My Favorite Things of 2013: Comics and Movies

Movies:

Man of Steel- Oh, goddamn, I love this movie. Superman's return to the big screen is one of my favorite things to happen to nerd media in a while, but not because it was the best comic book movie DC has to offer. It wasn't. It was orange and strangely paced. Zak Snyder's incarnation piqued my interest mainly because it was one of the most divisive film among nerds I've seen in years. They either LOVED this movie or completely LOATHED this movie. The fact of the matter is the love or hate for Man of Steel is completely dependent upon what kind of Superman you think Superman should be. If you think Superman should be a wise, alien demi god who gets everything right when nobody else can or should, then you may cringe a little watching it (although, let's be honest...Zak Snyder Superman is set up to be, more or less, the DC version of Chris Evans Captain America and that's worked out so far). If you're okay with a story about a guy who falls right off the "new guy on the superhero block" tree and hits every branch, car, building and orbital satellite on the way down, you'll fit right in with this one.



Gravity- This one gets special mention because I was so skeptical going into it. On one hand, I've never hated anything I've seen from Alfonso Cuaron, so it wasn't like watching a M. Night Shyamalan movie where I have ALMOST EVERYTHING HE'S EVER DONE to hold against him. On the other hand, I wasn't exactly sold on the idea of Open Water...In Space. With that said, this one pulled me in almost immediately. I'm not even going to waste a lot of time harping on how gorgeous this movie is or the fact that this is ONLY movie I have EVER liked in 3D because these are obvious things for anyone who watches this movie with eyes and a brain. First of all, I didn't know there were so many Sandra Bullock haters and I'm not sure I understand why, but let me be the first to invite them all over for a family sized helping of "Stop That Shit." There's pretty much nobody else in Hollywood that does "Everyday woman in a supremely fucked up situation" quite like Sandra Bullock (except maybe Anne Hathaway...maybe). I'm unashamed in saying that this is easily one of the best "...in space" movies in years. You know you have a good movie in your hands when Neil Degrasse Tyson can write a days long Twitter dissertation about all of its scientific inconsistencies....and he STILL loves it.

Comics: 

"Yes, I'm breast feeding. Yes, I'm okay with that."

Saga- After all the praise I've given this book via reviews, I really shouldn't have to praise this book ever again. But I will anyway. In a year's time, I've told probably every person I know who would actually listen to me talk about comics (or anything, really) to read this. Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples' space epic dwarfs pretty much anything else happening in comics right now. Vaughn does something here that not every writer can do: He succeeds in making an intergalactic story accessible and relatable while still maintaining a sense of bizarre sci-fi without it ever falling flat (Take notes...I'm looking at you, Thanos Rising). When it's exciting, the action practically turns each page itself. When it's weird, the artwork is practically weird enough to leap right out of the panels and slap you with a rubber dildo while still not chasing you away. The engaging character development is the closest I've seen a comic book come to being on par with television shows like Breaking Bad and Walking Dead (on its good days). If it keeps going at the quality it's at now, Saga will go on to be talked about in the same conversations as titles like Transmetropolitan, DMZ and Y The Last Man (another Vaughn book).


Hawkeye- Quiet as kept, since Daredevil: End of Days (by David Mack, who praised my blog, by the way...I'll probably NEVER stop talking about that) wrapped up, Matt Fraction's Eisner Award winning story about what Clint Barton does when he's not being an Avenger is probably the BEST thing Marvel has in its arsenal. If you've seen the Avengers movie (and honestly, even if you haven't), you don't need to know much about this character going into it. Clint Barton is an Avenger, he has a bow and arrow...and his personal life is kind of a mess. Except for the Avenger part, everyone knows a guy who's kind of a sad case like Hawkeye and that's the vibe that powers this book through each page. Also, Fraction's characterization of Kate Bishop, Hawkeye's apprentice/bff/little sister figure/handler, makes me think that a). she should have a solo title (which she kinda does at times in this book) and b). should absolutely be played by Ellen Page if the opportunity ever arises.

Why Fans Should Suck It Up About Comic Book Movies

Recently, I came across an article from a conservative blogger about how he'd elected to never spend another dime on superhero films because Hollywood, at every turn, has completely raped his childhood and made the superheroes he grew up completely unbearable and he's not going to take it anymore.  Now, I'm acknowledging ahead of time that his blog post is mostly poorly argued and unresearched (which is the most I should probably expect from what is basically the Fox News version of my own blog), but his complaints are not uncommon among the fickle and sometimes downright hateful mob that is comic fandom. Granted, I understand why people would complain that studios are better off sticking closer to the source material. After all, NOBODY wants another Jonah Hex or X-Men: The Last Stand. Still, here a few things this guy....as well as a lot of fans....should consider.

1). Faithfulness to the source material does NOT always equate to a good movie. I mean, for a commendable project that packed tons of material into a two hour movie, Watchmen was such an imitation (despite some people having perfect bodies when they shouldn't, but....Hollywood) that it was practically hermetically sealed in its original comic packaging. And even still, it was met with mixed reviews among critics and fans. Tim Story's Fantastic Four was moderately close the comic (MODERATELY...except for Doctor Doom being a superpowered Donald Trump analog) and even that was considered mainly a failed attempt.

Green Lantern pretty much hit all the bullet points required of the Geoff Johns-ified version of Hal Jordan's (except for Movie Hal Jordan being a complete pussy) origin story and yet it still managed to be chastised as one of the worst comic movies of the past five years. Also, it eventually leads to fans complaining that they're not seeing anything they've never seen before. For years, Superman loyalists have whined and whined that we haven't seen anything out of those movies (until Man of Steel) that we've never seen before ("Really, Lex Luthor again???"). Now, I think that they're asking a LOT from Superman's list of villains, but they also have a point in the fact that remaining too close to what comic fans know doesn't do anything to add to the mythology of the hero in question. Taking an entire comic book and pasting onto the silver screen doesn't always lead to success. This leads to my next point......

2). New ideas from directors have been known to enhance comic book lore. When directors are allowed to toy with certain aspects of the source material, THAT is when innovation happens. People bitch and moan about X-Men all the time. Some people don't like Hugh Jackman's Wolverine because historically, Wolverine is a short, hairy guy who likes beer. This is entertaining enough for a comic book until you realize that if you translate that same description to a movie storyboard where you have cast a REAL actor, the person you're describing is Danny Devito.

I wasn't kidding. Giant smoke kraken.

Honestly, Green Lantern could have stood some outside innovation from Martin Campbell (except maybe not making Parallax out to be a former Green Lantern turned giant smoke kraken). General Zod was essentially a throwaway villain from an obscure issue of Adventure Comics until Richard Donner brought him to the forefront in Superman II. Furthermore, even though it was always canon that he was a small town kid, it wasn't really established that Clark Kent was raised on a farm in Kansas until Donner's movie placed Smallville in Kansas. Gotham City wasn't a perpetually gray, crime infested wasteland of art nouveau and towering gothic cathedrals until Tim Burton and Anton Furst designed it that way. More often than not, it takes a movie, something absorbed by the collective consciousness (comic nerds and casual moviegoers alike) to establish baseline characteristics for a superhero or their surroundings which simultaneously why Robert Downey Jr. IS Iron Man for the forseeable future and why DC could only benefit from making a Wonder Woman movie.

3). Once a comic becomes a movie, it's not exclusively yours anymore. You know who understands concepts like this? Children. When my friends and I played make believe Power Rangers, it was easy. There were commonly six of us and there were five Power Rangers (the Mighty Morphin days....Sweet Jesus, I'm old) so, except for the inevitable argument over who would be the Green Ranger, it was simple. Then, someone else would come along and want to play with us. Now, the likelihood of them wanting to be Zordon, the giant, omniscient floating head that told the Rangers to do shit was slim to none (although, in retrospect, when I put it that way, why the FUCK didn't I ever want to be Zordon), so they wanted to be a Ranger, too. Despite there only being six Rangers, there were, of course, more than six colors in the spectrum of colors, so fuck it. Little Amy can be the Violet Ranger and she can have a giant Velociraptor robot. Peace was maintained and playtime could continue.

The moral of that little story was that when other people want to be a part of what you're into, you have to share. In this day and age, movie adaptations are ideally the sign that a larger audience (Hollywood, non comic nerds, kids, whatever) wants to be in on what was once a very niche fiction of, at it's best, a million readers. Nerds (I'm guilty of this, too) have to understand that it's inevitable that when something becomes popular enough, corporate America will create a medium where it can be consumed by anyone. This happens with rap, spoken word, art house film-making, etc. Comic books aren't immune. The sad truth is that if Hollywood can fail us by keeping Channing Tatum in movies and allowing James Cameron to make Avatar sequels, it's not too farfetched that they would fuck up Ghost Rider and Elektra.

In summary....SUCK IT UP.

The Goddamn Batman Problem.....

So, I was catching up on New 52 Batman recently. As hard as I am on the reboot material coming out of DC for the past couple of years, I actually really enjoy Scott Snyder's work on Batman. He really has a penchant for Snyder-ising a lot of well-known aspects of the Bat-mythos and making them feel undiscovered. His "Court of Owls" story arc was particularly engaging while still exciting and fast paced. But there was one particular plot point that bothered me, though.

In his fight to defeat the Court of Owls conspiracy threatening to envelop Gotham from the inside, Batman had to exploit the weakness of their nigh-indestructable "talon" assassin agents (imagine ninjas who dress like owls) which has to do with extreme cold. Obviously, this led to the Bat-family having a brief run in with Mr. Freeze. While his driving motivation is still his beloved icicle of a wife, Nora, this retconned version of Victor Fries has actually never met Nora and is just a lonely man who became obsessed with her during his early days of researching cryogenics. Batman recounts this story to exploit as a weakness and, of course, beat Freeze. It was a decent, well-written story, but it also sheds light on my biggest problem with contemporary Batman.

The thing about Batman villains is a lot of the really good ones tend to have a sort of driving force that gives the reader a way to connect and, sometimes, sympathize with them. Granted, this isn't exclusively Batman territory, but Mister Freeze was definitely a character who, over the years, has been particularly popular because of his understandable motivations. Despite being released as a straight to video animated feature (probably because the "Batman and Robin" movie still had a stink on it so strong, it may have been mistaken for actual chemical warfare), SubZero was a very well received movie essentially about Supervillain John Q, a guy trying to save someone he loved and was willing to be an asshole to do it.

This was interesting, but not only because it adds depth to the bad guy. Ideally, it adds some layers to the good guy. Batman actually had to understand someone's motives outside of "because I'm an asshole, that's why." More often than not, during the time of "The Animated Series," Batman went out of his way to still try to save his foes when outside variables seemed to fall apart. By the time he met Animated Series Superman, this gave them something to have in common despite varying methods of getting the job done.

The whole point of the World's Greatest Detective is that he's smart and physically capable, but he's still just a man and, in his own way, serves as not only Gotham's protector, but its conscience as well. The Batman Problem comes when you do things like reduce Mister Freeze, a villain with depth, to a delusional dickhead who never had hugs as a kid just so Batman can look tougher and "above it all" when he beats his ass. In fact, if you look closely, he spends a lot more time outsmarting and looking tough in front of his own Justice League teammates than he does the bad guys You can even see it in the Dark Knight trilogy (although I loved those movies) where Batman's code about not killing holds up....until he kills someone (Ra's Al Ghul, Two Face, Talia). Even though it's awesome at times, the Problem is that Batman has gone from a badass Sherlock Holmes analog with a roguish attitude to the New Chuck Norris.


I would also like to point out that the same nerds who think Batman is awesome because he's seemingly all powerful, unbeatable and omniscient are the same nerds who chastise Superman for being seemingly all powerful, unbeatable and omniscient (in other words, Superman haters, your argument is invalid).

I could throw a digital rock out into the internet and hit millions of memes that all pretty much reduce Batman to Punch'emInTheFuckingFace Man. I was watching a commercial promoting the Arkham Origins video game and it was comprised primarily of Bruce Wayne growing up 1). scowling and 2). beating the unholy shit out of people until he became Batman scowling and beating the unholy shit out of people.

Don't get me wrong....it makes for some really fun action more often than not, but it also cheapens a character capable of so much more which is evident, by the way, in Long Halloween and Year One. Honestly, this is why I'm actually very excited about Superman's upcoming team-up with the Caped Crusader in Man of Steel 2: Superhero Boogaloo. This is a chance for one of Batman's peers (who is pretty much the epitome of superhero morality) to show him something about moral discernment, something we didn't see much of in the Dark Knight movies because Batman had to be portrayed as knowing better than everyone else even though he really didn't (seriously....WHY THE FUCK DID HE TAKE THE BLAME FOR COLD BLOODED MURDER????....They could have easily blamed all that shit on the Joker....I mean, they're lying either way, so.....).

Oh, and by the way.....I'm completely fine with Ben Affleck Batman. Fight among yourselves, internet.

In Defense of Darkman or....Superhero Movies Hollywood Could Learn Something From

With this year in superhero films wrapped up, Marvel ready to shove out their new batch and DC getting everyone's mouths watering with Arrow being a breakout success (despite mixed reviews from fanboys) their Flash television pilot, and of course the several rumors and announcements behind the casting of Man of Steel 2: The Steel Strikes Back, I thought I'd pull a few movies with cult success (despite questionable box office numbers) out of the vault and take a brief look at some of the lessons modern comic book cinema could take from them

Darkman: It sort of saddens me that we're quickly approaching (if we're not already in the midst of) a generation that will never know the glory that is Darkman. When you watch Sam Raimi's first jump into the superhero genre, it's actually a big insight into why he got tapped for the Spider-Man series in the first place. Even though, at first glance, it comes across as a teenager's ultraviolent fantasy, it's actually very indicative of what many comics were at the fringes of early comic culture: melodramatic pulp adventure. A psychotic, disfigured scientist returns from "death" to take revenge on the mobsters and crooked officials responsible? If Darkman had originated as a comic book hero, the story itself would have been more of a horror story than anything and Raimi has a far better understanding of the comic book genre than anyone gives him credit for. The movie made absolutely NO apologies for the fact that Peyton Westlake was more or less just a really demented guy who a). wanted his face back and b). wanted to kill a lot of people (basically what would happen if someone set Kanye West on fire).

Moral of the Story: The lesson that Current Hollywood can (and should but won't) take from this movie is that every superhero film doesn't have to be one of virtue because not every superhero is a virtuous one nor should they be. This is where the Punisher and Ghost Rider movies went wrong (well, they went wrong a LOT of places...Nic Cage being a notable one....but virtue was prime among their sins).


The Phantom: Now, here's a movie that holds a very special place in my heart while many others have forgotten about for understandable reasons. The 1989 Batman was something of a game changer for superhero movies. When Jack Nicholson's Joker uttered the line "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"....his reaction was one that turned out to mirror the audience's. I mean, for the time in which it was conceived, watching a hero swing onto rooftops, lob smoke bombs and evade the law in a tricked out car was pretty goddamned exciting. Then, you find yourself watching a period piece about hero you mainly only know from the comics section of your newspaper. So, needless to say, Lee Falk's jungle hero had the odds against him right out of the gate. He was an Indiana Jones-type hero at a time when moviegoers had decided they were pretty much over Indiana Jones.



Having said that, there's a lot to learn from The Phantom. First of all, there's Billy Zane's performance. With a period piece like this, it's importance not to take yourself too seriously. Zane went a different way than what would be expected from a story about a mythical hero who lives in a secret jungle surrounded by tree people who revere him as a living ghost protector. Let's face it...if you go dark and play the Phantom like a guy He dashed to and fro, punching and shooting with a wink, a smile and a "pardon me, ma'am" at every turn. We call this kind of shit "cheesy" and "hamfisted" nowadays, but it's also the sort of thing that makes us smile and induces a feeling of escape which is what we commonly go to the movies for in the first place.

One of the best "quiet as kept" scenes is when Phantom is chasing thugs who've kidnapped Kristy Swanson (By the way, Diana Palmer's awesomeness dwarfs pretty much EVERY incarnation of Lois Lane except maybe Amy Adams in Man of Steel), bumps into a woman by mistake, stops to pick up her purse like a gentleman and goes on to leap from car to car in traffic, steal a cop's horse, riding off in hot pursuit....LIKE A FUCKING BOSS.

Moral of the Story: The thing that should really translate well here for Current Hollywood is that every hero doesn't have to be edgy and dark. Granted, Ghost Rider really should be which is why that failed, but there's no reason modern day swashbucklers can't be fun.

The Rocketeer: For a movie that doesn't really get the credit it's due, maintaining a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes isn't exactly anything to sneeze at. Unfortunately, it suffered from the same societal epidemics as The Phantom where a). if a movie didn't open and sellout in every theater worldwide like Dark Knight or The Avengers recently, it's automatically dismissed as a failure (keep in mind that several failures have done very well in the box office in the same way as when you go home with the guy at the bar who seems to mean well only to wake up once you're sober and say "What the fuck was I thinking?"....I'm looking at you, Transformers 2 & 3) and b). was portraying a sort of bare bones "everyman" hero in the era of Batman.

In many ways, this was a movie that Hollywood, in fact, may just have learned something from for better or worse. I mean, honestly, Rocketeer was the epitome of a period-piece hero epic. A douchebag test pilot finds Howard Hughes experimental jet pack, battles "G-men", the mob, and Nazis all for the love of Jennifer Connelly's boobs? That pretty much sums up American propaganda heroes of the 1930's. For all intents and purposes, this was something of a blueprint that would later make the way for asshole superheroes like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man. One of the big highlights from this movie that deserves consideration (aside from a delightfully fun Timothy Dalton villain) is the dialed back usage of special effects. Don't get me wrong; it's not like they tied Bill Campbell to a big rope the whole time and told him to holler in front of a house fan the whole time, but Peter Travers had it right when he referred to it's movie magic as "the kind that charms us, rather than bullying us, into suspending disbelief."

Moral of the Story: On one hand, when you have movies about gods with magic hammers, giant green beasts, asshole space cops with magic wishing rings and....well, Superman...it's hard for visuals NOT to be a contributing factor to their success. On the other hand, special effects don't have to subtract from the story's personality. Joss Whedon understands this pretty well. So does Rocketeer director Joe Johnston which is probably why Marvel ended up tapping him to direct Captain America, which, in addition to being a pretty damn good origin story, ended up being a terrific send up of old Republic serials.

The Art of Snapping or Maybe Cyclops WAS Right.....

I'm apologizing in advance because I have to talk about Ghostbusters II for a second. In Ghostbusters II, Bill Murray and company had to fight a demonic overlord trapped in a painting who was dumping slime into the sewers that turned all of New York into assholes who are awful to each other for no reason (though I'm still not sure how he did that from inside of a painting). Basically, he meant to take over the world by turning NYC in the center of all evil. In other words, Dallas. Watching this movie as a kid has clearly affected my state of mind now because it is my genuine belief that comment sections online are basically the focal point of all digital evil on the World Wide Web. Having said all that, sometimes, when I'm on the internet reading articles and I'm feeling very adventurous, I'll put on my hazmat suit and dive into random comment sections. Why, you ask? Because fuck it, that's why?

Anyway, one of the biggest criticisms I've read this year in comment sections and message boards is about the direction in which Marvel has taken Cyclops and it got me thinking about why. I mean, Marvel's whole thing is that their characters tend to live a little closer to the human condition of the everyman while a lot of DC characters tend to be more static archetypes. Even though Uncanny X-Men is, thus far, serving a purpose similar to Dark Avengers from a few years back during the "Dark Reign" event, Cyclops didn't " go bad" necessarily.

You're Scott Summers. You haven't looked anyone in the eye since you hit puberty. You've been raised by a kind, well-meaning man who wishes for peace between humans and mutants while training you to fight giant robot death machines since you were 15 years old. You're basically the quintessential All-American captain of the football team for mutantkind. As time goes on and you grow into an adult, people from the future you've been taught to fight for come to the present day and basically tell you that you eventually fail. You watch your wife (who is basically your high school sweetheart) silently fawn over your hairy, homicial teammate. That same wife died, came back to life as a world-swallowing space god, died and came back to life and died AGAIN. Eventually, the race of people you're sworn to protect are magically dwindled down to barely enough to reach full capacity at Chick-Fil-A. Now, you're an endangered species living an island that's pretty much a reservation. At some point, that same world swallowing space god possesses you and you convince yourself that you're righting your dead wife's wrong by healing the world. Then, it drives you power mad and you kill Charles Xavier, your only father figure, in cold blood and you're thrown in jail. Cyclops didn't "turn evil." He snapped. Plain and simple.

It's not even a new phenomenon in Marvel. Take the Ultimate Universe, for example. Early on in Ultimate Spider-Man, Nick Fury confessed to having a file on Peter Parker because with everything that had happened to him and his family over the years (father killed in a Hulk attack, father's best friend's son becomes Venom, Uncle Ben, Norman Osborn, etc.), he was the most likely to snap and become the next big supervillain. Of course, Ultimate Peter Parker didn't snap. In fact, he went on to die in the service of not snapping and being exactly the kind of guy Uncle Ben wanted him to be (although I can't help but wonder if that's because Black Fury also said "When you turn 18, you're mine"....turns out that guy's a lying piece of shit in EVERY dimension). Meanwhile, Ultimate Reed Richards had endured equally fucked up circumstances (piece of shit father, being responsible for unintentionally wiping out another dimension, turning his best friends into a monster, his girlfriend being an indecisive ass, Doom, etc.) and, while nobody was looking, turned into the next big supervillain, almost wiping out humanity at least twice. You don't necessarily like or forgive the character for it, but you get it.

The same thing applies for others like the Norman and Harry Osborn, whose Green Goblin incarnations are completely about regular people just plain losing it in the face of bad shit happening. Brian Michael Bendis' run on Daredevil, which has turned out to be one of the most definitive eras in DD history other than Frank Miller's, is entirely the story of what happens when Matt Murdock has pretty much the worst time of his life (unable to cope with his girlfriend's death, secret identity outed to the press, Bullseye's return, declaring himself Kingpin of Hell's Kitchen, disbarred and thrown in prison, etc.) and being utterly unable to cope with the black hole his life had become.

You see it in real life all the time. Kanye West's evolution is pretty much the best real-life example I can think of when I think about what a hero-to-villain transformation looks like, but that's a whole other post.

Have you ever known someone before a relationship and seen them AFTER a breakup? After the death of a loved one? Post-traumatic stress is more present in America than its probably ever been. Often times, soldiers come home from war changed by their experiences and understandably so. Their job is literally to get shot at so you don't have to. Now, compare that to "superheroism." People who get shot at and attacked by all kinds of unthinkable supervillain shit every single day are bound to be deeply affected and changed in the wake of what they've seen.

No, seriously....WHY hasn't Marvel made
these shirts? You're leaving money on the
table, Marvel.

Having a major character go through a major change like that isn't necessarily always a perversion of who he or she was meant to be. Sometimes, it's the next logical step. It's evolution. Sometimes, people just snap. Comic book characters shouldn't have to be immune.

Let's Talk About Doctor Who

David J. Anderson, one of my favorite readers, asked me a while ago about my take on Steven Moffat's run thus far on Doctor Who (particularly the season that just wrapped).....

WARNING: Even though they are minor and don't take very much away from the viewing experience, there are small Day of the Doctor spoilers in this piece. Just telling you. Don't say I didn't warn you. Okay. Here we go.

The thing about Doctor Who is that it's, at its best, what I like to refer to as "pure sci-fi" that exists in a sandbox so wide, the possibilities are hard to exhaust. I mean, let's face it...."all of space and time" is a pretty big playground for a writer/showrunner. Eventually, a series like that stops being a series and starts becoming a tradition, hallowed ground almost, a family business passed down from one generation to the next in the hopes that they'll continue in the practices that have allowed that legacy to thrive in the midst of changing time. Who is a bit weird in that regard because, for years, it's been a very niche kind of sci-fi geared toward a very hardcore sort of geek whose reverence for the show has fueled its success for 50 YEARS. There haven't been a lot of shows in ANY genre that can lay claim to such a thing....certainly not in its primary genre. Though the series itself was short-lived, Firefly has one of the most rabid fanbases I've ever seen and even that's fizzled out a bit. A fellow blogger referred to Doctor Who as the Flintstones of science fiction. To make such a comparison is to underestimate Doctor Who and to vastly overestimate the Flintstones. A cartoon like the Flintstones appealed to a much wider audience that eventually got tired of it until it was replaced by The Simpsons which has been pretty much replaced by Family Guy (hot wife married to lovable dummy).

Who dwarfs these shows with almost no effort because of a simple fact that Steven Moffat understands better than people think. Doctor Who is the type of show that is, on a good day, any genre you want it to be. It can be (and has been) a romance saga, a revenge tale, a period drama, a swashbuckler story, etc. When your main character is a lonely guy who can go anywhere and do anything within the whole of everything that is or ever was, there really isn't any scenario that's too farfetched. Grant Morrison could very well be hired to write a Doctor Who crossover with Batman or Vince Gilligan could team him up with Walter White and either of those would, ideally, be within the confines of good reason. I mean, can you think of a story in which "Time Traveling Sherlock Holmes" (because that's basically what the Doctor is) doesn't work?

With that said, Moffat understands the necessity of doing something with a 50 year old series to not only keep it fresh, but to widen its audience. And Steven Moffat has certainly widened the audience in a way that I, for one, have never seen out of this series in my time. I can't remember a single time before Moffat where I'd seen billboards, ads in comic books and on the sides of buses, toy commercials, worldwide simulcasting of its big anniversary special (which was absolutely lovely, by the way...Smith, Tennant and Hurt all had ridiculously great chemistry together...the result was more of a game changer than people think...and I didn't completely despise Not-Actually-Rose Tyler's appearance even though I completely despise Rose Tyler). I mean, Sweet Lord, Day of the Doctor even had a simulcasted post-show where people sit around talking about what they just saw a la The Walking Dead, a phenomenon I will NEVER understand if I live to be 100.

Honestly, I think the overall direction of the show and the kind of legend Moffat drives to remind us the Doctor is ("You decided the universe would be better off without you, but the universe didn't agree.") is actually reflective of the pop culture phenomenon Doctor Who has become. The reverence for his very name that oozes from the majority of characters' pores (even River Song...which is what became the problem with River Song) in most Moffat episodes isn't terribly different from the chill of excitement that comes over the growing fanbase at the first note of the theme song. I was at work and someone's phone rang, playing the Tennant era version and most of my coworkers grinned to themselves at the familiarity.

The other thing that I think some people don't quite see in Moffat's "Who" is that he's trying to keep it fresh by doing things that are haven't been done before (or at least in a while) with the stories. He likes making "that unsuspecting thing everyone has" into a dormant alien invasion like in The Bells of St. John, he has a thing for eerie sayings throughout the episode ("I don't know where I am"...."Can you help me?"...."Silence will fall") and he loves, loves, LOVES making the Companion and other supporting characters as important if not more important than the Doctor himself (Amy Pond, River Song, and certainly Clara). Last but not least, he recognizes that anything good, if it goes on long enough, starts basically being fan service. Moffat certainly demonstrates this in the 50th Anniversary with the callbacks (Tom Baker..."I don't want to go"...."timey wimey").

Overall, even though I will always hold a very special place in my heart for Russell T. Davies....mainly because his run gave us Martha Jones....I think Moffat is doing a fine job carrying the burden he's been given of being a geek messiah and a geek antichrist all at once. And who's to say it won't undergo another massive change in status quo as time goes on? After all, as I mentioned, the great thing about Doctor Who is that no matter what level of geek you are or how science fiction-y you like your science fiction, it always stands a very good chance of being exactly the sort of story you like. And in addition to being a huge part of what makes the Doctor such a compelling character (no matter who's playing him), it's also what's made for 50 years of television worth watching.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 33 or I'd Rather Be Trapped Underwater With Evil Mermaids Than Kris Jenner

Harley Quinn #0: Harley Quinn has enjoyed a reasonable amount of time in the spotlight since the "New 52" reboot even if the titles she's featured in have had somewhat mixed reviews. It was only a matter of time before DC took a crack at a solo title. This was a tough book to review because, honestly, at first read, you're not entirely sure what kind of book it's supposed to be. Commonly a zero issue for any book serves as either a prequel for the first story arc or one shot primer to give you a taste of what to expect from a series as far as tone and art. Jimmy Palmotti and Amanda Conner take a slightly different tact.

By "slightly different tact", I mean, they seemed to make the Clown Princess of Crime....into Deadpool. For the most part Harley spends most of her time breaking the fourth wall interacting with the writers in a daydream about what it would be like to have her own comic book. She travels from one page to the next auditioning a Who's Who of artists to see whose style would best suit her. I found a few of the jokes funny but mainly because I'm familiar with most of the artists. The overabundance of inside jokes doesn't make this terribly accessible for incoming readers and the uninitiated. Despite this, it still makes for a mainly entertaining farce.

The artwork, given that it's a pretty star studded cast working on each page is pretty "alphabet soup" but mostly awesome. My particular favorites are Dan Panosian and Charlie Adlard. I was really looking forward to Jim Lee's page but that ended up being a bit of a bubble burst since he just rehashed a page from Hush. Also included is a page from fan contest winner Jeremy Roberts. Although "Draw Harley Quinn killing herself" contest was easily one of DC's dumbest ideas all year, Roberts can draw his ass off. I'd be very excited to see him on this book on a regular basis. Still, Chad Hardin, who illustrates the final page, does a pretty good job of capturing Harley's brand of crazy and I'll be looking forward to seeing what he has to offer.

Bottom Line: Not much plot but it's still fun and well rendered enough that it's a fun little primer for the series. 7.5 out of 10.



The Wake #5: Well, we've reached the halfway mark of what could quite possibly be the "holy shit" survival horror series of the year and it has been quite a story thus far. Quiet as kept, this has been one of the most consistently entertaining and good looking books in the business right now. Scott Snyder's taut tale of Dr. Lee Archer's crew and their fight to survive evil mermaid creatures at the bottom of the ocean has been an utterly compelling thrill ride that EVERYONE should be reading. Having said that, with this issue, Snyder wants you to know that the story begins now. Did you hear what I just said? A claustrophobic, horrifying tale about evil mermaids in the darkest parts of the sea....and Snyder is just getting started?

This issue deals largely with the revelation of what these monsters are, what they want and Dr. Archer's connection to them. The action beats are really well thought out and make for pretty good adventuring, but Snyder is at his best, as usual, during the claustrophobic moments when you feel trapped in dark corners with these poor bastards down below. It's almost as scary as being Kris and Bruce Jenner being trapped with each other's ever changing faces, not knowing what they're going to wake up to the next morning. Almost. Of course, Snyder can't take all the credit for the creepiest part of this book. There's also Sean Murphy's pencils, which capture some utterly maudlin moments like one character alone in the darkness with nothing but the light from a video screen.

Bottom Line: If you're not reading this book already, start. Start now. Immediately. Stop reading this blog, turn off the television, get dressed, tell your girlfriend you'll be right back and go get the past five issues of The Wake. Do it. Do it now. It's your homework assignment. It's your one job right now. Seriously. 9.5 out of 10.

Graduation Speech at the Xavier School for the Gifted.....

Congratulations, Class of 2013. Your being here this morning marks a momentous occasion. You have all not only learned a unique mastery over your gifts, but you've also demonstrated a willingness to harness those gifts in the interest of bettering society once you venture out into the world instead of being a complete tool like SOMEONE who will not be named...**cough** Erik **cough**. Anyway, your walk across this stage means that I have nothing left to teach you.

It also means you didn't die. Because, whew....could THAT have ever happened? I mean, giant robot death machines? I was trying not to freak anybody out but HOOOOOLLLLLYYYY SHIT we almost died fighting those things! And the Legacy Virus? Fuck, man.....talk about "not enough Thera-Flu in the world," huh?

Little joke there....really?...nothing? Okay, okay, too soon.

Moving on. We here at the Xavier Institute are 100% confident that we have thoroughly prepared you for the challenges you'll face out there in the real world. And make no mistakes, my fellow mutants, there WILL certainly be challenges. Like bigots who will hate you before ever actually meeting you because of your differences. And the future. Seriously, guys, the future will try to kill you. A lot. All the time. But persevere, hold your head high in the face of adversity and don't EVER give the future your credit card number. Trust me on that one. Oh my God, if I ever get my hands on that little...ahem...sorry. Got a little carried away there.

In closing, the Institute is honored to have been a part of your education and, ultimately, your lives. The bonds you've built, the fears you've conquered, the lessons you've learned....carry them with you always. Hold them close to your heart. Time flies quickly and you'll miss these days when they're gone. And remember: Humans good. We like humans. No vaporizing. Maybe a little mind wipe here and there, but no vaporizing. Please don't turn into a mutant overlord despot. Please. I can't stress that enough. I can't deal with more interviews with Fox News like last time. Honestly, that Sean Hannity guy. I don't see how he sleeps at night. Bottom line: No evil mutant shit.

My friends, my students, my fellow children of the atom....it is my honor, my privilege, my pleasure to welcome you to the first day of the rest of your lives. Also, the beginning of paying off your student loans. Because the government doesn't pay for this shit. Bear in mind, rocketships under the basketball court don't grow on trees.

Now, who wants a diploma!!!

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 32 or I Wonder If Alfred Got in On Obamacare....

Why do they look like contestants on
that old arcade game Smash TV?

All New X-Men #18: One of the prevailing subplots of Avengers Vs. X-Men was that the Avengers hadn't been around much while the mutant community was going through pretty dire straits facing extinction. Cyclops told Captain America that he always felt the X-Men were treated as the Avengers' redheaded stepchildren. It sort of seems like this is how Marvel treats them as well. I mean, let's face it....the X-Universe hasn't had a good crossover event since A vs. X and even that was touch and go for a minute there. Marvel doesn't know how to create constructive conflict between heroes without making one party into the one dimensional douchebag villain like the Tony Stark in Civil War. Hell, do what Toronto Mayor Rob Ford does and blame the media and the police. It would shake things up, at least. Battle of the Atom was decent but also underwhelming and anti-climatic in its own way, basically summing up what we already knew: There will always be humans who make life suck for mutants and it's going to make some mutants into bitter old mutants one day.

Fortunately, it gave us some decent fallout consequences. Brian Michael Bendis picks up the pieces left behind from all of the event's time travel shenanigans in the latest installment of All New X-Men. The issue deals mainly with Kitty Pryde and the "Original" team's transition in going to live at the New Xavier School with Cyclops and the Asshole Squad. Bendis does very well handling "in between" issues like this where some characters are put in a room with someone they wouldn't normally interact with under normal circumstances. Kitty and Magik's reunion is hilarious and somewhat touching if you know the history both characters share. Young Jean Grey's scene with the Stepford Cuckoos is priceless. Bendis has made the Once and Future Phoenix an interesting character again which is a feat I didn't think would ever be possible. Most writers had a tendency to deal with Jean in a very "time bomb" fashion which is cool but predictable. You know it's coming so it loses its "Holy Shit" factor. Bendis takes time to deal with her aggravation as a person and how that can spill over into her life as a blossoming mutant hero who keeps being told that she's headed for great and terrifying things.

Stuart Immonen's artwork is a welcome mainstay to the book's status quo. His love for expressing shift in tone through simple changes in shading is in rare form during a couple of pages of an exchange between Magneto and Young Beast. I also personally like how he draws Cyclops as opposed to the artsy version we've been getting in Uncanny X-Men where he looks less heroic and more like a slim Seth Rogen.

Bottom Line: A good book following up another lackluster X-event. 8 out of 10



Batman #25: It's hard to deny Scott Snyder has been winning with Zero Year, a "New 52" look at the beginning of the Caped Crusader. We're seeing a swashbuckler side of Batman we don't get to see very often that almost literally laughs in the face of danger, tells villain's they're and flies by the seat of his pants at moments. I would never have expected to hear Batman tell a bad guy he's "so full of shit." This issue mainly takes place during the aftermath of a massive blackout compliments of the Riddler.

However this installment in particular doesn't deal much with Edward Nygma. The central villain this time out is the (let me emphasize this) FUCKING CREEPY Dr. Death, whose horror themed killing spree is every bit as unsettling as his...well...face. Seriously, these are a couple of the eeriest looking crime scenes I've seen in a Batman book in some time. Snyder handles the detective stuff well without getting bogged down in it and also keeping the more action oriented readers engaged. After all.... Sherlock Holmes + swashbuckling = Batman. This series has been really good for tender moments between Bruce and Alfred. While Batman is having the time of his life trying out new gadgets and dodging the cops with ease, you can visibly see instances when Alfred is thinking "Goddamnit, what did I sign up for?"

The hues implemented in the artwork are simply amazing. It's nice to see a Batman book that can maintain a dark vibe while still not being afraid of splashing some color in here and there. Greg Capullo has a flair for the macabre and loves making his reader a little uncomfortable as is evident in Dr. Death's full reveal at the end. Also, his Batmobile design brings a wonderfully old school adventure feel to the beginning of the issue that made me laugh of sort delightful laugh that makes people think something might really be wrong with you in public.

Bottom Line: Scott Snyder can't lose. He's got Batman down almost to a science. 9 out of 10.

Why Superior Spider-Man Doesn't Work.....

For you to understand my take on Superior Spider Man, I have explain a thing or two about Breaking Bad and Batman.

Recently, Damon Lindelof wrote an essay for Vulture (that, due to spoilers, I couldn't read all of) in which he compared the transformation of Walter White's Heisenberg to Bruce Wayne's becoming Batman. He points out that while Walt's circumstances were certainly a factor in his evolution to a meth peddling mastermind, it wasn't really the cause. He was ALWAYS Heisenberg. Yeah, some guy in an alley orphaned Bruce Wayne and essentially robbed of his innocence at eight years old, but there are a LOT of people who lose their parents to gun violence. There are also a lot of people who contract cancer and can't pay for treatments. They don't dress like bats or resort to cooking illegal substances in an RV. Lindelof submits that these characters are special because their circumstances awaken something that's already inside of them, that their environment isn't the cause. It's the catalyst. The argument could be made that this is what we love about them. Regular shit that happens to plenty of people happened to them and they do something about it that everyday people simply don't have the balls to do.

After showing the essay to a friend of mine who is a Batman fan, she pointed out, "Yeah, but couldn't you say that about all heroes?" You could say that about most heroes, but not necessarily Peter Parker. Circumstances played a bigger part than people realize. His true transformation was more earned in a way. He had to learn how not to be a dick by being sort of a dick. He started out a mostly decent guy who people sort of marginalized and shitted on in high school. He got bitten by a radioactive spider and was improved physically.

Spider Man went on to take up a career as a television star to make money and then came the moment when he let a crook get away because...."Fuck him. Not my problem." This is kind of a dick move by any standards, really. Then, it turns out that same guy shot and killed his uncle. Granted, I'm sure more than a few kids screw up and inadvertently get someone they love hurt, but none of them had superpowers when they did it. Essentially, Peter was a good kid, got superpowers, was seduced by personal gain, failed and THEN became Spider Man. Now, this isn't necessarily a trope that has never been explored before, but it is the crux of why Spider Man works so well. He is the result of above average virtue through "everyman failure." Incidently, this is a big part of why Otto Octavius' "Superior" Spider-Man is so divisive among fans (myself included).

I should say, before going any further, that this is probably one of the most ambitious and gutsy moves Marvel has made in years. I mean....they killed Peter Parker. They didn't zap him back in time. They didn't send him off to the edge of the universe trapped inside a giant space bullet. They didn't ambiguously kill him using a crazy mutant's chaos magic so that he may or may not have really died. They killed him. It was one of the few moments in recent times I can remember a comic depicting a top tier hero's death rattle. And then, when the brain waves/ghostof/whatever came back to haunt Otto in an attempt to get his body back, they killed him indefinitely....again.

When his turn at being the web-slinger starts, Doctor Octopus has the best of intentions in carrying on Spider-Man's legacy, protecting his loved ones and a better hero than Peter was. This didn't last very long at all. First, to plant the initial seeds for his narcissism, he refurbishes his trademark "Octobots" into "Spiderbots" that survey the city for danger and alert Otto immediately via phone app. As cool (and sensible) as that is in theory, this is also sort of a dick move in a symbolic kind of way. Most apps, by nature, are tools designed for convenience, mainly making urgency an option for phone/tablet users. For example, there is a setting for the news app on my phone that alerts me to breaking stories as they occur. If there's a shooting in Bummerville, Middle America somewhere, I have the option of picking up my phone to know about it or putting it down and saying "It can wait." It's okay for ME to have that option because it's not my responsibility to go to Bummerville and stop the shooting. Spider Man shouldn't have the option of not going to fix shit. The whole point of a superhero is that urgency shouldn't ever be optional.

Nope. He went on to toss an old man (okay, yeah, it was the Vulture, but still) into a floodlight, shoot a defeated criminal in cold blood and beat up parkour thieves on YouTube. You would think he would pay some sort of price for this (someone important dying on his watch, losing his job, etc.) in keeping with the theme of power and responsibility. Nope. In fact, aside from a light tap on the wrist from the Avengers, Doctor Spiderpus faces little or no consequences for any of the douchebag things he does. He's rewarded with a grateful New York City (something Peter rarely had on his best day), a new girlfriend, a hollowed out prison as his public base of operations, his own private army and a giant spider mecha. I'm not kidding about that last part either. He has a giant robot. It could be argued that Otto is less on a crusade for justice and more looking to redeem his failed life through the same acts of arrogance and vanity that cloaked him in failure to begin with which isn't exactly the most heroic, altruistic or even likable of goals.

Batman has undergone some odd changes over the years, but a Batman fan opens up a Batman book and pretty much knows what their getting: a traumatized, paranoid obsessive zillionaire puts the fear of God into bad guys and plays the resident "Stop being a pussy" guy in the Justice League occasionally. People who read a Superman book know they're probably going to either get a superpowered slugfest or Superman talking suicide jumpers down off of ledges with hope and change. The theme of Spider-Man has gone from "with great power comes great responsibility" to "being a douchebag works." That works for Iron Man or the Punisher, but a change like that in a character like this is tantamount to Kanye West going from songs about working at the Gap to albums mainly about popping ecstasy pills and casual sex. Is that what Spidey readers of any age sign up for?

One of those parkour thieves he beat half
to death is a woman, by the way.
Real American Hero.

One can't help but feel this is indicative of Marvel giving into what Craig Lindsey referred to in another rogerebert.com essay as "jerk culture." This usually entails a book or movie entirely about intensely unlikable people you would probably not hold the elevator for in real life like the entire cast of The Hangover. And this is, more or less, why Spider-Man has fallen from grace for many readers. It's not that it's impossible to create good stories centered around repugnant assholes. Breaking Bad, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Seinfeld show that to be untrue. And I'm certain there are those who will use the argument that comics are an escape fantasy, so it's okay to live vicariously through heroes even when they're jerks, but to quote Lindsey, "We can be a crass, selfish, inhuman society sometimes." Maybe...just maybe...we could stand an escape from that, too.

Women and Comics: Why Not Wonder Woman?

So, now that DC Comics have finally gotten their heads in the game to actually compete with Marvel's movie universe, the comic movie gods are blessing us with a long awaited team-up between Batman and Superman in Man of Steel 2: The Steel Strikes Back. Soon after, there's supposed to be a Flash movie (I called that, by the way). But what of Wonder Woman? The quest to put the amazon on a small or silver screen seems to be a neverending battle unto itself. But why? This is a character that has survived the constant evolution of comics for just as long as Batman or Superman, who have both had more television/movie properties than I care to list here. She's had a red carpet list of writers lending their talents over the years ranging from George Perez to Jodi Picoult. What's so difficult about getting translating a story like this one to live action? Torontoist writer, Christopher Bird, hypothsizes that the problem lies with that fact that there simply hasn't been a definitive Wonder Woman from which to derive a blueprint. And that's actually sort of true. Most casual fans of Spider Man can at least name a supporting cast member (Mary Jane Watson), a villain (most likely the Green Goblin) and a definitive moment that proves to shape the character (probably Uncle Ben's death). Take a minute and do the same for Wonder Woman. I'll wait....

And in this, we find the "Wonder Woman Problem." Ask ten people to name three defining things about her and they MIGHT be able to think of "amazon", "lasso" and maybe "Lynda Carter." Fortunately, the recent revelation that DC is beginning to craft its own cinematic universe lends a little more hope towards Diana finally getting a turn at the spotlight. This is exactly what the character needs because a good movie would be more likely to give us a definitive version that the mainstream (nerds and non nerds alike) can latch onto for the forseeable future like Christopher Reeve did for Superman (I mean, lets face it....). However, there are a few things any writer/director should be aware of going into a Wonder Woman project.

1). This is going to certainly come into direct competition with Marvel, who just had the Hulk and a god help repel an alien invasion and save humanity. Granted, she has come a long way from being...let's face it...William Marston's homemade "spank bank" material. However,Wonder Woman has been a reincarnated over the years as the female version of Shazam, a kung fu master, a foreign dignitary from Amazon Island, a clay statue brought to life and a demigod. No two versions of her are ever the same. Although comic readers (especially DC readers) have come to see this as just par for the course with some characters, casual moviegoers will definitely find themselves confounded looking up information on WW when/if a movie ever gets announced. If it were me, I'd go with her being the super strong daughter of Zeus similar to (I believe) Brian Azzarello's run. Perhaps, she steals her armor and bracelets and runs away to "Man's World"....which would likely equate to New York...with the belief that the mortals are worth saving. Combine that with the mythological sword/shield element and you basically have the Justice League's Thor, a slightly headstrong yet noble soul trying to defend a modern society she doesn't quite understand.

2). The villain will make or break the movie. The sad fact is that Wonder Woman doesn't have the most diverse, notorious or even compelling list of villains. I'm sorry but Angle Man? Blue Snowman? Doctor Psycho? Can you even say any of these names with a straight face? I can't. And if I can't, I know for certain the non-nerds can't.

My pick for a quality villain would definitely be Ares, the god of war. Think about this: a super strong deity who has complete mastery of any weapon he puts his hands on, can influence people to be violently malicious assholes (as if we need much of a push....I mean, just look at 4Chan), and the ability to raise the dead. How awesome would a super powered street fight be between Diana and this guy? Meanwhile, Steve Trevor would be fighting undead Amazon warriors, cracking "Diana, can you hurry up before we all fucking die" running commentary.


3). For fuck's sake, put some pants on her. It's probably one of the best ideas NBC ever had (except for the stars along the seams). For one thing, there is just no way star spangled britches look good on ANYONE in real life. I imagine this is why Marvel seems to be leaning more towards a more functional style of uniform for Captain America. It's also pretty common sense for a superhero who, no matter what incarnation you use, is usually characterized as a badass fighter. Going into hand to hand combat as often as she does without armor on your legs doesn't seem tactically sound. I mean, sure, if you believe the 300 version, the Spartans did it all the time and they were also badass sword/shield fighters....but they died. And they didn't even have to fight people with guns.

Remember when this shit tried to happen?

As a viable tv/film property, Wonder Woman IS possible, but, creatively, it has to be taken as seriously as the Batman franchise or (arguably) Superman. Although there could very well be a degree of sexism involved in studios and, ultimately, DC dragging their feet to realize this, it's a dismissive, self fufilling prophecy to say that it's not possible because "nobody wants to see a movie about a feminist superhero." Feminist narrative don't necessarily equate to bra burnings and soapbox lectures about women's rights. Despite her share of sex and mushy stuff, Buffy was, more or less, Joss Whedon's epic feminist superhero legend. Alien's Ellen Ripley is a study in feminist narrative if ever there was one. Katniss Everdeen, despite being the central character in a teen drama that is basically The Running Man With Feelings, is a popular "strong female lead." So, the only real question anyone should be asking is "Why not Wonder Woman?"

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 23 or Can We Please Have a Thor/Ted Nugent Team Up?

Infinity #1: For all intents and purposes, Marvel readers SHOULD be suffering from a little jet lag as far as company wide crossovers are concerned. Especially after Age of Ultron. The argument could be made that it's a little soon to throw fans into another event right after AoU's massive letdown ending. Ask a boxer how ready he is to get back in the ring after he's been clobbered. Seriously, wake Manny Pacquiao up and ask him. I'm pretty sure he's still on the floor. However, that may not be a reason sufficient enough to write off Infinity.

In recent years, Marvel's trend has been to have events be chain reactions of one another. "Civil War among heroes caused the world to infiltrated by aliens which allowed Green Goblin to rise to power which brought Captain America back to kick his ass which blah blah blah blah....." Infinity comes across feeling like it has a completely different identity than that. This is largely thanks to Jonathan Hickman's style of crafting stories on an epic sci-fi scale. His work on The Avengers and New Avengers (which have been the primary books building toward Infinity, by the way) are a perfect indication of why his writing is what it is. Every moment in a Hickman book feels like whatever's happening is for all the marbles which is what the Avengers always be about anyway. Even the little things like the ominous fly pages in between beats give you the distinct feeling that you're about to have your mind blown. Infinity is no different in this regard.

This book touches on pretty much all of the important points from Hickman's Avenger stories. The "Illuminati" has been doing top secret, fucked up things for the good of all (again), the "Builders" have been going from world to world doing quite the opposite of building things and....oh, yeah, Thanos is ready to start some shit with Earth again. It's going to interesting to see what a pure science fiction voice such as Hickman's can do with the concept of an ascended beings whose business is "evolving" sentient races. It's not the first time we've seen this kind of thing, but he gives us enough to lead us to believe it's headed somewhere awesome. Jim Cheung's pencils are absolutely gorgeous. This is evident because of a particular page detailing a world being razed that is just one of the best "we've come to destroy all" scenes I've ever looked at.

One drawback that presents itself here is that, being the result of things that happened in at least three different books, Infinity isn't the easiest to jump into. However, if you like grand events and have grown tired of DC's Trinity War (which I'm almost certain is being written with the help of 12 sided dice and a Mad Libs book), this is certainly something to pick up.

Bottom Line: You may have to do a little homework to catch up, but this event is superhero shit done well. 9 out of 10.

Thor: God of Thunder #11: This is a book that flew below my radar for far too long. Thor's stories in the past have, for a long time, been a bit ambiguous with their handling of the character, not really giving him an identity aside from him being the Avenger who talks in "thee" and "thou." But I dare to say that Jason Aaron's run so far is going to end up being one of the essential runs they talk about in ten years when someone wants to get into Thor but doesn't know where to start.

In this issue, we get a fitting ending to the "Godbomb" and with that, an end to the saga of Gorr, the God Butcher. The Son of Odin was given a time bending, universe spanning problem to deal with, challenged just like a god should be and that challenged answered in epic turn. One theme that presented itself quite often in this story questions the existence of gods, whether or not they do more harm than good and whether they truly deserve to preside over man. Eventually, Aaron's villain, Gorr has a god slaughtering good times making the characters wonder if perhaps his quest is somehow, in a macabre way, justified. Now, it could be argued (and has been by the idiots at IGN) that what we're given is something of a cop out in favor of giving the Thunder God a happy ending. One thing to keep in mind...and this is something IGN couldn't be bothered to remember...is that Thor, despite being noble, determined and a decent judge of character, has NEVER been a philosopher in any sense of the word. Asking comic book character, especially one like Thor, for an insightful answer to a question that real life civilizations have pondered, fought and died trying to answer since forever....that's like asking Ted Nugent, well, anything. The only thing that would have made me happier is if he looked Gorr directly in the face and said, "Because I'm Thor, bitch."

Esad Ribic spared no creative expense while wrapping this arc up in style. The pencils here lend the sort of jaw dropping gravitas a story of this magnitude deserves. There are more than a few moments in this book that look like they should have come out of a mythic tome somewhere. Every time Thor used his hammer, your reaction should be nothing less than "Oh, shit! Are you serious?"

Bottom Line: An awesome, gorgeous ending to the kind of legendary arc that Thor deserves. This is a frontrunner for "Best Goddamned Comic Out This Week" and considering Saga came back this week, that's saying something.

9 out of 10.

Women and Comics According to Middle Aged White Men.....

The Television Critic's Association press tour wrapped with a panel discussion featuring Todd McFarlane, Gerry Conway, Len Wein and Michael Kantor, who directed the upcoming documentary, Superheroes: The Never Ending Battle. Eventually, the roundtable turned into a criticism among the creators as to why mainstream superheroes are (and continue to be), on a majority, white men. Alyssa Rosenberg wrote an excellent, more detailed report for ThinkProgress on the points made by the panel, but NPR's Linda Holmes summarized them best via Twitter.

1). "Hey, nobody is in your way saying you can't."

-Here, we have a double edged sword. On one side, yes, the burden of leading the charge for progress IS on the undervalued demographic. After all, a lot of history's great achievements are the result of mainstream doors being shut in the faces of ambitious upstarts. Independent comics as well as web comics are feasible avenues that make user created material more feasible all the time. "Be the change you want to see in the world" and all that.

However, on the other hand, this is ultimately a lazy school of thought on the panel's part and a dismissive way of presenting it to consumers of a medium that, having it's own growing film/television genre to think about, should be a little more concerned about opening its doors to potential readers. That should really sound more like "Nobody is saying you can't. In fact, you should. I'd love to see that shit." This really came across of the comic industry's equivalent of  "Send us your demo tape, kid. I'm sure my agent will get to it or something."


2). "You can't because it would be like a medieval comic about female knights."

-Oh, please. First of all, I'm pretty sure Paul Cornell's Demon Knights series featured a transgender incarnation of Shining Knight.

Second, I'm pretty sure this is a female knight handing a male knight his ass on one of the most popular shows on television. Still an implausible sell?


Third, it's FICTION. That's the entire point of fiction. You can make the world whatever you want it to be. There is a comic book about a second civil war turning New York City into a nigh-uninhabitable No Man's Land and the thought of a female knight (aside from Joan of Arc) in medieval times in unfeasible to you? Again, I say: Oh, please.

3). "Readers wouldn't read it so don't blame creators."

-Despite what people may think of them now, these are artists. Furthermore, they are, almost by definition, nerds. Ideally, one of the great ideas about nerd culture is the thought of fellow nerds making good. Someone else who loves this comics as much as you do is out there living the dream. I've always assumed this is a big part of what people like about Kevin Smith. Now, imagine a nerd, someone you perceive to be like you in a fashion, making good and then telling you that the medium you love isn't representing you in its art because people don't give a shit about you or telling your story. We expect that from "suits"....not creators.

4). "You can't make the point of a superhero some kind of political message."

-I repeat: Oh, please.

Finally, to top off the tomfuckery, the panel went on to make a point of emphasizing that comics don't lead in society, that they follow and reflect it. Rosenberg flatly stated "That seems like an unambitious position," and ended it there which, by the way, is probably (ironically) the most heroic thing that happened here in this room of superhero creators. This is probably the most indefensible, disappointing thing to happen all year in comics thus far and that's saying a lot considering 2013 has given us Justice League of America, Age of Ultron and The Following. The middle aged white men on this panel would have you believe that comics have evolved to cater to an older, more testorerone filled audience because they're consumers, first and foremost and it's true that a lot of them have. From this rather outdated notion of what comics "have to be" comes the idea that women in comics are just some kind of novelty to serve as pleasing the old male eye. Even if the market for comics were populated solely by old men sitting at home, still clamoring for cartoon boobs like they were when they were twelve years old (which it isn't...not exclusively, anyway), that doesn't mean this is the only way it has to be. And it shouldn't be the writer/artist/creator's primary goal to enforce that. The marketing execs determine that which, in turn, trickles down to the editor-in-chief and then, eventually, to the talent. The job of artists in any art form is to say something and even with capitalism's tyrannical head looming over mainstream media, respect and admiration will come to any artist who even tries to represent the people, man or woman, who are willing to listen.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 22 or Help Me, Douchbag Cosplayer....You're My Only Hope.

Green Lantern #23: As much as I find DC's New 52 to be alienating and unreadable, there are some bright spots in this dark, rusted meat locker of a universe that deserve mention. One of them is the Green Lantern stories, but mainly because DC left the continuity relatively untouched in the hard reboot. Since the reboot began, Geoff Johns had been doing double duty in a very Jekyll and Hyde fashion, going between maintaining a tight ship with GL by day and fucking up the Justice League by night. Since he's stepped away from the book he's done well to make the book he's done badly even worse, Robert Venditti has taken the helm to build a new dimension to the mythos.

This issue focuses mainly on Hal personally investigating a murder on Oa from #22, going off alone (true to Hal Jordan form) to find who's responsible. Venditti is at his "A" game in his characterization of the hero, fleshing out his pigheadedness in going off alone and half-cocked, looking for an enemy he knows nothing about. The Surrogates writer appears to have a great understanding of his lead character, giving Hal Jordan a whole new set of problems to deal with by leaving him in charge of the Lantern Corps. I enjoy this step in the "greatest Lantern's" journey because the plots were becoming stale with the same predictable weight of the Guardians' leadership hanging over his head.

Guardians of the Universe: "We know stuff about your enemy that might help you to not die out there, but we won't tell you because it's probably our fault in the first place. Or...you know...because fuck you, that's why."

One thing that cannot afford to slack off is artwork. When you have a comic book about a guy who can create things with a magic wishing ring, visuals have to be on point at all times. Fortunately, Billy Tan kicks here. The action beats are brilliantly drawn, letting the fights jump straight off the page. Not only do Hal's constructs look impressive, but they also give us a couple of imaginative feats I don't think I've ever seen before.

Bottom Line: Whether you like Geoff Johns work or not, he made a lasting impact on Green Lantern. That's a tough act to follow and Robert Venditti is handling the responsibility pretty well so far. 9 out of 10.

Kick-Ass 3 #2: In my last review, I was pretty clear on my feelings that the Kick-Ass saga's death is both necessary and welcome much like season three of Heroes. The second issue of the final chapter makes the reason pretty evident. Mark Millar makes no secret of his love for deconstructing superheroes under "real world" circumstances. However, with this book, it seems that his big picture mutates in such a way, each chapter becomes, in a way, unrecognizable from one story to the next.


The first theme of the first one was "Anyone who thinks they can fight crime in real life is pretty stupid and they'd probably die." In Kick-Ass 2, Millar's prevailing point was that cosplayers are delusional losers. Now, it seems clear that Millar's heroes (really, the villains, too) are held up as totems of "jerk culture" in comics. And the problem is the same as it was before: Good guy or bad guy....nobody in this book is a terribly good person. The issue focuses a lot on the building comeuppance of Chris Genovese aka Red Mist, who evolved into an extinction level asshole in the first two books. Also, we get a look at Chris' mother, seemingly as much a victim (unintended as it may be) of her son's crimes as those he had murdered. It does a pretty good job of pondering what it would be like for a supervillain's family if everyone knew their relation. How could Doctor Doom's mother ever leave the house with the whole world knowing their offspring had just vaporized Buckingham Palace? Would Bullseye's sister even be able to make it to the mailbox in the morning without a victim's angry father waiting with a sniper rifle in hand?

Meanwhile, Kick-Ass himself becomes the less interesting character to follow as he tries to rally his halfhearted troops, Justice Forever, to put a fright into the organized crime (which seems, by the way, completely unfazed by these people living out their comic book fantasies) of the city Batman: Year One style. Commonly, it is an endearing trait when the hero stays the course in his mission to make his protectorate a better place. The Dark Knight trilogy saw Bruce Wayne's parents killed, the love of his life blown to Hell, his partner in justice scarred and corrupted by the Joker, his back broken, thrown into a hole left to crawl his way out and stabbed in the gut by his rebound girlfriend. And he never gave up. And he was rewarded for it. Kick-Ass, however, seems to be on a far less fruitful quest that isn't necessarily for social change so much as it is for personal validation. Proving that one man can make a difference seems to not be as important as proving to himself that he's not just some jackass cosplayer.

Bottom Line: I've never read a comic in which I kinda wanted everyone to lose. 7 out of 10.

The Best Thing On The Internet This Week....

So, the internet rumor mill has been working double time (almost as hard as I worked trying to figure out why anyone watches Storage Wars), trying to guess who's in line to inherit the role of Batman for his team up with Superman in Man of Steel 2: Steel Harder. So far, all we know for certain is that it's not the Royal Baby and it's not Christian Bale since he's all but made a blood vow that he's done with Batman. Rumor has it that one of the names on the short list over at Warner Bros. to don the cape and cowl is none other than.....

Courtesy of @Renan_Ishin

That's right!!! Ryan Gosling, the guy from The Notebook, Blue Valentine and Crazy Stupid Love is a rumored frontrunner to play the Caped Crusader. As wrong as this is, I'd sell my body to science to see this happen. The most sensitive Batman EVER. Twitter went into a frenzy. Well, really just me and a couple other people, but...you know...same thing. It's a cheap shot on my part, but I can't think of a moment in which that's ever stopped me before.

@comicsopolis "Hey, Girl...these aren't the cuddles you deserve, but they're the cuddles you need right now." #RyanGoslingBatman
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

@comicsopolis @MikeFromNowhere "Hey, Girl...tell me where Lex hid the Kryptonite. Then you have my permission to love." #RyanGoslingBatman
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

"Hey, Girl....the cops can handle this one. The Gilmore Girls marathon is on in 15 minutes." #RyanGoslingBatman
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

Finally, the Bruce Wayne in a beanie, flared jeans and ironic t-shirt we've all waited for.... #RyanGoslingBatman
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

He researches his knock-out gas to make sure it isn't animal tested while listening to Clay Aiken..... #RyanGoslingBatman @MikeFromNowhere
— Oz (@letsgetfree13) August 4, 2013

@letsgetfree13 @comicsopolis Oh my. I've just had a thought. https://t.co/VfHBueSynF
— Mike From Nowhere (@MikeFromNowhere) August 4, 2013

Oh man. What if the Driver from "Drive" was Gosling-Batman's version of MATCHES MALONE
— Mike From Nowhere (@MikeFromNowhere) August 4, 2013

@KingOfMars Remember, this is Movie Batman, who has a code against killing right up until he doesn't.
— Mike From Nowhere (@MikeFromNowhere) August 4, 2013

@KingOfMars *pushes Harvey Dent to his death* ♪♫ Real human being ♪♫ And a real hero ♪♫
— Mike From Nowhere (@MikeFromNowhere) August 4, 2013

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 21 or Ridley Scott Should Buy Us All Comics As An Apology For Prometheus....

The Wake #3: This is quickly becoming one of my favorite books to pick up because it does sci-fi horror better than a lot of sci fi horror films (I'm looking at you, Prometheus AKA The Dumbest Scientists in the Universe). With the right writer, it's pretty hard to fuck up an "scientists trapped underwater with a killer sea creature" concept. There are ten issues in this series, it's issue three and we've already entered the "Holy Shit" phase of the story.

The evil-mermaid-sea monster-thing has gotten loose to the surprise of no one and has Dr. Lee Archer and the rest of her crew on the run. The strongest aspect of this book gets much stronger as the spotlight is placed heavily on the claustrophobic tension of this quickly escalating situation, reminiscent of Alien (as I mentioned in the first issue's review). Archer's survival meets sympathy attitude makes for an enjoyable female lead, but the MVP award for this issue has to go to the prize hunter, Meeks. Anyone who was a fan of Robert Shaw's character in Jaws will get a kick out of Meeks' "fuck yeah" moment here. There's a little more exposition in this issue than you would normally want out of a story like this, but yet again, Scott Snyder manages to keep the book moving while maintaining tension. Sean Murphy's attention to detail only gets better as the series goes on. Mix that with Matt Hollingsworth's coloring and you have one of the most consistently gorgeous books running right now. Every moment on most panel turns you into an asshole movie goer, virtually screaming at every page, "Oh my God...GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE!!!!"

Bottom Line: This book is going from good to great in no time at all. Shit is getting creepy really quick. This is what you should be setting your calendar for each month. 9.5 out of 10

Guardians of the Galaxy #5: Okay, in a way, this book has double duty. In addition to the pressure for it not to suck because it's going to be a movie pretty soon, it also has to successfully shove Angela, Spawn's angel girlfriend (or whatever) down our throats. Fortunately, it has succeeded on both counts so far.

Since they've been in space doing space shit, The Guardians don't know that time and space have become slightly unglued because people on Earth keep fucking with it and there's no such thing as Doctor Who in Marvel continuity. Basically, this issue sees our heroes catching up with the major events going on in the rest of the universe which is a strength and a weakness. If you didn't read Age of Ultron (which you really shouldn't unless you're trapped in line at the DMV), you're not going to have any idea why any of this is happening. Brian Bendis actually wrote Age of Ultron and I'm convinced that HE doesn't even know what happened. Nonetheless, he seems to have plenty of fun with his characters leading up to the confrontation advertised on the cover which, by the way, was satisfying enough. The addition of Iron Man to the team has been a welcome one thus far. It was a good idea to have a more familiar mainstream hero be our guide through the rules and pitfalls of Marvel's galactic continuity, someone we can discover (or for more seasoned readers, rediscover) comic book outer space with. Bendis has really succeeded in giving these characters distinctive voices that manage to make you laugh and make you slightly uncomfortable at times as good characters should while still driving the plot forward this time around. Sara Pichelli's artwork serves its purpose well enough, but I really wish she wouldn't leave the backgrounds so lifeless during close-ups. It makes some of the more serious moments a bit cartoonish like something I would expect from Deadpool.

Bottom Line: Even if you're not up to date on current events in the Marvel U, this is a good book in a good series serving as a crash course for the developing movie event. 8 out of 10.

Uncanny X-Men #9: Well, I'm really glad this book has picked up speed again. The whole "X-Men vs Hell" story had me a little worried, but Bendis has managed to get back to what readers seems to like about this title: Outlaw X-Men versus S.H.I.E.L.D. Continuing where we left off last issue, we're reintroduced to long time X-Man and former disco performer (No, I'm not kidding), Dazzler working for Maria Hill and being a lot less perky than the heroine we're used to. I'm interested to see whether or not Brian Bendis will elaborate on what's happened since we last saw her that would bring her to the government's doorstep for a makeover into, as Cyclops called her, the "Uncle Tom of mutants." She doesn't seem to be a completely treacherous character here, but considering her treatment of underage detainees, it's easy to see where both sides are coming from. Bendis does what Bendis does best here: characterization. Scott Summers' young recruits find a little more of an identity in this book. We especially get a nice "coming of age" moment here with the Stepford Sisters discovering togetherness in their budding individualities. It's very refreshing to have such strong growth in new characters, offering endearing, lighthearted moments while maintaining this book's status as the "Dark Avengers" of the X-Universe. Though Chris Bachalo's style took some getting used to for me with this title, his designs are really interesting and his willingness to use all of the space is nice. However, the panels that deal with a larger cast of characters can feel cluttered and distracting at times. Still, this is an X-title that has had some bumps but is really coming around.

Bottom Line: I expected just a little more from Bachalo's artwork, but it's still looks good enough, combined with the strong "this is who we are" focus on this installment, to make the whole thing work. 8 out of 10.