We Love the City

Author: Ryan

  • So good, so frustrating: Sorkin’s Studio 60

    Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is starting to tick me off.

    I love Aaron Sorkin. West Wing, the first 2-3 seasons in particular, rate among the best television I’ve ever seen. I really don’t mind that he’s elitist or left-wing, because I happen to be both, and I actually enjoy stories about people who aren’t average schmucks. He writes great scripts and collects great actors, and doesn’t assume his audience is too stupid to follow complex ideas and stories.

    So it’s no surprise that I’m enjoying Studio 60. It’s different from West Wing – much lighter in tone, obviously – but still shows off most of Sorkin’s strengths: Snappy banter, fast-paced plots, and a fantastic ensemble of characters. Unfortunately, it’s also snagged on two of his weaknesses.

    Sorkin doesn’t write romance terribly well. West Wing was at its best when it focused on the characters and their jobs, and tended to lag when it tried to get more personal. The early attempt to make Mandy a main character was quickly abandoned, and Sam’s relationship with the hooker was never as compelling itself as it was when it was crashing into Sam’s career and White House public relations. The only romances that really worked were the President and the First Lady, which was more of a married couple setup that allowed someone to point out when Bartlett was being an ass, and Josh and Amy, who were so inseparable from their jobs that their personal relationship couldn’t be separated from their professional one.

    So it’s unfortunate that Sorkin has fixated on the romance between Matt (Matthew Perry) and Harriet (Sarah Paulson). Almost every episode thus far has been about their romantic history, and it never entirely gets off the ground. Only once, in The Long Lead Story, has their relationship been particularly compelling, and that was the point at which it was revealed that their romance came about almost entirely because of the show: Harriet was Matt’s muse, and his inspiration made her a star. That was the point of their relationship, and it took far too long to get to it and hasn’t really been touched on since.

    The show has accordingly lagged when focusing on the will-the-or-won’t-they romance, not only because the story isn’t that great, but also because it obscures the rest of the cast. What’s the point in having such a great (and high-priced) ensemble cast if you’re hardly going to use them? Bradley Whitford has hardly had anything to do, which is unfortunate considering how much fun he usually is on screen; in this week’s episode, he manages to take control for a while and we see why he’s actually necessary to the cast. What’s more, both Perry and Paulson seem to be much better interacting with others than with each other: Perry & Whitford in particular have great chemistry which hasn’t been used nearly enough since about the second episode.

    The other snag is Sorkin’s obsession with the Chrstian right. It was a popular target on West Wing – the first episode began with Josh nearly getting fired for insulting an evangelist on television – but it didn’t get anywhere near the attention that it has on Studio 60. It’s been in nearly every episode, which is entirely too much; as much as America may be divided into Red and Blue states, a comedy show shouldn’t be that obsessed with it.

    Sorkin clearly wants to make Harriet the dividing and unifying force on the show: She’s openly and devoutly Christian, which alienates and angers some, yet she’s also a gifted comedian and a nice person, so everyone who knows her likes her. But still, it feels like overkill: I don’t talk about my co-workers’ religious or political beliefs on anything approaching a regular basis. Like her relationship with Matt, Harriet’s religion should come up once in a while, not every episode. What’s more, Sorkin has already explored this territory before, yet with considerably more subtlety and skill, on West Wing, where the President of the United States was a devout Catholic (who almost became a priest, even), and his staff included several Jewish characters. It simply wasn’t a big deal most of the time; everyone accepted, or at least understood, Bartlett’s beliefs, and if the staff of the White House can accept a religious boss, one would think the cast and crew of a TV show should be able to deal with it.

    Despite the fact that the two big flaws revolve around Harriet, I do quite like Sarah Paulson. She’s a talented actor, doing drama and comedy capably. She’s great when she’s not being tied down to the show’s two big subplots, and even rises above them occasionally: Calling Matt a “Whoremonger with the sensitivity of a cabbage” was priceless, and her explanation of her Christian roots to the reporter was also well done. Unfotunately, Sorkin is doing her, not to mention the rest of the cast, a disservice by going back to the same story well every week.

    Studio 60 has all the ingredients to be a great show, but Sorkin is holding it back. The recent two-parter shows signs of busting out: It got the whole cast in on the action, covered a variety of stories, and had a nice guest spot from John Goodman. Bradley Whitford and Steven Weber finally got the screen time they deserve – the two have great chemistry together, and Weber seems to be having an awesome time chewing up scenery. But the Christians vs. Hollywood theme continued to rear its head, and the show, a nice ensemble piece, yet again closes on Matt and Harriet. It was a nice scene, but it didn’t sum up the episode terribly well; unfortunately, it sums up the series fairly effectively: Too much focus on elements that aren’t working all that well.

  • Stranger Than Fiction

    Will Ferrell is a boring guy.

    Yes, he can be funny. But just look at him – he doesn’t look like a funny guy. He doesn’t look wacky, or even particularly amusing. He has a sort of Bill Murray quality – we know he’s funny because we’ve seen him do funny stuff, but otherwise one might assume him to be a regular, boring guy.

    Accordingly, casting him as an IRS auditor who leads a mundane existence, even for an IRS auditor (his fianceé left him for an actuary), seems like a perfectly sensible idea. I’ve always found Ferrell to be at his funniest when dealing in low-key humour – his George W. impersonation is far superior to that horrible cheerleader or the Roxbury clubber – again, not unlike Bill Murray, particularly when directed by someone like Wes Anderson.

    Stranger Than Fiction is effectively two movies, or one movie that was rewritten dramatically after the writer realized the original story wasn’t that interesting. Ferrell plays IRS auditor Harold Crick, whose life is uneventful until he meets a beautiful baker with a social conscience played by Maggie Gyllenhall. He falls in love with her carefree ways and sweet baked goods, and changes his life for the better so he can be with her.

    This, obviously, is the part that wasn’t all that interesting. Ferrell is fun, and Gyllenhall is charming and adorable, but that alone makes for a fun if generic feel-good romantic comedy. No, the enticing part of Stranger than Fiction is that at about the same time he falls in love, Harold also begins to hear someone narrating his life. That narration comes courtesy of Emma Thompson, playing a chain-smoking, stressed-out novelist who hasn’t published a book in ten years and is in turn stressing out her publisher, who wants her new book sooner rather than later.

    The narration is disconcerting enough as it describes Harold brushing his teeth, but it becomes another matter entirely when it mentions his imminent death. Harold realizes he must find out what’s going on with his life before it’s over.

    The key to Stranger Than Fiction is Harold’s reformation from a dull and predictable nobody to a guy who lives life to the fullest, whether it’s putting the moves on a pretty baker or learning how to play the guitar. The delightful Gyllenhall is a big part, but even bigger is the unwanted narration: One’s life seems so much more meaningless when there’s a nearly omniscient narrator telling you all about it.

    The film hinges on Ferrell’s portrayal of a man changing his entire life, and for the most part it succeeds. He’s by no means a great dramatic actor, but the role of “boring guy who’s confused by stuff” plays to his strength; like Adam Sandler in Punchdrunk Love, Ferrell’s natural strengths are channelled to create an effecitve character. He doesn’t quite come through in the serious moments, but everything up to that point is done so well that one doesn’t really mind.

    It certainly doesn’t help that Ferrell is surrounded by some very good actors: Gyllenhall is very good, even if she’s playing the stereotypical “free spirit” that seduces the buckled-down working guy. Dustin Hoffman clearly has some fun playing an English professor (and occasional lifeguard) Harold enlists to help figure out what’s going on. His calm and bemusement in the face of Harold’s crisis (“Aren’t you glad to know you’re not a golem?”) is entertaining, and he can still bring the dramatic chops when his ultimate role in the film is revealed.

    The real star of the film, in admittedly much less screen time than Ferrell, is Thompson, who’s both wacky and genuinely distraught as the blocked writer. She’s already stressed out over not being able to write, concocting suicide fantasies as a way of deciding how to kill off poor Harold. (“If you haven’t thought about throwing yourself off a building, how to do you expect to help me write a novel?” she asks her publisher-assigned helper, portrayed by Queen Latifah but really only there for expository purposes) Thompson is all nerves and eccentricity, but never treading entirely into caricature.

    Stranger Than Fiction owes a great debt to the films of Charlie Kaufman. Even if screenwriter Zach Helm wasn’t directly inspired by Adaptation or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, this film probably wouldn’t have gotten made 10 years ago. Thankfully, it’s more like Kaufman’s later films than his earlier, and it maintains a strong emotional core despite its lofty and intellectual concepts. The film lives and breathes with Ferrel’s reformation and Thompson’s career and life-altering decisions, and Helm never gets so caught up in admiring his intellect that he forgets to make the audience care about the characters.

    Prior to the film, we saw a trailer for The Pursuit of Happyness, an upcoming film that casts Will Smith as a single, down-on-his-luck father trying to turn his life around. Trailers can always be deceiving, but this one was so desperately trying to sell “Feel Good Story!” that you could practically see subtitles asking us to love the character and assuring us it would all turn out well. It offered a seemingly obvious plot, rags-to-riches, and an almost rock-solid guarantee of a happy ending. People obviously want their happy endings, but this just seemed too much.

    On the other hand, Stranger Than Fiction actually does offer an inspiring story of a man who sets out to change his life, yet without promising the audience a happy ending. Emma Thompson tells us Harold is going to die, and its only in the closing minutes of the film that we find out whether her narration is going to come true or not. Harold Crick is a sympathetic and fairly believable character, and we want him get the girl and live happily ever after. But Stranger Than Fiction succeeds because his future is never assured, either romantically or at all.

    Speaking of trailers, the ads undersell Stranger Than Fiction quite a bit, playing it up as more of a Will Ferrell comedy. While it is funny, it’s also quite intelligent, emotional, and dramatic. It’s not the sort of film one can adequately sum up in a 30-second trailer, nor is it entirely Ferrell’s film: He owes a lot to Helm’s script, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Thompson pick up an Oscar nomination for her role. It’s a very good film that happens to be funny and make good use of a big star, but it has quite a bit to offer to just about anyone.

  • EW on Heroes: What does it all mean?

    Entertainment Weekly has a fairly wide-ranging story what Heroes and its success means for Hollywood and comics.
    There’s a bit of a flawed premise in the article, namely that superheroes are inherenly nerdy. While they’ve certainly gained a close association, they really aren’t, as a look at the history of the genre will tell you: Films like Spider-Man are huge hits, and the major franchises have great name recognition because almost everyone (men, anyway) has read comic books at some point in their lives. Superheroes are quite cool when they’re brought to us by Christian Bale or Sam Raimi. The nerdy part only comes into play with people who religiously collect every issue, throw hissy fits whenever a series is renumbered, or argue about whether Spider-Man and the Dallas Cowboys is in continuity.
    It also touches on what made me lose interest in the show: It’s all been done before. The powers and themes are pretty old hat for comic books; Heroes might have been a revolutionary take on the genre 20 years ago, but by now I think I’ve seen it all. Average people gaining superpowers is hardly new; it’s practically become the genre standard over the past couple decades.
    Part of that may come from creator Tim Kring’s take on the genre:

    I really did approach [Heroes] from a place that nobody else had, in terms of looking at it as a real character-driven piece, and trying to veer away from the superpowers as much as I could. The powers play a part in the show, but they are not leading the storytelling. And so I think that in and of itself makes Heroes sort of different [from comics].

    One might expect a guy with extensive comic book experience to produce a show that riffed on pre-existing conventions in the genre, or even specific books , stories or characters. But Kring has arrived at the same result by a different path: Kring apparently hasn’t read a comic in 20 or 30 years, and seems to have assumed that the superhero genre, never mind the entire medium, has not evolved at all.
    I’m not one of those sad and pathetic souls who runs around insisting that superhero comics are all serious and mature, but Kring’s attitude shows a mix of ignorance and arrogance. It’s important in any writing to consider what’s come before — while you don’t want to rip others off (accidentally or not), you also don’t want to look foolish unveiling your great, original idea to an audience that’s seen it done a dozen times before over several decades.
    The article also delves into the question that always seems to get asked whenever there’s a successful TV show or movie based on or inspired by a comic book: What will this mean for future media based on comics? The answer, of course, is very little. Matt Brady comments, and mostly gets it right:

    As heretical as it may be for me to say this, there’s nothing ‘magic’ about Spider-Man, Superman, or Batman that can’t be captured and done by someone else, and even done better…. Frankly, I don’t know what studios are waiting for, as they’re reaching the second- and third-tier [comic book] characters to make movies out of. I mean, Ghost Rider [a Marvel comics character, soon to be a movie starring Nicolas Cage]… how many people do you think the actual [character] will attract, versus the number of people Dimension could’ve gotten to check out a flick about a demonic motorcycle rider who fights demons? Pay your legal team to make it dance clear of similarities to [Ghost Rider], gore it up (since you don’t have to follow anyone’s usage rules) to get some more butts in the seats, and DON’T pay for the license.

    Once you get past the A-list characters, franchises have very little value in and of themselves. Ghost Rider, for example, has had exactly two successful series: his 1973 series lasted 81 issues, and the 1990 relaunch lasted 94. There were also about two dozen spinoffs and miniseries, but almost all of those were published over about three years in the mid-90s, so naturally they don’t count. At all. On any level. What value does Ghost Rider have to a movie studio when it’s only barely useful to a comic book publisher?
    The obvious argument to this theory is Blade, but that also backs up Brady’s theory: What does Blade do that a studio couldn’t do all on its own without paying a licensing fee? Blade is even more worthless headling a comic book than Ghost Rider. He’s a guy that kills vampires – there are at least a dozen ways to write the character that don’t cross into copyright infringement.
    Brady is wrong when it comes to the Big Guns, though: Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man do have value by virtue of their near-universal brand recognition. That’s not to say they can sell a movie all by themselves, but combining them with a solid production gets you added mileage. One could also consider that these characters have had books continuously in print for forty or fifty years – obviously, there’s a lot of fodder for stories, as well as an almost timeless appeal.
    Joe Quesada naturally buys into this idea:

    For every Heroes that’s successful, Hollywood is littered with failures. What [Heroes] proves is that when it’s done well, it does well, but when it’s anchored to something that’s a proven commodity, like Spider-Man and X-Men, you can expect something explosive. … Heroes is the exception as opposed to the norm.

    Of course, he also inadvertently agrees with much of Brady’s point: Spider-Man and X-Men are proven commodities, but most others are not. And as much as Heroes may be the exception to “Create Your own Superhero” trend, you could make a similar observation about X-Men or Batman: for every Spider-Man, you’ve got an Elektra, Punisher, or Catwoman. The general rule is probably “most movies are crap and will fail,” but we probably knew that already.
    Lastly, and tangenitally, I have to agree with one of Beau Smith’s observations: The cheerleader is a klutz. How did she not get permamently maimed or killed before her powers kicked in? People who stick their hands into garbage disposals are really supposed to be weeded out by natural selection. I think that was one of the things that turned me off about the show — it was just too obvious. But maybe I’ll come back to it on DVD.

  • Today’s Dictatorial Ruling

    Eek The Cat should be available on DVD.

    Someone make this happen. (Or at least point out that it is available but I’m just not aware of it.)

  • Best. Episode. Ever.

    I haven’t watched a new episode of The Simpsons in years. I’ve heard it’s been better recently, but I just can’t bring myself to care after so many years of mediocrity. But this is enough to pull me back for one episode:

    Alan Moore is going to appear on the Simpsons.

    That’s just so cool.

  • Ennis gets Ugly: The Downward Spiral of The Boys

    I’m not the squeamish sort.

    As a matter of fact, I’ve been told, on occasion, that I have absolutely disgusting tastes when it comes to both graphic content and unpleasant themes. I enjoy the films of Takashi Miike and Lars von Trier. I love Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and paid an ungodly sum for a signed copy of Lost Girls. I do, on occasion, think Garth Ennis is a brilliant writer, despite what some would call a heavy reliance on shock tactics.

    Nor do I hold the superhero genre in such esteem that I deem any deviations from the Kirby/Lee model to be an affront to my personal dignity. As much as I love All-Star Superman, there’s plenty of room for different, less pleasant, takes on the spandex set.

    I offer this preface to explain that I’m not opposed to the entire milieu of Garth Ennis and what he’s attempting to do on The Boys with Darick Robertson. It’s certainly an interesting idea: In a world where superheroes are out of control, someone has to rein them in. The destruction they cause is obvious, and it’s not ridiculous to suggest that men and women with the powers of gods might start thinking the are gods. It’s all been done before, of course, but so has just about everything else; Ennis’ good stuff usually comes not from a terribly original idea, but in putting his own unique spin on it.

    It started out well enough: The first issue set up the basic premise (superheroes are dangerous) and introduced the two main characters: Butcher, who’s a typical Ennis hardass, and Wee Hughie, a regular guy whose girlfriend was killed in the crossfire of a hero/villain brawl. The image of Hughie holding onto his girlfriend’s disembodied arms was both tragic and comedic, the sort of thing Ennis does very well; that Darick Robertson understands how Ennis works made it even better.

    The second issue continued the setup. Personally, I think the first two issues should have been put together as a single, giant-sized debut, but that seems to be a lost cause. But still, it was decent enough: Butcher made his formal offer to Hughie to join the team, and we got our introduction to the rest of The Boys. They don’t have a great deal of personality yet, but The Female seems interesting. It was a bit slow, but I didn’t mind.

    The third issue showed the greatest promise, but also started going off the rails. Wee Hughie still isn’t sure he wants to join Butcher’s gang, but at least he meets the rest of the crew. We finally meet the enemy, as bright young Starlight receives a rude initiation when she joins The Seven. The superheroes are egotistical, abusive, and self-centred.

    The most effective statement the book has to make is a striking spread of the destruction wrought on New York by various super-brawls. That should be the motivation for hating the superheroes: Regardless of their motivation, their actions cause untold destruction and cost hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. But Ennis seems less interested in that angle than exploring The Seven’s sex drives. It’s effective enough, again mixing tragedy and comedy nicely. The Seven do seem like assholes, particularly the too-cutely-named Homelander.

    Of course, when Butcher finally gets around to announcing the team’s first target, the Seven isn’t even on his radar screen – instead they’re going to take out the youthful punk heroes of Teenage Kix. So what, then, was the point of building up The Seven at this point? Those pages could be much better served by either some character development for the Boys or some previews of Teenage Kix, the actual subject of Butcher’s plans.

    Unfortunately, Ennis continues to pursue the sordid superheroes into issue four, at which point he beats the joke into the ground. In addition to continuing to show the Seven as depraved, greedy, and self-obsessed, Ennis also shows us the Teenage Kix involved in drug-fuelled orgies with prostitutes. Which seemed to be overdoing it, but I was okay with it until one panel: A prostitute sitting in the bathroom after servicing the superheroes with her hand covered in blood.

    That was just too much. First it disgusted me, then it angered me. The image was bad enough, but not entirely offensive in and of itself – there are ways one could justify it with the story. But Ennis and Robertson have done no such thing. After four issues, The Boys seems interested in one thing: Being ugly. The depictions of violence and depravity serve only one point – showing how awful the superheroes are.

    We get it. They’re awful people. But there’s such a thing as overdoing it. Ennis has spent more time convincing us the superheroes are awful than he has doing just about anything with the nominal stars of the book: Butcher is a badass who wants to get the superheroes. Hughie is a nice guy who’s sad about his girlfriend dying but isn’t sure he wants to go around killing superheroes. The rest of the Boys seem lucky to get a panel an issue. Ennis has created “superheroes” so reprehensible they may as well be supervillains. And with the revelation in #4 that Hughie has been injected with some sort of super-serum, we’ve now got a bunch of super-powered good guys fighting super-powered bad guys. Somehow, Ennis took an unexplored concept and made it less original in his quest to be as dirty and depraved as possible.

    Ennis certainly displayed his fair share of depravity on Preacher. But there, it was often in service of the story and characters. Jody & TC may have been sick bastards, but they never seemed depraved just for the heck of it. On top of that, they were always opposite some much more likeable characters. What Ennis & Robertson have given us in The Boys is Good Old Boys. Except not as funny. And spread out over four issues so far.

    Many of Ennis’ critics accuse him of gross-out humour and gratuitous violence. While they may be correct sometimes, they also miss the point at others: These elements are just tools he uses to tell his stories. The tag line Ennis used to describe The Boys was that it would “out-Preacher Preacher.” Unfortunately, he seems to have adopted his critics’ opinion of that work and assumed that it’s assumed modern classic status because it’s really violent and gross. And by that criteria, The Boys is certainly a success – I can’t think of another book that’s this actively unpleasant to read without offering any redemptive qualities.

    Bravo, Garth.

  • Hey, Fatty!

    Sometimes I think Karen Healey is just a ranting madwoman (though it must be said she’s one of the best), and other times I think she’s a genius. This post definitely falls into the latter category: A look at body mass indexes for Marvel superheroes and heroines.

    It is, of course, absurd. Taking height and weight measurements for fictional characters can’t possibly mean anything, particularly when those measurements are most likely added after the fact for various handbooks and encyclopedias. I also doubt they were created by any sort of physiological experts; they’re just guesses about characters whose depictions fluctuate wildly – just look at how often Wolverine is actually drawn at his stated height of 5’3″.

    But on the other hand, they’re measurements by Marvel employees (in some capacity or another) based on Marvel comics, and while they don’t mean much in any scientific context, they do say a lot about the people making this stuff up. As Karen points out, guys are big and strong, women are slender and sexy.

    There are probably great difficulties in figuring out weights for superheroes, since there’s gotta be something going on to enable Spider-Man to list 10 tons. But even disregarding the super guys & gals, some of the differences are staggering: Iron Fist, martial artist extraordinarie, checks in with a BMI of 22.42; Elektra, also a peak-human type, sits at 19.24. Shouldn’t these two be similar? They’re both agile, fast, and strong, and fight similar types of bad guys.

    There are a few real absurdities: The Black Cat only weighs 120 pounds? Okay, I’ll show some suspension of disbelief on that one; she’s more of a thief than a fighter. But Ms Marvel, who flies around, lifts cars, and punches out big-time supervillains, only weighs four pounds more? And then Psylocke, who’s the same height as Ms. Marvel, has no superpowered muscles other than her brain, and is somehow 30 pounds heavier.

    The real kicker, though, has to be Jessica Jones, who checks in at 5’7″, 124 pounds and a BMI of 19.46 – at the low end of “normal” for Karen’s numbers. This is a woman who, in Alias, at least, was distinctly not in peak physical condition. She smoked, she drank, she couldn’t throw a tin can at a robber from ten feet away, and under Michael Gaydos’ wonderful pen actually looked like a normal person. Even before she got pregnant, this is a woman who probably carried around a few extra pounds. She wasn’t a very good superhero (though Mark Bagley drew her pretty skinny as Jewel), and since she quit she hasn’t wanted to go back. And yet here she is, at the heavier end of the “superheroines” but still pretty slender for a regular human being. Either no one read Alias, or no one cared that it was one of the few Marvel books not about a supermodel superheroine. In the world of absurdly proportioned spandex freaks, Jessica Jones is the one person I’d expect to look normal.

    There’s clearly a lot of cluelessness in assigning these measurements – they barely even make sense on their own, let alone when you start comparing them – but the obvious trend is slender, whether it makes any sense for the character or not. At no point did anyone consider that Jessica should be a bit overweight, or Ms. Marvel ought to at least weigh more than Iceman. I could suggest that few of the people who work on these things have ever seen a real woman up close, but I wouldn’t want to be accused of dabbling in stereotypes.

    The people who came up with these things may not have put a lot of thought into it, but thoughtless actions are often very good at revealing subconcious feelings. The numbers don’t mean much, but they show quite a bit.

    (Also, something I wouldn’t have come across if not for this article: Thor weighs 640 pounds. I know he’s a god and all, but that still seems excessive. Although perhaps it does make sense in an internal logic sort of way – if you’re going to be able to lift 100 tons, fly around, and smash buildings, your anatomy would be pretty fucked up. So why doesn’t that translate to Ms. Marvel et al?)

  • The Awesomeness of Wormwood: Angry Leprechauns

    A nice bit of coincidence: Just after I promise to talk more about how I love Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, Rich Johnston posts the covers to the next three issues. #5 is a work of art, if I do say so myself:

    Angry Leprechaun

  • Quick Comics Critiques for 05/11/06

    It’s been a busy week, and I’ve spent much of it writing, or thinking of writing, but mostly fiction. Apparently I actually can be productive when I put my mind to it – 3,000 words this afternoon. Yay for me. But in the meantime, a quick wrapup of this week’s books:

    Blue Beetle #8: I’m still digging this book – it’s a fun superhero gig with a strong supporting cast, a good sense of humour, and a mysterious-yet-not-completely-frustrating question driving the plot. Jaime hits the road with Brenda and the Peacemaker to meet Danielle Garrett, the granddaughter of the original (pre-Ted) Blue Beetle. But they’re followed by the creepy hunchback guy from #5, and violent hijinks ensue.

    Cully Hamner is just about perfect for the book, demonstrating a great mix of light cartooning and serious superheroics. Perhaps most importantly, the cast look their age, and even in Blue Beetle form Jaime looks like a scrawny teenager instead of a bulked up weightlifter. The fight scene could be clearer – there are references to burning down a church and the general decimation of an entire town, but it’s not evident in the art. It’s unfortunate that Hamner is leaving the book, but the upside might be an artist who can handle the monthly grind: As good as Hamner is, most of the fill-ins haven’t been nearly up to his standard. Casey Jones does some decent pages, but aside from a nice page laying out some exposition, it’s generally fill-in quality.

    I’m less concerned about Keith Giffen’s departure, since John Rogers wrote #7 solo and that was my favourite issue to date. Rogers, who’s quite possibly out-funnying the Father of Bwa-ha-ha, has a good knack for dialogue, and the opening pages treat us to some nice bickering between Jaime, Brenda, and Peacemaker. Danielle Garret treads a fine line between wishing she had her grandfather’s property and genuinely wanting to help the kids out.

    The Other Side #2: I’m not entirely sure the story has much more to offer than many of the “G.I. goes to Vietnam” cliches alongside a similar portrait of a North Vietnamese soldier, but it does it very well. Writer Jason Aaron has a distinctive voice, and he manages to make old hat seem fresh and exciting. The talking rifle makes another appearance, and he continues to capture “the dramatic horrors of war” very well.

    Meanwhile, Cameron Stewart continues to knock the book out of the park. Aaron’s taken a been-there, done-that concept and breathed some fresh air into it; Stewart has taken it and turned it into a series of elaborate balloons to be marched down Main Street in the Thanksgiving Parade. I’ve thought Stewart was good for some time now, but his work this book is nudging him into the top ten artists around, and putting The Other Side on the very short list of books I’d be willing to buy even if the story sucked. Thankfully it doesn’t, but still: Check this out, if for no other reason than to see a very good artist blossoming into a great one.

    Midnighter #1: The Wildstorm relaunch continues with Garth Ennis & Chris Sprouse’s take on The Gay Batman. It’s okay, perfectly functional without being particularly good at any one thing: Midnighter takes off from the Authority to blow up some bad guys driving tanks in Afghanistan. On his way back he’s abducted by someone who manages to neutralize his incredible fighting powers and wants him to perform a very odd mission.

    On the one hand, it’s one of the better first issues of the Wildstorm relaunch: Ennis actually explains who this guy is, what he can do, and what he’s all about. On the other hand, it’s essentially Midnighter kicking the crap out of a bunch of people before someone else kicks the crap out of him. It’s entertaining but uninspiring, though I’m somewhat surprised Ennis has toned down the ultraviolence; he’s definitely writing for a PG audience here, which may be a good thing considering the ugly mess The Boys turned into.

    But it does have a pretty kickass final page. That counts for a lot, and probably merits a look at the second issue.

    Local #7: This issue is, to a large extent, the flip side of #1, but with a different main character. Megan doesn’t appear in person this time, but in the form of postcards written to her younger cousin Nicky. Nicky’s living an unexciting life with his parents in Tempe, Arizona, and stirring up shit: Drinking, drugs, petty vandalism.

    In the first issue, we saw Megan reject her asshole druggie boyfriend in favour of taking control of her own life. The next few issues were about taking responsibility for your own actions and life, and even though Megan’s had an understandable relapse lately (perhaps explaining why I haven’t dug the past couple issues as much), she’s still on the right path.

    But Nicky’s just a fuckup. Unlike Megan, he doesn’t take steps to change his crappy life, he just slacks off, gets drunk, gets angry, and breaks stuff. It’s all very mall punk – lots of rage, little constructive outlet. Which is the point, admittedly – life in the suburbs sucks – but it’s not terribly compelling.

    I miss Megan.

    Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse #4: Ben Templesmith’s book has quickly become one of my favourites, so it deserves its own post. Suffice it to say that this issue is just as funny as the previous three, and it features Wormwood saving the world through the magic of old fraternity connections.

    On the down side, Templesmith (or the letterer, perhaps) can’t decide if the big bad demon’s name is Moloch or Maloch. Little respect for the horrid king besmeared with the blood of sacrifices.

    But still: This book is like awesomeness on toast. It’s like if someone cast Hellboy as a wacky sitcom. A wacky sitcom that kicked total ass.

    As if the book doesn’t kick enough awesome ass as is, Templesmith promises angry leprechauns in the next issue. Fuck yeah.

  • What the hell…?

    No, really, what the fuck?

    Witchblade: Shades of Gray is the February-debuting first four-issue series under this deal and will pit Top Cow’s flagship franchise against a character inspired by literally creation Dorian Gray, he of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
    …
    In the first issue, we follow Detective Sara Pezzini and her new rookie partner as they race to stop a murdering madman. Waiting and watching in the shadows is the enigmatic Gray who may or may not be the murderer they seek! With the action spanning the globe as well as exploring Gray’s coloured past, this is an event not to be missed!
    …
    ’Gray’ has the potential to be a great tragic character, one we’ve been looking to introduce for some time now.

    Top Cow… Dynamite… Oscar Wilde? My brain fails me. A fable about youth, morality and vanity crossed with a T&A superhero book? Dorian Gray as a “tragic character?” Dorian Gray is an amoral, self-obsessed asshole. He’s not even evil or misunderstood; he’s just a bastard.

    Also, he died at the end of his book, though that’s pretty low on the list of things that are wrong with this. There are some interesting things one could do with Dorian, but Top Cow promises to do very little (read: none) of them.

    I’m also not sure how it constitutes a “crossover” between Dynamite and Top Cow: Dynamite doesn’t own Dorian Gray, nor do they even have licensing rights – the character is public domain, as far as I know. So what is Dynamite bringing to the table? 15 variant covers? At least the character lends itself to that sort of thing…

    Egads. Just… what the fuck, man?