Evolution of the Musketeers

The Three Musketeers has been adapted for film 20+ times. While the novel is considered a timeless classic, the movies seems to have quit adapting it and started adapting each other.

One big problem is that it is a long novel. The plot follows the young D'Artagnan as he travels to Paris to follow in his father's footsteps and become a Musketeer (this was an elite force). Along the way he manages to offend the title characters (Athos, Porthos, and Aramis) and is challenged to a duel by each of them. The first duel is interrupted by the Cardinal's Guard (they are rivals to the Musketeers) and D'Artagnan joins in the fracas, earning the respect of the Musketeers. Later he acquires a mistress - the Queen's dressmaker and through her becomes involved in palace plots. The first of these involves a romance between the Queen and the English Duke of Buckingham. The Queen gave a set of 10 diamonds to the Duke as a memento and one of the Cardinal's agents (Milady) manages to steal two of these.

The Cardinal talks the King into holding a ball so that the Queen can wear her diamonds. D'Artagnan and the Musketeers rush to London to retrieve them.

Later D'Artagnan becomes involved with Milady and discovers that she is Athos's wife who had been sentenced to death. This puts all four Musketeers on Milady's hit list along with the Duke of Buckingham. After the Duke is assassinated, and D'Artagnan's mistress is killed, Milady is caught and executed.

Many adaptations stop with the Queen's jewels. Others try to squeeze the entire plot into a movie. The best of these efforts was directed by Richard Lester. While it was filmed as a single, long movie, it ended up being split in two. This continues to be the best version for fans of the book.

The Lester version cast Christopher Lee as the Cardinal's henchman, Rochefort. Lee wore an eyepatch which was not in the novel.

The next big-budget adaptation was by Disney. They gave the 17th century a thorough going-over in the early 1990s. In addition to the Three Musketeers, they did Pocahontas, Squanto and The Scarlet Letter (through Disney's Touchstone subsidiary). Disney pretty much threw the Dumas's plot away and started from scratch. In this version D'Artagnan arrived in London only to find the Musketeers had been dissolved. He had to rally them in order to save a young King Louis XIII from the villainous Cardinal. The cardinal's henchman wore an eyepatch and did a Christopher Lee impression but wore Black. Milady was an ambiguous character - forced to evil by Athos's hatred.

More recently, a version simply called "The Musketeer" followed D'Artagnan as he saved the young King from the man in black who wore an eyepatch and spoke like Christopher Lee. It featured a lot of wire-work (sometimes called wire-fu) inspired by martial arts movies and was released on the heels of Crouching Tiger. It was more a remake of the Disney version than an adaptation of Dumas's classic.

Now, the newest version looks like it has wire-work, a young king, and a man in black with an eyepatch. Milady seems to be ambiguous. So this looks like a remake of The Musketeer which was a remake of Disney's version which was influenced by Lester's version which was based on the novel.

I don't expect much from it. At least the costumes look better than the Disney version.

Digital Wars

Would you buy a digital edition of a comic for a 7" tablet? What if that was the only format open, would that change your mind?

When Amazon introduced its Kindle Fire color eBook reader, they also announced an exclusive deal with DC comics to distribute some of their content. Barnes and Noble threw a fit and pulled all DC products from their shelves. Books A Million did the same.

So where does that leave the comic book reader?

First, competition is good. I want to see digital content carried by as many sources as possible. That keeps the vendors honest (at least relatively). Digital books are already overpriced. I want to see digital books sold for paperback prices or lower. Instead we have a two-tiered system where the digital book is priced a little below the hardcover price until the paperback comes out then the price is dropped. For the same product. The consumer is being charged a premium for not waiting. At least with hardcover/paperback you felt that you were getting a more durable product with larger fonts when you bought hardcover.

The second issue is the reader itself. We have a 7" color Nook at home. It is pretty small for reading a comic book. I have used a 10" tablet to read comics before and that is still smaller than I would like. Even with the smart interface that Marvel's digital web site uses, everything is too small on anything less than a full-size laptop. So, DC is not doing the reader any favors by locking them into the Kindle Fire. To be fair, after some confusion, Amazon clarified that the exclusive DC content can also be viewed on its Kindle app on tablets.

This is a multiple-front issue. On one hand we have the book stores fighting it out with Amazon over the ability to distribute content. B&N and Books a Million are worried about the death of Borders and are willing to give Amazon exclusive distribution of DC's print medium in order to make a point. I'm sure that Amazon offered DC a good deal but was it still as good after two major chains cut them off? Yes, you can still order the books from Amazon or even from B&N as long as it is delivered directly to your home but not everyone goes to Amazon to buy graphic novels.

At the same time, you have DC and Marvel. In the 1960s they were everywhere. Every corner drugstore and supermarket had a comic stand. Now they are pretty much limited to specialty stores. In fact, a good bit of their marketing now comes from publishing stories in arcs that can be repackaged as graphic novels and sold in bookstores.

Also, for a long time comic books were the only place you could go for your super hero fix. Now we have super hero movies and TV shows coming out constantly. To say nothing of video games which let you be a super hero.

So comic books are being squeezed. It probably sounded like a good deal to DC to have Amazon pushing some of their inventory. I doubt if it even occurred to them that there would be issues with other book sellers.

Probably over the next decade we will see a major shift in comic books away from the printed format and onto the digital one. First we have to see a clear winner emerge. The IPad has a huge lead but Android and Microsoft could still catch up. Remember, three years ago Android phones were just being introduced. Now they dominate the market. But, Microsoft is at its best when it enters a mature market instead of trying to create one. It will take a few more years before things settle down.

Once they do settle down to a predictable standard, I expect comics to be formatted for that first, traditional comic books second, and graphic novels third.

Joss Whedon - Director

Joss Whedon, the director of the upcoming Avengers movie is a respected writer and TV director but he has only directed one theatrical release, Serenity, which was a movie adaptation of the TV series Firefly. I saw it in the theater (I got to attend a preview for media bloggers) and it has been showing up on cable regularly, probably to build excitement for the Avengers. After multiple viewings, there are a few things that stand out, especially the opening.

The movie establishes the general framework, that there are multiple worlds surrounding a sun, that they have been teraformed, that that there was a rebellion between the outlying planets and the inner ones. But this scene turns out to be a memory of River who is being held in a medical facility. Her brother breaks in and frees her. Except this is really a security recording being reviewed after the fact.

So, as we move close to reality, we also go from the general to the specific background for the movie. It's a quick way of bringing new viewers up to date.

Then we cut away to Serenity and follow the captain, Mal, as he talks to each crew member. This takes us through the entire spaceship in one continuous shot. There is a subtle message here - they didn't just build individual sets for the different parts of the ship, they built the entire interior of the spaceship.

The crew lives up to its reputation as anti-heroes by robbing a bank. This is interrupted by an attack by the real bad guys, the Reavers. We met the Reavers a couple of times in the series but never learned where they came from. We just know that they are crazy killers.

You know that they are evil. Their spaceship not only looks evil, it puts out more dirty smoke than a steam engine.

Eventually the crew figures out that there is an answer on an unknown world. They land and their world changes. When it does, the camera does a nice 360.

There are other nice touches, mainly involving the almost unflappable Operative losing his calm.

So, what does that tell us about Whedon as a director? He throws flashy bits in but he keeps them low-key enough that they don't distract from the action.

Bye Steve

I never owned a product made by Apple so Steve Jobs never touched me personally. I was tempted several times starting back in 1977 when I bought my first home computer (IBM invented the term "personal computer" in the early 1980s). Most home computers were kits that had to be soldered together. The Apple II was part of the second wave of home computers - ones that were pre-assembled. The problem with the Apple, from my point of view, was that it was something like $1,600 and a Radio Shack TRS-80 without monitor was $400. I didn't have $1,600 so there was no real choice.

That happened several times over the years. Apple might tempt me but I ended up buying something equivalent for a fraction of the price. This eventually became know as the Apple Premium.

Then there was the cult of the Mac. People went into raptures over the thing. I've never cared for cults of personality.

The "I'm an Apple" ads never affected me much. I always liked the PC guy better. Plus, the ads lied. In one they had the PC using a spreadsheet to show how much he enjoyed his vacation while the Mac guy was able to create a slideshow of pictures. This is trivial on a PC but they implied that you had to have a Mac to do it.

Then there is the walled garden. By the time I could afford an Apple phone or MP3 player, they had established tight control over every aspect of the devices. This was the culmination of Steve Jobs's career. The Apple I was a kit. The Apple II was totally open. When it first came out they documented every part of it making it east for 3rd parties to make add-ons. The Mac was locked down. When it was announced you violated your warranty by plugging in a non-Apple printer.

But the iPhone, iPod, and iPad go beyond that. They are media consumption devices and Apple gets a cut of the media. That's why they don't allow SD cards or Flash - both are ways of delivering content without going through Apple's gatekeepers.

Microsoft made a few attempts at this sort of control in the 1990s but backed off later. Apple went far beyond anything Microsoft ever dreamed of. But because its users are convinced that everything Steve Jobs ever touched is "insanely great", no one complains.

When you get down to it, Bill Gates has touched my life much more than Steve Jobs ever did. Jobs's main contribution has been to give Microsoft some competition. They have always been at their best when facing a competitor.

The same thing happened with the touch phone industry. Smart phones that can run apps have been around for a decade. Apple improved them by eliminating the keyboard in favor of a large touch screen. But by the time the iPhone 4 arrived it was playing catch-up with Android. And there are some features, like Flash and an external SD card, that the iPhone will never have. Steve decreed it.

So, bye Steve. Sorry to see you go but I won't really miss you.

Cavemen

Morgan Spurlock's new documentary on trying to live like cavemen aired last night. I'm not impressed.

As far as I can tell, the concept was to thrust a group of modern people into a caveman-style existence with little preparation. The trouble is that they had too little preparation and retained too much of the 21st century.

Their first problem was to find good drinking water. They found a clear, fast-running stream fed by snow melt. But they didn't drink it. Instead they assumed that it was impure and set about purifying it. They boiled it then filtered it. Not only was this something that no caveman would ever consider, even people from the first part of the 20th century would not think twice before drinking from that stream.

The hunting grounds was two miles away. The hunting party kept walking there and back. Real hunter/gatherers would have sent a hunting party out with orders not to return until they had food. It made little sense for them to keep returning. It burned extra calories at a time when they were already feeling week from days without a proper meal and it cost them time and opertunity. Big prey is often at its most vulnerable at dusk and dawn. But the hunting party was busy commuting at those times.

The way that they hunted seemed poor to me. They just tried to get close enough to a herd of elk to throw a spear at them (to be fair, they had atlatls which increased their range). I suspect that they used techniques meant for hunting with a rifle. Given modern weaponry, as soon as you can see your prey you can kill it. With the atlatl, you have to be much closer. Given that, they should have taken their time and surrounded the herd.

Once they finally did manage to kill an elk, one of the cave women announced that she did not eat red meat. That is a luxury that hunter/gatherers would never have.

All told, this did not shed much light on how early humans lived. It was more about how whiny modern humans can get.

Ebook Readers

Amazon just launched a new tablet computer to compete with the Barnes and Noble Nook Color and refreshed their line of e-ink Kindles, again competing with B&N's Nooks. The highlights are a new, lower price point for the readers and heavy integration with the Amazon cloud for the Fire - the new tablet.

B&N will be announcing a new Nook Color in time to compete for Christmas and there are rumors that Amazon will launch a better tablet early next year.

I've been doing most of my reading on electronic devices this year, using a Viewsonic G-Tablet and a Nook touch. The Nook is great for what it is. It is light. The battery lasts a long time. I can carry dozens of books with me at once which was very useful while vacationing on a schooner with very limited space. It also works well in the sunlight.

But I've recently gone back to using the G-Tablet for my reading. At night it is easier to read a lit screen than a reflective one. I also like having to do fewer page turns. I tend to hold my book or tablet in my left hand. I can turn the page on the Nook by pushing a button on the left side (there is also a button for going back) but I have to press harder. On the tablet I can swipe right-to-left and turn the page. On either device I can also touch the right side of the page to advance.

There are drawbacks to the tablet. It weighs a lot more so I have to rest it on my leg. The battery life is measured in hours instead of days (or weeks) so I have to plan ahead so I don't end up wanting to read when it needs charged. Fortunately I can simply switch devices and keep reading.

The Nook app for Android has matured a lot in the last six months. Most of my complaints have been resolved. There are still a few issues. If I go from portrait to landscape and back it almost always goes back a page. If I leave the app and come back I have to reopen the book that I was reading.

The Nook Touch could use a few software improvements. Syncing between the devices does not always work. It knows what the current book I am reading is but it makes it difficult to switch between multiple books. The main screen is too busy trying to sell me new books and does not have a history. I have resolved this by having a shelf in my library for current books but that substitutes a manual process for something that should be automatic. The Kindle app does this.

But these are quibbles. With the cost of entry for ebooks dropping, this will keep growing as the preferred medium for reading.

Kryptonite

I recently wrote about superheroes' varying power levels. At some point, many heroes have gotten so powerful that the writers introduced a weakness. The most famous one is kryptonite but there have been a wide variety of weaknesses.

Kryptonite itself was introduced in the Superman radio show in 1943 and didn't make its way into the comics until 1949. By the 1960s it was almost a supporting character on its own. Everyone hand his brother had a piece of it. It also multiplied. The original green variety was joined by red kryptonite which caused temporary physical changes in Superman, gold kryptonite which removed a kryptonian's powers permanently and other varieties.

In addition to kryptonite, Superman was vulnerable to magic, This should have meant that he had no resistance to magic so he could be turned into a frog as easily as the next person. Some writers took it to the extreme that anything with magic origins could hurt Superman.

And there were red suns which caused frequent mistakes. Superman got his powers from radiation emanating from a yellow star. Red stars do not radiate on this frequency so Superman gained his powers from going to a planet with a yellow sun. Many writers reversed this and had the radiation from red stars weakening Superman.

Superman's chief rival, Captain Marvel, didn't need these weaknesses. He had one built-in. Normally he was an ordinary boy. If you knew who he was then all you had to do was kidnap Billy Batson and gaghis to keep him from saying "Shazam". The same was true for the rest of the Marvel family.

Wonder Woman had her own weaknesses. Her magic lariat let her command anyone it encircled. When her bracelets were chained together by a man she lost her powers. Naturally, people constantly used her own lariat on her or chained her bracelets.

Other heroes had more common weaknesses. John Jones, the Martian Manhunter lost his powers when near fire. Green Lantern's power ring was useless against anything colored yellow.

Metamorpho's version of kryptonite was the Orb or Ra.

Many Marvel heroes had their own weaknesses. Iron Man's batteries kept running down, threatening to stop his heart. Don Blake needed his cane in order to turn into Thor and had to keep hold of his hammer or turn back into Blake. Daredevil kept fighting in places that disrupted his radar sense. The Hulk turned back into Bruce Banner, sometimes in the middle of a fight. The Sub-Mariner lost his strength if he was out of water.

The Human Torch could only use his flame for a short time. The more he used it the faster it burned out. Also, it seemed like any amount of water could dowse his flame. Once a vase of water put it out.

Cyclopes and Marvel Girl were good for about one major feat. The strain of this weakened them, possibly causing them to black out.

In the early days of the Silver Age, heroes spent most of the time fighting their weakness more than villains. As time went on, the villains got stronger and there was less need for the weaknesses. Sometimes the weakness was written out. Kryptonite was destroyed for a while around 1970. Iron Man got better batteries and a heart transplant. Other times the weakness simply stopped being used as a plot device.

By the 1970s, new heroes stopped having built-in weaknesses. The exception was Superman. Kryptonite made a comeback. You just can't get rid of a supporting character like that.

Monsters - Myth and Fiction

I saw an interesting comment by John Landis, director of An American Werewolf in London. Some people complained when ordinary bullets killed his vampire.

When I made this film I remember some guy came up to me and said that at the end of the movie the werewolf is killed with bullets and you can't kill a werewolf with bullets. He went on and on about the fact that you can only kill a werewolf with silver bullets, which struck me as so funny. Because, it's like, 'Really? How many werewolves do you know?'

"Silver bullets specifically come from Curt Siodmak, who was the original screenwriter of The Wolf Man. In one of the sequels he talks about silver bullets being the way of killing werewolves. He talked about where that came from once with me and he said he happened to be listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio and he thought, 'Silver bullets, that's great!' So he made that up. So much of what we accept as folklore and mythology is invented by screenwriters.

In fact, most of what we know about monsters was made up for movies and fiction. Werewolves in myths were never unfortunate creatures who were victims of a curse. They were witches who changed shape with the help of a skin made from wolf or human skin. They changed into an actual wolf in order to inflict evil on their neighbors - things like killing livestock. When caught, their skin was seized and they were burned at the stake.

Bram Stoker made a serious effort at staying true to folklore but there are dozens of vampire myths and they are not consistent. Sometimes the only reason for driving a stake through a Vampire's heart was to pin him in his grave. A vampire had to be back in his grave by dawn and there were ways of keeping him out too late. If you spilled seeds or left a tangled string, he would be distracted tidying things up until dawn. One variety would strip his shroud off when he rose and put it back on when he went back to his grave. If you could find the shroud and hide it he would keep looking for it until it was too late.

Most vampires couldn't turn into other creatures but sometimes their heads were on backwards or they would have books for feet.

Stoker's version of the vampire and the stripped down Hollywood version was the accepted version for decades. It didn't really change until Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire showed that a writer could change the rules. Since then, every writer decides how vampires work. The only constants are their aversion to sunlight and thirst for blood. Now some vampires just sparkle in sunlight instead of dissolving.

Werewolves' makeover came later and the Hollywood idea of werewolves being cursed was never lost. Starting in the 1980s, writers started taking advantage of research on real wolves and making their werewolves act more like the real thing. Before the 1980s werewolves were always solitary. Since the 1990s they are almost always in a pack.

While it is generally accepted that silver bullets hurt werewolves, vampires were not always susceptible. In Love at First Bite, Dracula is shot in the heart with three silver bullets by Dr. Rosenburg. Dracula's response, "No, Rosenberg, that is a werewolf ." As he is being hauled away (for shooting someone in public), Rosenburg says, "No harm done! The man's all right! This was for a werewolf! No problem! Calm down! Take it easy! I'm a doctor! I know where I'm going!" Since then most fiction has vampires affected by silver. It makes a convenient substitute for religious objects in these multicultural times.

Alphas

There are only a few episodes left of the first season of Alphas. It has already been renewed for a second season. The first season has been pretty good. It has avoided the pitfalls of Heroes and No Ordinary Family.

Most episodes have focused on the Alphas' personalities rather than on their powers although this is tricky since their powers can affect their personalities. Gary, the dyslexic who can interact with electromagnetic communications, went from being annoying to lovable. Most of the others have mellowed a bit also.

I am a fan of continuity but this can be overdone or turn into a curse. The last two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had too much continuity and episodes blurred into chapters of a miniseries. This hurt it a lot since the episodes in the first five seasons had a strong format that mixed humor and adventure. Without the format, the humor got lost and the show turned dreary.

Heroes and No Ordinary Family were shows that were difficult to come in on. If you missed an episode you were lost. The show Lost avoided this because no one ever knew what was going on, anyway.

Heroes also only had one good story arc, the heroes discovering their powers and coming together to stop the destruction of New York. They used that up the first season and were never able to recreate it. The arc was more important than the episode.

Alphas has three arcs going on but they are background and easily picked up. The first is their transformation from evaluating alphas to being the front line against rogue alphas. The second is what happens to the rogues. The third is the resistance movement known as Red Flag. Our group of alphas stands between the government and the resistance. This is a position the X-Men held for years.

But the focus in each episode is on the individuals. Last week featured a member of Red Flag with sonic powers and an assassin who could not be seen. The Red Flag member insisted that he respected the Alphas and tried to get them to join him. He seemed quite reasonable. Then we met the assassin who also seemed reasonable. The plot was mainly about who to believe? That sort of show can have staying power.

Alphas comes after Eureka and Warehouse 13. Theoretically it takes place in the same world. A supporting character from Warehouse 13 has appeared in Alphas (and there have been Eureka/Warehouse 13 crossovers). Despite this, Alphas has a different tone. It is much more serious and comes as a relief after two hours of comedy/adventure.

3D Movies

Slate has an article on Who Killed 3-D? When they say "killed" they are talking about receipts per screen. A couple of years ago a screen showing 3D saw a significant box office increase over screens showing the same movie in 2D. That has vanished and, in some cased, reversed. This Summer's Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean releases earned less on their 3D showings setting new lows for 3D releases.

So what's going on? Slate offers four suspects: an increase in the 3D premium, a flooded market, pickier customers, and the lowering quality of 3D movies. I think that all of these are factors but there is more to it.

Personally, I am sick of 3D releases. When they first started there was a modest premium and only suitable movies were shown in 3D. As the craze took off, the 3D premium was raised. I have been at some movies where 3D added 40%-50% to the ticket price. Very few movies are worth that extra. We have gotten to the point where we see if we can go to a 2D showing instead of a 3D one. The theaters have anticipated this and adjusted their schedules. The 7:00-8:00 showings which are the most popular are devoid of 2D offerings. So you have a choice - go to a 2D movie at an inconvenient time or pay the 3D surcharge. This means that 3D movies are doing even worse than the statistics would indicate. It might also be keeping people home since the third option is to skip it and wait for the DVD.

Too often 3D adds little or nothing to the movie. We saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4 in 3D. This movie was actually shot in 3D instead of being shot in 2D and converted like Harry Potter. This gives the 3D a more natural look which actually hurts it. Why pay more for 3D if you don't notice it? The movie managed to work in a few swords coming out of the screen. Otherwise the 3D it didn't add much.

I was impressed with the 3D in Captain America. This raises a different question - is it a good thing for the 3D to distract you from the plot? Color movies went through this phase. Through the 1950s, color was considered a distraction. Serious movies were filmed in black and white. You can see echoes of that today. 3D movies are mainly CGI or adventure movies. Part of this is that the process itself is costly so only potential blockbusters are given the treatment. It is cheaper to make a CGI movie in 3D than a live action one so they tend to be 3D.

Horror movies are also being given the 3D treatment. Fright Night was only available in 3D. In fact the full title is "Fright Night 3D". It might as well be called Fight Night Splattervision. Most of the movie takes place in fairly small rooms so the 3D is wasted. The only time it is noticeable is when a vampire dies. That is accompanied with splashed of goop and sparks flying into the audience.

Had the studios and theaters restrained themselves, 3D would have been a small but viable market. Instead, by overpricing and oversupplying, they threaten to eliminate it.

It would be nice if that happened by next Summer's blockbuster season.

Villains and Power Levels

Last week I wrote about power levels and superheros. Now I will take a quick look at villains.

Often the power level of a villain doesn't matter. Golden Age heroes were almost always the strongest character. The villain was a mastermind of some sort. There was never any question of Lex Luthor winning a fight with Superman or the Joker beating Batman. The few exceptions were with an evil version of the hero like Black Adam who was an evil version of Captain Marvel.

Things got more interesting in the Silver Age, especially at Marvel where heroes often fought stronger villains. This led to some great stories. In his first appearance, the Scorpion beat Spider-Man decisively twice before Spider-Man rallied and won by out-fighting the Scorpion. In the Abomination's  first appearance he literally beat the Hulk to death (the Hulk's heart was restarted with some friendly gamma rays). But this raises the problem, where do you go from there? After being beaten by Spider-Man twice, the Scorpion moved down, taking on Captain America and the Falcon. The Abomination appeared multiple times but the only time he had a chance against the Hulk was when the Hulk had reverted to his earlier, weaker gray version.

Once a villain has been defeated, the follow-up is usually anti-climactic. One way around this is to send the villain against weaker heroes. This was done with the Scorpion so often that he had to start getting power upgrades to keep him menacing. An different tactic is to have villains team up. Mr. Hyde and the Cobra were defeated individually by Thor so they teamed up to fight him. Later Hyde menaced Spider-Man.

Some villains manage to have a power upgrade and graduate to the next class up. The Rhino started as a Spider-Man villain but was given a gamma ray upgrade and has taken on the Hulk. He lost but he is clearly out of Spider-Man's class - which would make for a good Spider-Man story if the two ever ran into each other.

After too many defeats, a villain can become a joke. The Ringmaster's Circus of Evil started with the Hulk and took on nearly everyone in the Marvel Universe including Howard the Duck.

Some villains manage to stay menacing for long periods by combining traits. Dr. Doom is a mastermind but has enough weaponry in his armor to take on nearly anyone. Dr. Octopus usually has some sort of master plan but his tentacles are stronger than Spider-Man. The Mandarin has ten rings of great power but seldom engages in direct combat. Even though all of these characters have been defeated multiple times, their personal power is a fall-back rather than their main thrust.

Sometimes it is enough to foil the mastermind's plot. Doom seldom engages in personal combat after a scheme has failed.

The ultimate examples of this are the top-tier villains, ones like Thanos and Darkseid (although Thanos probably started as a copy of Darkseid). Both had shown themselves capable of taking on the top heroes. Thanos in particular has taken on Thor and the Thing simultaneously and won (although he lost to an alternate version of Adam Warlock). These are top-tier masterminds. Their plots threaten all of existence. When they lose they either retire to plot again or are swept up in a backlash and vanish.

Not matter how threatening a villain is, each defeat diminishes him. The writers for Dr. Who have retired the Daleks for a while because they suffered from over-exposure. Appearing more times than any other villain means being defeated more times. Dr. Doom suffered from this. He fought the Fantastic Four multiple times in a row in their early days. At the time he was just another mastermind in a suit of armor. It wasn't until Stan Lee limited his appearances and made him a foreign monarch that he became a really memorable villain.

Hero Power Levels

Marvel recently put up a batch of early Golden Age comics on the digital site. Reading these got me to thinking about relative power levels.

Superman quickly comes to mind. Ever wonder why someone who flies would ever need to "leap tall buildings in a single bound"? It's because he couldn't fly when that line was written. He could run very fast (faster than a speeding bullet) and leap great distances but he could not fly. That came a few months later. Captain Marvel made the same transition. Early on he needed a space ship to travel to Mars (or Venus - I'm doing this from memory). Later he could make the trip under his own power.

Superman gained some powers along the way. He didn't have heat vision at first but it occurred to someone that strong x-rays heat things. Later writers explained that he actually projected heat from his eyes. Somewhere along the lines he also developed telescopic vision and super hearing. He could even throw his voice to a location hundreds of miles away (through solid objects) using super ventriloquism.

Given the world's strongest lungs, it made sense that he could blow harder than others. This turned into super breath. Superman was able to store huge quantities of air in his lungs and expel it at hurricane force. He could even provide an atmosphere for an earth-like planet with a few trips from a gas giant.

Until I read the Human Torch's early appearances I hadn't realized that he had made the same power gain. In his first few appearances his flames made him lighter than normal which allowed him to ran fast. He could outrun a fast car or a train. But he could not fly. His second appearance was fighting someone with an airplane who kept leaving the Torch behind.

Power levels can go both ways. The Sub-Mariner started out as Timely's strongest (anti-)hero but he got weaker. Eventually there wa a story where he was summoned by Atlantis's Emperor who pointed out that Namor was barely stronger than an ordinary Atlantean. Atlantis's scientists had devised a treatment that returned him to his original strength level.

By the Silver Age, Superman had unlimited power. You name it and he could do it. The same was true for Supergirl and Mon-el. They could move planets or re-light suns. In Superman's world, super-strength was a binary value. You either had it or you didn't. If you had it then it was a waste of time trying to overpower someone else who was super. It would cause too much collateral damage.

Marvel was much more restrained. Originally the Thing could only lift a few tons and falling from a great height would hurt him. He kept getting stronger until the Marvel Universe Handbook topped him out at 80 tons. At the same time he got a lot tougher. You could knock him through several buildings followed by a fall and he would get up again.

The Hulk was always the strongest there was but that didn't mean that much at first. He could be imprisoned in a cave. When they were first created both the original Abomination and the Red Hulk were stronger than the Hulk but both were eventually beaten.

Spider-Man started out pretty strong but seemed to get weaker in the 1970s. It got to the point where a thug with a fancy name (such as Man-Mountain Marco) could give him a fight. A change in writers and artists fixed that and by the 1980s he could hold his own against Mr. Hyde or Firelord. His webbing also got weaker and this was fixed by mixing a stronger batch.

When DC rebooted the DC Universe they weakened Superman. He could be hurt if you hit him hard enough. He needed oxygen. He could no longer fly faster than the speed of light or travel through time. Super ventriloquism was never spoken of again. This lasted for some time but writers kept stretching his powers a bit at a time until he was close to his original power levels.

Some heroes had their power levels changed as plot points. At first Ghost Rider could create solid objects out of flame including his motorcycle. He lost most of those powers and could only project flame. This started increasing again. Apparently it was tied to the strength that his inner demon had. The more control it had the stronger his powers were.

Then there are the heroes whose power levels constantly change. Originally the Dazzler could turn sound into light. She could use this as a light show while performing or she could distract an opponent with it. If she had enough sound she could turn it into a laser. At first she could not store energy so she had to find sources of sound. One time she made Spider-Woman sing (badly) in order to cut them out of a trap. A few issues later she absorbed Klaw who was made of solid sound and gained enough power to be recognized as a peer by Galactus. That changed her and she was able to store sound but she used up the energy she got from Klaw.

With Daredevil, it wasn't enough that he was blind. He kept running into situations that interfered with his radar sense. He got over that around the time he changed from his yellow and black outfit to his red one.

Similarly, Iron Man's transistors kept running down in the middle of a fight. This is one place where a hero gaining power over time makes sense. As technology improved, Iron Man got stronger.

There is an art to keeping heroes weak enough to build suspense. Often a hero got too strong and an artificial weakness had to be introduced. Superman had kryptonite, Thor had to keep hold of his hammer. Green Lantern had to avoid yellow. While these can make an interesting story, they are easy to overuse.

The same is true for villains. A villain may start out as powerful but each time he is defeated he becomes less menacing. The writers in Dr. Who decided to retire the Daleks. They started out as the ultimate killing machines but they have appeared more often than any other Dr. Who villain which means they have been defeated more often. I'll talk about villains later.

The Curse of Continuity

Up until the 1960s, comic books seldom had any sort of continuity. Some major events were remembered like the time Lex Luthor saved a planet and the grateful residents renamed it in his honor and made him ruler. For years after that he would occasionally visit. More often, the events of a story were forgotten as with the last panel.

This was partly because of the way that comics worked at the time. Comic book publishers kept an inventory of stories. Since any story could be published at any time, it could not refer to any other story unless it had already been published and was memorable. TV was the same way. The characters in the Superman TV show in the 1950s wore the same clothes in every episode so that they could film multiple episodes at once. Most episodes had a scenes in Clark Kent's office so they could do those scenes for multiple episodes while the set was in place.

Marvel and Stan Lee changed that. Stan and his brother, Larry Lieber, did all of the writing and Marvel didn't have enough money for much inventory so stories were published as soon as they were finished. That meant that events could spill from one issue to the next. At the end of the second issue of the Fantastic Four, the Human Torch quit, feeling that he was not given enough respect. The third issue began with the rest of the team looking for the Torch who returned to the team after accidentally discovering the Sub Mariner. Similarly, the Hulk quit the Avengers at the end of the second issue. In the third issue he joined forced with the Sub Mariner. The fourth issue began with a cameo of the Sub Mariner and the Avengers searching for him.

Continuity in Spider-Man was more subtle but more important because it introduced real time. People remembered events from the previous issue and referred to them as "last month". This included little things like arguments.

Things got more complicated when Stan started accounting for villains and how they returned from their last appearance. Fans started noticing discrepancies. Stan grew tired of complaints and started offering "no prizes" to the fan who came up with the best explanation for a seeming goof (after Stan called the Hulk "Bob Banner" a fan suggested that his full name was "Robert Bruce Banner").

All of this was great for the reader. It gave the impression of a single, seamless "Marvel Universe".

But time passes and things happen. The Marvel Universe stopped running in real time. Otherwise Spider-Man, the Torch, and the X-Men would be in their 60s, Reed, the Thing, and Professor X would be in their 80s, and WWI veteran Dum Dum Dugan would be well voer 100. But slowing the character's aging causes problems with continuity. If Tony Stark is only in his 30s then how could he have been injured in Viet Nam? The Black Widow started as a spy for the Soviet Union which disintegrated more than 20 years ago.

So some events have to be ignored or the continuity has to be retroactively changed (retconned).

A bigger problem is that changes that seemed like a good idea at the time can become a burden later on. Spider-Man's marriage is an example. It seemed like the natural progression of his relationship with Mary Jane but later editors felt that he worked better as a loner. So Mary Jane left and was presumed dead. Then she came back. Then Mephisto changed time so that they never wed in the first place. Except later they remembered their relationship. But no one else remembers that he revealed his identity.

Things were worse at DC. Instead of simply referring to the Golden Age versions of different heroes as being from the past, they invented a parallel universe for them (Earth 2). This would have been a simple curiosity except they started setting stories in Earth 2. This became confusing to new readers (If the Huntress was Batman's daughter why was she a similar age and why did she think her father was dead?). They "solved" this with the Crisis on Multiple Earths limited series. By the end of that, there was only one reality. They spent the next few years trying to tidy up the new continuity. Then they gave up and had another reboot to fix the first one. Rinse and repeat.

Enter The New 52. DC is doing yet another reboot. Decades of continuity is being thrown out the window. Superman is back to being single. Batgirl was never crippled. Other characters will get ethnic make-overs.

I don't really care. I stopped reading DC comics precisely because they do so many reboots. It's too much trouble keeping up with them.

One good thing to come out of this - digital comics will now be available at the same time as print editions. I still subscribe to Marvel's digital comics but their policy is that digital comics lag the print editions by months and series are hit-and-miss on being digitized.

Dr. Who - What's been going on

The second part of Matt Smith's second season premiers tomorrow. This is a good chance to point out some of the background plot threads.

There are two major threads that have spanned multiple seasons. The first was River Song. When we first met her we learned that she would marry a future version of the Doctor. In her next appearance we found out that she was in prison for killing "a very good man." This was never explained but the implication was that she would kill the Doctor himself.

The second thread is the Doctor as a dangerous being. There were a few hints of this earlier but Smith's Doctor spent a lot of time saying it. In his first episode he saved the Earth with just a borrowed cell phone. Afterwords he warned some powerful aliens that they should avoid the Earth because he protected it along with the implication that he was someone to be feared.

Later he told a group that the Weeping Angels made a mistake by trapping the one person in the universe that they should not want trapped. Statements like this were peppered through the season. There have also been reminders that he killed his entire race.

In the season's two-part finale, the Doctor traveled to Roman Briton to see the Pandorica, the ultimate prison, opened. He didn't know who was inside but he wanted to protect the universe against that person. Multiple races encircled the Earth for unknown reasons.

Surprise - the Pandorica was meant for him. All of these races considered him the most dangerous being in the universe. Things got confused when an unknown entity also tried to destroy the universe by exploding the TARDIS. The Doctor rebooted the universe and reappeared in time for Amy's wedding party.

In the season opener we saw a much-older Doctor gather a few friends including Amy, Rory, and River. He and River compared diaries and he had already experienced all of their shared time. Then he was killed by a figure in a spacesuit. And killed a second time to prevent regeneration.

But this was a future Doctor. His younger version was still running around. Amy and River put him on the trail of the figure in the spacesuit. This turned out to be an unusual girl who could regenerate. The girl looked a bit like a young River but her effects and the attention of some aliens hinted that this would be Amy's daughter.

At one point Amy told the Doctor that she was pregnant which she later denied. The Doctor took some readings which he kept secret but kept referring to.

Eventually we found out that the Amy on the TARDIS was a reproduction linked with the real one. The real Amy was pregnant and being kept prisoner somewhere.

It all came together in the Demon's Run episode when we found out that Amy's daughter Melody Pool was also River Song.

So, here's what happened. Some aliens took the Doctor seriously when he said that he is the most dangerous being in the universe and decided that they needed a weapon to kill him. Only a fellow Time Lord could do this but he already killed all of them so they had to create a new one. Because she was conceived in the TARDIS while it was traveling through time, River shared many of the mutations that make up a Time Lord. So the aliens kidnapped Amy between seasons and left a decoy to keep the Doctor from suspecting. They raised the child and eventually she fulfilled her destiny and killed the Doctor.

But, since River was a partial Time Lord, things were not that simple. She and the Doctor met at multiple points of their lives, often in opposite directions. The first time he met her was just before she died. The first time he kissed her was the last time she kissed him, etc.

It is unclear if Amy will ever see River again as a child. It looks doubtful since River didn't recognize Amy or Rory as her parents when they first met. She had to be introduced.

BTW, the space station is misnamed. It isn't "Demon's Run". It should be "Demons run" from the 'old' saying "Demons run when a good man goes to war."

Windows 95

The PC turned 30 a couple of weeks ago but it really took its current form 16 years ago when Microsoft released Windows 95.

Prior to Windows 95, Microsoft sold MS-DOS and Windows separately. Both had some serious competition. DRDOS was as good or better then MS-DOS and IBM's OS/2 was better at Windows. Windows 3.1 was clunky and suffered from some serious limitations. The biggest one was memory. The original IBM PC used a chip that could only address a megabyte and the designers reserved memory above 640k for system calls and hardware mapped interfaces.

By 1995, most games and business software needed more that 640k. There were several ways of getting around this but the were mutually incompatible. It was common to have to use a different boot disk for each game in order to get the memory drivers correct. MS-DOS also suffered from a file system that only allowed short file names - eight characters followed by a dot and a three character suffix.

OS/2 got around these problems and supported superior multi-tasking. And it could run Windows programs.

Windows 95 was years late. There were jokes about Microsoft merging with the Catholic Church in order to gain control of the Gregorian calendar. That would allow them to extend 1995 until Win95 was ready for release.

Microsoft solved the problem of DRDOS by bundling MS-DOS and Windows and claiming that they were inseparable. Actually, the PC still loaded DOS then loaded Windows but the process was seamless. Other features were much more important. Win95 had a new interface, the basis of the one still used in Windows 7. It allowed long file names. It had a built-in memory manager which would emulate the main alternatives so nearly anything would run on it.

It also had basic networking built in which was something that OS/2 did not have. Overnight OS/2 became irrelevant. If you wanted to connect to other computers you had needed Win95.

This also became the high-water mark for Microsoft's market dominance. Prior to Win95, most people used 3rd party programs like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. There was some question about these running on Win95 and most analysts recommended switching to Microsoft Office. Within a couple of years the previous market leaders were gone.

At the same time that Win95 came out the public suddenly became aware of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Win95 could handle these out of the box although Win98 did a much better job.

While a big improvement over previous versions, Win95 had some serious limitations. It did not have real multitasking and its security was a joke. Microsoft solved some of these problems with Windows NT but that platform did not have the performance for games and CDs. Windows XP married the two platforms in their most successful product to date.

Deadliest Warrior vs the Shark

Spike TV's series Deadliest Warrior is in its third season. The premise of the show is figuring out what would happen if two prime examples of different warriors fought. This is done by testing an equal selection of weapons, running the results through a computer simulation, then staging a fight. At first the staged fights were between individual warriors but half-way through the first season they started mixing in teams. They also included a few famous individuals.

Most of the winners were justifiable.

There have bees some warriors who were questionable. They had a 2nd season episode with Somali pirates. While these guys certainly exist, they are mainly untrained fishermen with guns. The presentation of them as trained warriors was a stretch.

Which brings us to the August 17, 2011 episode: Saddam Hussein vs. Pol Pot. The idea was to match two mass murderers. My complaint is that neither side had warriors. Most of Pol Pot's victims were unarmed civilians who were starved or otherwise killed as part of a forced relocation program. Saddam Hussein's troops did fight a long and bloody war against a technologically inferior Iran and overran Kuwait but their performance against US troops was almost comical. During the Gulf War they surrendered in droves, sometimes surrendering to unarmed reporters. Much of the unrest following our invasion of Iraq happened because the army melted away the day after US troops made a "thunder run" through Baghdad. To represent either side as warriors is an insult to the real thing.

Then there is the season finale - vampire vs zombies (one vampire, 63 zombies).

Clearly this show has jumped the shark.

Conan

A new Conan movie comes out this week. I don't have high expectations for it. August releases are often second-rate movies that are dumped at the end of the Summer. More important, the character as created by Robert E. Howard is difficult to translate to other media.

I read all of Howard's Conan stories as well as most of his other works in my teens and 20s. This summer I reread Red Nails and some of Howard's Solomon Kane stories so I am up on the material.

Howard is credited with inventing the Sword and Sorcery genre. He saw it as a precursor to the modern world filled with archetypes. Even though it took place thousands of years ago, it was still an old world. Atlantis had risen and fallen well before Conan's time. Other horrors had populated the world before the rise of humanity and some of them were still lurking in the shadows. Howard often corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft and incorporated some of the same otherworldly monsters in his fiction.

Conan himself is a complex character. Howard saw him as the embodiment of vitality, untamed by civilization. He was bigger, stronger, and faster than civilized men. His senses were sharper and his mind keener. He was a master of languages although he spoke most with an accent. He was a born leader. He was amoral but trustworthy (for the most part). If you hired him he would put his life on the line for you but he would kill you in an instant if you betrayed him.

Conan was not always the central character of the story. Red Nails, the last story written, features Valeria, a female pirate, more than Conan. This is a classic Howard story with a lost city peopled with a dying race who stole the city from its builders but do not know all of its secrets. Everyone betrays everyone and Conan and Valeria are the only survivors.

The character was briefly popular during the days of the pulp. In the 1960s, Howard's stories were resurrected and collected into a series of paperbacks. In addition to this, story fragments were finished and non-Conan stories were altered to fill out around a dozen books. They were very popular.

Because of the popularity of the books, Marvel Comics bought the rights and began a long, successful series of Conan comics. It started slow. British artist, Barry Smith, was selected on the basis of a sword and sorcery horror story he had drawn. At first his art was uninspiring. He quickly grew as an artist. Smith left the book after a few issues but came back almost immediately. His return marked the full flowering of his talent. He had been inspired by the pre-Raphaelites of the 19th century. Their focus on Arthurian themes worked perfectly with Conan and Smith became a fan favorite.

He eventually left for the more lucrative field of limited edition art and was replaced by John Buscema. Buscema's first issue began with an adaptation of a King Kull story so Conan didn't appear until ten pages into the book. While Buscema's version of the character looked quite different from Smith's, he was instantly recognizable. The first time I read that comic I was two pages past Conan's first panel before I notices how different he looked.

Coupled with various inkers from the Philippines, Buscema became a fan favorite on his own.

Marvel was trying to expand into the more adult-oriented black and white tabloid comics and Conan began appearing in both formats (plus some over-size reprints of the Smith comics).

Roy Thomas wrote all of Conan's appearances. He was a huge fan of Howard and some of his adaptations were excellent. Thomas's original works were less successful. In the stories, Conan never had a sidekick. At most, he got the girl at the end but there was never any long-term commitment.

Thomas felt more comfortable introducing various supporting characters. Some of them came from Howard's stories. Most were either implied or original. This made story-telling easier but the stories lost Howard's feel. Also, as time went on, Thomas began over-writing his stories. He often felt the need to add a dialog box where none was needed or to have a character explain a plot twist. There was also the problem of creating new challenges for Conan. After you have killed a dozen wizards in a year, what do you do next year?

By the mid-1970s the Conan craze had faded. Marvel shut down its black and white line. Thomas and Buscema left the strip and it declined.

The most lasting contribution from the Roy Thomas Barry Smith days was Red Sonia. This was adapted from a non-Conan story set during the early 16th century. This featured a Conan-style character and Red Sonja (with a "j"), a military commander. Sonia originally wore a full mail shirt over average breasts but the character was later given a scale mail bikini and more generous cleavage.

The big screen version of Conan tried to be memorable by lifting the most memorable scenes from Howard's stories. These included Conan killing a vulture with his teeth while being crucified and a slain lover appearing long enough to save him. Since The Empire Strikes Back had just come out, they also threw in James Earl Jones telling Conan, "You are my son." The action was slow and the movie is not very good. The sequel is faster moving with a plot by Roy Thomas but is generally inferior to the first movie or the stories.

The character has been revived in comics a few times but was never the hit that it was in the 1960s and early 1970s. A syndicated Conan series was produced for a while. I only saw a few episodes. They were not memorable.

Which brings us to the new movie. The first review I saw panned it and the trailers do not resemble anything Howard wrote. Interested parties would probably be better off watching The Scorpion King again.

Bert and Ernie

There is a proposal that Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street declare their love and marry. Before you express an opinion on that, answer one question: Do you think that preschool boys should be allowed to marry?

Bert and Ernie are puppets on a TV show targeted at preschoolers. They act like their target age group. Anyone who worries about what these Muppets are doing off camera should go back to fantasizing about Batman and Robin.

Beauty and the Beast

The Disney Channel is showing Beauty and the Beast in preparation for its release on Blu-ray. The movie will be 20 years old this November.

It holds up well as befits its status as one of Disney's most important movies. Who Framed Roger Rabbit renewed interest in classic animation and roved that Disney could still do it. The Little Mermaid proved that they could produce a hand-animated movie as good as the classics done under Walt himself but its audience was still limited to kids and their parents. Beauty and the Beast changed that. It made many critics' best list for 1991 and it was the first animated movie to get a best picture nomination. It won several other best picture awards. Eventually it was made into a Broadway play with the 8th longest run on record.

It made a lot of money. It was followed by Aladdin and the Lion King. These made even more money. In-between, Disney rereleased some of their classics like Snow White. Suddenly it was ok for adults to see an inimated movie, even without kids in tow.

Of course it didn't last. Disney ran out of fairy tales and the Disney spin didn't work as well with other properties. The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas took liberties with classic literature and history. Hercules and The Emperor's New Grove went with a more cartoonish look. Their reinterpretation of Tarzan as a confused adolescent marked the end of Disney's revival. The movies went from sure-fire blockbusters to risks. The animators unionized, raising the cost of production.

At the same time, the adult market for animated movies migrated to CGI.

Ironically, one of Beauty's most memorable scene, the ballroom dance, was CGI as were some of the dancing silverware.

In some ways CGI has left me jaded. I know that Beauty was a marvel of animation but it no longer looks like it. Hand-drawn background just can't compare to CGI ones. The recent Disney release, Tangled, was a nice throw-back to the hand-animated look but it was CGI and far more detailed.

The Shakespeare Controversy

Next month a new movie, Anonymous, will show the Earl of Oxford actually wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. I just finished Contested Will by James Shapiro which covers the subject rather well. Shapiro admits that it is impossible to cover every claim. There are too many and new ones pop up several times a year. Instead he covers the history of the controversy.

The book begins with Shakespearean scholarship in the late 18th through the mid-19th century. This is when Shakespeare went from being a talented writer to a literal deity (complete with shrines). People wanted to know more about the man who wrote the plays. Unfortunately, most surviving records were business records from Stratford. Not only did they reveal nothing about the plays but they showed that Shakespeare was interested in (shudder) making money. This led some people to create forged records. Others simply recommended that interested parties look to the plays and sonnets for clues to Shakespeare's personality. This advice was later taken literally.

In the mid-19th century a woman named Delia Bacon was pondering Shakespeare and Francis Bacon (no relation). At the time, Bacon had his own pedestal that rivaled Shakespeare's. How was it possible, Delia wondered, for England's greatest thinker to have lived at exactly the same time as her greatest playwright? To Delia, the obvious answer was that there was a single genius, Francis Bacon, who wrote the plays in secret. Delia was a respected lecturer and teacher and her theory was noticed. Others added their own refinements. One author noticed that Shakespeare seemed to know so much about law that he must have been a lawyer. This convinced others including Mark Twain and Helen Keller. Twain's last book was about how Shakespeare could not have written the plays. He included the law argument (plagiarizing entire chapters to buttress his argument).

Most of Twain's output was based on his own life experience and he reasoned that the same must have been true about the plays.

Twain was the last major supporter of Bacon. Around the same time that Twain's book came out a new theory was advanced. A man named J. T. Looney felt, as Twain did, that the plays must have been based on personal experience so he looked through ancient biographies until he discovered a nobleman who wrote some poetry and sponsored some players - Edward D'Vere, the Earl of Oxford.

This has been the major theory for the last hundred years although it lost popularity for several decades. It was revived in the 1980s and has remained popular since then, even inspiring the movie Anonymous.

Contested Will follows these theories as well as giving us a glimpse into the lives of the proponents of the theories. It ends by making the case for the man from Stratford. He shows how small the circle of theater people was and how impossible it would be to keep the authorship a secret. He quotes contemporaries, and he finds evidence in the plays themselves that only someone who was a member of the company could have written them.

The biggest question when disputing the authorship of the plays is why the real author would not openly proclaim himself? The Oxfordians have an elaborate explanation. Oxford was Queen Elizabeth's half-brother and lover. The plays and sonnets were written to express his feelings at different points in his life. If people knew who wrote the plays then they would figure out their real meaning. This convinced Sigmund Freud who used Hamlet to analyze Shakespeare (this only worked if the author of the plays had a traumatic event in his life). When the Oxford theory made a resurgence in the 1980s, talk of D'Vere's real heritage and his son, the secret Tudor prince, was suppressed in order to make the theory sound less far-fetched. 

One question that Shapiro never addresses is why the authorship matters? The answer to this does show up in his book. There is only a controversy because the historic Shakespeare does not meet expectations. Oxford and Bacon are preferred because they match preconceptions. This is rewriting history and once you start where do you stop? The Oxfordians a new heir to Elizabeth. In order to explain the decade between Oxford's last published poem and Shakespeare's first, they decided that Oxford wrote under other names, also. Some Oxfordians believe that nearly the entire output of the English Renaissance came from Oxford's pen.

The old maxim is that extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof but the anti-Stratfordians have turned that on its head. There is no proof strong enough to convince then that Shakespeare wrote the plays. If someone found a letter in Oxford's own hand congratulating Shakespeare on his latest play, they would see it as proof of the conspiracy.

While Shapiro's book will not convince the skeptics, it is a good read. It not only gives insight into Shakespeare and the process of producing Elizabethan plays, it also gives details on the lives of Twain, Helen Keller, and Sigmund Freud that are seldom heard.

Reboots - Spider-Man and Superman

We are seeing the first views of the new Spider-Man and Superman movies. So far I'm not impressed. I was half-way through the Spider-Man trailer before I realized that it wasn't for some new Twilight take-off (or possibly it was). In the comics and the original movie, Peter Parker was always a likable nerd with bad luck. The new movie seems to be remaking him into a misunderstood heart-throb.

Over at Marvel, they have killed Peter Parker and replaced him with someone else. Again!!! This plot device was over-used by the time they brought back the Spider-Clone. I can't believe that they are doing it again. Not that it matters to me. I stopped caring about the character after they erased 30+ years of continuity. The Peter Parker they killed isn't "my" Peter Parker. He is a creation of Mephisto.

It doesn't matter what the ethnicity is of Peter's replacement. They will bring Peter back by the time the movie comes out.

Wired has a first look at the new Superman. I notice that he is in another textured rubber costume. I assume that they do this because it is easier to reproduce digitally.

The last Superman reboot left such a bad taste that I don't have much interest in this one. When I think of a Superman movie I now think of the bullet-in-the-eye, torturing dogs, Superman-as-Christ, Superman-as-stalker/rapist, and "Truth, Justice, and all that."

Looking back at Captain America

I haven't bothered looking things up. This is just my personal recollections abut Cap in the comics.

The Silver Age of comics is usually defined as beginning when the Flash was created as a new character but inspired by the Golden Age version. He was followed by Green Lantern and some others. All of these were published by DC but Timely Comics decided to follow DC's lead. At the same time they changed their name to Marvel Comics.

Marvel's first creation, the Fantastic Four, included a Silver Age version of the Human Torch. By the third issue of the FF, the Sub-Mariner had been introduced but, in this case, it was the original character instead of a new version.

It didn't take Stan Lee long to test the waters for bringing back the third of Timely's big three heroes. Captain America made a guest appearance in the Human Torch's solo strip. As it turned out, it wasn't the real Cap, just an acrobat using Cap's identity to get close to a car that he wanted to steal.

The real Captain America finally appeared in Avengers #4 when the Sub-Mariner chanced on some Eskimos worshiping a figure frozen in ice. The Sub-Mariner threw a temper tantrum and tossed the figure into the ocean where it drifted south and began melting. It was found by the Avengers who were hunting the Sub-Mariner. The figure was, of course, Captain America, who had been in suspended animation until the heat of the Avengers' submarine thawed him out.

Cap joined the Avengers and became the leader a couple of years later when the founding members quit. Cap also received a solo strip, sharing Tales of Suspense with Iron Man.

Cap made a guest appearance in an early issue of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. This was also the first real appearance of his side-kick, Bucky. Stan Lee hated side-kicks so Bucky died in the same event that froze Cap.

When Cap first appeared, Iron Man added some gimmicks to his shield so that it returned automatically. He could even control its flight. This only lasted a couple of issues. Cap explained that he threw that stuff out because it ruined the shield's balance.

At first Cap struggled to find a direction. In his first few appearances he fought groups of criminals. This was followed by an origin issue and a return to WWII (complete with Bucky).

The strip returned to the present with Cap realizing that it was the anniversary of the Red Skull's death. Sure enough, some of the Skull's agents activated the Sleepers - three robots that were designed to destroy the world. Obviously, Cap stopped them.

It eventually turned out that the Skull had also been preserved in suspended animation. Just think of the irony if his Sleepers had succeeded in avenging his death when he hadn't actually died.

Cap began running into a SHIELD agent called Agent X who reminded him of his lost love, Peggy Carter. She eventually turned out to be Peggy's sister Sharon.

After Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD was canceled, the whole organization moved in with Cap for a while with Cap taking the unofficial role of special troubleshooter.

At one point Rick Jones became the new Bucky in a few issues done by Jim Steranko. Stan still didn't like teen side-kicks and dropped Rick as soon as he took over the writing again.

The Cosmic Cube began in Captain America. It was created by AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) but the Red Skull managed to get it a couple of times. The second time he used it to exchange bodies with Captain America. Then he watched Cap run from the police and some ex-Nazis who had a grudge against the Skull. Along the way Cap ran into Sam Wilson and convinced him to become a super hero - the Falcon. At first the Falcon was just an acrobat with a trained falcon but later his costume was redesigned so that he could fly.

The book became an official team-up between Cap and the Falcon. Sharon Carter was the unofficial third member of the partnership.

Stan finally left the comic for good. Steve Englehart took over and answered the burning question of who was the Captain America during the 1950s? (Actually, I think that Roy Thomas was the only one who really cared. Thomas spent years working out the exact chronology of who wore the Captain America costume when.) It turned out that the government used a new version of the Super Soldier Serum to create a new Captain America and Bucky during the 1950s. The serum was defective and they became irrational so the government put them in suspended animation until the 1970s.)

Englehart made some significant changes to the characters. At some point Cap's identity as Steve Rogers had become public so he adopted the identity of Roger Stevens and got a job with the NYCPD. He also gained mild super strength (Englehart insisted that he was returning Cap to his original levels).

The most significant event came when Cap and the Falcon foiled an attempt by President Nixon to take over the country. Cap resigned as Captain America and became the Nomad (the 1950s Bucky later took this role). There was a sub-plot with various people attempting to take Rogers's place as Captain America and failing. Eventually Steve Rogers returned to the role.

The Red Skull captured the Falcon and revealed that he was really "Snap Wilson", a petty criminal. The Skull had given Snap a new personality when he had the Cosmic Cube. Honestly, I'm not sure how this was resolved.

Jack Kirby returned to Marvel and took over Captain America as writer/artist. The Falcon was dropped along with the Snap Wilson plotline. Sharon Carter vanished (even though she was a Kirby creation) and Cap's strength returned to normal. Kirby didn't stay long.

In the late 1970s, writers were figuring out what made Captain America unique. In the Avengers, Jim Shooter defined him as the hero who would never give up. Other writers added that he was the one man who would fight for dreams. By the early 1980s, Cap had changed from an acrobat wrapped in a flag to a real symbol.

After a stint with writer J. M. Dematties which I didn't care for, Cap came into his own. Publication was increased from monthly to fifteen issues per year with biweekly issues during the Summer. This was a very productive time with writer Mark Gruenwald writing the comic from 1985-1995. DeMatties had killed off the Red Skull but Gruenwald brought him back in a body cloned from Steve Rogers. He also invented Crossbones, the Skull's principle agent (get it: Skull and Crossbones?).

Sharon Carter disappeared and was presumed dead so Cap began a relationship with Diamondback, a reformed criminal.

In one of the Summer story arches, some drugs bonded with Cap's blood, making him perpetually angry. The only cure was a complete blood transfusion. This meant that Cap tied at a normal rate.

In one plot that now seems trite, someone in the White House discovered that the government owned the trademark to "Captain America". They informed Cap that he would be answerable to them. Instead he resigned and began calling himself "The Captain" and carrying a silver shield provided by Tony Stark. A new Captain America was recruited. Eventually President Reagan found out what was going on and ordered the Captain America identity be returned to Steve Rogers. (In an issue of the Avengers, an alien erased all knowledge of Captain America's secret identity.)

Cap also lost his shield for a while. It dropped into the Atlantic.

Eventually his Super Soldier enhancements began to break down and Cap started to die. Tony Stark provided a version of his Iron Man armor to provide life support but Cap eventually died.

He got over it, of course and was reunited with Sharon Carter who was peeved that he forgot all about her for a decade. They fought the Red Skull who had gotten the Cosmic Cube for the third time.

This incarnation lasted five or six years before Cap died again. This time he was blown up. He returned, of course.

Marvel's cross-continuity event, the Civil War, starred Captain America as the leader of the forces that resisted registering with the government. At the end of the war he was killed again, this time by a brainwashed Sharon Carter.

For decades there were only a few constants in the Marvel Universe. The biggest one was that Bucky died. That was finally reversed. It turned out that he was saved by the USSR, given cyborg parts, and kept frozen until they needed him to kill someone. He became the new Captain America.

Steve Rogers was brought to life, yet again and currently heads SHIELD.

EReaders & the Future

I saw a column on ZDNEWS (which has since scrolled off) predicting that ebook readers (ereaders) may be available this year for Christmas but they will be gone by next year, displaced by tablets. I don't think so.

Tablets have a lot to offer readers. They have a larger, back-lit, color screen and they are not tied to any particular seller. I have read several books on an Android tablet.

But, tablets also have significant drawbacks. They are heavy, they don't work well in bright light, and, most important, they have limited battery life. After using my tablet for several hours to keep up on email and Facebook and for light browsing, by the end of the evening I had to make a choice - do some reading or charge my tablet. Even if your tablet gets ten hours of life, that will not last two evenings.

I suppose that I could use it with the charger plugged in. Or I could leave it plugged in overnight. I don't do that because I worry about shortening battery life by overcharging it. My phone loses some of its charge if it is plugged in too long so I expect my tablet to do that also.

So, neither device has a clear advantage over the other. Instead there are a series of trade-offs.

What really made me decide on getting an ereader was an upcoming vacation. We will have limited access to power and I expect to be reading outside part of the time. Those are conditions that really favor an ereader.

Since getting one I find that I appreciate the weight difference a lot. I like the look of the page on the tablet but the ease of handling is a bigger factor than I expected.

Another factor is price. Just a year and a half ago ereaders cost a few hundred dollars. Now you can get a Kindle, Nook or Kobo for less than $150. That's not quite an impulse purchase but it is cheap enough that you do not have to choose between a tablet and an ereader. You can get both.

And that is the biggest reason why dedicated devices will continue. It is the same reason that people are still buying iPods. They are cheap and convenient enough to justify on their own.

More on Phone Spam

Yesterday I wrote about AirPush, an Android add-on that allows applications to send spam to the notification bar, even when you are not using the affected app. I consider this to be the worst kind of spam.

Someone commented on my post pointing out that AirPush has an opt-out function. So, does that absolve them?

Hell no. It would if the ads included a link to the opt-out. They do not. In fact, there is no clue to where they come from. It took me a few tries with Google to figure it out and I'm a lot better at this than most people.

Without a notification you first have to figure out that AirPush is to blame then you have to do further research to find out that there is an opt-out. If you go to their web site you have to enter as a developer and check the FAQs. That's a lot of digging.

I double-checked the app that carried AirPush. It actually includes three different products that push ads. It has a detailed explanation of why it needs different permissions but it never comes out and says that you will get spam notifications or that you can opt-out. Further, all of that was changed since I installed the app last year. A more ethical developer would have included the changes to the advertizing policy at the top along with instruction on how to opt out.

To summarize, there is a way to opt-out but no one volunteers it. You have to dig to find it. That is as bad as not offering an opt-out.

If AirPush wants to be ethical then their contract should require that the developer make it clear that spam will be delivered and how to opt out. Without that they are just another shady operation that should be shut down by Google.

Phone spam

What would you think if you installed a program on your PC and once or twice a day it popped up an ad, even if the program wasn't running? There are several possible terms, none of them complimentary.

That is what started happening with my phone several days ago. Once or twice a day I would see a star in the notification bar with a link to a questionable site. My first thought was that I had installed a new program that caused this. I tried uninstalling my most recent programs but that did not work. I also did a virus check of my phone but that didn't find anything, either.

Eventually I tracked it down thanks to some Googling and message boards. It turns out that there is a new player in the Android marketplace called AirPush. They make an add-on. A developer adds this to an existing app and it starts delivering ads. AirPush says that it can substantially increase a developer's income. That is because it separates the ad from the app so ads are delivered even when the app is not being used.

Now, I don't have any problem with a free app displaying an ad at the bottom when I use it. I figure that is no different from ads on broadcast TV. But, I really object when the ads appear when I am not using the app. This would be like having my TV turn itself on and showing an ad at random times.

Fortunately someone wrote a free app called AirPush Detector. This identifies any installed apps that use AirPush. With the help of that I determined that BloggerDroid was the culprit and removed it. It was a small loss - I installed it a year ago and only used it a few times.

BloggerDroid did not include AirPush when I installed it. That was added later and pushed out as an update. This is pretty sneaky since in made it nearly impossible to identify the offending app without AirPush Detector.

Until now I have strongly preferred Android over Apple because I don't like giving so much control of my technology over to as capricious a company as Apple. This may make me rethink my position. I don't like giving control of my phone over to Steve Jobs but I like AirPush even less.

With luck Google will come out with a policy forbidding this. If not, I can get a new phone next year.

Alphas

Syfy has a new superhero show - Alphas.

The concept mixes elements of the X-Men, Heroes, and No Ordinary Family. You have "Alphas", people born with special abilities. Some of these have been gathered into a team to investigate special crimes. In the pilot, the crime being investigated involved other alphas and that may be the direction the show takes.

The Alphas themselves might as well be called mutants. They are born with special abilities although not on the level of the other shows. Also, many of the abilities have a built-in downside. The guy with super strength can only turn it on for a few minutes before harming himself. When the woman with super senses concentrates on one sense, she shuts down the others. In addition, they have some normal human failings. The strong guy is a former FBI agent and treats the others as amateurs.The hypnotist has few morals. The guy who can see the electromagnetic spectrum has all sorts of issues.

Not surprisingly, the leader of this group is a psychiatrist. Part of his pitch for new recruits is that he can help them adjust to the problems that come with their abilities.

There are a few problems with the science, especially with the guy who sees broadcasts but it is easy to ignore these and just go with it.

The show follows Eureka and Warehouse 13 but it has a much harder edge than either of those shows.

Nooking it up

I find that reading books on my tablet is easier than carrying a book around with me. The main problems are that the tablet is still a little large and heavy and the battery life. With a vacation coming up in a situation where I might have trouble charging, I decided that a dedicated reader might be a good idea.

At the same time, my wife decided to try a reader.

We went with different models of the Nook. I went for the new touch-screen version. It is small, light, and has great battery life. My wife wanted something that was lit instead of depending on ambient light so she got a Nook color. This is a stripped-down tablet.

We went with these because, at this time, Amazon does not have a Kindle to match either unit.

I found my Nook to be exactly what I expected. It is light-weight and still fairly easy to read although not as easy as my tablet. I charged it, loaded it with some books, and was off.

My wife's experience is not quite as good. She has never gotten along well with touch screen and we haven't finished configuring everything on her tablet.

I can say that the Nook Color seems fairly responsive even though it uses an older and slower chip than others. It is surprisingly light-weight and it is able to play video files, at least the ones provided by Barnes and Noble.

One of the selling points to me was the existence of a program that stripes books from Amazon of their DRM (Digital Rights Management). I tried this Sunday to be sure that it works. Keep in mind that I am only using this to load books that I purchased on alternate devices.

Surprise. On Monday, Amazon sent an update to the Kindle for PC program that stopped the program from stripping the DRM. Fortunately I had an easy fix - remove the updated program and re-install the earlier version. I also turned off the auto-update setting.

Even with this, it is complicated moving  a book from Kindle to Nook. First I have to download the book onto my PC. Then I have to copy it to a different directory and use a command-line function to remove the DRM. Then I use a program called Caliber to reformat the book in EPub. Finally, I copy this to my Nook. The whole process requires three programs and four directories. This is a strong incentive to make future purchases from Barnes and Noble instead of Amazon.

Horror Night on TV

When I was young the big thing on Friday night was Double Chiller Theater. One of the local TV stations would show two horror movies starting at 11:30 Friday night. Later a Cleveland station started their own horror movies on Saturday. This was so successful that they expanded to Friday. They also had a colorful host called the Ghoul. He wore a bad wig, sun glasses with one lens punched out, a fake mustache and goatee and a lab jacket. I always suspected that he did the show drunk. His movies were usually bad and he livened them up by adding sound clips.

Those days ended a long time ago but cable channel TCM has been showing horror movies on Thursday night. Last week they included the Village of Giants (which had a surprisingly good cast). This week they are starting with The Blob.

I wish they did this on the weekend but it makes Thursday more fun.

Tablet Wars

ZDNews has a couple of columns on tablets. Their conclusion is that Apple owns the market and that no one can catch up. The only thing left is to fight to be a distant number two, fighting for a tiny market of people who do not like Apple. Is this a valid assessment? I don't think so. We've been here before with the iPhone.

Remember how young this market is. The iPad started shipping less than fifteen months ago. That gives Apple a big head start but not an insurmountable one.

Fifteen months after the iPhone was released Apple had no competition at all. The first touch-screen competitors like the Blackberry Storm were unimpressive. Even the Android phones released before 2.1 had serious problems. At that point the release cycle was so fast that some phones were outdated by the time they hit the shelves. Despite that, more Android phones are sold than iPhones.

Yes, Apple has advantages. They have a head start, a big app store, and low production costs. They are also tied to one form factor. The head start will become less important over time. Android's app store is smaller but growing. It is also more open. People who want adult content on their device will have to go to Android or settle for a browser-based experience. Besides, just how many fart applications do you need?

The basis of Apple's low production costs is coming under fire. A plant in China makes all of their hardware and working conditions there do not meet American standards.

The forms factor is Apple's biggest weakness. Many companies think that a 7" screen is desirable. It is lighter and easier to carry and it can be sold for less. Also, most tablets are more open. You can plug in a memory chip or possibly a camera.

The iPad has one advantage over the iPhone. Originally you were locked into AT&T if you wanted an iPhone. That gave Verizon and Sprint an incentive to push their own hardware. Base models of the iPad do not need a wireless contract so there are no big wireless retailers pushing alternatives (although some tablets have data plans).

Come back in a year and see how the market has shaped up. I expect that Apple will still be the leader but will have some worthy competition.

X-Men First Class - Quibbles and Complaints

First off, X-Men First Class is a much better movie than X-Men 3 was and possibly better than the original X-Men movie. That said, it does have some problems.

The first problem is its length. It is a long movie and I kept wanting them to get on with things. It was probably too ambitious. It included full back stories on Magneto, Professor X, Mystique, and the founding of the team plus a major sub-plot on the Beast and mutant acceptance in general. And that doesn't even include Sebastian Shaw and his plans. That's a lot to cram into a single movie.

The second problem is that they already used all of the A-list mutants and a lot of the B-list ones. The few A-list mutants who do appear have already been in the other movies, played by older actors.

On to quibbles.

I didn't like the casting on Beast at all. The original character was drawn to look almost like a Neanderthal. He had huge hands and feet that let him find a grip on almost anything. He was also fairly strong and able to bounce around. The movie's version is tall and thin with prehensile feet. There is only one quick training scene that hints that he has other abilities besides ugly feet.

The movie is set in 1962 but most of the 60s references are from later in the decade. Professor X uses the word "groovy". The women are wearing miniskirts. Not only did miniskirts come later but no CIA agent would wear one to a debriefing. The women's underwear is wrong. The did remember to use garter belts instead of pantyhose but Moira MacTaggert should have been wearing "granny panties" and a girdle instead of sexy bikini briefs.

There was a major spy craze during the 60s and elements of the movie are drawn from that. Shaw's submarine and nightclub booth that hides a secret entrance to the villain's lair are examples. But, the spy craze was inspired by the James Bond movie, Goldfinger which came out in 1964.

Green Lantern

I never really got the character in the 1960s. He created big balloon hands and other objects out of his ring. And the whole yellow thing. His ring was powerless against anything colored yellow. How does that work? Yellow is a primary color. Green includes yellow. Just how yellow does something have to be? What about in the dark? Could he carry some spray paint around to neutralize yellow?

I did get excited about the comic when Denny O'Neil and Niel Adams took over and teamed GL with Green Arrow. Green Arrow was a second-rate hero at best. He was a rich guy who dressed up in green and fought crime with trick arrows. Hawkeye did the same thing but with more flair. Green Arrow was mainly chosen because both characters had "green" in their name.

For the team-up, they reworked Green Arrow. He lost his money, grew a beard and mustache and adopted a darker colored costume. He moved into the ghetto and developed a social conscience.

Green Arrow mainly acted as Jiminy Cricket to Green Lantern.

The team-up began when people in a ghetto started throwing trash at Green Lantern. An old black man explained that GL had been doing a lot for blue-skinned folks, some red skins and some green skins but not enough for the black skins.

Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and one of the Guardians of Oa who created the Green Lantern Corps went on a tour of America. Many of the stories were over the top in their social commentary but they were head and shoulders better than most comics of the times. Plus there was Neil Adams' artwork.

Spider-Man was the first comic to really tackle drugs with a trio of issues revolving around his roommate's drug addiction. The Comics Code was rewritten because of this and drug use was allowed for anti-drug stories. The Green Lantern/Green Arrow version was to show that Green Arrow's teen age sidekick was addicted to heroin. It was a powerful story.

Relevance did not equal sales. The comic was canceled. The last issue featured an early eco-saboteur who was crucified along with GL and GA on the tail sections of some airplanes.

The pair resurfaced a few years later as a backup strip then in their own comic. They split up and the book went back to being Green Lantern.

Then it got complicated.

There was a craze in the 1980s to replace the title character. Green Lantern was one of the first in this trend. Hal Jordan, the original Green Lantern was replaced by two Earthlings and eventually a small cadre of Green Lanterns. During this period the comic was renamed Green Lantern Corps.

Hal Jordan eventually took over the staring role only to run into the end of the replacement hero trend. Superman died and his syborg replacement was actually evil. The evil Superman blew up Green Lantern's home city. This drove Hal Jordan crazy and he decided to turn time back to the original event then roll it forward again so that Central City survived.

Along the way the Green Lanterns were eliminated except for a single new Lantern named Kyle Rayner who eventually killed Hal Jordan. As penance, Hal became the Specter for a while before returning to life as Green Lantern.

The only times I really followed the strip were during the O'Neil/Adams run and during the Green Lantern Corps. I think I bought one or two of the Kyle Rayner issues.

The only Green Lantern appearances that I really liked were the ones in the animated Justice League. That had John Stewart, one of the replacement GLs. Presumably they chose Stewart because his character is black. Regardless, he was one of the more interesting character. The animators did a great job of showing glowing green energy when he used his ring.

Steampunk Conventions

I'm not an expert, I've only been to two but I can make some observations on steampunk conventions.

First as an aside I will define steampunk. My definition is science fiction as it might have been conceived by Victorians. Steampunk appears independently in different media. In literature it started as dystopian views of a parallel world with steam-powered mechanical computers. More recently examples are considerably lighter and are set in a parallel world where scientific advances and/or magic exist. There are also people who make steampunk devices - computers with lots of brass and typewriter keys. Steampunk fashion is sort of an offshoot from goth with lots more color plus goggles. Steampunk music still defies definition.

So, what does a steampunk convention consist of? A normal science fiction convention has guest writers and media stars and panels who talk about trends in the field. People dress up as characters from comic books and movies. None of that happens at steampunk conventions.

The biggest thing is giving people a chance to dress up and show off. There are no steampunk movies to emulate (there are movies with steampunk elements but no one copies them). Everyone creates their own styles. Most of it is based on Victorian or military styles but you also have belly dancers and Utilikilts mixed in. There are lots of top hats and nearly everyone has goggles, most of them non-functional).

The most creative people have made accessories - brass jet packs with folding wings or powered gauntlets. Nerf guns are easily converted into formidable-looking weapons.

Panels tend to be on how to do things: how to make costumes, where to find raw materials, etc. Other topics usually cover background knowledge like Victorian industrial design or the history of airships.

Vendors mainly sell clothing. There are no reproduction light sabers or clever T-shirts. Instead you find corsets, hats, jewelry, and gears. Plus goggles.

So far, steampunk music is undefined. I have seen maybe a dozen acts an none of them are remotely similar. The biggest name, Abney Park, came from a goth-industrial background. Others play world music or traditional 19th century music with some sort of a twist. One band played outright headbanger music but sang about Tesla coils. The only similarity was how the bands were dressed. To hats, corsets, and kilts are common.

I suspect that over time more tv shows and movies will include steampunk elements and people will begin copying them instead of inventing their own characters and the genre will become less creative but in the meantime it is nice to see hundreds of people come together to celebrate creativity instead of fandom.

Goggles are the defining trait of steampunk. Engineers need them so everyone wears them, presumably to protect the eyes when running the steam machinery that powers the convention. Some people have attached extra lenses to their goggles.

Renewals and Cancellations

The Human Target was canceled for next year. This is no surprise. Its ratings kept dropping.

This show shows the signs of network tampering. The first season featured fast-paced action with a lot of humor. Stories were told in non-linear fashion. An episode would open on Chance in a tight fix then alternate scenes between advancing the plot and showing how he got there in the first place. The comedy Grounded For Life did the same thing its first season then switched to normal linear plots.

I'm betting that someone at Fox decided that Human Target was too hard to watch and needed to switch to linear stories and add some women to the cast. The second season lost a lot of its light humor in favor of more character interaction. It slowed the episodes down and they just weren't as much fun to watch.

On the other hand, Chuck was picked up for a final 13 episodes. I'm a little surprised at this. The writing for the 4th season seemed a little off. The premise of the show - Chuck gaining knowledge or martial arts skills from flashes was largely forgotten and he has become too capable in his role as a spy. The whole season centered on Chuck's mother who spent years in deep cover working for a criminal named Volkoff. It was not a strong enough storyline to sustain itself across an entire season. They should have had more non-Volkoff/non-mother episodes.

Chuck's ratings were not very good, either. It says a lot about the state of NBC that it carries shows that have fewer viewers than some of Syfy's offerings.