>SUPERVERBOSE

I've just seen Watchmen again, this time in IMAX, and now I think I'm ready to write about it. There are a number of people (say, for example, Adam) who found the Watchmen graphic novel to be one of the best things ever. I do not fall into this group. Don't get me wrong -- I love Alan Moore, and I liked the book very much, but I didn't find it overwhelmingly compelling and revelatory in the way that some people do. To me it felt like a good, well-written story that resisted superhero clichés in some interesting ways. A solid B or B+.

Now, I think there were a couple of things working against me at the time I read it. One was the fact that I read it in the mid-90s rather than the mid-80s. By that time, various aspects of it had been frequently imitated in various ways, and what was revolutionary and groundbreaking about it no longer seemed so.

Laura has a story about being assigned Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler in a college class, and complaining to the professor, "These guys write in such a clichéd style, it's driving me crazy!" To which her professor of course replied, "No, no, see, these guys invented this style. It was their thousands of imitators who turned it into a cliché." Well, I had a bit of the Hammett/Chandler effect going when I read Watchmen, even though intellectually I understood that Moore was the originator. His ideas just couldn't have the same impact on me that they would have had if I'd read them first.

My other disadvantage is the fact that the book is so highly and universally praised. Reading something after hearing bunches of people call it The Most Awesome Thing Ever I Mean Ever can hardly help but be a slightly disappointing experience. It's the expectation theory.

Well, having read quite a bit of the press around the movie and how it compares to the book, I think it's safe to say that I missed entire layers of that book in my first reading. I'd really love to reread the graphic novel, perhaps with some kind of Annotated Watchmen alongside it. (Okay Watchmen book, go stand over there in the line marked "to read." Yes, I know there are 112 books in the line. Hey, I pick randomly from the group, so maybe you'll get lucky.) Like the book, I think the movie benefits from repeated viewings. I know I was catching things this time around that completely passed me by on the first viewing. However, my overall opinion remains the same, which is that it is a very enjoyable superhero movie, with a great story, some excellent writing, magnificent visuals, and a couple of sublime performances, but it is also significantly flawed in certain ways.

( From here, it gets a little spoilery )

I wrote a series of superhero-themed interactive fiction games called Earth And Sky. If you're interested in learning what the games are like without actually, y'know, playing them, you may be in luck.

Recently, a group of IF enthusiasts over at ifMUD played through all three games in a chatroom environment, as part of a venture called Club Floyd. Floyd is a bot on the mud who can act as a game interpreter, so a group of people can (virtually) gather to play a game in Floyd's room. This makes for a lovely combination of playing, kibitzing, snarking, and even the occasional insight or analysis. I showed up for the sessions, so I was sometimes able to offer a bit of information about the making of the games.

Transcripts are here:

Part 1: Earth And Sky

Part 2: Another Earth, Another Sky

Part 3: Luminous Horizon

Today's installment focuses on some of the vocabulary I've gained from my lifelong enthusiasm for comics. I've been a Marvel comics reader since I was six years old, as well as an aficionado of newspaper strips, Mad magazine (in my tweens/teens, anyway), graphic novels, and these days, webcomics.

( Face front, effendi! )

Sometimes you get not just one brand new word but a whole string of them thrown at you. For those, I am awarding a COMBO SCORE, and I am pleased to give the first one to Avengers #93:

• Poltroon! Craven recreant!: Coward! Cowardly coward!
  [See, the Super-Skrull is fighting the Vision, and the Vision decides to flee rather than continue the fight. Because the Vision can pass through walls, the Super-Skrull can't give chase, and so he shouts this in frustration at the fleeing android. It's the kind of moment that makes me love those early Marvels.]

Also, I should give extra credit to Chris Claremont for teaching me a variety of foreign words. One of Claremont's enduring mannerisms was to make sure we were constantly reminded of each character's nationality by either transliterating that character's speech (e.g. "I dinna ken what ye mean, Dani!") or peppering it with foreign phrases, or, most often, both. Consequently, Japanese characters were always hissing that Wolverine was "gaijin" (foreigner), Colossus was constantly exclaiming "boizhe moi!" (my God!) and so on.

( Possible spoilers for The Dark Knight, I guess. Very mild ones. )

( The spoily kind )

Re: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

I love, love, love it.

Love Neil Patrick Harris. Love Nathan Fillion. Now have crush on Felicia Day. Ridiculously in love with Joss Whedon.

Love the funny. Love the songs. I love, love, love it all. I am filled with love for it.

The Hulk isn't a superhero. He exists in a world of superheroes, and he was created second (just after the Fantastic Four) during the most legendary superhero-creation-spree of all time, Stan Lee's run at re-envisioning costumed crusaders for the 1960s. But he's not a superhero, any more than Godzilla, Frankenstein's creature, or the Wolfman are superheroes. (Though they, too, were all adapted into comics form by Marvel.) He's a monster. He comes out of the tradition of monster comics that Lee was writing just before he invented the FF, and although the Green Goliath constantly encountering Spider-Man, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and so forth, as a character he has very little in common with any of them. He was one of the original Avengers, but there's a reason why his membership only lasted two issues.

Superheroes are people (or entities who might as well be people) with extraordinary abilities, trying to do good. The Hulk, at least in his most famous incarnation, lacks the mental capacity to form such an intention. Although superpowered (what with being the strongest individual in the world), he is no hero. He's a pure destructive force, extremely dangerous to anyone and anything he encounters. Sure, he's misunderstood, and he's constantly trying, unsuccessfully, to be left alone, but the Army is right to try to neutralize him. He's like an unstoppable, indestructible, infintely strong, emotionally abused toddler who lacks any sort of parental figure. The only control on him is his alter ego, who (understandably) is constantly trying to eliminate his greenish tendencies, but of course, if that happened, there would be no story. So it's never going to happen in any permanent way.

All this presents quite a problem when you're making a Hulk movie. You're stuck with a monster movie that you have to somehow sell as a superhero movie, because in the mistaken public mind, the Hulk is a superhero. So what do you do? You make him sympathetic (not hard given his misunderstood quality.) You make Banner really likeable and tie the two together so that it's clear that the Hulk, dangerous as he is, is a cage that's wrongfully imprisoning a good person. You taint the intentions of the Army, who really ought to be the heroes of this story, so that they turn from protectors of humanity to destroyers of it. Finally, you provide a villain who's as powerful as the Hulk but is genuinely evil rather than just rampant, so that we must root for the Hulk to emerge, becuase he's the only thing that has a chance of stopping this other force.

Louis Leterrier does all these things successfully in The Incredible Hulk, but he does one more thing too: he stuffs the movie with so many sly references to comic and TV lore that it firmly establishes itself, especially in the wake of Iron Man, as a clear attempt at putting the Marvel Universe on screen. For me, at least, that was where the fun really came alive.

( HULK SPOIL!!! )

Overall, The Incredible Hulk was a whole lot of fun, especially considering the lukewarm buzz behind it, and it got me very excited indeed to see what's next from Marvel Studios.

I've never been a fan of Robert Downey, Jr. Not because of all his personal struggles (though his judgement has certainly been less than impressive many times), but because I felt like he was a one-note actor who could only play smarmy jerks. Also, Iron Man himself has always been a character I could take or leave. I never had much against him, but never sought out his adventures either. Consequently, I wondered if seeing Iron Man would be an unpleasant repeat of the Ghost Rider experience -- an actor who annoys me playing a superhero I don't care about.

Well Robert, all is forgiven. You were fantastic. And Shellhead, you're more interesting to me than you've ever been, thanks to this movie, a note-perfect film distillation of Iron Man comics. The movie does an absolutely stellar job of making Iron Man an emblematic hero for our current historical moment, and makes Stan Lee's concepts seem smarter and more prescient than they ever were (not that they were dumb!)

( They say the best movie is one you never have to spoil. I prefer the movie you only have to spoil once. )

Highly recommended.

I wasn't a fan of the first Fantastic Four movie, so I went into this one with trepidation. I suppose a more rational person just wouldn't go at all, but I am not that person. I'm a big fan of the FF, and the last movie did provide some things I liked, so I'm not going to just stay home. I went hoping to find some enjoyable moments, and I did. I found some enjoyable moments, surrounded by a sea of suck.

( The spoilery breakdown )

I enjoyed the finale of Heroes very much, but there were a couple of bits in the final scene that didn't sit quite right with me. (Well, the climactic scene, I mean. Not the actual final one.) They were almost right, but I'm amending them in my head to be better.

( Like so. Spoily spoily )

Every few days, I have to delete a new spam comment from my review of the first Fantastic Four movie.

WTF?

I mean, okay, I can envision some kind of spam-posting robot that looks for LJ entries about topics that might be popular right now and places a spam comment there. But I also have a Spider-Man 3 review sitting out there, which even has the advantage of not being 2 years old. Yet no spam on that one. (Not that I'm hoping for it!) I am confused.

Here's the thing about Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies: they never let me down. Yes, there are always a few pieces I would have done differently if it were up to me. (HA! Yeah, easy to say.) Yes, they pick, choose, and rearrange bits of the mythos, and they leave out some important character pieces (like Spidey being funny). However, I think it would be a huge mistake to try to be stickler-faithful to the comics, and the translations that these movies do are full of great choices. Mainly, what they do is choose excellent actors, give the characters emotional depth, and allow them to move through arcs that aren't just about who punches the hardest, but who can summon the most inner strength, and what it costs to do so. By focusing on emotion, they faithfully render the spirit of the best Spider-Man comics. I hoped that Spider-Man 3 would continue this trend. It didn't let me down.

( From here, it gets spoilery. )

I have never been much of a fan of Nicolas Cage, nor of Ghost Rider. The former always struck me as immensely overrated -- capable of only a tiny range of emotions, generally unappealing in what he could convey, and ridiculous even when he means to be serious. As for the Ghost Rider, he's from that period in the 1970s when Marvel was cranking out superheroes who started not as character concepts but rather as attempts to cash in on the popular trends of the day. I can almost hear the pitches for these guys. "Let's have a kung fu superhero!" (Iron Fist.) "How about a blaxploitation superhero, like Shaft but with superpowers?" (Luke Cage, Power Man, from whom Nicolas took his last name.) "Hey, maybe a superhero who's powered by disco music! She could roller-skate around and her superpower could be creating a big light show!" (The Disco Dazzler, and no I'm not kidding.) Then there's Ghost Rider: "We should have an occult-type superhero who rides a badass motorcycle! His alter ego could do big jumps like Evel Knievel!"

So a Ghost Rider movie with Nicolas Cage in the title role was not exactly calculated to please me, but I went ahead and bought a ticket anyway, because I'm interested in superhero movies. Also, while I don't care for Cage, I like several of the other principals -- Peter Fonda, Wes Bentley, Sam Elliott -- and I've got nothing against Eva Mendes. Besides, sometimes the low expectation theory works out really well. However, that was not the case with Ghost Rider. People, this movie was so dumb. It was so, so, so, so dumb.

( Some spoilery reasons why )
What was good? Well, one thing Ghost Rider has going for him is a cool character design, and the movie does a creditable job of bringing this design to the screen. Peter Fonda is brilliantly cast as the devil, bringing both cycle-movie cred and genuine acting ability to his scenery-chewing role. Wes Bentley also does a fine job in his role -- I always thought he had the perfect look for a really creepy villain. Finally, there are a number of funny moments, some of them even intentional.

Overall, though, man what a stinker. All the pieces clicked into place when I saw that the film was both written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson, the guy who inflicted the Daredevil movie on us. Please, somebody stop this guy before he directs another Marvel film!

Expectations really do lie beneath both pleasure and disappointment. A few weeks ago, I saw X-Men 3, worried that because Bryan Singer was no longer directing, it might suck. Partly because of that worry, I ended up having a pretty good time. This weekend I saw Superman Returns, the project for which Singer left X3, and was very excited to watch his take on the Man Of Steel. Perhaps for that reason (among others), I found Superman Returns a little disappointing.

( Spoilerman Returns )

I had a few trepidations going into this movie. I loved the first two X-Men movies, especially X2, but the director of those two movies (Bryan Singer) was gone, replaced (after some turmoil and a late resignation) by the guy who did Rush Hour (Brett Ratner). Also, I'm told Halle Berry was granted more creative control, which I think we can all agree is not a good thing. So sure, I was excited to see the mutant world brought to life on screen again, but I was a little worried that this one might really suck.

Maybe that's what helped me enjoy it so much.

( They wish to spoil us, but I say we are the spoilers! )

Last year, Marvel released a set of CD-ROMs containing the first 500 issues of Amazing Spider-Man digitized into PDF format, along with the character's debut in Amazing Fantasy #15. This set differs from previous reprints in that the entire issues were scanned -- letter columns, Bullpen Bulletins (I'll explain in a second), ad pages, and all. I received the set as an Easter gift, and geek that I am, I proceeded to read them all. I finished in September. Here's some of what I learned from reading 40 years' worth of comics in the space of a few months:

( LJ-cut sense tingling! )

First, understand this: I love the Fantastic Four. I love superhero comics, and the FF is my overall favorite superhero team. Aside from being a tremendous innovation in the history of costumed crimefighters, they're also just good characters, each with intriguing nuances that have been well-developed over the years. Tons of great stories have been told about them, stories that are lodged deep in my psyche. There was no way I was going to miss a Fantastic Four movie. I even arranged it special with Laura to do the baby care and everything so that I could see it on opening day. Nevertheless, I approached the movie with dread.

See, I love superhero movies, but there are some I approach with eagerness, and some I approach with dread. The ones with well-established, highly-regarded directors and actors, I'm eager for, and the ones with no-name directors and B-list/TV actors, I dread. Bryan Singer, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen? Eagerness. Mark Steven Johnson, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner? Dread. Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst? Eagerness. Tim Story, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis? Dread. I mean really, whose dumb idea was it to entrust my beloved FF to the guy who brought us TAXI and BARBERSHOP? My presentiments are almost always right, too. The ones I can't wait for turn out to be great, and the ones I dread turn out to suck. Sadly, that was once again the case here.

( And now, six more spoiler-laden paragraphs belaboring the point. )

So I'm thinking I'll start using this LJ account to occasionally post my thoughts on some of the stuff I'm reading and seeing -- not full-fledged reviews or anything, but just a way of both prompting me to do a little thinking about the art I'm consuming and also helping me codify those thoughts. I saw Elektra last night, so now seems like a fine time to start.

( Major Elektra spoilers behind here, and some for the Daredevil movie too. )