Jim Lee loves him some short jackets...

I have not liked the new Wonder Woman that Straczynski started.  I hate the costume, the tough street girl who can't remember her past, I even hate the 'brands people with the Ws on her fists' gag he brought in.  It seems so forced as a draw for attention rather than a more natural story.  "Like me!  I'm hip, I'm street!  This ain't your Grandma's Wonder Woman!!"  So I never bothered to read it.  Yeah, I looked through the big #600th issue, but I prefer to think of Diana Prince as she was portrayed in say, the Animated series or in Greg Rucka's run, rather than this trendy new version.

The problem is that I have this clear, concise image of how Wonder Woman should look and act in my head.  Pop culture as a whole really doesn't.  If you think of Batman and Superman, their origin stories come up really fast in the public consciousness.  Everybody knows Batman's parents are dead or that Clark Kent was raised in Kansas (or at least just 'small town America')

But Wonder Woman?  Well, she's a woman.  Annnnnnnd she's an Amazon.  Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd....  she just sort of showed up.  Fans will know her mother is Hippolyta or that Steve Trevor crashed on Paradise Island, but that's not widely recognized as common Wonder Woman lore.  Heck, I wouldn't think a lot of people could come up with Wonder Woman's secret identity before they thought of Clark Kent as Superman or Bruce Wayne as Batman.  She is supposed to be in the top three characters for DC, their Trinity, but can Wonder Woman fly or does she have an Invisible Plane?  Where do her powers come from?  What city does she live in?

Fellow employee Jamie and I miraculously had the idea that she should try a run as a Vertigo title.  After all, Wonder Woman has the entire Greek pantheon to play with, so why not let her stories take that sort of dreamy, mythological route?  There could be a lot of weird and wild stories that could get some feminist underpinnings and play with her rather unusual history; a Vertigo-style Wonder Woman story would get mad play on NPR!  But, since she's marketed towards kids, she won't appear in DC's more mature line of titles (darn, there goes my dream or a John Constantine lunch box!).  Yeah, you could fudge it and if they really wanted to, DC can break their own rules (please see Zatanna and Animal Man), but it's not worth it to them.

David E. Kelly shopped around the idea of a Wonder Woman TV show and it seemed like a no-brainer.  After all, she's a household superstar thanks to her old TV series and, with Smallville going off the air, DC should keep up a show to keep their foot in the door, so to speak.  Why not Wonder Woman?  Well, last night it finally got picked up by NBC and I read a short idea of what the show would be about:

The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life.

That sounds... not at all like Wonder Woman.  Where's the Amazon?  With the corporate vigilante gig, she sounds more like Batman.  Then, being a CEO and vigilante and just trying to make it in today's world, she actually sounds more like Barbie.

Barbie has even been Wonder Woman!

Barbie's had a tons of jobs since her creation.  Sure, most of them are excuses to sell a new doll or outfit or playset, she's kind of been everything to every one: a girlish toy to a sexist tool to a sexy fashion show.  Barbie can do anything, even if she's a little shallow on the inside.  No one cares what Barbie's last name is (Roberts), they just want to know what she's wearing.  Yeah, she got dumped Ken for a more California boyfriend (Blaine) a few years ago, but no one remembers that anymore than they do if she has a baby sister or an actual baby (Krissie is her youngest sister).  She got married a thousand times but remains single and hip.  No one asks Barbie to have a dramatic manifesto, they just want her.  In a pink outfit.  Preferably a ballerina.

Wonder Woman can be anything to anyone anywhere.  She can try on different outfits and jobs and represent anything you want her to.  In the end, she remains a strong woman who fights evil and wrong-doing.  The rest is up to your imagination.

I'm kind of starting to enjoy these quick bits of furious webcam-ing.  This is really what I do on my ten minute break at work if I'm not hungry or aren't reading anything.  I set up (harder than it looks as the video is so dark), record, check levels, edit as much as I can with Windows Movie Maker and then head back out to sell more books.  It's kind of fun and gets me thinking again.  If there are at all entertaining, keep telling me and I'll keep filming bad videos from the stockroom.

Enough about me.

So, on set, one of the extras next to me is this absolutely fascinating guy I can't remember the name of.  What he does and did is far more important.  He trains military soldiers to go to Iraq and protect themselves and others in a hostile urban environment.  Everything from procedures on how to handle a suicide bomber, how to clear a road efficiently and quickly as possible, enduring interrogations from the enemy, even how to survive in the sweltering desert and get to safety.  He told it all casually, as if his preparation wasn't saving lives and making stronger people.  His shoulders were huge, his jaw square and he was funny as hell.

And he wanted to be a Green Lantern.

The moment comics came up in casual conversation, he just lit up like he recited the Oath.  He'd been reading Green Lantern comics since he was a kid and adored John Stewart.  He could tell you anything about the character and we talked over recent story lines with great enthusiasm.  At that time, he talked about the movie possibility and while he didn't know the particulars, he knew he'd be first in the casting call line the moment he got word one.  You know, if he wasn't off training in the middle of the desert.

Comics are great, people.  Anyone and everyone can be a fan of smoe odd facet or another for a million and one reasons.  The guy on set was amazing, in both his acting career and in his day job and when I heard news that the Green Lantern movie seems to be set to film next Spring, I thought back to that guy.  Sure, hal Jordan seems to be the main named dropped, but if there's room for a John Stewart, you'll have a very brave and awesome guy front and center.

from Newsarama:

DiDio asked Jann Jones what's coming up for the Johnny DC line, and she plugged Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the Eighth Grade, a six-issue mini coming "hopefully in the fall" by the creators of the "Kids Gravity" series that originated In Disney Adventures.

Thank you, DC.

So when someone slyly pointed to a copy of Absolute Watchmen on our sheves and mouthed the words 'I'm working on that' to my co-worker Ish, we nearly broke out the champagne. Yep, a lovely couple (or brother and sister or good friend and good friend; after NPH, I've learned to be wary) from Sony came in and secretly admitted that they indeed were working on Doctor Manhattan for the upcoming film of Watchmen. The rather lovely woman had done a test print apparently and that got them in the job. On a break back home in sunny Santa Barbara, they'd be due back for work in Vancouver soon but were nice enough to stop by and totally thrill us with little to no info on the movie.

Even my 'Blink once for yes, twice for no!' tactic didn't work! They did say that the movie was incredible (well... they do pay your checks) and that the comic was practically being used as storyboards for scenes in the flick. When asked about the incredible layers of complexity the book has, what with the prose, the comic within the comic and all the other things online naysayers have been touting as impossible to film, the conversation grew interesting.

Apparently, the Tales of the Black Freighter is mentioned within the script, but as to exactly how it's incorporated into the film, he suggested that there might be different versions of the movie.

I continued to pump them for info that they simply couldn't give out, but at least seemed to impress them with how much I knew about the book. The woman who'd made the test film of Dr. Manhattan seemed surprised and asked if I knew this much about all of the comic we sold.

"Yes," I said. "Yes I do."

Because really, the ceremony is equal parts who you are, where you came from and where you're going. It's a chance to stand up and get to the basics of you, the person you love and your future. There's no magazine for that, no wedding planner with all the answers, no monetary value on creating a family, creating a legacy.

So, I have to ask: Dinah.

I mean, really?

I understand your viewpoint, that your inviting a lot of people from 'work' and have a lot of secrets that simply need to be kept. I think the ceremony in the JLA cave is a great idea, very touching and important. But really. Ollie was right; you look like a fetish ball. This is not the foot you want to start on for the first day of the rest of your lives. While you simply glow in the moment thanks to the marvelous work of Amanda Conner, as bright and as beautiful as every girl on the cover of Modern Bride since the dawn of time, that dress (or lack thereof) just isn't sending the right message.

Dinah Lance did not get married, Black Canary did. She didn't marry Olliver Queen, she married Green Arrow. And all the danger, lies, death and adventure that brings. Honestly, I was all for this wedding as DC doesn't have the history of heroes-marrying-heroes that Marvel employs, but as a wise man once said: "Not like this!"  In trying to make this a moment for heroes, it just didn't include the man behind the mask.

Or at least, didn't get a chance to so far.

And you wonder why you had to stab him in the neck on your honeymoon.

But not some change. At the store, we try to be careful on what kids can and cannot get their grubby little hands on when it comes to common perceptions of 'inappropriate material'. When we get the more mature graphic novels (loosely defined as a store policy regarding extreme graphic violence or boobies), we slip them in a bag and put a label that says customers must be over 16 or 18 to view and/or purchase. Yeah, not everyone does this and it's a little awkward for people wanting to browse through certain Vertigo titles or art books or manga. but it's better to be safe than sorry with parents.

So when I see Y the Last Man, a book we bag up due to mature themes and nudity and sex and a bunch of things that mothers can get riled up about, right next to the young adult section, I feel weird. I mean, Minx, yes! Perfect! But... Y the Last Man? Really?

Ah, not like Borders doesn't have worse in just as close a reach to kids or that there's a chance anyone's going to go sue them over content. Just weird to have that sudden moment of self-doubt and work-induced censorship at a store that doesn't have to follow the same rules we do.

Remember folks:  this is the way to incite your audience.  By making them think. 

According to the Atomic Comics article, Mr. Hall says that his scenes will be filmed in August with Morgan Freeman "implying his role will have more to do with the business side of Bruce Wayne's life than the jumping-around-dark-alleys part."  Makes sense, I mean, they're going to have the Joker and the start or at least the tip of the iceberg of Two-Face.  But that doesn't mean we're not looking at a villain here.  My early nomination goes to:

 The Riddler.

One of their complaints (which they admit is nitpicking) is that the narrative is peppered with blatant disgust by the surrounding samurai class characters that Japanese Midnighter is in love with a man.  Me, I figured that was going to be par for the course, right?

Turns out I'm wrong and that "one of the fundamental aspects of samurai life was the emotional and sexual bond cultivated between an older warrior and a younger apprentice, a love for which the Japanese have many names, as many perhaps as the Eskimo have for snow."

While I'm still confused at the idea of an Elseworlds Wildstorm story and don't think that Midnighter and Apollo are really all that made for yaoi, a genre that to me means a story with a homosexual relationship primarily written for women by women, I'll pick up the issue and see what the issue says.

I'm just in it for the kicks.  And explosions.