Andy Wood

OK, so you were opening your packs at the Conflux prerelease, and staring you in the face was the bomb of all bombs.

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

His cost: 4UBBR.  You thought: isn’t that really expensive?  Of course, he’s a really big dragon.  Ten thousand years old or something, right?  Then you noticed his abilities:

“+3: Destroy target noncreature permanent.”  Destroy target noncreature permanent?  That’s huge!  Land destruction on a stick, or blow up Bitterblossom, or anything else that isn’t a creature.  Only problem is that it doesn’t touch creatures.

“-2: Gain control of target creature.”  Not until EOT, just “gain control.”  It sticks!  That’s even, well, huger!  So this dragon dude can mess with everything.  On the board at least.

“-9: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker deals 7 damage to target player.  That player discards seven cards, then sacrifices seven permanents.”  Whoa!

Not only did we have an awesome turn out for our first pre-release of Magic the Gatherings latest release,

but, the new planeswalker described above was pulled by Matt P.

Matt P. is also the same person here too.

A big thanks to Geoff Jolliff who passed this along.

Have you ever wonders how the Galatica compared to the Galaxy class starship from Star Trek?

Now you can , lots of other ships in the above image too.

I will seldom do any R.I.P’s as they bum me out, but Star Trek has been one of my favorite genres.  Seeing Ricardo Montalban reprise his role from The Original Series was about the best move in the trek movies ever!

Hands down, I think that if it wasn’t for this movie, Star Trek might have died out.

Andy, “GamersCircle”

Caller, “Hi”

Andy, “Hi”

Caller, “Did you get that Superman comic with Obama on the cover?”

Andy, “That would be Amazing Spider-man”

Caller, “What?”

Andy, “The comic book that has Obama on the cover.””

Caller, “yeah.. okay, What ever.  Did you get it in?”

Andy, “Sorry, we didn’t get any in.”

Caller, “Can you please hold one for me?”

Andy, “Hi – sorry, but we did not get any of the Amazing Spider-man #583 with Obama on the cover”

Caller, “What?”

Andy, “Sorry, but we did not get any of the Amazing Spider-man #583 with Obama on the cover”

Caller, “Will you be getting in later on this week?”

Andy, “New comics only come once a week.”

Caller, “Really?”

Andy, “Yes, but we are taking pre-orders for the 2nd printing, which should arrive by the 21st if you are interested.”

Caller, “2nd printing?  What does that mean?”

Andy, “Often comic book companies will make another print run, but with a different cover due to the popularity of a particular comic.”

Caller, “Okay, can you hold one of those for me?”

Andy, “Sorry, but we are not doing holds and you must pre-pay”

Caller, “What?  You will not hold the comic for me?”

Andy, “Sorry, we do not do holds, but if you want to come into the store and pre-order/pre-pay for the 2nd printing.  We will hold that one for you.”

Caller, " Okay.. see you in a little bit”

Andy, “Okay , hope to see you soon.”

 

The above conversation has taken place about 25 times since about 9am today.

I never really thought about it, it always made it easier in finding something when it would auto complete my search phrase for me.  Today, I found out this:

When you type in ‘gamerscircle’ , google does an auto complete for ‘gamers circle comics’, just about the coolest thing today.

Firstly… I am not addicted to the Internet, but it is a tool that I use in my business, so I need it to do my work.  There are tools in my business that need to connect via the Internet to do things.

Tuesday night when I closed up and went home, both the the phone and the Internet worked just fine.

Then on Wednesday, when I got in.  I was getting prepped for New Comics days and I noticed that I wasn’t able to get out to the internet and occasionally my router or DSL modem will take a nap and I have to do some power cycling to get it all back to normal.

The usual power on and power off didn’t work, the next step was to call AT&T and let them know, but guess what?  The phone didn’t have a dial tone, ever after unplugging and re-plugging the cords in.

Using the back up phone (aka the cell phone), I put in a trouble call to AT&T and was told that someone would be out the next day between 8am and noon.

The dude didn’t show up until about 11:30 and no matter what this “tech” did, he was not able to get dial tone on the business line.  The phone line that we use to process credit cards and for faxing worked fine though.

Long story short!  This poor excuse for an old man said that a new line was going to have to be laid and that when “they do it”, they will not do ceiling tiles and yadda.. yadda… yadda.

So I said, “Look… give me the wire and come back in one hour”

With in that hour, I had the new wire strung and ready to be punched down to be all manipulated.

Then.. the DSL filter wasn’t allowing dial tone through and he had to get a new one of those too.

So.. 1/2 into my day, I am back online and catching up.

I haven’t been all that happy with my results of video on Youtube, so I took the same video that I put on youtube:

and then converted to a higher quality in MP4 format.

Error – You must you upgrade your flash player to see this video

Context
A watched pot never boils.  I don’t know how applicable this advice is to comics since you must actually look at an issue to read it but Straczynski’s Thor does bring to mind this old proverb.  With Issue #12, JMS continues to supply heat to his carefully arranged plot by providing us with his take on the classic “villain definition” issue.

Story
What occupies a villain’s time while he is not trading quips and/or blows with his mortal enemy?  John Byrne addressed this question with flair in the classic Fantastic Four #258.  This time we see a glimpse into the mechanizations of Loki.  JMS does in issue #12 what I have been hoping for in these last few months – he is showing me a little light at the end of this long tunnel. 

The dialogue and pacing are smooth and natural.  Motivations are all in place and these characters are acting…well, in character.  We see a connecting of several plot lines delved into in previous issues.  Interestingly enough however, I did not even consider these plotlines, as they were flashbacks.  Loki now prominently figures in not only Odin’s origin story but his own as well.  There is nothing like a good use of time travel in a story about mythological beings.  JMS does a great job of mixing his comic book forces here.

Thor’s absence in this issue was so well done I didn’t even realize it until the last page or so.  JMS isn’t trying to reinvent his characters, just their environments.  This was Walt Simonson’s recipe for success with Thor back in the eighties. 

Art
I am so glad that we are near the beginning of Oliver Coipel’s (House of M, The Avengers) career.   This means that we have a more decidedly beautiful comic book future on our hands. 

His lines are clear and panels uncluttered.  His figures and faces are solid and expressive.  He places his characters in environments that match their inner power or vice.  For one, Coipel has redefined Thor’s face.  I think for the first time, you could differentiate Thor from other long haired strong types.  I really appreciate Marvel’s use of this great talent on a book that some might not consider to be a flagship title.

What to look for
There is an excellent visual for Hela in this story.  I am not sure how the credit for this should be divided between artist and writer but the mistress of Hel is given a most menacing appearance by subtraction rather than by addition.  She is a well-done, visual gem to seek out in this issue.

What might put you off
Marvel’s continued use of the “pin-up” cover.  Although beautifully rendered by Coipel, you could easily confuse this cover with most of the others produced for this title since its relaunch.

Recommendation
Thor should be on your monthly pull list

Credits 

Title	Thor
Issue	12 (599)
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Release Date	12/24/2008
Writer	J. Michael Stracynski
Penciler	Oliver Coipel
Inker	Mark Morales
Colorist	Laura Martin
Letterer	Chris Eliopoulos
Assistant Editor	Alejandro Arbona
Editor	Warren Simons
Editor in Chief	Joe Quesada
Publisher	Dan Buckley
Cover Pencils	Oliver Coipel
Cover Inks	Mark Morales
Cover Colors	Laura Martin
Reviewed by	Geoff Jolliff

Delayed news will no longer be acceptable for early adopters, who will gravitate to the quickest sources of news, wherever they may be. As tools like Twitter Search and FriendFeed real-time offer people to rapidly broadcast their updates, reactions and news with true immediacy, a segment of the population will adopt these real-time sources and favor them ahead of delayed or filtered engines, including RSS, and of course, edited mass media.

At the same time, while many of us early adopters may be fairly noisy about this development, they will remain in the significant minority, even as the mainstream becomes more aware of these options.