Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

When Steve Rogers was forced to either blindly serve the government or give up his identity as Captain America, he chose the later, and was replaced by John Walker. When Bruce Wayne’s back was broken by the villain Bane, leaving him unable to continue being Batman, he handpicked Jean Paul Valley, previously known as Azarel, to take over the cape and cowl. When Tony Stark succumbed to his alcoholism, he asked long time friend Jim Rhodes to take over his role as Iron Man. When Superman perished in battle with Doomsday, no less than 4 successors showed up, each either claiming to be him or wanting to pick up where he left off.

If there is one thing comics teaches us, it’s that no one is anybody until they’ve been killed, crippled, or forced to retire under dubious circumstances, only to be replaced by a younger, cooler, sexier, more badass version of themselves. However, there is another side of the coin as well. Usually this replacement doesn’t last very long, maybe a year or two, until the successor is killed, goes insane, or is revealed to be a pawn of a sinister plot, and the original hero is either resurrected (or revealed to not have been dead at all), recovered from their ‘crippling injury’, or is forced to come back out of retirement and resume their identity. Indeed, John Walker’s stint as Captain America was revealed to be a plot by the Red Skull, and soon Steve Rogers resumed his identity as Captain America. Jean Paul Valley had gone off the deep end, forcing Bruce Wayne (whose spine was miraculously healed) to retake his identity of Batman. Iron Man recovered from his alcoholism to battle Obadiah Stane after Rhodes was injured by the villain, while Superman recovered in the Fortress of Solitude and reclaimed his identity after the Eradicator sacrificed himself to restore his powers.
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Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

What do geeks like even more than our geeky pleasures? Seeing those geeky pleasures mashed together into incomprehensible new shapes, with ourselves in the middle of this new, geek-love sandwich of awesome. The fact that these things may not exist in the same “universe” (or owned by the same company) is hardly an issue! Pun intended.

Titillated? Read on!

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Conan is currently in dispute as the 11:35pm host on NBC, as network decision makers want to bring back Jay Leno, who moved on from the position in 2009. As a respected comedy writer and performer with legions of fans around the world (especially in the geek community), its worth noting why we love him.

Here are some highlights from outside his talk show career: [Read the rest of this entry…]

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

The debut of the Transformers toy line in 1984 featured many different toys that were originally from several different toy lines in Japan (Diaclone, Micro Change). Soundwave, a robot that transformed into a micro-cassette recorder, was among the first figures in the Transformers line. Unlike most of the other Transformers in that first wave, Soundwave had a gimmick that went above and beyond just being able to transform and back. He was able to fit other Transformers that took the form of micro-cassettes in his chest.

This was a really well received gimmick and more Transformer micro-cassette figures would be released over the years that could fit in Soundwave and his Autobot counter-part Blaster. The truly unique aspect of these cassette Transformers was not so much in the fact that they could fit in the chest of another Transformer, but rather the variety and range of things, into which, these cassettes were able to transform all from the very same small form factor.

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