Generation X: I Have Questions
Mar 19
Still going through ye olde long boxes. Still discovering treasures large and small. Still wondering why I have three completely random issues from that one Vision and Scarlet Witch 12-part maxi-series. Shouldn’t I have, say, 1, 2 and 3, if any? I have 3, 9 and 12. What was my thought process? Why these three issues? If I never read them, do they even exist? So many philosophical quandaries must be endured when sifting through old comics!
That’s not really what I want to talk about, though. Last night, I re-read Brian Wood’s short-ish run on Generation X (#63-75). I’ve always had generally positive feelings about this run — it’s not perfect and it never really had a chance to go very far, but I think Wood captures certain essential aspects of the characters’ voices, some of which weren’t even there ’til he came onboard. Wood initially took over as part of Warren Ellis’ Counter-X Plotmastering, and I recall this being a particularly refreshing change since the issues of Generation X leading up to it are…well, they’re kind of dreadful. To be clear, I’m not talking about early Generation X, but the shaky middle era circa ’98-’99, which concluded with a storyline wherein Monet goes to boarding school and — in a fashion more Scooby Doo than Buffy — slays vampires. Zoinks, you guys!
Wood’s run is tougher and less hijinks-y, but somehow still manages to find time for Jubilee and Chamber to argue over who is more disgusting via a multi-panel debate that encompasses laundry, boxer shorts and toilet-flushing. I appreciate stuff like that.
And yet, as I was reading through last night…so many questions. So many “heys” and “buts” and “ehs?” Some of these are thanks to time and perspective and some are just examples of the mind-prickling minutiae that keeps me up at night. Still, if you have ANSWERS…please do provide!
Calling All Geekblogs: What's Your Scott and Jean?
Mar 17
The Alert Nerd brain trust is pleased to announce a very special Mega-Blog Crossover Event…and YOU can be part of it!
No, not you, Guy Skulking Around the Back Issue Bins in Full Rorschach Regalia. You kind of scare us. For the rest of you geekbloggers, here are the details.
The Date: March 30
The Theme: What’s Your Scott and Jean?
The Background: Such an awesome theme could only have been birthed on Twitter. Simply put, when someone says “that’s my Scott and Jean,” it essentially means “that’s my geek sacred cow.” It’s the issue/coupling/whatever that you pretty much can’t discuss because you are too passionate about it and it makes you too crazy. You might hear perfectly reasonable arguments against said coupling/issue/whatever, but you cannot process them. It’s like That One Thing. It could be something like “Scott Summers and Jean Grey are supposed to be together and that is just how it is.” Or maybe “the new Battlestar Galactica does not exist for me because it is not the old Battlestar Galactica.” Or “The only correct portrayals of Batman are the ones that contain X, Y, and Z.” You get the idea. It’s your nerd mental block.
The Participants: (thus far) Alert Nerd, Fantastic Fangirls, Faust’s Fantastically Fantasmagoric Forum, Geeked…maybe YOU?
Here’s what you do: on March 30 (which, incidentally, is the date that the issue of X-Men featuring Jean and Scott’s wedding debuted), write up a blog post delving into the question What’s Your Scott and Jean? Send your link to sarah AT alertnerd DOT com. We will add you to our master blog post and you can link back to said post. It will be delightful for all involved.
Either that, or it will just cause a bunch of new arguments! Hurrah!
Big Damn Heroines
Mar 12
When Iron Man came out last year, I overheard this exchange between two women:
“The Gwyneth Paltrow part was particularly…blah.”
“Yeah, but that part always is. In those movies.”
The thing is, it doesn’t have to be. There’s a reason why so many people were thrilled about Karen Allen returning to the Indiana Jones franchise: she’s the only co-star who presented Indy with an equal, a fully fleshed-out partner in crime. There’s something to be said for taking “that part” — and let’s be real, we mean “the girl part” — and making it whole and interesting and something more than a collection of sighs and looks and pretty hair. There’s something to be said for making it matter.
But really, this is but a small piece of a more hulking issue in geek moviedom that’s been frustrating the hell out of me for a while now. Simply put, I thought we’d be beyond “the girl part” at this point. I thought that, you know, by the year 2009 we’d be seeing some legit superhero/big-time genre movies with female headliners.
Or, hey…scratch “some.” How about one.
The Dream eComics Reader?
Mar 11In my idle moments–all three of them–I spend time contemplating what it would take to provide me with the ultimate eComics reader.
I’m not thinking of webcomics, per se–I’m speaking of this huge stack of material I’ve "obtained" from the "internet." Also, the many PDF electronic comics now available from publishers like IDW, Slave Labor, and others.
Right now, I use my laptop and I tilt it on its side like a book, and I turn the screen orientation sideways, and it’s such an intriguing deception that I have actually FOUND MYSELF REACHING UP TO MY MONITOR SCREEN AS THOUGH TO TURN A PAGE THAT DOES NOT EXIST IN REALITY. Scary, I know!
This, though…were this to happen…damn. This would be, as they say, "teh schizz."
(Mock-up from Gizmodo via CNET)
Coming March 30…
Mar 10An event so historic, so massive, so all-encompassing that it cannot be contained on the Alert Nerd internet presence alone.
