Amused in Review

There you are, trapped in an alley, your back to the wall, surrounded by thugs who don't seem to grasp that "Your money or your life!" is supposed to be disjunctive, when suddenly you hear that special something that tells you rescue is at hand...but by whom are you about to be rescued when you hear:

1. "Here I come to save the day!"
   
2. "Up and at 'em..."
   
3. "It's Clobberin' Time!"
   
4. "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit..."
   
5. "Let's get dangerous!"
   
6. "When danger calls, I am not slow..."
   
7. "Gosharooty!"
   
8. A strange trilling noise, wandering up and down the scale, with no apparent source.
   
9. "Freeze! Freelance Police!"
   
   

Rescuers Redux

"Here I come to save the day!"
Means that Mighty Mouse is on the way!
When there is a wrong to right,
Mighty Mouse will join the fight!
On the sea or on the land
He's got the situation well in hand!

"Up and at 'em..."
Atom Ant!

"It's Clobberin' Time!"
can only be the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing.

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit..."
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
The Shadow knows!

"Let's get dangerous!"
Daring duck of mystery, Champion of right,
Swoops out of the shadows, Darkwing owns the night.
Somewhere some villain schemes, But his number's up.
(3-2-1)
Darkwing Duck (When there's trouble you call D.W.)
Darkwing Duck (Let's get dangerous!)
Darkwing Duck (Darkwing, Darkwing Duck!)

"When danger calls, I am not slow..."
For it's hip, hip, hip,
And away I go!

Awooo, Awooooo,
When criminals in this world appear
and threaten all that we hold dear
the cry goes out from far and near
for Underdog!
(Underdog)
Underdog!
(Underdog)
Speed of lightning, power of thunder
fighting all who rob or plunder
Underdog!
Underdog!

"Gosharooty!"
is the cry of Cutey Bunny, the unofficial mascot of this column, and the creation of the brilliant cartoonist Joshua Quagmire.

A strange trilling noise, wandering up and down the scale, with no apparent source.
Means that Clark Kenneth Savage, Jr., a.k.a. "Doc" Savage, is somewhere around.

"Freeze! Freelance Police!"
Means that Sam and Max, Freelance Police, are about to open fire. You'd best duck.

Every year for the past three years, around about this time I've run a Superhero fantasy draft on CompuServe, which has proved to be amazingly popular. I'm still running it on CompuServe, but since their new owners (AOL) have abruptly ended the program that let non-members participate on CompuServe forums via the web, I've decided to try running a parallel version here on my web site. Why should the Comics & Animation Forumites have all the fun?

Here are the rules (modified slightly for the web-page that I've set-up):

1. The object of the game is to draft a team of 10 Super-heroes, suitable for those types of emergencies with which Super-hero teams typically have to deal.

2. Each round you are allowed to draft 1 new hero, on a first-come-first-served basis. Rounds will take place once per day, at no set time (I'll do my best to make sure that it's prior to 12AM Eastern Time). To draft a hero, goto the Draft Page (no longer operational) and enter your team name (e.g. Team Macy, or Team Lang) and the name of the hero. The order that the selections appear on the page shall determine who was first. It is permissible to specify more than one choice in order of preference, but remember that you only get the first one that hasn't been picked yet, and everyone else will get to see the list of your preferences.

3. No duplication is allowed. For game purposes alternate-Earth versions, parodies, and analogues count as duplicates. I.e., if Earth-1 Superman has been drafted, then E-2 Superman, Superduperman, Superbman, and Hyperion are all eliminated. It is permissible (but not required) to specify which world or which era the version of the hero that you want comes from (e.g. Silver-Age Earth-1 Supergirl).

4. Only heroes are eligible. No, Lobo is not a hero. The Endless aren't heroes, either.

5. Rounds open when the Commissioner posts the message opening the round, and not before. Draft requests posted before the opening of the round (as determined by the order entered on the Draft page) will be ignored.

6. It is permissible to release previously drafted heroes as part of posting your draft request.

7. It is permissible to trade with other players, but trades must be posted to the Commissioner and acknowledged before they become official.

8. If for some reason (releases, missed rounds, or late starts) you do not have as many heroes as the number of the round (e.g. 5 heroes on Round 5), you may draft as many heroes as you have unfilled slots. Note that this means you can join the game at any time.

9. If you miss three rounds in a row, your team will be deactivated and your draftees released *unless* you inform the Commissioner before the three rounds are up that you plan to skip some of the rounds (e.g. because you only have access from work), in which case your team will be placed on hold and you'll retain your draft picks and can play catch-up later.

10. Decisions can be appealed to the Commissioner, but after that they're final. If Imake a mistake, point it out, but if I rule that some character is not a hero, or is aduplicate, don't argue the call.

I'll open Round One by drafting, as team Captain....Darkwing Duck.

OK, folks, let's get dangerous!

The Commissioner

Well, so far the Web version of the Superhero Draft is a big wash-out: it hasn't generated a single response (meanwhile, on CompuServe, the threads have generated about fifty messages since it started yesterday). Unfortunately, I don't really have time at the moment to keep this site up-to-date and run the draft on CSI--well, not and do my job, too. I was hoping that I could kind of combine the two, but if that's not going to be the case, something's got to give, and that's going to be this column. I'll still try to post a review each day, but extended columns are out for the next two weeks.

Athena: Vol. 1
by Dean Hsieh
A.M. Works, b&w TPB, $14.95
rating: Neat-O.

The setting is the future, and the story is that of the goddess Athena, who has been retired to Earth by the new pantheon of gods, and becomes a rock'n'roll singer. There are a million stories just like it in the naked city. Well, maybe not, but the intersection of mythology and rock'n'roll has been fairly well covered in science fiction in the past few decades, so this isn't exactly blazing new trails as far as that goes. On the other hand, Dean Hsieh's use of manga idiom is pretty dang authentic, and really raises the quality of the story-telling out of the morass of cliché in which the premise threatens to fling it. (Hey, I like rock music--maybe not as much as I like the blues or jazz--but for some reason I don't find the lives of rockers and wannabes intrinsically fascinating. Go figure.) That's a pretty negative sounding assessment of a book that I basically liked a lot--enough so that I'm planning to buy Volume 2 next time I hit the comics store--so let me try again.
     The book was funny, it was cute, and it made me want to read more about the characters. I recommend it. It was good.
     There. I'm not such a curmudgeon after all, am I.

Robyn of Sherwood #1
by Paul Storrie and Michael Larson
Caliber, b&w, $2.95
rating: Keen

I always face reviewing the first comic by an aquaintance who's an aspiring writer with a certain amount of trepidation. You don't want to praise something that stunk, but if you don't say anything, the writer will assume (usually correctly) that you thought it stunk. If you come right out and pan it, though, you're liable to hurt his or her feelings; one of the differences between a fledgling author and a seasoned pro is the thickness of their skins. The grizzled veteran is used to the fact that no matter how good most people think the story is, no matter how many awards it garners, there are going to be fans that say, "Black Lightning #5? What a piece of garbage." The truly gracious among the pros even manage to thank the fans who voice such opinions, and voice the hope that they'll like the next project better. And, face it, the chance of someone's first work not stinking is pretty slim. As Sturgeon pointed out, 90% of everything is crap.
     What luck, then, that Paul Storrie managed to beat the odds. Robyn of Sherwood doesn't go straight to the top of my must-read pile, but it's pretty good. It's the story of Robin Hood's daughter, Robyn, who takes up the mantle that her old man laid down with his death, to rally the Merry Men against a new despotic king (or maybe the old despotic king--one of the flaws of Robyn of Sherwood is that characters aren't always clearly identified. The king acts as if he was once plagued by Robin, but it's not made clear whether this is King John or not, and he's not depicted as being particularly old despite Robin's having been "dead these many years" and the Merry Men being reduced to nothing more than a band of "aging poachers"). It's a new twist on an old legend, and if Robyn-with-a-y seems a little too, too '90's for me to get enthusiastic about on the basis of a single issue, it's interesting enough that I'll give a second issue a shot.

Catnap: A Midnight Louie Mystery
by Carole Nelson Douglas
Tor, pb, $5.99
rating: Neat-O.

Midnight Louie is an 18-pound black cat with a narrative style somewhere between Damon Runyon and Micky Spillane, and is one of the two narrators of this mystery. It is he who comes across a murdered editor at the American Booksellers Association Bookfair in Las Vegas, and brings it to the attention of the other narrator, the public relations agent for the Convention Center, Temple Barr. Together, what else, they solve the mystery.
     This was a fairly amusing romp, well written (Carole Nelson Douglas is also the writer of the much more ambitious Irene Adler mysteries, previously reviewed in this column), but definitely of more interest to cat lovers than to the general public. Since I'm one of them, as my cat Machiavelli, who was lying on my chest most of the time I was reading this, can attest, I had a good time. Machiavelli, who rates books according to how long he can catnap on me while I read them, thought this one scored well: entertaining enough to keep me pinned for two solid hours, but no annoying bouts of laughter to rock his bed.

Sorry, I don't have time yet today. If I can get around to it, I'll try to post something later.

Sorry about the past two days, but between work and running the draft I was overwhelmed. In case you're curious, here are the teams so far:

    Team APL:              Martian Manhunter (Silver Age)              Hawkman (Silver Age)              Capt. Mar-vel              Mister Miracle     Team Allas:              Jenny Sparks              Resurrection Man              Flex Mentallo              Thunderstrike              Nightcrawler     Team Arp:              Captain Marvel              Mon-El              Power Girl              Mighty Mouse              Icon     Team BSL:              Wonder Woman              The Spectre              Phoenix              The Ray              Swampthing     Team Budgie:              Oracle              Popinjay              Element Lad              Red Robin              Animal Man     Team Cohen:              Brainiac V              Justice              Professor X              Victor (Hero Alliance)              Hercules     Team HC:              The Hulk (smart version)              Vincent Van Goat              Waverider              Pete Wisdom              Century     Team Horn:              Adam Strange              Deadman              Dr. Manhattan              Clea              Hypernaut     Team Macy:              Darkwing Duck              Atom Ant              Krypto              Earthworm Jim              Sonic     Team Marler:              Batman              Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)              Silver Surfer              Thor              Flash (Wally West)     Team Miller:              Radioactive Man              Mad Dog              Omni Man              Slug Man              Ben Steel     Team Nutt:              Mr. Fantastic              Zatanna (Silver Age)              Destroyer Duck              Crazy Jane              Doc Rocket     Team O'C              Hawkeye              Dr. Strange              Adam Warlock              Orion     Team Planet Lar:              Superman (Kingdom Come)              Spider-man              Fairchild     Team Sardegna:              Samaritan              Grimjack              Karate Kid              Yellowjacket (female)              Dev-Em     Team Schnoop:              The Spirit              The Astonishing Moth              Ant-Man              Underdog              Too Much Coffee Man              The Phantom Stranger     Team Steve-O:              Cynicalman              Ambush Bug              'Mazing Man              Forbush Man              G'Nort     Team Sudell:              The Joker (Tangent)              Woody              Starman (Mikaal Tomaas)              Gates              V     Team WIP (Tansley):              Captain America              Access              Star-Boy (Post-Boot)              Dr. Fate              Flash (Barry Allen)     Team White Knights:              Submariner              Red Raven              Phantom Lady              Dr. Mid-nite              Human Torch (Golden Age)     Team Zahler:              The Phantom              The Shadow              Mandrake the Magician              Steel              The Greatest American Hero 

Patty Cake & Friends #5
by Scott Roberts
Slave Labor Graphics, b&w, $2.95
rating: Neat-O.

In which Patty Cake learns a lesson, but not the one her father intended to teach. A typical, which is to say both funny and touching, issue of Patty Cake. There were some particularly cute touches in this one, my favorite being the panel set in Japan, with the characters drawn a la Ranma 1/2.

Iron Man #5
by Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen
Marvel, color, $1.99
rating: Neat-O.

After Waid's Captain America, Iron Man (Invincible, The) continues to be the winner among the Heroes Restored (or whatever) books. That seems to be the opinion of my six-year-old nephew, Max, whose Dad reads them to him, as well. Of course, I may be biased by the tribute to my favorite comics creator, in the form of the character Rumiko (complete with a "Piyo Piyo" T-shirt right out of Maison Ikkoku), but I think you can trust Max on this one.
     In this issue, Iron Man takes on an erupting volcano while dealing with the new powered-up version of leftist lunatic Firebrand; meanwhile the supporting cast pitch in with disaster relief and fending off the robbers who are using Firebrand as a stalking horse. Once again it's Tony Stark's engineering expertise, and not merely Iron Man's muscle, that save the day--which is one of the things that I like best about Kurt's rendition. Kurt handles the traditional Iron Man cast well, but I'm really hoping that Rumiko Fujikawa becomes a regular feature; I think Tony Stark needs a competent female foil, and not just a series of nameless hangers-on to serve as a visual short-hand for his "playboy" image. Someone who fits into Stark's social milieu (as Rumiko, daughter of the owner of the Japanese company that bought out Stark Enterprises would) and who plays the same "flighty socialite" game that he does, but in her own way possesses iron underneath, would do nicely.

Here's wishing all you readers a lovely Passover/Good Friday, Easter or what have you.

Superman Adventures #20
by Jordan Gorfinkel and Neil Vokes
DC, color, $1.95
rating: Keen

Besides Mastertrax being the stupidest name for a villain that I've heard in a long time, this wasn't a bad little Superman story.  Neil Vokes' art is, as always, a joy, and his Superman is perfect. The script left a bit to be desired (the tracking device turning out to be an 8-track tape player seemed a bit much to me, besides being irrelevant except for setting up a dumb gag), but not fatally so, and it was fun to see "Terrible" Turpin, even if he was a bit ineffectual.  The real (that is to say, the Jack Kirby) Turpin found a way to take down Kalibak, who battled Orion to a standstill--I don't think Mastertrax would have stumped him.

Gotham Adventures #1
by Ty Templeton and Rick Burchett
DC, color, $2.95
rating: Neat-O.

I'm not exactly sure why the powers-that-be at DC feel the need to keep changing the title around on this one, unless it's to pump up circulation with artificial #1's, but since what we have here is, in essence, the new Batman Family Adventures, far be it from me to complain.  But I will anyway. It's my job. Actually the only thing I have to complain about is that the new design of the Joker (done, I guess, to match the new design in the animated series, which in turn was done, I'm told, to reduce the cost of animation) is pretty dang ugly.  Other than that, this was an excellent issue, and my hat's off to Templeton and Burchett for producing the only readable Batman out of a whole slew of Batman comics.

On the recommendation of my friend, Jeff Lang, I went to see Lost in Space today.

Lost In Space
rating: Neat-O.

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would, even taking into consideration Jeff's generally positive recommendation. I was never that big a fan of the show; seeing only in syndication, it didn't seem to me to stack up well against Star Trek, or even (later on in my personal chronology) Doctor Who.  Still, an itch that I didn't even know that I had (but the shrewd merchants responsible for this film must have guessed existed) was satisfied by hearing the robot (apparently voiced by the original actor) shouting, "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"   Actually, I'd say that the robot got pretty much all the good lines, as well as more screen time than any other member of the cast; but, you know what?  That's as it should be.  At its best, Lost in Space was the story of a boy and his robot, and at its best, the movie version plays off of that same vibe.
     As a science-fiction movie, this wasn't any tremendous shakes, although I'd certainly say it stacks up well against, say, Return of the Jedi, or most of the Trek films; there were moments that made me wince, and I still find the CGI creatures--such as the cute little alien monkey that Penny makes her pet--hard to look at, but as Jeff promised me, there were plenty of moments that made me go, "Whoah. Cool."
     The acting was, by and large, unexceptional and unexceptionable, and the updates for nineties' sensibilities (such as making Judy a doctor and Maureen a professor) seemed obvious and relatively inobtrusive (that is to say, they weren't done in such a way as to sneer at the mores that prevailed when the original was made).   The special effects were pretty neat, with the exception of the aforementioned CGI critters, which is pretty much minimum ante for this type of movie nowadays, and there was a fairly concerted attempt to carry off a quite sophisticated time-travel/temporal paradox plot in and around the usual roller-coaster-ride tactics of the modern action-adventure film.  In the end, that didn't quite work, but whether that's the fault of the film-makers or whether it's just that time-paradox stuff never quite works is hard to say.
    The bottom line is this: I'm actually looking forward to the inevitable sequel.

Long-time Amused in Review reader Kurt Busiek wrote in to say:

By the way, I picked up REALITY CHECK's first TPB, based on the many positive things you had to say about the series, and found it delightful.

Here are some of the things I've said about Reality Check, from back before this web-site existed:

Reality Check #3
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!
Yay! The color version has finally gotten past where I read in black-and-white. A whole lot of fun (particularly the song-and-dance number in the beginning), but Collin really has to get a grip. Over-reaction to Catreece's antics are turning him into a one-note character, and that hurts the book; it's hard to have character interaction when one of the characters is limited to doing slow burns.

Reality Check #5
rating:  Neat-O!
The puffy cat virus begins to consume the net, and Katreece and Colin meet the internet Super-hero Loopy. Plus, the "Boo-boo face" theory of the universe. Each issue of this is stranger an more whimsical than the last--my only worry is how long can they keep this up?

And now, the latest issue of Reality Check:

Reality Check #9
by Rosearik Rikki Simons and Tavisha Wolfgarth Simons
Sirius, color, $2.95
rating: Neat-O.

Katreece is still my favorite character, but Mr. Bunwah, Virtual Pet Gone Horribly Wrong, is closing in fast.  I was surprised as anyone to find that those aren't his ears, they're smokestacks.  This issue is just as full of manic energy as the last one, but the computer graphics are more under control (that is to say, they take more of a back-seat to the drawings, which is the way that it should be). This is one of those comics that always comes as a pleasant surprise when it arrives; unlike some (e.g. Akiko, Ranma 1/2), I don't tend to re-read the issues in between times, but I do usually read each issue twice--once when it first arrives, and once more when I get sucked back into it as I glance through it to do the review.  Now that's a good comic.

Akiko #24
by Mark Crilley
Sirius, b&w, $2.50
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!

You know you have a wonderful comic when even the indicia is funny. "Any similarity to persons alive or dead is purely coincidental, especially since this particular issue is filled mostly with robots, which aren't likely to bear much of a resemblance to anything, except maybe washing machines and stuff like that." If genius is in the details, Mark Crilley is--well, maybe not the Einstein of comics, but at least the John Von Neumann: he makes seem effortless what others can achieve only through visible strain and toil.  Heck, for all I know, for him it is effortless. Me, I get tuckered out thinking of new ways to praise Akiko.
     Let me put it this way: as some readers of Amused in Review know, I've been teaching myself Japanese, primarily so that I can read Rumiko Takahashi's work in the original.   Akiko is the comic that, if I were Japanese, I would be teaching myself English to read in the original.
     That this issue happens to print a letter of mine has nothing to do with it. (Hey, I'm two for two--the other letter I've written to a comic was published in Astro City Vol I, #1.  Collect all my letters! Trade them with your friends!)
     This issue concludes the stirring saga of Gax's robot rebellion, as under Gax's leadership the robots defeat the evil overseer Yark, and escape from the doomed ship  Way to go, Gax!

Sunset Express
by Robert Crais
Hyperion, 377 pages, $5.99
rating: Neat-O

The latest Elvis Cole novel starts with a pretty simple premise: what if Elvis was hired by the "Dream Team" in the defense of O.J. Simpson?  Of course, the details are changed: the defendant is a mega-wealthy restaurateur, the defense team has been streamlined to a single super-star lawyer and his firm, the arresting officer is a woman who might or might not be a bad cop, the murder weapon was a hammer, and so on, but that's just gloss.  The core idea is obvious, and is played for all its worth (minus the racial issue), and it makes for a pretty entertaining combination of mystery and satire on modern celebrity defense by celebrity lawyers.  Of course, it wouldn't be an Elvis Cole novel without a shoot-out at the end, but that's what we fans have come to expect.

What's The Worst That Could Happen?
by Donald E. Westlake
Warner Books, 324 pages, $6.50
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!

This is the funniest, most satisfying, book I've read in a long time. The umptieth Dortmunder caper pits the sad-sack master planner (who once stole an entire bank, although that didn't turn out all that well--particularly when it was made into a not terribly good movie starring George C. Scott, although if I remember correctly it had a nice Jack Davis poster--but I digress) against a Donald Trump-like billionaire real-estate tycoon. The tycoon catches him in mid-burglary, and to add insult to injury, in the process of turning him over to the cops steals Dortmunder's lucky ring.  The billionaire figures, "What's the worst that could happen?"  The rest of the book consists, basically, of the billionaire finding out, in spades, as a really pissed-off Dortmunder commits an ever escalating series of crimes against him in an effort to recover the ring.    In the process, we get several nice fish-out-of-water scenes as Dortmunder, the consummate New Yorker, experiences Washington (where he burglarizes the Watergate) and, ultimately, Las Vegas, where the target is the billionaire's casino. Watching a nasty, self-satisfied rich guy get his long overdue comeuppance is admittedly a cheap thrill, but as a comedic staple it still delivers the goods.  Of course, it's the fact that Westlake can write like nobody's business that catapults this book beyond a couple of chuckles from a neatly set-up premise and into the realm of boffo belly-laughs.

Well, I'm off to Philadelphia on business for about two months.  What this means for Amused in Review is, at the moment, not entirely clear.  Since CompuServe is my information service provider, I should be able to connect easily enough--the question is how much time I'll have free to do so. I'll try to make sure that the disruption is minimal; maybe this will be the incentive I need to actually get a week ahead and stay there (the way I originally planned), instead of writing these day by day (as it has actually worked out).

3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega-Mountain
with Hulk Hogan, Loni Anderson, and Jim Varney
rating: keen

This is about what you would expect of a kid's martial arts flick with Hulk Hogan, Loni Anderson, and Jim Varney providing the star power.  Vampy bad-guy Loni Anderson, as international criminal "Medusa", and her scowling, stealing-candy-from-babies assistant Jim Varney, plus a horde of cannon-fodder ninja lackeys, take the Mega Mountain amusement park hostage for ten million dollars. (Reminding me of the scene in Austin Powers where the villain, revived after thirty years in cryogenic suspension, demands a ransom of one million dollars--until a flunky whispers in his ear about the effects of inflation.)  Unfortunately for the villains, but fortunately for the kids in the audience, who've paid (or rather, whose parents have paid for them) to see kids beating up, taunting, and generally humiliating adults, the three white-bread suburban ninjas, Rusty, Colt, and Tum-tum, and their new pal, a hacker and gadget expert (her father is a special-effects man) Amanda, are in the park that day for Tum-tum's birthday treat: attending the very last guest appearance by the over-the hill star of a Power Rangers-style television show, Richard Dragon (Hulk Hogan): Karate Fighter.
     As long as you're prepared to park your brain at the door, this is a surprisingly fun movie. It doesn't make a lot of concessions to the fact that there are adults in the audience, but since it doesn't condescend to the kids, either, it works out, and you definitely get what you pay for: lots of karate action and very little menace.  Plus you get to see Hulk Hogan dress up in a giant rabbit costume.   What more could you ask of a matinee? (er, make sure you see it as a matinee...)

I'm in transit to Philadelphia today, so no column.  I'll try to be back on-line as soon as possible, but I don't know for sure when that will be.

Well, here I am in Philadelphia, "The City that Loves You Back." No, really. They paid a consulting firm to come up with that slogan and everything. If first prize is one week in Philadelphia, and second prize is two weeks in Philadelphia, what's two months in Philadelphia? I'm here for the next two months, more or less (I get to fly home to LA every two weeks for the weekend), and I promise that as soon as I can get things more under control, I'll be posting regular columns to the web-site. In the mean-time, I'll sort of have to wing it. Bear with me.

Well, here I am in Philadelphia, "The City that Loves You Back." No, really. They paid a consulting firm to come up with that slogan and everything. If first prize is one week in Philadelphia, and second prize is two weeks in Philadelphia, what's two months in Philadelphia? I'm here for the next two months, more or less (I get to fly home to LA every two weeks for the weekend), and I promise that as soon as I can get things more under control, I'll be posting regular columns to the web-site. In the mean-time, I'll sort of have to wing it. Bear with me.
     Actually, there are nice things about Philadelphia. In a moment, I'll think of one.
     Just kidding. One of the things I like about Philly is that there are a lot of good, relatively inexpensive restaurants in the Center City area (where both my work and the apartment in which they're putting me up are located).

Dock Street Brasserie
Located almost across the street from my apartment, this is one of the many microbreweries that dot the Philadelphia landscape. The beer is, to my uneducated palate, excellent, and when accompanied by the "Trio Fries" (a basket of french-fried potatos, sweat-potatos, and leeks), it's almost enough to make one forget that one has been torn from the bosom of one's loved ones and plunked down alone in a city that threatens to love you back if you don't watch out. Come to think of it, if you drink enough of the beer, it is enough to make you forget.
    Back when I lived in Philly, Dock Street was a brew-pub, and unashamed of it. Besides the beer, they had ordinary English (or pseudo-English) pub fare: Ploughman's Lunch, Baps (sandwiches on these odd round loaves of bread, in a style of which the Texas Rangers would approve: one loaf, one sandwich), Fish and Chips, Various sausages, Crab Cakes (comes of being near the Delaware shore, I suppose), Cheesesteaks (this is Philadelphia, after all), and so forth. Since then, they've apparently undergone a change of heart, or at least of chefs, and transformed themselves into a French Brasserie. The crab cake they still have, but gussied up with some sort of Dijon sauce, and in the singular. That's what I had, for old time's sake, and because I couldn't figure out which of the more elaborate French dishes, among the moules and grilles, went well with beer. Maybe I can go back sometime with Jack Curtin, who may or may not know French food, but certainly knows that everything goes well with beer. (For those of you who don't know, Jack is, besides being a comics journalist and a regular contributor to such magazines as Wizard and Comics Buyers Guide, a beer columnist for one of the Philadelphia area weeklies.)
    As for beer, why make a choice if you don't have to? I had the sampler, and discovered that while all the beers were pretty good, for accompanying a crab cake, the lighter beers (a German-style Pils, a wheat beer, and an English-style ale) went best, while the darker, heavier ones (usually my preference) such as the 90-shilling, the barley wine, and the Mexican-style festival beer, were a bit much of a muchness.

Well, my brain is fairly well fried, but let's see if we can't do a review to keep things moving along here. Here's one I read on the airplane; I don't have it handy at the moment, so I'll have to skip the publisher, page count and price (actually, the cost was about $1.00, since I applied a $5-dollar Brentano's frequent reader gift-certificate).

Flight of the Old Dog
by Dale Brown
rating: Neat-O.

This is what they call a rip-snortin' adventure yarn, in the military aviation sub-genre. The Russkies (remember them from way back when?) have developed a ground-based laser anti-missile weapon, which they can bounce off a space-based mirror to attack targets over the horizon, and they've started using it on US satellites and recon-planes, crippling our early warning system. When diplomatic negotiations fail ("Laser weapon? What laser weapon? Even if the peace-lovink peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had such a weapon, which they don't, it wouldn't be illegal under ABM treaty, which doesn't mention ground-based lasers, not that we have any."), the US decides to take it out with a pair of B1 bombers retrofitted with stealth technology. When a leak from high within the administration allows the Russians to intercept that mission, it's up to the crew of the "Old Dog"--the souped-up B-52 that was the original test-bed for the technology, to try to complete the mission--if they can get it off the ground in the face of an attack by Russian sponsored terrorists on the air-base in the first place.
     This was pretty exciting--a real page-turner. Dale Brown, a former Captain in the Air Force, manages to make the whole thing sound authentic and even, laser ABM system aside, fairly plausible. Unlike some books in this field, the military aren't universally competent and rational (although most of them are), and the politicos, both American and Russian, aren't universally clueless and despicable. There is even a reasonably sympathetic portrayal of the Russian fighter pilot who presents the greatest threat to the Old Dog (although perhaps that's not all that unusual, since mil-fic often has a sneaking admiration for the professional opponents that's absent from, say, spy thrillers); of course, the Russians are the bad guys: completely ruthless, and capable of twisting the diplomatic process to the utmost extent to accomplish their military aims--but if you doubt that was ever the case, then a) you probably weren't paying much attention when the collapse of the Soviet Union made many of the KGB's documents public, and b) you probably wouldn't like this sort of story anyway.

If you can read this, I'm late in writing today's column.