“DIE, INTERNET, DIE,” SO SAYS ORACLE! -- REVIEWS FOR AUGUST 10, 2008
Haven’t done this for a while, but here you go - A bunch of reviews!
Final Crisis #3, House of Mystery #4, Supergirl #32, Invincible Iron Man #4, and Blue Beetle #29
Vitalic - Poney Part 1
That's one scary poodle.
FINAL CRISIS #3
I think I know what the problem with this series is. According to Morrison interviews and a bunch of reviewers faster than me, Morrison is experimenting with HBO’s The Wire style of storytelling. Now, I have never seen one episode of The Wire, although it is in my list of stuff to Netflix one day or other, but apparently a big deal about its storytelling is that it never shows, it mostly tells. Well, more likely it shows the before and then the after and it never bothers with the middle. Mostly we get what happened after the important bit, but not the important bit. Now, some people will probably complain and quote that “Show, don’t tell” rule. Personally, I don’t believe in rules for narrating; or at least I believe those rules only exist for someone to break them and make them work.
As I said, I have never seen The Wire, so I don’t know how well it works there, but I am not convinced it works for Final Crisis all that well. It’s perhaps too much a detached approach for the subject.
While Tawky Tawny searches for the missing jetpack, in Casa de la Arrow, Black Canary and Ollie practice their SEXY!
Despite that, there are things I am enjoying here. Darkseid’s plan is actually clever in most parts: He has managed to remove Superman, Batman and Green Lantern from the board before the JLA started noticing something weird was going on. Sadly, for people with less patience than me, this looked like completely disconnected storytelling, because there was no immediate, obvious connection between the events.
Speaking of Darkseid’s plan, the whole sending the anti-life equation via e-mail was cheesy. Although, I really don’t understand why there are people laughing at Oracle’s lines: “We must kill the net” and “Pull the plugs.”
There are people going all “LULZ! U CANT KILL DA WEBZ, LOL!” and I wonder who the heck pinned a Net expert medal on these people. You CAN kill the net. Estonia, one of the most wired countries in Europe, got hacked by Russia and lost connection for a few days. Not only that but entire countries can lose connection if one lousy underwater cable gets cut. So yeah, if Oracle wants to kill the net, the net stays killed. And about pulling the plug, she was talking about unplugging her computer, not about some amazing giant internet plug somewhere in the world.
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #4
Well, I think we are finally getting a main character and some secondary character here; not only that but also a main nemesis and motivations. HURRAH! I think I am liking this series more out of concept that execution, though. It’s not that it’s bad, but the execution hasn’t exactly been spectacular, but I love it like I would love an ugly dog that farts too much. I am not sure how that metaphor works, but there it goes anyway.
Thank you, Exposition Ham!
Yes, there are good bits, but they are not all that good. They are just good enough that I can keep enjoying poor man’s Sandman Vol 8 World’s End Inn without giving up.
The short stories are entertaining most of the time, but hardly worth the price of admission by themselves. Still, it’s the closest I am ever going to get to World’s End Inn: The series, so I’ll milk it for whatever it is worth.
SUPERGIRL #32
LET THE POOR KID DIE ALREADY! The corpse of the amazing cancer boy gets taken out for another awesome adventure! Be amazed as his carcass is launched into a bold new danger! Dazzle your senses as the poor boy is refused Christian burial for another issue while Supergirl keeps trying to save him and fails AGAIN like I said she was going to fail who knows how many issues ago!
But seriously, at least it looks like it’s finally over. A story that would have taken one fill in issue gets stretched into a whole trade and it tells us exactly what we already knew: You can’t make superheroes cure cancer because then the world looks a lot less like the real world, and you can’t have that so you make up a bullpoopoo reason for why they can’t do it so in the end the kid dies of cancer and the hero learns a valuable lesson at least until the next fill in issue.
Still, I liked the art and the way Supergirl defeats a time-traveling supervillain is actually kinda clever. The time traveling villain thing looks like it was going to be a completely different story, but it got drafted into the whole Cancer Boy Saga. The end is awful, though. In the end Supergirl gets the bad guy’s time traveling thingie and thinks about using it to cure the boy’s cancer… somehow. But she destroys the thingie because if she had used it to cure the boy’s cancer she would have been as bad as the guy who used it to be a supervillain.
Anybody remembers an issue of young Justice or something with me going *headesk*? I could really use a picture like that right now.
IT’S DUMB! DUMB! DUMB! DUMB! DUMB! It’s like saying “No! I won’t use my car to go to the supermarket to buy a turkey, because I would be as bad as the guy who killed a bunch of people with vehicular manslaughter!”
Cancer boy DIED OF SHAME!
I like how they put Empress name as if it's a big name that will bring tons of people. We know better, but it's nice.
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #4
A year ago Marvel could have shot Tony Stark into the sun and I wouldn’t have cared, but this series is quickly becoming one of my favorites. It’s Tony Stark fighting evil with his science and his ludicrous amounts of money.
It reminds me a lot of the sadly defunct Joe Casey Wildcats 3.0; because they are both non-preachy capitalist superheroics. It doesn’t surprise me because both Casey and Fraction are pals, or at least used to write a column for CBR together. It follows the same theme with Stark’s megacorporation working to make actual change for good in the world. Take that, Green Arrow, you and your “blah blah blah Fat Cats! Corporations getting all corporatey!” crazy talk.
Well, that takes care of the hard part; now all we need is the cure for AIDS!
Other than that, the art is nice and Tony gets to blow stuff up so all is right with the world.
BLUE BEETLE #29
Okay, I might be a few weeks late for this one or not, but I wanted to talk about it because… man, couldn’t you pick a worst series to deal with the immigration issue this way?
So, for some reason, Peacemaker was helping some vigilante group stop illegal immigrants from getting into the U.S. Peacemaker, WHAT THE HELL? I never trusted those Charlton Comics characters, coming into our multiverse and stealing superhero jobs from honest DC characters like me! The other day I was alone in an elevator and Judomaster got in. He eyed my purse with his beady eyes… I think he was on drugs. So I just held my purse tight until I got out. And now they are also racist jerks? I say we should deport them to Marvel or something.
Oi!
Anyway, they find a group of Mexicans trying to get in so Peacemaker and the Redneck Uber Allez intercept them. And here is where the story goes even further downhill. Instead of Peacemaker learning that illegal immigrants are just people looking for work, and not crazy enemies of America seeking to destroy our way of life and steal our apple pies and bald headed eagles, the Mexicans turn out to be drug smugglers and also they are packing crazy super soldier serums that give them superpowers. Yeah, this is an incredibly realistic portrayal of the immigration issue.
Anyway, one Mexican girl from the group who didn’t take the crazy super-serum manages to convince Jaime (Blue Beetle) to let her stay in the U.S. At this point I thought she was going to be the character that teaches us all that not all Mexicans are rampaging superpowered drug smugglers. WRONG! The girl makes a phone call to an evil guy in Mexico and it turns out she is probably more evil than the other Mexicans.
So far, not the most unbiased story about the immigration thing. It is entirely possible that next issue might pull the rug from under my feet, but this first issue is not giving me much hope for that.
But seriously, those Carlton characters worry me. I don’t trust them. I hear we might also get a bunch of Archie superhero immigrants. And that’s just too much! I got an idea though: Maybe we should put them all in one place. You know, just concentrate them in one place… like a camp or something. A “concentration camp” if you will. It’s just to stop them from walking all over the place selling their drugs and raping women, which we know they love to do.
Final Crisis #3, House of Mystery #4, Supergirl #32, Invincible Iron Man #4, and Blue Beetle #29
Vitalic - Poney Part 1
Click to viewThat's one scary poodle.
FINAL CRISIS #3
I think I know what the problem with this series is. According to Morrison interviews and a bunch of reviewers faster than me, Morrison is experimenting with HBO’s The Wire style of storytelling. Now, I have never seen one episode of The Wire, although it is in my list of stuff to Netflix one day or other, but apparently a big deal about its storytelling is that it never shows, it mostly tells. Well, more likely it shows the before and then the after and it never bothers with the middle. Mostly we get what happened after the important bit, but not the important bit. Now, some people will probably complain and quote that “Show, don’t tell” rule. Personally, I don’t believe in rules for narrating; or at least I believe those rules only exist for someone to break them and make them work.
As I said, I have never seen The Wire, so I don’t know how well it works there, but I am not convinced it works for Final Crisis all that well. It’s perhaps too much a detached approach for the subject.
While Tawky Tawny searches for the missing jetpack, in Casa de la Arrow, Black Canary and Ollie practice their SEXY!
Despite that, there are things I am enjoying here. Darkseid’s plan is actually clever in most parts: He has managed to remove Superman, Batman and Green Lantern from the board before the JLA started noticing something weird was going on. Sadly, for people with less patience than me, this looked like completely disconnected storytelling, because there was no immediate, obvious connection between the events.
Speaking of Darkseid’s plan, the whole sending the anti-life equation via e-mail was cheesy. Although, I really don’t understand why there are people laughing at Oracle’s lines: “We must kill the net” and “Pull the plugs.”
There are people going all “LULZ! U CANT KILL DA WEBZ, LOL!” and I wonder who the heck pinned a Net expert medal on these people. You CAN kill the net. Estonia, one of the most wired countries in Europe, got hacked by Russia and lost connection for a few days. Not only that but entire countries can lose connection if one lousy underwater cable gets cut. So yeah, if Oracle wants to kill the net, the net stays killed. And about pulling the plug, she was talking about unplugging her computer, not about some amazing giant internet plug somewhere in the world.
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #4
Well, I think we are finally getting a main character and some secondary character here; not only that but also a main nemesis and motivations. HURRAH! I think I am liking this series more out of concept that execution, though. It’s not that it’s bad, but the execution hasn’t exactly been spectacular, but I love it like I would love an ugly dog that farts too much. I am not sure how that metaphor works, but there it goes anyway.
Thank you, Exposition Ham!
Yes, there are good bits, but they are not all that good. They are just good enough that I can keep enjoying poor man’s Sandman Vol 8 World’s End Inn without giving up.
The short stories are entertaining most of the time, but hardly worth the price of admission by themselves. Still, it’s the closest I am ever going to get to World’s End Inn: The series, so I’ll milk it for whatever it is worth.
SUPERGIRL #32
LET THE POOR KID DIE ALREADY! The corpse of the amazing cancer boy gets taken out for another awesome adventure! Be amazed as his carcass is launched into a bold new danger! Dazzle your senses as the poor boy is refused Christian burial for another issue while Supergirl keeps trying to save him and fails AGAIN like I said she was going to fail who knows how many issues ago!
But seriously, at least it looks like it’s finally over. A story that would have taken one fill in issue gets stretched into a whole trade and it tells us exactly what we already knew: You can’t make superheroes cure cancer because then the world looks a lot less like the real world, and you can’t have that so you make up a bullpoopoo reason for why they can’t do it so in the end the kid dies of cancer and the hero learns a valuable lesson at least until the next fill in issue.
Still, I liked the art and the way Supergirl defeats a time-traveling supervillain is actually kinda clever. The time traveling villain thing looks like it was going to be a completely different story, but it got drafted into the whole Cancer Boy Saga. The end is awful, though. In the end Supergirl gets the bad guy’s time traveling thingie and thinks about using it to cure the boy’s cancer… somehow. But she destroys the thingie because if she had used it to cure the boy’s cancer she would have been as bad as the guy who used it to be a supervillain.
Anybody remembers an issue of young Justice or something with me going *headesk*? I could really use a picture like that right now.
IT’S DUMB! DUMB! DUMB! DUMB! DUMB! It’s like saying “No! I won’t use my car to go to the supermarket to buy a turkey, because I would be as bad as the guy who killed a bunch of people with vehicular manslaughter!”
Cancer boy DIED OF SHAME!
I like how they put Empress name as if it's a big name that will bring tons of people. We know better, but it's nice.
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #4
A year ago Marvel could have shot Tony Stark into the sun and I wouldn’t have cared, but this series is quickly becoming one of my favorites. It’s Tony Stark fighting evil with his science and his ludicrous amounts of money.
It reminds me a lot of the sadly defunct Joe Casey Wildcats 3.0; because they are both non-preachy capitalist superheroics. It doesn’t surprise me because both Casey and Fraction are pals, or at least used to write a column for CBR together. It follows the same theme with Stark’s megacorporation working to make actual change for good in the world. Take that, Green Arrow, you and your “blah blah blah Fat Cats! Corporations getting all corporatey!” crazy talk.
Well, that takes care of the hard part; now all we need is the cure for AIDS!
Other than that, the art is nice and Tony gets to blow stuff up so all is right with the world.
BLUE BEETLE #29
Okay, I might be a few weeks late for this one or not, but I wanted to talk about it because… man, couldn’t you pick a worst series to deal with the immigration issue this way?
So, for some reason, Peacemaker was helping some vigilante group stop illegal immigrants from getting into the U.S. Peacemaker, WHAT THE HELL? I never trusted those Charlton Comics characters, coming into our multiverse and stealing superhero jobs from honest DC characters like me! The other day I was alone in an elevator and Judomaster got in. He eyed my purse with his beady eyes… I think he was on drugs. So I just held my purse tight until I got out. And now they are also racist jerks? I say we should deport them to Marvel or something.
Oi!
Anyway, they find a group of Mexicans trying to get in so Peacemaker and the Redneck Uber Allez intercept them. And here is where the story goes even further downhill. Instead of Peacemaker learning that illegal immigrants are just people looking for work, and not crazy enemies of America seeking to destroy our way of life and steal our apple pies and bald headed eagles, the Mexicans turn out to be drug smugglers and also they are packing crazy super soldier serums that give them superpowers. Yeah, this is an incredibly realistic portrayal of the immigration issue.
Anyway, one Mexican girl from the group who didn’t take the crazy super-serum manages to convince Jaime (Blue Beetle) to let her stay in the U.S. At this point I thought she was going to be the character that teaches us all that not all Mexicans are rampaging superpowered drug smugglers. WRONG! The girl makes a phone call to an evil guy in Mexico and it turns out she is probably more evil than the other Mexicans.
So far, not the most unbiased story about the immigration thing. It is entirely possible that next issue might pull the rug from under my feet, but this first issue is not giving me much hope for that.
But seriously, those Carlton characters worry me. I don’t trust them. I hear we might also get a bunch of Archie superhero immigrants. And that’s just too much! I got an idea though: Maybe we should put them all in one place. You know, just concentrate them in one place… like a camp or something. A “concentration camp” if you will. It’s just to stop them from walking all over the place selling their drugs and raping women, which we know they love to do.