World Enough and Time

I wanted to do a commentary and picspam on The Incredible Hulk #603, just because I enjoyed it so much. This story is full of father issues.

Now, I don't normally read The Incredible Hulk. I think the only times I've read the Hulk comics is when I got them as hardcovers from the library, and read that wonderful run by Paul Jenkins about a decade ago. I'd never read anything by the current writer, Greg Pak. I think maybe now I'm missing something there. Judging by this, he's well worth reading. This issue came out about a year ago.

The variant cover on the issue I bought wasn't promising. It looked silly.

This wasn't ... Okay, it was on the light side, a contrast to all the dark and depressing Wolverine Origins material I'd been reading about Daken. This was delightful.

So: a monster and an assassin walk into a bar... The big green monster is Skaar, son of the Hulk. The assassin is Daken, ( son of Wolverine. )

I continue my quest to read all appearances of Wolverine's son Daken, also known as Dark Wolverine, and my attempts to figure him out. Spine-chillingly sane, is he also as evil as he seems? What lies under his various masks? Is there anything to him but blade-sharp intelligence and cruelty? What does he want?

The Norns offered him Ragnarok, universal destruction, and he turned it down.

Yesterday I read (and talked about) Wolverine Origins #31 - 36, which were early stories about Daken and his relationship with his father. Those were from early 2009. Today I read Dark Wolverine #83, cover dated April 2010, which is about Daken and his view of himself. What a difference a couple of years makes. What a difference in sophistication and style. The writing (and storytelling) by Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu is dramatic, powerful, subtle, and original. It helps that the artist was good - Italian Giuseppe Camuncoli, impressively portraying the subtleties and strengths that make up Daken.



It helps too that here we get events through Daken's own point of view - and the Norn's assessment of him, a man potentially strong enough to become the god they need.

The story takes place during last year's Siege of Asgard, when Norman Osborn (Daken's boss) decided to destroy Asgard. In the ( middle of the battlefield... )

And here's Daken's reply to me, in my impatience to find and read all of his stories:



Best line of the comic is the first one: Everyone falls.

I took my camera with me today when I went for a walk with Lisa at lunchtime, so when I got all excited on seeing a budding tree by the Rideau Canal, I took a picture:

( 1. Walking by the canal )

2. To get to the hospital, I had to walk for about twenty minutes to get to the bus stop at the corner of Main and Evelyn, then spend about ten minutes on the bus. I tried to make it to the bus stop in 15 minutes, and failed: it took about 17, and I saw the bus moving away in the distance as I got there. It wasn't a long wait till the next one, and I spent the time taking a photo of my irises and looking around.

( Flowers on their way to maaseru in the hospital )

On leaving the hospital, I decided to see how long it would take me to walk home. According to Google Maps, it would take a little more than an hour. I thought it would take about an hour and a half - I have to cross the Pretoria Bridge and backtrack quite a bit. Still, worth a try.
It was just getting dark as I left the hospital at 7:30. There was a tiny crescent moon and it was a beautiful evening.

3. Not long after that, I saw two ducks, swimming in a large puddle by the side of the road. I stopped to take their picture, but as soon as they saw me, they stopped swimming and walked towards me with the hopeful look of ducks who think a human might feed them. I didn't; I just snapped their picture, and they tried to act nonchalant, nibbling at bits of leaves.

( Ducks in a puddle by Smyth Road )

4. Further along, I saw the first bit of snow I've seen in a long time. This is for all the people, unaccustomed to snow, who think snow is beautiful. It is, when it's falling freshly in December, all white and fluffy. By March or April it's lumpy, mostly black, ugly shapes with debris embedded. The debris in this case was pine needles, as it was under a small grove of trees. To give some perspective to it, this chunk of ice was about 5' across and maybe 20" high.

( A last vestige of snow )

5. Then I came to the Smyth Road Bridge. It was almost dark then, just a glimmer of light in the sky backlighting the clouds, and reflections from the houses alongside the Rideau River reflecting in the water.

( The River )

6. Then I got to Main Street, where I paused for a photo, looking back southward towards the bridge. Let me explain, if you don't know Ottawa: there is nothing particularly "main" about our Main Street, which more or less connects the Pretoria Bridge (over the Canal) with the Smyth Road Bridge (over the River), but isn't downtown, isn't long or large or wide or anything.

( Main Street, around 8 p.m. on a Friday in March )

I made the mistake of pausing to look at the books in a sidewalk display outside the Singing Pebbles Bookshop (in March!) and after that, my back started to hurt. It hurt less when I sort of pulled up my ribs - is that a posture problem?

I arrived home at 8:35 p.m., must sooner than I expected. Perhaps if I hadn't paused to look at those books, it would have been an hour, but if you think I can resist the sight of a book display, you don't know me very well.

I enjoyed reading Science Fiction's 10 Most Epic Love Stories. I agree with some of the choices - though I never saw enough of Farscape or Cowboy Bebop to get to the romance, but I loved both insofar as I saw them and would agree on principle. The romance of Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith is one of my favourites ever, and the Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese was great because Michael Biehn is about as hot as a guy can get. But generally speaking, my favourite characters in SF (Aral and Cordelia notwithstanding) don't get romances. Or if they do, they're lame, like Mulder and Scully - brilliant characters, weak romance. So, hmm... going purely from canon and discounting the above, discounting slash, saving comic book characters for a list another day, what would my choices be?

( fajrdrako's choice: The Ten Most Epic Love Stories in Science Fiction )

Looking at this list, I note that though they are love stories, only Wall-E ends with the lovers happily together ever after. I think there are two reasons for this: one is that in science fiction, generally speaking, women who are a love interest in the story usually achieve either a tragic death or a minor role - not attributes likely to attract me to them. And male/male (or even female/female) romances are primarily a feature of the past decade or so, though I almost listed Xena and Gabrielle among my choices, and didn't, because it wouldn't be honest: I never watched much Xena.

The other reason is that most science fiction is not romantic fiction. With some exceptions, my favourite SF isn't romantic SF. And SF isn't my favourite genre, anyway. Most men, when they write love stories, write about lovers being separated and torn apart, rather than lovers getting together, and most TV shows are written by men.

I've talked before about how I love the details of Torchwood, visually and conceptually. The list is almost endless: the baby TARDIS on Jack's desk, the circular diagrams on his office window that look Gallifreyan to me, the swirly blue lights and the intense red lights. There are so many things I can stare at> thinking "What is that?" without being sure whether I'm looking at a perfectly normal object, or something weird and alien. Part of the charm is that I do know the story behind some of the objects. The 1950s TV screens in Jack's office? They're from the Doctor Who episode "The Idiot's Lantern". The 3-D specs? "Doomsday". The yellow coral has been identified extra-textually by Russell T Davies. The Doctor's hand in the jar was explained rather fully in "Utopia", to Martha's disgust. It makes a person feel that what we see isn't just random decor or things thrown in for atmosphere and character, it's all part of a larger story fitting around the story we see. All part of the universe. And I love that.

There are all sorts of things even beyond these which make Torchwood visually odd, and I've listed my thirteen favourites. I'm hoping other people will speak up with more - I've only scrutinized some of the episodes. Here's my list:

1. ( The hole in Jack's wall. )

2. ( Owen wears Gwen's clothes. )

3. ( What's on the floor? )

4. ( Meat. )

5. ( Suzie's ring. )

6. ( Bad Wolf. )

7. ( The feet in the bin. )

8. ( Jack's ladder. )

9. ( Owen's buttons. )

10. ( The Torchwood Dragon )

11. ( Rhys's jacket. Okay, not so much the jacket... )

12. ( High scores )

Cross-posted to my livejournal, my Dreanwidth journal, and the torch_wood community. With thanks to the various people who provided screencaps for my perusal: marishna, The Institute (now closed down, I'm sorry to see), chaotic creative and others who are all greatly appreciated.