WilliamBruceWest.com

Avengers. My, my, my Avengers. It’s amazing that I held on for so long, through so much, and now that we have the big relaunches, and the band is back together, I just don’t care anymore. I love Tony Stark, and I like when he’s part of the team, but the whole Avengers Trinity means little to me. I don’t like Thor, and I don’t consider Cap to be “Jesus wrapped in a flag”, no matter how much they try to convince me that he is. I will say that I don’t consider a team to be “The Avengers” unless they have at least one of those 3 members on the roster. It doesn’t mean that I’d read the book, but I feel like that should be a charter requirement. That’s why I don’t feel that Luke Cage’s “New Avengers” deserve their name. Sure, they eventually got “Bucky Cap” on their side, but he’s a substitute Cap, like USAgent. If they had gotten War Machine, he still wouldn’t have been Iron Man. It’s not about the symbolism of the name/costume – what matters MOST is who is inside that suit (I have similar feelings about the DC Universe, but that’s for another time).

Stop playing dress-up, Dick. Don’t you have a hot alien to bang?

Luke’s team could’ve been the “Revengers”, “The Getbackers”, whatever, but nothing about them screamed “Avengers”. He kept the name because Cap had bestowed it upon them during a one-sided war, in which his side lost. Luke kept it out of symbolism, but it was clear to the world, and anyone who mattered, that Luke Cage’s team wasn’t The Avengers. There was no way in Hell they were gonna save you from the Skrulls. THAT’s what Avengers do. What did Luke’s team do? Well, his baby got replaced by an alien, and the book turned into Adventures in Babysitting, while he ended up having a heart attack. It was all like that bad season finale of Punky Brewster where she ended up back in the orphanage. Not Very Avengery.

Yeah, that’s the problem…

Now that the dust has settled, and Steveus Christ is back in action, there’s still no reason for Luke’s team. He clearly doesn’t play well with others, and his argument for not joining the “real” Avengers was that he didn’t want to be told what to do. Weren’t you in jail at one time, Luke? Aren’t you tired of rebelling against The Man? Shit could be worse! You’ve got your hot white wife and your halfy baby. Do you WANT to go back to jail, Luke? Would that be better for you?

You’re living The Dream, dude – Don’t mess this up!

Anyway, what do the “real” Avengers do? They sell him the mansion and let him run his own team. Bull and Shit. I can’t believe they’d let him have his own Avengers, in the same damn city, which allows him to do whatever he wants. That’s not how the Marvel Universe works. You want to be on your own, you move to California. Start up the Avengers West Coast again. There’s no damn way you’re gonna operate in New York City without oversight. Hell, the X-Men have been doing the multiple team thing for over 20 years and they STILL haven’t figured it out. And they’re dispatched by the same guy, from the same mansion/Alcatraz base. So how do the Avengers expect to pull it off? I feel like New Avengers, at this point, is just a money grab. Luke will eventually figure out Cap’s been babysitting him, making sure he doesn’t get in trouble. He’ll get all offended and finally walk, which will be just in time for the Super Infinity War which will bring both Avengers teams together, resulting in one canceled book, an overstaffed Avengers, and some new team spun out of it. Don’t know if I care to stick around for the ride any longer. I think I might be done.

This week marked the release of Scarlet #1, the new creator-owned Marvel/Icon comic from Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. While the duo were well-known for their successful run on Daredevil, I went into this book with mixed feelings. Why was that? Well, I guess you could say that it’s an example of “In Real Life Made Me Hate You”. Let’s take a step back in time, shall we?

Brian Michael Bendis was the first comic writer whose work I purchased solely because of the writer. In the past, I bought X-Men because everybody bought X-Men. I bought Batman because, well, he was Batman. Bendis, however, made me stray outside of that. I never really cared much for Avengers, since they were D-listers at the time, but Bendis got on the book, and I followed suit. While his overarching stories may not be consistent, he’s a master of dialogue. He’s pretty much popularized the “talking head” comic in the modern industry, much to the chagrin of many fanboys. I, however, LOVED his work. I read his autobiographical comics, like Total Sell-Out and Fortune & Glory, plus I even gave Powers a try (still don’t get the hype on that book). Based on Avengers and his Ultimate Marvel work, I think it was safe to say that Bendis was my favorite writer in comics. With that in mind, of course it would have been an honor for me to meet him.

Fast forward to 2008, at the Baltimore Comic-Con. Bendis was making the rare convention appearance out East, and I saw this as my chance to finally get to meet my favorite writer. I got in line for his table EARLY, as we knew he’d be signing, but no one seemed to know when. On top of that, he was doing back to back panels, which seemed to be running over schedule. I’d been to a handful of Baltimore shows, so I knew I wasn’t missing much on the floor. If you’ve seen Howard Chaykin once, then that’s all you need. Bendis, however, was the goal. I must’ve stood in that line for over 4 hours. Sure, I had some interesting fanboy conversations over the course of that time, but I still wasted the better part of the day in that line. When I finally got up to Bendis, he spent the time chatting away on his iPhone. I don’t think he even looked at me. He kinda scrawled his autograph on my comic (which, by the way, didn’t look nearly as good as the potentially fake autograph I’d bought at a show some years earlier. At least that one looked like it said “BENDIS”). Before I could really say anything to him, he handed it back and briefly moved the phone aside to say, “Here ya go, champ”, in the manner of your mom’s new boyfriend who didn’t care enough to learn your name.

Now, I know that whole thing sounds like I have a sense of geek entitlement, but I really expected more. A lot of people have asked, “Well, what did you expect him to do?” I really can’t tell you, but I certainly expected actually get to say something to him. I’m sure everybody says the same, trite “I love your work”, but isn’t that part and parcel of the convention signing experience? At least pretend he cares about his fans. Whenever you read these stories, someone in the comments will say “Well, maybe he was tired” or “‘Maybe he was having a bad day”. None of that seemed to apply here. He was happy and spry; he just wasn’t present. Never meet your heroes, kid. Anyway, my opinion of him kind of took a hit after that, while his star has only continued to rise. I was already grandfathered into his earlier series (like New Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man), but I wasn’t sure I wanted to get on that horse again. Petty, I know. So, this is where I was coming from when I heard about Scarlet. Due to the buzz surrounding the book, I decided to give it a shot. In retrospect, it’s a great book that I’m not quite sure I should’ve read.

I don’t want to ruin it for you, because the story has an angle to it that should be experienced by the reader. As a quick elevator pitch, Scarlet is the story of a woman who, upon realizing that the world isn’t fair, decides that she’s going to change all of that – by any means necessary. It’s a book with a message, and it’s a potentially dangerous message. It’s almost like Falling Down, the Michael Douglas movie where one bad day pretty much sets an average Joe on a self-destructive path. I say it may not have been the book for me because of what my life has been going through as of late. It speaks to me, and it probably speaks to other readers as well. This familiarity will be good for the book’s accessibility, but do we really need to make angry people any angrier? It could almost be seen as inspirational, but what is it inspiring? It takes the notion of “The World Is Screwed Up”, but follows it up with a “So, What Are You Going To Do About It?”

Seeing as how it’s the first issue, it’s not exactly preachy, but focuses more on providing background info on Scarlet. It will be interesting to see how the book proceeds, seeing as how Bendis has said it’s not meant to be a political book. After all, this means that it will be a battle cry for a revolution that doesn’t specify the end goal. It almost sounds like an invitation to chaos, while it could also follow the notion that society has to be fully destroyed before it can be rebuilt. It’s an interesting concept, and I look forward to seeing where the book is headed. I hate to admit it, but Bendis has still got it. Maybe one day, I might get the chance to tell him that.

So, today marked the 1st (annual?) DC Comic-Con. However, in this case, “DC” meant “Northern Virginia”, and “Comic-Con” meant “church bazaar”. I really had high hopes for this show. Established as a joint effort between Baltimore Comic-Con creator Marc Nathan, and the Laughing Ogre chain of stores, the show was poised to give the DC-Metro Area its first taste of a somewhat “official” comic book convention. Considering how great the Baltimore show has become over the years, this venture held a lot of promise. Unfortunately, something went wrong between idea and execution.

Now, I was actually supposed to volunteer for the show, as I first learned about it when I was in Marc’s store a few months back. He had a really good idea: he was already hosting a Free Comic Book Day signing in his store, so he figured he would just offer those guests an extra night’s hotel stay, and have them as his guests for the show. On top of that, he was going to make sure that all of the local shops had flyers available on FCBD, so that he could take advantage of the newcomers who might be flocking to stores. Considering his guest list was going to include Frank Cho (Ultimate Avengers 2, Liberty Meadows), JG Jones (52, Marvel Boy), Jo Chen (Buffy Season 8 covers), and others, it sounded like it couldn’t fail. Of course I wanted to be on board with that! He told me to show up early, and he’d put me to work. Well, fast forward to this morning, as I didn’t get to sleep until 7 AM because I’d been up working on restoring older entries to the site (I’ll explain that situation in another post). So, considering I wasn’t getting to sleep until about 3 hours before the show started, I simply muttered “Fuck that noise”, and went to sleep.

Over the past few days, I guess I lost most of my interest in the show when it didn’t seem like anyone really knew about the thing. I was in a comic shop yesterday, where I overheard someone talking about it, but their account of the thing was riddled with misinformation. On top of it, these were the retailers, themselves, and not just some fanboys standing around. So, it was becoming apparent that those flyers hadn’t made the rounds as planned. Also, the website was only updated intermittently. By Thursday, in total, there had only been about 5 update posts – none of which contained any major information, outside of the list of creators who’d be present. The only show-exclusive item was a variant cover of Witchblade, which would benefit the Hero Initiative. That’s good for the Hero Initiative, but the whole “Show Exclusives” part of the site looked pretty sad, as nothing else was being listed alongside it. It’s almost like, “Why bother?”

The worst crime of the site, however, was that it didn’t even list information pertaining to the price of regular admission. It stated that tickets would be available at the door, and not in advance (unlike the Baltimore show). Also, admission would be $5 IF you signed up for the e-mail newsletter. What if I don’t want to sign up? Well, there’s no information for that scenario. Guess I would just have to find out at the door…

So, I woke up around 11:30, and really debated whether or not I wanted to even bother with it. I had told Marc I’d volunteer, but it’s not like he really cared. He’d be OK. The main thing, though, was that I didn’t really know how to get to George Mason University. Sure, there’s Mapquest, GPS, and all that, but I hate the thought of trying to navigate a college campus. Cornell was basically the entire town of Ithaca. I knew GMU wasn’t that big, but I didn’t want to waste most of the day wandering around aimlessly. I checked the con’s site, only to see that they had uploaded a map of the campus, showing the location of the show, as well as the lot (Lot A) which was the only one open to con guests. Nice of them to post this…on May 1st. Yeah, they did it yesterday. The day before the show.

Honestly, though, I really just wanted to go so that I could finally meet one of my twitter pals. He’s one of the few people I can actually have a tweetversation with, and I think he’d be a cool “real life” friend. I knew he was making the trip from Baltimore, so if he could do that, then I could suck it up and drive to VA.

I headed down to GMU, but I was looking at the map on my phone, as I didn’t have the chance to print it. The Zoom option didn’t want to work, so I was flying blind. Once on campus, I couldn’t, for the life of me, find Lot A. Driving around Patriot Circle, the signs about the show/lot simply ran out. I ended up parking in the lot for a shopping center across the street from the campus. I didn’t want to risk tickets/towing by parking in the wrong campus lot, and I don’t mind walking. If I had found Lot A, it would’ve been a “5-10 minute walk” to the show. I’m not sure if that estimate was for the “normal” person, or for us geek types, who don’t have much in the way of cardio training.

I wandered through campus a bit, and actually walked past Lot A. It wasn’t much closer than the shopping center, so I didn’t feel too bad about my choice. Since the main campus seems to be configured in the middle of a circle, it wasn’t too hard to figure out the general direction of central campus. That said, all of the buildings, while nice and new, all pretty much look the same. Every now and then, I’d see a fat kid carrying a bag of comics, coming from the general direction in which I was headed, so that was an encouraging sign. Eventually, I just had to suck it up, and ask some kid where the Student Union was. Luckily, it was right around the corner from where I was. Keep in mind, this whole walk, which was in the CORRECT direction, contained NO signage to imply that I was headed in the right direction. I couldn’t have been the only one to experience this. Sadly, I arrived just in time to receive a tweet saying that my twitter pal had just left.

Anyway, once at the student union, there was nothing outside to indicate what was going on inside. No “DC Comic-Con Here!” sign. The only clue was that there were more slovenly kids with bags of comics, and a line at the ATM. Once inside, I realized that it wasn’t exactly a well-oiled machine. Admission turned out to be $5, so I guess the newsletter tactic was a bust. The problem was that, after I paid the money, the guy manning the table was more concerned with me filling out a raffle ticket than with giving me my wristband. People were bunching up around me, so once I was done, his partner tried to charge me another $5 before he’d give me the wristband. I told him I’d already paid, and the 1st guy co-signed it, so I got my wristband. That’s when I entered the “ballroom” where the show was being held…

You know your grandma’s church? The one that’s old and drab ’cause only old people attend? The one where they hold bazaars in the drab auditorium? The same auditorium which has a stage up front, as they sometimes use it to present the Christmas Cantata? Well, that’s exactly what this venue was like. It had a very “flea market” vibe to it. The entire room was filled with vendor tables, while something seemed to be happening onstage. I started to make the loop, but people were just in the way. This is a common problem with conventions, as everybody wants to bodyblock the longboxes until they’re done looking through them – very territorial.

As I’m walking through, I realize I recognize a lot of the vendors. After all, I used to frequent those little comic shows they hold at the Crowne Plaza in Tysons. Yup, there was the guy with one arm. There was the jerk from Columbia. There was the dude who always gives me the stink eye. The gang was all there. As I continued around, something became VERY apparent to me: the vendors had only brought their older comics OR their junk. So, if you were new to comics, your only options were overpriced yellowed books from the ’70s or a bunch of $1 bin books from the mid ’90s. I was kind of offended by this, as it implied that none of the vendors had taken the show seriously. Just as the place looked like a church bazaar, they were treating it as one. As I walked around, I overheard a lot of grumbling amongst the vendors, as the show clearly hadn’t met their expectations. Now, I’m not sure if they were unhappy with the turnout, or the lack of sales, but I have to lay some of the blame on the vendors themselves. Outside of the shitload of unnecessary Deadpool variant covers released over the last few months, the vast majority of vendors didn’t have any books published within the last five years. On top of that, it was a great show for anyone looking for cheap trade paperback collections, but the single comic offerings were piss poor. One guy was selling “new comics”, one of which was an issue of Amazing Spider-Man that came out six months ago. Now, considering that series comes out thrice-monthly, that book is basically a year and a half old, when compared to other comics. That’s not NEW.

I made about 5 loops around the room, and couldn’t find ANYTHING on which I wanted to spend money. It was all junk. Hell, I was so disgusted that I passed up the FCBD books that some guy had leftover from yesterday. I bought the DC Comic-Con exclusive Witchblade because it was the show’s ONLY exclusive, and I wanted to have proof of the show’s existence in case it’s never held again. It helped out the Hero Initiative, though I’ve never exactly been sold on that organization (look up its guidelines some time – there’s a a VERY narrow pool of creators who even qualify for its assistance).

The saddest part of the convention was the lone Joker who was skulking around the show floor. This dude looked terrible! I mean, his costume was good, but he just looked depressed, and I’m not sure if it was part of his cosplay. I think he just felt out of place, as he was the ONLY one in cosplay that I saw. They were granting free admission to anyone who showed up in full costume, but he’s the only one who looked like he may have taken advantage of that offer. In any case, I eventually saw him hiding behind a pillar, fervently texting someone. Maybe he was asking Batman to come and take him back to Arkham. After all, that HAD to be a better option than where he was at the moment!

Oh, remember the commotion onstage? Well, that’s where those big name creators were set up. It was so awkward, however, as they were elevated over the rest of the show floor. To add to that, any fans wishing to get signatures & sketches had to wait off to the side of the stage. When it was their turn, they went up, as if they were about to receive a diploma. I’m being overly dramatic, but it really looked like an elitist setup, as we were all waiting to “pay tribute”. I already had signatures from all of them, so I didn’t even give it a second thought.

While on Loop #5, I noticed one vendor, who also happened to be the only vendor who was even remotely friendly to me, had a bunch of old toys for sale. Really old toys. That’s when I saw them: the Hasbro figures from the Stargate movie. Kurt Russell as Jack O’Neill, James Spader as Daniel Jackson, and nary a trace of likeness rights between them. Despite looking nothing like the actors, I LOVE Stargate, and I couldn’t shake a stick at the price tag of $3 each. As I took Daniel and O’Neill to the vendor, he laughed and told me he would cut me a deal for all of them. There were 6 figures, and he said he’d give them to me for half price. Now, I’m normally a sucker for a deal, but I really had no use for Lt. Kawalsky and Horus figures. I mean, Kawalsky looked just like O’Neill, but had a different color shirt, and I don’t care about grunt soldiers from a defunct toy line. I could’ve had them all for about $3 more than I spent, but I just didn’t want more junk in my apartment. I’m gonna hang Daniel and Jack on the wall, like the kitsch that they are. I simply had no use for the others.

The very second after I completed that transaction, I headed for the door.  I didn’t care about the raffle, or the door prizes, or spending another second in that place. I walked out the door, and didn’t look back.

While I had major problems with the venue, I think my main disappointment came from the fact that I had held such high expectations. It’s really a matter of semantics: this was not a convention, but a show. A comic convention is an experience. There are vendors, panel discussions, and it provides fans with the chance to meet their favorite creators. A comic show, however, is simply about selling. Vendors bring their backstock inventory, and hope to unload some of it to people who are trying to fill holes in their collections. Shows don’t always have guests, and when they do, they don’t tend to be “marquee”. This show definitely fit the latter definition. It was geared toward the collector, and the older collector at that. It didn’t serve as a proper introduction for the new fan, nor as encouragement to the casual fan. I’m a collector, and it didn’t even fit my needs, so I’m left to wonder what was the target audience for this show. It’s got some reputable names behind it, so maybe this was a case of “1st year mistakes”. I didn’t exactly have an amazing time, but fanboys are gluttons for punishment, so I’m not giving up on it completely. After all, there’s always next year…

“They got all the right moves in all the right faces. So yeah, we’re going down.”

I’ve been told that I don’t blog enough on a personal level anymore. The Adventures West Coast posts are all well and good, but they don’t have the gravitas of the Lesbian Chase or Marion Barry Karaoke posts of years past (if you haven’t read my archives, they’re really quite good! I advise you to read them now, while they’re free. When I become famous, you’re only gonna get those in my book!). Anyway, something happened to me today that I felt should be shared.

I’ve long felt that some people don’t have the capacity to be bad. Sure, they wanna be cool like the next guy, and scheme and cut shady deals, but for every Zack Morris, there are about 150 Screeches. I am one such Screech. I tried to fight the giraffe, and the giraffe won. Let me wind it back, though.

For anyone who has never read this blog/known me, I love toys. I buy toys. I don’t usually play with them, but they typically reside in a glass case from Ikea (I highly recommend the DETOLF). In any case, my preferred toy line at the moment is DC Comics figures from Mattel. These either come in the form of DC Universe Classics (I tweet about these a LOT) or the Movie Masters figure line from The Dark Knight movie. This story concerns the latter.

The Movie Masters were released 2 years ago, when The Dark Knight actually hit theaters. They were hyperdetailed figures, with a good bit of articulation, and pretty decent likenesses of the characters. They weren’t all that popular after awhile, and they all went to clearance before the 3 series was released. Well, Mattel decided to make them an online-only collection, where they would release a new one on their MattyCollector.com website on a monthly basis. This idea sucked because they were charging, roughly $20 (not including shipping) per figure. The figures were nice, but not that nice. At San Diego Comic-Con last year, they announced that the figures would first be sold online, but would then make their way to Toys “R” Us stores exclusively. I figured I’d wait for the TRU release so that I wouldn’t have to pay for shipping, plus there was no way TRU was going to charge $20 for them. I watched as the Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent figures sold out online, but I was sticking to my plan. I was hoping that Mattel had put some stock aside for the TRU sales, so I wasn’t gonna order online. Then, I experienced a bit of a toy drought. A bout of ennui had inspired several toy hunts of epic proportion – all of which yielded NOTHING. At the same time, blog posts from Matty seemed to imply that the TRU deal was falling apart. So, if I wanted any of the figures I’d been waiting for, I’d probably need to just buy them online. Needing to get my toy fix, I crumbled and ordered Jail Cell Joker from the MattyCollector site. After shipping, that fucker cost $23! I didn’t care, though, as I finally had a new toy. That feeling subsided, however, when he arrived in the form of the most boring figure I’ve seen in some time. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a good likeness, but it just sits there. No special features, and the articulation isn’t as great as that of others in the line.

Fast forward to last week. A Mattel blog post reported that the web-only Dark Knight figures would be showing up in TRU stores “in the near future”. This prompted blog comments from collectors reporting that they’d already seen them in their local TRU stores. Ya see, Mattel didn’t want to publicize this because they wanted to sell them for $23 before you realized you could get them in stores for about half that price. Those online collectors were reporting that TRU’s price for the figures was roughly $12.99 each. But the plot thickens: remember how I told you the first 2 series had gone to clearance after the movie hype passed? Well, the packaging of the new figures is exactly like that of the old. So, many lazy TRU employees had just thrown them up on the clearance pegs for $4.98, not realizing that this was different product. So, if you got to a register and it rang up as $12.99, you could just point out the sign and they’d adjust the price.

Here’s my thought on this: is the tactic wrong? Yes, because you know the real price. That said, if TRU isnt dilligent enough to catch this, it’s not the consumer’s fault. By law, if there are multiples on the peg, they have to honor that price. I feel like a TRU employee in the boys dept should notice something odd about them receiving product for a line that pretty much trickled off 2 years ago. I worked that department for 10 years, so it’s not like I’m speaking out of class. The products look the same, they’re hung on clearance pegs and, most importantly, there’s NO new peg tag reflecting the new price. If a different price is not indicated where they hang, how is the consumer to know?

So, how does this all apply to me? Well, yesterday, I went into a TRU and pulled off this trick. There were no pegs indicating a new price, and the price scanner system was down. So, I honestly didn’t know the price until I got to the register (after all, $12.99 was just the average price being reported online). I told them about the shelf pegs, and they did the price adjustment. So, I got 2 new figures for a total of about $11. The saddest thing is that they weren’t even figures I really wanted. It was a weird Scarecrow variant and a Batman with glow-in-the-dark eyes. I can make all kinds of excuses, but I basically wanted a deal and I was tired of being fucked over by The Man. I mean, Matty Collector put the same “Night Vision Batman” for sale on their site at noon yesterday for, you guessed it, $23 (including shipping). So, Mattel was trying to rip me off by charging twice retail, while TRU’s negligence allowed me to buy what is, really, a dead toy line, at a great price. My problem, though, is I got cocky. I didn’t listen to The Gambler, and I counted my money before the dealing was done.

You see, today, I had lunch with my friend “Special Forces” (we call him that because he was in charge of the storeroom at TRU, and when it was holiday season, he got to wear a special black uniform so customers wouldn’t ask him questions). He had acquired a DCUC Deadman figure for me, so I took him to lunch to thank him. When we were done, he informed me that TRU had gotten a truck last night, so there was a chance they might’ve gotten the Harvey Dent figure I’d been wanting.

We get to the store, and all they have are a shitload of the older figures, on clearance for $4.98. After looking all through the aisles, we stumbled upon 3 of the new figures. I had them all, but he needed 2 of them. Now, since my episode yesterday, I now know that these things scan as $12.99. That said (and I checked), there was NO shelf tag indicating the new figures. So, as far as TRU’s shelves were concerned, it was a $4.98 figure. So, SF is all nervous, ’cause he used to work at this particular store, plus he knew he probably couldn’t use his discount card because he’d have to identify himself as an employee, which would require a manager. To make matters worse, the manager on duty was actually a guy we both used to work for at another store. When I noticed this, I said “Crap, we can’t do it because Paul’s here.” Remember that. I didn’t yell it or anything. Just said it. It’s going to be important later.

Instead of going to customer service, we go to the R-Zone, which is the electronics dept. I ask the chick in there if she can ring us up, and she begrudgingly agrees. Since SF’s nervous, and I didn’t really care about $10 (yup, I’m a balla!), I told him I’d take care of it. She scans the figures, at which point I do the whole, “The sign said these were $4.98.” Of course, she returns with “Well, I’ll have to see the sign.” I follow with a “And I’ll be glad to show it to you.” We get to the aisle, and it’s not like she can find anything to the contrary, try as she might. I know how this works. I’ve been in her role before. Still, there’s nothing she can do. She goes back to the register and then decides she has to look up something. She runs over to customer service, while I’m running my mouth to SF about how you’ve got to take back from the system sometimes. The rantings of a failed revolutionary. So, she comes back, and it all falls apart.

First off, she says that the clearance price is just for Scarecrow. I say that it’s not, and that the signs make no indication of this. Then, she says, “You knew this, which is why you said ‘We can’t do it because Paul’s here.’ Yeah, you didn’t think I heard that. You also didn’t know that I’m a supervisor.” Well, bitch got me there. No, I didn’t know she was a supervisor. I still held on to the argument that it’s not my fault that they didn’t retag properly, and that they were hanging with all the others. She goes through the whole “somebody must’ve put them in the wrong place”, which still isn’t my fault, but I was still pretty much caught because she’d heard the Paul comment. So, I played it off and followed through with the transaction. However, what was originally gonna be an $11 transaction was now (and correctly so) a $27 transaction. FUCK! Sure, I could’ve walked away, but I was already guilty, so I paid the woman. Special Forces got his figures, so he was happy. What pissed me off most, however, was how she took her damn time ringing me up once she felt vindicated. OK, I suck at bamboozling you, but just get me out of here, OK? Nah, she milked it. When it was done, I went over to Customer Service to talk to Paul. I knew I’d avoided him in the beginning, but I still felt I could argue to my advantage, especially concerning the lack of shelf tags. If nothing else, maybe he’d dispatch someone to retag the shelves at once, and I’d feel vindicated or something. Unfortunately, Paul was gone. Yup, he was there one minute, and gone the next. I thought that meant he was hanging out around the corner, but he was nowhere to be found. So, I walked away, tail between my legs, $27 poorer.

This isn’t Consumerist, so I’m not going to try to say what I did was right. I was merely trying to exploit a loophole in the system. However, I let greed and cockiness get the best of me, and my luck ran out. So, now they’re probably gonna look at me funny whenever I go in that store ’cause I’m that “guy who thought he was slick”. I hate those looks. I used to give them to the guys who’d pulled this stuff on me. But I guess that’s what this is really all about: I worked for TRU for 10 years, and there were countless times I was on the other end of this. Unfortunately, the law is that they have to honor the price, so they got away scott free. I guess I just wanted my corner of the sky. But, as you’ve read, I’m just not cut out for deceit, even concerning something as lame as action figure collecting. The way I see it, TRU just got from me today the money that they should’ve gotten yesterday. Everything balances out in the end, and I can’t beat the system when I try.

Once again, Shortpacked says it better than I ever could:

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!”

(Courtesy of Shortpacked)

“I can see Russia from my house!”

So much has happened since the last post, so we’re gonna go with bullet points this time around.

-”President-Elect Barack Obama”. Holy shit! I don’t know if that’ll ever sink in for me. It looks like Sam Cooke was right.

-If I never see Todd Palin again, it’ll be too soon. That guy is Prince of the Douchebags. That’s right, he’s not even worthy of the position of King. I can’t believe he was almost Second Douche of the US. Just looking at that guy bothers me. That damn goatee – he looks like the old sketchy guy who hangs out with high schoolers & buys them beer.

-Dolemite died?! He never got to see the black President! I’d say he would’ve been proud, but I highly doubt that. Dolemite was a hater. I mean, we are talking about the same guy who released “This Pussy Belongs to Me” & “This Ain’t No White Christmas”. Not exactly the kind of guy full of warm wishes. He’d probably say he should’ve been the 1st black President (there was, after all, “Dolemite for President”). In any case, I’m sure he’ll be missed by pimps, prostitutes & drug dealers across the natipn – especially those to whom he owed money.

-Neal Hefti died?!
If you don’t know who that is, he composed the theme song to the 1960s “Batman” TV show. Yes, the “nana nana” song. It’s some of the best surf guitar this side od “Miserlou”. Here’s hoping he’s still composing in that Gotham City in the sky.

-BET named Lil Wayne Best Lyricist?! Really? Were those even words that he was spouting? I thought BET was supposed to get BETTER after Hudlin’s departure! Who’d have thought that one man could make BET worse than it already was? Sure, he got rid of a lot of booty videos, but then he greenlit shows, like “Somebodies”, which felt like they would’ve been on SNICK, if it weren’t for all the booty in them. Looks like Marvel’s over Hudlin, too, as he’s off of Black Panther. Where ever he ends up, let’s hope he learns to suck less.

Man, this BlackBerry bloggin’ is rough! I apologize for formatting errors, and I’ll be back to normal once I get a chance to get back on the “real Internet”. Just not enough hours in the day…

“I believe in Harvey Dent.”

The Dark Knight. OK, so I promised this last week, but I felt I needed to distance myself from the movie enough to really do this justice. Then, I realized there are enough reviews out there, and they’re all glowing. What did I honestly have to bring to the table? Did I love the movie? Yes! Did it make me want to renew my popeship in the Church of Batman? Hells Yeah! However, like every fanboy, a couple of things popped into my head during the movie:

-Nice touch, having Joker kill Spawn. You mean you don’t know what I’m talking about? Black mobster, nice suit? That’s Michael Jai White, who played Spawn in the movie where he was trying to kill President Bartlett…

-How did Joker survive the same fall that killed Gwen Stacey?

- I finally understand what it’s like to live in Gotham City: to witness a clown, dressed as a nurse, blow up a hospital, in broad daylight

- OK, so who didn’t see the Rachel Dawes demise coming? Her role was important enough to recast, yet she’s a Batman character who no one’s heard of? Yeah…

- So, Batman now pretty much has a God’s Eye view on Gotham City. That’s the kind of guy who might one day build a satellite to spy on all of his Super Friends. Hmm..

-I wish I had an Alfred. No, I wish I had Michael Caine as my Alfred.

-I love that every new Batman movie includes a “Bruce Wayne is a Dick” scene. It’s like watching deleted scenes from American Psycho, and I still think the Bruce Wayne persona is more fascinating than people give it credit. I think the “I believe in Harvey Dent” slogan is pretty cheesy, but if you really take it to heart, it kinda grows on you.

-Anybody watch Gotham Knight? OK, then why the Hell did they go to the lengths of making us like Anna Ramirez, just to have her turn out to be the 24-esque mole (and why were the creators afraid to call her who she really was: Renee Montoya?)? OK, I can kind of understand why, but I still don’t really get the purpose of that DVD. It didn’t accomplish anything, and it would’ve had more of an impact if it had been released a year ago, as something to hold us over, and included the voices of the actual cast, a la the Hellboy animated DVD series.

- What was with that Batman voice? I think I’m just programmed to only like Kevin Conroy at this point.

-Heath was terrifying. I mean, that performance was incredible, and it certainly paints Joker in a new light. It’s easy to lose sight of what his primary motive is: nothing. There’s no logic, rhyme, nor reason to what he does. I just read Batman: Strange Apparitions, where Joker decided to kill everyone whose name was a palindrome. He opened up the phone book, and went in alphabetical order. That’s how twisted he is! Batman *is* the reason the criminals have upped the ante. When you’ve got a guy dressed as a bat, beating up criminals, it’s going to inspire more colorful foes. At times, he seems to realize this, but he refuses to accept it. If he’d just quit, I kinda feel like the mob would take over Gotham, and all the gimmick villains would simply move to Metropolis….

- So, who’s gonna make all of Batman’s gear now?

-Once again, nice touch moving Bruce to Wayne Tower. That happened back in the 70s, when he felt that the mansion was too far away from the city for him to be effective. I actually feel it’d be a harder secret to keep, what with city planning and all, but it was a nice touch, nonetheless.

-So, they hired Cillian Murphy for 5 minutes? OK…

-And what a letdown on the Anthony Michael Hall tip. His role had been top secret for months, and we all thought he’d be someone we know, like Firefly or maybe a revamped Bob the Goon. Instead, he’s just Random News Guy.

-If there’s one thing I’ve learned that Batman and The Hulk have in common, it’s that they both hate those fucking dogs…

-It’s OK, Bruce – you dodged a bullet. Rachel wasn’t gonna age well anyway…

Now, I’ve been in a state of Batman overload since watching The Dark Knight. In the past 10 days, I have read the following:

Batman: Knightfall Vol. 1 TP
Batman: Knightfall Vol. 2 TP
Batman: Knightfall Vol. 3 TP
Batman: The Long Halloween TP
Batman: Dark Victory TP
Batmn: Ego GN
Batman Adventures: The Lost Years TP
Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia GN

That’s over 1500 pages of Batman! Then, to cap it off, I watched all of Disc 1 of season 4 of Batman: The Animated Series (AKA “The Good Cartoon”). Let’s just say that even I think I’ve gone too far. That said, I realized a new side of Batman, a sadder side. You see, most of those books encompass the period early in his career, as seen in The Dark Knight. The interesting part of that era is that Bruce Wayne seemed to think that “Batman” was temporary. As you even see in the movie, he dreams of the day that crime will be vanquished, and a good, noble, public hero can take his place. He saw Harvey Dent as that person. Bruce felt that one day, he could just walk away and lead a normal life. That doesn’t happen.

I just find that so interesting & depressing – he basically got stuck in a dead-end job, and struggles to accept it(See? It happens to rich people, too!). Declaring a war on crime is akin to declaring a war on terror – it’s a bit naive to believe that there can ever been an end to that war, plus that battle comes at a price. He had to sacrifice his own happiness, his own life, so that he could keep his promise to his dead parents, and rid the streets of crime. Now, Batman’s a pretty intelligent guy. By some accounts, he’s the most intelligent character in the DCU. Now, that said, I find it odd that someone so smart could convince himself that the impossible was actually possible. He’s certainly got a masochistic side, but he couldn’t hope to win. Maybe it was his pampered upbringing, or just the desire to please his parents, but I just don’t see how he ever thought there’d be an end to this life once he put on the cape. Or maybe he’s just punishing himself. Survivor’s Guilt? And I think there’s a story there: at what point did he realize he was in it for the Long Haul? Does he even realize that currently? In early stories, he thinks he’ll one day win, but lately, it seems like he’s Batman because he doesn’t know how to be anything else. The current approach occasionally drives him to do rash things, like keep files on how to kill his friends or build a sentient satellite to spy on those same friends. I just wonder, 9 years into his career, does he even want to stop? Could he stop? What would he do if he did stop being Batman? Like I said, I really think there’s a story there.

Anyway, The Dark Knight was incredible. If you haven’t seen it, you’re no longer my friend.

“He must’ve had fun making those!”

OK, so I saw The Dark Knight tonight. All I’m going to say right now is that it was a very good movie. Not gonna say “it was awesome” or “it was the best fucking movie ever”, because that would be way too “fanboy”. I will say, however, that it was a very good movie. I’ve got a post coming up, but I’ll wait til Monday, to give the rest of you peasants a chance to see it.

While sitting in the theatre, though, something occurred to me:

Imagine you had a biracial candidate for high public office. Everyone feels that he is the change that people need and want, and all of this responsibility is on his shoulders. He is the future, but it’s still quite the burden to bear. All of this pressure has got to manifest in him in some, odd way. Well, imagine if there was a cartoon depiction of said candidate. He would probably look something like this:

And we all remember what happened to him…

Just sayin’, folks! Just sayin’…Not a sermon; just a thought!.

Anyway, come back for the full review on Monday. Oh, and The Watchmen trailer is a piece of shit.

“I have a kindergarten crush on you.”

Gotta love MTV. It’s nothing if not educational. Over the last week, they’ve given the world “kindergarten crush” and “relationship vacation.” OK, for kindergarten crush, that line is only going to work if she’s drunk. And thinks you’re cute. And already wanted you before you opened your mouth. And is drunk/nice enough to pretend she didn’t hear you say something as lame as “kindergarten crush” while you’re trying to get her into bed. That’s a Dateline NBC special just waiting to happen. As for “relationship vacation”, don’t you have to come back from a vacation? Wouldn’t “relationship relocation” work better? Maybe “relationship hiatus”? TV shows go on hiatus all the time and never come back. I mean, “vacation” is misleading, as it also implies a relaxed state without worry. Can’t say I’ve experienced that…When you go on vacation and don’t come back, that’s called “moving”.

Could it be true? I don’t want to even hint at it, but did How I Met Your Mother just jump the shark? I mean, they telegraphed this all season, especially with the visible lack of a role for Robin, but I didn’t think it would manifest like this. I’m going to go against type and not spoil it, but this was one of those endings that played better in my head than on screen.

OK, I feel I should probably explain my last post, so that I don’t have to deal with a phone call from the one person reading this thing. Anyway, that post probably isn’t what you think. In the first episode of my favorite *dripping with sarcasm* TV show, Rock the Cradle, Lucy Walsh sang a really great arrangement of Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter”. Then, about 2 days later, I heard a similar version while I was in Bloomie’s. After some googlage, I found that it was by India Arie. Now, never in a million years did I think I’d gravitate to India Arie, but I’ve had that song on repeat for about the past 72 hrs. The second verse is worthless, as it follows the whole “the world is so full of stress, we’ve got to rise above it AKA Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Goin’ On’” sentimentality, but it’s the first verse and chorus that really resonate with me. I think everyone’s been there at some point, in some manner. In full disclosure, though, it’s not directed at anybody. Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s directed at me.

Allow me to explain in terminology that I find comforting. As many of you know, I read comics. Some might say I have an unhealthy addiction. Since I started working in the industry, it’s been a bittersweet affair. More bitter than sweet. In fact, it’s a lot like marrying your whore. Think about that for a bit.

Anyway, many comic characters have been around for decades, so it’s obvious that some of the history or backstory is going to get convoluted and contradictory over time. So, what do publishers do about this? They “retcon” the stuff they don’t need. Yep, you’re about to learn something: “retcon” is short for “retroactive continuity”. It’s basically a clean-up, deus ex machina, to get yourself out of a corner. You go back in the timeline of something, and remove any event or info that contradicts the current state of things. Did you ever see the original Batman (Michael Keaton movie? In that movie, Joker killed Batman’s parents. Now, did you also see Batman Begins (Christian Bale)? Who killed Batman’s parents there? Hint: it wasn’t the Joker. Why was this done? Well, first of all, Joker didn’t kill the parents in the original comic story, but also this was to make their new, revamped Batman timeline make sense. Retconning is an attempt to start over, from scratch. The problem, though, is that the retcon is a slap in the face of the idea that your current state is the sum of your experiences.

Now, you might say that it’s the dreaded “quarterlife crisis” talking, but I can honestly say that life hasn’t turned out quite like I’d wanted/expected. Tonight, on HIMYM, they were discussing that, when old friends/acquaintances are reunited, there’s always a winner and a loser. The winner is clearly better off than they were in the past, while the loser has either plateaued or is in an even sadder state than in the past. I heard this, laughed, and said, “That is so right.” Then, I paused, cocked my head for a minute, frowned, and muttered, “That is so right”. Yeah…

So, my problem right now is that I really, for the life of me, can’t figure out where I went wrong. I’m not trying to be a whiner, and if you check the archives, I haven’t really written a personal post for the better part of a year, unless you count my opinions on cable television as “personal”. I’ve really been trying to deal with this, but I can’t pinpoint that missed opportunity, that missed call, that misfire at greatness, at happiness. Sometimes you don’t recognize things when they’re right under your nose. Maybe that’s what happened. After all, I’ve never been one for subtlety. It just doesn’t work on me. You pretty much have to hit me with a dead cat to get me to realize something, so maybe I’m just not perceptive enough. Or maybe there’s a different explanation: maybe I retconned those events.

Maybe there were missed opportunities, lost chances, and I simply forced myself to erase them rather than deal with that outcome, or lack thereof. There are a lot of holes in my memory. While there’s a lot I remember, there’s also a lot I’ve forgotten. Sadly, a lot of that was deliberate. If there was some period or moment that I didn’t feel like “dealing with”, I sublimated it. You do that enough, and you’re walking the Earth like James Howlett (that goes out to you, J. Lamb!). So, clearly in life, as in comics, retconning is a short term fix, at best. Because when it all unravels, and it always does, you’ve got a mess on your hands. I think my retcons are catching up with me, and they’re going to get worse before they get better. That is, unless I change something. I’d like to think I’m learning from my experiences, but I’m just finding myself with more questions. Sure, that’s life. “It’s about the journey, not the destination”, but points of any journey get tedious. Food gets low. You get lost. Your feet start to hurt. Sometimes, it would be nice to just know a little bit more about that destination. I don’t need to know what it’s called or even what the weather’s like. Just tell me: do they have cable? (NOTE: I long for the days of yore, when my measure of success was whether or not a person had cable. Oh, to be 19 again!).

The problem with retconning is that you’ll eventually have to straighten everything out, and that’s more trouble than if you’d dealt with the issue when it first arose. It’s like deferring a student loan (don’t even get me started on that!). Let’s just say that’s it’s quite the struggle dealing with all of this at once. I don’t really like how it’s manifesting. “Quirky” and “off the wall” are now becoming bitter and cynical. I feel like I’m guest of honor at the Haters Ball. It’s even in this blog. I hate stooping to the “why do White people love the zoo?!” brand of humor. Sure, it’s good for a quick laugh, but it’s misleading. I write that, but it’s not my voice saying it. All of a sudden, I feel like I’m writing material for a 90′s episode of Comicview. I hate going for the “cheap laugh”. I’m about as Afrocentric as Wayne Brady in a Starbucks. So, if you know me, you’ll know that the joke just doesn’t connect. Plus, I’ve got to wonder what my White friends think when they read that. “Wow, is that really how Will feels about us?” No, it’s how I feel about one person who came into Toys “R” Us that day, and I generalized. Is it the right thing to do? No, but it’s what happened.

Anyway, I’m rambling at this point. I think what I’m trying to say is that I’m tired of this rut. I can’t find the ending, though, before I find the beginning. And it’s the beginning that I’ve forgotten. I’d really like to leave, but I don’t remember how…