Matt’s Week in Dork! (9/21/14-9/27/14)

    I get right up in sports’ business, hit the theater, and talk the Victorian weirdness of Alan Moore.  This Dork had a heck of a week.

The Losers:  OK, this movie isn’t very good.  Everyone’s always uttering silly one-liners and walking in slow motion.  None of the characters are especially interesting and the action is only so-so.  Still, I find myself enjoying it in spite of its faults.  If you’re in the mood for a lighter, more PG-13 Expendables, this is a good choice.  Everything about it, the violence, the language, and especially the sex is very, very PG-13.

Kim:  I like this little kid adventure yarn set in the twisting political world of British ruled India.  A smart and resourceful boy gets involved in the deadly Great Game of empire.  Learning from various men different ways of living, he becomes a sort of super spy, taking messages and collecting intel.  I’m sure there are dozens of ways the film is racist, or supports currently unpopular views, and I’m sure the same could be said of the book it’s based on.  But taken at face value, it’s a fun watch with plenty of excitement and plot twists.  Plus, Erroll Flynn is devilishly charming as the Red Bearded Horse Trader.

Snow White and the Huntsman:  When this film focuses on Charliz Theron, it’s pretty good.  Her performance is wonderfully campy and crazy and she’s captivating.  Unfortunately, the movie focuses too much on a dead-eyed Snow White and a faux-Irish Huntsman.  Ugh.  The fantasy elements are cool, too.  They had all the pieces in place, but the casting of the two leads brings down the whole.

    Monday night, Brad and I headed up to the AFI Silver.  Man, I wish I could get up there more often.  I love that place, and it’s a wonderful resource for the film buff.  The fact that it’s not packed every showing makes me sad.  I assume there are enough film fans in the area, but they just don’t take advantage of what they’ve got.

The Zero Theorem:  Terry Gilliam has been one of my favorite directors since I understood what that meant.  The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, Brazil, Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys.  Even newer films like Tideland and the mainstream studio effort Brothers Grimm.  While The Zero Theorem might rank among the lesser works of the director, I think that still puts it above the average film.  It’s awfully weird, and it has some very funny bits.  I enjoy the heck out of Christoph Waltz.  And the weird computer hacker kid, while not a very good actor, has something that makes him amusing where he could easily be extremely annoying.  There’s a lot to like.  And I can’t even say what didn’t work necessarily.  But I didn’t love it.  Gilliam fans should certainly check it out, and folks who like weird movies.

    Tuesday night, Rebecca took me to my first Major League baseball game.  You may be shocked to learn this, but I am not a follower of sporting events.  I’m aware that some ladies and gentlemen enjoy running about on fields and the like, attempting to move one type of ball or another to other parts of said field.  With the brief exception of an Olympic games back in the 80s, where I thought for a brief time that I would follow soccer, I have avoided sports of all kinds.  My lady, however, is quite the fan of various strenuous team activities.  So, I sat down to watch the Nats do battle with the Mets upon the diamond shaped field.  As various champions faced off against each other, the team we had gone to support and cheer rose to the occasion.  The Nats defeated their foes and there was much rejoicing from the gathered throngs.  I found various elements of the whole enjoyable.  There was an electricity to the crowd not dissimilar to that of a comic convention.  There were hot dogs being peddled for a dollar a piece.  In spite of my monumental ignorance of the game and its rules, etc., I had a good deal of fun.  Am I now a baseball fan?  Well, no.  But I look forward to enjoying a bit of sport in the future.

The Signal:  Not a perfect film, by any means.  But this was much better than I was expecting.  I ended up liking the three main cast members, which was something of a shock.  While some of the eventual resolution wasn’t as cool or exciting as it might have been, I found it satisfying.  And there are some very cool sequences.  Definitely one of the better low budget science fiction films I’ve seen recently, and more creative and interesting than many big budget films.

Prix de Beaute:  A time capsule with a few interesting moments, this is a mostly forgettable film with little to recommend.  If you’re in the mood for an early film with a mix of comedy and drama and some darker twists, it’s OK.  But don’t go out of your way.

    Saturday night brought the latest gathering of the graphic novel club.  This month, one of my favorite comics, one that helped convince me to give comics a try, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  It was a rather spirited group, with lots of opinions.  Some, I’ll admit, I found baffling.  But that’s the wonder of groups like this.  Whatever the case, revisiting the book was an excellent experience.  I find Allan Moore extremely hit & miss, but have to count this one as a palpable hit.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Comic Review: Nemo - Heart of Ice

    League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is right up there at the top of my list of favorite graphic novels.  It taps into all those things I love so much, the wide array of Victorian and pulp adventure fiction, from H.G. Welles, to Jules Verne, to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and beyond.  And of course, one of the coolest characters was Captain Nemo, master of the Nautilus, dashing, suave, and deadly.  With Nemo, we follow his daughter, haunted by his shadow and his deeds, as she tries to find her own path in life.

    In 1925, Princess Janni Dakkar, the new Nemo, lives as a brigand.  When she runs afoul of Aisha and Charles Foster Kane, a chase across the world begins.  She blazes a trail across Antarctica and all the strange wonders it hides, from Present Land to the Mountains of Madness.

    If you’ve read previous League universe books, you’ll know the drill.  It’s sad, dark, full of ugly twists on classic characters.  But it’s also thrilling and strange, and challenges the reader to figure out the reference.  I know there were several I didn’t get.  One of these days, I’m going to have to go back through the whole series with some annotations or something.  I know there’s stuff I’m missing, meaning I’m not catching.

    I’ve never been a huge fan of Kevin O’Neill’s art, but it gets the job done, and helps to set the whole uncomfortable vibe of Moore’s bent literature rollercoaster.  Moore is one of those writers I go back and forth on.  He’s written some of my favorite books, but he’s also written stuff I can’t even force my way through.  He seems like a colossal jackass, and possibly more in love with himself than his rabid fans are.  But he’s also good at capturing the magic of the classic fiction I love so much.  Heart of ice is surprisingly upbeat; still kind of a downer, but for this series, it’s relatively positive.  I could see this being a really nice companion series to the later stuff involving the League.

Nemo: Heart of Ice
Author: Alan Moore
Artist: Kevin O’Neill
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
ISBN: 978-1-60309-274-6

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (3/16/14-3/22/14)

Most of this week has been spent in a fidgety state of anticipation.  Marvel Studios (THOSE BASTARDS) decided it was just peachy to screen Captain America - The Winter Soldier to the online critic community a month out from the public release, and my Twitter Feed has been abuzzing with copious spurts of geekgasms.  If you believe the hype then Captain America 2 is not only better than The Avengers (a feat I personally would find astronomically astounding), but the single greatest comic book movie ever made.  That certainly cannot be true, and I'm immediately attempting to temper expectations on the homefront.  But that is oh so hard for us dorks, right?

In an effort to distract myself from the social media blitzkrieg, I've made it my mission to complete Ed Brubaker's Epic Run on Captain America that began in 2007 with The Winter Soldier, and completed in 2012 with the oh-so-lackluster Hydra Island business with co-writer Cullen Bunn.  That's a crap ton of comics, and I've only completed the first 25 issues, but I think it's a goal this dork should have no problem accomplishing.  And I'm not the only one in this apartment excited to see Chris Evans crush some (Red) Skulls.  As we did with Wes Anderson (more on that later), The Wife & I are making our way through the entire Marvel Studios canon.  We've already brushed through the Iron Mans & The Incredible Hulk, and this week saw Marvel go all-in with the comic book crazy in the first Thor film.  Taken on their own these movies range from "ok" to "pretty good," but when you look at the Universe Building getting done as well as the climactic whiz bang wow of Joss Whedon's The Avengers, I cannot help but love each and every building block in the series.  Here's hoping they can keep this spandex ball rolling.

But enough of that super hero silliness!  The rest of the week saw another totally badass screening at The Alamo with Dirty Harry, Veronica Mars crawled her way back into our Marshmallow hearts, Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neal unleashed their latest fanboy apocalypse with The Roses of Berlin, and yes, Wes Anderson delivered what is possibly my favorite film in his dollhouse universe.  I really am stunned at the degree in which I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel.  I hate to leave a theater spouting the superiority of the latest work above all previous past efforts, but it's an enthusiastic urge I find difficult to stifle here.

The Grand Budapest Hotel:  Having recently watched every single film from Wes Anderson in chronological order, I can safely say that I've enjoyed all of his movies to one degree or another.  Picking a favorite is tough (The Life Aquatic & Fantastic Mr. Fox will probably be locked in a death struggle for some time), and even my least favorite movie (Moonrise Kingdom) found its way into my Top Ten Films of 2012.  Haters accuse the director of arrested development - the Father/Son theme drummed to death, the stagnation of style, the twee aesthetic.  However, as we left the theater Sunday evening, The Wife compared his films to the Baroque era.  Anderson is variations on a theme; his career so far has been an attempt to work/rework and perfect his technique, and I am hypnotized by his craft.  The Grand Budapest Hotel certainly dabbles with the Father/Son issue once again, but what I found myself gravitating towards was what the film's framing device says about the importance of storytelling to the human experience.  A young woman sits down at a grave to read a book...an author struggles with his introduction...an old man tells his story.  Ralph Fiennes gives a career best as the profane Gustave H, a concierge who stuffs his basest urges to sleep his way into prosperity.  Never mind the World War grinding its wheels all around him.  Anderson has dabbled with violence and tragedy in the past (Machetes in Aquatic, severed tails in Mr. Fox), but he brings real darkness to his pristine workshop and it clobbered my emotions.  The Grand Budapest Hotel demands a rewatch real soon, I'm guessing next week, but if it is not at the very top of my Top Ten Films of 2014 I will be very, very, very surprised.  And probably utterly elated since that will mean this year will go down as one of cinema's finest.

Dirty Harry:  Kicking off that vigilante spirit that eventually climaxed in a dozen crappy 80s wannabe Death Wishers, Don Siegel's Dirty Harry is a beastly statement on the public's frustration with perceived runaway crime.  Clint Eastwood is Judge Dredd, a San Francisco police detective who rips free from political red tape to blast his way through the scum of the city.  Loosely based on the unsolved Zodiac killings, Andrew Robinson's Scorpio sniper holds the city hostage from the rooftops while Harry beats the streets below.  Killer vs Killer.  Eastwood is super cool TNT with his elbow patches, sunglasses, and .44 Magnum.  As much as I love The Man With No Name, it's' really in Harry Callahan where the mancrush solidified.  Who doesn't love righteousness?  Law & Order?  F-That.  He's the badguy.  Shoot the badguy.  Clean up the streets.  Black & White Justice, that's the dream.  Or a deeply troubling fantasy for good ol' U-S-of-A.

The Dead Pool:  When I got home from The Alamo on Tuesday night, I was not done with Harry.  Jumping over the first three sequels, I chose The Dead Pool for my followup because it was the first film I ever saw starring Clint Eastwood, and therefore it holds a very special place in my heart.  It's not a good movie.  And it's a terrible Dirty Harry sequel.  But it is fun as all hell.  When Jim Carry's Guns & Roses lipsinker cokes out in his movie trailer, Harry Callahan is called to solve the case of Celebrity Threes.  Gorehound Director Liam Neeson is prime suspect number one, but does he have the know-how to construct an army of remote control car bombs???  Yeah, what the hell is going on in this movie?  Dumb, dumb, dumb, and the Dirty Harry schtick is wearing thin.  "You know what that means?  You're shit out of luck."  Not quite "Feelin' Lucky Punk" is it?  But dang it, The Dead Pool still makes me smile and I would certainly shill out some cash for another senior citizen Harry flick.  Come on Eastwood, you gotta another Harry in you for sure.

Thor:  Here is the film that made The Avengers possible.  The God of Thunder.  How do you make that work in the world of Iron Man?  You avoid the God issue by transforming Asgardians into immortal aliens.  You snatch this space age Shakespeare play and drop them into Middle America for a lighthearted romcom with explosions and hammer fights.  Job well done.  The stakes may be low, the scope may be tiny, and the budget is certainly lacking.  But Chris Hemsworth embodies The Mighty Thor in the same way that Christopher Reeve WAS Superman.  Tom Hiddleston is a breakout star as the trickster Loki, and Natalie Portman acts the hell out of Golly Gee WonderLUST.  Marvel Studios sells us on one of their whackiest creations, and not only does it pave the way to The Avengers, but also The Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and The Inevitable Crusade of D-Man...ok, that last one might not happen, but here's hoping.

Captain America (1990):  Oh, hey you, Marvel Movie Haters...HOW DARE YOU CRAP OVER JOSS WHEDON'S THE AVENGERS!!!  "It's not as good as the comics!" Blah, blah, blah - SHUT UP!  You don't know how great you've got it.  You weren't there in the trenches of Direct-To-Video Hell like us oldtimers.  You don't remember Nick Fury - Agent of SHIELD, The Punisher, or this miracle of crap.  But now thanks to the wonders of blu ray and the good folks over at Shout Factory, you too can experience this "film" from master craftsman Albert Pyun.  However, if you squint your eyes and if you're in a MST3K kinda mood, then this very shoddy Captain America is actually a good deal of fun thanks to its puttied Red Skull straight off the set of Star Trek Voyager, and The Captain's baffling rubber ears.  Ronny Cox guest stars as The President of the United States, and Ned Beatty is his four-eyed cub reporter hungry for a good story.  So you know...squeal like a pig and enjoy!

Veronica Mars:  It's been what, seven years since the final season of Veronica Mars aired on television?  I really enjoyed that first season, the second season was ok, and I could never finish the date rapey college years.  As much as the people of the internet screamed for more, I was good.  But then came kickstarter, three million fanboy/girl dollars, and a mad marketing campaign.  The Veronica Mars movie is solid.  It's like an extra long episode of the tv show.  Veronica ditches Piz and her high paying job to head back to Neptune for a high school reunion and yet another murder case involving bad boy Logan.  I can't get too excited about it, but I can't crap over it either.  It's fine.  I'd watch another.  That's bout it.

Captain America - The Winter Soldier Omnibus by Ed Brubaker:  Sooooooooooooooo gooooooooooood.  Robert Kirkman's Invincible is my all time favorite Super Hero Comic Series.  But Ed Brubaker's Captain America run is my all time favorite Marvel Super Hero Comic Series.  And I initially refused to read it back in 2007.  Bucky Barnes, back from the dead?  Hell no.  You don't resurrect Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy, Bruce Wayne's Parents, or Bucky Barnes.  That's law.  And yet...Brubaker breaks it with so much damn class that fanboy history be damned.  Retcon away sir!  Brubaker's run on Cap is a noirish spy thriller involving a demonic leftover from The Cold War, and heaps of sinister espionage.  The first half of this book is damn near perfect.  It opens with the apparent assassination of The Red Skull by a shadowy agent from Soviet Russia called The Winter Soldier, who has now fallen under the control of villainous businessman Alexander Lukin.  Where The Skull is involved so is Steve Rodgers. Captain America's investigation leads him through various A.I.M. laboratories, hand-to-hand combat with Nazi goon Crossbones, and another horror of domestic terrorism.  And it climaxes with a face to face assault from long ago sidekick James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes.  The back half struggles a little as Brubaker tries to integrate Marvel's Civil War Event.  I've seen such tie-ins handled much worse, but it certainly feels like you're missing some serious plot if you don't read Civil War in accordance with the back half of the Omnibus.  The Death of Captain America cliffhanger though...that will certainly send you into the next chapter quickly.  If all you know about Cap are the movies then you seriously owe yourself to at least read the two-part Winter Soldier storyline.

American Hustle:  I was reading some review or some tweet or some something that said that the best thing to ever happen to American Hustle was not winning The Academy Award.  Now the film is free to just be a film and not worry about that Oscar baggage.  It's a little pompous, but I get it.  It's certainly Scorsese-lite, but I think time will distance it from those comparisons, and eventually you'll just be able to watch it as the fun time at the movies that it is.  It's a fantastic bit of performance - been too long since I've seen this Christian Bale.  He takes a character that should be an utter scumbag, and makes him a sympathetic little sadsack of a conman.  Bradley Cooper is hilarious as the FBI tool desperate for recognition, and Amy Adams is - god damn - a freaking monster of manipulation.  Last year I gave Cate Blanchett my Best Leading Female Performance, but this second watch has me seriously questioning that decision.  That scene between her & Cooper in the Disco Bathroom Stall is scary, scary, scary.  And it makes this movie a must watch for me.

Nemo - The Roses of Berlin by Alan Moore & Kevin J O'Neal:  Spinning out of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and a direct sequel to Nemo - Heart of Ice, this latest dip into the pantheon of literary & cinematic history revels in the worlds of Fritz Lang's Metropolis while peppered with the evil of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.  If that doesn't get you jazzed, nothing will.  It's 1944.  The Daughter of Captain Nemo & Broad Arrow Jack has been taken hostage by Hynkel's forces, and it's up to the crew of the Nautilus to storm Berlin and rescue the child.  It reads quickly if you want to, but I'm already desiring a second trip with the aid of Jess Nevin's essential annotations.  LXG proves time and again that being an English Major and film fanatic is super cool.

Pride of Baghdad by Brian K Vaughan & Niko Henrichon:  I closed out the week with the 22nd meeting of The Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Graphic Novel Book Club.  Wow.  I can't believe we've been doing this for almost two years.  Crazy.  I love it.  In those nearly two years we've only read one author more than twice and that's Brian K Vaughan (Y The Last Man, Saga, & Pride).  Each one of those books grabbed a positive vibe from the majority of the crowd.  Everyone seemed to dig Pride, and I cannot disagree.  It's a solid fable based on the "True Story" of a group of lions that escaped the Baghdad zoo during the second Iraq conflict.  It's a brutal little tale with an obvious message.  War is hell.  People suck.  Why do we do this to each other?  Brian K Vaughan is preaching to the choir.  Personally, I would have liked a little more story, a little more character.  As is, decent book with some freaking gorgeous art from Niko Henrichon.  I want more of this guy.  I need to track down every bit of art he's done and consume it.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (2/16/14-2/22/14)

Slow week.  No real reason.  Just taking it easy.  Gotta recharge my batteries every now and again.  The Academy Awards are right around the corner - I've seen more nominations this year than any other, but there are still a few crucial films I need to hit up before March 2nd (I'm looking at you Frozen).  So far I've avoided the documentary shorts & a couple of foreign films.  Gotta correct that...next week.  Honestly though, the stuff I'm most excited about these days are comic books.  Not satisfied with the completion of Grant Morrison's Supergods (look, it's beautiful madness, but I want more history less peyote), I blitzed through the audiobook of Sean Howe's Marvel Comics The Untold Story.

Just days before I turned the last page, Marvel unleashed the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer...90% of which we saw at last year's Comic Con, but it was still enough to get be jazzed about all things Cosmic and Raccoon.  I ran to my local comic shop, but they were already sold out of the source material.  All my coworkers are gaga for Groot, and I'm starting to hope that the world is ready for the murderous furball.  Doctor Strange is right around the corner, then...Black Panther?  And yet DC is still floundering with their properties.  Marvel is spanking Warner Brothers.  I love it.

The Darjeeling Limited:  A month out from Wes Anderson's new film, The Wife & I are still chugging along his filmography.  When originally released, The Darjeeling Limited was met with lackluster enthusiasm from fans and a tepid critical reception.  Looking back at my own Top Ten Lists of the last several years, I was pleased to see that Darjeeling ranked as my favorite film of 2007.  My opinion has not changed.  As an only child myself, I've always been fascinated with sibling relationships, and even if I don't quite understand the battle for paternal love, I am charmed by how this brotherly war passive aggressively erupts in every one of their actions.  Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman may not at all resemble each other physically, but they expertly inhabit one another's mannerisms.  It really is a thrilling performance trilogy, and as they reach their destination and lives are lost and narrative gaps are filled, I find myself emotionally strained in a way that no other Anderson film has managed.  Is it my favorite Wes Anderson?  No.  I gotta go Life Aquatic, Tenenbaums, or Fox, but Darjeeling is close behind.

Marked Woman:  Bette Davis is a carefree mobster's moll who catches the attention of Humphrey Bogart's District Attorney after her sister is stolen of the streets.  Despite the formation of the Hays Code in 1930, an uncredited Michael Curtiz (Casablanca!!!) still manages to deliver plenty of scandalous behavior from this sordid ripped-from-the-headlines tale.  These goons are some real beasts, and Bette Davis takes a helluva scary beating behind closed doors.  Bogart is a bit dry, but that's okay because this is Davis's show and she rocks the woman wronged role.  Maybe not as iconic as some similar films of this era, Marked Woman is a hidden Hollywood gem.

Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume 2 by Alan Moore:  After months and months of pestering, I finally caved to Matt's demands and dove into this classic series.  The first trade took some time getting off it's feet, but by the end I was hooked to the plight of The Green.  In volume 2, Swamp Thing continues to explore what it means to be a Plant with delusions of Manhood, and Moore takes his saga deeper down the rabbit hole of comic book legacy.  My favorite moment from this entry, is when the original Len Wein & Bernie Wrightson stories are used as a gateway into a biblical origin of the House of Mystery.  As Mystery & Secrets collide, I was hooting & hollering to myself.  This is weird, wild stuff.  Is this genius?  Nope.  At least not yet.  But I'm starting to get that tingle that I am certainly reading something special - the hype is earned. The goal is to crank out a volume a week.  Alan Moore is too dang dense to blitz through.  Besides, I want to savor this gothic dread.

Game of Thrones - Season 3:  I am not the world's biggest Game of Thrones fan.  I've never read the books, and I'm not planning to either.  However, every time one of these DVD sets comes out, I stop whatever I'm doing and concentrate on nothing else until the discs have been devoured.  It's TV crack.  Smoke it up!  I don't love every bitty plot point.  I am not too keen on the Jon Snow story - in fact, I find his whiney fumblings around the lust of a wildling to be utterly annoying.  The Mother of Dragons is spending too much damn time wandering the desert.  It's time to get into the action lady!  But then you have the sad, honorable, and patriarchally tortured Tyrion Lannister.   The hell that is Kings Landing owns this show.  If you have a good bone in your body, George RR Martin will crush you.  The good die young here folks, and only villains reap reward.  Last year, all I heard was "Red Wedding, Red Wedding, Red Wedding" from every coworker, friend, and Entertainment Weekly spoiler headline.  So I thought I knew what I was getting into with the third season climax.  But damn...I was not at all prepared for the depths of viciousness Martin had in store.  The Red Wedding might be one of the single most wonderfully hateful acts of fiction I've ever experienced.  Just wow.  Who to root for?  Hard to answer that question in this blood soaked world.

Marvel Comics - The Untold Story by Sean Howe:  "The heroic journeys are forever denied an end."  In this golden age of comic book to silver screen adaptation everyone seems to love the Cameomeister Stan Lee.  Sean Howe's tell-all style approach to the rise, fall, & rise again of Marvel Comics certainly sets its sights on Smiling Stan.  Yep, it's disheartening to read interviews & radio excerpts in which Lee dismisses the medium of comics as a lesser art form to novels and movies.  The book paints a picture of a man who settled into comics because that's what would have him.  Is Stan Lee the godfather of spandex?  Or is he simply the benefactor of opportune nepotism, sneaking his way into cousin Martin Goodman's magazine distributor?  The debate surrounding creator rights is nothing new, and I only have so much sympathy when we're talking royalties in Work-For-Hire art.  You signed a contract, Marvel owns your ass.  But lets give credit where credit is due.  And it is genuinely upsetting to discover that Stan Lee sued Marvel for 10 million dollars after decades of dismissing similar claims from Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko.  This is nothing new for comicbook fanboys; the bitter contempt from his co-creator contemporaries tarnished Stan Lee's shine long ago.  The man is his greatest creation.  Sean Howe spends plenty of time (maybe too much) taking the icon down a peg or two.  My favorite bits are the ones exploring the financial reasoning behind some of our favorite Event Storylines, and the cashgrab desperation driving Marvel to LA LA Land.  A not so inevitable success when you look at blockbuster flops like Howard the Duck or limp direct-to-video releases like Dolph Lundgren's Punisher.  Marvel once touted itself as the four-color Disney, and it's a trip to see Walt's Kingdom gobble them up, but how long will the mass audience be appeased by Robert Downey Jr's Avengers?  Bubbles always burst.  At the very least, Marvel Comics The Untold Story, got me aching for both my own back issues and those not acquired yet.  I seriously need Steve Gerber's rage fueled Destroyer Duck - so much deliciously not-so-hidden Marvel Hate!

Avengers - Earth's Mightiest Heroes Season 1:  The first season takes its time assembling Earth's Mightiest Heroes, using 11 half hour episodes to fully form the roster.  Once gathered, this Saturday Morning Cartoon goes completely bonkers for comic book continuity, borrowing everything from Brian Michael Bendis' New Avengers run to classic arcs like The Kang Dynasty.  The Avengers battle Hydra, Ultron, Enchantress, Klaw, and The Purple Man....yes, THE PURPLE MAN!!  Nerd nirvana here.  Sure, some of the voice cast is cloying with Tony Stark in particular grating the nerves with his Robert Downey Jr impersonation, but the show hits more than it misses.  And with a second season promising even longer story arcs in the form of the Skrulls Secret Invasion and Galactus, Devour of Worlds - I am hooked.  No more picking away at this series, all must be consumed.

The Price of Gold:  I don't care much about the Olympics these days.  I haven't watched a single one in well over a decade.  But in 1994 our family household was overwhelmed with the competition...I'm guessing every family home was that way back then.  Thanks to the bizarre figure skating rivalry story between poor white trash Tonya Harding and ice princess Nancy Kerrigan...and a kneecap hit that spun the media into True Crime bliss.  Part of ESPN's 30 for 30, The Price of Gold attempts to dissect the fervor around the events, but never quite elevates itself beyond a talking heads documentary.  It's certainly interesting to hear what Tonya has to say, and I appreciate Nancy Kerrigan's refusal to participate, but The Price of Gold is little more than a "Remember When."  A footnote for those families that fell victim to the circus, but I don't think a modern audience would find this hour plus doc terribly satisfying.  If anything, this just reaffirms my belief in the utter failure of contemporary TMZ journalism.  Anchorman 2 got it right.

--Brad

Comic Reviews: The Left Bank Gang & Skizz

The Left Bank Gang

    Jason is a master of his particular craft.  He makes some of the most beautifully melancholy things I’ve ever read.  His characters are sad, funny, and dangerous.  With fairly simple artwork, he conveys so much emotion.  The slump of a shoulder, the panel of pause, the tilt of a head.  It’s amazing how much can get across his cartoon animal faces.

    This story features those American authors who went to Paris, drank and slept their way through days and nights, and somehow found time to produce a book or two.  Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pound, and others all contemplate their lives and chosen careers.  Here Jason manages to sum up the life of a writer so well.  “It’s too late now.  It’s the only thing I know how to do.”  The eventual crime caper somehow manages to become even more profoundly sad.  If you haven’t experienced Jason’s specific brand of comic literature, do yourself a favor and try it out.  He can sometimes be painful to read, but that’s because the truth can hurt.

Skizz

    From the pages of the UK anthology comic, 2000 AD comes Skizz, or Alan Moore’s Howard the Duck.  It’s the story of a goofy looking alien that crash lands in the slums of Birmingham, where he is befriended by a teen punk girl.  A mindlessly evil government goon is out for alien blood.  With the help of a smooth operator and a half-checked out Jason Statham looking goon, the girl does her all to keep Skizz out of harm.

    It’s an enjoyable, if not especially good comic.  Jim Baikie’s art is awesome.  It has that Euro-comic style I enjoy.  2000 AD and Heavy Metal tended to feature a lot of it.  Like a riff on 40s and 50s American comics of Russ Manning, Frank Frazetta, or Mac Raboy, with a punk and rock sensibility.  This is still early Moore, so the writing is a touch dense, but not as sprawling and not at all cluttered.  But when it comes down to it, the story is just too simple.  There’s not much to any of it.  The art is the most interesting thing.

The Left Bank Gang
Author & Artist: Jason
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
ISBN: 978-1-5609-7742-1

Skizz
Author: Alan Moore
Artist: Jim Baikie
Publisher: Titan Books/2000 AD
ISBN: 978-1-840-234450-3

-Matt

Comic Review: Superman - Red Son

    Look, I know he’s got a long history, and I know people really dig him.  But I just don’t cotton on Superman.  Like Batman, his direct ancestors are the pulp heroes of yesteryear.  Where Batman is a pretty straight lift from characters like The Shadow and The Spider, Superman’s genes include Doc Savage and John Carter (he even has Doc Savage’s ‘Fortress of Solitude’).  But while John Carter and Doc Savage were tremendously competent, and a bit larger than life, Superman went on to become a god, with basically no faults.  Is there anything more boring than a hero without faults?  Bad writing over many decades took him from very fast and very strong to a flying, invincible, laser shooting, cold breathing, deus ex machina.  Each week or month, the writers would paint themselves into a corner, then give him whatever power he needed to get out of the seemingly impossible situation, until there was nothing he couldn’t do.  Blah.  When you have a character like this existing in your universe, the best way to handle him is to make him a background element, not the focal point.  But of course, every month, there are a dozen comics put out with Superman as a central figure.  Still, as Watchmen showed with Dr. Manhattan, when used correctly a character of his type can be an excellent storytelling tool.  And that’s what Mark Millar has done with his thought experiment, Red Son.  What if Superman’s craft had deposited him in the farmlands of the Soviet Union, instead of the United States?

    This is denser than a lot of modern comics I’ve read, feeling a bit more from the Alan Moore school.  By the end of this 150 page volume, I felt like I’d read a solid story with a good beginning, middle, and end; with characters and conflicts well thought out and executed.  The same can not always be said for volumes of similar length, even those that are perfectly enjoyable.  The play on the mythology, seeing some of the same people rise in different ways, and the same archetypes rise with different faces was handled very well.  Lex Luthor is interesting for once.  The Russian Batman makes sense…maybe even more than the Gotham one.  And Wonder Woman takes an interesting turn.  The art is also quite nice.  Batman and Superman seem to attract the most retro-styled artists, those folks who want to give it a dash of 40s penciling, or 60s coloring, or what have you.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.  This time, it works very well.  Good character design, nice coloring, good action, and interesting panel work that never makes a nuisance of itself.  It captures some of that gee-shucks comic book look, while also going for those great propaganda poster moments.

    You don’t have to be a Superman fan to enjoy this (I’m not).  So long as you have the general gist of the character (he’s an alien, landed in the heartland, became a champion of post-WWII American spirit) you should have no problem following along with this alternate world version of things, and still catch some of the more poignant moments.  The Red Son universe seems like there could be some more interesting stories to tell, but knowing how sequels and tie-ins to these things usually suck, maybe it’s best if they just leave it as a one-off.

Superman: Red Son
Author: Mark Millar
Artists: Dave Johnson, etc.
Publisher: DC Comics
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0191-3

-Matt

Comic Review: Swamp Thing 1 & 2

Volume 1

    When DC’s New 52 started, I figured it would be a good time to give a bunch of their characters a try.  One of the first issues I read was for Swamp Thing.  I’d always liked the look of the character, I’d heard some good things about comics from the past, and I’d liked the 80s movie.  But the first issue was pretty dull, featuring Superman for crying out loud.  I figured I’d skip that one.  For some reason, a few months later, I read the ‘issue 0’ when that gimmick flexed through the various New 52 lines, and suddenly I questioned my choice.  I really enjoyed the story, and it was one of the things that pushed me to finally sit down to Alan Moore’s venerated run.  So, here I am, a year or so later, reading the first two trades of Scott Snyder’s new series.  Snyder also wrote one of the other New 52 titles I ended up liking, the Batman: Court of Owls story.  He’s obviously delving back into the early life of Earth’s Green champion here, including Moore’s material.  How it all fits in this weird re-launch of the DC universe, who can say?  But the Green, Red, and Rot could be a very interesting battle.

    While I’m not in love with the art, it’s a heck of a lot better than several of the lines out there.  And it feels like the wacky panel work is trying to capture some of the strange stuff from the classic run.  The stuff with the Rot and its creatures is disgusting.  Really disgusting.  The story is OK, though this reborn Alec Holland is king of a putz.  He Luke Skywalkers up the first volume quite a bit, and I was ready for him to get run over on his way to pick up some power converters.  Abby once again seems to be a more interesting character, with more going on.

Volume 2

    All kinds of crazy stuff happens in the second book of Scott Snyder’s new Swamp Thing.  Abby and the Rot.  Alec and the green.  Some flashback stuff about Arcane and the Un-Men.  Even a flashback to young Alec as a college student on a fieldtrip to Eastern Europe.  But in spite of a couple pretty big things happening, it feels like it’s primarily designed to set up the Rotworld story I think may be going on in the comic (as well as Animal Man) right now.  Shows how much I keep up on current events.

    I’m very curious to see where this series goes, and what connections to some of the other characters it might forge.  There is a brief appearance of Poison Ivy at the end of volume 2 (which seems to be some kind of a time jump forward…or something).  As I was reading Alan Moore’s run, especially when Swamp Thing ended up in Gotham, I kept thinking he and Poison Ivy needed to meet.  Seems someone else thought the same.  And what’s going on with Abby?  I’m assuming that glimpse into the future was from an imperfect vantage point.  This sure has the potential to be one of the better DC titles (granted, there’s not an awful lot of competition).  It’s really their game to botch at this point.  Can Snyder and company take the ideas they’ve introduced and not screw them up?  We’ll see.

Swamp Thing Volume 1: Raise Them Bones
Author: Scott Snyder
Artist: Yanick Paquette
Publisher: DC Comics
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3462-1

Swamp Thing Volume 2: Family Tree
Author: Scott Snyder
Artist: Yanick Paquette
Publisher: DC Comics
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3462-1


-Matt