Anyone who has read this site knows I’m no fan of character death.  I thought, though, that the right circumstances could make me ignore one plot element that I didn’t like.  I was wrong.

I’m a ridiculous fangirl for the writer of this series.  I adore the characters.  I’m psyched about the book.  I’m intrigued by the story.  This is as ideal a situation as it gets.

In issue #2 a character dies, and the heroes are distraught over that character’s death.  I’ve re-written this tiny post several times because I don’t want this reaction to seem flip.  The minute I saw that, I stopped wanting the book.  I didn’t decide that I wasn’t going to buy it, or that I was going to make some kind of statement by not buying it.  I just didn’t want it anymore.

The thing is, I went online and found several hints that this death is not what it seems.  I still don’t want the book.  I really don’t care about the circumstances of character death anymore.  It doesn’t matter if the fallout is realistic, if it’s happening for sound story purposes, if it’s helping to set up a new and exciting new world, if it’s a really great story, or even if the death is guaranteed to be temporary.  I just don’t care.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up the book.  Like I said, I love the whole package of Birds of Prey.  As soon as the ripples stop – no funeral, no angst, no memories or flashbacks -I’ll be back and loving it. 

It’s just that I realized that nothing on earth is going to make me willing to pick up one single more book with character death in it.  I read comics for enjoyment, and that sucks all of my enjoyment out.   There’s a limit to the death, pain, and despair that I’m willing to read.  I guess I’m at that limit.  Enough.

“Yes!  And that somehow our other selves are elsewhere — on some strange world!”

Batman #146 featured Bat-Girl, Robin, and half of Batman and Batwoman sent to other planets.  It’s nice to see that, even split in half, they have spot-on instincts.

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Just when I decided I was fine with not going to this year’s Comic-Con, what with the crowds, and no place to stay, and five days of eight-dollar hot dogs eaten while crouched in the corner of a convention center, Geoff Johns tweets that The Blue Beetle will be a live-action TV show.

Let me say that again:  the 24 issue run that I have pimped time and time again, and that I consider one of the best books in comics.  Ever.  Is going to be a live-action TV series, with previews at Comic-Con.

Damn you, Cruel Fate.

That being said – for all the Blue Beetle fans out there: it is time to start dancing.  Dance!  DANCE RIGHT THERE IN YOUR CHAIR!

This is so fantastic.  Here are five things I hope will happen.

1.  John Rogers and Keith Giffen are involved in this series.

2.  They keep The Family Reyes.  That is one of the best, sweetest, wisest, and yet imperfect groups of people I’ve ever seen in any form of media.

3.  They also keep La Dama.  I loved her as a villain.  She was one of the few villains in comics who was motivated by specific and understandable goals: family, security, and money.  So many villains are just motivated by an abstract desire to be evil.

4.  The Lonar Excursion, complete with tiny little fuzzy aliens whose language translates to hilarious lines.  My favorite one part?  Where they just tried to drink Brenda’s blood, and got beat up by Brenda and Lonar, and then came back all, “eep eep eep” and the translation was:  “We’re cool, you’re cool. Let’s all just be cool.”  You said it, ewok rip-offs!

5.  Oh god you can’t have a Jaime Blue Beetle series without Guy Gardner!  Please, please, please, please.

6.  The Ultrahumanite, too.

7.  This is just to say that The Blue Beetle also had the storyline with the best title. Ever.  Seriously, read comics all your life, you will never beat this one.  It’s one in which Eclipso wants to rip the heart out of a super-powered baby to – something.  That doesn’t matter.  What matters is that the issue was called ‘Total Eclipso: The Heart.”  My god.  It’s full of stars.

8.  I know this is a long shot, but I’d love for Ted to be in there.  It’s canon that he wanted to retire and be an inventor, and that the scarab didn’t work for him.  Don’t get me wrong, I like The Peacemaker, but Ted is just so sweet and goofy and smart and ridiculous.  I miss the guy.

That turned into eight things and every one of them is essential.

The issue starts with Bat-Girl standing on a swinging swing, hitting a man who is on the top of a see-saw, because another man is stuck at the bottom of the see-saw. 

This raises so many questons.

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I always welcome more Batgirls, but I don’t see it happening for the following reasons.

1.  All of the Birds of Prey know Cassandra Cain and know her well.  Sure, White Canary in Birds of Prey was wearing a half-mask, but they’d still know her.  And wouldn’t it be a little awkward to introduce this big mystery character on the last page of Birds of Prey only to have the characters go, “Oh, hey Cassandra,” in the next issue?  I guess we’ll see.

2.  White Canary?  Really?  That’s the title?  A spin-off of an already shuffled around character?  That’s not the strongest title for a book.  ‘Cassandra Cain,’ would be a much better title all on its own.  You have the alliteration, the allusion to the homicidal Cain in the Bible.  It’s like Damian Al Ghul.  That’s an evocative enough name, and by this time a well enough known name, to stand alone.

3.  As I understand it, when Ian Sattler was asked at Heroes Con, about any upcoming Cassandra Cain books, he said they planned to leave the character alone for a couple of years.  In my experience, the default answer for these things is ‘sure, ____ might come back soon,’ no matter how unlikely it is, so if someone is actually willing to say that there’s nothing planned, there’s probably nothing planned. 

Or are they running a double game on us?

This week it’s all Batgirls, all the time.  Cut for spoilers.

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Alert reader elad, during the last podcast, was good enough to point me to the Execution of Mister Mind in the old Captain Marvel Adventures.  It was just as good as I imagined it would be.

Better, even.

What’s even better – someone I know from my local comic book shop brought in the full color, massive trade of the Captain Marvel Adventures and let me see how this went down in glorious color.  (Take that, proponents of e-comics, of which I technically am one.  Oh well.)  Highlights include the foreman of the jury declaring that they didn’t even have to leave the room to decide whether Mister Mind was guilty or not.  They knew right away.

All I could think, from Captain Marvel acting as the prosecuting attorney to the verdict to the teeny, tiny electric chair that they strap Mister Mind into, was this needs to be a Law & Order episode.  The pacing is perfect for the ‘dun duns’ and the work out that Jack McCoy’s eyebrows would get through the whole thing would be epic. 

But I’d settle for an animated short added on to a straight-to-DVD movie.  I love that dead worm.

My reaction to the debut of Bat-Girl.

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One Con Glory is nerd romance set over the course of a convention, encompassing the eternal themes of love, self-discovery, and plastic action figures.

The heroine, Julie, is a comics and general nerdery reporter, come to the con in a professional capacity to cover the events and interview the big players.  In an amateur capacity, she’s come to find a Glory Gilmore action figure.  Glory Gilmore is a minor heroine in a minor team, and so Julie has her work cut out for her.

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Spoilers below the cut.

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