"I knew his name, and it was good to see him again..."

The latest 'senses-shattering' epic has come to a close in the Marvel Comics Universe. Bruce Banner and The Hulk have been separated in to two distinct beings; the Hulk now apparently lives underground with the Mole Men, while Banner has opened up a lab on some deserted tropical isle and is now in search of his former alter ego. He wants to find him or, barring that, re-create him.

So begins 'The Incredible Hulk #1,' the latest relaunch of the Marvel line. Writer Jason Aaron, elevated now to the title of Marvel Architect, has the scripting and story duties while legendary artist Marc Silverstri handles the artwork.

That team-up is enough to make any fan boy (or fan girl) turn green in anticipation; Silverstri is a true master and Aaron is approaching legendary status, himself. I first became familiar with his work through Scalped, a critically acclaimed crime thriller set on an Indian reservation populated with a legion of hard-bitten crime lords, drug dealers, federal agents and several other vivid anti-heroes. His characterization of Frank Castle in Marvel's Punshier Max series is the best take on the character since Garth Ennis and Andy Dillon's.

I don't think he's a good fit for this title, and I'm sure it's no fault of his own, given all the work that has been piled on him (he now writes a Wolverine title, as well). You simply can't put as much attention on four or five titles as you can on one.

Time will tell, as this series is only two issues long. The second was released last week, and the storyline was a little better. The concept of Banner as a mad scientist type bent on finding the Hulk is a good one. It stands to reason that, after having the Hulk a part of him for so long, he would miss the ability to, well, smash everything in sight if the mood took him. I just think he'd be smarter about it.

Done well, it would be an intriguing storyline. If not, it will probably be erased--as so many other incarnations have been--through yet another relaunch.

"Meet the new boss; same as the old boss..."

For the first time in my adult life, I'm guilty of not voting in an election.

I'm not proud of it, by any means. It was a sequence of things that caused it. A recent move, my even more recent birthday (putting off the annual trip to the Secretary of State), a general lack of organization and missing the deadline to be eligible to vote in the Plymouth-Canton School Board election. Once I missed that, I wondered: should I really vote in a city where I'm still registered but no longer live? I was uncertain of the right answer to that even at 6 p.m. on election night, but I ultimately decided I shouldn't.

So perhaps it is more truthful to say it was a series of flimsy excuses that caused me to miss my first vote in decades. I will probably continue to probe that reasoning for days to come, much the way I would a missing molar.

Both races featured one of my campaign pet peeves, too. In Wayne, bullies were concentrating more on personalities than issues, and in the Plymouth-Canton race, a defined voting block of four candidates shared the same sign and platform and, apparently, backing from a well-funded political group.

In Wayne, the bullies won the day and the one candidate that was actually talking about issues and solutions was defeated because of some controversy in his past; while the greater threat to free speech and transparency of the local government won a seat on the council.
In Plymouth-Canton, the four-person slate was at least partially successful; two of the four earned spots on the school board, and all of the incumbents seeking re-election were defeated.

I'm always fascinated by campaign strategy and usually disappointed that the tried-and-true methods of making voters afraid of someone or something and then throwing money at the problem are usually successful. This time around, social media--the local equivalent of the 60-second news cycle--played its role, too. That was interesting, watching discussion boards on facebook and reading about someone's foibles as they were presented by his opponents--who, as usual, rarely really identified themselves.

Misinformation, or at least the allegations of it, played a role, too. I think this is as much of a symptom of the dwindling budgets of local newspapers with reporters and editors that truly know their communities as anything else. The expansion and availability of the internet is a suspect, too. Information is free-flowing, but context is not. Forgiveness seems a thing of the past, too.

Ironically, I don't think the access to all this new information makes us any more informed as voters. The 60-second news cycle has, in some way, eroded our ability to effectively weigh (or in some cases to even substantiate) actual information. In that way maybe we are all 'karaoke voters,' casting a vote after whatever name we recognize, or against whatever issue we are concerned about, no matter where the actual facts are.

Until we can figure out a way to overcome that, I'm afraid that we will be stuck in a cycle ruled by blame and fear, while true progress eludes us.

It was dark all around, there was frost on the ground, when the TIGERs broke free

I took a step into my old life on Tuesday night when I headed to a public hearing on proposed improvements at the Ford Road and I-275 interchange.

Part of it was curiosity and the hope of seeing my old acquaintances from my newspaper days and part of it was--I admit it--I missed watching government in action. It's refreshing to be able to do that as an interested resident.

This meeting was a little different than the countless others I attended as a journalist. State Sen. Patrick Colbeck (R-Canton), a member of the senate transportation committee, convinced the committee to move the public hearing to Canton Township. The goal was to win support from the committee, along with the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), in order to gain some additional leverage on an application for a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant from the federal government. The grants were first made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Canton has applied for the grant twice, and twice been rejected.

All they're trying to do is get $22 million in funding to fix up what has statistically been the most dangerous stretch of road in the state. The money would provide for two 'slip' ramps from the freeway that would divert traffic directly to Haggerty Road, as well as a service drive from Cherry Hill to Ford. All would alleviate traffic and reduce the potential for accidents. There have been more than 2,400 collisions along that stretch of road in the past six years, according to Tim Faas, Canton's municipal service director.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? I sure thought so and I editorialized about it back then--each time. I saluted the Canton officials in print, congratulating them on the quality of the application. I'm sure the officials in Canton thought it would be an easy decision, too. As did the police officers that were called there, literally, every day, to write up an accident report or two or three.

But this is the state government, and the state government first required a $450,000 regional study that took three years to complete and then ignored the results of that study.

Fortunately, things look a little better this time around. There is a lot of regional support. Three different mayors spoke. Legislators from both chambers--and both sides of the aisle--were in agreement. Most surreal of all (to me, at least) was Livonia Mayor Jack Kirksey sitting side-by-side with Northville Township Manager Chip Snider. A few short years after Kirksey supported the annexation of a portion of Northville Township, here Kirksey was joking about Livonia being a suburb of Canton. Oh, the irony.

In the end, the committee approved the two resolutions in support of the grant that Colbeck sponsored. That might give this request the weight it needs to get this much-needed project moving. Let's hope so.
Granted, the state and the feds have other projects in mind. This one is just hard to argue against.