It's Too Nice Outside For This

ABP: So we're not going to mention him this week?

Calvin: {That's right. We'll give him a little rest. Maybe it'll improve his disposition.}

But he's in 40% of the comics you bought! {Then you'll just have to look over the other 60% extra carefully.} I can't even give him a hug? {Fine, you can give him a hug, but quietly. Off-panel, without mentioning his name.} You're just scared he's going to come by and shoot you. {A little, yes.}

Fine, I think Bane needs a Bonk for kicking Scandal off the team. She was there first! {She's also a little crazy, and Bane was right, their mission have gone pretty poorly with her in charge.} Ragdoll's gets some Applause for dealing with that Mr. Smyth. {You're in favor of beating people with pipe wrenches?} When they're bad people. {Oh, that's a dangerously vague comment. Wouldn't practically everyone in that book qualify as bad people?} Stop arguing with me! Or I'll, I'll, say his name! {You mean CandleJack?} You know who I mean!! {OK, concerns retracted. Carry on.}

I'm Applauding Power Girl for helping the people from Vega 7 find their way home, and helping them find a place to stay in the meantime. *glares at Calvin* {I didn't say anything.} Whoever was taking pictures of Power Girl needs a Bonk. It's not polite to take a person's picture without asking. I think Cyclops needs a Bonk for shooting Namora in the back, and for shooting M-11 when Wolverine wanted to chop it up. {Sigh.} What? {As much as I like seeing Cyclops get hit, I can't really fault him. Namora was attacking Storm, and M-11 well, it's not like Logan didn't get other chances in the issue to attack it.} It's not like the X-Men were using Cerebra anyway! They shouldn't be so greedy! {Do you still use that paddle ball you got last Christmas?} No. . . {Great. I'll go take it now, without asking if it's OK. Seriously, I can't believe you're OK with the stealing. Are you sure you aren't Deadpool in disguise again?} You said his name! {I suppose I did. Oh well, you'll just have to carry on without me here on the blog.} No, it'll be OK! I bet he'll change his mind eventually! We just have to hide you until then! Come on, the woods are right over there! {I'd like to maintain a little dignity, thank you.}

What I Bought 10/23/09

I can't think of anything to say for an introduction. Oh well.

Deadpool #900 - I don't know why Drew Johnson went with a cover that looks like it goes on the back of a mudflap. Anyway, for $5, you get a "Deadpool abducted by aliens, the poor, poor aliens" story by Jason Aaron and Chris Staggs. Then Fred van Lente and Dalibor Talajic have Deadpool fight mimes who can make whatever they're miming real, done silently. Mike Benson and Daimon Scott have Deadpool visit a therapist, Joe Kelly and Rob Liefeld have Deadpool completely blow off stopping some device from doing something to follow up on an old bet, Duane Swierczynski and Shawn Crystal take CSI down a peg (shoulda been you, Caruso). Victor Gischler and Sandford Greene send Deadpool on a cruise to engage in vacation ping-pong. There's what I'm assuming is a reprint of a battle between Deadpool and a miniaturized, cranked up to 12 version of himself, written by James Felder and drawn by Pete Woods.

There's also a story by Charlie Huston and Kyle Baker that's highly discordant compared to the rest, and makes me feel bad about buying so many comics with him, not to mention writing him poorly on this blog. I'm contributing to his torment! The rest are all varying degrees of good, though Liefeld occasionally makes Wade's old friend look about 12 feet tall, and I'm really wishing Daimon Scott would rein in his style a bit, get closer to what he did on Batgirl. He's not a bad choice for a story about Deadpool's mental problems, and there are some layouts I really liked, but there are others where things are too distorted, too loose. No inker's listed, so I wonder if Scott is like Stroman, and needs an inker to solidify his work. Or maybe that would make things worse. The mime story was nice, though the telekinetic killer mimes with dimensional gateways where their torsos should be from Grimjack: Killer Instinct pretty owns the top spot for "Use of mimes" in a comic, so I'd say my favorite was the CSI one. I'd imagine how much one likes that story depends on how aware of (and periodically annoyed by) the cliches of those types of shows one is. I considered this excellent value for my money.

Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth #4 - Jack must have figured I buy this since I buy so much other Deadpool stuff. Reasonable assumption, I suppose, and it's here, I've paid for it, might as well discuss it. The recap page tells me what I need to know: That Deadpool is to recover Zombie Deadpool (of those Marvel Zombies books) from the Savage Land for AIM, but HYDRA wants Zombie Deadpool, so they show up, and there's a zombie T-Rex, and an attractive AIM agent who hates Deadpool.

Compared to the book I just discussed, this felt really light. It's largely an extended chase scene: Deadpool running from the T-Rex, the scientist agent lady trying to find transportation while carrying the head of Zombie Deadpool. There's a few other oddballs in there who I'm sure would mean more to me if I'd read the preceding issues, but it's mostly Deadpool and Betty running in various directions. Also, I've never been to a tropical jungle, so I don't know proper procedure for clothing, but I'd think, considering the giant-ass mosquitoes, I'd want more clothes than Betty wears. Certainly the way those shorts ride up must be uncomfortable to run for your life in. On the other hand, I'd guess there's no risk of catching a pant leg on a root or something. Basically, this issue did not convince me that I'm missing out by not purchasing this book monthly. The potential fun of two Deadpools was killed for me by one of them being a Zombie. I mean, it's kind of a neat idea, AIM and HYDRA wanting the zombie head for various reasons, I'm just so sick of zombies. And Betty's generally so unpleasant towards Deadpool that the fact he'd like to jump her bones doesn't make me any more kindly disposed towards her, so there aren't many characters I care about.

Power Girl #6 - So the party girls are princesses from Vega 7, and Nerdy Jetpack Guy (Carl) is supposed to be looking after them, but they ran, and he followed, and now they're on Earth, and both their spaceships are wrecked. Power Girl learned this by removing Carl from the fight he was having with the girls, and politely talking with him. OK, she removed his jetpack and threatened to drop him. But she was nice about it! They track down the girls, ensure they don't kill anyone, and set the four of them up with a nice place in Brazil (it's warm on Vega 7, and the girls had lost of jewels and such). Also, Power Girl knows someone knows her secret identity, which doesn't make her very happy.

For awhile there, I thought the issue was going to end with PG unable to find the girls. She'd know their story, but they'd be a dangling plot thread she'd probably have to wrap up down the line, since keeping a low profile doesn't seem to be their style. So the fact she did find them and help them (rather than just fighting them) was nice. Plus, we had some more interaction between Power Girl and Terra, which I enjoy. Power Girl's the older, more experienced of the two, but Terra can help her a lot just by being someone to talk to about her difficulties. Sometimes all you really need is a good listener. OK, it is time once again for me to struggle to find something to say about Amanda Conner's art, that I haven't already said. The part at the hospital, there are so many little things going on in the background I want to know about. I know, that's always true, but between the guy with the cooler in the last panel, the guy trying to hit on the receptionist, the little kid eying Anez (I can't tell whether she's giving him a look or glancing over that "My-Tykes Magazine" she's holding. Maybe she was trying to decide if the kid was a Doofus or Dashing?).

Secret Six #14 - This book has a startling lack of Bane wearing a torn mask and screaming. Or doing either of those things separately for that matter. I know, the cover lies, shocking. Grendel wants to eat Wonder Woman. The Amazons want to escape and kill lots of guards, Smyth doesn't want them to escape. Scandal's lost her damn mind. So has Deadshot, probably. Nobody's having a good time. Wonder Woman killed the Grendel, and said it was OK 'cause it's a demon. Except its dad was Vandal Savage, and its mom was a cavebeast. So that wouldn't technically be a demon. I mean, Wonder Woman's clay given life, right? So she'd be less human than that thing, at least in a biological sense, anyway. I don't really care that she killed it, since I never once understood during this arc why everyone was making such a big deal about it (what's the difference between it and that talking shark Jeanette ripped an arm off of during the opening arc?). It tends to erode the moral high ground from which she would look down her nose at the Six. Which explains why she let them leave, but she was snooty about it. Clearly I'm not much of a Wonder Woman fan.

Nicola Scott is sharing art duties with Carlos Rodriguez, who drew Secret Six #8. Their styles aren't too far off, but Rodriguez' is different enough, a little simpler, thinner lines, that the shift is noticeable. Rodriguez draws the middle of the book, and I wonder if it wouldn't have worked better to just have him draw certain characters , and have Scott handle others, so there'd be a continuity. You know, have Rodriguez draw all the stuff with Bane and Scandal, or maybe all of the Artemis stuff, and Scott takes care of the rest. I'm not sure whether that would have made the shift more noticeable or less, since there would be multiple switches in the issue, instead of just two (from Scott, to Rodriguez, and back again). Coming up next month, Ostrander! Deadshot! Double Fist Pump of Excitement!

X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas #1 - I don't remember M-11 being able to fly. Maybe he can and I've forgotten it. Wouldn't be surprised. As I've said, if Jeff Parker writes something with the Agents of Atlas, I will buy it. Crap, I just paraphrased Field of Dreams. I might have to chop off my fingers. The X-Men are moving to their island home. They haven't moved Cerebra yet, and the Agents want it to find Venus, who has been abducted. They almost get away before the X-Men show up, and the fight scene begins, and then resumes at the Agents headquarters. Then there's a backup where the Agents of Atlas (in their retro styles) fight the original X-Men (in their old school yellow and blue outfits). Something's up though, because pieces of it don't fit together (I mean on purpose, like there's going to be a reveal next issue, not that Parker's being sloppy).

At least the fight scene makes sense, as it isn't a misunderstanding battle. M-11 did burn Wolverine's arm off last time they met, and the Agents do run a vast criminal empire. Granted, they want to use it for good, but they're still putting up a facade of being evil. So taking that with the fact they're stealing Cerebra, and the fight makes sense. I think Parker tells you everything you need to know, and it those little boxes next to the characters were actually helpful, since I had been wondering why Emma was always in her diamond form in Deadpool #16. Also, Jimmy Woo kicks Cyclops right in the back of his stupid head. Go Jimmy Woo! Carlos Pagulayan handles most of the art for the main story (I think Gabriel Hardman draws two pages in the middle), and something's rougher about his work. I'm not sure whether he went with a sketchier style, more little lines, or if it's the inker, or the colorist or what. I think it's Pagulayan, but I'm not sure why the difference. Was he rushed a bit? The work isn't bad, I just don't like it as much as his art from the beginning of the Agents of Atlas series.

With that, I conclude my broadcast for today. Comment if you get 'em.

Is That Proper Etiquette For Firearm Use?

There was something I noticed while I was reading Deadpool #16. When he and Domino are hashing it out on that rooftop, and he has a gun pointed at her, he extends the pinky finger on the hand holding the gun.

Because I didn't have anything better to do (and it took less than 10 minutes) I flipped back through all the other Medina-drawn Deadpool issues from this year to see if that's typical, and it's not. He extends it during one of his Die Hard hallucinations in #7, but other than that, nothing. Normally Medina draws the pinky finger not bent as much as the others, so it's not tight against the grip like the rest of his hand, but the "teacup" hold, as I've decided to dub it, is rare. I thought maybe Medina was using it to help direct the flow of the panels, draw the audiences' eyes from Wade over to Domino, and it would work that way in #16 (though the gun would have been accomplishing the same thing). However, when he uses it in #7, Wade's aiming the gun into the air, having finished killing the Hans Gruber/Karl/Tiger Shark hallucination, and the panel's in the middle of the page, so it would be directing the reader's eyes back to the previous panels. Of course, that panel has a stretch limo that draws the eye across it, so the finger would be inconsequential in comparison, when it comes to guiding the audience.

So I don't know what it means. Maybe Medina just likes to shake things up a bit, or maybe it's supposed to indicate that Deadpool's relaxed. In the hallucination he'd already killed the bad guy, so crisis averted, and when talking to Domino, he wasn't really planning on killing her. At least, not yet.

Curses, They've Found My Weakness

It's been said elsewhere, but I'll toss in my agreement: Marvel's apparent plan to get me to buy more of their comics by including the Agents of Atlas in them. . . is totally going to work.

Dang, I thought they'd never tumble to that strategy, since they seemed so invested in slapping "Dark Reign", or "Siege", or if we go back a bit, "The Initiative" on all their books. I'm actually pretty impressed by the push they seem to be making for Agents of Atlas. I know Jeff Parker's writing basically all of the books, but still, the fact they're giving them the OK is nice. Maybe they really feel they have someone in Parker and they want to keep him happy and on board? Maybe they see a lot of potential in a series with a robot, a Gorilla Man, a potential queen of an undersea kingdom, an alien, and a siren, lead by a former FBI Agent turned leader of worldwide criminal empire? I could see a cartoon based off that concept.

Between that and all these series DC's bringing back from the dead for a month (Ostrander! Suicide Squad! Whoo!), my pull list might not be in as sorry a shape as I thought. At least for January.

Just How Big A Crisis Is Required?

I was reading Esther Inglis-Arkell's review of Batgirl #3 on 4thletter, and learned something in the comments I hadn't known. Esther had mentioned how she liked that there was a subtle red color in the background of all the scenes. Commenter Stig explained that Red Skies = Crisis, and even though Final Crisis is over, the skies over Gotham will be crimson due to the city being in crisis. I assume it has something to do with Bruce Wayne being unavailable, and so you get Dick Grayson Batman, and Jason Todd, and now it looks like we've got Two-Face Batman, and they'll probably all being struggling to be top dog.

So, would this be limited to Gotham, or can the skies turn red anywhere? There's this whole War of Light thing - you may have heard of it, it involves some group called the Green Lanterns, and a bunch of other yahoos*? Dead bodies being reanimated, threats from, um, wherever that Nekron fellow is from, it's outside their universe, I'm sure of that, which certainly sounds like a Crisis to me. Can you have red skies in space? Would it be more like a red nebula suddenly appeared everywhere at once? That'd be amusing, like the climactic ship battle at the end of Wrath of Khan, where they stumble about, trying to find each other*. Or perhaps they'd have to enter an actual atmosphere. So, there's a big fight, they head towards some normal looking world, and the second they reach it, BOOM, red skies. That ought to confuse the natives.

Also, how big a crisis does it have to be? If I can't find my keys, and I'm going to be late for work, will the skies turn red? Maybe just the sky directly over my home? What if I said I had a really important job, maintaining quality control on a potentially world-destroying invention? Then it would be pretty important that I get to work on time. Maybe the red skies would follow me receding as I drove away from a certain location.

All snarkery aside, it is kind of a cool concept, though it seems like it might downplay the seriousness of other stuff in comparison. That battle the JSA is having against Kobra might not seem like such a big deal, what with the skies above looking normal.

* Hal Jordan: There you are Atroctious! *some sort of power ring attack* Ow, it's me, Gardner, you dipstick**!

** Man, I write the worst Guy Gardner ever.

Well, You Can Get All Of The People To Buy In All Of The Time

I've decided not to come up with a list of all the people that have been welcomed onto X-Teams with criminal pasts, mostly because it would be pretty long. I was going to when Cyclops initially turned Deadpool down, but since he reconsidered, it seemed unfair. And Cyclops does have valid reasons. I don't think Deadpool's a huge risk to stab them in the back, but he's a major threat to do something damaging to the X-Men's standing with the folks in San Francisco (who are their neighbors) without realizing he's doing that. And as Seangreyson noted, the X-Men don't have anyone on the roster with a strong connection to Wade who might exert some influence over him.

Still, thinking about the list made me wonder how successful the X-Men have been with their reformation attempts. There are some obvious failures. Sabretooth, who's been on (or around) the team twice I know of. Once he killed Psylocke, the second time he ran amok on Providence, killed one member of Cable's Cabinet (Gareb), and would likely have killed Irene Merryweather if Deadpool didn't come parachuting in*. There's Mystique, who seemingly only joins the team for her own purposes, whether that's to gain access to government files**, or to drive a rift between Rogue and gambit, or for whatever reason she stabbed them in the back in Messiah CompleX. Clearly, those two ought to have used up their chances by now, but there have been successes.

Rogue for one, and you might be able to count the Juggernaut, though he did team up breifly with Black Tom, before he switched again, and then got sucked into Other Xorn's black hole head. Then he came back out and joined New Excalibur, and stayed true to their side. Now he's back to being what he was before, so maybe he doesn't count, but if he had kept being a good guy, he would eventually have been useless, since his power's kept fading, so his time on the side of angels would have ended one way or the other (regression to evil, death, retirement). Here's one: What about Wolverine? He's helped save the world, become an Avenger, even become a sometimes team player, but he still (if his solo titles are any indication) goes off on his own and slaughters large quantities of people, usually bad guys. Which is the sort of stuff he's done for decades, if all the stories set in his past are any indication. So how much has being an X-Man done for him.

What about Gambit? I can't keep it straight whether he was always a traitor, or if he just switches sides as it suits him, like Mystique. I guess Magneto counts as a failure, since he inevitably ends up fighting the X-Men again, but Emma Frost would be a success, right? She's turned against Osborn, and even before she was an X-Person, she was a teacher for the Generation X bunch, so she's been helpful for several years now. Wait, when it comes to Magneto, how would his clone, Joseph, factor into that? He was a good guy until almost the end right***?

Then there are characters whose circumstances I'm not clear on (Marrow, Maggott), and I don't know whether you'd count the X-Force kids under Cable, since he was operating with a different set of rules and goals from Xavier's groups.

Based on the folks I can think of, seems to be about a 50/50 split, but with 3 categories. The people who bought into the X-Men way and have basically stuck with it (Rogue), the people who never did (Mystique), and the people who did for a time, but their priorities shifted (Juggernaut, Gambit?). I don't know that there's anything I can conclude from this with regards to Deadpool, especially since he's in such a different headspace from everyone else. Rogue had multiple voices in her head, but they weren't hers, and she was bothered by them. I think Wade likes his inner voices, at least some of the time.

* Domino was already there, but she and Creed were in a standoff, what with her pointing a gun at him, and him with his claws at Irene's throat.

** I remember reading about her doing that when she was around Forge while he was running X-Factor, I think.

*** I have this since that the real Magneto showed up, and Joseph went kind of crazy and died, but until then, he'd been solid. Gambit didn't like him, which should probably be a point in his favor.

Perhaps He's Not Following His Own Advice

So Cyclops isn't keen on letting Deadpool join the X-Men. Whether this has to do with Deadpool being crazy, or a killer-for-hire, because Cyke hates his voice, because he thinks having Deadpool around is not going to help the X-Men's image, or something else entirely, I don't know. At least he's reconsidered, so perhaps I won't compile that list of all the other questionable people the X-Men have welcomed, some of whom worked out quite well for them (and some of whom did not). That's not where I'm going today, though.

What I'm thinking about is how Deadpool tried to convince Cyclops to let him join. Not his current plan, "Operation: Moves", which will surely not end in disaster for everyone. I mean whatever he said when he rowed out to the island the X-Men are based on now*, that ended with 'Soo. . . whatta ya say?'

In the previous issue, Deadpool was arguing with himself about the merits of trying to strike up friendships with the costumed do-gooder sect again, one side claiming that didn't work well last time, the other side countering with the suggestion that Deadpool didn't let those folks see the real him. The pro "make friends" part of his mind argued that Deadpool held back out of fear of rejection, and that if he really wanted to belong, he was going to have to invest himself in the attempt. I'm wondering if he actually tried that in his initial pitch. Or did he make some ridiculous spiel about mutant solidarity and how great he looks in clothes with a big "X" on them. Because the latter is more typical of Deadpool, and I can't see Cyclops being moved by that line of reasoning.

Of course, I'm not sure that Scott would have said "Yes" even if Deadpool had really opened up, said he feels his life is directionless, and the only time he feels good is when he helps people, so he's hoping that the X-Men, no strangers to being ostracized for being different, but still dedicated to helping others, would let him join up. And Cyclops could have a point, loathe though I am to admit that. After all, Deadpool is nuts, he does have poor impulse control, and he does tend to solve problems by killing people. While the latter might make him qualified for a spot on the Stabbity Kill Team, I think Deadpool's looking for more than just being considered an exterminator. Not that he won't kill for the X-Men; he's already demonstrating he'll do that, even when they don't ask him to. But even though Wolverine kills people, he's not thought of solely in those terms by his fellow X-Folks, and I imagine Deadpool would want the same consideration.

Still, that approach would at least be Deadpool really giving it a shot at putting himself into the potential friendship completely. Maybe I should say, that would be really putting oneself into it in the normal world, which is not a realm Deadpool spends much time in. His plan to assassinate this absentee parent giving the X-Men grief really may be Deadpool's idea of showing the X-Men his true self. It's something that has to be considered, as much as I'd like to think there is a decent person in Deadpool. His decency might simply be too twisted for him to work with the X-Men. At least some of the Stabbity Kill Team have been uncertain about what they do from time to time**, but Deadpool rarely shows doubt once it comes time to kill. Heck, he was going to gleefully carve up Bullseye with a chainsaw. Sure, that's Bullseye, and he's a scum-sucking, crazy-ass murderer, but still, Deadpool was laughing maniacally as he moved in, which is never a good sign.

* And that island is some old chunk of Asteroid M, is that right?

** Well, Wolverine was concerned about dragging others besides himself into it, at least.

Getting To Know GrimJack - Manx Cat #3

Yes, it's that time again. With another issue of Manx Cat in my hands, I'm passing the time, seeing what we can learn about Grimjack (John Gaunt) and his world from these issues, since, in theory, they're barely scratching the considerable backstory that already exists.

Page 1 - We've already seen that Gaunt likes to be prepared, as he carries swords, guns, smoke grenades, and grappling hooks. Apparently he's not the only one, because Darlin's Lil keeps a sword by her bed. She also may have some non-human side, because her eyes are yellow, her teeth are longer and pointy, and she's not doing much but hissing.

Page 2 - The shadows with faces are all around Lil, and Gaunt wonders whether she's possessedm which suggests he's encountered that before. He also says someone in the grip of night terrors can kill, suggesting he has experience with that, too. Two callbacks to issue 2. First, Gaunt says he doesn't want to kill her if he can avoid it, much the same way he didn't bother to kill all the repo men when they crossed paths. Two, his left eye has done that thing where it goes totally black except for the pupil, which is blue (see my comments on Page 13 from last month's issue). The right eye still looks normal. Perhaps it's something Gaunt does when he's being serious?

Page 3 - Gaunt's not willing to die to protect the Cat, seeing as he used it to block a sword. He also looks winded after he does it, which might be referencing BlacJac's frequent comments about how Gaunt's getting old.

Page 4 - It appears using the Cat was part of a plan, since Gaunt's unsurprised by what happens to Lil. He's slightly more surprised that the Cat heals itself. Lil's smart enough to know when something's bad news, since she's now OK with Gaunt taking the Cat. Once again Gaunt senses things, this time about either the Cat, or the whole situation in general, but his instinct is to not get involved.

Page 5 - Gaunt thinks the Cat's more than just some rare collectible. But when he starts wondering why he shouldn't just keep it, he calls the Cat a 'nasty lil' bastard'. So perhaps Gaunt's not much of a hobbyist, or he has enough experience with "artifacts" to know when they're messing with him?

Page 6 - Gaunt has not changed his mind about wanting the Gatorlizard gone. He and Gordon don't have a cordial relationship. Gaunt won't answer Gordon's questions, and Gordon didn't get rid of the Gatorlizard.

Page 7 - It's Jean Loire, the Tourbot user from last time. Gaunt can be friendly enough to offer potential clients a drink. A drink of what, I'm not sure. Something strong, since Jean declines, stating that hard drinks give her vapors. Hard to tell whether Gaunt disapproves of blackmailing or not.

Page 8 - OK, the Cat is making Bob the Gatorlizard dream. It seems Gaunt doesn't like blackmailers, because he rejects Jean's offer. Not interested in Jean's other offer either. And Jean's a shapeshifter, so add that to the list of things you find in Cynosure (along with clones, talking animals, and robots).

Page 9 - Now the Cat's making Gordon see his deceased wife, Jo Chaney, mentioned on Page 3 last issue. Gaunt's still not interested in Jean, actually creeped out. OK, Munden's Bar seems to serve a wide array of drinks. Jean was drinking something, possibly wine, but not strong, considering the earlier comment, out of a reasonably nice glass. Gaunt's drinking something with a first word that ends in "ld", and a second word that ends in "iss", straight from the bottle. Gaunt doesn't think it was bright of Jean to pull a gun on him.

Page 10 - GrimJack deals with that threat in two panels. Again, opts not to kill the threat. Curious, considering he knows Jean can alter her (his?) appearance, which would make Jean harder to guard against.

Page 11 - Gaunt feeling itchy = the Cat acting up. Gaunt won't say where he plans to hide the Cat now, but both Gordon and Bob look rather depressed that he's taking it. Odd, considering Darlin' Lil seemed pleased to be rid of it. It hadn't started controlling them yet, though. And Bob's gonna follow Gaunt. Less afraid of him? Less trusting of his judgment? Concerned for him? Needs what the Cat's offering that much worse than Gordon?

Page 12 - There are places deeper in the Pit (which Gaunt mentioned is where he grew up last issue), than Munden's. OK, Gaunt's definitely aware of what the Cat's doing to people. Whether that's simple powers of observation, or some deeper sense is still uncertain. Gaunt's pupil has the same triangle slice of obsidian in it the Cat's do, and then demons attack.

Page 13 - OK, last issue mentioned Demon Wars, and based on GrimJack's comments as he starts immediately beheading them, demon was not a metaphor for something. The war was 20 years ago, the demons were driven out, and the "gates" were closed.

Page 14 - OK, the Cat can control others' actions, make people dream of happy things, and make them see their worst nightmares. Did it give Gaunt's nightmares solid form, or was he just hallucinating? Gaunt promises to find a way to hurt the Cat if it doesn't stay out of his head. Bob not frightened off by Gaunt swinging his sword wildly for awhile.

Page 15 - In Cynosure, people can use mechanical insects they control remotely to gather information. Gatorlizards eat insects.

Page 16 - Is the bug controlled mentally? It's being eaten seems to hurt Jean. Gatorlizards don't like the taste of mechanical insects. Unlike in issue 2, Gaunt is unaware that he's being followed. When in doubt, he turns to BlacJacMac to watch it. Gives him a little more explanation than he did Gordon. More concerned about BlacJac?

Page 17 - BlacJac's initially unimpressed, keeps cracking jokes about Gaunt getting old, but when gaunt remains serious, BlacJac sobers up a bit. Still, he doesn't sense anything odd about the cat, so he may not have the same senses Jack does. Or he's too tired, since he's in a bathrobe, and may have been woken up by Gaunt. It's been true throughout this issue, but I'll mention it here. There must be a lot of grates and vents in the street, because there seems to be steam rising up from the ground no matter where Gaunt goes.

Page 18 - Gaunt's gone looking for Goethe (the middleman who hired to Gaunt to retrieve the Cat in the first place), and knows where to find him when he's not at work. Cynosure has bars for sentient humanoid animal types to get together and get their freak on. Gaunt says it's not his taste, but he doesn't judge. No clues as to what his 'private perv' is.

Page 19 - I think everything that needs be said I already mentioned for the previous page, so let's move on.

Page 20 - Gaunt prefers rotgut to absinthe. Gaunt is pretty good at talking while keeping a cigarette in his mouth. Doesn't mince words when he wants to talk.

Page 21 - Goethe is part owner of the place they're in, and Gaunt doesn't care. Gaunt knows he wasn't given all the facts about the Cat, and Goethe pretty much confirms it. When Gaunt says others have shown up bidding for it, Goethe's first guess is Jean Loire.

Page 22 - I'm not sure how to interpret this page. Gaunt says he knows it has a connection with the Chaotic Gods (which is what Goddess warned him of last issue), and knows that makes it dangerous. Yet he's willing to take the risk of what could happen if it awakens to meet the ones he's working for. So is he just that unconcerned with what the Cat can do, or is it because he's concerned, that he wants to make certain he's giving it to the right people? At any rate, they're off to see the Sleepless Monks. The last panel shows what appears to be an industrial area at either sunset or dawn.

Page 23 - Not entirely sure what the industrial area was about, as we shift to night (with five worlds visible in the sky) in a area full of building with tall, narrow towers. The largest building, dead center of the page, looks to be carved directly from some existing rock formation, or maybe a ridiculously large tree. Gaunt has never heard of Sleepless Monks. There are anti-grav vehicles, because Goethe has a 'ancient' one. Is that because it's old technology mostly lost in the present, or is Goethe just cheap? In Cynosure, there is such a thing as a Kucinich Ring, which makes things appear inconsequential, rather than invisible. This impresses Gaunt. Grimjack can be a smart ass. When told what he must do out of respect for the Monks' beliefs (cover hair and mouth), he responds 'What respect?' But after Goethe points out that this is the Monks turf, and Gaunt doesn't know what he deals with, Gaunt responds 'Fair enough', and follows instructions.

Page 24 - Leader of the Sleepless Monks is Fra Jess. I think its design is based on the Caterpillar from Alive in Wonderland. Fra Jess sits on a giant mushroom (toadstool?), wears robes, has hands, but also what appear to be multiple little legs.

Page 25 - OK, another mention of a multiverse, this time with the additional comment that the Cat being on the loose moves said multiverse closer to chaos. Gaunt doesn't like it when people discuss him like he isn't there, and he is a rude man. The Monks are the Cat's Keepers, not it's owners, as Gaunt figured.

Page 26 - Fra Jess has a hover toadstool. Cool. Manx Cat is a doorway to the Chaotic Gods. Dangerous to sentients and to the fabric of reality. Well, yeah, if it endangers the fabric of reality, I imagine it's dangerous to sentient beings. Hmm, when Fra Jess says to summon all brethren to the Great Hall, Gaunt's first instinct is they're going to attack him. Says something about his life, that he assumes people will resolve their issues with him through violence.

Page 27 - The statuette called the Manx Cat is the result of the entity being confined in a single time and place. The reason the monks are supposed to be sleepless is that the Cat can escape through their dreams, so they can't sleep. Except some do. So if you were wondering who took the Cat from the Monks originally, the answer is "the Manx Cat itself". Gaunt's not buying that, so some things stretch his limits of believability.

Page 28 - There is a Chant of Transit, which can send one's essence through time. Songs have power, and Gaunt can sense that. He may also be able to sense whether there's the power to harm in the song, but if so, he hasn't honed that sense as much. Or perhaps he's just paranoid.

That's it for this month. Come back next month when the Essence of GrimJack enters the past and finds St. John of Knives!

That Resolved Itself More Quickly Than I Expected

Yes, my computer has rediscovered the network. I'm not sure what of the various things I tried did the trick, but the trick is done, and that's the important thing. Presumably everything is A-OK now, so daily posting should resume. Now if I can think of things to post about. Well, there's always complaining about stuff.

Recently, I've been thinking about the different video game systems I've owned, and what my favorite and least favorite games have been for each of them. Even with a voting bloc of a single person, consensus hasn't always been easy to reach, probably because I haven't really defined my criteria, so sometimes it comes down to a game that had a strong multi-player component, versus one with superior single-player capabilities. That's not what this post is about (though I might put those lists up someday, for kicks). Comparing different games to try and judge their value to me brought up a certain trait in a few of my games that I truly despise. Actually, it brought up a couple of different traits, but I'm just focusing on one.

I tend to like flight combat games. One of the only games I owned for my family computer was Out of the Sun, a WW2 flight sim. There's been Starfox 64, Rogue Squadron's 1 and 2, Crimson Skies, Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Yager, and most recently, Defender. One thing that some of these games do is provide you with wingmen, or at least have you team-up with other pilots occasionally. The problem being, the A.I. on these allies is rarely helpful, and usually a burden. So every mission becomes, in addition to whatever other objectives you have, a protection mission, where you have to keep your idiot friends alive in spite of themselves. With Starfox, for example, Falco was the only one of the three wingmen I had much use for, simply because he seemed the least prone to needing to be saved. Slippy would be chiding me for killing some target he was (fruitlessly) pursuing, then start screaming for help 3 seconds later. Stupid frog.

I find it even more frustrating when you're given some control over your wingmen. Secret Weapons and Rogue Squadron 2 each give you the ability to choose from a limited number of commands, which you can then issue to the others in your flight. So your squadron is attacking some Super Star Destroyers, and you're trying to take out shield generators so you can then destroy the bridge. Except TIE Fighters are shooting you to pieces, so naturally, you order your wingmen to attack the TIEs. You even hear your pilot say 'Get those fighters off my back!', and Random Wingman responds 'Roger that', or something similar. Time passes, and nothing has changed. The TIEs are still shooting you to pieces, so you're spending most of your time trying to avoid death, rather than completing your objective, which gets Admiral Ackbar or some other commanding officer jackoff bellowing at you to take out that Star Destroyer. Hey fishface, give me some buddies with functional nervous systems and maybe I will! It really puts a damper on the whole experience for me, since I don't enjoy screaming at the screen about how I'm sure it's screwing me over, and calling the console a stinking cheater. Even if I win, I'm tense and angry, the victory is almost a revenge thing by that point.

I suppose the problem is that, by giving me the ability to issue commands, the game has tricked me into thinking I can compensate for stupid allies. I know they're idiots, but I'm sure I can come up with a way to deploy them so they can be helpful to me. Then you start giving orders and surprise! they're still useless! Crimson Skies earns a lot of credit with me because while it doesn't let you give commands, it also doesn't make you waste time saving the other pilots. They can't win the level for you, but they're good enough to attract sufficient attention that you can do what's necessary to win, and that's all I really need. Just keep enough of the small fry busy I can destroy the important stuff, and it'll all work out.

The games just don't provide that very often.

This Could Be Awkward

Adorable baby Panda: What is this place?

Calvin: {It's the office for my job. Since my computer cannot find the wireless signal its been using for the last two goddamn months at my home, we're going to have to use the work computer if we want to post, which means sporadic posting, since I shouldn't be using the work computer for this anyway. Unless my computer gets its shit together.}

ABP: You're cursing a lot more than usual.

Calvin: {Because I'm angry, damn it! The network is there, everyone else in the housing can use it, but not my computer, nooo!}

ABP: Maybe you should calm down, all these people are looking at us.

Calvin: {No, they're looking at you. Pandas are uncommon around here.}

ABP: Oh. Hi, everybody! *waves, people peer curiously*

Calvin: {Great, now they're going to inch closer, and start poking. Not to mention all the questions. Let's get on with this.}

OK, then. I think Deadpool needs a Hug, because the X-Men weren't very friendly, but he also needs a Bonk, because killing that guy isn't going to help. {Applause for Dagger! Applause for Dagger!} I will! Dagger gets Applause for sticking up for Deadpool, at least in principle. {Hey, Wade can use any kind of support he can get.} I think Grimjack needs a Bonk because he was pretty rude to the Sleepless Monks. {Hey, they're supposed to stay awake so the Manx Cat doesn't escape through their dreams, and they failed. Scorn away, says I.} You try staying awake forever! {I have, it's not pretty. I become even less pleasant than usual, then oddly super-pleasant, then sociopathic.}

Hey, stop pulling my ears! {I told you this wasn't going to end well. Kind co-workers, the panda is rabid. Numerous bites have rendered me immune, but you could be sorry if you don't give it space. *co-workers retreat rapidly*} Wait, I'm not rabid! Why did you tell them that? {To make them go away, obviously. What would you have done, a dizzying display of martial arts? That would have only brought more of them. Quickly now, before their curiosity overwhelms their fear.}

Right, right. Um, uh, I'm blanking! {Oh, come on!} Wait, yes, no, ah, they're creeping closer! {Ignore them!} I think Shang-Chi might need a Bonk, because he never lets anyone else win the bike race. {Focus, will you? He didn't win the race shown in the story! He and Wade went back for more hot dogs!} He did, oh, I'm sorry, they're just freaking me out. Stop staring! {Stop talking to them, it's only making things worse!} Why don't you say something? {Please, I have to work with these people. They already think I'm kind of off, yelling at them is only going to exacerbate the situation.} The Phantom! he gets Applause for not killing Birch. {Right, as Deadpool is demonstrating, killing people never solves anything.} Exactly. Now I have to get out of here! *leaps out window, flees into the night*

{*turns to co-workers* Ok, show's over. Go on, return to watching Glee. Skeedaddle!}

What I Bought 10/13/09

Hey, comics are here! Actually, they showed up on Friday, but I'd didn't check the mail until after the post office closed, thus rendering the note telling me I had a package irrelevant. Then I had to work Saturday, and the post office is closed on Sundays, and Monday was Columbus Day (they get that day off? Lazy buggers, I don't get Columbus Day off), so here we are.

Deadpool #16 - Is Cyke giving Deadpool the respect knuckles on that cover? Nah, the expression on his face is too sour for that.

Deadpool asks to join the X-Men. Cyclops flatly rejects him, because Cyclops is a complete asshole. Dagger - Dagger! I knew she had more going for her than just being created by Bill Mantlo - points out the X-Men are being hypocrites, what with the probably dozens of criminals they've let join (and you are going to help me compile that list, because it'll be cathartic, for me anyway), and so he sends Domino to talk to Deadpool. OK, they've worked together, that might work. They've also tried to kill each other, so it might not. Fortunately, Deadpool is in a pancake kind of a mood, so they actually chat pleasantly, until Deadpool tells her he's going to solve a problem for the X-Men.

One of their junior members has a father going public with the fact he can't contact his daughter. Or so he says, what with Osborn having kept his company from falling into ruin. The X-Men plan to handle this in court, since Warren Worthington is rich, and has good lawyers. Deadpool has decided he'll prove himself to them by solving the problem more directly, meaning he will kill the complaining parent.

Well, it ought to at least earn him a spot on Cyclops' Stabbity Kill Team. Paco Medina's Deadpool looked different somehow this issue. less scabby, more wrinkled, like he's channeling a "Ma Gnucci as drawn by Steve Dillon". It's fine, just odd. The rest of the art is OK, though it's mostly talking heads. I think he draws Domino a little too endowed. Maybe it would help if she zipped her jacket up the rest of the way.

GrimJack: Manx Cat #3 - Gaunt gets the Cat back from Lil, and she's glad to see it go. Now Gaunt's not so sure he should return it, both because the Cat's working its magic on him, and because he doesn't know who wants it, and why. He meets with the Tourbot user from last issue, kicks their butt and goes looking for Goethe, who he finds at a strip bar for furry enthusiasts, and because this is Cynosure, the ladies are actual anthropomorphic animals. That sentence is going to attract all sorts of the wrong readers here. Goethe brings him to the people he serves as middleman for, the Sleepless Monks, who claim they watch over the Cat, to protect the world. To prove it, they send Gaunt's spirit back in time, to find St. John of Knives, and learn the truth.

So the weirdness ratchets up a notch this issue, in both good ways (the Sleepless Monks), and bad (the aforementioned bar). Gaunt's still being abrasive, but there's something encouraging about the fact he won't simply hand over the Cat without understanding why they want it. he recognizes its power, and he's careful enough to keep it out of dangerous hands. Truman's work is mostly excellent, though there are a few pages I feel he leaves too much blank space, and others where his work looks uninked, mostly closeups of Gaunt's face.

Also, Ostrander introduces the idea of the "Kucinich Ring". It does not make things invisible, rather it makes them be viewed as inconsequential. Ouch, that's a cold burn, but it made me laugh.

The Phantom: Generations #5 - I was supposed to get X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas #1, but I guess Jack got the orders mixed and sent this instead. What the heck, it's here, let's read it. There's a nice recap page, that tells us this Phantom has married a former Pirate Queen, and they've sailed her ship to the Mediterranean to fight Barbary Slavers. One particular slaver manages to escape, and the Phantom chases him to England, and ends up having to hunt him through Sherwood Forest, with the added difficulty that some rich elderly fellow had a bunch of exotic animals with him, which the now insane ex-slaver pirate released. So there are leopards and stuff running around the woods. Phantom triumphs, learns shocking secret about the pirate, takes nonlethal steps to deal with him, he and his pirate lady love return home, the end.

I suppose this is a prose work, like that issue of Batman Morrison did. There's a page of text, and on the facing page, a single-full page illustration of some part of what the text describes. It works fine for me, no complaints whatsoever. Enrique Alcatena is the artist, and it reminds me of some of Russ Heath's work on issues of Immortal Iron Fist, but better. The colors are vivid, the linework is more solid, and the detail in the pictures is quite good. He does an especially good job of both drawing the Phantom as a stoic figure (though he's most shadowy and mysterious looking when not wearing his usual costume), and making Teratos Birch (the pirate) look progressively more nuts. His face grows redder, wilder, more lined as the story progresses. So the comic was a pleasant surprise. There's even a recap page which tells you everything you'd really need to know for this story.

Shang-Chi: Master of Kung-Fu #1 - I think everyone else on the Internet has already discussed this comic, but it's here, I'm here, let's proceed. We have Shang-Chi dueling Deadpool in a desert bike race of death, Shang-Chi battling the son of some schmuck he killed years ago in what I'm guessing is a homage to Hong Kong martial arts flicks, complete with subtitles beneath each panel, and a story where Shang battles and old friend (and foe) looking for who he is. Then there's a text piece where Shang describes the process of mastering martial arts.

So a little bit of everything. Hickman and Chamberlain's bike race story seems more about crazy ideas than Shang-Chi in any real sense, which is fine, I suppose. I like Deadpool. I like crazy ideas, but Shang felt like a sidekick in the story. Maybe given more pages Hickman could have made it a "buddy" story, which could have been interesting. Benson and Coker's revenge story seemed to be about style, making it like a movie. I didn't mind having to read the translations below each panel, but I don't mind subtitles, and I'm a fast reader, so it doesn't disrupt the flow of the panels that much for me. Charlie Huston and Enrique Romero's story seemed like the one that would be most similar to what you'd have found in one of these comics back in the '70s, but that's coming from someone with no familiarity with that material.

I feel like the stories don't really give us too much insight into Shang-Chi. Benson's does to a certain extent, in that it shows us something about the life Shang has chosen to live given his past actions, and Huston's could have been about how Midnight sees Shang, except Midnight can't really remember how he sees Shang, so it's more about Midnight's frustration with his loss of memory. It wasn't a bad comic, but I was disappointed. Maybe there wasn't enough kicking.

And that's the last two weeks! Expect the next set of reviews in, oh, two or three weeks.

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

I Am Legend has three movies (loosely) based off it. There's Will Smith's I Am Legend, obviously. Heston's Omega Man, and Vincent Price's The Last Man on Earth, which is what I'm talking about tonight, since it was included on the other side of the DVD Panic in Year Zero was on. I'll probably be spoiling the movie extensively, just so you know.

Vincent Price is Robert Morgan, a doctor who believes himself the last man alive, besieged every night by the undead after his blood. After 3 years, he's developed a solid routine of waking up, checking his defenses of boarded up windows, garlic, mirrors, and crosses on the doors, checking his generator, then selecting a block of the city, and going hunting for the undead as they sleep, staking them and throwing them in a massive fire pit. At night he shutters himself up in his home and tries to make it through the night while one of the undead keeps calling 'Morgan, do you hear? Do you hear?'

We watch as Robert Morgan (he was Robert Neville in the book) struggles with his grief, and with the enormity of the task he's given himself: To hunt down and destroy every last vampire. As he puts it, it's his life or theirs. He also has to cope with the loss of his wife and daughter, both claimed by the plague, and his loneliness. He never breaks down to the extent Neville did in the book, where he one time flung his door open and charged out firing wildly, as if using the murder-suicide with the vampires, but he does tend to laugh hysterically at things that aren't funny (home movies of the wife and kid at the circus, the dog he finds being infected). We also don't see him sink into a drunken depression as Neville often did. Oddly, despite making him a scientist (rather than a factory worker as he was in the book), Morgan doesn't show much interest in trying to cure the plague. Neville traveled to libraries and laboratories, collecting books and equipment to try and suss it out. Perhaps because that was Morgan's job before civilization fell apart, he can't think of any new avenues to try. The movie also doesn't explain as much about the vampires as the book did, for example, why they don't simply burn the house down, though I'd offer two explanations for that (I can't remember what reasons Matheson gave). First, they want Morgan alive to drink his blood. Won't get much blood from a charred corpse. As for two, well, see the next paragraph.

A word about the vampires. They're idiots. They bear more of a resemblance to zombies, shambling slowly here and there, barely coordinated enough to pick up sticks and rocks to beat on Morgan's walls. They're weak enough Morgan can fight his way through a horde of them to reach his car, or house. Maybe they're weak because they have to feed off each other, and that's not filling, but it makes them look like a joke. Even Morgan explains that they're only a threat due to numbers.

I'm not certain whether the long flashback in the middle, which recaps the appearance of the plague, and ends when Morgan's wife shows up at the door (after he'd buried her), would have worked better broken into smaller flashbacks, that gradually flesh out how things happened. Also, I would have liked to have seen Morgan at some point respond to Ben Cortman's "Do you hear, Morgan?", perhaps try to strike up a conversation with him. It would have probably seemed nuts, but Morgan's grip on sanity is tenuous anyway, and perhaps it could have revealed something about one of them.

About Price's work in the film. I think he's very good at depicting a man alone, trying to survive against threats external and internal. The way he goes about his daily routine, largely unhurried. Even when burning bodies, he has one hand in his pocket as he lobs the torch, which suggests a boredom, or more likely, resignation. On the other hand, in the flashbacks, he has a hard time convincing me of the sincerity of his affection for his wife and kid. He's so creepy, I just don't really buy into it. His grief in the present does it more effectively. Also, the creepiness works when he finds another person, because you get the feeling he's trying to be warm and reassuring, but it's been so long since he's been around another person, he doesn't know how to. The smile isn't genuine, because it's been too long since he's had reason to really smile. In total, I'd say he does a fine job.

About the ending. Infected humans have learned to control the vaccine, and are rebuilding society. They destroy the unliving infected as Morgan does, but they aren't planning to ally with him. See, not every infected he killed was undead, so he's a scourge to them, just as he was in the book. So they plan to kill him, and it's curious how that goes. Morgan finds a true cure for the virus, and seems unconcerned that they're after him, but once they arrive, he doesn't try and tell them he can cure the infection, he just runs. Also, the living infected are scary. They all dress the same (all black), they herd the undead together and brutally wipe them out, then turn on Morgan. They chase him across town, and as they close in, women and children start showing up, there to see the scary killer brought down. Morgan, unlike Neville, doesn't recognize (or won't acknowledge) that humanity has become something new, and that he's an anachronism. He calls them all freaks, and proclaims 'I am a man. The last man.'

With all the infected dressed the same, it feels like a metaphor about conformity crushing the individual, or intolerance. Although, is Morgan guilty of that as well? He was always hunting down and killing infected, because he assumed they were all undead out to kill him. If he hadn't killed living infected, would they have accepted him, worked with him to find a cure? Or would they have decided they liked how they were, and come after him just because he represented something different? Ruth says the infected are forming a new society, and that's never charming or gentle. The problem is, infected or not, they're still people, still obviously capable of hatred and fear, as evidenced by their reactions to Morgan.

It's strange they're that scared of him. At the beginning, he says that in 3 years he's killed 11 vampires, though we seem to see him kill 4 or 5 shortly thereafter, but I don't know if those were all the same day. That doesn't seem like nearly enough for him to be regarded with such terror, since not all of those would have been living.

Panic in the Year Zero (1962)

Panic In Year Zero, the movie that I wanted to write about so badly after the first time I watched it, I actually took notes the second time I watched it.

Set in either the late 1950s or early 1960s, the U.S. has gotten into a nuclear war with someone, and we follow your typical family of four (who were spared because they went on a vacation early that morning) as they try to survive. You've got Harry (the father), Ann (mother), Rick (son), Karen (daughter). Harry (played by Ray Milland) is I think what really bugged me about the movie. Even beyond the fact that he's an overbearing fellow who is not a fan of open dialogue amongst the family*, he can't seem to make up his mind. Is he part of civilization or not? Will he help to put it together, or wait until that's happened to rejoin it? Just how far can you go to protect your family at the expense of others?

At one point as they're driving, Ann criticizes one of his decisions (this is about all Ann gets to do, besides cook and wash clothes, and fire a gun at some beatniks** at one point), and Rick defends Harry, stating that order and law are gone. Harry immediately tells him not to write off the law, as it'll be back. This comes after he just robbed a hardware store (the action Ann is criticizing) because the owner wouldn't give him the firearms he wanted (and foolishly loaded a .45 as part of a demonstration on how to do so, then left it sitting on the counter). Why wouldn't Mr. Johnson give him the guns? Because Harry didn't have enough cash, and Mr. Johnson had a policy against accepting out-of-town checks***. Fortunately for Harry, Mr. Johnson and his wife are later killed by the aforementioned beatniks/greasers. Why is it fortunate? Because the family heard over the radio that the President had ordered that looters would face the death penalty, so it's good for Harry there's no more store owner to press charges. I'm being unfair, as Harry really did promise to pay, and even wanted a receipt, but he did take the guns.

And that's pretty much how it goes, with Harry focusing solely on #1, usually over his wife's objections, which he responds to with yelling. It's like a primitive form of Grand Theft Auto. He stands idly by while another man punches a gas station owner, because he didn't have the $4.10 to pay for his gas. He robs the hardware store. When he comes across a gas station owner who has hiked prices all the way to $3 a gallon, he punches the guy out, and leaves the $10 he feels the gas should have cost (because the sign said 34 cents a gallon, you see, and Harry doesn't believe in supply and demand). When he wants to get his car across a highway packed with cars fleeing the cities, he pours some gasoline on the road, and lights it up. A car drives through it and catches on fire as well, the driver gets out, and who knows what happens to him, but it doesn't matter because Harry's got to reach Shibes' Meadow. Once he does, he hides the sign mentioning it, and destroys the bridge leading into it. Oh, and later he kills a couple of guys, but they probably sexually assaulted his daughter (the movie's not going to come right out and say it), so I cut him slack on that one. Still, there are missions in GTA where you could argue justifiable homicide, too.

There's something else. Harry's been ordering everyone around, making contradictory statements****, not offering explanations for what he's doing, generally being an ass. After he's killed those two, he actually seems to be coming to grips with how he's been acting. He had run into Mr. Johnson in the woods, and interrogated him. How did he know to come here, where's he staying etc. Mr. Johnson wanted to know where they were staying, offered to buy some food from them, and generally seemed to be trying to form an alliance, but Harry sent him packing. Now Mr. Johnson's dead. Perhaps if the two families had joined together, they could have fended off the beatnik/greasers without killing them. Harry doesn't actually mention this, I'm just pointing out his isolationist tactics screwed other people over really badly. Anyway, Harry's worried about Karen, but can't bear to face her. Ann tells him Karen is more worried about him than herself, and they should talk. Harry gets up to go talk to her, and we cut to the next day. I think seeing Harry talk to Karen, perhaps actually try and explain what he's thinking and feeling to her, could have helped him seem like less of an overreacting looney tune. But no, it's not to be. What's more, he's still being bossy and generally unwilling to compromise afterward. When they get word there's a government-established emergency relocation center in their area (albeit 135 miles away), everyone else is ready to go. Not Harry, he's worried too many of the wrong people heard that broadcast too.

I suppose he gets some comeuppance for that, as Rick gets gravely wounded shortly thereafter, but the end of the movie suggested Rick was likely to survive, so I doubt it. Rick himself is an interesting study. Played by Frankie Avalon (and no, they didn't add a gratuitous song sequence for him*****), he's clearly enjoying his dad's new hardcore persona. He backs Harry's play at every turn, with considerably less questioning than Ann or Karen. He's also the only one Harry tends to trust to include in the plans. When Harry and Rick go scouting around the cave, Karen asks to come, and Harry turns her down. 'Not this time', he says, but we never see him actually let her come along, so does he not trust her? During the gasoline on the road stunt, Rick drives the car, and the womenfolk are in the trailer unaware of the plan the whole time. Harry probably is right to worry that Rick was enjoying the power of the gun a little too much, but that means Harry ought to be encouraging him to use it a little less, because I think it's warping him. He's points the gun at Mr. Johnson even more aggressively when Mr. Johnson asks if he could buy food off them. He's offering to buy it, for pete's sake, calm down!

When they kill the two fellows, they learn the farmhouse belonged to someone else, and one member of the family is still alive, a young woman named Marilyn, who looks as though she's been getting abused by the guys too. Rick though, keeps trying really hard to strike up a relationship with her, and because it's a movie, it works. Personally, I think he was moving fast, a little too eager to hold hands (yeah, it never gets past that), and didn't seem willing to give her space. I'm worried he sees his dad taking whatever he pleases, destroying what he pleases, doing as he pleases, and starts thinking "Why not me?" Harry's made it clear it's about individual survival, and doing what's necessary for that, so why can't Rick just do as he pleases? Dad says not to write off the law, but he's barely paying it lip service.

The first half is probably the stronger half, if only because it's interesting to see how Harry justifies his actions, but the second half has some interesting lines near the end. After Rick is injured they head for a town, and luckily, the doctor had stayed in his house. He treats Rick, and asks only for some spare ammunition, which Harry supplies. The family had heard over the radio that whoever the U.S. was fighting has sued for peace, which I guess means the U.S. won. When Harry mentions it, upbeat, the doctor responds 'Well, ding-ding for us'. Harry is put off by the doc's sense of humor, so Dr. Strong replies 'Would you feel better if I told you unless your son has a transfusion in 3 hours he's going to die?******' He then advises them to stick to back roads, ending with 'The country's full of thieving, murdering patriots', which is either simply a statement about America in the movie, or maybe a larger statement about the behavior we excuse in the name of our country, or that we excuse in our own self-interest.

Right at the end, they run into some soldiers*******, which make them happy, and the soldiers tell them where they can find a doctor (after hearing that they'd been up in the hills when the bombs went off). As they drive away, one soldier remarks that there go five more untouched by radiation sickness, and his buddy calls them five more good ones. Question 1: Is the use of "good ones" meant to be a joke, since the soldiers don't know all the crap Harry's pulled over the course of this film, or are we supposed to agree, because they survived, so they're good, and Harry's actions were justified? Question 2: What if the family hadn't been in the hills, and could have potentially had radiation sickness? Would the soldiers have turned them away? Shot them? Let them on through but accompanied them, so they could tell the docs to keep them isolated? The whole mention of them not having fallout sickness seemed truly ominous.

I'm not sure the movie thinks much of the United Nations. The only thing it does in the movie is decide that from henceforth, this year will be known as Year Zero. There's nothing about how it might have helped bring the conflict to an end, or how countries worked together through it to devise plans to help the countries hit hardest by the bombs, or anything. Also, the musical score is completely wrong for this movie. It's a jazzy, upbeat thing, better suited for Ocean's Eleven, or maybe that movie where Cary Grant's a cat burglar. A lighthearted caper flick, not a grim survival story in a post-apocalyptic world.

* When they've settled into a cave to stay for awhile, he calls for a family discussion. Which consists entirely of him explaining how they're going to follow their daily routine, because this will help them stay connected to reality somehow. yes, he and Rick shaving every day will certainly help them stay connected to the reality that they're hiding in the woods because their home was destroyed by a nuclear blast.

** Or were they greasers? They said stuff like "dig it", and "crazy kick", but one of them wore a leather jacket, so I don't know.

*** Or there was a one or two-day waiting period to purchase firearms. He mentioned something about that as well.

**** During the first confrontation with the beatniks/greasers, his son wounds one. When the bad boys leave, Harry chides Rick for nearly missing. Rick explains Mom shoved the gun, and she explains she didn't want Rick to kill a man. Harry explodes at her, since he was in danger of being killed, then after she retreats back into the trailer, and Rick expresses a bit of awe that he could have killed that guy, then Harry gets pissed that Rick's enjoying the thought. Rick is supposed to use the gun, but hate it. Supposed to be willing to kill, but hate it. That's civilization, according to Harry.

***** Unlike certain movies, say Rio Bravo. "Oh we have Rickey Nelson, we must have him sing a duet with Dean Martin!" Here's a better idea: Spend more time on Walter Brennan being crotchety and amusing, or on Angie Dickinson flustering John Wayne. Or just spend more time on Angie Dickinson in general. I'm not watching this movie for singing, damn it.

****** I would think the answer was no, but perhaps Harry appreciates the honesty.

******* Initially, even when we see they're soldiers, they're faces are hidden in shadows, and it isn't until they tell the family where they need to go for a doctor that we get a look at them. A similar thing was done earlier in the film, when the family is trying to reach Shibes' Meadow, and reaches a town that had barricaded the road, wanting to keep outsiders out. All their eyes are in the shadows of their hats, which makes them look as though they're wearing masks. I don't know what to make of that, personally. They aren't behaving any differently than Harry, it's simply that the entire town has banded together, instead of a single family. Is making them faceless making them inhuman, the Other, who can't be trusted, and so Harry's actions would be OK?

Maybe It's A Common Sense Thing

Tonight I'm wondering about dybbuks. Roger Ebert mentioned in his review of "A Serious Man" that perhaps the main character's ancestors had invited one across the threshold of their home, and this would be a bad idea.

A dybbuk is (usually) a soul that hasn't moved on for some reason. A cursory look through some websites said the dybbuk might have done something too bad to go to Gehenna, or that they weren't quite good or bad enough, or that they have unfinished business. The soul possesses another person, and this may be just so they can complete a task, or they may be trying to torment the person they possess, or any number of other possibilities.

I don't understand why it's necessarily a bad thing to invite one into your home. Yes, it's a soul possessing another person, and you don't know what it needs to do. It could be the dybbuk is here to settle something with you, but if so, then one would have to accept the possibility they wronged the lost soul, in which case it ought to be their responsibility to set things right. Maybe the dybbuk isn't even interested in you, it just needs to give the body a rest, and your home was nearby, looked like a nice place to catch some Zs.

Mostly, it strikes me as odd, the idea that because a couple let someone enter their home, and it turns out the body was possessed (and can they tell that somehow?), their descendants would be punished/cursed for it. Although, based on the review, I don't think that's the point of the movie, so much as the idea that for all our attempts to keep our lives orderly and under control, stuff we would rather not have happen will still happen, and we may not be able to figure out why.

Reflections After It's Over

Though the intentions are clear now, at the time we could not understand why our quarry would emerge in such numbers on this day. Aye, rain did fall ceaselessly that morning, and had done so since the night previous, and did make our foes all the more difficult to grasp, and thus all the more difficult to deal with in the method proper for knights of our station. Yet there was also a cold wind that day, and they, who were both smaller in size, and less protected by armor than we, should feel the effects of it all the more.

Still, they pressed forward, from all directions, and every avenue possible. From pools of water, from beneath the leaves on the forest floor, from out of structures we had thought they feared and avoided, always they were before us, forcing confrontation. Always did we meet them boldly, as it was our duty, and our privilege to do so, and always did we drive them back. Not without loss; some of my comrades faltered, the mechanisms which drove them failing, but only momentarily, they would always regain their momentum and press ahead.

Later in the day, it seemed as though our adversaries had reached their limits; their attacks no longer fierce, the clashes shrinking to mere skirmishes. Verily, their strength seemed to ebb with the slackening rain and the rising gale. Then, as we prepared to retire to for the day, confident in having prover our mastery again, they did launch one last furious assault. Perhaps we could have continued to withdraw, for they were not much of a threat, even coming forth in greater numbers than ever before. We did not leave though, for their presence meant our job was unfinished, and upon taking our positions, we had sworn to our liege to never cease until all was completed. So we met them once more.

The elements had taken their toll, their movements becoming erratic, and sluggish. They broke easily against the instruments with which my brethren and I do battle. Though it took time, their forces were broken and routed again, and they scattered across the landscape in swift retreat. Victorious once more, we returned to our home to celebrate and enjoy a repast. Would our enemy never learn?

As I alluded, it was only later we grasped their true scheme. The weather had been against them, but we were not impervious to Nature's power, either. Soon, we fell ill, the wind having been all the more effective with the thorough drenching we had received. While our foes seem limitless in number, regaining easily whatever losses we inflicted, we knights are few in number, and our ranks can be replenished only slowly. As we were, there was little hope of holding back their next sustained assault. We will still sally forth to oppose them, but will have to do so knowing in our hearts, that we are already outflanked, and have underestimated the danger we face for quite some time.

Dragonball Evolution (2009)

Why do I put myself through things like this? Originally, I was going to liveblog myself watching it today, then do an actual review tomorrow, but I asked myself if I hated you all that much. After all, when I watched this the first time (with Alex), we spent at least 30 minutes afterward trying to think of movies we thought were worse. We did come up with quite a few, but when we're saying, "Well, at least it was better than that Charlie Sheen movie Wraith we watched on Monstervision* that one time", that's probably not good.

I do wonder though, when I'm thinking about ripping a movie, what was the intent of the people involved? Where they just trying to cash in on kids being familiar with DragonBall, or were they really making their best attempt to adapt the story to a single movie? Was it just a paycheck for them, or are they fans of the material, and if they're fans, does that help or hurt**? And should any of that matter to me, trying to decide whether it's good or not?

I'm probably being overly harsh on the movie. On a second viewing, it really isn't that bad, and parts of it are quite enjoyable. Not so much the parts with lots of screaming (though the movie doesn't even approach X-Men Origins: Wolverine when it comes to time spent on characters yelling), but the funnier parts, that evoke the spirit of DragonBall more than DragonBall Z, those work. Sometimes. You've got oddball teenager Goku, living with his grandfather, who gives him a weird orange ball for his birthday, and tells him that there are six more like it, and if you gather all seven, you can make a wish. Then his grandfather is killed by an evil alien after all the balls, and Goku teams-up with some other folks to try and find the DragonBalls and stop the evil alien. There's some other stuff in there, a couple of romance subplots, some stuff about self-sacrifice and not running away from your destiny, but the search against the clock is the main thing.

Chow Yun-Fat makes an excellent Master Roshi, managing to shift between sage and respectful teacher, and goofy, possibly senile old man. They took a lot of the lechery out of the character though, maybe for the kids, but the bits that are there add to the humor. I'm not sure how to rate Justin Chatwick as Goku, because the movie version really doesn't bear much resemblance to the manga/anime version. The classic version was a sort of naive bumpkin, who doesn't understand much of anything about the world at large***. Movie Goku is more like Peter Parker: He knows about the world at large, at least enough to know the life he lives with his grandfather in the country isn't normal. He goes to high school, he's awkward around girls, and the jocks pick on him because he's different, with his odd hair, and the weird stories his grandfather tells him about aliens nearly destroying the Earth 2000 years ago. I think when Chatwick is trying to convey Goku's awkwardness at fitting in, he does well, stumbling over his words, biting back on his frustration that he's not pummeling these stupid jocks.

Emmy Rossum (Bulma), and Joon Park (Yamcha) both captured the sort selfishness the characters exuded in their early appearances, and that core of decency each one had (or developed underneath), and so the two sides sort of wax and wane, the concern for their fellow man coming out one moment, the desire for fame or wealth asserting itself the next. Rossum also has that tendency to be impressed with her intelligence Bulma had in spades. I can't say much about James Marsters as Piccolo. He doesn't get to do much but make hand gestures and dire statements about the world being doomed, or people dying, or whatever. There is one scene I smiled at, because as he strides into a room, I could the confident stride he used when Spike was having one of his rare good moments. You know, when Buffy and the Scoobies weren't either kicking his ass or treating him like dirt. It's a small thing to like, but I did enjoy it for some reason.

I like that we actually get to see Goku living with Gohan. In the series, Gohan's been dead for awhile by the time we meet Goku, so we never saw them interact, we just know Goku liked his grandfather, and keeps the 4-star DragonBall because he thinks it has his grandfather's soul in it. Granted, most of what we see is his grandfather trying to teach Goku to concentrate, and show more focus, and I think we're supposed to see how unusual Goku's life is, so we can see why he has trouble fitting it. But, we do see that Gohan cares about Goku, and is trying to help him to be comfortable as himself, rather than trying to be some idealized version of "cool".

There are a lot of fight scenes in the movie, and there's some good and bad with them. One good thing is there is no damn shaky camera crap like in those blasted Bourne movies. It's as if they realized I'd like to see the fight scenes. Revolutionary concept. I think they overuse slow motion, though. Someone fires an energy blast, they go slo-mo as another person dodges and the blast explodes. Someone throws a punch, slow-mo, then speed up as the person receiving the punch goes flying (or stands there unaffected in one instance). For some reason at the beginning, they do a slow-motion of sweat dripping off Goku's face, and later, during a big explosion that sends water into the air, they do close-in slow-mo on a bead of water that splits into two, unequal sized beads of water. Maybe they were just trying to make it a little longer (it's only 85 minutes long). Also, while I think the fights scenes are most well laid out, they make sure you can see what's going on, and the movies look good, whenever someone goes for some sort of flying attack (say, a kick), it looks bad. Which works when it's one of the jocks, and you know Goku's about to make him look silly, but when it's Goku, it looks really awkward. I think it's because they switch to slow motion, or because no one ever takes a running start before they do a flying kick. They go from standing to launching forward, leg extended.

There are certain twists the plot takes I don't particularly care for. They spend a good chunk of the movie trying to find all the DragonBalls, then they declare there's no way they'll find them all before the eclipse, and so they have to try something else. Well, they only had seven days to find them all to begin with, and the six besides Goku's could be anywhere in the world. How could they not figure that out sooner? The fact Piccolo's henchwoman can steal someone's blood, then shift to look like them kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, we've sen they have technology to make monsters from Piccolo's blood, but this a bit different. And what's her deal anyway? Why does she work for Piccolo? And if he was sealed away 2000 years ago, how did he get out? Did she release him, and if so, why****? If it took 7 guys to do the Ma Fu Ba and trap Piccolo last time, how is Roshi going to pull it off by himself? Why not bring along all the guys that helped him whip up another containment vessel? That'd make six, and they've surely got to know something about the technique. Why does Oozaru serve Piccolo, if it's an engine of destruction, why wouldn't it just rampage, Doomsday-style? If Yamcha's Humvee thing has a hover/flight mode, why not use it before driving off a cliff?

So lots of questions. I don't know if all of those qualify as plot holes, but they're things that nagged at me as I watched, so I've got to dock the movie for them on those grounds at least.

One thing I'd have liked to have seen in the movie. Before his grandfather dies, he tells Goku to always remember to have faith in who you are. But Gohan had all sorts of sayings (we know this because Goku uses several of them throughout the movie), and I think it might have been kind of interesting if he'd died before specifying what he wanted Goku to remember. Then we could see Goku struggling to figure out which message his grandfather felt was most important, as maybe he meant the part about trusting yourself, rather than relying on external senses, or the bit about knowing your enemy. All the sayings tie-in together, so maybe there would have been no point, and I'm just looking for a way we could have taken his transforming into a large ape-thing out of the movie. Some things just work better animated, or drawn and left to the imagination to animate.

* Does anyone else remember Monstervision on TNT back in the day? Hosted by that Joe Bob Briggs fellow? I loved that. It was a Saturday night staple for years for me.

** Because sometimes you can be too attached to something. happens with us fans all the time, right?

*** I'm pretty sure he meets Bulma when he sees her car coming towards him and thinks it's some weird monster out to steal his dinner.

**** In the manga, her boss Emperor Pilaf accidentally frees Piccolo, then they all agree to serve him, but the movie simply says Piccolo got free. . . somehow.

Villains Have Fans Too

Some of us, as fans of comics, have certain characters that we just love. If they show up in a book, we'll buy it*. You've got your Batman fans, your Spidey fans, Deadpool fans, Red Tornado fans (They exist! They do! Right next to the Land of Unicorns that sneeze gold!**), and so on. Usually it's heroes that people follow.

What I'm wondering is if there are villains who you keep an eye out for. Maybe you're a fan of Dr. Polaris***, or Mysterio, or the Living Monolith, or Scarface and the Ventriloquist. Or Iron Man. Right, right, he's not a villain anymore. You love it when they fight their old foe, but heck, you maybe like it even more when they fight someone new. Maybe things will be different for them this time? At the least, it's a new hero to start a feud with, and the more heroes a villain can claim to be an arch-foe to, the more appearances they may be able to garner in the future****.

I'm not sure I truly have one, but if I do, it's Arcade. I know the whole "amusement park of death" is terribly impractical, but it's still so great. He can use it to throw anything at his targets that he can come up with. He has such a zest for life, even if that involves having one day a year where his assistant tries her damndest to kill him! He's got style, and can take his losses with class. He doesn't usually pout if the heroes escape, he doffs his cap (if he wore one), and looks to the next time.

Plus, while once a prisoner of Dr. Doom, he helped himself to one of Doom's fine cigars*****, and lit his match by striking it against Doom's armor. Even Doom was impressed with Arcade's chutzpah and calm in the face of death.

Yes, I like Arcade, and try to keep an eye out for him. Even though I've bought entirely too many comics with Deadpool already this year (I could practically devote one day of my Year In Review posts to Deadpool comics), I still had to order Deadpool Team-Up #899. Deadpool teams up with Hercules to face Arcade (and Nightmare, but I'm not interested in him). I can't pass that up.

That's me, what about you?

* Then complain because the writer doesn't "get" the character, or the character was used as a punching bag to make the Hot, New Thing of the Moment look cool/badass/dangerous.

** You know, considering some of the characters I like, I probably shouldn't make fun of Red Tornado fans. But I did. The little angel can't win every time.

*** And why wouldn't you be? I'm speaking of the true Dr. Polaris of course.

**** See, Dr. Polaris understands this. He wasn't content simply to humiliate Hal Jordan. No, in the early '90s he branched out and started fighting with the new Ray. Kid was just starting out and Dr. Polaris got in on the ground floor of his Rogue' Gallery. Which, admittedly, never grew terribly much, but hey, with Dr. Polaris, do you need any other foes?

***** Of course Dr. Doom would smoke! No, not because he's a villain. He, like Arcade, has style, and understands that you really should accompany a fine sifter of brandy with a high class smokable.

The Old Man Nova

I like the addition of Zan Philo to Nova. He's another character to add to the supporting cast, which allows for more character interaction, which is good. Plus, he works as a reflection of Richard Rider in some ways.

Zan was lost in another universe for 35 years. No idea where he was, no idea how to get home, didn't know anything about the cultures he was going to run into. No backup, and except for his droid repair crew, no support staff. Then there's the fact that it's unlikely anyone he met had ever heard of the Nova Corps, which means it's likely they weren't inclined to respect his authority. Of course, you wouldn't expect the criminals he'd pursue to respect his authority anyway, but it probably helps if the average citizen does see him as law enforcement, since it might make them more willing to help him (since they'd recognize that he wants to help them). From Zan's description of the place he wound up, there is no centralized law enforcement, just lots of bounty hunters. So maybe a bit like a Sergio Leone Western, where sheriffs mostly concern themselves with paying bounty hunters for doing their job.

In a lot of ways, his situation mirrors Rich's for the first year and a half of the title. Rich was the only space cop in the entire universe. People might know who the Nova Corps are in the 616 reality, but considering they were almost completely destroyed, citizens might also be lacking in confidence in them. So it was up to Richard to show people the Nova Corps was still an active and useful force in the universe. Give them something to believe in. Rich did have the Worldmind, but half the time the Worldmind was berating him about not focusing more on protecting it, which is hardly helpful.

I'll be curious to see how Zan and Rich get along. Zan certainly seems committed to the Nova Corps, so I don't imagine he'll be retiring after this story*. He has considerably more experience than Richard at this point, but he's also out of the loop on the current state of the universe. Is he going to be surprised to see the Shi'ar battered as they are, or that Rich is allied with such an odd group of freelance do-gooders (the Guardians of the Galaxy), or that Rich should still be on good terms with Ronan the Accuser**? Is Zan going to be so glad to be back home that he's an eager team player, or will he instinctively be a lone wolf, since that's how it's had to be for so long? If so, is Richard going to be able to keep him in line, especially since Rich himself is often to prone to trying to handle things himself?

* Besides, why deprive yourself of a character with three arms, none of which match?

** Remember, back during Annihilation, Ronan at one point told Rich that if he were Kree, Ronan would call him brother. Or something to that effect. That's high praise.