The general gist of the story is that the old Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, had this ancient magical blue scarab, which he could never get to fully activate. After what happened to Kord during the Infinite Crisis, the scarab was somehow found by a Mexican-American teenager from El Paso named Jaime Reyes. The scarab somehow fused with Reyes and turns into Blue Beetle Armor with all kinds of cool super powers. Reyes still doesn’t know how it works, however, because the scarab talks to him in some weird language he can’t understand. But that doesn’t stop Reyes from getting drawn into the superhero world, especially when his home town of El Paso is threatened.

I highly recommend picking up the trades for this comic, if you like good superhero stories, especially “new superhero figuring out his powers” stories. I’d give this whole run a comics a solid 9/10. Well worth your time if you like superheros.

DC COMICS
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MARVEL COMICS
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INDIE COMICS
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DC COMICS

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IMAGE COMICS

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MARVEL COMICS

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INDIE COMICS

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DC COMICS

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IMAGE COMICS

JUL071951 FRANK FRAZETTAS DEATH DEALER #6 (OF 6) (MR) $3.99
AUG072030 SPAWN GODSLAYER #6 $2.99

MARVEL COMICS

OCT072079 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #548 BND $2.99
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COMICS

OCT073408 HIGHLANDER WAY O/T SWORD #2 $3.50
SEP073528 NEW BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON ZERO #5 $2.99
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SEP073508 RED SONJA #29 $2.99
NOV073641 STAR TREK ALIENS SPOTLIGHT BORG $3.99
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NOV073233 STARSHIP TROOPERS #5 $3.50

Casanova - I was kind of expecting something quite different than what this actually was. For starters, it has an R rating, but where is the nudity? I mean, this is a movie about the legendary lover Casanova!! Come on, show some skin! Secondly, this is really a comedy, and not a historical piece. The history is pretty much all wrong. But as a comedy, this movie is pretty frickin’ hilarious. I laughed a lot while sitting through this. If you like romantic comedies with quite a bit of sexual innuendo (but no actual, you know, sex), and comedies about identity hijinks, you will probably like this. If you’re a big fan of Venice, you will enjoy the scenery in this movie, which was pretty beautiful. 6.5/10

National Treasure: Book of Secrets - basically, not much to say here. A typical action/adventure/mystery type thriller. if you like things like Tomb Raider, The Mummy, Indiana Jones, or especially the first National Treasure movie, you are in the target audience. It is basically eye and ear candy for 2 hours with some humor and thrills and amounts to basically nothing at the end of it. It will not change your life or make you think or give you any new enlightenment about this crazy thing called life. But it probably will entertain you, if you like that sort of thing. I liked it, and overall only 1 or 2 things bothered me, easily overlooked (that I can’t mention without spoilers). Not sure as it’s “must-see-in-the-theater” type movie, probably if you’re not sure about it save it for a rental. 7.5/10

RV - Robin Williams takes his family on a road trip in a rented RV. Hilarity ensues. Really not much to say here except I was laughing pretty much non stop for the whole movie. None of it was dirty humor or druggie humor or stupid ass humor either, just clean, rolling on the floor humor. If you liked National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Great Outdoors, and movies of that sort, you will most likely find this movie funny and charming. 8/10

Bobby Z - this movie is quite possibly one of the worst movies I’ve seen since Syriana. It’s not even a “so bad it’s good” kind of bad, it’s just, bad. The ending totally sucked. Could have been a decent story without such a cop-out ending. Fishburn writes in his role here, I was disappointed, he can act way better than this. Then they try and throw in some huggy feely shit near the end, which ruins what might have been a great little balls-out action movie if they’d have put a few more cajones into it. Blech. 5/10

Good Night and Good Luck - Great A+ level acting, I couldn’t even tell who half the actors were they were so authentic, even Clooney didn’t stand out as his typical Clooney persona. This film is 100% black & white, to get the feel of the era, which was off putting at first but eventually I got to like it that way. This is the story of how a TV news show team takes on Senator Joseph McCarthy during the infamous communist senate hearings era. If you have no idea what I’m talking about you need to read up on this era in US history, it is highly relevant today and serves as a warning as to just how perilous freedom really is, even in the so called Land of the Free. A few bits of this could have been cut out to make it shorter and more to the point. It clocks in at 93 minutes which is short by today’s standards, but I feel a movie of this nature needs to be short to keep people focused on the issue. 8.5/10

The Sopranos, Season 6 - Well, this was… an ending, I guess. I liked about half the episodes of this season, the rest just seemed like WTFiller. If you asked me what I think about Sopranos I have to say I absolutely love this show overall, but I didn’t really think that Season 6 added much to the whole thing. There are a few key moments that really had that awesome Sopranos edge to it, and those are must-see for any fans of the series. Unfortunately the whole season isn’t like that but it’s still worth a view for sure. If you’re expecting everything to get all wrapped up nice and neat with a earth shattering finale, well, don’t expect that, you’ll just be disappointed. If you have never watched Sopranos you should start with Season 1 Disc 1 because you absolutely can not start in the middle and know what the fuck is happening. This is the most realistic authentic feeling mafia show you’ll ever see in some ways, and in other ways it’s ridiculous, but it’s a wonderful ride. Overall series gets a 10/10 for me, I gotta be loyal to “the family” ;-P, but this season, especially with its “ending” gets a 8/10

Fred Claus - Vince Vaughn is Santa Claus’s older, forgotten brother and he resents St. Nick’s good nature and how his parents love little Nick more than Fred. This movie is pretty much fluff, but it’s a pretty funny popcorn movie to go see if you just want a light laugh having something to do with Christmas. There are better Christmas movies out there and there are better comedies out there. Vaughn is fairly low-key in this, not his usual over-the-top assholishness (ala The Breakup). If you hate Vince Vaughn, this movie won’t change your mind. Overall we were more or less entertained, but not wowed. 7/10

Firewall - harrison ford, predicatble plot, he did this same movie already in an airplane i think. family is taken hostage, he’s a bank security guru and has to help the thugs steal 100 million and keep his family alive. too many dull moments talking about boring computer security shit that isn’t even real computer security shit. i am glad we waited to rent this instead of going to see it at the movies like she wanted. oh well, i watched one of her movies so i get to pick next. oh and the blu-ray version of it isn’t impressive at all, looks about like a DVD. 6.5/10

The Aviator - i wasn’t really surprised at this, because i always thought he was an above average actor, but Leo DiCaprio does a smash up job as airplane/movie mogul Howard Hughes in this biographical movie. supporting acting is also top notch. This movie was long. 2 hrs 50 min. A bit too long. And they concentrated a bit too much on his mental illness (they lingered too long on those scenes is what I mean). the scenes involving airplanes and aviation were fantastic. the babes are all pretty hot also. the movie doesn’t cover his whole life, tho, and really only concentrates on a short window where he made his fortunes and ultimate decline in health. his later years after 1947 are not covered at all, and the movie doesn’t explain how he learned to fly or how he knew so much about aviation. some time spent on his formative years would have been nice, and maybe some bits on possible triggers for his mental illness which began to impact his life dramatically later in life. all in all, he was a man of strong character (or is portrayed as such in this film) in some ways, and not in others, but most of all his life was very interesting. 8.5/10

Black Hawk Down - saw the Blu-ray of this yesterday. pretty intense, lots of cool urban warfare stuff. lots and lots of killing. pretty hard to believe our military did such a clusterfuck on that thing (if the movie is a true interpretation of the events). what seemingly should have been a simple smash and grab turned into a day/night long battle. lot of testosterone and people doing stupid things in the name of honor and bravery. overall it was well worth watching again, especially since this is the first time i saw it in HD. 8.5/10

Kung-Fu Hustle - i almost turned this off after about 20 minutes of it seemingly going nowhere and just being really stupid. man am i glad i didn’t. this is one of those really slow starters but once it got going it was absolutely hilarious and the action was over the top of cool. completely unrealistic, sure, but awesome. really a neat little movie. i think the dubbing in places was pretty awful but other than that it was well worth a view. 8/10 (could have been higher if it hadn’t been such a slow starter)

It is also highly annoying when sorting search results “Low to High” and all the $0.01 items come up first even though they have a $5 shipping price on them (many of which don’t even have Prime). To me the searching should be an “as-shipped” price if I’m logged in. You know my address, you know how much the cheapest shipping method for that item is. So…?

Optionally just a switch on the search page that says “don’t show Marketplace items” would be fine too. Sometimes I want to search for Marketplace stuff but not every time. Even marking my search as “New” condition doesn’t seem to help, they still show up, since some people list their Marketplace stuff as New.

Basically, my whole problem with the way it works now is there is no way for me to just shop at Amazon if I want to. It’s like I’m in the Amazon store, but a billion other small-time vendors keep running up to me trying to hawk their wares. “Oh, sir, you’re interested in Star Wars novels? Well, I happen to have some right here, no, no, ignore that one that Amazon is selling, mine is NEW! And cheaper!” A real brick and mortar store wouldn’t put up with that, so why do you guys? The marketplace integration is nice, but I need a way to turn it off, too, if I want to.

If you feel the same way I do, please take the time to send them a note about it also. If you disagree, have a nice warm cup of STFU.

DARK HORSE
NOV070013         BPRD 1946 #1                                $2.99
OCT070065         STAR WARS LEGACY #0 1/2 ONE SHOT            $2.99
DC COMICS
NOV070165         COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 16                $2.99
NOV070179         GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #4                 $2.99
NOV070207         GREEN LANTERN CORPS #20                     $2.99
NOV070190         NIGHTWING #140                              $2.99
NOV070196         SUPERMAN #672                               $2.99
NOV070170         TEEN TITANS THE LOST ANNUAL                 $4.99
MARVEL COMICS
OCT072076         AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #546 BND                 $3.99
NOV072150         HULK #1                                     $2.99
SEP072215         MIGHTY AVENGERS #7 SII                      $2.99
NOV072169         NOVA #10                                    $2.99
NOV072172         PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #15                    $2.99
NOV072177         TWELVE #1 (OF 12)                           $2.99
NOV072187         WOLVERINE #61                               $2.99
NOV072181         X-FACTOR #27 MC                             $2.99
INDIE COMICS
NOV073462         SWORD OF RED SONJA DOOM O/T GODS #4         $3.50
SEP070078         BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS VOL 3     $24.99

Total List $79.33

Hello?

Are you still here?

Okay, well for those of you still here, here is what I think. First of all, I liked Peter Parker and MJ being married. I liked it because it aged the character a little bit and gave him some grown up responsibilities and also someone with whom he could truly share his feelings and his life with, even his Spider-Man life. I know that the marriage was essentially a rushed job that was passed down mandate from editorial, but we now have a huge history of a married Spider-Man and it just fits so well with the character. So really, I am against this arc from the get-go because I disagree with Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada at Marvel when he says that this is better for the character.

But, I am willing to still read it and see what happens. Maybe it will be better. Who knows. The art of the book was excellent, Joe Quesada’s pencils were great and showed real emotion for the characters. The dialog is also really good between Peter and MJ in their last hours together. But I had a real problem with the plot.
What I really have a problem with is how they get rid of the marriage. In part 3 we learned about the machinations of Mephisto, who is essentially Marvel’s “devil” character, always making deals with mortals which they invariably end up regretting. Peter has encountered Mephisto before and he knows that the creature is evil and untrustworthy. So now then, why the hell is Peter Parker making deals with the devil?! Joe Quesada claims in a recent interview at CBR that he didn’t want to just give MJ and Peter a divorce because it would look bad for all the kids. What?! So Marvel is essentially saying “Divorce, that’s bad, kids, but going to Satan to solve your problems, well that’s A-OKAY!” Peter should already know this is going to turn out very badly for him, because any deal with Mephisto always turns out bad! This is totally out of character for Peter and even MJ.

A lot of other fans are annoyed because they believe (perhaps erroneously according to Joe Q) that this issue wipes out 20 years of Spider-Man history. I personally don’t think that it does and even if it wipes out some things, I can live with that as long as the stories are good and keep being good.
Anyway, overall I am still a fan of Spider-Man and will still be buying Amazing Spider-Man in the near future. A lot of fans claim they are dropping the book. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

Alpha Prime, first person shooter for PC.

Conan, action beat-em-up for PS3 (it has a 360 ver also).

My Spanish Coach - learn to speak Spanish on the DS.

My French Coach - learn to speak French on the DS.

My Word Coach - learn to speak English better (bigger vocabulary) on the Wii. Also on the DS.

Sam & Max 201: Ice Station Santa - the latest adventure for the comedic duo, for PC.

NOV070019 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #10 $2.99
SEP070095 STAR WARS LEGACY #18 $2.99

DC COMICS

NOV070164 COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 17 $2.99
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NOV070169 TEEN TITANS YEAR ONE #1 (OF 6) $2.99

MARVEL COMICS

JUL072208 ANITA BLAKE VH GUILTY PLEASURES #7 (OF 12) $2.99
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NOV072179 UNCANNY X-MEN #494 MC $2.99

INDIE COMICS

OCT073244 PIRATES VS NINJAS II UP THE ANTE #6 (OF $3.50
Pretty light week. Also picked up Gravel #0 while I was in there.

DC COMICS

ACTION COMICS #860 $2.99
BATMAN #672 $2.99
BLUE BEETLE #22 $2.99
COUNTDOWN TO ADVENTURE #5 (OF 8 ) $3.99
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 18 $2.99
FLASH #235 $2.99
GOTHAM UNDERGROUND #3 (OF 9) $2.99
GREEN LANTERN #26 $2.99
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JACK OF FABLES #18 (MR) $2.99
TEEN TITANS #54 $2.99
TEEN TITANS GO #50 $2.25

IMAGE COMICS

WITCHBLADE #112 $2.99

MARVEL COMICS

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545 OMD $3.99
AVENGERS INITIATIVE #8 $2.99
CAPTAIN AMERICA #33 $2.99
DAREDEVIL #103 $2.99
GIANT SIZE AVENGERS SPECIAL #1 $4.99
HOUSE OF M AVENGERS #3 (OF 5) $2.99
IRON MAN #24 $2.99
MARVEL SPOTLIGHT ONE MORE DAY BRAND NEW DAY $2.99
MARVEL SPOTLIGHT X-MEN MESSIAH COMPLEX MC $2.99
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PUNISHER #53 (MR) $2.99
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #49 $2.99
ULTIMATE POWER #9 (OF 9) $2.99
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #117 $2.99
X-MEN #206 MC $2.99
X-MEN FIRST CLASS VOL 2 #7 $2.99
X-MEN MESSIAH COMPLEX MUTANT FILES MC $3.99

INDIES/SMALL-PRESS PUBLISHERS

BLACK SUMMER ALPHA (MR) $2.99