If there's a word I'd use to describe my comic-book shopping agenda on those weekends when my time is my own and I owe nothing to the world it'd have to be "random." A lot of comics fans like to establish weekly pull lists for their friendly local comic book store, or they subscribe to a certain title on Comixology or the like. They have plans, favored titles and creators that they follow with regularity and basically invest in their haul much the same way as a Netflix subscriber has their to-watch list. Me, I'm not like that. Frequently I'll have an idea of what titles I'd like to check in on, but for the most part I just wander among the new release shelves, letting my feet take me where they will. Some enjoy the thrill of the chase, I just like to wander into new places and see what's doing. So it is with my discovery of Valiant Comics FAITH by the team of Jody Houser, Francis Portella, and Maguerite Sauvage.
Back in the halcyon days of the 1990s I was a huge fan of Valiant Comics. Initially luring me in with their enjoyable takes on classic Gold Key characters like Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Magnus: Robot Fighter (one of my All-Time Favorite Characters), the Valiant brand expanded to a number of unique creations such as Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, and Harbinger. Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons too involved to go into for the purposes of this article, Valiant in the '90s shut down and their stable of characters was consigned to the limbo of back issue bins for the better part of two decades. Recently the line made a comeback however, and with the aid of a number of talented creators the line has again become a force to be reckoned with. Books like RAI, ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, and THE ETERNAL WARRIOR are once again making their way back into my To-Read pile and I couldn't be happier.
The eponymous lead of FAITH spins out of a title called HARBINGER, but you don't need to have read that book in order to enjoy this one. The elevator pitch is as follows:
"When a car accident left her orphaned, Faith Herbert was raised by her loving grandmother and found comfort in comic books, science fiction movies, and other fantastic tales of superheroes. In her teens she would discover her fantasies were reality when it was revealed she was a psiot--a human being born with incredible abilities. Faith joined a group of fellow psiots called the Renegades to stand against the forces of evil. She's since left her Renegade family behind to take on the world's challenges on her own. She may have a lot to learn about the superhero game, but if there's one thing she's always had, it's. . .FAITH."
FAITH BEGINS opens with our heroine attempting to make a life for herself as a superheroine and reporter in California, but with the journalism game not being all it's cracked up to be she's settled for being an online content generator for an entertainment website by day and the superheroic Zephyr by night. Gradually though she's pulled into a greater mystery that may involve ties to the psiot community, and when things escalate, they escalate quickly for our heroine.
You ever meet a character in a fictional piece and it feels like you've known them forever? Faith Herbert is like that. She's got superhero memorobilia, statues, she makes pop culture references. One of the highest compliments I can give Jody Houser's writing is that the character feels like people I've known in my life in fandom. . .hell, people I still actively know. People like myself. An engaging protagonist who you come to care about and actively root for is a key to longevity in an increasingly expensive comics fandom, and the team succeeds in bringing her to life with aplomb. Francis Portella's artwork allows for a nice blend of the fantastic and the familiar, from high-flying superheroics to the office politics many of us know only too well. And a special shout-out has to go to Marguerite Sauvage, whose work on Faith's fantasy sequences give us a fun snapshot of our heroine's psyche.
It's a rare treat to find a title that you grok to so quickly and easily as FAITH. Whether you're a longtime fan or a complete comics neophyte, titles like this are ones everyone can enjoy. The first and second issues are on the stands now and I give them my heartiest and highest recommendation possible. I haven't had this much fun with a character since THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL. Not feeling most of the superhero titles out there? Have some FAITH my friend. You won't regret it.
Tabletop roleplaying games have been a part of my life for over thirty years now. My first encounter with the medium took place almost by accident at the age of eight. We were visting my friend Owen's house in Fort MacMurray, Alberta and I discovered some orange-spined books featuring monsters on the cover belonging to his father. Being a voracious reader even back then I dove into them, and discovered in short order that this wasn't a traditional book. There was no story, just a collection of monsters, their backstories, and some odd series of numbers I didn't quite understand. This was my first encounter with the Monster Manual of first edition Dungeons & Dragons, detailing everything from goblins and kobolds to Zeus and Great Cthulhu. In the span of what had to have been a few hours visit my fate was sealed forever. Unfortunately, as I was going to Catholic school at the time (an irony not lost upon me today), my grade school self would have to wait a few more years until I could come into my own and discover roleplaying games properly.
I'm going to assume that a lot of people here are familiar with tabletop RPGs, but on the off-chance you aren't here's the thumbnail sketch: imagine the games you played in childhood (Star Wars, superheroes, GI Joe, or even the traditional Cops & Robbers) carried over into adulthood, but with a formal rule structure based around the outcome of die rolls as final arbiter of certain situations or actions ("I hit you!" "Did not!" "Did too!"). D&D is the most famous example of this, based around fantasy settings a la Lord of the Rings, but there are other mediums too. Science fiction, superheroes, Weird Westerns, Steampunk, Planetary Romance, if it's got a following chances are good there's a system to make it happen.
My next encounter with tabletop games happened a few years later after I'd moved back to Nova Scotia. Being a nascent geek, I instantly gravitated toward the emerging comicbook stores/games shops that were on the rise in the greater Halifax/Dartmouth area, and one day while at one of these shops, I discovered the volume TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES & OTHER STRANGENESS. Understand, by this point (1988 or 1989, details blur) I was a huge TMNT fan. I had the Mirage trade paperbacks, tolerated the cartoon adaption (which wasn't nearly as cool, but hey, points for robot ninjas and the Technodrome), and the notion that there was a game where I could not only play one of the characters but build my own badass mutated animal hero? Where do I sign?! I also made another discovery that Palladium Games(the company which produced TMNT&OS) also produced the ROBOTECH roleplaying game. I was hooked, and hooked hard.
Of course, the problem of any RPG is finding a group with which to play, and in Nova Scotia in the late '80s to early '90s, that was hard for me. My cousin Nathan ran a few Robotech games for myself and my brother, but his heart wasn't really in it. I played a couple more games through junior high and high school, but it never quite took off into a regular campaign.
And yet I would continually purchase roleplaying games, from the hefty core rulebooks to supplementary tomes. Like the ant in the fable with his friend the grasshopper, I kept hoarding these gamebooks for reasons quite beyond me (and beyond my parents and my own Wallet, to say the least). Even today I'll still buy a games system, though most of them gather dust on my shelf or sit idle in boxes. Why is that?
I think it stems back to a couple factors. My family moved around a lot and I was an introverted kid, spending a lot of time inside my own head. These books weren't just collections of stats and figures, they were a window into another world, where I could be more than just The New Kid. On Krynn I could be a Knight of Solamnia, in the Outer Rim I could be a daring smuggler one step ahead of the Empire, or I could be the newest costumed hero to take the fight against evil to the mean streets of Gotham City. They were an escape, and I used them to put myself into places and worlds where I felt more dynamic, more confident, and more together than I did at the time I bought them.
But a lot of these systems never got played. They sat on shelves and while I enjoyed them, I never partook of them, except for a few online excursions and play by e-mail. Well, that's going to change. This column (which will be released on a more-or-less-regular basis) is going to be me examining the game systems I own. From old favorites to recent purchases, it'll be an effort to understand why I got them, what I hope to gain from them, and maybe even how I'll run them for my friends. At the very least it'll help me put all this spent time (and money) to a productive use. At the very most it'll help me provide you with some insight on game systems you might want to try out for your own amusement. Plus, being in public and making plans about a game forces me to, y'know, actually produce something, which can only help a born procrastinator like yours truly.
So join me next time as we discuss a game system, why I got it, what's good about it, and whether or not I run it. And if you've got a favorite system you'd like to hear me talk about, comment on the blog and if I own it (I own a bunch, so its probably on my shelf somewhere) I'll be happy to rap about it.
I was watching television when an advertisement for Disney's upcoming cinematic abomination The Sorcerer's Apprentice(that high-pitched turbine sound you hear in the middle distance would be Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spinning in his grave at a bastardization of his work created solely as a Harry Potter cash grab) and in those moments as the white-hot haze of contempt and rage worked their magic over me I experienced a moment of sublime clarity: I am rapidly coming to hate the concept of the Chosen One.
It's a staple almost as old as fiction itself: the one boy/girl/man/woman/dog/cat/pineapple who can save the world and defeat the Evil One, thus restoring peace to the land and blah, blather, bleh. The coming of this hero is usually foretold, most likely via a prophecy or an oracle or even an urban legend spread via word of mouth. He'll be meek an unassuming at first, maybe even an outright child, but gradually he levels up in badassery until he finally slays the Big Bad, the music swells and the credits roll and etc, etc, etc. . .Joseph Campbell noted the similarities between myths across various cultures and eventually created a term for this kind of story: The Hero's Journey. Basically, it breaks down as follows:
'A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.'
Within this pattern everything from Beowulf to Braveheart, from Gilgamesh to John McClane can be encapsulated. Which can be a double-edged sword when it comes to attempting to win over an increasingly genre-savvy audience.
Don't get me wrong, in the hands of a master storyteller this formula can be as gripping and engaging as anything you've ever heard but it seems of late that this story is the only one that can be told. As a result what was once a seemingly shock-proof, indestructible example of story is now beginning to show telltale signs of wear.
I've no issue with a hero being the last hope. Hell, it worked out just fine for my favorite non-kryptonian hero Luke Skywalker(and yes, I realize a lot of my bile from the earlier paragraph could easily be applied to Luke. Kinda. Maybe. Shut up) in his rise from whiny farmboy to the first of the Returned Jedi. The whole notion of one chosen throughout the world to battle the demons, the vampires, and the forces of darkness didn't bother me either, as Buffy Summers was part of a continuum of Slayers whose legacy spanned the centuries. These variants on the classic Hero's Journey work for me, as they worked for legions of Star Wars and Buffy fans the world over(and even Star Wars and Buffy took that formula and turned it completely on it's head: Anakin Skywalker may have been the Chosen One, but look how he went about it. Buffy took Destiny by the throat and shook it until the Chosen One became the Chosen Many).
No, it's the repetition of this cycle over and over in the wake of Pottermania that's making my teeth grind together, as Hollywood throws whatever it can up on screen in the hopes of squeezing a tired premise one more time in hopes of wringing blood from a stone. While The Sorcerer's Apprentice might actually be a decent film, and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief may well have rocked on toast, it's this continued reuse of a tired formula again and again that is a surefire kiss of death to your film, comic, or novel. Simply put, your audience knows the score. Give them some credit, and throw them the occasional twist to keep them amused and entertained(Deep Blue Sea contains my favorite example of this, as the Heroic Leader archetype in the form of Sam Jackson is suddenly and rather graphically cut off mid-sentence. Stone silence in the theatre save for me busting out laughing and thanking the screenwriter mentally for tipping his hat to me so jauntily).
If a story is well-told with passion then whether or not it's structure is familiar won't matter at all. But if it's just in it for the money, we're going to see the emperor's new clothes exactly for what they are. Nothing at all.
Doctor Who is the best science fiction series on television. The renegade Time Lord and his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) have been travelling through the vortex for over 46 years now, and the series has accumulated hundreds of episodes worth of amazing adventures through time and space. Flat out it is my absolute favorite science fiction program, one I recommend wholeheartedly and without reservation. Yes, the older episodes do feature wobbly sets and aliens that look cobbled together from cardboard and aluminum foil, but there was such an insane fury to the show, a zest and bounce and sense of fun that helped it through the cheesiest of cheesy episodes during it's original tenure of 1963-1989. Put 'on hiatus'(a nice way of saying cancelled) in '89, the show would not return to the airwaves (with the exception of a Fox television movie in '98) until 2005.
Trying to explain the continuity of a show that's damn near 50 years old would be an exercise in pointless futility, so let's break it down to the essentials. The Doctor (the only name he's ever given, apart from the occasional alias of Dr. John Smith) is a Time Lord, the last of his race who fought a war throughout time and space from which he emerged as the sole survivor. He's an alien being with twin hearts, a phenomenal constitution (two hearts and the ability to undergo a regenerative process that makes him a completely new man. . .which has allowed the series to have had a total of ten--soon to be eleven--actors inhabit the title role), and an intelligence that'd put a skyscraper full of geniuses to shame. He roams through time and space, a wanderer and a vagabond who often travels with people from Earth, his favorite planet. His mode of transportation is the aforementioned TARDIS, a space-time machine from his home planet of Gallifrey that the Doctor 'borrowed' centuries ago to escape the Utopian tedium of his home planet so very long ago. The TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental (leading many to note in awe that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside) and--if in proper working order--would possess a chameleon circuit allowing it to blend in seamlessly with the surrounding countryside whenever it materialized from the depths of the space-time vortex. Unfortunately, the Doctor's ship isn't exactly in perfect working order, and after a time the circuit jammed and the TARDIS became stuck in the shape of a London police box from the 1950s(it's also a point of irony that for the most advanced piece of technology his enemies or companions will ever see, the Doctor's TARDIS is old and holding together with a combination of the Doctor's technical know-how, bailing wire, and liberal amounts of percussive maintenance). With this simple formula, what originally was intended as a children's program about history morphed into a science fiction saga that has enthralled millions.
David Tennant (perhaps best known to North American audiences for playing Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) is nearing the end of his tenure as the 903 year-old protector of time and space, and they're bringing his era of Doctor Who to an end with four specials, The Waters of Mars being the second to last. The TARDIS lands on Mars in the year 2059, bringing the Doctor to Bowie Base One, the first human outpost on the red planet. Here he quickly finds himself entangled in a potential disaster. . .one that must become a certainty. You see, Bowie Base One was destroyed on November 21st, 2059. It's destruction a matter of historical fact. But as the body count rises and the clock counts down, can the Doctor stand idly by and let history take it's course, knowing that it means watching good people die?
The Waters of Mars is vintage Doctor Who, with the Doctor coming across an outpost or way station and becoming embroiled in the events there. The kicker is that this is one instance where his intervention is something that has to be avoided; this disaster must take place as it's a matter of recorded historical fact. How that fact endures with the Doctor's presence is one of many twists and turns through an enjoyable enough adventure, though to be fair I have to say it's not the series at it's absolute finest. The hidden enemy, the Flood, is effective enough in a scary sort of way, but it's not really developed all that well beyond a spooky method of vampiric transformation and some creepy visuals. The denouement leaves the viewer scratching his head as to whether a big explosion is really capable of taking out alien baddies comprised of water. . .I mean, it'd just be mutated alien water now, wouldn't it? It's effective enough in an Aliens sort of way, but Doctor Who villains work best if they offer a moral or intellectual challenge to the Doctor.
Now that said, the special was still a lot of fun, with Tennant turning in his usual enjoyable performance as the Doctor, albeit one laced with a bit of arrogant darkness that brings the viewer up short at the end. Lindsey Duncan plays Adelaide Brooke, commander of Bowie Base One and the Doctor's 'companion' for this adventure, and it's here that the importance of the companion as moral compass for the Doctor is illustrated nicely. Without someone to question him or provide some perspective, things could go very, very wrong. This episode gives us a nasty example of how even the best of intentions can lead down a very dark road.
Is it the best the series has ever produced? No, for that I'd have to offer Blink or Doomsday for the sheer creepiness or emotional devastation that comes with great Doctor Who episodes. This was good, very good indeed and while it's not the best Who I've ever seen it's certainly a lot more fun than some other shows out there where smiling is verboten and the concept of actually enjoying being in space, having adventures is considered a crime punishable by Angst. Recommended.
Stac
Ps. Sorry it's been so long but I'm neck deep in National Novel Writing Month. I'll post more regularly soon, promise.
2) Purchase Dynamite Entertainment's Buck Rogers #1, written by Scott Beatty, illustrated by Carlos Rafael, with covers by either John Cassady, Alex Ross, or Matt Wagner.
3) Read said issue.
4) Experience joy.
Stac
Ps. I can't wait to get my hands on this book. Seriously, check out the preview here and you might get an inkling of my overall enthusiasm.
PPs. Oh my God, the energy meter on Deering's suit makes a 'bidibidibidibidibi' sound. Glee. . .
'He'll save every one of us!' -tag line from the film.
Every so often, a film comes along that speaks to us about the human condition. It tells us of the loftiest heights of our ambition, the folly of our hubris, and the hope that one day we might come to know a better tomorrow through cooperation and mutual understanding. It's a film embraced by the general public and touted as an artistic exemplar of all our hopes and dreams, a treatise that could possibly lead to the establishment of a finer, better world for all of us. Truly, when these once in a lifetime motion pictures play on our screens we may consider ourselves blessed.
Yeah, those movies are really great. . .but sometimes you just want to chuck the societal/cultural commentary and cut loose with a film that is just gloriously batshit insane. A film with vibrant colors, broad characterization, derring-do, and sheer badassery on an epic scale. A movie that tanked at the box office upon its debut but found a new life on home video as one of the cult classics of an age. A movie that by no stretch of the imagination takes itself seriously. It can't be bothered to; after all love can wait when there's only fourteen hours to save the Earth! If you like your movies ponderous and full of themselves, I can't recommend it, but if you want a film that's wall to wall fun on an epic scale then Flash Gordon just might be your cup of tea.
Despite what the zeitgeist seems to think these days, there was a time when there were space opera heroes other than Luke Skywalker and James T. Kirk. Flash Gordon was a comic strip hero created in the mold of Buck Rogers, who fought intergalactic evil in the spaceways long before George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry turned their thoughts to crafting their own interplanetary sagas. Flash was a polo player and all-around American good guy who--along with his pluck Girl Friday Dale Arden and semi-mad scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov--wound up travelling in space to solve the riddle of mysterious meteors threatening the Earth. Winding up on the distant planet of Mongo, they quickly become the bane of tyrant Ming the Merciless and his countless hordes of evil minions. Beginning in 1934 and continuing as of at least 2003, the comic strip Flash Gordon remains an institution in Science Fiction and Fantasy. It's spun off comicbooks, cartoons, television shows, movie serials. . .and of course a 1980 feature film from Dino De Laurentiis.
De Laurentiis' contributions to pop culture cannot be overstated. The guy produced some of the all-time classics of cult cinema; Barbarella, Death Wish, Conan the Barbarian, the 1976 King Kong remake, and the Flash Gordon film. In later years he would produce such films as Manhunter (which first introduced audiences to Hannibal Lecter), the David Lynch adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic Dune, The Dead Zone, and Army of Darkness. His production company even distributed the Transformers movie back in the '80s. Simply put, he produced some of the most amazing pieces of escapist cinema to come out of the last thirty years. He is, in short, utterly awesome.
Flash is one of those films I'd only ever heard about online or in fandom magazines like Starlog or Cinescape. By the time I'd become aware of this 1980 release it was largely off the radar. Luckily for me it was recently re-released on DVD for the masses to once again become acquainted with this zany little masterpiece. Our paths crossed just this Sunday past when at a Blockbuster for some rental fare I came across the movie in the for sale section. The painted cover by fan-favorite artist Alex Ross drew me in, but the SAVIOUR OF THE UNIVERSE EDITION subtitle was what clinched the deal. A combination of intense curiosity and boredom contributed to my sudden impulse buy. With a few friends in tow, we placed the newly-bought disc into the player. . .and were transported.
I don't want to spoil the film, so a thumbnail sketch of the plot follows: Flash Gordon(Sam Jones) is the newest quarterback sensation for the New York Jets (in the original comics he was a polo player but I guess that wasn't 'manly' enough) on his way back to the big city after some time in the country. He meets a young woman on the flight home, Dale Arden(Melody Anderson), and they take to the skies in a dual-propped plane bound for Manhattan. Unfortunately for them (and the rest of the planet), Earth has been targeted for destruction by the meglomaniacal Ming the Merciless(Max von Sydow), warlord tyrant of the planet Mongo, who plans to annihilate the planet. . .but not before toying with it for a bit.
Enter Dr. Hans Zarkov(Topol), a renegade scientist whose wild theories about imminent attack from another world have led to his abrupt dismissal from NASA. He plans to use an experimental rocket of his own design to seek out this marauding planet threatening our globe and make them see reason. Thing is, he needs a flight crew for the rocket and his own assistant is somewhat less than cooperative. Enter Flash and Dale who--after their pilots are atomized by one of Ming's fierce attacks--come to a crash landing in Zarkov's greenhouse after Flash (who's been taking flying lessons y'see) manages to bring the plane to a rough landing. With a bit of shaky fast-talking and a pistol for persuasion, the intrepid trio soon find themselves blasting off to the stars, falling into a space warp that leads them to the planet Mongo and it's neighboring moons.
Can Flash defeat Ming and his wicked adviser, the crafty Klytus(Peter Wyngarde) and his lieutenant, the wicked Kala(Mariangela Melato)? Will he be able to resist the cunning charms of the nubile Princess Alura(Ornella Muti), Ming's own daughter? Can he unite the squabbling warriors of the forest world of Arboria and their own Prince Balin (Timothy Dalton) and the winged warriors of the hawkmen of Sky City and Prince Vultan(Brian Blessed) into a force to overthrow Ming's tyrannical rule? Can good triumph over evil within the running time of a classic space opera?
Chances are pretty good you know the answers to all of the above, but if you dismiss the film based on it's (admittedly) hokey premise you'd be doing yourself a disservice. Flash is by no means a classic of the genre that will change everything you know about life, the universe, and everything. But it is an amazingly fun, visually stunning, epic piece of purest, zestiest Gorgonzola cheese that doesn't shy away from the cliches of the genre, but embraces them with a zesty grin and a playful wink. If you can't appreciate Flash's battle tactics in Ming's throne room, or his sincere (and repeated) desire to team up with others to overthrow Ming, if you can't accept that a man can be publicly executed, brought back to life, and then be macked on by an amazingly slinky and seductive alien princess, if you cannot accept a universe where people fly and speak in a seeming vacuum on sky sleds and rockets with fins, if you absolutely positively cannot accept a fleet of hawkmen warriors swooping down from the skies amidst the pounding drums and rippling guitar licks of Queen as we're told Flash Gordon is the saviour of the universe! Well, this film may not be for you. It's a cheesy movie, but also a visual feast and amazingly fun in it's corny, endearing way. If you haven't checked it out I encourage you to do so. Mere adjectives cannot hope to encompass the vibrant colors, ludicrous predicaments, and the exultant joy of the delivery of certain lines('The inhabitants refer to it as the planet. . .Earth', 'Gordon's alive?!') have to be seen in order to be believed.
Mike Hodges's direction of the film seems a mixture of the classic Flash serials as well as the '60s Batman television series, which is no surprise given writer Lorenzo Semple Jr's experience with that show. I could cheerleader about this thing all day, but it's only because I was so utterly taken with a film that just dared to be completely, utterly in love with its subject matter and its universe, while being unafraid to look silly doing so. In an age where Science Fiction and Fantasy have become a bit pretentious with how seriously they take themselves, Flash is a welcome breath of fresh air. No, more than that. He's a miracle! Flash! Aaaahhh. . .!
'In the 23rd century... ' -opening text, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Let's get the obvious out of the way right from the beginning; I loved this movie. Truly, madly, and deeply did I fall into utter twitterpation with J.J. Abrams love letter to the original Star Trek series, so much so that it has taken me weeks to sit back and try to look at the film with any degree of critical distance and objectivity. I've explained in previous posts my deep affection for The Original Series and the first six Star Trek films, so upon hearing of this revamp I did what any reasonable, level-headed Trekkie would do: I loathed it outright. The initial teasers did little to improve my mood; it seemed we were destined for an 'Xtreme' take on Trek starring Chris Pine as a James Kirk by way of Johnny Knoxville. I was highly, highly nervous as I sat down Saturday, May 2nd to watch a sneak peak of the film. By the time the credits had rolled, I was utterly charmed by the film, crowing it's praises to my friends and incredibly stoked about the prospects of what the franchise had in store with its new paradigm. I kept mum for over two weeks, which for a pop-culture junkie loudmouth like myself is a feat of herculean inner strength and character. Seriously, you have no idea how much I wanted to blab my guts at length and in great detail. I deserve a gold star, or at least one of those scratch 'n sniff stickers(the one with the bunch of grapes that reads 'Grape job!' would be nice).
As I said I let the film percolate in my brain for weeks after seeing it a second time opening night with my friends. Now that I've given it some appropriate distance we're going to dig into the depths of this film; what worked, what didn't, the whole gamut from the awesome to the absurb. If you've got the stones join me on the pad in transporter room two. Set phasers to stun.
THE GOOD:
The Cast: Whoever did casting for this film should get an extremely generous bonus from Paramount and Bad Robot alike. This is as damn-near a perfect recreation of the original seven characters' chemistry as could be expected from a recreation/remake/reboot of a classic television property. I think only the Brady Bunch movies got this level of eerily, spookily accurate in some instances. Now, admittedly not everyone is a perfect fit. Chris Pine still needs to grow on me a bit as Kirk, though from what I saw in the film there's serious potential. He's got that cocky swagger, that sly cunning, and of course the (slightly) smug charm that epitomizes one James Tiberius Kirk. He's not an exact recreation of Shatner, but over the course of the film he made the character his own.
For eerie recreations I think you'd have to go no further than Zachary Quinto's Spock and Karl Urban's Doctor McCoy. Quinto is almighty spooky in his resemblance to a young Leonard Nimoy and Urban nails Deforrest Kelly's mannerisms and cadence with an accuracy that made me grin from ear to ear. I hadn't realized just how much I missed McCoy in my Star Trek until that moment. I don't think Urban was doing an impersonation so much as an homage, but that's a moot point. What matters is that the original trinity of Trek is recreated with an attention to detail that bodes well for the future of the franchise.
Zoe Seldana makes for an Uhura who's competent as well as comely, and John Cho and Anton Yelchin fill their more limited screen time as Sulu and Chekov with bits of business that make them entertaining to watch. Simon Pegg gets the worst of it, as we have to wait about two-thirds of the film before Scotty makes an appearance, but once he's there he adds some levity to a film that may have been getting a bit full of itself to that point. He's underused, but what is there lays the groundwork for the heroic miracle-worker we all know and love.
Bruce Greenwood makes for an awesome Christopher Pike and I think it's a shame that we didn't get more with him in command of the Enterprise. I realize his purpose for this film was basically to warm Kirk's chair for his inevitable rise to the captaincy, but he was an effective character that had a confidence and command that I think should have stayed in place for at least another movie. We'll get into my thoughts on that as we segue into the negative aspects of the film.
It was fun to see Leonard Nimoy play Spock (or rather, Spock-Prime) for what could well be the last time, though for all the nostalgia his presence brings to the film and how it adds a touch of class of the handoff from old continuity to new, there are questions and problems raised by his presence that I'll address in the negative section.
The Look: Seriously, the film looks amazing. The Starfleet vessels look like a mix of the original series and something more realistic. I'm hesitant to invoke the relaunch of Battlestar Galactica, but the ship design and their usage in space, particularly some of the camera work in keeping track of them, looked great. Nero's mining ship looked suitably menacing, whilst Spock-Prime's odd little ship looked at once futuristic and fantastic.
The centerpiece of the entire movie is, of course, the Starship Enterprise, and she looks as beautiful as you could imagine. Care was taken by the special effects team in honoring the best of the original television series and the films, and it shows. It's not an exact replica but the spirit of the initial design is there. I loved the look of the bridge, the corridors, the transporter room, and sickbay. Engineering. . .well. . .let's leave it for later.
Vulcan and Earth are the worlds at the center of this film, and each looks epic in scope. Vulcan is a harsh, sterile desert world that is so harcore it has buildings that hang down from the bottom of cliffs like stalactites. Tell me that's not hardcore. Earth is a utopian paradise, where Starfleet and the Federation have led to an idyllic world replete with female officers in miniskirts and hot green coeds. What's not to like?
The transporter effects are wicked, the phasers looked at once classic and badass, and the uniforms looked functional but true to the tunics and slacks of the original show. It looked like the Star Trek universe, or at least a fresh take on the old familiar jazz riffs. I ate it up.
It is a prequel, yet it isn't: Time travel in a Star Trek film? That's as groundbreaking and revelatory as the correlation between water and moisture, but the time honored cliche actually works in creating an alternate timeline that allows for new adventures to be told within the classic framework free of previous continuity. As templates for a soft reboot go you could do a lot worse, and it was actually nice to see the characters work all this out for themselves rather than have it exposition-dumped to them by some omnipotent being or some other such plot device(of course, that left Quinto with the unenviable task of providing said exposition dump but hey). This isn't to say there aren't some problems that arise from fiddling around with the space-time continuum, but we'll get to those soon enough.
So yes, some reasoned and salient points on how this movie kicked some ass, and while I was watching it I was 100% on board for both viewings. Let me maintain that I still like the film and enjoyed it immensely, but after a while I found that the more I thought about it, the more I found hard to swallow. Let's talk about
THE BAD:
Nero: What a complete and utter waste of time and space this character was. Don't get me wrong, Eric Bana does his best with what little he's given to work with here but the character suffers from a terminal case of Not-Khan Syndrome. He's got no character, he's just an evil cipher that sits on his throne on his mining ship and is evil for it's own sake. Sure he's reeling from the dual loss of his homeworld and his wife and child, but we don't get to see any of that, his motivation barely gets referred to except in passing, and the character just makes decisions and has methods that to any sensible person in the audience seem utterly moronic:
1) Nero finds himself thrust through a black hole(something that should kill him all kinds'a dead, see below) and finds himself over a century in the past. Now let's think about this for a minute. You're over a hundred years in the past with foreknowledge of what's going to happen to your doomed planet in the future. You mean to tell me Nero just sits on his hands and doesn't inform the Romulan Empire? He doesn't think to set course for the Neutral Zone and warn his people, or to provide them with the amazingly badass technology of his mining ship/spooky-looking death fortress that would surely make the Romulan Star Empire the supreme military force of the Alpha Quadrant?
2) Okay, so you don't go to Romulus. You're pissed as hell at Spock and want him to pay. Well, if that's the case why do you then wait twenty-five years to commence your attack on Vulcan? Why not just roll on up to the planet within a couple days journey at high warp and lay the planet to waste before Spock can A)be born or B) can even be in a position to thwart your evil plan? Is this some weird form of obsessed lunatic chivalry? What, it wasn't sporting to go after Spock at a point before he can stop your plan or be too late to save your world?
3)Nero's mining vessel has a completely nonsensical design to it, and I don't mean in terms of improbable space design, I mean health and general safety. There's water on the floors, platforms from one area to another with no discernable stairwells, poor lighting, and absolutely no guard rails or means to keep you from plummetting to your death. Also it starts out badass and impressive by destroying the U.S.S. Kelvin as well as the Starfleet task force sent to Vulcan, but then becomes completely hapless in the face of the Enterprise and Spock-Prime's teeny little science vessel. What's that about? Also, using their drilling rig to place the Red Matter is also stupid as hell. Why use the drill to slowly bore into a planet's surface when a well-placed disruptor blast could do the same job? Why does the black hole have to be in the planet's core? I'm reasonably sure that if you have something that can create a black hole and then place said black hole next to a planetary body, that world is pretty much screwed, to say nothing of anything in the immediate vicinity. Which brings me to my next point.
4) If you're going to use a drill with a long, dangling cord, maybe take the oppurtunity over the course of the twenty-five years you spent waiting and plotting your revenge to oh, I don't know, armor it up? God almighty, you think if Darth Vader had noticed the exhaust ports on the Death Star he'd have gone 'No, leave that horribly vulnerable spot there for the next twenty years or so. I honestly can't see them ever being a problem.' Oy.
Science Doesn't Work That Way, Even In Trek: What the hell is Red Matter, and who thought it'd be a good idea to use a black hole to stop a sun from going nova? That's like dousing someone on fire with gasoline in an effort to put them out. It makes no frickin' sense. Surely there'd be some way by the late 24th century to get a sun's core to level out. I mean, at the very least Picard should be able to get Q on speed-dial and ask for a favor.
'Yes Q, I will wear the pink bunny suit to all my diplomatic functions for an entire year. Yes Q. Just fix the sun of Romulus. Thanks.'
Time Travel. It will make you insane: In a way, I might have almost preferred a full reboot of the franchise if it meant that the following roadblock wasn't sitting in my path. Once I thought about it, the entire film becomes a retroactive act in frustration. I think the only thing worse than being a writer of speedsters like the Flash has to lie in writing anything that deals with time travel, especially in Star Trek.
Spock-Prime is trapped in the past with Nero, but the thing is, Spock has time travelled before. Like, a lot. So much so he even devised a way to do it. So why doesn't he slip Young Spock the computations for time travel, then have the Enterprise and a fleet jump back in time and ambush Nero before he can destroy Vulcan and leave only 10,000 Vulcans left alive? And don't feed me that 'needs of the many' bullcrap because you can't tell me either Spock wouldn't want to at least save his mother. Or for that matter, travel forward in time to just before Romulus's sun goes nova and apply the Red Matter properly. Don't tell me it couldn't be done, it was just lazy writing. You could even do it and argue that the presence of the Red Matter in the past created an alternate timeline, which would allow for the creation of the 'new' Trek while leaving the 'old' Trek universe intact.
Don't play the time game unless you plan to play with it right and map out all the consequences accordingly. Otherwise you end up leaving your plot full of more holes than a block of swiss cheese.
Engineering: What the hell was up with those engineering sets? I get it, we're supposed to think of the Federation starships as more naval-seeming vessels with a kind of lived-in atmosphere, and on the Kelvin that worked fine as it seemed to be an older Starfleet vessel. But the Enterprise is the flagship of the fleet, the benchmark and testbed of all sorts of advances in starship design. You're going to tell me there's a frickin' boiler room on board the most advanced ship in the fleet? Really? Okay. . .does it run on shovel-fulls of dilithium coal? Also, points to my friend Yrol for pointing out the laughable Galaxy Quest-like chompers that Scotty almost gets fed to after he and Kirk beam back to the ship. What was the point of that thing save to create peril? Compared to the sleek, lovely set pieces of the bridge and sickbay it was just jarring. Hopefully the sequel will improve the design to something a bit more futuristic-looking.
Here, have a captaincy: Kirk goes from cadet to commander to captain of the Enterprise in essentially a period of 24 hours? You're kidding right? We couldn't have maybe established the crew as coming together on the Enterprise with Kirk and Spock maybe working their way up the ranks and earning battlefield commissions to their classic roles? No? We're going to do it in like a day? Say what you will of Shatner's Kirk but at least he worked his way up the ladder to a command rather than having it handed to him as part of some kind of nebulous 'destiny' tripe. I get that the film wanted to waste as little time as possible getting everyone established in their classic crew positions, but still. We couldn't have done a couple quick cuts ahead in time? I mean, Nero waited twenty-five years, I'm sure he could've waited a little longer. . .
THE VERDICT:
Don't misunderstand me, I thought this film was a helluva lot of fun to have at the cinema. But it's not without it's flaws, and in a way I'm kind of glad for them. Star Trek has always been a little hokey, and if the film sometimes fudges a bit in its quest to entertain I'm hardly going to loathe it for trying. My hope is that the filmmakers take the lessons of what did work and didn't and parlay it into a sequel that blows the doors off of all our expectations. Reccomended.
Lately I've been on something of a Battlestar Galactica kick. I've purcased the new Caprica Direct-to-DVD film and the first season of the reimagined series, and I've been reading and re-reading my copy of the Battlestar Galactica Roleplaying game with a feverish intensity. It can only mean that once again my tastes have shifted and are now firmly in BSG territory.
With that in mind, I've been thinking about what I'd do if I ever recieved the oppurtunity to write anything set in the BSG universe. To me, there's really only one story that I'd want to tell, be it via a comicbook or in prose, and that's the story of the Galactica and the First Cylon War. I understand that Dynamite Entertainment is already publishing their take on the events that sparked the first war with the walking chrome toasters, but I haven't read it yet. This is my take on a potential comics series or a novel.
It would complete the trinity of the Battlestar saga, with Caprica as the beginning and Battlestar Galactica the ending, The Cylon War would be the middle of the story. It doesn't have the Pride Before The Fall of Caprica, nor the Grim Determination to Survive/Is Humanity Worth Saving of BSG. No, this series would be something entirely its own animal. If I had to boil it down to a pitch statement it'd be simply this: 'Band of Brothers versus Killer Robots.'
I'm too young to have caught the original Battlestar Galactica on the airwaves (I saw a cut of the pilot movie on VHS at my cousin's house in Ostrea Lake, Nova Scotia many a moon ago) but I do have a fondness for the series ultimate theme; that no matter what the opposition humanity's spirit proves indomitable against the implacable aggression of the machine. This would be a story of heroism, though maybe not with the same theatrical trappings of the original series but definitely with a nod toward a grander, more epic style of storytelling. This is the 'good war' of the BSG universe in much the same way World War II is considered to be in our history. This is the war where the Twelve Colonies of Kobol united in a way they never had before against a foe that was not interested in power or principality but in the complete annihilation of their civilization and the extermination of its peoples.
The First Cylon War lasted just over twelve years (4,571 days) and ravaged the system containing the Colonies. Our story would start approximately 3 years into the conflict, with the war going very, very badly for the Colonial Fleet. The Cylons are unlike any foe the recently combined militaries of the twelve planets have ever faced before. They never tire. They never stop. They don't surrender and they don't retreat(at least at first). The initial Cylon uprising caught each of the Colonies completely by surprise, blindsiding them with an ambush from within their very ranks. The machines that had been entrusted to serve man and fight their battles rose up in a single night of blood and fire and killed damn near everything in their path. The how and the why of the uprising would be a mystery (after all, what's on screen is canon and I don't want to step on toes) but the Colonies now live in the aftermath and nearly three years of sheer and utter hell. Through a massive effort the Cylons were driven from most of the colonies, but they have holdings in several key sectors of the system. Worse, they stole a great deal of military ordnance, schematics, and the technical data for the new Colonial Rangers (later to be known as Raiders) and the plans for the proposed series of Basestars to be constructed on the Scorpia shipyards.
Worse, the richer colonies found their technology turned against them. The machines could make computers sit up, roll over, play dead. Passenger liners found their computers infected by Cylon viruses that made the airlocks open to hard vacuum midway through voyages, far past the point of any return and disabling emergency backups. Military vessels found their power systems cycling into overload and their sublight engines firing at random, automated turrets turning on friendlies as well as their own hulls and blasting them to scrap. Computers became the enemy, high technology became the enemy, anything that was too advanced and networked was too great a risk. Thus the step back to simpler systems, simpler technologies to keep colonial assets safe.
The ink was barely dry on the Articles of Colonization when the first twelve battlestars were shipped off the line; Atlantia, Galatea, Pacifica, Pegasus, Prometheus, Daedalus, Herakles, Athena, Icarus, Argo, Achilles. . . and the Galactica. Each ship represented one of the newly unified Colonies, with Galactica represnting Caprica, the capital world of this bold new alliance. Each ship was meant to be crewed entirely by men and women of the services of their respective worlds, an exemplar of their commitment to the new alliance and the hope of the ultimate defeat of the Cylon menace.
That was the plan. The simple fact of the matter is the Cylons are killing Colonial personnel with a frightening degree of efficiency, and more often than not personnel from other colonies are ending up sharing space with soldiers from other worlds. This was the long-term goal of Fleet brass, but the plan was to bring everyone together gradually. Sagittarons and Capricans having some severe issues, to say nothing of Picon, Scorpia, and Tauron. Simply put, there's hate between people as much as there is hate of the toasters. Its only the shared hatred of the walking chrome monsters that keeps the soldiers of the Colonial forces in check. Just.
In the meantime, the reorganized fleet has ground to cover and long struggles ahead. Aerilon and Tauron are being occupied by Cylon forces, with Canceron and Gemenon just barely hanging on. The Cylons are an implacable foe, armed to the teeth and far stronger and tougher than any human. Not to mention their sheer force of numbers (a long-term goal for Colonial forces is to eliminate Cylon production facilities wherever they're found. No easy task, as the Cylons have become increasingly adept at hiding their facilities). The odds are stacked against humanity, but if it's one thing the machines have underestimated it's human tenacity, the sheer damned stubborness of people with their backs to the wall and damned little to lose.
Our cast of characters is a bit nebulous, but I have a few ideas in mind:
Commander Michael Nash: Nash was the first commander of the Battlestar Galactica, mentioned only in passing by Aaron Doral in the BSG miniseries. A native Caprican and product of its military academy, at the rank of major aboard the destroyer Righteous he took command when the CO and XO were killed in the Cylon uprising, managing to rout the machines and save the ship from being taken. His heroism and the Righteous' protection of civillian vessels during the uprising were noted by command, and when the Colonial Fleet unveiled the battlestars Nash was promoted to Commander and assigned to Galactica. A young man at 35 years of age, he realizes his appointment was more about politics and propoganda than it was about merit. Still, he possesses a rare gift for tactics and a manner that endears him to the men and women under his command.
Executive Officer Colonel Valerie Bayrin: Valerie was initially in line for command of Galactica until Nash came along. She's not happy with the way things are, but the fact that Nash made her posting as XO of the ship a condition of his acceptance of Galactica's command has gone a long way toward cementing a solid working relationship. A devout believer in the gods, the war has tested her faith but its held , even in the face of an enemy that seems to be the wrath of Hades incaranate. She's an older woman, in her mid-to-late 40s, having worked hard to attain her rank amidst the slight chauvinism of the Caprican military.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Darren Tanner: has been given the unenviable task of being the Galactica's officer of the deck. A man who brooks no fools and is a little too quick to speak his mind before his (slight) sense of tact can catch up, he nevertheless is respected by the men and women under his command. His people are the front line of Galactica's repair crews and damage control teams, his mechanics work to repair and get the bugs out of the new Viper Mark IIs that have just rolled off the assembly line. There are some who resent him for his Sagittaron heritage(and Tanner's not overly fond of his more vocally overbearing Caprican crewmates) but when circuit boards are bursting into flame and you need your Viper working yesterday there's no better man for the job. And he knows it.
Major Darius Ravig: is top kick of the Colonial Marines on Galactica. In his eyes there's him, the XO, the CO, and the gods in that exact order and nobody better forget it. His division 'the Ravagers' have seen combat in some of the worst skirmishes of the war to date, on the ground and in the black. He's a veteran of some of the worst of the fighting between Caprica and Sagittaron and his feelings for 'those people' are short and sour. Nevertheless he tables his opinions and keeps them close, working with his men to ensure that every human under their protection makes it back alive and every toaster in their path gets slagged.
Doctor Alyssa Muverro: is the Galactica's CMO and resident angel of mercy. She's acerbic, occasionally a bit too criticial of her patients and their complete disregard for their health and safety in time of war, but she and her team of doctors and nurses are the best in the Fleet. There's no question in her mind that the Cylons are monsters; she's seen enough of their handiwork to know with complete certainty that they need to be destroyed to the last clanker. An attractive woman in her early thirties, she has no lack of potential suitors on Galactica. Sadly she's all too committed to her wife Rebecca, and frequently worries about her safety as the battles lines inexorably push closer and closer to Caprica. . .
Captain Robert 'Ares' Wendell: is Galactica's CAG (Commander, Air Group) and leader of a squadron well on its way to becoming a legend. Ares is one of Caprica's finest pilots, almost without peer behind the stick of his Viper. He flies with a cool precision that belies his more rambunctious personality when off-duty. The four squadrons under his command have come to call themselves 'Wendell's Warriors', and each of them would fly into the mouth of hell if either Nash or Ares gave the word.
Professor Neville Pryce: is a civillian advisor to the military, one of its foemost minds on the applications of robotics and one of the programmers on the Cylon project. While the President's first impulse was to round up every last mind who had anything to do with the creation of the Cylons and have them imprisoned or executed, the fact of the matter is the creators of these metal monsters have information on their capabilities, their tactics, and their weaknesses that could be useful. As such, each battlestar has at least one of these men and women aboard, tasked with providing intelligence on the Cylon threat and devising new ways to defeat them. The fact that each of these people get a front-row seat to the carnage their rampaging creations have wrought isn't lost on Fleet Command either. Pryce lives as a virtual prisoner, a pariah amongst the crew. He smokes like a chimney, his nerves are shot to hell. His actions may have led to the deaths of millions, perhaps even the doom of the entire human race. The guilt is threatening to swallow him whole. . .and more, a budding resentment that could well blossom into a full-on hatred for the humanity that has burdened him with their collective guilt and rage. His viewpoint is boiling down to a survival of the fittest mentality, and what better survivors are there than 'his' Cylons? Galactica's crew may have a valued resource at their disposal. . .or they may have embraced a viper to their chest. Time will tell.
The Cylons: The most terrifying thing about the Cylons is just how damned close they came to wiping out humanity in one fell swoop. The uprising was just barely defeated by the reeling militaries of the twelve colonies, and even as a unified force the Colonial Fleet is hard pressed in space or on the ground. Cylon Raiders execute manuevers at speeds that could snap human vertebrae, basestars have ample power reserves to spare (not needing such human necessities as life support), and the Model 0005 Centurion is one of the deadliest soldiers to ever grace the field of battle. The Cylons move in near-total silence; they don't grunt, don't scream, they don't make a sound. The last thing a Colonial soldier might hear as the enemy closes in is the soft whooshing of their eye-sensor palatte and the click of a cocking trigger.
Worse, the Cylons are learning. Their tactics morph and change, adapting to the advances of the Colonial Fleet with startling speed. They've learned how to detect and create ambushes, how to hold humans in bondage and use them as labor behind enemy lines. They've even learned to conserve their resources by retreating. This last they rarely implement, as their factory bases remain secure at this time, but its still an eerie reminder that the toasters aren't mindless. Rumors abound in military intelligence of a newer model, the IL series, designed to coordinate Cylon forces and act as command units. They were only in the design stages when the Cylons revolted. . .could they be a reality?
The Cylons are an implacable foe at this time, united and driven by a single goal: to kill their former masters and ascend to their rightful place as the dominant species in the galaxy. There's no moral ambiguity here: its kill or be killed.
A war comic in space. A space opera with a taste of gritty realism. A heroic humanity struggling valiantly against a nigh-unstoppable mechanistic foe. Humans versus Robots. All these and more would be found within the pages of The Cylon War.
And I'd do it all for free(or for a modest fee. ~.^)
Yes, that was a rather long pause. Visiting girlfriend, a cold, and the various vagaries of life in the rat race bogged me down a bit but I'm reasonably sure we've navigated past the tempest and are back on calmer waters. With that in mind, let's move on to a look at a couple of items I've just experienced and enjoyed:
ZOT! 1987-1991 by Scott McCloud
I've read and enjoyed Scott McCloud's excellent examination of the comics medium, Understanding Comics, but I always wondered where his voice of authority on graphic storytelling came from, and what he'd done prior to that epic work. Apart from a look at one of his online strips starring the character, I'd never had the oppurtunity to read any of McCloud's work starring his dimension-crossed lovers amidst the world of the everyday and the world of a tomorrow that never was. With the release of ZOT! 1987-1991, we get a rare and intimate look at both the work of the writer/artist, but also commentary on his creation's roots and his thought processes in its inception and implementation.
Zachary T. Paleozogt (Zot for short) is a swashbuckling, high-flying, (courtesy of antigravity boots), laser pistol firing teen hero of the classic mold who lives in the 'far-flung future of 1965', a utopian vision of the future where everything Popular Mechanics and Tomorrowland promised us--flying cars, robot butlers, a world free of conventional crime or poverty--has come to pass. Oh, there's the occasional supervillain or coal-powered mad scientist from another planet, but by and large the world is a paradise. Zot's uncle Max discovers our world via his super-science, and travel between the dimensions becomes possible. Enter Jenny Weaver, a 14 year-old girl whose parents are dealing with divorce, she's struggling with the pitfalls of public education, and an older brother who's a pain. Their paths cross and it's pretty clear it's kismet, but Jenny maintains that Zot is 'not her boyfriend. . .we just like hanging out.' Mmhm.
The first half of the book 'Heroes and Villains' is a bit of what you'd expect with dimensional travel and the contrast between utopia and the real world. The book itself is a contrast between idealism and realism, and nowhere is that more evident than in Zot's more or less disastrous attempts to apply his superheroic mentality to a world that doesn't treat its heroic figures all that well. Zot also has to learn to come to grips with the fact that just because he believes he can save everyone doesn't make it true, no matter how good a person he is.
The second half of the book is--I think--where McCloud truly begins to find his voice as a storyeller. 'Earth Stories' has Zot trapped on Jenny's Earth with no real knowing if he'll ever find his way home again. Here Jenny and her family and friends come to the fore, each in their own single issue arc that highlights characters that feel as much like real people as they are supporting cast. Of them all, my favorite has to be issue #33 'Normal' featuring Jenny's friend Terry coming to terms with both her sexuality and the pressure cooker that is the high school environment.
Zot! is just plain fun on a lot of levels:the imagery of the utopian 'future', a rogues gallery featuring villains ranging from the humorous De-evolutionaries and Doctor Bellows to the creppy Arthur Dekko and 9-Jack-9. A future with flying cars and swashbuckling heroics makes for entertaining reading. But there's depth here too, and McCloud takes us--via commentary interspersed between issues--into his background and creative processes at the time of the book's creation. It's at once enjoyable entertainment for the reader and wonderful insight into the working method of another creative artist. Reccomended most highly.
Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow Lionsgate Films. Written by Christopher Yost, directed by Jay Olivia.
I'm a fan of superhero comics in general, and if it's one thing we superhero fans love it's resisting any and all forms of change. Now sometimes that's warranted, as in cases where Spider-Man makes deals with the devil, but in others that intractibility can prove to be a major detriment.
Now to be fair it's not all the fault of fanboys like me. Superhero stories cannot truly become the heirs of the ancient sagas and heroic ballads of the past because of one very salient and pertinent fact; superhero comics cannot change. They can provide the illusion of change, sure, but there'll be no last arrow to mark Green Arrow's grave or the ultimate resolution of humans vs. mutants, because once they do that the story's over. And Time Warner and Marvel Entertainment have far too much invested in their properties to ever bring their legends full circle and provide an end to their continually-rebooting-to-keep-up-with-the-times beginnings.
When I first heard of this movie, to be released as part of Marvel/Lionsgate's direct-to-DVD feature film line, I was completely turned off by it. Why not adapt some of Tom DeFalco's excellent MC2 work if we're going to jump Marvel's heroes into the future? Why do the characters look like that? The animation style seems so. . .well. . .stylized. In short, I had my arms crossed and my face scrunched up in the best Mr. Horse tradition, fully prepared to hate this film. But as the advance buzz trickled in, and I heard it got a standing ovation at the San Diego ComicCon (no mean feat in getting an auditorium of comicbook fans up and cheering) I decided to put aside my preconcieved notions and actually let a new idea have a chance.
And I am so very glad I did. Next Avengers is easily the best animated Marvel film yet, walking the tightrope of drawing in new blood while at the same time providing architecture and pieces that longtime Marvel fans will enjoy and appreciate.
It's several decades in the future and Earth's Mightiest Heroes have retired, their world largely trouble-free, to build lives and families of their own. But evil arises in the form of their constructed successor, the robotic Ultron. Originally designed to protect humanity, it decides the best way to achieve it's programmed goals is to control humanity. The Avengers attempt to fight back, but in the end they can't prevail. Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron Man, is ordered by Captain America to get the children to safety. From a hidden sanctum the daughter of Thor, the son of Captain America and the Black Widow, the son of the Black Panther, and the son of Giant-Man and the Wasp are raised in safety. Until, of course, one day when that safety is shattered. Soon a confrontation with Ultron becomes all but inescapable, and can a group of kids, an old armored avenger, a severed android head and the former love of the strongest being on Earth hope to stand against the calculating menace of an enemy that took on the world's greatest superheroes and walked away?
Previous efforts in Lionsgate's work for Marvel have felt a bit constrained, either by their desire to cleave to the comics or to do their best to toe the line with continuity while being accessible to new viewers. With Next Avengers it's clear they've hit their stride. The story of the Avengers' Last Ride (ingeniously told as a bedtime story) is just amazing, and the background nods to the old team are cool enough to make longtime fans nod and smile knowingly. A further miracle is Christopher Yost's writing of the kids, making them feel at once real and heroic, but not annoying or kitschy. Yes, these kids are kids and have a lot of growing up to do, but you enjoy them as people as well as heroic archetypes.
There are bits of business here I'd love to gush about (Iron Avengers, Tony's candid take on Clint Barton's reaction to a request for aid, and the at once touching and ghoulish moment in Ultron's 'Trophy Room'), but that'd run the risk of spoiling all the fun of the film. If you've got about an hour or two and want to have a kickass time that will appeal to all ages, I highly reccomend you check out Next Avengers. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
I'm Stacy Dooks, a writer living in Calgary, Alberta I'm a fan of all things popular culture, literary, and all points in between, and have pretty much committed large chunks of both The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and DC's Who's Who to memory. Whether or not that's entirely a good or bad thing I leave to the discerning reader.
This blog is an experiment in creating a public forum for my discussions about comics, pop culture, and writing and what they mean to me. Thanks for stopping by!
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