Many Things
No-one reads this anymore, so that's why I haven't written anything here for a while. Yet there remains a lot of stuff I wanted to write about and have to get out of my head, if only for my own satisfaction.
A while ago I posted here - and subsequently deleted - my going through some old Legion of Super-Heroes comics that I'd managed to get my hands on. Specifically, the out-of-print Keith Giffen run on the book prior to Zero Hour. The 'five years later' Legion, as they are often known.
I started off writing about just the first issue, with the intent of covering one per post. Hah! That would take far too long, and I couldn't be bothered with all that nonsense! So, perhaps a shorter summary of opinion...
It's often been criticised for being dark, and it does indeed begin with the Legion split up and involve lots of death and an important planet being painstakingly destroyed over the course of a single issue. The letters pages (which are hilarious to read) show that the readers had no patience for this - or for Giffen's Watchmen-esque ALL THE PANELS style - and one can see the changes taking place from issue to issue, much more delightful than it would have been originally with a monthly gap between each.
It does become very light indeed, at the end. Matter-Eater Lad has no fewer than two issues dedicated to his wacky adventures, if that's any indication. They even go so far as to reveal a whole secondary Legion of younger, peppier versions of our heroes. Years before the Clone Saga, and DC introduced duplicates that they went back and forth over being clones or the originals...
The big problems I found with the series was that the early lack of costumes or names, and Giffen's lack of distinction between faces, made the cast difficult to tell apart. The story itself is good, but it is unfolded in a frustrating manner, taking a diversion into an alternate reality and retcons only a few issues in, when the 'five years later' setting is already strange and needs acclimating!
It all ended with a re-boot under Zero Hour, but interestingly they kept the issue numbering and gave the new team the costumes established by the possibly-clones from the five years later run. I am starting to see why people think that Legion continuity is a little confusing...
The stuff that follows Zero Hour ('my Legion') is starting to be collected, and is a nice, easy-to-follow jumping-on point by Mark Waid. I recommend that very highly! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Legionnaires-Book-One-Mark-Waid/dp/1401268668/ No sign of a second volume yet, but fingers crossed!
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I also got through all of the original Macross Saga, finally. I've seen Robotech, but now I've been through the original too many years later, and I can barely remember enough to compare or contrast. Still, Macross remains awesome, even if the 'big death' moment turns out to lack any of the drama I'd have expected. More impressive was the fact that the war ends halfway through, and the rest of the series is about reconstruction and hostile forces learning to get along. Not bad for a giant mecha series.
It still proves that for all the focus on love triangles in Macross series, one of the choices is just always obviously better. I mean, here Minn-May is just so immature and annoying, clearly no match for patient, independent Misa. (same for Sheryl being greater by far than Ranka in 'Frontier', and Mirage exceeding Freja in 'Delta', all the more so for how much she got sidelined but enough about that shit-show)
Then I watched Macross Plus, several years after I first did so, and now knowing who Brian Cranston is. The pointy noses are still annoying, and nothing much still happens over the course of the four episodes, but it does have lovely visuals. Next I shall move on to Macross 7, and with forty-nine episodes of that to work through, it may be a while.
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After seeing both Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain show up on 'Supergirl' (that should show how long ago events of this post happened, and how long I've put off writing it!) I went back to watch all of 'Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman'.
It looks so cheap compared to modern superhero shows, and definitely has a much more mundane variety of villain, but the chemistry between the leads is great, and there's such a clever smattering of dry humour and side-jokes in the background of each episode. It's just so charming, if effectively empty.
In a modern show, cast members will generally get some focus, even an episode all their own, but back in the nineties it seems that side characters knew their place, and stay just that. Jimmy and Perry do have character, but they're always there for just a few lines each episode. Even in stories like Jimmy's absent father returning, the main characters remain Lois and Clark, and how it affects them! Wow!
This re-watch also cleared up a mis-conception I've held since I was a child. I originally thought, when SPOILERS Clark says "I'm sorry, I can't do it" and lets Lex Luthor plunge to his death at the end of the first season, that he was apologising for deciding that one death would be worthwhile and he was willing to stand aside for the greater good. Now, I can clearly see that he literally means that he can't, still suffering from the kryptonite that Lex exposed him to, meaning that Luthor doomed himself. I suppose I should expect that the depth I had imagined would be something beyond the playful nature of the show! SPOILERS
I have to conclude that general opinion of the show declining in quality once the secret identity was revealed to Lois is correct. The show lost a lot of the fun, and in exchange never fully went into the consequences of this advance in the relationship, flailing around pointlessly.
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Finally, after the recent release of Michael Bay's latest Transformers movie (which I haven't seen, and again dates this entry) I went back to read 'All Hail Megatron', the IDW comic series that lightly re-booted their comic series shortly after the first movie hit theatres. It disrupted and cut short Simon Furman's slow-burn run, and shall always bear hatred for that.
Reading it now, it was clearly written as a criticism of the movie. Clearly cartoon-based Transformers wreck America, the puny human forces no match at all for Cybertronians. Human characters are introduced and massacred, every clever plan they have to save the world already anticipated and overcome. Really, it's a fanwank 'this is what would have really happened', although the conclusion is pretty deus ex machina and disappointing. And it is LITTERED with Bendis-esque dialogue, which is horrible. Do not read this!