Best Comic

Here's the weekly list!

Atom #24 -- I think I'm going to 25 and then stop. This book is just not doing it for me anymore. It was a lot better when it was a story about a college professor who happened to have a shrinking belt. Now, it's a superhero book about a guy with a shrinking belt who happens to be a professor.

Brit #6 -- Lots of mayhem. Like the art. Story has a lot to be desired, I think. All the ingredients are there, but they aren't mixing well.

Invincible Iron Man #2: Very interesting story with the bad guy being the more interesting character. Need more super-science! Iron Man was the comic when I was a kid that really got me into physics and science, and I'm hankering for more of that now that I got a taste last issue.

JSA #16: Decent. A great plot: a huge, nasty-looking guy with godlike powers who everybody thinks is bad, but may actually be good? I hope it avoids the following plots: 1) god-being starts fixing things in a way that forces people to do something, (i.e. creates society with no freedom of thought as freedom of thought causes misery) forcing the heroes to fight him. 2) god being is actually evil and is pretending to be good. 3) god being is benevolent but admits that he must destroy the planet anyway: no hard feelings? 4) god-being gives out heart's desires, which ends up causing more problems than he could imagine. 5) god-being ends up being incredibly stupid and can be amanipulated by evil forces to cause major damage. Hmmm...I think I just described a majority of Star Trek's plots...

Nova #14: Kind of a muddy issue with an interesting discussion with Silver Surfer.

Rann-Thanagar Holy War #2: BEST COMIC! I was dreading this series, as I thought it would be a boring series of overwrought speeches and pages after pages of huge combat scenes, but really it's just a continuation of the Mystery in Space series, but with more humor. Jim Starlin at his best.

Secret Invasion #3: The worst thing about Secret Invasion is how most of the Marvel Universe is completely ignoring it, leading people like me to realize that the impact of this huge series is minimal, except that maybe Tony Stark will be excused from being such an asshole since he was a skrull the entire time (though, honestly, he may not be...we'll find out sometime later).

Congrats Holy War and keep up the good work Jim Shooter!

How You Choose Your Friends

An interesting study showed that proximity, rather than shared interest, better promotes friendship. Basically, you are more likely to become friends with the people your are stuck sharing a space with, like neighbors and workplaces, than you are with people you aren't forced to be around all the time, but share many more similar interests.

This is interesting in creating friendships in online communities. Forcing people to work within close quarters is more likely to produce online friends. More online friends = more stickiness for your social site or MMO. Therefore, having mechanics, such as required groups for completion of raids or battlefields, foster more stickiness than allowing people to search for, say, other cat lovers.

Goth children are smart!

Ok, maybe that's not really what the study found. Basically, they found out that a sad mood can boost attention to detail in kids.

As a father, I'm not too surprised: when my daughter is happy, she tends to get silly, which, if you've ever tried to teach a kid in a silly mood anything, you'll know it's practically impossible. Unless it's doing something they aren't supposed to do, like making farting noises, which they will learn immediately and start repeating, mostly in front of strangers, teachers and priests.

Best Comic

Work is getting a bit crazy, my brain is slowly melting, so this might be a little short.

Lots of comics last week. Here's the list:

All-Star Superman #11 - Best comic. This will go down as Morrison's finest achievement.

Batman #676: aaaannnnd... I'm bored again. The Black Glove, somehow, became less crazy and fresh and just became whiny and petulant.

Blue Beetle #27: Kind of a mediocre issue.

Final Crisis #1: Disappointing. Hope it gets better.

Giant-Size Annual Astonishing X-Men #1: Good climax, but, what was the story about again?

Green Lantern #31: Still like the origin stuff. 2nd place.

JLA Classified #38: Getting tired of Wildcat.

New Avengers #41: Some "Hey, remember this stuff I wrote? Even then I was planning the Secret Invasion" self-congratulation-slash-exposition from Bendis.

Number of the Beast #4: Still pretty good. The Tumbleweed character is neat.

Shadowpact #25: Blue Devil gets his powers back. They should have kept him in the suit. Otherwise, big climax. Hope they can get to a more interesting arc now.

Wolverine First Class #3: Less fanciful than previous issues. I liked the fanciful. Wolverine is the best straight man in Marvel after Xavier.


Seeya next week!