snap judgments

from the WORA boards, known mostly for showing the dark underbelly of online roleplaying and being generally offensive people:

Am I the only one imagining:

CapUSA: THIS IS BULLSHIT! UTTER BULLSHIT!!! Where the FUCK were my rolls? I’m captain FCKUKNG AMERICA.
ConQuesada: Rolls were made, but you were offline. And please watch your tone.
CapUSA: Tone? TONE? FCUK YUO, wetback! You don’t understannd, Im like in tears. This is IMPORTATNOT DAMMITTT!#!
CapUSA: Who took the shot? Fucking ho?
ConQuesada: I’m warning you again about your language. Staffers are not to be abused.
CapUSA: WHo took the shot?
ConQuesada: That’s part of an ongoing plot, sorry.
CapUSA: ONgonign f=plot my ass. It’s tom, isn’t it? That fucker hates me. This is such bullshit.

========================================== Announcements ==========================================
Message: 1/53 Posted Author
Notice Wed Mar 7 ConQuesada
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As you may have heard Captain America is deceased, and his player is taking a 1 month hiatus to evaluate his continued presence in this MUSH.
Direct any legwork to +requests/plots, thank you.

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Obscure online forum humor seems to have sweetened my day a bit.  Hope there’s an obscure few who might enjoy as well.

My friends, I stand at a crossroads.

I have been a loyal though critical Marvel fan for quite some time now.  I have hung in there through recent events such as Avengers: Disassembled, House of M, Spider-Man: the Other (Evolve or Die) and at least half of Planet Hulk because I followed the idea that after I read each new life-changing storyline, I would be better able to understand the Marvel Universe at large.  I stopped reading Planet Hulk when I came to the conclusion that the book really wasn’t what I wanted to read anymore, the character wouldn’t be the way I wanted to see him.  Once again, I voted with my paycheck and took the book off my pull.

Today, I got into work and opened the store to a media blitz of a gigantic spoiler for Captain America #25.  A spoiler retailers were not privvy to, but major news outlets like CNN were.  Because of this lack of knowledge, my boss had ordered regularly on the issue and we were sold out of the book by 1pm.  Now, I’m not even going to touch on the major plot point (okay, maybe in the subject header) because it’s something I have no problems with.  I’d talked about it over at the Fifth Color at Blog@Newsarama and said my piece on why it’s actually a pretty good idea considering.  What I have issue with is the lack of communication with the people who sell Marvel Comics.  They didn’t have to ruin the secret surprise ending, they just could have dropped a line saying that they would be advertising through major media outlets on the day of Captain America #25′s release and it might be a good idea to raise the numbers on your initial order to keep up with the attention the book will receive.  Just a little heads up and I would not have had this huge waiting list for a book that I think we’re going to be lucky to see in second printing.

No one came officially to represent Marvel at WonderCon this year.  In years past that I have gone, there has been no booth or welcome from Marvel Entertainment at San Diego Comic Con.  Today, we had to squirrel away issues of Cap #25 to make sure we could take care of our pull customers.  I have had to sit through event after event, waiting on resolution to plot points that come one after the other (the Other, anyone?  What about who remembers what from House of M?).  I have watched characters I respected and enjoyed turn into two-faced liars.  If the New Avengers came out in 2004, it has nearly been over three years since I’ve seen a team of Avengers fight an actual villain with the power to do the world harm.
All I’m saying is that Tina Turner put up with a hell of a lot from Ike before she got wise and kicked his sorry butt to the curb.

Wow.  Apparently, last week a good handful of people showed up to read my trouble with handing a kid an Iron Man comic.  Mind you, it’s not going to be a problem what with the Marvel Adventures book coming out soon and the fact that the quality of the Marvel Adventures line is good enough for anyone off the street, I mostly just found it interesting to think that while Quesada is touting the change of status quo (ooh, that phrase is working on my nerves, but more on that later), some are looking exactly for that ‘quo’ in the first place.
Anyhoo, nothing as topical here, just some reviews of the preview books we got at work.   They didn’t even give us anything juicy, like Mighty Avengers #1.  Let’s get to it!

Bullet Points #5 (of 5)

This could have gone a lot longer.  JMS really loved his idea and it does show, no matter how much I may poke fun at the idea of putting Reed Richards in an eye patch.  He has a point to make, a very valid and very “Marvel” one at that: that one person can make a difference to change the whole world, for good or ill.  We humans are very powerful creatures no matter what radioactivity does, and that power comes from within.  Unfortunately, whether he just had an excess of ideas or just hadn’t found that miracle pacing that would have highlighted his point better than the constant repetition of words and phrases and ideas (man, the first three books really hit you upside the head with that bullet metaphor).  This issue, we find out that despite the drastics changes to some heroes, others are perfectly fine: the X-Men are pretty standard, Clock and Dagger are around, Daredevil wasn’t touched by the “Magic Bullet”, even Doctor Doom still seems to be the Doom we all know and love even without the rivalry between himself and Mr. Fantastic.  We get a little montage of the rest of the heroes of the Marvel Universe because, as you may remember from last issues, Galactus is here.  All ABP is put out to everyone everywhere to stop the alien menace, everyone shows up, and everyone falls down.  Some die, but one lone figure continues his assault until the bitter end; Peter Parker Hulk goes down in a flurry of word repetition (“Absurd”, “Pathetic”, “Inevitable”), inspiring the Silver Surfer to turn against his master and too be blown to smithereens.  In the end, Galactus decides that eating Earth is just way too much work and the planet is saved.  At the very large funeral, we find ourselves face-to-face with the stirring speech I believe Straczynski wanted to tell us all along.

Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #2

Did you see Ghost Rider?  Remember Sam Elliot’s part?  This is like that only painted and rendered and written by Garth Ennis.  That same tone, that Sam Elliot feel of the lone cowboy and the big wide world that has such darkness in it is shown here and, for my part, I dig it.  Clayton Craine continues his quest for having the cover accurately portray the art inside, giving us great visuals that almost switch between a painted look and the crystal texture clarity that comes from a good CG art program.  Evil men come and hideously torture and murder a black family who has accomplished as much as any other white family in the area and the land is reclaimed by the former white owners and Travis Parham is the man to deliver vengeance.  Exposition is had and a very well timed horror pace is set.  Good gruff book.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #18

ATTENTION!  The recap page has spoilers for the next issue of Amazing Spider-Man, so if you want to wait out Aunt May’s fate, don’t read it.  Just know that the Sandman’s dad stands accused of killing Uncle Ben which he didn’t do because… well, Uncle Ben killed Uncle Ben.  CRISIS ON MULTIPLE UNCLE BENS!  Sandman and Peter Parker go to investigate all this in disguise, Peter using his holoemmitter to pretend to be Jamie Madrox.  The cops, being scum, go to far and Sandman obviously reacts to the idea of torturing his father for a admittance of guilt and the two have to flee.  In the meantime, Flash and Liz go on a date made more awkward by having a sudden attack of spiders when Liz goes to the ladies room.  She freaks and gets out, but all the manager finds when he goes in is the most blatant use of cocaine paraphernalia that would make the Comics Code Authority choke.  With a sneaky shot of “Ms. Arrow” doing everything but twirling a mustache, there’s more wacky hijinks to come.  Sandman and Spidey go to the cemetery where Uncle Ben v.1 is buried (Flushing, NY apparently) and find a goth kid with Spider-Man 2211′s helmet.  The helmet knows where an Uncle Ben, thus any answer for any of this madness still has at least another issue.

Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness #1

What were you expecting, plot?  From Dynamite’s John Layman and Fabiano Neves, Marvel takes a page from your own wandering thoughts and gives you the man from Army of Darkness versus their cavalcade of hero-cum-zombies.  A rather Ash-centric book, we follow his exploits as he gets randomly sent to the MU (well, not so random if you keep up with the Army of Darkness comics) in time to have the Avengers not take him seriously in the slightest, but fall to their own hubris as a big cloud with pink lightning brings about the zombie-ness.  This is the issue to set down the rules of the Army of Darkness movies, introduce the characters and let the real violence begin next issue.  Really, if you like either, this book is your bag.  If not, move along please.

newuniversal #4

Funny side note:  I tend to write and take notes in all caps, but I always make sure to use lowercase letters for newuniversal.  I repect the artist’s vision.  And for my efforts, Warren Ellis continues to do what he enjoys as the man can talk alter reality the way some naturally learn a second language.  Reality shifts, paradigms, all of it sounds so new and wondrous when he talks about it, I just couldn’t explain to you why.  Nor can I exactly ‘recap’ the storyline as we are still in the process of collecting our characters for the Big Show ahead.  There’s some shades of the Authority in all of this, but considering I can cruise a lot of the New Universe titles out of the Quarter Bin, I think he’s doing a fine job on bringing new life to the old source material.  It’s full of plot points and setting info, easing you into this brave new world he’s penning.  I’m such a sucker for sci-fi.

Onslaught Reborn #3 (of 5)

I also can’t really recap this issue, but for entirely different reasons.  And I can evn find your a similar story in the quarter bin!  Man, there is something so old school about Onslaught Reborn, even dated further past the original Onslaught story, back to the days when Ghost Rider and Wolverine could totally rule on the Fantastic Four and Carnage was the bestest character ever because he could kill a lot of people.  In the third issue of Onslaught Reborn, people fight.  Thor fights Hulk, Hulk fights Thor, the Avengers fight Hulk and there’s a not so subtle hint that Hawkeye is Wolverine.  Which… would be kind of unique considering the original Heroes Reborn universe left mutants out of the picture.  Huh.  In the end, the Fantastic Four seem to be very confused about the littlest Richards and Loki and his magical mystery crew show up to threaten that they’ll be the ones to stop Onslaught as the Invisible Woman and a very gung-ho Ant Man swear to protect Franklin.

Squadron Supreme: Hyperion vs. Nighthawk #3 (of 4)

I have so many notes from WonderCon that I will be getting to, really.  One particular note that sticks out in my mind is how the idea of ‘real world politics’ would be integrated with the DC books.  Dan Didio said that it’s a rough call:  if you have the real world event in comics, it makes your heroes look petty not to be involved and if you do involve them, it stops being a ‘real world event’ because just by having these superpowered characters involved, it becomes fantasy.  Not an exact quote, but a good gist especially after reading this book.  Now, the atrocities in Darfur should have the whole world watching, but when you put Mr. Hardcore Superman into the mix, it not oly makes the situation uncomfortable, but it makes him look less ‘superhero-y’ because they show very well that there is no clear way to end this conflict.   Nighthawk is responsible for dragging him around and getting him involved (also Nighthawk’s able to predict his thoughts because he’s so ‘predictable’), but Hyperion reminds us that there are no heroes or easy solutions.  Depressing, but at least they have some African superheroes show up at the end of the book to bring back our fantasy of a better world.  I know, I know… better world in the Squadron Supreme universe is asking a little much, but what can I say?  I’m a dreamer.

Happy Wednesday, everybody!

Personally, I’m horrendously excited about the 300 movie. I know this is not a ‘historical epic’, I know this was based of Frank Miller’s graphic novel which in turns was based off of Gates of Fire which in turn was based off an historical event, so I’m not expecting accuracy, I’m expecting KICK ASS. From everything I’ve seen, there will be some kicking, possibly explosions.

There was little to no room in the panel to sit, so I took a back seat and opened up the laptop to make notes. Zach Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) came out, intro’d a Frank Miller recording of his best John Wayne impression, expounding that ‘Any culture worth a damn has their own Thermopylae’ and proud for being as true to his work as he can. Muy macho, the recording seemed to be set for the screening last night and ended with the killer line of “Here it is, come and get it.”

Next they introduced the actors Gerrard Butler (King Leonidas) and Lena Headey (Queen Gorgo), both admittedly very pretty people. Almost … too pretty, but I’ll get to that in a sec. They played a clip that had it’s mid-point around the stunning splash of the 30O pushing the Persians over the cliff; it was, quite possibly, the most bad ass combat sequence ever filmed. Wow. Everyone read along with the movie.

Then came questions.

Remember how I said they were pretty people? Apparently, Gerrard Butler has a fan club. A BIG FAN CLUB. Almost all of the questions came from them and though the panelists wre genuine and rather charming, I watched as people started to leave after the twentieth “Gerry, you’re so hot!” questioneer. So as much as I would like ot come back with cool info on the making of 300, maybe something about the fight choreography or the filming techniques between 300 and Dawn of the Dead, I can tell you about Gerrard Butler.

He wants to do comedy. He’s very humble. Many women think he’s sexually attractive. One even compared him to Elvis. He adopts a lot of bad habits from the characters he plays. Being the Phantom in the 2004 Phantom of the Opera left him depressed for a time. He’s a fan of 300 presenting a “new male archetype” and believes people should “follow their purpose”. After awhile, he warmed up his adoring fans, since he seemed a little off put by them at first. Questions about what role was more difficult and how he prepared for portraying King Leonidas made things feel a little James Lipton-y, but by the end he was expounding on unity and waxing poetic about 300. “These are the heroes I always wanted to see in a movie,” he said.

Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t take up all of the questions, just the majority. Lena Headey got a couple of side comments (“Wow, you play a strong female, what’s that like?” and “There was a lot of testosterone on the set, what was that like?”) and Zach Snyder fielded a few regarding storyboarding and working from Frank Miller’s artwork and a few production notes.

When asked about the legacy each other will leave, all three panelists seemed a little perplexed.

Okay, so these are the books we got ahead of time at work, cruised through on a couple breaks since last week I happened to take a vacation out Arizona way.  I was completely worried when I realized that my notes were kind of sparce, but than thankfully remembered that I named my site well:  SNAP Judgments.

So here we go!

Annihilation: Heralds of Galactus #1

One of my favorite things about Annihilation was that, while the story was truly epic in scope, they still had time to focus in on character defining moments that allowed the reader to connect to the larger story.  I had no idea who Starlord was going in but by the end, I had a pretty darn good idea.  And now, thanks to Heralds of Galactus here, I’m getting some strong points on the behind the scenes’ nature of the Heralds.  Or, two in this case: Terrax the Tamer and Stardust.  Again, my Marvel Cosmic Hero fu is very weak (silly me spent my younger years tracing out the Summers family tree…), but the strength of these stories artfully tells me everything I need to know.  Terrax finds himself on a planet under a fairly stock conundrum, and I will now buy anything with Stardust attached to it because not only do we get an explanation of true sci-fi fashion about Etherials, but learn a little something about the kind of devotion Galactus can inspire.

Daredevil #94

Now, I never liked Daredevil’s marriage to Milla Donovan; maybe I’m too used to the spectacle Marvel marriages can be and that one just slipped under the wire, maybe I have ‘Gwen Stacy Syndrome’ and still hold a torch for Karen Page.  I’ll admit my shortcomings.  But Brubaker takes some time to make sure she fits in nicely into Daredevil’s new world, showing her sit by the window with the same woes that have plagued Mary Jane all these years.  It’s also a nice recap book as well, giving people the lowdown of the last few arcs since the character showed up and her views on things as they’ve turned out.  Nothing shocking, just settling which in the wake of Civil War is a great idea.

Doctor Strange: the Oath #5

It is with a heavy heart I have to tell you that this is the last issue of Brian K. Vaughn’s fantastic run on wha will now be for me, the definitive Strange.  Sorry, JMS, your mini did nothing for me while this had everything I could have wanted and more.  Magic, mystery, philosophy and action and by the time Doctor Strange was shrugging off this cloak to settle this with some Wong taught martial arts on a roof in the rain, I really didn’t want this book to end.  But end it did, with Doctor Strange choosing between curing mankind (and possibly damning it as well) or saving Wong, his loyal friend.  For his choice, he gets the girl.  I still say 2007 might be the Year of the Night Nurse and from the end of the mini, it looks like she’s got a pretty good gig working out of the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Heroes for Hire #7

Didn’t get a chance to read this one, but a co-worker did share the fact that Misty Knight gives Grim Reaper a swirly.

New Excalibur #17

Nocturne had a stroke (out of nowhere, last issue) and this issue is recovery. The team pulls together in the wake of this rather sudden tragedy, Nocturne kind of argues with herself to get the will to go on in the wake of her injuries and also, she takes Sage out for a ride via her possession powers.  What do we learn?  Having a stroke sucks, but at least you’ll get better one day at a time and there’s friends nearby.  Heart warming to be sure, but very out of place for what is this, Claremont’s first story returning to the book?

Runaways #24

Another sad departure from Brian K. Vaughn, this is the last issue of the book he helped create out of the failed Tsunami imprint Marvel tried awhile back to lure those manga kids.  The closer it has come to this issue, the less and less I can see Vaughn and Whedon having a Bendis-Brubaker kind of changing of the guard, where the story and tone went seamlessly from one author to the next.  And it’s a shame because this book hits a lot of the best points of the series, from self-referential comic quips (a surprise fastball special) to teen drama as Alex tries to sacrifice himself to bring back his girlfriend, to some real heart at the end of the battle between the characters as they take a moment to take in what’s just happened.  A lot of cool story has been left behind, no one rides into the sunset and there’s even a surprise twist; Vaughn left everything behind for Whedon to use.

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #15

Okay, if you can, find someone who hasn’t read this book yet and give this issue to them.  Believe it or not, with just a passing knowledge of Spider-Man, this is a fantastic read on the hardship of living a dua life and the stress it can put on everyone else around you.  Hands down, this is the best co-focus story on both MJ and Peter yet out of the series and the lynch pin of it all is Gwen Stacy.  No supporting cast member goes unturned in this one (okay, well… maybe Flash as I’m not remembering him in this one)  and everything works together like the best and finest crafted tale of heartache I have read yet in comics.

Wolverine #51

Okay, I started this one, but never got a chance to pick it back up.  Honestly?  I didn’t want to.  More werewolf flashes and flashbacks, more really pointless fighting between Sabretooth and Wolverine (at least in the first issue Creed was trying to tell Logan something about themselves) and the shocking revelation that after the cliffhanger ending of last issue’s stalemate, they’re now both in the Danger Room fighting through scenarios.  The moment a unicorn shows up in a Wolverine issue, I’m looking to flip through something else.  Storm shows up at the end, surprisingly without Black Panther attached at her hip.

Wonder Man: My Fair Superhero #3

Sorry, guys.  I just can’t get pass the artwork.  And I really want to see how Peter David’s taking a rather preachy storyline about reforming supervillains, too.  Well, maybe I’ll try harder.  Just reading the word balloons.  Something.

X-Factor #16

I’m really wondering about Rictor.  What’s he doing in this book again?  When will we see him?  What does he do for X-Factor Investigations anyway?  There’s an untapped story there, folks!  But until then, Siryn and Monet are hunted down in France as Monet takes a survivor of the mutant attacks they tried to stop home with her while they both run from the police since they broke out of prison and killed a guy.  I can see why they are not supposed to be the ‘Most Hated Mutant Team’ as Monet has no sense of public face.  Jamie Madrox finds a rogue dupe of his living a fine and comfortable family life as a preacher and does the fairly predictable thing when faced with the opportunity to reabsorb him.  It was told well, but we all pretty much knew going into it that Jamie wasn’t going to take a parent away from some kid, especially his own.

X-Men #196

This will read better in the trades, I’m sure of it.

Happy Wednesday!