On a different note, did anybody pick up the Ex Machina or Challengers of the Unknown debuts last week?

Ex Machina just looks very good for most of its length and then the very last page re-casts into something--well, astonishing. (You're all going to go look at the last page and kill the buzz now, aren't you?) And the hooks Vaughan plants for future forward-story and back-story fill are intriguing.

I'm just a bit worried that it's an ongoing without a definite end-date, because a lot of the impact-by-implication he's got going on will be less meaningful if the story's drawn out too much.

Wet sari scene with MJ!

That's just so cool. And Rakshasa is a great villain. Now, which other heroes could cross-culture, and which culture would they cross with?

Further evidence that Brooklyn is the best place in the world to live: the NYT on the opening of the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company:

The store has everything a modern, well-equipped superhero might need: leotards, boots, tights, magnets, chain ladders, nets and other tools of the villain-fighting trade. "We don't sell comic books or figurines,'' Mr. Seeley said. "It's literally what a superhero would use.''

Because there aren't too many superhero supply stores around, many products and gadgets had to be custom made. One is the cape-tester, a platform rigged with fans stationed under a 1,000-watt floodlight where a superhero can strike a pose and check to see how a cape will billow in the breeze. On a wall-size map of Brooklyn, neighborhoods in distress light up to alert superheroes to brewing crises. Perpetrators can be expeditiously dispatched to a cagelike "villain containment unit" that stands by the front door.

I so know where my baby cousin and I are going the next time I watch her.

I totally love the idea of the cape-tester.

Capes take effort! Apparently, on the set of the new Batman movie, there are people assigned to keep Bale's cape clean, and other people assigned to keep it billowy. The fluffers of the superhero film, as it were.

Capes take effort! Apparently, on the set of the new Batman movie, there are people assigned to keep Bale's cape clean, and other people assigned to keep it billowy. The fluffers of the superhero film, as it were.

Yeah, I think the previous Schumacher Batman had a codpiece buffer too.

I think the previous Schumacher Batman had a codpiece buffer too.

I applied for the nipple polisher job.

Proof once again that no one can make the Bat-canon gay-pornier than it really is already. Sigh.

Eggs and lox!

Plei said, re the new Catwoman issue:

Am I the ONLY person who spent the part where Selina wakes up on the couch trying to figure out why she's on the couch and where her clothing went? I mean, there's a perfectly good bed, and the coffee mugs were RIGHT THERE. Sigh.

Yeah. This is sort of like in Nightwing, when he's constantly waking up on Babs's couch the morning after a romantic scene. Fully clothed. At least Selina got to be nekkid!

And, really, anyone who read both the new Robin and the new Catwoman and can't figure out why Bruce is in a good mood in the former? Hasn't read the latter closely enough.

See, I read Robin first. Clearly a mistake. Another WTF for me, as I was explaining my WTF to a pal at work (he agreed with me)--If you're gonna get a sheet out, use the damned bed. Unless you just don't want to disturb the cats. Or have a couch kink. Or something.