Author: Harold

When someone asks if you’re a god you say YES!

Went out last night to catch one of the final showings of the Ghostbusters re-release. There was about a dozen people in my theatre, and about half of them had never seen the movie before (college-age kids, mostly), so it was fun to watch the movie with people seeing it for the first time. You could tell that the studio had done a little work on it, the picture seemed clearer and brighter than I ever recalled it from when I was younger. I even noticed a sight-gag that I’d never spotted before – in the scene where the guys accidentally blow up the housekeeper’s cart, they turn away to do a bit of dialogue and in the background the housekeeper is trying to put out one of the flaming toilet rolls with a spray bottle.

On the way out of the theater I overheard one of the audience talking to a couple members of the staff. They were asking how it was because they had never seen it either, but one of them had heard “that the second one is better” to which the audience member said “There’s a second one?”

I just had to leave before I said anything. I’m kind of glad Gill had decided to stay home, I’m sure she would have them away from Ghostbusters II.

Current Mood: 🙂amused

Spiderman 2099 #1 and #2

Before anyone asks, yes I did check with the mods and it’s okay to discuss He Who Shall Not Be Scanned over here as long as there are no scans (of course) and he’s treated with the same respect shown any other creator.

With that said, let’s talk about the relaunched Spider-Man 2099. It’s interesting to read a character that’s been so heavily, almost exclusively, written by a single author. Sure, Miguel has shown up in Exiles before, and a few 2099 one-shots and minis, and most recently Dan Slott re-introduced the modern audience to Miguel over in Superior Spider-Man, but Peter David is still the author to have written him the most. So I have to assume that PAD has the best handle on who Miguel is, what makes him tick, and how he’d react to the present world he finds himself trapped in. And yeah, Miguel was always kind of brusque, and something of a jerk, but not dickishly so. So why do I feel like he’s more of a jerk now than he was in the nineties?

The issues themselves have been pretty good so far. I guess Marvel was treating Miguel’s appearance over in Superior as the big introduction/explanation issue, so reading the first issue it really felt like a second issue instead of a first and reading issue #2 felt like something from later in the series.

In issue #1 we’re introduced to an agent of T.O.T.E.M., the Temporal Oversight Team Eliminating Mistakes. He’s been sent back from the year 2211 to eliminate Miguel. He’s ruthless but not emotionless. He spares a guard because one of his future kids will do important research, but gives his condolences on the future death of the other son who hasn’t been born yet. I honestly laughed out loud at Miguel telling a bad joke because Liz Allen complained that he couldn’t be Spider-Man because he wasn’t cracking any jokes. It’s a nice one and done issue that sets up a couple of plot points that look like they’ll be important in the future.

Issue #2 start with Miguel stopping a bank robbery (instead of depositing his check) in the first four pages (and again, laughing out loud at the robber who tried to blame it all on peer pressure) and the rest of the issue introduced further complications with the major women in his life, the superintendent of his building and his boss, Liz Allen. This issue was purely character work and setup and the I fell like bank robbery at the start was only there to assure readers they hadn’t picked up the wrong comic.

On art duties we’ve got Will Sliney on interiors and Antonio Fabella on colors. I really appreciate the effort Sliney has put in to make Miguel’s moves so different than Peter’s. They’re both extremely agile characters, but Sliney makes Miguel look much more spider-like while moving. I particularly enjoyed the fight scene in the bank and the way Miguel got a hostage out of harm’s way.

The cover to #2 though, by Alexander Lozano? On first glance, pretty awesome. But as you look deeper the fact that Miguel’s costume looks like it had Twizzlers glued on instead of red patches of fabric takes away from the cool factor.

Overall I’m having fun, and it’s tweaking all the right nostalgia buttons, but I’m just not as into it now as I was twenty years ago as a teenager.

We’re okay

I really want to talk about my parents’ visit out here, but first I wanted to assure everyone that we’re okay after last night’s earthquake. It woke us up in the middle of the night but all it did was rumble a bit. Nothing fell down or even shifted around.

For the curious here’s a map of all the earthquake’s we’ve felt since we moved here. It’s a lot shorter of a list than I expected it would be when I started the map.

Okay, since the embed doesn’t seem to be working, try clicking here instead (and zoom way out to see last night’s quake.