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For some reason, the time is tonight.

I’ll be moving everything over to the new site, and I have a back-up as of right now.  Moving further individual comments could be annoying.  Not that I have a rabid horde of commenters, but you dedicated 2 (or 4), hold on to ’em for a few!

Was a step up & in the right direction.

I find it surprising that Hank can keep up with Tony’s flight speed, especially at micro-size.

Splitting the Young Avengers around (see Wiccan in NA 51) is interesting…curious if that will have any effect on their sporadic series.  I think I heard somewhere that the original writer was finally coming back to pen another block – we’ll see.

The Asgard angle comes into play now, and makes some actual and amusing sense.  I’m also thankful that Wanda isn’t really active again, yet.

No, not giving birth, because Jen did all the work there, but the metaphor & posession part of “having”.

[Warning: May contain mush and cheese.  Viewers may not want to have full stomachs.]

So right, “duh” right? It changes everyone. This I know, but some of the changes are more interesting, from an internal perspective, than others.

When each of my sons were born, there was a noticeable “cracking” of something internal.  I’d like to think it’s my “reservoir of love” (cheesy as fuck I know, but roll with me here crowning crowd) growing – I never thought I’d have enough to love my family as much as I do.  OK that sounds weird, but I’ll elaborate a little if you can hold your stomachs:

I love my wife more every day.  Seriously.  No BS.  Each day we continue to survive ( 😉 ) together the bonds binding me to her grow thicker and tighter.  Every so often I’m like “Seriously?  I can love anyone this much?  How is there room in my heart?”  – and that has continued for years.

Then Z came and I was like “Wow, there’s room to love him immensely as well.”  Truthfully I was kind of surprised, because I’m not sure how that all fits in here.  And now with M…even more.  I look at them and sometimes it’s like I’m exploding; it’s hard to focus on it without being overwhelmed.

Something like an actualization of the old alchemical/Biblical metaphor of the “refiner’s fire”.

As a side effect of that I suspect, I’m much more prone to emotional response in general. This one is a bit more visible as I know Jen has commented on it as well.  I’m much more susceptible to stupid cheese moments with children in movies/tv. NO that doesn’t mean I’ll watch them on purpose, but if I happen to accidentally catch the death/harm/kidnapping/etc. of a child on something I’m more likely to be visibly affected.  This is kind of annoying at times, as most of the tripe really isn’t worth the emotional output.  But you know what – I’m ok with it. No need to be trapped in outdated 50s masculinity metaphors – I can cry and still kick your fucking ass if need be.  Maybe even while I’m crying.  But I’ll also be laughing at you.

What else?

Well, I have more patience that I would have thought humanly possible 10 years ago.  Things that I know would have drove me crazy years ago now just roll off (lack of sleep, son smashing your groin over and over and over and over, kids’ toy & general messes,  lack of free time, various marital scuffles, etc.).  Not to say I don’t get annoyed or bitchy – because the stress level has ratcheted up pretty damn high as well, but I can notice the difference internally at least.

My pain tolerance seems to have gone up as well, but I suspect that’s a side effect of the patience – or maybe just repeated injury.

I can sleep in stranger places.  Chairs, weird angles on couches.  Floors (true – sometimes I have to lay down on the floor next to Z’s crib to get him to go to sleep & I have to be careful not to get stuck in there for more than a few minutes or I’m likely to be gone as well).  When I catch myself falling asleep mid-word while reading to Z  I have to crack up a little.

Mostly it’s the love that amazes me though.  What will 3 or 4 children be like?  Equally incomprehensible I suspect.  Maybe we’ll find out.

I totally get what he was trying to do here (get Illyana back for New Mutants v3) , but the execution was spotty at very best.  Not worth buying.

They let Pixie just fly off into Limbo then just fucking left her there???????  While making a speech to Illyana about not leaving people behind???

MMMMM KAY.

Srsly.  Who edits the editors?

Was, I think, hands down the best episode of the series so far.  Keep in mind, that’s not saying much.  But, I’m unashamed that I watched it.  I’ll say that much at least.

1. We lose two decent characters – both get good ending.
2. We didn’t have to sit through any Claire-angst.
3. Hiro gets a portion of his powers back in a decent manner (now he and Peter are both manageable and Sylar is left as a godpowerful bogeyman again…hopefully he dies next season!  I suspect he’ll make it through his self titled season finale…)
4. A missing favorite returns, although still wet behind the ears.  No one will be surprised by Rebel’s identity.  There was no one else it could be.
5. Ando shoots some dude – with lightning!
6. Baby Parkman…heh.  Lone Wolf and Cub I guess.

Can Bryan Fuller and Greg Yaitanes do all the episodes please?

It’s that time of the decade again:

You know, the one where “Phoenix” lives up to her name?

Or at least that’s how they’re soliciting it.  The fact that it’s so blatant makes me wonder/hope it’s a red herring.  Since it’s an arc involved Madelyne Pryor…could be something else.

We travel all these miles to get Scott & Emma somewhere interesting, then they throw in all these secrets with the X-Force/Dark Reign Cabal crap…and now Jean’s back huh?  Well.  It *could* be good.  But, you know, I have this sinking feeling about creeping status quo returns.

I’m hoping she’s a villain this time around.  The cover kind of has that look to it (besides being a little ugly) – that would at least be an interesting take on it (again).

PS:  Jean, your nipples called – they don’t understand how they’re cold in all those flames.

[Edit: OH.  It’s a Greg Land cover.  No wonder.  *barfs in mouth*]

and some random foreigner writes about it.

It’s an interesting read although my (obviously American-influenced) mind thinks the writer is taking some things a little too seriously.  Springsteen performing at the Superbowl half time didn’t mean anything to me – it’s one of the pinnacles of financial success in musicianship in this country (sadly or not) – why wouldn’t he?  Sure, I would have respected him more if he’d turned it down, but I certainly don’t respect him less for doing it.  Although I didn’t see the show…maybe he did something really goofy?

Plus, hopefully it exposed some folks who might not have been otherwise exposed to his music to his message – which if you check out the Magic album still seems to line up with themes presented in Born in the USA.

Be sure to check out some audio/video for the song on an older post I made about the album itself here.

So the last 2 issues of Thunderbolts and the season finale of the last Heroes season have something in common – they both feature people fooling Obama.  And not just simple trickery – getting him to sign on for something so unlike his visible character, and so stupid it would never fly in real life, that you just have to wonder.

Case in point: Heroes.  Obama agrees to internment camps for powered people.  AS HE’S SHUTTING DOWN GUANTANAMO.  And going against prettttty much everything he ran on.  The publicity shitstorm this would kick up  would be insane.   Yes I know people don’t know about the powered people in that universe…but people would find out about camps & a new gov’t agency pretty quick, even if they didn’t know what it was for – and he wouldn’t be stupid enough (at least I don’t think he would) to authorize something that would ruin his chances at a second term.

Case in point: Thunderbolts. Obama allows a semi-reformed murderer/corporate criminal to run a huge government security agency (think FBI).  There would be hearings, or something.  I don’t care if he shot a bad guy and everyone loves him – no one cares about war heroes like that anymore.  Not that no one cares, but being a war hero doesn’t grant you an automatic pass.  He’d still have the media buried so far up his ass he would never make it to an appointment.
YES YES I KNOW THESE ARE FICTIONAL WORLDS.

My point is that writers really haven’t come to terms with writing an intelligent president yet.  You can’t write him like Bush, with every George, Dick & Cheney pulling the wool over his eyes.  When you’re trying to make your reality look like ours, writing Obama at 50% intelligence is a hard shock out of the disbelief I’m trying to suspend.  Flying people – sure.  Obama authorizing a second Guantanamo?  Wahuhu???  (OK maybe he will later, who knows, but the point is, at the current political juncture – uh uh).

continues to kick ass.

Plot thread necro from the Madrox limited series!

Buy this book.

Oops, that was your comic.

continues to be post-Authority fecal drivel.  Biting his head off??  Really??

[edit:

Loeb’s further trivialization of Thor’s hammer irks me.  It was one of the few constants we had in the MU these days (with Bucky not-dead and all): no one unworthy can live Thor’s hammer.  You cannot trick it.  The only way would be to remove the magic, or place it in someplace without magic, something like that.  No way, no how would Ultimate Magneto be able to lift it.  Maybe 616 Magneto circa mid-80s, but that’s it.  And the BS Red Hulk pulled?  *stabs eyes*  Yes, yes I know this is “Ultimate Mjolnir”.  It’s ultimately silly is what it is.

All the biting of humans was unnecessary.   Everything that happened there could have happen without the purility of biting Wasp/biting off Blob’s head.

The suicide bomber Madroxs, while making sense (sort of) make me kind of ill.  As if it needed another, this would be the final nail in the coffin of any hope ultimate Magneto had of being the interesting anti-hero/villain that he has so often been in 616.  Here he’s just another useless dick who should be dead by now.

There was a blurb about Forge and someone else that made no sense.

Wiping out Emma’s entire school (including 2 of my 3 all time favorite x-characters) OFF PANEL was beyond stupid.

Killing Beast AGAIN seems…I don’t know what the word is…just dumb.  Maybe he’ll be this world’s Phoenix.

Yes, you are building up a death count.  Gee that’s great. AND?

/end edit]

Yes, so far all the bands I’ve mentioned are defunct.  It’s a fuckin’ shame I know.

This will continue that cycle.
So who was Common Rider?  Jesse from Op Ivy‘s next project.  They put out two full lengths, and one post-mortem split ep.  There’s also a vinyl EP that I don’t have…because I don’t do vinyl.  Man, can you imagine all the extra pack rattery that would occur if I was into vinyl?

His voice is definitely an acquired taste – I’ve met a few people who just can’t stand it – but if you like his sound in Op Ivy you’ll probably like at least a few of the Common Rider songs.  The sound is somewhere between Op Ivy, pop and surf-punk-rock.  It’s definitely Jesse though.

Here’s two tracks, click to play in a new window:

I get it, but it’s still stupid.

I love how the writers are willing to kill heroes, yet they are resurrecting villains left and right.  KILL SOME FUCKING VILLAINS ALREADY!!  Kill the ones you resurrected for starters.  Sigh.

If you thought Street Fighter was the best video game movie ever…this might be for you!

Yes, I’m surfing on my lunch break.