Baltimore Comic-Con: looking in the rearview mirror

                                                                         

Part 1

The Baltimore Comic-con took place a little over a week ago.  And Dan and Matt and I set up in Artists Alley with our wares – copies of Warrior27, Mainelining, and Reading Watchmen, among a few other things.  So, how did it go?

First – the older I get, the more that fact becomes obvious during these 12-hour drives Dan and I endure to attend these conventions.  (when you live in Maine, going anywhere means you have to drive for a while, but there’s nowhere you can’t get to within five hours, so twelve can come off as a bit ridiculous).  But we love these shows, so it isn’t that big a sacrifice.  I just wish we didn’t have to do the overnight drive immediately after the show ends (and, to be fair, the traffic isn’t as bad when you’re traveling at night, so we got home at 4:30, eleven and a half hours after departing, rather than the standard twelve from Maryland to the heart of Maine).

Second – sales were soft, to say the least.  I saw a lot of dead areas in Artists Alley when I got a chance to trawl down the aisles.  One of those happened to be directly in front of our table.  We sold a few things, made back a little less than half our table fee, but we didn’t do nearly as well as we have, in the past, at the Small Press Expo.  I talked to a number of other creators who had similar things to say.  A couple of really talented artists I know, who have a larger profile than myself and Dan and Matt, were not happy with their sales.  They weren’t going to be able to cover costs, and one of these guys had a book published through a small press publisher earlier this year.  Odd. 

But here’s the thing.  As “indy-friendly” as Baltimore is said to be – and I can’t outright deny that, as I know a couple of other guys in Artists Alley who had good shows – it really is a show for fans of Big-2 comics and their creators.  With retailers at the front of the hall offering longboxes full of Marvel and DC comics, along with books from other, smaller publishers, and writers and artists such as Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Amanda Conner, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Jim Starlin, Frank Cho, Mike Mignola, Art & Franco, Ramona Fradon, Justin Jordan, Rob Venditti, Sean Murphy, et al. available to meet with their fans, this show is heavily geared toward the mainstream comic fan.  And with as much of the market share as is taken up by those two publishers, it makes sense.  That means it’s even harder for the “little guy” to succeed at this show, unless they’re pushing zombies, which does not seem to be a fad that has yet to run out of steam.

The nice thing about doing these shows with Dan, and Matt this year, is the fact that none of us is tied to the table.  We can give each other a breather and allow for opportunities to stretch our legs, maybe do some shopping, peruse the tables of other Artists Alley exhibitors, and do the fan service thing.   Dan and Matt did some of the former, with Dan managing to fill in some more of the dwindling holes in his Batman collection and Matt picking up some cool prints from an artist just down the line from us, while I focused on the latter.  And, to be honest, I was surprised at how easy it was to get to meet some of these creators.  Other than one major exception, which I’ll get to in the next installment, the longest line I got in was for Mark Waid, and that one went very quickly. 

Other creators with whom I spoke included J.M. DeMatteis, Keith Giffen, and Kevin Maguire (I got all three to sign my original Justice League collection), Mark Buckingham, who signed two issues from his Miracleman run with Neil Gaiman, Mike Mignola (who only had three people in line when I got there o_O seriously?), Justin Jordan, Tradd Moore, and Rob Venditti (who’s been a great guy to talk to at conventions through the years and super-supportive of my writing), Mark Nelson (who drew an Alien in my collection of the original Dark Horse series), Greg Larocque, and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, who drew a beautiful Wonder Woman sketch in the front of the sketchbook I purchased from him.  I managed to get some of my favorite books signed and was able to thank the creators for what they’ve done, while also getting the opportunity to speak with some newer creators about writing and comics and various other topics.  All the writers and artists, with a glaring exception I will keep to myself, were very approachable and came across as genuinely pleased to meet their fans.  So, from the point of view of a fan, this show was definitely a success. 

But how would I judge it from the point of view of a writer working to “break in,” as it were?  That’s for next time.

-chris

(You can read more from Chris at Warrior 27.)

Brad's Week in Dork! (6/9/13-6/15/13)

I spent most of this week in my PJs, or at least cinematically wrapped in spandex.  Man of Steel marks Warner Brothers desperate attempt to capture that Marvel magic.  The company has been raking in Bat-Dollars, but they have yet to establish a superhero cinematic universe.  Stinkers like Green Lantern, Jonah Hex, and Catwoman portray a studio with its thumb stuck up its collective asses; a boardroom of nimrod headscratchers utterly baffled by the success of Disney's Avengers Assemblage.   Enter Zack Snyder, fresh off his disastrous snoozefest Sucker Punch, and just as equal to prove himself as the suits dropping him at the helm.  At its very least, Man of Steel throws a punch and delivers a level of action not yet seen cinematically from our boy blue.

Last year with the release of the blu ray box set, I revisited the Richard Donner Superman films, and I was saddened to discover that my nostalgia was not strong enough to battle the goof of Gene Hackman or the WTF of Supes's random, do-whats-needed Kryptonian powers.  Once I believed a man could fly, now I'm just simply charmed by the joyous energy of Christopher Reeve.  His back & forth performance nearly reaches the height of Frank Quietly's presto-changeo transformative design.  He achieves with a voice and a head tilt what no other actor ever bothered with before or since (oh, Brandon Routh...you tried...that's admirable...).  At the very least, what I pull from the Donner films is the loss of Christopher Reeve's talent.  He found stardom in a cape, nearly reached the stars agin with Deathtrap, but never could quite escape the shadow of the icon.  Reeve will always be Kal-El.  And Routh will always be his shadow.  Can Henry Cavil makes a career from the Man of Steel?  Maybe.  But I have my doubts.  He's certainly no Reeve, but is the world more willing to let actors shed their characters?  I'm still waiting for Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth, and Chris Evans (that's a lot of Chrises!) to grow beyond their franchises.

There was other non-Kryptonian fun to be had this week.  Year 2 of our Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club started with a tie-in Graphic Novel classic, All-Star Superman.  Some did not see the light, but I reevaluated my Top Ten Comics of All Time to include this masterful celebration of superheroics.  Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely deliver a revelation for the Man of Steel.  The Wife & I ventured into DC to see Marc Maron at the Sixth & I Synagogue.  A unique venue perfectly suited for the troubled rants of the WTF podcaster.  I struggled through the first season of The X-Files and witnessed the year's worst film On Demand...Black Rock....yeash.  But I also possibly saw my favorite film of the year......gulp, This Is The End. Really!?!?!? I enjoyed that film more than Iron Man 3 or Furious 6 or Before Midnight or Side Effects? Well, it's been a pretty bland year so far. A lot of decent stuff, but no real GREAT movies. This Is The End is certainly the film I had the most fun while watching. Super stupid. Happily offensive.  Joyously ignorant.  God Damn Funny.  Is it art?  Yeah.  Allow it.

Action Comics Volume 2 - Bulletproof:  This is not All-Star Superman.  And that's its greatest fault.  Not fair to judge a writer's current work to his absolute best, but All-Star's shadow is large and it cast a dark shade over everything found in Grant Morrison's New 52 work.  There are some solid moments to be found - "The Boy Who Stole Superman's Cape" and the elseworld adventures of President Superman - however, this second volume of Action Comics is just too disjointed to get on board.  And when halfway through the hardcover Grant Morrison disappears and we're tortured with mediocre backup stories.  Not cool DC.  Volume 1 was a meh.  Volume 2 is an easy pass.

Superman - The Movie:  How many times have I watched this film?  50?  100?  It certainly didn't define my childhood the way Star Wars or even Arnold Schwarzenegger did, but I can't remember a time when I was unaware of Christopher Reeve's Superman.  I remember my recorded VHS copy littered with filthy commercials eventually snapping under the strain of rewind.  I remember loving Superman's final subway assault on Lex Luthor's underground bunker.  I remember blushing at the bounce of Miss Teschmacher's cleavage.  Yowza.  As stated above, last year's blu ray rewatch tainted the childhood memory a bit.  I just can't handle Gene Hackman & Ned Beaty's goofy duo routine.  They feel false.  Superman falling for the lead box scheme is certainly lame.  And Margot Kidder's Lois Lane grates the nerves as cinema's whiniest damsel in distress...and her flygirl inner monologue?  Just gross.  A year later, revisiting the film with Man of Steel barreling down upon us, I still feel the pang of Hackman & Kidder.  They just don't work for me.  Christopher Reeve on the other hand?  The guy is just golden as Clark.  His midwest act is hilarious, and you realize what a perfect disguise it is for these big city Metropolis bozos - especially when Lois can't bare to pull her eyes from the typewriter.  And then he turns into the upright Superman.  He's all deep voice and barrel chest.  It's a great performance, and it's the reason the film has lasted in the memories of fanboys&girls. It's also the reason Superman continues in the public consciousness even when the comic book has sucked the life out of the character for decades.  Wal-Mart sells shirts cuz of this guy.

Superman II:  Ten years ago, Superman II would have landed in my Top Ten Comic Book Movies of all time list.  Either we've been blessed with far greater product, or I've finally pulled my head from the sand because I just hated it this go around.  Sure, I still love Terrance Stamp's beardy scenery chewing and his demand for kneeling.  And Christopher Reeve is utterly fantastic for all the reasons stated above.  But what is going on with this nutty powerloss story?  On one hand we've got Zod & his jumpsuit gang tearing apart middle America, and on the other we have the horrendously dull Niagara falls romance.  The American Way is burning to ashes and Superman is crying in a diner cuz a garbage eating truck driver just gave him a bloody nose.  The mid reel is painfully long and embarrassing to the character.  And the Fortress of Solitude powerloss machine is just as infuriating and laughable as Supes's time travel spin from the first film.  Also, what exactly are the Kryptonian powers?  Flight.  X-Ray Vision.  Super Strength.  Heat Ray.  Ok.  Got it.  Um....levitation...finger lasers....teleportation....S Logo Nets.....WHAT - THE - HELL?  The screenplay treats its audience as children.  And for the most part we ate it up.  But I'm done chowing down on Superman II.  I'm sure I'll continue to revisit the first film, but Donner's bastard boy is no longer for me.  Yes, even The Limey Zod can't keep me.

Marc Maron @ Sixth and I:  "Jews Are Special!"  On Tuesday night, The Wife & I ventured into Washington DC's Chinatown to see stand-up & podcaster extraordinaire Marc Maron read from his new essay collection, Attempting Normal.  I have never before seen anyone at the Sixth & I's historic synagogue, and it turns out to be a fantastic venue for something of this nature.  Sure, it's a little odd when Maron is ranting about how you don't need god to get sober when the Star of David hangs above his head, but the irony was not lost on him and he seemed to revel in it.  Maron shared the joys & horrors of the road, got personal about his father, and reminded the audience of the importance of Thanksgiving.  Marc Maron's talent rests in his ability to pull the crowd into the act.  This was not a simple dry reading like the dozens of Bestseller bouts I've experienced in the past.  He would read a little, ask a question to the crowd, offer a little commentary, and continue on with the essay.  Basically a Special Edition DVD experience of his book.  Very cool.

The X-Files - Season One:  This was probably the first television show that I ever obsessed over, but I had not revisited it since the final episode aired...well, with the exception of that horrid cinematic sequel  - yikes!  I quickly discovered that I couldn't binge watch The X-Files in the same manner as BSG, or Lost, or even Magnum P.I.  This show is wonky.  The chemistry between David Duchovny & Gillian Anderson is there from the pilot episode, but Chris Carter's antics are not nearly as thrilling as I once thought.  And there is a whole hell of a lot of filler in these 24 episodes.  I could not possibly care less about mysteries-of-the-week like "The Jersey Devil," "Ghost in the Machine," or "Fire."  So many of these concepts have been explored before in literature and film and often The X-Files can't even scratch the surface of what made the original material interesting.  That's not to say there's not good stuff here cuz there most certainly is - "Squeeze," "EVE," "Beyond the Sea," & "Darkness Falls" all offer up some pretty decent scares mixed with solid character work.  But I remember this show better.  And I'm hoping the next season shines brighter than this dull beginning.

Black Rock:  Wow.  Just wow.  I'm not sure what's worse - the utterly boring execution of a totally unoriginal screenplay, or the heinous scream acting of its three leads.  Whichever offense wins, the audience most certainly looses.  Kate Bosworth tricks her two bickering friends (Kate Aselton & Lake Bell) into a camping excursion on a remote island off the Maine coast.  There they encounter high school chums turned combat vets turned rapists.  Last House on the Left shenanigans occur from there - rocks in faces, sexual deviance at gunpoint, blah, blah, blah.  Black Rock is just the very worst of Final Girl exploitation, and just confused enough to believe itself empowering.  Wrong.

Superman Unbound:  Loosely based on Geoff Johns' Brainiac storyarc from Action Comics, this latest direct-to-dvder from DC Studios is simply fairly forgettable fluff.  The evil Kryptonian computer comes to Earth in an effort to dissect & bottle humanity; Superman gets all self-righteous before doing his whole smashing bit.  It's hard to believe that this studio can put out something as innovating & stunning as The Dark Knight Returns and The New Frontier, but still stoop to such a sophomoric snooze.  And I gotta wonder why Superman Beyond is sooooo free with the blood?  Brainiac is punching tentacles through skulls, gore splashing across the screen.  The story is too kiddy or simple to support the violence, and Lois Lane flipping Brainiac the bird is just silly.  This film feels very 90s; it belongs polybagged and wrapped in a chromium cover, read once, and put away for good.

Superman Unchained #1:  Speaking of the 90s....Scott Snyder & Jim Lee team up to revolutionize the Man of Steel just in time for his new movie.  Well, it's not terrible.  Someone or something is hurtling satellites towards Earth.  Supes goes up to space to smash.  But what does it all have to do with the nuclear destruction of Nagasaki?  Has the U.S. Government been secreting away it's own super human project for the past 75 years?  Well, of course it has!  I can't really hate on this issue, but it certainly failed to excite me.  Hopefully Snyder has some tricks up his sleeve because as nice as it is too gaze upon Jim Lee's art, that is certainly not enough to keep my interest.

Batman #21:  Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo's year long origin story starts here, and similar to Superman Uncahined, it's a wait and see situation.  I've said it before and I'm afraid I gotta say it again, Scott Snyder has pretty much lost me since the conclusion of The Court of Owls, and I'm afraid a Frank Miller Year One rehash is not enough to impassion my Bat-Nostalgia.  If Zero Year delves deeper into the mysterious dread of Gotham City's past than that might be a fun way to develop what was started with The Court, however, I'm worried this is just going to be another evil mastermind scheme.  The big bad revealed on the last pages here is not the shocker or the draw to boost my confidence in Snyder's dwindling run.  We will see...

This Is The End:  "Fuck Your House Franco!!!"  It sorta puzzles my noggin, but the pothead stoner comedy of Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg seriously pulverizes my funny bone.  They did it before with Pineapple Express & Your Highness, and they do it again with this happily hateful satirization of Hollywood.  During James Franco's batshit-out-of-control housewarming party Revelation strikes and the narcissistic celebrities are left behind to face the Apocalypse.  We're talking sinkholes, burning Hollywood Hills, Old Scratch & his seven heads.  It's all in the title.  Seth Rogen & Jay Baruchel struggle with friendship as James Franco protects his hipster art from Danny McBride's uncontrollable masturbation.  Craig Robinson stands guard with his Teddy Bear flashlight Terrance Peterson, but Jonah Hill uses faith as a weapon only to pay the ultimate price - Rosemary's Baby style!  This Is The End is a gross, painful, stupid, and gleefully offensive religious assault.  Simply the most fun I've had at the movies this year.

All-Star Superman:  "You have given them an ideal to aspire to, embodied their highest aspirations.  They will race, and stumble, and fall and crawl and curse...and finally...they will join you in the sun, Kal-El."  Spoken by his father Jor-El, the above passage comes late in the graphic novel, but gets right to the heart of the character in a way that no other writer has ever come close to scratching.  As Matt stated in his review, Superman is not better than us, but he represents the potential of the human race.  He may have had good Kryptonion breeding, but it's his midwestern Apple Pie youth that shapes him into the concrete slab of morality we all admire.  With All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely plunge the depths of the 75 year old character and reach a final mission statement by exploring the end of Superman.  Along the way they celebrate the crazy of classic comics (Lois Lane - Super Woman! Atlas & Samson vs the Ultra Sphinx!  Doomsday Jimmy!  Zibarro the Bizarro Poet!) that will either alienate new readers or draw them in to the massive but joyful decades of continuity.  I've read All-Star Superman a half dozen time now, and it's safe to say that it ranks at the very top of my All Time Favorite Comics.  It is a classic, and the ultimate Superman experience.

Superman Returns:  "I'm always around."  I think it's pretty obvious that Bryan Singer's relaunch is too in love with Richard Donner's original film.  As fun as it is to hear John Williams's score or Marlon Brando's Jor-El, Superman Returns can never break free from the memory of a better movie.  And yes, Donner's Superman is far superior to this retread.  Obviously, a big problem is that Supes never throws a punch.  He lifts some stuff.  He bounces some bullets off his chest.  He flies real fast.  But that's about it.  Mostly he spends the film being super oogie creepy as he peeps in on Lois Lane & family.  Brandon Routh sure cuts a strong Christopher Reeve profile, but he's given very little to perform.  Kevin Spacey channels too much of the Hackman's Luthor, hamming his way through yet another real estate scheme. There really is only one moment to cherish, and that's Eve Marie Saint helplessly attempting to be near her son Clark as he lies poisoned in a hospital bed.  That's the closest this film comes to plucking a heartstring.

All Star Superman:  "It's time to get serious about killing Superman."  Stripping away a lot of the crazy side stories, and struggling to maintain the philosophy of Grant Morrison's original novel, the All-Star Superman animated film succeeds more often than if flounders.  Lex Luthor boobytraps a mission to explore the sun, and successful poisons Superman's cellular structure.  Supes has one year to live, and he must attempt to leave the planet Earth in strong standing as well as say goodbye to the one woman he's ever loved.  There is still plenty of heart and morality in the film, but there's no fooling that this is first and foremost an action cartoon.  The Parasite prison breakout is certainly the hightlight, but I'm also stunned at how well they were able to pull off the climactic world eater battle.  Not quite the genius of the comic book, but All-Star Superman still feels like the most solid adaptation of the character.

Watchmen:  I am an Alan Moore fan.  I read comics, so I have to be.  However, I've never been than much of a Watchmen freak.  Frankly, I'll take From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong, Promethea, and Swamp Thing any day over Watchmen.  Blashpemy you say...oh well.  That is until I saw Zack Snyder's film.  Yes, I did not appreciate the story until I saw it on the big screen.  There is a coldness to the performances as well as Snyder's fetishizing camera, but it all pretty much fits the tone of Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' post-modern sendup.  Jackie Earl Haley's Rorschach is probably the easiest performance to love, his guttural "Hurms" of contempt almost as pleasurable as the dead delivery in which he dispatches justice.  With each new Silver Screen Superhero we see, Watchmen becomes more and more relevant.  Double Bill this with Joss Whedon's The Avengers and you've gotta a helluva night.  It's still a hate letter directed at Thatcher/Reagan politics, but it's nice (or utterly depressing) to see that these issues are still ripe for ribbing to this day.  And I don't miss the Squid.  Fanboys go on raving, but Snyder's ending feels sound with the setting he erected.  After Watchmen, Snyder could have made ten more Sucker Punches, and I would have been perfectly happy with his career.

Superman vs. The Elite:  This short film attempts to address the godhood of Superman, and the consequence of his heroics.  A punk rock super being known as Manchester Black is tired of giving bad guys second chances.  How many times can Lex Luthor break out of jail and kill dozens of people before Superman drops him in a volcano.  Black is disgusted by Kal-El's snooty ethics, and with the aide of his mutant goonsquad, he's gonna right Big Blue's wrongs.  There is an interesting idea here, and I would be curious to read the source material.  However, the film itself is far too banal.  The animation boring.  The voice work tepid.  About the only aspect of this movie that I liked was the opening credits seen below.  Silly punk rock.

Man of Steel:  "This Man Is Not Our Enemy."  There is a lot to enjoy about this Christopher Nolan Production of a Zack Snyder Film.  The opening twenty minutes are a sci-fi feast of Krypton.  This is not the Ice Castle set of the Donner film or the CG mystery of television's Smallville.  David Goyer's script establishes an alien landscape with its own government, status structure, and wildlife.  Russell Crowe's Jor-El is a desperate scientist beating upon the arrogant certitude of his people.  The Birth of Kal-El is as important to the Krypton people as it will most obviously be for the citizens of Earth.  These are ideas explored previously in the comics, but will most likely come as huge surprises for modern movie going audiences.   Jor-El's final moments with his wife & son before the rocket launches into space are heartthumping, and I was moved to tears before the prologue could even finish.

Screenwriter Goyer pretty much mimics the structure he used so well in Batman Begins, hopping from Clark Kent's present day hoboing to his childhood farmland memories.  If it ain't broke don't fix it, and I appreciated the loose storytelling as opposed to the A to B origin building.  However, my problems start to arise with The Kents.  Kevin Costner's Pa is another strong father figure and he mirrors well with Crowe's space daddy, but I found his fear - or distrust - of man to be unsettling.  Pa Kent is The American Way.  His staunch ethics and middle American nature should instill a faith in humanity not dread.  And his inevitable end handled in the film robs Clark of the lesson of human frailty.  It's a Marvel Comics moment, an Uncle Ben, and not the big universe idea of DC Comics.

Whereas the last cinematic adventure was afraid to throw a punch, Man of Steel is almost all action.  From the moment Michael Shannon's Zod arrives on Earth, Superman is caught in one fiery explosion or another.  Smallville, IHOP, and Metropolis have never seen so much devastation...in fact, has an American city ever been as punished as much as Metropolis is here in Man of Steel's final moments?  A lot has been made of the destruction, but honestly, other than it droning on for a bit too long, I really enjoyed seeing two super beings bash the living hell out of one another.  If two creatures of this godlike strength ever came into contact with each other, our cities would certainly crumble.  It's a politically correct post-9/11 world, but at the end of the day, this is just a movie and Comic Book flicks demand Comic Book Destruction. But maybe Superman, you could hold off your Lois Lane smooches until you step out of the crater made from human ash.

Warner Brothers & Zach Snyder are certainly in love with Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.  The director apes a lot of that film's style and goes a little too crazy with the handheld photography.  But if you pop a couple of dramamine, your body will eventually adjust to the woozy movement, and you might even find yourself enjoying the digital theatrics of Superman's punch-ups.  It's long, and there are quibbles to be had for folks who obsess over spandex, but I'll allow Man of Steel the title of best live-action Superman film (All-Star, yer still tops).

300:  "Tell Xerxes that he faces free men here!"  I was so taken aback by Zack Snyder's Paul Greengrass turnaround in Man of Steel that I wanted to return to the film that made him the mockery of hipster haters everywhere.  I so love Frank Miller's 300.  It's jingoistic, absurdly exploitative, historically embarrassing, and utterly entertaining.  And Snyder shoots it warts and all.  Gerard Butler is the proud King Leonidas, ruler of the Spartan people, defier of false gods, and champion messenger punter.  Everyone involved refuses to bat an eye.  300 succeeds because it's earnest almost up to the point of hilarity, and it's one of the few films to use cgi as an artistic choice rather than an escape route.

JAWS 3D:  "You're talking about some damn shark mother?!?!"  Steven Speilberg's JAWS is one of my all time favorite films (number 5 to be precise), and it's the blockbuster turning point that paved the way for Transformers & Battleships.  But before we could get to the current summer climate, we all had to suffer through the bastardization known as the Jaws sequels.  Seriously, is there a worst film franchise out there?  I dare you to pit The Texas Chainsaw Massacres against Jaws - The Revenge or this beautifully wretched 3D excursion.  Of course, that being said, I had an absolute blast at The Alamo Draft House last week.  Chomping down on Fish & Chips while basking in the Sea World glory of the Spanish Galleon was a real hoot.  Dennis Quaid is a rather impotent leading man struggling to steal the frame from a pair of dolphins (don't worry, he does better in Dreamscape & Inner Space), and Louis Gossett Jr holds a cut like his life depends on it...which it most certainly does!  The very notion that this is the fishy runoff of the perfect popcorn confection that launched America's most beloved filmmaker is completely baffling.

Flex Mentallo - Man of Muscle Mystery:  "Acid, all day, every day...."  I think to fully appreciate this graphic novel you need to also read Grant Morrison's comic book history lesson, Supergods.  I certainly didn't understand this drug fueled nightmare of funny pages insanity until I experienced Morrison's peyote awakening in the outskirts of Nepal.  Flex Mentallo is a fictionalized icon of the four color form who sometimes breaks into our reality when his suicidal creator slips into coma rants.  Yeah, I don't know what that means either.  Flex is our "Hero of the Beach," an Atlas strongman investigating the reappearance of an old chum simply known as The Fact.  Along the way he senses the hand of his creator, discovers the pleasures of spandex sex bars, and contemplates complex issues of gender & sexuality after being exposed to Pink Mentallium...Yeah, this ain't your daddy's comics.

Your Highness:  Danny McBride's pothead appreciation for shitty 80s fantasy films a la Barbarian Queen, The Warrior & The Sorceress, Death Stalker, and Death Stalker 2.  And I love it.  Which seems to be the minority opinion, but all you haters out there obviously don't understand the subtleties of horrendous ADR ("Jumping!") or "Punch & Twist" puppets.  James Franco has never been more dense or adorable as McBride's much beloved brother Prince Fabious, and I'll take this dimwitted nimrod any day over Blockbuster paychecks like Oz The Great & Powerful or Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  Not sure what Natalie Portman is doing in this movie, but she does add to the overall absurdity to the film, and her theatrical delivery of potty mouth insults makes schoolboys giggle.  And let's not forget the confidence of a good butt shot, putting many an ass in seat.  Like their other collaborations, Your Highness is joyfully dumb and gleefully violent.  But it's a special brand of base fanboy humor that I certainly endorse.  So, grab your Blade of Unicorn & swing for the Minotaur's johnson!

Shoot First, Die Later:  Fernando De Leo enjoys the pain and absurdity of violence.  He's Italian.  They know how to do death.  Shoot First, Die Later is the story of good cop turned vigilante after the mob attempts to hook him into their payrole.  That old tune.  It succeeds in its perverse enjoyment of violence, and manages to up the ante with each gonzo set piece.  None of these actors are taking home the SAG award, but Luc Merenda has mastered the stern face and when he sets his sights on his gangster prey you believe his passion for strangleholds.  This film is getting a lot of love on the internet these days, but I don't think it's as punishing or as delightful as De Leo's Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man, which was released earlier last year.

--Brad

Movie Review: Tron Legacy

    The first ten or fifteen minutes of the Tron Legacy are designed to quickly get you from where the first film ended, up to speed with where this new film’s story begins.  It’s fast paced and packed with a bunch of exposition that isn’t too weighted down with character names or extraneous info.  Basically, Kevin Flynn had a kid, his wife died, he got really weird and started talking about lots of crazy stuff, then he disappeared.  Years later, his son Sam is something of a trouble making recluse.  Kevin’s old partner Alan is only nominally involved in their Microsoft/Apple type tech company, and everyone is living in the shadow of Kevin Flynn.  It also features the most wonky bit of CG in the film, which is made worse by the scene not being totally necessary.  CG ‘younger Flynn’ looks awful.  When you see him again on the Grid, it works because it’s supposed to be a digital representation.  But when he’s in the real world and talking to his kid, it just looks creepy and weird.  Combined with Sam’s rebel without a cause attitude, the wonky effects made me wary.  30 years of waiting for a sequel was starting to look a bit like Star Wars all over again.  But after these problems, things improve dramatically.

“You’ve done enough, already.  Sam, you’re really…You’re messing with my Zen thing, man.”

    A mysterious message leads Sam to his dad’s old arcade where he gets himself shot onto the Grid.  The original film created a fantasy world, this film builds on some concepts and takes it to whole new places.  This isn’t the same world we saw in the original film.  It’s a new Grid that has been left to its own devices, without outside input for 20 years.  Cities, arenas, badlands, and more.  It’s gorgeously designed and flawlessly executed.  The images remind me of book covers from classic science fiction novels.  Dramatic black buildings with intense lines of light, alien landscapes and unusual vehicles.  It looks amazing.  After a run-in with the authorities in this digital world, Sam is rescued by a Jules Verne loving program, the adorable and knowledge-hungry Quorra.  And through her, he finally comes face to face with his father.  The distance between the two remains, and each struggles with their past, with the crisis at hand, and with world views.

“Every idea Man has ever had about the universe up for grabs.  Bio-digital Jazz, man.”

    While the villain of this piece is ostensibly a computer program gone mad, Clu isn’t evil.  He’s a reflection of Kevin Flynn’s own quest for perfection in a world of chaos.  With the help of Quorra and Sam, Kevin comes to understand that chaos is an essential element, that perfection is a trap.  But Clu is incapable of accepting that.  There is a tendency in people to compartmentalize.  The physical or intellectual.  The visceral or the ethereal.  Science or art.  Good or evil.  Emotion or logic.  But that’s not what life is; it’s synthesis, not antithesis.  One can strive for perfection while embracing imperfection, just as one can be logical and passionate.  Too often we’re trapped in a post-Zoroastrian dualism, propagated by the religions of Abraham, that dictates an either/or situation in all things, and this infects the general zeitgeist of our culture.  Where I see it most often is in the spiritual person asking how I can feel awe or wonder when my worldview is dominated by science.  But for me, there’s more poetry in a sunrise or a nebula than in all the sacred texts of all the religions that have ever been.  And I think that’s what this movie is striving for, a vision of a world where order and chaos, light and dark, logic and emotion blend and fuse.  Not a conflict between body and mind, but like the moral of Metropolis, both brought together by the heart.  Even the final conflict isn’t about crushing an enemy, or destroying a monster, it’s about coming together, blending, and rebirth.

“The Old Man’s gonna knock on the sky.  Listen to the sound.”

    I would be remiss in my duty if I didn’t mention the kickass electronica score by Euro-club favorites Daft Punk.  I am curious to hear what they might do with other movies in the future, though I don’t know if that’s something they will pursue.  Director Joseph Kosinski certainly has an eye for stunning visuals, and the taste to skip the annoying shaky-cam syndrome that has so affected Hollywood for the last decade or so.  Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner return, Boxleitner as a sort of catalytic conscience for young Sam, and Bridges as the Yoda-like digital deity trying to reconnect with his son and save the potential of his creation.  And the wide-eyed, wonderstruck Olivia Wilde plays Quorra, the program with a game-changing secret.  I especially enjoy Wilde in her role.  It’s actually one of the better roles for women I’ve seen in recent films; curious, pro-active, self-sacrificing, and heroic, without being shrill, overly deferential, or faux-tough.  Garrett Hedlund is a serviceable pretty-boy lead, not especially interesting or charismatic, but not off-putting, either.

“We’re always on the same team.”

    Clearly, I do not have my finger on the pulse of a nation.  I frequently enjoy movies that are either hated or ignored by the general viewing public (Cloud Atlas, Robot & Frank, Hanna, Moon, Watchmen, Hulk, etc.).  This is no different.  It’s not even that people don’t like Tron Legacy, it’s that nobody cared enough to see it.  Tron was something of a cult favorite, which hardly lit the box office on fire.  But I had high hopes this new film would capture attention.  It’s slickly made, a story well told, and very entertaining.  However, it hasn’t achieved much success that I’ve seen.  And three years later, I think I’m the only one talking about it.  Alas.  If nobody else out there will get on board, I’m still going to sing its praises.  And if you haven’t seen it, I would recommend it.  While seeing Tron isn’t a bad idea, you don’t need to in order to enjoy this film.

“We were jamming, man.  Building Utopia.”

-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

Matt’s Weeks in Dork! (9/9/12-9/15/12 and 9/16/12-9/22/12)

9/9-9/15

    I started the week with the second day of the Baltimore Comic-con.  I got a chance to grab signatures from Cary Nord and Bernie Wrightson.  Nord being the artist on the first few volumes of Dark Horse’s Conan re-launch from a few years back.  To this day, the best take on Conan done.  And Wrightson, of course, is a fantastic artist from way back, creating some of the coolest horror images out there.  Artists’ Ally remained something of a disappointment.  Just not the variety I want.  So much zombie and so much Doctor Who, with so little of any particular creativity or quality.  I love Doctor Who, but it was all pretty bland, and almost exclusively New Who, which is fine, but for this long time fan, limited.  Nothing Lost, or Battlestar, or Farscape.  Precious little Trek.  No Babylon 5.  A bit of Venture Bros., but not much.  It felt like the Dork Art culture was not well represented.

    I was on vacation this week, and ended up having some time to get some movie watching in.  I also got some reading done, including some comics, which I hadn’t been getting to a lot lately.


Sin Syndicate:  This reminds me of that awful Ed Wood movie, Orgy of the Dead.  It’s a bunch of lifeless stripping sequences with a shoddy story to break up the ‘action.’  Oh, and it’s teaching a lesson.  The entire movie is horribly dubbed (was this not filmed in English?), which makes things a bit confusing when different characters start taking over narration and it sounds just like the rest of the dialog.  Plenty of stock footage, too.  Always a charmer.

She Came on the Bus:  Smokin’ doobies and wearing leather turns a bunch of youths into roving, sex-crazed monsters bent on murder and sex in this craptastic old ‘shocker.’  Like Sin Syndicate, the dialog seems to be missing.  There’s just narration and canned music.  Otherwise, it’s like a silent film.  If this film is any indication, the best thing that could happen to a person is to get assaulted by a gang of roving youths (unless you drive a bus…’cause then you’re dead).

Sin Magazine:  A dysfunctional family comes together and gets weird.  They’re working on nudie mags, but they all seem to hate them.  How they ran a magazine out of a farm house in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea.  The more success they have, the worse their lives become…for some reason.  Then, well you know.  Murder.

Watchmen The Ultimate Cut:  “We can do so much more.  We can save this world.”  This is the Godfather of superhero films; a sprawling epic of grand scope with a massive cast of complex characters.  There is a lot going on with these people, each one haunted by the past, some haunted by the future.  And it’s all set against the deadly downward spiral toward nuclear war in an alternate 1980s America.  The basic premise of the story is that superheroes are still people, with everything (good and bad) that implies.  Some are sociopaths, some normal folks who wanted to help, and one who had his humanity stripped away from him has become a god.  The line between hero and villain may not even exist.  This cut splices in the animated pirate story readers of the book will be familiar with.  It also features the death of Hollis Mason, which is frickin’ awesome, and powerfully emotional.  I think my favorite character thread is that of Dr. Manhattan, this world’s Superman.  It explores the alienation and detachment of a lone super being living among lesser creatures.  His difficulty in remaining interested in the petty affairs of people, their loves and hatreds, when his perception of timespace is so far beyond.  But it also helps that the villain is right.  In so many stories, the villain is basically right, but the writer has to make sure we know they’re bad by making them do something unconscionable (frivolous murder) or having an insurmountable character flaw (like racism).  Not here.  The villain isn’t doing bad things because of greed or for personal gain.  The villain is doing the evil that needs to be done in order to save the world, kind of like Leto in God Emperor of Dune.  In a sense, the villain is bravest of the heroes.  Can tremendous horror be forgiven if the greater good is served?  Can the sacrifice of a relative few innocents in order to save everyone else be justified?  What is an acceptable number of losses?  Would you kill one to save thousands?  Hundreds to save thousands?  A million to save the rest of the world?

Zen: Season 1:  It is so odd watching a show set in Italy, about Italian characters, where 99% of the people have British accents.  Still, once you get past that, this mystery series is pretty good.  The cast is excellent, the location shooting impressive, and the stories good.  I love conspiracies involving government, family, and history.  Though not amazing, it all works quite well.

Five Bloody Graves:  Man, the audio on this is awful.  Stretches of it sound like the speaker is inside a bucket or something.  The narration (by Death) is kind of cool in the opening scene, but wears thin quick.  But this is some pretty standard stuff.  Nothing to make it stand out from countless other no-budget Westerns being churned out on the fringes at that time.  The acting and the music is awful.  And the complete random way everyone keeps getting shot or attacked is weird.

Nurse Sherri:  The a busty nurse working at a hospital full of sex starved medical professionals gets the evil inside her and starts a’killin’ folk.  Awful music strikes again.  This looks and feels like one of Corman’s Nurse movies, but with a dose of The Exorcist thrown in for a ‘twist.’  It’s pretty lame.

Down With Love:  I dig movies of the 60s, even the kind of crappy, so called ‘sex comedies,’ many of which were not particularly good, most of which featured Doris Day.  Down With Love attempts and often succeeds in capturing the style of those movies, with its heightened witty banter, twisting storyline, and wacky comedy.  Ewan McGregor is ultra-charming as the dashing, womanizing reporter and Renee Zellweger is slightly less aggravating than usual as the would-be woman liberator.  Is it a great movie?  No.  But it’s fun.  And it makes a nice lighthearted companion to Mad Men.

Battlestar Galactica Season 1:  I loved the original show when I was a kid, but it was a pretty silly Star Wars knock-off, probably only popular at the time or remembered now because there was so little science fiction to choose from.  This new series took some of the concepts, boiled them down to the basics, and rebuilt one of the best science fiction shows to come down the road.  An awesome cast, great production design, excellent special effects, and a well crafted and complex story.  Humanity created a race of robots, those robots rebelled, and they warred for some time.  That war ended some time ago, and a quiet sort of peace descended.  Now, after many, many years, they’ve returned and blasted Humanity to the brink of annihilation.  Personal relationships, religion, politics, science and all those things that make our world go round set against a grand scale of interstellar exploration and conflict.

The Glass Bottom Boat:  Rod Taylor hooks himself a plucky blond mermaid in this light romantic comedy.  The wacky misadventures of love involve NASA, spies, and comic awkwardness.  As one expects from a movie like this, it goes into all kinds of silly and goofy places.  Nothing especially consequential, but the leads are charming and it is fun.  The short, Every Girl’s Dream is kind of awesome, with all its condescending cheese.

Hot Saturday:  Wild parties at the lake lead to various comic misunderstandings in this pre-Code movie about a small town girl (Nancy Carroll), a dashing wealthy dandy (a young Cary Grant), a goody-goody dolt (Randolph Scott), and a bunch of jerk townspeople.  It’s hardly a classic, but it’s fun enough for a bit of fluff.

Torch Singer:  “You can have me if you want me, but you must be mine alone.”  A young, unwed mother with a heavenly voice may just make it in this big ol’ world.  Can she make it singling in clubs?  And what about her daughter she put up for adoption?  Claudette Colbert drunkenly trying to light a cigarette with another cigarette has got to be one of the most charmingly, disgustingly unladylike things I’ve ever seen.

Lilo and Stitch:  “Wanna listen to the King?  You look like an Elvis fan.”  Weird, weird, weird character design aside, this fairly forgettable Disney film is still pretty good.  Monsters, family, belonging, and our very nature.  It’s Disney, so it all ends up teaching a lesson.  But when all is said and done, I don’t think I’ll remember this in a week.

Women in Fury:  One of the better Women in Prison subgenre I’ve seen, it’s got everything you’re looking for in one of these, without a lot of the typical Italian film brutality toward women.  Oh, sure there’s lots of topless wrestling and that sort of thing, but not the sexual mutilation Italian films seem to be so big on.  The awful dubbing, the terrible music, and the various stupid stuff makes this one a solid entry in the genre, and the fact that it looks at least ten years older than it is, lets you know it’s Italian for sure.

    I wasn’t going to bother, but the siren song lured me back.  I started watching Charlie’s Angles’ third season.  Hey, starting out with Dean Martin (and James Hong!!!) in Vegas is nice touch.  Kate Jackson even does a scene without at turtleneck (it doesn’t last).  I made it a bit further in The Prisoner.  And Sunday night after the con, Brad and I checked out a few episodes of Venture Bros., which I’ve been trying to get him to watch for some time.

    And I started watching the old British series Tommy & Tuppence.  Two foppish dandies, one male, one female, bumble into a job as investigators.  There’s something kind of forgettable about this, even though it’s fairly well done.  And then the second episode…Ugh.  It turns to crap, becoming an irritating half-assed Thin Man, with far, far too much attempted comedy.

    Riding the Baltimore Comic-Con high, I read the free sample from Valiant.  The primary story is a lead-up to the re-launch of Shadowman.  As usual, it’s just a taste, and not quite enough to get a handle.  But, it’s intriguing.  So, we’ll see.  I didn’t read the snippet of X-O Manowar, because I’ve actually been reading that series, and takes place around issue 5, which I haven’t reached.

    The other free hand-out I kept getting was from Amazon Studios, called Blackburn Burrow.  I guess they’re looking to make a movie and did this comic to gauge interest.  It’s not that good, and probably wouldn’t make a good movie.  Just seemed like a half-assed Jonah Hex, and we all saw how bat that film turned out (wow, did they screw that one up).  This is all pretty typical horror/western stuff.  A fairly lame Man With No Name type heads off to fight monsters during the Civil War.  The art looks like poor imitation Hellboy and the writing is just as bland.  As an idea for a film, it seems made for SyFy.

    For a laugh, I read Futurama Comics issue 62.  I love Futurama…a lot.  And this comic isn’t too bad.  It’s got some of the rhythm and the look down fine.  Obviously with the show, the voices are a big part of the magic, but the writing is key.  If you’re a fan, you could do worse.  And if I’m not mistaken, like episodes of the show, this is self contained, so no worries about continuity.

    After that I tried another new Star Wars comic series, Lost Tribe of the Sith: Spiral.  It feels like the writers of the comics have gotten themselves stuck in a rut.  Various characters with similar traits go through various stories with similar traits.  Spinner and ‘Red’ are annoyingly one dimensional characters that feel like they stepped out of a 90s cartoon.  Alas.

    DC’s ‘New 52’ shot out another quick gimmick with a bunch of issue zeros.  So, I grabbed a couple.  Swamp Thing 0 is interesting, I guess.  It was more interesting than the first issue of the regular series at least.  I’m curious what the whole Red, Green, and Rot thing is all about.  I might have to read Animal Man after all, as I think it and Swamp Thing form a larger whole.  We’ll see.

    Archer & Armstrong is the Valiant title I was most interested, and finally getting a chance to read the first issue, that remains the case.  I love Cary Nord’s art on X-O, but the story is kind of ho-hum.  Not bad, just not as exciting as I’d like.  Archer & Armstrong has potential to be all kinds of crazy historical, conspiratorial nuttiness.  And of course, a dig on the idiots behind creationist museums is always welcome.

    Batman Detective Comics’ zero issue wasn’t bad.  A kind of cool story from Bruce’s missing years, training in the East.  It also features a bit of Alfred tossing some weight around, which is always fun.  I’m not sure what they’re planning to do, or how much anything in this story will matter.  But it was OK.  Looks like they might try to expand on Bruce’s parents, and what their place in Gotham was, and their family histories.  Maybe that’s already happened.  I only read Court of Owls, and otherwise don’t know much about the New 52 Batman.

    Continuing with the Detective Comics thing, I read that series’ Annual #1.  It references a bunch of stuff I don’t know anything about, thanks to not following the New 52 for the most part, during it’s first year.  But it’s not bad.  Seems like a lot of crazy stuff is going on.  This is all much more typical Batman than what I read in the Court of Owls series.  Not really my thing, but not bad.

    Not sure why I bothered, but I grabbed the Teen Titans Annual #1.  It’s all kinds of 90s cheese.  The art isn’t bad; it’s just that frenetic, splashy, messy even that kept me away from comics, especially American comics of that time.  The character designs are very 90s, and look like they could have come off the covers of X-Force, Youngbloods, or any of those lame super-team comics of that time.

    I love me some Godzilla, and I love that he’s back in the funny pages.  But I’ll admit, I haven’t been reading any of the various stories that have come out.  Thanks to Brad, the first issue of the Godzilla arc The Half-Century War got into my grubby hands.  It’s a nice ground level view of the Tokyo attack seen in the first film, and looks like the series will follow some of the major events of the classic films from the eye of a soldier doing his part.

    I can hardly express how happy I am that The Rocketeer is flying again.  Dave Stevens’ love letter to movie serials and pulp adventure stories spawned one of my favorite action movies, but shockingly little printed work.  Though it certainly helped to spark the revival in pulp characters that has been chugging along for the last 10 or 15 years.  Finally, in the last couple years, we’ve seen several new Rocketeer comics.  The first issue of the new series Cargo of Doom was a lot of fun.  The art reminds me a bit of the animated Tin-Tin movie with a dash of Darwin Cooke.  It feels like the story is taking its time to develop, not rushing into things.  So, I’ll be very curious to see where this goes in the coming issues.

    I read the Anthony Bourdain graphic novel Get Jiro!, which was OK.  Some fun food gags, but the over-used Red Harvest/Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars plotline was unfortunate.

    On Friday night, Dan and Chris from On the Fly Publications came down for SPX.  The con was pretty cool, bigger and more spacious than previous years, and much easier to get around in.  Though, it still filled up quite a bit.  Very good turn out from the look of things.  There were some interesting vendors, and I’ll be going back on Sunday (see the next Week in Dork).  I held off on buying anything on the first day, though.  So while Chris was running down his ‘things to do’ checklist, Dan and I took the Metro into DC to see the Exorcist stairs (gah, those are not good for people with heights problems), and walk around.  We covered a good deal of ground, and I was once again reminded how much I like DC compared to other cities.  It tends to feel much more open, more clean, and more welcoming.  And it’s very pedestrian friendly.  We went from DuPont Circle to Georgetown and back in toward the Mall, stopping off at the Barnes & Noble to sit down and have a coffee.  Then back on the Red line to White Flint and the con.  On our way back, we were a few minutes too slow for me to show them Big Planet Comics, so we just drove over to Five Guys to get the best danged burger and fries around.  I got some serious walking in, saw some cool indie comics, got a bit of a sunburn, and spent very little money.  A good day.

9/16-9/22

    Got some reading done.  Otherwise, not too much going on this week.

Living Dead Girl:  Toxic waste and grave robbing don’t mix in this Jean Rollin film that features (wait for it) a pretty young woman wandering around a lot.  More dialog than I was expecting, including an odd number of English speakers who can’t act for crap.  But reanimated blond girl is a killing machine with her Wolverine nails.  Typically beautifully shot and with his usual dream quality, it sadly features some really awful gore effects that seem somewhat out of place (although the neck squirt-gun is kinda awesomely stupid).  This could have used 100% more Brigitte Lahaie.  Rollin films are never quite right without her.

Doctor Who: The Dominators:  Not one of the best stories, I still value any of the second Doctor’s stuff, because it’s so danged rare.  It’s not bad and there are some good bits, to be sure.  Extreme passivism comes up against naked aggression (like in the classic Trek episode Mirror, Mirror) and the life of an entire planet hangs in the balance.  Can someone born into a society of absolute peace learn to stand up to oppressors?  Can the Doctor figure out what the Dominators want?  Can his Highlander companion bash them robots but good?

Resident Evil-Retribution:  Oh, man.  As silly and stupid as you could want or expect from this seemingly unstoppable horror-action franchise.  I think they’re working their way up to doing an entire film in slow motion.  Weird zooms, gimmicky 3D, one-liner after one-liner, and oh, so many clones.  The cast in this movie is terrible at their job.  But the real standout is the amazingly awful woman who plays Jill Valentine.  I thought she was awful in the second film, but she’s so, so much worse here.  It’s kind of wonderful.

Horrors of the Malformed Men:  More crazy Edogawa Rampo stuff.  It’s not especially good, but it has some good moments.  I liked the cast in this a lot, and the general mood was good.  But like most Rampo films I’ve seen, the filmmakers seemed far more interested in the sexual deviances than the characters or the plot.

Two Orphan Vampires:  Pretty girls, a graveyard, wandering, not much in the way of plot.  Jean Rollin makes the best films.  If I could make movies, I think this is the sort of thing I’d want to make.  Like student films that somehow got theatrical budgets.  Brigitte Lahaie shows up for a moments, and in a rare turn, keeps her clothes on.  Rollin never really seemed to change, making the same sort of movie in 1997 he had been making in 1977.  But this sort of thing has its place and he was good at it.

Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma:  “Our genius has been abused!”  The Doctor is having difficulty with his regeneration again, going into fits, sometimes murderous rages.  And someone’s stolen twin mathematicians.  I remember hating Colin Baker’s turn in the iconic role when I saw it as a boy.  Though I seem to remember enjoying the shapely perkiness of Peri.  There is obviously an attempt to bring some of Tom Baker’s edge back into the character, with a dash of William Hartnell’s crotchetiness.  I like Colin Baker much more now, though I can see why I didn’t like him 30 years ago.

Nightbreed:  I’m working on the book (novella?) this film is based on right now, and I’m quite surprised at how true to the source it is up to the point I’m at.  Sure, the acting isn’t always that great, and the special effects look fairly primitive by today’s standards.  But the make-up effects are cool.  And they really go for it, pushing far beyond the boundaries of budget and technology.  It’s a cool story with a lot of implied depth.  I wish there had been more, a sequel or what have you.

Batman The Animated Series: Season 2:  More excellent work.  This series is spot-on, with great voice acting, nice animation, awesome design work, and good stories.  The retro-futurist look, frequent call-backs to old movies and adventure stories, and the fantastic rogues gallery of dastardly devils and fractured felons keep our hero on his toes.

Coupling Season 1:  This show serves as a reminder of how much you can’t do or say on American network TV.  It’s funny, it’s oddly charming, and it’s very forthright.  Little bits of each episode remind me of moments in my own life, conversations with friends, awkward exchanges with beautiful women.  Far funnier than Friends ever dreamed of being, it’s a rare sitcom I actually enjoy.

Plucking the Daisy:  French Tony Curtis and French Cary Grant get the hots for a ditzy young writer who has wandered into Paris looking to become a famous author.  There’s the usual; mistaken identity, stripping, misogyny.  You know, French comedy.  Meh.

    I finally decided to read the first volume of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing run.  Pretty good.  And I read Barry Gifford’s Sad Stories of the Death of Kings.

    A few more New 52 issue 0s came to me.  The Phantom Stranger is interesting, and there’s a lot of potential, but a lot depends on where they take it.  Using characters like this, who are archetypes of the ‘human condition,’ especially in this semi-horror/weird tale kind of series is much more interesting to me than a bunch of capes punching each other.  Swamp Thing, The Phantom Stranger, The Spectre, and others with a more supernatural bent remind me of the 70s horror comics I used to sneak peaks at when I probably shouldn’t.  It feels like what Batwoman is reaching toward, too, and I think more than a lot of the other caped crusaders, she fits with these supernatural and weird elements.

    Green Lantern issue 0 tries to get all topical by having a young man from a Muslim family set up to look like a terrorist.  Things go from bad to worse, until a Lantern ring comes into his possession, though it seems like it might be mistakenly.  I’m worried this Baz guy might be a bit too much of the Guy Gardener punkass for my taste.

    Superboy issue 0 was OK.  I like some of what they’re doing with the character, though reading a bit of Teen Titans, it seems like they’re squandering the potential of the character.  He could be a great tragic hero, built by madmen to violently reshape the world, but I have a feeling he’ll turn into just another whiney putz who sulks and snivels his way to victory.

    Issue 0 of Action Comics was sure as heck better than the issue 1 I read last year.  The art is fantastic and I like the little glimpse of Clark’s early days in Metropolis, playing video games with Jimmy Olsen.  The second story left me with a lot of questions.  I don’t know enough about the mythology to know if it’s setting up new stuff, or referencing old.  Who is Adam?  Not Clark, right?  And why is Erik Drekken?

    Batgirl issue 0 was OK, too.  Another glimpse at the early career of an (semi)iconic character.  There’s a whole weird thing where they’re still keeping the idea that The Joker shot her and she was paralyzed, but now there’s some thing where she got better and is back in the cape, I guess.  This story deals with a cult of crazies taking over a police station.  I wonder if anything from that ever comes back.  I do like cults as bad guys, but it has the feel of a one-off appearance.  I’ve not been thrilled with Gail Simone’s writing.  She has a lot of the faux-hip dialog that plagues Joss Whedon’s work, where all the women are just so “adorably cool.”  It gets old.

    Batman and Robin issue 0 takes a look at Damian’s origin, with brief snippets of his education by his mother, Talia al Ghul.  Born and raised to be a killer, Damian has, to say the least, challenges ahead if he really wants to be a hero like his father.

    Batman issue 0 (because there are, of course, like 15 or 20 different Batman titles) as a brief tale about the Red Hood Gang, a very early foray into crime fighting for Bruce, and first(?) meeting with Gordon.  There’s also a short about the first use of the Bat Signal, and about inspiration.  These stores feel like interesting filler for a trade collection.  I don’t mean that as a bad thing at all.

    I read the first New 52 Batman trade a while ago (see my review), but the story wasn’t over.  Brad passed on the issues that I guess complete the Court of Owls storyline, with the Night of the Owls multi-title event.  I’m not tracking down all the other issues from other lines that deal with it.  But I am reading the regular Batman.  So, with issue 8, the army of Owl assassins is swooping down upon Bruce and Alfred, pushing them back into the bowels of the Bat Cave.  The heat gets ramped up fast.

    Issue 9 of Batman has the Dark Knight trying to track down the survivors, if there are any, and stop what he can of the Owls’ rampage of murder.  It also features a short about Alfred’s father.  I like that they’re doing a lot of delving into the history of the DC universe, and of Gotham specifically.

    With issue 10, the Night of Owls seems to be over.  But Bruce is left with nagging questions, leading him back, as always, to the death of his parents and the early days of his vengeance quest.  And then the writers push things one step beyond (maybe) with a pretty big reveal.  Or is it all just madness?

    And finally issue 11 finishes the Court of Owls story (as well as the short about Alfred’s dad  (which does tie in).  Is the dramatic reveal of issue 10 true?  We still don’t know.  But the 11 issue arc was a nice break from the same-old same-old I have seen over the years with Batman.  And they did a lot to put some meat on the bones of Gotham.

    On Sunday, I went back to SPX, this time with Brad, and picked up a few odds and ends.  There certainly seemed to be a lot of people, and there were a lot of cool folks there with their odd books.  But for whatever reason, I didn’t find myself as engaged this year.  I’m thinking, having had the same general feeling at Baltimore the week before, that I was just not in the right place to enjoy myself to my utmost.  My hat’s off to the folks that ran SPX though, for listening to feedback last year and expanding the floor space so there was much, much more room to walk around.  It was still really crowded, but not nearly as claustrophobic.  And is there a really big hint as to someone’s identity and the show’s finale?  I think, maybe.

-Matt