The Ridiculously Fat Stack

Giant-Size Astonishing X-men #1
Well, that was almost actually worth the wait. Good to see that the door for Kitty's return is sort of left open and that Brand has a healthy appetite for pony breaking. (A+)

1985 #1
Kind of hard to tell how this one's going to turn out. So far there doesn't seem to be much point in setting it in the real world. I just hope this kid doesn't save the day with his imagination or something. (A-)

Final Crisis #1
It's definitely a pretty book. I just wish the countdown to it didn't... you know... exist. (A-)

Uncanny X-Men #498
At least Brubaker isn't afraid to try and make lame-ass 90's villains relevant. What with giving the X-Men hippie code names, he may not be afraid of anything. (B)

X-Men Legacy #212
Damn, this thing sure comes out a lot. Starting to get repetitive though. (B)

Batman #677
Oooh, Bruce Wayne might be crazy. How original. Tony Daniel is just gawdawful. (C)

The New Avengers #41
While it's better than that horrid Sentry tale in Mighty it does seem kind of unnecessary. (C)

All that and there's still All Star Superman, Iron Fist, Thor, GL, DD, and X-Force to go. Expensive.

Full Disclosure

Nice of those whacky guys at the CIA to let us know what they're up to.

Old Man Collins Is Back

After narrowly escaping the fate of becoming a highly watchable fast break team that can't beat the Spurs by losing out on Mike D'Antoni, the Chicago Bulls have decided to rehire Dough Collins after almost twenty years. Leaving behind a prosperous career as an insightful yet yawn-inducing broadcaster on TNT, Collins steps into the fortunate position of trying to turn around a drastically underachieving team with the assistance of this year's number one draft pick. In his last season with the Bulls, he took the team to the Conference Finals... or course he had some Jordan guy's help. His first order of business will likely be slapping the cognac out of Joakim Noah's mouth.

The Chicago Bulls Just Ate Your Balls

The Chicago Bulls only had a 1.7% chance of winning the first pick in last night's NBA draft lottery. They were supposed to pick ninth. Well, looks like two impossibly amazing things have happened to the Bulls in this complete disaster of a season. Someone took Ben Wallace off their hands and they just got Michael Beasley for Christmas... or Derrick Rose. Beasley actually fills Chicago's need for a low post scorer, but Rose is supposedly the next Jason Kidd... except he can actually shoot. The decision may come down to who the Bulls can trade from their current roster for the best deal. If they take Beasley, Gooden is almost certainly gone. If they go with Rose, you can say bye bye to Captain Kirk. And then there are restricted free agents Luol Deng and Ben Gordon to consider. Either way, the Bulls should field a young and exciting team next fall... just like every fall since they gave away Elton Brand. Let's just hope whomever they pick doesn't like motorcycles.

Bush Determined To Leave Office With Zero Dignity Whatsoever

President Bush made an @$$hat of himself once again today by basically saying that Barack Obama would appease terrorists and compared him to a U.S. Senator that wanted to negotiate with Hitler... all this at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration no less. Of course John McCain was quick to follow up with a sound bite of his own, but I prefer Sen. Joe Biden's: "This is bullsh**t." Peep the story on CNN here and here.

Dope Toon Indy Print

Patrick Shoenmaker, who also did some Indy TOPPS sketch cards, drew this giclee for sale at www.indianajonesshop.com. I'd almost rather see a moving version of this than Indy IV.

Bear Republic's Hop Rod Rye

Hop Rod is a refreshing and crisp brew, but is supported by a slightly meaty bread back. It's an IPA where the malt actually matters and the 8% ABV is well hidden under a blanket of complexity. It tastes dark, bitter, and almost semi-sweet, with a somewhat tree bark tinged hop river running through the flavor. This one's a sturdy but purdy girl that will wrestle you naked in the woods when you go hiking on a breezy summer day. (A)

Reggie Miller Likes The Asians

Click for more pictures of Reggie liking the Asians.

The Quick Stack

Thunderbolts #120
Apparently Norman Osborn is really what Tommy Lee Jones was going for in Batman Forever. Fantastic, Deadwoodian monologuing here. (A+)

Captain Britain and MI: 13 #1
Now that's how you do an alien invasion. Definitely the best Skrull related read so far, and the Champion's Super Skrull is the best one yet. (A)

Wolverine #65
Probably the weakest issue of Aaron's run, even with the nudie fight. Still pretty terrific though. (A)

X-Men: Legacy #211
That durn Sinister just pops up uhrvrywhere. Also, I really really wish they would just kill off the character that appears on the last page once and for all. This must be well written, though, if I find myself enjoying an Xavier story. (A-)

Batman #676
Here it is, Batman RIP at last... but nobody's dead yet. The splash page of Morrisony villains at the beginning is interesting and the Joker's scary, but it's still hard to get past the art. The next issue will probably give a better idea of if this one is worth the hype. (B)

Amazing Spider-Man #559
Dan Slott is back to save the day, but still no classic villains. This Paper Doll chick, however, actually seems half way interesting. I absolutely hate Paparazzi Parker, but it looks as if that will only last as long as this arc. (B)

Last Defenders #3
Ok, now this is starting to get boring. But, nice to see Paladin. (C)

Still have to get to Guardians of the Galaxy, NewUniversal, GL Corps, SI: FF, and Casanova, but we already know that's going to be pure deliciousness.

DC Comics Hates Kids With Cancer

Time Warner recently sent a cease and desist order to a guy holding a charitable auction of original artwork meant to benefit Candlelighters, a childhood cancer foundation. Apparently, one of the paintings for sale was of a Superman insignia. Read about it here and at the guy's blog here.

Finally, A Reason To Care About The Environment

Wired.com has an interesting article about the plight of the craft brewer in this dark time of hops shortage. The pictures are from the 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco. They have a deliciously solid IPA and a very refreshing Watermelon Wheat brewed with 400 lbs of real watermelon. Gimmicky, but tasty and available in cans. (Also, check out Boing Boing's response to the article.)

More Characters, Less Foo

Sox Lose Fifth Straight. Ozzie Says @#$%.

"That's what ticks me off about Chicago fans and Chicago media: They forget pretty quickly. A couple of days ago we were the @#$%ing best @#$% in town. Now we're @#$%. We won it a couple years ago, and we're horse@#$%. The Cubs haven't won in (100) years, and they're the @#$%ing best. @#$% it, we're good. @#$% everybody. We're horse@#$%, and we're going to be horse@#$% the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win. We are the @#$% of Chicago. We're the Chicago @#$%. We have the worst owner. The guy's got seven@#$%ing rings, and he's the @#$%ing horse@#$% owner.

How about the Cubs celebrating that Lee Elia bull@#$%? How many times do I curse people out? I will make a lot of money with my @#$%. I have to keep going because in the future Ozzie will need money, and I can say, 'Here, give me money, here's the 10-year anniversary of my time I called Mariotti stuff and the time I went on the radio and cursed out Mike North.'

People are panicking. Did we play a real bad week? Yes, we did, we stunk. But it wasn't too long ago that we were 'the biggest surprise in baseball, wow, look at the White Sox.'"

Happy Margarita Day!

Apparently Iron Man Did Pretty Well

Fresh off the opening weekend success of their highly entertaining Iron Man movie, Marvel has announced its planned releases for the next few years. Which characters will get to appear on the silver screen, you ask? Everybody. With the Avengers movie set for July of 2011, we'll have The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and, earlier that summer, The First Avenger: Captain America to establish enough characters to not make the super-team vehicle a complete cluster@#$%. There's even rumored to be a comedic Ant-Man flick in the works. Tiny Pym would probably play much better in live action form than Giant Man. Hopefully all this means that they'll be room in the script to fit the greatest Avenger of all time, Hawkeye, into the mix. Along with these films and the soon to be disastrous Punisher and Wolverine movies, there are apparently animated Hulk, Thor, and Planet Hulk DVDs in development and cartoon series based on Wolverine, Iron Man, The Gamma Corps, and Hasbro's Super Hero Squad scheduled for 2009.

Guns, Boats, And Footballmobiles

It was a fantastic weekend for midwest football as both the Colts and Bears saw cornerstones of their offense in trouble with the law, with possible suspensions when the new season starts.

For the Colts, a couple weeks after backup running back Kenton Keith acted a fool, the most mild-mannered player in all of sports, Marvin Harrison is sort of maybe somehow connected to a shooting outside his club. Apparently there's some kind of specialty Belgian gun involved that was found in his car wash. For what it's worth, the investigation has been delayed to hunt down a completely unrelated cop killer and no one has actually called Marvin a suspect. With the league's current conduct policy, however, things don't look good for the Indianapolis great.

The Chicago Bears didn't do much better with "couldn't find a hole in a Patpong prostitute" Cedric Benson getting busted for boating under the influence. The police even had to pepper spray dude to subdue him. Clearly they could have taken him down much easier by simply dressing as an opposing defensive lineman and saying, "boo." Benson of course has a different, much more police-brutality-filled account of events, which, given that this took place in Texas, probably has some credence.

Chris Paul, You're My Only Hope

Well, Atlanta finally got bit by reality and the first round of the NBA playoffs are over. We are now left with the Hornets, the Magic, and six of the most uninteresting teams in the league that no one could possibly like unless they were born and raised in their home cities. The 2004 Lakers, I mean Celtics, are, unsurprisingly, an unfocused mess that can't even beat Atlanta on the road and are led by the human virus know as Kevin Garnett. The LeBrons are a collection of zero personality role players surrounding the most self-important egomaniac in history. The Pistons are the Pistons; the Jazz are the Jazz; The Lakers wish they were Jordan's Bulls; and the Spurs are so boring I fell asleep twice while writing this sentence. While Dwight Howard and Orlando are a fun and amicable bunch, a team with Hedo Turkoglu as their best player probably won't be making the Conference Finals. The situation seams bleak, but don't turn off TNT just yet. You see, America still has the Hornets. True MVP, Chris Paul and company are still here to try and save basketball from the forces of lameness. New Orleans has quickly become the new Sacramento Kings, only better. They play beautifully watchable basketball and actually seem like they're enjoying themselves. Heck, I've even seen a couple of them smile. This is the alley-ooping, Dirk-slapping, three-popping team the NBA needs. The Hornets are the only thing the 08 playoffs have going for them, but if they keep playing like they have been, they may be the only thing the 08 playoffs need.

The Fat, Still Only Half-Way Finished Stack

Immortal Iron Fist #14
Sigh. Why does it have to end? (A+)

Thor: Ages Of Thunder #1
Looks like Fraction can do gods too. (A)

New Avengers #40
Told you Bendis wasn't smart enough to have a red herring. Cheung is awesome, by the way. (A-)

X-Men Legacy #210
Still plodding along. It's pretty good, but there's not a single character I care about in it. (B+)

Green Lantern #30
Well crafted, but I'm still waiting to find out why I'm reading this origin story for the hundredth time. (B)

Avengers: The Initiative #12
Those costumes at the end were pretty lame, but nice to see Ms. Marvel's old duds getting some play. (B)

The Order #10
Fun while it lasted, but the atrocious art on this one takes it down a notch. (B-)

DC Universe: Zero
I really could give two @#$%s about Barry Allen at this point. (C)

Action Comics #864
Blargh. We go from the entertaining, Gary Frank penciled Legion story to this talky crapfest that tries to tie Countdown, Brave and the Bold, and the Lightning Saga together. (D)

New Warriors #11
I only read this to see how bad it can possibly get before they cancel it or reveal Night Thrasher as a Skrull. By the way, that Angel chick better be one too. She goes from a sassy street punk in Morrison's X-men to a perfect mother who wonders what the freezing point of steel is, can modify her own ice gauntlets, and changes her race every time there's a different artist? (F-)

Who Knew Dark Knight Was A Remake?

Click to watch a side by side comparison of the old and new trailers.