2012 Year In Review - Part 3

At some point I decided to start keeping track of which artists' work I was seeing most regularly. So I'd note how many pages each one drew, with an arbitrary cutoff at 110 and 154 pages. That's 5 and 7 22-page comics, respectively. In '09, the lists included 13 and 6 pencilers. The next year it dropped to 10 and 3. Some of that was probably the drop in comics purchased (144 to 134). The rest, I'm guessing it was the number of mini-series I bought from Marvel that year, as opposed to ongoings. In 2011, it dropped to 7 and 2, the page count decrease being the major culprit there (Marvel's tendency to ship lots of issues, which requires multiple artists also factored in).

As for this year, there was actually a minor increase. Five artists reached at least the 110 page mark: Dexter Soy (111), Dustin Nguyen, Howard Porter, and Matteo Scalera (120), and Scott Wegener (144). Three more made it beyond 154 pages: Norm Breyfogle (160), Rebekah Isaacs (220), Chris Samnee (270). Samnee did enough work he could have made the 110 mark solely off books that weren't for Marvel.

Defenders #2-10, 12: Matt Fraction's the only constant here. His artists shifted from the Dodsons drawing the showdown with Nul and Prestor John, to Michael Lark drawing Dr. Strange for an issue, then the Breitweisers as the team found the Nautilus, then Victor Ibanez as the Prince of Orphans showed up. The Dodsons did one more issue - prominently featuring the Black Cat - before Jamie McKelvie and Mike Norton took over. For all of three issues, by which time the team had been thrown into another dimension, hijacked a Nick Fury, and returned to find their world in ruins. And it was all their fault, naturally. So Strange fixed it, with Mario Pierfederici as penciler by then.

High Point: Scott Lang showed up? Um, Felicia messing around with the Satan's Claw she stole wasn't bad. Some of the stuff the Surfer did with his body was nifty. Issue 4 was probably the strongest, since it was the least wrapped up in all the nonsense about why there are super-heroes.

Low Point: This book was the answer to a question nobody asked. The artist shuffle was annoying. Fraction ramped up John Aman so much he made me sick of the character. Sure, a guy who turns into mist is too much for Dr. Strange. Because the former Sorcerer Supreme didn't hand the Lord of the Vampires his ass twice or anything like that. Let's put it this way: If I ranked all the ongoing series I bought this year - and I have - this one would come in dead last.

Dial H #0-7: Which is a sharp contrast to this series, where down on his luck schmoe Nelson Jent found himself a phone dial that lets him become superheroes. Crazy ones that actually exist in other dimensions, and aren't necessarily happy when people steal their power. Nelson's since teamed up with Roxie, who maintains a separate superheroic identity to help her remember who she is. He's run afoul of an alien, a living void, and a doctor of nothingness interested in them both. Now Nelson and Roxie have the Canadians to contend with, which I was not expecting, so credit to China Mieville for that. Mateus Santolouco was the artist for the first 5 issues, Ricardo Burchelli drew the 0 issue (set thousands of years in the past), and then David Lapham stepped in for 2 issues.

High Point: Santolouco's art was excellent for the book, because every hero look crazy. Not just in the absurdity of their designs, but a little unhinged. Mieville's added so many levels to it, with the dimensions the heroes come from, the different groups after the dials, the mysterious O, Ex Nihilo, who didn't even care about the dials, but made things worse for the heroes nonetheless.

Low Point: There hasn't been one, other than I'm disappointed Santolouco's gone.

Green Arrow #0, 7-15: I started buying the book when Ann Nocenti started writing it, and I'll leave when she does. So far Ollie's made a mess of things. Losing his company because he was more interested in chasing skirts. Then dashing off to China to try and get it back, more because he thinks it's his than feeling like his employees deserved better. There was an annoying team-up with Hawkman, then Ollie rashly dumped a bunch of guns in the ocean and riled a weapons dealer named Harrow. Harvey Tolibao was the artist at the start, Steve Kurth drew issue 10, and Freddie Williams II (with a horde of inkers) handled the rest.

High Point: The writing. Nocenti's always got something going on, and I've enjoyed watching Ollie screw up, then screw up again when he tries to fix things, because the methods he wants to use aren't productive. Even so, I don't hate Ollie, because Nocenti gives him a decent core, through the ego, bluster, and sex drive.Ollie does mean well, he does learn, and he does try to do better, to not repeat his mistakes.

Low Point: The Hawkman appearance was pretty lackluster, more because I don't care about Hawkman than anything else. The art's been the real downer. The book didn't maintain a consistent look, and Tolibao had problems with panel-to-panel consistency. Oh, and there was that 0 issue that said on the cover Nocenti wrote it, but it was actually Winick. Bah!

Hawkeye #1-6: Fraction did better here than he did with Defenders, that's for sure. Then again, he isn't trying to create some pointless creation myth for the Marvel Universe with this book. Clint Barton and Kate Bishop team-up to handle stuff, mostly Clint's personal crap. Jerk Russian landlords, the Circus of Crime, recovering an incriminating tape from some interested buyers. I do wonder when we'll see them dealing with Kate's stuff, but I guess she has Gillen, McKelvie, and Young Avengers for that. Anyway, David Aja draws the hell out of this book, with an assist from Matt Hollingsworth's colors. Except when it was Javier Pulido drawing slightly less of the hell out of it.

High Point: DAVID AJA! His sense of style on the page, the use of shadows and contrasts, stretching out a moment across a dozen panels, it's all beautiful, and I'm probably only picking up on 5% of what he's doing. Also, the car chase and the trick arrows in issue 3. I like that Fraction doesn't seem embarrassed by the trick arrows, like they're stupid or something. Sometimes you need more than an arrow that's pointy. On a strict vocabulary level, the use of "cornpone" in issue 2.

Low Point: If Fraction never has a character utter the word "Bro" again, it'll be too soon.

I know, only another 4 titles? Well, things are going to accelerate considerably tomorrow, as we blow through the remainder of the alphabet.

2012 Year In Review - Part 2

My total new comic purchases remained in line with the previous two years, at basically 11 comics a month. Marvel set a new low in terms of monthly purchases, at 5 and one-third issues a month, down from the previous record low of 5 and five-sixths, set last year. This meant Marvel also set a new low for its percent of my purchases, at 47.41%. DC didn't take advantage, as it declined for the second consecutive year, and saw its percentage fall almost to 28%, compared to over 35% in 2010. Comics not published by Marvel or DC were the big gainers, rising from 18.38% to 24.44.

I don't keep track of it, but if I charted back issue buys, DC would likely win, but Marvel would have won when it came to trades this year. For what that's worth, since basically all of that is pre-owned stuff they are already got their money for.

Batman Beyond Unlimited #1-11:  Adam Beechen and Norm Breyfogle put Batman in between Mad Stan and some foolish Russian weapons dealers who kidnapped Stan's dog. Then they unleashed 10,000 Jokers on Gotham, under the control of Dana's loopy brother. Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs had Kobra awaken the Ouroboros, and it would have destroyed the Earth, if not Bruce Wayne holding onto the ashes of Jason Blood. Nguyen and Fridolfs also gave us the origins of Warhawk, Marrina, and Barda, illustrated by Eric Nguyen, James Brower, and Ben Caldwell, respectively. Oh, and J.T. Krul and Howard Porter had Superman doing stuff.

High Point: I love Breyfogle's art, so getting that on a regular basis, on a Batman comic no less, is pretty nice. It even stars a Batman I don't hate. Astounding. I've really enjoyed the 10,000 Jokers story. I might enjoy a little more reaction from the average person, to convey how terrifying this is, but Beechen and Breyfogle are getting across how overwhelmed the good guys have been up to this point. I've also enjoyed the Justice League stories much more than I expected. I figured I would just tolerate it for Nguyen's art, but they seem determined to throw everything at the wall (but not The Wall, because on idiots throw things at her), and it's been really enjoyable.

Low Point: The Superman story. Krul's trying hard, I think, to make points about Superman by contrasting him with others - Lucinda, that cop Walker, his fireman coworkers - but he's too obvious about it. Very ham-fisted. Porter's art is also flat, lifeless, and not stacking up well against the other artists in the book.

Captain America #1, 2: Rick Remender and John Romita Jr. took Captain America and threw him into some dimension where Zola's running things, and essentially using the place as a big laboratory. Cap's on the loose, but in a world he doesn't know his way through, with a child in tow.

Captain Marvel #1-8: So far, Carol's taken it upon herself to set an altitude record in a T-36 as a way of honoring a woman she greatly looked up to. Unfortunately, the attempt sent her spiraling back in time, firs to WW2, then to a stretch where she and that pilot, Helen Cobb, tried out for the space program. Then Cobb nearly stole Carol's powers away, and Carol had to fight simply to exist as she did. Kelly Sue DeConnick wrote it, and Dexter Soy drew most of issues 1-4, with Rich Elson and Will Quintana doing 2 pages of #3, Karl Kesel and Javier Rodriguez another page. Then Al Barrionuevo drew 5 pages of issue. Emma Rios drew all of issues 5 & 6. All the time travel dealt with, DeConnick, Christopher Sebula, and Soy sent Carol headed to the Gulf of Mexico to help Monica Rambeau investigate several missing boats. And to get her chops busted about swiping the name Captain Marvel. Turns out a giant robot was behind it. The missing ships, not the name-swiping.

High Point: There's a high spirit to DeConnick's writing that makes it enjoyable. Not simply the witty banter, but also Carol's confidence in herself and her approach to things. "Hit stuff", mostly. It keeps things from being too depressing, even during the more serious moments. I probably liked issue 7 the best, for all the bickering, and Frank Gianelli seems like the sort of pushy activist that will create problems for Carol to have to solve.

Low Point: I wasn't a huge fan of the time travel story. I didn't feel like the Banshees were fleshed out enough, so maybe they'll get an encore. I can't decide whether the whole bit with Helen trying to swipe the powers was about giving Carol the chance to show she is better than her idol, or if DeConnick was saying Carol has doubts about having the powers, and it was time for her to accept them, with all the positives and negatives that accompany them. I prefer the former to the latter. Also, the artist shuffle is giving my whiplash. Going from Soy, to Emma Rios, back to Soy, and in this year, Andrade, there's none of the consistency you might see with say, Hawkeye. The true lowest point was issue 3, because they ripped us off by only having 19 pages.

Daredevil #8-21, and 10.1: Or this title, for another example. Mark Waid wrote it the whole way. On the art side of things, Kano started us off with the conclusion to the Daredevil/Spider-Man/Black Cat team-up, which saw Matt and Felicia hook up. Until Foggy called to say Matt's father's body was missing. Which brought Paolo Rivera back in as Matt descended underground to face the Mole Man. That didn't end satisfyingly, and then Megacrime set its sights on Daredevil, leading him to team up with the Punisher and Spidey, and then use the Avengers to throw everyone off track, as depicted by Khoi Pham, Marco Chechetto, and Chris Samnee. Just when it looked like Matt had things under control, and Samnee took over as almost all the time artist, Matt's shunted off to Latveria and infected with senses-deadening nano-bots. Which force his senses to develop in other ways if he's to escape. The problem is ultimately solved by Hank Pym going inside his brain and killing robots. Then Matt gets fired by Foggy for keeping his father's bones in his desk, which Matt swears he didn't do. Turns out he didn't, it was actually a new player called Coyote, using the Spot's powers to make Matt crazy. He only succeeded in making everyone else think Matt was crazy, so good enough?

High Point: Paolo Rivera's covers. His art in general. That Mole Man story was gorgeous, especially the fight where neither guy was even looking at the other, because they don't need to. The Coyote's design, for somehow being creepy instead of goofy. Don't know whether to credit Rivera or Samnee for that. The Avengers enjoying playing bad guys a little too much.Wolverine bragging about his backfist, Spidey gloating over ruining Matt's date, it was hilarious. Hank Pym getting to be useful, and not constantly hearing about how much he sucks (are Remender/Hank McCoy listening?) Matt's whole struggle to remain upbeat is really fascinating. Especially when even his friends think it's a sham, or a sign of mental instability.

Low Point: I don't think the Omega Effect crossover was necessary. Also, not a big fan of Waid's take on Doom, which I'm pretty sure he used Daredevil as a mouthpiece for. Which is why I won't be reading Waid's FF run any time soon.

I know, only 4 titles? Blame Daredevil for double-shipping so much the first half of the year. The pace will pick up some tomorrow.

2012 Comics In Review - Part 1

I wasn't counting on starting this post so late, but life in the boonies has a way of screwing things up. For those who are new to this series, it's real simple. I talk about each title I bought, who worked on it, maybe some highs and lows. The last day is a list day. Throw in some assorted nonsense in the opening paragraphs, and there you have it.

Amazing Spider-Man #677: I bought this because it was having a crossover with Daredevil. Dan Slott took an issue off so Mark Waid could write this, and Emma Rios drew it. The Black Spectre organization Daredevil had recently riled framed the Black Cat (and made her think Spidey set the cops on her) to try and put her in a position where she'd steal for them. Spidey tries to bring Daredevil in to help.

Angel & Faith #6-17: Christos Gage writes it. Rebekah Isaacs drew almost all of the issue, except for #10 (Chris Samnee), and #15 (Lee Garbett/David Lapham). First Drusilla shows up being sane, and Faith's dad shows up still being a loser. Angel left everyone feeling bad after that one. Then Giles' vain, formerly magic-proficient aunts showed up looking for protection. Then Willow showed up to berate Angel for poor choices. Pretty rich, coming from the Queen of Bad Choices. That lead them to Quor'toth, which also meant Connor showed up, considerably less annoying than usual. Whistler swiped all of Giles' magical artifacts as part of his asinine plan to save humanity, and then the Slayers found out Faith had been protecting Angel all this time. This just as Giles' corpse went missing.

High Points: Isaacs' art for certain. The characters look like the actors who portrayed them, but in a way that doesn't look photo-referenced. She doesn't sacrifice storytelling for accuracy, and she draws a good fight scene. I also enjoyed sane Dru, and her attempts to help Angel.

Low Points: I'm itching to see Whistler get his butt kicked, but in terms of things that actually happened, Angel's whole attitude during the Lorophage problem. This idea it's wrong if Faith and the other folks the Lorophage fed on aren't constantly rending their garments in agony over past mistakes. Of course, when Angel doesn't feel like crap about his misdeeds, he starts killing people or generally behaving terribly, so obviously that will be true of everyone else. Then the idea it's most important to get that piece of Giles' soul back, thus damning all these people to their traumas (not to mention the world to a crazy Drusilla). Angel never changes, always putting his shit ahead of everyone else. I can not wait for Spike to show up.

Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific #1-5: Scott Wegener and Brian Clevinger tell us about the time Robo found a whole world of different factions still fighting World War 2 in the Pacific, and how a international cast of lady aviators saved the West Coast from and earthquake bomb.

High Points: Wegener's designs on the jetpacks and other craft. Pete diatribe in issue #2 about how hard it is to get silverware for his bar, when all these mercs keep stealing it from him. Also, I like this reoccurring idea people of various Asian cultures think Robo is some supernatural being. Nick Filardi did some nice color work, especially that neon green for the earthquake bomb. It was so unusual compared to all the others colors, it emphasized the strangeness of the whole thing.

Low Points: Is there anyone who did steal or modify Tesla's lightning gun designs?

Atomic Robo Free Comic Book Day: Clevinger and Wegener again, bringing us the story of Dr. Dinosaur's team-up with Robo to stop the CERN facility from exploding, which would be bad. Then it turns out to be a trap, and they find themselves up against Futuresaurus Rex, a T-Rex grown in a timelike loop who evolved missile launchers.

Atomic Robo and The Ghost of Station X #5: More Clevinger and Wegener. Robo found out who had been trying to kill him, and it was another AI, named ALAN. As for why ALAN was trying to kill him, ALAN had plans to travel to space in such a way it would render Earth almost uninhabitable. But he predicted Robo would survive, give chase, and destroy ALAN. So best to destroy Robo first. Yeah, that didn't really work out for ALAN.

Atomic Robo Real Science Adventures #1-6: A bunch of smaller stories that wouldn't work as their own mini-series. Brian Clevinger wrote all of them, with assistance from the following artists: Ryan Cody, John Broglia, Chris Houghton, Guruhiru, Paul Maybury, Rob Reilly, Jin Clark, Zack Finfock, Erica Henderson, Xevi Benitez.

High Point: I really enjoyed the first 5 parts of "Leaping Metal Dragon". Robo's search for Bruce Lee, and his trials learning from him. Also, more Asian guys who thinks Robo's some sort of demon! Guruhiru did an excellent job with "Tesla's Electric Sky Schooner", though the story did leave me wondering how Tesla came to despise Ford and Lovecraft so much. Clevinger and Benitez on "Most Perfect Science Division", probably my love of anime showing through there. All the covers were really top-notch.

Low Point: Some of the stories were better than others. Some didn't make any sense to me at all. But mostly, I didn't like how they used the format. Splitting up two stories across six issues, each one getting 4 pages an issue wasn't a good call. It's too hard for the story to build and maintain momentum that way. It's a big part of why I'm considering going with the trade on the second round.

Avengers Solo #4, 5: Jen van Meter wrapped up her story about Hawkeye helping the women who were experimented on while being told it was a project sponsored by the Avengers. I wouldn't say they brought the unsavory practice to light, and the women still don't trust the other Avengers, but they at least trust Hawkeye. Roger Robinson mostly handled the art, except for two pages by Declan Shalvey. There was also a backup story about Giant Man Finesse and Striker taking on Alkhema by Jim McCann, Clayton Henry, and Karl Kesel. Turns out it was all a test of the two kids Pym whipped up. Except Finesse seems to be taking it as an opportunity to decipher the framework behind artificial intelligence. Great work, Pym.

Avengers Arena #1, 2: Arcade pits teen heroes against each other because he can, I suppose. Getting them to off each other will improve his rep, somehow. But if you can get them to kill themselves, what do you need a hired killer for? It's a real question whether Hopeless and Walker can keep the intrigue sufficiently high, and the gore factor sufficiently low that it won't end up driving me away. For the time being, so far so good.

Made it to the end of the A's. Not sure why it seems to work that way every year, but I always seem to buy more books at the front of the alphabet than at the back.

Burn Notice 4.10 - Hard Times

Plot: Michael has convinced Vaughn to give him face time with Simon. You could say the meeting goes well. Simon breaks out of his handcuffs and stabs Michael with them, but he also tells Michael about a grave he needs to dig up. It contains a tape Simon thinks Michael really ought to hear. Michael neglects to mention that to Vaughn, telling him instead that he needs time to devise a different approach.

All that will have to wait, because  Sam has a friend in need. Juan saved Sam's butt on a SEAL mission in South America. Now he's set to be paroled in one week. Problem is, Juan helped a man named Cruz steal money from La Nacion (the gang Cruz is a member of), and Cruz can't take the chance Juan talks after he's out. So it's to be death, for alleged disrespect. Cruz is serious enough some of his guys nearly pull a drive-by on Sam simply because he visited Juan. Since Sam can't keep Juan safe, it's Michael who has to go to prison for a week. Considering he spent weeks in that illegal holding facility before agreeing to help Vaughn, it ought to be a piece of cake. Especially since his FBI "pals" left him a phone to get in touch with them.

Too bad a guard in the prison beats two feds outside it. It quickly becomes apparent Mike can't keep Juan alive in the prison, so he'll have to sneak him out. Which would raise certain legality issues, if the riot Cruz instigated as a smokescreen didn't force a change in plans.

Throughout all this, Fi has been working hard to get around the safety measures Simon placed within that coffin. Namely, metal that will combust when exposed to oxygen. There's also a diligent groundskeeper to contend with, but Maddy's more than a match for him.

So after all that struggle to get into the coffin, what was so important? It's a conversation between Simon and Vaughn, when Vaughn cuts Simon loose, because they'd found a new, promising candidate. One Michael Westen. But Michael, I thought Vaughn said he had nothing to do with your getting burned.

The Players:  Vaughn (Michael's Buddy), Simon (Rogue Operative, Walking Nightmare), Juan (Unsuspecting Client), FBI Agents Lane and Harris (Guys Who'd Love to See Michael Locked Up), Cruz (Prison Gangster)

Quote of the Episode: Michael - 'That is an example of leaving my side. Don't do that.'

Does Fiona blow anything up? No.

Sam Axe Drink Count: 3 (17 overall)

Sam Getting Hit Count: 0 (8 overall)

Michael Fake Laugh Count: 0 (2 overall).

Other: Another week with no alias for Michael.

Cruz is the first villain since Cutler in "Neighborhood Watch" to get taken care of by other bad guys.

I thought it was kind of odd that the first time Mike interviews Simon, they have Simon wrists shackled so closely together you can't see any chain between them. The second time, they appear to have give him at least a foot of chain. Seems he could do a lot of damage with that. Also, I think calling him a walking nightmare was sufficient. Rogue Operative doesn't carry much weight compared to that.

I can appreciate Simon's reasons for enlightening Michael, if I totally believe them. Which I'm not certain I do. I'm sure Simon wants to destroy Vaughn and everyone else in that little organization. But I doubt he's content with Michael doing it for him, or that he even believes Michael's capable of it. The fact Simon tells him who is after the Bible/book cipher, a big businessman named John Barrett is one thing, Then he suggests Michael give the book to Barrett, so he can destroy Vaughn and the rest, then kill Barrett after if he feels like it. That's the sort of thing that runs counter to Michael's style. Not the using one side to destroy the other; he does that all the time. But killing whoever is left standing? No, Michael doesn't play it that way, and I'm doubtful that Simon doesn't know it. He was keeping tabs on Michael's actions from whatever secret prison Vaughn had him crammed into. He ran around with him for an afternoon of revenge. Michael wouldn't stand by and let Simon kill Management, but he wouldn't kill Simon to stop him, either.

It ends up feeling like a situation where Simon is setting things in motion for his own plans. Meeting with Michael has gotten him out of wherever he was held, twice. He's planted some discord between Michael and Vaughn. The latter is someone he'd like to kill, the former someone who would probably stop it (Simon probably wouldn't mind killing Mike, too).

As for the prison story, it wasn't bad, but it felt rushed. I would have expected more time spent combating a general sense of danger. I guess that was why Juan waited to alert Sam until he only had a week to go. It puts a looming deadline on everything, and once Michael gets involved, things accelerate even more.

What I Bought 1/31/2013

By the time this goes up, I'll probably have been on the road for 2 hours. Which means I'll only have 4 more hours of driving to go! Oh goody.

Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific #5, by Brian Clevinger (words), Scott Wegener (art), Nick Filardi (colors), Jeff Powell (letters) - That is a much different looking rocket pack than the one Robo uses in side the comic. I'm sure it's a more stable platform, it's just different is all.

Robo tries to chase Takeshi before he can use the earthquake bomb. As Takeshi notes, air-to-air combat between them has never gone well for Robo, and it's no different this time. Up close and personal fisticuffs are another matter. The She-Devils are left to contend with the other craft and the flying submersible battleship. Or would that be flying battleship submersible? They take care of it, but it costs them several lives, including Lauren, their resident engineering genius, which is too bad. I had hoped we'd learn she worked at Tesladyne or some other aeronautical firm in the '50s and '60s. It's a melancholy victory, but the She-Devils carried on in some form or the other.

It's strange to see people working with Robo die. Usually he seems able to prevent that, or else Jenkins does. Except in Dogs of War, I think. Which could be the point. That the stuff we usually see Robo dealing with, the super-science, Helsingard, the Vampire Dimension, that's all fantastic, but war is real. People die, and not just the "bad guys". Robo can't be everywhere to do everything, even on a single battlefield. Other people are going to help carry the load, and they aren't made of bulletproof metal, so it ends badly for them.

I like Takeshi's declaration that he and the others of Chokaiten are already dead. Comes back to what the old man said about the flying things being ghosts. The war is over, even if the unleash the earthquake bomb, it isn't going to retroactively make Japan the winner of World War 2, because the people of Japan were probably more concerned with putting their country back together at that point (I could be wrong about that, but my impression is most people were not in the mood for more fighting and killing, regardless of their nationality).

On a lighter note, it cracks me up to see Robo with a bandage over one eye, his arm in a sling and a cast. What does that even imply for him? He might be missing that hand, but is there a loose bolt or something in the arm, that's why he can't hold it up himself? I don't know, it's weird.

Captain America #1, by Rick Remender (writer), John Romita Jr. (pencils), Klaus Janson (inks), Dean White (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters) - I picked up a copy of the second printing. Pretty much the same as the first printing, except the stuff at the bottom of the page is in blue instead of red.

Cap saves New York from an ecologically-minded madman named the Green Skull, then rushes off to help Sharon Carter with something. Then he gets captured by Zola, has something injected into his chest, makes a bold escape with the baby that became Ian. Kind of an ugly escape, seeing as he crashed the craft out in the wasteland, but take what you can get.

This actually had 22 pages in it. I'm not talking about Handbook entries, or some stupid oral history. I mean 22 actual pages of comic panels and story and such. Strange.

I have to say, when Romita draws someone who got worked over (like Steve's mother), he really goes for it. It looks like her jaw is busted. Is it better that way, that the drawing accurately depicts how ugly the violence really is? I think it lends more emotional impact to the story, because it makes it clear the character isn't going to just shrug it off. It'll stay with them for awhile.

Captain Marvel #8, by Kelly Sue DeConnick & Christopher Sebela (writers), Dexter Soy (artist), Veronica Gandini (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I know, I let Steve go ahead of Carol, which isn't following rank the way I did last time. But I figured Age before Beauty this time.

Monica and Carol try to destroy the giant, living scrap heap. It's not going well, as it keeps putting itself back together every time they damage it, as giant robotic things tend to do. A little research by Frank and Monica reveals it's powered by the remains of a robot army, and they'll have to destroy the whole thing at once to keep it from rebuilding itself. Which involves teamwork, naturally, of a very close variety. Made sense to me, given their power sets. At the end, the debris are used to repair the levees, Carol does mention a headache -which answers my question about whether that came out of the blue - and Monica reveals she picked up a few things during her and Carol's teamwork exercise.

I do like quick stories, and this was a good one. Had a giant robot, had a human aspect to it, probably expanded Carol's circle of friends by bringing Frank Gianelli back and having a team-up with Monica Rambeau. Gandini handling the colors instead of Soy had a peculiar effect. Soy preferred darker tones, and swirled them together at times. Gandini tends to keep her colors separate, but she also opts for softer tones - the word "pastels" is coming to mind - and it makes everything a little less harsh. Which I think works better for moments of humor or mild annoyance. Soy's style really made his linework stand out strongly, and that produced a feeling of everything being on edge, tense. Gandini blunts that, which I think it needed.

What I Bought 1/22/2013 - Part 5

I placed an order online last week which came in yesterday. It included the last three books from 2012 I needed. We'll get to those tomorrow, but of more importance, the 2012 Year in Review posts will be running next week! And only five weeks late! Oh well, this blog long ago lost any pretense of timeliness. Today's two comics don't have anything in common other than being two of the better ongoings I read this year. Which is a good thing to have in common.

Angel & Faith #17, by Christos Gage (script), Rebekah Isaacs (art), Dan Jackson (colors), Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt (letters) - You know, I've always been curious as to why the book has two letterers. Does one handle dialogue, and the other sound effects? Or do they split the book 50-50?

Faith justifiably blows up at Angel, seeing as how helping him through his martyr shit has blown her life to pieces. Venting finished they set about tracking down who stole Giles' body, quickly arriving at Ethan Rayne. Who I did not realize had died during Season 8. That fact helps Angel realize that Eyghon is behind all this, and after some quick searches for real estate purchases, they're off. Meanwhile, Nadira and the other Slayers get their deceased friend back, thanks "Giles", except it's a part of Eyghon inside, rather than her. And the Slayers find themselves in quite a battle, without even having started in on the boss battle yet.

I initially thought our heroes pulled together what happened to Giles too quickly, but I think I'm just used to decompression. Other writers would have spent five issues getting to this point, but Gage understands that sometimes when one piece fits, the others start falling into place. Domino effect. Once you know Rayne was at the funeral, and Angel knows he's supposed to be dead, it comes together. I like Nadira's caution, and the limitations of it, seeing as she knows jackall about magic. That's one of those scary moments in life, having to trust someone you don't know, because you also don't know enough about something to recognize any dangers. Also, the situation is dire enough you may not care.

Isaacs gives us quite the design for Eyghon. Much more drippy, or perhaps slimy, than I expected. In a way that makes me feel it's his skin itself sliding off, not simply some ooze he secretes. I like the argument between Angel and Faith early on. How Isaacs plays with the distance between the two. Faith is usually advancing on Angel, getting in his face, but when he tries to close the distance in a conciliatory manner, the gap actually increases until Faith goes on the offensive again.

Also, I'm pretty sure I have several coworkers who would swoon at Isaacs rendition of Ripper Giles.

Hawkeye #6, by Matt Fraction (writer), David Aja (artist), Matt Hollingsworth (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer) - I see the credits are now simply listing this book as being "by" Fraction and Aja, without specifying roles. Does Fraction have any art background? I'd be curious to see him draw an issue, while letting Aja write it. Probably be a train wreck.

It's what the cover says. Six days in the life of Hawkeye. Can't be a linear six days, though. Nooooo, of course not. Got to jump around and shit.I really hope I was just distracted by something, because I don't feel like I should have had as much trouble keeping the timeline straight as I did, considering they tell me which freaking day it is. Clint gets injured in a fight with AIM guys, decides to take some time off. He's enjoying his time off, until the stupid Russians show up again and beat the shit out of him. Are we ever going to have an issue of this comic that doesn't involve Clint getting his ass beat? This is like Spider-Man during that "Gauntlet" mess from three years ago. The Russians - in their inimitably stupid way - tell Clint to leave or they will kill everyone in his building. Clint considers this, gets chewed out by Kate, and decides to stick it out. Having made this decision, he turns his attention to more important tasks, like trying to get all his home entertainment equipment set-up so he can watch "Dog Cops". Nice to know TV in the Marvel Universe isn't any better than it is here.

The bit on Page 3, with the Avengers fighting AIM, that was supposed to remind me of those side-scrolling beat em' ups, right? That was my first thought, that it was like the old X-Men arcade game I loved so much. Clint needed to shoot the oil drum, that would have sped things along. Complaining about the time-skipping aside, I do actually enjoy it (as long as I can keep the order straight in my head). It lets the meaning of scenes take on different meanings if you read about what came earlier after. The bit about Clint being able to unpack his life like a grown man reads differently once you know Kate chewed him out for planning to run. Before that, you just figure Clint's disorganized (see his mess of cables and A/V stuff), or maybe he's a packrat. So he doesn't unpack because it's mostly useless junk. After Kate storms off, it's a whole other story. So that's nice.

That said, enough with the "Bro" stuff. It's annoying as hell, to the extent it makes me want Hawkeye to murder the annoying Russian guys, and I don't like that I want Hawkeye to murder them. "Bruv" is still OK, because they used that in Attack the Block, and I love that movie, but NO MORE "BRO". Please.

What I Bought 1/22/2013 - Part 4

While I was hanging out with Alex over the weekend, he convinced me to watch The Watch. Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, aliens invade podunk Ohio community? That movie was meant to be a satire of action films, wasn't it? Besides being a vehicle for raunchy dick jokes, I mean. It was the big shootout at the end that brought the point home for me, the guns never running out of ammo until it's necessary to build suspense, the slow-mo of Jamarcus tossing away empty guns, only to draw more from his coat. It had that knowing wink feel to it Hot Fuzz did. Except considerably less funny and well done.

Oh, and I'm going to talk about Secret Avengers today.

Secret Avengers #35, 36, by Rick Remender (writer), Matteo Scalera (artist), Matthew Wilson (color art), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - The next time the Avengers try hiding inside with the lights off when solicitors come around, they might want to remember to close the curtains on the upper floors in case one of the salesmen is a giant robot.

Black Widow, Venom, and Valkyrie are in The Core, and they found Parvez. But O'Grady found them, and is in the process of kicking their butts, while whining about how he's allowed to be selfish. You know, if Thomspon were putting any thought into using the symbiont, be could smother O'Grady in about 3 seconds. I know, Flash Thompson and thinking don't go together.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye, Captain Britain, and Beast figure out a way to escape the Undead Universe with the Orb of Necromancy. Braddock is a surprisingly good bluffer. Also, Hawkeye killed Vampire Wolverine with a Pym created artificial sunlight arrow. Bet that took him less time to perfect than Willow Rosenberg's sphere of sunlight spell. Did she ever get that down? The heroes return to the 616 reality is ruined because Father and the Descendants have made their move. The appeal to the U.N. to recognize them as sovereign rulers of Bagalia (after Max Fury signed it away to them), is met with shouting about "terrorism", which is kind of a conversation-stopper. Not quite up there with invoking Hitler, but close enough. So Father has his people who are hidden among the populace release a nano-mist that will remake every person on earth into a artificial being. Including the Soviet Super-Soldiers apparently, which is an odd choice by Remender, but I guess it can be ignored readily enough.

With the Avengers and FF trapped in their respective headquarters by some adaptive metal. It's down to our three heroes, plus Spider-Man. And they have the Orb of Necromancy. Fire it up, and they can kill the nano thing before it alters humanity. But it'll also kill all the Descendants and the Avengers aren't keen on that notion, especially Hawkeye. Then Deathlok Wasp and Pym show up, and Jan grabs the Orb, but McCoy brings Pym back to himself (mentally, he's still half machine), and it's Cyborg Giant-Man versus Master Mold thing as the conclusion approaches.

I have concerns about how the concluding issue is gonna go. Hawkeye has been so adamant about Avengers not killing, and he seems completely willing to acknowledge the Descendants and living sentient beings, that I can't help but fear Remender's going to make him kill them as some sort of commentary on "growing up", or the futility of moral absolutes, or something. Given his cack-handed approach to Hawkeye thus far, it wouldn't surprise me. Beyond those worries, I liked the writing. I'm hoping Remender will come up with a creative, non-lethal solution, and Father is the kind of villain where you can't take anything he says at face value, which means I can't take anything the people working with him say, either. Like, does Jim Hammond actually believe humans will never regard as a real person? When one of his best friends is Steve Rogers? When he managed to make friends with Namor, who gets along with almost nobody? Or is Father exerting influence?

I don't have much to say about Scalera's artwork. I would have liked a little more variety in the designs of the artificial lifeforms in the double-page splash at the beginning of 35. Give the Sentinels a sense of individuality, since they are (in theory) individuals, albeit ones all working towards the same goal. That said, the panel of Master Mold glaring into the window of Avengers Tower was pretty good. The glowing eyes in shadow look is always gold, especially when it's a giant robot that somehow got the drop on an entire team of Avengers. Nice awareness there, folks.

What I Bought 1/22/2013 - Part 3

It's an All-Captain reviews day! As Carol is the higher ranking of the two, and I don't see her as the sort of commanding officer who sits back at HQ, she gets to lead off.

Captain Marvel #9, by Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), Filipe Andrade (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Should I be concerned about the frequent turnover in artists for this book? This is the third different primary artist in 9 issues (Soy and Emma Rios being the other two). That's Defenders or Resurrection Man instability right there.

It's a day in Carol's life, which based on this day, is terribly annoying. Tony Stark hacked into her phone and rearranged her calendar. And did not apologize, because Tony Stark is a domineering jackass (if you had forgotten that fact). Carol needs to take her grumpy cat to the vet, but is waylaid by dinosaurs. Then she has to send Jessica Drew to pick up Helen Cobb, and an eager grad student to pick up her cat, while Carol investigates an offer to help deliver food and medicine to disaster areas. That leads to beating up some goons who don't want people to help with that. I guess disaster relief is big business (what isn't?) Then everyone meets at the doctor's office, where Carol learns she has a lesion in her brain, so she can't fly. I'm not clear on whether that means at all, or just by using her powers. I'm guessing the former, but who knows.

I haven't received issue 8 yet, so maybe it came up there, but the headache thing was out of left field. Other than that, I like the writing. Carol's still confident, glib, and a bit snarky. She's perhaps not the best long-term planner, but she's good about delegating in a pinch, like convincing Roberto the taxi driver to take her cat to the vet as Avengers business. Can she get the Avengers to reimburse him for that? I'm sure Stark can find the money in the couch somewhere. Unless he's broke again. I can't keep track.

As for Andrade's art, it's a bit too exaggerated for my tastes. It has a bit of a Skottie Young vibe to it, but Andrade doesn't have the consistency in his figures Young has. Spider Woman's body in the top of page 11 keeps freaking me out. The distance her legs are apart, where the left leg seems to be coming from, how her hands are so tiny. It's distracting. There's definitely a lot of energy to it, the force of impact is conveyed well, and some of the faces have that knock of depicting a particular emotion with very few lines. There's some definite potential, but Andrade needs to I don't exert a little more control over anatomy.

Captain America #2, 3, by Rick Remender (writer), John Romita Jr. (penciler), Klaus Janson (inker), Dean White with Lee Loughridge and Dan Brown (color art) - Kind of weird to see an inker. I feel like a lot of the artists I see these days are apparently doing that themselves. Aja, Soy, Isaacs, Samnee, Freddie Williams sometimes.

So no, I don't have issue 1 yet. Not hard to follow though. Cap was brought to some weird dimension by Arnim Zola, and escaped with a boy named Ian in tow. Now they're out in this weird place trying to stay alive. Which is pretty hard when seemingly everything perceives them as food. Zola's creations, the ones who fight Zola, the mindless animals that are native to this world. Steve and Ian are nearly executed by Zofjor, who leads the people trying to survive against Zola, but spared when it's pointed out Steve was fighting Zola's creations. He and Ian are taken in by Ksul and his family, and things are good. For about five minutes, until Steve mentions that Zofjor is a tyrant, at which point Zofjor kills Ksul, and tries to do the same to Steve. Doesn't go too well for Zofjor, but doesn't go too well for Steve either when a wound reveals he has a Zola TV-face in his chest. Zola also has a kid back at his compound with Omnisenses that I assume will be relevant later. Certainly be useful as a tracker.

I like the idea behind this story. Remender's taken Steve away from everything familiar to him, thrown him into an alien world that operates by its own rules. We get to see how Steve responds in such a situation, as a way of seeing who he is at his core. What we see is a guy whose first instinct is to protect a child, to strive to survive. Someone who tries to respond peacefully first, and fights when it's necessary. He doesn't believe in people ruling through fear, or placing themselves above others (which makes me wonder if this Steve Rogers would be part of a stupid Illuminati group). I really like this Steve Rogers. Can't say much about Ian yet, 'cause he hasn't done anything other than be there.

I know some people don't care for Romita Jr.'s artwork. I've been one of those people on particular runs (his work on Uncanny X-Men and Spider-Man in the mid-90s, primarily). It works here. The roughness is well-suited for a beat up Captain America, and Romita seems to be having fun drawing weird monsters and creatures. There's a familiarity to the landscapes, but things are different enough to make it noticeable and strange.He's well-suited for the book. I will say that the kids in the flashbacks to Steve's childhood seem to have enormous noses. The bridge of their nose seems unusually far ahead of their eyes. Other than that, I've got no complaints.

What I Bought 1/22/2013 - Part 2

Let's step over to the DC side of things today. All three of these books shipped in January, but one is a December release. This also marks the end of my time reading Green Arrow.

Batman Beyond Unlimited #11, by Adam Beechen (writer), Norm Breyfogle (artist), Andrew Elder (colorist), Saida Temofonte (letterer) for "10,000 Clowns: Dark City"; J.T. Krul (writer), Howard Porter (pencils), Livesay (inks), Carrie Strachan (colors), Saida Temofonte (letters) for the Superman story; Derek Fridolfs & Dustin Nguyen (writers), Ben Caldwell (artist), Saida Temofonte (letterer) for "Beyond Origin: Barda" - On first glance at that cover, I couldn't figure out where the Joker King's left foot was. Then I realized most of his shoe was white, so it was blending into the background.  I do like McGinnis' blood forming his shadow on the ground.

Let's see, Wayne can't stop the Joker King, but he does get through to Terry, who rushes to the rescue. And promptly gets his butt kicked by the Joker King, too. Meanwhile, Doug's been prattling on about how he reached this point. Blah, blah, vision, blah, blah, gullible sheep. On the good news front, Drake figured out how to deactivate the explosions, so no more stuff going boom. Grayson has an inkling that something may be wrong, but no telling if he'll figure it out yet. Not sure why he and the others didn't hear Wayne's message, too. Their radios are all supposed to be set on the same frequency. I thought Beechen's dialogue for Wayne drifted too far into Frank Miller territory for a minute there. That seems more appropriate for Vigilante. Catwoman constantly hitting on Dick Grayson is amusing. I think Breyfogle's expressive work with McGinnis is best when his face is in shadows, and you can just see the eyes. Breyfogle makes that work, the small amounts of light against the shadows. Also, the sequence with the Dee Dees, especially their sheepish reaction to their bombs not detonating.

In the Superman story, we get the Trillians reason for wanting Superman dead. I suspect it's a rather jaundiced account. Their first attempt to kill him fails, so they're gonna call in Lobo. Oh boy.

Moving on, we get Barda's history, though about half of it is her mother's history. Her mother's name was Breeda? Um, OK. She was friends with the lady who became Granny Goodness, until she hid Barda's existence from granny, at which point Breeda lost her daughter. Probably the best thing that could have happened to Barda in the long run, since being a Fury is how she met Scott, and decided to leave Apokolips.

I like the repetition of certain images or poses. The relationship between Breeda and Barda's father represented by their shadows against a wall as troops march past, and Barda and Scott's being shown the same way. Also, the way Breeda leaps at Granny one the first page (when they're children), compared to her attack when Granny takes Barda. It's also similar to Mercy's attack on Granny, which ended the same way as Breeda's second attempt. Each of the origin stories has had its own artist, and each has their own style, but they all have enough similarity they don't feel out of place compared to Nguyen's art. There hasn't been a photorealistic artist in the group so far, which is good. It wouldn't really fit the look. It's kind of the issue I have with Porter's work. It isn't photorealistic, but it's needlessly busy compared to Nguyen or Breyfogle, and his hyper-muscled Superman doesn't bear much resemblance to Nguyen's more slimmed down version.

Dial H #8, by China Mieville (writer), Alberto Ponticelli (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Tanya & Richard Horie (colorists) - Jeez, I'm only the second book now? Freaking anthologies.

Nelson and Roxie arrive in Toronto. Nelson dials up as soon as he can in the hopes of drawing out the dial user. Which he does, but the guy doesn't seem to have much control. Then again, Nelson was having some trouble remembering whether he's Nelson, Flame War, or Manteau. He doesn't succeed in making friends with the other dial user, and the Human Centipede catches sight of him, tracks him, and swipes the dial away. That can't possibly end well, especially since he may be planning to go into business for himself.

This wasn't my favorite issue. There's a lot of incremental movement. The possibility the Centipede's about to go rogue. The hallucinations Nelson had as Flame War, unless they weren't hallucinations. I suppose I should have guessed O stood for "Operator", but now I'm curious as to how Centipede's people know that. So there's a lot of little things. Alberto Ponticelli stepped in as artist, which is a pretty severe shift from Lapham, but it's a move more back in the direction of Santolouco's art, which I won't complain about. I'm not sure if his hero designs will have quite the manic energy of Santolouco's, but Trash Talk might be a promising sign. I want to see an angry trash can fight crime with smack talk.

Green Arrow #16, by Ann Nocenti (writer), Freddie Williams II (artist), Allen Passalaqua (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - Is Ollie fighting Mitch Shelly on that cover? When did Mitch decide to start shanking people? I guess learning the truth about himself made him become a jerk again!

Ollie fends off Harrow's boys, then the cops show up. Harrows off to jail, everything's great. Then Gloria shows up with word Pike (the kid that fought the dog) is going to blow himself and Harrow's warehouse full of explosives up. Ollie manages to talk Pike down, but then Harrow shows up, so he and Ollie gotta fight. Ollie wins the fight, then makes sure everyone escapes the warehouse safely. He's still not too happy, which seems to disappoint the jogger lady who shows up twice in this issue.

For the last issue of a run, this feels inconclusive. The head injury is still getting mentioned (even if the art fails to depict this bloody spot on the back of Ollie's head Harrow references), but not paying off. It's an odd place to leave him. Ollie seems convinced that not only is he broke, he's lost his friends. Which couldn't certainly be true, but I'd like to have seen it happen, rather than rely on his sketchy self-awareness and some comments they made last issue. Ollie saved everyone from the immediate danger, even found out Pauline Pearl (from issue 10) is now grateful to Ollie for saving her, but it doesn't seem to do much for him. I think it's supposed to be the realization of how little he's really helped Pike by "saving" him that bums him out. He's butting up against the limits of what he can do as Green Arrow, and realizing he could do a lot more if he hadn't pissed away his fortune chasing skirts.

What I Bought 1/22/2013 - Part 1

The comics came in the day before I departed on another brief trip. So I decided to wait until I returned to do the reviews. Well, I'm back, so let's review.

Avengers Arena #1-3, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Kev Walker (artist), Frank Martin (colorist), with Jean-Francois Beaulieu on #2, Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Yeah, I decided to start with this. What the hell.

The story, you probably know. Arcade somehow spirits away several teenage super-types from around the globe, and deposits them in some hidden location. Then he tells them they've got a month to kill each other. He expects only one of them to be alive when the month is over, or else he'll kill them all himself. Which he has possibly developed super-powers for the purpose of doing so. The kids scatter, some forming small groups, but someone is picking them off one at a time. Or appearing to pick them off.

That's the big thing about this story for me. There's an air or deception, or sleight of hand hanging over everything. Part of that is by design, since Hopeless and Walker are keeping the person attacking the various camps out of sight, and part of it is the things that don't quite add up. Arcade's powers, these Braddock Academy kids, some of X-23's actions. Everything is off, in a way that it feels staged, that all the most important stuff if happening off-panel. That's how I'm reading so far, like a mystery. Everything is a clue, and I want to piece it together before Hopeless tells us.

It's a detached way of looking at it, but I'm not indifferent to the characters. If you must know, I'm rooting for Darkhawk and Cammi myself, though things weren't looking too good for Chris Powell there at the end of #3. Like I said a while back, though, the deaths don't bother me much. If Marvel wants to ignore the results of this story, they will (assuming there isn't some trick to the deaths). In the meantime, Hopeless is trying to make us care about the characters. He hasn't done much with the Braddock Academy kids yet, but Rebecca Ryker's story in issue 2 was pretty effective. A girl who's been regarded as an instrument her whole life, by her dad, SHIELD, someone in this current group.

Kev Walker's art probably helps the book a lot. You can tell he's really trying to, anyway. I thought the campfire scene in issue 2 especially. He definitely tried to convey something about each of the Braddock Academy bunch with their postures. Kid Briton holding up the fiery sword in front of him, but the way he stares at it with this forlorn look. His faces are less busy than they were the last time I saw them (in Annihilation: Nova). No repeats of "Quasar as current Robert Redford" here. A less is more approach, stronger lines, but fewer of them. The action sequences look good, too. I don't know who to credit for the sort of blur effect on some of the flashbacks (like Cammi's). Seems like something Walker might be doing, but it might also be Martin, as part of his color effects. I do like the color work generally. A lot of action takes place in either snow, or at night, so Martin gets to show off against either a predominantly white or black background, which helps everything else stand out more.

I had been expecting this to be a lot worse. The dangers of reading too much Internet hyperbole. It's not a great book, but it's not the dumpster fire a lot of people have made it out to be, either. There's a lot of mystery so far that has me interested, there's Walker's very good art. Mostly, I have all these different suspicions and theories about what's happening, what will happening, and who is responsible, and I want to stick around for the answers.

Burn Notice 4.9 - Center of the Storm

Plot: The episode starts with a storm hitting the town. In the midst of it, Vaughn pays Michael a visit, as Michael wants to meet with Simon to ask him about the book code. Vaughn makes a counteroffer: Give him the book, and let his guys look it over. An impasse is reached, and nobody is happy.

After the storm, Michael receives a visit from his old FBI acquaintances, Lane and Harris, who need a favor. They were supposed to guard James Bailey until he can testify against a Turkish syndicate. But they were ambushed by a guy with a shotgun and Bailey scattered. They're being called in for a chewing out, so they need Michael to track down Bailey. He opts to start by tracking the shooter through his gun, and good news, he succeeds! Bad news, Cole still got the drop on. So Michael pretends to be the other shooter hired, a Matt Reese, and tries to work with Cole. Problem is, Michael has less idea where Bailey is than Cole does. Also, the real Matt Reese is still out there. Which means Michael must rely on his powers of pop psychology to sway Cole to his side.

Personally, I think he'd be better of developing those trucker summoning powers Cole thinks he has.

While all this is going on, Fi has a visit from Vaughn. He decided she'd be more receptive to his pitch about handing over the book. Especially if he offers to have Jesse reinstated. Fi, unsurprisingly, doesn't take Vaughn up on the offer, but also doesn't kill Vaughn, which was slightly disappointing. No, she decides to trust Michael to make things right by Jesse, and Michael will get right on that. . . Just as soon as he finishes talking to Simon.

The Players: Vaughn ("Trusted" Teammate), Lane and Harris (Not Friends/The Clients), Pano (Gun Dealer), Cole (Expert Killer), Reese (Hired Gun with a Team), James and Joanne (In Need of a Friend)

Quote of the Episode: Michael - 'I risked my life! I got a man burned! And I've caught an endless wave of grief about it! Now I'm losing my patience. I'm asking a simple favor, and before you say no, you need to remember that I'm pretty dangerous, too.'

Does Fiona blow anything up? No.

Sam Axe Drink Count: 1 (14 overall)

Sam Getting Hit Count: 0 (8 overall)

Michael Fake Laugh Count: 0 (2 overall)

Other: Michael was Matt Reese for awhile. Sam was Detective Charlie Finley, Jesse was Mr. Vane, and Maddy was Smokin' Mama. This is what happens when you introduce CB radios into a plot.

I was a little surprised Mike admitted to Vaughn that he had a book code, but I guess that was the only way he could make his argument to meet with Simon. That quote I used was his argument to Vaughn about it. It didn't work, and Vaughn responded with his own threat, about there being other storms than this one coming. Which was more poetic, but less cool.

I still think Fiona should have just shot Vaughn.

If they were going to have Michael lose a fight to the real Matt Reese, they might have a hired a more imposing actor. The guy looks like Louis CK or Nick Bakay or something. How can Michael not beat that guy's ass?

I feel like someone with the superpower to summon truckers to their aid should fight Ghost Rider, don't you? Like how Orka (the Marvel one, not the Batman villain) gained strength from whales, and could summon them to his side. Maybe Jason Aaron already did that. One more reason to buy that Omnibus, I guess.

Jesse seemed unusually condescending towards Maddy this week. Shouldn't he have realized by now how sharp she is?

I really don't have anything else to say about the episode. It's not one of my favorites. The whole bit with Cole not really being that bad didn't interest me, considering he admitted to killing at least a couple of people already. Mike trying to use the feds to intimidate Vaughn was laughable, considering the influence he and Management were shown to have. At least Vaughn pointed it out immediately afterward, but that makes me wonder what the point was.

Do I Contradict Myself? Apparently So

Sally had a post last week discussing some of her concerns with the Green Lantern books, and the new 52 in general. This has sparked a bit of discussion, a lot of it dealing with how DC threw out most of their old continuity with the relaunch, and how this has left many of the writers at a loss. Including (or especially) Geoff Johns, since he does love to mine the old stories for things he can build on.

I had a slightly different thought. Do you think the writers would have more success if they could just go nuts with their stories? Set aside how the creative teams are shuffled around like it's a game of 3-card monty. We've read interviews with more than one writer that talks about how their scripts are being rewritten after they've been turned in, or being told they can't do X, because it contradicts something. Sometimes the something is another writer's work, other times it's some rule the honchos want in place about whether a particular character exists or not. This doesn't seem like the best environment to encourage creativity.

If they really wanted to start fresh, get the characters back to basics and go in exciting new directions of whatever, they could do worse than letting the writers just write, and the artists draw. Tell them, "give us an entertaining issue each month." Let them use the characters they want to, or create new ones if they want. If one book contradicts another, the writers can decide if they want to bother addressing it. It's supposed to be a new universe, so things are in flux, a little unstable. They'll sort themselves out as they go along.

I don't know, the fans probably wouldn't accept it. They'd demand the books sync up, and why is this character evil in this book, but good in this book, you know the story. I've been as guilty of it as anyone. Still, if they're going to throw out (most) of the old stories, I'm not sure it makes sense to restrict the people responsible for coming up with the new stories.

Capricorn One

Originally we were going to watch The Notorious Landlady, but the DVD in the case was a different, inferior Jack Lemmon film. Then we tried The Prize, get a little Paul Newman going. But it wouldn't play. So here we are.

A short list of things that made my dad laugh while we watched Capricorn One:

- Telly Savalas repeatedly telling Caulfield (Elliot Gould) to 'get his goddamn head down'.

- My complain that an astronaut played by a former football player (O.J. Simpson), should not be exhausted and dying in the desert faster than one played by the guy who was on Law and Order for 20 years (Sam Waterston).

- Immediately after that, I shouted, "Your bullshit won't save you this time!" at Waterston.

- My advice that before Brubaker (James Brolin), tries explaining to the country that his landing on Mars was faked, and now Shadowy Forces are trying to tie up loose ends, he might want to clean the raw snake entrails cleaned out of his teeth.

I incorrectly identified the evil Dr. Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) as the jerk mayor from Jaws, when really, he's the leader of the vigilante cops from Magnum Force.

I'm not saying my dad laughed at that, I'm just mentioning it.

The movie has serious pacing problems, and chooses to waste time on the strangest things. We spend a couple minutes watching Waterston struggle up a mesa that he should have walked around, while he tells himself some joke. That went on forever. We were also treated to a lesson on proper journalism by Caulfield's boss, which only served to waste more time and raise the question of why the hell he hadn't already fired Caulfield, if he's so terribly at his job.

The approach of the Shadowy Forces to removing Caulfield didn't make any damn sense. They're going to the extreme of faking the astronauts' death, then pursuing the astronauts with two helicopters through the desert when they made their escape. Yet they take this half-assed approach to Caulfield. When tampering with his brakes, accelerator, ignition, and emergency brake failed to produce results, they tried shooting him at a ghost town. except they sped off after the first try. There was no one else around! He's on the ground! Walk up and put two in his heads, morons! Then they decide to impersonate FBI agents and plant coke in his bathroom and have him jailed. They don't shoot him and plant a gun, they don't have him shivved in holding. He gets bailed out, and goes on investigating.

And on top of all that stupidity, the ending is some ambiguous mess of Caulfield and Brubaker crashing Brubaker's own funeral, running towards it in triumphant slow-motion. But we're never told what the fallout is from all this, since the whole reason for faking it was the space program couldn't suffer a failure, and the project would have failed otherwise, since they cut corners on their life support system.

It's only 2 hours, but it feels longer, in a very boring way. It would have been one thing if the film had devoted more time to showing how they faked things, like Wag the Dog, but they basically handwave it so they can waste time on other crap.

The Vikings

Having watched The Long Ships last month, dad convinced me to try The Vikings, even with the presence of Kirk Douglas and his crater chin.

It starts with Ernest Borgnine as Ragnar, raping a queen by the name of Enid. After he killed her husband, naturally. With the king dead, and Enid keeping her pregnancy a secret, this jackleg Aella is named king, and Enid has to send her son Eric off to a monastery in Italy for safety, with the stone off the end of the handle of his father's sword around his neck.

Decades pass, Aella's still in charge, still fretting rumors of Enid's son, and finally decides to marry a princess so he can produce his own heir. Enter Morgana (Janet Leigh). He also takes the announcement of this as an opportunity to arrest a traitor, Egbert, who subsequently escapes and hides out with Ragnar's people. Where we meet Einar (Douglas), Ragnar's son out of wedlock. The one he knows about, I mean. There's also a slave, rather handy with a falcon, who Einar (an arrogant prick if there ever was one) dislikes. That the slave, who just so happens to wear a stone around his neck (and is played by Tony Curtis), uses his falcon to remove Einar's left eye doesn't help matters.

Eric survives the punishment, and Egbert, who recognized the stone, claims him. Meanwhile, Einar abducts Morgana off Egbert's suggestion. Of course, Egbert was thinking of ransom (though quite why he expects Aella to pay, rather than Morgana's father, I don't know), but Einar's got other things in mind. So does Eric, who was moved by the prophecies of Kitala, the rune reader of the village, and has concluded he and Morgana are destined to be together. So he decks Einar, and off they go. They try teaming up with Aella, but he's still a pain in the ass, so Eric has to team up with Einar, temporarily. Have fun storming the castle.

I'm a little surprised neither side were the "good guys". The English (or Saxons, whatever), are primarily represented by Aella, who is a petty, sleazy, insecure guy, with a serious ingratitude problem. Or they're represented by Egbert, who's a traitor concerned only with his own wealth. Of course, the Vikings aren't any better. Ragnar's a drunken boor who talks fondly of how much Einar's mother fought him, and he encourages Einar to see Morgana's resistance as a good thing. Which makes it almost, not funny exactly, but kind of fitting that Morgana refuses to give Einar that when he approaches her quarters wanting her to fight. She won't even give him that satisfaction. Not that I think it would have mattered much in another minute or so, but Einar's a spoiled, vain brat, so it's good to see him not get his way.

The only people I suppose are good are Eric and Morgana. And Kitala. I'm not clear on what her motivations were for trying to save Eric from Einar's revenge, but she did make the effort, and she provided him with the key to navigating in fog, which was the only reason Einar was willing to work with him. Maybe she thought saving him would save Ragnar, or maybe she sees Eric uniting the Vikings and the Saxons into a superpower. Or maybe she just calls it like she sees it, regardless of the consequences. The runes said it was a bad idea for anyone to kill Eric, so she said that.

That is one problem with the movie, the secondary characters tend to drop out abruptly until they're needed to advance the plot, even when they shouldn't. Kitala accompanied Eric and Morgana on their trip to England, but one they arrived, she's nowhere to be seen until after the return to the Vikings' village. You'd think a seer who figured out the compass would be of some relevance in negotiating with a king. Also, Egbert kind of dropped out of sight during the pursuit of Eric and Morgana, which is odd since he was planning on using Eric for his own gains, and Eric stole Egbert's boat.

Also, there's one black character (Sandpiper, played by Edric Connor), a deaf mute slave friend of Eric's. He's basically just there, the closest he gets to useful is he's the one carrying the compass while Eric steers Einar's fleet through the fog (as Eric wisely didn't explain how he can navigate through fog). Could have at least given him some lines.

It's basically what you'd expect of a movie of the era. Guys settle things with violence, women are pretty much reduced to putting on brave faces or being scared. I would have really enjoyed it if Morgana had picked up the sword Einar set out for her and tried to kill him. I know, that was when he wanted to fight, and she was taking the passive resistance route. Maybe after Eric knocked him out she could have stabbed Einar?

Tony Curtis is a little too neat to be a Viking. He has a beard, but it's very short and neatly trimmed. Still more than you can say for Douglas, though they lampshade that when Ragnar explains his son is too vain to cover his face. Borgnine's the only one who got into it. He has the gray, scraggly looking beard. It's probably fake, but at least it looks like something I can picture a Viking having.

The castle siege was pretty good. I had my doubts about their strategy of ponderously wheeling this battering ram across the English countryside in broad daylight, but it worked out. Also, the solution to the 2nd drawbridge was established in an earlier scene about how Vikings settle marital disagreements.

That being said, some of the arrow shooting, and especially spear-throwing was pathetic. You wonder if some of these people understand how to throw anything.

Einar's description of his father's bellowing as 'a moose giving birth to a hedgehog' was pretty clever. And it's gross enough I can picture a Viking saying it.

We can't discuss the movie without mentioning Odin. These guys invoke his name constantly. Every time you turn around, someone is beseeching him, or just calling his name. I picture Odin up in Asgard, grumpy because he's trying to deal with Loki's latest attempt to destroy the Golden Realm, or he's trying to settle into the Odin Sleep, but these damn Vikings keep interrupting, asking him to help them in battle, or call up a wind to reverse the tide. He's a busy god, you know, he's got other stuff on the itinerary. I was disappointed nobody went Shatner in Star Trek 2 with their "ODIN!" shouts. I know, the movie predates that by decades, but still, someone could have gone for it. It's right up Douglas' alley. I really thought he would at the end, but no.

There's a Spider In The Foundation

The Fantastic Fangirls had a Q&A a few weeks ago asking what would happen if your favorite comic character wound up in your favorite non-comic story. This gave me a bit of difficulty because all the favorite stories I thought of didn't seem like great fits for Spider-Man at first glance.

My two favorite authors are Stephen King and Isaac Asimov. I did consider Peter in The Gunslinger, because it might be funny to have him out in the desert with nothing to swing from. Also, Roland wouldn't know what to make of his costume. Now that I think of it, with Spider-Man along, Jake wouldn't fall to his death in that book. Which means he doesn't spend the second book back in his world, tormented by memories of his own death. Not sure what it would mean for Roland to have both of them along from that point forward.

Asimov's worlds might suit him better, since they're more science-focused. I'm sure he'd feel more comfortable there, but at the same time, the stories I've read most are operating on a galactic scale. Conflicts between entire star systems, where the result is preordained because Hari Seldon mathematically deduced out what would happen years before. Would Spider-Man fit in the Foundation series?

I think there's something you could do with him. Have Peter end up on Terminus (where the First Foundation was established*), but without any idea where/when he is or how to get home. He manages to find some sort of work, maybe science-related, maybe, given his lck of suitable papers, a janitorial job at a science facility (since he figures that's his best shot to get home). He can have coworker hijinks, and because he's Peter Parker, he'll catch the eye of some unusually attractive woman, whose attention he'll try to deflect (I'm going with married Spider-Man). In the meantime, he keeps doing his Spider-Man thing, swinging around, saving people from accidents or random violence**. The citizens have never seen someone like Spider-Man before. Guy in a bright costume, not affiliated with a law enforcement or political entity, randomly saving people in trouble. Spidey's actions begin to affect the populace. More people take things into their own hands (for good or ill), or express disdain for authority figures (even on an alien world, in some new universe, Spider-Man would still mouth off at people who told him to stop doing whatever a spider can). Scientific inquiry is being diverted into augmenting humans, instead of advancing faster-than-light travel, or terraforming, or whatever.

It starts on Terminus, but word spreads to other systems through the Traders, and the stories are exaggerated, misconstrued, probably dismissed in some systems, while taken as cause for alarm in others. It's almost a given some planet would see Spider-Man's seemingly random acts of altruism as a smokescreen for what was a test of some new weapons' program the Foundation was starting. After all, it's easy to detect a fleet of ships with planet-devastating power heading towards your world. One seemingly innocuous spaceship, which just so happens to carry a super-being capable of destroying the world single-handedly, would be another matter. That Spider-Man hadn't demonstrated that level of power could be dismissed as part of the smokescreen, or with the idea he's a prototype or infiltration/espionage specialist. Rather than destroying the world, simply steal critical information or destabilize society. Things are getting stirred up. Terminus has diplomatic situations to deal with they aren't prepared for, especially since their government actually doesn't have anything to do with Spider-Man.

That's part of why I think he might work here, if we go with the idea of Spider-Man having a lot of the trickster in him. Admittedly, this is something JMS played around with, and that might be reason enough to want to avoid it. But I like the idea of throwing someone with that sort of bent into a society where people trust in this mathematical formula that tells them everything is gonna be OK. It knows when a particular problem will arise, tells them precisely how to deal with it, and they go along with it. This could take place before the Mule's arrival, or after, depending on how you want to play it*** . Throw in a guy who monkey wrenches all that, but, unlike the Mule, isn't doing it to conquer. In fact, nobody can figure out why he's doing it, except because he wants to help. But there are suspicions, and there are theories.

If we do this after the Mule, people in the First Foundation are going to suspect him of working for the Second Foundation. His actions may seem random, but they'll be perceived as part of some plan to guide events so things stay on the course the Plan has charted. Not only will Spider-Man be pursued by people who don't want to fear manipulation at the hands of psionics, the people he saves might also be at risk, as people will wonder what greater role they're going to play. Meanwhile, the Second Foundation doesn't know who the hell this spider guy is, but he's mucking things up. Those diplomatic issues I mentioned? They weren't supposed to arise at all. Which means things are off the plan, and that's unacceptable. So the Second Foundation sends their best agents after him. Then there are the people afraid of him simply because he has powers that differentiate him from everyone else, and after the Mule, folks are likely to be gunshy about that.

Meanwhile, overall confidence in the Seldon Plan is on the decline. One mutant who throws things off, is one thing, but two? What if it's the start of a wave of them? Seldon couldn't have predicted that, could he? The people concerned about Second Foundation interference are putting a lot of stock in the actions of individuals, given it's groups that are supposed to be predictable and able to affect large-scale changes. And the Second Foundation is confounded by the fact someone is disrupting the Plan, seemingly without even meaning to.

I don't know what the endgame for it all would be. I can't imagine Peter would be able to elude the Second Foundation forever, unless he plays the First Foundation's hunt for him against them. If they do catch him, the fact he remembers Earth could lead into the later books, if Peter thinks the key to his getting home lies there. Both Foundations might be glad to be rid of him. Or it could turn out that people reject the Plan, start trying to actively go against it, and the new Galactic Empire might fall apart before it even gets started. Which would trigger that 35,000 years of chaos Seldon was trying to avoid, so maybe that's too much chaos into the system.

* I'm not sure when in the series I'd be introducing him. Certain things work best with the situation in Foundation, others would work better with Second Foundation. 

** I never had the impression the Foundation worlds were utopias, and certainly there were crimes in the Robot series books, since they were murder mysteries, although they take place thousands of years earlier.

*** Or simultaneously if you want Peter to struggle with how to stop a Xavier - or greater - level telepath at the head of a space armada who probably won't come out of his space ship anywhere near Spider-Man, and could likely take over his mind if he did.

The Quest For The Clockwork Master

When I went to trade in those 360 games I had decided weren't for me, the store I visited didn't have any 360 games I wanted. Not at a price I was willing to pay, anyway. Maybe if they hadn't contended Super Street Fighter 4 was too scratched to accept. I like to think of that as the game's way of tormenting me. I won't futilely try to play it any longer, so it simply refuses to let itself be traded in. Sadistic.

I went with a pair of Original Recipe XBox games instead. One Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, which I have now purchased on 3 separate occasions. I don't think I'll be trading it in to lower the price on some other game again. I picked it up because I'd never beaten the sub-mission, Made From A Wish, and I might want to play the main story again some time.

The other game was Syberia. It's described as an "adventure" game, though I tend to think of it as a "puzzle" game. My picture of "adventure" would involve more jumping and trap avoiding, less searching bookcases for the instructions on how to run an automaton assembly plant. I guess that's really an "action" game, though.

Syberia is one of those games where you explore a location, examining and collecting all sorts of different items, as you try to figure out what you have to do to advance the story. In this case, you're playing as Kate Walker, a lawyer from the U.S. who has come to the small French town of Valadilene to complete the sale of a small automaton factory to a giant toy company. Except the owner has just died, which was prepared for, except it turns out the owner's brother isn't dead, as has been believed for about 70 years. Which means Kate has to track this Hans Voralberg down, and get him to sign off on the papers. This takes her ever father east in a windup train which Hans designed, and his sister constructed for him. Hans wants to use the train to reach the distant land of Syberia, where he believes there are still live mammoths (he sustained a head injury trying to recover an ancient doll mammoth as a child, which might explain the fixation on mammoths). Kate just wants to get the paperwork signed and go home to her demanding fiance and asshole boss. Then again. . .

Something the game does very well is build the sense of exploration and, dare I say it, adventure. As it progressed, I was drawn in, and left wanting to know more about this world. Based on Kate's phone conversations with her friends and loved ones, the U.S. sounds pretty much as we know it. But everywhere Kate goes, things seem to be dying. The university at Barrockstadt sits near ruined buildings, and is protected by a massive wall. What, exactly, they need protection from, is unclear, but I want to know. I want Kate to keep going so I can learn more. Which means I have to keep playing, because I'm the one controlling her.

What's smart about it is that Kate grows to feel the same way. She views some of the hoops she has to jump through to get things done frustrating (like me), but she also finds the whole thing kind of cool. It helps me to feel invested in Kate as a character. When she complains, it's probably about something that bothered me. When she's strangely nonplussed by some rough news her best friend gives her, well, I'd seen it coming for awhile, so I wasn't surprised, either. Since it's a 3rd-person perspective game, it's like I'm tagging along with Kate, so we share the highs and lows.

About those hoops, though. It's probably a nature of the game, but the path to success can be a convoluted one. In Barrockstadt, Kate has to talk to the station master, then talk to him again, then talk to the chief paleontologist, then the rectors, then the station master again, just to get access to a private garden that has some grapes she needs. This is made more annoying by the time it takes to get from one person to the next. Kate's not a very fast runner, and you have to press the A button when near the stairs to get her to go up or down them. She also has to be standing still; you can't try to hit A while still approaching the stairs, which is a bit of a nuisance.

Some of the puzzles are more interesting than others, varying from helping a cosmonaut fake a blood test, to mixing it an alcoholic beverage (not for the person who needed blood testing, mind you). The controls are a little finicky. Sometimes it seems there's only one particular place you can stand for the interaction symbol to appear or a given object. You might walk right up next to it, and not be able to do a thing, because you need to be standing 5 feet behind it and to the right. Little frustrating. I don't know, some of the control issues might be my controller. After 9+ years, the top of the left joystick is starting to disintegrate.

The dialogue is pretty good. Each character tends to have a distinct voice and personality, though there were some curious choices on accents. Why the head of a Russian spa has a British accent I don't know. They did make a bit of a joke of this with the tug captain, who speaks some mixture of about 5 different languages. I know I say some French, Russian, and German in there, along with some other non-English ones I don't know. Fortunately, his wife can translate, though she has a bit of a Russian accent. I'd also say the voice actors had some fun with it, especially whoever was doing the rectors. Their stuffy attitudes and sniping at each other over protocol or differences of opinion can be pretty funny, depending on how much of a hurry I'm in.

The landscapes are beautiful, if a little flat. What you're able to interact with is fairly limited in any given screen, and so most things don't aren't given as much depth, since they aren't supposed to move or react. The character movements are also fairly stiff, but most of what we see is people walking, or maybe pulling a lever, so I guess they didn't feel they needed motion capture to work from.

The story itself ends with finding Hans Voralberg, but his quest is picked up in the sequel, which I haven't bought yet. I feel as though after my complaints about how Rage ended, I should be more annoyed by that. Somehow, I'm not. Because the game, from very early on, makes it clear Kate is supposed to find Hans. That's her quest. We aren't even totally sure what Hans is up to or where he is until the end. Also, there's never any sense from the game you shouldn't track him down. Kate wants to do it, from a sense of duty if nothing else. Her boss is after her, her fiance is after he to wrap it up so she can come home. Rage spent the first third of the game telling me to avoid the Authority, then it shoves me into the Resistance where I have to fight them. Then it doesn't provide any sort of satisfactory conclusion to the conflict with the Authority. Meanwhile, Syberia has Kate find Hans, complete her job, and then she makes the decision to keep going into the sequel. What's more, like I said, I wanted to see more of this world, so I wanted Kate to keep going, whereas I never wanted any part of the Resistance in Rage.

So Syberia, despite some frustrating gameplay aspects, sucked me in with the storytelling and world building, and I think I probably will pick up the sequel at some point.