Rock the Raygun!

Fun Stuff from Rod Espinosa

2009-02-08T23:02:00.002-05:00

Somehow or another Antarctic Press has managed to exist as a comic company for a quarter of a century without my ever really having taken notice of them before. Well okay, I did pick up an issue or two of Warrior Nun Areala back in the day-- I had to know what that was all about. But for the most part I haven't really paid much attention-- I've never gotten way into manga, so American manga sounded like an even iffier proposition. In a way though, Antarctic's output could be seen as more accessible than traditional manga: they're released in American comic-sized bites, they read front to back, they're in color. They're an interesting alternative for U.S. readers who don't get manga.

Filipino-born Rod Espinosa is not only Antarctic's VP of Production, but also one of the more prolific creators producing for the company. As far as I can tell from the credits, Espinosa does it all: writing, penciling, coloring, he might even letter his stuff as there is no separate letter credited. Scanning the shelves for outer spacey goodies to review, I ended up with not one but two recent Rod Espinosa graphic novel releases: the first volumes of Prince of Heroes and Dinowars, two books laden with fantastic imagery, imagination and fun exciting action.

Prince of Heroes is a coming of age tale told over a space opera backdrop. The young protagonist Ronen Ladarna has grown up in humble surroundings, but was born into a powerful clan and has a greater destiny. What's a bit unorthodox about the setup is that Ronen is already aware of this at the beginning of the comic. Usually in these kind of tales the hero is unaware of the secrets of his past and he and the reader become aware of things together as the story progresses. But in Prince of Heroes everyone in the story knows what's going on well before the reader does; some key information isn't really explained until halfway or even three-quarters of the way through the book. Only towards the end do you start to get the picture of what really should have been explained in the early pages.

For thousands of years, the galaxy has been under the dominion of the powerful elitist clans of the Greater Darem Empire. Ronen was born into one such clan, but for unrevealed reasons his mother Aiymie took him away to live an obscure childhood on a frontier world. Now that she has decided that Ronen is old enough to be introduced to his father and formally claim his rightful place, the two of them have been slowly making their way back to the core-- moving as far as their finances will get them and then stopping to earn more and get them further along.

Ronen has grown so fond of living the life of a simple farmer on their latest world of Irdne, that he isn't really sure that he cares about his lineage. He counts many locals among his close friends, including a martial arts master named Ze, wheelchair-bound and blind but still commanding great respect, and his wards Tenny and Zeb, who are like younger siblings to Ronen. He and his mother also have three fuzzy family servants who are as skilled in battle as they are in farming. Ronen identifies so strongly with the locals that he stands against fellow Darems of the Mesozora clan who arrogantly throw their weight around and terrorize the local populace. Because of the increased size and strength of Darems, this leads to an epic-scale hyperbolic martial arts battle that takes up a goodly chunk of the first book.

If you like space opera as much as I do, this is a intriguing beginning to what could develop into an great saga. Ronen's life is thrown into chaos when open rebellion on the frontier causes the withdrawal of Darem colonists in the face of local violent uprisings. One young man caught up in the great historical events of his time is the stuff of legends, and by the close of the first volume Espinosa had me ready and eager for the next installment.

On the other hand, if big epic space opera is not really your thing, hows about rampaging cyborg dinosaurs stomping across the Earth and trying to wipe out humanity? That's the premise of Dinowars, Espinosa's other recent graphic novel release. It's a bit light and not particularly sophisticated, but as a quick fun read of armies battling dinosaurs, it does its job.

Here's the high concept: millions of years ago, dinosaurs evolved into sentient tool-users known as Triassians. The reason humanity has remained ignorant of this development is that when warned of the imminent approach of a deadly ice age, these intelligent saurians built spacefaring craft and left the Earth. After eons spent floating around the asteroid belt in hibernation, this advanced civilization rains down from the sky, and they want their homeworld back! One faction, called the Protosaurs, are willing to negotiate, but the more murderous Megasaurs see humanity as a pestilence to be wiped out. Two human heroes are at the center of the action as it unfolds.

Commander Hank Armstrong is the kind of square-jawed all-purpose military hero that you can only find in comics. When we first meet him, he is the first astronaut to set foot on the moon in forty years. When they uncover cybernetically enhanced dinosaurs on the surface, he barely makes it back to his shuttle. Upon his return to Earth, Armstrong picks up a machine gun and is suddenly leading ground forces against the invaders. Why army personnel would gamely take orders from a passing astronaut is beyond me. At the climax, he hops aboard a prototype bomber with a mystery weapon, and sudden he's a jet pilot. He's such a mack daddy that when he flies into combat for the final battle, he has a hot babe strapped to his lap the whole time!

The babe in question would be Debra MacDonald, a small-town waitress from Nowhere, Texas. Her dead-end life takes a sharp turn when Protosaur emissaries crash land on her family farm, and soon mindlink with her so that she can be their interpreter. Before long, this humble server is addressing the United Nations with the Protosaurs' wishes to populate Antarctica. And wouldn't you know it, when Debra and Hank cross paths, it turns out that they were high school sweethearts who broke up at the prom! What are the odds?

Espinosa's greatest strength is his artwork, which yes is manga-inspired but is more lovingly-wrought and detail-oriented than a lot of stuff I see coming out of Japan when I'm at the bookstore skimming. He has a great design sense, whether he is conjuring up cyber-saurs, extraterrestrial beings, starships or alien artifacts, it all looks great. He's equally adept at cute heroines or state-of-the-art military hardware. Espinosa also clearly makes use of computer rendering for a lot of his designs, which is sort of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it allows him the ability to create meticulous highly detailed cityscapes which border on breathtaking. However, the digital and line art doesn't meld together as well as it might: buildings all look too pristine, too symmetrical. If Espinosa can figure out a way to give his CGI work a worn look and make it blend better, it would look way better. Espinosa also has a tongue-in-cheek cheesecake element to his female characters which I find fun but may exasperate others. Female characters tend to get their clothes shredded and the woman who faces Ronen in combat ends up face-down, ass in the air in a blatantly submissive position more than once.

Bottom line, both of these books are capital-F Fun. The Dinowars pocket digest has a prominent "1" displayed on the cover and spine, but frankly the book has enough closure to satisfy me, and I don't think there's enough going on there to make me want to come back for a second round. It was enjoyable enough, but Prince of Heroes is the story I'm eager to see more of. Ronen's story is just beginning, he's only just headed into space and his destiny as the first volume comes to a close. Now's the time to jump aboard and see where the story is headed. Espinosa has helpfully posted the first volume online, which seems like an odd strategy while trying to sell a book of the same material, but at least readers can judge whether they want to preorder Prince of Heroes Volume 2, the first issue of which is being solicited this month. I'm on board.

Dinowars Rating: 7/10
Prince of Heroes Rating: 7.5/10

Star Trek: Countdown #1

2009-02-03T23:52:00.001-05:00

If there's anyone else out there who's been anxiously awaiting for more info to trickle out about the new Star Trek movie, a few interesting links have hit the net in the past couple of weeks:

JJ Abrams Explains How Only He Can Stop Get the Trek Franchise Out of the Shadow of Star Wars.

Esurance Had a Neat Featurette About the Film with Footage as Well as a Contest to Attend the Hollywood Premiere.

Playmates has Revealed a Slew of Toys Tying into the Film.

Pocket Books Plans to Stick to the Tried and True Original Timeline for the Forseeable Future

Okay, This Do-It-Yourself Star Trek Chart Has Nothing to Do with the Movie-- But I'm Throwing It In Anyway

But probably the mother lode of clues to what the new film will be about would be the Star Trek: Countdown limited series from IDW, billed as the official prequel. Since Star Trek screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have a "story" credit for the first issue, there's a good chance that this 4-issue mini will provide some impactful backstory to lead into the May '09 release. Because I'm so obsessed with trying to figure out how much I'm going to love or hate the movie, I'll be combing through this series with more spoiler details than I usually get into. So if you are trying to keep reasonably ignorant before getting to actually see the film, this is not the post for you.

Although the Abrams film is famously about the early days of Kirk and crew, the origins of the tale take place in the 24th century, sometime after the events of Nemesis. How long after is a little unclear so far. The wizened Ambassador Spock reflects in internal monologue that he has been on Romulus for "four decades"-- "Unification" plus 40 years would place the mini about 29 years after Nemesis. However, in a review on Trekmovie.com, Alex Fletcher decoded the stardate and claims it's just 8 years later. Here I thought stardates were arbitrary claptrap... who knew they actually meant something? Hopefully future issues will clarify when we are, but I guess all we really need to know is that Spock has devoted his life to trying to unify the Romulans and Vulcans for a good long time now.

The issue open with Nero, destined to be the big bad of the film, but here he is just the captain of a mining ship trying to make a living on the fringes of Romulan space. No tattoos or vengeful 'tude, (nor, for that matter, does he wear a quilted gray jumpsuit with giant shoulder pads) just a hard-working guy providing for his emerging family. During a fateful mission in the Hobus system, Nero and his crew get a firsthand look at a dangerous threat to the Empire-- the system's star is losing stability and threatens at any time to go supernova. They barely warp out in time before a rampant solar flare destroys the planet they were mining on moments before.

Back on Romulus, Spock addresses the Romulan senate. For many years our old friend has been working underground, but in the past five years has become the official Federation Ambassador to Romulus. In that capacity, Spock warns that the destruction of Horus may be so powerful that the entire Empire could be consumed. This is met by disbelief and derision from the Senate, particularly when Spock explains that the only way to quell the star is by allowing the Vulcans to process the Empire's highly valuable store of decalthium into "red matter" which will create a black hole to counter the supernova (technobabble, anyone?) Much like the Kyrptonians ignoring doomed Jor-El, the Romulans are dismissive of Spock's findings and promise only to investigate further. Apparently after all this time, there is still no love lost between these galactic cousins, so much so that the Romulans would rather risk annihilation than trust Vulcan to take control of their highly valuable isotope.

Although he always considered himself a loyal servant of the Empire, Nero can't sit idly by and wait for bureaucrats to decide the Empire's fate. With the lives of his family and his people in the balance, he makes the only choice he really can, which is to offer the services of his ship and crew to Spock in order to mine some decalthium without the Senate's knowledge or permission. No sooner are they in range of their goal than a couple of quick plot twists occur to close out the issue-- c'mon I can't spoil the entire thing.

The comic's credited writers are Mike Johnson and Tim Jones, so I don't know how much they are responsible for or what came from Orci and Kurtzman. What we have here is a perfectly okay setup that unfolds a little on the slow side, and so far is just a little too neat of a predicament. A supernova that can only be stopped by a certain element and the aid of a distrusted world? Convenient. I assume all involved are aware of Superman's origin. The artwork, by David Messia is serviceable but unspectacular. I like his ships and technology better than his people and his action.

You can see that this won't end well, although how Nero will end up so hateful and wanting to destroy Vulcan is not yet clear. Also, I still can't predict what the time travel in the movie will accomplish, even if the star does end up destroying the Empire, as seems inevitable. Or rather, why the movie Nero will be obsessed with destroying Vulcan and/or Spock-- if he's traveling in time anyway, why not cook up some "red matter" at his leisure and then go back and throw it in the star before it becomes a threat! Oh well, maybe I'm anticipating too much, I should just wait for the rest of the series to come out...By the way, naming your protagonist "Nero" in a story where a planet called Romulus is in danger of burning? Cheesy!

Rating: 7/10

Virtual Display Case: January 2009

2009-01-28T10:24:00.012-05:00

Star Trek Classic Captain's Chair Replica

Now come on, who doesn't want their own captain's chair? Even people who don't like Star Trek want their own captain's chair, it's just common sense. If I had my own captain's chair, I would modify it so the buttons actually did stuff, like installing a universal remote into it, or a speaker phone. Also an intercom so I can hail the Missus in the kitchen to fetch me pretzels and sody pop. (Hell, as long as I'm indulging in ridiculous fantasies here, I might as well go all the way).

By the way, this chair retails for $2717.01, so I think they only need to sell 3 in order to meet Diamond's newly-announced minimum sales requirement and avoid being cancelled.

Battle Damaged Mjolnir

Od's Blood, I want this so bad, wisecracks fail me. I can't even joke. "Leather-wrapped handle"-- Please, everyone just turn away, lest you see my rugged manly eyes tearing up...

Flux Capacitor Replica

On the one hand, this is kind of neat memento of Back to the Future but on the other-- it basically just looks like a fuse box. I know that's sort of the point, it looks like something Doc Brown would whip up in his garage, but for $275 you could probably drop by Home Depot and buy your own fuse box. Now if it actually permitted time travel, then we'd have something...

Zatanna Cover Girls of the DC Universe Statue

Just keep repeating: "It's just a piece of porcelain...it's just a piece of porcelain...."

Conan the Conqueror Statue

I know I just featured a Conan statue a few months ago, but this one really jumps out at me. They did a great job of translating the original Frazetta painting, dontcha think? With that maniacal look on his, he looks like he's about to grab Zatanna by her hair, throw her across his horse and gallop off in triumph...

Black Cthulhu Statue

...but before Zatanna has a chance to claw Conan's eyes out, Black Cthulhu rises from the depths of the Netherworld, his dread shadow casting a pall of despair over the doomed land. Zatanna suddenly cries out, "Dratsab ylgu uoy, lleh ot og!" and Conan, freaked out, lets her down gently from his steed and beats a hasty retreat.

Wow, bad enough I'm dreaming about toys I can't afford, now I'm plotting out entire scenarios in my head using them. I am truly a sick man.

Dusty Abell Rocks the 70's

2009-01-27T21:48:00.004-05:00

Ever since I saw this gorgeous nostalgia-trip artwork on the Major Spoilers website (who in turn saw it on myextralife.com who in turn got it from Dusty's website) I keep staring and staring at it. More details seem to emerge every time I look at it. By no means were all of the shows represented above top-shelf entertainment, but if you were a certain age in the 70's (that is, a little kid easily wowed and not yet stricken with terminal cynicism) these goofy shows were an absolute blast.

There's a super-gigundo version if you want to pour over every nifty retro detail. Just zip over to Dusty's site and click the thumbnail. Then go make it sandwich; it might take a minute to upload the page!

Bravo, Dusty Abell! You totally rule!!!

Terminator vs. Terminator

2009-01-26T23:50:00.007-05:00

In the past few weeks, two different Terminator #1’s have hit the streets, not surprising as anticipation for the fourth film grows as we get closer to its May 22nd release. What’s strange about it, though, is that these comics are coming from two different companies, one from Dynamite and the other from IDW. It boggles my mind that competitors can both possess the rights to produce comics from a popular franchise at the same time, but since this unique situation has arisen, the only logical thing to do is to seal these 2 books up in a mylar bag and have them go at it, robo y robo, until one book emerges victorious.

It’s Terminator fight night!

Ladieeeees and Gentlemen, in this corner, weighing in at $3.50 for 22 pages of story, is Terminator: Revolution #1 by Simon Furman and Lui Antonio.

Annnnd in this corner, weighing in at $3.99 for 22 pages of story, is Terminator: Salvation #1 from Dara Naraghi and Alan
Robinson.

Okay let’s have a dirty filthy fight, no holds barred annnnnnd…
Fight! Fight! Fight!

Round One: The Introduction

Revolution: This may be a first issue, but we learn from the recap page that this mini continues on from at least one previous series. "Kate Bewster" has died a year previous and John Connor received help from a terminator called "Uncle Bob" in fleeing Crystal Peak, whatever that is. By the way, isn't Kate's name "Brewster"? Nice copyediting. Also, according to the IMDB, Kate is alive and well in film 4, which means these comics represent yet another alternate version of the Terminator storyline, separate from both the movies and the TV show (which already conflict with each other).

Salvation: Billed as an official movie preview, this comic flows directly from the events of Rise of the Machines. As long as you've seen the three movies, or even just the last one, you're golden.

Winner: Salvation.

Round Two: The Setting

Revolution: A bunker in New Jersey, plus the blasted environs of its perimeter. Also, in the past, a trailer in 1996 New Orleans.

Salvation: Opens with a globe-spanning montage as John Connor sends out a message of hope and resistance to the remains of humanity. Shots of the Capitol, Forbidden City and Taj Mahal (among others) in smoking ruins bring home how much civilization has lost under the reign of Skynet. The action of the story unfolds on two fronts, a resistance HQ in Detroit and a refugee camp in Arut, Niger. In just a few pages this book does a much better job in establishing just how far the nations of the world have fallen.

Winner: Salvation

Round Three: The Characters

Revolution: John Connor and his new wife Tara are the center of attention, which a short appearance by a young Kyle Reese. The rest of the freedom fighters are basically just cannon fodder. In the past, we're back with Sarah Connor (looking nothing like Linda Hamilton) and young whiny John.

Salvation: With John relegated to a voice on the radio and a brief flashback scene, the main characters here are from a range of ethnicities and cultures, united as one against the common aggressor, the machines. The resistance here come off as real people, not a bunch of rednecks in camoflage.

Winner: Salvation.

Round Four: The Action

Revolution: While waiting to kick his latest operation into gear, an attempt to wrest control of a missile command center from Skynet, John Connor sits around his bunker being anxious and fretting about when Terminators are going to try and come wipe out his new wife. And then one does, in the form of the highly advanced T-Infinity model. Meanwhile, in 1996-- well you know the score: Sarah and John are on the run, and Terminators are trying to kill them. Rather than just one, Skynet has sent 8 of them after the Connors this time.

Salvation: Similarly, a plan is afoot to thwart a Skynet uranium mine, but meantime Resistance leader Elena Maric tries to convince an underground survivalist community to stop hiding and take a stand against the enemy. Both Detroit and Arut come under assault by robotic forces.

Winner: It's a draw; both have a healthy dose of gunfire and explosions.

Round Five: The Artwork

Revolution: This is where this book really falls down: in Antonio's vision of the post-apocalypse, everyone is pretty and buff and runs around in tank tops to show off their physiques. Tara Connor is supposed to be a respected resistance leader, yet she runs around with her big boobs barely restrained by her skimpy top and thong straps showing out of her pants. Cause, you know, when you are fighting a losing battle to save humanity from extinction, you wouldn't want your panty lines to show through your cargo pants! Also the T-Infinity looks mighty super-heroey for the dystopian setting, he kinda resembles Mr. Freeze's long lost brother.

Salvation: Robinson's pencils are much more appropriate for the milieu in which the story is taking place. Far from being glamorous and beautiful, the characters have... well, character. They come in different shapes and sizes, look frazzled and dress more in keeping with desperate freedom fighters eking out an existence in a ruined world. The depiction of the shattered world monuments in the opening pages alone are more interesting than anything in Revolution.

Winner: Salvation.

And by the unanimous verdict of the judges, the winner and champion is:

IDW's Terminator: Salvation #1 for sure. Revolution is just a very by-the-numbers story with little to set it apart from other Terminator stories, drawn too bright and superheroish. Salvation does a much better job of reflecting the saga as a worldwide event, with dark atmospheric artwork and interesting characters to become invested in. Presumably Naraghi and Robinson were able to get a look at script and artwork from the upcoming film; this comic makes me look forward to its imminent release that much more.

Revolution rating: 6/10
Salvation Rating: 8/10

DnA Domination

2009-01-25T23:18:00.006-05:00

Although they have been making quite a name for themselves of late, writing collaborators Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning-- known collectively by their fans as “DnA”, are the exact opposite of an overnight sensation. In fact, these guys have been in the trenches for years, paying their dues both as a team and separately. Abnett is a prolific and versatile writer all on his own, with credits ranging from Warhammer 40K to Wallace and Gromit children’s books. Lanning is an accomplished inker on tons and tons of DC and Marvel books. But right now, as a team, they are hotter than ever, being primarily responsible for bringing back the cosmic in the Marvel Universe and making space heroes more prominent at the company than they’ve been in a decade.

Marvel has a lot of great cosmic storylines on their resume, but those kind of stories hit a sort of fallow period for awhile, with characters like the Silver Surfer and Warlock unable to sustain ongoing titles in the post-90’s post-bankruptcy period. Keith Giffen deserves a lot of the credit for rethinking the genre with 2006’s Annihilation event, but ever since he defected to DC, DnA have taken the ball and run with it. They spearheaded an Annihilation sequel called Conquest and are now gearing up to pit the Kree against the Shi’ar in War of Kings. In addition to their big hoo-hah event, Abnett and Lanning are currently responsible for both of the big monthly space opera books on the block, the newest incarnations of Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy.

The first 12 issues of Nova have just been released in a handsome oversized hardcover, which makes for a satisfying afternoon of reading. This series marks Richard Rider’s fourth(!) attempt at carrying an ongoing title, but I feel that this time we may have a winner. One possibly fatal flaw of previous attempts was that although his powers and shiny space helmet originated from outer space, Nova spent most of his time earthside, angsting about his life and knocking out costumed super villains. He was basically a surly Peter Parker with a bucket on his head. DnA have sent him out amongst the stars, where he’s filling the all-encompassing “protector of the universe” role in the tradition of Captain Marvel and Quasar.

As his latest series opens, Rich is the last surviving member of the Nova Centurion Corps, the galactic peacekeeping force that was wiped out by the Annihilation Wave. I confess it was news to me that the Corps has become so widespread across the cosmos-- back in the day they were strictly local protectors of the planet (and later domed city of) Xandar. When exactly they expanded to become Marvel’s answer to the Green Lantern Corps I have no idea, but I guess it’s not important since they’re all dead now anyway. Richard Rider is more powerful than ever because he possesses the cumulative power of the entire Corps and also houses the vast computer knowledge of Xandar’s Worldmind in his noggin. He also feels a tremendous burden to single-handedly carry on the Nova Corps tradition, to be a protector to all worlds at all times, responding to constant back-to-back distress calls. Not surprisingly, Rich is beginning to burn out a bit.

As the book opens, Nova is finally convinced to take a breather and check in with his family back on Earth. Unfortunately, things have changed quite a bit in his absence, and not for the better: several of his New Warriors teammates have died in the Stamford incident, the team’s name has become synonymous with “child-killing monsters” and Iron Man, director of SHIELD comes looking to sign him up for the Initiative. The Thunderbolts want to smack him down, his buddy Speedball has become an emo S-and-M depressive, and his own father is skeeved out to have Richard back in the house. Needless to say, Nova heads back to the stars sooner rather than later.

For the rest of the first year, Nova tied into the Annihilation Conquest in a pretty surprising way. DnA throw us a filthy curveball when Rich is actually assimilated by the Phalanx and becomes the villain for a couple of issues. In desperation, the Worldmind rebels against Richard and instills the Nova power in a female Kree warrior named Ko-Rel. Now, if this has happened in issue #1, readers might’ve thought this new Nova could be the new starring character, but since we just spent 3 issues establishing Rider, this seems extremely unlikely. It’s a testament to DnA’s writing skills that although we’re pretty sure Ko-Rel’s tenure will be short-lived we still become invested in her plight and are affected by how her story ultimately plays out.

Nova spends the rest of this book fighting off a techno-organic viral infection and dodging assimilated assassins Gamora and Drax the Destroyer, while seeking a way to defeat the Phalanx. He briefly takes refuge at Knowhere, a self-contained city-state floating at the end of time and space inside the head of a decapitated Celestial. Many species from all realities call Knowhere home as they observe the end of the universe (shades of Douglas Adams, but played straight), as well as a resident team of alien superheroes, and a security chief named Cosmo who happens to be a sentient Russian telepath canine, complete with cosmonaut suit! Rider ultimately tracks down Kvch, the long-lost Technarch homeworld, where the fate of the universe may end up in the hands of the most unlikely combatant of all-- former New Mutant goofball Warlock.

Rather than having a regular penciller, the book passed from Sean Chen to Wellington Alves to Mahmud A. Asrar to Paul Pelletier. Despite the inconsistency, the comic looks pretty good throughout, though nobody blew me out of my chair. Everyone seems capable of keeping up with DnA's demands for bizarre creatures and exotic locations. The most distracting thing about the art is some of the iffy costumes: all the pointy edges on Nova look ridiculous and unnecessarily dangerous, while Gamora basically runs around wearing a couple of strategically-placed ribbons, which makes it hard to take her seriously sometimes.

If team books are more your thing, DnA have you covered with Guardians of the Galaxy, the first six issues of which have been released in a "premiere" hardcover, which means it's smaller and contains fewer issues than the Nova book. This is a present-day incarnation of the Guardians, although elements of the more-familiar 31st-century team begin cropping up almost immediately. Clearly the writers plan to tie the two teams together in a lineage at some point.

In the wake of the Annihilation wave, the very fabric of time and space has been weakened, causing impromptu fissures in the structure of the universe. Peter Quill, formerly known as Star-Lord, is convinced that what's needed is a crack team of proactive cosmic troubleshooters to stop these crises as they crop up and convinces several of his allies to band together to battle all manner of unspeakable Lovecraftian abominations. Utilizing Knowhere's "Continuum Cortex", they are able to teleport through timespace to different crisis points in an effort to stem the tide. Right off the bat they also manage to piss off the Universal Church of Truth and get embroiled in a Skrull infiltration on board the station.

What makes the book work so well is the great mix of interesting characters, almost too many to keep track of, but I love it. Quill himself is an earnest soldier who feels guilty for letting the Phalanx conquer the Kree on his watch. Recruited for the team are three former Infinity Watch members (Adam Warlock, Gamora and Drax the Destroyer), all of whom are dealing with new identities, incarnations, and/or powers. A former Captain Marvel and the current Quasar, Phyla-Vell struggles with iffy self-confidence and the death of her lover as she tries to live up to the legacy of her quantum bands. The wise but eccentric Mantis backs up the team, and she has added telepathy and precognition to her power set (she has also, thankfully, stopped referring to herself as "this one" all the time). Probably the coolest character on the team is Rocket Raccoon, a wisecracking anthromorph with a giant gun that's bigger than he is. His best bud is Groot, who was formerly a 50-foot tall tree monster that stomped around proclaiming "I am Groot" over and over. After burning down during Conquest, Groot has since begun regrowing himself a la Swamp Thing, and is currently a 5-inch tall tree creature standing on Rocky's shoulder and proclaiming "I am Groot."

And by the way, I did mention that Knowhere's security chief is a cosmonaut telepathic dog in a spacesuit named Cosmo, right? I mean, that alone should convince you to run out and buy this!

The artist on GotG is the highly underrated Paul Pelletier, whose work I've enjoyed all the way back to the 90's version of DC's The Outsiders. His pencils are beautiful and his design work is imaginative; his action is well-choreographed. I see no reason this guy couldn't be as big as Alan Davis or Bryan Hitch, if fans would only take notice. Hope he's on this book for the long haul.

If I had any real reservation about Abnett and Lanning's space sagas, it's that they are just so relentlessly action-packed and event-driven there's not enough time to really slow down and give the characters a moment to breathe. To some that may be a strange complaint to have about a superhero comic, that there's too much action, but honestly there are so many great characters in these books I'd love to see them get a moment to shine in the spotlight. How about Rocket going back for some shore leave on his home planet? How about exploring the convoluted backstory of Quill and his father? When's the last time Phyla was on Titan? Hopefully these comics sell well enough to carry on for some time, because DnA have set up some great scenarios full of story potential and there's enough material for many entertaining tales to come.

Nova Rating: 8/10
Guardians of the Galaxy Rating: 9/10

Darth Mojo Rocks the Galaxy!!!

2009-01-24T20:03:00.000-05:00

Darth Mojo is a way-cool visual effects supervisor who is just finishing up his gig on Battlestar Galactica, and previously did digital work for Babylon 5 and Voyager. But that's not the subject of today's post. In his spare time Mojo has managed to throw together the coolest "mixtape" of SF techno genius I've heard in many a day.

Don't question, just go to this page, download the mp3, throw it on your iPod and commence booty shaking. It's way awesome!

If you tool around Mojo's blog you'll also find some fun sci-fi conversation, as well as some great artwork that he's kind enough to share. The full-sized version of the Enterprise-D art above became my new desktop background within 20 seconds of my laying eyes on it. Sweet!

Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising #1

2009-01-20T23:49:00.006-05:00

Boy, I've been looking forward to Shrapnel since Radical Comics released that cool, intriguing trailer a few months back. Okay, it looked a bit like a video game, but heavy metal mecha warfare, who can't get into that? In the intervening time, Radical has been promoting the heck out of it, sitting down for interviews with any site that'll have 'em. Hand it to these guys, they know how to market. Then you see the issue in question, a nice hefty size at 48 glossy pages for a stunning $1.99 cover price. How can you go wrong?

Well the short answer is: by having an uninspiring story and lousy art.

The issue opens with a military action that is depicted with such dark and murky art that it's hard to tell what the hell is going on. I certainly can't make out who is fighting whom, or who's winning. It's just flashes of armored soldiers, mechas and big guns and a lot of swirling flame. After 10 pages of this chaos, we find out that it isn't even a real battle we've been watching, but a virtual reality training exercise! Ultimately, we will realize that the marines training here aren't even the main characters of the story. In fact, they are invading world after world and crushing local resistance; in essence these are the bad guys. Why we want to watch generic hostile grunts practice fighting is beyond me.

Let me say up front, Bagus Homoto's paintwork is not to my taste at all. Pretty much the entire book is as dark and impenetrable as the opening. Even for scenes taking place in broad daylight, everyone is clouded in shadows and murk. Considering that faces don't look so swift even when we get a good look, maybe that's on purpose. Sometimes you have to take a hint from where the word balloons are pointing to figure out who's even speaking. It's a shame, the art has been so strong on previous Radical books that this is a huge letdown for me.

A quarter of the way into the book we are finally introduced to the protagonists, a trio of Venusian miners called Sam, Stap and Jammer. It's a somewhat trite scene in which the volatile Stap gets into a barroom brawl with a group of artificially-enhanced "Genotypes," as they argue back and forth whether naturally-born "helots" like Stap deserve equal treatment. It's exposition by insult, with lines like: "I'll break it down pre-school so you can understand-- we're smarter than you and that's why we run the system" or "Helots are just as good a human as any splicer. So I can't figure out pi to the last digit in my head, or run as fast as you, but at least I have some fricking manners!" Not sure I buy that anyone ever talks like that, but as least writer M. Zachary Sherman was able to set up the Genotype/Helot dichotomy for us.

By the end of the issue, I'm not sure how this class warfare even fits in. The main plot concerns the approaching invasion force of the Alliance, who have demanded the surrender of the local government of Venus. World by world, the Alliance has been assimilating the free colonies through brute force, and now have given the President of Venus 24 hours to surrender. Although the planet has no standing army, local genotypes and helots have just as much to lose if they don't volunteer to join the local militia to take a stand against the overwhelming numbers of space marines. Stap and Jammer answer the call, but Sam tries to talk some sense into them, failing to persuade them that they are going to die for a lost cause.

Sam is the female character depicted on the various covers for this series (don't ask me who or what "Aristeia" is; unless I missed a reference, the word isn't even mentioned), and really the only character who is given much depth in issue one. She's quiet, reflective and no-nonsense, and obviously there are some important events in her past which define who she is now. There's certainly some reason why she spends her off hours arguing with a psychological AI program versed in post-traumatic stress disorder, which she has elected to manifest as a hologram of her deceased little sister. When Stap accidentally begins floating off into space during a mining mishap, she reacts with much more command and unconscious training than a simple miner would be expected to have. The issue ends with her planning to flee in the face of the coming storm, but considering that she's wielding weaponry on the battlefield on most of the covers, one would assume that a change of heart is coming up.

Mark Long and Nick Sagan are credited as the co-creators of this book, but I'm not sure what that really means since neither of them wrote or drew it. Sherman uses some weird pacing and clunky dialogue, requiring characters to regurgitate information that the listener would already know, in order to explain the scenario to the reader. The characters other than Sam are pretty thin, and don't ask me why we spend so much time with the Alliance marines, unless the intention is to make some of them sympathetic in future issues, and not the steel-booted thugs everyone believes them to be. The art is just a mess, way too impressionistic and unappealing through most of the book. Honestly, any one of the many cover artists working on this series would be a better choice for the interiors. Radical, I still love you guys, but I think I'm gonna give this series a pass.

Rating: 6.5/10

Ythaq: The Forsaken World #1

2009-01-18T15:22:00.000-05:00

Even if you aren't a huge Marvel fan, you have to tip your hat for what they've managed to accomplish. In a decade's time they've gone from bankruptcy to being the dominant force in the comics industry. Personally, I haven't been too pleased with the majority of their superhero titles the last couple of years-- I find many of them too dark, too event-driven, characterization-poor, continuity ignorant and both inappropriate for and impenetrable to potential younger readers. But they do sell like crazy, and it's hard to argue with success. Also, it's dangerous to generalize-- they do cater to old-timers like me with stuff like Agents of Atlas, retro Spider-Man minis, and various Joe Casey continuity-implants. Marvel has also done a fine job of branching out and trying to appeal to a wider range of potential readers. They adapt other media with projects like Dark Tower, Magician, Anita Blake, and even classics such as the Odyssey or Treasure Island. For SF and space opera lovers like you and me there's the terrific line of Annihilation books and, more importantly for the purposes of this review, their well-advised partnership with the European publisher Soleil.

Whoever's job it is to select which Soleil properties to bring over to the U.S., I say "bravo" to you and keep up the good work. In my first post on this blog I extolled the virtues of Universal War One (now available in a collected hardback, btw). I didn't collect Sky Doll or Samurai, but saw how gorgeous they look, and I think their latest release, Christophe Arleston and Adrien Floch’s Ythaq: the Forsaken World, may be their most beautiful book yet.

Lieutenant Granite Welgoat is an astronavigator aboard the Comet's Tail, a luxury starliner ferrying wealthy clientele between exotic worlds. As punishment for repeated tardiness in reporting for duty, Granite has been assigned the lowly task of serving drinks to the passengers. Which is why she is behind the bar in the Marina Lounge when a strange spatial anomaly literally tears the ship apart. Luckily, individual sections of the ship are designed to seal up and become self-sustaining escape pods in case of emergency. Trapped inside with a tousled-haired happy-go-lucky maintenance tech named Narvarth and a gorgeous but snooty young socialite named Callista, Granite rides the escape vessel as it breaks away from the doomed cruiser and plunges down to the surface of an uncharted world in the middle of nowhere.

The first issue doesn't really explain why or by whom the planet Ythaq is "forsaken", but it certainly is a strange and perilous place for three strangers to make their way through. After a rough ocean landing, their entire escape craft is swallowed whole by a giant sea monster. No sooner do they get out of this fix then they are put on trial by fuzzy tusked primitives with speech impediments for wrecking half their village. The trio land in one predicament after another as they cross the foreign landscape in search of fellow survivors, as well as chunks of the downed ship that may contain a transponder that can be used to signal for help.

As if navigating across a strange world and dealing with its bizarre lifeforms wasn't enough of a challenge, our heroes remain barely a step ahead of deadly saurian-steeded warriors breathing down their neck. These mercs are in the service of the local ruler, a sadistic femme fatale bedecked in jeweled silks and cowl called Margrave Ophyde. It not entirely clear why she's so hot to capture as many survivors as possible, but considering she whips and even eviscerates even her own lackeys who displease her, it can't be anything good.

Allow me to commence gushing profusely: Adrien Floch's artwork is absolutely gorgeous. Based on his landscapes, cityscapes, costume design and creature creations, he would be a boon to any movie production; everything is rendered in painstaking detail and every page crackles with imagination. The aliens are fascinating and the girls are sexy (I suppose Narvarth is sexy too, if you're into that sort of thing). One major regret is the artwork has been shrunk down from its original album size to fit a standard American comic page. On the upside, each page has four tiers of story rather than the usual three, meaning more story in a book already a generous 61(!) pages in length. You'll be wanting to reach for a magnifying glass to take in every aspect of Floch's exacting work.

Do yourself a solid and find a copy of Ythaq: the Forsaken World #1-- if your LCS doesn't have any, ask 'em to order you one, or hie thee to the internets. I do worry about the long-term success of the Marvel/Soleil venture; it's so far outside the safe spandex-clad comfort zone of most U.S. comic readers. In my pessimistic way, I do expect it to be a noble failure. But hope springs eternal, and as long as fantastic books of this level of quality continue to be released, I'll be first in line to snap 'em up!

Rating: 9.5/10

Research Materials for the Advanced Trekologist

2009-01-05T11:21:00.022-05:00

I literally have a tilting stack of comics and graphic novels to review, which means it's time to take my leave of the Star Trek universe for a bit (at least until I finish up Best Destiny). Before I go, however, I have a few suggestions for those interested in learning more about Star Trek beyond the films and series. If you are interested in the vast array of novels and comics, here are a couple essentials that you want to have in your collection.

In Voyages of Imagination, Jeff Ayers takes on the unenviable task of compiling a comprehensive directory of 40 years worth of officially licensed Star Trek fiction, from the inception of the series through early 2007. Ayers provides publishing notes, plot teasers and background interviews with authors and editors for hundreds of novels, dozens of anthologies and even the many Trek ebooks available online. Closing things out is the piece de resistance for a supernerd like me: a comprehensive chronology of Trek fiction listed along the franchise's future timeline, copiously annotated with footnotes pointing out the discrepancies. Glorious!

For a very long time, Pocket Books churned out some rather bland and by-the-numbers Star Trek books. Reading through some of the behind-the-scenes goings-on discussed here, it's really not all that surprising that some of this stuff turned out less than fantastic.

For one thing, it seems that these books have an extremely fast turnaround between commission and deadline, to the point where I'm not even sure how the writers could even produce more than one draft. Also, many early books in certain series were written before those shows even began to air, leaving the authors to page through the series' bibles and basically guess what the characters and settings would turn out to be like. No wonder blatant errors aren't caught during the editing stage, like Data using contractions throughout a novel, or people beaming back and forth between DS9 and Bajor as if they are in transport range of each other.

It also seems like Gene Roddenberry and his lapdog Richard Arnold did their damnedest to suck as much character and life out of these books as possible. Writers faced a Catch-22 in that they couldn't develop their own characters and yet they couldn't have anything significant happen to the main cast they were obliged to use. Since every Starfleet officer is a paragon of virtue and all human foibles have been overcome, the heroes can never be wrong or have personality conflicts. Lotsa luck creating interesting drama under those conditions!

For a long time, there was also no cohesion to the line, no recurring characters were allowed, or plot threads from book to book. One of the best things about the Star Wars expanded universe is that every book fits into a single continuum where storylines and characters evolve and recur under different writers. Meanwhile, all Star Trek novels had to be self-contained, one might even say designed to be insignificant. Not only were authors discouraged from referring to previous books that came before, they weren't even supposed refer to characters or plots from their own previous Star Trek books they'd written themselves!

The end result was standalone books that had to jump through hoops and stand or fall on their own merits. And while I'm not saying that there were no good Star Trek novels on the shelves, there were an awful lot of mediocre ones, and the ratio was not good. After being let down too many times, I decided trying to find diamonds in the rough was too time-consuming when there was so much other great stuff to read, and I turned my back on the Trek tie-ins altogether.

But I gather times have changed at Pocket Books since I stopping paying attention. Now, they aren't only publishing story arcs, but have been given free reign to extrapolate major events beyond the end of various series. The Enterprise books have retconned the horrible series finale "These Are the Voyages..." out of existence and are now setting up the epic Romulan Wars. The post-Voyager books are covering the various crewmembers' adjusting to being back in Federation space and there is an entire Titan series exploring Riker's post-Nemesis adventures as captain (finally!) of his own starship. By the time I had finished pouring through Voyages of Imagination, I was interested in checking out Trek fiction the way I haven't been in a very long time.

I also learned all sorts of interesting tidbits about past Trek novels as well. Did you know, for instance, that Killing Time as originally published contained such a blatant homoerotic undercurrent between Kirk and Spock that an outraged Roddenberry ordered the book recalled, pulped, and rewritten. (Wonder if there are still originals out there, and what they go for?) Or that "the Lost Years" series was planned to be much more ambitious but got cut off at the knees? That Lawrence Watt-Evans created the pseudonym "Nathan Archer" because he didn't want the sales of tie-in books to affect how his fantasy books were preordered by bookstores?That Probe was almost completely rewritten, although it still is credited to original (and thoroughly dissed) author Margaret Wander Bonanno? Ayers declines to go into this last controversy in any detail, but merely mentioning its existence brings one to some interesting reading on the Internet, not to mention Bonanno's original draft, Music of the Spheres.

I'm sure it was no easy task trying to figure out a way to organize listings of hundreds of books, but Voyages of Imagination isn't laid out in a particularly intuitive way. Bantam books merit their own chapter, but then Pocket's TOS books are separated between a chapter for the numbered books and another for the unnumbered ones. Crossover series are yet another chapter. Novels aren't even grouped all together, as the ebook section is plopped down right in the middle. The odds of finding a given book by flipping around are extremely slim, however there is a nice author and title index in the back. Each entry has a reproduction of cover art, but in some cases I was puzzled to see more recent art, presumably from a later printing. If I'd had my druthers the original cover art would've been used in all cases.

I personally would've been up for a more critical take on these books as well. Ayers' approach is to cover each book as if they are all of equal merit, when in reality they so aren't. I think I read in an interview somewhere (which I can't find now, dammit) that he'd originally intended to give all the books a star rating, but eventually decided against it. This guide is published by Pocket Books, who likely wouldn't've been pleased to release a book slagging some of their other products. Also, it would be a creep move to solicit authors for their reminiscences and then turn around and give their book a low rating. So while I would still someday love to see a single book that turned a critical eye on the Trek fiction, I get why this isn't that book.

The interviews range from detailed and informative to cursory comments (sounds like William Shatner blocked out 10 minutes of time to discuss his entire series), but disappointingly some books get no backstory at all, either because Ayers couldn't track down the author or he succeeded and they declined to talk to him. Meanwhile, I feel that Ayers spent an inordinate amount of space covering every single short story in every Trek anthology, particularly since, let's face it, the Brave New Worlds books are basically fanfic contest winners. Something's a little off when the 371-page Enterprise: The First Adventure only merits a quarter-page of coverage, while, say, the short story "If I Lose Thee..." is covered for two full pages.

Still, it's not entirely fair to judge a book on what I would've done, rather than what's there. And there is a ton of useful and interesting information to be found within, making Voyages of Imagination well worth the $21 cover price. Even better (well, maybe not from the author's point of view), it can be found at a marked-down remainder price, making it a ridiculously great value and that much easier for me to recommend this book.

If you're more interested in the comic book side of Trek fiction, find yourself a copy of Star Trek: the Complete Comic Book Collection. Graphic Imagining Technology (yes, their acronym is GIT. Stop snickering) has done a splendid job in bringing legal digitized comics to fans at an affordable price. For under 50 bucks, this DVD-Rom brings you hundreds of Trek comics, from all interations, on a single shiny disk.

I have hardly scratched the surface as far as reading this wealth of material, but I have taken the disc for a spin to see what's what. Upon inserting, a menu page opens up in Adobe Acrobat, offering not only a comics option, but also an introductory essay under "history" and short character intros under "Bios". These are both pretty lame and presumably anyone who is into Star Trek enough to buy this already knows everything written here. Under bonus materials you can find five comics produced by Power Records, which came with 45 records dramatizing the story. Alas, the sound file is not included, but still these comics are an interesting curiosity.

Amongst the other comics you will find here:

61 Gold Key comics, as well as supplemental material, produced between 1967 and 1979. I have only read the first few so far, but they barely seem like Star Trek to me; the costumes and the Enterprise are drawn correctly (well except for the afterburner flames shooting out of the warp nacelles), but otherwise they seem like pretty generic SF stories with little knowledge of the Trek universe. I checked issue 61 and it does seem to have a better grasp on the characters, so they must have improved somewhere along the way. Overall, though, I'm not sure how highly these stories are regarded by Trek fandom.

In the DC section, you get about 150 TOS comics that take place in the timeframe of movies III-VI, as well as the first TNG series. Because Malibu had the DS9 license, they had to crossover with another company to bring the two casts together. The gorgeous Debt of Honor graphic novel by Chris Claremont and Adam Hughes is here. An interesting curiosity to be found in this section is Who's Who in Star Trek, which offers character pages of info on TOS cast and villains, a la DC's own Who's Who handbooks for their superhero universe.

Malibu seems not to have had license to do anything other than DS9, but they explored that corner of Trek universe pretty thoroughly, not only with a DS9 monthly but various limited series, even one for the Maquis. There's also a Terek Nor special; I wonder how it jibes with Pocket's recently released Terek Nor prequel trilogy.

The Marvel section has not only the short-lived Post-TMP series from the late 70's but a ton of books that the company published in the 90's after they bought out Malibu. This not only included the main TV series, but comics devoted to Captain Pike and a Starfleet Academy book starring Nog!

The license then bounced back to DC again; specifically to their Wildstorm branch. However, they didn't seem to be overly interested in really mining the franchise, as they only released 30 comics while they had it.

Here's what you won't find on the disc:

Any IDW comics. The newest comics on this disc are from Oct. 2002; IDW gained the license after that.

Any Trek/X-Men crossovers, presumably because Marvel's permission to use the X-Men couldn't be secured.

Any Star Trek newspaper comic strips-- despite the fact that the original solicitations for this DVD advertised their inclusion. Either they are so well-hidden that I can't find them, or someone had a change of heart and decided against adding them-- maybe they ran out of space! But I do feel burned a bit by this case of false advertising.

I doubt that anything will replace the pleasure of grabbing a honest-to-god yellowing-newsprint comic book and taking it with me to whatever cozy corner I like to read. Reading comics on a computer screen is just not fun. But from a research perspective, the convenience of the Complete Comics Collection is just amazing. This amount of material would take hundreds of dollars to collect, and fill up a long box or more to boot. To have it all on one disk is, from a legitimate source rather than illegal download, a terrific convenience and a good value, to boot. Perhaps GIT can ring up Lucas about a Star Wars DVD-rom next?

Switchblade Honey

2009-01-04T23:51:00.010-05:00

Are you getting tired of all this Star Trek talk yet? Are you not a fan? Do you find Star Trek dull, pompous and ridiculously self-important? Are you happy that Enterprise got canned and there's no new Trek show clogging up the airwaves? Mate, has Warren Ellis got a comic for you!

According to this book's introduction, Ellis was subjected to entirely too much Trek while his girlfriend was convalescing after childbirth and came up with the idea for this graphic novel as a result. It occurred to him that, more than anyone in the world, he would want to see British character actor Ray Winstone as the captain of a Federation starship. As he ruminated on the idea "all my loathing of that profoundly ordinary, polite, self-important and bland future presented by TV science fiction came surging up. All yellow, and with bits in."

In this "mental puke", Ellis stacks the deck a bit by presenting us with a sort of evil twin to the Federation. Rather than using a thinly-disguised noble and well-meaning UFP to fulfill the role of straight-man, he stacks the deck by making the Earth alliance a bunch of right bastards. Far from following a Prime Directive, humanity in this future lands wherever they want to, and rape the land and the locals however they see fit. This comes back to bite them on the ass when they make a mess of the Chasta's homeworld. What no one realized was that the Chasta only choose to present themselves as simple and primitive for aesthetic reasons; they are actually packed with implanted technology, telepathically connected via hive mind, and consider the invading humans to be "ebola with shoes."

The war with the Chasta has gone so poorly that Earth is a month away from being occupied by the enemy. The situation is so desperate that one maverick general decides to spring some incarcerated officers and turn them loose on the Chasta. Of course, since the military are a bunch of assholes, it turns out that most of the characters are in prison for bogus reasons. The anti-hero of the tale, John Ryder, is being detained for disobeying orders to destroy a friendly vessel in order to wipe out the Chasta attackers in its wake. His new gunner is in prison for refusing to fire on civilians, and his electronics expert is being punished for figuring out a way to kill Chasta by blowing out all the airlocks on their ship-- thus depriving the gunner, a rear admiral's son, a chance at a medal. John's new first officer, Susan Nile, castrated her captain when she caught him raping a junior officer. So these people are all "criminals", but ones that you actively root for.

Many stories have a macguffin to get the action going; in the case of Switchblade Honey just about everything in the book: the setting, the mission, the plot, are all one big macguffin in service of getting these colorful characters together, bouncing off each other and doing their thing. And basically their thing is smoking, drinking and swearing. Ellis calls this book anti-Star Trek, "an extended gag at the colourless, clean SF of the big media." Simply put, it's an excuse to get Winstone on the bridge of a Federation starship, bouncing a cigarette butt off the back of his straight-arrow pilot's head and calling him a "twat". Notice how the titular spaceship has a cheshire grin on the cover of the book?

This story might be pretty lightweight, but they sure didn't skimp on the artwork. Brandon McKinney is a polished penciller who takes the project seriously, regardless of the actual content. I see hints of Dave Gibbons and Alan Davis here, but McKinney most closely resembles Mark Bagley. If you ask me, that's pretty good company to be in. It's a testament to Warren Ellis as a force in this industry that no matter which publisher he's writing for or how much of a lark the project is, he always attracts first-rate artists to work with.

I'm not entirely clear on the publishing history of Switchblade Honey; I guess it was originally published in 2003, although it was recently resolicited in Previews, which is when I ordered it. Perhaps this is a new printing. At any rate, this book gets most of its mileage out of enjoyment of the kind of rough, sarcastic, borderline misanthropic characters Ellis (not to mention Garth Ennis and Mark Millar) likes to use. At this point, though, this archetype has sort of lost its attraction for me due to extreme overuse, meaning this book may primarily be of interest to diehard Ellis fans and fervent Star Trek haters.

Rating: 7/10

Final Frontier

2009-01-01T22:53:00.015-05:00

Wait! Don't run away screaming, I'm not about to discuss the horrendous fifth Star Trek film-- maybe another day. Before the Shat appropriated the title, Final Frontier was a perfectly entertaining Pocket Books "Giant Novel" released in 1988. It concerns the first adventure of the very first Constitution-class starship, so new that it hasn't yet even been christened Enterprise.

James T. Kirk only appears in the novel's framing sequence; the main character of the story is Jim's father, George Samuel Kirk. While young Jim is still a boy of 10 on his Iowa farm, George is light years away, serving as the security chief on Starbase Two. He and his friend Drake Reed are shanghaied by mysterious strangers and he is pressed into service as the first officer aboard the Federation's crown jewel: a new starship larger and more powerful than any ever before designed. Considering the ship's captain is a benevolent cardigan-wearing Brit named Robert April, it seems Kirk could have been asked politely, but possibly Diane Carey was desperate to hook readers with some action right away.

The kidnapping makes little sense, but the book improves considerably after that. A group of Federation colonists are stranded on the wrong side of a deadly ion storm with only days to live, and the newly-minted starship is the only vessel that has powerful enough shields to make it through in time to save them. So desperate is the situation that the untested vessel is launched unfinished with just a skeleton crew of just 57 souls.

The fates not only of the Enterprise and the colonists, but of the Federation itself are threatened by a single act of sabotage which strands the would-be rescuers deep in Romulan space-- practically on the doorstep of Romulus-- with most of their systems offline. Through no fault of their own, April and Kirk have broken the peace treaty and brought two enemies to the brink of a second galactic war. The Romulans can tell that the invading ship is immensely powerful and assumes the Federation is preparing to roll right over them. The only thing that prevents them from blowing the (as-yet unnamed) Enterprise out of the sky is the possibility that they can seize her and unlock the secrets of her advanced technology.

Central to this story is the clash of wills between the pacifistic captain and his more aggressive-minded first officer. They represent the dual nature of Starfleet vessels: primarily built for exploration and making peaceful contact with the greater galactic community, but also packing the firepower to defend against species that don't want to play nice. The idealistic April is so concerned about the principles of the Federation that he seriously considers surrender, while the more pragmatic Kirk argues that force is necessary to prevent the greater danger of the Enterprise's secrets falling into Romulan hands. This personality conflict leads April towards the end of the book to theorize that "it'll take someone wiser than the two of us to command this starship. An amalgam of us, probably, if such a person can be found," an obvious foreshadowing to Jim Kirk's future captaincy.

Beyond the two main characters, the rest of the Starfleet crew rather pale in comparison to their more entertaining Romulan counterparts. While it's interesting to know who the original Enterprise crew was, many (including Kirk's friend Drake) are basically namechecked and given little opportunity to shine beyond that. The only other crewmembers to have much impact are the cantankerous chief engineer Dr. Brownell, who provides comic relief with his cranky biting remarks and the extremely high-strung medical officer Sarah Poole, whom we know from the animated series episode "The Counter-clock Incident" is fated to become April's wife. Meanwhile, over on the Romulan vessel Raze, all sorts of cloak and dagger intrigue and chain of command struggles are afoot. The even-handed T'Cael, a reflective non-militaristic captain, has been basically exiled to a dishonorable interior patrol for being out of favor with the Praetor of the Empire. On board to keep tabs on him is Ry'iak, who initially seems like a cowardly and ineffective toady of the Praetor, but once the crisis begins it soon becomes apparent just how dangerous he can be to have around.

One needn't be a hardcore Trekkie to enjoy Final Frontier, just a fan of exciting, unpredictable space opera action adventure. There's planetary bombardment, attacks from indigenous carnivores, perilous rescues, and exciting chases through unfinished sections of the Enterprise. There is an act of murder so disturbing in its cruelty it borders on belonging in a horror story. And the starship battles... personally I love starship battles on screen-- they're usually my favorite parts of the films or shows they appear in-- but ship battles in prose are often dull to me. I've actually been known to skim the dogfight scenes in X-Wing books, ostensibly the most appealing part to other readers. Maybe it's her nautical experience, but Carey manages to string together several exciting set pieces in the inevitable battle. Also, there is a clever final stratagem at the close that will show why the Romulans decided to prioritize the development of cloaking technology.

There are are a few missteps, too. One pretty significant villain from the first half is significantly downplayed in the second half to the point where he/she is practically a non-factor. Also, the April/Poole romance is a misfire because the doctor is such a irrational, shrieking headcase you feel sorry for the poor captain to be saddled with her. The most unfortunate disappointment of the book, though, is through no fault of Carey's, and that's that subsequent Trek series and films, especially Enterprise, have rendered a lot of the "historical" aspects of this book moot. The dates are way off, for one thing, and it turns out that the NCC-1701 Enterprise was far from the first starship of significance. Also by the time of TOS, transporters were old hat, and the Romulans already had cloaking technology.

Regardless of these discrepancies, Final Frontier is a very fun book worth a read. In fact, I would go far as to say that Pocket Books should hire Diane Carey to revisit the book and rewrite it so that its finer details are more in line with current Star Trek canon. This is too successful a book to stay out-of-print due to petty details like whether the dates add up. This book didn't deal all that much with Jim Kirk's early years, but the sequel Best Destiny apparently does. The screenwriters of the upcoming JJ Abrams film cite Best Destiny as a book they looked at while developing their version of Kirk; after reading Final Frontier I'm very much looking forward to tackling the sequel next.

Rating: 8/10

Virtual Display Case: Post-Christmas Hangover Edition

2008-12-27T14:07:00.019-05:00

Howdy, space cadets! Now that you've spread holiday cheer to friends and loved ones for another year, it's time to get back to eleven months of coveting neat geeky goodies for numero uno!

Umbrella Academy Loot

Now that Umbrella Academy is my new favorite book of the moment, I've started to notice all the cool tie-ins they have coming down the pike. I could take or leave the Vanya statue, but I sure wish they had released a hardcover of the Apocalypse Suite before the softcover!

Huntress PVC

I don't even particularly care for the character of Huntress, but for some unaccountable reason I think this is a real cool design. Nice work!

Buck Rogers Atomic Disintegrator Pistol

Let's face it: this is the raygun of all rayguns. Heck, even the Foo Fighters pay tribute to it on the cover of their first album. But am I crazy to think that for 180 bucks I could track down an original on ebay instead of settling for a replica? Hell for 180 bucks it should actually be capable of disintegrating stuff! Now that would be a cool toy!

B.P.R.D. Ring

Most mornings when I roll out of bed, I feel just as freakish as the folks in the BPRD. I feel like I'd fit right in-- except for the part about not having any superpowers. (Alas)

Avengers Hall of Fame: Falcon and Iron Man

The Avengers are my all-time favorite superteam. If I had a stately geek manor as opposed to a boring old, y'know, house, I would have an entire hall devoted to every hero who has ever been an Avenger. Although I guess I would have to include Wolverine and Spider-Man, in that case (sigh) My favorite Iron Man armor is the early design with the pointed mask, but the above classic look is a close second. Are you like me, did you immediately recognize the pose from the cover of Iron Man #126?:

Blassreiter Berzerker:

I have no idea what Blassreiter is; never heard of it, never seen a minute of it. Alls I know is this is a cool-looking character. Sorta like a bastard love child of Baron Karza and a ninja!

Gossamer and Mad Scientist Vinyl Set:

Okay, seeing how this one is only 12 bucks, I may have to break down and get it. Monsters are the most iiiiiiiinteresting people!

The Enterprise Experiment

2008-12-21T23:13:00.006-05:00

IDW is the latest in a long line of comic publishers to take a crack at the Star Trek franchise. Over the years, Gold Key, Marvel, DC, Malibu and Wildstorm have produced Star Trek comics, but I’ve never been overly impressed with any company’s version. For one thing, Star Trek rarely seems to attract top-notch artists. And while Lucasfilm over the years has done an admirable job of coordinating all their tie-ins so they fit in one coherent overall storyline, the Star Trek series are all over the place, and don’t tie together well at all. Do the IDW books fall into the same trap?

The Enterprise Experiment was co-written by D.C. Fontana, who is a veritable legend among Trek writers, having been consistently involved with the franchise from its inception. Fontana has written episodes of Star Trek, the Animated Series, the Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, as well as the novel Vulcan’s Glory and the scripts for several Trek video games. She obviously has a very intimate knowledge of these characters and their universe, which comes through clearly on the page. I do have to question, though, whether the non-Trekkie who is not versed in the lore will be able to pick this up and enjoy it as straight science fiction adventure.

The first two issues of the Enterprise Experiment serve as a sequel to the classic TOS episode “The Enterprise Incident”, which was also written by Fontana 40 years ago. In that story, Spock hoodwinked a female Romulan commander and the Enterprise made off with the Romulans’ cloaking device. This book opens about 2 years later and the Enterprise has been selected to test out the Federation’s own version of the device. Unfortunately, all does not go as planned and the ship and her crew begin to slowly phase out of their proper dimensional plane. In the midst of this crisis, who should show up on the scene but a Romulan bird of prey, commanded by the very same commander who lost her cloaking device in the first place? (what, I ask you, what are the odds?) The majority of this two-parter consists of a running (and floating, when the artificial gravity goes out) firefight with a Romulan boarding party, while Scotty is frantically trying to solidify the ship before everyone fades out of existence.

The artist on this book is Gordon Purcell, who also has been associated with Trek for a pretty long time, having pencilled many issues of the DC Star Trek series during the eighties and nineties. I’m sorry to say that I find Purcell’s work to be competent and serviceable while being almost completely uninteresting and unexciting. In fact, the artwork is so dull that I almost dozed off just now while typing Purcell’s name. I feel like Purcell gets these gigs primarily because he is quite good at making the character’s likenesses match the real actors who play them. While that would be a neat bonus if Bones looks like DeForrest Kelley and Sulu looks like George Takei (Oh my!) it’s of much less importance to me than exciting storytelling and fantastic imagery, which this book unfortunately lacks.

By the way, the script doesn’t do Purcell any favors, either. Way too much of this book takes place in the interiors of ships and shuttles. It reminds me of “bottle shows” of bygone Trek series, where the producers needed to save budget so the entire episode would take place on pre-existing sets. This is a comic, for Surak’s sake, they can take the adventure literally anywhere and have nearly anything happen, yet we get page after page of constricting ship interiors. Even when the story calls for some eye-popping visuals they still blow it. At one point, in order to escape from the Romulans, Kirk decides to fly the phased Enterprise right through a pulsar. Surely that would make for an exciting page of visuals, right? For some unfathomable reason the decision was made to set this scene on the bridge with no exterior shots at all! The only panel to even suggest that they are flying through a star shows the bridge crew shielding their eyes from the blinding glare! (And by the way, couldn't they just turn off the viewscreen until they make it out the other side? Sheesh!)

The third and fourth issues comprise a second adventure, in which the Klingon Captain Kor gains possession of a powerful artifact of the ancient alien race known as the Preservers. The device resembles a similar device that messed with Kirk's head on the planet Amerind (in "The Paradise Syndrome"), and Kirk is desperate that the Klingons should not gain the knowledge of this incomprehensibly advanced technology. The crew actually gets to get off the ship in this one, going planetside and also storming the Klingons' base to steal the artifact back. Sulu gets a moment in the sun disguised as a Klingon and seeing some undercover action.

One of the strongest elements of this miniseries is how effortlessly Fontana and her co-writer Derek Chester weave together disparate elements of Trek continuity and work them into a coherent narrative. The final part of this tale leads to a confrontation with a member of the Organians, who previously enforced a policy of non-violence between humans and Klingons. In the final pages we learn some interesting tidbits about the Preservers, including that the Organians serve them, the Great Galactic Barrier was created by them, and that they predict Lt. Arex's race the Edosians have an important role to play in the future development of the galaxy. You will also see flashback cameos with Jim's nephew Kirk, McCoy's daughter JoAnna, Sarek, Carol and David Marcus. And the phasing/cloak connection clearly foreshadows the TNG episode "The Pegasus". Again, Trek fans will probably be intrigued by what I just wrote, everyone else is likely to scratch their heads and say "The what now?"

These IDW miniseries are being billed as Star Trek: Year Four, the premise being to show the fourth year of the Enterprise's five-year mission, if the show hadn't been cancelled when it was. Which seems a bit laughable because there are already roughly a couple of hundred books and comics covering this same time period. However, upon further examination while Fontana and Chester draw on tons of TV and movie references, this book pretty much ignores all the other previous tie-in material. For instance, a quick look at Memory Beta shows that, including this mini, there are now at least 3 different creators of the Galactic Barrier, and several different explanations as to why the Organians stopped intervening in violence between the Federation and the Klingon empire. Like I said, Star Wars expanded universe is well done, Trek expanded universe is a big incoherent mess.

I feel like I need to give The Enterprise Experiment two ratings, one for Trekkies and one for the non-initiated. I think that Trek fans will dig the characterization, the bits of Trek lore peppered throughout, and the interesting way the creators tie various elements of the history together, at the same time teasing intriguing future storylines. Those who don't know Trek are likely to see some blandly rendered gunfights, some chasing, a bit of trickery, and a lot of weird retro looking clothes and sets. This comic is preaching to the choir.

Trekkie rating: 7.5/10
Non-Trekkie rating: 6/10

Dead Space (Hardcover Collection)

2008-12-16T22:53:00.005-05:00

Having already reviewed the Dead Space DVD a few weeks back, it’s now time for me to turn my attention to the comic miniseries that first got the ball rolling. That’s just the backwards kind of a guy I am. This Image series by Antony Johnston and Ben Templesmith is collected in a very nice hardcover and recounts the initial uncovering of the mysterious alien “Marker” on the mining planet of Aegis 7.

In the film, the unrest caused by the hardcore Unitologist faction is just one of the several plot threads running through the story. Here, the conflict between the devout and the non-believers is the central narrative that drives the storyline. Because they are convinced that the Marker is a cornerstone of their faith, the Unitologists among the miners become obsessed with seeing it, touching it, being near it, and are obviously very concerned with how the discovery is handled. The Unitologists are righteous and the skeptics are annoyed, and tensions build very quickly under the artifact’s not-so-subtle influence. Soon the entire colony is a powder keg ready to blow.

Here’s my problem with this scenario: it’s never really made clear why the Unitologists are the target of such derision right from the outset. In the future timeline of this universe, is all religion considered supernatural hokum and nonsense? Or is there a reason why Unitology in particular is worthy of such scorn from the others? Because it is never explained, the non-religious miners come off as judgmental pricks. I mean, I don’t have a religious bone in my body, but when I see someone wearing a yarmulke or making the sign of the cross I don’t run up to them and tell them how irrational and foolish they are; that would be obnoxious. Security Chief Bram Neumann is meant to be our P.O.V. character, but he’s set up in the early going as an intolerant bully. The Unitologists are kooks and everyone else is mean, so is there anyone to root for here?

Granted, once the Marker really starts to mess up everyone’s minds, the Unitologists all go off the deep end and do some crazy shit. But even the non-believers are somewhat affected, losing sleep and seeing dead people. Murders and suicides begin to escalate, people barricade themselves in their rooms and draw on the walls, and oh yeah, there’s a weird fungus growing in the air ducts. And then, of course, the Necromorphs come and everyone is equally screwed, believer or not.

Neumann does what he can to figure out what the hell is going on before it all escalates out of control, but he is dealing with increasingly-crazed zealots, increasingly-violent insomniacs, and an ever-growing alien malevolence. He won't get any help from his "superiors": both the director of colony and the captain of the Ishimura are die-hard Unitologists whose only concern is the safe handling and relocation of the Marker, regardless of how many people die in the meantime. This is one of those horror scenarios where the writing on the wall says everyone is screwed, and it becomes a question of whether a small handful might somehow escaped or everyone is doomed.

Even after both reading the comic and seeing the movie, I still remain unclear about the connections between the Marker, the Unitologists, and the Necromorphs. It seems to be implied that the Marker is a fake, meant to dupe the Unitologists because their weak wills make them more susceptible to mental manipulation. But if so where did the fake marker come from, and who or what would go to such elaborate lengths to guarantee that the perfect conditions would be met to support a deadly virus that would create an army of zombie demons? To what end? I decided to wiki the game to see if there is some closure to these issues, but apparently not. You would think after dropping around a hundred bucks for a book, DVD and game you could at least expect that some of these mysteries would be resolved, but apparently we are meant to do some reading between the lines and drawing of our own conclusions. Either that or they are counting on everyone to come back for the sequel!

(By the way, the character bios in the front of this hardcover include what may be a very telling error in the text of Director Carthusia's bio, explaining that "his family has been a respected pillar of the Church of Scientology for three generations..." Scientology? I thought the religion in this series is called Unitology. Hmm...

Both comic and movie have a goodly amount of creepy excitement, but they also are so similar that I would only recommend that a die-hard fan of this universe buy them both. For everyone else, one or the other would do. For me, the comic is the better-looking of the two. One of my few disappointments with the movie was the art style on the characters which was very generic 80's to me. On the other hand, there is no disputing that Ben Templesmith has a very interesting and distinct art style; it might not be everyone's cup of tea but I mostly dug it (although I'm not a fan of how he draws hands). I'm not sure if Templesmith did the coloring as well (there's no separate colorist credited), but whoever was responsible did a fantastic job, giving the whole scenario a dark and tense look through interesting palette choices and shading. I think this is one of the first times I've even mentioned the colorist in a review, which says something about how good I think this book looks.

In terms of an overall horror experience, I would probably give the edge to the film. If you are trying to unnerve a viewer, the luxury of movement, music , sound effects, and voice acting trumps a static comic page, for me at least. However, this is a nice looking book and if you are a fan of horror comics you should find it a satisfying read.

Rating: 7/10

Fight, Robots, Fight!

2008-12-16T04:43:00.003-05:00

Wish I could take credit for discovering all these fun videos, but usually the super-geniuses at Neatorama provide the heads up and I just pass it along.

This fun video was apparently someone's final project at University.

http://vimeo.com/1470875 from Digital Animation Herts Uni UK on Vimeo.

More reviews soon, honest!

I Love This!

2008-12-12T03:50:00.007-05:00

I dearly love Paul Verhoeven's original Robocop: it's the most wonderfully exciting, hilarious, violent and gory superhero movie ever made. If you have yet to see it, I urge you not to watch the following video. If you think trailers give away too much about a movie, forget it, this blows the whole thing! Get thee to the nearest video store or Netflix queue and get a copy, you won't be disappointed.

Major props to the Anomalies, whoever they are. If you are already familiar with the film, check out this brilliant encapsulation which boils the whole thing down to 10 wonderful minutes:

Terminator Salvation Trailer

2008-12-11T02:48:00.003-05:00

The fellas at Major Spoilers have posted this trailer for the next Terminator film. Stuff like Watchmen and Star Trek are getting a lot more hype but I find myself really looking forward to this one...

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

2008-12-10T11:51:00.004-05:00

Before the remake hits theaters this weekend, I decided to take another look at he original The Day the Earth Stood Still and see if I liked it any better the second time around. The first time I watched it I was kind of bored and underwhelmed by it, but times and tastes change and maybe I was just in a restless mood that day. If nothing else I wanted the original fresh in my mind to compare with the new version.

The opening ten minutes are probably some of the most exciting in the film. An eerily glowing flying saucer buzzes across the Washington DC cityscape before hovering down for a landing on a local baseball field. It throbs eerily but initially shows no sign of action. As the ship lays quietly and unassumingly on baseball field, swarms of tanks and soliders circle it, guns at the ready. Finally, the lone figure of a man emerges and proclaims, “We have come to visit you in peace and goodwill.”

Rather than be appeased by this statement, the soldiers all raise their guns higher. Of course, the being doesn’t help matters by drawing out a strange silver device that, at the flick of a button, suddenly extrudes several metal prongs. He gets shot by a gittery soldier for his unwise action. So much for peace and goodwill!

The wounded alien, called Klaatu, is not hurt badly and is patched up at a nearby hospital. However, his mission is not panning out well. He announces to a representative of the President that he has a message that he can only deliver to all the nations of Earth simulatenously. Soon, he learns that territorial foreign powers refuse to send represenatives and demand that Klaatu come to them. Now look, I know tensions were bad in the 50’s. The cold war was on, people were digging fallout shelters and students were going through bombing drills where they were encouraged to crawl under their desks and kiss their collective asses good-bye. But you’re going to tell me a man from space landing on Earth is not enough of an incentive to send somebody-- any low-level shlub would do-- to see what this visitor has to say? I wonder if things were really that bad, or if the filmmakers are just showing a bit of a pro-USA bias here?

Soon Klaatu sneaks out of the hospital and decides to hide among humanity for a bit. The theory here, I take it, is to observe first hand what humans are like and try to deduce if there’s any hope for them. To this end, he gets a room at a boarding house, and listens at the supper table to the chit-chat. He wanders around DC with a young boy visiting monuments, and has a talk with a local scientist. Besides the fact that it moves with the speed of an iceberg, here’s what’s wrong with this section: Klaatu really doesn’t experience all that much of the extremes of human behavior, and I’m not sure how he can take away much of anything from his sojourn. The most inspiring thing he finds about humanity comes from an inscription on a monument. The worst of humanity he encounters is-- well, the fact that a mother would leave her young son with a complete stranger so that she can go gallavanting with her boyfriend!

A huge manhunt is on for Klaatu, and although he gets a bit of help from the boy and his mother, he is soon tracked down by the military and shot in the back while he is running away. See? We are warlike-- we just indescriminantly gun down unarmed men in three piece suits!

Now we get to the part that was probably the most thrilling for fifties moviegoers, wherein Klaatu’s robot companion Gort flips the fuck out and makes a beeline for where Klaatu’s body is being held. Here is where we should get to see some full-on ramapaging robot action, but even here I was disappointed. Anytime the film deals with Gort, it’s in half-measures. Earlier, when Klaatu came for a visit to the ship, the robot approached from behind two soldiers guarding the saucer. But then there is a quick cut to the little boy’s face and by the time we switch back the soldiers are lying in a heap. Did Gort knock their heads together or just crumple them with a sweep of his massive arm, or what? Even as he marches out into the world to retrieve Klaatu, his wave of descruction basically consists of him shooting people and things in his way, and they quickly and cleanly disappear in a flash of light. Gort so doesn’t kick ass in this movie the way you really want him to.

Back on board the ship, Gort uses the technology therein to revive Klaatu, who finally delivers a message from the galactic community to the Earth. Basically he says, if you want to kill each other, it’s disgusting but we’ll deal. But if you start shooting up ships into space with deadly atomic capabilities, we’re gonna burn your world to a cinder and you’d better believe it brother! It’s a pretty potent message, but if he didn’t need the representatives of the world to be present after all, why didn’t he deliver it 12 minutes into the film? Unless something about what he saw in the interim somehow changed the content of the warning. If this is the case, I’m not sure Klaatu’s epiphany is spelled out enough.

By the way, the Christian parallels in this story completely went over my head until I read about them on wikipedia. They do seem pretty obvious now that I know they’re there, but it sure seems like an arrogant move on the part of the filmmakers. It’s like they’re saying, “Our point of view on this issue is so correct, even Jesus himself is on our side.”

Most people consider modern remakes a blasphemy, especially if the original is as highly regarded as this film is. But frankly, I think the original The Day the Earth Stood Still is slow-moving and occasionally dull, with questionable dialogue and stiff acting, and only has enough story for an episode of The Twilight Zone rather than a 90-minute feature film. If Klaatu is really going to reach an opinion on human culture, he should experience a wider range. He should have to be exposed to homeless people huddling in an alley. He should attend a church service. Or a VA hospital. Or a high school football game. He should be on line at a Wal-Mart on Black Friday. He should be forced to watch an episode of The Hills. And as for Gort, he should really tear shit apart. I hope the new filmmakers let him off the leash and really let the ignorant masses learn that they shouldn’t mess with what they can’t comprehend. I can totally see how The Day the Earth Stood Still was a notable work in the time it was created, but it could certainly benefit from a rethink and a more modern sensibility. Whether Keanu Reeves and the director of the Exorcism of Emily Rose are the ones to make it work remains to be seen.

Rating: 7/10

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite

2008-12-07T18:09:00.005-05:00

I’m a bit late getting on the Umbrella Academy bandwagon. Lots of other comics readers in the know have been touting its virtues for some time now. I actually got the trade when it was released, but it’s been sitting at the bottom of my read pile ’til this week. I’ve been working through the great podcasts the boys over at Major Spoilers have been producing and when I saw they would be looking at Umbrella Academy in their next edition (actually their July 15 edition, I am just behind the times on so many levels) I finally yanked it out and gave it a look. Man alive, am I sorry I put it off. This miniseries was a blast and a half!

It comes as no surprise that Grant Morrison provides the introduction for this collected edition; the mad genius of Morrison’s early Vertigo work was clearly a big influence on writer Gerard Way (which he readily admits in interviews). The heroes of this fractured tale include a space hero with the body of a gorilla and a sixty-year-old time traveler trapped in the body of a ten-year-old boy. Their parents are a disguised space alien and an ambulatory mannequin. Amongst the enemies they face are flying robot heads belching disintegrating death, an insane Conductor who yearns to orchestrate the apocalypse, and the Eiffel Tower itself, which comes to life and begins slaughtering its visitors. The Umbrella Academy is the most successful blending of superheroics, surrealism and silliness since Morrison’s legendary run on the Doom Patrol.

Consider the high concept behind out heroes' origins: 43 babies are simultaneously born around the world to 43 shocked mothers via immaculate conception. They either die or are abandoned. Sir Reginald Hargreeves A.K.A. the Monocle, “world-renowned scientist and wealthy entrepreneur” manages to track down 7 of these strange miracle babies, and adopts them with the intention of raising them to be superheroes.

As time progresses, the Monocle proves to be a much more effective taskmaster and field general than a dad. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have a paternal bone in his body. As a rule, he only refers to his gifted children as numbers 1-7, and he has no compunction about flat-out telling his non-powered seventh protégé Vanya that “there’s just nothing special about you.” By the time the story catches up to the present, the disillusioned Umbrella Academics are aged 30 and no longer a team: one brother is dead, another is lost in time, and the rest have gone their separate ways.

Way uses the tried and true plot device employed by many an indy drama to draw his fractured family back to the Academy: the sudden death by heart attack of the Monocle. It turns out that very few wounds have healed with the passage of time and the dysfunctional family seems to pick up their various grievances where they left off years before. Tragically, Vanya is still made to feel the outsider by her siblings, which is a turn that will have tragic consequences not too far down the road.

If there’s one criticism I could level at Umbrella Academy, it's that I hope that as Gerard Way develops as a writer he understands that there’s sometimes a fine line between righteous indignation and overbearingly whiny self-pity. To invoke comedian Artie Lange, there are a lot of “Wah” moments in this mini: “Wah! My daddy didn’t love me enough” “Wah! My adopted sister doesn’t wanna go out with me!” “Wah! My father stuck my head on the body of a gorilla” Well, okay, maybe we’ll let that last one slide. All this angsting and drama might be more palatable if the heroes were teenagers, but they’re all entering their thirties. Shouldn’t they have gained a little perspective by now? At some points I wanted to reach into the comic and grab some of these characters by the shoulders, shake em around a bit and tell them to grow a set and stop being such crybabies.

But enough grousing-- back to the unbridled heaping of praise! Let’s talk about the phenomenal Gabriel Ba, who as far can see is the absolute perfect artist for this material. His art is stylized without being overly-cartoony, incredibly imaginative and successful at combining all the bizarre elements Way feverishly worked into his script and convincingly making them co-exist in the same startling world. There’s so much great stuff to look at here, the word balloons sometimes just seem like merely a special added bonus. I took such a liking to Ba’s style, I immediately placed my order for Casanova, the espionage book he did for Image with Matt Fraction.

Like Grant Morrison before him, Gerard Way is absolutely bursting with ideas, so much so that there are throwaway lines and unresolved plot threads that could fuel future Umbrella Academy epics for years to come. There is, of course, the question of the children’s birth: how did they come to be born and what was the fate of the other 36 babies? And if they were born all over the world, why are they all Caucasian? And what the heck does a burly wrestler defeating a giant squid alien in the ring have to do with it? Also, the fact that Hargreeves was an extraterrestrial was mentioned just once in this book, and then never brought up again. Happily, although Way is presumably quite busy with his day job (from what I understand he bums around playing in a band), he is already hard at work on the sequel miniseries Umbrella Academy: Texas, in which we will very likely learn more about Number 5 and his time-tossed misadventures. Pick up the first issue (released last week) and this trade and you will be all up to speed on the most imaginative and fun superteam to come along in quite some time. And if you consider how many superhero teams there are glutting up the market, that’s really saying something.

Rating: 9.5/10

Dog Eaters #1

2008-12-05T11:44:00.004-05:00

The opening captions of this new Dabel Brothers miniseries do an effective job of establishing the setting and mood of this post-apocalyptic adventure:

“Mankind failed in its first attempt to transcend the Petroleum Age. The Die Off killed nine out of ten people worldwide.

“One hundred and seventy five years later, civilization consists of scattered nomadic tribes, isolated casino-cities, and roving bands of predatory bandits. This is the world of the Black Dog clan.”

Dog Eaters, then, is a Road Warrior pastiche crossed with an old-school wagon trail western. Only instead of traversing the wasteland in horse-drawn covered wagons, the extended family of the Black Dogs travel in a variety of tricked-out armed and armored trucks, RVs and such. Where they come up the gasoline, engine oil and tires remains a mystery.

Lamont, leader of the clan, has an admirable endgame in mind: to settle on a gulf coast and establish a new city. In order to make that dream a reality, his intrepid convoy makes delivery runs across the tortured landscape. Naturally, there are rival clans on the prowl who are not so noble of purpose…

The main action set-piece of this issue concerns a gunfight with such a clan, a wild pack of mohawked punk bikers straight out of central casting. Fans of gunplay and carnage should enjoy the show, though having the majority of the issue dedicated to one long action scene may leave the reader feeling the story raced by too fast and they didn’t get their four dollars’ worth. Writer Malcolm Wong does manage to shoehorn some character development into the last few pages. There are a few tender moments between the Dogs’ pigtailed tween gunner Tracy and the Northern nomad she accidentally shot down during the fight. There is also an intriguing love rectangle developing as Lamont moves out of his first mate’s trailer and weds a younger girl he’s impregnated-- a girl who formerly was dating one of the young bucks in the clan.

Guillermo A. Angel’s artwork shows both manga and European influences. The character designs are interesting. Some of the violence gets rather gory at times (which is not a minus in my book, I just thought squeamish readers). There were a few cases where I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at, for example before the fight Tracy is talking to a little dog and for the life of me I can’t figure out if “Mr. Fluffy” is meant to be a real dog or a toy. (If he is real he’d better watch his back, considering the title or the comic and all) But for the most part, the art is quite good.

Dog Eaters may deserve some flak for its derivativeness and spotty pacing, but overall I have to say I enjoyed it. After one issue its hard to predict whether it will ultimately satisfy, but I liked it enough to check back in next issue to see what Wong and Angel have in store.

Oh, and by the way: I don't recommend that anyone google "dog eaters". You will get a lot of hits that have nothing to do with this comic. Trust me, don't go there.

Rating: 7.5/10

Space Doubles Collection #1: Set the Controls

2008-11-30T23:12:00.005-05:00

Th3rd World Studios' Space Doubles is a project that I admire out of proportion to how much I actually enjoyed it. Combining horror and science fiction dates back to the infancy of the SF genre-- after all, many consider Frankenstein to be the very first science fiction novel. There were plenty of pulp stories to crossbreed these genres, and the EC Comics of the 50's like Weird Science were only the most famous of the many comic titles of this ilk. With this new collection, Th3rd World clearly wants to pick up the standard and continue the tradition, which I totally support in theory. I just wish I liked the book more than I do.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I'm not a huge fan of short stories, be they in prose or comic form. It's like hearing a joke; you can't tell if it's a good joke until you get to the punchline. The difference is, a joke takes 20 seconds or so to tell, but you have to invest a bit longer in a story. And if the end doesn't work for me I feel like I wasted my time reading it in the first place. And in the rare case I like a story, I then sometimes wish the author could have fleshed it out and made a proper book out of it. If I am reading a book and I'm not enjoying it, I've been known to bail, or at least skip to the end. With a short story, it seems silly to quit once I've started, so I slog on and hope the "punchline" redeems my time investment.

Space Doubles was originally released as a miniseries with a flip-book format. The title derives from the fact that each side of the book had an 11 or 12 page story, from a variety of different creators. There are more than six stories in this collection because some of these were meant for the never-published fourth and fifth issues, and therefore are presented here for the first time. The book is unfortunately in black and white, but that is no doubt a necessity for a rookie publisher in a merciless marketplace.

"Red Rain" by Mike Raicht and Alecia Rodriguez concerns a mysterious mist which clouds the moon, and an intrepid band of astronauts which is sent to investigate. What they find is bad-- very bad. Both the script and the art are pretty good, but at the end of the day it's just another alien invasion story.
Rating: 7/10

"Everywhere I Look...Bugs!" by Scott Closter (the creator of this series) and Philip Schaufelberger is a pretty neat idea for a mind-bending story hobbled by iffy artwork. It concerns a pretty boy media darling who goes slightly bonkers after a transportation mission to bring flora and fauna to the terraformed moon of Titan. It has a great creepy vibe and twisty finale; it's too bad the main character, supposedly pegged as "James Dean of the Moons" by the media, looks more like Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Oof.
Rating: 6.5/10

"A Saucerful of Secrets" by Jason Hall, Ron Chan and Rich Ellis explores the interesting idea that in the future everyone's life is a blog, but if the public becomes too bored with your experiences you get filed away in a life support tube instead of leeching off our valuable resources. The lead character has already lost his girlfriend and now he's desperate to make his life more interesting.
Rating: 7.5/10

"Escape Pod" by Mark Andrew Smith and Matthew Huynh is a somewhat lightweight entry about a supermarket clerk confined by modern living and puzzled about his former life prior to a car accident that left him with amnesia. The answer is pure wish-fulfillment, baby. Huynh has an interesting style reminiscent of Paul Pope, but he needs to work a little more on things like perspective.
Rating: 6/10

My favorite story in this collection is "Sympathizers" by Justin Robinson and Aneurin Wright, which actually uses the short format to good purpose by giving us a long view of relations between humanity and a sympathetic alien race that comes to Earth seeking asylum and a new start. Turns out their homeworld was ravaged by war and the Quagaar have relocated to escape their warmongering brethren. Initially they are welcomed with open arms, but relations become decidedly strained when the violent tribes from their homeworld begin spreading out and attacking human colonies.
Rating: 8.5/10

"The Liberty Movement" by Dwight L. MacPherson and Kevin Mellon is a pretty good little alternate timeline future Nazi Empire tale. To say that Gestapo interrogator Niklas Rommel is conflicted in his work is an understatement to say the least. A visit from the leather-clad freedom fighter called the Liberator changes everything. Manages to be both fun and dark, no easy feat.
Rating: 8/10

"AKA" by Ben Raab, Deric Hughs and Pat Quinn is a lame serial killer story that I wasn't feeling in any way.
Rating: 5/10

"Project Obeah" by Leah Moore, John Reppion, and Jeremy Dale is a perfectly serviceable zombies in space tale that doesn't transcend the genre in any noticeable way. A bit of a Twilight Zone style twist at the end isn't enough to distinguish it from any number of other zombie tales on the stands these days.
Rating: 7.5/10

"Finite" by Andrew Dabb and Lee O'Conner is a super-creepy exploration of what happens when a fairly desperate man has the power to perform a mercy killing on an entire devolving culture. Brutal.
Rating: 8/10

"Rehab" by Mike Baron and David Newbold has the worst art in the issue by far, and the story is far from Baron's best either. It's about a failed bank robber with robotics skills who strikes up an unlikely friendship with the warden. Really.
Rating: 4/10

So there you have it: as you can see, a decidedly mixed bag. I leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide if a cumulative rating of 6.8 is good enough to warrant a buy. If you skip the few duds, you will probably have a better overall experience than I did. I wish Th3rd World well with future annuals in this series, but in this instance I sure wish I could have checked this out of the public library instead of shelling out... however much I paid for this thing. How do comic shops know what to charge for this-- I can't find a price anywhere on it!

What I'm Thankful for This Year: Picard vs. Vader!

2008-11-28T00:42:00.002-05:00

Lost & Found

2008-11-25T23:57:00.002-05:00

In this action-packed one-shot from IDW Publishing, writer Beau Smith combines two familiar SF tropes to come up with an adventure that may not particularly original, but certainly makes for a fun read. The first is the tried but true “lost world” scenario, wherein one or more contemporary travelers in a remote part of the world stumble across a hidden realm and make contact with a heretofore undiscovered culture which has existed without the knowledge of the outside world (See Lost Horizon, She or, well, the Lost World). The other is the idea of utilizing time travel to cross-pollinate people and materials from throughout history to a single time and place and see how they react (A la Riverworld, or the shared world “In Hell” series). If the resultant mash-up of warriors and dinosaurs on a remote island sounds sort of like the War That Time Forgot miniseries currently being published by DC, well I did say it’s not the most original premise, but it works.

It turns out that there are holes in time hidden throughout the world, some (such as the Bermuda Triangle or Devil’s Triangle) more well-known than others, but all capable of transporting the unsuspecting to a jungle island beyond conventional concepts of time passage, where the inhabitants do not age, nor can they escape back from where they came. Warring factions on the island are in constant race to be the first to take possession of new cargo that shows up on the island. One is led by a World War I fighter pilot named Frank Lujack, who has allied with Vikings, Zulu warriors, and soldiers from both sides of the Civil War. They are eternally opposed by a wretched bunch led by Axel Kriegsherr, a 18th century German general and occultist and counting primitive Neanderthals, ruthless samurai and Roman centurions among their lot. The dinosaurs are their own side.

The latest deposit on the island is of a modern-day AH-Apache military helicopter which brings two important elements to upset the balance. One is Molly Sims, a tough as nails pilot and astronaut who also happens to be darn purty and whose presence immediately improves the island’s cumulative hotness by a factor of 10. The other is the nuclear warhead the copter is carrying, which obviously in short order becomes the key to seizing ultimate power on this timeless isle, or possibly wiping it out once and for all.

Beau Smith is the only creator name-checked on the cover of this comic, but artist Gary Kwapisz should also get a shout-out for his efforts. Kwapisz is a name I recall from the 80’s, but I wonder if he hasn’t been out of the comics biz for awhile, because I haven’t seen him on much recently. The great storytelling on display here signals that Kwapisz may be an underrated gem that publishers should be utilizing more. It takes talent to combine helicopters, dinosaurs, Confederate submarines and the Flying Dutchman with great character designs, so kudos to him.

Although Lost & Found was released as a standalone one-shot, I was a little surprised at how thoroughly and even quickly the story wrapped up. The premise of the island would seem to have plenty of potential to fuel an ongoing series (titles like Turok Son of Stone and Warlord had decent runs), but IDW isn’t going that route. As soon as Smith sets up the particulars of the island, the finale of the story gets into full swing. Maybe I have been so programmed by the “decompression” method of other modern comics it blows my mind to see a “done-in-one” story zip along like this. Smith includes character notes to the dramatis personae on the inside cover, but several of these individuals don’t get more than a line or two in the actual story! The story is wrapped up with a bow, but I suppose a sequel isn’t completely impossible if there is any kind of demand for it. John Carter and Thomas Covenant returned home after their first adventures as well, so perhaps we haven’t seen the last of this crazy island, either.

Rating: 7.5/10

Gigantic #1

2008-11-21T11:15:00.004-05:00

Do I even need to write a full review of Gigantic to clue you guys in to how awesome it is? Just take a look at this cover, it pretty much says it all: giant robot dudes, alien attackers, massive-scale carnage in the streets, panicked bystanders about to be stomped like ants… what more do you need to know?

Even if Gigantic was simply a giant monster fight, that would be quite fun, if somewhat limited. However, writer Rick Remender also finds time to fit in a budding romance, biting commentary on multimedia addiction, and, oh yeah, the secret origin of our entire species and the Earth! Not bad for a single 23-page story, eh?

Turns out that neither God nor evolution were responsible for our ascension. Humanity, in all its aggressive, irrational, superstitious and confrontational glory is actually the creation of extraterrestrial TV executives, who intentionally populated us on an artificial planet with an extreme range of environments. The motive: ratings. The internecine conflict between our nations is served up on “Channel Earth” for the amusement of bored TV watchers of a vast, complacent galactic audience! It’s the greatest secret origin of the Earth since Douglas Adams postulated that it’s a supercomputer for the mice!

Apparently after so many years of war and strife, viewers have become bored and ratings are slackening. Suddenly one morning, a 100-foot-tall armored guy materializes in the streets of downtown San Francisco. In just a few minutes of fumbling around in confusion, the metal behemoth knocks over buildings, squishes pedestrians and generally causes massive death and destruction. Worse, his armor is about to overload and discharge vast amounts of energy, compelling the well-meaning but misunderstood invader to start leaping about the city in search of a safe place to blow up. But then the giant alien bounty hunters pop in to engage him in 10-story-tall mortal combat!

Again, if this kind of stuff isn’t up your alley, nothing I say will convince you to pick this up. All I can say is I found Gigantic #1 to be fantastic fun. Rick Remender’s script is equal parts intelligent, silly, and wicked. Eric Nguyen’s artwork is terrific and really raises the bar that much higher. Sometimes when there is a light or humorous bent to the book, there a tendency for some publishers to settle for more basic and/or cartoony art, since the comic isn’t meant to be taken “seriously” (see Martian Confederacy or M-Theory, for instance) Nguyen’s top-notch pencils class up a book that might otherwise be dismissed as lightweight. His imagination produces funky aliens, cool armor, great…uh, smashed cars…

As a total aside, this comic also brought back to me fond memories of wasting countless quarters playing the Rampage arcade game at the mall when I was a teenager. I swear there’s few things in life as fun as smashing down buildings, swatting planes, and eating people. Looking up the game on wikipedia I see that it has been translated to many home gaming systems, but I just know it from the old-school arcade version. For all you young whippersnappers out there, once upon a time we actually had to go to this separate place where all the video games were lined up in a row and… aww, skip it.

I checked out a good interview with Remender at Comic Book Resources where I learned that Gigantic is meant to be an ongoing series, released in miniseries-sized chunks. I was a little bit surprised at this, because as fun as this first issue is, I have to wonder how many cities Remender and Nguyen can knock down before it starts to lose its novelty. But these guys are so talented and imaginative, if anyone can make it work, they can.

Rating: 8.5/10

Aetheric Mechanics

2008-11-19T10:11:00.007-05:00

Boiled down to its essence, Aetheric Mechanics is a steampunk Sherlock Holmes mystery, but there is more to it than that. For starters, Warren Ellis has slightly changed all the familiar Holmesian tropes to make them his own. His detective is called “Sax Raker” and his physician sidekick is called "Richard Watcham". There are also thinly-disguised incarnations of Inspector Lestrade, Irene Adler, and Mrs. Hudson at hand, while characters sounding suspiciously like Moriarty and Mycroft Holmes are also mentioned in passing. Ellis hasn’t simply resorted to homage because he couldn’t or didn’t want to gain the permission of the Conan Doyle estate to use the real characters. There’s a very specific reason why everyone s not quite the way we remember them, but the truth behind that is just one of the many delights to be found in this most excellent one-shot from Avatar Press.

The year is 1907 and conflict between Britain and Ruritania (yes, that’s the fictional country from The Prisoner of Zenda) has broken out into open war across Europe. In this alternate world, the study of aetheric mechanics allows the flight of launches and spacefaring battleships via apergy engines and cavorite (yes, that's the antigravitic metal from The First Men in the Moon. Are we sensing a theme here?) rotors, among other technological marvels. As our tale opens, Dr. Watcham has been sent back to London from the front due to an injury. Having fulfilled his duty, he finds himself back to his familiar rooms -- we’re not actually told they’re at 221B Baker Street, but it’s fairly evident. Watcham finds Raker brooding in his study as usual, willfully oblivious to the political machinations of the greater world and instead focused like a laser on the latest sensational crime to hit London.

It seems that an invisible assailant who keeps popping in an out of existence has been accosting and even slaying prominent local scientists and engineers, and Watcham hasn’t even time to unpack his bags before the game is afoot once more. Like Sherlock Holmes, Raker is equally proficient at the solving of perplexing mysteries, but the answer at the root of this one is so mind-boggling that neither the characters nor the readers will ever see it coming.

The black and white artwork by Gianluca Pagliarani is mostly fantastic. He clearly takes pride in his craft and lavishes every page with a breathtaking amount of detail. His cityscapes and steampunkian contraptions are first-rate and one can literally spend five minutes taking in meticulous renderings of Raker’s study or the Disappearing Man’s underground lab. I have one nitpick about this book, however, and it’s a pretty big sticking point for me: I can’t stand how Pagliarani draws faces. Everyone in this story has a bulbous nose and slit reptilian eyes. If an artist has a weakness in any other area- say he can’t draw hands, or feet, or horses- I could overlook it to some extent, but as humans we identify so strongly with people’s faces and especially their eyes that’s it’s very disconcerting when every face has creepy eyes with tiny pinprick pupils. I almost feel like I’m reading about a race of snake people rather than human beings, which is a real disappointment because in every other way the art is first rate. I actually find myself resisting the impulse to white out all the eyes in this book and draw in wider, more reflective, more human-looking ones!

You have to admire the imagination and work ethic of Warren Ellis, an extremely prolific writer who seems to produce something like five different titles each and every month. Some of his books have weight to them, others seem like an idea he tossed off during a subway ride, but his comics are consistently entertaining. With Aetheric Mechanics, he is able to balance a fun adventure with some really dizzying existential conundrums that may lead to a shark-jumping moment for some readers, but I totally went with it and loved every zig and zag. Also, perhaps because this is a period piece, the overbearing sarcasm and cynicism which is a staple of Ellis characters is toned way down, which is to the story’s benefit. All told, this is one of the best books I’ve read all year, and well worth the purchase if you can find a copy.

Rating: 9.5/10

Virtual Display Case: November 2008

2008-11-18T23:28:00.012-05:00

Well kiddies, the economy's in the toilet and there's little disposable income to be spread around this Christmas. Time to obsess about more useless stuff I can't afford. Whoo-hoo!

Star Wars X-Wing Fighter Cross Section 3D Model Kit:

Y'know, the X-Wing isn't one of my favorite spaceships- it's not even in my top ten. But for some unaccountable reason, I dig the whole idea of being able to open this bad boy up and laying it out, as if it were in the middle of maintenance between missions. There's something way cool about that to me. Not 250 buck cool, but cool.

Looney Tunes: Figaro Sericel:

If I had wall space to devote to artwork, I wouldn't hang Picassos or Van Gogts-- I'd be hanging Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. However, Space Cadet Juan has no wall space, as his entire Secret HQ is covered wall-to-wall with book shelves.

Marvel Legends Action Figure 2-Packs:
Okay, so I don't like the Ultimate universe, and as a diehard Avengers fan, I like those nasty SOBs in the Ultimates even less. However, design wise, I have to admit Ultimate Nick Fury and Ultimate Cap are badass, brutha. What's up with the spare Steve Rogers face, though?

Life-Sized Fone Bone Plush Toy:

My daughter and I have been reading through the entire Bone saga for the past 6 months or so; at the moment we are halfway though Crown of Horns, which is the final volume. When I saw this pic I briefly considered getting it as a Christmas gift to commemorate our journey. Then I noticed the 40 dollar price tag and realized my daughter is getting too old to play with dolls and already has enough plush toys to populate a small country.

The Big Lebowski Urban Achiever Series 3 Action Figures:

I knew that the Big Lebowski has developed a big cult following over the years, but enough to spawn its own action figure line? This is series 3, no less! Me, I'm waiting for the set of Fargo toys and figures: "Blood-encrusted wood chipper sold separately"

Eclipse Phase RPG:

Seems my RPG days are long behind me, due to lack of time and the slight inconvenience of having moved hundreds of miles away from my playgroup. However, I have been known in the past to buy RPG books just for the enjoyment of reading through them, even if I know I will probably never get the chance to actually play 'em. This game sounded pretty good, and the website shows off some nice artwork (presentation is key, people), but here's the thing: when the hell did RPGs hike up to 50 bucks? That's steep for a game I'll never play, but doesn't it sound fun:

"Humanity stands on the cusp of a new age! Advancements in biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science have transformed our lives. Everyone is wirelessly networked with the world around them - AIs process vast amounts of information, biotechnology allows people to genefix, enhance, and clone their bodies, and memories can be digitized, uploaded, transferred over long distances, and downloaded into new bodies (biological or synthetic). Death has been defeated - for those who can afford it! But, transhumanity reaped the rewards of its arrogance when a group of military AIs known as TITANS achieved full sentience, and turned against transhumanity, enveloping the system in unprecedented levels of violence, disaster, and warfare! What began as a struggle between man and machine escalated into a whirlwind of conflict between political factions, revolutionaries, and hypercorps, and in less than a year, transhumanity was nearly wiped out! In the aftermath of the Fall, transhumanity lives on, divided into a patchwork of hypercorp combines, survivalist stations, transhuman faction species, and city-state habitats. Welcome to the far-flung future world of Eclipse Phase, the Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Conspiracy and Horror! Utilizing an innovative, streamlined, and flexible d100/percentile system, Eclipse Phase thrusts players into a secretive and dangerous conspiracy that seeks to save transhumanity! "

Supernova Board Game:

Again, I know I'm starting to sound like a crotchety old man, but when the hell did board games get up to $69.95? Me, I blame Bush. Actually, that's my all-purpose answer to most things, "It's all Bush's fault." But anyway, do you get to fly actual spaceships in this game, or what?

"In this game of space expansion and exploration, five civilizations are abandoning their solar system to escape the upcoming Supernova of their sun! Conquer new solar systems by taking over planets, mining moons, and building the most powerful fleet of ships by upgrading your Weapons, Shields, Communications, or Engines. Capture the most space by the time the star goes Supernova to be proclaimed the winner!"

Life Counter Rings:
Probably the nerdiest thing in this whole nerdy post, but I can't help it, there's something really appealing about this thing. Why mess around with scratch paper and pencil when you can keep track of your character hit points and accessorize your outfit at the same time? Goes great with sweat pants and a Green Lantern t-shirt. When you heal up back to full, you can stroke and fawn over your Hit Point ring and call it "Precious".

Trek Trailer is Up

2008-11-18T23:25:00.003-05:00

Well, the new Star Trek trailer showing before Quantum of Solace is now online as well. It certainly looks like they didn't skimp budget wise, but I'm still not sold yet. Call me stubborn, but the trailer for Nemesis had a few interesting shots in it, too. Didn't stop that one from laying an egg, did it?

Get Your Game On!

2008-11-16T03:24:00.008-05:00

Somebody at Wildstorm apparently thinks that comic tie-ins of video games are the next big thing; in the past few weeks they have released two different books based on Gears of War and Mirror's Edge. I don't really play video games but both books had a science fictional slant to their descriptions, so I decided to give them a shot, figuring a good SF comic is a good SF comic regardless of its source material. Based on what I've seen, I'm not confident that video game comics are the answer to Wildstorm's currently identity problems and floundering sales.

When I cracked open these books I made a point of not reading up about the games beforehand. I figured if the creators were successful, I would find out everything I needed to know from the pages of the comic itself. This seemed like a perfectly reasonable expectation to me, but possibly I was expecting too much.

Gears of War is apparently a shooting game where you are an armored-up soldier fighting alien warriors among urban ruins. I can't tell if this is Earth or some other planet, near or far future. Nothing is explained about the aliens or what they want, other than they like to kill. For all intents and purposes, the Boomers (I think that's what they're called) resemble Klingons who have been left out in the sun too long and have started to melt.

Obviously you expect some good gun-blazin' action from a book like this, which it definitely provides, but there's not really much else to it. Soldiers fight aliens, then they come across a lone survivor of a different unit. Then they travel back to base through the ruins, and they get into another fight. Little or nothing is learned about these men other than they fight aliens, and most of their conversation revolves around previous fights they've been in. One campfire discussion could just as easily be between gamers reminiscing about a particularly tough level.

This book (and probably the game as well) doesn't stray very far from the venerable soldiers vs. aliens paradigm popularized by Jim Cameron in Aliens 20 years ago. That in itself doesn't bother me too much, by this point the idea has been recycled hundreds of different ways in all different types of media. But writer Joshua Ortega takes it a step further when he lifts Newt's entire "My mommy always said there were no monsters" bit for the opening of this comic. Shameless.

Artistically speaking, this book reminds me a lot of those mediocre Marvel UK books that were briefly glutting the shelves in the mid-90s. To be fair, Liam Sharp is technically much more proficient at his craft than he was 12-15 years ago, but in terms of designs, these soldiers with their oversized guns battling ugly creeps in ornate armor wouldn't be out of place in a lost issue of Warheads or Death's Head II.

Again, I didn't look online to verify, but based on the comic version in Mirror's Edge you apparently play a courier carrying mysterious packages across cities, occasionally bumping into other couriers and getting involved in legally questionable shenanigans. Instead of zipping around on bicycles, however, these "runners" practice parkour, taking to the rooftops and hopping their way to their destination. I'm pretty sure the solicitation for this comic described a science fictional setting (which is why I preordered it for review) but if so Ortega fails to explain the world in the opening issue. Nothing about this society or technology we see couldn't exist in the here and now. If this is meant to be the future, or another planet, the first issue fails to explain this.

What Mirror's Edge #1 gives us that Gears of War does not, is a sympathetic character worth caring about. Faith is a young orphan who was caught trying to burglarize the home of a man named Drake, who does not turn her in but rather takes her under his wing and trains her to be a runner. During a training exercise she can't resist aiding a fellow runner who's being held at gunpoint, and she ultimately finds out that this other runner's mission ties into her own past in a very specific and personal way.

Beyond establishing Faith's character, there not too much going on in this first issue. Half of the book is spent showing Faith bouncing across town like a jackrabbit, in and out of people's private property. I would expect that using parkour at the basis for a video game is probably good fun, but is doesn't really translate that well to the comics page. For one thing, parkour is kind of old hat in comics; guys like Spider-Man and Daredevil have been doing it for 40 years. Matthew Dow Smith's pencils are competent but I don't see him winning any Eisners anytime soon, either. (For some reason, the interior art also leaves out Faith's most appealing feature from the cover: that jagged eye tattoo). You'll get far more excitement out of the opening action sequence of Casino Royale than anything you'll see here.

Mirror's Edge is a six-issue limited series, which makes sense to me as I can't see the premise having enough potential to sustain an ongoing title. On the other hand, the first issue of Gears of War actually has a subscription page, which seems incredibly optimistic to me given how DC is mowing down B-list monthly titles left and right these days (RIP Nightwing, Catwoman, Birds of Prey, Blue Beetle, etc...)

But wait! Before we lose all hope that a video game can ever be successfully translated into another medium, here comes Dead Space: Downfall, the new direct-to-DVD animated tie-in to the Electronic Arts sci-fi horror game. This movie is a sequel to a comic miniseries that I haven't read and a prequel to a game I probably won't play, and yet I completely enjoyed it as a standalone tale of dread, paranoia, and copious gore.

As the movie opens, something horrible has occurred on the mining planet Aegis 7, and contact had been lost with a colony on its surface. (Presumably this refers to events of the comic, which won't be arriving in my mailbox for a few weeks yet.) The mining vessel Ishimura removes a massive, rune-covered Artifact from the surface, which causes problems on two fronts. For starters, miners of the Unitologist faith believe it to be a religious icon, and secondly it has some mysterious connection to the plague of alien monsters that gain access to the vessel, killing crewmembers and transforming their corpses into a bizarre variety of zombie monsters known as Necromorphs. For the majority of the film, we follow the travails of security chief Alissa Vincent as she struggles uphill to try and contain the danger before the entire ship is lost.

Soon the ever-dwindling crew of the Ishimura is knee-deep, then waist-deep, then neck-deep in alien monsters, mutated zombified victims, and just plain crazed crewmates. While the situation is worsening by the minute, the captain of the vessel completely flips his lid, becoming a foaming-mouthed paranoiac determined to safeguard the artifact at all costs. Given that this is all prologue to a video game, the bleak ending is even more inevitable than your usual horror flick, but the journey is an adrenline-soaked ride of wicked shocks and surprises.

I'm not sure what the budget was for this, but for a direct-to-DVD release the production values are pretty good. All the ships and backgrounds are well-rendered in CGI, but the actual character work is done in a rather bland and generic American art style reminiscent of 80's cartoon shows like G.I. Joe or Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. In terms of voice work, I have to give special props to Nika Futterman, who does a great job enacting Vincent's strength, determination and desperation as her world goes from bad to worse. She sincerely sounds like she's trapped amidst the slaughter, and not just standing in a studio somewhere in front of a microphone.

One thing I noticed about the film is that it might actually give away too much information about the setting of the game. Since Dead Space is of the horror genre, presumably it relies in part on the fear of the unknown to create the proper atmosphere of dread for the player. By the time the film is done, you pretty much know what you will and won't find on the Ishimura when you come aboard, the nature and characteristics of the Necromorphs (what they look like, how they reproduce, how they kill), and even that guns aren't as effective against them as a nice plasma cutter (which is essentially a cross between a chainsaw and a lightsaber), which cuts up them alien critters reeeeaalll goooood.

Some of my fellow Netflix customers have left some pretty negative reviews of Downfall on the website. Many take Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray to task for what the perceive as bad dialogue, as if only David Mamet is qualified to pen animated horror movies. Personally I have enjoyed Palmiotti and Gray's various comics project over the past few years and felt their style translated well to the screen. Other viewers are griping that there's too much swearing, as if since it's a cartoon it should only have language suitable to a 10-year-old viewer. I guess all the dismemberments, disembowlings and decapitations are a-okay, but watch out for those nasty f-bombs!

I found Dead Space: Downfall to be dark, creepy, suspenseful and , in its own sick way, a fun bit of nihilism. I'm not sure if I'll ever play the game, but this release stands on its own, as it should.

Gears of War Rating: 5/10
Mirror's Edge Rating: 6/10
Dead Space: Downfall Rating: 7/10

Update 11/19/08: Well shut my mouth. According to Rich Johnston Gears of War is the bestselling comic this year, with nearly half a million copies in print! Guess those folks over at Wildstorm know what they're doing after all. Whether any gamers who came to the book out of curiousity because they like the game stick around remains to be seen. The comic really is pretty blah.

Red Alert: New Enterprise Decloaks; 20 Minutes of Abrams' Trek Described

2008-11-14T11:38:00.006-05:00

Well, I don’t know what to think anymore. Some UK journalists got the opportunity to view 20 minutes of scenes from the upcoming Star Trek reboot, and at least two very detailed, very spoilery reviews have made it to the web. And honestly, it amazes me that 2 people could describe the exact same footage and yet illicit such very different reactions from this humble reader. Martin Anderson made the scenes sound so terrible (this despite the fact that he prefaced the shot-by-shot spoilers by saying it all looked “sensationally great”) that I fell into despair. When I later read James Dyer’s take on the material, he made it sound less ridiculous and lame. I can’t even figure out if JJ Abrams was being an arrogant creep or not. All I know is, it’s going to be a looooong 6 months until release day if I keep obsessing to this degree.

A few quick comments:

I immediately bristled at the thought that Abrams thinks that no previous Trek has fulfilled the “promise of adventure” before his movie. Does he really think that highly of himself that he is the great savior that can do what Gene Roddenberry, Nicholas Meyer, Leonard Nimoy, Ronald L. Moore, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, etc and so on apparently failed to do before him? I wish I could’ve heard his comments directly, because Anderson makes it sound like he thinks all 1,000 or so hours of filmed Trek to date are crap, while Dyer makes it sound like he was just referring to the cheesiness and low budget of TOS.

The scene descriptions sound very slapsticky and silly. If the Farrelly brothers filmed a Trek parody, it might have giant inflated hands and a guy grabbing a woman’s breasts accidentally during a barfight. Too bad Jim Carrey is pushing 50, sounds like he would’ve been perfect for this part.

I’m sorry, but in both write-ups, Kirk just plain sounds like a douche. I mean, just the opposite of what a hero would be. Are we gonna warm to this guy, or root for the Romulans to set phasers to “kill”?

Speaking of Romulans, the last scene seems to confirm that the Starfleet officers do in fact see Romulans and therefore must know they resemble Vulcans: a clear, blatant contradiction of 40 years of established Star Trek history. Ugh.

Also Bruce Greenwood is a little too old to play Pike. Jeffrey Hunter was about 40 at the time of “The Cage”, and looked younger. Greenwood is 52.

Since I really don’t know what to make of this anymore, I have to turn to the ever-reliable Talkbackers at Aint-it-Cool, who are never without definitive, forceful, and often quite witty opinions. In case you don’t want to wade through the whole thing, a few comments that struck a chord with this ambivalent fan:

Abrams Trek will tank
by MasterShake Nov 11th, 2008 10:04:35 AM Who the hell is he making this movie for? It can't be the old school Trekkies who've kept the franchise going for 40 years with their support and money. Call me a basement dwelling continuity nerd all you want, but the Enterprise built in Iowa on Earth? Chekov on Pikes Enterprise as a member of the bridge crew? Kirk as a malcontent badboy? This isn't a just a re-imagining, it's a big FU to anyone over 30 who's followed Trek at all over the years. It's teen angst Trek aimed at grabbing a different demographic than the increasingly older audience that has made Paramount over a billion dollars. If you're new to Trek you may love it, but it sure won't be my Star Trek.

It may not be "your" Trek, but let's face it...
by MCVamp Nov 11th, 2008 10:28:33 AM The people of "your" Trek are either dead or really, really old. An animated continuation will not be taken seriously. Another spin-off will experience the rapidly dwindling interest from TNG to DS9 to VOYAGER to ENTERPRISE. No one except the die-hards read the books. You want your franchise to continue? This is THE ONLY WAY. And if you just want it left alone for dead, you have the option of making your own personal choice to recognize it as such. Would it kill you guys to see brand new faces at your conventions that aren't just the offspring of other Trekkies?

Robert April called, he wants his ship back
by muziqtwin Nov 11th, 2008 11:38:57 AM The benefit of my doubt, already strained by the casting of that talent less, repugnant homunculus Zachary Quinto, is now officially revoked. Pike as the first Constitution-Class Enterprise captain? Built in Iowa, not orbit? Inconsequential details, perhaps, but by that same token, it would have been just as easy to have them canonically "correct" and still tell the "new" story.

Why is it even called Star Trek?
by EverythingEverywhereStinks Nov 11th, 2008 12:08:45 PM Mind boggling...this film will be a failure of spectacular proportions. The only people this movie will appeal to, in a very crowded and competitive summer movie marketplace, will be bored moviegoers waiting for the next weekend's big movie opening. Longtime fans will disown this film for trying to erase everything that preceeded it, and it will not be the huge relaunching of the franchise everyone expects it to be. Either that, or this pseudo-Kirk Dexter wanna be will murder us all ;)

Critch, I'm not a Liar -- it's "Top Gun" in Space
by Admiral Nelson Nov 11th, 2008 12:24:14 PM I've got friends (fans of the original series) who worked on the new film and have read the script, and that's their exact description of the film. What part of "sportscar" and "bar fights" doesn't sound like "Top Gun" (more like "Hot Shots") to you? And again -- if you don't believe me now, then remember that I told everyone the Enterprise does a BSG-like "atmo dive" in the film -- a plot detail not yet released. I know what I'm talking about, dude -- this film is going to infuriate TOS fans, because it completely ignores established Star Trek canon, and no one at Paramount gives a shit. It's a total reboot of the entire Trek universe, dude, so be prepared for it.

As a side note...
by grandadmiralsnackbar Nov 11th, 2008 12:33:50 PM If Paramount got it, they would have kept the writers and producers for Enterprise's 4th season on board for something. The problem was that the preceding three season were so shitty, that the show was mortally wounded after the Xindi arc was completed. That 4th season was pretty bad ass and represents what the whole series should have been.

What part of this sounds good?
by conspiracy Nov 11th, 2008 12:52:25 PM Kirk Fondling Uhura? Bar fights? Kirk Driving a car over a cliff? Enterprise being built on earth? So this is all about being a slapstick simplistic comedy, Tween angst, O.C. Flavored Roadtrip in space? Sounds like more Abrams crap too me. I'll steal it off of Limewire if i watch it at all.

You think it's dead now?
by Wonderthump Nov 11th, 2008 02:05:53 PM Wait till Abrams digs it up and rapes it in May. Not only are mainstream audiences going to avoid this film but so will the fans. My prediction is it will have a big opening weekend due to all of the marketing it will take to convince numbnuts teens to go see it . . . and then boxoffice will decrease faster than the Dow under Bush. That will seal Trek's fate for years and years.

Being a fan of the original TV series...
by football Nov 11th, 2008 03:52:46 PM ...this doesn't sound too bad with regards to the clothes and cast. It's the character of Kirk that has me slightly worried. He sounds like a self-absorbed prick you'd rather slap than root for, which could ruin the chances of building a credible Captain Kirk to take this reboot to places it couldn't boldly go before. If the audience ends up wanting to plant one on our hero then they're hardly going to want to come back again. Word to the ediors: cut the Kirk groping Uhura bar scene. It's a cheap laugh and will only make most people think Kirk's a bit of a creep! You'll have a better picture without it.

"Top Gun In Space"
by Darth Busey Nov 11th, 2008 08:34:19 PM Some of you fucktards are saying this like its a bad thing. Top Gun fucking ruled.

Well then! At any rate, I’m curious as to how other people are looking forward to the upcoming Trek film, with trepidation or excitement? Will Abrams succeed in making Trek a powerhouse again, or wreck the franchise for a decade or more? Taking a cue from Matt Cerrone over at Metsblog, who charts the ebbs and flows of fans’ enthusiasm for the team, I decided to start running a poll (see sidebar) on a weekly basis to chart whether fans are feeling good or bad about what they’re hearing concerning the new film. One things for sure: discussion in Trek fandon will not be dull over the next six months.

City of Dust #1

2008-11-08T15:07:00.004-05:00

Take Judge Dredd, replace the black comedy with guilt-ridden angst, swap out the tricked-out motorcycle for a flashy jetpack, and drop him in a Fahrenheit 451-meets-1984 dystopia and you get City of Dust, the latest eye-popping release from promising upstart Radical Comics.

In this future, the government had achieved a very draconian method of preventing the conflict and strife that is the unfortunate byproduct of religious partisanship and supernaturalism: they have completely outlawed "imagination crimes". That means not only prayer and holy teachings, but also mythology, fairy tales and fantasy stories of all kinds (even comics!) are strictly verboten.

Philip Khrome is a tortured man who carries a heavy burden. When he was a child, a heartless teacher overheard him relating to a schoolmate a bedtime story that his father had told him the night before. The next day, his Dad was hauled away and sentenced to life in prison "for attempting to poison a child's mind with impossible ideas". As an adult, the haunted Khrome still tells people that he turned his father in, even though his childhood mistake was quite accidental. Obviously, it's a hard thing to overcome, and Khrome seems to be having a hard time connecting to anyone around him in a meaningful way.

But here's the kicker: Philip Khrome is now a cop, sometimes charged with taking down mind criminals very much like his own dad. He not only patrols the skies but carries enough tech to be a one-man CSI team and has the authority to be judge, jury and executioner to collared suspects. The fact that he is now doing for a living the very thing that messed him up so much psychologically makes the entire series immediately compelling for anyone like me who picked up this book on a whim.

I have seen Steve Niles' name around before, but not being a huge horror fan I don't think I've read anything of his previously. While this comic is firmly science fiction with its future setting and advanced gadgetry, there are definitely horrific elements to the comic as well. Not only is the entire society depicted as a sinister unfeeling bureaucracy to the average citizen, but in the opening moments a silly rich couple slumming in the seedy side of town meet a gory fate, and there is a brief interlude with a Franksteinian scientist and monster that we will clearly become more acquainted with as this miniseries progresses. The entire set up, from the main character to the world he in inhabits to the mysteries and plot twist, is well-executed and leaves this reader enthusiastic to come back for the rest of the story.

The artist/colorist on this title is credited only as "Zid", but anyone who can make a comic look this great can call him/herself whatever they like. Judging strictly on the linework, I would rate Zid "quite good" as an artist but the fantastic coloring and lighting effects elevate the pages to a whole new and very gorgeous level. Once in awhile the characters look too posed-- for example at one point a female cop who walks up to talk to Khrome puts a hand on her hip and strikes a pose like she's about to be photographed for the cover of Vogue-- but overall City of Dust looks spectacular.

Radical Comics love to play the multiple-cover game with their releases-- not only the first issues, but for the whole runs of their miniseries there are four or more covers to choose from. I'm not the kind of collecting maniac that would ever buy them all, but I guess it is nice to have a choice of which one you like best. Personally, I picked the gorgeous Arthur Suydam cover (pictured above), even though Khrome inside doesn't really look anything like how he's depicted on this cover. Oh well, it's still pretty.

I have to say, I am really impressed with Radical Comics from what I've seen so far. Not only is City of Dust #1 great, I was impressed enough with the first issue of Freedom Formula to follow that series as well. Now they are soliciting another sci-fi epic called Shrapnel that looks very promising as well. I also need to point out that although this has a somewhat steep price tag of $3.99, there are 44 pages of story within-- that's double the average monthly "Big Two" comic, with a cardstock cover and glossy pages to boot. I find myself hoping beyond hope that Radical is one of the indy comics that gain a foothold and stick around, because they are quickly become one of the premiere sources of quality science fiction adventures.

Rating: 9/10

I've Got My Eye on You, Abrams!!

2008-11-05T10:20:00.006-05:00

The new Kirk and Spock look so young and pretty on this recent cover of Entertainment Weekly, it makes me wonder if Sondra Marshak or Myrna Culbreath was the photographer. The article within even describes the chemistry between Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto as “undeniably bromantic”. Echhh, do we really want to live in a world where “bromantic” is even a word? Anyway, the extreme youth of the rebooted Enterprise crew is one of the many question marks surrounding J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek movie, the eleventh in the series, but generally believed to be throwing the first ten out the airlock. How can everyone be mere cadets, yet already on the Enterprise? The production has been in information lockdown since its inception, with only one very uninformative teaser trailer along the way, but this EW article finally reveals some details about the flick, more hints then anything but enough to speculate about what lies ahead for the floundering franchise.

I should explain that while I’m a fan of Star Trek, it doesn’t consume my life. If there were a scale of Trek fandom, with a 1 being someone who might stop and watch a Trek show here and there while flipping through the channels, and a 10 being someone who shows up for jury duty wearing a Starfleet uniform and speaks fluent Klingon, I probably rate at about a 6. In other words, I’m not so much of a Trekkie that I would care if anyone used the term “Trekkie”.

Nevertheless, I have to confess I’m a little bit bent out of shape about the negative digs peppered through this article. The films are dismissed as “mostly dismal” (personally I only consider The Final Frontier and Nemesis to be truly dismal), TV series are “contrived spin-offs” and the franchise overall is a “hunk of retro scifi cheese”. Why assign Jeff Jensen to write the article in the first place if he’s such a hater? Actually, certain sections where Trek’s optimistic vision and idealism are discussed suggest that Jensen might actually get it, but is dutifully toeing the company line that the franchise is horribly busted and in need of a drastic makeover.

I dispute this premise. Yes, the last couple of films tanked and ratings dropped off every season of Enterprise, but I don’t think the reasons are as complex as Paramount execs seem to. What they’re aiming to do with this new Trek film is akin to performing major invasive surgery on a patient with a couple of skinned knees.

Paramount had already made the right move for revitalizing Star Trek when they took Enterprise away from Rick Berman and Brannon Braga and gave it to Manny Coto, who combined established Trek mythos with wild new stories for a terrific fourth season. Unfortunately, all the viewers were long gone and had no idea it was safe to come back, and the show got axed before its time.

I was never in tune with Berman and Braga’s vision for Trek. Voyager was a terrific premise that was poorly executed from the word go: a lone starship is stranded on the far side of the galaxy, but it never broke down, they never ran out of supplies, they apparently have dozens of shuttlecraft, and former enemies Starfleet and the Maquis get along like peas in a pod. The idea of going back 100 years before Kirk for Enterprise was an intriguing one, but the past ended up looking all too recognizable and familiar. Seems even at the dawn of Starfleet, ships looked pretty much the same, inside and out, and the plots were pretty much the same, too. The same guys were in charge too long, to the point where one could see that certain episodes of these two series seemed to be rewritten retreads of previous Next Generation and DS9 episodes.

As for the films, I find it interesting how much they are de-emphasizing the importance of past continuity and Trek fandom. “We weren’t making a movie for fans of Star Trek, we were making a movie for fans of movies.” JJ Abrams doesn’t seem to realize that Paramount went outside the Trek circle by hiring screenwriter John Logan and director Stuart Baird for Nemesis, with the result being a lame rehash of the good bits of previous Trek movies that ended up with the weakest box office returns of the entire film series. It’s okay to reach beyond the core Trek fandom audience for more casual viewers, but only if you make sure you have the Trekkies, too. If you can’t convince Star Trek fans to come see your Star Trek movie, you are doing something way wrong. When the article claims that Abrams’ “Trekker credentials” are “nonexistent” and that he had to struggle throughout the film “through his non-Trekker prejudice”, how exactly are we supposed to warm to the idea that this next film won't be yet another disappointment?

Still, I did glean some hope from this article, though maybe I am grasping at straws. The fact that Leonard Nimoy has given his blessing to this new take and thinks they are on the right track says volumes, for me. Aside from his personifying Spock all these years, Nimoy also directed two of the best installments of the movie franchise, and I always got the sense that he very well understood the overall concept and appeal of Star Trek. If he is good with the new film, that buys Abrams a line of credit with me.

The bits of plot summary the article reveals raise many questions. Supposedly no human had ever laid eyes on a Romulan before “Balance of Terror”, so how can Kirk and crew battle them during their cadet days? Where is Gary Mitchell? And by the way, time travel again? Does Abrams even realize that time travel is used in three other Star Trek films? Also, the whole concept that the TOS crew were all pals at the Academy for some reason makes me think of all those crummy 1980’s Saturday morning cartoons like Muppet Babies or Baby Looney Tunes.

But the lines that most intrigue me and give me some solace of hope are these: “the movie subversively plays with Trek lore- and those who know it” and “Revisionism anxiety is the point. “The movie,” Lindelof says, “is about the act of changing what you know.” For some reason, this suggests to me that the movie will in fact play completely fair with established continuity, but perhaps the filmmakers want to downplay that fact so as not to scare away the wider non-Trekkie audience. Perhaps if this new regime is going to make changes to canon, it will be properly explained in the plot, which I guess would be at least somewhat gratifying. I mean, the Deep Space Nine episode “Past Tense: Part 2” already clearly established that time travelers can indeed muck around with history and change things around, so at least there would be precedent if that were the reasoning for the reboot. Of course, a villain going back in time to change the course of history is the main plot of First Contact, so hopefully there’s a little more to it than that. Either way, if history is changed so much that all the future incarnations of Trek may not actually come to exist some day, I think there are going to be a lot of pissed Trekkies out there.

There’s still plenty of time before the new Star Trek bows on May 8, 2009 for us to fret and worry and agonize. In the meantime I’m ready to continue over-analyzing every little tidbit that is released to us between now and then, starting with the new trailer that is due next week. I am also interested in checking out the Trek novel Best Destiny, which the screenwriters cite as an influence. For the matter, I think I will be taking a look at all of the other accounts of how the TOS crew “first met”; between previous novels and comics, I think there’s already about a half-dozen versions of this story, even before Trek-hatin’ Abrams throws his hat into the ring. It will be interesting to compare how this new version of How They Met stacks up to what’s come before.

Who Knew Savage Dragon Had So Much Clout?

2008-11-04T23:52:00.002-05:00

But will Erik Larsen be invited to the White House?

Back from Vay-Cay

2008-11-03T02:01:00.003-05:00

Well back to the grind, after a less-than-restful week of birthday parties and trick or treating, not to mention a rather underwhelming world series. Even though I was off from my real life job, I didn’t expect to take off from this blog as well, but that’s kind of how it turned out. Got a ton stuff piling up just begging me to review, but in the meantime a few random topics to tide ya over:

A bit of controversy in Legion of Super-Heroes fandom of late. Although 2008 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the futuristic super-teens, this year has seen the cancellation of their animated series, as well as both of their ongoing comic books. Both writer Jim Shooter and penciller Francis Manapul have both given their own fashion of parting words. Although DC is currently publishing a great continuity-wank miniseries called Legion of Three Worlds, the company claims it has no future plans of the team. The folks at io9.c0m call bullshit on that idea, and I think they’re on the right track.

The only way I can see DC letting the Legion fall into limbo is if they are truly cutting back on their comics division across the board. To me, every indication is that they are trying to bring back the original Legion (okay, something that kinda sorta resembles the original Legion) now that there is a multiverse again and Superboy can apparently be returned to his rightful place in their mythos. They are just playing cagey right now because revealing too much might spoil plot developments in L3W.

I’ve seen specualtion in some corners that DC might try to continue to tell stories about all three of their main Legion incarnations (serious fans don’t seem to consider the animated series Legion to be a valid version, I guess), but that’s crazy talk, if you ask me. The achilles heel of the franchise is that it has become so convoluted, with multiple versions of each character. We need one Legion in one timeline, and I think harkening back to the Levitz/Giffen days is the best idea. I just hope it becomes clear soon what post-Crisis events of that Legion did or didn’t occur.

Also, although Geoff Johns has done a great job of bringing back the classic Legion, I think it’s silly to think that he and only he could helm a new book about this team. The guy does seem to write about half of all of DC’s output, so if he can’t fit a Legion book onto his schedule there are plenty of writers who would do a fine job returning the Legion to their glory. They just need to keep the tone positive (the Legion should not exist in a dystopia, it’s sort of missing the point) and be knowledgable of the continuity.

I have been watching the Clone Wars cartoon since it premiered on Cartoon Network, and I have to admit, it’s better than I was fearing. It isn’t full of fart jokes and kiddie humor, and while none of it is groundbreaking it succeeds in its mission statement of telling fun but mostly inconsequential stories. I have to admit I actually enjoyed “Destroy Malevolence”, the episode with Padme and Threepio. My original opinion that this is a dumb time period to tell stories in, because the fates of all the characters are already revealed, still stands.

One thing I really noticed about the series is how integral the soundscapes of Ben Burtt are to the Star Wars franchise. I mean, this series features renderings of all the characters that make them look somewhat different than what we saw in the films, voiced by different actors, with music by someone other than John Williams. Burtt isn’t actually creditted as working on the new animated series, but they clearly have all of his established sound effects at their disposal, and just hearing them adds great legitamacy to the whole endeavor.

In other animation news, I think I’ve finally thrown in the towel on Gurren Laggan, an anime series which has been airing on Sci Fi for the past few months. The thing has gotten so convulted, with so many characters and twists in the plot, it really seems as though the creators were flying by the seat of their pants. It’s very pretty to look at, but whoof.

Oh and by the way, that new ABC show Life on Mars? Absolutely nothing to do with Mars. What a gyp!

Okay, so first up I’ll be posting my thoughts about the article Entertainment Weekly ran a couple of weeks ago teasing the new Star Trek movie. Yes, I realize by internet standards that aritcle is ancient history now, but the actual film is still months from it’s release date, so it’s still worth discussing as far as I’m concerned. Stay tuned!

Zero-G #1

2008-10-24T12:02:00.005-04:00

When I take a chance on a new title or unknown creators these days, my M.O. more often than not is to buy the first issue when it’s solicited, then if it hooks me when it arrves to wait for the trade. I realize that’s not the ideal way to support up and coming artists, but I do have to work within a budget here. Too many times in the past I’ve wasted dough preordering three or even four issues of a title before reading the first one and learning it’s less than great.

In the case if Zero-G, however, I have indeed preordered the whole mini for two reasons. First, the solicitation sounded like the kind of thing I would dig and the cover art was good. Second, there’s really no guarantee that a relatively minor series such as this will ever be traded if it sells poorly in singles. Since the ultimate goal of this blog is to try in some small way to raise the profile of SF comics in the U.S., I have in this case put my money where my mouth is.

So far, no regrets. The first issue is fast-paced and fun, and Jason Badower’s interior art is just as pretty as his cover. While there’s a lot of set-up going on, Alex Zamm never goes overboard with talking heads and there’s plenty of time for a rocket launch, a dogfight in space, close encounters and some very bad news to close out the issue on a cliffhanger.

The plot is set in motion by the approach of a massive asteroid the size of Manhattan, which will pass through the solar system between the Moon and Mars. Interest in space exploration is at such a low these days that such a sighting probably wouldn’t stir up enough public support for a mission, however Zamm has a solution for this. This asteroid just so happens to be absolutely filthy with gold, platinum, diamonds, and enough uranium-235 to solve the world’s energy crisis. Suddenly, several different nations are in a race to get there first, not to mention at least one ambitious billionaire eager to finance his own private enterprise to claim this unprecedented source of wealth and power.

The initial discovery of the approaching asteroid is made by Atom Weaver, a simple geologist who finds himself thrown onto the team greenlit to plant the U.S. flag on its surface. Atom makes a good point-of-view character because he’s a reasonably average guy thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Plus, the team leader in charge of the billionaire’s competing mission happens to be his former college sweetheart!

So what makes this story science fiction? The core premise could be about rival treasure hunters racing to claim a gold-leaden Spanish galleon at the bottom of the ocean. But soon after out heroes land on the asteroid’s surface, they discover artificially carved tunnels in the rock, stumble across an underground graveyard of giant alien carcasses, and spot a shadowy observer whose silhouette strongly resembles a humanoid robot. All this in just the first issue!

The creators of Zero G show some real talent. Alex Zamm's writing is fun, breezy and not overly serious. There is good comeraderie between the characters, and the action moves fast with minimal exposition. Jason Badower’s pencils are quite nice, though he can’t resist the temptation to draw everyone beautiful and buff; even scientists and miners have tight athletic bodies. The most unintentionally funny line in the book actually comes from the character data files in the back: in the entry for Weaver’s ex we find out: “Evelyn has found her supermodel looks make it difficult for her to gain the respect she’s due from the scientific community.” Yet, look how she chooses to present herself in the televisied press conference announcing her mission:

Come now, this is a woman who wants everyone to respect her scientific abilities and not pay attention to her looks? Riiiight.

In this first issue, the creators basically lined up a bunch of dominoes, and over the next three months we get to watch ‘em fall. Zero-G is shaping up to be a fun little adventure, and so far I have no regrets about committing to the entire run.

Rating: 8/10

My Virtual Display Case: Previews October 2008

2008-10-20T10:30:00.006-04:00

Here's the start of a new ongoing feature here at Rock the Raygun called "My Virtual Display Case", in which yours truly pours over the latest issue of Previews and basically slobbers all over the kewl and overpriced toys that would look great on display in his Secret HQ, if only he had unlimited resources and space and zero familial responsibilities. If I were independently wealthy with a few thousand square feet of display space in my palatial estate, I would probably create a veritable museum to geekdom. In lieu of this, posting images of some of the cooler stuff I'd love to have is the closest I can come. It's materialism at its geekiest and most pathetic!

Before getting to the fun toys, I wanted to point out a couple of newly-solicited books of interest to space cadets everywhere: You can now preorder the complete HC collection of Universal War One from Marvel. In my very first post I talked about how impressed I was with the first issue and am looking forward to the rest. Discount Comic Book Service is offering this for a whopping 50% off the $24.99 cover price-- I'm not getting paid to advertise that, either, it's just a damn good price. Also I'm incredibly intrigued by not-so-subtly titled Holy Sh*t!-- sounds like a blast.

Buck Rogers Statue:

I'm actually partial to Flash Gordon, but damn if this isn't a wicked cool statue! It so perfectly captures the aesthetic of this site, I feel like I should change my profile image. This goes for a paltry $189... you see why I'm settling for ogling the image! Basically, when you go around calling yourself "Space Cadet Juan", this is how you picture yourself in your deluded mind's eye.

R2-D2 USB Hub:

This one is practical as well as cool; who couldn't use extra USB ports for all the techno-junk we plug into our computers? This goes for 45 bucks, which is about 30 more than a 4-port hub that doesn't look like the greatest droid in the galaxy. But would a plain old Linksys model light your heart up with joy? I think not.

Gundam Fix Figuration Metal Action Figure:

Let's not beat around the bush here: this is a hundred dollar toy that's only five inches tall. But it's die-cast metal, fully articulated, and "features various hands and a host of weapons"! Drool, drool.

Conan the Barbarian statue:

Crom! A mere 239 gold pieces.

Tribble Role Play:

I'm kind of surprised no one thought of this sooner: a tribble replica toy that "features real sound and motion" Hopefully it doesn't reproduce when it gets into your grain supply.

Batman Black & White Bruce Timm Statue:

Granted Batman is a cool looking character, and so popular that there is probably at least one new statue of him every month. But this is based on the design sensibility of the fantastic Batman Animated co-creator Bruce Timm, which makes it double-secret cool.

Serenity Valley Map Limited Edition Lithograph:
Boy, how esoteric can you get? A detailed map of an imaginary battle on a made-up planet, based on a TV show that was cancelled after less than a dozen episodes aired! Want it anyway.

The Martian Confederacy

2008-10-18T15:20:00.005-04:00

This is easily the most challenging comic I’ve attempted to review in the short existence of this blog, and I don’t just mean because my copy was a misprint missing the first 8 pages (although that certainly didn’t help). Great characters rub shoulder with outlandish unrelatable ones. Exciting, engaging passages are undermined by tangents into eccentric shtick. A steady increase in suspense is deflated by anticlimax. All this depicted with disappointingly simplistic artwork that looks for all the world like a minicomic sketched out with a sharpie in the back of biology class instead of paying attention to the teacher.

In the far future, humanity has joined the greater interstellar community, and a habitable Mars is a local tourist attraction for the galaxy. Writer Jason McNamara concocts a mostly believable future history in which Mars’ core is restarted, the polar ice caps are harvested for drinking water, and immigrants relocated in droves from the filthy Earth, but lest we mistakenly take the premise (or this graphic novel) too seriously, he also throws in the fact that the people of this future society consider 20th century entertainment to be historical artifacts, hence “apes replaced dogs as human pets in the 1980’s and William Shatner bravely conquered space travel.” It’s this kind of serial dopiness that crops up again and again throughout the book.

The plot is set in motion when a local professor develops a moss which will enrich the Martian atmosphere. This would eliminate the need for the breathers humans have been relying on to survive in the thin air. The local Alacalde, who is a total crooked bastard, finds this completely unacceptable, since he is heavily invested in the Breather market, so he murders the prof and burns down his lab. When he suspects that samples of the moss may have already been taken elsewhere, he’s petrified that the Breather industry is about to become obsolete. The bulk of the comic is a long chase as the Alacalde and his goons try to kill off anyone who might have learned about the professor’s experiment before it is revealed to the world.

At the center of this situation are three characters that I took a great liking to. Elijah Boone is a thief, outlaw and all around scoundrel who considered the professor like a father to him growing up. Aside from the questionable way he makes a living, Boone’s defining characteristic is he’s a total babehound who has seemingly scored with every woman on the planet. In fact, the only female he’s not interested in is his roommate Lou, but that’s only because she’s an android, and he doesn’t go that way. It’s his loss, because Lou is easily the most delightful and charming character in the whole book, a funny and fearless rogue who laughs in the face of danger and coolly navigates through every sticky situation with style. Spinner is your standard-issue uplifted bear, who runs a local dive in order to provide for his wife and cubs. Spinner isn’t actually involved in Boone and Lou’s shady lifestyle, but when he is thrown through no fault of his own into this mess, it’s great to watch the veil of domesticity drop away. He becomes reacquainted with his inner grizzly when would-be assassins threaten him, his family and his way of life.

Other characters, however, are so outlandish they truly challenge the readers’ suspension of disbelief. Like this cute babe named Sureena whom Boone meets early on that is willing to become all involved in his troubles after only a few minutes of conversation. When the Alacalde nearly catches up with them, Sureena is willing to doff her clothes, pretend to be a stripper, and distract the lawman with her boobs in order to let Boone sneak off and abandon her. Later when Boone breaks into her house covered head to tow in excrement (yes, really) she not only invites him to use her shower, she hops in with him! Boone is supposedly good with the ladies, but this is ridiculous!

The goofiest character of all is the Alacalde’s genetically anomalous girlfriend Sally, who is basically like a siamese twin, only with two top halves that meet in the middle. When the side that loves him is up top, her other half is upside down, walking on her hands underneath their skirt. Halfway through the story she/they do a somersault, the skirt flips over, and the side who is not so keen on the Alacalde is up top! Sally defies all logic: how does she go to the bathroom without a bottom half? Doesn’t all the blood rush to her upside down head? Maybe I’m taking this all too literally, and the reader is supposed to accept the character metaphorically. But what’s the metaphor? Women’s conflict over falling for men that are no good for them? Probably I’m just too literal-minded a reader to get behind the meaning of all the story’s really out-there elements.

When I cracked open this book I took an immediate dislike to Paige Braddock’s minimalist art style, though I must admit it grew on me after awhile and by the end I decided it was not totally horrible. Every once in awhile she nails a certain facial expression just perfectly, but overall I was pretty underwhelmed. Maybe my tastes are too mainstream but I could’ve enjoyed this book a lot more with a more accomplished penciller, especially for a book with a $15 cover price. Also all the black and white art is shaded in swaths of red, which gets old really fast. Red, cause it’s Mars, get it?

It’s very strange, I really wanted to like the Martian Confederacy a lot more than I actually did. Unfortunately, the final product is not as wonderful as some of its better elements, and it almost pains me to say I would only rate it about a 5.5. Despite my decidedly mixed reaction to this book, I actually would be interested in seeing another adventure of these characters, under the right circumstances. If McNamara were to bring back Boone, Lou, and Spinner, retain the humor while toning down the over-the-top surreal parts, and drawn by a more professional artist, I really think he could end up with a great product. In the meantime, I’m stuck with this odd duck of a book that I can’t even resell because it’s missing pages. Rats.

Fringe

2008-10-15T10:26:00.005-04:00

Avid TV watchers are usually dooming themselves to disappointment if they make the mistake of trying to invest in a new show on the Fox network. As fans of Firefly, Drive and countless other promising series can tell you, Fox is absolutely notorious for smothering their babies in their cradles. Many fledgling shows have had to deal with preemptions, schedule changes and episodes shown out of order before the ensuing spotty ratings are cited as reason to unceremoniously cancel the whole production. With the recent announcement, however, that the paranormal investigation show Fringe has been picked up for a full season, I can discuss the show without fear that my review will be rendered obsolete the moment I post it.

In all the prepublicity leading up to the premiere of Fringe, the folks behind the show almost went out of their way to distance themselves from the X-Files, insisting that while the paranormal theme is the same, they are actually quite different. It’s curious that they seem to want to deny any similarity, since X-Files was such a cult hit in its time and did very well for Fox for nearly a decade. Possibly the show’s luster dims in retrospect because it went on too long after the original co-stars no longer wanted to even be there. Perhaps like me, many viewers got fed up when we realized that X-Files’ much discussed and dissected “mythology” was a meaningless mess that the creators were making up as they went along. I know that I, for one, tuned out after season 6.

Fringe is not like X-Files in that it none of its characters in any way approach the crackling yin and yang relationship of Mulder and Scully: the believer vs. skeptic, wiseass vs. straight arrow, always with an undercurrent of sexual frission. Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish are fine actors but really there was no way the show was going to be remotely the same without its emotional core.

Rather than revolve around a core partnership, Fringe uses an ensemble cast, which is de rigueur for primetime dramas these days. If it were on CBS, it could be called CSI: Weirdsville. Rather than be disrespected outsiders, the investigators on this show have the full backing of the government, including manpower and appropriate budget. It’s the kind of scenario Mulder could only dream about, since he could never seem to scrape together the kind of proof necessary to convince his superiors that he wasn’t just chasing shadows.

The series’ lead, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), is an earnest FBI agent who unwittingly stumbles into a mysterious world of paranormal phenomenon after her lover and co-worker John is critically injured in a chemical explosion, cured of a bizarre transformative disease, revealed to be in cahoots with the bad guys, dies in a car crash, and now has apparently been resurrected through as-yet-unrevealed means. As character motivation “I need to find out what my snakey ex-boyfriend has been lying to me about” is not as geeky-cool as “my sister was abducted by aliens”, but it’ll do.

John Noble, who was wonderfully awful as Denethor in The Return of the King, plays Walter Bishop , the uber-eccentric mad scientist whose expertise is needed to crack the various bizarro mysteries encountered from week to week. A cross between Victor Frankenstein and Rain Man, Bishop exhibits all manner of ridiculous behavior, from talking to himself incessantly to sitting in the closet to announcing in the middle of a mission that he’s wet himself. But while these antics almost make him oddly endearing, at least once an episode Bishop shows his sociopathic side as he demonstrates again and again that his theories and experimentation take precedence over other people’s feelings and safety. Is Bishop merely misunderstood by conventional thinkers, or is there something much more sinister going on behind those hooded eyes?

Bishop’s estranged son Peter (Joshua Jackson) comes from a shady background and appears to be involved in criminal dealings as the series opens, but he is pulled over to the side of the angels initially as Walter’s wrangler, but as the show progresses has become more invested in the work the crew is doing. Peter makes a nice contrast to the FBI characters, because he doesn’t feel hemmed in by the rules and doesn’t always feel the need to do things by the book. However, it seems his past will come back to bite him on the ass; already we have seen a mystery tail taking photos of him for unexplained reasons…

There are a few other actors to round out the cast, but so far they haven’t been given a terrible lot to do. Lance Reddick is essentially this show’s “Skinner”, the boss man who hands out the assignments, but at least there is the hint that he may be playing both sides of the fence, which is intriguing. Kirk Acevedo’s character mostly just executes arrest and search warrants, and Jasika Nicole’s character is a glorified gopher. It’s pretty sad when the only notable scene involving Nicole’s Astrid Farnsworth is to be snuck up on and stabbed in the neck with a hypodermic needle of tranquilizer by Walter.

In terms of content, after watching 5 episodes it seems to me that Fringe follows the X-Files paradigm pretty closely in terms of the “freak of the week” structure. Each show begins with a creepy teaser setting up the puzzle or mystery of the episode, followed by eerie New-Agey opening credits. The heroes show up after the commercial break to investigate, and things seem to be wrapped up pretty well by the end of each week. But then there is often a coda which indicates things are not as settled as the good guys might’ve been fooled into believing.

So as the X-Files had its conspiracy “mythology”, Fringe has “The Pattern”, an overarching connection between all these seemingly isolated paranormal events that suggests they might be orchestrated towards a single unguessable goal. Instead of a Cigarette Smoking Man, there is The Observer, a hairless man in a suit and fedora who is present at every catastrophe to takes notes in a pictographic writing. The recent episode “The Arrival” has a black ops baddie that is reminiscent of Krycek. Since Fringe is executive produced by JJ Abrams, I can’t help but to look to his previous series to get some idea as to whether the Pattern storyline will be executed any better than the X-Files’ slapdash mythology. On the one hand, I truly do get the sense when I watch Lost that the creators know all the answers and are slowly working towards those big reveals at the end of the series. On the other, the ongoing Rimbaldi thread in Alias was loaded with potential that went absolutely nowhere, and the whole thing was dropped halfway through the show’s run. So really this show could go either way, but I’m hopeful.

I’m not the world’s biggest horror fan, but I’m sticking with Fringe. Few new series get past that crucial 3-episode trail period with me, but I’ve decided to take the ride with this one in the hopes that it takes me to some cool stops along the way. Right now I would rate Fringe at a 7.5, although that could certainly rise with time as the characters develop and the Pattern mystery unfolds.

M-Theory #1

2008-10-07T14:29:00.006-04:00

The creators of M-Theory pretty much state their intentions right on the cover, which is clearly an homage to the EC sci-fi comics of the 50s. This title is chock full of retro elements that wouldn’t be out of place in those books of old: aliens, monsters, robots, and space rangers armed with ray guns and jetpacks populate these pages. Sadly, the theme doesn’t continue on the artistic side, which doesn’t reflect the EC style in any way and is a big letdown.

With so many ingredients thrown into the mix, writers Dwight L. MacPherson and Bruce Brown unveil no fewer than three plotlines in the premiere issue in this mini. The first involves the fallout from America’s first contact with aliens in, you guessed it, Roswell New Mexico. The second takes place in Princeton’s science department during Albert Einstein’s tenure there and in the third we are off in deep space with the aforementioned spacemen. Presumably these threads will all dovetail together by the end, though how they will be able to coherently accomplish this in just 3 issues remains to be seen.

The lead character of the Roswell section is Friedrick Goetz, a jaded and cynical inventor with his own robot sidekick in tow. Goetz witnessed the arrival of the aliens firsthand, although in this version of events they didn’t crash but rather landed safely and were subsequently blasted out of existence by the trigger-happy U.S. army. Before dying, one of the aliens transfers its consciousness into Goetz, giving him instant knowledge of an entire otherworldly civilization. Over the next five years, Goetz toils in a secret underground research facility replicating the aliens’ technological marvels, but he is bitterly certain the government will never allow the average citizen the benefit of their use.

In the Princeton section, Agnes Font is a young physicist who has built a “quantum receiver” capable of communicating with other dimensions for her master’s project. Now I’m all for equal opportunity, but it seems anachronistic to have one of Einstein’s contemporaries be a cute young female, but then I wasn’t around in the 50s so maybe I just have a wrongheaded idea of gender roles in that time. Anyway, in a classic “be careful what you wish for” scenario, Agnes’ device succeeds in making contact with an alien consciousness which reaches out from wherever-- but when their minds meet she’s overwhelmed and passes out.

In the third and most action-packed section, three unidentified dudes in spacesuits travel around space blasting just about everything that crosses their sights. As I read along, I had in my mind that perhaps these were U.S. soldiers utilizing the tech that Goetz was developing, but really that’s just guesswork on my part. It’s never mentioned who these guy are, what they’re up to, or even if they’re from Earth. Their “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude is reminiscent of the army in the Roswell scene, so maybe that’s meant to be a hint.

Mike Barentine’s pencils killed a lot of my potential enjoyment of this issue. I realize there are not many artists around today who can compare to Wally Wood or Al Williamson, but at least an attempt should have been made to emulate the EC art style in some way. Barentine’s zany Mad Magazine-style cartooning is not only not attractive, it makes the whole project seem lightweight and disposable, as if the creators are saying “you weren’t planning to in any way take this seriously, were you?” If someone put a blaster to my head and forced me to say something positive, I would point out that Barentine draws good distinctive faces, but that’s about it.

Behind the scenes, the situation with M-Theory seems as messy and disjointed as what’s between the pages. After issue two had already been solicited MacPherson and company decided to part ways with Shadowline and Image over compensation issues, the result being that issue one is the only one you are likely to see on the stands anytime soon. Now I notice that issue two (but not one) has been posted on WOWIO, so it doesn’t seem likely that any kind of profit is going to be turned on this thing.

It’s a pity that I don’t dig M-Theory more, it has all the elements of a fun little retro tale, but the creators don’t seem to be saying much new or interesting with them. And the art simply isn’t my thing. I appreciate the effort, but I would only give the finished product a 6/10. It’s too bad they couldn’t get Al Williamson out of retirement to draw this, but then again they probably couldn’t afford him, especially if they’re going to be giving the issues away for free.

Devoid of Life

2008-10-06T01:11:00.005-04:00

I wouldn't normally want to give too much away about the big bad in a horror story, but in case of the new Image graphic novel Devoid of Life, the nature of the terrifying aliens is explained in the back cover blurb, and they are depicted in all of their shambling glory on the front. The Xenos hail from an unknown planet in our solar system, which remains outside of human knowledge because they hunt down and kill anyone who discovers the secret of its existence. These hideous creatures mean business: if they cannot contain the threat, they will jump straight to genocide. The opening pages, set 5,000 years in the past, depict the end of the Martian civilization after they discover the Xenos homeworld.

The heroine of our tale is Rochelle Bonner, who is police chief of a small American town called Andini. While Rochelle seems to have the responsibilities of her job well in hand, privately she is plagued by extreme anxiety linked to a fuzzy half-remembered incident from her childhood. Her troublesome past is affecting her marriage, to the point where her husband Garrett has decided they need some time apart. In other words, her world is already falling apart even before the really strange stuff starts happening.

Rochelle's work day starts out with a trip to a local farm where an entire cornfield has simply disappeared overnight. On her way back through town, she suffers through an extensive waking dream in which she is trapped in a creepy deserted building which is somehow reminiscent of her hazy past trauma. Her worst day ever culminates in the discovery of a massacre at the Andini Observatory. And who happens to be the now late designer of the new telescope which had unfortunately noticed the Xenos homeworld? Garrett's brother, Victor.

Writer/Artist Raffaele Ienco's greatest strength is his artwork, which is amazingly assured and effective considering this is only his second published work. He is equally adept at depicting people having a quiet conversation or twisted in a rictus of death; cars and buildings believably coexsist with gruesome monsters and walking corpses. Ienco clearly has a great awareness of and love for the elements of effective horror. The imagery throughout this graphic novel is genuinely creepy and thrilling. If a J-horror director were to film a Lovecraftian mythos story, it would look something like this.

But then there's the ending. I'd like to think I'm not a total dummy, but I'm having a hell of a time connecting all the dots when it comes to this book's final act. For starters, the climax hinges on one of the characters having possession of-- well let's just say it's not something you can pick up at the local five-and-dime. And while it's to be expected that Rochelle's mystery past will tie into the current crisis somehow, the specifics cause logical knots of Donnie Darko proportions. Where did that opportune pack of wolves come from? What's with all the helicopters? If I didn't know better, I would almost think there were pages missing somewhere along the way.

I would love for someone to option Devoid of Life, because it would make one scary-ass movie. As it stands, I would rate this book a 7.5, but if someone could explain to me what the heck was going on towards the end, that rating could easily go up or down. In any case, Raffaele Ienco is a talent and I intend to keep an eye out for his future work.

UPDATE 10/24/08: Well, my tongue was in cheek when I talked about having the ending explained to me, but Raffaele Ienco himself contacted me to patiently explain what I was missing. Lest anyone think the book is too complicated, let me assure you that it all pulls together quite nicely, as long as you understand that prolonged proximity to the Xenos has made White super super smart, like Brainiac 5-level smart.

Raffaele gave me permission to reprint his email, but I think it gives away too many spoilers. In classic "give em an inch and they'll take a mile" style, I briefly considered trying to convince Raffaele to grant me a short interview, but I decided not to pester him because let's face it, how many readers can this blog possibly have? Besides, I came across a pretty good interview at Comic Book Resources that answers most of the questions I would have asked anyway.

Anyway, I hearby bump up my rating to an even 8. Devoid of Life is good scary fun, everyone go out and buy 5 copies!

Serpo

2008-09-28T23:49:00.002-04:00

I am a big fan of science fiction, but for the purposes of this review let me emphasize the word "fiction". I don't believe in UFOs and I find ludicrous the thought that we are constantly being secretly visited by extraterrestrials who completely avoid detection, if for no other reason than the governments of the world don't have the competence to pull off such a vast cover-up. I expect with a universe as vast as ours, there is certainly other life out there, but I tend to think of it more as single-celled organisms or a nice grey-green moss, perhaps. But an advanced civilization with interstellar capabilities and an interest in crop circles and anal probing? Not so much. But it's fun to imagine.

The new Devil's Due graphic novel Serpo purports to be a comics dramatization of real-life events as documented on the website Serpo.org. According to the conspiracy theorists there, Roswell New Mexico was indeed the crash site of a UFO in 1947, and one surviving alien was recovered from the wreckage. In this iteration of that old chestnut, the Greys are referred to as "Ebens" (short for extraterrestrial biological entity) and hail from Serpo, which is said to be a habitable planet in the Zeta Reticuli system. Messages sent back to Serpo from the crash survivor pave the way for a cultural exchange during which 12 American soldiers traveled to the alien world for over 10 years to learn about their people.

Like I said, I don't buy any of this for a second, but it's a perfectly fine premise for a work of fiction. Unfortunately creators Jason M. Burns and Joe Eisma come far short of hitting a home run on this one, it's more like an infield single. There's no one thing that ruins my enjoyment, but rather an accumulation of a lot of little nitpicks that add up.

The framing sequence of this story involves the very tired device of the intrepid reporter being run around in circles by a mystery informant. He gains access to the hush-hush journal of the supposed leader of the expedition (referred to as 102, since nobody involved can reveal their true identities), and almost immediately shadowy Men in Black are out to get him. Isn't this the easiest route to go and very stale by this point? We all know that the reporter will keep hitting brick walls, never find a credible witness, and won't be able to break this story so the whole world comes to know and believe. Sorry, did I just ruin the ending for ya?

The diary isn't even written that convincingly, it almost sounds like an invention rather than a credible artifact. For instance, one entry starts off like this: "July 21, 1965: Almost two years had passed between the initial introduction of the team to Project Crystal Knight and the day of the actual exchange." Wait, what does he mean "had passed"? If he's writing in a journal, wouldn't the entry be in the present tense, "have passed"? It sounds more like someone writing his memoirs from a much later date, as if Burns forgot what form his narrative was supposed to be taking. And why are the first few entries colored a uniform beige, and then for no reason the flashbacks are in color for the rest of the way?

By the way, the two year gap mentioned above points out another problem I had with the graphic novel: time just shoots by too fast. In less than 75 pages we must zip through nearly two decades of the narrator's experiences, making this at times seem more like a Cliffs Notes of a much more involved (and possibly rewarding) story. Very little of the characters beyond the two leads are fleshed out at all. The fact that there are just two women on the trip with many males is never even mentioned. No one hooks up or even gets knocked up during a 10 year mission? At one point Serpo is attacked by another race, but we never see them again or learn more about them. At the end of the first chapter, one angry member of the mission gets himself in hot water with the Eben lawmakers, but this is completely glossed over at the beginning of the next.

This character, called 203, is particularly egregious because he is so ridiculously insubordinate and untrustworthy. If I were a solider, I would be insulted that this character is even implied to have made it through training without washing out, let alone being picked for an elite team representing our entire race.

And ultimately, the Ebens really aren't all that interesting. They dress in boring robes and live in boring huts. Like humans, they have families, bury their dead underground, and play soccer. In short, I wish the aliens were more alien. I suppose the creators could try to argue that their hands were tied because that's what “really happened“, and that's what Grey culture is “really like“. If so, they would have been better off adapting some other first contact story; science fiction is just loaded with ‘em, most more deserving of a comic adaptation than this.

The art by Eisma is pretty good but rarely thrills. He seems at his strongest when he gets to draw weird creatures, like visiting aliens and escaped lab experiments. Other times, his storytelling is way too obvious, such as when 102 tells the others, "let's just hope none of us has to take the cyanide way out" and Eisma actually draws the leader taking out his cyanide capsule and holding it up for them to see, as if they otherwise won't understand what he's talking about. Overall, the art loses a lot of the detail and becomes more basic looking towards the end, as if he was taking his time early on but then later rushed for whatever reason.

Serpo is by no means bad, in fact I would say it's very-- competent. I suppose that's damning with faint praise, but really it's not like I threw the book down in disgust. Maybe I expect too much sometimes, but I was hoping for something a bit more original, imaginative and absorbing. I would give this book a 6.5.

Doomsday

2008-09-24T11:31:00.005-04:00

Critics were not kind to Doomsday when it came out in March and it didn't spend much time in theaters. The main rap against the flick was that it was too derivative, blatantly lifting elements from previous successful genre films. This accusation, by the way, is entirely true. But while originality of concept is always appreciated and to be commended, the lack therefore does not automatically guarantee that the work in question is valueless. I don't care if you string together elements from a thousand previous sources if the result is at least entertaining, and I'm here to say I was entertained as hell by Doomsday.

Count the precedents as I discuss the plot. A horrific virus breaks out in the UK, threatening to destroy humanity's very way of life (28 Days Later). The location of the Hot Zone-- Scotland-- is quarantined behind massive walls and becomes a lawless place where the imprisoned fend for themselves any way they can (Escape from New York). 30 years later, there's another outbreak in London and now the government has reason to believe the key to its cure is among the survivors up north. So a rescue team has to go behind the walls on an extraction mission (that would be Escape from New York again). An overconfident team of soldiers in armored transports are overmatched and trapped in enemy territory (Aliens). The sexy female lead (in this case, Rhona Mitra) must kick major ass and fight against all odds to complete her mission (Ultraviolet, Aeon Flux). The main obstacle is a legion of leather-and-chained punks who ride around on tricked out vehicles (the Road Warrior). At a critical juncture, she is forced to step into a deathmatch arena, and battle to the death with a larger and better armed and armored foe before a stadium of foaming-mouthed spectators (pretty much every movie ever, seems like).

The script is so stupid, it's brilliant. After martial law is declared, a clearly diseased man is discovered among the panicked throngs who are attempting to evacuate. How does the soldier who makes discovery act to maintain law and order? He whips out his machine gun and blasts the poor bastard to mush, spraying everyone in a 20 yard radius with infected blood and guts! When the powers that be decide that the whole crisis is FUBAR, they order the gates on the quarantine zone permanently sealed. One hapless sucker on the wrong side apparently thinks the gates will just spring back open like elevator doors if he just sticks his hand between them before they close, and he promptly loses his arm in gory fashion. One distraught mother convinces some soldiers to take her little daughter away with them in their helicopter-- um, how do they know the little girl isn't a carrier? Especially since she is bleeding from her eye when they take her away with them?

I’m not sure what the theatrical version was like, but the unrated DVD is as violent and gory as it is dopey, with a gleeful level of flowing blood, hacked limbs and decapitations usually reserved for hardcore horror flicks. Not only does a little girl lose her eye, people get cooked and eaten, bunnies explode. Yes, that’s right-- bunnies explode!

Director Neil Marshall keeps the action moving along at all times, which is a big key to its success. If the story makes little to no sense, don’t give the audience time to think about it, just throw another obstacle in our heroes’ path. In lesser hands, this could have been no better than a low-budget straight-to-cable schlockfest. Instead, it’s a slick, fast-moving, great looking, decently acted schlockfest. Mitra makes a great heroine, and Marshall even got Malcolm McDowell and Bob Hoskins to appear in this thing. Also, it’s nice to see the Gimp from Pulp Fiction get some work.

It’s funny, usually the story is the main thing that will make or break a movie for me. I can put up with a lot if there’s a good script at the heart of it and usually the most beautiful film in the world can end up being a dud in my eyes if the story stinks. But in the case of Doomsday, it’s all so over-the-top crazy fun, I just checked my brain at the door and enjoyed the ride. Today, I might just be a little bit dumber person than I was yesterday, but I give Doomsday a 7.

Titanium Rain #1

2008-09-21T23:09:00.005-04:00

It took me a moment to remember why I preordered Titanium Rain in the first place. At first glance, it appears to be a straight up war comic with no particular science fictional angle. Not that I don’t enjoy a good war comic, but I recalled ordering it with a view towards reviewing it for this site. Then, upon further examination, I noticed a 4-panel appearance by a mecha in the opening fight scene, and also that the supplementary maps are dated 2031. Those are your only indications that the story doesn’t take place today.

The aforementioned battle, by the way, comprises the first five pages of the issue, and is the only actual combat that takes place in this ostensible war comic. U.S. soldiers are in enemy territory and under fire, in the midst of a massive Chinese civil war. The scene is compelling and well-rendered, but it’s over in a blink. Frustratingly, once we turn away from this locale we never return to it and none of the characters appear again or are even mentioned for the remainder of the issue.

Instead, the scene switches to an air base off of mainland China, where a squad of pilots spend the bulk of the issue playing poker. My mind boggled at how long this scene drags on, as the squad captain attempts some convoluted metaphor as to how poker is a reflection of the ongoing conflict. I suppose writer Josh Finney is trying to figure out a way to squeeze in an explanation of who is fighting who and why, but this scene of talking heads sitting around a table goes on for what seems like an eternity (it’s actually 9 pages of a 23 page story) and by the end I was still at a loss as to the point Captain Schilling was trying to make.

The photo-realistic artwork in this comic is far more interesting than the writing. The faces of the characters are so unique and distinct that Kat Rocha clearly used real-life models for everyone, of which I approve. Many comic artists seem unable to draw different character faces, to the point where the only way to tell them apart in some books is by their hair styles and clothing. In this comic, it’s very easy to differentiate all of the characters-- even thought all they do is sit around B.S.ing for most of the comic.

Finally towards the end of this issue the pilots are called to arms and hop in their planes. Clearly something exciting may occur-- next issue!

I was both surprised and a little frustrated when I learned that the descriptive blurb on the back cover of this issue reveals more about what’s going on in this comic than the actual comic. According to the synopsis “civil war in China spirals into world conflict. Nations are destroyed. Millions are killed.” It does? They are? Although it’s obvious there’s fighting going on in China, nothing in the actual issue indicates that there is this level of carnage and devastation going on worldwide. “And for many, like US Air Force pilot Alec Killian…” What? Killian is meant to be this story’s protagonist? Who knew? The pontificating captain gets most of the speaking time in this issue. “…survival will mean shedding some of his humanity in exchange for biotech and machine.” It will? That sounds pretty cool, what issue will that be in?

Based on the premise and the artwork, Titanium Rain would seem to have potential, but the pacing is bad and the captions and dialogue vacillate between pretentious and corny. I’d rate Titanium Rain #1 a 6, at best. It’s possible that the whole poker thing would read better and not seem so interminable in a collected trade paperback, but to make it the focal point of a single comic, and your premiere issue no less, was a horrible decision and a big let down. Tighten up those scripts, Mr. Finney!

Frank Frazetta's Creatures

2008-09-19T11:26:00.009-04:00

I might as well confess right up front that I have a soft spot for anything that has to do with Teddy Roosevelt, who is a local hero in my hometown of Oyster Bay, New York. Roosevelt resided there during his presidency, raised his family there, and is buried there as well. Growing up there, you can’t escape his influence: I attended Theodore Roosevelt Elementary school, the local park and bird sanctuary are named after him as well, one of our fire departments adopted the name Rough Riders, and a handsome bust of TR adorns the front of our Town Hall. While there are other famous citizens with ties to the area, not even Billy Joel, Jackie “the Jokeman” Martling, or even Weiner Dog inspire a greater sense of local pride.

Yet even if I can put aside my obvious bias in the matter, I would still say that Frank Frazetta’s Creatures is an entertaining and amusing little one-shot. Rick Remender and Peter Bergting have concocted a wonderfully gonzo alternate universe where Roosevelt was not only a big game hunter, cavalry soldier, and respected statesman, but also an accomplished ghostbuster, valiantly engaging supernatural menaces with his secret team of “Dark Riders” (which includes among its membership SF author Edgar Rice Burroughs). Through 25 pages of nearly non-stop action, Teddy keeps a stiff upper lip as he plows through disgruntled demigods, giant snakes, savage apes, and even a legion of ornery pint-sized Martian invaders.

If this brew of action, humor and the supernatural puts you in mind of the Hellboy universe as concocted by Mike Mignola, I’m not sure that’s a comparison that Remender and Bergting would shy away from. Bergting’s shadowy and simplified pencils even remind me of the style employed by Mignola and other artists who draw in his books. In addition to Roosevelt’s natural talents, Remender has also armed the Prez with a mystic gem that grants him superpowers, as well as a funky powerpack and monster blasters. As is often the case with Hellboy, TR meets each outrageous challenge with fisticuffs and gunplay. Unfortunately, because the tone of the story is so light, there’s a distinct lack of jeopardy to the combat; there’s no creature our hero encounters that he can’t blast apart.

By the way, exactly what Frank Frazetta has to do with any of this is not at all clear to me. My guess is that he simply okayed the use of his name and the reprinting of his painting for the cover and otherwise his involvement extends to cashing the check. I assume that Remender’s assignment was to extrapolate a story out of what was depicted in the painting, but if so he has a hell of an imagination. Studying that painting, I never would’ve guessed that the hunter with his back to the viewer was Theodore Roosevelt! Actually, Bergting’s great variant cover has a more accurate depiction of the prez-on-martian wackiness to be found within.

Frank Frazetta’s Creatures is light and fun and earns a 7/10 from this appreciative reader. A one-shot is the perfect format for this concept, as I suspect turning this premise into a series would kill the joke pretty quick. However, if Remender and Mignola were ever to join forces to have Teddy Roosevelt fight alongside the Amazing Screw-On Head, count me in!

More Heavy Metal Movie Details

2008-09-18T03:35:00.004-04:00

New details emerge about the proposed next Heavy Metal movie. Not sure how set in stone the $50 million budget is, or how likely it is that all great directors he mentions will actually end up working on it, but boy he makes it sound goooood. He also seems to be well aware that the last movie was a stinker, but deflects all blame for that.

Ret Romanne #1

2008-09-17T00:46:00.004-04:00

I find myself simultaneously irritated and a little relieved that Blue Water Comics has posted Ret Romanne #1 to read for free at WOWIO. I'm irritated because I spent four bucks on this thing just a few weeks ago. But I'm also relieved of the onerous task of trying to explain what the book is about, since in several ways it defies explanation. Anyone interested in a visually interesting but otherwise meandering comic about a scarred outcast bumming around the back streets of a floating city, click over and take a look for yourself.

I think we can all agree that the book looks pretty cool. Alan Brooks has some ginchy digital rendering software and he knows how to use it. Most of the pleasure I derived from this comic came from taking in the dazzling blend of CGI artwork and photography (at least, I think that's what we're looking at). Brooks' views of the city and its streets, as well as the interior of the aircar are especially fine; the argument could be made that the more surreal pages of Ret's visions are too busy and a little over the top. But there isn't a single panel in this comic you could call boring.

The actual story, meanwhile, has such a poor structure and lousy pacing that it sinks the entire enterprise. Brooks spends so much time setting the scene, delving into backstory, and going off on waking dream tangents that nothing much actually happens in the here and now. The entire issue can be summed up in one sentence: "Ret gets a distressing phone call." Hey, maybe next issue he'll actually do something about it!

The issue starts, puzzlingly, with an introduction by three robot narrators, who seem to be breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the reader. They also seem to be disembodied heads, and I'm not sure what purpose they serve other than for Brooks to say, "Look what cool robot heads I can design!" The whole narration angle seems to be dropped a few pages in, anyway.

Rather than jump right into the story, we are led by the hand through the whole setup: "Here's the city where this takes place." "Here's what happened to Ret to make him like this." In my mind, he should have just started with the story. Details about the city can be dropped in during the action. A flashback relating Ret's accident can be shown later during a quiet moment. Possibly Brooks should stick to the art side of things and a writer could be brought in to write a more readable story.

Who is Ret Romanne and what does he do? Is he a detective/enforcer type, or just a whackjob who wanders the streets of U.N.Topia? Does he wear some kind of armor or have cybernetic parts? Is his chest cavity on fire or is that just an artistic flourish? Why does he wear American and UK flags on his head? And what's with the visions- does he have psychic powers? Is he have a connection to the realm of dreams? Is he half-remembering stuff he has already experienced but has forgotten? I realize at least some of this is supposed to be a mystery that will unfold over time, but come on. Tell us something about this guy whose travails we are supposed to be invested in. He is the title character, yet all we know about him so far is he crashed and burned and now he likes to dress up like Darkman and build robots.

Based solely on the rad visuals, I would give Ret Romanne #1 a 6/10. But if Alan Brooks wants solely to show off his mad graphics skills maybe he would be better served coming out with a nice big coffee table art book. As the premiere issue of a comic series, this doesn't get the job done. I wasn't convinced at all to shell out for another issue. On the other hand, if Blue Water keeps posting future issues online, I may check in simply to find out if Brooks ever gets on with it already.

Contract #1

2008-09-12T10:40:00.002-04:00

This is exactly the kind of book I want to like and get behind: a futuristic action-adventure series published in full color by an independent company. When the vast majority of comics on the shelves are superheroes (and don't get me wrong, I love my Men in Tights), who wouldn't want to see an upstart SF title come out of the woodwork and catch on with readers eager for something different? Unfortunately, I don't think that Contract has enough originality or pizzazz to survive in a pretty cutthroat marketplace.

Contract takes place in a fictional star system that boasts no fewer than five inhabited worlds. Life is cheap and mega-corporations have free reign to commit any despicable act in order to turn a profit. In this hostile environment, there is an entire mercenary industry making a living doing dirty work and troubleshooting for clients with deep pockets. The word "mercenary" usually has a negative connotation, but protagonists of his title, the trio of mercs working as the Stellar Rangers, are well-meaning mercenaries, you see, with hearts of gold. When a low-ranking corporate exec's daughter is kidnapped and not returned even after the ransom is paid, they agree to take the case despite the fact that the father has almost no money to pay them.

The field leader of the trio (and CEO of the Rangers) is Jessie Garrett, a leather-clad cowgirl. Muscle-bound Panzer is a one-man wrecking crew with a love of women, violence and hamburgers. Tsumi is a quiet and sardonic modern-day samurai. Of the three, the ribald and roughhouse Panzer, with his hedonistic lifestyle and heavy German accent, is the one who really stands out and captures the reader's attention. The other two engage in some banter, but otherwise aren't given much time to shine. Presumably they will be fleshed out more in future issues- assuming that anyone is still buying the title by that point.

This extra-long premiere boasts an impressive 40 pages of material- three stories plus a short preview of the next issue. It's a great idea to try to pack so much action in to give an introduction to the title, but there are a few missteps which kind of shoot the creators in the foot. For one, it seems counter-intuitive to put the kidnapping story in the leadoff spot, since that continues on to next issue. The other two stories are self-contained, which makes it slightly confusing to have them follow a story that ends on a cliffhanger. Also, the art in the stories varies from "decent" to "mediocre" and, as we learn from reading the letters page, none of these three are the regular series artist, who won't be starting until next issue!

The biggest disappointment for me with the issue is that creator/co-writer Garan Madeiros doesn't really immerse me in some crazy, mind-bending future society; the worlds of Helios are rather generic recycled SF imagery. The cars fly, Panzer has a mechanical arm, and a bunch of futuristic-sounding prefixes like "neuro" and "cyber' are dropped into the dialogue (Panzer doesn't just take steroids-- he takes nano-steroids!), but it just seems like window dressing. The armored nut that Panzer takes down in the third story could just as easily be a drug addicted weight-lifter on PCP. With only the slightest rewrite on the script the lead story could be about contemporary soldiers of fortune traveling to South America to save a child being held by gangbangers.

The lead characters are likable and it is clear that Madeiros is having a ball, but I just wish Contact showed more creativity and originality in the setting. I also wonder if it wouldn't have been more prudent to tell the entire kidnapping plot in the first issue, and leave the two standalones for sometime when the creators were facing a deadline crunch and needed page filler. I would give this a 6/10, although I feel that the book has the ingredients to work. The blah art and the generic setting leave me on the fence on this one, but with so much product to choose from, I kind of doubt First Salvo will be getting any more of my dough.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season One

2008-09-10T09:55:00.008-04:00

Redundant. That’s the word I keep coming back to when I consider the Terminator franchise. To be sure, each of the three films in the series are very good when considered individually, but watching them back to back it becomes pretty noticeable how rigidly they stick to the same formula over and over. The details are shuffled but at the heart of it is the same plot: Skynet sends a terminator from the future to stop John Connor from ever becoming the leader of the human resistance by killing him/his mother. Sarah and/or John flee for their lives aided by some good guy representative also sent back in time by future-John. Much chasing, fighting and carnage ensue. The terminator is eventually destroyed, but the good guy traveler is killed/destroyed as well. Rinse and repeat.

Despite the absence of James Cameron, Terminator 3 didn’t turn out to be a horrible movie; in fact it’s perfectly good if taken on its own terms and you ignore the fact that it’s the same damn story regurgitated for yet another go-around. What really redeemed the film for me, what made me sit up and take notice and feel that it really did have a reason to exist, is that it finally shut the door on the prospect of any future films returning to the formula yet again. Everything changes by the end of movie 3.

So naturally the first thing the creators of the TV series Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles decided to do it throw the third film right out the window. Sarah is still alive, and the apocalypse is still on the horizon. The pieces have been reset to start the chasing all over again. Only this time around, the R-rated violence and language are toned down, the chases are more modest to accommodate a TV-sized budget, and everything is slowed way down to stretch two hours worth of story into-- well, an unlimited amount of episodes. Yes, kids, it’s everything you loved about the films, only slower, safer and less intense. Oh, and no Arnold.

Summer Glau substitutes for Arnold on the show, and it’s actually an inspired idea. If you just stuck some other Austrian roid-head in the part, he would‘ve compared unfavorably to Schwarzenegger. Instead, they went the completely opposite way and cast a willowy young woman as Cameron, the new protector Terminator. Good move. Of course, on the show’s limited budget, most of the terminator-on-terminator fighting in this series boils down to the combatants grabbing each other's shoulders and hurling each other back and forth into drywall. Glau is mostly called on to stare unblinkingly and look puzzled, but isn’t that pretty much what she did on Firefly as well?

Early in the series, Sarah, John and Cameron flash forward in time several years, in order to explain how it could be that it’s 2008 and John is still a whiny teenager. More than one terminator is running around, and one wonders why Skynet didn’t just send 1,000 terminators back at once to really overwhelm the Connors and take them out once and for all. One misstep the show takes is focusing on some of John’s classmates’ dilemmas at his new school. Here’s a tip for you, executive producer Josh Friedman: we don’t watch Terminator for high school dramatics. Give us a break!

The Connors in the show pale in comparison to the actors who originated the roles. Lena Headley tries her best to look tough, but she lacks the manic intensity, paranoia and berserker strength of Linda Hamilton. She’s too pretty and too soft. Edward Furlong’s John Connor might have been an annoying punk, but at least he had a personality and was interesting to watch. Thomas Dekker’s version is very dull and ineffective, spending most of his time petulant and melancholy, and often with his eyes brimming with tears. This is the savior of humanity?

I tried watching this week’s premiere of the second season, in hopes that a better direction has been found now that the writer’s strike is behind us. Also, I am a huge Shirely Manson devotee and was interested in seeing how she worked out on the show. Unfortuntely, “Samson & Delilah” is one of the worst episodes yet, a complete time waster in which Cameron reverts to her original programming and starts trying to kill John again. Since it’s obvious she will be back on the side of the angels by the end of the episode, the whole thing is simply an excuse for John to shave his head and possibly finally grow a set. As for Shirley, I still love her to death, but she’s completely over her head as a T-1000 corporate CEO. I’ve stood ten feet from the woman when she was onstage totally captivating an audience, and I know she can take me out with just the flick of her wrist, but she looks out of her comfort zone here. Hopefully she’ll adjust, since her character seems likes she’s going to be pretty important.

Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles is not a horrible show, it’s just a completely pointless one, in my eyes. By far my favorite episode of the first season was “Dungeons and Dragons”, but that’s because it partially takes place in the future timeline of Skynet. I’ve always been more intrigued by that post-apocalyptic setting and wanted to see it explored more. Which is why I’ve pretty much written off this show as “been there, done that” and am psyched as hell to see Terminator: Salvation, which unfortunately is not due to his theaters for another nine months! As for the series, I already watch too much TV to keep up with a show I’m not even enjoying, and I would only rate it about a 6.5. But be sure to let me know if anything interesting happens…

Pilot Season: The Core

2008-09-08T03:04:00.003-04:00

Top Cow has come up with an ingenious way to test the waters on new book ideas to see if they will fly. Much as the TV networks each year sanction the creation of pilot episodes of prospective new shows to gauge how they might look and whether they will succeed, Top Cow has created a "Pilot Season" of their own, in which they release 6 one-shots that could potentially become an ongoing series if the demand is high enough. In this contest, fans vote in a poll posted on a special MySpace page, and the top two vote getters will be rewarded with a shot at a monthly series. Neat idea, isn't it?

Last year's two winners were both superhero books, but this year there is one straight-up sci-fi nominee, and that's Jonathan Hickman and Kenneth Rocafort's The Core. Packed jammed-tight into 24 slick pages is a little bit of everything I like to see in my space operas: politics, intrigue, combat, and groovy alien races. A lot happens in this issue, but let's face it: it's the creators' big shot at trying to land an ongoing gig, and they lay out their scenario at a breakneck pace. Too bad that, as I post this, voting is 24 hours away from closing, and this book is only in fourth place!

The Core of the title refers, quite literally, to the center of the universe, where populated worlds are more closely packed together and the home of several ancient coalitions which over the millennia have steadily expanded outward. After so much passage of time, the inner worlds of the Core are low on resources, making them more desperate for new member worlds as they branch out. As the story opens, Earth has only recently been accepted into the Dahiba Federation, but the alliance is an uneasy one because humanity is making many demands which the Dahiba resent but grudgingly put up with for access to the Sol system’s resources.

Enter our POV character Asimov Dedeken (great name, huh?), the first human to be accepted into Red Sector, which is the Federation's religion-tinged special ops forces. We are along for the ride for Asimov's baptism of fire, joining four other ops for a rescue mission to recover a captive ambassador taken hostage by separatists, most likely on the orders of the Federation's foes, the Saano Solidarity. Amidst the action, Asimov absorbs more and more about the political makeup of the Core, and what exactly he has gotten himself into. He learns about the world that Hickman and Rocafort have devised even as we do. The book ends with a bit of a twist that ensures our hero is in for a big-time moral dilemma in the days ahead.

Hickman and Rocafort have crafted a universe that seems like a cool place to spend some time. Rocafort is a good imaginative penciller, and the pages are colored to give them a painted look. In terms of design, the alien creatures, ships and interiors are all eye-catching, and it's fun to pore over the pages and really take a look around. Hickman's writing is mostly solid; sure there's a lot of infodump but, again, they have just the one issue to lay out the book's premise. I could gripe about a few punctuation errors and odd sentence structures, but shouldn't an eagle-eyed editor have caught those?

I liked The Core quite a bit, I would rate it a 8/10. I would love to see more of it. Unfortunately, as I said, the book is not a frontrunner, and voting closes at the end of the day. Not sure why the deadline had to be quite this soon, I only got my copy from Westfield about a week ago. If the book sounds at all good to you, you don't need to take my word for it, as the entire issue is posted for free up at Newsarama. If you agree that we need to go back to the Core, head on over to the Pilot Season page and vote. Probably a last minute hail mary is too little too late to disrupt a poll that has been going on for a month, but it's worth a shot!

Stick to Your Guns, David Fincher!

2008-09-07T23:52:00.003-04:00

Reviewing an issue of Heavy Metal the other day put me in mind of this article which appeared in Entertainment Weekly awhile back. Reading it left me super-excited at what a cool sequel this could be, and at the same time thoroughly disgusted with the wimps at Paramount who can't deal with the thought of a kickass project that can't be marketed to the Happy Meal set. In fact, this country has become so conservative I have serious doubts that the original Heavy Metal could be made today, what with its gratuitous nudity, rampant violence, girl-on-robot sex and unbridled coke snorting.

I never did get around to seeing FAKK 2 back in 2000- was it even released in theaters or did it go straight to video? Just the film's very concept was so totally different from the structure of the first film that it didn't seem right for it to bear the Heavy Metal title. Instead of a collection of vignettes by a variety of imaginative creators, it was a single story co-written by Eastman and starring an animated version of his wife. I read a couple of issues of Melting Pot when it was first released, and they didn't exactly blow my mind. Nothing about them made me think "these puppies need to be made into a feature film, pronto!" Most of the reviews of the film at the time reaffirmed my assumption that FAKK 2 was eminently missable.

On the other hand, what I've seen so far about this proposed new HM sequel has me thinking that a lesson's been learned and an effort is being made to replicate what made the original so great. Just the fact that a director of David Fincher's caliber is on board should be a clear signal to Hollywood that this project should be taken seriously. The return of the anthology format and the list of great creators involved (I only know Steve Niles by reputation but can verify that Joe Haldeman and Neal Asher do, indeed, kick ass) have me crazy to see this movie right friggin' now immediately! Hell, the fact that soulless studio execs consider the script "too risque for mainstream audiences" is a badge of honor in my eyes!

Stick to your guns, David Fincher and Kevin Eastman! It sounds like you are really trying to produce the kind of Heavy Metal movie old-school fans want to see. In a world where Lionsgate can make big bucks with envelope-pushing fare like the Hostel and Saw movies, there has to be someone left in the movie industry who still has the cohones to make the kind of wonderfully outrageous epic we all want to see.

And can you bring back Taarna? Pretty please?

Heavy Metal Overload Special Summer 2008

2008-09-05T11:43:00.009-04:00

To this day, the name Heavy Metal puts a little song in my geeky heart. This despite the fact that, in actuality, I’ve read proportionately very little of its impressive 30-year run. I suppose a lot of the warm fuzzy glow I get from the brand comes from the daring 1981 animated extravaganza, which hit HBO around the time I was 12 and pretty much blew my hormonally-ravaged young mind. I was just the perfect age for its bizarre blend of juvenile and adult, fantastic and uncouth.

Flash forward ten years. I have disposable income and no longer fear parental units stumbling across my weird nudie space comics and demanding an explantation. So I signed up for a 3-year subscription to Heavy Metal and gleefully rubbed my hands together in anticipation of the delights to follow.

The verdict: a mixed bag. Somehow, the magazine didn’t entirely live up to my idea of what it would be. Maybe it was because the days of Moebius and Bode were well in the rearview mirror. The original owner had sold the magazine to Peter Eastman- co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- who seemed to see it primarily as a vehicle to promote the career of Julie Strain, a D-list actress with ginormous fake boobs who happens to be Eastman’s wife. Maybe I was misled by the quality of the film into thinking Heavy Metal was something it wasn’t. All I know is the ratio of stories I enjoyed to those I didn’t was about 1:5.

There were things that irritated me. For example, there were some ongoing series that others readers (or at least the editors) enjoyed way more than I did. It seemed like every 4 or 5 months there was a new installment of certain stories that I didn’t want to read in the first place. Other times, they would print the first part of a story and never print the rest. They also started reprinting a lot of old Atomika and Tundra material, which pissed me off because I had already bought it the first time! I was also aggravated with the magazine’s policy of publishing seasonal special editions which weren’t considered part of the subscription. Even though I had signed up to have the magazine delivered to my doorstep, there were issues on the stands that I wasn’t getting. Like I said, irritating.

Once my subscription ran out, I cut ties with Heavy Metal and haven’t bought a copy in the intervening 12 or so years. I would flip through it from time to time on the stands, but the Summer 2008 special caught my eye in a way that no other issue had for quite some time: some fantastic artwork…a sexy lady…WWI soldiers in combat…a half-man half-robot and a mad scientist type in his spooky lab. They got me. I plunked down my seven bucks figuring, “even if it ends up sucking I can rip it apart on my blog.”

The issue’s first story is a quick 7-pager called “The Door” by JM Darlot and IG Holgado. It concerns an ordinary-seeming desk jockey whose day at the office is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a new door which he did not order. No sooner have the delivery men propped up the mysterious door and departed then a knocking begins to sound from the other side- even though there is no other side! I’ve never been a big fan of the short form and nothing here changes that opinion. “The Door” is more about setting a mood than telling a story, and it’s only partially successful at doing that. Holgado’s clean artwork is almost Disneyesque, which is a look I enjoy sometimes but isn’t quite dark enough for the creepy tone Darlot’s going for here. An intriguing premise to a better story than anything satisfying unto itself.

The title character of Massimo Visavi and Adriano de Vincentiis’ “Sophia” provides the issue’s requisite T&A. De Vincentiis’ art is very good, he is as adept at drawing beautiful villas or the canals of Venice as he is the curves of a nude woman. So at least there is something nice to look at while you are plowing through an otherwise underwhelming supernaturally-tinged quest around the globe. Along the way we are subjected to some pretty awkward dialogue, although whether that can be chalked up to bad writing on Visavi’s part or a poor translation I couldn’t say.

Sophia Delamore is the scion of the very powerful but extremely dysfunctional dynasty. Her father went insane, and tried to murder her as a baby. Her mother had no choice but to kill him to save Sophia, but she in turn was killed by the vengeful grandfather. The evil grandfather is dead now as well, but his estate is in limbo because no one can locate his will, which has been locked away in a small carved chest behind a mysterious symbol. Sophia’s people track down the box, but before she can even figure out how to open it it’s stolen again. So she criss-crosses the world to once again gain possession of the heirloom. Imagine a watered-down cross between the Da Vinci Code and Raiders of the Lost Ark, only with Paris Hilton as the heroine.

And that was the biggest of the story’s several problems. Sophia is a rich, haughty celebrity who is too dumb to know that baby tank tops and high-heeled boots are impractical attire for slogging though a South American jungle (this can’t be chalked up to artistic license, by the way, even other characters point out how ludicrously she dresses). Visavi tries with mixed results to make her more sympathetic through flashbacks of her as a young girl being haunted by her mother’s ghost and being abused by an evil nun. It all leads up to a whopper of a revelation at the end, and the realization that, regardless of the “The End” on the last page, this is really only the first chapter of an ongoing saga. I can only wonder when another chapter might appear, and whether anyone will care when it does.

If I thought the translation in “Sophia” was sloppy, it’s ten times worse in the next story, a noir-looking boxing story called “Man at the Carpet.” Actually, the translation is so egregious the only way I can tell what the story is supposed to be is by looking at the sketchy Ted McKeever-esque artwork. The captions are really that indecipherable!

Example the first, our narrator Joe describing how an opponent’s punch feels like being hit by a train: “…it seemed to me the most logical explanation, to strike me had to have been for strength a commodities train and not the red boxing glove of Tyler Holland, my challenger.” Flows nicely, doesn’t it?

Someone urges Joe to get an honest job and avoid criminal types: “Think to stay up, pal… you are young. One like you finds a good job to the docks. Don’t fall out with that people!” Wha…huh?

An aforementioned criminal type tries to convince him of…something… “It’s not good enough to be good to arrive at the top… It always needs the help of someone, There is who looks for it, and who, like you, receives that help without know it.” Words to live by, my friend, words to live by.

The whole story is this puzzling. I’m not sure what’s more appalling, that someone did such a horrific job of English translation, or that said translation crossed some editor’s desk who responded, “Looks great-- print it!” Everyone involved with the magazine should be embarrassed that this thing ever saw print like this.

The story that redeems the whole issue is Xavier Dorison and Enrique Breccia’s fantastic “The Sentries”, a bleak cyber-monster story set in the opening of World War I (would that make it--- “Greatwarpunk”?) Based on the eye-popping artwork alone I was convinced to buy this special, and there are visual treats to pour over on every page. Breccia’s actually a world famous artist, but I’ve been ignorant of his work up until now. This page is from the original French version, but check the pencils:

The script is equally compelling, telling the tale of a tortured soul whose good intentions lead to nothing but misery. Gabriel Feraud is a scientist who has invented a radium-powered battery, but despite his family’s near-destitution refuses to sell the design to the military for use in the impending war. Colonel Alphonse Mirreau is in charge of Project Sentries, a research experiment to create cyborg soldiers for the French army. Previous attempts have failed because the cyborgs didn’t have sufficient power and ran down on the battlefield. Now Mirreau will utilize all the pressure his rank provides to strongarm Feraud into handing over his battery design. What follows is a test of wills as Feraud tries to uphold his principles. But as often happens when a lone citizen tries to stand up to will of the institution, his struggles may ultimately prove the downfall of his entire family.

Breaking down the issue by rating:
"The Door" (7 pages): 7
"Sophia" (54 pages): 5.5
"Man at the Carpet" (10 pages): Incomplete!?
"The Sentries" (62 pages): 9

At first blush, it might not seem worth picking up the Overload special just for one story, but because "The Sentires" is so good, and because it is so long, it just about justifies the $6.95 price tag on its own. Monthly comics are about three bucks for 22 pages, so the price actually compares favorably. I say grab a copy, and if you happen to like some of the other stories too, even better!

Altered Carbon

2008-08-30T14:40:00.000-04:00

It's a sad fact that I only manage to get one book read for every ten or so I acquire. It's not that I'm a slow reader, it's all got to do with the budgeting of time, and the variety of media that compete for my attention. The bulk of my reading is actually done during my 15 minute coffee breaks (actually 20-- shh don't tell the boss) at work. Which is my way of explaining why I just got around to reading Richard K. Morgan's terrific future noir Altered Carbon, even though my buddy Mike gave it to me as a Christmas gift. Christmas of 2006, that is!

Now I'm smacking myself in the head for waiting so long. Altered Carbon kicks 87 different kinds of ass! I can see why the novel appealed to Mike, who is a big fan of hardboiled shamuses (shamii?). Mike is waiting for 30's fashion to come back into style in a big way, so that he can wear a fedora 24/7. The milieu of the novel is futuristic, but at its center is a good old-fashioned detective story. Consider the plot, boiled down to its basics:

A hard-bitten outsider, down on his luck, is strong-armed into working for a powerful rich person to look into the unanswered questions surrounding a mystery that can‘t or won‘t be handled by proper authorities. The more our (anti-)hero looks into the case, the more questions arrive, and the entire situation turns out to be way more complicated then he ever suspected. His investigation takes him from the extravagant playgrounds of the rich and famous to the sordid underbelly of the city's darkest corners, crossing paths along the way with hired killers, maverick cops and a sexy femme fatale.

Sounds like it could be the plot description of hundreds of different detective stories, doesn't it? But from this familiar starting point, Morgan blasts off in exciting and original directions, reworking the premise into an imaginative far future setting.

One of the major technological advances of Morgan's future is the ability to digitize, back-up and store people's memories in a small device called a "stack", which is implanted at the base of the skull. Citizens of the future can survive unfortunate "accidents" by having their memories downloaded into a new "sleeve". The advantaged of society can simply be revived in a younger clone of their previous self; some lower classes have to settle for artificial sleeves of lesser quality ranging from plastic mannequin down to clunky robotic.

Because people can exist in digital form, they can have experiences in virtual reality. As with any technological advance there are positive and negative applications. The forum can be used for entertainment purposes, and even as a way to transfer via "needlecast" to different planets without having to physically board a starship and travel generations to get there. On the downside, criminals must serve their time in virtual, and often their bodies are co-opted as temp sleeves without their awareness. Oh, and interrogation is a bitch in virtual-- all the pain and mental anguish of the real thing without even the relief of retreating into unconsciousness when the body goes into shock from damage. Nasty.

In a previous time Takeshi Kovacs was an Envoy, one of an elite force of enhanced super-soldiers assigned to do the United Nations Protectorate's dirty work. But now Kovacs has fallen on hard times and is looking at a 118-year prison sentence in "storage." One instant he is being gunned down in a firefight with authorities, and the next thing he knows he has been downloaded into a human sleeve on Earth at the request of a long-lived billionaire who has need of his services.

Laurens Bancroft is a meth (short for "Methuselah"), meaning he has lived for centuries because he can afford to keep transferring his consciousness into new young clones. The newer generations resent meths because they are perceived as considering themselves godlike, above the law, and generally better than everyone else. Bancroft uses his money and influence to have Kovacs paroled and beamed across space in order to investigate the circumstances of the death of Bancroft's previous sleeve, which the local cops have written off as a suicide. Bancroft has no memories of how his head came to be blown off, because the stack was destroyed as well. He was only able to cheat death because he had a backup of his mind in storage elsewhere. He refuses to accept the suicide ruling, not only because his ego won't let him entertain the idea that he would ever kill himself, but also because of what a pointless gesture it would be, in light of the backup self and a series of ready-to-wear clone sleeves. What's the point of killing yourself if you know your private clone lab will simply resurrect you again?

Kovacs is given the choice of looking into the circumstances of Bancroft's "murder" and making a good chunk of change in the process, or returning to storage and serving out the rest of his century-plus sentence. Not much of a decision, really, is it?

It's a daunting task which only gets more complicated as Kovacs gets deeper into his investigation. For starters, he soon learns that Bancroft didn't have him resleeved into just any body, but into the skin of a former local cop who's been sent into storage on (possibly trumped up) corruption charges. This is the meth's petty way of exacting revenge against an uncooperative local constabulary, but now Kovacs must deal with a resentful police department. He can't even tell if the tails he picks up and the would-be assassins who try to take him out are looking to impede his investigation or seeking revenge against the cop whose face he's wearing.

And then there's the matter of Bancroft's wife Miriam, a fellow meth who for reasons of her own urges Kovacs to drop the investigation altogether. Her powers of persuasion are greatly enhanced by her sexy young custom-made sleeve capable of sweating out aphrodisiac pheromones which can turn both men's and women's mind to mush.

A word of warning to the more faint-hearted of my readers: this is definitely a "hard-R" narrative we're dealing with here, filled with extreme violence, gore, sex, and all sorts of harsh language. Normally, stuff such as this doesn't faze me in the least. In fact, I appreciate some adult content in my entertainment that hasn't been castrated to "protect the children." Nevertheless, even I felt my stomach do a somersault when one of Kovacs' enemies shoves a pair of pliers into his eyeball in order to extract an implanted recording device. This is the kind of world we're dealing with here, people!

The noir detective story template has been around for generations and has been fused with SF elements at least since the 80s with Blade Runner and the cyberpunk movement. And John Varley was exploring mind transferal and gender switching back in the 70s. What Morgan does is take threads of previous concepts and weaves them together to create an exciting new world that is both fascinating and more than a little scary. His vision of a future dystopian Earth is very well realized, with Kovacs' quest making stops at a sentient hotel, a virtual whorehouse, a shady medical clinic and an underground combat arena. Without ever going overboard with exposition, Morgan is able along the way to also drop in information about the wider universe and its politics, as well as interesting bits of Kovacs' backstory.

Richard K. Morgan's writing is so sharp, his themes so cogently explored, his action so exhilarating, his plots so satisfyingly resolved, its shocking to me that Altered Carbon was actually his first published work. Morgan juggles a dozen different characters and story elements with nary a twitch. There are only a couple of scenes in the whole book that didn't come off as well as the author intended. One involves Kovacs pretending to be the distraught mother of a dead prostitute in order to trick another working girl into giving him information. Yes you read that right. Another section concerns a character who's been illegally "double sleeved" (that is, having his personality downloaded twice into separate bodies) sitting around arguing with himself. I simply didn't buy that two characters with the exact same mind could have a conversation that was nearly as interesting or revelatory. In fact, I expect they'd spend the whole time finishing each others' sentences.

But these are minor quibbles-- this guy is good! I would rate Altered Carbon a solid 9. I’m also psyched to learn that Morgan has published four more books in the interim, including two more featuring Kovacs. I’m definitely not waiting two years to pick up the next one.

Hyperkinetic #1

2008-08-22T14:46:00.005-04:00

It must be hellish for an independent comics publisher to get potential readers interested in a new project. I mean, the way the system works now, you really need customers to commit to buying your product 2 months before it will actually be released, based sometimes on nothing more than a short teaser blurb buried somewhere in middle of Previews. If you are one of the Big Two companies, and your comic has an "X" or "Bat" in the title, then you have a chance. If you are publishing through Image with a brand new concept, you had better make that teaser as tantalizing as possible.

Well, here's what Image solicited for the first issue of their four-part Hyperkinetic miniseries:
"Four intergalactic highly skilled female bounty hunters pursue an elusive prey. They end up going through a wormhole and crashing on a weird alien planet. They now have bigger concerns such as giant killer robots and crazy aliens."

Talk about hitting a home run! Give that solicit writer a raise. "Female bounty hunters"? "Weird alien planet"? "Giant killer robots"? Exactly how fast can someone get a copy of this bad boy into my sweaty little appendages? I preordered the thing with no hesitations.

Two months later, I've read Hyperkinetic #1 and come to a sobering realization: the solicitation wasn't a short teaser suggesting the skiffy delights within, but rather a detailed, thorough plot synopsis of everything that happens in the issue!

Seriously, next to nothing happens in this comic. The four leads chase a fleeing fuzzball in their spaceship, while cracking wise to each other. Their ships crash; they make more snarky commments. Their pursuit is briefly interrupted by a jungle cat attack, then they catch up to the perp at his safehouse, where he sics some giant robots on them. The end.

Almost nothing is explained. We don't know what this bad guy, Renpy, is wanted for, who sicced the bounty hunters on him, or why normal law enforcement couldn't handle it. We don't know where Renpy is running to, or who he is supposed to be meeting that will be angry that he is running late. All we're given is "there's these girls chasing this alien".

Usually I'm all for some witty one-liners slipped into a fun romp of a story. The problem here is that it's nothing but snarky comments, and really the level of humor is pretty sophomoric. Of course, humor is subjective, so let me give a few examples of the hilarity which ensues. Be prepared to play back the snickerings of Beavis and Butthead in your mind as you read the following:

Robot pilot, after the ship crashes:
"I think my lug nuts are loose"
"Ewwww. Keep that to yourself, perv."
(Get it? 'Cause he said "nuts"! Genius!)

"Oh yuck. I stepped in some kitty poo and ruined my new shoes."

"Alicia, I'm sorry I told that cute guy you liked on Zevpen 7 that you have genital fungus."
"You're the one with gential fungus!"
"Yeah, now he has it too."

Ahhh, good times. Let me pause a sec whilst I wipe the tears from my eyes. Did I mention the "heroes" track down their mark because he leaves behind a pair of dirty underwear with his name and address written on the tag?

At the very least, you would expect a comic like this to have some sexy T-and-A quotient. After all, these "highly trained" bounty hunters run around in belly shirts and pushup bras with their thong straps showing. But sadly, Matteo Scalera is no J. Scott Campbell. His wonky, cartoony style depicts these girls as gangly and angular with spastic facial expressions. And did I mention they have a genital fungus? They're about the unsexiest sexy comic characters you will ever come across. Scalera's art might be suited to, say, a Spongebob Squarepants comic, but good girl art is not his forte.

Hyperkinetic is not completely amateurish, but it is shockingly slight for the $3.50 cover price. The fact that this is a four-issue mini rather than a one-shot floors me, because really I see nothing in here that would entice anyone to spend another $10.50 for the rest of the story.

All in all, I can't give this comic anything higher than a 5 out of 10.

Clone Wars: No More for Me, Thanks, I'm Driving

2008-08-20T01:49:00.004-04:00

It almost stuns me to say it, but there's a Star Wars movie in theaters and I have absolutely no intention of going to see it.

I mean, I'm a product of the Star Wars generation. Saw the original in theaters at age 7, played with the action figures, collected the trading cards, read the Marvel comics.(Valence the Hunter! the Wheel! Baron Tagge!) Between HBO and the coming of the VCR, I watched and rewatched Star Wars enough times in my formative years that to this day I know from memory that the hatch to the Death Star trash compactor is 3263827! A lot of my lifelong love of SF and all things geeky stems from that magical time of the late 70's, weaned on Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Battle of the Planets and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

I don't live, breath, and eat Star Wars, my interests have greatly diversified as I've gotten older, but I've kept my proverbial toe in the SW pool and remain a fan. I've probably read 60-70% of all published Expanded Universe material (and when you consider how much of it there is, that's a decent amount), and have done my damdedest to defend the prequels (well Eps. 2 and 3, anyway) from many a naysayer.

I've come this far, but no further. This new Clone Wars con is a dealbreaker for me, I'm afraid.

Let's face it, first and foremost it's been getting just abysmal reviews. Even a pro-genre site like Ain't It Cool News posted scads of dismissive early looks. Alexandra DuPont found it "depressing" and gives a pretty thorough explanation of why it isn't worth your time. Capone says it's actually better than the Phantom Menace (not that that's particularly high praise), but ultimately "a huge missed opportunity." And the Headgeek himself, Harry Knowles, says "I hated the film. HATED IT. REALLY HATED IT." Feel free to use that quote on your poster, George Lucas!

More mainstream critics were equally unkind. Richard Roeper does his best Yoda impression to proclaim "Sucks this movie does", Roger Ebert gives it a star and a half and says "you know you're in trouble when the most interesting new character is Jabba the Hutt's uncle" and Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman plasters the flick with a resounding 'F'. Rotten Tomatoes has given it a score of 18%, and yes that's out of a possible 100!

And by the way, let's get rid of the notion that this is a movie. It's not. What we've got here is three episodes of the upcoming cartoon show, welded together with the commercials removed. This stuff was made on a limited budget for a TV screen. We're being sold a bill of goods, people. Of course, this isn't a new concept. I remember nagging my dad to take me to the theater to see the Battlestar Galactica movie, only to find out once we were there that it was simply the pilot episode with the bass turned up real high so when the ships rumbled by the whole movie house felt like it may shake apart and collapse on us.

Also, the fact that Revenge of the Sith has already come and gone makes this a real lame duck project to begin with. Nothing significant is likely to happen to the main characters, their ultimate fates are already known. Even a relatively insignificant blip in the SW canon like Asajj Ventress meets her destiny elsewhere. So where is there an iota of mystique or tension here?

Some diehard defenders might try to sarcastically argue that perhaps there should never be any new stories about World War II, since we already know how that turned out too. But no, the difference here is that WWII is inherently interesting, with battle on multiple fronts, with many nations all with different cultures and different goals, and fighting on vastly differing battlefields. Story possibliities set during WWII are limitless. Clone Wars stories are a different gundark. We're talking about vat-grown insta-soldiers marching against idiot robots, and blowing stuff up real good.

Didja ever play with toy soldiers when you were a kid? For the most part, the Clone Wars are about as meaningful as that. Don't forget that the ultimate sick joke of the whole thing is that both sides of the war essentially work for the same man, Darth Sidious. It's all a calculated means to an end, but really when it comes down to it, evil wins whether the Republic or the Seperatists come out on top.

Finally, assuming you do enjoy the time period, and want to geek out on all the clone-on-droid action, there is already a perfectly good cartoon series showcasing this time frame, not to mention a hundred comics, a couple dozen novels, and a video game or two. Generally I try to avoid video games because they're such a potential time suck, but I'd bet I'd have roughly 10x more fun playing a Clone Wars scenario on Battlefront than watching this new "movie". Hell, Matthew Stover's EU novel Shatterpoint is probably in the top ten Star Wars novels I've ever read!

Don't get me wrong, I'll no doubt check the contents of this release out when they air on Cartoon Network for free in a couple of months. Hell, I might even like 'em better than some of the bitter folks on the internet. But shell out $10 for a movie ticket? Your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me, George. Not this time.

Universal War One #1

2008-08-16T14:55:00.008-04:00

Historically, European comics have had a hard time getting a foothold in the American market. Although manga has broken through in a huge way, the US comics industry is primarily a superhero zone, and the distribution method of choice is 22-page monthlies ("floppies"/ "pamphlets") collected into 6-8 issue trade paperback collections. For reasons that escape me, the European method of releasing longer graphic albums in genres other than "men in tights" has had little success on this side of the pond.

It's not from lack of quality. There's some good stuff that has reached these shores in those short windows when an American company had tried to broaden their readership. Way back in the halcyon days of 1999 Dark Horse struck up a deal with Italian company Bonelli to publish digest-sized reprints of Dylan Dog, Nathan Never, and Martin Mystery, but they flopped and disappeared from the shelves after six volumes apiece. Humanoids and DC Comics had a brief alliance in the mid-2000's, and DC also made a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to get Rebellion's impressive 2000 AD catalog on US bookshelves.

Call me an incurable cynic, but I'm not sure how Marvel thinks their new arrangement to reprint Soleil material is going to break the losing streak. So far the material looks good, but to my mind the failure of the previous ventures can't be chalked up to quality, which was always high. But none of these had enough sales to thrive, and I wonder why Marvel thinks their Soleil books will succeed where others did not. It's not that I'm rooting against them, in fact I very much would like to see other genres outside of superheroes in the US. It's just that history suggests the odds are long.

I sampled the first issue of Sky Doll when it was released a few months ago, and found it enjoyable but not enough so to add to the ol' pull list. I certainly admire Marvel's balls in selecting a story that so blatantly lampoons America's contradictory obsessions with religious dogma and porno, and the artwork is terrific, but I wasn't enthralled enough with Noa as a character to invest in the rest of the series.

Now Universal War One, on the other hand, is right up my alley: Space fleets, borderline personalities, unchecked mega-corporations and a helluva BIg Dumb Object. Sign me up!

French creator Denis Bajram envisions a future 100 years hence where humanity has spread across the solar system in massive artificial gravity enabled spaceships, colonizing even the furthest planets and moons. It's not entirely clear how he expects us to advance so far technologically in just a century, but what is apparent is that in this future society, militaristic white men are in the driver's seat (just like now) and farm out the plum development gigs to powerful corporations (just like now).

Then a very big something appears to mess up their carefully maintained status quo, a massive black sphere, three billion kilometers in diameter, suddenly appears in space, seeming to emanate from the central point of Oberon, moon of Uranus. The gravity pull of "the Wall", as it's dubbed, is so intense that not only do probes sent in not return, they can't even send any signals back. Oberon is a holding of the Colonization Industrial Companies, but their reps claim ignorance.

This, to coin a phrase, is a job for June Williamson and her squad of ne'er do well pilots, the Purgatory Squadron.

Twenty years ago, during an uprising on Titan, Williamson commited career suicide by refusing orders to cut down a village of women and children refugees. As luck would have it, two of those survivors happened to be the wife and child of a fleet admiral, who intervenes on her behalf. Now the daughter, Kate Von Richtburg is June's second-in-command of a squad of misfits with a last chance at redemption.

And what a squad it is! The fractured personalities Williamson has cobbled together include the reckless, the cowardly, the perverse and the violent. Think Wedge Antilles' X-Wing Rogue Squadron crossed with Lee Marvin's Dirty Dozen. It's clearly an uphill struggle to keep these loose cannons in line; in the first issue each continues to exhibit the deviant personality flaws that got them in trouble in the first place. But in contrast to the unimaginative bureaucracy of the military, these anti-heroes may just be non-conformist enough to actually solve the puzzle of the wall.

As intruiging a set-up as this is, the artwork is even better. In the European albums, quality is stressed over quantity, and while American artists are putting the pedal to the metal to churn out a minimum 22 pages a month, artists like Bajram clearly have the time to really draw in great detail and it shows in the ship designs and the backgrounds. Even if the book hadn't been translated to English I could spend a half-hour poring over Barjam's intricate panels.

It the story falls down a little bit, it's in some of the dialogue, which reads a little more "comic-bookular" than a writer might be able to get away with in a prose novel. Also some of the scenes of conflict come off too melodramatic, particularly one far-fetched scene where a butthead Colonel puts down the theories of Ed Kalish, one of June's men, despite the fact that Kalish was the director of the Fleet's Physics Research Division before he got in trouble. Also, there is a pretty sappy encounter between Kate and her father, which has dialogue like this:

"You can give your scientist the green light to pursue his project."

"Thanks, Dad. But, you know, what I really wish is that you'd give me the green light to live my own life."

Sheesh!

But I can't give UW1 too much flak, it might not be captial-L literature, but issue 1 has pulled me in with an intruiging premise, compelling characters and great art. And by the end of the first book, we haven't even seen what's beyond the wall yet! These comics were originally published in 1997, but I haven't read any more about the story beyond what's presented in this first issue. But with a name like Universal War One, I don't think the answer will disappoint.

Although I haven't seen issue 2 yet, I believe it is already on the shelves. If you see them out there, buy 'em both. At first $5.99 might seem like a steep price tag, but issue 1 at least has 46 of story, which means the per-page price is more or less in line with regular monthly Marvels. If you are a SF fan, and want to see Marvel's partnership with Soleil succeed, vote with your wallet and enjoy a fun comic from across the pond!

On a 1-10 scale I would rate Universal War One #1 an 8.5.