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 looks at Scott Pilgrim, Superman visiting Cincinnati, and the Zeroids.

Last Sunday at noon (which I know isn't exactly considered date night in America but I've discovered if you want to see a movie on its opening weekend almost entirely alone, as well as being pretty much guaranteed a primo parking spot, a Sunday afternoon matinee is definitely the way to go), I caught a showing of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World* and as advertised it was something I'd never seen before at the movies, which is really saying something given the hodgepodge of genre collages I've previously enjoyed.  And while I am of an age where the love spasms of a bunch of dewy-eyed, wafer-thin would-be hipsters is usually not my cup of meat, I liked the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley just fine and may have liked the film version even more.

But then, I really liked the Speed Racer movie so you can't say I have my thumb on the pulse of America.  But I was still disappointed that not only did the movie "underperform" at the box office it did worse than all of the other comic book based movies which have been released this year so far, including The Losers, Kick-Ass and Jonah Hex.

There are lots of theories floating around as to why it "failed" but I have one of my own I'd like to float; maybe it's just most of the people who would like to see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World don’t go to movies; the movies come to them.  I can't confirm this factoid but  I remember hearing on NPR that only 10% of the American public actually go to the movies anymore; if that's true it's depressing as hell, but kind of puts the whole constantly declining circulation numbers of comic books into perspective, doesn't it?

In Superman #703, which ships on September 15th, the third part of J. Michael Straczynski's "Grounded" storyline, Superman will be pausing briefly in Cincinnati as part of his national walking tour.  I've only lived here for two years so I'm hardly a native of "Porkopolis" (I'm such a newbie until three minutes ago I had no idea this was actually a nickname for Cincinnati), but there are definitely lots of reasons why he should check us out.  I've previously pointed out that we're home to Union Terminal, which was the basis for the Hall of Justice on the Superfriends cartoon series (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Meanwhile In The Hall of Justice").  And of course we do have our own superhero, Shadow Hare (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Know It All or Know Nothing"), though I don’t know if "real-life superheroes" can rightly exist in a world that actually has real life superheroes.  

Personally, I hope he’s going to cross the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, built in 1866, (it was one of the blueprints for the Brooklyn Bridge which was built by Roebling’s son), one of America's great, underappreciated suspension bridges.

Joe Ahearn, Vice President in charge of Product Development at Captain Action Enterprises was good enough to send me a preview copy of Zeroids #1 which is shipping next week.  Reviewing comic books is usually outside the purview of this column (the same way that movie reviews usually are) but I'm making an exception because it's based on the Zeroids, the original robots from outer space.  For those who weren't there, there were those toy robots called Zeroids who, in the hierarchy of 1960's toys, rank right up there with Major Matt Mason and Captain Action himself.

I just finished reading it and my initial reaction was, what's with all the girls in skimpy outfits and zombies and Arab terrorist zombies (I still can't believe no one else has done this before), and more importantly, where the hell are the Zeroids?  But as I've said before (yes, I'm going to reference myself once more time, see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Everything Comes Back") I couldn't even begin to imagine how they were going to create a comic book series around them, especially one capable of selling in today's market.  And like it or not, this is probably exactly what you have to do if you want to sell the Zeroids to an audience who almost certainly have never heard of them.

But the important thing is, it's quite good.  Good enough for me to want to see the second issue, where I'll hopefully, finally see me some Zeroids.

.* Amongst the trailers shown with it was a fairly effective one for a movie called Devil but when the name M. Night Shyamalan flashed on the screen I swear the entire audience moaned in unison.  Okay, including me there were only four people in the audience but this was far better than what happened in the showing Super-Fly’s Tad Cleveland saw; there everybody laughed.

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.