Comic review and rumination: Garth Ennis's "Crossed"

[miritsu]

This is not my standard review as a) I didn't finish reading the material and b) it's based more on things the author said than the work itself.

I am a big Garth Ennis fan; he's famous for writing ultra-violent, pushing-the-envelope, dark humor stories like Preacher (about an ex-Preacher and his friends on a journey to find and kill God.  Yes,

Comments

[fatpie42]

Just saw the link to this in your later post with links to older reviews.

Superheroes were created, not to be realistic, but to show off the best urges and parts of the human condition: namely selflessness, bravery, and compassion.Yeah, but Iron Man is none of those. The problem Ennis has is that Iron Man has nothing to say about the real world. What we enjoy about Iron Man is that Robert Downey Jnr. frames the character really well, but Ennis is right to note that it is pure escapism

[miritsu]

Nope, Iron Man isn't about the best in us, or at least he doesn't represent that to me; he's too scuzzy for that. I was thinking more about classic X-Men, or Superman, or Spiderman. Or the new "No Ordinary Family" show. However, I think Ennis was lumping Iron Man in with other "guys with powers", as he put it, and criticizing them all together, so I was pointing out why I like some guys with powers, and how the fantasy of them isn't irrelevant just because it's a fantasy

[fatpie42]

Fair point about Preacher. That's the really clever thing about Cassidy. The evil of Cassidy has nothing to do with his being a blood-sucking monster. Being a vampire simply means he's been able to be an arsehole for longer, but the stuff he's done could just as easily be done by someone who wasn't a vampire.

As for Ennis' hatred of superheroes.... well, first of all I'd like to point out that I hated "The Boys". I do not know what he was trying to do there, but to be quite honest I'd rather he did something without superheroes. The gay jokes got a bit tiresome and the anti-homophobia issue didn't make up for it whatsoever.

But yeah, have you read "Punisher kills the entire Marvel universe"? That is just CLASSIC!

[miritsu]

I'm divided on "The Boys". I like some parts of it, but the crap parts are just piling up until the stuff I like is getting buried under it, and it's just not worth it to read it to get to those parts, if that makes any sense. Making fun of retarded kids and the trouble they had using the toilet in "The Innocents" storyline was just...not funny. To give an example.

I do wonder about Ennis hating superheroes, though. Going by the above quote, and by others where he says he thinks the best heroes kill their enemies, I'm guessing his view of the world is just so pessimistic that the positive ideal of "someone coming to help you" grates on him. (Again, just a guess.)

I haven't read his "Punisher" work yet, but everyone keeps telling me I have to, and if it's as funny as "Kev" I really need to check it out. The man can tell a joke, though he seems to tell it better when he has an editor to reign him in (which he didn't with "Crossed" and "The Boys").