In which we go into the past, before the Invincible War, and see how Rexplode and Atom Eve, a.k.a Samantha Wilkins, met. We start with Rexplode's story, which turns out to be very grim indeed. His family is grindingly poor, driving Rex to steal food. He's seen by a man who gets intrigued by his apparent talents, and who then follows him back to his home and makes a proposition to Rex' father ... who sells his son to someone he doesn't know, essentially for a few groceries. Rex is made to endure all sorts of body modifications, which allow him to explode things with sufficient kinetic energy. (He throws balls at his targets. A lot.) It becomes clear to the reader long before it dawns on Rex that perhaps, just perhaps, he's not working for the good guys that he thought he was. But before he can quite figure out what to do with this concept, he meets Atom Eve.

I really really wish that Kirkman would outsource every issue of the main Invincible title in which Atom Eve appears to Cereno so that she could get some more interesting characterization. She only appears on the last page of this first issue, but presents with a lot more attitude and is a much more interesting character, in a one page appearance, than Kirkman has ever managed. This was also true of the first Atom Eve miniseries that Cereno wrote. I get that in the main title, she's a supporting character, whereas Cereno gets to write her as the main character of his minseries, and so she actually has to be more interesting; she holds the center. I get all that, I really do. But Kirkman has only ever written Eve as an archetype of The Girl. You want her, but you can't have her. Miracle of miracles, you get her ... and then your enemy punches her guts out and kills her, motivating you to kill him (you think). But then, more miracles of miracles! she reassembles herself and she's back to life, and gave herself a boob job in the bargain! And yet ... somehow doesn't quite manage to be that interesting a character, despite everything.

Anyway, all that said, Cereno and Bellegarde do their usual excellent work in this miniseries, producing strong characterization and story and artwork. It's very enjoyable, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series.
Excellent; Highly recommended

One of the more headscratching things to come out of Final Crisis. On the one hand, it was different and experimental in a way that DC seldom is. On the other ... by the time you get to the end, all you can think is, "All of this is for THAT result? Why didn't they just ASK him?" In any event, the title ends in a way that seems to set up the new (and dreadfully misnamed, no doubt) Global Peace Agency, with Nemesis as its chief. It seems to be a replacement for the now-destroyed Checkmate, with a broader brief, and fewer checks on its power. Its brief is to prevent the next Crisis; it will, of course, utterly and absolutely fail at that. It is, in fact, failing at that at this very moment, with Blackest Night zombies running around all over the place.

A moment from the High Horse, if you will: One of the terribly frustrating things about DC's various crises is the really odd lack of followthrough in some places. For example, at the end of the Crime Bible: The Books of Blood miniseries, Renee Montoya was accidentally head of the Religion of Crime. And then when Final Crisis came along, she just ... wasn't, anymore, and now in Detective, Alice has come out of nowhere to take charge. At the end of Final Crisis, Renee Montoya had been drafted by Checkmate to be head of the Global Peace Agency, gathering the task force of 51 Supermen who were to defeat Darkseid, only to arrive and discover that Earth-prime's Superman was back and handling things just fine, thanks. And now ... she's not. It does seem that there should be some exploration of what happened and the effects before you go blithely off to the next thing. I mean, it wouldn't take all that much to tell us how she got out of all these commitments, would it? But I digress.
Interesting; no recommendation

Have I mentioned that I absolutely love this series? No? Well, I absolutely love this series. It manages to take on the sorts of Serious Things that a superhero story must do -- for certain values of serious, of course; New York getting levitated by a hyperintelligent ape's spaceship is only just so serious, after all. At the same time, it never loses its sense of humor and fun. Power Girl actually enjoys being a superhero. At the same time, she enjoys being Karen Starr, if not quite as much -- it's certainly the more aggravating side of her existence.

One of the things I've never understood about superhero comix is the secret identity thing. Take Power Girl, for example: six foot tall buxom blonde, never to be found in the vicinity of Karen Starr even when they logically ought to be. Just how hard can it be to make that connection? And in the last two issues, Palmiotti and Gray have actually played with that a little, having someone discover Power Girl's secret identity. She doesn't know who it is yet, though undoubtedly she will soon.
Excellent; Highly recommended.

You know ... I wonder if perhaps Simone is aiming at nothing other than an essential refounding of Wonder Woman's story with this arc. After all, Diana's last two origin stories don't really work any more; she's surely observed man's world quite enough (and the current setup of her story seems to assign that role to Hippolyta as a previous Wonder Woman, anyway), and she's no longer functioning as an ambassador. After "Amazons Attack", the Themiscyran embassy seems to be gone, and she's actually working for the US government. Which brings up the question ... what's she doing here, anyway? If the issue is that she's been expelled because she no longer thinks as her people believe she should, because she also worships unfamiliar gods, then that brings her story into alignment with the other two of DC's alleged Trinity: Batman and Superman both lost their parents to create themselves, as well, albeit at much younger ages, and Superman doesn't really remember losing his. In any event, this issue is sort of wildly unbalanced. I do wish the Donna Troy part of it would just end; having her made insane by Genocide, even though nobody else who contacted Genocide was, makes less than no sense. I'm curious about what's going on with the Amazons; parthenogenic pregnancies after all this time? And Achilles seems like an honorable man being forced to do progressively more dishonorable things; I suspect that he may wind up rebelling against Zeus and Ares sometime soon. (The Ares ghost thing was just ridiculous, really.)

All that said, the one major knock against the most recent story arcs is that, the two issue thing with Black Canary aside, this thing with Alkyone and Achilles and Zeus' big plan is taking FOREVER. I have the vague, nebulous impression that it's in part because Diana isn't really doing anything with Final Crisis or Blackest Night, so she needed some sort of epic storyline to match the guys. (Yes, she had an important role, of sorts, in Final Crisis, and yes, there's a Blackest Night: Wonder Woman on the way. However, neither of those events is going to be reflected back in the main title, whereas Final Crisis rebooted the entire Batman line, and has had some interesting aftereffects over in Superman's chunk; Blackest Night showed up in this week's Red Robin, and is actually going to effectively suspend publication on Batman and Robin for three months.)
Interesting; no recommendation.

So Harlequin is going to be publishing Gay and Lesbian romances. And, like, smutty books.

No, really.

No ... really.

Carina Press [...]

... Most likely, to the extent that gay romances get published, they're going to be M/M romance rather than gay -- that is, aimed and oriented at their women readers, rather than at the gay market. Developing a new client base would be massively difficult, after all, and they've had Torquere and Samhain and Dreamspinner and Ravenous Romance and (somewhat accidentally) Cleis Press to show them that yes, there are lots and lots of women out there who will read stories of men in love and/or gettin' it on. And Carina, as long as people know that it's a Harlequin imprint, would be a desperately hard sell to gay bookstores and gay male readers. After all, men have long been conditioned to run screaming into the woods at the very sight of a Harlequin romance, because gooshy books that women like are icky! Icky icky icky! (We men are delicate flowers that wilt at the mere mention of women's literature and/or romance. Be gentle with us.) [...]

...I have to admit, I am rather curious as to how Harlequin's M/M books will turn out. My main issue with the M/M romances that I've read is that the men frequently aren't particularly realistic, but then, I'm never quite sure how realistic romances are supposed to be. After all, they're a fantastical sort of literature, entirely by design. It seems rather pointless to harp at fantasies for not being real. I suppose my particular taste in romantical literature would be for more real men, though. Somehow, that seems to make for a story that works better....

...Given Maine's history, the result should have surprised no-one. The plain fact is, majorities will not choose to recognize civil rights of any minoritiy of their own free will. It simply will not happen. Whenever this sort of thing comes up for a vote, it allows the majority to say, "We don't like you, we don't want you, and we think you are not human enough to share our rights." And they do, and they will. DC has one thing right; it refuses to allow people to vote on rights enumerated in its Human Rights Act, because they will use that opportunity to express prejudices and reject minorities, as Maine has done here.

Am I saying that we should give up, give out, give in? No, of course not. I am saying that we're going to have to go back and do this again and again and again, in all the same places and in different ways, before this is finally going to stick. And if history is any guide, we've only seen the leading edge of resistance at this point.

Some people like to refer to the Civil Rights era, likening this struggle to that one. But historically, looking at that struggle, the way this eventually works is for the laws either to come out of the courts -- or, more rarely, from legislatures that are ahead of the people they represent -- and then for the states to essentially get battered into resentful submission by lawsuits from affected minorities, with support from the court system which says to the state, "This will happen." That level of support from the courts and the legislatures does not yet exist for gay rights. It is, surprisingly enough, coming; it's just not there yet....

The Steamy Hot Fuzz Slash Fiction Tweets: October 19th, 2009 : Edgar Wright Here:

If you don’t follow myself, Mr Simon Pegg or Mr Nick Frost on Twitter, you missed out on a semi sequel to HOT FUZZ yesterday in the form of some very steamy tweets.

It all started with a discussion about X Factor’s identical twins John & Edward and a joke by me about slash fiction…

@edgarwright: You want HOT FUZZ slash fiction? You got HOT FUZZ slash fiction. http://bit.ly/EU8SY Enjoy.
about 22 hours ago from web

@simonpegg All power to the slashers I say. I’m deeply flattered that anyone would take mine and @edgarwright’s balls and run with them.
about 21 hours ago from TweetDeck

@simonpegg “said Danny as he unbuttoned Angel’s police issue riot suit”
about 17 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to edgarwright

@edgarwright “Danny gripped his extendable Asp. It could do some serious damage…in the right hands.”
about 16 hours ago from web in reply to simonpegg

@nickjfrost “That’s a lovely big truncheon.” said Danny. (sound of slide whistle.) the end.
about 16 hours ago from Tweetie in reply to simonpegg