Four Nerds

Last night, Bravo aired Ultimate Super Heroes, part one of a three part series which continues tonight and tomorrow. This is the latest in a long list of shows that attempts to rank anything of a certain category. The Ranking Show has been largely dominated by VH-1, but now Bravo has jumped on the bandwagon, with shows like 100 Greatest TV Characters and The 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Now we have the Ultimate Super Heroes. On this show they have assembled a list of the top 20 fictional heroes whose deeds go "above and beyond" the realm of everyday heroes. Therefore, the list is not limited to the traditional "tights and cape" crowd, nor was it limited to just comic books. They had the standard assortment of celebrity commentators, from Stan Lee and Mark Hammil, to Todd MacFarlane and even James Earl Jones. They also had the usual bevy of people from the press to add some sort of "credibillity" to the list. They even got a celebrity host, Batman himself, Adam West.

Here's the list:

Spider-Man
Superman
Batman
Indiana Jones
James Bond
Luke Skywalker
X-Men
The Incredibles
The Fantastic Four
The Hulk
Spawn
Hellboy
Flash Gordon
The Mask
Daredevil
The Tick
Austin Powers
Conan
Blade
Men in Black

So, they compiled their little list and it, like all that have come before it, is sadly lacking. First off, it seems that they only chose super heroes that have some sort of movie or TV footage to go along with it. And of those super heroes with footage, they heavily favorited recent movies. So, the list contained heroes like Men in Black, the Mask, the Incredibles and Hellboy. Sure they all have decent movies, (The Incredibles is one of the best movies I've seen in a very long time) and the ones from comic books come from decent series, but let's be honest. Is Austin Powers really one of the top 20 superheroes of all time?

Admittedly, they did give a nod to some classic characters, such as Flash Gordon and Conan the Barbarian. Without Flash, we wouldn't have Luke Skywalker. But there are some characters that they just didn't even think about. How about Zorro? We wouldn't have Batman if it weren't for that character. If you're into the whole millionaire-playboy -turned-dark-avenger genre, one of my personal favorites is The Shadow. How about the Lone Ranger? If you really wanted to go the classics, why not use the original avenger Robin Hood?

There were clearly choices made because there is an upcoming movie or a recent release that someone wanted to hype. The Fantastic Four? Come on. Sure, they were a pretty popular hero team back in the day. Sure, they saved Marvel from bankrupcy. But their popularity has deinitely waned over the years, and truth be told, I always thought they were kind of lame. But, there's a movie out this summer so it has to be on the list! If you want a better hero team, why not go with another classic; The Justice League? I'd rather watch clips of the Super Friends than see footage of The Commish dressed as the Thing.

It should be noted that I agree with their top 5, although not necessarily in that order.

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions as to who might be missing or have their own list, please let me know. I am writing up my own list, mainly because of boredom, and will be posting it in the comments section soon.

For me it was never about the money. I just get a thrill out of managing a collection and going back and reading the stories. Generally on my first pass of a book I don't truly appreciate the art. That's just me, I'm more impressed by clever verbiage than wowed by pretty pictures. Also a story arc I didn't love when reading in installments can take on a whole new life when read beginning to end.
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I think Trade Paper Backs are a wondrous invention, they make sold-out items accessible and allow for a story arc to be presented in its entirety.

I also think as the hobby slowly dies (I hold no delusions that the comic book will most likely end with this generation), the monthly book will be replaced with the quarterly trade. This will give the creative talent more time to work on the stories and would be way more cost effective for the publisher.
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I'm currently going through the process of putting all my books in a database. 20+ years of collecting has resulted in an unruly mess occupying my basement. I had the Mylar, the backing boards, and the long-boxes. The only problem was I had no idea what was in them.

When I was a kid I collected everything. Marvel, DC, it didn't matter. Then when I was about eighteen, I walked away. I'd like to say I matured, but no, I had just become fed-up. Between the multiple titles and the eighteen variant covers and...Image. Oh God, Image in the early days I feel helped dethrone comics. They got their shit together eventually, but it took some time.

As I go through all my boxes I can see why people threw in the towel. Robin II which came out around 91' had 4 different versions of the first cover. OK this I can live with (sorta), but then each cover had the possibility of having four separate holograms. That's 16 copies you had to buy. Like a schmuck I did, along with six copies of the "Death of Superman".

After about eight years away I realized I truly missed it collecting and thankfully in that time it changed. New stars rose (thank the lord for Bendis) , old ones fell (buh-bye Liefield), and some greats stayed but were shadows of their former glory (ohhh poor Frank Miller and Chris Claremont). But the over-arching change seemed to be the loss of some of the greed. There seemed to be a bigger focus on just telling a good story.

Now, the pendulum is swinging back a bit. Recently they started calling second printings "limited editions". If it's limited, why does it sit on the shelf for six months, and the first edition is sold out?

OK enough about what we don't like. Let's talk about the titles we like.

Here's my current favorites list: Runaways Powers Y: The Last Man Exiles Fables The Authority and quite a few more, but I've talked enough for now.

This started out as a comment on "Links & comics," but turned into a rant, so I made it a post.

I stopped collecting comics a long time ago. I still read them, but I no longer collect them. I suppose the reason was that after a while, that's all I did was collect comics. It was too much, and it got to the point that I would buy all these comics and never get around to reading them.

Around the time of the first Batman movie I worked at a comic shop in !-town. It was my first job and I got paid in comics. This was perfect for me, because that's all I spent my money on comics anyway. I read all the mainstream lines like Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men and so on. At the time, most characters only had one or two titles, like Superman and Action Comics. Spider-Man has the most (3) with The Amazing, The Spectacular, and Web of Spider-Man. I collected them all.

Now, not only do you have what seems to be seven or eight titles to one hero, you have spin off titles as well. Catwoman, Robin, Ted- The Night Janitor at Wayne Enterprises. You also have eighty seven titles for each hero group, like the X-men. Not only that, but you have spin off titles for each character within that group; Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm and so on. It also seems like each title is somehow related to every other title in the current story arc, so you have to buy every title just to figure out what the hell is going on. It's too much.

It also seems like everyone is obsessed with collecting comics now. I used to do this. I used to take all my comics and wrap them up in mylar bags and stick them in boxes. I have to ask, what's the point? I used to know so many people who used to think that these things were going to put their kids through college. They heard stories from their parents about how Dad had a copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #1 and Grandma threw it out when he went to college. They think that the Todd MacFarlane (sp?) Spider-Man #1 is going to be worth the same some day. I got news for you, IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.

The reason that a Superman #1 and The Amazing Spider-Man #1 and the others are worth tens of thousands is because they are rare. There's like seven in existence. It's not the same anymore. First of all, the comics in the old days were printed on the crappiest paper with the cheapest ink. This means they fall apart easily. The new papers and inks they use now are going to last about a thousand years, even in a landfill. Secondly, every dweeb out there bought forty of them and stuck them in an airtight vault somewhere. I have seven Spider-Man #1s. Seven! And guess what, they ain't worth dick.

The biggest scam is the "collectable cover." What a racket, man. So not only do you have to but eight titles of one character, now they have us buying four copies of the same issue! And people do it. I don't get it. It's not just comics anymore, either. Magazines, books, CDs, even TV Guide for crying out loud. TV Guide!

I think they need a Marketing Hall of Fame. Whoever scams the most people without actually breaking the law gets in. The comics industry should be one of the first in, along with the guy who invented the Pet Rock.

I still read comics. There's a lot of really good writers and artists out there and I like the stories. That's why I'm so glad that they make so many collections in trade paperback. I can buy an entire story line without having to wait a month for the next chapter. I don't feel the need to care about the quality, and I can just sit back and enjoy the story. I say, screw collecting. Just read them.

Links
Fogle & Spalding,
I added a few links to the left-hand column. I don't know what you guys see in your admin windows, if you want to add some. If you can't add any, let me know and I'll do it.

If I could ask you guys to please use the "about=_blank" after the link so they pop up in a new window it would be appreciated. Sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine.

Comics
I know Fogle dabbles a little and Spaulding you used to be a comic book fan, so I'm sure my rant is going to fall on deaf ears, but I have to get this off my chest.

STOP BRINGING BACK THE DEAD SUPER HEORES. Marvel and DC continue to hurt their respective universes through this practice.

Superman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Colossus, Psylocke...I'm sure there are others, but these are the first few that spring to mind.

In each case DC and Marvel supposedly drew the curtain on these characters and in each case had theses charachters untie their own toe tag (OK Hal Jordan was technically an undead spirit, but that's still sort of dead).

I just finished reading "Green Lantern Rebirth" and it had to be probably the best "I'm dead but now I'm back" story I've read, but that still doesn't negate the fact that these stories are slowly killing comic books.

I read comics for the continuity. I like watching the characters change and evolve with each passing issue. Death is the natural course of life. Now, granted with super heroes you can break the laws of nature and get away with it to a certain extent. However, when these people return from the dead, all time is erased. They come back alive virtually unchanged. Not only does this practice obliterate the continuity it also takes away from the sense of peril that is the life-blood of any good story.

The next time any of these characters' lives hang in the balance, I'm really not going to care becasue if they do die, I know a resurrection of some ilk is right around the corner.

WARNING!
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

I have to say, without reservation, that this was by far the best of the prequels. I loved it, and George Lucas has redeemed himself to me. It still wasn’t as good as any of the originals, but it was damn good despite that.

That said, I must say that I did have problems with the movie. There are a few things I found to be annoying. I agree with my esteemed colleague Fogelmatrix in the assertion that the acting was horrible. Ewan McGregor seemed to be the only one who could act. This didn't surprise me, however. While George Lucas is a decent director on a technical level, I never thought he could direct actors. The reason the acting paid off in Episode IV is because of the talent he had. Harrison Ford owned the role of Han Solo. Alec Guinness could make an Ed Wood movie Oscar-worthy. Peter Cushing, James Earl Jones, and so on.

I can see a lot of people taking issue with the fact that Chewbacca was in it. I understand that, but I'm okay with it. Chewie is 200 years old, and all we know about him was that he was a slave under the Empire, and that Han freed him. What happened before that? We know he lived on Kashyyyk. It's not like he was a major character who was in on the whole Luke/ Leia thing. So he met Yoda once. He was a guy in a room. Big deal.

Anyway, I used to have a big problem with the first two movies with the droids. I mean, until last night, it looked like this: How big a coincidence was it that the droid that Darth Vader happened to build as a child ends up on the farm of his long lost son, and happens to be with another droid that has the most vital information in the galaxy? How big a coincidence is it that they just came from a ship that carried Vader's long lost daughter? How was it that they knew Luke and Leia's parents and never said anything? Well, it's usually the simplest explanations that are the best choices, and they made it. Assigning the droids to Bail Organa's ship, which would become Leia's ship, makes perfect sense.

Anyway, these are trivialities. The big story involves Anakin turning to the Dark Side. I can see how one can think that he turned too quickly. To me, I don't think it was a question of him turning quickly. He was on the verge ever since Episode II. When he married Padme, he took his first step because he put himself and his desires before anything else. The dark side is focused on passion and desire, while the light side is concerned with peace and serenity. I think the problem was that Hayden Christensen didn't portray the conflict within very well. I blame Lucas for that, more than Christiansen. It's his job to make sure that the acting conveys everything.

Here's how it happens. Anakin has been having dreams about Padme's death. This scares the hell out of him because he had the same dreams when his mom died. Padme is everything to him and he knows she's going to die. He becomes desperate. He goes to the Jedi, but he can't tell them everything because marriage is forbidden. The Jedi's advice is, "Well, people die. Better get used to it. Suck it up."

They offer no help, so he goes to his other source of council, Palpatine. Palpatine, knowing full well what's going on, uses Anakin's situation to his advantage. He tells him that the Sith can save people, bring them back from the dead. This gets Anakin interested. Palpatine also begins to put doubt in Anakin's mind when it comes to his loyalty to the Jedi. He plants the idea in Anakin's head that the Jedi are trying to take over the Republic.

Look at it from Anakin's point of view. On the one hand, he's got the Jedi. These are people that he could not confide in totally. They are the ones who would deny him the one thing that is most important to him (Padme). When her life is threatened, they offer no solutions. They tell him to learn to accept it. He is made to feel that he is not trusted. He is put on the Jedi Council, but they will not make him a Master. The Jedi want him to spy on the Supreme Chancellor, his mentor, and it seems treasonous to him. He doesn't trust the Jedi. The only thing that still holds him to the Jedi is Obi-Wan.

On the other hand, he has Palpatine. Palpatine has always had the appearance of being totally committed and loyal to the Republic. He offers Anakin a way to save Padme. He’s always been someone Anakin could trust, even more than Obi-Wan.

So, we come to the final confrontation. The war is about to end. The Jedi do not believe that Palpatine will give up his emergency powers. Palpatine finally reveals himself as the Sith Lord to Anakin. Anakin is torn. For his whole life the Jedi have been telling him that the Sith Lord is evil. But this is the only person that he could ever trust and rely on.

His loyalties send him back to the Jedi, though. The Jedi tell him to wait at the council and Mace and crew go to confront Palpatine. There’s a lightsaber battle. Mace seemingly defeats Palpatine and tries to arrest him. Anakin walks in and sees Mace over a prone, defeated Palpatine.

Then, Palpatine launches a lightning attack. Mace blocks the attack, but realizes that Palpatine is too powerful, too dangerous to live. He must die or else all is lost. It’s at this moment that Anakin’s worst fears are realized. To him, the Jedi do want to take over. Mace is not interested in justice, just power. Anakin snaps, and attacks Mace. Palpatine finishes the job, and kills him.

So, why have I rehashed everything? Because it all comes down to this pivotal moment. Anakin is losing it. He has just betrayed everything he has ever known. He has gone down the path of no return. The problem with the scene is that he just kneels on the ground and accepts his fate. Truthfully, all the scene needed was a couple more seconds of indecision. Remember when Luke was presented with the same choice on the 2nd Death Star? They had a moment where he looks from the battle out in space, back to his lightsaber, and back to the battle. This is a way of showing that he’s in conflict. Vader does the same thing when he saves Luke. It’s simple, but effective. Anakin didn’t have this, and that’s why the scene fell flat.

All in all, I really enjoyed it. To me, it was a Star Wars movie, where the other two prequels weren’t. I loved the lightsaber battles and the story. Almost everything was good. The final battle between Obi Wan and Anakin was awesome. Watching Anakin be destroyed was really disturbing. Even more so, being rebuilt into Vader actually creeped me out, especially when the mask is being lowered onto his face and you see his tortured, terrified face as it is covered.

Also, Jar Jar doesn't talk!

In my recent Star Wars fervor that has been building for the premiere tonight, I have revisited all things Star Wars in the last few months. I have re-read the novels and comics, I have played old games (I was surprised to discover that I never beat Dark Forces II). I watched the movies, both Special Edition and original. I have gazed in wonder at the $120.00 lightsabers they have at Best Buy.

But the one thing that I have enjoyed most is I listened to the Star Wars Radio Show again. When I was a kid, this was the only way I could enjoy Star Wars when it wasn't in a theater. VCRs were not commonplace yet and even if they where, the movies hadn't been released. So, I had the radio shows. I made tapes of the show by taking my tape recorder and actually sitting it next to the radio to record them.

Anyway, it's been a long time since I last listened to them, and it dawned on me that it's slowly becoming a lost art.

I recently discovered that the same studio made a radio play of the novelizations of Dark Forces. I managed to get my hands on a copy and I realized that there is so much more to it than voice actors and sound effects. You see, the Dark Forces adaptation suffered from a lack of imagination. In a radio play, all of the details need to be provided aurally. All of the details and actions need to be conveyed in sound. In the old days, the easiest way was to have a narrator who explains what's going on. They've never done that with a Star Wars show, however. I guess they felt the soundscape of Star Wars was too rich.

Anyway, that's where Dark Forces falls short. Instead of utilizing sound to tell the story, they rely on dialogue. The result of which a series of forced conversations in a manner that no one would speak in. It goes something like this:

Bob the Jedi: We must get through this large black door with the strange, teal markings on it!

Larry the Jedi: Here, I can cut it with my lightsaber! I just turn it on. (Insert sound FX) And now I begin the cut. Here we go. I am cutting away.

Bob the Jedi: You seem to be about halfway done. Quick! Before the assassin droid with the blue eyes and large blaster comes!

And so on. It would be so much easier to use the sound effects to tell the story. They have this enormous library of sound effects. I'm not just talking about the sound of a lightsaber humming or blasters firing. I'm talking about the little sounds, the ones we generally ignore. The slight hum of a spaceship's engines as heard from the cockpit, a slight breeze moving across the dunes, a slight echo in a person's voice when they are in a large area, like the inside of a battle station.

This is why the Star Wars Radio Show is brilliant. They use sound to tell the story. The soundscape of Star Wars is so rich that you don't need to explain every little detail. This is why Brian Daley, who wrote the scripts, is a genius. He understood the power of sound design. He knew that even if something is not immediately clear, it could be clarified later in a more natural way.

Obviously, there are some times when you have to explain what the hell is going on. For example, the Wampa scene in Empire. It's almost impossible to convey in sound that Luke is frozen upside down in the cave. But rather than have Luke hanging there talking to himself, he uses his comlink to try to contact Han, and thus the explanation is given.

Radio shows are a dying art form. They still make the occasional one, like Dark Forces. The BBC still makes them, I think. They recently started adapting the last three books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. They also adapted a couple of the stories from Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina into radio plays. Outside of that, there doesn't seem to be much.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to make a radio show.

You have the freedom of the press in this country, but I think many in the press aren't taking their responsibility seriously.

Fogelmatrix2: Electric Boogaloo hit the nail on the head as to what is wrong with having too many press outlets in this country(read his full comments here).

We all saw it as children (and some of us as adults). The sacred nature of an item or ideal becomes watered down as it becomes more commonplace. I was an only child and had every Transformer imaginable. I abused the shit out of them. My friend who had to share his with his sister and whose parents weren't as well off, cherished his Optimous Prime like it was the Holy Grail.

So it is now with news. There's too much of it, with each channel vying for a piece of the same pie. As a result news has become more sensationalized.

Is the world really worse than it was twenty years ago or do we now have more television channels telling us it is worse?
And I don’t believe it began with 9/11. I think it happened the day CNN aired. A 24 hours news channel. Is there enough news in the world to fill 24 hours in a day? I’m sure there is globally. Do we as Americans really give a shit unless if affects us directly? Nope! So how do you fill up an entire day of programming?

You have to make up the news. My problem isn’t with bloggers, they never claimed to have credibility. My problem lies with legitimate news sources that don’t covet that legitimacy as a sacred trust with the public.

I missed a lot of The Clone Wars when they were originally aired on the Cartoon Network and only recently broke down and bought the DVD. I loved them. I thought that the voice talent was outstanding. I thought the story was well done. The lack of dialogue is understandable, since they were aired in three-minute segments, they really didn't have time to spend chatting. I liked the little details, such as the lightsaber and the rain. The choreography of the fight scenes was like watching a ballet. All of it was excellent.

I only had one problem, though. It's my own hang-up, I guess, because I've wanted an animated Star Wars series ever since Timothy Zahn wrote Heir to the Empire. I figured that since the actors from the original series were getting a bit long in the tooth, I wanted them to adapt the novels into an animated series or a series of movies. Now, this was the early to mid nineties, and I had recently seen Akira, and I had a new understanding of what the possibilities were with animation. Prior to that, animation to me was Bugs Bunny, G.I. Joe and the crap that Disney made. I saw that not only could animation be for adults, but I was amazed at the detail, the way people's clothing moved, the way they used light and shadow, and so on.

Since then, the animation coming out of Japan has just gotten better and better. Sure, there's the crap like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon. But there's also been Ghost in the Shell, Blood: The Last Vampire and even a few American attempts like The Animatrix.

Anyway, back to my problem. My problem is with the style of the animation. I didn't care for the way it was drawn. I have tremendous respect for Genndy Tartakovsky. I liked Samurai Jack and I like his style. It just wasn't right for Star Wars. It was, for lack of a better term, too cartoony.

For me, the visual approach for Star Wars has always been to make it look as real as humanly possible. In 1977, George Lucas could have employed existing technologies to make Star Wars. It could have gotten the job done, but it would have looked pretty bad. It wasn't good enough. It had to look so real that everyone would believe what they saw.

So, that's what I wanted from a Star Wars cartoon. I wanted the detail that you find in Ghost in the Shell 2. It didn't have to be in the traditional anime style, with the big eyes and so on. (If you see Ghost in the Shell 2, they don't use that either and opt for a more realistic look.) But if you think that the details in The Clone Wars were impressive, think about what Mamoru Oshii could have done with it.

~Keep in mind I write this without seeing "Revenge of the Sith". I pray with every midichlorian (sic) in my body that this movie redeems the series.~

Last night I watched "The Clone Wars" cartoon on DVD. Yes, all of the episodes presented in one long 45 minute arc, sans commercial breaks, sans the network logo in the lower right corner of the screen, and sans Jar-Jar Binks and it...was...GLORIOUS.

This is what the first two-episodes should have been. Jedi Knights kicking ass across the galaxy. They were still able to make Anakin a whiney bitch and Obi-Wan was still an arrogant bastard. But the Clone Wars cartoon made it interesting.

For the unitiated, the cartoon aired on the Cartoon Network chunked out into 12 minute story arcs. Each arc focusing on a separate campaign in the Clone War. The element ties these vignettes together outside of the war is the emperor and Dooku trying to pull Anakin to the dark side.

There are two moments inparticular that were visually stunning and left my jaw on the floor.

• One of the twelve minute arcs focused on Mace Windu. The action with him fighting the droid armies of the sepratists was some of the greatest fight choreography captured on television.
• Second was when Anakin was in a stalemate with a Sith apprentice sent to attack him. The two battle for a few minutes and then end up staring at one another, one waiting for the other to make the next move. Rain starts to fall. Have you ever seen and heard rain fall on a lightsabre? Neither had I before this. The two stared at each other for what felt like hours. There was more emotion between these two animated characters than between Anakin and Padme in all of Episode II.

If you are a Star Wars fan and haven't seen the "Clone Wars" you are a dam fool.

As the title implies, we are four nerds from the eastern corridor of Pennsylvania. Each one of us because of "better living through science" has a...unique perspective on the world.

We started an e-mail chain about a year ago to help whittle away the long hours we spend as desk jockeys. As SPAM filters continue to become one-step closer to the Terminator prototype we have been forced to temper our words or face the wrath of the corporate firewall.

Hence the Four Nerds blog.

If you read this..cool. If you don't...cool. If you post a comment...cool. If you don't...cool. If we comment back...take it like a man Sally.

Now that the introductions are out of the way. Let the Nerding...Nerdification...Nerdosity begin.

PS - There will be introductions as soon as I figure out whether or not the other three nerds actually want to do this.