Once Upon a Geek

“The year is 1987 and NASA launches the last of America’s deep space probes. In a freak mishap Ranger 3 and its pilot Captain William ‘Buck’ Rogers are blown out of their trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support systems and returns Buck Rogers to Earth 500 years later.”

Check out this sweet book my wife found last week in a library overstock sale! It’s a Buck Rogers pop-up book from 1980. Its 28 years old, looks brand new, and has sixteen pages of pop-up action. I took a few pictures to share, so here you go!

Also, I’ve included the Buck Rogers theme song for your listening enjoyment. I love this theme! If you can’t play it, right click here to download it.

You gotta love some Erin Gray action!

I read “Final Crisis: Requiem” and one thing is really bothering me. There are three pages where Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen grieve together over Martian Manhunter’s body. Hal talks about the rage he’s feeling and the revenge he wants to inflict because of his friend’s death. What bothers me is that I don’t believe historically there has been a really strong connection between Hal Jordan and Martian Manhunter.

If you look at their respective JLA appearances, they don’t actually overlap much. Both were founding members of the League, however, Martian Manhunter left the League with issue 71. Of those 71 issues, Martian Manhunter only appeared in 43 of them. After that, every run of the JLA that featured Martian Manhunter as a member, Hal was not a member at the same time. If you add up Martian Manhunter’s time in the Detroit League, the JLI, Justice League Task Force, and the JLA (Grant Morrison’s series), that’s something like 230 issues that he didn’t appear with Hal Jordan.

I just feel that the writer is shoehorning Hal Jordan into the grieving, whereas there are many other characters that Martian Manhunter appeared with more frequently that would have made more sense. I think I know why they are using Hal Jordan.. to prepare for “Blackest Night” where numerous dead superheroes are supposed to come back. That is probably where we’ll see Martian Manhunter next, so it makes sense from a plotting point of view to use Hal Jordan. I just feel as a fan of Martian Manhunter, it could have been other folks. Maybe there were some nice character moments between Martian Manhunter and Hal at some point in history, I just don’t happen to remember them. There are many other characters they’ve shown time and time again to have a close bond with Martian Manhunter. For example, characters that have starred in the JLA with Martian Manhunter more frequently and have been shown to have a bond with him include: Batman, Vixen, Gypsy, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Believe it or not, even Kyle Rayner have appeared with Martian Manhunter more often than Hal Jordan. While Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman did feature prominently in this story, the big emotional scene was given to Hal and Ollie. I just didn’t work for me.

Okay, rant over. “Final Crisis: Requiem” was a decent read, its just this one point really stood out to me. I admit part of my rant probably comes from the fact that I’m still bitter they brought Hal back to life.

Oh yeah, it’s also worth mentioning that Aquaman had a really strong bond with Martian Manhunter and appeared more frequently with Martian Manhunter than Hal. However, Aquaman is current dead. Interestingly enough, apparently death wasn’t enough to stop Aquaman from coming to the funeral. Check out the Aquaman Shrine for details on this.

I recently read the trade paperback of Sean Wang’s “Runners”. Wow, this was a great sci-fi comic! The story chronicles the misadventures of reluctant smuggler Roka Nostaco and his ragtag alien crew as they struggle to complete hazardous runs through outlaw space and against all odds. I agree completely with James Mishler’s review from Comic Buyer’s Guide, “This is what Star Wars comic books should be like: fresh stories, living characters, non-stop banter, action and adventure.”

I stumbled across “Runners” in a recent Diamond Previews issue. Previews featured an ad for the trade paperback along with a recommendation. The art looked great, so I gave it a shot. This was one gamble that paid off. The illustrations in this book are top-notch! Sean Wang got his big break years ago drawing some of the Tick comic books. Obviously that training paid off here. Wang really has a grasp of body language and expressions. He’s also bursting with creativity. In regard to alien design, it seemed that Wang’s pencil was channeling George Lucas’ creative energy (on one of George’s good days). On top of that, he has a good grasp of pacing, panel design, background detail, and incredibly clean lines. After I read each issue in the trade paperback, I would flip back just to look over the art and make sure I didn’t miss any brilliant details.

In addition to great art, it’s a solid space romp about smugglers doing their best to complete a job. The main characters run into roadblocks along the way that make for an interesting story. The banter is great; each character has a distinct personality; and you really get caught up in the cinematographic feeling of each action scene.

This first trade paperback is called, “Runners: Bad Goods” and is available from Sean Wang’s website, or your local comic book shop can probably order it for you. The next mini-series still awaiting publication is called, “Runners: The Big Snow Job“. It’s scheduled to be published by Archaia Studios Press, but they’ve suffered some delays recently. If you want to see some preview pages of the fantastic artwork, there are several on Sean Wang’s website.

I can’t recommend this series enough. Give it a try! If you don’t want to commit the money, contact me. Maybe I’ll loan you my copy!

Since I’ve already had a couple action figure posts this week, I thought this might make a fun one.  

These are plushes I got from the WB store back when they were still open.  Man I miss that store.  They had the coolest merchandise.  In fact, you can find two other items I got from the WB store posted on my buddy Rob’s blog, The Aquaman Shrine.  The items are a JLA winter coat and a DCU animated picture frame.  While you’re there, poke around his site.  It’s really impressive (even if you aren’t an Aquaman fan).

And so my daughter’s TRUE education continues this week with a new toy.  You may recall a few weeks ago I did a post about my daughter’s new educational toys.  Well, this new one goes hand-in-hand with the educational value of those. 

I just love these figures!  They’re adorable!

Now if they’d only release a Wonder Woman.  I’d like my daughter to have some action figures that represent strong female role models.  Somehow I doubt they’ll make a Black Canary figure for this line.  Fishnets and a thong just don’t scream kid-friendly.

Maybe I’ll see if I can find a Storm figure from the Spider-Man & Friends line.

Hello, my name is the Irredeemable Shag and I’m a closet Yahtzee addict.  That’s step one, right?

I can’t speak authoritatively on this, but I don’t believe many people my age play Yahtzee.  I think there is a perception that it’s an old person’s game.  Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s always been my belief.  According to the official Yahtzee history on Hasbro’s web site, about 100 million people play it on a regular basis.  Apparently I don’t really know any of these people.

I started playing Yahtzee whenever I would visit my dad.  He’s originally from Michigan, where all they do is play card and board games during the winter (my apologies to any Yankees in the audience).  One night he busted out the dice and announced I was going to learn how to play Yahtzee.   It didn’t take long to grasp the game as it’s really just a form of poker, but with dice. 

I rapidly found myself addicted to the game.  Perhaps it has something to do with my background in RPGs.  There is something satisfying about the tactile sensation of rolling a handful of dice on a table.  The clink of the dice in your hand; the sound as they hit the hard table and bounce a bit.  It’s like crack to gamers.

It’s a fun game if you have at least two people.  You can also buy a handheld electronic game version to play solo (yes, I have one), or find online versions of the game to play solo.

If you haven’t played Yahtzee, give it a try.  All you really need is two people and 5d6 (that’s five regular six-sided dice to you non-gamers, like the kind you get in Monopoly).  You can find a PDF of the official rules on the Hasbro web site (click here), and you can find a lots of different free score sheets online (click here).

Enjoy! I’ll see you at the twelve-step meetings!

I’ve been trying to get my hands on two action figures lately. They came out a few months ago from Mattel in their line of DC Universe Classics (Wave 2).  This is the brand of figures that are now carried in stores like Target.  The action figure scuplts are surprisingly good for distribution in regular stores.

Personally, I’ve been trying to get a Firestorm and Aquaman figure.  You can see images of the figures here - they look great!  Unfortunately, they aren’t available anymore and are selling online for sick amounts of money.  For example, the Aquaman figure is going online for about $30, and that’s before shipping. In regard to the Firestorm figure, after weeks of bidding I actually just won an auction for one.  I mean JUST won.  When I started typing this blog entry, I was still searching for a Firestorm figure.  I happened to find an auction that actually had a somewhat reasonable price.  So I ended up paying $19 after shipping.  See what I mean, sick amounts of money for action figures.  But I gotta say that Firestorm figure looks bad ass.

Part of the reason the prices bother me is that I’m not a “mint in box” kind of collector.  I buy action figures of characters I really like, take them out of the package and display them.  If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you have probably seen a few entries where I showed off my figures, like here and here.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the Aquaman figure.  There is no way I’m going to spend that ludicrous amount of money on a figure, especially since I have lots of other Aquaman figures.  I’ve heard rumors that more of the Wave 2 figures will be released, so I’m going to cross my fingers they release some more Aquadude and the prices come down.

Also in that wave should be a modern-day Firestorm.  I’m looking forward to that figure too.

The following includes SPOILERS for the Doctor Who season 4 episode 11, “Turn Left”.

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Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) is an awesome monthly publication.  If you are a who fan, it’s definitely worth buying this magazine.  Issue #397 hit the stands after the airing of “Turn Left”, but before the airing of “The Stolen Earth”.  So this issue hit at the moment of ultimate hype for season 4.  We only got it here in the states last week.  The team at DWM gets lots of insider information on the show and they planned this issue to capitalize on the hype.

The issue came polybagged, with a vintage Doctor Who book free.  This was one of the Target novelisations of the old series.  I happened to get “Galaxy Four” in my polybag.  Pretty cool.

The amazing thing was what you saw after you removed the polybag.  Remember the end of “Turn Left”?  Donna tells the Doctor what Rose said in the parallel universe, “Bad Wolf”.  The Doctor runs outside and every sign has changed into the words “Bad Wolf”, even the TARDIS exterior.  Well check out these images below. 

The first image is the magazine cover still in its polybag; pretty standard magazine promo copy.  The second image is the magazine cover after you remove the polybag.  Notice the care to keep the same fonts and everything.  Awesome!

Just a heads-up… I appeared in a couple recent episodes of The Unique Geek podcast.

The Unique Geek Issue #70 features the usual gang as we discuss the latest mediocre offerings from Lucas as well as the lackluster summer movie season.  Really we are just a bunch of grumpy guys with nothing better to do.

The Unique Geek Issue #71 features the usual gang as we discuss the new Incredible Hulk film.  Well… we try to discuss the film, but as usual we wander off topic a bit.

Be sure to check out these podcasts and the rest of The Unique Geek podcasts.

A few weeks back I wrote a blog post on a book I was reading, ”Indiana Jones and the Seven Veils”.  It was an older book that was published back in 1991, but I read it to tide me over until I got around to seeing “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull”.  Well, I finished this book and enjoyed it (definitely more traditional Indiana Jones than the new movie).  This adventure took place between the “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” TV series and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and definitely captured the spirit of Indy.  I would recommend it to anyone who liked ”Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”.  It felt more in-tune with that film than the others.  As I mentioned before, it covered all the good bits of Indiana Jones like lost ruins, booby traps, things going wrong for Indy, a beautiful girl, and almost losing his hat.  The only negative comment I have is that the story ended somewhat abruptly, however, I understand why they had to do that.  You’d have to read the story to understand what I mean. 

Now I’m reading another older book (1993), Doctor Who The New Adventures “Deceit” by Peter Darvill-Evans.  These original novels by Virgin publishing started shortly after the first Doctor Who TV series was cancelled.  These books tackled stories too broad and deep for the small screen, and took Doctor Who into previously unexplored realms of time and space.  They explored much more mature themes and really helped push the storytelling for Doctor Who forward.  The stories were very enjoyable, featured plots that would run across multiple novels, and really kept the Doctor Who torch burning during the lean years (between the end of the first TV series and the 1996 TV movies).  I’d be willing to say that the current TV series would not have been so successful without these novels.  In fact, several of the authors for the new TV series wrote New Adventures novels first, such as: Russell T Davies, Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts, and Steven Moffat (he wrote a short story).  Also worth noting, the season three two-parter, “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood” was an adaptation of the New Adventures novel “Human Nature” by Paul Cornell. 

The New Adventures novels followed the adventures of the Sylvester McCoy Doctor, along with Ace, and several new companions.  The most popular of these newly-created companions is Professor Bernice Summerfield.  She totally kicks ass and eventually got her own line of books and audio dramas.  The reason I chose to read “Deceit” (book 13 out of the 61 books published) was because Abslom Daak has an appearance in this one.  I’m about 100 pages in and the book is very enjoyable.  I had forgotten that the New Adventures books take a while to get used to.  They say most books are written at a 6th grade level.  I would say these books are written at a slightly higher level, which requires some additional focus from the reader.  One of the interesting things about the New Adventures novels is that the Doctor typically doesn’t show up for the first 50 pages.  It can be a bit frustrating at first, but it gives the novelist some time to really develop the supporting characters.

After “Deceit”, I’ll be reading Star Wars Legacy of the Force “Fury” by Aaron Allston. “Legacy of the Force” has been a surprisingly good run of Star Wars novels.  “Fury” is the seventh book in a nine book cycle.  I’ll have to write a post about this series sooner or later.  I’m loving it!

After that, I’ll probably read ”Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge” by Rob Macgregor.  I’ve purchased the book and read the first few pages.  Even though I was only a few pages in, I found it really compelling.  I can’t wait to get around to this one.

There you go… my summer reading list.