Howling for my cognates (I eliminated the potential spoiler in the title)

-Now that I've read Civil War #7 (too bad it didn't come out in 2006--I'm afraid we'll forget about it when we're discussing the best comics of 2007), I decided to go ahead and read Augie De Bliek's review of it. The first section seemed like it could have been written three months ago, except that maybe then it wouldn't have all the stuff about General Hospital. The hypothetical section after that makes me question Mr. De Bliek Jr.'s sanity--children would fall asleep if forced to read a comic pencilled by Mike McKone. I'm surprised McKone isn't suffering from narcolepsy himself, considering that he's forced to look at his art all day. And trying to make sense of Peter David's 11 Star Trek jokes per page would only make them cranky. Really, though, this is a pretty hack-y type of statement from a well-respected reviewer of comics. It's not all that different from the typical message board fantasy--except that most message board denizens have zero interest in French comics. Also: I consider the Smurfs to be Belgian , thank you very much. And I would demand they be called The Schtroumpfs, since I consider that to be a much cuter, kid-friendly name.

-Sorry to return to Supergirl, but I just read this (courtesy When Fangirls Attack):

But this creation is not Supergirl. Supergirl is independence. Supergirl is old school, original grrl power. Supergirl sets her own trends. Supergirl is self-determination. She chose the shield, she chose her path, she chose her battles.

Hmmm...the legacy of Supergirl....

Yes, clearly Supergirl has been a mighty advocate for boyfriend-petrifying, cousin-marrying, no-commenting rebellion for years. BTW, if you're looking to get creeped out for no good reason, do a Google image search for Supergirl. There are all kinds of interesting, NSFW images which could provide the cornerstone for a short research paper in the field of deviant psychology. Plus it will give you some idea of who exactly is enjoying the current Supergirl comic.

-I always kind of wonder what kind of person is still buying those comics featuring intellectual properties which achieved their greatest success in the format of plastic toys in the 80s. I came one step closer to uncovering the truth yesterday after observing a transaction at my LCS. The customer in question was about 40, tall and skinny, had a haircut kind of like that "Magneto was right" kid from Morrison's X-Men (except his hair was red), wore fatigue-type pants tucked into army boots with a sleeveless t-shirt, and smelled faintly of patchouli. And he was anxious--spazzily anxious, you might say--to get ahold of all the wonderful Transformers comics which came out in the recent past. Honestly, this is not the type of person I thought was buying this stuff. From the looks of him, I thought he was in there to buy Faust or the Stephen King comic or a S. Clay Wilson collection or maybe something by Brian Wood.

-Sadly, I find these sorts of things interesting too.

-Holy mother of god, some of these people leaving comments are talking about the Superhuman Registration MacGuffin like it's a real political debate, rather than an excuse for Hercules to split robot Thor's head open (oops, spoilers). Also, anyone who is so disturbed by this that they are considering giving up comics is probably also a potential subject for a deviant psychology paper.

-When did "metal" become such a popular adjective? And what the fuck is it supposed to mean? Cause in my day, in those rare occasions it was used as an adjective, it denoted something related to Bruce Dickinson. Fucking kids.