What I’m reading: Young Avengers - Family Matters

I completely missed this series when it first started, I only knew vaguely about the character Iron Lad, mainly because he appeared to be an alternative version of Iron Man.  Little did I know that there was a very enjoyable series featuring the next generation of heroes.  The Marvel equivalent of the Teen Titans I guess, I don’t like to compare the two companies off like that though.

I was only slightly intrigued when I saw this graphic novel at the library but the artwork looked crisp and I had encountered some of the characters throughout Civil War and now the Skrull invasion series currently happening.  The library is free (yay) so I took a very tiny chance on it.

Pretty happy I did.

Very well written scripts that invited me in despite not having read any of the earlier books, Iron Lad by this stage was already dead and being replaced with a new version of the Vision.  There is something wonderful about reading a book set before Civil War and Captain America is still seen as the leader of the Avengers.  Watching him show up on the doorstep of a teenager who is moonlighting as a super hero to speak with his parents is one of those subtle moments that make these books a joy to read.

Most of this falls down to excellent writing and it doesn’t surprise me that the writer is Allan Heinberg who has been a writer and producer on shows such as Party of Five, Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls, The O.C., and Grey’s Anatomy.

There is an interesting mix of characters in the Young Avengers and it goes a long way embracing diversity in the comic book world.  We have an openly gay couple who refreshingly are not over done, an African-American leader, a Wiccan, an alien, a robot/synthetic, twins, super powered characters, a non super powered character and a mixture of male and females.  It’s a wonderful melting pot.

The adult Avengers make an appearance or two and as I mentioned it is nice seeing Iron Man and Captain America as allies before Marvel did their best to make Stark a tool.

Head on down to your local library and try and get them to order this one in!  Or better still pop into the comic book shop and drop some cash on them - they might give you a copy in exchange for your shiny dollars.

I’m also finally reading the last instalment of the Tomorrow Series (I’m still dodging the saga of the seven suns - although I picked up a comic book prequel to it).

Popularity: 18% [?]

Star Trek TNG’s first DC comic

There is a certain look and feel one encounters when watching the first couple of seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), the uniforms are kind of icky, and Deanna Troi wears her hair weirdly and of course Riker doesn’t have the beard but then he starts to grow it in the second season, Wesley is there (nothing against Wesley I actually don’t mind him), Worf’s head is huge and shiny.

The list goes on.

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view, the comic books seem to have captured the same icky feelings when it comes to their look and feel and their dialogue.

You see, the first comic Return to Raimon is wordy.

I’m talking whole pages dedicated to Picard talking about stuff, talking to people about stuff and occasionally people talking to him about stuff.

There is a lot of talking.

Very few comic book artists draw elaborate space scenes well and the first page is no exception, I mean it’s not three bag awful (see Reno 911) but I’m never comfortable with the scenes, space is pretty big and there’s a lot of it between things but these splash pages usually try and cram it all in on one page.

Then Picard talks for three pages (Riker does get to talk for a little while though, why does his beard look like mine when I was 17? Actually later on it fills in and looks like it is stuck on?? Did they not know he had a beard? Let’s just say Riker’s face is a mystery in this issue.) .

Cut to a rather ripped looking Worf beating up on some pleasant looking fellow in the holodeck, I mean what did this hologram do to Worf? He looks jolly? Is this what Klingons do? Beam down to jolly planets and open cans of whupass?

In the background some red head guy (not shirt, hair) chats to Geordi, Geordi talks about grass, oh yeah Geordi knows about grass.

Um then Dr Pulaski apparently doesn’t have to follow orders and can choose not to go on missions, and for some reason she hangs out in the transporter room just to talk to anyone beaming some place and to tell them that she isn’t going.

Oh man, Picard then talks for two pages before beaming down to the planet of the week. We are then treated to watching the red head who was talking to the pot head Geordi get his arse handed to him by the jolly fellow in the holodeck that Worf roughed up earlier. Mmmm I sense a character questioning his self worth and saving the day later on. Nah that would be lame!

The away team beams into the middle of a party celebrating the funeral of the current leader who hasn’t died yet, but that’s their custom, aren’t they weird and alien!?!?

Picard talks for a bit to some dude who doesn’t like him and feels he shouldn’t have come despite being invited.

Perhaps he thinks Picard talks too much?

Hang on, a girl has rushed over and hugged Picard! Could this be the little girl Picard was talking about earlier (he talked about her earlier in one of his talk fests - don’t make me go back and read them again)?

Yes she is that little girl!

Riker can’t help himself because she’s a woman and an alien and hitting on female aliens is what Riker does, he is McLovin (see Superbad). The thing is though, Picard cock blocks him (see Superbad again - it’s not that good but McLovin is funny as!). Some wingman Picard is.

Then we’re back on the ship where the B cast is sitting around talking (good grief) and then Wesley joins them and they talk about how Picard has problems with kids and there is probably a scene that was cut out with O’Brian saying something like Picard’s a cock blocker and he hates going down to planets with him and he wishes to one day work on a space station, preferably one with a view of some space anomaly.

We cut to the bridge where apparently Data is in charge and has given everyone except Worf the day off. Worf is understandably pissed at Data and uses the term ’sir’ like he questions Data’s right to be in command which is probably not a bad idea considering that Data let everyone else abandon the bridge. There is for example no one driving.

Oh yeah, Deanna Troi is there also being… well useless I suppose.

On the planet intrigue ensues as Picard is sent to visit the King of the planet in the middle of the night and has to climb a rope and ride a horse (talking for most of it as well, I mean really dude this is supposed to be in secret).

Surprise, surprise he is framed for the murder of the king. I wonder if he’ll be exonorated in issue 2 or will Riker have to kill every sonafabitch on the planet flexing his Starfleet might?

Stay tuned!

Popularity: 27% [?]

Green Lantern sees red

The title of the post is taken directly from the cover of the fourth and final part of Green Lantern versus Aliens. Remember the days when comic books would say outlandish things on the covers to get people to buy them. This seems to be a half hearted attempt at this.

In this issue we talk about how we don’t have the ring, we go get the ring, an obvious plot development is revealed and a hard choice is finally made after much internal debate. Yes that’s right folks it’s the conclusion to the four part series that could have been told in half that many!

So Kyle is staring down at his ring which is stuck in Alien goo. He makes some lame comment about why he can’t Luke Skywalker it and then Robo-undies-girl decides that she’ll draw the Aliens away and he has to run to the ring as fast as he can, but he isn’t to look back. Which is fine since she’ll be to his side anyway and behind is just the unguarded tunnel they have entered through.

OMG Robo-undies-girl is actually an android!!! Oh and Kyle kissed her for luck and because he is lame, I’m pretty certain the look on her face is one of disappointment also, this is the only human who’s kissed her and well, it’s not like he’s Batman or Gnort for that matter.

So Kyle gets a second kiss from a face hugger though who also seems slightly disappointed and is torn off his face when he blindly grabs the power ring.

After a deep and meaningful with Bishop… ahem I mean Robo-undies-girl he decides to wipe out all the Aliens so that they won’t be the next Green Lantern’s problem (it is apparent even to Robo-undies-girl that Kyle probably won’t be GL for too long). He utters the sacred oath that Green Lanterns before him used to say and this sets off his thermo nuclear power ring effect.

We get to see plenty of Aliens blowing up but we do miss out on the actual aftermath and Kyle rescuing the crew etc. We cut to a camping scene where Kyle is feeling blue for wiping out the bug infestation and is given moral support from the two remaining non-Green Lantern Green Lanterns (???).

At the end we have the ghost of Hal behind Kyle lost in thought about where to get his power ring resized and should he get a matching bracelet.

Ahhh good times.

I hope you all enjoyed as much as I enjoyed reading the series (Oh hang on, no I don’t.)

Might do an old Indiana Jones series next.

Oh crap I forgot to mention that Kyle broke his arm in all the action, as if you care.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Kyle vs Aliens part three

If this was a movie you might promote it by saying something along the lines of Three times the action! Three times the adventure! Three times… some other thing that sounds appealing!!!

Well this isn’t a movie and even if it were you would get sued for misrepresentation if you used any of those lines.

We join Kyle where we left him, staring down the hole into which he dropped his ring. He mentions that his ring has gone and the other two characters left there with him exchange weird glances as they try and work out why he’s stating the obvious out loud again. They may also be wondering why it is the Aliens (I can’t work out if it should be capitalised or not) aren’t still attacking them or why Kyle isn’t picking up a gun just in case they come back. Of course they may also be wondering, especially if they know anything about Green Lanterns, why he still has his costume on and is still clean shaven without his power ring.

After some miscellaneous whining about his lost ring…

OK we get it!

You lost your ring!

I wouldn’t be drawing attention to it myself, in fact I would be pointing at stuff and saying “what’s that?”

Anyway he tries a jedi trick and attempts to ’summon’ the ring. Colour me surprised when he doesn’t.

Kyle figures it’s go home time now that he’s lost his bling until the young lady in underwear pushes a gun on him. Kyle is unable to actually fire the weapon without falling down. Apparently the power of a ray gun is so much more powerful than a Green Lantern power ring. Kyle also enlightens the Green Lantern readers on why his costume hasn’t disappeared, I would repeat it here but it would increase the lameness ratio by so much that the denseness would be so intense it would form a black hole of lameness.

Undies girl and Kyle share a moment between gun practise and then they go abseiling despite the fact that Kyle doesn’t want to kill the aliens but it’s ok to leave his new found friends to die.

I don’t know, ummmm, sigh, they find the crew of undies girl’s ship and they have all been alien’fied. The other ex Green Lantern who is still alive for some reason draws attention to the fact that Kyle’s costume hasn’t disappeared, I’m guessing the writers feel guilty about it, I’d be trying to draw attention away from it by pointing to things and saying “hey what’s that?”.

Aliens attack, I’m waiting on the third wheel to die and tell Kyle he was wrong about how lame he is, undies girl gets acid on her but it doesn’t hurt, does anyone hear the word android or obvious?

Third wheel dies.

Thinks Kyle is not lame.

He’s wrong.

The Alien Queen shows up and they happen to see Kyle’s power ring in the Queen’s chamber and there is no obvious way it could have ended up there, actually there’s no obvious way Kyle should have survived up to this point except for robo undies girl.

I can’t wait to see if Kyle gets his ring back!!!

Popularity: 23% [?]

GL versus Alien part two, now with less green!

After the excitement, the tension and the moral drama that was Green Lantern versus Alien part one (of four, for those of you who like numbers) I could barely wait the twelve hours that I promised myself I would wait before opening part two. Too much excitement can be detrimental to your heart.

The opening page starts with Kyle the current Green Lantern who dresses completely different to all the previous ones and is apparently the last Green Lantern and has some other powers and doesn’t shave when he takes the costume off.

Kyle has a lot going for him.

He is also a comic book artist. Yeah that’s right. Hal the previous Lantern was a test pilot, Kyle is a comic book artist.

We get to watch Kyle draw a clear trademark infringement of Mars Attacks minus Tom Jones. How cool is Tom Jones?  Cooler than Kyle I would have to hazard a guess.

Suddenly several Green Lanterns who are not Green Lanterns (I know, I know, less Green!!) show up in his apartment and tell him the sad story of a group of pinheads who dumped a parasitic destructive alien species on Mogo. Apparently Kyle has visited Mogo, this does not make him cooler than Tom Jones.

So now this motley crew of ex-ummm Lanterns head off to Mogo (giggle) to rescue the crashed spaceship that was mentioned in the previous issue.

The writers of this issue who may or may not be the writers of the first one, they probably are but I can’t bare to go back and look have seen an Aliens film because they know that Ripley strips down to her underwear in the last scene and decided they should have a lady running around in essentially her underwear. This is the preferred alien fighting outfit as opposed of armour or spacesuits because nothing stops acid blood like bare flesh. They do also introduce her in her underwear fairly early on too so they seem to miss the point of vulnerable human in final battle, but then I suspect they didn’t consult with Ridley Scott.

The aliens then start to attack and Kyle rather than putting everyone under a shield chooses just to keep rescuing the non power ringed individuals on a case by case basis whilst very clumsily debating the virtue of wiping out the aliens… yawn…

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

WHAT!?!

WHO!?!?

Oh sorry where was I?

One by one the group get taken down an alien hole until Kyle drops his ring down the hole too. You know Kyle I’m pretty certain you can get rings resized, you should look into it.
Butterfingers.

It’s to be continued, I assumed as much as the issue didn’t really end on a good note and I expect that most Green Lantern stories don’t end with him losing his ring.

Did Gnort ever lose his ring?

Popularity: 23% [?]

Green Lantern versus Alien

So the sequel to Alien vs Predator is coming out at Christmas in what I hope is a film that has more storyline than the previous ‘just get them into a large room so the Aliens and the Predators can thrash it out‘ film. I don’t need much story but I wouldn’t mind at least something. To be fair I haven’t sat through all of AvP so I won’t be that harsh about it maybe there is stunning storyline towards the middle (which I skipped).

One crossover I never really thought about or bothered to imagine is Green Lantern versus Alien. I’ve never been a huge fan of Green Lantern, oh I’m happy enough to read the odd issue here or there but I’ve never been an avid reader of him.

But how can you pass up a dude with a green power ring fighting aliens!?

Well you can’t that’s the whole point.

The story starts off with a pointless cameo of Green Arrow and Black Canary catching some guys robbing a bank wearing alien masks. Green Lantern (it’s just a green fest - where’s Al Gore?) shows up and helps capture the last robber in what is probably a bit of overkill. Then they decide they are going to duck out to the local cafe for milkshakes until one of the guardians (I’m assuming that’s their names) calls Green Lantern out to check out a missing Green Lantern.

So long story short, several Green Lanterns show up on a planet and find a hive of Aliens who have used the lost Green Lantern as a host. One of the larger Green Lanterns named Kilowog makes the brilliant suggestion of wiping them all out (something I imagine Ripley would have appreciated) to which Hal (our Green Lantern for those amongst you who think the word Green has been used too many times today) goes all noble and PETA on them and decides to dump all the aliens on Mogo the Green Lantern that is a planet (!?!?!?! I don’t know…) rather than kill them because they are just doing what they do.

Surprise, surprise in the final panels titled ‘10 years later’ a space ship is crashing onto Mogo (even I feel stupid writing Mogo) - to be continued.

Not exactly a ground breaking comic, entertaining enough but once Green Lantern discovers he can use his ring to shield himself from the Aliens it’s not really a tension filled issue. It does make me wonder how rubbish the Green Lantern that went missing was, did he forget he had a power ring?

Surprised it wasn’t Gnort. (You are a comic geek if you know this reference.)

Popularity: 23% [?]

Flying man first sketch

Recently I decided that I would follow my dream and begin the road towards setting up my own independent comic book publishing house. It is a long way off at this stage as I do my research and put stories and art together.

I’m not going to announce the name of the comic book company at this stage but I will be launching the website around new year so it isn’t too long to wait (not that there will be much up there).

The first one shot comic will be titled: The Man Who, in Actual Fact, Could Fly.

This is the very first sketch regarding the comic book, I expect to make his goggles much larger and the helmet a little more skateboarder’ish:

Popularity: 18% [?]

The Flash - Not just Dawson’s Dad!!!

Continuing on my theme regarding iconic characters and not so obvious but really cool scenes in films I turn my attention to the short lived action series The Flash. If you read this blog you already know that I bought the DVD series and some joy to go with that!After Batman’s success at the box office WB turned it’s attention to another character for the small screen complete with Batman styled latex muscle costume. I remember a story about the Flash costume that after the actor would run in the suit you could push one of the muscles and sweat would pour out of the top.

They used to get him to run on a treadmill and then cut the super running into the scene later.

Anyway this scene happens towards the climax in the pilot episode, the Flash is facing off against the main baddie who it would appear has got the Flash beat. Flash summons his reserve of strength and lightning flashes all over the place.

One bolt happens to arc across the backdrop of the full moon in a very blatant but easy to miss homage to the Batman film that helped get the series made:

If you’re playing along at home this is at 1:24:21 on the DVD

Popularity: 17% [?]