Boulder

I would almost wager money that this is an advertisement for a sequel to Christos Gage's Spider-Man and the X-Men miniseries from last year. I remember hearing that they were doing another one, and Marvel does stuff like that a lot. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but that was the feeling I got when I saw the ad. EDIT: And considering the ads that have come out in the past couple of days, I am apparently quite wrong.

Yeah, Second Coming was fun. I loved the balls-out, non-stop action of Messiah Complex and I'm expecting more of the same here. Given the weekly (or near weekly) release schedule, it should be a wild ride. Granted, I'm not that huge into Bastion, but I enjoyed the Cable series, so seeing its resolution should more than make up for it.

Yeah, he's been confirmed for the new New Avengers that starts in June.

Well, Bruce wasn't really ever meant to be dead. I don't remember Darkseid's exact words from Final Crisis #6, but he said something about putting Batman in a trap. If that wasn't enough, they showed he was lost in time two weeks later in Final Crisis #7. I don't really consider this a typical comic book death in that sense. As far as Bruce's role when he comes back, why jump to conclusions? Sure, someday he'll be Batman again, just like someday Steve Rogers will be Captain America again, but I don't see Grant Morrison immediately throwing away the interesting Dick/Damien dynamic he's established.

Yay on Bruce Wayne coming back, simply because it means more Morrison Batman stories. B & R #10 from a few weeks ago was sort of a prelude to the return of Bruce Wayne and dropped a bunch of clues about the upcoming mini. From the brief bits in the issue, it seems like a tightly plotted, dense story, which I really enjoy. I'm not a huge Batman fan, but when Morrison is writing Bruce Wayne I love the character. I'm a little sad to see Dark Avengers go, as it's my favorite Bendis book, but Secret Avengers is likely to be better. Norman Osborn's been cool in DA, but it's nothing on Ellis's Thunderbolts characterization. In Ellis's second to last issue, Osborn goes on this rant for pages as he's changing into his Green Goblin costume that's one of the best monologues I've ever read in comics.

Um, not to judge or anything, but did you mean Batman Begins?

Norman Osborn got the killshot in on the skrull queen at the end of Secret Invasion, so they decided that makes him a hero. He became director of HAMMER (the group that replaced SHIELD) and basically made it an organized crime outfit. Now he's starting to go nuts again and Loki's taken advantage of that, convincing him that Asgard doesn't belong in America. Osborn and HAMMER attack Asgard, but the Avengers are going to stop him. It's been kind of lame.

I enjoyed Benjamin Button quite a bit. I think my favorite aspect of the film is that the city of New Orleans is one of the main characters.

Jerry Springer isn't dumb at all- it's got a very tongue-in-cheek, consistent sense of humor that depends a great deal on audience interaction. It seems dumb, and much of the humor is crass, but if you watch an episode you'll see that the show doesn't take itself seriously at all, and therein lies the comedy. I'm American, and I'm not embarrassed by Springer. If anyone out in the world thinks that the very-much-acting guests are indicative of all Americans, they're the ones who ought to be embarrassed. The guests aren't indicative of any more than 100, 150 million Americans, tops.

I've only seen a few episodes, but I really enjoyed them. Oddly enough, I never really like Seinfeld. I have no idea how indicative the first two episodes are of the rest of the series, but I'd say stick with it.

I agree with the "Basterds" confusion. It was a good movie, don't get me wrong, but it was pretty far from Quentin Tarantino's best, and not in the same league as the other best picture nominees I saw.

I'll put my support behind Avatar for best picture, but I'll be happy so long as A Serious Man wins best original screenplay.

On Dark Avengers #13...

I saw the trailer a few months ago and it looked great. There was a debut event here in NYC (Matt Striker was actually the host), but I didn't go. Definitely looks worth a rental, though.

Yeah, I'm kind of stunned that Dark Horse didn't just release a "classified" solicit for Buffy's April issue. They even have an interview with editor Scott Allie up on CBR talking about the Twilight reveal in the fashion you'd expect to see after the issue hit.

I've been reading the Buffy comic in singles. It started off strong, but fell off around the late teens. Now they're on 30 or 31, and it's picked back up, but I find the lull killed a lot of the momentum for me.

Anything by Garth Ennis, most especially his Max run.

1. The Omen (original) 2. The Thing (John Carpenter) 3. The Exorcist

Sorry to hear this. If nothing else, I would at least think Swayze inspired a lot of people with the positive attitude he kept in the face of his illness. R.I.P.

Bold prediction: by the time his run is over, Jonathan Hickman will be one of the five best Fantastic Four writers of all time. Presuming, of course, that the Fantastic Four aren't replaced by Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy.

I picked up the first arc, but dropped it after that because I wasn't really into it (though I seemed to be in the minority with that opinion). There's a Dark Reign Punisher special Remender is writing which I'll be picking up (since JRJR is drawing it), so if that hooks me, maybe I'll give it another shot.

That's another one of the funniest exchanges in the history of the show. King of the Hill is my all-time, bar none, favorite show. I don't expect that the humor appeals to everybody, but if you're a fan, it's incredible. It's hard to explain- this may not make sense, but it's like the jokes that go unsaid are sometimes even funnier than the jokes that are expressed. EDIT: Plus, I think King of the Hill has even more "misty eyed" moments than the early Simpsons.