Ex Machina: March to War

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I’m headed toward the impression that maybe Ex Machina doesn’t know where it’s going after all, which would bother me less, I think, if I didn’t have the excellent Y: The Last Man series by the same author to compare with. As it is, March to War still delivers on sometimes thought-provoking and always entertaining post-9/11 political content, so I can’t complain very much; and it will only help matters if I lower my future expectations.

In this fourth volume, if you wonder, former superhero and current New York City Mayor Mitchell Hundred must deal with political protests of the war in Iraq and a new terrorist attack on his city, and an annoying radio personality as a framing device for a flashback to the time that he had an archenemy with a surprising and complementary power. So that’s pretty good stuff? Yeah, it is.

Traitor

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So, it’s been too long since I saw this movie, plus also I’m tired of being behind on reviews and also also I am semi-limited in time to type right now? So quick and dirty is what you get. Which is kind of the opposite of the movie itself, in that the plot was gradual and thoughtful in the majority of possible ways. I’d been kind of expecting an actiony movie from the previews, but it was still quite good even despite the breaking of expectations.

The always excellent Don Cheadle portrays an arms dealer and devout Muslim caught up in a raid on an alleged terrorist camp, who is then left with few choices but to join his fortunes to a different, more committed terrorist group as they plan to carry out a reasonably devastating attack on U.S. soil. Only, of course, there is more going on than that. Like I said above, though, the upside to the movie is how thoughtful it is. There are bad guys, but probably a lot fewer than you might think from the plot description. And the primary theme, unsurprisingly, is betrayal. Which makes it a fairly bleak movie, yes, but quite good for all of that. I doubt it’s in the theaters anymore? But you might want to catch it on DVD at least. Like I said: Don Cheadle? Always excellent.

Ultimate Iron Man

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To my surprise, the copy of Ultimate Iron Man I found used a few months ago is unlisted at Amazon. I had intended to say that it’s practically unfindable, which probably says more about my perception of Amazon’s ubiquity than of objective reality. Nevertheless, I did find it and read it, and in a continuation of recent comic trends, it’s written by someone who’s far more famous for doing something else, in this case for writing Ender’s Game. So that’s good, right?

I mean, it’s not like it’s bad. I’m not convinced it really matches what’s going on in the rest of the Ultimate universe, which may or may not matter. Instead of a re-envisioned telling of the Iron Man story (as portrayed well but with a lot of room for expansion in the Ultimates books about which I’ve raved so extensively), we’re given a straight origin story, one that has nothing in common with the 1960s version. I shouldn’t ought to complain about that, but the others have drawn so heavily from the well that this stands out. What is worse, though, is that it’s really not all that heroic, neither literally nor in scope. It’s mostly corporate espionage coupled with biological industrial accidents, disguised as a coming-of-age story in which not much age is, er, come of.

Maybe it was kind of bad after all? It just really didn’t go anywhere, the suit felt like a tacked-on afterthought, and then it failed to have an ending. I guess I’d read the sequel if it fell into my lap, but only because I know it won’t be very long, as is the wont of these kinds of books; and because maybe the next bit would have an ending. Still and all, I kind of hope it doesn’t fall into my lap. I could use the time rereading Ender’s Game, for example.

Ultimate Spider-Man: Public Scrutiny

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Spider-Man, right? Short review: still awesome.

Slightly longer review: in Public Scrutiny, Peter has to deal with identity theft, romantic troubles, and bullets. I’m having more and more trouble being able to describe why that works so well, when it looks so dumb on the page. There’s just something about this normal, everyday kid who wants to save the world now that he can, except he can never seem to catch a break. I guess that at the same time as you’re rooting for him, you can’t help but feel better about yourself?

I should say that, despite the short review above, this is the weakest volume so far. It’s still better than most of the Ultimate X-Men I’ve read, though, except for a plot hole large enough to drive an armored car through, regarding the web fluid. I guess it would be a spoiler to elaborate? But trust me, it was ridiculous.

Pilgrimage to Hell

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Over the past year or more, I have become more and more intrigued by a pair of series by a mythical author, James Axler, that I keep seeing on the shelves at Half-Price Books. The problem is, they run back several years, and of course the first one is never available. Right? Right? Wrong, as it happens! Not only did I find the first one, I found the first one of the older series. Unlikely, and yet I am standing here before you today to swear it is all true. The odds of finding the other first book, or this second book… but still, one takes what one can get.

Pilgrimage to Hell was written in 1986, and except for failing to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, it handled the next dozen years fairly well. And then, of course, nuclear apocalypse provides the stage for our story, a century later. The face of North America is drastically changed via biological and chemical weaponry in the South, dramatically altered weather patterns in the Southwest, nuclear bombs along faultlines having effectively removed the West Coast, and so on. Pretty much every aspect of life is ruled by what guns you’ve been able to maintain, find, or buy. Which is why the Trader and his army are so well-regarded and so feared; he has made a career out of finding hidden caches of weapons, munitions, vehicles, and gasoline that predate the Nuke, and then taking them around and selling them to help people protect themselves from the environment, the mutants (both human and otherwise) and each other.

Of course, despite the sci-fi underpinnings and overtones, at heart it’s one of those men’s adventure type things that spends entirely too much time describing the make and model of a gun being used, the quality and quantity of brains being expelled from an exploded skull, the heft, curvature, and coloring of a pair of breasts. But surprisingly, there’s a pretty well-told tale underneath all that, with Jungian archetypes all over the place. I’m serious: this guy Ryan finds a girl who knows how to get to a utopian promised land beyond the Deathlands, has the Trader as a father figure who (spoiler alert) is not long for this world, and goes through a giant metal door in order to take his first real step along the path to this utopia, but only after defeating a guardian beast who is (and I’m still serious) named Cerberus. So, okay, it’s a hamhanded usage of Campbell’s resonance road-map, but that still leaves a lot of room for being fun and interesting in the parts of the map that aren’t as detailed.

I don’t know if I exactly recommend it, because you probably already know exactly what intersection of enough apocalypse porn and sufficient lack of gun porn is right for you[1]. But for my part, it was a pleasant surprise that leaves me forced to keep on searching for the later volumes.

[1] Please note: as far as the porn porn, except for the lead chick being described in lusting detail, the women are each and all as capable as the men at every turn, so it probably isn’t nearly as bad along the feminist axis as you were expecting, and pretty much unique among books in this category that I’ve read for being so evenly written.

The X Files: I Want to Believe

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To be perfectly clear, the new X-Files movie didn’t have very much to offer a newcomer to the series. It avoided the pitfall of delving into the series’ long-winded mythology that, on TV, ultimately failed to deliver on any significant portion of its promise, instead opting for the much stronger “Monster of the Week” oeuvre that popularized the show in the first place. This episode (or movie, if you will) pits Mulder and Scully against a possibly psychic priest and gay Russian organ traffickers in the wilds of West Virginia. And in all honesty, it’s a pretty good episode, at that.

Where it fails for the new viewer, and therefore as a movie in general, is that it cannot escape nine years of collected backstory between the principle characters. And with as many old viewers as were dissatisfied by the conclusion of the series, it had to be open to some new viewers to have even a chance of success as a movie. Which is not to say that I think it was in any way a failure as an episode. As easy as it might be to make a joke[1] that the title is a quote from Chris Carter, “I Want to Believe that I can make some quick money off this and remind people that I am alive,” the truth is that, buried underneath all of the accumulated continuity, there is a deep and thoughtful exploration of two people who have lost or are on the verge of losing their belief: in God, in the presence of the truth, out there somewhere, in themselves, in each other. And it’s not like the theme of belief is limited just to our heroes.[2]

In short, the crew came back together to make a good movie that you will probably never watch, and that you’ll, for the most part, be right to avoid. It’s unfortunate, but these things happen every day, I guess. On the bright side, I think it makes for a pretty good (albeit unintentional) coda on the series. As a fan, I can live with that.

[1] I am willing to bet that someone already has, and probably weeks or months ago.
[2] Billy Connolly in particular as the fallen (in an all too modern way) priest: wow, the depth of a) theme and b) acting.

Fables: Storybook Love

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The third collection in the Fables series is clearly a transition point, with two distinct storylines that collectively do a great deal to change the face of Fabletown, as well as a pair of actual fables, stories that have occurred since the exile from the homelands began. In the first storyline, a mundane reporter has discovered the collective and its immortality, with fallout and consequences for all concerned. In the second, Storybook Love, enemies that Bigby Wolf (the sherriff of Fabletown, you’ll remember) and Snow White (its day-to-day administrator and deputy mayor) have recently made come back to haunt them, with, once again, fallout and consequences for all concerned. Only, a little moreso. Plus, Prince Charming gets tired of his free-wheeling lothario lifestyle and sets the wheels in motion for a political power play! Dramatic!

Hints of the inevitable on-screen confrontation with the Adversary crowd the wings, but the main stage where Bigby and Snow are advancing their relationship by what I’ll charitably refer to as incremental degrees is where the show is really at. The occasional noir bent of the series helps my case here, but I’m unable to avoid spotting the influences of Moonlighting on this series. Which is a really odd pair, don’t get me wrong.

The one-shot actual fables that I mentioned earlier, by the way, were both pretty decently put together, though probably forgettable in the long run. (Unsurprisingly, I like Gaiman’s Death better than Willingham’s.)

Ultimate X-Men: Ultimate War

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This latest UXM title continues the trend of improvement while at the same time falling terribly short of the expectations Mark Millar has set in his Ultimates titles, a fact advanced from sad to ironical by virtue of the fact that Ultimate War is plotted as a battle between the X-Men and the Ultimates. Set between the first two Ultimates volumes (you can tell because Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are recruited to the Ultimates’ ranks here), the X-Men are being hunted down because Professor X made a possibly understandable but ultimately flawed choice regarding the fate of Magneto, some months back. Now that Magneto is on the loose and running his mutant terrorism organization again, well, mutants in general and Xavier’s X-Men in particular are once again in heavy political disfavor. As a result of which: battle between superhero teams. It’s a common enough trope, but the intelligence of the writing mostly makes it work well.

Or perhaps I’m just easily impressed by the X-Men being decently written instead of terribly? I can only hope the trend continues, either way.

The Ultimates 2: Grand Theft America

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With this fourth volume of the Ultimates series, Mark Millar has done something amazing, and all the more amazing because of how unimpressed I’ve been with his take on the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. He’s capped off an already impressive sequence of stories with what is clearly the strongest entry, and he’s managed to be politically relevant without edging far into preachiness at the same time. I can’t help but reflect on my (currently stalled) readings of late 1960s Marvel comics and feel like this modern take is very much in keeping with the early days of the brand. Which pleases me.

Grand Theft America chronicles a masterful plan to cripple the United States and her super-human defenders in one stroke, with assistance from sources that might qualify as expected or entirely shocking. (I know I had one of each.) And they’re playing for keeps, so don’t expect anyone to be safe, emotionally or physically. I really can’t say anything more without digging far too deeply into plot spoilers, but, wow. Best superhero comic I’ve ever read, I think it is fair to say.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

51Q3J1TK9TLSo there’s this guy, Dexter, right? And he’s a CSI guy in Miami, analyzing blood spatter patterns to determine facts about murders. And he has a TV show, which I have watched two seasons of now, and which first season was based on a book that I have recently read. The thing about Dexter is, his off-hours job is to be a serial killer. Many people might find that to be distasteful reading material, but Dexter, see, he’s not like other serial killers.

As the first season of the show and Darkly Dreaming Dexter explain (in very similar, but eventually divergent, ways), Dexter is different from other serial killers. He was adopted by a cop who saw the darkness inside the growing boy, understood what it was, and chose to channel it in constructive ways rather than doom him to a lusterless existence in the mental health system. Dexter has a code that he follows, in which he only murders people who are themselves killers, and he only acts when he is completely certain of their guilt. And that life has worked out pretty well for him: he’s able to fake charm while making use of extensive wit, maintaining shams of relationships with co-workers, his sister, and a girlfriend; and every few months, he strikes again. All that is about to change, however, with the appearance of a new serial killer in Miami, one to whom Dexter feels a disturbingly close bond. (When the guy who stalks around murdering people, even really bad people, is disturbed? That can’t be good.)

What makes the Dexter series stand out from the stacks of murder mystery books and shows out there isn’t that he’s a serial killer himself. Well, okay, that does make him stand out, but what makes him appealing to me is how very funny he is. And the way he views people, and views himself as a separate species from them. What could have been a weakness of the show in copying so closely from the book feels more like a strength to me: that they managed to capture the First Person Bemused viewpoint Dexter brought to my reading experience. In any event, very good book, and slim enough to easily read much more quickly than the show could be watched. But if anything, I’d recommend doing both.