Catch more from Alterna Comics on YouTube
This is still the case today as of this writing, so please buy something when you go for Free Comic Book Day this Saturday. Merchandise, boards and bags for your comics, back issues, maybe check the racks to see if anything interest you…just try to make this profitable for comic stores, because they were already in trouble before the lockdowns.
Later tonight I’ll go over the previews for this year’s Free Comic Book Day and see what interests me.
This is the second time this week that the Literature Devil‘s “Morning Nonsense” podcast had inspired an article. If there were archives I’d link Tuesday’s to you, specifically one particular discussion that came up between co-hosts for the day Shiney FX and someone whose name I didn’t catch. I’ll be referring to him as “Other Guy” until someone corrects me. I tried asking LD on Twitter but he didn’t respond by post time.
The paraphrased question we’re working from is “why does Star Trek have a definitive version but not Batman?”, the two examples that came up in conversation. I’m going to expand the discussion by adding two other series into this discussion, Transformers and Masters Of The Universe. Star Trek and Masters Of The Universe both have a definitive version, a sort of core to the multiversal solar system that all other continuities are informed by. Batman and Transformers both lack this but there is still a core to the characters, the iconography and personas that creates a multiversal continuity–the parts that show you these are “those characters” without being told because those traits are universal to each version. Multiversal continuity and multiversal cores are not the same thing and sometimes the core continuity isn’t even the source material. Let’s discuss.
Cleaning services are in high demand these days.
Sonic X #11
Archie Comics (September, 2006)
“No Thanks For The Memories” part 2
WRITER: Joe Edkin
PENCILER: Tracy Yardley
INKER: Terry Austin
COLORIST: Josh Ray
COVER ART: Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante
LETTERER: John Workman
EDITOR: Mike Pellerito
The aspirational hero is in increasingly short supply in the year of our Lord 2022, replaced by deconstruction from those who have no aspirations to be better. Superman is my favorite superhero not because of his powers alone but what he does with them and how he wants to make the world a better place for everyone but has the morals not to force it on them. We shouldn’t aspire to match his powers but match his heart and my favorite heroes are the ones that do. This moment with Captain America, a former aspirational hero himself, is a good example of that. It’s why I continue to write about Clark Kent and will probably do so for as long as I post reviews and commentaries.
Author Caroline Furlong goes into some other aspirational heroes, including a couple I never really thought about, and how to write an interesting one. It doesn’t mean they lack faults, just that their moral compass is intact and occasionally challenged.
It’s time for the first in a series of “banked reviews” for Finally Watched as I had to clear as many movies as I could from the DVR box before we got the new one…that hopefully won’t cut off mid-recording but tell me the whole thing was recorded. Tron is a movie from the 1980s that I really enjoy despite being rather dated. At the time we didn’t know anything about the inner workings of computers and software and operating systems and what not. Well “you” may not have but I was just the right age for it and even had some rudimentary BASIC programming skills. Still, the idea of a computer world, silly or not, was rather fun and it inspired a number of these kinds of stories even as computers became more and more a part of our lives. Oddly the 90s would play with this idea a few times. Reboot took place in a computer world while Captain N: The Game Master and the “Power Team” segment of the first season of Video Power either had the hero visit a video game world before “isekai” was a term English speakers used or having the video game characters enter our world, both of which have also popped up in kids show and lighter science fiction. Tron even inspired it’s own video games.
So when a sequel was announced in the early 2000s it seemed like odd timing. There was a short series of video games, Tron 2.0, in 2003 and I still need to finish the PC version. However, that’s a video game. Tron: Legacy is a live-action movie, but I’m not sure the idea that inside our computer is fully realized world and any time we delete a program we commit murder is going to be as easy to suspend disbelief for. So they found a workaround and created their own movie, which also inspired a video game and an animated series. Now that I’ve finally seen it…how good is it?
RELEASE DATE: 2010
RELEASED BY: Walt Disney Pictures
RUNTIME: 2 hours 5 minutes
RATING: PG
VIEWING SOURCE FOR THIS REVIEW: Starz Action (free preview weekend)
STARRING: Garret Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and Jeff Bridges
SCREENWRITERS: Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz (story & screenplay); Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal (story only); characters created by Steven Lisberg & Bonnie MacBird
DIRECTOR: Joseph Kosinski
BOX OFFICE: $400,063,852 worldwide, $172,062,763 domestic according to IMDB
ESTIMATED BUDGET: $170,000,000 according to IMDB
Meanwhile Nog is already hocking her stereo.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy #15
Marvel/Paramount Comics (February, 1998)
“T’Prell Revealed” part 2: “Origins”
WRITER: Chris Cooper
PENCILER: Chris Renaud
INKER: Andy Lanning
COLORIST: Kevin Somers
LETTERER: Jim Novak
EDITOR: Bobbie Chase
And a making of video…
Catch more from Gazelle Automations on YouTube
Fun fact: The pink Borg ship is a nod to the Kzinti ship in the animated Star Trek episode “The Slaver Weapon”. This was due to Filmation and episode director Hal Sutherland being color blind. According to the Memory Alpha wiki it’s a toss-up as to why the people who could see colors chose pink for their color given their personality, though the colorist blamed chose odd colors often. Maybe he wanted to give the lesser used colors some love?
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW Media Spotlight 