I haven't actually started in on it yet, but I got the Sinestro Corp special sitting on my desk just waiting to be read. For me, this is a long-awaited dream comic. To explain it briefly, Green Lantern is a superhero who uses a special green ring to get his super powers. The ring basically does whatever he wants, forming solid objects out of bright green energy, which can be used as tools, weapons, or just about anything else. In the 60's Green Lantern was retooled so that the rings came from outer space, and there were thousands of Green Lanterns all over the universe, like beat cops each patrolling different parts of the cosmos.

Now, since Green Lantern was part of the Justice League, they used him on "Challenge of the Superfriends", one of the greatest cartoons of all time. The Justice League--also called the Superfriends on the show--were pitted against the terrfying menace of the Legion of Doom, 13 supervillains sworn to wipe out the Superfriends and rule the world. As a kid, this was my first real primer on how DC Comics worked. Most people know Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and that's about it. Since CotS used eight additional heroes, and thirteen of their worst enemies, it gave some richly deserved exposure to some unsung heroes. Or villains.

For example, much of the Legion looked like a twisted version of the Superfriends. They had Superman on their team, so the LoD had Bizarro Superman, with a backwards "S" and everything. The Superfriends had Apache Chief, a size-changing Indian dude, but the Legion of Doom had Giganta, a size changing white lady. The Superfriends had a hot chick in the form of Wonder Woman, so the LoD had their hot chick, Cheetah. And of course you had all the typical arch-enemies you'd expect for a DC villain team. Luthor and Brainiac for Superman, Riddler and Scarecrow for Batman, you get the idea. And just for giggles, they had a gorilla and a zombie, too. The Legion of Doom rules everything.

But for my money, the best thing about the Legion of Doom was that while the Superfriends had Green Lantern, the Legion of Doom had a guy with his own power ring. And while GL's ring was powerless against anything colored yellow, this dude's power ring was yellow. This made him the best archenemy ever. It also raised some important questions, like where the dude got a yellow power ring, and why wasn't he called Yellow Lantern. Eventually, I managed to catch his name from watching the cartoon enough times, and learned he was Sinestro, and then later on, I found out that he was a Green Lantern himself once, before he went rogue and was eventually given the yellow ring by the GL's enemies on the planet Qward. I've always been disappointed that the Green Lantern comics never seemed to do very much with Sinestro, but finally Geoff Johns, in his infinite wisdom, has brought him back, and created the Sinestro Corps, a whole group of guys with yellow power rings to kick the GL Corps collective ass.

What does this have to do with Harry Potter? Well, nothing. But I have to keep myself entertained somehow.

( That's right, Green Fool! )

I was talking to my mom the other day about how drastically store slash the prices of new Harry Potter books the day they come out, and wondered aloud how anyone made any money by doing that. Granted, Wal-Mart only profits off a hot book if they can get people to buy it from their stores, but charging 50-60% of cover price seems more than a little counterproductive. So along comes this article on MSNBC.com which helpfully answers the question of how book retailers make money off new HP books: they don't.

Granted, there's some advantages to selling the thing at a reduced cost, since buyers might pick up something else while they're shopping. Smaller stores refuse to cut the price quite so much, relying on costume parties and other dorky nonsense to make an event out of the whole thing. And Warner Bros. certainly isn't going broke, because movie theaters don't cut ticket prices on opening weekend. I'm assuming this is because they're smart. Still, it seems that the only clear winners in the whole thing are the movie people and Rowling herself. The publishers are all facing dips in their stock, because investors don't want to be stuck owning shares after the last book comes out.

The other thing the article touched upon that I kept forgetting to mention here is that Universal Studios is building some sort of giant expensive Harry Potter theme park in Florida. I seriously question the wisdom of doing that now, as opposed to three or four years ago when there was a stronger gaurentee it'd pay for itself. The park is scheduled to open in 2009, and they'll still be making the crappy movies then, but you'd have to assume Movie VII hits theaters in 2011, and then what? I don't think it'll all come crashing down all at once, but I think the interest in a Harry Potter Land will be a lot lower in 2012 than it would have been in 2003, or 2005, or right now.

I've seen this sort of thing happen before with different franchises. You used to see Dragon Ball Z crap all over the place when you went to a Wal-Mart. That was before 2004, when America had gotten a chance to see about 99% of the material available. There were a few volumes of the manga that hadn't seen print yet, and the last movie didn't come out until 2006, but for the most part fans had moved on to other things. This is why Superman and Batman have enjoyed uninterrupted mainstream popularity for the last seventy years straight, because DC literally churns out new Superman and Batman comic books every week. If they should ever stop, I think people will still have some appreciation for the characters, but they'd become relics of a previous era instead of dynamic modern icons. People know who Sherlock Holmes is, but how many of them would go to Six Flags and wait in line to get on Dr. Watson's Furious Free Fall?

Similarly, part of DisneyWorld's success is owed to the fact that Disney has one the most beloved lines of cartoon characters in history. The first time my family went to DisneyWorld, they were having a parade in honor of Donald Duck's nine hundredth anniversary, or however the hell old he is. Donald Duck. This guy's so damn popular they made a whole cartoon about characters related to him and it became a beloved classic. But this all owes to the fact that Disney maintained the Donald Duck character, kept him out there in the public eye so people would drive to Orlando just to see a park with him in it fifty years later. Does Harry Potter have the same longevity? Not with his last book coming out next month he doesn't.

Of course, the obvious solution would be to whip up some Expanded Universe crap, the same way Star Wars survives beyond the original movies. But I can't really see that happening, because again, Rowling's already got the money. She doesn't have to authorize any of that stuff unless she's just dying to see some Michael Turner variant cover of her characters. So that leaves Universal holding the bag in a few years. I'm not saying it's the new EuroDisney, but I have to wonder how far off it'll be. Maybe they can turn it into a Narnia park around 2015.

Anyway, enough speculation. ( On to less abstract matters... )

After a lot of waiting, I'm finally on the beginning of my two-week vacation from work. They do a week-long shutdown of the plant where I work, every year around the Fourth of July, but I had five days of time-off left that I had to use up before then, so here we are. Currently, my plan is to visit my parents during the second week, allowing them to drive to St. Louis that Friday for a wedding. This way, I can babysit their dog, instead of them leaving him at a kennel while they're away. This should be nice, as it'll give me a day or two to check out their new widescreen TV. I mean, I'd get to see it while they're there, but they'll just be watching the same crap they always do. Me, I feel that if all you watch on TV is "Antique Roadshow" and that show where F. Lee Emery answers mail about Army stuff, you're basically letting a new TV go to waste. But it's their money. At least this way, I can pop in some DVDs or Playstation games and see if they look any cooler in widescreen.

As for the dog, I know from last year that Tubby is afriad of fireworks, so I'll probably have to console him that night when the neighbors set them off for Independence Day. Last year, he snuggled up under the card table my dad works from, and held his head as low as he could between his front legs, glancing upwards every so often whenever he heard a loud popping noise from outside. Since he seemed to take some comfort from his various dog toys, I decided to buy him a new toy duck, because he loved the old one so much. If you haven't heard of these, the American Kennel Club has a line of plush dog toys at Target, designed to look like animals that dogs like to chase and eat. Most of them have squeakers in their bodies, but there's a mallard toy that honks like a real duck when you squeeze it. Since I find sqeaker toys kind of irritating, I got it for him one Christmas because I thought he'd enjoy authentic duck noises. Sure enough, even though Tubby's never seen a duck before, some inborne golden retriever instinct allowed him to appreciate the joy of clamping down on it's neck and shaking it over and over and over. Also, as dog toys go, this was pretty durable. The last time I saw the old duck, he'd managed to rip off one foot and part of the head, but little more. I hear he eviscerated the honker, but we'll see for sure once I get down there. Still, I think that was a couple of years ago, which is a lot longer than most of Tubby's toys have ever lasted.

I really should make a list of the stuff I want to do while I'm not working, but first and foremost, I gotta get this thing out of the way. So much to do...

( Solve et Coagula )

Well, this one's pretty decent, so I'm deluding myself into thinking that maybe the worst is over, and now the book will finally start to get better as it approached the conclusion.

( Tuc )

SUPERFRIENDS NARRATOR: Meanwhile, in the cold depths of space...



VEGETA: Hey, wake up butthole.

NAPPA: Huh? Wazzat? Are we on Earth already?

VEGETA: Hell no. I just thought we'd take a pit stop. Stretch our legs a bit.

NAPPA: Oh, thank God, I haven't peed in over a month!

VEGETA: We'll land on that planet over there. Maybe we can find something interesting.

NAPPA: Hey, maybe that kid from "The Wizard" will be there! Cal-i-forn-ya! Cal-i-forn-ya!

VEGETA: For the last time, Nappa, the kid from "The Wizard" doesn't live on every planet we decide to visit.

NAPPA: A man can dream, can't he?

( California! )

OK, for some reason LJ's Scrapbook feature ate what may have been the most critical image I had stored there, the screencap I use to indicate that a chapter is BAD. I've uploaded a new one because I see little point in contacting the webmaster about such minutiae, although this seriously irritates me because I'll probably have to go back and fix the last thrty times I've used it. I don't understand how web designers ever get anything done.

Ironically, this is one time we won't be needing the BAD picture, because this chapter actually manages to turn around the epic losing streak this book has been on so far. I shouldn't give it away at the beginning like this, but I figure it's not like we're gonna see another one of these again for a while, so we should make a special occasion out of it.



RATING: GOOD

Ah, I've missed that.

( Incision. )

MEANWHILE, ON CORUSCANT...

??: The trophy room is sparsely populated. If the trace is correct, I'll find them quickly, master.

???: Move against the children first. Then you should have no trouble with our ultimate objective.

??: At last we will reveal ourselves to the ickle firsties. At last we will have our revenge.

???: Your hate has made you strong, my young apprentice. They will be no match for you.

( Calcutta )

Well, if you're wondering what I've been up to this weekend, I've been enjoying a DRAGON BALL Z MEGA MARATHON. It all started when I got my copy of the Season Two box set in the mail, thus completing my collection of Dragon Ball Z videos. I'm still missing a couple of Dragon Ball titles, because they were never released uncut in the U.S., but other than that I've got the whole thing. No, GT doesn't count. Anyway, seeing as I had the entire run of DBZ, I decided to just keep watching episodes after the Season Two Box ended. I'm not sure when or if I'll stop, but it's nice knowing I can watch the entire series from beginning to end, whenever I want.

I've told this story before, but since I'm sure no one paid attention the last time, when DBZ came to America, they never bothered dubbing the episodes uncut. Instead, the first 67 episodes were whittled down to 56 or so, edited for broadcast in the U.S. When they were released on home video, all you got were the edited American dubs, and nothing more. By Episode #68, things had shuffled around enough to where the episodes were being dubbed with better perspective, and Funimation would release both cut and uncut versions, with the original Japanese audio being available on the DVD. Episode #68 also marks the point at which all the voice actors changed, because Funimation relocated to Houston had to recast with whoever they could get to come along. This has led to two major consequences.

First, only Episodes #68-End were available uncut. By last year I'd bought all the available DVD's, but had to wait for Funi to re-release the first sixty-seven epiosdes to complete the set. At any time, I could have bought the original Pioneer DVDs, but those haven't exactly gone down in price, and they're not uncut, so it's not really worth the money.

Second, the voice acting for the dubs is incredibly inconsistent throughout the first hundred episodes of the series. Even the original troupe of VA's on 1-67 shifted around a couple of times as I recall, and when they overhauled the whole cast after 68, the goal was to make it a reasonably smooth transition for viewers. Thus, when Chris Sabat takes over as the voice of Vegeta, he starts out doing an impression of Brian Drummond's portrayal of the character, since Drummond was previously cast in the role. Over time, the post #68 cast grew into their roles and found their own voice for the characters, meaning that by the end of the series everyone sounds very different from the way they did when they started.

I've always hated it when voice actors change on a cartoon. When I was a kid, they'd do this occasionally on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There was a spare guy who'd sometimes do the voice of Donatello, and one who'd fill in on Raphael. I always figured the mainstay Don and Raph actors got sick all the time or something, because there never seemed to be any pattern to the change. Then again, I never watched the cartoon in order. It wasn't that the backup Donatello voice was bad, just that it was different, and the change always took you out of the cartoon. This sort of thing would happen on other cartoons I used to watch, like Superfriends and Transformers, but those two shows were so full of glitches and continuity gaffes that you almost never cared when it happened. Yeah, Aquaman's voice is coming out of Batman's mouth, but his cape is green for no reason, so it doesn't especially matter. Sure, Sludge is saying both his line and Slag's line, but Ironhide just transformed backwards and he has a Decepticon insignia for no reason, so what's the diff? With DBZ, you expect a little more effort, simply because the animators worked so diligently to make everything consistent, and over in Japan, they managed to keep the same crew of VA's nearly unchanged for the entire run of the show. I mean, if they swap out Baba, who cares? She's barely in the thing as it is.

So I was somewhat curious about Funimation's plan to rerelease the entire series in box sets. For my purposes, all I needed were the first 67 episodes, but I could tell they wanted to redub some of the early stuff beyond that, because the first run-through on #68-100 or so was kind of spotty. Indeed, I'm seriously thinking about buying the Season Three set when it comes out, because the voice acting will probably be vastly improved, and frankly these early DVD's are a pain in the ass to navigate. You can't just hit "Play All", you have to pick and episode and tell it which audio track you want. Then it asks you to pick an audio track AGAIN for the second and third episodes. Like you're gonna switch from English to Japanese and back again in one viewing. Also, they were still using the old "Rock the Dragon" theme song that kind of sucks. At least we're not stuck with the even crappier Canadian version.

Interestingly, since Season Two covers #40-74, Funimation has now lapped itself when dubbing the series. I figured they might continue on to some point, then stick with the original dub they already had, but apparently this isn't an all-or-none proposition. Episode #68 seems to feature the original dubbing by Sean Schemmel from back in 1999, but new dubbing by Chris Sabat and I think just about everyone else. I don't know if they simply couldn't get Schemmel to redo his old work, or if they decided his original performance was perfect the first time out. I guess that's fine, although I would have preferred he stuck around for another twenty episodes or so. At least they're getting Vegeta and Tien fixed, because those two guys needed it the most. There's one scene where Goku beats up a guy, and everyone gasps in awe at how super-strong he is, and Vegeta hisses like a cat, at least the way Sabat originally performed it. This time around, it's a more conventional grunt of astonishment.

Anyway, the Namek Saga was basically the capstone of my collection, since it was the last piece of the puzzle. Nevertheless, it's the weakest entry of the series. Usually, DBZ is about guys in pajamas (or nude) staring each other down and screaming at each other. In the Namek Saga, the power disparity is such that everyone turns into a colossal pussy and tries to avoid a direct confrontation. Basically, everyone goes to the planet Namek, hoping to use the Namekian Dragon Balls because the set on Earth is inert. The good guys want to revive their dead friends, who were killed by Vegeta. Vegeta wants to become immortal so he can overthrow his old boss Freiza. Frieza wants to be immortal so he can be a prissy douche for all eternity.

The problem here is that the Namek arc is like 35 episodes long, one of the longest storylines in the series, but it has maybe 15 episodes worth of material. Frieza's the most powerful guy in the universe, and he's got a whole squad of goons to help him, so neither Vegeta nor the good guys want to risk running into him, nor can they steal the Dragon Balls he's already collected. Similarly, Vegeta's far more powerful than the good guys, so they can't take a chance on running into HIM either. You'd think Frieza would use his clear advantage to force a confrontation and settle things, except he's so powerful that he considers the others beneath his notice. So most of the story is guys flying around and hiding from each other. Also, there's a lot of stalling, because the Namekians are waiting for their leader to die of old age, which will deactivate the Dragon Balls and foil Frieza's ambitions, and because the good guys are waiting for Goku to arrive on a second spaceship and bail their asses out. Of course, this sort of thing goes on in every DBZ arc, but in the Namek Saga it's really done to excess. It doesn't even really have an ending, since nothing actually gets resolved until the Frieza Saga, which itself goes on for another thirty or so episodes. I'm guessing this is why Funimation redubbed these episodes with more swear words than they used on Season One, because that's really the only way they can punch up this storyline from a voice acting perspective. Also, it's nice to have the blood back, and they ditched the embarassing lines like the part where Frieza talks about caressing balls, or references to death as "another dimension".

Unfortunately, we're not here to talk about Dragon Ball Z. Well, actually, I already have, and plan to continue to do so, so I guess we ARE here to talk about Dragon Ball Z. Well, we weren't SUPPOSED to be. But this chapter is incredibly light on content, so I'm basically combining this entry with what could have been a post about something else.

( Dragon Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball Zeeeeeeeeee! Oh, cripes that song sucked. )

This chapter isn't without its flaws, but I'm kind of excited about it anyway, since it marks the official introduction of one of the fan favorites of the whole franchise. The short stature, the menacing glare, the shitty fan art, the beefy underlings always hanging around with him, the snotty elitism and sense of privelige, it all begins in a little place called right here.

( Cut )

No time for chit-chat, let's go!

( No time for cutsey LJ-cut banter either! Wait... Dammit... )

All right, so I was all excited about Spider-Man 3 yesterday, so I started looking around for Spider-Man pictures to sate my Spider-Man excitement. This led me to a photo of Japanese Spider-Man from the 70's. That's right. In case you hadn't heard, Spider-Man had his own live action TV show in Japan, made by TOEI, the same company the gave us Dragon Ball Z, Muppet Babies, and Invasion of the Neptune Men. To say that TOEI took liberties with the Spider-Man mythos is being kind. In their version, Spider-Man was a Japanese dude who rode around on motorcycles, until some old guy from the Planet Spider gives him a special bracelet that turns him into Spider-Man. When necessary, he summons a giant robot called Leopardon to help him beat up evildoers.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "Well, that's Japan for you, they had to put a giant robot in their superhero show." And you're right, except for one thing. The cliche of giant robots in Japanese TV shows? That was made possible by Spider-Man, because his show was the one that popularized the concept. An episode of TOEI's Spider-Man looks a lot like Power Rangers, but it's more accurate to say that Power Rangers is taking a page out of Spider-Man's playbook. That's how powerful Spider-Man is, folks. He kickstarted the mecha craze in Japan, and that was just a side-project for him that he doesn't really think about much. So the next time you see a bunch of guys in tights and masks driving giant robots, just remember you owe it all to your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

I've heard stories of this show in the past, and thought it was nuts, but I stumbled upon a video of the first episode, and the thing is: it works. Yeah, if you only follow Spider-Man because you want to know if Harry Osborn will ever date Liz Allen who used to know Betty Brant's brother or whatever, then you're SOL here. But if you're like me, whose earliest impressions of Spider-Man was seeing him posing enigmatically on a wallet, then you can understand the appeal to this TV show. Yeah, a giant robot's not very spidery, but the guy looks awesome in the costume. And he runs around and crawls on walls and makes exagerated gestures just like Spider-Man should. Granted, the first episode drags for a while when it's just whatsisface riding motorcycles and hallucinating about spiders, but once he's in that suit it's on. I don't say "Made of Win" very often, but that's exactly what this episode is. From the theme song to the hot chick who wants to kill Spider-Man, to the bumper they use before and after the commercial break, this thing has something for everyone. That's why I'm putting it up here tonight, because it's everything Harry Potter isn't.



( Now onto less awesome matters... )

Yeah, I know, I've slacked off on this. Blame the book.

Can anyone tell me why Firefox sucks? I switched over from SeaMonkey last week because SeaMonkey somehow lost all my bookmarks, and I've come to find that FireFox completely freezes up whenever I try to download anything. This pisses me off, because every twit I've ever met who knows how to turn on a computer is always going "Well, I use FireFox, it's WAY better than IEEEEEEEE, that piece of crap made by Micro$oft blah blah blah technocrap." All I know is that when I use it to play notpr0n it slows my computer down to a crawl. I'd ask for recommendations, but at this point I'm almost sure that any response would just annoy me. So forget I asked.

( Cut You Up With a Linoleum Knife )

Since I'm feeling nostalgic...



( What's sad is that I have 'Dursley' on my spell-check, but not 'buttload'. )

All right, I have to admit, I'm actually looking forward to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Every time I get wrapped up in one of these books, the constant excuse defense I get is that each book leads into the next one, so I shouldn't expect too much from any single volume. Well, this being the last one, it means this is the author's one shot to impress me, because there's not gonna be any sequels to save her THIS time. It's time to put up or shut up, and that's the kind of stakes that get me interested. This'll either be a spectacular failure, with Rowling reverting to type and accomplishing nothing in her supposed climax, or she'll redeem the entire series with a conclusion worthy of a decade of buildup. I see no in-between here.

And sure, if this turns out to be a colossal bust, I'm gonna enjoy the heck out of it, since I enjoy these kinds of entertainment train wrecks anyway. In my head, this is gonna be the Brock Lesnar vs. Bill Goldberg of the world of Magic Schoolboy Literature. Al Capone's Vault, the Edsel, the New Universe, PlayStation 3, whatever analogy you wanna use. And YET, I can't shake the feeling that this might end up going the other way, mainly because I've read the previous book, and I can sort of see where the characters might go and how they'll be motivated, and how that might end up becoming a compelling, action packed suspense thriller. In my weakest moments, I almost find myself thinking this book will come out in July and be (gasp!) a good read.

Well, I know one cure for such ( unbridled enthusiasm. )