Here's your sign


There's so many wonderful things you can do with radar, and pretty soon we may be seeing them all. Remember those movies with wacky little devicse that let you see through walls? You can be pretty sure someone, somewhere, is working on them, if they don't already have them. There's already production models of little toys that let you detect movement with a startling degree of accuracy -- on the other side of walls. Which will be a boon to the police, and, when the devices become cheaper, criminals who want to see if anyone's inside, and where, precisely, they're at in the house, and wether they're asleep or awake (since the more sensitive of the devices can detect heart rate and such) and...

It's depressing when neat science fiction ideas become reality. It makes the more imaginitive among us have to work all the harder.

It's just a pity that jammers for this sorts of thing are illegal. Well, active jammers, anyway. It's possible that reactive/reflective jammers aren't, but then, they're more difficult to make. What we really need, though, is a jammer for cellular phones. A legal one. I say this because some idiot this morning was not only having a cel-phone conversation in front of me on the way in to work, but he was stopped in the middle of the intersection, in mid-left-turn to do this, causing everyone to back up behind him. The light changed. Now people had to dodge about to avoid him as they drove through the (thankfully large) intersection. It's people like this who spawn the urge to legalize vehicle-mounted weaponry... or at least active jammers of some kind. That'd make an interesting project, I'd think...

Anyway, what do we have in the comics bin to-day?

Morning Glory #5
Morning Glory the Faerie leads a raid to rescue her often-surly Wiccan friend from the clutches of an even surlier right-wing militia, and does tolerably well despite the fact that she's only a few inches tall and rather wimpy. Well, "tolerably well" being defined as "getting captured, failing to rescue the hostage, and getting the other raiders lost in the woods and/or shot at and hurled over water-falls". Still, it could be worse. Also contains such quotes as "You know, you're taking this really well... A girl you don't know and a faerie show up, tell you your girlfriend's been captured and you just go to the closet, get out your gun, and say 'Let's go'." "Colleen, I'm a child of the 60's - *nothing* surprises me. Besides, if you and Morning Glory aren't real, this is the most fun hallucination I've had since 1973!" Or something like that.
Thunderbolts #31
Despite Moonstone and Hawkeye getting caught in a compromising situation last issue, the team rallies together to infiltrate the base of the "Imperial Forces", a bunch of extreme weirdos who are out to overthrow the government by rallying a private army, brainwashing people, et cetera. Standard villain fare. The bad guys, in this case, detect this infiltration attempt almost instantly, due to the fact that most of Our Heroes are suffused with various energy sources, and promptly lure Our Heroes off so they can pop open a big can of whup-ass. Mmm. Whup-ass. Kurt Busiek, who's leaving this book, seems to be determined to wrap stuff up as quickly as possible for the next writer, so the Imperial Forces are probably going to be extremely toast within an issue or so. Mmm. Toast.
Gold Digger v.2 #2
All in color for... much more than a dime. The 'Diggers' team, Gina the technogeek, Brittany the surly were-cheetah, Ryan the surly martial artsy type, and new guy Taur the annoying guy who can shape-shift the lower half of his body, take on Zelda the clone girl and Daishi the extremely surly ninja in a magical game show of doom deep beneath the oceans in the lost city of Muthia!! Or something like that. Will the powered-up Zelda unleash a big can of whup-ass on the heroes who've been tormenting her all this time? Will Daishi stop being so smug? Will our contestants choose the sixty million tons of gold... or the Mystery Prize? Will they win a copy of the home game? Or will they just lose their souls?
Speed Racer #1
The untold origin of Speed Racer? Um... okay... Next?
Animerica Extra
It's a big book o' manga - Video Girl Ai, X:1999, Fushigi Yuugi, Steam Detectives AND a bonus Short Feature! What more could you ask? Nothing much to surl about here. Mmm. Surl.
Gunsmith Cats: Bean Bandit #8
Bean Bandit (who's such a badass he can be taken seriously even with a name like that) continues to stagger around and try and complete his mission, despite having been shot at, run down, beaten up, et cetera. He's mad as hell, and he's not gonna take it any more! Yay! Meanwhile, Rally beats up a mafia hit-girl, saves her sidekick from the embarassment of being a hostage, and foolishly choses not to take as much firepower as she possibly can to the big showdown which is pretty clearly coming up next issue. Meanwhile, the annoying criminal guy who whomped on Bean manages to escape a second encounter with the Roadbuster, and hurries off to a meeting with the drug dealers so he can get his hands on the shipment Bean was supposed to be shipping. Bean, still staggering towards revenge, gets a lift from Riff-Raff, the maniac driver who really needs a better name, and gets to the rendezvous point about the same time that Rally and Co do. To find plenty of criminals already there, making the deal. Time for another of Sonoda's favorites, the multi-sided running gun battle!

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