Category Archives: Lists of Six!
My 6 Tips for Attending Comic-Con
I love attending comic book conventions. I’ve been to four in the past five years, visiting places like Boston, Baltimore and New York City, and each time has been a blast. I never thought I’d ever get to go to a Con, but thanks to some eager friends and the freedom of being a grown up, I get to dress up and geek out at these big, nerdtacular jamborees!
Always ogling
I wrote about my trip to the Boston Comic-Con yesterday, and I’ve written before on what I love most about comic conventions, so this time I’ve decided to give some advice about attending Comic-Con. First of all, definitely go. They’re relatively inexpensive, and if you’re into comics and pop culture, there’s nothing else like them. Second of all, conventions have reached the point of mainstream appeal. No longer are they ridiculed covens of dorks and weirdos. It is cool to go to Comic-Con. Everybody is going to want to hear about your trip.
So if you’re thinking about going, here is my personal advice about attending a comic book convention.
My Top 6 Greatest Comic Books of All Time
I love comic books because, deep down, I wish I was a hero with incredible powers. I wish I could fly around the world. I wish I was more powerful than a speeding locomotive. I wish I could turn invisible and mess with people on the street. I love reading comic books because they are a uniquely perfect way to tell a story, combining prose and pictures into one fun-to-read package. And comics have a creative freedom unmatched by almost any other medium. Movies and TV shows are hampered by budgets, technology, running time and so much more. With comics, the heroes can travel all around the world or into space without awkward green screens of fake-looking CGI. The visual imagination of comics is hampered only by the strain on an artist’s wrist. Comics can do anything, go anywhere and be anyone.
Though they’re mostly about men dressing up in animal costumes
I’ve had a draft of this List of Six waiting in my queue for more than a year now. I’ve been picking at it, rearranging it, deciding what should go where, but I’m dying to share this list with you. I’m always talking about comics, so what are the best comic book stories/series I have ever read? Keep in mind: this is my personal list. This isn’t just the best comic books of all time. This list isn’t going to have Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns on it. I’ve read those comics, and I like those comics, but they aren’t among the best comics I have ever read. No sir. And that probably has a lot to do with my comic book upbringing.
When I was a kid, I read everything from my dad’s comic collection that he left lying around, which were mostly a small smattering of Marvel superhero comics from the 60s. I didn’t get into comics on my own until the mid-90s, when my brother and I started with Spider-Man in the middle of the Clone Saga…which explains why he and I both love the Clone Saga…and my undying love of Phil Urich. We eventually moved on to the X-Men, but it wasn’t until Batman: Hush and Infinite Crisis that I finally started reading DC Comics on a regular basis. Because of this timeline, I wasn’t around in the 80s for Watchmen to blow my mind. I wasn’t around in the 60s for Spider-Man and Superman to define my world. In fact, almost everything on this list comes from the past 20 years or so, when I really got into comics.
Here are my personal Top 6 Greatest Comic Books of All Time. I would recommend any of these to anyone, comic fans or not.
6 Things I Want From the Batman/Superman Movie
Holy cow, Comic-Con International was FULL of movie news this past weekend! Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Days of Future Past, Godzilla, Hunger Games; it was a madhouse of movie news, spoilers and trailers! We haven’t seen a lot of those trailers yet, but the descriptions online have been stunning. Us movie geeks are in for a good couple of years. But I think the biggest, coolest surprise announcement was that the sequel to Man of Steel is going to be a team-up between Superman and Batman!
And even though I didn’t like Man of Steel, I’m nothing if not a sucker, and I can appreciate the wonderful excitement of a Batman/Superman team-up movie just as much as the next guy! I’m not made of stone, people!
2015 is gonna be a wild year
Meanwhile, the Justice League movie has been pushed back to 2017, if it even happens. Frequent readers of my site might remember that I had absolutely no confidence in DC and Warner Bros. to make a Justice League movie by 2015. But that didn’t stop me from making a list similar to this one, and a Batman/Superman team-up was my #4 choice for what I’d want to see in a Justice League movie. So seeing DC simply do this film first is a very cool turn of events. It fills me with…something close to hope. But DC has messed up their superhero movies before. I didn’t like Superman Returns, I didn’t like Man of Steel and I didn’t like Green Lantern. So if DC wants to finally make me happy (and I’m sure they do), here are my six suggestions for the Batman/Supermean movie.
The 6 Characters on My Avengers Team
San Diego Comic-Con is this weekend, and to celebrate, I’ve put together a List of Six that may be one of the purest forms of comic book geekery: what is my ideal Avengers lineup? What is my dream team? We’ve played this game several times before with the Sinister Six and X-Force, well now I’m setting my sights on the big guys. The game is simple, and as a comic book geek, I think it’s fantastically fun: if I were hired to write an Avengers comic, and had free reign over what characters to put on the team, who would I pick? Who would you pick?
The Avengers are very different from the Justice League over at DC Comics. I could never do one of these lists for the Justice League, because my ideal lineup for that team is the same as everybody else: use the top 7 classic Justice Leaguers: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter. That’s the perfect Justice League, hands down. No need to debate. But the Avengers are very different. The Avengers are not just made up of the top superheroes over at Marvel. The Avengers are their own little family of superheroes, known more for being Avengers than for being solo heroes. And if I were to make a team of Avengers, I definitely wouldn’t put popular characters like Spider-Man or Wolverine on the team just because they sell.
I have my own ideas. And I’m sure you have yours. Join me after the jump for the characters I would put on my Avengers team. And please share your own ideal lineup in the comments!
6 Thoughts on Game of Thrones Season 3
My favorite TV show on the air right now is HBO’s Game of Thrones. It’s deep, it’s sprawling, and it’s one of the most exciting TV shows I’ve ever seen. Production values are better than most movies these days. And the rich tapestry of characters is unlike any other show in history. That alone makes every episode an adventure, because there are so many characters and so many plots, there’s always something to like. The third season came to an end a few weeks ago, and just as I did for the first season of Arrow, I’ve decided to start reviewing TV seasons in Lists of Six.
I may be a few weeks late, but if you all saw the climax of season 3, then you know stuff like that takes some time to settle in the mind.
Dun Dun Dununah
This list was suggested by friend-of-the-site Xavier. If you have any List of Six suggestions, or there’s a topic you’d like to see me write about, don’t hesitate to shoot me an e-mail at Hench4Hire@gmail.com.
I’m going to put a SPOILERS tag on this article, just in case some of my readers haven’t seen the full season yet. But at the same time, I’m going to assume anybody eager to read a list like this has already seen season 3. I’m going to be talking about the season and characters in depth, so please be warned. There’s a lot to talk about, I’m sure. And some more professional, academic bloggers might have some more in-depth analysis. But I’m just a dude who likes a TV show, and here are my six thoughts on Season 3 of Game of Thrones!
Henchman-4-Hire 