My Fowl-Weather Friend

Let me share my story.

In 2004, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. She was diagnosed on a Wednesday, and her surgery was a couple days later, on Friday. I never realized until then just how close I came to losing her. She's the Iris to my Barry Allen; the Sue to my Ralph Dibney. We'd been married for 14 years. My wife wanted to have kids since the second after I proposed. I said "I do", she said, "Let's get crackin' mister!" When she came out of surgery, she told me she wanted to adopt. We held hands tight. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

By October 2010, we were no closer to being a blended family than we were in August of 2004, after her surgery. 

Hopeless, we were about to give up. We decided not to update with the agency we were working with. After Christmas that year, I posted a status on Facebook.

"I want to be a Dad in 2011." 

Remember, we were not with any adoption agency at the time.

A friend saw my post.

"There's this boy..." A family was set to adopt our son. One of their natural children had just been diagnosed. The diagnosis set them on a very expensive path. They couldn't adopt our son.

January 3rd, 2011, I met my son for the first time. I was introduced to him as "Papa Dave". He was here from Kiev, Ukraine on a hosting program. We spent the final week of his three week visit together. After that week, my wife and I knew he was our son.

We left for Kiev to bring our on home September 11, 2011. He came home for good October 23rd, 2011.

Mission accomplished!

(Our son introduced us to our second son; our second son introduced us to our daughter. I am blessed that my children chose us.)

I took a number of comforts for the trip. I took my Bible. I took Alex Ross' Justice. I took my buddy Bill Halliar's Evilman. I took Wes Molebash's You'll Have That. I took Teen Titans: Year One. I took The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #1 - "Bottle of The Planets" - which is an awesome The World's Finest team-up of Batman and Superman.

I took pictures of me reading in the "library" in our apartment in Kiev. 

I picked up a copy of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl. 

I devoured that book on the trip. I was lucky to find an English book store in the subway mall under Independence Square in Kiev. I bought and devoured the second and third book in the series. I read the comic book adaptation of the first novel. It's okay. Disney just released the trailer for the film adaptation due next August 9th. It looks pretty good from the preview. Dame Judi Densch does the voiceover on the trailer. Kenneth Branagh is directing. He directed the first Thor film.   

As you can imagine, I hope it's a spectacular adaptation.

I consider Artemis a good friend. I hope Disney and Kenneth Branagh do Artemis right.

The Blog at the End of the Day!

This is The Blog at the End of the Day! Whenever you're actually reading this, just know that I sat down at the end of the day to share some thoughts.

I didn't read very many comic books during the '90's. Cathy and I got married, May 6th, 1990. I had just started a job in the mailroom of a railroad company. I moved up into the accounting department. That didn't work out so well. I moved on to another mailroom. That didn't work out too well either. I was struggling to find the right fit. That was when Cathy told me that I had a face voice for radio. I took a course in broadcasting. Cathy and I drove out to the class together. She'd read or do needlepoint or go to the mall, while I was in class. One of my classmates was a fellow geek. He was excited about this storyline called The Death of Superman. One night he came in with a box of trading cards he had just bought. The cards were for that storyline. He was telling us all that he was blown away that two years before, DC Comics and the creative team behind the storyline had begun planning it all.

I'm not sure if it still works out that way, but I knew what he was talking about. A comic book takes time to write, edit, pencil, ink, letter, color and print before it hits store shelves. I may have missed a step or two, there, but you understand what I'm getting at. It's a process.

The '90's had it's gimmicks. The Death of Superman. Batman faced Knightfall, where Bruce Wayne's back was broken by Bane and a character named Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley) took over, not Dick Grayson. Oliver Queen was blown up and his son took over as Green Arrow, not his ward, Roy Harper who was Speedy. Or maybe he had become Arsenal. Wally West, the former Kid Flash was still The Flash. Barry Allen had made the ultimate sacrifice in 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths. During The Death of Superman, one of the four replacements, Cyborg-Superman, Hank Henshaw destroyed Coast City, paving the way for the Emerald Twilight storyline over in Green Lantern. Hal Jordan snapped over the destruction of his hometown and pretty much turned on the Green Lantern Corps. He became the villain Parallax, Kyle Rayner took over as Earth's Green Lantern. Green Lantern back-up Guy Gardner became Warrior. Green Lantern John Stewart was off-world somewhere.

There were two comic books that I followed regularly during the '90's. One was The Batman Adventures, a tie-in comic book to Batman: The Animated Series.

The other was Starman.

There was a third book. It was only eighteen issues and an Annual. It was Impact Comics' The Comet. 

DC Comics had licensed a number of the Archie Red Circle characters. Google, Wikipedia and Comic Vine can help you get more background if you're curious.

The Comet was re-imagined by [edit] Tom Lyle with Mark Waid. It's been awhile since I've read The Comet. Tonight, I am digging all eighteen issues, the Impact! Special, the annual, the first three issues of The Crusaders and The Crucible mini-series to re-read. I remember the book being a lot of fun to read. The surprise twist near the end of the run was a real gut-punch. 

I'm going to star re-reading The Comet tonight in honor of artist Tom Lyle's birthday.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.