Asides

The Horton Grand

comment on the post “San Diego Comic Con Reflections, Part One“:

My wife and I were also at the Horton Grand. I absolutely agree on that hotel — it’s fantastic.

Except for the fact that we were in a second-floor room that looked out onto Fourth, and the windows didn’t block much sound, so we could hear drunken revelers, motorcycles, and stretch Hummers idling below our window into the late hours of the night.

I wasn’t aware it was supposed to be haunted. I think I would have preferred the ghosts to the street view.

Cosplayer Coincidence

Wayne Lippa wrote:

So, I was looking at a few of your other pictures, Kelson, and just out of curiosity, what was the story behind the photo of you and Misty Lee?

Early last year I followed Mark Evanier’s blog for a while, and in one of his posts he recommended a magic show in the Los Angeles area. It was a one-weekend show with one act of Misty Lee and one act of Sylvester the Jester. I got tickets and went. I think it was around March, or maybe May.

So during the 2006 Comic-Con, I was walking around and saw someone who, at first glance, seemed to be wearing a very good Zatanna-style costume. I asked her if she’d pose for a picture (which unfortunately turned out to be out-of-focus, so I didn’t post it). As I lowered the camera, I recognized her as Misty Lee.

I told her I’d been to her show in Burbank, she said something about “I hope it wasn’t ___ night, that one was terrible!” I couldn’t remember which day of the weekend I had gone, and she offered to pose with me for another photo. She also offered me tickets the next time she did a show in the area. She seemed very happy to be recognized as Misty Lee, magician, rather than as random attractive woman in hot costume. I handed my camera to the man she was walking with, and glanced at his name badge: he was her husband, Paul Dini.

So I got my picture taken with Misty Lee, by Paul Dini! (It’s too bad I look terrible in that photo — I’m 5-10 pounds heavier than I am now, only half-smiling, and starting to blink.)

Re: To be honest i hope Bart stays

Christening Wally West and/or Bart Allen as The Flash was never necessary. DC already had an established character, Barry Allen, as The Flash.

Unnecessary perhaps, but we got some damn good stories and characters out of Wally’s run as the Flash. We also got Impulse. How likely would DC have been to introduce Impulse if they still had Barry as the Flash and Wally as Kid Flash? And it’s hard to imagine Young Justice without Impulse.

Similarly, it was unnecessary to create Barry Allen in 1956. DC could easily have pulled Jay Garrick off the shelf, dusted him off, and revamped him, but they chose instead to create a new character using the Flash name. And this was someone who carried three titles for the better part of a decade!

Re: Starship Troopers

On its own merits, Starship Troopers was a passable, somewhat cheesy action/war movie. Nothing fantastic, but not a complete waste of two hours either.

As an adaptation, though, it was terrible. It was as if someone read the back cover, wrote a script, then skimmed through the book to add in salient details in hopes that people who had read it would be happier. (Hey, it says here that the main character comes from Buenos Aires. Let’s add that in!)

A movie *can* be both a good film and a good adaptation. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a good example. It didn’t stick to the books 100%, but most of what it changed made sense, given the difference between the written word and the moving image. And because it stayed true to the books where it counted most, people who have read them tend to like the movies as much as people who haven’t.

An interesting side note about Starship Troopers: I was actually an extra in the opening scene with the hybrid football/basketball game. They needed spectators, and it was filming nearby (California State University at Long Beach, usually referred to as Cal State Long Beach). It was actually
extremely boring — I assume it’s typical that you spend more time setting up a shot than actually filming it. I spent two days waiting for them to set things up, then cheering or booing for 30 seconds while the cameras rolled, then waiting again. In the end I got: (1) a cast/crew T-Shirt (2) lots of reading time (3) conversations with some interesting people and (4) a girl’s phone number. So it wasn’t a *total* waste of time!

Bart/Impulse/Kid Flash

Paul Ewert wrote:

What does the list think of Bart assuming the “mantle” of Kid Flash over in the TEEN TITANS book?

I’m actually kind of disappointed by it, although it makes sense under the circumstances – especially given that (a) Wally’s disappeared, and (b) Bart’s probably spent the entire issue trying to remember Wally’s name and face.

As Impulse, Bart had his own identity. Yes, he was yet-another-speedster – but he wasn’t a sidekick, he wasn’t the second or third Kid Flash – he was Impulse.

What’s bugging me is that they’ve taken someone who, despite his youth and naivete, really was his own hero, with an original name and costume, and turned him into a sidekick – and a sidekick with a hand-me-down name and costume.

BTW, has anyone else noticed that Geoff Johns now has control of *all* DC’s speedsters:
Jay – JSA
Wally – Flash
Bart – Teen Titans
Jesse – JSA
Max – possessed by the Rival, Jay’s enemy, and as such a JSA villain.

Mike Koehler wrote:

Didn’t bart remember Linda when everyone else forgot her, what keeps him from doing this here?

That’s why I said “probably” – at this moment, we don’t really know who *does* remember. In fact, I’d expect Bart and Iris remember at least Barry’s career, if not Wally’s.

I’m assuming the JLA, JSA, classic Titans, etc. are all affected, or someone would have showed up at Wally’s front door in the past 2 months and said “Hey, Keystone is falling apart – put that costume on and *do* something about it!”

If Bart’s forgotten, then the switch to Kid Flash makes even more sense, especially if the Flash has been out of action for two months.

On the other hand, it’s not clear how much time has passed since the “I’m not sure if I believe in him” scene (which IIRC took place after Wally defeated Zoom, but before Hal and Barry showed up). This whole storyline appears to take place over the course of a single weekend, which would place it 2 months *before* Ignition begins. In that case, it’s only been a couple of days, and might even take place before the mass-amnesia hit.

Re: HYPERIUM

Trying to explain the Chain Lightning finale in terms of Hypertime

here goes:

First, an explanation in line with the basic many-worlds approach to time: When Wally changed the past, he could only go forward again in the timeline he had just created. This makes perfect sense when Wally’s the one making the changes, but it doesn’t explain why Cobalt Blue killing Barry changed history around Wally. (Similar problems apply to stories like Bart Saves the Universe.)

So, a Hypertime-based explanation: The Kingdom #2 described Hypertime as branching off of a “central timeline” or “main timeline,” i.e. the mainstream DCU. Given that DC has a long, well, history of stories in which time travelers change history, perhaps what’s going on is a realignment of which timeline is the “main” timeline.

It’s not totally consistent, but then neither is any other explanation. Personally, I think the DCU is too big and too complicated to ever hope for 100% consistency. With 60 years of stories (some of which have been officially removed from canon), hundreds or thousands of writers, artists, and editors, it’s sometimes amazing it’s as consistent as it is.

Re: The latest Titans comic

I’ve almost dropped the current series three times, twice holding on because I’d heard a new writer was starting soon. Now the only reason I’m still getting it is that there may only be 4 issues left.

I hope I don’t sound too curmudgeonly over this, but I don’t think the team ever recovered from “Titans Hunt” – the Wolfman/Grummett one, not the Dan Jurgens one. A decade ago.

There was just enough good stuff in there (early Team Titans, for instance) to keep me going through the Dark Raven saga, the kick-the-crap-out-of-Cyborg saga, and the let’s-break-up-Nightwing-and-Starfire-because-we-want-to saga.
I didn’t even bother with the Dan Jurgens series, though I did pick up the 4-parter with (most of) the originals.

JLA/Titans showed promise, and I really liked the Arsenal mini, but once the series actually started, it was just kind of bland. It looked like it was going to pick up for a while when Jay Faerber started working with Devin Grayson, and they turned out some good stuff, but then once he started writing on his own, it turned to crap. The only good thing to come out of his time working the book solo was resolving the Donna Troy mess, and she’s been practically ignored since. (I’d include making Cyborg human again, but that was co-plotted with Grayson.) And then the stupid DEO kids, Epsilon, and that damn Jesse Quick story.

I was ready to drop it, when I heard Tom Peyer was going to take over. So I thought, he’s done some good stuff, and if Faerber shares some of the blame with his editor, Peyer has more clout and should be able to put up more of a fight against crappy ideas.

But the last few issues have just been boring. Last week, I was seriously thinking of just not picking it up when I went to the comic store. Even though it was in the middle of a story, I just didn’t care anymore.

I realize that I’m comparing it to a “golden age” than can never come back – the (surviving) characters have all changed too much since then – but is it too much to ask that the main story be more interesting than the one-page
Starfire guest spot?

Right now I’m only picking up the next few issues because they’re supposedly the *last* few issues – and I’m not sure I should even do that.

So no, I won’t “lay da smack down” on anyone for dissing Titans. Not when I’ve thought the same (and possibly worse) myself.

Re: Smallville vs. The Flash

I think it would be quite possible to keep the sense of history, and yet keep it simple enough that people can just tune in and understand what’s going on. Now, the example I’m going to give may have the advantage of working with a more well-known character than the Flash, but bear with me:

The Mask of Zorro.

In this movie, Antonio Banderas’ character becomes the new Zorro, taking over for Anthony Hopkins. By the end of the movie, Catherine Zeta-Jones is getting into the mask-and-sword act. Sure, people knew who Zorro was going into the film: a swordsman who wears a mask and fights injustice and oppression. The important details (his family and estates being taken from him, the vendetta against the man who took them, etc.) were (I believe) specific to this film, and were able to fit into a normal-length movie and still leave room for a plot.

So I can see a 2-hour pilot that sets up Barry Allen having been the Flash for however many years, and during the course of the story his nephew Wally West (in his late teens or early 20s), one of the few people to know his secret identity, is struck by lightning and gains similar powers. Barry starts training him, and by the end of the pilot he sacrifices his life to save the world (or at least some huge number of people) and Wally decides to carry on his mentor’s legacy.

If they wanted to, they could tie it into the previous series. It’s been about 10 years, they could get John Wesley Shipp to reprise his role as Barry for an episode, and state that Iris came back sometime after the end of the series. Or if they wanted to link Barry and Tina (there was some speculation), her original name could also have been West.

So it’s at least possible. Whether someone will be willing to try it remains to be seen.