Rants are like flame wars; I tend to regret them.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of my life.

All right, the last part was just to complete the allusion.  Still, a moment’s post in anger tends to have long consequences.  (The first, of course, is a lot of hits.  There’s nothing like a rant to get people clicking, and I can’t blame them.  I love a good internet fight, too.) 

Sometimes you’re wrong.  Sometimes what you are ranting about gets reversed, taking away the anger and making you look like a goof.  And sometimes time goes on and you just don’t care as much as you once did, while the rant stays as fresh and angry as ever.

So, I probably should have anticipated the moment when David switched off the podcasting equipment after my second rant about Cry for Justice #7, and mentioned that the writer had gotten death threats.

Oh.

Obviously, death threats are illegal, creepy, and stupid under all circumstances.  But there are other responses that, while legal and lighter, also make me feel bad for The Ranted.

The thing about a small community on the internet, is that when something happens, it can be hard to get away from it.  People all read the same thing at the same time, and they respond at the same time.  Sometimes they (like me) don’t read the original material, but see the event discussed on another site, and respond to that.  The more people write, the more people read, the more people respond, the bigger the thing gets, and often, the angrier people get about it.  Because it all happens at once, all that anger blasts out, and while each outburst of it might be in correct proportion to the event, the collective response can be bigger than the offense.

I’m not saying that any part of a response is wrong, or that people are wrong to write what they think (Except, of course, for the death threats.  For crying out loud, people!), but at the same time I can’t help but feel sorry for people who made one decision that just happened to implode the internet.

This isn’t my only response, of course.  Like I said, I like an internet fight.  Also, in situations like Cry for Justice, I often hope that big kerfuffles like this will inspire the company to reverse their decision.  Much as people like to pretend otherwise, they know that comics companies at least try to give them what they want.  Still, I feel a twinge of guilt for being part of the internet rage machine vomiting lava over someone.

“The greatest rapper of all time died on March 9th.” Christopher Wallace died 13 years ago, after a career where he brought jiggy and drugs and excess to the mainstream and created a swagger hundreds of rappers have jacked since. Whether it’s “You got it, nigga, flaunt it” or “Picture me being scared of a nigga that breathe the same air as me,” Biggie is probably the blueprint for your favorite rapper.

RIP

Welcome back!

In our last installment, Hawkeye and Iron Man continued to talk about stuff (their favorite bands, chicks who’ve broken their hearts, the Matrix) until a bunch of angry dudes with superpowers showed up randomly. Sucks especially for Hawkeye, since nearly everyone on the opposing team appears to be bulletproof.

How will our heroes (if you can call them that) get out of this alive?! HOW?!

Join ManiacClown and I tomorrow as we watch the Ultimates continue to fight the Defenders. Then we get a special appearance by everyone’s favorite Ultimate Edit mainstay! Then again, I’m only assuming he is.

Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

I’ve done a few background-type redesigns on the site over the past year or so– widening the post box, changing the way the headers work, fonts, etc etc. My secret guru/consultant in that has been David Cole of Sleepover. He does webdesign professionally, and he’s the guy I go to with dumb questions like “Is this how CSS works?” and “Hang on, is this hard to do?”

He did me the favor of doing some minor web work, or so he says, on the site over the weekend. He’s the reason why each post, the sidebar, the headers, and the navigation are their own separate elements now. There are some other background things you probably won’t notice– cleaning up functions, straightening out some navigation stuff, blah blah blah. I went in behind him and added in a few dozen headers (some of which Gav mailed to me, oh, eight months ago or so). I’ll be doing some sidebar work over the next week, too.

Anyway, he did me a solid and I wanted to publicly thank him. Check out Sleepover, take a peek at what he does to show off, and if you’re in the market for some web design work… give Sleepover a shout. If he’ll do stuff for my piddly little comics blog, he’ll definitely make your corporate site prettified.

Thanks David!

-Yo, tell ’em why you mad, son!
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music
-Yo, Esther, tell ’em why you mad!
-It was Justice League: Cry for Justice #7, a James Robinson/Mediocre Artist Medley joint. You know the one– everybody got mad about it last week.
-Esther was gonna get her hate on, but there were a few days between the point where that hand of hers was glowing with an awesome power, its burning grip telling her to defeat DC Comics.
-Instead of flipping DC a Shining Finger, we have a fairly measured, if frustrated talk about violence in comics.
-We’re talking about scale of violence, involving the family, “this time it’s personal!” and so on. Also how tragedy can turn a character toxic.
-I may mention a Tiny Crisis and make Esther cackle.
-We lighten it up at the end with some stuff we like about comics.
-Esther likes Brian Azzarello and Rags Morales’s First Wave #1.
-I like Viz’s One Piece 3in1 and accelerated release schedule.
-See you, space cowboy!

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Yesterday, Iron Man flew by a burning building to have a heart-to-heart with Hawkeye, who seemed down. With everything squared away over the course of two pages, Hawkeye is in better spirits. Read on as stuff happens.

Thanks go out to ManiacClown, who continues to be confused at the length of Clint’s ammo compared to the depth of his magazines.

More fighting tomorrow.

Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

The new Iron Man trailer premiered tonight during Jimmy Kimmel. As expected, it looks like heat rocks. Check it out on Apple’s site if you want to watch it in high def or hit the video below for the official Youtube HD embed.

I’m liking what the story is shaping up to be. The US gov’t getting in bed with Whiplash to bring down Stark, Rhodey backing up his homey, Pepper still not falling for his tricks, Scarlett Johansson looking like Scarlett Johansson… it’s gonna be a good’un.

Time for another look at– holy shit, we’ve got new headers now! Look at the top of the site! Then refresh a bunch of times! Plus the site is all different and rounder now! Neat!

Amazing Spider-Man #623
Mark Waid, Tom Peyer and Paul Azaceta

Deadpool Team-Up #895
Christopher Long and Dalibor Talajic

Read the rest of this entry �

It had to happen. Jeph Loeb returns to the Ultimates cast with his new series New Ultimates, this time accompanied by Frank Cho. Naturally, ManiacClown and I have returned to take it to task. For those who are lost, check out the previous installments of Ultimate Edit and Ultimatum Edit. Go on, I’ll wait.

Now, then. Let’s get this show on the road.

We’ll continue tomorrow as Tony and Clint make some new friends. Wow, two pages into a Loeb comic and there hasn’t been an action sequence two-page spread yet. Somebody get Guinness on the phone.

Day Two!
Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!

I dunno if it’s a mistake or not, but Amazon has 48 pages of 15 dollar Marvel hardcovers, ranging from Premiere (aight), OSHC (nice), and omnibus (holy crap!) format.

I ordered six. A couple preorders, Tomb of Dracula v1, The Death of Captain America, and then the last two Ultimate Spider-Man joints. Cheap hardcovers make me stupid, apparently. But whatever, I’m getting cheap comics. Also we get a small cut if you buy through that link, so you know, there’s that.

Shill over! I’ve got a to-read stack to demolish before all these books get here.