Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett goes around the horn from the Starro figure to Wonder Woman’s wardrobe change (again) to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to upcoming comic launches.

I confess I haven’t been all that upset I wasn’t going to make it to San Diego again this year, until I learned one of this year’s exclusive SDCC figures was going to be Starro the Conqueror!  And of course I mean the actual article, not the starfish stuck to the face of the generic space barbarian that’s been running around the DC Universe in the pages of R.E.B.E.L.S.  Oh, I can understand what’s behind the change; the fear today’s audience would undoubtedly consider a giant echinoderm with an eyeball oozing out of it to be just plain “silly.”  Well I say if a giant starfish was good enough for Gardner Fox (and Grant Morrison for that matter) it should be plenty good enough for us.  Besides, just look at it; the original Starro was creepy as hell.

I’ve long since lost my passion for collecting toys but this is something I’ve wanted since I was a little kid but never dared believe would ever be made.  Now all they have to do to make me perfectly happy is produce a limited edition action figure based on Xotar’s future war machine from the cover of The Brave and the Bold #29 (a.k.a. the second appearance of the Justice League of America).

The furor over Wonder Woman’s wardrobe change has finally died down and I should probably leave things well enough alone but I feel compelled to stir the ashes at least a little so I can mention a piece on the subject that ran on the Slate website last week.  Wonder Woman’s Black Leggins: The most controversial superhero makeover since Robin got a new codpiece by Troy Patterson is an entirely sensible, remarkably non-hysterical reaction to the new outfit, plus the author refers to Princess Diana as “Ms. Woman” which I know isn’t original (the New York Times has been referring to the singer Meatloaf as “Mr. Loaf” for years) but it still struck me as funny.

So far it’s been a pretty disappointing summer when it comes to the movies; I had vague hopes The Sorcerer’s Apprentice might have the goods but it’s pretty clear if there’s going to be a non-animated hit this year it’s going to be Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.  I became aware of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels a lot later than most of my peers but I did enjoy them, even if I am roughly three decades too old to remotely care about the love troubles of a bunch of doe-eyed, wafer-thin would-be hipsters.  I would never have imagined it was possible to transfer them faithfully to the screen but if the trailers I’ve seen are any indication someone has done just that; it looks something I’ve never seen before.  Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World  has romance, comedy and action, in short, all of the elements of a great date night movie which means it’s likely to be a hit, a very palpable hit.  I have a feeling it’s going to fill a lot of seats, though I could be wrong; I liked Speed Racer.

There  are a lot of other subjects I could tackle this week, like, suddenly there being so many comics featuring the same characters, which is not to say I’m not looking forward to Captain America: The Fighting Avenger coming in January featuring scripts by Brain Clevinger, creator of Atomic Robo.  Then there’s the return of the Black Lanterns (hah, totally called it; I’ve got $20 that says we’ll be seeing Black Lantern #1 before the end of the year), the cancellation (again) of Atlas (at this point I say just give up and give Gorilla-Man his own on-going series; he’s your breakout star).

Not to the mention the sudden proliferation of new X-Men titles.  OK, sure, X-Women at least has art by Milo Manara (who ever thought that would happen?) and X-Campus is a good looking example of Euro-marvel that’s probably what a live action X-Men TV series would look like.  But yet another X-Men #1, one where they fight vampires?  I suppose we should all be grateful that Marvel fought the impulse and didn’t call this event “Twilight of the X-Men.”

As this column no doubt indicates I love the cheap, juvenile and frivolous parts of comic books and I make no apologies for that, but I like all kinds of comics.  I was a fan of American Splendor from the very first issue and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the passing of Harvey Pekar who was fond of saying “Comics are words and pictures.  You can do anything with words and pictures..  Hopefully his words will serve as a reminder that we could all do a lot more to make better comics--and comics better.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.