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What does 2009 hold?

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Well another year has come and gone in what feels like the blink of an eye. How does this always happen? Even when you try to slow down, take it easy, and enjoy things, they manage to rush past you anyway. Well, 2008 was a pretty good year. I'm not about to sit here and count down the Top 10 Best [Insert Category Here] of 2008; I'll leave that to Oprah, Barbara Walters and their ilk. Nor will I list a number of resolutions I don't intend to stick to. So heave a sigh of relief.

Instead, I'm just giving you a few things to look forward to in the year 2009. Here's what I'll be watching out for in the new year:

  • The return of Smallville - Two weeks from tomorrow, the CW's Smallville will return to the airwaves with what promises to be a story of epic proportions. DC Comics writer Geoff Johns has penned an episode entitled "Legion" that will introduce the Legion of Super-Heroes to Smallville continuity. It should be amazing. If you don't watch the show, you are missing out big-time!
  • The DTV transition - Okay, so I'm a dork. Sue me. As someone who has never had cable at home and doesn't really care, I'm looking forward to this. I've had my converter boxes set up for a few months now, and let me say wow! First off, I had no idea broadcast television could look and sound so amazing! It's quite a thing. Second, I get some very interesting digital channels that I didn't have before. It's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to new channels once the switch is complete.
  • Watchmen, Star Trek & Terminator: Salvation - These movies top the lists of most geeks this year. How much awesome can one year contain? We shall see. Recently I was disappointed to hear that Watchmen will not end the same way the graphic novel did, but I still really want to see it. Star Trek, while also straying from its source material, also has me excited. Terminator, on the other hand, is an original story, so I look forward to seeing where they take the franchise.
  • Superman: Secret Origin and The Blackest Night - It's a coincidence that both of these comic book events are written by Geoff Johns and that they will both be awesome. Oh wait. That's not a coincidence at all! Johns is the best writer in the business right now. I really believe that. The former is supposed to be the definitive origins story for the Man of Steel. It will help DC out of any corners they may have written themselves into. The latter will be a Green Lantern story dealing with the fundamentals of good versus evil. Such an epic year for comics!
Well that about sums things up. Obviously there's a lot more I'm looking forward to, including Heroes, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and catching up on shows like Supernatural and most of, if not all of the Whedonverse. So stay tuned, it's going to be one hell of a year.

Also, make sure to check back here at frankramblings.tk and over at frankpodcast.tk for a VERY exciting announcement in two weeks. It could mean very big things for the future of Frank's Music Free-For-All!

Happy New Year and God bless you all in 2009 and beyond!

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Stop blending Superman with Batman!

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Recently, there has been a disturbing trend in the world of DC Comics: the powers that be are trying to turn Superman in Batman and vice versa. Allow me to explain myself. I am LOVING the New Krypton story currently going on in the Superman family of comics. I'm not currently reading Batman comics because, honestly, I'm on a college budget. I can only really afford to read the stuff I really love, and for me that's Superman. However, I do keep up on what's happening in Batman through other sources such as Wikipedia, IGN, Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, and other geektastic websites.

For those of you living under a rock, Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman recently disappeared from the Batman family of comics following a story called Batman R.I.P. Here's a summary of the ending as I understand it. Batman encountered one Dr. Hurt who claimed to actually be Dr. Thomas Wayne, Bruce's supposedly dead father. At the end of the issue, Batman and Dr. Hurt/Wayne disappear in a helicopter explosion, not to be seen again by anyone for the foreseeable future.

Okay, so they did a death of Batman story. That happens a lot these days. The only problem is what comes next. I read in last week's "DC Nation", a column in the back of DC comic books discussing upcoming projects in the DC Universe, that the Batman family of books is being canceled while they show the effects of Batman's death. This means Robin, Nightwing, Birds of Prey, Batman, and Detective Comics are all being shelved (for now). Also, they'll be doing a series called Battle for the Cowl, in which there will most likely be a fight to see who takes on the role of Batman in Bruce Wayne's absence.

The problem I have with this is that it's almost a direct copy of what happened in the aftermath of the 1992-93 Death of Superman story. After the Man of Steel's defeat at the hands of the monster Doomsday, there was a story entitled Funeral for a Friend. These showed the rest of the world - superheroes and mere mortals like - and their reactions to the death of the greatest hero they had ever known. Following this, no Superman titles were published for a couple of months. The idea behind that was to scare readers into thinking Superman really was dead for good and that he wouldn't be returning. After that came Reign of the Supermen, a time in which 4 imposters claimed to be the real Superman back from the dead, and the world (both in and out of the comics) was undecided as to which one was the true Metropolis Marvel. It turned out none of them were, and the original Superman finally re-appeared after several months off the scene.

So DC has run out of ideas for Batman. How long can you have a guy be "dark" (whatever that really means) and run around striking terror into the hearts of criminals while stopping the seemingly daily jailbreaks at Arkham Asylum? I guess they decided it was time for the Caped Crusader to die for a while so people would miss him and clamor for his return, just as they did with Superman some 15 or 16 years ago. Now I know it's not cool to like Superman right now, because as many a fanboy has told me, "Batman is dark!" but I don't really care. I'm a Superman fan through and through and I say this is desperation on DC's part. It's a shame to see them wasting the talent of a great writer like Grant Morrison on such a derivative story. He dies, his books get cancelled, everyone misses him, he comes back, sales go through the roof for a few months, and Dan DiDio laughs all the way to the bank.

This reminds me of a story from a few months back when it was announced that the Superman film franchise would get a reboot (I believe the exact word was "reintroduce") in the wake of The Dark Knight's rousing success. While I loved TDK, I was not pleased when I heard that Warner Bros. wanted to show the darker side of Superman. HUGE MISTAKE! Superman is NOT a dark character. Superman is a symbol of hope! He is supposed to be the beacon that we all want to follow. He has his faults, sure, but that's part of Clark Kent. Superman is as American as white picket fences and apple pie, to paraphrase Superman: The Movie director Richard Donner. You can't make him into a morally gray guy with cool cars and gadgets. That's Batman. It works for Batman. Doesn't work for Superman. They're different characters. They can complement each other when they're used together in a story, but you can't mix them together and see what you get. Am I alone on this? I can't be. Leave me a comment and let's discuss!

Let me end by quoting, from memory, mind you, the introduction to the 1950's Adventures of Superman TV series starring George Reeves. I think this sums up Superman's essence:

Faster than a speeding bullet!
More powerful than a locomotive!
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!
Look! Up in the sky!
It's a bird!
It's a plane!
It's SUPERMAN!
Yes, it's Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men!
Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great Metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way!
Wow. That was such a huge part of my childhood that just typing it gave me chills. What say you? Don't be shy. Use the comment box!

< /rant>

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So much to see!

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With the fall semester drawing to a close and the only two shows I watch regularly (Smallville and Heroes) going on hiatus, I'm going to be missing my regularly-scheduled entertainment fix over the Christmas break. I've been hearing a lot about Joss Whedon's ill-fated Firefly series and its acompanying film Serenity. Friends have told me I need to see it, but I lacked the interest and - more importantly - the time required to watch it. That's where the internet steps in. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog formally introduced me to the mind of Joss Whedon. After enjoying that as much as I did I decided I'd add Firefly and Serenity to my mental "To Be Watched" list. Then Aaron and Will over at the Axed podcast did an entire episode on Firefly/Serenity this week. Also, as most of you know, I've been addicted to Twitter for over a month now. It's an amazing site that you need to check out if you haven't already. I've been talking to lots of very cool people there. Late last week, I started talking to the hosts of the Chic Geek Podcast. I listened to all of their episodes in a matter of three days and enjoyed them immensely. Faith and Ky are really funny and made me genuinely interested in checking out a few things I've been holding off on. I think I'm going to do a full review of their show as part of my all-but-abandoned "Podcastin' " ongoing blog post series, so be on the lookout for that. Aside from giving me the final push towards watching Firefly/Serenity, the Chic Geek girls have convinced me to look into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its popular spin-off Angel, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (T:SCC), which is supposed to be the best show on television right now, according to Faith, as well as Steve and Derek of SHoE (who also run a Sarah Connor Chronicles podcast called SkyNext).

So I'll be keeping quite busy over this break. Of course I hope to be working; in fact I need to remember to call my place of summer employ tomorrow to make sure they still need me over Christmas. However, if that goes through, I usually work early in the day, from 7am-3pm. That leaves plenty of time each day for catching up on good TV. Of course to watch T:SCC, I need to see the Terminator films, which I'm ashamed to say I've never seen. I know. Go on, ostracize me. But before you do, know that I watched The Terminator mere moments before writing this post and LOVED it. I'm going to get started on Terminator 2 in just a few minutes. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines isn't directly related to T:SCC, so I'll probably put off watching that until after I'm all caught up with everything else. I've only got a month of freedom to watch 7+ years' worth of TV and movies, so I don't want to waste my time.

Here's the order in which I plan to watch all this stuff. If you have any suggestions for how I might amend it, feel free to comment.

  • Terminator -- DONE
  • Terminator 2 -- DONE
  • Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles --SEASON 1 DONE, S2 IN PROGRESS
  • Firefly
  • Serenity
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Angel
NOTE: Edited to reflect the completion of items on the To-Watch list.

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So Much To Watch!

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I have so much stuff to watch these days. Tons of movies and complete TV series are on my external hard drive waiting for me to come along and click on them. It's just a matter of finding the time to do so. Off the top of my head, I've got Get Smart, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (movie), the Back to the Future trilogy, The Fugitive, The Dark Knight, Wall-E, Iron Man, 1408. And that's just movies. Now granted, I've seen some of those already, but I have been meaning to watch them again. If you wanna look at TV, there's Bill Nye the Science Guy, Legion of Superheroes and Superboy. That's a lot. Bill Nye alone is 100 episodes. It's amazing that I'm ever bored with this huge backlog of viewing material. Oh well. I'll get around to all of it eventually. Of course by the time I watch all of that, I'll have tons more to see. There are just so many movies and shows out there that I really want to see. It's tough to balance that with going to school and work and having a life. Any suggestions as to what I should add to my To Watch list? What are you watching these days?

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The Awesome and the Not-So-Awesome

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First, the not-so-awesome:
I have to to work in a minute, so I'll keep this short. I didn't have a great morning. Mostly for one big reason. I turned on my laptop to find that the bottom one-third of the screen was all messed up. The colors were all washed out and there were what I can only describe as rows and rows of seemingly dead pixels. I tried touching the LCD screen or lightly slapping the side and bottom of the computer, and I would get a proper display for a second, but then it would fade back to the way it was. I brought it to the Laptop Shop on campus (thank God for those guys) and the guy who helped me said that they would need to ship it out to IBM because, as he and I both agreed, it appeared that the video card needed to be replaced. So I asked him if there were any loaner laptops available, and he got me one. It's pretty old, maybe 4 or 5 years, and slow. 500mb RAM w/ Intel Centrino. Yeah. That's a bad thing, in case you didn't know. At least this time I have a replacement computer, unlike the time my battery died and my charger broke in the same week. Yeah. And that was finals week. Finals - Laptop = Hell. So I am grateful that they were able to hook me up this time. In theory, I'll be reunited with my Lappy in 7-10 business days, but you never know. I tend to think it'll be at least 2 weeks. We'll see. 

And now for the awesome:


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