The Boxes Precinct, Pt 04

I left Scarecrow Alley and the Myr followed behind me, abandoning his haphazard arm-waving for an altogether spasmodic arm-waving. It stared up as if expecting the missing Pili-Pala to fly overhead at the mention of their name.

Starfire

The newest DC kerfluffle centers around probably sexist portrayal of Starfire in “Red Hood and the Outlaws” #1. Since I don’t and won’t ever read a comic book whose hook is that they kill off their rogues gallery (More like, “Red Hood and the Ouroboros,” am I right?), all my info is secondhand.

Naturally, Laura Hudson from Comics Alliance had some stuff to say and a quick lap around the internet brought up a counterpoint by Mary Staggs at Panels on Pages.

Megas XLR Wednesday: Kiva

Kiva is the warrior from the future who acts as the straight man to all of Coop’s absent-minded, self-important, materialistic idiocy. Kiva acts as an all-in-one recap/exposition/outsider, often by reminding her painfully oblivious cohorts of the dangers of the situation they’re in. Megas XLR prophetically pokes fun at the irrelevancies of first world culture, years before The Jersey Shore managed to explode those irrelevancies with a metaphorical violence no giant robot could hope to match. It’s Kiva that expresses certain levels of distain for these cultures, even while she learns that there are benefits to a world where constant warfare isn’t…um, constant.
 

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 38

I bring this up because this episode (and the related What-If that was released a few years ago) gives us insight into a villain as he becomes powerful beyond imagination. The first thing Doctor Doom does with his powers is restore his face. He later presents himself to the heroes and claims they have nothing to fight over any longer. If they insist on fighting him, he will defend himself. Captain America claims that Doctor Doom is still to be opposed, citing the fact that the first thing he did was restore his face. It brings the pettiness right to the surface. If Doom is still so interested in such minor things, how noble, how far-looking can he be? (I can't remember if he specifically threatened their lives, though I'm inclined to say he didn't, as I don't recall it being mentioned that much.) It brings that issue of pettiness right to the surface. A hero is expected to have a certain amount of vision, not to focus on small or superficial things.

Quinius

I had a dream Saturday night. As dreams go, it was mundane: regurgitated scenarios, settings, and props from the past twenty-nine years or so. What was different was the presence of someone who’s been gone for a whole decade. When I woke up, I expected a wave of sadness, guilt, or loss: a good emotional outburst. After none of that happened, I prepared myself for a familiar short-breathed tour of Black Void Apathy National Park. Nope.

I’ve only been in love once. I’ve been comfortable since, yes, but it’s not quite the same. One of the great comforts of my life told me that I should get over my damage. It’s good advice of course; I tripped over my own feet years ago and I’m still obsessed; framing it all as a dramatic clash between man and gravity instead of a goofy beginner’s tumble.

Every year, starting on the 26th of September and continuing until the first Tuesday after Veteran’s Day (November 15th), I celebrate Quinius. In all actuality, I’m a lapsed Quinius observer, but ten is a nice round number to make me think that 2011 is somehow special and maybe I should get my shit together for it.

Quinius is a time of reflection and atonement. It’s also a time where we try to move past our obsessions and obsessiveness to find and address the underlying features of our souls which birth them. In many ways, Quinius should be a death in the shadow of new life; the death of each now that becomes our past and the birth of each future that becomes the present.

Wow. I try not to wax too poetic here, but wow. You could wrap that last paragraph around twine and make a candle. Anyway, Quinius is about the future, the past, old friends long gone. Quinius attempts to strip away the irrelevancies and leave truth, in its purest, most personal form.

Weekend Music: "Sometmes" by The Hanks

I know two things about this song: 

1) How to link the band's myspace.

2) I could listen to this @&$%ing song on #^*!ing loop all §¢˚µℓĦ-∆ζ‡√ing day.

The Boxes Precinct, Pt 03

The interior of the building was an ecology of trash. Blanket trees dropped leaves of tattered quilts while bleached ribcages lay half-revealed in the dirt, like rocks uncovered beneath a mundane footpath. Blades of rusted scythes emerged from the ground like the fronds of a fern, and I recognized them as the toenails of the scarecrow from the alley. At the end of the hallway, the wall was made of up reeds growing up from the ground and down from the ceiling that intertwined into a broken web of a basket that never was.

Penny Reviews: The Reboot

Justice League International #1

Booster Gold, Guy Gardener, Batman (of course Batman) and an unhealthy level of nostalgia for the previous JLI prompted me to try the new one. The team's foundation is vague, but hopefully it'll be revisited and some of the Chinese and Russian stereotypes will simmer down. It's not explained what The Hall of Justice's history is that makes it so contentious, but that's the forth central conflict the issue presents while still cracking jokes, introducing the cast, and doing everything else a first issue should do, including addressing potential fan outrage. It's just good comics and fits the reboot. B-

Megas XLR Wednesday

I like Megas XLR. Yeah, it's mostly sci-fi references wrapped around three stereotypical characters and plenty of giant robot fights. But if you like sci-fi references, giant robot fights, and characters who are 90% stereotype and 10% surprisingly deep character built within that framework, you will like Megas XLR.

I daresay, you will dig it.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 37

Some of this is even exemplified in “Secret Wars.” Considered, the first ever massive company-wide crossover event, it featured the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, and a host of their crappy villains (plus Doctor Doom, Enchantress, and Magneto) magically scientifically transported to a world made of cobbled-together parts of other worlds (so...generic rock planet plus one freaked-out Denver) on the whim of an all-powerful entity curious about the nature of good and evil (if this seems familiar, it's because this is almost the plot of a classic episode of Star Trek, and it is exactly the plot of two others. I can only suppose that Lincoln and Kah'less were too busy in the mid-eighties to really help out the X-Men with this one.). 

The New DC

You know, two to three weeks ago, I talked about how I was going to talk about the DC Reboot instead of Innistrad, but then I rambled about politics for a week like I was on a bender and then did a whole Prisoner thing that was totally awesome, but didn't much mention Grant Morrison or The Justice League very much?

It's all part of my fully intentional air of enigmatic, unknown mystery where I—

...so...shiny...

Weekend Music: "Life of a Salesman" by Yellowcard

I know two things about this band:
1) I like them.
2) How to link their website.

The Boxes Precinct, Pt 02

It stopped abruptly, the clumsily darted to the right, down an alley. I let it run while I looked on; it was too interested in finding its card to leave me behind.

Alley it had entered was actually a street, but just barely. The usually white corrugated walls were a dull grey here, and wrinkled as if they’d been left in the humidity too long. They bowed over the debris-strewn street, blocking off the natural lighting from overhead. Indirect light, dully emanated from around corners where the street intersected others, leaving the source just out of view. I sighed as the myr returned, pushing up piles of dead sticks and leaves as it did, mists clinging to it as they did everything in the street.

I sighed, “Scarecrows.”

"Oh man, I wonder if Number 1 is Jonathan Frakes. That'd be...awesome..."

"Elipses, then 'Number 1' or just 'Number 1.' Man, I still don't know if the 'Be Seeing You' from 'The Chimes of Big Ben' really works here. Looks ominous enough."

The Prisoner: Once Upon a Time

I recently purchased--at the unspoken behest of the geek hive mind--the classic BBC series The Prisoner. I'm watching it offshore to pass the time and sharing spoiler-free responses/reviews with the internet without provocation, cause, or request because that's what the internet is for. Enjoy.

Before I go into "Once Upon a Time," I have to backtrack. I haven't watched many of the special features on my DVD set, for the reasons mentioned earlier. However, I did watch a special version of "The Chimes of Big Ben." From it, I got the impression that perhaps I was looking at an original pilot. Sure, "The Arrival" is a more conventional choice, but "Chimes" had an...enormity that I didn't do justice in my succinct review.

Weekend Music: "Boston" by Augustana

I know two things about this band:
1) How to link their website.
2)I like them.

The Boxes Precinct, Pt 01

It was five minutes to quitting time and my mind was split between picking out my hat and coat from the lineup of the coat rack in the precinct’s lobby and deciding just how many times I could tip the Braidwood Cup in the next hour and five minutes. I’d love to tell you that the card that came in looked like Nullmage Shepherd, Evlish Scout or even Koth. I’d love to tell you a story about sultry silhouettes and silky voices just telling me how much help they needed from one of the Boxes Precinct’s detectives and I offered to help because I was generally overcome by stirrings of sexual attraction. That would have been awesome.

Blog in Exactly 1000 Words: Deadpool is edgy

 

Image courtesy of Bully Says Comics Should Be Fun.

Original image courtesy of Fantastic Four #10(credit for those credits go right back to Bully's Blog).

Megas XLR Wednesday

I like Megas XLR. Yeah, it's mostly sci-fi references wrapped around three stereotypical characters and plenty of giant robot fights. But if you like sci-fi references, giant robot fights, and characters who are 90% stereotype and 10% surprisingly deep character built within that framework, you will like Megas XLR.

I daresay, you will dig it.

This is the setup for most of the series.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 36

Every Tuesday I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

Villains, on the other hand, usually care about themselves and whoever they’re destroying. That selfishness may be one of the central qualities of super-villainy (well, the “villainy” part anyway). It’s very personal. That nothing else in the world matters so much to them as their revenge or ideological expression makes them interesting. Sure, Batman is single-minded, but he single-mindedly defends the people of Gotham (and the world). The villains, by being focused on anything but saving lives, end up being the bad guys almost by default.

GoMnomnom: The Role of Weather

Weather is important out here. There's no shade and there's no ground. If the wind is blowing, it blows for miles across the water, unimpeded by any of the tiny structures we've built out here. With the exception of a few clouds, the sun shines straight onto the deck, punishing the deck crew for twelve hours straight. The line of sight that extends out to the horizon gives you an appreciation for the rain, too. Storm fronts aren't monolithic lines moving across the horizon, but masses of clouds that may or may not feel like delivering their precious cargo where you are. I haven't yet tired—and I hope I never do—of the novelty of standing on a dry, sunny deck and spotting columns of rain a few miles away.

Sunday Morning Soapbox: Before You

Kris: You didn’t really think I’d talk politics for most of the week, then let you off easy on Sunday, did you?

Terry: You know, for a second there…yeah, I kinda did.

Kris: I did it 35 minutes ago.

Terry: …what?

Weekend Music: "Coffee and Cigarettes" by Augustana

I know two things about this band:
1) How to link their website.
2) Despite the fact that I queued it in July, it's not going up until after August.

It's the Magic: Phyrexian Jalapeno Paupers Pt II

Last week: Stuff.
This week: The rest of the stuff.


Gremlin Mine reminds me of the guy who has a truck and would—if called upon—provide emotional support in an hour of need. However, I don’t need his truck because I have a Blazer, and as far as emotional support, I have a Blazer! Gremlin Mine does one of two things, neither of which will ever do me much good. I still use it, just like I still hang with people in the absence of material and emotional gain, but it's not too common.

Sunday Morning Soapbox: Calendar's broken. Deal with it.

With Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Michelle Bachmann established as the Republican frontrunners for 2012, a lot of people are talking about the anti-science stance of conservatives in The United States.

io9 has an article that portrays this as a fad that's going to burn out: after all, if conservatives work in scientific fields, then conservatives will eventually come to love science, right? The article tells us that everything's okay because the religious nuts won't be around for much longer.