Direct Current #22/Box Office 1992

ITEM!  Comics Reader - Reading Comics #81 "Essential Wolverine Vol. 2 #3"
Concluding my look at a massive collection of classic Wolverine comics, including the work Marc Silvestri was doing just before he helped launch Image.  Includes lots of Lady Deathstrike!

Read more here.

ITEM!  Comics Reader - Batman Incorporated #4
The latest from Grant Morrison's Dark Knight involves a lot of vigilantes but reminds the reader that at the heart of this story is the relationship between Bruce Wayne and his son Damian, who just so happens to have Talia Head, daughter of Ra's al Ghul, as his mother.  This is significant because Morrison has chosen Talia to be the big bad at the end of his sprawling saga.

Read more here.

ITEM!  Tony Laplume - Orbit: Mikhail Prokhorov gets press
In some ways this is just another plug for a comic book.  But this one's written by your very own Scouring Monk.  Turns out that publisher Bluewater has been getting the news out on this baby, and here I share what that looks like, which includes someone pointing out my factual errors...

Read more here.

ITEM!  Star Trek Fan Companion - Enterprise 2x22 "Cogenitor"
Enterprise's second season sports another new classic in Trip's biggest blunder as he unsuccessfully navigates the tricky cultural differences of a species Archer has just made successful first contact with.

Read more here.

ITEM!  Star Trek Fan Companion - Top 50 Star Trek Characters
Most of the characters I list here were series regulars who made their mark across a wide assortment of episodes and movies.  Some of them are memorable recurring characters.  Some of them are villains!  See where your favorites fell!

Read more here.

SOAP BOX

1992 was a pretty good year at the movies, too, with a lot of late '80s developments still working their way through the Hollywood system:

1. Aladdin ($217 mil)
While Beauty and the Beast was more critically acclaimed, Aladdin was the bigger hit, and made a more lasting impression, especially with the, no pun intended, ingenious voice casting of Robin Williams, which helped pave the way for name actors participating in future animated films.

2. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York ($173 mil)
Little kid gets left behind by his entire family...again!  Incredibly, it still works.  But history proved that it should have ended here.  Macaulay Culkin's participation wisely did, at least.

3. Batman Returns ($162 mil)
Tim Burton indulges his Goth instincts, makes the Penguin the star of the movie, making him as thoroughly unpleasant as possible.  Still, Catwoman was pretty awesome, and Christopher Walken is featured in a Batman movie.  If not for Tim Burton, would that have happened?

4. Lethal Weapon 3 ($144 mil)
Rene Russo joins the cast, wisely grounding Mel Gibson's crazy, making it that much more possible for the series to continue.  I would argue that Gibson needs a full family in the next one.  Although that clearly didn't work in real life...

5. A Few Good Men ($141 mil)
Jack Nicholson in one of his iconic performances steals the movie from young upstarts Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, inspires the TV series JAG, where no one ever calls to mind Jack Nicholson, much less the character Bud Roberts.  Although seriously, who doesn't love Bud Roberts?

6. Sister Act ($139 mil)
Agreeing to do Hollywood Squares was clearly the worst decision Whoopi Goldberg ever made.  Her career never recovered.  At one point she was the one making the funny rather than being the punchline.  No, seriously!

7. The Bodyguard ($121 mil)
Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston must have visited Whoopi's house or something, because they seemed to have fallen down the same rabbit hole.  I suspect Shadoe Stevens was involved.

8. Wayne's World ($121 mil)
Mike Myers has at least three iconic characters to his credit, and this is one of them.  Can you name the other two?

9. Basic Instinct ($117 mil)
Sharon Stone achieved immortality by crossing her legs.  No, seriously.

10. A League of Their Own ($107 mil)
I know that there are a lot of female stars in this movie that is most definitely a movie that stars a lot of female stars, but I still think of it as Tom Hanks essentially auditioning to play Woody.  "There's no crying in baseball!"

Other notable releases: Unforgiven ($101 mil; Clint Eastwood makes perhaps the last universally beloved Western), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle ($88 mil; in the '80s you could have a movie that no one remembers in the top ten; in the '90s you could float just below it; that's progress!), Under Siege ($83 mil; Steven Siegal in his most famous movie, although if you remember he was already somehow a star before it, meaning that a lot of people had already condoned his hairstyle), Patriot Games ($83 mil; Harrison Ford inherits the Jack Ryan series, ushers in another decade of hits), Bram Stoker's Dracula ($82 mil; Gary Oldman in one of his earliest radical reinventions), White Men Can't Jump ($76 mil; Wesley Snipes can't maintain his career, and Woody Harrelson improbably can), The Last of the Mohicans ($75 mil; Daniel Day-Lewis starts to get warmed up portraying historical Americans; it should be noted that he is not himself American), Boomerang ($70 mil; watch Eddie Murphy's grosses diminish!), Scent of a Woman ($63 mil; Al Pacino is not the good luck charm for Chris O'Donnell that Dustin Hoffman was for Tom Cruise), The Crying Game ($62 mil; made Neil Jordan a commodity), Far and Away ($58 mil; Cruise and Nicole Kidman make another movie together, and live happily ever after), Honey, I Blew Up the Kid ($58 mil), Death Becomes Her ($58 mil; Meryl Streep indulges her periodic urge to have some fun), Beethoven ($57 mil; about a dog, not the composer; becomes a franchise), Forever Young ($55 mil; stars Mel Gibson, written by J.J. Abrams), Alien 3 ($55 mil), My Cousin Vinny ($52 mil; Marisa Tomei in her breakout performance), Sneakers (51 mil; not about sneakers), The Mighty Ducks ($50 mil; inspired a franchise and an NHL team!), Malcolm X ($44 mil; Spike Lee's best film), A River Runs Through It ($43 mil), Encino Man ($40 mil; the answer to: how the heck did Pauly Shore become famous in the first place?), Universal Soldier ($36 mil; Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren could not make a hit between them, but they could inspire a franchise), Honeymoon in Vegas ($32 mil), The Lawnmower Man (32 mil), 3 Ninjas ($29 mil; inspired a franchise), The Muppet Christmas Carol ($27 mil; adapting literary works did not ultimately work out for the Muppets), Candyman ($25 mil; the 90's did not launch a successful horror franchise until the horror spoof Scream, which itself inspired a horror spoof franchise), The Cutting Edge ($25 mil; best figure skating movie ever!), Ferngully: The Last Rainforest ($24 mil), Hoffa ($24 mil; Geraldo discovered Hoffa's hidden tomb...or did he?!?), Toys ($23 mil; aside from other things, one of LL Cool J's early acting appearances), Thunderheart ($22 mil; Val Kilmer makes a movie I could later use as a reference to the great comic book series Scalped), The Babe ($17 mil; John Goodman as Babe Ruth), Buffy the Vampire Slayer ($16 mil; safe to say that Luke Perry probably inspired a lot of later cinematic vampire developments), Cool World ($14 mil; apparently not quite the success of Roger Rabbit), Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth ($12 mil), Glengarry Glen Ross ($10 mil), Chaplin ($9 mil; Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin), Christopher Columbus: The Discovery ($8 mil), Mississippi Masala ($7 mil), 1492: Conquest of Paradise ($7 mil; audiences did not particularly care that this was the 500th anniversary of Columbus discovering America, or whatever it was that happened), Reservoir Dogs ($2 mil; and that's how much Quentin Tarantino's first movie made), Newsies ($2 mil; and that's how much people paid to watch a young Christian Bale sing), Bad Lieutenant ($2 mil; though apparently Tarantino should really not feel so bad, because that was the going rate for Harvey Keitel that year), Poison Ivy ($1 mil), Brain Donors ($900 thou; pretty funny tribute to Marx Brothers that came recommended to me through a comic book store clerk), Love Potion No. 9 ($700 thou; calling this Sandra Bullock's first hit doesn't quite sound right), Who Shot Patakango? ($2 thou; I have no idea, but suddenly I really want to know; spoiler: I still don't know, but Sandra Bullock is involved)

Source: Box Office Mojo