COMIC REVIEWS 2008-03-18
Woowee! It’s been a while, but here I come to judge people who don’t give a damn if I like their stuff or not.
DAVID BOWIE - ASHES TO ASHES
WONDER WOMAN #18
Gail continues to write an enjoyable light romp, but this issue pissed off some people. Okay, big spoilers ahead! Diana starts wooing Nemesis, and some people don’t like that. I have to say some of the online reaction has been baffling.
Here is Neither Doormat nor Prostitute:
"She'll learn how to go bowling for the man? Are you fucking kidding me?"
I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with that. It’s normal for a partner in a relationship to try to get interested in an activity the other partner enjoys in a way to find a hobby they both enjoy doing. It’s… It’s normal!
"How bought instead he learn how to be competent and worthy of her?"
This is another one, a lot of people complain that Nemesis is not worthy of her. I know Nemesis is inferior to Diana in many, many ways. The way they have been writing Nemesis lately is more like a well intentioned, bumbling moron and less than the super-spy he is supposed to be and probably was before this volume of Wonder Woman started. Now, maybe I am a romantic, naïve fool, but… why should he be some sort of genius warrior god to be worthy of her? She loves him and he is not a bad person; isn’t that good enough? We are talking about romance here, not eugenics.
And this is just overreacting:
"What's next, is she going to find some bratty kid and decide to spend her life playing Barbies with the kid while she cooks dinner and anxiously waits for Tommy-poo to get home?"
Nemesis: Honey, I am hooooooome!
(Canned Applauses)
Wondy (walks into scene with a tray of cookies and wearing an apron): Tommy-poo, how was your day at the office?
Nemesis: Terrible, my boss is going to fire me if I don’t blow up that Kobra base by tomorrow!
Wondy: Oh, don’t worry, Tommy-poo; you’ll think of something.
While Nemesis sits down on the couch and worries, Wonder-Woman flies out of the window and comes back a second later.
The telephone rings *RING* *RING*
Nemesis: Hello? What? You sure? Oh, thank you! Honey, it was the boss! It looks like a meteorite mysteriously fell from the sky and blew up the Kobra base. I got a raise!
Wondy: Oh, I am so proud of you, Tommy-poo. (Wondy winks at the camera)
(Canned Laughter)
That would grow old kinda quickly, though.
Anyway, I could understand it if this scene pissed off people because they simply don’t like Nemesis or it goes against their favorite canonical or not Wonder Woman pairing, but not the ones I have read around.
As a matter of nerd interest we finally get to see the Amazonian super-wooing secret technique. Look at it well, before a hundred fanfic writers overuse it in a million slash fanfics involving Wondy and her entire family. Nemesis, being a moron, wonders why an island where only women live would develop a courting ritual. Nemesis, just be glad Diana didn’t show you the version with the Penetration of Trust with Athena’s strap-on spear.
Come on, Nemesis, so she comes from a society with only women. What's the worse that could happen to your marriage?
Okay, yes, there is that
THE LAST DEFENDERS #1
I honestly don’t know where Casey is going with this book. The Defenders are a hard team to write mostly because they never made any sense whatsoever. They were a team for the sake of being a team. Casey sorta tries to have his cake and eat by making this iteration of the team the most random and senseless and by hinting that the Defenders might actually have a good reason to exist.
"Come on, guys, we have to get to school!"
"Get to Skrull? Are you saying I am a Skrull? Cause I am not! Would a seventh level frizglopp-commander of the Skrull armada know how to tap dance? I know how to tap dance cause I am not a Skrull! By the wrinkled chins of the ancient shapesmiths, I am not a Skrull, damn it!"
As usual, it is hard to care for a team that basically it’s not a team. It’s just a bunch of people randomly put together by Tony Stark for the heck of it. I’ll stick around for another issue because I am genuinely intrigued and I want to know where this goes from here. Mind you, must Casey books don’t go anywhere because they get cancelled before they have the chance, but this is a mini so I hope he manages to get his point across.
This made me laugh.
ALAN MOORE'S THE HYPOTHETICAL LIZARD
I recently bought this trade of an Alan Moore mini. Well, actually it’s an adaptation of an Alan Moore short horror story. It’s hard to describe in genre terms because it’s a horror / love story between two male prostitutes in a magical brothel as seen through the eyes of a brain damaged female prostitute who also lives there. And if this were Frank Miller, you could make a “WHORES! WHORES! WHORES!” joke.
It’s a bit of a bitter sweet story. The mini ran for four issues, and after the four issues you can read the original short story. The trade says it’s a Novella, but 50 pages is not a Novella, darn it! A hundred pages is a Novella, but that’s just me and my arbitrarily chosen numbers. Moore’s prose tends to go from beautiful to downright purple at the drop of a hat, but it’s still worth a read.
Back to the comic section of the trade, I have to say I like the art. It’s by two different artists (Sebastian Fiumara and Lorenzo Lorente), but I hardly noticed the transition. They are both European, and you can notice by the clean, easy to understand illustrations. Europe went the complete opposite way that Japan took. Every panel looks more like an illustration in a book with word balloons instead of a comic page, interested more in looking pretty than dynamic. I have no clue if they are actually European, for all I know they live down the street from Avatar's offices.
While the story is not one of Moore’s big works, it is interesting enough just because it is a horror/love story, and I think we can all be certain those are kinda rare, especially if they don’t involve porn, vampires and tentacles.
DAVID BOWIE - ASHES TO ASHES
Click to viewWONDER WOMAN #18
Gail continues to write an enjoyable light romp, but this issue pissed off some people. Okay, big spoilers ahead! Diana starts wooing Nemesis, and some people don’t like that. I have to say some of the online reaction has been baffling.
Here is Neither Doormat nor Prostitute:
"She'll learn how to go bowling for the man? Are you fucking kidding me?"
I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with that. It’s normal for a partner in a relationship to try to get interested in an activity the other partner enjoys in a way to find a hobby they both enjoy doing. It’s… It’s normal!
"How bought instead he learn how to be competent and worthy of her?"
This is another one, a lot of people complain that Nemesis is not worthy of her. I know Nemesis is inferior to Diana in many, many ways. The way they have been writing Nemesis lately is more like a well intentioned, bumbling moron and less than the super-spy he is supposed to be and probably was before this volume of Wonder Woman started. Now, maybe I am a romantic, naïve fool, but… why should he be some sort of genius warrior god to be worthy of her? She loves him and he is not a bad person; isn’t that good enough? We are talking about romance here, not eugenics.
And this is just overreacting:
"What's next, is she going to find some bratty kid and decide to spend her life playing Barbies with the kid while she cooks dinner and anxiously waits for Tommy-poo to get home?"
Nemesis: Honey, I am hooooooome!
(Canned Applauses)
Wondy (walks into scene with a tray of cookies and wearing an apron): Tommy-poo, how was your day at the office?
Nemesis: Terrible, my boss is going to fire me if I don’t blow up that Kobra base by tomorrow!
Wondy: Oh, don’t worry, Tommy-poo; you’ll think of something.
While Nemesis sits down on the couch and worries, Wonder-Woman flies out of the window and comes back a second later.
The telephone rings *RING* *RING*
Nemesis: Hello? What? You sure? Oh, thank you! Honey, it was the boss! It looks like a meteorite mysteriously fell from the sky and blew up the Kobra base. I got a raise!
Wondy: Oh, I am so proud of you, Tommy-poo. (Wondy winks at the camera)
(Canned Laughter)
That would grow old kinda quickly, though.
Anyway, I could understand it if this scene pissed off people because they simply don’t like Nemesis or it goes against their favorite canonical or not Wonder Woman pairing, but not the ones I have read around.
As a matter of nerd interest we finally get to see the Amazonian super-wooing secret technique. Look at it well, before a hundred fanfic writers overuse it in a million slash fanfics involving Wondy and her entire family. Nemesis, being a moron, wonders why an island where only women live would develop a courting ritual. Nemesis, just be glad Diana didn’t show you the version with the Penetration of Trust with Athena’s strap-on spear.
Come on, Nemesis, so she comes from a society with only women. What's the worse that could happen to your marriage?
Okay, yes, there is that
THE LAST DEFENDERS #1
I honestly don’t know where Casey is going with this book. The Defenders are a hard team to write mostly because they never made any sense whatsoever. They were a team for the sake of being a team. Casey sorta tries to have his cake and eat by making this iteration of the team the most random and senseless and by hinting that the Defenders might actually have a good reason to exist.
"Come on, guys, we have to get to school!"
"Get to Skrull? Are you saying I am a Skrull? Cause I am not! Would a seventh level frizglopp-commander of the Skrull armada know how to tap dance? I know how to tap dance cause I am not a Skrull! By the wrinkled chins of the ancient shapesmiths, I am not a Skrull, damn it!"
As usual, it is hard to care for a team that basically it’s not a team. It’s just a bunch of people randomly put together by Tony Stark for the heck of it. I’ll stick around for another issue because I am genuinely intrigued and I want to know where this goes from here. Mind you, must Casey books don’t go anywhere because they get cancelled before they have the chance, but this is a mini so I hope he manages to get his point across.
This made me laugh.
ALAN MOORE'S THE HYPOTHETICAL LIZARD
I recently bought this trade of an Alan Moore mini. Well, actually it’s an adaptation of an Alan Moore short horror story. It’s hard to describe in genre terms because it’s a horror / love story between two male prostitutes in a magical brothel as seen through the eyes of a brain damaged female prostitute who also lives there. And if this were Frank Miller, you could make a “WHORES! WHORES! WHORES!” joke.
It’s a bit of a bitter sweet story. The mini ran for four issues, and after the four issues you can read the original short story. The trade says it’s a Novella, but 50 pages is not a Novella, darn it! A hundred pages is a Novella, but that’s just me and my arbitrarily chosen numbers. Moore’s prose tends to go from beautiful to downright purple at the drop of a hat, but it’s still worth a read.
Back to the comic section of the trade, I have to say I like the art. It’s by two different artists (Sebastian Fiumara and Lorenzo Lorente), but I hardly noticed the transition. They are both European, and you can notice by the clean, easy to understand illustrations. Europe went the complete opposite way that Japan took. Every panel looks more like an illustration in a book with word balloons instead of a comic page, interested more in looking pretty than dynamic. I have no clue if they are actually European, for all I know they live down the street from Avatar's offices.
While the story is not one of Moore’s big works, it is interesting enough just because it is a horror/love story, and I think we can all be certain those are kinda rare, especially if they don’t involve porn, vampires and tentacles.