Astonishing X-Men

I'm getting bored with Astonishing X-Men. At this point it is sacrilegious to speak poorly of Astonishing, as it has been very rewarding for the past several years, but I have to call it as I see it.
To begin, the past few issues have had the exact same arc: the cliffhanger from the previous issue is resolved in a page, the team move to another area of the 'Breakworld' (what a shit name), and then encounter another cliffhanger, which we know will be resolved quickly in the next issue. The biggest problem with Astonishing is that every character involved in the story, aside from the X-men themselves, are only a year or two old. There is no emotional heft to the actions of Danger or Ord, let alone Agent Brand or the rest of the Breakworld population. These characters are all to new, the bigger problem is that they are just lame.
Of course, I must comment on Cyclops' 'death'. It is not Weadon's fault that I can't take a comic book character's death seriously (he'll be back), that is an industry wide problem. Life and death situations never have any gravitas for 'important' comic book characters, the business side of comic publishing prevents it, the companies will never throw away the future profits to be made from these characters. The drama in these books is a result of the heroes trying to save the normal folks, or from internal conflicts within the superhero community. That said, it is Weadon's fault that he wrote the 'death' scene with dialogue like "Give 'em hell, boss." That shit is corny.

Cyclops

I am sitting on the filing cabinet in the back room of my house, Snake Computer purrs on the windowsill beside me, and my homemade fries are cooking in the oven. I spent this afternoon working on the redo of Captain Adventure Vs Crack Cocaine, hoping to hand out copies at the comic book event that Eden and I are going to at the end of September.

When I think about giving out my work to people that could effect my comic book career, it makes me consider my interpretation of the art form more seriously. I have to decide what I think is important about a comic book, and how I express those ideas with my own stories.

I was reading Astonishing X-Men 22 today, trying to pick out those ideas. It is the comic that I most look forward to. Whedon and Cassiday have made it the best interpretation of the X-Men that I’ve ever read. What they do so well is manage a dense 50 year history, take it seriously, and present well know characters as more believable than they have been before.



Looking at the last page: Cyclops is dying, floating in space, leaving his trusted family of teammates to protect the world without his guidance. His face is turning blue as he recalls his introduction to Jean Grey, the woman that he has spent more than a lifetime loving. The extreme nature of a super hero , and his extraordinary past, being taken seriously. In the shoes of the typical tight-assed, stereotyped leader of the X-Men, we have the representation of a real person.

Astonishing’s creative team accepts the common silliness that surrounds their protagonists. They make an extra reach to use the medium as an art form, rather than a hyperactive soup opera. That is a stretch than is important for me and my work. To use the form to express something about humans, and about life, but to do so while embracing the sometimes extreme conventions of comic books.

Captain Adventure is a reflection of me. His drug use and rampage representing my own mistakes, and how they have hurt people. The adventurous super hero comics created in the 1930s have grown to be strong vehicles for artist to say something about their lives.

The Adventure of Link

My first exposure to the Zelda series was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Because of it, I didn’t understand the appeal of the series. The game was a strange mix of overworld map exploration, and sidescroll fighting. My game attitudes were closed minded: Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy took care of the overworlds, Mario and Metroid covered the sidescrolling. The game was also a bit too difficult for me, which always tends to piss me off rather than motivate me.


The only real attraction I had to the game was its gold cartridge. I remember that being a selling point. I was with my mom, picking out a game, and the man in the store opened the box, showed me the unusual shiny casing, and I was sold. You really felt like you owned something when you had that solid piece of golden plastic in between those dull gray games.

It wasn’t until last week that I put Zelda II back into my now 22 year old Nintendo. The load screen made me laugh. I found that a former user of the cartridge named themselves Jazz Bo. What kind of name is Jazz Bo? I know that it wasn’t me. The player has almost complete attributes, and I had never made it past the first castle. I think that it was a friend, Chris Martin, who was one of those kids that could beat any game. He taught me the submarine trick in Jaws, which lead to my eventual success. This is also the kid that had the classic silent issue of GI Joe, which introduced Storm Shadow. He was the son of my parents' close friends, and as they visited in the living room, I would sit on the floor in front of his box of comics, reading what I could. He was a pretty cool guy, until he followed the same path as my brother, deciding that he was a make-believe Eastern Oregon cowboy.

The long-abandoned game has turned out to be good. Different from the rest, but at least as good as the first. Though the overworld is bland, I’ve learned to appreciate its mix with the sidescrolling. The leveling up is comforting when you hit a hard spot, as it is with any RPG. It has pretty cool character design, the best game over screen ever, and a calming 80s charm that I miss.

This may be sad, but being able to successfully maneuver a game that was giving me so much trouble as a kid makes me feel like I’ve made actual progress in the last twenty years.

Mainstream bullshit.

I have been having more and more problems with mainstream comics, but mine focus on inconsistent creative teams. It seems that great comic book runs are always interrupted by shitty creative teams that put the titles on autopilot. It is always the generic artist and the writer that wants to bring somebody back from the dead. When you pick up an independent comic, the series is usually maintained by the person that created it, and the titles are allowed to grow without stale jumps in between.

When I got back into collecting a couple years ago, I jumped right back into the titles that I collected as a kid: Batman and X-Men. Batman was in the middle of the Hush arc, and Astonishing X-Men had just started. A year after that, DC brought Jason Todd back to life, which was bullshit, and the two flagship X-Men titles were consistently awful. And now, Grant Morrison is in charge of Batman, and the X-titles are all pretty good. But, to rely on that temporary quality would be asking for a huge letdown.

This occasional disappointment has formed different habits in my collecting. I seek out creators more than I do characters, which leaves me with the drive to drop a title when the art and writing become bad. Though the collector in me wants to catch the whole run, which clearly expresses the power of the big comic book franchises — the reason that marvel and DC can get away with lackluster work. It is comparable to licensed video games. The developers put less work into them because the property sells the game, not the quality.

For now, I will enjoy the my mainstream comics and their qualified craftsmen (the last issue of Batman was a perfect example of what a good team can do with an almost 70 year old series), and I will continue to look for well made independent comics, made by people that care.

World War Hulk

I read World War Hulk #3 a couple of days ago and am troubled by the mini's progress. I'm having the same experience with World War Hulk as I had with Civil War: excited by the concept, first issue is exciting, second issue is cool, third issue things look like they aren't going to play out well. Civil War ended stupidly, Captain America's surrender was obviously a move to allow more Avengers books to be published. Other than that, there were no substantial effects from the story. Captain America's death wasn't even directly incorporated into Civil War. World War Hulk looks like it will end in a similarly uninspired fashion, the Hulk will turn back into Banner and the 616 universe will continue without any change. I think the problem with these stories is in their premises. These books' promised events, major characters fighting each other to the death, can't be delivered in mainstream comics; Marvel will never kill Wolverine or the Fantastic Four, and we all know that Captain America is not dead. Astonishing X-Men is an example of a successful mainstream comic. The characters are actually in character and the stories at once exist in continuity while subtly introducing new characters and ideas. Which isn't to say that I wouldn't enjoy World War Hulk if its premise was carried out properly: the Hulk kills the Illuminati and anyone who tries to stop him and Thor or the Silver Surfer arrives and kills the Hulk. Oh well, there is always The Ultimates and X-Statix to reread.

Transfomers

I went to Transformers a few days after the opening to avoid the teenage "fans" that never grew up with the show. I am sure if I went that night, the Wells Fargo parking lot would have been full of parent-purchased cars, Autobot stickers in the rear windows.

I ended up going with my friend Joe, who is also my boss. We sat with an empty seat between us. It was Joe's choice, either because we are both large guys that needed some extra room, or he had a slight homophobic moment. Either way, we were comfortable. He ate brightly colored worms. I drank a Sprite.

Joe doesn't talk much during movies, but makes a lot of confusing hand gesturers. A scene comes up worth commenting on comes up and Joe leans in, holds out a couple fingers, points down, points up, turns his hand. I just nod, hoping that he doesn't bring it up later.

His awkward gesturers were a lot more entertaining than the movie. It was awful. I am a big fan of the cartoon, but I am not usually one to worry too much about inaccuracies. I am concerned with good story telling, and Transformers was full of a lot of bullshit. Cliched teenage romance and secret government agencies are both really tired.

I expected the story to focus on humans, so I hoped to at least enjoy the action. Robots fighting robots has plenty of potential, but the battles were choppier than Batman Begins.

I don't know. I am tired of shitty versions of things that I like, and this was the worst so far.

The First Post

I am sitting at my blue card table, in the middle of the living room, with a kitten scratching the shit out of my legs.

The purpose of this blog, as I have said, is to have some kind of forum for two long-distance friends to discuss movies, books, and comic books. We both have a lot to say about them, but not much time to talk.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes.