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As I write this, I'm recovering from multiple Thanksgiving dinners, thus fulfilling my reccomended
dose of tryprophan for another year. I'm also coming down with something picked up at my
sister's house, and have spent the last month trying to fulfill a writing challenge to write 50,000
words in the span of November. In light of all this, I'm going to meander around to several topics,
since my brain is oozing out my ears.
First off, there's a major event that Marvel fans can be thankful for in this season - Yeah, I'm
being topical again - and that would be the removal of Bill Jemas from the forefront of the Marvel
command structure. His bombastic nature has hurt, in my humble opinion, the public view of comics
in general, and Marvel in particular. He openly insulted fans and retailers alike on numerous
occasions, and engineered asinine publicity stunts that tended to fall on their face once we as a
fanbase stopped caring. U-Decide, Rawhide Kid, I'm looking at you!
Sure, sales increased more or less across the board, but how much of this was really because of
Jemas? Marville sold spectacularly poorly, and Namor wasn't doing too well either, finally getting
cancelled. The only other project Jemas had anything to do with heavilly in the writing, was
Ultimate Spider-Man, and I would say that Brian Bendis is a far larger draw, and can compensate
for any affects Jemas may have had on the title.
Now, it's a matter to see if things will continue to improve, sales, quality, and personality-wise for
the company. If not, than the problems at Marvel run much, much deeper than Bill Jemas, and it
may be time to start becoming concerned. But personally, things seem to be looking up.
Another thing to be thankful for, at least in my eyes, is that Grant Morrison's tenure on New
X-Men is almost over. I know I'm in the minority on this one, but I eagerly look forward to the
return of the old characters to the book. And one last thing on the thankful list, Alan Davis has
signed an exclusive contract with Marvel! Woo!
Over the last few weeks, I've been perusing the new X-Men 2 DVD and the Two Towers Extended
Edition DVD set. These are absolutely must-haves for any geek you know. X-Men 2 - the movie is
simply amazing in and of itself, as I've started elsewhere in the archives, after the film came out
in theatres, and the DVD is a great set. Superb video and audio quality, and the second disc of
features is quite good, if a little lacking.
The Two Towers have added in 43 minutes of footage, with new scenes, and scene extensions
that really flesh out the story for numerous characters, especially Faramir and Boromir. Once
again, the audio and video quality here is top notch, and arguably the best on DVD. Much like last
year's FotR four-disc release, the making of discs are thorough and continue much of the same
themes from the first as well, making it seem more of a cohesive, thematic unit with Fellowship.
Thus concludes our geek gift suggestions for Christmas. Just hope the geeks in your life aren't
like me, and have already bought them. Provided they haven't, they will positively love them.
Finally, why don't the X-Men ever get sick? Ok, sure, Wolverine has his healing factor, but
everyone else? I'd love to see Scott about to fire at Magneto with his optic blasts, and his case of
the sniffles causes him to sneeze, hitting Beast in the butt instead. Ok, maybe this would be why
I'm not writing the X-Men.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to blow my nose before I sneeze and shoot my cats accidentally
with my own optic blasts. May everyone have some very nice holidays, and may the New Year bring
us some nice new comics from the X-Folks.
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