So I started reading, and collecting, comic books again a little over a year ago. This is what I bought today:

Conan and Green Lantern have yet to disappoint me. Conan starts a new arc about his mercenary days. Green Lantern wraps up Rage of the Red Lanterns. I was worried the whole Light War or whatever leading up to Blackest Night would be silly, but I'm finding it interesting despite the profusion of corps and colors. Since I've started reading again, I can't seem to go wrong with Green Lantern titles.

Wonder Woman is usually either hit or miss for me, though the current Rise of the Olympian arc has kept my interest. I was considering dropping that book from my pull list. I guess I'll hang onto it for a while if only to see how this works out. Oh, the variant cover looks better in person than it does online.

I don't really have an opinion on this issue of Superman other than it was decent. A lot of big changes are happening or have just happened, so I'll hold off on saying anything about all that. I will say the solution to a longstanding problem was a little too convenient. That was purposefully vague to avoid a spoiler...as if anyone reads this shit. Oh, and the cover was a little misleading. I'm actually looking forward to seeing Superman leave Earth for the year, though. After all, why not?

Batman: Gotham After Midnight: When will this stupid series end? I don't get what anyone sees in Kelley Jones' art. Batman's randomly "menacing" poses for apparently no reason are just silly. The villain is boring. When a new issue of this comes out, it's the last comic I read. Usually my first thought after reading it is, 'eh, who gives a shit?" The last two issues can't come fast enough.

Trinity: This book is terrible. At this point I'm only reading out of morbid curiosity. It's not All Star Batman and Robin bad. No, ASSBAR was at least unintentionally interesting because Frank Miller is apparently a psychotic fuck and was able to channel that insanity into the every issue. Trinity is just plain retarded. The whole tarot arcana conceit irritates the hell out of me. I hate it. It may be the worst concept...ever. Why did anyone think this was a good idea? To make matters worse, this story has no significance for the current DCU continuity. It doesn't count! What's the point then? Honestly, why the hell am I reading this? I ask myself that once a week. I should have cancelled at #15 like I planned. As far as weeklies go, Countdown (to Final Crisis) was better. Way better. That says a lot. I guess I'm only buying this because, well, I'm 39 issues in. I have to go to the end now. Maybe I can sell the full run once it's over. I certainly won't reread it. This may be the last weekly I buy. God I hate this book.

Man, I hope I got all of the typos out of this. I really don't want to read this piece of shit again.

Here's what I got today:

I also bought JSA #24

I don't normally read JSA, though I picked up the previous issue since it was a Faces of Evil issue. I like the Black Adam character I guess. Actually, I'm finding the whole Marvel Family to be interesting right now, but I especially like Black Adam. How can you argue with a guy that rips people in half in front of an audience to make a point?¹ This issue continues the story from #23. Maybe I'll get the other issues from this JSA run. I hear they're good.

I haven't had a chance to read any of them yet. I hope they're all good, though I'm guessing Trinity will really suck.²

There was an alternate cover for Superman: New World of Krypton #1. The local store wanted $25 for it. That seemed like a little much to me.

End Notes:
1. I quit reading comics for a long time, so I'm still catching up on some stuff. I'm reading 52 now which may explain my interest in Black Adam.
2. I hope I'm wrong about that. I hope I'm wrong every week.

I forgot to talk about last week's comics. Some of these didn't leave an impression. So, here's a brief recap:¹

Batman: Cacophony #3: Not a bad ending, I guess. I'm not sure Batman made the right choice in the end or what he expect the outcome might be. Sometimes I think the best solution really would be to just kill off the Joker for good. Why not? I get the whole idea that Joker needs Batman, but does Batman really need the Joker?

Black Lightning: Year One #5: I'll probably have to re-read this whole series to give an honest opinion of it. I like Black Lightning though. I wasn't overly excited to see the inclusion of Talia in the series. I'm not fan, though I don't dislike her as much as I hate Damian.

Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead #1: One week later, I can't recall what happened in this issue. That's probably not a good sign. I bought because it's part of the Battle for the Cowl arc. Other than that, I guess I give it a meh. I don't recall hating it.

Secret Six #7: I just started reading Secret Six. I picked up 1-3 and 5-6 cheap. I didn't get issue #4 until last week. Coincidentally, #7 came out that week. I can't find anything bad to say about this series. Initially I thought I would dislike Catman and Ragdoll. Turns out, the whole cast is enjoyable. Junior, the villain, has been pretty good too. Reading this caused me to get earlier Secret Six minis and Villains United. All in all, good stuff.

Solomon Grundy: Meh. I'm not buying any more of this. I think I finished reading it.

Superman: World of New Krypton #1: Pretty much begins to establish Superman's place on New Krypton. In this case, it's as a member of Zod's military guild. Apparently Supes has some issues with the idea of the assigned guilds within Kryptonian society, though he ultimately falls in line...for now? That discomfort could, potentially, make for an interesting story line or a powerfully silly one. Has Superman ever questioned the status quo on Earth?

Trinity #40: Continues to suck. This tarot inspired mystical bullshit around Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman is lame.

Yeah, so the "reviews" were lame too. Maybe I'll do better this week.

Oh, I didn't pick up any variant titles issues either. Talk about a rip off...

What I'm looking forward to: Action, Battle for the Cowl and Green Lantern.

Trinity will suck, but I hope not.

This week may be make or break for REBELS. Issue #1 didn't do much for me.

I'm not sure why I'm posting these pull lists. I guess comic book day guarantees at least one post a week. Since no one actually reads any of this, it doesn't matter what I write.

Other geekness:

1. I haven't seen Watchmen yet. Maybe this week.

2. Rumor has it Fox may cancel Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I sincerely hope not. I've enjoyed every episode this season (and last) and always look forward to the next. Honestly, I'd be surprised if they cancelled SCC this close to the release of the new Terminator movie. They better not.

3. I bought and watched a copy of the new Wonder Woman animated movie. It does not disappoint. This is the best of the DC animated movie I've seen (Superman: Doomsday & Justice League: The New Frontier). I haven't watched the Batman one yet. The anime art style doesn't appeal to me. The Wonder Woman bonus disk even comes with some preview stuff for the upcoming Green Lantern animated movie. Though to be honest, it looks like Hal Jordan may have something wrong very with his head and neck in the previews.

Here's some comedy gold: UFO Files: Ancient Aliens

This kind of program is always entertaining even if it is unintentionally so. What amazes about people that believe this stuff is that they're willing to take the miraculous events found in ancient texts possible while at the same time denying the known as real. For example, they'll believe that various Biblical references indicate the presence of aliens while being baffled that someone could build a pyramid. Visitors from space bequeathing civilization are more plausible than Egyptians finding the cardinal directions. Apparently it escapes these people that fiction and fictional embellishments to histories are as old as storytelling.

Another odd facet of these beliefs is the notion that entire disciplines of scientists, in this case archaeologists, are engaged in a massive coverup of facts that would rewrite all of human (pre)history. Believe me, nothing would bring more delight to an archaeologist, or scientists of any stripe, than overturning an existing paradigm and replacing it with something novel. Such a feat would secure anyone's legacy beyond narrow disciplinary definitions.

Silly.

But definitely entertaining.

[Thanks to mango for the video link.]

I finally got around to seeing Watchmen last night. I'd heard the movie was long, but I didn't realize how long. Two hours and 45 minutes. It's a good thing they didn't try to fill out some of the missing pieces of that movie. It would have been six hours long. I read somewhere that the director's cut DVD will be even longer, with over an hour of extra footage. I'm not sure if that's with or without the Black Freighter stuff woven into the movie. Frankly, I'm too lazy to look it up.

I can't help but be disappointed by Watchmen. Sure, there are significant parts faithful to the original text. Plenty of little things bugged me, but the ending just killed it for me. So here's some brief, day-after thoughts (and spoilers) after the break...

For those keeping score, here's what I bought this week. Nothing to say about them right now. I haven't even read everything from last week.

Since I accidentally re-upped this domain for another year not too long ago, I guess I should keep posting stuff. By accidentally re-upping, I mean that my godaddy.com account is set to automatically renew whenever the fuck this domain expires. I guess I should pay attention to those godaddy emails rather than just deleting them.

So, I'm going to make an effort to get my money's worth in blogging. Since absolutely no one but spambots read this is blog, it really doesn't matter what I write. Also posting nonsense here will give me another way to procrastinate, which is always good.

Yeah, I'm still buying comic books. So what? The comic book shop I was buying at quit selling new issues. They're doing trades, back issues and other stuff now. That sucks because they were nearby. On the upside, the new place I'm using gives a 15% discount if you use Comixology, which I do anyway. So that's good. The downside is that it's forever away from my place.

Anyway, here's what I bought this week. (Bought may or may not mean "wasted money on".)

Since there are spoilers in this post, you have to click to the Continue Reading... link to get the rest. Yeah, I know there's no one reading.

The Raw Story has reported this latest piece of lunacy broadcast by Glenn Beck:

On Sept. 11, 2009, he produced what may be his most confusing, conjecture-filled tirade yet. This time, he has somehow “connected” the dots, tying community organization ACORN, an international employees union, the City of New Orleans and former Obama green jobs director Van Jones into the Hurricane Katrina disaster

...

“Wouldn’t it be convenient, almost like they were …” began Beck. “Of course, I would neeeeeeever think, you know, anybody would ever call each other or send an e-mail to each other or work in a coordinated fashion because that’s conspiracy. Those are people that believe like, you know, Bush would blow up the World Trade Center. Those are conspiracy theorists, hypothetically, like Van Jones.”

They have audio of the whole ridiculous conspiracy theorizing in which he engages at the bottom of the page.

While his statements are seemingly too stupid to waste time on, it provides a clear example of his usual attempts to accuse without really trying to accuse. He's "hypothesizing," you see, and not really accusing because he doesn't have any real evidence, one way or another. This is the poorest form of public discourse, and I'm a guy that doesn't mind typos and profanity-laden ranting. Even worse, this guy gets paid for this shit!

It reminds me of another hypothetical accusation-without-actually-accusing that's making the rounds on the internet lately. I wasn't going to link to this, but fuck it:

Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a girl in 1990?

This site exists to try and help examine the vicious rumour that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. We don't claim to know the truth -- only that the rumour floating around saying that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 should be discussed. So we're going to do our part to try and help get to the bottom of this.

Why won't Glenn Beck deny these allegations? We're not accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering a young girl in 1990 - in fact, we think he didn't! But we can't help but wonder, since he has failed to deny these horrible allegations. Why won't he deny that he raped and killed a young girl in 1990?

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe this rumor at bit. There's no evidence of this accusation being grounded in fact. But then again, hypothetically, it could be true since Glenn Beck was alive in 1990 and was, hypothetically, physically capable of raping and murdering someone. Conveniently, we just don't know for a fact what did or did not happen in 1990. There certainly isn't any evidence against this rumor. But then again, I don't like conspiracy theories or rumors. It is an interesting hypothetical question though.

I meant to write this Wednesday, but that didn't work. Then I was going to write it yesterday, but that didn't work out either. I started on Friday, but then a bunch of other stuff distracted while writing. Technically I was working and work got in they way. I hate it when that happens. And finally, I just didn't yesterday.

But enough of that. Here's the new stuff I bought this week:

Spoilers below...

I'm bored.

But you know what's not boring?

The new Batman: Arkham Asylum game. It fucking rocks! It's even written by Paul Dini. Some of the voice work, including that of Batman and Joker, are done by the same folks who did the DCU animated series work; Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, respectively. There's a demo on the game site, so check it out and then play the real thing.

This game will kill hours of your life. I don't know why I'm not playing it now other than the fact that I feel marginally guilty about spending so much time playing this weekend.

Oh. There's also a version for consoles, but I don't know anything about that.

Last week I bought some comics and now I'm finally getting around to saying something about them.

Possible spoilers below the fold.

So I bought and read Ultimate Avengers #1 & #2. Turns out it wasn't bad. I don't know exactly what's going on, especially in terms of backstory, but it was an enjoyable read. So I'll read a few more issues to see what happens. I might even buy some Ultimates trades. That's the background stuff, right?

As if this blog hasn't gotten lame enough, here's a post about what I watched on television. And by watched on television I mean downloaded on the internet and watched on my computer.

Just in case I get spoilery and one of the two of you haven't watched either of these yet, I've split the post using the lame "below the fold" or "continue reading" function or whatever movable type throws in there. Fuck blogs are lame.

Also, Fox can suck a dick for canceling Terminator:SCC.

I really need to think of a better title for these comic book entries. Comics [date] is pretty lame or even shitty, if you will. Then again, why mess with tradition? I'd hate to betray my shitty blog roots.

Here's what I bought this week.

Wall of text with possible spoilers below the fold.

I don't have a lot of time this week so this will be short until I can write more. Here's what I bought:

No spoilers this time, but I have an asinine new rating system. That should make up from the lack of effort right? Here's the scale from worst to best:

Fuck no!
No.
Meh.
Yeah.
Fuck yeah!

Get it? It should be self-explanatory.

Batman Annual #27: I don't care for Azrael in any form. Meh.

Batman and Robin #5: This is the best Batman comic you can buy right now. This book just keeps getting crazier. Fuck yeah!

Batman Confidential #34: This is the only Batman comic you can buy with Bruce Wayne as Batman. Meh.

Final Crisis Aftermath: Run #6 (of 6): Final issue of the best of four lackluster FC followups. The series started Yeah, finished Meh. I can't imagine reading this again.

Justice League: Cry For Justice #4 (of 7): Why did I start buying this? Nice art, though some of the poses are a little on the ridiculous side. The dialog isn't very engaging either. There's a lot characters I just don't care about. Meh.

Superman: The World of New Krypton #8 (of 12): I like Superman. I don't care much for Thanagarians. I was going to give this an apathetic meh. But, if I just picked this up as a random issue without having read issues 1-7, I would have been said Fuck no!

I also picked up the trades for Ultimates (1-6 and 7-13): Fuck yeah, indeed! Thanks for the recommendation, guys.

Oh. And I finally got a copy of Batman: The Black Casebook. It a bunch of reprints of stories between 1951 and 1964 that inspired Batman R.I.P. If you like that kind of thing, you'll probably like this. The first story includes this classic scene.

Zombieland. Why did I go see this fucking movie?

I was bored last night and decided that a seeing a movie might be a decent break from work. So I went to the 10:10 PM showing of Zombieland. I've heard people say it's a good movie. Rotten Tomatoes lists an 88% Fresh rating. Turns out, 88% of movie critics are idiots. Now I'm tired and $10 poorer.

I spent most of the movie bored and waiting for something to happen. How the hell is this a zombie movie when most of the movie is spent with two (or four) idiots driving down the highway with no zombies? It's really easy to avoid being killed by zombies if you're nowhere near them. They should have called the movie Douchebag Road Trip with the Occasional Zombie. By the end, I was on the zombies' side. I didn't want the characters to live. They didn't deserve to live, especially after driving halfway across the country essentially to turn on a neon sign that says "Hey Zombies! Dinner is over here!" I wanted to see zombies ripping into their flesh and ending their pathetic lives. Seriously, nothing good can come from these four losers living another day even if it means the extinction of the species.

Even the supposedly hilarious cameo was a let down. It wasn't funny, or at least it wasn't $10 funny. The predictable ending to the cameo scene was incredibly lame. Who couldn't see that coming? Like an asshole, I sat through the credits waiting for the extra footage I'd heard about. I was told it was funny too. That was another waste of time. Honestly, I have no idea why I waited for it, but I was pissed that I did.

Here's what the whole experience boiled down to: It was as if I was starving to death and someone sold me a $10 shit sandwich while telling me it was great. Then after choking that down because I paid for it after all, I stuck around for a free diarrhea shake.

And now I can't get the taste of shit out of my mouth.

This week's books were all sorta lame. The weeks I skipped writing about were a mix of cool and lame.

Pull List:

Basically, none of them did much for me except Secret Six. It was guest written by John Ostrander and focused on Deadshot and his uncontrollable murderousness. Secret Six continues to be one of my favorite books and has yet to disappoint, even with a guest writer.

Not relevant to this week, but Superman Secret Origins also kicks ass.

I also picked up Batman Unseen (Doug Moench and Kelley Jones) and Batman: The Widening Gyre (Kevin Smith, Walter Flanagan and Art Thibert). Batman Unseen was okay. Kelley Jones' artwork bugs the shit out of me. I hate the way he draws the Batcave and its equipment. I fucking hate the random, baffling poses he puts Batman in during dialog scenes. It's as if he's personified Shatner's fucked up vocal acting via Batman. It makes me stabby.

Ok. Batman: The Widening Gyre may be the biggest piece of shit I've ever purchased. Why did I buy another fucking issue? I swore I wouldn't but then I did. Kill me now please. The first four pages were so fucking bad that I stopped reading it and actually worked on my goddamn dissertation instead of finishing it. It took hours before I could force myself through the rest of it.

This is perhaps one of the worst pages of Batman dialog I've ever read. (Warning: Large image file).

"Business, Robin. Mind it."? Suddenly Batman is a 12-year-old girl? Is he going to text his BFF, Jill, next?

The Robin art sucks too.

And you know what really sucks? I'll probably buy the last three because I hate having missing issues. God damn it so much. I hope you're fucking happy, DC.

Also, these rule:

Last week was a slow week in comics. Thanksgiving also pushed back comic book day to Thursday. I bought the following shit:

The upside of the past week was that I didn't have to spend so much money. This is a damn expensive hobby sometimes, so I've been thinking about titles to drop. The hard part with dropping titles from my pull list is not picking up other shit to fill the gap.

Batman Confidential has been really boring lately. When I first got back into comics, this title was in the first batch I bought. These first subscriptions were all Batman related. Currently this is the only Bat-title featuring Bruce Wayne as Batman. As always, the Batman Confidential focuses on stories outside of the main Batman continuity. So in some regard, it's irrelevant to everything else DC is doing. Unfortunately, the stories haven't been compelling enough to read alongside every other Bat-title. It's not that the stories are bad, it's just that they're not very interesting. I can't wait for this arc to finish and that has been my mindset for a while now. So after this arc, Batman Confidential may be on its way out for me.

Blackest Night: The Flash #1 & Blackest Night: Wonder Womam #1 are tie-ins to Blackest Night. Both are solid enough tie-ins, I guess. They're certainly not worse than the awful Titans tie-in. Since Wonder Woman can only be read about in Wonder Woman, it was nice to read something else that featured her and which didn't deal with the mess going on in her main title.

I really don't care about Barry Allen so much, or any other version of the Flash, though I'm reading Flash: Rebirth. This three part series may be worth it for Rogues. Honestly, the Rogues are way more interesting than the Flash.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep #6 is just a graphic presentation of the book by the same name. You know the one that inspired Bladerunner? If that's your kind of thing it's worth reading.

Superman: The World of New Krypton #10 was decent this issue. Adam Strange shows up and there's a murder that must be solved. So, Strange and General El team up. There are only two issues of WoNK left. How is this entire series going to resolve and what has been the point? I guess we'll have to wait. I'll probably re-read them all when #12 final ships. I'm not convinced this series has told us anything interesting or new about Superman. I would have liked for WoNK to have include more culture shock for Superman and more tension and uncertainty on his part. Oh well.

One issue brought up recently in regard to New Krypton has been the labor guild's underrepresentation within (New) Kryptonian society. They have no representation on the council and essentially an oppressed class whose only role is to labor for everyone else. This is an interesting idea and could have been expanded upon in this title. So much more could have been done with this opportunity to discuss class relations, labor, etc. Instead, the issue is acknowledged by Kal-El and others, but is then ignored. I would have loved for a labor rebellion to have occurred and Supes to have sided with the working class. Hell, wouldn't it have been more interesting if Superman choose to join the labor guild instead of the military? I think so.

So anyway, those are the comics I bought and read.

One day I'd like to write something about ideological representations within the DCU, though that sounds like a lot of work.

DCU IN 2010: WELCOME TO EARTH ONE

That major publishing event we mentioned earlier today? Well, here it is.

Original stories featuring Batman and Superman in graphic novel form from the biggest creators out there. But these aren’t one-offs. We’re talking ongoing series of OGNs in a new continuity, on a new Earth.

Sound appealing?

Starting next year, DC Comics will unveil SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE and BATMAN: EARTH ONE, two graphic novels spotlighting the most powerful heroes of the DC Universe, with their first years and earliest moments retold in a standalone, original graphic novel format, on a new earth with an all-new continuity.

There's a word I'm looking for here, but I can't seem to find it. It starts with a u, I think.

Unnecessary?
What the fuck, DC? Final Crisis opened up the possibilities of the Multiverse again. So what's the first thing they think to do?

Oh! I know! Let's do origin stories for Batman and Superman, because nobody has ever read that before! --Some douchebag at DC

Yeah, I know. Superman and Batman move books. They're classics. You know why? Because everybody knows their fucking story already! And before you jump in to remind me that I'm reading Superman: Secret Orign, I just want to say "shut the fuck up." There are issues that need to be set straight with New Earth Superman in light of various changes, crises and whatever crap they're going to pull next year with War of the Supermen. Or at least, that's how I'm justifying it.

Look, create some interesting new characters. Use the Multiverse to create different worlds and different heroes. Yeah, the Legions of 3 Worlds were cool and it was cool that an assload of Supermen showed up at the end of Final Crisis. But do we really need more stories dedicated to exploring these characters' origins? What is going to make Earth One special that will differentiate it from New Earth? Is changing the tone of the basic story enough to justify publication?

Maybe we'll see some exciting new tweaks and changes.

Superman catches kryptonite mutated herpes and has to explain it to Lois.

We learn that Batman spends his off-time trolling the internet using the Bat-Computer because he's a /b/tard.

Ultimates?
Or, is it just that DC really wants to create its own Ultimates line?

I understand to motivation to bring in new readers. But do different continuities really do that or do they just get existing readers and collectors to add more shit to their pull lists?

I want something new to read.

I haven't read anything yet, but here's what I bought.