Flaming Bear Powers?

This week was a really great week for comics. After a somewhat disappointing week last week, it was pretty exciting that I had seven new issues and I enjoyed nearly all of them. So just for fun, I'm gonna give you a quick recap of them all. First up we had...

Ultimate Comics: X-Men #23
This is one title I've been struggling with a bit lately. It's become more of a political book and less about the X-Men. I understand that they've gone a new direction with the Ultimate Marvel line, but it's just been somewhat boring for a while now. This issue was a little different. It was sort of a background story with a bit of recap. Nothing terribly exciting happened, but it seemed like it might be setting something else up. I'm hoping this title gets some action going on soon, or I might have to drop it. Next up, we have...

Astonishing X-Men #59
This is another title I'm starting to struggle with a bit. On the one hand, I love the characters. Wolverine, Northstar, Gambit, Karma, Iceman, and Cecelia Reyes are all very good characters. But for some reason I'm just not caring very much. I think part of my problem that the relationship of Northstar and his new husband Kyle is so much the focus that it seems like all we're ever hearing about is their whiny problems. I'm all for relationships in comics, and the fact that it's a gay couple should be cool considering I'm gay myself, but enough is enough. I want some astonishing x-heroics, not astonishingly boring x-drama. Either Kyle is okay with being married to a super hero, or he's not and they can break up. Get it over with. Anyway... Now on to...

Uncanny Avengers #4
Now things start to get better. This was the first new Marvel NOW! title to come out after AvX, but it's also been the slowest one. And by that I mean release-wise, not pace-wise. It seems to keep getting delayed. But it's really good so far! The first story arc just wrapped up, and we've seen the Red Skull become an even bigger threat than he ever was before. A new team of Avengers made up of classics as well as X-Men has formed, and they've set things up to make this a pretty exciting book. The writing is good, the art is good, and the final page was a very big WTF moment that I can't wait to see play out. From there, we move on to...

Young Avengers #2
The end of the first issue was a bit of a shocker, and seeing things play out from there has been really fun. This book worried me a bit at first 'cause it's just a little bit hipster, but this issue really turned that around. The art is great, and I can't wait to see where this story is going. And they way artist and writer are working together on this is creating a really fantastic book. This is a shining example of a gay couple in a super hero book, as well. Wiccan and Hulkling make things effortless. It's not a big deal that they are a couple, it's just how it is. The story doesn't have to keep referencing it to remind people like a certain other comic I mentioned earlier. It's only two issues in and I really look forward to this one continuing on. Speaking of continuing on...

Avengers Arena #5
I really love this book. I think I've brought it up a couple times in this blog already. It's Avengers Academy meets the Hunger Games. And it's just so good! Every issue is full of those WTF moments that keep you reading on, and the characters are so interesting. Every issue picks a character to focus on, and it fluctuates between the present events in Arcade's new Murder World, and flashbacks of their lives prior to being captured. Much like Lost. And no one died this issue! That's my only problem with this is that the characters are all very cool, but they're probably going to die before the story is done. Not cool. So then...

Uncanny X-Force #2
I love Betsy Braddock. I'm not sure why. Something about a sexy purple haired psychic ninja just does it for me. And this is really her book. Storm, Puck, Fantomex and Cluster, Spiral and the new mutant girl, Ginny. And the reintroduction of Bishop with crazy flaming bear powers. I'm really not sure what's going on with this book yet, but it's fun to read so far, and I can't wait for the next issue. Finally...

Uncanny X-Men #2
I saved the best for last. I'm loving this book. From the amazing art by Chris Bachalo, to the great writing by Brian Michael Bendis, this book is a lot of fun. We've got Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magik, and Magneto, all dealing with broken mutant powers and being on the wrong side of the law. They've recruited some of the new mutants resulting from the end of AvX, and they're trying to start the mutant revolution. If you haven't already picked this one up, I recommend it.

So that was my comic book haul for this week. I may not have a future in comic book reviewing, but it was pretty fun talking about them anyway.

It's funny, anything comic-book or sci fi related reminds me of Comic-Con lately, and how extremely excited I am for that this year. Andrea has to put up with random text messages from me being all "I'M SO EXCITED!" But luckily she is as well so it's not so weird. Anyway! Happy Saturday! May all your weekend plans be merry!

This Went a Very Different Direction Than Intended...

So, this week I was gonna blog about the new comics I picked up on Wednesday, but when I tried to do that, I realized I barely remember reading them. That either means they weren't all that exciting, or I was too tired to really take it in when I read them in bed that night.

So, what else can I blog about? I have been watching Game of Thrones finally. I started a few weeks ago. I finally signed up for HBO and I've been recording the second season as it aires, and I managed to find the first season online. I'm only two episodes in to season two right now, but it's very good.

What I've learned so far: the Starks are fairly naive which gets them in trouble, the Lannisters are pretty awful, and someone really needs to kill Joffrey, and there's a lot of cool mythology that needs to be explored. White walkers? Dragons? The weird stuff going on with Bran? I'm pretty excited to continue on with it and see what happens.

While on the subject of good TV, I have also signed up for AMC, which means I can finally watch new episodes of the Walking Dead! Sadly, though, I had set up the first eight episodes of season three to record when they had the marathon the other day leading up to the ninth episode, but my PVR decided to die that weekend while I was in Vancouver, so none of it recorded. Which means finding it online. Which isn't difficult, just annoying when I could be watching it in HD on my TV.

In other news, last weekend when Comic-Con badges went on sale, I had way better luck than I thought possible! I was standing there at work waiting for the link to go live on the badge sales website at 9am, which also happens to be when the bank opens. Convenient right? Luckily, it wasn't busy, so when the link went live, I clicked it both on my work computer and on my phone. And then sat there and waited. It was about 5 minutes of loading before I got a weird error message. So I refreshed, which you're not supposed to do. No luck still. So I clicked on the address bar and hit enter, and it started loading again. All wasn't lost! And finally when I got into the waiting room, I was number 147 in line! Apparently I was lucky, 'cause at the same time my phone popped up with me sitting 6489th or so in line.

Two minutes later, the waiting room let me through and I was on my way! I managed to secure 4-Day with Preview Night badges for myself AND Andrea! So we are on our way to Comic-Con and getting the full experience once again! I really can't wait to start planning our trip! Andrea and I were talking about last year and our odd theme of accidentally stalking Chris Hardwick the whole trip, and how we're curious what this year's theme will be. Hopefully something fun and exciting again!

The other thing this has made me think about is that I really need to eat my ass in gear saving money! I still owe money from last year's trip, plus my oddly expensive summer, so it's time to really start sticking to a strict budget so I can afford flights and whatnot. I already have US cash saved for spending money, but the other expenses need to be prepared for.

I am really excited right now! And it's still five months away! That's not all that far away though... Oh boy. Anyway! Time to go to work! Have a great weekend!

A Very un-Craig-like Feat

So, yesterday was a pretty amazing day for me. Why, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. I finished a video game. But wait! That's not all. I finished... wait for it... TWO video games! Wow, right?!

I rarely finish a video game. It's pretty rare. Most games I get to a certain point and just... stop. Quite often it's at that point right before you head into the final level/boss/whatever and it's your last chance to do all of the sidequests and collect all of the collectibles (you know me and collectibles).

Yesterday I managed to get through the last chapter of Jurassic Park: The Game. There is replayability in this one 'cause there are still a bunch of achievements to unlock, but this game frustrated me so much that I probably won't make any attempts at that anytime soon. Seriously, I am so terrible at reflexive button presses, and that's the whole base of the gameplay, so I relied more on repeatedly dying and memorizing the button prompts. My roommate probably got a little tired of my swearing constantly while I played this game, so it's being retired.

The other game I finally beat was Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the Nintendo 3DS. I started this game a while ago and, as usual, quit playing it right at the final boss fight. Although not for the usual reasons. I had actually managed to collect all of the stickers and find all the HP hearts and hidden Luigis and all that stuff. I just got wiped out in the final boss fight and got all discouraged. I knew I needed to prepare better, but I didn't wanna go to all of the trouble finding better stickers and whatnot, so I just quit for a while. I picked it up a while ago and did all the prep work, but didn't wanna try the battle again. But last night I was already on a roll with JP, so I gave it a shot, and sure enough, I managed to beat Bowser!

I loved Paper Mario: Sticker Star. I was so afraid that I'd hate it with the big changes they made to the gameplay mechanics, but it's my favourite game for the 3DS so far. It's cute and fun, lots to do and collect, and challenging to figure out the right strategy for each battle. It's overall a very charming game that I'd recommend to any 3DS owner.

So now that I've beaten those two, it's time to refocus my video gaming efforts! I'm thinking I'll push to finish off Lego Batman ('cause I STILL haven't finished that one), and I'll try to get into Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. I tried playing KH:3D when it came out, but for some reason I had a lot of trouble really getting into it. It's odd 'cause it's one of my favourite video game franchises.

Anyway! That's all I've got for this week. Time for work! Oh! AND Comic-Con badges go on sale today! Wish me luck in getting mine! (And good luck to you if you're trying today too!)