Thursday, October 25, 2007
Ouch
The Rockies received a brutal spanking last night in game one of the World Series. It was painful to watch, but I'm expecting a big rebound in Game 2. I didn't want to admit it but the eight days of rest did make them look rusty. This is a great team, they wouldn't be in the WS if they weren't, and they'll step up and give Boston some payback.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Heroes - Second Season Thoughts
After watching last night's episode of Heroes, there were quite a few things that both impressed and irked me. I feel I must start this post off with this thought:
Matt Parkman is a tool.
Yes, I said it. I really can't stand Parkman's character this season and after last night he has fully cemented his tool status. I was pissed at him last week for selfishly putting Molly in danger and this week he walked right into an obvious trap. I understood his urgency to find his father if he was in danger, but he knew his father was the one threatening Molly and he deliberately put her in harms way. He's supposed to be a father figure to this girl but he's blowing it big time. I suppose he has no real role models to work from, seeing as his father is the boogie man, but he's got to try harder than this. Parkman better get his act together soon.
My other concern is the sheer number of characters being thrown at us thus far. I think Kristen Bell's character has a lot of promise but I hope this is the last new character we see for a while. They still need to flesh out the situation with Maya and her brother, we have no idea what HRG is up to, Niki has had very little screen time and I still sense there is something fishy going on with D.L. I also feel Monica is a bit unnecessary right now, with her only real purpose being to give Mikah someone to relate too while Niki deals with her powers. With a cast this big it'll take a while to get to know each character and then figure out where they fit in the big picture. Which leads me to my next issue...
We don't really know what the over-riding theme for this season is yet. By this point last season it was pretty clear where our Heroes were headed , all the characters were beginning to become aware of the impending disaster and had started their journey. So far this season there is nothing to link the entire group together. You could argue that the threat on the original group of twelve is what will rally our Heroes this season, but only a few are even aware this plot. There could also be a focus on the Company and the effort to bring it down, but again only a small subgroup of Heroes is working against them. Our characters are much too fractured right now and although I believe they will eventually get back together at the end of the season to bring down the mystery killer, I think it's going to be too late in the season and this ending will be rushed. I really hope we see the story coalesce very soon.
Oh, and I'll throw my theory out there for the mystery killer now. I think it's Takezo Kensei. Also think that Whitebeard will turn out to be his father, who is also Linderman in the past. Both of these characters have the potential to live incredible lifespans, with Kensei's regeneration abilities and Linderman's healing power. I think that Kensei is killing the original group of heroes because they violated some kind of pact they had together, and he is coming to fulfill the oath. I could be completely wrong and I probably am, but this sounds like a fun turn of the story to me!
Matt Parkman is a tool.
Yes, I said it. I really can't stand Parkman's character this season and after last night he has fully cemented his tool status. I was pissed at him last week for selfishly putting Molly in danger and this week he walked right into an obvious trap. I understood his urgency to find his father if he was in danger, but he knew his father was the one threatening Molly and he deliberately put her in harms way. He's supposed to be a father figure to this girl but he's blowing it big time. I suppose he has no real role models to work from, seeing as his father is the boogie man, but he's got to try harder than this. Parkman better get his act together soon.
My other concern is the sheer number of characters being thrown at us thus far. I think Kristen Bell's character has a lot of promise but I hope this is the last new character we see for a while. They still need to flesh out the situation with Maya and her brother, we have no idea what HRG is up to, Niki has had very little screen time and I still sense there is something fishy going on with D.L. I also feel Monica is a bit unnecessary right now, with her only real purpose being to give Mikah someone to relate too while Niki deals with her powers. With a cast this big it'll take a while to get to know each character and then figure out where they fit in the big picture. Which leads me to my next issue...
We don't really know what the over-riding theme for this season is yet. By this point last season it was pretty clear where our Heroes were headed , all the characters were beginning to become aware of the impending disaster and had started their journey. So far this season there is nothing to link the entire group together. You could argue that the threat on the original group of twelve is what will rally our Heroes this season, but only a few are even aware this plot. There could also be a focus on the Company and the effort to bring it down, but again only a small subgroup of Heroes is working against them. Our characters are much too fractured right now and although I believe they will eventually get back together at the end of the season to bring down the mystery killer, I think it's going to be too late in the season and this ending will be rushed. I really hope we see the story coalesce very soon.
Oh, and I'll throw my theory out there for the mystery killer now. I think it's Takezo Kensei. Also think that Whitebeard will turn out to be his father, who is also Linderman in the past. Both of these characters have the potential to live incredible lifespans, with Kensei's regeneration abilities and Linderman's healing power. I think that Kensei is killing the original group of heroes because they violated some kind of pact they had together, and he is coming to fulfill the oath. I could be completely wrong and I probably am, but this sounds like a fun turn of the story to me!
Monday, October 22, 2007
ComicFest '07
Thanks to a spectacular back issue sale at Bargain Comics ($.70 for most recent back issues!) I was able to stock up on some titles I had been meaning to read. Here is a breakdown of some of the books I read this past weekend:
Ms. Marvel #1-9
This is a title I had initially picked up on issue #20 thanks to some intriguing online reviews. Since I started reading the series after the Civil War fallout I was a bit out of touch with the current story, so I snagged the first 12 issues of the series and read through to #9 last night. Now that I have a better perspective on this title I can say that really like the story thus far. Ms. Marvel had always seemed a side character to me but Brian Reed has fleshed her out and given Carol Danvers a very unique personality.
The basic gist of the story is Ms. Marvel remembers the events of the House of M and her former status as the greatest superhero in the world. She was a celebrity, much like the Fantastic Four, and was codenamed Captain Marvel. However, after the House of M ended she returned to her current status in the Marvel universe. She is still a superhero, but she is not a household name and she feels that she should be doing much greater things with her life, especially after having the knowledge of what she was in the alternate reality. She decides she must be come "the best of the best", and this is the tag line for the first story arc. The first few issues deal with her trying to prove how great a superhero she can be, while juggling public appearances and a new villain that followed her from the House of M universe to ours.
There are many fun aspects of this series, the first being the guest appearances of Marvel characters I haven't seen in quite a while along with team-ups with bigger Marvel Heroes that are a bit less mainstream. So far we've seen Ms. Marvel interact with Doctor Strange, Arachne (Spider-Woman), Jessica Drew out of costume, Wonder Man, Shroud and Prowler. The first major villains she encounters before the Civil War tie-in is a sorcerer named Warren Traveler and the powerful alien Cru. Both were great villains and are outside the standard cadre of bad guys we've been seeing the past few years. I have a feeling both Cru and Traveler will have recurring roles in this book.
Overall I like this series, it's a fresh look at what could have been a standard spandex superhero title and is a lot of fun to read. You can tell Reed is a fan of the character and the Marvel universe, he's like a kid in a candy store with these stories. The art is solid with some extremely standout pieces (see the car chase scene in #7). If you're tired of the depressing turn in Amazing Spider-Man, Hulk's non-stop smashing or just looking for something new, I recommend picking up this title.
Fantastic Four: The End #1-6
Billed as the "last Fantastic Four story ever!", this out of continuity title by Alan Davis takes place hundreds of years in the future. All of "The End" titles are supposed to tell the last great adventure of our Marvel heroes. We've also had X-Men: The End, X-Men - Phoenix: The End and so on. FF: The End works a bit better than the other titles simply because the Fantastic Four has always been a sci-fi book and tossing them into the distant future seems much more natural than it does for the X-Men.
This mini-series opens with yet another brutal battle between the FF and Dr. Doom. However, things take a tragic turn when the children Franklin and Valeria Reed join the battle and subsequently die along with Dr. Doom during a freak reaction of their powers and Doom's energy fields. We then flash forward a couple hundred years to find the Fantastic Four have gone their separate ways. The life of all our favorite superheroes has been lengthened dramatically by the Methuselah Treatment. Earth is a utopia and we've terraformed Mars. But not all is well as some old elements are seeking to disrupt the peace in the solar system.
As you can imagine, having essentially five different storylines within a six issue mini-series is a bit difficult to pull off. You can tell Alan Davis had an interesting story with a huge scope, but various pieces of it must have been cut or omitted to fit the restraints of this series. In particular, the details of Sue Storm's mission and the purpose of many of Reed's experiments is just not clear. We get pretty much everything we need from Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm's stories, but we also don't know what is going on with the rogue dissidents until nearly the end of the series. And at that point it's all mashed into one huge battle with too many factions to really make sense.
I did enjoy the sci-fi aspects of the story, and as I stated earlier it works very well within the Fantastic Four setting. Davis's art is truly inspired, you can tell he had a lot of passion for this story and you can see it in the details of the work. The aliens are varied and interesting, the many locations are fun and the end panel of #5 is impressive. I can't imagine how long it took him to draw that many spaceships. I'd recommend this story if you are a big fan of the Fantastic Four, if not then solely for the art and sci-fi elements. I'd try to pick up the trade if possible, it's available in hardcover for around $10.
Ms. Marvel #1-9
This is a title I had initially picked up on issue #20 thanks to some intriguing online reviews. Since I started reading the series after the Civil War fallout I was a bit out of touch with the current story, so I snagged the first 12 issues of the series and read through to #9 last night. Now that I have a better perspective on this title I can say that really like the story thus far. Ms. Marvel had always seemed a side character to me but Brian Reed has fleshed her out and given Carol Danvers a very unique personality.
The basic gist of the story is Ms. Marvel remembers the events of the House of M and her former status as the greatest superhero in the world. She was a celebrity, much like the Fantastic Four, and was codenamed Captain Marvel. However, after the House of M ended she returned to her current status in the Marvel universe. She is still a superhero, but she is not a household name and she feels that she should be doing much greater things with her life, especially after having the knowledge of what she was in the alternate reality. She decides she must be come "the best of the best", and this is the tag line for the first story arc. The first few issues deal with her trying to prove how great a superhero she can be, while juggling public appearances and a new villain that followed her from the House of M universe to ours.
There are many fun aspects of this series, the first being the guest appearances of Marvel characters I haven't seen in quite a while along with team-ups with bigger Marvel Heroes that are a bit less mainstream. So far we've seen Ms. Marvel interact with Doctor Strange, Arachne (Spider-Woman), Jessica Drew out of costume, Wonder Man, Shroud and Prowler. The first major villains she encounters before the Civil War tie-in is a sorcerer named Warren Traveler and the powerful alien Cru. Both were great villains and are outside the standard cadre of bad guys we've been seeing the past few years. I have a feeling both Cru and Traveler will have recurring roles in this book.
Overall I like this series, it's a fresh look at what could have been a standard spandex superhero title and is a lot of fun to read. You can tell Reed is a fan of the character and the Marvel universe, he's like a kid in a candy store with these stories. The art is solid with some extremely standout pieces (see the car chase scene in #7). If you're tired of the depressing turn in Amazing Spider-Man, Hulk's non-stop smashing or just looking for something new, I recommend picking up this title.
Fantastic Four: The End #1-6
Billed as the "last Fantastic Four story ever!", this out of continuity title by Alan Davis takes place hundreds of years in the future. All of "The End" titles are supposed to tell the last great adventure of our Marvel heroes. We've also had X-Men: The End, X-Men - Phoenix: The End and so on. FF: The End works a bit better than the other titles simply because the Fantastic Four has always been a sci-fi book and tossing them into the distant future seems much more natural than it does for the X-Men.
This mini-series opens with yet another brutal battle between the FF and Dr. Doom. However, things take a tragic turn when the children Franklin and Valeria Reed join the battle and subsequently die along with Dr. Doom during a freak reaction of their powers and Doom's energy fields. We then flash forward a couple hundred years to find the Fantastic Four have gone their separate ways. The life of all our favorite superheroes has been lengthened dramatically by the Methuselah Treatment. Earth is a utopia and we've terraformed Mars. But not all is well as some old elements are seeking to disrupt the peace in the solar system.
As you can imagine, having essentially five different storylines within a six issue mini-series is a bit difficult to pull off. You can tell Alan Davis had an interesting story with a huge scope, but various pieces of it must have been cut or omitted to fit the restraints of this series. In particular, the details of Sue Storm's mission and the purpose of many of Reed's experiments is just not clear. We get pretty much everything we need from Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm's stories, but we also don't know what is going on with the rogue dissidents until nearly the end of the series. And at that point it's all mashed into one huge battle with too many factions to really make sense.
I did enjoy the sci-fi aspects of the story, and as I stated earlier it works very well within the Fantastic Four setting. Davis's art is truly inspired, you can tell he had a lot of passion for this story and you can see it in the details of the work. The aliens are varied and interesting, the many locations are fun and the end panel of #5 is impressive. I can't imagine how long it took him to draw that many spaceships. I'd recommend this story if you are a big fan of the Fantastic Four, if not then solely for the art and sci-fi elements. I'd try to pick up the trade if possible, it's available in hardcover for around $10.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Long Time, No Post
It's been a long time since I updated anything here, in all honesty I forgot! Here's a quick rundown of what is new and what I've been doing:
Krissy is 17 weeks into the pregnancy and we're scheduled to find the sex of the baby on November 1st. She can already feel the baby bouncing around and it won't be long before I can feel it too. I'm very excited to know what we have coming, if for no other reason than to start setting up the room! We also got to hear his/her heartbeat again. How cool is that, to hear this tiny heart of our child beating away. It's really amazing.
Cori is back in full swing with dance class and school. She has a busy schedule this year but I think she'll do fine, I'm very proud of her first quarter grades so far. She has really picked up her reading and phonics and I'm extremely impressed with her progress.
The new TV season has started and there are a few shows I'm enjoying. Of course Heroes and Smallville are solid as ever, and I'm also really liking Chuck and Bionic Woman. Chuck is very smart and very funny, I'm surprised by the quality of this show. Bionic Woman is starting off slowly but I'm going to give it a few more episodes to really ramp up the action. All that remains is for Lost and Battlestar Galactica to get off their asses. Really poor management for those two shows but they're still so damn good!
My gaming lately has consisted of sporadic PC play and a lot of lunch hours with my PSP. I recently finished Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and may post a review soon. I'm currently working on Siphon Filter: Dark Mirror and I'm really having fun with this game. It's like a faster paced Metal Gear, with the best control scheme I've ever seen for a stealth shooter. On the PC I tried out Quake: Enemy Territory for a bit and Tabula Rasa. After playing TR I can safely say the MMO bug is completely out of my system. I didn't enjoy this game despite the sci-fi take on the genre and just have no interest to grind another character for ungodly amounts of time. I think World of Warcraft completely killed my desire to ever play a MMO again. Quake: ET was fun but it didn't really grab me. There are too many noobs out there for me to casually enjoy team based FPS games.
And now on to books and comics. I finished the first two books in the Dark Tower series from Steven King last month and should be starting the third next week. The series is quite different from what I expected and I think I'll stick with it. Besides, it's not like George R.R. Martin is giving me an excuse to not read other books right now (yes, George, hurry up and finish Dance with Dragons already!).
On the comics front my current favorite is the new Thor series by J. Michael Straczynski and Oliver Coipel. Issue #3 is out and the writing and art are top notch so far. Thor has never really interested me but Straczynski gives him such soul that I can't wait to see what he has in store for the character. Coipel's artwork is very detailed and slightly reminiscent of Steve McNiven's work on Civil War. And any comic that showcases Iron Man getting his armor trashed, the snot beat out of him and then being told to walk home is A+ material in my book.
I also plowed through a few trade paperbacks. The Essential X-Men Vol. 2 is highly recommended for any X-fan and contains issues #120-144 (which the movies X-Men 2 and X-3 heavily borrowed from). Supergirl: Power (issues 1-5) was underwhelming to say the least. I'm not sure I'll pick up the next volume. Next up will be Serenity: Those Left Behind, which will collect the tie-in issues released for the movie. I'm anxiously looking forward to this one.
Well that's the last 2.5 months in a nutshell. I'll be updating more frequently this fall, especially since we'll have lots of baby news to report!
Krissy is 17 weeks into the pregnancy and we're scheduled to find the sex of the baby on November 1st. She can already feel the baby bouncing around and it won't be long before I can feel it too. I'm very excited to know what we have coming, if for no other reason than to start setting up the room! We also got to hear his/her heartbeat again. How cool is that, to hear this tiny heart of our child beating away. It's really amazing.
Cori is back in full swing with dance class and school. She has a busy schedule this year but I think she'll do fine, I'm very proud of her first quarter grades so far. She has really picked up her reading and phonics and I'm extremely impressed with her progress.
The new TV season has started and there are a few shows I'm enjoying. Of course Heroes and Smallville are solid as ever, and I'm also really liking Chuck and Bionic Woman. Chuck is very smart and very funny, I'm surprised by the quality of this show. Bionic Woman is starting off slowly but I'm going to give it a few more episodes to really ramp up the action. All that remains is for Lost and Battlestar Galactica to get off their asses. Really poor management for those two shows but they're still so damn good!
My gaming lately has consisted of sporadic PC play and a lot of lunch hours with my PSP. I recently finished Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and may post a review soon. I'm currently working on Siphon Filter: Dark Mirror and I'm really having fun with this game. It's like a faster paced Metal Gear, with the best control scheme I've ever seen for a stealth shooter. On the PC I tried out Quake: Enemy Territory for a bit and Tabula Rasa. After playing TR I can safely say the MMO bug is completely out of my system. I didn't enjoy this game despite the sci-fi take on the genre and just have no interest to grind another character for ungodly amounts of time. I think World of Warcraft completely killed my desire to ever play a MMO again. Quake: ET was fun but it didn't really grab me. There are too many noobs out there for me to casually enjoy team based FPS games.
And now on to books and comics. I finished the first two books in the Dark Tower series from Steven King last month and should be starting the third next week. The series is quite different from what I expected and I think I'll stick with it. Besides, it's not like George R.R. Martin is giving me an excuse to not read other books right now (yes, George, hurry up and finish Dance with Dragons already!).
On the comics front my current favorite is the new Thor series by J. Michael Straczynski and Oliver Coipel. Issue #3 is out and the writing and art are top notch so far. Thor has never really interested me but Straczynski gives him such soul that I can't wait to see what he has in store for the character. Coipel's artwork is very detailed and slightly reminiscent of Steve McNiven's work on Civil War. And any comic that showcases Iron Man getting his armor trashed, the snot beat out of him and then being told to walk home is A+ material in my book.
I also plowed through a few trade paperbacks. The Essential X-Men Vol. 2 is highly recommended for any X-fan and contains issues #120-144 (which the movies X-Men 2 and X-3 heavily borrowed from). Supergirl: Power (issues 1-5) was underwhelming to say the least. I'm not sure I'll pick up the next volume. Next up will be Serenity: Those Left Behind, which will collect the tie-in issues released for the movie. I'm anxiously looking forward to this one.
Well that's the last 2.5 months in a nutshell. I'll be updating more frequently this fall, especially since we'll have lots of baby news to report!
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