Detritus of the Mind

Right.  This is my epic declaration of war against wangst, against the Comedy Ghetto, and against the pomposity of Tom Batiuk in particular.  I'm particularly proud of it, as it sums up my complaints about everything from the fallacy of "true art is angsty" to the fetish-culture the media has built around cancer to why my favorite movie is what it is.  This was originally written on Livejournal on 9/16/2009.  Enjoy.  Oh, and for the record, let's all wait for Batiuk to try & get this blog shut down for somehow infringing on his copyrights by criticizing his work - that's his #1 tactic for dealing with negative feedback. This is a long, long piece of work. Consider its title to be the "too long, didn't read" version. Otherwise, please, press on. Let me start with a personal anecdote. My favorite movie is The Producers - the original version with Zero Mostel & Gene Wilder where Hitler was played by an overbaked hippie. I can quote whole ...

Look, I know I can be a spiteful, petty asshole sometimes, but this is something that has been driving me nuts for the past couple of years.  One particularly embarassing new example has made me realize what I hate about it. It is the practice comic books companies have started doing of sending out single-image teasers for a new series, with maybe a single cryptic line of dialogue to try and start some talking.  I'm sure someone somewhere finds it entertaining, but me?  I just find it rather onanistic. I first saw it with Marvel's titles.  They would run, say, a single picture of a character in silohuette and have the tagline "I am a Defender"; by doing so, they hoped to get some buzz going about who will be starring in the new book.  Or, with the whole "vampires versus X-Men" story, they had preview picks of various X-characters as vampires, leaving you to guess which ones actually would be turned in the course of the story.  They did it so much that i...

The drafts are at the halfway point for Legionnaires, not counting a smattering of random issues from the reboot I want to discuss. I am still feeling oddly nostalgic and want to prove to myself as much as to the internet that not everything from the Nineties that isn't in the "this is the exception" column was automatically crap.  So I thought about a series I really enjoyed that I only stopped following because the newsstand where I bought most of the books dropping the title around issue #15 or so.  Something that had a fairly short run. Something... X-Men-y. As soon as the Legion is done, we'll be taking a visit to the year 2099 and see if, when the rest of the Marvel Universe goes to hell, if this means things actually improve for mutants.  This will be as much discovery for me as nostalgia, so I hope it'll be fun.

( I told you these weren't dead yet.  Schedule is still hectic as sin, and I won't be able to do the review-a-month I'd hoped, but I'm still doing them.  Apologies for the delay.- Mela) Legionnaires #4: If Looks Could Kill Creative Team: Tom & Mary Bierbaum (writers); Chris Sprouse (artist); Karl Story (inker); Pat Brosseau (letterer); Tom McCraw (colorist); July 1993 Legion Roll Call: Catspaw; Chameleon; Ferro; Inferno; Invisible Kid; Live Wire; Matter-Eater Lad; Saturn Girl; and Ultra Boy. Miscellaneous Notes: The roll call starts a new running gag.  Whenever Tenzil is in the roll call, they describe as powers as "Eats Matter (stupid!)" or something similar.  I like it - it fits with Tom Bierbaum's view of him as a humorous & not at all serious but still competant character, and that's probably how Tenzil himself would describe his powers if asked. Summary: Cera Kesh has the Emerald Eye, and she wants righteous vengeance for her h...