Remember, bad things happen to people who don't pray hard enough and/or watch lamestream media.

How badly do I need to read Slott's opening ASM arc where she's introduced?

I just finished the first trade. Man, that book rewards careful reading (in a good way). Sometimes major plot points happen in a splash page where five other things are going on. The page-by-page commentary at the back the book is great, too.

sounds like a really terrible excuse for putting them in those costumes

I'm reading it in print … the art is fantastic.

It's the idea that the police (i.e. the state) has the right to maintain order through violence, and that liberal democracy is weak and illegitimate. The authority that he goes against is one that has lost its claim to legitimacy (according to the film's narrative).

Jessica Jones: Alias vol 1 + 2. (And just picked up 3)

I'm liking DC's current thing where some titles are explicitly mini-series (Poison Ivy, Legend of Wonder Woman, Superman: American Alien). I'll jump into a 6-issue or 12-issue series if I'm pretty sure it will wrap up and not be cancelled mid-arc.

His Dark Materials is a case where book 3, which I didn't like at all, made me retroactively like the first two less.

My feeling is we evolved to be raised in clans where the older siblings and cousins actually did most of the child raising after the child stops nursing, and the 1950s atomic family is a poor substitute for that model. Once my daughter went to preschool, we noticed she learned as much from the other kids as from us,

My own experience was that you rise to the occasion, although the first three months or so are a big blur, BUT that it's also crucial to have a support system, whether that's the other parent or family or whoever.

That makes a lot of sense. I guess it's similar to when Barbara Gordon stopped being Oracle. Whatever the new stories, they gave up something of value.

That was a legitimately good time-travel story, too.

Well … leaving aside whether this story fits with Jessica Drew's previous characterization, as a story about motherhood it's been pretty good so far.

Ha ha! Glad we weren't the only cynical bastards in high school.

Ugh. "Liked" but not, you know, liked.

The art and layouts in this title have been great. The 2-page spread an issue or two ago of her moving through the SHIELD childbirth-center-for-aliens-inside-a-black-hole was amazing.

[EDIT] (Sort of an obnoxious response, posted before coffee. See more nuanced discussion above…)

Matrix is a high-concept "ideas" film and Star Wars is a pulp adventure story, so it's not surprising to me that only the latter became a franchise.

Oh man, those "just say no" PSAs…. In high school our joke was "That's rude - just say no thank you."