This Week in Comics (My Pull List 4-10-24)

Oh well, time to update my bucket list – I added “think deep thoughts while embracing the darkness of a total solar eclipse.” (Bucket List #72) It was pretty easy to check that one off on Monday. It was amazing… awe inspiring and glad I travelled all the way to the driveway to see it. Then I had a brief conversation dealing with how comic books don’t promote imagination… It was a losing battle, the person I was talking to was just parroting what they had heard from an adult. An adult who probably never read a comic book. Stupid adults, always getting in the way of being a kid. Sadly, it looks like I’m taking whimsical adventures with this kid off my bucket list. (Bucket List #35 & #55) I don’t think they will have that much fun… why be a kid when you can be an uptight adult? Part of having an “adventure” is not having a plan…

“Doesn’t matter. There are only four rules you need to remember: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. Follow my lead and you’ll be fine.”

Leonard Snart, Infantino Street May 16, 2017

I guess I’ll just have whimsical adventures (whimventures®) either with Sue or Cecil. Wait… Cecil’s not imaginary, is he? He shouldn’t be since I read comic books and those ruin a person’s imagination. 😉 Then again, maybe Sue’s imaginary. At least I think the cats aren’t imaginary. (Birds, though, aren’t real)
Oh, and I’m happy that I have time now to embrace the things I loved as a kid, we all should. As Uncle Walt says “You have to grow old, you don’t have to grow up.”

As an educator I could recommend chapter books for this child, but I’m under the impression anything I purchase or recommend will be scoffed at as not being a “classic” or “serious literature.” 🙄 Plus, I might suggest something that the crowd she hangs with is trying to ban… (but their red hats do look fabulous)
What?
Who?
Me? 😱

This Week’s Comics (to ruin your imagination):

Action Comics #1064 – Starting a new super crossover story! As with many of these I’m concerned over the continuity of the story. I recall one Batman multi title crossover in which the story bounced in weird ways. It was like they didn’t have an editor make sure the van in the car chase was the same color and make through all the issues…🙄
Here’s fingers crossed that in the end this actually makes sense.
So Brainiac has some amazing plan that requires him to kidnap a bunch of people with the help of Lobo’s people (who are supposed to be all dead but aren’t?!?). So after a bit of a battle Superman is now the only person who can solve this mystery, stop Brainiac, and get everyone back safe and sound…

Ultimate X-Men #2 – still a mystery… I’d probably know more if I had kept up with so 2,473 X-Men related titles over the past decade or so…. Then again, one of the things I like about Ultimate comics is the slow set up and character building that hoes on. In the early days of comics an entire origin story would take a page, at most. Hisako is still trying to figure out what is going on, but she’s met a friend who right now makes me think of a Japanese version of Storm.

Batman and Robin #8 – the joys of obviously missing an issue… or two. Usually either one issue, you can put together some of the pieces, two? A lot harder.

Speed Force #6 – Yes! Issue six completing this arc. Um battling AVI rappers?!? The disconcerting part for me was the switch in art style midway through the issue. I haven’t been following this story very well- must be age.

The Amazing Spider-Man #47 – so Peter has a promising blind date cut short by a call from an old friend which leads to… the typical cliff hanger with a bunch of bad guys and possible bad guys and kinda of sort of bad guys… the least he could have done is picked up the bill.

Phantom Road #10 – so weird creature in alternate world… does weird things after a nice nap. As things get weird for Birdie & Dom we might have a clue as to what is going on in our world with Donnie and Theresa.

I Hate Fairyland #13 – What happens when Gert’s story gets turned into a movie? Ummm… remembers the great elder’s advice: “Never judge a book by its movie.” I’ve got that on a button somewhere around here.

The Batman First Knight, Book Two – I’m really liking this take on the Batman’s adventures during the 1930’s, a time before Alfred, or Robin. While definitely not all ages, it does a wonderful job of taking you back to that time period. It also does something I said earlier I liked about the Ultimate Marvel Comics – slows down the storytelling in order to focus more on characters and less on “BIFF!” “BAM!” & “OOF!” Oh, and great artwork.

So what will next week bring? Who knows? More adventure, excitement, and other kid stuff that kids today can’t fit in between all their important activities.🙄

In conclusion… get off my lawn!

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News…

Yesterday I went in for my physical… this is the first one since retirement and my doctor of over 30 years is retiring… So I met instead with a very nice nurse practitioner to go over my test results and discovered a few things. A new person means a new set of eyes… and a belief that the information you are being given is to new to you… Therefore is a teachable moment. What I think I learned was pretty simple although I might be exaggerating it. 😉

  • Anything I currently enjoy eating will kill me- so I should stop eating.
  • I need to also stop drinking anything except water, unless that water also contains fiber.
  • If I do not exercise every day I will die.
  • If I die I can stop taking the majority of the medications I am currently on.

Pretty much it looks like I’m as good as dead, and I have about seven pages of scientific reasoning explaining it all. 🙄 Included in those seven pages are detailed descriptions of what I should be doing (see list above for abbreviated version) Now to see how insurance reacts to this… I’m guessing any treatment that might help won’t be covered. “That class of medication is only for the wealthy, not retired teachers.” Maybe if health insurance also had to pay for funerals it would be different.🤔

I also learned that even when you are asked to fill out page after page of family history… like when you give students a reading assignment, Nobody seems to read it and they ask you questions that you already answered… or had to call some relative to answer- “Was the mole Aunt Marge had on her left hand cancerous?” For the record- I filled out the survey the office sent me, not the one the third party sent me from the hospital that required me to sign a release… Maybe I should have done that, but I had just filled out the one so why do it twice? Isn’t that what computers and AI are for?

I do appreciate the work people in the medical field do to try to keep stupid people like me healthy and alive. I just found it funny they are required now to ask questions about depression BEFORE they go over your test results… I wonder what would happen if they asked them AFTERWARDS. Stay tuned… I’m sure with the way health insurance works in the Untied States things will only get worse… politics are way more important than a healthy or educated populace. You know, we wouldn’t want THOSE people to get free healthcare even though that also means you would too. 🙄