One of my favorite Christmas presents was a gimongous coffee table book about the Marvel universe. It is written with much fanboy love. I had NO IDEA that Howard the Duck was a Marvel comic character!

Actual Jossverse content:

I bought Tales of the Vampires #1 this weekend. I liked it...the second Joss story (the last in the book) was good - it got lots of bonus points because of the LotR-related geekery, though.

UltimateDrew's Spike and Dru story had some really beautiful language but - for being such a HUGE part of the Spike/Dru story - (what happened in Prague right before they came to Sunnydale) it didn't really hold up for me.

Has anyone else read 1602 #5? I fee the need to squee over the tiny cartoon Neil on the first page.

And the story was pretty good, too.

Feel free to squee, Holli. It's been out for a while now.

I had NO IDEA that Howard the Duck was a Marvel comic character!

I finally started taking all my old comics out of my sister's attic when I was home for Christmas. Among the boxes was my complete original set of Howard the Duck. Great book. The movie was a terrible injustice.

The movie was a terrible injustice.

One of the great things about this book is that it goes through EVERY single incarnation of the main Marvel characters with absolute detail - every bad TV show, unreleased movies and episodes. It leaves nothing out as far as that stuff is concerned. There are many a snarky comment about the HtD movie - but it doesn't keep them from mapping out what happened to the character in the movie. I've learned a lot and I've only really carefully read the Spidey chapter.

it didn't really hold up for me.

I am interested to hear why it didn't hold up for you. I really loved the Spike and Dru story.

I am interested to hear why it didn't hold up for you.

Hmm. I only read it once and I think it didn't hold up for me for some silly reasons. First, I always had in my mind that Dru got sick from being attacked by an angry mob - and it seems like they were both attacked - but that's not why she got sick - so it just didn't fit with my picture of what happened as far as show canon.

Also - I've read some really great Prague Spike/Dru fan fic - and understanding a 12-page comic can't put that much detail into a story - the plot still wasn't as imaginative as some of the fic I've read.

Finally, one of the things I loooove about Tales of the Slayers and, to a lesser extent, this last run of Buffy comics that has focused on Buffy's life pre-season 1, are the suprises and twists. This story was pretty twistless. I guess the fact that Dru didn't get sick from the mob attack was kind of a twist, but it wasn't enough for me.

The good: I did really love the language. He did an excellent job at capturing both Spike and Dru's voices - which isn't easy. And I'm glad that it re-enforced the Spike really loved Dru and vica versa aspect of their story.

I guess I just wanted it to be twistier.

Hmm. I only read it once and I think it didn't hold up for me for some silly reasons. First, I always had in my mind that Dru got sick from being attacked by an angry mob - and it seems like they were both attacked - but that's not why she got sick - so it just didn't fit with my picture of what happened as far as show canon.

I've always assumed that something unusual was done to Drusilla, as she continued to grow weaker even after being brought to Sunnydale. That wouldn't gibe with simple non-lethal beating at the hands of a mob, or even being set on fire after what we saw in "Redefinition" and "Crush." Though I envisioned some kind of torture involving Inquisition types using holy water or communion wafers and wine, not Captain Gideon's apocalypse box from Crusade.

First, I always had in my mind that Dru got sick from being attacked by an angry mob - and it seems like they were both attacked - but that's not why she got sick - so it just didn't fit with my picture of what happened as far as show canon.

This is one of the reasons why I really liked the story, that things didn't happen the way we thought they had (presumably because stories get exaggerated and change as they pass from one person to another), and it still fit in well with cannon, imo.

I thought the twist of the Spike and Dru story was just the irony of Spike declaring eternal love before setting on the path that would change all that. But yes, less impressive than the Whedon story.

Interesting rumor is going around on the comic boards.

The new writer for the New X-Men title is supposedly Joss Whedon. There is a implication that this hasn't been announced yet because they need to finesse their way around his employment contract with the studios.

How accurate is this? It's on more than one site, and supposedly with independent confirmation, but it is still a rumor. I put it in more than fifty/fifty correct, but not much more than that...