Sunday: Sunscreen. Just how exactly does this stuff work? Apparently by absorbing high energy UV photons and releasing the energy difference as heat or visible fluorescence. All that really matters is that it kept me safe through nine innings of baseball.

Monday: Pets. Do pets get homesick? I’m not sure, but I know they get car sick.

Tuesday: Mets fans. This may actually be a comment on the lack of Baltimore Orioles fans. Despite $8 tickets, a beautiful stadium and a killer block party, more Mets fans were in attendance that local supporters.

Wednesday: New iPhone software. This was almost disappointingly simple. Glad to see Apple worked out the kinks and staggered the release of the software and the new iPhone after the disaster of the last upgrade.

Thursday: SEPTA. When it’s raining and there’s an afternoon baseball game and it’s rush hour, it would be reasonable to have enough cars on the tracks to handle it.

Friday: USPS. So is the US Post Office really that bad? I’m considering spending $12 extra dollars on an order of comic books next week to not have the USPS ship my books.

I realize this post is decidedly negative, and involves a lot of baseball.  To compensate: Go Phils!

Beware Doomstroke and Hawkbeast! Seriously? Sorry for the bad photos, but I couldn’t contain my joy over the sheer stupidity of this comic.

The one nice moment in the issue, however, featured Batman acknowledging the similarities in the personalities of Hal Jordan and Dick Grayson despite his very different relationships with the two characters.

After a controversial run on Batman that ended with Bruce Wayne sort of but not really dying in another title, Grant Morrison launched the new Batman and Robin title from DC this week with frequent collaborator Frank Quitely. Spoilers ahead…

So there’s a new Batman and Robin showing up in Gotham for the first time in this story. The original Robin who has been running around the DC Universe for the last 25 years as Nightwing, Dick Grayson, has taken over as Batman and is joined by Bruce Wayne’s evil brat son, Damian, as Robin. In contrast to the classic team, the new Batman has a sense of humor and the new Robin is a violent, psychotic, ten-year old, trained by Ninja Assasins who thinks he should be Batman. The Batmobile flies. The villain is called Mr. Toad and looks exactly like you’d expect.

It sounds stupid. Well, it is stupid. But in the capable hands of Morrison and Quitely, it works. And by the way, Morrison’s last run on Batman works better than you think it did too. Go back and read it one sitting. Seriously. Try it. It’s not nearly as incoherent as it seemed while reading it on a monthly basis.

Anyway, where was I?

Quitely’s art is a style all his own. Undeniably ugly… And yet I can’t get enough of it. His characters ooze personality.

Morrison in one issue has written the most interesting Dick Grayson we’ve seen in years. And while he’s treading on dangerous territory by making Robin such a brat… (Fans voted for the last brat Robin to be beaten with a crowbar and blown up…) I believe he has a plan for Damian. Whether that plan will be satisfying for readers or not, I guess we’ll see.

The master villain we’re introduced to at the end of the issue looks to me like someone from a horror movie and his actions seem to confirm we’re about to see the equivalent of Batman vs. Leatherface or the villain from some torture porn flick or something. The scene was sufficently creepy and sold on the strength of Quitely’s characterization.

In conclusion, it’s interesting that Dick Grayson is running around as Batman now (for the second time… See Batman: Prodigal), when just a few years ago we saw his death scene in Infinite Crisis. A scene that DC thankfully wimped out on following through with, as we saw Dick alive a few pages later. But make no mistake, Dan Didio intended to kill Dick Grayson off once, this story could just as easily be his swan song.

Another batch of great images for Marvel’s 70th Anniversary variant covers have been released over the past few months and I thought it was worth posting an update.  While these covers are really cool, I’ve come to discover that they are incredibly difficult to find since my last post.  At least this seems to be true in Philadelphia as I’ve come across only one shop that regularly has them in stock, Brave New Worlds on 2nd Street.  This is by no means the fault of local shop owners, that blame falls to Marvel for using their ridiculous order minimum system to allocate these books.

Long before we had this outlet to discuss the distractions in our lives, I spent four months consumed with a Marvel Comics crossover event called Messiah Complex (also check out this).  Drawing together four different titles and running weekly, I couldn’t wait for each installment to arrive.  I even started going to the nearest campus comic shop I could find on lunch breaks to get each week’s issue.

In April, Marvel launched the sequel to this event called Messiah War running through X-Force and Cable (which began (actually were relaunched) in the aftermath of Messiah Complex).  While smaller in scope and published less often, Messiah War has been satisfying so far (we’re currently at part five of seven) and I can’t wait to see where it’s all heading.

While continuing the story of the mutant child/possibly savior/possibly destroyer Hope, Messiah War has also managed to incorporate classic X-Men characters and concepts including: Archangel, Apocalypse, Stryfe, Deadpool, The Vanisher and of course time-travel.  Well worth checking out the issues currently in print (or reading once it’s collected) if you’ve ever enjoyed epic X-Men action.