Flood of '08: Looking Back

It’s been one year now since my base of operations, Cedar Rapids, IA, was hit by one of the worst natural disasters in the country’s history. It seems hard to believe so much time has past. In a lot of ways, the city has recovered admirably; in a lot of others, not so much.

A little less than a year ago, downtown Cedar Rapids looked like this:

This was the parking garage across the street from our old call center, and was actually taken somewhere around the Monday or Tuesday after the flood, several feet below the levels they reached the previous week.

I’ve been working my call center job for a year now in an old bed store. It is not exactly the best accommodations, but the company is slowly but surely working on a new facility. Honestly, I don’t have it nearly as bad as hundreds of others who are still waiting for government buyouts on their houses. It is a mess, and honestly it saddens me just how much a bureaucratic mess our leadership on the local, state, and federal levels has become.

Even so, it could have been worse. Iowans have a history of coming together in tragedy, and we did that admirably last June. That unity can still be seen in rebuilding efforts across the state.

So, I will join in commemorating the loss of property, life, and pursuit of happiness that occurred a year ago. And I will continue to show my support, just as I will encourage everyone else to give. Here’s a simple way. A local radio station has produced an MP3 that sets some of the news coverage from the station to music. “Devastation” can be listened to at the site, but if you download it for the ridiculously low price of 99 cents, every ounce of that money gets donated to local relief organizations. It’s not often you can help humanity for less than a dollar and get an interesting piece of history in the process.

Like him or not, I think President Bush summed up the situation perfectly in his own rambling way when he visited the devastation in mid-June: “Often times you get dealt a hand you don’t expect to play and the question is not whether your going to get dealt that hand the question is how you’re going to play it and I’m confident the people of Iowa will just play it really well.”

Thanks for reading.

Super-Powered Web: It's Whiplash!

From USA Today here is Mickey Rourke from Iron Man 2. And it is official: he isn’t Crimson Dynamo; he is the coolest Iron Man villain ever: Whiplash!

Out For Vengeance 2 Notes

With this chapter I start to develop the strange design of New Salem. Inspired by a few fantasy elements I have read in the past, I was inspired to design a city that grows upward do the geographical features surrounding it.

I like the Citadel, shame what I did to it in this story. Don’t worry though, it seems like a hero such as Vengeance will have to establish a base of operations somewhere.

Don’t mess with the Dapper Gentleman. That’s one mean old guy!

The subplot with our mystery villain will be a slow burn, but I do plan on making Vengeance the first character I really develop a rogues gallery for. Expect several new characters to be debuting in the next few months!

Be sure to give thoughts on comments on the story here.

Super-Powered Prose: Enemies & Allies by Kevin J. Anderson

Perhaps it was bad timing for me to read Enemies & Allies just a few days after finishing DC: The New Frontier. The New Frontier is a work of artistic genius while Enemies & Allies is a novel by Kevin J. Anderson. Let’s be honest: Mr. Anderson is not the best writer in the world. While not talentless, he has made a name for himself producing average-at-best, hack work at worst.

I read his previous Superman-related work Last Days of Krypton a few months back. While not a bad novel, it is basically just an average science fiction yarn. Nothing really superhero oriented about it other than the pedigree of the lead.

Enemies & Allies, on the other hand, tells the story of the first meeting between Superman and Batman. The novel draws comparisons with The New Frontier for one major reason: a shared time period. For whatever reason, Anderson set his novel in the late fifties as the space and arms races both heat up between the United States and the Soviets.

One of the first things I noticed is how this isn’t really a Batman novel at all. This is a Superman story, and Batman plays a supporting role. Lois Lane gets an equal page count to the Caped Crusader as does the story’s sole villian: Super-nemesis Lex Luthor. No room for any of a dozen Batman villains here. Not a one. Alfred does make a few brief appearances, but for the most part, Batman is treated as a cast member more for his business rivalry with Luthor than anything else.

The story basically revolves around Lex Luthor’s attempt to manipulate both the USA and the USSR in to helping him in his quest to bring down Superman. This plot takes the form of a secret Soviet gulag and specially designed flying saucers. If it all sounds a little silly, that’s probably because it is. The story isn’t really bad; for a writer as lackluster as Anderson, it’s actually pretty good. But you don’t come away from it with any feeling of satisfaction. It feels as empty as a mid-sixties issue of World’s Finest, without any of the fun. Part of me wonders if they thought they could follow up Tom DeHaven’s It’s Superman (which I will get around to reviewing soon) with any old writer and have just as good a book. They were very, very wrong.

One last gripe: whenever we had Superman chapters, we constantly see him referred to as Kal-El. Not only does it get rather old, it strikes me as false. While I think Superman might think of himself as Superman, usually his mind would go back to the identity he holds truest: Clark Kent. I really don’t think Kal-El would play in to his mind that much.

All in all, Enemies & Allies is an okay, if mechanical look at a first meeting between two iconic characters. It could be better, but I’m sure it could also be much much worse. In my generosity, I will say that’s enough to give this book a Mild Recommendation but only if you are a big fan of one or both the characters.

Super-Powered Web: Super-Fails

That's jsut the beginning. You can see more of these freaks right here.

And you might then want to explore Funny Old Planet a little more. Never know when you will run in to a Hamster Assassin: