Stuff I've been reading....
Mar. 22nd, 2004 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fajrdrakoI have no itention of confessing how many books I have out from the library right now. They used to have a limit of twelve books per card; book junkie that I am, it drove me nuts. I now have a self-imposed limit of fifty books at a time. Sometimes I manage to stick to it.
Right now, most of the books I have out are graphic novels. Finally, finally they have some good graphic novels in English. They used to have hundreds of French band-desinee albums, which I also enjoy, but I prefer American comics. They still don't have any Sandman, which I find a terrible lack. But they have all sorts of good stuff, including the Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale Batman stories like The Long Halloween and Dark Victory which I have already enthused about here and probably will again.
The downside: the best comics all have long waiting lists. I'm on them. They persist in cataloguing all graphic novels as "juvenile fiction", which may explain why they don't carry Sandman. In some cases, I coudn't tell from the online catalogue whether a certain title was a child's book, a graphic novel, a novelization, or a comic.
So. I'll try to put spoilers under cut tags here. I've been reading:
Ultimates by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch. A new take on the Avengers. A more adult take than I've ever seen yet. It was compelling. In some ways, I loved it. In other ways... well, not so much. The problem was that like so many titles geared for a mature audience, it was darker than I am comfortable with in character and mood. I liked the approach, the psychological angles, the revision of old characters to make them complex in new and different ways. But this very approach tends to contradict other things I like about these same heroes in more traditional comics - their heroism, the idealism, the humour, the bonds they form in the group, and so on.
What I liked best was the beginning, the first story, which I believe was in Ultimates #1. It features Steve Rogers - Captain American - in World War II, trying to destroy a Nazi super-weapon that would have won the war for them. Obviously, he succeeded, but then finds himself revived in the 21st century, where even the children he once knew are old and his former fiancee won't even talk to him because she doesn't want him to see how she has aged and changed.
Bruce Banner is a true misfit, a self-pitying science geek who can't get any result from his experiments and who has lost his girlfriend. So he becomes the Hulk and goes to find her, tearing the city apart as he proclaims how horny he is.
Janet Van Dyne is interesting, but her husband seems mostly ego and the denouement where their domestic dispute turns into a superpowered battle shocked me.
Nick Fury is black and strong-willed and I like the idea of him putting together the Ultimates under the instructions of the President. I also like Thor: an overgrown hippie who claims to be a god, and (unlike most crackpots who think they're god) can prove it. Who holds the U.S. government to ransom by refusing to help out unless the President increases the International Aid budget and other such acts of superhero extortion. He refuses to work for the U.S. but will help out as necessary to save lives. ("Good," says Captain America. "Then we don't have to pay him.")
I didn't like Tony Stark's facial hair and the character is something of a sleaze - but interesting all the same.
Mark Millar wrote The Authority and he writes Ultimates very much as if it were The Authority with a new set of characters. That's okay; I'm hoping we get a gay male couple some time soon. It's okay, but not great. I didn't really warm to The Authority either. I admired it. But it didn't reach my heart and that's how I feel about Ultimates. A good comic, but a cold one. There's more about it here.
Peter Parker, Spider-Man: One Small Break. Written by Paul Jenkins, whom I never read before, that I recall. Drawn by Mark Buckingham, whose art is nice - never really rising above itself, but always adequate and more. This is a reprint of Peter Parker,Spider-Man from issues #27-28 and #30-34. I never read these originally - it was long after the point where I could afford all the Spider-Man stitles, so I gave up entirely. I'm glad I had a chance to read them now. They remind me of the reasons I used to enjoy Spider-Man: the banter, the idealism, the intropsection, the humour. Not so much the action or the plots, though they aren't bad. In "Getting Ahead", Spidey fights a robot-menace. At first it seems that mad scientist Mendel Stromm is responsible, but he turns out to be a tragic victim of his own robots, begging Spider-Man to kill him. The story has interesting moral questions raised. Interesting twists, interesting reflections from Peter Parker's point of view. I was amused by the inclusion of one of Peter's university teachers, Miss Smith, who was a delightful bit character. Others included in continuity were the pretty and flirtatious girl from across the alley, Caryn, and her strange dog, Barker. Loved the dog's name, since it never seems to bark, it just looks... Watches... giving Peter the creeps. At this period, Peter had been living with Mary Jane, but she left him, and he's feeling lonely. (But it doesn't send him on a rampage like the Hulk in
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<br>
I have no itention of confessing how many books I have out from the library right now. They used to have a limit of twelve books per card; book junkie that I am, it drove me nuts. I now have a self-imposed limit of fifty books at a time. Sometimes I manage to stick to it.
Right now, most of the books I have out are graphic novels. Finally, <i>finally</i> they have some good graphic novels in English. They used to have hundreds of French band-desinee <i>albums</i>, which I also enjoy, but I prefer American comics. They still don't have any <i>Sandman</i>, which I find a terrible lack. But they have all sorts of good stuff, including the Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale <i>Batman</i> stories like <i>The Long Halloween</i> and <i>Dark Victory</i> which I have already enthused about here and probably will again.
The downside: the best comics all have long waiting lists. I'm on them. They persist in cataloguing all graphic novels as "juvenile fiction", which may explain why they don't carry <i>Sandman</i>. In some cases, I coudn't tell from the online catalogue whether a certain title was a child's book, a graphic novel, a novelization, or a comic.
So. I'll try to put spoilers under cut tags here. I've been reading:
<a href="http://continuitypages.com/ultimates/ultimates01a.gif" target="blank"><b>Ultimates</b></a> by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch. A new take on the Avengers. A more adult take than I've ever seen yet. It was compelling. In some ways, I loved it. In other ways... well, not so much. <lj-cut text="The problem was...."> The problem was that like so many titles geared for a mature audience, it was darker than I am comfortable with in character and mood. I liked the approach, the psychological angles, the revision of old characters to make them complex in new and different ways. But this very approach tends to contradict other things I like about these same heroes in more traditional comics - their heroism, the idealism, the humour, the bonds they form in the group, and so on.
What I liked best was the beginning, the first story, which I believe was in <i>Ultimates</i> #1. It features Steve Rogers - Captain American - in World War II, trying to destroy a Nazi super-weapon that would have won the war for them. Obviously, he succeeded, but then finds himself revived in the 21st century, where even the children he once knew are old and his former fiancee won't even talk to him because she doesn't want him to see how she has aged and changed.
Bruce Banner is a true misfit, a self-pitying science geek who can't get any result from his experiments and who has lost his girlfriend. So he becomes the Hulk and goes to find her, tearing the city apart as he proclaims how horny he is.
Janet Van Dyne is interesting, but her husband seems mostly ego and the denouement where their domestic dispute turns into a superpowered battle shocked me.
Nick Fury is black and strong-willed and I like the idea of him putting together the Ultimates under the instructions of the President. I also like Thor: an overgrown hippie who claims to be a god, and (unlike most crackpots who think they're god) can prove it. Who holds the U.S. government to ransom by refusing to help out unless the President increases the International Aid budget and other such acts of superhero extortion. He refuses to work for the U.S. but will help out as necessary to save lives. ("Good," says Captain America. "Then we don't have to pay him.")
I didn't like Tony Stark's facial hair and the character is something of a sleaze - but interesting all the same.
Mark Millar wrote <i>The Authority</i> and he writes <i>Ultimates</i> very much as if it were <i>The Authority</i> with a new set of characters. That's okay; I'm hoping we get a gay male couple some time soon. It's okay, but not great. I didn't really warm to <i>The Authority</i> either. I admired it. But it didn't reach my heart and that's how I feel about <i>Ultimates</i>. A good comic, but a cold one. There's more about it <a href="http://continuitypages.com/ultimates.htm" target="blank">here</a>. </lj-cut>
<a href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0785108246.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="blank"><b>Peter Parker, Spider-Man: One Small Break</b></a>. Written by Paul Jenkins, whom I never read before, that I recall. Drawn by Mark Buckingham, whose art is nice - never really rising above itself, but always adequate and more. This is a reprint of <i>Peter Parker,Spider-Man</i> from issues #27-28 and #30-34. I never read these originally - it was long after the point where I could afford all the Spider-Man stitles, so I gave up entirely. I'm glad I had a chance to read them now. They remind me of the reasons I used to enjoy Spider-Man: the banter, the idealism, the intropsection, the humour. Not so much the action or the plots, though they aren't bad. <lj-cut text="Getting Ahead" is the first story"> In "Getting Ahead", Spidey fights a robot-menace. At first it seems that mad scientist Mendel Stromm is responsible, but he turns out to be a tragic victim of his own robots, begging Spider-Man to kill him. The story has interesting moral questions raised. Interesting twists, interesting reflections from Peter Parker's point of view. I was amused by the inclusion of one of Peter's university teachers, Miss Smith, who was a delightful bit character. Others included in continuity were the pretty and flirtatious girl from across the alley, Caryn, and her strange dog, Barker. Loved the dog's name, since it never seems to bark, it just <i>looks</i>... Watches... giving Peter the creeps. At this period, Peter had been living with Mary Jane, but she left him, and he's feeling lonely. (But it doesn't send him on a rampage like the Hulk in <i><Ultimates</i>. Peter is a <i>nice</i> boy.) Another bit character was Randy Robertson - a college friend, I assumed. (Robbie's son?)
The next story arc had Spider-Man fighting Fusion, a villain who irrationally blamed Spidey for the death of his son. I guessed the outcome of the story - it wasn't hard - but there's an interesting bit where Peter thinks his back is broken and he is permanently crippled.
"Maybe Next Year" was my favourite story in the collection. Every year, on the anniversary of Ben Parker's death, Peter goes to a baseball game because that's what he and Uncle Ben did every year. This follows his memories of those baseball games, rooting for the New York Mets, despairing that they will never win - despite Uncle Ben's ongoing optimism that they will. I'm not a baseball fan (despite the heroic efforts of friends like <lj site="livejournal.com" user="walkingowl"> to convert me) but this story touched my heart. It isn't really about baseball, it's about hope and growing up and the realtionship between Peter and Uncle Ben as we seldom get a chance to see it.
The last story, "If Thine Eyes Offend Thee", was an oddity. A strange story about a bunch of monks and a boy in their charge imprisoned by his own mutancy, who escapes their care for a last time. Oddly pseudo-religious. I wasn't really sure what to make of it. I thought the art greatly inferior to that of the rest of this collection. </lj-cut>
<a href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0785108157.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="blank"><b>Spider-Girl</b></a>. Curiosity impelled me to read this, as I wondered who Spider-Girl was. I'd heard she was Peter Parker's daughter, but that seemed odd, since he has no daughter in any continuity I knew. I'd never read an issue because it was written by Tom DeFalco, one of those writers who have made a career in comics without every putting out a really good story in his life. Nor does Pat Oliffe's art do much for me. And you know what? I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. <lj-cut text="Not that I take back what I said about Tom DeFalco, but..."> It had charm. It never did answer my question of whether this comic is set in the future, or an alternate universe, other timeline, or just a continuity all its own. In this story, Peter Parker is old enough to be the father of a girl of sixteen, May, and he's married to Mary Jane. They live in suburbia. He lost a leg in a fight with the Green Goblin and stopped being Spider-Man. May has inherited his powers and wants to use them responsibly to help others. Peter forbids it. A clash of wills develops between father and daughter, much as they love each other - because they love each other. May sneaks out at night and fights supervillains so weird and crazy you'd think they were out of <i>Batman</i> stories of the 1960s, though this was written in 1998.
Definitely intended for young adult readers, but definitely fun. </lj-cut>
<a href="http://www.thefourthrail.com/images/reviews/093002/ultimatespiderman28.jpg" target="blank"><b><i>Ultimate Spider-Man</i> Vol. 5 - Public Scrutiny.</b></a> A trade paperback reprint of <i>Ultimate Spider-Man</i> #28 to 32, from 2003, by Brian Michael Bendis, whose writing I like very much indeed, though I don't think he's at his best with Spider-Man. <lj-cut text="We get lots of Spidey-angst and teenage tribulations, such as the difficulty of getting out of class when an emergency strikes."> The art by Mark Bagley just isn't to my taste, but doesn't put me off enough to stop me reading. This story is set early in the Ultimate Spider-Man's career; his girlfriend, Mary Jane, knows he is Spider-Man and helps to cover his identity and take care of, for example, gunshot wounds, though she's jealous of Gwen Stacy. In the main story, Spider is framed by a crook for various thefts and crimes. This really makes him mad and leads to more of the famously classic headlines in the Daily Bugle: SPIDER-MAN CRIMINAL. Nick Fury and Janet Van Dyne make a brief appearance. (I wish Brian Michael Bendis wrote <i>Ultimates</i>. Happy sigh at the thought.)
<br>
I have no itention of confessing how many books I have out from the library right now. They used to have a limit of twelve books per card; book junkie that I am, it drove me nuts. I now have a self-imposed limit of fifty books at a time. Sometimes I manage to stick to it.
Right now, most of the books I have out are graphic novels. Finally, <i>finally</i> they have some good graphic novels in English. They used to have hundreds of French band-desinee <i>albums</i>, which I also enjoy, but I prefer American comics. They still don't have any <i>Sandman</i>, which I find a terrible lack. But they have all sorts of good stuff, including the Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale <i>Batman</i> stories like <i>The Long Halloween</i> and <i>Dark Victory</i> which I have already enthused about here and probably will again.
The downside: the best comics all have long waiting lists. I'm on them. They persist in cataloguing all graphic novels as "juvenile fiction", which may explain why they don't carry <i>Sandman</i>. In some cases, I coudn't tell from the online catalogue whether a certain title was a child's book, a graphic novel, a novelization, or a comic.
So. I'll try to put spoilers under cut tags here. I've been reading:
<a href="http://continuitypages.com/ultimates/ultimates01a.gif" target="blank"><b>Ultimates</b></a> by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch. A new take on the Avengers. A more adult take than I've ever seen yet. It was compelling. In some ways, I loved it. In other ways... well, not so much. <lj-cut text="The problem was...."> The problem was that like so many titles geared for a mature audience, it was darker than I am comfortable with in character and mood. I liked the approach, the psychological angles, the revision of old characters to make them complex in new and different ways. But this very approach tends to contradict other things I like about these same heroes in more traditional comics - their heroism, the idealism, the humour, the bonds they form in the group, and so on.
What I liked best was the beginning, the first story, which I believe was in <i>Ultimates</i> #1. It features Steve Rogers - Captain American - in World War II, trying to destroy a Nazi super-weapon that would have won the war for them. Obviously, he succeeded, but then finds himself revived in the 21st century, where even the children he once knew are old and his former fiancee won't even talk to him because she doesn't want him to see how she has aged and changed.
Bruce Banner is a true misfit, a self-pitying science geek who can't get any result from his experiments and who has lost his girlfriend. So he becomes the Hulk and goes to find her, tearing the city apart as he proclaims how horny he is.
Janet Van Dyne is interesting, but her husband seems mostly ego and the denouement where their domestic dispute turns into a superpowered battle shocked me.
Nick Fury is black and strong-willed and I like the idea of him putting together the Ultimates under the instructions of the President. I also like Thor: an overgrown hippie who claims to be a god, and (unlike most crackpots who think they're god) can prove it. Who holds the U.S. government to ransom by refusing to help out unless the President increases the International Aid budget and other such acts of superhero extortion. He refuses to work for the U.S. but will help out as necessary to save lives. ("Good," says Captain America. "Then we don't have to pay him.")
I didn't like Tony Stark's facial hair and the character is something of a sleaze - but interesting all the same.
Mark Millar wrote <i>The Authority</i> and he writes <i>Ultimates</i> very much as if it were <i>The Authority</i> with a new set of characters. That's okay; I'm hoping we get a gay male couple some time soon. It's okay, but not great. I didn't really warm to <i>The Authority</i> either. I admired it. But it didn't reach my heart and that's how I feel about <i>Ultimates</i>. A good comic, but a cold one. There's more about it <a href="http://continuitypages.com/ultimates.htm" target="blank">here</a>. </lj-cut>
<a href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0785108246.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="blank"><b>Peter Parker, Spider-Man: One Small Break</b></a>. Written by Paul Jenkins, whom I never read before, that I recall. Drawn by Mark Buckingham, whose art is nice - never really rising above itself, but always adequate and more. This is a reprint of <i>Peter Parker,Spider-Man</i> from issues #27-28 and #30-34. I never read these originally - it was long after the point where I could afford all the Spider-Man stitles, so I gave up entirely. I'm glad I had a chance to read them now. They remind me of the reasons I used to enjoy Spider-Man: the banter, the idealism, the intropsection, the humour. Not so much the action or the plots, though they aren't bad. <lj-cut text="Getting Ahead" is the first story"> In "Getting Ahead", Spidey fights a robot-menace. At first it seems that mad scientist Mendel Stromm is responsible, but he turns out to be a tragic victim of his own robots, begging Spider-Man to kill him. The story has interesting moral questions raised. Interesting twists, interesting reflections from Peter Parker's point of view. I was amused by the inclusion of one of Peter's university teachers, Miss Smith, who was a delightful bit character. Others included in continuity were the pretty and flirtatious girl from across the alley, Caryn, and her strange dog, Barker. Loved the dog's name, since it never seems to bark, it just <i>looks</i>... Watches... giving Peter the creeps. At this period, Peter had been living with Mary Jane, but she left him, and he's feeling lonely. (But it doesn't send him on a rampage like the Hulk in <i><Ultimates</i>. Peter is a <i>nice</i> boy.) Another bit character was Randy Robertson - a college friend, I assumed. (Robbie's son?)
The next story arc had Spider-Man fighting Fusion, a villain who irrationally blamed Spidey for the death of his son. I guessed the outcome of the story - it wasn't hard - but there's an interesting bit where Peter thinks his back is broken and he is permanently crippled.
"Maybe Next Year" was my favourite story in the collection. Every year, on the anniversary of Ben Parker's death, Peter goes to a baseball game because that's what he and Uncle Ben did every year. This follows his memories of those baseball games, rooting for the New York Mets, despairing that they will never win - despite Uncle Ben's ongoing optimism that they will. I'm not a baseball fan (despite the heroic efforts of friends like <lj site="livejournal.com" user="walkingowl"> to convert me) but this story touched my heart. It isn't really about baseball, it's about hope and growing up and the realtionship between Peter and Uncle Ben as we seldom get a chance to see it.
The last story, "If Thine Eyes Offend Thee", was an oddity. A strange story about a bunch of monks and a boy in their charge imprisoned by his own mutancy, who escapes their care for a last time. Oddly pseudo-religious. I wasn't really sure what to make of it. I thought the art greatly inferior to that of the rest of this collection. </lj-cut>
<a href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0785108157.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="blank"><b>Spider-Girl</b></a>. Curiosity impelled me to read this, as I wondered who Spider-Girl was. I'd heard she was Peter Parker's daughter, but that seemed odd, since he has no daughter in any continuity I knew. I'd never read an issue because it was written by Tom DeFalco, one of those writers who have made a career in comics without every putting out a really good story in his life. Nor does Pat Oliffe's art do much for me. And you know what? I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. <lj-cut text="Not that I take back what I said about Tom DeFalco, but..."> It had charm. It never did answer my question of whether this comic is set in the future, or an alternate universe, other timeline, or just a continuity all its own. In this story, Peter Parker is old enough to be the father of a girl of sixteen, May, and he's married to Mary Jane. They live in suburbia. He lost a leg in a fight with the Green Goblin and stopped being Spider-Man. May has inherited his powers and wants to use them responsibly to help others. Peter forbids it. A clash of wills develops between father and daughter, much as they love each other - because they love each other. May sneaks out at night and fights supervillains so weird and crazy you'd think they were out of <i>Batman</i> stories of the 1960s, though this was written in 1998.
Definitely intended for young adult readers, but definitely fun. </lj-cut>
<a href="http://www.thefourthrail.com/images/reviews/093002/ultimatespiderman28.jpg" target="blank"><b><i>Ultimate Spider-Man</i> Vol. 5 - Public Scrutiny.</b></a> A trade paperback reprint of <i>Ultimate Spider-Man</i> #28 to 32, from 2003, by Brian Michael Bendis, whose writing I like very much indeed, though I don't think he's at his best with Spider-Man. <lj-cut text="We get lots of Spidey-angst and teenage tribulations, such as the difficulty of getting out of class when an emergency strikes."> The art by Mark Bagley just isn't to my taste, but doesn't put me off enough to stop me reading. This story is set early in the Ultimate Spider-Man's career; his girlfriend, Mary Jane, knows he is Spider-Man and helps to cover his identity and take care of, for example, gunshot wounds, though she's jealous of Gwen Stacy. In the main story, Spider is framed by a crook for various thefts and crimes. This really makes him mad and leads to more of the famously classic headlines in the Daily Bugle: SPIDER-MAN CRIMINAL. Nick Fury and Janet Van Dyne make a brief appearance. (I wish Brian Michael Bendis wrote <i>Ultimates</i>. Happy sigh at the thought.)
<br>
