WWW: Wake

The last time I was in the bookstore, I discovered that one of my favorite authors, Robert Sawyer, had a new novel out.  Titled (in the US, anyway) WWW: Wake, Sawyer begins a new trilogy apparently about the emergence of an artificial intelligence on the world wide web.  Interwoven into that plot is also the story of the blind girl who is given sight and in the process discovers the new being and helps to teach it more about our world.

It was a good novel, though I wouldn't consider it among his best work.  It seemed like there were too many plots that had nothing to do with the main story.  In addition to the main threads about the blind girl, Caitlin, and about the emerging intelligence, there are sub-plots about a disease outbreak in China, China's disconnecting itself electronically from the rest of the internet temporarily, the plight of a blogger in China and his running from the law, and a painting monkey.

The disease outbreak is what lead to China's cutting itself off from the rest of the world in order that the citizenry not hear anything negative when the rest of the world discovers that China carpet-bombed the infected area, intentionally killing villagers.  China's cutting itself off is later referenced by the characters as the reason the intelligence finally gained enough "steam" to become self-aware.

China's cutting itself off is also what lead the blogger to try to circumvent the firewalls, and what lead to the blogger getting himself chased by Chinese law-enforcement, but so far that story hasn't lead anywhere, nor has the plot thread of a monkey hybrid who demonstrates the ability to paint objects from memory, implying that it has the ability to create abstractions of reality.  I suspect that these threads will get picked up in the next volumes, but so far they seem fairly pointless.

My biggest problem with the book has to do with Caitlin's father.  Throughout the book, a big deal is made over how he isn't particularly demonstrative, that he never gives her any reaction, never hugs her, never gives any of the reactions that she expects and even desires.  The reason for that is revealed about two-thirds of the way through the book, and I had a hard time accepting either it, or the reactions of the other people around him.

Other than that, as usual, Sawyer presents many different, interesting ideas and fuses them into an intriguing narrative.  His dialog never seems forced or artificial, and his characters are all fully formed and realistic (well, other than her father).  Bottom line: even a moderately good Sawyer book is better than nearly any other book you could be reading, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Emerald City ComicCon 2010 report

I'm back from the convention, and overall I had a good time.  My wife and I went to Seattle, where we had a room reserved for us through my mom's travel club.  When we finally got there, we got checked in and the condo place asked us if they could pay us to sit through their sales pitch to join the travel club.  That was a bit of a mistake, as the sales guy, once he knew we weren't buying, began insulting us.  We did get a $75 credit card out of it, but I'm not sure it covers the abuse I took.

Once the sales pitch was out of the way, we headed over to the convention center to exchange our tickets and get our passes/badges.  Coming up the escalators, a helpful lady indicated which way to go for ticketing.  Unfortunately, it was across the convention center from where people we supposed to do the exchange, so we had to head back the way we came.  We got our passes and then made our way to the convention hall.

I had prepared by printing the map from the convention's website, and marking down the locations of the people I wanted to meet.  Fir on my list were the Comic Geek Speak guys.  I have listened to them since their first episode, and they were one of the main reasons I wanted to go to the con.  Four of them were attending, though only Bryan Deemer and his wife were at the booth at first.  Eventually another showed up, Adam Murdough.

I discovered that right next to the CGS guys was the booth for Jill Thompson, one of my favorite artists on the Sandman series.  She got there a bit late and was having trouble getting her backdrop set up, so I offered to help and managed to get the thing to open up. More on her later.

Next we moved on to Eric Trautmann and Greg Rucka, whose booths were right behind the CGS booth.  I've seen both of these gentlemen many times, as Eric's wife owns and runs a local comic shop, Olympic Cards and Comics, and Mr. Rucka visits that shop fairly often to do signings and such.  While waiting in line for Rucka, I chatted a bit with Eric, and took a picture for a fellow attendee of her and Rucka.  I had Rucka sign a couple of his books, and he made fun of me for bringing real books to a comic convention, to which I pointed out that he'd already signed all of my comics.

From there, we visited Mike Norton, artist on the All-New Atom and Green Arrow/Black Canary, and co-star of the Crankcast podcast.  I know from listening to his show that he doesn't take compliments well, but I couldn't help telling him how much I like his artwork and how much I enjoy listening to the show.  I picked up a real copy of his self-published 24-hour comic, The Curse.  If you haven't read it, take a look, but be warned that the language isn't for younger kids.

After that, we visited the creator of a web comic that I just adore, Danielle Corsetto, creator of Girls With Slingshots.  I had wanted to get her four trade paperbacks, but once I knew that she was coming to the con, I held off in the hopes that I would get to meet her and have her sign and sketch them for me.  It's been hard for me to read the trades, as I will sit down to read a page or two and discover that I've read ten or twenty when I had other things to do.

Next we headed over to the table of Steve Lieber, artist on Whiteout.  He kindly drew a sketch in the first volume and signed both of them for me.  I had already gotten the writer, Greg Rucka, to sign them one time he visited Olympic Cards and Comics.  It was interesting to watch him first sketch the rough lines, and then use inks to finish the line art and to fill in the shading.

It was around this time that I realized that I hadn't prepared as well as I should have, as I didn't check the list of guests as well as I should have and had forgotten about half the books I should have brought.  For example, I forgot the Strangers in Paradise and Echo trades for Terry Moore to sign, as well as the Starman Omnibi for James Robinson.  Next year, I will try to do better.

The last books I needed to have signed were the Essex County trilogy by Jeff Lemire.  When we got there, he had stepped away, so we decided to wait. While we were waiting, I saw Mark Waid walking by, got his attention, and made a total fool of myself before he excused himself. Oh well, another lesson learned: I'm not good at small talk with people I admire that greatly.

Jeff Lemire returned, and he quickly signed my books before stepping away again.  I barely had time even to express my love of his books.  I suspect he hadn't intended to return and only did so to sign our books.  Hopefully I'll catch him again next year if I love his new book, Sweet Tooth, as much as I suspect I will.

We returned to the CGS booth, where I finally got to meet the other two guys who came from Pennsylvania, Brian and Peter.  It was nice chatting with them, as Peter's reading habits as a kid tend to mirror my own, and Brian is a mostly-DC reader like myself.

Now that Jill Thompson was set up, we watched her draw a spectacular Sandman, with some incredible use of negative space.  We also purchased a copy of her Death book and after some prompting, we got her to sign it.  At the time I was bothered that it took some prompting to get her to sign it, but I suspect she was focussed on doing her commissions.

By this time, I had gotten all my books signed and seen pretty much every one I wanted to see, so my wife headed back to the hotel and I started to do my shopping.  Over the course of the two days, I ended up buying about 200 books, which is still somewhat disappointing to me.  I usually end up getting closer to 500, but I know that it's because I already own a majority of the books I want that would end up in a cheaper box.  It didn't help that my list was a bit broken, as I'm converting to a new inventory program.

At any rate, I ended up buying quite a number of 80s Superman and Action Comics issues, as well as the issues I needed to complete or nearly complete a couple of series from the 80s and 90s, including Catwoman, Deathstroke, Unlimited Access, and Star Trek.  I also picked up a bunch of the issues I was missing from Batman and Detective Comics from the 90s, and random issues of Showcase, Tarzan, Korak, and others.  I also discovered a Seattle comic shop that appears to run occasional sales like the shop I visit in Portland, so the con was probably worth it for that, if for nothing else.

It was great getting to meet all those great creators, and my shopping was good, if not as comprehensive as I'd hoped.  My guess is that I will be going again next year, and hopefully I will be a bit better prepared.

Emerald City ComicCon 2010

Emerald City is coming up next weekend, and I can hardly wait.  It's been a bit over a year since I went to a con with comic shop vendors.  I went to Stumptown in Portland, Oregon, but the only people selling are the creators.

I've already gotten to work getting my list ready, my list of things I need (not want, but need).  So far, I have a smattering of issues that I need to complete a few series from the 1990s, and a couple issues that I am looking for to complete the Daily Planet pages, and I'm really hoping to finish off getting those Dollar Comics I still need.

Most of all, though, I think I'm going to be looking for later issues of the Brave and the Bold series from the late 80s that sort of became Batman and the Outsiders.  I had quite a number of those issues and I would love to have them again.  I'm also looking to collect a couple series to be bound, including Amethyst, All-Star Squadron, and Atari Force, things I know will never be collected by DC.  I'd love to have a nice hardcover of these books that I can read whenever I feel the urge.  And Library Binding now allows you to create a custom graphic to be printed and bound as the cover, so each volume can be truly unique.

Now I just wish I had some art skills.

My love affair with the Composite Superman

When I was very young, no more than seven or eight, as all kids do, I had to go to the dentist.  More than most, I didn't mind going.  Why? Because my dentist had comics for the kids to read while they waited.  It was probably my first introduction to super-hero comics, and the book of his that I read the most was a coverless book that told the story of Joe Meach, a janitor at the Superman Museum who has the worst luck in the world.  While standing in front of a display of statuettes given to Superman by the Legion of Super-Heroes, lightning strikes the display and transfers all the powers of the Legion into Meach. Meach attempts to use his powers to take over the world, but in true Silver Age fashion, all is forgiven when the powers wear off and Meach doesn't remember what he did as the Composite Superman.

It wasn't until years later that I discovered that book was World's Finest Comics #142.  The character has always fascinated me.  From his look, a split-down-the-middle pairing of Superman and Batman, to his having the powers of all the Legion of Super-Heroes, who were obviously young heroes, a concept that I found immensely appealing, I was soon in love with both the character and super-hero comics.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, at that time, the Composite Superman only made one other appearance!

In World's Finest Comics #168, an alien appears and duplicates the accident that gave Meach his powers, who goes on a rampage.  After he loses his powers again, Meach sacrifices himself to save the duo from the alien's ray gun.  I hadn't read this story until recently, when I picked up its reprint in Super-Team Family #6.

I scoured my copy of the Overstreet Price Guide, looking for other appearances by the Composite Superman.  Surely he had made other appearances, as he was everything a writer could hope for, from his look to his power set. Surely he had appeared somewhere else, and more recently in a book I could find at the little used book store that was near my grand-parents which also carried back issue comics.  But no, he had never appeared after that.

It was years before the Composite Superman made a return appearance.  By this time, I had been reading comics regularly for a couple of years. Imagine my excitement when World's Finest Comics #283 showed up on my local grocery store's spinner rack, sporting a cover featuring the Composite Superman! Finally, another story with my favorite villain. Except, it wasn't quite the same.

The alien who recreated Meach's accident returns and makes himself into the Composite Superman. It continued into the next issue, with an appearance by the Legion, and the alien renames himself into Amalgamax before getting defeated, but overall it's a fairly uninteresting story, with unimpressive art.  Even a guest appearance by the Legion during one of its most important times couldn't save the issues.  At least the second part had a nice cover by Keith Giffen, who was also coming into his best period, in my opinion.

At least the Composite Superman wasn't forgotten by the folks at DC. When they began releasing a line of plastic figures showcasing the looks of various characters during their First Appearances, he was included in the third wave. I first saw the figure at a local store a couple years ago, but didn't have the money at the time.  By the time I was able to afford it, of course the figure was gone.  But yesterday, while checking out a store I had never visited before, there on their back wall was the First Appearance figure I had been wanting all this time.  And one of the coolest things about these figures is that they include a mini-version of the characters first appearance comic.  Though I managed to pick up his first appearance a couple years ago, it's nice to have this rarely-reprinted story included.

Sure, he sort-of made an appearance recently, as a giant robot. But it's not the same.  The original is still the best.  I'm sure it's what made me a fan of Curt Swan's art, and helped to propel me into being as huge a fan of the Legion as I am. I'm sure everyone has a favorite, little-used character.  Leave a comment and tell me yours!

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck hardcover

A couple years ago, I finally managed to read The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and its companion volume.  These books tell the life story of Scrooge McDuck, the richest duck in Duckburg and great-uncle of Donald Duck.  The Life and Times tells the main story of his life, while the companion tells some lesser stories that fall neatly in between the main tales.  Boom Studios recently re-released The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a hardcover. Well, that is to say that they released the first half of it.  Annoyingly, I didn't notice in the solicitation text that this book only reprints the first six stories of the twelve that comprise the first storyline.  This is where I think Boom Studios failed.  This version is a page-for-page identical reprint of the trade that was released by Gemstone, even down to Boom's not having updated the page references in the text, and Boom should probably have released the hardcover in one volume.  Certainly size wasn't that much of a consideration, as the trade has held up extremely well under repeated readings.

On the plus side, the content is outstanding, with wonderful stories and art by Don Rosa, the main successor to Scrooge's original creator Carl Barks.  If you've ever had any interest in Disney's duck characters, you will definitely want to read this collection.

Daily Planet updates

Thanks to my recent trip to Portland, I managed to pick up most of the DC Dollar Comics, including most of the World's Finests which included the Daily Planet updates.  For those who are too young to remember, DC used to make a mock-up front page simulation of the Daily Planet which it used to advertise the books that were coming out the following week (later, when the pages were only being published twice a month, that timeframe changed to the following two weeks).  Toward the end, it would appear alternately in Superman Family and World's Finest, and I'm now only missing a couple issues of SF.  I also posted an early issue of the DP, and another Justice For All Includes Children, a single page public service comic that featured kids doing something wrong and Superman telling them off and setting them right.  Both of these are avaliable under the DC Features link on the left.

Samsung Omnia problems

Recently I upgraded my old Motorola phone that I'd had for five or so years and finally got the Samsung Omnia that I had had my eye on. Verizon had it for a great price and I'd read nothing but good reviews of it. I've had the phone for nearly three months now, and I think I've experienced the good and the bad. I'm a bit annoyed that Verizon released the Droid literally days after I ordered the Omnia, but such is the way of things.

I've discovered that the Omnia doesn't have one feature that every modern smartphone should have. You can't voice-dial with a headset. In this age of laws requiring hands-free calling, for a phone to force one to look at it while dialing is inexcusable. In Washington, where I live, and in Oregon, where I was last weekend, one must use headsets while driving. Admittedly, once you've made the call, the phone switches seamlessly to the headset, but dialing while driving is illegal.

Other annoyances with the phone include the "standard" interface provided by Samsung. Many people love it. It provides a vertical bar containing many widgets that can be dragged out onto the desktop. There are a couple of problems with this bar however, not the least of which is how much it drags while scrolling. Scrolling the bar to a new icon will cause one to wonder whether you actually scrolled the bar at all. In addition, one is extremely limited as to what can be added to the bar. Install a new program? Good luck adding it to the bar.

It's hard not to compare the phone to Apple's iPhone. I have an iPod Touch, so I'm familiar with its interface, and the Omnia's keyboard can't compare. Somehow, even though the on-screen keyboard is roughly the same size, the Omnia has managed to make its keys feel much more cramped. The iPhone also does some interesting things with predictive typing, such as changing a double-space into a period and a space.

All in all, while I could live with the Omnia, I think I'm going to call Verizon to see if I'm still in my returnability time-frame and see if I can't get the Droid instead. I've heard nothing but good things about it. I'm going to have to find out about controlling it by the headset first, though.

Edit: I discovered that i'm not any smarter than my phone. Apparently I need to hold down the call button on the headset in order to make a voice call. I was just tapping the button, which is how one answers a call.

I left my money (and my sanity) in Portland, Oregon

The comic shop I frequent in Portland, Excalibur Comics, had one of their twice-yearly 50% off sales this weekend.  Even though it takes me two and a half hours to get there, it's well worth it because of how much I end up getting there.  I always spend the night before getting my want list prepared, massaging it so that my main list shows the books that I'm most wanting to find, and that my secondary list shows the books I want if I can't find the "first priority" ones.

I decided this time that I was going to go in looking for the "Dollar Comics" that DC put out around 1978.  I chose the Dollar Comics because I knew that, at least toward the end, the Daily Planet pages that served as a DC house ad at the time were usually printed in those books.  There are still a few of those that I need to complete the collection here on my site (which you can see under the Features link to the left), and I was hoping to get that much closer.

Coincidentally, while I was digging for the Dollar Comics, I also came across a couple of the DC Salutes the Bicentennial covers that DC put on its July 1976 books.  I'm getting closer and closer to having a complete set of those.  I probably have about half of those now.  There's nothing in them that even refers to the Bicentennial, outside of the covers, but I was always fascinated by them as a kid.  I always wanted to collect the whole set, even though I wouldn't be able to send away for the Superman belt buckle.  I wonder if I could find one of those buckles now?

At any rate, I found nearly all of the Dollar books.  As far as they go, I found the last three I needed to complete the Adventure Comics books, including the one that started the JSA's run in the book.  I picked up four of the Detective Comics; I still need eleven of them, since they weren't a priority this time. I am missing 35 G.I. Combats (which isn't bad since there are 81 of those), six Superman Familys, two Unexpecteds, seven issues of World's Finest Comics, and the small but complete run of House of Mystery.  There are also a variety of special and anniversary issues that I still need, but I came alot closer to completing this set after my trip yesterday.

In addition I came very close to completing both my Catwoman and my Hellblazer runs.  Right before I got married, I decided that I needed to stop collecting comics in order to pay for the wedding.  I've since been picking up the books I missed at sales like this one.  I am still missing quite a few over all, but Hellblazer was the last major series of which I was still missing a chunk.  I'm down to mostly single issues left on any one title.  Oh, except for Nightwing, Birds of Prey and Lobo.  Yeah, I know, it's an odd mix.  Nightwing and Birds of Prey have just been hard to find, and I'm not really motivated to pick up those last Lobos, since the series just didn't grab me that much.

The other thing I did while I was in Portland was to use the Ikea gift card my wife got me to purchase some cool enclosed glass shelving for the mini-busts I've been buying to display in my comic room.  Now, I've never been to Ikea before.  Having been there, I will probably never go again.  It's not a place that was designed with a shopper like me in mind.  I like to go in, find what I want, and get out again.  However, Ikea have designed their stores to reward browsers.  The place has one path that you have to walk to get through the store.  The aisles are narrow, so you can't get by the people who don't know what they want and have to see everything in the place in order to decide, and you are forced to see every item in the place regardless of whether you know what you want or not.  Once I found my item, you have to write down where it is in their warehouse, continue the maze to the warehouse, and then try to find your item there.  Then it's a bit of a maze to get from the warehouse to the check stands, where they've once again designed things to prevent people from moving along on their way.  But I did finally get the cabinets I wanted, and I plan to construct them tonight or tomorrow and fill them with my statues, finally.

Meanwhile...

Yes, it has been a while.  The holidays have been particularly busy, what with my new job.  I ended up having to work a number of Sundays, which cut into my already small reading time.  My spare time hasn't been helped by a new project I have going on also.

My wife and I volunteer at a local historic theater, and in particular I'm part of the movie committee, helping to decide what we will show, and to manage the costs and the volunteers and other minutiae.  At the end of the last season, we found out that a local hotel owner was hoping that, once he got his hotel remodelled, we might want to work with him to run a special series that the hotel would sponsor.  After batting around a number of ideas, I ended up volunteering to run a series of classic movies.  I've spent quite a bit of time deciding the first year's worth of movies and learning what all goes on with getting the rights to show the movies.

Because of this new project, I've been watching quite a few older movies.  Amazon had quite a number of box sets in which I was interested for more than half off, so those were impossible to resist, especially as they were movies I planned to show this year (Shadow of a Doubt and My Little Chickadee).  And for Christmas we also bought ourselves a Bluray player, along with a bunch of movies (most of which we already own on DVD, we are such suckers).

So in the past few weeks, I've watched all the movies that the Marx Brothers did for Paramount (Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers and Duck Soup), Gaslight, a couple of movies by W. C. Fields (The International House and The Bank Dick), and The Princess Bride and Amadeus on Bluray.  I have another 8 movies by W. C. Fields, 10 Alfred Hitchcock movies for Universal, and 7 or so Blurays to go.

This all means I'm consistently about two weeks behind on my comics now, because of all these other hobbies I have.  With the lull that most television shows are going through right now, I might actually be able to catch up, but this weekend I will putting myself even further behind, since the comic shop I go to down in Portland is having their semi-annual 50% off sale. I always end up buying about 200 books on these weekends.

On the plus side, Larry Marder recently released the newest work in his Tales of the Beanworld series.  I intend to review it, but I've wanted my first reading of it to simmer a bit.  This one book encompasses about half as much material as he had previously published in the regular series, so having that much new stuff makes reviewing it a bit overwhelming, especially without a second reading to pick up on things I might have missed on the first, excited, breakneck read-through.  I hope to get to that in the next couple of days.

At any rate, I hope your holidays have been festive, and that the new year brings you everything you deserve, and thanks for reading!

Crisis on Infinite Earths: the Novel

In 1986, DC Comics decided that readers no longer enjoyed the variety provided by its "Multiverse" concept and, in fact, found it confusing.  To remedy the situation, it called upon Marv Wolfman to write the story that would combine five continuities/histories into one coherent timeline.  The comic book series was a stunning success, becoming the first of many summer-time events, which was certainly helped by the George Perez art. Recently, I picked up this 2005 novel (I hesitate to call it a novelization, as there are many differences) and gave it a read.  While it does follow the same general path as the comic series, there are numerous differences.  Mostly narrated by a dead Barry Allen, aka the Flash, his point of view is used to move from scene to scene.  He often provides behind the scenes help that wasn't present or apparant in the comic series.

Also, some characters that were created in the comic series were given little to no time in the novel, such as the female Doctor Light, whose origin involved the main antagonist in the comic series but who is seen or mentioned on no more than a handful of pages in the novel.

Wolfman also works in mentions of the Justice Alliance of Earth-D, characters he created well after the original series, who represented a racially integrated team of characters.  Supposedly, their story was one that he had wanted to tell, but he cut it due to the length of the series.

One last major difference is what happens to certain major characters at the end of the story. In the original, Alexander Luthor takes the Superman and Lois Lane of Earth 2 and the Superboy of Earth Prime into himself where he's created a virtual paradise for them. Superboy of Earth Prime isn't even mentioned (he was probably too hard to explain using the narrative style of the book) and Superman and Lois Lane have a different destiny in the novel.

While these differences are intruiging, and help to attract a reader to the story, readers who have probably read the original story at least one if not multiple times, the style of the narrative made the book a struggle to finish.  While the use of Barry Allen as a narrator was probably as good an idea as any, he spends many pages pining for his lost wife, Iris.  Having been dragged from his life to help to defeat the bad guys, he was unable to return to her before his death.

Wolfman also made a strange choice to have chapters that were no more than three or so pages long.  While it means that you could read the book easily and entirely in bathroom trips, it felt very jarring to have such frequent changes of scene. It also meant that not much time was spent with any given situation or character, with the exception of the Flash.

Lastly, the thing that drew me out of the book most were the large number of editorial mistakes.  There were many missing letters that should have been caught by the editor during a simple read-through of the manuscript.  In addition, for as researched as the story had to have been, Wolfman made many mistakes on fairly simple things.  For example, he continually referred to the Psycho Pirate as being from Earth 1 (he's originally from Earth 2), and he continually misspelled Obsidian's name.

All in all, the positives in the form of the changes to the story were offset by the negatives of the writing style and editorial mistakes to make the book both mediocre and disappointing.  Read it if you are a completist, such as I am, but only the most serious fan would want to in the first place.

Editorfail award of the week

Okay, this is actually for last week, but I'm behind on my comics (which I get late anyway thanks to my buying them online). Outsiders #23 wins it for that week.  I counted no less than three simple mistakes that should have been caught by a semi-competent editor with a minimal amount of research.

Error #1: Katana's sword is not Soulcatcher. Its name is Soultaker.

Error #2: Halo claims to have taken down Croc using heat beams that dried him out.  However, her green aura gives away the fact that she must have used her stasis aura. Her heat aura is red.

Error #3: Owlman, did you really see eye movememt? Shouldn't there be an n in there somewhere?

So writer Peter J. Tomasi, colorist Brian Reber and editors Michael Siglain and Harvey Richards really went out of their ways to do nothing at all, and it earned them the award for the week.

The Sarah Jane Adventures S03E05 & 06, The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith

Synopsis:

Suspecting that she's been lying to them, the kids use Mr. Smith to track where Sarah Jane is spending her time.  They discover that she's been dating, and she wants him to meet Luke, but doesn't want Peter, her boyfriend to know anything about their work. To help protect Sarah Jane from discovery, Rani takes a box to her house, a box which contains a slug-like alien.  The alien escapes while Sarah Jane, Peter and Luke are at dinner, but Mr. Smith transmits the alien back to his homeworld.

A couple days later, while digging around on the internet, Clyde discovers that the house in which Peter claims to live is closed up and listed for sale. Clyde and Rani go to explore the house, while at lunch Peter proposes to Sarah Jane, who accepts. Clyde and Rani fill in Sarah Jane, but the ring which Peter gave her flashes and Sarah Jane seems to come up with a perfect explanation.  The ring then forces Sarah Jane to shut down Mr. Smith just as he detects a problem with it.

Two weeks later, it's the big day. But noticeably absent is the Doctor, the sound of whose TARDIS has been heard repeatedly thoughout the events. As the the wedding vows are read, the Doctor runs in, demanding that the wedding stop.  A wind kicks up, and the Trickster (from last series' The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith) appears and steals away Peter and Sarah Jane.

The kids awaken from the Trickster's appearance and disappearance to discover that the entire church has been pulled out of time and that they and the Doctor are the only ones who can save everyone. They run out to to get into the TARDIS only to discover that it's been left behind like everyone else and it can't break through the temporal barrier the Trickster has thrown up.

Meanwhile, Sarah Jane awakens to discover her situation and realizes that the ring is to blame.  The Doctor and the kids, in another "version" of the church, try to find her.  The Doctor realizes that they are trapped in separate ticks of the clock. Elsewhen, Peter tells Sarah Jane how the Trickster saved his life and extracted a promise to help trap her, and she fills him in on her life. She calls the Trickster out, and he explains to her that all he wanted was for her to settle down with Peter, so that she would give up her life of intervening in the Trickster's plans. Trickster tells her that the only way to save the Doctor and the kids is to marry Peter.

The Doctor attempts to connect to Sarah Jane's clock-tick, which attracts the Trickster's attention.  After a battle of words with the Doctor, the Trickster fades again, but the Doctor has his plan all figured out.  The TARDIS manages to materialize the doorway, and the Doctor enters but Clyde gets caught in its temporal field.  Clyde discovers he is charged with temporal energy, and K-9 explains that the energy could be used to fight the Trickster.

Clyde calls out the Trickster, and manages to hit him with that energy.  While Clyde is distracting the Trickster, the Doctor manages to bring the TARDIS to Sarah Jane, who has to decide whether to marry Peter and condemn the world to the Trickster's power, or to say no and be forced to stay in the rift.  Before making the decision, Clyde's energy runs out, and the Doctor is forced away.  Sarah Jane convinces Peter to rescind his agreement with the Trickster, which means giving up his own life for hers. Everything returns to normal, with all the guests questioning where the groom has disappeared to, and Sarah Jane has to cancel the wedding.  Later, at Sarah Jane's house, the Doctor reappears. After showing the kids around, the Doctor and Sarah Jane say their final goodbyes.

Opinion:

I love this show, both because it's well-written, but also because it is simple without being simplistic.   Yes, the plot points are pretty obvious, and you always know where the story is going to go, except for those times you don't, and those times are wonderfully done. Yes, I have a particular fondness for Sarah Jane, since she was the first companion I watched. Yes, it's supposedly a childrens' show, but don't let that stop you.  It is a spin-off of Doctor Who, but you don't need to know anything about that show in order to enjoy this one. It's great that we got to see the Doctor again; his specials are too separated right now. An enjoyable story all around and a highly recommended series.

Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds HC

The Legion of Super-Heroes was the first book I bought with my own money.  Was it because the dentist had the first appearance of the Composite Superman (who gained the powers of the Legion when lightning hit their statues while he was standing nearby)? Nope.  It was because my local grocery store had two consecutive issues.  Yes, it's that silly a reason.

I've been their fan ever since.  Through the good times (Paul Levitz is still my favorite Legion writer) to the bad (I can't believe they allowed fan-fiction writers to take the reins), I've been there. My Legion collection is complete back into the early 1970s and through reprints I've read most, if not all, of the books in which they've appeared.

Recently, the Legion has fallen on hard times.  They began their third incarnation, which bears almost no resemblance to the previous two, and even the usually masterful Mark Waid couldn't keep interest in this version.  And then Geoff Johns used the Legion for a crossover with Superman (which will be reviewed later).  The catch: the Legion he used appeared to be the one from my youth.

And Johns' story was a revelation.  I've liked, and even loved, his work but this story took me back to my youth.  While the story made it clear this wasn't exactly the same Legion, it was close enough.  The Legion I thought had been lost in the first re-start was back (mostly).  It also seemed that they were the same up to the bad times, up to the point where my least favorite Legion writers took over.  With excellent art by Gary Frank, this story was a love letter to older Legion fans and, for me, I thought it was the best a fan like me was going to get.

Until Final Crisis.  As part of DC's summer event, the powers-that-be gave Johns the go-ahead to write another Legion story. Using elements he had set up previously, Johns weaves a story of Superboy-Prime and the Time Trapper, and their attempts to destroy the LSH.  With glorious art by George Perez, there's something in this story for any Legion fan, with appearances by every character who has ever been a member, and appearances by most of the various costumes that they've worn.  All three Legions are represented, including the Five-Year Gap Legion whose history I thought removed in Johns "retroboot".

In the story, Superboy-Prime is unknowningly thrown into the 31st century, where he sees that Superman is still revered, but he is nearly unknown.  Being the egocentric character that he is, he takes his anger out on the Superman Museum and its patrons before learning of the Legion of Super-Heroes and their counterparts, the Legion of Super-Villains.  Determined to destroy Superman's legacy, including the LSH, he attempts to take over the LSV and begins attacking Metropolis.  To counter him, the retroboot Legion hatches a plan of their own, calling in their counterparts from other universes, the reboot and threeboot Legions (from after Zero Hour and Mark Waid's Legion, respectively).

After gaining Superman's help, the Legions determine that the best way to stop Superboy-Prime is to bring back the heroes who defeated him before: Kid Flash (Bart Allen) and Superboy (Conner Kent).  In doing so, the Time Trapper captures the retroboot version of the Legion founders (Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Cosmic Boy) along with Superman and brings them to the end of time, where he reveals that he is, in fact, Superboy-Prime all grown up.  He tells them a story of how he won't be defeated, that his being there now was proof.  All that goes up in smoke when damage Superboy-Prime took in the past appears on the Time Trapper, proving that history can be changed.

The Legions hatch a plan to bring Time Trapper back to the present, where Superboy-Prime becomes enraged at the thought of becoming the Trapper, and attacks him.  As soon as they touch, Superboy-Prime is returned to his original Earth, which had been recreated in the events of Infinite Crisis, and the Time Trapper disappears.  The threeboot Legion turns out to be the Legion of Earth-Prime, while the reboot Legion become wanderers in the Multi-verse.

I read these as they were coming out, late books and all, and reread the hard cover that just came out. While the HC doesn't have anything in the way of extras, it's still worth the money for the excellent story and art.  This story is a fan's dream, given that it contains every major and most every minor character who has been in a Legion story, and it reintroduces the original Legion to the DC universe in a way that makes sense with the new status quo.  It's a must-read for a Legion fan, but it's an excellent story even for those who have only a passing familiarity with this part of DC's history.