Comics for an Electrical Engieer like Me

Well hello again. Been a while. Moved in to my new house a lil over a month ago and have been putting more time into it than this blog, unfortunately.

Any who, I'm going to do a post about some of my favorite comics that strike at the Electrical engineering side of me. Books that are heavy in gadgets, super techno science, and complex machines.

First ill start with whats in the picture, Ex Machina for those who do not know. This is one of my favorite books, ending soon or ended at issue 50(not sure haven't got comics in a while), even setting aside the fact that it deals with weired techo concepts. Synopses goes like this: Mitchell Hundred is given the ability to speak to machines and control them with his voice. His super-heroics are told mostly in flashback as he has become mayor of New York City and "retires" for the most part from being The Great Machine. He has to deal with current problems of being mayor and deal with past problems he had created for himself.
I love this book; for one, Hundred's powers are just cool; and two, it is written by Brian K. Vaughan which is sure to write a compelling story with a good bit of humor and social commentary. Why this is a cool book for an EE like me is that fact that Hundred is himself and engineer i want to be, not just because he can talk to machines and build things in his sleep, but because he is a smart guy who deals with the problems he is faced with; even if solving them doesn't give the best outcome for him.

Next up is Atomic Robo, this book I love mostly because it indirectly stars my favorite electrical engineer of all time, Nikola Tesla (Father of AC). Basically the story goes that Tesla built this AI (Automatic Intelligence) capable robot in 1923 that succeeded him in his death and goes on to start his own company and become a world adventurer of sorts from the 1940s onto nowish. Its a very fun book with a lot of action and humor (robots vs dinosaurs vs Nazi vs giant walking pyramids)


Then, or course there is Batman. This is a character that has more of less influenced my feeling on becoming an engineer. I am pretty sure that i have always wanted to be an engineer but seeing the batman character with all of his gadgets and mostly designing and building them himself just inspired me more. my goal in life is pretty much to be able to build batman level gadgets.


Life Goals are to progress as follows: Build Batman level gadgets->build AI Huminoid robots->Speak to and control machines.

aziz ansari in Thunderbolts 144?

on page 10 of thunderbolts issue 144, with luke cage looking for the new thunderbolts clue, they use part of a joke from aziz ansari's stand up when he is making fun of MTV's Next the dating show.

Sorry no cover of the week

Sorry no cover of the week the last few week, but I have been putting it off. I don't know why i did this but hey. So i tried to go back and do a sort of retro active cover of the weeks, but then is really looked at my new comics and realized i didn't really like any of them in particular. Choosing one I really didn't like or didn't stand above the rest, i feel, would cheapen what COTW really stands for.

Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne

Check it out, two in a rowzz !!!1!1 anyway, i am very excited about Bruce coming back, but i don't really know how i feel about how they are doing it though. It seems a lot like how they brought back Captain America, except this is more literal trapped in time rather than a weired alternate inside-caps-head time. Looks like we start off right were Final Crisis ended and go from there. I guess i just have a lot of questions at this point. It seems that this story was from the point of view of the cavemen and they couldn't understand Bruce, so we couldn't understand Bruce.We don't know how he got were he is, how much he knows, or even how he lost his shirt. The ship is a time capsule from the cracked multi-verse from the beginning of Final Crisis issue 7.
I think it is strange that it seems like that ship has been there a while and is undisturbed by either the Old Man caveman or Bruce who had to pass it going into the cave.
It could be argued that Bruce is not only lost in time but in the multi-verse because of the appearance of the multi-verse ship and the appearance of Booster Gold and Rip Hunter along side GL and Sups. (plus the red skys thing is DC speak for multi-verse upheaval)
I'm also wondering if this ship will play an important role in the story. as of right now it is gone cause the Blood Mob cave dudes took it when they captured Bruce.
Another thought is what did superman mean when he said that if Bruce "makes it back to the 21st century on his own everyone dies," could it be that batman will break the multi-verse?
and a final thought and or question, where did that sword come from in the final panel, i know it wasn't in his utility belt.

Siege (Spoiled) and Heroic Age Avengers book

First off sorry for not following through with the weekly update thing (who would of thought buying a house would take so much of one's time.) But, here i am to talk about Siege and the newest Avengers book. Siege was cool, i think i would have liked for it to go to like maybe six issues instead of 4 just cause i like longer stories generally, and this was wrapped up pretty quick. I have been reading Dark Avengers plus all the other Avenger books and I feel that all of Norman Osborn's problems came to a head way to quick only in the Siege book. Through out the Avengers books leading to Siege Norman was doing a pretty good job leading HAMMER and keeping his insanity from showing. I would have liked to see some lead up to his breaking point, like during his more stressful time his cracks would show to more than just Victoria Hand.
**Spoiler**
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I'm Fine with them offing the Sentry, but I think they did it the wrong way. Having taken him down with a helicarrier Thor combo, granted after being hit with a super charged Thor lightning bolt and some other shit, was kind of weak seeing that he was still able to kill a god just before being smote.
I liked this ending alright but i feel like it was just your typical superhero-big-battle-everyone-works-together-to-take-down-the-super-baddy ending. I was listening to Comic Geek Speak Podcast the other day and they were talking about the ending of Siege and i think it was Jamie who had the an idea for an ending that i think would have been much sweeter and would have worked. Have Phobos show up do the whole "you killed my father, prepare to die" thing with Sentry and proceed to unleash on him. I fell that would have made sense seeing that Sentry RIPPED HIS FATHER IN HALF.

Anywho, Siege was kinda the bridge to take us to The Heroic Age. Avengers 1 was cool. i loved seeing all of Rogers' potential picks for Avengers teams, and i hope the Young Avengers guys get to see some action since they never got a real book. O MAN i love Romita's art, it takes back to my childhood (Dare Devil: Man Without Fear), and it really has a comic book feel to it. I like the photo realistic stuff that shows up some times but the Romita stuff reflects more of the scene to me somehow. I don't know how i feel about them bringing in characters from the direct to dvd Avengers stuff though, but I'm not even sure that is where these characters came from. I am looking forward to seeing where this new book goes.

PS How does Iron Man keep taking his helmet off, i though it was a part of his face now?

NEW cover of the week

Alright, I'm gonna try something new. so i can maybe get myself in the habit of making a post every week. So, here i will post my favorite cover from the weeks comics i get. This will only include books i buy that are new for that week. It will most likely come out on Friday cause that's when i get my books. It will be based on how i feel about the cover and not what is inside the book and in an ideal world i will chose before reading what is inside.

Finally, my chose for this weeks cover of the week is, Red Robin issue 11. Of my new books it beat Batman & Robin issue 11, Ultimate X issue 2, Captain America Black Panther: Flags of our Fathers issue 1, S.H.I.E.L.D. issue 1, and Invincible Returns issue 1. I chose Red Robin because the cover is just smooth, the other weeks books all have this kind of ruff style that seem like a sketch to me. Red Robin has all the smooth edges and details that I feel like seeing this week.

All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder

Very few of my relationships with Batman comics start off as rocky as with this book. Truthfully i read the first two issues and thought it was an affront to the character of Batman, specifically the whole "god**** Batman" line. (I may have said to some it was like Frank Miller ate Joel Schumacher's Batman movies and vomited them into a comic) But, i kept on getting it to see where is was going. It was after reading the whole thing together (without months between issues) that i actually saw how cool the book really was. I feel like this is giving me the same reaction i got when i read Frank Millers Batman: Year One; Not that he is just redoing what he has already done, but has taken a character and casted him in a new light. What i loved about Year One was that it took Batman and made him vulnerable; he was actually losing through some of that book, and that made this Batman more real to me. (I was only familiar with the Animated Series Batman at that point) All Star does this by taking Batman and saying that it is ok for you to be that other side of Batman; the Batman that Batman doesnt want you to be. A Batman that likes to maim the criminals, beat the shit out of cops(set fire in some cases), and doesnt care if a few are killed in the process; basically a noticeably damaged Batman.

I think Batman said it best in issue 7 "... I'm half-crazy. But only half. The other half is doing just fine."

Now, if only they would get off the hiatus and start putting out issues regularly.