Umm

This house ad appears in Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #43:


I'm guessing that the answer is "no".

30-Second Recap

The following is my entry for Chris Sim's 2008 30-Second Recap Contest. I tried to take on Marvel's True Believers mini-series...




Note: I did take the cat photo myself. (She's my brother's cat. I really wish he'd name her.) Anyway, photography's drawing with light. I drew it with light myself, and then pasted it into MSPaint.

Wow. This is the second time I've done this, and the second time I've worried about disqualification.

Oh well!

Fantastic Four #562

***This review is spoilerish. You've been warned.***

I like Between Stories. You know, the pause in the action, the issue where the characters take a breather in preparation for the next attack or crisis. Fantastic Four #562 is an issue full of Between Stories, and plenty promises to happen.

Of course, it starts with Sue Storm Richards's funeral. The kicker? Sue gives her own eulogy. One thing I don't get about this scene, though, is the fact that everyone seems to assume that the Future Sue in the grave is the Official Future Sue. There may be infinite Alternate Future Sues, branching off from Official 616!Sue, with permanent microscopic tracking devices. (I picture something that looks like a cladogram.) I guess that wouldn't make the mourning any less profound, though. (Imagine, speaking at what is sort of maybe your own funeral. Yikes.)

Okay, I have to move on to the other Between Stories contained within this issue, inasmuch as overthinking Marvel's time travel logic is never a good idea.

Ben is happy (really genuinely happy) for once. Five beautiful (Bryan Hitch deserves his reputation) pages are devoted to this. Can't argue with that. Ben needs all the genuine happiness he can get his mitts on. There promises to be more for him. But where is Alicia in all of this?

Dr. Doom is in jail, and he has a word of warning. Apparently there is a villain coming that gives even Doom chills. Is this something connected to Marvel 1985? I have no idea. I haven't read it. Anyway. Doom gets to be ominous. He's good at that.

Please do not let this be foreshadowing.

Finally -- and I've been recounting this out of order -- there is Valeria's super-genius intellect, which she has just recently revealed to the rest of the family. I like this concept. I like the possibility of a future genius Invisible Girl. And in current continuity, it opens up some interesting possibilities, throwing the "family dynamic" into more than the usual "flux". Also, Franklin is jealous.

Yeah. That can't be good.

The Franklin panel appears about halfway through the magazine, and nothing afterward -- not Doom, not Ben, not Crazy Powerful New Villain -- even comes close to matching the Holy Cow Factor.

Everything in the Millar/Hitch run has been connected so far. I doubt that will change, and I look forward to discovering how, exactly, the Between Stories dovetail into Stories Proper.

Reading Twilight

Reading notes for Chapter 11 ("Complications") of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight:

• Ooh, movie day in science class
• What high schooler doesn't like that?
• But of course Bella can't focus on it.
• Duh, Edward's right there.
• Ohh, Edward, with his perfect face.
• Zot, zot.
• Next class.
• Bella cannot bear to part with Edward!
• Aww, Mike's all chivalrous in Gym.
• Poor Mike.
• Great guy with no taste in girls.
• But he's perceptive.
• He knows Edward wants to eat Bella.
• Probably doesn't know that Edward literally wants to eat Bella.
• (We the readers do!)
• But Bella could probably figure that one out.
• Listen to Mike, Bella!
• You idiot.
• Driving with Edward, blah, blah, blah.
• Hunting with vampires is dangerous for humans.
• More electricity. Zot, zot.
• Dreams of Edward.
• Chat with Charlie.
• Yes, Bella, Charlie might take issue with your possible necrophilia.
• Not that it matters, 'cause adults are useless.
• Bella's favorite color of the day is brown.
• Because it's warm.
• It's also the color of...
• Nevermind.
• She doesn't say it, I just think it.
• Edward is such a stalker.
• Oh, come on Bella, how hard is badminton?
• For a more-or-less able-bodied idiot, I mean?
• Exit Edward (finally).
• Enter Jacob the Complication.

Reading Twilight into the New Year

Reading notes for Chapter 10 ("Interrogations") of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight:

• It is a foggy morning.
• Edward gives Bella a ride to school.
• Overprotective, much?
• She likes his smell.
• They are compatible in an olfactory way.
• Vampires like fast cars.
• Yes, everybody stare at Bella and her beau.
• Jessica grills Bella about Edward.
• They continue to be boy obsessed for two class periods.
• Vampires can eat solid food.
• Like people can eat dirt.
• So can vampires get pica?
• Edward wants to know everything Bella thinks.
• And would like to censor her thoughts, if only he could...?
• All the guys at Forks High want Bella?
• Really?
• Why, for gods' sakes???
• Bella and Edward have a long lunchroom conversation.
• Vampires like to eat mountain lions.
• And bears.
• (And presumably tigers.)
• Oh my.

Happy New Year!

Forget resolutions. I need a theme song for 2009. Something to live by. Something that makes me happy.

I think it will be "Steer" by Missy Higgins.



My heart can be fierce. Yes it can!

Really.

If I'm not careful, this will start to sound like a New Year's resolution, so I'll stop now.

Bring on 2009!