This is a one-shot written by the series' regular artist Chris Weston, presumably to tide us over until they finally get around to finishing the series. And I have to say, it was really nice to see these characters again. It's been a year and a half since the last issue of The Twelve came out. It was odd to read the little expository blurb at the beginning of this issue:
"They are yesterday's men of tomorrow--today! After being placed in cryogenic suspension by the Nazis at the close of WWII, twelve mystery-men of the 1940s are revived in the far-flung future of 2008."
Hmm. Makes you wonder what they've been doing for the last two years. We don't get to find out in this one-shot, as it's set during the war. It was fun to see a story about them in that setting though. We got a glimpse of it back in the first issue of the series, if I recall, but not a whole lot. And this time, we also get to see them interacting with some of the more well-known Golden Age heroes like Captain America and the Human Torch. We also get an answer to a question that had been bugging me since the beginning of the series: What the heck was a character like the Black Widow doing fighting in World War II? I won't spoil it, but it's definitely a satisfying answer to the question.
One thing that was kind of odd about reading this story was that it reminded me quite a bit of my main problem with Inglourious Basterds: the revisionist history element. I generally don't mind stories about fictional alternate histories, but for some reason it just seems a little off-putting when the subject matter is World War II. Like that event is somehow sacred. I think that's why DC decided to come up with a contrivance where their heroes wouldn't have been able to participate in World War II. There's always something a bit garish about these men and women in brightly colored tights flying around and knocking bad guys silly. But when the bad guys are Nazis, and the superheroes are fighting alongside American soldiers...it's just a little over the top.
Still fun to see these characters again though, and I hope the series picks up again soon.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Cup Is Only Reviewing Comics: The Unwritten #11
I said I'd review the next issue of The Unwritten when it came out, so here it is. I've been a big fan of Mike Carey's writing since I read his series Lucifer, which was probably the only Sandman spin-off to hold a candle to Neil Gaiman's masterpiece. I get the feeling when I read each issue of The Unwritten that I'm reading something really important. That when all is said and done with this series, people are going to consider it one of the classics. You can never be sure about that, and this series is really still just getting rolling at issue 11, but I can't shake the feeling that this is one of the most important comic books being written today.
As I said before, the story is ostensibly about a guy whose father wrote a series of novels (basically the Harry Potter novels) about a boy wizard named Tommy Taylor, which was also his son's name, and the real-life Tommy Taylor is gradually discovering that he may actually be the character his father wrote somehow brought to life, and he actually has magical powers of some sort, which he is slowly learning to use. As the issues have progressed, though, the series has proven to be about much more than that basic premise. It's about the relationship between fiction and reality, which, as a writer, is a topic I find supremely fascinating.
In the two-part story that concluded in this issue, Tommy and his friends (who are suspiciously similar to Ron and Hermione) have found themselves in a world that seems to be the ghost of a Nazi-era German city, and have met a ghostly version of Joseph Goebbels, who becomes more real and solid the more they acknowledge his existence. Eventually, Tommy has to deal with the physical manifestation of a story called Jud Süß, which I had never heard of before, but was apparently originally a novel written in 1925 by a German Jew (Lion Feuchtwanger) based on the life of another German Jew (Joseph Süß Oppenheimer), and was the story of a man who had done bad things but ultimately found redemption in his religion. When the Nazis came to power, Geobbels changed the story and turned it into an antisemitic propaganda film. So in this issue of The Unwritten, the story, Jud Süß, has manifested physically in this ghost world, and it has become unstable, literally turned inside out, by Goebbels' mangling of it. But Tommy discovers that through his power, he can right what's wrong with the story, and make it become coherent again.
The series seems to be almost as much about history as it is about fiction, as it's already delved into the past once before this in a story about Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain. I can't really say what points this series is trying to make yet, but I'm pretty sure they're important, and I'm definitely going to keep reading it, and recommending it to anyone and everyone.
As I said before, the story is ostensibly about a guy whose father wrote a series of novels (basically the Harry Potter novels) about a boy wizard named Tommy Taylor, which was also his son's name, and the real-life Tommy Taylor is gradually discovering that he may actually be the character his father wrote somehow brought to life, and he actually has magical powers of some sort, which he is slowly learning to use. As the issues have progressed, though, the series has proven to be about much more than that basic premise. It's about the relationship between fiction and reality, which, as a writer, is a topic I find supremely fascinating.
In the two-part story that concluded in this issue, Tommy and his friends (who are suspiciously similar to Ron and Hermione) have found themselves in a world that seems to be the ghost of a Nazi-era German city, and have met a ghostly version of Joseph Goebbels, who becomes more real and solid the more they acknowledge his existence. Eventually, Tommy has to deal with the physical manifestation of a story called Jud Süß, which I had never heard of before, but was apparently originally a novel written in 1925 by a German Jew (Lion Feuchtwanger) based on the life of another German Jew (Joseph Süß Oppenheimer), and was the story of a man who had done bad things but ultimately found redemption in his religion. When the Nazis came to power, Geobbels changed the story and turned it into an antisemitic propaganda film. So in this issue of The Unwritten, the story, Jud Süß, has manifested physically in this ghost world, and it has become unstable, literally turned inside out, by Goebbels' mangling of it. But Tommy discovers that through his power, he can right what's wrong with the story, and make it become coherent again.
The series seems to be almost as much about history as it is about fiction, as it's already delved into the past once before this in a story about Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain. I can't really say what points this series is trying to make yet, but I'm pretty sure they're important, and I'm definitely going to keep reading it, and recommending it to anyone and everyone.
The Cup Is Only Reviewing Comics: Secret Six #19
I can't remember if Deadshot had a personality before Gail Simone or not, but it's irrelevant because he is now Adam Baldwin as Jayne from Firefly...as Deadshot. Which is awesome. I think Gail Simone may be my favorite writer in all of comic books right now. This book has been nothing short of great from the beginning, and this particular issue was no exception. I also love the way she's writing Ragdoll. The bit on the first page is the perfect example, so I'll just quote it.
"Oh, forgive me, Thomas. I was thinking what it's like to be abandoned and tortured and abused and forgotten. When your life is so worthless that your only degraded value to anyone is when your pain gives them amusement, and the person entrusted to care for you sees you as more disposable than used tissue. But then I thought, "I wonder what it's like to ^%$# a butterfly?"
The bit where Black Alice hands him the note that says "Do you like me? Check one...[]yes []no" is also great.
Then there's the last page, which is one of the best cliffhangers I've seen in quite a while. To completely spoil it....I'M SPOILING NOW! STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED...
Catman's son has been kidnapped, and the kidnapper has called him on the phone to tell him that they're going to kill the boy no matter what he does, but they'll give the boy one year of pleasant life for each member of the Secret Six that Catman kills in the next five minutes.
I've been engaging in some debates about what to do in various hypothetical moral dilemmas online recently, none of which were remotely plausible scenarios, and this one would go right along with them. Of course, this is comic book reality, so it's as plausible as anything else they do. As to what the right choice is in the dilemma, it seems to me that most moral systems would have Catman do nothing. If they're eventually going to kill the kid anyway, why kill someone else too just to prolong it?
But, of course, there's the possibility of eventually tracking down the kidnappers, and Catman is a master tracker. But he may only get the chance if he kills a member of his team and buys that year for himself to try. And, since this is not a super-hero book, but rather a super-straddling-that-line-between-hero-and-villain book, there's a real possibility that he will just take one or more of his teammates out, which is one of the things that makes this book so exciting.
"Oh, forgive me, Thomas. I was thinking what it's like to be abandoned and tortured and abused and forgotten. When your life is so worthless that your only degraded value to anyone is when your pain gives them amusement, and the person entrusted to care for you sees you as more disposable than used tissue. But then I thought, "I wonder what it's like to ^%$# a butterfly?"
The bit where Black Alice hands him the note that says "Do you like me? Check one...[]yes []no" is also great.
Then there's the last page, which is one of the best cliffhangers I've seen in quite a while. To completely spoil it....I'M SPOILING NOW! STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED...
Catman's son has been kidnapped, and the kidnapper has called him on the phone to tell him that they're going to kill the boy no matter what he does, but they'll give the boy one year of pleasant life for each member of the Secret Six that Catman kills in the next five minutes.
I've been engaging in some debates about what to do in various hypothetical moral dilemmas online recently, none of which were remotely plausible scenarios, and this one would go right along with them. Of course, this is comic book reality, so it's as plausible as anything else they do. As to what the right choice is in the dilemma, it seems to me that most moral systems would have Catman do nothing. If they're eventually going to kill the kid anyway, why kill someone else too just to prolong it?
But, of course, there's the possibility of eventually tracking down the kidnappers, and Catman is a master tracker. But he may only get the chance if he kills a member of his team and buys that year for himself to try. And, since this is not a super-hero book, but rather a super-straddling-that-line-between-hero-and-villain book, there's a real possibility that he will just take one or more of his teammates out, which is one of the things that makes this book so exciting.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Cup Is Only Reviewing Comics: Joe the Barbarian #2
Well, this was quite an improvement over issue 1. Not that issue 1 was bad, it was just so short. Barely anything happened in it, and there were barely any words in it. It took me about two minutes to read. Stuff actually happens in issue 2.
Joe the Barbarian is an eight-issue miniseries Grant Morrison is writing for Vertigo. It's got a great concept. It's about a diabetic boy who goes into insulin shock in his bedroom, and starts hallucinating that he's in a fantastic realm populated by the action figures on the floor of the room. And his attempt to deal with the situation in the real world is paralleled by his adventure in the fantasy world. It's a much more appropriate venue for Morrison's random nonsense than, say, Final Crisis was. Not to turn this into a rant about Morrison, but I've really been feeling like every story he's written recently has made less sense than the last. Possibly going all the way back to Animal Man, which may have been the last time he wrote something that you could actually follow without having to read it several times. Not that I didn't enjoy his runs on Doom Patrol, JLA, X-Men, and other books, but he certainly doesn't make his work very easy to read. Actually, that may make the lack of wordiness in Joe the Barbarian a plus. At least it doesn't take you very long to read it two or three times. Although I'm not sure you'd get a whole lot more out of this on subsequent readings. I feel much the same way I did about Invisibles: the stuff that makes sense makes sense on the first read. The rest of it will never make sense no matter how many times you read it. Fortunately, it seems like there's more of the former than the latter in Joe, which was decidedly not the case in Invisibles.
I'm a little worried about the fact that we're now a quarter of the way through the series, and still barely anything has happened, but I still have a feeling that this is going to be good. I hope I'm right. Vertigo certainly seems to be maintaining its place as the home of the best comics. I can't recommend Mike Carey's The Unwritten enough. It's easily my favorite comic I'm reading right now. Perhaps I'll review the next issue when it comes out. The book's about this guy who was the inspiration for a series of novels his father wrote about a Harry Potter type character, and the guy is gradually discovering that he may actually be the character and have magic powers and stuff. It's pretty cool, although I have no idea how they're not getting sued. Maybe they figure if J.K. Rowling ever says anything about it, they'll just point out that Harry Potter is basically a ripoff of the character from Vertigo's Books of Magic.
Speaking of getting sued, how the hell is Morrison able to get away with putting toy versions of characters like Captain Picard and Snake Eyes into Joe the Barbarian? I know DC doesn't own the comics rights to those characters.
Joe the Barbarian is an eight-issue miniseries Grant Morrison is writing for Vertigo. It's got a great concept. It's about a diabetic boy who goes into insulin shock in his bedroom, and starts hallucinating that he's in a fantastic realm populated by the action figures on the floor of the room. And his attempt to deal with the situation in the real world is paralleled by his adventure in the fantasy world. It's a much more appropriate venue for Morrison's random nonsense than, say, Final Crisis was. Not to turn this into a rant about Morrison, but I've really been feeling like every story he's written recently has made less sense than the last. Possibly going all the way back to Animal Man, which may have been the last time he wrote something that you could actually follow without having to read it several times. Not that I didn't enjoy his runs on Doom Patrol, JLA, X-Men, and other books, but he certainly doesn't make his work very easy to read. Actually, that may make the lack of wordiness in Joe the Barbarian a plus. At least it doesn't take you very long to read it two or three times. Although I'm not sure you'd get a whole lot more out of this on subsequent readings. I feel much the same way I did about Invisibles: the stuff that makes sense makes sense on the first read. The rest of it will never make sense no matter how many times you read it. Fortunately, it seems like there's more of the former than the latter in Joe, which was decidedly not the case in Invisibles.
I'm a little worried about the fact that we're now a quarter of the way through the series, and still barely anything has happened, but I still have a feeling that this is going to be good. I hope I'm right. Vertigo certainly seems to be maintaining its place as the home of the best comics. I can't recommend Mike Carey's The Unwritten enough. It's easily my favorite comic I'm reading right now. Perhaps I'll review the next issue when it comes out. The book's about this guy who was the inspiration for a series of novels his father wrote about a Harry Potter type character, and the guy is gradually discovering that he may actually be the character and have magic powers and stuff. It's pretty cool, although I have no idea how they're not getting sued. Maybe they figure if J.K. Rowling ever says anything about it, they'll just point out that Harry Potter is basically a ripoff of the character from Vertigo's Books of Magic.
Speaking of getting sued, how the hell is Morrison able to get away with putting toy versions of characters like Captain Picard and Snake Eyes into Joe the Barbarian? I know DC doesn't own the comics rights to those characters.
The Cup Is Only Reviewing Comics: Angel #30
New blog feature: comic book reviews.
Angel #30 is the third issue written by Bill Willingham of Fables fame. I've never read Fables, but I've always heard good things about it, so I was looking forward to Willingham's run on Angel, but I'm a bit underwhelmed so far. He's introduced an intriguing story idea: Angel has been kidnapped by people who want to use him to turn people into vampires. And I'm interested to see where that's going, but there are some things about the way he writes that just grate on me. The biggest thing is the dialogue. Sometimes it's okay, especially when he's writing a character I'm not already familiar with, but most of the time, and especially when he's writing one of the long-established characters, there's just something about the way he makes them talk that sounds...wrong. Like, Spike wouldn't say these words in this order that you wrote him to say here. It just doesn't work. Basically, he just doesn't have that great a grasp on the established characters. He seems to be doing the best with Angel, but even with him, there's some strangeness.
Then there was this thing he was doing in issues 28 and 29 where he'd have everybody in a big group, and he'd have them each say something. And they wouldn't actually be talking to each other, they'd just each be saying something. They'd all more-or-less be talking about the same thing, but none of the lines were in direct response to any of the other lines. It was the weirdest thing. Thankfully, in 30, he actually has them talking to each other, but I think part of the problem is that the cast is way too big at this point. There's no reason to have all these people sitting around together all the time. I don't know whose idea it was to bring Kate back, but she's kind of useless. And the two forgettable characters who were introduced by the previous writer could stand to go too. I don't even remember their names. One of them is an angel and the other's a girl who turns into a cat or something? Yeah, why are they still there? And is Gwen still hanging around too? I can't even remember. She wasn't in 30, but I feel like she might have been in the previous issues. Angel, Spike, Gunn, Connor, Illyria, and George is a big enough cast. Really, George could go too, except I like George. Or at least I did when Brian Lynch was writing him. Now he's this not-quite-himself character, the way they all are.
Basically, I miss Lynch. His stuff got confusing sometimes, but at least he knew how to write these characters.
Angel #30 is the third issue written by Bill Willingham of Fables fame. I've never read Fables, but I've always heard good things about it, so I was looking forward to Willingham's run on Angel, but I'm a bit underwhelmed so far. He's introduced an intriguing story idea: Angel has been kidnapped by people who want to use him to turn people into vampires. And I'm interested to see where that's going, but there are some things about the way he writes that just grate on me. The biggest thing is the dialogue. Sometimes it's okay, especially when he's writing a character I'm not already familiar with, but most of the time, and especially when he's writing one of the long-established characters, there's just something about the way he makes them talk that sounds...wrong. Like, Spike wouldn't say these words in this order that you wrote him to say here. It just doesn't work. Basically, he just doesn't have that great a grasp on the established characters. He seems to be doing the best with Angel, but even with him, there's some strangeness.
Then there was this thing he was doing in issues 28 and 29 where he'd have everybody in a big group, and he'd have them each say something. And they wouldn't actually be talking to each other, they'd just each be saying something. They'd all more-or-less be talking about the same thing, but none of the lines were in direct response to any of the other lines. It was the weirdest thing. Thankfully, in 30, he actually has them talking to each other, but I think part of the problem is that the cast is way too big at this point. There's no reason to have all these people sitting around together all the time. I don't know whose idea it was to bring Kate back, but she's kind of useless. And the two forgettable characters who were introduced by the previous writer could stand to go too. I don't even remember their names. One of them is an angel and the other's a girl who turns into a cat or something? Yeah, why are they still there? And is Gwen still hanging around too? I can't even remember. She wasn't in 30, but I feel like she might have been in the previous issues. Angel, Spike, Gunn, Connor, Illyria, and George is a big enough cast. Really, George could go too, except I like George. Or at least I did when Brian Lynch was writing him. Now he's this not-quite-himself character, the way they all are.
Basically, I miss Lynch. His stuff got confusing sometimes, but at least he knew how to write these characters.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Humanity
In my Screenwriting class, we've been talking about all of the things that go into writing a screenplay: story, character, plot, dialogue, etc. One of the things that's been mentioned a couple times as a necessary element is humanity. I think it's interesting that humanity is something people consider a necessary element of a screenplay. And not just of a screenplay, but of any story, really. Every story contains humanity.
The idea has been floating around in the back of my mind for years now to try to write a story that's completely devoid of humanity. Maybe a story about planets orbiting stars in a completely uninhabited part of the universe. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I wrote this story about these planets, I'd basically be turning them into characters. I'd be humanizing them. I'd be injecting humanity into this supposedly humanity-less story.
So I thought maybe if I told it without any sort of emotion. It would just be a dry presentation of the facts. Sort of like an astronomy text, I suppose. But, leaving aside the question of whether or not that would even constitute a story, there would still be some element of humanity in it. It would be told in a human language. By a human. It is impossible for us to produce anything that doesn't have some element of humanity in it, because everything we produce is produced by a human. Even if we were to produce a computer that could write a story. The computer would be the product of humanity, and thus, so would the story.
So I've concluded that it's impossible to write a story devoid of humanity.
Instead, I think I'm going to write a story about a writer who tries to write a story that's devoid of humanity.
The idea has been floating around in the back of my mind for years now to try to write a story that's completely devoid of humanity. Maybe a story about planets orbiting stars in a completely uninhabited part of the universe. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I wrote this story about these planets, I'd basically be turning them into characters. I'd be humanizing them. I'd be injecting humanity into this supposedly humanity-less story.
So I thought maybe if I told it without any sort of emotion. It would just be a dry presentation of the facts. Sort of like an astronomy text, I suppose. But, leaving aside the question of whether or not that would even constitute a story, there would still be some element of humanity in it. It would be told in a human language. By a human. It is impossible for us to produce anything that doesn't have some element of humanity in it, because everything we produce is produced by a human. Even if we were to produce a computer that could write a story. The computer would be the product of humanity, and thus, so would the story.
So I've concluded that it's impossible to write a story devoid of humanity.
Instead, I think I'm going to write a story about a writer who tries to write a story that's devoid of humanity.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Web Site Design
It's a good thing we don't have class tomorrow. I really haven't gotten very far with my web site design assignment yet. Although that may be because I had Pip working on it:
She quickly became distracted by Q-tips, which she inexplicably loves:
I'm determined that this will not become a post-cute-pictures-of-your-pet blog, so to get it out of my system, here's one more:
Okay, that's it.
She quickly became distracted by Q-tips, which she inexplicably loves:
I'm determined that this will not become a post-cute-pictures-of-your-pet blog, so to get it out of my system, here's one more:
Okay, that's it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
