"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Y'all seen the preliminary sketches for Grant Morrison's Final Crisis Darkseid?

I kinda like it.

Darkseid in Love

I'm currently watching an episode of Superfriends. Here's a plot summary as I watch:

The space shuttle, piloted by Colonel Steve Trevor - and only by Colonel Steve Trevor, is captured by a Boom Tube and brought to Apokolips. The Colonel is captured and brought before Great Darkseid, God-Lord of all Apokolips. The One who makes universes tremble.

Darkseid: "So. This is the mortal that Wonder Woman prefers over me!"

(It was about here where I started laughing. I haven't stopped yet. Feel free to join me.)

Kalibak - Kalibak, mind you, uses a "molecular re-configurator" to change Darkseid - Darkseid (God-Lord of all Apokolips. The One who makes universes tremble.), mind you - into a duplicate of Steve Trevor and then Boom Tube's himself and the shuttle back into space just outside of the Superfriends' satellite. They rescue the shuttle and get it to earth. Wonder Woman is relieved.

(Keep on smiling. Go with it.)

Excerpts from "Steve's" subsequent explanation and following days' debriefing:

"Excellent. The Fools."

"You doubt my story?!?"

To Diana Prince: "By the way, I'm expecting Wonder Woman to drop by this evening. See to it that she waits in my office until I return!"

Wonder Woman goes to talk with "Steve" about his recent behavior, walks in on him as he's directing some parademons to switch a satellite, and gets captured. Batman breaks in, having figured it out, but is unable to stop "Steve" from escaping with Wonder Woman through a Boom Tube.

(Pretty good, huh?)

The Superfriends discuss strategy while cleaning up the mess "Steve" made during his escape. Seriously, they clean up. Firestorm uses his powers to fix a table. Superman uprights a bookshelf. Robin places a lamp.

Batman gets all suspicious-like as to why Darkseid left when he did, and gets that finger-on-the-chin "hmmmm...." look as the substitute satellite is loaded onto the rocket.

Meanwhile, on Apokolips, Darkseid - having both Wonder Woman and the real Steve Trevor before him in chains - explains his entire plot. 'Cause, well... that's what you do!

The plot? Seems like the substitute satellite is actually a great big molecular re-configurator that, when placed in orbit, will transform the population of earth into parademons.

(Scratching your head? Me too. Just laugh.. it helps.)

Steve gives us the ol' "Monster! You'll never get away with this!" which follows with Darkseid using the molecular re-configurator to change him into a monkey-man. Steve, not Darkseid. That would be silly.

Darkseid: "How do you like your boyfriend now?"

(Just keep laughing.)

Wonder Woman actually doesn't much like it, thank you very much, and breaks out of her chains only to be turned into glass by the same molecular re-do-hickey.

Meanwhile, the other Superfriends break into the sewers of Apokolips and make their way to the trash dump. There they find the monkey-Colonel, who's been put to work sorting through recyclables apparently. They free him and make their way to Dessad's lab, stopping to notice a Wonder Woman statue being moved by Kalibak.

Robin: "Why would Darkseid have a stature of Wonder Woman? That's weird!"

(It sure is, Robin. It sure is.)

They figure it out with the help of some Monkey-Astronaut grunting, grab the statue and a Mother Box from Kalibak. Or rather, a "Porthole generator."

They then teleport into Desaad's lab, use the matter changer thingee to change WW and Monkey-boy back to normal, use the porthole box to move the satellite over Apokolips where it blows up some stuff (?), and then escape back to earth. Darkseid yells, "Noooo!" and we're all good.

Except that Steve points out that Darkseid still has the original satellite and they really should try to get it back.

Batman: "Darkseid will never expect two visits in one day!"
Cyborg: (Hand to the side of his face) "Oh, no! Here we go again!"

End scene.

Wow. Just.. wow. This has got to be the worst interpretation of Fourth World characters I've ever seen. Yes, I know it's a kiddie cartoon.. but.. just wow.

I was laughing to keep from crying.

Still.. it was funny.

WRONG, Camel Breath!

Lately TiVo has been picking up the later seasons of Super-Friends, which currently includes the Challenge of the Super Friends - the ones with Firestorm, Cyborg, and Darkseid. I gotta say - and I know this is a kiddie show - but Darkseid playing a Dick Dastardly level foil leaves me cringing today. He's almost *uggh* comical in his incompetence. I fondly remember as a kid learning about his upcoming appearances in the new season and getting so stoked.. I was one of the few of my friends that actually knew the awesomeness that was Darkseid from the comics. And I also remember that, as much as I wince today, I loved these episodes back then... I think it was just that I got to see Darkseid as a 'toon every Saturday. Just the fact that he was in them. I certainly didn't know bad characterization at that age - just my favorites. This must be how children's television is programmed. It's kind of sad realizing that.

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of what may very well be the most awesome collection of sequential art ever. It's in the final stages of preparation and afterwards will be carefully packaged and mailed to me cross country at great expense. Prepare yourselves.

It looks like we now know who is the real multi-million dollar baby-daddy. Or, as the best headline in weeks over at Fark puts it: Congratulations to Larry Birkhead, winner of the 2007 Anna Nicole Smith Vaginal Dumpster Invitational! I know of at least two old farts that are not pleased. Not pleased at all.

Now that I've seen the final stats, Mike tripled my daily hits with his many links. Thank you, sir. The negatives have been burned, and the cake has been devoured. The dogs thank you, too. That film has been casting a dark cloud over them for far too long...

And Finally, I've been re-reading a fantastically groan-inducing book (in a good way) that I really must do a write up on soon. In the meantime, enjoy this panel from it, untouched I swear:

Camel Breath? Must've learned that Zinger from Latverian Finishing School: Insulting the People Beneath You

Tomorrow? All-Star Supes! Oh, Hells Yeah!

New God Charming

Couldn't help it. First thing that crossed my mind as re-reading this classic. And it made me giggle.

Click to biggie
My mind works strangely, sometimes. And by "sometimes," I mean "every time I read comics. Especially Kirby comics."

On another note, I watched Grindhouse Saturday night at an IMAX theater at 12 am while completely drunk. Heck, I was drinking during the movie. And Dick Dale was on the car's sterio on the way to the theater. Seemed appropriate.

Needless to say, at the time I thought it was the quite possibly the best Goddammed movie ever. Now that I've sobered up, it was actually a great, great fun movie if you know what you're getting into, understand the genre they're homaging, and you have your tongue firmly planted in your cheek. If they would've cut about 15 minutes of the Tarantino dialogue (as good as it was, it was an action-buzz killer) from about halfway through Death Proof, I would have nary a complaint with it. Don't see it at midnight, though. You won't get home until 4 am. Seriously.

And as funny as Machete was, Don't was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Don't miss it! Don't!!

Hope everyone had a happy Easter! I decorated my Easter eggs to look like Plastic Man - which was very funny to me, until I pretended that poor ol' Plas had been hit by a freeze ray while caught in egg form and I started rolling him across the table, cracking him open to eat his delicious insides ... No, Plas! NOOOOO!

If Only

Slight post today - too busy to do anything more indepth. But just to post something..

Personally, I would be delighted if at this time next year all of the buildup surrounding DC's Countdown finally leads to a series' finale page like this:

Tell me that wouldn't be the best ending to a Big-Two build-up series ever. Seriously.

EDIT: Wow, I miss stupid spelling errors every post. My bad.