News for the Week of June 4, 2008
Rick’s Writin’s
Last night CBS, wanting to cash in on the popularity of Mixed Martial
Arts fighting, broadcast the first major network prime time fight card
for MMA. The card was gender equal too as one of the fights featured women
and turned out to be one of the best matched fights of the night. I've
seen a bit of MMA previously, and have followed boxing regularly, watching
hundreds of fights for over thirty years. Boxing is not without its controversial
moments and last nights MMA fight card was no exception, according to
the commentators and writer/bloggers (bloggers?? MSN reported on the card
using a blogger. Whatever). Seems they took exception to the stoppage
of street brawler Kimbo Slice's fight with some British guy named James
"Colossus" Thompson, and a previous fight in which one of the
fighters almost had his eye poked out (They don't use boxing gloves, these
gloves have the fingers poking through). The crowd booed and the commentators
lost it because Kimbo's fight was stopped after 5 very hard unanswered
punches to Thompson's head, including one that broke open a nasty cauliflower
ear that Thompson had, with blood all over, but before he had Colossus
on the floor looking for his teeth. In boxing, stoppages are meant to
save the fighter from permanent harm, and this was a good stoppage by
boxing terms. But, this is a sport where knees and elbows to the head
are legal and just about anything else is too. There are a few rules,
mostly having to do with when the fighter’s on the ground, though
they can't head butt either (a cheap shot in any kind of fight, just above
one to the jewels in terms of lowly cowardly punkassed fighting). I was
dismayed though that the crowd and commentary completely disregarded safety
of the fighters. They felt the guy with the poked eye should be allowed
to continue, and he very definitely wanted to, despite the ringside doctor
saying no, and that Slice's fight should've gone on until Thompson or
Slice were planted face first on the mat. . All in all it was an interesting
and pretty exciting fight night, but I think that the potential for somebody
to be hurt badly is far greater than boxing if the mindset of the folks
that run and follow this sport is truly as bloodthirsty as I saw last
night. I'm not talking about the fighters, they were all very honorable
and showed good sportsmanship. The marital arts are supposed to be about
honor and mix of mind and body. I'm dismayed that the MMA fighting provoked
the crowd the way it did and the commentators and writers after showed
absolutely no class in commenting on the "controversial" stoppages.
Now that that's out of the way, it's another big week for comics including
the start of two high profile projects. The first is DC's Trinity, a new
weekly book featuring the Big Three in DC Superheroes: Blue Beetle, Booster
Gold and The Atom.... what? no? Okay, it's really Batman Superman and
Wonder Woman. This book will show how these three work together and give
some insight on how they feel about one another. It's kind of like Superman/Batman
with Wonder Woman thrown into the mix. There will also be back-up features
in this title. As of right now I don't know how long DC plans to run this
one. There's no set time frame or big event tied to it as of yet, that
I know of, so it seems DC just wants to have a weekly book going. They've
done well so far, so I hope it keeps our interest. Other DC for me: Justice
Society (#16), with the gang fighting GOG (maybe) in the on-going Kingdom
Come sequel, and Detective (#845) by Paul Dini and featuring a murder
mystery with the Riddler involved, and the return of Manhunter (#31).
I like that she's back as she's been a good character in Birds of Prey,
though I don't agree on staying with the old issue numbering after well
over a year being gone. In this case, why not re-launch with a #1?
On Marvel's side, they are launching the book that is the tell all of
how the Ultimate Universe got started with the Ultimate Origins (#1 of
5) mini series. I've always thought that the Ultimate Universe was originally
supposed to be stories aimed at all ages, making them kid friendly and
worry free for parents, but then came Ultimates, which was very definitely
not meant for kids. I don't read much Marvel as most of you know, but
I'll pick up this one. Seems like it may be a good starting point for
reading Ultimate titles. Secret Invasion (#3) also arrives this week,
meaning if I don't hurry I'll be three issues back on that. I like to
read Marvel's big events, even if only to keep up on shop talk and Marvel
happenings. Invincible Iron Man (#2) is back and has me hoping that the
sales on this book keep going as they did for the first issue. There's
was quite a difference between Invincible Iron Man's numbers and the Iron
Man: Director of SHIELD title. Readers...was Invincible really good or
does IM:DOS stink?, or somewhere in between? Please let me know. Lastly,
I have to mention Buffy (#15) leading up to her confrontation with Fray,
and Stephen King's Dark Tower (#4 of 5) too. Have a good week, things
are back on track so see you Wednesday for the new books!
Paula’s Picks
We’ve got a whole bunch of big books this week! Rick’s already
mentioned those, so I’ll talk about some of the smaller books. Smaller
in quantity, but not smaller in quality.
We’re getting Fables volume 10 trade paperback in this week. This
book collects issues 60 through 69 and focuses on Flycatcher. It was a
great story (as they always are) and if you’ve been thinking about
switching from trade paperbacks to monthly issues, now’s the time!
Issue 73 just came out last week, so you’ve only got a couple of
issues to catch up to the war! It seems like the Fables have a good, sound
plan for winning the war, but it seems the Adversary is starting to figure
out their plan, so it could go either way!
House of Mystery #2 ships this week as well. I read the first issue and
it was really creepy! It’s written by Matthew Sturges and Bill Willingham,
so if you like Fables, Jack of Fables or Shadowpact, you should give this
one a try. This issue features a story with art by Jill Thompson! She’s
one of my favorite artists!
Another book we’re getting in is one I’ve been meaning to
read for a while. The book is called Proof and it’s about a woman
that joins the FBI’s cryptozoological division. Her partner is Bigfoot
and her first case involves a chupacabra (goatsucker) and Elvis. Aren’t
you intrigued? I know I am!
I also wanted to talk about a book we got last week that I think many
of you may have overlooked due to the large number of titles we got in.
That book is Marvel 1985. By Mark Millar. Mark. Millar. This book is about
how the Marvel characters find a way to travel into our universe in 1985.
It will tie into Fantastic Four, Wolverine and Kickass (all written by
Millar).