Well, if you thought War of Kings couldn’t get any crazier, you were wrong.  As most of you know, a major player in this miniseries is dead, and nothing will be the same.  Vulcan complains about the incompetence of his generals and servants, and when a Kree Sentry, modified with Inhuman technology, comes to get him, Talon, a member of the Fraternity of Raptors, rescues him.  Meanwhile, Crystal explains to Ronan the Accuser all the problems going on, the least of which is that attempts to genetically uplift the Kree have failed.  Gladiator, Lilandra, and the Starjammers arrive at Chandilar, the Shi’ar homeworld, to try and retake the Shi’ar Empire.  However, not everyone is happy to see them, especially Araki, and riots break out when Lilandra claims control over the empire.  In a massive crossfire, involving the Shi’ar Death Commandos and Darkhawk, now called Razor, a life is claimed.

     Wow.  Who would have ever thought that even Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning would have the guts to kill someone as important as Lilandra.  Now, the Shi’ar are even more screwed than they used to be.  Personally, I think the Starjammers have lost their fair share of members already (Corsair, Raza Longknife, Hepzibah’s on Earth), and Ch’od lost his hand.  But it seems that the Starjammers are just ill fated.  I have had no idea what was in store for each successive issue of this series, and I’d like to keep it that way.  It’s fun to have no idea what’s going to happen.  Personally, I’d like a little more Black Bolt in War of Kings, so he can just kick Vulcan’s ass into the next dimension.  But, that’s probably not going to happen.  Paul Pelletier is the perfect person for this title, and I think he should just stay in the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe forever.  Clearly, he’s more suited to it than basically any other artist.  I can’t wait to see what happens next!  And I no longer have any idea about who’s going to make it out of this alive…

Plot: 9.0      Art: 9.3      Dialogue: 9.0      Overall: 9.1

Happy Father’s Day!  In a mash-up of dad-centric stories/baby name news, I bring you:

• MSNBC’s story on the pluses and perils of being a Junior.  The predictable story?  There are good and bad things to sharing your name with Pop.  The interesting takeaway?  The percentage of juniors has been dropping for at least forty years or so;
• In a guest post at Nameberry, Brian Sargent bravely admits to being difficult when choosing names for his twin daughters, Lila and Victoria;
• Speaking of dads, Emmy Jo’s husband actually sat down and toyed with Nymbler.  I declare myself jealous!  And her list rocks – it will be fun to see how they narrow things down.

Elsewhere online, you might enjoy:

• Over at Tablet Magazine, an online journal about Jewish life, Marjorie Ingall encourages parents seeking a traditional Jewish name other than Jacob or Hannah, to Go Moe!  Among her suggestions: Akiba, Felix, Hosea, Philo and, of course, Moe for boys.  For girls, there’s Adiella, Hepzibah, Ida, Mehitabel, Noa, Sarai and Zillah;
• The Toronto Star reports on yet another truly unusual choice.  This time, the nicely named Declan is big brother to Kenzi and Saffi.  The girls were almost Braeda and Saffron, but dad couldn’t remember Braeda and somewhere along the line they decided that the hippie-chic Saffron was too “stuffy”;
• An interesting poll over at Swistle asks readers to weigh in on a baby name for girl #4, little sister to My other daughter’s are named Clarissa Brynn (nn Clary), Theodora Elise (nn Thea) and Susanna Lisbet (nn Zanna).  I’m pulling for one of Christina’s suggestions – the underused Cordelia;
• You’ve probably already seen Linda’s Titanic post at Nameberry, but I found myself scrolling through it again, remarking that yes, Denzil has been around forever.  And there were some other fabulous names aboard the ill-fated ship – Sibley, Rossmore, Eugenie (a servant), Sigrid, Clear and Argene, just to name a few.
• Got a few hours?  What a Lovely Name seems like a middling name search engine at first, but don’t leave too fast.  Create a logo and you can order personalized gear with your kiddo’s name.  Quite cute;
• Nancy of Nancy’s Baby Names listed five names she likes less, thanks to songs.  Hers were Eileen, Sharona, Rhonda, Roxanne and Adia;
• Celebrity Baby Blog remarked on all the famous celeb kiddos called Max, in one form or another in their post Mad About Max.  Me, I’m waiting for some parent of boy/girl twins to dub them Max and Minnie;
• Over at the Nymbler blog, the top favorite names for May are posted:  Charlotte, Ava, Jack, Grace, Amelia, Finn, Ella, Benjamin, Audrey and Claire make up the predictable Top Ten.  But here’s an interesting little note – five names debuted in the favorites list, including Hero, Amalie, Lake, Soraya and Quin.

In starbaby news, over at Celebrity Baby Blog:

• In an interview with Mary Louise Parker on the adoption of her daughter Caroline Aberash, little sister to William Atticus, the actress explained that Aberash was the name chosen by her daughter’s birth mother, saying: “I can’t give her a locket, a picture, a letter — that’s it. That’s profound to me and I don’t want to rob her of it.”  It’s a poignant reminder of the power of names;
• In another celeb birth, Maura West of As The World Turns welcomed a daughter called Birdie. Big sibs are Benjamin, Joseph, Katherine and Basil.  Mom’s taste has certainly become more daring over time;
• And Carnie Wilson welcomed Luciana Bella – Lola Sofia’s little sis.  But she’d announced her name choice long ago.

But this week’s biggest news is a veritable celeb birth in the blogosphere – Elisabeth of You Can’t Call It “It” has brought home Beatrix’s little sister, Eulalie.  Eulalie was Name of the Day at her suggestion all the way back in August 2008.  Congrats to the family of four (!) and let me say (yet again) that Lolly is the perfect choice!

Ed Brubaker, (Writer) Mike Choi, Ben Oliver, (Artists) Sonia Oback, and Jason Keith (Colorists)

While this arc has felt like every bit of the filler that it is, I’ll be the first to admit that it has been enjoyable. This issue brings some closure to the San Francisco mystery (expect some aspects of it to pop up again later) and allows Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler to team-up against Omega Red for one last battle in Russia.

As a whole this issue is really nothing special, but it’s still a decent read. Brubaker fits in some genuinely funny character moments and the art teams, different for each storyline, make this a nice looking book. As a whole, this issue’s the same solid we come to expect from the X-Titles, but also completely forgettable. (Grade: C)

-Kyle Posluszny

By Ed Brubaker (writer), Mike Choi (art), Sonia Oback (colors)

What is it with good writers failing on mutant books? Once again, Ed Brubaker delivers a below average story that’s nothing short of being a complete yawn fest. Picking up where last issue left off, we’re given a vague hint of what’s taking place in San Francisco – someone’s turning the city back in time. Emma and Cyclops arrive on the scene to investigate but we’re given nothing more than that. At least Hepzibah finally turns up.

Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus, now in Russia, go to visit the graves of Peter’s parents. Afterwards, they hit up a local bar and exchange useless dialog. The biggest offense to this conversation is that it gives a glaring spoiler as to what’s going to happen in the delayed Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men #1 (who knows when that book’s due out). If you’re enjoying Joss Whedon’s run, you shouldn’t read this book until he wraps things up. I was already bored with this story as it was, but reading this spoiler completely ruined it for me. Throw in another obligatory and meaningless bar scene brawl and you can see that Brubaker is just going through the motions.

Mike Choi and Sonia Oback continue to dazzle my eyes with their art. But it’s not perfect: Logan looks too youthful and too much of a pretty boy, while the fight scene in the bar is completely uninspired from an action standpoint. The nod to Neil Gaiman’s Eternals mini-series was probably the only thing I really liked. (Grade: D)

- J. Montes

I loved whenever my parents would go out and my sister and I would get a babysitter. Suddenly, our house seemed new and exciting—who knew what kind of adventures we’d have while they were gone? Although this never happened, it was just exciting to have a babysitter: someone young enough to know all the pop culture references we loved, but also just old enough to be a little mysterious and cool. “Wow…Kat McNiel goes to HIGH SCHOOL! She has a BOYFRIEND! She went and saw Vibes in the theater and painted her room walls…BLACK!”

My parents, sweet and loving as they were, just didn’t have the same mystique that the Beastie Boys-loving Kat did when she’d show up on our doorstep (she drove!!) with the board game Sorry! under her arm and wearing a fedora. We’d sit around the kitchen table, playing, while she’d turn on the radio or MTV (forbidden when my dad was around), and my sister and I would just kind of stare lovingly at her: she was the coolest girl we’d ever seen.

One of the reasons why I love, love, love Eating Ice Cream With A Werewolf (besides the title) is that it reminds me of those days so strongly.

When Brad and Nancy Gowan’s parents go to Bermuda, they leave their kids in the care of wacky babysitter Phoebe Hadley, who brings along Dr. Curmudgeon’s Book Of Magic. Spells, zaniness and surprisingly touching moments follow. I always really identified with Brad to the point where I really felt like this book could have been about me. He’s quirky and goofy with a sweet, sensitive side. He struggles with the fact that he’s different from his former athlete father, he loves and takes care of his little sister (who’s inherited said athleticism) and he’s got a great, wry sense of humor. Okay, maybe an idealized version of me. Also: they live in Madison, Wisconsin.

The mother is a housewife/freelancer writer who hates housework (more inspiration!). What aspiring writer can’t identify with this passage:

When she sells a story, she throws her arms into the air and exclaims, “I may be a failure as a housewife, but I’m a success as an author!”

Whenever I enjoy a small success with writing (such as actually doing it), I feel that way: my life and apartment may be a shambles, but the dream’s alive!! This book inspired me then (and now) to want to be a writer, maybe, even to write kids’ books (I hope) as wonderful as this.

Brad walks to school with his older, friend/semi-crush Julie Bugle, and he tells her about their previous adventures with Phoebe:

• Cooking for crowds, which ended up with Nancy covered in cookie dough
• Judo lessons, where she flipped the mailman
• First aid, where she bandaged Brad so tightly they had to go to the emergency room to have him cut out
• Lifeguarding, where she kept throwing Brad in the water to save him

Sadly, there are no pre- or sequels to this book, so these other adventures only exist in the mind. I have always wished that Phyllis Green would’ve written another book about these characters. This time, Phoebe shows up in a lavender jumpsuit, matching cape and huge purple tote bag. “I’m a mod, part-time witch,” she says, and pulls out a stuffed cat (she’s allergic).

Over the few nights they’re together, Phoebe and Brad cast:

• A picnic spot spell
• A barnyard spell
• An ice cream spell
• A boyfriend spell…or is it a WEREWOLF spell?!

The title comes in while they’re casting a boyfriend spell (for Phoebe, sadly, and not Brad. Meh!), and get interrupted. When Phoebe resumes, she accidentally casts the spell on the opposite page, which Brad realizes is a werewolf spell!There’s a knock on the door, and it’s a hugely muscled delivery man named Ned with two tubs of vanilla-fudge ice cream. He’s a grad student at the university and Ned and Phoebe start falling for each other…even as Brad realizes how wolf-like Ned looks. Could it be that he’s a w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-WEREWOLF?! (If so, he’s a sexy one.)

While my heart will always belong to Kat McNiel, Phoebe’s pretty freaking charming herself. She owns a plant shop called Fortunes & Fernery (she used to do free tarot card readings for patrons until they all started coming true) and names her flowers. She grew up rich in Philadelphia, but left it all to experience life…sadly becoming estranged from her family in the process.

“I just want to be happy,” she’ll say. “There are lots of things I want to do in the world. I want to do them all. I won’t go home and be little Miss Post-Debutante.”

While I was never anywhere close to that kind of life, I really could relate to the idea of needing to go out into the world on my own to find happiness and (I hoped) myself. Most gay kids who grow up in small towns do, I think.

There’s a really touching scene where Nancy wants Brad and Phoebe to play telephone with her. Nancy pulls out her pink plastic phone and pretends to call her parents and a series of relatives, friends and neighbors. When Brad puts her to bed (punishing her for making him play along by reading her a couple pages of Macbeth for a bedtime story), he comes back into the living room to see Phoebe holding the toy phone in her lap, dialing it.

“What are you doing?” I asked, startled.

“Making a phone call,” she said, straight-faced.

I decided to humor her. “Who are you calling?” I asked.

“My father.”

It’s her dad’s 49^th birthday (so young, I think now), and, into the plastic phone, she tells him she loves him and it’s pretty damn poignant without being over-the-top at all. Brad is moved by this, and finally says aloud how he’s afraid that his lack of athleticism disappoints his father.

Another emotional (but gracefully executed) moment occurs when Phoebe, Brad and Nancy all go to the zoo and see some marabou storks. Brad notices one in particular (Phoebe names him Hepzibah) who’s trying hard to fly, but one of his wings has been clipped. (While Phoebe and Brad are discussing living up to their parents’ expectations, Phoebe says, “I guess they want to take me back to Philadelphia and clip my wings. Like Hepzibah…[but] Hepzibah and I keep flapping!”) Brad decides to make Hepzibah wings that work out of old kites and tin foil and some other household supplies, but Phoebe gently tells him that the stork is in the best place for him. They go out for pizza, but later that night, after Nancy is in bed, he finds her putting on the wings. She helps him get into a pair of his own, and he asks what they’re going to do.

“Fly! We’re going to fly!” Phoebe said.

So we got dressed in the wings, and looking like two people-birds, we jumped off our front porch stoop and flapped as hard as we could. Neither one of us got airborne, but we had a fun time trying.

I love that image so much. Like that moment, the entire book is so understated, never overdoing the is-it-real-or-not aspect of the spells or the real emotion. Instead, Green gracefully pulls this all together with a charm and humor that appealed equally to the young boy I was and the man I am. Patti Stren’s illustrations play a huge part in this—charming and squiggly, they’re the perfect complement to the gentle cleverness of the book (even though I wish there weren’t spelling errors in her captions!). The book wouldn’t be complete without them. As it is, it’s beautiful and practically perfect in a quirky, sweet way that perfectly encapsulates something so personal and emotional to me.

Phoebe and Brad part ways in a brief, tender, wordless scene, and the Gowans return. The book ends on a forward-looking note when they mention they’re going on vacation next spring, and they’ll need Phoebe again, to which Brad wonders what her hobby will be then.

Me too.

Welcome to the inaugural Lost Hemisphere Thursday Thirteen. Wipe your shoes.

Since this blog is primarilly related to the VS System card game, I thought we’d open the gates by listing thirteen Marvel Comics characters notoriously absent from the game. By notoriously, of course, I simply mean that I’d get a geeky sense of satisfaction if they came to light. Heh.

Now, UDE does a pretty solid job of catching all the cool characters from Marvel, but it’s inevitable that some will slip through the cracks. B-Listers, forgotten heroes and villians, or maybe just characters that give the Design Team headaches trying to work out where to squeeze them into the sets.

Enough! On with the in-no-particular-order thirteen!!!

	1. Spider-Man 2099Possibly the only decent thing to come out of the 2099 series of titles, Miguel O’Hara had his DNA mixed with a spider’s well before they revamped the traditional webhead in Ultimate Spider-Man and the movies.Miguel also had venomous fangs, just to add to the creepy factor… and a hottie holographic housekeeper who became more than a bit player in the series!
	2. Beta Ray BillThe power of Thor, wielded by the last survivor of the Burning Galaxy! Beta Ray Bill is a genetically modified Korbinite, who fought and defeated Thor himself – and then was granted additional power by Odin, and his own Asgardian hammer, Stormbreaker.Why is this legend only portrayed in VS in the art on a plot twist?? Gimme a character card, dammit!
	3. Death’s Head IIDefinitely a feature of the 90’s anti-hero movment and pretty much only popular in the UK, Death’s Head was still a very entertaining read, and an intriguing visual, yes? His weapon-arm may well have been inspirational for the creation of Random.After the cybernetic Minion schmucked Death’s Head, our protagonist thumbed his nose at the would-be assassin by uploading himself over Minion’s own programming and assuming the new, nastier form of Death’s Head II
	4. SasquatchNow, Sasquatch is only one member of the mysteriously-absent-from-VS Alpha Flight, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Dr Walter Langkowswki.I highly recommend picking up the first issue of the Omega Flight mini-series, written by Michael Avon Oeming, if only so you can get a chuckle out of the kid’s reactions when Walter tries to give a guest lesson at a school.
	5. WraithA new player on Marvel’s cosmic scene, Wraith is a unique soul descended from Kree stock, but bonded with a symbiote that pretty much deadens him to everything. Extreme pain is about the only thing that can help him get back in touch with emotions he used to feel.Sure, he’s a poster boy for emo weepy stuff, but he makes for a hell of a visual, and his gun/whip thingie is pretty damn awesome.
	6. Awesome AndyHands down the coolest supporting character in the current She-Hulk series, the Mad Thinker’s Awesome Android was emancipated and granted some sort of citizenship, I guess, and ended up working as a gopher at the law firm that hires She-Hulk.The character is charming, endearing, and dammit, just plain likable! Awesome Andy FTW!
	7. Beverly SwitzerThe MTU expansion gave us Howard the Duck – he even got a playmat – but how is it that we have Howard, but not his ever-present buxom red-head companion, Beverly*waaagh*
	8. HepzibahYou know, I’ve never really figured out if she’s meant to be a cat woman or a skunk woman. I seem to recall earlier depictions of her having a skunk tail, but more recent ones being more feline.Either way, the grammatically challenged Starjammer would be groovy to have on a card. Not only is she a cat lady, she’s a PIRATE cat lady! Aaaarrr!
	9. HussarJust as Sasquatch was kinda standing in for the rest of Alpha Flight, Hussar’s here representing the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.Sure, we got Gladiator… kinda… but the Imperial Guard’s an entire roster to rival the Avengers, for cryin’ out loud. Besides, who DOESN’T want to see what Alex Horley can do with all that leg hair?
	10. War MachineDesigned by Tony Stark as the latest Iron Man suit after a period when his entire central nervous system was pretty much in shutdown, the War Machine armour was later adopted by Jim Rhodes, who had previously stood in as Iron Man when Tony was hitting the bottle.The whole intro issue for the armour, against the cybertech ninja trio the Masters of Silence, was just plain funky cool.
	11. The MandarinIf we’re going to have War Machine, let’s have one of Iron Man’s quintessential foes, The Mandarin.A holdback to a much less politically correct era, the Mandarin at least updated his wardrobe over the years to look regal. The Hands of the Mandarin crossover is still one of my favourite tales from the 1990’s.
	12. BroodI’m not talking specifically about the Brood who joined up with Hulk’s Warbound, I’m talking about the entire damn species.These guys are one of the most feared foes of the X-Men, why the heck haven’t we got army versions? You just KNOW Stubarnes wants them on some level…
	13. Hogun the GrimAnother incidence of one character standing in for his people, where the heck are the Asgardians?We’ve got multiple Thor’s… but not a single Loki. Odin. Sif. Baldur. Heimdall. Sure, we’ve got Surtur, but he smells like sulfur and always tries to spike the punch at underage parties. Bring on the Warriors Three! Hogun most of all though, his manly ’stache and dour demeanour make him a real hit with the ladies.