My comic book life

Emerald City is coming up next weekend, and I can hardly wait.  It's been a bit over a year since I went to a con with comic shop vendors.  I went to Stumptown in Portland, Oregon, but the only people selling are the creators.

I've already gotten to work getting my list ready, my list of things I need (not want, but need).  So far, I have a smattering of issues that I need to complete a few series from the 1990s, and a couple issues that I am looking for to complete the Daily Planet pages, and I'm really hoping to finish off getting those Dollar Comics I still need.

Most of all, though, I think I'm going to be looking for later issues of the Brave and the Bold series from the late 80s that sort of became Batman and the Outsiders.  I had quite a number of those issues and I would love to have them again.  I'm also looking to collect a couple series to be bound, including Amethyst, All-Star Squadron, and Atari Force, things I know will never be collected by DC.  I'd love to have a nice hardcover of these books that I can read whenever I feel the urge.  And Library Binding now allows you to create a custom graphic to be printed and bound as the cover, so each volume can be truly unique.

Now I just wish I had some art skills.

When I was very young, no more than seven or eight, as all kids do, I had to go to the dentist.  More than most, I didn't mind going.  Why? Because my dentist had comics for the kids to read while they waited.  It was probably my first introduction to super-hero comics, and the book of his that I read the most was a coverless book that told the story of Joe Meach, a janitor at the Superman Museum who has the worst luck in the world.  While standing in front of a display of statuettes given to Superman by the Legion of Super-Heroes, lightning strikes the display and transfers all the powers of the Legion into Meach. Meach attempts to use his powers to take over the world, but in true Silver Age fashion, all is forgiven when the powers wear off and Meach doesn't remember what he did as the Composite Superman.

It wasn't until years later that I discovered that book was World's Finest Comics #142.  The character has always fascinated me.  From his look, a split-down-the-middle pairing of Superman and Batman, to his having the powers of all the Legion of Super-Heroes, who were obviously young heroes, a concept that I found immensely appealing, I was soon in love with both the character and super-hero comics.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, at that time, the Composite Superman only made one other appearance!

In World's Finest Comics #168, an alien appears and duplicates the accident that gave Meach his powers, who goes on a rampage.  After he loses his powers again, Meach sacrifices himself to save the duo from the alien's ray gun.  I hadn't read this story until recently, when I picked up its reprint in Super-Team Family #6.

I scoured my copy of the Overstreet Price Guide, looking for other appearances by the Composite Superman.  Surely he had made other appearances, as he was everything a writer could hope for, from his look to his power set. Surely he had appeared somewhere else, and more recently in a book I could find at the little used book store that was near my grand-parents which also carried back issue comics.  But no, he had never appeared after that.

It was years before the Composite Superman made a return appearance.  By this time, I had been reading comics regularly for a couple of years. Imagine my excitement when World's Finest Comics #283 showed up on my local grocery store's spinner rack, sporting a cover featuring the Composite Superman! Finally, another story with my favorite villain. Except, it wasn't quite the same.

The alien who recreated Meach's accident returns and makes himself into the Composite Superman. It continued into the next issue, with an appearance by the Legion, and the alien renames himself into Amalgamax before getting defeated, but overall it's a fairly uninteresting story, with unimpressive art.  Even a guest appearance by the Legion during one of its most important times couldn't save the issues.  At least the second part had a nice cover by Keith Giffen, who was also coming into his best period, in my opinion.

At least the Composite Superman wasn't forgotten by the folks at DC. When they began releasing a line of plastic figures showcasing the looks of various characters during their First Appearances, he was included in the third wave. I first saw the figure at a local store a couple years ago, but didn't have the money at the time.  By the time I was able to afford it, of course the figure was gone.  But yesterday, while checking out a store I had never visited before, there on their back wall was the First Appearance figure I had been wanting all this time.  And one of the coolest things about these figures is that they include a mini-version of the characters first appearance comic.  Though I managed to pick up his first appearance a couple years ago, it's nice to have this rarely-reprinted story included.

Sure, he sort-of made an appearance recently, as a giant robot. But it's not the same.  The original is still the best.  I'm sure it's what made me a fan of Curt Swan's art, and helped to propel me into being as huge a fan of the Legion as I am. I'm sure everyone has a favorite, little-used character.  Leave a comment and tell me yours!

A couple years ago, I finally managed to read The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and its companion volume.  These books tell the life story of Scrooge McDuck, the richest duck in Duckburg and great-uncle of Donald Duck.  The Life and Times tells the main story of his life, while the companion tells some lesser stories that fall neatly in between the main tales.  Boom Studios recently re-released The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a hardcover.

Well, that is to say that they released the first half of it.  Annoyingly, I didn't notice in the solicitation text that this book only reprints the first six stories of the twelve that comprise the first storyline.  This is where I think Boom Studios failed.  This version is a page-for-page identical reprint of the trade that was released by Gemstone, even down to Boom's not having updated the page references in the text, and Boom should probably have released the hardcover in one volume.  Certainly size wasn't that much of a consideration, as the trade has held up extremely well under repeated readings.

On the plus side, the content is outstanding, with wonderful stories and art by Don Rosa, the main successor to Scrooge's original creator Carl Barks.  If you've ever had any interest in Disney's duck characters, you will definitely want to read this collection. 

Thanks to my recent trip to Portland, I managed to pick up most of the DC Dollar Comics, including most of the World's Finests which included the Daily Planet updates.  For those who are too young to remember, DC used to make a mock-up front page simulation of the Daily Planet which it used to advertise the books that were coming out the following week (later, when the pages were only being published twice a month, that timeframe changed to the following two weeks).  Toward the end, it would appear alternately in Superman Family and World's Finest, and I'm now only missing a couple issues of SF.  I also posted an early issue of the DP, and another Justice For All Includes Children, a single page public service comic that featured kids doing something wrong and Superman telling them off and setting them right.  Both of these are avaliable under the DC Features link on the left.

Recently I upgraded my old Motorola phone that I'd had for five or so years and finally got the Samsung Omnia that I had had my eye on. Verizon had it for a great price and I'd read nothing but good reviews of it. I've had the phone for nearly three months now, and I think I've experienced the good and the bad. I'm a bit annoyed that Verizon released the Droid literally days after I ordered the Omnia, but such is the way of things.

I've discovered that the Omnia doesn't have one feature that every modern smartphone should have. You can't voice-dial with a headset. In this age of laws requiring hands-free calling, for a phone to force one to look at it while dialing is inexcusable. In Washington, where I live, and in Oregon, where I was last weekend, one must use headsets while driving. Admittedly, once you've made the call, the phone switches seamlessly to the headset, but dialing while driving is illegal.

Other annoyances with the phone include the "standard" interface provided by Samsung. Many people love it. It provides a vertical bar containing many widgets that can be dragged out onto the desktop. There are a couple of problems with this bar however, not the least of which is how much it drags while scrolling. Scrolling the bar to a new icon will cause one to wonder whether you actually scrolled the bar at all. In addition, one is extremely limited as to what can be added to the bar. Install a new program? Good luck adding it to the bar.

It's hard not to compare the phone to Apple's iPhone. I have an iPod Touch, so I'm familiar with its interface, and the Omnia's keyboard can't compare. Somehow, even though the on-screen keyboard is roughly the same size, the Omnia has managed to make its keys feel much more cramped. The iPhone also does some interesting things with predictive typing, such as changing a double-space into a period and a space.

All in all, while I could live with the Omnia, I think I'm going to call Verizon to see if I'm still in my returnability time-frame and see if I can't get the Droid instead. I've heard nothing but good things about it. I'm going to have to find out about controlling it by the headset first, though.

Edit: I discovered that i'm not any smarter than my phone. Apparently I need to hold down the call button on the headset in order to make a voice call. I was just tapping the button, which is how one answers a call.