More Young Wizard Series

I've only read up to book 4 in this series. So can anyone confirm whether Carl & Tom are supposed to be a couple? Because this passage in High Wizardry:

"Being out in the open, "Tom said, "causes even more problems than 'passing'...as you'll have noticed. But the truth works best. The front door locked?" he said to Carl.

can easily be taken to represent more than their being Wizards...

The Forbidden Kingdom

Since I wasn't interested in the Pacino thriller OR Leatherheads (Because both are supposed to be terrible) and Mom had no desire for Forgetting Sarah Marshall or the new Harold & Khumar we compromised on kung fu...

And happily it was Chan & Li back on their A game. Hell Chan is basically the Drunken Master. Plus: Monkey King!

So good kung fu. The GOOD versions of Chan & Li. Amusing training montage. Musical score that pushes the correct emotional buttons without being heavy handed. And Jackie Chan & Jet Li have a several minute long fight scene that doesn't feel contrived...

Worth seeing even for only the mildly kung fu fannish...

New Comics Day 4/30

A short pull this week. Which was good. Because I am very, very, very, very po' right now. I think I've got less than 10 bucks between checking and savings until Friday. But enough of my whining. On to comics!

Staring with a "special" issue of Blue Beetle. Fill in writer Jai Nitz decides to do an issue where Jaime takes his girlfriend Traci 13 to his family reunion. Nearly all of whom only speak Spanish. And those parts of it are actually pretty cool. Tacking an extra .50 on the price for the translation pages? Not so cool. Also rather than dedicating the WHOLE story to Jaime, his family & Traci - Nitz decides to dedicate most of the issue to a fight between Blue Beetle and the Parasite. *sigh* Way to take a chance at doing something great and interesting and memorable and instead just make it more filler super hero fighting...

Then Jack of Fables continues to take a break from the ongoing story to give a 2-part story of Jack as an Old West outlaw being hunted by Bigby. Plus a Babe the Blue Ox moment to add tension breaking humor. Though the "This Moment in History" info drops got annoying after a while...

In Ex Machina Mayor Hundred continues to plan towards a possible '08 Presidential bid. And we learn he used to have a "super-villain" named The Bouncer. Also New York may have picked up some kind of costumed thrill-seeker. Poor Hundred. Even when he hangs up the cape & tights (not that he ever wore either) he still gets new "villains"...

And The Avengers: The Initiative finishes up the main story-arc for the first "class" of cadets. With nearly all the "former" New Warriors leaving early due to trust issues. And the "graduates" get their state assignments. Whats odd is that when I did my 50 State Initiative thing waaaay back last year sometime I actually put Hardball in Nevada based on my semi-random picking methods...

No context for you!

Suck it Canada!