First of all, it was Free Comic Book day today. Of course, I missed the comic that I wanted the most: A Bob Burden Gumby comic. GUMBY, DAMMIT!. Yeah, I know that was expected, but there was no other way to describe my pain. To sooth the soul-ache was the Slott/Jiminez Spider-Man comic. Aw, man. It was Spider-Man being the funster while juggling the responsibility of fighting crime and letting his loved ones know that he cares. Oh, and there’s a surprise new superhero and one of my favorite new Marvel villains in YEARS. As much as I’m not really feeling the Marvel Universe right now, I’d start checking out Spidey if Dan Slott were the new writer. I also picked up Kirkman’s Werewolf book & the Tokyo Pop book, but haven’t had time to read them yet. For paying books, I bought the Avengers:Kree-Skrull War TPB and the Atom. What I loved about that issue of the Atom was how I didn’t really see that ending coming even though a re-reading of the situation hinted towards it. The new Atom is one of the few recent “legacy characters” that I enjoy and it’s all Gail Simone’s fault. The woman has liquid win running through her veins and I’m glad that she’s staying on the title to give the new hero a fighting chance.
The star of the week for me? What else? The final issue of 52. While I don’t like some of the series’ aftermath (a perfectly fine character as is + a perfectly fine character as is = unneccessary legacy = whatever, man), I loved the series all the way through. Even better: the ending made some other readers heads hurt. Do you know how fun it was to read comic book message board threads with people crying about how fiction made their head hurt? If you read fiction and the things that you assume about the fictional developments within make your head hurt, guess what? You earned that headache and I hope it made you cry. Me? I can’t wait to see what shades of crazy roll out of this. Oh, and Booster Gold is now the man.
The two unexpected items of the day were both used VHS tapes and a DVD. The first was one that Raijin Z alerted me to: a used copy of the Ninja Gaiden anime. Sure, it’s on YouTube.com somewhere. So? I have it on tape now. The second was the real shocker: a promo video for Busta Rhyme’s ‘Gimme Some More‘ video by Hype Williams. I haven’t watched it yet, but the package says that it came free with the Extinction Level Event album. MTV had something to do with it because their logo is on the box. Man, I miss the old, crazy Busta videos like that. The final item was Pee-Wee Herman’s Christmas special. Any show with Grace Jones singing a Christmas song while Frankie and Annette are forced to make Christmas decorations is pure magic.