Just some odds and ends

Sunday is generally a day I use for pure reflection. Just some things and some links:

-Kali's Webpage is always good of fun good things. You should check it out.

-Anyone got any feedback on the new Indy? Spoiler-free please. I'd just like to know.

-Watching The Magnificent Seven again, and it still surprises me that this movie got made in America. Yes, I know it's an adaptation of the Seven Samurai in Western form (it's in the opening credits and I'm not an idiot), but the core message of the movie, about destroying the romanticism of the western and the gunfighter, and showing the futility of that lifestyle as it approaches its nadir, is a real break from most classic American films (particularly Westerns). It just always manages to remind me that, oh yeah, they used to make movies with ambiguous endings, and trusted that the audience could deal with it.

-And on a positive note: ItsJustSomeRandomGuy is made of awesome.

Things I love about comics

Because sometimes I just don't show enough love, you know? So, here's somethings I just thing are super in comics:

GIANT ROBOTS!

(True Fact: the X-Men LOOOOVE it when Giant Killer Robots show up at their Doorstep)

GALACTUS (Still one of the top 10 greatest things ever created in comics)

Warren Ellis (when he's not working for Marvel):

Bad-Ass Fight Scenes!

The Evil Opposite of the Hero!

Tell me about what you love in your superhero comics.

Friday Night Physics

OK, I'm really hoping to take a break from talking about Tony Stark after this one, because this is turning into an Iron Man Blog, and to be honest, I've never been THAT big a fan of the guy. However, so much of Iron Man is based on the concept of high-tech, so he's probably the best example to use for a lot of these things. At least for the moment (Anyone who wants to make requests for future Friday Night Physics topics, put it in the comments, and I promise to make a fair attempt. No biology please - we'll leave that to the experts).

Tonite We'll be discussing Tony Stark's heart assist device, and to make this easy to newcomers who might not want to know about Tony's long history of various armor-related health problems, we'll just stick with the "damaged heart" scenario and solution as depicted by the movie, ok?

So, as depicted in the film, sharpnel is either imbeded in or approaching the Left Ventricle of Tony's heart (It's never made clear to me, and I think the writers are trying to keep it deliberately vague). The Left Ventricle is the main blood pump to the rest of the human body, and as such, it is the strongest and most vital part of the heart. Now, in the movie, Yinsen makes a simple electromagnet (using iron and some wire in a coil configuration) and hooks it up to a car battery. Yinsen claims that the magnet will keep his heart beating, although how this works is really unclear. My guess here is that the magnet is cycling to act as an assist to the damaged ventricle muscle tissue by actually moving the the shrapnel. Which wouldn't be a bad idea in theory, except that since the metal fragments are embedded, each time the magnet pulls on them, it actually shreds more muscle tissue. If the fragments are just reaching the heart, then I'm not sure how the magnet "keeps his heart beating". Suffice to say, that the magnet probably just prevents decay, and so be it. And we won't discuss the "arc reactor" because, well, there's no such thing.

In real life, a damaged heart would normally be assisted with a transplant, or if a transplant wasn't immediately available, a Ventricular Assist Device (actually, this is my primary area of research) would be used. Now, the problems with this kind of a device are many; powering it, using it to match the heart rate at different levels of activity (Sleeping, standing up, sitting down, running, etc.) but the major ones are the formation of clotts and possiblity of infection. because the blood is going through an unnatural type of flow (and this is especially true of VADs that don't use pulsatile pumping), there is a high chance that the blood cells will be destroyed by the various stresses the device subjects it to, this cell death then triggers the mechanisms in the body that create blood clots, which then cause more strain on the heart, which sorta defeats the purpose of the device in the first place. Thus, patients with VADs are often on blood thinners, in addition to immunosuppressants (so the body doesn't reject the device), which then increases the risk of infection. So it's probably not the most elegant solution either, but the technology is advancing. We may not be able to get it to power hyper-sonic powered armor anytime soon though. Such is life.

And that's it. Enjoy and write in your suggestions for future Friday Night Physics!

Pick the best caption!

Here's three different captions for the same image. Tell me which one you like best

Your Moment of Funny

Which side would you REALLY want to be on?

Tonite's post is inspired by kali921. I highly suggest you go over to her blog and give her much hugs and thanks. And on with Tonite's Main Event: The Initiative Vs....the Nova Corps!

Ouch. Doesn't seem like a fair fight so far, does it? But, wait, I hear you say "Well, OK, the Initiative is a rotting corpse of failure, but hey, Tony Stark is way better than a dummy like Richard Ryder" Well, let's take a look at that a little closer, shall we?

OK, Tony seems to be doing well here with a couple of scantily clad non-descript young starlets, but some would say it's quality, not quantity that matters. Let's look at how Nova is doing...

The scanitly clad Green girl, in case you are wondering, is Gamorra, the deadliest assassin in the known universe. I think we can just move on to the final face off between these two, shall we?

That's it for tonite folks!

What if we lived in a Comic Book Universe? Part 11

Belated Mother's Day tribute!

Because I actually spent Mother's day with my mom last weekend, I didn't do any kind of special blogpost or put up a poster. Well, here it is anyway!

Review Devil's Cape

Tonight we'll look at Devil's Cape by Rob Rogers (whom has a very nice blog).

Disclaimer: While I used to read a bit of superhero prose stuff in my teens (mostly the stuff Marvel was producing as it had better stories than the comics at the time), I've always found that the superhero genre is hard to convey without the colorful visuals of the comics and screen. I mean, in much the same way that live action TV and movies have to take liberties with superhero costumes that an actor can actually use, superhero stuff in prose has to make a lot of other concessions in order to focus on the storytelling.

Thankfully, Rogers understood this from the outset, and the result is surprising for a (new) author; while there are some heavy expository sections that make it a bit of a drain to read, the rest is highly entertaining. Rogers' strongest achievement is creating a setting that is reminescent of Gotham, New Orleans (a clear inspiration) and the Mos Eisley Spaceport from Star Wars, and has amplified the corruption and vice to their (super)natural extremes. Outside of James Robinson's Starman run, I've never seen this much use of the setting as a context for a superhero story. Rogers spends a lot of time getting you to know the city; you can feel the sweltering heat of the city and smell the garbage rotting in the streets as apathetic cops drive along, knowing they are bought and paid for by a dozen levels of greed and evil. Devil's Cape isn't a place I'd want to visit, except by reading about it.

Another excellent choice by Rogers: he eschews analogues, when it would be easy to do so. There are no dark detectives whom have trained mind and body to perfection, no superhuman alien demigods or prankster acrobats or psychotic clowns. His characters, their powers and origins manages to seem fresh and new, despite hewing very close to classic mythological heroic archtypes. That's an impressive feat that I wish more comic writers would follow.


Where Rogers shows weakness in his work is that you never get a clear sense of motivation from any of the protagonists as to why they are doing what they are doing (the sole exception being Doctor Camelot and her search for revenge). Part of this is due to the large cast he uses to paint the canvas of the setting, and part of it is likely because of the moral grey area inherent to the nature of the setting (I find it no surprise that the only character with a clear cut motivation is not a native of Devil's Cape). This, and some rather oppressive wording during the middle of the book (where Rogers moves from simple set up of the city to explaining the world it inhabits and the various superbeings) are fairly minor glitches in what is overall a very light and enjoyable read. Pick it up, give it a try, and hope that we get more from him soon.

Watchmen Posters!

It's going to be a long work-filled weekend for me, so I'll try to make up for my lack of substance with a crapload of posters. Tonight's theme: WATCHMEN. These are probably the only Watchmen posters I will ever do, simply because I don't feel that anything from the actual comic requires additional commentary. Movie images, however, as SOOOO fair game. Enjoy.

Back again to Stay

Apologies, but I've been travelling with family in joyous celebration of good things this past week, and thus, have not been blogging. This should be the last major interruption in the foreseeable future. Now, a few notes on my trip:

I got to see a Barnes and Noble Bookstore, which is the American Equivalent to Chapters. A few interesting notes:

1. Like Chapters, B&N stores have a built-in Starbucks. Unlike Chapters, you serve massive amounts of ice cream in the Starbucks, whereas Chapters has a variety of coffee flavours unknown to other beings and chains.
2. Where Chapters is vastly superior: A larger and wider array of non-fiction books, particularly those about history, politics and cultures other than the US.
3. Where Chapters is vastly inferior: B&N Science-fiction and Fantasy sections dwarf those of Chapters. Also, B&N have a larger selection of the classics (i.e. Heinlein, E.E. Smith, Verne, Wells) than is normally available through Chapters.
4. The comic shelves: Let me make this clear- MANGA IS SUPREME HERE. There were four shelves of the stuff, all of uniform shape; all the volumes perfectly ordered so there was no question where each series was, and easy to find what you were looking for. The superhero stuff was about two shelves, with no possible order, and they were lumped in with the RPG books and the "unofficial guides" to whatever comic/sci-fi/TV adaptation movies were hot the last couple years. If I were a Marvel/DC/Dark Horse/Image guy and went by these shelves, I would start thinking that I was in serious trouble. And by "Serious Trouble", I mean, the kind Detroit Automakers saw in 1988, when they saw that the Japanese were about to descend upon them like bloodthirsty hawks, and that they had no idea what to do.

Anyway, I had a really good time, and I'm glad to be back. More will be coming soon.

Your Moment of Funny

Travelling again for a few days, so posting will be irregular. Until then, enjoy the madness :D

The Case for Bucky

OK, Now, as you probably know by now, Captain America is, illogically, one of my favorite comic characters. So now, while I believe that the current storyline will be resolved (eventually) and that (also eventually) we will see Steve Rogers as Cap again, I'm going to take a moment to point out the rather unique way that Brubaker has made the Bucky-As-Cap a commentary on Modern America.

First, let's get this out of the way: Brubaker's interpretation of Bucky can be summed EXACTLY AS FOLLOWS:

+

=

Which is fine. Superhero comics have a long history of swiping stuff from other popular culture (We all know Master of Kung-Fu was a response to the Kung-Fu genre and Bruce Lee. Let's not dwell, ok?), so this is nothing new. As someone else mentioned "Brainwashed minion of the bad guy gone good" isn't really new in comics. So, it's unoriginal, but is it any good?

Well, that depends on what you mean.

In the opening foreward of Kurt Busiek's Astro City Vol.1: Life in the Big City, Kurt goes on about how you can make comic characters stand for different things, and he explicitly mentions the idea of "How would Captain America look if he were conceived as a reflection of the post-Watergate 1970s America instead of the New Deal America?" . And I think that's what we have here with Bucky/Winter Soldier: A reflection of Captain America as a metaphor for Modern America: A country that remembers its past, but has been dehumanized by a long, cold war, in which it has been inactive, and occassionally entirely mislead, but one that is striving to live up to the legacy of those whom have gone before and laid down their lives for The Dream.

And damn, that's a Story WORTH telling. And a concept worth exploring. It'll be interesting to see where it goes.

What if we lived in a Comic book universe? part 10

I'm sooooooo going to hell for this one...

Futurama Lives!

(Again, apologies for not having any good Futurama images for posters. If any of you want to send me a link with some, I'd appreciate it. In the meantime, enjoy the Aaron Stack Goodness.)

And completing my trinity of reviews: Futurama - Bender's Big Score DVD

For an animated franchise like Futurama or Family Guy, there are generally two approaches you could take to a direct-to-DVD feature such as this: 1) Tell a good story designed for maximum appeal in an effort to bring the series back to TV (which Family Guy managed to pull off), or 2) Appeal to the longtime die-hard fans and write them a love letter while trying to complete some of the unfinished character arcs from the show. Bender's Big Score definitely opts for the second approach (although I'd argue it doesn't really give us any real completion on the arcs. If anything, the DVD sets up a bunch of new arcs that will require more DVD features to complete).

The animation and the voice acting are all back with a vengeance: Billy West (the voice of about half the male characters) is clearly enjoying another descent into schizophrenia voicing all of his favorites, from perennially down on his luck Zoidberg, to the ever-sleazy Zap Brannigan, to series protagonist Phillip J. Fry, among others (including a few new characters altogether). John Dimaggio's Bender is a hoot, and the writers allow him to steal every scene he's in. The entire voice cast is rejoined and it's surprising how little has changed in the nearly five years since the series left the airwaves (jeez, it's hard to believe it's been that long). There are also several celebrity cameos via the "heads in a Jar" trick, including a certain former Vice president (who gets a great one-liner).

The story itself is great, tying together elements from the entire series and loaded with characters from previous episodes (my god, but I lost count of how many nods there were to episodes from the series run), and since the cover mentions it, I will tell you that the main plot hooks revolve around time-travel, which the writers use in a manner that would make Dr. Who fans proud. Trust me, if you are a fan of the show, you will appreciate the nods. The flip side of this is that it will be nigh-impenetrable to a new viewer, which may not help the series in terms of launching a longer-term revival effort.

A few other interesting things to note:

-Two of the series long-time recurring antagonists do not appear. I suspect partly because their appearances might have interfered with the overall plot, but I also suspect that there may have been some other issues with voice casting. Any information here would be helpful.

-The Leela/Fry and Bender/Fry dynamic is at the heart of this thing, although there is little actual development, but it's well done. Much less well done is Hermes' subplot, which comes off as stretched thin and rather repetitive. Amy was nearly entirely absent from the entire production, which is of course, really sad.

So, I highly recommend this to fellow Futurama fans, but you might want to sit down any friends who aren't familiar with the show to a few of the better episodes from the series proper before watching this with them.

The New Frontier: not quite up to par

(Apologies I don't have more appropriate images for tonite's subject. Doing the best with what I have).

Second up on reviews this weekend is Justice League: the New Frontier. Just to clarify: yes I have read the miniseries, and I thought it was a good attempt to integrate the DCU into a more realistic framework of the late-50s to early 60s. However, I'm probably not as in love with the comic as others have shown themselves to be. Yes, the art was beautiful: Darwyn Cooke can and does produce great stuff, no doubt. But I found the story to be a little disjointed and awkward, and this is something that is amplified in the DVD.

Simply put, there was no way to do this story justice in a 75 minute animated film, no matter how hard they tried. A lot of the better character moments (particularly those of the John Henry-stand-in character, Martian Manhunter, and especially Barry Allen) are sacrificed on the altar of the larger plot. Which I could almost forgive, if this movie didn't keep trying to point out that these tiny, underdeveloped and seemingly unconnected elements MATTERED in some meaningful way which you could only find out if you read the comic. So in that respect, the movie has a pretty fatal flaw in its characterization. The sole exception in this area is that of Hal Jordan, Green Lantern. His story arc from the original mini-series is carried over almost entirely completely, although there is still quite a bit of short-hand used to compact things down. So, if you are a Green Lantern fan, hey, you'll like this.

Now, if you are willing to get past the plot and character problems in this movie, I'll say this: The voice-casting is 100 times better than the "Doomsday" direct-to-DVD Superman Feature a few months back, and the animation is far cleaner and more vibrant. Cooke's contribution no doubt helped in this regard.

So, if you are a diehard DC completist, a fan of Darwyn Cooke, or Green Lantern, you should probably enjoy this. However, I don't think it's that accessible or that good for most viewers.

It Lives! It Walks! Will it Conquer (the Box Office)?

While Sims is content to waste his time on mere computer games and Campbell has retired from the field to serve his new master, Mickey Eye...Mouse, I meant Mickey Mouse, it falls to me to provide what you hunger for: a review of the Iron Man film.

First things first: yes, stay until after the closing credits. You will be rewarded. I was pretty much the last guy in the theatre and the cinema staff wasn't looking pleased at me for staying as long as I did.

Now, it has been mentioned that these types of movies tend to follow a certain formula. I'm happy to report that in this movie, many (but not all) of them are broken or bent. This is one of many good things in this film. Now, the science, as we've discussed in the past, is somewhat dodgy, but this is a genre that coined "Genetically engineered Super-Spiders", so we'll have to play the hand we are dealt with here. However, once we get past the fact that the science itself isn't top grade, the actual approach to engineering taken by the movie is far better. There is the sense of innovation is coupled with a fairly pragmatic approach to things like testing your new and experimental devices, albiet in a manner that provides slapstick at the expense of safety (I cracked up at several points during this).

The best part of this movie: Robert Downey Jr. OWNS Tony Stark, in a way that the trailers only really hint at. This is by far the best version of Tony to appear in any medium, period. Downey goes thru a real dramatic change from self-absorbed playboy to well-meaning but still slightly self-absorbed philanthropist. His charisma is so great, however, that not one actor in the movie can keep up with him, with the sole exception of Gwenyth Paltrow, who does a lovely turn as Pepper Potts. Their scenes together underscore a great chemistry that has been sadly lacking in these on-screen couples (I'm looking at you, Superman Returns). The focus on Tony's arc from reckless to responsible.

Now, one imagines a movie with this much logistical support from the U.S. Air Force, and one that is grounded in the modern Middle Eastern issues, could easily become jingoistic. Instead, while it shows off the USAF toys, there is the clear message in Tony's arc that these weapons hurt far more innocent people than they should. However, this is complicated by the fact that A) Tony really doesn't have a developed and proactive plan to deal with the problem, and B) there's the implied message that the weapons are only "Bad" when they are used by "Bad Guys" which is not something I'm comfortable with. This mixed message is likely the result of the balancing act the movie makers had to play with to get USAF support while still maintaining the core of the character. The fact that the movie even TRIES to address this issue makes it both topical, and far and away probably the most mature movie Marvel has put out in years, possibly ever.

The FX? Beautiful. The producers could have easily cheated by using very dark scenes to cover their CG work, but in this case, they provide some excellent stuff. And all iterations of the armor looking great.

Overall, this is a great summer action movie, and I highly recommend.

Best wishes

Why Bother?

Most of the rest of the week a lot of the material I cover and review will be of a positive nature, but first, I want to do a little venting, if I may.

Now, I really like Jaime Reyes, the current Blue Beetle, but the question keeps coming up: if a character is sufficently original, then why are you even bringing it to the table at Marvel/DC's main superhero universe? This isn't to discredit guys like Rogers or any of the dozens of people who've been doing it for years now, but the question remains; after everything everyone has ever learned about how corporate comics steal and malign creators' rights, why the hell would you even consider giving them you "A" material?

If Rogers had made the character for another company, where he would have had more control over his creation (most independent companies don't do total control these days, as adaptations to other media are too lucrative to be worth passing up), and came up with his own name, well, he wouldn't have been able to mine the DCU for every penny it's worth. However, outside of the comics blogosphere (hey, we're great, but we aren't the universe) exactly whom would give a damn?

Oh, yes, going with a Marvel or DC increases the chances your comic will succeed in the Direct Market (Well, that's not entirely true; it's far from an ironclad strategy). Big Whoop. Isn't being on top of the Diamond Catalogue really that meaningful? Or is it just some sick nostalgia for the 90s when that actually had some (false) signficance? Who cares if it's 40,000 or 70,000 of your floppy first issue that goes out? Isn't about where you end up and what you can make of your intellectual property?

Putting this into some kind of semi-relevant context: If I own a patent on a Device, then it's MINE. Complete, unto itself and I will fucking cut you up (in court) if you try to use it without giving me what I want for it. Now, the truth is, depending on what it is, someone with a patent will either have to make a deal with a company, or try and become a business themselves. Going with a company is not unlike with Marvel/DC, except that usually, you get the deal UPFRONT, and not after the fact. Furthermore, with most patent rules, you still get money if a company uses what is YOURS, even if you are no longer working on it. Gerber (or his estate) isn't getting any money from Letham's OMEGA THE UNKNOWN to my knowledge, even though if Letham had something resembling integrity, he'd put a chunk of his paycheck to such a cause, and making sure future creators don't get the screws the way Gerber did.

Honestly, it makes me question why ANYONE with half a brain would get into writing comics for the mainstream guys. Yeah, I mean, there are probably concepts and characters I'd love to write myself (and one day, I will share them with you) but let me be clear on this: SO LONG AS COMIC COMPANIES DO NOT PROVIDE PROPER REMEDIATION TO CREATORS, PAST AND PRESENT, I WILL NEVER EVER CONSIDER WRITING FOR THEM FOR ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY.

So yeah, that's my rant for tonite. Enjoy.

Your Moment of Funny

I'm BAAACK...and expect more to come....but for now, just a teaser