New Section— The Agent of Doom comic haul reviews!!

I thought this might be fun to do and at least force me to write more regualrly for the 10 or so readers I get and given my current comic book renaissance, why not?

So here goes:

All-Star Superman #10

Wow! A fantastic issue once again. I’ve liked Grant Morrison’s writing since his Doom Patrol days, and I honestly haven’t read much else of his before this series. I’m so glad I’ve read this series since issue #1, as his rendering of Superman makes me like him and the character more than ever. I was never much of a Superman fan but this current book has changed my opinion. In this issue it does really make me wonder just how Superman will get out of this one. I’m usually quite sick of the whole “death of ______” superhero books, but this is truly intriguing to me. Will they actually kill off the Superman character as we’ve known him? It’s certainly starting to look that way.

Ultimate Iron Man II #4

I really wanted to like this book, but with every issue I’ve read, I’m digging it less and less. Fortunately, only one issue left to go, and something tells me I didn’t miss much the first time around in the earlier Ultimate Iron Man limited series. Ughhh…I’m glad the regular Iron Man book isn’t this bad…yet.

Young Liars #1

David Lapham certainly hasn’t lost his touch for FUBAR characters in even more FUBAR situations. The whole time I read this it just felt like a new story arc for Stray Bullets. The art and story telling was very much typical Lapham, and nihilism of this sort can certainly be a lot of fun. DC/Vertigo should keep this book coming out regularly and the whole comic world will be better off for it. Bring on #2 already!

Green Lantern #1 (2005)

I bought this just for the Alex Ross cover, but I went ahead and decided to give it a read for shits and giggles.This whole sequence was worth it.

I love it when big, burly, bolshy bastards get reduced to bloody pulps—and really who doesn’t?I never have cared much for Green Lantern/Hal Jordan as a character, but I thought I’d give it a go. This issue makes me want to at least finish the story arc.

Of course this is the guy I want…

… I just wonder which Wave he’ll be included in and will he be a Voyager or Deluxe class??  

The time has come—sort of, anyways

Well, the day arrived to at least PRE-order the Transformers: Animated toys. Thanks to a nifty 10% coupon code at Hasbro Toy Shop, I’m getting shipped a box full o’ transforming toy robot goodness come early July!! Finally some Transformer crap worth getting. I pre-ordered a Deluxe Bumblebee, a Voyager Star(Leno)scream, and The Battle Begins two-pack with Paul Bunyan Convoy and Megatron PLUS a DVD. And the beauty of it all is that it barely totaled fifty bucks with shipping. Oh to be a loser! Basically I ordered the ones I want most to begin with, and the Bumblebee and Screamer due to the fact I think they’ll be harder to find in stores initially. I think I know what I’m doing. 

Megacon -Day Two-My Thoughts on the day

Day two began with an electronic alarm clock tone. That alarm tone is probably the very tone that the tenants of hell must hear every day. It literally scared me out of bed as I struggled in the dark to shut the damn thing off. It was also the day of the arbitrary time change that I love so much.

Luckily, neither one of these factors would mar the day.  It was a day where I would attend the only panel I was really interested in–Gil Gerard and Erin Gray of Buck Rogers. My sister was and is a huge fan of  Buck Rogers, a show my family watched without fail every Thursday night with pizza for dinner. I have fond memories of those days, which is probably an indicator that I’m depressed as hell and just don’t realize it.

Otherwise, the day was pretty much more of the same as the first. I just had more time to look around and as the crowd seemed slightly thinner than Saturday, it enabled me to see a lot more than I had before.

For instance, the Megacon organizers had an area sectioned off for “battle.” These battles were comprised of foam medieval/World of Warcraft-style weaponry and kids and adults alike beating the hell out of each other with them. The highlight being when I overheard one kid say “Dude, I think you cut my f—in’ finger!” Good times!

I really didn’t find any more Transformers than I had the day before, other than some over-priced crap Movie repaints and a $75 Toys R’ Us Soundwave re-issue. There definitely were some deals to be had on comics, however, that I couldn’t pass up. One booth in particular had all trade paperbacks for $10. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the Thor titles I was looking for, but they did have a Steranko trade I’ve wanted for a while.

One thing I really liked about this Megacon , and for that matter, the previous two were the amount of comic dealers that actually have old comics that aren’t just shite. I mean I wasn’t exactly seeing original early Cerebus or something, but I did see tons of Golden and Silver age classics on hand. If I were rich I’d drop tons of cash, even on comics.

So after all was said and done, I was exhausted. I spent a lot of money with no remorse, got to see Buck and the Colonel, saw a TON of freaks, and got to feel a bit less awkward for 48 hours. These things can be great self-esteem builders for me. Too bad I can’t go to Botcon this year.

The “I’ve started really loving comics again and that’s OK” post

  

 

Greetings all five DOOM readers. I promise my recap of Megacon 2008 will be concluded soon, but I do feel inclined to say a few thoughts I’ve had rattling through my head. I’ve been reading  comics since I was 6 years old—so 26 years now, basically. It’s been on-again, off-again for years, but I’ve never totally stopped. But lately, I don’t know if it’s that lull of no new Transformers I’m interested in or what, but my enthusiasm for printed matter to rot my brain is picking up again. To put in overly dramatic terms, the wonder has returned. I honestly love so much about the artform.   And that’s even with all the worthless shite I own. The literal thousands of crap-titles like Suicide Squad that I own, even though I kinda think John Ostrander is a decent writer,  I just can’t read that stuff. But then things like the recently emerged Thor or Northlanders comes out and I’m totally digging comics again. Justice by Alex Ross has also played a big hand now that I finally got around to reading them. Now if Ross could just do an Aquaman mini-series… 

Megacon 2008: Day Two in pictures

The Main Floor 

 

V 

 

 

 

Freak Ascension 

 

 

What year is this? 

 

Yikes 

 

 

 

Yikes! 

 

 

J.C. was there. 

 

 

Transformers Animated Grimlock–I want him bad.

 

So the other day I’m surfing my usual geek haunts and lo and behold on seibertron.com–TF: Animated Grimlock toy pics!! 

 

Is he not bad ass or what??!! MUST HAVE!! In fact, I will buy all of the animated toys until I’m broke or my personal debt rises!!! I’m doomed.

 

Come onnnnnnnn June already! I wonder which wave he’ll be released? 

MEGACON 2008–Day One Report

Ok, so at the moderate urging of the Evil King, I will give the first of a multi-part recap of Megacon 2008-Orlando. Sadly, no pictures uploaded yet to my Flikr, but they are on the way. I promise!

 

Well, here goes:

 

DAY ONE (Sat, March 8th)

 

I’ve lived in Florida for like 30+ years and Orlando still SUCKS BALLS to drive in. My sister, her husband and I live like 2 hours away and thanks to the suck-ass Orlando traffic, it took us an hour to travel just 2 miles to the convention center from the highway exit! 2 MILES!! Ughhh….

 

And, thanks to that ungodly delay– I missed Joe Quesada’s panel! Damn, already off to a dubious start, huh? Well, he probably wouldn’t have liked my questions: Was Ghost Rider supposed to be that bad? Or my pleas of mercy that Marvel not ruin the Thor movie, like I know they will.

 

Anyways, so we finally get there and the freaks are out in full force. I know I’m just old and lame, but anime kids can be a freaky bunch. Their “costumes” are generally just bad hair combined with t-shirts with dumb, esoteric sayings. These things always seem to make me feel old and lame–which is probably the truth. I did see one kid with a creative use of an old Sony Playstation controller. He had it wrapped around his waist as a belt through his belt loops. Whatever.

 

The organizers moved the Con to a bigger hall than previous years, but the crowds were such that you saw about half of every dealer table as the stream of B.O. and bad make-up pulled you upstream. Eventually after a few rotations around the hall, I saw a lot of what was offered…and it was pretty good.

 

Of course, lots of comics and anime stuff to be had, but I did find some of the transforming plastic toy robots I love so much. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much, but some. What was crazy was seeing two very nice G1 Jetfires in the package at the same booth. The packages were both beat to hell, but the toys were still very white and un-yellowed. I didn’t bother to ask the price because I didn’t bring that much money with me. Otherwise, lots of movie and G1 crap I already have, BUT–I did buy a 2003 Takara re-issue of Astrotrain for only $30 in the box. I was happy with that, I guess. No Revoltech Black Getters or Mazingas, but oh well. I did see an Electra Woman & Dyna Girl bootleg DVD that was tempting, but I passed it up. Now if it had been Bigfoot and Wild Boy, hell yeah!!

 

 

The media guest/signing area was handled much better than in past years, I thought. No huge, oppressive lines to speak of. I walked right up to Leah Cairns and Mark Sheppard to talk to them. Both of them were very friendly. Mark Sheppard was arguing with some fan about Battlestar, that was quite amusing. He even left her with the quote of the Con, and it dealt with human nature: “Bugs Bunny is who we aspire to be. Daffy Duck is who we really are.”

Leah was very strikingly beautiful in person and warm and friendly. Katee Sackhoff made me feel, perhaps, a bit more comfortable when I met her a year ago, but Leah was very friendly nonetheless considering I’m just another geeky con-attendee and she hasn’t done too many of these yet.

 

Overall, it was a good first day. Day two would also be entertaining. I ended up buying more comics than I had anticipated, but when you have comic dealers selling Steranko Nick Fury’s for 50% book value–I can’t pass that up!

 

What I love about these things is just how normal I feel. The outcast/social ineptitude of my daily life dissolves as I see guys close to 60 pounds overweight in tights dressed as God-knows what all around.

 

More in the next post, including a pic of my favorite freak that I saw!

 

Till next time!

 

 

The poster—I dig it the most!

pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease

DON’T SUCK.

 

Unless it’s so bad it’s funny. 

The absentee father of blogging–THAT’S ME!

 

Well, have I been lazy as hell.  As of now I’ve probably successfully scared (bored) away any readers I had at all–but now I’m back and with a vengence!!! Or at least I’d love to be that dramatic. Soooo…I haven’t written anything here in quite a while due to extreme busyness at work coupled with an extreme lack of any motivation to share anything. Too bad my pay doesn’t increase with the more shit I have to deal with.Right. Enough of that bollocks.News happening is that  I’m going to start including bad movie reviews in my Theatre of Pain section. So now I can share the pain with you, as I ponder just what exact demon of the underworld humanity must’ve pissed off to deserve such movies as Eegah. Otherwise, I’m also going to attend the yearly orgy of loserdom this weekend, known as Megacon in Orlando, FL. I plan on taking lots of pictures, talking to Lloyd Kaufman, worshipping Mark Sheppard’s coolness, and macking on Kristy Swanson and Leah Cairns. I’ll also give an update as to just what Joe Quesada plans to do this year to make more crappy Marvel movies and hopefully not have already screwed Iron Man already. And there is a Thor movie in the works as well. Please, Marvel–make a good movie for once. These are my two favorite characters, really, next to Man Thing, of course.  Well, enough senseless rambling for now, till next time–and sooner–I promise.I’ll now leave you with this image: