Pete’s best of 2012

Music, movies, games, events, and other assorted nerdery. These are the things that made my year in 2012, in no particular order.

SDCC 2012 floor roundup

As July gives way to August, Comic-Con fades further into the rear-view mirror and the memories must be shared before they become just a fuzzy amalgamation of bright colors and assorted cartoon characters. We’ve already written about The Venture Bros. panel and the Dethklok show on the Midway, but I wanted to share some of my other experiences in and around the exhibit hall.

As usual, there were many random entertaining displays in and around the convention center area. Just walking around the Gaslamp one might encounter Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge, a Frankenweenie tent featuring a garden of deadly plants, a zombie escaped from Petco Park, or pedicabs styled as chariots representing Once Upon a Time. Inside the exhibit hall were displays featuring Castle Grayskull, a trio of trolls from The Hobbit, all 7 Iron Man armor suits from the films, and James Bond’s Aston Martin V8 Vantage (Series 2) from 1987’s The Living Daylights.

My favorite display was located outside, on the lawn in front of the Hilton Bayfront, and consisted of all the Batmobiles from every Batman film:

Left-to-right & top-to-bottom: Adam West Batmobile from 1960s “Batman” TV show & film, Michael Keaton Batmobile from “Batman” (1989) & “Batman Begins” (1992), Val Kilmer Batmobile from “Batman Forever” (1995), George Clooney Batmobile from “Batman & Robin” (1997), Christian Bale “Tumbler” Batmobile from “Batman Begins” (2005) & “The Dark Knight” (2008), Tumbler from “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012)

Then, of course, there were the cosplayers. In addition to the many Lady Lokis, here are a few of my favorites spotted amongst the throngs:

L to R: Viserys & Daenerys Targaryen, Galactus (note tiny herald off of left shoulder), Zatanna & green power ring-endowed Green Arrow, Sally & Richard Impossible with Dr. Venture

A Doctor-ific group of Whovians

We had some additional fun at the Nintendo Gaming Lounge inside the Marriott next door, where Xtine tried out Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance while dozens of fans lined up to meet the voice of Mario. We also witnessed a dance floor of nerds, gamers, cosplayers, and kids dancing along to “Rock Lobster” as they tried out Just Dance 4. It was a room of pure enjoyment, complete with bean bag chairs and a celebration of Kirby‘s 20th anniversary.

That’s all I can remember for now. Tomorrow I’ll wrap up my ‘Con coverage with a Zelda orchestra concert, a VB signing, and catching up with Spider-Man.

A coward’s weapon

A gun is a coward’s weapon. A liar’s weapon. We kill too often because we’ve made it easy… too easy… sparing ourselves the mess and the work.

–Batman, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Vol. 1, #3, May 1986

I want to talk about last Friday’s shooting in Aurora, Colorado during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, which claimed the lives of 12 while injuring 58 others, the most victims of any mass shooting in US history. Our thoughts are with the victims, killed and injured in a senseless act of violence while simply trying to enjoy a movie, as well as with their families and friends.

“Mass shooting.” To me, those words evoke images of Columbine in ’99 and Virginia Tech in ’07. But that’s not even scratching the surface: According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, there have been 60 mass shootings in the US in just the past 18.5 months. Their list of mass shootings in the US since 2005 is 62 pages long. Since 2005. Depending on what statistics you read, the firearm homicide rate in the US is something like 20 times higher than those of the next 22 leading countries combined. These numbers are appalling.

As such tragedies have in the past, the shooting in Aurora has re-raised political and media debates about gun control. One of the weapons used by the shooter was an AR-15 assault rifle, which he legally purchased. My political views tend toward the left, and I agree with my state’s senator, Dianne Feinstein, that weapons of war don’t belong on the streets; that the right to bear arms doesn’t and shouldn’t mean “any and all arms”; that assault rifles designed to kill enemy soldiers in combat, rapidly and in great numbers with 100-round magazines, shouldn’t be legally available to the average citizen. Even neoconservative Bill Kristol concedes this, despite tea partiers’ insistence that such bullet-hoses are among our constitutionally-protected “basic freedoms”. Personally, I’d like to know which “well-regulated militia” these people are in.

One of the best pieces I’ve read so far concerning the shooting comes from Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame. Here’s my favorite part:

We will not prevent every tragedy. We cannot stop every maniac. But we certainly have done ourselves no good by allowing these particular weapons to be acquired freely by just about anyone.

Whether we’ll see any fundamental change in gun control policy as a result of this particular tragedy is unknown but, I think, unlikely given our country’s history with gun violence. But I’m just a pessimist on the internet; what do you think? Should gun control laws be stricter? Would restricting certain classes of guns help reduce the kind of wanton murder that took place in Colorado last week? I don’t have any answers, but I think I know what Batman would say: