Wherein I ramble…

Sorry for disappearing off the face of the blogosphere but my new job timings have been insane. I don’t have nearly the amount of time required to blog regularly and I barely have time to do stuff I can blog about. Anyhoo…I’ve been meaning to comment on the difficulty inherent in comic organising. Yeah, yeah…I can see most of you yawning already, but it’s been really bothering me since I recently had to move my comics to a separate shelf-system to keep them clean from dust (I live in Pakistan…very few places there is no dust…we focus on minimising…not eradicating) So, I’ve been wondering…how do you guys organise the ‘minor’ parts of your collections? I mean I store the major portions of my collection (spider-man, x-men, thor, captain america and superman) in separate piles/longboxes of their own…because they can support that. But I only have about 3 issues of the ’80s Blue Beetle series and I think 1 issue of Hawkworld. So where would I put those? It’s been bothering me for two days and has left my new (vastly improved and bigger) room completely cluttered with these misc comics as I try to find places for them. I mean, I want to know where they are so they can’t be arbitrarily placed anywhere…yet at the same time I want to have them placed in positions where they won’t take up one longbox for 1 issue. Help Me!!

Also on the life front, I was watching Lost the other day (Juliet=most awesome character ever!) and I started thinking about the food situation. Now, apparently food gets delivered by Dharma every couple of months and they have loads of fruit and apparently an inexhaustible supple of Boars…but couldn’t the Others starve the Losties off the beach? They have (I think) superior numbers…and I’m sure they could intercept the Dharma offerings…and kill off the fruit trees and the boars. So…why don’t they do it? The pregnancy thing (as far as they’re concerned) was probably resolved by Claire and they don’t know that Sun’s pregnant yet…so why are the keeping the ‘evil’ people around anyway? It’s pretty confusing and is really, really making me look forward to next week’s episode when (in Lost time) the fight between the two groups should take place on some level.

Continuing the theme, I was reading the He-Man Movie comic adaptation today (yeah, I got it in a three-pack I bought for a Rom issue…) and it was the most godawful writing I’ve ever seen. Now presumably the comic is based off the movie and I haven’t really seen the movie (and after reading the comic, don’t really want to) so anyone who has both read the comic and watched the movie know how faithful the comic was? Or hell, how stupid the actual movie was? It was truly mind-numbingly awful.

Finally, I’m trying to start a regular blogging thing again…not guaranteeing anything but I want to try to actually complete the 30 days=30 posts thing that I tried to accomplish but couldn’t complete in the final 3 days (damn April Fool’s Day!!) But anyway…will probably be reviewing Drive soon and maybe the No Man’s Land novelisation by Greg Rucka (short review: Much better than the comic) 

Oh, Hell Yeah!!!

Gail Simone is finally on Wonder Woman!!! My prayers have been answered! More later. This is fracking awesome!!!!!

Wonder Woman #6: Or I Go On About the Wonders for FAR too long

Ah, Jodi Picoult. I had such high hopes for you. Unfortunately all you’ve managed to do is make me miss Allah Heinberg’s run…something I was sure was not possible. I’ve been hesitant to talk about the whole Wonder Woman fiasco because it was actually getting to be painful what was being done to a book that had been one of my top reads during the Perez, Messner-Loebs, and Rucka runs. So…since Picoult’s much-awaited (I hate how sarcasm cannot be conveyed through the internet…) run is finally here…I thought I’d discuss what I like about the book and the character. Also…since this a blog…I thought I’d say where I think DC went wrong with the handling of the character.

I think the best Wonder Woman was probably the one under Greg Rucka. Admittedly it took me a long time to realize this because I adored the Perez Wonder Woman. She was just perfect. Naive until the time came for her to finally grow up. She also had the most awesome villains ever. The new Silver Swan, the revamped Cheetah, Eris, the frackin’ God of War himself, Ares!! It was an excellent time to be a Wonder Woman fan I’m sure, and I’m sorry I was too young to appreciate it when it was first coming out (I think I was 4, maybe 5…) But Rucka…I was front and center for that run. It introduced the grown-up version of Perez’s Diana. She developed into a novelist preaching her message of peace to the world. Themyscira wasn’t outright destroyed by an incoming writer for once (I mean seriously…Perez endangered it, Loebs messed it up, Byrne obliterated it, Jimenez tried to improve it but it didn’t take…) It was nice to see a Diana who was confident of her role in ‘man’s world.’ Also, Rucka was the first writer since Perez to actually bother developing and maintaining a supporting cast (I don’t count Byrne because…well…his supporting cast sucked. It was horribly one-dimensional and were used only as foils for Wonder Woman rather than characters in their own rights).

Anyway, Infinite Crisis ended Rucka’s run. What could’ve been an incredible battle between the US and the Amazons (as Rucka had been hinting since the start of his run) was merely a fizzle and something that just cheapened his whole run. Diana’s backbone, the Amazons, were gone and she was left alone in man’s world (something that NEVER worked in the past, so of course it’ll work fantastically now!) And she had a secret identity…the one thing that I did not miss at all from the silver age stories. That was the main contention I had with Heinberg’s run. It’s beside the point that I did not agree with Donna being Wonder Woman. She had abandoned all rights to the name when she accepted her role as the new Harbinger. If anyone deserved to be the new Wonder Woman, it should’ve been Cassie. I know people believe she’s too young and under-developed as a character to truly exist in that respect, but she was the best character during PAD’s Young Justice. If anything, I think Johns messed her up. What was a vivacious character with the potential of leadership capabilities and good confidence in herself suddenly became a whiny little girl who was obsessed with playing dress-up with Raven and house with Superboy. Johns un-evolved the character such as it were…she became ridiculous. (Ok…moving on…my problems with Johns Titans shall wait for another day…)

Anyway back to Heinberg. I’m a child of the late 80s-early 90s and thus have no affection for the Wonder Woman tv show. And while I do enjoy the silver age adventures quite a bit, I accept that it is time to move on and not dwell on them. So, of course…I hated the spinning stars transformation. He didn’t even bother to explain it like during the SA (chemically treated costume and wardrobe that allowed her switch when she achieved a particular frequency with her spinning) and then he brought back Hercules, who was overdone when Byrne brought him in. Hercules only occupies one role in the entire DC-verse…that of jackass who was responsible for the Amazons having to move to Themyscira. Any other use is stupid and especially in light of the amazons…makes no sense for the character. He has repented…there is no need for him to return ever again. The only really good thing during Heinberg’s run…and I will admit this much…he made Circe truly bad-ass. Which brings us back to Ms. Picoult.

This issue had a ton of problems that I don’t even need to go into since people who are far better writers than I have already delved into them in detail. I shall just summarise the salient details for people who may be particularly forgetful. Diana is not THAT naive anymore. She has been in ‘man’s world’ for a long, long time. She knows about credit cards and most of the other simple functions of life. She is also NOT so obsessed by her identity crisis issues (which shouldn’t even exist in the first place) that she would become Peter Parker in trying to reconcile her role of capturing herself as well as continuing her role as Wonder Woman. And the biggest offense of Wonder Woman #6: Circe became boring. I know she’s aware of her secret identity and all that crap…but why would she continue the same storyline that we just escaped from after a year of being held hostage by it?? Another ‘friend’ captured by Circe who is demanding Diana to show up and save him. Bah! I seriously cannot wait for an actual comic writer to come onto the book and atleast try to restore Diana to her Rucka/Perez glory. That’s all that’s keeping me holding on to the book at this point. DC really dropped the ball on this. What was supposed to be the year that Wonder Woman would truly become part of the Trinity instead became the year which had no Wonder Woman. And nobody wants that.

Well…that was…extensive, eh? (What can I say…had a free hour at work and I was itching to get all this out on ‘paper’.)

Apology

I just thought I’d explain to those waiting for the next Butt-Shots exactly why it has been so delayed. I know…I said no more explanations for missed deadlines a while back. But I figured this was a good chance to explain exactly how I work out my posts and why it’s so hard for me to maintain a regular schedule.

I work at a newspaper as a sub-editor currently. I sit in front of the PC for anywhere from 5 to 7 hours daily. Sometimes 7 days a week…sometimes less. But it’s a pretty time-consuming job. I work from 6 PM – 12 AM on most nights…sometimes its stretches over into 1 AM or even later. I tend to get home anywhere from 12:30 to 1:30. Then I eat dinner (why don’t I eat at work? It’s too expensive and I hate the stuff they get delivered. I’d much rather just wait) I then tend to check up on movies, tv shows, downloads, etc… And I go to sleep anywhere from 3 AM to 6 AM. Obviously after that I find it hard to wakeup before 11 AM at the earliest but I do try.

Anyway, the six to seven hours before I have to go to work are devoted to waking up, running errands, preparing the day’s song playlist (I need good songs to get me through the day!!) and these days…talking to friends and catching up each other’s lives. I write these posts at work. I don’t have access to a particularly good internet connection so forgive me for not posting more images. Most images on this site had been edited and uploaded at home and then input into posts at work. Which brings me to Butt-Shots. One post of that, on average, requires anywhere from 1-2 hours of searching and editing time for the pictures. Then approximately 1 hour for the actual post. I just haven’t been able to maintain that kind of time for the past couple of weeks. Hopefully I’ll have some time soon…but until then I shall be sporadically posting whatever enters my mind in the format that has been established for the last 4-5 posts. Also…I fell off the one-month wagon with only 2 days to go!! That totally sucks…but I am going to try my hardest to regain the month in a couple of months when I switch jobs.

Now…where does that leave the status of this blog? I’ll still be reviewing tv shows and soon movies. I’ll try to review more music. And I shall definitely try to review more comics…only now it shall on an issue-by-issue basis. Short posts, each focusing on a single issue. I may have multiple posts in a day this way, but I shall atleast have some reviews on the site that ostensibly started off as a comic review site.

Battlestar Galactica: Crossroads (Season 3 Finale)

I didn’t want to do this earlier because I don’t want to put this under a cut. And well…if you still don’t know about the ending then screw it. I want to put this on the main page…spoilers be damned.

First off, interesting bit with the Cylon-reveal. I’m not sure I agree with Tory suddenly being a Cylon. Granted we should get more ‘new’ Cylons who we are not so vested in and who we need to learn more about. But Tory is such a cypher right now that I have no clue how she might be handling this whole situation. Anders I totally understand. He survived New Caprica when almost everyone else died…and obviously the radiation never really affected him (which screams Cylon! hell, I was sure he was a Cylon way back when but reversed that decision based on his actions as part of the resistance) But having him be one of the final five…a Cylon who is unaware of its true nature…makes the whole situation far more interesting and worthy, in my opinion.

Tigh…I’m very very happy about this. I always thought that the most interesting story point would be if Tigh were revealed to be a Cylon. He’s the one who has the most ties to Adama, Starbuck and hell, most of the entire crew of Galactica. Of course this also raises some interesting points; apparently (based on all we know) Tigh has been with Adama for 20+ years. If that timeline is to be believed…either Tigh the human died during the first Cylon wars and was converted to a Cylon…or the Cylons’ tech is far more superior than we have been led to believed. Tigh being a Cylon opens up more storytelling potential than any other character in the entire series (except maybe Lee…who would’ve really upped the danger level if he had turned out as one).

Chief…so apparently there are two cylon-human hybrids? I mean Tyrol and Callie’s kid is a hybrid now, right? That means that the Cylons have more than a single baby obsession. This could be potentially interesting from Callie’s perspective. She HATES the Cylons (as has been driven into our heads repeatedly since the begining of the season) and knowing that she married one makes things very interesting.

Roslyn and Baltar: I’m intrigued by her cancer returning. If that is true (which I’m not 100% on btw) then shouldn’t it be treatable with conventional medicine now? The problem initially was that the cancer was too far advanced. Now it’s just returning…so shouldn’t standard chemo or any medicines Cottol may have lying around…take care of the problem? As for Baltar…uh, the whole messiah thing came out of nowhere didn’t it? I want to see more of the origin of the movement before I start spouting on the excellence of the character potential in that move. I do really like where this could go…but I have to know how it started before I even consider that.

Finally…Starbuck. Wha–? I can guarantee at this point that she’s not a Cylon. It makes no sense in light of everything that has happened. But how the hell did she recover a ship, manage to get to Earth and who knows what else from a cosmic storm??! The whole return business raises more questions than it answers, dammit!

Of course the worst part? No new Battlestar till 2008!!! The movie’s good and all…but I want more in Fall of this year dammit!!