OFF LINE

Hello friends, Captain Infinity here. It's been quite a while since there was any activity at this site and this post will be the final one. The Zeta-Beam is no more. However, in grand comic book fashion this blog has been retconned, rebooted, and relaunched as...

Cape Spotting!

New name. New look. New address. New...well, other than that it will be the same blog you've known and loved liked been mildly interested in.

Once again, thanks to everyone who visited The Zeta-Beam and I hope to see you at Cape Spotting!

END TRANSMISSION

Okay, so I lied in my last post. For nearly nine months now I’ve had The Zeta-Beam on standby while I tried to make a change in my life. As part of that change I’ve made a temporary move to the sunny shores of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. Unfortunately living on a tropical island in the Caribbean has it’s drawbacks.

I’m approximately 1,500 miles away from the closest comic shop that I’m aware of and, needless to say, that makes a weekly trip to pick up my comics a bit of an inconvenience. Since the start of my hiatus I’ve been ordering my comics online, but by the time I receive them I’m already 1 to 5 weeks behind the topic of conversation. Shipping to the islands takes even longer, putting me nearly two full months behind by the time they reach me. I’m also nearly 2,000 miles from my personal collection which means I have no back catalog of comics to draw from for topics.

So rather than let it languish indefinitely, I feel I have no choice but to power down The Zeta-Beam for the foreseeable future. I hate to do it, but I see no other option at this point. If you’ve been checking the site for updates over these many months you’ve probably started to expect this as my hiatus drug on. Soon I will go ahead and delete the blog completely, as I hate dead websites.

I’m not going away completely. Though it will be very tough to avoid spoilers, I still plan to visit all my favorite comic blogs and comment on things from time to time but, for the present, regular blogging just isn’t possible for me.

Someday I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. I’ve enjoyed it too much to quit and I’m already making plans for my return. But until I’m able, I’d like to give a heartfelt thanks to everyone who visited The Zeta-Beam and to those who have linked to the site over the last year; fine folks like Ragnell, Kalinara, Diamondrock, Mallet, Walaka, Shelly, and everyone’s favorite little stuffed pal, Bully. My apologies to those I failed to mention. I hope to see you all again very soon.

Captain Infinity

Push the button, Frank.

...AND THIS TIME I MEAN IT.

Hello friends, Captain Infinity here, or if Jim Starlin was writing this I guess I'd just be "Infinity" now. ("Just Comet" my ass. Adam Blake is a Captain, dammit!)

But I didn't come here to rant about that. I came by to say that the long hiatus is coming to an end and The Zeta-Beam will be returning soon...and this time I mean it. I know that I missed both my promised June and September deadlines, but if Heinberg and Dodson can't deliver Wonder Woman on a monthly bi-monthly basis, you can't really expect me to hold to a rigid schedule either, now can you?

However, I've finally secured myself a new job and I'm off in the next couple of days en route to my new base of operations. It will still take a few weeks for me to get the Beam back online once I've reached my new destination (I'll have to buy a new computer first), but I guarantee* I'll be back before the end of the year and I'll fill you in on what's been going on. See you soon.

*guarantee not guaranteed

AN UPDATE! AN UPDATE!

Hello, friends. It is I, Captain Infinity. If you've read my previous post from a couple of months ago you know why I've been gone. You may also notice that I said I'd be back to blogging by this time.

Alas, such is not the case. Life (much like the publication schedule for Supergirl) is unpredictable. As a result of circumstances beyond my control I've not been able to get back to updating The Zeta-Beam as I had promised. It now looks like I'll be absent until at least mid-September.

But be assured, The Zeta-Beam is not dead, only resting. I'll see you all in six to eight weeks. Drop by. We'll catch up.

Captain Infinity

TO BE CONTINUED...

Since I started the Zeta-Beam back in September of last year I've been excited/astounded every time someone has commented on one of my posts and quite surprised whenever I see the Zeta-Beam linked at someone else's blog. While I'm not as prolific in my posts or as insightful as others, I've had the occasional good post that made me think I had something to offer to the world of comic blogs and I appreciate everybody who stops by.

Sadly (for me anyway) this will be my last post for a while. Beginning March 25th I will have little to no internet access for the next couple of months. I will be back, but out of necessity I have to go on hiatus for a while.

Since I am unable to retcon my life, I've had to settle for a bit of retooling as I am attempting to follow the old adage of "find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life." Well, nobody's going to pay me to read comic books and watch Lost, so I've had to come up with Plan B. When I think about it I'm actually on Plan E now, which is to turn a hobby into a profession and get my certification as a scuba instructor.

If all goes well, before you know it I'll be hanging out with Aquaman, fighting giant undersea monsters with the Sea Devils, and enjoying sweet, sweet octopus love.

I'll have no time for blogging between now and the 25th as I have to be out of my apartment next weekend. I'll be freeloading off of family members for a place to stay until my instructor-level courses begin and run through the end of May. Then I'll have the daunting task of finding a job and moving. I may have some limited internet access here and there, but I'll be mostly offline for the next few months (I can feel the withdrawals coming already.)

I expect to fully return to the blogosphere by the end of June; tanned, rested and ready to resume blogging.

I hope you'll stop back by then.

Captain Infinity

THE ALL-NEW (?) ATOM

DC has given us our first look at the new Atom (it's not Nanette) on the cover of June's Brave New World one-shot, and my initial reaction is "where's the new?"

Male? Check.
Caucasian? Check.
Same costume? Check.
Shrinking powers? Check.

Now I have faith in Gail Simone as the writer of the new series and plan to check it out, but if you're going to call yourself the "all-new" Atom, shouldn't you have something to set yourself apart from the previous guy? I guess calling it "Basically the Same Except for the Guy Under the Mask Atom" just doesn't have the same ring to it. I don't know. Maybe the characterization will be wildly different and the new guy will suffer from microphobia or Tourette's Syndrome or something.

I'll give it a shot but I would rather have had a series teaming the regular old Atom with Elongated Man as the two work through the grief (Ralph) and guilt (Ray) of a shared tragedy while fighting crime. Sort of a support-group superhero thing.

I think partners with mismatched powers are much more interesting than pairings that make sense. Batman and Robin...boring. A series with a pliable detective and a microscopic physicist...it sells itself.

UPDATE: I wrote this piece based on yesterday's cover image from Newsarama, but the image I posted is from the new cover image posted today. Apparently I didn't look closely enough at the new image compared to yesteday's. Yep. Our new Atom is not caucasian. Thanks much to someone named Gail (wonder who that could be?) for stopping by and correcting me.

YOUNG LOVE

I couldn't resist a quick Photoshop....