Best Comic

After a few weeks of gigantic purchases, this week was a bit underwhelming, but in a good, money saving way. :-)

The Countdown note: I really need to stop buying these things. Mary Marvel is now full on evil. Whee. The turning of Plastic Man a week or two ago was actually pretty interesting, however. He's a much better target to make a villain.

The new Green Lantern is starting to tighten up. Hal and his buddies take on their first boss battle with Parallax and manage to vanquish him by using a portrait. Heh. Oh, and Kyle is no longer Ion, which is interesting and not so interesting all at the same time.

This week saw the last issue of Stormwatch: PHD, and I'll miss it. It was one of the best comics I would get every week.

This week, though Stormwatch: PHD was very good, goes to Wolverine #58.



While not a big action issue, the conversation between Dr. Strange and Tony Stark in this issue propelled the book up to the top spot. I'm not sure about Wolverine fighting the "Angel of Death" however. The Christian mythos stuff has usually been a realm that Marvel has avoided, well, at least the heavenly side of it. The demonic side of Marvel is overrun with guys like Ghost Rider and Hellstrom and such, but DC has usually been the place to go for that kind of stuff. Marvel has its own super-omnipotent entities that kinda conflict with the whole "God" thing, and so they keep it light.

Also, with Wolverine losing 6 weeks to issue 56 (where he's kept in a pit and shot for about that long) and the 6 weeks that this issue sucks (Logan is in a coma for 6 weeks before Dr. Strange can get to him), the continuity geeks must be frothing at trying to figure out just when all this stuff is happening, especially since Wolverine is in two other books: the New Avengers and Astonishing XMen, at the same time.

Lucky for me I don't worry about that stuff.

Speaking of the New Avengers, that gets my "worst comic of the week" award for showing the brutal beating of Tigra. It was like watching a rape. Good job, Marvel. I'm glad you think violence against women in such a way as to victimize them is an appropriate subject for a rated "A" (9 years old and up) book. Nice.

This is pretty spiffy...

University of Washington creates a "Voice joystick" which controls a cursor on a computer. This would be a neat peripheral for consoles, I think.

The thing is, it doesn't use speech recognition: it uses sound recognition, so you are basically making short sounds instead of words. It would be pretty weird to watch somebody basically speaking tongues while watching a computer.

From the "Why are we paying these guys?" department

A recent study determine that increased rain and warmth increased the rate at which water streamed into natural aquifers. Then, with some slight of hand, decided to make it a CO2 issue by assuming that increased CO2 brings about increased precipitation and warmth.

Awe inspiring.

Best Comic

Well, this is getting later and later. But, at least I'm trying...so far.

Countdown this week was another forgettable issue, but the addition of the Jokester added some quality to the mix. The Countdown to Search for Ray Palmer was basically a Jokester origin issue, which seemed odd.

This week, while MODOK's 11 came close, and JLA/Hitman had to have been the nicest JLA comic I've seen in months, Welcome to Tranquility won out with a great reappearance of a zombie Mr. Articulate, who overcomes his raw desire for human flesh with his raw desire for Blueberry pie and to tell Pink Bunny that he always felt a certain fondness for her. Yes, I am an old softie.