Comics – Page 5 – Blue Ink Alchemy

Category: Comics (page 5 of 8)

Movie Review: The Avengers

It all comes down to this. Four years and five movies ago, if you’d told me that Marvel Studios would craft a connected universe between film franchises building to a coherent capstone piece, I would have laughed at the notion. But here we are. The Avengers has arrived, and with it a lot of questions are answered. Is Marvel crazy enough to pull this off? Were they right to trust Joss Whedon and his litany of failed TV shoes? Can the disparate worlds of Iron Man’s slick super-science, Thor’s magical Norse-trapping high adventure, and Captain America’s slightly campy but ultimately endearing throwback action merge without a seam or hitch? And will an untested actor filling the oversized purple pants of the Hulk topple the whole thing?

In case you’re wondering: yes, yes, yes, and hell no.

The story for this epic is relatively straightforward. The shady international organization SHIELD is in possession of a magical MacGuffin called the Tesseract, last seen used by super-science villains Hydra during World War 2. Loki, Asgardian demi-god of mischief, appears in the SHIELD lab and steals it so he can summon an intergalactic army and conquer the Earth. To stop him, SHIELD head honcho Nick Fury puts together a team of super-powered individuals consisting of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Hulk. They alone have the power to save the planet… provided they don’t beat the crap out of one another first.

In comics, this sort of thing happens all the time. But in film? It’s a lot more difficult to pull off. Marvel undertook the biggest gamble since the Lord of the Rings or perhaps Harry Potter, taking works that were previously considered somewhat niche and pushing them into the mainstream culture with a complete lack of shame or irony. As more films were released, less of the pretense of ‘our world’ was wrapped around them. Iron Man you could almost buy as a plausible story, Thor not so much. And with The Avengers, not only do these disparate stories meet, but they’re also expected to play off of and work well with one another? This shouldn’t work.

Tony: “Ladies, ladies. You’re both pretty.”

And yet, it does. Not only does it work, it works extremely well. Writer-director Joss Whedon is one of the best alive when it comes to quirky settings and balanced character dynamics. His writing, while often panned for being too self-referential or pop-culture laden, fleshes out these characters for newcomers to the audience while playing off of previously established beats, as well as setting up alliances and conflicts for this film’s running time. No character, be they hero or villain, is made to look dumb or shorted on time to shine. Except for the alien invaders, that is, but as CGI threats for our heroes to beat up, they do pretty well.

Speaking of heroes, this movie absolutely would not work if the ensemble had no chemistry. Put any fears of that to bed. Not only is everybody in this production at the top of their game, it’s clear that these folks are quite comfortable with one another, playing up the merits of their characters as well as their flaws with adeptness that allows their co-stars to play off of them with ease. The dialog and actions feel natural, tension is high, and humor is explosive. While Robert Downey Jr. is the old hand at this, and occasionally the scenes feel like “Tony Stark and some other losers, the movie”, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Hemsworth continue to show what inspired choices they are for Cap, Black Widow, and Thor, respectively. I also don’t think Thor’s lines could be said by another character, which is another criticism often leveled against Whedon. Last but never least, Tom Hiddleston is allowed to stretch his wings as Loki even more here than he was in Thor. Free of a great deal of his familial angst, he comes across as a great mix of mischief-maker, deceiver and Flash Gordon villain, with a smirking confidence and swagger that are, in and of themselves, tough to beat.

List of offenses: Mass murder, mass destruction, mind control, killer fashion sense, having too much swag.

The Avengers does feature some new faces which could have diluted the project but instead underscore the strengths of the work. Jeremy Renner, previously established as Hawkeye in a one-scene cameo during Thor, feels very much like both a sniper and a former renegade. Cobie Smulders, previously seen on How I Met Your Mother, comes to us as SHIELD agent Maria Hill, working very well with SHIELD vets Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg (Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, respectively) not only in humans observing the super-humans but also as forces of their own. And then we have Mark Ruffalo. Bruce Banner in the past has been tortured, haunted, hunted, and conflicted, but Ruffalo manages to be all of those things and brilliant, quick-witted, funny, and confident. I certainly hope we’ll be seeing more of him in this role.

There are a few hiccups in the plot regarding the nature of the Hulk, and the discussions between Loki and the aliens can seem a bit obtuse at times, but any quibbles I can think of against the film are minor. The construction is tight, and while the film clocks in at around two and a half hours, it never drags and no scene feels unnecessary. It’s a modern epic, a testament to the power of geek culture, and while on paper it seems like it should never work, The Avengers not only delivers on the promise of the previous Marvel Studios films, it leaves the audience hungry for more.

Stuff I Liked: The SHIELD helicarrier. The governing council of SHIELD which was a nice callback to some of those comics. The scene in Germany before the heroes arrive. The callbacks to the previous films, woven elegantly into this new plot.
Stuff I Didn’t Like: There’s a moment in the film that I definitely didn’t like, but I acknowledge its presence for various reasons. I will not speak more of it, as this is a spoiler-free review.
Stuff I Love: The duo of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. The little touches that remind us just how much Steve Rogers is a man out of time. Thor and Loki maintaining their Asgardian airs at all times. The very well balanced final battle, from the ‘assembly’ of the Avengers to its climax.

Bottom Line: The Avengers is one of the best super-hero films ever made, with a great cast, top-notch production values, a very smart screenplay, and excellent direction. This is well worth your time and money to go see in cinemas.

Back to the Funny Pages

April 19, 2012 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

As much as possible, I support my local comics & gaming store. The perfect combination, as far as I’m concerned, is a little shop in Doylestown called Cyborg One. Now, it’s not necessarily as local to me as, say, Comics & More in the King of Prussia mall, or the Alternate Universes gaming store in Blue Bell, but Cyborg has a neat and diverse selection, runs great events, and is staffed by very cool people. When I go there for Magic-playing, be it some casual Commander or full-on FNM, I sometimes come home with a graphic novel or two.

The Sandman

Reading one of the seminal works of vagabond genius Neil Gaiman has been a long time in coming. He’s never been afraid to mess with our perceptions of beings and concepts far bigger than the individual (American Gods, Good Omens, etc) and The Sandman, written for DC Comics in the 80s, matches his always proficient and often amusing or touching words with fascinating and often reality-warping art. The stories center around Dream of the Endless, also called Morpheus among other names, who rules the realm all mortals visit when they sleep.

Each graphic novel is a self-contained story arc, but as they progress we are introduced to more denizens of Dream’s kingdom as well as his fellow Endless – his dolorous elder brother Destiny, the capricious Desire and its negative twin Despair, Delirium, and his elder sister, Death. He also is seen dealing with the mortals who give life to his realm, and other creatures that dwell in otherworldly spaces, from fallen angels to old gods. I don’t want to give anything away, as Gaiman is perhaps at his best when you don’t know what to expect, but suffice it to say his stories will charm you, disturb you, delight you, and move you. Each of the graphic novels in The Sandman series are well worth your money.

Transmetropolitan

In the future, man will transcend his human form to become a new form of life. Well, at least some will. Others will be happy to make it to work without getting shot by a horrible bio-toxin bullet or pop down to the corner food stand for a bucket of baby seal eyes. It’s life in The City, a seething metropolis of festering urban decay, wealth disparity, political corruption, and religious proliferation. And gazing upon the City with an acerbic, unblinking, profane, and poignant eye is outlaw journalist Spider Jerusalem. At least, he was, until he ran off to live up a goddamn mountain. He’s summoned back to complete a book deal he’d tried to forget about, and in the process gets wrapped up in the upcoming presidential election.

Transmetropolitan opens with Spider getting called back to the City he hates, which is also the only place he can actually write. A big reason for this particular series being successful is Spider himself, who is basically Hunter S. Thompson in the not-too-distant future and carrying a truckload of guns instead of drugs. While set in the future, more often than not Spider’s invective is not only focused on the people around him, but the people around us, and often including us. Rants on police brutality, religion, mass media, and others bleed from the pages and call us to the mat to look at our hypocrisy and ignorance head-on. And we also get stoned AIs, bowel disruptors, smoking cats, and perhaps the coolest pair of shades you’ll ever see. It’s weird, hilarious, disturbing, and wonderful reading.

Atomic Robo

In 1928, Nikola Tesla created the world’s first automatic intelligence, placing it within a humanoid robotic body. Highly resilient to damage of all kinds, this artificial person was raised just as much on pulp stories as he was on science, and proceeded to become an invaluable asset to investigations into the realms of weird phenomena and super-science. He’s smart and tough, compassionate and funny, a stand-up guy who can face down genius dinosaurs and brain-in-a-jar automatons without blinking his glowing eyes. He is Atomic Robo.

To paraphrase Wizard Magazine, Atomic Robo is what you’d get if you were put equal parts Indiana Jones, Iron Man, and Rocketeer into a machine driven by Tesla coils and possibly a forsaken child. The writing by Brian Clevinger of 8-bit Theatre fame is snappy and on-point, succinct and punchy without skimping on details or characterization. Most of the art is by Scott Wegener and jumps right off the page. It’s a delightfully pulpy take on action and super-science, with decent characterization and legitimate laughs.

That’s what I’ve been reading. As to what I’ve been writing… tune in tomorrow.

In Nolan We Trust

December 21, 2011 / BlueInkAlchemist / 1 Comment

I’m very heartened by a few of the things I’ve been seeing in the form of trailers. The Hunger Games looks like it’s being faithful to its excellent source material, Men In Black 3 is promising a return to some of the original deadpan and quirky humor that made the first film so much fun (we’ll see if it delivers), and of course The Hobbit. Singing Dwarves. ‘Nuff said, Peter Jackson, shut up and take my money.

In the midst of all this, The Dark Knight Rises. As much as the trailer featured a smoldering Anne Hathaway, eerie chanting, a glimpse of Gotham during peacetime and the goddamn Batwing, most geeks just want to talk about Bane. Specifically, his voice.

Word round the nerdy campfire is that he was particularly muffled during the seven minute prologue sequence some audiences saw in IMAX theatres before Mission Impossible 4. And while his line to Batman in the trailer is clear – if you’re paying attention – people want director Christopher Nolan to fix Bane’s voice in post. The Hollywood Reporter, however, tells us Nolan will do no such thing.

This is hardly surprising to me. Chris Nolan gave us Memento and Inception. I won’t go into too much detail about Nolan’s earlier work as I’m saving that for the last ICFN of 2011, and my original review of Inception is still available. And remember that cage match I had between Inception and Ocean’s Eleven? Good times. But I’m wandering off-topic. My point is, even in work like The Prestige, Nolan as a writer & director does not make decisions lightly. Let’s consider, for a moment, why he’d choose Bane and go so far as to make these apparent design choices.

Remember how in The Dark Knight, the Joker rarely attempts to deal with Batman in a direct physical confrontation? He uses assault rifles and rocket launchers, goons and attack dogs, head games and innocent people. He never really seems interested in outright killing Batman, opting instead to try and dismantle the man’s faith and motivations. Physicality was about the last thing on anybody’s mind other than the notion that Batman would paste the Joker about seven different ways if it weren’t for his one rule.

Bane, on the other hand, is an extremely physical character. Rather than being divorced from his mind and his will, his body is an extension of it. He’s entirely single-minded and very driven, much like Batman. The substances pumped into him, via head-tubes in the comics and his mask in this upcoming film, allow his body to match the speed and power of his mind. Batman will always be limited by what his body can do and how much punishment it can take. Bane exceeds those limits, and he can and will push Batman past them.

Enter Christopher Nolan. What do you do after you pit Batman against an entirely cerebral opponent? You up the stakes, of course, by making his next foe not only cunning and ruthless but also a powerhouse. You don’t want to tip your hand too soon, though. You have to maintain the mystery. You can’t let the ending of your saga be a foregone conclusion. Maybe Bane will kill Batman. Maybe he’s not the same Bane from the comics for a very specific reason, one that ties into your first Batman film and one of the aspects of a fascinating character born out of the animated series. How do you keep people from taking too many guesses?

Remember, theatricality and deception can be powerful tools.

In addition to encouraging audience members to keep up with you rather than simply pandering to them, conveying Bane’s voice in a realistically muffled way adds a layer of obfuscation to Nolan’s work. It not only makes the character more mysterious and menacing, it gives the public at large and the cynical critics of the Internet in particular something to consider, gripe about and worry over. It distracts them from bigger questions. It waters their enthusiasm. It keeps them off-balance.

I’m not saying Nolan specifically made this choice on purpose to mess with people on the Internet, but at this point, I can’t put it past him. He’s enjoyed so much success so far and done it in such a cerebral way that people can’t help themselves. They’ll go to great lengths to seek out, analyze and ultimately downplay even the tiniest aspects of his work. Nobody can be this brilliant, you see. Nobody can outsmart the Internet. Nobody’s allowed to be this successful without creating a bomb. Remember that bit in the original Spider-Man where Osborn tells Peter that people love seeing a hero fall almost as much as they like seeing them succeed? Nolan’s a hero to many. To set him up for a fall this way can be cathartic. It would mean that everybody is fallible, and if he falls, other film-makers can rise to take his place, even from the relative obscurity of the Internet.

I say let Bane be a bit muffled, a little hard to understand. Make the audience work to fully understand every aspect of the work in front of them. It made Memento and Inception such brilliant works, after all, why not apply the same mentality to a comic book movie? Likewise, if you know the Internet’s going to be going through your work, even a two-minute trailer, with a fine-toothed comb looking for nits to pick, why not give them a cause for concern? Let them blow up over something relatively insignificant rather than ruminate on plot and motivational points. Because, let’s face it, even if Bane ends up losing a word or two to idiots in the cinemas who are too busy stuffing their faces with overpriced popcorn to pay attention, when they inevitably buy the Blu-ray combo pack they’ll just turn the subtitles on. Problem solved.

Looking back over what I just wrote, I might be coming off as a Nolan fanboy and my argument may be dismissed on those grounds. So be it. Such dismissals don’t address what I’m trying to say, which is that Bane is going to be an effective villain, an excellent counterpoint to the Joker, and I for one am really looking forward to discerning every word that comes out of that mask. Incidentally, you notice how the tubes are arranged in such a way to resemble skeletal hands prying his mouth open? I dig that.

Let me hear your thoughts on this. I’m curious. Do you still think Nolan is worthy of our trust? Is he pulling a fast one on the Internet so he can blow them out of the water in 2012?

Regarding Ms. Lane

December 7, 2011 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

Laundry nights at the Sheppard’s¹ have become a good place to get caught up on movies, especially in the superhero genre. Being brought up as a nerd, I do have at least a passing familiarity with many a costumed crimefighter, and recently our friends reintroduced us to the cinematic renditions of one of the most famous. I don’t want to actually talk about the Man of Steel himself, though, as he can be a tad ridiculous at times.

I still can’t get over the absurdity of his three Kryptonian mates having vocal conversations on the surface of the moon. Even if they don’t have to breathe, how will their words reach each other’s ears if there is no air to carry the sound waves? Ahh, but I digress.

We only watched the first two Christopher Reeve & Richard Donner films, as the second two are abominations of cinema. I did, however, enjoy seeing the Donner cut of Superman II, especially the scene where Lois Lane gets Clark Kent to reveal his secret identity by pulling a gun on him. It can be easy to forget, especially on the parts of the writers of said funny books & big-budget movies, that when she isn’t getting rescued by Superman or pining after the cut physique poured into those tights, Lois Lane is an intrepid reporter.

You don’t see it as much as you might think, as apparently Superman battling giant robots, space monsters and a bald maniacal businessman is more interesting. But a great example of bringing this aspect of the story and this character to the forefront is Superman Returns.

While the film is a bit more somber and character-driven than its early 80s predecessors², and most of its plot is lifted directly from the first movie, one thing that stood out at me is how we see Lois Lane. We see her as not just the token damsel in distress. We see Lois do some actual reporting. We watch her fight for what she feels is right, be it with her boss or the man who left her behind without a word. We get to know her as a mother. And while she does get into peril from which Superman must save her, she puts herself in peril to save him.

I know there are going to be people who disagree with me, but I think this Lois Lane, the one brought to us by Kate Bosworth, may be the best one put on screen. I’m not sure exactly how much Lois is supposed to be a sex symbol in comparison to, say, Catwoman, but the decision to keep Kate’s looks and fashion somewhat understated was a good one. Her moments of strength, vulnerability, doubt and resolve come across as more uncontrived and genuine because we’re not distracted by her looks.

This speaks to a strong script as well as good acting and mature costume & makeup decisions. Now, a lot of the good lines from Superman Returns were recycled from the first film along with most of the plot, but the emotional talks between Lois and her preternatural paramour felt new and real. Superman is a good person who’s made bad decisions. When confronted with the fallout from those decisions, he owns up to his mistake and seeks ways to make things right. Lois does not immediately forgive him and fall into his arms. She’s conflicted, a thousand emotions competing for her focus and running all over her face. I know there’s a lot of Superman Returns that rips off Donner’s work, but there’s a scene or two where we catch a glimpse of some really interesting things that could have (and perhaps should have) happened with these characters.

In a world where DC’s rebooted most of its female characters to be vehicles for cleavage and consequence-free sex, I’ll take Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane over a thousand Catwomen³.

¹ Not to be confused with the Shepard’s place. How cool would it be to do my laundry on the Normandy?
² Actually, the original Superman is as old as I am. How about that!
³ Of course I make an exception for Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman. She’s pretty much perfect.

> Discuss Homestuck.

November 10, 2011 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

The young man you see before you is one of the main characters in the longest-running comic on the site MS Paint Adventures. I must, however, use the term ‘comic’ somewhat loosely. While the story unfolds in a visual medium mixed with text, it’s driven by an interface reminiscent of old text adventure games, adds elements of music and Flash animation, and quickly evolves beyond somewhat humble beginnings into a story I can only describe properly as ‘epic’.

I know, ‘epic’ is a term that gets bandied about quite a bit. Especially among gamers, it’s used as loosely as ‘awesome’. However, Homestuck is a definite example of a proper use of the word. Our young protagonist is thrust into an adventure that changes absolutely everything. For him, it brings acute focus to his life and that of his friends in the midst of truly harrowing peril. For us, it shows us how the mixed media of the Internet can be used to take storytelling to a new level.

The creator of Homestuck, Andrew Hussie, demonstrates both comedic and dramatic timing in his work. Laughs and groans from his humor often come quickly before or after surprise revelations. The universe he creates is steeped in metaphor and meaning, with subtle references woven into his words and images. Some webcomics are content with blatantly up-front humor and lackluster plotting that demonstrates slipshod world-building, but not Homestuck.

Okay, Hussie gives us the occasional pie-in-the-face moment, but who doesn’t like that now and again?

On a few occasions, the story becomes a little self-indulgent. There’s author insertion at a point or two but mostly this is for the sake of humor. Homestuck has a lot of backstory, and as the main plot progresses Hussie feels obligated to clue us into the background of certain characters and their origins. While this does add a great deal of depth and meaning to the goings-on, these digressions can be a bit tedious for some. I find such expansion of a world and its characters fascinating, but that’s me coming from the perspective of a storyteller.

Regardless, this long-running narrative is definitely worth your time, and you should check it out. You won’t regret the time you’ve invested in it, and you may find yourself going back to moments you want to experience again. If that isn’t good storytelling, I don’t know what is.

Category: Comics (page 5 of 8)

Movie Review: The Avengers

Back to the Funny Pages

The Sandman

Transmetropolitan

Atomic Robo

In Nolan We Trust

Regarding Ms. Lane

> Discuss Homestuck.

Buy This Book!

Search the Blog

Recent Posts

Getcher Updates!

Works

Legal Stuff

Categories

Archives