“Empire Of The Dead” #3 Shambles Back In The Right Direction

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

If you’ll recall — and, hell, it remains true even if you don’t — the second issue of Marvel’s “event” mini-series Empire Of The Dead left me feeling decidedly unenthusiastic about this book”s future, given that all it really managed to do was tread water for 20 pages and then stop. But hey — maybe I’ve been a little too quick to judge. It’s been known to happen before.

I’m not here to tell you that Empire Of The Dead #3 (or, to be true to the copyright indicia, George A. Romero’s Empire Of The Dead Act One, #3) regains all the momentum we lost after a really solid first issue, but it does go some way toward explaining a few head-scratching things left over from last time around, like what all those rat slaughterhouses all over town are about (rat blood is provided as nourishment for the vampires who can’t afford the real, human stuff) and why certain factions of the city council are, shall we say, less than taken with Mayor Chandrake’s leadership (turns out they’re all fucking vamps and feel he might be hoarding all the choicest — supplies, shall we say — for himself and his family), and actually does manage, in the midst of all this palace intrigue (some of which, in fairness, is dialogued in incredibly clumsy fashion) to propel the main narrative forward in some interseting new directions, which is a heck of a lot more than the second installment was able to do.

As predicted by anyone and everyone who knows anything about Romero, the relationship between Dr. Penny Jones and former-SWAT-officer-turned-zombie Frances Xavier has quickly become the central focus of this series, since questions of “how different are they from us, anyway?” have been foremost on the father of the modern zombie mythos’ mind at least since he introduced the world to Bub in Day Of The Dead, if not earlier (recall the “this place must have been important to them” line as the undead make their leisurely way through the mall in Dawn for perhaps the first verbalization of this obsession), and it turns out that Xavier is probably even more advanced than we already thought, given that she actually gets bored with some of her less-challenging training exercises/tests and decides she’d rather play some basketball instead (hence that awesome cover art shown at the top of this post).

Things get a little out of hand, though, when — well, that would be telling. Suffice to say this issue ends on a nice cliffhanger that sufficiently whets the appetite for next month’s installment and definitely leaves the reader with a pleasant-enough “hey, maybe things are back on the right track here after all” feeling.

As far as the art goes, I’ve got no cause for complaint whatsoever. Alex Maleev’s “rough sketch” style continues to grow on me, and it’s nice to see a world this un-stylized depicted in such an honest, non-flashy, “warts and all” fashion. Everybody looks as worn down by life (or unlife, as the case may be) as they ought to, and every panel of every page oozes a kind of post-apocalyptic “we’re doing the best we can, but shit, it’s getting tiresome” feel. I dig it a lot — and I dig the heck out of Arthur Suydam’s variant cover (shown directly above) as well — as, I assume, anyone with working eyeballs will.

So yeah — my optimism about this series has returned, and with two issues to go in the opening five-part “act,” it’s safe to say I’ll be on board for both to see how things play out. Some of the major characters — specifically Paul Barnum — still seem under-utilized, but hopefully they’ll get some more to do soon, as well. All in all I have to confess that I should have known better than to doubt The Master — I have renewed faith that, wherever he’s taking us, the trip will be worth it.

See How An “Evil Empire” Is Built

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

You won’t find a much more loaded term in the entire lexicon of political rhetoric than “evil empire.” The phrase was made (in)famous when Reagan used it to describe the Soviet Union back when he had a hard-on for the apocalypse, and while some folks thought he was just being melodramatic, the “joke” he made a couple years later when he thought his mic was off about how he’d “just signed legislation outlawing Russia forever — we begin bombing in five minutes,” went some way towards throwing into stark relief why hard-line anti-communists were every bit as much a threat, if not moreso, than the dreaded “pinkos” themselves.

Fast forward a few years from that and America is thumping its collective chest and patting itself undeservedly on the back for having supposedly “won” the Cold War — uhhhhhmm, sorry, but last I checked the Soviet empire collapsed from within under its own weight — and we find out that our purported “enemy” was a starving nation that couldn’t even put bread on its own collective table, much less invade the US and destroy our much-vaunted “way of life.” In short, folks, we got hustled — the US government spent hundreds of billions on weapons (particularly nuclear weapons) we didn’t need in order to “fight” a “foe” that couldn’t even keep its own house in order. much less come and forcibly annex our own.

The lesson to be learned here? All wars — even “cold” ones — are a racket, in the immortal words of Smedley Butler, and the only “winners” are the defense contractors who profit from them.

Still, Cold War anxiety gave rise to some remarkably salient takes on the whole “dystopian future” scenario, the most famous of them in the comics world being Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s seminal V For Vendetta, which eventually became a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster once it had been stripped of all its smartest elements (and anarchist politics), and the Guy Fawkes “V” mask has ended up being appropriated not only by groups that probably do, if you’ll pardon the term,”deserve” to wear it given that they understand the story’s socio-political implications — such as the Anonymous hacker collective and various factions of the loosely-defined “Occupy” movement — but also, sadly and ironically, by far-right extremist supporters of arch-conservative/homophobe/racist American politician Ron Paul, and his even less principled, and decidedly more eel-like, son, Rand, who’s not even much of a Libertarian given his opposition to same-sex marriage and civil unions, his oft-stated desire to outlaw all abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and his flat-out insane idea to “modify” the 1964 Civil Rights Act so that businesses can go back to discriminating against black customers if they want.

This guy’s a “champion of freedom”? Don’t make me laugh. Still, given his propensity for taking credit for work done by others, it’ll probably only be a few years before the junior senator from Kentucky claims authorship of V For Vendetta himself.

All of which brings us, in an admittedly roundabout way, to the fact that it’s about time for a “dystopian future” comic for a new generation now that the last really good one has been hijacked, at least at the margins, by the very right-wing authoritarian forces it was (bravely, for its time, I might add) braying against. And while I don’t know if writer Max Bemis and artist Ransom Getty’s Evil Empire, the first issue of which has just seen the light of day via Boom! Studios, will prove to be that book, it’s certainly off to an intriguing, if wildly uneven, start.

I freely admit to not being at all familiar with either of this title’s principal creators — the only name associated with the series so far that I recognize being FBP (a book you absolutely need to be reading) artist Robbi Rodriguez, who provides one of the variant covers to this debut installment (the main one, reproduced at the top of this review, being the handiwork of Jay Shaw) — but that’s actually a good thing in my book, since there’s a shitload of up-and-coming talent in comics that deserves much wider exposure than it’s gotten so far. Hell, truth be told I’m not all that schooled on Boom! as a publisher, apart from the fact that they have the RoboCop comics license and they put out Mike Carey and Elena Casagrande’s Suicide Risk, which is easily one of the three or four best series being published by anyone right now. A quick glance at Evil Empire‘s copyright indicia shows that it’s a company-owned, rather than creator-owned, work, and that’s not cool in my book, but oh well. Marvel and DC certainly have been been getting away with the work-for-hire hustle for decades now — it’s just depressing to see smaller publishing houses following suit, I guess.

In any case, this is at the very least a creator-driven project —it would just be nice it if were a creator-owned one, as well.

Anyway, to the story — the action starts off 25 years in the future, where things have gone to hell in the proverbial bucket. “Security” cameras monitor every citizen’s every move, armed George Zimmerman-types are given badges and prowl the streets looking for (oh, who are we kidding, creating) trouble, some unnamed corrupt dictatorial overlord runs the whole show, and various technological “bread and circuses” serve to disrupt the cowed and tired populace from the troublesome nature of reality itself.

All in all, then, not too big a reach.

A few pages in, though, is when things start to get interesting, as Bemis and Getty begin the task of charting how we get from here to there. First up we meet politically-aware hip-hop artist Reese Greenwood, and while Bemis saddles her with some truly mind-bogglingly stupid lyrics, to his credit he also manages to establish her as a thoughtful, deeply aware character in fairly short order. She’s got no time for “the system,” as you’d expect, but she ‘s hardly the type of cardboard caricature so many “urban” African-American women in comics are these days. She seems like the sort of person you’d actually enjoy sitting down and having a conversation with, rather than a confrontational, “Invader From Mars” type.

Democratic presidential nominee Sam Duggins certainly seems to have taken a shine to her, as well. He pulls a few strings to meet her backstage after one of her shows, crashes an interview she does with MTV, surreptitiously passes his phone number to her — anything to get the young lady’s attention. Sam seems a decent-enough sort — more progressive than anybody the party would have the guts to nominate for national office in real life, to be sure (not to mention the fact that a single guy without kids wouldn’t stand a chance in a presidential election), but Reese isn’t buying his line entirely. She certainly seems to hope he’s the real deal (hey, a lot of us hoped for the same from Obama once upon a time, before his “Bush-lite” tendencies fully came to the surface), but she’s apparently seen one too many phony “leftists” turn out to be nothing but “kinder, gentler” versions of the same old corporate stooges over the course of her life to fully get on board with either of the “Big Two” political parties, even the less overtly noxious one. I can certainly relate to that.

Still, as patently dishonest as Duggins may (or may not, who knows?) be, he’s a saint compared to pious, grandstanding, loathsome Republican nominee Kenneth Laramy, your typical “family values” right-wing blowhard. Unlike Reese and Sam, Laramy is, in fact, presented as nothing but a two-dimensional collection of tired stereotypes, which is kind of a shame, but with only 22 pages of story and art to work with something’s gotta give, and hey, it’s only the first issue — and there’s plenty of reason to suspect that there’s a lot more going on with him than meets the eye.

Case in point — midway through through out opening installment, Laramy’s daughter finds her mother bleeding to death in their home with a knife in her back. This scene is handled incredibly clumsily, with hints at first being given that something’s happened to the daughter rather than the mother, and mom croaking (sorry) some incredibly wooden dialogue about something bad she did years ago as she expires (Getty also employs an admittedly unique, but frankly kinda stupid, artistic contrivance when he segues into this scenario via an attached panel-sized asterisk), but the point to take away here, plot-wise, is that there is no assailant present, so the identity of Mrs. Laramy’s murderer remains a mystery.

At her wake, though, the shit really hits the fan. Duggins shows up with Reese as his date, and while you’d expect a media circus to ensue, that’s avoided when Laramy himself finally takes to the stage — or page, as the case may be — and leaves us with one of the better cliffhanger splash-pages that I can recall in quite some time. Sure, it’s not exactly realistic for a grieving widower to be interrupted in the middle of his eulogy by a reporter asking him a fucking question — even if said widower is running for president (actually, he announces that he’s withdrawing from the race during the speech, but that’s neither here nor there) — but while the set-up may be awkward, to put it kindly (as are little touches of dialogue throughout the book, like Reese referring to Laramy’s running mate as his “runner-up” and Duggins saying that Laramy is opposing him on the “ticket” rather than the ballot, “tickets” being, colloquially speaking, something that a presidential and vice-presidential candidate are, ya know, sharing — but again, whatever) the payoff is big. Or might be. In any case, our “bad guy” candidate ends the first issue by dropping one heck of a bomb, and Bemis succeeds in leaving his readers damn hungry for answers.

Yeah, alright. Evil Empire has a long way to go before it can even be mentioned in the same breath as V For Vendetta. And Bemis’ story is more concerned with how a fascist government comes to be rather than how it’s toppled. But his set-up shows a lot of promise, and with a little bit of dialogue tightening and some deft editorial tinkering along the edges, this could really turn out to be a fun and thought-provoking ride. Sure, the story definitely has a left-leaning point of view, but at least it’s realistic in its portrayal of Democrats as “less-bad” guys rather than actual good guys, and its forward-thinking presentation of urban youth culture in general, and hip-hop culture specifically, is to be commended. Too often in comics these days people of color under the age of 30 are still portrayed as villains, and that’s certainly not the case here.

On the art side, Getty does a nice job making his characters look reasonably believable physically, and he’s pretty skilled at using facial expressions and other non-verbal cues to communicate thought and feeling. There’s no typical super-hero action — and very little action in general — for him to sink his teeth into and really show off his chops, but his panels mostly flow together pretty nicely and he keeps the reader engaged with his images throughout, which isn’t always easy in a “talky” book such as this one.

So, hey, what the heck — $3.99 is admittedly a lot to shell out for a 24-page package, especially when 2 of those 24 pages are taken up by “house ads” at the back of the book — but Evil Empire managed to hook me, warts and all, and given that its takes place in a self-contained world of its own making rather than a corporate “universe” with decades of backstory to catch up on, readers new to comics in general might find this a decent-enough introduction to the medium, particularly if they’re fans of sci-fi, thriller, or other genre entertainment with a political twist. I can’t recommend it unreservedly, given that it still has much to prove, but I’m happy enough right now to keep shoveling four bucks a month over to Boom! to see where this ride Bemis and Getty are taking us on ends up going.

Trailer: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Official Teaser)

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Arleigh

Hard to imagine it’s been 9 years since the original Sin City hit the big screen. It was a comic book adaptation that many thought wouldn’t work, especially how Rodriguez envisioned it to be slavishly loyal to not just Miller’s dialogue but also his unique art style.

The original film’s success quickly ramped up rumors that a sequel was already being planned using the second graphic novel in the Sin City series. Rodriguez himself stated he wanted Angelina Jolie for the role of Ava Lord, the titular “Dame to Kill For”, but after years and years of delay the role finally landed on Eva Green‘s lap (not a bad choice and one I fully support).

So, we’re now going back to Basin City for more tales of booze, broads and bullets in this hyper-noir film that should be loved or hated in equal measures by those who have followed Frank Miller’s career. Once again the directing duties have been split between Rodriguez and Miller. Here’s to hoping that Miller has learned how to be a much better directer after his last film, The Spirit, tanked.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is set for an August 22, 2014 release date.

Treading Water And Sucking Blood : “Empire Of The Dead” #2

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Looking at things in strictly structural terms, second issues are often a tricky wicket in the comic book racket. In today’s marketplace, especially, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re going to lose nearly half your readership (at the very least) between the first and second installments of any given book simply because cover prices are so fucking high (the going rate for the series under discussion here today, Empire Of The Dead, or as it’s known to Marvel Comics’ legal department, George Romero’s Empire Of The Dead Act One, is $3.99 per 28-page issue, with only 20 of those pages devoted to actual story and art) that a title has to be seriously flawless right out of the gate in order for everybody to shell out their hard-earned cash for a second serving. So you’d better give the diminished-yet-loyal cadre who have showed up for the second round good reason to keep coming back for more — a nifty plot twist or two never hurts — and you’ve also gotta put in some serious work on fleshing out the world you showed in only the broadest strokes in the series’ debut installment.

With those two admittedly impromptu standards in mind, it’s safe to say that Empire whiffs on the first — badly, in fact — but connects rather nicely on the second, and therefore the end result is a decidedly mixed bag indeed.

Nothing much happens here in terms of plot progression, with Romero choosing instead to paint a more complete picture of his zombie-and-vampire-infested future New York City. We learn that the devious Mayor Chandrake, his even more devious nephew Bill, and their ghoulish entourage live, appropriately enough, at the infamous Dakota apartment building, and that Bill is a bit reckless in terms of his procurement methods for new flesh (and blood). We learn that SWAT-officer-turned-zombie Francis Xavier is displaying even greater signs of intelligence (or at least more successfully mimicking learned behaviors, as she proves when she arrests a criminal) than previously thought. We learn that uber-zombie Zanzibar is an even bigger bad-ass in the coliseum than we figured by way of a particularly gruesome fight sequence. And we learn that Dr. Penny Jones can be somewhat ruthless in pursuit of her research goals, even going so far as to enlist her feminine wiles to aid her cause.

But that’s about as far as things go here. There is some impressively Bacchanalian excess going on in the Chandrake suites, with carnal blood-letting taking up most of the issue, and there’s some political “court intrigue” introduced in the New York city council, but there’s no real story advancement taking place in the traditional sense, with Romero apparently being content to take this opportunity to merely expound upon his characters and their various situations a bit more fully (except for poor Paul Barnum, who’s scarcely given anything to do). That might work reasonably well for one issue, I suppose, but we’re going to need more the next time around — a lot more, in fact, especially given that part three will mark the more-than-halfway-point of this initial five-issue arc. I’m not ready to say this second issue was a failure so much as a missed opportunity, but it all hinges on what happens (or doesn’t) next.

At least the art doesn’t let the side down, though. Alex Maleev’s rough. sketchy illustrations are rich with atmosphere and convey a genuine sense of both brutality and foreboding, while the variant covers (by Maleev, Arthur Suydam, and Greg Horn, respectively, as shown) are all pretty goddamn cool in their own way. Now it’s just up to “Mr. Zombie” himself, George A. Romero, to give his artist some more interesting things to draw. I’m down for another issue, but the go-nowhere nature of this one has tempered my initial enthusiasm for this series quite a bit.

The ball’s in your court, George. You haven’t let me down yet (as mentioned in my review of issue one I was even a fan of Diary Of The Dead), but this is a new format for you with new demands — and new possibilities. I’ve still got exactly $3.99 worth of faith that you won’t disappoint me now, either.

“Empire Of The Dead” : George Romero Brings His Newest Zombie Epic To The Printed Page

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Normally I’m not one for hype, but Marvel’s advertising tagline describing their new series from the father of the modern zombie genre, George A. Romero, as a “comics event” actually strikes me as being a fairly accurate one. I mean, when the guy who gave us Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, and Day Of The Dead eschews the silver screen to tell his newest “living dead” story in the comic book format, that’s big news, right?

And from the word “go,” issue #1 of Empire Of The Dead (okay, fair enough, its complete title, according to the copyright indicia, is George Romero’s Empire Of The Dead Act One, Number 1) has a suitably “big” feel to it, and even though artist Alex Maleev approaches his work in a sketchy, rough, “stripped-down” style — which is flat-out gorgeous, by the way — the overall tone here is much more, if you’ll forgive the term, “epic,” than certainly Romero’s last two (very much under-appreciated) film efforts, Diary Of The Dead and Survival Of The Dead, were.

The setting is New York City, five years after the dead began to walk, and things are, as you’d expect, a mess. Corrupt Mayor Chandrake and his creepy nephew hold the city in their thrall by providing Roman Gladiator-style “Zombie Fights” in Yankee stadium that serve to distract a weary populace from the fact that all the resources — well, all the resources that remain, at any rate — are flowing right to the top. A moneyed elite lives in luxury while the populace starves. Sound familiar?

Our two main points of audience identification in the midst of this neo-feudalistic dystopia are Columbia University research scientist Dr. Penny Jones, who’s looking for a zombie with the potential to be, if not educated, at least domesticated, and her guide through the undead part of town, a privateer of sorts who captures zombies for use in the arena named Paul Barnum, whose main claim to fame is having “discovered” current champion fighter Zanzibar.

Obviously, even at this early stage (Act One is slated to run five issues, with further mini-series to follow) parallels to previous Romero works abound. Penny shares the same research obsessions as Richard Liberty’s Dr. Logan character from Day Of The Dead, while Barnum is essentially a stand-in for Simon Baker’s Riley Denbo from Land Of The Dead. There’s a flashback sequence that intimates strongly that this story takes place in the same fictional “universe” as Night Of The Living Dead, and the economic set-up is, again, essentially the same 1%-vs.-99% scenario that the more-seemingly-prescient-by-the-day Land offered up, with Mayor Chandrake filling the role of Dennis Hopper’s Kaufman. Meanwhile Zanzibar, for his part, seems to be being groomed for a role not too dissimilar from that of Bub in Day.

Don’t think it’s all re-hash, though — for one thing, moving things from Pittsburgh and its immediate environs to the Big Apple ups the scale quite a bit, the text blocks Romero employs to flesh out how the zombies “think” provide intriguing new insight into the workings of their rudimentary “consciousness,” the martial-law-type scenario that pervades on the streets adds a new , thematically-relevant wrinkle, and the surprising climax to issue one shows — and I sincerely hope that I’m not giving too much away here — that zombies aren’t the only ghouls in town.

So, yeah — there’s enough “newness” here to imbue the proceedings with a reasonably fresh take on things, but for those of us who are old-school Romero die-hards, the story is chock-full of enough familiar themes and tropes to keep us both smiling and anxious for more. The set-up is inherently and immediately topical and politically charged (Occupy The Living Dead, anyone?), and, like all of the maestro’s best work, Empire promises to use its zombies as a stand-in for ourselves, and to utilize its post- apocalyptic sworld to shine some welcome light on uncomfortable, but essential, truths about our own current socio-economic predicament.

For my part, I’m all in on this one, despite having numerous ethical qualms about spending so much as a single dollar (not to mention a hefty $3.99 per issue) on any Marvel product. I think we’re looking at another Romero classic-in-the-making here, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Getting In Touch with my Inner Destro (Marvel Style)

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Viktor VonGlum

Yesterday’s nerdery inspired me to expand upon the seed planted yesterday.

My idea takes place in a reality where the military–industrial complex reigns supreme and controls over every innovation made by super scientists like Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark etc.

A Doop Ring is a portable storage device that contains items within a simulated Doop Land (pocket dimension used by Doop to store things).

(Art by Mike Allred, belongs to Marvel Comics)

A Gamma Blaster is a M79 grenade launcher re-purposed to discharge concentrated Gamma bursts.

An Inferno Revolver is an improvised flamethrower created from a Colt Army Model 1860 integrated with Pyronanos (a hive race of giant burning nanomachine-based robots derived from the android Human Torch’s cells). The flames are hotter than the flames created by Jim Hammond.

A Kirby Battery is a portable derivative of the engine of the Marvel, an extradimensional Kree vessel. It converts the user’s belief into energy. All of the firearms are equipped with a battery.

A Pym Particle Pistol is a custom Heckler & Koch USP with a built-in molecular assembler. It manufactures and fires smart bullets derived from Unstable Molecules saturated with Pym Particles.

The bullets possess the following traits:

A target lock feature with Z-axis manipulation to phase through any obstacle (civilian or barrier) to reach the target or increase its density to diamond hardness to penetrate armor.
Y-axis manipulation will propel the projectile towards the target.
X-axis manipulation will cause the bullet to expand to the size of a rocket and gain an ionic payload similar to Simon William’s energy discharge.

A Repulsor Carbine is a firearm developed from an application of Stark’s Repulsor Ray technology. It discharges concussive energy bolts.

(This image is the property of LucasArts)

An ultimative Aufhebung is a prototype Ultimate Nullifier created from a WWII Mauser C96. It completely eliminates any target the wielder chooses.

Reverbium Grenade is an oscillation-based explosive device derived from Horizon Lab’s artificial Vibranium experiments. Reverbium doesn’t absorb vibrations, it does the opposite and blows everything away.

SGH (Strontian Growth Hormones) is a variant of Mutant Growth Hormones created from cellular samples retrieved from Kubark. It temporarily grants the user genetic traits of a Strontian: superhuman strength, superhuman speed, superhuman stamina, invulnerability, superhuman agility, superhuman reflexes, flight, heat beams, super breath, microscopic vision, and psi resistance.

The Howlett Strain is a fleet of nano-Sentinels that simulate the function of James Howlett’s healing factor

Missed my calling as a mad scientist/super villain/arms dealer

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Viktor VonGlum

Today’s issue of Matt Fraction’s and Mike Allred’s FF (No. 16) inspired me and led me to think about the military applications of Pym Particles. I am surprised organizations like SHIELD or AIM/HYDRA haven’t approached Hank Pym or Scott Lang to develop weapons utilizing the particles.

Below is a spoiler (art by Mike Allred):

Uatu reveals the full potential of the Pym Particles! They do far more than merely shrinking and expanding objects… they explain the density shifting powers of synthezoid Vision and ionic based life form Simon Williams aka Wonder Man.

I imagine an AIM facility developing smart bullets derived from Unstable Molecules saturated with Pym Particles. This magic bullet would possess the following traits:

A target lock feature with z-axis manipulation to phase through any obstacle (civilian or barrier) to reach the target or increase its density to diamond hardness to penetrate armor.
y-axis manipulation will propel the projectile towards the target.
x-axis manipulation will cause the bullet to expand to the size of a rocket where it will an ionic payload similar to Simon William’s energy discharge.

The bullet would be discharged from custom firearms with built-in molecular assemblers.

The guns would resemble the pistols wielded by the infamous Sentinel-Human Hybrid turned thief & mercenary, Fantomex (art by Rafael Grampá).

Things I dug in 2013 (in no particular order and off the top of my head)

Posted on January 1, 2014 by Viktor VonGlum

I will start a trend of keeping positive by omitting the things that I disliked in Geekdom during 2013. At the end of the day, my negative opinions are opinions and shouldn’t be used to rain on anyone’s parade/geekery.

Battling Boy by Paul Pope is a remix and mash-up of a coming of age story and a hero’s journey that features science heroes, a variety of monsters, totem tee-shirts, and cosmic pantheon.

The Battle of the Atom covers featured epic artwork from the likes of Art Adams, Stuart Immonen, Ed McGuinness, Kris Anka, and Terry Dodson.

Despicable Me 2 is a delightful film and one of the few sequels that I thoroughly enjoyed. I love the characterization, the spy gadgets, and soundtrack.

Pacific Rim is a sheer geekasm crafted by Mr. Del Toro. It had kaiju, mechas, and cool mecha gadgets… three things that I have dug since I was a wee lad. I have watched it several times and each time my appreciation and love of it grow.

Halloween Horrors 2013 : “The Sandman : Overture” #1

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

So — you probably weren’t expecting me to finish up my contributions to TTSL’s Halloween horror round-up with a review of a horror comic, as opposed to a horror movie — or, hell, maybe you were — but let’s be honest : the debut of Neil Gaiman and J.H. Williams III’s The Sandman : Overture (which, I suppose, might be more accurately categorized as “myth” or even “fairy tale” than actual “horror,” per se, but what the heck — The Sandman started out life being billed and marketed as a “horror” series, and it’s certainly always maintained a strong following among horror fans, so — that’s good enough for me) is an honest-to-goodness event in its own right, and something tells me that a lot of folks who haven’t set foot in a comic shop in a very long time will be back to pick this one up ( guess we’ll see how well those former black-clad goth kids have aged), and, Sandman fans being by and large a pretty hard-core lot, I don’t think we’ll have a repeat of the type of precipitous sales declines between the first and second issues that we saw with, say, Before Watchmen, which was the last big “bring the old readers back” push that DC/Vertigo undertook. It also helps that The Sandman : Overture is probably going to be a good comic, of course, as well — at least if the first issue is any indication.

Notice, however, that I didn’t quite go so far as to say that it’s going to be a great comic. Frankly, it’s just too early to tell. I’m certainly hoping it will be, and have no real reason to doubt Gaiman or Williams, but — for the time being, I think it might be smart to leave myself just a little bit of wiggle room by not pronouncing its greatness too early. There’s no doubt that I absolutely enjoyed each and every word and panel in this book, and that it made me smile from ear to ear and cover to cover all three times (so far) that I’ve read it, but it’s also not without its (small, I grant you, but still — ) flaws.

I’ll tell ya what, though — the art’s not one of them. This is probably the first Sandman comic where the illustrations have outshone the script. Which is no knock on the script, by any means — it’s just to say that Williams, who employs literally dozens of different styles here, really knocks it out of the park. Whether he’s doing lush dreamscapes, black-and-white etchings, watercolor historical pastiches, or magnificent cosmic two-,three-, and even four-page spreads, he’s entirely and majestically at the top of his game. Honestly, his work on this first issue puts even his best efforts on Promethea to shame. This is a consummate and visionary professional at the height of his creative powers. Feel free to “ooh” and “aah” profusely — I sure did.

The variant covers (by, as pictured, Williams, original Sandman cover artist Dave McKean, Williams again, McKean again, and DC head honcho Jim Lee — yes, even his looks cool) are all quite a sight to behold, as well, even if McKean’s “two” amount to different iterations of the same painting. There’s no doubt that these lavish works do much more than just celebrate the 25th anniversary of this series (shit, I suddenly feel really old), or herald the arrival of a major new story, or even reintroduce a fan favorite with the proverbial “bang” — they all complement the issue itself about as perfectly as one could hope — dare I say dream — for. Each says “welcome back, old friend — you’re in good hands, this was crafted with love and we’re pleased that you’ve joined us.”

Not to be too overly- effusive with my praise, mind you — just calling it like it is.

So what’s holding me back from saying that this is the best thing to come down the mainstream comics pipeline in a decade or more, at least? Well, to be honest, the book does have a few minor problems. Gaiman seems to have hung the framework for this introductory chapter over a couple of really neat ideas that, for whatever reason, he never really delved into much in The Sandman‘s original 76-issue run — namely, what dreams are like for alien life forms and what a gigantic conclave of all the various iterations of Morpheus/Dream’s anthropomorphic “selves” would play out like. Between all that we have brief but welcome appearances of beloved characters like Destiny, Death, Lucien, Merv Punkinhead, and The Corinthian, but so far all we really know is that this six-issue “prequel” is going to end where The Sandman #1 began and finally tell us exactly how the Lord of Dreams was able to be captured by mere human dabblers in necromancy in the first place.

It promises to be an intriguing and dare I say wild ride, to be sure, but — we also knew that’s what this book was going to be about going into it. I mean, the Overture part of the title pretty much gives things away, doesn’t it?

In all fairness, there’s nothing here in the first issue that will dissuade anyone from sticking with the series to its conclusion (although Gaiman’s intuitive knack for sequential pacing appears to have slipped a bit in the first few pages, he quickly regains his old form and is firing on all cylinders by about the fifth or sixth page) — quite the reverse — but it’s also neither particularly accessible to new readers nor of much value, story-wise, as a “stand-alone” piece. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it strikes me that the very best issues of the original Sandman series were either stand-alone works like the magnificent “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or “August,” or individual segments of sweeping, multi-part epics like “The Dolls’ House” and “A Game Of You” that also could be read and enjoyed (although, admittedly, not enjoyed, or even understood, as completely) when read on their own. The Sandman : Overture #1 really only works when considered within its context : as the opening salvo of a story that readers have been waiting a quarter-century to be told.

In all honesty, though, it’s probably well-nigh impossible for me to separate this book out from my own personal context as a reader either. I picked up The Sandman #1 back when it first came out and stayed with it right up to the end. The years of its publication coincided with my heaviest period of comics collecting, and though my tastes changed radically over the course of its run — I was subsisting on a steady diet of then-current Marvel and DC pablum when the series started and had all but given up on the mainstream in favor of titles like Hate, Eightball, Yummy Fur, and Palookaville by the time it was done — my love for Gaiman’s characters, concepts, imagination, and sheer storytelling prowess never dimmed in all that time. Reading The Sandman : Overture #1 is like catching up with a long-lost friend or family member that, if pressed, you’d have to confess you probably thought you’d never see again. I can’t even accurately describe how fucking good it felt to see a new Sandman comic on the shelves at the shop today, nor how great it felt to immerse myself in its pages after buying it.

The book itself may not be perfect, but life sure felt perfect while I was reading it. That. my friends, is as good a textbook definition of “magic” as you’re likely to find right there. Pinch me, please, because I must be dreaming.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Girl in the Flower Dress: Review

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Viktor VonGlum

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D… where do I start… I want to like this show for two main reason: it is inspired by comics and created by Joss Whedon (I dug all of his other shows & films). But it’s not clicking with me. Something is missing. It seems tame, almost like the creative team is holding back. Would the show have a different tone if it was on another network? Did the ABC/Disney element mute the tone?

What I liked:

The hints of characterization for May before she reverted to cliche warrior woman.
More clues about Coulson has changed after being shanked by Loki (I still believe that he’s Life Model Decoy (highly advanced robotic duplicate of SHIELD Agents)).
The prospect of improved Extremis villains.
More details about Skye’s past.

What I was expecting:

Some of Steranko’s trippy spy fiction.
High tech weaponry and gadgets (the hovercar isn’t enough).
Official Uniforms.
Recognized Agents like Carter, Wu, Dum Dum, and Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine
Some actual villains because the “making of Graviton isn’t enough” and these pastiches of established characters aren’t enough. Tired off the misunderstood post-humans after NotLuke Cage.
A fully fleshed out cast: it seems like Coulson and Skye are getting all of the characterization, Ward, May, Fitz & Simmons are so cliche.

Review (Spoiler Free):

Tonight’s episode felt like a remix of the pilot episode. Both episodes featured seemingly innocent post-human goes nuts after interacting with Centipede. “Scorch” lacked the emotional tether & motivation of NotLuke Cage and the drive for acknowledgement wasn’t enough for me.

Visual Expectations (courtesy of Kris Anka):