Reign of the Supermen #417: Irish Superman

Source: FreakingNews.com Photoshop contest (2012)
Type: Fan madeSt.Patrick's Day! Don't indulge TOO much.

You know, I'm surprised given the immigrant angle there never was an Elseworlds story in which Superman was born of an Irish couple fleeing the potato famine. The boat sank, and the only survivor is a small baby with all the power of the Blarney Stone. He discovers his powers when he drinks his first pint. By day, mild-mannered Clark O'Kent, by drunken night, Irish Superman!

Ok, maybe that's why there never was such an Elseworlds. Answered my own question.

Siskoid Awards 2011 - Technical Achievement Ceremony

The Siskoid Awards are just like the Oscars, you know. Only with 100% less Billy Crystal. And as with the Academy Awards, the Technical Achievement Ceremony is a thinly veiled excuse to have a pretty girl host an awards show for the stuff that didn't fit in yesterday. At the Oscars, these would be for stuff like CG follicle simulations and things. At the SBG, anything goes, really.

So let's say hello to our hostess, the first American to get the job, Alison Brie from the popular* tv series Community! Aw, she's lovely.

Geek wedding of 2011 - David Tennant and Georgia Moffit. They tied the knot on the 31st, just in time, but I would have given them the prize regardless. Think about it. The 10th Doctor marries the Doctor's Daughter, who is the real life daughter of the Fifth Doctor. It's a wedding that actually makes two Doctors FAMILY. Their progeny was my one-time guess for River Song's identity.

Best movie look-alike for New Brunswick of 2011 - Daytime Drinking. Who knew that give or take a pine forest, South Korea could stand in for my home province? I now have plans to remake the film here with Colt .45 as a sponsor. Second place goes to Pressure Point, but since it was only made in Quebec, the similarities are kind of expected.

Best podcast of 2011 - How Did This Get Made? Paul Sheer and his crew of brave souls sit down to watch some of the worst films ever made and then do the only thing you can in that situation, point at them and laugh. Reminds me that I've got to catch up on the episodes I missed.

Best Kung Fu move of 2011 - Pai Mei's Deadly Crotch Grab. Has to be seen to be believed. That sound will haunt me forever.

Strangest movie meme of 2011 - The amputation biopic. With 127 Hours getting some Oscar nods in 2011, it seemed to spawn copycats (as Hollywood somehow always manages to), including the true stories of surfing/shark incident in Soul Surfer, and a dolphin amputee in Dolphin Tale. Strange fad.

***VAN DAMMATHON FALLOUT***
Character find of 2011 (male) - Uncle Douvee (Wilford Brimley) in Hard Target. An over-60 Cajun action hero who makes explosive moonshine was just what the doctor ordered to close out my year.
Character find of 2011 (female) - Taxiwoman in JCDV (Jenny De Chez - who I'm guessing is a non-actor). Hilarious performance on all levels. Her unforgiving nature when Van Damme wants some peace and quiet in the cab ride from the airport. Her screams that sound like a car alarm. It's wonderful stuff. If I had a car, I'd want it to sound just like that.

Ironic 1% victory of 2011 - The Guy Fawkes mask (Warner Bros.). Seems like the 99% movement's adoption of the Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta has netted one of the 1% billions of dollars. Yes, BILLIONS! According to this NY Times article anyway. It's getting really hard to protest capitalism, isn't it?

"Person" of the Year - The Mixed Message. (Hey, if Time Magazine can keep crowning concepts, so can I.) The Fawkes story above is only one example of a communications problem I came across all year, both personally and professionally. The 99% (or Occupy) movement came to my town, of course, fighting corporations armed with iPads and wearing Converse shoes. Then they wondered why they weren't being taken seriously. I made my point about DC's New 52 yesterday, but here's another nail in the coffin: Folks at DC are disappointed the fanboys are obsessing about continuity instead of talking about the stories. But see, by spouting all that hogwash about how continuity was the big evil and needed to be discarded (and yet only discarding it here and there), they MADE IT about continuity. And so it went all year in the media and where I work (can't really talk about that here), people saying things they shouldn't, launching campaigns designed to fail, never really knowing they were killing their own message through how they presented it.

And that wraps up this magical, pre-taped, night! Once again, my thanks to Alison Brie for her fine work here and elsewhere, and we'll see you next year for more Siskoid Awards!

*If I say it's popular often enough, it'll become true, right?

The Siskoid Awards 2011

Welcome to the new year! That's right, it's time for our annual Geek Gala! Come in from the cold and the smelly red carpet (that's not its original color, guys) and have a seat!

Once again, I'm rewarding excellence in stuff I've seen, heard or read this year (regardless of when it was originally released). As usual, only newly experienced material will be up for consideration (or else I'd just watch BSG once a year and be done with it - then cause myself grievous harm, probably). For television episodes, no more than one per show can be put up for nomination. Other limits may apply. No money or prizes will actually be awarded. Thanks for not trying to collect.

Best Book of 2011 - The runners up are...
5. Chicks Dig Time Lords (Mad Norwegian)
4. Supergods (Grant Morrison)
3. Write More Good (Bureau Chiefs)
2. Manhood for Amateurs (Michael Chabon)
...and the Siskoid goes to: Arthur & George (Julian Barnes) - We're starting the new year with a Sherlock Holmes movie in theaters and a new series of Steven Moffat's Sherlock on tv, so it seems somehow appropriate to have Barnes' 2005 novel about Arthur Conan Doyle hit the top of the chart. Here's what I said about it last summer: "A wonderful novel, I think of interest to Sherlock Holmes fans. The novel is told from the points of view of both Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji, the half-Indian solicitor who was wrongfully convicted of the 'Great Wyrley Outrages', a series of animal mutilations in a rural area. The lives of both men are contrasted, Barnes using a different style for each (Doyle's is literary, while the simpler George is all present tense) and they in fact do not meet until late in the book. Awesomely researched, lightly comic and a real page turner when you get to the trial and Doyle's later investigations, Barnes produces here two superb character studies based on available sources. I haven't enjoyed one of his novels this much since, oh, my very first touch of Barnes (and I've nearly read them all), A History of the World in 10½ Chapters."

Best Comic of 2011 - The runners up are...
5. The Guild specials (Felicia Day and various artists and co-writers)
4. Infinite Vacation (Spencer and Ward)
3. Daredevil (Waid and Rivera)
2. Incredible Change-Bots Two (Jeffrey Brown)
...and the Siskoid goes to: Infinite Kung Fu (Kagan McLeod) - I was stoked to see it on other year's best lists on the Internet, and you should hear more about it from me and others in January if podcast plans work out like they should, but here's what I said in my capsule review: "Infinite Kung Fu is a 450-page trade collection of Kagan McLeod's incredibly entertaining martial arts comics series. McLeod re-imagines the "martial world" of his favorite kung fu movies as an amalgamated place where Shaolin monks are able to meet blaxploitation stars, a timeless place of action and zen Buddhism. It's also a magical world, where spirits return to dead bodies causing a zombie infestation of epic proportions, which the Eight Immortals have tasked the few students who haven't turned to the dark side (poison kung fu - an obvious wink to the Five Deadly Venoms) to stop. Wonderfully imaginative, McLeod's fluid, black&white, watercolor&ink art excels at showing the action both in large panoramas and in intimate play-by-play sequences between the good and evil masters. And throughout, winks and nods to great martial arts films from both sides of the world, there for those who can appreciate them. Get it direct from Top Shelf if you can't find it elsewhere!"

Best Film of 2011 - The runners up are...
5. The King's Speech (Tom Hooper)
4. The Social Network (David Fincher)
3. Hard Core Logo (Bruce McDonald)
2. JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri)
...and the Siskoid goes to: Three Colors: Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski) - I (re)discovered Kieslowski's work this year and it's really wonderful. I knew one of his films was taking the prize, but it was difficult to choose which one. Ultimately, it's Red I was most impressed with, as it feels like a culmination of what he was doing in the early 90s, regrettably at the end of his life: "Rouge reunites Kieślowski with Irène Jacob, with whom he worked with on The Double Life of Veronique (the film that made her a star), and takes place in her native Geneva. She plays a storm-tossed, kind-hearted model who, through chance (and chance is a huge theme in Red), meets a bitter retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who spies on his neighbors and has a strange prescience. Through their stories we discover a thick web of coincidence and mirror images that makes this last part of the Three Colors trilogy the most mysterious and intriguing. If Blue was a subverted tragedy, and White a dark, dry comedy, Red is less easy to classify. To me, it is a fable, one of pure movie making, that uses images in a way that would, to most readers of this blog, be reminiscent of the way Moore and Gibbon do in Watchmen. The ironic intricacies of the film make it my favorite of the three. Irène Jacob simply breaks my heart in every frame."

Best TV Series of 2011 - The runners up are...
5. Doctor Who Series 6
4. How I Met Your Mother Season 1-6
3. Community Seasons 1-2
2. Coupling Series 1-4
...and the Siskoid goes to: Sarah Jane Adventures Season 4 - I'm as surprised as you are! It came in at the very end of the year and scooped a lot of excellent television (and I watched a LOT this year). Oh, I'll admit to still being a little weepy about it, but freshness aside, it did make me laugh, cry and miss Elisabeth Sladen terribly. Sarah was always the draw, but I think this is the season where the kids come into their own and become just as much a reason to keep watching. I don't think anything else I've seen this year deserves to be called a "perfect season".

Best TV Episode of 2011 - The runners up are...
5. Pilot (Alias Season 1)
4. Chuck vs. the Marriage Proposal (Chuck Season 4)
3. Split (Coupling Series 3)
2. The Girl Who Waited (Doctor Who Series 6)
...and the Siskoid goes to: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Community Season 2) - Another one that's very hard to call, but Siskoid's Blog of Geekery wouldn't be living up to its name if it didn't acknowledge the geekiest thing ever broadcast on network tv. It's a bottle show that doesn't attempt to represent the characters' imaginations in any way, but stays true to the spirit of tabletop role-playing (if not the letter of the rules... at least, I've never played it like that even if I consider myself a narrativist), pokes fun at it, but doesn't condescend to it, and at its heart, is about saving a person's life. Bonus points for using 1st edition AD&D books. It somehow makes people sitting around a table talking EPIC. And isn't that a true RPG experience? Bonus bonus points for taking Pierce down the darkest of paths. Anybody want to save this series from extinction yet?

Best CD of 2011 - The runners up are...
5. Year of the Pig (Big Finish's Matthew Sweet)
4. Son of the Dragon (Big Finish's Steve Lyons)
3. The Girl Who Never Was (Big Finish's Alan Barnes)
2. Doctor Who Series 5 soundtrack (Murray Gold)
...and the Siskoid goes to: Roses are Red, Violets are Blue (Trocadero) - I never imagined an album of music inspired (and used) by a web series based on a video game would become my most listened-to album of the year, but there it is. Trocadero did all the music for Red vs. Blue, the comedy web series based in the Halo universe, and their Tex-Blues sound is perfect for the dusty isolated melancholy of Blood Gulch, but the music isn't a slave to the RvB story. Though Blood Gulch Blues and A Girl Named Tex have obvious links to it, all the songs stand on their own and aren't "jokey" despite having a certain wry humor. Great driving music too. Get into my Warthog and let's go!

Stupidest Move in the Geekaverse 2011 - The runners up are...
5. Dalek Car for toddlers! (Zappies)
4. Rob Liefeld slags off Stan Lee (Rob)
3. Bookstores yanking DC trades off the shelves because of a Kindle deal (Barnes & Nobles)
2. Wonder Woman is Ally McBeal (David E. Kelley)
...and the Siskoid goes to: Flushpoint! - Has there ever been a more ill-conceived and mismanaged move by a comic book company than the New52 "don't call it a reboot" reboot? Don't misunderstand me, there are some excellent books in the New 52, but almost all of them would have worked in the original universe. Last September, DC threw out the baby with the bathwater in the hopes of getting into an untapped reader pool that I doubt has materialized by using the same old writers and artists, and even regressing to some kind of 90s Image/Marvel mentality of splashy art, less story, antiheroes and terrible designs. (Putting Liefeld on a monthly book ALONE would rate a spot on this list.) Too early to tell if they got new readers out of it, but I know they lost some with their "jumping on/off point". Fan outrage over the loss of Oracle, overt sexism in Red Hood, Catwoman and Voodoo, and the renumbering of flagship titles like Action and Detective (when I got into comics, these were in the late 400s and didn't scare me away) have generated a lot of bad publicity, and DC's hope that readers could try so many titles in a single month (much less support them monthly) when they're offering fewer pages for the same money and same-price digital will likely cause an implosion like that of the 70s. That's sure to piss off fans of the books not pulling their weight, not because they're bad, but because they were thrown into too big a pond killer brand recognition sharks. The decision to reboot continues to be unjustifiable, seeing as DC's last event books (Brightest Day and Gen Lost) had made promises that could never be made good on, and the recent release of some Batman Inc. issues as a non-continuity special shows how little planning went into it. And then there's the whole communication snafu, which I've promised to write a proper article about (for once, commenting on something that is actually my field), but which includes creators/editors making censurable comments (like DiDio's public reaction to people criticizing the lack of female creators on the new books) and the appearance of corruption in the way Johns and Lee have profited from the change, as opposed to other creators. But I've gone on too long. No matter what good comes from the New 52 initiative - and there will always be some good comics at DC - it will always stand out as one of the worst handled moves in comic book history.

What would YOUR picks look like? Tomorrow: The Technical Achievement Awards as given in a ceremony prior to this one!

It's Christmas and Batman's at the Door. Do You Answer?

From Batman #219 by Frank Robbins, Irv Novick and Dick Giordano.

And to all a Merry Christmas and/or Doctor Who Christmas Special Day (observed)!

Christmaszilla!

You know, if Christmas was a little bit more like THIS, I might celebrate it more.

Less than 2 weeks to go! (Damn, and not a single gift purchased... Story of my life.)

(via Unusual Life)

Year 5!

Remember, remember, the 9th of December. Yep, it's the SBG's 5-year anniversary! Who knew time could fly by so quickly even when you're writing a minimum of 2 posts a day! The exact count is 3824 posts in 1826 days, an average of 2.09 posts a day, on this blog alone. Well, they don't say I'm crazy for nothing. So my thanks to everyone who's ever read and/or commented over the last 5 years. It wouldn't be half as much fun without you.

Year 5 Highlights
-The daily exercise of the year was Reign of the Supermen, which replaced daily Star Trek reviews and which has now been turned into a weekly feature (after 400 issues, which isn't a bad run!), leaving the daily slot clear for daily Doctor Who reviews. That's another two-year commitment, easily! So you'll have me to kick around for a good while yet.
-Shuffling Reign to Saturdays has eliminated the long-running Cat of the Geek weekly feature (after 137 issues), but we'll some kitties pouncing around from time to time. Other shuffling during the year includes the end of regular What If? features (I just knew the terrible 90s stuff wouldn't keep me going forever), and the switch from Movie Marquee Fridays (because my screen capture capacity has been compromised by a computer problem) to Kung Fu Fridays (I've been hosting Asian cinema movie nights for more than 2 years, but never really tried to bring the coolest bits to you, the wider public).
-The Suicide Squad's Retirement Files was a frequent feature which may be resurrected in the coming year, though I have less interest in post-Ostrander versions of Task Force X (and none at all in the rebooted Squad - yuck).
-Other, less frequent, new features have included Canadian perspective pieces on Alpha Flight (I stopped when it became clear the current creative team GETS it), pithy Learning to Fly lessons, and Paper Dolls for Boys.
-Of course, a lot of the last year has dealt with Flushpoint and the New 52. Couldn't avoid the buzz. For a while there, it was the gift that kept on giving (but also like getting underwear for Christmas, if you know what I mean).
-Year 5 was the year I started the most side-projects too. Your Daily Splash Page is a parallel blog that's just meant to be visual fluff. I tried my hand and crafting a 'zine version of the SBG, the first issue of which is available on Googledocs. And I got on Google+ to share what we do here through another platform.
-And how has the SBG fared, hit-wise? Well, Google analytic puts me in the low 500s on the average every day, up from last year's low 400s. "Who Is River Song?" was still relevant this year and kept drawing people in, but somehow, it's Ceiling Cat's appearance in Cat of the Geek that brings in the hordes every day. Ceiling Cat. Really, people? That's still relevant to your interests!?

So, what's next?
-Obviously, I'll be busy over the next year (or two) with the Doctor Who reviews, but focusing daily on a television program means more variety when it comes to comic book-related articles. During Reign, it wasn't so easy to justify ignoring non-comics media.
-The Old52, an alternative to the New52, is in its infancy. I still plan to read one comic book run I haven't read (or read in a while) each month. December will be the project's third, and I think I'll go for something longer, what with Christmas vacation and all.
-Siskoid's Blog of Geekery on radio? Side-projects I may get myself into in 2012 include a podcast with blog brother Michael May (we've talked about it, though I have no idea what it will be like) and a French-language radio show tentatively called Geek-Out where I plan to do a lot of what I do on the blog, only with plenty of geekery-related music to support the features about comics, movies, niche tv and role-playing (in fact, I'd like to do a special where we're role-playing the whole time, or at least, every time we come back from a song). I'll let you know how both these projects are working out.

So again, thanks for stopping by as much as you have, and here's hoping I'll see you again in Year 6!

Reign of the Supermen #400: Superman Balloons

Source: Various (see below)
Type: ObjectsTo all our American friends, a most Happy Thanksgiving. It's also the end of Reign of the Supermen's daily run (becomes a weekly Saturday feature starting this weekend)! Both are causes for a little cheer, and what says cheer more than balloons! We turn first to that venerable helium-filled tradition, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for some truly massive Superman balloons. 1987's above is nice, but check out these vintage blow-ups from 1940:
And 1966:
Which is not to say Superman balloons weren't used in actual Superman stories, because they were. The following is probably less than exhaustive...
In Adventure Comics #208 (1955), for example, Superboy covers up sightings of a "flying boy" by inflating his own indestructibly stretchable costumes with super-lung power, making LIKE a balloon.
In the very next issue (Adventure 209), the Superboy Week Fair unveils the Superboy blimp!
In Superman #81 (1953), Superman blows into his own suit, fills it with phosphorescent mollusk shells, and lights up the whole city under threat from a power outage.
And Super-Friends # 9 (2009) shows that the tradition is still alive as the Super-Friends break out the super-balloons (with cameo by Super-Turtle!) for Superman's birthday.

Maybe you have another favorite super-balloon story my cursory research didn't find? Let us know. And then, it's back here for more Reign on Saturday AND make sure you swing by Monday for a celebratory It's-Stopped-Reigning contest!

Doctor Who for Christmas

Last year, Moffat gave us perhaps the best Doctor Who story of the New Series (at least, the best stand alone story). It was based on the Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol. This year, it looks like he's doing The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Given the natural similarities between the TARDIS and the Wardrobe, it's almost crazy no one thought of doing that before. Are we to understand a good deal of the story occurs inside the TARDIS? That would really bring it closer to the way it was portrayed in the Virgin books, where it could hold any environment. And Bill Bailey guest-stars? Awesome!

I just can't wait for The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe!

And what it'll be next year? The Little Match Girl? The Grinch Who Stole Christmas? Home Alone...?

Kung Fu Friday Moments: Remembrance Day

A big favorite among my Kung Fu Fridays crowd is Donnie Yen, and I thought it would be particularly appropriate today to share the most memorable moment of a pretty awesome Donnie Yen movie: Fist of Legend - The Return Chen Zhen. He reprises the role made famous by Bruce Lee (in Fist of Fury) and Jet Li (in Fist of Legend), showing that the folk hero Chen Zhen did survive and fought with the French in World War I. Most of the movie takes place in China after the war where Chen Zhen becomes a masked vigilante, but the WWI action is so crazy, it's got to be this week's KFF Moment:

Who needs a gun, right?

Wear those poppies proudly.

Holiday Snaps: Halloween Villains

As promised, here are costume pictures from this year's Halloween party. Or should I say partIES. There was a phenomenon at work this year that I call Schrodinger's Party, in which two crowds fail to mix properly. Simply put, there were the people who understood the costumes below, and then there were the people who didn't. Even when explained. The theme was Villains. I will only report on the geeky ones.

Star TrekHere's mine. True to mine own self, I went for something obscure, but easy to conjure up. I was Mirror Spock during the mirror events of City on the Edge of Forever, which I imagine would have happened to the Mirror crew too, and as in our universe, Edith Keeler must die. In this case, however, Mirror Spock was driving the truck.

Doctor Who
Isabelle score a lot of points by coming as a creepy Weeping Angel. Gah! Don't blink, guys.

Comics
My favorite comic book-related costume has to be Marty's as MODOK. Dude cut off his entire body just to make it work!
Ludger came as the Riddler chilling at a ski lodge. He's been playing a LOT of Arkham City lately. That's all I can hear coming from the downstairs appartment.
Renée went for Roxy, one of the evil exes from Scott Pilgrim. She went and won herself a prize for sexiest costume too (but the competition was fierce, as you'll see.)
And Julien came in a pretty cool homemade Shredder costume. Cleverly done when you look at it closely.

Gaming
Speaking of clever, St-Pierre came as the fabled grue from the old computer text game, Zork. As the Weeping Angel's boyfriend, they made a particularly terrifying duo in the dark.
Furn was there as Punch-Out's King Hippo, doing the complete opposite of last year's gorilla suited Robot Monster.

Movies and TV
So while the sexy votes ultimately came down in favor of Roxy, mine probably went to Nath and Josée as Kill Bill's Gogo and Elle, respectively. I mean, COME ON!
And here's Isabel's Carmen Sandiego, elusively slumming it in other people's pictures (here with evil goth doll Amelie). Never could capture Carmen alone in the frame.
At one point, I caught Statler and Waldorf on the balcony (where else?) as incarnated by Xavier and Fred. We did need someone to laugh at the *other* crowd.

So that was our Halloween, just a quantum step away from another one where they broke a kitchen table, the one that was crashed by three guys in morphsuits for all of 10 minutes, and where being a Villain apparently involved an "evil" make-up job and absolutely no concept. I'm sure they had fun, in their own way, but we can't know unless we open Schrodinger's Party and that would ruin the experiment.

Reign of the Supermen #376: Frankenstein's Superman

Source: Superman & Batman: Generations #2 (1999)
Type: Elseworlds/Red K TransformationHey! Have a happy Amalgoween everyone!

(See also the Superman Monster.)

Al, Who Am I?

I've thought of another connection between my life and Scott Bakula that I really should have put in the Intersect article last week, because we're a week away from Halloween and it's a Halloween story.One of my favorite Halloween "costumes" of all time was to dress up as myself from 3 years prior (very easy to do since I don't change my wardrobe much) and talk to my imaginary friend Al all night. I was Sam Beckett who'd Quantum Leaped into me at that time to prevent an improv tournament from being ruined by a certain nemesis of mine.

Obscure? Kind of. Meta? Yeah, that's definitely how I roll.

Next week? The party's theme is villains and I have (as usual) no costume. I thought about going as myself, but I'm just not evil enough. Maybe I can pull off the Evil Leaper.

Born on a Monday

Sometimes, it's just about catching Solomon Grundy in his birthday suit.



Labor Day Low Content from Infinity Inc. #39 (1987)

Reign of the Supermen #267: Super-Skunk

Source: Captain Carrot and the Final Ark #1 (2007)
Type: Pastiche/Alternate Earth/Cosplay(?)Happy Bastille Day, Frenchies!

I promise I looked for Reign's French Connection, but the only thing I could come up with was making a snarky reference to Pepé Le Pew. The worst thing is, I'm not even sure Super-Skunk is a proper Superman. Looks like he's just a skunk cosplaying Super-Squirrel at the Sandy Eggo Comic-Con. Oh well.

Oh. Oh my. With a little more research, I just found out Super-Skunk is a marijuana reference.
Shame on you, Bill Morrison and/or Scott Shaw! Guess I'll have to live with the Google hits...

My Comics Sign

Recently, blogging buddy Michael May revealed that he was born under the sign of the Underwater Triceratops (of COURSE!). How? Thanks to the power of the Comics Time Machine, a search engine that throws up every comic published on any given month since 1935. I immediately checked what my own "sign" would be, but waited until my birth date to post it. Here's how I derived it (and how you can too). Input the month and year of your birth, this will throw up the comics cover-dated for your birth month. Choose your favorite or the one you find most appropriate to you (any criteria will do). This is your main Sign. Mine is the Giant Lois.Geeks born under this sign a prone to falling for strong women who could break them in half (otherwise known as She-Hulkophilia), but are generally unable to get them to reciprocate. Giant Loises are generally curious about the world around them and do not fear ridicule, so long as it is on their own terms.

Now, at the top of that page is a link to comics ON SALE during your birth month. Click that and make a second choice as you did the first. This is your ASCENDANT, a secondary sign that has a strong influence on you, especially during your upbringing. Mine is the Iron Maiden.
Geeks born with Iron Maiden ascendant are likely to feel trapped by their circumstance and yearn to escape them. Issues with parental figures (Grannies especially) abound, but once released from the home, Iron Maidens will more fully develop into their true Sign.

What are YOUR signs?

Reign of the Supermen #254: Canadian Superman

Source: FreakingNews.com Photoshop contest (late 2000s?)
Type: Fan madeHappy Canada Day!

Doctor Who: Rating the Victorian Episodes

So what is it with Doctor Who and Victoriana? There are actually many reasons why the show and the era (1837–1901) go well together, and consequently, why the former would return to the latter relatively frequently. First is the inherent Britishness of both. All of Europe had Middle Ages and a Renaissance, but only the Brits were every "Victorians", a setting made popular through the surviving literature of the time - Dickens' London and Sherlock Holmes, for example. As Doctor Who is inherently British, it may seek to revel in that Britishiness (consciously or not) by doing "British things" (cue flying double-decker bus). And note that it's not until Who became a phenomenon abroad (during the 4th Doctor's tenure) that Victorian episodes starting appearing regularly. We should also not dismiss the debt the show owes to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, about a Victorian gentlemen who travels through time. The look of the 8th Doctor's TARDIS is in fact, VERY Victorian. Another reason, and probably the most convincing, is that the BBC produced loads of Victorian TV through Dickens adaptations and the like. Set dressers knew the era like the backs of their hands, and was probably as easy to set something in the late 1880s than something in contemporary England. The Doctor's costume would usually fit the era anyway (even if better suited to the Edwardian era that followed it). Because of this natural relationship, Victorian Doctor Who episodes have enjoyed a certain measure of success thanks to high production values and the cast and crew's affinity for the material.

But let's look at (and rank) those stories...

11. Timelash (6th Doctor and Peri)
Regarded as one of the very worst Doctor Who stories of all time (if not THE very worst), Timelash mostly takes place on a tatty alien planet, but that planet is somehow linked to H.G. Wells - The Early Years. Yes, Doctor Who inspired The Time Machine and not the other way around. But perhaps you'd prefer to think of Herbert Wells as a distant cousin of the author instead, so as to excuse the silly characterization. I know they didn't have Wikipedia in those days, but still!

10. Attack of the Graske (10th Doctor and You)
Not really a full story, this interactive Christmas tidbit allowed you and your trusty remote control to help the Doctor save Christmas (today and in Victorian times) from the diminutive Graske who has been kidnapping people from their Holiday cheer. The only reason for the Victoriana is because Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, which ties the Victorian era with Christmas for all time. A slim tale indeed.

9. The Ultimate Foe (6th Doctor and Mel)
The tail end of the Trial of a Time Lord story/season features a virtual reality in the Matrix that looks and feels just like the Victorian era. Why? Available locations and sets, that's why. There's a an amusing Victorian bureaucrat, and that's about it.

8. Horror of Fang Rock (4th Doctor and Leela)
Set at the very end of the Victorian era (and arguably a couple years beyond it), this Gothic tale of an alien doppelganger serial killing a group of Victorian characters in a lighthouse has a lot going for it, including our first (and only) look at the Sontarans' blood (slime?) enemies, the Rutans. Ok, maybe not "going for it"... Well, the principals are good and the Doctor gets to be very, very wrong.

7. Tooth and Claw (10th Doctor and Rose)
While T&C has a gorgeous werewolf and Queen Victoria herself, we have to wonder what RTD was thinking when he included martial artist monks doing Matrix moves. What ultimately keeps the episode in the back half, however, is cocky, cocky Rose completely off-tone, making light of dramatic, Gothic events.

6. The Next Doctor (10th Doctor and Jackson Lake)
The Doctor(s) must save Victorian Christmas once again, complete with a Dickensian sweatshop run by Cybermen. The story wins us over with the tragic story of Jackson Lake, and by teasing us with the possibility of his being a future incarnation of the Doctor. Lots of laughs and tears to be had, and an interesting human villain in Mercy Hartigan. It falls apart when the giant Cyberman attacks London, of course.

5. The Evil of the Daleks (2nd Doctor, Jaime and Victoria)
The only Victorian story of the black and white era (we can't count The Gunfighters because it takes place in America). Most episodes of Evil have been lost to us, but there's no denying this story was BIG: A new Victorian companion called Victoria joins the cast (soon seen in mini-skirts), a Victorian time machine made from mirrors, Who's very first friendly Daleks, and the "final end" of the Daleks far in the future. The bits we do have (including the whole audio) confirm this BIGness.

4. The Unquiet Dead (9th Doctor and Rose)
How much more Dickensian can you get than to visit Dickens himself? Well, you can make it the Holiday season and have him on tour reading A Christmas Carol, then have the story be about "ghosts". To make it extra Victorian, the Doctor holds a seance. This is Rose's first trip to the past, which is rendered beautifully. It MEANS something to her, and thus, to us. The guest cast is excellent, introducing us to Eve Myles in the process.

3. Ghost Light (7th Doctor and Ace)
Some might take me to task on this one, as Ghost Light is a polarizing story in Who fandom. Yes, it's opaque and mystifying. You're not always sure what the hell's going on, and it only slowly unlocks its secrets to you after multiple viewings (if at all). Some call it complete hogwash. But to me, it's really about the Victorian experience. Repressed emotion and sexuality threatening to violently come out from under a veneer of civilized manners. We've got a Conradian explorer that's gone mad. We've got the new Theory of Evolution as the basis for a dark and moody story. We've got Ace confronting her past and the things she won't talk about. We've even got a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria. Yes, it's bizarre and literate, but I do love it.

2. A Christmas Carol (11th Doctor, Amy and Rory)
The most recent Christmas special is the best such special ever, and arguably one of the best Doctor Who stories ever, but is it Victorian? Sure, it happens on another planet, but it's really Victorian London. As such, it deserves to be on this list, a poignant and clever twist on the ultimate Dickens story.

1. The Talons of Weng-Chiang (4th Doctor and Leela)
Still the gold standard for Doctor Who Victoriana (if not for Classic Doctor Who stories, period), Talons has the Doctor acting as Sherlock Holmes, Leela as Eliza Doolittle, mysterious murders in dark, foggy alleys, a theater featuring mentalists, and the Yellow Menace. It's Robert Holmes' masterpiece. Witty, dark and cinematic, it has also given us the most beloved double act in all of Who. Still wonderful after all these years, and it reeks of the Victorian era.

After this little census, we might be surprised that fewer than a dozen stories have specifically taken place in the Victorian era, but the Victorian aura of Hinchcliffe and Holmes' "Gothic" aesthetic, the near-Victorian look of many Edwardian stories (Pyramids of Mars, Black Orchid, The Unicorn and the Wasp, etc.), and the fact that many extracanonical stories have taken place there (the comics just finished a Jack the Ripper arc) add to the overall feeling that Who and Queen Vic are joined at the hip. It's only a matter of time before Matt Smith's Doctor actually sets foot in those seven key decades.

Reign of the Supermen #215: Superman as Queen Victoria

Source: Oedipus in Disneyland: Queen Victoria's Reincarnation as Superman by Hercules Molloy, Paranoid Press (1972)
Type: AmalgamDo you know how hard it is to find a Superman that's suitable for both Amalgamondays AND Victoria Day? Well, the fine team at the SBG (that's me and a cat at present... and not to point fingers, but the cat didn't do much) has managed it! With probably the strangest item you'll ever find in Reign. The book's synopsis cribbed from the Internet goes like this:

"Clark Kent discovers the truth about Alice in Wonderland - it's actually Queen Victoria's pornographic autobiography - then he has an LSD freakout at Disneyland, becomes Queen Victoria, and kills all the Disney characters."

The book is apparently filled with repurposed art from the Alice books and clinical drawings of female body parts used as maps of Wonderland. I'm not judging author Hercules Malloy, because it seems to be a pen name, and no one know who he really is. I'm not judging Paranoid Press either, because this is their only publication. It's like the whole damn thing came from a parallel universe.

I'm only a serendipitous collector of rare books, and when I say rare books, I don't mean pricey first editions, I mean this kind of stuff. So perhaps one day it'll grace my shelves and I'll take it out to show friends, reverently, behind closed doors. In the meantime, have a repressed Victoria Day!

Reign of the Supermen #186: Superman Reborn

Source: Superman: The Man of Steel #25 to Superman vol.2 #82 (1993)
Type: The real dealHe was the first comic book superhero, so perhaps it comes with the territory, but Superman's always been more than a little Old School. The boy scout ethic, growing up on a farm, working for a NEWSPAPER, for Pete's sake.

The Death of Superman, then, becomes necessary for him to be reborn in the anti-Old School 90s. I mean, look at the 90s trappings when he is resurrected: First replaced by "badass" or "trendy" heroes in a series of interlocking "events", then returns in a black costume (oooh, dark!), long hair (oooh, fashion!) and, yes, GUNS (oooh, gritty!).
Only the haircut would last, but still, how symbolic is THAT!

And speaking of losing the black costume... I bet it could have stayed, but it just wasn't durable enough.
And it made Superman more graphically violent. Maybe it was Venom's cousin?

The 90s... One thing I hope is never resurrected. Happy Easter!