Sunday, June 8, 2008

Comic Roundup: May 29, 2008

  • Why does anyone need 10 copies of a comic book? What possible reason could you have for buying that many? Especially when you're holding up the line when I have to drive back to work on my lunch hour?

  • Final Crisis issue 1: What in the world is happening here? If there was ever an event comic aimed solely at the fanboy contingent, this is it. I know some of the characters from reading Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis, two books I could get my non-DC-reading mind around. But I feel like I picked up this story in the middle, but not in the cool in medias res sort of way. More like starting War and Peace on page 275. As much as I could get into the prior events, I just can't see myself riding this one out.

  • Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men issue 1: After four years, Joss Whedon and John Cassaday finally bring their saga to a close. It really was everything it needed to be: a big action piece with deep character issues addressed and exploited in the Whedonesque way. Anyone who did not enjoy the prior issues is not going to find anything to change their mind. Anyone who did will find a great, fitting, and touching ending here.

  • Judenhass: Although we have been clued into the general subject of Dave Sim's Secret Project One, we did not know exactly what he was trying to accomplish with this book or how we would go about it. Instead of retelling the Shoah story, Sim instead focuses Judenhass on the insidious way the smallest verbal and written dehumanizations of the Jews could lead not to an aberration in Nazi Germany, but the inevitability of disaster. Even though I was reading this at work, I could not put it down until I had finished reading. And afterward, I could not shake the feeling that when we say "Never forget" that we're focusing on the wrong thing. It's not enough to promise not to allow a genocide to run unchecked; we must also never allow ourselves to fall for the intellectual trap of thinking another person or group of people are somehow less than how we see ourselves.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Played Lately: World of Warcraft

  • Haven't had much to say about WoW of lately, mostly because I haven't been spending much time in Azeroth. Mostly I've been logging on just long enough to say "Hi" to my friends and complete the daily fishing quest. All of that changed recently when I saw a recruiting post on the Draka server forum. Amazingly they both were looking for a mage (When does that ever happen?) and their raid times actually coincide with my schedule. So I went over to the guild webpage and filled out an application.

  • It wasn't very long, but it still took me two to three hours to complete. I really like the guild I was in and have some good friends there. I didn't want to give up on that lightly. Plus, joining a guild that is progressing in high level raids don't mess around all that much. I wasn't sure if I was up to the standard, or even if I wanted to try and put out that much effort. In the end I submitted it. And then I waited. Amazingly, I was offered a trial run in the guild. My friends sent me off with their blessing and I joined my new guild, Exile.

  • So far I've been to two raids, one into Tempest Keep and one to Gruul's Lair. In the first, though it took a few tries, we were able to take down the Void Reaver. At the second raid, we cleanly cut through the ogres to kill both High King Mauglar and Gruul the Dragonkiller. All of these were firsts for me, so it has been an exciting week. Looking at the statistics, I did not stand out from the crowd, but I was not left behind, either. I think I've made a good accounting for myself, especially in the boss fights as I was only ever killed by trash mobs in both raids.

  • So despite my hesitation, I have enjoyed moving to the new guild and I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish in the future.