So today we have two variations on Superman, both trying to answer the question: How do we make Superman interesting?
Superman #1 - What Price Tomorrow - This was the first Superman I read. Turns out, it takes place 5 years after Action Comics #1. Superman has saved Metropolis a number of times now & the Daily Planet has been purchased by the DC Universe equivalent of FOX News Corp. Suddenly, Superman's every action becomes fodder for the wild speculation and crap journalism that is the 24 hour news cycle. At the same time, superman is being attacked by a series of aliens that only key on him. The damage caused in these battles leads to a legitimate question: Is Superman a net positive or negative presence for Metropolis. Sure, he can do almost anything, but does his power draw more danger to Metropolis than it detracts? It an interesting question to ask, but this book isn't really interested in answering it. What could have been an interesting study in what happens when the wack job pundits have a legitimate argument instead becomes just a red herring as Superman saves the day and convinces the jerks that he his good. It's a kind of wish fulfillment that most comics seem to shy away from these days in favor of a more adult discussion, but hey, if you're going to have a comic unreasonably positive and uplifting, I suppose it should be Superman. (side note: actively tries not to destroy and entire Metropolitan area. Something Zach Snyder should take note of.)
6/10
Action Comic #1 - This is the book that launched the whole New 52! for DC. I cover Superman's early days, before he has his whole costume, and before he became ludicrously overpowered. It's nice to have a superman who can't fly. The book also features Lex Luthor. Lex is a fantastic character because most everything he does makes logical sense. He's may be an rich asshole, but he isn't necessarily wrong. He is troubled by the idea of a super powered being from another planet. A powerful alien species could bring devastation to the planet, even Stephen Hawking has said as much. Anytime throughout history that a nonnative organism is transplanted to a new environment, chaos results. Be it Europeans bringing smallpox to the Americas or Asian Carp infesting the Great Lakes, foreign species have the potential of unanticipated devastation. Intentions aside, Superman represents a possible threat to the existence of the human race. Therefore, Lex Luthor is a man determined to find an antidote to the Man of Steel. Lex actually has a lot in common with Bruce Wayne/Batman in that way. Superman is essentially a sentient WMD, and Lex is searching for the kill switch. The dramatic tension come from the fact that Superman is always striving to be good, so we root for him. If he were ever to become conflicted in the way that less powerful heroes tend to be, Lex suddenly becomes the one with the right idea. It's a Superman book though, and ultimately Lex taints everything he touches while Superman wins the day. This is a much better story than Superman #1, but I think I'm done with the Man of Steel for now.
7/10
Which brings me to: Green Lantern Corps #1 - So it turns out that the rebooted Green Lantern Universe is pretty awesome. With the demotion of Hal Jordan, two more human Green Lanterns have been selected to take his Place, Guy Gardner and John Stewart. The story opens with Guy interviewing for an assistant HS Football coaching job, and John trying to get work as an architect. Since their status as a Green Lantern is public knowledge, neither of them is having much success. Apparently people would rather not work around a guy who draws attention from intergalactic war criminals. So off they fly to Oa, and wouldn't you know it, some bad guys are in town, destroying entire worlds. The Guardians who control the Lanterns grew the lanterns in the soil of a secret world. The race of people who tended this power became infused with it and now are basically walking Green Lanterns themselves and they are NOT happy. The Guardians, wary of the growing power of their free labor force, decided to strip the planet of all of the green lantern power cells and leave the planet to die. Then lots of cool stuff goes down, including using imprisoned Yellow Lanterns as a WMD. The tone of the story is a sort of Dirty Dozen in space. I don't understand why this title is so compelling, but it is awesome!
9/10
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
100 by 30 Book 39 - Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and The Flash
Back to some more entries in DC's New 52! I had actually never read an issue of Flash or Wonder Woman before and my understanding of Green Lantern was limited to one volume I read several years ago and the Ryan Reynolds movie. These 3 books all contain rather ludicrous fantasy elements, but I had varying degrees of suspension of disbelief.
First up, Green Lantern: Sinestro. This one was far and away my favorite. While the mythology of the universe is ridiculous, this book had the best written characters. Turns out that I will go along with just about anything if you can give me some interesting characters to follow. In this volume, Hal Jordan has been booted from the Green Lantern Corps for being a reckless dick and his arch-nemesis, Sinestro, has been reinstated as a Green Lantern. Sinestro finds that his homeworld has been enslaved by the yellow lantern corps that he created. Long story short, he enlists Hal Jordan's help in saving his home planet. Throughout the adventure we learn what we've always suspected: Hal sucks at using the Green Lantern power to it's full potential. Where Hal makes his fists bigger or creates a green gun, Sinestro creates more power rings to give to his imprisoned people, thereby creating and army of Green Lanterns in an instant. It's a pretty great, well-paced space adventure.
8/10
Then we get to Wonder Woman. Having seen the great things done so far with Catwoman, Batwoman, and Batgirl, I was excited to see what DC would do with their most iconic female hero. Not much actually. She runs around a lot trying to save people, finds out that she is actually the illegitimate daughter of Zeus, and sees a Jealous Hera kill pretty much everyone she knows. The book relies too much on our knowledge of Greek mythology without bringing much of anything new to the table. It was like a comic version of the new Clash of the Titans movie: watchable, but hardly worth your time.
5/10
So I bought in to magic space police and greek myths in the modern world, but how did I do with a guy who can run really fast? I kinda hated it. The Flash is the alter ego of Barry Allen, who makes Clark Kent look cool and interesting. He got his powers by being doused in chemicals and struck by lightning at the same time....let that sink in for a second....yup, way dumber than magic space rings. Anyway, he can also vibrate himself at just the right frequency that he can pass through objects and he shoots vortexes from his hands. Then story revolves around The Flash realizing that he builds up too much "speed force" when he runs and his accidently creating little wormholes everywhere. It's preposterous, even for a super hero book, and I'm sick of writing about it.
2/10
First up, Green Lantern: Sinestro. This one was far and away my favorite. While the mythology of the universe is ridiculous, this book had the best written characters. Turns out that I will go along with just about anything if you can give me some interesting characters to follow. In this volume, Hal Jordan has been booted from the Green Lantern Corps for being a reckless dick and his arch-nemesis, Sinestro, has been reinstated as a Green Lantern. Sinestro finds that his homeworld has been enslaved by the yellow lantern corps that he created. Long story short, he enlists Hal Jordan's help in saving his home planet. Throughout the adventure we learn what we've always suspected: Hal sucks at using the Green Lantern power to it's full potential. Where Hal makes his fists bigger or creates a green gun, Sinestro creates more power rings to give to his imprisoned people, thereby creating and army of Green Lanterns in an instant. It's a pretty great, well-paced space adventure.
8/10
Then we get to Wonder Woman. Having seen the great things done so far with Catwoman, Batwoman, and Batgirl, I was excited to see what DC would do with their most iconic female hero. Not much actually. She runs around a lot trying to save people, finds out that she is actually the illegitimate daughter of Zeus, and sees a Jealous Hera kill pretty much everyone she knows. The book relies too much on our knowledge of Greek mythology without bringing much of anything new to the table. It was like a comic version of the new Clash of the Titans movie: watchable, but hardly worth your time.
5/10
So I bought in to magic space police and greek myths in the modern world, but how did I do with a guy who can run really fast? I kinda hated it. The Flash is the alter ego of Barry Allen, who makes Clark Kent look cool and interesting. He got his powers by being doused in chemicals and struck by lightning at the same time....let that sink in for a second....yup, way dumber than magic space rings. Anyway, he can also vibrate himself at just the right frequency that he can pass through objects and he shoots vortexes from his hands. Then story revolves around The Flash realizing that he builds up too much "speed force" when he runs and his accidently creating little wormholes everywhere. It's preposterous, even for a super hero book, and I'm sick of writing about it.
2/10
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
100 by 30 Book 38 - iZombie 1-3
I decided I needed a change of pace, so I tried the lighthearted iZombie series. Our hero, Gwen is a zombie. Fortunately, she can maintain her humanity as long as she eats one brain a month. She also works as a grave digger at an eco friendly graveyard in Eugene, OR, giving her a steady supply of brains. The catch? She also ingests the memories of the person whose brain she's eating. With the help of her friend Ellie the ghost, and Spot the were-terrier she gets to play detective and complete the last wishes of her dinner. Then things get more and more complicated. We get mummies, poltergeists, secret societies, undead government agents, and a talking chimpanzee.
The mythology of the world is built around the idea that every living being has two souls: an oversoul and an undersoul (ego and id, basically) It's a handy way to explain all of the different kinds of monsters in the world, and the most interesting aspect of the series. As far as the storytelling goes though, the book has a lot of flaws. The pacing is uneven, and the book quickly adds exponentially more questions than it answers. It feels like a fun idea without a proper through line. This is waiting room reading at best so far.
6/10.
The mythology of the world is built around the idea that every living being has two souls: an oversoul and an undersoul (ego and id, basically) It's a handy way to explain all of the different kinds of monsters in the world, and the most interesting aspect of the series. As far as the storytelling goes though, the book has a lot of flaws. The pacing is uneven, and the book quickly adds exponentially more questions than it answers. It feels like a fun idea without a proper through line. This is waiting room reading at best so far.
6/10.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
100 by 30 Book 36 & 37 - Fables: Sidequests
Got some actual, honest to god novels coming soon, but schedule is pretty busy for the next few weeks, so more graphics novels for now: Today we learn about the lives of our side characters in the Fables world, and then move the main plot along just a bit.
Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love
What's cooler than James Bond? Cinderlla, that's who. To almost everyone in Fabletown, she's a ditsy jet-setter who can't even be bothered to run her shoe store between 5 star vacations. Only a select few know that for the passed 200 years she's perfected the art of being a kick ass spy. In this story, she is searching for the source of illegal magical goods being sold in the mundy (Nerd translation: Mundy=Muggle) world. On the way she teams up with Aladdin as they defeat death traps, beat up the goons, and have the requisite fling in the sack. It's great!
Cinderella: Fables Are Forever
What would a Bond homage be without a Fable version of the cold war? In this edition, Cindy has to track down an infamous assassin known as "the Silver Slipper" in the Shadow Fabletown in Russia. Have you figured out who the assassin is yet? No? I recently wrote all about her? That's right! It's Dorothy. From Oz. Naturally, there's lots of girl fights, and awesome spy vs. spy stuff. And a really awkward one night stand. All in all, this is a great twist on the spy genre and I look forward to future adventures.
Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland
Bigby Wolf on a solo adventure in Iowa! Ok, so maybe not worthy of an exclamation point, but if your looking for lots and lots of gore, this is a tale for you. In the search for the new Fabletown, Bigby stumbles across Storyville, IA which just happens to be populated solely with werewolves that he accidentally created. This is a slim story, but that actions scenes are pretty great so It's not a total waste of time.
Fairest: Vol. 1, Wide Awake
In a promising new side series, we get to learn the hidden stories of some of our other famous princesses. Up first, Aurora. The tale picks up as Sleeping Beauty is finally awakened after being used as a WMD in the war against the Adversary. Ali Baba has the honors of waking her with true love's kiss. But is it her that he was in love with??? We also get the Fables version of Sleeping Beauty's origin story, which includes much more terrifying fairies, and a bottle imp who ranks high as one of the most obnoxious characters ever. Don't worry though, because things are gonna get AWESOME in....
Fairest: Vol. 2, The Hidden Kingdom
This is a super dark story about one of the more tragic characters in the Fables universe: Repunzel. First off, her magic hair grows 4" per hour, meaning she needs 3 haircuts per day and can't be out in public for more than 45 minutes by herself. Then we learn that she has had two children stolen away from her at birth. Her Search for her long lost children leads her to the Hidden Kingdom of Japanese Fables. Lot's of messed up stuff happens and we learn how this one time, Repunzel turned into a Japanese hair demon a la The Ring and killed all of the stuff everywhere. It's awesome! Oh, and in the coda, they drop a bombshell about Beast's wife Beauty that I won't reveal here. Just check it out.
Fables Vol. 17: Inherit the Wind
Lastly, we get a new volume in the main plotline. The events of the previous book have necessitated choosing a new North Wind, and Bigby and Snow's children are the prime candidates. Also, the 3 other winds have arrived and are plotting to set up a puppet King of the North that they can control. Meanwhile, a revolution is brewing in Oz, the Fables are returning to the Farm, Rose Red is lining up a new job, and a new threat is lying in wait for the Fables when they return to New York. There is a lot of great setup here, and by now, I trust Bill Willingham to pay things off in spades.
Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love
What's cooler than James Bond? Cinderlla, that's who. To almost everyone in Fabletown, she's a ditsy jet-setter who can't even be bothered to run her shoe store between 5 star vacations. Only a select few know that for the passed 200 years she's perfected the art of being a kick ass spy. In this story, she is searching for the source of illegal magical goods being sold in the mundy (Nerd translation: Mundy=Muggle) world. On the way she teams up with Aladdin as they defeat death traps, beat up the goons, and have the requisite fling in the sack. It's great!
Cinderella: Fables Are Forever
What would a Bond homage be without a Fable version of the cold war? In this edition, Cindy has to track down an infamous assassin known as "the Silver Slipper" in the Shadow Fabletown in Russia. Have you figured out who the assassin is yet? No? I recently wrote all about her? That's right! It's Dorothy. From Oz. Naturally, there's lots of girl fights, and awesome spy vs. spy stuff. And a really awkward one night stand. All in all, this is a great twist on the spy genre and I look forward to future adventures.
Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland
Bigby Wolf on a solo adventure in Iowa! Ok, so maybe not worthy of an exclamation point, but if your looking for lots and lots of gore, this is a tale for you. In the search for the new Fabletown, Bigby stumbles across Storyville, IA which just happens to be populated solely with werewolves that he accidentally created. This is a slim story, but that actions scenes are pretty great so It's not a total waste of time.
Fairest: Vol. 1, Wide Awake
In a promising new side series, we get to learn the hidden stories of some of our other famous princesses. Up first, Aurora. The tale picks up as Sleeping Beauty is finally awakened after being used as a WMD in the war against the Adversary. Ali Baba has the honors of waking her with true love's kiss. But is it her that he was in love with??? We also get the Fables version of Sleeping Beauty's origin story, which includes much more terrifying fairies, and a bottle imp who ranks high as one of the most obnoxious characters ever. Don't worry though, because things are gonna get AWESOME in....
Fairest: Vol. 2, The Hidden Kingdom
This is a super dark story about one of the more tragic characters in the Fables universe: Repunzel. First off, her magic hair grows 4" per hour, meaning she needs 3 haircuts per day and can't be out in public for more than 45 minutes by herself. Then we learn that she has had two children stolen away from her at birth. Her Search for her long lost children leads her to the Hidden Kingdom of Japanese Fables. Lot's of messed up stuff happens and we learn how this one time, Repunzel turned into a Japanese hair demon a la The Ring and killed all of the stuff everywhere. It's awesome! Oh, and in the coda, they drop a bombshell about Beast's wife Beauty that I won't reveal here. Just check it out.
Fables Vol. 17: Inherit the Wind
Lastly, we get a new volume in the main plotline. The events of the previous book have necessitated choosing a new North Wind, and Bigby and Snow's children are the prime candidates. Also, the 3 other winds have arrived and are plotting to set up a puppet King of the North that they can control. Meanwhile, a revolution is brewing in Oz, the Fables are returning to the Farm, Rose Red is lining up a new job, and a new threat is lying in wait for the Fables when they return to New York. There is a lot of great setup here, and by now, I trust Bill Willingham to pay things off in spades.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
100 by 30 book 35 - LotR book 5 - epic moments of epicness
The Lord of the Rings, book 5 - The Return of the King, part 1
Book 5 covers the events from Gandalf's Arrival in Minas Tirith through the beginning of the last stand outside the gates of Mordor. It doesn't include anything about Sam and Frodo. Which makes a huge difference when the mouth of Sauron shows Aragon Frodo's mithril vest. The last time we saw Sam and Frodo, Frodo was captured and Sam was locked out of the tower where he is being held. So as far as the reader knows, middle earth is screwed. The book ends with the apparent death of Pippin and every other major character. So take that George R.R. Martin, Tolkien was being dark and messed up first!
Backing up a bit, this is the book where the nations of Middle Earth totally kick ass without the deus ex machina of a zombie ghost army. In fact, the ghosts that Aragorn raises to fight for him are released as soon as they help him take over the pirate ships. See, the ghost army was a nice asset but the reason Aragorn needed to take the paths of the dead was because he saw the threat of the ships in the south. They were going to cut off access to Minas Tirith for Gondor's allies in the south, just as Sauron sent a small army to block the aid of Rohan. It's not a bad strategy. Unfortunately for Sauron, the riders of Rohan are shown a secret trail by the men of the forest, and Aragorn continues to be a hundred times more awesome than he was in the movies.
I understand the movies needing to trim characters, and I'm sure it was easier for movie audiences to follow one faceless horde of ghosts than to follow the numerous allies that Aragorn is able to bring to Gondor's aid, but Peter Jackson really screwed the pooch on getting Aragorn right. He's not a relateable, brooding character who isn't sure of himself; He's heir to the greatest kingdom in middle earth and is descended from the guys who beat the crap out of Sauron in hand to hand combat. He's so terrifically capable of getting things done that his very existence scares the Dark Lord into rushing his plans and losing focus on finding the ring. Make no mistake, Sauron is afraid of Aragorn, NOT the stupid sword that cut his finger off! You want a character you can relate to? Good, that's what the hobbits are there for. Stop turning Aragorn into a moody teenager.
The one other thing that makes me sad about the movies (which are still awesome) is the use of those zombie ghosts. As cool as it looks, and as much time and money it saved not having to design armor for the numerous men who ride to war with Aragorn, it steals the victory from our characters. In the book, the story is about the people of middle earth coming together with each doing their part. The ghosts' part is to commandeer the ships, since they can fly over water and stuff. Then the armies come together and defeat the forces of Mordor by their own strength and valor. It shows that Middle Earth is not as weak as Sauron thought and gives the reader hope. The ghosts take that all away. It makes sense for the movie, but it still feels like cheating. The story is about the characters, not ghosts and a magic sword.
Anyway, this book is freaking awesome! Tolkein does a masterful job of slowly building the tension until you can hardly stand it, then he delivers with the best battle scene I have ever read. It's epic in scale, but takes time with smaller, character moments like Eowyn and Merry killing the Witch King of Angmar. (fun story, he could only be killed by Eowyn once Merry stabbed him with the sword he found in the tomb of the Barrow wight in book 1 because of very nerdy and awesome reasons I won't go into here)
My favorite non battle moment of the whole book though, is Aragorn losing his patience with the crabby old herbalist in the house of healing after the battle. If you've ever been in a desperate hurry only to have some moron waste your time with useless blather instead of just getting the thing you need, you can relate. This is the way Aragorn should be relateable, he hates dealing with fools as much as the rest of us.
Well, we've made it through some breathtaking action and ended on a doosey of a cliff hanger, so I'm sure book 6 will move just as swift and not waste our time with endless descriptions of walking through a wasteland, right? right?
10/10
Book 5 covers the events from Gandalf's Arrival in Minas Tirith through the beginning of the last stand outside the gates of Mordor. It doesn't include anything about Sam and Frodo. Which makes a huge difference when the mouth of Sauron shows Aragon Frodo's mithril vest. The last time we saw Sam and Frodo, Frodo was captured and Sam was locked out of the tower where he is being held. So as far as the reader knows, middle earth is screwed. The book ends with the apparent death of Pippin and every other major character. So take that George R.R. Martin, Tolkien was being dark and messed up first!
Backing up a bit, this is the book where the nations of Middle Earth totally kick ass without the deus ex machina of a zombie ghost army. In fact, the ghosts that Aragorn raises to fight for him are released as soon as they help him take over the pirate ships. See, the ghost army was a nice asset but the reason Aragorn needed to take the paths of the dead was because he saw the threat of the ships in the south. They were going to cut off access to Minas Tirith for Gondor's allies in the south, just as Sauron sent a small army to block the aid of Rohan. It's not a bad strategy. Unfortunately for Sauron, the riders of Rohan are shown a secret trail by the men of the forest, and Aragorn continues to be a hundred times more awesome than he was in the movies.
I understand the movies needing to trim characters, and I'm sure it was easier for movie audiences to follow one faceless horde of ghosts than to follow the numerous allies that Aragorn is able to bring to Gondor's aid, but Peter Jackson really screwed the pooch on getting Aragorn right. He's not a relateable, brooding character who isn't sure of himself; He's heir to the greatest kingdom in middle earth and is descended from the guys who beat the crap out of Sauron in hand to hand combat. He's so terrifically capable of getting things done that his very existence scares the Dark Lord into rushing his plans and losing focus on finding the ring. Make no mistake, Sauron is afraid of Aragorn, NOT the stupid sword that cut his finger off! You want a character you can relate to? Good, that's what the hobbits are there for. Stop turning Aragorn into a moody teenager.
The one other thing that makes me sad about the movies (which are still awesome) is the use of those zombie ghosts. As cool as it looks, and as much time and money it saved not having to design armor for the numerous men who ride to war with Aragorn, it steals the victory from our characters. In the book, the story is about the people of middle earth coming together with each doing their part. The ghosts' part is to commandeer the ships, since they can fly over water and stuff. Then the armies come together and defeat the forces of Mordor by their own strength and valor. It shows that Middle Earth is not as weak as Sauron thought and gives the reader hope. The ghosts take that all away. It makes sense for the movie, but it still feels like cheating. The story is about the characters, not ghosts and a magic sword.
Anyway, this book is freaking awesome! Tolkein does a masterful job of slowly building the tension until you can hardly stand it, then he delivers with the best battle scene I have ever read. It's epic in scale, but takes time with smaller, character moments like Eowyn and Merry killing the Witch King of Angmar. (fun story, he could only be killed by Eowyn once Merry stabbed him with the sword he found in the tomb of the Barrow wight in book 1 because of very nerdy and awesome reasons I won't go into here)
My favorite non battle moment of the whole book though, is Aragorn losing his patience with the crabby old herbalist in the house of healing after the battle. If you've ever been in a desperate hurry only to have some moron waste your time with useless blather instead of just getting the thing you need, you can relate. This is the way Aragorn should be relateable, he hates dealing with fools as much as the rest of us.
Well, we've made it through some breathtaking action and ended on a doosey of a cliff hanger, so I'm sure book 6 will move just as swift and not waste our time with endless descriptions of walking through a wasteland, right? right?
10/10
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)