Dark Avengers #2:
In which the team wastes half an issue shooting the shit before rushing in to save Dr. Doom from bitter ex-girlfriend Morgan Le Fay. Cue Sentry doing something ultra-violent, which in a neat change of pace, doesn’t work! So next issue, we’ll see the real fight.
You know, I just don’t know what to think of this book. It’s Bendis sticking to formula and he’s on rather good form here. The Deodato art is wonderful as always; the layouts are eye-catching. And yet, taken within the context of the entire Marvel Universe, this book feels…well, wrong. The climactic event where the Sentry ends it by ripping off Morgan Le Fay’s head is a cool scene, but when you think about it, you realize this action doesn’t remotely befit his character (and the whiny “Did I do good or bad” line made Sentry look pathetic not conflicted). It would have made more sense for Ares (a violent war god) to deliver the blow without equivocation (which would have built on his bad-ass attitude established in Mighty Avengers). Or the scene between Moonstone (Ms. Marvel) and Daken (Wolverine) where she says “I have no idea who the %*&^ you are.” Surface thought: clever. But upon deeper inspection Moonstone (as a trained psychiatrist) is never that blunt and Daken (a young powderkeg) would be much more offended at that statement. Or even the Bullseye joke about killing his mom. Sure, he has a sick sense of humor but the lines don’t jive with his temperament at all. The man’s homicidal, not matricidal. These characters don’t sound like themselves; they sound like snarky football players toweling off after defeating their rivals. And the Morgan/Doom fight was rather boring and poorly plotted. Generic purple blasts equals yawn. I feel conflicted because there’s some wonderful potential here and a gold mine of character conflicts that could be set up but the dimensionality of this team isn’t there. The story’s not bad but I just don’t see why I should care. 3 Cs out of 7.
X-Force #11:
In which we find out the motivations of Eli Bard, New Resident Bad Guy, as Warpath tells the team of Eli’s past as a shamed patrician/general in the Roman Empire who Selene (yay!) manipulates into falling in love with him. This ends badly when poor old Eli effs up Selene’s spell to steal all the souls of Rome. A pissed-off Selene curses him with eternal life and spurns him for centuries. But now he’s back to make good on stealing a bunch of souls for her…from dead mutants. Or techno-zombies. Or something.
I honestly have no grounding in this new X-Force and I only picked it up for Selene. The backstory itself was interesting and sad. I mean this guy basically got shit on his whole life and is cursed with immortality and an undying love for a psycho witch. An issue-long set-up for a major villain seems a bit much but the art (especially the past scenes) and the dialogue make it a nice read. Plus, it features a back-to-basics approach with Selene as a covetous demi-god wanting power for power’s sake and pulling the strings of “mere mortals” behind the scenes, which was always one of the stronger aspects of her character. I’m not too thrilled by Eli; he hasn’t shown any other sides of himself beyond lovesick lap-dog. But we’ll see what happens, and hopefully there’ll be some betrayal or triple-cross or something. Overall, a good story arc intro. 5 Cs out of 7.
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
[New Title Pending]: On Female Superheroes or Vaginas Are Not Evil
I was checking out Jezebel and I came across this article, which had a link to another article on Rope of Silicon about why there aren't any successful female hero movies. I was actually talking about a very similar topic just the other day with a couple friends of mine.
We were talking about a potential Batman 3, and who should be the next villain. I'm really championing Catwoman because the first two movies, while excellent, were such a testosterone fest and it would be nice to see Batman go up against a cunning female equal. But they're picking super-obscure male characters (which in fairness sounded cool, but are general unknowns). We were then on the subject of obscure characters when I tossed out the idea of a Batgirl movie, which I'd like to see but I think would never work. To which they responded with "Yeah, who wants to see a chick Batman?" That line irked me, because my point isn't that she's Chick Batman, but because writers wouldn't be able to write or view her as anything other than than Chick Batman.
It really does bother me that I can think of virtually no successful superhero movies with females as developed viable leads. There is something strangely homoerotic about this obsession with male superheroes with big muscles and bigger codpieces. Even though society is so afraid of showing a penis in a major motion picture, there is no problem with having sweaty shirtless guys fight each other to verify their manhood. And there is still an endemic problem with using female characters only to further the male characters' angst (either by killing or raping them).
And it's not like strong female-centered stories can't be written. For example, I can think of Marc Andreyko's Manhunter (which manages to telling a compelling tale of a hard-working prosecutor who doesn't get her hair pulled by some jerk every issue) or Gail Simone's Birds Of Prey (which has women who can kick ass and joke about things that have nothing to do with boys or money or ponies)*.
I mean I am a guy, but sometimes (most times) male writers just have wrongheaded ideas about women. I was a huge fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but there were just so many virginal/whore tropes that undercut the idea of a strong female character. Hell, every time sex was brought into the picture, someone died or went evil or got pregnant and gave birth to something evil (which usually ended up killing the woman who bore the thing in the first place). And I saw these same disturbing tropes in his run on Astonishing X-Men. Kitty Pryde actually has sex with Colossus and bang, she's shot out into deep space and probably died (Colossus walks away unscathed). Mr. Whedon, I love your work but vaginas are not evil. I don't see why it's so difficult to have a confident woman who wears spandex and happens to have some nookie on the side.
And don't get me wrong, I loved The Dark Knight Returns, but I had to agree with Thera Pitts, Rachel Dawes was irritatingly underdeveloped. Here was a strong intelligent law-abiding assistant DA who ended up being little more than a casualty/footnote in Batman's crusade against the Joker and Two-Face's blind twisted vengeance. The only other major female character was Anna Ramirez, a tough street-smart cop, who ended up being a(n extremely minor) henchman who gets punched in the face by a man. I don't say this to cry "Sexism!" but it does speak to a major issue at hand about how male writers, directors and artists view women as viable characters.
I would like to see a successful Catwoman movie, or a Storm television miniseries, or yes a Batgirl movie. I guess you could call me a fe-man-ist, but I want to see these characters come to life too and become a successful franchise. I just wish we as a society can move on from our 1960s Batman thinking where women are only good enough to kick high and be untied from train tracks.
*NOTE: Gail Simone is no longer writing Birds of Prey. I lost track of who's writing it now and the book is getting cancelled (sigh!) so I don't know what the fate of the Birds are. But you should grab back issues (I believe it's issues 70 - 110) or buy it in trade.
We were talking about a potential Batman 3, and who should be the next villain. I'm really championing Catwoman because the first two movies, while excellent, were such a testosterone fest and it would be nice to see Batman go up against a cunning female equal. But they're picking super-obscure male characters (which in fairness sounded cool, but are general unknowns). We were then on the subject of obscure characters when I tossed out the idea of a Batgirl movie, which I'd like to see but I think would never work. To which they responded with "Yeah, who wants to see a chick Batman?" That line irked me, because my point isn't that she's Chick Batman, but because writers wouldn't be able to write or view her as anything other than than Chick Batman.
It really does bother me that I can think of virtually no successful superhero movies with females as developed viable leads. There is something strangely homoerotic about this obsession with male superheroes with big muscles and bigger codpieces. Even though society is so afraid of showing a penis in a major motion picture, there is no problem with having sweaty shirtless guys fight each other to verify their manhood. And there is still an endemic problem with using female characters only to further the male characters' angst (either by killing or raping them).
And it's not like strong female-centered stories can't be written. For example, I can think of Marc Andreyko's Manhunter (which manages to telling a compelling tale of a hard-working prosecutor who doesn't get her hair pulled by some jerk every issue) or Gail Simone's Birds Of Prey (which has women who can kick ass and joke about things that have nothing to do with boys or money or ponies)*.
I mean I am a guy, but sometimes (most times) male writers just have wrongheaded ideas about women. I was a huge fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but there were just so many virginal/whore tropes that undercut the idea of a strong female character. Hell, every time sex was brought into the picture, someone died or went evil or got pregnant and gave birth to something evil (which usually ended up killing the woman who bore the thing in the first place). And I saw these same disturbing tropes in his run on Astonishing X-Men. Kitty Pryde actually has sex with Colossus and bang, she's shot out into deep space and probably died (Colossus walks away unscathed). Mr. Whedon, I love your work but vaginas are not evil. I don't see why it's so difficult to have a confident woman who wears spandex and happens to have some nookie on the side.
And don't get me wrong, I loved The Dark Knight Returns, but I had to agree with Thera Pitts, Rachel Dawes was irritatingly underdeveloped. Here was a strong intelligent law-abiding assistant DA who ended up being little more than a casualty/footnote in Batman's crusade against the Joker and Two-Face's blind twisted vengeance. The only other major female character was Anna Ramirez, a tough street-smart cop, who ended up being a(n extremely minor) henchman who gets punched in the face by a man. I don't say this to cry "Sexism!" but it does speak to a major issue at hand about how male writers, directors and artists view women as viable characters.
I would like to see a successful Catwoman movie, or a Storm television miniseries, or yes a Batgirl movie. I guess you could call me a fe-man-ist, but I want to see these characters come to life too and become a successful franchise. I just wish we as a society can move on from our 1960s Batman thinking where women are only good enough to kick high and be untied from train tracks.
*NOTE: Gail Simone is no longer writing Birds of Prey. I lost track of who's writing it now and the book is getting cancelled (sigh!) so I don't know what the fate of the Birds are. But you should grab back issues (I believe it's issues 70 - 110) or buy it in trade.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Site Comic Book Fans Should Check Out
I was going to write a super-pessimistic post about how life sucks and comedy sucks, but instead I'm entering positive-attitude land.
If you are a fan of Marvel Comics and wanted to know who was that guy with the funky golden armor and red codpiece from Captain America #268 1/2, check out Marvel Universe Appendix. I have never seen such dedication to minutiae of details - and it's totally awesome! If you only know Cyclops or Iron Man . But if you want to know about the Brass Bishop (who?) Kulan Gath (huh?) or Chtylok (kraw!), you should peruse the place.
Whatever, let me have my nerd-gasm. But support them, they're very nice!
If you are a fan of Marvel Comics and wanted to know who was that guy with the funky golden armor and red codpiece from Captain America #268 1/2, check out Marvel Universe Appendix. I have never seen such dedication to minutiae of details - and it's totally awesome! If you only know Cyclops or Iron Man . But if you want to know about the Brass Bishop (who?) Kulan Gath (huh?) or Chtylok (kraw!), you should peruse the place.
Whatever, let me have my nerd-gasm. But support them, they're very nice!
Monday, July 30, 2007
Comic On Comics #1: Bendis Truly Needs To Suck It
[BE WARNED: This is a super-long comic book rant. Non-Marvelites would do well to skip this one-shot issue]
Okay, I like comic books. I don't have enough money to actually BUY the comics but I will go to a store and read as many comics on the racks as I can. I feel bad doing this so I buy a comic or two I really like off the rack to show support for the franchise.
I just started getting into non-X-Men characters (and comic books in general) about 2-3 years ago and I try to broaden my horizons. Hell, I wanted to advocate comic books as a valid piece of literature. And then I read Brian Michael Bendis' Avengers--cue horror theme music.
I read older Avengers stories done by Kurt Busiek, skimmed stuff by Geoff Johns, read some Steven Englehart and was blown away. I assumed I would like Bendis' take too. But between the super-fugly-assed art in New Avengers and the complete lack of story in both New and Mighty Avengers, I am so tempted to stop buying anything from comic book stores. Mr. Bendis, I'm sick of you!
For those of you who don't know comics, here's a brief recap of the Avengers As Written By Bendis. In the beginning there was a super-team of A-list Marvel heroes. They did things like stop super-villains from taking over the world, or foiled the long-term plans of cosmic entities, or travelled through time to stop despots. Then Bendis came along and, for reasons too convoluted and retarded to get into, superhero and Avengers backbone Scarlet Witch has a massive power boost and goes ape-shit crazy (because in the Marvel-verse, that's what women do when they have too much power) and tries to kill all of her teammates. The Avengers disassemble.
Then, a couple of A-Listers decide they want to work with C, D, and F-List superheroes and be pro-active. These heroes call them the New Avengers (because THAT'S original). The first story arc involves them tyring to stop a breakout where the Sentry (think of him as gold Superman) fights a villain in space. The second arc has a fight with random thug super-villain #1077 while the Sentry angsts about...uh...something and then goes into space to hit things.
Then the Avengers fights ninjas, for no reason, oh wait there is a reason, it's to prove that one of the Avengers is a traitor. Cut to two pointless issues with loads of talking that doesn't go anywhere (though I give +100 points for dusting off Ms. Marvel - whose comic is effing awesome and restores my faith in humanity - go Brian Reed!).
Next a big energy creature attacks the Avengers and the problem is solved by (you guessed it) Sentry throwing the energy ball in space.
Then the New Avengers disassemble (and for those of you who are celestially inclined, yes there is a scene with the Sentry in space...thinking!). After a godawful one-shot issue that does a "Where Are They Now" with Scarlet Witch and one of the Avengers she killed and the much-maligned Marvel Civil War (more on that another time), we now have two sets of Avengers (one New and the other Mighty!).
The New Avengers are fighting an assload of ninjas again (Seriously, how are there so many ninjas in the Marvel-verse? Do they get good dental?) and the Mighty Avengers are fighting a hot naked robot chick trying to destroy the world using (wait for it) satellites...in space. Cut to: Sentry in space hitting things.
Seriously Bendis, can you go for one story arc without having a super-powered hero dash into space to rip something apart? Oh wait, you can if it involves a never-ending army of ninjas (and note: mentioning IN COMIC that fighting ninjas is stupid does not make ninja-fighting deeper or more relevant). Can you just write a story with a beginning, middle and end?! Can you not spend issues showing off your innovative (and shittily stilted) dialogue?! Can you not do a rush-job plot-dump issue after wasting time with overly long and mostly irrelevant flashbacks? Can your characters DO SOMETHING?
I understand that most people who complain about Bendis are supposedly dinosaurs who can't get used to a changing world. But I'm only 23 and I just started seriously reading comic books. I picked up older stuff by Kurt Busiek and it's very gripping, mainly because he had things like A PLOT and GOOD PACING and MYSTERIES THAT WERE SOLVED and A SENSE OF CHARACTER AND CONTINUITY. It did not resort to tactics like "I'm going to break the internet in half by having characters talk for 5 issues" or "Hey look remember when you haven't seen this character do anything useful in 15 years?! Well I'm going to make up a new backstory and then refuse to do anything remotely interested with that character."
Wow, I can't believe this man is being touted as the best thing to ever happen to Marvel. And the artwork in New Avengers is abysmal. It's drawn by a gimp monkey with a stick dipped in ink. My God! Ugh, I mean before Bendis the only comics writer I hated this much was Reginald "Hey I'm black and all black superheroes know each other and need to segregate and move to pan-Africa" Hudlin (God those early Black Panther issues made me want to strip away my melanin - Marrying Black Panther off to Storm, a character from a completely different part of Africa, because they're both dark-skinned? Dr. Doom racist AND sexist??? Seriously????).
Bendis, you need to learn how to move characters from point A to point B in ONE ISSUE. You need to actaully explore and use character histories. And until you can write a half-decent plot that doesn't involve space or ninjae, you need to suck it. 'Nuff said.
Okay, I like comic books. I don't have enough money to actually BUY the comics but I will go to a store and read as many comics on the racks as I can. I feel bad doing this so I buy a comic or two I really like off the rack to show support for the franchise.
I just started getting into non-X-Men characters (and comic books in general) about 2-3 years ago and I try to broaden my horizons. Hell, I wanted to advocate comic books as a valid piece of literature. And then I read Brian Michael Bendis' Avengers--cue horror theme music.
I read older Avengers stories done by Kurt Busiek, skimmed stuff by Geoff Johns, read some Steven Englehart and was blown away. I assumed I would like Bendis' take too. But between the super-fugly-assed art in New Avengers and the complete lack of story in both New and Mighty Avengers, I am so tempted to stop buying anything from comic book stores. Mr. Bendis, I'm sick of you!
For those of you who don't know comics, here's a brief recap of the Avengers As Written By Bendis. In the beginning there was a super-team of A-list Marvel heroes. They did things like stop super-villains from taking over the world, or foiled the long-term plans of cosmic entities, or travelled through time to stop despots. Then Bendis came along and, for reasons too convoluted and retarded to get into, superhero and Avengers backbone Scarlet Witch has a massive power boost and goes ape-shit crazy (because in the Marvel-verse, that's what women do when they have too much power) and tries to kill all of her teammates. The Avengers disassemble.
Then, a couple of A-Listers decide they want to work with C, D, and F-List superheroes and be pro-active. These heroes call them the New Avengers (because THAT'S original). The first story arc involves them tyring to stop a breakout where the Sentry (think of him as gold Superman) fights a villain in space. The second arc has a fight with random thug super-villain #1077 while the Sentry angsts about...uh...something and then goes into space to hit things.
Then the Avengers fights ninjas, for no reason, oh wait there is a reason, it's to prove that one of the Avengers is a traitor. Cut to two pointless issues with loads of talking that doesn't go anywhere (though I give +100 points for dusting off Ms. Marvel - whose comic is effing awesome and restores my faith in humanity - go Brian Reed!).
Next a big energy creature attacks the Avengers and the problem is solved by (you guessed it) Sentry throwing the energy ball in space.
Then the New Avengers disassemble (and for those of you who are celestially inclined, yes there is a scene with the Sentry in space...thinking!). After a godawful one-shot issue that does a "Where Are They Now" with Scarlet Witch and one of the Avengers she killed and the much-maligned Marvel Civil War (more on that another time), we now have two sets of Avengers (one New and the other Mighty!).
The New Avengers are fighting an assload of ninjas again (Seriously, how are there so many ninjas in the Marvel-verse? Do they get good dental?) and the Mighty Avengers are fighting a hot naked robot chick trying to destroy the world using (wait for it) satellites...in space. Cut to: Sentry in space hitting things.
Seriously Bendis, can you go for one story arc without having a super-powered hero dash into space to rip something apart? Oh wait, you can if it involves a never-ending army of ninjas (and note: mentioning IN COMIC that fighting ninjas is stupid does not make ninja-fighting deeper or more relevant). Can you just write a story with a beginning, middle and end?! Can you not spend issues showing off your innovative (and shittily stilted) dialogue?! Can you not do a rush-job plot-dump issue after wasting time with overly long and mostly irrelevant flashbacks? Can your characters DO SOMETHING?
I understand that most people who complain about Bendis are supposedly dinosaurs who can't get used to a changing world. But I'm only 23 and I just started seriously reading comic books. I picked up older stuff by Kurt Busiek and it's very gripping, mainly because he had things like A PLOT and GOOD PACING and MYSTERIES THAT WERE SOLVED and A SENSE OF CHARACTER AND CONTINUITY. It did not resort to tactics like "I'm going to break the internet in half by having characters talk for 5 issues" or "Hey look remember when you haven't seen this character do anything useful in 15 years?! Well I'm going to make up a new backstory and then refuse to do anything remotely interested with that character."
Wow, I can't believe this man is being touted as the best thing to ever happen to Marvel. And the artwork in New Avengers is abysmal. It's drawn by a gimp monkey with a stick dipped in ink. My God! Ugh, I mean before Bendis the only comics writer I hated this much was Reginald "Hey I'm black and all black superheroes know each other and need to segregate and move to pan-Africa" Hudlin (God those early Black Panther issues made me want to strip away my melanin - Marrying Black Panther off to Storm, a character from a completely different part of Africa, because they're both dark-skinned? Dr. Doom racist AND sexist??? Seriously????).
Bendis, you need to learn how to move characters from point A to point B in ONE ISSUE. You need to actaully explore and use character histories. And until you can write a half-decent plot that doesn't involve space or ninjae, you need to suck it. 'Nuff said.
Friday, May 11, 2007
End Of An Era?
NOTE: Time on blog should be 05/21/2007
Well, it seems like it's both the pit and the pendulum for the "Hey You're Cute!" Comedy Show. I just got word from the powers-that-be about the venue closing down for an indefinite period. So, there is no more me hosting the show at the East Village Lounge.
Usually this is the point where I get all psycho and start writing a run-on sentence typo-ridden rant about how the place was awesome and why was it closed and damn the world arghhhggghhh!!!!!1111one
I can't though, because it really wasn't anybody's fault. It's been a really fun run and I've gotten to work with some great comedians and honest people. Considering it was my first time running a joint, I'm pleased it didn't go terribly. Sure it was hard work and sure there were some damn annoying clients, but the place was like my second home. And it's going to suck being back out on the streets, dropping $10+ to go to unsupportive rooms where other hosts won't even listen to your set. (There are actually quite a few really sweet rooms--the bitterness leaked out a little there)
Seriously, the show may have it's off-nights but overall the "Hey You're Cute" show was an experience. The place was something really unique--it wasn't a cattle call of comics, it wasn't a bitter AA meeting, it was a place where people could be expressive and try shit out and network.
I'm looking for a new place so I'll keep you posted! Don't worry; the show will return anon.
And to all the comics I met, be you people who've been in the game for years or people who did their first set in the room, I wish you all the best. It truly has been a pleasure!
Well, it seems like it's both the pit and the pendulum for the "Hey You're Cute!" Comedy Show. I just got word from the powers-that-be about the venue closing down for an indefinite period. So, there is no more me hosting the show at the East Village Lounge.
Usually this is the point where I get all psycho and start writing a run-on sentence typo-ridden rant about how the place was awesome and why was it closed and damn the world arghhhggghhh!!!!!1111one
I can't though, because it really wasn't anybody's fault. It's been a really fun run and I've gotten to work with some great comedians and honest people. Considering it was my first time running a joint, I'm pleased it didn't go terribly. Sure it was hard work and sure there were some damn annoying clients, but the place was like my second home. And it's going to suck being back out on the streets, dropping $10+ to go to unsupportive rooms where other hosts won't even listen to your set. (There are actually quite a few really sweet rooms--the bitterness leaked out a little there)
Seriously, the show may have it's off-nights but overall the "Hey You're Cute" show was an experience. The place was something really unique--it wasn't a cattle call of comics, it wasn't a bitter AA meeting, it was a place where people could be expressive and try shit out and network.
I'm looking for a new place so I'll keep you posted! Don't worry; the show will return anon.
And to all the comics I met, be you people who've been in the game for years or people who did their first set in the room, I wish you all the best. It truly has been a pleasure!
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