I'm Still Here...ish...

I know I've had some ideas about some posts (probably video game and/or comic book related), but I've been swamped with work lately that I haven't had time to get them down on paper (er...screen...space? I suppose I could write them down on paper first and then it'd be on paper...).

I've been long-termin subbing it since late August at one of the schools that I, well, sub for. There's not much more to it that I'm willing to say, but I am going to be doing that until Thanksgiving (the US one), so that's why the blog has been silent for many moons (ugh, I just made a Native American reference after talking about Thanksgiving, which probably makes me a terrible person).

Along with not updating the blog very often, I've also all but stopped work on editing A Plague Upon Thee and Project Zero: God Sent. So, yeah, one or more of those probably won't make the end of the year deadline I was imposing on myself. Not that I have covers for either, anyway, and that makes a book far less attractive to a reader.

On another note: The DC "reboot" (don't call it a reboot, they've been here for years) has come and gone (yes the books are still around, but the actual act of rebooting the DCU is done with) and while I can't say for certain how the DCnU will look one to five years down the line, I will say that I've been disappointed with the quality of the books thus far. Both from a writing and art(ing) standpoint, I've been left underwhelmed by what I've seen so far.

Most of the female characters have been turned into pale, husked out versions of their former selves (especially Starfire) and it seems like many are just there for men to either have relations with or save from danger (a sign that, perhaps, too many middle-aged men work and/or write for DC).

But that's the end of that rant.

Just wanted to say, yeah, not dead, just busy.

It's Been...One Week Since you Looked at Me

Huh. Never thought I'd reference a Barenaked Ladies song. There was no argument between Kelly and myself. However, it has been one week since I got home from Chicago Comic-Con. If you've been following me on Twitter (@klynchmob), then you've seen the little tidbits I've shared here and there.

Well, lots of stuff happened (most good, but one or two sour notes), so here I am with an after-report of Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con 2011!

Preview night was the same as always, except with one huge difference: We actually bought stuff on Preview Night! In years past, we reserved PN for doing some recon, scoping out what we wanted to get during the weekend, not for actually laying any money down. Hey, there's a lot of stuff there, you don't want to blow all your coin in one place, as it were. But, as Kelly put it, there've been too many years where we've said things like, "Hey, this is pretty cool, we should get this...tomorrow" and then whatever it was was gone by the next day.

That and the Walking Dead Compendium 1 was in one of the super-cheap trade paperback areas. So yeah, the first half of the series or so was only five dollars. Found the first two Daredevil ultimate collection volumes from Bendis' run on the book (not Ultimate Daredevil as someone asked) at the same place. I had been looking for those for awhile, and since it collects just BMB's work on the book, I didn't have to worry about the weird numbering issues that plagued that book (for example, Bendis didn't start writing with #1. They consider Kevin Smith's work on the Marvel Knights imprint to be part of the same volume). We also picked up the Gremlin Pop figurine (because it's much cuter than the Gizmo one) and a Darth Vader Mighty Mugg. Overall, a pretty good haul for PN.

Friday we set aside for most of the picture taking. I got to have my picture taken with Christopher Lloyd. And Sir Patrick Stewart. On the same day! How awesome is that?

Funny story about the picture with Patrick Stewart (and for those who do follow me on Twitter, you know where this is going). I have this shirt. Knowing that Sir Patrick Stewart is a Shakespearean actor, I thought he might get a kick out of it. So, I specifically chose to wear that shirt when I met Sir Patrick. With slightly offensive shirt and all, my brother (it was his birthday present) and I stood in line to get our photos taken. It was one of those deals where each person gets about three seconds with the celebrity (we joked that it was so quick that the photos would be the celebrity standing in the center and the fans would just be blurs in the back), so I figured he wouldn't notice the shirt.

I was wrong.

We get up to Sir Patrick and he shakes our hands (because he's good people that way). His eyes must have been drawn to the picture of the Bard, because he stops, studies it, looks up at me, and says, "oooh."

Now, I have no idea what this "oooh" meant. Did it mean that my shirt was good for a larf? Was he one second away from calling for his sword and slicing me in twain? I do not know. I feel I may have offended Sir Patrick Stewart, which was certainly not my intent. Especially because he's a knight (but especially the fact that he is Patrick Stewart, star of TV's Star Trek: The Next Generation) and is legally allowed to kill me for sport.

But yeah, still got my picture with him. And it's awesome.

Beyond that, we saw Nicholas Brendon's and Kelly Donovan's panel that afternoon. It's funny that both were at the Con this year, because last year Nicholas was there, and we were wondering if it was really him, or if Kelly was there in his place (it was Nicholas, Kelly's voice is different). Who is Nicholas Brendon and Kelly Donovan you ask? Nicholas Brendon was Xander on Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Kelly Donovan is Brendon's twin brother (and was in an episode of BtVS). They were really funny and Kelly spent most of the panel shirtless (Kelly Donovan. Not my Kelly).

The only bad part was that a young lady in the first row (and we were in the second, which was awesome) kept heckling and coming on to the two. I think even Nicholas and Kelly (both Donovan and my Kelly) were annoyed with her (and unfortunately, that wasn't the last we'd see of her that weekend).

Other than Kelly buying her tickets for her and her friends' pictures for Saturday, I don't think we spent any money.

The major event of Saturday is getting it's own post (yeah, it's that special), but if you'd like a preview for when I get around to writing it, you can watch it here.

Saturday, Kelly's friends Kat and Alicia (along with Kat's husband, Ed, and her brother, Hans) came down to spend the day with us (and get photos and go to panels and such).

Even though I knew there was a chance Patrick Stewart would have me killed on site, we still went to his panel and were in the second row (which, again, was awesome). The man is surprisingly funny. Just from his work, one has to assume that he has a good sense of humor (especially about himself), but I didn't expect him to be so charasmatic and witty. And the stories he told about Star Trek and X-Men were incredibly entertaining and informative. Also, I may have taken a lot of pictures. I mean, come on, were up front and it's Patrick Stewart!

If you watched the youtube video above, that is me in the video. And I am indeed proposing in that video. The camera was manned (so to speak) by a Slave Leia and those are Storm Troopers and other Star Wars characters escorting her from her place in line. I say this because we were in the audience for the Bruce Campbell panel not an hour later. Where a young man got Bruce Campbell to help him propose to his girlfriend. Yeah, that happened. I guess Comic-Con is just the place to propose. Who knew?

Sunday, we saw Bruce Campbell again. And I yelled at him. And he yelled back. The conversation was pretty much this:
Me: "BRUCE!"
Bruce Campbell: "YES!" (It was more of a confirmation he is indeed Bruce Campbell than it was inquisitive)
"You're looking rather dapper this morning" (He wore a variety of tuxes)
"Thank y...Wait, what'd you say?"
"You're looking rather dapper today!"
"Thanks. I'm just trying to keep up with all the well dressed people here!"
So yeah, I interacted with Bruce Campbell.

Sunday started on a bit of a sour note as we learned that Kelly's picture with Nicholas Brendon from the day before (she got it with Kat) had been destroyed by a leaky roof. We also learned that said leak may or may not have been responsible for destroying the remaining stock of photo paper so the rest of the pictures would have to be mailed out (still waiting on the Nicholas Brendon one and one other). But that did leave us with enough time to see James Marsters (Spike from Angel/BtvS). He was very mellow and was actually the most straight-laced of all the people we saw.

We were planning on having our pictures taken with Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery (the McManus boys from The Boondock Saints), but after hearing the news about the pictures, I was hesitant to pay for another. Kelly, however, was not.

We went ahead and got our pictures taken with the boys from The Boondock Saints (very nice boys). We then went to their panel, which was also a lot of fun (all of the panels were fantastic this year, but for different reasons).

On the way back down to the main convention hall (the panels were held up stairs this year. Something about a wedding and another convention), Kelly whispers that David Del Rocco (Rocco from The Boondock Saints) was behind us. Sure enough, Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery were right there with him.I was so close to the Boondock Saints, I could have touched them. But I didn't. Because Sean Patrick Flanery has just told us a story how he's really hardcore into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I did say they were awesome. To which I got a, "Thanks, brother."

After that, Kelly and I bummed around most of the rest of Sunday (we picked up some more books) and headed to dinner with some of my brother's friends (my brother hadn't been feeling well all weekend, so he skipped out). I will say this, Giordano's in Rosemont, Illinois has some of the best pizza I have ever had and going there is an event I look forward to every year.

The "after-convention" fun ended on a trip to the ER (and that's as far as I'll go with that story, since that is not mine to tell), but it all worked out in the end.

A lot happened in Chicago this year. I got engaged (no we have not yet set a date for the wedding), picked up a bunch of comics for dirt cheap, got a lot more pictures with celebrities than we did last year (I felt Wizard World had stepped up their game this year in terms of quality, but oddly enough, others disagree), and for the most part had a great weekend. It's still my goal to have my own panel at one of these conventions, but as I'm busy as hell these days preparing for the school year, I haven't gotten much editing done.

Oh well, there's always next year... ;)

The Captain is Real IN

It should be no surprise to anyone that I like comic books. I've also spent a good chunk of real estate on this here blog detailing my thoughts on films based on comic books (usually picking over things like the costume and changes to the story), but one film in specific has been absent (and one person actually asked me why). And that movie is: Captain America: The First Avenger. Since the film has been out for a couple of weeks and most people who are going to see it have seen it, I'm not going to write a review (I liked it. A lot), but rather go through a partial history of the development and my reaction to said...developments.

So let's start at the beginning, shall we? (or pretty close for our purposes...)

An interesting thing happened with Captain America: The First Avenger. As more details about the movie trickled in, the less enthusiastic I was for the final product. And no, it wasn't just, "Oh, this director sucks" or "Chris Evans isn't right for Cap." Ok, maybe I said that about the last one, but once leaked set footage appeared I was quickly silenced by just how much Evans looked like the character.

But I had the opposite comment about Joe Johnston, the director of Captain America: The First Avenger. About the only work I recalled of Johnston's was The Rocketeer, an enjoyable WWII-era superhero-esque fantasy film from the 90's. So he already had a pedigree for this type of work (this type of work being Nazis and superheroes).

It wasn't until comments from Johnston about production and the film that I really started getting worried. This was one of his first comments about Cap:
"It's not going to be a Captain America that you expect. It's something different. It is influenced by the comic book, but it goes off in a completely different direction."
Hearing that the director thinks it's a good idea to go off completely on his own is not something you want to hear about a comic book movie (or any film that's based on a literary work, really). It shows a lack of understanding and respect for the history of the character. It's like the director (or writer or producer) is saying, "this character has existed and endured for 70 years, but now I'm going to make him good!"

It was also a hint that maybe the studio was giving the directors more freedom in how they handled the characters (something that I point to as one of the reasons why Spider-Man 2 and 3 were disappointments). With movies like Spider-Man and Iron Man, I could picture someone in a black suit and sunglasses kicking over a chair, pulling a switchblade up to Raimi's and Favreau's necks and saying, "You won't screw this up if you know what's good for you..." and disappeared into the night. When the time to make Cap rolled around, Marvel Studios had a string of major and minor hits on their hands (Iron Man and Iron Man 2 being the major, Incredible Hulk being the minor), so maybe they felt the director could have more freedom in how he made the movie. Or maybe the guy from Swingers just "got" Iron Man a lot more than Joe Johnston seemed to "get" Captain America.

The concept art for the costume didn't help much, either. While the finished product looked a lot more like cloth than the initial picture, the concept looked like futuristic body armor. I won't go any further into it than that (already spent at least one entry doing that, anyway).

And then something happened. The aforementioned footage of a buff Chris Evans as Steve Rogers surfaced, leaving whether he could be the physically imposing super-soldier in little doubt. This was the still-in-excellent physical condition, but much thinner kid who had, only a couple of years ago, been the Human Torch in the Fox-licensed Fantastic Four movie. That, of course, was the second biggest hurdle (or perhaps even larger than if he could pull off the role unaided by CGI) with Evans. He, in my mind and in many others, was still remembered for his role as Johnny Storm (many articles about him even said Chris Evans, best known for his role as the Human Torch).

It's like (though maybe not to this extreme) if Christian Bale were to play Superman, or if Ryan Reynolds would be the Flash. Yes, Fantastic Four is licensed to Fox Studios (same as X-Men and DareDevil, though Spider-Man is licensed to Sony, which is why Kingpin probably won't show up in a Spidey flick) and Captain America is a Marvel Studios film, but many don't see a distinction. Seriously. People continue to ask and wish for a Spider-Man/Avengers/X-Men crossover film. So, it wasn't that far of a stretch for people to look at Chris as Steve Rogers and ask, "what the crap is that guy from FF doing in WWII?" Part of what helped IS the amount of muscle Chris Evans put on to play the role. The other, and we had to wait for the finished product to really determine this, was could he act differently than the sarcastic jerk from the FF movies.

The trailers began filtering in and I just about wrote the film off as the first real failure for Marvel. One that could spell disaster for Joss Whedon's The Avengers (though Whedon just couldn't have that. I'll get to that in a bit). A lot of the earlier trailers were mostly one liners and generic looking action shots (maybe that's all that the studio had finished, I don't know) and I thought to myself (and anyone who would listen, really) "If these are the best parts of the film, this is what is supposed to sell me on this movie, then this is going to suck)

So. The big question is now,after I've rambled on for paragraphs about my personal history with the development of Captain America (no, I didn't work on the film, I'm saying my reaction to the film's development) is did Chris Evans deliver?

The answer, as anyone who saw the film, was yes. Yes, he can. He has that that root-for-me-because-I'm-the-underdog charm that makes the character so likable. Yes, he also has the badass part down pat. But it's his, "I just want to do something good" attitude that really won me over.

Without knowing how much of the script Joss Whedon changed (he was brought in to rewrite the script to make it fit into his plan for The Avengers as well as to punch up a couple of scenes to add more character development), I can't say the film would've been worse without his involvement.

So, I guess what I'm getting at is: congratulations Joe Johnston and Chris Evans, you won me over. Now bring on the Avengers!

Up and at Them

I've been trying to lay off DC Comics (which is still weird because the 'C' in DC stands for Comics, so it's effectively saying Detective Comics Comics, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms) during the whole "DCnU/Reboot/Relaunch" event, because, well, there wasn't any specific reason. I guess I just wanted to wait and see how this thing plays out before tearing it apart.

But then, in DC-related news, the first shot of Henry Cavill, the man who would be Superman in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, in the costume surfaced today. What. The. Heck? How come, in over thirty years, has no one been able to make a decent looking big-screen Superman suit? If you haven't seen it yet, you can see it HERE. And be sure to check out the enlarged version, where a lot more detail is visible.

Just from the shot on SHH!'s story page, the costume doesn't look half bad. But, in the enlarged shot, some things really start to stick out. First, there's the latex-scale thing going on. Spider-Man started a dangerous trend when he first appeared on the silver screen in 2001, and no one has used it to as great as success (including the last attempt at a Superman film) since.

The 'S' is still raised, but not as much. However, it also has the scaley pattern to it. It just looks...weird. It also appears to be closer to the Golden Age 'S' shield than his modern costume. That begs the question, "Why?" There's a reason that artists no longer draw the logo that way. It just looks awkward.

The sleeves have kind of a cuff to them that at first I though was how some artists have been drawing him lately. It could have been that they had already seen the costume and were trying to integrate design elements into the comics, but then I realized that Supergirl is the one with a similar pattern. Not exactly the same, but similar. I also noticed that there is piping on the legs and along the torso. Not sure what the fascination with that these days, and it appears to pop up in most redesigned costumes (I've even tried it out with the Zero character a couple of times). Hopefully, the suit doesn't have ribbing...

We haven't seen the back of the cape yet, so we don't know if it'll have the yellow S shield, but I will give them props for having what appears to be a cloth cape. Looks better than the Returns cape, anyway. I also like that the colors look to be brighter in general than the Routh costume. The reds are red, instead of a maroonish/brownish color.

Speaking of reds, I can't be certain, but from the picture it looks like Supes is missing his bright red briefs. A lot of people say that it's goofy to have a grown man in tights AND wearing his underpants on the outside of his clothes. I argue that, without the pants, the character just doesn't feel right. There's too much blue, broken up only by what appears to be a dark-colored belt. Now it looks like one, big ,scaley, blue body suit. It's a similar argument to the Wonder Woman bikini debate. People crow on and on that a person shouldn't be fighting crime in a swimsuit or with their tighty whities (or in this case, red...ies) on display for the world to see. But without these elements, the characters don't look right. They just don't seem like themselves.

To me, it always comes off as a desperate ploy to look hip and modern, just like with the armored panels and piping and ribbing. At least, however, it isn't CG alien musculature and is an actual, physical costume.

The actor looks like he could play an evil Superman. Could be the seemingly lack of eyebrows.

I went on longer about the costume than I thought I would, so I'm going to cut it off here. I'll probably tackle the DC Reboot when I have more time and energy. Also have to get in my thoughts on Captain America eventually...

Convention Time Again!

It's August 1st already. That means in exactly one month the new school year will begin and I'll once again be assaulted by students for my GamerTag (students don't understand that I don't have an XBox 360 or that Sony calls the UserID something else on the Playstation 3). In a related note, I have a long-term sub assignemtn this year! But, before I collapse into a nervous wreck over that, there're some things I'd like to get out:

First off, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who purchased Project Zero: Bulletproof during Smashword's July sale. It's great to see people taking advantage of great offers like that. I'd also like to invite those readers (and anyone who has read Bulletproof) to take a minute or two and write a review.

Second, it is less than two weeks until Chicago Comic-Con, which I will be attending. Again. For the fifth (I think) year in a row. It's something I always look forward to, even with the decreased presence from the comic industry (seriously, it's to the point where it can't even really be called a comic convention). This year continues last year's trend of just gathering a bunch of A-C list celebrities and letting people take photos with 'em. Last year, Kelly and her friend, Kat, got a picture with James Marsters (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame). This year, I'm hoping to get a picture with Patrick Stewart. He was supposed to be there last year, but pulled out at the last minute for reasons unknown (I heard reasons ranging from scheduling conflicts to the convention company never really had him signed to appear at all. But, if that were the case, then why would he agree to come this year. That is, if he shows). Also, both Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flannery (the brothers from The Boondock Saints) are going to be there.

I have to put together a list of trade paperbacks (and hardcovers) to hunt for at the convention. It'd be easier if the publishers made it simple and just numbered the volumes (and logically). DC refuses to number volumes (at least it did, I recall seeing a couple that might've been numbered) and Marvel doesn't always logically number their's (The Death of Captain America is split into three volumes, but is actaully something like volumes 5-7 of Brubaker's run on the book).I have the first trade of the ongoing Nightwing series, but it's impossible to tell if any of the volumes I've found after are the next because of a lack of numbering (that and DC got a little weird with what issues were being collected in which trade).

I'm going to be hunting for: Atomic Robo volume 5 (not likely to find it because it was just released to retailers last week)
Bendis' and Brubaker's run on DareDevil (another book that's victim of bizarre numbering)
Captain America (pretty sure I have all of the trades leading up to his death plus Steve Rogers' return)
Invincible (the latest, although now that it's been pointed out how stiff the dialogue is, I'm not sure I can read it).
Also looking for: Those lil Pop things (the quasi-replacement for Mighty Muggs that are about 3 inches tall and have both Marvel and DC characters), Mighty Muggs (have a couple I want to get still and maybe a loose one for my classroom).
Other than that, just going to sit back and gawk at celebrities. Maybe even tell Lou Ferrigno that he owes me money. And that'll end up like the time that guy from Lonely Island fought Rocky. But I like my teeth, they let me eat things that aren't liquid or gelatenous, so I'll probably keep my mouth shut.

My brother, James Lynch, is going to once again have a table in Artist's Alley. He's under his name (and maybe his Hero Universe label), so stop on by his booth, say hello, maybe pick up one of his books or prints (he does commissions and I hear his prices are very, very reasonable). If you look 'im up on Wizards' website, someone (he adamently denies it was him) has pieced together a profile of him which is a picture of him from when he was twenty and his writers' profile on his website (which is one long joke). So don't hold that against him. Though if you know who did it and why, be sure to tell us at the con.

Now, if only I could get Patrick Stewart to do my voice mail message. Even if it was just him listing the things he had eaten for breakfast that day...

Looking For Artist...

The other day, I tweeted a request to my fellow authors that I was looking for an artist to do a cover for one or more of my unreleased books and was looking for recommendations. I also said in that tweet that I'd like one that wasn't outrageously expensive. The tweet is copied below:

"any of my author friends have a cover artist/creator/maker who does good work on the cheap?"

My cousin, John, who supports my writing (which I am very thankful to have family that does) retweeted it, and that received some...responses, we'll say. One in particular struck me, because this person took offense to the phrase "on the cheap." (I've since looked up definitions for the phrase "on the cheap" and the most common one is "Relatively low in cost; inexpensive or comparatively inexpensive.") What this person assumed was that I was looking for an artist to do something of high quality and then give it to me for free. I apologize if anyone else thought that was my intent, but I assure, it was not.
 
What, and I'm not sure I can break it down any simpler than the initial tweet, I was/am requesting was/is recommendations from my fellow authors for names of artists who have done cover work, have done that work well, and is a good value for what they do. It's the same as if asking, "Hey, do you know a good dentist? Preferably one that isn't too expensive?" And I'd say, "Yeah, I have a really good dentist and the price is what initially attracted me to him (in terms of dentistry)." But no, seriously, I really like my dentist. And maybe you (fellow authors) have a guy who does your cover art and you really like them and feel they are a good value.
 
Now, I am not/was not asking for a discount. I understand that artists are professionals who charge for their work and I would not ask for anyone to reduce what they charge simply because I want them to (despite how often that is asked of me at my retail job).

Also, not sure how, but the conversation turned to contractors bidding for jobs and doctors charging less to attract new patients (which is how the above analogy about dentists was formed).

Kelly has a couple of ideas (at least one) about a cover for A Plauge Upon Thee, but that still leaves me looking for someone to create a cover for the next Project Zero title (tentatively named God Sent (I'll explain the thoughts on the title later)). Both are still in the editing phases, but I still fully expect both to be out some time before the end of the year. I also have some thoughts on what APUT is and what it is not (hint: It's not an attempt to cash in on such works as Romeo and Juliet and Zombies and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) that I'll share at a later date.

This is like, the eighth time I've promised this in the last two months, but I'm going to do my best to update regularly. I'm told more people will read it that way.

It's Summer summer summer, etc...

Before I get to the main bulk of my blog for today, I'd like to take some time out for an announcement. I said for weeks (and months) that a new edit for Project Zero: BulletProof was coming. Anyone who started reading it before May/June and then came back to it recently may have discovered that there's differences. Some huge, some minor. I've talked about it before, but the book has a new opening.

Because of the new edition, I'm participating in the July sale at Smashwords. Use coupon code: SSW50 at checkout before July 31st to receive half off Project Zero: BulletProof.

Yeah, I know, it's already into the month of July, and I've already written a couple of entries in July, but I figured I should write something about the summer. And...well, really don't have much to say about the summer yet, so I'm going to talk about some of the things I've seen, listened to, played, and read.

Some of the following I've already touched on before now, so I'll keep those brief...er.

Thor: Liked it. Sad they're getting the guy who wrote Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer to write number two. A+

X-Men: First Class: Liked it. Not sure if they're doing another one. Confused on whether this was a sequel or reboot since it was kinda both. A

Green Lantern: It was ok. Could've been better, but it could've been worse. Ryan Reynolds was Ryan Reynolds, but with a Green Lantern ring. C+/B-

Horrible Bosses: Haven't said anything about this one at all. I was expecting a raunchy comedy about wanting to and plotting to kill horrible bosses. That is what I got. That might not sound like praise, but it was damn funny. I like Jason Bateman. He has that...comedic timing that other actors don't always have. It got kind of silly towards the end and I, for the life of me, figure out why Jason Bateman and Jason Sudeikis are friends with Charlie Day. B+

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Not the movie, the book series. It's been pretty good. I read through Lightning Thief and Sea of Monsters pretty quickly. I was a little sad when I discovered it's in the Juniors section at Barnes and Noble. I mean, I'm reading it because so many students I've had have read it, and I try to read at least some of what they're reading (which is a miracle after I was goaded into reading Twilight. I try to understand the appeal based on the fact that the demographic is 10-16 year old girls, but it was 500 pages of the same thing), but still, I had to have an employee show me to the Juniors section.
Lightning Thief gets an A, Sea of Monsters gets a B because it was slow to get moving and not much happened except for at the end.

The Chronicles of Vladmir Tod: I started reading this way back in September when I was proctoring the MAP test and got through the first three. I picked up the fourth a week ago. I remember why it took me so long to get to Eleventh Grade Burns. This was, however, in the Teen Fiction section and B&N. Not sure what the difference is since both this and Percy Jackson are fantasy novels with fair amounts of violence, teen characters, and hints of innuendo. C

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Multiplayer Beta: I subscribed to PlayStation Plus (I was going to before the outage, and they were offering the extra months as part of the anniversary. It had nothing to do with the free trial as part of the "Welcome Back" package. I swear.) and thus got into the Beta a week earlier than most. If you played the second game, you'll feel at home once you get used to the control changes (they aren't major, but there are a few). My biggest problem is melee and I'll go into what I like and dislike about the game at a later date (probably). B (with potential to be higher at release)

Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3: Let's be honest, if you've played one DW game, you know what you're getting. That said, if you're a fan of the first two and of the Gundam Universe (and if you're not, then you probably have no interest in the game, anyway). The new cel-shaded graphics make the suits pop out more than they did in the past games. The new art style also adds cool splash effects to the beam weapons.

The mission structure is similar to the first in that the main story is just a poor excuse to jam popular characters from the various TV shows (and the series continues to stick only to the shows, no OVA characters here). However, the various modes from DWG2 make a return, but they aren't blocked off from the story mode this time around, so now everything counts for something (whether it be G point currency, MS plans (replacing the parts system from 2), or pilot level). Yeah, a lot of this affected the story mode the last time around, but it's even more integrated in 3.

Score for Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3? Fan of the series/Gundam: A. Other Players: not even on your radar.

Also, the manager at the GameStop I bought it at (don't like GameStop, but I had gift cards and it's the only store selling the game) insulted me because I said I was going to preorder Arkham City at BestBuy to get the Robin character. I don't care if you like Robin or not, but yeah, insulting customers is not good customer service.

I started watching Camelot since it's on the streaming service on NetFlix (grr to NetFlix raising its prices, even if it had to to remain a viable business). The series is enjoyable, even knowing it won't be back for a second season. I really like seeing the guy from Shakespeare in Love as Merlin (the dude looks good bald and he's a good actor). My biggest problem is Arthur. I had a hard time believing this whiny little weirdo is going to become the king of legends.

We are the Corps!

I saw Green Lantern (like anyone expected me not to) and I liked it. I thought it was fun, even if the movie had some problems. My problem was more with the family (or at least one adult supervisor and a mess of kids) that sat down in the row behind us right before the movie started. The movie is not (as IGN claims here) a kid's movie. Sure, there are tons of brightly colored alien creatures (for about 10 minutes), but even those scenes aren't really for kids. And judging by the reaction of the squirly bunch behind me, they seemed to agree with me.

Half the kids (there were four) were bored and complained about being bored to anyone who didn't want to listen, and the other half were shrieking at any loud noise or bright light. And there was language I wouldn't want a little kid to pick up. Hal calls several people a$$holes (which totally goes against his character, but we're not focusing on the quality of the film itself here) and Kilowog refers to Hal as a female dog. Now, the film is rated PG-13, and I'd still wince if there were kids that young in the audience. But these were children who looked to be between the ages of 6-10. And not to mention the violence. Sure, there are colorful aliens in the film, but a good number of them die in horrific ways (well, ok, one gets part of his chest blown off and the rest have their essence ripped out in the forms of really painful looking, screaming skeleton).

This isn't the next Star Wars. It's an adventure that takes place mainly in one locale, not the across galaxies space-farrin' adventures of the Star Wars films (or planet/sea of the Indiana Jones or Pirates movies).

This isn't the next Star Wars. It wants to be. It wants you to believe it is. But it isn't (though with the over use of CG, I'd be hard to press to blame you if you mistook it for one of the prequels). It isn't for kids.

It does, however, have Bzzd. And that makes me smile.

A New Class

The end of the school year is upon us, and as such, I haven't had as much time as I've wanted to sit down and write new musings, reviews, etc. Just been too busy is all.

So it's fitting that my first post of the summer is about a summer blockbuster film: X-Men: First Class (I'll try to work on my lead-ins, I swear). If you want to skip all of my little nitpickings on the film (it's a great temptation sometimes, I know), then let me say this: It's the best X-Men film to date (X2 is a very, very close second). 

The story-telling and character-building is excellent. Most of the characters are well developed, though the villains still suffer from the same problems Magneto's minions did way back in the first X-Film. That is, to say, they are just random villains pulled from the X-Men universe and stuffed together to serve as henchman to the main baddie. The X-Men have plenty of actual teams of villains (like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (yes, I know they used that name in the first film, but they were a hodgepodge of characters operating under that name) and the actual Hellfire club, although they got two members. So there is that) I don't think they ever say the name of the guy who makes tornados during the movie. I had to wait for the credits to figure that out.

The film has its problems, too (aside from the underdeveloped badguys). The special effects suffer in the same way Wolverine's did. Some just seem...unfinished. Though, nothing in this movie is as bad as in XO:W. And that's not to say all the effects were laughably bad. Most were very effective, though I found myself drawn to the character moments more than the action pieces.

I think this might be the first movie where I wanted the fight scenes to end so they could go back to talking. And that is a huge credit to the writing. The story has been told before. We get a glossed-over version in the X-Men films of the fallout between Xavier and Magneto, but here we see the two develop their powers independently before they meet and that's when things got really interesting. The moment, teased in the trailer, of Xavier pulling a gun on Magneto, played out in an entirely different manner than I thought it would. Which is good, since I though Charles would've been smarter than to try to shoot Magneto with metal bullets.

Mystique was another character I really liked in First Class. She only ever wanted to be accepted as who she was and she looked to her "brother" for that assurance, but he was too blind/stupid/self-absorbed to see it. And then with Hank, for someone that smart, he really was dumb (in a natural way. I mean, pretty blond girl makes men do stupid things) with Mystique. It was clear she was hurting, but he couldn't see it. He just wanted to cure his thumb-toe (and turn blue in the process, which, in a roundabout way, hurt Mystique. Again). All Mystique wanted was some lovin' as her blue self, and only Magneto (and if the films follow the comics at all, Azazel) was willing to give it to her. That also solidified his character as a man who believes that he (or anyone) shouldn't have to hide what he (or they) is (are).

The other issue I took with the movie was it didn't know what it was or wanted to be. By that, I mean, was it a prequel or a reboot. The opening was an almost shot for shot remake of the opening to X-Men with Erik being separated from his parents and then using his powers to pull on the gate (though it expands on this), but there was a lot in this film that openly contradicts the others. Kelly summed it up with one name: Jean Grey.

***SPOILERS***
 In Last Stand, Erik and Charles recruit a young Jean. Charles is still walking here, so the spinal injury he receives at the end of First Class doesn't really jive with that. Unless he gets healed and Erik becomes an instructor at the institute in the next film. The second is Emma Frost's age. Though different people say different things about Silverfox's sister being Emma in Wolverine, it seemed pretty clear to the makers of the film that it was (and Vaughn reportedly considered the actress to reprise the role in FC), which means Frost would've had to have stopped aging for about five years and then gotten fifteen years younger. The relationship between Xavier and Mystique was never hinted at in the first trilogy and as someone who were raised as siblings, that seems like something that should've come up.

I recommend this film for anyone who has ever liked the X-Men ever. Continuity from the other films be damned, First Class is good enough that I can put that aside and enjoy the ride. With its lower-than-expected box office returns, here's hoping this class will return for another go-round.

Note: I tend to talk about the social aspect of the viewing more, but I'm tired from a long day of driving (went to a video games in education symposium) and I need to get back in the habit of writing more.

This Was a Triumph

A few days after the whole debacle with the PlayStation Network, I purchased a video game. Not just any game, but one of the most hotly anticipated games of the year. No, not Mortal Kombat (though the demo was pretty entertaining even if I could never get the X-ray moves to work right), but Portal 2.

The original Portal was more or less a short, little distraction (and I use that term loosely, as none of Valve's games are throwaways) introduced in The Orange Box as an extra game to entice buyers. Looking at the history of the game (they hired designers specifically for Portal), it's difficult to understand that decision. But hey, can't complain about the results. The first Portal was given all kinds of love in the gaming community, so a sequel had to be close behind.

And in terms of Valve development time, it was. I mean, three and a half years to get a sequel out is akin to Infinity Ward/Treyarch getting a new Call of Duty game out every twelve months. That almost seems like they rushed it out (not really true, since I think the gap between the two Left 4 Dead games was much shorter than this).

So how is Portal 2? Delightful. I didn't even play much of the single player (Kelly did that), but even as a spectator I was constantly entertained. The dialogue among Chell and GLaDOS and Wheatley was amazing (yes, Chell never speaks, but that doesn't stop her from being part of the conversation). There are so many little details and connections (I found blue paint in one of the test chambers during co-op and didn't stop laughing for twenty minutes) that upon completion, I wanted to go through it again.

I don't think I can be more indepth than any of the game review sites, but I will say this: buy it. And buy the PS3 version, you get the PC version with it. Assuming the PSN is still around, of course.

Up, Up, and Away!

Smallville premiered when I was a Sophomore in high school. I remember being excited to see a teen Clark Kent in a weekly series (outside of the old Superboy show, which I'm not old enough to remember, anyway). The first episode came and went and I was hooked. Each week, Clark did battle with a new villain (in the "creature/villain of the week" format) while balancing his personal life (the on-again off-again relationships with both Lana and Lex. Lex was a bromance, not a romance) with his newfound abilities.

I remember thinking how cool some of the special effects were, even if they were cheesy. In a time when most shows and movies were following the Matrix's bullettime example of making everything really slow to show how fast the character was moving (I still don't get it. I mean, he's going really, REALLY slow. Still better than the really fast Agent Smith, I suppose), Smallville took it in a different direction. Clark moved at regular speed (with blurs abound) and the environment around him would either freeze or be in slow motion. Now that's fast. The other effect I always cheered on was when someone would hit Clark with something, anything, and it would shatter on the Man of Steel. Didn't matter what it was, golf club, baseball bat, arrow, bullet, pretty sure there was a car engine in there somewhere, it always shattered the same, awesome way.

The show did suffer from a lack of direction at times and the fact that the CW/WB gave that show a budget of $1.25 didn't hlep. The show picked up after Millar and Gough left after the 7th season and the new showrunners truly embraced the source material. While I credit Millar and Gough for selling the WB on Smallville, the show had started getting long in the tooth (how many seasons of Lana and Clark pining for each other did we need. And the whole fake marriage thing with Lex? That was just creepy. Plus, Gough and Millar were partly responsible for Spider-Man 2, which had some incredibly awkward Clark/Lana-esque moments in it) and I feel the fresh blood really breathed new life into a tired series.

Smallville started out slow and small when it came to branching out into the greater DCU (of characters, it does not, despite what some people think, have any bearing on actual DC comic continuity. Some of the first characters to be featured on Smallville were a certain trickster from the 5th Dimension (though in the show he was a foreign exchange student) and Bart Allen (to this day I cannot figure out why they went with Bart instead of Barry or Wally). Mxyzptlk is a prime example of how the show attempted to stay grounded with its reinvisioning of Superman's early years. Instead of being an impish old demigod from a dimension far different than our own, he was a shifty exchange student with a penchant for fixing high school football games.

Cameos, guest spots, and recurring heroes was also something that improved when the new showrunners took over in season eight. Sure, Gough and Millar managed to work in a couple (like Green Arrow and Black Canary (she showed up in season seven)), but it was an all out nerdfest from eight onward. Everything shifted closer to how it is in the comics while clearly still based in the Smallville universe. The last couple of seasons brought fans Zatanna and the Justice Society. Even Clark matured into the man who would be Super...man.

Everything pointed to a grand finale for such a mainstay on the WB and then CW's schedule (and many viewers' as well), so what happened? Well, Smallville happened. It was always a show of uneven quality. While I enjoyed watching it week to week, there are episodes that stand above the rest, and then there are whole chunks of seasons that I barely watched or remember (I'm looking at you, Veritas journals, et al.)

The finale encompassed everything that the show is and was in two hours. Like just about every season finale before it, Finale (yes, that's the name of the episode) plodded along for the first half until Oliver was revealed as traitor (oops, SPOILERS) and he and Clark had a thirty second fight.

Then it slowed back down again. And Clark had a couple of meaningful conversations with his dad (say what?!), and then his mom, and then Lois (who snuck aboard Air Force One in the second half), all the while Apokalips was bearing down on Earth. We get it. A lot of people helped Clark become the man he is and needs to be. And it's great to have all these heartfelt conversations with those people. But there is a fiery ball of doom heading right for the planet. Didn't it occur to Clark to, I don't know, hurry his ass up? Every time someone talked Clark into taking that next step and he'd rush off, he'd only end up talking to someone else for five minutes.

And who wasn't psyched as heck for Lex's return? Okay, that setup may sound like I'm going to tear into Michael Rosenbaum, but I'm not. Having him around for those couple of minutes really punctuated just how great Lex and Clark's dynamic really was. It was a shame they had to go and erase a decade's worth of character growth like that. Of course, I half-expected him to help dear ol' Tess along a bit quicker after her quip that Clark had saved her first. And without stabbing her.

Meanwhile, daddy Lionel (the evil one from the mirror universe) had taken on the spirit of Darkseid (in exchange for ripping out Lionel's heart to give to Lex) and has gone to confront the Light (Clark) in the Light's (Clark's) barn. What. A. Weak. Fight?

"I hit you!"
"EHH!"
*Five minutes of flashbacks that encompass the WHOLE series!*
"Now I can fly. And I can fly through you!"
"Oh no! Now I'm going to explode into old man dust and birds!"
"Birds?"
"Yes...birds."
"Whatever."

And then he goes to see Jor-El and gets the Superman costume so he can finally deal with the giant flaming ball of death that should have probably already ended all life on Earth. And what the hell is wrong with those people on Air Force One?
"We know firing nukes at this thing won't do a damn thing to it and will kill millions of people. But gosh dangit, let's fire them nukes anyway! Trust us, it's better this way."
That is some pretty poor reasoning.

Finally, Clark gets the suit. And then we never see him with it on. Sure, we get some pretty poor CG of Supes from a distance and then that shot of Clark ripping open his shirt to reveal the 'S' at the end (but his face wasn't even in the shot at that point), but never say, the classic Superman pose, all majestic and heroic.

If Clark could've just pushed Apokalips away, why didn't he do that in the first place. Why did he have to run around town visiting everyone and their mother before finally getting the suit and just nudging the planet away. Oh, it was because he didn't believe in himself? That he hadn't yet truly embraced his destiny? I'm sorry, but that s*** didn't fly in Spider-Man 2 and it certainly doesn't here.

After ten years of the same thing, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I still feel cheated. What? Did Welling just not fit into the Superman Returns costume? Couldn't pay for alterations? Tommy boy didn't want to work out enough to look good in the suit? What was it CW? WHAT? WAS? IT?

In a way, flaws and all, Finale was the perfect finale for the show I spent ten years following. It represents the heights and depths the series was capable of, and, even though I spent most of this post ripping the finale apart, I will miss the show.

Also, CW and Warner Bros., please consider making at least TV movies in the Smallville universe and get Tom Welling to get in shape.

The PSN Malfunction

It's now Monday, May 2nd. The PlayStation Network has been down since April 20th. Over the past twelve days and some odd hours (it was taken offline some time that Wednesday evening), some details have surfaced over what happened. It was determined that there was an external attack (hackers hacking) on Sony's online networking platforms (the PlayStation Network, their Qriocity music store, and recently, the Sony Online Entertainment...thing. Are they still calling it portal or hub?) There were some *ahem* liberties taken with the sparse information Sony has given the public and many conclusions were jumped to. This one I saw repeatedly: "Sony should burn because it in no way protected customer information at all and I'm going to sue them."

At the time, there was no evidence that the good folks at PlayStation hadn't protected customer's private information. From what Sony has said (and big companies never, ever mislead the public. Ever.), credit card data was/is encrypted and it does not appear that it was pulled in the "external attack." Then there came the reports that Sony's list of "77 million user's" credit card data was being sold off in chunks. Well, the problem with that statement (and the reason it's in quotes) is that only about 10 million users had active credit cards attached to their profiles. Also, on average, well over 25,000 people in the US alone are victims of identy theft daily. So the couple of people (and not saying it isn't related, but it could be a freaky coincidence) that have come forward with fraudulent charges being made around the time of the "external attack" very well could've had their credit card info nabbed in some other way.

And let's be real, if not for the credit card thing, what's on someone's profile that isn't, say, on Facebook or on one of a dozen data aggregate sites (once I found out that my cell number and home address was on these sites, I had it removed. It's a bit time consuming, but relatively easy.)?

Someone rudely accused me of defending big business, and that really isn't me. Rather than pointing fingers at Sony when there wasn't a whole lot of info to go on (there still isn't and we may never know just how beefy or not Sony's security was), I think that the gaming community would've been better served uniting in common desire to see justice served against the person(s) who hacked the system and caused such a lengthy blackout.

The only thing I really need the PSN for right now is to sync my trophies to my user profile so I can switch out hard drives (I purchased a much larger HDD without realizing that 1) the system was down and 2) that it required a connection at all), so the PSN being down isn't a big loss for me.

And I still blame this mess on that shmuck who thought it would be a good idea to release the PS3's root key online and didn't expect any retaliation in return. Yeah, you hacked the unhackable system, opened the floodgate for others to do with the system what they will, and you didn't expect anything bad to happen? Either to you (Sony has been accused of drawing the legal battle out in order to ramp up legal fees) or to your fellow gamers (who were the real victims in all this)? Good job there, guy. (And do you really think for one second this was just about Sony removing the ability to install another OS?)

And to those who say that Sony either should have had better security (still don't know how good it was) or that they deserve this, let me say this: If I were to break into your house, steal your wallet and computer, kick you in dangly bits, and run away, shouldn't I be the one getting the blame? This hypothetical you wouldn't say, "well, I guess the locks weren't good enough. I deserved to have all my stuff stolen and my dangly bits kicked in." No. That wouldn't happen.

To sum it up: I'm not pro-Sony (or big corporations), I'm pro-going after the person who perpetrated the attacks.

Ugh

It's been awhile. I know I said I was going to be posting more here, but that hasn't worked out. Between work and the hours I put in just last night to clean my desktop of malware/virii, I've been busy.

With all of the cover letters I've had to write for applications lately, I've come to two conclusions. One, I hate cover letters. Two, I can't write a good cover letter. Which is weird to me. I mean, my degree and certification are in English. You'd think I'd be able to compose a half-way decent letter to sell myself as such. But no. Maybe it's the same thing with my writing. I psych myself out If I could just have someone with a recording device following me around all day, I'd be golden.

Though the date will say it's from some time in early April, I'm not actually finishing it until April 19th. So, to further what I said above, I applied to the district I'm a Guest Teacher in. Hopefully, that gets me somewhere. But, I know there are hundreds of applicants and only two positions open, so I'm not holding my breath (which is a weird phrase anyway, since it's allegedly physically impossible to die by holding your breath).

I spent the last three weeks of work proctoring a computerized standardized test. Very few mishaps this time, which is a plus.

I bought Dead Rising 2 this past week. I was waiting for it to go down more in price, but then I watched the videos here and here. I've watched through a couple more of the Two Best Friends... videos and, other than Vampire Rain, the videos are pretty good. I'm not saying they're wrong about the fact that VR is a shitty game. Far from it. I just think it would've been good if they had attempted the game the way it was meant to be played (purely stealth without confronting the Vampires) to show how utterly ridiculous the game truly is.

But Dead Rising 2 is a pretty damn good game. It's a game where the sheer joy of destroying countless zombies is the main attraction. Unlike Valve's Left 4 Dead, which is a game all about survival and ammo conservation (kind of, the hand gun's ammo is infinite, but where's the fun in that?), Dead Rising 2 doesn't take itself seriously. The cutscenes do, but the gameplay does not. Where else are you going to jam a Servbot (think giant Lego head) mask on a zombie, then flay him with a machette on a stick? No where, that's where.

And that brings up another draw of the game. The game's teaser was Tape it or Die! That refers to the game's combo system. As Chuck (the main character) levels up, he gains access to combo cards, which tell the player what components are needed to make increasingly hilarious and deadly weapons (which also give bonuses to PP (the game's XP)).

My only real complain is sometimes the game's story takes away from zombie smashing. You can either kill thousands of zombies (and I have) or you can save your daughter (um...spoiler, I guess), but if you do too much zombie killin' you'll miss a deadline and fail the cases (missions) and then the truth is lost or something. Either way, it sounds important, so I just went with it. Though, I wish I could save more people (also a good way to boost PP).

In other news, I still haven't uploaded the new edition of Project Zero. I know, I said it was going to be within two weeks after Read an eBook Week, but things happen and I didn't have time to make some changes I wanted. I was tempted to just say I uploaded a new edition because I gotta figure 90% of the people who downloaded it didn't read it anyway.

Sucker Punched

That's the feeling you're likely to have after seeing Zack Snyder's latest CG-fest Sucker Punch (alternate opening lines include: a sucker punch is defined as a sudden, surprise punch, usually from behind, an apt title for this train wreck. When it came time to name his latest film, director Zack Snyder went with the feeling the test audience had after seeing this flaming pile of garbage).

The film is setup in three layers (if you've already read plot summaries, you can skip this next paragraph): The real world, the fantasy world, and a series of fantasy worlds set within the fantasy world. If you're confused, don't be, for a film that seems to be intentionally complex and confusing, it is surprisingly straightforward.

The real world is set in the 1960's (I guess, because I don't remember hearing an actual date anywhere in the film. Maybe it was on the form being filled out during the beginning of the film that provides a lot of the details about the main character (She's female AND twenty years old)) where the unnamed protagonist (nicknamed Baby Doll in the fantasy world) has just lost her mother. In a really quick setup, we learn that this guy who we later learn is her step dad (the opening sequence doesn't say this, it's only after he takes the older girl to the mental institution does the audience learn their relationship) learns that he inherits nothing from the mother's death, so he decides to rape his step daughters.

That makes sense, right? That's the only reasonable course of action when bad news is received. During an ensuing scuffle, the main character shoots at the step dad and accidentally kills her sister. I guess. A lightbulb shatters and a pipe bursts, but it was unclear whether the gunshot killed her or if the step dad already had (saying otherwise is using an unreasonable leap in logic given the facts presented in the movie). It could be argued that the step dad had already killed the sister before and it was convenient to pin it on the main character since she was being stuck in an institution anyway.

When the main character arrives at the institution, she is introduced to a skeevy orderly (who runs the place) and overhears the head doctor (only doctor?) telling the girls that the mind is the thing in which we escape to and it is perfect and great in our mind. We also learn here that the main character has five days before another doctor arrives to lobotomize her. Flash forward to her about to be lobotomized and then we're introduced to...

The fantasy world! Set entirely in the main character's mind, she is now an orphan prostitute, the orderly is now a night club/brothel owner and the other mental patients are performers/well...prostitutes. Not a whole lot more character development here, it's really just one more layer of a setup for...

The fantasy world inside the fantasy world! In order to survive at the night club/brothel of the fantasy world, Baby Doll (it's here where they name the protagonist) must dance. In order to dance, she must give herself to the music (awkward scenes in themselves). But when she does, she transports her mind (which she has already transported to this fantasy land. But seriously? In her perfect world, she's an orphaned hooker?) to a fantasy world where she is even more empowered and can fight poorly CGI'd stuff. An old man tells her she must collect things, and then the missions ensue.

Everyone loves to watch her dance, though the audience never really sees why. Kelly said all she's doing is awkward pelvic thrusts.

Back in the fantasy world #1, she decides she's going to escape before the "high roller" comes, so she pieces together an awkward plan (the dialogue is just awful. Maybe some of the worst of any movie. Ever) where everytime she dances (and subsequently there is a new "mission"), one of the other girls would steal an item needed for the escape. None of the plans go off without a hitch and soon almost everyone is dead.

Now, in the real world, it's discovered what the skeevy orderly was doing and all of the damage Baby Doll did while in her fantasy land (she starts fires, stabs some people, and I have to believe those girls did die). Seriously, the lobotomy doctor said he had been coming to the instution for awhile and nobody ever questioned who was actually signing off on the lobotomies? Really?

And, I know he was going for sweet with the ending, but having Sweet Pea escape is weird because, well, she's a mental patient. Baby Doll helped a potentially insane girl escape. If, at some point, it was given that SP was in the same boat as BD (we can kind of assume maybe she is, since in the fantasy world, she followed her sister Rocket to the brothel), but nothing is ever said. So yeah, potentially dangerous mental patient is on the loose.

The dialogue was terrible. It's like they took the most wordy and vague path to saying just about everything possible in ways that are annoying to the mind. Like that. But worse. The acting was about what could be expected, given the script. The whole concept of the film was built around girls in skimpy outfits fighting things, so Snyder tried to build a film around that. It didn't work. The missions themselves are full of action, but the girls (at least to me) aren't particularly attractive (Abby Cornish aside) and the CG that Snyder loves oh so much isn't well done. There were times where the actresses didn't line up right with the CG characters or backgrounds. It's something I noticed with Avatar, but wrote that off because it was in 3D. It's just awkward.

And that's the one word I have to describe this film: awkward.

The only redeeming quality was one of the characters' costumes in the mission world. Sweet Pea's hooded dress thing was pretty cool looking.

The people who liked the film defend their position by saying things like: you just don't get it, you knew what you were getting into based on the trailers, and it's just supposed to be a big, dumb entertaining action-film.

Well, no. I totally got it. It's supposed to about the empowerment of the mind and the harsh treatment of woman. The trailers really didn't hint at the whole fantasy within a fantasy aspect. And it clearly isn't supposed to be a big, dumb action movie because it's evident Zack Snyder really, really wanted us to feel for his characters and to make us think (it did, but only if I could way with self-inducing vomiting so I could leave early). The only time I felt anything was during the Lord of the Rings-esque mission, and that was because I felt bad for Baby and Mommy Dragon.

I would say that I have little hope for Snyder's Superman: The Man of Steel, but he seems to work well when he's using other people's works (Snyder co-wrote Sucker Punch). I think it's better if Snyder sticks to translating other people's works and leaves the writing to someone else.

Still Here

I haven't been around much. If you follow US news, then you've probably seen the upheavel in Wisconsin. While it's small potatoes in comparison to what's happening elsewhere in the world, it is very personal to me.

That said, what's new? Glad you asked. I'm readying the new edition to Project Zero: BulletProof (yay, I'm talking about that again!) which will include a sneak peak at Project Zero: Godsend (or God Sent, jury's still out on that one). I'm finishing up working in some story threads that probably should've been in the story in the first place (Eva and Ryan disappear in the third act and Rain and Keri never do thrown over Lance). So look for that in the coming week(s).

After that, I'm going to start editing on A Plague Upon Thee (If I never mentioned it by title, that is the name of the Zombie Shakespeare book I wrote) and the second PZ book. I'm hoping to get both of those out this year. I'm still plugging away on the third PZ book (title to be determined) and am still brainstorming what the next book is going to be (I'm probably going to take some time off after PZ3).

I continue my journey into the world of Unova. If you follow me on Twitter, then you know Kelly has the Black version while I have the White. The feminine Legendary is on the cover of black, the masculine is on the cover of White. Yep, that's what fueled our (her) decision on who got what version this time around.

I picked up Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions for half off from an electronics store that's closing. I've only played it for about an hour, but I have to say, it feels like the same ol' Spidey game to me. The fighting style is a mix between Arkham Asylum and Web of Shadows. But with awkard camera control. And voice acting. Some, like Neil Patrick Harris, give mixed performances. Some of his witty remarks are spot on Spidey, but some are awkwardly delivered. But that's just my take on it.

The full Captain America trailer hit the web yesterday. That's exciting, I guess.

Read an eBook Week Marches On!

I truly believe that RAEW is in March just so I can make stupid puns like that. It...Marches on? Get it? March, marches...eh, my humor is wasted on the youth. Lousy kids and their rock music and their hoochy goochy dancing.

Oh...k...I'm going to stop myself there before I sound completely like a crotchety old person. Like the one that just walked by my window. Anyone else ever feel like screaming "Zombie!" when you see an old person shambling down the road?

But what I really want to talk about is, as the title implies, Read an eBook Week. My goal for the past two years is to get 50 new readers during this week. I need nine more between now and tomorrow night to reach that goal. So for anybody who has read it (or downloaded it and never got around to reading it), tell your friends. I'm going to put it on its own line so everyone sees it.

IF YOU HAVE DOWNLOADED PROJECT ZERO, PASS IT ON! TELL YOUR FRIENDS!

Now I feel like one of those saps on the street corner passing out fliers (flyers?) for coupons/events. Remember to use COUPON REFREE to get it for free. Or not. Then I get some money out of it.

I've been toying with different styles of writing lately, and one has kinda stuck with me: 1st person perspective. It seems to be all the rage with YA literature, and a lot of my short stories tend to be 1st Person. So I started rewriting the opening chapters of Project Zero. I like it. I don't know if it works for the whole book. In that respect, though, I also have a few ideas for the series. Don't know if they'll pan out, so I won't reveal what they are yet. No need to cause an uproar over nothing.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the 8.9 Earthquake that tore up Japan today and sent Tsunamis into the coasts of the US, among other countries. It really makes you feel like kind of a D-bag to be worrying about the small stuff when the world is falling apart (literally).

Read an eBook Week, Marvel v Capcom 3 and Pokemon White

I don't have a clever title for today's entry. I'm not even sure what I'm typing will turn out to be actual words.

March 6th (yesterday, if you read this entry today) marked the beginning of this year's International Read an eBook Week. I'm pretty sure the "international" thing is new, but I can't prove that. Either way, I am once again giving away Project Zero: BulletProof for free.

If you go HERE and use the Coupon REFREE you will get my book and tons of others absolutely free!

Not only that, but if you get it while it's free (by going HERE), you will get access to all future editions of Project Zero: BulletProof for free. You get the updated editions if you bought a copy previously, too, so those who paid for it, don't feel left out.

I wanted to get the new edition out in time for IRaEW, but once I realized I would've need a lead time in the terms of months, it wasn't going to happen. So a new edition should be out next week or the week after that. Fingers crossed that I have the time to work on it.

Over the weekend, I picked up my copy of Pokemon White I had preordered from GameStop (I swore I wouldn't go back there, but I had gift cards to use up). When I placed the preorder (I did it instore because I had been in the area. For realz), they mentioned they were having a Marvel vs Capcom 3 Launch Event Tournament Thing. Being terrible at fighting games, I passed.

Now, as an aside, I may have mentioned in the past that Marvel vs Capcom 2 is not just one of my favorite fighting games, but one of my favorite games ever. After being burned by Street Fight IV (I foolishly expected it to play similarly to the later SF games and not one that came out 20 years ago), I swore I wasn't going to buy MVC3 until I played it.

Well, 'lo and behold, the PS3 at GS was still setup for MVC3 (I know, I used a lot of initials and such in that sentence). It's like they knew I was coming. The second I picked up the controller, however, I hear, "MR. LYYYYNCH!!!!" I can't go anywhere without running into a student (it should be noted that this GameStop is not in my town and there are no less than 4 GameStops in a one block radius there). The student was also there getting Pokemon.

After trying out MVC3, I went to the counter for my copy of White (Kelly made me get White, since that has the masculine looking Legend on the cover and Black has the feminine) and casually asked if they had any copies of the Special Edition. They said 'no,' they only ordered enough to cover the preorders. Then they discovered someone had cancelled an order, so I went ahead and bought it.

2-3 hours later and I put down the controller. All of the characters were unlocked (but not all the extras like sounds...or sounds...) and I mulled over the game.

First off, it looks great. I'm still partial to MVC2's sprites, but the 3D-esque Cel-shaded character models are pretty to look at...for the most part. My only real complaint is that some characters have giant, open mouths with their teeth bared (Hulk and Wolverine come to mind). You don't notice it while playing, but while doing idle things like character selection, waiting for the fight to start, or taunting, it's, well, distracting.

I still swear that the 3D models restrict the speed and movement of the fighters. And that leads me to my next point: this isn't MVC2. Nor is it SFIV. It almost feels like a mix of the two. Faster than SFIV, but not nearly the frenetic pace of MVC2. The controls seem to be a mix of the two as well.

One of the things that bugged me about SFIV was how much of a step backwards it felt like for the series. The hyper-charged turbo pacing of the the Alpha and Versus series isn't for everyone, but to not even allow Ryu to do a Hadoken while in the air? What are we? Savages? Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 feels like a step in the right direction, but it isn't quite there. Also an annoyance, and this is small...ish, is that there is no longer STRONG and WEAK punches and kicks, but strong, medium, and weak hits. It might be just me, but it also felt like I would try to repeat a maneuver only to have the buttons do something different.


Now for Pokemon. I haven't spent a lot of time with it, but I have to say: WOW! I've seen a lot of reviews that claim it's more of the same. In a way that's true. You still get a choice of the three elemental starters (Fire, Water, Grass) and you set out on your Pokemon journey.

However, (SPOILER ALERT) the first thing I noticed about this game was how well it set up the mood. Moreso than any other entry in the series. I like the seasonal thing, the music and colors were perfect (I don't know about anyone else, but my game started in Autumn). The whole atmosphere is...whimsical. At first. Once you get to the first town, the story's protagonist show up.

Team Plasma, Pokemon's version of PETA, show up early. They argue that Pokemon are better off free and that people should stop subjecting the creatures to their will. That is surprisingly deep for a Pokemon game. And it isn't just Plasma that gives you that feeling that Pokemon should be free. No, everywhere you go, there are hints that the pokemon may not be happy being the trainer's playthings.

For example, one of the TV segments is a review of PokeItems hosted by a woman, cohosted by what I can only assume is a Pokemon. The Pokemon replies with its usual only can say its name thing, but it's translated for the viewer. We learn the Pokemon is pretty upset by the host's actions and words. I'm not very far into the game, but methinks something is rotten in the state of Unova.

VERDICT -
Marvel VS Capcom 3 - If you loved MVC2, you'll like this one. If you liked playing through the story in 2 to get all the characters, you'll be disappointed, there's only 4 hidden, and it only takes one playthrough to unlock them. Reports are coming in that Online isn't optimized yet. Still, a great game to play with a couple of friends (or relatives) to waste a few hours.

Pokemon White - If you liked the others, get it. It's great for veterans and newcomers alike. What seemed like what was going to be the same thing (not that that is a bad thing) turned out to be something more. The subtlies set this apart from earlier entries with things like different camera angles, wind blowing through the grass, birds that fly away, etc.

All-Star Superman? More Like...All-Star...Suck

It's been awhile since I've posted anything (how many blog entries of mine have started out that way?) and I promised a review for a certain DC movie, so here it is:
Last week marked the release of the latest DC animated film: All-Star Superman. If I didn't know the history of the line of comics it's based off of, I would make a joke about how ironic the name is. Hell, I still will. It's ironic that the name of the film is All-Star Superman when it is so very terrible.

Before I dive into everything that's wrong with ASS (huh, how weird is that), the All-Star moniker refers to the quality of talent on the book. For some reason, people think Grant Morrision can write (read my thoughts on that here) and that Frank Quitely can draw (all of his people look like wooden puppets wearing ill-fitting meat suits...and ill-fitting costumes).

Like Morrison's writing, the film is damn near incoherent. Some blame this on the fact that it does trim out some stuff and cut out other scenes altogether (like the suicide girl), but I found it to be pretty close to the source material.

The story is, well, crap. We get to see Supes casting out his bio-energy like a net. And arm-wrestle some gods. And fight the living sun computer (how does that even work?). And a potion that gives people abilities like Superman's. Awesome (that one is sarcastic). There are huge plot holes, ones present in the comic, too. The dialogue was pretty much like, we're going to spout gibberish, and then tell you our reasoning behind the gibberish, so then it makes sense, right?

This is by far my least favorite DC animated film (I've seen some people rank this above GL: First Flight, but I liked that one) and the only thing I can think of that would be worse is to make a film based on All-Star Batman and Robin: The Boy Wonder.

The animation, for what it is, isn't terrible. One thing I have noticed, and it isn't just isolated to ASS (heh), is that the characters lips seem to have grown in size since the launch of the current line of DC animated films (the ones not related canonically to the DCAU). It's kinda distracting.

The Bad
- Based on a Grant Morrison story
-Pretty close to that story

The Good
+The animation was pretty good
+The voice acting

Skip it, unless you're obsessed with either watching animated comic book films or pain. Or both.

I also want to mention that this was Dwayne McDuffie's last project before his unexpected death last week. The comic 'verse lost another good one. RIP.

Looks Like I'm Moving to New Mexico

It was announced yesterday that Joss Whedon's Avengers film is having an open casting call in New Mexico (where the film is filming). Doesn't say what roles they're looking for, but probably not main characters (as most of those are already filled) or even cameos, as those would probably show up again in upcoming Marvel films. So it pretty much comes down to...who wants to be Random Criminal #7? Or Innocent Bystandard who almost gets smashed by the Hulk #3?

In other Avengers news, Cobe Smulders is set to play Maria Hill (Deputy Director of SHIELD) in the Avengers and rumor has it up to 9 other films. Yeah, that's a lot. You might know her as Robin from How I Met Your Mother. I swear, everytime she pulls out a gun in that show, I get scared. I could totally see her as Hill.

I managed to snag a copy of The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition at a used game store today. Paid way too much for it, but it's the only way to get the Hoth mission.

Got reacquainted with Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 over the weekend. Oh parts collecting and upgrading, how I missed you.

If it seems like I'm just rattling off snippets about things, it's because I have a headache but want to get into the habit of posting more frequently.

I went to lunch at Golden Corral with Kelly and my brother. He used a pick-up line on our waitress (we kinda told her it was coming). It went as follows: Excuse me, is there a veterinarian office close by...because these pythons are SICK!"
Yeah, he felt bad, because he probably ruined her day.

If you have Castle Crashers, the first DLC in awhile was released recently. Might only be for the PS3, but it contains one new playable Knight (PINK!) and five new weapons. The Pink Knight has the happy anime eyes, shoots rainbows and throws adorable animals at your enemies. It is 1.99 and goes towards Breast Cancer research. So if you have CC and want to help save the boobies, it's only $1.99.

Went to PF Changs on Friday. Kelly ordered some type of noodle dish and was told it wasn't spicy. It was. She couldn't eat it, but the waitress got her something else, so all was good.

Also saw Gnomeo and Juliet. Adorable movie. The plot was kinda eh, but there was enough Gnome and Shakespeare humor that I was entertained. Go see it if you have kids between the age of 5-10 or if you have a good natured sense of humor about Shakespeare. Or both.

That's it. Hopefully I can get more indepth in upcoming posts, but for now...well, that's it. Toodles (no? No toodles? Fine). Some other witty exultation...

This is SPARTA...CUS!

One of the best things about having a PlayStation 3 (or any video game console this generation, really) is the ability to stream movies and TV shows directly to the system. While I find NetFlix's offerings far from complete, Kelly and I did come across a show that has pretty much made NetFlix pay for itself (we're still on the free trial, so I guess if I found anything to watch the service would have paid for itself...):

Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

I know I'm late to the party on this one, since the show aired earlier last year for the US, but if you were waiting for just one more person to say how awesome this show is before you watch it, then wait no more.

I had heard quite a few praises for the show and was even aware of the controversy surrounding season two (as it were). I was already aware that star Andrew Whitfield had non-Hodgkins lymphoma and it was in doubt whether he would return for a second season. Still, the show sounded promising, given that it was a show about gladiators and violence and sex and all that good stuff that your parents wouldn't let you watch as a kid (but still did, anyway, because you were like that).

The show is about a Thracian slave named Spartacus (but not really. One of the running gags is that he is cut off everytime he or anybody else is about to say his name) who was convinced to join with the Roman army to fight off invaders (who happened to always be giving Spartacus' village a hard time. A win-win situation) but was betrayed by the Roman Legate (General) who seeks to use the Thracians against the invading Greeks. When Spartacus refuses, the shit hits the fan and he is separated from his wife and both are sold into slavery (he to a lanista after he takes out four men in the arena as his death sentence and his wife as a...slave. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about).

The show plays out in a style that is like "300 for TV" and even has a few of the bit actors from that film in here (the Messenger from 300 is the gladiator trainer in the series) with gratuitous violence (the best kind, right?), an ample amount of slow motion, and people using vaguely foreign accents and olde tyme-sounding words.

Spartacus' quest to reunite with his wife is the main focus for most of the first season and this is where it differs from most dramatizations of the story that have come before it. While ***SPOILER*** most of the films and TV shows about Spartacus have focused on the eventual rebellion that he leads, the first season is all about how he gets to that point.

The show is smart, with every plot weaved into another until there's an entire tapestry of violence, sex and betrayal (and any combination of the three) and the acting phenomenal (to the point where I don't even know how I feel about Starz replacing the lead).

While the show's disclaimer states that it's a historical portrayal of Rome, I do have my doubts. While it is a much different time, I don't know if anyone ever got so much excitement from people killing each other that the masses just started doing it in the stands (the modern equivalent is if your football team just won the Super Bowl and you got so randy that you got it on in the stands during the celebration. Vulgar, I know).

As I was reminded by my friend James, this show does make prolific use of Jupiter (the head of the Roman Pantheon) and his genitals.

I tried to be a spoiler-free as possible with this review/endorsement, but I will say this. Every episode had me wanting to start up the next one right away.

Should you watch this show and its prequel, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena? Did you like 300 at all? If yes, watch it. Do you like shows taking a liberal approach to history? If so, watch it. Do you like political intrigue mixed with all sorts of ass-kicking? If so, watch it. Just make sure the kids are no where around when you do (though they've probably already seen it...)

Preview of a New Chapter One

With a blood stained hand, he pulled his bruised and broken body forward, towards the source of the gunfire. He didn’t know who had fired the shots, but they certainly had to better than what he was crawling from.


Reaching out, his left hand slipped on what had to be oil. A warm, wet feeling caressed his cheek and a metallic odor nestled into his nostrils. He opened his eyes to find cold eyes staring back, the life already drained away.

He realized what he had slipped on.

Blood!

Bile rose in his throat and he choked it back. He had to press on. His life depended on it. With his right hand pressed to his stomach, he got to his knees and crawled. First an inch. Then another as he felt his life seep out between his fingers.

It had started as a drip, his hand trying desperately to ply pressure. But the dam could only hold back so much. Now all that he was was smeared across alcohol soaked pavement.

His clothes were in ruins. A shame. He loved the shirt. The concrete greeted him as he fell a second time.

Breath came in short, ragged bursts. Headlights from an unseen car blinded him, and he removed his hand from his gut to shield his eyes. He rolled onto his back, the chill biting at flesh. It wasn’t the cool concrete. No. He knew what it was. The blood, how his breath slowed, the abyss clawing at the edges of his eyes. It could only mean one thing.

Death.

I’m dying! He ran his hand through his short, brown hair, a reflex he had done thousands of times before.

I just…I just wanted to help…

His eyes. So heavy now. For weeks, exhaustion had been there. This was different. He knew that there would be now waking now. This was it.

As he prepared for the end, one thought rattled around over and over.

How the hell did it come to this?

For awhile now, I've felt like there was something missing from the beginning of Project Zero: BulletProof (besides maybe a more succint and catchy title, but I digress), something to pull the reader in. That thing that makes you go, HOLY SHIT!!!! What did I just read? I have to read more!
 
Or, as Dwight K. Shrute would put it, "Put the most attractive beets on top, the ones that make you pull the car over and go "wow, I need this beet right now" - Those are the money beets."
 
The opening is the money beet.
 
Normally, I don't preview writing until it's at a certain point, but I felt so strongly about this that I decided to post the new opening right away. Let me know what you think. If this were the opening to a book you picked up on the shelf, would you keep reading?
 
You can preview the rest of the book here to compare this new opening to the original. Should I keep the new stuff? Stick with what I had?

Writing Revisited

Every so often I like to remind myself (and thus, my readers) that I fancy myself a writer. That is, until I came upon a tweet that went something like this: "A writer is too afraid of failure that he never finishes anything is not a writer..."

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Mr. Kellen, if you look a it that way, you are too a writer. You've written stuff, even if it isn't very popular..."

And that's true, since I have finished some stuff (you can find it here and here), there are a number of unfinished projects that I'm sitting on for a variety of excuses (don't have the time, can't think of how to end something, etc.) and those might all be good and valid, but it can't help but make me think: am I afraid of failing?

Again, I point to my first finished work and say, I submitted it to publishers, agents, and the like, with little to no success (I had one whole agency pass it around to every agent before telling me every single one took a pass on it). So I have finished something and made the attempt to get it published traditionally before going the e-distribution route. But, what after that?

I swore up and down that A Plague Upon Thee was going to be different, that it was a unique idea that no one else in the world would think up. Yeah, you can read how I feel about my chances now here. Part of that, I would say, is that I sat on the manuscript for too long. I finished the second draft in early '10, but I always meant to go through and polish it up before submitting it to publishers and agents.

So...is that it. Is my early rejection leading to a fear of failure and therefor, a fear to even complete something so that I won't be rejected again? Not saying it is a certainty, just something to think about...

The Simpsons: Black Ops

I've had a couple (read: almost all) of students ask me why I passed on Call of Duty: Black Ops since I had let it slip that I played Modern Warfare 2 (that was a huge mistake, since now they don't want to talk about anything else).

I had a difficult time putting into words exactly what it was about Black Ops that made me go, "meh, I think I'll skip this one..." and then it hit me. "But she's got a new hat..."

So, bear with me, if you will, whilst I explain the "But she's got a new hat" principle. You see, in a classic episode of the Simpsons, Lisa becomes disenchanted with the way Malibu Stacy (the Simpsons' version of the Barbie doll) has been portraying women. So she, along with Stacy's original creator set out to create a new doll, one that is a better role model.

Just as the Lisa Lionheart doll is about to hit it big (in a scene where a mob of young girls and Mr. Smithers are rushing towards a display), a new Malibu Stacy doll is set down in front. While Lisa tries to explain that it's just the same Malibu Stacy, but with a new hat, Smithers points at it and screams, "but she's got a new hat."

Now, if you're still at a loss as to why I use this as a metaphor for why I didn't purchase and don't plan to purchase Black Ops, I'll try to break it down. Adding one or two "features" to an existing model does not a new product make.

So adding the ability to actually pilot the vehicle (as opposed to merely being a gunner, like in the MW games) is not enough to make me believe this is a wholly new product. Now, I might sound hypocritical because I have played both Modern Warfare and its sequel, but I did that to continue the story and because MW was such a solid game that I didn't mind getting "more of the same." But, and it's like this with sports games (who would've thought they put FPS' on yearly installments?), adding one new thing and releasing it year after year is going to get old, really fast.

On that note, Modern Warfare 3 is probably going to be coming this year with what is left of the fracture Infinity Ward team, along with other Activision studios. We'll see if this, too, has a new hat...

A "Fantastic" Last Stand *Spoilers Ahead*

Fantastic Four #587 was released today. You may have seen it on the news touting the death of one of the beloved first family of Marvel.

Well, I read it. Haven't picked up an issue of FF in, well, maybe ever. Think I might've gotten one as a gift once (as part of our XMas stockings, my grandmother use to get my brother and me about a half dozen comic books), but I digress.

While it may not have gotten the coverage that the Death of Cap got, it was still on the frontpage of Yahoo! news as well as any comic related site, CNN, etc. It's been a long time in the works, this story, and by the end of the issue, one of the Fantastic Four does die.



***SPOILER ***


Maybe. Probably. It is a comic book, after all. These guys are notorious for characters magically being alive (sometimes literally brought back to life by magic...).

So who is it and how does it happen?



***SUPER SPOILER ALERT***
After having the ending spoiled for me by IGN, thanks a lot (but to be fair, the interview did have spoiler alerts), I couldn't really see it really being a question of who, but as an inevitability. The whole issue builds up to the death of the character and it's fairly obvious who it's going to be. You sure you want to know?



***SERIOUSLY, THIS IS THE LAST SPOILER ALERT***
The tension probably would've worked more effectively had I read at least the rest of the arc. I know, it's stupid of me to only read the final issue, but I couldn't help it. I wasn't going to read it at all, but after reading who it was, I had to know how.

Instead of guessing which character bites it, it was kind of like that feeling of watching a scary movie. You know, the part where you know someone's going to die, you have your hand over your eyes, and you want to look away, but you don't? It's like that.

You see, the issue builds up to the death of Johnny Storm. Yep. Human Torch died. But don't worry, maybe the rest of the team'll pay God another visit and force him to rez up ol' matchstick head (I say again because the Thing once died, and that's how they got him back)(No...seriously, go look it up).

And it wasn't even with the team all there. No...for reasons I don't know (again, haven't been reading FF lately), the team, except for a de-Thing'ed Ben Grimm (yeah, that happened. Again), were off doing their own things. Reed was on an artificial planet with Maestro (evil future Hulk. Or is it just an evil Hulk now?), a couple of people named Castle, and one helluva giant brain (it contains all the memories and brains of all the non-sentient people of the planet). Sue was under the ocean and is now the ruler of an ancient Old Atlantis sect (and arousing Namor in the process. How many books is that guy in, anyway?).

So that left human Ben and Johnny alone in the FF's HQ (is it still the Baxter Building?) to fight off the Annihilation wave (which I thought was something that the cosmic Marvel U had already dealt with, but whatever) and protect Reed and Sue's kids. And Leech. And a dragon. And some characters that I don't know who they are.

The first wave is fought off successfuly after the daughter (I think her name is Val) figures out that Leech wants to be knocked unconscious so that his powers won't affect Franklin's reality altering abilities. This allows Franklin to use his powers to make a lot of the bug things go squish.

The ragtag team o' misfits figure out that the energy barrier will fall during the second wave's attack and for some reason have to go to the other side to try to put up the Vibranium door. I gotta figure this stuff makes more sense to a longtime reader. So they do that and WHAT'S THIS!? The door has been programmed so that once the code to reactivate the barrier has been put in, the code scrambles and no one knows what it'll be. Oh, and they can't get the Vibranium door to work either. Go figure.

Someone needs to stay behind to put in the code to buy the team enough time to build a bomb (I think that's the option they went with) to stall for more time until the Avengers show up. Johnny tosses Ben through the door, punches in the code, yada yada yada.

Then the Torch tells Ben to tell Reed that this is where he (Johnny) made his last stand. Then he tells the huge ass swarm of bug things that he isn't afraid, yells flame on, and then we can only assume that it's pretty gruesome from the way the Thing (yeah, Ben turned all rocky. Again) reacts, since we aren't given much from Johnny's point of view after that. And really, we only see Johnny once after that. We're supposed to believe he's dead, but he's still lit up (unless the alien bug things lit him on fire as sort of an ironic kill type thing), so yeah.

My question is: If Franklin is so powerful, how come they just couldn't get him to destroy the incoming enemy wave, like he had the first one? Or move the Vibranium door into place? Or reinforce the energy barrier? Or any number of things?

So yeah, they killed the Human Torch. And kind of in a punk way, too, being offpanel and all. At least it wasn't like, he was all happy because he survived and the last one sent some sort of bug thing through him and he died. I was actually half expecting that. I've liked a lot of Jonathon Hickman's other books (like Secret Warriors), but this was a bit of a letdown.

As I am not a long time reader of Fantastic Four, I will say that perhaps my opinion doesn't matter as much, but as a long time reader of comics, I'll say that the book was almost methodical in its approach (building up the who's it going to be, how, having Ben and the kids there watching without sort of being able to do something about it, etc.).

On a side note, I picked up the latest issue of New Avengers (a series that I've been following since the beginning. The first time) and I have to say that I'm already enjoying this story much more than the first arc of the new volume. It may just be a return to form for Bendis.