04.06.10
Travel Rule #1
If you never turn the other direction out of the hotel, then you could be missing the Dunkin’ Donuts, a coffee shop, the comic book store, and a sushi place that serves a dish called Ride the Wild Donkey Roll.
04.02.10
Oh SNAP! Geek version
The email trail after I told Jeff I was heading out to get my stash from the comic’s store today -
Jeff: “Didn’t you hear Batman died in the last episode? Did you get to that yet? ooooppps...”
Beau: “HA! Shows what YOU know…in the final issue of Blackest Night which I just picked up, all the dead heroes from the past have been resurrected through the Universal Light EXCEPT for Batman (and Elongated Man but that’s another story) which proves everyone’s suspicions that he DIDN’T die at the end of Final Crisis list year.
That and they’re launching a new comic next month called “The Return of Bruce Wayne” where Batman travels through time where he was actually lost (instead of being killed by Darkseid’s Omega Beam) so we’ll get to see a Caveman Batman, Pirate Batman, and Renaissance Batman before he ends up back in this time.
Additionally, in the Batman comic, Alfred and Dick Grayson (who is the new Batman) have been finding bat-clues stashed around Wayne Manor that they never knew were there before, leading them to believe Bruce is still alive.
You should REALLY pay attention when I talk since I’ve gone over this with you before. I’m not just gabbing to hear myself speak. It would save you a LOT of embarrassment when you send out emails like the one you just did.
Just saying.”
03.10.09
DC Wants Everyone Wearing a Rainbow Flag
I’m nothing if not a sucker. I can’t help it. Specifically, I’ve been lured into ridiculous comic story arcs through DC and Marvel for the last two years. I’m such a glutton for punishment and so desperate to know whats happening that I suffer through months and months of shitty story-telling and bad art just to keep up. At $3.99 a comic, that is a commitment. I just can’t give them up (for the most part…some titles were just TOO stinky even for me and I painfully dropped them, apparently no worse for wear).
So when DC announced that it was going to start the penultimate Green Lantern story (a title I didn’t even follow, by the way) called “Blackest Night”, some kind of a ping went off in my head and I decided I needed to start following it. I started buying the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corp. titles to get some background and now we’re into the full launch of the story line. Most people know something about Green Lantern so the idea behind this arc is that there are Lanterns of all different colors, all the colors of the rainbow in fact. The Reds, Oranges, and Yellows (which has been around through Sinestro, GL’s arch enemy) are all baddies and then the other colors are probably mostly good. This story then develops what I think are going to be called the Black Lanterns and they seem to be dead superheros brought back to life, so….zombie Lanterns.
From what I can tell, there hasn’t been this kind of subversive gay intrusion into the mainstream collective since Magic Earring Ken back in the 80′s. I mean, who was the genius that decided to expand the Lantern Corps into all the colors of the big, gay rainbow flag? Homo geniuses, I’m assuming. Comics by their nature are erotic and homo-erotic; idealized versions of impossibly muscled and chiseled men and women so thin-waisted and top heavy that no amount of double-sided tape could keep them from spilling out of their bustiers and toppling over…and of course they’re in heels (and if they’re not, they should be. I have standards I need met in my heroines and tall heels is most definitely one of them.) So we’re getting the Rainbow Lantern Corps out of all this…and I’m getting a new wardrobe.
None of this is totally essential to know and quite honestly, Jeff stopped listening to the explanation after the first sentence. All he wanted to know was whether there were more comics he was going to have to pick up for me in the city (“yes, for sure,” I smiled). But then a good friend got me turned on to Graphetti Graphics, a merchandising place that carries official DC t-shirts. A quick look around and all the sudden I’ve got a big box of Lantern t-shirts coming my way, one for each colored Lantern with their distinct insignias emblazoned on the front.
True confession: I love insignias…I love their symbolism and what they are suppose to represent. I hate the fucking Nazis but I recognize the fear and strength that was conveyed by the swastika and why it was on everything. One of the best parts of comics is the idea that everyone has their own insignia….the Batman’s bat silhouette, Superman’s big “S”, Wonder Woman’s stylized “W’s” over her rack…every hero and villain has one. I mourn my days that I don’t have a nickname and I don’t have an insignia to wear around and put on everything, including my clothing, dishes, car, cats, and stationary. Hell, even Martha Stewart has her own insignia that she uses with her branding machine.
So I made and received my order within the week, unannounced to Jeff until it arrived and I got a call saying, “What the HELL are these???” I was bummed to find out that in my rush to order, I’d neglected the Purple Lanterns shirt which might have been unconscious on my part. I hate their insignia and find them rather annoying. They fly around the universe promoting love in thick pinkish curtains of light and are also all women…women with tremendous comic bazooms all tethered together in two tea-bags and a piece of floss, but still. No man looks good in purple, I’m afraid. But I’m ordering the shirt none the less, just because I have to have the complete set.
I have to have the complete set because for no other reason, I am a Gemini which was pointed out to me today. I seek and must have symmetry in all things. If it’s a series of anything, I want it. I buy whole series of books that I never read because I can’t have just half a series on my shelves (hello, Wheel of Time). If I had more friends who would put up with it, I’d have us dressed in all sorts of sets for Halloween, like the four suits of a deck of cards, the twenty-one Major Arcana of the Tarot, The first five books of the Bible, the four seasons, the four elements, the seven colors of the rainbow, the four winds, the seven deadly sins, the seven heavenly virtues, and so forth and so on. Hell, I’d even get a group of us dressed up as Prime Numbers if I could figure out why they’re important and how to graphically represent them with more than just sticking big white numbers on black t-shirts. It’s almost obsessive/compulsive sickness, really. That fact that I’ve been able to keep it under wraps and under control for so long says a lot about my ability to suppress and deny my true nature. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that I was destined for these t-shirts. Now whether the actual story line blows or not, who can say. These days, I can’t keep all the story continuities straight without having Wikipedia opened beside me while I read the comics. Also, I bitch a lot about not understanding or actually following whats going on. Does everyone know that the original Flash, Barry Allen, has been dead since 1985? Of course he’s back now with some new Flash title but I can’t get into that….I have to give up somewhere and this is it. I’m spent…unless they come out with a bunch of rainbow-colored flashes and then I’m totally on board…and buying the t-shirts
Please to enjoy:
Rage of the Red Lanterns
The Avarice of the Orange Lanterns
The Yellow Lantern Insignal of the Sinestro Corps
The Green Lanterns, Powered by Will
Blue Lanterns powered by Hope
Indigo Lanterns powered by Compassion
Black Lanterns, The Rise of the Dead Heroes