Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones s8e3

This is my first time writing about GoT.  (Is this a way to delay writing about Akira?  Absolutely.)  I read the first four books before realizing that I was no longer enjoying the experience.  I reached the the point where I wanted to skip any chapter that didn’t star Arya or Tyrion. I give George RR Martin plenty of points of for giving seemingly unredeemable characters sparks (and even full swaths) of personality.  No writer is better than Martin at embodying the maxim, “No one is the villain in their own story.” Cersei, Jaime, the Hound, Tyrion...All people I started out hating, all people for which I never imagined I would develop empathy and even sympathy.  

The skillful writing wasn’t enough to keep my interest, and when the show came out, me curiosity was not piqued.  Been there, done that. (I’ve felt the same for other adaptations, such as Preacher, American Gods, Walking Dead, Deadly Class, Powers...It seems that if it didn’t come from Marvel or DC proper (Vertigo apparently doesn’t count), I have no interest in watching an adaptation on TV.)

So I followed the GoT phenomenon secondhand, chuckling with amusement at people’s stunned reactions to Ned’s death and the Red Wedding.  I’d catch those scenes and others where I wanted to see how the showrunners chose to adapt them for the screen. It let me skip all the boring Dany nonsense, the little shit named Joffrey, those interminable stretches on The Wall, and pretty much anything that didn’t star Arya or Tyrion.

It’s a viewing method that’s served me well.  I’ve watched Arya slaughter House Frey countless times and duel Brienne of Tarth over and over.  What more did I need?

Well, it’s the final season.  The psychic energy of the television pop culture world is building to a level unseen since Breaking Bad or Lost.  And unlike those two shows, I know enough to jump in without needing to catch up.  And this time, I actually care enough to make the effort.

The first episode of the season was pretty good.  A nice setup of all the players, setting them up on the chessboard for what’s to come.  The second episode was excellent. All character moments with multiple rewatchable moments - Arya throwing daggers, Arya getting it on, Jaime knighting Brienne, etc.  

Looks like I’ll get to the actual episode tomorrow.  Whee, putting off Akira for another day! (The more I delay, the fewer number of days I’ll have to write about it.  I’m enjoying it, but there’s only so much I can say about it.)

Age of Bronze, Ironheart

Last new thing from the week:

Ironheart 5

The story’s fine, as Ironheart rescues a bunch of kids from a Fagin-type character.  But as with Jeremy Whitley’s Nadia Van Dyne over in Unstoppable Wasp, it’s Eve Ewing’s characterization of Riri Williams that I’m tuning in for.  As with the latest Wasp, Riri has an inherent decency that I respond most favorably to.  Just occurred to me: The original generation of Marvel brains were predominantly men - Bruce Banner, Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Hank McCoy.  Now, all the geniuses are women: Nadia, Riri, Moon Girl, Shuri, and all the other ladies of G.I.R.L.. It’s awesome.

So fun.

Age of Bronze 1-33

An in-depth, meticulously researched retelling of the Trojan War?  I’m in. Eric Shanower has taken his time in releasing his magnum opus (it started in 1998, and no new issues have come out since 2013.  Though issue 34 comes out this year, I think), but I’ll keep buying the trades whenever he puts them out.

There’s no questioning the skill and effort that Shanower puts into this comic.  It’s drawn with amazing craft and detail, every one of the characters comes across with a distinct personality, and no relationship, however big or small, is ignored.

And yet, when I look back on my time reading this, most of my thoughts lean more towards the problems I have with Age of Bronze than the things that I liked.  Paris is an insufferable asshole.  The sprawling cast sometimes makes it difficult to keep track of what’s going on, especially during battles.  Did Shanower really need to spend so much time on the saga of Troilus and Cressida?

Perhaps unfairly to this work, I’d also read David Gemmell’s Troy trilogy of novels since these issues first came out.  Gemmell’s interpretation of the Trojan War absolutely blew my mind with its creative deviations from the traditional epic.  It reads as if it were the original series of events from which the myths of today are derived. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I can’t help but compare the two works, and Age of Bronze comes up short in the race.  It’s also unfair that I’m comparing a completed trilogy with an unfinished work that’s got three more trades to go.  Shanower hasn’t even gotten to the Iliad yet.

Some things that I liked:

There’s a remarkable amount of emotion in the depicition of Iphigenia’s sacrifice.  Agamemnon’s despair, his craving for power, Clytemnestra’s grief, Iphigenia’s resignation and nobility - they all shine through on the page.

Shanower’s interpretation of Kassandra’s curse stunned me.  In the version that I’m familiar with, Apollo curses Kassandra after she refuses to sleep with him.  She already had the gift of prophecy, but now no one will believe her.

In Age of Bronze, Kassandra’s curse comes after she’s raped.  “No one will ever believe you” becomes a chilling, horrifying taunt that magnifies the tragedy of the tortured woman in a way I had not imagined was possible.

Shanower plans to release two new issues a year, which means it’ll be at least five years until the next trade shows up.  I hope he’s successful.

Huh.  Now that I’m giving my ratings, I’m quite certain that I wouldn’t buy this again.  Clear contradiction of my desire to buy the next trade. Hrm. I’ll have to remember that when this comes out.  

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice

Randomly, here are two Batgirl variant covers by Joshua Middleton that I just discovered and love:

Issue 23

Issue 34

Skyward, Heroes in Crisis, Runaways

New comics for the week!

Skyward 12

Joe Henderson tells us how Lilly, Willa’s mother, stayed alive all this time.  She’s been living in the underground city that Nate, Willa’s father, secretly developed.  (He’s like Jor-El, planning for disaster that no one else saw coming.) In the twenty-one years since gravity first disappeared, the city’s developed an extreme isolationist attitude towards the outside in the name of security and safety.  All contact in or out is prohibited.

After the explanation, Lilly’s new husband, the mayor of the city, destroys the (only?) door out of the complex trapping Willa and Barrow in with the rest of the inhabitants.  It’s very much a table setter of an issue, and the thought of reading about a close minded society is really leaving me unenthused right now.

Heroes in Crisis 8

Wally West did it.  All the pressure and trauma of past events finally got to him, and in a moment of weakness, he released an explosion of speed force that killed everyone in Sanctuary.  In response, his fragile mind decided to cover it up and frame Booster Gold and Harley Quinn for the massacre, leaving him just enough time to perform some as-of-yet unspecified redemptive task while Batman and the others sift through the muddled evidence.  

This issue’s stirred up a lot of controversy on the internets.  Personally, I hate what Tom King’s done to Wally. I love this Flash from the Mark Waid days, and this is such a departure from his established personality.  I imagine this is how a lot of people felt when Hal Jordan went nuts in the aftermath of Coast City’s destruction during Reign of Supermen.  

However, I believe that’s the point King is trying to make - this is what PTSD can do to even the best of people.  He’s clearly writing this from a place of personal experience, and I think the fact that I find Wally’s actions to far out of whack is exactly the cultural incomprehension that he wants to address.  

I went into this issue thinking that I knew the effects of PTSD, and how it can change someone’s personality and state of mind.  My revulsion at Wally’s actions, and quick impulse to proclaim it a result of poor writing (despite all my previous praises for his top notch skills) rather than a realistic depiction of the disorder shows how much I have left to learn.  I’m choosing to believe that the disconnect is in my knowledge base, not in King’s ability to write a good story.

Runaways 20

Going to another comic that deals directly with psychological trauma, Victor attempts to commit suicide in a heart-wrenching issue.  His silent agony, his inability to share his nightmares with his friends, and his final solution are harrowing in their despair. As terrible as it all is, I couldn’t help but think, “This makes sense,” following Heroes in Crisis.  I could relate to Victor, I couldn’t relate to Wally.  And that makes this a “better” issue for me.

Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame

I’m still riding the high from watching this movie.  This happened last time with Infinity War, and that hasn’t held up quite so well after a year.  (Still a lot of great moments, but it isn’t entirely successful as a whole.)

We’ll see if the same thing happens with Endgame, but for now, I’m so very satisfied.  It feels like the biggest series finale ever for a tv show that I’ve been watching for ten years, which it really is if you think about it.  There’s the same continuity, inside jokes, depth of character, and most of all, expectations that the whole thing will be wrapped up in a pleasing fashion.  

I am pleased.

Random thoughts:

The time travel really makes no sense.  Maybe I completely missed something, but I thought the point of returning the stones at the end was to prevent the timeline from fracturing.  But time does nothing but fracture with all of the changes that the Avengers make in their time heist.  (Mjolnir and Gamora are brought forward in time. Where did Cap’s Mjolnir end up as he traveled back forward in time?  Nebula kills her past self. Loki’s disappearance.) But if none of that affects the present version of the Avengers that we’re following, why did they make any kind of effort to keep the timeline intact?  

I don’t care.  All of the time jaunts are so completely delightful that I don’t care a whit.  Cap fighting Cap! American ass! Hail Hydra in the elevator! (No more exclamations in this paragraph.)  Robert Redford. Hulk hates stairs. Cap in Peggy’s office. Tony and his dad. Jarvis. Rene Russo. Natalie Portman came back for that???  

Did not see Black Widow’s death coming.  That whole scene w/ Clint is amazing. Jeremy Renner finally gets a chance to flex his acting muscles throughout this movie.  It just hit me that Natasha’s dead. I’m actually really sad now just thinking about it. It might be more powerful than Tony’s death, which was a lot more inevitable.  That’s two times that the tears almost came out this movie.

Fat Thor!  It’s good to see the streak of shirtless Thor continue.  Hemsworth is hilarious, but I think the bit overstayed its welcome just a little too far.  

CAP PICKS UP MJOLNIR!!!  One of the times I screamed out, “YES!!!” tonight.  

The cavalry arrives.  The last time a piece of media made my heart swell with such joy was the hyperspace jump in Last Jedi.  And this was better.  I can’t express how happy hearing Cap finally say, “Avengers assemble!” made me feel.  Actual gasping.

All the ladies running interference for the gauntlet.  Give me that movie now.

The first takedown of Thanos comes way earlier and is far more brutal than I expected.  Love that subversion of standard story construction.

Spidey-hug.  Dig Captain Marvel with the short hair.  “I love you 3000.” Ant-Man’s pants post-experiment.  Gamora and Nebula.

“I am Iron Man.”  

Steve and Peggy get their dance.

The MCU could end with this movie, and I would be okay with it.  I couldn’t ask for a better series finale with any more fan service.  It’s not perfect by any stretch, but it delivers the same things as the best of final episodes: A smile to my face, tears to my eyes, and an opportunity to say goodbye to characters that I’ve loved to watch for years.

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes

Would buy on DVD: Yes

Rating: Pure joy

10, Abadazad

10

A one-shot by Keith Giffen and Andy Kuhn.  It’s a Battle Royale variation - Ten people are given guns, with the name and address of one of the other contestants.  Standard last person standing rules, along with the “if no deaths occur in X hours, one contestant is randomly eliminated” motivator.  

With only one prestige format issue to tell a complete story, Giffen doesn’t have a lot of time to convince me that I should care about any of the characters.  I’m just as confused as the main point of view character, which prevents me from really enjoying what’s going on. Giffen also shows what the “has no moral problems with killing everyone” member of the bunch is up to.  That rambling, drug-addicted psycho crosses paths with the ostensible hero in the last few pages, and realizes that the lone survivor isn’t going to win anything but a trip to jail. Which is how it all ends: Hero kills psycho, doesn’t have any bullets left to kill himself, and gets arrested for the murder of nine other people.

It’s all very pointless, and the execution isn’t sharp enough to salvage what could have at least been a decent thriller/action piece.  The game itself isn’t interesting enough to justify the lack of background - Who set this up? Some of the players knew each other - Why?  Is this going to happen again? To what end?

This could have been something like 100 Bullets - A seemingly simple conceit that blossoms into something far more intricate and complex.  (Though I still think that 100 Bullets should have stayed with the self-contained stories and not lost itself in the Byzantine plot.)  We’ll never know, but I probably wouldn’t have cared enough to find out anyway.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Didn’t suck (Cutting)

Abadazad 1-2

JM DeMatteis writes his version of Alice in Wonderland, with a splash of Promethea.  A high schooler discovers that the children series she read her little brother years ago was based on an actual girl and a fantasy world that really exists.  That ‘Alice,’ now an old lady, gives our hero the means to enter Abadazad. So there’s Chronicles of Narnia, Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan in there too.  I bought this back in 2004 because the reviews said I should, but I don’t think I even read them the first time around.  

Aside from Narnia, I’ve never been super enamored of this genre of books.  Abadazad continues my disinterest, and I drop these issues with ease.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Boring (Cutting)

3 Geeks

How to Pick Up Girls If You’re a Comic Book Geek

3 Geeks 1-11

3 Geeks: Slab Madness 1-3

Talk about something that has not aged well.  Reading this again feels like watching The Big Bang Theory - It tries to portray the comic book geek in an affectionate light, but more often than not only succeeds in negatively magnifying the stereotypes.  It makes this an often painful read, while still managing to squeeze out a few laughs.

To be fair to writer/artist Rich Koslowski, I’m sure that much my displeasure has to do with the uncomfortable similarities that I see between my younger comic geek self and the kids depicted in these pages.  My inability to find a girlfriend, the passionate comic book discussions I had with my best friend, the way I scraped together every penny I could to afford New Comic Book Wednesdays - these were all too familiar to me.  There’s truth in those things that resonate with me, but I don’t find it funny to see them amped up to a humiliating degree. Koslowski’s depiction makes these well-intentioned kids look pathetic, not sympathetic.

Which isn’t to say that Koslowski doesn’t nail a ton of things.  He couldn’t be more accurate about the joys of attending your first comic con.  I’ve had plenty of similar all-night movie marathons with my friends (and imagine being a kid today with all the MCU and DC movies at your fingertips!  Age of the geek, indeed).

We're truly living in a golden age.

I chortled at his take on Superman’s non-Kryptonite weakness:

Heh.  Magic.

And I can’t help but love everything about this line delivery:

So hot.

Things get worse and more ridiculous as the series goes on.  Jim develops Batman-level stealth skills. Allen becomes the savior of the comic grading industry.  Koslowski introduces the stereotypical goth indy comic-reading female foil. It’s pretty bad.

I’m still keeping most of it, there’s too much truth buried underneath the mockery for me to completely dismiss it.  And I believe that Koslowski created this with the best of intentions. (As did the writers of BBT.) It just isn’t as successful as he probably hoped.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Didn’t suck (Stupid for Slab Madness.  Cutting those.)

Superman: American Alien

Superman: American Alien 1-7

The final Superman origin story out of this box.  (Yes, I screwed up yesterday, I had one more thing to review.)  Max Landis writes seven stories about Clark’s formative years, similar to Byrne’s Man of Steel.  They’re only roughly connected, with no real overarching plot.  Getting right to the things that I liked:

What else has Nick Dragotta drawn? Because he does a great kid Clark.  Ohhh, East of West.  Well that’s not what I expected.  Anyway, the last two pages of the first issue are pure magic.  Clark’s just learned how to fly, and he treats it with the exuberance you’d expect from an innocent, excited elementary school boy.  It’s delightful, as are the loving, understanding, and proud silent expressions on his parents’ faces.

Feels so true.

Joelle Jones pencils the third issue, and of course I’m going to use it as an excuse to call out something cool that she’s put to paper.  This time around, it’s the body language of Clark and Barbara (Clark had a fling with Cheetah, did you know?) as they look up at the stars.  

How their legs are positioned is so real.

She also pulls off a sight gag wonderfully a few pages later.

Deathstroke's no match for a drunk Superman.

Jae Lee (man, this miniseries was stacked with great artists) don’t do anything showy in the fourth issue, but he still manages to do some good stuff.  (Not forgetting that Landis is giving him some hilarious situations to draw.)

Hilarious juxtaposition of Batman's persistence and Superman's implacability.

Such a dork.

Dick Grayson making deductions about Clark.  Awesome.

Issues five through seven didn’t do much for me, though it’s not like they sucked.  Landis ends the last issue with a declaration of love that kind of comes out of nowhere, since he only spent a few panels the whole series on their relationship.  (It’s not that I’m against Lois and Clark together, I’m a huge fan. But it’s strange to end your entire story on this one point that feels tangential to the main themes of an alien fitting in to his adoptive world.)

A sweet ending, but I want another issue to follow up on this.  Feels incomplete.

I remember there being rave reviews for this when it first came out, but I don’t think it’s as good as they said.  Overall, it’s a nice little series with some really nice moments.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice

Trinity

Trinity 1

Part of DC Rebirth.  The Wonder Woman in this Trinity is the one that had a relationship with Superman.  That Superman died somewhere along the line, and the one that’s left is the one married to Lois with a son.  Who knows which Batman we’ve got.

Diana and Bruce join Clark, Lois, and Jon for dinner at the Kent farm.  I bought the issue because it’s always fun to see these three hang out together.  It’s nice, but doesn’t quite have the heart that Francis Manapul was shooting for.  It gets close, though.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine

That’s the end of my first Superman box!  I’m finding that I most enjoy the boxes with lots of short title runs.  The diversity keeps things interesting. It’s also harder to come up with things to write when it’s a long run of the same comic.  (Akira’s coming up soon, and I’m dreading those recaps.)

Box Summary:

Time spent reading: 19 hours, 30 minutes

Issues read: 155

Issues cut: 14

Highlights (Good or better): Superman: Secret Origin 1-6, Superman/Shazam: First Thunder 1-3, Superman/Batman 26, Supergirl: Being Super 1-4

First Thunder and Superman/Batman don’t really count, those are Major Feels issues. I wouldn’t buy them again, but they deserve to be called out.  

Project Summary:

Time spend reading: 17 days, 2 hours, 40 minutes

Issues read: 3364

Issues cut: 463

Trinity

Trinity 1-3

Three issues of Matt Wagner drawing the DC Big Three.  He does a great job on Superman and Batman, but his Wonder Woman doesn’t reach the same level of awesome.  I can’t quite explain what doesn’t work. His proportions on the men are perfect, all inverted triangles for their torsos, super heroic.  His Wonder Woman, while also statuesque, is missing some kind of majesty.

She's lacking that power pose.

Scratch that.  I think it’s because she looks posed in most of her panels.  She doesn't have the natural fluidity that Wagner instills in the male protagonists.   

Her proportions just feel off.

And no, it's not because I'm looking for something like this.

Also not a fan of how she’s the one that gets wrecked by Bizarro.  She can totally take him on. It’s really disturbing to see her beaten up, chained, and threatened with rape (multiple times).  I usually don’t get the icky vibe from Matt Wagner, but it’s impossible to ignore in this title.

There's

just

so

much

of

it.

This is my standard “I hate Bizarro and wish writers would stop using him” complaint.

Time to focus on what Wagner does well:

Nice dramatic angle.

A perfect, satisfied, content smile, all expressed with one simple line.

That triangle representation is lovely.

Spectacular colors by Dave Stewart.

That's so Bruce.

Not close to Wagner’s best, but it’s got a few bright spots.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice