DC Comics' Batman Beyond Writer's Commentary #0

I really like the idea of having a writer's commentary video podcast talking about current comics. I hope this does well enough that other writers will hop on the bandwagon and start doing these.

Another Toy Post

I've been spending a lot of spare time in my office organizing, straighten and all that jazz lately.  I don't know if it's because it's winter now and it's okay to do indoor chores or if I'm sick of the office not being 100% the way I like it, but I've been doing it and enjoying the hell out of it.  

I've talked before about the problem I have with collecting action figures.  I'm obsessed with them and I have entirely too many.  And I keep buying them.  They make me happy and ultimately, that's all that counts.  I figured out a way to display more of them with little effort.  I wanted to build a riser to put on top of my bookshelves, but Ken actually found a nice piece of wood that will act as a riser without having build anything.  With that in place, I set out to start unboxing a lot of toys.  Specifically, the ton of DC Universe Classics toys I have.  This is a line of toys I really, really like, but kind of jumped into collecting them a little late.  I can be a snob about things and action figures is definitely something I was snobby about.  I'm a huge fan of the DC Direct line of toys.  Most of them look so nice and there's a lot of care put into them.  When the DC Universe Classics line of toys came out, I didn't think they looked as nice as the DC Direct ones, so I avoided them.  It wasn't until much later that I finally came around and fell in love with the line.  I've been trying to play catch up with them ever since.  There are 20 waves of figures out (22 if you count the two waves of Green Lantern Classics).  Each wave consists generally of 6 figures (or so) and each figure comes with one piece of a bonus figure.  You collect the all the figures in that wave and you can build an extra figure.  Because I've opened only a few of these figures, I've never had a chance to build my bonus characters.  Until now.  And I have to tell you, I had a blast.  They scale of the bonus figures is larger than the standard figures in the line.  And they've chosen characters who are generally bigger in size as part of this line.  Here's what I've managed to assemble so far..

Stel.  This is from the Green Lantern Classics set.

Arkillo from the Green Lantern Classics set.  I'm still missing the Kyle Rayner figure from that set.  So Arkillo has two left legs for the time being, until I can track down a Kyle.

The Anti-Monitor

The Ultra-Humanite

Trigon

Validus

S.T.R.I.P.E.

Bane

My favorite one, so far.  This is Apache Chief from the Super Friends cartoon.  He's awesome!

I have a bunch of figures from some of the other waves, but no enough to complete any more characters.  My partials include:

Kilowog.  Poor guy is just a leg and nothing more.

Darkseid.  He's got an arm and two legs.  Better than Kilowog.

Giganta.  This one I'm particularly anxious to build.  She's awesome.

Atom Smasher.  At least the three parts I have for him all connect.

Despero.  Just one arm.

Kalibak

The other Collect And Connect figures are Metamorpho, Gorilla Grodd, Solomon Grundy, Metallo, Chemo and Imperiex.  I'm always on the lookout for more of these figures and now I've got extra room for them.

My Childhood

Dynasty Bitches Back Together!!

My love for the tv show Dynasty is no secret. No secret whatsoever. It was my favorite show back in the 80s and it still ranks way the hell up there. I'm currently watching Season 5 on dvd and loving every minute of it. I'm to the point right now where a very pregnant Krystle fell down the stairs after having a fight with Blake. Newborn baby Krystina survived, but she's facing an uphill battle, including needing a total blood transfusion. Amanda, Alexis' secret daughter, just arrived in town and is trying to find her real father. Claudia is jealous of the relationship she thinks Steven and Bart are having. The show is so damn good.

Anyway, I'm also a huge fan of the current Snickers ad campaign. I love the Betty White commercial and the Aretha/Liza commercial. In Britain, they just release a new ad featuring Joan Collins and Stephanie Beacham. As much as I love Alexis, I love Sable infinitely more. She always had the best lines and her delivery was spot on. I've watched this commercial more times than I can count. Love love love it!

Batman!

I stole these from a blog I read because I liked them.

Waiting

I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, or whatever that saying is. I can say for the first time in a really long time that I've had a really great couple of days. Nothing monumental has been happening, but the last couple of days have been very good and very positive. I'm sure getting the best night of sleep I've had in months didn't hurt on little bit. Saturday morning I didn't wake up until just before 11am. It really pays to lock the cats out of the bedroom every once in a while.

Saturday Ken and I got together with our friends Lynn & Lori. We went out to eat and then to see Aimee Mann. It's either the fifth or sixth time I've seen her and by far the best of those 5 or 6 shows. She was uber-chatty and I love when there's audience interaction. The first or second time I saw her, she spoke once in between songs and that was it. It was kind of disappointing.

Sunday I spent the day cleaning, straightening and organizing my office. I know I just did that last week, but I spent more time and I felt so accomplished when I was done.

And today I didn't rage at the people I work with at all. That was proof to me that my mood was improving. I'm hoping I've finally turned the corner on the sorrow I've been immersed in over the last four or five months. Things with my Dad seem to be going well and a lot of the worries I've been having are slowly lifting away.

Positivitey!

"The First Question"

Random Thoughts

I'm nearly over this cold. It hasn't been a bad cold. It's been a little cold, but it won't go away. I think one good night of sleep will send it on it's way finally. If I can get a good night of sleep. As tired as I've been lately, I haven't been able to sleep. It's frustrating and wearing me down. Hopefully tonight.

Lack of sleep definitely does not help my attitude. Yesterday was particularly bad. I just couldn't deal and every single person I came in contact with annoyed the living piss out of me. Today started the same way, but my mood turned north rather quickly and I'm grateful for that.

DC Comics released some promotional artwork for it's Hawkman comic. The art was drawn by super-star hack Rob Liefeld and it's agonizingly terrible. I'm about the only person in the country who is reading Hawkman and this is enough to make me drop it. Check this shit out.

I'm trying to cut the amounts of sugar and meat I currently ingest. The sugar is a no brainer. It's terrible for me and does me no favors. The meat, on the other hand, comes from a different place. I love meat. It's delicious. But whenever I think about where meat comes from, it really grosses me out. The older I get, the more grossed out I get. My goal isn't to become a vegetarian, but it's to drastically reduce the amount of animals I eat. I know over the last few years I've cut back on the amount of meat I eat, but I don't think it's enough. I'm taking baby steps, but that's the easiest way for me to do something like this. I have a lot of respect for vegetarians and vegans, but I know I could never really be one full time.

Over the weekend, I felt very productive. My basement has slowly over the course of the last year, become a giant mess. Rather than put things away where they belong, I've gotten into the habit of putting them wherever I happened to drop them. It only took a couple of hours (if that), but I got the basement back in some sort of order. I didn't do any purging or anything like that, but at least everything is organized. The purging will come soon. I guess what finally did it for me is Ken was frantically looking for his crock pot. He hasn't seen it since we moved into this house and he thought maybe it was still packed. When I went looking for it is when I realized a bomb went off in the basement. I can't get over how much bigger it looks now that it's organized. That also spurred me to work on the finished half of the basement, which is my office. I moved a few things around and it looks great. I'm not done yet, and I'm anxious to fiddle around a little more.

I haven't been to a concert in about a year. Last one was Jill Sobule. This Saturday, though, I'm leaving my house and heading out to see Aimee Mann. I've seen her probably six times in the past, but it's been a few years since the last time. I'm really excited.

Crash

I use an iPhone app called WeightMan to track my weight. Every morning I weigh in and record the result. I've been doing this for a few years now and I've got quite a bit of data there. Or, I HAD quite a bit of data there. My app crashed last week and wiped it clean. I was immediately crushed. I've got flashes of OCD in some parts of my life and this is one of them. So I'm starting fresh with the app. Kind of. For the last few years, as inspiration to lose weight (for Ken) or keep weight off (for me), Ken and I record our weight on a tracking sheet once a week. I have a couple years worth of those sheets and I'm not in the process of recording my Sunday weigh in results. Again, OCD.

Comics

I've been meaning to get around to a post about 2011 and comic books, but it's something that I just haven't found the time for.  Today I'm taking a little time, mostly because there was the first big announcement (for me, at least) of 2012 and it ties into 2011.  DC Comics announced their first batch of new titles since revamping their entire line back in September.  There are six new titles coming out later this year and here are the details.

DC COMICS-THE NEW 52 “Second Wave” includes:

• BATMAN INCORPORATED – Writer: Grant Morrison. Artist: Chris Burnham. The acclaimed ongoing writer of ACTION COMICS, Grant Morrison, presents a fresh take on BATMAN INCORPORATED, in which the Batman brand is franchised globally in preparation for a major international threat.

• EARTH 2 – Writer: James Robinson. Artist: Nicola Scott. The greatest heroes on a parallel Earth, the Justice Society combats threats that will set them on a collision course with other worlds.

• WORLDS’ FINEST – Writer: Paul Levitz. Artists: George Perez and Kevin Maguire. Stranded on our world from a parallel reality, Huntress and Power Girl struggle to find their way back to Earth 2. Perez and Maguire will be the artists on alternating story arcs.

• DIAL H – Writer: China Miéville. Artist: Mateus Santoluoco. The first ongoing series from acclaimed novelist China Miéville, this is a bold new take on a cult classic concept about the psychological effects on an everyman who accidentally gains powers to become a hero.

• G.I. COMBAT – Writer: J.T. Krul. Artist: Ariel Olivetti. Featuring the return of a classic DC Comics series, THE WAR THAT TIME FORGOT, along with rotating back-up stories and creative teams – including THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, with writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti and artist Dan Panosian; and THE HAUNTED TANK, with writer John Arcudi and artist Scott Kolins.

• THE RAVAGERS – Writer: Howard Mackie. Artist: Ian Churchill. Spinning off from TEEN TITANS and SUPERBOY, this series finds four superpowered teens on the run and fighting against the organization that wants to turn them into supervillains.

I mostly like the looks of these new titles.  Mostly.  Just from the news that broke today, I will most likely buy Earth 2, World's Finest and Dial H as monthly titles.  G.I. Combat and Batman, Inc are two that I will probably wait for the trades.  The Ravagers is a title that I'm really not looking forward to at all.  I'm going to get the first issue and decide after that.  But it's tied into two books I can't really stand, so I'm probably going to avoid it.  These six books are replacing six other titles that are being cancelled.  Six titles I don't read.

When DC Comics announced it was cancelling it's entire line and relaunching it, I can't say that I was all that excited.  In fact, I was pretty upset.  It felt like a big ol' FUCK YOU to me as a longtime fan.  The way they tried to sell the pitch didn't sound all that appealing to me as a long time fan.  But I tried having an open mind about it. I picked up all 52 first issues.  Overall, I wasn't very impressed.  Some books I downright hated.  Some I enjoyed, but more than half I was pretty indifferent about.  Since I order my books three months in advance, I had to decide the series I wanted to follow before seeing the first issues.  I don't think I did too bad picking out the books to read monthy.  Most of what I picked had the smallest changes in content.  Some Batman books, the Legion books, the Green Lantern books....  Of the books I'm following monthly, I'm about to drop StormWatch (great concept, poor execution) and Red Lanterns (a book I was psyched for, but nothing is happening).  I should drop Justice League, but I need to get into the second arc first.

I think DC did one thing right before relaunching their entire line.  They ran this huge event called Flashpoint.  It was a main mini-series with 8,000 tie ins.  The tie ins, for the most part, were some of the worst shit I've read in my life.  Just god awful.  So anything they put out after that concluded was bound to look new, fun, fresh and entertaining, right?  

My current pull list is probably the smallest it's ever been in my thirty plus years of reading comics.  Right now I'm getting:

Aquaman

Batgirl 

Batman 

Batwoman

Detective Comics

Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE

Green Lantern

Green Lantern Corps

Green Lantern: New Guardians

Justice League

Justice League Dark

Legion Lost

Legion Of Super-Heroes

Red Lanterns

Savage Hawkman

Shade

StormWatch

The books highlighted in red are the books that are either being dropped with my next order or are dangerously close to going away.  I'm reading some other stuff in trade only and will start some of the other New 52 soon (like Wonder Woman, Batwing, I, Vampire, Demon Knights and Justice League International.)

12 Of 12

So I stumbled on this blog once through another blog.  Every month on the 12th, the blogger would post 12 pictures taken that day and would encourage others to do the same.  I did it once, but could never remember to do it again.  Until today.  And then I searched out his blog again only to find that last month was the last month he was doing it.  But screw that.  I did it today and I'm posting for 12 pictures, no matter how sucky they are.

(1) I like to sit at the back of the shuttle bus on the ride in to work in the morning.  It keeps me away from the people I ride with, and that makes me happy.  Today we had the STORM OF THE CENTURY (a dusting of snow to maybe an inch) and by the time we got to my stop, there were only two other people on the bus. 

(2)  This is me, sitting on the bus, no prepared to face the day.  Like always.

(3)  My work computer wallpaper.  It's Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman.

(4)  I'm working on an OCD project where I am going through each and every one of my geek friendly t-shirts, one a day without repeating, and taking a picture to post on Instagram.  Today was day 3 of this project and today's choice was Batwoman.

(5) A coworker loaned me this book.  She might have been trying to plant ideas in my head about the best way for other coworkers to go?

(6)  The wall behind my computer at work.  Crisis on one wall, Starman on the other.

(7)  The (alleged) junkie whore I work with left work at the same time I did today.  I tried to snap a picture without her seeing.  She's getting on her shuttle bus.  At least I hope it's the right one.

  

(8)  Traffic sucked ass getting home tonight.  I think I spent more time sitting idle than I did driving.

(9)  The temporary kitchen ceiling light I mentioned a few posts ago.

(10)  Is that a TARDIS at the bottom of the stairs?  

(11)  A partial view of my shoe closet.

(12)  Mrs. Lucy certain loves sleeping on my legs.  She's such a sweetie.

See.  My life is pretty mundane, so my pictures are, too.  Plus, I wasn't feeling too good today, so I wasn't really inspired to take many pictures.  But I remembered and that's all that counts.

Shit Liza Minnelli Says

Barack Obama Singing Born This Way by Lady Gaga

Sidelined

My knees have been killing me for a few days.  Since Friday, actually.  I hit the gym for an after/pre-going out work workout and overdid it.  What?  Me?  So I've been taking it easy since.  It's killing me because I'm used to activity and this sitting around bullshit is driving me insane.  They still hurt, but they're starting to feel a little better.  I'm hoping by this weekend I'll be ready to use and abuse them again.  Until then, I'm going to sit around feeling flabby.

A Tribute to Honey Boo Boo Child

The Music of 2011

It's no secret that music is a huge passion of mine.  I have my iPod on 10 to 12 hours a day and I lose myself in it.  This year I found music more comforting than ever before.  I really lost myself in it the whole time Mom was sick and after she died.  Overall, I think 2011 was an amazing year for record releases.  One of the best in a really long time.  I'm going to list out some of what I consider stand out releases for the year.  You may agree or disagree with me, and that's fine.  All that cares is the following records brought me great joy this year. What albums made you particularly happy in 2011?

 In no particular order....