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Top Five Best Amazing Comic Book Moments of 2005
5. Henry Ducard is Actually Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins.
That was awesome! The guy who wrote that is awesome! What a great trick! Batman better realize after that he needs to do spend some more time detecting and less time making out with Mrs. Tom Cruise. Who was totally hot in that movie. But they great mystery of Ra's Al Ghul took center stage and now we know that Batman was, in fact, trained by his greatest enemy. Just blows your mind. And Gary Oldman was great as Gordon. And the Joker card at the end was a really great nod to the fans of the comics!
4. Aliens vs. Predator (Unrated Director's Cut DVD).
The DVD that the fans demanded! Finally all the questions that were raised by the studios intereference with Paul Anderson's vision are answered! The movie follows a research team that discovers a Predator temple under the ice where they breed Aliens to hunt. But who ends up hunted in the end?
Anderson is vindicated with this DVD and can take his place among the greats like Fincher and Cameron. This is a great adaptation of a great comic book series published by Dark Horse.
And in the end who won? We, the fans won. A lot.
3. Blue Beetle is Shot in the Head and Murdered by Maxwell Lord.
Woah! And with that moment everything changes. The DC Universe is no longer a place for kids and adults who won't grow up. It's a darker palce, more like the more realistic Marvel Universe. This event launched the Infinite Crisis saga that split up Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman and sent a bunch of DC characters into space in a flying Roman city. And there were One Man Army Corp robots everywhere. And TWO Lex Luthors. And we thought one was a lot for the heroes to have to handle! Now there're two! Looks like it could be pretty good. Until Ultimate Galactus blows it out of the water next year!
2. Fantastic Four Movie Opens.
Now that's what I'm talking about. Ben Grim, Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman and Johnny Storm, charged into theaters to show how a comic movie can work when done right! Take notes Mr. Singer! They made the right changes to make it believable for a modern audience while keeping that flair that Lee and Kirby made famous. Let's face it, a guy like Dr. Doom wearing a metal suit doesn't make a lot of sense, but him being in a space accident that turns him into a metal suit and then has him put on a metal face mask he got as a humanitarian award, now you've got something that makes sense to an modern audience! The best part of the movie was the family dynamic and the horrible choice Ben had to make to save his friends. It was truly touching for a comic fan to see such sacrifice on the screen and to see the first family of comics captured so well on celluloid. And Jessica Alba is certainly no slouch in the hotness department!
1. The Return of Frank Miller. Frank Miller, the genius behind The Dark Knight Returns, returned himself to comics in 2005. With a vengeance! His All Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder exploded into comics stores with comic book artist superstar Jim Lee. He also wrote and directed a live action movie called Sin City. After the success of Dark Knight Miller left comics for Hollywood where he made the underrated film Robocop 2. But after the success of Sin City, he decided to return to his first home, comic books. And we couldn't be happier. Here we see some of his best work ever, as we see how a child would perceive such a force as The Batman. Batman knows he needs a sidekick and that Dick needs to shape up so that he can join the War on Crime! How will it end? We're dying to know!
Welcome back Frank! You are, indeed the goddamn Batman!
Top Five Best Comic Book Let-Downs of 2005
5. Excalibur Cancelled.
Booooo! That was the collective shout of fans everywhere as Marvel once again screwed over uber-scribe Chris Claremont in order to let Brian Bendis pee all over everything true Marvel fans hold dear. The only X-book with decent characterizations of Professor X and Magneto and it gets canned for House of M. Then comes back, but has Captain Britain in it again. Captain Britains already led one version of this book into cancellation! Let's go for two! Meanwhile: Professor X is gone, Magneto can't lift a fork, and everything sucks.
4. Seven Soldiers of Victory.
Seriously, I have no idea what's going on in these books. Really. Zatanna's in one and there's a Pegasus. And then this other one has some chick with a conehead.
3. Young Avengers.
Muppet Babies meets Avengers. And the Hulk guy's not really a Hulk-guy, he just makes himself look like one. And Kang's there or something. And Cap's all pissed. I guess because Bucky died and he doesn't want kids involved in super-heroing. Except Bucky's not dead, so why should he care?
2. No More Mutants.
Mutants are awesome! What the hell is wrong with you, Marvel?!
1. All Star Superman.
We waited months for this? What even happened in it? Superman goes to the sun, comes back and is dying. No way. Morrison proves again he just doesn't understand comic characters. Superman gets his powers form the sun. Why would it kill him? In The Dark Knight Returns Superman once got his powers from a flower.
And Quietly? An All-Star? If you want an artist who's going to put in a lot of time on a book and truly is an All-Star, let's get comic-God Rob Liefeld in there. Maybe he can do a fill in when ASS Superman ends up being late.
And why was everyone all weirdly colored? Go have your acid trips elsewhere, Mr. Morrison.
After the smash-hit that was Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, this was a real let down.
Next column: THE CREATIVE PROCESS RESUMES!
Read Volume 1, Issue 7 of The Tricks of Turning Pro.
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Posted by YourMomsBasement at 09:00 PM
By Mike Collins.
My trip to New Orleans started badly, delays in New York, a missed flight in Atlanta and finally arriving at Baton Rouge.
I caught a ride to New Orleans from one of my crew in a Ford excursion. It may as well have been a tank.
Rolling along with little traffic on the I10, I kept a lookout for signs of damage. Even entering the city I didn’t see much. The now infamous Superdome didn’t look all that bad.
Once we were back down at ground level I started to see signs of damage. A burned out hulk of a building here, blown out windows there. The central business district didn’t have much damage. Military humvees were everywhere. Seeing armed American soldiers on the streets of an American city brought back memories of 9/11. They weren’t good memories.
Pulling into the only hotel that we were able to book, I found myself a bit embarrassed. The ultra lavish hotel was a bit much, but having a large film crew requires a large place to stay. My feeling got worse when I saw my “suite”. It had six rooms. And a tv that rose from a beautiful wooden box at the foot of my bed.
After a quick meeting with my crew to go over the next dayss shoots, I took a walk into a largely empty French Quarter. I saw three other people on the street. Part of it may have been the unusual cold weather, it hovered in the low 40’s all week.
I stopped into a small bar named Jaminies and spoke with the Dublin-born bartender for a bit. The low number of people wasn’t unusual for what is considered normal in New Orleans these days.
I made my way back to the hotel and figured I’d get a good nights sleep before we started shooting in the morning. I was too embarrassed to elevate the tv.
I had been given an assignment to shoot a short documentary on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the city and I didn’t know what to expect. How bad was the damage, how bad were the outlying wards? I wondered if people would talk to me.
The first trip out into the city was interesting. The French Quarter, the garden district and the central business district seemed to survive the one two punch of Katrina and Rita with very minor damage.
As we made our way farther into the city I started to see the signs. Spray painted x’s with various shorthand. I later learned that these were markers to let other search and rescue teams if the building had been entered, who had entered, if people or pets were found and what condition they were in.
Traveling down St. Claude we entered the 9th ward. Initially it didn’t seem so bad but that changed quickly. First were streets lined with debris, blown out windows, mud encrusted cars and trucks. A bit further and we began to see houses blasted in half, cars thrown up on porches and a boat jutting out of the second floor of a house.
We saw mostly contractors and the military, very few former residents. Those we did seemed like they were in a state of shock. Driving along Piety st. we saw a house where a group of men were working. One of them waved us over. He asked if we were ok, how we were doing, if we needed water. I told him we were here to shoot a documentary on the state of the city and those left behind.
He was happy to talk to someone about his situation. His name was Royce and he was here from north Carolina helping his Uncle Willie gut his home. Willie walked over and talked for a bit. He agreed to tell us his story on camera as he gave us a tour of his home.
Willie had lived in the 9th ward for the past 40 years and he wasn’t planning on leaving. Willie is like many of the people we met in the 9th Ward. They want to stay. Willie had said "This is my home and I'm too old to go anywhere else." What do we do with these people? I'm a bit stunned to see so few people in these areas other than the Red Cross and military.
We come upon the now infamous Industrial Canal and it's levees. The area is just utter destruction. Houses tossed into intersections, flattened cars. All that remains are the discarded pieces of peoples lives. We meet a woman named Ruby who tells me that she couldn't locate her family for weeks after they were evacuated. Imagine that. Not knowing if your loved ones were even alive or where they were.
Ruby plans on staying as well. I am struck by the quiet determination that many of these survivors have. Even knowing that this could happen again, they plan on staying. Personally I think it's a little crazy, but I admire their resolve.
After a few days of shooting in these horribly devastated areas I wonder if the city can come back, not when. I can't imagine any more damage if someone had set off an atomic bomb. It's just of a magnitude I couldn't comprehend without having seen it with my own eyes.
The last stop for the day was at Christ Church Cathedral which was holding the first large, open to the public event, a jazz orchestra concert. Irvin Mayfield, the leader of the orchestra is like many others. His father refused to evacuate and Irvin doesn't know what happened to him.
Irvin dedicates "Just A Closer Walk WIth Thee" to his father. There isn't a dry eye among the more than one thousand attendees. I learned yesterday that Irvin's father's body was identified. In a sense it's a small form of closure. At least the Mayfield's now know.
Early the next morning we go back to the Lower 9th Ward. I find an independent animal rescuer. She tells me about the dead dogs and cats as well as those she's managed to rescue. When she starts to talk about the city I notice what I've seen in many people who have survived a disaster, the onset of post traumatic stress disorder. She goes on and on and we let her talk. This is a city traumatized to it's core. The arrival of the holidays will make it worse for many.
The rescuer introduces me to a man named Mr. Gilette who rode out the storm in his home. He tells me of water up to his neck, and this is when he was on the top floor of his home. Mr. Gilette thinks this is a critical point in New Orleans's history. He thinks the city can and will come back. Mr. Gilette now spends his days going to abandoned homes and feeding now ownerless animals. It strikes me that this is a noble thing to do.
Mr. Gilette has a tangerine tree that survived the storm. He insists that my crew and I take as many tangerines as we can carry. This is a man who has little left and he is offering me food. The people of New Orleans have welcomed my crew and I with open arms and I will never forget them.
One of the large themes that we discovered is the effects of the racial divide in the city. Many of the poor African American survivors think that the government conspired to allow them to perish. They tell me the levees in the French Quarter didn't break. I won't remind them that there are no levees there.
One thing that is certain is that the government failed these people at every level. From the mayor straight up to the President. This is the United States of America and we are supposed to be better than this. It isn't about color or race, these people are American citizens and they deserved better than this.
I hope that things get better for the city and it's survivors but I'm not sure how it will happen. The most unsettleing thing is that hurricane seasons is only half a year away. What happens if this spring or summer the city gets hit with another monster storm? I don't even want to think about that.
Ultimately in a city that the country seems to have forgotten about, the people try to remain positive. As Mr. Gilette told me "Ain't nothing gonna hold these people down." For their sake I hope he's right.
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Posted by YourMomsBasement at 07:00 AM
by Libbette
I never really considered making my own ice cream until I read a recipe for triple chocolate cookies and strawberry ice cream sandwiches in Bon Appetit magazine. The aforementioned ice cream was homemade, which appealed to me as I rarely like store bought strawberry ice cream, and I had some strawberries in the freezer. So I went on Amazon and found a small ice-cream maker for $20, that didn’t require pre-freezing or rock salt (as I’m no good at that ‘forethought’ stuff). The plan was to make some ice cream, with the understanding that my husband would make the accompanying triple-choc cookies.
Let me say from the start that I suck at following recipes. I consider myself to be a very good cook, but following directions is not my thing. I’d rather make it up as I go along. As such, I rarely bake, and almost never make desserts, because most desserts require direction. So, despite being very comfortable in the kitchen, I was almost nervous about making the ice cream. I mixed some egg yolks and sugar, then added milk and mushed strawberries. This was then to be cooked over a low heat, constantly stirred, so as not to make sweet, strawberry flavoured scrambled eggs (a mistake I made once when making custard when young. It was bad). It thickened a bit, and the strawberries started to smell “cooked” (causing me to think that I should have gone off the recipe after all and mixed them in after heating the eggs). The mixture was then thrown into the maker, which was put in the freezer and switched on. Easy peasy.
The result was decent strawberry ice cream. The choc cookies the hubby made had over a pound of chocolate in them and as such were rather tooth-hurtingly rich and sweet, but the whole thing was pretty good. Success. We gave the remaining cookies to the parking attendants in my building, so as not to be tempted by them (the cookies, not the guys).
The second ice cream I made was a lemon mascarpone gelato from The London River Café Cookbook. The recipe served 10 and had 20 eggs, so I had to do some dividing of ingredients (good thing I’m a maths teacher) to ensure the mix fit in my teeny machine – plus who has 20 eggs in their fridge? I fussed with it a little too, adding less sugar, more lemon juice, some lemon zest and slightly less mascarpone (because I had less than the full package, after mixing some with orange zest and serving with caramelized figs). This required a lot of stirring, first on the heat and then off. I made the husband do some of the stirring whilst the mix was on the heat, as it thickened nicely, and then put it into the Kitchenaid to mix while cooling (Note: Kitchenaids are a godsend. My only regret is that mine is not pink). The mix tasted pretty good even before being frozen. The gelato that came out was yummy, judging from the small amount I tasted as I transferred the mix from the machine to a container for storage. The next day I had some “non-foodie” friends over, who nearly spat out their wine when I told them what I had made (after I had fed them lasagne with home-made noodles). I served small amounts of the gelato in cute espresso cups. The richness of the mascarpone and the intensity of the lemon zest meant that a small taste was satisfying enough. I started to tell my friends that I thought the slight oiliness of the mascarpone was nicely balanced by the acidic tang of the lemon, but I stopped when I saw their slightly incredulous, slightly amused faces (so I’ll tell you instead).
I’m not sure what kind of ice cream I’ll make next. My husband found a recipe for ginger and coconut cream ice cream, which sounds pretty damn good to me. Though I actually still have some of the lemon mascarpone gelato in the freezer, some of which I threw into a strawberry and banana smoothie with great success. Try to track down the cute $20 icecream maker on Amazon – it’s worth it, even just so you can say you did it.
Next time I’ll regale you with tales of making my own pasta.
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Posted by YourMomsBasement at 11:14 AM
