Best Comic

Here's what I got this week:


Avengers Fairy Tales #2: The Vision as Pinocchio. Sadly, these tales are still not living up to the X-Men series last year. The point of these books should reveal the iconic nature of the superhero character, by showing how easily they fit into these more mythic stories. However, the real trick is to show sides of those characters we hadn't thought of before, but are now revealed when we think about them in this different light. The problem with this particular book is that nothing new is revealed by this story. The Vision remains the Vision.

Booster Gold #8: This book is a little painful. They bring Ted Kord back, and now they're showing what a bad idea that was. It's page after page of "well, looks like we're just gonna have to kill Ted all over agian so everything can go back to normal! Teaches you to mess with time, Gold!" Hopefully, they won't do that, but they're certainly pushing this message.

Countdown #3: TWO.... MORE... ISSUES! Interesting that they decided to make Superman kinda bloodthirsty. Ok...maybe not.

JSA #14: Interestingly enough, I like the issues where the characters just sit down and talk better than the action issues. It'll be interesting how they fit Gog in with the upcoming crisis, if they do that at all. Nice last panel with Green Lantern and Obsidian.

Nova #12: Warlock Dies! Then, Warlock Lives! Everyone is cured! Hurrah! Some action panels but everything felt a little rushed compared to the glacial pace of the previous couple of "infected" issues.

The Last Defenders #2: Still not getting in to this title. Bring back Gargoyle!

Titans #1: Not too bad. Naked Starfire was a bit much, though.

Wolverine #64: The fight with Mystique carries on. The two Wolverine books are kinda like Dragonball Z episodes. They're several books containing just one endless and kinda boring fight.

What's the best comic this week? Hard to say with the lackluster performance I'm seeing here. Instead, I'll leave you with a link to this cool game you can play for free on the web called Magic Pen.

Working Memory

An interesting study from UC Davis reaffirms that people can only remember 2-4 things from every quarter-second "frame" they see. Basically, if you are shown a picture for a quarter second, you might be able to remember only 4 things from that picture.

News like this always reminds me that we need to keep game HUDs simple and uncluttered, allowing players to get the information they really need without mistakenly soaking in data that they don't. Too much visual information can result in confusion.

Best Comic

Better late than never. This week's list:

Atom #22: Once again, the Atom of Gail Simone is gone, replaced by this somewhat humorless pulp hero. It's time for the realities of being a hero to come out and smack him upside the head and simultaneously take away the light-hearted guy I liked quite a bit previously.

Brit #5: I love the art of Brit, and the guy with half a Grendel mask is pretty funny, but the plot has become too convoluted to follow, and we don't get to see Brit being cool, which is really what reading Brit is all about, isn't it?

Countdown #4: Oh, look! We've corrupted Mary Marvel! Again! Aren't we so clever?

One of the worst Countdown issues yet.

Secret Invasion #1: I wasn't sure if I would like this, but I got it because, basically, everyone would be talking about it and I wanted to be in on the ground floor. I'm so shallow, you could call me "Puddle".

I'm not too fond of the "everyone looks like Deadman" art style, but I have to say the story is intriguing in its sheer volume of possibilities. Who are the heroes that come off the ship? Are they all Skrull, all real, or a mix? It looks like I'm stuck getting these suckers. Goodbye $40.00.

Trials of Shazam #12: It is a great coincidence that my pick of the week is the last in the list, alphabetically. While the new, longhaired Captain Marvel isn't something I'm terrifically fond of, this entire maxiseries has had incredible art. The story was handled pretty well and the characters were well handled. Congrats to the Trials of Shazam team for coming up with one of the best series of the year!