Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
New Mutants Forever #1 Review
If you haven't heard, New Mutants Forever is a five-issue limited series by Chris Claremont that picks up right where he stopped writing New Mutants back in 1987, and ignores everything that's happened since (theoretically). He's done the same thing with the X-Men (picking up from where he stopped writing them in 1991) in the ongoing series X-Men Forever, which I stopped reading pretty quickly because it sucked.
I went into this with basically no expectations, especially considering how disappointing I found the two or three issues of X-Men Forever that I read before giving up on it, but man, I enjoyed the hell out of this book. It's certainly not without its problems. The blatant anachronism is pretty WTF. This is supposed to be picking up from a story that left off in 1987, so it's just a little weird when they just hop on the internet like it's a thing that exists and that they've been using for years. And the random new costumes, which they're somehow wearing in that picture the Hellfire Club is looking at on the splash page even though they haven't worn them yet? And then the explanation for why they have them is that Illyana randomly decided they needed new costumes so she just magicked them up while she was teleporting them? And then Rahne is somehow wearing one even though she didn't go through the teleport? Yeah. Just a little effort could have probably put them into those costumes in a way that made even a tiny bit of sense. I bet Bobby shows up in a new costume that matches the rest of theirs in the next issue even though he has no way of knowing they've changed costumes. Also, there's the unnecessary expository dialogue (does Magneto really need to randomly announce to the Hellfire Club that he spent time in a concentration camp as a kid?). But then that last has always been a feature of Claremont's writing anyway, so it has to get a bit of a pass.
Really, these are all fairly minor complaints (and I know from reading X-Men Forever that it could have been a lot worse), because the upside is finally getting to hear these characters that I love so much actually sound like themselves again for the first time since, well, 1987. It shouldn't be that difficult a chore for a writer to capture a character's voice. Plenty of writers manage to do it with plenty of characters all the time, especially in comic books, where a different writer might be writing the character next month. But I daresay that not a single writer has managed to write the New Mutants with their proper voices since Claremont last wrote them himself.
I'm glad that Marvel gave the New Mutants a new ongoing series, and I'll read it for as long as it lasts, but Zeb Wells has not gotten a single one of their voices right yet. He does a decent job with Sam and Dani, but he's way off with most of the others. Especially Illyana and Doug, both of whom he's plagued with completely unnecessary Spock Speak for no apparent reason. And I know he's trying to do something specific with the characters. They've both been through big events that have changed who they are in fundamental ways that they're still dealing with. But until I get some sort of reasonable explanation for why coming back from the dead should make you stop being able to use contractions, I'm going to continue to see it as lazy writing. Especially when you already have someone on the team (Amara) who's actually supposed to talk that way (and, if I recall correctly, he doesn't have her talking that way). It's getting to the point with Illyana where if he doesn't figure out how she's supposed to talk soon, I'd rather he just not even use her in the book. I'll never say that about Doug though, no matter how poorly he's written. I'll always take a Doug who sounds like Data for no reason over no Doug.
Though at least Wells doesn't write Doug as badly as Matt Fraction did in that last issue of Uncanny X-Men. I was all excited to see Doug show up in Uncanny X-Men, but Fraction just had him saying the dumbest shit on every single page. The worst was when he somehow wasn't able to tell when Nemesis was being sarcastic. I mean, really. He's got one power. He can always understand what everyone is saying. That's it. It's pretty tough to fuck that up, but damn if Fraction didn't manage to find a way.
Anyway, point is, it's easy to see that no other writer has been able to get these characters right when you read this book and hear them all talk the way they're supposed to for the first time in twenty-three years. And when you see how naturally it comes to Claremont to write them, you start to wish this was the ongoing. But I'll gladly take the five issues they're giving us here.
I went into this with basically no expectations, especially considering how disappointing I found the two or three issues of X-Men Forever that I read before giving up on it, but man, I enjoyed the hell out of this book. It's certainly not without its problems. The blatant anachronism is pretty WTF. This is supposed to be picking up from a story that left off in 1987, so it's just a little weird when they just hop on the internet like it's a thing that exists and that they've been using for years. And the random new costumes, which they're somehow wearing in that picture the Hellfire Club is looking at on the splash page even though they haven't worn them yet? And then the explanation for why they have them is that Illyana randomly decided they needed new costumes so she just magicked them up while she was teleporting them? And then Rahne is somehow wearing one even though she didn't go through the teleport? Yeah. Just a little effort could have probably put them into those costumes in a way that made even a tiny bit of sense. I bet Bobby shows up in a new costume that matches the rest of theirs in the next issue even though he has no way of knowing they've changed costumes. Also, there's the unnecessary expository dialogue (does Magneto really need to randomly announce to the Hellfire Club that he spent time in a concentration camp as a kid?). But then that last has always been a feature of Claremont's writing anyway, so it has to get a bit of a pass.
Really, these are all fairly minor complaints (and I know from reading X-Men Forever that it could have been a lot worse), because the upside is finally getting to hear these characters that I love so much actually sound like themselves again for the first time since, well, 1987. It shouldn't be that difficult a chore for a writer to capture a character's voice. Plenty of writers manage to do it with plenty of characters all the time, especially in comic books, where a different writer might be writing the character next month. But I daresay that not a single writer has managed to write the New Mutants with their proper voices since Claremont last wrote them himself.
I'm glad that Marvel gave the New Mutants a new ongoing series, and I'll read it for as long as it lasts, but Zeb Wells has not gotten a single one of their voices right yet. He does a decent job with Sam and Dani, but he's way off with most of the others. Especially Illyana and Doug, both of whom he's plagued with completely unnecessary Spock Speak for no apparent reason. And I know he's trying to do something specific with the characters. They've both been through big events that have changed who they are in fundamental ways that they're still dealing with. But until I get some sort of reasonable explanation for why coming back from the dead should make you stop being able to use contractions, I'm going to continue to see it as lazy writing. Especially when you already have someone on the team (Amara) who's actually supposed to talk that way (and, if I recall correctly, he doesn't have her talking that way). It's getting to the point with Illyana where if he doesn't figure out how she's supposed to talk soon, I'd rather he just not even use her in the book. I'll never say that about Doug though, no matter how poorly he's written. I'll always take a Doug who sounds like Data for no reason over no Doug.
Though at least Wells doesn't write Doug as badly as Matt Fraction did in that last issue of Uncanny X-Men. I was all excited to see Doug show up in Uncanny X-Men, but Fraction just had him saying the dumbest shit on every single page. The worst was when he somehow wasn't able to tell when Nemesis was being sarcastic. I mean, really. He's got one power. He can always understand what everyone is saying. That's it. It's pretty tough to fuck that up, but damn if Fraction didn't manage to find a way.
Anyway, point is, it's easy to see that no other writer has been able to get these characters right when you read this book and hear them all talk the way they're supposed to for the first time in twenty-three years. And when you see how naturally it comes to Claremont to write them, you start to wish this was the ongoing. But I'll gladly take the five issues they're giving us here.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
A thought I just had about the Lost finale...
Hey, remember when the show was good? Here are all those characters who were together when the show was good. They're together again! That must mean the show is good now, right?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Ben
I guess it's about time to actually make a post that has something to do with the class this blog is for. For my Electronic Publishing final project, I redesigned the web site I had created for the midterm. It's now a multimedia narrative about my long-running fictional character Ben.
It gives a brief history of the character, beginning with the unillustrated comic scripts my collaborator and I initially wrote five years ago, including a few examples. Then it progresses to the character's appearances in my collaborator's blog, including links to certain entries. After that, it moves to the videos we had produced for the midterm project, and finally moves on to the new videos we produced for this project, in which a loose narrative of a distinctly meta nature unfolds.
The story is augmented with music and photographs that tie in only loosely and thematically, but hopefully increase the meta-ness of it all. So, check it out, I guess...
Ben
It gives a brief history of the character, beginning with the unillustrated comic scripts my collaborator and I initially wrote five years ago, including a few examples. Then it progresses to the character's appearances in my collaborator's blog, including links to certain entries. After that, it moves to the videos we had produced for the midterm project, and finally moves on to the new videos we produced for this project, in which a loose narrative of a distinctly meta nature unfolds.
The story is augmented with music and photographs that tie in only loosely and thematically, but hopefully increase the meta-ness of it all. So, check it out, I guess...
Ben
Angel #32
I think I'm going to stop reading this until they get a new writer. Willingham's dialogue is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Especially the ridiculous things he has Spike say. "Hey, don't bark at me! Is it my fault you colonials have the odd custom of naming your pee-pees?" Really? And what's with the painfully forced conflict between Connor and Gunn? I did snicker a bit at Illyria's line at the end: "Good evening, Connor. Your father has given me permission to seduce you." But that little plot element doesn't ring true to me either, so, yeah. I think I'm done with this book for now.
X-Force #26
On the plus side, the artwork was really good. It's been hit-or-miss with the art in X-Force. I'm not much of a visual artist, so I often don't pay that much attention to the art in a book unless it's detracting from the story in some way. Which the art in X-Force often tended to. A lot of it was so dark I often couldn't tell what was happening, who was speaking, who was punching who. It looked cool, but it was confusing as hell. This issue had none of those problems. It was very clear and even had some nice visual moments. I assume it's a different artist, but I don't remember who the artist was before, so I'm not sure.
Also on the plus side, more New Mutants, including more speaking from Cypher. I was thinking the other day that it's impossible for them to do the kind of character development with the X-Men that they were able to do back in the day because the cast is so much larger now. Little hints of character development are all we can get per issue because the issues have to focus on so many characters. Although they do have books like X-Force and New Mutants, which are supposed to specifically focus on a certain group of characters, but they both keep going through these big crossover stories, so every book is starring, like, all the X-Men every time anyway. I hope after this one they get back to letting the books focus on smaller groups of characters for a while.
On the minus side...
SPOILERS...
Also on the plus side, more New Mutants, including more speaking from Cypher. I was thinking the other day that it's impossible for them to do the kind of character development with the X-Men that they were able to do back in the day because the cast is so much larger now. Little hints of character development are all we can get per issue because the issues have to focus on so many characters. Although they do have books like X-Force and New Mutants, which are supposed to specifically focus on a certain group of characters, but they both keep going through these big crossover stories, so every book is starring, like, all the X-Men every time anyway. I hope after this one they get back to letting the books focus on smaller groups of characters for a while.
On the minus side...
SPOILERS...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Pan's Labyrinth and The Movie Hero: examination of fantasy
They're both several years old, but I got a chance to watch Pan's Labyrinth and The Movie Hero for the first time this past weekend. On the surface, they're very different. Pan's Labyrinth is a very dark fairy-tale/fantasy almost verging on horror. It's slickly-produced with great special effects. The Movie Hero is a fairly light romantic adventure with plenty of comedy. It's a low-budget indie film with negligible special effects. But what they have in common is that they both examine the role of fantasy, both in our stories and in our lives.
Pan's Labyrinth shows us the fantasy world of a little girl living through the horrors of Franco's regime in post Civil War Spain. The twist is that this fantasy world she keeps escaping to is quite possibly even more horrible than the real world she's escaping from. I think it makes sense to some degree. The horror she's living through is necessarily coloring her thoughts, and shaping her fantasy world as well. If, indeed, it's fantasy. It may well be just as real as the "real" world. You can watch the whole movie and still not really be sure, and that's part of its power. I had some serious trouble sleeping the night I watched this movie. I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it though. It's really beautiful for all its horror, both visually and emotionally.
I had watched The Movie Hero just beforehand. In some ways I wish I'd watched it second, because after I'd seen Pan's Labyrinth it was hard to think about anything else. But I think if I'd watched it after Pan's Labyrinth, I'm not sure I'd even be able to pay attention to it, so it's probably better that I watched it first. It's about a guy who thinks he's the star of a movie. Which, of course, he is. But to all the other characters in the movie, he's just some crazy guy who thinks his life is a movie. The movie plays around a lot with movie conventions. As soon as he meets the girl who we can all tell is going to be his love interest, he starts addressing her as "Love Interest." Lots of funny little things like that. But what really got to me about the movie is, again, the way it addresses fantasy. This guy's fantasy of being the star of a movie, from our perspective, is reality. From the perspective of the movie world though, it's delusion. What's real and what's not? Same question I had in my mind at the end of Pan's Labyrinth.
It's a question I ask myself a lot. It's a question I've addressed in a lot of the fiction I've written, because I think it's one of the most important questions fiction can address. I was talking about Grant Morrison's meta stuff earlier, and saying it's what he's probably best at, and that may be true, but it's definitely true that that's what interests me the most about his work. It may be why Animal Man is still my favorite thing he's written, because that's the book where he spent the most time exploring that question.
Anyway, all this is mainly to say that I think I finally have a direction for my screenplay now. It's been giving me so much trouble. I just haven't gotten into the characters or the story or anything, and I realized that what I really want to address with my movie is this question of fantasy vs. reality. That's what I'm the most interested in as a writer. And I think, knowing that, that I'm finally ready to write this thing. And it's about time, because I've got less than three weeks left to do it.
I just hope it doesn't turn out looking too much like a bad Charlie Kaufman ripoff.
Pan's Labyrinth shows us the fantasy world of a little girl living through the horrors of Franco's regime in post Civil War Spain. The twist is that this fantasy world she keeps escaping to is quite possibly even more horrible than the real world she's escaping from. I think it makes sense to some degree. The horror she's living through is necessarily coloring her thoughts, and shaping her fantasy world as well. If, indeed, it's fantasy. It may well be just as real as the "real" world. You can watch the whole movie and still not really be sure, and that's part of its power. I had some serious trouble sleeping the night I watched this movie. I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it though. It's really beautiful for all its horror, both visually and emotionally.
I had watched The Movie Hero just beforehand. In some ways I wish I'd watched it second, because after I'd seen Pan's Labyrinth it was hard to think about anything else. But I think if I'd watched it after Pan's Labyrinth, I'm not sure I'd even be able to pay attention to it, so it's probably better that I watched it first. It's about a guy who thinks he's the star of a movie. Which, of course, he is. But to all the other characters in the movie, he's just some crazy guy who thinks his life is a movie. The movie plays around a lot with movie conventions. As soon as he meets the girl who we can all tell is going to be his love interest, he starts addressing her as "Love Interest." Lots of funny little things like that. But what really got to me about the movie is, again, the way it addresses fantasy. This guy's fantasy of being the star of a movie, from our perspective, is reality. From the perspective of the movie world though, it's delusion. What's real and what's not? Same question I had in my mind at the end of Pan's Labyrinth.
It's a question I ask myself a lot. It's a question I've addressed in a lot of the fiction I've written, because I think it's one of the most important questions fiction can address. I was talking about Grant Morrison's meta stuff earlier, and saying it's what he's probably best at, and that may be true, but it's definitely true that that's what interests me the most about his work. It may be why Animal Man is still my favorite thing he's written, because that's the book where he spent the most time exploring that question.
Anyway, all this is mainly to say that I think I finally have a direction for my screenplay now. It's been giving me so much trouble. I just haven't gotten into the characters or the story or anything, and I realized that what I really want to address with my movie is this question of fantasy vs. reality. That's what I'm the most interested in as a writer. And I think, knowing that, that I'm finally ready to write this thing. And it's about time, because I've got less than three weeks left to do it.
I just hope it doesn't turn out looking too much like a bad Charlie Kaufman ripoff.
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