Thursday Night Thinking #160

Sorry there was no post yesterday; I had a big exam today and spent all day yesterday in my office. So I didn't get out to the comic shop.

But today is a different day. Today is Thursday. That means Thursday Night Thinking!

Batman is back. Will his thinking be as good as it was in the old days?

Brightest Day #13 Cover

Check out this cover for Brightest Day #13:

Is that my old favorite Resurrection Man I spy? I think it is! I can't imagine who else it could be in that hat.

Thank God for Geoff Johns and his love of obscure characters...

Read Freedom Fighters

Let me guess: you're not reading Freedom Fighters. That's okay; I forgive you.

But you really should be reading Freedom Fighters. Somehow over the past few years Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have turned into some of my favorite writers. I don't know how it happened. But I'm glad it did.

Anyway, Freedom Fighters is shaping up to be a really fun book. And "fun" is something we don't find nearly as often as we should in our comics these days. Not only does the book have some delightful fight scenes and some fantastic dialogue -- "I am a God killer!" -- but it's got a fun mystery as well.

I love the concept of "The Hidden History of the United States" as a hook for Freedom Fighters. There's a lot of really great material to mine there, and our humble hosts seem ready to hit the ground running. Why, in the most recent issue the mystery villain was revealed to be this guy:

And we find this out in the second issue. Let me tell you, that's a hell of a lot more satisfying than waiting some six issues to find out that the mystery villain is Solomon Grundy in a suit.

So, to sum up: Freedom Fighters is shaping up to be pretty awesome. Go read it.

Thursday Night Thinking #159

We return again to the eternal Thursday Night Thinking! Tonight: another strange cover from Strange Adventures! Ever since finding these things I've been a bit obsessed with them.

I don't care if it's going to take over the world; I want a mustachioed bouncing green ball as a pet.

No Energy

I had to go to a symposium on medieval Japanese Buddhist today. It was exactly as exciting as it sounds.

As a consequence I'm somewhat fatigued and didn't get the chance to read my books for the week. So I'm regrettably without real content for the night. So here's a random cover from Strange Adventures:

Pop-Up

When I saw this DCU pop-up book my first thought was this: "I have got to get that for my niece."

Now, she's too young to appreciate something like that right now. But in a few years when she starts looking at books and appreciating the pictures I want her looking at a pop-up book with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

You've got to hook them when they're young, you know. I don't want her to eventually fall in with a bad crowd. The type that appreciates Spider-Man or the X-Men. That would be disastrous.

It's important that children be exposed to good influences. Most modern comics probably don't fit with that. But there's no question that some are appropriate for kids. And even if they can't appreciate the Superman comic, they should at least appreciate Superman.

I'm just trying to be a good influence.

Superman Director Found?

Here I was, looking for something to blog about when lo and behold they announce who is directing the next Superman movie.

Here's the thing, though: I don't know anything about this Zack Snyder guy. The only thing of his I've seen was the Watchmen adaptation. I mostly liked it, but that's just one movie after all. He's done other stuff as well. Is he a good director? Bad? Fair to middlin'?

I haven't seen a lot of movies in the past few years. So, to anyone out there more familiar with Zack Snyder's work than I: should I be worried?

Of course, a big part of any future Superman movie will be the script. And I haven't heard anything about that yet. Baby steps, I guess...