It's Tuesday! Again! That means only one thing... It's random thoughts time! Get excited!

Random Thought! Rereading 52 reminded me of something in the "One Year Later" Superman story that's always bothered me. Hal Jordan offers a powerless Clark Kent a Green Lantern ring, so he can be a hero again... why wasn't this offer ever extended to Clark when he was Superman? Or why not Wonder Woman? Or any other superhero who isn't just a regular hero in case, oh, I don't know, something happens to the ring and you don't have a defenceless person out in the middle of space? "Gee, shall we give this ring to a fighter pilot who has a habit of jumping into situations without thinking, or to that reasonable, level-headed Kryptonian who can also exist in the vacuum of space unassisted?"

Random Thought! Okay, not all that random, but I want to direct you towards my recent GraphiContent post on the ten best and five worst Joe Casey Comics.

Random Thought! While talking with my retailer, Tim, this week, I learned that, at my shop, Final Crisis outsold Secret Invasion. Both Tim and I were appropriately surprised.

Random Thought! I know a lot of people named Tim when it comes to comics. My Splash Page co-writer and fellow CBR reviewer is named Tim; both the owner and main employee at my old shop in London are named Tim; and my current retailer is named Tim. Weird.

Random Thought! Continuing my delving into my "Random Company Ideas Archive" file for various plans/stories/whatever ideas for corporate-owned superhero characters. This is the first chunk of an ongoing idea that I called "Deadpool: R is for Retard," thought up as a Marvel MAX book:

Deadpool is the biggest retard in the world. Seriously, the guy is a fucking moron and the comic should reflect that more. In the past, the comic always focussed on these stupidly big plots involving all sorts of characters and shit, but fuck that. This comic should be like a sitcom or Aqua Teen Hunger Force or something. When other Marvel characters show up, it should be done in such a way that they are taking things very seriously, while Deadpool just doesn’t give a fuck and doesn’t do anything to help. In fact, he does everything he can to fuck things up more. Well, that, and he tries to kill them.

For this series, I want to make every issue half the regular size aka 11 pages of story with 9 pages of ads and for half the price.

Issues 1-2: The first story is a two-parter. The first issue is titled “Stabbing Is A Lot Like Having Sex . . .” and the second is “. . . You Stick Something Pointy In, Take It Out, And Repeat Until The Screaming Stops.” Deadpool has forgotten the joy of killing, so he goes on a cross-country killing spree to rediscover it.

Issue 3: The second story is called “Not Having Babies Is For Gays” and it begins with Syrin or Typhoid Mary or some other bitch showing up at Deadpool’s place with a baby that’s his. Instead of the usual “try and take good care of the baby but funny shit happens” story, Deadpool decides to kill the fucking brat. What the fuck does he need a baby for? His only problem is that the mother wants to raise the kid with him, so he can’t just, you know, shoot the kid in the face, he has to do it accident-style. What makes it more complicated is when he realises the kid has his healing factor as well, which makes killing it even more difficult.

Issue 4: The third story is called “The Golden Shower Age” and has Deadpool being hired to kill all of the surviving Golden Age heroes in the Marvel universe. It’s twenty-two pages of killing the elderly until all that remains are Namor and Captain America. So, you know, Deadpool kills them. Deadpool is actually hired by Reed Richards just to kill Namor, but Deadpool suggests that he kill a bunch of old people so it looks like a pattern and isn’t traced back to Richards. He wants Namor dead because his fucking slut of a wife keeps bringing that name up every single fucking time he doesn’t pay constant attention to her. What kind of bitch does that? “Reed, can we talk about my feelings for a minute?” “Uh, yeah, Sue, can we do this later? I mean, I’m right in the middle of curing cancer here.” “Oh. Well, I bet Namor will have time to talk about my feelings after I fuck his brains out in front of a webcam . . .” Who the fuck needs that?

Issue 5: The fourth story is called “Deadpool Does The Defenders” and is a continuation from the previous issue. After killing Namor, Deadpool is confronted by the Defenders, who want revenge. Highlights include him shooting the Hulk in the ass, beating the Silver Surfer with his own board, and setting Dr. Strange on fire.

I can't remember when I thought this series up, but it really was whatever submoronic ideas came to me at the moment. Total "first dumb thought" plotting. I bring it up here only because I introduced my girlfriend to Aqua Teen Hunger Force this weekend and was telling her how that show inspired my ideas for this book... and she kind of liked it. Not the ideas specifically, but the tonal approach, which seemed logical to her. The title "Not Having Babies is for Gays" is a quote from the animated series Bromwell High. The Mr. Fantastic wanting Namor dead plot comes from my endless frustration with the Fantastic Four being heralded as such a great family when the wife has a habit of bringing up this other guy at any given chance to make her husband jealous and, in some cases, actually going off to spend time with that other man doing god knows what. Note that in issue four's text, I called for 22 pages of killing despite one of the key parts of this idea being that each issue is only 11 pages. I am a moron. Next week, I'll post more, which begins with the six-part "Deadpool Sex Slave Search (insert year)!" If it helps, I am rather embarrassed by large chunks of this.

Random Thought! Seaguy #3 was better than Batman and Robin #1.

Random Thought! I will be buying Captain America #600 on Wednesday next week. My shop is closed Mondays and they are none too pleased with Marvel. Neither is my old shop. Or, from what I gather, many shops in North America. Which is a shame only because the title is one of Marvel's best books and it seems... wrong to see it reduced to these dumb marketing ploys. Then again, you can't say that Marvel isn't supporting the title, which is what we always want them to do with quality books.

Random Thought! I rather enjoy Brian Michael Bendis's Avengers books. Not the best books in any given week, but enjoyable reads much of the time. It is possible to like them and the lesser-selling cult books. It's not necessarily an 'either/or' situation.

Random Thought! That said, I can't stand the way that Noh-Varr has been depicted post-Marvel Boy right up to his ignorance at what sort of group his teammates are in the latest Dark Avengers. And yet I buy the book, partly, because of the character. That's really, really messed up. I feel kind of bad. And dirty. Mentally dirty. Blah.

Random Thought! This Sunday's Extreme Rules pay-per-view was kind of... well, bad. The undercard matches were good, particularly the Chris Jericho/Rey Mysterio Intercontinental Championship match (then again, I'm a bit biased being a huge Jericho fan). That John Cena/Big Show match may go in history as the worst submission match ever. There was one major plus: Edge divorcing Vickie. About damn time, eh?

Random Thought! Was I the only one who, after reading Tom Bondurant's 'Grump Old Fan' column on DC Challenge! last week, kind of had the urge to hunt down those 12 issues and check this glorious mess out? I haven't done it yet, but I will at some point.

Random Thought! If I were to adapt a comic into a film, I would choose Red by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. I know it's already being done, but, before that was announced, I put it on my "books I'd adapt if I could" list. The full list (as of October 9, 2007):

• Et Tu, Babe by Mark Leyner
• Devils by Fyodor Dostoevsky (a TV mini-series)
• The Man Who Japed by Philip K. Dick
• "Pearls are a Nuisance" by Raymond Chandler
• Every Philip Marlowe story by Raymond Chandler (TV series)
• Red by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner

Random Thought! Reason #73 why I just can't get into the Justice Society of America is that they've got a dirty old homeless man as one of their founding members:

Random Thought! In all seriousness, if they did a storyline akin to the Chris Jericho story where he kept calling out old-time wrestlers as glory-hogs and then beating the hell out them in Justice Society of America, I would be all over that comic. Then again, I have longstanding issues with these old men from World War II still fighting crime in the 21st century.

Random Thought! I've been thinking about this since I mentioned books I'd adapt given the chance (as I write these posts over the week whenever a random thought comes to me) and I'm not sure which Joe Casey comic I'd try to adapt. Many of them wouldn't work for various reasons. I like the idea of doing a movie of The Intimates with a constant infoscroll and picture-in-picture shots for those panels that provide more information. But that book didn't really have that much of a plot. Automatic Kafka also lacks a unifying plot -- but it's also a comic book about comics books in a big way, so a film adaptation would seem to miss the point a bit (*COUGH*watchmen*COUGH*). Doing Wildcats volume 2 would be interesting in that it would be a very post-superhero sort of movie where all of the typical superhero stuff happened in the past. His Deathlok run is a decent enough high concept to work as a summer blockbuster... sort of Terminator meets Big meets Primary Colors... The three of you who have read that run know what I'm talking about. Yeeeeeeeeeeeah.

Random Thought! Say what you will about Casey's Uncanny X-Men run, but that annual with Ashley Wood and those two final issues with Sean Phillips were some damn good comics. Plus, he concluded his run with the best comic issue title ever: ROCKTOPIA PART 8 OF 5

Random Thought! The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson is my favourite late night talk show. I only mention that because the show just ended. It was funny.

Random Thought! Marvel's Ultimate Alliance 2 Civil War game is kind of fun... except finding an opponent can take some time. I chose the anti-registration side, because... well, Iron Man is an asshole. So far today, though, the game has been VERY buggy. That has worked to my advantage since the game couldn't log one of my losses.

Random Thought! It still bothers me that so many registered heroes in Civil War were fine with going after non-registered ones. You'd think a sizeable majority would go, "Well, I agree with this law, but I'm not hunting down Captain America! Are you insane?"

Random Thought! Despite working for CBR as a reviewer, I have no idea what the coffee stain over the logo means. Nor to whom the countdown refers to.

Random Thought! Wow, this is my longest Random Thoughts! post!