Free Comic Book Day 2013 and Texas Frightmare Weekend 2013.

It was a busy weekend, to put it mildly.

Friday night, I went to a party at Texas Frightmare Weekend - the American Southwest's largest Horror-themed convention.  My theater troupe, Amber Does Dallas, had been hired to perform The Rocky Horror Picture Show there - dance the Time Warp at the party on Friday, present the whole live show on Saturday.  As a technician and head riffer for the troupe, I wasn't strictly needed but it never hurts to have a free hand to help organize things, especially at a Con show.  Besides, I figured it might be a good chance to take some interesting cosplay pictures.

Sadly, I didn't get much chance to take pictures.  But I did get a chance to join an entourage of our actors sent to meet with Patricia Quinn - the actress who originally played Magenta in both the stage play The Rocky Horror Show and in the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We welcomed her to Dallas and confirmed that she would be in attendance for our show the next night.


When it came time to perform The Time Warp, I was tasked with trying to film it.  Sadly, the stage we had wasn't very well lit and a small mob of people wound up crowding the dance floor between the stage and where I'd been set up to film.  So I didn't have any video footage of our performance.  I did get video of some very enthusiastic drunks cheering quite loudly - good for the ego, but bad for promotion purposes.  Still, I did manage manage to snag one picture on the way out - an apocalypse survivor, whom I had a lovely conversation with before leaving for the evening.


Saturday, I went to see Iron Man 3.  After returning home and writing a spoiler-free review, I headed out to Keith's Comics to get my subscription as well as some free comics.  More, I hoped to take part in the annual costume contest.  I didn't win anything but I did run into some friends, including Roy Buckingham of Sassycast, cosplay model and geek girl icon Taffeta Darling and Reese of Reese's Pieces, whom you might remember as the awesome Kitty Pryde from my Dallas SciFi Expo pictures.  If you don't remember her from that, check out these pictures from The Dallas Morning News.  You can't miss her.  Naturally, she won the kid's costume contest and I was lucky enough to be caught in the background as everyone was taking pictures of her awesome costume. 

It was late when I got to Texas Frightmare Weekend.  I found out after the fact that I missed a lot of friends who had gone there earlier in the day!  And by the time I got there most of the cosplayers had already left.  Double sadness.  Still, I did get one impressive picture of this Left 4 Dead Witch.


I also was lucky enough to get an autographed picture and personalized photo with Patricia Quinn before they closed the dealer's room for the day.  She's lucky!  I'm lucky!  We're all lucky!  Ha-ha-ha!  (I'm sorry.  I had to say it!)

   

Lady Stephens was kind enough to MC our preshow later that evening.  You can see the video evidence of it below and hear the crowd that packed the room.  We had to turn people away for fear of drawing the wrath of the fire marshal, it was so crowded!  A most awesome conclusion to an awesome day.

Superman Free Comic Book Day Comic & A Man Of Steel Theory (SPOILERS)

WARNING: This column contains information that may possibly spoil the upcoming Man of Steel movie. Read no further if you wish to remain unspoiled!



Superman: Last Son of Krypton - Special Edition surprised me more than any other title I picked up on Free Comic Book Day but not for the reasons you might expect.  Despite all appearances on the cover, with a Superman in the New 52 variant of his costume, this is not a current Superman story.  It's firmly set in the post-Infinte Crisis DCU.

It's a good issue, don't get me wrong.  The story by Geoff Johns and Superman: The Movie director Richard Donner is engaging and the artwork by Andy Kubert is divine.  I just can't think of any reason why DC Comics would mass produce a six-year-old comic about Superman being confronted with a young boy who is seemingly also a refugee from Krypton.  At least, I couldn't until I read an article this morning by Rob Bricken at i09.com.

In this article, Bricken discussed a rumor that the planet Krypton might not be destroyed in the upcoming Man of Steel movie and that the reason baby Kal-El is blasted into space was because his method of birth (i.e. produced through actual, physical sex rather than through artificial means) was offensive to The Powers That Be on Krypton.  This puts a whole new spin on why General Zod (confirmed to be the main bad guy) is sending threatening messages to Earth demanding the return of one of his citizens and why Superman would feel any conflict about returning to his people if he is - as is seen in the trailer - largely viewed with distrust on Earth.

Now, ignoring all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about how this goes against the core idea of everything that Superman is, how much of his personal character is changed if he is not the last survivor of a doomed world and how this has made Man of Steel into more of a live-action Dragonball Z movie than the Dragonball Z live-action movie was... I think the idea has some merit.  Yes, the first two words of Grant Morrison's eight-word retelling of Superman's origin are "Doomed Planet" but that's the problem.  The biggest complaint we always hear about superhero movies - especially reboots - is that too much time is wasted telling the origins of a hero we already are familiar with.  I think it would actually be brilliant if Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder tried to do a slightly different take on the Superman origin story - an Elseworlds, if you will - if only to break the mold.

However, I doubt this is the case taking Bricken's information into account with DC Comics' curious decision to republish the first part of the Last Son storyline.  For this storyline was the first to introduce the idea of more survivors of Krypton's destruction living inside The Phantom Zone.  The end result of this was Superman's releasing a small army's worth of angry, xenophobic Kryptonians into a solar system where they all had the powers of gods, the establishment of a New Krypton planet in said solar system and an eventual all-out war with Earth, with the charge against the Earthlings being led by General Zod.

Why does that sound a bit familiar?

Who is to say that Zod and the other refugees survived Krypton's destruction on their own and create a new planet, which they dub Krypton in honor of their fallen homeworld?  It seems as likely as the suggestions Bricken implies in his article.  And it would explain why, out of all the stories they could have published, why DC Comics chose to reprint this issue for Free Comic Book Day.

Just an idea...

Coming Soon - My Review of The Avengers Movie

 

Regular readers know about my personal boycott of Marvel Comics and the reasons for it.  So it might surprise you all that I've decided to lift my ban, this one time, so that I can review The Avengers movie.

Is it because I'm a big fan off Joss Whedon and don't want to miss the project that - if early reports are accurate - may finally give him the mainstream success and recognition he deserves?  No.

Is it because I don't want to miss out on what may be the biggest cultural event for geeks all year?  No.

No, it's because I realized that I have a unique opportunity that I don't think any other film critic or comics blogger has at this point. 

Having not seen Iron Man 2, Thor or Captain America, I have the ability to view the film objectively as an independent work rather than a continuation of these other films.  And given that the first negative review of The Avengers made great play of the fact that the story would be largely inaccessible to those who hadn't seen all the other Marvel movies... well, I feel a need to test that. 

So sometime towards the end of this weekend... I will be seeing The Avengers.  And for good or ill, I'll be reviewing it here.  Mark your calendars.  Tell your friends.  And be sure to support your local comic book store this Saturday when you're getting your free comics.