This is pretty much what we have to look forward to during this summer’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Galactus is a giant cloud. Great.

I can verify this. We got the novelization of the movie at work the other day and I skimmed the latter half of the book. This, plus the goofy final battle, are enough to keep me out of the theater for the time being.

I like that Spider-Man 3 and F4:RotSS come out during the same summer. They’re as different as night and day. The F4 movies take some of Marvel’s most beloved villains and bastardize them to the point that it’s painful to even talk about them. Spider-Man 3, based on the novelization, does a great job taking a villain most comic fans hate (Venom) and a classic villain who never really did all that much (Sandman) and making them interesting and exciting. I’m expecting Sandman to make a major comeback based on the movie’s portrayal.

How the hell are they going to make merchandise for a giant cloud, anyway? You can’t give gas kung-fu grip.

Sometimes I can’t keep myself from reading spoilers. A week or so before Revenge of the Sith came out, I read the comic based on it. I like Runaways member Chase so much that at one point I had to check Wikipedia to make sure he wasn’t the one who died in Runaways #18. I read spoilers for Supernova’s secret identity the day before that issue of 52 came out.

This is no different. The other day I got my hands on the novelization of Spider-Man 3, as written by Peter David. I was a bit wary, as the last time Peter David wrote Venom, this happened:

I’m going to try and stay away from major spoilers, but I may slip here or there. For instance, there’s an excellent scene where Aunt May defeats the Grizzly in a game of beer pong. What I won’t spoil is that she did it blindfolded.

Read the rest of this entry �

I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this here before, but it’s a tale from the halcyon days of yore–

No, wait, let me start over.

I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this story before. I might’ve told Gavin or Thomas, I think, but not the entire internet as a whole. Read on as I tell you the Origin of Hal Jordan. If you’ve read it before, pardon me.

When I was a kid, I liked comics. Marvel Comics, mostly, because Spider-Man was and is the bomb. DC Comics were wiggedy-wack, in the parlance of the day (Kris-Kross will make you…). I liked them in theory, but they were straight up Dad Comics. Stuffy old guys doing stuffy old guy things.

My real entry to the DCU was either Batman: Knightfall or the Death and Return of Superman. I’m not 100% sure which it was because it was a while back. Thing was, comics cost money and I was maybe ten years old at most. Ten year olds do not really have any way to make money and I had no access to the monstrous stash of coke that I’ve been peddling to make paper nowadays.

So, like a lot of other little kids, I traded comics with friends. X-Force #1 for that issue of Spidey were Juggernaut almost gets his eye poked out. An extra copy of X-Men #3 for the latest Venom appearance. And so on. I bought the comics that featured cool characters that I could afford.

I think I first saw news of Superman’s death on CNN. I don’t think I could’ve afforded all the crazy variant comics, so I grabbed the novelization later on. I loved it. Roger Stern did a bang-up job and it remains one of my most loved novels to this day. I bought the recent reissue and everything.

Later, I managed to acquire most of the single issues, or maybe it was a TPB. In fact, it was probably a TPB. I still have a well-worn first printing of the World Without A Superman, so let’s say TPB so I don’t have to stretch my memory.

I read Death of Superman. It was good. I read World Without A Superman. It was good. I read Reign of the Superman. It was goo– wait. Something’s not right. The Central City portion of the story has some new jack in the proceedings.

Who the heck is this nerd in the green tights with the magic ring? What is he doing in a story about Superman dying and coming back? I want to read about Superman in that awesome robot, not some jerk with fancy jewelry.

Oh, oh hold on. Is this that annoying guy from the Super Friends cartoons? The one who got less face time than Aquaman? Why would they put this guy in such an awesome story? This was so much better in the novel!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my introduction to Hal Jordan. I finished the series and promptly put him out of my mind until I picked up Morrison’s JLA close to a decade later.

This is probably why I don’t “get” him to this day. He’s just another generic Superman-styled hero in my mind. Gavok has a pretty awesome explanation on how he’s the second generation of the Superman archetype, but Hal himself? I don’t like him near as much as I like Kyle or John. I read the new GL series briefly, but I soon lost interest I think around the time when Mongul (Mongul II?) showed up?

There you go.

Ah, the holidays. A time of family and buying and having to listen to songs about grandmothers and their relationships with reindeer. A time where I find myself watching the final twenty minutes or so of It’s a Wonderful Life or any incarnation of a Christmas Carol that happens to be on TV. Where I think about the old days, where Fred Flintstone would allow his best friend to finally have some of his sugary cereal without chipping in. A time of talking in sentence fragments.

It’s also the day of two of the greatest superheroes to never wear tights. One guy went around for years, using his powers to heal and feed people. He died a pretty kickass death (still need that issue, as I only own the novelization), but for the past 2,000 years, his fans have been clamoring for him to come back. He was a second-generation character, but his dad was WAY too overpowered.

The other guy spends the year in his headquarters, preparing to aid the innocent and punish the guilty. He and his many sidekicks monitor the world as he summons his power for a yearly run of super-speed, stealth and exercise of his bottomless stomach. While some find his ways a bit creepy (watching you as you sleep) and anti-Semitic (only using his power to help the Christians), he still gets support for taking in freaks – such as the talking mound of snow and the mutant reindeer – to help with his annual mission to spread good.

The thought of these bearded men made me think of these other super-powered heroes, trying to do the right thing. What are they up to during those days? And so, I tried to read as many Christmas-based comic books as I could. There are quite a lot out there, whether they be Christmas specials or just issues in December that decide to join the bandwagon.

Let us begin, shall we? Read the rest of this entry �