From the longboxes: Strikeforce Morituri, or another look at a comic I bought 20 years ago and recently pulled out and re-read

Their backs against the wall when facing a powerful invader with superior force, the resistance turns to a last-ditch strategy - attacks that are guaranteed to end in death.
That narrative is both classic (think the Battle of Thermopylae with the Greeks setting out to slow the Persian advance) and timely (think the suicide bombings that have become commonplace in the Middle East or the Japanese kamikaze attacks in the waning days of World War II). And it was fuel for one of the more intriguing comic book concepts of the 1980s, Strikeforce Morituri.
A Marvel series that ran from 1985 to 1989, the monthly book started with a science fiction concept - mid 21st century Earth under invasion by a race called the Horde - as the stepping stone for a superhero concept - genetically engineering people to become supersoldiers with super powers. Those Strikeforce Morituri members, with their costumes and with a major merchandising effort behind them, are to serve as a big morale boost as well as a weapon. The trade off is that the genetic engineering work done to them is guaranteed to kill them within a year. Pretty somber stuff for a mainstream comic book, and SM milks it constantly. Issue six of the series sees the character who had been the chief protagonist for the book killed when his powers burn him out. And a constant theme in almost every issue of the first 20 is some character or another ruminating about how they're guaranteed to die fairly soon (or, in the case of the science and military folks behind the project, how they've condemned the SM volunteers to death).
The series was created by writer Peter B. Gillis and artist Brent Anderson (well known for his stellar, detailed work on Astro City, which you also see here). And during their 20-issue run, the two created a well-regarded book that, despite the comic book conceit, was fairly brutal in its treatment of war (in the first issue, we see one terror tactic of the Horde is to kidnap large groups of people, take them into low-orbit space and shove them out airlocks, while people on Earth see the streaks of light in the sky as those kidnappees burn up on re-entry). It also had interesting ruminations on the moral complexity of the main concept - when the Horde convinced one SM member it had a cure to the one-year lifespan problem, he then had serious contemplation about whether it was suicide, and thus a sin, not to pursue that even if it meant possible betrayal of humanity.
(And reading the issues today in 2011, it's an occasional hoot to play the 'This is What They Imagined the Future to be Like' game. For example, cars that drive themselves (score one point), video cassettes still in use (one point off))
After the Gillis/Anderson run, writer James Hudnall took over to more mixed results. The war with the Horde came to a quick end as another alien race came in and the book shifted to more political intrigue as we saw parts of the one-world government were manipulating the war to maintain their personal wealth. The quality became spottier as the story fell apart in consistency and major plotlines were started and then dropped (like the SM member who was forced to enlist at gunpoint and was intensely bitter for one issue).
The series fell apart, however, with the five-issue epilogue, Electric Undertow, that ran in 1989-1990. Taking place 10 years after the SM series, it revolved around a few surviving SM members taking on a vast conspiracy put together by the new alien race that had seemingly saved Earth from the Horde. But gone was the strong characterizations, replaced by mysteries and revelations that ultimately are silly.
Instead, what's left is an interesting cult favorite that is ripe for rebooting someday.

Live alone in a paradise

Alternate realities are catnip to comics readers, from the imaginary tales and dream issues in classic Silver Age Superman issues to the What If? series of Marvel. The allure is obvious - take familiar characters and tropes and mix in a new scenario. With superhero comics, where Good ultimately has to triumph in a morality play, you can instead have a Greek tragedy result instead.
And tragedy and suffering are splashed all over Wolverine: Old Man Logan (2009, 224 pages), which collects six issues of the Wolverine series plus a Giant Size Old Man Logan issue that rounded out the storyline. Writer Mark Millar has put his stamp all over the Marvel universe in recent years, doing such series as Civil War. He also is well at home in ultra violence, as seen in his decidedly un-kid-friendly work on The Authority and on Marvel 1985. It is that PG-13/R rated Mark Millar who brings us the story of Wolverine 50 years from now in a dystopian, Mad Max-like future after all the super villains got smart, banded together, and in one major push attacked and killed most every superhero and took over the United States. The wreckage left behind is the most intriguing thing in Old Man Logan - the giant skeleton of Loki decaying on a Midwest battlefield under the wreckage of a seemingly transported Baxter Building, the Red Skull's trophy case of Captain America's shield, Silver Surfer's surfboard and other pelts, and the wreckage of Wolverine's life as a subsistence farmer in a West Coast desert, now committed to nonviolence and not able to make the rent payments to the Hulked-out sons and daughters of Bruce Banner who are a bunch of murderous thugs.
The story itself is a mix of road trip and Unforgiven, with Wolverine traveling from West Coast to East, seeing the ruins along the way, and his passivity - the result of a tragedy during that super villain offensive that strains credulity - being constantly challenged and tested.
And it is that testing where the story ultimately stumbles and falls, as he somewhat suddenly on a dime ends up going back to his nature as a killer and the bloodbath begins. The final issue is essentially page after page of white-haired, creased and wrinkled Logan hacking and slashing his way through Hulks Jr. and finally Banner himself in an over-the-top orgy of violence. It probably was inevitable that the story would end up here - we are talking superhero comic books, after all - but that journey, like Wolverine's, was more interesting than the destination.
Steve McNiven's art, like what he did with Civil War, is strong and clean, with some panels - like demanding you stop and linger.

How to succeed in business without really trying, the airline way

The universe tends toward entropy and chaos. Things are gonna break. So I don't begrudge JetBlue the mechanical problem that resulted in my Rochester/JFK flight this a.m. being delayed and delayed until the point that there was no way I was going to make my connecting flight to Phoenix and Reynolds Business Journalism Week.
But it's a sweet bit of irony that JetBlue still made a bit of profit off me for actually never flying me anywhere. When it became clear we'd not take off until too late to make my connecting flight, I went to the helpful ticketing folks. The other JetBlue flight to Phoenix today was booked solid, so they looked at other airlines. And Delta was able to squeeze me in. And as I stood at the Delta desk at Greater Rochester International Airport, the (again) very helpful JetBlue folks wrote out a check to Delta, buying me one-way airfare to Phoenix by way of Atlanta. $217 and change.
The hoot, however, was the fact that I paid close to $600 roundtrip to JetBlue for my Phoenix airfare. Meaning that even after spending $217 to send me one way to Phoenix, JetBlue still cleared, what, $70 or so. For not flying me anywhere. Sure, they had expenses of staff time and mechanical repairs associated with the breakdown, but that's the cost of doing business and thus should be built into the ticket.
So JetBlue shareholders owe me a bit of thanks for fattening the airline's bottom line. You're welcome.