  Hey kids, I'm back! I'm over my virus and as far as I can tell I'm no worse for the wear. While I was sick I found myself watching hours upon hours of absolute crap on the TV. A prime example is a show on MTV called "Room Raiders. " I'm oddly intrigued by the premise of this show. A guy or girl is going to choose between 3 members of the opposite sex for a date. Pretty standard stuff. Instead of meeting the person and choosing the date the sane way, the person choosing a date gets to inspect the bedrooms of the 3 potential dates to "get to know them. " I realize just how much I hate young people when I watch this show. All guys are diggin' in the girls panties and all girls say some innanely idiotic thing that bears no relevancy to anything (i.e. "Any guy with a sword hanging over his bed must have commitment issues. " Oh thank you little miss Dr. Phil in a tank top...SHUT UP! ) Guys are just as bad though, a girl owning a thong must immediately mean that she wants some hot, wild sex. Okay, granted that everyone wants some hot, wild sex, but let's just keep in mind that girls see getting dressed as an art form and that a visible panty line would be a fate worse than death. I must admit that I really do have to laugh when the girl pulls out a guy's large stack of porn magazines on television.
That's comedy right there. You reap what you sow, Onan. Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you, I mean it's proven that something like 98% of guys do it and something like 80% of women, but this is on TV...it's just comical. Now, I don't want to sound like an elitist here, but I was watching this with a 102 degree temperature and was just frankly without the energy to change the channel, but appearantly there are legions of people in my generation that sincerely want to watch this crap. Not that I spend alot of time watching CNN or the Discovery Channel, but I need something at least a little bit challenging or possibly even a touch socially aware.
These shows are making our culture retarded! In twenty years, the idiots that were glued to the television for the junk that MTV is pumping out along with Survivor, Big Brother and the rest will be in charge. It's frightening to me to think of how this country will be run. It's screwed up now and the people in charge are marginally intelligent. Have we run out of fiction? Are we afraid of challenge? Have people forgotten how to read? I dare say that I've read more books in the past six months than three average people combined have read in a year. I'm not saying that I'm the one that should be in charge because I wouldn't want to be, but hot damn it's looking like it may come down to it.
Okay, that's enough of my ranting. Welcome back to Josh's Comic Corner. I'm going to be talking about DC Comics' Starman written by James Robinson with art by Tony Harris among others. The original Starman was Ted Knight, but this isn't his story, he's an old man at this point. This is the story of Jack Knight, who has grumblingly taken up the mantle of Starman and carried on the family tradition to avenge his brother David, who was the Starman prior to Jack. Confused yet? It's not too complicated. Jack just wanted to run his pawn shop and live his life, but then someone came after his dad. To save him, Jack took up the role of Starman. He's not a tights and cape kinda super hero though.
He wears jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jackets. He's got 50's style hair (think Elvis) and is covered in tattoos. So that's his "uniform" along with a pair of goggles and his cosmic rod, which allows him to fly and he can shoot bolts of energy from it. Jack tends to get caught up in leftover fights from his fathers past, whether it's a former villian's child or the Shade, an ageless villian who's decided to give up his wicked ways...or has he?
It really reads unlike any other comic I've read and that's saying someting. I'm only 17 issues into the 80 issue run, but so far it's a story about family. Also a story about finding yourself. It's really beautifully written and Tony Harris' art is absolutely wonderful. People's expressions in the book are very bold and powerful. Harris' compositions jump right off the page with energy. This is really an underappreciated book and definately one of the ten best books of the nineties. Well children, I think that's sufficient for today. Hope you've had a good time and until next time.... 
