Source: Super Punch

Behold! A fucking dog worthy of your nightmares. Nothing says Fear and Trembling like a gamma-irradiated Godzilla-Puppy.

A good afternoon to you all. Fellow geeks, innocent bystanders, lost internet wanderers wondering how they found themselves in such a fresh Hell as this. The following batch of word-vomit is Variant Covers, your weekly look at the comic books dropping this week. As I am wont to do, every column comes with the following caveat; I am primarily a man of Capes and Latex, when it comes to comic books. My tastes are suspect at best, and if you have a different set list of comics stowed in your pull list for this week, I’m all ears. Amongst other things, I can be fairly accused of being comically curious.

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Batman and Robin #14
The god damn Batman can’t catch a break. It doesn’t matter who is donning the mantle, that guy is more than likely in line for a serious ass-whupping. Couple that with a can of Angst Like Fuck, and his existence is guaranteed to be rough at best.

So despite the fact that Dick Grayson is currently our favorite Flying Rodent, he is still dealing with serious shit. Namely, the purportedly back from the dead Thomas Wayne. I don’t know where Morrison is taking the Bat-mythos by resurrecting Thomas, but it’s fun to watch. Wayne is back from the dead, and being spun as a man who despised his wife, loathed his son, and really likes wearing creepy Eyes Wide Shut masks. Where is this shit going?

As Grayson lies in a rubble of flaming Bat-jet, Damian is confronting the Joker in a Gotham City police station. Seriously, isn’t this a situation for epic and enjoyable fail? Back in issue thirteen, Damian spoke my mind when he called the Joker out for what I’ve always felt was his bullshit rhetoric. The Joker isn’t an agent of chaos. In fact, the dude is beyond meticulous in his orchestration of far-reaching schemes. Dismiss the veneer of anarchy, and you see the Joker for the mastermind he is beyond the bullshit.

So Brucey’s kid is face to face with the Joker, whilst his protege Dick is being confronted by his father? Good god damn. Paging Freud or some shit, we have some serious daddy issues being mulled through in this title. Where is all of this going? I have no damn idea. But? But I’m enjoying the ride.

It’s worth mentioning that Batman and Robin is currently worth reading for the artwork alone. I mean, I’m a Morrison fanboy, I’m not fronting. But Frazier Irving is beyond gorgeous in his work on the title. I could read the comic sans dialogue or narrative boxes, and I would be just as happy. Irving seems beyond adept at creating a horror is that equally gorgeous.

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I’ve made a grand dent in my reading backlog lately. After a summer of staring in horror at the volume of comics I had amassed, unread, and covered in dust, I threw off my trepidation and started reading. And reading. And reading. It currently stands at something like five or six comic books, but they can wait. It’s a good run of Demo by Brian Wood, which I have been assured by Pepsibones is quite excellent. Then there’s the quirky supernatural western Sixth Gun. Aside from that?

Finito.

Progress is a hell of a thing.

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That sexy spiral in the cosmos is hiding behind it a nascent star. While I can’t do math, and I don’t know the powers of gravity, I can’t help but marvel at the sexosity of the universe and nature. Yeah I know, totally played out common trope here at Omega Level. Alas, alack. What can you do? Let’s kick it over to io9 for an explanation of what we’re looking at.

Hubble via io9:

The striking picture shows what appears to be a thin spiral pattern of astonishingly regularity winding around the star, which is itself hidden behind thick dust. The spiral pattern suggests a regular periodic origin for the nebula’s shape. The material forming the spiral is moving outwards a speed of about 50,000 km/hour and, by combining this speed with the distance between layers, astronomers calculate that the shells are each separated by about 800 years.

The spiral is thought to arise because LL Pegasi is a binary system, with the star that is losing material and a companion star orbiting each other. The spacing between layers in the spiral is expected to directly reflect the orbital period of the binary, which is indeed estimated to be also about 800 years.

Gorgeous. While my fat brain can’t process the specifics, I know enough to appreciate this symmetry. The fabric of the universe is weaved with spaceporn.

Came across these sons a bitches today over at the illustrious Mad Gear Solid. New Bioshock Infinite screens. Jesus Christ am I looking forward to this game. Especially after finishing the exercise in mediocrity, Bioshock 2. Aiight boys, now that Levine and company are delivering the goods, let’s get this shit done.

We get a first look at the Handyman, who looks god damn gorgeous/terrifying, as well as some looks at the City in the Sky. Hit the jump and check out the bonery.

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It’s Labor Day! Put away that uh, Appropriate For One Season clothing! That’s right! Ya’ll out of season. Make your way to the garment districts and indulge in satisfying their hungry cash registers, as you don hues appropriate for This Season Duh, okay? Like I said, it’s Labor Day!

Fall is here, and it smells like sizzling leaf death.

How was your summer? Did it live up to everything you hoped for? Tell me. Hit the comment box. I dare you.

Monday Morning Commute. Every Monday I’m going to detail the various things I’m either currently or will be watching, reading, playing, and listening to in the next seven days. It’s Monday. You’ve got a long week of school, work, or compulsive masturbation to get through. Tell me what you’re diggin’ on to get through the drudgery.

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Source: Super Punch

Above is a Tibetan nomad, taken from an issue of National Geographic, circa 1989. Further proof that our sci-fi machinations are not fabrications, but merely residual knowledge from this and other dimensions bleeding into our collective unconscious! Where are you, unicorn?! Tell me! I need you.

[This! Is! Mad Men! recaps the newest developments of Don Draper and his ragtag group of cohorts. In the spirit of the show, it will often be sexist and drunk. Apologies ahead of time.]

Right off the bat, I’m going to apologize for the brevity of this week’s recap. While I usually use This! Is! Mad Men! as my excuse to wax philosophical, today is Labor Day and I’ve been tasked with addressing some pressing issues. Like sitting around in my boxers, eating junkfood and trying to enjoy my last day of freedom before returning to work. Ahh, what a mission to accomplish!

But how am I feeling after The Suitcase, episode seven of Mad Men‘s fourth season? Optimistic. I’ve made no reservations about the fact that I see Don Draper as descending into a point-of-return in which he’ll lose both his professional status as well as his few personal ties. And while I think Draper is still sinking, this episode tosses him a life preserver. Through his relationship with Peggy Olsen, Don Draper has demonstrated that he is still a human with a beating heart, capable of compassion and understanding.

Throughout The Suitcase, Don puts off phoning California as he knows the news waiting for him on the other end of the line is that Anna Draper has died. In an attempt to ignore this unfortunate duty, he coerces Peggy into staying late at the office. As she puts in overtime, Ms. Olsen misses a surprise birthday dinner thrown by her boyfriend, which finally ends in the dissolution of their relationship. Peggy and Don have a screaming match – she accuses him of co-opting her ideas whilst downplaying her input, he tells her she owes him her entire life. Tears are shed.

At this point, I really thought that Peggy was going to take Duck Phillips’ offer to start a new agency. He might be lonely, irresponsible and even more inebriated than the folks at SCDP, but he still represents an alternative. After having her emotions trampled on by Don yet again, I could envision Peggy jumping ship. I was worried.

But she doesn’t – righteous! Instead, the Madison Avenue’s dynamic duo get their shit together and talk it out. They share a laugh while listening to Roger’s ridiculous memoirs-on-tape; highlights include the fact that Bert Cooper’s testicles have been removed and that Ms. Blankenship was once a sex fiend. At dinner they discuss Peggy’s baby and Don’s affair with Allison. Don reveals that he never knew his mother and watched his father die. Peggy also watched her dad croak, so they have that in common. They head back to the office and Peggy assists Don into the bathroom so he can yak. Then, she breaks up a fight between Draper and the interloping Duck Phillips. After a long day, Don and Peggy fall asleep on the couch in his office.

When he wakes up, Don makes the call to California and hears what he already knows to be true – Anna is dead. He breaks down crying and Peggy consoles him. He tells her that the only person that really knew him died, but Peggy disagrees. It’s a genuinely touching moment, even if it isn’t completely true. Peggy doesn’t know about Dick Whitman, but she knows more about Donald Draper than anyone else. Maybe now that Anna’s out of the picture, more will be revealed. Or maybe not.

In this hour of television, I could see so many different scenarios beginning to unfurl and it made me nervous. Hell, I don’t want Peggy to leave SCDP! Fortunately, Draper has shown that he’s a redeemable character by treating Peggy as a true friend. Sure, she bears the brunt of some of his grief, but then he rights the wrongs. By taking her out. By revealing intimate details of his shrouded past. By defending her honor when Duck Phillips calls her a whore. There’re laughs and shouts and tears and arguments and confidences. And at the end of it, they’re both better for it.

The Suitcase ends with Peggy asking Don whether he wants the door “Open or closed?” as she leaves his office. Don wants the office, just like their relationship, to have an open door. There is room for more growth and maturation, the possibility that they will both allow the other to play a larger personal role. Don’s been a reprehensible drunkard this season, so it’s nice to see that he can still wear his heart on his sleeve. Peggy, by dedicating herself to work and casting aside the boyfriend she never really loved, secures herself a position in the newest wave of Women’s Liberation.

What the hell am I saying with all this? What’s the long and the short of it?

Don Draper and Peggy Olsen are totally BFFs.

Oh hells yeah. That’s some dedication right there. Read all about the process that went into it right here.

Why not, right?

I often wonder about the days when augmented reality will really take hold. We’ll all be walking around in our own bubble-world, digital projections glancing our every sight. Three-dimensional advertisements beamed directly into our skull-plates, transmissions of Twitter updates taking hold in our field of vision. Well, Keiichi Matsuda has created a couple of videos that picture this world in such gorgeous detail that I’ve sat here slack-jawed watching them both several times.

Hit the jump for both of the videos, as well as more information on the maestro behind them.

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