Superheroes, etc.

Breaking Bad is a period piece about an ancient time we have not forgotten, because somehow it lives on in our stupid hearts

2011-09-19T21:13:00.000-04:00

Last week I watched all of Breaking Bad's first 3 seasons on Netflix streaming. After watching so many episodes in a row, I couldn't help but notice that no one uses smartphones on the show. All the characters use flip phones.

I tried to figure out why this was the case. I supposed since most of Breaking Bad's characters are involved in the drug trade that they prefer disposable, untraceable prepaid phones (at least that's how they always explain the bad guys getting away on Law & Order). I also thought the directors might like flip phones better because they're more dramatic. You have to open and close them. In a few different spots in the series, characters end phone calls by snapping their phones in half and throwing them to the ground. It would seem difficult to achieve the same thing with an iphone. Not to mention that using flip phones instead of smartphones probably saves a little money. I remember noticing the first time I watched the show that Skyler was using the same phone I owned; a model I bought from Tracfone for $14.

Then I realized what I'm pretty sure is the reason.

Breaking Bad's first episode aired in January 2008. We are regularly reminded - including Sunday night's episode "Salud," via Walt Jr. - that only about a year has passed in the show. Right now, in the world of Walter White and his evil head, it's only 2009. Meanwhile, in the real world, 2011 is growing dark and almost 4 years have passed.

Breaking Bad doesn't have smartphones because it's a period piece.

The makers of Breaking Bad shooed all iphones, Droids, and Blackberrys from their edgy, groundbreaking series in order preserve the illusion they created. Sure, those phones were around in 2008, but they hadn't been absorbed yet so fully (somehow by an American populace that just kept getting less able to afford them). When we watch, they want us to really believe we're right there in that distant, memorialized time. They want us to forget our worries here in 2011 and let their tireless recreation of the ancient 2009 provide us with temporary escape.

They don't shove it in our faces. They're not constantly jumping up and down, yelling "Look! It's 2009! Really! People still like the president! Charlie Sheen still has a job! Michael Jackson and David Carradine are still alive! Possibly! Depending on the month!" The Breaking Bad creative team works tirelessly simply to create an historically accurate background we don't even notice, but that would jar us from our illusions if it weren't there.

Bravo, Breaking Bad. Bravo.

Aliases

2011-09-14T10:15:00.000-04:00

A brief piece of conversation recorded in Joe Simon: My Life in Comics from a deposition Joe Simon testified at while attempting to reclaim the copyright to Captain America.

"Do you know any of the aliases Jack Kirby used?" they asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"Can you name one?" they persisted.

"Jack Kirby," I said.

That just immediately struck me as hilarious. I had to share.

Learning to Love Star Trek: The Next Generation, Part 1

2011-09-12T06:38:00.001-04:00

My relationship with Star Trek and its offspring is turbulent. I enjoyed a brief, intense love for the original series in my teens but it didn't last. I saw a chunk of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but was never a regular watcher. For some reason as I grew older Star Trek was a corner of the geek kingdom I shunned. I thought the few episodes I caught here and there were formulaic, boring, and pandering to fandom.

Recently, I grew curious. Maybe it's because so many friends whose opinion I respect love at least one of the series. However, no offense to my friends, the fact that I can stream all of the episodes of most of the series on Netflix helped facilitate my curiosity more than anything else. I found myself watching the two-part "The Best of Both Worlds" from The Next Generation in which Captain Picard is absorbed into the ranks of the Borg. A few snarky tweets later and fellow bloggers Tim O'Neil and Alan Doane were responding. After O'Neil tweeted that he's meant for a while to write a top 10 list of his favorite TNG episodes and I responded with "I'd be interested to read that. I don't think I can even think of 10," Doane responded with a list of 21 TNG episodes he thinks are "great, and enjoy watching again and again."

So, since the Netflix is already paid for and all I have to do is click a button, I decided to go down Alan's list and blog about what I thought of the episodes.

I originally wanted this to be a series of 4 installments, but I decided I had more to say about some of the episodes than I originally thought. So, as of right now, all I can say is that it will take as long as it takes.

While I’m blogging about Star Trek: The Next Generation here, I’ll also be talking about the problems I had with the series over at List SMASH! Starting with today’s Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek: The Next Generation.

"The Big Goodbye"
Season 1, Episode 12
Directed by Joseph L. Scanlan

The Enterprise is en route to greet a race of grammar-nazi aliens, the jaradan. Little is known of the jaradan other than their powerful technology and their insistence that any race opening negotiations with them recite a pitch-perfect greeting in the jaradan’s own insectoid tongue, or whatever insect people have in place of tongues. Captain Picard exhausts himself learning and practicing the greeting and Counselor Troi insists Picard decompress on the holodeck. Picard chooses to step into the shoes of Dixon Hill - a hard-boiled detective whose adventures Picard followed as a child – and he brings Data, Dr. Crusher, and the historian Dr. Whalen with him. While the four of them stumble and giggle through this cartoonish version of early 20th century Earth, the Enterprise reaches the borders of jaradan space and the aliens’ scanning equipment unintentionally damages the ship. While the damage is negligible for the most part, for the holodeck it’s disastrous. Picard and co. cannot leave the holodeck and the safety protocols are off. Dr. Whalen is shot by a weasely character and lies dying on Dixon Hill’s office floor, and in the meantime the jaradan grow restless with Picard’s absence.

I always had problems with the holodeck episodes and “The Big Goodbye” is the very first of them. There were the minor issues most fans would likely dismiss. I find it implausible a military vessel would be equipped with something that has the potential to be the most immersive and addictive diversion every created. Even if it were, I think eventually the thing would be jettisoned once it became clear that something always goes ridiculously wrong with it, and it ends up threatening the ship and her crew every few weeks.

But I also tend to dislike them for the same reasons Trek fans adore them. The holodeck episodes are often used to pay homage to different genres and put the heroes in settings that wouldn’t make sense otherwise. And whenever Star Trek pays homage to different genres, I tend to feel the same way I would if Celine Dion threw together a Led Zeppelin cover album. It’d be really nice of her and everything, but it’s best if she just left it alone. Star Trek never seems to get it right. They cornball-ify whatever they touch, and to try and tackle the hard-boiled detective genre as they do in “The Big Goodbye” just seems freaking ridiculous. You couldn’t get much further from the world of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade than the Enterprise crew, and my whole being just groaned at the thought of those worlds colliding.

I did not want to say about the first episode I covered here “I was surprised at how much I liked it.” I mean, that’s exactly what you expected, right? Well, I’m sorry. It’s true. I liked “The Big Goodbye” and that surprised the hell out of me.

Now, there are some things I didn’t like, but mostly because the hard-boiled detective genre is one I feel a little proprietary toward. I wouldn’t call myself an expert or even a well-read connoisseur, though it’s a genre I’ve been gravitating toward slowly but passionately. We learn, for example, that Dixon Hill was Picard’s childhood fictional hero and that didn’t ring true to me. The gumshoe detectives of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett aren’t the kind of heroes kids are attracted to. A couple of times, Dixon Hill is referred to as a 20th century Sherlock Holmes, and characters like Marlowe and Spade – upon whom Hill is clearly based – were nothing of the sort. That’s part of what makes them “hard-boiled.” They were by no means stupid, but they weren’t deductive geniuses like Holmes. Sure, they used their brains, but their main strategy was to cause as much trouble as possible and see where the ensuing shitstorm led them. Overall, while we’re led to believe the holodeck program in “The Big Goodbye” is based on hard-boiled novels, it’s clear that the episode pays homage more to the Hollywood adaptations of those novels.

Surprisingly, in a way the discrepancies help the episode. As they tour their fictional construction of 20th century Earth, Picard, Data, Crusher, and Whalen come off like condescending American tourists visiting a less affluent country and just tickled pink by its strangeness. Data and Whalen spout off dumb lines in silly accents. Picard can’t stop smiling and complimenting the holodeck characters as he’s grilled by an angry cop in an interrogation room. The holograms seem almost sad about how little Picard and co. take them seriously. So the fact that “The Big Goodbye” is clearly not a perfect homage to the hard-boiled genre kind of fits. The creators are giving the genre as little serious attention as the Enterprise crew, until of course Dr. Whalen is shot and everyone starts taking things very seriously. Also, the incongruity between the genres mirrors the challenges the Enterprise faces with the jaradans, who want Picard to deliver things perfectly, just like the holograms (and apparently just like this reviewer).

“The Big Goodbye” is perhaps the funniest episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation I’ve seen (at least, in terms of episodes that were intentionally funny). Picard’s beaming, childlike glee with the hard-boiled holograms is hilarious, and something I can’t remember being reproduced again in the series. Even a simple, predictable joke like Picard’s reaction to taking a drag from a cigarette is classic. The funniest moment is reserved for the end, when Picard finally escapes the holodeck and delivers the long anticipated greeting to the jaradans.

The jaradans are handled exceptionally well I thought, and with minimal treatment. You never see the jaradans, their ships, or their cities. You only hear the voice of one, who sounds a bit like Gozer from Ghostbusters. The director lets your imagination run wild in a way that is exceptionally refreshing for a show like TNG.

Perhaps it’s a minor thing, but I love the title. It’s a mash-up of the Raymond Chandler novel titles The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, and there’s a clever irony about it (since of course, the episode culminates not in a Big Goodbye but a Big Hello) that you don’t often see in the titles of TNG episodes.

"Elementary, Dear Data"
Season 2, Episode 3
Directed by Rob Bowman

The next episode on Alan's list is another holodeck-gone-wrong episode, but this time set in a fictional 19th century. With some time to spare, Data and Geordi La Forge decide to have some fun on the holodeck immersed in a Sherlock Holmes novel, with Data playing Holmes and Geordi as his partner Watson. Geordi is quickly fed up when he realizes Data has no intention of going through the entire story. With an encyclopedic knowledge of the Holmes mysteries, Data simply solves the case as soon as it begins. The annoying fill-in for Dr. Crusher, Dr. Pulaski, overhears Geordi trying to explain the problem to Data and assures Geordi it’s no use: Data’s just a toaster oven who knows cold facts but can’t solve an original mystery. Data takes this as a challenge and all three enter the holodeck, this time asking the computer to create an original Holmes mystery. The mystery is simply an amalgam of Holmes stories, however, and Pulaski calls BS (actually she just stands there and says “Fraud! Fraud!” in a really annoying way – I don’t like her). Wanting to settle the challenge once and for all, Geordi instructs the computer to create an adversary capable of defeating Data, and hence lays the foundation for this particular holodeck-gone-wrong. The computer decides the only way to create such an antagonist is to imbue Professor Moriarty – Holmes’s nemesis – with sentience and the understanding that he is a hologram. Moriarty learns as much as he can about the vessel he’s on, and is determined to be let out of Enterprise’s life-sized video game.

"Elementary, Dear Data" is an interesting episode and I have mixed impressions about it. If you remember what I wrote about "The Big Goodbye," then you probably already realize in regards to winning me over, "Elementary, Dear Data" has a lot working against it right off the bat. It’s a holodeck episode and it’s a genre-crossing episode.

Still, once Moriarty kidnaps Pulaski and Data and Geordi realize they have a genuine, challenging mystery to solve, their sense of adventure is infectious. They throw themselves into it, though eventually it disappointed me. I got the sense that what I was in for was a full episode of Data and Geordi working on a Holmes mystery and that their success or failure would determine not only the fate of Pulaski, but the ship.

But that isn’t what I got. Once Data and Geordi confront Moriarty and realize he’s attained sentience, the episode shifts gears. The game is officially over and the pair leave to inform Picard. Moriarty has somehow constructed a lever that briefly knocks Enterprise around just enough to get Picard’s attention.

Picard enters the holodeck with Data to face Moriarty and rescue Pulaski, and Moriarty’s response is surprising. He doesn’t want to be a villain, he doesn’t want to hurt the ship. He simply wants to exist beyond the confines of the holodeck. He can’t, of course, and he accepts Picard’s explanation why. Daniel Davis’s portrayal of Moriarty is impressive and when he says “What I have seen, what I have learned, fascinates me. I do not want to die,” it takes you off guard. You give a crap.

I enjoyed that moment with Moriarty, but I’m torn between that appreciation and my disappointment with the challenge between Data, Geordi, and Pulaski being so abruptly dropped. We don’t even hear from Data in the resolution of the episode even though so much attention is focused on him in the early half.

I also have to say even though some might consider it a minor issue, I can’t shake this one silly little problem I have with the notion of the computer just presto, BAM, making Moriarty sentient. I understand why – because Geordi stupidly told the computer to make a bad guy who could beat Data – but exactly how did it do that? After Geordi makes the command, the show cuts to the bridge where Worf notices a power fluctuation, so okay, it used more power than normal. So? How does a computer, which is NOT sentient, create something that is sentient? Maybe it’s just a minor complaint, but considering we’re talking about a franchise that pats itself on the back for its scientific acumen, I think it’s a valid one.

"The Measure of a Man"
Season 2, Episode 9
Directed by Robert Scheerer

Scientist Bruce Maddox hopes to follow in the footsteps of Dr. Noonien Soong, the late genius who created the android Data. He approaches Data, Picard, and Riker with his plan, but none of them are convinced Maddox can do what he says. Data is worried he might die, or that at the very least his sense of self might be lost in the procedure Maddox proposes. He resists, but Maddox attempts to force Data to submit to the procedure by getting Data transferred under his command. Captain Picard turns to his former lover Judge Advocate General Philippa Louvois. When Data tries to resign from Starfleet to avoid coming under Maddox’s knife, Maddox claims Data is property and has no right to resign. The matter is brought to a hearing before Louvois in which Picard represents Data and Riker is forced into the unfortunate position of representing Maddox. The issue of the hearing: Does Data have rights or is he property?

It’s disarming how affecting I found this episode. I have issues with Data episodes and I won’t bore you with them now. Suffice to say I feel the question of Data’s humanity got very damn old. And before deciding to go through Alan’s list of episodes, I can guarantee if I was channel surfing and came across what looked to be a Data episode, I would’ve turned it right the hell off.

To my surprise, I grew quickly irritated with Maddox’s insistence of referring to Data as “it” instead of “he.” When Riker shocks the hearing’s attendants by switching Data off and letting him fall over like a puppet, I was equally surprised with how obscene it seemed. Guinan’s speech to Picard about slavery is disarmingly rousing, and the speech it inspires from Picard even moreso. When Picard blasts at the Judge Advocate General, “Starfleet was founded to seek out new life; well, there it sits!” it sends chills. Overall the dialogue in this episode is truly powerful and memorable.

My only problems with it are tiny irritations. I thought the dynamic between Picard and Louvois was annoying. And this happens to be one of the episodes that starts with the senior officers playing poker, and I just don’t get that. They don’t have money. How do you play poker in a society where there’s no money? How do you bluff if no one has money to lose?

But again, those are teeny, tiny problems. Overall, it’s a great episode.

"Q Who"
Season 2, Episode 16
Directed by Rob Bowman

The Enterprise reaches the edge of unexplored space and the enigmatic trickster Q reappears, claiming he’s been ejected from the Q Continuum and wants a position aboard Enterprise. Picard and his crew, Q claims, is simply not ready for what awaits them and Q offers to act as guide and protector. Predictably, Picard wants nothing to do with the troublesome entity and in retaliation Q sends Enterprise spinning light years away from home where they encounter the Borg for the first time.

I watched “Q Who” when it first aired, and at first I wondered if Alan put this on the list because it was the Borg’s first appearance. I didn’t remember it as a particularly bad episode, but I didn’t remember it as a particularly good one either. I couldn’t come up with anything memorable about it other than the Borg.

But as I watched it again, my mind changed. Even though it was the Borg everyone remembers from the episode, this is really Q’s show. And it’s unique among the Q episodes in that it’s the one time there’s no denying that Q really does make Picard and co. look just plain stupid.

And it isn’t just because the Borg ship is faster or stronger than Enterprise. After trying and failing to communicate peacefully with the Borg, after Borg drones invade the ship and try to take it over, after the Borg try to steal Enterprise with a tractor beam and the two ships exchange fire, and after Guinan tells Picard and his officers, “Hey! The Borg wiped out my entire race. You really need to GTFO, dude,” what does the Enterprise do? The Enterprise sits motionless in space, staring at the Borg cube, while the senior officers have meetings.

Once Picard finally submits to Q that he was wrong, that they were not ready for what they were about to face, Q snaps his fingers and transports Enterprise back to where she began. Q and Picard exchange some words afterward, and I couldn’t help but feel that this was the one time I actually agreed with Q about something. Sure, Q can be magnanimous and even sympathetic, though usually it’s an obvious departure like when he’s tempted to tell Picard some important secret at the end of “All Good Things…” But it’s rare that I actually feel sympathetic toward Q when he’s being a bastard; I might think he’s funny, but I don’t share his views. Not the case here. When Picard complains to Q that 18 of his crew died, Q responds, “If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here.” And for the first time, I thought, “Yeah. He’s right. STFU, Professor X.”

I also remember this was the first episode in which Guinan seemed interesting. Her nature isn’t clearly defined in “Q Who,” and I don’t know that it ever was, but we know she’s much more than she appears. We learn Q and Guinan have had dealings before and there’s a strong implication that Guinan is much more powerful than she seems. She doesn’t do anything to hurt Q or to protect herself from him, but she acts as if she could if she wanted to.

My only complaint about the episode is that the annoying Ensign Gomez who spills hot chocolate all over Picard at the beginning of “Q Who” survives to see the end of it. I mean if the Borg aren’t going to kill the temp characters, what the hell good are they?

To be continued...

Just a little fyi...

2011-08-31T16:00:00.004-04:00

I just wanted to let any regular Superheroes, etc. readers know that things got really, really busy and then turned really, really slow not because Superheroes, etc. is going dark again - and it isn't - but because I was laid off last week.

It's been a unique, painful, and strangely wonderful experience. Not an hour after I was delivered the news, I received a phone call from a civil service agency offering me an interview. It stunned me. I've been trying to get a civil service job for two years. I've taken 9 tests and haven't received a grade below 90 on any of them. In all that time, I've managed to get only one other civil service job interview. It was for the DMV, and a few weeks later the DMV announced 80 layoffs and sent me a letter letting me know I didn't suck; they weren't hiring anyone. The only other jobs I was offered interviews for were at locations too far for me to get to. Most of them were for jobs in prisons. So just getting a call for an interview was amazing, much less getting it when I got it. Whether or not I actually get the job, I think I'll always be thankful for the timing of the call. It helped me hit the ground running.

The past week and a half or so has basically been for healing. I felt like the bloody, raw gums a pulled tooth leaves behind. Believe me, I'm approaching this whole thing more positively than I've approached just about anything, even things that were unambiguously positive from every angle. The job was a survival job and as my civil service shenanigans reveal, I was desperate to get out. It was a wall. I didn't want to get out this way, but at least I'm out. Still, I worked there longer than I've worked any job: seven and a half years. It's unavoidable. It hurt.

Just to be clear, while I say the past week and a half was "for healing," I've been looking for work and handling all the things the freshly unemployed have to deal with. Believe me, no BS, being unemployed is busy work when you actually deal with the crap you're supposed to deal with. Calling to find out about your insurance, finding out about your retirement, figuring out whether or not you have to cancel your doctor appointments, filing for unemployment, researching Cobra and Medicaid, calling pretty much anyone you owe money and seeing if you have any options (and no, you don't), calling your family and friends to see if there are any ways they can help (e.g. carpooling, laundry, extra food, crap like that), and of course there's finally the remarkably easy and straightforward business of securing a new job.

While I somehow found the inner reserves to handle all of that, I could not bring myself to write about Star Trek: The Next Generation or the trials and tribulations of disgraced samurai.

But I feel things equalizing inside now. So soon, probably at the beginning of next week, you'll see the gears at Superheroes, etc. going again. I just needed a little time. It is amazing how much separation from a thing can hurt, no matter how hard you were fighting to get away from it.

P.S. To friends who also read my list blog List SMASH!, I apologize for using the same Hulk pic again but...come on. How many pictures are there of the Hulk getting fired?

52 Chances to Learn to Love DC, plus Highlander

2011-08-23T06:42:00.000-04:00

I'm looking for the help of other comics folk for a bit of a long comics reviewing project.

Over at Alex Ness's group blog Poplitiko, I'm looking for 52 Chances to Learn to Love DC. I'm looking for 52 graphic novels important to the history of DC's main cooperative universe (the one with the most capes) to review and to help show me what I've been missing all these years.

Also, over at my new/old blog List SMASH!, I list my Top 10 Thoughts on Highlander.

Review - Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 6: Lanterns for the Dead

2011-08-22T07:05:00.001-04:00

Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 6: Lanterns for the Dead
By Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Published by Dark Horse; $9.95 US
287 pages

One of the most haunting questions about Lone Wolf & Cub is the question of what Daigoro would do, if given the choice.

If you ask Itto, of course, Daigoro did choose. In the penultimate story of the first volume, "The Assassin's Road," Itto resolves to become an assassin in order to seek vengeance against the Yagyu clan, but he feels Daigoro himself must choose whether or not to follow. Though Daigoro is still a chubby newborn, Itto trusts the boy's samurai blood to make the choice. On one side of the room Itto places a child's ball. On the other, he plants a sword in the floor. If Daigoro chooses the ball, it means he wants to remain a child and Itto will kill him so he may be with his murdered mother. If he chooses the sword, then it means he wishes to follow his father on the road to hell. Daigoro chooses the sword.

Of course, that could just be because the damn thing was shinier.

That isn't meant as sarcastic or irreverent as it reads. Itto's voice is an authoritative one, and as readers we are meant to trust his judgment. His justification for bringing his son along on his vengeful quest; for using Daigoro as bait, distraction, and shield; and for proclaiming to any that protest that "a father knows his child's heart as only a child can know his father's" - as he does to the ronin Furizue Geki in the first volume - is based on Itto's faith that it was more than a child's random attention that inspired Daigoro to choose the sword over the ball. Few volumes of Lone Wolf & Cub will make you question that assumption more than Lanterns for the Dead.

Lanterns for the Dead includes a story that is perhaps the most heart-breakingly painful to read in the series. Whenever I re-read Lone Wolf & Cub, it's a story I anticipate with a certain degree of dread. It's too good to skip, it's too important to skip, but it is so hard to read in spite of the fact that - even if you've never read it - as soon as the first few pages you know how it will end.

In "Hunger Town" Ogami Itto uses a new device to get his target out of hiding: a dog. Itto's target is a despotic lord his people know as the Red Demon. The Red Demon is a fan of Inu-oi or "the dog chase." A dog is released while an archer tries to hit it with an arrow before it can escape. Using arrows with blunted tips, Itto trains a dog for weeks to anticipate and dodge the arrows, trusting the dog will survive long enough to lure Itto's target out of the safety of his castle.

Daigoro names the dog Chiro and helps in his training. It is Daigoro that Chiro runs to as he dodges Itto's arrows. Daigoro feeds Chiro, sleeps with him, and when starving townsfolk charge Itto and Daigoro in hopes of snatching the dog and eating it, it is Daigoro who holds the dog tightly to his chest to protect him. The Red Demon's retainers eventually commandeer the dog, as Itto plans, for their lord's Inu-oi, and the result is precisely what you would think it would be. It is a horrible loss for Daigoro, and if it doesn't make your eyes well up just a little bit then you must have surgically altered your face. It is a joy to watch Daigoro in the beginning of "Hunger Town" finally given the kind of thing a normal boy or girl would enjoy, and to have it so brutally taken from him is the kind of sad you remember days after. I never hate Itto more than I do when I read "Hunger Town."

Daigoro is witness to quite a lot of bloodletting in Lone Wolf & Cub, and in fact he causes a bit of his own both directly and indirectly. In spite of this, when Itto slaughters the Red Demon at the end of "Hunger Town," it is perhaps the only time you get the sense Daigoro is happy to watch a man die.

The following story, "The Soldier is the Castle," is important plot-wise in that it multiplies Lone Wolf and Cub's already numerous enemies. Using a powerful weapon won in an earlier story, Itto kills 26 of the Kurokuwa ninja. Though it's questionable whether or not they could have truly been considered neutral up to this point - they did help Yagyo track Itto down in the previous volume - it is this battle that sets the Kurokuwa permanently on the side of the power-hungry Yagyu Retsudo.

The final story of the volume, "One Stone Bridge," manages impressively to continue the previous chapter while mostly remaining a Daigoro story. Daigoro fishes and gathers in hopes of restoring his father, who lies unconscious from the wounds suffered in the previous chapter. A married couple finds Daigoro and brings a doctor to help. Itto is healed just enough to meet a trio of Kurokuwa ninja who arrive to deliver the news that their clan is at war with Itto, and to vainly try to end that conflict by taking Itto's life.

The married couple plans to ask Itto to adopt Daigoro once he is well enough to take care of himself - an offer Itto would no doubt have refused - but they eventually decide against it. Seeing Daigoro's ceaseless devotion toward Itto, they assume Daigoro would be lost without him. As the couple walks away, Daigoro's longing for a mother, father, and a normal life is clear to see.

I skipped a couple of stories there. There's "Deer Chaser," in which a group of con men and women scheme to pose as Lone Wolf & Cub only to run into the real thing. There's the title story "Lanterns for the Dead," in which a pair of low-level yakuza are mercilessly slaughtered for what amounts to a momentary error of etiquette. I can only think of two truly noteworthy things to say about it. First, it isn't until just now that I realized Itto's motivations are fairly mysterious in this story. He attacks his target "Mankiller" Isaburo only after Isaburo kills the second yakuza, though we never learn who hired Itto. That isn't necessarily rare, though we usually get some indication as to why his targets are, in fact, targets. It makes you wonder if Isaburo ever was a target, or if Itto acted purely to right a wrong. Second, for some reason there's actually some confusion about the name of this story. The table of contents lists it as "Lanterns for the Dead" while the title page names it "Floating Spirits."

I have to admit a bit of tunnel vision in terms of my review of Lanterns for the Dead, but it's tough to avoid. When I think of Lone Wolf & Cub stories that resonate, "Hunger Town" is one of the first that springs to mind. There isn't much that's more powerful than the bond between a boy and his dog. Ask Harlan Ellison.

P.S. I'm partial to cats, but I figured that caveat would've weakened that last paragraph.

(Buy Lone Wolf and Cub 6: Lanterns for the Dead from Amazon.com!)

Week In Review

2011-08-19T09:00:00.005-04:00

This morning my review of Feynman, the graphic novel biography of renowned physicist Richard Feynman, went up at PLAYBACK:stl.

In a turn of events so stunning it would have had some kind of serious impact on the stock market if anyone cared, I actually continued to do something I said I was going to do. As part of my continuing series of reviews of the epic samurai vengeance manga Lone Wolf & Cub, I reviewed Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 4: The Bell Warden and Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 5: Black Wind.

This coming Monday will see the revival of my blog List SMASH! List SMASH! is a blog mainly of Top 10 lists. Some of the lists are the kind you would expect. My Top 10 Favorite Movies. My Top 10 Favorite TV Shows. Then there are some a bit stranger. Top 10 Reasons Why Vampires Are Better Than Zombies. Top 10 Best Things To Say On Your Deathbed Moments Before Succumbing To The Inevitable. I had a lot of fun with it and plan to have fun again. To celebrate the first week back in action, I'll have a list per day. After that, who knows?

Look for more stuff from me at Grovel, PLAYBACK: stl, Popdose, and Poplitiko.

Hmm. I write for a lot of places starting with the letter P. I should start submitting to Playboy. And Penthouse. And Poop Quarterly.

I made up that last one.

It's probably real though.

Learning to love Star Trek: The Next Generation

2011-08-18T09:53:00.002-04:00

After I returned from the night shift this morning, I was trying to think of ways to keep myself up for a few more hours. A discussion with some friends at a recent party stirred some tentative interest in a corner of the geek world in which I rarely find happiness: Star Trek. So, I fired up the Wii Netflix and watched an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I actually was a very intense Star Trek fan for about 5 minutes in my teens. I used to take a bus every Friday night to the Studio of Bridge & Games in Schenectady to play Dungeons & Dragons. Predictably, the topics of conversation at the studio covered all things Geek, but I hadn't watched much Star Trek so whenever the gabbing turned in that direction, I felt left out. So I set about finding the air times of any episodes of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation (I believe those were the only two out at the time). I educated myself quickly, was able to answer relatively not-too-obscure trivia (I could've told you the title of the episode in which the Romulans first appeared and that the actor playing the enemy Romulan captain was the same guy who played Spock's father, Sarek, but I couldn't have told you what Stardate it was or anything like that). When I left D & D and the studio behind, I left any desire for Star Trek with it.

When I have happened to catch episodes of the various series, it was rare I felt anything but a yawn. In fact, when I did catch the occasionally impressive episode, it just made me feel more frustrated toward the series. I don't have much critical to say about the original Star Trek. It was a pioneering series and no one could deny it. Sure there was goofy, campy stuff and these days any jerk with a freeware program could drum up better special effects, but like it or hate it, the original series broke boundaries creatively and socially.

Star Trek: The Next Generation though, and its companion spin-offs, pissed me off. They didn't piss me off because they didn't live up to the original. They pissed me off because they didn't live up to their own unlimited potential. There was so much that was good about the foundation upon which Star Trek: The Next Generation was built - and I'm talking about it as its own series now, not living in the shadow of the original - that it just made it that much more frustrating when the episodes were just as predictable and mediocre as your average situation comedy.

But occasionally there were really wonderful episodes, and in most cases those episodes had something to do with time travel. Of the really memorable Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes I can remember, most if not all are time travel stories. There's the absolutely superb series finale "All Good Things..." which is truthfully one of the best series finales I've ever seen. There's "Yesterday's Enterprise," and then there are a bunch of episodes whose names I don't remember if I ever even knew them. I recall one where Q gave Picard the opportunity to relive his life after his artificial heart explodes.

To be fair, I wonder sometimes how much of my ire for Star Trek comes from geek self-loathing. In my opinion, most if not all people heavily invested in any kind of culture that others term geeky choose some other part of the geek universe and passionately hate it in order to de-geek themselves just a little bit. Maybe that's what Star Trek has become for me.

So...to the thing I have taken a very, very long way around to talking about (mainly because, as mentioned earlier, I am working the night shift this week and since I am slightly exhausted I can ramble quite a bit), I mentioned on twitter that I was watching "All Good Things..." this morning, got a response from Tim O'neil of The Hurting and a little while later Alan Doane chimed in, believing I'd given TNG short thrift. Soon, he posted a list of 21 great Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes.

And since we have Netflix in my household, and since we have a Wii, and since every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is available digitally on Netflix...well, I think it is my duty as geek pop culture blogger to watch all of these episodes ADD mentioned and blog about it. And if Tim ever posts his top 10 list, I'll have to look at those as well.

So yes. That is going to happen.

And now I'm going to sleep. While I sleep, and hopefully dream pleasantly, allow me to leave you with the stuff of nightmares.

Review - Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 5: Black Wind

2011-08-17T00:01:00.003-04:00

Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 5: Black Wind
By Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Published by Dark Horse; $9.95 US
288 pages

While each chapter of Lone Wolf & Cub is part of a larger story beginning with Yagyu Retsudo's framing Ogami Itto for treason and ending with the final battle between Itto and Retsudo in Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 28: The Lotus Throne, you don't get a strong sense of that larger story in the earliest volumes. Koike and Kojima wisely introduce Itto and Daigoro in stand-alone stories, but Black Wind is where this begins to change.

Itto's war with the Yagyu clan nudges its way to the forefront in Black Wind. In fact, Black Wind's first chapter, "Trail Markers," is extremely light on story and accomplishes little else other than bringing the Ogami/Yagyu conflict into the spotlight. When the Kurokawa ninja - under Retsudo's direction - learn Itto's method of communicating with potential clients, Retsudo uses the information to send Itto's old rival Gunbei to kill him.

Though longer and certainly more satisfying, the subsequent chapter "Executioner's Hill" likewise reminds us of Itto's past. In the midst of a storm, Itto comes across six ronin, one of whom recognizes Lone Wolf as the once executioner for the Shogun. The ronin's former lord is the child Itto beheads in Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 3: The Flute of the Fallen Tiger's flashback story "The White Path Between the Rivers."

Itto's feud with the Yagyu flares up again in "Decapitator Asaemon." The Shogun's sword-tester Yushitsugu is dispatched to kill Itto. But Yushitsugu is not just Itto's latest rival. He was the main character for Koike and Kojima's earlier series Samurai Executioner. In spite of Kojima working on both series, readers of both titles will notice Yushitsugu looks much different in Lone Wolf & Cub and it isn't tough to figure out why. So far, I only own the first three volumes of the earlier series, but a quick perusal will reveal that the Yushitsugu of Samurai Executioner is the spitting image of Ogami Itto.

"Decapitator Asaemon" is noteworthy plot-wise not only because it focuses on the Ogami/Yagyu feud, but because it is the first indication we get in the series that the Shogun is aware of the conflict, isn't pleased, and isn't necessarily much happier with Retsudo than he is with Itto.

The events which unfold in Black Wind's final chapter, "The Guns of Sakai," are crucial to the rest of the series, though it's tough to say much about it without laying down some spoilers.

Black Wind's title story is a bittersweet interlude and a relatively peaceful one. Instead of cutting through ronin or wandering the Japanese countryside looking for clients, Itto and Daigoro spend time planting rice. We are just as confused by this as the peasants who marvel at Itto's willingness to do beggar's work. We assume Itto does this as part of an assassination scheme whose puzzle pieces we can't see yet, and ultimately his motives prove to be both more and less than what we suspected.

Daigoro tugs at your heartstrings in "Black Wind." He covets the time in the paddies with his father, and finds it achingly easy to imagine an impossibility: he and his father quitting their quest for vengeance.

It brings to mind part of the reason why the Itto/Daigoro relationship works. Usually, in an action/adventure story, a child companion is a way to bring in the younger audience. To a pre-teen who fantasizes about being Batman or working alongside him, the existence of a Robin renders those fantasies a little less impossible. But this is not Daigoro's function. It is difficult to imagine a child reader envying Daigoro or wanting to fill his shoes. For better or worse, Daigoro is as much a victim of Itto's quest as Lone Wolf's doomed targets.

(Buy Lone Wolf and Cub 5: Black Wind from Amazon!)

This is me fighting crime

2011-08-16T01:46:00.001-04:00

Mick Martin War Journal:

Tuesday morning, 8/16/11:

I ate too much pizza.

I am back on the night shift, but only for a week. It is the closest I will ever come to the world of Batman. I don't fight the crime, but sometimes I work the hours.

I wonder if Batman would have the same thoughts I have. While the unending sheets of hard rain make driving more treacherous, I'm thankful for it because it makes the short walk from the front door of my job to the parking lot less treacherous. Or maybe it doesn't, but it feels like it does. I find it tough to believe as many violent bastards as usual would be out and about when it's raining like this. Is there really less violent crime when it rains? I wonder. That would make Seattle a fairly safe place to live I guess. Does Batman get bored in the rain?

Years ago, when I started working nights, I noticed it was little things that would make me feel safe or otherwise. For example, I remember waiting for the bus at 6 am after a night shift and a guy walked in my direction. At that time in the morning, in this neighborhood, everyone seems like a potential danger. As he got closer, I saw he was carrying a steaming cup of coffee. That calmed all my worries somehow. I couldn't imagine someone who wanted to hurt me or take my money would be carrying coffee. When Batman kicks bad guys off fire escapes, he knocks knives and guns out of their hands. They're never carrying coffee.

There's a comic book for you. Batman weaves through crowds of pedestrians shuffling to their early-morning jobs, occasionally stopping to bark out "Kii-YA!" and dropkick the arm of anyone carrying a coffee. The hospitals fill with third-degree burn victims. Starbucks makes a fucking fortune.

There's your reboot, DC. Don't listen to the nay-sayers. Justice, League, and International are three words that mean DINERO.

There is something very liberating about working this shift and if I weren't living with the love of my life, it would be tempting to ask for it back. There is a freedom - not really, but something that steps in as an adequate substitute - in commanding this empty building without anyone looking over my shoulder. But this shift knocks you out of step with the world. And while I guess in some ways I've always been out of step with the world, to work nights again is too much.

While I'm being a bit random, here are some random links:

You should read Tom Spurgeon's retelling of his recent medical issues. I had no idea Tom endured this and his essay is amazing.

I have to confess my interest in Tom's blog began simply with wanting the hits a mention on his blog inevitably attracts. However, as I returned to Tom's blog every day to selfishly scan his blog for mention of Superheroes, etc., I realized he was a dedicated and wonderful writer able put into words thoughts, feelings, and impressions on comics I struggle with (or cowardly shirk away from struggling with) every time I log on to my blog.

The part of the essay where Tom refers to himself as an "unproductive writer" truly made me laugh. If Tom Spurgeon is an unproductive writer, I don't even know what that says about me.

In other news, Superheroes, etc. recently joined the Comic Blog Elite! The complicated vetting process involves e-mailing them and asking if you can join the Comic Blog Elite. I recently broke free of the 151-180 range and moved up to the 121-150 range! And I just keep moving up and up! Prepare Superman 101 and Delirium Comics! I COME FOR YOU!

You should check out The Patron Saint of Superheroes, the blog for author Christopher Gavaler. Right now, Gavaler's asking "Are Batman and Robin gay?" And I really want to make a joke about it, but I don't know if there's a joke left that hasn't already been written.

Review - Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 4: The Bell Warden

2011-08-15T01:36:00.000-04:00

Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 4: The Bell Warden
By Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Published by Dark Horse; $9.95 US
319 pages

The world of Lone Wolf & Cub is brutal and unforgiving, and children are not immune to its cruelty. Even the bond between parent and child - of particular relevance considering Lone Wolf & Cub's premise - is given little consideration in the face of violently enforced standards of duty and honor. Though it seems like the connection is coincidental, all 4 stories in Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 4: The Bell Warden share the similar threads of either violence befalling children or parents aiding in the bloody ends of sons and daughters.

In the title story "The Bell Warden," executioner-turned-assassin Ogami Itto is hired by bell warden Tsuji Genshichi. Believing neither of his 3 sons are up to the task of replacing him as bell warden, Genshichi hires Itto to take the right arm of each if he can. At the same time, one-by-one he instructs his sons to kill Itto. Since the bell warden must be able to fight his way to his bell if need be, each son is Itto's equal in their particular schools of battle, and the duels are wonderfully executed. It's something of a refreshing conflict. You get used to scenes of Itto impossibly cutting his way through hordes of combatants. A story of three single opponent duels is a nice, suspenseful departure.

The second story, "Unfaithful Servants" opens on an uncharacteristically busy and bloody day, even for Itto. The story highlights one of Koike's unique strengths: mixing historical exposition with action and adventure storytelling. Itto moves from place to place, assassinating multiple targets and cutting a path through walls of henchmen to do so. Meanwhile, Koike tells us about the orisuke - retainers who were not samurai and laid claim to no code - while refusing to tell us why his main character is hacking so many of these unfaithful servants to pieces. Kojima expertly creates a tangible atmosphere, spending pages constructing the halls and showing us the preparation of meals delivered to the orisuke moments before Itto strikes. We learn later that Itto acts on behalf of the son and daughter of a disgraced lord. The children were about to kill themselves in order to restore their family's honor before Itto arrived and offered his assistance.

"Parting Frost" follows Daigoro through rain-saked rice paddies and Buddhist temples as he searches for his father after the assassin fails to return from a mission. During his journey, Daigoro attracts the attention of an ambitious swordsman who recognizes a powerful quality in the boy that makes him see Daigoro not as a child, but a worthy adversary.

"Parting Frost" is the second of what of could rightly be called the Daigoro stories - the first being "Tragic O-Sue" of the second volume - and it's one of my favorites not just because Daigoro is the sweet, sad, tender, yet alarmingly capable soul of Lone Wolf & Cub, but also because it features some wonderful landscapes by Goseki Kojima.

The final story, "Performer," is the reason for the relatively short list of stories in The Bell Warden. "Performer" is twice as long as most Lone Wolf & Cub chapters. Itto's target is O-Yuki, a warrior woman on a quest for vengeance. Defeated in combat with trickery and subsequently raped, O-Yuki gives up everything to get back at her attacker and she employs a bizarre and unique strategy. Before embarking on her quest, O-Yuki hires a tatto artist to mark her with images of demons and monsters on her back and breasts. The images shock and distract her enemies, rendering them easy targets.

The story works well in spite of some weaknesses. O-Yuki's tattoos are provocative but the idea that men ready to cut a woman to ribbons - men who likely have some experience with rape and murder - getting distracted by a little skin art just never rang true to me.

There's also a bit of irony that I'm not sure was intentional; at least it never read that way. We eventually learn O-Yuki has been cutting off the topknots of her samurai victims, causing inestimable shame to them and their families. It is these families who hire Itto to kill O-Yuki, and Itto gives her a bit of a lecture.

That this brow-beating comes from Ogami Itto is a little ironic. While Itto's sole target is Yagyu Retsudo - the man who orchestrated the destruction of Itto's clan, the theft of his position, and the death of his wife among others - like some kind of Hamlet on crack, Itto spends thousands of pages slaughtering just about anyone in Japan he can find who isn't Yagyu Retsudo. When he scolds O-Yuki with "The victims of your quest have a quest as well," you can't help but wonder just how many similar quests Itto's assassin's road has spawned.

"Performer" is not perfect but it's emotionally powerful, mainly because of the understanding that develops between Itto and O-Yuki. She is not the first sympathetic target in Lone Wolf & Cub, but Koike and Kojima invest a good deal of time in her, and she's one of the few you may find yourself rooting for.

(Buy Lone Wolf and Cub 4: The Bell Warden from Amazon!)

Review - Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 3: The Flute of the Fallen Tiger

2011-08-09T20:10:00.003-04:00

Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 3: The Flute of the Fallen Tiger
By Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Published by Dark Horse; $9.95 US
311 pages

The third volume of Lone Wolf & Cub finds the father-son team of Itto and Daigoro facing a trio of infamous ninja in the title story "The Flute of the Fallen Tiger," confronted with a deadly idealist determined to end Itto's trail of bodies in "Half Mat, One Mat, A Fistful of Rice," shielding a prostitute who killed her rapist in "The Virgin and the Whore," and caught in a han's dispute over a forest in "Close Quarters." We also find out more about the conspiracy that set Itto on his bloody course in the flashback tale "The White Path Between the Rivers."

Lone Wolf & Cub's fame grows. As Itto's victims multiply, so do his enemies. Thus the stoic ronin and his son are recognized by the elite Kurokawa ninja trio, the Bentenrai Brothers in "The Flute of the Fallen Tiger." The Bentenrai represent one the first significant human threats to Itto and Daigoro on their long journey. Itto's growing legend leads to his next battle as well, this time with the retired samurai Bizen in "Half Mat, Full Mat, A Fistful of Rice."

"Half Mat..." is interesting for a few reasons. Bizen is the first significant character to give voice to thoughts I certainly hope most readers of Lone Wolf & Cub humor while reading the series regarding Itto's morality. Unlike Itto who was framed for treason, Bizen chose to leave the path of the samurai. He despises the code allowing samurai to take the lives of peasants at will. He challenges Itto not for fame, money, or glory, but to stop his assassinations and save Daigoro from a future as bloody as his father's.

The final duel between Itto and Bizen enjoys an almost comically bizarre visual element. Since surrendering the way of the samurai, Bizen supports himself by charging money for the chance to stab, cut off, pound, or otherwise fatally wound his head. He sits beneath a custom-crafted table with a hole for his head and anyone who pays may take a weapon from the tabletop and do their best to get him before he can duck. This is how he faces Itto in their graveyard duel and while we're lead to believe this is the key to an almost insurmountable strategy, it's tough to take it seriously.

Whether it causes giggles or not, Koike and Kojima prove their versatility in the duel. Action-wise, one could argue Lone Wolf & Cub is nothing but swordfight after swordfight. Koike and Kojima consistently prove their ability to keep it fresh. They spend 16 pages - mind you, 16 pages is over half the length of a standard Western comic book - on Bizen and Itto visualizing their respective potential strategies and the other's likely counters.

Daigoro doesn't take as prominent a role in The Flute of the Fallen Tiger as he does in some other volumes, but there are subtly powerful moments for the character; one of them in "Half Mat..." Bizen entertains Daigoro with a spinning top, and once Itto sees his son's fascination with the toy he slices it in half to symbolically make a point both to Daigoro and Bizen, who has just announced his intention to kill Itto. Daigoro's response is heartbreakingly perfect. There is no surprise or anger; only a grim and quiet acceptance.

There are similarly quiet yet memorable moments between Itto and Daigoro in "The Virgin and the Whore." While silently eating with his father, Daigoro spills some of his food. Itto doesn't even bother looking up while his son - only two or three at this point - quietly and obediently cleans his mess. Later, when a prostitute who killed her rapist hides in Itto and Daigoro's room, Itto eventually orders her to leave. A brief, protesting glance from Daigoro is more rebellion than you'll ever see from the character toward his father again.

Daigoro is almost compeltely absent from "The White Path Between the Rivers," because it is a flashback set when Daigoro was still a newborn. While in Lone Wolf & Cub's first volume we learned of the conspiracy against Itto's clan, in "The White Path..." we see more of the specifics. Itto's role before his fall from grace was kaishakunin: the Shogun's executioner. When daimyo were ordered to commit seppuku - ritual suicide by self-disembowelment - it was Itto's job to act as their second, or to behead them once they had made the fatal cut to their own bellies. Itto's enemy Yagyu uses Itto's position against him. He convinces the clan of one of the lords Itto beheaded to frame him for treason.

What is most interesting to me about "The White Path..." is the introduction of Azami, wife to Itto and mother to Daigoro. Unless I am very mistaken - and in the coming months as I review the rest of Lone Wolf & Cub I may learn this is the case - this is the only time we meet Azami. In fact, I don't believe even her name appears again.

I find the lack of a female presence in the Itto/Daigoro relationship interesting. I'm not going to make any overbearing social arguments about it, but it's worth mentioning. It's particularly curious to me that in a series as long as Lone Wolf & Cub that boasts perhaps not as much sex as violence but the gap ain't that big - and the sex itself is often violent and bizarre - we only see its main character have sex once, and in fact it isn't with Azami. Itto has sex with a prostitute in the first volume's final story "Wings to the Bird, Fangs to the Beast."

It's funny. I've read the series from start to finish two or three times, and even though I know how the bloody trail ends, every time I begin the series over again I still look forward to making my way through it all. No one is more aware of the irony than I that even though most of my comic book interests lean toward the Super, if my apartment burned and I had time to grab comics (provided my girlfriend and kitties were all safe of course), I would watch all of my Incredible Hulk and Defenders comics go up in smoke before I'd let Itto and Daigoro burn. I am immensely happy to finally be reviewing Lone Wolf & Cub volume-by-volume, and I'm just as happy that it affords me an excuse to wander through the series one more time.

(Buy The Flute of the Fallen Tiger (Lone Wolf and Cub, Vol. 3) from Amazon)

Top 10 Thoughts On Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

2011-08-07T05:00:00.001-04:00

10. I thought it was good. I didn't think it was great. I don't think any of the Harry Potter films were great.

9. I was glad to see the Slytherin students were put in the dungeon. I wonder if they had to drink from different magic water fountains. And use different magic bathrooms. Separate but equal, right Professor McGonagall? Racist.

8. I find it both admirable and regrettable the various Harry Potter filmmakers kept a fairly consistent cast list over the course of 8 movies. There are wonderful actors like Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Jason Isaacs, and Ralph Fiennes who are always good to see again. And then there are actors so ill-suited to their roles you really wish the directors would either hire a different person or just kill the character off and live with the Harry-Potter-geek anger. My personal just-get-rid-of-them target is Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood. There were times I couldn't even understand what the hell she was saying. She sounds like a younger child who is trying to fake an English accent while falling asleep.

7. While I think Ralph Fiennes is marvelous as Voldemort, I also think Voldemort is a fairly flat and uncreative villain. I spoke with my girlfriend about this on the way home from the film and she suggested that's part of the point of Voldemort; that he and the other bad guys aren't as important as the fear they inspire. Maybe. I just find it regrettable that the Big Bad of a series with huge cultural impact is completely indistinguishable from every dome-headed warlock Doctor Strange took 3 pages to bitch-slap in the back half of Strange Tales.

6. It was wise to move Harry's viewing of Snape's memories in the pensieve to right before Harry's "death" rather than after the final battle. If they'd kept the book's sequence, it would have been anticlimactic.

CORRECTION: I was quickly informed in the comments section that I was wrong; that, in fact, the sequence here is the same as in the book. I have kept #6 intact however both as an admission of guilt, and an admission of laziness since I could have probably come up with a new #6, but hell. I already hit "Publish Post." No do-overs.

5. I also felt the ways they altered the final duel between Harry and Voldemort made sense. In particular, I was relieved they saved the explanation of the Elder Wand's ownership until after the battle was over. In the book Harry explains it to Voldemort as they're fighting, and it ruins the scene's flow. Voldemort is supposed to be one of the most vicious creatures, if not the most vicious creature, in the world and yet he allows Harry to deliver a freaking thesis on genuine Elder Wand ownership while they lock horns. Saving the exposition for after the smoke cleared felt more natural.

4. Alan Rickman's performance was easily my favorite of the film and Snape was overall handled wonderfully. He's my favorite character of the series and I think the filmmakers did his story justice.

3. My girlfriend when Filch walked in with Mrs. Norris: "Aww, lookit the kittie." Pfft. Chicks.

2. When I read the books, it was difficult to not picture Ian McKellen as Dumbledore. Considering all the English talent that appears in the Harry Potter films, I find it interesting McKellen never shows up. It makes sense to keep him away from Dumbledore's role but there are other shoes he could fill. I wonder if they did approach him and he just said, "Dude. I'm Gandalf. I'm Magneto. If you put me in a Harry Potter movie, that'll be it. No one will invite me to anything but geek conventions. You may as well give me the Starfleet uniform now, because you know that'll be my next job."

1. Did anyone else notice in the final battle between Voldemort and Harry Potter, they reversed the Star Wars colors? The good guy's spell was red, the bad guy's spell was green. Put them together and you have...Christmas.

My Top 10 Thoughts on Kill Bill

2011-08-02T21:52:00.001-04:00

I've watched the films a lot lately. I saw them on AMC, couldn't bear to see them all edited, dug the DVDs out, and still haven't put them back.

10. If you're rolling through a parking garage in a wheelchair carrying a keyring that reads "PUSSY WAGON" in your shirt pocket that belonged to an orderly you just killed, and you happen to roll past a truck that has the words "PUSSY WAGON" on the back, why do you need to check the keyring to make sure it's the same PUSSY WAGON?

9. My favorite character of the films is Budd. Or if not my favorite, I feel like his portrayal is the most complex. We never learn exactly why he's left the assassin's life just as we never learn why he's broken ties with Bill. At the same time, it feels like we can infer a lot from the performance and don't necessarily need the specifics. Initially I assumed somewhere between Beatrix's near-killing and her awakening, Budd developed a conscience. The idea makes sense, particularly considering Budd's lines about he and the rest of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad deserving to die. But, then again, the fate he plans for Beatrix doesn't seem to jive with moral redemption. Another thought occurred to me today that, I think, explains his character a lot better. He may have secretly held a torch for Beatrix. It would explain his break with Bill, his disillusion with his work after he helps put Beatrix in a coma, and that strange look he gives her right before hammering her pine box shut.

8. Charlie Brown's wife turning the House of Blue Leaves's lights on and off arbitrarily at the end of the flick is used to facilitate a cool-looking piece of the fight, but makes no goddamned sense.

7. I can't decide whether I think Hattori Hanzo is really flirting with Beatrix when he still thinks she's just a tourist, or if he's just working for a good tip. He and He-Who-Shaves-His-Head-But-Is-Not-Bald have "been together" for a long time.

6. The Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves is perhaps one of my favorite parts of ANY film, but due to things beyond my control, I can't help but feel while watching it now - some years after Kill Bill: Vol. 1's release - that the whole thing happened because Uma Thurman switched to Vonage.

5. I've grown to hate Bill's little thesis on Superman. First, because of when he says it's a comic that "isn't particularly well-drawn." Really? Which of the ka-zillion artists wasn't very good? Second, because I just get a whole "Watch this, Quentin is SO clever and pop-culture-deep" vibe from it.

4. Beatrix vs. Gogo Yubari: just freaking awesome.

3. After recently watching the Elle vs. Beatrix fight scene, I was reminded of the fight between Nicolas Cage, John Goodman, and William Forsythe in Raising Arizona. Then I thought "Hey, I should make a top 10 list of movie battles fought in trailers!" Unfortunately, I've proven unable to remember any other movie battles fought in trailers.

2. She keeps saying she has unfinished business with everyone. I think she's secretly a credit counseling service.

1. Bitch, you don't have a future.

Review - Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 2: The Gateless Barrier

2011-07-26T05:00:00.002-04:00

Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 2: The Gateless Barrier
By Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Published by Dark Horse; $9.95 US
304 pages

While Lone Wolf & Cub's first volume captured my interest, it was this second volume that convinced me I'd found a series worthy of my committed attention. Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 2: The Gateless Barrier finds disgraced ronin Ogami Itto infiltrating a prison to solve the mystery behind an arson in "Red Cat," disguising himself as a military adviser to assassinate a traitor to the Shogunate in "The Coming of the Cold," learning the secret to kill the Buddha himself in the title story "The Gateless Barrier," and avenging the honor of a dead prostitute in "Winter Flower." The Gateless Barrier also brings us the first of many memorable and usually heartbreaking Daigoro solo adventures (or mostly solo) when the Cub half of Lone Wolf & Cub is used as bait to lure out his father in "Tragic O-Sue."

The most immediately noticeable difference between Lone Wolf & Cub's first and second volume is time, and in more than one way. First, most obviously, Koike and Kojima have more time per story and they use it well. While The Assassin's Road contains 9 stories - most of which are around 30 pages long - The Gateless Barrier contains only five 60 page stories, and this becomes the standard. Second, Koike is more willing to play with the sequence of events, choosing more often than not to start in the middle of the story rather than the beginning. "Red Cat," for example, opens with Itto carted off to prison. It isn't until after Itto kills a handful of prisoners and is sentenced to death that we are shown the beginning of the story and learn that his imprisonment is a ruse.

It's also worth noting that "Red Cat" is something of a continuation of "Wings to the Bird, Fangs to the Beast," the penultimate story of The Assassin's Road. A prostitute Itto saves in the latter story recruits him for the assassination in "Red Cat." The other stories up to this point are completely self-contained. It isn't a huge deal, and to be honest it's not even remotely necessary to read "Wings to the Bird, Fangs to the Beast" before "Red Cat" - in fact, it wasn't until my second read-through of the series that I realized the woman who recruits Itto in "Red Cat" is the same woman from the previous story, probably because the two stories are separated by the flashback origin story "The Assassin's Road" - but it's worth mentioning because, along with the doubling of Lone Wolf & Cub's page count, it's indicative of how popular the series became between the original publication of the stories reprinted between the first and second volumes.

Itto and Daigoro's relationship seems much more complex in The Gateless Barrier. In the first volume, there are moments when the contrast between Itto's ruthlessness and Daigoro's innocence almost comes off as gimmicky. Daigoro appears oblivious to the things his father does. When Itto drowns and stabs a ronin in the first volume, for example, and Daigoro responds by simply reaching out playfully for his father and laughing, it seems that the toddler has no concept of what's going on. The murder he helped his father commit could be no more than a game in his mind.

This changes in The Gateless Barrier. While Daigoro is clearly still a child in mind and body, Itto doesn't treat him as one. Itto expects Daigoro to follow a strict code and makes no allowances for Daigoro's failure, but at the same time Itto's love for his young son is clear to see. This is no more perfectly demonstrated than in the second story of The Gateless Barrier, "The Coming of the Cold." There is perhaps no scene in the series more perfect in displaying the strange, brutal, yet tender relationship between Lone Wolf and his Cub than one in which Itto instructs his son Daigoro how to survive in a cave while waiting for his father to complete his mission and how - if necessary - to die quietly and with honor. Daigoro responds with no emotion but clearly understands though he's still too young to do more than grunt cutely.

I often compare Ogami Itto to Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly and Serenity. While both Mal and Itto consider themselves to be less than they were - they in fact strive to be less than they were - neither can help but remain honorable and courageous warriors. You begin to learn this about Itto in The Gateless Barrier. He seems less of an assassin and more of a samurai. He still is an assassin. He still commits actions you could easily consider cowardly, murderous, and absolutely reprehensible; but his samurai roots shine through. In "Red Cat," for example, even after killing his target Itto goes further than he has to in order to solve a mystery and get vengeance for the fallen. A better example is "The Coming of the Cold," when Itto goes above and beyond for the sake of honor. For reasons I'd rather not spoil, Itto's clients willingly sacrifice both their lives and their names so Itto can achieve his goal. After killing his target Itto lectures his target's underlings to make them understand the reason behind the killing so his clients' names can be restored.

It was "The Coming of the Cold" that sealed the deal between me and Lone Wolf & Cub, and it remains one of my favorite stories of the series. It opens in the belly of a beached shipwreck - a perfect metaphor for Itto and Daigoro, two tattered survivors of a once grand and rich life - where Itto meets his latest client. Soon Itto travels to a land engulfed in blizzard. Daigoro must wait in a cave for his father and shortly after Itto leaves the cave, an avalanche covers the opening. Refusing to abandon his mission, Itto hopes for the best but accepts his son's likely death. After performing his mission, Itto manages to re-open the mouth of the cave and the story ends with Daigoro emerging from a blanket of furs, saying "Papa..." It's a heartbreaking moment and really the first time in the series that Daigoro's death seems a real possibility.

Another favorite of mine is the title story, "The Gateless Barrier," and it's a favorite for, I suspect, the same reason it was chosen for the volume's title. The specific message of "The Gateless Barrier" is one that is arguably the central message of Lone Wolf & Cub. Itto is hired to assassinate the Buddhist monk Wajo. Upon finding his target, Itto cannot make the fatal blow. He appears literally unable to physically strike the monk. Wajo explains Itto cannot kill him because he has attained Mu; that he has forgotten the self and become one with nothingness. Itto accepts this explanation and intends to kill himself in penance for his failure, but the monk urges him to find the gate where there is no gate and to become the Gateless Barrier. In other words, he has to go meditate a lot. Itto does, eventually returns to assassinate Wajo, and upon his death the monk says, "Is this not good? He who perfects his path? Is this not good? The gateless barrier?" The moral is one that is recurrent in the series; that it doesn't matter what path you choose as long as you choose a path and walk it well.

I've toyed with the idea of a top 10 list of favorite Lone Wolf & Cub stories and it's something I may eventually write. If so, Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 2: The Gateless Barrier will likely make 2 or 3 appearances on the list. The learning curve between the first 2 volumes is Cliffs-of-Insanity steep, and the first volume is superb, so that's saying a lot.

Review - Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 1: The Assassin's Road

2011-07-25T05:00:00.008-04:00

Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 1: The Assassin's Road
By Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Published by Dark Horse; $9.95 US
304 pages

I keep looking for a new Lone Wolf & Cub and nothing seems to work. That isn't to say Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima hold a monopoly on good samurai vengeance stories. But Lone Wolf & Cub is unique. It isn't just a bloody, kick-ass comic whose inspirational mark you can find in other comics, in hip-hop albums, in Quentin Tarantino films, in cartoons, in video games, and even in a Tom Hanks movie. It's an epic adventure highlighting the horror and beauty of Edo-period Japan. It's a story constantly asking which is more important: the path you choose or how you walk it. Most importantly it's a story about an unbreakable bond between a father and a son.

Before Wolverine or Kill Bill's Beatrix there was Ogami Itto. Itto is the Shogun's loyal executioner until he's framed for treason and his family is slaughtered. Itto becomes Japan's deadliest assassin on his quest for vengeance. Known as Lone Wolf and Cub, Itto often employs his toddler son Daigoro in his killings. Sometimes he uses the child as bait, sometimes as a distraction, and other times even as a shield. While it seems heartless and cruel on the surface, as Itto tells the ronin Furizue Geki in this first volume, "a father knows his child's heart, as only a child can know his father's. No stranger can understand."

Fittingly, I read Lone Wolf & Cub Vol. 1: The Assassin's Road in a waiting room as my oldest nephew was being born. It was one of the first manga I'd read. I bought it specifically because I wanted to dip my toe into the world of manga, and while I liked what I saw I wasn't ready to dive in just yet. I can't say it left much of an impression just then. On one hand, my mind was on other things. On the other, while it was good and I wanted to read more, it was easy to get confused in the minutiae of Japanese feudal intrigue. Each volume of Lone Wolf & Cub includes a glossary explaining the meanings of any untranslated words. Still, glossary or no glossary, exposition scenes between Itto and his clients - with the clients explaining the reasons they were hiring him - often went over my head. I was often resigned to appreciating the artistry with which Kojima depicted the bloodletting without necessarily understanding why Itto was fighting anyone.

Having now read all 28 volumes and officially deeming Lone Wolf & Cub my favorite comic book series of all time, it is difficult to re-read The Assassin's Road without noticing what is so strikingly different between these early stories and what came later.

For one thing, the stories are much shorter. Most of the stories in the other 27 volumes were around 60 pages while only one piece - "Wings to the Bird, Fangs to the Beast" - reaches that length in The Assassin's Road.

Itto is certainly not as fully realized here. Physically he doesn't seem as taut or as ragged. There are panels in which Itto's face actually betrays a hint or two of chubbiness. Itto's characteristic stoicism and unflappability are absent at first. When he reveals his trap in "Sword for Hire, Son for Hire," for example, he laughs triumphantly at his prey and overall enjoys the victory of his deceit whereas the future Itto would reserve that kind of sadistic joy for only his most hated foes, usually seeming simply to accept and endure the consequences of his darkest acts.

The notion of Daigoro participating in the assassinations seems more compulsory in this first volume. While this was an element that never left the series entirely, it becomes less of an automatic plot point. I got the sense that perhaps Daigoro's help was a gimmick that sold the series to publishers, but became less necessary as it garnered success. At the very least, Daigoro's contributions to the killings are treated in a much lighter manner in The Assassin's Road than they would later. In "Suio School Zanbato," Itto tricks Bessho Mondo into a formal duel by instructing his son to stand on a ridge overlooking the road to pee on Mondo's head. In the beginning of "A Father Knows His Child's Heart, as Only A Child Can Know His Father's" - when Itto lures an unsuspecting ronin into water by telling Daigoro to pretend he's drowning - Daigoro seems absolutely oblivious to the murder he just aided when his father lifts him out of the water. He smiles and reaches out for his father as if they were playing in their own backyard pool.

While Goseki Kojima doesn't have the time and space in The Assassin's Road for the kind of expansive landscapes that litter the rest of the series, the cinematic perspective of this first volume is perfect. What impresses me perhaps more than anything else about the late Kojima's work is how he engages my senses. In particular, more than any other comic, I hear Lone Wolf & Cub. There is something about Kojima's elegant sense of timing and his understanding of the natural world that truly makes me experience the sounds of the story. At the end of "Sword for Hire, Son for Hire," when Itto halves a tree while disposing of his target's protectors, I really hear the tree's weight and girth crashing to the ground; just as I hear the metallic unsheathing of swords before Itto's duel with Bessho Mondo in "Suio School Zanbato."

As jarring as the comic book corners of the Internet can be, there isn't much about those corners that surprises me more than how little there is dedicated to Lone Wolf & Cub (and much of what's out there has more to do with the film adaptations). I guess I shouldn't be too shocked that I can spit in the air and hit a Spider-Man fansite, yet finding anything significant about Lone Wolf & Cub takes some real digging. It's in part because of this void that in the coming weeks I'm going to do something I've wanted to do ever since I started blogging about comics: I'm going to review every volume of Lone Wolf & Cub. I won't lie. Not all volumes are equal. There may be a few reviews where I'll struggle to say something more than, "Itto killed some dudes, Daigoro's cute, and there was some really bizarre sex," but hey. The challenge is part of the fun. When all else fails, I can just be a smartass.

Extra Medium, my new/old column for Popdose

2011-05-20T07:10:00.001-04:00

Well it sure took me long enough, but I've finally debuted my column Extra Medium on Popdose. I took the title from a short-lived column I wrote for Trouble With Comics, and in fact the subject matter is pretty much the same. Extra Medium covers movies, music, books, video games, etc. adapted from or inspired by comic books.

The column is here and the first installment reviews Thor.

I'm not sure how often I'm going to post columns. We'll see. Hopefully, the rest of my summer comic book movie reviews will be a little bit more timely.

Two not-so-quiet quiet weeks

2011-05-15T22:00:00.000-04:00

The past two weeks have been a little too eventful for my tastes. I won't lie and say these events are the only reasons Superheroes, etc. has been quiet and why I haven't contributed much to the websites I've recently signed up to, but they sure didn't help.

I won't get too specific. In one case I am bound by law to not be specific, and in another I am simply respecting the privacy of my family.

On May 2nd, I learned 2 members of my family had died. The tragically bizarre part of it is that one of those two died in 2005. My uncle died on Sunday, May 1st. For reasons no one in my family seems to know, my uncle cut off most or all ties to his extended family (at least my side of that family) about 10 years ago. So none of us knew until May 2nd that my late uncle's oldest son, my cousin, died six years ago.

Only a few days afterward, I was summoned for jury duty. My name was the first one called, and I was eventually selected for trial. I can't say anything more about the trial itself (and for those of you in my area, please do not try to guess the specifics because I will delete your comment if you do, whether or not you guess right). I will say I have never felt more honored, more burdened, or more challenged than I do toward this duty.

Right around the time I was selected for jury duty, my left arm developed what I thought was nothing more than a minor muscle pain. I refrained from sleeping on that side (and that is the side I usually sleep on), but I wasn't worried. I got a little concerned after the ache didn't go away after the first couple of days, but I wasn't about to call the doctor just yet. The following Tuesday, the pain dialed up to 11. I couldn't sit, lie, or stand in any position that didn't accompany excruciating pain in my arm. I didn't think it was anything too serious - both because of my age and because I didn't have any other symptoms - but the fact that I am not a small man and the pain was in the arm large men don't want to have pain in, a few fatal thoughts did cross my mind. It was my mother who correctly diagnosed me before I got in to see a doctor because she had suffered the same thing not long before: bursitis, an inflammation of the joints. When my mother was treated, they had given her a shot of cortisone in her shoulder and she said she felt better before she even left the doctor's office. It didn't work so fast for me. But after a day I felt good enough to get out of bed, and after two days I barely felt any ache at all.

So, the last couple of weeks have simply been more emotionally turbulent than I am used to. Both in the cases of my family's losses and the jury duty, I don't think I am exaggerating when I say I am feeling things I have never felt before.

When it comes to my uncle and cousin, first I felt horribly guilty for allowing such a severance between us that I didn't even know my cousin had been dead for half a decade. I don't think there is much I could have done to stop it from happening other than to habitually scan the obituaries. It was my uncle's choice to keep us out of his life and I doubt I could have forced my way back in. Regardless, restoring contact with people who have fallen off the landscape of my life is swiftly becoming a priority.

As for the emotions the jury service has stirred, unfortunately to really talk about them I would have to talk about the trial and I can't do that. Suffice to say, there are not many things I have taken more seriously than my jury duty.

These things have not stopped me from writing. In fact, I should have used my writing to deal with them, but I didn't. I think I've regrouped a little bit, so hopefully more updates will be forthcoming.

Spreading the disease

2011-04-29T07:36:00.002-04:00

It's been an interesting few weeks. I've succeeded in getting gigs writing for a number of other websites, though unfortunately I haven't updated Superheroes, etc. as much. I hope to change that soon, but in the meantime...

My latest review for PLAYBACK: stl is up today. I review the new collection of the UK war comic Darkie's Mob. Last week I reviewed Ziggy Marley's Marijuanaman and Super Dinosaur #1.

I've also joined the staff of Popdose. I will be reviving Extra Medium - the column I once wrote for Trouble With Comics - for Popdose. I hope to have the first installment up some time next week. In the meantime, I contributed to a collaborative post on The Best of Michael Scott in honor of Steve Carell's bittersweet departure from The Office.

Finally, I will soon be writing for the UK-based graphic novel review site Grovel. I don't have any reviews up yet, but I'm working on a pair of reviews for Matt Wagner's Batman and the Monster Men and the follow-up Batman and the Mad Monk.

How to be stupid at Albany Comic Con

2011-04-17T21:52:00.003-04:00

I stole a comic book today.

My hometown Albany, New York hosts the Albany Comic Con twice per year. It is, I'm told, a relatively small convention. I don't have a lot to compare it to since it is the only convention I've ever attended.

Small or not, it's growing. Usually most of the local shops have booths (I know Aquilonia, Comic Depot, Earthworld, and Paragon were all there), there are other independent vendors, a smattering a cosplayers, and in the past there was a relatively stable list of local-to-semi-local comics pros like Ron Marz, Fred Hembeck, and Herb Trimpe (though I did not spot Trimpe this time). It had its busy moments, but for the most part there never seemed to be enough people to make it difficult to navigate.

Things changed this year. When I drove into the Holiday Inn parking lot Sunday morning with my buddy Gene Kannenberg in the passenger side, we had to look around a bit to find a free spot. Our hopes dwindled as we noticed the same cars pass us two and three times, all with drivers just as frustrated as us about finding a parking space. Eventually we found a spot just barely big enough for the Dodge Caliber to wedge into, though Gene volunteered to get out before I pulled in so we wouldn't both be smacking the doors into neighboring cars on our way out.

I thought maybe there was something else going on at the hotel that day, but when we arrived - at 11 am, only an hour after the doors opened - the convention floor was already packed. I've only been to the con two or three times and I'd never seen it that crowded. You couldn't walk from booth to booth without bumping into a person or two and you couldn't have a conversation near a booth without becoming a traffic obstruction. My friend Alan Doane, who I missed this time around, mentioned his plan was to arrive early to beat the crowds. Whether he didn't show up as early as planned and that's why I didn't run into him, or he did and I just didn't spot him, I tend to doubt his plan worked out.

Though I didn't get to see Alan and his family, I bumped into local blogger Kevin Marshall who is a co-conspirator in a project to be revealed before the end of the year. I was surprised to see my co-worker Zack. Zack doesn't read a lot of comics, but told me he was there for the Star Wars related stuff. There were tons of Stormtroopers, Vaders, Leias, jedi, and a dude with a remote control built-to-scale R2D2. I always thought Boba Fett only had one outfit, but I saw at least 3 or 4 different Boba Fett costumes and all had different colors. One younger boy had his Boba Fett costume painted like the outfits professional dirt bikers wear.

Overall, there seemed to be much more cosplay activity than usual. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. The reason isn't complicated. I'm shy about asking strangers for their pictures, even if they're dressed in a way that says "please take my damn picture."

The picture I most wish I had taken was of the most disturbing costume I saw: a Rorschach suit worn by a little kid. When we eventually left the hotel I expected to see the kid on the roof sling-shotting puppies into trees.

What I did see was two de-helmeted storm troopers on a smoke break. I really wanted to say "We're not the droids you're looking for" as Gene and I walked by, but I figured they might kind of get that one a lot.

Along with Gene, Kevin, and Zack; I also ran into my old acquaintance Jon Stephenson. Jon was good friends with my older brother and used to own his own comic book shop nearby until his shop's pipes froze, burst, and poured water all over his stock.

Jon and I got to talking in front of Aquilonia's booth. I had been looking through their TPB and hardcover bins. Gene entered the discussion as did a couple of folks nearby who overheard me mention I had written an undergraduate thesis on Marvel comics. Eventually we all went our separate ways.

Maybe 15 minutes later, two men walked up to me. By this point Gene and I had migrated to an area in the back of the con space; just beyond the hotel's pool. There were only a few booths and some tables set up for trading card games.

One of the men asked me, "Sir, have you visited the Aquilonia booth today?"

My natural bullshit defenses went on. I couldn't understand why someone would be asking me that. My first thought was that Aquilonia was having someone go around and talk up their booth to get more traffic.

"Yeah," I told him. I noticed he was looking at the books under my arm.

"Did you take a copy of The New Frontier?"

"Uh, no." I had no idea what he was talking about. For some reason, I thought he was referring to some kind of Star Wars or Star Trek comic book.

"This gentleman," he pointed behind me to a guy I hadn't noticed until then, "said you may have a copy of The New Frontier you didn't pay for."

I looked at this second guy - who was looking at the books under my arm just like the first guy - and I suddenly realized what happened.

As I mentioned, before Jon walked up to me at the Aquilonia booth I was browsing Aquilonia's tpbs. I had fished out DC: The New Frontier Vol. 2 with every intention of buying it once I'd made my way through all the books. Once the conversation with Jon and everyone else ended, instead of continuing to look through the trades and paying for the book already in my hands, I just walked away. DC: The New Frontier was lost in the already thick pile of books I carried.

I apologized over and over and quickly dug out my wallet to pay for the book. I was absolutely mortified. I felt like everyone's eyes were on me. Once I gave the Aquilonia owner?/employee? the money I owed him, I felt the need to get as far away from the booths as I could because I was sure the vendors overheard the discussion and would be giving me the stink-eye if I got too close to their merchandise.

To be clear, the guy from Aquilonia didn't give me a hard time. No one asked me to leave, insulted me, or said anything once I handed over the dough. I don't necessarily know if he believed me when I said it was a mistake, but he didn't give me the impression he thought I was lying. It was just an unavoidably tense and awkward scene.

On our way to the back booths I had spotted a Pepsi vending machine near the pool. The incident left me sweaty and nervous, I desperately wanted a drink to cool me off, didn't even blink at the stupidly high $2 price tag, and sighed in defeat as the machine's dollar slot refused to work. Eventually I found a table on which to rest my books and I did my best to calm down while Gene toured the artist alley (where he got a great sketch from Fred Hembeck of a young Peter Parker reading Spider-Man and Hembeck himself reading it over Parker's shoulder). It wasn't until later, when Gene and I ordered matching Guinnesses at the nearby Ninety-Nine, that I finally relaxed.

My lovely girlfriend Maryann gave me the perfect ending for the tale. After lunch at Ninety-Nine I dropped off Gene, drove home, and I didn't even get to say hello before Maryann celebrated my return to the apartment by sneering at me from the couch and saying: "THIEF."

I may have failed to mention that when I leaned against that table while Gene talked to artists, part of doing "my best to calm down" involved using my Blackberry to inform all of my Facebook friends what happened.

Along with "stealing" a comic, I did at least three other stupid things at Albany Comic Con.

1. I didn't take any good pictures. I took maybe a half dozen photos and none of them were very different from the one at the top of this post.

2. My karmic punishment for not-really stealing a comic was to buy a comic - The Best of Twisted Toyfare Theatre Vol. 5 - I already had.

3. I bought an Infinity Crusade trade from Earthworld's booth. There were - what I thought were - two copies of the trade but with different covers. I thought that was strange and didn't realize until I got home that there might be more than one volume of Infinity Crusade. The idea came to me at home because I noticed that the Infinity Crusade I bought did not cover the entire Infinity Crusade series. What makes the stupidity of this purchase start to snowball into an avalanche is that I feel stupid for not buying the second volume of Infinity Crusade when I really should feel stupid for buying ANY volume of Infinity Crusade.

Here's my haul:

Alan Moore's The Courtyad
Alan Moore's Light of Thy Countenance
The Best of Twisted Toyfare Theatre Vol. 5 (to be more precise, this is part of the library's haul, because they're probably the ones I'll be donating it to)
The Best of Twisted Toyfare Theatre Vol. 8
The Best of Twisted Toyfare Theatre Vol. 9
The Best of Twisted Toyfare Theatre Vol. 10
DC: The New Frontier Vol. 2 (Paid for and everything)
Fred the Clown
Grendel: Devil's Reign (I was very happy about this; I love Matt Wagner's stuff and have been meaning to check out Grendel for a while)
Infinity Crusade Vol. 1
Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales (I was pleasantly surprised when I left the con, flipped through this, and learned the classic battle between Hulk, the Blob, and Unus the Untouchable is collected here)
Rising Stars Vol. 3

Next time the Albany Comic Con swings around, I hope to have saved up a bit more money. I'd love to start building a collection of Hulk convention sketches.

Though they weren't very good, here are the rest of the shots I took:

Spreading the disease

2011-04-15T08:43:00.001-04:00

For the past couple of weeks I've snaked my infectious tentacles into more corners of the Internet.

(i.e. I've e-mailed websites I like and asked if they'll let me write for them)

Today brings my first review for the St. Louis-based pop culture website PLAYBACK: stl. I review Liar's Kiss from Top Shelf. Thanks to PLAYBACK: stl's Comic Books Editor Jason Green for the opportunity. I have at least one review planned for next week, maybe two.

Also, earlier this week I posted my first review for Alex Ness's group blog Poplitiko. I reviewed Darryl Cunningham's excellent Psychiatric Tales. I plan to post there regularly; at least every few weeks if not more often. Thanks Alex for inviting me to the blog and letting me stay after I waited months before contributing.

Soon - perhaps as early as next week - I will have news of an upcoming regular feature on another website, but I don't want to count my tentacles before they're...tentacles.

Review - The Unwritten: Inside Man

2011-04-13T12:20:00.001-04:00

The Unwritten: Inside Man
By Mike Carey and Peter Gross, et al.
Published by DC/Vertigo; $12.99 US
168 pages
Collects The Unwritten #s 6-12

The Unwritten is the story of Tom Taylor, son of a dead writer - Wilson Taylor - who enjoyed enormous success with a blatantly Harry-Potter-esque series of novels. The series begins with Taylor living off his father's fandom. When questions of Taylor's identity and his real connection to his more famous father arise; Tom finds himself in an unrecognizable world of magic, supernatural killers, and dark conspiracies reaching back centuries. The first volume ends with a super-strong murderer slaughtering a group of writers in Wilson Taylor's old villa. Tom is wrongly accused of the killings and as the French police carry him off he spots a mystical ally who is only supposed to exist in his father's novels.

The second volume - The Unwritten: Inside Man - begins with Tom Taylor carted off to prison. He quickly befriends the seemingly more streetwise Savoy, who hides a Tom-Taylor-specific agenda for his imprisonment. In the meantime Tom's enigmatic ally Lizzie Hexam gets herself sent to prison so she can help Tom, a squad of assassins heads to the jail to kill Taylor and steamroll anyone in their way, a prison riot climaxes with yet another character from Wilson Taylor's imagination emerging in the real world to find Tom (but this one isn't there to help him) and there are strong hints that Wilson Taylor isn't as dead as everyone believes. Just as the first volume ended with a stand-alone story - a fictionalized retelling of the life of Rudyard Kipling - Inside Man ends with the dark and hilarious tale of a man trapped in a children's book story as the foul-mouthed and murderous rabbit Mister Bun.

The Unwritten hits its stride with this second volume. The first volume was wonderful, but I felt much more swept up in a page-turning urge as I read Inside Man. Unburdened with the set-up, the story is more enthralling. As soon as the volume begins Tom is almost completely past that often frustrating denial stage characters in stories featuring the supernatural always experience, and his eventual acceptance helps the story move at a faster pace.

Carey reveals more about the conspiracy aimed at Tom Taylor and the bizarre fiction/real world relationship that drives it. Lizzie communicates with Wilson (presumably either he's in hiding or she speaks with his ghost) by speaking into books she pulls off the shelves of a bookstore and opens them to find his typed response. After escaping the prison; Tom, Lizzie, and Savoy travel to a ghost-like landscape set in World War II Germany where Tom must use the powers he doesn't yet understand to "fix" a story corrupted by the German propaganda machine.

Not unlike a Lost-modeled TV show, The Unwritten keeps you guessing about what exactly is going on. Is Tom really Wilson Taylor's fictional hero Tommy Taylor and is the "real world" just a ruse concocted to protect him? Is Tom Taylor even real? What does this mysterious cabal want with Tom and what the hell does it have to do with fiction and its writers?

What I find unique about the mysteries Carey presents us with is that I feel none of the usual frustration when theorizing about what's "really" going on in The Unwritten. Carey has so much fun playing with the notions of stories and fiction - and turning these notions into plot elements of a supernatural thriller - that I'm content to enjoy the ride and trust I'll get my answers in due time.

On a bit of what I hope won't be a stupidly cryptic tangent; a very specific character is pulled from the fictional world into the real one in the beginning of Inside Man, and I was pleasantly surprised with his return to the narrative. When I reviewed the first volume in February and mentioned how much I enjoyed Peter Gross's rendering of the character, I never expected him to return, and now I'm looking forward to what will hopefully be some more sightings.

I have changed my mind about one thing between the first volume and this one. I still don't like the faux Internet pages, but I think I see their purpose more clearly. The Unwritten is a story about stories and since it's set in in the present, it makes sense to involve the format in which most of our stories are being told. Still, they turn me off and I usually just skip them.

My personal knee-jerk reactions aside, The Unwritten: Inside Man is a great second act and hopefully there will be a lot more.

Review- Astonishing X-Men Omnibus

2011-04-04T10:00:00.003-04:00

Astonishing X-Men Omnibus
By Joss Whedon, John Cassaday, and Laura Martin, et al.
Published by Marvel; $75 US
Collects Astonishing X-Men #s 1-24 and Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1

I tuned out of the X-people a long time ago. Since then I stopped reading comics, eventually revived my interest in them, and in the interim there was too much X-stuff to wrap my head around. Dozens of spin-off solo and team X-titles lived and died in the time it took me to leave comics and return. I felt like all my doorways back into the X-mythology were shut, and honestly I didn't care all that much. Sure, there was the tug of nostalgia. Some of my most potent comic book memories involve the Chris Claremont/John Romita, Jr. days right before "Mutant Massacre." But between the movies, the abundant monthlies and minis, and the cartoons; for me the X-men in general - and Wolverine in particular - were by that time the comic book version of that pop song you love the first time you hear it, and the second, and the third, and the five hundredth, but eventually it gets played every hour and you think next time you pass by someone who's humming it you're going to punch him in the throat.

The announcement that Joss Whedon was writing Astonishing X-Men didn't appeal to me at first. I didn't doubt his talent. Any list of my favorite TV programs will inevitably include Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. However, at the time I was very pessimistic about comics. I didn't worry in spite of the potential of Joss Whedon steering the course of an X-book, but because of it. My expectations were guided by my own version of Murphy's Law stating not only that if it can go wrong it will, but that the better it sounded the worse it would be.

As it turned out, while my pessimism about presidents, corporations, and George Lucas sequels may never err; Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men proved me wrong. It is easily one of the most satisfying mainstream superhero titles I've read, and certainly the best X-book I've cracked open.

Whedon creates a single story of many parts, hitting all the notes for a great X-Men yarn. His first storyline is a clever variation on the usual mutant persecution story: a so-called cure for the Mutant gene is developed. The rest of the series sees an old X-Men "character" rendered the perfect adversary, an assault by a newly formed Hellfire Club, the return of Cassandra Nova, and an intergalactic war over the survival of Earth.

Whedon's humor is perfect. It is recognizable and uniquely Whedon, but he doesn't get in his own way. The humor serves the story and not the other way around. There are comic book writers who give comic relief far too much prominence - sometimes even letting it steer the plot - and often I've suspected that Joss Whedon is precisely who these writers are trying to ape. I think, other than my general cynicism at the time, this is the reason I was concerned about Whedon writing Astonishing X-Men. I let my impressions of writers trying to channel Whedon color my opinions of Whedon himself, but ultimately the book was just too good to deny.

It's clear that Kitty is the character with whom Whedon feels the most comfortable. Her relative absence in recent years gives Whedon the freedom to subject her to the same problems as always. It's clear that she feels unsure of herself though now her doubt comes from time, distance, and trauma rather than youth and inexperience. Rather than telling a you-can-never-go-home-again story with Kitty, Whedon tells a you-can-only-go-home-again story with her and sometimes he goes too far in turning back time. One example that stands out is in the first issue when Kitty sheepishly tells the team "Okay, I officially really, really don't know why I'm here. I'm not a fighter, not like you guys." Any longtime follower of the X-Men would raise an eyebrow considering all that Kitty went through with the X-Men and Excalibur. To reference Whedon's other work, sometimes it feels like Whedon's Kitty is too much Dawn and not enough Buffy.

On the other hand, when the Buffy does come out of her, it's a sight to see. Kitty proves far more capable than ever, often providing the coup de grâce - or something close to it - for the bad guys. A scene featuring a thorough ass-whooping of Emma Frost by Kitty in the penultimate storyline is beautifully rendered by Cassaday, demonstrates some cool and creative uses of Kitty's powers, and it shows a powerful and confident Kitty Pryde the likes of which we never saw back when she sported that blue gypsy outfit and played doctor with Doug Ramsey.

Anyone who only knows the X-Men through the movies, or whose memory of comics from younger days has been tainted by Singer's films, would do well to read Astonishing X-Men if for no other reason than to experience a refreshingly interesting look at Scott Summers. While I enjoyed Singer's adaptations, there were things about his "Meet Wolverine and Wolverine's Sidekicks" approach I didn't like and the dismissive handling of Scott Summers's character was one of them. Whedon gives us a Cyclops much easier to relate to. He's less stoic but his doubts in himself and his clinging obsession with Jean Grey are never far behind. A sequence involving an enemy telepath invading Scott's mind and taking a tour of his past is one of the most emotionally affecting of the book.

Whedon took a perfectly balanced, no BS approach with Wolverine; particularly impressive considering other than Firefly's Jayne Cobb, I can't think of many sympathetic characters like Wolverine that Whedon has written. Whedon's Logan isn't at all dumbed-down, but he also isn't the focus. Whedon has a lot of fun with him, including a telepathic assault that convinces Logan he's actually a small English child for three issues.

There were only two things I didn't like when it came to Whedon's handling of specific characters. The first is a relatively minor complaint. I didn't like Whedon's Machiavellian treatment of Professor X, mainly because I'm tired of the Professor-X-is-actually-a-bastard device and I hoped we would get something more. The second complaint is something I hate enough that I have no qualms about spoiling it - the revelation that Kitty's pet dragon Lockheed is a spy for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intergalactic counterpart, S.W.O.R.D. It isn't just that it darkens the memory of a beloved, if minor, character; there really is no reason for it. Lockheed's treachery, and the manner-of-fact way it's revealed, does absolutely nothing for the story.

One of the most monumental events in the series is the return of Colossus. Peter Rasputin was believed killed when he sacrificed himself for the mutant-killing illness, the Legacy Virus. There were apparently some criticisms of Whedon's explanation. As to how Colossus could be alive when his body was incinerated and his ashes scattered, Whedon states simply that his body was switched with another. Perhaps the criticisms were valid. I don't know. I tuned out of the X-books long before Colossus was snuffed. All I know for sure is that Peter's return is the most elegantly handled superhero-resurrection I've read in a comic, and so it's difficult for me to care about any continuity blunders or sloppy explanations. Frankly at this point in mainstream superhero books, I think we've reached and gone whizzing past the point where it even matters if a writer bothers to explain a dead hero's return.

John Cassaday and Laura Martin give Astonishing X-Men breathtakingly awesome visuals. Cassaday pencils every issue of the story and every cover (with the exception of some variants), and the book overall has a slick and stylish feel to it. There is a crispness to Cassaday's work and Laura Martin's vibrant colors that almost leave you surprised you're looking at static images. Cassaday maintains a wonderful balance between more realistic subjects and superhero action. When you flip through Astonishing X-Men, it's easy to find yourself wishing Cassaday and Martin worked on every superhero title.

Marvel did well making sure neither Whedon, Cassaday, or Martin went anywhere for this run; not so much as taking a break for a single fill-in. It renders Astonishing X-Men more fitting for Omnibus treatment than some other books. In terms of both story and art it feels more like one long story rather than four TPB-length ones.

Astonishing X-Men Omnibus carries a significant price tag (I was lucky and picked it up new at a con for about $40) but if you love comics, the X-Men, and superheroes it's more than worth it.

Review - Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk

2011-03-28T06:51:00.003-04:00

Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk HC
By Greg Pak, Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti, et al.
Published by Marvel; $34.99
Collects Incredible Hulk #s 92-105, Giant-Size Hulk #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, and Planet Hulk Gladiator Guidebook

You probably wouldn't expect the phrase "Hulk got too smart," but it's true. It didn't happen all at once and it didn't happen without good reason. Incredible Hulk needed Peter David to get more cerebral with the mythology, to delve into the abuse-ridden childhood Bill Mantlo outlined in his penultimate issue, to be the first writer to actually diagnose Bruce Banner with Multiple Personality Disorder, and to give us more than a half-dozen different versions of the green-sometimes-gray goliath because it brought some much needed depth and complexity to the franchise. The story of a man trapped in an endless Jekyll/Hyde cycle because of an atomic blast made way for the story of a man whose tortured past made him a monster, and the more mature definition was a success. David experimented with Bruce Banner's fractured psyche, making whole new character's from the scientist's trauma. He was a gray thug, a Las Vegas leg-breaker, a cunning rocket scientist who could shoulder mountains, and at one point Banner even switched places with his alter ego; with Banner controlling the body of the Hulk and, if angered enough, changing to the weaker body of Bruce Banner controlled by the Hulk's childlike, brutish mind.

Eventually, it got to be too much. Writers simply wouldn't approach the character unless they had a radically different, intellectually convoluted interpretation of the Hulk and his history. Somewhere between Paul Jenkins portraying a literal army of alternate Hulk personalities lying dormant in Bruce Banner's mind (including a Clown Hulk and a Lizard Hulk and a Salesman Hulk) and Bruce Jones writing scenes with dueling secret agents quoting Shakespeare and Coleridge for no reason, the "smart" of Incredible Hulk got pretty stupid.

Thankfully, someone shot Hulk into space where he could beat up a bunch of aliens.

With Civil War on the horizon, 4 members of the Illuminati - Iron Man, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, and Mister Fantastic - conspire to rid the Marvel superhero world of its most troubling citizen. They trick Hulk onto a space shuttle but, instead of returning him to Earth as promised, they blast him deeper into the void. A recorded message apologizes, explains, and promises the Hulk he will soon land on a new world where there's no one to hurt the Hulk, or to be hurt by him. Instead the shuttles crashes on Sakaar, a world of Roman-inspired tyranny where the Hulk is pressed into service as a gladiator. He earns the title The Green Scar and leads his Warbound: a patched together band of natives and displaced aliens. Having cut the despotic Red King in his first arena bout, the Hulk's continued existence and the rebellion he inspires threatens the King. Eventually the Hulk, reluctant at first to aid the insurrection his example has roused, leads a worldwide revolt against the psychotic Red King.

He fights robots, bug people, lava monsters and a hot alien ninja chick; and Coleridge's poetry doesn't come anywhere near it. Writer Greg Pak lets his readers know his intentions right away. At the end of the first issue Hulk and the insectoid alien Miek - who would become the Hulk's sidekick, ally, and eventually his enemy - are transported to the deadly gladiatorial school The Maw. As Miek cries out in fear, the Hulk says, "What are you crying about? This is gonna be fun." The dialogue is Pak's mission statement. It's a promise and he keeps it.

Pak's vision for Planet Hulk was the journey of an epic hero. The memorable open narration reads like the opening of an epic poem chronicling the adventures of a Heracles or a Beowulf: "This is the story of the Green Scar. The Eye of Anger, the World Breaker...Harkanon, Haarg, Holku...Hulk. And how he finally came home." As he survives certain death again and again in the arena - as more of the Red King's oppressed citizens discover the Hulk's spilled blood revives long dead plants from the dry soil - the belief spreads that the Hulk is the Sakaarson: an ancient figure of Sakaarian prophecy who is said to either save the world or destroy it.

Planet Hulk is strongly inspired by older Hulk stories and Pak is not shy about admitting it. The extreme nature of the Hulk's exile, and the fact that Doctor Strange is involved with it, is reminiscent of Bill Mantlo's Crossroads Saga (a story Pak paid tribute to again in Hulk Vs. Hercules: When Titans Collide). With the star-crossed love story between Hulk and Caeira as well as Hulk's immersion in an alien society that is technologically more advanced than our own, yet culturally much like civilizations of our distant past, it is difficult to not be reminded of the classic stories of Jarella's world. Pak references the similarities himself in the chapter reprinted from Giant-Size Hulk #1. Bruce Banner catches the Hulk dreaming of Jarella and her microscopic world. He scolds the Hulk with, "Look at you. Living these old stories again. Ugh. This is embarrassing." The short story is filled with similar references to other books, including jokes aimed at Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk and the Hulk's guest appearance in Sentry.

While Planet Hulk is influenced by older stories and focuses more on action than psychological intrigue, Pak proves he can still tell a smart story that takes the character in interesting directions. The aforementioned Giant-Size Hulk #1 is a perfect example. Bruce Banner's paler self is absent for most of Planet Hulk and Giant-Size Hulk #1's "Banner War" tells us why. After the Hulk and his Warbound escape from the arena with a small army in tow, Banner tries to resurface. Pak applies an oft-used Incredible Hulk device: he gives us a battle between Hulk and Banner not in the physical world, but in their shared mind. Over the years Hulk has given us a lot of dreamy sequences in which Banner and Hulk meet to hash things out either literally in dreams or on some kind of hypnosis-induced mental plane. "Banner War" turns the paradigm on its head. Instead of Banner shown as an innocent victim of the Hulk's overpowering anger; Banner is portrayed as an emotional tyrant trying to belittle the Hulk into submission. It's Banner, and not Hulk, who viciously rips at his alter-ego's insecurities in order to prove he's the dominant persona.

Pak's Hulk resembles the so-called "Grayvage" Hulk who appeared at the end of David's tenure on the title; the more thuggish tone of the gray Hulk coupled with the emotional instability and physical power of the green Hulk. It's perhaps my favorite incarnation of the character because it preserves the Hulk's unpredictable nature and myopic rage, but without letting him sound like an imbecile.

Pak attempts to answer the question of whether or not Hulk really is a hero. That sounds fairly trite on the surface, even like something you'd expect to read in a Marvel solicit. Regardless, I'd argue it's a question that still confounds Marvel's writers. Obviously, he's a hero in the literary sense, but what about the morally narrow superhero sense? He's fought crime and supervillains. He's saved the world. But he's a wild card. He can be as much or more of a hindrance than a help, which is why the Illuminati exiles him in the first place.

On the other hand, Sakaar is a place where the Hulk can be a hero; a place without the crowded fraternity of Marvel superheroes and a place where the Hulk is still the strongest one there is, but not so much stronger that everyone around him knows only terror when he's near. I don't think Pak ended the first 4-part chapter of Planet Hulk with a Hulk/Silver Surfer battle just to have the story touch base with the rest of the Marvel proper or to fuel online Versus debates. I think when the Hulk pounded Surfer into the arena floor, it was his final rejection of Earth (obviously Surfer isn't native to Earth, but that's where Hulk knows him from). As far as Hulk was concerned, from that moment on he belonged to Sakaar.

I think it's a shame that the Hulk ever returned to Earth. I enjoyed World War Hulk. However, Sakaar offered a chance to see a new and interesting side of the character. The Hulk at the end of Planet Hulk - before the event that sends him raging back to Earth - is a guy I've never seen before. He's a selfless barbarian-king, practically Christ-like how he stands between his new subjects and that which endangers them. The scenes of Hulk as the Green King - like Hulk sitting proudly on his new throne, letting the Spikes feed greedily on him to keep them docile, or when he forces the bugs and pinkies to skewer him with spears and swords meant for each other - are some of my favorite in the character's history. I find it tough to believe there weren't interesting places Pak or other writers could have gone from there.

In fact, Planet Hulk convinces me that the Hulk belongs in space. More and more, I tend to doubt Stan Lee originally intended the Hulk to have anything to do with the world of superheroes. I think the Hulk makes more sense in the bizarre cosmic mythology of skrulls and kree and rocket raccoons than in that stranger asylum of super soldiers and Iron Men who find Hulk so unsettling they Major Tom-med his ass.

Carlo Pagulayan quickly won me over when these issues were first released. His Hulk has a more heroic air than most though without, unlike Dale Keown or Gary Frank's more conventionally superheroic Hulks, sacrificing his inherent wildness. I remember being immediately impressed with what I felt was a great understanding of the Hulk's, for lack of a better word, bigness. There's something very appealing about Pagulayan's treatment of the Hulk's girth. He tends to extend it to parts of his body, like his teeth, that other artists don't normally tend to draw as being particularly big or thick (I know I'm setting myself up for plenty of jokes), and even to things he carries; like swords. Pagulayan takes a break in the middle of the story and Aaron Lopresti takes over penciling for a bit. You certainly feel Pagulayan's absence, but Lopresti is sensitive to the unity of the overall story and there are places where you might not necessarily know there was a different artist.

The only dislike I harbor for Planet Hulk lay in what came after. It was such a clear success that the Hulk's trajectory in the Marvel Universe suddenly became more of a priority, spawning his own event crossovers and of course Jeph Loeb's Red Hulk.

But that doesn't color my appreciation of Planet Hulk. It was a great, epic adventure story brought to Hulk fans after years of stunningly mediocre, pseudo-intellectual nonsense. Marvel gave Pak much more time to tell his story than was customary and managed to maintain more visual unity over the course of 14 issues than you generally saw within 3 or 4. It wasn't the most innovative story in the world but it was a smart, fun space war and it's one of the few collections of which I insisted on buying the hardcover version. It deserves its spot among the classic Hulk stories and I'd argue there isn't a Marvel reader out there, Hulk fan or not, who shouldn't consider it required reading (well, maybe Silver Surfer fans).

Review - Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir

2011-03-21T09:00:00.003-04:00

Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir
By Dave Mustaine, with Joe Layden
Published By HarperCollins
346 pages, hardcover
$25.99 US

In Michael Azerrad's Nirvana biography Come As You Are, Kurt Cobain talks about how he identified himself as a punk rocker before he ever heard a punk record. He felt he owned what had to be a relatively accurate sense of the genre from what he learned in magazines and from word-of-mouth. I've never picked up a guitar and my musical education is limited to an Introduction to Piano college course I dropped after the first few classes because it was scheduled too early in the day, so I'm not trying to compare myself to Cobain or any other musician in regards to musical artistry, but I could relate to his visceral sense of genre because I felt the same about thrash metal. Long before I bought an album by Megadeth or Slayer, I felt like it was my music. I was young and angry. I went to a military/christian school whose oppression I was just beginning to identify. It was music that was loud, angry, and fast; music that was no good for dancing unless it meant hurling yourself around like a demon in the throes of exorcism; music filled with imagery that raped the sensibilities not only of the coaches, priests, and retired Army sergeants who laughingly called themselves "teachers" at my school but those of the suburban jock douchebags who made up the student body; and it was music I felt I never had to hear in order to feel or own. But eventually, like Cobain, I figured I should get some of the material myself. So I went to the local mall and bought Metallica's And Justice For All..., Anthrax's Among the Living, Slayer's South of Heaven, and - what remains my favorite album by the band - Megadeth's Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?

Among my circle of friends and in my own heavy metal pantheon, Megadeth didn't hold the top spot but its place was unique. One day I noticed that - though he was the head of Megadeth and I had never heard of him having anything to do with any other bands - Dave Mustaine's name was all over not one but two of Metallica's albums: Kill 'Em All and Ride the Lightning. In the days before the Internet was king, I learned mainly from friends that Mustaine was a founding member of Metallica who had been given the boot before the first album was released. Why was he kicked out? The answer changed every time I asked it, though usually it involved Mustaine hitting the drugs and the booze too hard for the rest of Metallica to endure. The story never rang true to me, mainly because the idea of a metal band - or any rock band really - ejecting a member for drug use seemed laughable. Regardless, knowing that Mustaine helped create the world's biggest heavy metal band, that he'd been kicked out, and that he'd risen from the ashes to create his own metal monster just made him seem that much cooler. He was the heavy metal version of Wolverine - even among rebels, he was too rebellious. He's always piqued my curiosity, and I think a lot of that stems from the fact that before Megadeth broke into the mainstream with 1992's Countdown to Extinction (at which point I was listening to more punk and alternative rock and had all but forgotten metal), I hardly heard or read anything about him. I was a music news/factoid junkie, but Megadeth didn't get a lot of coverage in the days before Metallica's Black Album officially rendered thrash metal acceptable to the masses. Thrash metal hardly received any coverage on MTV News or in Rolling Stone and Spin; and when it did it was often tongue-in-cheek. You got the sense a Rolling Stone or Spin writer covering a thrash band felt like a New Yorker writer covering Jackass 3D.

So when I saw Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir on a co-worker's bookshelf, it caught my attention right away. I hadn't thought about the name in years, but once I saw it on a book cover, it was instantly irresistible.

Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir opens in 2002, with Mustaine learning that because of nerve damage to his left arm, there's a good chance he'll never play the guitar again. Leaving us with that cruel little cliffhanger, Mustaine and co-author Joe Layden jump back to Mustaine's stormy childhood. We learn of how Mustaine's mother took him and his sisters away from his allegedly abusive father (Mustaine maintains his father was not as abusive as his sisters claim, though he does this right before describing his father dragging him home by the ear with a pair of pliers) and eventually brought her and her family into the world of Jehovah's Witnesses. Reacting exactly as you'd expect he would, Mustaine rejects the Witnesses, gravitates towards music and drugs as a teenager, becomes a drug dealer for a number of years, and one day answers an ad in the local alternative weekly placed by Lars Ulrich. After helping to create what would become the most successful heavy metal band to date, Mustaine is kicked out during the band's trip to New York City. He's given a bus ticket back to California. With no money on a 4-day bus ride, he's forced to panhandle for food. During the trip he picks up a pamphlet about nuclear proliferation and flips through it just to pass the time. A line of the pamphlet reads, "The arsenal of megadeath can't be rid no matter what the peace treaties come to." When he forms a new metal band, the name Megadeth sticks. With a line-up that changes so often it would make the guys from Spinal Tap laugh (Mustaine makes this comparison himself several times), Megadeth wins success after success - occasionally making enemies of bands like Aerosmith, Pantera, and Dissection - but never quite reaching the level of fame and fortune of the four-man group that is Mustaine's white whale; Metallica. Through it all, Mustaine is never shy about the drug use that helped define his career in the public eye, just as he's not shy about copping to what could be considered a glaring hypocrisy: the fact that in spite of how much anger he's harbored towards Metallica over the years, if you added up all the people who have ever been in Metallica, it wouldn't even come close to equaling the number of musicians Dave Mustaine has fired from Megadeth (not to mention the producers, managers, and other non-musician professionals attached to Megadeth he's given the boot). We learn about Mustaine's many grasps at sobriety, his more recent conversion to Christianity, and his plans for the future.

I don't read many memoirs; at least not memoirs by celebrities. Mustaine may actually be the first such book I've read cover-to-cover, and what distinguishes it from the others is that, for the most part, I believe the narrator. I have no doubt his own history is, like anyone's, colored by his perception and so perhaps warped and misremembered in places. Particularly when it comes to the subject of his conflicts with Metallica, it's good to remember that two-sides-to-every-story cliché. Still, you get the sense reading Mustaine that its author is being as candid and honest as he can. On one hand, Mustaine obviously thinks very highly of himself; particularly in regards to his musicianship, his contributions to thrash metal in particular and rock in general, and specifically the credit he's owed for Metallica's success. He tended to rub me the wrong way whenever he talked about his many physical altercations with other musicians, including his own bandmates (though to be fair this is mostly my own coloring - Mustaine learned martial arts from an early age and I have a knee-jerk I-Call-Bullshit reaction to anyone telling a story that involves them using martial arts and winding up on the winning side of fisticuffs; which is perhaps unfair since no one would learn martial arts if they weren't at least occasionally effective, but 9-times-out-of-10 you know and I know that most assholes with kung-fu stories are full of shit). But what constantly wins me back to Mustaine's side is his admission of his own hypocrisy, his faults, and his bullshit.

What he writes about Metallica is a perfect example of this. It becomes clear very early on that of all the members of Metallica, the one with whom Mustaine held the biggest grudge was Lars Ulrich. He confirms what seems to be the general view of Ulrich and James Hetfield's Master/Blaster relationship. He goes so far as to refer to Ulrich as "Machiavellian." Regardless, he will often say of Ulrich's actions that, as much as it pissed him off at the time, he would've done the same. And later on, in some cases, he did do the same. The simple fact that Mustaine writes as much as he does about his feelings of frustration and betrayal towards Metallica is impressive. After all, one of his guiding mission statements of Megadeth was to overtake Metallica, and that clearly never happened. It would seem easy for Mustaine to try to downplay the humiliation he was dealt not only with his initial ejection from the band, but subsequent betrayals (such as being included in the documentary Some Kind of Monster in spite of his request to the contrary and Metallica's supposed assurances his request would be honored).

As far as whether or not Mustaine's version of the Mustaine/Metallica conflict should be believed; well, there's that whole two-sides-to-every-story thing again. I haven't read or heard much of Metallica's side of things, and obviously I wasn't there, though I do have two thoughts. First, the one and only thing about Mustaine's version of events that triggered any alarms on my part is the fact that, according to him, when they kicked him out, he didn't ask why. He describes the firing as occurring the morning after a day of heavy drinking. He was suffering a hangover and was understandably a little hazy. After they tell him he's out they hand him a bus ticket, he tells them not to use his songs, and James Hetfield drives him to Port Authority. Now I remember when I was fired from Subway, I didn't bother asking why because it was fucking Subway and I was happy to leave. But this was Metallica, a band clearly on the rise, and he didn't ask why. Maybe it's just one of those things you can't understand unless you're wearing his shoes, but it seems strange. Second, regardless of the old two-sides cliché, if even half of what Mustaine says about the things Metallica did to him over the years is true; Ulrich, Hetfield, and the rest should forgo any future group therapy and just have someone send them a notarized document that reads "Your emotional problems stem from being unrepentant douchebags. Deal with it."

Because Mustaine's firing from Metallica commanded most of my initial curiosity, I was worried I would lose interest in Mustaine as soon as it was covered; and he chronicles it early, in the fifth chapter. I was pleasantly surprised. Mustaine's career and personal life - neither of which seem independent from one another - are turbulent and interesting and all he needs to keep interest is exactly what he gives: honesty. I am used to testimonials and interviews with rock musicians, particularly with rock singers/frontmen, in which they refuse to admit (perhaps even to themselves) their free will had anything to do with their own careers. In spite of all of their Cobain-like statements to the contrary, rock musicians don't get famous by accident. Rock musicians don't get famous without trying to be famous. Rock musicians don't get famous without carefully cultivating an image that will sell. Mustaine never minces words about this. He wanted to be famous, he wanted money, he wanted to be worshiped by women, he wanted to be a rock 'n' roll god, and he wanted the heads of his old Metallica bandmates on pikes at the foot of his heavy metal kingdom. His candor is refreshing it makes the telling of his career's trajectory hypnotic. As much as he can be self-serving at times and occasionally merciless in his dealings with former bandmates, it's tough not to like him and root for him.

Perhaps the most impressive testament I can think of is the interest in thrash metal reading Mustaine has reawakened. Somewhere in the middle of reading the memoir I realized I no longer owned any of Megadeth's albums. I immediately downloaded Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? and the mostly instrumental "Hangar 18" from Rust in Peace. I've been hunting down old albums from Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, and Pantera along with asking friends for recommendations of thrash I haven't stumbled upon yet. When I wandered over to Megadeth's website and saw the trailer for an upcoming Metallica/Slayer/Megadeth/Anthrax show in California next month, I briefly humored the idea of looking into a trip to the west coast. If I had known sooner, maybe, but that's okay. I found just the idea of spending time and money on nothing but headbanging to that old, familiar jug-jug-jug-jugga invigorating.

For anyone who's ever had any interest in the metal scene or the rock of the '80s and '90s, there's no good reason not to check out Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir.

Review - Rabbit Hole

2011-03-16T00:01:00.000-04:00

Based on the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner, Rabbit Hole is a film about the aftermath of disastrous personal loss. The film opens 8 months after Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart) lose their 4-year-old son. Both are at their tattered ends; unsure how to live the rest of their lives. Both react differently. Howie dwells. He attends weekly group therapy sessions and urges the stubborn Becca to join him. He regularly replays a video of his son on his phone and goes wild when he learns Becca accidentally deleted it. Becca, on the other hand, does whatever she can to keep her mind from her loss. She gets rid of many of her son's belongings and even wants to sell her house because it reminds her too much of her son. Eventually Howie edges towards a possible fling with one of this therapy group's grieving mothers (Sandra Oh) and Becca develops a secret, strange, and tense friendship with Jason (Miles Teller) - the teenager who is partly responsible for her son's death.

The cast of Rabbit Hole is perfect and there isn't a single actor who doesn't invest fully in his/her role. While the entire cast is great, Kidman steals the show. She is magnificently believable as Becca. I can't say I've seen every Nicole Kidman film, but I find it tough to believe this isn't the role of her career thus far. Eckhart is deeply affecting as Howie and I hope we keep seeing great things from him. Again, I haven't seen every Eckhart project but I haven't been disappointed yet. I was surprised at how much I was impressed by Teller. I don't recall seeing him in anything and it's rare for an actor of his age to be able to evoke the kind of guilt and sadness we see in Jason without overdoing it.

Rabbit Hole is named after a comic book Jason makes about parallel universes and alternate realities. In the comic a mother, father, and son prove to have endless counterparts in different universes; in one reality the father is dead, in another the mother is dead, in yet another the son is dead, etc. While it may seem like pandering to say so, after watching the film I can't help but find some possibly unintentional irony here. Throughout the film, there are moments when you think you know where the film is heading, and where you think it's heading is a much more sensational or Hollywood place. For example, early in the film Becca becomes obsessed with a teenage boy she spots on a passing school bus. She follows the bus home, learns where the boy lives, and regularly parks her car outside the house to wait for him to be delivered home again. We are not initially shown why Becca cares about this boy, but I was immediately reminded of a movie (I forget the name, it may have even been a made-for-TV production) of a kidnapped child whose mother spots a teenage boy in her neighborhood many years after the kidnapping and the boy eventually proves to be her lost child. My assumption was Becca thought the boy was the spitting image of what her son would have looked like if he'd lived that long. I was completely wrong and it wasn't the only example. In other words, whether the filmmakers intended it or not, just as you can see the parallel universes in Jason's comic, you feel the presence of all the alternate ways Rabbit Hole's plot could have gone. Just like Becca says about her own alternate selves that "somewhere out there I'm having a good time," somewhere out there - in whatever alternate universes good movies become bad - a hundred different Beccas were having a good time in a hundred different crappy versions of Rabbit Hole; the kind that would be made if anyone with a Hollywood sensibility got anywhere near it.

One of the aspects of Rabbit Hole that intrigues me the most is something interesting going on in regards to class. Becca and Howie are clearly not hurting for money. They are, at least, upper-middle-class while Becca's sisters Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) is decidedly lower class. She's pregnant with her boyfriend's child and both are forced to live with Becca's mother. We first meet Izzy when Becca bails her out of jail for starting a bar fight with her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. Becca comments on how it's very "Jerry Springer" of her sister to have a fistfight over a man. It's a comment that becomes more than a little ironic as Izzy becomes an unwilling witness to the more well-to-do Becca and Howie getting a little "Jerry Springer" themselves. She's there when Becca and her mother get in an emotional shouting match at a bowling alley, when Howie learns that Becca has been talking to Jason and goes on a tirade that would be filled with plenty of editing bleeps if he were on Jerry Springer, and most fittingly Izzy's there when Becca hits a woman in a grocery store. I won't lie and say I know what, if anything, the filmmakers are saying about class. I don't think, and certainly don't hope, it's as simple as saying we're all potential Jerry Springer guests deep down inside (especially since I don't think anyone secretly paid Becca to hit that woman in the grocery store). I don't mean to make the film seem like an academic exercise, but it's there, it's interesting, and it's worth noting.

Rabbit Hole is, above all, a deeply honest film as stripped of Hollywood convention as you could get. There is hardly a single line of dialogue that doesn't feel precisely like something a person would actually say, and yet screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire (also the author of the original play) never sacrifices poetry for authenticity. As conditioned by Hollywood as everyone else, I kept expecting to be preached to, to be shown which way of grieving was better than others, to eventually be delivered the epiphany that would kill the couple's overwhelming grief, and to end the hour and a half with a spiritual uplifting that would assure me that Becca and Howie were going to be a-okay in the end. I got none of the above. Rabbit Hole is not a movie to learn from - except in learning how to make great, emotionally genuine movies - but to experience.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I really should be tired of blogging about blogging by now...

2011-03-09T06:45:00.000-05:00

Since the frustration the title implies is real, I will try to keep this short.

I am officially abandoning my goal of blogging every weekday for 6 months.

First, I don't enjoy blogging anymore and since no one's paying me for this, personal enjoyment seems a reasonable prerequisite.

Second, I am not writing the blog posts I want to write. The ideas for blog posts I'm the most excited about are ones that would take more than a day to put together, so I always end up shelving them in favor of something else.

Third, I need to trust myself more. I think I've made these proclamations and rules because I don't trust myself to keep writing. I assume if I'm not blogging every single weekday, I will allow Superheroes, etc. to go catatonic again.

My writing isn't the only area of my life in which trust is an issue. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say I think the most important thought to cross my mind in months is that I need to trust myself even if I have given myself reason not to. Because if I don't trust myself, who the hell will?

So, I am still blogging and I plan to do so on a regular basis. I think, and certainly hope, the main difference will be better content because I'll only be writing what I want to.

I am not sure whether or not my weekly Hulk column will be a casualty of this. I don't think it will disappear entirely, but I'm also not sure if it will still be weekly.

I don't regret making the goal. I pushed myself and it paid off in a lot of ways. But now I want to concentrate on quality instead of quantity.

Review - The Mighty Vol. 1

2011-03-08T06:50:00.000-05:00

The Mighty Vol. 1
By Peter J. Tomasi, Keith Champagne, and Peter Snejbjerg
Published by DC; $17.99 US
Collects The Mighty #s 1-6

I was genuinely at a loss to explain why I enjoyed the first volume of The Mighty as much as I did. The main character is Gabriel Cole, the newly appointed head of Section Omega; an agency tasked with supporting the world’s only superhero, Alpha One. Cole is made head of Section Omega after his predecessor Michael Shaw is murdered. He’s chosen in part because of his claim to fame – being saved by Alpha One from the same car crash that killed his parents. He’s reluctant at first to accept the job, in part because of its high mortality rate and in part because of his wife Janet’s concerns, but eventually Alpha One wins Cole over. Slowly but surely Alpha One proves himself to be less pure than he appears. The first definite proof we get that he’s at least part asshole is when he tries to get horizontal with Cole’s wife. But soon we learn that for many years Alpha One has been secretly covering up dark acts that put adultery to shame, in pursuit of an unseen goal.

I was confused about why I liked The Mighty because if you were to describe the plot to me before I read it, I would assume it was something very ho-hum trying to pass itself off as innovation. At this point nothing about The Mighty that sounds new is new. More realistic Superman clones, law enforcement agencies dedicated to superhero activity, superheroes letting their power and skewed perspective drive them bonkers, superheroes “going bad,” superheroes as they would “really” be, or a world that reacts to super-people like we react to real life celebrities; none of these things are particularly novel anymore.

Part of it, honestly, is that I went in blind. I recall hearing about The Mighty when the series was first out in floppies, but I didn’t know anything specific about the plot. I knew it had something to do with a superhero, that readers were disappointed when it was eventually canceled (which seems strange only because it doesn’t seem like a series that would lend itself to an ongoing format), and that it was being heralded as one those Great Series You Aren’t Reading. I’m always much happier with a good series when I know next-to-nothing going in (which may make it seem kind of hypocritical for me to spend so much time writing reviews and making sure other people don’t get to go in blind).

But I also think Peter Tomasi just tells a damn fine story and The Mighty has convinced me to track down some of his other work. Anyone who has read or watched a murder mystery will suspect as early as the first chapter that Alpha One is up to no good. The death scene of Michael Shaw (Gabriel Cole’s predecessor) drops a hint so glaring you wonder how Cole could ever have trusted Alpha One. Still, I found myself questioning whether my suspicions were correct and – in spite of the fact that there wouldn’t be a very interesting story to tell in that case – hoping that they weren’t. Even when he tried to get into Janet’s pants, I found myself thinking that that didn’t necessarily mean my other fears about Alpha One were correct. And even once I started to see the scope of Alpha One’s crimes, while he seemed dangerous and unstable, he never seemed fake. I never questioned the sincerity of the character’s gentlemanly, patient demeanor and his noble intentions earlier in the story. Alpha One is convincingly human in his inhumanity. We don’t find out exactly what he’s up to in this first volume, but Tomasi does a good job of persuading us that – whatever Alpha One’s goals are – he believes he’s doing it for the greater good regardless of his means.

I have to confess to just a little disappointment with this first volume’s ending, though I don’t necessarily lay that at the storytellers’ doorsteps. I didn’t realize there was a second volume, expected the story to be wrapped up by the sixth chapter of this one, and so it couldn’t help but feel anticlimactic. I also think it’s clear Tomasi wasn’t writing For The Trade, and it’s tough to fault him for that.

Review - Samurai: Heaven & Earth Vol. 1

2011-03-07T07:18:00.000-05:00

Samurai: Heaven & Earth Vol. 1
By Ron Marz, Luke Ross, Jason Keith, and David Lanphear
Published By Dark Horse; $14.95 US
Collects Samurai: Heaven & Earth #s 1-5

Just before CrossGen folded I had all of their books on my pull list. I didn't like all or even most of their titles, but I had what I thought was a great idea supported by providence. I was living in Albany but I had gone to school in Tampa. I was forced to leave because I couldn't afford tuition. I was sharing my snacks with mice in a basement studio apartment in Albany and concocting schemes to return to Florida when I learned that CrossGen, like my old school, was headquartered in Tampa. I decided this was no coincidence and set about researching the comics for the company I would convince to hire me as soon as I could figure out how to afford around $10,000 per semester. It's just as well that I couldn't find a way back to the sunshine state, because CrossGen tanked. All I had to show for it was a stack of overpriced comics (if memory serves, all of CrossGen's books cost $2.99 back when the industry norm was $2.25). Of the company's many titles, there were 4 that I would miss; among them Ron Marz's samurai epic The Path. It had a different tone and rhythm than just about anything I was reading and it was the first samurai comic I read on a regular basis. I was sorry to see it go.

Luckily, Marz wasn't done with samurai books. Unlike the fictional Japan-inspired setting Marz used in The Path to keep in step with CrossGen's sigil storyline, Samurai: Heaven and Earth begins in Japan itself. The protagonist, Shiro, is a loyal retainer of Lord Tokudaiji. Shiro, like any good samurai, is more than prepared to lay down his life when unstoppable Chinese hordes lay siege to Tokudaiji's fortress. Expecting and accepting death, Shiro spends a final night in the arms of his lover Yoshiko (I don't remember whether or not they are married, though I think I assumed it when I first read the book) and tells her that "nothing in Heaven or on Earth" will keep them apart; hence the subtitle. Shiro is buried under a pile of rubble, survives the battle, and wakes to find most of his fellow samurai slaughtered. From one of his few surviving comrades he learns that Yoshiko was taken by the Chinese soldiers. Because of his pledge to Yoshiko, he refuses to commit seppuku and instead hunts for his captive lover. He travels first to China where he learns Yoshiko has been sold as a sex slave, follows her through mainland Asia and Europe, and finally comes to Paris where he must face the Three Musketeers among others before he can fulfill his promise to Yoshiko.

Luke Ross is a perfect artist for the book. Though it's a samurai comic, it's hardly all hacking and slashing. Ross's range is impressive. His love scenes and exposition scenes are just as engaging as his battle sequences, and in some of his love and battle scenes he uses a similar technique; many tiny panels featuring slivers of the action, not necessarily in order, each showing enough that they don't need to be in order. Parts of some fight scenes have a great noiseless quality to them; in particular I loved a sequence towards the end when a villain is beheaded and it's done in such a seamless manner that truly defines the phrase "he didn't know what hit him." His renderings of Japanese gardens are as convincing as those of the court of Versailles and his characters' facial expressions are subtle and familiar.

Marz is at the top of his game here I think, telling the story in a perfect rhythm, making great choices as to what to show and what to leave to our imaginations. There's a particular scene, for example, when it looks like we're about to get one more bloody sword fight with a prominent villain, but Marz fast-forwards from a panel of the bad guy lifting his sword right to the aftermath with the jerk's lifeless head on a pike.

Shiro isn't particularly distinguishable as far as samurai heroes go. He's fiercely loyal, driven by demons, and refuses to welsh on a promise. It's surprisingly novel to read a samurai comic in which the hero's quest springs from his love for a character, rather than out of revenge or simple obligation. I love samurai comics - Lone Wolf & Cub is my favorite comic book series - however just as it's tiring to know that most western action flicks will end with the hero and his buds living happily ever after, it can be equally as frustrating reading samurai comics when you know you're investing in a hero who will probably spill his guts all over the ground before the comic's over. The fact that Samurai: Heaven & Earth's characters are on a quest that at least has the potential to send them to happily-ever-after land is refreshing.

The only thing I didn't like about Samurai: Heaven & Earth Vol. 1 that stands out in my mind is the use of the Three Musketeers. The scenes with them are fun and while it's been a while since I've read Dumas's Three Musketeers, Marz's characterization seems spot-on. I simply didn't like that they were in the series. In a comic this bloody, I don't think any character should be safe. Since they are The Three Musketeers, as a reader I never questioned whether or not they would survive and as a result their presence came off largely as gimmicky. It's a minor complaint though and, gimmick or not, Marz uses them well.

Samurai: Heaven & Earth is a great samurai comic that stands out from the rest. I need to get off my ass and grab the second volume which has been out for a while now. Ever since finishing Lone Wolf & Cub I've been hungry for more funnybook samurai epics. I hope Marz keeps enjoying writing these books as much as I enjoy reading them because there just aren't enough good samurai titles out there.

HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!!!!! : WHY WON'T PUNY HUMANS JUST LEAVE HULK ALONE!?!?

2011-03-04T05:58:00.000-05:00

This was originally posted at Comic Book Galaxy in 2004.

My first review for the previous incarnation of Comic Book Galaxy covered Incredible Hulk #33, one of Marvel's 2001 "Monster-sized" issues. It featured, among other things, a fill-in story by Christopher Priest that bookended the writing chores of Paul Jenkins and Bruce Jones on the title. What made the story such a treasure, and much more memorable than any other Hulk story of recent years (particularly of any other fill-in, and there have been quite a few since the title's 1999 reboot), is that it was simply a Hulk story. Priest didn't give us an updated Hulk origin. No new psychological motivations were attached to the relationship between Bruce Banner and his monstrous alter-ego. His speech pattern didn't change, his skin color stayed the same, and he didn't eat any nurses. It was just a good, funny, touching story about a big green guy who breaks stuff; something Hulk readers have been denied for quite a long while.

Now, you're probably thinking I'm the kind of obsessed RPG-minded reader who frequents comic book battle message boards, and pins death threats to the windshield of Kurt Busiek's car for letting Superman clock Thor upside the head in JLA/Avengers. Hulk fans are considered one of the most obsessed and hard-nosed groups of comic book fandom. In fact, Priest jokingly expressed some concern about Hulk fans' reaction to the aforementioned fill-in writing, "Hulk fans are very serious about being Hulk fans. Good thing I just moved..." Many of those readers who have enjoyed Bruce Jones's Hulk stories likewise dismiss the anti-Jones sect's criticisms as coming from stubborn, narrow minded Hulk-nuts who resist any new ideas; any change.

You might get away with calling Hulk fans obsessive or immature without hearing any objections from me, but the idea that Hulk fans can't handle change is a pretty laughable notion. For over twenty years, all Hulk fans have gotten is change.

Since Bill Mantlo's '80s Hulk stories, we've had smart Hulks, gray Hulks, mute Hulks, evil Hulks, suicidal Hulks, psychotic Hulks, incestuous Hulks, Hulks borne of Skrulls, Hulks that don't even have to turn into the Hulk to get all Hulky, and Sybil-Hulks who change from green-to-gray and smart-to-dumb every day. We've even had a Rick Jones Hulk (who unfortunately lacked the hilarious Beatnik/Hulk lingo of one of the early What If…? issues). Imagine if Mexican wrestlers broke Bruce Wayne's back every few years, and Spidey endured clone sagas bi-annually. That's what Hulk fans have dealt with for the past two decades.

I'm not heralding the return of any particular incarnation of the green-sometimes-gray goliath, or of any particular writer. Change is inevitable. Continuity gets muddled. That isn't the point, and that's not my complaint.

There seems to be an -- understandable, if not necessarily accurate -- impression in the House of Ideas that you just cannot write a compelling story about a big green guy who breaks stuff. But, he's one of their household names, so canceling the title isn't an option. The result is that any writer hoping to scribe the character needs a very specific gimmick. They need to re-write his origin. They need to change his speech pattern and his skin color. They need to make him eat nurses and slaughter half of Manhattan. They need to drag him through a four-years-long conspiracy thriller that reads like old people sex.

So, while the various changes in characterization and continuity in other titles come about to help fuel the story, in the case of Incredible Hulk, the change is there just for the sake of change; just to alter the face of the character and disguise it as depth. A Hulk story simply won't be published unless it re-invents him somehow. Other writers change the status-quo for the sake of story, while the success or failure of Hulk stories hinge solely on that change. Everything revolves around it. The question of whether or not the story is actually good, regardless of the change, is never asked.

Can good, interesting stories about a big green guy who breaks stuff be written? And more importantly, can they sell? I don't know. Priest did a fine job, but to be fair, it was just a fill-in, and the story might not have worked for anyone who hadn't read the preceding Black Panther stories.

I guess my problem with the ongoing mess that is Incredible Hulk really speaks to the broader argument of whether any of these decades-old characters have good stories left to be told in their various sagas, or if they've ceased to be characters at all, and instead are cold, soulless franchises.

I'm not sold yet on the idea that the tales of our various childhood icons should end, probably because there are still good stories being told, as rare as they may be. Matt Wagner's Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity is the perfect example of the kind of Hulk stories I crave: good, compelling stories casting age-old characters in an interesting light without altering the essentials of who they are at every turn. Wagner did it. Priest did it.

It's been a long time since I've been happy with my childhood hero's title, and as such choose to consider Incredible Hulk #467, Peter David's last story on the title--and probably his best--as the very last Hulk story (which worked much better as a climax to the Hulk's history than David's brief return to the character in Incredible Hulk: The End--once again, the character was re-invented; this time as a superhero parallel of Greek myth). With the departure of Bruce Jones from Marvel and the rumors that the green guy's saga will be brought closer to that of Avengers, maybe Marvel will get the kind of talent that can give Hulk-nuts like me interesting, entertaining stories about a big green guy who breaks stuff. Probably not. Until they do, I'll make allies of the nay-sayers who call for an end to the superhero necrophilia and ask that finally, and at long last, somebody will leave Hulk alone.

Top 10 reasons why vampires are better than zombies

2011-03-03T20:38:00.002-05:00

10. If vampires don't feed on humans, they die (again). If zombies don't feed on humans, they're okay. They get cranky, but they're always cranky. Conclusion - vampires kill people out of necessity. Zombies kill people because they're assholes.

9. Everyone wants to screw vampires, even people who kill vampires. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? She had two vampire boytoys. No one wants to screw zombies, not even other zombies. They might want to gnaw on each other, but that's it.

8. Vampires have cool names. Dracula. Spike. Angel. Lestat. The cast list of a zombie flick? Zombie #1. Zombie #2. Zombie #3. Zombie #4. Blonde In Sweater. Zombie #5. Etc.

7. Vampires have character. They're devious, suave, seductive, sensual, childlike, and free spirited. Zombies just break shit and eat your nose.

6. Vampires are like ninjas. One can take out a household before anyone knows what's happening. Zombies are like killer bees. They can't do shit unless there's a swarm of them. Otherwise, any B-movie actor can hold them off forever with a shotgun and a golf club.

5. Zombies scare me. Vampires turn me on. Either will kill me, but I'd rather die with a boner.

4. Vampires are discriminating in their tastes. They just want your blood. Zombies will fight each other over everything from your foreskin to your colon.

3. Get killed by a vampire and there's always a chance you'll wake up as a super-powered child of the night. Get killed by a zombie, and you wake up as an ass-hungry corpse.

2. Vampires are clearly the more well-rounded villains. By their nature, they lay claim to a healthy majority of the seven deadly sins. They're gluttonous, lustful, proud, wrathful, and greedy. Zombies, however, only get gluttony. Ironically, being that they're villains who only commit one of the deadly sins, I would argue this renders them sinners of sloth. But they don't get to count that with their sins because it's already being counted against their sins. So there.

1. Satan loves vampires. Nobody loves zombies.

Review - The Illusionist

2011-03-02T07:35:00.000-05:00

As a child there was something frustrating about cartoons featuring characters either mute like the Pink Panther or, like Charlie Brown’s horn-throated parents, intentionally incoherent. A world in which people didn’t speak seemed inherently scary. How could you communicate? How could you know what you needed to know? How could misunderstandings become understandings? How could you find or keep friends? How could you ever experience anything but crushing loneliness?

A sense of disconnection is perhaps why the characters of Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist speak rarely and, when they do, only allow a coherent word or two to squeak through otherwise garbled speech. The film’s main character, a French magician, finds himself more and more disconnected from a world that once warmly received his brand of entertainment.

The film follows the final days of the magician’s career. He travels through the great cities of Europe plying his trade, but finds himself squeezed out of the limelight by the increasing appeal of fledgling rock ‘n’ roll. His greatest success is in a tiny Scottish town so backward that the switching on of a light bulb is met with thunderous applause. Yet even there, moments after the magician’s well-received performance in the crowded pub, he is replaced with a jukebox. While in the town, the magician impresses the young Alice with his magic. Hiding in the back of a truck, she follows him when he leaves the town and convinces him to go to Edinburgh where they stay in a hotel filled with clowns, ventriloquists and acrobats who – like the magician – have been left behind by the world’s shifting tastes. There is a sweet, innocent romance between Alice and the magician, but they never exchange more than a peck on the cheek.

The animation is beautiful and each character – even those who simply fill the background – is distinct, recognizable, and expressive even without the gift of speech. The film thoughtfully plays with the notion of whether or not, like the magician’s illusions, we are always seeing what we think we’re seeing; like when a windblown cloud of feathers fools Alice into thinking it’s snowing or a pair of oncoming headlights make the magician and Alice think they’re not long for this world until, instead of a car, the headlights prove to be from twin motorcycles.

While the film certainly ends on a sad note, it’s filled with wonderful comedy that seems utterly human even in its sillier moments. One of my favorite characters was the drunken, warmhearted Scotsman who seems to pop up unexpected everywhere; ready to dance wildly like a frat boy in a mosh pit to his pub’s new jukebox, or to abruptly drop face-down in the grass and roll down a hill like a little boy. The humor never seems cruel even in its darker moments – such as the many trials and tribulations of the suicidal clown who lives upstairs from Alice and the magician – and you leave with the impression that the filmmakers cared thoroughly for every single one of their cartoon creations.

I am thankful that growing up has, among other things, cured me of my aversion to such animated features. I found it very refreshing to experience a film whose characters communicate mostly without words, as well as simply watching a film that explored a genuinely different way of telling a story.

Soundtrack nostalgia

2011-03-01T00:01:00.004-05:00

At work yesterday, my co-worker Zack brought up the Best Original Song category in the Oscars. I forget exactly how the conversation progressed but it led to me, Zack, and the intern Suzy riffing on all the songs originally recorded for movies that we could remember. I started writing stuff down and thought for today's post I'd get a little nostalgic. This isn't a Best Of list. I'm just having fun remembering them.

"Dream Warriors" by Dokken; from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

I think this video is the only reason I ever watched a Nightmare on Elm Street flick. I didn't like horror movies and didn't share the love other teenage boys seemed to have for slasher flicks. But when I saw Dokken's "Dream Warriors" video and subsequently learned about the movie, I saw something that appealed to the comic book fan inside me - instead of a killer stalking prey in their dreams, I saw superheroes (i.e., a group of teenagers who learned how to give themselves super powers in their dreams) fighting a super villain. That was something I could get behind.

"We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" by Tina Turner; from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

I was a kid when this came out and I wonder whether or not, if I'd been a bit older, the obvious mismatch between the music and the subject matter would have made me avoid the movie entirely.

I remember being disappointed about what I thought at the time were lyrics that had little to do with movie. Or, at least, that I thought didn't make sense. Because of the use of the childrens choir, I assumed that the lyrics were written from the perspective of the tribe of children who saved Max from the desert. And it seemed very clear they DID need and want another hero. In fact, their entire Peter-Pan-y existence was built around the notion of a heroic pilot they believed was destined to return to save them all.

The wikipedia entry for the song says, however, that the lyrics were written from the perspective of "those being oppressed," which I guess means the inhabitants of Bartertown. That seems like a strange point-of-view though since you don't meet many of them other than those - like Aunty Entity and Master Blaster - who are doing the oppressing.

I saw Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome again a couple of months ago. I hadn't seen it for years. I think I wrote it off as just another dumb movie I liked when I was a kid, but it holds up fairly well. I should learn to be less dismissive about movies that aren't musicals.

"Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr.; from Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters remains one of my favorite movies and easily one of my top 10 comedies.

This video, on the other hand, seems to be about a supernatural rapist who pursues a woman while she's teased by 1980s celebrities living in her wall.

"Glory of Love" by Peter Cetera; from The Karate Kid, Part II

I remember being very excited about the impending release of The Karate Kid, Part II and being very, very angry that this odd-looking blond man was recruited to sing for the movie. I don't know anything about Peter Cetera, and he may just be the nicest man this side of Okinawa, but my impressions of him when I saw this video were very clear. He personified Hollywood. He was clearly older than his big hair and his giant, white teeth wanted him to be. He seemed simultaneously striking and deeply, deeply ugly. He looked like the kind of guy who was waiting for me in a van with blacked-out windows.

"Flash" by Queen; from Flash Gordon

I hadn't thought of this song in years until I saw Tenacious D cover it on their DVD collection.

Queen was so perfectly named, and not just for the glaringly obvious reason. There was a tangible majesty to their sound. If I were a superhero, I would want Queen to write my theme song.

"Blaze of Glory" by Jon Bon Jovi; from Young Guns II

I certainly never listened to this while fantasizing of being a brave warrior making his last stand against brutish, cowardly villains who looked suspiciously like some of my high school classmates. And anyone who says otherwise clearly fucks goats.

"Live to Tell" by Madonna; from At Close Range

Zack mentioned this today and I felt like I hadn't thought about this song in a million years. I remember being surprised Madonna was willing to do a song for a movie she wasn't starring in, and strangely thinking that while I thought the movie looked good I didn't want to see it. It looked too tragic. In fact, I remember thinking that shot of Penn and his buddies jumping in the air Oh-what-a-feeling style (about 01:19 in the clip) was too comic for what looked to be a violent, depressing movie.

"The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" by Cyndi Lauper; from The Goonies

As far as I'm concerned, Cyndi Lauper was the queen of the '80s (as in royalty, not as in I'm comparing her to the guys earlier in the list).

I have a relatively dumb wish. I want a Goonies 2. The catch? I want all the surviving cast from The Goonies as they exist today, but they have to act like only a year has passed and none of them have aged more than that.

No Country for Old Goonies. What evil prick wouldn't pay to see it?

"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship; from Mannequin

It's likely Kim Cattrall was the most important woman in my sexual development. She helped jumpstart my hormones in my pre-teens when I saw Mannequin and started their slow death when I saw Sex and the City.

"Batdance" by Prince; from Batman

Considering what a hardcore Marvel kid I was, I think "Batdance" excited me more about Tim Burton's film than any trailers, commercials, or Behind the Scenes footage. I think Prince really committed himself to embodying the spirit of the movie and it was cool to be able to tell just how deeply Prince cared about making the soundtrack for a comic book flick.

Now that I've grown up, read a few books, made the easy choice of not remaining in that camp of aged comic book fans who sigh whenever someone mentions the possibility that there might be something sexual behind the stories of muscular men in skintight outfits wrestling around with each other, I think I have a better appreciation for how the video's creators chose to portray the Batman/Joker conflict as such a sexually charged one.

In fact, boobs or no boobs, I'd say Prince's dancers understood Batman better than Joel Schumacher ever did.

(had to get that in there)

Top 10 Reasons to hate the Oscars

2011-02-28T06:16:00.003-05:00

The year Lord of the Rings: Return of the King took home its big basket of Oscars, I was living with a woman I now call the Five Year Bitch. If memory serves, during that ceremony the cameras frequently cut to the actors who played the hobbits in Return of the King. For some reason, it tickled me that all four of them chose to sit together. Every time they would show up on the screen; I would cry out in a high-pitched, fake English accent, "We're the hobbits!" The Five Year Bitch enjoyed this at first but quickly grew annoyed and I knew the next time she went on one of her crying marathons, this running gag would be used as proof that I didn't really love her, that I didn't respect her, that most of her problems were my fault, etc. And I wasn't wrong.

That's the best Oscars memory I have.

The other Oscars memories are uniformly bad, and mainly involve the negative impression the two-faced douchebags of Hollywood leave when no one's around to write them dialogue. Like Michael Moore getting booed off stage one year and, the following year, every asshole who booed him championing Moore's cause because it had become more acceptable in the interim. Like Billy Crystal singling out Bill Murray's visible disappointment upon losing for Best Actor. Like Annie Lennox making a wet-faced monkey of herself and making sure that neither of the other two people who won Best Original Song for "Into the West" had time to thank anyone. Like every time the music drowned out the winners for things like Best Sound Editing and Best Costume Design because the winners aren't as rich and no one's ever beat off to them.

As pretty much anyone who watched it knows, last night's ceremony did not fight very hard to prove Mick wrong. I was only willing to stay up until a little after 10, and even then the only thing keeping me going was the furious stream of Twitter snark. It didn't take long for me to realize I was tweeting, and reading other tweets, on my Blackberry often enough that my eyes were on my phone more than they were on the screen. Patton Oswalt's tweets deserve more thanks for any enjoyment I received from last night's ceremony than anyone who took the stage.

Since I did not watch it to the end, arguably this list could not possibly be comprehensive, but if you tuned in last night you know that a list of reasons to hate the ceremony never could be comprehensive.

10. Celine Dion's commercial. I forget exactly what it was for, but at some point during the broadcast Celine Dion was in a commercial about the Lung Association or the Heart Association or some group that does really good things that you can't really criticize without looking like an assface. If Dion's going to be in a commercial, she shouldn't be allowed in a commercial you can't yell at without feeling like a jerk. Like British Petroleum. Or Evil, Inc.

9. The fact that every presenter and winner who otherwise had nothing funny or worthwhile to say referenced Melissa Leo's f-bomb for an easy laugh.

8. When Kevin Spacey opened his spiel with some awkward singing and twitter lit up like a fucking Christmas tree with predictions that Spacey would be next year's host. Yeah. We need more actors singing for the Oscars. Maybe they can get Christopher Walken as a tap-dancing host, too.

7. Toy Story 3 winning and/or being nominated for so many awards. I saw it. It was a good, fun flick. It didn't deserve to be nominated so much. It certainly didn't deserve to be nominated for Best Picture. And how the fuck was it nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay? Because it was "based on the previous films?" That's a bunch of bullshit. That's an amount of bullshit they needed a truck to deliver. In fact, not only is it bullshit, it's actually proof of how much the movie didn't deserve to be nominated so much. Saying it's actually an "Adapted Screenplay" and that it was adapted from the previous films is pretty much the same as saying that it was just another fucking sequel.

6. Trent Reznor got on stage and didn't say anything disparaging about any women he went out with. In fact, I think he said something nice about his wife. What the fuck, Trent?

5. The hosts. Franco looked like he would've rather been anywhere but on stage at the Oscars. Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, committed herself fully to the gig but just came off as annoying and over-eager to please.

4. Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. I mean, were they even trying for a laugh? You have to work hard to be more awkward and annoying than Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson, and man did Timberlake/Kunis work hard.

3. Jokes about Charlie Sheen or any other celebrities currently stuck in the tabloid penalty box. Dear Hollywood, we do not need any more proof that your collective self is nothing but a big cool kids' table. We do not need to see any more of the hypocrisy of your actors whining about paparazzi as if photographers caused the Holocaust while simultaneously using tabloid-derived humor to make themselves sound funny and cool; like the teacher who picks on the unpopular kid to get the class on his/her side. Just stick to your other shitty jokes and stop throwing each other under the bus.

2. The King's Speech's success. It was a good movie, but it did not deserve all of its victories and it certainly did not deserve Best Picture. I saw half of the films nominated for Best Picture and with the exception of Toy Story 3 any one of those other films (True Grit, Inception and 127 Hours) were more deserving. I believe Colin Firth deserved his Best Actor win, but ironically I think that's part of why the film he won it for shouldn't have won Best Picture. I think Firth did his job too well. I think Firth did a magnificent job of portraying an ascending king who was held back by a speech impediment, who desperately wanted to be heard, who desperately wanted the approval of his father, who desperately wanted to prove he was worthy of his royal blood, and who at no point in The King's Speech seemed like he gave one hot shit about the horrorshow his country was about to be thrust into. I don't know if that was what George VI was really like, but that's the character Firth masterfully portrayed.

1. The very nature of the thing, and I doubt I'm the first person to say it. The Oscars Ceremony is an attempt to give recognition to people who get nothing but recognition. Which isn't to say that movie makers don't deserve the opportunity to honor each others' achievements, but the fact that there is actually an awards "season" is proof enough of the masturbatory aspect of the thing. We all contribute to the tugfest by watching and this blog is, admittedly, part of the collective jerk.

Let me take that back

2011-02-27T07:23:00.002-05:00

In a recent e-mail exchange, my good friend Charlie made me realize I have turned this blog into the one thing I never wanted it to be - a chore.

Ironically, I think a lot of the things I've done that turned it into a chore are things I did with the intent of making the blog easier and more fun. In particular, a lot of the decisions I made about the blog lately were geared towards making it easier for me to decide what I would write about. For example, there was the theme week idea. If the theme of the week is samurai comics, that narrows things down. The same goes with the decision to not buy any new graphic novels until I'd reviewed all of the ones I own. Of course, there's the simple fact that in spite of the many times I've said I wanted to write about more than comics, Superheroes, etc. pretty much has been nothing but comics lately.

There were other factors that went into all those decisions, but the common thread is that they all narrowed the scope of the blog so I wouldn't need to spend so much time arguing with myself over what I would write about on any given day. It may seem silly that deciding what to write about would cause so much frustration - and you're right it is silly - but it does and I won't bore you with the reasons. Regardless, none of those decisions have made writing the blog easier. They've made it seem more like a daily assignment. Something to bear.

So, all that crap about theme weeks and not buying new GNs until I've reviewed all the old ones; forget that. I'm not doing any of it. I am still committed to updating the blog every weekday for 6 months, but my other pledges and rules need to get flushed. I was dangerously close to gutting the blog of its fun. Thanks for reminding of that, Chuck.

HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!!!!! : The Puffball Collective - What an Asshole

2011-02-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

Whatever the Hulk’s stories achieved over the years, producing infectious villains isn’t one of them. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the distinguished men and women of Hulk’s rogue’s gallery don’t see a lot of travel outside the home title. For the most part, the only Hulk-centric bad guys who get significant time in other titles are ones who “belonged” to other heroes first like Rhino and the Absorbing Man. As prone to resurrection as super-people may be, with notable exceptions Hulk villains are some of the most likely to stay dead simply because no one cares enough about them to bring them back.

Regardless, as far as this Hulkling is concerned, no Marvel villain so thoroughly deserved his horrific fate as the dark-hearted bastard who lived and died for less than a year in Incredible Hulk – the Puffball Collective.

The Puffball Collective was a product of Bill Mantlo’s final, epic Incredible Hulk storyline known to Hulk fans as “The Crossroads Saga” ; a story that left the groundwork for Peter David’s definitive run on the title and one that was likely a major influence on Greg Pak’s “Planet Hulk.”

For a time Bruce Banner could control his transformations into the Hulk’s body and could take charge of the Hulk’s body once he did change. He was pardoned for his crimes, was invited to rejoin the Avengers (an invitation he turned down, much to my disappointment at the time), and tried to rebuild his life. Unfortunately, knowing Hulk and Doctor Strange were friends, the villain Nightmare slowly infiltrated Banner’s mind through his dreams and was determined to use the Hulk to kill Strange (and that is why Banner Hulk was such a dick in Secret Wars). The end result was what Strange believed to be the equivalent of Bruce Banner’s psychic death, and the Hulk that was left behind was more powerful and savage than ever. He could not speak at all, even in the classic monosyllabic “Hulk Smash” speech pattern, and simply lashed out at everything and everyone within reach. Strange’s solution was to banish the Hulk to a dimensional crossroads connected only to worlds either uninhabited or inhabited by creatures whose physical power was comparable to that of the Hulk’s. The green guy spent over a year in the Crossroads, from Incredible Hulk #s 301 – 313 and Incredible Hulk Annual #13 – until he was finally liberated by the unwitting Canadian superteam Alpha Flight.

I was 9 or 10 when the Crossroads Saga began. I had never read comics more bleak or depressing and I desperately wanted the Hulk to find his way home. Most of the Crossroads stories involved the Hulk making friends he would lose either to death – like the spinal-cord symbiote of Incredible Hulk Annual #13 who temporarily restored some of Hulk’s intelligence and whose dying wish was to see the stars; or the gentle, elephantine giant of Incredible Hulk #304 who was executed for his pacifism – or to brutal transformation, like the emerald-skinned beauty of Incredible Hulk #s 302 and 303 who was so reminiscent of the late Jarella. Adding insult to injury, the Hulk’s power was not nearly as impressive in the violent worlds of the Crossroads as it was on Earth. The Hulk never had his ass handed to him more frequently, perhaps most memorably by a red-skinned child in Incredible Hulk #303.

In the beginning, there was one bright spot of hope – the Puffball Collective. He showed up for the first time in Incredible Hulk #301. The creature was exactly what it sounded like. It was a floating cloud of white, puffy balls acting in tandem like a swarm of insects. It could assume different shapes, enjoyed an encyclopedic knowledge of the Crossroad’s different portals, and was telepathic. The one thing it couldn’t do was leave the Crossroads. Unlike the Hulk who could pass through the portals to other worlds as he wished, the Puffball Collective was stranded within the Crossroads itself; cursed to keep company only with the place’s bizarre signpost, the seemingly endless pathways, and the portals they led to.

As soon as the Hulk appeared, the Puffball Collective set about winning him over. He pulled images from what was left of the Hulk’s mind and assumed shapes he thought would be pleasing to him (like that of Bruce Banner – he obviously didn’t know the Hulk very well). When he sensed the Hulk was hungry, he assumed the shape of a banquet table loaded with food, though the Hulk didn’t react well when none of it was edible. When the Hulk returned from the world where his symbiote friend died, the Collective assumed the shape of a bed for his fellow prisoner to rest from the emotional wound he was too savage to even remember.

The Hulk proved stingy with his trust. Every time the Hulk entered another portal, the Puffball Collective begged and pleaded for the Hulk to stay with him or to take him along, but the Hulk had only two reactions to the Collective – indifference and rage.

It took the unexpected arrival of the U-Foes at the end of Incredible Hulk #304 for the Puffball Collective to win any trust from his fellow prisoner. Risking torment and death to help the Hulk against the dark parody of the Fantastic Four, the Collective used his knowledge of the Crossroads’ portals to help Hulk defeat them. He had Hulk lure X-Ray, a villain made of radiation, into the portal of a world of radiation-eating monsters; and X-ray’s sister Vapor, made of gas, into a world without an atmosphere. The Puffball Collective’s aid and the sacrifice of some of his collective finally convinced the Hulk that he was a friend.

Once the friendship was forged, the Hulk’s loyalty was unwavering. Soon after the defeat of the U-Foes, more of Hulk’s old acquaintances appeared to test that loyalty. The energy-sucking giant Klaatu who first appeared in Incredible Hulk #136 entered the Crossroads, and not far behind was the Pequod-inspired spaceship The Andromeda. Back when Roy Thomas and Herb Trimpe teamed up on the green guy’s adventures, the crew of the Andromeda had recruited the Hulk in their quest to kill Klaatu, and this time was no different. The Hulk would only board The Andromeda if his new Puffball friend could come with him and the ship’s First Mate and Captain – Xeron the Star Slayer and the cybernetic Captain Cybor respectively – didn’t object. Unfortunately, objections or not, the spell that kept the Puffball in the Crossroads was still active, and when The Andromeda escaped the Crossroads to chase Klaatu, the Collective was left behind. The Hulk’s shipmates ignored his howls of protest until finally his fists rocked the spaceship in the middle of its battle with the big, dumb Klaatu (who, irrespective of the obvious Moby Dick analogy, is kind of like Galactus if Galactus never spoke and rather than constructing giant machines and recruiting heralds, just wandered around aimlessly). To quell his anger they returned to the Crossroads for the Puffball Collective and used a force field projector to keep him on board the ship before pursuing Klaatu a second time. The force field worked, though the battle with Klaatu went badly for The Andromeda. They all died, just like they did last time, and the Hulk and the Puffball Collective returned via Doctor Strange’s failsafe spell to the Crossroads. What was most significant perhaps during the Klaatu story was the fact that the Hulk’s friendship with the Collective, combined with the Collective’s telepathic urgings, helped restore a semblance of his old intelligence. For the first time since his banishment, except when his connection to the symbiote of Incredible Hulk Annual #13 lent him intelligence, the Hulk spoke.

In Incredible Hulk #308, the Puffball Collective’s true intentions were finally revealed. He told the Hulk that inquisitive members of his race accidentally unleashed demons upon his world. He managed to escape to the Crossroads but the demons sealed the portal to his home. Seeing the mystic chains and wall blocking the portal and wanting to please his new friend, the Hulk severed the chains and blasted the wall to pieces. The Hulk and the Collective entered the portal to find the world in ruins. Seeing the Hulk was tired, the Collective told him to rest, that he would watch over him as he slept, and from there things fell apart. The Hulk was attacked by a demon as he slept and seeing the Collective was nowhere in sight, he assumed the Puffball Collective slain by the same demon. When the demon defeated the Hulk and a whole army of the things appeared, so did the Puffball Collective. Sadistically enjoying the beast’s confusion and heartache, the Collective explained to the Hulk that he was the one who let the demons loose upon the world, and that it was no accident. He did not escape his world, he was banished from it and his brethren sealed the portal; sacrificing themselves to make sure the demons did not run loose through all the other worlds connected to the Crossroads. Using Strange’s failsafe spell, the Hulk returned to the Crossroads and was able to seal the portal just in time by reattaching the chains he had severed. He watched the demons turn on his “friend” just as the portal closed.

As a child, no comic book story had such a powerful impact on me. As I’ve written before, it was a relatively friendless childhood that attracted me to the Hulk’s stories. I thought the kids at school misunderstood me just like the other heroes misunderstood the Hulk. In later years when friends would tell me how strongly they related to the X-Men as kids because they grew up feeling like outsiders, I enjoyed a silly and quiet sense of superiority. The muties may have been outsiders, I thought, but at least they had each other. The Hulk was the real outsider. He had no one.

For the Hulk’s one bizarre, constant friend to prove false – in a storyline when making new friends and losing them to horrific deaths seemed like an hourly occurrence – was utterly heart-shattering. I remember reading that first revealing panel, when the Collective yells “FOOL!” - and needing to stare at it a while before turning the page. I just didn’t want to believe it. And once it was clear that the Collective was an evil prick, I was angry. And I wasn’t angry at the character, I was angry at whatever bastards put together that comic. I kept reading Incredible Hulk purely out of faith that eventually there was a light at the end of the tunnel; that the Hulk would go home and find new friends.

Though he would never been heard from again, I have never felt as much absolutely unforgiving hatred for a comic book villain as I did for the Puffball Collective. I wouldn’t put any money that doesn’t come from a board game on the guy returning to comics any time soon. But if he does, rest assured, I’ll be there. I’ll be ready with a flamethrower, a vacuum cleaner, and one of those roller thingees you rub on your clothes to get rid of cat hair.

Blogging frustrations and theme weeks

2011-02-24T06:15:00.000-05:00

I have no reviews or insights on comics to share with you today. I am struggling with the notion of meeting my pledge to provide content here every weekday for 6 months.

I do not want to stop blogging, but the more time I put into my novel the more I consider abandoning the every-weekday pledge. I doubt anyone would cry foul if I posted 4 days a week - or even 3 - instead of 5, but it would disappoint me. This coming Monday, I'll be 2 months into the 6 month goal. That feels like too deep a cut to not keep going. Mainly, I want to finish what I started; that's something I haven't done much in my life and it's no one's fault but my own. Well, okay, I guess I also blame Jesus.

The best idea I have is to write all of my reviews on the weekend and schedule them to post during the week. I'm going to try that and we'll see what happens. Doing that feels kind of weird just because I'm not used to writing more than one review on any given day. I also wonder if I'll have time for any longer, more involved pieces.

I am happy so far with one of my other goals - to write reviews of all the GNs I own before allowing myself to buy new ones. The one annoying little problem I have there is what to pick for review on any given week. The plan of writing all the reviews over the weekend makes it that much more annoying, because I have to pick them all right away. I end up changing my mind a dozen times.

So, I've decided I'm going to do theme weeks here at Superheroes, etc. There will be crime comic week, a monster comic week, weeks for particular series, weeks for specific creative teams on particular series, and I can almost guarantee you there will be several Hulk comic weeks (though, arguably, that's every week here).

I considered doing this before because I thought it would be fun, but two things got in the way. First, there would be the regular frustration of trying to fit reviews for new comics into weekly themes. Since I won't be reviewing any new GNs for a while, that's not a problem. Second, there's my Friday Hulk column. I felt that a weekly theme wouldn't feel complete if I didn't include the Hulk column, and there's no way I'm shaving off Hulk Is The Strongest One There Is. So, I'm just going to have the theme weeks and if I can fit my Hulk Fridays into the blog's respective weekly themes, great. If not, no big.

Reflection, inspiration, forgiveness, hope and a last line quoting Coldplay, sorry Kate (Kate hates Coldplay)

2011-02-23T00:01:00.001-05:00

I took vacation last week and it accomplished exactly what I hoped. It was more than a pit stop. I turned a corner.

I didn't get as much done as I hoped, but I achieved momentum. I'm writing. I'm writing the novel that I've allowed to live lonely in my head for years. For a few nights I've added to the novel. For now my rule is I need to write at least 4 pages every day. I was delightfully surprised last night when I realized I'd finished 5 pages without meaning to go beyond my minimum. It's just a page, I know, but I've been so terrified to fail utterly at so little as a paragraph that an extra page means so much more than the time the keystrokes took.

I've grown flexible. Even if you've never tried to wrestle writer's block or anything like it, if you've ever dieted or tried to quit smoking, then you probably know the danger of being so rigid that you're self-defeating. For example, you decide to eat healthier. You're good for a few days and then you break down and shove a bag of Doritos in your face. Discouraged by your weakness while desperately seeking an excuse to stop denying yourself at the same time, you think, "Oh well, I screwed up. Eating all these Doritos messed up my diet. I guess I have to quit it entirely." I've done the same thing with writing. When I've tried to get back to a regular writing schedule, I make plans. I make ambitious and complex schedules. All it took was one cog in my spiffy new construct to not do what it was supposed to do - one day when I didn't have enough time to read or write as much as I wanted - and I huffed and puffed and just pushed the big, steaming monster off a cliff. This time, I started off mindful of overburdening myself. Already I've made plans that I've needed to scrap. But rather than scrap everything, I just scrap the plans. And then I make new ones. I accept that I don't know everything and do my best to adapt.

One of the most important things I accomplished last week was turning the idea of living as a writer from a lofty goal into a living, breathing possibility. I read and wrote all day. I researched. I learned. And sometime around Wednesday or Thursday as I drove to Albany to pick up Maryann from work, it occurred to me that I was not thinking of myself as a guy on vacation. I was thinking of myself as a writer who was working. You know the way cliché seems like nothing more than cliché until somehow it becomes viscerally real to you - until you don't just know it's true, but you fucking know it's true - and you shake your head at all the times you dismissed it? Well there's a whole host of self-helpy sayings that go along the lines of "Make your dreams reality." I felt that. It wasn't abstract. It was tangible. I saw it. I see it.

But I think I learned the most important lesson so far yesterday. Yesterday was my first day back at work and it felt good. It was relatively low stress. Then towards the end of the work day I saw the news that Dwayne McDuffie died.

I did not know McDuffie's work well though I remember being surprisingly impressed with how much he made me like Deathlok (a comic I probably would've avoided otherwise), and of course the Justice League cartoons he wrote were some of the best animated adaptations of superhero comics in years.

I was strangely affected by the response to the news. All it took was a quick scroll down my twitter feed to see that McDuffie commanded tremendous respect and love among his colleagues. Almost everyone in the long list of comics pros I follow on twitter seemed genuinely sad, shocked, and as if they'd lost something precious. It wasn't long before tribute posts appeared, listing McDuffie's accomplishments and expressing the impact he'd had on bloggers, writers, artists, and other readers.

Yesterday when I waited for Maryann to leave her office, I thought of everything I'd read about McDuffie, how much he accomplished and how young he was (his age had still not been posted but there were plenty of pictures of him on the Internet and he didn't look he could've left his 40s yet). While I did not know McDuffie and do not know his struggles, reading about his life made me want to go home and write that much more. It made me want to stay up all night and deal with the physical and mental consequences, so I could make sure that before whoever took McDuffie took me, I could be lucky. And I knew it wasn't envy for fame or respect or money that I felt. I knew that I just wanted, upon my death, for people to say I loved doing what I spent my life doing. In that way if no other, McDuffie's life seemed to have been a good one, and I wanted a good life too.

It will seem strange then when I say that I am happy that - inspired, rededicated and re-energized - the first thing I did when I got home was fire up the XBox 360 and play Borderlands for an hour.

When you want to be something and you spend so much time not doing the things you need to do to be that thing, something happens. You get angry. You get frustrated. You feel guilty for denying yourself your dreams. Those emotions do not motivate you. They freeze you. They convince you that you are worthless for not doing as much as you could. They convince you that you never wanted to be what you said you wanted to be in the first place, and that you never could have achieved it anyway. It becomes a vicious cycle and the easiest way to deal with it is simply to not deal.

Last week, when I finally built up momentum, when I started writing, when things started seeming possible, it occurred to me how many years had gone by when I could have been doing exactly what I was doing then and there. I could have built a better life for myself doing exactly what I always knew I wanted to do. I could have been making a living as a writer.

But yesterday, in spite of the momentum I made during my vacation, in spite of the inspiration of Dwayne McDuffie's example, when I got home I was just plain tired. I had a post-work rhythm and my writing plans did not fit. I got up in the morning, I went to work, I worked, I got home, and then I chilled. To go to work and then to go home to do more work felt wrong. It felt dumb. It felt like I was being mean to myself.

That's something I'll just have to deal with. I have habits that are in the way of regular writing. I need to build new ones. I'll work at it. I'll stumble and fall and get back up again. That's not the point.

The reason I'm thankful for my momentary lapse is that it taught me to do something I never thought I could do. I looked back at the many years when I did not do what I should've been doing. I acknowledged the possibility that if I had allowed myself fewer distractions, my life could be much different. I acknowledged that life is hard - mine and yours and everybody's - and that I didn't do what I should've because it was hard to do. And I forgave myself. I forgave myself for all my dumb years - dumb in more ways than one - because it really is okay. It's not over yet and, like the man sings, everything's not lost.

Review - Hulk Visionaries: Peter David Vol. 3

2011-02-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

Hulk Visionaries: Peter David Vol. 3
By Peter David, Jeff Purves, Steve Englehart, Alex Saviuk, and Keith Pollard
Published By Marvel; $19.99 US
Collects Incredible Hulk #s 349-354, Web of Spider-Man #44, and Fantastic Four #320

The third Hulk Visionaries: Peter David volume is the first to focus solely on the Las Vegas period; when the gray Hulk first became known as Joe Fixit. Incredible Hulk #345, collected in the preceding Hulk Visionaries: Peter David volume, ended with the gray Hulk caught at ground zero of a gamma bomb blast courtesy of the Leader. While the world believed him dead, the Hulk surfaced in Incredible Hulk #347 in Las Vegas, apparently working as a leg-breaker/bodyguard for casino owner Michael Berengetti. He also seemed to have figured out a way to stop himself from turning back into Bruce Banner. In this third volume we find out exactly how the Hulk survived the gamma blast, how he put the cork in Banner, and witness the fallout when Banner eventually resurfaces.

The Vegas stories were popular and remain etched in readers’ memories, evidenced by the fact that – following Paul Jenkins’s example – most readers refer to the gray Hulk simply as “Fixit” these days. I collected these issues as they were released; in fact one of the two letters I’ve had printed in Incredible Hulk was one complaining about the first Hulk issue collected in this volume. Still, I think my tastes veer sharply from those of a lot of my fellow Hulk fans. I didn’t hate Hulk’s time in Vegas, but I didn’t like it much either.

The very idea of it rubbed me the wrong way. The moral implications didn’t bother me. If you’d followed David’s gray Hulk adventures this far, you were used to some serious moral flexibility. It just seemed silly. The Hulk has fought gods and giant monsters and now he was a thug in Vegas? He’d laid cities to waste and now he was a glorified bouncer?

I’m not saying it didn’t make sense. In many ways it fit the gray Hulk’s character perfectly. In fact, in my review of the preceding volume I wrote that one of the things that helped distinguish David's various interpretations of the Hulk was the notion – a notion that shouldn’t have been as innovative as it was – that the Hulk wanted to build and maintain a life of his own. The Hulk’s recruitment as a leg-breaker is a natural extension of that. It makes perfect sense that the gray Hulk would want to hide from his past and build a new life to enjoy. But as a kid reading my favorite hero’s comic, it pissed me off. It felt demeaning; like Batman becoming a traffic cop.

I went back and forth on whether or not I liked Jeff Purves’s art. Purves was Incredible Hulk’s penciler for the entire Las Vegas period and as far as I can tell, save for a few Hulk shorts he drew for Marvel Comics Presents, that was the extent of his time in comics (according to IMDB however he’s been working in movies and TV, e.g. Mulan and The Simpsons Movie). There was a bland, featureless quality to most of his faces. In the case of the Hulk himself, his face alternated between looking like that of a bulldog, an old man, or a massive turtle (or at least that’s what it made me think of – there are a few panels that always remind me of that giant turtle thing the hero talks to in The Neverending Story). At the same time, he did a lot of interesting, dynamic things with perspective – particularly during action scenes – that I really liked. I don’t know his reasons for not continuing with comics, but I’m curious what he would have produced if he’d worked on other titles.

There’s also something specific about the issues collected in this volume that I didn’t like. I used to have a name for it which I’m sure I thought was terribly clever. I don’t remember what it was, but it was something along the lines of “Hulk’s Big Dumb Neverending Crossover.”

This volume opens with Web of Spider-Man #44. During a book tour stop in Vegas, Spider-Man gets caught in the crossfire between a quartet of cyborg commandos calling themselves Warzone. When one of them injures the Hulk’s girlfriend Marlo, the gray guy gets involved, which leads into Incredible Hulk #349. Hulk fights Spidey, Spidey fights Warzone, Hulk fights Warzone, Warzone fights Warzone, and when everything’s resolved Hulk goes home to find Doctor Doom waiting for him in his apartment. That leads into Fantastic Four #320 when Doom convinces the Hulk to travel to New York City to fight the Thing for no real reason. They continue their fight in Incredible Hulk #350 and that issue ends with the Beast stopping the Hulk before he can leave NYC and blackmailing him into helping the Avengers in one of (and, if memory serves, the very first of) Marvel’s huge, dumb annuals crossovers. Thankfully, they didn’t bother reprinting Avengers Annual #17 (which ends with the Hulk betraying the other heroes and getting blasted through the ocean by the High Evolutionary and landing, very conveniently, in the Nevada desert). I know crossover stories happen, and occasionally they can be very fun, but at the time I remember having three Hulk crossover issues in a row - particularly when neither of the three issues had anything to do with one another - was a little extreme. Thankfully, David wrote the Web of Spider-Man issue, but Englehart’s Fantastic Four issue really didn’t make much sense to me (and yes, for reasons other than Hulk getting beat up by Thing). Walter Simonson wrote the Avengers annual and it wasn’t particularly bad, but the Hulk didn’t really seem to have a reason to be in the story other than to sell a few extra comics. These days Marvel seems to have gone more crossover crazy than ever, but back then this seemed a little excessive.

Unfortunately, I have to admit the only part of this volume I really enjoy are “Total Recall” and “Fervor” – Incredible Hulk #s 351 & 352 respectively – which tell the tale of how Hulk survived the gamma bomb blast and how he (all too temporarily) suppressed the change back to Banner. We learn that wizards on K’ai, the homeworld of the Hulk’s late lover Jarella, had been monitoring the Hulk’s activities on Earth. When they saw the Hulk was about to be killed by the Leader, they teleported him to K’ai. They tell the Hulk that during his absence a Hulk-worshipping religion has emerged with a particularly vicious zealot at its head. It had been a long time since the Hulk had gone on any kind of crazy alien/cosmic/interdimensional adventures, and getting a new world-hopping Hulk tale was refreshing. I even liked Purves’s art better in handling the otherworldliness of K’ai as opposed to the more real-world Las Vegas. Re-reading these stories for the review has strengthened an opinion that has been percolating with me for a while – that the Hulk is his best when he’s off Earth and that his adventures should take him the hell away from Earth as much as possible.

For an admirer of Peter David’s Incredible Hulk, the collection is essential and as such a fan I wouldn’t want to be without it. It just wasn’t my favorite time in the green-sometimes-gray goliath’s history.

Review - Orc Stain Vol. 1

2011-02-21T00:01:00.003-05:00

Orc Stain Vol. 1
By James Stokoe
Published By Image; $17.99 US
Collects Orc Stain #s 1-5

As unlikely as it may seem for a comic book blogger to have enjoyed teenage years that were anything other than a rock ‘n’ roll fable, the better part of my 15th and 16th years’ Friday nights were spent playing Dungeons & Dragons at the Studio of Bridge & Games in Schenectady. Our group enjoyed a number of truly corny inside jokes. When our adventurers traveled in the wilderness and our dungeonmaster Ren announced “Night falls,” we would make a communal “THUMP” noise. Our characters would camp, occasionally there’d be a quick dust-up in the night with wandering goblins or something along those lines, and eventually Ren would announce “Dawn breaks!” We all celebrated this by collectively making a sound like glass shattering.

And believe it or not, I'm fairly certain at least one guy in our group had lost his virginity at this point. No, I have no idea how, I just heard it might have happened.

One of our favorite weekly rituals was a short song we always found an excuse to sing, no matter what was going on in the game. I don’t know where it came from – if someone in the group came up with it or if it was something that had floated in from another game – but we called it the Orc Marching Song:

We’re gonna rape,
Kill,
Pillage and burn!
We’re gonna rape, kill, pillage and burn!
Eat babies!

We’re gonna rape,
Rape,
Rape and rape !
We’re gonna rape, rape, rape and rape!
Make babies!

Okay, writing that out makes it seem more offensive than I thought it was at the time.

I couldn’t keep that song out of my head as I read James Stokoe’s first Orc Stain trade collection, and I guess that makes sense. In his afterword, Stokoe explains Orc Stain was conceived after an argument he had with a friend about the orcs of Lord of the Rings. Stokoe writes, “I was under the impression that you didn’t get a reasonable explanation as to why the orcs were so utterly evil and amoral. They just were and the plot went on.”

Stokoe’s response was to create the wildly colorful and deliciousy brutal world of Orc Stain: a world that makes sense of the orcs and where no one but orcs make sense. It’s a world where living things take on the roles of inanimate objects – like a massive bear-like creature with a safe carved out of his belly; a battle axe with eyes whose beak acts as the blade; or a hot-air balloon held in place by a massive, veined stalk that looks suspiciously gronch-like (gronch = orc dick) – and so accomplishing mundane tasks necessitate the torture and slaughter of innocent beasts. The orc economy is literally dependent on violence as the orc currency – coins called chits – are made from diced up orc genitalia (in fact Stokoe provides a disturbing guide on how to make chits from orc cock in the back).

Like the masses of nameless orcs in Lord of the Rings and other fantasy series, the other orcs of Orc Stain are born without names to differentiate themselves. The most noteworthy orcs are given numbers after they die which are carved into massive totems in the shapes of their heads. Orcs do tend to earn names by reputation, and Orc Stain opens with one such bastard, The Orctzar, whose influence spreads as he conquers more lands and unites more orcs under one banner than any other chieftain in history. Like any orc, he just wants more, and a seer tells him to accomplish this he needs the “one-eyed orc.”

Enter One-Eye, an orc with the uncanny ability – like Thor, and yet very much not like Thor – to accomplish just about anything with the stroke of hammer. A safecracker by trade, One-Eye can hit a structure in just the right spot to bring it crashing down around his enemies’ ears or he can tap an orc in just the right vein to make his limbs pop off. Though he’s no angel, One-Eye isn’t as ruthless a bastard as most of his orc brethren. He steals and he kills and he maims, but mostly for necessity or vengeance rather than the pure sadism that drives his fellow orcs. One-Eye doesn’t know why some particularly menacing orcs from the southern jungles are hunting him and rounding up every one-eyed orc they can find, but he's eventually captured about brought to a city built around a Godzilla-sized, spider-like beast dug out of the side of a mountain.

It’s a darkly humorous fantasy adventure, and the star here is Stokoe’s art. I’m kind of at a loss to describe it. It puts me in mind of some of the more fantasy-flavored psychedelic rock album covers, but darker in content; like if a Grateful Dead poster had a nightmare. It’s amazing stuff, and rather than trying and failing to describe it any more precisely, I’d advise you to just run a Google Image search on “Orc Stain” (but if you do, no BS, in most likelihood you will buy the trade – consider yourself warned).

If there’s any weakness to Orc Stain Vol. 1, it’s that the ending doesn’t necessarily feel like the ending of a storyline, but I don’t count that as a fault. Orc Stain is meant to be read issue-by-issue. Stokoe isn’t writing “for the trade.” And that’s fine by me. If I could afford to pick up single issues, Orc Stain would be at the top of my pull list. Though the trade certainly doesn’t suck, as evidenced by how quickly Amazon ran out of copies almost as soon as the collection was released.

A while back I made the pledge to review every single trade in my collection before allowing myself to buy another. Orc Stain is both one of the reasons why I want to race like mad to finish reviewing all my trades and one of the things that may tempt me to break that pledge; if I do break the pledge, there’s a damn good chance it will be the release of Orc Stain’s second volume that makes me do it.

HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!!!!! : 15 Memorable Hulk vs. Superhero brawls, and some Hulk/Zeus preamble

2011-02-18T00:01:00.005-05:00

So apparently, a lot of Hulk fans were a little unhappy after the release of Incredible Hulks #622. I couldn't imagine why.

I'm not going to go on too long about this, but I do want to say a couple of things.

First, I'm a Hulk fan. I have been ever since I started reading comics. I can relate to the urge to get angry when our favorite green guy is laid low. But to be honest I have a difficult time getting angry about this. It would be different if we were talking about a less powerful hero or villain, but this is Zeus. Not just a god, but a ruler of gods. The kind of guy that people like Eternity and the Living Tribunal ring up when they need a hand. I'm not going to get too angry about Hulk losing to him. No, we shouldn't petition for Joe Casey's return to the title because you never know when a local zoo will have a prison break, but I don't think this is exactly the same thing.

Second, I can't tell anyone else how to read comics or why or what to like. I can say from experience that if you allow the question of whether or not your favorite hero wins a fight govern whether or not you are going to enjoy comics, occasionally you are going to be very disappointed.

Third and finally, the funny thing is I've really been hating Incredible Hulks and yet this Zeus/Hulk thing has nothing to do with it other than the fact that the whole point of "God Smash" escapes me. I liked the allusions to Incredible Hulk: The End vis-a-vis Hulk-as-Prometheus, but that was about all I liked.

And while I could go on for a while about what I haven't liked about Incredible Hulks, I'll settle for asking...Greg, do we really need all this goddamn Hulk puke?

Get some Hulk Dramamine or something dude. It's freaking gross.

Regardless, since so many of us are upset about Hulk getting too many lightning bolts to the face, I thought I'd try to apply a band-aid with a little nostalgic look back to Hulk brawls I find memorable. At the end of January I posted a list of memorable super brawls and I tried very hard to not stack the thing with Hulk fights. Now's my chance to give the green guy his due. Specifically, I've chosen fights when the Hulk has battled other superheroes because, well, why not?

These are not all necessarily memorable because they were big, explosive fistfights. Some are memorable because of the story, or simply because of what was going through my head at the time. And they aren't ranked in any kind of order of preference.

--Hulk and the Warbound vs. the Avengers and Fantastic Four in World War Hulk #2 by Greg Pak and John Romita, Jr.

World War Hulk #2 was my favorite issue of the mini. If you're looking for an innovative story, World War Hulk isn't going to be what quenches your thirst, but the battle in this issue was expertly choreographed by Greg Pak and John Romita, Jr. What I loved the most were the perfect little character moments in the middle of the battle, like this interesting little grunting communication between the Hulk and the Thing. Something close to camaraderie passes between Hulk and Ben Grimm here. I think out of all the heroes Hulk tears through in the series, Ben Grimm is the only one who still commands at least some of his respect. After all, he isn't one of the four Illuminati members he's returned to Earth to take vengeance upon, and unlike the Avengers Grimm dares to take Hulk on one-on-one. And of course, Grimm has a long history of playing underdog against the Hulk. It gives me the impression that this is the only moment in all of World War Hulk in which the Hulk genuinely enjoys himself a little bit. He's so revenge-minded throughout most of it that you don't get the sense he's really reveling in any of it; he's just gone wild.

--Hulk vs. Thor in Thor #385 by Jim Shooter, Stan Lee and Erik Larsen

Just like my first example, I mentioned Thor #385 in that January 27th 10 Memorable Super Brawls post, but both HAD to be listed here too (which is why I'm getting them out of the way up front).

Other than to note that I was surprised to be reminded that it was actually Erik Larsen who drew this comic, I'll just paste in what I wrote for my January 27th post:

I haven't browsed enough comic solicits lately to know whether or not they still do it, but the phrase "cover-to-cover battle" used to be bandied about quite a bit, but you knew it wasn't completely true. No matter how heavy the fighting was, you'd always have at least a page or two of exposition.

In that respect, Thor #385 is no different, but it's just about as close to a true cover-to-cover battle as a Marvel comic ever got. The Hulk/Thor rivalry is as old as Marvel's superhero kingdom, but it's safe to say this is the most brutal battle between them. The Hulk is depicted as particularly vicious, at one point threatening to kill a woman if Thor won't relinquish his hammer. If I recall correctly, Stan Lee meant for this to be the so-called "mindless" Hulk, but either didn't know or didn't care that the mindless Hulk was basically just a dumb animal who didn't even have the low-bar "Hulk Smash" speech capacity. Instead he just wrote the classic "Hulk Smash" Hulk, just as more of a bastard.

It was written as a fill-in, but to anyone who's ever cared either way about the Hulk/Thor rivalry, it's required reading.

--Hulk vs. Superman in Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman by Roger Stern and Steve Rude

Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman is easily my favorite of the Marvel/DC crossovers. Rather than simply building a story to facilitate a clash from different companies' heroes, the creative team of Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman had a lot of fun with it, writing a retrospective story set in the Silver Age, letting characters like Betty Ross, Lois Lane, Rick Jones and Lex Luthor mingle with each other back when Lex still had a little hair left and the Hulk's identity was still a secret one.

Hulk and Superman do trade blows, a couple of times actually, but you're not going to get any kind of knock-down, bloody fist brawl to prove which one is better. It's just a fun comic celebrating the heyday of superheroes.

--Hulk vs. Captain America and Doc Samson in Incredible Hulk #406 by Peter David and Gary Frank

This wasn't a particularly huge brawl, but I include it because it's an example of when the story behind the fight had me rooting for the Hulk harder than ever.

This was a fight over Marlo, Rick Jones's girlfriend (later his wife, I don't remember whether or not they were engaged at this point). Marlo had been killed 9 or 10 issues previous by a crazy woman posing as Rick's long lost mother. The Leader attempted to resurrect Marlo with his servant Soul Man, but the Hulk interrupted the process. The result was a living but catatonic Marlo.

But Rick refused to give up on her, even when Marlo's brothers showed up demanding to take her back to her family. Knowing about Rick's connections with the Hulk, the cops call Captain America for help. Cap tries to talk Rick down, but when the Hulk shows up things get punchy pretty quick. Doc Samson shows up later and both he and Cap try futilely to put a dent in Hulk while Rick fights off the cops and Marlo's brothers.

As a Hulk fan it was gratifying first because Rick chooses Hulk over Cap, as opposed to the choice he made long ago that sparked another battle on this list. And in the end, when Marlo finally wakes up, the Hulk actually turns out to be on the right side of the battle. Finally, of course, there's the simple fact that Marlo does wake up. Peter David had gotten me used to her and I wasn't happy when she died. Having her return was a nice victory.

--Hulk vs. Everyone and Your Mom in Incredible Hulk #300 by Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema and Gerry Talaoc

Okay, well quite not Your Mom, but a lot of people. The NYPD, S.H.I.E.L.D., Human Torch, Power Man, Iron Fist and the Avengers all try and fail to stop the Hulk's rampage. The Hulk's deadly progress through New York City isn't brought to a halt until Doctor Strange shows up and banishes the Hulk to a funky interdimensional crossroads for a year.

Doctor Strange can be a real asshole.

Forgive the tangent, but in all seriousness I was a little ticked off with the Hulk forgiving Doctor Strange at the end of the Chaos War arc. Why forgive him? First of all, why is the Hulk forgiving Doctor Strange even a narrative priority? Are they rooming together? Second, exactly what the hell did Doctor Strange do to earn forgiveness? He turned into a demon and attacked the Hulk at a pretty inopportune moment. I don't think my first thought would be to reconcile. No, it may not have been Strange's fault that he was used that way, but still I don't see how Strange's possession by a demon plucked at the Hulk's heartstrings.

--Hulk vs. Doc Samson in Incredible Hulk #319 by John Byrne

I'm specifying Incredible Hulk #319, but really I kind of see the conflict between Samson and Hulk as something that stretches across Byrne's entire first arc. Samson never hounded Hulk as much as he did in Byrne's first run, and his pursuit resulted in some beautiful fight scenes. I just wish they didn't include a version of the Hulk that was basically just a big, dumb monkey.

--Hulk vs. the Maestro in Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect #2 by Peter David and George Perez

The build up to the first meeting between the Hulk and his tyrannical future self was done so wonderfully that for me this may have been the single most anticipated Hulk battle of all time.

And, you know, keeping the whole Hulk vs. Zeus disappointment in mind, any Hulk/Maestro battle is good for Hulk pride. No matter who loses, the Hulk wins. It's perfect.

--The "Ultimate" versions of Hulk and Wolverine fighting in Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk by Damen Lindelof and Lenil Franics Yu

Just look at it. Let's not even say much. Just look at it. Picture it in your mind. Breathe in. Breathe out. Feel the joy spread to your toes.

--Hulk vs. the Avengers and Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four #s 25-26 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

A wonderful couple of comics for so many reasons. A huge, Kirby-rendered battle. The first honest-to-Hulk tussle between the Hulk and the Thing. And, I think it may be safe to say this is the first story to punctuate just how dominant the Hulk was among the other heroes as far as pure power was concerned. He does very well against both teams, though part of this is due in no small part to some great, goofy scenes highlighting how badly the FF and Avengers are at working together; like Mister Fantastic accidentally lassoing Iron Man and, my personal favorite, Thor missing the Hulk and instead clocking Ben Grimm with mjolnir.

If I'm ever rich I'm going to hire someone to build a massive diorama reproducing the cover of Fantastic Four #26.

--Hulk vs. Daredevil in Daredevil #163 by Roger McKenzie and Frank Miller

I'm surprised Daredevil #163 isn't more well-remembered, at least in Hulk comics. I can't remember a single example of a story referencing this great issue which, I have been told by other fans, was written as a tribute to the classic Daredevil/Namor battle of Daredevil #7.

Daredevil, as you can probably guess, doesn't have a snowball's chance in this fight but he still gives it everything he's got. What's even more impressive is that even as he's on the verge of collapse, Daredevil seems more concerned with Hulk's tragic life than his own. It's a great story and I remember when I first read it I desperately wanted for Banner and Murdock to become friends.

--Hulk vs. Thor in Defenders #10 by Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema

Hulk and Thor end the Avengers/Defenders War by hitting each other a lot and destroying a significant amount of property. Whenever you look at a list of Defenders comics in a price guide, you always hit a spike at #10. This is why. 'Nuff said.

--Hulk vs. Namor in Defenders #52 by David Kraft and Keith Giffen

Hulk and Namor cause millions in property damage, pretty much because Namor was a little rude to Hulk. Easily my favorite tussle between Hulk and Subby, in part because of its goofy beginnings.

--Hulk vs. Thing in Fantastic Four #320 by Steve Englehart and Keith Pollard and Incredible Hulk #350 by Peter David and Jeff Purves

Ugh. Talk about bad memories. See, this is why I can hardly get angry for Zeus beating up Hulk. I remember when they let silly-ass Ben Grimm knock him out.

I don't think I have ever been more upset with a single comic as I was with Fantastic Four #320. When the story continued in Incredible Hulk #350 there was some degree of vindication, but I didn't forget the humiliation I felt at Hulk's defeat in the earlier issue. If I remember correctly I was in eighth or ninth grade when this came out, and I was so angry I wrote my first piece of fan fiction with, you guessed it, a brawl between the Hulk and the Thing with the Hulk winning this time.

After reading the story, I went on and on with anyone who would listen about how dumb the story was, and how many flaws there were. Of course, in the end I had to admit I was just angry that Hulk lost the fight, but the truth is that the story was pretty dumb. It begins with Doom wanting to forge an alliance with Hulk, a plot point that goes absolutely nowhere. The arrangement is briefly referenced in an "Acts of Vengeance" issue of Incredible Hulk and that's it. What was particularly silly is how the Hulk approached the fight. This was the gray Hulk, who was known for his craftiness. And it was during a very specific period in which the gray Hulk was able to stop himself from turning back to Banner, but he was much weaker during the day. So this craftier Hulk attacks the Thing, who he knows has been amped up recently, in broad daylight. Why? Makes no sense. It makes no sense how he did it, and it makes no sense that he did it.

Yes, yes, I am a sore loser. Screw you.

--Hulk vs. Alpha Flight in Alpha Flight #29 by Bill Mantlo, Mike Mignola, and Gerry Talaoc

One of these days, I'm going to have to write a piece on the Crossroads Saga.

But for now, suffice to say the Crossroads Saga was a year long storyline that was a result of Doctor Strange's banishing the Hulk to an interdimensional crossroads. I was a young boy when I read these issues, and while now they aren't particularly affecting, at the time they were some of the darkest, bleakest stuff I'd ever read.

When Strange sent Hulk away, he was responsible enough to not want to put him on a world that couldn't handle him. So the worlds connected to the Crossroads were all worlds with creatures with physical and/or technological power comparable to that of the Hulk. So a mute, often pathetic, Hulk spent over a year wandering around alien worlds, getting his ass kicked, suffering betrayal at the hands of the villain with the less-than-intimidating name The Puffball Collective, and almost always losing what friends he was able to make to some kind of horrific death.

His escape came when Alpha Flight went looking for a mindless host for Walter Langkowski's spirit. With a little help from the Beyonder, they unknowingly reeled the Hulk back to Earth, and when they did he tore them a new one like you've never seen.

I felt bad for the Canadians. After all, they did Hulk a favor whether or not they meant to, but at the same time I cheered hard for the Hulk. After over a year getting beaten up by red-skinned school children and demons and sentient spinal chords, the Hulk got to beat up a bunch of people in funny underwear and it felt good.

--Hulk vs. the Hulkbusters, Doc Samson, West Coast Avengers, East Coast Avengers, and She-Hulk in Incredible Hulk #s 320-322 by Al Milgrom

Easily the longest Hulk battle, this fight was during the era of the so-called Mindless Hulk who was physically separated from Bruce Banner. He was more powerful than the Hulk had ever been, but at the same time so brainless he couldn't even come up with stuff like "Hulk Smash" anymore.

In part, this story came about because of an earlier John Byrne slugfest. Iron Man, Hercules, Namor and Wonder Man all try to take down the Hulk. When Doc Samson convinces them that it would be safer to let him tackle the Hulk alone, Iron Man tells Samson that if he doesn't manage things quickly he'll be bringing the full complement of Avengers back to do the job. In Incredible Hulk #321, after the Hulk has beaten the Hulkbusters one more time and is tearing through Jericho, New Mexico thrashing Doc Samson's near-dead body into anything he can see, Iron Man proves true to his word. The Avengers finally prevail in the following issue, though it's made clear this is only because the Hulk is growing weaker due to his separation with Banner.

It's not the best story in the world, but it's a massive battle, and it's fun to flip through every now and then.

I hope this trip down memory lane has helped raise the spirits of my fellow Hulk fans. If not, then what can I tell you? I look forward to the hate mail.

Review - Namor: The First Mutant - Curse of the Mutants

2011-02-17T00:01:00.002-05:00

Namor: The First Mutant - Curse of the Mutants
By Stuart Moore, Ariel Olivetti, and Andres Guinaldo
Published By Marvel; $14.99 US
Collects Namor: The First Mutant #s 1-4

I'm always quietly excited when a new Namor project rears its head. As I said when I wrote about super-heroes I wish I like more than I do, I've always liked Namor but think most Marvel writers stubbornly refuse to tap the character's potential. Every time he gets a new series, I figure that's one more chance for someone to get it right. So when I picked up the Namor Visionaries trade at the comic shop and spotted the first collection for the new Namor: The First Mutant series, after a few minutes of inner debate about how I could spend the money on something I knew would be better and wasn't I trying to spend less money on non-essentials anyway and didn't Gary Miller say on twitter he heard it was crap, I gave in and bought Namor: The First Mutant - Curse of the Mutants.

I'm a little murky on the details because I didn't know about this event before I bought the trade, but "Curse of the Mutants" is a crossover apparently beginning with Dracula's assassination at the hands of his son Xarus. Xarus sends his hordes of vampires to attack San Francisco and the nearby Utopia, home of the X-Men. The X-Men believe the best way to stop Xarus is to resurrect Dracula so he can spank his little boy but good, so Namor makes it his quest to retrieve Dracula's head from the bottom of the ocean. Before he can do so however, he will have to face throngs of Aqueos - aquatic vampires - and a vamped out character from Namor's past.

Stuart Moore's Namor is the arrogant, insufferable dick that the character's mistreatment has made him for years. In fact, the very first 3 pages of the trade have 2 purposes: exposition introducing the history of the Aqueos and displaying just what an asshole this version of Namor really is. After a shriveled, old, one-eyed atlantean woman tells Namor of the Aqueos, he gives her a how-dare-you stare after she touches his chest and barks at her for wasting his time. I find it particularly annoying not only that the interpretation of Namor as a giant prick endures, but that in the the first scene of the first issue of his new ongoing series, it's this trait that Moore chooses to highlight as Namor's defining quality. What's worse is that Moore doesn't seem very consistent with Namor's character. I get the notion that Moore was aware of how unlikable Namor might be and so he occasionally injects some lighthearted humor that just doesn't ring true.

The story is weak and in part it's doomed before it begins. Maybe this is too broad a statement and if so feel free to call me out, but I don't remember any ongoing series beginning, from the very first issue, as part of a crossover event and enjoying any kind of enduring success. It seems to me, whether or not you make a series part of a cooperative universe or not, it needs time to breathe. It needs time to carve out its own space before it gets thrown into the world wars and the civil wars and the secret wars. Part of why I didn't care about the story in this trade is that I came into it in the middle. I didn't read any of the related X-Men stories and stupidly thought that buying the collection that begins with the first issue of the series would get me in on the ground floor.

Frankly even if the story wasn't weak and wasn't mired in Marvel's crossover insanity, the art would kill it. A character like Namor offers a unique setting that will either be a book's downfall or something than can help it stand out from the rest. Ariel Olivetti unfortunately chooses the former. The underwater kingdom of Namor: The First Mutant is a boring place. There's empty blue space and empty black space and empty blue space and on and on. And hey, maybe that's actually what the ocean would look like, particularly to non-super human eyes, but this is a comic book. If you're going to sell me an aquatic superhero, I want an ocean that excites my senses. I want an ocean just as fantastic and wondrous as Oz or Middle Earth. I get the sense that Olivetti didn't draw a single piece of landscape (waterscape?) or a single fish or any single detail that he wasn't specifically told to draw. There's nothing about this ocean world to just make me believe in it or enjoy reading a comic about it. And his action sequences come off as very stiff and unappealing. He's replaced by Andres Guinaldo in the fourth issue whose art just doesn't seem to reach a professional caliber. I can't help but wonder if, for whatever reason, the production schedule on these first issues of Namor: The First Mutant was uncharacteristically tight.

Unless you're an X-Men or Namor completist, I can't think of a single good reason to recommend this trade. It's bad, really bad, and the series won't last long.

Review - Thor Vs. Seth, the Serpent God

2011-02-16T00:01:00.002-05:00

Thor Vs. Seth, the Serpent God
By Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz
Published By Marvel; $19.99 US
Collects Thor #s 395-400

I can't say I remember what attracted me to the issues collected in Thor Vs. Seth, the Serpent God as I was rarely a regular collector of Thor, but I did pick them up when they first came out on the stands. It may have been because the Black Knight appeared on one of the covers and I wondered about a possible connection to what was going on in Avengers at the time (if memory serves, this storyline came out around the same time as a temporary disbanding of the Avengers). I may have been curious about the Egyptian-themed Earth Force on the cover of Thor #395. It may have been the picture of Daredevil battling Hogun the Grim on the cover of the slightly earlier Thor #393; the pairing seems so mismatched that maybe I had to pick it up just to figure out what those two had to argue about. It may have been that I just noticed the issue numbers were creeping towards 400, which meant some big double-sized issue full of revelations and epic battles was on its way and I needed to get in as close to the ground floor as possible. Or maybe, like the bored girlfriend of the football captain flirting with a computer nerd, I was tired of of reading nothing but Incredible Hulk and wanted to check out some of the guys he liked to smack around.

And while this may be starting to seem like an annoyingly recurrent theme, not unlike my surprise about the Namor collection I reviewed yesterday, I had no idea these issues were being collected until I walked into the comic shop and recognized the cover from Thor #400. I really had no choice once I saw it, flipped it open, and confirmed it was the same story I thought it was: I had to buy it. It certainly wasn't a storyline I ever found myself pining over. As I said, I've never been a regular Thor reader. But it was one of those stories that would occasionally pop up in my head and I'd think, "Yeah, they should put that in a trade," but I never thought they would. I don't generally look at sales numbers, but I've never had the impression that Thor was a big seller. Not to mention that when I watch a behind-the-scenes feature for the Incredible Hulk movie and the creator they interview is Jeph Loeb, the Glen Gary Glen Ross line "You've got the memory of a fuckin' fly" comes to define, for me, Marvel's approach to its rich history, and I tend to doubt anyone at Marvel would even remember a story like this much less think to reprint it. But obviously I was wrong, and no doubt the imminent movie and a (what seems to me at least) big push by Marvel to reprint its late '80s/early '90s stuff, designed to wrench the aforementioned I-have-no-choice-I-have-to-buy-it response from readers my age helped refresh Marvel's memory.

Thor Vs. Seth, the Serpent God is the kind of big, sprawling war of the gods that Thor is so well-suited for. Having stolen the power of the other gods in his particular pantheon, the death god Seth has his sights aimed for Asgard. With the rainbow bridge between Asgard and Earth severed, Thor cannot easily return to his homeland. Seth throws his armies against Asgard while putting plans into motion on Earth to make sure Thor cannot return to aid in its defense. He bestows two men and a woman near death with super powers and lies to them, telling them Hogun the Grim (who journeyed to Earth to tell Thor of Seth's invasion) must die or else Earth is doomed. The Egyptian-themed Earth Force battle Thor but eventually realize they've been duped. Once they figure out a way to leave Earth, the ragtag group of Thor, Hogun the Grim, the Earth Force, and the Black Knight storm the battlements of Seth's dimension and tear through his green hordes of snake-headed soldiers (and it's really tough to not think of G.I. Joe's villains while you read this, by the way).

I'm not sure why but I find the group that accompanies Thor into Seth's dimension so appealing precisely because it's such a ragtag, unlikely team. It wouldn't be as fun if Thor had just, for example, brought the Avengers or the FF along with him.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Thor and his group are out of contact with Balder the Brave, the Lady Sif, the remaining Warriors Three, and the other defenders of Asgard. With no other recourse left to him, Balder recalls the power of Thor he desperately needs to protect his home. Thor is left with only a fraction of his super strength and none of his hammer's legendary powers. Defeat still seems nearly certain for Asgard, in spite of Balder's increased power and the surprise appearance of Leir and his Celtic pantheon of gods who were introduced a year earlier in Thor #386 (and refreshingly, wear hardly any green at all) to aid in fighting back Seth's hordes. Practically every figure of Thor's mythos throws himself against Seth: Heimdall, Loki, the Enchantress, Karnilla, the trolls, the giants, and more. Eventually, and I'm pretty sure this is legally required for any Thor storyline deemed important enough to the character's history, Surtur gets involved and he and an Odin-ified Thor battle while flashing through some of the more fantastical Marvel-specific landscapes like Namor's Atlantis and the Inhumans' home on the Moon.

When these books first came out I don't think I had a particularly good idea of who Jack Kirby was, why he was important, and I certainly didn't recognize how Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz were paying tribute to older stories in both words and images. Sure, the dialogue style was a bit dated but Thor with its Thees and Thous and Thys always seemed a little more old fashioned than other superhero comics. I think I recognized that Frenz was reaching back to an older style, but "older" was all I knew about it. Reading Thor Vs. Seth, the Serpent God with slightly more educated eyes is interesting, and it makes me hungry to hunt down as many Kirby books as I can.

Thor Vs. Seth, the Serpent God is a fun war epic and from start to finish it feels like an instruction manual on how to do a great Thor story. While you read it, it feels like it's the last, greatest Asgard war story even though you know there's no way that's the case. In particular, I found it refreshing that it was so packed with action and drama that unlike a lot of more recent superhero trades, I couldn't get through it in one sitting even though it only reprints 6 issues. Or at least, I didn't want to. It's not that it gets tedious; far from it. But Defalco and Frenz deliver enough per issue that you're content to put it down. The book will last for a while. If you love Thor, or beautiful fantasy battle scenes, or evil villains with arms in suggestive shapes that I've been mature enough to not make a joke about until now, go buy it.

Review - Namor Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 1

2011-02-15T00:01:00.002-05:00

Namor Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 1
By John Byrne
Published By Marvel; $24.99 US
Collects Namor, the Sub-Mariner #s 1-9

I usually enjoy John Byrne's pencils, but it's rare that I've liked his writing. I wasn't happy with either of his turns on Incredible Hulk (though I think I appreciate his first run now more than I did when the issues were initially released) but friends whose opinions I respected urged me to check out some of his other work. When a local comic shop went under 7 or 8 years ago, I used the unfortunate opportunity to fill up on Byrne-scripted comics I'd been recommended like Fantastic Four and Sensational She-Hulk. It's safe to say I didn't become a convert. The humor of Sensational She-Hulk came off as forced, and books like Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight seemed too heavy in exposition and too light in action. But Byrne's Namor, the Sub-Mariner surprised me. I liked it instantly and when I learned the earliest issues were being reprinted in one of Marvel's Visionaries collections it felt almost too coincidental. Believe it or not, I was writing a post about how I wished Marvel would collect Namor in trades and when I was almost done with the post, I decided it might make sense to double check and make sure the issues hadn't been reprinted without my knowledge. This was in the beginning of January, and a quick search on Amazon revealed Namor Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 1 set for release in the beginning of February. I was happy to see at least one collection from the series, though I was less pleased that I had to flush the post I'd been working on and figure out something else to write.

Namor, the Sub-Mariner begins with Namor deposed from his throne and the world at large believing him dead because of the events of the 1989 annual crossover "Atlantis Attacks!" The comic opens with a crazed Namor bursting out of the ocean and attacking a village of jungle natives. A father/daughter team of scientists - Caleb and Carrie Alexander - convince Namor that he's sick and that they may be able to help him. We soon learn that Namor's violent shifts in personality - from the hero of the Golden Age to the villain of the Silver Age, and the shifting nature of his loyalties and temperament that has helped define the character since Johnny Storm gave him that fiery shave way back in Fantastic Four #4 - are the result of a unique disorder Namor suffers because of his singular heritage. Being half atlantean and half human makes Namor sensitive to spending too much time either underwater or above the surface. If things get off kilter, he goes nuts and invades Manhattan.

With the Alexanders' blood re-circulator, Namor feels like he's got a new lease on life and he puts a new plan into action. Knowing various locations of sunken treasure, Namor buys out a crippled corporation and uses it to begin a new plan for global conquest, but this time the kind that takes place in the board room rather than the battlefield.

If memory serves, when Namor, the Sub-Mariner was first released the character was promoted as kind of a new Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark: a superhero/business mogul. I recall full page ads of Namor in spiffy business suits. But while the Big Business aspect of the plot facilitates Namor's return to the world, leads to some interesting social commentary, and gives us some corporate flavored villains like the Headhunter, it doesn't seem to do much as far as re-defining Namor as a character; at least not in these first 9 issues. That isn't a complaint, mind you. I think, though, that one of the reasons I stayed away from Namor when it was first released was the aforementioned advertising campaign. I thought the comic was going to be about Namor arguing about stocks with underlings or filing cease and desist orders against Doctor Doom.

The term that springs to mind when I try to describe Namor, the Sub-mariner is a term that technically isn't applicable but somehow just feels right: pitch-perfect. John Byrne's Namor hits every note any Marvel superhero book of its time ever could have or should have, and it does it with a wonderful balance of romance, suspense and action. It isn't bogged down with fisticuffs, but when the fists fly they're big and loud and fun. Namor pursues love interest Carrie Alexander and later the backstabbing twin Phoebe Marrs, but there's no Peter-Parker-like pining over any single woman because Namor's far too proud to allow himself that kind of emotional self-indulgence. And as soon as we're hooked with the main storyline, Byrne introduces some other intriguing subplots. In fact, right now I'm hoping that a second volume is imminent just because I don't remember what one of the subplots - involving the original Human Torch and some WW II era Nazi bad guys - eventually leads to.

I remember in particular when I first read the series how much I loved Byrne's cliffhangers. Perhaps it was more because I didn't read Namor until after superhero comics started being written with trade reprints in mind, but it seemed to me Byrne ended issues masterfully on Namor. Specifically, the second issue ends with a great cliffhanger, and when it's resolved within the first few pages of the third, it doesn't feel forced or contrived. It's perfect.

More than anything, I enjoy Byrne's handling of Namor's character. I don't have a tough time accepting Byrne's blood disorder explanation for Namor's behavior over the years, though I could understand if someone did. Regardless, what it leads to is without question the most likable interpretation of Namor either before or since Byrne's series, and it's to Byrne's credit that he achieves that while essentially keeping Namor the same. It's still quite clear, for example, that Namor thinks very highly of himself and conversely thinks very little of most "surface dwellers," but he isn't the short-fused, arrogant, utter dick of Bendis's New Avengers: Illuminati or Busiek and Larsen's Defenders ready to declare war on everything dry every time he sees Ben Grimm eating fish sticks.

A perfect example is a scene when Namor summons some undersea creatures called therma-rays to help save the city. When Reed Richards tries to capture one for study, Namor puts his foot down but he's reasonable when he does it. He doesn't threaten Reed or swear vengeance on his family. In fact, while he's firm with Reed, he isn't even particularly rude. He remains the outsider he's always been, setting boundaries between himself and the other heroes, but he does it without becoming a furious caricature.

As evidenced by a more recent Namor series I'll be reviewing either tomorrow or Thursday, writers handling the character could take quite a few pages out of Byrne's book. Though they're over 20 years old now, the issues collected here hold up well and are a damn sight better than most of the attempts at reviving the character since. I hope Marvel gets at least 1 or 2 trades deeper into Byrne's run. The quality of the title declined eventually. Byrne's last issue on writing duties was Namor #33 and he stopped penciling the book before that, but while it was good, it was good.

Homework

2011-02-14T00:01:00.001-05:00

Money's tight. It always has been. My girlfriend and I were talking about ways to save. Different ways to shop. Things to sell. Things we don't need. Eating out less. Renting fewer yachts. Boats are so pre-Concord anyway.

Immediately I considered cutting out any comic book spending, but one of my New Years resolutions was to write a well-informed Best Of GN list for 2011. That's a daunting prospect without reading any comic books. I could pick just based on how cool the titles are, but I don't even know if I've ever read anything by the guy who writes Cowboy Ninja Viking.

A thought occurred to me; something that I've considered every once in a while, and it made me think that maybe the best kind of idea is the kind that helps you with more than one problem.

I allow myself far too many reasons to be intimidated. I'm intimidated by reviewing comics out of my comfort zone (i.e. comics without any capes), comics I don't like by writers I do, comics by writers I hold in too much esteem (e.g. to date I have never reviewed an Alan Moore comic), and subsequent volumes of comics I've already reviewed (I imagine it might be tough to go on too long, for example, describing the differences between Lone Wolf and Cub Vol. 18 and Lone Wolf and Cub Vol. 19, but I might be wrong). In short I'm far too intimidated, have too many reasons to be intimidated, and was surprised to learn just how many GNs I own that I've never reviewed.

On the bottom of my sidebar is a Graphic Novel homework List. Those are all the GNs I own that I haven't reviewed. I'm going to review them, and until I review every single one of them, I'm not going to buy another GN.

There will be exceptions. I won't review Incredible Hulk: Ground Zero because I've already reviewed Hulk Visionaries: Peter David Vol. 2 which reprints all of the same issues plus a few more. I won't review Thor Visionaries: Walt Simonson Vol. 1 because I've already reviewed Thor: The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill, and the latter reprints almost as many as the former. I won't review my volumes of Best of Twisted Toyfare Theatre because, well. Come on.

I may end up having to give up on that one resolution, but maybe not. Regardless, I think that my desire to come up with a Best of 2011 list comes more out of a desire to be seen as a "real" reviewer than anything else, and I think I'm kind of over that.

So I'll get over some fears and hopefully in the process I'll save enough money that we won't have to sell off our Bengal tigers. I may not earn a reputation for reviewing incredibly current comics but, come on man. They're fucking tigers.

HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!!!!! : 100 Reasons to Love the Hulk part 2

2011-02-11T00:01:00.003-05:00

Continued from last week.

51. The cover to Incredible Hulk #355, which is much funnier today than it used to be.

52. The Jarella stories.

53. As much as people like to say Hulk fans hate change, his many and various incarnations make him one of the most malleable superheroes in comics.

54. In Incredible Hulk: The End, we learn the Hulk can survive on eating cactus. The Hulk can help fight hunger and decrease his carbon footprint by eating crappy food that no one else can eat and leaving the mac and cheese for the rest us.

55. Over the years, Bruce Banner has occasionally returned to his secret lab in New Mexico. I just think it's kind of cool that Banner has his own little Bat-Cave, but unlike Batman he isn't in it all the time. He doesn't see the place for 5 years and then he just figures hey, what the hell, why don't I stop by?

56. There's a scene in Incredible Hulk #333, in the beginning of Peter David's run, where David does something interesting with the Hulk/Banner conflict. This was during the era of the gray Hulk, back when Banner changed to Hulk at night. As morning draws closer, the Hulk breaks into a liquor store and drinks half the store. As he changes back to Banner, there's enough alcohol left in his system to keep Banner incapacitated all day. I love the fact that the Hulk and Banner's relationship offers the opportunity for stories like that and it's a shame more writers haven't taken advantage of their conflict in similar ways.

57. The U-Foes. A wonderful group of super-villains that's never been used to their full potential.

58. The two Moby Dick homage stories of Klaatu and the spaceship Andromeda. First in Incredible Hulk #s 136-137 and later in Incredible Hulk #s 306-307.

59. Mercy from Peter David's run. She was a mysterious killer, an alien if I recall, who killed people because she genuinely believed it was best for them. David had a lot of great villains who were never heard from again after he left the title.

60. The Warbound.

61. James Kochalka's 3-page strip chronicling the epic battle between the Hulk and the rain in Incredible Hulk 2001 Annual.

62. The Hulk fights the army. He fights cops. He fights other superheroes. If any superhero is punk, the Hulk is punk.

63. He's going to be in 5 Ronin. The Hulk is a fucking samurai.

64. Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect

65. He's one of Marvel's only heroes to not claim New York City as his base of operations.

66. Hulk battles materialistic symbols of holidays that should be about love and peace and brotherhood and all that shit.

67. He's psychic. As this bit of dialogue between Hulk and Scarlet Witch proves, he predicted "Avengers Disassembled."

68. He's bipartisan. He got Clinton to develop a unique, across-the-aisle campaign strategy.

69. Jeff Purves, whose art I don't believe appeared in any other comics unfortunately (with the exception of the some Hulk stories in Marvel Comics Presents).

70. Incredible Hulk: The End

71. Dale Keown.

72. Incredible Hulk: Ground Zero

73. The Pantheon.

74. In Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, he's the only old school hero left.

75. He's seemingly immortal, yet in future dystopian sotires he always has long white hair and a long white beard. That's dumb. But stylish.

76. He used to be the only one who could see Dr. Strange in Strange's astral form. But the writers changed that. My guess is they just forgot.

77. If John Belushi played him, he's cool. That's pretty much a given.

78. Few of the Hulk's villains catch on in other books. Most of the villains in Hulk's rogue's gallery that share any significant amount of time fighting other heroes are villains who "belonged" to other heroes first; like Absorbing Man (Thor) and the Rhino (Spider-Man). Some might say this is because Hulk's villains are lame. I prefer to think it means Hulk's villains are more selective.

79. He was one of the last members of the Justice League. No, really. I have proof.

80. This panel, which is just full of potential.

81. He now has more than one ongoing monthly, but he doesn't have an absolutely ridiculous number of ongoing monthlies.

82. I've heard it said that war helps fuel the economy because of the demand for military equipment. If that's true, then the Hulk is the best thing to ever happen to the economy, considering all the military equipment he's destroyed. They always replace the things within a few issues, so somebody's dropping some serious cash.

83. In the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games, he's too cool to just pick. You have to do some special crap to get him.

84. He's so cool, he didn't have to even show up during Bruce Jones's run. And that was 4 years long, man.

85. His name does not include a "-man."

86. He gave Yoda something to live for.

87. He's one of the only reasons anyone ever knew who Omega the Unknown was (which seems to contradict the name now that I write that out).

88. Rocket Raccoon.

89. The Texas Rangers.

90. The Glob.

I miss the Glob. Do you miss the Glob? I totally miss the Glob.

91. Easy event names. World War Hulk. Fall of the Hulks. Planet Hulk. If only everyone could do that. Infinity Thanos. Our Superman at War. Batmanfall. Less poetic. More to the point.

92. The Hulk would know what to pick for #92.

93. Incredible Hulk #s 320-322. The Hulk vs. the Hulkbusters, Doc Samson, the West Coast Avengers, and the East Coast Avengers. Not the best story in the world, but one of the longest battles you'll ever read.

94. The anatomically correct Hulk doll.

95. Green can be a problem.

96. Betty always gets her presents.

97. Hulk is a party animal.

98. Hood Hulk (Totally Not Safe For Work)

99. Christopher Nolan's director's cut of The Dark Knight

100. Still better than the Spider-Man musical.

Review - Ka-Zar Vol. 1

2011-02-10T00:01:00.002-05:00

Ka-Zar Vol. 1
By Mark Waid and Andy Kubert
Published by Marvel; $19.99 USD
Collects Ka-Zar #s 1-7 and -1, and material from Tales of the Marvel Universe #1

Ka-Zar would have been a great addition to my post a few weeks back about superheroes I wish I liked more than I do. Not that I dislike him. He's just one of those Marvel guys who occasionally show up on the periphery of other books who I always want to see more of, but once I found myself at the comic shop I always forgot to dig through his back issues. Ben Morse's recent "Ka-Zar conundrum" essay reminded me of my curiosity regarding the lord of the Savage Land and it made me a little more impulsive than usual. As soon as I finished reading Morse's essay, I ordered Ka-Zar Vol. 1, the collection of Mark Waid and Andy Kubert's late '90s Ka-Zar series.

Ka-Zar predictably begins in the vast jungle of the Savage Land beneath Antarctica, and just as predictably it ends in New York City. Ka-Zar and his wife Shanna are raising their newborn when a previously peaceful tribe of Savage Land natives attacks them with high-tech weaponry. The hunter arming the natives is Gregor, mentor of Kraven the Hunter. When Ka-Zar learns his brother Parnival is the one who hired Gregor; Ka-Zar, Shanna and the massive sabretooth tiger Zabu head to New York City for a reckoning. The trade ends with Ka-Zar and Shanna resolving some marital issues but Parnival's plans, which somehow involve an imprisoned Thanos, seem to only be beginning.

In his essay, Morse addresses the question of whether or not Ka-Zar works as a character outside the jungle. Ka-Zar may be able to work in an urban setting, but I don't really want him to. One of the more obviously promising things about a Ka-Zar comic is that it offers a different setting than most superhero titles. The Savage Land is one of those Marvel settings everyone knows about but no one really knows. I think there's a lot of potential there and it's disappointing when issue #4 finds Ka-Zar already swinging the same rooftops as Spider-Man. And like it or not, there's something inherently goofy about a jungle hero in the city. Maybe there shouldn't be. Maybe you could argue that when Ka-Zar stampedes some mercenaries in space armor with a bunch of jungle animals he liberated from the zoo, it isn't any goofier than a superhero who got his powers from a spider bite or an old soldier dressed like a flag. But it seems a hell of a lot goofier.

Regardless, I think the ambivalence I feel towards Ka-Zar has as much to do with my ambivalence toward Andy Kubert's art as it does my feelings on the story. Sometimes I really dig the dramatic postures, the crazy angles his characters move in relation to one another, and the exaggerated proportions. But there are a lot of times when I don't like it at all, and those instances really take me out of the story. There are a number of panels that stick out in my mind, particularly one from issue #4 where we see Shanna leaping in the air and her legs look like those of a short, fat man. Sometimes the crazy relation of one character to another make the scenes that much more dynamic, and sometimes it just makes it difficult to look at the page, as if I'm trying to solve a puzzle. I do like his renderings of the Savage Land's dinosaurs and its landscapes, which makes it that much more frustrating when the story moves to the city. I also think Kubert draws the most menacing version of the Rhino I've ever seen, which again makes it regrettable when the Rhino's second appearance in the title is drawn by a guest penciler.

Overall Ka-Zar isn't a bad book but I don't have a lot of incentive to pick up subsequent trades. It has sparked enough remembered interest in the character that I feel the need to go hunt down the excellent Bruce Jones '80s issues.

Review - Incredible Change-Bots

2011-02-09T00:01:00.003-05:00

Incredible Change-Bots
By Jeffrey Brown
Published by Top Shelf; $15 USD

On the distant tongue twister of a planet Electronocybercircuitron are two proud races of Change-Bots: the Awesomebots and the Fantasticons. When Fantasticon leader Shootertron seizes power from Awesomebot chief Big Rig, it sparks a civil war filled with sounds like "Chee Choo Chu Chek" and a bunch of robots with bad aim. After permanently wrecking (sigh) Electronocybercircuitron, the two races make peace and flee the rusting planet. Their peaceful exodus is disturbed when an argument over the origin of the Change-Bots damages the ship and it crashes into the Earth. Once there the Awesomebots and Fantasticons try to learn how to shoot, transform into trucks and planes and microwaves and soup, and in at least one case have some loud and disturbing robot sex.

As you can probably tell, Incredible Change-Bots is a hilarious, fun and nostalgic parody of the Transformers cartoons of the 1980s. As someone who grew up watching those cartoons, Jeffrey Brown's gags seem perfectly familiar. I remember wondering why the Autobots and Decepticons both had such bad aim - just like their contemporaries on G.I. Joe who couldn't shoot the broad side of a barn, and whose jet pilots could miraculously bail out of their planes just as fast as the tank and jeep drivers jumped out of their vehicles just in the nick of time. I remember wondering why no one seemed to find it strange that a weird grouping of vehicles - an ambulance, a VW bug, an 18 wheeler - were grouped together rolling through a desert miles from the nearest road. Or why giant robots with legs the length of buildings would find it faster to roll on wheels. Jeffrey Brown's childlike art style is perfect in digging up those feelings of nostalgia.

The humor isn't perfect. There are a few gags that get overused. I don't know if there's an industry term for this, but in particular Brown tends to get a little repetitive with the device of putting a silent, still panel in front of one delivering the punchline.

But while it has faults, there's still plenty of laughs and a lot of fun. I got my copy of out the library and I probably won't buy one for myself. I think for more hardcore Transformers fans, Incredible Change-Bots is absolutely essential. I, on the other hand, am happy to get my chuckles and put it back into circulation. Though I'll be looking for the upcoming Incredible Change-Bots Two.

Cryptic, Quiet, Hairy, SEXY!

2011-02-08T00:01:00.002-05:00

In college I always considered myself, in at least one way, more fortunate than most of the other students because I never doubted what I wanted to be or do. Since I was 11, I wanted to be a novelist. A potent, strangling fear of failure is the reason I have reached the age of 36 without a single serious attempt at writing a novel.

One of my New Years resolutions was to finally write a novel. Of course, I resolved to do the same thing in 2010 and 2009 and probably a few before, but, you know. Next year John Cusack is going to destroy the world, so this pretty much has to be it.

Also, I think one of my other resolutions - to update Superheroes, etc. every weekday for six months - has done its job. The idea of putting words on the page without petrifying myself with doubt seems much more reasonable after a month or so of keeping my promise.

I have these strange, silly urges to develop some kind of rituals regarding my writing. I do not think these rituals will help me in any way; though who knows? I just want to do them. I've decided rather than allowing myself to feel ridiculous about it, I'm just going to give in and let myself be silly (something I have little problem with in other aspects of my life).

For this first novel, I am going to have two rituals. The ideas for these rituals were inspired by my co-worker Sarah and two new acquaintances of mine. These specific rituals are actually going to have something of a symbolic relevance to the novel I'm writing. Unfortunately, I don't want to talk a lot about the particulars of the novel because, well, I don't. This is yet another urge that I feel is necessary to adhere to regardless of whether or not there's any real sense to it.

But when the thing is done, at which point I will have to build mountains of sandbags sprouting Gatling guns to fight off the maddened hordes of publishers wanting to print the novel, you will get your chance to learn exactly what relevance the rituals have to the novel's content.

Ritual #1: BEARD

As I've mentioned a couple of times on the blog, my radio station is currently at the end of the longest fund drive we've had since I started working there 7 years ago. My friend and co-worker Sarah half-jokingly suggested those males capable of manly beard growth should grow their face-manes until the fund drive was over. I actually went along with the plan at first; mainly because it was an excuse to be lazy.

Eventually I shaved, but not because of a lack of solidarity or a decrease in laziness. I simply thought the beard ritual was something that would be better suited for writing the novel.

So, the day I start writing the novel will be the last day I shave until I finish with at least the first draft. I am guessing I will begin writing today or Wednesday. It depends on which day I finish writing all the blog posts for this week (and after I'm finished with this one, I'll only have the Friday post to write).

Ritual #2: The Quiet Man

While I usually refer to myself as "Mick," my full first name is actually Michileen. My parents got the name from Barry Fitzgerald's character Michaleen Oge Flynn in the 1952 film The Quiet Man. I have never seen the film myself; only bits and pieces.

I recently made the acquaintance of two guys through my blog - Eric Newsom and Kevin Marshall. We've been discussing the possibility of doing an online project together and hopefully I'll have more to say about that in the not-too-distant future.

When Eric friended me on Facebook he mentioned, without knowing the origin of my name, that I shared a first name with one of his all-time favorite movie characters. When I told him that's actually where my parents got the idea for my name, Eric and Kevin both thought that was pretty cool and urged me to finally watch the thing.

Since, like writing a novel, watching The Quiet Man is something I've meant to do for a very long time, when I finish writing the first draft of my book I will finally watch The Quiet Man and meet my namesake.

So if you notice that on my blog or any other social media sites I'm on that I've posted something like "I've shaved my beard" or "About to watch Quiet Man," you'll know what I mean.

P.S. While I will not shave until I've finished the novel, I reserve the right to trim.

Review - Justice League of America: The Injustice League

2011-02-07T00:01:00.002-05:00

Justice League of America: The Injustice League HC
By Dwayne McDuffie, Ed Benes, Mike McKone and Joe Benitez
Published by DC; $19.99 USD
Collects Justice League of America #s 13-16 and Justice League of America Wedding Special #1

I haven't read any Justice League titles regularly since the Busiek/Garney JLA run. When it comes to the Big 2 I gravitate toward Marvel anyway. For the last few years, most of my DC superhero entertainment has come either from Christopher Nolan's Batman films or the Justice League cartoons. Since Dwayne McDuffie was a regular writer on Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, I hoped a collection of his work on the more recent Justice League of America would be an easy reintroduction to DC's premiere superhero team.

The Injustice League gives me the impression that McDuffie's transition from writing these characters in a popular cartoon to writing them for the comic was an awkward one.

The plot is no more complex than you would expect from the title. Lex Luthor forms another Injustice League with a whole gaggle of supervillains (though I would point out that something like half the bad guys on the cover don't appear anywhere in the book) and goes after the Justice League.

From beginning to end Justice League of America: The Injustice League reads as if it's trying and failing to be hip and keep up with more recent superhero trends. The events of Identity Crisis in particular are milked to death in a subplot involving Cheetah's objection to Doctor Light's recruitment into the Injustice League. Strange, considering in a room full of super-powered men and women defined by their love for all things evil, I find it tough to imagine Doctor Light is the only rapist. The story is filled with scenes of dialogue that act as awkward attempts at hip levity, like an utterly laughless argument between John Stewart and Black Lightning about Lightning's shaved head. There are failed attempts at superhero "realism" like a scene explaining why doctors and nurses don't reveal the identities of patients they treat.

There's a lot of awkward, forced and just boring dialogue in the book. One scene in particular bothers me more than any other. Superman and Black Lightning are recovering after a bad tussle with Lex and his cronies. Lightning is trying to convince Superman that Lex is pushing his buttons. When Superman points out that Black Lightning isn't completely objective about Luthor either, Lightning says "The difference is I can keep things in perspective. I'm no Superman. Good as I am, I've lost a few." Superman responds "That makes one of us."

Yeah, Superman wouldn't say that. Not only is it uncharacteristically dickish, but it's completely untrue. The scene takes place in the aftermath of a battle he just lost, after all.

The art isn't much better than the writing. In some cases it seems like there was a communication breakdown between writer and artist, particularly in panels when the characters' dialogue and expressions don't match.

As a snotty little comic book reviewer, I will admit to the occasional malicious glee at the notion of reviewing a book just to trash popular writers whose work I feel is overrated, though I do that less now than I used to and regret some past reviews for that very reason. But McDuffie isn't one of those writers. I've enjoyed his work in the past but Justice League of America: The Injustice League is unfortunately not only the worst book I've read by him, but one of the least impressive superhero books I've ever read.

HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!!!!! : 100 Reasons to love the Hulk, part 1

2011-02-04T00:01:00.001-05:00

The following week has been tough. I work at a public radio station and our winter fund drive began this week. My job tends to be particularly mind-numbing during fund drive, so to help pass the time I challenged myself to come up with 100 reasons to love the Hulk. Here's the first 50.

100 REASONS TO LOVE THE HULK

1. Hulk is the strongest one there is.

2. Planet Hulk.

3. He helped the careers of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Greg Pak, Herb Trimpe, Peter David, Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, etc.

4. This picture.

5. Incredible Hulk was one of the first superhero comics to maturely handle the subjects of AIDS and homosexuality.

6. Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

7. Incredible Hulk & The Thing: The Big Change

8. Hulk Hands.

9. Hulk beat up Onslaught. Marvel Universe, you're welcome.

10. World War Hulk

11. The live-action Incredible Hulk '70s show.

12. Numerous Hulk cartoons.

13. Without the Hulk, no Avengers, West Coast Avengers, Great Lakes Avengers, Secret Avengers, Avengers Academy, Young Avengers, Ultimates, etc.

14. Holding up the mountain in Marvel Super-Heroes: Secret Wars. Marvel Universe, you're welcome.

15. Without the Hulk, no Defenders.

16. Without Hulk, no Wolverine. Marvel Universe, you're welcome. Other X-men heroes trying to get attention, sorry about that.

17. Obviously, Hulk is not the first super-hero. Not even close. However, I like to think of him as something of the super-hero missing link. He started as a character who seemed like an awkward transition between Marvel's monsters and its new age of super-heroes. Considering that and what I like to think of as the Hulk's relative moral purity - as in he doesn't share the normal moral code of your every day super-hero - I imagine Hulk, symbolically if nothing else, as the Proto-Super-Hero. The purest super-hero.

18. The Bi-Beast, without whom we would be that much poorer in our collection of sexually explicit comic book humor.

19. The Hulk keeps the non-Marvel heroes in line. Whether it's Batman, Superman, Pitt, or freaking Prime, he seems to have more cross-company brawls than anyone.

20. According to Bradford Wright's Comic Book Nation, a "1965 poll conducted by Esquire revealed that student radicals ranked Spider-Man and the Hulk alongside the likes of Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons." That's fuckin' cool.

21. Along the lines of #20, the Marvel Universe used to have a much different feel than that of DC. The heroes of Marvel were more human, more fallible, and arguably more anti-establishment. Perhaps the three most enduring and popular Marvel franchises - Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Hulk - are all rebels. This helped to make the Marvel Universe a much different place, and the Hulk was a big part of that.

22. He was instrumental in bringing the Marvel heroes back from the Heroes Reborn reality.

23. The Church of Hulk.

24. Without Hulk, no She-Hulk.

25. The Hulk was the ultimate super-misfit, and I'm sure I wasn't the only kid misfit who he helped sustain.

26. Zombie Hulk.

27. The dozens of twitter Hulks. Just do a search on "Hulk" on twitter if you don't know what I mean.

28. The Hulk vs. Silver Surfer Planet Hulk statue set.

29. "Nobody Loves the Hulk" by The Traits

30. Twisted Toyfare Theater's Hulk

31. The Infraggable Krunk

32. He keeps Thor and Sentry in line.

33. The Crossroads Saga

34. The Hulk-narrated Defenders #6

35. Thor #385

36. Incredible Hulk #467

37. Xemnu the Titan. Not only is he a weird, cool villain; but the fact that he was the first Marvel character to be named the Hulk way back in Journey Into Mystery #62 is proof of how cool the real Hulk is. He's so freaking cool, he just took another dude's name.

38. This awesome Hulk/Beatles parody.

39. The Hulk Roller Coaster

40. Universal Studios' Hulk statue

41. No Hulk, no Rick Jones.

42. Daredevil #163

43. The Hulk jumps. He doesn't fly, he doesn't drive a Hulkmobile, he doesn't run really fast, or BAMF all over. He jumps. That's cool.

44. The Hulk/Banner relationship is the most blatant example of the Superman/Clark Kent duality in superhero comics, and perhaps the most interesting.

45. Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk

46. Sentry/Hulk

47. When Hulk, Namor, and Silver Surfer get together, they're an unbeatable trio standing for the rights of Nudists everywhere.

48. The Hulk is the personification of our childhood need for the world to be what we want it to be, as I explained more here.

49. The Hulk is a more personal superhero than most, in that he generally doesn't fight to save the world or to stop crime or to save lives. He does those things, but more than anything else he fights for his own freedom.

50. He helped free America.

Review - The Sixth Gun Vol. 1

2011-02-03T00:01:00.003-05:00

The Sixth Gun Vol. 1
By Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt
Published By Oni Press; $19.99 US
Collects The Sixth Gun #s 1-6

Whether or not mixing genres is financially risky these days, I'd say it's artistically risky simply because of how commonplace it's become. My reaction to a lot of the recent mashing-together is what I like to call my Instant Asshole Reaction. It goes something like this: "A lot of people are doing it! People are enjoying it! I HATE IT!" In spite of the self-deprecating name I've given the response, I think it's understandable. When things have reached a point that hearing about the novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter or the comic book Cowboy Ninja Viking doesn't illicit a laugh on one hand or a groan on the other, but rather a matter-of-fact "Of...course," you can hardly blame me for damning trends just for being trends. Though I'd feel bad if I didn't point out that I don't mean to smear those particular books. I've never read them and can't comment on their quality. Their titles just offer blatant examples.

When you read The Sixth Gun, in spite of the fact that it's a fantasy/western; in spite of the fact that you'll see gunslingers following secret maps to spirit oracles, Catholic monks opening up Gatling guns on undead cowboys, winged beasts belching lighting and hurling horses into stagecoaches, and merciless killers wielding pistols with the power to raise the dead or blast balls of fire, it feels natural. It feels seamless. And it will probably feel like a comic book you've been waiting to read for a long time.

The Sixth Gun's namesake was the property of Oleander Hume - a sadistic Confederate general who killed purely for the joy of killing and gathered like-minded soldiers to his side to help him. Each carried a gun with supernatural properties and after Hume was killed and his corpse buried beneath a monastery, his gun went to the protection of a man named Montcrief. After Montcrief is killed for the gun and General Hume's soldiers rescue Hume from death; Montcrief's daughter Becky, the opportunistic gunslinger Drake Sinclair, and Sinclair's partner Billjohn are all that stands between the risen General Hume, the magical gun that helped make him such a prolific mass murderer, and presumably a new reign of terror.

Rather than coming off as gimmicky or trendy as I initially feared, the mixing of genres in The Sixth Gun makes for a rich, wonderful adventure story filled with gunfights, horror, and heroism. The world Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt create for the story is convincing and intriguing. I left the series not only loving their mixing of western and fantasy, not only curious about why the two genres haven't been mashed together more often, but actually wondering if I would ever again want to read or watch a western that didn't include zombies and gryphons and armies of mud people.

The Sixth Gun is an ongoing series and after reading this first trade it's tempting to break my near-fast of floppies. I wouldn't call any of the chapters self-contained, but Bunn and Hurtt give you enough story and wonderful art to make an issue worth buying on its own. And while I'm thrilled that this is only the beginning for The Sixth Gun, I also appreciate that this first volume feels complete. If it were a stand-alone GN, I would be left hungry for more but I wouldn't regret investing in the story. It's a great book that I would recommend to anyone, regardless of whether or not they had ever picked up a comic book in their life.

Review - The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity

2011-02-02T00:01:00.001-05:00

The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Idenity
By Mike Carey and Peter Gross
Published By DC/Vertigo; $9.99 USD
Collects The Unwritten #s 1-5

Tom Taylor doesn't live what you'd call a normal life except in comparison to what's in store for him. Tom is the son of author Wilson Taylor, and as such is the supposed inspiration for his father's Harry-Potter-like protagonist Tommy Taylor. Tom was living off his father's still thriving fandom until news broke that brought the son's identity into question. Now not only are the dedicated Taylor fans alternating between worshiping Tom Taylor and wanting his head on a plate, but the magic of Wilson Taylor's fictional world seems to be leaking into Tom's life. Tom's search for the truth about his father is dogged by crazed fans, supernatural killers, and an old conspiracy involving writers, stories, and how both help shape the world.

Last year I read Josh Lieb's young adult novel I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President. Early in the book, the comically villainous narrator briefly rants about the importance placed on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and I thought of this after reading The Unwritten. I don't remember any exact quotes, but the basic gist is that maybe people shouldn't put too much stock in writers who write about how terribly important books are. After all, how could writers ever be unbiased about the importance of books? They've got job security to consider.

I have a similar knee-jerk reaction when confronted with fiction about fiction, stories, writers, and books. I don't respond to The Unwritten the same way, though. So far it's defied my expectations. My first suspicion was that The Unwritten was nothing but a build-up to a reveal that Wilson Taylor's fictional world was the real one and the more recognizable world was false; kind of like The Matrix, but instead of a Dystopian future ruled by robots...Hogwart's.

But The Unwritten proves more interesting than that. At first it seems to go down the predicted path. Tom is kidnapped by a genuinely super-strong fan claiming to be the Voldemort-like Count Ambrosio and is saved by Lizzie who poses as the Tommy's fictional sidekick Sue. Shortly before a killer attacks the villa where Tom travels to find answers about his father, a tattoo mysteriously appears on his hand: a tattoo just like the one Tom's fictional counterpart sports.

Eventually we learn Tom Taylor's troubles are somehow connected to a centuries-old conspiracy. The final chapter of the trade fictionalizes the career of Rudyard Kipling and attributes the writer's tragedies and successes to the same shadowy group causing Tom Taylor so much grief.

It's an intriguing story and I'm looking forward to seeing how it unfolds. My single complaint is ridiculously minor. Throughout the volume there are a number of faux Internet pages. They're done better than most. Still, maybe it's just a pet peeve, but faux Internet stuff in comics or prose fiction never works for me.

Also, a bit of a tangent - with the exception of the final chapter, each issue opens with a novel excerpt; usually from one of the Tommy Taylor books. The third chapter, however, opens with an excerpt the climax of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and I enjoyed Carey and Gross's rendering of the monster so much I would love to see them do a full length adaptation.

This week's forecast: Blah blah blah

2011-02-01T05:44:00.000-05:00

This week will be tough on the blog. I work at a public radio station and it's fund drive time. My duties are particularly mind-numbing during fund drive and when I get home I only want to occupy my mind with video game violence, TV shows that aren't as bad as other TV shows but probably still bad, and beer.

At first I thought the fund drive would help the blog. Because of how mind-numbing my duties are, yesterday I passed the time by writing outlines for two reviews and a list of 100 Reasons to love the Hulk for Friday's Hulk post (I'm at 50 so far). But by the time I got home I just didn't want to write.

I'm still committed to post every day but I cannot promise the content will be very interesting. Or new. Yesterday's post was from my old List SMASH! blog. Things may become more complicated still by the asshole storm that's headed our way. Our apartment complex has proven sensitive to power-outage-inspiring events.

Yeah, I know. Whine, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, bitch.

Top 10 reasons why Bruce Banner's pants don't come off when he turns into the Hulk

2011-01-31T04:38:00.000-05:00

10. Elastic waistbands. Wal-Mart has some sweet deals, dude.

9. How many pairs of purple pants have you seen? Those suckers are tough to replace. He doesn't have much of a costume, but goddammit, he needs to protect what he has.

8. He's got a tattoo on his left ass-cheek. He usually isn't embarrassed about stuff like that, but it's of Superman's "S" logo. Moral of the story - don't ever pass out drunk with Jon Bon Jovi after trashing Newark. He's a motherfucker.

7. Tan lines.

6. Sometimes, they do come off, but he wears a second pair of pants under his first pair. Hulk no like going commando.

5. Strength of will.

4. Double stitches.

3. Unstable molecules. What? Everyone accepts that bullshit when the Fantastic Four says it. Racist.

2. Some people thinks he dyes his hair. He likes to to maintain some mystery.

1. If his pants came off, there'd be a big green cock flapping around everywhere. Excelsior!

(this post brought to you by the letter H and A Busy Weekend)

HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!!!!! : The Endless Finale

2011-01-28T05:50:00.000-05:00

This piece was originally published at Comic Book Galaxy in 2005. This is why you will find references to Peter David's "upcoming" return to writing duties on Incredible Hulk (a brief run that was rudely interrupted by "House of M"). I've once again become a regular visitor to ComicBoards' Incredible Hulk message board, and I was reminded of this piece when earlier this week the poster Abby asked other Hulk fans about their favorite Incredible Hulk creator finales.

I’ve been working on this fucking thing since last November.

Actually, that’s not true. I first got the idea after reading Alan Doane’s wonderful exploration of Frank Miller’s final issue of Daredevil, and if the date in the URL is right, that makes it July of 2004, meaning I’ve been working on this piece for the better part of a year. November was just when I sent ADD the e-mail to see if he’d want it.

Yeah, there are peripheral factors that could explain my procrastination: working and going to school full-time, helping my mother with her various medical issues, every now and then trying to squeeze in time to pay attention to the nice woman who’s kind enough to sleep with me, etc.

The real problem, I think, is that I’ve tried to be very professional. Detached. Unbiased. Every time I’ve started to write a review of The Incredible Hulk #467, "The Lone and Level Sands" -- the last issue of Peter David’s original twelve-year run on the title -- I’ve tried to write it from the perspective of someone who isn’t a shamefully loyal Hulk-nut; who doesn’t see every empty space in his collection of David’s Hulk as an unpardonable sin; who didn’t absolutely dread the idea of publishing online negative reviews of Peter David’s work and considered it a Herculean act of bravery when he finally did; who didn’t initially consider turning down his girlfriend’s offer to cohabit because he was afraid her cats might break his Randy Bowen Hulk statue; who didn’t leave his girlfriend alone to eat lunch in a pizza parlor because he was afraid he might not be thirty minutes early to the Hulk film; whose forgiving girlfriend didn’t buy green drapes for their office (once he capitulated to cohabitation, after realizing the statue was much too heavy for the cats to topple) to match his Hulk posters. And mirrors. And clocks. And stickers. And action figures, model kits, coloring books, baby shoes, coffee mugs, twisty straws, Christmas ornaments, mini-busts, stamps, cards, bobble heads, key chains, sunglasses, board games, lunchboxes, wastebaskets, baseballs, cardboard stands, t-shirts, matchbox cars, electronic talking hands, and probably some other stuff (mostly green).

But I can’t, and considering the genius of "The Lone and Level Sands," it’s only the truly bugfuck-crazy Hulkophile who can see how masterful David’s finale was, and why.

The entire story is told in flashback, with an aged, chain-smoking Rick Jones recounting the aftermath of Betty Banner’s death (she dies in the previous issue) on the tenth anniversary of her demise to a Daily Bugle reporter. Most of the story is told in double-page spreads with Jones’s hand -- a cigarette scissored in-between his index and middle fingers, the smoke curling up the sides of the pages and through the gutters–breaking only to return to Jones at the end as his eyes grow heavier, the ashtray gets more crowded, the fire grows smaller, and the various superhero paraphernalia (alluding to the vast trophy chamber seen in Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect) are swallowed by the shadows.

David and Adam Kubert create a beautiful montage of the aftermath of Betty’s death–from the more familiar scenes like old Thunderbolt Ross stupidly blasting at the Hulk with a handgun; to the tragic grace of a grinning Bruce Banner taking a swan dive off the Empire State Building.

Through Jones we learn of Bruce’s first suicide attempt, his subsequent imprisonment, his escape, a brief glimpse at the Hulk’s future battles and adventures (most of which, of course, have yet to come if ever, though Chris Cooper may or may not have been attempting to be faithful to the reference of a "face-to-face with Namor" with the Hulk/Sub-Mariner 1998 Annual), Betty’s funeral and the gathering of superheroes it drew, and a final meeting between Jones and Bruce Banner. David throws in the fates of some of the series’ peripheral figures (e.g., the citizens of Freehold, the vengeful Armageddon, and the time-traveling Janis Jones) for good measure.

Something always nagged at me after re-reads of the story, and it didn’t take me too long to figure out what. As much as I’ve long considered it the perfect Hulk tale, there was something about it that simply made no sense. The title, "The Lone and Level Sands," is the thing.

The line comes from a Percy Shelley poem that Banner recites to Jones as his long time sidekick visits him in prison after his first suicide attempt. The poem speaks of Ozymandias, "King of Kings," and the traveler who finds his shattered statue in the desert. "I can see it, Rick," Bruce tells Jones. "The broken legs standing there...barefoot, the cuffs torn. The Hulk’s feet. And that broken face, lying half-buried in the desert...My life, a shattered ruin."

A powerful image, but does it fit? This is the Hulk we’re talking about. The poem is about a man who built a kingdom, but succumbed to the inevitable. How is the analogous to the Hulk? What has the Hulk built? And what has Banner built, besides the Hulk? What did either create that’s worth mourning its destruction?

The answer is that it isn’t strictly the Hulk who David is talking about. David blatantly injects himself into the story from the very first page–the unseen Daily Bugle reporter is named Peter (and for a nice little double entendre, we all know someone else who’s worked for that rag with the same first name).

Most often we hear David through Rick. David purportedly left the title over a creative dispute regarding the future of the Hulk, and Jones refers to Betty’s death as "the day the Hulk started down the road he never wanted to travel." Rick’s final monologue can easily be read as David’s farewell to his readers: "I could keep on telling stories about the Hulk...keep on going...but there’s other things in life, you know? It’s like what Bruce told me. Realize what’s important...family, loved ones...that’s the important thing." He includes a continuity loophole for subsequent writers who would doubtlessly steer clear of his version of the Hulk’s future: "So maybe I’m an alternate timeline. Who knows what’s really fated or ‘official?’" He ends fittingly with, "I’ve said enough."

David switches seats in the narration, from Rick to the reporter to the Hulk himself. We hear him lamenting his departure from the series when Banner laments the loss of Betty during a meeting with Rick in a military prison, but when he subsequently transforms into the Hulk, Rick tells us, "I’d seen so many things in his eyes over the years. Anger, resentment, betrayal, exhaustion...but in all those years...I’d never seen him look at me that way...with envy. And then he was gone." Considering we already know this is apparently the road the Hulk, "never wanted to travel," it seems likely the Hulk’s envy is leveled at David himself: the writer who will escape this unwanted path, while the Hulk will remain. During Rick’s last meeting with Banner, Bruce leaves him with, "Sometimes it’s best to move on," and in a nice symbolic gesture the scene opens with Bruce sitting in Rick’s wheelchair. Even the unseen reporter switches places. Despite his first name, he often resembles the reader more closely than the writer: "Look...I hate to keep you...but there’re so many other things I’d like to hear..."

But while David wrestles with his own demons throughout the story, it’s far from self-indulgent. Ultimately, the Ozymandias/Hulk analogy does fit, because of the one theme that consistently distinguished Peter David’s Hulk from those that came before and after.

Contrary to popular opinion, not all Hulk fans were happy with Peter David’s interpretation of their favorite muscleman, particularly in the case of the so-called "Merged" or (the name that Paul Jenkins’s misreading of David’s run helped him create) "Professor" Hulk: an incarnation that came about after Doc Samson brought Bruce Banner’s personality together with that of the childlike green Hulk and the thuggish gray one. A cunning, green strongman with the IQ of a rocket scientist is what emerged, though when you strip away the bigger words and not-quite-as-tattered clothes, on the surface the Merged Hulk was never really much different than his savage counterpart. You could often throw a "Hulk" or a "puny" into the Merged Hulk’s dialogue with predictable results, often changing a line like "Pathetic humans. Getting in my way," (Incredible Hulk #383) to "Puny humans! Always getting in Hulk’s way!"

Ambition is what distinguished David’s Hulk from the previous interpretations, which probably has more to do with some fans’ dislike of Peter David’s tenure on the title than anything else. He didn’t have to count on money he’d stitched into his pants which would somehow survive a fall from orbit after battling the Toad Men. He didn’t have to sleep in the woods or in the houses of trusting strangers. The Hulk had been the world’s most powerful hobo, even stealing food from the campfires of homeless men and family reunion picnics in some stories. By gathering some semblance of control over his life, Bruce Banner and his alter-ego became less pure in some eyes, and perhaps less of a hero. Ambition is what made the Maestro of Future Imperfect -- an evil, future version of the Hulk who ruled over the last vestige of humanity on a post-apocalyptic Earth . It’s why the Hulk’s membership into, and eventual leadership of, the Pantheon -- a paramilitary group of that intervened in international crises without official sanction, whose founder was eventually revealed to be much less altruistic than he originally claimed -- was so important to the Hulk’s development. It was the first time since that fateful day in New Mexico that either Banner or the Hulk had wielded any kind of power or control, except the kind that came from an emerald fist.

Part of what makes this story the perfect ending not only to Peter David’s initial run on Incredible Hulk, but to the story of the Hulk as a whole, is that it’s less than an ending, and at the same time it’s so much more.

It’s the ongoing aspect of superhero comics that both renders the characters immortal and makes them less than characters. Stories end. Superheroes do not. They’re like endless porn scenes. The money shot’s never gonna come. If Luke Skywalker were a superhero, Vader’s emphysema would still fill theater speakers every few years. If Frodo were a superhero, he’d still be stumbling towards Mount Doom. If William Wallace were a superhero, he’d be wrestling the Brits for centuries to come (and it would probably be a CrossGen book). Stories end. Characters die. A story that never ends is not a story. A character that never dies is not a character: it’s a franchise.

Peter David achieved the impossible with Incredible Hulk #467, by circumventing the necrophilia of the superhero genre. Before bowing out of the green-sometimes-gray goliath’s franchise, he wrote the endless finale to a story that can’t ever end. And while, upon reading it, you will know that it’s a story that only Peter David could write, it’s a story you’ve known for a long time. You’ve felt it in your bones. David wrote it, but you knew it before you read it. David wrote it, but so did Lee and Thomas and Wein and Stern and Mantlo. Despite the fact that the Hulk series continues, despite the various limited series and guest appearances, despite even David’s own Incredible Hulk: The End, "The Lone and Level Sands" is the last Hulk story. It’s the only Hulk story. And it’s certainly the best.

10 Memorable Super Brawls

2011-01-27T00:01:00.000-05:00

Tom Spurgeon listed five superhero fights he likes on Sunday. It seemed like a fun topic, so here I'm aping him.

I'm very proud of myself for only listing two Hulk fights. It wasn't easy. I've easily read more issues of Incredible Hulk than any other single comic and he's a character known for his brawls so when considering which fights to include, it was tough to steer my mind away from the default. Since I have a Friday Hulk column, I think I may need to write up a separate Memorable Hulk Brawls soon.

There is no ranking. I chose 10 because it's a nice, round number but their order is only indicative of when I thought of them.

--Afrodisiac vs. Hercules in Afrodisiac

This could easily have been Afrodisiac vs. Megapute or Afrodisiac vs. Dracula. I chose this one because I adore the panel where Afrodisiac smashes the mug into Hercules's face. I think it's amazing that Jim Rugg, in comics that are supposed to be parodies of superhero books, manages to draw brawls much more dynamic and interesting than the fights in the "real" superhero titles.

--Daredevil vs. Nuke in Daredevil #233

Daredevil: Born Again doesn't feel like it's leading to this specific battle. After all, you don't meet Nuke until the previous issue. Regardless, the fact that Matt Murdock is so very un-Daredevil throughout the storyline acts as wonderful build-up to the confrontation between Daredevil and Nuke. You hardly ever see him in his costume until this issue and in some ways the comic stopped feeling like a superhero comic until this issue. Once Miller and Mazzuchelli bring the super back, it's got with that much more power and drama.

It's fitting that the Avengers swoop in at the end and force Nuke out of Daredevil's hands. Not only does it give Captain America a way to enter the story, but the battle feels bigger and more explosive than what you would normally expect from Daredevil. You half expect Thor or Iron Man to rush up to Daredevil saying, "Whoa, whoa, DUDE! What are you doing? This is our thing, you're down the hall."

--Hulk vs. Thor in Thor #385

I haven't browsed enough comic solicits lately to know whether or not they still do it, but the phrase "cover-to-cover battle" used to be bandied about quite a bit, but you knew it wasn't completely true. No matter how heavy the fighting was, you'd always have at least a page or two of exposition.

In that respect, Thor #385 is no different, but it's just about as close to a true cover-to-cover battle as a Marvel comic ever got. The Hulk/Thor rivalry is as old as Marvel's superhero kingdom, but it's safe to say this is the most brutal battle between them. The Hulk is depicted as particularly vicious, at one point threatening to kill a woman if Thor won't relinquish his hammer. If I recall correctly, Stan Lee meant for this to be the so-called "mindless" Hulk, but either didn't know or didn't care that the mindless Hulk was basically just a dumb animal who didn't even have the low-bar "Hulk Smash" speech capacity. Instead he just wrote the classic "Hulk Smash" Hulk, just as more of a bastard.

It was written as a fill-in, but to anyone who's ever cared either way about the Hulk/Thor rivalry, it's required reading.

--Black Panther vs. Killmonger in Black Panther #20

Christopher Priest's Black Panther was known more for its political intrigue, espionage, witty dialogue and cut-up storytelling than for big super-people fights. But when Priest brought the action, he usually did something interesting with it. In particular I remember this extended fistfight between Black Panther and Killmonger. Like the panels displayed above, the entire fight is told from the first-person point of view, shifting between the combatants, as if the reader were literally either Panther or Killmonger.

There is also a great character to the fight. The two of them battle at the base of a waterfall, and they occasionally take breaks to rest and drink. This kind of noble fight etiquette is refreshing in a superhero dust-up. I don't think it's something that could be used too often without coming off as a gimmick, but it's an interesting approach that I don't think I'd ever considered before reading Black Panther #20.

--Human Torch vs. Baby Elmo in Daredevil #261

I've always remembered this fight simply for the strangeness of its setting. Daredevil is missing and Johnny Storm tries to help find him by showing up at a local dive and intimidating the patrons into giving up the info. Unfortunately, he ain't exactly Rorschach. He arrives at the bar displaying a 13-year-old suburban kid's fashion instincts towards what is and isn't bad-ass. He throws the word "bad" around and actually wears a black shirt that says "BAD!" He actually has a pack of cigarettes rolled up in one of his sleeves. Apparently instead of looking for Daredevil, he was trying to get the whereabouts of Pony Boy.

The dive's regulars are unimpressed by Storm and sic the Hulk-Hogan-sized Baby Elmo on him. Unwilling to use his fire powers at first, Storm gets tossed around a bit by Elmo, but eventually he's able to outsmart him. It's always stuck out in my mind as a good example of a superhero choosing brains over brawn (though after he defeats Elmo, the patrons go nuts on him, he flames on and I'm pretty sure he burns down the bar), and also as an example of a superhero in a title where he seemed very much out of place.

The issue also includes a fight between Kingpin and Typhoid Mary that's far too sexual than any Kingpin fight should ever be.

--Hulk and the Warbound vs. the Avengers and Fantastic Four in World War Hulk #2

It would be as disingenuous as it would be futile for me to try to convince anyone my enjoyment of this battle has nothing to do with who wins it. The Hulk and his buddies beat a bloody path through Marvel's most well-known non-X teams, and while it's light on story, the way John Romita, jr. choreographs the battles in this mini is just great. World War Hulk is one the books I most frequently grab before what I suspect will be an extended stay in the bathroom (cut loose with the jokes as you will), and this part of the book is the one I usually flip through while I process what I need to process. It's just wonderful to look at.

I'd also add it surprised me how well Romita did with World War Hulk. I don't say that to question his talent. It's just that before World War Hulk's release he was heavily promoted as a "fan-favorite" Hulk artist, whereas previous to World War Hulk his work on Incredible Hulk was during periods of the title that were not only light on action, but in the case of the Bruce Jones run, hardly featured the Hulk.

--JLA vs. the Ultramarine Corps and General Eiling in JLA #s 25-26

Grant Morrison's JLA action sequences are always impressive. I knew immediately that a scene from his JLA needed to be on this list, and the battle with the Ultramarine Corps stuck out for a couple of reasons. It has the perfect timing and perspective shifts that made so many of the action scenes in his run great, and it highlights Morrison's ingenuity in respect to coming up with new, cool ways other heroes or villains could challenge or even humiliate a team of the most ungodly powerful superheroes in comics.

--Iron Fist vs. Hydra soldiers and Mechagorgon in Immortal Iron Fist #1

This fight is pure kung-fu bad ass. If you asked me to show you a scan of any one panel that embodied why I loved Immortal Iron Fist while I loved it, it would be from this fight.

It's also an example of what I love about Ed Brubaker's superhero work. I read Brubaker's Sleeper before I read anything else by him. As such, I assumed he was the kind of writer who would hate to use the older, cheesier, rusty artifacts of the superhero world except to make fun of them. I assumed if Brubaker were, say, to be assigned a Spider-Man comic, that he might not necessarily change Spidey so that he would be two-fisting semi-autos John Woo style, but he would very much want to.

And yeah, he definitely has given a stronger sense of bad-ass to certain books - like Captain America - but what has pleasantly surprised me is the contrasting love the guy obviously has for good ol' cheesy superhero fun. How else could the guy not only use a giant robot spider named Mechagorgon, but actually make the thing seem menacing?

--Supersonic vs. Retri-B.U.T.I.O.N. in Astro City Special #1

In Astro City Special #1, the aging Supersonic is called upon to save a residential area outside Astro City from the giant robot Retri-B.U.T.I.O.N. During the battle Supersonic thinks back on the exploits of his younger self. Specifically, he reminisces about the many ingenious ways he used his powers to defeat his enemies; sometimes consciously making complicated strategies for easily solved problems just for fun. Now, old, tired, with no more sense of fun - just like, Busiek seems to be saying, superhero comics - Supersonic has only has one thing left: naked brute violence. Supersonic's battle with Retri-B.U.T.I.O.N. decimates the same neighborhood he was trying to save and Supersonic is a bloody mess by the end of it.

Irrespective of Busiek's message about how superhero action has changed over the years, it's a fun issue because there aren't a lot of brawls in Kurt Busiek's Astro City. There's plenty of superhero action, but an extended, mano-y-mano fistfight is rare in the book. So when it happens the impact is that much stronger. And Busiek goes all out. I don't know if I've ever read a Busiek superhero book with a more brutal fight.

--Night Owl and Rorschach vs. Ozymandias in Watchmen #11

I always enjoy Alan Moore's superhero fights in part because they're so rare. At least, in the case of actual down and dirty, knuckle-bruising brawls. Off the top of my head I can't think of a single scene like that in Top Ten or Tom Strong.

When they do occur, they're refreshingly real and my favorite of them is the swift, decisive fight between Ozymandias, Night Owl and Rorschach towards the end of Watchmen. It feels non-stylized and brutal; but not gratuitously so. The actions the combatants take seem to be chosen because they make sense, not because they look good on the page. I would say the same about the Batman/Joker showdown in The Killing Joke, and Swamp Thing's respective battles with Batman and the Flouronic Man in Swamp Thing.

This is one of the main reasons for my hatred for Zack Snyder's adaptation of Watchmen. It's tough for me to look at how Moore handled superhero violence, watch Snyder's Matrix-on-crack style, and think that me and Snyder were reading the same comic book.

My Greatest Enemy

2011-01-26T00:01:00.001-05:00

I made a pledge before the end of 2010 that I would blog every weekday for six months. As of this upcoming Monday, I'll have kept my word for a month.

Here's what I've learned so far-

1. My greatest enemy is doubt and it manifests as indecision. I can't tell you how many times I change my mind about what I'm going to blog about the following day. It's not rare at all for me to change topics a dozen times or more before I finally write the thing.

If I'm going to blog every week day, I can't spend hours deciding what I'm going to write about. I need to limit how long I allow myself to consider a topic. Once time is up, whatever I have, no matter how bad I think it will suck, it's what's going to be on the blog. If I can't defeat doubt, I can bypass the fucker.

2. My greatest enemy is time. I find it impossible to do a longer, more involved piece because I'm busy just trying to put together content every day. For the past few weeks, I've wanted to do a "The Whole Story" segment on CrossGen's Ruse, but I can't imagine finding the time to read an entire comic book series. In fact, the notion of making time to read anything that isn't mostly pictures seems laughable. Considering the challenge simply blogging every day has been, I don't know how I'm ever going to manage to write a novel, a short story, or anything else at the same time.

3. My greatest enemy is fear. I psych myself out. It is challenging to blog every day, work a full-time job that has nothing to do with my blogging, try to have a bare minimum of a social life, work on writing unrelated to the blog, etc. And you know what? I'm not going to be able to juggle it all at first. But I'm learning. I'm developing strategies. I'm compensating. And the best way for me to unravel those is to convince myself I don't have enough time before I even try. The reality is every time I have managed to simply sit down, shut up, and do the work, I've been amazed at how quickly I get done.

4. My greatest enemy is Gimli the Cat who - no matter how strongly I impress upon him the importance of my work - insists on jumping on my lap, planting his front paws on my chest, and licking my nose. His distractions are unbearable. I'm fairly certain he's working for al qaeda.

5. My greatest enemy is pride. I am so thoroughly unwilling to write something that will reveal I am not already a flawless, accomplished author, it endangers my ability to write anything at all.

6. My greatest enemy is laziness. As I bitch about time and fear and doubt, I could very well have twice the content I have on my blog if I wasn't always stopping to blow up shit on my XBox or, as evidenced by yesterday's post, spend hours watching a bunch of assholes run around a jungle and lie to each other about the ridiculous crap they find.

7. My greatest enemy is indifference. In the past few weeks I've dropped a lot more money on graphic novels than usual. I've read The Chill, Rat Catcher, Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk, Hulk: World War Hulks, Hulk: Fall of the Hulks, Secret Six: Cats in the Cradle, Irredeemable Vols. 3 and 4, and Secret Avengers: Mission to Mars. Despite a significant need for subject matter, I've only reviewed one of them. I disliked some, liked others a little, but didn't care enough about most of them to feel like I have anything significant to say.

8. My greatest enemy is Tapping Tommy from Defenders #30.

I FUCKING HATE TAPPING TOMMY!!!!!!!

Why They Killed...?

2011-01-25T12:21:00.001-05:00

This post contains a big spoiler. It's a spoiler that's all over the net so if you're someone interested enough in comics to regularly visit comics sites, you probably know the spoiler. That is, unless, you're doing everything you can to avoid the news, in which case this little paragraph here is your signal to go read something else now. Go. Shoo. Go away.

So...

....they killed the Human Torch. Being a rabid Hulk supporter I don't know if I should be angry that they didn't kill Ben Grimm, or happy that he's still around to get knocked around by the Hulk. Regardless, I have to ask the question, why kill the Human Torch?

Sure, Ben Grimm is pretty popular so killing him would be a bad choice. The reaction to killing Reed would be interesting considering the enemies he and his pro-reg friends made among fandom during Civil War. It would offer up interesting personal and romantic options for Sue, just as Sue's death would open up similar options for Reed. Of course, if Sue were killed, her death would leave a sausage party behind and that's always awkward.

Johnny's death, I guess, is the safest death. He isn't as popular as Ben Grimm, he isn't a parent like Reed and Sue, and his death wouldn't anger fans by opening doors for favorite characters to get busy with new people (i.e., I think if Reed were the one who bought it and two issues later Sue and Namor got an apartment together, fans might be a little ticked off).

But we all know Johnny won't be dead forever. Probably 2 or 3 years. That's the going rate, right? Then there will be a mini named Fantastic Four: Rebirth or Fantastic Four: Reborn or The Return of the Fantastic Four or Fantastic Four: Hey, That Dude Is Back.

Which leads to the question of how they will eventually bring him back. I didn't read the issue, but as I understand it, he got killed by giant bugs. That seems pretty tough to get around, but not impossible.

And that makes me wonder if maybe the reason they chose Johnny over the other characters is precisely because they would eventually have to explain how he comes back from the dead.

Almost as if there were another character somehow related to Johnny Storm who would eventually have something to do with the resurrection, a character who has already been resurrected a couple of times and has actually been used as the explanation for other characters' resurrections. A character who actually seems to only spring up whenever someone else needs some Lazarus treatment. Maybe even a character that the Fantastic Four's Human Torch was based upon.

I don't know. I'll have to put my thinking cap on.

Some thoughts upon rediscovering Lost

2011-01-25T00:01:00.004-05:00

I watched Lost until the middle of the third season. It was the time of the writer's strike and the quality of the show reflected the talent vacuum. The stories lacked their usual emotional power, one of my favorite characters was killed, and I thought it was likely Lost would be canceled long before any of its mysteries could be answered. So I stopped watching and didn't look back. Later, I heard things that made me regret my decision, but it was too late. The plot of Lost seemed far too convoluted to allow missing one or two episodes much less half a season's worth. By that time, I had distanced myself enough from the story that I didn't care so much anyway about what the hatch numbers were, what the smoke monster was, or whether or not The Others were the bastards everyone thought they were.

Once the show ended and I heard friends and co-workers reacting to it, it gnawed at me a little. I was tempted to watch the series on DVD but, because of the complicated plot, the only way I could imagine getting back into Lost was to watch it again from the beginning, and there was no way I was going to spend money on DVDs just for backstory. Sure, I could get them over Netflix, but that seemed painfully slow. Then my girlfriend bought a Wii and we learned we could stream certain shows and movies over it any time we wanted as long as we had a Netflix membership.

I started slow, watched a couple episodes at a time, but the closer I got to the last episodes I'd seen, the faster I went. This past Saturday morning I planned on getting a lot done; writing, organizing, cleaning. I got up early, did two loads of laundry, stretched out on the couch, turned on the TV and the Wii, and - other than to eat, drink and crap - I did not leave the living room until around 11 pm. I was able to resist a bit longer on Sunday. I cleaned the bathroom, shopped, and organized my desk, but I was still pretty much stuck in front of the TV from around noon till 9 pm.

I've heard differing opinions on how the series ended. I'm only at the end of the third season so I'm far from forming my own opinion, but considering how much time I spent watching the show this weekend, writing something about Lost seems as inevitable as it is practical.

Some thoughts upon rediscovering Lost

1. One of the most appealing aspects of Lost is the interaction between the action in the jungle and the bits and pieces we see of their lives before the crash. The first two truly emotionally powerful episodes for me were "Walkabout", when we learn that the plane crash somehow gave John Locke back the use of his legs, and "The Moth", when John Locke convinces Charlie to kick his heroin habit. "Walkabout" was the episode that convinced me I needed to keep watching the show, and it made Locke my favorite character.

I think one of the things that drove me away from Lost is that the interplay between the past and present stories stopped working for me. I remember two episodes in particular in the beginning of season 3 - "I Do" when Kate marries a police officer played by Nathan Fillion and "Stranger in a Strange Land" when Jack has a love affair with a mysterious woman in Thailand - when for the first time I was completely underwhelmed. It wasn't that I didn't see the usual thematic connections between the past and present scenes - I did. They just weren't emotionally potent. I didn't care.

2. One of the problems I had with the flashbacks either had something to do with the writers running out of ideas, or with Lost simply not being what I expected.

When I started watching Lost, it reminded me of The Stand. There are a number of obvious comparisons, but more specifically the characters of of both seem, for the most part, like ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. At least as far as the original survivors are concerned, you wouldn't necessarily expect to find these people in any kind of adventure story: a surgeon, an abandoned pregnant woman, a lottery winner, a drug addict, a spoiled rich girl, her overprotective brother, etc. Sure, there are exceptions; most notably Sawyer, Sayid, and Kate. But for the most part the survivors are not the kinds of people you would expect in a story of a mysterious island, magic, monsters, and Hulk knows what else.

But as the series continues, the flashbacks reveal stranger and stranger lives. Using the example of Locke in "Walkabout" again, we learn that Locke worked at a Box supply company and dreamed of adventure. He was so lonely one of the only people he could talk to was an anonymous woman on phone sex line. Eventually, concealing his disability, he took a flight to Australia for a walkabout adventure and was humiliated when they refused to let him on the journey. A normal guy with a tough life, lonely, dreaming of more. That's fairly simple.

As the rest of the flashbacks emerge however, Locke seems less and less ordinary. The story of Locke is the story of a toy store employee whose life changes when his father seeks him out to con him out of a kidney. After he loses his kidney, Locke stalks his father until convinced to give up his obsession by a woman he loves. He loses the woman when she learns Locke helped his father fake his own death and sneak hundreds of thousands of dollars out of a safety deposit box. In the aftermath of his break up he joins some kind of cult/collective stockpiling guns and weed. Locke's life there is ruined when he unwittingly leads an undercover cop into the compound and refuses to kill him. Years later, living off disability, Locke is approached by a man who believes Locke's father is trying to con his mother out of money, Locke warns his father to back off, the son winds up dead. Locke's father throws him out of eighth floor of a building. Locke survives but is paralyzed from the waist down.

The story of John Locke crashing onto the island is not the story of an ordinary man put in extraordinary circumstances. It is the story of a bizarre man with a bizarre goddamn life put in bizarre circumstances. The flashbacks seem to change from the stories of ordinary, believable people dealing with difficult lives, to the stories of people dealing instead with intrigue, blackmail, bloody revenge, and adventure. And that changed the feeling of the story for me.

Using the example of Jack, I find most of his flashbacks very believable. Most of them deal with either his marriage or his issues with his father. But meeting a mysterious, beautiful woman on a beach who randomly screws him for a month until he abruptly goes nuts and forces her to tattoo his arm and is subsequently beaten up by her brother and his friends for getting a tattoo? Yeah, that's just. You know. Stupid.

3. Libby's death probably pissed me off more than any other. For reasons that shouldn't be too tough to figure out, I strongly identify with Hurley, and having her taken from him sucked. Obviously it sucked for her too. I've heard that at some point Michael briefly returns to the series. Perhaps for just a cameo. Regardless I hope it includes Hurley elbowing him in the crotch.

I also hated to see Eko go. He was a cool character with a lot of potential. According to Lostpedia, he asked to leave because both of his parents died in 2005. It also says he was offered a role in Lost's final episode, but he asked for too much money.

4. I really want to feel sorry for Desmond, but I think he's just a whiny little shit. If Lost were the Marvel Universe, Desmond would be Silver Surfer, moping on an asteroid about not being able to get past Galactus's force field, about all the planets he helped destroy, about how humanity sucks, about how his girlfriend's daddy won't give him expensive booze.

5. Ooh, okay, If Lost were the Marvel Universe. I think I have a good topic here.

Jack would be Captain America. That's a no-brainer. A Captain America with a lot of emotional issues, but he'd still be Captain America.

Sawyer would be Wolverine.

I don't want to make the easy bald/wheelchair comparison between Locke and Professor X. However, Locke is a manipulative prick who fucks with other characters' heads because he thinks he knows what's best for everybody else. So, it kind of fits.

Considering he's both devoutly religious and fairly bad-ass - and at the same time walks a round with a heavy stick he's carved words into - I think Eko has to be Thor.

Shit, I guess all those guys bitching about Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall in Thor would really want to beat my ass.

Boone and Shannon - Aurora and Northstar.

With Charlie, we could either go the musician route and say he's Rick Jones or the addict route and say he's Iron Man. I like Charlie, so I'm going to say Rick Jones.

I would like to say that would make Hurley the Hulk, but I don't really see any similarities there. I guess you could kind of argue for Longshot because of Hurley's "curse" but he doesn't act like Longshot. He sure as hell doesn't look like Longshot.

6. Speaking of comic books and Lost, that leads me into something I've been thinking about since I started re-watching it.

When I said I originally watched Lost until the middle of the third season, that may have been misleading. I didn't watch Lost as the episodes aired until the third season. I watched seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. My girlfriend at the time rented the first few discs on Netflix. After that we were hooked and bought the DVD collectionss. It wasn't until the third season that I got to see an episode as it aired on the network.

I still think the beginning of the third season was fairly weak, but I also think there's a big difference between watching a series for the first time on a DVD or streaming it on Netflix versus watching it as the network airs it. When I initially watched those first two seasons, I didn't have to watch commercials or wait very long between episodes. My cliffhangers weren't hanging from quite so high. And I can't help but wonder if at least part of my dissatisfaction with the third season had to do with the new inconveniences of advertising and weekly network schedules.

That made me think of quite a few instances in comic books when I questioned whether it made more sense to step back and judge a work as a whole, or if you had to take into account whether or not the creators met a schedule. As superhero comics have become more geared towards the trade paperback market, I think the question has become more complicated.

In fact, Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof provides a good example. He wrote the mini-series Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk. I just picked up a hardcover collection of the series last week. It wasn't the best story I've ever read, but it was pretty damn solid. Of the three Hulk/Wolverine minis I can remember, it's certainly the best. However, I would probably feel a lot differently if I'd been collecting the series as the issues were released. The first two issues were released in 2006, and #3 didn't hit the stands until 2009.

Likewise, there was a lot of noise when delays hampered the complete release of Civil War. Its creators fired back that there were also significant delays in superhero comicdom's sacred cows Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns when they came out as single issues. I would agree with anyone who might point out that comparing Civil War to Watchmen is like comparing Police Academy 4 to The Godfather, but it's still true that the experience of reading Watchmen issue by issue, at a pace dictated by the publisher, is much different than picking up a Watchmen tpb and going through it at your leisure.

As a reader, as a viewer, I prefer to have the whole story to go through as I choose. It's true for me in TV and comics. While I could never say I don't watch TV, I rarely watch network or cable TV. I watch DVDs and I watch streams. The list of series I have watched only, or mainly, on DVD or on the Wii is growing, and many of them are counted among my favorite shows. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Office, Firefly, Dexter, etc. It kind of bothers me to think I might not have enjoyed them as much if I watched them when they aired, but then I think it's stupid to be bothered by that. I just got the show without the commercials. Win/win.

Likewise, I almost never buy floppies anymore. I only buy Hulk comics in single issue because, as I've written here before, it seems kind of silly for me to have a weekly column about the Hulk and to not know what's going on in the character's books. Not only is it usually a little cheaper to go tpb-only, but it gives me a more satisfying reading experience. If not knowing what's going to happen as quickly as some others know what's going to happen is the price I have to pay, so be it.

Well, that's all I have to say about Lost for now, at least. I'm almost done with the third season, and then there will be three more to go. Maybe I'll do my first "The Whole Story" column for a TV show. We'll see.

(P.S. PLEASE READ BEFORE LEAVING ANY COMMENTS - I love it when people leave comments and don't want to discourage it in any way. In fact, if I was given a choice between getting 1,000 hits per day without anyone leaving comments versus getting no more than 10 hits per day with everyone leaving comments, I would choose the latter. A hit means nothing. A comment means you read what I wrote and gave a crap enough to get involved, and that's pretty damn cool. However, if you're going to say anything about Lost feel free, but please just remember I haven't seen the entire series yet. Yes, I have heard some of things that happen. It was inevitable. But I would like to preserve as much of the surprise as possible. For some reason I've had bad luck with people dropping spoilers lately. Heroes. Lost. Today at work an intern spoiled a huge character death for me in season 4 of Dexter and I haven't even gotten to season 3 yet. I know, I know. You're crying yourself to sleep thinking about my Desmond-esque woes.)

Review - Secret Avengers: Mission to Mars

2011-01-24T05:53:00.002-05:00

Secret Avengers: Mission to Mars Premiere HC
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artists: Mike Deodato, Will Conrad, David Aja, Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano
Published by Marvel; $24.99 US
Collects Secret Avengers #s 1-5

I'm used to Ed Brubaker's Marvel books proving me wrong. Whenever he's taken the reins of a Marvel title I would usually avoid, he's made me a loyal reader. So when I saw the cover of Secret Avengers: Mission to Mars, in spite of my initial reaction that it looked like Brubaker mashed together a bunch of nobodies with no rhyme or reason, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

At first, I thought my trust was well placed. Initially it seemed that the team concept was something like the small squad of Ultimates who worked towards the same goals as the public team in the first Ultimates volume, but in secret. While the Secret Avengers are a team, they don't hang out together. There really there isn't much interaction between the different heroes at all. They work alone or in small groups; usually pairs. The comic opens with Black Widow and Valkyrie posing as high-price hookers to infiltrate a Roxxon facility in Dubai. Later Moon Knight and Ant-Man break into Roxxon HQ while Steve Rogers, Beast, and War Machine coordinate intel from a secret base. While all this is going on, Nova heads to Mars to investigate Roxxon's dig site there.

Unfortunately, the idea of an espionage-style superhero comic is jettisoned pretty quickly. Before the first chapter is over Nova disappears and Rogers brings the team together to rescue him and learn what Roxxon is doing on the red planet. What follows is not, by any means, a bad comic. Brubaker's characterization is good and there's plenty of fun superhero action. It just left me wondering why I should bother caring about this superhero team more than any other.

The Secret Avengers don't have any specific team identity. At first, they seem like they do, but as soon as the espionage aspect is pushed aside for the more standard, cosmic-style superhero stuff, they become just another superhero team. My initial fear that they're a bunch of nobodies mashed together without rhyme or reason is proved true. The different heroes hardly even talk to each other. There's no group dynamic to speak of. With the exception of Steve Rogers, pretty much everyone on the team could easily be replaced with another Marvel hero (as evidenced by the strong implication towards the end of Mission to Mars that Rogers will already be replacing one of the team's members).

Part of the problem is that Brubaker makes the same mistake I argued he and Matt Fraction made with Immortal Iron Fist. He forgets that most of the character's he's dealing with are not exactly Marvel headliners. With the exception of a couple of flashbacks showing how Rogers recruited Moon Knight and Ant-Man, Brubaker doesn't supply any background on these guys at all. You can get away with that with Grant Morrison's or Mark Waid's JLA line-up. Not so much with the likes of Moon Knight and Valkyrie, especially if they don't speak to each other outside discussing strategy and shouting to each other during fistfights.

Like I said, this isn't a bad book at all. It just isn't particularly good. At the very least, if you just can't do without it, I'd advise you be smarter than I was and wait for the paperback.

HULK IS THE STRONGEST ONE THERE IS!!!!!! : Judge a cover by its Hulk

2011-01-21T00:00:00.001-05:00

This week I thought I'd go look through the green guy's issues and pick out my favorite Hulk covers. I call some favorites just because they look nifty, and maybe some others because there's more of a nostalgia factor. Most, obviously, are Incredible Hulk covers, though I also added some covers from Hulk-related mini-series and one-shots.

Also, last week I did a little link-blogging as part of my Hulk Is The Strongest One There Is column. I've done it again this week and will probably keep doing it until I don't want to do it anymore.

Incredible Hulk #1

Tales to Astonish #60

Tales to Astonish #77

Tales to Astonish #93

If you cut off everything below Silver Surfer's knees, it looks like Silver Surfer is helping Hulk cross the street.

A street that's, you know, on fire.

Incredible Hulk Annual #1

Incredible Hulk #102

Incredible Hulk #105

Incredible Hulk #121

I miss the Glob. Do you miss the Glob? I totally miss the Glob.

Incredible Hulk #122

Incredible Hulk #124

Incredible Hulk #128

I remember when I used to go through the Hulk back issues at the comic shop when I was much younger, this one always popped up. I always wanted to buy it but never had enough money. It wasn't ridiculously expensive or anything, but I didn't have a lot of money to spend on comics. When I finally did buy it, I felt like I'd hit the jackpot, like I was on minimum wage and just bought a sports car. It wasn't a bad issue either, if I recall. I think it was the first Hulk/Avengers fight I'd read. The only specific panel I remember is one where the Hulk tosses a bunch of logs in Goliath's face.

Incredible Hulk #140

Incredible Hulk #141

Doc Samson's first appearance. I think Doc Samson has a lot of untapped potential. If you just look at this cover and try to willfully forget any of the character's subsequent history, it seems like he was the answer to the question, "What if the Hulk went right?" In other words, what if the Hulk had been a proper superhero with a costume and a handsome face who didn't fight the army all the time?

Incredible Hulk #167

I think here I just love the idea of Modok with an actual body.

Incredible Hulk #169

Incredible Hulk #184

Incredible Hulk #202

Even though this is not the first appearance of Jarella or the world of K'ai, this image is the definitive image in my mind of Jarella, her world, and everything that went along with it.

Incredible Hulk #209

Incredible Hulk #216

Incredible Hulk #225

Incredible Hulk #238

Incredible Hulk #278

This is the cover of my very first comic book. It's a bit of a deceptive cover. It makes it out as if he's about to fight the other heroes, and that's a big reason why I bought it. It reminded me of how I felt in grade school. I felt like I was a good guy and the other kids were good, too, but they thought I was bad just like everyone thought the Hulk was bad.

Of course, considering what attracted me to that cover, the cover of the following issue is a little funny...

Incredible Hulk #279

Incredible Hulk #293

You know, on the Incredible Hulk message board, my username used to be "The Anti-Grimm."

A cover like this does my heart good.

Incredible Hulk #297

Incredible Hulk #299

Incredible Hulk #301

Incredible Hulk #306

Incredible Hulk #310

Incredible Hulk #319

Incredible Hulk #333

Incredible Hulk #344

I'm not really a big fan of McFarlane's art, but I think this cover is wonderful. He makes the Hulk seem menacing and tender at the same time. I don't feel like ranking these covers, but if I did this would probably be in the top 10.

Incredible Hulk #391

Incredible Hulk #394

Incredible Hulk #395

Incredible Hulk #427

Incredible Hulk #454

I still don't get the Hulk/Wolverine rivalry, but that rivalry has produced some great covers.

Incredible Hulk #34

While I was not happy with Bruce Jones's run on Incredible Hulk, I adored Kaare Andrews's covers.

Incredible Hulk #38

I actually had a letter published in this one.

Incredible Hulk #41

Incredible Hulk #43

Incredible Hulk #49

Incredible Hulk #61

Incredible Hulk #63

Incredible Hulk #92

Hulk #28

Ed McGuinness is one of my least favorite Hulk artists, but I thought this cover was great.

Rampaging Hulk #3

I've never managed to read any of the Rampaging Hulk magazines, but their covers are beautiful.

Rampaging Hulk #5

Rampaging Hulk #9

Sentry/Hulk

I loved Bill Sienkiewicz's interpretations of Hulk in this comic, and overall it was my favorite issue of the first Sentry limited series and its one-shots. I know at the time a lot of Hulk fans were angry that Hulk was made to fear the Void, but that didn't make the character seem any less heroic to me. And hey, according to the end of World War Hulk, he got over it, huh?

Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #6

Wolverine/Hulk #2

Hulk/Wolverine: Six Hours #2

I seriously disliked most of the covers for this mini-series, but this was a good one.

I've considered at some point doing a "least favorite covers" edition of Hulk Is The Strongest One There Is, but I don't know. Seems a little mean spirited.

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SOME HULK LINKS

At Big Glee! Albert Bigley posts a 1979 interview with Lou Ferrigno in Dynamite about his work on the Incredible Hulk, original cover art from Incredible Hulk #139, and Bigley's own strip about his father meeting the Hulk.

At The TV Squad, Chris Harnick suggests possibilities for casting ABC's upcoming Incredible Hulk.

At Too Dangerous For A Girl! Eugene Liptax reviews She-Hulks #3.

Newsarama's Albert Ching interviews writer Rob Williams and artist Brian Ching about Skaar: King of the Savage Land.

MTV Geek! displays images of Hulk Gelaskins for electronic devices.

Marvel announces Ed McGuinness is returning to Hulk and provides some preview pages from Hulk #30.

Cosmic Book News has a preview of Incredible Hulks #621.

Greg Pak announces a 2-part "Mr. and Mrs. Hulk" espionage story in Incredible Hulks #s 626-627

My initial response to the idea of the Hulk wearing a tux in an espionage story? Kind of silly. My second response? No sillier than the Hulk in a pin-striped suit as a Vegas leg-breaker.