A lot of stuff and things I did in the last week, ranked from worst to best. Note that I watched a lot of wrestling. #DealWithIt
WORST: WWE NXT episode 271: This is the second time I've tried NXT, the WWE's developmental show. Wrestling nerds rave about, but I don't quite get the hype to be honest. It all felt very flat and unpolished (as should be expected from wrestlers still learning their craft) and the legendarily fanatic NXT crowd was subdued. Nothing kills a wrestling show faster than a dead crowd. I'll give it a few more weeks to grab me, but at the moment I find it terribly dull.
The Punisher (2014) #7-10 written by Nathan Edmondson, drawn by Mitch Gerads: I only read these a week or so ago, and I barely remember anything about them. They're not bad comics; in fact they're quite competently done, and I was entertained while reading them. They just weren't memorable comics. I'd rather a comic to be memorably terrible than competently forgettable.
WCCW Parade of Champions 1984: I'm doing a chronological trip through wrestling history, starting in the early 1980s, and this was the second show I watched. It's full of the tedious back-and-forth clubbing that old-timey wrestling tends towards, but a couple of matches saved it. I got my first ever glimpse of the Freebirds, who are glorious mid-80s southern trash. Michael Hayes' bleach-blond mullet is a thing of beauty. The card finished with a championship bout between Ric Flair and Kerry Von Erich, and that was also a good, technical match. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who isn't already super into 80s wrestling, though.
NWA Starrcade 1983: More old-timey wrestling! This was the first thing I watched in my wrestling chronology, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I have other shows from this era. It was surprisingly bloody, and the hot crowd made everything feel like a big deal. Ric Flair and Harley Race put in a pretty good championship match, and the Roddy Piper/Greg Valentine match was probably the best thing I've seen either men involved with. (Wait, hang on. Piper was in They Live, so I have to strike that statement.)
The Walking Dead season finale: Season five closed out with a tense final episode, but I can't help feeling that the creators chose the least interesting direction to go in. We'll see next season. I always enjoy the show when I'm watching it, but there's a nagging sense that it's going around in circles.
Uncanny X-Men (2013) #1-18 written by Brian Bendis, drawn by Chris Bachalo: Speaking of which... This series follows the team of X-Men lead by Cyclops, and is supposed to focus on his "mutant revolution". In practice what they do is recruit new mutants and train them in a secret hideout, while talking about a revolution that is never adequately defined. They're not meaningfully different from the regular, non-fugitive X-Men. Like most Bendis books, it's a lot of fun in the moment, but it meanders in the long term. I get the feeling that the end of his run is going to be a gigantic mess of witty banter and unresolved plot threads.
WWE Smackdown episode 816: It's Wrestlemania week, so I'm super-excited about wrestling right now. So super-excited that I'm back to watching the WWE's b-show. It's usually redundant to Raw, and it's pre-taped, so it loses a lot of the spontaneity of a live show. But this episode was really good, especially the final match between Daniel Bryan and Sheamus, a violent brawl that ended with Sheamus covered in Bryan's blood. Blood! On fucking Smackdown! Also, Dean Ambrose got forced into a match for taking a shit in Kane's toilet, and that's the kind of petty motivation I can get behind.
Mothership Connection by Parliament: Classic 70s funk. It's not quite front-to-back classics, but it's not far off. Take a listen, it's the coolest album you'll hear in a long time. More on Parliament ring-leader George Clinton below.
WWE Raw episode 1,140: Ah, the post-Wrestlemania Raw is always a cracker, and this didn't disappoint. Brock Lesnar provided the segment of the year by flying off the handle and killing the announce team, and in any other week that would have netted it a Best. Special mention must be made of the crowd, who were hot throughout, and took the show over towards the end with a load of amusing (and some horrible) chants.
BEST: George Clinton live in concert: I saw funk legend George Clinton live at a small bar in Melbourne, and it was even better than I thought it would be. Clinton was in fine form, especially considering his age, and his afro-futurist funky grooves were amazing to hear live. The only disappointment was that he didn't look like George Clinton: he's lopped off his signature rainbow dreadlocks, and the outlandish outfits were nowhere to be seen. It's a small complaint, though, the guy still puts on a hell of a show.
ALSO BEST: Wrestlemania 31: Yeah, it's a double-best this week. I could not in good conscience do anything else, because both the George Clinton concert and Wrestlemania 31 were off the charts amazing. It's weird, because the build-up for Wrestlemania this year was terrible, but the actual show ended up being one of the best ever. Although there were no standout matches in terms of wrestling quality, the spectacle and theatrics more than made up for it. Rusev rode an actual, for real tank to the ring! Triple H dressed as a fucking Terminator carrying Terminator skull heads in his fists! And yes, the main event was perfectly executed, with the right man coming out on top. Seth Rollins was the MVP of 2014, and he really deserved to get the nod. Wrestling, guys; it usually sucks, but when it's great it's so great.
Showing posts with label Walking Dead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walking Dead. Show all posts
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
All The Things I Did: 29th March 2015
WORST: WWE Raw episodes 1138 & 1139: Wrestlemania is two weeks away, and still the WWE can't be arsed to tell any actual stories in the lead-up. The closest we're getting is with Cena vs. Rusev, and that one involves the supposed hero trying to choke his opponent to death to get what he wants. Still, the pre-taped Brock Lesnar interview was a delight, as they always are. And Sting's surprise appearance at the end had me marking out. Like most episodes of Raw, it's like sitting through two hours of shit for fifteen minutes of gold.
Black Widow (2014) #1-9 written by Nathan Edmondson, art by Phil Noto: This comic is a series of taut, single-issue spy stories starring Black Widow from the Avengers, and on that level it's pretty good. It executes the formula well, but it does feel like a formula, and the Widow is a little too dry as a protagonist to carry it with any particular verve. One for the spy fans, I feel.
The Punisher (2014) #1-6 written by Nathan Edmondson, art by Mitch Gerads: Right off the bat this book got me on its bad side by ignoring the conclusion to the Punisher's last series. It also features an uncharacteristically sociable version of the Punisher, one who frequents the same diner regularly and has real conversations with people. These odd irritants aside, it's a decent action book that maintains a down-to-earth tone while also revelling in how absurdly badass the Punisher is. He's played here as the guy who deals with problems too big for the police and too small for the Avengers, which in this story means he's shooting up a drug cartel that's hired Spider-Man villain Electro. The book is well-crafted, and the action scenes rattles along nicely, but just as with Edmondson's Black Widow it feels a little flat.
Magneto (2014) #1-10 by Cullen Bunn and Gabriel Walta: This series is doing some interesting things, as it follows X-Men villain Magneto on a mission to take down the enemies of mutantkind, and explores whether his brutal methods are justified. It's not afraid to go to some dark places, and never takes sides, which can make for some uncomfortable reading. There was definite potential here, but I feel like it got derailed by its tie-in to the Axis crossover. There are bound to be some strange tonal clashes when you do a story that evokes the Holocaust where the main villain is a telepathic ranting Nazi with a red skull for a head.
The Walking Dead season 5, episode 14: Holy shit, this show has done it again. Another black male cast member has been killed off. Seriously, do the creators of this show have any idea? Are they just taking the piss? They've killed off three this season already, and the last black guy left is a traitorous priest, so the odds aren't looking good for him. If I'm being honest this was actually a really good episode, the kind of supply-run-goes-horribly-wrong episode that this show can now do in its sleep. But I'm too dumbfounded by the decision to kill of yet another black guy to get over it.
Amazing Spider-Man (2014) #1-8 written by Dan Slott, art by Humberto Ramos: Peter Parker is back in control of his own body after a year or so of Dr Octopus masquerading as him (seriously, don't ask) and now he has to deal with all of the things that Doc Ock changed in his life while he was gone: mostly his new girlfriend, his position as CEO of a major tech developer, and the fact that his old ally/girlfriend the Black Cat wants to kill him. It gets a little too goofy for its own good at times, but Dan Slott hits the right tone for Spidey more often than not, and knows how to craft a fun superhero yarn better than most.
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett: I remembered this book having a lot of different settings and stories, but I had never realised just how disjointed it was. It's more a collection of short stories than a novel, linked by its main characters and a few plot strands, but little else. It is, of course, set on Pratchett's Discworld, and follows the adventures of the wizard Rincewind and the tourist Twoflower. I'd always enjoyed this book as a kid, but I got a lot more out of it now. It parodies a lot of the fantasy stories from the pulps of the mid-20th century, stuff I hadn't read back then. I get it now, and as a result the book holds up much better than I had expected it to. It's an enjoyable ride, just as long as you don't go in expecting a coherent story.
Uncanny Avengers (2012) #18-25 written by Rick Remender, art by Daniel Acuna: If I was just basing this on the wrap-up to the Kang/Apocalypse Twins arc, this would be higher on the list. Yes, it erases most of the events of the previous issues, but it is a crazy time-travel epic; what do you expect? The payoff more than delivers on the build-up, providing one of the most satisying Avengers stories I've read in years. Once that wraps up the story moves on to the Red Skull, and the lead-in to the Axis crossover. You might recall that I didn't care for that one much. The lead-in here strikes a bleak tone; Remender is very good at embracing the weirdness of superhero comics without sacrificing the drama and tension. But it feels a little choppy, as it drags Magneto in from his own series, and the conclusion is very abrupt. Ultimately, it pulls in too many elements from other comics, then has to serve as the launching point for another comic, and the story feels disjointed as a result.
Low by David Bowie: After Bowie hit rock bottom in the late 1970s, he disappeared to Berlin with Brian Eno. This is the album he came up with, one half made up of strange, fractured disco tracks and the other a wash of ambient synthesizers. It's odd, it's idiosyncratic, and it's often difficult to come to grips with. I love it.
Guardians of the Galaxy: So yes, it's taken me a long time to get to this movie, and I've heard nothing but amazing things about it. I spent about the first third of the movie thinking that I must be broken as a human being, because I wasn't loving it. I was liking it quite a bit, but on the whole I felt that all the scenes not featuring Peter Quill were a bit crap. I was all prepared to write this review saying that it's an okay movie elevated by a killer soundtrack. Perhaps I was just annoyed at how wrong they got Thanos. But you know what? It won me over with an onslaught of charm, and a whole lot of heart, and I ended up loving the hell out of it. And it really does have a killer soundtrack.
Black Widow (2014) #1-9 written by Nathan Edmondson, art by Phil Noto: This comic is a series of taut, single-issue spy stories starring Black Widow from the Avengers, and on that level it's pretty good. It executes the formula well, but it does feel like a formula, and the Widow is a little too dry as a protagonist to carry it with any particular verve. One for the spy fans, I feel.
The Punisher (2014) #1-6 written by Nathan Edmondson, art by Mitch Gerads: Right off the bat this book got me on its bad side by ignoring the conclusion to the Punisher's last series. It also features an uncharacteristically sociable version of the Punisher, one who frequents the same diner regularly and has real conversations with people. These odd irritants aside, it's a decent action book that maintains a down-to-earth tone while also revelling in how absurdly badass the Punisher is. He's played here as the guy who deals with problems too big for the police and too small for the Avengers, which in this story means he's shooting up a drug cartel that's hired Spider-Man villain Electro. The book is well-crafted, and the action scenes rattles along nicely, but just as with Edmondson's Black Widow it feels a little flat.
Magneto (2014) #1-10 by Cullen Bunn and Gabriel Walta: This series is doing some interesting things, as it follows X-Men villain Magneto on a mission to take down the enemies of mutantkind, and explores whether his brutal methods are justified. It's not afraid to go to some dark places, and never takes sides, which can make for some uncomfortable reading. There was definite potential here, but I feel like it got derailed by its tie-in to the Axis crossover. There are bound to be some strange tonal clashes when you do a story that evokes the Holocaust where the main villain is a telepathic ranting Nazi with a red skull for a head.
The Walking Dead season 5, episode 14: Holy shit, this show has done it again. Another black male cast member has been killed off. Seriously, do the creators of this show have any idea? Are they just taking the piss? They've killed off three this season already, and the last black guy left is a traitorous priest, so the odds aren't looking good for him. If I'm being honest this was actually a really good episode, the kind of supply-run-goes-horribly-wrong episode that this show can now do in its sleep. But I'm too dumbfounded by the decision to kill of yet another black guy to get over it.
Amazing Spider-Man (2014) #1-8 written by Dan Slott, art by Humberto Ramos: Peter Parker is back in control of his own body after a year or so of Dr Octopus masquerading as him (seriously, don't ask) and now he has to deal with all of the things that Doc Ock changed in his life while he was gone: mostly his new girlfriend, his position as CEO of a major tech developer, and the fact that his old ally/girlfriend the Black Cat wants to kill him. It gets a little too goofy for its own good at times, but Dan Slott hits the right tone for Spidey more often than not, and knows how to craft a fun superhero yarn better than most.
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett: I remembered this book having a lot of different settings and stories, but I had never realised just how disjointed it was. It's more a collection of short stories than a novel, linked by its main characters and a few plot strands, but little else. It is, of course, set on Pratchett's Discworld, and follows the adventures of the wizard Rincewind and the tourist Twoflower. I'd always enjoyed this book as a kid, but I got a lot more out of it now. It parodies a lot of the fantasy stories from the pulps of the mid-20th century, stuff I hadn't read back then. I get it now, and as a result the book holds up much better than I had expected it to. It's an enjoyable ride, just as long as you don't go in expecting a coherent story.
Uncanny Avengers (2012) #18-25 written by Rick Remender, art by Daniel Acuna: If I was just basing this on the wrap-up to the Kang/Apocalypse Twins arc, this would be higher on the list. Yes, it erases most of the events of the previous issues, but it is a crazy time-travel epic; what do you expect? The payoff more than delivers on the build-up, providing one of the most satisying Avengers stories I've read in years. Once that wraps up the story moves on to the Red Skull, and the lead-in to the Axis crossover. You might recall that I didn't care for that one much. The lead-in here strikes a bleak tone; Remender is very good at embracing the weirdness of superhero comics without sacrificing the drama and tension. But it feels a little choppy, as it drags Magneto in from his own series, and the conclusion is very abrupt. Ultimately, it pulls in too many elements from other comics, then has to serve as the launching point for another comic, and the story feels disjointed as a result.
Low by David Bowie: After Bowie hit rock bottom in the late 1970s, he disappeared to Berlin with Brian Eno. This is the album he came up with, one half made up of strange, fractured disco tracks and the other a wash of ambient synthesizers. It's odd, it's idiosyncratic, and it's often difficult to come to grips with. I love it.
Guardians of the Galaxy: So yes, it's taken me a long time to get to this movie, and I've heard nothing but amazing things about it. I spent about the first third of the movie thinking that I must be broken as a human being, because I wasn't loving it. I was liking it quite a bit, but on the whole I felt that all the scenes not featuring Peter Quill were a bit crap. I was all prepared to write this review saying that it's an okay movie elevated by a killer soundtrack. Perhaps I was just annoyed at how wrong they got Thanos. But you know what? It won me over with an onslaught of charm, and a whole lot of heart, and I ended up loving the hell out of it. And it really does have a killer soundtrack.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
All The Things I Did: 14th March 2015
All of the things. From Worst to Best. Go.
WORST: WWE Raw episode 1,137: Wrestlemania is two weeks away, and the build-up for it is alarmingly underdone. The major problem is that for three of the top feuds one of the major stars is missing. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar: Lesnar works limited dates, and when he does show up it's usually just to stand in the background and hop from foot to foot menacingly. Triple H vs. Sting - Sting has appeared maybe twice in the last six months, and otherwise communicates via monitor screen. Bray Wyatt vs. Undertaker: The Undertaker isn't appearing until Wrestlemania, and the entre build-up consists of Bray desperately calling him out, and Taker sending a mystical lightning bolt to blow up Bray's rocking chair (really). The only reason I'm excited for 'Mania is that I'm confident that all of those guys will deliver on the night.
The Walking Dead season 5, episode 13: This show has taken a definite upswing since Rick and co. found a safe place to live. They're telling a different kind of story now, and it's one I'm a bit more interested in than the relentlessly grim survivalist tale that was going on before.
Amazing X-Men (2014) #1-12, writing by Jason Aaron and Chris Yost, art by Ed McGuinness: This run of issues features two stories: one about the return of Nightcrawler from the dead, and the other about an army of Wendigos. The first is a swashbuckling action romp, as Nightcrawler summons the X-Men into the afterlife to stop pirates from stealing souls from Heaven and Hell. It's exactly a absurd as it sounds, but it gets away with it through sheer charm and exuberance. In the second, the Wendigo curse is activated when a human corpse is fed through a grinder in a meat-packing plant; hundreds of Canadians end up eating human flesh, and all of them turn into the mythica Wendigo. Cue the X-Men, and another story that hits a very similar tone to the Nightcrawler one. It's a bit throwaway, and not quite as good, but it's in the same ballpark.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: This is a collection of the first twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories, and it's immediately apparent that the character works better in this format than in his first two novels. All of the fat is cut, and what is left is a dozen or so lean stories that give every chance for Holmes to display his genius without too much clunky exposition. Still entertaining over a century later.
Young Americans by David Bowie: Bowie's first post-glam album may be one of his weaker efforts from the 1970s, but that still makes it pretty damn good. He's in full-on Philly soul mode, and doing it very well. It's an underlooked album. The only bad track is his cover of The Beatles' 'Across the Universe', and even that pulls out a surprisingly gutsy outtro.
Uncanny Avengers #1-17, writing by Rick Remender, art by John Cassaday and Daniel Acuna: In the wake of Avengers vs. X-Men, both teams have formed a squad together to promote mutant/human unity. It all goes pear-shaped when the Nazi Red Skull shows up wielding the brain of Charles Xavier as a weapon, and it gets even worse when the grand-kids of Apocalypse show up. Remender is drawing on plot threads from his amazing run on Uncanny X-Force, and weaving them together into a balls-out, high-stakes superhero magnum opus. It does get a little ham-handed when Remender starts moralising about race-relations and cultural identity, but the rest is solid gold. Plus, it has Kand the Conqueror, and I am a sucker for a good Kang story.
Station to Station by David Bowie: Right from the middle of Bowie's cocaine-addled peak, this album is masterful. He's shed the glam by this point, and is working more with funk and soul influences. There may only be six songs on the album, but every single one is a winner.
BEST: A Night at the Hip-Hopera by The Kleptones: Hip-hop classics meet Queen backing tracks, in what may be the greatest mash-up album of all time. This is probably my favourite album of the last decade. Check it out, if only for the amazing combination of the Beastie Boys with 'Radio Gaga/I Want to Break Free'. It's free if anyone wants to check it out here.
WORST: WWE Raw episode 1,137: Wrestlemania is two weeks away, and the build-up for it is alarmingly underdone. The major problem is that for three of the top feuds one of the major stars is missing. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar: Lesnar works limited dates, and when he does show up it's usually just to stand in the background and hop from foot to foot menacingly. Triple H vs. Sting - Sting has appeared maybe twice in the last six months, and otherwise communicates via monitor screen. Bray Wyatt vs. Undertaker: The Undertaker isn't appearing until Wrestlemania, and the entre build-up consists of Bray desperately calling him out, and Taker sending a mystical lightning bolt to blow up Bray's rocking chair (really). The only reason I'm excited for 'Mania is that I'm confident that all of those guys will deliver on the night.
The Walking Dead season 5, episode 13: This show has taken a definite upswing since Rick and co. found a safe place to live. They're telling a different kind of story now, and it's one I'm a bit more interested in than the relentlessly grim survivalist tale that was going on before.
Amazing X-Men (2014) #1-12, writing by Jason Aaron and Chris Yost, art by Ed McGuinness: This run of issues features two stories: one about the return of Nightcrawler from the dead, and the other about an army of Wendigos. The first is a swashbuckling action romp, as Nightcrawler summons the X-Men into the afterlife to stop pirates from stealing souls from Heaven and Hell. It's exactly a absurd as it sounds, but it gets away with it through sheer charm and exuberance. In the second, the Wendigo curse is activated when a human corpse is fed through a grinder in a meat-packing plant; hundreds of Canadians end up eating human flesh, and all of them turn into the mythica Wendigo. Cue the X-Men, and another story that hits a very similar tone to the Nightcrawler one. It's a bit throwaway, and not quite as good, but it's in the same ballpark.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: This is a collection of the first twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories, and it's immediately apparent that the character works better in this format than in his first two novels. All of the fat is cut, and what is left is a dozen or so lean stories that give every chance for Holmes to display his genius without too much clunky exposition. Still entertaining over a century later.
Young Americans by David Bowie: Bowie's first post-glam album may be one of his weaker efforts from the 1970s, but that still makes it pretty damn good. He's in full-on Philly soul mode, and doing it very well. It's an underlooked album. The only bad track is his cover of The Beatles' 'Across the Universe', and even that pulls out a surprisingly gutsy outtro.
Uncanny Avengers #1-17, writing by Rick Remender, art by John Cassaday and Daniel Acuna: In the wake of Avengers vs. X-Men, both teams have formed a squad together to promote mutant/human unity. It all goes pear-shaped when the Nazi Red Skull shows up wielding the brain of Charles Xavier as a weapon, and it gets even worse when the grand-kids of Apocalypse show up. Remender is drawing on plot threads from his amazing run on Uncanny X-Force, and weaving them together into a balls-out, high-stakes superhero magnum opus. It does get a little ham-handed when Remender starts moralising about race-relations and cultural identity, but the rest is solid gold. Plus, it has Kand the Conqueror, and I am a sucker for a good Kang story.
Station to Station by David Bowie: Right from the middle of Bowie's cocaine-addled peak, this album is masterful. He's shed the glam by this point, and is working more with funk and soul influences. There may only be six songs on the album, but every single one is a winner.
BEST: A Night at the Hip-Hopera by The Kleptones: Hip-hop classics meet Queen backing tracks, in what may be the greatest mash-up album of all time. This is probably my favourite album of the last decade. Check it out, if only for the amazing combination of the Beastie Boys with 'Radio Gaga/I Want to Break Free'. It's free if anyone wants to check it out here.
Saturday, March 7, 2015
All The Things I Did: 7th March 2015
All the things, ranked from worst to best.
Resurrection season 2, episodes 11 to 13: I'll admit that I was getting into this as it started drawing more and more on apocalyptic imagery, and supposedly heading towards an epic climax. But if there's one thing I can't stand, it's an anticlimax. This series spent hours building up the premise that "if this baby is born it could mean the end of everything!!!!!". Of course the baby is born, millions of people return from the dead, and then the show cuts to a "one year later" transition and shows that everything is fine and dandy, aside from some irritating bits of anti-Returned legislation. It's the textbook example of how to get me to stop watching your show.
Marvel 75th Anniversary Celebration #1: This comic is mostly full of throwaway anthology stories. The most notable are a look at what the other Marvel characters were doing during the origin of the Fantastic Four (a story which contradicts continuity in a number of places) and a Darwyn Cooke adaptation of a prose story that was Stan Lee's first published work. The latter is a fine example of what a great artist like Cooke can do with an execrable piece of writing. It's fun, but not enough to save the rest of the forgettable material.
WWE Raw episodes 1,135 and 1,136: Speaking of forgettable... WWE is on the road to Wrestlemania, which is supposed to be the biggest event of the year, but you'd never know it. The same story beats are being hit week after week, the champion Brock Lesnar never bothers to show up, and the wrestling has been decent at best. Who would have thought that the highlight would be Curtis Axel, and his delusional #Axelmania rants?
The Walking Dead season 5, episodes 11 and 12: Interest is picking up here, as Rick and co. move into a community that, shockingly, seems perfectly safe. It looks to me as though they're heading for a story where we explore whether Rick's crew can still function in a normal society, and I'm cool with that. It's a change-up from the same old formula, and that's exactly what the show needed.
WWE Fastlane 2015: Most of the matches here were dull, and the crowd didn't help. Why would you pay to go to a wrestling event, and not react to anything? The last two matches saved it, though. John Cena and Rusev had a good back-and-forth match that went a long way to cementing Rusev as a legitimate main-event heel. The ending, with Rusev hitting a distracted Cena then making him pass out with the Accolade, was the right one, and sets up their Wrestlemania rematch nicely. The Roman Reigns/Daniel Bryan main event was a corker, but that's to be expected when Bryan is involved. And as much as I would rather see Bryan head to Wrestlemania as the top guy, I'm kind of glad that the WWE doubled down on Reigns in the face of negative crowd reactions. Bryan was the safe option, but they're trying to make a new star here, and even with Reigns's obviosu deficiencies that's commendable.
Thunderbolts #13-32 by Charles Soule and various artists: I hadn't really enjoyed the first twelve issues of this series by Daniel Way, but with Charles Soule taking over the book improved a lot. It got a genuine premise, for a start: the group do one mission for the Red Hulk, then one mission for another member, alternating each time. It also gained a sudden self-awareness of it's own absurdity, which it needed. You can't put so many grim killers on the same superhero team and expect the book to be taken seriously. The highlight of the run was the team's trip to Hell, which embraced the silliness of the situation and had some clever tie-ins to other Marvel books. The book tailed off a bit at the end, and got cancelled before it could get around to giving every character a mission, but it had its fun moments.
Powers: The Bureau #1-12 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Oeming: This series has been running for about 15 years now, but this is the first time I've tried it. The premise is that the world has superheroes, and the FBI deals with them. It's pretty simple, and the opening arc sets the tone immediately by featuring a case involving superpowered semen being sold on the black market, and some highly entertaining foul language. The plotting is a lot tighter than Bendis's mainstream work, and the characters are entertaining on a superficial level. I was with it until he introduced a pregnancy plot for the main character, had her lose the baby after being kicked in the stomach, then didn't mention it at all in the nest story. Perhaps it will be explored going forward, but it's not the sort of thing that I feel can be dropped like that.
The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle: The second Sherlock Holmes novel is better than the first, mostly because Holmes is actually in it the whole way through. It still falls into the same narrative trap that A Study in Scarlet did, though: the last chapter is a massive block of exposition detailing how and why the murder was done. The plot is cliched from a modern perspective, being a murder mystery involving missing treasure and an island native, but Holmes himself remains entertaining enough.
Nova #1-16 by Jeph Loeb, Zeb Wells, Gerry Duggan and various artists: Young Sam Alexander finds his dad's space helmet and becomes the star-faring Nova, in a solid execution of the teen superhero formula. There's nothing new on display here, but it has a lot of exuberance that carries it through the standard tropes.
Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov: How often does someone create a sequel to their most famous work decades after the original, and pull it off? Not often, but here Asimov has managed to do it, writing a novel in 1982 that's just as good as the Foundation stories of the 1950s. Foundation is a hard sell as a series, being a story about a fellow who maps out the future using maths, then sets up two organisations whose goal was to see that the best possible future comes about over the coming centuries. This story involves the technologically superior First Foundation and the psychic Second Foundation being drawn into a conflict revolving around the mysterious planet Gaia, with the fate of the galaxy at stake. There are no space battles, or exciting things like that, just politics and space exploration. This is hard sci-fi, by one of the masters, and if you're into that sort of thing it's a series you really ought to read.
Resurrection season 2, episodes 11 to 13: I'll admit that I was getting into this as it started drawing more and more on apocalyptic imagery, and supposedly heading towards an epic climax. But if there's one thing I can't stand, it's an anticlimax. This series spent hours building up the premise that "if this baby is born it could mean the end of everything!!!!!". Of course the baby is born, millions of people return from the dead, and then the show cuts to a "one year later" transition and shows that everything is fine and dandy, aside from some irritating bits of anti-Returned legislation. It's the textbook example of how to get me to stop watching your show.
Marvel 75th Anniversary Celebration #1: This comic is mostly full of throwaway anthology stories. The most notable are a look at what the other Marvel characters were doing during the origin of the Fantastic Four (a story which contradicts continuity in a number of places) and a Darwyn Cooke adaptation of a prose story that was Stan Lee's first published work. The latter is a fine example of what a great artist like Cooke can do with an execrable piece of writing. It's fun, but not enough to save the rest of the forgettable material.
WWE Raw episodes 1,135 and 1,136: Speaking of forgettable... WWE is on the road to Wrestlemania, which is supposed to be the biggest event of the year, but you'd never know it. The same story beats are being hit week after week, the champion Brock Lesnar never bothers to show up, and the wrestling has been decent at best. Who would have thought that the highlight would be Curtis Axel, and his delusional #Axelmania rants?
The Walking Dead season 5, episodes 11 and 12: Interest is picking up here, as Rick and co. move into a community that, shockingly, seems perfectly safe. It looks to me as though they're heading for a story where we explore whether Rick's crew can still function in a normal society, and I'm cool with that. It's a change-up from the same old formula, and that's exactly what the show needed.
WWE Fastlane 2015: Most of the matches here were dull, and the crowd didn't help. Why would you pay to go to a wrestling event, and not react to anything? The last two matches saved it, though. John Cena and Rusev had a good back-and-forth match that went a long way to cementing Rusev as a legitimate main-event heel. The ending, with Rusev hitting a distracted Cena then making him pass out with the Accolade, was the right one, and sets up their Wrestlemania rematch nicely. The Roman Reigns/Daniel Bryan main event was a corker, but that's to be expected when Bryan is involved. And as much as I would rather see Bryan head to Wrestlemania as the top guy, I'm kind of glad that the WWE doubled down on Reigns in the face of negative crowd reactions. Bryan was the safe option, but they're trying to make a new star here, and even with Reigns's obviosu deficiencies that's commendable.
Thunderbolts #13-32 by Charles Soule and various artists: I hadn't really enjoyed the first twelve issues of this series by Daniel Way, but with Charles Soule taking over the book improved a lot. It got a genuine premise, for a start: the group do one mission for the Red Hulk, then one mission for another member, alternating each time. It also gained a sudden self-awareness of it's own absurdity, which it needed. You can't put so many grim killers on the same superhero team and expect the book to be taken seriously. The highlight of the run was the team's trip to Hell, which embraced the silliness of the situation and had some clever tie-ins to other Marvel books. The book tailed off a bit at the end, and got cancelled before it could get around to giving every character a mission, but it had its fun moments.
Powers: The Bureau #1-12 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Oeming: This series has been running for about 15 years now, but this is the first time I've tried it. The premise is that the world has superheroes, and the FBI deals with them. It's pretty simple, and the opening arc sets the tone immediately by featuring a case involving superpowered semen being sold on the black market, and some highly entertaining foul language. The plotting is a lot tighter than Bendis's mainstream work, and the characters are entertaining on a superficial level. I was with it until he introduced a pregnancy plot for the main character, had her lose the baby after being kicked in the stomach, then didn't mention it at all in the nest story. Perhaps it will be explored going forward, but it's not the sort of thing that I feel can be dropped like that.
The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle: The second Sherlock Holmes novel is better than the first, mostly because Holmes is actually in it the whole way through. It still falls into the same narrative trap that A Study in Scarlet did, though: the last chapter is a massive block of exposition detailing how and why the murder was done. The plot is cliched from a modern perspective, being a murder mystery involving missing treasure and an island native, but Holmes himself remains entertaining enough.
Nova #1-16 by Jeph Loeb, Zeb Wells, Gerry Duggan and various artists: Young Sam Alexander finds his dad's space helmet and becomes the star-faring Nova, in a solid execution of the teen superhero formula. There's nothing new on display here, but it has a lot of exuberance that carries it through the standard tropes.
Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov: How often does someone create a sequel to their most famous work decades after the original, and pull it off? Not often, but here Asimov has managed to do it, writing a novel in 1982 that's just as good as the Foundation stories of the 1950s. Foundation is a hard sell as a series, being a story about a fellow who maps out the future using maths, then sets up two organisations whose goal was to see that the best possible future comes about over the coming centuries. This story involves the technologically superior First Foundation and the psychic Second Foundation being drawn into a conflict revolving around the mysterious planet Gaia, with the fate of the galaxy at stake. There are no space battles, or exciting things like that, just politics and space exploration. This is hard sci-fi, by one of the masters, and if you're into that sort of thing it's a series you really ought to read.
Friday, February 20, 2015
All The Things I Did: 20th February 2015
Another week, another lot of things I read, played, watched and listened to. As always, they're ranked from worst to best.
WORST: The Walking Dead season 5, episode 2: This wasn't exactly bad; it's still quite a well put together piece of television. I'm just getting bored with the whole enterprise. There's only so much I can take of the characters killing zombies and being depressed. I also had to dock it some serious points for the moment where Rick declares that "we are the walking dead". THANKS MATE, I HADN'T NOTICED THE SUBTEXT.
Thunderbolts #1-11 (2012 series) by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon: The Red Hulk has gathered some of Marvel's most ruthless characters (Deadpool, Elektra, the Punisher, Venom), and together they're taking on arms dealers in the Middle East and south-east Asia. This book is really flat. Daniel Way has assembled a cast of strong, silent types (except for Deadpool, but even he's a little bit subdued) and the result is a book seriously lacking in empathy and character interaction. The plot is tedious, the villains barely have a presence in the story at all, and Way keeps to his usual sluggish pace. Steve Dillon is the only saving grace, and I really wish that he would stop doing books with Daniel Way.
Resurrection season 2, episodes 7 to 10: Things are starting to happen, although there's still far too much time spent on the cast talking about their feelings. Still, on the whole I'm mildly engaged with it, although I am trepidatious about the religious iconography that's starting to take over. Given the subject matter I expected it earlier, but the show has mercifully held off. Now we're getting a sinister preacher and plagues of locusts, and I expect that the biblical overtones will only grow stronger. I can't say I'm looking forward to it.
Pretties for You and Easy Action by Alice Cooper: In my ongoing quest to find more things like David Bowie, I've turned to the other great rock persona of the early 1970s, Alice Cooper. As it turns out, the original Alice Cooper was not just a bloke but a whole band. Their first two albums are unfocused and a bit wild, with a hint of psychedelia thrown in. They're fun, but they're also a bit of a mess. There are hints of the 'sinister rock fairground' approach that Cooper would take in later albums, but it's not quite there yet.
WWE Raw episode 1,134: This is the last episode before the Fast Lane pay-per-view, with the focus mostly on building the rivalry between Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan. There's some strange storytelling going on here. Both of these characters are supposed to be good guys, but with this current feud they're both acting like massive tools to each other. By the end, though, they had me buying how much they want to beat the hell out of each other, so good job even though it's not clear who the audience is supposed to support. The rest of the segments were a mixed bag, with the Seth Rollins/Dolph Ziggler match probably being the highlight.
Love It To Death by Alice Cooper: The third album by Alice Cooper sheds the psychedelia in favour of short, focused rock songs, and it's altogether a stronger effort than their first two. There aren't any stand-out tracks, but the album hangs together nicely, and it's starting to sound like the Alice Cooper that I recognise.
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle: I've started reading the Sherlock Holmes books, and this is the first. It's a solid mystery story, and Holmes is a fascinating character from the start. I question the structure of the book, though. The first half features Holmes and Watson investigating and solving a murder involving Mormons, and then the second half veers off into a flashback about said Mormons and the build-up to the murder. I can understand why Doyle wrote it this way: he needed to present the murder as a righteous one, and to do that the reader needed to be shown what led to it. But the result is that Holmes is absent for about six chapters, and I found myself impatient to return to him. Sometimes the needs of the reader trump the needs of the narrative, I'm afraid.
Cyclops (2014 series) #1-5 by Greg Rucka and Russell Dauterman: This series follows the young version of Cyclops, who has discovered that his long-lost father is alive, and a space pirate. The heart of the book is the touching father-son relationship, but there's plenty of space adventure to go around as well. Greg Rucka is incapable of writing a bad comic, and Dauterman is a great find on the art. It's a warm, fun book that never loses sight of the human story beneath all of the crazy alien shenanigans.
Billion Dollar Babies by Alice Cooper: This is the band's sixth album, and considered by many to be the best. I'll echo that, because it really is a top-notch rock album. Cooper's theatrics are in full effect, and the result is operatic and subversively tongue-in-cheek. To be honest, the rebelliousness and shock tactics are kind of quaint, but they're always charming.
Daredevil (2011 series) #22-36 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee: Waid's amazing run on Daredevil continues, barely losing steam at all as it enters its third year. I said it last time, but it bears repeating: this is the best superhero comic of the last five years. The pay-off for the first two years is a storyline with Bullseye that goes to some intense, disturbing places without ever compromising the lighter tone of the book. The run concludes with a story about the Sons of the Serpent, basically the Marvel equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, and their infiltration of the New York justice system. The finale is surprising, and takes the character in an interesting new direction. I can't wait to get to the next volume.
BEST: Tardis Eruditorum by Philip Sandifer: I almost forget this, because I haven't been writing about other blogs here, but this is one of the best. Tardis Eruditorum is ostensibly a chronological journey through the fifty year history of Doctor Who, but it's so much more than that. It's also a lens into British politics and society of the late 20th century and early 21st, with digressions into alchemy and radicalism and so many other things. It's a masterful piece of work, and easily the best long-form blog I've ever read. The final post went up during the week, and it's a doozy: a 100,000 word history of Doctor Who as a whole. I'd recommend, though, that any Doctor Who fan go right to the beginning and take it from there. It's really that good. (And yes Phil, if you ever track this back here I admit that I totally stole the worst-to-best format from your comic reviews. Mea culpa.)
WORST: The Walking Dead season 5, episode 2: This wasn't exactly bad; it's still quite a well put together piece of television. I'm just getting bored with the whole enterprise. There's only so much I can take of the characters killing zombies and being depressed. I also had to dock it some serious points for the moment where Rick declares that "we are the walking dead". THANKS MATE, I HADN'T NOTICED THE SUBTEXT.
Thunderbolts #1-11 (2012 series) by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon: The Red Hulk has gathered some of Marvel's most ruthless characters (Deadpool, Elektra, the Punisher, Venom), and together they're taking on arms dealers in the Middle East and south-east Asia. This book is really flat. Daniel Way has assembled a cast of strong, silent types (except for Deadpool, but even he's a little bit subdued) and the result is a book seriously lacking in empathy and character interaction. The plot is tedious, the villains barely have a presence in the story at all, and Way keeps to his usual sluggish pace. Steve Dillon is the only saving grace, and I really wish that he would stop doing books with Daniel Way.
Resurrection season 2, episodes 7 to 10: Things are starting to happen, although there's still far too much time spent on the cast talking about their feelings. Still, on the whole I'm mildly engaged with it, although I am trepidatious about the religious iconography that's starting to take over. Given the subject matter I expected it earlier, but the show has mercifully held off. Now we're getting a sinister preacher and plagues of locusts, and I expect that the biblical overtones will only grow stronger. I can't say I'm looking forward to it.
Pretties for You and Easy Action by Alice Cooper: In my ongoing quest to find more things like David Bowie, I've turned to the other great rock persona of the early 1970s, Alice Cooper. As it turns out, the original Alice Cooper was not just a bloke but a whole band. Their first two albums are unfocused and a bit wild, with a hint of psychedelia thrown in. They're fun, but they're also a bit of a mess. There are hints of the 'sinister rock fairground' approach that Cooper would take in later albums, but it's not quite there yet.
WWE Raw episode 1,134: This is the last episode before the Fast Lane pay-per-view, with the focus mostly on building the rivalry between Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan. There's some strange storytelling going on here. Both of these characters are supposed to be good guys, but with this current feud they're both acting like massive tools to each other. By the end, though, they had me buying how much they want to beat the hell out of each other, so good job even though it's not clear who the audience is supposed to support. The rest of the segments were a mixed bag, with the Seth Rollins/Dolph Ziggler match probably being the highlight.
Love It To Death by Alice Cooper: The third album by Alice Cooper sheds the psychedelia in favour of short, focused rock songs, and it's altogether a stronger effort than their first two. There aren't any stand-out tracks, but the album hangs together nicely, and it's starting to sound like the Alice Cooper that I recognise.
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle: I've started reading the Sherlock Holmes books, and this is the first. It's a solid mystery story, and Holmes is a fascinating character from the start. I question the structure of the book, though. The first half features Holmes and Watson investigating and solving a murder involving Mormons, and then the second half veers off into a flashback about said Mormons and the build-up to the murder. I can understand why Doyle wrote it this way: he needed to present the murder as a righteous one, and to do that the reader needed to be shown what led to it. But the result is that Holmes is absent for about six chapters, and I found myself impatient to return to him. Sometimes the needs of the reader trump the needs of the narrative, I'm afraid.
Cyclops (2014 series) #1-5 by Greg Rucka and Russell Dauterman: This series follows the young version of Cyclops, who has discovered that his long-lost father is alive, and a space pirate. The heart of the book is the touching father-son relationship, but there's plenty of space adventure to go around as well. Greg Rucka is incapable of writing a bad comic, and Dauterman is a great find on the art. It's a warm, fun book that never loses sight of the human story beneath all of the crazy alien shenanigans.
Billion Dollar Babies by Alice Cooper: This is the band's sixth album, and considered by many to be the best. I'll echo that, because it really is a top-notch rock album. Cooper's theatrics are in full effect, and the result is operatic and subversively tongue-in-cheek. To be honest, the rebelliousness and shock tactics are kind of quaint, but they're always charming.
Daredevil (2011 series) #22-36 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee: Waid's amazing run on Daredevil continues, barely losing steam at all as it enters its third year. I said it last time, but it bears repeating: this is the best superhero comic of the last five years. The pay-off for the first two years is a storyline with Bullseye that goes to some intense, disturbing places without ever compromising the lighter tone of the book. The run concludes with a story about the Sons of the Serpent, basically the Marvel equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, and their infiltration of the New York justice system. The finale is surprising, and takes the character in an interesting new direction. I can't wait to get to the next volume.
BEST: Tardis Eruditorum by Philip Sandifer: I almost forget this, because I haven't been writing about other blogs here, but this is one of the best. Tardis Eruditorum is ostensibly a chronological journey through the fifty year history of Doctor Who, but it's so much more than that. It's also a lens into British politics and society of the late 20th century and early 21st, with digressions into alchemy and radicalism and so many other things. It's a masterful piece of work, and easily the best long-form blog I've ever read. The final post went up during the week, and it's a doozy: a 100,000 word history of Doctor Who as a whole. I'd recommend, though, that any Doctor Who fan go right to the beginning and take it from there. It's really that good. (And yes Phil, if you ever track this back here I admit that I totally stole the worst-to-best format from your comic reviews. Mea culpa.)
Friday, February 13, 2015
All The Things I Did: 13th February 2015
Here it is, for the third week running: everything I read, watched, played and listened to in the last week ranked from worst to best. And here's a warning in advance: there are spoilers for The Walking Dead's latest episode.
The Wheel of Time: Winter Dragon TV Pilot: Okay. This may take some explaining.
The Wheel of Time is a series of fantasy novels/paving slabs by Robert Jordan. It's immensely popular, and in the wake of Game of Thrones there has apparently been some interest from TV and movie studios. Unfortunately, many years ago Jordan sold the licensing rights to a company called Red Eagle, which has done nothing but cock things up ever since. The rights were set to return to Jordan's estate on February 11th, but lo and behold, look what showed up at 1.30 am on the FXX channel, right in the middle of the infomercials: a completely unheralded TV pilot. In other words, a hastily slapped together bit of telly made so that Red Eagle can retain the rights to the series.
This show has to be seen to be believed. It's one of the worst things I've seen in years, and I watch wrestling. Billy Zane is in this, playing one of the major villains of the series. Billy freaking Zane! It's a delight watching him attempt to deliver dialogue about "the nine Rods of Dominion" and the "One Power", all while smiling affably. Here's a link: http://io9.com/watch-that-weird-wheel-of-time-tv-show-pilot-here-1685036791. Check it out, Wheel of Time fans, and see just how bad an adaptation can be. This may be the worst thing on my list, but to be honest it's one of the things I enjoyed the most.
A Beard of Stars by Tyrannosaurus Rex: Okay, so bear with me: I'm going to write about some music here. This is not something I know how to do, so forgive me if I make even less sense than usual. I'm in uncharted waters.
With that out of the way, can we all agree that A Beard of Stars is an amazing, incredible album name? Okay? Good, because understanding how radical that name is will help you to know how let down I felt by this album. A few years ago I went through David Bowie's entire catalogue, and that was a positive life decision. T Rex is a band that often gets mentioned in the same breath as Bowie, so long as we're talking about his glam albums, so I thought I'd check them out. I went with A Beard of Stars because it had the best title (it was a toss-up between that and Futuristic Dragon), and I think I may have gone a little too early in their chronology. Instead of glam I got psychedelic folk rock, which is a genre I have an affinity for, but I didn't exactly warm to this album. Most of the melodies felt awkward, and I found Bolan's voice grating. Don't hate me, Bolan fans, I'll probably give one of their later albums a spin at some point.
Resurrection season 2, episodes 2 to 6: I'm still not loving this show, but I am getting a little more invested in it. Some of this is the growing focus on the conspiracy angle, which is more interesting than how such-and-such or so-and-so is feeling about their emotions this week, but mostly it comes down to Michelle Fairley, and her portrayal of the newly revived family grandmother. She's the most heinous character I've seen on TV in a while (and yes, I do watch Game of Thrones). Basically, I'm sticking with this to see her get set on fire or something.
The Walking Dead season 5, episode 9: The Walking Dead is back from its mid-season break, and it's also back to its old trick of killing off all the black men. Seriously, it's absurd how many have pegged it at this point. Have the creators not noticed, or are they taking the piss? There are still two left in the cast, but one has a gammy leg and the other is a nervous priest. The odds don't look good for either of them.
As for the episode itself, it was decent enough, but it still feels like the show is treading water, and has been since half-way through season 4. Rick and co. have decided to go to Washington, and see what's there, which I guess is a direction, but it's not really a compelling one. I think I know what's in Washington, anyway. I'll give you a hint: more zombies.
All-New X-Men #18-21 by Brian Michael Bendis and various artists: In the aftermath of Battle of the Atom (which I reviewed last week) the original X-Men have defected, and are now living with Cyclops and his team of revolutionaries. It's a move that makes sense, as it gives the core cast a whole new set of characters to interact with, and that's what Bendis does well. That's not the focus here, though. Instead we have the introduction of X-23 to the team (she's a female clone of Wolverine. Don't ask.), and a battle with the Purifiers, a group of militant religious mutant-haters. Bendis gets good material out of X-23, and particularly her rapport with the young Scott Summers. Not so much the religious fanatics, but those stories tend to be pretty one-note anyway. The series is holding up quite well so far. (I hate the new costumes, though. So much uglier than the 1960s designs.)
Morning Phase by Beck: Like everyone I saw Kanye making a knob of himself at the Grammys, but it did have the positive effect of reminding me that Beck is a thing that exists. His latest album is a mellow acoustic affair, with a lot of heartfelt, slightly melancholy tracks. I can see why Kanye dissed it: it's an album for introspective middle-aged white people. I liked it a lot.
Daredevil (2011 series) #1-21 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee: I'm revisiting this run of comics before I read Waid's final issues, and I feel pretty safe in saying that this is the best super-hero comic of the last five years. Waid took the character back to his swashbuckling roots after a decade of unrelenting noirish misery, while never ignoring the many terrible traumas that exist in Matt Murdock's backstory. The action is sharp and inventive, the emotional beats hit hard, and the art is crisp and sublime. If you want to read some Daredevil before the TV series begins, this is the one. (Oh, okay, there's also the Frank Miller runs. And the Bendis run. And Brubaker. But I like this one the best. It has Stilt-Man.)
The Wheel of Time: Winter Dragon TV Pilot: Okay. This may take some explaining.
The Wheel of Time is a series of fantasy novels/paving slabs by Robert Jordan. It's immensely popular, and in the wake of Game of Thrones there has apparently been some interest from TV and movie studios. Unfortunately, many years ago Jordan sold the licensing rights to a company called Red Eagle, which has done nothing but cock things up ever since. The rights were set to return to Jordan's estate on February 11th, but lo and behold, look what showed up at 1.30 am on the FXX channel, right in the middle of the infomercials: a completely unheralded TV pilot. In other words, a hastily slapped together bit of telly made so that Red Eagle can retain the rights to the series.
This show has to be seen to be believed. It's one of the worst things I've seen in years, and I watch wrestling. Billy Zane is in this, playing one of the major villains of the series. Billy freaking Zane! It's a delight watching him attempt to deliver dialogue about "the nine Rods of Dominion" and the "One Power", all while smiling affably. Here's a link: http://io9.com/watch-that-weird-wheel-of-time-tv-show-pilot-here-1685036791. Check it out, Wheel of Time fans, and see just how bad an adaptation can be. This may be the worst thing on my list, but to be honest it's one of the things I enjoyed the most.
A Beard of Stars by Tyrannosaurus Rex: Okay, so bear with me: I'm going to write about some music here. This is not something I know how to do, so forgive me if I make even less sense than usual. I'm in uncharted waters.
With that out of the way, can we all agree that A Beard of Stars is an amazing, incredible album name? Okay? Good, because understanding how radical that name is will help you to know how let down I felt by this album. A few years ago I went through David Bowie's entire catalogue, and that was a positive life decision. T Rex is a band that often gets mentioned in the same breath as Bowie, so long as we're talking about his glam albums, so I thought I'd check them out. I went with A Beard of Stars because it had the best title (it was a toss-up between that and Futuristic Dragon), and I think I may have gone a little too early in their chronology. Instead of glam I got psychedelic folk rock, which is a genre I have an affinity for, but I didn't exactly warm to this album. Most of the melodies felt awkward, and I found Bolan's voice grating. Don't hate me, Bolan fans, I'll probably give one of their later albums a spin at some point.
Resurrection season 2, episodes 2 to 6: I'm still not loving this show, but I am getting a little more invested in it. Some of this is the growing focus on the conspiracy angle, which is more interesting than how such-and-such or so-and-so is feeling about their emotions this week, but mostly it comes down to Michelle Fairley, and her portrayal of the newly revived family grandmother. She's the most heinous character I've seen on TV in a while (and yes, I do watch Game of Thrones). Basically, I'm sticking with this to see her get set on fire or something.
The Walking Dead season 5, episode 9: The Walking Dead is back from its mid-season break, and it's also back to its old trick of killing off all the black men. Seriously, it's absurd how many have pegged it at this point. Have the creators not noticed, or are they taking the piss? There are still two left in the cast, but one has a gammy leg and the other is a nervous priest. The odds don't look good for either of them.
As for the episode itself, it was decent enough, but it still feels like the show is treading water, and has been since half-way through season 4. Rick and co. have decided to go to Washington, and see what's there, which I guess is a direction, but it's not really a compelling one. I think I know what's in Washington, anyway. I'll give you a hint: more zombies.
All-New X-Men #18-21 by Brian Michael Bendis and various artists: In the aftermath of Battle of the Atom (which I reviewed last week) the original X-Men have defected, and are now living with Cyclops and his team of revolutionaries. It's a move that makes sense, as it gives the core cast a whole new set of characters to interact with, and that's what Bendis does well. That's not the focus here, though. Instead we have the introduction of X-23 to the team (she's a female clone of Wolverine. Don't ask.), and a battle with the Purifiers, a group of militant religious mutant-haters. Bendis gets good material out of X-23, and particularly her rapport with the young Scott Summers. Not so much the religious fanatics, but those stories tend to be pretty one-note anyway. The series is holding up quite well so far. (I hate the new costumes, though. So much uglier than the 1960s designs.)
Morning Phase by Beck: Like everyone I saw Kanye making a knob of himself at the Grammys, but it did have the positive effect of reminding me that Beck is a thing that exists. His latest album is a mellow acoustic affair, with a lot of heartfelt, slightly melancholy tracks. I can see why Kanye dissed it: it's an album for introspective middle-aged white people. I liked it a lot.
Daredevil (2011 series) #1-21 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee: I'm revisiting this run of comics before I read Waid's final issues, and I feel pretty safe in saying that this is the best super-hero comic of the last five years. Waid took the character back to his swashbuckling roots after a decade of unrelenting noirish misery, while never ignoring the many terrible traumas that exist in Matt Murdock's backstory. The action is sharp and inventive, the emotional beats hit hard, and the art is crisp and sublime. If you want to read some Daredevil before the TV series begins, this is the one. (Oh, okay, there's also the Frank Miller runs. And the Bendis run. And Brubaker. But I like this one the best. It has Stilt-Man.)
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