Eliyes

Got the Captain America one-shot about the original Agent 13 and hated it. Peggy is awesome, but the people who put this together decided that instead of her just being flat out awesome like she was, they had to make Cap into an asshole and her all mad at him in order to build her up. This pissed me off because Cap's not an asshole -- he is especially not an uncontrollably violent and hormonal, unmindful jerk like in this book -- and also Peggy does not need building up, she was already totally awesome on her own!

Fans of Cap and Mademoiselle 13, I don't recommend this book.

So I finally get around to watching the first episode of Young Justice.

I made it 6 minutes and 16 seconds before I gave up.

Seriously, what is it with cartoons about superheroes these days that they all have to begin on an extremely negative vibe? Legion of Superheroes turned me off the same way.

Damn it, I didn't even get to see Kon.

Harry, maybe don't plot to take over the ship in front of the security guards, eh? *facepalm*

It's been a while since I've seen this one. I'd forgotten how, for the first half of the episode, while all the rest of the men on the ship are going dreamy over the women, Kirk's reaction is "Stop touching me! Stop that! Get away!" and when he finds one in his room, he's pissed and tries to keep barriers between them, until her magic voodoo finally takes hold on him and he starts acting shy and drugged -- and tries to kick her out again anyway. And physically resists kissing her, although he stands there like a confused ox.

Also, it's hysterical how the lighting unpinks and the soft focus vanishes when Evie decides she can't do this. X3 That's some SUBTLE camera-work there!

Spock is way too amused-looking when he's eavesdropping on McCoy trying to figure out if the women are really as beautiful as the men think they are. Possibly because he's trying to be logical.

I have a lot of trouble with watching this episode, so let me start by saying VACCINES DON'T WORK LIKE THAT. If you already have a disease, taking the vaccine won't cure you! Vaccines immunize you against getting the disease in the first place by causing your body to produce antibodies that effectively fight the disease in question ahead of time, typically by infecting you with a weaker strain. ARGH! And the bits of the research we get babbled at us clearly are involving a vaccine, which, hey, would totally save the kids but the landing party should have all died. Except possibly Spock. He just would have been quarantined on the planet forever.

THAT SAID, this particular episode has bugged me since I was a kid and too young to understand stuff like the above (although even then, I recall that I really felt the purple marks should have scabbed off instead of magically disappearing) -- this episode still really bothered me. And I don't mean just because OH NOES OUR HEROES MAY ALL DIE AND WILL GO KERAYZEE FIRST, oh no. It's not even the killer kids, aspect.

It was because of Jahn. I find him REALLY CREEPY. I have, in fact, had nightmares about him. *shudder*

And then there's his little friend. What an ugly kid! The big flappy ears, the enormous nostrils, the terrible, protuberant teeth --! And every close-up shot of him, his head is tipped back so his teeth are, like, in the center of the screen, and you can see up his nose to the backs of his eyeballs, no word of a lie --

Watching this as an adult gave me a little bit of a different perspective on the episode, though, I do admit. I was actually able to feel some sympathy for Miri herself (when I was a child, I hated her). I don't think I actually caught on to the time limit thing before, either, and I certainly missed the nuances of "we are slowly going crazy".

However, I remember quite well that I could see that Rand was jealous. I've seen people criticize the delivery of the line, "Captain, look at my legs," because they felt that the slight (and it is only slight) emphasis on "my" makes it sound weird. I disagree; just prior to that, she was freaking out with jealousy over Kirk being nice to Miri. Hell, she actually brought it up to Spock days before.

Of course, this was the last episode with Rand. At the post-filming cast party, Grace Lee Whitney -- the actress who played her -- was sexually assaulted by one of the studio executives, and then she was fired. A bunch of the subsequent scripts had to be re-written to exclude her character. Knowing that, it's difficult for me to disassociate it from the episode, which just makes it that much more uncomfortable to watch.

It's not actually a bad episode, though. Just really, personally creepy to me.

Okay, so I mentioned that I bought the Star Trek book The Tears of the Singers.

Ignoring the prologue, the VERY FIRST SENTENCE in Chapter One is:

"James Kirk was bored."

And then? On the next page? Uhura and Spock show up in fancy dress and ask him to go out with them.

FANFIC SERIOUSLY

So, this was awesome. There were a couple of essays I plain did not read, and there was one I read that I wish I hadn't (it was about architecture ._. I am not nearly obsessed enough with the last World's Fair to have any clue what they were talking about, and I found it somewhat depressing) but other than that, most of the essays were cool. There was one about science -- written by a scientist! There was one about the multitudinous and often curiously specific rules the Legion had. The ones separately analyzing Levitz and Giffen's runs on the series were really, really well done. The one about Lightning Lad should stand through time as a really good example to give to people when they ask what I mean when I say "the Legion is complicated, but worth it".

I recommend this book! :3

These issues come after Inferno, when the New Mutants and the X-Terminators met, and tell of how the two teams combined -- although Skids and Rusty are separated by the end of these, really, so it's more like the Muties assimilated Boom-Boom and Rictor. One of the things I liked, reading these, is that I know exactly where it fits in with the rest of the X-books, timeline-wise. Marvel really sucks at that these days.

( #76 was a really fun adventure story: Namor and the kiddies fight a giant tentacled thing! )
Issues #77 and 78 are the beginning of another Asgard arc. After the kiddies take Illyana home to her family, Dani collapses. Ship analyzes her illness and concludes it to be magical in nature, so sends them to see Doctor Strange. Alas, the good Sorcerer is pretending to be dead at this time -- and has an eyepatch! -- but he watches them invisibly. It seems Dani is possessed by an evil entity, whose toxic aura is affecting the others. He observes that Boom-Boom and Rictor (or rather, "the little blonde and the dark-haired boy") are the most sensitive to it, which is kind of a no-brainer, what with the way they get into a shouting match on his doorstep and have to be physically restrained from attacking each other.

This is the bit that really caught my attention, actually. Why those two? Other than Rahne, they're the youngest -- and Rahne, being psychically connected to Dani, should have been more easily affected, right? Dani's almost a stranger to them, so what's the deal? Are they just naturally mystically sensitive? I'd really like someone to run with that for a fic, maybe an AU. There's a canonical other reality where Rahne is a queen and Boom-Boom is her loyal maidservant. There's no Rictor ever seen there -- maybe he's off being a wizard's apprentice! *plots*

I'm watching the JAG eps that intro'd the NCIS for spin-off, and I'm wondering what'll be happening to the two team members who didn't become regulars in the show (so far as I know -- maybe they were in the early NCIS eps). Gibbs is already made of love, good with kids, hard-assed about investigation and all that fun stuff.

But Tony, now -- TONY WEARS GLASSES. :D Reading glasses, I think. And his hair is longer and slicked back, and he has this ugly brown zip-up hoodie that makes him seem geek chic. It is to LULZ, sir!

I'm glad that, to the best of my knowledge, they cut out this "from the pov of the dead body" crap. It's creepy, and it puts an inappropriately supernatural slant on the show.

...I'm guessing Ducky doesn't think Viv has been fully broken in yet, or he wouldn't be being so mean/nice to her. He doesn't seem to dislike her, exactly. *ponders*

Woooow, Harm is not looking terribly good in this ep. I forgot how much of a jerk he is when his back is up. Granted, I had stopped watching JAG by this point.

AJ! *hugs him* Damn, I missed AJ.

Poor Tony, stuck checking every bridge on the Potomac upriver of the body all by himself, with a spray bottle and blue light.

Aaaand now I have to stop and go to work. Phooey!

Oh hi, Tony's glasses, nice to see you aga-- Hee! X3
Gibbs: C'mon, loverboy.
Tony: What -- where we going?

Okay, I was reading Ducky wrong -- he's trying to get into Viv's pants. XD

"Ice Queen" aired April, 2003. In it, Harmon Rabb asks Gibbs how long he'd been "doing this", and Gibbs said 19 years. That would be 1984. That's also the year his daughter was born. The popular estimated DOB for Gibbs hovers around 1959-1961, which puts him at 23-25 in 1984.

Eee eee Tony in glasses again. :D (I'm informed that the glasses will make an appearance again a few times in season 1.)

Gibbs: Tony -- nail this guy fast. I need your ass out here.
Tony: Alone?
Gibbs: *pause* Bring whoever you need.

Awww, I like jet-lagged Tony with his hair all floppy and his eyes all heavy-lidded and bright. *pets* He's like a 6'2" puppy.

Hm. Gibbs asked Tony how good his Spanish his, but he himself is speaking Spanish here. I know he gets Tony to translate things from Spanish and the like during the series and some people have speculated that Gibbs isn't as good with the language. *shrugs* In this episode, Gibbs shops for fish whereas Tony gets into an argument about how he has a delivery order to this boat. It seems more involved, but I don't speak the language.

Aw, the little relieved faces Tony and Viv make when Gibbs lets them know he's okay~ So cute. :3

Hm. That's once an episode that Viv screwed up, pissed Gibbs off, and Tony said something to try to make her feel better.

Well, that's it for these episodes!

VERY AWESOME EPISODE.

( Dude, I think I saw Kavanaugh! )

Ehhhn. *waves hand* Not my favourite episode ever, but it didn't suck. I've been wanting to see something Teyla focussed, but this wasn't really what I had in mind.

( A couple of spoilery comments )

Having already watched the SG-1 episodes involving main timeline McKay (and also "Road Not Taken" AU'verse, but not "Moebius" yet), and being on a bit of a Lorne kick lately, I tracked down "Enemy Mine", the SG-1 episode where he's introduced. (Lorne was also in "Road Not Taken", but of course that was AU'verse Colonel Lorne, leader of SG-1.)

( An aside about my field of study and how it affected my perceptions of dilemmas in this episode )

( Lorne in this episode )

In conclusion: Lorne already had several traits we see later in SGA: even-toned in the face of anger, loyal to and makes excuses for superiour officer, concerned about his men and manages people well. I suspect his experiences with with Unas may be part of why his team seem to do a fair bit of "blend in with the locals" missions among the populaces of Pegasus. They seem to be the go-to guys for First Contacts, at least some of the time. It's interesting. I wonder if SG-11 dealt with the Unas who were working the mine after this episode, and I suspect they did. (Of course I also like that Lorne's a talented painter, a sympathetic guy to stressed out pregnant telepaths, a ridiculously competitive trader when dealing with Zelenka, a good pilot, and a fond uncle. He has rich characterization and I'm glad he was added to the supporting cast in second season. Also he has a delightfully wry sense of humour and cute feet.)

eta: Ironically, after posting this, I found SF Universe's interview with Kavan Smith (who plays Lorne), which says in its intro: "He joined the show in 2005 after briefly playing a character with the same name (though not really the same guy) on Stargate SG-1." Obviously, I think he's the same guy. We have no reason at all to think he's not.

I also figured "hell with it" and watched both parts of "Lost City" (with original Weir) and then both parts of "New Order" (with usual Weir). These are awesome episodes. There are so many things which I liked -- points I thought were cool, points I laughed my ass off, points I was moved by -- that it would take a lot more than I'm prepared to type tonight to go over it all. I specifically watched these episodes to get a feel for Weir's pre-SGA appearances. ( Elizabeth in SG-1 )

( compared to SGA )

The end is PERFECT!

Yesterday, I finished watching the first season of X-Men: Evolution, and watched the first episode of second season. I'm really liking the show. I hope the additions to the cast will be half as entertaining as the people we have first season. Also, Scott is a dork.

Scott: Mister Wagner, teleporter to full power!
Kurt: Aye, Captain!
Scott: Engage!
...in front of Rogue. Oh, dude. XD He and Kurt have grown to be pretty great friends, which amuses me.

There was a lot to take in, mainlining a series like this, but some key points:

1) I really like this Wolverine; I even kind of enjoyed the retelling of the Weapon X thing, and I seriously didn't expect to. He's such a huge softy with the kids half the time, too.
Wolverine: "Don't turn those puppy dog eyes on me. You're all grounded."
Spyke: "For how long?" *makes puppy eyes*
Wolverine: ...*sigh* "I dunno." *gives fairly short parameters*

2) I like Rogue, too. Hell, I like the kids in the Brotherhood so far, except the Blob. (I've never liked the Blob, although I thought having him work monster truck rallies was a good idea, especially with that little shout-out to his original story: "If you're from the circus, I'm not interested." I LOLed.) I even like Toad, for some strange reason, and Pietro is amusing in his sleazeball impatience. There's pre-powered Pietro/Evan shounen ai out there, yeah? Someone? Anyone? Bueller?

3) Magneto is a crazy person. I wasn't expected quite so much nuttery from him, but I guess this kind of thing happens when you use your own brainwashing device on yourself. *facepalm* Granted, he seems to have been a real shit 16 years ago, too.

4) The handling of Mystique is awesome so far. I know that the main writer for this season wanted to kinda go a different way with her and wasn't allowed to do as much as he wanted, but even so, she's very true to her late Silver Age characterization, with a dash of a well-handled rework of baby Kurt's fate. Seriously, I can watch her in season one and see the Mystique that met up with Storm in a dance club and taunted her. She's got that kind of vibe.

5) I don't hate Prof X or Alex (yet, anyway)! THIS IS AMAZING, SIR. :o Alex's voice seemed so tantalizingly familiar that I just had to look him up, and geeze, no wonder. ( VA babble omg XD )
5 b) Playing the VA game with these people is fun, and a lot of them have worked together before. XD And I can totally play the dGeek connection game with most of them.

In conclusion: I'm liking this show.

* Amusingly always listed as Yoroiden Samurai Troopers dub on IMDb.com XD
** Hey, maybe the entire Ronin Warriors cast is here!

I'm really glad that this supposed tie-in with "Divided We Stand" didn't seem it at all, because I picked up an issue and flipped through it in the store, and then set it down and vowed to never stray from my chosen books again.

So, here's some things about X-Factor #30.

( Things that surprised me )

( Things that confused me )

( Things that narked me )

I was glad to see Ric taking a proactive role, despite it all. And I'm getting really tired of Jamie's narration. He actually made a couple of jokes in this issue, which is quite a switch up -- and that should tell you something.

Finally, some decent backstory on John!

( the rest is spoilers and much rambling )