Beef, Librarians, Civilization, and Sickness

Friday the 13th, buxom_bey and I had another of our double-household-dates with Dead Muppet House. quiet_elegance couldn't make it, so it was us, mizarchivist, and purple_terror. We me up at Kelly's Roast Beef for cheese-drenched french fries and chocolate shakes, then back to B and my place for Settlers of Catan and general hanging-out. Somewhere along the way I ended up reading to the group from Empowered, and sending it home with MizA. It's silly fun.

Saturday, two parties, beginning with MzA and lifecollage's Sexy Librarian Party. And, my goodness, but they were two very sexy librarians that night. And there was mousse, and snogging, and solid-as-a-rock ice cream cake that fell onto people in entertaining manner. B and I left that party a bit early to get to darxus' housewarming party. He has a nifty new home, though his minimalist decorating esthetic had Bey salivating at the thought of helping him hang curtains. And, I got to see cathijosephine, who I've been missing dreadfully lately.

Sunday, dragged my ass out of bed early to set up for Advanced Civlization. nchanter, bluegargantua, inthatoneway, marphod, eldrad, and Bill came over to tackle this epic boardgame. Given that half of us had never played before, we did very well, getting within a couple turns of the end in only ten hours of gameplay (counting a lunch break), before we had to break. Eldrad, won, followed by Bill and IT1W. I, umm, I played Crete, and came in very last. Still, everyone seemed to have fun, and I'll probably try to make this happen again . . . maybe next year.

And Monday I began to recover from my nagging cough, in time to get a serious tension headache. Bleh.

Books: Superman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and the Young Avengers

All-Star Superman by Morrison and Quitely

This is Grant Morrison's deco/reco take on the Silver Age Superman, who (let's face it) was often a bit weird and detached. The stories here are about how being Superman inevitably means that the world you move in is different from everyone else's. When Supes learns he may be dying, he decides to try and do something about that, both by connecting more closely with the human world, and by letting Lois Lane into his.

I do have complaints about Morrison's writing style. "Weird for its own sake" strikes me as contrived. I also think it's grossly unfair that Lois gets superpowers for a day, and never actually gets to use them. But, overall, tightly constructed, beautifully illustrated, and highly recommended.

Spider-Man: The Other by David, et al

A storyline that crossed twelve issues and three of Spidey's titles, chronicling a major turning point in his life. (Though to be honest, Marvel's "event-driven" publishing style means that Spidey has major turning points every fifth week.) ( Cut for spoilers. )

A bit dense for newcomers, but still highly recommended.

Wonder Woman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told by Moulton Marston, et al

There are really two revelations I came away with from this collection. First, there must have been a lot of bad Wonder Woman stories over the past seventy years, if these are the best. Three of the ten stories, I'd call good. For the rest, they were probably a good example of their era, but . . .

The second revelation was that William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, was even kinkier than I thought. He was apparently poly, and clearly into bondage (of the 26 pages of the story "Villainy, Incorporated", there are only 5 pages on which no one is tied up, caged, or having mind-controlling shackles put on them or removed), but the repeated line, "The only real happiness for anybody is to be found in obedience to loving authority," raised my eyebrows quite a bit. Anyway, an interesting overview of WW's career, but not really recommended.

Young Avengers: Family Matters by Heinberg, Cheung, Divito

This continues to be a really good teen superhero title. Even the cliches are amusing. (Such as when Wiccan tries to come out to his parents as a superhero, and they assume he's coming out as being gay . . . Which he is, actually, and it's handled quite well. Almost as incidental and not worthy of particular comment, apart from this one scene.) It also covers nicely the problems of being a second- or third-generation hero, as with Patriot trying to live up to his grandfather's example, or Stature dealing with how her father died in the line of duty. The big story arc had a few too many similarities to the first story arc . . . ( Cut for spoilers. )

. . . But that isn't enough to put me off the book. Highly recommended.