Happy Holidays All

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Kwazy Kwanzaa, a Tip-top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan.

Read this.

http://occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/

I recommend everyone check out Valerie D'Orazio's "Getting out of Comics" series in her blog. It's inspiring, troubling, emotional, and very compelling writing. Kudos to her for having the bravery to put it all down the page.

Hi there.

Not much to say. "Stella" and "Justice League Unlimited" are on DVD. Been playing Justice League Heroes quite a bit. Trying to read more and add spice to my lifestyle wherever possible. Like for instance -- the other day I had caramel on my Starbucks white chocolate mocha. Livin' on the edge, and all that.

What I've Been Up To

Not a whole lot. Mostly school and all that. Trying to write more but not having much success on that front. Kerr finally bought an LCD HDTV and a 360 to go with it, meaning he passed along his old, occasionally faulty TV to me. Score! Right. Anyway, the trip to Florida with the guys in August (has it been that long? Geez I'm lazy) was great fun. Went to the parks down there -- Universal and Disney World. Went to the Magic Kingdom and hit all the rides I never did as a child. Pirates of the Caribbean. Splash Mountain. Haunted Mansion. The Country Bear Jamboree. I caught a really bad cold in Sarasota though which carried through to Hamilton for a week or two. Might've been Red Tide, which, it turns out, is airborne and not released through contact with the Gulf, as I'd suspected. Aside from that things have been same old. Been meaning to update my blog for the one or two folks who might stumble upon it but kept putting it off. I'll try to check in sooner next time. Bye.

That's right...

I have a blog. How about that, huh?

Not much to say. Went to BC, saw the new dog, survived the sweltering heat. I'm going to Florida this Friday. Driving down, which I love doing. Enjoying Manhunter, Cable & Deadpool, She-Hulk, the Batman and Superman titles, Beyond, and a few other comic titles. Missing Spider-Girl, but unlike some of my other favorites that bit the dust this past year -- Arrested Development, Alias, JLU -- it's coming back in the fall.

I'll check back sooner than later, hopefully with more substantial things to say.

Back from Santa Fe

So, I got back from my trip to Santa Fe. It was lovely down there -- I stayed in the heart of the downtown at the La Fonda and it was gorgeous. Nice food, friendly people. Much more pleasant than the flight down there. I flew on Southwest Airlines, the WORST airline I've ever flown on. The seats are way too small and on a first-come, first-serve basis and even then they board by letters A, B, and C (I had a C getting there). If that weren't enough the flight attendants were snippy and the people in Kansas city -- one of several stops along the way, no direct flights here -- were real jerks. On the way home my table tray was on an angle and my cranberry juice got all over my pants and poured into my open bag all over my books. But Santa Fe was great. I'm never flying Southwest again though, and will always fly direct if I can help it. Again though, Santa Fe was great.

Hi there, again

I'm going to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a few days. Hopefully I'll be able to keep busy enough. Plan on doing some rewriting of some of my old scripts down there and getting the third season of Scrubs on DVD. Not a whole lot to report on. Hopefully I'll have some juicy stuff to write about when I get back, although I doubt it.

After the Finale...

So, the JLU series finale aired. It was pretty good. The animation was sharp as always and some of the returning characters were surprising, but I'd be lying if I said I was totally satisfied with it. I was hoping that some of the character that popped up during the this season -- The General, King Faraday, Deadman -- would return since their last appearances were so open-ended. Granted the finale didn't really call for them to show up again, but from a story stand-point their returns were called for since the odds of getting closure at this point is nil. Also the big bad, however shocking and fun his final fight against Superman was, came out of left field and deprived the expected all-out brawl between the Justice League and the Legion of Doom. I think the problem with this season was the handling of the Legion.

The whole idea of doing the LoD is so you can have them square off against the Justice League. Of course, not doing this is a nice twist, but having the Legion as anything but direct adversaries for the Justice League is pointless when you don't actually care about any members of the Legion. Most of them were background fodder anyway with no prior animated appearances to draw from, and the few new villains that did get a moment in the spotlight -- Dr. Polaris, Atomic Skull, the Key, Silver Banshee, Sonar - received no development as characters at all. They were basically one-dimensional bad guys with gimmicks. The few villains that did show up from older series -- Metallo, Giganta, Toyman, Sinestro -- were included in episodes so overloaded with material they weren't given any chances to do anything new and lost any uniqueness that made them so memorable to begin with. The one "new" villain (a brief, non-speaking role aside) to pique my interest was Atomic Skull, and that was only because of his natural sounding voice contrasting with the fact he's a huge guy with a flaming green skull for a head.

But really, the big reason why the Legion failed as a season-long arc was that there was no depth to it. Cadmus worked because you had real people with understandable motives who didn't think they were evil -- they felt they had legitimate reasons to fear and strike against the Justice League. The Legion on the other hand, know they're evil. They just about say as much in several episodes. And, unlike Cadmus with it's rich multi-episode endeavors, the Legion only shined in the season premiere that introduced the team and set up the promising premise of an anti-Justice League, the Warlord and Viking Prince episodes that furthered the story and set up the intriguing idea that Grodd was willing to sacrifice members of his team to keep the Secret Society a true secret, the Deadman episode, and then the two part finale. The two other Society appearances throughout the season were either too brief, as in "Grudge Match", or played for laughs, as in "Great Brain Robbery".

The entire season moved away from episode-to-episode developments of JLU's first and second seasons and instead spent either half of the season on separate mini-arcs with the SS. This shift ultimately contributed to the lack of character development through JLU's final thirteen episodes and brought the show back to the arguably less refined style of the original Justice League series. It's frustrating as a fan because I've seen how well they can handle a mature Justice League Unlimited and made the season less satisfying on the whole.

That said, the finale packed a punch indeed with a great many shocks and surprises in the forms of shocking returns and the deaths of several DCAU vets. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it a great deal but the lack of any emotional connection to the characters coupled with the fact that the huge developments called for action over character meant there was little emotional resonance to the proceedings. J'onn's return was a nice touch -- I'd forgotten about him but remember hoping he'd come back during the season -- but Darkseid menacing the world again felt old hat at this point. I got charged up when the Daily Planet was destroyed, but Superman didn't even seem to care, much less worry about Lois Lane and company who were inside when it went down. I felt the same way when Hawkgirl got a spear thrown at her, only to have her shrug it off soon afterwards. What could have been a shocking, emotional moment became a throwaway bit.

So I enjoyed the finale. It was made all the more better watching it on Sean's 42" plasma screen with him, Kerr and Raf, JLU newbies all (and they actually started to like it too!) And with the finale so ends the DCAU proper. Sure there'll be things like the Superman DTV down the line, but I think this is a last real hurrah for these characters. It might not have been my favorite way of closing the curtains, but they still went out with style. Kudos all, and from someone who's been watching since that fateful Saturday in September 1992, thanks for the memories.

Cheers, JLU

Here's to 91 episodes.

Justice League Unlimited series finale on Tonight at 7pm

In case anyone out there stumbles upon this between now and 7pm, the series finale of Justice League Unlimited -- don't judge me for my nerdish leanings -- is airing tonight on YTV. I'm hoping it's a good one. It's already aired overseas, but folks in the US haven't seen it yet. Not that they have much longer to wait, about a week or two, but it's still cool to be ahead of the game, I suppose.

I finally gave in and got my own myspace account. It's at myspace.com/georgemorrow, for anyone interested in being my friend. To be perfectly honest, I signed up out of bordom and think myspace is a stupid way to keep in touch, much less meet people, but it might come in handy.

In other news, McHammer has a blog. Huh. http://mchammer.blogspot.com/

Hi there

Hi. So, I found a few issues of the 2000-2001 Static Shock mini-series. I'm glad I spent that half hour wading through the back issue bins tracking them down -- even if I did only find issues 1 and 3 -- because they're well worth it. And luckily I found the first issue, which I have yet to find online, at least at a reasonable price. Speaking of which, I think the the comic shop I found the books at in Niagara is jacking up the prices on the books a little too high. The five back issues cost twenty bucks, and even then they were all from the 50% off boxes. If the selection weren't so good I probably stop going there.

On an unrelated note, here's an interesting link for anyone that stumbles upon my blog my mistake (since that's about the only traffic I'm sure I get). http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2006/04/diane-farr-is-hot-for-peter-mcnichol.html Pretty funny stuff from Simpsons and Frasier writer Ken Levene.

Have a good day.

Oh Yeah...

I have a blog. How about that.

Uh... I had a birthday. Watched the series finale of JLU. Been keeping up with South Park, Veronica Mars, Two and a Half Men, and Everybody Hates Chris. Got Justice League season one and In Dream of Jeannie on DVD. Schools wrapping up. Made some money. Suddenly started recalling the entire score to Sweeney Todd (not a bad thing). A friend got a 42" Plasma screen TV, and I have a feeling my brother will too. Been going to Boston Pizza at least once a week -- like the pasta and salad deals. Haven't been up to too much else. Will try to check in soon, as long as I remember I have a blog.

Jeepers. It's been more than a month. So, what have I been up to....

Well, I've been doing school stuff. I'm in a few classes that are pretty out there so I'm a little over my head with work. Scrubs is back on the air and it's still pretty good. I heard a rumor it's going to ABC or something, but that wasn't totally clear. JLU is coming back on the air soon. It's been airing in the UK and it's all I can do not to download it. Christmas was good. I got some nice stuff. Got the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three. It's the first set that's not totally marketed towards children so they put some of the politically incorrect wartime shorts on it. Kerr got an XBOX. He's been working a lot at the Airport Inn (conveniently located twenty minutes from the Hamilton airport), and he's been raking in the cash. Still hasn't paid back the money he owes me though.

I need to start working out soon. My pseudo-New Years Resolution was to drop twenty pounds by March. It's not a real N.Y.R -- since I think those are stupid -- but I need to get on that sooner than later. Johnny moved out to Edmonton to live with Nick. John got a job at Michael's the first day he was there. I told him not to start working there since he did that here and hated it, but less than two weeks later he applied at EB Games and he's there now. He's been out there for three weeks -- it's weird, it still hasn't totally sunk in yet. There's a lot of jobs in Edmonton though. More jobs than people. He got a bus transfer the first couple of days out there and it said "Driver's Wanted". Said there's a lot of pretty girls out there too. Might have to visit him one of these days.

That's about all I can think of for now. I'll check back soon.