Justice Society of America #38

In the present day, the Darkness Engine activates, and every superhero and supervillain in the world gets depowered, leading to a bunch of deaths (Aquaman and everyone in Atlantis, plus all the Earth-based Green Lanterns) and a lot of injuries (Superman barely survives a steep fall). After that, all the world’s heroes are rounded up by the new Nazi regime. And in the future, Nazi media personalities are making small-talk before the special state execution of Batman to commemorate a visit by the Fuhrer. Mr. Terrific is pretending to collaborate with the Nazis in an attempt to acquire technology to knock out the Darkness Engine, and to complete the scheme, he needs to pay a visit to the infirmary to get medical supplies — and the easiest way there is to have someone beat him halfway into a coma. Are any of his ex-superhero friends willing to deliver the necessary beatdown?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a pretty grim story — okay, it’s a very, very grim story — but that’s to be expected from these kinds of time travel epics. There are several good surprises here and there, too. These Nazis are really unpleasant to have to read — I sure hope they pay us back by having a heck-of-a-lotta Nazi bludgeonings before this is all over.

The Guild #2

Cyd Sherman is on top of the world — her mostly-shallow punk rock boyfriend Trevor wants her to contribute more to his band, write some songs, help with marketing, you name it. No, wait, he’s gonna grab the credit for all that and continue to mostly ignore her. So it’s back to the fantasy world of “The Game,” where she meets some more friends, goes on some more quests, fights some zombies, and picks some bluebells. On one hand, playing the game is helping her stick up for herself more — on the other hand, she’s slacking off on some of her other duties… and her relationship with Trevor takes a surprise turn…

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs down. A bit more soap-opera than I’m interested in handling. I know that’s half the point of comic books, but I still have a hard time working up much enthusiasm for the evolution of Cyd’s neuroses.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #16

After a brief prelude where Batman teams up with — well, more like gets beat up by — the mind-controlled Teen Titans, we get to the main story for this issue — Bats and Wonder Woman try to find the egg-obsessed criminal mastermind Egg Head by looking for a bunch of strange eggs he seemed to be after. But Egg Head captures the heroes and their collected eggs and uses them to hatch out an elder god called Y’ggphu Soggoth — better known as the ridiculously silly Silver Age Wonder Woman villain Egg Fu.

Verdict: Thumbs up. How ’bout this — this series takes two of the DC Universe’s biggest names and pits them against two of their dumbest foes — a bizarrely racist egg (but now portrayed much more like the character from the “52” miniseries, as simply a weird egg-like villain) and a guy who hasn’t really appeared anywhere since he was played by Vincent Price in the ’60s Batman series. And they actually make it work out fine. Egg Head mostly stays in the background directing the action and acting demented, with Egg Fu showing up at the end as the heavy hitter. It was a lot better than I was expecting from the cover, honestly.

Wonder Woman #43

Diana is stuck in Washington, which is cut off from the rest of the world, as a monstrous alien civilization makes war on it. It’s an all-woman invasion that survives by scavenging a hundred women from each world they visit before they unleash a horde of semi-organic snakes on the planet to eat everything biological and convert it into a goo that is used as both food and spaceship fuel. Oh, and the aliens’ leader is Wonder Woman’s aunt, Astarte, kidnapped from the Amazons when she and Hippolyta were just babies. While Achilles, Etta Candy, Steve Trevor, Wondy’s gorilla bodyguards, and the DMA try to get control of the situation, Astarte reveals that even more of her alien fleet is on the way — and she unveils her secret weapon: her own daughter.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action, good intrigue, better characterization than I was expecting, and an excellent backstory for Astarte. And Wondy’s new cousin, Theana, makes the best mirror-opposite Wonder Woman I’ve seen outside of, well, DC’s antimatter universe. And beside Gail Simone’s storytelling, there’s also Nicola Scott’s downright brilliant artwork, too.

I had a pretty good haul for Free Comic Book Day on Saturday — I hope you did, too. Here’s what I picked up…

Love and Capes #13

A lot of the comics you get on Free Comic Book Day are there to promote upcoming comics and crossover events, but this isn’t “Love and Capes: The Free Comic Book Day Edition” — this is the actual 13th full issue of “Love and Capes,” not filler, not a backup story, not a snippet, not a pinup book, and Thom Zahler put it out there completely free, which is pretty danged awesome.

In the previous issue of “Love and Capes,” Abby and Mark (better known to the world as the high-flying hero Crusader) got married after a long, whirlwind romance. This issue, they wrap up their honeymoon in Hawaii, get used to married life, work out a way to hide Mark’s wedding ring when he’s on-duty so supervillains don’t realize he’s gotten married, and work through the gossip about their own wedding reception.

Verdict: Thumbs up. “Love and Capes” is an incredibly fun comic, and it was fantastic to get it for free. Heck, I think there’s a pretty good chance that this was the best comic produced for this year’s Free Comic Book Day.

Iron Man: Supernova

This is basically an extra story from the “Marvel Adventures” comics series. Iron Man and Nova get called out after a report that Red Ghost has escaped from prison. His Super-Apes — Mikhlo the superstrong gorilla, Peotr the telekinetic orangutan, and Igor the shapeshifting baboon — are being held at a zoo-like facility, where Igor appears to have reformed — he now loves candy much more than he loves Red Ghost. Well, who can blame him? Red Ghost, however, succeeds in getting Mikhlo and Peotr to break loose. Do Iron Man and Nova have a chance of stopping Red Ghost and his Super-Apes when one of their allies is an ape that loves to goof off and shapeshift?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice story. No, wait — it’s a very nice story that’s crammed full of apes! Igor’s wacky shapeshifting is a lot of fun. Paul Tobin is also the writer on “Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes,” which is already one of my favorites.

Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom/Magnus, Robot Fighter

Dark Horse is bringing these two semi-classic comics back. First, we get Doctor Solar, a scientist transformed into a god during a nuclear accident. Unfortunately, his transformation also created a number of random space-time anomalies, one of which empowers an abusive drunk who’s way more likely than Doctor Solar to beat up people who get in his way. Second, we get Magnus, a man who lives in the year 4000. He’s been trained in a special kind of martial arts that lets him break steel with his bare fists, so he goes out and beats up criminal robots. His allies include a robot called 1A and the wealthy Leeja Clane.

Verdict: Ehh, I’m completely ambivalent. Jim Shooter’s stories seem fine, but both Solar and Magnus have always seemed like characters that don’t make sense when you remove them from the cheesy 1960s comics where they originated. We’ll see if Dark Horse can get ’em to work out.

Artifacts #0

Top Cow’s new crossover is going to focus on bringing together 13 mystical artifacts in an attempt to destroy the world. This issue takes the form of an unseen villain feeding information to a captured Aphrodite IX, a green-haired cyborg assassin, about the Witchblade, the Darkness, the Angelus, and ten other quasi-magical items that keep Top Cow’s superhero universe spinning.

Verdict: Well, it’s free. But other than that, it’s a promo for a crossover that won’t be published ’til July.

Owly: Breakin’ the Ice

Well, they had this on the table, and I’d been looking for an excuse to check out this series… but it turns out this one isn’t from this year’s FCBD comics — it’s from all the way back in 2006! Andy Runton‘s cartoon about a lonely but loving owl is almost completely wordless, making it a great comic for very young readers. In this story, set during a cold winter at the local pond, Owly and his friends Wormy and Scampy try to figure out how to make friends with a flock of migrating geese.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very, very cute, and outstanding cartooning. I wish I’d realized I hadn’t picked up this year’s free Owly comic, but I’m still glad I got to read this one. Parents, you should definitely consider this series for pre-readers.

Hey, hey, it’s the First of May! Free Comic Book Day starts today! Or words something to that effect…

I’ve been so distracted by work and other duties that I completely forgot how close we were to Free Comic Book Day. How close are we? It’s now! Right now! Everyone panic and run around!

If you live in Lubbock, Star Comics at 2014 34th Street has you covered. They’ve got comics already bagged up and ready to hand out — two different selections, one for all-ages readers, with lots of great kid-friendly comics (but there are lots of great all-ages comics out there, so grownups, don’t be shy about picking that one up), and one for the fanboys (and fangirls), with comics produced by Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, IDW, and others.

If you’re reading this but you’re not from Lubbock — don’t worry, your local comic shop is probably giving out free comics, too. Go check ’em out!

And if you’re not familiar with Free Comic Book Day, don’t worry, it’s easy to participate. Just head out to your friendly neighborhood comic shop (don’t bug grocery stores, convenience stores, or regular bookstores — this is an event just for comic shops), and see what they have available.

Remember, you can’t just pick any comic off the rack and demand to get it for free. You’re not going to get a free copy of Action Comics #1, no matter how much you try to rules-lawyer your way around things. Comics publishers put out special editions of their comics specifically for Free Comic Book Day — usually something promoting some of their other comics or an upcoming comic event. You’ll be able to get the special FCBD comics for free — not the other comics in the store.

Some stores will let you have only one. Some will let you have several. Some will let you pick which comic you get. Some will give you one at random. Some will have other special offers in the store. Some won’t. Ya rolls yer dice, ya takes yer chances.

Whatever you do, get there early. Supplies are limited, and once they’re gone, there ain’t no more left. If you get there just before closing time, you probably won’t get any free comics at all. Get there early so you don’t miss out.

And fer cryin’ out loud, once you get your free comic, take a walk around the store, and see if there are any other comics, games, books, or toys you want to buy. You’ll look like a weirdo if you run in, grab your free comic, then run out like a freak. Be neighborly, people.

I don’t know about y’all, but this has been an absolutely world-class rotten week. Everything that could go right went wrong, and everything that could go wrong went worse. I’ve got my doubts that the weekend will be much a break, either. And then it’s right back to the office for another five days of world-class rotten. So today, even more than most Fridays, I really need some FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

This week, we’re heading to the insanely brilliant Nextwave #1 from March 2006, by Warren Ellis, Stuart Immonen, and Wade von Grawbadger, as Elsa Bloodstone unleashes on the bad guys… with an electric guitar!

Any fight where someone uses a guitar to make a jeep explode… that’s the kind of thing that has a chance of making my weekend feel a little bit better…

Power Girl #11

It’s the next-to-the-last issue of this great series (Oh, sure, the series name will continue, but without Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, or Amanda Conner — and with one of the worst comics writers in history taking over the title), and it just keeps getting better and better.

The Ultra-Humanite has transplanted his brain into Terra’s body. Big deal, right? Power Girl is a lot stronger than Terra is. But wait, no, Terra could crack New York City apart with ease, and when it comes to beating PeeGee up with boulders or lava, Ultra’s up for that, too. Can Power Girl find Terra’s brain? Can she find someone to put the brains back where they belong?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Pages and pages and pages of knock-down-drag-out fightin’, all of it awesome, mixed in with actual smart dialogue and strategy and characterization. Ultra-Humanite/Terra makes for a great global-level threat, and Power Girl breaks out some serious brutality and badassery. And as always, brilliant and beautiful artwork by Amanda Conner. Why she’s not on the A-list of every comics company on the planet, I have no idea…

Tiny Titans #27

Our entire focus of this issue is on Raven, her dad Trigon, and Kid Devil. Raven gets stuck babysitting Kid Devil and brings him home with her to hang out at her house for a bit. And her dad, a red-skinned, horned demon, is completely won over by the pint-sized, red-skinned, horned demon. Trigon keeps assuming Kid Devil is a harmless little tyke, which leads to several amusing incidents of minor injuries and property damage.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Just three main characters this time, and it’s all funny, and it’s all cute. I didn’t expect it to work so well, but it turned out just fine.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #1

Not sure why they’ve started re-numbering this series, but here we are anyway. The Avengers have gone to talk to everyone from the UN to the FBI to S.H.I.E.L.D. to the White House, making their case for everyone to let them serve as an independent, unaffiliated team. Meanwhile, an unknown party has begun creatively vandalizing famous statues around the world — adding extra arms to Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue and a set of giant wings for the Statue of Liberty. Who’s behind it? Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants, who are now threatening to start blowing up buildings, too. Can the team take out the insanely powerful Master of Magnetism when some of their most powerful members have to be off pleading the team’s case to the authorities?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very nice story with a wonderfully clever ending and great character work. There are lots of great moments for characterization here — Black Widow’s strong disagreements with the team’s decisions, Sue Storm’s homesick phone call back to the Fantastic Four, the struggle between Nova and Thor for the last donut. It’s outstanding stuff, and not the sort of thing you expect to see in an all-ages comic.

I really enjoyed Maxo Romero’s post last week about the current grim-and-gritty trend in comics. It’s too good to excerpt, so go read it, then come back. I’ll wait for ya, don’t worry.

(clips toenails, prepares Bruschetta, builds a stereo cabinet)

Hey, you’re back!

Well, I agreed with a lot of what Maxo had to say. I haven’t seen “Kick-Ass,” and I probably never will. I’m an official member of the “Mark Millar Licks Goats” anti-fan club — and if he wrote the comic version of “Kick-Ass,” I wasn’t much interested in watching the movie, either. The fact that the movie is a flop is the type of thing that puts the sunshine in my orange juice.

I really am expecting Marvel’s “Heroic Age” and DC’s “Brightest Day,” despite their promises of happier, more fun comics, to very quickly devolve back into random bloodletting, cheap and easy character death/resurrection, and general sociopathy.

I hope that readers will react unhappily to this — getting sold a specific bill of goods and picking up something that’s completely different isn’t a good way to keep business healthy in most industries — but I don’t know that the readers will actually react that way. After all, the “Kick-Ass” comic sold very, very well, and it wasn’t just Millar and Joe Quesada buying extra copies.

The reason we get comics that read like they were written by sociopaths is pretty much because we’ve got sociopaths writing comics and sociopaths running the comics companies. If Mark Millar could convince Joe Quesada that he could sell a series that featured Spider-Man raping a baby, the series would get approval in a hot minute. If Judd Winick could convince Dan DiDio to let him take over “Tiny Titans” and turn it into the angst-and-murderfest that the mainstream “Teen Titans” comic is, there’s nothing that’d stop ’em from making it so.

But of course, as should be obvious to anyone familiar with this blog, I read a lot of horror comics, with a lot of violence, gore, death, and dismemberment. I was a fan of “Blackest Night,” which was chock full o’ death and blood and gore. I’m a fan of other comics — and fiction in general — that features violence, sex, cussin’, outright blasphemy, and worser stuff. Am I a hypocrite? Well, I reckon I am, but not about this.

Context really is the big thing here. And not just context-within-story (which is important, but can be bent like crazy in the service of smacktastic awesomeness), but context-within-character. Does Spider-Man work as a character who’d make a deal with the devil? Does Deadman work as a character who’s not dead? Does Prometheus work as a character who’d let an utter schmuck like Green Arrow get the drop on him?

And context-within-artform, too. I accept levels of violence within horror and alt-superhero comics that are entirely inappropriate within mainstream superhero comics. I can deal with mutilation and child death in comics like “Umbrella Academy” or “Crossed,” but not in anything with “Justice League” in the title. You see a title set in the mainstream Marvel or DC universes, and it should be expected that it comes with an unspoken promise that you won’t get something awash in pointless gore and contempt for the audience. Sure, there are exceptions — you can’t have “Blackest Night” without zombies. You can’t have the Punisher without mass murder. You can’t have “Nextwave” without snarking at comics readers. You can’t have Spider-Man without the death of Gwen Stacy.

I’m not saying DC and Marvel comics should all be kid-friendly. There’s a place for all-ages work and a place for more mature work and a place for work that’s drenched in violence, sex, and adult sensibilities — yes, even within mainstream superhero comics. But creators and publishers have to be mature enough to grasp what context they’re writing for — and far too many either can’t do that or are unwilling to make the effort. They’re not interested in writing stories — they’re interested in inflicting their psychoses on the readers.

I’ve got my problems with Alan Moore, but he writes within context. He can write violent comics like “Watchmen” and “From Hell” and “V for Vendetta,” but he knows that you write differently for “Tom Strong” and “Top 10” (which still had death and violence that made sense within the context of the TV police procedural). He knows who he’s writing for, and he respects the characters, the story, and his readers.

Writing within context is something that mature, competent writers do. Writing any blasted thing because “Oy, it’d be radikal and exxxxxtreme!” is something that immature hacks like Mark Millar, Jeph Loeb, and Brian Michael Bendis do.

Is there a solution for that? Heck if I know. You can’t talk sense to Quesada or DiDio — they both believe they were put on Earth to publish bad comic books. But maybe the only real solution is time — high quality work has a tendency to last — people remember it, recommend it, and help ensure that it sticks around. Low quality work is eventually either forgotten or held up for justified contempt and derision. How well is Rob Liefeld regarded today? That’s what Millar and his cohorts have to look forward to.

American Vampire #2

Both of our linked stories in this issue focus on our heroes’ transitions from humans to the undead. In 1926, Pearl Jones dies in the hospital after getting attacked by a bunch of Hollywood vamps and wakes up only to learn from Skinner Sweet that she is, like him, a new kind of vampire, an evolutionary step up from the ones who created her. What can she do? Other than survive in the sunlight, Skinner keeps that a secret from Pearl — but he does leave her a gift — the handsome Hollywood actor who lured her to the vampires in the first place. The second story, written by Stephen King, is set in the last years of the Wild West. Notorious outlaw Skinner Sweet has been gunned down by the law — but only after contact with a vampire’s blood. Now Skinner’s in an uncomfortable spot for a vampire — buried underground, unable to get out — and a few years later, after the vampire businessmen dam up the river, under an extra 60 feet of water. How can even the undead survive a couple decades in those conditions?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Oh mercy, thumbs up. Both of the stories are wonderful horror romps, and as much fun as the first issue was, this second issue makes it clear that this series is gonna be a must-buy. Let’s talk art — Rafael Albuquerque adapts his familiar superhero style very well to the world of vampires — our first glimpses of Pearl and Skinner in full bloodsucker glory are just awesome. And the look of the artwork actually changes from the story in the ’20s to the one in the Old West, credit to both Albuquerque and colorist Dave McCaig.

B.P.R.D.: King of Fear #4

The King of Fear, a skull-faced, semi-mechanical, black-glowing wannabe-world conqueror, has Abe Sapien, Andrew Devon, and their team of B.P.R.D. operatives trapped underground, surrounded by frogs and proto-humans and giant robots, as the King makes his plans to destroy the world and present it, wrapped up in a bow, to Abe, who he sees as the next stage in the evolution of life. Meanwhile, Liz Sherman has been taken into a vision of the apocalyptic future by the ghost of Memnan Saa. Is there anyone left who can save everyone?

Verdict: I’m gonna have to thumbs this one down — and for a second issue in a row! As I’ve said before, this series has gone on for so long now that we need a lot more detailed recaps of what’s happening and who all the players are — and not just the heroes, but the villains, too. Other than that, the story seems straightforward and credible… or at least as far as I know, since I can’t remember who all the villains are…

Crossed: Family Values #1

Here’s a new series set in the “Crossed” universe, this time starting at the same time as the initial outbreak of the insanely homicidal super-virus. Our lead character now is Adaline Pratt, eldest daughter of a very large and very wealthy horse-ranching family. It seems like a fairly happy life — except that dad is an authoritarian rageoholic with a fondness for child abuse and molestation. So, ya know, not so much of an idyllic existence and more of a barely-suppressed domestic hell on the verge of exploding. And that’s even before the army of virus-driven psycho killers show up and try to kill everyone at the ranch…

Verdict: Ya know, I’m really not sure yet. I like Adaline as a character, but when the leader of the survivors is a moral monster like Joe Pratt, you’ve got the potential for a really deeply unpleasant story ahead of you. I’ll need another issue or two before I’ll be able to decide whether or not I want to deal with it.

Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #2

Hercules is dead, as are Zeus and Hera, so Athena declares herself the new queen of the Olympian gods, and she wants Amadeus Cho to be her mortal champion on Earth. Not everyone is happy with that — most of all Amadeus, who doesn’t trust Athena a bit. Her fellow gods also have some objections — Apollo steps forward to challenge her, and the gods start picking the mortal proxies who will fight for them. Athena picks Amadeus, Apollo chooses the late Ares’ son, who is now Phobos, the demigod of fear, Poseidon chooses Namor, Artemis chooses Skaar, Nyx, the goddess of night chooses Nightmare, and Hebe picks the temporarily Hulk-less Bruce Banner. Three powerhouses vs. one powerhouse and a couple of smart guys? This is gonna be a pretty one-sided fight, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, in the backup “Agents of Atlas” story, Venus and Namora are settling Hercules’ estate. They visit an island orphanage only to meet up with a horrific, multi-headed, tentacled dragon. But they soon learn that the dragon is actually a little girl with a bunch of dragon-headed limbs, and that the whole island is a refuge Hercules set up for young, orphaned monsters, both growing children and a number of terminally-ill kids. With orders from the Olympus Group to shut down Hercules’ holdings, can Namora and Venus find a way to make everyone happy?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The first story was just fine — lots of exciting and clever action. But the real winner here is the backup story. It’s a very sweet, sad, genuinely touching story. And it’s cuter’n heck, too — I thought the giant spider pulling the little centaur girl in her little red wagon was really adorable, though I’ve got a bit of a twisted sense of cute. Still, it’s definitely worth picking up.

Joe the Barbarian #4

Joe’s slowly going into diabetic shock and hallucinating a whole fantasy world based on his own home — or is he? He’s traveling with Jack, a humanoid rat, and Smoot, the world’s tallest dwarf, when they meet up with a city full of technological magicians. The magicians have a bunch of weapons that could be used to fight King Death and the Deathcoats, but they’ve actually taken sacred vows of cowardice. They offer the travelers guidance for the journey ahead, but King Death’s armies soon attack. A lone apprentice magician, Zyxy, offers her aid and the use of her flying machine to help them all escape — but are they really escaping? Or just plummeting?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Exciting stuff going on here — and it’s pretty funny, too. The magicians’ idea of magic runs toward inventing cigarette lighters and batteries, which they treat as superstitiously as they can. Zyxy looks like she’ll be a fun hero, as well, and a great addition to Joe’s motley band.

The Brave and the Bold #33

I decided to give this one another shot. And I’m gonna spoil the whole story for you, so if you don’t like that, ya better start runnin’ now.

You’ll notice the Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl walking around on the cover — this is a story set some time in the past. Zatanna wakes up in the night after experiencing a prophetic vision. She calls Wonder Woman, and they both seek out Batgirl to convince her… to go dancing with them? All three have a long night visiting as many clubs as they can, then Wonder Woman starts dropping hints about… Oracles. She talks about the mythological oracles who could see the future, but who could do nothing to prevent bad futures without making things even worse. And we finally get the big twist — Zatanna is an oracle who just foresaw that Barbara was about to be shot and paralyzed by the Joker, and the entire outing was to give her one more night of dancing and having fun.

Verdict: Well, now, let’s talk about this one a little. On the one hand, we’ve got Cliff Chiang and his always outstanding, gorgeous artwork. We’ve got some nice interplay between the trio of heroines during their pub crawl. We’ve got some nice bits of humor here and there. Those are on the plus side. Unfortunately, the negatives are all on the other side.

The story from Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke” has been told and retold multiple times, but J. Michael Straczynski turns in the only one I’ve ever seen that really gets right down in the muck and wallows in Barbara’s fast-approaching shooting. Reading this just makes you feel dirty, like you’re sharing headspace with JMS’s faintly sadistic pleasures.

And there’s also the bizarre anachronisms of the story. The events from “The Killing Joke” took place quite a few years ago, as the DC Universe reckons — but this story features a prominent iPhone joke and a scene where the three heroines go to a karaoke bar and sing Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” This comes across as just ridiculously inept, and it serves to rip you right out of the flow of the story.

So yeah, a thumbs down. The only thing that keeps it from being multiple thumbs down is the sheer awesomeness of Chiang’s artwork.

Straczynski is about to take over “Wonder Woman” in a few months. Judging by how awful his run on “The Brave and the Bold” has been, I can’t be the only person who’s dreading how this is going to turn out, right?

Have you ever wondered how cool it would be if we ever contacted an alien civilization? Dr. Stephen Hawking has wondered that, and as one of the smartest people on the planet, he’d just as soon we stopped wondering about that.

The aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

(snip)

Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Hawking also says he thinks there must be intelligent life out there somewhere because, out of the entire vast universe, with hundreds of billions of possible planets out there, it’s mathematically unlikely that Earth would be the only planet on which advanced life would appear. I’m not so sure of that — I’m a skeptic about such things in general, and if we’ve never managed to find proof it exists, I’d reckon on it not actually existing out there.

But if we expect that sapient life would evolve the way it has on Earth — if we expect that an intelligent alien species would share some of our characteristics? Yeah, time to shut down SETI, hunker down, and hope the space monsters don’t notice us. We can just suck all those old TV and radio signals back, right?