Humanity Evolving Rapidly

Contrary to previous theory, it appears that the rate of human evolution has increased over the last few thousand years (via the San Jose Mercury News):

Until recently, anthropologists believed evolutionary pressures on humans eased after the transition to a more stable agrarian lifestyle. But in the past few years, they realized the opposite was true – diseases swept through societies in which large groups lived in close quarters for a long period.

Natural selection has affected humanity in many ways since the species appeared. My favorite concrete example from the article:

Although children were able to drink milk, they typically developed lactose intolerance as they grew up. But after cattle and goats were domesticated in Europe and yaks and mares were domesticated in Asia, adults with a mutation that allowed them to digest milk had a nutritional advantage over those who didn’t. As a result, they were more likely to have healthy offspring, prompting the mutation to spread, [University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist John] Hawks said.

Humans in certain parts of the world have evolved slightly differently due to local conditions, too. This is a tenet of natural selection which often seems to be ignored: If local conditions differ significantly in two regions over a long period of time, a species which exists in both regions will see its two populations diverge as the populations adapt to their local conditions. (This assumes the conditions don’t kill off the population in one region, and also that there’s not significant interbreeding between the populations.)

This is really neat. It’s also good news, because it indicates that the human species is still quite diverse. Why is that good? Because monocultures tend to be a bad thing for a species’ long-term survival, since it makes them more susceptible to individual contagious elements against which they have no defense (such a problem seen in bananas and Microsoft Windows).

The article indicates that the rate of human evolution has increased since we became “domesticated”:

In the past 5,000 to 10,000 years, as agriculture was able to support increasingly large societies, the rate of evolutionary change rose to more than 100 times historical levels, the study concluded.

I have my own idea to add to this: I suspect people have assumed that evolution slowed down because there we tamed many hostile environments, so there were fewer pressures exerting natural selection upon us. Instead, I think that civilization has made our environments more constant and consistent, meaning what pressures there are are more persistent, and so we evolve in more of a straight line due to those pressures, rather than meandering around due to conditions that change every few years (or decades, or centures). With less genetic confusion, what evolution that does occur can occur far more rapidly.

On another, related note, the common wisdom seems to be that language has tended to evolve more slowly since writing and writing became more widespread, since writing fixes spelling and grammar in the mind of the literate population. I don’t know if language is subject to something like natural selection, but there seem to be some parallels there, and this makes me wonder if we’ll find that (for example) English is also evolving more rapidly than we think, just in a more constant direction and a more systematic manner than it used to.

R.I.P. Anita Rowland

Sad news: Anita Rowland passed away today, after a long fight with cancer.

Anita started her journal a few months before I started mine, and we read each other and exchanged e-mails from time to time for several years. She was part of the second wave of web journals, like I was. We met at a few conventions, and though I didn’t know her well, I always think of her as friendly and smiling and helpful.

I hadn’t heard she’d been this sick, though arguably I hadn’t been paying attention. She hadn’t updated her journal in quite a while; I guess she’d migrated over to Twitter which isn’t my thing – her last post there was on December 1.

Lots of people who knew her better than I did thought she was terrific, and I know they thought so even before reading today’s memorial comments. I’m sorry she’s gone.

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 5 December 2007.

Okay, last week’s haul. I’ve gotta stop being so busy on Thursdays-through-Sundays…

  • The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck vol 1 HC, by Mark Waid, George Pérez & Bob Wiacek (DC)
  • Countdown to Final Crisis #21 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Sean McKeever, Keith Giffen, Jamal Igle & Mark McKenna (DC)
  • Justice Society of America #11, by Geoff Johns, Alex Ross, Dale Eaglesham, Ruy Jose & Drew Geraci (DC)
  • Annihilation Conquest #2 of 6, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Tom Raney & Scott Hanna (Marvel)
  • Marvel Masterworks: Spider-Man vol 86 HC, collecting Amazing Spider-Man #78-87, by Stan Lee, John Romita, John Buscema & Jim Mooney (Marvel)
  • Invincible #47, by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley (Image)
  • Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus #4 of 5, by Mike Mignola & Jason Armstrong (Dark Horse)
  • Rex Mundi: Crown and Sword vol 4 TPB, by Arvid Nelson & Juan Ferreyra (Dark Horse)
  • Atomic Robo #3 of 6, by Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener & Joshua Ross (Red 5)
The Brave and the Bold vol 1: The Lords of Luck HC Although I’ve been down on the two most recent issues of The Brave and the Bold, the first 6-issue story arc was killer: Batman and Green Lantern in Las Vegas, Green Lantern, Supergirl and Lobo in space, the Book of Destiny, the Lords of Luck, the Fatal Five, and Batman outsmarting the whole Legion of Super-Heroes. And of course that gorgeous George Pérez artwork. Now you can own the whole story in a spiffy hardcover collection with a few pages of annotations by writer Mark Waid.

Or you can wait for the inevitable paperback edition. But I didn’t.

Rex Mundi vol 4: Crown and Sword TPB Rex Mundi seems to be coming together – at last – with this latest volume. Juan Ferreyra’s a good artist, although maybe not detail-oriented enough for my tastes (lots of panels relying more on coloring than linework for their backgrounds, for instance), but the range of facial expressions he draws is impressive. Mainly, though, Arvid Nelson’s story is finally really moving. To recap, the story takes place in an alternate Europe in 1933 in which the Protestant Revolution failed, and sorcery works. Our hero, Dr. Julien Saunière, is seeking the answers to a centuries-old mystery about the Catholic Church and the kings of France. With both the Church and the Duke Lorraine following his every move, he seems to be getting closer, even as the fecal matter hits the fan in the form of war breaking out across Europe. Nelson turns the Axis/Allies alliances on their heads, although the Axis in this setting bears little relationship to the one from our World War II.

So my interest has been revived in the story. I think it would wear a bit better if the story were more character-oriented, although if Nelson has a bang-up ending in mind for the overall story then it could be just fine. I tend to be rather cynical when it comes to ongoing comic books, since it seems like nothing ever gets resolved (I have this problem in spades with TV shows, too), and it’s hard to see the current story going on for more than 2 or 3 more volumes. Nelson could throw a wrench in the works and send the story off in some substantially different direction, but that would be odd since so far the story has tracked steadily in a single direction. But it could happen.

Atomic Robo #3 There’s something about Atomic Robo that I don’t get.

The problem might be that it’s just one of several books being published today with the general theme of “adventurers with nonhuman backgrounds who tackle scientific/supernatural threats”. The best-known of these is the burgeoning Hellboy franchise at Dark Horse, of course. But Burlyman’s Doc Frankenstein is right in there, as are The Perhapanauts and The Umbrella Academy. All of these books have more of a pulp-magazine adventure feel than a superhero feel, and the characters often act on their own or outside of the public eye. I think Hellboy is the most popular mainly because he predates the rest of the current generation by a decade or so (plus he’s been in a feature film).

But Atomic Robo doesn’t really stand out. It seems to focus on the outright mayhem part of the adventures more than the other titles, but that doesn’t leave a lot of room for characterization, and the plots are very simplistic.

Robo himself is a smartass, and a little melancholy about some elements in his past, but that’s about all I’ve gleaned about the long-lived protagonist of the series, who was constructed by Nikola Tesla in the early 20th century. The stories don’t have much of a period feel, and this issue – about a mobile pyramid threatening Egypt – takes place in the present day. (It also ends with a big explosion, so abruptly I wondered there were pages missing.) We’re getting very brief vignettes about Robo, but not much depth. I think the creators have greater plans for the character, but I don’t think they’ve led with their best foot forward in this mini-series.

Still, with three issues to go there’s still time for that to change.

Holiday at the Park

Our weekend hasn’t all been the glamour and excitement of steam-cleaning the carpets, although I did do the stairs today. No, instead last night we shlepped our way up to the city to go to AT&T Park (home of the Giants) for the Genentech holiday party, Genentech being Debbi’s employer.

We ended up leaving about 45 minutes later than usual, but we still got to the park 35 minutes early, which was even early enough to park at the optimal parking lot. We met up with a couple of Debbi’s friends, and in fact we were the first ones in line to get into the park.

Park Scoreboard

It was a pretty neat party: They’d set up an ice-skating rink and a little sledding hill on the field, along with a large dance floor. They had caricature artists and photo stations around, lots of food, and beyond the outfield bleachers some fire pits set up to making s’mores.

Field Panorama
(Click for larger image)

We indulged in several of these activities – with no lines since we’d gotten there so early – and especially enjoyed making s’mores. We also had a snowball fight when we got down to the field near the sledding hill. Plus, I got to enjoy some parts of the park that are usually covered in kids and have long lines when I go to a ballgame there. The cable car, for instance:

Hangin' on the Cable Car

Around 9:30 there were fireworks!

Fireworks!

I also astonished Debbi (and a myself a little, too) by running into someone I knew at the party – a woman who used to come to my book discussion group. Seems I know a lot of people out in this little Bay Area place!

This was a novel event, making good use of the park’s space for something pretty neat in the temperate climate. I was a little disappointed in the food, which often seemed on the cold side, but otherwise it was a fun time. And a lot less crowded than I’d expected – although some lines got long, there was plenty of elbow room and even places to sit.

And Debbi was happy because she got to hang out with friends, and see snow and fireworks. It helped make up for not going to Disneyland for Christmas this year.

Cleanliness

This weekend we’re doing something we should have done long ago, indeed should have been doing regularly since I moved into my house: Steam-cleaning the carpets.

I borrowed a Bissell 9200 ProHeat 2X from my friend James, set it to the “Heavy Traffic” setting and went to work on the bedroom shortly before noon. It works really well! Since it’s been years since the carpets got serious cleaning, I ran over it twice before putting it on the “Rinse” setting and doing it a third time, and at the end the carpet looked so much better than it did before. I did the upstairs hall afterwards, too.

It’s amazing how much cat hair and carpet fuzz I picked up with it – despite having vacuumed the carpets before using the cleaner. It also took me a little while to realize that the thing uses a lot of water and cleaning formula, though I bet it would use less if it weren’t set on Heavy Traffic. We used the whole bottle of formula that James gave us, so we went out and bought several more, since doing the living room and stairs is likely to take at least one full bottle. (Incidentally, the bottles were cheaper at Fry’s than they are at Amazon.) And we might give it all one more pass next weekend (did I mention the carpets haven’t been cleaned in six years?). And I know that it’s worth emptying out the waste-water and cleaning out all the fuzz whenever the clean water tank runs out during cleaning. It’s a little extra work, but everything runs a little smoother if I do that.

I always have a good feeling when finishing a project like this. Okay, I’m not quite finished, but I’ve done a lot of it, and I can see real results. And that’s case for happiness.

One Thing After Another

After getting back from our vacation I made an appointment with the eye doctor, figuring this would be the last of my appointments for the year. I went in on Tuesday morning and everything checked out fine, so that was easy.

The “last of my appointments” part, not so much. Debbi had noticed a little puddle of oil underneath where I park my car in the garage, and I confirmed that I have a small oil leak. So I’m taking my car in to get it fixed. Hopefully it’s just a leaky seal. Actually I’m not so worried about what it will cost, I just want them to be able to find and fix it. It’s worth some money to have some certainty that my car is working right.

I also talked to a neighbor about the termite inspection we had recently, and it sounds like we do have sights of termites around the building in the complex. Not really a surprise, since termites are a fact of life in the valley, but it’s something the homeowners association will have to deal with early next year. Again, it’s not so much the expense that bothers me, as the annoyance; if our building needs to be tented (and I assume it will) then we’ll need to clear some things out of the house, and find somewhere for both us and the cats to stay for a couple of days while it’s taken care of. Maybe we can find a hotel which allows cats, or maybe we’ll have to board them. Unfortunately most of our friends who don’t have allergies already have pets.

Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I’m sure we can figure something out.

Meanwhile, we’re now in the holiday season, so I’m hoping after getting my car fixed I can focus on that and put other chores off until next year.

Fortunately, Jefferson seems to be recovered from his bowel problems of a couple of months ago. I’m still keeping an eye on him, but the symptoms seem to be nearly gone, and that’s a good thing.

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 29 November 2007.

Ahh, finally all caught up.

  • Countdown to Final Crisis #22 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Tony Bedard, Keith Giffen, Carlos Magno & Rodney Ramos (DC)
  • Countdown to Adventure #4 of 8, by Adam Beechen, Allan Goldman & Julio Ferreira, and Justin Gray, Fabrizio Fiorentino & Adam DeKraker (DC)
  • The Death of the New Gods #3 of 8, by Jim Starlin, Matt Banning & Mark McKenna (DC)
  • Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #36, by Tony Bedard & Dennis Calero (DC)
  • Doc Frankenstein #6, by Andy and Larry Wachowski & Steve Skroce (Burlyman)
Supergirl_and_the_Legion_36.jpg Supergirl and the Legion #36 not only wraps up Bedard and Calero’s “bridge” run between Mark Waid’s run and Jim Shooter’s run (which starts next month), but also ends the “Supergirl” portion of the title, as she returns to the 21st century in this issue. It’s been a reasonably enjoyable run, but it feels like it ends with a whimper and not a bang, which is too bad. Still, I can understand clearing the decks for a new writer like this.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Shooter brings to the book in his return to both the title and to writing comics generally. On the other hand, I’m also interested in finding out what Cosmic Boy’s actually been up to given the tasty teaser that Mark Waid left us with, when Cos was apparently recruited by a team of heroes from the 41st century and went with them. While I couldn’t really fault Shooter if he shrugged off that story element because it didn’t interest him, I’d be even happier if it did interest him.

Doc Frankenstein #6 I don’t think an issue of Doc Frankenstein has come out since I started writing in this space – small presses often have trouble keeping on-schedule, so this isn’t really a big surprise. I’m an unusually patient reader when it comes to the small presses. Anyway, Doc Frankenstein is written by the Wachowski Brothers – the guys behind the film The Matrix – this began as a “high concept” comic in which Frankenstein’s monster survived into the present day and became a scientific and engineering genius with a large following, but one whose very existence is perceived as an atrocity by the church, which is constantly trying to destroy him.

It started off bright, but has gotten bogged down in the minutae of Frankenstein’s history, and this issue is perhaps the worst one yet, with an extensive and boring excursion into the history of Jesus Christ (I think it’s supposed to be funny and irreverent, but it’s not).

Steve Skroce is a really good artist – his style reminds me a lot of Bryan Talbot‘s – and some of his drawings here are very impressive, but he’s really wasted on this unfocused story, which also is squandering a fairly nifty idea (albeit one which was also plumbed – though not much more successfully – in Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers mini-series).

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 21 November 2007.

Still catching up on recording my weekly haul. Two large weeks in a row didn’t make it easy to keep up, since it look quite a while just to read everything (which is sort of the point, right?). This is the haul for 21 November 2007, Thanksgiving week:

  • Action Comics #859, by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank & Jon Sibal (DC)
  • The Brave and the Bold #8, by Mark Waid, George Pérez & Bob Wiacek (DC)
  • Countdown to Final Crisis #23 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Keith Giffen, Tom Derenick & Wayne Faucher (DC)
  • Countdown to Mystery #3 of 8, by Steve Gerber, Justiniano & Walden Wong, and Matthew Sturges & Stephen Jorge Segovia (DC)
  • Ex Machina #32, by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris & Jim Clark (DC/Wildstorm)
  • Annihilation Book 3 TPB by Keith Giffen, Andrea DiVito, Christos N. Gage, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stephano Landini, Stuart Moore, Mike McKone, & Scott Kolins (Marvel)
  • The Incredible Hulk #111, by Greg Pak, Jeff Parker & Leonard Kirk (Marvel)
  • The Umbrella Academy #3 of 6, by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)
  • Castle Waiting #9, by Linda Medley (Fantagraphics)
  • The Boys #12, by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson (Dynamite)
  • Invincible #46, by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley (Image)
Action Comics #859 “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes” in Action Comics is turning out to be a pretty entertaining story: We find out why the Legion is persona non grata in the 31st century, and who their antagonists are. And it doesn’t look good so far, as several more Legionnaires fall to the enemy. How Superman figures into all this is probably the neatest part of this story, as the enemy has twisted Superman’s legacy to their own ends, and imagining how he feels about that – and knowing that no one other than the Legion believes the truth – is a compelling notion. What would be worse than finding out that you’ve been forgotten a thousand years in the future, than to learn that your name means something the opposite of what you worked to achieve?

So it’s a cool set-up. I hope Geoff Johns can avoid the clichéd ending to wrap it up. For instance, the “Some super-villain’s mind-controlled everyone” ending, or the “Superman beats the main antagonist into submission thereby winning the goodwill of the public” ending.

Annihilation Book 3 I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Annihilation, of which Volume 3 is the final volume. It’s even better than Annihilation Conquest, which is currently running and also entertaining.

The premise of Annihilation is that Annihilus – the extremely powerful armored insectoid who’s faced the Fantastic Four in the past – learns that our universe is gradually expanding into the Negative Zone where he rules, and he convinces virtually the entire Negative Zone to launch a massive attack on our universe. The emerge through the Crunch, the edge of the universe containing the energies of the universe’s creation, and in doing so destroy a high-security prison – the Kyln – and set a variety of nasty creatures free.

The first two volumes collect a number of mini-series spotlighting individual characters dealing with the “Annihilation Wave” – the influx of Annihilus’ forces, who begin by rampaging through the Skrull galaxy. The Nova Corps are destroyed and Richard Ryder is last as the last Nova centurion. The Super-Skrull tries to take the fight to the Negative Zone. The Silver Surfer learns that two creatures freed from the Kyln are nearly as old and as powerful as Galactus, and he returns to Galactus’ service to try to draw him away from the Annihilation Wave. And Ronan the Accuser returns from exile when he learns that the Wave is bearing down on Kree space.

This final volume resolves everything, as Nova leads the resistance against the Annihilation Wave and things go exceedingly poorly, even more so once Annihilus enlists the help of Thanos to tame the power of Galactus for himself.

I’ve always been a little skeptical of Keith Giffen as a writer. I was not a fan of his run with Paul Levitz on Legion of Super-Heroes, and I really hated his sense of humor that he applied to DC in the late 80s and early 90s, such as on Justice League and Ambush Bug. I thought it was, well, rather childish. But as the mastermind (it seems) behind Annihilation, I’m most impressed with his ability to write dark space adventure. Not only does he have real skill at slowly ratcheting up the tension of the story, but he does a great job of handling the myriad characters and making them all seem unique and driven in their own ways: Nova is a pure hero, the Silver Surfer is a tortured hero, Drax the Destroyer is a programmed killing machine who nonetheless does the right thing when not under the thumb of his programmed imperatives, Ronan is a true patriot who believes in doing whatever is best for his people no matter what the cost, and even the villains all have different shades of character and motivations. In short, Giffen is doing today what Jim Starlin did in his heyday on books like Captain Marvel, Warlock and Dreadstar.

(Incidentally, I think that Starlin brought to Marvel in the 70s what Jack Kirby tried to bring to DC in the 70s, except that Starlin actually succeeded in creating a compelling little mythology within the Marvel Universe, whereas all Kirby did was create a surreal and silly little pocket of colorful costumes within the DC Universe.)

Perhaps most importantly, Giffen delivers the true payoff in this concluding volume with both triumphant character moments and dramatic battles. Perhaps the best single moment is when Nova and Ronan talk when things seem darkest, and Ronan the Kree patriot says to Nova the human hero, “Were you Kree, I would call you brother.” Ronan, Drax, the Silver Surfer and Nova all get their moment of triumph (Ronan’s is the best, while the Surfer has to wait for one of the epilogues), and it’s all a lot of fun.

Andrea DiVito has a solid, dynamic art style which serves the story well. There are plenty of full-page and two-page spreads to keep the action moving, and he handles the large cast with their various eccentric designs quite well. The guy must be a machine to have pencilled and inked this whole story himself, although I imagine he had plenty of lead time, too.

Overall, Annihilation is one of the best things Marvel’s published in years. It once again proves the theory that comics are best when they involve assembling great creators when letting them produce great stories, a lesson that Marvel seemed to have learned with “Heroes Reborn” back in 1999, but seems to have forgotten again these days given stuff like Civil War and its aftermath. I’m glad Giffen was able to play with this corner of the Marvel Universe, though, because this was well worth the time it took to read it.

(If you want to read more without reading the story, the whole series is summarized in the Wikipedia entry.)

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 14 November 2007.

Due to my vacation over Thanksgiving week, I’m running behind on these. This entry is for comic books I bought the week of 14 November 2007:

  • All-Star Superman #9, by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely (DC)
  • Booster Gold #4, by Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund (DC)
  • Countdown to Final Crisis #24 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Tom Derenick & Wayne Faucher (DC)
  • Fables #67, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham & Steve Leialoha (DC)
  • Salvation Run #1 of 7, by Bill Willingham, Sean Chen & Waldon Wong (DC)
  • Suicide Squad: Raise the Flag #3 of 8, by John Ostrander, Javier Pina & Robin Riggs (DC)
  • Welcome to Tranquility #12, by Gail Simone & Neil Googe (DC/Wildstorm)
  • Nova #8, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning Wellington Alves & Scott Hanna (Marvel)
  • Thor #4, by J. Michael Straczynski, Oliver Coipel & Mark Morales (Marvel)
  • World War Hulk #5 of 5, by Greg Pak, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson (Marvel)
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier HC, by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill (America’s Best)
  • B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #4 of 5, by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & Guy Davis (Dark Horse)
  • Atomic Robo #2 of 6, by Brian Clevinger & Scott Wegener (Red 5)
Salvation Run #1 Salvation Run is yet another Countdown tie-in – sort of. These days it’s hard to tell what’s a Countdown tie-in (like this) and what’s not (like Countdown to Adventure and Countdown to Mystery, whose lead stories both have nothing to do with Countdown). Score another one for DC editorial in the ongoing fiasco that is Countdown.

Anyway, Salvation Run is loosely based on a decade-old idea by George R. R. Martin, which – believe it or not – has nothing to do with my decision to pick it up. No, instead I was mainly interested in the artwork of Sean Chen (who’s art is the reason I started picking up Nova), and I figured the sardonic writing of Bill Willingham (Fables) might work well with the book’s premise, that being that the United States gets tired of all the super-villains stealing, killing, and generally disrupting society, so it decides to start shipping the repeat offenders out to an alien world, to fend for themselves. A world full of super-villains is sure to be a powderkeg – especially since most villains tend to be men – and the moral question of exiling villains to another world seems worth exploring. Anyway, there seems to be a lot of promise here.

The first issue is okay. Chen’s artwork is dynamic but not as detailed as I think it’s been in the past. The story mainly focuses on the Flash’s rogues gallery surviving on the world for some weeks – it’s a pretty hostile and bizarre place – before meeting up with a large number of second-string villains who have just arrived (plus the Joker). The issue ends with the hint that someone’s been tricked in this whole setup, but leaves open the question of why.

So it seems worth following for a 7-issue run, but I hope they do something worthwhile with it. I suspect it would have worked better in Martin’s original Elseworlds configuration.

Nova #8 Man, does Nova have some of the blandest covers in comics these days? I mean, the renderings by Adi Granov are pretty good, but the designs are bo-ring! (I assume these are designs created by editorial and not by Granov.) If they actually reflected the contents of the book, I think they could really help sales.

Anyway, in the wake of his ill-considered Annihilation Conquest storyline, Nova has ended up at the edge of the universe – literally. Unable to escape, he ends up being stranded on a giant space station, which seems nearly deserted except for a few extremely powerful – and somewhat crazed – super-beings, and a talking Russian dog, Cosmo. Cosmo gets the best line of the series so far: “You have seen end of universe and met space zombies, and talkink dog is what freaks you out? Bozshe moi.”

So there’s something nasty going on on this space station, the station itself has a surprising nature, besides being outside the edge of the universe, and Nova’s powers are significantly diminished because the Worldmind that powers him is still spending most of its energy fighting off the Phalanx’s techno-virus. Our hero looks to be in for a rough time – which means this book ought to be back on track now that Nova’s not dealing with the conquest, which he wasn’t really participating in meaningfully anyway.

Thor #4 Thor is now officially combining the world elements of J. Michael Straczynski’s comic book writing: Not only is the story moving at a glacial pace, as Thor gradually tries to reconstruct Asgard, but it’s got Straczynski’s tedious tendency to try to highlight real-world problems through a brief encounter by his larger-than-life protagonist. In this case, Donald Blake goes to a war-torn African nation and ends up in the middle of a civil war. Ya-a-awn. This book went horribly wrong when it became a “visit a problem area somewhere in the world” travelogue, and I’m rapidly running out of confidence that Straczynski can salvage it. Honestly, there’s just not much story here. Coipel’s art is still pretty, though.
World War Hulk #5 Well, I was a little off in my prediction of how World War Hulk would end, but it’s still be a fun ride – a big smash-fest. There was a nifty little surprise regarding what exactly happened to send the Hulk back to Earth looking for revenge, and the Hulk comes to a certain closure at the end of the story. It basically ended the way it had to, but of course this being a superhero comic it’s not really the end. We’ll get back to the status quo sometime.

I do wish that this book had been used to show Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic how wrong they’d been in their treatment of the Hulk and that they were on the wrong end of the Civil War, but Marvel is inexplicably committed to casting two of their long-standing heroes in the roles of villains, so that was clearly too much to hope for. Oh well.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier The Black Dossier is the third volume in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, and it’s easily the worst one to date. The problem is that there’s not much story in it, and what there is is both dull and not much fun.

Volume 1 was the best volume to date, because it seemed primarily inspired by the Justice League, assembling a group of 19th century heroes to tackle a threat. The characters and setting made it very different from a Justice League story, but it still had a solid narrative with a lot of tension and a concrete resolution. It also had a lot of little asides referring to other Victoriana, but they were just bonuses and not central to the story.

Volume 2 was enjoyable, but was a big step down from Volume 1. The core idea of the League dealing with H.G. Wells’ Martian invasion was nifty, but it took a turn into the no-fun zone with its rather explicit sex and its brutal resolution. Plus, while the first volume had a text backup story featuring Alan Quatermain, Wells’ time machine, and some H.P. Lovecraft creatures, this volume had a very self-indulgent and tedious travelogue of the League’s world, filled with lots of references to extremely obscure people and places. Little bits of it were entertaining, but mostly it didn’t really add anything.

The Black Dossier goes for the clever references in spades, with extended text sequences featuring characters like Orlando, Fanny Hill, and various other historical background for the League. And most of that stuff is very, very boring, not least because this is supposed to be a graphic novel, and nothing takes the edge off a graphic novel like throwing big blocks of text into it. Honestly, I didn’t even read the bulk of the text sections for that very reason. Snooze. I agree with Johanna Carlson’s observation that the book feels too much like homework much of the time, and that’s no fun. It feels very self-indulgent.

The core story involved Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray – who have both become young again – capturing the Black Dossier from post-Big Brother Britain (the 1950s) so they can learn just how much their government knows about what they’ve been up to for the last decade or two. The Dossier contains the backstory of the League dating back for centuries, and it is reproduced within the main story and accounts for the text segments of the book. The main story has its moments mainly as our heroes are pursued by James Bond, Hugo Drummond and Emma Peel as they try to escape from Britain, but the end of the book is extremely disappointing, making the whole thing feel rather pointless.

I wonder whether this will be the last LoeG book. It’s hard to imagine the series getting much worse from here, though another festival of clever references would probably do the trick. The series has fallen an awful long way from its promising beginnings, so I can’t say it would be a great loss if this is the last installment. This was pretty mediocre stuff.

Anyway, if unlike me you really enjoy all the references – obscure or otherwise – Jess Nevins has posted his annotations for the book so that should keep you busy for a while. I think the joke is long past its sell-by date, personally.

20-Year High School Reunion

The Saturday after Thanksgiving (the 24th) Debbi and I went to our 20-year high school reunion. For those keeping score at home (or surfing in later), we graduated in the class of 1987 from Newton South High School in suburban Boston.

I generally have fond memories of high school. Oh sure, there are things I’d like to forget (most of German class, for instance – oh wait, I already have!), but I enjoyed it a lot more than I enjoyed college. This is because there were more people in high school of like minds to my own, reading comic books and science fiction, arguing about math and science, playing games, and so forth. I have more friends and people I keep in touch with from high school than from college. (From college, I think John is pretty much it.) I was in the nerd group in high school, but in our high school there was a large nerd contingent anyway, as well as many smart intellectual types who weren’t my brand of nerd, so it worked out pretty well.

I went to our 10-year reunion in 1997, which was just a few months after I started my web journal, and I had a good time there. I was looking forward to this one, too, even though I knew that most of my good friends from high school wouldn’t be there. The nerd crowd just isn’t interested in attending reunions – maybe I was unusual in my fond memories of high school. But I knew that several people were not in contact, such as Marc F, Tony C and Mark C, and that Matt H and David A wouldn’t be there either (though the last I think would be happy to attend, but wasn’t able to make it). Still, I was reasonably cosmopolitan as a high school nerd went, so I expected to see a lot of people I knew.

* * *

We knew going in that one of the stories we’d tell over and over is that Debbi and I have been dating for over six years. We met each other through the e-mails that were going around for a 15-year reunion (which ended up being cancelled due to lack of people locally to organize it), and after exchanging a number of e-mails we went on a date and things have moved along from there. We’re not married and we don’t have kids, but we do live together with our four cats.

Debbi’s high school experience was very different from mine, but I won’t try to describe it here; we weren’t really in the same social circles (though we were in the same homeroom). She missed the 10-year (she was out of contact at the time), and unlike me she hadn’t been back to South to visit in many years. (I was there maybe 5 years ago, and had visited off and on up until then.) So she was less sure what to expect going in, although she had more old friends who seemed like to attend. I’m not quite sure whether she’d have gone if we weren’t together. Maybe she would have.

Myself, I enjoy watching people, and I was very curious to see where people had gone and how they’d changed in the years since. I suppose one reason to go to a school reunion is to see how successful and happy you are in life compared to your peers, and being a pretty competitive person – from a pretty competitive environment – I admit there was some of that for me. But mostly, well, childhood friends are the people you’re in the best position to watch as they grow up and mature, and reunions are the best opportunity for that sort of observation.

* * *

Saturday morning was an informal reception at South’s gymnasium so we alumni could see some of the things they’ve done with the school since we graduated, and families were invited. Debbi and I went with my sister Katy and her son Ivan, since Katy also attended South (she was 4 grades lower than me). They’ve built a huge second gym down the hall from the original gym, and done a lot of renovations on the buildings in recent years. I’ve seen a few of the changes they’ve made since high school, but a lot of this was new to me. Unfortunately we weren’t able to see the rest of the school, but it was an interesting glimpse anyway.

A whole bunch of people showed up with their families. I was a little surprised at how many young children there were, but then I remembered that only a handful of people had children by the 10-year, so therefore most of the kids would be young. Since I don’t have kids of my own, I don’t have a good perspective on what raising kids is like. (With some of my friends today starting to have kids, this may change over the next few years.)

The main reception was in the evening at the Newton Marriott (which was certainly more accessible than driving into downtown Boston as we did in 97). There were old yearbooks out to peruse, photos of people back in high school, and of course the obligatory dance floor and DJ playing 80s dance music (which was not for me since I don’t dance and I can’t stand 80s pop music).

There are two big differences in one’s classmates between the 10-year and the 20-year reunions: First is the physical changes people have gone through, whether it’s gray hair, or less hair (even the women have less hair as they opt for shorter hair styles), or a few wrinkles. I’ve been graying at my temples for several years now, plus I’m heavier than I was back in the day. The other difference is the additional maturity. At the 10-year reunion we were only 6 years out of college, which meant many people were just starting their careers, or had gone back to school for an advance degree, or were working jobs but hadn’t yet decided on a career. At the 20-year all of us professionals had been plying our trade for close to a decade, sometimes more. People had children, some had become full-time parents. For the most part we’re now in the roles we’ll play for the rest of our careers, whereas 10 years ago we were all over the map.

I sometimes wonder whether my peers think they’ve changed a lot since high school. I tend to think I’m much the same person I was back then: The geeky guy who feels uncomfortable in groups of people, and the reunion was of course… a group of people. So it took me a while to start chatting with people, but I did have a good time once I started. Adding to the awkwardness was that many people remembered my name on sight, while I often had trouble remembering peoples’ names even when their faces were familiar. I’m not sure if this is because I was weirdly memorable from back in the day, or if my brains have mostly turned to mush. Maybe both. It was flattering that so many people remembered me, though.

As for Debbi, some friends from her childhood were there, including someone she’d been good friends with through school who had grown up to be a friendly, good-looking guy who owned his own business:

Debbi & Friend

And of course we got to tell the story of getting together over and over again, which I think Debbi enjoys telling. (She says she’s amused that we were “the talk of the room” for a while.)

Reunions are a bit awkward and a bit weird, but I had a good time anyway, and found it very interesting all around. I guess they’re talking about having a 25-year reunion, and if they do, we’ll definitely go back.

* * *

(A final note: Some journal entries are harder to write than others. Occasionally they’re hard enough that they end up languishing for a long time or never getting published at all. This was one such entry, as the reunion happened nearly a year ago as I write this. But I didn’t want it to be completely forgotten, so I’m hoping it’s better late than never!)