A week of mental anguish, an armchair analysis

What a tremendously terrible week for people in the United States: Bombs in Boston, ricin in the mail, a devastating explosion in Texas and a shooting at MIT. It’s madness.

Nothing serves to decimate the human spirit quite like an incessant, rapid-fire dogpile of debilitating news. When you learn of that next incident just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse and then the camel’s back is broken. You retreat inside yourself—at least I do sometimes—and curl up, sometimes just emotionally but sometimes in an actual fetal ball. You shut down. Fortifying your mind against the onslaught ill tidings is the only way to protect yourself from this oftentimes malignant world.

Sure, in spite of all these horrific events there are still things of beauty. Objects, people or even ideas we can hold up in our minds as a beacon to remind us that things can get better—they will get better—but they can seem like the far end of the tunnel and meanwhile we’re still shrouded in the darkness.

While I’ve been neither a primary, secondary nor even tertiary victim of this week’s events, they’ve still beaten me down, as I’m sure they have many others in the same circumstance. All we can do is soldier on and rebuild, so we’ll be ready the next time fate hammers us with such inhumane occurrences.

It’s extremely easy and extremely cynical to look at this week’s events and say something to the effect of “That’s every week and Iraq! They have IEDs go off all the time,” or “You know there’s a civil war going on in Syria. This is bad, but nothing compared to that.” It’s a fair criticism to say Americans tend to have insular thinking and adopt a “woe is us” mentality when faced with the kind of violence and destruction that is a daily affair in parts of the world., but that misses the point. As much as we deny it, we remain a people in recovery, a people who thought we were were getting back to being an unassailable hegemon. But we aren’t, and we likely never will be again. Weeks like this shake our faith that we represent stability and strength. We’re going to react badly.

Tomorrow I hope to look up, remember that there are in the world many good people with angelic motivations and be comforted in the knowledge that I can help them work toward something better.

Kyoryuger continues to impress me

At the risk of running it into the ground, I’d like to talk some more about Kyoryuger. I haven’t posted about it (or anything!) since February, so I’m calling it fair game.

Sunday gave us Brave 9, “So Strong! Pteraidenoh,” in which we learn the identity of the soon-to-be revived Kyoryu Gold.

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Kyoryuger is weird. Watch it.

I didn’t have high hopes for Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger, the 36th 37th installment in Toei’s Super Sentai series. Its immediate predecessor, Tokumei Sentai GoBusters, started off kind of dark (according to some people) and Toei attributed its poor ratings to that perceived lack of levity. When it came time to start planning the next series, they decided to make it light and funny. In its first episode it’s achieved that on the strength of this Engrish sign alone.

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Netflix’s “House of Cards”: Quick First Impression of the First Two Episodes

Even in the darkest days of the price increase and the Quickster debacle I’ve been a loyal cheerleader for Netflix and its particular brand of convenience, selection and awesome. I was both excited and trepidatious about their plans for original content, so in the lead up to this week’s release of the first season of “House of Cards,” I almost decided I wasn’t going to watch it for fear of massive disappointment.

After a busy Friday in a busy week, I got her to sit down with me to at least watch the first episode to see it was, as the New York Times Media Decoder intimated, “the best TV show of the season that’s not on TV.” She’s Kevin Spacey’s biggest fan, so no arm twisting was required. After two episodes I’m still not sure if it’s reached the superlative threshold, but it’s definitely worth your time.

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Disney, please reboot Indiana Jones with an animated series

Caveat: I understand and accept I’m likely not the first person to think of this.

With the news that J.J. Abrams has defied expectations and agreed to direct the new “Star Wars” film, I started thinking about the big picture of the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm and what it means going forward for one of history’s greatest entertainment properties.

That’s right: Indiana Jones.

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“Marvel Anime: Iron Man” — Tony Stark versus the Robot Masters

NANI O KORE?!?!?!

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Marvel’s new slate of movies: Some thoughts/hopes

Marvel announced their “phase 2″ slate of movies at San Diego Comic Con Saturday. While there weren’t any big surprises in the announcement it was nice to finally get “Ant Man” confirmed. Rather than detail a bunch of information everyone already knows, I just put together some quick thoughts on each title. I imagine they next phase of the films will focus on Thanos and his rise to power, so there ought to be elements of that in each film’s post-credits sequence.

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“Masks,” a pulp mega crossover from Dynamite Entertainment

Generally I like my comics like I like my orange juice—pulp free. Despite this, I’m totally excited about “Masks,” a new super crossover coming from Dynamite Entertainment in November. The first issue finds the classic pulp heroes of the 1930s and 40s—The Shadow, The Spider, Green Hornet, Kato, Zorro and more—united to battle government corruption. Man I love mega crossovers like this!

From Dynamite’s press release:

In Masks #1, it’s 1938, and the Justice Party has swept into office in New York State. But the newly-elected officials are in the control of powerful criminals, who quickly corrupt the law to their own advantage. When a fascist police state is instituted, the only ones who stand in defense of the innocent are masked vigilantes like the Shadow, the Green Hornet, Kato, and the Spider. When the law is unjust, justice must be an outlaw…

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Marvel NOW! cancelation victims announced

Marvel’s announced the books they’re canceling in October presumably to make way for the Marvel NOW! relaunch.

From CBR:

According to Marvel’s October solicitations, which went live this morning, the month will mark the conclusions of Captain America, Fantastic Four,FF, Incredible Hulk, Invincible Iron Man, New Mutants, The Mighty Thor, Uncanny X-Men and X-Men Legacy.

I’ve been enjoying “Invincible Iron Man,” and “FF” was really good before they changed the focus to the children. It doesn’t surprise me the X-Men titles are going away since we’re getting the promising-sounding “All-New X-Men” which I’m quite looking forward to and “Uncanny Avengers” about which I could care less!

Comic Book Review: Edison Rex, No. 1

“EDISON REX” Issue No. 1

Writer: Chris Roberson

Artist: Dennis Culver

Colorist: Stephen Downer

Letterer: John J. Hill

Editor: Allison Baker

Four stars out of five

Super scientist Edison Rex is the earth’s last hope—the world just doesn’t know it. He was once respected as the smartest man on the planet, was sought for his council and was held up as the ideal of what man could achieve with dedication and hard work. Then came the hero Valiant.

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