Watchman!

Oooh when is that DVD coming out?!

I’m of two minds about the film. On one hand there is the fanboy part of me that was upset over how Alan Moore was treated in V for Vendetta and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (or as I like to call it Shitstorm 3: Ruining more things you love!). That part was happy at how faithful the movie was.

But there is also another part of me that is so sick of how every comic book movie apparently has to talk about modern politics and issues. Ozymandius uses the smoke screen of “clean renewable energy.”

Part of me was heartbeat for heartbeat onboard with every moment. But part of me wondered what the point is of just making a shot for shot remake of the comic. But another part was always annoyed whenever there was a departure.

Anyway, the squid alien is gone. Oh and Spoiler alert.

Actually, you have no right to be upset about the above spoilers. If you haven’t seen Watchmen already, you are either lame and didn’t see it opening night @ the 12:01 show, or are boycotting it (in which case you won’t mind spoilers).

I’m sleepy!

What’s So Great About Your Fantasy?

For a long time I’ve felt guilty about loving comic books. Somewhere along the way I read something that described them as ‘Juvenile power fantasies’ and that struck a chord with me. I still loved the crap out of comic books, mind you, but there was this small critical voice in the back of my mind that kept saying, “You’re wasting your time! Why don’t you read some real literature?” So, in an effort to shut that little voice up, I did. I decided to read some of the most enduring literature ever composed by human beings. These are my summaries of the stories that have captivated us for thousands of years and that have been told and retold since the dawn of civilization.

The Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh, a psychologically complex man with strength beyond that of normal men, fights monsters, demons, and another man with incredible strength in this juvenile power fantasy.

The Iliad: Achilles, a psychologically complex man and the greatest warrior alive, tries to decide weather or not to fight in a war with the Trojans. When he finally does fight, he’s totally awesome and stabs a whole bunch of them in this Juvenile power fantasy.

The Mahabharata: A psychologically complex team of superhero brothers fight a war with their relatives in this Juvenile power fantasy.

Richie Rich: A kid has a lot of money, zaniness ensues.

Ok, so that last one is actually a comic book.

Working Late

Ok so at my work for like the last six months we’ve been busting our humps on this Doomsday Device and I’ve finally got some positive news. It’s finally finished, which is good, since this Friday is Doomsday.

Yes, we finally finished, but what a hassle! It seems like we’ve been working on this thing forever. If it wasn’t the Justice Squad blowing up our reactors, then it was Captain Amazing (who didn’t die in that mysterious explosion after all) messing around with our geo-synch satellites , or the Moon People deciding to break their vow of non-interference to team up with The E-men etc. etc. After a while it started to feel like the only reason we existed was to give these heroes something to fight week after week.

Well, we finally got the Matter Eraser hooked up to the Infinity Cannon today and the Boss took us all out to Applebee’s to celebrate.

Afterwards we’re all relaxing and goofing off in the office when the Boss storms back in, super-pissed, and says the U.N. called his bluff! Apparently they were all, “Fine blow it up! See if we care!”

So now I’m going to have to stay late all next week while we try to change the machine into a Blow-up-only-one-city-at-a-time-so-the-jerks-at-the-UN-
know-we-can-really-do-it Device. My girlfriend is going to kill me.

Super Power

I recently had the chance to acquire the super power of my choice to when I earned the gratitude of a hyper-intelligent race of aliens (I won’t go into the details (they are boring).

But what power to choose? Super strength, while a popular choice, seemed like the kind of power that would get you roped into helping people move. I thought Super Speed would be a good pick but then I started thinking about what would happen to me if I tripped while doing 60 (not to mention the bugs in the teeth). Psychic powers are where the real action is, but once I looked at the side effects; nosebleeds! Forget that! Invulnerability seemed like it would be a real problem if I got appendicitis or something, and the aliens weren’t too clear on the specifics of what diseases I would be immune to (there was a big list, but like half of it was weird viruses that don’t even exist on earth).

I finally settled on the best power I could think of: the ability to absorb other superpowers. It would be great! The more Super humans I met, the more powerful I would become. I was pretty proud of myself; after all, meta-powers are the best kind of powers!

Here’s the thing though… I haven’t really encountered that many Super-powers yet. I mean, I’ve got a few. So far I’ve absorbed the power to see future haircuts (Sometimes more like a curse) and I'm impervious to Tin.

At this point I’m just trying to find someone with flu resistance.