look, up in the sky!

This has been a very Superman-eriffic week. I read Kingdom Come, which negated my need to write that story (except yo, Wonder Woman done lost her *goddamn mind*) and I have to say that um. not!Superman, the other one with the lightning bolt who goes "Shazam!" and then there is lightning? Alternately annoyed the piss out of me and made me cry. As did um. um. oh fuck, like I can remember their names.

I don't know. I liked it. The art was pretty and the story was very much something that felt right to me and, you know, Superman was all sad and conflicted and whatnot and that is...everything.

Let's see, and then I read The Death of Superman, Funeral for a Friend, and Trinity. The first two were um. well. Ultimately pointless -- much like reading the original Dark Phoenix saga if you came in to X-team fandom after it was all resolved -- and the artwork just put me off, but I liked Trinity quite a lot. It was especially interesting coming on the heels of reading Kingdom Come and I find that while I love and adore movie incarnations of Batman (Michael Keaton and Christian Bale) and Batman from his animated series and Batman when he's chilling with Superman and Wonder Woman, I mostly find him irritating in his own comic. But you know, that doesn't especially surprise me. Batman/Bruce Wayne in Kingdom Come was just...really incidental and kind of dull to me in the story itself, though I did like ( spoiler )

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But yes. I was talking with glossing a while back about my sketchy and mostly non-existent relationship with the DCU (yeah, me + DCU comics = big no) and I was telling her that I like Batman best not when he's being all Uncle Creepy Badtouch with whatever Robin you choose (lord,I cannot express my complete and *utter* lack of caring for that dynamic which I hesitated to state here 'cause I know some of y'all are totally hardcore about it, but yeah) but when he's being that guy who can't stand for people to die, not when he could prevent it.

Anyway, that's totally a digression about Batman in what is really a post about Superman, 'cause um. Then I spent one evening leafing through the Superman Returns visual guide to the movie while I was on the phone with latxcvi and I can tell you right now that given the stuff in that book (as well as the stuff latxcvi was telling me from the novelization) there's not a single chance that I'm going to be remotely sane about that movie. It's like Bryan Singer took every single thing I love about all of my best beloved characters, tossed in a heaping dose of my personal bulletproof (pun only somewhat intentional) story kinks, and then wrapped it all up with a bow of prettiness.

Am I looking forward to PotC 2? Of course I am; it's *Norrington*.

Do I absolutely and sincerely hope that Superman Return kicks PotC 2's ass at the box office? Oh, you better believe I do. From everything that I have read (or had read to me) and seen, there's no one in SR that I'm *not* going to like. With the possible exception of Spacey's Lex Luthor, but I'm supposed to dislike him and he looks fascinating *anyway*. It's an entire movie filled with good people! Good people who do good things and who are not dicks and who are strong and vulnerable and sometimes bitchy and mostly just awesome. Bless, but PotC 2 doesn't stand a *chance* with me. It might if it were the All Norrington All The Time movie and I'm excited like burning that he's a) significant and b) got a story arc and c) is, you know, *Norrington*, but a movie that focuses on the anti-hero is going to lose to a movie that focuses on a hero and I am honest enough to admit that. I am totally and completely biased, but then, I don't actually expect any of this to be a surprise to anyone who reads this journal.

I bought Superman and Superman II; I bought a cd of John Williams and the Boston Pops (he's a hack! He's *such* a hack, my god. I was listening to the suite from The Cowboys or whatever that movie is called and going, "Oh my *god*, John Williams, you didn't even bother to change the melodic line you stole wholesale from Appalachian Spring! You and the flannel-wearing cracker deserve each other!") and it reminded me of all these movie moments I love (the march from Superman, the Princess Leia theme and the opening titles from Star Wars, etc) like when you see the dinosaurs for the first time in Jurassic Park or the first time you see Darth Vader (*shakes fist at George Lucas* How dare you make one of the most iconic villains of all time into a guy that tries and fails to do the anguished "NOOOOO!" and flails around like a goober? Hack. Hack! I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul!).

Um. Dude, I totally lost my train of thought. And honestly, the flannel wearing cracker and John Williams may both be hacks (seriously! stole many a melody from Appalachian Spring! Or Rite of Spring!), but I do not deny that they are brilliant.

But yes, Superman. Superman deserves a post of his own, but I want to say that I am excited as hell that this movie is coming out and that it looks to have that same heart and power of the original movie.

I am totally babbling and I don't care. I want to write fic. I want to dork around a lot. I want to write meta about characters and meta about goodness and heroism, I want to write a post about how all sorts of things should work for me and inexplicably don't, and just...stuff. I don't know. I am tired and flaily and giddy and I bought new shoes and some t-shirts.

St Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley is an awesome, awesome cd. I am enjoying the hell out of it. Also? Maynard is a sick freak and I love him.

That is all. Thank you and drive through.