonder Woman is on the cover of an upcoming issue. Crap. This will never end...

More on Batgirl

I seem to stuck on a tangent of Batgirl. Yes, I like her character a lot becuase she is so dynamic, and she has faults that really appeal to me.. So what am I going to ramble on about today? I just read a handful of back issues of Batgirl, and something stood out.

Cassandra can't enjoy a vacation, despite what Barbara treats her to. The male audience was treated as well, as Barbara forces her to wear a bikini. It's funny, but it matches her well style wise. Also, I don't know if it was intentional, but the color they chose to use for skin while out in the sun in the bathing suit made her look rather pale - and I liked that, but that's just my opinion.

It also made for some good moments of her looking evil thanks to her dislike of the situations (though part of that was Superboy, and his 'posturing' around her.). I really liked the shadows under her eyes when she handed the beachball over, as well as other similar moments.

Also was nice touch of her ripping her dress to provide a disguise. It stayed true to her mentality of operating firstly by resourcefulness. Though the dress looked good on her, and was no doubt expensive, she was more interested in keeping her fighting-persona a secret.

Didn't care too much for Superboy's part in the short plot arch. I'm used to the more sobered version in the comics now, and he just didn't serve a large purpose other than to spin off the short-lived romantic interest for Cassandra.

So in the end the image of Cassandra in the twopiece has been burned into my brain. If it weren't for my modesty I would have said it was sexy, but that's not my style. I liked that they didn't exploit her in her little outfit, and the chance to see her on vacation.

Mishaps and Motivation

Well, this week at work has been...interesting. Aside from a minor mishap earlier in the work in which I smashed my hand in a cable assembly, today held a majority of the craziness (minor, becuase it only bruised a little). I'd go into more detail about why it was crazy, but I really can't talk about the products we work on, especially on a public forum. Most at work chalked it up to it being Friday the 13th, which I laughed at a little. Nothing like a supposed outside force to place the blame on your own shortcomings, instead of taking responsibility. However, it wasn't out fault for the biggest incident, and for that I laugh maniaclly as all of my work this week was for naught.

Still going strong on World of Warcraft. Pushing hard for level 20, and as of tonight when I logged off I was only a little bit away from getting there. After that I "plan" to relax a bit and merge other things back into my off time from work.

Crazy thing is, a friend of mine is building a D&D campaign. I offered to play when he gets it ready, which will probably take up my weekends. More on that as it develops.

So the real question remains, when do I get to read my comics? Answer: Usual times. In fact WoW had messed me up for normally posting about this week's cashing in.

So, what was good?

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #199
I really liked how this story ended. I have to say, I was a little worried how it would end. At first I was planning for the story to just fizzle out when Batman stopped him. The way it ended, the way it unfolded, was pulled off in such a way I almost didn't want to read anything afterwards to keep from that feeling of satisfaction from getting spoiled.

That's all I had subscription wise, which surprised me.

I thought Green lantern was supposed to come out this week, but I saw it nowhere - guess it's off schedule a bit. I also picked up Batman: Detective 27, the new batman Elseworld book. I'll review it when I get around to reading it (hopefully this weekend, since I love Elseworld).

Infinite Crisis #4 comes out nextweek, and I'm excited...

Greatest B Movie, Ever.

Robot Jox

So here's the short version of how I got this movie. I went out to Media Play to look for nice deals, well, relatively nice. If you didn't know, Media Play is going out of business (I don't know how widely they are spread in the US) and everything is discounted. Funny thing, is that since Media Play marked up their prices the discounts put their stuff back in range with Best Buy, basically. I had hoped to find a copy of Star Trek III, since it's the only Star Trek movie I'm missing. No luck finding it, but they had about 14 copies of Robot Jox sitting all together in its own section of DVDs. I remember the movie from when I was a kid, and remembered it being good, but not what it was about. Being very curious I picked it up for the price of a Walmart bargin bin pull.

So what's the movie like? The plot is very basic, two Robot Jox (pilots) have it out for each other, and they do stuff to make each other fight each other. Also, the acting is very stiff and stereotypical. The 'bad guys' are basically Cold War Russians, though their accent switches from Russian to Western European. Oh yeah, and luckily both the good guys and bad guys hang out in the same bar, even though they fight for the world.

There are basically three characters you need to keep up with, and yes these are their real names. Achilles, the nearly monotone hero of the movie. Alexander, the villainous Dracula-inspired communist who likes breaking the rules. Athena, the tomboyish girl who falls in love with the hero and battles to bad guy to save the hero, and gets herself nearly killed to provide motive for the hero when he finally battles the bad guy. Finally there are two other not-so-important characters, the flamboyantly Texan hero of the past (named Tex Conway) and the stereotypical intelligent Japanese scientist that develops the super secret weapons (whose name I cannot remember).

Like I said, the acting is stiff and mostly pointless filler. You don't feel for any of the characters, and they provide nothing for the movie. You should also know that the dialogue is cheesy, and usually over compensated by extreme facial expressions (especially by Athena). I should note that Athena could be considered cute in some ways, except for her horrible hair. I'm usually not that picky about hair, but this is a bad mess of a swept back mullet pulled into a rat-tail twist. I can't find an image, but take my word on it.

Ok, so two of the three main areas of a good movie are a bust, how is the third one - special effects? Surprisingly good, more so if you are a fan of mecha (Battletech, Transformers, Gundam, even ED-209 and Lego fans will more than likely love this film). Obviously you can tell some scenes are overlayered and greenscreened, but the effects are still handled well.

Here's the tally of what you'll get:
-Hero is his with a sedative and fights the female pilot, they tear up the room, and the hero wrestles the girl onto his bed and tries to kiss her (which she bites him and kicks him in the groin, allowing her to leave)
-Laserbeams, missiles, pneumatic punching, rocket-punches, spiked mace, and jetpacks
-Different mech designs (Biped and Quad, short and tall)
-Extreme espionage action
-Pro-steroid storyline
-Multiple battles in different environments (well, three battles in two different areas)
-Classic opening narrative After World War III, war was outlawed...

Ok, that doesn't make you want to see the movie, here are bonus points!

-The hero attempts to save the crowd at one battle, but ends up having his mech fall on the crowd, killing hundreds instead of a handful that would have been killed otherwise - causing the match to become a draw!
-Final battle goes from land into space, and back to earth - ending with a sticks and stones as the pilots face themselves one-on-one death match style, with fire!
-There is no sound in space!
-Achilles's mech gets damaged in the ankle!
-Mech transformers from mech to airplane, and from mech to tank-mech-thing that drives around like he's sitting!
-Surprise twist ending!

Now here are the really absurdist that need mentioning, and may push some of you to seek the movie out...

-Chainsaw from the groin area as a phalic weapon, attacking the cockpit of the other mech!
-Bare butt shots of both Achilles and Athena, so both camps of fans will be pleased!

That's all I've got, go rent it. It really is an increadible movie if you can get past the acting. In fact, you should go out and get it, and if worse comes to worst just fast forward to the battles. This is the closest you're going to get to an American mecha film, aside from the sequel Robot Wars.

And so vacation has ended...

As mentioned before, this past week I have been up north in the land of ice and snow. I didn't suffer the cold as much as others feared I would due to the lack of leaving the safety of indoors. Being up there was a bit exhausting, but I really enjoyed myself (I had my sleep schedule adjusted, and wasn't long enough of a stay to fully adjust).

The last few days rushed by, and here I am typing about them the day after returning to my home in the south. In case you are wondering, I have reason enough to type. I hid a small gift for my girlfriend until the final night, in order to make the presentation something special. She appeared to like it which boosted my spirits from the anxiety of what could have happened otherwise.

In truth, in the back of my mind I was wondering before the trip if we would still have the chemistry we had in the past. We have stayed in good communication for (I think) about six years, but only became serious midway this past year. All those fears were gone when it was time to leave yesterday, and it honestly felt like I was leaving something behind. I now view us as close as ever, and eagerly await our next meeting in person (which will unfortunately be several months at earliest). She will likely tell you I have a habit of thinking far too much about everything.

Enough of the silly romantic ramblings - on to the craziness. It didn't take too long to pack up everything since I didn't spread out very much. I wanted to arrive maybe 2 hours prior to take off, just out of paranoia and a habit of arriving early.

It was a good call...

After our final hug and handing over my luggage, I headed off toward the concourse. Before not too long did I realize it was the wrong one, and made the correction - wasn't a bad mistake and didn't cause any slight embaressments.

Security was a bit of a pain. Coat in one bin, laptop case in another, laptop in a third, shoes and pocket stuffs in a fourth, and finally slid my backpack through. I took up the entire counter space ahead of the metal detector. A guard checked my boarding pass and ID, and signed the ticket. As I had quickly packed everything back up a guard came over and asked if the boots belonged to me, which they did. Turns out I had forgotten about my Swiss army knife that serves as part of my keychain. They didn't catch it on the flight up, so I didn't even think about it. Strike one for me.

I couldn't just give it up due to sentimental value, so I had them escort me out of the checkpoint. At check-in I had to explain everything that occured as well as present my luggage ticket and boarding pass. They took my knife and keys and slid them with a printout in a bid along the conveyer to the hidden void behind the counter that magically puts your bags on a plane (hopefully the correct one). I had to put blind faith in the workers that they would put my knife and keys in the right bag, or else problems would arise fairly quickly.

I lugged my bags and coat back through security. By this time a line had formed, so I had a little longer wait than before. No matter though, I still had a good chunk of time left before boarding was scheduled. I lined everything up in practically the same order as before at the same station, and slid them through as routine required. Different guards were stationed this time, and upon inspecting my ticket the new gaurd signed off to the side of the first. Shortly after I had nearly finished repacking everything up once again I heard a now familiar line. "Do these boots belong to you?" Strike two.

Turns out I still had a small folding knife in my wallet. Totally forgotten about since I aquired my Swiss army knife, and religated to the status of an emergency blade. The last time it was picked out was returning home from Japan the second time I visited, and even then it wasn't picked up when I traveled to there. It wasn't picked up by any security for any other flight, and so it has never crossed my mind - until it was caught this time.

Again I was escorted out of the checkpoint, and again I walked up to the check-in terminal and spoke to the same guy, about the same situation, and handed over a second knife. Who knew quiet little me was armed so well?

Security checkpoint, third attept. I was hoping I would have something else that would throw off the alarms so I could win the jackpot, but I finally cleared the checkpoint. The guard looked at my boarding pass and chuckled, not bothering to add a third signature to my collection. I packed everything up in what felt like record time thanks to recent practice, though I stuffed my coat into my bag (finally too worked up for the warmth).

I couldn't help but grin as I walked off.
I had an hour left before boarding time.

After arriving at my destination, 20 degrees warmer, I discovered my knives were in my bag as promised and fell asleep in the car on the way home.

I like to let my mind wander from time to time to try to think about the abstract connections thing tend to have. I tend to not pay any attention to them, but sometimes I can't deny how strange some things come together. For all the wierd coincedences bringing my girlfriend and I together, I can't help but think the minor hardships I encountered as I left were a way of fate trying to keep me there.

It's silly and I don't believe in fate, but I can't help but try to rationalize what I observe when logic breaks down. Either that, or I should pay more attention to how many knives I carry on a plane...