Hello good souls, and welcome to Variant Covers. I am your pilot on this trip of stupidity. ‘Tis a trip where I tell you the comic books I’m excited and/or curious about that are coming out tomorrow. Your job, should you choose to partake, is to hit the comments box with your own pull list.

It’s my favorite game: show me yours and I’ll show you mine. The elementary school principal down the street isn’t too cool on it, but I hope you are.

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Thor: The Mighty Avenger #8.
This week sees the final issue of Roger Landridge and Chris Samnee’s Thor: The Mighty Avenger. The title has been felled by something that not even Mjöllnir can beat into submission: poor sales. The title is suffering an unjust fate, as yet another part of an inexplicable comic book market. One of the best, most heartwarming titles on the shelf is being served a Viking’s funeral while other dreck continues to march onward.

If you haven’t picked up this title, I fart in your general direction. Actually, that’s unfair. I miss countless good stuff dropping every month. Budget constraints, et cetera. Even the local comic book shop dude couldn’t believe it when I told him it was one of my favorite monthlies. Isn’t it a kid’s book?, he asked quizzically. Naw dude, not even.

At the root of it, its a growing-up tale. The story of a dude forced to leave home, and cut out his own place in the world. You can’t go home again, even if the road that leads back there is the Rainbow Bridge. The storyline is complimented by humor, romance, and gorgeous pencils and coloring. It’s a shame that the title is ending, but there’s always a chance the bitch is blasted with a scroll of resurrection somewhere down the line.

To Landridge, Samnee, and everyone who worked on the title: you boys rock. Please snag this final issue, and help the argument towards bringing the title back.

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Infinite Vacation #1.
This title was brought to my attention over at Robot 6 yesterday, and it sounds like something straight-up my nerd pipes. The comic, helmed by writer Nick Spencer (Morning Glories) and Christian Ward, takes the concept of augmented reality to the nth degree. Let’s blockquote the premise for great fucking justice!

Billed as a sci-fi love story, the book stars Mark, who lives in a world where alternate realities are up for sale, and buying and trading your way through unlimited variations of yourself is as commonplace as checking your email or updating your status. But then Mark’s other selves start dying.

Awesome! In a world where we’re constantly opting out of reality through a variety of apps; comic books (yup!), television, reality television and computer games where we don whatever identity we want, the premise is both sexily absurd and homegrown. I’m sold. I like my digital persona, I ignore reality while plowing through thousands of pages of fiction, and who the fuck wouldn’t want to escape into our own world? More than we already do.

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And then there were three! Meet Hank Chien! The good sir was previously glossed over back in August, known as the “guy Billy Mitchell beat to reclaim the Donkey Kong score.” Apparently Chien isn’t messing around though, and he’s definitely fucking up my extended metaphors. If Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell are the video game world’s Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, who the fuck is Chien?

Well, it doesn’t matter.

‘Cause the dude has taken the throne from the two of them.

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Directed by Twilight Zone veteran Ted Post and written by schlock scribe Abe Polsky, The Baby is a standout of ’70s unhinged depravity. I saw it for the first time last year through Cinemageddon, an obscure movie lover’s wet dream website. Last week, schlock film distributors extraordinaires Severin Films announced that they will be rereleasing The Baby. It was originally released on DVD in 2005. I’m not sure of the quality of that one, but judging from Severin’s treatment of Psychomania and Hardware, The Baby is going to get the primo-fucking release it deserves. Trust me when I say you’ve never seen anything like it.

It’s not gory or sexually explicit. It didn’t push the limits of the film censors. And, surprisingly, it’s not the film’s premise that shocks. The sight of a 30-year-old man dressed and acting like a baby seems to shock very little people – even in the film. For me, it’s the twist at the end that left me open-mouthed as well as the well-executed ingredients sprinkled over this exploitation romp.

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Pushed aside by his siblings, there’s no chance for the little one to suckle the teat. The others become fat and content, gorging incessantly on the readily-available sustenance. The runt must find a new source, a way to survive despite being rejected by Mother Society.

And so he crawls, one painful movement at a time, towards the avuncular alternative. It is not an easy trek, but it is rewarding. For Father Nerd turns away nary a soul.

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This is the Monday Morning Commute, the post where we share what we’ll be doing over the course of the next week. Come on in, wrap yourself in a snuggie, take a shot of Crystal Pepsi, and tell me what type of debauchery you’ll be filling your time with.

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Today, NASA announced the finding of Kepler 10-b, and it’s the first “confirmed discovery of a rocky planet around another star.” Righteous! It’s also the most Earth-like of all the exoplanets that have been found, clocking in at 1.4 times the size of our lovely Blue Marble.

Don’t pack your fucking bags yet though, cautions io9:

Unfortunately, Kepler-10b doesn’t fit any of the other criteria for a potentially habitable planet. It’s 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to ours, placing it far from the habitable zone that would allow life to survive there. Indeed, Kepler-10b races around its star, completing an orbit every 0.84 days. And, though it’s only 1.4 times the size of Earth, Kepler-10b is a dense world, with a mass 4.6 times that of Earth and an average density similar to an iron dumbbell.

Totally depressed now? Yeah, me too. Frak. Scientist Douglas Hudgins drops some encouraging words:

The discovery of Kepler 10-b is a significant milestone in the search for planets similar to our own. Although this planet is not in the habitable zone, the exciting find showcases the kinds of discoveries made possible by the mission and the promise of many more to come.

Well then! Party on.

It’s easy to make geeks splooge. Just throw some Super Mario Bros. sounds into something seemingly ill-fitting, and we’re already at half-mast. Take for example Marshawn Lynch’s ridiculous run against the Saints on Saturday. It was already amazing. But throw some Mario sound effects as a soundtrack? Stop, boner time!

Hit the jump for the video.

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Hinode, NASA’s solar observatory caught the solar eclipse. Oh goodness, it’s a stunning sight. Over at Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait puts it into perspective,  saying the “cool thing is the size difference between the Sun and the Moon. The Sun is roughly 400x bigger than the Moon and 400x farther away, so they look about the same size in the sky. But the Moon orbits the Earth in an ellipse, and can change its distance to us by quite a bit, well over 10% – that means its apparent diameter as seen on Earth can change by 10% too.”

Hit the jump for the video. It’s sexy.

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Some artwork has leaked today that has Red Skull concept art written all over it. I hope this is legit content from the Captain America movie, ’cause it looks gorgeous. Want to take a look at the full artwork? Hit the jump.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the fastest selling PC game of all time. If you’re willing to overlook the fact that it’s an expansion and not a full retail release. I am. The game it beat? Of course, its older brother, Wrath of the Lich King. Cataclysm has sold 4.7 million copies in a month.

A month!

In their article about the news, Kotaku has quotes Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime jerking off, rightfully so, to the accomplishment:

We created thousands of new quests, introduced new lands to explore and extensively revamped the game world for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, making it our biggest and most ambitious expansion yet.

[cont]

We’ve been floored by the community’s response so far, and we’d like to thank them for their continued passion and support for World of Warcraft, and for helping Cataclysm reach this incredible milestone.

I played a good seven hours of Cataclysm last night, so I think it’s obvious where I stand. Despite playing it sparsely over the past month due to school, the holidays, friends, and Black Ops, it’s a gorgeous product. Here’s hoping it doesn’t consume me entirely like past expansions.

My friend The Dude who regularly comments here is a complete fanboy for the Brotherhood of Steel. I think when/if he sees this helmet, the priapism that follows may actually be written into future editions of the Bible.  This gorgeous Brotherhood power helmet courtesy of Josh Jay. Whenever the apocalypse hits, and believe me its soon, I’ll be heading to him for some fucking righteous armor. Now who got my plasma rifle?

Hit the jump for pictures of the power helmet. It’s sexy.

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