I was thinking the other day.
Everything I remember from science classes is because of mnemonic devices. Unfortunately there is no mnemonic for remembering how to spell mnemonic. Until I googled it, my initial impulse was to spell it with a p as the first letter.
Anyways, most of what I remember from science classes is because of a mnemonic.
The spectrum of visible light: ROY G. BIV for Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo, and Violet.
Taxonomic classification order: Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.
The Nine planets of our home solar system: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pumpkins for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto.
Unfortunately Pluto no longer counts as a full-fledged planet, but has been demoted to minor planet. This rather spoils the mnemonic. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine is a sentence fragment.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
So, Why Don't Bus Boys Get All The Girls
Bart Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright): If this girl I'm seeing comes here, and she might, I wouldn't mind of you told her I was the kind of boy that does the dishes.
Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta, with a tone of derison and sarcasm here): Yeah, bus boys get all the chicks.
-The Simpsons, episode entitled "The Good, The Sad and The Drugly" written by Marc Wilmore and directed by Rob Oliver
So, as the above quote indicates, telling a girl you're a bus boy is not the best opening line. I am somewhat puzzled about the why of it. Being a bus boy, among other things, by trade myself, I think there's a good case to be made for bus boys.
Males and females are mysteries to each other. At least that's the gist of the vibe I get from books like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, He's Just Not That Into You, and Bridget Jones's Diary. Part of it is until humans perfect telepathy, everyone is a mystery to everyone else. While an individual might get lost in thought from time to time, really foreign territory is someone else's brain. This foreignness increases exponentially when crossing gender lines, though.
So because we are alien to each other, males and females, who attempt to make the effort towards some form of heterosexual romantic relationship, have some complaints. Two complaints I have heard females make of males are:
1) He's not very domestically inclined; he's no help around the house; he never cleans up after himself.
and
2) He's got some BS macho attitude about being head of the household, the one in charge, etc. and so on, simply because he's got the Y Chromosome and higher levels of testosterone.
Here's where bus boys might be an improvement:
1) If you are a true bus boy and it has taken root in your soul, you will feel a natural inclination to try and pick up after yourself a bit because dirty dishes left on the table are WRONG in much the same way that a Christian would find a Satanic shrine WRONG.
and
2) Maybe it's different other places, but where I bus tables, most of my bosses are women. While, I think I've always been more or less a feminist, low on macho BS to begin with, following the orders and instructions of so many females has killed what little I had left. I am ready, willing and eager to accept a female as my equal or superior. If other bus boys are similar, then that's a second point in our favor.
So if bus boys might represent a slight improvement over the average male, why aren't they the most sought after mates on the planet? Or at least in the industrialized Western countries where bus boys exist... I have two somewhat inter-related hypotheses:
1) Money
and
2) Social status
Money, I'll try to be concise about. Bus boying alone will never get you rich. In the whole game of dating, mating, and relating, having some disposable income at your disposal is a help.
As for social status, that's almost another essay. A while back I read a book called Where Do Nudists Keep Their Hankies? It's one of those books of random facts that might be interesting. The whole book was sort of themed around sexuality and the whole weird mating dance that humans have built for themselves. I have since sold my actual physical copy of the book, so I am going from memory here, but this was a pretty memorable bit.
The book is presented in a sort of question and answer format. One question was something along the lines of, "why do women go for jerks?". The answer came from emerging scientific research. Among lower types of social mammals, like wolves and chimpanzees, females try to mate with a high status, as close as possible to the pack alpha, male. This ensures good genes for resultant offspring. Then the female will seek a lower status male to actually try to take care of her and her offspring.
There is no reason to believe these instincts and behavior patterns have entirely disappeared in humans. Now among humans, the type of aggressive behavior that allows one to rise to alpha status often comes off as jerky behavior.
Getting back to bus boys, we are almost certainly not the alpha of our local pack. We might not be the omega wolf, pushed to the fringes of the pack and forced to beg for scraps, either. The point remains that we are the guy approaching the alpha and asking if we can take away his salad plate so there will be room on the table for the main course.
Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta, with a tone of derison and sarcasm here): Yeah, bus boys get all the chicks.
-The Simpsons, episode entitled "The Good, The Sad and The Drugly" written by Marc Wilmore and directed by Rob Oliver
So, as the above quote indicates, telling a girl you're a bus boy is not the best opening line. I am somewhat puzzled about the why of it. Being a bus boy, among other things, by trade myself, I think there's a good case to be made for bus boys.
Males and females are mysteries to each other. At least that's the gist of the vibe I get from books like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, He's Just Not That Into You, and Bridget Jones's Diary. Part of it is until humans perfect telepathy, everyone is a mystery to everyone else. While an individual might get lost in thought from time to time, really foreign territory is someone else's brain. This foreignness increases exponentially when crossing gender lines, though.
So because we are alien to each other, males and females, who attempt to make the effort towards some form of heterosexual romantic relationship, have some complaints. Two complaints I have heard females make of males are:
1) He's not very domestically inclined; he's no help around the house; he never cleans up after himself.
and
2) He's got some BS macho attitude about being head of the household, the one in charge, etc. and so on, simply because he's got the Y Chromosome and higher levels of testosterone.
Here's where bus boys might be an improvement:
1) If you are a true bus boy and it has taken root in your soul, you will feel a natural inclination to try and pick up after yourself a bit because dirty dishes left on the table are WRONG in much the same way that a Christian would find a Satanic shrine WRONG.
and
2) Maybe it's different other places, but where I bus tables, most of my bosses are women. While, I think I've always been more or less a feminist, low on macho BS to begin with, following the orders and instructions of so many females has killed what little I had left. I am ready, willing and eager to accept a female as my equal or superior. If other bus boys are similar, then that's a second point in our favor.
So if bus boys might represent a slight improvement over the average male, why aren't they the most sought after mates on the planet? Or at least in the industrialized Western countries where bus boys exist... I have two somewhat inter-related hypotheses:
1) Money
and
2) Social status
Money, I'll try to be concise about. Bus boying alone will never get you rich. In the whole game of dating, mating, and relating, having some disposable income at your disposal is a help.
As for social status, that's almost another essay. A while back I read a book called Where Do Nudists Keep Their Hankies? It's one of those books of random facts that might be interesting. The whole book was sort of themed around sexuality and the whole weird mating dance that humans have built for themselves. I have since sold my actual physical copy of the book, so I am going from memory here, but this was a pretty memorable bit.
The book is presented in a sort of question and answer format. One question was something along the lines of, "why do women go for jerks?". The answer came from emerging scientific research. Among lower types of social mammals, like wolves and chimpanzees, females try to mate with a high status, as close as possible to the pack alpha, male. This ensures good genes for resultant offspring. Then the female will seek a lower status male to actually try to take care of her and her offspring.
There is no reason to believe these instincts and behavior patterns have entirely disappeared in humans. Now among humans, the type of aggressive behavior that allows one to rise to alpha status often comes off as jerky behavior.
Getting back to bus boys, we are almost certainly not the alpha of our local pack. We might not be the omega wolf, pushed to the fringes of the pack and forced to beg for scraps, either. The point remains that we are the guy approaching the alpha and asking if we can take away his salad plate so there will be room on the table for the main course.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Review of Rampaging Hulk Issue number 1
Rampaging Hulk #1 Review
What is it? A comic book. Indicia gives a date of August 1998. Glossy cover, non-glossy interior, color throughout. Pages have no visible numbering. Contains a long lead feature and a short back-up. Gleen Greenberg wrote both stories. Rick Leonardi did the pencils on the lead, while While Denys Cowan did the back-up. Dan Green inked the lead feature, and Tom Palmer inked the back-up. Tom Smith was the colorist on the whole book, while Bill Oakley lettered both stories. Jaye Gardner was the editor, and Bob Harras was the editior in chief.
Plot Summary: The lead story is a flashback to an earlier moment in Hulk continuity. A caption somewhere claims six years ago, but it's a very comic book-time six years ago. Marvel has been publishing Hulk comics for well over thirty years, and, yet neither Bruce Banner or the Hulk has aged a noticeable amount.
Here are the defining features of the moment of continuity that this story is being retroactively inserted in:
Hulk is dumb and talks in the third person. This is before the personality-integrated smart-hulk phase.
Hulk is green. This is after he was initially grey, but before he turns grey again in the Joe Fixit phase.
Rick Jones is not acting as his sidekick.
His former girlfriend, Betty, is married to an air force Major named Glenn Talbot.
Basnner's identity as the Hulk is known to at least, General Ross, Betty's father, and Ross's Hulk-Buster team, if not the general public. This makes Banner a fugitive.
So, at this moment in the past, that never existed before 1998, Bruce Banner is working at the Brand Corporation under an assumed name. He attempts to use the company's Gamma Accelerator to cure himself of the Hulk. The Hulk-Buster team burst in and captures him while he's in a not fully either Banner or Hulk mid-transformation state. He's stuck in this half-state for a while. The Hulk-Busters take him to Gamma Base, where scientists study him to better understand what's happening to him.
Meanwhile, in his head, the Banner personality and the Hulk personality are having a spirited debate/knock-down-drag-out-fight for control of the body. Hulk wins and completes the body's transformation into Hulk. He escapes his cell in Gamma Base in seconds. Thus ends the main feature.
This brings us unfortunately to the back-up story. It feels like a PSA or Very Special Episode with a painfully obvious moral, what they might call Anvilicious on TV Tropes. Basically a large jock bully nicknamed Hulk is threatening a nerd kid. The real Hulk comes up and scares off the bully and then has a laugh about the divisive ways of humans.
What's good about it? It hearkens back to an earlier day of Hulk storytelling. I like Peter David's take on the Hulk a lot, but there is a virtue in the simplicity of "Hulk Smash!" stories. The artwork on both stories was good.
What's not quite so good? The back-up story. It makes its moral point in a rather ham-handed way, anvilicious as I've said before. It's also preaching to the choir. Comic readers are geeks much likelier to be bullying victims than bullies themselves. There's also no letters page or this-would-be-a-letters-page-if-we-had-any-letters-book-specific-text-page that books use in the first issue.
What the ....? moments: Once the Hulk's transformation is complete, he busts out of his "Hulk-proof" cell in seconds. This is the best that the government can do?
Who should get it? Dedicated Hulk fans/completists.
Rating: Averages out to two stars. The back-up story and lack of a letters page brings it down.
Method Of Acquisition: Possibly, the twenty-five cent bins at Gold Mine, either that or the fifty-cent bins at Apparitions or the seventy-five cent bins at Tardy' Collector's Corner. All of them are somewhere in the greater Grand Rapids, Michigan area.
What is it? A comic book. Indicia gives a date of August 1998. Glossy cover, non-glossy interior, color throughout. Pages have no visible numbering. Contains a long lead feature and a short back-up. Gleen Greenberg wrote both stories. Rick Leonardi did the pencils on the lead, while While Denys Cowan did the back-up. Dan Green inked the lead feature, and Tom Palmer inked the back-up. Tom Smith was the colorist on the whole book, while Bill Oakley lettered both stories. Jaye Gardner was the editor, and Bob Harras was the editior in chief.
Plot Summary: The lead story is a flashback to an earlier moment in Hulk continuity. A caption somewhere claims six years ago, but it's a very comic book-time six years ago. Marvel has been publishing Hulk comics for well over thirty years, and, yet neither Bruce Banner or the Hulk has aged a noticeable amount.
Here are the defining features of the moment of continuity that this story is being retroactively inserted in:
Hulk is dumb and talks in the third person. This is before the personality-integrated smart-hulk phase.
Hulk is green. This is after he was initially grey, but before he turns grey again in the Joe Fixit phase.
Rick Jones is not acting as his sidekick.
His former girlfriend, Betty, is married to an air force Major named Glenn Talbot.
Basnner's identity as the Hulk is known to at least, General Ross, Betty's father, and Ross's Hulk-Buster team, if not the general public. This makes Banner a fugitive.
So, at this moment in the past, that never existed before 1998, Bruce Banner is working at the Brand Corporation under an assumed name. He attempts to use the company's Gamma Accelerator to cure himself of the Hulk. The Hulk-Buster team burst in and captures him while he's in a not fully either Banner or Hulk mid-transformation state. He's stuck in this half-state for a while. The Hulk-Busters take him to Gamma Base, where scientists study him to better understand what's happening to him.
Meanwhile, in his head, the Banner personality and the Hulk personality are having a spirited debate/knock-down-drag-out-fight for control of the body. Hulk wins and completes the body's transformation into Hulk. He escapes his cell in Gamma Base in seconds. Thus ends the main feature.
This brings us unfortunately to the back-up story. It feels like a PSA or Very Special Episode with a painfully obvious moral, what they might call Anvilicious on TV Tropes. Basically a large jock bully nicknamed Hulk is threatening a nerd kid. The real Hulk comes up and scares off the bully and then has a laugh about the divisive ways of humans.
What's good about it? It hearkens back to an earlier day of Hulk storytelling. I like Peter David's take on the Hulk a lot, but there is a virtue in the simplicity of "Hulk Smash!" stories. The artwork on both stories was good.
What's not quite so good? The back-up story. It makes its moral point in a rather ham-handed way, anvilicious as I've said before. It's also preaching to the choir. Comic readers are geeks much likelier to be bullying victims than bullies themselves. There's also no letters page or this-would-be-a-letters-page-if-we-had-any-letters-book-specific-text-page that books use in the first issue.
What the ....? moments: Once the Hulk's transformation is complete, he busts out of his "Hulk-proof" cell in seconds. This is the best that the government can do?
Who should get it? Dedicated Hulk fans/completists.
Rating: Averages out to two stars. The back-up story and lack of a letters page brings it down.
Method Of Acquisition: Possibly, the twenty-five cent bins at Gold Mine, either that or the fifty-cent bins at Apparitions or the seventy-five cent bins at Tardy' Collector's Corner. All of them are somewhere in the greater Grand Rapids, Michigan area.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Review of Ravenloft Carnival
I reviewed this one over on rpg.net the other day and thought I'd x-post it here.
What is it?
What is it?
A 64 page softcover with a color cover and a black, white, red, and grey interior. It's not quite an adventure (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...). It's not exactly a setting book (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...). It contains a lot of NPC stats, but it's not an enemies book/rogue's gallery (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...).
It describes a sort of organization/ pocket domain known as the Carnival. The Carnival is over-all a benevolent organization: In fact, it's run by a celestial.
This book refers the reader to the following products/accessories: Champions of the Mists, The Nightmare Lands Boxed Set, Carnival of Fear novel, Domains of Dread, Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, and Van Richten's Guide to Fiends. You can live without them, of course, but for the fullest full story...
The book is constructed as three in-character narratives with the relevant game-speak off in sidebars. In the Carnival setting, a phenomenon called the Twisting makes a long-term resident's outer appearance match his inner nature. Besides already being reflected in the NPC descriptions, twenty examples for how to use the Twisting on PCs are included.
The first chapter is narrated by Tindal, the main barker. He likes the Carnival and conisders the Twisting harsh but fair. He is completely loyal to Isolde. This chapter covers most of the Carnival's more or less good guys among the regular troupers.
The second chapter is narrated by Madame Fortuna, the Gyspy fortune teller. This chapter discusses the Vistani's role in the Carnival. Fortuna is also on Isolde's side. She posits the theory that Isolde is literally an angel.
Chapter three is narrated by Professor Pacali, the barker for the Hall of Horrors. This is the chapter about the Carnival Troupers who could outright be called villains. Pacali hates Isolde and plots against her. He believes her to be a fiend.
The last chapter contains five scenarios.
Finally the absolute last page, gives stats for Isolde. She's a Ghaele, a variety of Greater Eladrin, a Chaotic Good Celestial. As a powerful extraplanar being in Ravenloft, she's effectively a demi-Lord with her own travelling pocket domain.
What's good about it? It's an entertaining read. As I said earlier, most of the book is in-character narration. Also, the chapters open with quotations from literary sources intended to set the tone. In a way, and I mean this mostly as a compliment, and it is not an accusation of anything like plagiarism or unoriginality, it feels as if WotC here took a page from White Wolf of this era's playbook in how to present a supplement.
What's not quite so good? The alleged adventures are more like long adventure hooks. There is a distinct lack of maps or special boxed text meant to be read aloud by the DM attached to the adventures. In this way too, it's like they took a page from White Wolf's playbook on how to present a supplement.
What the ....? moments: Cover copy that downplays Ravenloft nature of the product despite references to: Champions of the Mists, The Nightmare Lands Boxed Set, Carnival of Fear novel, Domains of Dread, Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, and Van Richten's Guide to Fiends.
Who should get it? Ravenloft fans; dedicated AD&D 2nd edition DMs looking for something novel to do to the PC group (check out the list of suggested Twisting effects starting on page 27); fans of the carnival noir subgenre of horror (I'm not sure how widespread the term is; I got it from a Nancy Collins column in White Wolf's Inphobia magazine).
Ratings: Using RPG.net's rating system I gave this a 5 out of 5 for style and a 3 out of 5 for substance. On my personal five-star system for over-all quality I give it a 4.
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14946.phtml
http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=8497
Thursday, August 12, 2010
A review of Quasar Issue #38
Quasar #38 Published by Marvel
review by JustiN Taylor
What is it?
A comic book. Glossy Cover. Non-glossy interior. Color throughout. The last story page is numbered 30, but the page numbering system is also including ad pages, so probably around twenty-some odd story pages in actual point of fact. Indicia gives a date of September 1992. Cover has a small logo in the upper right corner indicating this is an Infinity War crossover. Credits are: Mark Gruenwald-- Writer, Greg Capullo-- Penciler, Hary Candelario-- Inker, Janice Chiang-- Letterer, Paul Becton-- Colorist, Kelly Corvese-- Editor, and Tom DeFalco-- Editor Extreme.
Plot Summary: Quasar and a character known as Contemplator are in a place called the Dimension of Manifestations. Quasar returns to Earth; Contemplator elects to stay behind. Upon his return to Earth, Quasar checks in with the Avengers.
The Avengers are off to fight a cosmic disaster of epic proportions (the whole Ininity War thing). Cicrumstances require them to call in extra help from Alpha Flight and the various X-teams plus the Hulk. They mystically teleport to an alien planet.
Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch are there teamed up with Thanos, a known villain, in order to combat the bigger threat of Magus (the whole Ininity War thing). Things degenerate into the inevitable two-super-teams-meet-each-other-for-the-first-time-and-get-into-a-fight scenario.
There's also a side plot about Quasar's girlfriend stranded on an alien planet.
Tangent: I have a comic box that I labelled Box Infinity. This is not a comment on the size of my collection: Rather, it's the box I use for Marvel-published "cosmic"-flavored books. For example, Silver Surfer, Quasar, Infinity-event (Gauntlet, War, Crusade) crossover issues of any title, and everything Adam Warlock, especially Warlock and the Infinity Watch. One of the reasons I picked up this issue was because it belongs in the Infinity Box for two reasons simultaneously.
What's good about it? There were a few nice little twists on a fairly standard scenario, like Quasar using a force field bubble to delay the almost inevitable fight. Some of the dialogue struck me as decently clever.
What's not quite so good? It's a fairly standard scenario. It's a little bit confusing. Every bit of plot in the book is continued from somewhere. None of these multiple plotlines are resolved completely either.
What the ....? moments: It's a 90's D-list Marvel title tied in to the big crossover event crammed with guest stars, and somehow they manage to leave out Spider-Man, Punisher, and Ghost Rider.
Who should get it? Quasar fans, Adam Warlock fans, and those who absolutely have to have every Infinity War tie-in issue.
Rating: Three stars (on a five star scale).
Method Of Acquisition: Fifty cent box at Apparitions.
review by JustiN Taylor
What is it?
A comic book. Glossy Cover. Non-glossy interior. Color throughout. The last story page is numbered 30, but the page numbering system is also including ad pages, so probably around twenty-some odd story pages in actual point of fact. Indicia gives a date of September 1992. Cover has a small logo in the upper right corner indicating this is an Infinity War crossover. Credits are: Mark Gruenwald-- Writer, Greg Capullo-- Penciler, Hary Candelario-- Inker, Janice Chiang-- Letterer, Paul Becton-- Colorist, Kelly Corvese-- Editor, and Tom DeFalco-- Editor Extreme.
Plot Summary: Quasar and a character known as Contemplator are in a place called the Dimension of Manifestations. Quasar returns to Earth; Contemplator elects to stay behind. Upon his return to Earth, Quasar checks in with the Avengers.
The Avengers are off to fight a cosmic disaster of epic proportions (the whole Ininity War thing). Cicrumstances require them to call in extra help from Alpha Flight and the various X-teams plus the Hulk. They mystically teleport to an alien planet.
Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch are there teamed up with Thanos, a known villain, in order to combat the bigger threat of Magus (the whole Ininity War thing). Things degenerate into the inevitable two-super-teams-meet-each-other-for-the-first-time-and-get-into-a-fight scenario.
There's also a side plot about Quasar's girlfriend stranded on an alien planet.
Tangent: I have a comic box that I labelled Box Infinity. This is not a comment on the size of my collection: Rather, it's the box I use for Marvel-published "cosmic"-flavored books. For example, Silver Surfer, Quasar, Infinity-event (Gauntlet, War, Crusade) crossover issues of any title, and everything Adam Warlock, especially Warlock and the Infinity Watch. One of the reasons I picked up this issue was because it belongs in the Infinity Box for two reasons simultaneously.
What's good about it? There were a few nice little twists on a fairly standard scenario, like Quasar using a force field bubble to delay the almost inevitable fight. Some of the dialogue struck me as decently clever.
What's not quite so good? It's a fairly standard scenario. It's a little bit confusing. Every bit of plot in the book is continued from somewhere. None of these multiple plotlines are resolved completely either.
What the ....? moments: It's a 90's D-list Marvel title tied in to the big crossover event crammed with guest stars, and somehow they manage to leave out Spider-Man, Punisher, and Ghost Rider.
Who should get it? Quasar fans, Adam Warlock fans, and those who absolutely have to have every Infinity War tie-in issue.
Rating: Three stars (on a five star scale).
Method Of Acquisition: Fifty cent box at Apparitions.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Review Of Hardware Issue #1
Review of Hardware Issue #1 Published by Milestone/ DC Comics
Reviewed by JustiN Taylor aka khyron1144
What is it? A comic book. Glossy cover, non-glossy interior. Color throughout. Was originally available in deluxe bagged edition and non-bagged regular edition. Bagged version included a poster, trading card, and other extras.
Plot Summary: Curtis Metcalf is a genius. He works for Edwin Alva. Alva paid Metcalf's way through college, in exchange for him agreeing to work for Alva Technologies.
Curtis finds out Alva is corrupt and tied to organized crime. Curtis builds a suit of super armor and becomes a superhero fighting Alva's criminal enterprises.
I suppose this is as good a place as any to mention that Curtis Metcalf is black, and Edwin Alva is white.
What's good about it? Adding color diversity to superhero comics is a good thing. The script is engaging. Curtis's dialogue is not the exaggerated picture of blackness that say, Marvel's Luke Cage's is.
What's not quite so good? It feels like all set-up for the future and no real action.
What the… ? Moments: Just the basic problem of super armor’s implausibility. Not technologically or physically, but legally and socially. If Bill Gates built what is in effect the next generation of fighter jet in his basement workshop, there is no way the government would let him keep it for his own private use.
Who should get it? Anybody who likes a good story told in comic book form.
Rating: 4 Stars (of five)
Method Of Acquisition: The seventy-five cent box at Tardy's Collector's Corner on Burton Street in Grand Rapids, MI
Reviewed by JustiN Taylor aka khyron1144
What is it? A comic book. Glossy cover, non-glossy interior. Color throughout. Was originally available in deluxe bagged edition and non-bagged regular edition. Bagged version included a poster, trading card, and other extras.
Plot Summary: Curtis Metcalf is a genius. He works for Edwin Alva. Alva paid Metcalf's way through college, in exchange for him agreeing to work for Alva Technologies.
Curtis finds out Alva is corrupt and tied to organized crime. Curtis builds a suit of super armor and becomes a superhero fighting Alva's criminal enterprises.
I suppose this is as good a place as any to mention that Curtis Metcalf is black, and Edwin Alva is white.
What's good about it? Adding color diversity to superhero comics is a good thing. The script is engaging. Curtis's dialogue is not the exaggerated picture of blackness that say, Marvel's Luke Cage's is.
What's not quite so good? It feels like all set-up for the future and no real action.
What the… ? Moments: Just the basic problem of super armor’s implausibility. Not technologically or physically, but legally and socially. If Bill Gates built what is in effect the next generation of fighter jet in his basement workshop, there is no way the government would let him keep it for his own private use.
Who should get it? Anybody who likes a good story told in comic book form.
Rating: 4 Stars (of five)
Method Of Acquisition: The seventy-five cent box at Tardy's Collector's Corner on Burton Street in Grand Rapids, MI
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Review of Youngblood Issue #1 Published by Awesome Comics
Youngblood #1 (published by Awesome) review
What is it? A comic book with a glossy cover and interior and color throughout. Alan Moore is the writer. Steve Skroce is the penciler. Lary Stucker is the inker. Richard Starkings & Comicraft did the letters. The colors were provided by a company called Awesome Colors.
Plot summary: A secret government organization is scheming to get ahold of an alien from another dimension. An alien wiht no physical form of its own that possesses people. It works.
The alien possesses a soldier guy in the secret underground base and escapes. Youngblod, a superhero team gets involved. Suprema, a Supergirl knock-off, gets possessed. There's a fight. The good guys win and Suprema gets unpossessed.
What's good about it? It's done-in-one rather than kicking off a multi-issue story arc.
For a fairly cookie cutter superhero story, it is executed well.
The attempts at witty dialogue actually made me smile.
Steve Skroce's artwork vaguely resembles Rob Liefeld's without being a slavish imitation.
Rob Liefeld's personal involvement with the book seems to be minimal. He simply owns the characters, and he drew one or two of the twelve variant covers.
What's not so good about it? You remember that cookie cutter comment? Well I meant it. This book could have been done almost as well with any of DC or Marvel's superteams, like the JLA or Fantastic Four.
In fact, I think variants on this theme have been done with the Fantastic Four.
The other problem is this is Volume 3, Issue number 1 of Youngblood. Besides being a bad example of the chromium age tendency for excessive first issues of a single property to increase after-market value, it opens with action and contains very little exposition to explain who these characters are and what they do. I have a vague memory of having reading earlier versions of Youngblood, where the team was government sponsored. Now it appears to have gone private. Only two of the team members are at all familiar to me: Shaft and Suprema.
What The...? Moment: Twelve variant covers. That's just excessive. Now aren't we all glad the 90s are over?
Who Needs It? Youngblood fans. Suprema fans. Anyone who wants to see an Alan Moore superhero comic with no obvious element of irony or deconstruction or commentary on the genre.
Rating: 2 stars (on my five-star scale)
Method of Acquisition: 79 cents from the cheap comics bins at The Outer Limits in Wyoming, Michigan
What is it? A comic book with a glossy cover and interior and color throughout. Alan Moore is the writer. Steve Skroce is the penciler. Lary Stucker is the inker. Richard Starkings & Comicraft did the letters. The colors were provided by a company called Awesome Colors.
Plot summary: A secret government organization is scheming to get ahold of an alien from another dimension. An alien wiht no physical form of its own that possesses people. It works.
The alien possesses a soldier guy in the secret underground base and escapes. Youngblod, a superhero team gets involved. Suprema, a Supergirl knock-off, gets possessed. There's a fight. The good guys win and Suprema gets unpossessed.
What's good about it? It's done-in-one rather than kicking off a multi-issue story arc.
For a fairly cookie cutter superhero story, it is executed well.
The attempts at witty dialogue actually made me smile.
Steve Skroce's artwork vaguely resembles Rob Liefeld's without being a slavish imitation.
Rob Liefeld's personal involvement with the book seems to be minimal. He simply owns the characters, and he drew one or two of the twelve variant covers.
What's not so good about it? You remember that cookie cutter comment? Well I meant it. This book could have been done almost as well with any of DC or Marvel's superteams, like the JLA or Fantastic Four.
In fact, I think variants on this theme have been done with the Fantastic Four.
The other problem is this is Volume 3, Issue number 1 of Youngblood. Besides being a bad example of the chromium age tendency for excessive first issues of a single property to increase after-market value, it opens with action and contains very little exposition to explain who these characters are and what they do. I have a vague memory of having reading earlier versions of Youngblood, where the team was government sponsored. Now it appears to have gone private. Only two of the team members are at all familiar to me: Shaft and Suprema.
What The...? Moment: Twelve variant covers. That's just excessive. Now aren't we all glad the 90s are over?
Who Needs It? Youngblood fans. Suprema fans. Anyone who wants to see an Alan Moore superhero comic with no obvious element of irony or deconstruction or commentary on the genre.
Rating: 2 stars (on my five-star scale)
Method of Acquisition: 79 cents from the cheap comics bins at The Outer Limits in Wyoming, Michigan
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