Punisher MAX Issue 5 and 6

[Graham Tedesco-Blair continues his issue by issue look at the Punisher Max series. There is some very well observed stuff in here about various crime story influences working themselves out in the pages of the book. Smart stuff.]

Opening Remarks

Before I start the analysis, I wanted to address a question left in the comments for the preamble. Steven asked: “In that Boys storyline, I didn't catch where he disses Winick. How did you pick up on that? I didn't see it, but I'd be interested to see how you caught that.”

The story in question, “Get Some,” (The Boys, #7-10) is a murder mystery in which a young gay man is found murdered, tossed off the roof of his apartment, and examines in generous depth the reactions of a somewhat average straight guy to the homosexual community, as well as the sheer folly that comes in trying to label someone as gay or straight without bothering to try and get to know them. Issue 8 starts with Hughie reading a “Swingwing” comic, the titular character being a pastiche of DC's Nightwing. The comic's plot is almost exactly the same as Winick's famous “gay roommate” story arc in Green Lantern, and Hughie's dialog describing it seems directly pointed at the original author:

“An' then later on the kid gets queerbashed, right? An' Swingwing goes after the guys and knocks the fuck outta them... I mean, in what weird fuckin' parallel universe has anything like this ever happened to anyone, would you tell me? ... I just think this is really stupid. I mean gay fellas do get beaten up, there are these fuckers going around doing it – an' here's this shite sayin' not to worry, there's a superhero on the way...”

Lost, Season 6, Episode 5

My post about the latest episode of Lost is up at Smartpop(Total Spoilers). Here is a sample -- click it for more.

One of the things Lost has been about from the beginning is bad parents, especially for “Candidates” (did everyone notice the sign in front of the piano audition said “All Candidates Welcome”): Jack and Claire and their dad, Kate and her mom and dad, Locke and his dad, Sawyer and his parents, Sun and her dad, Walt and his parents, Hurley and his dad, Ben and his dad (and surrogate father figure Jacob), Daniel and his parents (Mrs Hawking and Widmore), Desmond and his would be father in law Widmore, Miles and his dad Chang, Claire as a bad mom, Kate as a bad adoptive mom (with Jack as adoptive dad). Just as the alternate universe gave us a chance to see a place where John Locke could be happy, we also get a world where Jack can break the cycle started by his dad, and be a good dad for his son.

One more thought that I had after the show ended: in the season opener, I felt like Dogen hit so many cliched "Asian" stereotypes: he knows martial arts, and does bonsai, and hates English, and so on. I am not sure how much weight I want to put on it; Lost is after all a genre mixing show, and these are things movie Samurai do. But it is maybe interesting that in the alternate universe Dogen rejects the stereotype Asian dad role -- he says to Jack the child musicians are under too much pressure, when the cliche teaches us to expect him to pour the pressure on. It would not be significant, except for the fact that it is another, minor way, that the alternate universe gives us good dads where the main U has bad ones.

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.

You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.

Uncanny X-Men #257

[Jason Powell takes a look at every issue of Claremont's X-Men. And now we have reached 1990. Be impressed.]

“Lady Mandarin”

Issues 256-258 comprise a self-contained trilogy representing Claremont’s contribution to Marvel’s 1989 company-wide crossover, “Acts of Vengeance.” From what I’ve read, the original concept came from John Byrne, though it quickly morphed into something apart from what he envisioned. The end result was a storyline in which the major Marvel villains teamed up, and began crafting scenarios wherein heroes were forced to fight unfamiliar bad guys.

Claremont’s participation in the game does not seem altogether comfortable. Using Iron Man’s archenemy, the Mandarin, is a clever callback to the Silver Age, back when Roy Thomas had the X-Men fighting Iron Man villains in every other issue – yet the villain doesn’t even appear in this, the middle issue of the trilogy. And at one point, Matsuo Tsurayaba actually derides the Mandarin’s participation in the “Acts of Vengeance” overplot, subtly mocking the entire affair. Claremont’s use of Logan during the proceedings is also strange, given that he could have used any number of people from his large rotating cast; but Wolverine was already fighting an unfamiliar villain in the “Acts” issues of his solo title. To use Logan in Uncanny as well creates a somewhat knotty time paradox.

Kirby's Fourth World Gets Animated

[Andy Bentley caps his look at Jack Kirby's New Gods by looking at how they get picked up in the animated DCU.]

When Bruce Timm and co* approached the Superman Animated Series in 1996, they already had the Emmy award winning Batman: The Animated Series under their belt. The Superman character was nowhere near as relevant as Batman, so they took great lengths to make Superman and his world feel modern. One of the ways they did this was to incorporate the Kirby style into various objects. Timm explains:

When the time came to do Superman, we really didn't know what to do that would make it visually different from Batman but at the same time just as cool. We didn't wanna go back and make it look just like the Fleischer cartoons; I didn't want anybody to put our show up against Fleischer's and say, "Well look, they're doing the Fleischers, just not as well." One of the things we wanted to do with Superman was to kind of "Marvelize" Superman a little bit. That's why the police don't just carry handguns, but these Kirby-like weapons. All of the science-fictional elements in this series-whether it's a tank or something from outer space-has a kind of Kirby feel to it, or at least we try to. Even in the pilot, the origin story, there's this Brainiac satellite floating around Krypton and we tried for the longest time to come up with a design for it, and we didn't come up with anything I really liked. I found this Kirby gizmo in one of the Kirby comics and I turned it upside-down and said, "Hey! That's our satellite." There are things like that all the way through the show where we would just find Kirby-ish elements and turn them into things in the Superman show.

The other issue was that Superman's villains paled in comparison to Batman's rouges gallery. Timm goes on to explain:

Punisher MAX Issue 4

[Graham Tedesco-Blair continues to look at every issue of Garth Ennis's Punisher Max run.]

“No one ever before dared defy THE MAFIA. . . but THE EXECUTIONER not only defies them, he kills, maims, and tries to destroy them piece by piece, with his Vietnam-trained tactics. . . using his knowledge of jungle warfare in his one-man crusade to wipe out the evil web of organized crime in America.” --Jacket copy for Don Pendleton's “The Executioner: War Against the Mafia!”

That sound like anyone we know?

One of the clearest predecessors to The Punisher is Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan, “The Executioner.” The parallels are abundant: a well trained Vietnam soldier who's family is killed takes his war to the mob. There are superficial differences, for example, Bolan lost his parents and sister to mafia loan sharks, and was a Green Beret, while Castle lost his wife and kids, and was part of a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, but the basic idea is clearly the same.

After spending 11 years worth of novels killing his way across the states (and coinciding with Pendleton's sale of the character franchise to Gold Eagle books), Bolan fakes his own death, and emerges as the leader of the top secret government strike force Stony Man, who fight Communists and such all over the world.

Kevin Geeks Out About MONKEYS!

[I will be at this thing. From Kevin Maher --]

Watch the trailer (edited by KGO super-producer Jay Stern) here, and buy tickets in advance, as the show WILL sell-out:

Our top-shelf guests include
Michael Kupperman (Snake & Bacons Cartoon Cabaret) sharing an all-new comic story!
Noah Tarnow (host of Big Quiz Thing) quizzes your primate knowledge
Geoff Klock (author of How to Read Superhero Comics and Why) looks at Gorilla as Super-Villain
Carrie McLaren (editor of Monkeywire.org and producer of Brooklyn’s Adult Ed lecture series) shares the secret history of violent monkey entertainment.
M. Sweeney Lawless (KGO Super-producer) provides a dazzling presentation on Englands greatest King Kong knock-off.

And everyone in attendance will get a monkey-themed snack (not a banana)

Kevin Geeks Out About Monkeys
Friday February 19
8pm
92Y Tribeca
200 Hudson Street
www.ThisKevin.Blogspot.com

Lost Season 6, Episode 4: The Substitute

My review of Lost for Smartpop is up. Here is a sample - click it to read more. Total Spoilers.

John Locke episodes are always the best ones, and this was no exception. This was the episode where I really started to feel like Lost is serious about answering some questions, and this episode featured all the human emotional anchoring I was looking for in LAX. (To be fair, it may have been in LAX, I just did not appreciate it because of the 8 months I had to wait to watch it). And our final story arc was advanced and clarified. I may be overstating it because it JUST ended, but I feel like this may be one of my favorite Lost episodes ever. Not top 5 but top 10.

Extra stuff:
-Because we still don't know the Man in Black's name, that means the name itself must be a spoiler. Interesting.

-Did anyone else think, a spit second before the revealed the wall of names, that Evil Locke was going to reveal some fantastic technology?

-You may know that my wife Sara has a tumblr blog called "Monsters with Sandwiches" which features drawing of exactly what it says. Here is the one she put up today:

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.

You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.

Uncanny X-Men #256

[In a time when people neglect Claremont, in a land where I don't really blog that often, there came a man, a man named JASON POWELL, who looked at every issue of Claremont's X-Men run. And the land was goddamn restored or something.]

“The Key That Breaks the Locke”

Though not the most humble of comic-book personalities, John Byrne has always downplayed both the quality and the significance of his work on Uncanny X-Men in the late 70s. While acknowledging reader reaction to the startling change in visual style between his first issue and Dave Cockrum’s last, Byrne puts it down as much to the inking as to the pencils. Cockrum and Sam Grainger, he notes, both had a softer style, while Byrne combined with Terry Austin made for a look that he likens to “cut glass.” Indeed, however Byrne chooses to contextualize the shift, the effect from going from Uncanny 107 to 108 is powerful, like a leap into the future, and remains so even three decades later.

But, as with so many moments in Uncanny X-Men’s spiraling history, that aesthetic watershed in 1977 was reiterated later … twelve years later, in this case, when the softness of Silvestri and Green in issue 255 (by happenstance the loosest and sloppiest issue of their entire tenure) gave way to the “cut glass” of Jim Lee and Scott Williams in Uncanny X-Men 256. The affect is arresting, and once again feels like a quantum advancement into a new era.

Punisher MAX Issue 3

[Graham Tedesco-Blair continues to look issue by issue at Ennis's Punisher Max.]

One of the things that struck me while rereading this issue was how often these plots move along with little to no direct involvement from the Punisher. Frank has one line in the entire issue, and spends the duration tied to a chair while Micro lays out exactly what's wrong with him, while laying on the table three snapshots, one of his wife, and one each of his two children. And Mirco's analysis isn't bad at all: no rational person could have carried on a campaign like this for all those years, and while Frank doesn't seem to derive any pleasure from killing, he certainly seems to like it, as if there were some sort of darkness inside him looking for an excuse to get out. He is using his family's deaths to justify something horrible.

(We'll get the quasi-mystical/maybe-it's-all-in-his-head explanation for this in the Born miniseries, featuring just what happened to Frank during that 2nd tour of duty in Vietnam, but it's not important here. That story hadn't even been written yet.)

Lost Season 6, Episode 3: "What Kate Does"

Spoilers. My blog on Lost is up over at Smartpop. Here is a sample from that post, which you can click to read more.

I was worried that the third episode (it turned out that LA X parts 1 and 2 were the first two episodes, not the first only) would be a bit of a slowdown, but “What Kate Does” kept the momentum going. For starters, we pick up right where we left off — with what the resurrection of Sayid means. That in and of it self should not be remarkable, but this is LOST, where cliffhangers are often not returned to for 3 episodes or more, as we jump between various divided groups on the island for full episodes. Old LOST would have focused nearly exclusively on Kate going after Sawyer and left a different episode to cover Jack and Sayid. New Lost lets us know pretty quickly that Sayid is “infected.”

I have not had a ton of extra thoughts on this episode, but one thing I like that I did not think about till this morning is how Claire is the new Rousseau (wild woman with the gun and maybe traps and without her baby), or a version of Rousseau if Rousseau had become infected. It is a nice bit of recall and revision.

My friend Lucas is watching LOST with a different group of people, one of whom felt that the temple thing is just a variation on the cages thing -- that as much as the writers claim season 6 is like season 1 it is more like season 3. Lucas feels that the plan is to leave folks in the temple and they will slowly bump into all the answers. I don't feel that way, but there is a danger of stalling on the island as we slowly move the alternate universe forward. Something to keep an eye on.

One thing I recalled this week was that the creators said that all would be revealed in the final episode. This is important because it means that this is not a show where we get the big reveal of who the Man in Black is (and if they did not tell us at the top of 6 is must be a big one) and then spend a season or half a season on the consequences of that twist. The show will be almost 100% mysteries with a big reveal as the FINISH, not as the penultimate act break. BSG was like that and it was a mess, but I think LOST will do better (Mostly because I think BSG added in irrelevancies like the Final Five BECAUSE of Lost, and not as a consequence of the story they were trying to tell, which was at least one reason why it was so bad).

And I am obsessed with counting down. Only 14 broadcasts of Lost left, ever.

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.

You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.

Uncanny X-Men #255

[Jason Powell continues his issue by issue look at Claremont's initial 17 X-Men run. I was going to steal a joke from Newsradio, one of Jason's and my favorite shows, and make fun of Jason for being from Wisconsin ("Must have been quite a hubub when that cow got loose" or "he is from Wisconsin: he thinks artificial light is fascinating"). But I just can't do it. Jason Powell is the nicest guy on the internet.]

“Crash & Burn”

By 1989, it was idiomatic that when Chris Claremont disassembled the X-Men’s status quo, he did so with much fanfare. Consider issue 209, with its amazing multi-vectored fight among the title characters, the Hellfire Club, the Morlocks and Nimrod. Or issue 251, the dazzling finale to the Outback era. The present issue is no exception, as the Muir Island team makes their last stand amidst a fantastically choreographed free-for-all amongst the Reavers and Freedom Force. The joke being that the Muir Island X-Men only just formed one month previously. “Crash and Burn” indeed …

Still, not one to waste an opportunity, Claremont takes advantage of this incoherent status quo, crafting a scenario in which characters are in genuine danger. Since the Muir Island team are newly minted and not at all cohered, there is no commercial property at stake – the readers are implicitly aware of this, and so is Claremont. The situation allows for the incorporation of unusually high levels of violence. Four characters are killed during the course of this story – three of them “good guys.” Sunder and Stonewall are relatively minor, but Destiny dates back to the Byrne days. Given Claremont’s affection for even his most obscure creations, his willingness to kill four of them is downright shocking, and his decision adds a sense of crazed intensity to the proceedings. The Muir Island Team’s farcical false start is suddenly weighted with tragedy – or tragicomedy at the very least.

Even Gods Must Die and The Hunger Dogs

[Andy Bentley finishes up his look at every issue of Jack Kirby's New Gods.]

“Even Gods Must Die!” - New Gods (reprint series) #6. November, 1984
“The Hunger Dogs!” DC Graphic Novel #4. March 1985

Mister Miracle #18 marked the end to the New Gods series at DC and as the 1970’s rolled on, there were two failed attempts to continue the story with different creators. It would take seventh iteration of the Super Friends animated series, Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, to spark Kirby’s return. Super Friends needed some impressive villains for the Justice League to battle and Darkseid and his crew were a perfect fit. Kirby was hired to recreate several of his characters and was compensated well for his efforts. The Super Powers toy line was a huge success which led to DC to reprinting the series and then asking Kirby to conclude it.

This brings us to “Even Gods Must Die!”, which appears in the last reprinted issue towards the end of 1984. It opens on Orion entering Apokolips on what would appear to be the day of the fabled “final battle”. Immediately, I noticed a decline in the quality of the art. There are glaring perspective and anatomy issues and the art consistently felt flat. Mark Evanier mentions in the afterword that Kirby’s drawing hand had begun to fail him, so it would be cruel for me to dwell on it. Suffice to say, the art is a visual cue that the times have changed.

Punisher MAX Issue 2

[Graham Tedesco-Blair continues his issue by issue look at Ennis's Punisher MAX run.I read the first four issues. They were reasonably good.]

There's a very frustrating trope in Batman comics where some talking head on a news show starts babbling about how horrible Batman is because now that he's here, he attracts all the crazy fringe elements to himself, gives the villains permission to dress up, makes the Joker want to kill people, etc etc. It's overused simply because it's a cliché excuse to pin the blame on Batman, and because it's not very well thought out. And yet, when Ennis manages to tell that exact same story with good reasons and without some smarmy newscaster losing her head, it's quite effective.

In this issue, we meet the arc's bad guys, Nicky Cavella, Pittsy, and Ink. Cavella looks like a combination of Patrick Bateman and Jerry Seinfeld, and has been brought in because all the other mob bosses are dead. Pittsy is an ancient looking, short buff dude in a yellow tracksuit, one of Tony Soprano's thugs, and Ink is straight out of a Sin City comic. We don't see them in action this issue, but even their conversation over dinner is tense. Ennis even lets a joke through, when Ink asks how they could tell if Don Massimo was dead or alive, but it's cruel, with a flat delivery you can read from Ink's expression, designed to hurt Larry, the mobster who called them back to NYC.

Lost Season 6, Episode 1: LA X

Major Spoilers

Smartpop asked me to cover all the season 6 Lost episodes for their site, and I agreed. Every week I will link from here to my post over there. But because my review for them has to be written in the like 90 minutes after the show airs, I expect to find myself with more to say when I wake up in the morning, as I did today. So when I do link there, I will also give some slightly more cooked thoughts here.

In my review of Lost Season 6, Episode 1 "LA X" I wrote the following for Smartpop (click the quote for the rest)

"As Lost continued, the normal story began to wear away, revealing the sci-fi fantasy comic book underneath more and more. People’s tolerance for the show depended on what their tolerance for this kind of material was. The show often felt like it was designed to slowly indoctrinate people naturally resistant to sci-fi fantasy comic book insanity to creatures made of black smoke, nonsense electromagnetism, four footed statues, moving islands, and alternate universes. A sister of a friend who stopped watching around the opening of season two was appalled to learn years later they were traveling through time."

Random extra thoughts not on Smartpop

Brad said to me that the real John Locke has to return in the island universe to save everyone. I thought -- maybe he will be the only one to escape the Parallel Universe into the island universe. That would be a cool way to kind of redeem that character, who died a pointless death after so much struggle.

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.

You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.

Uncanny X-Men #254

[Jason Powell continues to look at every issue of Claremont's initial X-Men run. He requires no riches for this gift to the world. Such things are beneath him. He does it for the glory that is Greece and the grandeur that is Marvel Comics.]

“All New, All Different – Here We Go Again”

As of the previous issue, Claremont has dissolved the idea of the X-Men as a team. Yet this issue’s cover and title play games with reader expectations, teasing at the idea of a new iteration of X-Men. Obviously the main point of reference here is Giant Sized X-Men #1, but the use of the original Kirby uniforms hearkens as well to the formation of the New Mutants, the first team spin-off X-book (and the only one for years). Claremont has jokingly riffed on the idea before, in X-Men Annual #10, whose Giant-Sized-X-Men homage cover (drawn by Art Adams) suggested that the New Mutants would become the new “new X-Men.” (Or perhaps the “new” “new X-Men” …?)

Issue 254’s cover is modeled on Cockrum’s cover to Giant-Sized #1 as well – albeit fairly loosely. Jim Lee – an avowed fan of the original Kirby uniforms – makes the most of his obscure subjects (some of whom are genuinely unrecognizable until one reads the actual comic). That dynamic opening image alone almost sells us on this new team. Why not? The Australian team was a departure that worked; this one could too. The blurb completes the effect: “A New Legend Is Born!”

The End of Dollhouse

Major Spoilers

When Dollhouse first aired I was with most people in not liking it. (you can actually read my reactions at the time by clicking the Dollhouse link below). As lots of people noticed, Dushku was not much of an actress -- they guy playing Victor put her to shame later with these amazing impressions of Topher and Reed Diamond. Dushku was just Dushku in a variety of sexy outfits, rather than personalities, which is what was called for. This could have worked in a cheesecake factor, as in Alias for example, but of course Whedon did not want us to mindlessly salivate as Abrams does, because he has important points to make about IDENTITY, and WOMEN, and FREE WILL, and OPPRESSION. Also Echo was hard to latch onto a POV protagonist, since she was almost totally wiped from episode to episode. The show tried to do lots of one-off stories -- also like a lot of Alias -- which did not help, and led to some silly ways to advance the theme: do you see how the dolls are like performers in cages, or women (as generally treated by men), or cult members and so forth? It maybe needed a bigger canvas like LOST. When more meaty continuity and character and personality showed up in the form of Alan Tudyk's Alpha at the end of season 1 (alas, too late) the show got better -- ideas about identity suddenly mattered more. It was not just about slavery and freedom -- there was a kind of post-human element here too, and an apocalyptic one, as we saw in the season one epilogue Epitaph One, brilliantly set in a post apocalyptic future where the seemingly simple Dollhouse tech was taken to its natural endpoint. That really gave the show the context it needed.

I had high hopes when the second season started, but it had too much in common with the start of the first -- goofy one off episodes (a bride! then an unrelated mom!) with vague thematic connections to a main line. Echo was learning but not really fast enough to get attached to her. People kept punching her and she would change personalities and it was all pretty dumb. Like she was a Jukebox. It was off for all of November. When it came back something interesting happened. I started to like it.