(Don't worry. I know that title looks a little defeatist...probably of the depressing, "woe-is-me" variety, but it actually has nothing to do with me personally...)
Hell, I may as well get this out of the way, too...
CONSIDER THIS BOLD SECTION WRITTEN IN ALL-CAPS YOUR SPOILER WARNING. I'M ABOUT TO RUIN THE UTTER HELL OUT OF A PARTICULAR COMIC BOOK STORY - THE X-MEN "MESSIAH COMPLEX" STORY, IN PARTICULAR - IN TALKING ABOUT IT HERE. IF YOU'RE IN THE BOAT I'M IN - YOU REGULARLY READ AND KNOW COMICS BUT DON'T GET EVERY ISSUE AS IT COMES OUT EVERY WEEK AND CHOOSE TO WAIT UNTIL ALL OF A PARTICULARLY STORY IS COLLECTED IN ONE VOLUME TO READ THE WHOLE THING IN ONE SITTING (DEFEATING THE IDEA OF A MONTHLY, SUSPENSEFUL STORY, BUT WE'LL GET INTO THAT DISCUSSION ANOTHER TIME) AND DON'T HAVE ANYONE ELSE TO DISCUSS YOUR FASCINATION WITH BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE YOU KNOW IS THAT BIG OF A GEEK AND DON'T MIND ME GIVING AWAY THE PARTICULARS OF THIS STORY, THEN BUY ALL MEANS KEEP READING. IF ANY OF THE ABOVE ISN'T YOUR CUP OF TEA OR YOU DON'T WANT "MESSIAH COMPLEX" COMPLETELY RUINED BEFORE YOU GET TO TURN A SINGLE PAGE, THIS SENTENCE IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO HIT THE "BACK" BUTTON ON YOUR BROWSER AND FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO READ.
Now that that's done, on with the show. The first big X-Men event in 10 years, I actually approached "Messiah Complex" with a bit of anticipation. Granted, the idea of an "X-Men event" several years ago would have been a groaner - and this is coming from someone who grew up reading them. Several shoddy "crossover" stories lead to that, the peak of which--wait, lemme rephrase that. The nadir of which was the "Onslaught Saga" - a story that was brutal and blatant in its contrivances. A story that, at times, confused even me - and I knew what was going on because I'd read these characters for so long!
"Messiah Complex", though, was a breath of fresh air compared to stories past. One of the things that helped me along was the inclusion of The Marauders, Sinister's band of merry nasties (whom I remember fondly from reading the Mutant Massacre - the X-Men's first big crossover story - as a kid). Scalphunter, Arclight, Riptide, Vertigo...All those dudes were bad as hell back then. That tie to the(n)m warmed my heart, even if they were the same ruthless asses.
Another breath of freshness was simply in the pacing. The story was simple - since the Decimation two years prior, the first Mutant baby has been born and everybody wants a piece of her for their own goals and reasons. It's a simple chase story told clearly and with some side-stepping. The side-stepping, however, contributes to the story (or at least the mood) overall and isn't there just for superfluous "dramatic emphasis".
As for "dramatic emphasis", there are plenty of moments that do that on their own. The baby's kidnapper is revealed to be...Cable? Bishop turns traitor. Ditto Mystique. Mister Sinister is killed (~!) by Mystique (the single moment that, honestly, shocked me above all the others. Rogue is alive and almost commits murder. And then, the big one...the one that spawned the title of this Blog in the first place...Professor Xavier is shot in the head and, apparently, killed. All of it hits like a kick in the nuts and none of it feels like it was done for shock value. There are reasons for every action, and all of them are detailed.
Lastly, the story itself ends on a downer note (c'mon, Xavier's dead...that's about as much of a downer as you can get with the X-Men), but leaves plenty of threads wide open. It was a monumental story, sure, but it had a purpose - to shake up the X-Men something fierce and take things in new directions. This is the whole idea of "crossover events" and something the glut of them in the early 90s failed to do with any significance. This one has, in big ways. And the way it was done was marvelous (no pun intended, really - I'm still a much bigger DC fan).
This was excellent stuff, and now has me wanting to read the "Divided We Stand" arc and the renamed "Legacy" series to see where the (disbanded?!) X-Men and their allies go from here. I have much more territory to cover, though - I have the "Sinestro Corps War" to finish up yet and the afore-alluded to "House of M" story to plow through as well.
With all that, though, I'm also reading Scott McCloud's Making Comics for some last-minute refinement techniques and a general understanding of what I'm about to undertake myself. I've read comics all my life; it's time I started making them as well.
Don't call it a comeback. Well, actually, maybe?
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Light Reading
Yeah...I "reaffirm" my commitment to this thing (and writing in general)...and then I don't touch it for 2 days. Brilliant. But then, weekends are a bad time for that, anyway; it's normally a 24-hour workweek and whatever time is left over is reserved for Lee Ann and the kids (especially when Julian is here, like he is now sitting next to me).
Aye, well. I've been spending some time reading (or, "research", as I call it). In coming up with ideas for "Electric Kingdom" and looking to get it finally off the ground, I've been studying other books and stories. Oddly enough, Daryl (out in Utah, who I got to talk to for the first time in a long while last night) has been doing the same thing, only with films. Finding old, obscure movies that maybe a handful people have ever heard of and watching them to pick up on story flow, transitions, things. Just studying the medium a little bit.
I've been doing the same thing (and we both got a kick out of that when I told him), only with comics. I happened to find my some of my older comics last weekend and dove into stuff I haven't read in a long time, if ever: "Thriller" (which I'd never read in its entirety before a week and a half ago), "Crystar" (which I coulda sworn was a comic based on a toy line, but apparently it was the other way around), and "Atari Force" (ah, the good ol' days of the first video game explosion).
"Thriller" (no relation to Michael Jackson whatsoever) was an odd series, but one that I thought was pretty cool. Not too big on Trevor Von Eeden's art (at least in this book)...come to think of it, the whole style of the book (even with Alex Nino involved in the latter issues) was a little muddy. Hard to tell what was going on. I'm all for stylized art if it's done well; heck, Bill Sienkiewicz (yes, I had to copy-and-paste that - I can pronounce it but not spell it) did it all the time and he's one of my favorite artists ever. But here, I understand "Thriller" was an espionage/action story with a little of the supernatural thrown in to keep us off-balance and that the art was meant to convey that. A lot of times, it did. It also made the story hard to follow, though - which, I would think, you don't want to happen to your work no matter what field it may be in.
"Crystar", as previously mentioned, was a comic created for marketing purposes. In the first few issues, that's painfully evident. As the book wore on, however, it got much better; the characters were well-fleshed out (if somewhat stereotypical) and writer Jo Duffy emoted their causes and motivations well. Bret Blevins was a decent artist, but Ricardo Villamonte really let the characters hit their visual stride. All in all, not bad. One thing that burned me was, in looking up the book online, not one mention is made of Malachon, a character introduced later on who would become the main bad guy even out-shining Moltar as well as an excellent villain overall.
"Atari Force", even though the only one here properly born from a licensing agreement, is easily the best book out of the three here. Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and, later, Eduardo Barreto were the perfect artists for this kind of off-beat sci-fi action. Those two and writers Gerry Conway and Mike Baron seemed rather interested in making "Atari Force" more than a vehicle for selling games, and they more than accomplished that goal. In the last issue, then-Editor Andrew Helfer explained that the characters and their respective stories had just run their course and the time had come to let them leave their own story. Seeing as how the end of the book seems a little rushed, I don't know how much stock to put in that explanation because I could easily envision further adventures of the Force as they search for Old Earth.
There's more reading to do as well. I check out Graphic Novels and trade collections from the library at the rate of 4-20 at a time. Today was only 4, simply because I've read most of what our branch has already. Got vol. 01 of Alex Ross's "Justice", a Superman/Doomsday collection I've wanted to read for a while, as well as one each from the X-Men and Spider-Man to catch up on their more recent stories. Yeah, I've read this stuff all my life and I still enjoy them. Now I can claim another purpose - that of creating one of my own.
Aye, well. I've been spending some time reading (or, "research", as I call it). In coming up with ideas for "Electric Kingdom" and looking to get it finally off the ground, I've been studying other books and stories. Oddly enough, Daryl (out in Utah, who I got to talk to for the first time in a long while last night) has been doing the same thing, only with films. Finding old, obscure movies that maybe a handful people have ever heard of and watching them to pick up on story flow, transitions, things. Just studying the medium a little bit.
I've been doing the same thing (and we both got a kick out of that when I told him), only with comics. I happened to find my some of my older comics last weekend and dove into stuff I haven't read in a long time, if ever: "Thriller" (which I'd never read in its entirety before a week and a half ago), "Crystar" (which I coulda sworn was a comic based on a toy line, but apparently it was the other way around), and "Atari Force" (ah, the good ol' days of the first video game explosion).
"Thriller" (no relation to Michael Jackson whatsoever) was an odd series, but one that I thought was pretty cool. Not too big on Trevor Von Eeden's art (at least in this book)...come to think of it, the whole style of the book (even with Alex Nino involved in the latter issues) was a little muddy. Hard to tell what was going on. I'm all for stylized art if it's done well; heck, Bill Sienkiewicz (yes, I had to copy-and-paste that - I can pronounce it but not spell it) did it all the time and he's one of my favorite artists ever. But here, I understand "Thriller" was an espionage/action story with a little of the supernatural thrown in to keep us off-balance and that the art was meant to convey that. A lot of times, it did. It also made the story hard to follow, though - which, I would think, you don't want to happen to your work no matter what field it may be in.
"Crystar", as previously mentioned, was a comic created for marketing purposes. In the first few issues, that's painfully evident. As the book wore on, however, it got much better; the characters were well-fleshed out (if somewhat stereotypical) and writer Jo Duffy emoted their causes and motivations well. Bret Blevins was a decent artist, but Ricardo Villamonte really let the characters hit their visual stride. All in all, not bad. One thing that burned me was, in looking up the book online, not one mention is made of Malachon, a character introduced later on who would become the main bad guy even out-shining Moltar as well as an excellent villain overall.
"Atari Force", even though the only one here properly born from a licensing agreement, is easily the best book out of the three here. Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and, later, Eduardo Barreto were the perfect artists for this kind of off-beat sci-fi action. Those two and writers Gerry Conway and Mike Baron seemed rather interested in making "Atari Force" more than a vehicle for selling games, and they more than accomplished that goal. In the last issue, then-Editor Andrew Helfer explained that the characters and their respective stories had just run their course and the time had come to let them leave their own story. Seeing as how the end of the book seems a little rushed, I don't know how much stock to put in that explanation because I could easily envision further adventures of the Force as they search for Old Earth.
There's more reading to do as well. I check out Graphic Novels and trade collections from the library at the rate of 4-20 at a time. Today was only 4, simply because I've read most of what our branch has already. Got vol. 01 of Alex Ross's "Justice", a Superman/Doomsday collection I've wanted to read for a while, as well as one each from the X-Men and Spider-Man to catch up on their more recent stories. Yeah, I've read this stuff all my life and I still enjoy them. Now I can claim another purpose - that of creating one of my own.
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