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Tough Questions: If You Had to Move Tomorrow, Where Would You Move?

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Every week we ask everyone who hangs out around here to answer a tough question. This week:

If you had to move tomorrow, where would you move?

Rules are simple: get out of here. People are obsessed with movement and change. This week we ask everyone to pack their bags and move away. You’ve already got the wanderlust, where are you going?

Alex Russell

I love Chicago and I do not want to leave. It’s about to get to the oppressively hot part of the year here, though, and I’m one of the few people that hates the city in the summer more than I do in the winter. I moved here to get away from the 103 degree summers of the South, so I don’t appreciate when Hoth gets hot for a few months.

I’m not a beach guy, but I was in Santa Cruz, California on July 4th in 2008. This picture does not do it justice, but something about the weirdness of one of the last great beach towns in the country really, really stuck with me. Everyone was what you can only call “specific.” It’s not somewhere I could live for a decade, but there are worse places to turn 30, I think. There are definitely worse places.

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Jonathan May

New Orleans! I love everything about the city: the food, the people, the connection to the water, the art. Since my friend Tyler moved down five or more years ago, I stay with him a few times a year, and it’s always a magical time. I love how close a lot of things are; you can do a lot of great walking and people-watching. The museum has some real treasures in it, and their cafe puts golden raisins and dill in their chicken salad (so good!). But most of all, just being in the city, with the susurrus of the crowd along the sidewalk and in the street, you lose yourself in the beautiful history of people promenading along the boulevards slowly with coffee or booze, in no great hurry to see the world that day, just one beautiful slice of it. I’ll there for July 4th this year, and I can’t wait!

Andrew Findlay

This is confusing to me. Am I being chased? Has a job opportunity opened up? I would either go to Memphis, where rent is about thirty percent of what it is here, or to Paris, where things are awesome. D.C. is great and all, but it’s kind of an in-between city – not as cheap as some, not as astounding as others.

Brent Hopkins

I would probably move to Busan, South Korea if I had to move tomorrow. I have been missing the ocean recently and also generally having a metropolitan area to roam around in. I have been slowly making my way south in the peninsula may as well pull the band-aid off and go all the way south.

Gardner Mounce

San Francisco. Does it matter that I’ve never been? No. I’ve seen pictures and I’ve watched Full House, and everyone agrees that it’s the most beautiful city on earth. This is a picture of me in San Francisco, but as another person.

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See how happy I am?

When Superman Was a Communist: A Review of Superman: Red Son (2003)

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Brent Hopkins

Everyone needs a Comrade sometimes.

This comic comes from the Elseworlds series of comics from DC wherein slight changes in how the superheroes personalities and actions affect the world they live in. This particular story follows typical Superman over three issues. He has the power, speed, and boring invincibility he always has. If this was another tale of Superman insta-winning his conflicts through sheer unkillability it wouldn’t be worth writing about. However, there is much meat in this short arc.

The Story

The storyline divergence comes from Superman not landing in the United States, but instead landing in the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. As you can tell from the image, he goes hardcore communist and that changes the personality of Superman completely. Throughout the normal DC universe, Superman has always intervened in humanity’s affairs but tends to believe that humans deserve to have their own free will to make decisions. Red Son Superman eschews that silly freedom thing completely and takes over the communist regime using superpowers to convert nation after nation to communism. When you have a live-in god to protect you and all of your people from disasters it is amazing how good any flavor of government can be — and Superman is big brother. Eventually, the only country resisting communism is the United States, run by Lex Luthor.

The main conflicts in the series come from Lex Luthor trying to bring down Superman with all of the economic backing of a democratic America he has managed to keep from complete ruin without the constant intervention of Superman. This goes against the entire notion that Superman’s method is the only method of salvation in the world.

There are also internal conflicts within the Soviet Union, with a few usurpers to Superman’s throne (child Stalin for one). Batman and Wonder Woman both make appearances, though Batman is also a member of the Soviet Union this time around and Wonder Woman is the only person who can relate to being the nigh-unkillable leader of a nation with Superman.

Art

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The art in this is fantastic. It really makes you feel like Superman isn’t residing in America, which is critical to the premise. I actually felt like Superman looked and came off better as a Soviet monolith than he does as Captain “Almostmerica” because there is no question of why he doesn’t just conquer the world. Russia remains the same throughout with the artists making the technological advances feel as if they were made more by Russian minds than a more Western-influenced superpower.

Writing

The writing for Red Son focuses a lot less on the action of Superman, since he is seen as a god on Earth. That being said, there is a lot more focus on the questions most people have asked about what Superman is like when he isn’t tethered by the complete morality expected of the American Man of Steel. You never quite want Superman to win and his means of keeping dissent under control is more akin to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — forced brainwashing for those that rock the boat — than anything sane. This just leads to someone with ultimate power and more or less omniscient capabilities slowly feeding into their own quest to save humanity from themselves. This is portrayed amazingly well and still manages to include enough familiar faces to make sure the series doesn’t feel like it’s taking place on an entirely different world.

Worth the read and time to complete?

I was able to read all three issues of this in one sitting. Comics are naturally pretty quick reads no matter how long they are but I found the plot development in this to be almost perfect. Considering how little time the author and artists have to explain an entire world, a reader with a little background knowledge of Superman in general will feel like they are picking up right where another issue has finished. This is definitely worth the read and I would honestly like to see this as a Superman movie because it is captivating and everyone likes a nice “what if” story.

Brent Hopkins considers himself jack-o-all-trades and a great listener. Chat with him about his articles or anything in general at brentahopkins@gmail.com.

Image: Comic Vine

Tough Questions: What’s the Dumbest Thing You’ve Done to Yourself Lately?

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Every Monday we ask everyone who hangs out around here to answer a tough question. This week:

What’s the Dumbest Thing You’ve Done to Yourself Lately?

Rules are simple: everyone does stupid things and everyone does things that aren’t in their own best interest, but when have you last combined the two mistakes to form a delicious fusion mistake? You do it to yourself, you do, and that’s what really hurts.

Alex Russell

I went to Dallas last weekend on a last-minute trip. I booked the tickets just a few days before leaving because I originally wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to go or not. In my haste to do so I apparently booked a trip that left Chicago on February 20th and returned from Dallas on March 24th. I discovered this when the helpful woman at the Spirit Airlines desk alerted me to what month it is. Turns out that I don’t know what month it is, and Delta Airlines was happy to take $200 from me to fix my stupid mistake. I briefly considered lying when retelling this to make myself look better, but no, I sincerely just booked the stupidest plane ticket of all time. No need to sugarcoat it. I can’t believe I can dress myself (most days, kinda, debatable).

Scott Phillips

I’ve done some stupid stuff in my life. Most of it as a result of drinking. But since I’ve slowed that down and started to become an adult, my dumbest thing I did was probably go through this ridiculous Chicago winter without a hat and gloves. I got a new winter coat courtesy of my girlfriend and I never decided it would be necessary to cover my hands and head for the rest of winter. Which was really smart, because it’s February 26th and we STILL had subzero temperatures when I left the house this morning. Definitely not the brightest move in my book, but now it’s nearly March and I’m too stubborn to get them at this point.

Austin Duck

Recently, shit got real, and I started smoking again. Worst. Mistake. Ever.

Alex Marino

Thrillist put out a list of the best pizza places in Chicago by neighborhood and I was dumb enough to read all the idiot fucking Yelp reviews about them. Yelp reviews are the smallest step above right-wing blog comments sections except I rely on Yelp for restaurant ideas while comments sections are mostly avoidable. I read this one particular review that gave a place two stars because it wasn’t as good as the pizza they grew up with in NYC and what they had when they traveled to Italy. The person that wrote it should have their Yelp posting privileges revoked by court order, their computer thrown off the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the pieces of the computer baked into a thin crust pizza they can shove up their ass.

Brent Hopkins

I think if there was a way to win the tough question I actually may win this one. The dumbest thing I did to myself happened right before I came home from Korea and I was going to my new job to maybe meet my new employers. I was cleanly shaven and honestly fresh to death, as they say, but I had one problem… My nose. Specifically, my nose hairs had grown to unruly lengths as my trimmer had broken and I hadn’t picked up another one. I was alone in my apartment and — I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea — I decided that the best way to to handle the problem was to channel my inner military tactician and “burn the fields,” so to speak. I grabbed a lighter and proceeded to burn the nose hairs in one nostril and then, as the smell of seared hair filled my nasal passage, I dropped the lighter and said “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you an idiot?” Luckily, I managed to hit only the nostril and didn’t sear off my eyebrows, but I had the smell of cooked nose hairs for a few hours to remind me that spending that much time alone can be dangerous to your health.

Jonathan May

Of the myriad dumb things I’ve done to myself recently, I’d have to say pissing off the checkout lady at my regular Walgreens takes the cake. I simply asked if they had more iced tea, but after ten minutes of searching, she said she could look in the back. As I was on my way to school, I blurted out, “No thanks, I’m in a hurry.” I realized as I said it that I had officially pissed her off. A blizzard passed between us in those ten seconds following. Fuck, I thought. So now I have to go to Walgreens the night before, when all the weirdos are out.

Andrew Findlay

I recently went to a movie downtown. Finding parking in DC is usually mildly time-consuming, not terrible. I found a likely spot, left my car, and walked away as I pulled up the parking meter phone app. When I clicked “pay,” the program said “parking not available in this location at this time.” I have no idea why this information simply made me shrug my shoulders and keep walking to the movies, but it did. Come time to go home, my car is gone. My wife calls the number on the parking meter, and the dispatch lady tells us it was deposited at 10th and G, a block away from where we are standing. We walk down a ways, find it, and there’s a 100 dollar ticket for parking in a rush hour lane, a 100 dollar charge for the tow, and a pink sheet itemizing the damage the tow truck did to my car. You know the amazing scene in Forrest Gump where he tells Jenny that he’s not a smart man, but he knows what love is? The first part of that, only the first part, was playing on repeat in my head for a while after that night.

Mike Hannemann

The dumbest thing I’ve done to myself lately was to take what I like to refer to as an “unfamiliar bus.” The bus is terrifying to me, but I figured what the hell, I can do this. I decided that I would take a bus route home from work, rather than the train, so I could stop off at a Best Buy to get a new video game. I had the entire thing planned out hours beforehand (I Googled several routes) and knew what I was going to do. Then I ended up on the wrong bus. So I got off after one stop and got on another one. It was also the wrong bus. Five minutes later I realized this and got on another bus. Spoiler alert: It was not the right bus. After a total of five buses I got where I was going. The best part of the story is that, at 30, I got this lost trying to buy a Donkey Kong game. At the very least, I earned the adult equivalent of a participation ribbon.