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September was dominated by one thing in the comics world, the release of DC Comics "New 52." This is where DC is rebooting their entire universe and is putting out new number one issues of certain titles.
I did break down during week one and buy five titles at my local comic shop. They were; Batgirl, Detective Comics, JLI, Men of War and OMAC. I may have been a bit harsh last month saying that I was not liking where the whole "New 52" thing was going. I think now that I have had the chance to ruminate on what is going on in the universe, I kind of like it. This is sort of the ultimate jumping on point for people who want to get into comics, but have no idea where to begin. I still don't like the whole mistrust of super powered people by the common folk of the world angle, but this is supposed to be the more modern, edgier DC Comics. I'll say one thing, they are not going to be bogged down by years and years of continuity. Look for my reviews in a in this month's Collector Times.
Looking at what is going on elsewhere... In the world of Star Wars we have two things coming up this month. First will be the start of a new season of Star Wars: the Clone Wars on Cartoon Network. They are up to season four of the series and it looks to be another thrilling year of episodes. I have watched the first three episodes and it looks like they are getting the three part arc out of the way early this season by focusing on the Mon Calamari and Quarren homeworld and how the Quarren were tricked into letting the Sepratist General (who looked like one of the sharks from the Pixar film "Finding Nemo") lead them and then tricked them into giving him control of the Mon Cal capital city underwater. All of our heroes save for two are captured in the second episode and then the big save is made in the third episode. I'm older and have seen pretty much every television trope there is, so some of the tidbits in the first and second episodes you can see coming by the third episode. I'm not going to complain though because the show is aimed mostly at kids, but adults watch it too and hopefully they don't spoil things for the kids.
The other thing is the release of the Star Wars sextet of movies on Blu-Ray. I told myself a long time ago that I would not break down and buy one of the next generation of DVD players until Star Wars was put out on either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. The choice was kind of made for me a few years ago when the makers of the HD-DVD players said "uncle" and let Sony win the war with Blu-Ray. There is all sorts of juicy stuff on the Blu-Rays including scenes cut from the films and I must say they really did a good job on the Return of the Jedi ones considering it is from 28 years ago. They could have done some work on the "A New Hope" deleted scenes to clean them up so they are more watchable, but even having them on a disk after so long is something I know a lot of fans have been longing to own.
I was at my local Wal-Mart last month doing some shopping and I found that they had a few pegs for the new Thundercats toy line that is based on the series running on the Cartoon Network. I see a four inch Lion-O and grab him. The price is a reasonable $6.97 before tax and I take him and rest of my purchases up to the front to check out. The next day I decided to go to another Wal-Mart and see if they have any of the figures. The ones I was looking for were Cheetara and Panthro because those were the two I really wanted when I was younger and the toy line was made up of eight inch figures. After wandering the action figure aisles for about fifteen minutes I came up empty on finding any of the figures. I find the Tower of Omens playset, but that is not a four inch action figure. I get back into my car and head to the one that I went to on the day before and look to see if they still have the likes of Tigra, Wily Kit and Wily Cat. They do and I grab one of each and leave three sad Mumm-Ra figures consigned to a life sitting on the pegs looking for someone to take him home. I may go back there and buy one just so I can have someone for the Thundercats to battle since the only other thing to represent the bad guys is some small vehicle that comes with only one generic lizard-man. Hopefully a second set will be out in time for the holidays and we'll get some bad guys to go with Lion-O and the others. They also have six inch versions of the new characters as well as eight inch versions of the old school versions of Lion-O and Tigra. I am hopeful that line will do well and we will have more of the old school versions of the figures come out. Having never actually seen the new series, I have it tagged to record on the DVR just to see if it is as good as the older one.
Sorry that the article is a bit light for the month, but I have started taking art classes at a local community college and that has not given me the time that I used to have to do research for my articles. I hope to have more to say once I get into a regular groove in class. Right now I have one professor who is a slave driver and the another who is so vague on what he wants that I'm not sure I am doing things right at all.
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