I’m not a gamer by any means, and though I’ve collected a few Heroclix figures of characters I’ve liked over the years, I’ve not been keeping up with them.

So when Employee Aaron showed me this Mirror Master piece:

…my first reaction was “is Wizkids cheaping out on their figures? Are they using cardboard standees on the dials now, instead of the plastic sculpts?” And then about 0.5 seconds later, I felt incredibly stupid because I realized “OH! He’s in a mirror!”

I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, sometimes.

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A few store sales notes:

• Star Wars trade paperbacks are selling well – the books featuring the villains tend to move the quickest. The demand for anything featuring Darth Maul still remains high. Even the Episode I adaptation is selling well. All the prequel movie adaptations are selling well, for that matter.
• Back issue demand for the “Sinestro Corps” Green Lantern event is still strong, and interest in GL continues to push good sales on new issues. The most recent post-Sinestro War issue of Green Lantern Corps has even gone to a second printing due to demand and, likely, reorder activity at Diamond, even though no more copies were to be had.

  People seem to like these smaller crossover series that restrict themselves to a single “family” of books, like Sinestro War and, on Marvel’s side, the “Messiah Complex” series in the X-books. With the company-wide sprawling events, like “Civil War,” folks bought all the books, but usually grudgingly. “Well, I better buy ’em so I know what’s going on,” that sort of thing. The smaller events seem to encourage a little more excitement and enthusiasm among my customers, without the slight amount of resentment at feeling “forced” to buy multiple tie-ins.

• On the other hand, I’m getting plenty of requests for Countdown: Arena…I’ve had to reorder issues several times.
• Oddly, the Roman Dirge hardcover It Ate Billy for Christmas is selling better now than it did at Christmastime. Go figure.
• Every time a new Spawn comic shows up on the stands, I usually have a customer or three express surprise that it’s still coming out, that McFarlane is even still bothering with the comics end of his toy empire. I wonder how much the funnybooks contribute to the overall financial intake of his business…about 0.000001%?
• IDW’s Angel: After the Fall series is moving well, with even the variants selling strongly.

  Speaking of Angel variants, here’s one from a previous Angel series that we had floating around the store:

  
  AHHH! Too close, too close! (Though I understand that your mileage may vary.) This cover would fit right in with the vinyl sleeve heads (link via Poor Mojo).

From Flash #7 (Dec. 1987):

“I am perplexed and disappointed that this magazine contains so much sexual content. No, it is not blatant, graphic, or obscene. Just tasteless. […] Wally’s ‘bed romping’ is something I don’t need to be let in on.”

From Flash #9 (Feb. 1988):

I am very disturbed, even disgusted, that the fine attributes of the new Flash are being cheaped by the inclusion of exploitative sexual encounters. Not only is Wally West’s [sic] exploiting the women he is so casually ‘falling in love with,’ but DC is exploiting its pubescent readers by tantalizing them with a ‘hero’s’ sexual conquests of curvacious women.

[…]

“….If you are going to portray ‘realism’ rather than idealistic heroism […] then you should also write about the broken hearts, despair, loneliness, anger of the women who feel ‘used’ when he leaves them behind after having his ‘way with them.'”

From Flash #11 (Apr. 1988):

“I’m really peeved about Wally’s one night stands, too. Don’t you think he’s gotten AIDS yet? Isn’t he supposed to be a HERO, someone to look up to? How can you look up to a sexual bum like him? That’s what he is – a gigolo!”

From Flash #12 (May 1988):

“Now that he […] has his own book, Wally needs character. Instead of a heroic and intriguing person like, say, Batman, Wonder Woman, most of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and the Teen Titans, the powers that were turned Wally into an immoral, musical bed-playing adulterer.

“This is a personality I absolutely loathe: in life, on TV, and in books. Such a character uses his sex partners as objects and is unable to control his own urges. The term is gigolo, an unpaid whore. He deserves nothing more than a good, retributive come-uppance: like jail, death, disease, or emasculation.”

Number of women Wally West has apparently been intimate with in the Flash series, as of issue #12:

1. Francine Kane (Wally’s girlfriend at the beginning of the series, leaves in issue #3)

2. Tina McGee (introduced in issue #3)

Number of one-night stands presented in the Flash series, as of issue #12: EDIT: none apparently one, in the first Flash annual, which I still haven’t found time to read. Still, that doesn’t mean the above writers aren’t overblowing things a tad.

Number of women apparently used by Wally as sexual objects, without regard for their feelings, as of issue #12: none (Francine’s relationship with Wally seemed fairly normal, as superhero relationships go, and he and Tina, at this point in the series, are having some issues, but the two appear to be on equal footing…no one’s being used as an “object”)

In reference to Tina McGee…yes, she was a married woman, but separated from her abusive husband for quite some time. This is a little different situation from Wally waiting for the husband to leave the house so he could sneak in and have a little slap ‘n’ tickle with the wife. The fact that she was still married, legally, did cause some consternation for Wally, and the topic was brought up several times during the course of these early issues. So it’s not as if any of the possible moral issues were ignored.

In other words, Wally wasn’t speedin’ around town, flashing from one bed to another and shtupping every gal he saw, which is what the above letter writers apparently thought he was doing. I don’t know what comic they were reading, but it wasn’t The Flash, where Wally went from one monogamous relationship, which had ended, to another monogamous relationship. Okay, the timing between the two was pretty tight (like, hours), but this is the Flash…like he’s gonna take anything slow.

The problem these fans had was apparently that Wally was having any sex at all, which, I guess, compared to the relatively sexless Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman (but not Robin, the Randy Wonder), Mr. West looked like Mr. Manslut McSluttyslut.

Oh, and when Wally was trapped in another dimension during the Chunk storyline, one of the women who had been stuck there for a while tried to seduce him, and Wally nearly kissed her, but luckily there was some Flashus Interruptus and nothing came of it.

Another caveat: I haven’t reread the first Flash annual yet, which came out during the first year of the series. If it’s “The Flash’s Sexy Adventures in the Land of Bikini Girls,” I take it all back.

from The Three Mouseketeers #7 (May-June, 1971)

So that enormous stock of science fiction books we picked up a while back…what the store that these books used to belong to would do is mark notes about the books directly on the plastic baggies they were stored in. Usually it was just things like “First Printing!” and “Frazetta cover!” and “Classic!” and stuff like that. And we haven’t been replacing the bags…we’re just slapping our pricetags on ’em and leaving the comments as is.

This one is my favorite thus far:

By an odd coincidence, “I have to be stopped! All women are my playthings!” was my “senior quote” in my high school yearbook. Go figure.

Just a brief list of observations from the last couple of days at the shop:

• Sales on the latest issue of Anita Blake are way off from previous issues, probably because of its lateness. Hopefully because of its lateness, and fans just don’t realize it’s out yet, as otherwise it means the bloom is off the Anita Blake rose, or something like that.
• Marvel’s taking orders for a second printing of Hulk #1. Is it really in that short of supply, or is this another “look, it’s a hit, honest, why else would we go to a second printing” deal like with Amazing Spider-Man #546?
• Speaking of second printings, I had someone ask if the Ultimates 3 #1 second printing had a variant cover, and I immediately started to cry.
• IT’S NOT MY FAULT EMPOWERED #3 ISN’T OUT YET. IT SHOULD BE HERE IN MARCH. NO REALLY LOOK FOR YOURSELF.
• There’s been some mockery of the sparseness of the Cloverfield cups. “Boy, they went all out on these things, didn’t they?” is a common refrain. They do look kinda plain, but it’s not like they were going to put pictures of the monster all over ’em or anything.
• Speaking of Cloverfield, one of my customers mentioned that he heard it was based on the old Rampage arcade game, and I thought, “oh, c’mon,” but then I Googled it up and WHAT THE HELL.
• Conversation with Customer Scott:

  Customer Scott: “Is Rob Liefeld unable to draw a closed mouth?”

  Me: “You probably could have ended that question three words earlier.”

• Customer Kevin was going to speak to an elementary school class about drawing and making comic books, and asked me if I could provide a bunch of Free Comic Book Day comics he could use for giveaways, which I gladly provided (after stamping the store address on the covers, of course…get those customers early!).

  Anyway, Kevin came back to the store today to let me know things went swimmingly, and gave me a photo of himself with the class, all holding their comic books. I’m not going to post it here, since I don’t think the kids’ parents would want some complete stranger putting up images of their young’uns on his site, but it’s a very cute picture…it’s one of those photos where after taking the “nice” photo, you get to cut loose with the “silly” photo, and that’s the one I got. Man, some of those kids can pull some seriously wacky faces.

• A few words about the week’s new releases: Fell #9 – probably Warren Ellis’ sharpest, most concise, most accessible work, with experimental-yet-understandable artistic support from Ben Templesmith. Best bit: the representation of Fell’s mental pictures of what his unseen “perp” was up to.

  Booster Gold #6 – Yeah, I wouldn’t get to used to this being the “status quo” for that particular character if I were you.

  Groo: Hell on Earth #3 – I love Groo comics just about more than any other comic, but sometimes its occasional “message” comics just barely dance around the edge of being a little too heavy-handed.

  Amazing Spider-Man #547 – So it occurred to me…if there’s a marriage between Peter and Mary Jane in the next film, how fast will that “deal with the devil” be undone?

  Incredible Hercules #113 – Actually pretty good. Light, fun read…Hercules in the right writer’s hands is always a hoot, even though things take a serious turn at the end here. Plus, Wonder Man! In his old red jacket look, yet! (Yes, I know he appears in other books with his old look, but I don’t read those, man.)

• About a couple of next week’s Marvel books:

  World War Hulk Aftersmash: Damage Control #1 – A quick flip through our preview copy shows that this new series is right in line with the three classic mini-series of years past. The art’s a little slicker, but the characters still look recognizably like their old selves.

  Marvel Zombies 2 #4 – While I hated the zombie overkill Marvel did with all those zombie variant covers a while back…I don’t have any problem with the Marvel Zombies series proper. It remains gross and dark-humored, but it feels like the steam is running out of this particular franchise. A Marvel Zombies 3 would really not be a good idea…which of course won’t stop it from happening.

• Only because it came up at work the other day…here’s a YouTube video showcasing my all-time favorite computer game theme music:

  If you want to see seven minutes of the game in action, here’s a clip of the Commodore 64 version.

  And here’s about 10 minutes of the C64 version of another game I spent far too much time on as a young Mikester.

…just a picture of Sluggo:

BEHOLD

THE SLUGGO STRUT

Some days, that’s all I can offer you.

…as this is what I found on one of the counters when I got to work Tuesday morning:

A close-up of the plastic cups…good gravy, they sent us a lot of these:

GODZILLA TRIUMPHANT:

That’s particularly amusing given what folks were assuming about Cloverfield early on.

Note to self: give Employees Aaron and Jeff more to do on Mondays.

By the way, I don’t really feel one way or the other about this film. Maybe I’ll rent it from Netflix when it moves to DVD in about four months. I like the cups, though…I can use those.

Issues 3 and 4 of the relaunched Flash comic (Aug-Sept 1987) involve Wally’s battle with an extraterrestrial machine intelligence called the Kilg%re. It’s exciting, it’s creepy, and its conclusion stretched credulity (20-year-old SPOILER: they had to shut down every power grid IN THE WORLD in order to stop this thing). A few other notes about these issues:

1. The correct pronunciation of “Kilg%re” was quite the topic in the Flash letter columns, as I recall. In my head, I always pronounced it “Kilgolore,” making the percent sign into two Os and an L for no real good reason. However, this had the added benefit of sounding like “Kill Galore,” and how cool is that? I suppose most people just called it “Kilgore,” which was probably easier. I don’t know if an actual pronunciation ever popped up anyway, but I’m sure one of you folks will let me know.

2. President Reagan makes an appearance. Hi, Ronnie!

You know, comic books sure took to the Gipper…he was always popping up in some superhero book or other, and I’m not even talking about Reagan’s Raiders. He would just turn up, sometimes being turned into a giant snake creature to fight Captain America, sometimes just doing something presidential (good or ill), but for a while there it seemed like he was in every other comic. Other recent presidents haven’t had nearly the funnybook facetime as ol’ Ron…not either Bush, not Carter, not Clinton…well, maybe Nixon. Those other presidents had their moments, but for about eight years, the comics loved featuring Reagan.

3. The Kilg%re storyline was the one that introduced Dr. Tina McGee as a love interest for Wally, which was notable for two reasons. One, Dr. McGee was 32, twelve years older than 20-year-old Wally. I’m sure the 18-year-old Mikester at the time thought “wow, 32…that’s old,” which makes the 38-year-old Mikester I am now want to go back in time and slap him.

And two…oh, did I mention she was married? Separated, yes, but still married. That caused a stir among the fans, as you might imagine. Granted, it caused some difficulty and guilt with Wally in-story…not enough to keep him from her, sure. And it played into the next storyline, when her estranged husband shows up and, oh, it turns out he has super-speed powers, too, and he’s deranged. Wouldn’t you know it.

4. And the Kilg%re is defeated, though it pops up now and again in the Flash comic, and apparently it has something to do with Maxwell Lord becoming a robot or some damned thing, which doesn’t matter because that’s all been retconned away anyway.

By the way, I’m going to be slowly rereading my Flash run, in those brief lulls when I’m not overwhelmed with lots of other reading to catch up on. Hopefully you won’t mind my occasional commentary on the issues I’ve just read popping up here over the next few weeks or months…I’m not planning on turning this into Progressive Ruin’s All-Flash Fansite or anything.

Also by the way, I do intend on responding to some of your good and/or witty comments on my posts from the last few days. Just haven’t had much time to do so, and I apologize. I am reading them, rest assured!

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I finally received that Cinematic Titanic DVD I ordered a couple of weeks ago…and yes, I’ve watched it all the way through already. It feels like classic Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (which it should, since MST creator Joel Hodgson is responsible), and they picked a real stinker of a movie (The Oozing Skull) to kick off the series, and it’s perfect for the format. Not every joke works, but with the number they throw at you, that’s only to be expected.

Some notes:

1. The eventual plan of Cinematic Titanic is to offer their films either via download for your own burning pleasure, or via an actual DVD which would be mailed to you. This first movie isn’t yet available for download, due to some distribution right issues with the film’s owner, but when both options are available, if it’ll make your decision any easier, the DVD they mail you comes with NO extra packing material or goodies. It’s just a DVD (with an affixed label), in a mailing envelope. You’re not going to miss out on any neat DVD covers or anything if you just download the film and burn it yourself.

Also, the DVD I received had some minor scuffing on the playable side…enough to make me concerned prior to playing the film, but it appeared to play okay on my machine.

2. The format of the program is a little different from MST3K or the other spin-off project The Film Crew, in that there’s no preamble, no set-up for why this particular group of folks are watching this movie, who’s inflicting this film on them, and so on. You hit “play,” the cast’s silhouettes walk in from the sides of the screen and take their positions, and the movie and riffing immediately begin.

And the entire program takes place in this “theatre.” Unlike MST3K and Film Crew, there’s no leaving the film to go perform skits. Instead, one of the CT cast will say, “whoa, hold on” or something similar, and the film is paused while the cast goofs on the frozen image, or brings in silhouetted props (like the chandelier thing I mentioned), and otherwise performs bits, still related to the film, but otherwise outside the normal riffing.

3. Just so this is tangentially related to comic books, there is a joke about Todd McFarlane’s Spawn during the film’s opening credits.

3a. Come to think of it, McFarlane himself is only tangentially related to comic books, nowadays.

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Big bad Kevin Church‘s mini-series Cover Girl is back, in that trade paperback format you kids go wild for, so go out and buy it. It’s a fun and witty adventure/comedy that Ringwood Ken Lowery liked, and since Ken is right about all things, you know you can trust that review.

Also, Kevin has posted commentary for the first two chapters, so when you buy your copy of Cover Girl and read it, you can read it again with Kevin looking over your shoulder, metaphorically speaking, telling you neat stuff about it.

Also also, Kevin used my name and pal Dorian‘s for a couple of minor characters in the book, which probably means some of you will think this recommendation is biased, which is probably is, but I never promised you nuthin’, pal, so back off. And, believe it or not, somehow I missed our names in that book when I was reading it on the installment plan, which annoyed Kevin slightly. I don’t know how I missed them, considering I was scouring the pages waiting for my and Dor’s names to pop up. Must’ve missed that panel, somehow, or I was distracted (“Ooh, new All Star Batman!”) or something. Hey, I’m not perfect. Just close.