Thursday Night Thinking

Thursday Night Thinking Presents:

Ultra-Thinking

From Legion Lost #7

Comics reviews!!!

(Update 6/28: I need to bump up Sinestro Corps...5 Todds is just not enough to contain it. This dial must go up to 11 (of 6 is this case))
Yeah, I know... it's amazing...but I am actually going to write my comic review this week..and write them on time....
So here I begin

Spoilers I guess..
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Blue Beetle 16

Quite simply amazing. I am so glad that I added this title to my pull list and will probably go out and get the trades of this series as well. It is an almost perfect series, and is everything that you would expect out of a title of a young hero in the DCU.
Jaime and Paco go up against Elipso, with the help of Traci 13. The art is amazing and...well, this title reminds me why I like the DCU more than Marvel. Quite Simply, this title could not exist in the Marvel Universe. You have not only a humor which is non-existent in the marvel titles but you also have established characters wandering in and out of this title and it never seems like it is an over-hyped guest appearance (like when Spiderman, Wolverine and more recently Iron Man show up in Marvel.) In the DCU it is fluid and there are references to multiple character and well..it works, cuz it is all one universe and people know each other.
Anyway, amazing title plus....

I -- am -- a Dentist!

out of 5 Jason Todds

Cable & Deapool 42

Speaking of Marvel....sigh...it would probably help if I were reading Canny X-men. Then I might understand what was going on here. Several panels looked quite Liefieldesque... and that is never good, and well... I just hope they stop messing around with this title or make it a Deapool ongoing or something, since if they don't I might even consider dropping the title. Kind of Disappointing.












out of 5 Jason Todds

Teen Titans 48

Back to DC,(in more than one way) and back to Amazons Attack. It is nice to see Cassie and Kara working together, but I really wonder when there was the time to set up refugee camps. the art was ok, the girls on the teem looked ... well like humans (always a good thing) and Tim looked around his age. Just a few problems.
A) Why if Ms. Martian was turning invisible would that be a problem... its the intangible which would be the problem.
B) Both Kara and Casie seem a bit of push overs in the face of Hypolyta.
C) the next issue text seems to be over hyping things a bit much.

But other than tht a good issue, especially because Kara is acting normal, like she is in Legion and unlike how she is in her own title.




out of 5 Jason Todds

Wonder Woman 10

More Amazons Attack.
Sigh...just sigh...why is Nemesis dead...what is going on...why should I care... I think I will wait until the new writer comes on to pick up again. Amazons attack is making no sense. At least the art was good.











out of 5 Jason Todds.

X-Factor 20

And back to Marvel for the only other Marvel title I purchase.
A good issue, things come together a bit, Lyla Miller gets a bit scene, and Madrox does something cool.
Not much to talk about, just an all around good issue of X-Factor, makes me want to read next months issue, but nothing really jumps out at me.











out of 5 Jason Todds

Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special

And now the really good titles begin.
Zoom fights the JLA and all of the emo characters don't do anything.
Kyle kicks ass, takes names and is awesome
Hal Jordan is a putz
Kyle once again overrides fear... but then is taken over by it
Kyle summons Megatron to take on the Sinestro Corps
John Stewart is a bad-ass
Paralax gets a much better outfit
Superboy-Prime is free
the Cyborg is free
oh and...
THE ANTI-MONITOR

basically this issue is pure..distilled awesomeness...I cant wait for GL21 and GLC 14

out of 5 Jason Todds

Countdown 44

Sigh... any problems that I have had with the previous weeks out Countdown have gone away. The Mary Marvel and Rouges stories are accelarting and someone who i hope is Captain Atoms shows up. Unfortionatly the Jimmy Olsen story is still a bit dull as is still a bit slow and the holy story has barely begun. Plus the History of the Multiverse is still dull, but at least it is reaching history that I know as it hits the crisis. Hopefully it will improve next week.










out of 5 Jason Todds

Supergirl and the Legion of Superheros 31

Let me just start out by saying that they accidentally switched speech bubbles on page 10 between Mekt and Garth.
Other than than I have no real complaints. Tenzil Kem (formally Matter-eater lad/ chef of the Legion cafeteria) shows up as does Chuck Taine (formally Bouncing Boy/ chief administrator for Legion World and pilot of the Bouncing Boy.)
All in all a very good issue, the Legion feels alot better than they have in previous issues and Supergirl is not a whining emo freek.
Still wishing I could be reading out the Post boot legion, but more issues like this one may go along way to making me feel better. Though they really need to bring back Gates. I mean how can you not like a Marx spewing space-bug.




out of 5 Jason Todds






well thats all for now... Ill post reviews for the previous two weeks issue later on.

Uncle Max

Wow... now my Great Uncle Max, who died while I was in middle school was reportedly a great mathematician. We heard tales of his working with Albert Einstein, and of his high position in the Mathematics Department at Stanford.

Until now, I had never seen any evidence of his existence, and only one person I have ever met (outside of family) has ever known who he was.

But as I was looking up stuff for one of those "tagged" posts, which i will post later, when a simple Google search, which had never produced anything before, struck gold.

His full name was Menahem Max Schiffer.
He was born in Berlin in 1911 and studied under none other that Erwin Schrödinger (as in Schrödinger 's cat.) It was he who pushed Uncle Max into mathematics.

I don't know if I can thing about this any more..but this is just amazing...

Here is a link to a memorial resolution from the Academic Council on Stanford about him.

Oh and here is the links to the books that he wrote, as presented by Amazon

Ast, Keeks, look at this stuff...

sigh...things are already getting better

His name is Wally West...He's the Flash, the fastest man alive.

Sigh... :)

There is a preview of All-Flash 1 up on Newsarama

Doctor Who: The Sound of Drums

Gallifrey,
Time Lords,
And U.N.I.T. Heli-Carriers

Oh My!!!!

Reason # 543.25 to love the Phantom Stranger.

To get me ready for my reading of Showcase presents: The Phantom Stranger # 1


This is the appearance of the Stranger that I have been talking so much about in Big Monkey. Figured I might as well post it here so that people can see it.

As to whats going on here... it is John Constantine 's 40th birthday. He is outside of a pub pissing against a wall. When all of the sudden...

The return of the Silver-Age...why I am not pleased

So these guys seem to be back... The original Legion, who haven't been seen since 1994, and who haven't been seen as they are now appearing in my lifetime and back in JLA, JSA and Countdown. As much as I appreciate this Legion, im really not that please with this new development. I love the Polar Boy from this continuity, especially how we evolved from a legion reject, to leader of the Subs to leader of the Legion. I also really like Matter Eater Lad, especially in the 5 year Gap era, when he was a legislator on his home planet. But other that, this Legion isn't really a team that I know.

I was 4 when the Crisis on Infinite Earths hit, so I really don't get all of this love for the pre-Crisis era and all of the characters who came out of it. I didn't start reading DC Comics till the death of Superman (the issue where Johnathan Kent saves his son from some Kryptonian funeral march and thus begins Clarks return to life was my first DC issue... it had a green cover.)

This is possibly why I am so glad that Barry Allen did not come back in the most recent issue of JLA. While as a concept barry sounds interesting, he is not my Flash. My Flash is one Mr. Wallace West, the first of the sidekicks to, as is said alot around the internets, fulfill the promise of the sidekick and take the hero's place. Wally has been the Flash for most of my life, and well, he simply loves being the Flash, in a way that few other heros do. He has a rich history and has connections to almost all of the heroes out there. If Barry were to come back ,who would know who he was? Bascially the big three, plus Hal, Dinah and Ollie. For everyone else, while he is practically a saint, saving the world in the Crisis, he is long since dead. Plus as I have said to my sister, while if Barry was back you could have to old fogies, Hal, Ollie and Barry sitting around reminiscing about the good old days, nothing beats the snark that come where their successors get together.

I just hope that when the current group of readers begin writing comics we can return the status quo to our good old days, when the JLA kicked ass on a daily basis, when the Batman Animated Series was the pinnacle of DC televised and when the Green Lantern contained a super-nova with his mind. These days the JLA barely has time to kick ass they sit around for so long, the current crop seems to think that the Superfriends are the best thing ever and the main Green Lantern needs the entire Corp along before he can do anything. Sigh

See, while the Legion above might be a bunch of peoples Legion, they are not mine. My Legion is the post zero hour Legion. It is a strong and powerful Legion that does not need a Kryptonian to survive. It is a Legion that will get you to do something for them, as Cosmic Boy said in The Legion 3, not because of their powers, or their numbers, but because they are the Legion, and you follow what the Legion says. That is also my main complaint with the newest version of the Legion: They do not command respect. That and the fact that Gates is not a member.

"The Legion of Superheros is an ideal made reality. A federation of young heroes, each one the brightest and brightest that he or her world has to offer, gathered together to protect the united planets. The idea was inspired by the great heroes of the M-2 era, a thousand years in the past. It is their glorious legacy that the Legion seeks to emulate."

That speech by Legion adviser/financier, and former president of the United Planets, R.J. Brande in The Legion 33, perfectly summs up why I loved the reboot Legion. While the original Legion was a club first and an example to the universe maybe 15th, and the current legion does not have as clear a reason for its existing, the post boot legion was there to bring together the disparate worlds of the new United Planets. they were the symbols of the new era and not just a bunch of kids having fun or a group of rebels. In one of the issue of either the Lightning saga or Countdown, Karate Kid corrects someone and says that they were not the Titans of the future but the JLA. Well im reading the first legion archive and well... they are the titans. When they grow up ,sure they become the League, but it as if the titans all grew up and took the place of the current League roster. The post-boot legion however, they were the JLA of the future, they had a mission and they were going to do it. It did not matter that they were young, they were Legion and they were going to do their jobs. They were examples not only to the adults, but also to the children, showing them what the new era of cooperation and unity could bring.

Sure there were some things which were a bit silly: mostly Princess Projecta being turned into a snake and having her people being served by little chipmunks. But for the original had not only Protty, but Protty II (plus it turned out later that Lightning Lad had actually not been brought back to life but that Protty had taken his place (which is really icky when you thing about it.)

But at the end of everything, Kyle is my Green Lantern, Wally is my Flash, Conner is my Green Arrow, my JLA kicks ass, my Legion of Superheroes are from the post boot era. Someday they will return.

It would have been so nice

Sigh... I had a wonderful post almost finished yesterday all about the comics I had purchased last week. It had pictures of all of the comics and it even used my new Todd rating scheme... but them things got messy...blogger screwed things up and the entire thing got lost. So when I write about this weeks comics I will include last weeks as well.

Other stuff that has gone on in my life since I last updated.

-played a great game of soccer on the Mall with a bunch of Jews from around town. My team won 6-4, with me scoring two goals and assisting in one other.

-went to the Torah learning session put on by DC minyan... it is called DC Beit Midrash and is alot of fun. It meet Mondays at like 7pm at the DCJCC, and is taught by whoever feels like teaching. Afterwards there is either individual or group learning and then a bunch of us go and hang out at some restaurant a few blocks away.
Plus there are alot of cute jewish girls who go. :)

I have been able to stretch my current assignment out a bit longer and will be here for at least another week. Not bad but i could use some more hours.

So thats all for now, this weekend should be nice as I will be playing heroclix on Saturday and then will be meeting up with a friend on sunday.

Oh and welcome to Colleen, GT and Brian, all from Irvine who just arrived in DC.

ta for now