| Take a look overhead. |
[21 Jul 2009|06:28pm] |
Amazing Spider-Man #600 comes out tomorrow.
My first Spider-Man comic, ever, was Amazing Spider-Man #400, cover-dated April 1995. I was eight years old. I'd taken an interest in Spider-Man thanks to the then-current Fox Kids Spider-Man cartoon (which I'm sure has not aged well), and my mother picked it up for me at the local newsstand, fondly recalling her own childhood comic-reading habit. It had spooky writing by JM DeMatteis, gorgeous art by Mark Bagley, and was full of crazy freaks like Shriek, Kaine, and the Jackal. I was hooked - for life.
That was fourteen years ago - it should have been a longer haul to #600, but Amazing went thrice-monthly a year and a half ago. #400, in which Aunt May dies of old age (she got better) continued the JM DeMatteis run, which was really good, and I'm looking forward to his story in the upcoming Web of Spider-Man relaunch. It didn't last long after #400, and soon we had the highly enjoyable Tom DeFalco run, which lasted until 1999. DeFalco's run included about a year in which Spider-clone Ben Reilly replaced Peter Parker, and DeFalco really had a good handle on the character. Ben died, and Peter came back for a few years, and then we got the Howard Mackie/John Byrne relaunch/renumbering, which was...really, really bad. It had some decent-ish ideas, but it got bogged down in bad characterization, questionable plot twists, and incomprehensible mystery-for-the-sake-of-mystery. But its numerous new villains, many of whom would never appear again, ignited my love of cataloguing obscure characters, which eventually got me posting profiles at the Marvel Universe Appendix, which eventually got me writing official Handbook profiles for Marvel. Also, it gave us the Squid, and I love the Squid. So it wasn't all bad.
In 2003, J. Michael Straczynski was brought in, and revitalized the title. He produced some really strong stories right off the bat, but over his long, eight-year run, the quality kinda deteriorated - the last Civil War and Back in Black-centric year-and-a-half of issues were really a chore to read. But even when the plotting was...somewhat suspect (Exhibit A: Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy's goblin-babies) the book was well-written. JMS' run also featured the re-renumbering of the book, just in time for #500, in which Spider-Man has to battle his deadliest foes through past, present, and future in a story that's a little too cosmic-y for Spider-Man, but who cares, because it had Mindless Ones, and the Mindless Ones are awesome.
Then came One More Day, which demonically erased Spider-Man's marriage. I didn't much care for the story itself, and really thought that was a terrible plot twist, but the (now-thrice-monthly) issues that followed it have consistently been very good, and often great. With a rotating creative team that features a bunch of my favorite writers, including Dan Slott, Mark Waid, and Fred Van Lente, I always save it to read last on Wednesdays. #600 looks like it's going to be a blast, with the return of one of my favorite villains, Dr. Octopus (who was dead when I started reading Spider-Man, only to be brought back to life years later via - no, really - ninja magic) and a crapload of all-new material - no reprints. Plus the Squid is totally in it.
To 200 more!
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| He'll eat your brains with apple pie. |
[14 Sep 2008|03:30pm] |
The '90s were unkind to Captain America. He was almost turned into a woman by Superia. Then he was turned into a werewolf by Nightshade. Then the Avengers killed the Kree Supreme Intelligence, even though he told them not to, and the only guy who didn't was friggin' Hawkeye. Then his pal Iron Man went all evil and died. Then his Super-Soldier Serum started breaking down and he had to wear a doofy armored costume, Then he was framed for treason. Then he was killed by Onslaught. And then he was drawn by Rob Liefeld. And then Mark Gruenwald died.
Plus, I think he broke up with Diamondback somewhere in there.
Oh, and then there was this.
Note that he's wearing the aforementioned doofy armored costume, for extra WTF points.
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| Hey, where's Duncan Hunter? |
[06 Jan 2008|05:09pm] |
Well, that's unexpected. I assumed that as a pinko commie from Soviet Canuckistan that I'd be compatible with a kook like Kucinich.
86% Barack Obama
85% Chris Dodd
81% John Edwards
80% Hillary Clinton
80% Bill Richardson
79% Dennis Kucinich
78% Mike Gravel
76% Joe Biden
46% Rudy Giuliani
41% John McCain
34% Mike Huckabee
32% Mitt Romney
27% Ron Paul
22% Fred Thompson
20% Tom Tancredo
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz
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| New Yiir's. |
[01 Jan 2008|04:41pm] |
Bad at Wii sober.
Better at Wii drunk.
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| She's a vampire! He's the guy from Without a Trace! They fight crime! |
[01 Dec 2007|03:31pm] |
Saw Innocent Blood on Space last night last night. I don't know how I was previously unaware of the existence of a John Landis-directed vampire gangster movie.
Anne Parillaud (you know, from La Femme Nikita) is a French vampire in Pittsburgh. Somethimes she goes off on Anne-Rice-esque tangents about the curse of her existence, but she's hot and frequently naked so I'll allow it. She decides to use to use the ongoing mob war in the city to cover up her feedings, which goes awry when she doesn't finish off the big boss (Robert Loggia) and he starts converting his fellow mobsters (including Don Rickles) into the undead. Naturally, she has to stop him - with the help of an undercover cop (Anthony LaPaglia) who noticed that dead mobsters shouldn't be missing 5 quarts of blood.
Interestingly, they never explicitly spell out which iteration of the vampire rules they're usinjg in the movie - in fact, they never actually use the word "vampire". But sunlight's bad, garlic is bad, and people bitten by vampires become vampires - unless you destroy enough of their nervous system before they come back (she brings a shotgun to her "dinner dates"). Likewise, you can kill a vampire by breaking its neck or shooting it in the head.
Overall, it's a fun movie. The script moves pretty fast, there are some pretty good lines, and there are a number of nice vampire fights. The special effects are pretty good for 1992, too - the glowing eye effect on the vampires is a little overused, but there are some impressively spectacular death scenes. And the acting is pretty good, too.
Loggia's the real standout here - he's funny, he's menacing, and at one point he beats a guy with a toaster over. He spends his last scene on fire, and he's still good. Parillaud is...well, very French, and very naked (but not enough for it to become boring, known as the Lifeforce Effect). Lapaglia is a cop on the edge - he's basically the guy from Without a Trace with a vampire girlfriend.
Landis being Landis, the movie's full of cameos. Frank Oz plays a morgue attendant, Dario Argento plays a paramedic, and scream queen Leanna Quigley shows up for a scene (and screams). Similarly, whenever anybody watches TV, it's a classic horror movie. Universal Dracula, Hammer Dracula, Beast From 20 000 Fathoms...
So was it worth watching? Sure - it's good cheesy fun. Plus I got to see Don Rickles messily disintegrate.
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| That's odd, the blood usually gets off on the second floor. |
[20 Nov 2007|09:27pm] |
So I gave blood. It was fine.
Had some blood drawn from my finger to test my iron levels. Filled out some forms. Answered some questions from the nurse (no, I've never had leishmania, I've never had sex with anyone from sub-Saharan Africa, and I don't work with monkeys or the secretions thereof).
Then they sat me down in a comfy chair, stuck something pointy in my arm and drained two cups of my precious bodily fluids. It really didn't hurt much at all, and the whole exsanguination process only took like ten minutes.
After that, I had to stay seated for ten minutes, and then I got juice, cookies, and a little enamel "first time donor" pin. Honestly, I'd recommend it, if you don't have anemia or a monkey. It's in you to give.
Things I learned:
- Leishmania is not as fun as it sounds, as it is a parasite that lives in your blood and will kill you.
- Every donated blood unit gets separated into three parts - plasma, blood cells, and platelets. I always figured they just pumped the whole thing into someone.
- The nurse who asked me about my sexual history and intravenuous drug usage grew up in my tiny hometown, on my tiny street. Freaky.
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[03 Sep 2007|12:45pm] |
So my faithful got-it-free-with-my-laptop RCA Lyra mp3 player cacked out on me, after two years of service. I have a birthday coming up, so what do I want?
I don't need it to play movies, come in designer colours, or sexually gratify me. I just want something to listen to on the bus. I want it to be smallish, reliable, and durable. Cheap wouldn't hurt, either, but again, birthday.
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[01 Sep 2007|05:59pm] |
So I was wary when a) my dentist didn't look much older than I do, and b) I saw that the dental hygienist had bizarre, inexplicable facial scarring.
It turns out I was right to be wary, because a big chunk of something just fell out of my teeth.
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| ICE to see you. |
[05 Jan 2007|08:24pm] |
Your results:
You are Mr. Freeze
| Mr. Freeze |
| 75% |
| Dr. Doom |
| 63% |
| The Joker |
| 53% |
| Venom |
| 52% |
| Lex Luthor |
| 48% |
| Poison Ivy |
| 46% |
| Mystique |
| 45% |
| Apocalypse |
| 41% |
| Green Goblin |
| 37% |
| Dark Phoenix |
| 35% |
| Magneto |
| 34% |
| Juggernaut |
| 33% |
| Kingpin |
| 33% |
| Riddler |
| 30% |
| Two-Face |
| 29% |
| Catwoman |
| 23% |
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You are cold and you think everyone else should be also, literally.
 |
Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz
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[08 Dec 2006|12:54pm] |
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holy crap snow
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[28 Nov 2006|12:05am] |
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Ha ha. Suck it, Haskett.
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| Goddammit, Maverick! |
[25 Nov 2006|12:15am] |
Mm. Essays and assignments all done, and Top Gun at the campus theatre.
Life is good.
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| You betcha, yeah. |
[08 Nov 2006|06:16pm] |
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot. | | The West | | | Boston | | | The Midland | | | Philadelphia | | | The Inland North | | | The Northeast | | | The South | | What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes |
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