miscellanea

[ratcreature]

I'm sorry that I've been so quiet lately. Over the last week I started a number of entries in my head, but for some reason my energy level had been that of a wilted vegetable. Then yesterday evening I got a sudden high fever, so now I really feel like crap -- though better than last night, I even saw a doctor this morning because I felt so awful, who was however rather unimpressed and sent me home with the advice to rest and drink a lot. Duh, I didn't need a doctor to tell me that, but apparently I wasn't about to die anytime soon, despite feeling like it. *g* Anyway, I hope that my former mildly crappy state was connected to the infection that now's causing my fever, and I'll feel alright again once I'm over it. So as a kind of stand-in for the "real" entries, I would have written had I felt less crappy, you get this, in no particular order:

• The last Angel episode was great, Muppet!Angel rocked, however I had that self-esteem song stuck in my head for almost a day.


• I enjoyed the last two Daredevil issues, i.e. 56 and 57, a lot, and I loved the cover of 57.


• I've also read the first issue of The Pulse, which was good, but I think it's in the Ultimate Spider-Man continuity, so I'm missing some of the backstory. I've started to catch up with Ultimate Spider-Man (I once again fell victim to kerithwyn's pimping) but I have only read the first couple of issues so far.


• I've also read a couple of older Batman comics, for example Year Two. The good news is, that I can now include information from that issue in my series of posts on Batman's origin story, the bad news is that I was quite underwhelmed with the story. I also read the Teen Titan's Spotlight issue #14 with Nightwing, which also left me unimpressed and its art isn't really good (I think it's the faces), but someone knows fannish kinks or we wouldn't get a tied up Batman in a slave auction setting, with some thug selling him for demasking and killing to the highest bidder and Nightwing coming to his rescue. So that kind of made up for some of the comics weaknesses.


• I also read some older Action Comics Weekly with Nightwing and Speedy (that story, "The Cheshire Contract" ran from #613-618), which had lots of nice relationship stuff, e.g. Nightwing talking to Roy about his breakup with Batman. I've also finally read the more recent Arsenal mini-series, and I'm liking Arsenal more and more.

And not that it is in any way relevant, but I'd really like a laptop so that I could use my computer from bed.

Comments

[kerithwyn.livejournal.com]

Urk. Feel better! I've been having a major case of the blahs myself, though I can't blame an actual physical cause. :p

* Muppet!Angel totally justified the entire show's existence.

* That IS a stunning cover. mmm.

* Ahhh, whoops! The Pulse is in regular MU continuity--where Peter is married to MJ in Amazing Spider-Man and Matt is now Boss of Hell's Kitchen. It's a sequel to Bendis's series Alias, which is also required reading. *g* I can see the confusion, though--Ben Urich is quite similar in both regular and Ultimate continuity, and JJJ's had a recent significant streak of humanity in both. It's all a big Bendis mishmash, and all worth reading, even if you occasionally have to remember what bits go where. (I *just* had to do that with the first issue of Secret War--took me a bit to remember it *wasn't* in Ult-verse.)

* Year Two is stinky. I have that Spotlight, should dig it out for giggles sometime....

* Roy rocks. ^_^ The Batman + Arsenal one-shot is also worthwhile for some really great interaction between those two, as well.

[ratcreature]

Thanks for the well wishes, I'm getting better, though I still feel somewhat like a wet noodle, and the fever isn't completely gone yet.

I haven't read Alias, I always assumed it was some comic about the tv series (which I don't watch). So it's not connected to that, but to the main MU? What's it about? (>.< as if I need more comics on my "to read list", I'm too easy *g*)

I read the Batman + Arsenal issue a while ago. Actually I think it was you who recommended that to me along with the mini-series, I just had a much harder time finding the Arsenal mini.

Alias

[kerithwyn.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with the tv show. ;) It's about PI Jessica Jones (now in The Pulse), who used to be a superhero in the MU and now...isn't. It was one of the most intense and *realistic* comics I've ever read--especially the last arc, "Purple." The whole thing has been collected in four trades, the last due out imminently. Highest, highest recommendation.

I'm just a big pimp. Hee.

Re: Alias

[ratcreature]

Looks like I have to figure out how to squeeze some more comics out of my overextended budget. Well, at least the current dollar exchange rate works in my favor for making US comics more affordable here.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Hope you're feeling better soon...and I'm glad to know I'm not the only freak one who composes posts in her head :-)

[ratcreature]

Huh, I always assumed most people start to write things in their head before they write anything down. I do that especially with the opening paragraphs of anything, whether blog entries, mailinglist posts, assignments, letters...

[lcsbanana.livejournal.com]

dude. It's a slash story! In canon! It is *such* a slash story. I may have written that at some point, before I knew any better.

*cackles*

also, thanks for the Arsenal recs, I find myself totally falling for him. My plan to remain monogamously Batty is clearly failing.

[ratcreature]

Heh, yeah, it's really hard to follow just one hero with the DCU being so interconnected, and so many cool characters. Which is fun of course, but also leads to me being broke after leaving my comic store more often than not...

And yeah, that story was totally like a slash clichefic, I mean it even has a two page relationship talk epilogue at the end, after the h/c and rescue action parts, with Nightwing telling Batman "You're a part of me, Bruce. I can't deny it. And I don't want to any longer. I just wanted you to know that. That, and one other thing -- I'm proud to have been Robin." Batman remains silent and we get Nightwing's internal monologue: "I'll never know how he feels about me. I'm not even sure he has feelings anymore. But it doesn't matter I've made my own path. And finally I feel good about it. And maybe -- just maybe -- he feels that way too." that is while Nightwing walks away, without looking back, but Batman looks after him and almost smiles in the last panel.

[lcsbanana.livejournal.com]

ahahaha oh *god.* I started out with Batman, now I am buying for Batman, the whole Batfamily, all the Arsenal I can find--nobody has his back issues!--*and* Green Lantern. Plus I--like a FOOL--picked up the first tpb of Authority today, and I am DOOMED. And I STILL haven't bought most of the Batman trades I want. aieeeeee.

also: HOLY FREAKING PIE. Relationship talk! A part of me! CAN'T DENY IT! Batsmile! *dies of convulsions*

[ratcreature]

About a year ago I started with Nightwing, and at first had the naive assumption I could just be a Dick Grayson fan, but for that you have to read also Batman titles, so reading Gotham Knights made me fall for Batman (and really if you haven't already, as a Batman fan you have to read Gotham Knights #24, it's my favorite single Batman issue so far), so then I got into Batman, then the rest of the Batman titles, and because of Nightwing also the current Outsiders and the New Teen Titans (though I haven't bought many of those yet, nor of The Titans series). Then someone pimped the JL cartoon to me, which led to me looking at JLA comics (though again, I haven't bought many -- yet) and now I've started picking up the current Teen Titans and I expect I see the first Young Justice stuff appearing in my collection soon... and I buy other titles now and then if I like the artists or writers. It's like drugs, you can buy and buy and there will always be more comics you want, and really superhero universes are far more insidious that way than the European comics I've collected before. Also it's sometimes really frustrating to not be able to find a few issues that you need to complete a huge fricking 80-issue crossover arc. I guess it's easier and probably cheaper to collect the trades, but I decided to buy the single issues whenever possible, because often, especially with crossover events like NML, the trades are never collecting all the issues and sometimes they cut pages of the B-plots that don't belong to the main story and such. And despite occasional frustrations, I also have more fun collecting this way, though it's slower.

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Year Two. The good news is, that I can now include information from that issue in my series of posts on Batman's origin story

FYI, Year Two has been written out of continuity by subsequent storylines -- IIRC, that was the story with Joe Chill? Current continuity says Batman does not know (and will never know? never say never in comics-land, but pretty much) who killed his parents.

[ratcreature]

Yeah I've read the Zero Hour issues that change this stuff. Though parts of that story must have still happened after the retcon. My series of posts is all about how the retcons kind of "ripple" through continuity and what changes occur, hence I progress in publishing order. I mean huge parts of Year One, notably Selina's backstory and Bruce being wounded near fatally as he conceives his Batman persona are also out of continuity now and have since then be retconned, into different versions. Still other parts of Year One clearly happened. It's all about figuring out which parts remain in continuity.