Wednesday Comics: Future's End and Original Sin

Both DC and Marvel are in the middle of storylines that started a few months ago.

And neither is very good.

DC is running a weekly series, Future's End.  I think that DC is a bit addicted to weekly comics.  I don't blame them, since they must be good money makers.  Their big success, 52, was a critical and commercial hit.  But none of their outings have come close to this, including this latest effort.

Future's End revolves around time travel.  The entire planet is engulfed in destruction caused by the super computer, Brother Eye, who has assimilated most of the human and super-human population Borg-style. The last holdouts of heroes and villains unite in a last ditch effort to undo the mistake by sending Bruce Wayne to the past to prevent Brother Eye from being invented.  But in the chaos, Bruce is injured and he has to send Terry McGuiness, known to most as Batman Beyond (though he is just known as Batman in his series).  But McGuiness arrives 5 years too late and has to play catch up to save the world.

The first issue, #0, was actually very good.  Ethan Van Sciver's art was fantastic and the premise was quite well executed, opening with an old Barry Allen and Captain Cold working together.  But by the second issue, all of the energy was gone.  The problem with a weekly series is that they have to fill 52 issues.  I could feel them stretching out the story too thin.  By the 4th issue I lost interest completely and have stopped.

Original Sin is a little better.  This one also started with and issue #0.  But it is not good that the best issue of your series is at the beginning (it should get better as it goes) but is written by someone who is not writing the regular series.

That first issue is written the amazing Mark Waid.  It is a simple and touching story about the new Nova from earth spending time with Uatu the Watcher.  Uatu is a member of a race that is spread throughout the universe tasked with observing the actions of the universe.  Very little escapes his gaze, but he remains (for the most part) a neutral observer to the events to earth.

Issue #1 begins with his murder.  And someone stole his eyes.

The most exciting part of the series is that it puts together some funky groupings.  Dr. Strange and the Punisher make the oddest couple in Marvel history, but it leads to some of the best dialogue and actions in the series.  The heroes get together and try to discover who murdered Uatu and stole his eyes.

Part way through the series, it supposedly reveals who the killer is.  But the reveal is so unbelievable, that I was more annoyed than impressed.  Since this character is currently staring in his own series, I was dubious that they would suddenly make them a diabolical mastermind.

The last issue I read was almost exclusively a flashback, but it was rather boring.  Event comics want to shake up the status quo, but you want to feel as though the bold new direction is something that comes from the history building up to this event.  But Original Sin feels like it wants to be important, but it drags its feet and it feels like nothing will get accomplished.

But I'm going to see this one through to the end.

Thoughts?

Trailer Time: Gone Girl

I am super impressed with both the teaser and the trailer to this movie.  Apparently its based on a book, but I'm going to try and stay as spoiler free as possible, because I love that I can't figure this movie out.  Most trailers make it too clear who the killer is.  I like that I can't get a read on this.

And I have to say that Ben Affleck looks to be giving one heck of a performance.  I am very excited to see this film when it comes out.

This is what I love about trailers.  Nothing I read about the story made me excited, but the trailer gives me a sense of the what the movie will be (I hope) and now I want to see it.

TEASER:

TRAILER:

Thoughts?

Sunday Best: Sitcoms of All Time #19- Frasier

11 Seasons (1993-2004)

This is the best spin-off ever.

Frasier is the story of Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) who moves from Boston to Seattle to host a radio show as an on-air psychologist.  His life is complicated when his

I had a good friend of mine say once that Frasier is the type of show that makes you feel smarter having watched it.  I agree, but it is not because the characters are highly educated.  But the use of the 20 dollar words was used to fantastic effect because it showed how some people can educate themselves into imbecility.  It was the wit and not the large vocabulary that made the show smart.

It's even better than the original.  I know there are many who would strongly disagree and say that Cheers is superior, but I disagree.  This show wisely took a character that was never at the forefront and brought him together in a show that was familiar enough and different enough.

Kelsey Grammer stepped up and made his supporting character into a leading man.  Frasier is a hard character to attach to because of his innate pompousness.  But his new supporting cast made him shine.   One of the big mistakes most spinoffs make is that they don't let the other character's come into their own and have their own stories.  But Frasier was confident enough in its writing that it made some fantastic stories.

David Hyde Pierce made Niles, Fraiser's brother, even more pompous so as to make Frasier more relatable by comparison.  John Mahoney was tragically under appreciated as Martin Crane, Frasier's father.  His no-nonsense, blue-collar attitude helped sharpen the Frasier's comedic edge.

And let's not forget about romance between Daphne (Jane Leeves) and Niles.  Some of the funniest little moments throughout the show occurred when Niles let his passionate love for her break through is shell of sophistication.

TV THRESHOLD
"Frasier Crane's Day Off."  (1x23)
This episode very much cements the elements of the show that made it so funny.  Grammer was at his comedic best.  In the episode, Frasier is afraid that someone is gunning for his time slot on the radio. When he gets sick he tasks Niles to fill in for him, hoping he'll be boring.  But things spin out of control quickly and Frasier melts down in fantastic ways.  

JUMP THE SHARK and BEST EPISODE
"Something Borrowed, Someone Blue" (7x23-24)
This episode is not only the best episode, but it is also the episode that jumps the shark.  This is the culmination of a 7 year build-up of the will-they-won't-they Niles and Daphnee relationship.  Not only was it horribly romantic, but the writer's didn't forget to bring the funny.  When Niles and Daphnee finally let all of their feelings be known, they interrupt the romance with fantastic little comedy bits, but this actually ratchets up the romantic tensions.

But this episode also jumps the shark because, like the Moonlighting curse, the show was never the same.  There were some great episodes, but the writers were never able to capture the magic again.

OVERALL

Frasier is a wonderful example of spin-offs done right and gave us over a decade of laughs.

The Declaration of Independence: 238 years ago

Below is the entire text of the Declaration of Independence.  I believe it to be one of the most
 audacious and revolutionary documents in history (pun in intended).

I have always loved my country.  But as a philosopher one of the things that I marvel at is that
 the United States is a country built on an idea.

 Ideas matter.

Freedom is in out nature.  No tyrant, no government can take that away.

I encourage you to read the entire text below on this birthday of our nation.  Particularly, I am
struck by the last line:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, 
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Those who wrote their names on that document held up as collateral for the investment in our freedom:

1.  Their Lives.  I am humbled when I remember that so many gave much more than I will
ever give so that people like me could live free.  The only way we can hold onto our freedom is if men and women are willing to pay the ultimate price.  Too often tyrants, both fearsome and soft-spoken, try to snatch away our freedom.  They depend on us to lay down our resistance and give in.  We must never do so.  The Founding Fathers gave us that pledge.

2.  Their Fortunes.  I will likely never see combat.  But how do I spend my money to
ensure freedom?  Do I take care of our wounded warriors?  Do I support laws and
representatives I believe in with my capital?  And do I take payments from those who
would make me dependent.  This pervasive bribery must lead inexorably to subtle slavery.

3.  Their Sacred Honor.  Do we even believe in honor anymore today?  Does our name mean anything?  In A Man for All Seasons, when asked why he would not take an oath of

loyalty to Henry VIII, Thomas More said, "When a man takes an oath, 
he’s holding his own self in his hands. Like water.  And if he 
opens his fingers then — he needn’t hope to find himself again." 
 We are free and we must stand by our commitments. 
 Otherwise who we are, our name, means nothing.  

These great men signed their names to this document. 
 For each of them it may have been a death sentence.
  But they signed it nevertheless.  They their day they
 took a stand against tyranny and stood for freedom.

In their day they stood as men.

Today they stand as giants.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1

Georgia:

   Button Gwinnett

   Lyman Hall

   George Walton

Column 2

North Carolina:

   William Hooper

   Joseph Hewes

   John Penn

South Carolina:

   Edward Rutledge

   Thomas Heyward, Jr.

   Thomas Lynch, Jr.

   Arthur Middleton

Column 3

Massachusetts:

John Hancock

Maryland:

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Column 4

Pennsylvania:

   Robert Morris

   Benjamin Rush

   Benjamin Franklin

   John Morton

   George Clymer

   James Smith

   George Taylor

   James Wilson

   George Ross

Delaware:

   Caesar Rodney

   George Read

   Thomas McKean

Column 5

New York:

   William Floyd

   Philip Livingston

   Francis Lewis

   Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

   Richard Stockton

   John Witherspoon

   Francis Hopkinson

   John Hart

   Abraham Clark

Column 6

New Hampshire:

   Josiah Bartlett

   William Whipple

Massachusetts:

   Samuel Adams

   John Adams

   Robert Treat Paine

   Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

   Stephen Hopkins

   William Ellery

Connecticut:

   Roger Sherman

   Samuel Huntington

   William Williams

   Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:

   Matthew Thornton

The Gospel According to (Elton) John

So Elton John gave an interview with Sky News where he said regarding "gay marriage" and the Church:

"If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him... saying this could not happen," 

Now I always get nervous when news sources have an ellipses in a quote.  There is too much room to distort.  But let us assume that this accurately reflects his view.

Do you not see the glaring ignorance of this statement?  It completely misunderstands all of Christianity and shows the ignorance of the modern world.

"If Jesus Christ was alive today…"

Jesus IS alive today.

We worship the Risen Christ, the Living God.

This is the fundamental mental division between ourselves and the secular culture.

We are not the Jesus fan club.  We are not simply a group of fallible people guessing at the meanings and applications regarding the esoteric teachings of some dead moral philosopher.

We are the Body of Christ.  Jesus is alive.  He lives in His Church.  The Scriptures are His Living Word.  The Magesterium is guided by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

To people like Elton John, Christianity is a dead thing like a log that can be chopped up and shaped into whatever he desires.

But the reality is that Christianity is a living thing.  Christ is the vine and we are His branches.  And if we cut ourselves off from the Living Vine, we wither and die.

Elton John has every right to speak his ignorance.

But so much more is our responsibility to point out that it is ignorance.

Sunday Best: Top 10 Transformers (Besides Optimus Prime)

In honor of Transformers Age of Extinction, I thought I'd put up the top 10 Transformers.

More-so than mosts of the lists on this blog, this will be overly subjective.  I've found that when it comes to choosing the best Transformers, it tends to fall upon the ones that people have an emotional attachment of some kind.

Also, Optimus Prime is clearly going to be #1 on any list, so we shall leave him out of this one.

I'm not including pictures, since most of the ones I've found are copyrighted, but I am linking each name to a wiki page that you can visit to see what they look like.


10.  Unicron

The Galactus of the Transformers universe, Unicron was the greatest threat ever faced by the Robots in Disguise.  I remember being terrified by his massive size and capacity for destruction.

9.  Devastator

The first of the Transformers that was the result of combining other robots together, it was always exciting to watch any episode with the Constructicons because you knew that Devastator was coming.

8.  Alpha Trion

One of the first Transformers, Alpha Trion was the Obi-Wan Kenobi to Optimus Prime's Luke Skywalker.  Wise and self-sacrificing, Alpha Trion was everything that a mentor should be.

7.    Hot Rod
The perpetual screw-up eventually stepped up and lit the darkest hour of the Transformers.

6.  Skyfire
I loved the idea of someone who was friends with the Decepticons but was conflicted by their evil.  And he was the coolest of the jets to transform half way and pretend he was a Robotech ship

5.  Mirage
His illusion power was one of the most underutilized in the entire series.  I loved where he set up an illusion to make the Autobots look like Menasor.

4.  Tracks
A corvette that could also fly.  How cool is that?

3.  Grimlock
As slow-witted as he was brutal, Grimlock nevertheless tried as much as he could to lead his Dinobots to fight for the right.

2.  Brawn
On the back of all Transformer packages, it gives you their stats on a scale of one to ten.  The tiny Brawn had a strength of nine.  Like the DC Golden Age Atom, Brawn had a chip on his shoulder and was always out to prove his strength, often in some of the most entertaining ways.  He is the only Transformer that I have on my desk as I blog.

1.  Soundwave
The best of the Decepticons because not only did he have at his command some of the coolest minions like Laserbeak, Ravage, Rumble, and Frenzy, but he actually had a code.  He was loyal to Megatron and was not always seeking to usurp him like Starscream.  In fact, when Megatron is mortally wounded, it was Soundwave who rescued him.  Soundwave could have been the leader but chose instead to remain loyal to his own code.

Film Flash: Transformers - Age of Extinction

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

Don't believe the negative reviews.  This is the greatest Transformers movie yet (though too long).

4 out of 5 stars