Best Comic

It was an eclectic week, with a lot of new titles in the mix. Here's the list:

Batman #676: Curious, I opened this one up at the store and saw the members of the Black Glove. It brought me right back to the cool villains Morrison used to bring in when he was doing Doom Patrol so many years ago, so I had to get it. These guys look pretty cool.

Booster Gold #9: Another chapter in an alternate present, Booster and Blue Beetle get the old JLA together and pound on Maxwell Lord. Unfortunately, it became anticlimactic as the big manipulators behind everything (Per Degaton, UltraHumanite, Old Despero, and Booster's dad) show up to ratchet up the tension.

Captain Britain and MI13 #1: I used to like Captain Britain a long time back, so I checked this one out. This comic really relied on knowledge of the Wisdom comic and MI13 , which made it hard for a newcomer to get into. Also, the "I stave off the evil effects of the black blade by being flippant" thing was lame.

Fantastic 4 Secret Invasion #1: Only good if you are current with your Fantastic Four mythos. Otherwise, there's a lot of "who?" in there.

Green Lantern #30: This arc is doing a lot better than previous arcs. The best thing about this? Answering why Abin Sur had to use a spaceship instead of flying around on ring power.

Guardians of the Galaxy #1: Meh. This felt like a team made of puppets. None of the relationships between the characters survived from Annihilation to here. The characterizations seem wrong, no one talks to one another with any depth. The action has no drama.

New Universal Shockfront #1: Hey, look! A new New Universal book! It's like they figured it had been so long since the last one, they might as well start over again with a number one. Collector's rejoice! A harmless crackhead with superpowers was nice.

Number of the Beast #3: Kind of an inbetween issue where the reader now knows the dread secret, so now we have to watch the heroes figure it out for themselves. Not bad, but definitely not meaningful.

The Last Defenders #3: Not sure where this book is going. It's not getting there fast.

Titans #2: Two words: Soft Porn!

Wolverine #65: Well, this arc is finally over. In our next episode of Dragonball Wolverine, Goku fights Logan for the final Dragonball!

Wolverine: The Amazing Immortal Man: A nice collection of hard-boiled Wolverine stories. The endings were a bit predictable, but getting there was involving.

Best comic this week? I think it has to be Batman. Way to go Morrison!

Having Less Power Impairs The Mind And Ability To Get Ahead, Study Shows

An interesting study showing that people who have little power to effect their situation get caught in a negative feedback loop where they become worse at executive functions, which reinforces that they belong in low power positions, which makes them worse at executive functions.

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Scientist 01: We need a grant if we want to continue living the academic lives we've grown used to. Any suggestions?

Scientist 02: I had this dream last night about 3-toed sloths.

Scientist 01: Hmmm. I think dream analysis has been overdone. What if we try to find out if 3-toed Sloths dream about you? They sleep a lot, so they are probably *starving* for new dream material.

Scientist 02: Sounds good. Wild sloths or captive sloths?

Scientist 01: Do you think there's a difference?

Scientist 02: I dunno

Scientist 01: Let's find out!

Best Comic

Busy week, what with the con, mother's day and my daughter's birthday party. Wouldn't want to miss out on my weekly post, though!

Here's the list:

Atom #23: This title has officially jumped the shark. Sad to see it's former charm fade away.

Countdown to Mystery #7: Almost...Done! One more issue remains. The stories are fairly mediocre, but the new Dr. Fate is interesting. Maybe they'll break him into his own series. The new good/bad Eclipso is treading familiar ground. You know that ground. The one that's been walked on so much that there's a deep rut where plants will never grow again? Yeah, you've been there.

Invincible Iron Man #1: A good story setting up Stark against his new nemesis. I'm not as fond of this book as some other reviewers around the internet, but it's pretty solid.

Mighty Avengers #13: Another Nick Fury story. He's gathering a group of teenage super-beings to help him against the skrull menace. We'll see how it turns out. As much as I like this concept, Marvel has really overdone the teenage superhero group thing these past few years.

Nova #13: A solid issue with Nova trying to save a planet from Galactus. The issue is confused, however, as it tries to tell three stories at once: saving the planet, fighting a murderous psychic enemy named "Harrow", and dealing with the endangered people's caste system. Still not bad.

Rann-Thanagar Holy War (RTHW) #1: I was expecting a fairly lame issue, especially after reading the Buy Pile (which, if you read it, you know I rarely agree with totally). However, this was actually pretty decent. A good number of the characters from "Mystery in Space" return, added to a number of the last Rann-Thanagar War series, plus a few obscure characters. All together, it's a fairly interesting mix that reminds me a lot of the Annihilation miniseries mixed with the beginnings of the latest "Brave and the Bold" series. I have high hopes for this one.

Secret Invasion #2: Not a lot happens here, but the last panel is pretty darn cool. New York must be getting tired of having large chunks of itself being destroyed by aliens lately.

The winner: Most everything was solid, but I'm going to have to push the RTHW as the best book of the week. Congrats Mr. Starlin!

Emerald City Comicon

Well, that's done. We could have used a few more slides, and had a bit more of a directed flow, but I think Matt and I did a great job: lots of humor, lots of good info. The audience was into it, and it felt like one, big happy group when we were done.

Woot!