Dear Comics Dude from The Big Bang Theory,

There is no freaking way that Jason Todd should be the new Batman over freaking Dick Grayson!

Yes, Dick did go off on his own and create his own person, Nightwing. And while Nightwing never stood entirely out of the bat's shadow, he certainly created his own dark corner within it. Nevertheless, if someone is supposed to take Bruce Wayne's place and keep the legacy alive, it should most certianly be his first and best pupil, the original Robin, Dick Grayson.

Jason Todd was the second, lamer Robin, who was rightfully killed off in perhaps the truest possible meaning of the phrase "Because You Demanded It!" Fans actually voted to have him die, he was that annoying!

And while the "Hush" storyline created the interesting possibility of his being actually alive and angry with Bruce, it should have ended there: just a possibility. He was killed by a sledgehammer, for god's sake! When it was realized, the whole thing fell like a house of cards. Jason Todd has no claim whatsoever to the bat-throne. He should still be a rotting corpse.

If anyone would rival Dick's ascension in any way, I would think it'd be the latest Robin, Tim Drake. And even then, step aside, kiddo! Being Batman is grown-up work, and Dick is the only man for the cowl.

Ultimately, while I don't generally do this, I'm afraid I have to agree with Sheldon. Now get me some herbal tea and back up off of Penny before Leonard has to bust out Sting and go all Frodo on you!

Passionately,

Patrick James

Dear Dragonball: Evolution,

Don't listen to the reviews. I did, and they're pretty rough.

I'm not the kind of fanboy who ever spent any great deal of time digging into the anime classics (the original, Z, or GT). I knew people who loved them, but never really invested the time required to get involved in the stories.

That said, I liked the movie for the most part. It told a pretty straight-forward story that was easily understood, at least as far as Goku was concerned. This is where my personal problem with the movie comes in though. While Goku's story seemed clear enough, Piccolo's was shrouded in mystery that only left me frustrated and, ultimately, with too many questions.

Why was he seeking the dragonballs? My wife told me later that he wanted to be younger, but that doesn't really add up when the prosthetics didn't make him look anywhere near his 2000+ year age. In fact, James's Marsters and the massive plastic chest plate he wore looked quite healthy and invigorated.

Also, how did he escape from the center of the earth, or wherever it was he was being contained by the spell? Surely the magic didn't just wear off. And while the "blood moon" sounds special, it didn't really seem like anything but another eclipse, of which I feel certain there were several during the time he spent trapped. Hell, if you'd watch Heroes, you'd know they come every couple of years and can be seen everywhere on the planet. Duh!

What's that? Solar eclipses aren't quite that common, or globe-encompassing? Well, color me more informed than writers room for Heroes.

But back on task, for all the work that Piccolo actually did in the movie, he wasn't much of a threat. Heck, I may as well have been watching the Fantastic Four get attacked by the Galactus-cloud of doom. His little henchwoman did all the work, while he floated around looking like his lunch wasn't sitting well.

Remember though, I went in basically blind. Then again, maybe that's also why I didn't buy the Bulma/Goofy Asian Dude romance. It kinda came out of nowhere (and that's a problem for a 90 minute runtime). At the very least, I could have used a horrible rom-com montage of clips of them riding tandem bikes and sharing an ice cream cone to the tune of "So Happy Together."

But no. Instead, I got random making out. Making out plus 30% of nothing does not make me want to stick around when the world, and more importantly my life, is being threatened. And I'm not even a generic comedic sidekick...er, I mean thief with a heart of gold. And just saying, but one prototypical character subbed out for another still doesn't make him feel like a unique character that wasn't just conceived during a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

Now, as I said, I enjoyed the movie. I just wished you'd pulled all the elements together a little better. Of course, that's assuming there's more to pull from within the source material. But I just can't believe Dragonball lore would be so popular in the first place if this is all there was.

Harsher than I intended,

Patrick James

Dear Marvel Comics,

I know that you've heard a lot of commentary on your price increases on certain "premium" titles of your line, but that doesn't mean you're not going to get another opinion...Because You Demanded It!

Now I'm aware that the people who's names we recognize like Joe Quesada and Axel Alonso and the like aren't really involved in the prices that their books sell for, they just edit the content. No ill will directed at the editorial staff, or the writers and artists on the books that received the price-gouging either. This is for the marketing (or whichever department is directly responsible) crew that decided it was more worthwhile to hang on to low performers than to cut their losses and move on.

I realize that every book has it's hundred of thousands of fans, even the ones that are not doing so well. And while it makes me sad when I book that I enjoy gets canned, as happened with my beloved Mystique so long ago, I believe culling the weak is for the best. That right, Marvel; I'm saying you should treat your business according to the Apocalypse's Guide to Management (and Mutants). Only the fittest can survive, which means that much-loved low performers should be culled to make way for the better sellers. And while I realize this means parting ways with the Runaways, it's really gone down-hill fast in the last year anyways.

This purging of the lowest sellers has been the business model at Marvel for years and years, so the change to this new technique is both unexpected and unappreciated, at least by this fan. I didn't have to like it when Hawkeye or Mystique were canceled, but I understood why it needed to happen.

Instead, you've jacked up your cover prices on ten of the twenty-one Marvel titles that I'm currently buying. Since this was explained as a move to boost the threshold books like Captain Britain & MI:13, I have to say I don't care for it. With the prices on so many of my books going up permanently by May, I have promptly dropped two of those ten from my pull list. When the five mini-series that make up my current intake are gone, I'll see to it they are not replaced also. This'll leave only New Avengers, Thor and Runaways with a regular $3.99 price tag in my reading. Please note that this means that instead of gaining an extra $10 from me every month, you'll be losing $7.

Runaways is particularly perplexing, as it should be one of the bubble-books protected by the increase on these other, highly performing titles, but I'm sure someone could explain that one to me as something else entirely. Still, if it ends up on the cancellation line, as I feel certain it will without a creative invigoration, I'll be down to just two, and maybe even one. I can buy the trades on some of these books, though I'm sure they will increase proportionately as well. In the end, all you're doing to this reader is forcing me to do what the economy is encouraging me to do anyways: spend less money.

It's too bad for freshly debuting titles like Spider-Woman and Dark Avengers that are going to get to start out with the $3.99 tag, because I don't see interest sticking around while there's plenty of quality reading down in the $2.99 range. Spider-Woman fans will find Ms. Marvel and Dark Avengers will find Mighty, and so on. Good luck to both of them, but you really should have known better.


Thanks for sparing most of the X-line and the cosmic titles, for now, since they'll make up the new core of my reading. Heck, maybe Nova will even get a bump from people ditching Captain America (a very fine book) to pick up something of equal quality for a fairer price.

Hopefully this experiment will be short-lived, and there will be much apologizing and reinstating of lower prices. But, I'm sure the greedy folks in the corporate offices would never allow that to happen, so I'll just dwindle until I'm just following along with the online recaps. So long, monthlies!

Despondently,

Patrick James

Dear X-Men Editors,

STOP IT WITH THE MINI-SERIES ALREADY!!!

As a fan in a tough economic time, I can't stand that you keep putting out so many freaking mini-series for me to follow.

Fortunately, I'm not a big Wolverine fan, just an X-Men fan in general, so I'll skip all of his solo minis outright. Still, this month that meant that I have purchased Worlds Apart, X-Infernus, Manifest Destiny and Kingbreaker. The only reason I skipped Ghost Boxes is because I can't understand what the hell is happening in Astonishing X-Men in the first place.

What's even more upsetting is that excluding only Manifest Destiny, all of these stories could have been told in the main books. And they would all have been better than what is happening in the main books right now! Instead, you're asking me to spend an additional $3.99 each for what should have been in Uncanny anyways instead of the S&M-tastic return of Madelyne Pryor.

We the fans deserve to know what's been happening since "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'Ar Empire" to the characters who were abandoned at the story's end without having to pick up two mini-series with a third looming on the horizon in War of Kings. We deserved some followup to "Quest for Magik" that didn't involve buying something extra.

It wouldn't burn so incredibly badly in my wallet if the quality of these books was not so much higher than that of the core books. Worlds Apart felt like a story that would have been told in the eighties had circumstances been the same, and it would have been right in Uncanny. So what if it sidelines a few other characters for an arc? That's what happens in a team dynamic!

I'm just asking for a slowdown to the number of stories being published because it's obvious a streamlining will help in quality. These contained stories seem to be infinitely more fascinating. Not to mention that, in recent memory, these mini-series seem to be more germinating to the next crop of creators than what's happening in the ongoing books. The core books, now that there are three of them, should be plenty of space to tell the stories that need to be told.

So, I'm sure you'll advertise three new mini-series tomorrow and totally ignore this post, but know that at some point, my budget is going to give and something is getting dropped *coughAstonishingcoughLegacycough*.

Broke,

Patrick James

Dear X-Men Editors, Writers and Fans,

Where are all the leading ladies?

Now, you may be saying to yourself, what do you mean, Patrick? Every one of the main X-Books features Emma Frost, and each of the ancillary books has its own female at or near the forefront, from Psylocke in Exiles to Monet in X-Factor to X-23 in X-Force.

It's not these ancillary books I'm really talking about though. What I am referring to is the core X-Books, which I guess at this point is really Uncanny & Astonishing.

In these books, you have exactly one female X-Man who fans have known as one of the core X-Ladies: Storm, in Astonishing.

No Phoenix.

No Rogue.

No Shadowcat.

Even Storm shouldn't really count, as she's tied to happenings in other books with her ridiculous (and forced) marriage to Black Panther.

It's not like long-time secondhand members are there to take the spotlight either, like the aforementioned Psylocke, the oft-backgrounded Polaris, the Phoenix fill-in Rachel Summers or the disco Dazzler.

The men of the X-Men are getting some great attention by the current crop of writers, especially characters like Colossus and Cyclops who need to be handled by a deft hand lest they become caricatures. But the girls that we all grew up with, depending on which era you were born into comics during, are being entirely ignored. No, ignored is not the correct word. They've all been superseded by Emma Frost, as though her presence is a catch-all for fans of all of these other characters who will not get to play in the major league for whatever reason.

I understand that Dazzler is supposed to be coming aboard sometime soon, and that is an improvement. However, let's take a look at some of the missing primetime players and check in on them, shall we?

Jean - dead, resurrected only to die again

Rogue - dumped by boyfriend, betrayed by ex, infected with horrendous virus, comatose, possessed of the thoughts and powers of psychotic adoptive mother

Shadowcat - trapped in giant metal bullet, hurdling endlessly in space

Maybe Gail Simone should revive that Women in Refrigerators business...

So, all of this being said, we fans need more of our favorite ladies back in the X-Books flagship titles. This does not mean I'd like to see Husk rejoin, or some New Mutant like Magma step up and join. I mean, I'd be okay with either of those things as long as they were not replacing the women we've already grown to love.

In conclusion, bring back the babes, or I'll let Phoenix here cleanse you from the timeline!

Simmering,

Patrick James

Dear Sony,

Since you've decided to go ahead and announce a release date for Spider-Man 4, I think it's time we talked.

First of all, don't you think it's silly to get fans all excited when nothing has really been decided at this point except that the people in your office would like to make another movie? And why wouldn't you, with such a meaty cash-cow on your hands? But I must say, without a script, director, or cast, I'm a little upset that you'd put fans through this.

I'd like to be optimistic about all of this, since I'm a big fan of the character and thought the first two movies were fantastic (lets disregard the third one having been made, for Venom's sake), but I'm feeling about as confident as star Tobey Maguire is sure about returning for a fourth feature. Without both him and Raimi, this film will be a mistake. And mark my words, there will be backlash if you try to make it without them.

Yes, you'll still make money, but isn't there some part of you that wants to make a quality film? And in a film franchise like the one that has been created for Marvel's most relatable hero, consistency is everything. Just look at what happened to the X-Men franchise under a change in leadership.

That all being said, I'd like to hope that this announcement is serving as some kind of rallying call for the creative minds behind these movies and get them in the spandex again for one final hurrah!

Just please, leave the strange dance sequences and Gwen Stacy behind...we will all appreciate you for it.

Sincerely,

Patrick