Why do I blog?

Because I have all these thoughts in my head.

Because I can illustrate my thoughts with pictures from around the web.

Because when I try to share these thoughts with family and friends, their eyes just roll into their heads in boredom or because I lost them as soon as I opened my mouth.

Save them from Oblivion: The Royal Flush Gang

This one's a weird one so bear with me...

The Royal Flush Gang was created during Julie Schwartz's editorship of the Justice League. As such, when fans like Len Wein and Gerry Conway started writing for the JLA, the characters seemed stuck in a strange nostalgic mode that seemed to revere the characters but didn't know exactly what to do with them. As such, they would appear in one issue to bedevil the JLA before being sent back to jail in that same issue.

No real challenge. Bizarre in appearance, with costumes George Perez was born to draw, they seemed more like a distraction than a real threat.

At least until they started appearing in Batman Beyond and other DC Animated shows.



Maybe with their bizarre appearance and modus operandi, they're tailor made for television. Maybe the current DCU is too grim to marvel at people dressed up like card characters with fantastic gadgets. I dunno.

Personally, I hope the Royal Flush Gang show up in the DCUO MMO.

...but will there be a sequel?

Roger Ebert layeth down the smack, but still claims it was better than Transformers 2.

You know what bugged me most about the previews (which made me wish ill upon the movie) for G.I.Joe? How they went 9/11 on the Eiffel Tower.

I swear.

I confess...

This cover image makes me want to read the story. However...

1) An "Electronic Date-Matcher"? What, is Superman behind eHarmony.com?

2) Why does Supergirl look like Lauren Bacall?

Via DC Comics, 40 Years Ago...

UPDATE:
You know, looking at that face on Superman, maybe he's just being jerk again.

Seriously, I wonder if someone like Grant Morrison should write a story that exorcises this aspect of Superman into a separate entity. Kind of like the Commie-bashing Captain America of the 1950's was made into a separate and unique character who was different from the "real" Steve Rogers.

Little Idi Snitmin

The name comes from an old issue of Dragon magazine. Snitmin was (if memory serves correctly) a Kobold who led a group of his people on pesky raids and such; I think he was supposed to have stolen a set of Rings of Flight, which he and his band used on their raids. The name stuck in my head because when I came up with this little goblin, that was the name I used for the file.

Anyway, I posted copies at each of my Gallery sites, but here's a copy with some added text and a new border to give it more of a comic panel feel. Just an experiment with typefaces and line proportions, or something more...?

What's going to happen to Marvelman?

Yes, yes, da Internetz is all abuzz over Marvel's acquisition of Marvelman. Everyone is speculating over whether Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman's stories will now see print (or re-printing, as it were), whether we'll get to see Neil Gaiman's final storyline which was never published, whether Alan Moore will send a pox down upon the American comics industry, what DC might do since Marvelman is a direct copy of Captain Marvel, and on into infinity...

I'm left wondering what Marvel will actually do with the character.

See, if DC had acquired the character (which would have been a mighty interesting turn of events!), they might have re-published the original stories in some great big Absolute edition with new coloring and such, finally published the remaining storylines, printed any number of limited series and such, and, lastly, found some way to integrate some version of the Marvelman Universe into their DC Universe cosmology. Earth 16 or something would have become the world of the Marvelman Family and there might have been crossovers with the Justice League. Or the whole Marvelman Family will suddenly appear in England and there might have been crossovers with the Justice League and the Marvel Family. Or some other such thing.

But Marvel... what're they going to do?

Create some alternate dimension, like the Ultimate Universe or the Marvel Zombie Universe?

Have some sort of Golden Age/Silver Age back story like they did with The Sentry and The Blue Marvel and integrate them into the current Marvel Universe?

Introduce Marvelman to the current Marvel universe with a crossover story starring Captain Britain?

Create a line of stories in the Marvel Adventures books to introduce Marvelman to kids?

Have Kurt Busiek write up a big crossover story involving the Avengers, the Squadron Supreme, the Grandmaster and the Marvelman family?

I'm kinda convinced that Marvel as a company is now old enough to be at the Silver Age stage that DC was years ago. Older characters, like Thor, Captain America/Bucky, and Spider-Man (with the Brand New Day stories), have been re-introduced for new readers much like the Flash and Green Lantern were introduced to new readers in the 1950's. Spider-Man, their flagship character, has his share of storylines (Clone Saga, One More Day) that some readers would like to forget much like Superman and Batman did during the 50's. I'm sure there are other analogies, but those are the ones that come to mind.

One thing that Marvel is new at is acquiring licenses of existing characters formerly owned by other companies, and doing something interesting with them. For example, in the 90's Marvel acquired Malibu Comics, but let those characters disappear from the minds of readers everywhere. Here, however, Marvel's got a brand new toy to play with.

Just what are they going to do with this new toy, I wonder?

How Superhero MMOs Can Be More Like the Comics They're Inspired By

Giant typewriters and other interactive props.

Can't you just imagine the PVP possibilities?

I betcha even DCUO is too serious to try this out...