In Theaters: Man of Steel

I really have to wonder who it was in the Warner Bros./DC hierarchy that looked at Superman Returns and decided the big problem was it wasn't solemn enough. I know I'm in something of a minority concerning my very positive opinion of Bryan Singer's take on the comic book legend by way of Richard Donner, but I was still willing to give a fair chance to Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan's reboot. Man of Steel is a very reverent and sincere try at placing the original comic book superhero in the pantheon of modern superhero movies, an ambitious retelling of the title character's beginnings and ascent to legendary status which takes some controversial liberties in the name of keeping things fresh, but what brings it down is not its emphasis on violent spectacle nor its changes to the character. No, the problem is the sheer weight of the plot, which crushes warmth, humor, and characterization underfoot while trying to tell the story of an alien finding his essential humanity.

In Theaters: The Avengers (2012)

Poster from IMPAwards.com

I come into The Avengers with conflicted feelings- on the one hand I'm glad they're finally doing a big superhero team-up movie, embracing the full range of absurd imagination inherent in the genre, and I've always liked Joss Whedon, but on the other hand I now have to be really specific when talking about the single most underrated film of the 1990s, and I do talk about it a lot. After much wheeling and dealing, Marvel Studios have brought together Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and Thor from their respective franchises, added a couple more heroes alongside them, and given writer/director Whedon the task of bringing it all together in a coherent fashion in time to kick off the summer blockbuster season.

This could easily have ended in disaster, given the sheer scale of what was attempted and the micromanagement inherent in any movie with a budget the size of several government programs. But The Avengers is admirable in how well it negotiates the perils of blockbuster moviemaking; it delivers even more action and spectacle than you'd expect, draws characters big and charming enough to engage us, and even has a plot that basically, more or less hangs together. Not too much, but it'll last until you get to the fridge.

The Comics Page: Lightrunner

The boom in original graphic novels in the 1980s gave us a lot of material that's since sunken into obscurity, be it through low print runs, poor distribution, or simple physical decay. I found Lightrunner in an antiques store some years ago, hardbound with some nice foil embroidery. It was  a labor of love for its creators, a full color science fiction epic, and if it's not exactly original, the enthusiasm of it is charming.

The Comics Page: Dungeons & Dragons: Shadowplague

I'm not going to be the first person singing the praises of the new Dungeons & Dragons comic, but it's worth adding to the chorus. John Rogers (of Blue Beetle and Leverage fame) and Andrea DiVito have managed to be the first people to  successfully translate the tabletop fantasy game into a fun action comic. Shadowplague is a nice hardbound collection of the first major arc, and if you, like me, have been having trouble following the monthly issues, it's a great way to catch up.

In Theaters: Captain America: The First Avenger

Though the superhero genre may be reaching a saturation point at the movies (as opposed to comics where it apparently never gets boring), I’m not quite tired of them yet. At least a good entry can still stand out, and Captain America: The First Avenger, the last step in Marvel’s buildup to next year’s The Avengers, is a remarkably fun movie. Captain America was always going to be a challenge, as three failed movies have demonstrated, but the filmmakers, notably director Joe Johnson (of The Rocketeer), embrace the character’s wartime origins and star-spangled cheer, delivering an old-school pulp adventure with just the right balance of character and action. It’s way more fun than a lead-in to an upcoming summer blockbuster should be.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is introduced to us in 1942, applying for enlistment in the U.S. Army and being rejected repeatedly based on his many, many physical deficiencies, from asthma and a touch of TB to a generally scrawny physique. A 4F label is no fun to live with, but beyond any shame, Rogers feels an innate desire to help his country just as his mother and father did (giving up their lives in the process.) His repeated efforts to get in attract the attention of Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who is working with the Army to develop a super-soldier serum which amplifies a person’s strength, agility, and possibly his or her basic character. Erskine sees in Rogers’ gentleness and perseverance the qualities the soldier of tomorrow will need, and Steve steps up to be the subject of a painful and dramatic medical procedure which turns him into a musclebound superman.

Erskine is killed shortly after the experiment and his serum destroyed, and the newly powered Steve is sent on a propaganda tour to sell war bonds under the name “Captain America”. When he ends up in Anzio performing for unenthusiastic troops, he discovers that a friend of his has been captured by the forces of HYDRA, the Nazi’s covert science arm which, under the leadership of the “Red Skull” Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), has broken away from Hitler to try and conquer the world themselves. The Captain leads a prisoner breakout and graduates from USO performer to full-fledged hero, aided by Col. Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), the lovely and kickass Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), inventor and aviator Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), and a host of fighting commandos.

As you might imagine, this film has a solid sense of humor about itself. Cap’s brief sojourn into showbiz is an inspired twist- it allows the filmmakers to trade on the original Golden Age image of the Captain, and the historical context in which he and other patriotic heroes arose. It adds self-awareness to the film’s retro pulp indulgence, just enough to make it interesting but not so much that it undermines the reality of the story. As in the Indiana Jones movies, we’re being told that this is an old-fashioned adventure film and to adjust our mindset accordingly.

Continuing what has been an encouraging trend in Marvel’s pre-Avengers movies, the hero is surrounded by a strong supporting cast of characters, and their interactions form the film’s heart. As Peggy Carter, Atwell is enchanting and convincingly kick-ass, and Tommy Lee Jones’ dry persona is a good addition as well. Chris Evans plays Rogers as more the starry-eyed cadet than the respected veteran Cap would become, but it fits the story very well. There’s a bit of sweetness and even sadness to Steve’s arc, even managing a moist eye or two near the end. On the side of evil, Weaving plays the Skull as the Captain’s snarling opposite, someone who has also been given great power and sees himself as no longer human as a result.

The action sequences in this one are really good, some of the best I’ve seen this year. They’re clear, they’re legible, and there’s a good balance between CGI effects and stuff that seems to be live on set. It helps that, as Cap is fighting a war against fascist scum, the whole “superheroes don’t kill” law gets to be waived (though the picture does take care to emphasize Steve’s gentleness- he doesn’t want to kill Germans, he just doesn’t like a bully.) This is another movie where 3-D conversion was done after the fact and doesn’t add a whole lot, but it doesn’t hurt the visuals either.

Though Marvel Studios’ whole strategy as regards setting up an Avengers franchise may be calculated commercial filmmaking at its most corporate, it’s hard to be too concerned when it produces genuinely good movies. Captain America: The First Avenger is just fun in a way that blockbusters aspire to but are often a little too cynical to manage. It’s a lead-in, and ends in a very direct fashion that precludes other potential directions for the series on its own, but it works not just as a prelude, but a great adventure in and of itself.

Based on the character created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Directed by Joe Johnston

Grade: A-

In Theaters: Green Lantern

Green Lantern plays like a mid-air collision between two superhero movies. Half of it is an epic space opera detailing a threat to the entire universe, and the other half is a smaller, more traditional masked hero picture where a man gains extraordinary powers and is caught up in a personal threat. Either one of these would have been a fine approach to bringing the emerald avenger to the silver screen, but sadly together they crowd in on each other, and the results are less than satisfying. It’s not a badly made movie, and it has a lot of good elements, but it fails to develop anything fully and ends up less than the sum of its parts.

Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a test pilot for an aeronautics company. Owing in part to some obligatory past drama, Jordan is cocky but insecure, prone to freezing up, and a few fancy maneuvers in a demonstration dogfight end up costing him his job. Soon after, however, a green sphere of energy carries him to the wreck of an alien spaceship, where a being named Abin Sur hands him a ring and a lantern. The ring makes Hal into one of the Green Lanters, an association of cosmic policemen bringing peace, order, and justice to the universe, and he is spirited away to the planet Oa to learn the ring’s powers. With the ring Hal can fly, understand alien languages, and conjure glowing green constructs out of sheer willpower. The Green Lantern Corps on Oa are fighting a powerful fear entity called Parallax, which killed Abin Sur and manages to infect Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a nerdy xenobiologist who begins to develop telekinetic powers, an enlarged cranium, and a growing resentment of all the successful people around him. Parallax itself is on its way to Earth, and Hal must master his fear before he can confront the beast.

The good news about this film is that a lot of the hard parts of the Green Lantern mythos have actually been handled well. Though the opening is a little exposition heavy, it sets up the concept of the Corps and their role as intergalactic policemen very well, and the scenes on Oa are pretty enjoyable. A lot of fun is had with Hal’s ability to make constructs- though trailers show off his attempt at a minigun, he gets more creative later. The basic thematic clash between will and fear is straightforward and well-rendered, but Hal also has to be clever and resourceful when it comes to the final confrontation.

If the film had just been Hal and the Lanterns battling Parallax, all of this might have worked. But the story of Hector Hammond feels like a sidetrack; he’s obsessed with Hal’s girlfriend and co-worker, the lovely Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), and lives a rather sad life as a high school science teacher, and the Parallax infection turns him into a sort of uber-vengeful nerd, which is almost a good idea. But he still seems more pathetic than threatening, and throwing objects around just doesn’t seem as impressive as creating objects and energy out of pure will, so it’s not really convincing when he threatens our hero. He frankly feels like a Spider-Man villain, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it feels out of place next to the cosmic saga that’s supposed to be occupying our attention.

Really, the whole movie suffers from this problem. The film switches back and forth between the two scales of action instead of really blending them (as Thor did), and neither gets enough screen time to register. When Hal Jordan makes his heroic Earthly debut we’re already halfway through the movie, and he has a crisis of confidence in his new role that seems contrived. The Oa material, while fun, is sparse, without the other Lanterns being much more than just ciphers (though Geoffrey Rush is great as the fishy Tomar Re) and the small blue Guardians who created the order have the classic sci-fi problem of being so hidebound you wonder how they accomplished anything to start with. (The effects are a mixed bag- while I like the overall 50s aesthetic and the bright colors, they do rely on CGI to a fault, with even Hal’s costume being a digital creation.)

I will say that Ryan Reynolds does a pretty good job in the lead role, believably conducting Hal Jordan’s transition from overconfident hothead to a man who understands his place in the universe. The film has a lot of entertaining individual parts, but there’s a lot of downtime between them and the picture feels sluggish more than anything. It’s nowhere near as bad as some other reviews say, I don’t regret seeing it at all, and I’m sort of hoping it does well enough to merit a more focused take on the material. But I can’t recommend it or call it a good film. It has the makings of a good film, but they haven’t been mixed properly.

Based on characters created by Marty Nodell, Bill Finger, John Broome, and Gil Kane.
Screen Story by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, and Marc Guggenheim
Screenplay by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, and Michael Goldenberg
Directed by Martin Campbell

Grade: C+

In Theaters: X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class doesn’t feel like the obvious direction for the franchise to go in. It's not just a prequel, but one set in the 1960s, when the comic was first published, and working with the original “Children of the Atom” concept that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby pioneered. Of course, it’s not a lot like the original comics, or the more recent retro series of the same name for that matter, but rather its own odd take on the origins of the world’s strangest superheroes. It’s actually a fairly charming approach, and a pretty good movie too, managing to feel more like an actual story than the cash grab of the last two X-entries. There are a number of rough patches, and it’s not as good as it could have been, but it’s a step back in the right direction.

The film follows Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), a brilliant student and telepath who is interested in finding other mutants like him. As a child he befriends a young runaway named Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) who has the ability to change her shape, and she lives with him almost like a sister. When CIA operative Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) witnesses a group of mutants led by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) coercing a Pentagon official into placing US missiles in Turkey, she enlists the help of Xavier to help hunt down Shaw and his cohorts (including the shapely telepath Emma Frost, played by January Jones.) In the process Xavier rescues Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), a mutant with magnetic powers who, as a child, saw his mother killed by Shaw when both were held in a concentration camp, and has been working as a superpowered Nazi hunter ever since. Erik and Charles both see the need for mutants to unite in a world that hates and fears them, and begin recruiting others with unusual powers to stop Shaw before he can manipulate the Cuban Missile Crisis into a full-blown nuclear exchange.

It takes a while for the various plot strands to come together, but fortunately the various mutants’ individual stories are pretty interesting in and of themselves. Xavier is both charming and a bit sleazy, the price of being able to manipulate people with your mind, and to some extent the story of the film is the story of him being forced into something resembling emotional maturity by an increasingly unpleasant situation. At the same time, Erik is being forced into maturity by having to confront something larger than his own vendetta (as valid as it is, and as satisfying as it is to see him kill ex-Nazis hiding in Argentina.) Raven (later to be known as Mystique) is also put on a fascinating and conflicted journey, one that calls into question her relationship with Xavier. And then there’s the villain’s story, more conventional to be sure, but not without its fun parts, notably Shaw’s groovy Hellfire Club.

With all these stories and characters flying around the movie can’t help but be a little sloppy. Some of the dialogue doesn’t work, Oliver Platt’s character is never given an actual name, and almost inevitably the team’s sole black member (Edi Gathegi as Darwin, who has a genuinely interesting “adaptive” power) dies in the second act. It’s kind of messy in the way it grabs various characters and names from the comic book mythos, and while I generally believe that filmmakers have no obligation to be especially faithful to their source material, Moira’s lack of Scottishness bugged me. Some of the characters get shorted in the shuffle, and this seems to bear traces of having been a few different X-projects smashed together when it appeared that no single one could carry a picture on its own.

So why does this work for me? For one thing, it doesn’t feel like a soulless moneymaking engine. Some of the story choices- such as the 1960s setting, the direct use of the Cuban missile crisis as a key plot point (even bringing in the US’ own nuclear expansion into Turkey), and the lack of “marquee value” heroes on the main team- give the impression that this was a weird little twist on the franchise that the various participants genuinely believed in. It has an offbeat sense of humor and a nice layering of the character’s social anxieties on top of the apocalyptic stuff. For the most part it feels like it wants to do right by its characters- not necessarily from a comics purist perspective, but from the perspective of telling their story.

A lot of this may fall on the actors as well. McAvoy, Fassbender, and Lawrence have the most heavy lifting to do, and they come off quite well- for people who have seen the previous X-Men adventures, there’s a sense that for the first time we’re really getting to learn about Professor X, Magneto, and Mystique. The kids playing the actual “first class” are enjoyable too, and Bacon as Sebastian Shaw is clearly having a little too much fun. Byrne continues to impress, the changes to Moira notwithstanding, and there are some amusing cameos both by established superhero types and by good actors in general.

This is a film that probably could have been better if given more time to cook. It takes on the burden of a franchise reinventing itself to stay relevant and is unsteady because of it. But even in a genre as played through as comic book superheroics, this feels fresh. It’s a good spectacle, it’s willing to be a little quirky, and no single problem it has is big enough to hobble the whole thing. It charges along in spite of everything, and does so with a considerable amount of charm. The Marvel movies this summer are 2 for 2 so far, and I can only hope they manage the hat trick.

Based on characters created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Chris Claremont, etc. etc. etc.
Story by Sheldon Turner and Brian Singer
Screenplay by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, and Matthew Vaughn
Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Grade: B

In Theaters: Thor

As comic book adaptations go, Thor must have been a tall order from the start. The original Marvel comic’s complex revision of Norse mythology, coupled with the traditional superheroics and a story of a god living on Earth due to family disputes, called for an expensive and elaborate epic about a character who doesn’t have a lot of recognition value for the average moviegoer. (Unless said moviegoer is a fan of Adventures in Babysitting.) There was a lot of skepticism about this film, and even I wasn’t quite prepared for how much I would enjoy it. Kenneth Branagh and a host of writers have managed a warm, funny, and engaging spectacle, and despite its purpose to build up to the eventual big screen debut of Marvel’s Avengers, there’s not a cynical bone in its body.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is the son of Odin (Anthony Hopkins), ruler of the Asgardians, an advanced, godlike race of beings who once saved Earth from an invasion of frost giants, and so inspired the myths of the Norse pantheon. As Odin ages, Thor is to be named king (over the objections of his brother Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston), but the ceremony is disrupted by an attempt by the frost giants to break into Asgard and steal a precious artifact. Though the attempt fails, Thor is outraged and over his father’s objections leads his friends to the frost giant’s homeworld, trying unsuccessfully to discover the secret of how the giants were able to reach Asgard to begin with. For his act of aggression, Thor is stripped of his godlike powers and exiled to Earth, where he is discovered by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a young scientist researching the gates between worlds that the Asgardians use for travel. She’s not sure who he is at first, but when government agents start confiscating her work and constructing a base around a mysterious hammer which fell from the sky the same time Thor did, she starts to have her suspicions. Meanwhile, Odin falls into a deathly slumber from the stress of his actions, and Loki seizes power, putting dark designs into practice.

One of the benefits of the superhero genre’s popularity is that filmmakers now don’t seem afraid to embrace the wild and crazy aspects of the comics they’re adapting. Marvel’s version of the Norse gods was a blend of high fantasy and science fiction aided to no end by the wild visual imagination of Jack Kirby, the sort of thing that might get toned down, but then again this is a Kenneth Branagh film. He’s never worked with a picture quite this size before, but he’s never one to hold anything back, and we get Asgard in all its colorful glory, an at times downright breathtaking metropolis, populated by actors who were somehow persuaded to take their job of playing comic book space gods with the utmost seriousness.

Which is not to say the film lacks humor. Both in Asgard and on Earth, there are a lots of moments of realistic comic relief which somehow lend the more ridiculous plot events more credibility. Thor has a nice rapport with his friends, the Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander) and the Warriors Three (Ray Stevenson as Volstagg, Tadanobu Asano as Hogun, and Josh Dallas as Fandral)- fearsome fighters all, but also a lot of fun. Portman is warm and charming as Jane, and is aided by the amazing Stellan Skarsgard, and Kat Dennings as the loveliest comic relief I’ve seen in a while. The script has a lot of good banter, something which has served the Iron Man films exceedingly well and which I hope catches on.

There’s a surprising believability to the characters, aided no doubt by Branagh being very good with actors- Loki in particular becomes a complex villain, devastated by Odin’s revelation that he is actually born of the frost giants and thus driven by emotions that don’t become entirely clear until the film’s climax. Hiddleston and Hemsworth both play their roles very well despite being among the freshest faces in the cast. Hopkins is, well, Hopkins, and Idris Elba as the gatekeeper Hemdall has some wonderful scenes. The action is grand and imaginative without being overly contrived, and the 3-D effect is well done for the most part, though you could probably get the same impact from a 2-D screening.

The proliferation of writers on this film (the plague of big budget filmmaking is that coherent voices often get lost) does result in a story that’s not entirely seamless. Some thematic elements aren’t hit as strongly as they should be and some character movements are a touch too fast or too slow. None of these are really glaring, but they do add a bit of sloppiness to what is otherwise a well-crafted production.

Thor is just plain fun in a way that many blockbusters aspire to but often miss because they’ve thrown character and emotion under the bus. It’s technically possible for a film to get by without these things, but the ones that stay with me are the ones that try to have it all, that try to be clever and funny and sincere despite the best efforts of studios to breed out these characteristics. Of the Avengers set-up pictures, Thor may actually be the best, or at least my favorite, and while he’s guaranteed a return to the big screen there, I hope the god of thunder has another solo outing or two in him.

Based on the comic book character created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby
Story by J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Protosevich
Screenplay by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stewart, and Don Payne
Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Grade: B+

For Your Ears Only: Starstruck

I have some connection with the people behind Audio Comics, which makes its debut as an audio theatre company with STARSTRUCK, but I’m not terribly familiar with the source material. Elaine Lee wrote this based on a stage play dating back to the eighties (written by herself, Susan Norfleet, and Dale Place) which later became a comic series, and I do want to say, if there’s a stage play out there featuring the wild and ribald adventures of four female space rangers, why is this not performed as often as THE SOUND OF MUSIC? This is just what you need to get people going to the theatre again.

In any case, STARSTRUCK’s translation to the aural medium is superbly done. It’s a lush and charming sci-fi comedy which has a lot on its plate but somehow manages to avoid a spill into incoherence, which is probably a sign that it’s tighter than it seems. I don’t want to seem too effusive in my praise simply because I do know some of the people involved and have a little bias, but I genuinely enjoyed this and think it’ll be worth a listen for most people.

STARSTRUCK follows the crew of the Harpy, four female freedom fighters who are on a mission for the galactic federation when they get come across a curious object on radar. They’ve found another ship, a living ship apparently made from the remains of Galactic Girl Guides. Captain Galatia 9 (Tavia Gilbert) is outraged and decides to investigate, ultimately finding that the ship is owned by none other than her arch-nemesis, space pirate Verloona Ti (Denise Poirier) and her motley crew of pirates and ne’er-do-wells. They’ve got big plans for the multiverse, and it’s up to Galatia, liberated love droid Erotica Ann (Kristina Balbo), Brucilla the Muscle (Jennywren Sanders), and psychic Bronwyn of the Veil (Genevieve Casagrande) to stop whatever it is they’re trying to do, and complete their original mission to keep order on a planet with a kidnapped ruler.

With space opera we almost automatically expect a certain grandeur, opulence, and most importantly clutter. An audio play can’t have visual clutter and can’t risk too much audio clutter, so instead it has to throw wild and weird concepts and story twists at us to fully convey a vibrant sci-fi universe. As the summary hopefully indicates, STARSTRUCK has plenty to offer in this department. There are several story threads thrown up by the Harpy’s chance encounter with evil, and while I thought I was a bit lost at times, in the end everything is actually accounted for.

It really helps that this this is a traditional trashy space adventure in outre trappings; if you know enough of the conventions and clichés you’ll be able to get the general gist of what’s happening, as we move through discoveries, betrayals, revelations of diabolical plans, and so on and so forth up until the big showdown between space ranger and space pirate. What’s different are the trappings, drawing on various reaches of high and low culture, mixing retro sci-fi and fantasy with wry comedy, bohemian craziness, and a subtle dash of third-wave feminism.

Strong production values add to the atmosphere, with various sound effects and atmospheres setting the mood but getting out of the way when they need to. There’s some narration by Simon Vance which helps bridge transitions and give character backstory, but as sparse as it is it doesn’t feel out of place. The cast all do a good job, staying at a high level of energy from start to finish; they keep the momentum up by speaking fast and loud, and allowing themselves to go over the top without becoming shrill.

STARSTRUCK is being rolled out in a variety of audio formats and platforms; the link above is to the album on Amazon MP3, but the company site also offers it on CD and it’s being made available through other MP3 sellers as well (iTunes may be in the offing but no concrete word yet). At a little over two hours, it lasts long enough to scratch the space opera lover’s itch, and it should appeal to lovers of the offbeat in all genres. It’s a really strong debut for the company; a slick and professional production of an original and appealing work, that may well find the audience it deserves.

Stage play written by Elaine Lee, Susan Norfleet, and Dale Pace
Adapted for audio by Elaine Lee
Directed by William Dufris

Grade: A-

Monsterthon: The Comics Page #26: Essential Godzilla

I promised you monster comics and I will deliver. Godzilla has been in a number of comics over the years, and his first American appearances were with Marvel starting in 1977. Marvel not only bought the license from Toho for a couple of years, but actually brought Godzilla into the Marvel universe for that time, having him face S.H.I.E.L.D., Hercules, the Fantastic Four, even the amazing Spider-Man at one point. Four years ago the Essentials collection of this series was released, but the cost of licensing meant that it had only one print run, meaning it’s probably a little hard to find, but if you’re a Godzilla fan and can tolerate some off-model art, it’s pretty fun.

The story of the comic, such as it is, is that Godzilla, at some point after his initial rampage, ended up trapped in an ice floe just off the coast of Alaska. A warm winter and warmer spring end up setting him free, and the international spy group S.H.I.E.L.D. is the one organization with the manpower and artillery required to combat the great beast as he rampages across America for the first time. The group’s #1 hero Nick Fury is elsewhere for most of the comic’s run, so it falls to the bowler-hatted, cigar-chomping Dum Dum Dugan to lead a multiethnic crew (including an elderly scientist who survived Godzilla’s first rampage, and his grandson who thinks Godzilla’s not that bad) and a small army against the king of the monsters. Godzilla also runs up against the mutant hordes of the monster breeder Dr. Demonicus, a group of super-monsters from space, a giant robot named Red Ronin, and even some cowboys.

Old school Godzilla fans will probably be taken aback by some of the liberties taken with the monster’s design; it’s nothing as radical as in that one film that I and only I like, but it’s still distinctly different from anything we saw in the movies. Herb Trimpe, who pencilled most of the series, came up with an interesting, slightly dinosaur-like variant on the classic look, with a much larger head than normal and gem-like eyes. He’s bright green and the fire he breathes is orange instead of the traditional blue, but both of those don’t really matter in an Essentials volume for obvious reasons. Overall the art is pretty solid- it closely follows the Marvel house style of the period, with some nice splash page work and even a little aping of Kirby when Godzilla meets Devil Dinosaur (long story.)

You won’t be seeing any of Godzilla’s Toho buddies like Rodan or Mothra in the series; Toho treated all these characters as separate licenses (a practice continued for the Dark Horse comics, though apparently not any of the video games), and so the big scaly hero has to fight a host of original creations. Some are more memorable than others, though the giant ape-like Yetrigan and the aforementioned Red Ronin are nice additions. The writers do put Godzilla in some very interesting situations, most notably in a multi-issue arc where he’s hit by Dr. Hank Pym’s reducing gas, initially shrinking him down to rat size as he explores Manhattan from the ground up, then slowly returning him to normal size. The occasional story like this, that would only really work in comics given the limitations of late 70s special effects, helps break up the more traditional monster action. There are also some nice, though characteristically overwrought, human vignettes, such as one about the plight of a compulsive gambler on the one day Godzilla decides to visit Las Vegas.

The main attraction is really Godzilla mingling with the big names of the Marvelverse. The hotheaded Col. Duggan is a great foil for him, always frustrated when his plans fail, and an early battle with B-list supergroup The Champions (which includes two former X-Men) at the Golden Gate Bridge is a highlight. Technically, Godzilla’s adventures in the Marvelverse are still canon, although licensing issues prevent his resurfacing (a later story implied that Doctor Demonicus successfully mutated him into a non-infringing beast that was easily dispatched, but we all know Godzilla’s toughter than that.) As I’ve said before there’s a nice comraderie and distinctive atmosphere to Marvel’s stuff in the 70s, and adding a celebrity monster was a nice touch.

Godzilla’s time with Marvel was brief, but it was a really solid run; goofy, strange, but never failing to deliver the requisite destruction and mindless violence you can always count on the character to deliver. The art is quirky, the stories creative if ridiculous, the prose borderline Claremontian- it’s the Bronze Age in all its gaudy glory. The people who will love this should know who they are.

Written by Doug Moench
Pencils by Herb Trimpe and Tom Sutton
Inks by Way Too Many People To Name

Grade: B+

In Theaters: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

Into a cinema landscape of drab monochrome visuals and forced attempts at gritty realism comes SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD. It’s not the best film I’ve seen this year, but it’s the most refreshing; upbeat, lightweight, but substantial at the same time. Edgar Wright has impressed before, and in adapting Brian Lee O’Malley’s cult favorite Canadian magna romantic comedy, he brings the strengths of the comic and film media together, along with a few touches from the video game world.

Michael Cera is the title character, a 23-year-old slacker in Toronto who is ostensibly part of the garage band Sex Bob-omb (who kind of suck but are getting better.) He sort of accidentally started dating 17-year-old Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), and it’s a bad decision but fortunately never gets far beyond hand-holding. Anyway, Scott’s attention soon drifts to the mysterious Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a neon-haired American delivery girl who eventually agrees to go out on something like a date with him. Many problems result from this, for starters his attempt to juggle both Knives and Ramona, but the big one is that Ramona’s seven exes have banded together and Scott must battle and defeat them all if he wants to keep dating her. She’s not keen on it, he isn’t either, but apparently those are the rules.

You may have worked out that this is not the most realistic of coming-of-age stories. Though it takes a while for the self-proclaimed League of Evil Exes to start challenging Scott, the story’s connection to video games, manga, and other geek culture is evident from the opening (which features a modified Universal logo that I prefer to the current one.) There are visualized sound effects, patches of narration, caption boxes to point out the odd background detail, and music from the Legend of Zelda series often pops up at appropriate times, to name a few touches. (Though the last is sort-of explained by one character having a Nintendo DS open whenever the music is heard.) The battles themselves are pure video game boss fights, with elements that recall various genres of games and in pop culture- one is sort of like a Bollywood dance number, another is a battle of the bands, another still recalls Tony Hawk, and so on. The action is dazzling but also clearly comprehensible and well-edited, an outright rarity in this day and age, and with an exception or two, each of the evil exes is allowed time to develop a strong personality. (Chris Evans is an action star with a team of stuntmen, and Brandon Routh gives a great comic turn as a righteous vegan who gains super powers from his vegan training.) Nobody ever questions the logic of this game reality, or even what happens to the defeated Exes after they turn into piles of coins. (If it’s death, it’s not made a big deal of.)

But the whole thing is more than just a collection of visual gags and pop culture references; though Scott is fighting for a girl, he’s also fighting his own inadequacies and faults. And of course, the Exes are a manifestation of the baggage everyone brings to a relationship; Ramona is no perfect dream girl, and the fact that she’s been the one to end every relationship she’s ever been in starts to weigh heavily on the two. The story here is compressed from the six-volume series, both in length and the amount of time it seems to span, but even though Scott and Ramona’s relationship moves at a brisk pace the emotional reality of it is intact. Both characters have some maturing to do, though maybe Scott carries more of that particular burden. In any case, the reality of the characters helps ground the insanity around them.

Michael Cera has been criticized as a one-note actor, but while he doesn’t quite break the mold of his past performances, he does stretch it a bit. As Scott, he’s a bit more energetic, a bit more upbeat than he normally is, and though it’s a subtle change (the Scott of the comics struck me as more manic) it’s enough to make the character work. Winstead is alluring as ever, and the entire cast never misses a beat. The two standout performances, by far, are Ellen Wong and Kieran Culkin. Wong actually manages to add a bit more depth to Knives Chau than was there in the comics, and as Wallace, Scott’s gay roommate who owns everything in the apartment, Culkin is an utterly magnificent smug drunken bastard who steals almost every scene he’s in. I also liked the contributions from Anna Kendrick and PARKS AND RECREATION’s Aubrey Plaza, to name a couple.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD is having trouble finding an audience, so you should catch it while you can; the energy and visual spectacle plays best on a big screen. It’s a bit of a shame, since as I said, there’s a lot here I’d like the movie industry to learn, about embracing color and shooting fight scenes coherently and putting details into things. Fortunately the story is complete in one film (it shares the last book’s rather overstuffed finale, even minus a subplot or two), and I’m sure Wright has more surprises in store in the future. A film like this makes me resent all the films this year that haven’t been as good as they could have been, that were content to deliver what was expected or stay within strict boundaries. This isn’t a perfect film, but it’s one that, while it looks back on our pop heritage, points the way to the future.

Based on the Scott Pilgrim books by Brian Lee O’Malley
Screenplay by Michael Bacall & Edgar Wright
Directed by Edgar Wright

Grade: A-

Comics Rambling: The Ryan Choi Incident

This is another rant, and if you’re following comics fandom online chances are you’ve read plenty about this already. I felt compelled to weigh in, but don’t worry, I’ve got a Godzilla review in the pipeline too.

You may be wondering what’s up with the “Chris Sims Was Right” label. Now, Chris Sims has been right about a lot of things- SPEED RACER, FINAL CRISIS, Jeff Dunham sucking, etc. Unfortunately, this is a more solemn vindication for the Invincible Super-Blogger. Recently Sims published a rare serious piece for Comics Alliance called “The Racial Politics of Regressive Storytelling.” It basically highlights a problem DC’s having with many of its returning Silver Age heroes displacing their modern replacements, who were more diverse, resulting in an unintended but notable “whitewashing” of the DC Universe, all the more notable because most of the characters getting replaced have been around for less than a decade.

This past Wednesday, as if to illustrate his point, DC published “Titans: Villains For Hire Special #1”, a one-shot meant to lead into a new series about a gang of, well, villains for hire led by super assassin Deathstroke. In this special, the new gang prove themselves by carrying out a contract on the All-New Atom, Ryan Choi, brutally murdering him and presenting him to their client in a matchbox coffin.

So yeah.

My reaction to this is biased by the fact that I really, really liked Ryan Choi. Gail Simone’s run on ALL-NEW ATOM was one of my favorite comics of the past decade- one of the few superhero books, along with the new BLUE BEETLE and INCREDIBLE HERCULES, to really “get it”. It was imaginative, original, and fun, full of wild ideas and likable characters. (We will for the moment overlook the series’ final arc, written by Rick Remender, which screwed things up spectacularly.) Its failure to succeed in the market kind of broke my heart, and I’ve been a bit more cynical about mainstream comics ever since.

This doesn’t help. But here’s the thing. I’ve disliked character deaths and retcons and other developments before. I still think Ted Kord got a raw deal, Maxwell Lord got it even worse, and so on. But on some basic level I can understand that those were creative decisions that I disagree with. My tastes are a minority in the comic market, for whatever reason, and I’ve accepted that DC and Marvel have to appeal to the wider audience. I didn’t like INFINITE CRISIS and was unwowed by BLACKEST NIGHT, but many people clearly loved them.

This time, however, I genuinely do not get what DC is doing. And I’m not sure they do either. Sure, whenever a comics company says, “We have a plan,” your best response is to nod politely and ignore them, but this decision seems utterly tone-deaf. Did they not get how this might come off? Did they really think it was that important to get cheap heat for an “amoral mercenaries” book when the very good SECRET SIX is still being published? Did they think we would be terribly interested in reading about the exploits of the people who just killed a charming, memorable minority character?

I’m not one to claim that artists need to be responsible and take care to send positive messages in their work, and sure, nobody’s ever going to have a perfect record on racial sensitivity. But having strong minority superhero characters in a shared comic book universe is a good thing. Superheroes are powerful identification figures for audiences, and if we can get a variety of them, in ethnicity as in other areas, so much the better. Ryan may have been a Chinese super-genius, but he transcended stereotype from the get-go, coming off as a well-rounded, believable guy with an enthusiasm for Science!, an easygoing and open-minded attitude, and a strong sense of humor. His ethnicity and bi-nationality affected who he was, but not in obvious ways- it was just his heritage. He was not a big seller, but he was making impressions in BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD and in the Johnny DC comics as well- logically, it would make sense to leave him be until someone could think of a good use for him.

And this is not the only decision DC’s made as of late which seems a little off. There’s the entirety of CRY FOR JUSTICE, in which beloved Silver Age characters- including Ray Palmer- turn all dark and gritty and Jack Bauer-esque while children get killed and the word “Justice!” is repeated approximately 100,000 times, and this is supposed to kick off a new era for the Justice League of America. There’s the Asian Cassandra Cain being kicked out of the Batgirl role in favor of plucky blonde Stephanie Brown, because they were going to put Barbara Gordon back in the role but decided against it at the last minute. There’s Wonder Woman being made a member of the Star Sapphire Corps, a group of scantily clad spacewomen who channel the power of love (they’re finally introducing a male member of the group, but he gets to wear something dignified.) There’s the black Firestorm being absorbed into his white predecessor (and his Asian girlfriend getting killed during BLACKEST NIGHT), there’s the Japanese Dr. Light still being overshadowed by her dead rapist supervillain predecessor whom someone apparently still thinks is an interesting character despite all evidence to the contrary, and on top of it all, there’s the fact that Hal Jordan helped save the day in BLACKEST NIGHT by becoming the White Lantern- which wouldn’t have been so bad in and of itself (the whole chromatic lantern thing was clearly building to it), but in the context of all this really becomes unfortunate.

(Man, when I total it up it’s really the people of Asian descent getting hit the hardest. Sorry, guys.)

As Sims himself had to make explicit, as does anyone tackling this, I don’t specifically believe that anyone in charge at DC has any particular racial prejudice. It’s not that they’re racist. They’re not. If anything, they in particular are having this problem because they tried to add some diversity with their legacy heroes, and they took a lot of heat for “tokenism” at the time (which I think they generally avoided by making the new characters pretty well-rounded.) They deserve a lot of credit for having made that push, but they seem to have decided that that approach isn’t working. “Brightest Day” has the feel of a quick-and-dirty reset, trying to go back to basics and not really thinking too much about what’s getting thrown out in the process.

Except I’m not sure that’s going to work either. Ryan Choi’s Atom didn’t sell many comics, but neither has Ray Palmer. “The Atom”, as a concept, doesn’t move a lot of books on its own, and the market as it is depends a lot on marquee value. This is a problem in and of itself, but it’s not one that will be solved by rushing back to the status quo of the Satellite Era.

Here’s what’s bugging me. As I’ve said before, I’m not happy with Ted Kord’s death. A lot of work has gone into casting it as a noble and essential sacrifice, but I think it goes against the merry prankster element of his character, I don’t like Max Lord as an irredeemable supervillain, and for various reasons I’d like to see him come back. But now I don’t think I do. Not now, anyway. Maybe not for five, ten years. Because the way things are working out now, any resurrection of Ted would put Jaime Reyes, the awesome new Blue Beetle, in danger. Maybe he’d be grotesquely killed, maybe rudely pushed aside, but whatever happens it would likely taint the joy of Ted’s return. So let’s hope that part of the status quo stays in place for now.

Part of this is DC’s old bugaboo, killing way too many characters way too often, most often to “raise the stakes” or establish how badass a villain is. But even just pushing these legacy characters out of sight is a waste. There needs to be room for the old and new, for variety.

In short, killing a likable if low-selling legacy hero who added diversity to the DCU for the sake of the comic book version of a series pilot was a bad move. DC really seems to be heading in the wrong direction- not just going retro, but actively paving over its recent past and cutting off avenues for future development. They’re still publishing some good books, and I’m not going to give them up entirely, but- they can do better than this. Seriously.

In Theaters: Iron Man 2

Two years ago, IRON MAN managed to surprise a few people by being a smart, banter-heavy summer blockbuster with some great performances and strong characterization. IRON MAN 2 can’t help but suffer a little bit from heightened expectations, and though business is apparently booming it has gotten a less enthused critical reception. As for myself, though, I find myself liking it about as much as I did the first entry. It takes a couple of steps forward, a couple of steps back, and maybe one or two sideways; it’s a bigger movie, which has its advantages and disadvantages, and it delivers what it promises while not quite living up to its potential.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), having come out to the world as the man inside the Iron Man battlesuit, is well on his way to 21st century godhood as the story begins. He opens a year-long Stark Expo in New York, promising an unusual mix of better living through technology and sheer capitalist decadence, while trying to keep the government from seizing control of this new weapon. His decision to go it alone is reinforced by his private knowledge that he doesn’t have much time left- the palladium reactor keeping his heart going is also poisoning his bloodstream, and he has nothing to replace it with. He turns over ownership of Stark Industries to his overworked assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and is doing his best to live up his last days. However, industrial rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) Is gunning for Tony’s tech, and Russian inventor/badass Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) wants to personally make him bleed, and after the latter attacks Tony on the race track at Monaco, the two team up to make his life as hellish as possible.

As is common with superhero sequels, IRON MAN 2 has a lot more on its plate than its predecessor. It’s possible to distill the plot down to “Tony Stark has a lot of rivals”, but the details are sometimes hard to keep track of. Ivan blames Tony’s father for the exile and ruin of his father, believing that the former stole the plans for the ARC reactor- the dynamo that powers the Iron Man armor- from the latter. Hammer cozies up to the government by trying to turn the Iron Man concept into something that can be mass-produced, and Tony’s Air Force buddy, Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard), ends up siding against him, thinking he’s getting a little drunk on power when he isn’t just plain getting drunk.

Adding some interesting ambiguity to this, Tony’s detractors aren’t entirely wrong. They don’t know that he’s dying because he insists on confronting that- and all other problems- alone, and his similarly unilateral approach to world peace seems almost selfish and self-deifying. Pride inevitably goeth before a fall, and though the film isn’t very dark and only a little mopey, a big part of it is Tony being knocked down a peg even as he tries to live up to his responsibilities.

From a thematic standpoint all this is fascinating, but it does a number on the movie’s structure. It rambles around a lot, and it’s not always clear where it’s going, which would be good except we then have to wonder if it’s going anywhere in particular at all. Some sections feel a bit bloated, and the plot just isn’t as clear as it could be. It’s not really obvious what the stakes are, and the sudden involvement of the international spy organization SHIELD feels like a plot element thrown in from another movie (and, to be sure, it’s mostly there to foreshadow the upcoming AVENGERS movie.)

Downey is as good as he was the first time, which is to say pretty awesome. He knows the character and he keeps Tony sympathetic even though he’s kind of coming off as a jackass to everyone. Paltrow is very strong as Pepper Potts, but the character this time kind of gets sidelined near the end, which is a shame. Cheadle makes a great Rhodes, though I had no problem with Howard in the original. Rockwell takes a fairly thin “evil corporate douchebag” role and makes it entertaining, and Rourke’s a nice counterpoint even if his accent is unconvincing. Scarlett Johansson, as a legal secretary and part-time stealth badass, is- very pretty, with a talented stuntwoman, but sadly doesn’t make as much of an impression as everyone else.

When the film’s plot finally does get underway, we do get some very good action; Jon Favreau shoots the picture’s main setpieces clearly and cleanly, letting the spectacle of metal men clashing with heavy artillery speak for itself. Vanko’s attack on Tony at the race track is as good a setpiece as was teased in the trailers, and I think the final battle represents an improvement over the somewhat murky climax of the first film. At times Favreau does fall prey to what some are calling “the teal and orange fungus” but thankfully it’s not in every scene.

So, a bit better in the action department, a little worse in terms of structure, but with some really interesting thematic and character stuff to make up for that. Overall I was satisfied- the film neither falls prey to its excesses nor fails to deliver the excess we want from this kind of thing to start with. The franchise, I think, has yet to live up to the full potential of the talent involved (both in front of and behind the camera), but hopefully they’re getting there. Tony Stark’s story continues to be a fascinating one, warts and all.

And yes, there’s another after-credits sequence this time. One that I thought was just a little bit awesome.

Based on the comic by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck, and Jack Kirby (not necessarily in that order)
Screenplay by Justin Theroux
Directed by Jon Favreau

Grade: B+

The Comics Page #25: The Wonder Woman Chronicles, Vol. 1

I’d been waiting a long time for DC to give Wonder Woman the CHRONICLES treatment. The character’s original Golden Age stories, written by William Moulton Marston (under the not-quite-a-psuedonym Charles Moulston) and illustrated by Harry G. Peter, are the subject now of a lot of disdain and misunderstanding, most of it down to the creator’s fondness for bondage and how thinly this was disguised in early renderings. Comicdom’s first female superhero has a lot of baggage attached to her, but in my view it’s the unusual and problematic aspects of the character’s history that make her enduring. Contrary to Jules Pfeiffer’s assertion that Wonder Woman felt like a corporate attempt at a lady superhero, the early Wonder Woman stories have the feel of authentic fantasy to them. They’re the singular vision of someone who had a genuinely unusual way of looking at the world, and though the stories collected here are hardly masterpieces, there’s an energy and enthusiasm to them that gives this collection more than just historical value.

Diana is the princess of Paradise Island, a mystical Mediterranean realm that is home to the Amazons, a society of warrior women sworn, thanks to past treachery, never to consort with the male of the species. This poses a problem when American pilot Steve Trevor crash lands on the island in an attempt to stop Axis saboteurs; nursing him to health, Diana falls for him and wishes to accompany him back to “man’s world”. Her mother Hippolyta initially forbids it, but when Diana secretly wins a contest to become champion of the Amazons for this important task, she is given leave to travel to the outside world as Wonder Woman, superpowered defender of righteousness. Through an unlikely coincidence Wondy also ends up taking the identity and nurse’s credentials of Diana Prince, and in her secret identity she becomes privy to many ofthe problems Trevor faces wrestling with Nazis and fifth columnists. Inevitably these problems require the intervention of a superstrong woman with a magic lasso and bracers that can deflect bullets; in a pinch, Wonder Woman calls upon her rotund friend Etta Candy and the girls of a local academy to run interference.

From the start, WONDER WOMAN blends ancient fantasy, science fiction (the Amazons have much advanced technology, most notably a telepathic communicator), and anti-fascist action, the results having the feel of contemporary serials and pulp adventure. If there’s one thing that I dislike about the subsequent Iron Age reboot, it’s that it focused on the Greek myth element to the minimalization of these other aspects, in the name of thematic coherence; what we get here may be a little bit slapdash, but it also feels organic and original.

Now, for the most part, the weirdness that many remark on with the old school WW stories is restrained in this volume; I have a feeling Marston wanted to make sure the character was a mainstream comics success, and so for a start sticks mostly to reasonably straightforward stories involving Axis spies in weird environments. A story set at the circus, and another in the wild west, are marred in modern eyes by old school Golden Age racism, though both have odd enough plotlines that they’re memorable otherwise. There’s also an interesting trip into Superman-esque social commentary in a story where Wonder Woman confronts a cartel driving up the price of milk, which turns out to be another Nazi plot to weaken America’s youth by depriving them of healthy teeth and bones. What I’ve seen in various comms has led me to believe that Marston eventually threw in some weirder adversaries, but for the first few issues it’s all WWII stuff.

Harry G. Peter’s art has the crudeness common to Golden Age illustration, a problem with the early comics industry being a blotter hungry for ink. Quality control pretty much gave way completely to having 64 pages done in time no matter what, but though there are some odd expressions and muscle contortions here and there, the art has a pleasingly rounded, almost classical look. It’s pleasant, though Wondy herself has a tendency to look a little stoned.

The major criticism one sees of these early stories is that Marston’s interest in bondage colors the action more than it should. You’ve got the lasso, which Wonder Woman uses to put bad guys under her power, you’ve got several sequences in which she herself is captured, her magic bracers are the reminders of a brief period in which the Amazons were enslaved due to Hippolyta’s carelessness, etc. For some this taints the feminist ideals of the character, but I honestly don’t see it as that great of a conflict. Bondage and fetishism in general are not incompatible with a belief in female equality, or even the female supremacy that Marston apparently espoused. The bondage elements- muted enough that anything sexual would easily go over the heads of the children reading- make the story a bit stranger than your traditional girl-power narrative, but I’m almost inclined to put that in the plus column. It makes the subtext something that’s genuinely transgressive, both then and now (albeit for different reasons.)

The flip side of Marston’s slightly demented dream is the presence of a lot of downright whimsical elements. The concept of Wonder Woman being helped by an entire sorority is downright charming, and though Etta Candy is the target of many, many, many fat jokes, this somehow does not prevent her from kicking ass when called upon to do so. She’s actually a lot more tolerable than most sidekicks of the era, mainly because once the jokes are over she can actually do things. Then there are the giant kangaroos of Paradise Island, the purple healing ray, and of course, the invisible plane, which would be explained at some point in the Silver Age but here is just another incongruous example of Amazon technology. Marston was willing to put in some things that didn’t immediately make sense, or couldn’t be explained by the story’s main conceit, and I think that’s the mark of true fantastic worldbuilding.

I can’t help but think that something was lost when Wonder Woman’s backstory was cleaned up and reshaped; some of the changes were welcome (Etta Candy is now a government agent without any obvious chocolate addiction), and arguably the whole thing was necessary, but a certain subversive magic runs through the original stories in all their goofiness. In fact, looking at the old stories suggests why so many writers since Marston have struggled with the character. It may just be that you have to be a little crazy, a little willing to embrace fantastic whimsy and AVENGERS-esque sexual undertones (Emma Peel, not Janet van Dyne), to do Wonder Woman justice. Maybe that’s why I’ve enjoyed Gail Simone’s run so much, and though J. Michael Strayczinski is a talented comic writer I’m not sure he has the right touch. I hope he proves me wrong. In the meantime, it’s good to have the classics in an affordable collection, and I eagerly await future volumes.

Grade: B+

The Comics Page #24: Blackest Night #1

I’m not entirely sure reviewing BLACKEST NIGHT #1 is a good idea. The event is just starting up (albeit after an irritatingly prolonged runup) and just the first part doesn’t offer as much to chew on as the full series will once it’s finished (in theory.) Also, I usually review things on which I have a strong opinion, and that’s just the thing- at this stage, I am very fervently of the impression that BLACKEST NIGHT #1 is undoubtedly, unquestionably, without question, a comic book.

Seriously, this thing has been polarizing. And it’s surprising, because it’s so... adequate. The art is nice. The dialogue is solid. The pace isn’t too bad. The story makes sense. It’s not a spectacular misfire, but that’s because it doesn’t try anything. It is, thusfar, what you would expect from Geoff Johns writing what’s effectively DC ZOMBIES without the humor.

So, you’ll notice that in the past few years, the casualty rate in the DC universe has gotten a little ridiculous. Second-stringers, supporting cast members, even what is technically the original Superman, all piled up like firewood. Of course, there have been a lot of resurrections too, from Hal Jordan to Barry Allen to Conner Kent and Ice. Most of the issue is just going through the casualty rate, as explained through the inner monologues of various characters on a national day of remembrance for fallen superheroes and the ones who’ve come back.

But all is about to change. You see, a few competitors to the Green Lantern Corps- the willpower-driven space police force, have sprung up- you’ve got, let me see if I can recall this, the fear-driven Yellow Lanterns or Sinestro Corps, the hope-driven Blue Lanterns, the rage-vomiting Red Lanterns (and that’s not a metaphor), the love-driven Star Sapphire Corps who are sorta pinkish and all hot chicks for some reason, there are Orange dudes who represent greed, Indigo is compassion which seems to overlap a bit... anyway, motivated by some unseen force and aided somehow by Black Hand digging up Bruce Wayne’s grave, a bunch of Black power rings appear, slip themselves on the fingers of various corpses and turn them into superpowered zombies whose basic mission is to kill everyone.

I’m starting to move towards the side that says this isn’t very good.

Now, that’s not fair. This story has potential, and it’s a follow-up to the extremely well-done SINESTRO CORPS WAR, which was much better than anyone expected. And who knows? This could go somewhere. Most of this issue is exposition, and in theory it’s not a bad idea to fill everyone in on the state of play. Granted, if your plot requires this much backstory you may want to prune it down a bit, but the exposition is handled relatively painlessly. And it’s not all that happens. We see the zombies start to rise, we find out that the JLA has been keeping the bodies of supervillains in a giant morgue and there is no way that could possibly backfire, and there is a major death.

Skip the next two paragraphs if you don’t want to be spoiled.

So, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, who we thought maybe died in FINAL CRISIS but didn’t because editorial said so I think, are lounging about somewhere and talking about how they always seem to die just after they admit their feelings for each other (which is kind of weird since I have it on good word that they were married in the Silver Age). Needless to say, Hawkgirl is on the very cusp of telling Hawkman he loves him, when- they are attacked and murdered by the zombies of Ralph and Sue Dibny.

This is supposed to be very shocking. It’s something that Johns likes to do a lot, have a gruesome death at what should be a happy occasion, as when he had Nazi supervillains murder an entire family reunion picnic in JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #3 (which, coincidentally, was the third and last issue of the series that I read.) And though I’ve complained about this kind of Romero-esque carnage in superhero comics before, here I was not offended. I was not shocked. The killing is telegraphed for several pages, drawn out for a few more, and is so in line with every horrible ironic death in the DC Universe that it completely fails to register. It’s a bad scene, not because it’ll destroy your childhood or anything, but because it just kind of sucks.

The major difference between this and MARVEL ZOMBIES, apart from being in-continuity, is that, as far as I can tell, this has no sense of humor whatsoever. The concept is ludicrous, but Johns handles it with utter solemnity, which is something that bugs me about him as a writer- he comes across as afraid of the genre’s sillier side, and tries to shore up its serious nature with blood and entrails and sad ironic deaths. Where the SINESTRO CORPS event was an exciting action adventure, this is marking itself as dark and grim from the start, and though this can be made to work, this is not an inspiring direction. It’s not bad, but...

You know what? I just noticed that in one of the big splash panels, one of the Black Lanterns is Ch’p. The cartoon squirrel Green Lantern who used to antagonize Salaak and got run over by a car for not being serious enough.

That does it. This is not a good comic. It’s not horrible, but there’s just nothing in it that leaps out at me. There is nothing that says, “This is a great comic story that will thrill you at every turn.” There is nothing that says, “This will make you weep, first with sadness, then with joy.” There is nothing that says, “You will gladly pay $4 for this every month.” I can see others finding something that interests them, but I’m not sure why the praise thusfar is so effusive. Even if you’re a big Geoff Johns fan- and the man has done good work, do not get me wrong- this is pretty average for him. The art by Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert is pretty solid, but again I don’t see how it stands out from the pack.

It is a superhero comic that kicks off a big event, and, well, that’s it. Not the worst thing in the world, but I see no reason to stick with it.

Grade: C

The Comics Page #23: DC Showcase Presents Ambush Bug

Comedy superhero books have an unfortunate habit of not lasting very long, so those of us who appreciate the genre tend to treasure the ones that come down the pike. To call Ambush Bug a superhero would maybe be inaccurate, and he’s only briefly a supervillain, but he’s the DC Universe’s silliest resident and primary deconstructionist, and while his current miniseries languishes in publishing limbo just shy of its final issue, it’s as good a time as any to enjoy DC’s comprehensive showcase collection of his earlier misadventures. Created by Keith Giffen, and given dialogue by Robert Loren Fleming, Ambush Bug can be seen here quickly evolving from a mildly interesting supervillain concept to a character whose very existence seems to threaten the tenuous nature of comic book continuity itself.

Ambush Bug first popped up in DC COMICS PRESENTS in the early 80s, during a bit of a doldrums for the company. The Bronze Age was slowly moving towards a close and a bunch of characters and concepts were on the verge of being retconned by CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, and in this bleh period the green suited bug first pops up to menace Superman and the then-new Doom Patrol, murdering a Metropolis D.A. just to establish his villainy and popping around town thanks to a miniature robot bug teleportation network (and that idea makes a lot more sense in context.) He gets away and causes trouble later for the Legion of Substitute Heroes and Supergirl (who he thinks is Superman, just looking a bit different) before starting to work as an independent hero type and slowly drifting out of normal continuity as we know it, into a succession of miniseries and specials.

Ambush Bug’s actual origin story involves a suit sent from a doomed planet in a rocket that was later bitten by a radioactive spider, before ending up in the hands of Irvin Schwab, who was raised by a solid-state television set. Or maybe not- later he insists that his secret origin is just that, secret, and you aren’t ever gonna hear it. Whatever he is, wherever he comes from, the Bug can go anywhere he pleases, and with his loyal sidekick Cheeks, the Toy Wonder (don’t ask) he confronts discontinuity, giant Koalas, editor Julius Schwartz, an evil sock, and... *gasp*... DARKSEID!

Silliness doesn’t begin to describe it. To say that Giffen did the plotting for Ambush Bug (at least after he came into his own as a character- Paul Kupperberg wrote the Doom Patrol and Supergirl stories) implies that there’s plot, which is a half truth at best. Oh, there’s usually a pretense of a story, but Giffen and Fleming frequently get bored and digress into side gags like puppetry, art lessons, recipes for teriyaki burgers, data sheets (of the DC and Playboy variety), Cheeks as a combat medic, the adventures of Ambush Bug’s magna counterpart Mitsu-Bishi, the list goes on.

Most of the humor comes from satirizing comic trends, specifically DC’s attempts to present a coherent and serious universe in light of decades of pure silliness. Its efforts are personified by Jonni DC, the continuity cop who is turned from a personified DC logo into a disturbingly curvy woman due to the efforts of the Interferer, who revises and reboots comic characters at a whim. As inside-baseball as it sometimes seems, Giffen and Fleming’s satire is sharp and engaging, and Giffen’s uniquely scratchy art style matches the material pretty well.

In some ways the collection is a mixed bag, with a few almost normal superhero stories preceding a slide into absolute insanity. I actually enjoyed the early appearances just as a look at what DC was like in the early 80s, and it’s fascinating to see how Ambush Bug developed from a mildly humorous villain concept to a pure comedy figure. There’s some really brilliant stuff here, and some stuff I don’t understand at all, and the occasional moment that’s almost moving (Cheeks is nothing if not sympathetic.) Definitely worth having around and dipping into now and then, if only as a reminder that good comic books don’t necessarily have to make sense.

Grade: A-

The Comics Page #22: Dan Dare: Prisoners of Space

I actually picked up DAN DARE: PRISONERS OF SPACE thinking it was the immediate follow-up to THE RED MOON MYSTERY, which ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. Hey, these things aren’t numbered. Instead we end up jumping ahead a few years for a return engagement by Dare’s favored enemy the Mekon, in a story that is conceptually bog-standard but executed tightly enough to be a fun read. Not every story arc could involve ancient mysteries from the depths of space, after all.

The action starts at Space HQ’s Astral Training College, where promising cadets Steve Valiant and “Flamer” Spry (don’t say anything) are taken on a tour of Dan Dare’s new experimental rocket, the “Performing Flea”. Through normal boys’ adventure shenanigans they accidentally launch the rocket (with a curmudgeonly Scotsman named “Groupie” on board), and are forced to dock with a nearby space station while Dan prepares to pick them up. Unfortunately, said station has been commandeered by the reptilian genius known as the Mekon, along with his loyal Treen soldiers, and the cadets and Groupie are quickly captured. The Mekon promises he’ll let the prisoners go in exchange for Dare’s surrender, and Dare solemnly agrees. However, Digby stows away on Dare’s ship, and they quickly discover that the alien mastermind has designs on reconquering his old Venusian stomping grounds.

This is pretty much pure cliffhanger stuff as soon as the plot gets moving; it’s a simple set-up, so writers Frank Hampson and Allan Stranks don’t have to dwell on any potentially boring exposition. Nothing really strange or exotic pops up, we’re just watching the good guys face off against the established bad guys for what was then the third time.

Most of the drama this time comes from Dan Dare’s very heroic and very properly British integrity- once promising the Mekon that he’ll give himself up to save the boys’ lives, he’s pretty thoroughly committed to that course of action even when an opportunity to save them and himself arises. It’s up to the others to help him and to the Mekon to be so predictably underhanded as to force the hero to act. We know that one or both of these things must inevitably happen, so the fun is in seeing how. Codes of honor and such also come into play regarding the boys trapped on board- Steve Valiant is forced to play along as the Mekon’s willing servant to prevent the others being killed, which causes Flamer to see him as a dirty deceitful rat. Such are the sacrifices one must make for the greater good (the greater good).

That heady business aside, most of the strips are just about twisting the story enough to keep the reader hooked for next week, and on that level the writers do their job. There’s never the sense that the plot is being unnecessarily dragged out or that the pacing is off; overall this particular arc lasted for almost a year, but despite its simplicity it never outstays its welcome.

The art here- by Hampson, Desmond Walduck, and Don Harley- is a bit more polished than on RED MOON, though this may just be a sign that Titan Books improved their printing process. The colors are bright and candylike, and though this story doesn’t offer as many opportunities for visual spectacle as the other I’ve reviewed we get some nice spacefights and the like.

Reading a big collection of work that was meant to be taken two pages at a time by bored British schoolchildren is an unusual experience, but PRISONERS OF SPACE holds up surprisingly well for something that was obviously never meant to be read all in one go. There’s nothing that makes it a real must read, but for someone already hooked on Dan Dare there’s nothing that disappoints either. Hampson and company deliver what they promise, with as much style as ever.

Grade: B+

In Theaters: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

From the opening scene, in which a young boy in flannel pyjamas cries out “NOOOOO!” and stabs a man with bone claws embedded in his hands, you can rest comfortably knowing what kind of movie X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE will be. It’s not good by any means, in fact it hovers quite near outright bad. But it’s the rare funny kind of bad, not so close to good that it frustrates you but not so utterly horrible that it’s hard to bear. The first theoretically solo screen outing for Marvel’s immortal cash cow is comfortably dumb, and in a sense captures the unwarranted seriousness and bizarre plotting that have dogged the character’s comic incarnation ever since he became a draw.

Hugh Jackman plays James Howlett, later Logan, later Wolverine, a mutant with healing powers that allow him to survive just about anything and keep him and similarly mutated brother Victor (Liev Schreiber) alive through the Civil War, both World Wars, and Vietnam, which is sort of interesting because I’m almost sure they’re Canadian. They’re recruited by General William Stryker (Danny Huston) for a special covert group of mutant soldiers doing unsavory black ops, but flees when Victor and company massacre the inhabitants of a village in Nigeria. Years later he’s living in the mountains with a gorgeous girlfriend (Lynn Collins) and working as a lumberjack, when Victor shows up again and for vague reasons kills said girlfriend. Wolverine signs up with Stryker again to get revenge, and his powers are augmented by a skeleton of unbreakable adamantium, with claws to boot. He overhears that Stryker plans to wipe his memory and ship him to “the island”, so he breaks out and triggers a manhunt that eventually leads him to some old partners and the revelation that Stryker and Victor are working together to capture mutants for a program to build the ultimate mutant soldier under U.S. control, or something.

As twisted as the overall story is, it’s almost impossible NOT to predict where a given scene is going to lead. The script is composed of at least 75% action film clichés, and the film makes no attempt whatsoever to disguise the recycling. The dialogue is particularly ripe with this sort of thing, all sorts of macho posturing about blood and vengeance and badassery that becomes giggle-inducing after a while.

It helps that Hugh Jackman is an actor who’s apparently game for anything. After three movies he’s comfortable with the part of Wolverine, obviously, and he jumps into it with enthusiasm. There’s even a bit of comic exasperation in his performance, Wolverine being constantly betrayed, knocked around, having things fall on him, etc. Schreiber plays off him well, but strangely Victor gets sidelined in the film’s final act.

Now, I suppose you’re wondering what, for me, the practicable difference is between a bad but enjoyable film and one I’ll legitimately defend. I gave a good review to TRANSFORMERS, after all. But TRANSFORMERS knew it was kind of silly, while WOLVERINE comes across as almost entirely straight faced. There’s comic relief, of course, and a scene where Wolverine battles the corpulent Blob (Kevin Durand) in a boxing match approaches a kind of kitsch brilliance, but we’re apparently expected to take most of the amateur melodramatics seriously, and the filmmakers show too much restraint for the picture to realize its full camp potential.

A certain inconsistency dogs the action and effects sequences. Some of the effects work is quite good, some is not great but acceptable, and some of it was clearly done the day before release. None of the action scenes really stand out, although the climactic fight has a few good shots in it. The direction is sometimes quite sloppy and pedestrian, and last minute editing seems to have cut out most of Ryan Reynolds’ performance as Wade Wilson / Deadpool, which is a shame. Speaking of editing, I’m fairly sure that we don’t hear Wolvie’s girlfriend’s name until some time in the final act. (It’s Kayla.)

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE may be so slipshod it makes THE LAST STAND look like a polished masterpiece by comparison, but if you know what to expect going in it’s hard to dislike the film too much. Honestly, the convoluted backstory and enforced edginess of the Wolverine character/brand made any solo effort likely to fail from the start, and an effort that fails entertainingly is probably not the worst we could do. I’m disappointed that it didn’t turn out to be a musical, but that was too much to hope for.

Based on characters created by various persons within Marvel Comics
Screenplay by David Benioff and Skip Woods
Directed by Gavin Hood

Grade: C

The Comics Page #21: Dan Dare: The Red Moon Mystery

Seeing as I’ve looked at Garth Ennis’ solid DAN DARE revival recently, it only makes sense that I should also go to the original. Titan Books has released several collections of Dan’s adventures in the beloved UK comics weekly EAGLE, and I’ll go through a couple. Because I found both at random we start with the second volume; “The Red Moon Mystery” was my introduction to the character, and a fine one it is. Written and drawn mostly by Frank Hampson and his studio, the second major Dan Dare arc is a classic old-school sci-fi tale which mixes over-the-top space opera with some rather intriguing scientific concepts.
Dan Dare is visiting his uncle Ivor, a famous archaeologist investigating the ruins of the dead planet Mars. Ivor has discovered writings of the inhabitants’ last days, warning of a red moon which approached the planet and somehow wiped out all life on the planet in less than a week. No sooner has this discovery been made than a red moon appears in the solar system, heading towards Earth in a way that makes it appear that it’s being steered by some intelligence. It falls to Dare, his pal Digby, the lovely and brilliant Prof. Peabody, and others to unravel the mystery of this celestial menace while protecting the people in its path, including the colonists of Mars.

Obviously I’m not going to disclose the secret of what the moon is, suffice it to say it’s a downright clever concept grounded in reasonably plausible science. There’s no true antagonist character here, though mutineers among the evacuees provide a bit of extra conflict; it’s mostly a disaster story, with epic scenes of destruction and tempestuous storms aplenty. The pacing on this arc is excellent; there’s always a sense of forward momentum because the Red Moon simply keeps moving closer, bringing chaos with it.

The art isn’t reproduced as well as it could be, but it’s remarkably well-detailed and has an interesting use of color; British and European comics weren’t quite as restricted by printing techniques as their US counterparts, and the deep shades used here add to the story’s atmosphere. The future technology is rendered with great dedication, the character designs (with sketches often being based on poses by people in the studio) are all memorable, and I was particularly struck by the surrealistic vistas of the moon’s surface.

The ending of this story drags on a bit as a way of leading into the next major plot arc, but it’s still suspenseful up to that point. People wanting to get into the classic Dan Dare adventures will likely want to start at the beginning, but if like me you chance across this particular volume, it’s a great introduction. It’s pulp sci-fi done with intelligence and polish, and a certain bit of class.

Grade: A-

Rant the Second: My "Scott and Jean"

Another late meme, and another rant that you may or may not be interested in. Basically, over at AlertNerd, a post coined the phrase “My Scott and Jean”- which specifically refers to Scott Summers and Jean Grey of X-Men fame, their romance and her death/rebirth and all the drama associated with it, etc., but generally means one thing in fiction you can’t discuss rationally (or wholly rationally) because of how geekily you are devoted to it. They’re also known as “Geek Sacred Cows”. Since I’m a geek, I don’t want for these things, so one week after everyone has ceased to care, I’ve narrowed it down to three.

1. Maxwell Lord is a sleaze, a scumbag, a shady character. But he’s not all bad.

In Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis’ legendary run on the Justice League, Maxwell Lord was introduced as a corrupt businessman with designs on giving the League international status and U.N. backing. He was also working with an alien computer to try and take over the world. He was first intended just as a villain, with artist Kevin Maguire basing his appearance on that of Sam Neill in OMEN: THE FINAL CONFLICT, but by the time they got around to resolving his arc, Giffen and DeMatteis decided they wanted to keep the character around, so he had a change of heart and redeemed himself in a rather touching issue. Since then he became the league’s UN liaison and boss, and generally went back and forth between blatantly self interested, manipulative scum, and someone with the League’s best interests at heart. You never knew where you stood with him.

At least until COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS, wherein he became the evil head of Checkmate and blew Ted Kord’s brains out. Now, I understand this was to develop the story that would become INFINITE CRISIS, and when Lord was killed by Wonder Woman later, that set up a bunch of plot threads for her that have yet to die.

Frankly, though, the move never made any sense to me, despite various retcon attempts. Yes, Max was a bastard, but he had limits. He was willing to let a crazed would-be terrorist get himself killed as part of a set up for the League, and in his past came close to killing his own boss, but held back. More importantly, I like him as an ambiguous figure. The entire point was that you didn’t know where you stood with him- it was impossible to say at any given moment whose interests he was pursuing. He was a complex figure, a three-dimensional one, and at heart I’m a sucker for redemption narratives. As an out-and-out supervillain his possibilities were extremely limited- you know from the start not to trust him, because he’s wearing Black Ops gear and trying to control Superman’s mind, so he becomes Lex Luthor with added mind control powers.

The presence of extra-evil Maxwell Lord was enough to drive me away from the “Blue and Gold” arc in BOOSTER GOLD, as many good things as I keep hearing about that series. And he’s showing up in BLACKEST NIGHT, or so rumor has it. So I may sit that one out.

2 (though related to the above). I want Ted Kord alive, dammit.

Ever since the death of the second Blue Beetle in the aforementioned pre-INFINITE CRISIS event, a lot of writers have tried to make sure that Ted gets the respect in death he didn’t in life. The aforementioned BOOSTER GOLD arc apparently dealt with how Ted’s seemingly-insignificant sacrifice actually prevented Lord and the Omacs from getting too far in their plan for world domination or whatever, and how it was a necessary and noble thing, etc. I get that it’s now considered a moral victory- Ted was physically defeated but held to his principles up to the end.

And yet- I dunno. Maybe it’s just that, due to geek sacred cow #1, I didn’t accept that this storyline had much worth to it in the first place. But also, Ted is probably the superhero character I most identify with, and I wanna see him win it all, get the girl (though many shippers would dispute this particular point) and if they have to retire him, have him ride into the sunset. Not quite as dramatic, but it makes more sense for a lighthearted hero like him- especially since he’s easily the nerdiest of the superheroes, an insecure joker who sometimes messes up but whom you can’t help but love.

On top of that, I get turned off by the underlying idea that the time Ted proved himself was the time he stopped kidding around. That he had to get serious and get grim in order to do what had to be done. There’s this impression I get from superhero comics sometimes that superheroing now is considered a business which requires both the discipline of a Navy Seal and the solemnity of a death row prison guard. I don’t think it’s right that the character’s defining moment is his most serious. He needs a do-over.

That said, as I hope I’ve established before, I’ve got nothing against the new Blue Beetle, and if/when Ted comes back I don’t want him to displace Jaime.

3. The Time Lords are more interesting as a living civilization than a lost legacy.

I love the new DOCTOR WHO, and I totally understand why Russell T. Davies decided to blow up Gallifrey offscreen at the start of it. It’s a great deck-clearing situation which also served to give the character some extra motivation and give everyone a mystery going in. But it’s been nearly 4 years to the day, and I think the well’s run dry. The whole “lonely god” aspect of the Doctor has been played out, and though that’s always been part of the character, he needs to veer back towards “eccentric adventurer”, and not having a lost planet to brood over might help.

Also, even though the Time Lords are generally regarded as hard to write and not conducive to great stories, I love the guys. Super-advanced dead civilizations are everywhere in science fiction, it’s a valid and common trope, but frankly I think it’s even more interesting if you’ve got a godlike ancient race that’s still around and still has some power. The Time Lords are also versatile- they can be the bad, corrupt people repressing the Doctor or doing some unethical meddling in one story, and decent folk who need saving from Sontarans the next. I want to see the grandeur of Gallifrey captured as best the production team can (though I was grateful for the flashback near the end of Season 3), and I want to see it explored. And I don’t want the Doctor to be forever the last of his kind and someone who only wanders because he had to destroy his home. The Time War thing is coming dangerously close to defining the Doc’s whole character, and we need to see more that he’s a wanderer and adventurer by choice.

I spent way too long on something that’s supposed to be irrational and inexplicable. Oh well, that’s my contribution to the meme. And I’ll try to have something more coherent next time.