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| Thor #365 |
God I love comics.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Comic Panel of the Week (March 13)
God I love comics.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Disney Movies, Take Two
Blessed with free time and a library of VHS tapes, I've been re-watching some "classic" Disney animated movies. Will Young Me's opinions agree with Adult Me's? My findings so far:
Pocahontas: Awful. Absolutely terrible, and an unfortunate choice to start this project. It has two great songs, "Colors of the Wind" and "Savages". But the rest of the film is just so boooooring even getting to go "Hey, it's Christian Bale!" can't save it. Let us speak of it no more.
Hercules: There, that's better. It's slower to get started than I remember; after a great opening prologue that introduces the gods and explains why Hercules is on Earth the story drags for a while while as it goes through the same motions as an Superman origin. But by the time Meg and the Hydra appear Hercules finds its groove, with good music, a great villain in James Brooks' Hades, and a plot that manages to throw in some nice twists to the cliche "true heroism is about character, not strength" message. It justifies it's place in my Disney Top Ten.
Tarzan: Tarzan has the opposite problem of Hercules. It's first half-hour forms an excellent short film on its own, with some beautiful animation and a great use of music coming together to tell a touching story about an outsider's quest to prove himself to the group. Then Jane, her father, and Clayton show up and while the movie doesn't become bad it also never reaches its early heights. In trying to tell essentially an entirely different story in 2/3rds the time, Tarzan fails to fully develop either Clayton's threat or Tarzan and Jane's relationship. It's an okay film, but I won't be hurrying to return to it any time soon. I had also forgotten that this was not actually a musical. I knew Phil Collins did the score, but since none of the characters sing large chunks of the film essentially become music videos and as a decidedly non-Collins fan I could take or leave most of these.
Hunchback of Notre Dame: Up until a few years ago I had forgotten virtually everything about this film except that I didn't care for it. Then I came across the clip of "Hellfire", understood that this movie is a massive tonal departure from most Disney films, and finally watched it last month. It makes sense why young me was left ambivalent about Hunchback: despite its trappings, it's not a kids movie. At all. What it is though, is spectacular.
Hunchback is dark, opening with a murder and ending with a visual representation of damnation with some persecution, attempted immolation, and sexual extortion thrown in along the way. But though the story is somber it's also very well-told. Esmeralda is one of Disney's stronger female non-leads, her relationship with Phoebus is well-developed and Frollo is a magnificently unhinged villain who's all the more frightening because he represents a real-life style threat. I was also impressed with how the film dealt with Quasimodo/Esmeralda. While I've heard some criticisms about how the movie undercuts its message by having the girl go to the handsome man over the deformed one, the film makes it clear Quasi's infatuation is one-sided, and Esmeralda never leads him on. If anything, Hunchback manages to serve as a great rebuttal to the 'Nice Guy' trope.
There are moments when the film doesn't quite hold together as smoothly as I would like, struggling to balance its story's ambition and complexity against making it accessible to a younger audience. But for the most part Hunchback soars, and I found myself wanting to race past the comic-relief gargoyle scenes (which sometimes feel as though they were awkwardly added in a fourth draft when someone realized kids would be horrified by the film otherwise) to get back to the main plot.
Oh, and the songs are good to :)
Pocahontas: Awful. Absolutely terrible, and an unfortunate choice to start this project. It has two great songs, "Colors of the Wind" and "Savages". But the rest of the film is just so boooooring even getting to go "Hey, it's Christian Bale!" can't save it. Let us speak of it no more.
Hercules: There, that's better. It's slower to get started than I remember; after a great opening prologue that introduces the gods and explains why Hercules is on Earth the story drags for a while while as it goes through the same motions as an Superman origin. But by the time Meg and the Hydra appear Hercules finds its groove, with good music, a great villain in James Brooks' Hades, and a plot that manages to throw in some nice twists to the cliche "true heroism is about character, not strength" message. It justifies it's place in my Disney Top Ten.
Tarzan: Tarzan has the opposite problem of Hercules. It's first half-hour forms an excellent short film on its own, with some beautiful animation and a great use of music coming together to tell a touching story about an outsider's quest to prove himself to the group. Then Jane, her father, and Clayton show up and while the movie doesn't become bad it also never reaches its early heights. In trying to tell essentially an entirely different story in 2/3rds the time, Tarzan fails to fully develop either Clayton's threat or Tarzan and Jane's relationship. It's an okay film, but I won't be hurrying to return to it any time soon. I had also forgotten that this was not actually a musical. I knew Phil Collins did the score, but since none of the characters sing large chunks of the film essentially become music videos and as a decidedly non-Collins fan I could take or leave most of these.
Hunchback of Notre Dame: Up until a few years ago I had forgotten virtually everything about this film except that I didn't care for it. Then I came across the clip of "Hellfire", understood that this movie is a massive tonal departure from most Disney films, and finally watched it last month. It makes sense why young me was left ambivalent about Hunchback: despite its trappings, it's not a kids movie. At all. What it is though, is spectacular.
Hunchback is dark, opening with a murder and ending with a visual representation of damnation with some persecution, attempted immolation, and sexual extortion thrown in along the way. But though the story is somber it's also very well-told. Esmeralda is one of Disney's stronger female non-leads, her relationship with Phoebus is well-developed and Frollo is a magnificently unhinged villain who's all the more frightening because he represents a real-life style threat. I was also impressed with how the film dealt with Quasimodo/Esmeralda. While I've heard some criticisms about how the movie undercuts its message by having the girl go to the handsome man over the deformed one, the film makes it clear Quasi's infatuation is one-sided, and Esmeralda never leads him on. If anything, Hunchback manages to serve as a great rebuttal to the 'Nice Guy' trope.
There are moments when the film doesn't quite hold together as smoothly as I would like, struggling to balance its story's ambition and complexity against making it accessible to a younger audience. But for the most part Hunchback soars, and I found myself wanting to race past the comic-relief gargoyle scenes (which sometimes feel as though they were awkwardly added in a fourth draft when someone realized kids would be horrified by the film otherwise) to get back to the main plot.
Oh, and the songs are good to :)
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Marvel, DC, and Addressing The Problem With Superheroes
I was going over the list of comics currently I follow the other day when I noticed something that surprised me: most of them were Marvel books. Given the quality of stories Marvel and DC are putting out right now I guess that makes perfect sense. Marvel's done a good job at cultivating a crop of very talented writers like Johnathan Hickman, Jason Aaron, and Matt Fraction, and the company's recent Marvel Now initiative is giving them the opportunity to explore some new and ambitious ideas. DC, in contrast, is now 18 months into their "New 52" and with a few exceptions it's going about as smoothly as one might expect of a drastic and desperate move dripping of editorial mandate.
But even if the current runs of New Avengers, Hawkeye, and Thor, God of Thunder are leagues ahead of any of DC's non-Scott Snyder output, I still continue to think of myself more of a DC guy than a Marvel one. It's not just because of the characters -- Batman may be the best superhero out there but Captain America and Spider-Man aren't exactly slouches either. Instead, it's because I think at its core DC's characters are better suited to the cyclical nature of the comics medium, whether the company actually realizes this or not.
While companies like Image and Dark Horse have become established players in the comics industry, when it comes to superheroes DC and Marvel still dominate the market. And as much as the two companies have tended to mimic and/or blatantly rip off each other over the years, they also possess some fundamental differences. When DC started making superheroes, their characters existed mostly in isolation from one another. As a result, the heroes in their stories tended to be more archetypal. Superman is not just another flying hero: he is the Flying Hero, defending his world from the superhuman forces that threaten it. Over time some of them intermingled and formed groups like the Justice Society of America, but those interactions were treated as a Big Deal, and when the continuity errors that arose from each series working on its own resulted in the establishment of the multiverse that was a Bigger Deal.
Marvel, in contrast, was built in the '60s and in many ways stood as a response to DC's style. For one thing, the company's creations were part of a unified world from the outset; seeing Green Lantern decide to take down Two-Face is rather odd but in Marvel's New York it's common to have The Falcon accidentally run into Daredevil or assist Iron Man. But more importantly Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and the other Marvel pioneers chose to highlight the human issues and struggles their superpowered creations would face. Spider-Man was an empowered crimefighter but he was also a teenager struggling to balance his school, home and costumed life, and the Fantastic Four dealt with the same sort of family bickering the readers would, albeit while simultaneous fighting Doctor Doom. At times these attempts to develop their characters veered into soap-opera, but overall Marvel put more effort into humanizing their heroes and trying to make them relatable.
On the surface then, it would seem that Marvel's strategy should put it into the lead. After all, who doesn't like well-developed characters? Unfortunately, there exists one massive flaw at the center of the superhero comic genre: it's always stuck in the second act. Sure some creator-owned heroes or minor characters can get a satisfying payoff to their stories. But characters like Superman or the Hulk are too popular for their companies to let come to an end, and so their tales can never actually reach a conclusion. Writers can still tell great stories with even the longest-running superheroes. Yet any major change to the status quo can and likely will just be retconned later, resulting in long-term narratives that are choppy when they should be smooth and organic.
And it is here that Marvel's efforts to keep their heroes grounded actually comes back to bite them. The more you try and make a superhero realistic, the more frustrating it is when that hero is faced with a never-ending number of setbacks that stop them from achieving any real resolution. The sheer longevity of most mainstream superheroes only adds to this problem. Audiences grumble all the time that shows like The Office have run out of ideas and are going in circles. That series will have 200 episodes; Spider-Man has starred in over 1,000 comics by now, and that number doubles when you include all of the other comics he appears in. Having Peter Parker continue to face essentially the same problems he has had since the '60s (rather than deciding that, if he's truly that worried about putting his loved ones in danger, there's a thousand different ways he could fight crime without roaming New York in a mask) only serves to call attention to his stories' fictional nature, and the editorial constraints that ensure that the reader will never see any real change.
Of course DC has to deal with these same issues. It's not as though Bruce Wayne is going to suddenly exchange his cowl for some therapy sessions. But the difference in how DC approaches its characters minimizes how problematic this narrative repetition is. If Marvel's heroes highlight their humanity, DC's lean closer towards gods and archetypes, which makes it easier to fit them into cyclical and modular comic stories. Whenever Hal Jordan fights Sinestro or Batman tracks down the Riddler, the specific plot and context is important and can be quite compelling. But ultimately their battle boils down to something primal, a contest between clashing wills and ideals. Because of this, DC's storytelling emulates the mythologies of old to a degree. The characters have a multitude of adventures and challenges, but the specific ordering of each event can be somewhat fluid; what matters is the essence of the story, not the details.
The strength of this attitude can be seen in the popularity of DC's "Elseworld" series, which take place outside the company's main continuity. Marvel has several alternate universe books and "What If" one-shots, but with the exception of their Ultimate Universe these books are mostly novelties. On the other hand, some of DC's most popular storylines are ones that technically never take place. The Dark Knight Returns. Red Son. All-Star Superman. Kingdom Come. Each of these works benefit greatly from the reader's knowledge of the characters' history and continuity. What makes them work however, is how these stories stay true to the core and ideal of their heroes even as they approach them from a new angle.
At the end of the day it's still the strength of the story and the writing that matters. I love and enjoy well-done Marvel plotlines and turn a cold shoulder to muddled and contrived DC ones (again, see most of the New 52). But as superheroes become bigger part of mainstream pop culture, it's important to look at the medium they first sprang from, and to understand the challenge in balancing the demand for more stories with the (often competing) demand for good ones.
But even if the current runs of New Avengers, Hawkeye, and Thor, God of Thunder are leagues ahead of any of DC's non-Scott Snyder output, I still continue to think of myself more of a DC guy than a Marvel one. It's not just because of the characters -- Batman may be the best superhero out there but Captain America and Spider-Man aren't exactly slouches either. Instead, it's because I think at its core DC's characters are better suited to the cyclical nature of the comics medium, whether the company actually realizes this or not.
Marvel, in contrast, was built in the '60s and in many ways stood as a response to DC's style. For one thing, the company's creations were part of a unified world from the outset; seeing Green Lantern decide to take down Two-Face is rather odd but in Marvel's New York it's common to have The Falcon accidentally run into Daredevil or assist Iron Man. But more importantly Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and the other Marvel pioneers chose to highlight the human issues and struggles their superpowered creations would face. Spider-Man was an empowered crimefighter but he was also a teenager struggling to balance his school, home and costumed life, and the Fantastic Four dealt with the same sort of family bickering the readers would, albeit while simultaneous fighting Doctor Doom. At times these attempts to develop their characters veered into soap-opera, but overall Marvel put more effort into humanizing their heroes and trying to make them relatable.
On the surface then, it would seem that Marvel's strategy should put it into the lead. After all, who doesn't like well-developed characters? Unfortunately, there exists one massive flaw at the center of the superhero comic genre: it's always stuck in the second act. Sure some creator-owned heroes or minor characters can get a satisfying payoff to their stories. But characters like Superman or the Hulk are too popular for their companies to let come to an end, and so their tales can never actually reach a conclusion. Writers can still tell great stories with even the longest-running superheroes. Yet any major change to the status quo can and likely will just be retconned later, resulting in long-term narratives that are choppy when they should be smooth and organic.And it is here that Marvel's efforts to keep their heroes grounded actually comes back to bite them. The more you try and make a superhero realistic, the more frustrating it is when that hero is faced with a never-ending number of setbacks that stop them from achieving any real resolution. The sheer longevity of most mainstream superheroes only adds to this problem. Audiences grumble all the time that shows like The Office have run out of ideas and are going in circles. That series will have 200 episodes; Spider-Man has starred in over 1,000 comics by now, and that number doubles when you include all of the other comics he appears in. Having Peter Parker continue to face essentially the same problems he has had since the '60s (rather than deciding that, if he's truly that worried about putting his loved ones in danger, there's a thousand different ways he could fight crime without roaming New York in a mask) only serves to call attention to his stories' fictional nature, and the editorial constraints that ensure that the reader will never see any real change.
Of course DC has to deal with these same issues. It's not as though Bruce Wayne is going to suddenly exchange his cowl for some therapy sessions. But the difference in how DC approaches its characters minimizes how problematic this narrative repetition is. If Marvel's heroes highlight their humanity, DC's lean closer towards gods and archetypes, which makes it easier to fit them into cyclical and modular comic stories. Whenever Hal Jordan fights Sinestro or Batman tracks down the Riddler, the specific plot and context is important and can be quite compelling. But ultimately their battle boils down to something primal, a contest between clashing wills and ideals. Because of this, DC's storytelling emulates the mythologies of old to a degree. The characters have a multitude of adventures and challenges, but the specific ordering of each event can be somewhat fluid; what matters is the essence of the story, not the details.
The strength of this attitude can be seen in the popularity of DC's "Elseworld" series, which take place outside the company's main continuity. Marvel has several alternate universe books and "What If" one-shots, but with the exception of their Ultimate Universe these books are mostly novelties. On the other hand, some of DC's most popular storylines are ones that technically never take place. The Dark Knight Returns. Red Son. All-Star Superman. Kingdom Come. Each of these works benefit greatly from the reader's knowledge of the characters' history and continuity. What makes them work however, is how these stories stay true to the core and ideal of their heroes even as they approach them from a new angle.
At the end of the day it's still the strength of the story and the writing that matters. I love and enjoy well-done Marvel plotlines and turn a cold shoulder to muddled and contrived DC ones (again, see most of the New 52). But as superheroes become bigger part of mainstream pop culture, it's important to look at the medium they first sprang from, and to understand the challenge in balancing the demand for more stories with the (often competing) demand for good ones.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
What Time Is It? (Time to talk about ADVENTURE TIME!)
This is the time of year where cable TV dramas tend to enter a period of doldrums. Most "prestige" dramas have either just ended (Downton Abbey), haven't begun yet (Mad Men, Game of Thrones), or can't string three consecutive good episodes together to save their life (Walking Dead). Luckily for lovers of quality television everywhere, there is one standout cable show that is not only airing new episodes right now, but is getting better and better by the year. I speak of course, about Adventure Time!
Currently in its fifth season, Adventure Time follows best friends Jake (the dog) and Finn (the human) as they adventure throughout the land of Ooo. Of course Jake is a mutant talking shapeshifter, Finn has an obsession with swords, and Ooo is a world populated by Candy Kingdoms, Vampire Queens, partying bears who live inside a monster's belly, and a surprisingly large number of fully-manned D&Desque dungeons.
Suffice to say, the show can be a bit odd.
Adventure Time's style of humor tends towards the absurdist. Bizarre catch-phrases and visual non-sequitors abound but the zany antics are grounded by how easily all the characters accept their world's strangeness as perfectly normal. Finn and Jake approach every problem with the same commitment and zeal, whether they're starting an uprising in hell through a political freestyle rap or just trying to help a fellow snail-bro get some ladies. Throughout everything, the varied landscape of Ooo does wonders to provide the show with an inherent flexibility: week to week one never knows just what type of episode they'll get.
Yet while Adventure Time exults in its crazy setting to make "rule of fun"
plots, underneath all the wackiness is a startling level of growth and
development for its characters. As the show has gone on, initially one-note side characters have received rich and frequently tragic
backstories; jerkish vampire Marceline has slowly come to
embrace some friends after centuries of being lonely and betrayed, while
its revealed that the villainous Ice King has been slowly driven insane and
senile by the magic that kept him alive. Meanwhile, Jake entered into a
long-term relationship that's been going strong for years and recently became a father
But no character's evolution has been as impressive as Finn's. At the outset, Finn was your typical rpg adventurer, fighting evil
because it was evil and always
charging ahead towards the next challenge. Adventure Time, however, has let Finn age in real-time, and in the process the show serves as a nuanced coming-of-age story for the boy. Over the years Finn has suffered heartbreak, started dating, learned to feel empathy for his enemies, and slowly matured into a thoughtful hero one ten-minute segment at a time. This growth is anchored by a spectacular voice performance by actor Jeremy Shada, who is aging along with his character and does an amazing job at getting the viewer inside Finn's head.
Of course, since Adventure Time is primarily a children's show the storytelling mostly leans towards the lighter side. But in recent seasons the writers have done a fantastic job at layering darker themes for older viewers within the subtext at the edges of the series. The wacky and magical land of Ooo is eventually revealed to be Earth millenia after a 'Great Mushroom War', making Finn not just the only human around, but possibly the last of his kind. The episode "I Remember You" becomes a metaphor for losing a parent to dementia, while still being an episode told half in jam session-style song. And then there's the world of Fiona and Cake. Gender-swapped versions of the cast, these characters originated in a one-of episode that was ultimately revealed to be a fan-fiction invention of the Ice King's. But the idea proved so popular that they've already been brought back again, and the second episode "Bad Little Boy" takes advantage of the nested-story concept to tell a story begging for metafictional analysis.
...and once I start talking about Adventure Time's meta-commentary on itself I should probably stop. I don't mean to oversell the series; it's not as though the next The Wire is secretly airing on Cartoon Network. But Adventure Time is a fantastically enjoyable comedy that also has a surprising level of depth and pathos. The stories it tells can be simple, but the show uses these simple tales as building blocks to create something truly unique. Adventure Time proves that a series doesn't need to be dark and gritty in order to be compelling and dramatic, and its that attitude that makes it one of the best shows on the air.
Currently in its fifth season, Adventure Time follows best friends Jake (the dog) and Finn (the human) as they adventure throughout the land of Ooo. Of course Jake is a mutant talking shapeshifter, Finn has an obsession with swords, and Ooo is a world populated by Candy Kingdoms, Vampire Queens, partying bears who live inside a monster's belly, and a surprisingly large number of fully-manned D&Desque dungeons.
Suffice to say, the show can be a bit odd.
Adventure Time's style of humor tends towards the absurdist. Bizarre catch-phrases and visual non-sequitors abound but the zany antics are grounded by how easily all the characters accept their world's strangeness as perfectly normal. Finn and Jake approach every problem with the same commitment and zeal, whether they're starting an uprising in hell through a political freestyle rap or just trying to help a fellow snail-bro get some ladies. Throughout everything, the varied landscape of Ooo does wonders to provide the show with an inherent flexibility: week to week one never knows just what type of episode they'll get.
 |
| Weird? Yes. But never boring. |
But no character's evolution has been as impressive as Finn's. At the outset, Finn was your typical rpg adventurer, fighting evil
because it was evil and always
charging ahead towards the next challenge. Adventure Time, however, has let Finn age in real-time, and in the process the show serves as a nuanced coming-of-age story for the boy. Over the years Finn has suffered heartbreak, started dating, learned to feel empathy for his enemies, and slowly matured into a thoughtful hero one ten-minute segment at a time. This growth is anchored by a spectacular voice performance by actor Jeremy Shada, who is aging along with his character and does an amazing job at getting the viewer inside Finn's head.Of course, since Adventure Time is primarily a children's show the storytelling mostly leans towards the lighter side. But in recent seasons the writers have done a fantastic job at layering darker themes for older viewers within the subtext at the edges of the series. The wacky and magical land of Ooo is eventually revealed to be Earth millenia after a 'Great Mushroom War', making Finn not just the only human around, but possibly the last of his kind. The episode "I Remember You" becomes a metaphor for losing a parent to dementia, while still being an episode told half in jam session-style song. And then there's the world of Fiona and Cake. Gender-swapped versions of the cast, these characters originated in a one-of episode that was ultimately revealed to be a fan-fiction invention of the Ice King's. But the idea proved so popular that they've already been brought back again, and the second episode "Bad Little Boy" takes advantage of the nested-story concept to tell a story begging for metafictional analysis.
...and once I start talking about Adventure Time's meta-commentary on itself I should probably stop. I don't mean to oversell the series; it's not as though the next The Wire is secretly airing on Cartoon Network. But Adventure Time is a fantastically enjoyable comedy that also has a surprising level of depth and pathos. The stories it tells can be simple, but the show uses these simple tales as building blocks to create something truly unique. Adventure Time proves that a series doesn't need to be dark and gritty in order to be compelling and dramatic, and its that attitude that makes it one of the best shows on the air.
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