Comic Book Wednesday: More #1s

It's Wednesday again, imaginary readers, which means that I have once again purchased comic books rather than being productive. This week, I finished out my pull for September, with Birds of Prey #1 and Wonder Woman #1, both from the DCnU's new 52, because I seem to have forgotten my Marvel roots, and transitioned full time into DC. Both of these titles came out last week, but I waited until this week to pick them up, because I didn't have cell bio lab this week, so I had some extra time to not be doing homework, so here are my thoughts, albeit a little be late.

 

Birds of Prey
Writing: Duane Swierczynski
Art: Jesus Saiz

While I've always really like the concept of Birds of Prey, an all female team headed by Barbara Gordon's Oracle and Dinah Lance's Black Canary, I'm generally kind of ambivalent toward the series' execution. Gail Simone's run was decent, but some of the changes she brought to the book, mostly all of the weirdness with Dinah and expanding the roster tenfold, just didn't work for me. I generally like Gail Simone's writing, and I really liked the idea of one of the few female writers in mainstream comics writing an all female book, but I think her talents were better served on Secret Six or Wonder Woman. 

I enjoyed the rebooted book, with it's small team of just Black Canary and Starling for now, and with the twist that Dinah is wanted for "murdering a man with a punch." It makes it a little edgier, which I think it should be. It is a Gotham book after all. Barbara Gorden even made a cameo, showing that they did keep some of the history between her and Dinah intact. I'm pulling this book again next month, and I'll give it a couple of issues to see what pans out, because it has potential, but I can also see it going nowhere.

Ultimately, I want the Birds to be Black Canary, Huntress, and Oracle, but they've gotten rid of the Oracle character, so I could deal with it being Batgirl, as long as Barbara Gordon is involved in some capacity. But,  I doubt they are going to do that with this book, at least not initially, so we'll see where it goes.

Wonder Woman
Writing: Brian Azzarello
Art: Cliff Chiang

Yet another Wonder Woman #1. I like Wonder Woman as a character, because I think she is really different from the run of the mill super heroine, but I think her stories aren't always handled well. She works when she is written as an Amazon, and when they have her dealing with the Greek Pantheon she emerged from. She doesn't work when they play her as a diplomat or a man hater, because then she's not interesting. She's too powerful to be fighting in the real world all of the time, and frankly, watching her play the diplomat is just plain boring. (Actually, I really like having Donna Troy as Wonder Woman, but that was never going to last. Diana is practically immortal, and she just doesn't work as a legacy character.)

All of that said, I really enjoyed this new story line, because it brought her back to her Greek mythological roots. There was stuff going on with the gods, which she got involved with. And they set up that this was a high stakes game, and that gods can die, which doesn't bode well for Diana, as an Amazon, not a god. A girl was pregnant by Zeus. Zeus is missing. And some other stuff I didn't really get. Centaurs? This is where I think that Wonder Woman really works, and one of the reasons I liked her in the first place. I also really liked the art, it was retro and different while still being intelligible and interesting.

I liked the first issue, and I can't wait to see what they do with this. It's refreshing to have a good Wonder Woman title again. I'll most definitely be pulling it again next month.

So far, I'm really enjoying the new DC stuff, as all four books I picked up this month were good. I can't wait for more Batwoman, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Wonder Woman. I never thought that there would come a time that I was only buying DC books without any Marvel (read: X-Men) titles to balance it out, but I think DC is just doing a better job managing its universe right now, and I'm not going to waste time and money on comic I don't enjoy. Yay Comics!

Graphically Inclinded

I really like graphs. They are my favorite way to visually convey information, regardless of whether they are serious or not. So, apropos of some graphs made by [Львица], I made a graph for you, imaginary readers. It shows my comfort level with new situations as a function of time.

As you can see, it takes me a little while to be comfortable with new situations, particularly of the interpersonal type, but once I figure them out, I am the master of the universe (with regards to the specific situation).

At the beginning, no matter how happy I am about something, before I get a feel for what it really means/entails, I spend most of my time worrying that the world is ending, and that I am doing everything wrong. But, the world has yet to end, so far as I am aware, and eventually I grow to be comfortable, and when that happens, the world is not longer ending, and I am it's master.

This holds true for most things, from making friends to talking to a professor to basic social interactions to being in a relationship. It just takes me a little while to remember that I am, in fact, the Master of the Universe.

This isn't to say that I stop caring about something when I get comfortable with it, or that I can truly master things like social interaction. It's just that after a little while, I stop worrying so much about the little things, and I stop thinking that the world could implode at any moment solely due to me doing something wrong. My comfort zone really isn't very large, but it is expanding, it's just not a linear rate of expansion.

I guess this is just a really long winded way of saying that I am working on it, but you're going to have to give me a little bit of time. I'm not the most proactive person in the world, but I can learn, and I want to learn.

Anyways, Graphs! They are awesome! So here's an XKCD about graphs:

This is one of my favorite XKCD strips, for no other reason than when I first saw it, I was annoyed by the axes not being labeled before I got to the punchline.  I guess Physics lab did do me some good.

Theory of Comparative Roommates

As you may have gathered, imaginary readers, I'm a college student, and, as such, I live in a dorm (or "residential hall" as we call them here at the U, to "facilitate community" or some bullshit like that). In my case, this means that I have a randomly assigned roommate, with whom a share a 200 sq. ft. room with two beds, two desks, and all of our stuff. So far, I haven't had any real issues with [Random Roommate #2], but some recent events have got me thinking about general roommate ettiquette, because, this year so far has been really different than living with [Clothes Don't Fit] last year, and I feel like I'm having to figure out a whole new set of rules as I go along, all of which I should already know.

Last year, I also got paired with a random roommate, [Clothes Don't Fit], and we got along really well, we were friends even. She's a Mech E major, so we had nearly the same classes, and we had similar interests, and, initially, the same group of people we hung out with, although she more so than I. Anyways, it was nice to be friends with my roommate, and, as neither of us were in relationships, nor prone to come home drunk or with a stranger, we didn't have to deal with any of the common awkward roommate circumstances.

This is not to say that she was the perfect roommate, I did have some issues with her, particularly towards the end of the year. She would never have her keys with her, and then, when I would leave or go to bed and lock the door, she would blame me for locking her out, despite the fact that it was her fault for not having her keys. She was a complete slob, and her half of the room was a total disaster, with the floor covered in her stuff and a perpetual stack of dirty dishes that she never washed.

I guess that my main problem with her was that she is one of those people that I can't spend a huge amount time with without wanting to punch in the face, which I mostly express by being a passive aggressive bitch. This doesn't happen with most people, as I can usually spend infinite amounts of time with anyone that I enjoy being around and never stop enjoying being around them, but for a few people in my life, after spending a ton of time around them, I realize that I never really liked them in the first place, and I can't stand being in their presence. This happened with [Quiet Raver] in high school, and then again with [Clothes Don't Fit] last year. I tried really hard to not let it show, because we did have to live together, but I'm sure she noticed, and I do feel bad for irrationally disliking her towards the end of the year.

Anyways, all of that was a long-winded and circuitous way to talk about what I originally intended to talk about, my current roommate, [Random Roommate #2]. She's a freshman, and an art major, and, while we get along well enough, we don't really talk, and we aren't friends, which is fine with me. All I care about is us not hating each other. But, unlike [Clothes Don't Fit], she goes out on the weekends, and she parties, and she has sex, none of which I care about, but it does raise a whole new set of issues that I didn't have to deal with last year.

All of this became eminently clear to me this weekend, when, on Friday she told me that her friend [Bieber Hair] was coming over on Saturday and he would be staying the night, if it was alright with me. I was fine with it, and I was glad she asked, and I had plans that accounted for most of Saturday anyways, so it wasn't an issue. I did wonder if [Bieber Hair] was more than just a friend, but it wasn't my business, so I didn't ask.

Just like she said, he was around Saturday afternoon when I got back from Quiz Bowl, and from the amount of time they spent in her bed the few times I was in the room, I gathered that they were more than just friends. I gave them space, and I ended up spending the night at [Львица]'s place, so it wasn't super awkward. They only really awkward bit was when I got home on Sunday morning and could hear them having sex in the shower.

I'm actually not sure how they managed it, given that our shower is TINY.

Here's the thing. I don't care that her (boy?) friend was over for the weekend. It seemed like he was from out of town, and they deserve to be able to spend time in the room without me being around and making things weird. What bugs me is that she didn't even imply that they were going to be having sex. If she had even hinted that she wanted some alone time with him, I would have taken all of my stuff with my on Saturday morning and not come back until Sunday night. I would have cleared out and respected their time together, but because all she said was that he was her friend, I took that at face value, and didn't automatically assume that she wanted the room.

Did I just not read the situation correctly? I feel weird assuming that just because her friend was a guy they would be having sex, but was that what I was supposed to assume? I mean, if it were me, I would ask her for some space for the weekend, and hope that she respected that request, for the sake of us both. I don't know. I really want to be a good roommate and respect her space when she needs it, in hopes that she returns the favor, but if she doesn't tell me, I can't do anything about it. I am not, in fact, a mind reader, much to my chagrin.

Fun fact, "Roommates" is one of the many seemingly simple words that I can never spell correctly on the first try. Something about the two o's and then the two m's. It's just confusing.

Guilt Tripping

The other day I got a package from my paternal grandmother, which made me happy for no other reason than I enjoy getting mail, but made me happier still because it contained, among other things, cookies, which are always appreciated. It was nice of her, and she included this note with it:

Hi,

      I spoke with your Dad a few days ago and he reminded me I hod never sent you a care package. I baked some cookies yesterday so I thought this was a good time to rectify that situation. I hope you can forgive a forgetful grandma.

      I hope you are well and school is going well. Did you have a good summer? Your Dad told me you had a lovely trip to Germany. I really envy you. I wish I had traveled at least a little when I was young and healthy enough to be able to experience it. That is surly one of the things in my past life that I would change.

       You have probably heard that [CousinBorg] had her 4th surgery on her ankle yesterday. I certainly hope this is going to be the lucky one that cures her problem. She has had enough misery already in this lifetime.

       My life has change[d] a lot since I have left my house. I have a very nice apartment here but it isn't home. It's hard to lose so many memories after living in the same house for 62 years. I hope in time, this will seem more like my home.

       Stay well and take care. God Bless.    [Irish Name].

First of all, why is [The Paternal Unit] telling my grandma to send me a care package? It was thoughtful, but it just seems a little bit, I don't know, manipulative maybe. That's not quite it, but I can't really put my finger on why this makes me fell weird, but it does.

Secondly, this note, while thoughtful, makes me feel incredibly guilty. Like I haven't paid enough attention to her or something. In truth, we've never been particularly close, me being on the young side of over a dozen cousins, and I haven't seen her since my grandpa's funeral in March. With the sheer amount of misery and regret she manages to pack into this short of a letter, it would make any reasonable person feel bad, but I have a hard time reading it because of the guilt.

Granted, it doesn't really take much for me to feel guilty, as it seems to be one of the emotions that I am most in touch with, and I tend to look guilty at times for no reason, which has prompted [The Maternal Unit] to ask me if I "had something to tell" her on several occasions.

When I tell people about this tendency towards guilt, they tend to associate it with my somewhat Catholic upbringing and the decade plus that I spent in Catholic schools, but I really don't think that it has to do with Catholic guilt.  Catholic guilt is predicated on the idea that you always feel like you're doing something wrong because it is nearly impossible to be a good Catholic and not break any of the enormous amount of rules, but, despite the best attempts of several different Religion teachers, Catholicism just never worked for me and I'm not particularly religious. And I can't say it has to do with coming from a Catholic family either, because we don't even go to mass on Christmas or Easter.

So, eliminating the most likely source just leaves my own personality and neuroses as the source of my somewhat ever present guilt. It probably has something to do with the fact that [The Maternal Unit] 's favorite tactic to get me and [The Sibling Bots] to do something was, and still is, the guilt trip, and it also probably has to do with my tendency to over think things and construct a worst case scenario for everything that happens. And that that I tend to worry about every little thing probably doesn't help either. Ultimately, I don't really know; it's just a part of who I am. I really should just accept it and move on with my life, rather than dwelling on a part of myself that I don't particularly enjoy, but as it is, I am now feeling guilty about feeling guilty. It really is getting ridiculous.

Comic Book Wednesday: The X-Men

It's Wednesday, which means it's comic book day! Despite the fact that the other two books on my pull list came out today, I didn't buy them this week because I had bio lab and then I had to study, due to a wholly unproductive yesterday (homework wise, at least). So the plan is to buy them next week when I don't have lab, and then to re-up my pull for next month. Anyways, in honor of it being Wednesday, I'm gonna write about comics today, specifically, my favorite comic series ever: X-Men.

I first encountered the X-Men on the animated TV show X-Men: Evolution when I was in grade school. It was good, and while I did have a certain fondness for the characters, it was nothing to write home about at the time. Then the movies came out, and, thanks to [Nightcrawler] I watched the first two shortly after the second one was released. Funnily enough, this is also how I saw the Men in Black movies, because I told my dad I wanted to rent X-Men, and he somehow managed to get MIB out of that.

Anyways, I loved the movies, and, in my attempted to find more content, I discovered the graphic novel section at my local library, which lead to me spending most of middle school consuming every comic book I could find, particularly every X-Men book. This, of course, lead to monthlies and pull lists, and spending hours at my local comic book store. I can credit X-Men for introducing me to comics, which are still a major part of my life. Even when I'm not actively reading and buying comics, I generally keep up with what's going on, because over the years I really have come to care about what happens to the characters and the world they inhabit.

Of all of the titles I have read, X-Men is the one franchise that I will always return to, no matter what stupid things Marvel does with them. This is mostly because I absolutely love the concept, which I think is one of the most original in all of comics. The basic idea, is the some people are born with a mutant X gene, which, during adolescence, manifests itself and gives them strange abilities. These run the gamut, from insane superpowers to physical changes to relatively harmless abilities. Because these people are different, mutants if you will, the world at large hates and fears them, and generally tries to oppress and oppose them at every turn. In order to show the world that mutants can be trusted, Charles Xavier gathers together powerful mutants at his School for Gifted Youngsters and trains them to fight evil doers as the X-Men. That's basically it, and although I could go into way more detail about the nuances of mutant-human relations and the political ramifications of M-Day, etc, I don't think that you, my imaginary readers, really care all that much about the specifics of Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men vs. Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.

Seriously, I could probably talk about the differences between these two titles for day.

One of the reasons that I love the X-Men so much, is because I have always identified really strongly with the concept, and thus, the characters. This is probably because mutants are a near perfect allegory for homosexuality. I mean, really, X-Men, really? Could you have made it any more blatant? Something innate about you makes people hate and fear you for no reason. This something becomes apparent during adolescence, and is a reason that people oppress you. It's genetic. It really couldn't be more clear.

Even before I realized that I'm gay, I identified really strongly with the X-Men, which is probably because I always felt different, but I didn't have a reason why I felt that way for a long time. I was twelve; it was a lot easier to imagine that I was going to have superpowers than that I was gay. Honestly, I'm still a little bit bitter about not having superpowers, but that's what spending my formative years reading comic books gets me.

X-Men is the book that I will always return to, no matter what else I'm reading, or what's going on, it will always have a special place in my heart. Except for the third movie, because that was a crime against nature, and the First Class movie, because I don't care what anyone says, Havoc CANNOT come before Cyclops in continuity. IT MAKES NO SENSE. *grumble grumble grumble*

On a less abominable note, X-Men is awesome, and my favorite series ever, and everyone should love it as much as I do. Everybody should at least read the Dark Phoenix Saga, because it truly is amazing.

Four Eyes

My glasses are broken, and have been broken for about two weeks now. They didn't brake in any sort of exciting way; I wasn't punched in the face, I didn't trip and fall and land on my nose. Nope, nothing even mildly interesting like that. They just... fell apart. I was at the State Fair with [Львица] and [La Maga], and I went to take them off so I could switch to my sunglasses, but as soon as I did, the bridge of the nose split apart and they were in two pieces. As you would expect, I found this very upsetting.

Alas, my poor glasses!

Convinced that I could repair them so I don't actually have to pay for new frames, I first took the Harry Potter route and duct taped them back together. I was sure that this would work, (which is mostly due to my deep love of duct tape rather than any sort of common sense), but, unfortunately, duct tape is not the most ridged of adhesives, and the weight of the frames combined with the pressure of the bridge on my nose caused the tape to sag. Rather than sitting straight and forming a solid 180 degree horizontal line, the taped bridge started to become the vertex of an 120 degree angle, which is both uncomfortable and awkward looking. Alas, despite my firm belief that all the world's problems could be solved with the application of copious amounts of the stuff, duct tape proved not to be a viable long term solution.

Next I turned to super-glue, which, despite my vague fear of permanently super-gluing my fingers together, worked pretty well at first. My glasses stayed together, and only came apart once or twice when I accidentally put too much pressure on both sides at one. It turns out, though, that after you've glued something together two or three times, a thin layer of dried glue builds up on the surface, which makes it so the fresh glue doesn't adhere as well. So now, two weeks later, my glasses are still broken, and essentially unwearable, so I've reverted to wearing my contact (yes, contact in the singular, as I only wear one), which I hate. It's annoying and makes my eye itch.

The main reason that I don't like wearing my contact though, is because it throws me off. I've worn glasses since I was eight, which is more than half of my life. They have become part of the way that I think of myself, so going without them for a long period of time makes my kind of existentially uncomfortable. I just don't quite feel like myself without them.

They've become an extension of myself, rather than just a necessary accessory. In middle-school, when I was most concerned with making sure that everybody knew just how much I didn't care what they thought, I adorned my glasses with as much random shit as I could get away with. I would duct tape brightly colored pipe cleaners to the corners, so that they stuck into the air like fuzzy antennae, and then cover the tape with blue sticky tack. At one point, there was also an LED flashlight on one side, and a small Christmas ornament and fortune cookie fortune on the other. I could only do this in the summer, because the school uniform code prohibited things that would draw attention to you, but for three months a year I got to say fuck you to societal norms via my glasses.

I eventually got over the need to be as different as humanly possible and stopped taping random shit to my glasses, but I've never gotten over seeing my glasses as an essential part of myself. So now I'm more than a little annoyed that they decided to break, and that it will be at least two to three more weeks until I can get a new pair, because I have to find a time to go pick out new frames and then wait for them to be ordered.

Anyways, I've probably said way too much about my broken glasses, but it's one of the things that's been on my mind lately, because, I apparently don't have better things to think about (which is actually not true. I have several much better things to think about, I'm just...choosing to deal with the trivial things before the actually important things, because those things kind of scare me).

Nightime Wanderings

I really enjoy walking around campus after dark. It usually occurs when I walk back to my dorm from my friends' apartment at night. (For simplicities sake, I'm going to refer to my usual group of friends as the Scoobies, which I do realize is derivative of Buffy, but it does sort of apply.) There are eight or nine of us, we're all decently close, and everyone except for me lives in the same building on the edge of campus. I also live on the edge of campus, but it happens to be the complete opposite edge, so I end up walking back to the West Bank after dark at least a couple of times a week, which may not be the safest plan of action. Both of my parents have warned me against this, as have several of my friends, most notably, [Type A, Likes Baseball], who just tonight told me not to get killed, which is pretty sound advice in a way. [Totally a Cat] and [Awkward Turtle] have walked with me a couple of times, and then gone all the way back, but I feel bad making them walk all the way to West Bank and back at 3 am.

I also just prefer walking alone. It's so peaceful at night, when everything is quiet and still, yet, no matter how late it is, there are always signs of life on campus. Rather than going directly back, I like to detour up to the Mall, which really isn't that much out of my way, because Northrop Mall at night is one of the most peaceful and beautiful things in the city. The old, solid science buildings framing the trees lining the grassy way up to Northrop, stand tall and dark at one end, and Coffman at the other, invitingly lit, reminding the denizens of the science and math buildings that there is still fun to be had in this place of learning. At least that's what it makes me think of.

At night, the Mall is still and quiet, with hardly anyone around, which is in sharp contrast to the daytime, when people are everywhere. This makes it dynamic in a way that serene places rarely are, which, in a way, makes me appreciate it even more.

Tonight, I thought campus was particularly pretty when I walked home. It was misting when I left the Scoobies', so the lights glittered off the sidewalk and grass, making everything shimmer and smell like just after it rains, but without the actual rain, which is always a plus. The Minneapolis skyline was all lit up as I walked across the bridge, and the river was dark and calm below me. It's moments like that that I realize how glad I am to be at the U, to have friends, to be productive, and to be able to walk across the river at night and just appreciate the city that I live in.

O Chemistry, My Chemistry!

I declared a Chemistry minor today. I've been thinking about doing it since I took O Chem this summer, but it was just in theory, and then, while I was walking back from the Rec Center today, I just decided to do it. I stopped by advising in Smith and they took care of it. In fact, they took care of it disturbingly quickly. I wasn't even there for two minute. No information about it, no questions about what it entails, just name, major, and what classes I want to take beyond organic. It worked, and it was what I wanted, but, I don't know, it just seemed a little...rushed.

This is how I picture myself in 10 years

I guess the real issue is that I've now actually taken action to change my academic path, rather than just thinking about it, and that puts me one step closer to changing my major. Ever since I took O Chem, which is my favorite class so far, I've been considering switching from Biomedical Engineering to Chemistry.

I've never really been in love with BME; I picked it because it seemed like the most direct path to what I really want to do, biotechnology, and not because I was really dedicated to the subject itself. All of the BME classes I've taken seem really heavy on the engineering, which means lots of math and physics, rather than the bio, which is what drew me to the field. This is a less than favorable situation, seeing as I hate physics with a passion. But then, right when I think that I'd be better off doing something I actually enjoy, we talk about something in Cell Bio that just seems amazing, and I remember why I love bio and science in the first place. But then I have to consider whether I'm interested in it because of the engineering and physics or because of the chemistry. I don't really know yet.

I think I'd be happy as a chem major, and I know that it wouldn't be that hard for me to switch this year, because I have most of the pre-recs out of the way already, and the only thing I'd have to deal with would be Analytic Chem, which is only offered in the fall and summer, but I have to do that anyways for my minor. My heart isn't in either BME or Chem a hundred percent right now, but I don't know whether that's from my usual reluctance to quit something I've started, or because I really would be happier in BME. My plan for now is to give it this semester, or at least until I have to apply to upper division, and then see how I feel. I have real BME classes for the first time this fall, so I can actually assess my feeling on the subject and not just my feelings about my feelings on the subject.

I just have to remember that it's my life, and changing majors is not a betrayal of anyone or anything. I need to do what's best for me, and what will make me happiest in the long run, but I don't really know what that is right now, and I'm afraid of making the wrong choice and screwing up my life, which, ultimately, is probably just me being dramatic. I don't know, I guess I'll just have to wait and see, but for now, the minor gives me an excuse to register for more O Chem 2 and lab next semester, which I am really looking forward to.

Same Bat(woman) Time, Same Bat(woman) Place!

I bought comics today, for the first time in at least two years. Day of release, single issue comics, not trades or graphic novels, which I do still buy occasionally, and DC title no less. I stopped reading comics, not because I stopped liking them, but because I find some of the industry stuff annoying. I really don't want to have to buy twelve titles each week just to understand what's going on in the one or two titles I actually want to read, because it get prohibitively expensive, and I hate having to read titles I don't actually like for the sake of some universe spanning cross-over event. Regardless of all of this, I have been missing my superheroes, and I've been looking for a good time to get back into comics for a while now. This is where the DC reboot comes in, because it is the perfect jumping on point for someone like me, a former reader who just lost track of the continuity and didn't want to have to work to catch up.

Also, Batwoman. Batwoman #1 is the real reason I have established a pull list at a store close to campus. I've been waiting for Kate Kane's Batwoman to have her own title since they introduced the character in 2006's 52, and today, I finally got to read Batwoman #1. This book combines all things I love in comics, short of the X-Men: Gotham City, hot redheads, and lesbians, so many lesbians.

Who doesn't love this?

The truth is that mainstream comics (Marvel and DC) really aren't that diverse. Each team usually has a token black guy, at least 1 woman, and maybe a gay guy, with overlap being pretty slim, and lesbians in comics are nearly nonexistant, so having a book with a lesbian lead, and one, possibly two lesbians in the supporting cast is really exceptional and exciting. The thing about representation is that, I don't just want to see characters like me in fiction in general, I want to see them in stuff that I enjoy and am going to read/watch anyways. Having gay women on a German soap opera is all well and good, but I don't really care, because I don't watch German soaps. What matters to me is when lesbian characters show up in something that I am already watching/reading, because then it means something to me.

The issue was good, if short. Exclusively reading trades made me forget how unsatisfying a 22 page comic can be. It was a little sparse on story, except for showing that it was going to pick up where her feature in Detective Comics ended, which, hopefully will be expanded upon. J.H. Williams III's art is really what drove the issue. I don't like how he draws faces, but he sure knows how to lay out a page, and how to tell a story visually.

Most elements of her continuity were essentially the same, and she wasn't really all that affected by the sort of reboot of the universe, except for a few minor points. Maggie Sawyer is back to being a detective in the GCPD, whereas she was previously the captain of the Major Crimes Unit and before that, a detective in Metropolis. This, I felt, was a little weird, but whatever. It looks like Maggie is going to be a love interest for Kate, and I am completely fine with that. Also, Renee Montoya is back in the GCPD is some capacity. I want Renee to still be the Question, but at least her history with Kate is still intact. I really like Renee, and I hope that she actually plays a part in the book eventually. Honestly, if I could be any comic book character, I would be Renee Montoya, because then I would get to be kick ass and also sleep with Kate Kane. It really doesn't get better than that.

Renee Montoya as the Question: My comic book alter-ego.

I also picked up Batgirl #1 this week, which was decent. I like having Barbara Gordon back as Batgirl, even though I really liked her as Oracle, and I've enjoyed everything I've read by Gail Simone, despite the fact that I don't think her writing is particularly deep, but I don't read comics for depth. I'll probably stick with Batgirl for a while, at least through this arc, and I have Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman coming out next week.

So far, reading comics again has been a win, for no other reason that I get to read about Kate Kane as Batwoman every month. I really hope that the book is popular enough to make it through the first round of cuts to DC's line-up, but I think it probably will be, because who doesn't love a hot lesbian protagonist? I mean, really?

A Bit of an Introduction

Dear Readers, if there are any, welcome to my blog. This post is an inauguration, and a bit of a trial, as it is my first blog post ever. I'm not normally a person who feels the need to write about myself, but, in an exercise in modern journaling, I thought it might be fun to try to keep a regular blog. Hopefully, I will update it regularly, at least a couple of times a week, although, I will try to post about different things, so it doesn't get stale. I guess we'll see.

I assume that many of you imaginary readers are wondering about the title of this blog. "The Black Hole Symposium" doesn't really mean anything by itself. I realize that. It's a phrase that I stole from my dad. He used to talk about how he and his buddies would get together in college and talk for hours, but ultimately, not say anything. I'm hoping that this space will be a little more productive than that, but I've always liked the ring of it, because it's both sciencey and meaningless, so it lives on.

A few notes about myself: I'm a biomedical engineering student at the University of Minnesota, and a complete nerd. As such, there will be plenty of content pertaining to things such as Buffy, Doctor Who, comic books, science, etc. And whatever else I feel like talking about. I have chosen to write under my real name, although that may change, because I feel very strongly in standing behind my opinions. Also, because I don't expect anyone to actually read this. Other people I talk about, who aren't famous, will be given pseudonyms, because I do want to protect their privacy, as none of them have agreed to letting me talk about them on the internet.

So, that's all for now, although I anticipate that I'll be back tomorrow with a post on Batwoman #1, because that comes out tomorrow, and I've been waiting five years for it, so it's kind of a big deal.