Smell My Feet, Indeed.

Oh man, do I love Halloween. Not only do I get to dress up in a ridiculous costume (hopefully this year, I can pull off Hawkeye—no, not Alan Alda or Daniel Day-Lewis, but Clint Barton), but I can also use the time of year as an excuse to watch as many horror flicks as I can in my free time. Honestly, I try to do that all year round anyway, but throughout the month of October, it’s officially sanctioned, nay, encouraged! So, for my next few posts, I’ll be updating about whatever spook-a-blasts make their way into my DVD player. I’ll look for the comic book connections wherever I can find them, I promise.

TRICK R TREAT

This movie, written and directed by X2/Superman Returns screenwriter Michael Dougherty and produced by Bryan Singer, was originally supposed to be released theatrically a few years back (I first saw the trailer when I was living in my last apartment, which would most likely make it 2007 or so). Warner Brothers pulled it from their schedule at the last minute, saying it would be released the following year, then…nothing. It kept getting pushed back further and further, all the while building up fan buzz from special screenings and convention appearances by the director and stars. It finally came to DVD riding a crazy crest of hype two weeks ago. I suppose I can justify this one, since it’s made by a couple of guys with high profile comic book movies under their belts, and it pays tribute to stuff like EC Comics with its structure and comic-style opening credits (much of the action takes place on Warren Street, presumably named for the publisher of Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella). Also, DC/Wildstorm produced a graphic novel adaptation, so there you go.

The sort-of anthology style film follows four intertwined tales of terror that take place in the same neighbourhood on All Hallows’ Eve. Dylan Baker plays a murderous school principal, Anna Paquin appears in a redo of "Little Red Riding Hood", an urban legend about a school bus full of drowned troublemakers figures into a nasty prank, and a mean old man who hates the holiday is tormented by a diminutive, sack-headed spirit of Halloween (I think that’s what he’s supposed to be, anyway).

I really do feel like the filmmakers had their hearts in the right place with this one; clearly, they love the Halloween season and all the morbid traditions that surround it. Sadly, this movie, which somehow manages to feel way too long even though it only lasts 82 minutes, missed the mark for me. None of the four stories feel very developed in any satisfactory way, and their quality is uneven as all hell. The opening segment with Dylan Baker ends far too quickly on an unsatisfying twist, but then his character returns in the Anna Paquin segment in a way that doesn’t fit his earlier modus operandi at all and feels at odds with the Red Riding Hood legend. The segment about the school bus has promise, but is a bit half-baked, and the comeuppance the pranksters receive seems pretty harsh. Bryan Cox nearly saves the final installment with his raspy, wheezy, performance as mean old Mr. Kreeg, but we’re barely introduced to him before he’s being terrorized by the mischievous imp, so why should we care what happens to him? There’s also a framing sequence involving a grown-up couple who go trick-or-treating, which is confusing enough already, but then gets even more confusing when one of them meets an awful fate (at the hands of sack-headed “Sam”) for no apparent reason. The type of horror stories the film is attempting to evoke have a certain Old Testament flair to them, where bad people are punished in suitably gruesome, ironic fashion, but the evils that befall Trick R Treat’s cast seem way too arbitrary to work as an homage.

Trick R Treat is a very well made picture, with a better-than-average cast, eye-catching cinematography, and lots of spooky atmosphere. However, Dougherty and company spent too much time focusing on the style when they should have paid better attention to the substance. Not one character leaves an impression, and not one plot twist or scare is memorable. It’s like they made a movie that you could play on a big screen at a high school Halloween dance, where you don’t have to worry about following the plot but will be treated to some appropriately seasonal imagery if you turn towards it once in a while. Trick R Treat’s glossy production may go down like so much Halloween candy, but its lack of a nourishing screenplay gave me a tummy-ache.

PS: If you’ve really got a hankering for this sort of thing, do yourself a favour and check out 1982’s Creepshow, written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero. It pulls off the EC comics horror anthology homage much more successfully, with lots of tongue-in-cheek humour, awesome makeup effects by Tom Savini and a great cast that includes Adrienne Barbeau, Ted Danson, Ed Harris, Leslie Nielsen, Hal Holbrook, and even King himself! Bonus points if you can scare up a copy of the graphic novel adaptation, illustrated by genre legend Berni Wrightson.

 

LBW Product Watch, Hallowe'en Edition

Parents, are you concerned for the safety of your children this Hallowe'en? Don't be afraid to admit it, it's only natural. What with all of the pretend monsters, murderers and misanthropes thronging the streets, how could event the most astute of children be expected to pick out and avoid any real ones that might come along? That's why we here at Living Between Wednesdays* are pleased to endorse what we believe to be the perfect way to keep your child safe no matter what supernatural menaces might lurk in the night (or possibly late afternoon if you live in one of those wussy communities).

SOLOMON KANE

That's right, Robert E. Howard's Puritan adventurer himself, with more than six decades of globe-trotting monster massacre under his belt and a no-nonsense commitment to justice and right that will ensure that he will not stop until your offspring are safe, or at the very least avenged.

Why, just look at a few of Kane's areas of expertise:

PIRATES

Yes, with pirate popularity showing no signs of abating completely, one can never be sure if the Johnny Depp-lookalike staggering down the street is a mere reveler or an actual pirate, drunk on the rum. Solomon Kane can tell, and he has twice the bladesmanship of any rickets-plagued buccaneer. Or of Johnny Depp himself, if it should come to that.

WEREWOLVES

 

Unlike many, Solomon Kane will not hesitate to  jump on a werewolf if the need arises. Despite the fact that most werewolves will have buried themselves in river mud to sleep out the winter months by the time November comes, wouldn't you rest easier knowing that a dour Puritan was ready to jump on any that might still be awake, before they could jump on your spawn?

GIANT SNAKES

 It is a little-known fact that giant snakes are the most easily-bored of all the reptiles and constantly crave new dining experiences. Thus, Hallowe'en is a particularly dangerous time of year, as their reptile brains are unable to grasp the concept of trick or treating and see the hordes of costumed youths thronging the streets as brand new taste sensations, rather than the same bland children that they had become so tired of preying upon by March or April of the year. Parents of especially creative children take note: if you cannot arrange Solomon Kane to escort your child then it may be wise to talk them out of that Two Headed Laurel and Hardy costume and into a more generic and safe ghost or sexy nurse outfit.

UNDEAD HORDES

Whether zombies, vampires or cone-headed African zombie/vampire weirdos, Solomon Kane and his cat-headed ju-ju staff will murderize their unholy selves, just as a matter of principle.

But don't think that Solomon Kane is only proficient in battling garden-variety menaces like those above. No, he is available to protect your young from a whole host of less-common menaces, including:

DRACULAS

BAT-MEN

GOAT-FOOTED ELIZABETHAN NAZI BARONS

 LIONS

 

 GARDEN-VARIETY GOONS

And, perhaps most impressively of all:

CONANS

 

Yes, Solomon Kane. He may call your wife a harlot and punch you out for taking the Lord's name in vain, and he definitely won't let your child engage in anything so Paganistic as trick or treating, but when you want a man who will almost certainly bring your youngsters home undevoured and not in thrall to ancient evil, this dour Puritan is the name that parents trust.

Order now! Supplies are limited!

*"We" is a proprietary term here used to refer only to Johnathan Munroe. And even then, only loosely.

Oh Man. John Bought Comics and Hates to Waste Words

 Well! Here I am again. I’m a bit put out at myself, as I’d really wanted to keep up a regular update schedule on this blog. This weekend defeated me, however, what with the play that I was in coming to a close and the deluge of foodstuffs associated with the Thanksgiving weekend (I did get to hang my niece upside-down by the ankles for a few hours, so who am I to complain?). And with the fact that I am kind of lazy. But I had written most of this already and damn it, my opinions deserve to be fired onto the Internet, right? I still owe one post, though.

Back on track with me then: here are some extremely late reviews:

Final Crisis Aftermath: RUN! No. 6 (of 6)

And so the first of the Final Crisis Aftermath series ends. Honestly, I’m not too sure how I feel about the whole thing. I really enjoyed the self-centred asshole aspect of the Human Flame, and I had a good time with the bit where he was getting more and more powerful and screwing over everyone who got in his way, but right about the point in issue 3 or 4 where he jumped out the window and messed himself up I was kind of hoping that he’d go into some sort of horrible spiral that led him back to where he had started, only with everyone in the world hating him and he could end up a horribly-broken cyborg living under a bridge and feeling sorry for himself. The route that they did take (spoilers, I guess, though you probably saw this coming at the end of the last issue. If you read the last issue - not sure if I’m the only one reading this series or not) wherein he just gets more and more powerful and ends up defeating himself by his own hubris, well, it’s just not as emotionally satisfying to me, though that last panel was cute. Hey, at least he’s still alive at the end, so the opportunity for him to wind up under that bridge still exists.

You know, I haven’t been mentioning the covers on this series, but they’ve been fantastic, every one. Who did these things? Kako, eh? Kako, you’re magnificent. Aw, griping aside, this has been a pretty solid time. God job, folks.

Planetary No. 27

Jumpin’ Jehosephat! I know that the fact that it’s been about three years since the last issue of this came out is going to be a highly popular element of any review of it and so might be something to avoid lest I be tiresome, but I nevertheless must exclaim a little bit. That is a long-ass time, three years. That’s a tenth of my life, and one hundred thousandth of my projected lifespan, assuming my scheme to get me a fusion-powered robot body comes to fruition.

I have to admit that this is a bit of a bittersweet ending for me, as Planetary is one of the series that really initialized my transition from being a nerd who liked comics to a full-blown comics nerd. On the one hand it’s going to pretty great to sit down and read the whole series end to end, while on the other, it’s basically time to admit to myself that there just won’t be any more Planetary in my future, barring the occasional special.

As for the story itself, well, as you know (and if you don’t know, well… you had three years) last issue dealt with the schooling of the Four. Having beaten the end boss of the comic, Elijah Snow has turned his attentions toward the matter of his missing friend Ambrose Bierce, lost lo these many years after being shot up by some dudes. It’s a wrapping-up issue and it works well with the rest of the series and all, but I’ll probably enjoy it more at the end of a long evening of reading Planetary by a roaring fire than in the temporal isolation that this release was nestled in. So that’s what I’ll do next time I have a long evening free and a roaring fire, I guess. In the meantime, I shall enjoy that superfly foldout cover.

I… I foresee a purchase. It’s… it’s whatever equivalent to Absolute Planetary they eventually put out. The buyer, I can see his face *gasp* it’s me!

Irredeemable No. 7

I need an acronym or a euphemism or something like that for when I read an issue of an ongoing series and really enjoy it but have either nothing new to say or fear spoilers because all of my thoughts about the issue revolve around plot elements. HNNTS/FSTRAPE? Naw, too consonanty. How about a non sequitor? Okay, if there’s a non sequitor instead of a review then the comic has continued in a favourable direction.

*ahem* The dachshund is the noblest of dogs. His ability to fit under any standard furnishing assures that your floor will remain forever free of crumbs and edible debris.

R.E.B.E.L.S. Annual No. 1

Hey, an annual!

It’s not just my fondness for the Legion of Super-Heroes or for its child L.E.G.I.O.N. It’s not just that Vril Dox is the most entertaining total bastard in comics and not that Tony Bedard is just knocking him out of the park, writing-wise. Hell, it’s not just that this series has managed to tell its own story without a hint of getting drawn into Blackest Night or any other such malarkey (and done so while looking damn good, to boot). All of these are terrific reasons for me to love R.E.B.E.L.S. but what is primarily on my mind right now is the fact that Starro the freaking Conqueror has finally gotten an origin story, one that neither invalidates any past appearances by the giant starfish nor precludes future starfishery He worked so well as a giant starfish who just showed up without reason and rained super-hero on super-hero fight scenes down on things for so long and with such panache that if the decision had been left up to me I might have decreed that he be forever origin-less. Shows what I know, I guess.

And good call on making Starro the Conqueror a multigalactic barbarian warlord. If there’s one archetype that’s going to have staying power, it’s got to be the barbarian. I guess that theoretically they could become next year’s pirates or zombies but I reckon that a lot fewer people are comfortable running around with their shirt off than in a puffy shirt. Plus it’s harder to get the dialogue right.

I Sell the Dead

I very much picked this up because of the title, and because the EC-style cover was so nicely realized. Turns out that inside was an engaging yarn about a couple of grave robbers who have drifted from digging up corpses for anatomists to selling various undead or otherwise unusual corpses to a variety of strange customers. Why yes, I do enjoy the undead, thank you. And lovable rogues? Loveable corpse-stealing rogues? Delightful.

And then I got to the end and it turns out that this is a… comic adaptation of a movie based on the concept for the comic? Is that right? I have no idea. I do know that I could stand to watch a movie featuring 19th-century misadventures in zombie-napping. And featuring Ron Perlman, yet! Only trouble is I don’t think that my ladyfriend will go for it, being no fan of such horror-style tomfoolery. Maybe if I play up the whole anatomist angle, tell her that she should watch it in order to get a sense of the sort of things that her pathologist forebears had to go through in order to have a lot of corpses to learn from?

I’ll let you know how that goes. (Update: it worked! Now we just have to use our powerful mind-beams to compel the people responsible for distributing such things to show it here and we’ll be set!) (Second update: wait, IMDB says that this came out last year. Maybe I can rent this? I have no idea what's going on any more)

Batman Unseen No. 1 (of 5)

You know, I could get very used to this. Since Bruce Wayne is dead, the majority of his appearances are places like Superman/Batman or Batman Confidential, which work in short arcs, or else in miniseries like this. Do you know what that means? I’ll tell you what that means: a lot of stories in which Batman fights dudes without a lot of extraneous bullshit. Not that it’s not possible for extraneous bullshit to creep into these stories - Widening Gyre seems to be more bullshit than Batman - but with ties to the ongoing DCU the Batman is able to shine of fail on his own.

So: Batman Unseen. A story about Batman vs an invisible man with the not-quite-as-bad-as-some-Silver-Age-names-but-still-groan-worthy moniker of Nigel Glass. The art’s by Kelley Jones, and looks just as moody and interesting as in last year’s Gotham after Midnight (man, I should pick up that trade. I never did finish getting that series after missing two of the 700 or so issues). You got Batman worrying about not being scary enough, you got Harvey Bullock investigating a weird crime, which is always fun to watch, and you got a very crazy and very fun invisible guy, who kind of looks and talks like the Mad Mod.

Now: the question is will Batman make himself invisible in order to be more scary? Will we have an invisible, crazy and buck-naked Batman running around? Oh what fun!

Batman and Robin No. 5 - Gah! Dangit, the Red Hood is evidently Jason Todd. Again. I guess that I can get behind that as long as the whole “Batman Reborn” mandate is followed and the guy gets straightened out once and for all - no more half-assed plotlines where he comes back and tries to be a badass and nobody takes him seriously (or takes him way too seriously) and then he seems to die. Just… establish some sort of status quo for the guy that isn’t terrible and I’ll be okay.

But as long as Jason has to be around, I’m happy that Morrison managed to sneak in a joke about the phone-in that killed him in the first place.

Strange Tales No. 2 - Not only does this issue have a super-delightful, super-weird Iron Man story by Tony Millionaire and not only does it have a whole lot of great Thing moments, but I think that it might have given me my Hallowe’en costume for this year. Wait and see, I guess.

Sherlock Holmes No 5 (of 5) - Man, I’m usually decent as far as figuring out mysteries is concerned. Really, I should have read the first four issues again before cracking this one. I don’t think that I would have figured everything out but I might have gotten a bit closer than I did. Basically, I got Watsoned. Hopefully there’ll be more Holmes from Leah Moore and I’ll have a chance to regain my honour.

Man, Holmes just has the sassiest look on his face on that cover.

Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels No. 4 (of 5) - This was a pretty good week for comics set in the Victorian period, wasn’t it? Just wanted to note that I love the electro-prods that the Heliotropic Brotherhood of Ra cart around in the Hellboy comics, even though they never quite seem to get the voltage right. Seriously, every time these guys show up they get their asses handed to them (see The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings, in which they are beaten up by a demon monkey). Some quality technology nevertheless.

Red Tornado No. 2 - How creepy was the fact that the Red Torpedo’s controls were all behind her boobs? And not, like, sticking out, either, so that a hollow space was needed. Totally flat. Why did T.O. Morrow build giant hollow boobs that flipped open and had circuits and stuff underneath? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

Doom Patrol No. 3 - You know, I’ve been wavering back and forth on this title, but I do believe that this issue has sold me on the whole thing. Something about this issue was just right for the task of selling me on the way the characters are being… characterized. It took a while to come through but these are definitely the original Doom Patrollers, although of course the passage from the 60s to today has left them kind of creepy, particularly the Chief, who is one decapitation away from being the Vertigo incarnation reborn. Dare I hope for a humbling? All this and the return of Rita Farr’s unsettling use of her power to grow just part of herself - always very weird and terrific.

As for the Metal Men, I like them, too! Especially if the whole thing where Copper is very forgettable goes away soon!

Strange Adventures No. 8 (of 8) - Was… was this whole series just to straighten out a few characters? That’s it? Nothing happened? What the hell? And why did everyone who got a new costume get a creepy thong? Argh! Boo! BOOOOO!

Sweet Tooth No. 2 - When approaching a horse from behind, it is important to speak to it, or it may kick you.

Dangit, I think I missed an issue of Jersey Gods.

Other news:

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts to make the workday fly in recent months, and I feel this extra-strong urge to plug a few. Super Future Friends I have mentioned before, but I will again because it is delightful. Also good but way more nerdy is the Legion of Substitute Podcasters, which may not be for those who cannot find a place in their hearts for at least one member of the Legion of Super-Heroes (Shrinking Violet, maybe? Quislet? Come on). But man, War Rocket Ajax. I almost want to warn you away from it. Not that it’s not good - to the contrary, it’s consistently entertaining - but with every single episode I listen to I find out about something that I had no idea about and feel an immediate need to own. It’s like Chris Sims and our own Dave have hatched a plot in order to bleed my wallet dry. Well, I'm on to you. And now, I'll... plug your show. Damn it, I'm bad at revenge.

Also noteworthy: I got a Dear Dr Capitalism email pointing me toward this video that has been created for the song 'Aquaman's Lament' by the Motion Sick. Say what you will about the man (for instance, say that he is a horrible zombie) but he has some pretty decent moves, I reckon.

5 or 6 days late, I remain,

Johnathan

Avengers: Under Siege (Now With 100% Less Steven Seagal!)

Pardon our tumbleweeds, regular readers. I know we haven’t posted much lately, but you’ll have to forgive us—Rachelle is busy settling into her new house, Johnathan’s been appearing in a play, Tiina’s been hunting humans for sport on a private island in the South Pacific, and I’ve been trapped in an oil painting.

Ahem.

 Okay, I’m pretty sure that at least two of those excuses are not entirely truthful, but I don’t have time to look into it; I’ve been too busy preparing this post about my favourite Avengers storyline, which can be found in issues 273 to 277 of the original series (or in the Under Siege trade paperback, which is unfortunately out of print). Why exactly am I digging out a 23-year old Avengers arc right now? Well, last week Marvel announced that all this Dark Reign business (where Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers are basically in charge of everything) would be coming to an end in January with a storyline called Siege, which promises to reunite the Big Three Avengers—Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor—for the first time in several years, hopefully for some time to come. The Avengers has been pretty much my favourite Marvel franchise for most of my life, but it’s been a rough couple of years; I’m not really a fan of Bendis’ revamp of the whole concept. Granted, it gave us Young Avengers, and has made the Avengers brand name into a big deal again, but it’s not the same for me. Also, Hawkeye is now Ronin. What’s that about?

 

Anyway, the title Siege carries with it the implication that this new storyline will somehow be related to that long-ago epic by Roger Stern, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer. Sure, it may just be a cheap ploy designed to draw old-school dinosaurs like me back into the fold (although if the killer art by Stuart Immonen on the current run can’t make me buy Bendis’ New Avengers, I suspect nothing can), but there is a possibility that there may be a deeper connection here. Probably not, but we’ll see.

The Under Siege storyline deals with second-generation Nazi bad guy Baron Zemo assembling a new Masters of Evil team to take down the Avengers, mostly as an elaborate revenge plan designed to destroy Captain America’s “family” as Cap as destroyed his (from his point of view, anyway). This is a serious powerhouse group here, filled with super-genius types like Moonstone, Fixer, and Yellowjacket II, as well as top muscle like Mister Hyde, Goliath, Tiger Shark, and the whole blamed Wrecking Crew.

 

Zemo begins his campaign of terror by engineering distractions for most of the Avengers (and taking advantage of several personality clashes and other flaws within the team’s solidarity), then brazenly has his goons waltz up to the front gate of Avengers Mansion and smash their way in. Taking the Avengers’ faithful butler, Jarvis, hostage, and making short work of the Black Knight when he arrives, the team then sets about reprogramming the Mansion’s security systems to repel anyone who tries to bust in. Serpent Society member and Masters of Evil affiliate Black Mamba poses as a boozy floozy who gets Hercules good and drunk (and drugged) and sends him back to Avengers Mansion, where the Masters deliver unto him a royal beat down. They beat him so bad, they put him in a coma that he almost doesn’t come out, and is even declared dead for a few minutes. Keep in mind, now, that this wasn’t just some musclebound clod in a leotard—this is actual Hercules, from Greek mythology! And they stomped his drunken ass! Cap is also beaten and captured, while the Wasp barely escapes.

 

Afterward, Zemo gets brain-damaged Nova nemesis Blackout (who he controls via microcircuitry hidden in his headgear) to blanket Avengers Mansion in his patented Darkforce goo, which is nigh-impenetrable. Zemo also orders poor, confused Blackout to banish energy-based Avenger Captain Marvel (the Monica Rambeau version) into the dimension that his Darkforce jazz issues forth from. Titania and the Absorbing Man are sent to the hospital to finish the job that Tiger Shark, Mister Hyde, Goliath, and the Wrecking Crew started on Hercules, which leads to a hilariously mismatched battle with the Wasp and Ant-Man (the Scott Lang version). Our tiny heroes win the day, but just barely. Seeing Jan and Scott take down two grade-A badasses like these two is pretty exciting—just one of ‘em would have made a lesser do-gooder run for the hills.

Meanwhile, within the Mansion, Zemo and his flunkies get up to all sorts of mischief, like raiding the team’s databanks, videotaping dastardly missives to the outside world, and looting and destroying the team’s personal possessions. Hyde in particular takes it up a notch by busting into Cap’s locker and destroying several decades’ worth of belongings in front of his face, such as his famed original triangular shield.

When that doesn’t faze Cap, Hyde decides to torture poor Jarvis instead.

In the days before rape and murder became sadly commonplace events in superhero comics, the sight of the hulking Hyde sadistically torturing a helpless old man was pretty shocking stuff. Still is now, really. Poor Jarv. Eventually, though, the Black Knight uses his mystical connection to his Ebony Sword to draw it to him, and he sets himself and Cap free to trounce Hyde.

Around this point, the tide starts to turn as Dr. Druid and Thor (appearing between pages 5-7 of issue #373 of his own title, a caption informs us—busy guy!) show up to lend some mind and muscle power, respectively. Druid psychically urges Blackout to drop the Darkforce walls, allowing the Avengers to sneak in. A knock-down, drag-out fight breaks out, with Thor draining the mystical power out of the Wrecking Crew (I’m not sure why he never did that before, but whatever). Goliath, however, is not so easily dealt with, and he gives Thor a good trouncing before getting what’s coming to him.

If you’ve ever wondered what sound an Asgardian God of Thunder makes when you bounce him off the floor, now you know–that sound is "WUNG". Captain Marvel escapes the Darkforce dimension (via the Shroud’s cloak all the way over in San Francisco), and she arrives in time to give chase to a fleeing Moonstone. Moony is flying so fast and is so scared of being collared that she flies smack into a cliff face doing 100 miles an hour.

Zemo tries to regain control of Blackout by upping the wattage on his brain-control doohickey, which gives Blackout a fatal brain hemorrhage. Poor dope. Soon, it’s down to just Captain America and Baron Zemo, who have a fateful showdown on the Mansion’s roof, where Zemo, like Moonstone, lets his emotions get the better of him.

 

The Masters are all defeated and detained (and in the case of Blackout, deceased), so all that’s left is the clean-up. However, since Jarvis is on his way to the Intensive Care Unit, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have to do it themselves. This leads to the storyline’s heartbreaking epilogue, where poor Cap sifts through the wreckage of his personal locker, where Zemo and Hyde gleefully made short work of all his memorabilia (including a smiling photo of him and Bucky and a baseball signed by Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth!). Sadly, the most irreplaceable casualty of the whole affair is Cap’s only surviving photo of his long-dead Mom.

 

I suppose Under Siege does have some connection to the current state of the Marvel U, where the bad guys have made themselves comfortable in the heroes’ home base (and costumes, even), and it’s time for them to be taken down a peg. If nothing else, any connection will hopefully spur Marvel to re-issue Avengers: Under Siege in a new printing. Either way, it was great fun to revisit this storyline, which taught me that when the chips are down, the good guys pull together and win the day, while the bad guys fly away without looking where they’re going and nearly kill themselves.

More like Models, Stink...Am I right?

I was going to bitch about Models, Inc last month, but I decided to let the hubbub about this comic settle a little, and allow for the SECOND ISSUE OF JUDGEMENT.

Watching Tyra dress up a bunch of skinny girls in crazy outfits and yell at them about "smizing" is basically the best part of my week, so I feel I'm pretty inclined to like a comic book about models. Really, all I wanted from this comic was to see Millie the Model, Patsy Walker, and their model pals, dress up in cool clothes and have some wacky photo shoots. They could even fight a little crime here and there. I just wanted it to be FUN.

For a comic that's undeniably girly, and presumably aimed at a non-comic-reading female audience, there are some problems that maybe could have been solved by having a lady as a part of the creative team. (Paul Tobin writes this, couldn't Colleen Coover draw it? How great would that be?)

 Like this: 

 

No! Those aren't tights!

These are tights:

 

If you don't want people to see up your tiny dress and spy your lady-junk, all thigh high stockings are going to do is give them a better show. Tobin had it right, but then I guess the artist, Vicenc Villagrassa, wanted to draw a sexy picture, so he went with the thigh highs.

I'm aware that it's a minor detail, but I feel like it just draws attention to the fact that Millie putting on tights is just a plot device, so she'll go into the woods and (***SPOILER ALERT!***) find murder weapon and a dead body.

And let's talk about the fashion in this fashion-centric comic. I guess it's not as bad as say, Teen Titans or something. There are no thongs. But c'mon.

Belly tops? Comic artists need to stop drawing women in belly tops! It's not 1995. I remember Bryan Lee O'Malley once saying that he'd look at fashion blogs and UrbanOutfitters.com for inspiration on how to dress his characters in Scott Pilgrim, and I think that really showed. His characters always look cute, and current. Do some research, Villagrassa.

But at least Models, Inc is FUN, right? Right? Actually, issue two is oddly depressing: Millie the model has been accused of murder, so she spends some time in prison.

Uh, wheeeeeee?

I'm not feeling it. My Wednesday nights are going to spent with ANTM, thanks.

"Come Out To The Coast, We'll Get Together, Have A Few Laughs..."

A few months back, when Boom! Studios announced their plans for a Die Hard comic book, I did a post about the perils of licensed comics. This week, the first issue of Die Hard: Year One was released, and it only seems fair that I follow up on my initial blatherings to see how they did. Die Hard is not only one of my all-time favourite movies (my girlfriend Hillary and I make a point of watching it every Christmas, and usually one other time throughout the year as well), but probably one of my favourite film franchises as well—the only entry in the series I don’t like is the second one (I'm even in the minority of folks who think Live Free or Die Hard was actually pretty awesome). The adventures of John McClane are very near and dear to me, and I was pretty wary of seeing the character mishandled in a new medium. Fortunately, after some consideration and a second reading, I find I enjoyed Die Hard: Year One #1 quite a bit, and I think subsequent issues will smooth away any trepidations I had about the debut issue.

It’s July 4^th, 1976, and rookie beat cop John McClane is patrolling the streets of Manhattan in preparation for the Bicentennial celebration. As McClane tries to maintain order among the various tourists and pickpockets, some sort of scheme is brewing across the city. We aren’t given too much of the big picture yet, but it seems to involve a couple of crooked cops, a pretty young coed named Rosie who’s new to the Big Apple, a rich jerk and his shrewish wife, a creepy guy named Ira, and a hilariously mulleted and butt-cutted jogger. It’s a slow build, to be sure—mostly, we get quick introductory vignettes, and a few conversations to indicate that it’s all connected somehow. A pickpocket scam involving a female flasher and her male accomplice seems to mirror the larger plot, as the aforementioned Rosie is apparently being paid to wear some kind of revealing outfit as a distraction from...whatever the caper turns out to be, I guess.

 

The pacing of this first issue may seem positively glacial compared to most comics these days, but keep in mind that a comic adaptation of the first Die Hard film probably wouldn’t have much happening in a first issue either. I imagine Hans Gruber and his team would be just pulling into the Nakatomi Tower’s parking garage around the 24-page mark. I enjoyed the slow setup, though. The shuttling back-and-forth between the various parties was well handled, and I’m interested in seeing what the larger plot turns out to be. Presumably, some sort of daring robbery made to look like a terrorist attack is usually how these things go, right? Comics veteran Howard Chaykin (who, like McClane, would have been a rookie himself around the time this series takes place) handles the scripting duties here, with maybe a few too many narrative captions—most of the characters’ backstories and personalities are explained by an omniscient narrator, which you don’t get a lot of nowadays. Still, it sort of weirdly adds to the period setting—after all, this is how comics were written at the point the story takes place. There is some fairly off-putting misogyny on display here—one of the corrupt cops blithely slaps his wife around, while rich cad Walden Ford threatens his wife with a shocking comeuppance if she brings up the word ‘divorce” around him again—but, this isn’t a huge surprise, since a) it takes place in what might charitably be called “a simpler time”, and b) it’s written by Howard Chaykin, who is kind of notorious for writing about that sort of thing. Stephen Thompson’s art brings a lot to the whole package as well; it’s a bit reminiscent of Michael Gaydos or John Paul Leon (who, along with Dave Johnson and Jock, provided one of the three variant covers) in its practiced roughness. He does a great job with the period setting’s vehicles and hairstyles, and his Bruce Willis likeness isn’t too shabby either. He takes the actor’s look and makes it his own, rather than just tracing stills from his movies and drawing a cop uniform on him.

 

Maybe I’m being too forgiving, because I love the franchise so much. Or it could be that I was bracing myself for an outright disaster. It could even be that my love of 1970s New York as a setting is colouring my judgment (on my day off last week, I watched Across 110^th Street and Saturday Night Fever back to back, by way of example). Maybe it’s just that slick Dave Johnson cover. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed Die Hard: Year One a lot more than most of the superhero comics I read last week. Let’s hope the second issue is better than the second movie!