Comic stores and Comic shops

I was in Chapel Hill on Saturday with my girlfriend, heading over to their Botanical Gardens. Along the way we saw the storefront for Ultimate Comics along with Season's Greetings. So, after lunch at a Persian restaurant, she went to Season's Greetings for a little shopping so I went to the comic store although I wasn't actually looking for any comics at that time.

I was confronted with a bare bones store as the store was in the process of moving and was in its last days. The clerk was helpful in telling me about the sale and the location of the new store that was already open. We talked a bit, he showed me the old sign to Second Foundation, THE comic store of Chapel Hill when I was in college. After several minutes hanging around, I decided to go to the new store just about four miles away near I-40 on 54.

The new store is very nice and spacious. Along the wall by the entrance are shelfs spotlighting various single titles while the middle of the store is devoted to bookshelves of trades, arranged solely in alphabetical order, no differentiation between companies. Near the front by the checkout desk is an area devoted to comics AND collections for kids and all-ages. Which is interesting because this means that the shelves with all of the current and new monthly comics is actually two-thirds to the back of the store with back-issues behind those shelves, almost blocked from view.

Like the clerk at the other store, the clerks here seem focused on customer service, engaging customers in conversation and freely talking about the history of the store and what they are doing in the community in regards to organizing comic shows and such. They also push a mailing list for people interested in order to communicate sales and such and talked of business, of being open to buying comics for trade, etc. They communicated their love of comics and such without actually denigrating any creators or particular style. Despite my rather odd choices for purchase, two different clerks spoke positively of them. All giving a positive shopping experience (compared to going to Acme Comics where I feel like a dinosaur as clerks freely talk about their favorites of current crops of writers, their disdain of others like Byrne).

Overall, the store communicates a very professional atmosphere. It is interesting to see the subconscious message that it communicates due to the prominent placement of trades over the monthly comics, where it sees the direction of comics going and where the money is to be made.

The store really only had two flaws against it in my eyes. One, it actually needs more trades. The place has the space to easily double or triple the shelves they have and what they carry. Especially as that seems to be their focus. Maybe that's the plan as they get more established. I didn't see any Manga collections nor recall many if any copies of the b/w Showcase and Essential volumes. While they give prominence to the trades and a professional and uncluttered look, they don't have a bigger selection of said books than Acme Comics out of Greensboro, really not much more so than your Barnes & Noble when you take into account the mega bookstores DO carry manga.

The other is that all of the current comics are already bagged and boarded. This cuts down on people handling and reading comics in the store without buying them, but it cuts down on browsing and casually checking various titles to see if you're interested in picking them up. Such as I saw they had Birds of Prey and had heard some good things concerning the title now that Gail was back on it and was a bit curious to try it out despite my ban on buying Black Canary these days. However, I wasn't going to pick it up without looking inside of it first. And, there was nothing on the racks that prompted me to go through the trouble of asking the clerks if I could open it. In fact, it did bite me in the posterior when I did pick up one book without checking the insides based solely on the fact it featured GA characters, Larsen and Image's issue of Silver Streak Comics.

I also picked up a collection of the color strips of The Norm, an overlooked gem of a comic strip from a couple of years ago. The fact that I didn't know this latter book existed and had not seen Silver Streak at any of the other stores I frequent though I had heard it had been published does speak at the very decent variety actually offered. I don't know if it will ever replace my shopping at Foundation's Edge in Raleigh, which is closer after all and I have two decades of knowing the owner nor the convenience of Acme Comics as I'm in Greensboro half the time. However, if I'm looking for something specific or they have a good sale going on, it's only an hour away from either place I call home.

Comic Reviews:
As I've already talked about them, we'll start off with the recent purchases before moving on to to other titles.

The Norm: A great collection of the Sunday strips and a few notes in the back talking about a few key strips and what the Michael Jantze was trying to do. Norm is a twenty something working in the world of publishing, navigating the worlds of best friends, girl friends, and later married life, in-laws and unemployment and having a baby conversations. Along the way, we get what it is to be a man in the modern age, of being a man on the inside but often feeling like a boy in a man's body given to flights of fancy. Unfortunately, the Sunday strips don't really show the strip always at its best and it seems to skip many of the ongoing events and narrative of the overall story such as him just waking up one day married and a whole year of his life gone by. Instead, we move from strips with him hanging out with whatever girlfriend he has and his best friends to just being married. Funny when it was part of the narrative, but this snapshot approach, it feels clunky and non-sensical. Also a downer is that the strips are at different sizes, a couple of them done at an extra large size that a single Sunday strip extends across the spread of two pages. This doesn't work as it doesn't take into account the center fold of the spread and so details and text are completely lost in the gutter. Still worth the money for the creativity that Jantze shows in his approach to the medium and storytelling. If you want to see a bunch of the strips and just how much his art and storytelling grew over the years go to gocomics.com.

Silver Streak Comics: I really have myself to blame. I wasn't too impressed with their Fantastic Comics in the Next Issue Project and given the fact that the comic was bagged and boarded so I couldn't check the insides first, I should have listened to that little voice in my head.

Larsen's Daredevil story is a thin-bare plot suitable for a Hellboy comic but without the charm or spookiness. Larsen's writing has always been episodic, much like a soap-opera. He writes action scenes and vignettes that build into a larger narrative. However, as standalone shorts like this, what we have is just a vignette or a scene not a story.

And, it's the best out of the bunch. The rest is full of self mockery and pastiche, not playing the characters as straightforward heroes but as commentary either on superheroes or the differences in the times. Silver Streak and Captain Battle almost succeed but have that same undercurrent of not taking the characters seriously. The one-page comedy strip has to do it with a post-modern bent and instead of coming up with something funny delivers something that makes you want to slash your wrists. Actually makes you want to read the Superpowers versions of the characters.

Speaking of Larsen's comics, I recently picked up an issue of Savage Dragon as it guest-stars Daredevil. Sadly, it looks as if he has embraced modern coloring. Everything was dark and intense, and the colorist putting highlights on individual muscles making them look plastic. I couldn't get past the coloring to even see if the story itself struck me as being any good.

DC Universe: Legacies: DC has launched a new mini-series, a sorta Marvels as a look at the history of DC comics starting with the golden-age and working more or less towards the present through the eyes of a common man.

As the first two issues deal with the JSA and the golden-age, and has artwork by Andy Kubert inked by papa Joe Kubert, they were pretty much must buys. It is interesting to note that the title is fairly literal. The heroes prominently featured are ones with modern day legacies: the Atom, Sandman, Crimson Avenger (though his legacy is very minor), Dr. Fate, Spectre, etc. The scenes of the various heroes also seem to be mostly from actual GA stories, the exception being the Atom and Sandman working together on a case but not as part of the JSA.

Now, with a universe that undergoes major continuity revisions every couple of years and minors ones constantly appearing in ongoing titles, a series like this can be helpful in smoothing out a few wrinkles and setting stuff up. Yet, with the second issue, the mini already goes astray in that it applies an all new retcon on top of other retcons ie it makes TNT and Dyna-mite the replacement heroes for Green Arrow and Speedy in the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

This is a bad retcon on several layers. One, the Seven Soldiers are a team of non-powered heroes. The Shining Knight is the powerhouse in the sense he has magic armor, sword and a flying horse. TNT and Dyna-mite upset that dynamic. Not only that, they are so powerful that although they are the retcon characters, they are now the power-houses of the team. It violates the spirit and balance of the team. Two, there are already retcons in place that explain who replaced Green Arrow and Speedy. Two retcons actually. The first was just the promotion of Billy Gunn and Wing to full status. Not a good explanation really since both are partners of other members it still leaves no one to plug into Green Arrow segments of the adventures. A second retcon was of the Spider whom James Robinson had made into a villain and traitor. Again, not a comfortable fit since it adds un-necessary baggage and not one I like as it takes a hero and recasts him as a villain, a specialty of Robinson's. But, it is an explanation. So, unless a later retcon is going to come along and clear things up and be a better fit... but, that brings us up to point number three. Some fans with whom the Spider as a traitorous member and/or TNT's death in Young All-Stars doesn't sit well, optimistically rejoice, seeing this as over-writing both events. Others, are just curious what this actually means for TNT and Dyna-mite as well as the Spider. The story involved does not implicitly contradict anything concerning previously published history of TNT and Spider as TNT may have just been a member before his death and it was that death that lead to the Spider joining. Which means, this would be a retcon without any purpose since it doesn't really correct anything. But, it's also one that instead of answering or addressing any questions, it raises questions and concerns, instead of simplifying things it complicates them.

The lead story of issue two covers the influence of the JSA, causing a heroic explosion of individual heroes along with other super groups such as the Seven Soldiers and the Freedom Fighters in a nice two page spread. The spread shows the core heroes of both groups along with others such as Mr. America, Air Wave, Sargon and Zatara. Of course, in the real publishing history Zatara preceded the JSA. And, there are no depictions or mention of the Fawcett characters such as Minute Man, Bulletman, Mr. Scarlet, etc and their GA superteam Crime Crusaders Club. In addition to an overview of the history and the dissolution of the JSA we get a wonderfully rendered look at the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion. Wonder if we'll see an account of what happens with them over time in the future issues?

The back-up story covers an adventure of the Seven Soldiers establishing TNT and Dyna-mite as members. It also may be a retcon of an actual story as in this story the team is challenged to stop a series of crimes by Black Star. Which they do in individual vignettes before teaming up to take down the master villain... the Dummy! Only, the Soldiers really did have an adventure fighting against a mystery villain called the Black Star. Just like the retcon of TNT, this story only raises questions.

Justice Society of America #39: Mr. T's plan on undoing the bleak Nazi controlled future is revealed and we see the powerless heroes fighting back to give him a chance. We also find out a little more just how the Fourth Reich took over the world with a little snide remark about America not liking having casualties while waging a war. The more time they spend on this, the more holes it has. We don't see who actually organized all of this, that came up with a way to neutralize ALL superpowers on the planet including power-rings and magic. And, how, realistically they managed to take over America so seamlessly with only a handful of super powered joes that they couldn't even use while keeping the powered heroes in check... so how did they have a huge enough army to fight America's armies AND non-powered heroes? The longer they spend on it, the more glaring these improbabilities become.

Overlooking that, it's a fun issue full of slambang action and a bit of fun in picking out the characters with them looking quite a bit older and out of costume.

The Phantom: Moonstone may have lost the rights to the Phantom so that Ross can do his revision update on the character, but at least they are going out with a bang by putting out several Phantom comics at a time. There's the monthly Phantom (with a purple cover and no logo this go around) that sports the wonderful art by Silvestre Szilagyi. Then Phantom Generations that has text stories and art by a different creative team each month focusing on Phantoms of different eras. And, the weakest of the bunch, The Phantom Double Shot with b/w artwork and two stories, one featuring the Phantom and the second another luminary of Moonstone, this time Captain Action.

Moonstone is also advertising "The Return of the Originals" ie various pulp heroes such as G-8, the Black Bat, Phantom Detective and Domino Lady whom they already publish. I'd be excited if not for the fact that so far, the Phantom has been the exception and not the rule in regards to Moonstone's handling of the various characters. They are just as guilty of modern revisionistic takes that bear little to the spirit of the original characters beyond superficials.

Alex Ross meanwhile sees the Phantom running through the jungle in a purple costume as being unrealistic, that painting himself in red berry juice is more realistic and edgier. And, he's right. It is unrealistic. So is Batman wearing a costume that limits eyesight, a cape that enemies can grab, and spending all that money on gadgets and such to fight crime when he could have just joined the police or FBI. Or teenage Peter Parker who could make a fortune with his temporary adhesive (but thought the best way to make money was entering a wrestling ring) and then uses a costume to fight crime that makes him a target of both crooks and the police. Or pretty much every other costumed crime fighter. What part of the Phantom is a superhero does he fail to understand? It not only works within the conventions of the genre, the Phantom is pretty much the first guy to do so and establish it! Tell you what, Alex, how about we see you actually create a character and story and stop trying to put your name on everyone else's.

The Spectacular Spider-Girl #2 of 4: Gang war has engulfed NY and half the crooks are running scared due to reports of the Punisher returning. The balance already upset, his quarry decides to bring his own powered operatives into play, one of whom seems to be May's clone who has the venom symbiote and is calling herself Mayhem. Great, old fashioned fun and artwork by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz. This time out, the back-up serves more of a purpose as it follows up on one of the scenes in the main story and follows how the gang war is affecting other heroes of the MC2-verse, in this case the Buzz and American Dream.

Star Trek: Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor #2: The review of this issue is a bit late due more to the fact that it either 1) didn't show up at my usual store or 2) they sold out. So, I didn't get it until the same time as #3. Byrne tells the story of an alien race that is mysteriously dying of no apparent cause. Dr. McCoy's irascible nature gets the better of him as the race has very specific customs and laws that not only hinder his work but gets him into legal trouble as he tries to delve into the mystery of both the deaths and the secret that the race is guarding. We see Scotty appearing in a guest role. Romance between Duncan and Theela move along at a quick pace.

The coloring is not as much a distraction this time out, a few places where it creates patterns on the alien skin and adding definition in the faces where the artwork doesn't call for it. In places where less is more, the coloring seems to want more is more, over-doing it. At least the coloring is not too dark and dense.

Star Trek: Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor #3: This issue brings in various characters from Byrne's little corner of the Star Trek original series universe all together, as McCoy and company end up on the planet where warlike clones were left in the Assignment Earth mini and so Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln aren't too far behind. However, everything needed to follow the story is pretty much explained in the issue, not requiring the reading of the other minis.

I don't know if it's deliberate, but Byrne's inking seems harsher, both grittier and splotchier in the blacks fitting a grim and gritty world. The flashback is marred by the benday dot screen, meant to get across that it was from an older comic. Of course when that is used, it usually refers to a comic printed in the 1980s or before or a comic within a comic, setting up a level of unreality between the comic and the story-within-a-story. The only other throw-out is the space battle where the explosions in space are obviously generated through the computer and thus not fitting the style of linear artwork. Like the previous issue, a little too much effort is given to painting in definition on the faces.

However, Byrne's handling of the Star Trek characters and his telling single issue stories makes me wish they'd just go ahead and greenlight an ongoing series set in the original series universe and time period (and maybe incorporate a few of the alien crew members from the cartoon, giving the crew a more interstellar mix beyond just Spock).

The Torch #8: The mini ends about where one would expect where Torch and Toro must fight a more powerful version of themselves but leaving both characters intact to continue along their way in the Marvel U. What it doesn't really do is set them up with any kind of lives or status quo beyond existing. It does establish the Mad Thinker though as a major bad guy and a veritable threat as he tends to stay one step ahead of everyone else. May not be the definitive Torch storyline, but it comes almost off as the definitive Mad Thinker story.

As I talked about the coloring of the Star Trek books, this one is full of all the bad coloring that is pretty indicative of the Dynamite books. It's often too saturated and dark. So flesh tones are high contrasts and orange where the Star Trek books excelled in subtlety. Several scenes of blurring backgrounds, using the coloring to providing textures, etc. It's hard to judge the pencils due to the overpowering colors.

Sadly the followup is a modern Invaders comic. As much as I like golden-age comics, my interest in Bucky-Cap is in the negative numbers. And, the work on this comic was passable but never outstanding and it's the exact same team. So, we'll wait and see.

** Interesting little note, while writing this, I was listening to an old radio show of the Green Lama. In the radio show, everyone knows Jethro Dumont is the Green Lama, his phrase accompanied with "the Green Lama strikes!" seems to give him some super-strength. It also gives an explanation of why the color green. In "The Last Dinosaur" the script is peppered with educational proverbs much like the pulps were. Strangely, his assistant is not called Tsarong but Tulku, a form of address of honor generally used by Magga and Tsarong in talking to the Green Lama. With the Green Lama calling his assistant Tulku, it would be establishing Tulku as his mentor and teacher.

2 steps forward, 3 steps back

Heroic Age... Yeah, right.

So, in the new Agents of Atlas series, they killed half the duo that made up the original 3-D Man and left the other comatose so that the minority legacy character can have a stronger hold on the title...

If there was any lingering doubt that the big 2's posturing of their transitions to "heroic age" and "brightest day" being anything other than just business as usual...

I think I was one of the few that didn't mind Triathlon as being a legacy hero and actually liked him and his costume in the pages of Avengers. Part of that was that he didn't actually usurp the original identity. Through his powers, costume and name, he referenced and updated the retro-hero without being an actual minority copycat replacement. Once they started with actually changing him to BE 3-D Man, I knew that something like this was coming. By turning him to the 3-D Man via name and costume, it robbed the character of what made him unique. Now, he's just like all other minority replacements of established heroes. See, the name "Triathlon" was uniquely his and tied to his powers and background just as the retro name "3-D Man" fit the original character as a retcon retro character of the 1950s. Re-naming Triathlon to 3-D Man lessens the identities of both men. And, where Marvel had two separate heroes that were unique but with bonds to each other, they now just have one. How is it a good thing to actually lessen the variety of a company's assets?

Astro City #4: Meanwhile, Astro City brings to a close its own "Dark Age" storyline. I've enjoyed the meandering stories of the past in Astro City such as the Confessor and Steeljack storylines. This one never quite gelled for me. I think there are some interesting themes in there of the evolution of the characters Charles and Royal Williams from being brothers who were a cop and a street hustler to the men driven to avenge the deaths of their parents years before to the point of them transforming into what they hate. Somewhere along the way, their personal journey became tiresome as the story delved into the death and resurrection of the Silver Agent, time travel, dimensional rifts to an evil dimension and the man they pursued becoming almost a cosmic level threat.

There was just too much stuff the story had to cover that was tangential to the core story, the conceit of trying to follow it through the eyes of the two men and their own journey wore thin. The story became bloated. Busiek may be one of the few writers that when one of his stories becomes padded, it gets denser with more story and characterization as opposed to just making a four issue story fit 6 issues by just adding action and frame-by-frame sequencing in the art so that something would normally fit in two panels takes a whole page or two (Batman taking two pages to change clothes and drive across town in a JLA Classified story a few years back comes to mind. Used to be such things would happen between panels). This time, it works against Busiek and the story he's telling though. The brothers' metamorphosis and its symbolism and themes become heavy-handed from having to constantly revisit it for several more issues beyond the story's natural end as the villain Aubrey gains powers and escapes, extending the storyline for several more issues.

Ironically, as the story became so bloated, there were elements that never got developed as much as they probably should have, feeling like they were tacked on to draw the story out. Such as the rift that was either darkening the public or feeding off of their darker natures, what and who the Pale Horseman was, the story of the Street Angel (I was left wanting more of this guy), as well as the Black Badge. Other than being a cosmic threat, I felt like I was missing something somewhere and just how it all actually connected to the why's of the Silver Agent and his time jumping. It all was just too big of an epic for the limited dual 1st person narrative of the Williams brothers.

The Spectacular Spider-Girl #1: Somehow, the news of this mini completely passed me by. Didn't see any reference to it at comicbookresources or any of the other usual blogs and forums. A pleasant surprise. It' had been awhile since I last saw Spider-Girl, I didn't follow her over to the Spider-man Family books as I don't see a reason to buy an anthology just for one feature, especially with today's prices. This doesn't seem to pick up too far after her series though. However, I still had to play a little catch-up as I didn't remember all the details of the status quo when the series ended such as the status of her clone and that she was living with May as a "cousin". Still, it has all of the elements that made her series a joy to read. Heroic characters, clear concise art, plenty of action and all done in an all-ages classic style. The main story concerns a gang-war enveloping the city, one that draws an older Frank Castle from his self-imposed exile in South America. While Spider-Girl is saving lives from a burning building, the Punisher shows he's still the toughest guy around as he fights his way onto a plane heading for the States. Fun stuff.

The book also contains a couple of short back-up stories, one featuring American Dream, re-introducing her to the readership. The second back-up is the one that falters as May has a dream that she has to play basketball against several of her foes. It's not that the story is just filler with no real insight or purpose but that the usually solid Paul Ryan fails to deliver on the artwork. Ryan's biggest flaw as an artist is that like Frenz, his style is about 20 years too late. He's wonderfully suited for books with a more traditional and classic style without an inker or colorist doing all sorts of filters, fills and special effects to jazz it up and fighting both the penciler and the writer for dominance. In short, in this day and age, a book with his artwork is normally a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, it is lacking here. It feels like it is trying too hard to be Pat Oliffe (the artist that started Spider-Girl off) instead of his own style and lacks the energy that he normally is able to deliver. Nor does it impart any mood or atmosphere or surreal aspect to what is supposed to be a dream. A weak ending to an otherwise enjoyable first issue overall.

Hellboy in Mexico: Love this comic. Mignola and Corben make a great team, I've praised their Hellboy comics in the past. It helps this is a self-contained story as well. Add in the phenomenon of masked Mexican wrestlers and make it a set of three brothers who get the calling to stop wrestling and hunt monsters and team up with Hellboy for monster butt-kicking, drinking and carousing, and you have the makings of a great story. Pick it up and you'll be entertained. Wouldn't mind seeing a return of the brothers.

JSA #38: As the story unfolds how the Fourth Reich managed to take all the heroes out and take over America, it stumbles. I've talked about how one of the problems with the Fourth Reich as a villainous group in this storyline is that it doesn't really have a head, we don't see who's pulling the strings. A bait and switch is pulled here as we are shown who is the "current" leader in the future, an adult Kid Karnevil. The flaw is that in explaining how the future came to be, it also glosses over many of the important details. Somehow, the darkness engine robs all heroes of its powers including Atlanteans of their natural ability to breathe underwater and the technological GL power-rings, while at least trying to give some lip service at explaining it. But, we are then expected to believe that the Reich is able to take over and people quickly align to their way of thinking, seeing the new government as being the rightful one and former heroes the criminals. It never explains how that transition happened, how the Fourth Reich went from a small band of a few super-powered Nazis to a movement that was able to take over the government and world and defeat all the non-powered heroes as well as the common men and women that would stand against them. It goes straight from the men and women on the street fighting to save the life of a now powerless and severely wounded Superman to a mob seeking to burn Power Girl at the stake in support of the Nazi regime. Nor does it explain exactly who came up with the idea of the Darkness Engine, knew that it would depower the heroes and put the Fourth Reich together in the first place. Some crucial parts of the story are missing for the presented sequence of events being at all credible.

Black Terror #10: After a promising improvement last issue, this one slides back into almost everything that makes the Dynamite titles a chore to read. Literally a chore in this case as the artwork is so darkly and heavily colored, it's a wonder they even bothered to do this as a comic book. Half the time Miss Masque's costume is more purple than red. It makes it difficult to really critique the storytelling skills of the penciller since it takes so long to just get past all the dense coloring to even figure out what he's trying to draw. Likewise, the ghostly flying pirate ship has a kewl special effect, done as a negative against the backdrop of everything and everyone else done as positive. But it makes the ship even busier and harder to read as a figure in already too dense and crowded artwork.

The primary purpose of comic art is to TELL THE STORY. This means everything, from penciling to inking to the coloring should work to that end. If any part actually impedes the movement of the story or the central message of a panel or page, then it fails. When you get a hyper detailed page by George Perez, the storytelling is still paramount and clear. The detail enhances, not impedes the process.

Unless I have forgotten something, it was Mystico from last issue that gave the Black Terror the ship. However, they refer to him as the Scarab several times, a completely different hero. Oops. And, the plot goes back to being about the Urn instead of just giving us a new threat and a little more variety to their world.

I did like the opening scene with the Magi. Still a bit curious as to which golden-age villain he's supposed to be, if any. We could use a little more development of the villains and surely not all the supervillains are part of the Supremacy or Claw.

Brightest Day?

So, in spinning out of the Blackest Night mini's DC announced a brighter future and even have a series called "Brightest Day." But, to show that this is really just meaningless lip service and it's standard business as usual, Green Arrow has become even more violent, again eschewing trick arrows and using maiming and disfiguring shots. Remember the last time he did this, the book was actually labeled "For Mature Readers Only" and it started the downward spiral that lead to the character being killed off? The whole point of his resurrection and relaunch was to turn the clock back a bit to when the character was actually a viable superhero within the rest of the superhero community. What's next? Hal Jordan going nuts and massacring the whole GL Corps? Superman getting killed and replaced by four others? Hawk going nuts and getting enough power to kill off half the JSA?

Also, as part of this supposed focus on the heroes and brighter future, we have a new Titans book starring villains. First order of business, kill off the Ryan Choi Atom! Ok, I was a bit surprised that he hadn't died already since his book was canceled. And, once Ray Palmer started making appearances again... Still, of all the "new" One Year Later titles, his was the only one that had any legs to it, lasting for 25 issues. Part of what made it work was it didn't invalidate previous continuity nor build up the current character at the expense of the previous one. Of course, it is what ultimately doomed poor Ryan as the back door was always open for the return of Ray Palmer.

Meanwhile, the writer Eric Wallace defends the killing by talking about how much he likes the Ryan Choi Atom and what a great character he is. Just as Scott Beatty and Alex Ross talk about how much they love the Phantom character which obviously translates to not actually wanting to write the character as is but changing him. Geez, with friends like these...

Stories like this and James Robinson's JLA mini and ongoing book likewise built on a bunch of corpses are what are keeping me away from the majority of the titles by Marvel and DC. Even when they say they are going to focus more on the heroes and a "brighter day", their deeds show that it's all meaningless hype. It's an attempt to lure back lapsed readers, hoping that they won't notice that the majority of the line is still the exact same morose and dreary writing that drove them away the first time. If they really wanted to focus on producing brighter, more accessible and more heroic comics, they'd just do it.

Thought the recent promo of the new relaunched Avengers title was interesting in that the conversation between Wonder Man and Steve Rogers, if you substitute "Bendis" for the word "Avengers" and it pretty much sums up my feelings.

Iron Man 2: Saw the movie last night and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's not a Tony Stark that I remember, but it doesn't seem out of kilter with the way the character has been portrayed in the comics in the recent past. I was happy to see Happy Hogan with significant screen time and actually doing stuff. His scenes are funny but they show that he has a heroism to him even if he's not of the same caliber as Iron Man or the Black Widow. The movie did a great job at really playing up Stark's intelligence and drive, even when he's not in the suit. At times it's unclear just how much of his personality as a egotistical shallow genius is really that or a show. There's one point after he really makes a complete jerk of himself that it's implied that he engineered the whole debacle so that Rhodey would steal the suit and become his replacement.

Only a few things bothered me in the movie. One, the armored threat. It seems to be the tact of the movies to make the hero and villains too much of the same cloth. He fought an armored villain the first movie, it would have been nice to see a different kind of threat. The Hulk movies went the same route, where the villains were just reflections of the hero.

I thought Hammer was too lightweight of a bad-guy as well. If not for Sam Rockwell's performance, he would have been a complete joke. I never felt that Stark or his business was ever in any actual danger from Hammer as he was completely shown up by Stark in every single situation. He was never a credible or serious threat, just an annoyance. In fact, Stark's enemy was really only himself and his own shortcomings and not Hammer. This backfires a bit as it distances Stark from us. It's a role reversal of the Doctor Doom and Reed Richards relationship in the first FF movie. Stark and Doom are the arrogant and more successful men and who come out on top continuously throughout the movie, their undoing more from the worse parts of their nature. The difference being that at the end of the day, we know Stark will redeem himself, while Doom will ultimately pay the price for his arrogance.

Census: I'm temporarily working for the census and it really amazes me the resistance and anger to it that I've been seeing in the field and online. How does the line go? I like individuals, it's people I can't stand. And, it's not in the places you'd expect. I am in a rural county, lots of nice subdivisions alongside mobile home parks and farms. The people in the nice homes, the ones that benefit the MOST from the information gathered are the ones that are the most resistant, rude or won't even answer their doors. The simple fact is that government is only a small part of who makes use of that data.

Unless you live in the woods in a house that you built yourself by chopping down the trees, dug your own well, have no power and grow all your own food, you benefit from the information gathered. A recent news story talked about how whites were moving from the suburbs into the city, guess where a lot of that type of statistical information comes from? When businesses look to locate, it's based on demographics gotten from the local governments. Your roads, emergency services as well as local services such as power, water, trash pickup, schools... all based on statistics gathered from the census and which drive the value of your property. The building you are living in exists because some builder made a decision based on local demographics, largely built from census info.

Ironically, by not filling out the census, it causes the government to spend MORE of taxpayers' money in trying to get that info, the going door-t0-door is the most expensive part. And, it only guarantees that someone is going to come to your front door, and keep coming to pester you. If you seriously have something to hide or don't want to be bothered, the smart thing to do was to actually mail it in and the government won't come snooping around your door trying to get or verify the information.