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ASH #112 - A Suit of Sables Part 3: The Steep And Thorny Way - Lady Sable's sinister purpose is revealed...she wants to become a god! And as far as ASH can tell, they have at most one day before it happens, at which point they may meet the fate that befell their predecessors at the hands of Lord Ebon!

( Book of Note: Spider-Man #657 )

   Dave Van Domelen, "Tell me he doesn't actually believe that." "I'm not sure. He also puts fins on all of our deep space vehicles." "But in a vacuum they wouldn't do anything." "I know, but -- " - Spider-Man and Reed Richards, referring to Johnny Storm, The Amazing Spider-Man #657

I'll put most of this behind a cut, because I expect to ramble on a bit. But the tl;dr version is this: they obviously started with an ambitious piece of storytelling involving layered metaphors, but at some point got bored and just started tossing in whatever seemed cool at the time. (Edit to add: In other words, it didn't start as a "turn your brain off" action movie, but at some point they stopped trying and it slid into that territory, while retaining enough traces of the "leave your brain on" movie to be unsatisfying to those seeking mindless action.)

There will be spoilers behind the cut.

( And no, they never really explain the title in-story, although I'm sure a lot of reviewers will make some joke about the movie being a sucker punch in the viewer's face. )

Finally, since I expect some people reading this are on the borderline as to whether they'll enjoy the action sequences more than they'll be pissed off by the plot resolution, I'll say that the ending is one of "heroic sacrifice" rather than the "evil wins" ending that the movie felt like it had been heading for. So, if you don't mind that the framing sequence kind of falls apart and that layer one drags at times because the actors can't carry their weight, there's 35 minutes of cool action movie in there. And, hey, there's a lot of straightforward action movies that don't have 35 minutes of cool in them.

I decided to leave out any details about the job interview itself, since it struck me as a touch unprofessional, but it's not like I had a lot of time on Friday for taking notes. So this is largely my adventures in DFW Airport. :) Keep in mind, these were taken on an iPod, and many entries while walking. I'm leaving it as stream-of-consciousness for the most part, minimal edits.
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Coherent Super Stories #26 - "Pitch Reel" featuring Brighthorn: The Department of Super-Human Affairs makes a lot of money from licensing the likenesses of registered superheroes, but we don't often get to see the nuts and bolts of this. And that's probably for the best. Written for High Concept Challenge #18.

( No books of note, no Awards, no end quote, no real enthusiasm. )

   Dave Van Domelen, suspects he won't have to give up on comics, Diamond will simply stop shipping anything he wants to read.

Apparently, a bill moving through the Michigan statehouse would let the governor declare a community to be in financial crisis, dissolve any or all elements of local government, and put administrators of his own choice (including corporate ones) in charge of "fixing" the community.

So...when does Doctor Developer get to put in a bid on Detroit? (Edit for more context: In the ASH setting, after the disaster of 1998, Doctor Developer managed to get the contract for rebuilding Detroit, giving him full administrative control of the city. He then used various science-mangling methods to ensure that no one would rescind the "temporary" contract later on.)