One of my current favorite books is  Superman/Batman. The concept seems like a no brainer.  Put DCs top 2 characters in the same book.  Its been done before.  When I was younger, the same concept was called "Worlds Finest."  Sometimes an idea is so good it strikes gold twice.

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For some reason, they won’t let me forget.  I hate the story, "Identity Crisis", in so many ways.  But that is not my issue today.  My issue today is that DC won’t just let me forget it and move on.  This once declared "stand alone story", has become almost a cornerstone of the DCU at this point.  It is referenced almost as often as the founding of the JLA.

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www.NewsArama.com has some reports from the Baltimore Comic Con which was this past weekend.  One of them is from the DC Comics DC Nation panel.  I found one of the comments in there to be very telling.  "Everyone is a Black Lantern."  That’s right, anyone who has died, literally at any time in the DCU could be coming back into the current timeline as a Black Lantern.  I started thinking about this and came up with this list off the top of my head.

GL
Abin Sur - this just makes too much sense.
Alex - Kyle Rayner’s first girlfriend
Jade

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Even though I was resistant at first to leave behind my beloved TNBA figures as a customizing base - finding parts was becoming harder and more expensive - I eventually made the logical transition to JLU figures.

I’ve come to appreciate the JLU figures not just for their simplicity, but also for the very wide selection in head, limb and body parts available.

Partially fuelled by the need to catalog parts for the upcoming AFI repaint contest, I’ve put together this visual guide to help stimulate ideas.

This first part of the guides showcases heads.

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When your action figure allowance is relatively small each figure counts. You think hard about which ones you buy. And maybe you spend a bit more time savoring new additions to your collection. With that in mind I’m going to take a stab at a monthly column which will choose and review a figure I bought during a given month that is worthy of special recognition. I had in mind to begin this back in July. Ha! You try choosing between Comic Con exclusives. Here’s my pick for September: Yarna D’al Gargan from the new Star Wars Legacy Collection. Did actress Claire Davenport ever think she’d get a figure?

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I interrupt the DC/Mattel show to bring you a very important message…

I love game shows. 

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I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shoutout to my Dad, who is celebrating his 75th birthday this week. Here’s to you Pop - let’s hope I can swing you a Cubs WS victory this year!

So my beloved Cubbies have once again clinched the division. And even secured the all-important Home-Field Advantage. But, of course, they are the Cubs so I’m tempering my giddy dancing.

To get you through the week, here’s a fun little tune, “Someday All The Way", cooked up by fellow Cubs fan and grunge rocker Eddie Vedder. Inspired by legendary Cubbie Ernie Banks, it’s a great addition to the incurable little world I like to call "The Endless Hope". Audio here. If you care to download the song, you can do so for 99 cents at Pearl Jam.com. Vedder made it available at Ernie Banks’ request.

Lyrics:

Yeah, don’t let them say that it’s just a game.
Well, I’ve seen other teams and it is never the same.
When you go to Chicago, you’re blessed and you’re healed, The first time you walk into Wrigley Field.

Heroes with pinstripes and heroes in blue, Give us the chance to feel like heroes do.
Whether we’ll win and if we should lose, we know Someday we’ll go all the way.
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way.

We are one with the Cubs, with the Cubs we’re in love.
Hold our heads tall as the underdogs.
We are not fairweather, but farweather fans.
Like brothers in arms, in the suites and the stands.
There’s magic in the Ivy and the old score board.
The same one I stared at as a kid keeping score.
In a world full of greed, we could never want more.
Someday we’ll go all the way.
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way.

Here’s to the men and the legends we’ve known.
Giving us faith and giving us hope.
United we stand and united we’ll fall
Down to our knees the day we win it all.
Yeah Ernie Banks said, “oh, let’s play two”.
I think he meant two hundred years.
Playing at Wrigley, our diamond, our jewel.
The home of our joy and our fears.
Keeping traditions, and wishes anew,
The place where our grandfathers’ fathers they grew.
The spiritual feeling if I ever knew.
And when the day comes for that last winning run, and I’m crying and covered with beer.
I look to the sky and know I was right today.
Someday we’ll go all the way.
Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way.

It’s gonna be a long month…… 

Say you drive to every toy store withing 50 miles every day looking for those elusive toys.  But the price of gas has you down.  You could consider getting a smaller car…

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  In 1999, a new era of Batman mythos was born when the cartoon Batman Beyond went on the air.  Now he’s on DVD, in the comics, and on his way to your toy shelf.

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It must have been my lucky day yesterday. Whenever I head to Wal-Mart, I get my hopes up. I get that excited feeling, the feeling that this trip will be different than all the other ones. We all do it. But it seems like every time, we all leave the same – disappointed.

But not last night!

I stopped by after work to grab some quick groceries, and as I exit the car I got my hopes up as usual. I hoped for the best, but I fully expected to leave the store discouraged, like so many other Wal-Mart runs. But this day was different!

Finally, finally, after dozens and dozens of Wal-Mart shopping trips – I get a cart with four working wheels!

Seriously! I didn’t get any pics, but I’m telling the truth, I swear! All the wheels worked. No “klunk klunk klunk” as I wander through the store, no horrible skidding, scraping wheel sound. No irritated looks from strangers as I struggle down the aisle. I know you probably don’t believe me, that I made it all up, but it happened. It was awesome.

Oh, new action figures? yeah, well, I didn’t find any of those. But the cart! Oh, the cart…

it was joyous.

 Recently in an exchange on a forum, it came out that my air hockey table is right now covered with HeroClix.  The quick witted response was "Wow, you came up with a way to make them really fly."  Then it hit me.  They really have taken over the whole air hockey table. These 1-1/4" based things.  The whole thing.

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This week, DC recalled one of their books.  For extremely offensive word use.  Apparently, they attempted to black out the words, but in the final analysis apparently you can still read them.  So now they are being recalled.

I’m not going to dwell on what the words were, that has been done by others, but this event begs the question, how did it get that far?  Is it not someone’s job to monitor the content so that this does not happen?  Would that not be the editor?  Or in this day and age is the Editor really a coordiantor, making sure the script gets to the artist, the art gets from the penciller to the inker, the pages from the colorist to the letterer?

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I don’t know about you, I really like the DC Infinite Heroes line. But I was getting confused about the release figures and dates. So, I put together a visual check-list for 2008. Happy Hunting!

HOLY CANOLI! Another BIG UPDATE (09/24/08)

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One of my friends here, SDMike, has commented to me that while most of the the topics in the forums are about toys, his first love is comics.  Considering how much we discuss toys related to comics, I think that most of us are comic fans too.

As my user name, superfriend, indicates I am a big fan of the Super Friends show.  It was my introduction to super heroes.  Not sure when I started watching, but it was before 1976.  I distinctly remember watching an episode during a garage sale my parents were running one Saturday that Spring.  I was 11.  We were in the process of moving, and my whole life was about to change.  I started reading comics later.  I had read one here or there at camp, but most of what I’d seen was Beetle Bailey or Donald Duck.  Great in their own right, but not super heroes.  My reaction to finding out that you could read stories about the Super Friends was ‘awesome’.  The first superhero comic I bought was just OK.  The next one kicked off a life time of comic book reading.

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