I’m sorry, has something happened?

Sorry for my absence recently. We’ve been busy working. Oh, and buying this:

Yeah, we’ve bought a house. Yes, that’s right. Bought a house. Holy shit.

(Unintended side-effect of buying a house: Apparently you go insane a couple of days later with stress and the sudden realization that you’ve bought a house and will be in debt for the next few decades. Kate and I started off today with a few fits of nervous/crazy laughter. Luckily, there’s a cure to this: watch a couple of episodes of Heroes and you’ll never laugh again.)

Nonetheless: Portland, Oregon, here we come.

Unedited: Notes on Smallville

(I write recaps/reviews of Smallville for io9 every week – This week, I ended up making notes about the show as I watched… which now you can read, to see how I watch a TV show.)

Best intro line ever: “I came as soon as I saw your Kryptonian beacon.” Sexy.

Maxima kisses with tongues. In great detail, and slowly. Is this Superporn?

Lois gives Clark a hard time about not getting over Lana – Thank you for that, Lois. Can’t we forget Lana exists?

Jimmy and Chloe have relationship problems, because she used to be in love with Clark and Jimmy’s realized that he’s meant to be Superman’s Pal.

Tess gets invited to a party by Green Arrow and then gets into showdown with Maxima, who thinks that party invite is from Kryptonian, who is her perfect mate.

It’s the special relationship episode!

Barman gives Jimmy advice – and it’s THE DUMBEST ADVICE EVER: “You’ve got to make her realize she’s not the only fox in the room.” “You are so right,” Jimmy says, because Jimmy is a doofus.

Maxima mistakes Jimmy for Kryptonian and says that he’s the one she’s been looking for. Jimmy decides to cheat on his fiancee. Nice guy.

Chloe is exposition central – and they’re pretending that it’s part of their ongoing “What is going on with Chloe?” plot as opposed to them just trying to dump information on everyone really quickly.

Jimmy kisses Maxima then almost dies. Clark comes in, saves Jimmy and, by the way, Ace of Clubs is the shittiest club ever. But Maxima finally finds her man!

Tess tries to hire Chloe to break into some supercomputer! She says no!

Jimmy wakes up in hospital. Gives some crazy monologue about how you can’t forget your first love that’s JUST WHAT CLARK’S BEEN THINKING but he has to lie to make Jimmy feel better. ProtoSuperman: Promoting Keeping Secrets From Loved Ones Already.

Clark is in the Daily Planet entirely alone. Where is everyone else? This is the only newspaper where no-one works at night? Maxima kisses him and suddenly he’s dosed with love juice! They’re totally making out! Suddenly she gets coy: Let’s fuck in the elevator! Why? Because she’s seen Fatal Attraction out there in space. Oh no! Lois sees them in the elevator and breaks Maxima’s spell! He runs after Lois and Maxima’s all “aw, fuck.”

Lois is all jealous and pretends she doesn’t know it. Maxima is completely out to fuck Lois’ shit up. Maxima tells Lois that there is a strong connection between Clark and she – and then lots of dudes with guns show up. 

Tess and Clark have a showdown – Tess reveals that she’s seen Maxima and then she gets a call about Maxima being shot at – Clark overhears with supernosyhearing and runs there in time to stop a fight between Maxima and Lois (“Bring it, bitch.” Awesome).

Maxima explains that she just wants a man who is her equal. In terms of passion. And she completely feels Clark up. He’s all “I don’t want you,” but he totally does. Oh, Lana, do you have to ruin everything? He twists her bracelet and she teleports home. How did he know that would happen? WHO CARES?

With 10 minutes to go, Chloe tells Clark that she doesn’t love him anymore. 

Tess is kickboxing in the Luthor Mansion. In the ONE ROOM OF THE LUTHOR MANSION. Because, apparently, there’s only one room in there. OH NO SUPERCOMPUTER IS MISSING PRESUMED STOLEN.

Lois and Clark have a moment. Lois is clearly smitten now, because Maxima was all “Ooh, you totally love him.” Clark is all “Well, if Chloe doesn’t love me anymore, then I’m over Lana” and doesn’t see that Lois has the hots for him. DUDE. Lois is awesome. Much better than Lana. Are you fucking insane?

Turns Out I Am A Bad Comics Fan

Tom Spurgeon, Comics Reporter and better writer than you or I could hope to be – well, okay, maybe not you – made a list of 50 Things That Every Comics Collection Truly Needs. I currently own… Um… Well, let’s look at the evidence, shall we? Things in Bold are that which I do have, otherwise, they’re not in the McMillan Household:

1. Something From The ACME Novelty Library
2. A Complete Run Of Arcade
3. Any Number Of Mini-Comics
4. At Least One Pogo Book From The 1950s
5. A Barnaby Collection
6. Binky Brown and the Holy Virgin Mary
7. As Many Issues of RAW as You Can Place Your Hands On
8. A Little Stack of Archie Comics
9. A Suite of Modern Literary Graphic Novels
10. Several Tintin Albums
11. A Smattering Of Treasury Editions Or Similarly Oversized Books
12. Several Significant Runs of Alternative Comic Book Series
13. A Few Early Comic Strip Collections To Your Taste
14. Several “Indy Comics” From Their Heyday
15. At Least One Comic Book From When You First Started Reading Comic Books
16. At Least One Comic That Failed to Finish The Way It Planned To
17. Some Osamu Tezuka
18. The Entire Run Of At Least One Manga Series
19. One Or Two 1970s Doonesbury Collections
20. At Least One Saul Steinberg Hardcover
21. One Run of A Comic Strip That You Yourself Have Clipped
22. A Selection of Comics That Interest You That You Can’t Explain To Anyone Else
23. At Least One Woodcut Novel
24. As Much Peanuts As You Can Stand
25. Maus
26. A Significant Sample of R. Crumb’s Sketchbooks
27. The original edition of Sick, Sick, Sick.
28. The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics
29. Several copies of MAD
30. A stack of Jack Kirby 1970s Comic Books
31. More than a few Stan Lee/Jack Kirby 1960s Marvel Comic Books
32. A You’re-Too-High-To-Tell Amount of Underground Comix
33. Some Calvin and Hobbes
34. Some Love and Rockets
35. The Marvel Benefit Issue Of Coober Skeber
36. A Few Comics Not In Your Native Tongue
37. A Nice Stack of Jack Chick Comics
38. A Stack of Comics You Can Hand To Anybody’s Kid
39. At Least A Few Alan Moore Comics
40. A Comic You Made Yourself
41. A Few Comics About Comics
42. A Run Of Yummy Fur
43. Some Frank Miller Comics
44. Several Lee/Ditko/Romita Amazing Spider-Man Comic Books
45. A Few Great Comics Short Stories
46. A Tijuana Bible
47. Some Weirdo
48. An Array Of Comics In Various Non-Superhero Genres
49. An Editorial Cartoonist’s Collection or Two
50. A Few Collections From New Yorker Cartoonists

Yeah, that’s kind of shameful, isn’t it? Even moreso when I admit that the Kirby and Lee/Kirby comics mentioned above I have in recent collected editions, and not as originally issued. Am I just a crappy comics fan?

(In my defense, I have owned a lot of other things on that list at some point in my life, but gotten rid of them when I realized I’d probably never read them again. But maybe the “never reading them again” part is also a problem. Aiee!)