My Week In Comics 6-22-11

It's been a bit hectic the last few days, with Sunday's softball and our sponsor being Bar of the Week (two wins and raised over $300 for the team -- woo-hoo!), and yesterday and much of today helping a friend pack up his things for a move (which I'll be helping him do tomorrow), not to mention accompanying him on his trip to the emergency room due to abdominal pains (spent like 9 hours there but he's feeling better) yesterday. I still want to write about the Phillies' current circumstances and the Flyers' dramatic moves last week (with one more big one to come?) -- but, to get something posted, I'm taking the easy way out with these...

Action Comics 902: As we continue with "Reign of the Doomsdays" (and some more clunky dialogue) there's a new player in the game, Doomslayer, who wants to destroy the original Doomsday and the Luthor-produced clones. To do so he's willing to wipe out everyone on Earth, or at least Metropolis -- which, of course, Superman and his allies want to prevent. Doomslayer seems to be a much more evolved version of the original Doomsday, or perhaps he is the original, evolved and returned from the future. That, of course, would mean he's going to kill himself, which would mean he wouldn't go from Doomsday to Doomslayer, but if he doesn't become Doomslayer because he killed himself, how does he come back to kill himself? Head...spinning... Oh, and a character died at the end of issue 901, but what does it matter since the great DC reboot is coming?

Superman 712: Here's the description of the issue from DC's website: "Meet Los Angeles's newest super hero in the latest chapter of 'Grounded': Sharif! But Sharif discovers that in today's current cultural climate, some people don't want his help – they just want him gone. Can Superman aid Sharif and quell a prejudiced public, or are there some problems too big even for the Man of Steel to solve?" Well, a funny thing happened on the way to Los Angeles. This story was replaced at the last minute. This means that Superman's walk across the country has been interrupted three times now for unrelated stories, and with only two chapters left now before the reboot, this walk is limping to an end. Something in the story of Sharif (could it be that he has powers but hey, he's a Muslim so people think he must be a terrorist?) was deemed too controversial, and so the story can never see the light of day.

Then again, the story that actually appeared in the issue was also missing in action. It was originally slated to appear a few years ago. For reasons that weren't made entirely clear at the time, it was similarly pulled on short notice. I guess it was an emergency and something had to come out on Wednesday, so here it is. "Lost Boy: A Tale of Krypto the Superdog" is set shortly after "Infinite Crisis," in which Superboy died (until "Final Crisis" brought Conner Kent back to the land of the living) and Superman went missing after losing his powers. It deals with Krypto's reaction to these events, so it's mostly wordless (except for some flashback scenes), but Krypto's expressions -- and one long, loud, glass-breaking super-howl -- effectively tell the tale. It would have been better had it arrived on schedule, but it was worth the wait.

Why I'd Be A Bad Husband

Sure, New York state now has marriage equality after the state's Assembly and GOP-controlled (really? Really!?!) Senate passed legislation to allow same-sex marriages and the bill was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo last night.

It's a great day, it's annother step in the right direction, and it'll make for a helluva fun Pride parade tomorrow in New York City. But I've learned that I am not good marriage material. Why?

It seems I'm capable of forgetting to acknowledge anniversaries.

Such as the two-year anniversary of the creation of this very blog.

Even though I have a calendar nearby and "blog 2 yrs." is written on the box for the 22nd.

Once again, as the kids say, SMH.

Happy anniversary to me. Thank you for reading. Thank you, New York state, even though clearly I won't be taking advantage of your new law any time soon. (Although perhaps, if you're planning to get married, I can help. A long time ago I went through the process of becoming an ordained minister online. I never did anything with it, but I figure that, as same-sex marriage becomes more and more common, all the other ministers might be too busy and need my help...)

My Week In Comics 6-15-11

I was considering not buying the two DC books I picked up, with the coming reboot and all, but ended up doing so anyway -- one out of some loyalty to the character, and one because I looked at it in the store and decided I might like it.

Supergirl 65: With the last story arc having been completed, this is the first of the final three issues before September's relaunching. The description of the new Supergirl leaves me cold. So I wasn't going to bother with this, but decided to anyway. This new tale sends Supergirl to college (incognito, of course), at the request of Lois Lane, to try and learn why some college students are going missing.

Superman/Batman 85: Hadn't bought this book in a few months, because I was tiring of the stories they were telling, especially since they mostly weren't connected to the current events involving either title character. This story (again a three-parter, and this is one book that is actually gone come September), is, like the others, a flashback tale of sorts. It's set in the early days of the continuity that's about to disappear, a time when Batman and Superman were still a little distrusting of each other. The body of a reporter from Gotham City is found in Metropolis and Batman is the prime suspect in the murder. Sent by the Daily Planet to look into it, Clark Kent finds some evidence that actually could prove it. I enjoyed this -- the characterization hits the right notes.

Simpsons Comics 179: I get a weekly email from one of the stores I frequent, listing the new books coming out on Wednesday. This was not on the list. The fact that it was in the store and I didn't know it...disturbs me. Anyway, in this issue Lenny is taken in by a Scientology-like organization. There's also an ad for Simpsons Super Spectacular #13. "On sale in May!" it says. It's a little late, apparently.

Quick Review: Super 8

Here's the last of my writeups on the four movies I've seen recently. I'm caught up! (Except for two weeks' worth of comic books. And the Flyers suddenly went and blew up their team. And Roy Oswalt seems to be really hurting and might be out of the Phillies' rotation for an extended period. But more on those later.) "Super 8" is set in 1979, and in a small Ohio town we have a group of kids who are making a low-budget zombie movie. One night they're filming at a train station as a freight train is passing, when it is derailed, causing a massive crash. As the U.S. Air Force moves in, ostensibly to clean up the wreckage, strange things begin happening in the town. Dogs (and a few people) begin disappearing, there are power failures, and things turn a bit more sinister. The kids, while still making their movie, end up deeply involved in these events.

The trailers, with hints of some sort of creature, gave off a bit of a "Cloverfield" vibe, but fortunately "Super 8" has nothing in common with that overrated film except for camera footage being involved. "Super 8" is basically a Steven Spielberg mashup -- a little "E.T." here, some "Goonies" there -- directed by J.J. Abrams. Really, he's paying homage to Spielberg's early successes. However, Spielberg is a producer of the film. So does that make it an officially sanctioned homage? And is that a good thing? Might it have been more interesting if there were some twists in the Spielberg formula? It's well-done, the acting from a mostly unknown cast is fine, but it felt like I'd seen it before. And I did. In "E.T." and in "The Goonies" and... My grade: B.

Quick Review: Green Lantern

I was worried about "Green Lantern," based on the DC Comics character. Face it, once you get past Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman you're dealing with DC's second string. And look at the trouble DC's parent company, Warner Bros., has had turning their properties into films. They had to go back to basics with the Batman films after what Joel Schumacher did to them (and struck gold, to be sure). Their first Superman franchise reboot took forever and was not as successful as they wanted, so now they're trying again with a different director, star, etc. And Wonder Woman's been stuck in movie and TV limbo. So a Green Lantern movie would have to be done right to cross over to the public at large. The box office may ultimately tell a different story, but for me, it wasn't a huge success.

Ryan Reynolds isn't terrible as Hal Jordan, the test pilot who is chosen to become the newest Green Lantern of Sector 2814 (that would be the one that includes Earth, of course) and receives the green ring that grants him superpowers. (And, as you can see, he's pretty, although he doesn't show much skin in this movie.) But the plot is splintered, veering between Hal's getting the ring and learning how to use it and meeting other members of the Green Lantern corps, and the threat of an entity known as Parallax (the essence of fear, which is represented by yellow, although the entity itself seems to be a smoke monster), and the relationship between Hal and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), and then to Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a scientist who gets a piece of Parallax inside him and mutates into a villain himself, although he doesn't do all that much, really -- the character and actor are both pretty much wasted here. And to explain the history and mythos of the Green Lanterns and the Guardians who created them, and how green is the color of willpower, able to confront fear, and so on, took a lot of narration. I didn't dislike this movie as much as others, but it's still a disappointment. My grade: C-plus.

Quick Review: X-Men: First Class

Here's a combination prequel/franchise reboot. "X-Men: First Class" revolves around how Charles "Professor X" Xavier and Erik "Magneto" Lensherr (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as younger versions of Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen) became friends who eventually end up on opposite sides, while forming a team of mutants to help the CIA deal with the threat of other mutants. They're led by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who is instigating what turns out to be the Cuban Missile Crisis (and also has a past history with Erik). It's a solid enough film, and has one spectacular cameo that I won't spoil here. But as Shaw's fellow evildoer Emma Frost, "Mad Men" star January Jones is a weak link. Granted, it's 1962, but that doesn't mean we should be seeing Betty Draper with superpowers. My grade: B.

Quick Review: Kung Fu Panda 2

I'm behind in writing my movie reviews again -- two movies I saw over two weeks ago and two more I saw this week -- so I'm going to try and do four short posts over the next day or so, starting with the animated "Kung Fu Panda 2." For some reason the box office figures for the first weekend weren't as high as those for the first KFP (even factoring in money from 3D showings), and I really don't know why because the sequel is right up there, quality-wise. Our hero, Po (voice of Jack Black), the Dragon Warrior, and the Furious Five are tasked with stopping the evil Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), who has developed a powerful weapon that seemingly can't be stopped even by the most skilled kung fu practitioners. But Po is troubled by flashbacks of his mother, and needs to achieve inner peace before the fight is hopelessly lost. Lovely animation and, rare for a sequel, real character development. My grade: A-minus.

My Week In Culture

Before we get to my main topic, I just noticed...well, actually, I noticed it yesterday...that my last post was number 777. I do like the number 7, as you can guess from various email/screen names of mine. I'd like it to live up to its reputation and actually be lucky, though.

So this week I ventured away from my usual movies/sports/TV show morass. Twice. But hey, I have a good excuse: I was supporting my friends.

First up was a visit to the Shubin Theater, a very intimate -- okay, small: it seats just over 40 people -- venue around the corner from 4th and South Streets, for "All in the Timing" by David Ives. It's the inaugural production of the new WAG Theater Company, and the company's founder Brian Sell is on my softball team, so a bunch of us took in the show. "All in the Timing" is actually six short plays, very loosely connected by a theme of communication (and miscommunication) and its effect on the lives of people -- and, in one play, chimpanzees. (No actual chimps were harmed in this production.) One or two of the six plays were, for me, a little off-target, but overall the show was quite witty and at times hilarious.The actors (including Brian, who played one of the chimps) did very well. And the good news is, you can still see it, with three more shows June 23, 24 and 25. (Read more about the show and the company here and here.)

Then, tonight, it was time for "Mmm Bop: Best of the Boy Bands," the season-ending concert by the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus, at the Temple Performing Arts Center (formerly called the Baptist Temple) on the Temple campus. The entire show consisted of medleys of songs made famous by "boy bands." They use that term a little loosely, in my opinion, but it's technically accurate. Every song was by a duo or group consisting of males only. So while there was

My Week In Comics 6-8-11: A DC-less Preview

It was an interesting week in a couple of ways. First of all, I bought no DC comics. None of my regular books were out, and I wasn't interested in any of the "Flashpoint" tie-ins. Considering DC's pending reboot and my disdain for, and concern about, much of it, this could happen much more often come September. Perhaps even weekly. Since my last post, DC put out its word on the Superman books, and at least two of them -- the books starring Superboy and Supergirl -- are very likely off my purchase lists. I haven't decided on the Action Comics and Superman books yet. There's also been confirmation that the Lois Lane-Clark Kent wedding will no longer exist in the new order.

And there was this piece of information that is just going to lead to a lot of confusion some day, when future stories are being planned out. Many of the events that have happened in recent years are still going to be considered to have taken place, in the timeline that DC has built for itself:

DC confirmed that stories like Blackest Night, Brightest Day, Identity Crisis, Death in the Family, and Killing Joke are still part of the DCU history. In fact, editors said, some events in those stories are specifically referenced in September.

So they will have to explain how Barbara Gordon is no longer paralyzed, I suppose? The thing is, if the characters are supposed to be younger (after all, they want to try and get young people to buy into the new continuity), how can so many of these events have happened in such a brief period? Word is that while most books are set in what the story calls "contemporary times," two books -- "Justice League" and "Action Comics" -- are set at the "dawning of the age of superheroes," which, from one report, is only about five years earlier. And "Identity Crisis" was, in part, about superheroes' families being in danger after one wife is murdered (and their actions as a result). A major plot twist turns on a past event that some characters kept secret from others. If at least some of that history is gone, if some of those relationships (such as the Lois/Clark marriage) don't exist now, then how does the rest of the story make sense? I'm just not sold on any of this.

So on to the two books I did buy...

Around Town Yesterday/Boy Bands Saturday

I took a few photos while I was downtown yesterday picking up my comic books. Before I got to the comic book store, I saw something funny. It forced me to declare this man in the Kobe Bryant jersey as the Very Minor Dumbass of the Week. Why?

Well, he walked up to the door of the Borders at Broad and Chestnut and grabbed the door handle, attempting to go inside. He failed. After all, that Borders closed last month.

I guess the fact that it was dark inside and there were no books or anything in the windows was lost on him. On the other hand, it also seems to be lost on Philadelphia Weekly, or at least on its delivery person, who left a bundle of papers sitting by the door. So PW and/or its driver is the Not-So-Very Minor Dumbass of the Week.

So then I met my friend Kurt, got my comic books and