Ultimate X-Men: Cable

I have made mention several times over the past few months that the Marvel Ultimate series has an expiration date that, according to my bookshelf, I seem to be approaching. But it hasn’t felt like that in the depths of the storylines, right? Which is one of the reasons that Cable caught me by so much surprise that it has caused me to rethink the Ultimate X-Men series as a whole. More on that in a sec, but what made me start thinking about the Ultimatum again is how much finality and apocalypticism Kirkman brought to the table this time. There’s this guy Cable, see, and he has come from the future to kill Charles Xavier and thereby prevent said future from ever occurring, probably because it sucks? This is information I have not yet been specifically given, so. All the same, the situation felt like the first pebble of an avalanche, in a way that nothing previously has.

Which I guess ties into what I meant about rethinking the UXM series. Obviously I’ve been fine with the development of Spider-Man. The Ultimates are busy with one nation-threatening event after another, and the Fantastic Four skip jauntily from one sci-fi menace to the next, but neither group has built up much in the way of continuity. (The Ultimates would I think have built more, if only more had been written about them.) The X-Men, though… some I’ve liked, many I haven’t liked very much, but I never really looked at the series as a cohesive unit before, and I have to admit, for all the individual episodes I haven’t cared much about, the whole of it stands together really well. Somewhere along the way, no question, I started caring about these characters. If I’m right about this being the first signpost of things to come, I’m glad it happened here. Spider-Man’s story is too personal for world-shaking events, and the others are too scattered.

Guards! Guards!

This is the point at which, if I understand conventional wisdom, the Discworld novels start to become “good”. Also, more incidentally, this is probably the first Discworld book I ever read, far back in the depths of junior high. (All I remembered is the “mllion to one shot” gag, so, it was basically like reading it all over again.) And most incidentally of all, I’m pretty sure it’s the farthest I had read into the series, so everything from here on will be entirely new, cultural zeitgeist notwithstanding. Anyway, that “good” thing, though: as much as I have enjoyed the last several books on their own merits, Guards! Guards! definitely has some barely definable adult quality that the previous books have not had, though some have grasped at it.

In addition to first introducing Ankh-Morpork’s city night watch and its world-weary, heroic-in-spite-of-himself Captain Samuel Vimes, a group character study that could have carried a book with no plot whatsoever, the novel also for the first time superficially grazes the inner political workings of the city at the dark, ulcerated heart of the Disc. It asks and perhaps answers the essential question of whether democracy or monarchy ought best be left to run amok through the lives of a citizenry that barely comprehends either and tends to cheer whichever of the two it has seen least recently. Also, and here is the only point at which it diverges from any standard reality to which you may be accustomed, there is a dragon.

Hack/Slash: Reanimation Games

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The thing about a cheesy 80s-slasher-movie-themed comic, albeit with modern sensibilities regarding every aspect of the actual content, is that there’s only so much praise you can sing. I can tell you about the skillful way that each volume weaves together seeds planted in previous issues into a new tapestry of angst, obsession and gore, all the while planting new seeds for future volumes. I can gesture emphatically at the art, which is always clear and articulate without wandering off into post-modern regions that elevate experimentation above functionality, and which also provides occasional cheesecake. But these descriptions are quite generic, however heartfelt the sentiment that underlies them, and when you peel them away, Hack/Slash is still a cheesy 80s-slasher-movie-themed comic. And for the general mass of graphic novel audience out there, you were already sold or turned off by that line of description, irrespective of the actual contents.

For the vanishingly small group of people who care, Reanimation Games is focused primarily on the culmination of Cassie Hack’s search for her father, who ironically has built his career around the study of the causes behind and uses of the very slashers that Cassie has hunted and destroyed ever since her mother first turned into one. Detours along the way include encounters with the scientist guy from the Re-Animator movie series and with the Suicide Girls[1], and the usual careful examination of the trials and triumphs of Cassie’s small circle of friends. I guess what surprises me with each new volume is not that I’m entertained; it’s nice, easy brain candy in exactly my flavor. No, what surprises me is that it’s good enough that I want people to see it as the small step above brain candy into genuine quality that it consistently achieves.

[1] If you don’t know, these are not a mysterious cult nor movie shout-out, but instead a generally tastefully gothy porn collective that you will not I think have very much trouble finding on the internet, if you were to put your mind to it. For some reason, Cassie has been considered sufficiently gothy-attractive for the comparison to be made, and for some reason, the creator decided that, hey, sounds like a good crossover to me! And here we are.

Ultimate Annuals Volume 2

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I know this is supposed to be a review of the second (and I suspect final) volume in the Ultimate Annuals series. But it’s not so much a series as it is a collection of the oversized annual edition of each of the four major Ultimate serieses, and unlike last time, I’ve read most of these recently. Like, the X-Men story is I think the most recent thing I’ve read in that run, in which Nightcrawler goes from an unfortunately prejudiced dude who needs to have a good lightbulb moment to a disturbingly broken kidnapper who is probably on the verge of defection to evilness, over the next storyline or two. Or the Fantastic Four story in which Mole Man returns with a new plot to kidnap geniuses and harness them for his own uses. Okay, that one was pretty good, but I’ve already reached the end of the Ultimate FF run (save for the Ultimatum stuff), and it didn’t actually have the payoff it seemed like it should have had later on, so I am retroactively a little disappointed in it. Plus, the only story that isn’t collected in another book I’ve already read, in which Captain America and that Falcon guy from Ultimate Galactus head into the post-war American landscape[1] to fight an old Nazi menace? It kind of bored me. I think I blame this on it being the first Ultimates story I’ve seen that wasn’t written by Mark Millar. He’s good at those!

So, okay, yeah. Pretty disappointing book all in all, though I have given unfairly short shrift to the FF story. Except, y’know, Spider-Man. His story, which you may recall me choosing not to review when I read Deadpool earlier this week, is another clash between Peter Parker, Daredevil, and the Punisher. Except, right, I never read the original such clash because it was somehow left out of the three Ultimate Marvel Team-Up books in which comics-run it occurred. Luckily, someone eventually released a giant collection of that entire run in one book, making my three individual volumes obsolete. So, I read the three comics in question out of that, just to feel caught up. In short, across pages of annoyingly impressionistic artwork, we’re introduced to the Punisher, cop-turned-vigilante who hunts and kills dirty cops and dirtier criminals and spends most of his time in jail for said vigilantism, and Daredevil, blind lawyer with super-heightened alternate senses that allow him a better grasp of the world than any civilian and most superhumans. And Pete puts the Punisher back in jail while annoying the snot out of Daredevil for his happy-go-lucky attitude and his penchant for jumping into the middle of things first and asking questions later. (Which is I guess why Nick Fury is annoyed by him too. Also Blade.[2])

So, anyway, in this follow up meeting (Also including the Moon Knight (who I still have no kind of handle on), the Kingpin (still a magnificently realized bastard), and Kangaroo (uh…)), Daredevil still finds Spider-Man annoying and the Punisher still finds him detrimental. But none of that is really the point. The point is this: there’s been a long-term piece of plot involving the new[3] police captain, Jeanne de Wolfe, that I haven’t ever mentioned partially because it’s been largely in the background and partially because, well, any amount of detail places us squarely in spoiler city. But the thing is, as much time as I spend talking about how great the USM series is, right? This is just on a day-to-day basis. In the meantime, there are these deep undercurrents spanning something like half of the series to date that I’ve never even felt the need to mention. And of course there’s an inevitable huge payoff, that leads me to have to jump back into two paragraphs of review material just to explain how even an oversized single comic in this series is still so very cool. This is why I can’t stop gushing, no matter how hard I try to hold myself back. Because it’s just always this good.[4]

[1] Yeah, for serious, I really really need to do a quick reread of the four Ultimates titles that have been released so far, ’cause I barely have any idea what’s up in that quadrant of the Ultimate universe anymore, and I’m starting to reach the point where everything really does tie together. Maybe I’ll do one mega-review? Maybe not, depends on how it strikes me I guess.
[2] Yeah. The half-vampire guy. Seriously.
[3] The old captain was Gwen Stacy’s father, up until he was shot and killed by a guy in a Spider-Man costume. Good times!
[4] And the last page or two, in which Daredevil has a conversation with the Moon Knight guy? I’ve learned my lesson and mention it now, as I expect it to be the next major undercurrent.

Ultimate Spider-Man: Deadpool

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I almost wish, if only for half a moment, that Bendis would write a bad, nay, even a merely mediocre run of Ultimate Spider-Man, just so I’d have something new to say. “It’s just so good! You’ll love it!” Whatever, man. I’m losing all credibility over here. But, okay, why do I love it this time? I have an answer to that. Now and again, one of the series will focus on a character with whom I’m unfamiliar, and the author will seem to be so proud of having worked that character into the Ultimate continuity that the book just coasts on recognition factor without really trying to be actually good in its own right. In fairness, that plan has worked on me when I did recognize whatever new character it was, but for the many times when I do not, the laziness outshines everything else.

Except this time, not so much. I’m not particularly familiar with Deadpool, and really all I know about him is that in the Wolverine movie earlier this year, he was maybe kind of indestructible? That character is largely dissimilar to this one, in any event. But, and here’s the part where I fulfill the inevitable gushiness quotient, Bendis went ahead and wrote a fine plot around the advent of Ultimate Deadpool. See, Spider-Man gets mixed up in a plot to murder the X-Men on broadcast television[1], and this guy Deadpool is the main hunter. But despite all kinds of mutant powers and explosions of exactly the types that a superhero comic needs to have to maintain credibility[2], most of the focus is on Peter and the delightfully unconfident Kitty Pryde, his recent paramour. Because, as has consistently been the case throughout the USM run, Peter Parker’s life is the important thing; super-villains and web fluid alike take the back seat. This is why it works. But also, Aunt May has a hot date, so I guess maybe it isn’t always about Pete after all. Then, for a change of pace, vampires! And more friendship trouble with Mary Jane! And the Kingpin! But I’ll glance at that last bit in my next review.

[1] Which is actually a callback to a previous UXM storyline, but I forget which one. It was alright, in any event.
[2] Unlike me, you see, is the thread tying this review together.

The Hero of Ages

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Sometimes I know exactly what to say about these things. Other times, and they feel increasingly common (though perhaps that’s my imagination instead? I hope so), I’m a little bit stuck. Is it that the middle of the night makes me too tired for inspiration? Is it that inspiration itself is rarer on some days than others? Is it simply that the book is too easily spoiled if I give very much depth to a plot review, and so I’m going to have to actually stare at the themes for a little while instead, and should maybe ought to quit whining about it and move along? Well, okay, that’s pretty clearly it, but in my defense it is the middle of the night too.

The Hero of Ages concludes Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy in grand apocalyptic style. Another year has passed since the events at the Well of Ascension, and circumstances are more dire than ever. In truth, I read a lot of books that describe the end of a world, usually but not exclusively Earth. Sometimes, there are comets. I’m just saying, I know from apocalypse, and out of all such books I’ve read, this is the one that best demonstrated the hopelessness and wanton destruction of a world going through its last throes. I had to slow down now and again just to keep from letting myself get washed away by the currents of despair. But what’s cool is, the book is kind of about that: the capacity for trust in the face of destruction, faith in the face of despair. Also, it’s still about cool powers of jumping around and stabbing every enemy in sight, and sometimes seeing the future, so it’s not like that part of the series has taken a backseat as it progressed; if anything, the magic system has only grown in complexity.

Although the circumstances were not optimal, I’m glad I got a chance to see this author thrust into the limelight, and I’m looking forward to whatever he writes next. (Okay, technically, it’s already written. But I will totally read it, honest! Just not sure how soon.)

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

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I visited my parents over the weekend, since my schedule is about to be in flux and it seemed like a good time before the flux takes hold, plus the holidays and all. So I spent just about the whole of Thanksgiving break with them, except that I worked on Friday. That’s nice! While there, I inadvertently treated them to a full-length, multi-hour cinematic extravaganza in the form of a Playstation 3 game. After the success of my recommending Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune when he bought the system and wanted something to play on it (not that he actually plays much of anything, but, you know)[1], he picked up the sequel a few weeks ago. And what began as a way to pass a few hours Saturday night quickly turned into a full weekend obsession during which I played the last third of the game for four hours past when I had planned originally to leave, because I was just sure that the climax was right around the corner, and I didn’t want to make them wait weeks for the conclusion and have time to forget what was going on.[2]

If you’re picking up on an undercurrent of admiration for the game’s writing and seamless graphics in that description of my weekend, well, you’re not imagining it. As to the latter, the only real difference between playing the game and watching its gorgeous cutscenes is that the game-play has fewer close-ups. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves picks up explorer Nathan Drake some brief years after the events of the previous game, convinced by shady friends to join in a search for Marco Polo’s lost expedition, a journey that will take him from the jungles of Borneo to the dizzying heights of Tibet and Nepal, not to mention deep into the legends surrounding Kublai Khan. Along the way he’ll crack wise, make lots of new enemies, and see lots of new ancient ruins! It’s good stuff. But on top of that, the writing is not merely good in and of itself, as it was last time; it actually takes note of the past and uses it. If I had been on the fence about the loss of meaningful breast-motion physics from the Lara Croft games to the Uncharted series, I no longer would be in any measure. I care about these people, and want to know what’s going to happen next. That I also get to play a video game along the way? It justifies the expense, but other than that, it’s purely bonus.

[1] V nz chggvat guvf va ebg13 fb ur pna’g frr vg, ohg V cerqvpg V trg n pbzzrag sebz uvz gung ur qbrf fb lhu-uhu cynl Unyb fbzrgvzrf. (Nyfb, vs V’z evtug nobhg gung pbzzrag bppheevat, vg vf yvxryl gb nfx jung guvf tvoorevfu vf nf jryy.)
[2] To be fair, this applies to me as well.

Ninja Assassin

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Here are the things I learned while watching Ninja Assassin[1]:

1) Human bodies are basically overpressurized bags of blood that will explode at the slightest provocation.
2) Europe has a severe ninja infestation.
3) Ninjas are like cockroaches: for every one you see, there are at least a dozen you don’t.
4) Ninjas are like cockroaches: they really hate it when you shine lights on them.
5) Ninjas will kill anyone, as long as you pay them with one hundred pounds of gold.
6) Ninja stars[3] are every bit as cool as you thought they were when you were eight.

[1] There really was way too much plot getting in the way of my chopsocky, at least for the first third of the movie. But, okay, a ninja with a troubled past[2] and a precocious (let’s say) Interpol analyst team up against ninja hit squads and the police, on a quest for bloody revenge.
[2] I mean, more troubled than that; like, take ninja as the troubled baseline, and then adjust from there.
[3] No, not shuriken. These were definitely ninja stars.

Ultimate Annuals Volume 1

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The reasonably self-explanatory first volume of Ultimate Annuals collects the annuals from each of the main comics in the Marvel Ultimate line-up. An annual, if you’re not familiar, is a extra-large comic published outside the monthly run, sometimes used as the climax of or opening to a major storyline but just as often not very relevant to the immediate continuity. Though, Marvel being who they are, continuity is generally king. The downside to these books is two-fold, in that 1) most of said annuals have already been produced in their respective series, and 2) one of them has not, so I needed the book anyway. Far easier than finding and sorting an actual comic in the middle of my graphic novel shelf, and probably not that much more expensive, used. So, that happened.

However, reading so much material I’ve seen before, and some of it recently, did free me up to pay attention to other concerns, such as the artwork and each story’s place in the arc. So, there’s a Fantastic Four story in which the Inhumans are shoehorned so that they can be seen, and I guess that is my problem with a lot of what I read of the Ultimate Fantastic Four run in the first place. The lack of consistent writer over any period of time made it so that a lot of what I read failed to engage me on a new coolness level, instead of the baseline “I recognize that!” level. Plus, in this case, the art was just distractingly bad. (Not to my taste, if you prefer.) And then there’s an X-Men story that checked in on Rogue, Gambit, and Juggernaut, and it was a pretty good one that did shift things around some and matter later, but felt maybe a little rushed. And then there’s a Spider-Man story that I read in literally the most recent Spider-Man book, and while the story itself was sweet and funny and seems like it will matter for at least the next while, the art was distracting there too, not for being bad, but for being even marginally different after so much consistency throughout the USM run.

And finally, the Ultimates story that I had not read before. By now I was already paying attention to the art, but I think I would have anyway, because it was so distractingly familiar. Finally placed it, same guy that did the art for the Preacher series. His style definitely fits the Ultimates, so that was alright. The story was Nick Fury unravelling a few layers of his ongoing plans, which mostly involve improvements to superhuman defenses and the political fallout from that, but also touch on his ongoing suspicions about Henry Pym’s loyalties and his worldwide search for evidence as to the life or death of Bruce Banner. ‘Cause, for serious, the Ultimates books have always been less “super” and more “spy/political”, and I once more avow my almost certainty of re-reading that entire sequence before I get to the build-up to Ultimatum, probably sometime next year?

Takeaway lessons: 1) Rereading comics can be pretty okay. 2) I allow myself to re-use words with distracting frequency, if I decide they have become thematic rather than merely indicative of vocabularic deficiencies. 3) That Ultimates series just keeps on delivering, but is somewhat more dense compared to the other series, and thus needs more contemplation. 4) Amount, quality, or newness of material have no particular bearing on how long I’ll keep nattering about them, and it’s mostly down to my writing mood when I sit down.

Fables: Homelands

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As the Fables world grows to include more and more key characters, some are falling into the background to make way for the rise of previously bit characters. And certainly the tone is changing away from the noir feeling of the early volumes as the stories start to grapple not just with events involving the fable characters, but with their overarching histories and futures. Or maybe it’s just that recent political upheaval is what has pushed Bigby Wolf and Snow White off the main stage, and the tone change is down to their absence as well. I figure it might be both, but I’ll have no way to really know until the Wolf is back and the noir returns, or doesn’t.

Homelands focuses on two characters over another handful of quickly passing years. In the opening, Jack Horner, and the Beanstalk, etc.[1] hatches another scheme for riches and fame, with better than usual success. It may be my independent knowledge, but it very much felt like Willingham saw that Jack was his for-fun character and didn’t really fit the flow of the main Fables story, and this was an explicit way to put him in position for the spin-off series, Jack of Fables, which I will begin reading relatively soon in the sequence, I think. And then in the main part of the storyline, Boy Blue infiltrates the fallen Homelands on a daring quest to rescue his love, save his best friend’s life, and with a little bit of luck, unmask and assassinate the Adversary himself! If that sounds pretty cool and exciting, well, sure enough, Fables keeps on delivering. And if you expect it to keep on delivering in ways the characters (and sometimes readers) cannot hope to foresee, well, that just means you’ve been paying attention.

[1] They’re all the same Jack, you see.