People who know me probably don’t think I can do it, but here it is! The All Positive Post coming directly from the Mothership, top of the Earth-K Galaxy! 500,000 keelowatts of four-color power! Giving it to you in your eye-hole!

· 100 Bullets continues on to its thrilling conclusion. I’m a trade-reader of the Bullets (so I’m exactly ¾ of the way through the story), but I can tell you that this book never does anything BUT fire on all cylinders. It has mutated from a morality/revenge tale into a noir conspiracy theory with roots in Colonial American history that guarantees a skyrocketing body count reached in unmatched style. Twists and turns abound in every arc, and even the arcs that don’t immediately make sense as part of the greater story are brought home eventually. The art is dark, dangerous and sexy as hell. The books are so gritty that even the toilet paper DC prints the trades on comes together with the art and story to be part of the experience. I’m still trying to figure out how I can need a shower after every story and yet continue to think it’s a world I wouldn’t mind living in… as long as I had a couple high-powered handguns to keep me company. Highest honors.

· My buddy and favorite cat to ring me up at my LCS, Rob Vollmar, is having some roaring success with the Bluesman Trilogy. It is sad, poignant, historical, the art (brought to you by Pablo Callejo) is beautiful and the whole reading experience should probably come with a soundtrack CD. In fact, I’m going to suggest that Rob have a playlist available to listen to while reading. Lastly, it’s been optioned for a film. Run and read the books before Hollywood spoils it with crass commercialism!

· Godland (no, I don’t know how to make that little crosshatch through the O), is like Kirby with none of the introspection or deeper themes. Or Kirby if he’d had a couple bad hits of acid. Wild ideas, crazy villains, cosmic beings; it sort of reads like early Marvel if they’d been more aware of what they were up to. Meta-Marvel you might say. I have no idea where it’s headed or what the story is really about, and when I can usually see a lot of the story beats telegraphed from six issues away, that shoots it to the head of the class for me.

· Casanova absolutely freakin’ rocks. The vibe is sort of a bizarre mix between Starlin and Steranko, a cosmic spy story with daddy issues. Gabriel Ba takes ridiculous scripts from Matt Fraction, a VERY limited palette and churns out art that seems simple at first, but then you start to notice how many details the guy CRAMS into every panel. The prose stuff in the back that explains what was going on in Fraction’s life, world and head when he wrote the book is even good. Normally that stuff bores me to absolute tears or ends up being like knowing a little too much about sausage manufacturing techniques, but here it is a bow on the special gift that is Casanova. And the whole damn thing costs two measly greenbacks. Buy it, you ingrates.

· The Black Coat: Call To Arms is the first in what I hope to be a long string of limited series. I thought it was going to be a Scarlet Pimpernel-esque thing set in the Revolutionary War…and it was. But then pirates showed up. And zombies. And Ben “The Original American Pimp” Franklin! This thing is like historical fiction by the guys responsible for Doc Savage and the Shadow. The book has so much pulp, it gets stuck in my teeth when I read it.

· Gail Simone is a Geek Goddess. All-New Atom, Secret Six and Birds of Prey are or were (Six is lamentably over) at the top of my reading stack every time they come out. Each of these is super-heroes done right, even when the book is about super-villains. BoP is in the midst of an internal shake-up and, usually, that would worry me. Status quo changes are rarely good news if the book was successful and a great read already, but Gail has earned the benefit of the doubt. More than that, she’s earned my complete trust. I have no doubt that, despite the sea change, BoP will continue to kick ass. At a DC where several of the OYL new launches have been abandoned (Sword of Atlantis) or are so crap they’re soon to be abandoned (Hawkgirl), I don’t doubt for a second that Atom will stick the longest. Lastly, while this may mean nothing to many, Gail has actually made me excited that there will be a Catman fig in the next Heroclix release; no mean feat.

· Justice Society of America is only two issues in so I can’t gush very much. I’ll be honest, though. Based on the Donner/Johns debacle and the mess Titans has become, I was worried that Johns couldn’t bring the heat anymore. I loved JSA LOTS and didn’t want to see it messed up. Well, I needn’t have worried. With two issues under its belt it is probably the best OYL launch DC has had (even though it isn’t technically an OYL launch) and it is kicking the crap out of Justice League of America. I mention the second only because of the handicap. The Justice League has all the cards in this game, but JSofA balls it out with pure chutzpah and makes the JLofA look even more boring and amateurish than it normally would.

· All Star Superman. What should I say here? If you’re reading it, you know how awesome it is. If you aren’t, you’re some kind of communist robot zombie from a totalitarian future who has been programmed not to like comics that contain too much awesome. This is a book that manages to take stuff we should all be sick of hearing about (Lois discovering Superman’s secret identity, Lex as criminal genius, Krypto) and manages to not just make them readable, but causes you to fall in love with them. Literally FALL IN LOVE between page 1 and page 22.

All that stuff from yesterday is really stupid and really pisses me off and makes me want to shake some editors/writers/Dan Didios until their necks snap, but this stuff is the reason I hang in there. This stuff, and the promise of more stuff like it, is the reason I show up every Wednesday and why I get all excited when the negative stuff happens (especially if it happens to something I was previously very positive about).

Talk back, our tiny audience! What examples of Radness and Awesomeitude would be in your All Positive Post?

I return from Earth-K!

Well, it has been a WHILE, hasn’t it? I don’t think we had any readers anyway, but if we did, we’ve absolutely killed them off one by one with inactivity. Still with several of our fave blogs going the way of the dodo, I felt I needed to get back on ship.

Unfortunately, due to a ridiculous schedule (the downside of being a private investigator trying to catch scofflaws at nefarious deeds is that they don’t follow a schedule and might do said deeds at any moment, which necessitates you watching them morning, noon and night; Rockford never had to do stuff like this, that’s for certain) I haven’t had much time to ruminate on comics and due to starting the new business, I haven’t had much money for them either.

The other thing is, I kind of wanted to say some positive stuff about the comics I really like. Unfortunately, its hard to do anything interesting with “Birds of Prey is really great, if you’re not reading it you really ought to be” or “JSofA, although a needless relaunch, is only two issues in and already five thousand percent more interesting than JLofA.” See, even in the second one, I accidentally get some digs in on a stupid editorial decision and a book that SHOULD be the premier super-team book at DC but is, instead, lackluster, boring and stupid.

So, I’m going to say just a few negative things and not elaborate on them at all or back up my opinion in any way. It’s my blog, I can do that if I want. I suspect the good Cap’n might disagree with some of them and, if so, he can reply and a riotous debate will ensue! Also, if we haven’t bored any of our “readers” then I’ll expect comments. Again, unadulterated negativity coming at you…now!

· While I applaud the twin ideas of single issue stories and bringing Bruce Wayne back, Paul Dini’s issues of Detective Comics just aren’t that great. They aren’t bad, but he certainly isn’t God’s gift to Batman comics.

· Calling Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman the Holy Trinity of the DCU is insulting for two reasons. First, thanks for cheapening a core doctrine of my belief system. Second, and a lot more trivial but a lot closer to the heart of the matter, Wonder Woman isn’t very interesting and, I suspect, nobody really cares about her. Putting out her One Year Later book on a semi-annual basis isn’t helping this. From now on, all honest people will refer to them as the World’s Finest and Wonder Woman…when they bother to mention her at all.

· As lightly mentioned above, Meltzer’s JLofA is really boring and, I suspect, really stupid. I stopped reading after the nonsensical #0 and the plodding #1 & 2, so I’m guessing a little on the stupid part. Still, criminal mastermind Solomon Grundy and Not-Speedy being on the team certainly SEEM very stupid.

· Why isn’t Teen Titans good? It used to be VERY good and they certainly have potential. I’m very interested in all the junior versions of DCU heroes that have been mentioned. It takes a DCU staple to a logical extreme and maybe a little into the illogical (in a good way). Also, Kid Devil and Ravager are great!

· Bringing back Jason Todd didn’t have to be a bad idea, but it went ahead and became one anyway. A completely stupid re-origin based on a completely stupid plot point from a mostly stupid big event didn’t help this.

· Why is Jason’s costume still up in the Cave now that he’s a psycho killer? And why is Stephanie Brown completely forgotten? Out with the Todd outfit, in with the Steph outfit in the shrine. Two people live in that Cave and it’s about time they both get reminded of the person that actually had the potential of being a great Robin and how they both failed her miserably.

· In retrospect, Infinite Crisis wasn’t very good. I was carried through it, blind to most of its faults (until the rushed and terrible #7), through sheer momentum. The creation of a really expensive hardcover with the artwork actually finished and the tone and theme of the story more or less completely changed has NOT done much to make me feel like a valued monthly customer of DC either.

· 52 is boring and real-time comic book storytelling is possibly one of the least interesting ideas in comics right now.

· I was convinced on the strength of Daughters of the Dragon (Earth-K approved comic goodness!) to buy Heroes for Hire. Unfortunately, it isn’t what it ought to be. I think being mired in Civil War is a big reason for this, but losing Khari Evans on art is also a major factor.

· Astonishing X-Men is at best middling. Also, I suspect Whedon will be the death of Runaways for most of us that are currently fans. This upsets me as I am a big fan of most of Whedon’s tv work.

· Civil War is big and stupid, which actually apparently seems to be the point. So I guess that’s a win…ish.

· I love the new JSofA (see above and tomorrow), but DC’s current policy toward token lesbianism makes me VERY scared of where Stargirl and the underwear-less Maxine Hunkel are headed.

· Three words for the DCU: TOO MUCH RAPE.

· NextWave being canceled is a travesty as it is very possibly the best book Marvel was putting out. Plus, it was Warren Ellis being funny. That doesn’t happen very often…at least not on purpose.

· DC convinced me to pick up several new books OYL, but only one is hanging on and that’s mainly on the strength of Gail Simone (I’m looking at you, All New Atom!). Hawkgirl was just embarrassingly bad. Sword of Atlantis looked to be going somewhere, but the driving force behind it is leaving it before it’ll have anything like the needed time to breathe. I am now very leery of trying new DC things, and that’s too bad.

· I feared this when I first read about it, but Richard Donner really doesn’t have a clue what to do with Superman. Also, a modicum of continuity might want to be observed just in case anybody who actually reads Superman comics decides to check it out.

· Killing the Question and (probably) making the most annoying character created in the last ten years the NEW Question is a really stupid idea. Possibly stupider than killing the beloved Blue Beetle and replacing him with a token minority in high school wearing Kirby-tech.

· As I have made mention of token lesbians and token minorities, it is incumbent to say that I have nothing against some racial diversity in comic book universes; in fact I think it’s a very good idea. But when you see the treatment of Super Chief and Black Goliath, it is difficult for my cynical internal monologue to not assume that the well of minority characters is being refilled in order to have somebody to kill in ten years.

· The new Supergirl is poorly conceived and brings so much baggage with her that I would likely still find her unreadable even if they managed to put somebody on their book that knew their word processor from a hole in the ground.

Okay, that’s all my negativity. Tomorrow…POSITIVE things! Comics I love! Comics you should be READING! Comics that are doing it RIGHT, whatever that means!

I Can't Wait to See What I Get Next Punishment Day!

A few months back, the incomparable Chris Sims of the indescribably awesome Chris's Invincible Super-Blog held the a Q&A contest in which his loyal blog monkeys could post random and creative questions for him, all of which he would answer, with the best question being rewarded with free comic swag, an autographed issue of Cracked magazine featuring an article by Mr. Sims, and, the pièce de résistance, a badly drawn crayon picture of the super-hero of the winner's choice.

My question was this:

Question: is this page from Punisher 2099 funny because it's funny, or is it funny because it's not?



Imagine my surprise when, after three days of answering some truly innovative and entertaining questions, the generous Mr. Sims named yours truly the winner with the following response:

Answer: I don't know, but that might be the single greatest page in comics history, and I am going to insert those phrases into every single conversation I have from now on.

"Hey Chris, how many donuts do you want?"

"Thirty six... CALIBER."

Congratulations, Cap'n Neurotic! You've earned yourself:

• A poorly-done crayon drawing of the comic book character of your choosing!
• A signed copy of CRACKED Magazine #2, featuring two and a quarter pages of all-new Chris Sims "humor!"
• Max Collins and Terry Beatty's Wild Dog #1-4, where a vigilante in a hockey jersey kicks a terrorist in the face so hard that it breaks his neck!
• And my personal copies of The Punisher #22-23, where Frank Castle attends Ninja Training Camp, as seen in the ISB's One Year Awesomeversary!

Soon after posting the results, The Expert on All That Is Awesome contacted me to get my mailing address -- he initially inquired if he should just mail it to "the edge" -- and find out which comic book characer I would like him to draw poorly; after much soul-searching, I finally decided on the ultimate kung-fu super-hero, Iron Fist.

Not too long after that, I learned that The Great and Powerful Sims had a MySpace page. After being added to his friends list, I left him the following comment:

Many thanks for the add, sir, even if your horribly fabricated profile means you're a filthy, filthy liar. Why, I bet the crayon drawing you promised won't even be poorly, poorly drawn. Let me warn you now: if I get a well-drawn picture, I will be sorely disappointed.

Unless it's of Iron Fist kicking MODOK in the head, in which case, all is forgiven.

Lo and behold, what should arrive in my mailbox a few weeks later but this:


It's hard to explain just how giddy this picture makes me. I'm just sorry it's taken me this long to get it scanned in for the entire world to enjoy.

Random Comic Book Panel Theater 2099: Half Insect, Half Man -- All Cop

Okay, the following has little to nothing to do with the actual plot of the issue of Ghost Rider 2099 it came from, which is all about the Cyborg of Vengeance jacking into the head of his comatose girlfriend, but that's okay: I think the sequence speaks for itself.

Random Comic Panel Theater 2099: Punishment Day!

Inspired by the "World Tour" storyline in Exiles, I've recently gotten my hands on a bunch of the old Marvel 2099 series. Overall, I've been pleased; Spider-Man 2099 and Doom 2099 in particular are both great series. Sure, there are some stinkers in there (Ravage 2099 and Hulk 2099 spring to mind) but I've have been pleasently surprised by a couple (Ghost Rider 2099 and X-Men 2099) . Today's Random Comic Book Panel Theater installment comes from one of the more uneven titles in the line, Punisher 2099, during that period in the series where our titular character has had a bit of a psychotic break. And really, what fun is a Punisher series without a psychotic break now and again?

And Lo, There Shall Come . . . an Indexer!

As if I didn't have enough on my plate already, I recently signed up to be an indexer for The Grand Comics Database project, which should put my skills as a librarian and my curse of borderline OCD to good use. Plus, it counts towards my "professional development" which means that, in a way, I'm finally getting paid to do comic book related work. Sure, it's not any more than I was being paid before I started indexing, and technically I'm not supposed to spend more than 5% of my time on it, but that's beside the point.

So without further ado, I give you my first indexed issue.

Please, hold your applause.

These Random Thoughts Came From Earth-K!

As you might remember from a previous post where the Cap'n and I take responsibility for being slackers when it comes to posting, I'm starting a new business. This means that money and time are very tight and, unfortunately, comics have been the first thing to give. However, out of his great largesse, Zac Of The Great Heroes Quotes loaned me a FAT stack of books from the last few months so I'd have something to read. Naturally, they have elicited a response. I'm machine-gunning through the stack, so I'm having all kinds of thoughts that aren't worthy of a whole post BUT might turn into one later. They are as follows:

• So Marvel is doing a crossover with Guiding Light. Frankly, the fact that this came from the most uninteresting manufactured event in comics (the totally organic, no you really should have seen it coming marriage between Black Panther and Storm) just makes it all the more fascinating to me. You can argue the finer points of cross-marketing all day if you like, but the fact is that this thing will probably work (depending on your definition) and here's why. If you take a long running super-hero comic and switch money for super powers and sex for fistfights, you've got a daytime soap. Deal with it.

• What the high-falootin' HELL is going on with Supergirl? I understand that the original Kara we knew and loved is dead and gone forever (as much as anyone is in comics). Agree or not, I also understand that, while Peter David's Supergirl is a huge fan favorite and a tremendously well written comic, there were some who couldn't wrap their minds around an earth-bound angel mixed with a disenfranchised teenager and a glob of goo from a pocket dimension getting to wear the most famous set of super-colors in the world. But this bizarre thing we have masquerading as Kara now just floors me. She's Superman's cousin, programmed by Zor-El to kill baby Kal out of jealousy for living in Jor's shadow his whole life? And he does this while the planet is CONSUMED around him? Now that's petty on a magnificent scale. Then she goes to Kandor (which was not what I expected from the bottle city at all, did I miss a memo?) with a Supergirl we like, makes out with a guy she thinks is her cousin but who might be Ultraman from Qward or even from the original Earth 3 (since yellow sun works on him, see) and then goes home in a snit to date Captain Boomerang II. I have all the issues, I know I didn't miss one, but it sure FEELS like I missed at least two or three. This bullet will see a longer post in the future I think, because this is a giant mess.

• Just what is Ultimate Fantastic Four up to being this damn good? This God War thing with Pasqual Ferry on pencils is just friggin' genius and the stuff before that ranged from pretty good reads to damn fine comics despite Greg Land's static art style. I've always felt like FF should work for me and I've been shocked when it hasn't. This, against all odds, is working for me.
  

• I have no idea what is going on in Ultimate Power #1. Sometimes I consider this a strength in comics. The world is so weird and wild and wonderful, I SHOULD feel like I'm getting left out of the loop a bit by what's going on (see above about God War). I can't imagine me reading the rest of it even for free out of somebody else's long boxes. Bendis' typical nothing happens writing style + Land's prettiest art that doesn't seem to breathe = me being bored. The Serpent Society was sexy in a sideshow way though.

• First the Dead Girl mini and now the Oath. Is Marvel working to make Dr. Strange an actual character we can enjoy reading about instead of a walking epiteph and exposition machine? I hope so, because I enjoyed the Oath LOTS.
  

• I like Lone Ranger a lot, but it seems a little strange to take this long to retell an origin that almost everyone knows. Or maybe I'm projecting. Zac thought the bullets-as-eye-holes was a new addition to the mythos, so I might be in the minority of kowing the Lone Ranger story in such detail. The raggedy-ass mask in the cover of issue 3 looks great, though. Well done.

• I'm still working my way through the Civil War core books. I can't say that I think its genius or even particularly good, but I am heartily amused. It's like watching two strippers wrestle in Jell-O while debating the finer points of our foreign policy. Then, in between each round of the wrestling match, they bring out some old men in military uniforms and kick them in the groin just for a change of pace. Gratuitous is the best word I can use to sum it up. Dammit, I'm still reading it, though.

I'm barely a third of the way through the stack, so I'm sure there'll be more random thoughts to come.

DC One Million and What Makes Crossovers Good

In honor of the fact that Brad Meltzer is boring the pants of anyone with sense to see it over in the self-importantly titled Justice League of America and that Marvel is apparently working double time to alienate as many readers as humanly possible with Civil War, I spent some time this weekend rereading a collection from the unarguably last truly great massive crossover event. Naturally, this event just happened to coincide with the arguably last great run of the JLA. Astute readers will have guessed that I speak of the unparalleled DC One Million.

Rather than get deep into the story and possibly ruin all the great twists and turns it takes, I want to point out the things it does RIGHT when it comes to crossovers.

First of all, it was giant, crazy, sci fi fun, like a Silver Age story seen through a Modern Age lens (not unlike All-Star Superman or Earth 2). The story felt huge and not just because it impacted every single DCU title (which it managed to do in a significant way, but I’ll come to that). It also felt big because the danger was epic, the characters were epic, the entire concept of a Justice League from 830 centuries in the future is epic, everything is simply HUGE. Not “widescreen” whatever the hell that means, but everything had import and the pace never slipped in the main miniseries. It was a breakneck pace punctuated by moments of radness that added to the overall experience but weren’t the main point of the overall experience.

Second, this wasn’t a crossover focused on “fixing things” or retcons and had nothing to do with the past at all, it was fundamentally about the FUTURE. Not only within the actual narrative, but by creating a whole slew of new concepts for writers to play with in future stories. A Superman Dynasty? Marrying into the Fifth Dimension’s royalty? Solaris, the Tyrant Sun? Although nobody has had the guts to touch Morrison’s shiny new toys, the beauty is that SOMEBODY will. They’re just sitting there, waiting. One of the best (and worst) things about comics is that we NEVER throw anything away. Bottom line, the whole crossover hung together in a clever way that didn’t feel forced at all, it was simply a story big enough to involve everyone in the DCU.

Incidentally, as a corollary to the above, there were a ton of small ideas thrown in there as well. Mentioning how long Steel’s armor survived and who wore it, the idea of some Starmen being very evil because of Jack Knight’s dalliance with the Mist and a thousand other small (in comparison) ideas that could be used in a big way.

Third, this crossover had moments for second and third stringers that didn’t involve getting their heads blown off or being struck to death with a bolt of lightning. The reason I give a crap about reading Huntress in Birds of Prey is because the JLA showed how she could save the day even though she’s kind of a tool on the streets of Gotham. Barda kicking Wonder Woman One Million all over the Watchtower showed that Barda is a warrior sometimes softened into a woman while the Amazons are women sometimes toughened into warriors. Oracle held the whole damn world together when it was going absolutely mad (which she would do AGAIN in Infinite Crisis). The Resurrection Man is the most valued member of the Justice Legion of the future, how cool is that?

Fourth, the story totally held together. The core story had about fifty characters between heroes, villains and those in between and was spread across 830 centuries and still managed to make complete sense in the end. What’s more, it managed a Shakesperean or Greco-tragic moment when the JLAs of two eras were forced into making the most difficult and costly decision they’ll ever have to make because it affected not just their own two times, but all the centuries in between.

Fifth, there were no Red Sky tie-ins. Every single DCU title gave a glimpse into the 853^rd century. Granted, some were more interesting or well crafted than others, but nobody had to wonder how this issue of Supergirl or Titans or (believe it or not) Hitman tied into the overall story. Not every title was essential to understanding the bigger plot, but every issue added color and depth.

Sixth, this gigantic company-wide mega-crossover event was done in a month. One. Month. No four monthly lead-ins and 7 months (if it was on time) of core crossover or putting your entire line on hold so that the timing will work out. In four weeks, every corner of the DCU was affected by an epic storyline, we all had a great rollercoaster ride, and then it was over. No fill-in artists or host of inkers (and One Million still looked great, BTW), no glossing over backgrounds, in short, no half-assing. My socks were thoroughly rocked for a solid four weeks and then it returned to my regularly scheduled programming. Whoever thought of that ought to get a medal and a handshake from the President.

I tried to keep this mostly positive, although some stark contrasting had to happen to drive home my point. One Million was great, it deserves better treatment than a single volume printed on toilet paper that you can buy at your LCS, but if that’s all you can afford, get it. If you want, try for whole runs on ebay or go through the dusty back issue bins of every LCS you come within a five mile radius of or try and fill it in at cons. If you have adaptable ethics, there are ways to read every single issue of it on the internet. Whatever you have to do, ignore insulting do-overs of crossovers with marginal quality in ridiculously over-priced collections, ignore an attempt to apply super-heroics to “ripped from the headlines events” and go on a trip to the 853^rd century. You won’t be disappointed.

This Quote Came from Earth-K!

Heroes isn't that bad, but after two episodes it's really starting to reek of the unearned self-importance that only big-network TV can deliver. But I'll still watch it.

Zac Beverage,
Friend of Tate and the man that made up the Nike Swoosh

This Review Came from Earth-K! V for Vendetta...the MOTION PICTURE

I finally saw V for Vendetta this weekend. I didn’t rush right out to see it in the theater or immediately rent it because the Wachowskis are, at best, hit and miss; and that’s taking into account that I’m the only person in the world, it seems, who thought the first Matrix was crap. The other reasons I didn’t see it were From Hell (the movie), LXG (and if the fact that this film was renamed LXG doesn’t tell you everything about the process of the book’s adaptation, then there is little hope for you) and the fact that Alan Moore didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

I don’t worship at Moore’s altar, but I do think he does good work most of the time. The first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a lot of his super-hero work, From Hell, Tom Strong (and the majority of the ABC line) are all really great reads that often have additional layers of either meaning or metafictional goodness, but they don’t mean he can do no wrong. Similarly, the fact that he’s done some stuff that is virtually unreadable (Promethea) and is now making forays into depicting child (and adult, to be fair) pornography as art doesn’t mean he has lost all ability and credibility. That being said, I do think it means something when an author says he doesn’t want to have anything to do with adaptations of his work. Be he prima donna who doesn’t like his vision to be futzed with or an indignant artist who feels his work is being manhandled, you make the call! Frankly, I think Moore is both…that’s how even-handed (fence-riding) I am.

The movie is watchable. I’m not willing to give it much more than that. Natalie Portman once again hands in a performance that makes me wonder what the hell she was doing when she was on screen in the Star Wars prequels. In other words, it was good to the point of amazing whereas she could have been replaced with CGI in Star Wars, and that C stand for cardboard. Hugo Welling does an AMAZING job of creating V through voice alone and left me wondering how he managed to make me think the Fawkes mask looked sad at times. The rest of the cast does their jobs well and the art direction/set design is very visually interesting.

The film wasn’t without problems, however. Moore’s book very starkly placed fascism and anarchy at two ends of the political spectrum, having the government decidedly fascist and V blatantly working towards anarchy. The movie has a totalitarian government with fascist overtones, but doesn’t really make them ideologically fascist. V, on the other hand, seems to be focused on freedom as opposed to anarchy, but the two aren’t remotely the same thing. This isn’t the only place that the movie diverges from the book, but it is by far the most problematic. I’m prepared for changes in narrative and characterization (like giving V a characterization, for one thing), but what we have here is a total transplant of ideas and concepts into a very similar story. America worships freedom as the ultimate end and the only thing we should be focused on, but that isn’t nearly the same thing as the anarchy that V espouses in the book. The ideological transplant ends up being something like a decent but noticable nose job. Each piece looks good on its own and they fit together reasonably well, but it isn’t a perfect match.

This leads to another chink in the armor. Alan Moore was a disenfranchised Englishman making political commentary about Thatcher-era England by setting his story in a dystopian UK. The Wachowskis are apparently disenfranchised Americans who don’t have the balls to do a political commentary on Bush-era America set in America, so they co-opt V for Vendetta and let the framework of the story and England do the heavy lifting. It makes the use of the phrase "Uncompromising Vision" on the above poster a little ironic and annoyed me the longer I watched. I desperately wanted them to tell me a story where America’s current situation was taken to a logical extreme and have it make an impact on AMERICA. The whole thing feels like a giant copout and I’m surprised I didn’t hear more about it when the movie first came out.

While the set dressing was very nice, there were a couple of serious disconnects for me. One was every time the Chancellor addresses his cabinet from a 70ft screen. It is a great visual, very Orwellian (a literal Big Brother), but not even remotely realistic. I mean, seriously, if I were elected President in ten years and started telling my cabinet and the Congress that I’d be addressing them only from some hidden location and instead of a serviceable big screen television, they’d have to look at a face 70ft tall, there is no way the press wouldn’t find out about it. Even a press controlled by the State wouldn’t be able to suppress fun facts like that and I would instantly be seen as a super-villain of some sort. Nobody besides world conquering megalomaniacs would relate to people this way!

My final analysis: watch the flick, but be prepared for a C movie with some A+ stuff that nets it up to C+ or B- if I’m feeling generous. The messages and themes get muddied up something fierce and nobody is really quite the same as they are in the book, but its still entertaining. In fact, if you are a lover of the graphic novel, I think you’ll probably be unhappy about the adaptation, so you should probably just save yourself the heartache. Instead, be happy that you can now buy a really nice Guy Fawkes mask from DC Direct.

This Excuse Comes From Earth-K!

I'd like to apologize for the lack of posts, recently; there's been some interdimensional interference which has made it difficult to make the transition from Earth K to here. I'd like to go into more detail about the difficulties, but am afraid that the particulars are too complicated for those not well-versed in dimensional travel. The best metaphor I can come up with is that the interference is very much like if I had gotten a promotion at work which sucks up all of my free time, while simultaneously moving into a new place which is currently without Internet access due to the actions of a previous tenant.

For the record, Bubblegum Tate thinks that my metaphor is horribly flawed; he prefers to compare the interference to quitting a job due to an unhealthy work environmen and taking classes in order to start up your own P.I. business, right before finding out that you and your wife will soon be parents.

Potato, potahto.

Moon, Mon

I'm not sure which one of thes December solicitation covers has me more excited: the return of Mon-El to the pages of Legion



Or the return of Moonstone to the pages of Thunderbolts



Oh, who am I kidding: love Lar as I do, Thunderbolts just isn't the same without the Machiavellian Dr. Sofen.

Welcome back, Karla; here's hoping you're here to stay this time.

I Be ILLin'

You know, it's really a good time to be a comic geek.

And I'm not just talking about the wide range of comics to choose from, or the high quality of writing, or even the plethora of comic related movies, TV shows, and the like, although all of those are cool. But the thing that makes me the happiest to be a comic geek at this point in time is the proliferation of comic books at public libraries.

Growing up I was always a big reader of all formats, but one of the happiest days in my young life was the day when I first memorized that magical Dewey Decimal number: 741.5 , the number for all things comic related. Granted, the pickings in the 741.5 range at the Miami* Public Library were pretty slim, comprised mostly of comic strip collections. And while these collections did introduce me to the denizens of Dogpatch and the freaky world of Charles Addams, it was the small number of volumes devoted to comic books that really grabbed my interest. The actual comic book collections was limited to some "so-and-so through the ages" style collections devoted to showing selected highlights from the 30s through the 70s of the Dark Knight, the Man of Steel, and The Big Red Cheese. Oh, and Marvel's The Superhero Women, which featured such noteworthy characters as The Cat and Shanna the She-Devil.

Now, while these minimal number of collections were nice, and did introduce me to many of the mainstays of the DC universe, it was the comic related reference books which I found myself endlessly fascinated by. Filled with references to characters I'd never heard of before (Hydro-Man? The Black Terror? Captain Triumph?), these historical records of the evolution of the comic industry were a goldmine to my comic-hungry young mind. Even better, some of them actually included reprints of full stories from the Golden Age, such as the origins of Crimebuster

the Golden Age Daredevil

and the aforementioned Hydroman


These glimpses into the past merely whetted my appetite for more, and I would spend many years grousing about the difficulty of reading every comic I wanted to read without it costing me a small fortune.

But now times, they have changed.

In the past several years there has been an explosion in the number of public libraries which regularly purchase TPBs for their collections; my own local library has a standing order for all things related to Supes, Bats, Spidey, and the Muties, plus a few other odds and ends for good measure. But even with a great source for comics at the local library level, there's an even better source.

The wonders of Inter-Library Loan.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, ILL is a process by which you can ask your local library to contact other libraries throughout the country in order to borrow something your library doesn't own. It is thanks to ILL that I was able to read the entirety of Cerebus, Bone, Castle Waiting, SpyBoy, Love Fights to name just a few. True, not everything is available through ILL, and there are many things which I'll purchase even if available through ILL just to help support the titles, but for someone who wants to read anything and everything and yet has a fairly limited budget, the power of the library is an effective tool. Plus, the more comic books get circulated, the more money libraries will be willing to spend on purchasing new collections, which, in my opinionation, can't be anything but good for the industry.

So, do yourself a favor: the next time you're curious about a title, but aren't quite ready to part with the cash, take a trip down to the local library and see what's what -- you might be surprised.

*OK, not FL, and therefore pronounced My-am-uh not My-am-ee

Random Comic Book Panel Theater: Why I Love Hawk and Dove Pt.2

Dove's real super-power: super-sarcasm!