suddenly I'm up on top of the world ...

Ever since I can remember, I've loved comic books and superheroes.

I read comics voraciously well past college, and collected them as well. I still have tons, which I eventually will sell off once I get them sorted and catalogued.

And it's funny, but I actually learned a lot. A lot of comic books contain a lot of science, both real and theoretical. While still pretty much a kid, I learned about the time-space continuum, the time travel paradox, radiation (of various forms), light speed, mutation, adamantium, titanium, fusion, fission, cellular reconstruction and more.

It also led me to Greek and Norse mythology, so I ended up reading the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" when I was an adolescent. Comics are the reason I got into Tolkien and Asimov and other science fiction/fantasy writers.

This is the reason that I hate, if not completely detest and despise, the vast majority of comic-book-based television shows and movies.

• Spider-Man no making and using webshooters? Please.

• Batman suits with nipples?Ahnuld as Mr. Frost? Gag.

• Viktor Von Doom on the ship with those who would become the Fantastic Four? *shudder*

• The complete disruption of the storylines and characters in the X-Men? Fuck you, Hollywood!!

• The horrendous re-telling of the Punisher storyline, not once but twice? *sigh*

But I did LOVE Sin City. Frank Miller is a comic god. And I love the fact that Robert Rodriguez collaborated so closely with Miller to pull of this cinematic masterpiece. It's the first movie I ever saw that made me feel like I was reading a comic book and not just watching a film. It's gritty. It's graphic. It's nasty. It's everything that a Frank Miller comic should be.

It gave me hope that other comic-based movies would live up to the same standard. But, of course, all that hope was for naught, as was made appallingly evident by the next in the genre that came down the pike.

Those fucking fuckers!!

And there's a new show out — "Heroes" on NBC. This isn't really a television show. It's a slowly unwinding comic book in electronic format. All that it's missing is those little boxes in the corner of the frame that add narrative.

So far, I'm liking it. Teleporting/time-stopping Japanese salaryman. Invulernable (or at least super-fast healing) cheerleader. Precognitive painter. Indian professor in the mold of Charles Xavier. Thought-reading cop. Internet porn artist/single mother with a deadly mirror image.

I hope they don't screw it up.

Keep your fingers crossed. I know mine are.

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ALMOST FORGOT: THE EARLY HNT FROM GUAM!

They're kind of an ... earth blue ... heh

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