Comic book review: Civil War: Amazing Spider-Man
Collecting issues #532-538 and written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, Civil War: Amazing Spider-Man contains some important events in Marvel’s larger Civil War storyline and fleshes out Peter Parker’s story from the main Civil War series. Peter Parker plays a big part in the Civil War story and his story is compelling because of the changes he goes through. Warning: spoilers in the next paragraph.
From his public unmasking revealing his secret identity to the world, the development and ultimate collapse of his relationship with father-figure Tony Stark (Iron Man), his switching sides during Civil War, and the ending of the book where Aunt May is shot will all have large ramifications in the history of Spider-Man.
So while I haven’t read Spider-Man since Todd McFarlane left the book in the early 90s, after reading these Civil War issues of Amazing Spider-Man, I plan to once again continue following the adventures of Spider-Man to find out how the events of Civil War play out in Peter Parker’s life. After all, isn’t that Marvel’s intent with Civil War? To hook casual readers into buying their books in the future? In the case of Spider-Man, the story is plenty good enough that their intent worked on me.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10.
Cheap Eats New York: Part 1
Living in New York City presents seemingly unlimited opportunities to eat out, with numerous restaurants opening up every week. But eating out gets costly, so here is my guide to the best cheap eats restaurants in New York City. I define “cheap eats” to mean a full-service (table service) restaurant where dinner for two can be had for about $50 or under. Fifty dollars might not sound that cheap at first, but for two people dining in New York, it really is cheap. Part one of my list includes my top Asian cheap eats choices, all of which fall well under $50 for two people.
- Saigon Grill. Multiple locations in Manhattan, most notably 91 University Pl. I used to live above the currently closed for renovations location of Saigon Grill on East 88th street, so I have eaten here a lot. I can honestly say that I have had almost everything on the menu, and it is all good. Standout dishes are Bo Luc Lac (beef cubes), Goi Du Du (green papaya salad), Sate (or is it Satay?), and most of the Shrimp dishes. And I love the sticky rice with coconut side dish.
- Momofuku Noodle Bar. 163 1st Ave in Manhattan. Numerous types of pork and noodle combinations are the specialty, but seasonal dishes also stand out.
- Soba Nippon. 19 W 52nd St in Manhattan. Another noodle place, but this one grows its own noodles at a farm in New Jersey. It goes without saying that any of the soba noodle dishes are excellent, but the udon noodles are worth a try as well.
- Sripraphai. 64-13 39th Ave Woodside, Queens. The top Thai place in the city is worth the trip out to Queens. The menu ranges from the ordinary to things that you don’t typically find at your average Thai restaurant, including lots of spicy dishes.
- Joe’s Shanghai. This quintessential Chinatown restaurant now has multiple locations in Manhattan and Flushing. Even the most basic stuff on the menu is very good, and the soupy buns (dumplings) are as good as their reputation.
TV review: Heroes Season One
I am usually reluctant to begin watching any new current TV series for two reasons. First and foremost is the commitment of time it takes to watch a new show in an already crowded field of TV viewing each week. There are only so many hours in a week to watch television and I already feel that my TV viewing plate is full. Second of all, if a new show turns out to be not so good, I feel like I have wasted time watching it when I could have waited for repeats or the DVDs.
Having said that, I still get sucked in to watching new shows occasionally. I watched the beginning of the first episode of Heroes with only passing interest, getting up to wash the dishes or meddle around the house during the first 20 minutes of the show. But I caught enough of it to get hooked in those first 20 minutes. It was immediately evident that this was my kind of show. I had to rewind the DVR to go back and rewatch those first 20 minutes, giving them my full attention this time, because Heroes is a show that demands your full attention.
It seems too simplistic to sum it up this way, but interesting characters in a well thought out and paced storyline makes for good TV. And Heroes has that in droves. What at first seems to be a series of unrelated characters discovering they have abilities beyond what normal human beings can do grows into a story bigger than they realize, as the fate of millions of lives rests in their hands. The way that the pieces of the story were revealed throughout the season was done in a way that both fit the story and drew the audience in to watching each and every week through hints, flashbacks, and glimpses of the future. And as with any glimpses of the future, the audience knows the future can always change.
Season one of Heroes is one of the best one hour dramas that network television has ever produced, in a category with only Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and some seasons of 24 (no, I don’t watch Lost). Will they keep up the high quality into season two? I’ll surely be watching to find out.
Rating: 9 out of 10.
Book review: Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura
Written by Kathy Tiers and released in 1993, this was the first Star Wars book to be published after the success of the relaunch of Star Wars as a licensed publication in Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy. The events of Truce at Bakura take place immediately after Return of the Jedi ends. The Ssi-Ruuk, lizard-like aliens, are attacking the remote planet of Bakura giving our heroes their first test after defeating the Empire.
The book sometimes reads like a young adult novel, especially relating to the character of Dev Sibwarra, a human captured and brainwashed by the aliens to help them. There are some interesting events relating to the ghosts of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker in the book, but those are few and far between. And a potential love interest of Luke’s is introduced, but is ultimately left unresolved.
At the time of its release, Truce at Bakura was a great sign to see the continuation of Star Wars books being published. But now 14 years later, this book stands as only a mediocre example of Star Wars fiction.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10.
The “Just Look At Him” Test for Steroids
Seeing Tony Gwynn at his induction into the baseball hall of fame is further proof that you cannot use the “just look at him” test to say that a baseball player is using steroids. The “just look at him” test involves concluding that a player is using steroids simply looking at how big they are and how wide their head is. If you applied that test to Tony Gwynn, he would fail. Tony Gwynn is bigger and wider than ever. For all we know he could be all muscle under his shirt. Has he been taking steroids? Highly unlikely. Sometimes people get wider as they get older. That doesn’t mean they are using steroids. It also doesn’t mean they are not using steroids either, as evidenced by Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds. But before fans and members of the media go around accusing any large players of using steroids, they should have some credible evidence to support their claims beyond the “just look at him” test.
Comic book review: Civil War by Marvel
The Civil War trade paperback is the main event of Marvel’s large Civil War storyline, collecting issues 1-7 of the Civil War limited series. Due to numerous superhero battles for which collateral damage could not be contained, the United States Government passed the Superhero Registration Act, requiring all superheroes to reveal their secret identities and register and work for the government in an effort to train, organize and control the vigilante activities that previously ran wild throughout the country. Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, leads the faction in favor of the act and also the battle to track down those who refuse to comply with the act, who are led by Captain America.
Within the context of a fictional universe of super-powered beings fighting each other, the story is about the debate over the trade-offs between civil liberties and safety. How much freedom are we willing to sacrifice in order to keep ourselves and our families safe from outside threats? The strength of the entire Civil War story is how each of the characters in the Marvel Universe answers this question. Many of the individual character’s decisions and stories take place in other books, many of which I have read and will subsequently review, but all of the major events of the story are contained in the collected Civil War trade paperback.
After first reading the ending, I found myself disappointed by it. But I realized that I was not disappointed by the storytelling, but rather the decision that one of the main characters makes which for all intents and purposes ends the civil war. I was drawn in to the story enough to find myself caring about which side wins. But my disappointment was due not to lack of enjoyment of the story, but simply because the side I had chosen lost the war.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10.
Rick Ankiel Observations
Just because Rick Ankiel has hit 3 home runs in 3 days as a major league hitter doesn’t mean the media should crown him as the next Alex Rodriguez just yet. Tons of players have come up and made a big splash in their debuts in the big leagues, only to fade away into obscurity after an initial hot streak. After showing some initial pop in his bat, Ankiel is now more likely to hang on longer than he otherwise would have, but I still refuse to believe he will be anything more than another Benny Agbayani, Shane Spencer, or Kevin Maas.
Bob on Bonds
Here’s my two cents on the issues surrounding Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s career home run record:
Bud Selig: As a fan of the history of the game I do not care one ounce about Bud Selig’s reaction to or attendance of the breaking of the record. Does anyone care that Bowie Kuhn (commissioner of baseball from 1969-1984) was not in attendance when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record? No. Does anyone remember if Bud Selig was in attendance when either Mark McGwire or Bonds broke the single season home run records? I don’t.
Mike Bacsik: The media portrays the pitcher who gave up number 756 as somehow having failed. Did he fail in doing his job any more than other guys who gave up the previous 755 home runs? Bacsik’s team ended up winning the game, so how much of a failure can he be? Remembering pitchers who gave up historic home runs which led to historic pennant winning or world series winning games such as Ralph Branca or Mitch Williams has much more historic significance than the guy who gave up number 756 to Bonds or 715 to Aaron or 62 to McGwire or 61 to Maris.
The Ball: Why is the story of who catches a historic home run ball and what happens to that ball just as big as the breaking of the record? No one is ever going to pay the insane multi-million dollar prices that Todd McFarlane paid for several of the McGwire and Sosa balls from 1998. So the dollar amounts paid for these balls nowadays is not even shocking. Fan catches ball, fan auctions off ball. The only thing even remotely noteworthy about the story this time is the fact that the guy who caught it is a Mets fan.
The Presumption of Innocence: On the Sports Reporters this past Sunday, Bill Rhoden questioned what happened to the presumption of innocence in this country, specifically regarding Barry Bonds. How is Bonds innocent? Bonds has admitted to unknowingly taking steroids from BALCO. His personal trainer is in jail. And a mountain of evidence has been presented against him in A Game of Shadows. I did presume Bonds was innocent when the rumors and stories leaked to the press about the BALCO grand jury testimony. I believed Bonds at first when he claimed he did not know what he was using was a steroid. But that was 4 years ago. Since that time the evidence has mounted against him without him refuting any of the details. If Bonds is innocent, why won’t he talk about the details of the allegations? Refute them, point out each one and say it is false. By not addressing the evidence presented against him, Bonds silently admits to it. And because of that, his records are tainted.
And by the way, Sadaharu Oh hit 868 home runs in his career playing in Japan. He still holds the professional baseball record for home runs.
Comic book review: The Road to Civil War by Marvel
I stopped reading Marvel comics in the mid-1990s when comics books became more focused on special covers and other sales gimmicks than actual storytelling. I continued to collect and read Batman and some other DC comics, but gave up on Marvel completely. Then about 5 or 6 years ago, Marvel was receiving some buzz regarding their Ultimate line of comics, the premise of which is to recast their characters in modern times and start their stories from a fresh perspective not hindered by 40 years of continuity. I read a few of the Ultimate line (Ultimate Spider-Man, etc.) but was unimpressed. Fast forward to 2007. Sparked by the mainstream media coverage regarding the death of Captain America and my having read the limited series The Eternals (see review here), I was intrigued about Marvel’s recent event entitled Civil War, as both Captain America’s death and the Eternals fit at least partly into the bigger storyline of Civil War.
But I knew I didn’t want to get sucked into buying every single Civil War tie-in that Marvel cranked out, as comic book companies almost always go overboard with their big events, having the storyline cross over into all of their monthly titles whether it relates to the bigger story or not. And I also decided I would only purchase collected issues in trade paperbacks because I didn’t want to hunt down individual issues that may have risen in price since they were released.
So I began with The Road to Civil War, which collects the New Avengers: Illuminati special, Amazing Spider-Man 529-531, and Fantastic Four 536-537. And I was immediately hooked by the Illuminati issue that leads off the collection. Even though I didn’t know who all of the characters were (Black Panther? Black Bolt?), I was fascinated by the concept of some of Marvel’s greatest superheroes forming a secret group with the intent of pulling the strings of the rest of the superhero community. These characters, such as Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Dr. Strange and Professor X are supposed to be the good guys. But that is one of the things that makes Civil War so compelling: there are no exact lines between the good guys and bad guys. Instead the story of Civil War asks the question: “Whose side are you on?” And after reading The Road to Civil War, I knew I wanted to read more.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
PTI Guest Hosts
A friend of mine refers to a past guest host team of Jay Mariotti and Michael A. Smith on Pardon The Interruption as the “Z” team. If they are they “Z” team then what letters does that leave to call this week’s team of Patrick McEnroe and J.A. Adande? I’d like to call them the “ZZZ” team and say it is because they put me to sleep, but truthfully they aren’t quite that bad or boring. It’s simply that they are not Tony Kornheiser, Mike Wilbon, Bob Ryan, or Dan LeBatard (yes, I like LeBatard).
A big part of the problem is similar to actors being typecast, sportscasters can become pigeon-holed. I can’t help thinking “what does Patrick McEnroe know besides tennis?” when watching him on PTI. He may very well be a huge sports fan and be versed in numerous other sports aside from tennis, but as a viewer I think my initial reaction of doubt is only natural. And sometimes even years later I still see certain sports media personalities who try to broaden their reach into a range of sports as still being a specialist in one particular sport, such as Mike Golic for football and Michael Kay for baseball. And while even the PTI regulars have specialties of their own (Kornheiser for the NFL and Wilbon for the NBA), the aim is to prove to the audience you are knowledgeable and credible across a range of sports. And that is harder to accomplish when someone has spent their entire career involved with one sport the way Patrick McEnroe has.
