• Boffo's Realm of World of Warcraft
• Dave's Barebones Pokemon Pearl Roster
• MiSTing Heaven
• EHCCGPP's ST:CCG Page
• Dave's Point Weekly Archive
• Dave's Wrestling Match Database
• Dave's Works
• boffo.flactem.com Classic
• Disclaimer

• DarkHelm.org: Best Bud
• Our Oasis - The Blog!: It's a Family Thang
• Boffo's MySpace: I Give In To Fads
• Boffo's DVDs: What Boffo COULD be watching instead.

• 2006
• 2007, Janurary-June
• 2007, July-December

There's a file on me, and it's a mile long
And they say that they've got all of the proof
That I'm just another case of arrested development
And just another wasted youth

They say that I'm in need of some radical discipline
And they say I've gotta face the truth
That I'm just another case of arrested development
And just another wasted youth

They say I'm wild and reckless
I should be acting my age
I'm an impressionable child
In a tumultuous world
And they say I'm at a difficult stage

But it seems to me to the contrary
Of all the crap they're gonna put on the page
That a wasted youth is better by far
Than a wise and productive old age.
-- Meat Loaf, "Everything Louder Then Everything Else", Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell

No comics today, but i've got a big plan to put a serious dent into or maybe even kill off the backlog by the start of the new year. No November visitation stats either, but I'll hit those in a future visit.

As we hit the Christmas season and the accompanying end of the year, it's natural to examine one's situation. Mine could be better. My health limits me from a lot and causes some serious worried about my future, especially given that precisely what's going on and why isn't understood. It's scary. And I could live to 100 and probably still miss my mother. Anyone who would think less of me for that probably wasn't as blessed as I was to have as special a person for a mother as I did. Knowing I will see her again is a great source of strength for me.

But my situation, as unpleasant as it can be at times, does not define me. I choose the person that I want to be. I choose to be a generally good person who tries to do the right thing. I'm under no illusions of perfection, but I try. There are those who don't, for whatever reason. There are those who try to give the appearnce that they do, but don't. They can be told apart from people like me because they will immediately classify any criticism as untrue and solely the delusion of the criticizer because they earnestly believe in their own perfection. I do not. I'm more than willing to change if fault can be demonstrated to me.

And I am hoping that no one takes what I said above as simple sniping at anyone that I've had a past with online... this goes way beyond that. You meet all types of people online and offline, in any kind of environment. And I'm not classifying any specific person into any specific group in this space.

While I don't care for my situation of the past few years, I am confident of who I am. I'm Dave Hines, known to some as Boffo97. I'm a Christian. I don't talk about that side of my life on here much because I've not wanted to come off as preachy, but it's very important to me. Does it make me "holier" or anything else compared to someone else? No. God wants everyone to accept the gift of Salvation. Nothing I did under my own power enabled my own salvation. I'm an avid fan of WWE and the St. Louis Rams (even in this dismal season). I absolutely love karaoke, but am not in practice on it as much as I used to be. I consider myself to be a very strong candidate for weirdest person alive. I've always had the ability to make people laugh, and I've treasured that.

And no matter how much life beats on me at times, I will be right here, still standing defiantly. Alone if need be, but with whoever will stand with me.

Because I'm Dave Hines.

And I happen to think Dave Hines is a pretty cool guy, worth standing by.

Your milage may vary.

Before we start the festivities today, as a football fan, I'd like to offer my condolences to fans of the Washington Redskins, as well as the family and friends of their Pro Bowl Free Safety Sean Taylor, who passed away last night. Taylor, 24, returned to his Miami home while being injured and unable to play the past two weeks. Sometime Sunday night or Monday morning, he confronted an intruder or intruders in the home who shot him in the inner leg, severing his femoral artery and causing major blood loss. Emergency surgeries were performed, but he passed without regaining consciousness.

According to comments made by his father, Taylor was a Christian. I'm betting right now there will be a push to elect him to the Pro Bowl as a final posthumous honor.

From the honorable to the dishonorable, and actually staying in Miami, a disciplinary hearing began yesterday on over fifty charges of ethics breaches made against Jack Thompson. Thompson is a lawyer who has, in the past, crusaded against Howard Stern and 2 Live Crew, and ran a rather preposterous political campaign once against Janet Reno. In recent years, he has concentrated more on efforts to blame various tragedies on video games, and do everything he can to block their sale. Take Two is a favorite topic of his.

Now on the surface, the viewpoint he espouses is a legitimate one. Children should not be playing games that are inappropriate for their maturity level. The tools are there to help parents determine this. The problem though is not with the industry or the ratings system. The problem is with a parent who buys a game rated for mature audiences and ignores that rating, thinking that a video game is, by its nature, automatically for kids. If a parent allows a 12 year old to play Grand Theft Auto and the 12 year old emulates it, obviously that 12 year old should not have been playing the game. But you don't remove the game from market so no one can play it. You question why the parent was negligent, and if necessary, bring Child Protective Services into the matter. So Jack's viewpoints in the hands of a rational person could be tolerated and discussed.

Jack Thompson will always blame games. Any infomation that seems to support his cause is magnified and it's never even considered that it could be untrue. Any information that shows his cause false is ignored. And worse yet, his behavior essentially is on par with any standard Internet troll I've seen. On one gaming news site, he has over 60 different logins to evade bans. This kind of behavior from an older person who is both a lawyer and a father is frightening.

The deeper you dig on Jack Thompson, the uglier the behavior is. I don't know whether or not he'll be able to escape a full disbarment over this. But that's definitely what he deserves.

Anyway, I have some more comic reviews for you kind folk. Here's August 8th, 2007:

DC:

Batman #667: CHECK IT. Batman and Robin go to a privately owned Carribean island for a gathering of the International Club of Heroes, a group of similarly themed heroes to Batman from many different nations. An eccentric billionaire tried to gather them together as a regular group once, and it lasted about a half hour. But they still get together on special occassions. But you know this wouldn't be a Batman story unless something's amiss...

Batman Confidential #8: CHECK IT. The origin of the Joker continues, as we also get the origin of the Bat-Computer, or as Alfred insists it needs a better name than that, it is now called Dupin. Dupin? It seems like just yesterday I was reviewing a comic where Batman was frustrated by a criminal hitting targets at random. Hey! That was yesterday! Bruce also pursues a woman named Lorna in this story, but she has no magnetic powers. No one reading this will get that reference. This story is an interesting read, but this part seemed to tread a bit of water.

Black Adam: The Dark Age #1: CHECK IT. Much as I hate spoiling endings in these reviews, this one got spoiled in early issues of Countdown. Adam ends up in Gotham and is so distraught that he just hands Mary Marvel his powers, and implies that Billy changed his magic word to "sorry". I guess this is how we get there. We start with a huge manhunt being on for Teth-Adam. He goes to some pretty extreme lengths to avoid it and get into Kahndaq and to the tomb of his brother and wife. But what does he want with remains?

Countdown #38: MUST READ.

Karate Kid: Oracle is indeed busy. Calculator has launched a huge virus attack on the world, causing her to have to fight him and coordinate a lot of heroes into damage control. The attack even draws the attention of the Monitors. But she ignores his demands for his data and smacks him around digitally and calls him an amateur. Ha ha. Karate Kid tells her that he's dying.

Mary Marvel: As she's talking to Zatanna, there's a disturbance in the water beside the cruise ship. Slig of the Deep Six hops aboard and says that his brothers in the Deep Six have been killed and starts converting humans to fish people as a defense. Mary somehow uses magic to blind him, and Slig dissolves a portion of Mary's shirt, exposing Mary cleavage. Go Slig! Zatanna is yelling at Mary to calm down, but she punches him for this. She's possibly still weirded out over the demon made of stillborn babies. I know I am. The New God killer shows up and kills Slig. Interestingly, his beam goes right through Mary, causing no harm whatsoever. He leaves, and that just leaves the weird things Slig turned people into. Mary just concentrates and lightning comes out of her body and turns them back into people... naked people. Zatanna is worried now.

Piper & Trickster: Question and Batwoman want the duo's confession for killing Bart Allen. When they say they didn't do it, Question says to convince her. Trickster then takes out a pair of puppets and launches into an impromptu puppet show talking about how innocent they are. AWESOME. Piper is horrified. Batwoman is unamused. Question is convinced that they're innocent, because they're too stupid to be murderers. "Trust me, those two idiots couldn't kill time." Trickster officially rules and gets the MUST READ for this book by himself.

Jimmy Olsen: Mr. Action tries out for the Teen Titans. Robin is nonplussed, but attacks him anyway. But because Robin held back and didn't threaten his life, Jimmy's powers don't activate. D'oh.

Monitors: They note that Oracle stopped Calculator's virus, but that they can't find either Monitor Bob, Monitor Bob's party or Ray Palmer.

Apokolips: Darkseid is so upset about the Deep Six dying that he knocks over his Heroclix.

Dupin: Dupin?

All of this (except Dupin) and History of the Multiverse Chapter 12 wraps up the history with Evil Monitor getting more support for his killing ways, so Monitor Bob bails.

Green Arrow: Year One #3: CHECK IT. Look at those nice men here to rescue Ollie, greeting them with their friendly bullets. He can respond with some friendly arrows. They have a fight. Arrow wins. Particle Man. Ollie investigates where the plane lands and discovers the island he's on is a major heroin production facility. Would it be awful to try to point out which flower makes what goes in Speedy's arm later? Probably. Ollie also has a showdown with the "friend" who got him into this mess.

Green Lantern #22: MUST READ. Hal's trapped on Qward against Parallax and a bunch of Sinestro Corpsmen when a party of Green Lanterns come to his rescue. Because he needed a plot complication, it's the same ones who hate him because he "killed" them when he was Parallax. But they stick by their fellow GL. In the meantime, Superboy-Prime is looking at Earth with evil intentions, and the Cyborg Superman is promising to serve the Anti-Monitor in exchange for one thing: to be killed afterwards. Jack T. Chance sets a new record here for dying after being resurrected in a comic (about 10 issues or so) as the GL party escapes Parallax and the Sinestro Corpsmen and look for John and Guy.

JLA Classified #41: BURN IT. The Kid Amazo storyline, which I had such high hopes for, limps into the finish line. Kid Amazo visits professor Ivo to find out that while Amazo is his father, Ivo's daughter is his mother... and that would be.... his girlfriend Sara! Wha huh? Wait... what? So was Amazo anatomically correct and make it with this girl or something? This was dumb. And the way Kid Amazo is defeated fails to logical scrutiny as well. This one should have been left on the To Do list.

Outsiders: Five of a Kind #2 - Katana and Shazam: CHECK IT. There's trouble inside Katana's magical sword. Captain Marvel, with his enhanced power taking over the role of Shazam, senses it too, but he can't leave the Rock of Eternity. Katana decides the best way to handle it is to enter the sword herself. The way to do that is to die at the hand of the sword, so she commits seppuku. She futzes around in the sword for a bit before it turns out this wasn't the best idea. Batman ends up using this to determine who he wants as his mystical base on his Outsiders team between Katana and Marvel. Not to spoil anything, but I bet he picks the one that can *leave the Rock of Eternity* on a prolonged basis.

Marvel:

Amazing Spider-Girl #11: CHECK IT. Carnage has captured Peter and May's baby brother Ben, but seems to be rather schizophrenic about the whole matter, with one voice being his typically sociopathic self and one voice begging the other not to hurt anyone. Meanwhile, May has to find Carnage while being sought by SHIELD and its super powered team. Can Peter escape? Can May figure out who is inside Carnage and why?

Fantastic Five #3: CHECK IT. Doom can gloat. Gloat, gloat, gloat. He's good at that, you know. While he does that, it allows the members of the F5 (not Brock Lesnar's finisher) he hasn't captured to regroup and make their counterattack.But even a seeming victory will result in a surprise being revealed.... and an awful choice.

New Avengers #33: CHECK IT. After recent issues of finding out Elektra was replaced by a Skrull and having Spider-Woman walk away from the team with the corpse (seemingly to take it to Tony Stark), paranoia is high amongst the team that one of them is secretly a Skrull and they're all at each other's throats. If that weren't enough, continuity is actually being pesky, and Hot Naked Female Ultron is rampaging (though this team isn't going after her... ? Him? It? Dupin? Also, when heroes aren't fighting each other, there's villains, and some of them are trying to sell off Deathlok to each other. I actually had to check Wikipedia on this because I thought there was a continuity gaffe with Fantastic Four, where Deathlok was no longer a cyborg. I found out there's been four Deathloks. The one here is the first, Luther Manning. The one in FF is the third, Michael Collins.

New Avengers/Transformers #2: CHECK IT. The Avengers want to kill kill kill the Autobots, until Dr. Doom saves the day (?) with magic buttons that override the magic angry wave and make everyone feel better. After this, a lot of people introduce themselves, and in the big dome, Spider-Man heckles the Decepticons. Still, no one remembers he met them all before in Transformers #3. At the end, the true writer of the series I mentioned last issue of this shows up to save the day.

Punisher War Journal #10: PASS IT. Well, Frank finally decided to stop sitting around tied to a post while wearing the faux Captain America uniform. And it wasn't him that killed the innocent girl, it was a hate machine that the racists built which put hate into his head that *made* him do it. Uh... huh. Anyway, G.W. Bridge is the real hero of this story arc. Move along, nothing to see here.

Next time, we hit August 15th, 2007... and the man... the myth... the legend.... but not the Dupin (Dupin?)... and no, it's not me. Be sure to tune back for that.

Weird, I quote Carry On My Wayward Son last time, and then last night, I unlock the song on Guitar Hero II.

Looking forward to RAW tonight. That whole SaveUs campaign may have been drawn out for a long time, but it was very well done. Jericho got a response last night worthy of a main eventer. My question is would he have gotten that over if he hadn't left the company? It does show that he was correct in *not* going to TNA.

Not much else to say right now, but I do have comic reviews to get to, so let's get right into it with August 1st, 2007:

DC:

Action Comics #853: CHECK IT. As the story opens, every primate in the Metropolis Zoo is dead by what seems to be Kryptonite poisoning. The answer becomes immediately obvious as a Kryptonite monkey breaks the Kryptonite Man out of prison. Elsewhere, Jimmy reflects that his new superhero career as Mr. Action is tougher than it seems. Among his strange abilities, he knows who all the Robins were/are (explaining an early plot inconsistency I griped about in Countdown), he knows who Wonder Woman is, and he knows where seven of Lex Luthor's hidden labs are. But when he thinks about Superman, an image of Lois & Clark come to mind. Ha! When Clark hears about the Kryptonite Man, he leaves Jimmy to search and Jimmy does the same. Mr. Action finds the villain first and gets captured, breaking his signal watch. Superman finds the Kryptonite Man anyway. But in the closet where Jimmy is stowed, he begins constructing a new signal apparatus (with his hands behind his back, that's a nice trick). Who will his signal reach?

All New Atom #14: MUST READ. This one started solidly in CHECK IT territory and then veered toward awesome halfway through. Although Ryan welcoming Jason Todd, Donna Troy and Monitor Bob to the "City on the Edge of My Dog's (Butt)" was pretty funny. Here we get an alternate take on the start of the search for Ray Palmer, as we visit the home of the giant floating heads with weird verb tenses, and then find out Ray is in "Have In". Where we go awesome is a guest shot by Ted Kord. It's a minor spoiler to say no permanent consequences come of this issue, because everyone saw that coming anyway, but it's still cool. I also loved the message given for Booster and the League. Our heroes get a message of their own. Two lines of the book. Ryan: "Jetpack Hitler. Reality has finally jumped the shark." and Ted: "Well, all right. If anyone sees Max Lord? That %@$# is mine."

Black Canary #3: CHECK IT. Merlyn and The League of Assassins have grabbed Sin and Dinah is *pissed*. How pissed? She's threatening cops and even gives Ollie a martial arts throw when he says he "won't let her go off half cocked." Dinah ends up saving her evil ex's life from Merlyn and using him as bait to draw her out. When Merlyn reminds her that he's beaten Green Arrow, she reminds him that she has too. In the meantime, Green Arrow has been in contact with Oracle, who has found a cargo ship bound for Hong Kong that day. We end with just about the most obvious cliffhanger I've ever seen in a comic book.

Countdown #39: CHECK IT.

Karate Kid: Val and Una visit Oracle. They decide the best way to do so is break in at night. Val smashes through all of Oracle's fancy hardware even though she tries telling him she wants to be left alone. She knows about him, but she's busy. Call back and they can have an appointment. Sound advice, why didn't they at least *try* this? Finally Val breaks through the last of the barriers. Oracle says she really doesn't have time to help because she's battling a security breach and protecting the identities of every hero on Earth from being stolen. Oops.

Piper & Trickster: Penguin provides the duo with food and wine. But it's a trap (get out of my blog, Ackbar!) because the Suicide Squad (represented by Deadshot, Captain Boomerang Jr., Plastique and Bronze Tiger) are there to grab them. The duo manage to escape through Penguin's restaurant and bolt in the confusion. Piper manages to play a tune cloaking them in invisibility which throws the Suicide Squad off, but they end up confronted by The Question and Batwoman.

Donna Troy & Jason Todd: Donna, Jason, Ryan Choi & Monitor Bob are travelling through a weird sub-quantum space when Monitor Bob says he thinks they're being watched. That's literally all they do this week.

Jimmy Olsen: Mr. Action stops a mugger with elastic powers, and gets a kiss from the victim for his efforts. He ponders which super team he should join and decides on the Teen Titans, totally missing the mugger sneaking away.

Holly Robinson (but not THAT Holly Robinson): Harley tells Holly she's lucky to get an audience with Athena. Holly tells Harley she's gone from being a suckup to the Joker to a suckup to Athena. Harley says Holly was just a suckup to Catwoman. Girls! Neutral corners! Or lingerie! I forget which. Holly relates her concerns to Athena over the woman with a child rejected last issue. Athena says taking women with children would tax her resources, and recommends a self esteem class, so that Holly can see the benefits to her philosophy. Holly is dubious, but agrees.

All this and History of the Multiverse, Chapter Eleven reveals just why the Monitors are so worked up.

Detective Comics #835: CHECK IT. Being held in the general population of Arkham Asylum without access to his fear gas, the Scarecrow is assumed powerless, both by the Asylum and by his fellow inmates. He makes his escape via a method not thought of and begins a campaign of incitement of terror through randomness, anyone at anytime can be a victim and nobody's safe. Can Batman stop him if there's no pattern?

Justice Society of America #8: MUST READ. This is an issue so heavily focussed on Liberty Belle that it could have been an issue of JSA Classified. It also represents a very personal validation for Damage. I like both characters, but I'm not overboard a fan of either. I really liked this story though. The current Liberty Belle is Jessie Chambers, the daughter of former JSA Members Johnny Quick and the original Liberty Belle. Jessie herself was known as Jessie Quick before losing her speed. Her father (and she was a daddy's girl) was obsessed with pushing that potential in his daughter. She ended up seeing her mother's powers, and thus her mother as worthless. Now, she faces the villain she gave up her speed powers against, and it happens to be the same villain that scarred Damage's face, forcing him to wear a mask. Can they defeat him? Interesting note: According to page #1 of this issue, all previous issues of Justice Society have taken one day each in story time, as the entire seven previous issues have happened in a week.

Metal Men #1: PASS IT. I just don't know what to make of this. The Metal Men are favorites of mine, but these just don't feel like the Metal Men. Duncan Rouleau is not my favorite artist. His work here is a lot better than on the Black Alice Helmet of Fate Special (which admittedly some people really liked his work on), but the portraying the Metal Men as looking like 1950s or so robots just doesn't do much for me in 2007 and knowing they're, essentially, shapeshifters. Why would they choose to look like that? Plus, the writing has us jumping about from time period to time period and involving time travel as well, plus we have magic and a machine group entity. It just seemed a bit much to be throwing at us. I did like the introduction of the character Helen as the put upon girlfriend so gaga in love for Will Magnus that she puts up with how incredibly absent-minded she is. I could grow to appreciate Copper, the new (and 2nd female Metal Man unless you go really old school and count Nameless). I don't know though. Not an impressive effort here.

Nightwing #135: PASS IT. Nightwing doesn't actually make an appearance here. It's all Dick Grayson, captured for at least two days by the Vigilante, tied to a chair until he spills why he's with these criminals from his past again. Of course, he's not really with them, so he can't give any answers. All in all,  it feels like we're reading a few issues of just commercial for how tough Vigilante is. Of course, it doesn't spoil the story itself to spill a detail I've learned via the fact that this review is so late. This story never finishes up in the pages of Nightwing at all. If we want closure on the story, we have to read Vigilante #1.

Outsiders: Five of a Kind #1 - Nightwing and Boomerang: PASS IT. In a vacumn, it's a decent enough story, but sometimes comics don't happen in a vacumn. First off, much as I don't like spoiling endings with these reviews, it was spoiled as far back as July 18th with All-Flash #1 that Captain Boomerang, Jr. would be part of the new Suicide Squad. I can see why they did that, but it's ignoring the fact that Owen is not his father. George "Digger" Harkness was an utter sociopath. He was fun in Suicide Squad because he cared about nothing and nobody but himself, so you loved to hate him. Owen sought out Tim Drake's forgiveness for the incident that killed both their fathers. He helped Supergirl through a rough patch and seemed to genuinely care about her, despite getting the shaft in return. Secondly, it does seem the whole "sins of the father" thing came up way too quick for Owen in this story when he had proved himself and was in good standing. Lastly, I thought a big part of Infinite Crisis was to take Batman out of "manipulative jerk" mode and humanize him again. He was a complete and utter manipulative jerk here. When desires of other books trump good storylines, this is what you come up with.

Supergirl #20: CHECK IT. Amazons Attack crossover as Supergirl finally gets that her pathetically stupid "lets down Air Force One and kidnap the President so we can force him to talk to the Amazonian Queen" was pathetically stupid. After reviewing some scenes from that book, Supergirl heads to Washington, DC to fight some Amazons there and is damaged by an arrow she thus deduces is magic. A man there is less than amused by her presence as his wife was on Air Force One and for all he knows, she was the one casualty. Will he help Supergirl? Or kill her?

Marvel:

Fantastic Four #548: CHECK IT. The Frightful Four have Sue captured on Titan and think they've killed Reed, Ben, Johnny, T'Challa and Ororo by booby-trapping (Not a word, Ackbar!) their space cruiser to make an earth-shattering kaboom. But T'Challa suspected it was a trap (No, Ackbar.), so they tested it first and found that it was. Our heroes then show up in the backup space cruiser and the rest of the issue is basically a fight scene. It's a pretyt good fight scene, but a fight scene nonetheless.

New Avengers Illuminati #4: MUST READ. First off, the cover here is awesome, featuring in the typical poses of the Illuminati, the women who love them: Lilandra (Xavier), Susan Richards (Reed), Clea (Dr. Strange), Medusa (Black Bolt) and Madame Masque (whom Iron Man apparently once slept with). Strange revealing that Clea has left him to rule the Dark Dimension leads to a patently hilarious conversation between the group over women. However, the main thrust of the issue is about Noh-Varr, a Kree who has declared war on Earth, and the group's attempts to get him to become Captain Marvel's successor instead. Too many lines of the book to mention, especially in the first part.

New Warriors #3: CHECK IT. The two officers checking out the New Warriors make the discovery that no body was recovered for Night Thrasher only a scrap of uniform. Meanwhile, the New Warriors continue to train, using the villain Arcade's old Murderworld as a Danger Room after some conversion. Sofia tells Jubilee no (and in a couple of panels seems to be staring directly at Jubilee's chest). The New Warriors also respond to Tony Stark's offer of "Amnesty If You Join Us" from last issue by spray painting "Stark's Hopeless Initiative Empowers Losers & Dorks". It's just so immature, it's worth a chuckle. The supposedly late Night Thrasher's brother (who is supposedly handicapped now) says that after his brother's supposed death, he got a call demanding money. He refused, but money was withdrawn anyway, and only he and his brother knew the codes. Jubilee gets a visit from her most famous friend (and he didn't even appear on the cover!) And the officers find what they were looking for.

Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four #4: CHECK IT. As we wrap up this mini, the calvalry arrives in more ways than one. Reed Richards returns from checking out other planets the H'Mojen have colonized and Spider-Man vomits up the entire race of the Impossible Man (which is no mean trick). However, in their own way, the Poppupians could be just as big a threat as the H'Mojen. Can our heroes find a way to save Earth from both threats?

Thor #2: CHECK IT. Now that Thor's back, he needs a crib, so he re-establishes Asgard. But you can't just establish Asgard in the middle of somebody's cornfield. The way this all gets resolved is great, but I can't give it a higher grade because nothing more happens than this.

World War Hulk #3: CHECK IT. General Ross has a plan! Bullets! When they don't work, more bullets! When they don't work... aw, you see where I'm going with it. It doesn't work. Shooting Hulk doesn't even work while Dr. Strange is talking to him in his head mystically, but Hulk smashes his hands (how?) for trying. The President appeals to Sentry, who ignores them. In the meantime, Hulk (AND HIS POSSE!) decide they have to play GOTTA CATCH EM ALL with the Marvel heroes and then battle them once they do. Rick Jones is trying to talk sense to the nobody that will listen all issue. But Dr. Strange has a special plan....

Though my eyes could see, I still was a blind man.
Though my mind could think, I still was a mad man.

And if I claim to be a wise man, then it surely means that I don't know.

If you pay attention to such things, and happen to see entries missing or altered, don't mind it, just doing a little housekeeping. I've always been of the mind that this is a living blog, and putting things the way they should be is much more important than preserving everything forever in amber. I know I've made mistakes, they don't need to be here forever.

Been having a lot of fun lately with the latest patch for World of Warcraft, 2.3. The biggest two changes in it were two things designed to help characters below level 60 level faster. Between level 20-60, the amount of experience needed to level went down by 15% per level. Between 30-60, the amount of experience granted by quests has gone up. These two improvements actually have some synergy with each other, since you are doing more rewarding quests towards a lower experience point requirement to level.

So Sapsinger, Kelra, Morsh and Iridiscia can all take advantage of both improvements. Flamebeard, Humansbane, Stormwindspy and Traitor benefit only from the level XP decrease. Kalrena, Muucau and Ilp need to level some more before taking advantage of either improvement. Boffo is already at maximum level. And, I do find it cool that I got someone to maximum under the old system.

As well, a new town full of quests helps out the late 30s-early 40s range for questing, which didn't help Iridiscia or Kelra, but Sapsinger is getting right into the right area. Plus many quests which formerly targeted elites and were thus group quests have had those elites turned into non-elites, making them solo quests, which has really helped with the number of quests available.

If anyone out there is following my Pokemon exploits, you might be interested to know that it suddenly has become a lot more possible for DarkHelm and I to "catch them all". Certain Pokemon were flat out unavailable to obtain in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. These were the Starters and the Legendaries of Generations 1-3. Some of these were easy to get through alternate means. DarkHelm and I got Fire Red and Leaf Green which got us the Generation 1 Starters (Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charmander and the Pokemon they evolve to) as well as a copy of Pokemon Emerald for each of us (which covered Generation 3). Some were going to be problematic. There is no Generation 2 game playable on the DS, so the only way to get those starters is to complete the Pokedex in Emerald, which would get you one of the three starters. Also, a few of the Legendaries are ones that we would have had to go to some event in the past.

Now, there is a Global Trade System in the game, but as I may have mentioned before, you can only use it to trade for a Pokemon if you've unlocked it in your Pokedex first. We've found a way to unlock all of these Legendaries and Gen 2 Starters in the Pokedex. The only Legendaries that are still locked are the ones still not officially announced in America, Darkrai, Shaymin and Arceus. (BTW, no, this really isn't some game trick. We basically found someone who traded versions of these to us. No, we're not willing to do the same.) As of right now, without these three, there are 490 different Pokemon in the game. I have encountered 462 and have owned 453 of those.

I caught the tail end of "White Christmas" tonight. They were singing the song. It occurred to me that I've had 33 Christmases. I don't remember all of them, but as far as I know, precisely zero of them were the least bit "white".

Though I'm not completely a humbug. I did hang up my stocking Wednesday night. This is my *original* stocking. My name was sewn into it when I was a baby by my late greatgrandmother. This thing is an heirloom as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, with no further ado, and long overdue, I present Comic Reviews for July 25th, 2007:

DC:

All Star Batman and Robin #6: CHECK IT. This series continues to be a car wreck, but it's one of those car wrecks you really can't turn away from. Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) is on the cover, but she's not the main attraction here. Black Canary is the one getting herself involved in Batman's life (and having no compunctions against taking money from the criminals she beats up to help her friends pay rent, comparing herself to Robin Hood). The GD Batman, meanwhile, is up to his usual tricks. Amongst other things, he kicks in the windshield of a "rotten" cop, urging him to "Eat glass, lawman!" The GD Batman is not well.

Batman #666: CHECK IT. But just barely above a PASS IT. Because of the number of the issue, we take a trip to the future where Bruce's son Damian is now Batman, and the only other familiar character is police commissioner Barbara Gordon. Our villain is another Batman who is apparently the son of Satan (uh... huh) who has plans to usher in the apocalpyse but still seems to have human vulnerabilities. Potential gives it a CHECK IT, but pushing too much into a single normal sized issue hurt it.

Blue Beetle #17: MUST READ. Eleven words: "Are you going to fight the giant naked bad man now?" How can you go wrong with an opening like that? Jaime matches up against former Firestorm villain Typhoon in this issue, causing him to have to worry about having to save the innocent civilians in a town. Unfortunately, the only building safe enough to act as a shelter is a new hotel and the snooty manager won't let them in. I actually laughed out loud at the solution Jaime pulled off to this dilemma. The ending here is also very good. Plus, the fact that we're actually namechecking Ted Kord regularly as an important influence to Jaime is very nice in this book as well.

Countdown #40: CHECK IT.

Donna Troy & Jason Todd: With Ryan Choi and Monitor Bob, they're checking the subatomic "Palmerverse" for Ray Palmer. They are surrounded by natives who are offended by Ryan's Atom costume and attack. When Jason threatens one of them to "make [his] nose bleed out the back of [his] skull", the aliens become friendly and say he was looking for powerful magic to undo the doom that had befallen him, and that there was a realm beyond that where all things were possible.

Jimmy Olsen: Lois investigates a Mr. Action sighting. She comments that all the good names must have been taken. Jimmy shows up late saying he had to stop for film, but Lois remembers that he had recently gone digital.

Mary Marvel: Mary sneaks aboard a cruise ship where Zatanna is performing. When a guy is heckling Zatanna, Mary thinks of dumping him overboard, Zatanna senses the "major anger" and resolves to get to Mary quick. On a personal note, both up to this point, and in the future to now, they've given very little good reason why the formerly pure as snow Mary is going *this* evil.

Holly Robinson (but not that Holly Robinson... RIP Major Spoilers :( ): Holly is very disturbed when she sees Harley refuse to take a woman for the shelter simply because the woman has a child. Harley's only explanation is that that's Athena's rule. Holly says she'll talk to her about it.

Apokolips: While reviewing Parademons, Darkseid seems introspective. Desaad gets out of dodge. He comments that he wishes his sons would be as obedient as the Parademons. The concubine with Darkdseid comments on this, and gets zapped with the Omega Effect for her troubles. Desaad comes back and Darkseid orders that his next concubine have her vocal cords removed. In the meantime, someone in red and white armor is spying on the proceedings, noting that there's nothing out of the ordinary pointing to Darkseid being behind Lightray's murder.

Piper & Trickster: The duo have gone to the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge for help. He very reluctantly agrees to put them up for one night in his wine cellar to maintain plausible deniability. But overhearing their whole conversation is Oracle, who routes it to The Question.

All of this and History of the Multiverse Chapter Ten talks about the nature of the new Multiverse. Monitor Bob is the Monitor of New Earth, and of the 52 Monitors, each is a Monitor of one of the Earths... I'm calling that the Monitor who keeps pushing for killing everyone is the Monitor of Earth-3 and is thus evil.

Green Arrow: Year One #2: MUST READ. Thrown overboard and left for dead by his friend Hackett last issue, millionaire alcoholic wastrel Oliver Queen washes ashore on a seemingly deserted island with no food or water except for what he can salvage and begins his personal redemption. In addition to staying alive, he has to worry about more and more signs that something very very wrong happened on this island, and when he spots a plane, it might not be rescue they have in mind.

Green Lantern Corps #14: MUST READ. This storyline continues its excellent run. The main storyline here is Soranik Natu is on her planet, trying to calm things down because in her efforts to get people to accept her as a Green Lantern after Sinestro, a few people want her to be a new Sinestro. And wouldn't you know it, the old Sinestro shows up. But is his plan to win? And what could that mean? And readers of a certain famous Alan Moore Green Lantern story that I'll go into when I talk about the next issue of this might be intrigued to note that the Corps has amongst its new recruits a Daxamite named Sodam Yat. I'm sure he won't be important... especially in the next issue: The Battle of Mogo!

JSA Classified #28: CHECK IT. Spotlight on Jakeem Thunder as he investigates a question Superman's looked into before (and other heroes I'm sure), "Why can't we be everywhere at once?" At first, it seems like a good idea to rebuild homes for people who have lost theirs, but once he becomes a free wish service, everybody wants something.

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #32: CHECK IT. Close to a PASS IT for an exposition heavy issue. We keep almost all our focus on Winath where Star Boy, Sun Boy and Mekt Ranzz have been met at the Ranzz farm on Winath by Tenzil Kem, special UP investigator, currently searching for Cosmic Boy, as the UP suspects him of the war crime of destroying the Dominator homeworld. That discussion quickly gets tabled as its discovered that the farm seems deserted. When they come across a Validus grafitti underground, Mekt freaks. Apparently, in this reboot, Validus is a mythical lightning god, and Mekt used to belong to his cult. Looking for him on Korbal and being followed by his siblings led to all three of them getting their powers. My favorite bit is that Tenzil Kem is trapped in a wheat silo, buried under the wheat and left for dead. I'm sure that will work. There's a bit of a twist at the end.

Superman #665: CHECK IT. Basically, what we have here is the Secret Origin of Jimmy Olsen. Because YOU demanded it. Well, someone did. I know it wasn't me. Anyway, he brought himself to Perry White's attention, first by selling left over papers from his paper route on the street corner, then helping around the loading dock to get a leg up on his three routes. When Perry asks Clark to check on it, Clark finds out Jimmy has seven routes, and is paid in cash... and lives in the building. Jimmy runs for it, but Clark tracks him down as Superman and convinces him to talk to Perry and Clark, who find out he was on the run after mobsters gunned down the neighbor who was watching him over accounting books that could incriminate them. Interesting enough if you like Jimmy.

Teen Titans #49: PASS IT. First off, nothing that deals with this disgusting business of interning women who happen to have connections to the Amazons is going to earn a higher grade than this, but this was close to a CHECK IT besides that point. For one, Ravager was repeatedly pointing out just how stupid the United States was the first time they did something like this and that they're even stupider to do it again in DC continuity, even pointing out to the female camp head that she should be interned since these women's only crime was being a woman. Secondly, even though I don't like to spoil endings... let's just say there's a reason Superman's cool. That said, this book does contain an Army Major firing at an unarmed woman without giving her any kind of warning when the woman is doing nothing more than escaping. Also the brilliant Amazons decide the best way to help the women is to attack the train they are on until it jumps the tracks. Brilliant!

Wonder Woman #11: CHECK IT. We're still crossing over from Amazons Attack here. Just like in issue #4 of that, Diana offers to let Hippolyta kill her or cancel the whole war, and Superman cancels the offer. He says she needs to get magic bee antidote from Themyscira for Nemesis. I think Wal-Mart has that on sale. Or does he just need magic adrenaline? In the meantime, other heroes try to cancel the launch of the nuclear missiles at Themyscira only to be thwarted when the owners of the room forgot to pay its non-melting bill. When the missile materializes with Themyscira in the realm of the Gods, Diana tries to stop it only to discover it has snakes instead of wiring. Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? Who can she ask for help? And will they want to help?

Marvel:

Amazing Spider-Man #542: MUST READ. Spidey and Kingpin in final battle over Kingpin's ordering of the hit that ended up hurting Aunt May. But after Spidey dances around him for a while, he tells Kingpin that he knows why Kingpin's confused. Because Spider-Man's not here to kill Kingpin. Peter Parker takes off the mask and says "I am." And it's on like neckbone! Will Peter kill Kingpin? For as much as external continuity ruined this story, I applauded the way this issue handled it.

Fantastic Five #2: CHECK IT. This issue starts on a classic Fantastic Four riff. Some schism within the team has left them divided, but when a crisis hits (in this case, Dr. Doom re-emerging with the Power Cosmic), the argument is forgotten and our heroes band together again like nothing happened. For the most part, the issue is a massive a fight scene, but it is broken up a bit by plot developments, and some flashbacks as Ben is trying to get out of the trap Doom left him last issue. A recent issue of Amazing Spider-Girl confirmed that, indeed, this is within that same continuity.

Mighty Avengers #4: CHECK IT. We're still fighting Hot Naked Female Ultron (which is making a mess of continuity since we have 4 issues now where Tony is "dead" where he's clearly alive in other stories). The writing in this book includes occassional "passing thought" balloons along with dialogue, thoughts which really don't advance the story, but thoughts you or I might have in passing. I don't know if I like it or not. The characters are also quite potty mouthed for a comic (all symbol-ed out, of course). Tony's robot reveals how Ultron is controlling the weather, so that gets neutralized... so Ultron reveals... plan B.

Sensational Spider-Man #39: CHECK IT. As Madame Webb holds a seance for Peter to get in touch with Aunt May's spirit (even though she's not dead), cancer-stricken Eddie Brock (who's hallucinating and hearing Venom, who is urging him to kill Aunt May) has donned a replica of his old costume and killed a nurse, and is preparing to follow through on his hallucination/former symbiont's advice. Can Peter stop him in time?

Spider-Man Fairy Tales #3: CHECK IT. This time, we're hitting Japanese fairy tales (I think). Izumi is a boy raised by his aunt and uncle after his parents were killed by demons 13 years ago. The demons force the family to lock the gate of the fence outside their house every night. One night, Izumi goes out to kill the demons, but leaves the gate open. He fails miserably, and the demon injects him with his venom, leaves him to be transformed into one of them, kills his uncle and kidnaps his aunt. Can he save his aunt, and thus save himself from being transformed into one of the demons?

Next time, I hope is fairly soon and I can continue catching up.

No comic reviews for today, but I have a lot of other stuff on tap.

First, since this is the first blog of the month, I have to cover the blog visitation stats for the last month. Again excluding my home county, my blog got 102 visits for the month of October. For a 31 day month as October obviously is, that averages out to 3.29 hits per day. That's a notable decrease, but again, I didn't post much. The interesting thing to me is just how varied the activity was. At least 24 states came for at least 1 visit each, and foreign visitors included those from Canada, the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Lithuania, Indonesia, Argentina, Croatia, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland and Hungary.

I actually have a theory on what's causing all that. I post sporadically on the very busy official World of Warcraft forums and my signature on the forums has a link to my WoW Realm page. Maybe a lot of these foreign visitors are following it to the page and then from there coming out to the main page.

Speaking of WoW, that allows me to segue into another bit of news. I mentioned before that WoW was bringing in paid name change services. That's gone to all realms and I have taken advantage of it. From here on in, my (currently) level 47 female Human Paladin is known as Kelra. (you can hit the link for more details on the name). Her former name was no longer appropriate, so I took advantage of the service to move on with a new one.

Next week, the long awaited 2.3 patch is scheduled to come in. Among a lot of other improvement, it's supposed to make leveling characters below level 60 significantly easier. so Kelra, as well as Iridiscia, Sapsinger and the rest might be able to join Boffo in the upper level reaches.

Sutton actually gave me an idea of what I wanted to look at in this entry. The Wal-Mart $5 DVD bin (formerly known as the $5.50 bin) has actually been a pretty wonderful thing. Sure, there's a lot of crap in it, but I've managed to get a lot of treasure out of it as well.

* Airplane II: The Sequel: Now the creators of the original movie had nothing to do with this and refuse to even see it, but it's still a quality spoof movie with a lot of laughs. And it's worth seeing on DVD to get the jokes that get butchered by TV editing. That said, it's not for mixed company.

* The Batman-Superman Movie: Originally a 5 part story arc on Superman: The Animated Series (I believe), this Batman and Superman team up against the Joker and Lex Luthor has a ton of classic moments. You will love Harley Quinn and Mercy Graves beating the snot out of each other as Joker and Lex calmly talk at one point. A definite must for any fan of the DC Animated Universe.

* Batman: The Movie (1966): Clearly the awesomest awesome that ever awesomed. The version I got came with commentary by Adam West and Burt Ward that will just have you laughing throughout the entire movie. Parts of this were filmed not that far from where I live too.

* Booker T : The Early Years/Superstars of Yesteryear: A two disc set, each disc is an hour. Basically scraping for what little wrestling there is out there that Vince McMahon doesn't own. The Booker T set is mainly GWF stuff. The Superstars of Yesteryear is a hodgepodge of random. There's a Curt Hennig vs Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA Title match. There's Ted DiBiase & Steve Williams vs. the Freebirds match that is clearly cut off after a 2 count is sold to us as the end of the match. The lowlight is an interview that goes "What was it like working with Eddie Gilbert?" "Oh yeah, Eddie's great. Please come to my wrestling school and museum. Please? PLEASE?!"

* Cactus Jack: The Early Years/Steve Austin: The Early Years: Same concept and makers as the last set. A lot of the matches on the Cactus set are talked about in his book Have A Nice Day. I'm guessing they're from WCCW. The Austin set I'm guessing is also from WCCW. A couple of interesting notes there: Austin made his pro debut jobbing out to "The Punisher" (this match is included), who would later become The Undertaker, and a lot of Austin's feud with Chris Adams is included. Adams trained Austin and Austin ended up marrying Adams' ex wife. This is why Austin's kids have British accents (she's British, like Adams).

* Dudley Do-Right: You know, the funny thing was, I really didn't like this one in the theaters. Didn't think it was as funny as George of the Jungle (which it would be comparable to being a cartoon based movie with the same star). But after I got the DVD figuring why not for that price, it really grew on me. I also think it ironic that Snidely Whiplash and Dr. Octopus are the same actor.

* Escape from L.A.: Haven't watched the DVD yet, but I've seen it on Sci Fi channel a few times... fun movie.

* Fairly Odd-Parents: Channel Chasers; School's Out: The Musical; Superhero Spectacular: (Each a separate $5.50 DVD) If any of you out there were fans of Animaniacs and its style of writing, then I can't recommend the Fairly Odd-Parents highly enough. It has that same style of inserting a lot of jokes that only adults would get but they fly right over the radar of kids. Channel Chasers is a TV movie where Timmy wishes he could enter TV, and his evil babysitter Vicky gets ahold of one of the remotes that lets him do that. School's Out is another one where Timmy has to foil a plot by the Pixies (voiced by Ben Stein in speech but oddly by Method Man and Redman in song) to deprive him of his fairies and essentially take over the world. Superhero Spectacular is a collection of superhero themed episodes. Jay Leno as "The Crimson Chin" and Adam West as the TV actor who formerly portrayed "Catman" are notable guest stars.

* Hot Shots!: I once got Hot Shots! out of this bin but it was replaced by a two pack of it and its sequel for $10 and I gave the original away. You really can't get the sequel elsewhere anymore. Done by the guys who worked with the Zucker brothers, just without the Zuckers themselves, this Top Gun based spoof is very funny stuff.

* The Karate Kid: Haven't seen the DVD yet, but then again, who hasn't seen this movie?

* Major League II: Suffers a bit from "plot reset syndrome" as I call it (despite all the success achieved in the first movie, by the time of the 2nd movie or by the middle of it, the characters find themselves completely down and out again), but still an enjoyable movie. Eventually I'll get the first one to go with this.

* Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Laugh if you must. One of my cousins was a big fan of the show. When this movie came out, I volunteered to take him to it if his parents didn't want to. They took me up on the offer, but I got a friend along with us. Packed theater. I threatened the kids that if they didn't behave, I was going to tie them up and make them watch Steel Magnolias. A guy in front of me thought that was funny and suggested Fried Green Tomatoes as well. Line of the movie: "...I'm a frog."

* The Muppets Take Manhattan: Can't go wrong with the Muppets. This isn't the best Muppet movie, but it's far from the worst too.

* Total Recall: Interesting little sci fi movie. Pleasant enough diversion for $5.50.

* WWE: Shawn Michaels: Boyhood Dream: A Colliseum Home Video re-release. It seems like the idea was to do a video on a top superstar for a near yearly chunk. This covers Shawn Michaels from Wrestlemania XII to Royal Rumble 1997. As such, it has a lot of matches that I don't have elsewhere (though that may change if I ever get the From The Vault set or the upcoming Shawn set). Longtime fans will get a laugh as the video ends with narrator Michaels Hayes urging us that Shawn needs our support more than ever as he continues as WWE Champion, given that he would "lose his smile" very shortly after this (the airdate of that was my 24th birthday as a matter of fact).

* WWE: The Undertaker: He Buries Them Alive: Same kind of concept of the "yearly chunk on a top star" on this Colliseum re-release, though a much shorter duration. This covers The Undertaker between Summerslam (vs. fake Undertaker) and Survivor Series (vs. Yokozuna in a casket match with Chuck Norris as enforcer ref) of 1994 and throws in some background on the Royal Rumble match with Yokozuna to set the whole story up, as well as a RAW match with Kwang (my only video appearance of Kwang), what seems to be a Superstars of Wrestling match with Jim Neidhart and a TV Taping dark match with Jerry Lawler that was also a casket match. I can only figure they were in Memphis. It actually fits in very nicely with the Undertaker 3 disc set Tombstone since that has the Royal Rumble 1994 match with Yokozuna where 10 heels interfere, then jumps straight to Wrestlemania XII vs Diesel in 1996, so there's no overlap, and it actually finishes off the hanging plot point.

So yeah, don't eschew the "bargain" bin. You might just find a buried treasure. And I even left off stuff that I paid full price for and then found in the bin later, like A Knight's Tale and Not Another Teen Movie.

Anyway, hopefully I'll have some comic reviewery for you next time.

Not too much going on so far today. In Pokemon, I'm currently pursuing the strategy of converting my trading assets into Pikachus and then trading the Pikachus. Never underestimate the trading power of a Pikachu. I've seen two phenomenal trades with them. I've traded a level 18 Pikachu just captured from the Trophy Garden for a Shiny Level 100 Garchomp (not that shiny Garchomps look all that different from regular ones). DarkHelm traded a level 3 Pikachu he imported from Fire Red for a Shiny Level 100 Charizard (the shiny Charizards are cool. They're black.)

With RAW on tonight, I am glad that Candice Michelle is not hurt more seriously than she was. With the way she went down, I was worried that was a definite neck or head injury. A collarbone injury is actually a stroke of luck here.

With that out of the way, let's move on to some Comic Reviewery. We were up to July 18th, 2007:

DC:

Action Comics #852: CHECK IT. Because the readers DEMANDED a pulse pounding crossover of the scene from Countdown where Jimmy designs costumes and Lois urges him not to quit his day job. They also demanded the origin of Jimmy's signal watch. Plus, the Kryptonite Man requesting to be allowed to continue to do scientific work (that was a lot of inifinitives) is about all that happens here.)

All Flash #1: MUST READ. Wally's back and he's not at all happy about what happened to Bart as one might expect. It turns out that Bart was killed shortly before Wally and his family reappeared and just when the flashbacks stop and the story begins, Wally has just located Inertia, Bart's evil clone from the future who was the main lynchpin in the plot. How will Wally react to his cousin's killer... with his cousin's face? This issue also scores bonus points for the title name out of the annals of DC publishing history.

Amazons Attack #4: PASS IT. As the issue opens, Diana has just offered her mother the ultimatum that if she really wants to continue with all this killing, her mother will have to kill her. She exposes her throat to her mother's sword. Superman decides to fly in and carry Diana off instead. Jerk. In the meantime, Wonder Girl and Supergirl are carrying out their brilliant plan of last issue: to force down Air Force One and take the President to Hippolyta (Wonder Woman's mother) so they can "discuss peace". Of course, neither side calls the war off in the middle of this idiocy, so despite Superman speechifying, it fails to turn out well. In the midst of all this, someone who was supposed to be dead turns up annoyingly not so. What saves this from BURN IT is that there's nothing about putting innocent women in concentration camps in here.

Birds of Prey #108: MUST HAVE. After some exposition finishing off the Secret Six's story, it's time to settle this thing between Spy Smasher and Oracle. When she arrives back at the tower, Barbara is waiting for her wearing a Batgirl T-shirt and challenging her to a duel for control of her operation. When Spy Smasher tries to refuse, Manhunter shocks her in the legs and Huntress takes her guns to even things up... and it's on. When the narration reads "Spy Smasher? Meet Batgirl." If you don't cheer a bit inside, you're not a comics fan. Also features every single operative that has ever assisted the Birds of Prey (excluding for obvious reasons the late, great Ted Kord) in another moment that will have you cheering. This is Gail Simone's last issue on the title, and she will be missed.

Black Canary #2: CHECK IT. Dinah's ex husband has helped find a private school that will take Sin, but it turns out it's all a plot (IT'S A TRAP! </ackbar>) by Merlyn and the League of Assassins. The League just wants "the next Shiva" back since neither Talia Al Ghul or Cassandra Cain (formerly the most recent Batgirl) have been ideal leaders. Merlyn is just obsessed with hurting Green Arrow. Will they succeed in capturing Sin?

Brave and the Bold #5: MUST READ. This series is pretty fun. This issue, it's Batman and The Legion of Super Heroes. We even get a helpful continuity note that it takes place before the JLA/JSA crossover The Lightning Saga: This is important because the Legion in this issue is the Legion currently depicted in Supergirl & The Legion of Super-Heroes, rather than the Pre-Crisis-esque Legion depicted in that crossover. They've separated him from Tharok, This issue is largely a pretty fun romp of Batman running loose on 30th Century Earth despite all the advantages the Legion would hold over him there. Also, Supergirl is having fun on Rann with Hal Jordan and Adam Strange, having discovered that her powers are supercharged under Rann's triple sun.

Checkmate #16: CHECK IT. A bit of fan service for this issue. We find out the reasoning as to why Mr. Terrific and Sasha got together, and it's actually a pretty genius reason. Plus, we have some continuity as you might reason that certain recent events in Birds of Prey would be very interesting to one member over in Checkmate, and indeed we get a reunion of two best friends that would make any old JLI fan happy. I'm still waiting for the reunion once Guy Gardner is permanently assigned to Earth, but that's a subject for a different review. In addition, Checkmate gets a new bishop that makes Sasha very unhappy, and there could be even more trouble on the horizon.

Countdown #41: CHECK IT. Trickster and Piper: Finding themselves falling from the sky, Trickster luckily managed to grab a bag with their stuff in it on the way out. Piper uses his flute to slow their descent enough to survive. Unfortunately for them, they find themselves in Gotham City. Trickster says to calm down, he knows a guy who can help them.

Jimmy Olsen: Jimmy designs a costume and wears it to work under his suit. Unfortunately for him, the AC is broken.

Mary Marvel: Mary ponders that she was violent and that she needs a mentor. Someone looks on at her in a black gem. Filler page.

Donna Troy and Jason Todd: Donna decides to thank the new Atom for coming with them. Jason Todd decides to call the Monitor Bob.

Holly Robinson: As the girls at the shelter view TV updates on the war, a protest group forms. Harley decides to go reason with them. Can you spot the fundamental problem with the last sentence?

Karate Kid: As the pre-Crisis-esque Legion are going home after The Lightning Saga, Triplicate Girl comes back out of the Future Portal and tells Karate Kid that Brainy said he couldn't go back home... and that she's actually just one of Triplicate Girls' selves. Call her Una. Call me Ishmael.

All this, plus History of the Multiverse Chapter Nine covers 52 in 4 pages.

Justice League of America #11: CHECK IT. Red Arrow and Vixen are trapped in a collapsed building. Ordinarily, it would be mere child's play for Vixen to shift to having an elephant's strength and get out, but what secret has Vixen been hiding? And how will they get out?

Robin #164: CHECK IT. Dodge is back, and he's still carrying a grudge against Robin, feeling like Robin stopped him from some grand and glorious destiny of heroism. So he's putting together a squad of villains to take Robin out. As well, Tim gets an invitation to join the tennis team.

Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil #4: CHECK IT. It's up to Billy to save Mary and the world from both Sivana and Mr. Mind as this new origin mini wraps up. The whole particulars are a little hard to follow, but it's still an enjoyable read. Quote of the book: "Mary - - please stop climbing on the seven deadly enemies of man. Thank you." Some complained about this series being political, but other than having a character who happened to be in a political position (attorney general) turn out to be evil, I just don't see it. By that logic, Shakespeare is political.

Superman/Batman #38: CHECK IT. As Superman continues to experience bizarre fears, the Scarecrow seems to be responsible, but who could be boosting his abilities to the point where he can affect Superman? Plus Batman tracks down a case involving a Luthor device that uses Kryptonian technology and a villain who can defeat Croc. And the two cases seem connected.

Marvel:

Avengers: The Initiative #4: CHECK IT. As we start off, Hardball is stealing a cartridge of the power robbing nanites known as SPINTech and handing it over to a man promising to eliminate his financial problems. Cloud 9 and Justice go to MVP's house and find... MVP! But then the alert for the Hulk comes in. Will the Initiative be content with just working crowd control?

Captain America #28: CHECK IT. A lot of jumping about this issue as we check in on everybody. Red Skull's forces are up to no good. The Winter Bucky wants to find them and still wants to kill Tony. Falcon, Sharon and Nick Fury want to find the Winter Bucky. And Tony gets a letter with some last wishes of Steve Rogers. They make him not a happy Tony. The issue felt a little exposition heavy, but still decent.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #22: CHECK IT. The final battle between Ero and Spider-Man. Can Spider-Man and Flash stop Ero from using either of them to reproduce millions of evil spider babies? Would you believe... Betty Brant to the rescue? You have to love the way the villain is defeated here. And next issue... Spidey vs. JJ?! Quote of the book: "Lady, you are one twisted sister, you know that? I admit, on occassion, I've found that attractive in a woman. Yes, Felicia, wherever you are, I mean you."

The Order #1: CHECK IT. The whole idea behind the Initiative was that each state would gets its own superhero team. (Does Rhode Island really need a whole team? Especially with so many other states with their own teams in close proximity?) The Order is California's team. A guy who isn't Evil Tony Stark but played one on TV is the leader. A cybernetic looking Pepper Potts is Marvel's ripoff of Oracle. You also get to see Tony Stark make one of the most hypocritical decisions ever.

Yes, again.

World War Hulk #2: CHECK IT. Hulk Smash! Hulk has a posse. She-Hulk tries to reason with Hulk. Hulk Smash! It's Sentry. No, it's Puny Richards! Hulk Sma-... Invisible Woman tries to reason with Hulk. Hulk Smash! Sentry pout. Rick Jones tries to reason with Hulk. Now some Ross guy who has no bias on the Hulk matter will take over. Decent stuff if you don't mind prolonged fight scenes. Quote of the book: Invisible Woman: "You... you don't have to do this. I know you, Bruce... you're not a -- monster!" Hulk (smashing Mr. Fantastic): "I know. He is."

When next we hit comic reviews, we'll be finishing up July... and I know that's exactly what you're thinking about right now.

No comic reviews yet for now. I hope to have some for a later stand alone entry tonight so I can start making some positive progress against my backlog. Plus, does anyone read these big long entries?

In any event, I may have not been completely clear with a thought reading over yesterday's entry. The odd thing about a section called "Paying The Price" on the Ladder Match DVD is that it's done by Benoit. And knowing what we know now... just seems a little... spooky is all. Maybe I'm just morbid.

The time spent updating my Wrestling Match Database got me thinking as to what exactly I'd like to have if I had the know-how as to how to put a project like this together. Let me preface this whole pitch by saying... I don't. Or at least it doesn't seem like I have software that makes it possible. OpenOffice.org has a Database as part of its suite of applications, but it doesn't seem adaptible in the way I want.

The first thing I would need to do is take the work I have so far and use it to compile a list of wrestlers that I have matches of. This is quite do-able, but it's made a slightly bigger deal by the idea that wrestlers tend to use multiple names throughout their career. For example, the first match on the Ladder Match DVD is Jake Roberts vs. Big Daddy Ritter. I recognized instantly that Roberts would be the same wrestler that would be later known as Jake "The Snake" Roberts, but even though I knew The Junkyard Dog's real name to be Sylvester Ritter, having not watched the DVD yet (I'm drowning in Sliders!), I didn't make the connection that Big Daddy was the Dog.

For purposes of this list, I would list people by the primary name under which I have matches by them under, and include aliases. Aliases will include tag teams in which the tag team had a unit name instead of "Wrestler X & Wrestler Y". Already, off the top of my head, I can see this could lead to some interesting things on the list.

• Even though Kevin Nash is far more popular now for wrestling under his own name than Diesel or any other persona, I do not own any matches where he wrestled as Kevin Nash (given that I own no TNA, have little WCW except for those who came from WCW to WWE and made it big, and don't own an NWO DVD, this isn't surprising). On the other hand, I have 2 Diesel matches on DVD, so he'd be listed as Diesel.
• Similarly, even though the late Brian Adams is more famous for wrestling under his real name, I only have one match where he wrestled as Brian Adams on DVD. Therefore, he would be listed as Crush, with aliases of Demolition (with Smash) and Kronik (as Brian Adams, with Bryan Clarke).
• Matt Hardy would be listed as himself, but with aliases including The Hardy Boyz (with Jeff Hardy) and The New Brood (with Jeff Hardy). If I ever get a Hardy Boyz DVD, I could end up with a Jynx Brothers with Jeff alias too.

Once I have this wrestler list, it makes a nice convenient drop down list for a field "Wrestler Name" for the Match Database itself. Ideally, the "form" for each match would have 30 fields for wrestler names (fortunately, I do not have any of the 60 man World War III Events WCW ran, but could easily alter the form if I did), with two of the 30 fields being mandatory. Each field should be equal in importance. Whether I'm discussing a John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels match on April 1st, 2007, or a Shawn Michaels vs. John Cena match on April 1st, 2007, if the two men only had one match on that day, I must be talking about the same match. And it's just as much as John Cena match as it is a Shawn Michaels match and vice versa. It needs to come up in any queries for either. And the 30 Man Royal Rumbles are a match for any participant involved, whether you were thrown out in 8 seconds or won. I'm still deciding whether billed to appear and failing to do so should mean be counted as participation. In the case of the 2004 Royal Rumble, that gives it 31 participants (In storyline terms, Mick Foley attacked Test backstage and was assigned his Rumble spot by Steve Austin so that he could get at Randy Orton).

Next would come the date, this is an obvious entry.

Next would come the stipulation for the match, and anyone who has ever played Extreme Warfare Revenge could see the ease of a dropdown box here for most cases.

Next would come stipulation notes, for odd cases such as the following:

• In the previously mentioned Jake Roberts - Big Daddy Ritter match, not only was a title on the line in this historic ladder match, but cash as well.
• On the McMahon DVD, there's a match of Steve Austin vs. Vince and Shane McMahon that's not just a ladder match, but a handicap ladder match for control of the WWE. Longtime fans will remember it as the one where someone raised and lowered the briefcase so the McMahons could steal a win (but no one remembers that it was clearly implied that it was the Big Boss Man who did it).
• On the first episode of RAW when it redebuted on the USA Network, Edge & Matt Hardy had a ladder match for Edge's Money In The Bank title shot. The loser had to leave RAW. This match is also on the Ladder Match DVD.

Finally, I would note on which DVD(s) I had the match on. Possibly this would be done via, say, 5 pulldown lists. Right now, the most I have any match on is 3 DVDs, but planning for the future never hurts.

Now, this might be a lot of nerd work, but when it was done, it really wouldn't be much maintenance at all to keep up... probably 20-30 minutes of work for each DVD I got... and that's the big 3 disc sets and estimating conservatively.

What's the point? It'd be fun to make various queries of it. Which wrestler do I have the most matches of? Offhand, I'd say it's probably one of the big two that I have three disc collector's sets of, either Hulk Hogan or the Undertaker. Which combination of wrestlers do I have represented in the largest number of different matches? I can think of 3 combinations that I know I have 3 times each off hand: RVD-Sabu, The Undertaker-Kane and The Undertaker-Hulk Hogan. I may be missing some. Which title do I have the most matches for? Probably the WWE Title, especially since I have a whole DVD set for it, but I do have an awful lot of matches for the Intercontinental Title. The fun thing will be just entering the queries in and getting these answers instantly instead of finding out the hard way.

But like I said, I don't really know how to do that, so I'm stuck with what I do know, and what's there is fun. Hope you guys enjoy it too.

Here I go. Here I go again on my own.

It's a pretty massive site update today by my standards. Not only is today a fairly sizable entry (including the return of Comic Reviews!), but I have an update on the Barebones Pokemon Pearl Roster, and the Wrestling Match Database. The Pokemon Roster update was at least partially motivated by new swag as detailed below, but the Wrestling Match Database *was* 100% accurate until just a few days ago, and now is again. I almost went an entire year without updating here. I need new wrestling DVDs more often.

But first, we never did cover Google Analytics stats for September, and we'd better handle that before it's time to deal with the stats for October.

30 Days Hath September, and in those 30 days, outside my home county accounted for 146 visits. This averages out to 4.87 visits per day. Not too bad. In addition, BoffoBlog was read in at least 26 states, and was read by foreign friends in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Hungary, the Philippines, India, Russia, Indonesia, Denmark, Venezuela, Greece, the Netherlands, Singapore, Poland, Germany and Austria. This again leaves me with 5 out of 6 of the world's continents with Africa being the odd man out. What's up Africa? I always return YOUR phone calls.

I've actually got some new swag worth covering here:

• Pokemon Emerald is part of the reason my Pearl Roster needed such updatery, particularly now that I can get and have gotten the 3rd generation starters. I haven't overly explored this or Leaf Green as much as I have Pearl yet. I will eventually because I would like some of the Legendaries. At this point, I have less than 100 Pokemon left to see out of 493 total in Pearl. A number of those will be rather difficult because they're "Event" Legendaries. To get them, I would have to go to some Pokemon event either in the past (and typically with a Game Boy Advance rather than a DS) or in Japan. The latter is only slightly more possible than the former for me at this point. I need Hiro to help me. I bet he plays Pokemon. As an attractive side bonus, trading Pokemon with my girlfriend's kids is apparently racking me up brownie points. Me, I was just thinking help out a fellow gamer.
• Escape From L.A.: Coming from Wal-Mart's $5 bin, I thought this was a pretty cool pickup. I bet Sutton's envious at least.
• The Karate Kid: Special Edition: I've seen it a ton, but having it, especially a special edition, and especially out of the $5 bin was nice.
• WWE The Ladder Match: This is what caused the need for updatery on my Wrestling Match Database. 3 Discs, 9 Hours. Even though getting NEW Chris Benoit matches and even a segment called "Paying the Price" will be a little odd. There are some nice additions to my collection on here, such as the Trip-Rock match that was said to make both men's careers.... or the Taker-Jeff Hardy match that turned Taker face.
• Sliders: Seasons 1 & 2: The price for this one was way too good to pass up... $20! Especially since when I got home, DarkHelm expressed the exact same thought I had, that those were the two good seasons of the show (Before Arturo is killed in season 3 and Wade leaves the show before season 4).

• A Pony Keg: Once every half an hour, you can put down this pony keg and everyone in the area can get free brew from it (only one at a time, but you can drink it and get a new one). Reports are already frequent that raids have gotten ruined because someone dropped one of these and everyone got drunk.
• Beer Goggles: These goggles are guaranteed to make everyone look more attractive. The only problem is that it's by the standards of the person you redeem prize tickets with. Therefore, for the Alliance, regardless of your own race and gender, the goggles make everyone look like male Gnomes. For the Horde, they make everyone look like female Orcs (which makes quests you take from children creepy).
• Brewfest Ram: In my opinion, the grand prize of the festival was a special Ram mount (go Rams!) Submit enough tickets (and it was a hefty 600, as opposed to 50 for the Keg or 100 for the Goggles) and you would get a Stamp. The Stamp would start a quest to go turn in the Stamp itself to an NPC who you could then buy Rams from for the normal mount price. What made it special was that normally only dwarves or those who had a reputation level of Exalted with Dwarves (a difficult process for the Alliance and an impossible one for the Horde) could get Rams.

All of my toons got the Pony Keg, Beer Goggles and Wolpertinger. In addition, all of my toons level 40 and above (in other words, those who could ride mounts) got the Brewfest Ram. Boffo, being my only toon above level 60 also got the Swift Brewfest Ram. DarkHelm had some adventures with this himself he might tell you about in his space.

In minor news, you might see a bit of a change coming up for one of my toons soon. WoW has announced a paid name change service for a nominal charge. It isn't offered on either realm I play on yet, but I may take them up on the deal.

In any event, in the interest of catching up because I'm way behind, here's some hot comic review-y goodness, this time setting the Wayback Machine to July 11, 2007:

DC:

Batman Confidential #7: MUST READ. First part of the new Lovers & Madmen arc, covering the new origin of the Joker. Originally, this series was supposed to be shorter, then it was expanded, I guess to expand this arc. There's a lot of fan service here, and a good story. It's hard to expose specific details without spoiling too much, but keep your eyes open for the Batman Begins Batmobile and a certain cute chick studying to become a doctor. Cute chicks studying to become doctors are hot.

Countdown #42: CHECK IT. Piper and Trickster: They come to, and Multiplex and Deadshot are proclaiming they're under arrest for the murder of Bart Allen. Oh, and they're cuffed together. They pull too hard and they get shocked. Too much shock, it could kill them. In desperation, Trickster pulls a trick tooth out of his mouth that's actually a bomb and the two charge out the door. Two bad they're on a plane. Oops.

Mary Marvel: Mary sees explosions going off in Gotham and the Riddler. Riddler quickly tells her he didn't do it, and and a trail of suspicious looking mud seems to aid his case. Whoops, it's not mud. It's clay as in Clayface. Mary makes a magic vortex to suck him up into space. She wonders if that was too much, then figures it was just clay and he'll eventually come down. Riddler advises her to seek a mentor or anger management.

Holly Robinson: In the Athena Women's Shelter, Holly's run into Harley Quinn, preferring to go by her real name of Harleen Quinzel. She proclaims to be cured and the assistant director for the shelter, but she's still jumping around at random and talking like a ditz.

Jason Todd & Donna Troy: Jason, Donna and their pet Monitor go visit Ivy Town and recruit Ryan Choi. They're going to search a subatomic universe for Ray Palmer that he humbly named the Palmerverse. I name it the Boffoverse.

Karate Kid: Karate Kid tries to talk to Batman in Gotham saying it was an honor to fight him. Batman totally brushes him off saying he wouldn't win a rematch. What a jerk. (I'd use a different word in a less family friendly blog.)

Jimmy Olsen: Jimmy tries drawing some costume designs to go with his super powers. Lois sees them and urges him to keep his day job. That's not a joke, it's what happens.

All this and History of the Multiverse Part Chapter 8 covers Infinite Crisis in 4 pages instead of 7 issues.

Green Arrow - Year One #1: MUST READ. Oliver Queen is an irresponsible alcoholic. He's so rich that he's living from thrill to thrill without a care in the world. Along with him on this journey is his friend Hackett, who keeps him alive while he's doing this. But Ollie makes two decisious that will change his life forever....

Green Lantern #21:MUST HAVE. This whole Sinestro Corps War is already showing signs of being the comic even Countdown only wishes it was. Pure epicness. Here, while the Green Lanterns are still reeling from the Sinestro Corps' attack, the Guardians are squabbling amongst themselves about the Prophecy of Blackest Night. Ganthet and his mate Sayd urge Hal Jordan to be the leader of the Green Lanterns they know he can be, but he doesn't want to be. And what surprises does Parallax (in Kyle's body) have for Hal, John and Guy?

JLA Classified #40: PASS IT. The Kid Amazo arc continues. Wonder Woman defends her choice of telling Frank's girlfrriend his secret on the basis that they couldn't play God with her life. Flash responds that he doesn't remember voting on it. Batman says it was a good call. Frank overhears all this and proceeds to rampage throughout the issue. I had such high hopes for this arc, but this is DUMB. Not playing God means you don't get involved. And what did they think would happen?And the benefit of severe lateness on this lets me know it gets even worse.

Justice Society of America #7: CHECK IT. Our main story features the introduction of Nate Heywood to the team with a costume long time readers of DC will find familiar. Let's just say this whole plot of Vandal Savage's to kill families didn't really work well. And all comics work great with some good old fashioned Nazi tossing (literally)! Plus, Superman goes and visits Starman to try to make him talk sense after the recent Legion crossover. It fails miserably, but that's what makes it fun.

Shadowpact #15: CHECK IT. Dr. Gotham's floating a school bus in the middle of Chicago as a way of getting the Shadowpact to pay attention to him, so you know he has some plan up his sleeve. But does he know that Blue Devil was replaced by Zauriel? Also, Blue Devil's lawyer tries to get him out of his "selling his soul" contract.

Superman Confidential #5: CHECK IT. Superman has discovered a new type of radiation that seems to weaken and kill him in this story set in the past. Bet you know what it is. It seems to be centered around a crimelord's casino. When Lois Lane interviews the crimelord, he claims to be possessed by an alien spirit from Superman's home planet that could answer Superman's questions about the planet if he just briefly exposes himself to the rock. But Lex Luthor is interested in the situation as well.

Superman #664: CHECK IT. As Arion continues to try to get rid of Superman in fear of his prophecy that Superman would unwittingly destroy humanity, Superman also finds himself set upon by the Prankster and Squad K, a governmental squadron dedicated to a worst case anti-Superman solution.

Marvel:

Amazing Spider-Girl #10: CHECK IT. Carnage is running amok, yet seems a lot more split personalitied than we're used to seeing him. May gets roped into helping SHIELD and its goons, both the powered and non powered kind, in catching him, but they can be less than helpful. But why is Carnage interested in people from May's school? It probably has nothing to do with the school election, but that's approaching fast too. And things get even worse at home for May.

Fantastic Five #1: CHECK IT. It should be worth noting that this series seems to come from a future continuity that I'm unfamiliar with. It may or may not be the same continuity as Spider-Girl. In any event, Franklin Richards has joined the main team as Psi Lord, hence the name change. In addition, Johnny Storm has married a Skrull named Lyla, and they have a child named Torus. Ben is divorced and has two kids named Alyce (who can coat her body with energy, fly and blast the energy) and Jake (who turns into a Thing like creature). As well, a former protege of Dr. Doom's named Kristoff is with them. In this opening issue, Dr. Doom has escaped whatever captivity he was in, and has regrained the Power Cosmic (always bad news). Can this team stop him?

New Avengers #32: CHECK IT. Having discovered that what was apparently Elektra was a Skrull, the team is transporting its corpse back from Japan, while dealing with the minor problem of "How do we know that all of us aren't Skrulls?" On the way back, they actually hit some pesky continuity from Mighty Avengers.... and one person ends up walking away from the team!

Punisher War Journal #9: PASS IT. This story arc is turning largely into "Frank sits tied to a pole." although we finally see him DO something wearing the Punisher-Captain America get up... that is, AFTER he apparently kills an innocent woman in an attempt to infiltrate the racists. Fun.

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #20: MUST HAVE. You know how I'm totally biased towards this series. Well, this was the last issue that writer Sean McKeever did for it before jumping over to DC with an exclusive contract. The series is supposed to continue under writer Terry Moore, but we're at 3 months and counting and nothing yet. Anyway, in this issue, all "three" of the main characters, Peter, Spider-Man and Mary Jane have issues with someone pushing them to have a deeper relationship than what they feel. Gwen wants to get back together with Peter. Firestar wants to get more involved with Spider-Man. And MJ overhears Harry say he loves her. How will they handle this? What do THEY feel?

See you next time!

"It was like being in the Wizard of Oz, and it was all black and white, and as soon as I opened the... door, it was color. 'Wow! This is the way it should be!" - Chris Jericho - WWE Monday Night War.

I've probably referenced that quote before. It's one I like a lot. But it's never been more apropos. It's been simply wonderful with Tammy, just being able to hang out and really care about each other and knowing we each care about each other back. And I forgot last time how she really likes comics as well. In fact, I clued her into my little comics reading trick, which she really likes. It enables us to discuss more current events in comics. She's currently reading through Civil War, which could be a test for any relationship. In other news, I've introduced her to Booster Gold, and I think I've found another booster for Booster. This only stands to reason, since Booster is teh awesome, as Skeets confirms in the already classic issue #1.

It could lead me, with my reputation for somewhat controversial articles in my own defense, to go absolutely hog wild now that I don't have to worry about offending anyone anymore. But I have a better idea. Here lies a new start. I've got an awesome girlfriend. The friends I have now are true friends that care about me. I'm moving on from here, happy.

Those who have betrayed me during all of this, I'm sure they'll never admit it, some never publicly, and some never to themselves. Those in the latter category will feel quite strongly that I'm the one in the wrong and there's absolutely nothing I can say to convince them otherwise, but what does it matter anymore?

I'm not going to be reading their blogs or any blogs they post into, whether as a contributing editor or via comments. If that means I can't read a friend's blog, then the friend is simply going to have to make a decision as to whose readership and input they value more (and hopefully actually does so, and not just hides behind the tired and repeatedly responded to "It's my blog and I can do what I want" argument.) If such a decision goes against me, c'est la vie. I personally feel they're losing out on a great reader then.

I would also hope these people (the ones who betrayed me) simply do not read my blog. If they insist on doing so, what they're saying is that I'm such a great writer, they can't stop. If they try to say that I'm horrible and they're laughing at me, then they're pretty much saying some awful things about the types of people they are and the quality of their own lives in my opinion.

For some of these people, it could be possible to rebuild the friendship. However, at this point, I feel I did everything I could before things got this bad with no help from you. So the impetus for fixing things is entirely on you. I don't expect takers. Others, the bridge is completely burnt anyway.

In any event, my piece is said. To everyone that falls under the category I talked about here, fault aside, I'm sorry it had to end up like this. I hope you can have as high a quality a life as possible. Now that my piece is said, it's finally time to concentrate on the real happiness I have now.

No comics reviews today. I owe that and a monthly stats for September for next time. But it wasn't really appropriate for the entry for this one.

Beware, I live!

You know, I admit I did have ulterior motives for making this page into a blog, and ones that came to naught at that. But I really do like what's come of it. What I have here is something that has all the advantages of a blog, but all the advantages of a homepage as well. A regular homepage is fairly static. On the other hand, a regular blog is the other extreme, nothing good can be saved. Something like my Wrestling Match Database in a normal blog would just have faded down into obscurity in old entries unless the date was remembered. And even then, the possibility of update would be slim (and yes, the Database IS still current despite the long time since updating. I just haven't gotten any new wrestling DVDs lately.)

What has been updated is the Boffo's World of Warcraft Realm. Since I'm now on a widescreen monitor, and thus a widescreen resolution (1280x800), the character pages all needed to be reformatted. So now, all 12 of my toons have had new shots taken at the new resolution and the shot is shown slightly bigger as well. Also, each character's link to their official WoW profiles on the Blizzard service The Armory has been fixed to the new address. As well, each character has a link to their unofficial profile at the site WoWDigger.com (a WoW help site which stands in defiance of in game gold selling), and a link to the full size screen shot. Check out the stupid helmet that my Night Elf Hunter Iridiscia is wearing.

Been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XII lately. Very interesting game. It has one of the most interesting combat systems I've ever seen once you get into the game a bit. It actually hands you bits and pieces of it at a time. And I certainly would never do fun things in it with my Action Replay Max.

Let's try to catch up with comic reviews... which I need to do more than once every 11 days... 

Expecially if I'm backed up as far as July 4th, 2007...

DC:

Action Comics #851: MUST READ. We finally continue with the whole storyline of Zod and his fellow Kryptonian criminals having escaped from the Phantom Zone and exiled Clark into it. There, Clark encounters Mon-El who is again known to have met Clark in his teens, and exiled to the Phantom Zone by Clark then to save his life (after a brief post Crisis retcon in which Mon-El was actually active as the 20th century hero Valor for a short time). In another retcon, there's a metal base in the Phantom Zone in which things become real, hence explaining how Zod and Ursa could have a baby. Mon-El provides more exposition, then it's time for Superman to board the prison and fight the Kryptonian prisoner Dev-Em, in order to gain access to a ship to return to Earth. Mon-El helps him at the last minute, risking death due to the lead poisoning which necessitated his banishment in the first place and Superman Returns, stealing the X-Men's director... or was that something else? Anyway, while Chris is showing Zod that he's been corrupted with pesky morals now, Superman has the balls to go visit THE person who would have the most anti-Kryptonian weaponry on Earth... and that person has a surprise for him. However, we don't get a conclusion to this until Action Comics #11, which as of today still is not out.

All Star Superman #8: CHECK IT. Superman's stuck on the Bizarro homeworld, which is much less a typical world, and more a body about to sink into an alternate dimension, and his only comrade of any intelligence is Zibarro. Zibarro is a one in five billion "smart" Bizarro who doesn't share his race's backwards thinking. Worse yet, as the Bizarro homeworld sinks further and further into this backwards dimension, the sunlight becomes more and more red. Can Superman rally an understandably not too stable Zibarro and a few thousand rock stupid Bizarros to find a way to get back home?

All New Atom #13: CHECK IT. It turns out the taxi cab driver who has been giving Ryan all the anagram clues has been former Ray Palmer villain Chronos. Turns out that despite their earlier differences, Chronos feels Palmer is one of the good guys, and the only one who really ever cared whether he lived or died, but that he wanted to avoid Jean Loring at all costs (who is now hosting Eclipso). So he helps Ryan check out the place Ray was hanging out in during the Sword of the Atom book, and it turns out there's two factions warring there now, one of which thinks Ray Palmer was a demon, and the other thinks Ray Palmer was a god. Plus... I don't think I'll ever be able to look at circus peanuts the same way again.

Black Canary #1: CHECK IT. As we open this miniseries, two things become immediately apparent. The prime two themes are going to be that we're going to find out what happens with Sin, the girl Canary brought home from Shiva's camp in Birds of Prey, and just what Canary's response to Green Arrow popping the question was. We get a hilarious flashback to the first Justice League case where the two worked alone, and Arrow foolishly reveals that he was a big fan of Canary in the Justice Society, and he loved the fishnets, leading THIS Canary to horrifyingly reveal that he ogled her mother. We also see Sin get picked on in a fast food playground area and her open a can in result. Finally, a guy named Craig Windrow shows up. Craig was apparently Dinah's husband for 9 months back in college, making him the luckiest man alive. Kill him, my DC Universe doppelganger! But cue Admiral Ackbar, because IT'S A TRAP!

Countdown #43: MUST READ. Some people won't agree her, but the funeral of Bart Allen, which was the main attraction here, really resonated with me. It also stopped most of this issue from being a couple pages on this storyline and a couple pages on that storyline. I'm still not thrilled with the death itself, but the fact that they are making it mean something and not just forgetting about it at least mitigates it. But on the other hand, it's not just a sales stunt either. Great moments include Trickster and Piper sneaking into the funeral and being targeted by Multiplex and Deadshot afterwards, and Wonder Girl promising that the people who killed her little brother would pay. Bart gives his own video taped speech that he had apparently recorded after being shot early in the Titans run... he bittersweerly mentions Conner.

In other events, Monarch shows Forerunner he has lots of cool toys, and Holly Robinson meets a new friend at Athena's shelter... Harleen Quinzel. If you don't realize who this is, I prescribe remedial Batman: The Animated Series. Also, Donna Troy, Jason Todd and the Monitor watch the funeral and decide to go off and search for Ray Palmer.

All this, and History of the Multiverse, Chapter Seven covers all the way from after Crisis on Infinite Earths to the Countdown to Infinite Crisis in 4 pages. I think they skipped a few things.

Detective Comics #834: MUST HAVE. Bruce's lingering distrust of Zatanna from the mindwipe revealed in Identity Crisis has led him to order her not to use her magic, and they've both been captured by the Joker. He's been placed into a chair that electrifies him if he struggles and she's had her throat slashed so she can't cast spells and thrown into a chamber full of water. Can Batman get them both out of this situation and stop the Joker from murdering any other people from behind the identity of the famous stage magician he's already murdered? Can Bruce ever get over his mistrust of Zatanna? Who can stay mad at a girl in fishnets? This one was an excellent two parter, folks.

Nightwing #134: CHECK IT. Part 2 of the 321 Days arc. We learn more about the period of Dick's life where he was chafing under Bruce's increased control and wanted independence, and the people he ran into during this time. He's run into them again, and is cautious to make sure they don't attempt to use him again. In the meantime, there's a new Vigilante that seems to be gunning after them (which isn't Nightwing's way), and he has no idea who it is. Better than the vampire arc, but still really slow. Close to a PASS IT if not for the interesting flashbacky stuff.

Outsiders #49: CHECK IT. The final part to the Check-Out arc. Batman's now entered the fray and told the Checkmate/Outsiders ship that Nightwing, the Black Queen and Captain Boomerang are being held in North Korea. Waller thinks that Mr. Terrific just exceeded authorization and is about to lose his job, but he reminds her he never authorized anyone to enter North Korea. They simply temporarily deputized the Outsiders, and are failing to cancel that deputization. So it's a desperate rescue mission. And the Outsiders will never be the same again.

Supergirl #19: CHECK IT. It's the obligatory "a creator is leaving the book, so let's wrap up all the storylines so that the new guy can start fresh" issue we've all seen before. Dark Angel (Donna Troy's Earth-7 counterpart who was secretly the Anti-Monitor's version of Harbinger and who has been testing Supergirl by putting her through all this weird stuff) has apparently reincarnated Pariah (who died at the hands of Alexander Luthor just prior to Infinite Crisis). Supergirl makes me laugh by threatening to hurt him unless he talks like normal people. He tells her she has found the third option between betraying her father or killing Clark, hope. After his death and rebirth, Pariah can also now conveniently show someone a major turning point in their life, past or future. Now that she knows what could happen, it's up to Supergirl to break the chain of events. And she starts by wrapping up a bunch of these old plotlines. Grace wanting one shot to get even with her is funny. But the biggest obstacle is whether Kara can make amends with Clark.

Marvel:

Civil War: Fallen Son #5: Iron Man: CHECK IT. If these books are supposed to be the Five Stages of Grief, then this one would be Acceptance, and again, there is a fit. After Tony's classic eulogy of "Um, it wasn't supposed to be this way." leaves everyone in tears and *truly* sorry for ever doubting his sincerity, The Falcon gives a better one. Hank Pym thinks it's a truly appropriate time to whisper to his ex about whether Iron Man and Ms. Marvel are doing it. Falcon even works in a brief mention of those who would get arrested for coming. Spider-Man thinks they should have gone anyway. Tony actually has an appropriate plan for the final resting place of Cap, and privately gives a better eulogy.I wonder just when Marvel is going to confront the fact that Iron Man has become a villain?

New Avengers-Transformers #1: PASS IT. This one's kind of an odd duck. By the characters involved, it seems to take place during the pre-Civil War New Avengers period for Marvel, but Generation 1 (perhaps mid to late timeframe) for Transformers. One would think that this one was made to cash in on the movie's success, so they'd want to use the movie era Transformers. Of course, no mention is made of the fact that Spider-Man MET the Transformers in the old Transformers #3 of Marvel, because I guess that never happened now. It gets a PASS IT because, for some reason, the Decepticons are using an "aggression ray" on the heroes, but it's really only making Captain America act like a jerk. Plus there's gratuitous standing around and talking about when Iron Man is going to get there. Therefore, despite Stuart Moore getting the credit, I can only conclude that Iron Man actually wrote the issue. Nice try on fooling us there, Tony.

New Warriors #2: CHECK IT. The issue starts with people watching news reports telling us how cool the New Warriors are. Wolverine sees something and tells the New Avengers not to wait up, because he has to do a cameo in ANOTHER book. Tony Stark decides to show how smart he is by doing something stupid and offers the New Warriors amnesty if they join the Initiative. Sofia thinks the New Warriors idea is crazy and wants no part of it. She makes me chuckle by dropping the bit "What, 'Save the waitress, save the world'?" Night Thrasher gives her a lozenge thing and says it's her future. She later uses it, and out pops an old friend, and a clue as to what piqued Logan's interest. By the by, the artist on this book likes large chests on women. I never realized the old friend just referenced was that stacked.

Thor #1: CHECK IT. For me, this one was really close to a PASS IT, but others could like it more. In Limbo (can Thor get any lower? *rimshot*), he meets the Billy Batson to his Captain Marvel, Donald Blake who tells him it's up to man if the gods exist (uh huh), so Thor's time is not yet over unless he decides so. But if he does, there'll be doom and ruin and such. He doesn't decide so, and so he comes back, and Donald Blake reappears on Earth, checking into a hotel in Nowheresville. That's the issue. Next issue, Thor fights boredom, I guess. Or a tourist trap. Legionnaire's Disease?

I do have a reason why I need to catch up with these, and why I can't just move on with recent ones. You will see. See you next time!

But it was long ago and far away,
Oh God, it feels so very far,
and if life is just a highway,
then the soul is just a car.
And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are.
- Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are - Meat Loaf

Consulting the old mental calendar, it's going to be a year and a half since my mother passed on this next Thursday. It really doesn't feel like that long ago. I can still remember so much about her. I miss her quite a bit. I'm probably going to be 70 years old and still miss her. You learn to live with it, but it doesn't mean you stop missing the person. And I absolutely know she is in a better place and that I will see her again someday.

In the meantime, it's occurred to me just how many major memories I have taking place around either even year anniversaries or year and a half anniversaries of this time of year... in other words, stuff that happened in either September or (ugh), March.

Thirteen years ago, September 1994, I was just settling in at Point Loma as a new student. I was coming in with a lot of baggage, and what really helped me take off there was the realization that so did everyone. There was no such thing as the perfect baggage-less student. I've had more than my fair share to put up with, but some people had it worse than me too. Beyond that, those issues didn't define me. I did. And the show was just beginning.

Twelve and a half years ago, March 1995, I realize that I was becoming better. And I was grateful for that. I wanted to give something back. So I run for ASB Activities. I figure I'm a creative guy, and Activities is a good outlet for that. I never did get an exact result on the votes, but I'm fairly sure I got killed. The person I ran against was eminently qualified for the job. Very smart, very experienced. And she had been there the previous couple of years. People knew her. Frankly, in hindsight, even though losing sucked, the right choice was made. I wasn't ready. (As a personal note, a couple years later when I did win, she told me that she voted for me. I felt really honored by that.) Oddly enough, for the remainder of that week, there was a chapel speaker brought in to talk to us about creativity. Given that this had been the focus of my campaign, I literally looked up and quietly asked "Why do you torment me, Lord?" He was there Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday, as a little demonstration of his musical talent, he decided to make an impromptu medley. He asked for three hymns. He got two, "Amazing Grace" and another standard I can't remember right now. I decide to be difficult. I raise my hand and give him "As The Deer". A hymn we do that is significantly different sounding than the other two. And he knew instantly what I was doing too, because he replies "You mean this one?" and plays out the first line of the chorus at like 4x normal speed to confirm it. But he manages the impromptu medley.

Friday, he wants to do another impromptu medley. Only this time, he wants five notes that he will confine his medley to. I raise my hand again. He calls on me. He deserves what he gets. The first four kind of meander up and down the scale. The last one is probably a good 4 octaves lower. The first time I give it, I'm drowned out by cheering. He asks me to repeat it. He then states "That's not even on the map!" and tells me that he *can* hurt me, as he's from the Bronx (making me possibly the only person ever to be threatened in the middle of Chapel). He then asks what my name is anyway. I was told later that nearly the entire Chapel went up going "Dave! Dave!" at random intervals around it. "What is this? Norm on 'Cheers'?!" I definitely had made my name known. The class I had after chapel that day was Problem Solving. We were covering Bar Codes and how they worked. The teacher pointed out how they couldn't ascertain Chapel attendance without bar codes. Me: "They'd know I was there..."

Eleven and a half years ago, March 1996, I run for my second attempt at ASB Activities, this time against 3 opponents. I'm eliminated before the runoff. If that's not bad enough, I sustain an injury to my foot that is diagnosed as a sprain to the top of the foot. It's so painful it actually forces me onto crutches to get around in the days immediately following the election, but only for a couple of days. I was so afraid that people might think I was faking it in some kind of pity stunt for votes. I still remember one night I had finished eating (I typically ate alone in the cafeteria simply because it's what I did at home), got up, and realized there was really no easy way to get a tray back to the tray return area on crutches. So I'm standing there, looking at the tray, looking at the return area, looking at the tray, over and over trying to figure something out. Eventually one of the girls whom I had served with on Junior Class Council the preceding year takes some pity on me and helps me. Otherwise, I might still be there.

Ten and a half years ago, March 1997. I'm under no illusions whatsoever that I can actually win one of these rassem frassem ASB elections. After all, I already lost two of the things. Last time, I didn't even make the runoffs. But there is something that's helpful to know about me. If something I do fails, it won't be because I didn't try. I will do everything within my power to make it work, so I can look in the mirror and know that I did. So for my speech, I go out and I basically talk about how I've run out of gratitude for what Point Loma has done for me. And I kept running because I wanted to know I did everything I could. And when you're under no delusions at all that you can actually win the thing, you can be remarkably free of anxiety.

Except I did win.

This is the one time I got results. I did lose the initial ballot (I ran against 2 other people this time) by 7 votes. However, the system requires a majority of votes. Therefore, a runoff was necessary. Eliminating the last place candidate, I won the recall election by 69 votes. My best guess is that the last place candidate and I split the upperclassmen vote, whereas the younger second place candidate got the lowerclassmen vote. Once the vote was no longer split, if that was the case, my voting base had an advantage given that upperclassmen were more likely to vote.

Ten years ago, September 2007. First Week Activities have wrapped up and we're starting into the year fullboar. There are a lot of pleasant memories I take out of this year. There are were a lot of things that should not have happened as well. I might go more into that someday in this space.

Nine and a half years ago, March 1998. Finishing up my term in office with ASB, what started as a hobby becomes my next big student activity. I become the great big opinion columnist for the school paper. Many of my columns are still archived on this page and I urge those so inclined to check them out. I completely stand by the work I did therein and received many more compliments than otherwise on them, from faculty as well as students.

Three and a half years ago, March 2004. My best friend returns to town, though unfortunately not for the best circumstances by any means. This will be the first time we've lived in close proximity to each other in just over a decade. We throw together a trip to Disneyland (and would hit California Adventure a month later since there was a free ticket deal for that). It unfortunately ends up being the last big trip thing I was ever able to do with my mom. It was a very fun trip that she enjoyed very much.

So that's my walk down memory lane. Hope you enjoyed it. If not, here's the refund of the entertainment money you spent here.

Anyway, I've got some time left. How about another catch up week of comic reviews?

Here's June 27, 2007:

DC:

Amazons Attack #3: BURN IT. This one gets a BURN IT because there are stupid plot elements, and then there are stupid and OFFENSIVE plot elements, but I'll get to that in a second. First the TV whines about attacks in Washington, Vandenberg (Yay! Kill my DC Universe Doppelganger!) and Kansas. Then Hippolyta comes on TV and says her goal WAS to get Diana free from her unjust confinement (in really tiny geometrical shapes with no restrooms). But now she wants the complete and total surrender of the United States. The other Amazons realize their leader has gone completely bonkers but don't do anything about it. The President, tooling about in Air Force one, decides to do something STUPID. Somehow he thinks it'll be a good idea for the country to arrest and detain any woman who's had any contact with Amazons in, essentially concentration camps. Yeah, wanna talk to some Japanese Americans about how wrong that is and how little it helps? To trump this, Supergirl and Wonder Girl have a much less offensive, but still pretty stupid idea to close out the issue. Blatant stupidity and offensive earns a BURN IT from me.

Blue Beetle #16: CHECK IT. Eclipso is back from the sun and trying to kill a baby belonging to one of The Posse, a gang of people with super powers (though on the side of good, at least nominally) that Jaime has run into before. Traci 13, a teenage magician (who apparently has some history in the DC Universe) shows up to help, and later recruits Jaime. Paco drives. Turns out Eclipso's trying to get a new host body and wants the baby for that. Through a complicated setup, Paco has to be the champion for the baby against Eclipso's champion, and she chooses the secret fantasy monster within Jaime... and, hilarity erupts. You will laugh at this scene Plus, it turns out this was a little personal for Traci, as she was briefly raised by two people wronged by Eclipso's current host.

Countdown #44: CHECK IT. Even though I try just to summarize these issues and not spoil too much, it's hard to do that with Countdown because each plot thread only gets a few pages. C'est la vie.

Mary Marvel: Mary makes it to the Rock of Eternity and comes across Billy, who plugs the Trials of Shazam miniseries at her. He was a bit concerned with how harsh she was fighting the demon made out of stillborn babies (without taking into account that she might have been a bit freaked out because *she was fighting a demon made out of stillborn babies*. I'd be a little concerned myself.) and tells her she made a mistake taking Adam's power and maybe she was meant to lose her powers. She flies off angry, and I sort of can't blame her.

Forerunner: Monarch (whoever he is, see previous week) introduces himself and tells Forerunner that the Monitors have been lying to her. She agrees to listen, but says she'll kill him if he's the one lying.

Jimmy Olsen: Jimmy decides to start fights with street gangs in Suicide Slum to test his powers. Brilliant idea! They remain dormant when he's punched, but when another gang member grabs him, he shoots off a ton spikes.

Holly Robinson: Holly is led to a woman's shelter by a woman in a toga with an owl. Readers of Wonder Woman might recognize her. Or viewers of Clash of the Titans.

Piper and Trickster: In case you've lived in a cave, Bart Allen has died, and these two are on the lam. They debate going to the JLA but decide to go underground till this blows over. Voices in the background talk about how the two will "lead them to the others"

All this, plus History of the Multiverse, Chapter Six. We're up to Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special: MUST HAVE. If you're in the slightest a Green Lantern fan, or even a DC fan in general, get this book, this is epic. The Green Lantern Corps is just beginning to learn of the yellow rings seeking bearers throughout the universe when the Sinestro Corps makes its move. We learn just what does Hank Henshaw know of the 52. And just about the worst thing that could happen to the Green Lantern Corps happens. And a certain someone breaks free. On top of all this, you'll never believe who's running the Sinestro Corps. Get this issue.

JSA Classified #27: CHECK IT. Wildcat continues his quest to save Sportsmaster from his gambling problem and his supervillain career, trying to convince Sportsmaster to hang it up while he can, but Sportsmaster can't resist the lure of one more shot on both and now the people he's into have kidnapped Ma Hunkel. Interesting plotlines with both how it ties into the life of Ted's father, how he got into gambling with the mob and how it led to Ted's mother's murder, as well as how Ted had to convince fellow boxers it was time to retire as well.

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #31: CHECK IT. With Mon-El "dead" and the Dominator homeworld "destroyed", the Legion election results are in, and by massive write in vote, the winner is... Supergirl! And she's got a massive crisis off the bat. Cosmic Boy is missing, and special UP investigator Tenzil Kem (why does that name sound familiar? Maybe if I have a snack it will come to me.) wants to question him on war crimes charges. Plus, without Cos' calming influence, the Legionaires, Mekt's Wanderer's and Sun Boy's Terror Firma are all at each other's throat. Plus, it's always good to ask if Brainy can be trusted completely. 

Superman-Batman #37: CHECK IT. Killer Croc steals something Kryptonian from Lex Luthor, and then passes it off to something that seems to be bigger and badder than even him. Can Batman find Croc? And just what was stolen?

Teen Titans #48: BURN IT. It hurts me to give this title this, because I usually genuinely like it. But this month's issue is heavily influenced by the really stupid and offensive decision noted above by the DC Universe US Government to employ concentration camps (here called internment camps, a euphemism that was used in World War II as well) against completely innocent women who just happen to have some affiliation with the Amazons. Supergirl even points out that one of her friends suffered a broken leg for resisting being arrested. Rather than even discuss this unspeakable measure, the US Troops demand the surrender of Wonder Girl and Supergirl (who have also affiliated with Amazons) and in fact fire first. Seriously, what is this nonsense? The Titans then go and attack Wonder Girl and Supergirl for attacking back (as they've leapt straight to attacking non powered people with full force). What's worse, is that such a thing should lead a fairly big rift between the two girls and the rest of the team, but things are just fine when they next see each other (as I know from these reviews being so late). 

Wonder Woman #10: CHECK IT. Ah, freedom from stupid ideas like putting innocent women in concentration camps. You know, sometime between Suicide Squad and now, DC Universe me must have given Nemesis a personality transplant. Perhaps that's why DC is trying to kill him. Stupid doppelganger. In any event, Wonder Woman's not really believing that whole "Circe is dead" theory, as she learns her plan was to launch a nuke at Themyscira. Nemesis (after being tossed at Hippolyta and getting a chance to imitate her) tricks the Amazons into giving him "the secret weapon", then unlocks the box he receives with the key he got from Hippolyta to reveal... magic hornets which sting him to near death. Obviously, my arch-enemy didn't give him any brains. Now Diana's pissed that her mom tried to kill her boyfriend... or rather... involuntarily gave her boyfriend the means to nearly kill himself, but that's less dramatic. Line of the book: (Wonder Woman has dropped Nemesis onto Black Canary, whom he was previously flirting with, while they were flying in) Batman: "I know I shouldn't find that amusing, but I do." Of course, as a viewer of Justice League, I still think Bruce and Diana were made for each other.

Marvel:

Fantastic Four #547: CHECK IT. The Fantastic Four is having all sorts of problems. On one hand, Reed has intercepted an alien message indicating a vast invasion fleet is coming to Earth. On another, the Frightful Four are all attacking Sue on Titan where he left her. And just for fun, a new ally is having some lingering resentment towards T'Challa over the fact T'Challa was Anti-Reg in the Civil War and is still against the Act. Quotes of the issue remain too numerous to count in this book.

Spider-Man Fairy Tales #2: CHECK IT. Where the first issue of this series was a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood, this is an idealized story of Kwaku Anansi, the African Spider-God, who is sent on a quest by his uncle, who tells him that with great power comes great responsibility. If you missed it, don't worry, they'll say the line, again and again and again.

Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four #3: CHECK IT. Reed, in space, finds more and more grim (not Ben) details on the H'Mojen invaders. Meanwhile, Susan figures out the invaders are also targeting the base of the High Evolutionary. Flying there, he's not there, but they receive a piece of equipment from his Animal Men. Spidey can't figure it out, so who can they turn to? One clue... who would be tempted with the lie that Reed couldn't figure it out? Also, what kind of cliffhanger is one of the cast hurling?

Here we are, another new month, and even though there wasn't much posted, it's time for visit statistics for the month of August:

Deducting visits from my home county, I had 103 visits for the month. With 31 days in August, that works out to 3.32 visits per day. Way down, but like I said, I didn't post much. I did get visits from at least 15 states, and our foreign friends visiting this blog in August included visitors from Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, Norway, the