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Game of Thrones: Episode 2: The Lost Lords review

February 26, 2015, 1:17 am
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    God, this was boring.

    Well-written, but boring.

    That is an amazing accomplishment given the episode involves several impressive sword-fights, a surprise resurrection, a murder attempt, surprise revelations, and an attempted marriage. A staggering amount of things happen this episode and yet all of it feels rather glacially paced. This is quite upsetting given the first episode started so promising.

    The Lost Lords isn't bad, per se, but it does ape a lot of the book's structure. Virtually the entirety of the episode is set up for future events with no real sense of payoff. Events happen but they're all part of a larger structure which is invisible to the player.

Asher is a welcome edition and there's too little of him.
    Unfortunately, I think this is a bad strategy for a episodic video game. Compare, obviously, to The Walking Dead video game. Each episode in that game was an adventure in itself. Gamers got a true sense of accomplishment after each episode and were always hungry for more. Here, we're forced to stew in House Forester's misery.

    No jokes about being faithful to the books/show.

    I've already made them all.

    Hehe.

Jon Snow's appearance is little more than a guest star.
    The premise of The Lost Lords begins with Asher, one of the Forester sons in exile. This is the most exciting part of the game as we get an immediate contrast to the other Foresters in he's doing fairly well for himself, implied to be a mercenary in Daenerys Stormborn's army. He's a devil-may-care sort of fellow and a welcome antidote to the grim and gritty finale of the previous episode. Unfortunately, Asher's part doesn't last very long.

    We also get some good news with another character's revival who has his own subplot. Everyone else is treated to nothing more than set-up and events which move them along a little bit in their stories. There's too many characters to really get much focus and I can't help but think this story would have been better with two or three characters rather than the five we have.

    There's some very tense scenes like a part with a wounded character lobbed in a cart full of corpses, the aforementioned murder attempt, and the fact a marriage alliance could mean the end of House Forester or not. I also loved the funeral for a pair of characters killed in the previous episode, which ends on a beautiful and treasonous song. There's a lot of good in this game, but it's not all good.

Mira has one of the most interesting stories but there's almost no progress on it.
    In addition to the pacing, this is the Telltale Game I've felt most doesn't actually care whether or not I do actions. At least in The Walking Dead, you die if you screw up. Here, the choices have never felt more perfunctory. The major choices from the previous episode all come up but are immediately rendered moot by the arrival of a character who supersedes them. You don't even die in most of the situations. I'm very disappointed in Telltale as while they should be kept on the rails for the most part as a function of the medium, the sheer absence of choice is quite vexing.

    The episode has guest appearances from television show characters Tyrion, Margaery Tyrell, and Jon Snow but their appearances don't really play much of a role in the story. No, let me correct that, everyone but Margaery isn't really integrated into the plot very well. She, at least, has a strong connection to one of the Foresters and her influence can play a key role in one of the choices. I just hope said choice has consequences.

    In conclusion, I really hope this isn't a sign how the next couple of episodes before the finale are going.

6/10
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Is the zombie genre worth writing in?

February 26, 2015, 8:30 pm
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One of these zombies will be a success. The others will not be.
    Hey folks,

    A friend of mine asked me an interesting question. He's a burgeoning horror author and said that he wanted his book to be a success (don't we all?). He was a fan of The Walking Dead and asked me if I thought the zombie genre was a good place for him to begin his career. My response to him was awkward and ill-composed. Frankly, I needed time and space to frame my answer since it's a complicated question.

    The short answer?

    Kind of.

The success story all the zombie-philes want to imitate.
    The zombie genre, just like the vampire genre, is now a permanent part of the cultural landscape. What was once a very niche monster has exploded onto the screen, page, and art panels with a definite "no going back" sensation. The flesh-hungry dead, largely created by George Romero in 1968's Night of the Living Dead, have been repeatedly adapted til they're everywhere. Even so, it's taken awhile to get there and if you'd asked me in October of 2010 if I thought the The Walking Dead premiere would be a huge success, I would have said no.

    You see, the thing people are really asking when they ask if they should write in the zombie genre is, "Is it a magic bullet train to publication and success?" The magic bullet train is a prevailing myth in authorship and a constant quest for new authors who attempt to follow trends, genres, and patterns in order to make their big break. This has resulted in many of the trends we see in writing. If one were to study the history of writing we can actually see many periods of aspiring artists trying to create their own markets based on someone else's success.

    Harsh sounding, I know, but it's there.

The biggest success before TWD had the bright idea of treating the genre seriously.
    Having done a little study of the subject you can basically see some of these patterns in a cool little table: Sherlock Holmes clones (creating the mystery genre), Doc Savage clones, Superman & Batman clones (creating the entire superhero genre), Middle Earth clones (creating modern fantasy), spy-fiction of the James Bond variety or in reaction to it, the Western is a massive part of American culture created from about fifteen stories retold in different ways, Dracula & Carmilla, and so on.

    Now, this is where I'm going to surprise you. This is actually a very good thing. The entire idea of genre is, essentially, attempting to cater to a need from the audience for more of what they like. There's about a hundred entries on my blog related to zombie fiction because I like zombies and stories about them. The thing is, however, I'm conspicuously harder on zombie stories than I am on general fiction.

    This is, essentially, the trap of genre writing in that the more you're a part of it, the more you run the risk of being lost like sugar in water. As an author formerly contracted to Permuted Press, famed publisher of zombie fiction which has had its ups and downs, I literally know the plots to almost a thousand zombie novels. Okay, that's a lit. It's more like seven hundred. That's not including the movie, video games, and so on plots which raise the number back to the thousand range.

    What are the factors which contribute to making a book a success?

    The answer? There is none.

    There is no magic bullet train.

    I do know that trying to be The Walking Dead isn't going to get you much success, though? Why? Because fans of The Walking Dead already have The Walking Dead. If they want more after they've seen the television series, they can go buy either the novels or pick up the comic book series. Yes, every zombie writer benefits from having more exposure and respect from others' success but it's not something which automatically translates into an inescapable hunger for the genre. If I may make an example: fans of A Nightmare on Elm Street are likely to go see Friday the Thirteenth. They both love horror but they aren't likely to go see every horror movie made in their wake.

    This may seem like obvious advice and, if so, sorry for wasting your time but I do think it needs to be said: you should probably figure out if you have a story to be told in the genre first before you set about trying to conquer a piece of its market. I don't believe there's any original stories under the sun but there's new ways of looking at things.

A great series.
 Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines. That had the relatively simple idea of setting a zombie apocalypse in a superhero universe where they weren't powerful enough to prevent it from destroying most of humanity. The Justice League meets Land of the Dead wasn't new but you could see how it appealed to markets of both superheroes and zombies. It wasn't a specific story I'd heard yet.

   One of my favorite indie success stories is

    I also liked Tankbread by Paul Mannering which has had surprising success with the concept of intelligent zombies raising humans as food. Yet, even this isn't an absolute idea. There's nothing new about the The Becoming, Contagious Chaos, or Time of Death series in terms of plotting. They're "simple" zombie survival stories. The strong characterization and writing, though, make the books a success.

    One benefit of this way of doing things is it also side-steps another problem people writing in a specific genre may face. Specifically, that for all the attempt to follow in the footsteps of a successful franchise, you will never be alone in trying to do so. In an ideal situation, you aren't competing but growing the same audience but a lot of authors try to fight for the same audience rather than support one another. In other words, you run into all the people who want A Nightmare on Elm Street to be against Friday the Thirteenth than the two getting the same audience on different nights. If you try and do what everyone else is doing, you will be part of the latter group instead of the former.

    I'm also a great believer that writing comes from the heart rather than the head. I don't think you'll ever achieve success by sitting down to make a checklist of things you think will appeal to the public. The Hellblazer series of comics succeeded because, in the deep dank corners of the DC universe, no one cared what the authors did with the character and they had freedom to write about what they wanted. Attempts to adapt the character to a wider audience often fail because so much of the original's strength is diluted. What does this mean?
One of my favorite zombie books.
What did it add to the genre? A little dog and humor.

    It means on a simple level, write what you want to write. Your audience will find you if you create something you enjoy reading and will be more powerful for not watering it down. Now, maybe your audience won't find it but that's an entirely different essay. So what is my advice about writing a zombie story? Here's a simple question: Do you have a zombie story to tell? Is it pressing in the back of your mind more than most? Can you add other stuff you like to it and add your signature spin? If so, go ahead and write it. Just don't try and walk in the footprints of others, forge your own path.

    There's much good in the zombie genre to write about. There's metaphors for disease, natural disaster, breakdown in social order, and the slow onrush of death. There's stories about what people do in times of crisis and whether people's "true" selves are revealed during a calamity. There's even questions about what one must do in the face of a hopeless situation. Or, you might want to write about zombies who are just good excuses to beat up with nail-covered baseball bats while traveling with sexy companions. Zombies who have replaced humanity and nobody noticed because we're that pathetic. Zombies regaining their humanity or that inevitable zombie romance crossing the grave. Some of these stories have been told already but are just waiting to be reinterpreted for a new audience.

    Just make sure you're writing for the right reasons.
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Crowd-funding authors - The New Financial Reality?

February 27, 2015, 10:41 pm
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    Recently, on The Bookie Monster, we had an interesting article by someone I respect a great deal called "Writers Begging For Money." Which was an article about writers asking money for them to continue writing.

Writers Begging For Money

    Excerpt from the article by Shana Festa (Time of Death):

    A few months back I happened to be perusing Facebook. All of a sudden I see a post from an author asking their fans to donate money so they can pay their bills and continue to write full time.
 
    Hold up a second. Did that really just happen?
 
    Rereading the post again, sure that I had gotten it wrong the first time, I found it to be exactly what I saw on first glance. So I ask you, when did it become acceptable for authors to beg their readers for money? And frankly, could someone’s moral and ethical compass be THAT out of alignment?
 
    So I chocked this up to one authors gross negligence in judgment, shook my head at the post, and moved on. Thinking, ooh that’s going to come back and bite them in the ass. But then I saw it again. And again. And yet again. So this really seems to be becoming our new reality. I’ll admit, for a split second I thought about it. But immediately felt icky.
 
    My thoughts on this? It’s just tacky. Allow me to dazzle you with my opinions as to why.

    Oh Shana, how does one of my favorite authors who is intelligent, witty, and observant be so very wrong? For those unfamiliar with what she's talking about, she's discussing the recent trend in authorship to crowd-funding. Most of us are familiar with Kickstarter after high-profile projects like the Veronica Mars movie and the Legacy of the Avatar video game.

    However, Shana is more specifically referring to similar-sites like Patreon which consist of readers going to the account of their favorite authors and basically pledging to donate a set amount per new content within a monthly maximum. Like Kickstarter, Patreon recipients offers receive bonuses the more they donate. One of my favorite websites, Atop the Fourth Wall: Where Bad Comics Burn, functions due to this.

    The primary difference between it and Kickstarter is the former is for one specific project, like, say a pledge goal of $10,000 so an author can create his masterpiece over the course of a year rather than focus on earning his supper like so many others. Patreon is more about pledging in general so authors can continue writing indefinitely about whatever they want. It's very useful for things like blogs, webcomics, videos, and review sites which are about regular content rather than larger projects.

    There's a controversy for authors who make use of this method because it is a question of upending the traditional association of the author putting their nose to the grindstone and receiving revenue from book sales after the completion of their product. Shana draws the comparison between a book revenue which supports you being the difference between a hobby and a career.

    Woah-woah-woah, Shana, I think that's going a bit too far.

    Do you know what also used to be out of fashion when referring to "real authors"? Independently published books. You used to be considered only a real author if you'd managed to get someone else to sign off on your work.

    That was before the internet made it possible for success stories like Wearing the Cape and the Demon Squad series to reach just as many books as the Big Five publishers. There was also a bigger benefit to many authors in that individuals like Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance), were able to reap almost the entirety of their profits rather than just the small percentage they previously gained.

    Shana says it's awfully presumptuous of authors to ask their fans or would-be fans to support them in their writing. That it's rare enough for authors to be able to make enough money to succeed as a full-time author. The thing is, I believe Patreon and crowd-funding is a solution for that and merely a new phase in the way writing is done rather than something shameful. For example, my rebuttal to Shana saying authors about being presumptuous. Well, do people send them money or not? Because if they do, they're not.

    Authors who get patronage, by and large, are proven qualities. In the dawning age of social media, fandoms are created left and right by authors for authors. In short, they're fans and they're willing to help independent authors form their own one-person publishing houses. While many authors struggled and worked themselves to the bone at their day (or night) jobs only to work out a little of their magnum opus at a time, that may be changing thanks to patronage.

    Which is a good thing.

    Now, not every author can make it via patronage and it may turn off fans who are being asked. I believe patronage is best used for those who have already established themselves to some degree either with a website or a previous books. It's just a way of defraying costs and keeping a steady output for the people who are willing to open their wallets for more of what they like. I wish these authors luck even if I'm not one of them.

    After all, who'd pay to read me?

    Hopefully lots someday.
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Agent Carter review

February 28, 2015, 2:44 am
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    Agent Carter recently ended and I thought I'd stop to give my thoughts on this miniseries and what it managed to accomplish in its short time onscreen. For those of you unfamiliar with the series or its premise, it is an eight-episode season following the adventures of Agent Peggy Carter of the SSR (a precursor to Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D).

    Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) was the love interest of Captain America in Captain America: The First Avenger but made a strong impression on audiences. She was smart, capable, tough, strong-willed, and beautiful. Despite her counterpart in the comics being a comparatively minor character, people wanted to see more of her. Making her the star of her own series was an obvious decision and presented all sorts of opportunities.

    Or perhaps not.

Haley Atwell makes a formidable agent.

     After all, Peggy Carter's adventures take place in the 1940s and is a time unrelated to the later popular Avengers franchise. Unlike, Agents of SHIELD, it would have to rely on material established entirely in Captain America: The First Avenger rather than later movies. Yet, the post-World War 2 period is one ripe for exploration with Hydra, Stalinism, and the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D to draw from.

    So how was it?

    Extremely good.

    The premise is Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), father of Tony Stark, has had his most dangerous weapons designs stolen by an unknown party. The SSR believes Howard sold them to a foreign power and are intending to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. Appealing to their shared service with Captain America, he convinces her to investigate the crime against the wishes of her superiors.

The action scenes are very well handled.
    Even if this might get her charged with treason. Making things worse is the presence of a conspiracy of Russian soldiers, one of whom is a precursor to the Black Widow program. What is Leviathan and what do they want with Howard Stark's inventions? It's a plotline which holds together surprisingly well, even if there's a couple of parts which don't make much sense like the assassins lacking voice-boxes.

    The series is carried by the extremely good acting of Ms. Atwell. She gives us a physically potent, emotionally mature, and engaging protagonist in Peggy Carter. The character is easily the best developed of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's females and one audiences will easily fall in love with. Not since the rebooted Lara Croft and Alias' Sydney Bristow before her have I enjoyed a female action protagonist this much.

    While Peggy is easily the draw of the series, she is backed up by a great supporting cast which brings out the best of her character. There's Edwin Jarvis (James D'Arcy) who serves as her partner in crime in a manner reminiscent of the classic English spy series The Avengers. Peggy's coworkers are a group of sexists bigots with one exception but, even they, play an important role other than as obstacles to her success.

Beautiful but deadly.
    The villains in this series are great too. While the identity of the mastermind behind the plot is a secret which shouldn't be spoiled, I have to say I was pleased to see another Marvel villain adapted from the comics in an unexpected way. The highlight of the series, though, is Bridget Regan's 1940s Black Widow. As a huge fan of the actress from her role in Legend of the Seeker, she poses both a physical as well as mental threat to Peggy.

    The action sequences are elaborately staged with a substance to them usually lacking from live-action television. According to reports from the sets, Ms. Atwell's enthusiasm resulted in several stuntmen on the set getting punched for real. While I regret their pain, you can really see it adds a believability to the fights. Peggy is a dirty fighter, compensating for her small size and strength by making use of every possible advantage she can.

     The world-building for the series is excellent. We get insight into the Soviet Black Widow program, how the SSR transitioned into S.H.I.E.L.D, the Stark Household, and what happened to the Howling Commandos after the War. Fans of The First Avenger will be pleased by the amount of cameos from the movie. Reducing the number of episodes from thirteen to eight is a good choice if it means quality actors, sets, and special effects. The plot is also fast-paced and tightly written, meaning every single episode is a treat.

The tension of Peggy working against her own agency is well-handled.
    So is there any downsides? Period accurate or not, I did get rather tired of the relentless barrage of sexism poor Peggy is subjected to throughout the movie. From the fact her wartime adventures have been reduced to "screaming nurse love interest" in the in-series Captain America Radio Show to the constant commentary about her past relationships in the office, poor Peggy is chomping at the bit to be given something more than secretary work.

    I think they could have toned it down a little while maintaining its importance to motivating Peggy. Likewise, I think they could have used more of the 1940s Black Widow. Then again, I just love Bridget Regan.

    There's no actual serious flaws with the miniseries, something exceedingly rare in live-action television. I even liked Peggy Carter's annoying neighbor and confidante Angie (Lyndsy Fonseca). The fact she went from playing Alex on the CW's Nikita to a normal non-spy character is kind of funny on a meta-level but she adds a delightful sense of 1940s mundanity in an otherwise over-the-top series.

Angie may not be up to the level of Thor's Darcy for funny commentary but she comes close.
    Watching the series balance drama, humor, action, and tense thrills gives me a sense Agent Carter is something great-in-the-making. I hope the mini-series is duplicated for a second season as it would be a shame for it not to be. It's been years since Captain America: The First Avenger yet I still felt emotion watching Peggy Carter come to terms with Steve's "death."

    In conclusion, as a man who was iffy about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D for the first season, this is a tour de force from start to finish. I recommend it to all fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and think anyone who doesn't watch it is missing out on a really great experience.

10/10
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The Wheel of Time: The Great Hunt review

March 2, 2015, 1:08 pm
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     I was very fond of The Eye of the World, the first novel in the series and one which managed to nicely encapsulate a lot about what I enjoyed about high fantasy. It wasn't the most original fantasy novel in the world but it gave us likable characters, believable interactions, and a fun climax which heralded things to come. The Great Hunt is an excellent follow-up but suffers, in some respect, by the fact is meant to be the second installment in a twelve-part series with a lot of the twists already telegraphed by the book's blatant foreshadowing.

    The premise is hero Rand al'Thor trying to ignore his recently discovering channeling. Given male channelers invariably go mad, this is understandable. Unfortunately, Rand is also the Dragon Reborn so there's no getting around his destiny. It's his job to punch the Dark One, Satan more-or-less, in the face. Complicating this inevitable showdown between good and evil is the fact the continent is being invaded by an eastern empire called the Seanchan.

    Basically, evil Knights of the Round Table, the Seanchan are descended from past conqueror Arthur Hawkwing and believe themselves entitled to all lands in the continent. When two magical artifacts are stolen from the Aes Sedai, Rand and company must go off to find them before his best friend Mat dies of a magical curse. It may seem like I'm spoiling a lot but I'm not even touching on the various twists and turns this book possesses.

    The Great Hunt's plot amounts to a very extended chase scene with a lot of fascinating diversions. I've seen worse plots for a book, though, and many of these diversions go in fascinating directions. For example, there's tests which take place in alternate timelines and worlds as well as a question of what would happen to this one if events played out differently. Parallel realities and alternative history is nothing new to science fiction but is a surprising addition to a epic fantasy series like The Wheel of Time.

    The book's primary appeal is in its characterization of the cast as well as introduction of many new figures. We get a lot of new insight into Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, and some characters I didn't expect to see a return of like Domon the boatman. Rand is struggling with his channeling and needs his friends more than ever but none of them are there. Instead, he is befriended by a beautiful and mysterious newcomer to the group who promises him the world. Poor Rand is way, way out of his league with her and why she's interested in him can only relate to his terrible destiny.

    I also like how Robert Jordan expanded on the Aes Sedai from their rituals and practices to specific members. The Black Ajah is a great idea and one which adds an immense amount of tension to our heroes' interaction with their nominal greatest allies. I do think a reveal toward the end of the book would have been more effective if the identity of the traitor hadn't been revealed earlier, though, and we get a much better one latter on down the line. The Darkfriends are getting a surprising amount of characterization despite being literal servants of the Devil, showing how one might go from being an otherwise normal person to a member in a doomsday cult out to destroy the world.

    There's a lot of great moments in this book with my favorite being what happens to a character who falls into the hands of the Seanchan. While no physical violence is done, the sheer emotional abuse done to a sympathetic and lovable character is horrifying. It made me hate the Seanchan with every fiber of my being and I hope they get what's coming to them in future books. It's strange but I hate the imperialist conquerors more than I hate the literal servants of evil. I also loved the character of Selene, the aforementioned mysterious woman, who brought a very different energy to the book and Rand's adventures.

     Less enjoyable was the diversion of the heroes to the nation of Cairhien, which ostensibly is mirred in intrigue from top-to-bottom. The problem isn't the premise but the fact the Cairhien seem to be less astute players of politics than a bunch of catty high-schoolers who just so happen to rule a country. Rand's complete disgust with the whole thing was one of his more enjoyable moments. I also thought Rand's self-pity and angst about being a channeler went a little over-the-top in places.

    I'm hoping Rand will be better about seizing his destiny in the next book but I'm not hopeful. It's hard to believe not only are men willing to follow Rand but four women are already in love with him. The downgrading of favorites from the last book, Thom Merrilan and Moraine, was also unwelcome. Thankfully, both characters still got important scenes which furthered their character arcs.

    In conclusion, The Great Hunt was a bit slow in places but I came to love numerous characters inside it. It's still a heavy complicated read for those individuals who prefer things a bit snappier but if that's what you're looking for, The Wheel of Time probably isn't what you're looking for anyway.

9/10
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Demon Squad: Resurrection review

March 3, 2015, 3:42 pm
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    Armageddon Bound was a fun little novel, giving us a new urban fantasy series with a Judeo-Christian mythology theme. God and the Devil have made peace, leaving the universe to humanity and their former servitors high and dry. The chosen candidate for the Anti-Christ, Frank "Triggaltheron" Trigg, is happy about this change and has devoted himself to the human monster-hunting organization DRAC in protect the world from the now-unnecessary Armageddon.

    The premise is Frank, after a disastrous attempt to hire a prostitute ends with him fighting zombies (possibly the best sentence ever to intrigue someone into reading a book), investigates a number of bodies disappearing from the local cemetery. This ties into a larger plot by an unknown third party to resurrect Longinus the Roman soldier who killed Christ.

    In this world, Longinus was the first of several Anti-Christs, who serve as Hell's chief enforcers. Given the peace between angels and demons is barely holding as is, Frank is less than pleased at the possibility of a new major player on the board. The issue is further complicated by the return of an old girlfriend of Frank's who he still has strong feelings for. Can he sort out all these problems or will things get worse before they never get better? Oh and what does a barely intelligible beat-boxing zombie have to do with it? I'm kidding about the beat-boxing.

    Or am I?

    Resurrection is a step-down in stakes after the apocalyptic adventures of Armageddon Bound. This isn't a bad thing as you can't do that every week without diluting some of the effectiveness. The addition of Longinus, however, prevents it from being too much of a change. Frank's teeth-clenched teamwork with evil wizard McConnel from the first book is quite entertaining and I would have been interested in seeing those two bicker for much of the story.
   
    The addition of the character Karra seemed a trifle unnecessary, though. She's yet another half-demon action girl who Frank has a prior relationship with. Given Veronica, Frank's ex-wife who fits those same criteria, is in the book then I think it might have been better just to use her instead. Still, the law of character conservation aside, I liked the character and can never complain too much about additional butt-kicking women in fiction.

    Tim Marquitz deserves credit for continuing to flesh-out the complicated romantic, familial, and personal ties existing between Heaven and Hell. You get a real feeling these people all know each other intimately, enemies or not, and everyone has a lengthy history between them. It adds a personal touch to things and makes every encounter where someone dies forever to be all that much more shocking to these largely-static beings.
   
    I feel the character of Lilith was underused this book but also have to give props Tim for going in an unexpected direction with her. I also liked how he illustrated Baalth's power at one point, showing what sort of devastation the demon lord was capable of and why he wasn't actually a decent person underneath his polite facade.

    Frank, as always, is hilarious and I see no likelihood of that changing anytime soon. I like the twists and turns in this story as it has anything but a straight-forward narrative. Frank would like to stop the resurrection of Longinus but he doesn't really care enough about his employers to go all out for it. He's also willing to be bribed in order to let it happen and re-bribed in order to stop it. It's rare we see a character ambivalent about his job and very much not-so about his payment. It makes the way things finally go down genuinely surprising as Frank knows everyone is scum but someone has to win (so it might as well be him).

    Most of the mistakes from the earlier volume are absent here and I have no doubt they will continue to get less and less as the series progresses. You can feel Tim Marquitz's style evolving and improving, which isn't a bad thing since he begins pretty damn good.

8.5/10
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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

March 5, 2015, 12:38 pm
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    Yeah.

    That was a thing.

    I could end my review now with that rather concise summary but I would feel that I'm doing a disservice to my army. I wanted to see this film in theaters but, sadly, my wife took ill so I was unable to make it. I wasn't exactly beating down the door to go see it after the first two movies either. I'm not a Tolkien purist, don't get me wrong.

    I understand they're different mediums and all that but I also tend to take the view: don't change what isn't broken. The Hobbit is one of the most beloved children's stories of all time and trying to turn it into The Lord of the Rings 2.0 was always going to be like chipping away at Michangelo's David to look more like the Sistine Chapel.

Greed is bad, m'kay?
     Still, as tough as I was on An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, I had a lot of moments I liked. Bilbo's character arc in the first movie was more or less the same one in the original book, albeit reached earlier. Stephen Fry's performance of the Master. Benedict Cumberbatch's Smaug. I even give props to Evangeline Lilly who creates a wholly original character I wanted to spend more time with. The interchangeable dwarves of the original novel are, mostly, expanded in ways I enjoyed too.

    Battle of the Five Armies?

    It's a thing.

    There's a lot happening on screen, don't get me wrong. We get to see Elrond, Galadriel, Radaghast, and Gandalf team up like the Justice League to fight the Nazgul in a haunted castle. We get a surprisingly effective battle-scene between Smaug and poor Bard, the only man willing to stand-up and fight against the dragon. There's a lot of really impressive CGI on screen which makes it one of the best animated movies I've seen in a long time. Yes, I say animated. I'd compare it to the Star Wars Prequels but it's not that bad. People die, there's mourning and revenge.

    It's all there.

Amazing, albeit silly, visuals are par for the course.
    In a very real sense, the movie failed to make me care in a way I think would have been necessary. I cared a couple of times, don't get me wrong. There's a death in the film which really did move me. I also was "fooled" a couple of times into forgetting I know exactly who is going to die and who isn't from the books--which the original Lord of the Rings movies were very good at making me feel.

    However, in the final confrontation between Azog and Thorin, I couldn't help but not care one bit. The White Orc has been propped up by three movies like he's just shy of Darth Vader with even Sauron barely able to keep him under control (!?) but his one-dimensional vendetta against Thorin has never managed to inspire the least bit of interest from me. Indeed, the entirety of the larger war is lost in a bunch of personal vendettas I don't really think fit the narrative they're telling.

    The movies color palette is also irritating as the director goes out of his way to make things as dull, washed out, and drab as possible. This is even in relationship to the other movies so poor Evangeline Lilly, who is naturally an astoundingly beautiful woman, looks like as plain a perfect make-up elf can be. Everything is dark, somber, and dreary which might fit with the refugee situation but lingers over everything.

If it's a video game on screen, it's a fun looking video game.
    It says something about the movie, perhaps, that one of the most entertaining figures in it is the figure of Alfrid. A Grima Wormtongue-esque figure, there is no depth of cruelty or greed he won't sink to and yet he's hilarious. The fact he's one of the few characters who seem to be having fun (or at least enjoying the prospect of a vast fortune) lends itself to be enjoyable.

    The action scenes are big huge spectacles, even if the orcs are reduced to even more one-dimensional embodiments of evil than they were in the books (which is impressive). The "greed is bad" parallel is something I also liked even if it's the kind of thing we shouldn't need banged into our head every day, we clearly do.

    I can't fault the actors for their roles. Everyone is clearly doing their best. Richard Armitage plays the sudden change in Thorin with a gravity largely undeserved by the script. Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Sylvester McCoy, and Ian McKellen turn the aforementioned "Justice League vs. The Nazgul" scene into something so entertaining I actually wanted more original material than less.

Sir Ian is trapped in this movie.
    Martin Freeman embodies Bilbo so well I could keep watching his adventures, even though I never really enjoyed the movies. I even liked Orlando Bloom's acting, even though Leogolas plays something dangerously close to an elvish stalker. It's just there's so much going on, none of these performances really gets a chance to breathe or be humanized before its off to the next CGI monster.

    In conclusion, this isn't a bad movie but it's a silly one. Everything is big, grandiose, and epic which means nothing is epic. There's very few quiet moments in the film and those few which exist are all the stronger for it. I can't help but think a more deliberately paced film might have been a far-far more enjoyable experience. As such, I was bored about twenty-minutes in to a three-hour movie.

6/10
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Sunset Overdrive review

March 8, 2015, 5:14 pm
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    Underwhelming.

    Which is annoying because this video game goes out of its way to try to whelm its audience. However, it is basically a Mountain Dew commercial with about as much punk and rebel spirit as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Michangelo. The characters dress, act, and listen to music straight out of the Nineties but are ostensibly living in the 21st century. Likewise, there's some vague anti-corporate jingoist spirit but this is a video game which was obviously made by a committee.

    It's very...safe. Which is bizarre because it appears to be radical on the surface.

The city's color pallette is a nice contrast to others' games. So there's that.
    A janitor in the employment of the FizzCo corporation is one of only a handful of survivors after the launch party for a dangerously unsafe energy drink. Said energy drink turns the majority of the citizenry into gigantic mutants called "OD" (because they overdosed and the title of the game is overdrive) and our hero tries to survive in the colorful wonderland which has emerged. At one point, one of the NPCs says, "In order to cope with the apocalypse, you might as well have fun in it!" Which, to me, said, "Yes, the game is telling me I should have fun. That is never a good sign."

    I respect what they were trying to do, I do, and I see the effort. However, the gameplay just isn't all that fun. The monsters don't have any real personality versus their closest equivalent in zombies. Yes, I just said zombies have more personality. The OD drink orange cola and hate the living but they don't have the creepy fun factor, say, Dead Rising's dead possess.

Travel around the city is supposed to be fun but is a mixture of fun and grinding bore.
    The game's characters are supposed to be zany but aren't, really, and more often than not come off as annoying rather than endearing. All of the weapons are utterly ridiculous so there's no sense of "crazy" to the fact there's an explosive teddy bear gun. Yes, you read that correctly. They somehow made that boring.

    I think a key feature of this game is it aspires to the wackiness of Saint's Row but lacks the entertaining characters, the engagingly bizarre plot (versus just bizarre), the incredibly good music, and sense of exploration. Sunset Overdrive gives its protagonist the ability to jump incredible distances like Super Mario for no reason and move around power-lines the same way Cole MacGrath could in Infamous. Again, for no reason.

    The game is meant to be played with you jumping around shooting at stuff, which is fine, but the enemies become almost impossible to be hit by when you do this so it's not all that much fun to actually fight them. Then there's the fact death automatically deposits you just a short area away with almost no lost progress, essentially making the game feel like you can't lose. There's no challenge.

The OD are, at least, unwholesome looking. There's a nice bit of satire, if it is satire, about how damn DISGUSTING the energy drink looks.
    The game tries very hard to establish how wacky and over-the-top it is without actually being wacky or over-the-top. This is exemplified by one of the mission zones being the protagonist meeting with a bunch of bored preppies called 'The Oxfords." The protagonist must get their shallow needs filled like their robot dogs, bottled water, and backpacks full of body spray. Because, you see, they're shallow and that's the joke. Repeated five or six times.  

     The gameplay which is trying to sell itself on pure fun, has an overly complex enhancement and leveling system for weapons. If any game cried out for something simple like leveling up with experience points and buying upgrades it is this game but, instead, there is a system of amps and cards which seemed more like a hassle than a boon.

    Sunset Overdrive can be fun but is so at about an hour at a time. I couldn't bring myself to play the game for much longer and, instead, completed it on a series of runs over a long period of time. Honestly, it's this niche I recommend people pick the game up. It's fun as something to play when in-between playing games.

6/10
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The Avengers (2012) review

March 9, 2015, 7:26 pm
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    I'm going to reveal something which may remove a substantial portion of my geek credibility: this movie wasn't the be-end-all-of-everything for me. I like it, don't me wrong. I'm even able to rewatch it and be entertained but this review is going to include some criticisms.

    To me, The Avengers came off as a sugar cookie. It was very sweet, I'm glad I ate it, and I  think it had zero nutritional value. If you're the kind of person who says, "but C.T. Phipps, you magnificent bastard, it's just supposed to be entertaining fluff!" then have at it.

    Avengers is like candy for the brain of a Marvel fan who wants to see his favorite heroes punch things while being funny and in-character. It manages to recapture a lot of the thrill from you were a child reading about heroes hitting things with hammers or shields. That, alone is worth an eight out of eight.

    But I don't think of it as the best superhero movie ever.

Now, if only it had Spiderman.
    In some respects, I think the Avengers is a good example of what Justice League: War was a horrific failure at. Specifically, it managed to tell a delightful story which successfully captures the personalities of each character while weaving them together seamlessly.

    It's a great achievement they managed to get a half-dozen movies done to introduce the cast before teaming up, so this is a movie where we know everyone in the way not possible with the movie. Even so, they managed to successfully "introduce" Hawkeye, the Black Widow, and the Incredible Hulk in a way which was more effective than the movies which had done so beforehand.

    More on that later.

    In a weird way, if I'm going to compliment anything about the Avengers movie, it's going to be the portrayal of the Incredible Hulk by Mark Ruffalo. I've mentioned in other posts I had serious issues with the previous Hulk movies. It's not that they were bad, it's just they always missed the mark in portraying the duality. The previous movies acted like Bruce Banner was correct that the Hulk was a dreadful curse when, on a basic level, he should be wrong. The Hulk isn't a curse but a gift. It's just not a gift to Bruce Banner but humanity. Here, we understand why it's a very good thing when Hulk rampages.

    Because some people need smashing.

One of the funniest scenes in the movie. Also, for strictly shallow reasons, she's still a knockout.
    The Black Widow's portrayal also deserves credit as her portrayal as the pseudo-Bethany Cabe (+1 Iron Man point if you get the reference) in Iron Man 2 didn't really have any high points other than spellbinding heterosexual male and homosexual women with Ms. Johansen's beauty. Also, one kickass fight scene lasting a few minutes. Here, we get a sense of her character both in motivation, her special ability (specifically, to get villains to monologue), and her discomfort being a normal human being faced against beings like the Hulk.

    Hawkeye? Okay, he just looks cool.

    The conflict between Iron Man and Captain America forms the basis for much of the movie's dramatic plot, existing primarily from the two individuals not knowing each other very well. It rubbed me the wrong way because Captain America accusing Tony Stark of not being willing to sacrifice himself is silly to anyone who knows he was ready to bankrupt himself to save lives. Likewise, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the Captain knows his strength comes from his heart rather than the Super Soldier serum.

    It's funny to watch, though.

    Thor doesn't get much to do other than hit things, at least with his fellow teammates. There's a couple of nice moments where we see he wants to redeem his brother but, sadly, Luke Skywalker he is not. Loki's portrayal, by contrast, is a nuanced performance of a man who has been either tortured or brainwashed into complete evil. His use as the Avenger's first villain is a nice nod to the comics and Tom Hiddleston plays the hell out of an otherwise stock role.

The best Hulk ever!
    The Chitauri? Well, they're zombies. At least, in the context of existing solely for the purposes of being punched in the face. I'm sorry we didn't see them surrender at the end rather than what actually happened to them, though. I think that would have been a more superheroic end to the movie, personally, and invoke less plotholes.

    The Avengers special effects, humor, and action are all good. There's even a couple of moving moments like Bruce Banner meeting with a stranger and the lone man willing to stand up to Loki's "the evils of free will" speech. The movie is, however, about there being a bad thing threatening the world and the Avengers punching it. This is a contrast to Iron Man and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It's even against Thor, which was built on some very strong family dramas and had the evils of genocide even when supported by society.

    Here? It's just fun and that's not bad.

9/10
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The Dresden Files: Small Favor

March 9, 2015, 11:04 pm
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    Small Favor is the tenth novel of The Dresden Files, following Harry Dresden as he has his second encounter with his arch-nemesis, Nicodemus, from Death Masks. It also follows up on the "three favors for Mab." A plot point which was introduced in Summer Knight and would continue to have a major impact on the series up until Changes. Given the book focuses on the Denarians, it also has a big role for the Knights of the Cross, as well as Gentleman Johnny Marcone a.k.a Chicago's biggest crime-boss and the second most important human who knows about the supernatural in the series.

    Harry is recruited by Queen Mab to protect Marcone who is under attacks by a foe who turns out to be the aforementioned Nicodemus. There is much focus on the Unseelie Accords, those nebulous documents created by Queen Mab which are designed to limit the amount of chaos supernatural beings can cause in the modern world. The Knights of the Blackened Denarius, composed of Hell-serving fallen angels, are signatories but don't think much of the rules.

    Small Favor is a book which suffers for the fact it is heavily-reliant on continuity. While this is a feature, rather than a bug, for those familiar with series, it means this book would be less enjoyable for a starting volume. Likewise, I'll be honest, Nicodemus is not that great of a villain.

    While only the second time he's used, the character doesn't really have that much over Harry's other foes and his returns will become dreaded rather than enjoyed. I really think this should have been his last appearance in the franchise as there is a great moment in this somewhat unremarkable entry in this series which would have been a fitting finale for the demonically possessed mortal.

    One thing I dislike about Nicodemus' portrayal in this book is that a character who was initially defined as one of the most intelligent men in history, one of the greatest villains the world has ever seen, and a reader of the Evil Overlord List suffers a great deal of "Badass Decay" (thank you TVtropes.org). Harry and company run rings around him and there's even a moment which lampshades the wizard has a much more formidable foe facing him in the Black Council.

    The character is further hurt by the fact he is as close to a loyal servant of evil, which is a questionable motive at the best of times, as the series possesses. To be a good recurring nemesis, a villain must be cool on some level, and it's hard to think of Nicodemus as such when he tortures a twelve-year-old kid as in this book.

    In short, Nicodemus starts to wear out his welcome in this book.

    Of course, the book does benefit from more focus on the Knights of the Cross as well as series-favorite the Archive. I've always liked the Archive and really wish she'd gotten a bit more focus here. The sum-total repository of all written knowledge in the form of a twelve-year-old girl, Ivy has a spectacularly crappy life. Only Harry Dresden is willing to treat her as a little girl. The book puts her through a truly horrific experience and I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with it.

    While menacing a child is certainly a huge motivation for Harry, it's also uncomfortable to read about, and I lost a lot of respect for Nicodemus as an antagonist because of it. Sansa, my favorite of the Knights, also makes a reappearance. More Sansa is always appreciated. I mean, how can you not love a African-Russian atheist-communist Knight of the Christian God? There's also some fun stuff relating to the Three Billy Goats Gruff, except said goats are fairies with guns. No, seriously. Their plotline's resolution is a highlight of the book.

    In conclusion, Small Favor is not my favorite of The Dresden Files novels. The return of Nicodemus is underwhelming, there's a bit too much reliance on previous continuity, and the torture poor Ivy undergoes left a sour taste in my mouth. It's not a bad book, though, but suffers in comparison to the great ones which preceded it. Still, I'd rather read Small Favor than most urban fantasy.

8.5/10
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Son of Batman review

March 12, 2015, 2:26 pm
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    It is a testament to the skill of Grant Morrison that he managed to make a ridiculous premise interesting. Batman's unknown son, Damien (as in The Omen), is revealed to have been raised by the League of Assassins for the past ten years. Batman and, later, Dick Grayson chooses to take him under his wing in order to teach him the ways of morality.

    This is despite the fact he is near-feral in terms of his developed morality due to the fact he was molded into a weapon from birth. It's cheap melodrama at its best, designed to confront Batman with two facets of his personality that are predominate: Batman as the father and Batman as the champion of "thou shall not kill."

    And it's wonderful.

    This movie isn't that story.

Batman and son in a beautiful image.
    Son of Batman was a movie I thus approached with a certain amount of dread. The cover promises a rousing adventure of wish fulfillment for children. A chance for younger audiences to live vicariously in the same way the Robin character, theoretically, exists for. Wouldn't it be awesome to be the Son of Batman? I, for one, love my father but would absolutely love Bruce Wayne as my other father on weekends. This isn't the story of Damien's arc in the comics, though, and I was curious how much would be lost in the translation.

    The answer? A lot.

    Not all of it.

    But the story goes in odd directions.

    The premise is Damien Wayne is the heir to Ra's Al Ghul and has been raised as the future ruler of the world/head of the League of Assassins. Unfortunately, for Damien, Ra's Al Ghul is killed by Deathstroke the Terminator. In this continuity, Deathstroke has joined the League of Assassins and was being groomed to lead it before Damien's birth. Ra's is unable to be revived this time, which would be awesome for the DCU's citizenry to be honest, but Talia and Damien are sad. Sending Damien to his father, Bruce investigates Ra's death and a plan by Deathstroke involving Man-Bat while Damien plans to avenge his grandfather.

There is some SEVERELY off-kilter stuff in Talia and Bruce's relationship.
    All in all, it's a fairly straight-forward revenge story as well as dynastic struggle. You could have Damien the Prince of a Kingdom sent to live with his father the King of another land and have the plot set anywhere from Norway to China throughout history. Deathstroke is nothing like his comic book counterpart, which is a shame since he's probably one of the few people who would make a good leader for the League of Shadows.

    There's also a severe moral dissonance to this movie. In the comic book storyline, there's a moment where Damien kills a Gotham City criminal and presents his head to Batman's Family. It's a terrible and shocking moment. There, I thought it was going too far. Here? We see Damien killing multiple people at the start of the movie despite being only ten-years-old. It undermines Nightwing "saving" Damien from killing later on.

    There's also the fact Talia raped Batman to conceive Damien.

    No, I'm not kidding.

    She says, I am entirely serious, she drugged him in order to get him into bed.

    Batman takes this in stride and says it wasn't all bad.

    ...

    What the hell, movie?

I think it says everything about what's wrong with comics that Talia's skin-tight leather outfit isn't sexy enough, naturally, but needs to be halfway unzipped the entire movie.
    In addition to this gross sentiment, which derails any sympathy I had for Talia al Ghul, the movie is pretty clear we're meant to see Bruce and her having a romance. It's a nasty, unnecessary, and confusing bit which shouldn't be in the film. Its representative of the film's schizophrenic tone where it goes from being kiddie and fun to darkly grim at the drop of a hat. You have ten-year-old Damien watching cartoons and sword-fighting hedges to him trying to kill Ubu after catching him with a pair of hookers about to get busy.

    Man, what?

    Overall, Son of Batman isn't a bad movie but it seems like the story was emptied of all its originality and power to become more kiddified. Yet, the story keeps elements which render it inappropriate for children. No one does a poor job acting but the problems are story based and distract from what could have been a solid all-ages experience or a more somber cerebral tale of family bonds.

7/10
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Demon Squad: At the Gates reviews

March 12, 2015, 8:45 pm
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    The Demon Squad series by Tim Marquitz is one of my favorite independent urban fantasy series. It's not as funny as The Dresden Files and focuses a little too much on world-ending threats versus stopping to let us know the characters but it's entertaining as hell (no pun intended). We also get a bit of focus on the heavenly side of the equation after spending two books getting to know the demonic.

    The premise of the series is God and the Devil have made peace, leaving the Earth to the human race before departing. This really upsets both angels and demons who have been preparing for Armageddon since almost before time began. Both sides have produced a number of psychotic fanatics and caught in-between is Frank "Triggaltheron" Trigg a.k.a The Devil's Nephew. Frank likes the world the way it is and has allied with monster-hunting group DRAC and those demons as well as angels who don't want everyone slaughtered in a M.A.D. situation.

    While Frank was able to preserve the peace in Armageddon Bound and took a dangerous player off the map in Resurrection, At the Gates has him utterly fail to predict the next problem's source: Heaven has fallen. Gabriel and Michael, most famous of all Christian archangels, have gone down the left-handed path and slaughtered the majority of all non-Armageddonist angels. The surviving peace-faction have barricaded themselves in the Garden of Eden for a last stand which may well end in the genocidal war everyone's been trying to avoid. Can Frank and his angelic cousin, Scarlett, save the universe? Well, there's at least five more books so let's hope so!

    I'll be honest, At the Gates isn't my favorite of the novels. This isn't because the book isn't entertaining. It has a delightfully off-kilter globe trotting Indiana Jones-esque plot to recover three rib-bones from Adam, Eve, and Lilith to provide a secret backdoor to Heaven. The stakes are also shown to be suitably high by having Sodom and Gomorrah fire reign down on humanity on a regular basis as the angels class. There's only a few aftermath moments but watching Frank look at a helpless humanity mourning its losses provides the book with a number of poignant moments.

    No, sadly, I think this book suffers a little bit because there's not enough of a page count devoted to the character's reaction to the War in Heaven. I recommend readers pick up either the first series omnibus To Hell and Back or buy the e-short story, Betrayal, separately. This short-story, starring Scarlett is really essential to appreciating the emotional gut-punch of Gabriel and Michael's betrayal as well as the issues involved in this conflict. Frank, sadly, just doesn't give enough of a damn about Heaven to make him a good POV for the conflict. I would have much preferred an entire book from Scarlett's perspective.

    Really, the War in Heaven could have been the background for a number of books without diminishing its story or importance. The events are all resolved in one book, however, before we really get a chance to appreciate the full scope. I also felt this was a missed opportunity for Scarlett and Frank to get closer. Then again, I'm a Scarlett/Frank shipper (cousins matter less when one is the former candidate for the Anti-Christ) so I'm admittedly biased. I'm very glad that we did get the perspectives we did and Scarlett's return to the series was most welcome. She's, easily, my favorite character in the series.

    The action, adventure, and spectacle in the book is all well-done. It reminds me strongly of the Christopher Walken Prophecy series. Massive gigantic stakes just off-screen while smaller people struggle with them. Frank, as always, is entertaining and able to wheel his deal out of most problems. I also like his relationship with Karra, as much as I prefer to ship him with Scarlett or Veronica, and enjoy reading about their interactions. I hope she'll play a bigger role in future books as she's arguably a better warrior than Frank and should have been on the front lines with him fighting the angel threat.

    Fans of the series will note Tim Marquitz is not afraid to kill long-standing characters. There are a number of shocking deaths in this volume of the franchise. This may turn some readers off but I think it contributes to the idea no one is safe and this is a book with genuine stakes. I also am a big fan of some twists we've found out about Frank's heritage as well as who becomes King of Heaven after events play out. Newcomer villain Azrael and the return of existing villain Gabriel both make the book exceptionally fun as well. They're both deliciously hateable and a joy to read about Frank opposing.

    In conclusion, this is a fun book but I hope we'll get more focus on the zany fun characters next time than apocalypses (is that even a word?).

7.5/10
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Supergirl: Who is the Girl of Steel?

March 13, 2015, 11:58 pm
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     The recent announcement of a Supergirl series coming to television was greeted by a lot of fans with a mixture of excitement as well as trepidation. Who would be cast? What would be the plotline? Who would write it? Would they go for a fun or a dark and somber tone? Most of these questions have been answered but one which greeted a lot of fans was: who is Supergirl?

    They have a vague idea who she is or can simply guess by the name, but I thought I'd take time to do an essay for those unfamiliar with the character's history both in as well as out of comics. I have a confession to make. I like Supergirl more than other superheroine on the planet. She is my favorite. Which is great, except for the fact nobody likes Supergirl best. Kara Zor-El occupies a weird position in superheroism along with Batgirl and Wonder Woman in that she's one of the most recognizable superheroines in the world but rarely gets much attention.

    This isn't quite the case outside of comics given she's one of the only superheroines in the world to ever get her own movie plus her role in Superman: The Animated Series but from 1985 to 2003, Supergirl as people normally know her was dead.

    No, seriously.

    The fact she's about to headline her own series on a major network in the upcoming Supergirl series is a major accomplishment for someone who was long considered the redheaded stepchild of DC Comics. A character who was too popular and recognized to keep dead but one they didn't really want anywhere near their main character. This, despite the fact Supergirl had never been unpopular or disliked by the majority of the fandom. Supergirl, instead, has ever been a character which struggled with popularity and fandom from the creators.

I wonder if Clark's mom had black hair or if Jor-El's brother adopted.
    For those not familiar with the character, Supergirl is a character created in Action Comics 252# (1959) by Al Plastino and Otto Binder. This was after a series of previous female incarnations of Superman had been debuted, up to and including one made by a Voodoo doll by Jimmy Olsen.

    Comics in the Silver Age were great.

    Her origin is a trifle convoluted in order to explain how a teenage girl could be born from a planet which sent Kal-El to a world he grew up on. It involved a Kryptonian city surviving the planet's destruction and floating in space for decades. However, because this would mean the planetary fragment they were on was composed of Kryptonite, they had to lead line the bottom of their city, only for that shielding to fail. So, they sent Kara away from their city as it died.

    Meaning Supergirl's home planet blew up twice.

    Superman was kind of a jackass back then so his reaction to his cousin from Krypton, which he visited regularly with time travel back then mind you, was to send her to an orphanage. He also ordered her not to use her powers on some vague promise of using her a "secret weapon." Even then, there was the weirdest sense they wanted to keep her character away from the main franchise. 
Superman... jerk.

    Superman was already the most famous superhero in the world and internationally famous as well as beloved. While I have no evidence, I can't help but think they were hesitant to rock the boat by introducing a character who had the potential of entirely upending Superman's life given, at the very least, she's a kid sister figure. Because, you know, the natural reaction of the world's greatest hero is to send your only existing blood-relative to live with strangers than your home in Metropolis.

    How little regard for the character cam be summarized by DC's vice president/executive editor Dick Giordano, "Supergirl was created initially to take advantage of the high Superman sales and not much thought was put into her creation. She was created essentially as a female Superman. With time, writers and artists improved upon her execution, but she never did really add anything to the Superman mythos—at least not for me."

Brainiac 5 once made a robot version of Supergirl to be his girlfriend. 
    Supergirl got plenty of interesting stories, don't get me wrong. She got a Kryptonian super-cat, a magical horse who was also a centaur, and also a boyfriend in Brainiac 5. He's the green-skinned alien genius from the 30th century only dimly related to the supervillain of the present era. She also got to use time-travel to team up with her cousin as Superboy in the future.

    Comics, everybody.

    Then she grew up and everyone forgot she existed. Supergirl, you see, was never quite popular. Well, let me rephrase that, she was never quite as popular as her cousin. Not as popular as Superman is still probably better known than 90% of all fictional character on the planet. Still, she existed in her own corner of the DC universe and was allowed to age through college and go on to become her own distinct person.

    Until two major events shook her character forever. The first was the 1984 Supergirl movie starring Helen Slater. Helen Slater looks like a girl who walked off the pages of a comic book and her acting was great but the movie itself was, quite simply, a mess. The story was incoherent as was the world-building but Supergirl (1984) was somehow still quite entertaining.
This is a great movie for good acting around complete garbage.
    Then they killed off Supergirl.

    The 1985 Crisis On Infinite Earths was an attempt to streamline DC comics continuity into something more mainstream and this meant cutting out countless things viewed extraneous. This included, as seen with the publisher upstairs, Supergirl. I always think Superman suffered the most out of the Crisis as he had a rich, weird, science-fiction universe. Cutting all of that out didn't make him a better character. It made him less. Supergirl, at least, got a badass send off, being able to hammer the Anti-Monitor (portrayed as the most dangerous villain ever faced in the history of the DCU) like Rao's own righteous hammer.

An iconic image of comics.
     The thing was, you can't keep a good character down and even then DC had an alternate Supergirl in Powergirl, who was an alternate version of Supergirl allowed to grow up as an adult. Except, they insisted she wasn't Supergirl. Therefore, she had no origin and would go through several ridiculously bad ones culminating in the horrible "mystical pregnancy" plotline which has worked exactly once in the history of storytelling.

    Then Supergirl would be replaced by a protoplasmic entity by an alternate dimensional good counterpart of Lex Luthor who assumed the physical form of that reality's Lana Lang, explaining her great beauty. She would become the girlfriend of this reality's evil Lex Luthor who had transplanted his brain into a clone body so he could fake his own death.

    After her, said protoplasmic Supergirl (called "Matrix") would merge with a young Satanic cultist (!) named Linda Danvers who would go on to become possessed by the power of an angel. Linda Danvers would be superbly written by Peter David for many issues until a beautiful finale for the character which involved the original Pre-Crisis Kara-Zor El returning for her grand finale.

    The Linda Danvers Supergirl, who was liked if never popular, would get replaced by Cir-El who was basically Rachel Summers if Rachel Summer's parents were Lois Lane and Superman. Everyone hated her and she erased herself from reality. I also recall a fun, briefly in-continuity, crossover between Superman and the Aliens franchise where Argo City was overrun by xenomorphs. Kara was a badass Ripley-esque fightere there (you can't make this stuff up).

    So, lots of Supergirls but none of them the "real" Supergirl.

    Or perhaps I should say, none of them were the Supergirl everyone remembered.

    Until 1997 and 2003.

Can there be too much of a good thing? Yes.

    Bruce Timm, producer of Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, that mad genius, had the strangest idea that enduring characters like Superman and Batman had an intrinsic appeal to them despite the fact some comic creators wanted to change everything about them.

    He brought back Supegirl as a character and, surprisingly enough, had Superman bond with the young woman. Yes, he kept her out of his home in Metropolis but that was because he was trying to protect her from danger as well as get her accustomed to her powers first. She wasn't his cousin but was his surrogate sister, having grown up on a Kryptonian colony world.

    And people liked Kara In-Ze. She was a fun, intelligent, but naive character who fit in fine in Clark Kent's world. I wanted to see more of this Supergirl but, sadly, her role in the setting remained small until the end of the Justice League series where she decided to live in the future with the Legion of Superheroes.

    Supergirl would not return to the comics as Superman's cousin until Batman/Superman 1# in 2003 when she was returned with a bang instead of a whimper. Reaction to this version of Supergirl was mixed amongst fans. They tried to overplay her sex appeal in order to drum up interest, which was rather creepy given she was a sixteen-year-old girl.

    DC attempted to make her a mountain of violent rage and angst with a secret history as daughter of a mad scientist sent to murder Kal-El. Obviously, this is a bit like re-imagining Hello Kitty as a violent nihilistic assassin. Eventually, they got it sorted out by claiming all of her weird memories were a combination of PTSD and Kryptonite poisoning. Then Krypton got resurrected with her parents, only to get blown up again.

Supergirl needs no pants! But sleeves? Yes!
    So, yes, Supergirl has lost her planet THREE times.

    Despite this, she became prominent enough to have a recurring role on the Smallville television series as played by Laura Vanderoot. I can't say much of her depiction but it was a pretty decent-sized role and helped re-solidify the character in the public imagination.

    The New 52 has since rebooted Supergirl once more, this time in her classic self with a new costume. The new Supergirl was raised on Krypton and thus is having a great deal more trouble adapting to Earth than Clark Kent who was raised as an infant. Which only makes sense.

    I don't much care for the costume given I'm not sure what sort of costume needs sleeves but no pants but I like this Kara's desire to have her homeland back even if it brings her in conflict with her cousin. It's a nice point of differentiation between them. Kara Zor-El is the Last Kryptonian while Kal-El is a Kryptonian-American.

    What is the appeal of the character to me? I'd have to say it's the character's consistent endurance in the face of tragedy. Whether it's Linda Lee Earth Angel, Matrix, or Kara in her various incarnations, she always live truly sucky lives. Loss is never a stranger to her, even more so than Spiderman. Unlike Spiderman, however, she always manages to put on a smile the next day. Well, maybe the next week, but the smile comes back.

    So what do I hope from the new series? Honestly, I'm hoping for a series which has faith in the character. Someone who believes that she can be a lead without her cousin's shadow guiding the way. The survivor of a dead world with Superman's powers is a pretty solid concept, especially if she's allowed to also be a teenage girl with all of the angst that entails.
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The Dresden Files: Turn Coat review

March 14, 2015, 9:35 am
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    One of the more controversial figures in The Dresden Files series is Morgan, Harry Dresden's equivalent to Inspector Javert. A ruthless Warden and mage-hunter, Morgan believed Harry was a warlock and practitioner of evil magic with no amount of evidence or good deeds able to convince him otherwise.

    This proves to be a deterrent to Morgan's career as Harry not only ends up joining the Wardens but saving the world on multiple occasions. As Harry's star has risen, so has Morgan's star waned, until it seems that he's nothing more than a pathetic has been tilting at windmills. The premise is Morgan ends up plopping himself on Harry's door begging for help, because it's now HE who is being hunted as a traitor.

    Oh, karma.

    Further troubling this situation is the most vicious, hateful, and dangerous monster Harry has ever faced. Given the number of monsters Harry has faced, it's a tall order to say, "this is the worst of the bunch" but the naagloshii or Skinwalker qualifies. He starts off the story by doing something unforgivable and then proceeds to keep doing unforgivable things until the very end. Unlike Nicodemus, I feel genuinely sacred for Harry when they fight.

    Good show.

    Much of the book is devoted to attempting to salvage Morgan's character from the somewhat cartoonish figure he'd been portrayed as before to someone who fit into the more mature depiction of the series ambiguities. Morgan is shown to be a long-time veteran of the often insane and paranoia-inducing world of wizard politics, struggling to do the right thing when mercy is often merely a gateway to getting played by evil-doers. The fact Morgan has given his life to fighting evil, sacrificing the chance for love and children, is surprisingly moving in the face of Harry's almost ridiculously-large surrogate family.

    Warden Commander Luccio also plays a big role in this story, continuing both her romance with Harry Dresden as well as illustrating the vast age differences with the two when she reveals she'd mentored the Sean Connery-looking Morgan. There's a revelation about the Warden Commander and her romance with Harry at the end of the book I didn't like. I felt it was needlessly tacked on and done primarily to protect the Harry/Murphy ship I think should be abandoned and left to sink.

    Turn Coat has some excellent moments spread throughout the story. Watching Harry struggle to deal with the naagloshi, his failed attempts to protect his friends, and the increasingly obvious Quislings within the White Council are all very well done. I also liked watching Harry deal with the fact his apprenticeship of Molly Carpenter may not have been his best work. Harry is a bit too permissive with his student, treating her like the daughter of his best friend versus someone in dire need of correction on magical ethics.

    This is a dark, moody, and surprisingly intrigue-ridden installment of the series. We get insights into how the White Council works, how the war is proceeding against the Red Court (answer: badly), and whether or not Harry can trust his fellow mages (answer: no). The Black Court, first introduced in Dead Beat, comes to prominence here and the paranoia its existence induces makes for some hair-raising moments. Harry's team doesn't emerged unscathed from this book and I'd argue this is the volume where he takes the most hits both emotional and physical.

    In conclusion, this is a good hard-edged volume but may not be for everyone. Harry gets raked over the coals and the book gets perhaps darker than it needs to be. Characters are raped and killed off-screen, violently murdered, plus longstanding heroes get summarily written out of the books. Still, it's very well-written. The book not only manages to redeem the Morgan character but make him one of my favorite in the franchise. That's impressive.

8.5/10
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Hounancier review

March 15, 2015, 9:38 am
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Note: This is a review of an advanced reader copy (ARC). The actual novel does not come out until 3-16-2015.

    The Valducan series by Seth Skorkowsky began last year with the very strong entry, Damoren. Damoren followed the adventures of Matt Hollis, mystical gunslinger and demon hunter as he joined the Valducan organization in attempting to rid the world of evil supernatural beings. During that adventure, he thwarted an attempt to wipe out all of the "holy weapons" which the organization used to destroy demons and faced down the mother of all monsters, Tiamat. It was an excellent globe-trotting adventure and darker than most urban fantasy fair with a good deal of horror. I liked it and was eager to see what would happen in the second book.

    The premise is Malcolm Romero, his real name rather than an alias, is a white atheist journalist who converts to Voodoo after witnessing an exorcism by a bokkar in Haiti. Acquiring the holy weapon Hounancier, which is a mystical machete, he proceeds to become both a practicioner of Hoodo magic as well as a Valducan demon hunter. Summoned to New Orleans by the death of his mentor, he proceeds to reconnect with old associates while trying to see whether or not he still fits into his old life.

    Hounancier is a great deal different from Damoren. Not content to just give us the next adventure of Matt Hollis, Seth Skorkowsky seems to be interested in switching between the various holy weapon and giving us different perspectives on the world. I had some trepidation about this because I really liked Matt Hollis and wasn't really sold on the Valducan organization. Still, I was willing to give Malcolm a try after his strong introduction in the opening chapter.

    I was pleasantly surprised by the results as Malcolm is almost as interesting as Matt Hollis (if not quite) and involved in an intensely personal quest to protect his loved ones from demons. Seth Skorkowsky wisely chooses to dial back the stories from the apocalypse to more personal tales of monster hunting. Saving the world and saving a family are both, after all, things heroes will attempt to do with all of their might.

    The practices of Voodoo are explored in this book, separating the religious aspects from the mystical framework. While some readers may question the fact Malcolm is a white protagonist chosen by the loa to be a demon hunter, this is subverted with a surprisingly ethnically diverse cast and the fact Malcolm isn't all that good at his job. He's not a "Mighty Whitey" character and I came to enjoy how being raised outside the faith inhibited in some places.

    I was also pleased with the immense amount of research done. This isn't a book written after consulting Wikipedia for a few minutes. Voodoo is portrayed as a valid form of religion, no more alien than any other faith, which just so happens to be literally true in the setting.

    One of my favorite bits from the story is Malcolm Romero having to deal with the fact he's considered a crazy religious fanatic, weirdo, and possible murderer by the greater Voodoo community. There's a nice moment where he leads to an air conditioned church running charity drives and doing community service where he's deeply uncomfortable. As a demon hunter, Malcolm must always exist on the outskirts of civilization and seeing the stereotypical depiction of Voodoo subverted was a nice change of pace.

    Malcolm is a good character, stuck in a life which has alienated him from all but his fellow demon-hunters and religious extremists. He's forgotten how to relate to quote-unquote normal people and his sinister reputation comes to bite him in the ass several times. I also liked his relationship with his ex-fiance, which is a romance I felt to be both believable as well as enjoyable to read about.

    If I have any complaints, it's with the fact the book promises a team-up with Matt Hollis and Malcolm on the back as well as early in the book. Matt shows up only at the very end of the book and barely has any relevance to the plot. Matt, at the end of the day, is just too awesome to incorporate into the book without wanting to see him dominate the book. I hope he'll show up as the star of future books because his usage here was just a tease.

    In conclusion, Hounancier is a very different book from Damoren but not a bad one. Those looking for a continuation of Matt Hollis demon-slaying adventures will have to wait for future installments of the book. Those interested in a Voodoo-practicing demon-hunting stalking werewolves and succubi in New Orleans, however, are in for a treat.

8.5/10
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Justice League: Throne of Atlantis review

March 15, 2015, 11:59 am
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    Wow, that was bad.

    No, let me correct that.

    Justice League: War was bad.

    This was just sort of there.

    There's nothing really offensive about Throne of Atlantis but there's nothing really to sell it either. It was a decent arc for the New 52 with a number of interesting twists for long-time fans but these twists get removed for the animated adaptation so it becomes much more generic as well as bland.

Orm is mwahahahaha evil throughout. He's not even very good at it.
    The original comic had a semi-decent conflict between Arthur Curry, his mother, an unknown puppetmaster, and Arthur's half-brother Ocean Master. There's a lot of lies, double-dealings, and respectable positions going on. All of that gets thrown out to, basically, turn Ocean Master into underwater Hitler who wants to kill all surface-dwellers because he is a bad person.

    Now, I don't necessarily want moral ambiguity from my DC cartoons. With the exception of Ra's Al Ghul, who is still crazy don't get me wrong, the vast majority of Batman villains are just all around bad people. However, its notable when a story goes out of way to make things less emotionally complex and interesting.

    Say what you will about Justice League: War, there was a clear cut conflict between all of the various diverse personalities in the League. They may have all been unlikable jerks, but you understood where they came from.

Mera is a lot better character than Aquaman.
    The premise is Orm Marius is the Prince of Atlantis. After his father is killed as collateral damage from the battle against Darkseid in Justice League: War, he has become obsessed with revenge against the surface world. Making an alliance with Black Manta, who is (oddly enough) a surface dweller, he proceeds to murder a naval submarine and steal a host of missiles as to frame humanity for attacking Atlantis.

    Orm's mother, Atlanna, is the present ruler of Atlantis and is uninterested in war with the surface world. In what appears to be an unintentional bit of sympathy for the villain, she's revolted by her son and wants to pass her crown to her illegitimate half-human son Arthur Curry. This is more out of affection for her lover than any qualities Arthur possesses since we first meet him as a drunk who uses his superior strength to beat up regular humans at a bar.

The best moment of the movie for a multitude of reasons. Lois Lane finding Clark Kent dating Wonder Woman.
    The Justice League is mostly perfunctory to the entire proceeding, being helpless to fight Ocean Master and his mystical trident (yes, Superman, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the team which DEFEATED DARKSEID can't overcome one guy with a magic fork). They also exist only to get rescued by Arthur and engage in a few massive brawls against generic Atlantean mooks. I do appreciate a moment where we get to see Superman fight Cthulhu, the Great Old One making a random appearance about halfway through.

    Really, this movie would have made more sense as an Aquaman movie and that's what it really is. Like Batman: Assault on Arkham, the title is misleading as it's really about Aquaman instead of the Justice League. We follow him from being a working class hero to the superior King of Atlantis with almost no real follow-through and it's hard to believe. I'm not sure they sold Arthur winning the loyalty of Atlantis either.

Atlanna is a more interesting character than most of the cast. So, of course, she gets marginalized from any role in the story beyond being Aquaman's mom.
    Oddly, what I enjoyed most was the brief interaction with the league. The unintentional hilarity of Superman saying he'll show Diana the sights of the mortal world only to take her to dinner at a greasy spoon, Batman and Green Lantern's immense loathing for one another, and Cyborg's struggle to keep hold of his remaining humanity. The character of Mera is attractive to look at and fun to watch kick Atlantean ass but, really, that just makes me think SHE should be queen instead of Aquaman.

    In short, this movie is bland. There's nothing really impressive about it and it was a chore to get through. It's not as bad as Justice League: War but I can think of any number of DC Animated movies which are more enjoyable to watch.

5/10
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The Midnight Spell review

March 16, 2015, 2:25 am
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    I don't normally review Young Adult books. I like quite a few of them but they are a bit far from my horror, urban fantasy, and comic book literature wheelhouse. The Midnight Spell, however, is a work by one of my favorite authors is Rhiannon Frater and Kody Boye so I was willing to give it a shot.

    The premise is childhood best friends Adam and Christy are a couple of normal teenagers: Adam is gay and Christy is a witch but this doesn't impact their otherwise normal interactions. The pair cast a spell one night in order to find Adam true love in his small Texas hometown and, the next day, a surprisingly handsome new student of the appropriate sexuality arrives. Sure, Christy shouldn't be doing magic that potent at her age according to her centuries-old parents, but what's the worst that could happen?

    It's an intriguing enough premise and the character of Mark gradually reveals himself to be a sinister figure who brings a surprising amount of menace to an otherwise peaceful existence. The actual identity of who, what, and why to his actions is kept for the ending but the book does a great job of slowly peeling away a seemingly perfect exterior. Is Mark a sociopath? A supernatural being? An evil-magic user? All of these questions get answered but the book takes its time to let the question stew in your mind.

    One of the big appeals to the book is the fact the two are some of the most well-adjusted teenagers in YA fiction. With the exception of Christy pining for the local heartthrob and the slim romantic prospects for an openly gay teenager in a conservative small town, both of them are fairly happy with their lives. A lesser author would have exploited Adam's situation for what is commonly known as "gaynst" when he's very comfortable with who he is as are his immediate social circle. He feels like an authentic person and that's good.

    Christy is also quite likable, even though she's basically Ally Sheedy's character from The Breakfast Club transplanted into a being from Samantha's race in Bewitched. I was a little put off by the fact she's, essentially a fairy sorceress versus a teenager using magic but once I accepted the idea of a "witch race" I found it interesting that she's otherwise a normal Goth girl from Texas. I also like the "refuge in audacity" moment where she uses a literal flying broom to travel around town on the assumption no one would report it.

    The pop culture references, frequently to Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, date the book perhaps more than it should be. I don't think teenagers would be referencing that specific show unless this took place specifically during the Nineties but that is a small quibble. I also like Christy's parents clearly watch the show as much as she does.

    The book, perhaps, takes a little too long for things to start happening. In our era of immediate gratification, many readers will not be willing to wait until the book is half-finished for anything sinister to start happening but I think the slow pace gives us a sense of how much an invasion "evil" is to their peaceful world. I also am inclined to think a resurrection halfway through is unearned and should have been avoided.

    Still, The Midnight Spell is a fun bit of fiction. For those who like YA fiction and mysteries, this is a good book to recommend for teenage readers or adults who never grew up.

9/10
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Mountain of Daggers review

March 16, 2015, 11:09 am
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    A big fan of the Valducan books by Seth Skorkowsky, I was interested in other books by him and the release of a new fantasy series intrigued me. Mountain of Daggers is the first collection of short stories by him about the Black Raven. Who is the Black Raven? The Black Raven is the alias of Ahren, a thief and assassin who haunts a Medieval Fantasy world.

    The book follows Ahren's journey from being a ex-sailor with a history of burglary work to becoming the most feared and respected rogue in the world. I can't help but wonder if I'm going to see more of his adventures in the upcoming Blackguards anthology being released by Ragnarok Publications.

    The stories are deliberately modeled on the old Lieber-Howard mold where the protagonist doesn't have any real overarching narrative but a series of loosely connected stories which, if you read them in order, give you a rough sense of where his personality as well as ambitions are going.

    Ahren, himself, is a difficult character to get a handle on. He's not one of the larger-than-life personalities you usually find in these sorts of books. He's stoic, reserved, doesn't talk much, and keeps his thoughts as well as history to himself. Rather than Conan or the Gray Mouser, I'd say he's closer to Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name.

    He's a character who events happen to and he causes but doesn't really make an astounding effort to engage with his others. The exception is, surprising me as a reader, he ends up visiting his hometown out of the blue and we get a sense of what forces shaped him.

    Even then, he keeps a lot to himself.

    Ahren's character is an interesting one since he's the sort of fellow you could easily mistake for being a cipher than one the author is deliberately trying to leave mysterious. I confess, aside from the fact he's heterosexual with a particular fondness for girls who can pick pockets, I'm still not sure about what motivates him.

    Is he doing this for the money, the thrills, or because he likes it? I'd kind of saddened we never really get to see what Ahren spends the fortunes he makes on, really. Women? Mansions? Gold-plated swords he can show off to his buddies? With Conan, you knew every copper of his went to pay for his alcohol and wenching habits. Ahren seems to horde his fortune like a Swiss banker.

    The point of the book isn't Ahren, though, but his adventures and they are a delightful collection of Sword and Sorcery-esque romps in a more modernized environment. There's evil cults, wizards, decadent nobles, crazed witches, and petty criminal gangs who think they can make the Black Raven into a common legbreaker.

    My favorite story is about Ahren being hired to steal a magical oar cap which can control the souls of the dead as well as the waters of a Venice-like city. Another favorite story seems to be a shout-out to the movie version of Conan and his, ahem, encounter with a witch. The stories are full of atmosphere, world-building, and amoral surroundings. The setting came off like a combination of Hyboria, Lankhmar, Renaissance Italy, and Gotham City--which is a good mix.

    In conclusion, if you're interested in some daring heist fiction in a fantasy world then this book is a collection of several tales dealing with said subjects. They're, essentially, one long series of delightful chase scenes and action-pieces. I would have liked to get more from the protagonist emotionally but the character archetype is bound to appeal to some readers. This is a good book and one I read in a day, which is usually a good sign for a decent-sized 205 page novel.

8.5/10
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Hounacier review

March 18, 2015, 5:23 pm
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    The Valducan series by Seth Skorkowsky began last year with the very strong entry, Damoren. Damoren followed the adventures of Matt Hollis, mystical gunslinger and demon hunter as he joined the Valducan organization in attempting to rid the world of evil supernatural beings. During that adventure, he thwarted an attempt to wipe out all of the "holy weapons" which the organization used to destroy demons and faced down the mother of all monsters, Tiamat. It was an excellent globe-trotting adventure and darker than most urban fantasy fair with a good deal of horror. I liked it and was eager to see what would happen in the second book.

    The premise is Malcolm Romero, his real name rather than an alias, is a white atheist journalist who converts to Voodoo after witnessing an exorcism by a bokkar in Haiti. Acquiring the holy weapon Hounacier, which is a mystical machete, he proceeds to become both a practicioner of Hoodo magic as well as a Valducan demon hunter. Summoned to New Orleans by the death of his mentor, he proceeds to reconnect with old associates while trying to see whether or not he still fits into his old life.

    Hounacier is a great deal different from Damoren. Not content to just give us the next adventure of Matt Hollis, Seth Skorkowsky seems to be interested in switching between the various holy weapon and giving us different perspectives on the world. I had some trepidation about this because I really liked Matt Hollis and wasn't really sold on the Valducan organization. Still, I was willing to give Malcolm a try after his strong introduction in the opening chapter.

    I was pleasantly surprised by the results as Malcolm is almost as interesting as Matt Hollis (if not quite) and involved in an intensely personal quest to protect his loved ones from demons. Seth Skorkowsky wisely chooses to dial back the stories from the apocalypse to more personal tales of monster hunting. Saving the world and saving a family are both, after all, things heroes will attempt to do with all of their might.

    The practices of Voodoo are explored in this book, separating the religious aspects from the mystical framework. While some readers may question the fact Malcolm is a white protagonist chosen by the loa to be a demon hunter, this is subverted with a surprisingly ethnically diverse cast and the fact Malcolm isn't all that good at his job. He's not a "Mighty Whitey" character and I came to enjoy how being raised outside the faith inhibited in some places.

    I was also pleased with the immense amount of research done. This isn't a book written after consulting Wikipedia for a few minutes. Voodoo is portrayed as a valid form of religion, no more alien than any other faith, which just so happens to be literally true in the setting.

    One of my favorite bits from the story is Malcolm Romero having to deal with the fact he's considered a crazy religious fanatic, weirdo, and possible murderer by the greater Voodoo community. There's a nice moment where he leads to an air conditioned church running charity drives and doing community service where he's deeply uncomfortable. As a demon hunter, Malcolm must always exist on the outskirts of civilization and seeing the stereotypical depiction of Voodoo subverted was a nice change of pace.

    Malcolm is a good character, stuck in a life which has alienated him from all but his fellow demon-hunters and religious extremists. He's forgotten how to relate to quote-unquote normal people and his sinister reputation comes to bite him in the ass several times. I also liked his relationship with his ex-fiance, which is a romance I felt to be both believable as well as enjoyable to read about.

    If I have any complaints, it's with the fact the book promises a team-up with Matt Hollis and Malcolm on the back as well as early in the book. Matt shows up only at the very end of the book and barely has any relevance to the plot. Matt, at the end of the day, is just too awesome to incorporate into the book without wanting to see him dominate the book. I hope he'll show up as the star of future books because his usage here was just a tease.

    In conclusion, Hounacier is a very different book from Damoren but not a bad one. Those looking for a continuation of Matt Hollis demon-slaying adventures will have to wait for future installments of the book. Those interested in a Voodoo-practicing demon-hunting stalking werewolves and succubi in New Orleans, however, are in for a treat.

8.5/10

Buy at Amazon.com
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Soon I Will Be Invincible review

March 19, 2015, 12:49 pm
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    Soon I Will Be Invincible is more or less the father of modern superhero literature, specifically that new category of storytelling: capepunk. Capepunk stories are those tales which dissect the nitty-gritty storytelling of superhero stories and ask what they'd be like in the real world.

    Some capepunk stories are quite optimistic like Wearing the Cape, others pessimistic like Sad Wings of Destiny, and a few are a mix like Confessions of a D-List Supervillain. Soon I Will Be Invincible is one of the latter. It presents a world exactly like the kind in comic books but pulls back the curtain to reveal how much goes on to make the stories in superhero stories tick.

    Half of the book is from the perspective of Doctor Impossible, an aging middle-aged supervillain who is halfway between Lex Luthor and Doctor Doom. The world's smartest man, he suffers Malign Hyper-Cognition Disorder (i.e. he's an evil genius), which compels him to try and take over the world. He's aware, on some level, all of his plans are going to fail but is compelled by his ridiculously potent intellect that he must try anyway. It's, in a weird way, one of the more authentic portrayals of mental illness I've encountered in fiction as it is treated with sympathy and care despite the utter ridiculousness of the condition.

    The book gives a sympathetic take to its lead even if it never shies away from the fact his actions are self-destructive and foolhardy. He doesn't even have anything he wants to do once he takes over the world, it's merely something which he must do. This, of course, is part of the book's delightful out-of-universe subtext.

    Doctor Impossible tries to take over the world because he is a comic-book villain and that is what comic-book villains do. In existentialist terms, he is a Sisyphian figure compelled to ever push a boulder up the side of a mountain only for it to roll back down again. It's kind of fascinating, especially when you note this time Doctor Impossible might actually succeed. Having such an unrepentant but tragically sympathetic nutter trapped in such a situation where you want him to win is an interesting premise for a book.

    The book lampshades many of the time-honored tropes of comic books from the Silver Age and how they've changed as we move closer to the modern age. Doctor Impossible is a relic of a bygone era but the modern superheroes, with their sleek chrome cybernetics as well as badass weaponry, aren't nearly as potent as the ones of old. The only one who has ever stood a snowball's chance in hell of standing up against Doctor Impossible, despite his eternal loser status, is Corefire (a transparent stand-in for Superman).

    And Corefire is missing, presumed dead.

    Without him, can Doctor Impossible win?

    Would he even want to?

    Contrasting against Doctor Impossible is Fatale, the newest member of the Champions. Awed by her recent invitation to join the Justice League/Avengers of her world, she struggles to fit in despite being a relatively new heroes. Furthermore, her awe turns to dismay as she gets to know the various heroes and their many-many flaws. I liked Fatale less than Doctor Impossible but am glad we got an insider's look into the superheroes. Understanding them is every bit as important as getting Doctor Impossible's perspective on things.

    The Champions, themselves, are an interesting collection of damaged individuals. On the surface they have it all with wealth, fame, and costumes which fit in all the right places. Underneath it, they have all of the angst and struggles which post-Spiderman superheroes are cursed with. It turns out for all of Doctor Impossible's apparent harmlessness to the readers, he's a pretty terrifying figure to heroes and struggling against his schemes leave lasting scars. That's in addition to what it takes to devote yourself to 24/7 to devoting world-ending schemes.

    I especially like how the author chose to handle action in the book. Conflicts are theatrical, beautiful, colorful, and full of emotion. Doctor Impossible's attempt to escape from prison, a throw-down battle at a coffee bar, and the final confrontation are all delightful. I think readers will get a kick out of them. Seeing the battles from the perspective of Doctor Impossible and then from his opponents lends vastly different perspectives on what happened.

    The ending falls somewhat flat because it doesn't attempt to break the mold with its universe. This is about giving insight into Doctor Impossible's mindset rather than about how he learns a valuable life-lesson. I will say, there are a great number of twists which include one which left me positively gobsmacked. Check this out when you have the time.

    This is a book with great world-building, characterization, and countless in-jokes for those who are even peripherally interested in comics.

10/10
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