"So you're saying... that's me lying there."

It's Friday, October 29, 2010, It finally got cold out, and this is The Side. Time for a bit of Nozz History.

Last time we talked about age limits on trick-or-treating and how that was the norm for me growing up. I only really lived in two areas when i was a kid and both those spots had cut off ages for trick-or-treating. So where was I on the last year I could legally trick-or-treat? San Miguel Marine Base in the Philippines!

The advantages to being on a military on Halloween night are simple. The houses are packed pretty tightly together and most of those were duplexes. Also the base had security, so my parents were cool with me striking out on my own to trick-or-treat. For a long legged kid well motivated by a powerful sweet tooth, that's a winning combination. My costume was a very simple one: it was my karate gi with a mask. We had a two hour window to trick-or-treat. In that time I had covered the majority of the base and managed to load up two whole bags with candy to the point of them nearly over flowing. I still had Halloween candy all the way until the next Easter.

What got interesting was walking home and I ran into my buddy, Joe. Joe was a Filipino kid about my age who lived off base, but was frequently allowed on base to hang out. Nice enough guy, but a bit surprised by seeing me in a mask. You see, he had no idea what Halloween was. He was pretty amped to try to get my candy. That wasn't going to happen and I told him to get his own and this led to me explaining the trick-or-treating process and lending him my mask and a bag after I dumped the candy into my gi jacket. The first house was a riot.

Joe: "You are messing with me."

Me: "No. I swear this works."

Joe: "So I ring the doorbell, and when they come to the door I hold out the bag and... what do I say again?"

Me: "Trick or treat."

Joe: "Trick or treat."

Me: "You got it."

So he rang the doorbell and waited.

Joe: "I'm going to kick your ass if you're screwing with me."

But the lady came to the do, he recited his line, and bingo, candy in the bag. We hit about twenty houses. I had to explain Jack O'Lanterns as he thought there might be candy in there. But once we got back to my house, he loaded up all the candy he got into his pockets and thanked me profusely for telling him all about "the coolest holiday ever".

SPOOKY COMIX!!

Let's start with the end, and by the end I mean death, and by death I mean ACTION COMICS #894. Lex Luthor is sort of a little bit dead. As such he meets Death. As one could probably predict, he's not terribly glad to see her. In fact, the whole situation is completely unacceptable to Lex. Death is pretty understanding about it and they have a nice conversation about the matter. Despite the tag line on the David Finch cover saying "Death in Action" there's pretty much no action in the entire book. However, this was utterly riveting. This was easily far and away my read of the week. I'm not a Neil Gaiman fan, and not because I dislike him, but because his work never really grabbed me, so having his interpretation of Death in here, while novel, isn't the selling point. Its Lex Luthor's reaction to his own demise that makes this book sing.



Also, Lex is kinda a freak. Just sayin'.

Moving on, DETECTIVE COMICS #870 also hit this week. The big reveal I predicted two months ago was revealed in completely predictable manner. This was immediately followed by our bad spilling his guts about his motivation and coming off as the biggest douche ever. It felt like Hine was imitating JMS's crap SUPERMAN story with the "why couldn't you save my loved one, you asshole" bit. I'm expecting Hine to write batman walking across the country now. The story was with gory detail hitting the reader smack in the face with exactly how horrible the loved one in question died. This whole story has gone straight to hell since the beginning. Completely awful and if Hine's frankly if I see Hine's name on anything else, I'm going to pass on it. That's how bad this issue was. It turned me against a writer.

In lighter news, I grabbed up TEEN TITANS #88 because I am a big Nicola Scott fanboy. I absolutely adore Scott's work. I had dropped this title due to it being pretty damn lame, but I couldn't pass this up. J.T. Krul is the new writer on the book, and this is the first thing of his I've read. The roster has been streamlined a bit to Superboy, Wonder Girl, Beast Boy, Kid Flash, Raven, and Ravager. The current Robin, Damien Wayne, is set to join up too. This book was a pretty good time, and I'm definitely on board with it for now. The characters were all likable and well handled. I don't really dig the romantic tension between Connor and Cassie, but that's because I want that coupling to work out. I also dig how Krul handles Kid Flash. Good stuff.

ATOMICA #2 hit this week. This was interesting in that the issue was split into two separate stories. It kind of gave it an old school ARCHIE COMICS kind of feel to it. The stories were pretty light-hearted fair as well. In “The Time Loop Team Up”, Atomica is up against the dreaded Captain Doom. I think his name is the most dreadful part, but he’s pretty formidable. There’s just enough plot to get us to the fight itself, something about that bad ol Captain trying to steal something from Doctor Colluns. What is interesting in here is Atomica gets saved by herself. Literally. It seems her Atomic Power Pendant gives her limited time travel powers, so she popped back from the near future to help defeat Captain Doom and after the win the one that got saved popped back in time to help her past self. Stephen Hawking would probably get up and walk if he read that one. The other story was a bit less trippy. “Atomica’s Day Out” featured her in her secret identity, Rose Lockhart, out and about in the city. It was pretty tame with her shopping and enjoying the park. She met a guy, Ray Ringer, who may or may not end up a love interest. Ray was sketching at the park, and Rose was admiring his work when I random giant spider attacked. I guess that’s what giant spiders do. It was pretty amusing to see such a calm pedestrian story take such a sudden weird twist. This issue was really a lot of fun. So far its surviving my “three issue” test.

SPOOKY MUSIC!!

Because its that time of year, I had to include something from local musician and spooky dude Lucan Wolf.



That's all for now. See you on Halloween!