Aaron Bitman's page

Picked up some great back issues this past weekend:

X-Men #6
X-Men #10

You mean the X-Men series that began in 1963? That would be quite a find!

Or do you mean the X-Men series that began in 1991? That would be... rather less impressive.

I ought to cite Swamp Thing #10 for Arcane's first return, particularly after you mentioned picking up #2 - with the first "Arcane" story and his first (temporary) death - in this thread last year. But for some reason, a different character from #10 has stuck in my mind a lot more sharply, in all the decades since I read it. Well, I never knew the meaning of the word "antebellum" until I read that issue. And since you mention Bernie Wrightson, yeah, that issue saw his exit, so that's significant too, for those who appreciate art.

As for Conan the Barbarian, the Turanian / Hyrkanian war gave us the first long Conan epic in comic book history. And that particular issue - in which Conan switched sides in the war - showed that a sellsword will fight for anyone if the price is right; which side scarcely matters. Hey, Conan would later fight for NUMEDIDES for Crom's sake!

I'm not a fan of dance in general, and I've never seen any movie with Fred Astaire nor Ginger Rogers in my life... but I am into some kinds of jazz music, and if someone asked me what big band music was, I would show this video. I can't think of a better way to introduce it; I regard "Sing Sing Sing" as the archetype of big band jazz, and if I can't appreciate dance myself, I can at least recognize that it sometimes adds a fun visual to music.

Last week, on this thread, I related borrowing dozens of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novels from my brother and sister-in-law. At the time of my writing that post, I was over 80% through Bloodletter, and I spoke well of it. Since then, though, I found the last 10 or 20 percent of Bloodletter disappointing. That final stretch greatly magnified the plausibility problems which I've already mentioned, and introduced other, even more implausible elements. Still, I thought the book a worthwhile read.

I tried to read two more Deep Space Nine novels, but couldn't finish them; they stretched out too little story over too many pages with too much detail. Those stories might have been fine as hour-long episodes of a show, but I expect more from a book 270+ pages long.

I would have given up then, if not for one exceptional book in that collection. There was a series of young adult novels that focused on Jake and Nog. My relatives' collection included just one of those books: the sixth one, Field Trip by John Peel.

(And why did my brother and his wife get only that particular one, and no others of that series? The sticker on it would indicate that they found a used copy of it for 99 cents at a local comic book store.)

That book relates that Keiko took some of her students on a field trip to a jungle planet in the Gamma Quadrant, inhabited by many species' of mobile plants with fantastic abilities. Well, I've read other science fiction books about planets like that before, like for instance, the novelizations of the Doctor Who serial, The Daleks' Master Plan.

Huh. I hadn't even thought of that. John Peel had novelized The Daleks' Master Plan in 1989. Maybe that inspired him to write Field Trip in 1995.

Anyway, when I started to read that book, I planned to speak highly of it in this thread. Though the book was branded as "young adult", I thought it was perfectly good reading for more advanced readers among Deep Space Nine fans as well...

...but then, about 70% through, the book developed some pretty dumb elements. Since that point, I found myself continually wincing as I read. I would drop the book now, if I weren't almost finished.

@Aaron

You mention here, in part, "For years, I've been seeking out stories - mostly novels - told from a nonhuman point of view. And I mean REAL animals, behaving as animals do; I don't mean anthropomorphic animals communicating with each other in complex sentences."

Have you tried Hollow Kingdom?

Written from exactly the POV you describe liking. My cousin's wife has been trying to get me to read this for a few years.

I've never heard of it. I just jotted down the title and author for future reference. Thank you.

Right after finishing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel #2, The Siege by Peter David, I started #3, Bloodletter by K W Jeter. I'm over 80% through it, and I plan to finish it this week. I think that both books are surprisingly good.

In all the decades since I started watching and liking the Deep Space Nine show, why did I never even consider trying out any of the novels until last month? I don't know.

So I borrowed - again, from my sister-in-law - dozens of her Deep Space Nine books... though not all of them. I didn't borrow her copy of the first novel, Emissary, because it's just an adaptation of the pilot episode, which I've seen twice.

So I started with the second novel, The Siege by Peter David. Since this time he was writing about established characters in an established setting, and since this time David got the story moving, I didn't have the gripes I had with The New Frontier (that I described in the spoiler above). Some little details in the book didn't quite work, to my thinking. For instance, how did Odo know that...

I should also mention another aspect of the book, in light of what I'm about to say about the third novel. Peter David, in his preface to the book, wrote that he had seen only the first five episodes of the show - because that's all there were - before writing the novel. He mentioned the problem of "knowing full well that by the time the book comes out the characters might very well bear little resemblance to the way they're being depicted right now". Well, maybe a few scenes had a few rough edges in that respect, but for the most part, I felt he did a good job.

And now I'm over 200 pages into the third novel, Bloodletter. I know that it's not canonical, and some Amazon reviews warned me that its characters aren't written in a way true to their TV counterparts. Upon starting the book, I also felt that many details of the universe that the book is set in isn't true to the show either. I was okay with that; I could think of it as an "alternate universe" kind of story, and the familiar names of the characters and other components of the Star Trek universe could make it easy to get into.

The book has other problems, though. There's much too much friction between the characters, far more so than on the show. I think the author could easily have written the same story without all that hostility, which I find unpleasant. And the characters and technology in the book seem able to do things that I don't believe they could do, even in the Star Trek universe. Also, the writing style is a bit difficult to read. Sometimes I have to read a sentence or a paragraph multiple times to understand it. Really, why the heck does the author have to begin every scene so vaguely, generally speaking of "he" or "she", so the reader first has to scan down the scene to find out who "he" or "she" is and figure out what's going on, before re-starting the scene? It's annoying, and it serves no purpose that I can see.

But despite those problems, I'm greatly enjoying the book. It has an intriguing plot. It has the best pacing of any Star Trek book I've yet read. The Bajoran political situation is interesting, even if it doesn't quite jive with the show. And the characters make some cool accomplishments, when they're not too busy biting each other's heads off. It's amazing how many times the characters in the book come up with a solution that uses resources that the novel had already revealed, making me say "Ooh! Why didn't I think of that?!" even when I do find those resources to be implausible.

So it looks like I'll finish the book. And when I do, it will be the first time I can claim to have read TWO whole books of any Star Trek series. Considering that I'm so much fussier with books these days than I was 20+ years ago, that speaks well of those books.

Ah yes, those darned dangling plot threads.

I remember when the Superboy series was about Superman when he was a boy in Smallville. Jonathan Kent (Superboy's foster father) decided to run for the city council to help fight a scheme to build a shopping mall outside of town... and he started getting death threats. At first, Jonathan kept this a secret from Clark. Then someone blew up Kent's General Store. Jonathan still tried to keep the threats a secret from Clark, who knew that Jonathan was hiding something from him, but Superboy was too busy with cosmic threats to have much time to think about it. Later, hired assassins presumably tried to kill Jonathan.

The predictable conclusion to this subplot was that Clark would find out what's going on, track the problem down to the president of the city council, get the dirt on him, and put him in prison. Yet the series kept implying that Jonathan would solve the problem himself - as he seemed determined to do - which would have been so cool!

I found the idea so intriguing that I ordered the last Superboy issue (number 54 from 1984), although at the time it was a tad pricey by my standards, because I thought it would resolve that subplot. And in that final issue, the president - having failed to scare Jonathan - tried to bribe him, obviously unsuccessfully.

And that was it! The subplot obviously wasn't over, but the series got cancelled. The letters page said that Superboy and Supergirl would soon share a series, tentatively titled DC Double Comics, but I'm not aware that any such series materialized. I must leave it to my imagination. And maybe it's just as well, because maybe that subplot would have disappointed me with the predictable Superboy-saves-the-day resolution. Now I can imagine that instead, Jonathan got that city council seat, dug up some dirt on the president, and worked with the police to put him behind bars. Hey, all that experience he had helping Superboy must have taught him a few things about crime and law enforcement to help him fix the problem on his own. At least, I'd like to think so.

Also:

Indy, the Dog From Horror Movie ‘Good Boy,’ Asks Oscars to Consider Animal Actors: ‘Throw Us a Bone’

"We ask that you stop lifting your leg on the contribution of myself and the many great animal actors whose work continues to go unrecognized."

I laughed out loud at this.

In all seriousness, I remember feeling - while watching For the Love of Benji - that Benji did some great acting, far better than many of the humans in that movie did.

I wasn't collecting Swamp Thing at the time either, but I remember reading a newspaper article at the time reporting that the story got cancelled.

Ah, Age of Apocalypse. I remember back in the 1990s, I was reading my friend's X-Men comics, suffering delusions that I could catch up to - what was then - the present day. It could never have happened; there was simply too much material! In 2000 I got married and stopped. But I left off at a good point, with the Age of Apocalypse all wrapped up. Actually, I think that even after getting married I borrowed a bit of X-Men material continuing after Age of Apocalypse, but I don't remember anything from it. Maybe I'm mistaken.

But anyway... yeah, Age of Apocalypse. Perhaps the most memorable moment was the one when we find out what the Madri really are. I had no idea. If the series had ever stated it, then I must have missed it. Perhaps Aberzombie or someone might tell me that it was obvious, or hinted at, or something. But all I know is that when...

Good stuff.

Many times before in this thread, I commented - and raved - about the "Bertie Wooster and Jeeves" series by P G Wodehouse. For instance, there was this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, and this post, among others.

In 2016, in this thread, a conversation - this one - started me thinking about criteria for rating a novel series. Among other things, I realized that I should take the best novels of a series and pretend that those were the only ones. If a series starts going bad at a certain point, I just hold that everything after that point doesn't exist. You can read, in that conversation, how I specifically had the "Dragonlance" and "Jeeves" series' in mind when I decided upon that, although I had already started thinking that way many years earlier. (For instance, I explicitly stated it in this post.) And the more times I voluntarily read a series, the higher my "Top Ten Favorite Novel Series'" list it should rise. And so I first drafted my Top Ten list.

Since then, I've re-read many series', thus promoting them to higher positions on the list. Last year, I wrote a post - this one - in which I remarked upon my surprise that for the first time in the seven-year history of my list, I promoted a series - Dragonlance - to #1 on my list. I later posted my official list here.

And this year, lightning has struck again. As I type this, I keep glancing at the copy of The Man With Two Left Feet, a collection of early Wodehouse stories, in my lap. I checked it out of the library because it has the first Bertie Wooster story ever published, and I started reading that as soon as I finished my fifth reading of Bertie Wooster Sees It Through. Yes, I finished my FIFTH reading of the "Jeeves" series, with the pretense that only the first 33 short stories and a certain 6 of the earliest novels exist, and officially started my sixth reading, thus making it my #1 favorite novel series of all time. I mean... it's crazy! "Jeeves" isn't even of the fantasy genre! But the humor, characters and plots keep me coming back.

I would provide more specific comments on those stories, but I already linked to many of my previous posts, thus providing you with more commentary than you'll want to read, I'll wager.

I first wrote about Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson here in this post, nine years ago, as I was reading it for the second time. I commented on the book's great sense of adventure and excitement, and on how impressive a hero Jim was for managing under such difficult and dangerous conditions. (I could have sworn I wrote about the book again during my fourth reading, elaborating some point that I felt I had neglected in that earlier post, but I can't seem to find that second post now.)

As I write these words, I'm 13 pages away from finishing my sixth reading. At certain times, like when I don't have access to copies of the "Jeeves" books (about which I'll comment in my next post) or to various other forms of entertainment like games, I pick up Treasure Island and read a chapter or three of it. The book doesn't seem quite so much fun the fifth and sixth time around. I feel like Jim's crazy antics and careless thinking should have gotten him killed. Jim KNEW this. And while Jim's talent and bravery helped, a major factor that saved him was sheer dumb luck. Jim fully expected that the...

Well, the fact that I voluntarily read the book six times - nearly - speaks highly of it. But I do feel more conscious of some of its flaws.

The subforum is here:

Pathfinder Tales

If you meant "Is there a THREAD for the PF Tales books?" (as your first sentence seems to imply) I would suggest starting a new one.

Introduced as a gun-toting criminal in a tuxedo, top hat, and domino mask, Deadshot was only intended to be a one-off villain for the superhero Batman, but writer Steve Englehart and artist Marshall Rogers revived, redesigned, and popularized the character in Detective Comics #474 (1977), which featured the debut of his wrist-mounted guns, reticle emblem, and mask with a built-in targeting sight that have since become Deadshot's visual motif.

And DC Comics included that issue in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. (I've mentioned that fact before but it bears repeating.)

Well, I just learned something from a comic book. It was only a week or so ago that Aberzombie brought up the Iron Man story Demon in a Bottle by David Michelinie, the story that first established that Tony Stark - Iron Man - had a drinking problem. Back in 1979, I expect portraying alcohol abuse must have seemed a shocking, risqué subject for a comic book. And... a superhero? In the real world, drunk DRIVERS cause such terrible accidents; imagine operating a suit of Iron Man armor while under the influence! The premise so fascinated me, I later got the whole "Stane Saga" in which Tony Stark relapses.

And one issue of that later story featured a villain - Firebrand - who made me curious to see his earlier appearances. So I asked my friend to lend me Essential Iron Man volumes 3, 4, and 5. Those reprint a whopping SEVENTY-SEVEN issues, far more than I would want to read, particularly in light of my view that the writing for Iron Man at the time was... kind of sub-par. But I started on the Firebrand stories this weekend, including issue 48, which came out in 1972...

...and which just happened to include a relevant scene that had nothing to do with Firebrand. Seeing Tony Stark reach for a cocktail, Marianne, his fiancée at the time, thinks - and I quote: "I'm WORRIED about Tony -- That's TWO DRINKS more than he EVER has at a party!"

Um... ho-o-okay. I don't know what his usual limit is, but from the context, I'm guessing quite a few. And when Tony overhears a man at the party say something offensive, Tony makes a fist, looking ready for a fight.

Now pause for a moment and think: if you're concerned about your loved one who's been drinking, what's the last thing you would say to him? Marianne grabs him and says "TONY! STOP! You're too TENSED UP! Let's get OUT of here -- Go for a DRIVE!"

Yes. A DRIVE. What a brilliant idea. Soon we see him careening down the road, with Marianne protesting "TONY -- SLOW DOWN! You're going MUCH too FAST! You'll KILL us both!"

Gee. Maybe his judgement is impaired at the moment. Who'd'a thunk it? Then the cops pull him over. Again, what a shock. Okay, now the cops will tell him...

Uh, wait. What do they tell him? "--so I'm lettin' you off with a WARNING, Sir -- considering the SPEED LIMIT wasn't POSTED! Next time, take it EASY, huh?"

Next time, take it easy. Unbelievable. Even for a comic book.

I just Googled it, and apparently, before 1980, drunk driving wasn't widely considered a serious threat, and was sometimes tolerated! I'm thinking that even in 1972 - long before Michelinie started writing the book - Tony was already starting to develop a problem with alcohol, and the writer at the time might not even have been aware of it!

(I might comment on the "Firebrand" aspect, which is - after all - what led me to read the issue, but I think I've rambled on long enough.)

My mystery package did not get delivered yesterday. At the last minute, the USPS tracking suddenly lost track of it. Now it says it's still in transit, but won't give a new time and date for delivery.

I wonder if this has anything to do with that survey I answered a few days ago. The one where they asked me why I would never recommend the USPS, and I answered truthfully.

Well, I suppose the less-than-stellar service is why you wouldn't recommend it. It's a kind of a chicken-and-egg thing, I guess. :)

Aaron Bitman wrote:

Aberzombie wrote:

First up was a new printing of the classic Iron Man story Demon in a Bottle. I’ve been waiting for a copy of that for what seems like eternity.

If you read Demon in a Bottle, ending with issue 128, I would urge you to read 129, which satisfactorily wraps up a major subplot in that story arc.

Damnit! Now I have to go out and find a copy of issue 129! Hunting for back issues?!? The HORROR!!! :)

Very rude of them to not include it in this collected copy for me.

Well, that's a problem with a continuing series. It's not meant to come to a conclusion. The last page of issue 128 comes to such a great point to end a long story arc. In theory, it would seem nice for such a collection to include issue 129 - or even just the first 6 or 7 pages of it - but that would seem... anticlimactic. The book wouldn't come to such a dramatic conclusion. So I actually agree with the people at Marvel Comics who ended those Demon in a Bottle collections with 128. Or I don't... but really I do.

I remember, 20 years or so ago, after I got married and could no longer hang out at my friend's house to read his comics, I asked to borrow from his Green Lantern collection. He loaned me a HUGE number of issues, far more than I expected to read. But I started on it.

I particularly remember issue #3, where Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner get into a fistfight and get arrested. Some other guys use the rings to make trouble, Hal takes care of it, and Guy admits that Hal was the best damn Green Lantern he'd ever seen.

So I was still READING it at that point. But as I proceeded through the series, I gradually lost interest, reading less and less thoroughly, until I was only skimming through it...

...but then came Emerald Twilight! Damn! That story forced me out of "skim" mode and made me start actually READING again! And I continued actually reading for dozens of issues, from that point.

I suppose I might focus more on specific issues if I knew which 7 issues you were talking about.

First up was a new printing of the classic Iron Man story Demon in a Bottle. I’ve been waiting for a copy of that for what seems like eternity.

If you read Demon in a Bottle, ending with issue 128, I would urge you to read 129, which satisfactorily wraps up a major subplot in that story arc.

Back in June, in this thread, I wrote about how I wondered if Paul Levitz could write good Legion of Super-Heroes stories in the 1970s, like he did in the 1980s, so I ordered and read issues 228-230 and concluded that yes, he could. But since I had never read Jim Shooter's Legion material from the 1970s - only from the 1960s - I feared that my comparison between the two - in Levitz' favor - was unfair. I resolved to order and read some of Shooter's later Legion material one day. I also thought that I might enjoy reading some more of Levitz' material too, particularly the longer issues, on the theory that more pages would give me more value for my money (although I have since discovered that conclusion was fallacious and erroneous, as I will eventually explain).

Some time after I made that resolution, I DID order more comics - of several titles - from Mile High. I got another issue of Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, so that now I have only one issue - number 6 - in that 6-issue limited series to collect. I got some of Roy Thomas' Savage Sword of Conan material, and maybe one day I'll write about that in this thread. But of course, I also had to get more Legion issues, including 209, 213, 215, 217, 220, 223, 224, 246, 247, 250, and 321.

So... was Jim Shooter a better writer than I had previously given him credit for? The "too long; didn't read" version is: yes, he got better, but I still prefer Paul Levitz, albeit by a smaller margin. Jim Shooter wrote some good stories, as well as some bad ones. In fact, I re-read some of Shooter's stories from the 1960s - because those stories tied in with the '70s stories I got recently - and while some of those early Shooter stories made me wince, I actually felt impressed with one of them ("The Ghost of Ferro Lad" in Adventure Comics issue 357).

And when Shooter came back to the comic-book world after a five year absence, he wrote SEVERAL impressive Legion stories, more mature than the stuff he had put out in his teens. Even when I judged some of his stories to be bad - like those in which the legionnaires don't do any superhero work, or in which the plot made no sense - I eventually concluded to my surprise that those bad stories were due not to lack of inspiration, but just to Shooter WANTING to write stories that way.

I'll say something similar about the art. I don't appreciate art like I do stories, and I'd been planning to write a rant in this post like "Could someone please explain to me why the heck people say Mike Grell is the greatest Legion artist?!" His artwork in those issues was loose, sloppy, and cartoony, making it look like Grell was working hastily and carelessly, and making it harder for me to take those stories as seriously as I wanted to. But I eventually concluded, to my surprise, that Grell WANTED it that way. I first realized this when I saw, in issue 217, an explosion that formed the words "Holy Cow! Dig the fireworks!" Grell was having FUN with this, and probably wanted the readers to feel that sense of fun. Well, that's not the kind of artwork I want; I actually liked that story for its drama, and took it more seriously than it was evidently intended to be, which is one reason I feel the series got better later.

Well, after reading those lesser Legion stories, I looked forward to Levitz' superior work - like those I had read in issues 228 through 230 - but I met with disappointment, actually. I should have looked more closely at the credits of those later Legion issues before buying them. The reason they didn't give me more bang for my buck is that they weren't pure Levitz. When Levitz would co-write with someone other than Keith Giffen, those stories seemed like mixed bags. Whom should I credit for the good parts and whom should I blame for the bad parts?

At first, I thought: okay, I know that Paul Levitz' dialog was weak back then. That's why Carmine Infantino brought in other writers to write the scripts for Levitz' "Aquaman" stories in Adventure Comics, back in 1975-76. So when I read a Legion story from 1978 - in issue 246 - that said "Len Wein: Script; Paul Levitz: Plot" I figured: okay, this is basically a Levitz story. Yet I couldn't really believe that, once I had finished the story. The ending made no sense. Possibly, Levitz might have thrown in an explanation that would make the ending work, and maybe Len Wein forgot the explanation, or just ignored it. But I'm not sure that was the case.

And here's something else that makes me skeptical about some of those credits: Issue 250 says "Steve Apollo: Story & Layouts; Paul Levitz: Words". What the...?!? If Levitz' dialog was a problem, why did the powers at DC switch his role? What is this, Bizarro World? I shouldn't have bought those issues!

Okay; breathe, Aaron, breathe! I've mentioned before that when Levitz became the regular Legion writer in issue 284, that began the Legion's golden age, in my not-so-humble opinion. Well, I feel that golden age kind of declined around the time when the Baxter Legion series began. Maybe the pressure of having to write TWO legion issues every month put a strain on Levitz' creativity... but even then, he still put out some great issues, as well as some lesser ones. Back in the 2000s, when I was collecting every Legion issue from 284 on up, the last consecutive one I got was 317, as I felt that the series had degraded too far by then.

Still, when I placed my last order at Mile High, I noticed a good price for Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #321, so I threw that into the order. Maybe it would be just like old times. But it wasn't. Once again, I should have looked at the credits more closely. Paul Levitz wrote that issue not with Keith Giffen, but with Mindy Newell. And the story was... ugh! The legionnaires didn't act like legionnaires, the extras - on whom the issue focused for long periods of time - were unsympathetic, and the story was uninteresting.

<sigh>

I don't want to read Legion anymore. I think I'll file those issues away and dig out my old Iron Man stuff.

Also, for the first time ever I bought what they call a slabbed book. This was X-Men #142.

More seriously, I keep feeling like I ought to comment on the issue itself. I didn't earlier, because I expect you'll never read THAT copy. But still, that two-part "Days of Future Past" story was one of the most defining moments of X-Men history.

I remember, back in the 1990s, going to my friend's house, reading his "X-Men" comics, and hearing him tell me that as time went on, the "X-Men" story implied more and more strongly that the future portrayed in "Days of Future Past" was the actual future toward which the world was heading.

I argued: "But that CAN'T be the future! The 'Days of Future Past' story established right away that in that other timeline, the Brotherhood assassinated Senator Kelly. The X-Men changed history by preventing it."

My friend amended "Well then, the future will be SIMILAR to the 'Days of Future Past' timeline."

This is... interesting.

For years, I've been seeking out stories - mostly novels - told from a nonhuman point of view. And I mean REAL animals, behaving as animals do; I don't mean anthropomorphic animals communicating with each other in complex sentences. That last part narrows my search down considerably; there aren't many stories seen from the perspective of animals that don't talk. And in my search, so far, I feel that the two best movies that fit those criteria are Benji (from 1974) and its first sequel, For the Love of Benji (from 1977).

When I watched that first movie, I felt that Linda's appearance at the Chapman home seemed to make no sense. Was Linda connected - by some friendship, or history, or something - to the Chapman family? Did she somehow concoct some story - that the Chapmans believed - to persuade them to let her into their home? The movie didn't explain this. Yet - I later reflected - in a way, that's a GOOD thing. We're seeing this from the point of view of a dog, who wouldn't understand humans' affairs.

And now we're getting a HORROR story from an animal's perspective. I've never heard of such a thing before. I'm not a fan of horror movies (although in recent years, I've taken an interest in some of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers movies, and some "zombie apocalypse" movies). But I'm told that horror movies generally make no sense. And if THIS movie makes no sense, maybe in a way that's a GOOD thing, if we're to see this from the point of view of a dog.

I hardly ever watch a movie in the theater. (In the last 20 years I saw four movies in the theater, once each.) But I look forward to watching this on DVD one day.

I’m pretty certain they had a misprint on the price tag and were offering it for less than intended. So I took advantage of that.

The price on the sticker is the price you pay...

Chuck Mangione, jazz musician, died on Tuesday at the age of 84.

As those of you who saw the movie Doctor Strange have heard, the guy charted a Top-Ten hit with a flugelhorn. That was no mean feat.

And while I regard his songs as too long, I found a few that I liked enough to seek out edited-down versions of them. (Or in one case, I edited it down myself.)

Last month, I got a bunch of 20th-Century comics from Mile High Comics. Since then, I read those issues and discussed some of the characters in them - like the Legion of Super-Heroes and Batman - in this thread. But that last order also included comics about other heroes that I did NOT yet mention here... like She-Hulk.

Now I love STORIES. I might get comics because I hope they contain writing that I'll like. When I hear that a certain comic was written by a writer I admire, THAT might encourage me to give that comic a try. I never got a comic on the grounds that I like the artist.

However, I can't deny that certain aspects of art do grab my attention, especially ONE such aspect. It amused me that I didn't mention it already in this thread, as I posted about Wonder Woman twice. And now that I'm writing about She-Hulk, I should just say it bluntly: She-Hulk is the SEXIEST character in the comics. I've thought so for the last four decades or so, and I'm sure I can't be alone in that opinion. I'll say more about that later.

I remember back in the early 1980s, when I had little money for things like comics. I felt fortunate to find a few good issues at my local public library, including The Savage She-Hulk issues 19, 21, and 25. 25 was the last of that 1980-1982 run, which formed She-Hulk's very first story, and I thought that issue 25 was the end of the character's appearance in the comics. (I was young, and hadn't yet learned that old heroes never get permanently retired in that medium.) Later, seeing an Avengers issue in the library, I felt pleased to discover that She-Hulk had joined that group. In fact, I took out TWO issues of Avengers, both including She-Hulk.

Later still, at a bookstore, I saw a new issue of Fantastic Four, prominently showing She-Hulk on the cover. Oh! She had joined the Fantastic Four! In fact, only 3 pages of that issue showed any other members of the group. It was really a She-Hulk story, despite the series title. I bought that issue - #275 - and read it many times.

At some point, I bought a couple of issues of the original Savage She-Hulk series - #s 6 and 7, which I had found being offered at a low price. By that time, I was growing fussier, and felt that issue 7 was disappointing. I gave up on the character. When I learned that there was a silly new series, Sensational She-Hulk, in which the character penetrated "the fourth wall", I found that information mildly amusing, but felt no desire to look into the book.

By that time, I was getting involved in other stuff. I had joined a Dungeons and Dragons group, and befriended one member of that group in particular. At one point, he and I decided to order old comics by mail together, in order to save on shipping. But I didn't even consider the She-Hulk. Eventually, I took to going to his place every week and benefitting from his enormous comic-book collection. I had to stop doing that when I got married, but then HE started coming to MY house to play Dungeons and Dragons. And every now and then we'd order comics together. Typically, when I decided to order old issues, I would drop him a line, saying "Do you want to order anything with me?" And vice versa, of course.

But also, when I prepared to order, I would ask him "Do you have any issues of such-and-such-a-title?" in the hopes that I could borrow issues from him and save myself from having to buy. But by that time, he lived in his own apartment. He still does. And he doesn't have the space to keep his comics organized. Instead, he has big piles of boxes of comics, and it could be hard for him to locate and dig up issues, when he searched for particular ones. Sometimes, it would be so hard for him that I didn't want to bother him with the matter.

A year or so ago, I just woke up with a whim one day, saying "It might be fun to read a Sensational She-Hulk story, with fourth-wall silliness." But when I considered asking my friend if he happened to have any of those, I dismissed the idea. For some reason, I felt certain that he didn't. And all the issues I saw in the Mile High and My Comic Shop websites cost insanely high prices.

Last month, when I ordered other stuff from Mile High, I finally saw and ordered 2 reasonably priced issues of Sensational She-Hulk - 31 and 32 - once again dismissing the idea of asking my friend if he had anything from that title. And I didn't worry about cliffhangers; I figured the series was so whimsical, the writer would solve many of those problems with nonsense, so I shouldn't feel any suspense.

Those two issues surprised me in several respects. For one thing, She-Hulk did NOT look sexy! So many people felt that John Byrne was the greatest artist and writer for that series. I saw many letters in the letters pages that clearly indicated they thought that Byrne's She-Hulk looked beautiful. And Byrne clearly TRIED. He drew her in a state of undress a lot, and she kept striking provocative poses. But... she just didn't look STRONG. Other artists did a much better job in that respect, in my not-so humble opinion.

Another surprise was that I found myself DYING of curiosity to see the next issue, #33. I just HAD to see how the Mole Man / She-Hulk wedding would play out, even if that problem DID get resolved with silly nonsense. I mean... the usual cliche would be for the heroine to refuse to marry the creep, and She-Hulk DEFINITELY wasn't the type to marry under conditions like that. I wondered how Byrne would write about it.

And wouldn't you know it, Mile High was offering issue 33 at a reasonable price, although few other issues were so priced. I planned to get it, along with more Legion of Super-Heroes material, even though I had just ordered comics less than a month earlier.

So I emailed my friend, asking "Do you want anything from Mile High?" Unusually, he asked for time to think about it. I felt a little antsy, fearing that the unusually low-priced Sensational She-Hulk issue might get sold if I delay. I figured that so long as I had to wait, I might as well ask if he had any Sensational She-Hulk, although I was pretty sure he wouldn't... but he did! He had 19 issues, including #33, and he had the Essential Savage She-Hulk trade paperback, which reprinted the entire original Savage She-Hulk series from 1980-1982! And although he wasn't sure if he could conveniently dig up most of his Sensational issues from his archives, he easily brought out issue 33, as well as 28 through 30, and the Savage trade paperback. Plus he ultimately decided he didn't want to order anything anyway.

So I put off ordering and borrowed that stuff. Reading those four Sensational issues made me decide that I had enough of that kind of silliness. Really, there's no way I could get through 60 issues like that. But what I DID read had some interesting tidbits. As I got through issue 28, for instance, I knew how that story would resolve, by tying into Fantastic Four #275, which, as you may recall my mentioning earlier, I happen to have. That was a funny coincidence. Plus the artists made Jen look beautiful. Really, why did so many readers prefer John Byrne over those guys?

And now - after FOUR DECADES - I had the opportunity to read all the Savage She-Hulk I wanted. Well, I feel that series doesn't have enough story to warrant 25 issues, but I read a few scattered issues and fragments of issues. I figure I read about 40% of that volume, collectively.

Whew! I didn't expect to go on for so long. I should stop now.

Hmmmm....mayhap it's time to reread the Dragonlance Chronicles once again.

To anyone reading the Dragonlance Chronicles, I might recommend reading Dragons of the Dwarven Depths after Dragons of Autumn Twilight but before Dragons of Winter Night.

And in the middle of reading Dragons of Winter Night, after "Book 1" (the first 12 chapters) and "Book 2", I might recommend reading the short story "Finding the Faith" by Mary Kirchoff. You can find that short story in The Magic of Krynn (Volume 1 of Dragonlance Tales), or in Dragonlance: The Best of Tales Volume 1.

Batman 45 (the original, not that newer crap)

Whoa. That must date back to the 1940s. Is that the oldest comic in your collection?

Yeah, I regard a certain seven Dragonlance novels - and one Dragonlance short story - as my favorite novel series of all time. I read those seven novels (and that short story) five times each. Then there are the second-tier Dragonlance novels - those that I read TWICE each - including The Kinslayer Wars by Douglas Niles, the second book in the Elven Nations trilogy. I read that whole trilogy, as well as a couple of other Dragonlance novels that Thompson and Carter authored together. Thompson's and Carter's novels were decidedly third-tier. When I read third-tier Dragonlance novels, I generally read them only once.

But... there were exceptions. Most notably, many years after I gave up on the third-tier novels, I actually felt compelled to read the first and third Elven Nations books again, because I was curious about some of the details I had forgotten. But - I tell you! - Thompson and Carter had a lot of cool ideas that could have been written so much better!

It got me thinking - how many other great stories and/or adaptations of great stories were started by some of these now legendary comic creators back in the day, but never finished. It might be fascinating to see book of fragments of comic stories. I’ve seen collections of old writers work that included similar “fragments”.

Years ago, when I was seeking comics with an Old West setting, one of the few that I liked enough to read twice was Rio by Doug Wildey. I read it in a trade paperback I got from a public library. It included the few existing fragments of the final, unpublished story, including unfinished art.

Back in October, in this thread, Aberzombie brought up Scarface and the Ventriloquist. I reminisced about the first two issues of Detective Comics I had ever bought, back when they were new, which happened to form the first Scarface/Ventriloquist story. Years later, I read my friend's Batman material, including Knightfall, Knightquest and KnightsEnd. I was pleased to see the Ventriloquist return. Aberzombie's comments made me curious to research details about the Ventriloquist, and when I did, I felt surprise at learning of a "Return of Scarface" story BEFORE Knightfall. "The Return of Scarface" started in Batman #475, continued in Detective Comics #642, and concluded in Batman #476. Having loved the first Ventriloquist story, I felt curious about the second. So last month, when I ordered comics from Mile High, I included those three issues in my order. I just read them this week.

And they were awful! AWFUL!!! Especially the ending! It almost read like Alan Grant DELIBERATELY wrote a bad ending just to surprise the readers!

Alan Grant co-wrote the first Scarface story. Could it be that story wasn't as good as I remembered? I HAVE gotten fussier in the years since then, after all. I had to re-read Detective Comics 583 and 584 to remind me of what a great story that was. No, the writing just went from great to horrible over the course of those four years.

I remember, back in 1988 through 1992, when I would buy the odd issue of Batman or Detective Comics, that I felt that the Batman stories were growing worse and worse. That's why I stopped getting them in 1992. Batman seemed to do less and less as time went on. He barely did anything, in his own series'. And he barely did anything in The Return of Scarface. What the heck happened to him?! In the concluding issue of first Scarface story, Batman was so determined to put the Ventriloquist behind bars, he...

In contrast, what does he do in Part 3 of "The Return of Scarface"?

And why didn't Batman do anything about the Ventriloquist afterwards? Did he get too busy with other matters, in Detective Comics 643 and Batman 477? Maybe. I'm not getting those issues to find out. But even so, is this the same Batman who, as I said, multi-tasked in the first Scarface story? (Ah, I'm giving up on spoiler buttons at this point.)

I wondered: how did the Ventriloquist wind up in Arkham at the beginning of Knightfall? In some other story? I looked it up in comicbookrealm.com, to find that the Ventriloquist's next appearance, three months later, was in Detective Comics Annual 5, in which he helps the Joker escape from Arkham Asylum. According to my Google search, no, Wesley does NOT wind up in jail nor in Arkham Asylum in that story; he just disappears. And his next appearance was in Knightfall, which starts out with him in Arkham Asylum. How did he get apprehended to be sent there? As far as I can tell, the comics never tell us this. Maybe ordinary people - such as the police, lawyers, government agents, and the like - managed to nab him for something... like tax evasion, perhaps? Heh. Well, that would be fine. But then why read "The Return of Scarface" at all? I would advise anyone to skip it.

You know, I was thinking about this thread. It was - whoa! - SEVENTEEN YEARS ago that I started reading this thread, wishing to write in it. I particularly wanted to end a post here with "Long live the Legion thread!" It wasn't until 2009 that I did the former (in this post), and 2010 when I did the latter (in this post).

But... in 2017 EileenProphetofIstus seemed - to me, anyway - discontent with these boards. At least, she didn't seem happy with MY responses to her questions, like this one or this one.

And later that year, she bailed out of these boards altogether, and I feel poorer for it. I don't know what happened with her, but I'd like to think that she met with success writing her Legion game, her campaign world book, and whatever other projects she worked on since then.

What can I say? Jim Shooter's death left me thinking of other kinds of losses too.

This came as a shock to me.

I won't waste time writing about the facts of Shooter's remarkable life. You could get that information from many, many sources, far more reliable than anything I could write here. I expect that even people who hated Jim Shooter couldn't deny what a huge impact he had on the American comic book industry, so hard facts are easy to research.

No, I just want to throw in a personal note. In the 2000s, when I was at the height of my Legion of Super-Heroes fandom, I got and read all that material from its beginning in 1958 until mid-1968. I had heard that Jim Shooter - whom DC Comics had hired to write for that series when he was 14 - did a particularly good job, revolutionizing the series. But I read his Legion material published from mid-1966 to mid-1968 and said "Meh. I don't see that it's any greater than the earliest Legion stories." I felt much more impressed with Paul Levitz' contribution to the series.

Only two days ago, I happened to write about the subject on these forums. (Here's a link to that post.) At the time, I had no idea that Shooter's death was only one day away. Anyway, I was speaking highly of Paul Levitz' Legion issues from the 1970s and 80s, saying that they "beat the heck" out of the earlier stories. And to indicate that I knew what I was talking about, I explained how I had read Shooter's stuff from the 1960s.

And as I wrote that, I looked at my own writing and frowned. (I've been doing that a lot lately with my own writing.) Was it fair for me to compare material from the 1960s to the late 1970s? In the 60s, DC was still gearing comics toward children. It wasn't until the 70s that DC began to consider the more mature demographic (although I must comment that I feel DC didn't quite figure out how to make that work for them until around 1980). I found myself finishing that paragraph with the confession that perhaps I was being unfair to Shooter. Instead of making my point - that I knew what I was talking about - I found that I was defeating the... POINT of making a point. Maybe I DON'T know what I'm talking about.

Later in that post, I went on to say that I wanted to get more of Levitz' Legion material from the 1970s. After I submitted my post, I found myself thinking "And when I do that, I ought to try some of SHOOTER's Legion stuff from the 1970s as well. Until I do, what right do I have to trash-talk his writing?"

Of course, Shooter's work since then was tremendous. His work for Marvel in the 1970s and 80s changed the whole course of comic book history. But again, sources are plentiful, so you don't need me to tell you that.

Back in March, in this thread, Aberzombie brought up Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga. That led me to rave about Paul Levitz, whose Legion stories from the 1980s I contrasted favorably with those of Jim Shooter from the 1960s. (Here's a link to that post.)

In writing that post, I referred to Paul Levitz' first Legion run. Then I proofread my post and frowned. It wasn't his FIRST run. What about all those Legion stories he wrote in the 1970s? So I edited my post to say "Paul Levitz's SECOND run". Later I re-read my post and frowned again. In the 2000s, when I got all Legion-crazy and collected over 50 of those Paul Levitz issues, why did I never look into Levitz's FIRST run, from the 1970s? I don't recall ever even considering it. I'm not such a Legion fan anymore, and can no longer seem to read more than a few issues at a time, but still, I wondered what I might have missed out on. Maybe Paul Levitz - still a young and immature writer - had some room for improvement in the 1970s, but hey, I got and enjoyed reading his stories about Aquaman and The Huntress from that decade, even if his dialog wasn't quite up to snuff.

So the next time I ordered old comics from Mile High, I threw three of Levitz' Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes issues into my order. I chose issues 228 through 230, simply because they were cheap. With hindsight, I should have chosen some later issues which were twice the length, thus getting more bang for my buck, but I didn't think to check the page counts. Ah well; live and learn. But the issues I DID get proved worthy additions to my collection. Yeah, some of Levitz' dialog could have used some minor revision, but he had good IDEAS for stories, and the plots and action beat the heck out of the Legion stories of the 1960s.

Maybe I should justify what qualifies me to make that comparison. I bought and read the first three DC Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes volumes, thus covering every Legion story until mid-1968. Possibly Jim Shooter's Legion stories improved during the next ten years, in which case my dismissing Shooter may be unfair, but I'm judging by what I've seen.

Anyway, I got to start my reading with a bang. The rest of this post is spoiler-heavy, but hey, there were ALREADY spoilers; in Adventure Comics issue 354, Jim Shooter had foretold that Chemical King - whom we had never even SEEN and would not see until 17 issues later - "sacrificed his life to prevent World War VII". (I was fortunate enough to see that bit of foreshadowing in the third Showcase volume, which also showed me the first appearance of the Dark Circle in Adventure Comics issue 367.)

So I thrilled to see those very events - related previously in only one brief phrase in Adventure 354 - unfold in Legion issue 228. I've often ranted that I prefer LINEAR time travel stories - in which the future cannot be changed - over stories it which it can. Not only do I regard the business of changing history to be inherently illogical, but every story about changing history - with no major exceptions that I can think of - seems unable to stay true even to its own - already absurd - rules of logic. Before the Crisis on Infinite Earths, characters like Superboy simply could not change history in the DC comic-book universe, and that's the way it should be, in my not-so-humble opinion. The letters page, speaking of issue 223, mentioned a "billion possible futures". I don't know what that's about, and I don't want to know. Issue 228 showed us history happening the way it was meant to happen.

Issue 229 made a perfect follow-up to that story, as the Legion went after the Dark Circle in retaliation. Even issue 230 mentions Chemical King's funeral, if only briefly to set the stage for Bouncing Boy's solo story (as I've seen done in so many other team books). And it's nice to see an alien that isn't just a human in a funny suit.

Last year, I got so thoroughly hooked on Denny O'Neill's Iron Man run that I frequently had to order many issues of that stuff from Mile High Comics. This time, I'm not nearly so hooked on Levitz' Legion stories, so it will probably be some time before I order comics again. But I look forward to that day - whenever it is - so I can get a little more of that Legion material.

My latest order from Mile High also included other comic books that I wanted as a result of stuff Aberzombie brought up in this thread. I'll probably post about some of those other issues another day.

Yesterday the lady who takes care of our kitchens and office supplies let me know the executive secretary downstairs was giving away some comic related items. So I went down to take a look.

She had four wood signs with images from various comic book covers printed on them: Avengers #144, Detective Comics #587, X-Men #100, and then what looked part of an old Superman cover (not sure which, since I was never a big Superman collector).

The other day I started re-bagging and boarding my collection of Detective Comics. Of course, while doing so I read through a few issues. One three-part story that always stood out for me was when they introduced Mr. Kadaver and Corrosive Man. That was in the Grant and Breyfogle era.

Perhaps the sight of that cover might have influenced you to wish to read the story again? Getting a brief glimpse of a comic book cover - among many others - is one thing. But a piece of art displayed where you might see it day after day is something else... maybe? It's just a thought.

Yeah, I remember those three issues of Detective Comics, numbers 587, 588 and 589. Back in the 1980s I picked them up from the comic stand at my local drug store. (That's also where I got issues 590, and 591, and...)

I thought the most memorable scene in that story involved the homeless guys. "Monster stalks the city -- call in the Batman! Terrorists shoot up City Hall -- call in the Batman! Some rich dame stubs her toe -- call in the lousy Batman! Some maniac carves up poor Rossi, an' nobody wants to know! Why don't they send the Batman to us, eh? I'll tell ya why -- 'cos we're just no-good drunken bums!"

And of course, there was the scene where the Corrosive Man comes after Kadaver. And that whole evil-turns-on-its-own theme gives the story a surprise ending when the DJ - whom I had never expected to have any real relevance to the story - hit the drug smuggler with his car, because he was high on the same kind of drug. "Call it poetic justice."

Get the bikes!

I don't keep current with movies, so I was completely unaware until today about this coming out tomorrow. I watched...

...this trailer from 5 months ago...

...and this trailer from 1 month ago...

...and I stopped there, not wanting to spoil it for myself.

But I've learned enough. It's now official that Mr Han inhabits the same universe. There are plausibility problems with that, but hey, the Karate Kid saga never shied away from THOSE before. And it's entirely possible that I won't like this new "Li" character. I'm thinking of how much I disliked Adonis Creed, which is why I never saw Creed III, but I had to see the first 2 Creed movies to see Rocky Balboa. Likewise, even if I hate Li, I'd like to see more of Daniel LaRusso.

In the last 20 years I watched only 4 movies in the theater, preferring instead to take DVDs out of the library, which is my plan for this movie too. Still, I'm interested. Not even 3 months ago I posted this message about the ending of Cobra Kai. Even if I don't see the Karate Kid: Legends movie until next year, I just feel pleased to think that the next chapter in the story is coming so soon.

In the 1990s, thanks to my friend and his huge comic book collection, I was able to read Peter David's issues of The Incredible Hulk, X-Factor and Aquaman. But it's thanks to Peter David and his great storytelling talent that I read so MANY issues of those series'.

In 2023, in this thread, I was talking about comics related to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. (Here's a link to that post.) To recap, for many years, I wanted to read Buffy comics, but didn't, because I figured that to appreciate them, I would need familiarity with the show.

If I could now advise my past self - or anyone else in a similar position - I would recommend the eight-issue series Fray, by Joss Whedon. It's set in the Buffyverse, but it doesn't assume knowledge of the show. It takes place centuries into the future, in a time when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and there are flying cars. I mean... how often have I wished to see action scenes with flying cars, like I mentioned in this thread and in this thread, among others? And that's the type of background Whedon gives us in this epic story about a Vampire Slayer and her demon mentor. The story is funny, it's tragic, it's suspenseful, it's action-packed, it has Joss Whedon-style plot twists and surprises, and in short, it rocks.

In 2023, when I finally finished the Buffy show, I went on to get a lot of trade paperbacks reprinting Buffy-related comics. I got the first four volumes of "Season 8". I got the first two volumes of the Buffy Omnibus. I got Tales of the Vampires and Tales of the Slayers. Some of that material was good, some of it less so. But recently, to my surprise, I felt a desire to read Fray a third time. I've long rated stories based on the number of times I voluntarily read them (or, in the case of videos, viewed them). I never thought of a better objective criterion. So yesterday, when I finished my third reading of Fray, that officially made it my single favorite story of the Buffyverse.

My all-time favorite module series is the "Coin" trilogy by Kenzer & Company: The Root of All Evil, Forging Darkness, and Coin's End. It was written for the "Kingdoms of Kalamar" setting and D&D 3.0 but I converted the first two modules to Pathfinder RPG 1e and ran them in Golarion, starting in Nex and seeing the party travel to the Mwangi Expanse and Katapesh over the course of the campaign. I described my experiences with that campaign in the following thread:

My 6-year-old played Pathfinder

I could swear someone else on these boards related running the "Coin" trilogy in Golarion, starting it in... the Shackles? The Sodden Lands? Something like that. But I can't seem to find those posts now.

Well, I do regard my first post as "much of a post". I had long felt this desire to talk about my experiences with Dungeons and Dragons, so when I finally came out of my shell in 2009, I rambled on about one story for thousands of words.

I posted many, many messages shortly thereafter; I had so much I wanted to say. Less than a year later, in 2010, I marked my 1000th post. (For some reason, that link doesn't work so well, not scrolling down to the right spot, but just use the "Find" command in your browser and scan for "1000".) Well, THAT wasn't much of a post. I specifically made that point.

Heh. And my 1000th post got the reply:

Gratz on the 1K mark Aaron!

1,000 is an achievement. 10,000 they start looking at you funny. 30,000 you contract lycanthropy and move to Texas :P

I wonder what an appropriate number would be for a ZOMBIE in Texas.

Anyway, after that I slowed down somewhat. I noted my 2000th post more than two years later, in 2013. Once again, I even mentioned that it wasn't much of a post... or at least, not a positive one. But... hey, I wouldn't call it a-hole-ish, either (although some people might disagree with me about that).

After that, I lost interest, and my posting slowed WAY down. I must have posted my 3000th message here in 2023, but I didn't note it at the time. I wasn't even thinking about that.

I still have fun on these boards, though (albeit less frequently).

I remember reading about the Flag-Smasher in my friend's copy of Captain America #312...

I have X-Factor issues 1, 2, 3 and 7, all drawn by Guice. I remember talking about that stuff here.

I have Detective Comics #587, and a reprint of X-Men #100. I'm looking at them now, and... yeah, I guess those cover pictures do look iconic. But they wouldn't draw my attention. Cover art seldom does.

But if I did want to display a cover picture of a comic, which would it be? There was one cover picture that first drew me into what would become my all-time favorite comic-book series, the 1999-2006 JSA run. That cover picture - of the first trade paperback that reprinted that series - looked like this.

In fact, I related the story before, in this post.

In 2016, I was finishing up my second reading of the Conquerors trilogy by Timothy Zahn when I wrote about it in this thread. Here's a link to that post.

Later that year I began my third reading of the trilogy and wrote about it again. Here's a link to THAT post.

Once again - as in my second reading of the trilogy - I put it down - this time for YEARS - before picking it up again. I plan to finish it this weekend. I still have some gripes with that series. So many details seem to make no sense, and I believe that Zahn obfuscated those details with unnecessarily complicated-sounding babble. Well, maybe I'm wrong. I would love to get some kind of Conquerors source book in which Zahn could clarify those details; if he did, maybe I would revise my opinion and admit that the issue was with my comprehension, not with Zahn's writing. But I doubt it.

And yet, I just keep crawling back to that series! I said it before and I'll say it again: If you're looking for a military sci-fi novel series, or one with FTL travel and a variety of intelligent, space-faring races - in other words, a Star Wars-like book series - I can't think of anything I'd recommend more highly than the Conquerors trilogy.

And now I'm nearly finished with my FOURTH reading! I plan to finish it this week. I was going to write some stuff about the trilogy in this post, before realizing that - years ago - I basically already said everything I now want to say.

I'm nearly finished reading through the back issues of New Mutants I bought awhile back. It's been slow going as a vacillate between various reading material.

Anyway, yesterday I read my way through issue 45, where the New Mutants were invited to a mixer with another school. One of those students from the other school was also a mutant, and being bullied. He ended up taking his own life part way through the issue. Very sad, but some great writing. The eulogy at the end, given by Kitty, was surprising in some of the words they were allowed to use.

Yes! That was, by far, my favorite issue of The New Mutants! Even though I read my friend's New Mutants collection for free, after I read his copy of 45, I soon felt compelled to buy my own copy. It's the only New Mutants material I ever bought.

I have mixed feelings about Wonder Woman. On the one hand, I regard her as one of the three essential characters of the Justice League, and for that matter, one of the three most iconic superheroes of all time. I generally like to see her in team stories.

On the other hand, I generally dislike any story presented in her own comic. I generally wince at any issue of Wonder Woman that I read, finding that it has massive plausibility problems, even by superhero comic book standards. I've sampled at least a dozen different eras of her comic, ranging from 1941 to 2021, and there's only one such era that I ever found particularly interesting, and that era is...

...the first one! Over 20 years ago, I took Wonder Woman Archives Volume 1 out of my local public library and read that book in its entirety. It had the first 17 "Wonder Woman" stories ever published, from 1941-1942...

I've finally discovered the first run of Wonder Woman that I particularly liked, post-1942: Tom King's run on the series, which started in 2023. From my local public library, I took out the Wonder Woman: Outlaw and Wonder Woman: Sacrifice trade paperbacks, which gave me a story that I could actually get involved in... for the first 10 issues, anyway. After that, the series got distracted with a bunch of crossover events that I knew nothing and cared nothing about. I couldn't even finish the 13th issue. Still, for a Wonder Woman series to keep my interest for even THAT many issues has only the single precedent of the first Archives volume, so I find Tom King's run remarkable for that.

Yes, it's been 10 years since I created the thread...

Happy 80th birthday, Herb Alpert

...to pay tribute to my favorite musician alive. In that thread, I wrote a 1300-word biography of him. Since then, I expanded that biography to 15,000 words, adding a bibliography and footnotes and dividing it into chapters. Every now and then I update it or add material. Obviously, I don't expect anyone on these boards to read a post that long.

So I'll just say this: when I call Alpert "my favorite musician alive", what I have in mind is his "Tijuana Brass" records from the 1960s. By the time he finished making those, he got sick of that kind of music and changed to other styles, some of which were popular and some of which I like. But they weren't the Tijuana Brass.

This year, at the age of 89, Alpert - still making records and going on concert tours, amazingly - began a tour titled “Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass & Other Delights” in which he plays mostly Tijuana Brass songs in a manner reminiscent of his old style. Yes, even now, as he turns 90, he's still going strong, doing what he loves to do.

Here's wishing his health and happiness for the next 10 years.

Presenting a Swing-Styled, Big Band Rendition of Portal's 'Still Alive' with a masterful Sinatra Sound-Alike... courtesy of The 8-Bit Big Band. :)

Back in the late 1990s, when Nintendo ceased production of the 16-bit Super NES, I no longer felt any interest in new computer games. I would dig out old games and play them, but new games just didn't call to me... with one major exception. Portal came out in 2007, but it would be many years before I heard of it. Actually, I heard a few mentions of GLaDOS. I read a direct reference or two to the character on these very messageboards, but the name meant nothing to me at the time.

One day - in 2023, I think? 2022, maybe? - I happened to hear that cover of "Still Alive" by 8-Bit Big Band. I didn't like the song enough to want to download it to add it to my playlist, but I liked to stream it on occasion. And something about that song intrigued me. What was the song about? I read up on Portal and it fascinated me! It's the only computer game that I bought since the 1990s. I spent months working on setting my record for the shortest amount of time to complete it. And I never even liked that kind of game!

A lot of people credit Jim Shooter for making The Legion of Super-Heroes great in the 1960s. But I personally didn't see Shooter's stories as an improvement over the oldest ones. In the 2000s, when I felt an interest in pursuing Legion issues, I sampled them from several different eras and came to the conclusion that the Legion's true golden age was Paul Levitz's second run, starting in issue 284, back in 1981. I collected every issue from that until 317 (from 1984). I also collected a dozen issues from Levitz's "Baxter" issues of Legion from the mid-1980s, a few Mando reprints of issues from that era, the whole Legionnaires 3 mini-series, and 4 annuals from that era. I read all those issues, most of them multiple times. When Levitz portrayed the DC Universe 1000 years into the future, I felt that he did so more convincingly than any other writer I know. In my mind, Paul Levitz was to the Legion what Chris Claremont was to the X-Men; when Levitz wrote the Legion, he did so with AUTHORITY, such that I regarded what Levitz wrote to be canon. And it was fun to see what happened to various familiar characters, organizations and places after a millennium. Unlike other people, I didn't see that the Great Darkness saga was better than other stories of that period, but it provides as good an example as any of a character and a place we'd like to see in the distant future.

Gotta catch 'em all.