So, I picked up #2 of this series to see if th etrend from #1 continued for the rest of the series. It definitely continues into this issue. The first 3 pages are the morning after of the Batman/Catwoman one-night stand, although I'm not sure one-night is accurate since they've done this before. Like with the last issue, these 3 pages were really unnecessary to the story as all they did was show that Batman cares about Catwoman at som elevel and Catwoman cares about him at some level. This is something they could have shown in something less than a sexual escapade. It's also a real shame because behind all of these sexual escapades that they are writing Catwoman into as well as the whole distinguishment of Selina as an apparent bimbo who shakes it for any one cute that walks by including Bruce Wayne who she does not know is Batman in the new DC Universe, although he does know she is Selina Kyle.
Other than the cat and mouse (excuse the pun) game that Selina and Bruce play at the charity auction episode in the book, there is actually an excellent story going on in this series. All you have to do is see past the soap opera style woman they have made Selina into. A situation that I don't get, again, because I recognize that judd Winick is an awesome writer who shouldn't need to resort to sex to sell this book. Even more so, the sex scenes really have nothing to do with the story so far...nothing at all. They are no more than grautitious sex, which as Laura Hudson mentioned in her review of the first issue does not make Selina Kyle/Catwoman into a strong, independent woman as Winick may think it does. Depicting women as sex crazed nymphomaniacs who will jump into the sac with people to show they have feelings or that they are as liberated as men just makes them into sex crazed nymphomaniacs. Personally, I don't think it really depicts male characters as anything other than scumbags who don't know how to commit to a relationship either. It definitely doesn't make them into strong male characters. All, in all, I just hope that now that Winick has truly revealed who the true bad guy is in Catwoman, that he will move on and write the story that is there and seems like it might be an awesome story.
I'm still not sure I would recommend this book to anyone, and I especially recommend you not buy it for anyone under the age of 16. Hopefully, next month, we'll get to see the story that Winick is truly capable of and Selina Kyle/Catwoman will move back to the character she is supposed to be instead of being a soap opera tart.
Thanks for reading.
These are my opinions of the omniverse. The omniverse includes many comic book multiverses, some MMO universes, and our own real universe (or at least mine - maybe yours is different). If you like comic book reviews, MMO's, Christian views, political opinions (these will be minimal but will happen from time to time), or just musings on society, you might like my blog. If you don't, you probably won't, but give it a try, you never know.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Blue Beetle #2
Sorry, I know it's been a while since I've written anything here. It's been a busy couple of weeks for me, both in terms of time and just events that have kind of shifted me around a little bit and caused me to evaluate and think about a lot of stuff.
Blue Beetle #2 is a good read much like the first issue. Bedard continues to write an exceptional origin story for Blue Beetle/Jaime Reyes, and Guara's penciles continue to do justice to the character and his environment. The origin story continues here, and we're past the alter ego story establishing who Jaime Reyes and his friends are. We are now on to establishing who the Blue Beetle will be and who/what the scarab is in the context of the DCnU.
The story has Jaime all but giving up his identity from the get-go to his friends and the person who will obviously become a major enemy to the Blue Beetle within this issue. It's obvious that Jaime has no idea what he has become or what he's supposed to be doing yet. He knows he doesn't want to kill anyone, which creates an antagonistic relationship between he and the scarab from the beginning, although Jaime seems to win this battle for now. He also knows that he needs to help his friend(s) with the Blue Beetle armor while he can as he saves his friend Paco from the supervillains who are indirectly responsible for him being grafted to the beetle scarab.
In this issue, we also get more of a glimpse of just how ruthless and evil the aunt of the young lady that Jaime likes may actually be. This lady, Dama, is also the aforementioned enemy that Jaime almost spills the beans about who he is to. Thankfully, the beetle scarab has a mission parameter that requires its host not reveal who it is, so it keeps Jaime from revealing his identity to anyone for now.
I continue to be impressed with this title, and I'm thinking right now that I should have picked up the previous Blue Beetle series that was cancelled late last year/earlier this year long before the DC reboot.
Go pick up issue 1 if you can find it along with issue 2 and start reading this book. It would be a shame if the title was cancelled again as it has a lot of potential and is one of the more awesome books not about the bigger DC characters that we all know and love.
Thanks for reading.
Blue Beetle #2 is a good read much like the first issue. Bedard continues to write an exceptional origin story for Blue Beetle/Jaime Reyes, and Guara's penciles continue to do justice to the character and his environment. The origin story continues here, and we're past the alter ego story establishing who Jaime Reyes and his friends are. We are now on to establishing who the Blue Beetle will be and who/what the scarab is in the context of the DCnU.
The story has Jaime all but giving up his identity from the get-go to his friends and the person who will obviously become a major enemy to the Blue Beetle within this issue. It's obvious that Jaime has no idea what he has become or what he's supposed to be doing yet. He knows he doesn't want to kill anyone, which creates an antagonistic relationship between he and the scarab from the beginning, although Jaime seems to win this battle for now. He also knows that he needs to help his friend(s) with the Blue Beetle armor while he can as he saves his friend Paco from the supervillains who are indirectly responsible for him being grafted to the beetle scarab.
In this issue, we also get more of a glimpse of just how ruthless and evil the aunt of the young lady that Jaime likes may actually be. This lady, Dama, is also the aforementioned enemy that Jaime almost spills the beans about who he is to. Thankfully, the beetle scarab has a mission parameter that requires its host not reveal who it is, so it keeps Jaime from revealing his identity to anyone for now.
I continue to be impressed with this title, and I'm thinking right now that I should have picked up the previous Blue Beetle series that was cancelled late last year/earlier this year long before the DC reboot.
Go pick up issue 1 if you can find it along with issue 2 and start reading this book. It would be a shame if the title was cancelled again as it has a lot of potential and is one of the more awesome books not about the bigger DC characters that we all know and love.
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Another Character from Champions Online
This is another one of my characters from the MMO, Champions Online. I call him MITHRAL.
MITHRAL stands for Mystically Integrated Technology for Human Reconnaisance Assault and Life-support. The heart of MITHRAL's armor and its power source is the sword Excalibur and its magical scabbard which was purported to heal all wounds as long as King Arthur carried the scabbard.
Robert Graille or Ireland was trying to create a suit of armor for use by law enforcement to better protect them in dealing with the supervillains of his world. The only problem was he was having problems engineering a power source that would be light enough and cheap enough to mass produce for the armor in order to make it affordable for law enforcement agencies to purchase in bulk to protect their officers.
Having reached a mental block and with no new ideas after several failed attempts, Robert went on vacation to England and just starting hiking through the country side, trying to clear his mind and think of what he should try next. As he wandered through an old growth forest, he suddenly found himself staring at a vast lake, much larger than the forest should have been able to contain, yet there it was. Robert moved towards the lake thinking he would try to locate its source and possibly follow it out of the forest to see how such a vast lake ended up in what he thought was a smaller forest. When he reached the banks of the lake, a beautiful woman rose up out of the lake. She looked at him, smiled, said, "You'll do for now," and handed him an ancient bastard sword. Robert looked down at the sword and scabbard in his hand and when he looked up, the woman and the lake were gone. Robert would have thought he had had a hallucination if not for the weapon in his hand, but when he looked down again, the sword was gone and in his hands was a silver blue metal disc. Robert was baffled.
When Robert returned to his lab, the strange disc went with him. Robert decided to try to determine what the metal was using his knowledge of metallurgy. What he found was that the metal was not a metal known to man at this time. Even more interesting was the metal seemed to be generating an electromagnetic field powerful enough to actually use as a power source. Robert decided to call the metal mithral after the tales of the fabulous silver in the old Tolkien stories.
He then considered the probable use of the metal in his armor as a power source, all he would have to do is reproduce the metal. All efforts to recreate the metal failed, however, which left Robert at almost the same place he was previously. He had a power source that was small enough to work with the armor, but no way to mass produce it and he was unsure how to actually utilize it in the armor since he couldn't reshape the disc and his armor was not made to work with this shape. Not knowing, what to do, Robert labored all night with the disc and the breastplate of his technological masterpiece of modern day armor. As the hours waned towards dawn and no closer to a solution, Robert faded off to sleep on his workbench with the disc sitting on top of the breastplate in a last desperate attempt where Robert was trying to determine how to make a cavity to fit the disc and then use it as a power source.
When Robert awoke around noon the next day, the disc was gone. He thought it had been stolen at first, until he thoroughly examined the breastplate and ran tests on it and found that somehow the mithral disc had fused with the breastplate in a perfect symmetry. Robert knew there were forces at work he didn't understand. He had often heard of magic, and he knew this was what he was dealing with. Robert took the breastplate to the stand and placed it in place with the rest of the armor. As he adjusted the fittings to hold it into place with the rest of the armor, there was a humming of energy and the breastplate began to glow as the mithral flowed out and over the rest of the armor forming lines of power across the armor and even fusing into the cooling fluid lines that Robert had on this version of the armor from when he was trying to use a power supply that seemed to run too hot. After a few minutes, the glow faded leaving only the lines of power and the cooling lines with a soft silver blue glow to them.
Robert put the armor on and went to his test lab to test it. All of the systems were online as soon as the last components were locked into place. The weapon systems which he thought he would have to calibrate to the new power source were powered and the armor was fully operational. No sooner than he had completed testing, an alien armada launched a full scale assault on several cities across the globe. Many current heroes answered the call to arms to drive back the invaders, and Robert arrived to fight off the attacks across the UK. Dubbing himself MITHRAL for the mystical integration that the disc had enacted upon his armor, Robert now fights against the evils of the world as an armored superhero...unlike so many though, he knows his armor is powered by magic and not technology.
(c) Donovan Hicks, 2011
Well, that's another one of my character's backstories. It's all I really had tonight.
Thanks for reading.
MITHRAL stands for Mystically Integrated Technology for Human Reconnaisance Assault and Life-support. The heart of MITHRAL's armor and its power source is the sword Excalibur and its magical scabbard which was purported to heal all wounds as long as King Arthur carried the scabbard.
Robert Graille or Ireland was trying to create a suit of armor for use by law enforcement to better protect them in dealing with the supervillains of his world. The only problem was he was having problems engineering a power source that would be light enough and cheap enough to mass produce for the armor in order to make it affordable for law enforcement agencies to purchase in bulk to protect their officers.
Having reached a mental block and with no new ideas after several failed attempts, Robert went on vacation to England and just starting hiking through the country side, trying to clear his mind and think of what he should try next. As he wandered through an old growth forest, he suddenly found himself staring at a vast lake, much larger than the forest should have been able to contain, yet there it was. Robert moved towards the lake thinking he would try to locate its source and possibly follow it out of the forest to see how such a vast lake ended up in what he thought was a smaller forest. When he reached the banks of the lake, a beautiful woman rose up out of the lake. She looked at him, smiled, said, "You'll do for now," and handed him an ancient bastard sword. Robert looked down at the sword and scabbard in his hand and when he looked up, the woman and the lake were gone. Robert would have thought he had had a hallucination if not for the weapon in his hand, but when he looked down again, the sword was gone and in his hands was a silver blue metal disc. Robert was baffled.
When Robert returned to his lab, the strange disc went with him. Robert decided to try to determine what the metal was using his knowledge of metallurgy. What he found was that the metal was not a metal known to man at this time. Even more interesting was the metal seemed to be generating an electromagnetic field powerful enough to actually use as a power source. Robert decided to call the metal mithral after the tales of the fabulous silver in the old Tolkien stories.
He then considered the probable use of the metal in his armor as a power source, all he would have to do is reproduce the metal. All efforts to recreate the metal failed, however, which left Robert at almost the same place he was previously. He had a power source that was small enough to work with the armor, but no way to mass produce it and he was unsure how to actually utilize it in the armor since he couldn't reshape the disc and his armor was not made to work with this shape. Not knowing, what to do, Robert labored all night with the disc and the breastplate of his technological masterpiece of modern day armor. As the hours waned towards dawn and no closer to a solution, Robert faded off to sleep on his workbench with the disc sitting on top of the breastplate in a last desperate attempt where Robert was trying to determine how to make a cavity to fit the disc and then use it as a power source.
When Robert awoke around noon the next day, the disc was gone. He thought it had been stolen at first, until he thoroughly examined the breastplate and ran tests on it and found that somehow the mithral disc had fused with the breastplate in a perfect symmetry. Robert knew there were forces at work he didn't understand. He had often heard of magic, and he knew this was what he was dealing with. Robert took the breastplate to the stand and placed it in place with the rest of the armor. As he adjusted the fittings to hold it into place with the rest of the armor, there was a humming of energy and the breastplate began to glow as the mithral flowed out and over the rest of the armor forming lines of power across the armor and even fusing into the cooling fluid lines that Robert had on this version of the armor from when he was trying to use a power supply that seemed to run too hot. After a few minutes, the glow faded leaving only the lines of power and the cooling lines with a soft silver blue glow to them.
Robert put the armor on and went to his test lab to test it. All of the systems were online as soon as the last components were locked into place. The weapon systems which he thought he would have to calibrate to the new power source were powered and the armor was fully operational. No sooner than he had completed testing, an alien armada launched a full scale assault on several cities across the globe. Many current heroes answered the call to arms to drive back the invaders, and Robert arrived to fight off the attacks across the UK. Dubbing himself MITHRAL for the mystical integration that the disc had enacted upon his armor, Robert now fights against the evils of the world as an armored superhero...unlike so many though, he knows his armor is powered by magic and not technology.
(c) Donovan Hicks, 2011
Well, that's another one of my character's backstories. It's all I really had tonight.
Thanks for reading.
Monday, October 10, 2011
My Personal World - My Son's Vocabulary Humor
Okay, so my son is 17. He's a junior in high school. I love him to death, but sometimes getting him to see the importance of certain subjects in school is difficult. For example, he had a Facebook post earlier this year where his use of the English language was some of the worst I had ever seen. Today he had a conversation with his mom (we're divorced and he lives with her) that went as follows (you'll laugh):
Well just now DJ learned the importance of vocabulary hahaha I am dying laughing at him as he storms off to bed. We are planning a trip to the Grand Canyon early summer. He and I were looking up some stop over interesting things to see or do to break up the trip. I came across a haunted Sanitarium along the way. Our conversation went like this:
Me: Hey DJ, this looks like fun, want to visit a sanitarium?
Him: that would be cool..
<I did a double take>
Me: Do you know what a sanitarium is?
Him: not really...
So I then had him read the website about the place. His eyes almost bulged out of his skull.
Him: ARE YOU NUTS?! SEE RIGHT THERE ~ DEAD PEOPLE... people have DIED.. do you read that?! GHOST!!!! You are out of your ever loving mind if you think I am stepping one foot near that place! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING... and on and on and on.....
Me: Then why did you say it would be cool to go see?
Him: I THOUGHT SANITARIUM MEANT A REALLY CLEAN HOTEL
I was falling on the ground laughing so hard I couldn't breathe! I finally managed to say
" Well see, English and vocabulary are both extremely important subjects in school."
Him: You are an evil woman
Hahahahaha...I bet he realizes he needs to consider what a new word means in the future a little more.
Thanks for reading, and sorry I didn't really have time for a real post, but this was hilarious to me and probably will be to anyone who has children in his age range whether they're yours or your brother's or sister's or maybe even just a friend's.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Huntress #1 and Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #1
Huntress is back in the DCnU with this limited series, and she's beating down thugs and not bothering to take names as always. She seems to be a little less bloodthirsty than in the previous incarnation, but she's still fairly brutal. Not much of a change to her costume, but it's the little things in a costume redesign that impress me. If something's not broke don't fix it is a motto in field service where I've worked for years, and it stands true here. There wasn't really anything with Huntress's costume, so why give it a major redesign for modernization. They've added some armor bits that make sense and given it a more streamlined appearance with the armor, but overall, it's still her costume.
The story in this issue was pretty cool too. Not your typical superhero after supervillain story here. It's a tale from real life of bad guys who are trafficking guns and women they've kidnapped into slavery as prostitutes or whatever else they choose to do with them. And it makes sense for Huntress to be taking care of this type of crime. She's a normal person after all with just the right skills and attitude to tackle these kinds of issues. Paul Levits did a wonderful job reintroducing Huntress to the DCnU, and I love it. Previously Huntress was the daughter of the Batman and Catwoman of Earth-2 (a parallel Earth tot he main DC Universe Earth, commonly referred to as Earth Prime) who had ended up on Earth Prime. They haven't revealed if that's still true for the Huntress yet, but she's definitely fits those lines still with the attitude.
Marcus To, who's work I have always loved (going back to when he was working on Soulfire with Aspen) does an amazing job in this book. I actually have an original pencil by Marcus To that he did for me at San Diego ComicCon one year early on when he was with Aspen. His pencils have only gotten better as time has progressed in my opinion, and I thought he was really good back then. The details he puts into a face to show expression is awesome, like the seriousness of the driver who drops Helena (Huntress) off at the hotel to the bellman who gives her a little smile and tip of his hat with an eyebrow raised as she enters the hotel.
Pick up this comic if you like Huntress, it's classy and gritty all at the same time, which is no surprise given a girl from Gotham who is familiar with Batman travelling to Italy to stop criminals from smuggling more problems into Gotham.
Ahh, the Penguin, the squat, ugly little rogue of Batman that no one really likes. I think Danny Devito did the best Penguin possible in Batman Returns. He was hideous and callous and Tim Burton's directing just made it creepy. This first issue of a 5 issue limited series really shows us this side of the Penguin. He's a creepy little man with no real superpowers, but who takes vengeance to whole new levels of pettiness. This first issue gives us a fresh glimpes into the origins of the Penguin and how he ended up the way he did. Born wiht a hideous nose that marked him as the man he would become, the Penguin was a child that only a mother could love and she was the only one that ever did according to this comic, so she's the only person he has any affection for in a reveal within this comic.
As to the revenge aspect of the Penguin, Gregg Hurwitz (the writer) is a man I would not want to offend in any major way given the revenge cycle he writes out for the Penguin for a man who bumps into the Penguin in the Penguin's club and before realizing it's the Penguin starts to tell him to watch where he's going. The man quickly realizes his mistake and apologizes...the Penguin laughts it off at this point, but that's not the end of it. Towards the end in a series of panels, the man is brought before the Penguin, and he tries to apologize again. Penguin laughs it off as if it is no big deal and then explains all the things that he has done to ruin this man's life since the incident earlier...including framing him for embezzlement, burning down his apartment complex with one of the man's good friends locked inside, cuts the brakes on his parents' car so they go over a cliff, and infects his girlfriend with an incurable disease that we are left to imagine will eventually kill her in some horrible method of suffering. Don't aggravate the Penguin is the moral, and for anyone close to Hurwitz, I would say don't aggravate him either; he may not be the Penguin, but you never know what a man with that kind of imagination might do to your cat. ;)
Artist, Szymon Kudranski, does an excellent job on the book too. The book's moody dark tones and colors by John Kalisz only add ot the pencils by Kudranski. Everyone around the Penguin is accentuated with various expressions of joy or barely perceptible smiles that they give only to keep their jobs and lives as they move around the Penguin. Crime never looked as evil as Kudranski makes it in this book. While the Joker may be the Clown Prince of Crime and stories with him, you expect to be full of insanity and violence, the world of the Penguin is a world of violence surrounded by darkness and melancholy, and that is the world depicted in this comic. If Gotham is a place of darkness and grime where the insanest of villains ply their illicit activities, the corner the Penguin is in is one of the darkest areas in the city.
If you like stories from the villain's perspective without them being turned into heroes (or anti-heroes as the case may be), then this book is one you should pick up and read. In the background story for why the Penguin is the way he is interspersed throughout the main story, you feel some sympathy for the Penguin, but then when you see how it has truly molded and shaped him, you realize that he has gone much further than his life has led him in how evil he has become.
Two Bat-family books that truly give you insight into two great characters from the family and its enemies. Huntress is as gritty as the Batman ever was even if it is against the cultured backdrop of Italy, while the Penguin shows why Batman is the way he is given the rogues gallery that he has to go up against.
Thanks for reading.
The story in this issue was pretty cool too. Not your typical superhero after supervillain story here. It's a tale from real life of bad guys who are trafficking guns and women they've kidnapped into slavery as prostitutes or whatever else they choose to do with them. And it makes sense for Huntress to be taking care of this type of crime. She's a normal person after all with just the right skills and attitude to tackle these kinds of issues. Paul Levits did a wonderful job reintroducing Huntress to the DCnU, and I love it. Previously Huntress was the daughter of the Batman and Catwoman of Earth-2 (a parallel Earth tot he main DC Universe Earth, commonly referred to as Earth Prime) who had ended up on Earth Prime. They haven't revealed if that's still true for the Huntress yet, but she's definitely fits those lines still with the attitude.
Marcus To, who's work I have always loved (going back to when he was working on Soulfire with Aspen) does an amazing job in this book. I actually have an original pencil by Marcus To that he did for me at San Diego ComicCon one year early on when he was with Aspen. His pencils have only gotten better as time has progressed in my opinion, and I thought he was really good back then. The details he puts into a face to show expression is awesome, like the seriousness of the driver who drops Helena (Huntress) off at the hotel to the bellman who gives her a little smile and tip of his hat with an eyebrow raised as she enters the hotel.
Pick up this comic if you like Huntress, it's classy and gritty all at the same time, which is no surprise given a girl from Gotham who is familiar with Batman travelling to Italy to stop criminals from smuggling more problems into Gotham.
Ahh, the Penguin, the squat, ugly little rogue of Batman that no one really likes. I think Danny Devito did the best Penguin possible in Batman Returns. He was hideous and callous and Tim Burton's directing just made it creepy. This first issue of a 5 issue limited series really shows us this side of the Penguin. He's a creepy little man with no real superpowers, but who takes vengeance to whole new levels of pettiness. This first issue gives us a fresh glimpes into the origins of the Penguin and how he ended up the way he did. Born wiht a hideous nose that marked him as the man he would become, the Penguin was a child that only a mother could love and she was the only one that ever did according to this comic, so she's the only person he has any affection for in a reveal within this comic.
As to the revenge aspect of the Penguin, Gregg Hurwitz (the writer) is a man I would not want to offend in any major way given the revenge cycle he writes out for the Penguin for a man who bumps into the Penguin in the Penguin's club and before realizing it's the Penguin starts to tell him to watch where he's going. The man quickly realizes his mistake and apologizes...the Penguin laughts it off at this point, but that's not the end of it. Towards the end in a series of panels, the man is brought before the Penguin, and he tries to apologize again. Penguin laughs it off as if it is no big deal and then explains all the things that he has done to ruin this man's life since the incident earlier...including framing him for embezzlement, burning down his apartment complex with one of the man's good friends locked inside, cuts the brakes on his parents' car so they go over a cliff, and infects his girlfriend with an incurable disease that we are left to imagine will eventually kill her in some horrible method of suffering. Don't aggravate the Penguin is the moral, and for anyone close to Hurwitz, I would say don't aggravate him either; he may not be the Penguin, but you never know what a man with that kind of imagination might do to your cat. ;)
Artist, Szymon Kudranski, does an excellent job on the book too. The book's moody dark tones and colors by John Kalisz only add ot the pencils by Kudranski. Everyone around the Penguin is accentuated with various expressions of joy or barely perceptible smiles that they give only to keep their jobs and lives as they move around the Penguin. Crime never looked as evil as Kudranski makes it in this book. While the Joker may be the Clown Prince of Crime and stories with him, you expect to be full of insanity and violence, the world of the Penguin is a world of violence surrounded by darkness and melancholy, and that is the world depicted in this comic. If Gotham is a place of darkness and grime where the insanest of villains ply their illicit activities, the corner the Penguin is in is one of the darkest areas in the city.
If you like stories from the villain's perspective without them being turned into heroes (or anti-heroes as the case may be), then this book is one you should pick up and read. In the background story for why the Penguin is the way he is interspersed throughout the main story, you feel some sympathy for the Penguin, but then when you see how it has truly molded and shaped him, you realize that he has gone much further than his life has led him in how evil he has become.
Two Bat-family books that truly give you insight into two great characters from the family and its enemies. Huntress is as gritty as the Batman ever was even if it is against the cultured backdrop of Italy, while the Penguin shows why Batman is the way he is given the rogues gallery that he has to go up against.
Thanks for reading.
Christ is Love, not anger
You were warned in the description that sometimes I would give my musings on Christianity. Let's start with the fact that I am a Christian. I believe in God with all my heart and that Jesus is God; they are one and the same. I also believe that the Bible is the only true guidance in how we should live our lives and in what we should do. A pastor, preacher, priest, or whatever your religion designates a leader in your church can help you understand the Bible, but only what is in the Bible is truth and not anything that one of those men might take upon himself. In this regard, I try to read my Bible every day in hopes that I will gain some new englightenment about how to live my life or what it is I'm supposed to do to be someone that pleases God.
I wasn't always this way. I was raised in a church, I went to church when I was a teenager in high school, and I dabbled in church a little bit after I left home as an adult for a couple of years. Pretty quickly though, I just left church behind. I still believed in God, but I didn't give God the praise or worship He deserved for a very long time. I came back to God and the church almost 3 years ago now. It took me almost a year of being back in church to actually let God back into my life. I still make mistakes every day, and there are times when I wonder why God still loves me, but I know He does.
One of the things that has always been a problem in my life is anger, and I'm not talking about, the kind of anger where you give someone a stern look to let them know they've displeased, but pure anger that will just well up inside of me until it has to be released because of some wrong inflicted on me; sometimes even imagined wrongs because I'm the only one that really sees or feels them. When I was a kid, this would come out in temper tantrums. I see this in my granddaughter. When I was in junior high school, it would express itself in fights - I was kind of a skinny kid all through junior high and high school, and in junior high I got picked on a lot by people I didn't even really know; I would take it for a while, but eventually someone would push that one step too far. The worst part was when I was really starting to get angry, I would start to cry (my mom shared this trait as well), which would generally encourage people picking on me to tease me even more because they thought they had really hurt me. What they never realized until the first punch was that I wasn't sad, I was angry. As I got into high schoo, I put away the fighting, which was good; it helped that most people matured enough to stop picking on each other or just formed cliques where people like me never really saw those people who used to pick on me. As I moved into adult hood I even tried to get past my anger and the only physical reaction by this point became me yelling at whoever or whatever made me mad. I went to a therapist one time for what I considered my anger issues. What I learned from the therapist was that what I was doing was natural - people would do things that hurt me and made me angry and I would react angrily to it. In the world of psychiatry, it's good to express your anger, so what I was doing was normal.
I still express my anger by yelling today, though I do my best to try to take a moment or two and just not get angry. It doesn't work well all the time, and my children and wife are the only people who even realize or have really seen this side of me in years. That part is a shame. The truth of anger though is that it is not really normal or good in the way we express or use it, especially not as Christians. Christ is love and that's what he wanted us to understand through His examples over and over again. He never got angry at those who persecuted Him; He actually felt pity for them in my understanding of what I read in the Bible. He never hated anyone, He only felt love for everyone He ever met including those who persecuted Him. In fact the last words he speaks before He dies on the cross are words of forgiveness. This is what we should be striving for in our own lives is a place where we do our best to live our lives the same way. We'll never truly achieve this peace here on earth, but we should be looking for it.
The worst thing about anger is that most of the time unless you do like I did in junior high and punch someone, the people you're angry at aren't really bothered by your anger. This is why we react by screaming or being violent in our anger, so the people who hurt us can be hurt too. What a ridiculous sentiment to be remembered by. The one example that even comes close to showing Jesus angry, identifies it not as anger, but as zeal for the temple, His Father's house. Even here, Jesus does not react angrily, although I'm sure some would disagree. The text shows that he made a cord to whip people who were selling the animals for sacrifice our of the courtyad. He overturned tables that the moneychangers using, but through it all, I see no mention of anger or even of Him trying to hurt anyone. He could have called down the full power of God on them to punish them. He could have gotten a stick and beat them with it. He could have gotten a real whip like He was eventually beaten with, but He used a cord that He made, so while I imagine it probably stung, I doubt it left any real pain or hurt. Even in this Jesus showed mercy, and He deserved to be angry and to punish people, to judge them. Christ is love because everything He did, He did out of love for us, to try to show us the way we should act towards one another.
The other thing that stands out about anger is that anger is a judgement by you upon someone. If you are angry with people, it is because you have decided that they deserve for you to be angry with them. They have done something that deserves this punishment. Consider parents with their children. Why do parents get angry with their children? Generally, it's because the child has done something that the parent has defined as wrong, possibly even after the child has been told several times not to do it. The parent then judges that the child deserves to be punished by spanking, scolding, grounding, whatever. Yes, the parent still loves the child, but there are times where it is anger that is driving the punishment and not love. I've been angry with my children (especially my daughter as she could attest) at times because I didn't know what else to do. It showed a lack of wisdom on my part to allow the anger to determine the punishment whether than to put the anger aside and use wisdom in determining the punishment. I have even made people angry before with something I've done. The anger is usually a judgement upon my action; sometimes I didn't even realize what I was doing would make someone angry, it just kind of was some stupid thing I did without thinking or considering how someone else would take it.
At the end of the day, anger never solved anything for me. Every fight I ever got into in junior high school, never really made those kids stop picking on me. Every time I've yelled, it never changed anything. In fact, every time I've been angry, the only person who has ever been hurt by it has been me. What has changed things has been stopping and listening, using wisdom, and showing love. In every instance when I've been angry with someone that mattered in my life, it was after the anger subsided and I applied wisdom and spoke calmly and rationally that things were resolved. Granted it is difficult to do this with younger children, but it does work. Sometimes children (and even adults) need a spanking, a scolding, or to be put in time out, but it will always bear the best results when it is done out of love.
One day, I'm going to get to Heaven. When I get there I will be judged for my time here on earth. Nothing I can do will ever change that judgement. Christ is the only one who can change that judgement by his death, burial, and resurrection. He changes it by his forgiveness of my sins and my anger. I imagine if God wasn't perfect, we would all be dead and this world would have been destroyed at Eden when Adam and Eve first sinned and in doing so, showed their disobedience of God. God loves us though, and he has put his anger aside for now, even when He corrects us now along the way, He does it in love and wisdom. One day, God will truly judge the world though, and on that day we will see His anger for the first time ever. If we want the forgiveness of God, we need to be more like Him and do as He said and judge not lest we be judged. We need to put our anger away and speak things to others in wisdom. When someone hurts us, we need to explain that to them, and if we are the other side, we need to listen with wisdom as well. God examines what's in our hearts and not what we do each day, no action I take will ever save me from God's judgement, only God's actions in Christ can do that. Love God as He loves you, not because you deserved to be loved by Him with all of the bad stuff you've done, but because He has chosen to love you out of His great mercy.
The worst part of all of this is you have groups of people out there who will tell you that they speak on behalf of God, that they are Christians. If you read your Bible, you will find quickly the truth. Anyone who professes that God hates anyone is a liar and does not speak on behalf of God. Whether they are Christian or not, I'll leave for God to decide. The Bible clearly tells us that God loves everyone of us, and in fact, if you look at the actions of Christ, He loves the sinner all the more because if we weren't all sinners, Christ would never have had to die for our sins and for us. Let your anger pass, and learn to love and be wise. There are many points in our grand history that might have been different if people would do this.
Thanks for reading, and God bless you.
I wasn't always this way. I was raised in a church, I went to church when I was a teenager in high school, and I dabbled in church a little bit after I left home as an adult for a couple of years. Pretty quickly though, I just left church behind. I still believed in God, but I didn't give God the praise or worship He deserved for a very long time. I came back to God and the church almost 3 years ago now. It took me almost a year of being back in church to actually let God back into my life. I still make mistakes every day, and there are times when I wonder why God still loves me, but I know He does.
One of the things that has always been a problem in my life is anger, and I'm not talking about, the kind of anger where you give someone a stern look to let them know they've displeased, but pure anger that will just well up inside of me until it has to be released because of some wrong inflicted on me; sometimes even imagined wrongs because I'm the only one that really sees or feels them. When I was a kid, this would come out in temper tantrums. I see this in my granddaughter. When I was in junior high school, it would express itself in fights - I was kind of a skinny kid all through junior high and high school, and in junior high I got picked on a lot by people I didn't even really know; I would take it for a while, but eventually someone would push that one step too far. The worst part was when I was really starting to get angry, I would start to cry (my mom shared this trait as well), which would generally encourage people picking on me to tease me even more because they thought they had really hurt me. What they never realized until the first punch was that I wasn't sad, I was angry. As I got into high schoo, I put away the fighting, which was good; it helped that most people matured enough to stop picking on each other or just formed cliques where people like me never really saw those people who used to pick on me. As I moved into adult hood I even tried to get past my anger and the only physical reaction by this point became me yelling at whoever or whatever made me mad. I went to a therapist one time for what I considered my anger issues. What I learned from the therapist was that what I was doing was natural - people would do things that hurt me and made me angry and I would react angrily to it. In the world of psychiatry, it's good to express your anger, so what I was doing was normal.
I still express my anger by yelling today, though I do my best to try to take a moment or two and just not get angry. It doesn't work well all the time, and my children and wife are the only people who even realize or have really seen this side of me in years. That part is a shame. The truth of anger though is that it is not really normal or good in the way we express or use it, especially not as Christians. Christ is love and that's what he wanted us to understand through His examples over and over again. He never got angry at those who persecuted Him; He actually felt pity for them in my understanding of what I read in the Bible. He never hated anyone, He only felt love for everyone He ever met including those who persecuted Him. In fact the last words he speaks before He dies on the cross are words of forgiveness. This is what we should be striving for in our own lives is a place where we do our best to live our lives the same way. We'll never truly achieve this peace here on earth, but we should be looking for it.
The worst thing about anger is that most of the time unless you do like I did in junior high and punch someone, the people you're angry at aren't really bothered by your anger. This is why we react by screaming or being violent in our anger, so the people who hurt us can be hurt too. What a ridiculous sentiment to be remembered by. The one example that even comes close to showing Jesus angry, identifies it not as anger, but as zeal for the temple, His Father's house. Even here, Jesus does not react angrily, although I'm sure some would disagree. The text shows that he made a cord to whip people who were selling the animals for sacrifice our of the courtyad. He overturned tables that the moneychangers using, but through it all, I see no mention of anger or even of Him trying to hurt anyone. He could have called down the full power of God on them to punish them. He could have gotten a stick and beat them with it. He could have gotten a real whip like He was eventually beaten with, but He used a cord that He made, so while I imagine it probably stung, I doubt it left any real pain or hurt. Even in this Jesus showed mercy, and He deserved to be angry and to punish people, to judge them. Christ is love because everything He did, He did out of love for us, to try to show us the way we should act towards one another.
The other thing that stands out about anger is that anger is a judgement by you upon someone. If you are angry with people, it is because you have decided that they deserve for you to be angry with them. They have done something that deserves this punishment. Consider parents with their children. Why do parents get angry with their children? Generally, it's because the child has done something that the parent has defined as wrong, possibly even after the child has been told several times not to do it. The parent then judges that the child deserves to be punished by spanking, scolding, grounding, whatever. Yes, the parent still loves the child, but there are times where it is anger that is driving the punishment and not love. I've been angry with my children (especially my daughter as she could attest) at times because I didn't know what else to do. It showed a lack of wisdom on my part to allow the anger to determine the punishment whether than to put the anger aside and use wisdom in determining the punishment. I have even made people angry before with something I've done. The anger is usually a judgement upon my action; sometimes I didn't even realize what I was doing would make someone angry, it just kind of was some stupid thing I did without thinking or considering how someone else would take it.
At the end of the day, anger never solved anything for me. Every fight I ever got into in junior high school, never really made those kids stop picking on me. Every time I've yelled, it never changed anything. In fact, every time I've been angry, the only person who has ever been hurt by it has been me. What has changed things has been stopping and listening, using wisdom, and showing love. In every instance when I've been angry with someone that mattered in my life, it was after the anger subsided and I applied wisdom and spoke calmly and rationally that things were resolved. Granted it is difficult to do this with younger children, but it does work. Sometimes children (and even adults) need a spanking, a scolding, or to be put in time out, but it will always bear the best results when it is done out of love.
One day, I'm going to get to Heaven. When I get there I will be judged for my time here on earth. Nothing I can do will ever change that judgement. Christ is the only one who can change that judgement by his death, burial, and resurrection. He changes it by his forgiveness of my sins and my anger. I imagine if God wasn't perfect, we would all be dead and this world would have been destroyed at Eden when Adam and Eve first sinned and in doing so, showed their disobedience of God. God loves us though, and he has put his anger aside for now, even when He corrects us now along the way, He does it in love and wisdom. One day, God will truly judge the world though, and on that day we will see His anger for the first time ever. If we want the forgiveness of God, we need to be more like Him and do as He said and judge not lest we be judged. We need to put our anger away and speak things to others in wisdom. When someone hurts us, we need to explain that to them, and if we are the other side, we need to listen with wisdom as well. God examines what's in our hearts and not what we do each day, no action I take will ever save me from God's judgement, only God's actions in Christ can do that. Love God as He loves you, not because you deserved to be loved by Him with all of the bad stuff you've done, but because He has chosen to love you out of His great mercy.
The worst part of all of this is you have groups of people out there who will tell you that they speak on behalf of God, that they are Christians. If you read your Bible, you will find quickly the truth. Anyone who professes that God hates anyone is a liar and does not speak on behalf of God. Whether they are Christian or not, I'll leave for God to decide. The Bible clearly tells us that God loves everyone of us, and in fact, if you look at the actions of Christ, He loves the sinner all the more because if we weren't all sinners, Christ would never have had to die for our sins and for us. Let your anger pass, and learn to love and be wise. There are many points in our grand history that might have been different if people would do this.
Thanks for reading, and God bless you.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Action Comics #2 and Animal Man #2
Okay, I got two comics read yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to post anything because I was gaming last night.
Action Comics continues to amaze me. Grant Morrison's vision of Superman is what I think it should be. I have mentioned in the past that I don't like Superman, I don't normally like him because he's so powerful and undefeatable for the past era in which I've read comics (80's to now) that DC has literally had to try and force something to be as powerful as him, hence the creation of Doomsday in the 90's as a being even more powerful than Superman, so powerful in fact that he actually supplants Superman as the most powerful thing on Earth other than when Apokolips shows up. Grant Morrison in this beginnins story of the DCnU (it takes place 5 years before the current continuity of the DCnU) has brought Superman back to his roots of the 30's, 40's and 50's though. Superman is not all powerful. He can be hurt; he doesn't just immediatley stand up after being slammed into the wall by a speeding bullet train, and he doesn't immedialy recover from being shocked with 500,000 volts of electricity at 10 amps as in this issue. It takes Superman time to recover now, time to heal, not as long as you or I because he is still Superman, but it does take time. I've always liked Grant Morrison as a writer, and this comic proves why. He has taken a character that I all but hated and made him into a character I love to read about. He has also made the character very human without needing to make him human. In this issue, Superman has been captured by General Sam Lane and is being experimented upon by Lex Luthor. At some point after his capture, his cape (what we all know is his baby blanket from Krypton) was taken from him to see how much damage it could take (it proves to be up to the challenge by the way), and the first thing Superman does when he finally gets free is not make a break for daylight, but demand they return to him what they took from him (his cape). They do not return it of course because they are already in recapture mode, so he searches through the base until he finds his baby blanket and then he escapes after a small detour to find his rocket that the base also has, which he didn't know about. Here there is a brief scene between he and the rocket which appears to have some intelligence before he tells the rocket to look after itself for now and he'll be back for it later. All showing Superman's very human side without overburdening him with the need to fly home to maw and paw Kent to get in touch with his human side (Maw and Paw Kent are actually both dead in this continuity by the way). I have to give kudos to Morrison for creating a character that people can sympathize with again.
Also, that little detail that Grant Morrison wrote in the last issue about the object in the sky that Lex Luthor noticed in the sky; we find out what it is in this issue. I'm pretty sure it's Brainiac, but they haven't shown that part yet.
The pencils by Rags Morales continue to be amazing. Capturing Superman at a younger age without making him seem like a tired teenager. His pencils add as much to capturing the humanity and less powerful Superman as much as Morrison's writing. His images of the battered and tortured Superman in this issue do a wonderful job of showing us that Superman can be hurt even if he does heal up quickly given time. And the motion he attached to Superman when he is loose and, dare I say, revelling in his power are absolutely amazing. You can almost hear the controlled passion and anger in Superman's voice as he demands the soldiers give him his cape back.
Pick up this title and read it if you like Grant Morrison. If you couldn't figure out why you didn't like Superman but always wanted to, pick it up. If you love Superman, pick up this title. Just get out there and read it before you're stuck looking it for it later when no one wants to part with their copies of this comic.
Animal Man continues to amaze me as well. I wasn't even going to buy this title. I picked it up last month because it was selling out quickly, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It shocked me and showed me a Buddy Baker who was not the Animal Man I thought he was, but someone more confident and secure in his powers. And then it began to turn how we thought his powers worked and where we thought they came from on its head to show us that there is even more to Animal Man than we ever thought.
I don't think I had ever previously read any work by Jeff Lemire, but his take on Animal Man in this openinc arc of the series is spectacular. He has connected Buddy to his family again and introduced new elements to Animal Man in a way that I would have never foresaw. The villains he and artist Travel Foreman introduce fully in this issue are amazingly creepy, and if I was still 10 would probably give me nightmares. The variant powers of Buddy's daughter, Maxine, first revealed at the end of issue 1 shows you a taste of what Buddy could be capable of if he fully understood his powers, while Maxine seems even more powerful than Buddy to begin with as she seems more intimately connected to the source of their powers.
If you ever liked Animal Man before, this is definitely a book you want to be reading. If you never gave Animal Man a chance because he seemed like a B rated and uglier Vixen, you should give him a chance with this series. It's obvious that Buddy is capable of so much more than just grabbing the strength, speed, or other characteristics of animals if he fully explores the use of his powers completely. Hopefully, we'll see him doing more of that as this arc and series progresses.
Thanks for reading and have a good day.
Action Comics continues to amaze me. Grant Morrison's vision of Superman is what I think it should be. I have mentioned in the past that I don't like Superman, I don't normally like him because he's so powerful and undefeatable for the past era in which I've read comics (80's to now) that DC has literally had to try and force something to be as powerful as him, hence the creation of Doomsday in the 90's as a being even more powerful than Superman, so powerful in fact that he actually supplants Superman as the most powerful thing on Earth other than when Apokolips shows up. Grant Morrison in this beginnins story of the DCnU (it takes place 5 years before the current continuity of the DCnU) has brought Superman back to his roots of the 30's, 40's and 50's though. Superman is not all powerful. He can be hurt; he doesn't just immediatley stand up after being slammed into the wall by a speeding bullet train, and he doesn't immedialy recover from being shocked with 500,000 volts of electricity at 10 amps as in this issue. It takes Superman time to recover now, time to heal, not as long as you or I because he is still Superman, but it does take time. I've always liked Grant Morrison as a writer, and this comic proves why. He has taken a character that I all but hated and made him into a character I love to read about. He has also made the character very human without needing to make him human. In this issue, Superman has been captured by General Sam Lane and is being experimented upon by Lex Luthor. At some point after his capture, his cape (what we all know is his baby blanket from Krypton) was taken from him to see how much damage it could take (it proves to be up to the challenge by the way), and the first thing Superman does when he finally gets free is not make a break for daylight, but demand they return to him what they took from him (his cape). They do not return it of course because they are already in recapture mode, so he searches through the base until he finds his baby blanket and then he escapes after a small detour to find his rocket that the base also has, which he didn't know about. Here there is a brief scene between he and the rocket which appears to have some intelligence before he tells the rocket to look after itself for now and he'll be back for it later. All showing Superman's very human side without overburdening him with the need to fly home to maw and paw Kent to get in touch with his human side (Maw and Paw Kent are actually both dead in this continuity by the way). I have to give kudos to Morrison for creating a character that people can sympathize with again.
Also, that little detail that Grant Morrison wrote in the last issue about the object in the sky that Lex Luthor noticed in the sky; we find out what it is in this issue. I'm pretty sure it's Brainiac, but they haven't shown that part yet.
The pencils by Rags Morales continue to be amazing. Capturing Superman at a younger age without making him seem like a tired teenager. His pencils add as much to capturing the humanity and less powerful Superman as much as Morrison's writing. His images of the battered and tortured Superman in this issue do a wonderful job of showing us that Superman can be hurt even if he does heal up quickly given time. And the motion he attached to Superman when he is loose and, dare I say, revelling in his power are absolutely amazing. You can almost hear the controlled passion and anger in Superman's voice as he demands the soldiers give him his cape back.
Pick up this title and read it if you like Grant Morrison. If you couldn't figure out why you didn't like Superman but always wanted to, pick it up. If you love Superman, pick up this title. Just get out there and read it before you're stuck looking it for it later when no one wants to part with their copies of this comic.
Animal Man continues to amaze me as well. I wasn't even going to buy this title. I picked it up last month because it was selling out quickly, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It shocked me and showed me a Buddy Baker who was not the Animal Man I thought he was, but someone more confident and secure in his powers. And then it began to turn how we thought his powers worked and where we thought they came from on its head to show us that there is even more to Animal Man than we ever thought.
I don't think I had ever previously read any work by Jeff Lemire, but his take on Animal Man in this openinc arc of the series is spectacular. He has connected Buddy to his family again and introduced new elements to Animal Man in a way that I would have never foresaw. The villains he and artist Travel Foreman introduce fully in this issue are amazingly creepy, and if I was still 10 would probably give me nightmares. The variant powers of Buddy's daughter, Maxine, first revealed at the end of issue 1 shows you a taste of what Buddy could be capable of if he fully understood his powers, while Maxine seems even more powerful than Buddy to begin with as she seems more intimately connected to the source of their powers.
If you ever liked Animal Man before, this is definitely a book you want to be reading. If you never gave Animal Man a chance because he seemed like a B rated and uglier Vixen, you should give him a chance with this series. It's obvious that Buddy is capable of so much more than just grabbing the strength, speed, or other characteristics of animals if he fully explores the use of his powers completely. Hopefully, we'll see him doing more of that as this arc and series progresses.
Thanks for reading and have a good day.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Batman: Detective Comics #2 and Swamp Thing #2
What can I say, I read two tonight and tha was it, so I figured I'd give you a taste of both of them.
Detective Comics continues to amaze me with a Batman who is the way he should be. Tough as nails, but still able to be surprised by the criminally insane that call Gotham home. Joker has had his face sliced off (at least the skin) as seen last night, and it's driving everyone crazy trying to figure out what's going on, especially Batman. Is the Joker dead? No one knows and I'm not sure this issue answered the question yet, but this new villain, Dollmaker, creeps me out even more than the Joker ever did. I'm thinking that's the Joker with him on the third to last page of the story in the creepier than usual jester get up. Batman is still fighting for all he's worth the way you expect him to, but Dollmaker and what I can only imagine are his human dolls don't fight fair and want to add Batman to the list of victims. I'm still recommending this comic. It's Batman the way he should be. Tony S. Daniel and Ryan Winn are doing an excellent job with the story and the art. And I'm really loving the new looks of the vehicles, not completely redesigned, but like many of the costumes, redesigned just enough to give them a new edge and a modernized look (or futuristic look as may be the case with some of the Bat-vehicles).
The story in this arc continues to be disturbing and engrossing. And, I'm still not really sure where it's going to end. I hope Batman wins, but at this point, I'd say I'm not sure and it's obvious with this issue that the gloves are off and major characters aren't necessarily considered hands off anymore in the DCnU.
If you haven't tried this comic yet, you're missing out on a great Batman story.
Swamp Thing is a title I wasn't sure I was going to like. The Swamp Thing is one of those characters that I think people usually love or hate. I always liked the concept of the character, but I never enjoyed what they did with the character, even as recently as in Brightest Day and its aftermath title, The Search for Swamp Thing. This new series has surpised me at every turn so far though. The first issue left me wondering why Alec Holland wasn't the Swamp Thing since this was the relaunch and that's what I expected to be the case. Instead he was working construction with these past memories of the Swamp Thing and no real understanding of it all other than he was finished with it. At the end of the first issue, a Swamp Thing shows up. Issue 2 reveals that this is not the Swamp Thing we're used to, but a previous Swamp Thing who's human host has died already and is now a husk of his former self. We learn that Alec Holland is not the Swamp Thing right now because he has yet to have actually become the Swamp Thing. It seems that the original origin from when Holland's lab blew up and he died and then became the Swamp Thing wasn't really him becoming the Swamp Thing, but a simulacrum of him that the Green decided to create to make the newest Swamp Thing because Holland is supposed to be the greatest hero of the Green yet. The fact that Holland's consciousness was never really in the Swamp Thing kept it from reaching the full potential of Swamp Thing or from being probably restrained by a human conscience. The truth is that the accident in which the lab blew up did not make Alec Holland the Swamp Thing, but kept him from becoming the Swamp Thing.
Now there is a second chance with Alec Holland alive again for the green to make him into the Swamp Thing. And they need him to be the Swamp Thing because their greatest enemy is coming for them with no less desire than to destroy the world as we know it and remake it a place of death and plague.
Scott Snyder is writing a great story about the Swamp Thing, and it's a story that I want to keep reading. The artwork by Yanick Paquette is exceptional and works well for the tone of this character and story. I have to say I'm loving this book, and anyone who loves the Swamp Thing will love it. I also think if you used to hate the Swamp Thing, it's time to give him another chance; this story may change your mind about him. I can't wait to see what happens in issue 3 given the cliffhanger in this issue.
Well, that's it for today. Thanks for reading.
Detective Comics continues to amaze me with a Batman who is the way he should be. Tough as nails, but still able to be surprised by the criminally insane that call Gotham home. Joker has had his face sliced off (at least the skin) as seen last night, and it's driving everyone crazy trying to figure out what's going on, especially Batman. Is the Joker dead? No one knows and I'm not sure this issue answered the question yet, but this new villain, Dollmaker, creeps me out even more than the Joker ever did. I'm thinking that's the Joker with him on the third to last page of the story in the creepier than usual jester get up. Batman is still fighting for all he's worth the way you expect him to, but Dollmaker and what I can only imagine are his human dolls don't fight fair and want to add Batman to the list of victims. I'm still recommending this comic. It's Batman the way he should be. Tony S. Daniel and Ryan Winn are doing an excellent job with the story and the art. And I'm really loving the new looks of the vehicles, not completely redesigned, but like many of the costumes, redesigned just enough to give them a new edge and a modernized look (or futuristic look as may be the case with some of the Bat-vehicles).
The story in this arc continues to be disturbing and engrossing. And, I'm still not really sure where it's going to end. I hope Batman wins, but at this point, I'd say I'm not sure and it's obvious with this issue that the gloves are off and major characters aren't necessarily considered hands off anymore in the DCnU.
If you haven't tried this comic yet, you're missing out on a great Batman story.
Swamp Thing is a title I wasn't sure I was going to like. The Swamp Thing is one of those characters that I think people usually love or hate. I always liked the concept of the character, but I never enjoyed what they did with the character, even as recently as in Brightest Day and its aftermath title, The Search for Swamp Thing. This new series has surpised me at every turn so far though. The first issue left me wondering why Alec Holland wasn't the Swamp Thing since this was the relaunch and that's what I expected to be the case. Instead he was working construction with these past memories of the Swamp Thing and no real understanding of it all other than he was finished with it. At the end of the first issue, a Swamp Thing shows up. Issue 2 reveals that this is not the Swamp Thing we're used to, but a previous Swamp Thing who's human host has died already and is now a husk of his former self. We learn that Alec Holland is not the Swamp Thing right now because he has yet to have actually become the Swamp Thing. It seems that the original origin from when Holland's lab blew up and he died and then became the Swamp Thing wasn't really him becoming the Swamp Thing, but a simulacrum of him that the Green decided to create to make the newest Swamp Thing because Holland is supposed to be the greatest hero of the Green yet. The fact that Holland's consciousness was never really in the Swamp Thing kept it from reaching the full potential of Swamp Thing or from being probably restrained by a human conscience. The truth is that the accident in which the lab blew up did not make Alec Holland the Swamp Thing, but kept him from becoming the Swamp Thing.
Now there is a second chance with Alec Holland alive again for the green to make him into the Swamp Thing. And they need him to be the Swamp Thing because their greatest enemy is coming for them with no less desire than to destroy the world as we know it and remake it a place of death and plague.
Scott Snyder is writing a great story about the Swamp Thing, and it's a story that I want to keep reading. The artwork by Yanick Paquette is exceptional and works well for the tone of this character and story. I have to say I'm loving this book, and anyone who loves the Swamp Thing will love it. I also think if you used to hate the Swamp Thing, it's time to give him another chance; this story may change your mind about him. I can't wait to see what happens in issue 3 given the cliffhanger in this issue.
Well, that's it for today. Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Champions Online - Costume Contests
So, I posted one of my characters from the MMO, Champions Online, about a week ago. I talked about my character, but not the game much. Champions Online is one of a rare genre of MMO's in that it uses the superhero genre for its world and the characters. It's not as rare as it once was, but compared to all of the fantasy world MMOs that have come and gone, it's still a rare genre. There are 3 of them right now: City of Heroes/Villains (CoH/V or CoX) (the first), Champions Online (CO) (the first based off of a previous PnP game), and DC Universe Online (DCUO) (the latest and the worst). I've played all three of them and so far other than a few minor details that DCUO capitalized on as the latest game, Champions Online is the best in my opinion.
One of the things I like about CO (and I liked it in CoX too) is that you can customize your character's looks as they give you many pieces of "clothing" to choose from to outfit your character and make your personal superhero (I have 18 right now) look like what you want. This led to the rise in CoX before it and the continuation in CO of costume contests (CCs) where people compete for in-game prizes to see who has the most awesome costume based on the judges' opinions. The CCs are generally held by supergroups (the superhero genre's version of guilds if you play WoW) who give away things like costume unlocks (more cool clothing for your hero's look), items that can give your characters bonuses for their combat abilities, or just in-game money (globals in CO instead of gold).
One of the three supergroups I have heroes in is called the Krewe de Champions. It's my wife's supergroup and I guess mine too technically, since I gave her the idea for the name. I'm from Louisiana originally, and a supergroup with Mardi Gras motifs just seemed appropriate. We held our supergroup's first CC tonight. There are different types of CCs you can hold, usually based on a theme like tech heroes, monstrous heroes, cutest heroes, etc. One of the more rare ones due to the time they take are bio CCs. These use the biography or background stories of your characters as a judging point as well as the costume. Biographies are typed by the players for their characters and can be read by anyone by selecting an option called info for a character. I like these types of CCs because I get to see not just how fashionly creative other players are but also how creative they are with their writing skills. I always wanted to be a writer, but never really pursued it, so it interests me.
Anyway, without further ado, I thought I would give you a peek into the great costumes some other people come up with. There was no way to cut and paste all of the character bios for these great characters without using up a lot of their valuable game time, but I wanted to share this creativity.
These first two pictures are our honorable mentions. We chose 5 characters for this, and I really wish you could see some of the details in all of these costumes. Names of the characters, but not their handles are below the pictures. The names for all pictures are from left to right for ease of reference.
We had honorable mentions and then we had an inbetween level after honorable mentions, but before our top 3 picks for the CC. We call them judges' favorites, but really all 10 of these were our favorites.
Next is our second place winner. Her picture is not great, but her character is only about half the size of the other characters (pretty much the smallest sized character you can make).
And finally, this was our first place winner. Her semi-transparent look just added to the name and the bio that she had in a very cool way. I had never even seen the item she used to do this with before, but my mind is already reeling over what I could do with a new character if I ever find the item myself.
Like I said, I love the CCs, but the game is fun in and of itself even without the CCs. If you don't believe me, you should check it out for yourself. The game is actually free to play - yes, free, not for 20 levels, but for every level that everyone who pays has as well. What? How can that be? Well, you don't get everything quite the way those who pay do. As a free to play player, you have to play what's called an archetype (it's a set architecture of powers in your character that you gain as you level; there's a couple points where you get to choose between more than one, but not much), where as players who pay for the game can create free from characters using powers from any of the trees that make up the power sets. Also, pay players get a lot more costume pieces options for free and free players have to find or buy these pieces, and all of them are not even available for them, but there's still plenty to choose from when designing your hero's look.
I don't advertise full immersion in the game and starving yourself to death like some MMO players have ended up in the news for, but with reasonable borders for yourself, spending a couple hours in an MMO, especially a good one like this can be fun. If you have any interest, you can always check out the free to play version of this and see some of the creativity I'm talking about by signing up for an account and downloading the client at Champions-online.com
One of the things I like about CO (and I liked it in CoX too) is that you can customize your character's looks as they give you many pieces of "clothing" to choose from to outfit your character and make your personal superhero (I have 18 right now) look like what you want. This led to the rise in CoX before it and the continuation in CO of costume contests (CCs) where people compete for in-game prizes to see who has the most awesome costume based on the judges' opinions. The CCs are generally held by supergroups (the superhero genre's version of guilds if you play WoW) who give away things like costume unlocks (more cool clothing for your hero's look), items that can give your characters bonuses for their combat abilities, or just in-game money (globals in CO instead of gold).
One of the three supergroups I have heroes in is called the Krewe de Champions. It's my wife's supergroup and I guess mine too technically, since I gave her the idea for the name. I'm from Louisiana originally, and a supergroup with Mardi Gras motifs just seemed appropriate. We held our supergroup's first CC tonight. There are different types of CCs you can hold, usually based on a theme like tech heroes, monstrous heroes, cutest heroes, etc. One of the more rare ones due to the time they take are bio CCs. These use the biography or background stories of your characters as a judging point as well as the costume. Biographies are typed by the players for their characters and can be read by anyone by selecting an option called info for a character. I like these types of CCs because I get to see not just how fashionly creative other players are but also how creative they are with their writing skills. I always wanted to be a writer, but never really pursued it, so it interests me.
Anyway, without further ado, I thought I would give you a peek into the great costumes some other people come up with. There was no way to cut and paste all of the character bios for these great characters without using up a lot of their valuable game time, but I wanted to share this creativity.
These first two pictures are our honorable mentions. We chose 5 characters for this, and I really wish you could see some of the details in all of these costumes. Names of the characters, but not their handles are below the pictures. The names for all pictures are from left to right for ease of reference.
Dark Mistress, Sari the Reaper, Savage Surgeon
Autumn, Toy Soldier
(the smaller figure is an action figure, like a pet, you can collect in game)
We had honorable mentions and then we had an inbetween level after honorable mentions, but before our top 3 picks for the CC. We call them judges' favorites, but really all 10 of these were our favorites.
Captain Whiteout, Lamia Minora
This next picture was our third place winner for the evening. The fact that his name stands for something should give you an idea of the creativity in use by him and many of the players involved in this game.
Z.E.I.R.O.
Pixie
And finally, this was our first place winner. Her semi-transparent look just added to the name and the bio that she had in a very cool way. I had never even seen the item she used to do this with before, but my mind is already reeling over what I could do with a new character if I ever find the item myself.
Looking Glass
I don't advertise full immersion in the game and starving yourself to death like some MMO players have ended up in the news for, but with reasonable borders for yourself, spending a couple hours in an MMO, especially a good one like this can be fun. If you have any interest, you can always check out the free to play version of this and see some of the creativity I'm talking about by signing up for an account and downloading the client at Champions-online.com
Monday, October 3, 2011
Farscape TPB Vol. 1
Farscape rocked! That's all I can really say about the series from when it was on SciFi. It's a shame they cancelled it by moving it to a night where it had to compete with major shows on major networks instead of leaving it in its original steadily watched timeslot. They claim it was a ratings issue, but its ratings were fine until the network powers that be moved it to another timeslot. Here's a hint for TV moguls, if the initials of your network aren't ABC, CBS, or NBC, don't move a highly rated show to another time slot to compete with one of their highly rated shows; some of the people watching yours are probably watching theirs too.
Anyway, Farscape was one of those sci-fi shows that comes along every once in a while and is great at what it does and is sometimes a little ahead of its time. Other sci-fi series that are/were like this include Star Trek (the original was cancelled after only 3 seasons for poor ratings) and Firefly (never actually cancelled by the network, just gone...which I think may be worse - most people are probably more familiar with the movie, Serenity). Like both of these series Farscape took a group of people and brought them together to create a family cohesive unit of friends willing to sacrifice themselves for each other. Closer to Firefly in the fact that it was a bunch of misfits and outlaws whether than a military structured force, Farscape was based around an earthling, John Crichton, getting yanked through a wormhole while test piloting the experimental spacecraft, Farscape 1 (hence the name). Crichton ends up on the far side of the universe, popping out right in the middle of a space batttle between the dominant space empire, the Peacekeepers, and a group of prisoners who have just escaped their cells on a prison ship known as Moya. Crichton's ship accidentally causes one of the Peacekeeper fighters to be destroyed; the pilot of the ship happens to be the brother of a high ranking officer who now wants vengeance on Crichton whoever he is. So, while the prisoners with John Crichton and his ship now onboard escape in their own prison ship, there is no way Crais (the officer) is going to let them get away. The TV series lasted four seasons before being cancelled. The thing about this show is while there were a lot of action packed scenes of space fights and land based laser fights, the show hit the heart by making the characters realistic in nature and developing something about the characters in each episode along with the fights. If you've never seen the show, you should check it out in syndication or pick it up on iTunes.
Rockne S. O'Bannon created the series and it was produced by the Jim Henson Company (the Muppets guys). The series was left on a cliffhanger, and a year later thanks to funding by several people, a mini-series entitled, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars finally gave fans closure on the TV series.
Why did I tell you about all of the TV stuff? Because the comic book series picks up right after the Peacekeeper Wars, so you pretty much know what it's about now. The comic book series, at least its first four issues collected in the volume one trade paperback continue the same excellent story that the series made famous. The characters who have survived are still there. It's kind of a must to at least watch the Peacekeeper Wars to know who the characters are talking about to understand what's going on in at least the first issue and who D'Argo is. I wish the series would have continued, and there was still an awesome tv show to watch, but seeing the series continue in comics is just as satisfying if not more so, since they'll never have to worry about whether the budget can afford something with a comic book. As long as they can pay the artist and writer, they can afford whatever they want to do as long as the artist can draw it and the writer can think of it. Rockne S. O'Bannon continues to write the story though others script the actual comic book. The pencils by Tommy Patterson capture the same essence of the show that anyone who has seen it loved.
My only regret with this trade paperback is that I waited until the series was being collected in trades to pick it up. If you are a fan of Farscape and you miss it, pick up the trades for it at your local comic shop or ask them to order them now and then start picking up the series itself. There have even been a few limited series spun off from the main series. If you've never heard of Farscape or never watched it, go watch it and then pick up the trades and comics; I know you'll want to after seeing the first season alone.
Thanks for reading.
Anyway, Farscape was one of those sci-fi shows that comes along every once in a while and is great at what it does and is sometimes a little ahead of its time. Other sci-fi series that are/were like this include Star Trek (the original was cancelled after only 3 seasons for poor ratings) and Firefly (never actually cancelled by the network, just gone...which I think may be worse - most people are probably more familiar with the movie, Serenity). Like both of these series Farscape took a group of people and brought them together to create a family cohesive unit of friends willing to sacrifice themselves for each other. Closer to Firefly in the fact that it was a bunch of misfits and outlaws whether than a military structured force, Farscape was based around an earthling, John Crichton, getting yanked through a wormhole while test piloting the experimental spacecraft, Farscape 1 (hence the name). Crichton ends up on the far side of the universe, popping out right in the middle of a space batttle between the dominant space empire, the Peacekeepers, and a group of prisoners who have just escaped their cells on a prison ship known as Moya. Crichton's ship accidentally causes one of the Peacekeeper fighters to be destroyed; the pilot of the ship happens to be the brother of a high ranking officer who now wants vengeance on Crichton whoever he is. So, while the prisoners with John Crichton and his ship now onboard escape in their own prison ship, there is no way Crais (the officer) is going to let them get away. The TV series lasted four seasons before being cancelled. The thing about this show is while there were a lot of action packed scenes of space fights and land based laser fights, the show hit the heart by making the characters realistic in nature and developing something about the characters in each episode along with the fights. If you've never seen the show, you should check it out in syndication or pick it up on iTunes.
Rockne S. O'Bannon created the series and it was produced by the Jim Henson Company (the Muppets guys). The series was left on a cliffhanger, and a year later thanks to funding by several people, a mini-series entitled, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars finally gave fans closure on the TV series.
Why did I tell you about all of the TV stuff? Because the comic book series picks up right after the Peacekeeper Wars, so you pretty much know what it's about now. The comic book series, at least its first four issues collected in the volume one trade paperback continue the same excellent story that the series made famous. The characters who have survived are still there. It's kind of a must to at least watch the Peacekeeper Wars to know who the characters are talking about to understand what's going on in at least the first issue and who D'Argo is. I wish the series would have continued, and there was still an awesome tv show to watch, but seeing the series continue in comics is just as satisfying if not more so, since they'll never have to worry about whether the budget can afford something with a comic book. As long as they can pay the artist and writer, they can afford whatever they want to do as long as the artist can draw it and the writer can think of it. Rockne S. O'Bannon continues to write the story though others script the actual comic book. The pencils by Tommy Patterson capture the same essence of the show that anyone who has seen it loved.
My only regret with this trade paperback is that I waited until the series was being collected in trades to pick it up. If you are a fan of Farscape and you miss it, pick up the trades for it at your local comic shop or ask them to order them now and then start picking up the series itself. There have even been a few limited series spun off from the main series. If you've never heard of Farscape or never watched it, go watch it and then pick up the trades and comics; I know you'll want to after seeing the first season alone.
Thanks for reading.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The Bionic Man #1 and #2
Okay, so I'm going to date myself. I used to love watching "The Six Million Dollar Man" when I was a kid. I thought it was just cool. I'm pretty sure I even had a Steve Austin action figure at some point, but I can't remember for sure. The series ended in 1978 after 5 seasons on the air. I loved this show because it was one of the earlier science fiction shows that was played during prime time when I was a kid that I actually got to see. Many of the other science fiction shows I only really remember in reruns later.
Flash foward to today, a fairly well known movie writer, director and producer by the name of Kevin Smith writes a script for a new Bionic Man movie. The people who own the rights to make the movie turn his script down. Oh well, Smith has plenty of money from his Jay and Silent Bob series of movies I suppose, and he still writes comics once in a while. Oh yeah, since he writes comics, he takes his script to a comic company known as Dynamite Entertainment who happen to have procured the rights to the Bionic Man for comics. So, we never get to see the movie, but the comic based on Smith's script is awesome so far and it's just two issues in.
Colonel Steve Austin is at the end of his career as a test pilot, and as per the series, it ends up placing him in a position where it may be the end of his life as well. We've already seen what the antagonist for the series can see by the time we are even actually introduced to Colonel Austin in issue 1 of the comic and it's not very pretty. I would say that the short lived rehashed Bionic Woman series that got killed due to the writers' strike a year or so ago took some from this script or vice versa. In this series there was another bionic man before Steve Austin, and that candidate has had a severe psychotic breakdown and gone rogue.
We're all the way through issue 2 and Austin is only now on the operating table with doctors trying to save his life after the crash of the latest stealth bomber that he was flight testing. The series is well written and I couldn't put it down once I started issue 1. I was glad I had forgotten that I wanted to pick it up until I saw issue 2 was out, so I got to read straight through both issues. My only regret is I wish I had waited until the whole series was out because I want to know what happens next.
ARt is provided by Phil Hester and it's stunning from beginning to end. The details are what makes the artwork fabulous. When you see the picture of Steve Austin's fiancee in his cockpit at the beginning, you think it's a nice touch. It's an even nicer touch when you see it catching on fire as the plane starts to crash later. It's nice to know that both the writer and penciller knew this had to be there to show the loss that is occurring.
If you were a fan of the old series from the '70's or even if you've never seen it before, I recommend this book. If you were a fan of the '70's series, you'll get a rush seeing Steve Austin back in action. If you don't know what I'm talking about, if you like science fiction and the plausibility of cybernetic men, pick this up and see your imagination ignited again with a story that was originally conceived in 1972 in the novel Cyborgby Martin Caidin. For me, The Six Million Dollar Man was the show that showed me that a man could be a hero, much like Superman: The Movie made me believe that a man could fly (at least in my imagination).
Thanks for reading.
Flash foward to today, a fairly well known movie writer, director and producer by the name of Kevin Smith writes a script for a new Bionic Man movie. The people who own the rights to make the movie turn his script down. Oh well, Smith has plenty of money from his Jay and Silent Bob series of movies I suppose, and he still writes comics once in a while. Oh yeah, since he writes comics, he takes his script to a comic company known as Dynamite Entertainment who happen to have procured the rights to the Bionic Man for comics. So, we never get to see the movie, but the comic based on Smith's script is awesome so far and it's just two issues in.
Colonel Steve Austin is at the end of his career as a test pilot, and as per the series, it ends up placing him in a position where it may be the end of his life as well. We've already seen what the antagonist for the series can see by the time we are even actually introduced to Colonel Austin in issue 1 of the comic and it's not very pretty. I would say that the short lived rehashed Bionic Woman series that got killed due to the writers' strike a year or so ago took some from this script or vice versa. In this series there was another bionic man before Steve Austin, and that candidate has had a severe psychotic breakdown and gone rogue.
We're all the way through issue 2 and Austin is only now on the operating table with doctors trying to save his life after the crash of the latest stealth bomber that he was flight testing. The series is well written and I couldn't put it down once I started issue 1. I was glad I had forgotten that I wanted to pick it up until I saw issue 2 was out, so I got to read straight through both issues. My only regret is I wish I had waited until the whole series was out because I want to know what happens next.
ARt is provided by Phil Hester and it's stunning from beginning to end. The details are what makes the artwork fabulous. When you see the picture of Steve Austin's fiancee in his cockpit at the beginning, you think it's a nice touch. It's an even nicer touch when you see it catching on fire as the plane starts to crash later. It's nice to know that both the writer and penciller knew this had to be there to show the loss that is occurring.
If you were a fan of the old series from the '70's or even if you've never seen it before, I recommend this book. If you were a fan of the '70's series, you'll get a rush seeing Steve Austin back in action. If you don't know what I'm talking about, if you like science fiction and the plausibility of cybernetic men, pick this up and see your imagination ignited again with a story that was originally conceived in 1972 in the novel Cyborgby Martin Caidin. For me, The Six Million Dollar Man was the show that showed me that a man could be a hero, much like Superman: The Movie made me believe that a man could fly (at least in my imagination).
Thanks for reading.
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