What a wasted day.
I got up some time shortly before nine and thought about going for a walk.
After deciding not to go for a walk, I pretty much opted to not do much of anything.
I did spend some time reading, though.
Most notably, I read some interesting comic books, both in electronic format, and of the more conventional variety.
The electronic comics were scans of a comic called “Earth X,” which was published by Marvel around five years ago.
The basic concept for the story came from an image that “Wizard” magazine had commissioned from Alex Ross.
One of Ross’ major works is a book entitled “Kingdom Come,” which tells an “imaginary” story about the future of the DC Universe.
Let me define some terms. Obviously any story about a super-hero is “imaginary,” but in this context the word means that the story is not canonical; that is, in the continuity of the “real” stories, this story never actually happened.
Years ago, “imaginary stories” were very common at DC, particularly in the “Superman” comics.
The advantage of “imaginary stories” was that they allowed writers the opportunity to explore different possibilities, possibilities that might otherwise never even be considered.
Want to see what it would be like if Superman finally married Lois? Well, for God’s sake, we can’t have him ACTUALLY marry her, so let’s do an “imaginary story.”
There were other advantages to “imaginary stories,” though, like generating hype for a specific issue.
If you did a cover featuring Superman lying in his coffin with a weeping Lois being comforted by a somber Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, you'd probalby generate at least some interest from your average fanboy.
But just think how much more compelling that same cover becomes if it also boldly proclaims that the story contained therein is “Not a hoax! Not a dream! NOT AN IMAGINARY STORY!”
Besides freeing them from the tedium (and dear God, it MUST have gotten tedious to write some of those stories) of producing the same formulaic stories month after month (How many new ways can you come up with for Lois to almost find out that Superman is Clark Kent, or for Luthor to almost succeed in killing him, or for Superman to trick Mxyzptlk into saying his name backwards before you start banging your head against the wall?), imaginary stories were as much of a plot gimmick as Red Kryptonite, often helping the writers dash out a quick and easy bit of harmless fluff whenever they were strapped for ideas that required working within the bounds of regular continuity.
(“Red Kryptonite,” by the way, was a variety of the deadly pieces of Superman’s homeworld that had unpredictable, yet non-lethal, effects on Kryptonians. The effects were only temporary, lasting for about 48 hours at most. Throughout the years, Red K has made Supes blind, given him amnesia, turned him into a monkey, and inflicted a variety of bizarre, and absurd, physical and psychological changes upon him. The thought process behind every Red K story was pretty easy to guess at: “Damn, I can’t think of anything! I thought we could have Superman travel back in time and meet his Kryptonian parents for the first time (again), but they’re doing that in “Superboy” this month. Hmm…I’ve got it! As he flies back from rescuing some alien civilization, he’ll fly past a chunk of Red K floating through space and he’ll turn into…a “Super-Grasshopper!” Damn, I’m good.”)
In any case, to return to my rather long-winded point, DC Comics in recent years (within the last 15 or so) revived the “imaginary story,” though such stories came to be known as “Elseworlds.”
“Elseworlds” stories have brought us notions such as Superman’s rocket landing in medieval England, Bruce Wayne becoming Batman in the 1890s and taking on Jack the Ripper, and John Byrne’s excellent “Generations” stories, which follow the lives of Superman and Batman (and others) as an unending line from 1938 on into the future.
So. In the 1990s, under the “Elseworlds” imprint, DC published “Kingdom Come,” which brings us 20+ years into the future of the DC Universe.
Which is the other term I need to define.
By “DC Universe” I mean the umbrella of continuity that connects characters owned and published by DC Comics. This includes Superman, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern.
All of these characters share a common universe, the DC Universe, or, as it’s come to be called these days, the DCU.
So.
“Kingdom Come” shows us the aforementioned characters, along with hundreds of others, imaginatively aged by Alex Ross. Some of them are only slightly changed, like Superman, who has just a few touches of gray, others, such as Wonder Woman, haven’t aged at all, and others, like old Bats, haven’t held up too well at all, what with the constant abuse his body was subjected to.
Visually, “Kingdom Come” was amazing. ANYTHING looks cool when illustrated by Ross, but what made it so compelling was seeing some familiar faces looking not quite so familiar, what with the crow’s feet, the middle-aged spread, and the receding hairlines.
So.
Enter “Wizard” magazine, which, based on Ross’ work on “Kingdom” wanted to see him tackle the future of some of the residents of the OTHER comic book universe.
(While there are dozens of companies publishing comics, the two major companies are DC and Marvel. DC is older, and has more of the “big names,” but Marvel is, and has been for a very long time, the market leader, holding, last time I checked, more than 50% of the market.)
So when Alex Ross conceived of a pudgy, middle-aged Spider-Man, he got to thinking about the possibilities, and approached a writer.
Thus, “Earth X” was born, and later it gave birth to “Universe X,” and “Paradise X.”
Apart from “Earth X” I read a collection of comics called “Fables,” which tells the story of characters from fables, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales who have been living, unseen, within the “mundane” population of humanity for 200 years. They have their own little society, culture, and laws, even as they live and work among us.
These stories were much more enjoyable than the movie that I watched today, a pilot for a series, which, thankfully, never got off the ground, based on the “Justice League of America.”
It was pretty terrible, all things considered, though I’m glad I finally got seeing it out of the way.
It seems that they were aiming for a serio-comic approach, having a certain amount of action (with cheesy special effects), but focusing more on the personal lives of the super-heroes who made up the League. Presumably, said personal lives were fertile ground for all sorts of comic mishaps. I’m sure that, given time, they would have likely explored the possibilities that spring forth, for example, from The Flash being known as “The Fastest Man Alive.”
Luckily, they never got that chance.
On an unrelated note, I did finally get Doom 3 installed.
My system exceeds the requirements on all points except the one that’s likely the most important: graphics.
I meet the MINIMUM requirements on that score (64 MB of video memory), but apparently the minimum isn’t going to cut it. Even at the lowest quality setting movement is a little choppy, and after a few minutes of gameplay, it crashes.
I will say that it looks pretty amazing, though, and I can only imagine how good it looks on a top of the line system.
In any case, it looks like I’m “doomed” after all, but not in the way I thought I would be. I thought I would be condemned to a life of obsessively playing the game, but it seems that I’m condemned to a life of not being able to play it at all…
But, back to my original point, I accomplished very little today. I did make banana bread, but that’s as creative as I got. Apart from getting my mail, I never left the apartment, and since my mother called last night, I never spoke to another human being for the entire day.
Tomorrow I’ll have to do SOMETHING. At the very least I’ll need to go grocery shopping and to get gas for my car.
Life isn’t likely to get too much more exciting that than that, though, which is probably just as well, as I don’t think I was ever designed for excitement in the first place.
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