The Head of the Snake

          I dreamed about Bonnaroo, represented here in some kind of poolside resort setting. After a bus shift in the evening, Logan, Brian and I convened at Logan's for a small clix game. In line with the recent Fear Itself issue, Logan played a Worthy team, Brian a Mighty team, and I ran a Hydra fodder team that turned out to be extremely overpowered. Another win at home; now if I can just apply this prowess in our away games at Alterniverse, maybe I could score some second place swag. (I have zero chance of beating Cliff, who lives and breathes this stuff. The odds of a win over Dave, another regular, are little better -- he is an incorrigible rule exploiter with a suspicious pair of dice that come up with a six nearly every roll.) Brian took off to meet with Josh and Summer, and I spent the rest of the evening reading a variety of comics. I breezed through Fear Itself, perused The Punisher, and enjoyed two Batman stories: The Cult and The Black Mirror.
           Nerd rant ahead. I've found myself becoming something of a Batman enthusiast. His stories have a sort of noir grittiness, an air of mystery, a certain psychological edge that other comics tend to lack. Take Superman, for instance. When they're written well, stories about the boy in blue are everyday stories -- they contrast his power with emotion or the frailty of life or ethical dilemmas. When they're written poorly, he becomes a deus ex machina "come in and save everyone at the last second with eye beams and super strength" engine of ridiculousness. Not to mention, he has one weakness, shards of rock from a faraway planet that everyone somehow possesses. This is why he always needs bigger and badder villains (Doomsday, Parasite, Mongul, Darkseid, etc. etc.) who never seem to have any motivation other than being evil (Brainiac, Lex Luthor...) I've said my piece; now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
          Quotes of the day:
"The people on 14 are the biggest wine snobs I've ever seen. He still has his fucking sunglasses on inside." - Luke
"I can't take any more of this Sergeant Pepper dubstep shit." - Nick
"Octopus is pretty bomb, I'm not gonna hate." - Nick