Cosplaying Appleseed

First off: Lose weight. Pump Iron. Train. Train. Train. (not like these guys)

Second: Get the right hardware. Seburo Industrial is a good starting point.

Third: Kick some ass. The bad guys won't know what him them.

And We Await the Shrike...

Following up on my last post regarding Milton's Paradise Lost, the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons have been optioned as a movie. Sorry, to be more specific - optioned as an UNfilm-able movie much in the same way as Paradise Lost and other stories that probably never should have been committed to celluloid. These would be other notable titles like Watchmen and Dune. The jury is still out on how successful Watchmen was, and Dune only worked as a miniseries that could have used a hell of a lot more budget.

The Hyperion Cantos is especially challenging, especially as the first book of four is written as a space opera in the format of the Canterbury Tales. The book is essentially a novella broken up into different tales of a traveller on their way to a pilgrimage. The second book picks up where the first book left off but more as a traditional forward moving narrative. But therein lies yet another problem, one of the main sub-stories of the Hyperion Cantos actually travels backwards.... plus with about ten main characters whose storylines all split off after book one, it gets even more complicated.

Anyways, arguably one of the major characters is The Shrike. I say "arguably" as he is more of a plot device than anything else. He's a god, the messenger of pain, and (spoiler alert), the counterbalance to the spirit of empathy. He is the herald of the future with origins in humanity's past. He is silent, vicious, perhaps non-sentient, and pretty much invincible. He teleports, time travels, and control the local quantum stream to a degree, ie., he can utilise different potential selves simultaneously to accomplish his goals. He is his own superposition, to use a phrase from quantum physics. He is the ultimate bad-ass, a chrome four-armed demon covered in spikes and shards of razor-sharp metal. You gotta respect that.

I bring you several artists' renditions of what he should look like. At the moment, he is only limited to our imaginations. And I dare someone to dress up like him at Comic Con..

Maybe next big thing? Green Lantern Pt 3

We're big into contact lens ideas here, so maybe we'll see these upcoming lens ideas based on the Blackest Night series - eyes that represent what spectrum faction you belong to - green, black, yellow, etc.

Obviously, they'd work best if you had the nifty costume with it, otherwise the context would get lost in translation, but if you're going to splash out for the costume you might as well complete the picture and obscure your humanity completely.

Maybe next big thing? Green Lantern Pt 2

So what am I talking about in terms of the Blackest Night as per the previous post? The current big crossover series has the Green Lantern Corps at war (yet again) but the backdrop is a galaxy-spanning conflict with all the color spectrum of ROYGBIV involved. Bear with me, but this is how it goes:

Green (Green Lantern Corps): willpower

Yellow (Sinestro Corps): fear

Red (Red Lantern Corps): rage

Blue (Blue Lantern Corps): hope

Violet (Star Sapphires): love

Orange (Agent Orange): greed

Indigo (Indigo Tribe): compassion.

It looks like Green will ally itself with Blue, Violet and Indigo. Orange will not ally itself with anyone due to self-absorption. Red will attack just about everyone and Yellow, well, we will have to see. The main issue for all of this unnecessary bloodletting is the rise of a new color off the spectrum - Black, the color of death. For this new Black Lantern Corps means to bring life to all the dead characters of the DC Universe as zombies. And we all know what they want - to eat your BRAINS!

I look forward to seeing all of these colors at the next Con.

Maybe next big thing? Green Lantern Pt 1

Personally I LOVE the Green Lantern Corps. The idea of a galactic police force is as old as Lensman (an old inspiration) and the current Blackest Night is going to hit its apex right around winter of this year. As its part three of a long trilogy (Re-birth and The Sinestro Corps War) that actually destroyed the Comic Con in San Diego, I would guess that the GLC and Comic Con are going to see some real-life crossover.

But then:

http://www.leagueoflanterns.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=660881

It was a real pleasure to see that there are other GLC fans out there and they have their own outfits.... I can see iterations of Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner (complete with baby stroller), Kyle Rayner, Arisia, Soranik Natu, Parallax, Alan Scott and Star Sapphire. I'm going to sound her out on that one and say that she doesn't look a lot like Carol Ferris to me. But the Soranik Natu rocks.

So far as I can see in regards to the humanoid GLC members: no Iolande, Sodam Yat/Ion, Brikk, Katma Tui. But most shocking - no Sinestro!

I love the alien GLC members - there's a Salakk and either its Tomar Re or his son, Tomar Tu. Kilowog would be a feat unto itself as the guy is as big as the Hulk. Isamot Kol, Stel, Green Man, Boodikka and Kraken are not yet present either. I doubt the planetary GL Mogo could ever be done.