… make it Heidi MacDonald’s year-end wrap-up at The Beat.

Then, if you still have some time, stop by Comic World News for the latest Flipped.

But, if you only read one today, I’d go with Heidi’s.

The stack was kind of small this week, so I thought I’d do a quick run-down. There be tons and tons of spoilers, so be warned.

Adam Strange 4 is a bit of a breather issue, with Adam making his escape from the Thanagarians only to run smack into the Omega Men, a group of freedom fighters from the Vega System (and the 1980s). They’ve been hanging around where Rann used to be, following up on a premonition from one of their companions. The book has a likable script from Andy Diggle, lovely and varied art from Pascal Ferry, and enough developments to pass the content test. I can’t say I’m too enthusiastic about the “end of the universe” portents, because I’ve been enjoying the focused scale of the story thus far. Still, this is one of my favorite DC titles and easily one of the best mini-series in ages.

It’s too early to make any sweeping judgments based on Legion of Super-Heroes 1, but I must admit to being a bit uneasy about this. There isn’t much variety to the voices of the characters yet, and they seem too jaded. The themes turn in on themselves: the young heroes want to buck the existing system, but is this out of altruism or generic rebellion? They relish their civil disobedience, and they’re keenly aware of the usefulness of media exposure. Writer Mark Waid has given them an awfully slick set-up, which is potentially interesting, but there might be pitfalls in it. While there does seem to be an underlying core of sincerity and optimism in the cast, which hopefully will emerge more fully, I can’t say I’m game for another tinny, self-aware super-hero comic that’s ultimately about super-hero comics. Art by Barry Kitson is polished and clean, with nouveau-retro costume designs smack in the middle of Curt Swan and Keith Giffen. There seem to have been some fairly major production problems on a couple of pages, with word balloons drifting around. (Edited to note that I’m not very observant, and this was an intentional visual effect to demonstrate the advanced communication technology.) And the title typeset is really dull.

Supreme Power 14 makes the unsurprising revelation that the U.S. government isn’t just utterly amoral, it’s really, really sloppy. It’s a predictable turn of events, but it provides some decent fodder for future stories. Hyperion, Nighthawk, and Blur make a total botch of their take-down of the super-powered serial killer, which leads to philosophical disagreements and varying degrees of regret. SP often features some interesting, sophisticated ideas and surprising plot twists, but it moves very slowly between bumps of activity. It’s also happily convinced of how cool it is, which can be grating. This is one of the livelier outings in its run, but there’s something unsatisfying about this title.

Teen Titans 19 is something of a rarity for me, the conclusion of an arc (“Titans Tomorrow”) that seems to come about an issue too soon. After a thorough introduction of the Titans West (the grim ones) in the earlier chapters, writer Geoff Johns speeds through the introduction of their more heroic counterparts in Titans East. It’s disappointing, as I’m more interested in finding out how they’ve stayed positive than in wallowing in how their rivals lost their way. Beyond introducing the group, Johns also tasks himself with getting the present-day Titans back where they belong and dropping an enormous number of hints as to what might be coming down the road. As a result, it feels too rushed and crowded. It also leaves the Titans with a specific future they must consciously avoid, which is a specific plot device I wish comic writers would avoid.

Lastly, we have What If Jessica Jones Had Joined the Avengers? Or What If Brian Bendis Wrote Fan Fiction? Okay, it’s not that bad, but it is rather unsettling to see Jessica Jones, one of Bendis’s most rounded, interesting creations, get the full-on Mary Sue treatment. Instead of telling Earth’s Mightiest to blow after escaping from Purple Man’s clutches, Jessica takes the team’s and SHIELD’s offer to become a liaison between the two. Naturally, she thrives, is embraced by all, reluctantly acts as a de facto Avenger, and manages to figure out bitch crazy before the Scarlet Witch can do any serious damage. Oh, and she wins the heart of the whitest man in America. Even by hypothetical story standards, there’s some strained logic here. But seeing art by Michael Gaydos is always a treat.

Deadlines are looming for two blogger contests.

If you want a shot at winning Mike Sterling’s Swamp Thing giveaway, you have until Friday, Dec. 31.

You have even less time to take a shot at BeaucoupKevin’s Julius contest. It ends Thursday, Dec. 30.

Hurry! Click! Win!

At Sequential Tart, Barb Lien-Cooper tears a strip out of the idea that women who read manga don’t count as comics fans:

“You can put labels on female manga fans and say ‘they’re not real comic book fans’ because they often only read manga as opposed to mainstream superhero comics. Manga is only legitimate if it acts as a ‘gateway’ drug to American comics. I’ve heard this argument a lot lately.”

In fact, a big chunk of the new articles at SQ are manga-related, with a look at complaints from purists, a contemplation of hair color, and a glowing review of Pet Shop of Horrors.

The New York Times has an article on manga’s female audience (free registration required), and it’s not half bad. Some bits stand out:

1. I think Trina Robbins is being a bit generous when she says, “The girls (in manga) are cute, they’re never insulting, and they never have big breasts.” There are plenty of titles where that’s true, but the term “fan service” wasn’t coined out of thin air. Heck, one of the titles listed in the latest Previews actually listed “fan service” as a marketing point. Perhaps it was a quote specifically about shojo that got truncated or improperly contextualized.
2. I’ll be interested to see the line of titles selected by Penguin Group USA for its manga launch this spring. (Here’s the press release from Penguin’s partner in the effort, Digital Manga, Inc.)
3. I’m very happy to see Imadoki! name-checked as an example of good shojo.
4. Because schadenfreude is my drug, I can’t help but picture a rictus smile on the face of Marvel’s Dan Buckley as he talks about how happy he is that girls are gobbling up manga. (And I note that the two Marvel digest experiments cited in the article, Emma Frost and Mary Jane, have gotten the axe.) “Girls love comics! Just not ours.”
5. Apparently, Swan did for ballet what Hikaru No Go has done for go.
6. Schadenfreude, part 2, courtesy of DC VP John Nee: “”I think the most appealing thing for DC with manga is that it’s been decades since comics have been a meaningful medium for females.” All credit to DC for its very promising CMX line, but was DC just an innocent bystander as comics were alienating female readers?

All in all, it’s an interesting read. It sure beats the hell out of another “comics aren’t just for kids” piece.

I don’t know why, but I had the idea that I’d walk into the comic shop this week to find nothing but rhetorical questions nobody really asked. But after a more careful examination of the week’s New Comic Book Releases List, I see plenty of fun stuff.

DC launches the latest version of Legion of Super Heroes by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson. The fourth issue of the wonderful Adam Strange mini arrives, too. The good people at Airship Entertainment offer the third volume of Girl Genius, which is happy news.

If I bought collectibles, I would certainly be tempted by the Zatanna Animated Statue, just because the listing makes me giggle. It makes me picture a small Zatanna statue cheerfully wandering around my house. And, since it’s the animated version, I know she wouldn’t magically lobotomize the cats every time they chewed on a plant. (Look at a picture of the statue, I’m reminded a bit more of Lady Heather from CSI than Z. What will the Mister Miracle statue look like now that Z has swiped the bondage motif?)

And, while it’s not new, the shopkeep let me know that he’d finally managed to restock early volumes of Maison Ikkoku, a charming romantic comedy. After getting Johanna Draper Carlson to try Alice 19th, I felt I should try something from her list of manga favorites. (It isn’t like that’s a chore; I’ve liked every title she’s recommended.)

Isabel Dalhousie on whiskey afficianados:

“They were people, she imagined, who did not disapprove of their fellow man, unlike those who patrolled mores today; these people were tolerant, just as gourmets, by and large, tended to have tolerant, expansive outlooks. It was the obsessive dieters who were unhappy and anxious.”

This is a sample of the wonderful prose that fills Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Philosophy Club. It’s technically a mystery in the sense that someone has died and Isabel, the protagonist, wants to find out why. But it’s much more concerned with Isabel’s musings on larger issues.

She’s the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, a woman of independent means and a tendency to meddle living in Edinburgh, Scotland. She’s also a complete delight, much like Smith’s other sleuth, Precious Romatswe, Botswana’s first lady private investigator. Smith’s books and characters manage to be thought-provoking and comforting as a grilled cheese sandwich at the same time.

And… um… I really like them. No, not much of a point other than that. Carry on.

On Usenet, Paul O’Brien takes a look at Marvel’s numbers for November. Interesting reading as always, and it highlights an odd trend at the House of Ideas: the retroactive mini-series.

As sales of certain titles swirl towards the bottom of the bowl, Marvel can’t seem to decide whether they were ongoings (and solicitations never indicated they were anything else until the axe falls) or mini-series. I can think of a few possible reasons for this:

• They were always mini-series to begin with, and Marvel biffed the solicitations. (Unlikely, to my way of thinking, though I certainly think they’re capable of screwing up solicitations.)
• They were always mini-series to begin with, but Marvel wanted to avoid the lower sales that usually come with minis by marketing them as ongoings. (In this case, if the minis are successful, Marvel can reserve the right to carry on with the title as an ongoing. If they bomb, out comes the accurate label.)
• They were meant to be ongoings, but dismal sales led Marvel to minimize its failed launches on paper by re-christening their bombs as having a fixed end point. (It’s not really relevant to the consumers of the books, but it would certainly be easier at the end of the year to have these titles fall into the “marginally successful mini” column than the “badly failed ongoing” list when you’re presenting a tally to investors.)

What it doesn’t indicate any way you look is awareness at Marvel that they’re putting out titles that simply don’t have an audience. (Okay, every title has an audience, but whether it’s a profitable one or not is an entirely different story.) As a number of new launches slide down the sales chart (particularly spun-off X-characters), I’m guessing we’ll see a few more newly minted minis in the coming months.

Mystique and Emma Frost have already gotten the axe but were too far along in their runs to facilitate any fudging. And both were perfectly readable books that I enjoyed. Gambit and Nightcrawler seem to be heading in the “it’s a mini” direction a bit faster. (Both of them have gotten fairly friendly critical responses.)

And what about the minis that are actually called that from the beginning? The best of them, Madrox, is selling poorly. The ones higher up the charts (Secret War, Ultimate Nightmare) are chronically late. And how, I have to wonder, can a quarterly book like SW still manage to be late? (I think O’Brien’s correct that the bi-monthly Pulse tie-in will spoil the ending.) The first issue of UN seemed like about a quarter of what an actual comic should be, leading me to bail, so I’m not sure what the issues are there.

The people who really seem to come out on the short end of this are retailers, who aren’t able to make informed ordering decisions because they have to guess at the term of the product. (I’m not a retailer, so I could be wrong.) But Marvel has already put them at a disadvantage by dumping dozens of new titles on the shelves without adequate marketing or even the realistic expectation that the books will turn a profit.

Have any comic journalists asked Marvel about this practice? I’d be interested in the answers.

(Marc-Oliver Frisch’s excellent DC sales analysis for November is also up. And O’Brien’s X-Axis Year in Review has arrived.)

Okay, it’s a sign of how smoothly the holiday ultimately went (after a couple of aborted attempts to breach the ice-crusted nightmare that is Ohio) that this is my big gripe, but I just have to get this off my chest.

You can’t make decent Chex Mix in a microwave oven. It’s called carmelization, people. You get it from a conventional oven. Not a microwave. And you aren’t really saving yourself any labor. You still have to stir it periodically. Sure, the Chex Mix is done faster, but it doesn’t taste anywhere near as good.

While I’m ranting about microwaves, which certainly serve their purpose, let me issue another edict. If you’re making anything that requires cooked squash — soup, puree, ravioli filling — bake it in a real oven already. Conventional oven = carmelization and depth of flavor. Microwave oven = hot.

End of culinary diatribe.

So, happy holiday of choice to anyone who observes. If nothing else, I hope you have a happy, safe, restful day, or whatever flavor of day suits you best.

As I look forward to 2005, I can’t quite grasp the fact that I’ll probably be reading not one but two Superman comics. (The second one is on the cusp, because I really don’t like the public persona of the artist. I’m pretty sure my principles will crumble.)

The hubby and I bought each other an X-Box for Christmas, because we’re big geeks. I’m enjoying it so far, but they really need to fold in some more save points. If that brat dies in the cave in Fable one more time, I’m going to lose my mind. Moreso. (On the other hand, the hubby loves Halo so much it’s almost unseemly.)