I was gonna comment of the one off issues of Marvel's War of the Kings I read this afternoon, but happened to be at Barnes & Noble and read through the first collection of Boom! Studios' Irredeemable. Dammit. They won me over.
It was a quick read, so for that, I'm not sure if I'm gonna make this a pull list or pick up trades. Most comics these days are pretty quick reads. Decompression will do that. Topic for another post. This collected the first 5 issues of the comic, I put it away in about 20 minutes.
Nothing groundbreaking, but a solid look at the hero archetypes and inversions on the theme. By now, we've seen this before, going back to Squadron Supreme, through Authority and Astro City. We're about to get Mark Millar's Nemesis introduced to the genre as well. All the stereotypes are there. A Batman kinda guy, a Tony Stark kinda guy, etc. The premise is what if Superman turned bad. For real. No mind control, at least no hints at this point, no torn emotions, simply bad.
And it's good. What I liked so much about it was Mark Waid, who I'm a MAJOR fan of, really gave him personal, psychological reasons for turning bad. Waid is playing his cards close to the vest, at least as far as I've read here, but the clues he's given for the transformation are great. He puts you, the reader, into the shoes of Superman and makes you ask "What would I do?"
Plutonian, the Superman analogue, saves a stadium full of people. With his super hearing he hears every comment, including one dude, just one, saying (paraphrasing) "That guys a showoff asshole". Think about your own experiences, when you've done something pretty good or accomplished, you hand it in to your boss, and because he can't be fully appreciative because recognizing your ability somehow diminishes him, he makes a point to nitpick one thing wrong with it. As I typed this, I flashed to a performance review I had once, where my boss was a complete fucktard and ignored the hard work I did, to focus on some bullshit that had he mentioned to me throughout the year, I could have addressed.
See? And that's just a stupid, pointless performance review for a job I don't even have any longer. Imagine if you're Superman and apply whatever insecurity character trait that is to your super life.
You see my point.
There's more examples, each issue Waid shows another way to demonstrate this principle of human flaws within an inhuman body. Good stuff. Recommended!
MotD: Avatar
I'm one of those guys that was turned off by the hype on this, which was telling me that my life was going to change because of this movie. See, I have a rule that anyone who says their favorite movie is something, ANYTHING, that was released in the last 5 years, maybe even 10 years, is a complete film idiot. I totally ignore their opinions from that statement on. If that makes me a film snob then fine, but a good story needs to breathe, it needs to ruminate in your mind and expand in the social conciousness. This doesn't just apply to movies. There's a reason so many artists, painters, writers, etc. are unappreciated "in their time". It's because the really good ones must stand the test of time. You may love a new movie, you can put it in your top ten of a genre for the impact of it, but when you get to that hallowed discussion of "WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME?", these things need to breathe.
Having said that, Avatar is the greatest movie of all time and it fucked my eye sockets with a big blue cock.
Seriously, it looked beautiful, the story was solid, the 3D was amazing, and performances right on. Go see this, don't be a hater like I was. Get off your couch and spend 3 hours with your ass in a theater chair.
No comments:
Post a Comment