Hopefully that comes across as sheepish as I intend to sound. Read. Does it? Argh, clumsy. Damn.
Rewind. Hello.
Better.
Yes, hello there. I'm back. Once again I return to try again at this whole "regular writing" thing. Y'know, I have been pretty busy since I last wrote on here, I've been working on this thing, for that stuffthat I needed to.....OK, OK, I've been playing FFVII and watching the Dukes of Hazzard. Lame, I know. I mean, it's not like it was this huge thing that I wasn't writing. Sure, one or two of my friends were all like "Dude, what's wth the no writing thing?" but I didn't worry about it because as far as I was concerned, I didn't have an audience or anything so nobody would even notice that the writing stopped. Shockingly, I was wrong.
In fact, part of the whole reason for the no writing (apart from FFVII and the Dukes of Hazzard, natch) was another bout of my crippling internet shyness. All it took was a mention in the comments of a Those Wednesdays post and an appearance on the Facedown In The Gutters blogroll and then all of a sudden, I had a couple of comments from people I don't even know. That's a lot of pressure and I panicked. Someone agreed with my thoughts on Captain America. Where the hell am I supposed to go from there?
Annoyingly, whilst I've been discovering that I had the courage all along* Namor has moved into Latveria, Bucky is officially the new Cap, Countdown still sucks and Spider-Man totally made a deal with Joe Quesada the Devil to change all of the spider-man continuity since I've been alive save his Aunt. Even I could have done something amusing with that. Or, as that last sentence proves, not.
I'm not going to be world shakingly amazing like those dailyposter types, I just don't have that in me but hopefully I can get some kind of weekly thing going on at least. But where to start? What could I possibly throw up here to provide visual fanfare to my return?
Yeeeeeeehaaa!!!!
I'll be back with actual content either Tomorrow or Tuesday. Feel free to drop on by.
Y'all come back now, y-hear? (Hang on, that was the Beverley Hillbillies - Ghostly Hypothetical Ed)
It's not all doom and gloom costume wise. Yesterday a picture was painted that suggested newer reinterpretations of costumes were all about the sexualisation of the character. Not true. Have a look at this picture from Yoshida and Tocchini's pretty interesting Thor: Son of Asgard.
Nice. The skirt thing is intersting and there may only be the one set of hat antlers but I think that works. The leather is also suitable for both battling other Aesir and working on Naglfar.
See? This shows that a costume can be redesigned without being pointlessly sexified and still remain not only sensible for the character, but also awesome. We all win.
(Of course, the issue in which this appears is a retelling of one of Hela's earliest appearances that completely reverses what is awesome about Sif, another female character from the Thor cast, so we can't celebrate it too much. - Captioning John)
*sigh*
Nice costume though.
Hey there Captioning John, can you help us out with something that shows us the awesome of Hela without being tainted by anything negative at all?
Sure, I think I've got something in the bag here. Hmm, would sir like to see something in Simonson?
Oh, lay it on me!
Allow me to present the Queen of the Dead ripping Thor's face off.
And that's why she rules 2 of the 9 realms. You know the only other person who gets 2? Odin. If we had someone like Hela as head of state instead of Liz, I'd be a staunch monarchist.
I read several comic blogs. I enjoy it almost as much as reading comics. I do. And on rare occassions I enjoy it more. Today is one of those times. Before I get to what I want to talk about I just want to give you all a link to something that Kalinara wrote about the Greatest Green Lantern of all. Pretty, Fizzy Paradise is a fantastic blog that features on my Rolodex of Awesome over to the right there so take some time and go read. Even you non-comic chaps should go look if only for the fact that it's very well written. Now I place comic blogs into one four categories. These aren't entirely definitive and all of the blogs I read do stray into other categories but this is my loose classification system.
1) Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin. A category of it's own. Reading comic blogs without reading MSPR would be like studying Maths but without algebra. I don't know if he was the first or not but as far as I'm concerned, he's been retconned into being the first.
2) The Big Monkey Crew. Straight forwardly enough this category includes the guys who do the Big Monkey Podcast: Scip, Devon,Jon, Jon and Ben. They're like an Avengers or Justice League type blogging team.
3) The Awesome. These are the ones that that don't really fit into any of the other categories and as I said previosuly, all the blogs I read stray into awesome many times but I generally fit blogs like The ISB, Polite Dissent and Dave's Long Box.
4) Feminism. And this is where we find Pretty, Fizzy Paradise, Written World and Ami Angelwings' Super Cute Rants Of DOOOM XD for example. People who know me are no doubt familiar with my love/hate relationship with feminism (love the subject, hated my lecturers*) so it's not particularly surprising that I read and enjoy them.
Y'see, the category 4 blogs are just as entertaining as 1 through 3 but they also raise serious points that need addressing. It's good to excercise your mind once in a while and these blogs and bloggers seem to have taken to heart the lessons that all comics teach us every issue. (Well, most comics. OK, some comics.) Fighting the good fight. Righting wrongs. Standing up for principles. They inspire and educate.
Which neatly brings me on to what I really want to talk about tonight. Ami recently wrote an interesting guest column about the hypersexualisation of superheroines, making specific reference to the unbalanced sexiness of costumes. Something we can't deny happens at all. Now, this got me thinking and actually inspired me to see if I can contribute anything equally thought-provoking to the interweb.
It turns out I can't.
But what I can do is say that yeah, superheroines are annoyingly hypersexualised and what sucks the most about that is that it's got worse over time. You'd think that as society has progressed things would have become much better in this respect. Wrong. And I'll show you this in the only way that we can here at This Sentence No Verb: with everyone's favourite minor Thor villain.
JYD Loves Hela (But not always her costume choices)
First off we'll start with a base. Now I'm not going to go all Kirby on you and throw out some Journey Into Mystery panel because that'd be too obvious and we've already seen enough of the Kirby style with the usual Hela posts. Here's Hela as she appeared during Simonson's Thor run.
Simonson and Buscema's The Mighty Thor Vol 1 #374
Clearly Kirby inspired we've got the classic death Goddess look with the cool hat, mad cape and black and green armour/bodysuit. This costume looks cool but I wouldn't say that it's sexualised. That's the costume of someone who's going kick your head in. Straight forward armour type stuff for the torso, leggings and boots with greaves. This is both practical and fashionable and is in fact what Hela should always look like. Some people have different ideas though. Let's jump forward to more recent comics.
Jurgens and JRjr's Thor Vol 2 #2
Right. Here the costume is in fact closer to the original Kirby look but there are one or two things that suggest things are changing. The costume itself isn't that bad but there seems to be more emphasis on the skintight spandex and less on the mad cape. I can live with that though, that's just an aesthetic choice. After all, it's not mandated that the main focus of her costume should be her freaking magical cape that makes her so phenomenally powerful. Ahem. I love JRjr's stuff, really I do but here Hela is starting to look a little...off. It can get worse though. Ready for a jump?
Rodi and Ribic's Loki #1
Whoa! This miniseries was great and the art is top quality but...dude! That's quite a departure! Good news is that we have the big cape back along with a Simonson style cowl but is a bustier and thigh length boot combination really a good choice for someone who spends 50% of her time in the frozen, snowy wasteland of Niffelheim? I don't care that her cloak grants her near immortality and immunity to poisons, diseases and conventional injury - she's going to get a chiil. Also, is that much bare skin sensible when you've got a hectic shipbuilding schedule to keep? Sure, it's made out of fingernails but there's got to be buckets of tar involved in any maritime construction. What we have here is utterly pointless sexualisation of a character. How has putting Hela in that get up added to the story? Would the narrative have suffered if she was in the Kirby costume? Showing us Hela's cleavage is just pandering to this notion that all women in comics have to look sexy for the fanboys. Thing is though, there has been worse. Steel yourselves for this one.
Oeming, Berman and Divito's Thor Vol 2 #84
Dude, not cool. DNC. Land now people. Land now. This is so shockingly upsetting that I don't know where to begin. Cape and Hat are there which is what we want to see but don't think you can fool us by going for a "Hey, it's nearly the same as the Kirby look with the black on top of the green!" vibe. We can see through the ploy (And I'm surprised that we can't see through the costume. Only one step away.) and we're not impressed. Again we have a bustier type affair so emphasis is focussed on breasts which is highlighted further by that weird strip of material that connects the torso to the...dog collar. I think that the worst thing though is that the black-on-green stuff looks like a thong, stockings and suspenders. Did Volla take the cloak down to the launderette and stop off on the way back at Ann Summers to pick up some...extras for the boss? I know that it is convention that in superhero fiction underwear is often worn on the outside but I didn't think it applied to that type of underwear. You'd expect someone to be dressed like that in Yes Mistress magazine - not in a comic. By doing things like that you're putting style over substance. Objectifying Hela does not make her "edgy" or "modernised" it just means you're not giving your female characters any kind of depth. They've just been reduced to eye candy.
Y'know, I was going to actually mention that there is something good in that panel from my point of view, and that's the clear referencing of the Hand of Glory but thinking about it, that just makes it worse. By giving us a look at one of Hela's obscure powers it shows that you know the character and just can't be bothered to use her properly.
Obviously I'm coming at this from my own fanboy entitlement perspective - if you do things like this to characters I love then I'm going to pick up on it. Thing is, you can apply this to any female character - Wonder Woman, Black Cat, Supergirl or whoever. Dial it back people. Characters in comics are there to be heroic or villainous regardless of gender and this should be the main concern. Don't sacrifice quality at the altar of the male gaze. If hypersexualisation doesn't serve the character or narrative then just don't do it.
Just don't.
*Also Vagina dentatain relation to Jaws. Jaws is not my subconscious fear of castration but my very conscious fear of massive sharks that would eat me.
Word. Yet another entirely inadequate opening. Starting things like this is always the hardest. Let's just get right to it, as the actress said to the bishop.
Ouch. That was spectacularly weak.
Ok, so if you actually listened to me and started reading Jon Carey's Facedown In The Gutters then you'd know that we're about to come to the end of the Top Ten Marvel and DC characters as voted for by readers of FITG. It's been a long ride and the tensions has really been getting to me with this one. We only have the top two from each list to go now and I'm pretty sure that I know who these 4 people are going to be. For the Marvel side we've yet to see Spider-Man or Captain America and for DC it's Batman and Robin. And it's got me worried.
I think it's pretty cool that Batman and Robin are still to come and what would be even more awesome would be if Tim Drake got placed higher than Bruce Wayne. It won't be that surprising if he doesn't but I'm holding out for a little miracle of taste. What I'm worrying about is "What if Spider-Man beats Captain America?"
Now I'm a Spidey-Fan. Always have been and always will be no matter how many Clone Sagas or Sins Past we get. But Cap should win. Now, a lot of people who don't read comics don't "get" Captain America. They see him as a ridiculous symbol of that United States flag-saluting-we're-number-one-brash-tourist-gun-toting- insanity brand of patriotism that so many people around the world find so frightening. He's not. Captain America is all the things about America that people love, be they big or small. He's Mark Twain and Cheers, liberating Europe and BBQ sauce, big melting pot, boundless enthusiasm and a written constitution. And most importantly of all, the thing that sums up why Captain America represents all that is great about the US is very straightforward and it's amazing that more people don't pick up on it straight away - he carries a shield, not a sword. Captain America saves lives.
That makes me want to salute too.
A little bit ranty there, I know, but it gets to me sometimes. I get tired of hearing people knock Captain America purely on the basis of the name. This isn't directed at anyone who reads this, it's more about people I work with who either know nothing or just a little bit about comics and say things like "You like Captain America?! I've never liked the idea of Captain America." These people don't get the idea of Captain America and they're a little bit racist to boot with their non-stop "Yanks are stupid, the English are so much better" rants. You all know the sort.
The thing is though, if these xenophobic chumps were attacked by Nazis or supervillains then Cap would still come and save them because that's who he is. Me? I'd probably just leave them to it but I'd like to think that maybe I'd try and save them regardless of my distaste because I think that there's a little of Steve Rogers in everyone around the world. It's the part of us that always strives for us to better ourselves and stand up for what's right. That's what we should do. That's a hero.
What up? Just dropping in to give you a heads up of what to expect from This Sentence No Verb this coming weekend. But first let's ramble on nonsensically for a while!
Anyway, today is another one of those times when I want to write about something but all I've got (apart from the one or two big posts that are still being worked on) are lots of half ideas. I watched the Superman Doomsday film last night and as much as I want to discuss the highs and lows (mainly lows) I can't because, well, there's really not that much to it. Seriously. The fights were OK I guess but in true fanboy entitlement fashion I can't get over the fact that...oh, wait -
- there we go. Yes, I can't get over the fact that Mercy gets shot in the head. Not cool. Not cool. I also watched Heroes Season 2 Episode 1 and it was pretty good but if it stays true to form and Season 1 was a Watchmen/Days Of Future Past type affair then I have the horrible feeling that Season 2 is going to be a Legacy Virus/Contagion thing. And nobody wants that.
I also kind of want to do a thing about the Black Canary and Green Arrow Wedding Special too but...I didn't like it. I didn't hate it either which leaves me very little opportunity to attempt to be entertaining about it. All I can say is what has already been said elsewhere on the interweb - Amanda Conner Draw Pretty. Look at her absolutely perfect Wonder Woman and Superman:
Man, I would love for AC to be the artist on my ill-conceived Hela mini-series.
True dat Captioning John. Y'see how cool that looks? That's what I want to see more of in my comics. Smiling. That's Wonder Woman right there. Is she on the art when Gail Simone takes over Wonder Woman? Or is it the Dodsons? It'd be both boss and mint if AC was on there. It's like everyone else has been saying - she's as good as Maguire. Although one thing that nobody else (that I'm aware of) has mentioned is her take on Deathstroke the Terminator.
He's so cute! Look at his little legs dangling! Awww! I want a Deathstroke the Terminator plushie now!
I also found a wonderful page that I could grab an out-of-context-panel from too when I was composing my list of Top 25 Marvel and DC characters for Jon Carey's Maths and I was thinking about Batman's best ever love interest - Sasha Bordeaux/Cover.* Thing is, it's just a very poor piece of innuendo that ruins what is otherwise a 3 page sequence of serious Comic Book Badassery. I kid you not, this moment is up there with Steph's reaction when Batman said she could be Robin and I don't know if I can cheapen that. It wouldn't feel right.
I, however, have no problems with cheapening it! Let the lowbrow commence!
Yeah, that is pretty lowest common denominator, isn't it? What next, we going to make jokesabout Liefeld's inability to draw human anatomy?
Err...
Weak dude. Weak.
This Weekend On This Sentence No Verb: JLA/Hitman, JYD Loves Hela and Mirror Match!
*Seriously. I say best because she very quickly outgrew the Love Interest cliché and became one of the top characters DC have right now. Unlike others who we may think aren't "good enough" for the Batman, with Sasha it's very apparent that he isn't good enough for her. Talia, Selina and Silver can bugger right off. Especially Silver. Go on, get out of here! Scat! At least those other two had more to their character than generic love interest! *waves stick* We don't need your stereotypical ways round here you yacht riding dilettante! Go on, scram!
I had a day off today and the plan was to have a little bit of a do last night then spend the day working on a sizeable Mirror Match post. Unfortunately, last night's "one or two light ales" turned into a full on booze session during which a plan was made.
Today I have done the following:
Returned to the place that stole my shoes. Seen a newspaper from the future. Cursed a play. Shot virtual deer, quail and boar. Bought myself a new bandana. Consumed plenty of high quality rum in a bar that had its own vault. Watched Rovers put in a shockingly poor performance against Larissa. Eaten a mighty fine curry. Received a talk on fire safety.
To be honest, this is a pretty textbook example of what happens when I go to Lancaster and Morecambe. At least this time I didn't lose any footwear to quicksand. In fact, it was a great day. So good that I have absolutely nothing to post here. Nada. That was supposed to be today's task and I'm at work tomorrow so I have little time to do anything right now. I've failed in my 7 days of content pledge. This isn't content, it's merely filler. I mean, I'm going to try to make it worthwhile but in doing so I'll be, well, doing something I never wanted to do. I'm bringing next week's JYD Loves Hela forward.
This Sentence No Verb: Packed to the brim with Asgard, Asgard, Asgard!
Come on, I tried, right? This wasn't too much of a cop out. It might not be stellar work, but I think now I can say I've met my pledge, right?
After last night's entirely valid but funny-free post I resolved to actually entertain you with this evening's post and I was planning to write one of the funniest things that has ever been uploaded to the InformationSuperM62Corridor. That was the plan.
Then I read this. Once again, Chris Sims (the Batman of the comics blogger world) just gave the world some gold plated Fabergé comedy and frankly, there's no way I can compete. I can't compete even at the best of times to be honest but this entry was so funny it made me get in trouble at work for laughing too much. Fun is obviously not something that is allowed at the Sinister Corporation I work for. Disheartened I thought I could pick up on a theme from last night for an alternative post topic - I can explain some of the joy that is Walt Simonson's Thor. "So..." I thought, "I'll work out what I'm going to talk about tonight as I go through my daily ritual of checking all the Comic Blogs I read." Of course, in doing so I came across this.
Mike Sterling had beaten me to it. Unsurprising really - if Sims is the Batman of Blogging then Sterling is the Superman. Trying to write about Simonson's Thor after he's already put something on ThE iNtErnET is like trying to follow a 3 hour Prince gig when all you have is a comb, some paper and a mentally challenged backing singer called Bubba.
Seriously, I got nothin'. Today is one of those days where everyone is on fine form. Scip's destroying sanity with his post about Jean Loring and Jon is helping him, Devon is rocking our aesthetics and funny bones with his Sketch-A-Palooza and Kalinara is (deservedly) laying into Starman. Even my livejournal friends list contains the awesome, Philippos42 made the best used of the Strikethrough tag that I've ever seen. I could just about deal with that were it not for the fact that Leigh, Richard and T-Dawg have all finished theirownmeme that I originally got from Ami and as I predicted they're all far funnier than mine. Not only that but their selections of characters show that they're also well rounded indivuals and choose people other than robots and vikings.
T-Dawg and Katie are on their way round tonight for a few light ales so I don't even have much time to post something that can keep up with any of that. Dammit! I wanted to amuse people tonight! So I gave up. I decided that I'd break my 7 Days of Content pledge and just read some randomly collected comics.
Fortunately, one of them was an old Superman.
Yes Superman, all the fish look like Lois. I'm sure if just some of the fish looked like Lois then it'd all make perfect sense to you, but all of the fish? Madness!
Now so far on This Sentence No Verb I think I've done pretty good at focussing on the positive in comics. OK, I did lay into Thor #2 before the greatness of #3 and I may have had that Ark-of-the-Covenant-ugly panel of Catwoman but generally I've kept it to a minimum. I've tried to bring to you (the hypothetical reader figure) a little slice in every post of why I love comics. Apart from the posts that aren't about comics, natch. I think that I've always endeavoured to give you a little bit of awesome. But tonight...
Is no different! Seamless introduction over with it's time to drop science on those assembled!
I honestly think that at the moment there are some very fine comics out there - Captain America, She-Hulk, Blue Beetle, All New Atom and so on. They're especially good if you keep away from all that Countdown To Final Secret Invasion War: Disassembled Messiah Crisis bobbins that's going on. One of the true highlights at the moment is Matt Fraction's Punisher: War Journal. It's the perfect book to bring the grim and gritty 90s-Cool Punisher back into the mainstream Marvel Universe.
It's a title that gives you not only gratuitous violence, pretty art and colourful supervillains, it's actually pretty smart in a subversive kind of way. Hell, the saddest moment printed in any Marvel comic about the death of Captain America came in War Journal when Frank Castle hears the news. That's a testament to Matt Fraction - I can have my face rocked and mind blown for 22 pages but I also get my heart tugged for two. Not to bring too much with the hyperbole here but when I read War Journal I get the same feeling I do when I read Walt Simonson's Thor or Gail Simone's Birds of Prey - here is someone writing comics who gets it. I've not read any of his work on Iron Fist but I've heard many good things about it and I don't know if I can keep myself from getting it for much longer but what I do know for sure is that Mr Fraction's veins run with pure unadulterated awesomosity.
Issue 11 comes at the end of an arc where the Punisher takes on the Hate-Monger - a Nazi supervillain wearing a swastika adorned version of the late Captain America's costume. Arc recap in extremely brief - Naturally, when the Hate-Monger's immigrant killing ways made the papers our Frank wasn't too happy with the fact a fascist was wearing something that evoked the memory of Cap. So Frank heads on down to take him out in his own imitable way. Oh yeah, and to do so Frank made his own version of Captain America's costume:
Liquid Awesome.
However, after a lot of blood has been shed and the Hate-Monger killed, Frank is left with the realisation that maybe there isn't much difference between him and the Hate-Monger. Of course, there's also the matter of Bucky - Captain America's former WWII Kid sidecick turned Soviet assasin cyborg turned morally grey good guy. Unsurprisingly, Bucky isn't dealing so well with Cap's death and he's not too pleased about The Punisher diserespecting the uniform. We join our two anti-heroes just after superhuman robot assassin Bucky has challenged crazed vigilante The Punisher to a fight. Things do not look good for Mr Castle.
Comic Book Badassery! Live and in your face!
Like the animal cruelty the other night, CBB isn't all about the big moments, it's the smaller things too. Expectations are confounded and in those two pages we get a brilliant summary of the Punisher and who he is. A man seeking vengeance in a world of over-the-top superheroics. A man who knows he can't live up to the ideals of another former soldier fighting the good fight. A tragically conflicted character who can never get back the life he wanted. A man who will knock you the fuck out if you call him chicken. And that's another reason why I love comics.
Matt Fraction: I salute you. I'm going to have to start reading Iron Fist now aren't I?
Well, today felt like Autumn for the first time and when my favourite season rolls around I always feel, well, a little more romantic. You all know what that means!
Question: How do you deal with 2 Gods battling in your house?
It's Sunday, I'm hungover and there's only one thing that's going to make me feel better and that's the classic joy that is the torment of animals in comic books! We've been here once before and it was my pleasure to share with you the fun of Superman throwing a whale and Batman tackling a lion. It's not always about the big and impressive though. Yeah, we all know about de-aged Batman wrestling a bear and you can't deny the awesomeness of that but what about the other end of the scale? Why not think small? I suggest that all people of a nervous disposition look away now.
What's in the bag? What could Kim have given Killer Croc to deal with Batman. A bomb? Laser guns? Jeph Loeb?
Those are the most painfully cute puppies the world has ever seen. But he isn't going to do what I think he's going to do, is he?
Badass [Bad-as] Slang: Vulgar, Adj; 1. (of a person) difficult to deal with; mean-tempered; touchy. 2. distinctively tough or powerful; so exceptional as to be intimidating. 3. Killer Croc + (Puppies x Altitude)
For all those no-good hippies sensitive types out there I can assure you that Robin successfully "broke left" and caught the puppy. However Batman just let the other one die because this issue of Gotham Adventures was written by Frank Miller. On the next page Batman punches a prostitute in the face.
I kid! I kid! Lazy bloggery I know, taking a pop at both Loeb and Miller. Sorry. I'm just messing with y'all. Both puppies survive and go on to lead fulfilling lives on a happy farm of some kind, possibly one made out of marshmallows and rainbows. I'd never show you anything that involves the messy death of cute, fluffy animals.
And we're back with the most diligent examination of Asgardian real estate that you're ever going to find on this or any other internet! We have Thor #3 so let's check out what advice Thor has been seeking about property law! As ever, click to make the pictures economy sized.
Yes! It's still going on. JMS can really stretch out an idea, can't he?
I kid! I kid! That isn't what this post is about. It's time to get my review on!
You may or may not have noticed that I'm quite a fan of Thor and as such I was looking forward to this new series. Especially when I realised that it was being written by J. Michael "Babylon 5" Straczynski. Then I remembered that he's also J. Michael "Sins Past" Straczynski and the anticipation changed to dread that it was going to suck more than Star Trek V. Issue #1 was very much a setting up of the series with Donald Blake explaining that whilst all the Asgardians were dead (actually dead, not Valhalla or Niffelheim dead) and the cycle of Ragnarok had been broken that something of the Gods still lived on in the minds of men, so Thor returned to seek out his friends, family and probably some foes too.
Issue #2...well, I talked about this already and I was less than impressed.
Then I saw the preview of Issue #3 and my heart really began to sink. It didn't look like it was going to be any good at all.
Issue #3 hit the stands this week. One more chance. We had better get some top notch action in this one or else. Well Thor, did we get some top notch action?
Oh SNAP!
The preview promised some kind of confrontation with Iron Man which was only moderately exciting because, well Tony's had a beatdown from Spidey, She-Hulk, The Hulk and pretty much every other hero in the MU recently. Just another in the latest of a long line of Someone-Beats-Down-On-Tony-Stark-But-Tony-Has-Some-Sort-Of-Special-Device-Or-Suit-Of-Armour-That-Makes-It-Evenly-Matched-So-Even-Though-Tony-Is-A-World-Class-Dick-He-Doesn't-Get-The-Smackdown-We-Want-To-See type fights. So, here we go again. Yeah, we get the action that this series needs but the fight's going to be exactly the same. Or is it? Or IS it? OR IS IT?
Here we go with the repulsor blast that'll take Thor out. *sigh*
See?
Hold on a minute there Captioning John , is the next panel actually incredibly awesome? Could it be Thor completely unharmed?
Holy crap Main Post Writing John! You're right! It looked like I jumped the gun there a little bit.
Hang on, do you too have the wonderful feeling that when we're going to turn the page that all is going to be right with the world?
No way. We can't be that lucky. Can we? I mean, so far this series has been all about Thor tooling about in Asgard. There's no way that we're going to get some Comic Book Badassery. It's just not going to happen.
It is on my friends. It. Is.ON.
HOT DAMN! If anything deserves an Action Replay, it's that!.
SPANNG!
One more time!
*sniff* It's just...beautiful --sob--
YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!
From this point on this issue rocked my face. Tony gets a serious beatdown and doesn't even manage to scratch Thor and all the while the Odinson is using his own inimitable style of Asgardian smack-talk.
And if you think that's good, you should hear Thor's stack of "Yo' Momma" jokes.
There was even a reveal at the end of the issue. Remember the New Orleans guy from the preview who had a go at Thor? Well, it turns out that the reason he is so sad is because he is harbouring more than his own grief, he's also experiencing the grief of the Gods because he's go an Asgardian clamped onto his soul. Thor frees Heimdall from the minds of mortals and returns to Asgard with the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge.
There are one or two minor criticisms I can make though, the issue still suffers a little bit from too much talky and not enough hitty and Thor does let Tony leave (even if he makes him walk home) but I can forgive that. I can forgive it because as a whole the issue was one that makes me punch my fist in the air. We know what's coming up next too, Thor is going to carry on searching for the Asgardians so it's probably going to be Balder or Sif in the next issue. That's OK I suppose. JMS has already achieved awesomeness here so we can't expect him to match it in the next issue by bringing back the Warriors Three or something.
Touché JMS. Touché.
Tomorrow on This Sentence No Verb: Animal Cruelty #2
Hey there people, how's it going? Y'all good? Well, even though I promised a week of content starting from tomorrow I have been tagged by Comic Bloggery's very own Supergirl AmiAngelwings so for the first time on This Sentence No Verb I bring you hardcore meme-on-meme action. I believe that in internet etiquette it is rude to ignore such a tagging so with no further ado - let's get it on!
First, select your ten fictional characters (from any medium) by whichever method you like best. Then answer the questions below.
Whichever method I like best? Hmm, I've always been a fan of the thinking and writing it down but maybe there is something to be said for an entirely random method of selecting characters. Of course, the logistics of randomly selecting 10 from every fictional character ever is a little beyond me. So let's stick with the thinking and writing thing.
1. Thor (The Mighty Thor) 2. Reno Raines (Renegade) 3. Mothra (Many films) 4. Ed-209 (Robocop) 5. Hans Gruber (Die Hard) 6. Jessie (Pokemon) 7. Quistis Trepe (FFVIII) 8. Oracle (BoP) 9. Columbo (Columbo) 10. Hela (The Mighty Thor)
1. Divide the list up by even and odd. Which group of five would make a better Five Man Band (like a Power Rangers team)? Who would you slot in each position: Leader, Lancer (second-in-command), Big Guy, Smart Guy, The Chick? If you think the team would be improved by swapping one character between the even and odd groups, which ones would you switch?
Team A: Thor Mothra Hans Gruber Quistis Trepe Columbo
Team B: Reno Raines Ed-209 Jessie Oracle Hela
A 5 man band? Well, looking at what I got there, I'd say that both teams have a pretty good chance of making a truly awesome band of 5, but that's because I have impeccable taste. Seriously. But I'm going to go with Team A just edging it over Team B. Both teams have a divine figure but A also has a kaiju. Plus Mothra always comes with those weird fairy princesses from Infant Island, so they have a number advantage too. #Mosura ya, mosura-a-a, dongan kasakuyan...
Now, let's assign those positions as teams! Go Team A!
Leader: Hans Gruber Lancer: Thor Big Guy: Mothra Smart Guy: Columbo The Chick: Quistis Trepe
OK, I know it's strange that the Viking God of Thunder isn't either the leader or big guy, but he was pipped to the positions by two people who were just slightly better at it. Well, one person and a giant phoenix-like moth, but you know what I mean.
Team B.....Present Arms!
Leader: Hela Lancer: Jessie Big Guy: Ed-209 Smart Guy: Oracle The Chick: Reno Raines
That was pretty easy. To be honest, Oracle would have made a great leader but this team is actually pretty lacking in brains so the Smart Guy has to be the smartest person in the DC universe. Yes, I said the smartest. Oracle is number 1, Lex number 2 and Michael Holt number 3. Batman, you only make number 4 ya grumpy old bastard. Anyway, now I come to rack the two teams up, Team A really does have a big advantage over Team B. So they get the prize!
If I had to swap any of the characters over it'd be Columbo for Hela. That way, Oracle can take her place as leader and Thor and Hela could be together as it plainly should be.
2. Gender-swap 2, 8 & 10. Which character would have the most change in their story arc? Which the least? Would any of these characters have to have a complete personality change to be believable as the opposite sex?
That's Reno, Oracle and Hela.
Even though Reno was assigned the position of "the chick" earlier I think his story arc would be massively changed. Hell, they'd have to change the words to the opening intro to "...but got the man she loved instead. Framed for murder now she prowls the badlands. An outlaw hunting outlaws. A bounty hunter. A Renegade."
Damn, that would be awesome. She could totally hook up with Bobby Sixkiller and Cheyenne would just be her best friend! Every week she'd be defending men and rescuing them! Imagine the sexual tension between her and Dutch Dixon! She could be called Rena Raines! I would so watch that programme.
Would there be a major story arc change had Barbara Gordon been Bob Gordon? Jesus! Well, if she had then maybe Alan Moore wouldn't have, well, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you should check out some of the things that Philppos42 (The Reed Richards of comic blogging. Before he went crazy and started cloning Gods, natch.) has to say about the subject. Personally I always thought that the end of the Killing Joke was all about the panel we don't see - the one where Batman breaks the Joker's neck - the laughing stops mid guffaw but the sirens are still wailing. That's a much too serious topic for tonight though and is far better discussed by all the variousblogginggeniuses (genii?) out there who are not me. Back to the poor grammar and half-arsed jokes...
As for Hela...I don't want to think about her gender swapping. If she did, it might not affect her story arc too much (after all she is only a minor charcter) but it would certainly affect mine. I'd have some serious questions to ask myself about my sexuality. Let's move on shall we?
I don't think any would need a complete personality change to be believable as the opposite sex really. Maybe Hela. It would probably affect her rare heart-to-hearts with Skurge the Executioner. Heh, being able to write sentences like that is why I like comics so much. Also Punisher: War Journal, but more on that later this week.
3. Compare the matchups of 1 & 8 and 5 & 9. (Ignore canon sexual preferences for the moment.) Which couple would be more compatible? Which couple would be more plausible to people from either principal's home culture?
Thor/Oracle
Hans Gruber/Columbo
Wow.
Those are two godawful couples. Although, if you think of it as Oracle and Jake Olsen it might work. He's whiny enough to fit as Oracle's type. The only stain on her character is her shocking taste in men. Jason Bard? Nightwing?! Flirting with Azrael?! And didn't she also have a crush on Killer Moth? Damn Barbara, you can do so much better. Tim Drake would be my immediate suggestion but there are two main problems with that, 1) Dan Didio would probably have you killed and 2) It's probably illegal. But enough of my unwritten fan-fiction, I think that Thor/Oracle works marginally better because, well, can you really see Master-Criminal Hans Gruber getting on with Super-Cop Columbo? It would be a neverending game of one-upmanship that would leave them bitter and twisted. There's so much passion but they're just poison to each other.
Anyway...
Which couple would be more plausible to people from either principal's home culture? Even though Odin might be a little miffed that his son is getting it on with a mortal he'd probably deal with it. As for Hans and Columbo? Well, their relationship would be fine in Germany but a gay couple in America? They'd probably get burned to death by a passing group of Christian fundamentalists. Or something.
4. Your team is 3, 4 & 9. The mission consists of a social challenge, a mental challenge and a physical challenge. Which team member do you assign to each challenge?
Mothra, Ed-209 and Columbo.
Pshaw! Give me a tough one, please.
Social - Mothra Mental - Columbo Physical - ED-209
Next!
5. 7 becomes 1's boss for a week in some plausible fashion. How's their working relationship?
Quistis "Can't deal with the responsibility of being a teacher let alone a war leader" Trepe commanding the Odinson? Somehow, I don't think so. Thor would probably be a nice guy though, help her out and obey her commands even if he thinks their bad because he respects the chain of command but Quistis was intimidated by that whiny Squall chap so I can't see her stepping up and bossing the Thunderer around, regardless of that whole whip and PVC dress thing.
Anyway, there's only one mortal who commands Thor, and he's not with us any more. *sniff* I miss you Steve...
6. 2 finds him/her/itself inserted into 6's continuity. As far as anyone other than 2 or 6 is concerned, they've always been there. What role would 2 be presumed to have had in 6's story, and could they fit in without going wonky?
Reno and Jessie. Reno Raines in the Pokemon continuity?
I'd buy that for a dollar!
It'd be hard at first to crowbar him in there, no doubt James would be immensely jealous and Reno doesn't do all that well will dominant women but he'd be an asset to Team Rocket. Instead of Giovanni relying on JJ&M to concoct an elaborate plan to capture Ash's pokemon he'd just put a bounty on Pikachu's head for $1,000 and leave it at that.
Think of the fun you could have with the Team Rocket motto!
Jessie: Prepare for trouble! James: And make it double! Reno: I was a Pokemon Trainer and good at my job... Jessie: To protect the world from devastation! James: To unite all peoples within our nation! Reno: But I comitted the ultimate sin and testified against other Pokemon Trainers... Jessie: To denounce the evils of truth and love! James: To extend our reach to the stars above! Reno: ...Pokemon Trainers gone bad, Trainers that tried to kill me but got the Squirtle I loved instead. Jessie: Jessie! James: James! Reno: Reno! I mean Vince! Jessie: Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light! James: Surrender now, or prepare to fight! Meowth: Meowth! That's right! Reno: Can we go prowl the badlands now?
7. 3 and 5 get three wishes. The catch is that they have to agree on all three wishes before they get the benefits of any of them. What three wishes would they make?
3 wishes for Mothra and Hans Gruber? Not two people that I'd usually imagine teaming up, but it'd mean that to beat them, John McClane would have to team up with Godzilla.
I'll let that one sink in for a moment.
Having just come up with the greatest idea in film history for y'all, anything I say after this cannot live up to that moment of glory but I'll give it a whirl anyway.
The first wish would be Mothra's - maybe this incarnation she gets to actually see her daughter instead of her hatching just as she dies. And I think Hans would be OK with that. Hans would probably wish for John McClane to have used 2 more bullets to kill Marco. After that, they've got a third wish to share. Hans has got his money, Mothra has her baby/larva so what more do they need? A wish for supporting characters to get the full recognition they deserve when all the attention is usually lavished on the star of the piece? Yeah, why not.
8. 1 and 2 are brainwashed by a one-time artifact that works even on people immune to mind control to attack and kill 4. They keep their normal personality, skills and competence level, except any Code vs. Killing has been turned off. Can 4 survive? How?
Thor and Reno Raines are brainwashed into killing ED-209?
The last time Thor was brainwashed it took the combined might of Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch to bring him down, so much as I like ED-209 he hasn't got an altar boy in the Vatican's chance of getting out of there unmolested.
9. 6, 7, 9 & 10 must help an orphanage full of small and depressed children have a merry Christmas. Who does what, knowing that at the very least the kids will be expecting a visit from Santa?
Jessie, Quistis, Columbo and Hela.
Quistis would make a good Santa - she already wears red and she actually grew up in an orphanage so she's going to know exactly what the kids are going to want. Columbo would probably quite good at telling the poor little orphans entertaining stories and doing magic tricks (if I recall correctly he picked some up in an episode or two) and Jessie could let the orphans play with her pokemon. You'd have to make sure that Hela's job was something away from the kids though - if she ruffled little Mary's hair she might accidentally activate the Hand of Glory. Next thing you know, Niffelheim's population has increased by one, Naglfar's prow is bigger by 20 finger-and-toe-nails and you have a whole host of kiddiwinks freaking out over a rapidly decaying corpse. I don't know, she could probably make the decorations out of the souls of those vikings who died the straw death or something.
10. 3 and 8 are challenged to circumnavigate the Earth in eighty days or less, using only forms of transportation invented before 1900. Can they do it, or will they be fatally distracted by sidequests or their own personality conflicts?
That would be Mothra and Oracle.
Well, Mothra can fly around the world in about a day, so that's pretty easy. Sure, she might have to contend with Rodan and Jet Jaguar along the way but Mothra always takes Rodan and Oracle could probably rewire Jet Jaguar to help them out so I can't see any number of side quests holding them up. If Kataraina Armstrong started making trouble for Barbara, Mothra would just fry her with the Sun Strike Buster. Again, that's something I would quite like to see.
Hey! I managed to get through that last question without making a joke about wheelchair accessability in the 1900s! Go me!
Damn.
Anyway, that's the meme over with, but I believe that it is customary in these situations to "tag" people so I'm going to hit my homeboys in the BadPoo Massive and tag The Richard, MC Leigh and T-Dawg. No doubt what they write will be far funnier than this but I can't actually imagine them doing it. Nevertheless, the challenge is made. ---
You all notice how I subtly slipped in some linkblogging in that post there? I AM THE ANTMASTER!
Tomorrow on This Sentence No Verb: Becaue one person demanded it, Thor: Property Developer!
Hey there y'all, how's it going? Sorry it's been a while since I rapped at you, but there's been a whole bunch of things - thought I was moving out (I'm not) so had to get the house all sorted and do a bit of packing, been on shit shifts at work, preparing for an interview for a promotion (I got it), entertaining Kiwis - y'know the sort of stuff.
Anyway, I've been pretty lax at updating this here blog but I was thinking about it today and whilst these shifts at work are draining me something chronic at the moment they stop being so crap as of this Friday. I was also thinking that when I've set myself targets in the past on this thing I've pretty much met them so I'm going to use that ability right now because it's less likely I'll let this place drift if I commit in writing.
As of this Saturday I promise I will deliver a whole week of content. 7 days of consecutive posting. I have a couple of things that I want to hit y'all with (including, but not limited to an all new 30 Things and some more Animal Cruelty) but maybe not enough fully formed ideas for a whole week so I wouldn't mind a suggestion or two. So suggest already.
- - -
I also want to recommend that people head on over to Facedown In The Gutters too. Yes, I've plugged it before but you have to understand that it is a wonderful, funderful place of joy and happiness. If blogs were God's laboratories then F.I.T.G. would be the factory where puppies and kittens come from. Also dinosaurs. Go visit!
I don't know whether it says more about the media, modern religion or me that I was struggling to decide whether or not to use the phrase "God's laboratories" or "Dr Moreau-style creature vats" in that last paragraph. Huh.
This post isn't just a vague promise and a link though! No sir! I thought I'd just give you all a treat of pure awesomeness too! For your visual pleasure I present Wonder Woman kicking serious amounts of ass.
Okay, she might not be a certaindeath-Goddess but she is up there. Plus, that clip also features Hawkgirl's Kill Bill look which was an inspired costume change. Inspired I tells ya!
Hey there people, how's it going? Y'all large and in charge? Good stuff, that's what I like to hear. So, what to talk about today? Couple of ideas going on but then I was interrupted by reading this.
Yup, Newsarama has got the first 8 pages of Thor V3 #3 up in a preview kind of way and being incredibly naive I thought it might hold huge amounts of promise. Usually I won't criticise something without reading the entireity of the issue but it's breaking news and it caught my attention, so let's take a look at is shall we?
Wow. Just...wow. I'm sure that an intellectual point is about to be made, but I still think there's something incredibly...off...with sending a Weather God to New Orleans. Just sayin'. Maybe they'll redeem themselves with page 2, maybe not. Let's find out together.
Why were there no heroes there to help? Possibly because the writer's then displayed a little more sensitivity and decorum. It's making me uncomfortable to read this because Marvel's varied polemics over the past couple of years in regard to politics has been less than exellent.
Hey! It's just like the ending to Civil War! When heroes fight, everybody loses! Especially the readers! Now, I'm not against two heroes battling each other in a classic team-up way - misunderstanding leading to a fight and then working together for the common good (after all Thor himself has had some mighty throwdowns with Hercules) or when a hero has been mind controlled or so vastly mischaracterised that they need a good beatdown (like I'm hoping happens in this issue) but it shouldn't be so serious and it shouldn't be a never ending war between 2 factions of heroes. I can get quality satire and political commentary in other places, and it's just not done well enough in recent comics for me to want to see more of it there.
Well, at least there's some consistency with Iron Man - he's a sleaze in every comic he appears in ATM! You've got to love that futurism, right there. All business. Well, he wants to get down to "business". Whatever it is, it can't be as slow and actionless as the last issue. Let's see some business!
I was jokinglast time! No more real estate! Stop it! Dull! Incredibly dull!
Although that last panel has potential. "So? What do you say?" With a feed line like that, there's only one response that the Thunderer can give! It is on!
How the hell can you not follow a setup like that with "I SAY THEE NAY!" Do they just hate Thor fans? You can't build something up like that and let it hang. That'd be like having the Joker laughing maniacally about how he's taken care of Batman whilst he stands under a massive window and having the approaching shape turn out to be the window cleaner. Whilst Batman's off deliberately not building memorials that he should because the writer is being commanded by his sinisterbesuited paymasters. Sorry, off topic there. At least the thunder's a-coming now, the next page is so going to be Iron Man's face meeting Mjolnir!
Just fight already! Less posey, more hitty! Come on! Argh! 8 pages! We'd be halfway through an old Stan and Jack Mighty Thor! And by this point he'd probably already have fought Ulik, had an argument with Odin, performed surgery as Donald Blake and gone hunting with Sif and Balder! Bloody get on with it! Stop trying to build the mood so much! You can do better! You're not making a movie!
Right. That's it. 8 pages that don't fill me with hope. I know it's only a preview and maybe after that it gets awesome, but I have a horrible suspicion that the fight is going to be stopped when they end up endagering that civilian who was lecturing Thor earlier. Ugh.
Thing with the internet is everyone has very widely differing opinions and through the safety of anonominity that it provides it means that people get angry when you attack something. You get insults, swearing, displays homophobia, misogyny and xenophobia, you get phrases like "If you don't like it, why not write comics yourself?!"
OK. I accept the challenge.
8 pages? I can do better in 8 panels using the magic of MSPaint and Adobe Photoshop - Proud and entirely unwitting sponsors of This Sentence No Verb.
Disclaimer: This took me ages and the amount of effort put into doing it far exceeds the actual entertainment value and quality of the final product. Seriously, I spent hours on this.
I had Walt Simonson do one of those panels. I'll let you work out which one.
Well, I may never win an Eisner for that work and I'm going to end up getting Thor #3 anyway, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy it. It'll be an arduous exercise in character building. Always try and find a positive. But I guess I could be wrong, it could turn out to be awesome. Right? What do you think Thor?
