Because you love it, I have returned one week after the previous round-up of random thoughts to deliver another! Plus, I'll do my best to insult people less this time. I'm not sure if I'll succeed. It's random thought time! Get exicted!

Random Thought! How come no one ever e-mails me to say "I disagree with your review, but still think your reviews are great"? They either agree and I'm brilliant, or they disagree and I'm an illiterate hack. I disagree with reviewers I respect all of the time. There's a difference between disagreeing with a reviewer's assessment of something and he/she not being a good reviewer.

Random Thought! After saying for years that Joe Casey should be the one they tap to write Grant Morrison-created characters, finally, Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #1 appears and proves me right. It feels good, I tells ya. Real good.

Random Thought! "krow eht tfahs... eldarc eht sllab..." from The Boys: Herogasm #1 is one of the funniest lines I've read in a comic in a long time.

Random Thought! I've only been doing it for two months, but I've noticed through judging Marvel and DC's covers that, it seems, the covers done for their children's books are often some of the best covers of that month. Consistently so. Is it the freedom to be playful that leads to clever concepts?

Random Thought! Okay, why was Captain America #50 extra-sized and more expensive when the lead story is regular length and, next month, issue 600 comes out with a larger lead and tons of extras? Why not just ignore that this is issue 50, mark the occasion with Brubaker's solid story about Barnes's past birthdays, and save up for #600?

Random Thought! Because of Memorial Day in the US, Canada once again gets comics before everyone else this week. Holidays don't affect our shipping schedules at all anymore (not even our holidays). I love weeks like this. I'm always tempted to begin threads on message boards full of fake spoilers. Not so much this week since nothing that big is coming out (although some very good books are coming out -- it's just that I don't think anyone will get that mad if I spoil glamourpuss #7). But, how about the week when Final Crisis #1 came out? Or Secret Invasion #8? That was a good week. I got to call that issue for review based solely on the fact that I would have it a day before my fellow reviewers. Every book I review this week is an advanced review as far as non-Canadians are concerned.

Random Thought! There is a downside to weeks like this, though. Did you know that my review of Secret Invasion #8 is the only review I've written for CBR that I would change if given the chance? I was too nice in my review. I didn't want to be the guy who bums everyone out the day before this highly anticipated book came out, so I was kinder to the book than I should have been. I didn't lie... I just accented the positive and downplayed the negative. It will never happen again.

Random Thought! The Undertaker/Shawn Michaels match at this year's WrestleMania should be required viewing for anyone who writes/stages/whatever fight scenes of any kind. I know wrestling, because of its rules and context, doesn't work entirely as a template, but that match is such a perfect example of how to build a fight between two men, and then have it play out in a suspensive, dramatic manner. I've thought this since I first saw it, but never mentioned it for whatever reason.

Random Thought! Mediocre comics are the worst to review. Great comics and horrible comics both provide plenty of things to talk about, but mediocre, run of the mill, middle of the road, boring as all fuck comics? The line I always return to: they're just sort of there.

Random Thought! I kind of wish the Knight and Squire turned out to be the new Batman and Robin. No one would have expected it and it would actually work. I think.

Random Thought! People: stop confusing Joe Casey and Joe Kelly. It's not that hard.

Random Thought! Because Bill Reed mentioned his supposed idea for a "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen" series in the comments section of... well, I forget which post, but it was one from last week (I did a bunch), I figure I'll reveal that I totally came up with an idea for a "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen" comic series once. It was part of a message board write-off where we were tasked with writing an 11-page zero issue meant to act a preview for whatever ongoing series we wanted to launch theoretically. So, I wrote an 11-page "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen" script in the vein of The Venture Bros. that involved the batteries in Olsen's signal watch's battery dying, Brainiac stealing it out of the garbage, Superman being a moron, and Olsen getting stranded on Brainiac's orbital headquarters. My plans for the series itself involved Olsen constantly fucking up and endangering Metropolis with Brainiac's head as his new companion. I sometimes reread it and still enjoy it.

Random Thought! And that brings me to revealing that I submitted a proposal/first issue script to Marvel's Epic program in its last incarnation for an Ultimate Alpha Flight series called "Peacekeepers Alpha." It was rejected. Obviously. It involved the Canadian government beginning its own Ultimates-like program based on pressure from the US government regarding mutants. The group they build would have been based entirely on replicating the Ultimates -- only making them better versions. Every issue in the first six-issue story would be titled after a Tragically Hip song or album. The second storyarc would centre around "Ultimate Nitro" being a suicide bomber (a completely obvious idea, by the way) that destroys the White House and escapes to Canada, causing a confrontation between the Ultimates and Peacekeepers Alpha when the Ultimates just storm across the border and destroy large parts of Toronto.

Random Thought! I just remembered that I wrote about Avengers West Coast #102 as part of a short-lived series of blog posts called the Greatest Comics You've Never Read. So short-lived that I only did another post -- on Marvel Two-in-One annual #7. Go check those posts out, especially since the Avengers West Coast one has a few insights I didn't remember/think to include in my Reread Review (and, strangely enough, some thoughts that are almost word-for-word the same).