Bullet Points

Bullet Points

Comic Book Review

The alternate reality tales of DC and Marvel, under the umbrella titles of Elseworlds and What If…? respectively, are such a cool idea that, even though their hit-to-miss ratio is not particularly good, I have always been inexorably drawn to them. I just can’t help but want to know what it would have been like if Superman had grown up in Soviet Russia or how the Marvel universe would have been altered if Wolverine had become the lord of the vampires. On the other hand, the Fantastic Four developing in soviet Russia and Batman becoming lord of the vampires were considerably less compelling stories, but I figured they were worth a shot. So, when the new series Bullet Points promised to take a serious look at how a small change in history could have affected the whole world, I sat up and took notice, not realizing that it wouldn’t be a re-imagining so much as a reshuffling.

While not technically a What If…? book, Bullet Points nonetheless can be summed up in one of their traditional titles: “What If There Had Been No Captain America?" In the original continuity, the doctor who developed the super soldier serum responsible for turning scrawny Steve Rogers into the Sentinel of Liberty (is it obvious I’ve read a lot of comics?) is gunned down only moments after the transformation has been completed, taking the secret of the serum to the grave with him. Writer J. Michael Straczynski (of whom I am normally a fan) posits that, if said scientist had been killed just 24 hours earlier then the world would have turned out quite differently, and I’m sure he’s right. Rogers never would have become Captain America, and that would have surely lead to any number of events playing out completely differently, especially when you consider what an effect Cap had on the Avengers later on.

But the problem is that we don’t see characters who would have become super heroes leading a normal life instead, or totally new people picking up the mantle in their place, or whole new heroes coming into being to fill the void. Instead, everyone just swaps places. Since he can’t be Captain America, Steve Rogers becomes Iron Man (in a suit that, despite having not been designed by Tony Stark, nonetheless looks exactly like the one designed by Tony Stark). When the aforementioned scientist is gunned down, Peter Parker’s uncle Ben is also killed by the bullet, leaving him to grow up without that influence. So he doesn’t become Spider-Man, he becomes… the Hulk? Yes, everyone just trades off. Reed Richards takes Nick Fury’s place, Bruce Banner becomes Spider-Man (again in the exact same costume, even though Peter had nothing to do with it), Stephen Strange becomes Wolverine (or not, because later we see that Wolverine is Wolverine and Strange is really only mentioned in one page, making it completely pointless in addition to being a dumb idea) and all the other characters stay exactly the same because we just couldn’t be bothered to deal with them. In the end Galactus shows up and the only vaguely interesting point on the five issue series ensues when a world with no Fantastic Four must find a way to stop their planet from being devoured. Good old Galactus. You can always count on him to spruce up a sagging storyline.

While this could all be considered kind of a cute idea, the fact that it spanned well over 100 pages makes it drag badly, and helps to highlight the ridiculousness of it all. Perhaps if it had been condensed into a single issue, the rapid pace would have served to alleviate some of my eye-rolling. Maybe they could have done it as, oh, I don’t know, an issue of What If…??

Suitable for kids?: Yeah, sure, but I’m not sure the art will appeal to them. Or, you know, the story either.

Rating: 2/5

Speed Racer

Speed Racer

Comic Book Review

Just to get this out in the open, I was never really a fan of Speed Racer. Even as a little kid the cartoon seemed shrill and stupid and boring to me. I tried to get into it a little later on when I started discovering Japanese animation, thinking that I might have a new perspective, but it still just came across as annoying. And yet, it falls into this odd category of things that I kind of feel like I should be a fan of, because the people out there who populate the Speed Racer fan community tend to share a lot of other interests with me. It’s a show that gets mentioned a lot whenever people of my generation talk fondly of the TV from their childhood and I've always had the feeling that I was missing out on something. It's just that the something is not Speed Racer but an ability to enjoy it.

So, when I saw that the Wachowski brothers were making a fancy, new movie based on the franchise, and the rumors of a new cartoon began circulating, I actually got excited despite the fact that I am far from being a fan. Perhaps they would put some kind of new spin on it or an updating that would allow me to get a foothold and finally connect with this elusive series that, despite being completely idiotic, has managed to haunt me my whole life. And then, to make things even better, I learned that IDW was releasing a new Speed Racer comic book. What could be better? The bad dubbing and non-existent lip-synching wouldn’t be an issue anymore! And I had read the company’s take on Transformers (a cartoon I thoroughly enjoyed as a child) and, although not a big fan of the art (and this still holds true for the Speed Racer book), I really enjoyed it. So, this seemed like maybe it would work out.

Unfortunately I found myself, like always, wondering just why, exactly, anyone enjoys this thing. Writer Arie Kaplan is obviously a big fan of the old cartoon because he manages to write the dialogue in the exact same manner. In other words, it’s awful. At one point Speed's mother points out that Racer X's shoelace is untied (the untied shoe often being a big plot point in great fiction), leading to the line, “It’s funny. My son Rex used to always leave his shoes untied. You sort of remind me of… Naahhhh, it can’t be!” This is not meant to be ironic. She is not kidding. This is what passes for drama in this book.

So, okay, it’s meant to be just like the old cartoon and is aimed squarely at the long-time fans. Maybe it’s just not for me. But then, there’s actually an effort made to add more depth to the story by introducing the fact that our hero is just the latest in a long line of Racers going back throughout history. And there’s a magic amulet! Actually, just half of one. Where’s the other half? The invisible, immortal villain has it! And the only way to learn about him is to read the stories of the different Racers, starting with the chariot driving one. What?!?! A long line of Racers holding half of an amulet? Haven't I seen this somewhere else? Does the amulet have "BFF" written on it and the other half is being held by Speed's long lost twin (played, of course, by Jean-Claude Van Damme)? The whole thing is so ridiculous that it could actually be quite amusing if it were meant as a joke. But it isn't. Which still blows my mind.

So, once again I found myself experiencing Speed Racer and just thinking it was dumb and annoying and wondering why anyone thinks it’s enjoyable. The only upside here being that you can read the comic in less time than it takes to watch an episode of the show, and it never shouts the dialogue at you. Hey, I guess it is an improvement.

Suitable for kids?: There’s nothing in here that you wouldn’t want your kids to see, but really nothing you would want them to see, either.

Rating:2/5

Spectacular Spider-Man

The Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series

TV Show Review

Good ol’ Spidey has been on the tube more than once before with mostly positive results. The classic series, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and the 90s version all hold fond memories for me, and probably a lot of other people too. The live action series and that weird, motion capture, creepy looking, MTV cartoon on the other hand were less successful. And that's not even getting into the really odd and really bad stuff out there. But, overall, he's had a pretty good run of it, and with the success of the movies it makes sense to launch a new cartoon now. The question then has to be: which version of Spider-Man is this? Will it follow the continuity of the comic books (And if so, will it be the regular Marvel universe or the Ultimate one?) the movies, or something entirely new? Personally, I’m not one of those purists who complain whenever anything deviates from how it happened in the comics. All that matters is that they do something good and interesting.

That being said, I was actually pretty pleased to see that the creators chose to follow the comics. With a series, you have a little more time to maneuver, so some of the plot points that had to be excised from the story in order to keep the movies from reaching ridiculous runtimes can be put back in. This includes Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn as friends of Peter’s, as well as the old-school (and now new-school) web-shooters as opposed to the organic versions. It also means that Norman and Harry Osborn look more like their comic versions, which was especially nice to see. The first episode picks up with Spider-Man at the end of his initial summer in costume fighting run-of-the-mill criminals and relates his first encounter with an actual super-villain. Skipping the origin story was probably a good idea since anyone interested enough to watch the show is pretty likely to already know how he got his powers. There were a lot of indications as to what villains may be coming up in this episode as well. Perhaps too many, to be honest. Within thirty minutes we were introduced to the Green Goblin, Sandman, Hammerhead, the Enforcers, the Lizard, Venom, and the Vulture, or at least the characters that will eventually become them. That’s an awful lot for one short story and it felt a bit cramped, but by the second episode they had fallen back on the tried and true villain-of-the-week formula and everything seemed to have settled down.

Overall, I rather enjoyed these two episodes once the generally awful theme song was over (it's not catchy until the very end and is just a little too hipster for me). The redesigns for the Vulture and the Enforcers were nice, while Electro was all right (his weird energy tubes are unnecessary and look like someone was trying to pimp their super-villain). The animation is surprisingly active and fluid in an age obsessed with aping the anime style, and for the most part the character designs were very clean-cut and looked good. The one, very unfortunate, exception to this being Peter Parker himself. In a cartoon featuring a few characters with large, lifeless eyes, his were the most lifeless, and the weird notch in his nose was distracting throughout the show. Pretty much every other character in the show looked fine, and the friendly, rounded design they made for Spider-Man works really well, even if his web-swinging occasionally makes no sense with regards to movement through a three dimensional space. There may have been no mention of Peter ever running out of web fluid (leaving one to wonder why they bothered to confuse a whole generation of kids who are trying to figure out what those weird bracelets Peter’s wearing are all about), and I’m not sure what they plan to do with Gwen Stacy (meaning they can’t kill her on a kid’s show, so why not just put Mary Jane in there instead?) but as a long-time fan of the comics I appreciate these points and am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt after this debut. The show will be written in arcs of four episodes each, with just a small amount of continuity connecting them, allowing for certain villains to be built up over time instead of simply given the single episode treatment. All in all, the whole thing is pretty promising.

But seriously, Eddie Brock as a friend of Peter’s? That’s totally not what happened in the comic books.

Suitable for kids?: Absolutely. Good wholesome fun for the whole family.

Rating: 4/5

Spider-Man: One More Day

Spider-Man: One More Day

Comic Book Review

The writers handling Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, and other long-time comic book heroes that have become part of popular culture face a pretty daunting challenge: to keep the books fresh and moving forward, while also keeping those characters relatively unchanged so that new readers can identify them with what they have heard of or seen in movies. This has to be tough because, how do you allow a character to grow and change in order to remain relevant and interesting, while also making sure that they are still the person people remember from the cartoons they saw when they were a kid? Well, one of the tried and true tricks of the trade (There’s some carefully constructed, comic book-like alliteration for you!) is the reboot. This is where you allow a character to go through any number of changes over the course of months or years, and then use some device to set everything back to the way it was. Usually it comes off as hackneyed as it sounds and leaves the readers feeling cheated now that all the books they’ve bought, read, and collected for however long no longer matter or even really happened. But when it's done properly it can be a greatly entertaining story on its own while also leaving the audience with a sense of homecoming as their beloved hero is returned to their glory days.

Over the last couple of years, Spider-Man has gone through far more changes than most people are likely to be aware of. Did you know that it turns out there is some kind of spider god, and Peter is simply the latest in a long line of champions chosen by it? And that there’s also a wasp god with champions who are the spider’s sworn enemies? And that Peter was beaten to a pulp and had his eye ripped out, before actually dying? And then he chose to be reborn at the cost of part of his humanity, ripped out of his skin, made a cocoon, and finally reemerged with a more powerful Spider-Sense, organic webshooters (a la the films), and a couple of bone stinger things that pop out of his wrists in times of great peril like some sort of second-rate Wolverine? Did you know that a villain burned down Aunt May’s house so that she, Peter, and Mary Jane are all forced to live in Avengers tower, since Peter is a member of that august body? And that during the recent Civil War event he revealed his true identity to the whole world?

Yeah. I didn’t think so. And while all of that (primarily the work of writer J. Michael Straczynski) made for some great stories and fun reading, there was always a voice in the back of my head saying, “Uhh, this is enjoyable, but he’s going to put it all back right?” I like my characters to grow as much as the next guy, but spider gods and bone stingers? It’s good for a while, as long as you can get everything back in the box when you’re done.

And this is where One More Day comes in. After a super-villain uses the knowledge of Peter's identity to have a hit put on him, it's Aunt May that actually takes the bullet and whose life hangs in the balance. He desperately tries to find a way to save her life, but in the end there's only one way it can be done and that’s going to require a great sacrifice, one that will completely change his world and (conveniently) change the Spider-Man comics in a big way (i.e. rebooting them). I don’t want to give too much away here, so I’ll just say that all the pieces fit together pretty well. The offer will make sense to those who have followed the books for years, as well as newcomers, and everything is handled with care. At no point will you be under any illusions that this is anything other than what it is: a means to an end. But that being said, the end is something familiar and comforting, yet still exciting because it’s been such a long time since things stood where they do after all the dust settles. Straczynski had a great, long run and it’s really kind of a shame that he basically had to undo everything he’s done over the past few years and essentially turn it all into a dream sequence. But, if you’re going to do something like that, you have to go all the way, and One More Day does just that.

Suitable for kids?: Yeah, if they're old enough to understand it they’re old enough to read it. The emotional impact that long-time readers might have will be lost on them, but when’s the last time something wasn’t wasted on kids?

Rating: 4/5

Old Heroes, New Tales

Hello, and welcome to my first themed week here on Kev-Views. Basically, every once in a while I intend to do a week where all three reviews are connected either by theme or actually by subject material. It might be three movies from the same director, three albums from the same band, or just three things that feature the same word in the title. Whatever the case, it will happen at completely irregular intervals, and the first one is upon us!

This week will be three new takes on old heroes. The first two will be Spider-Man (with a rebooted comic and a brand-new cartoon) and the last one will be Speed Racer (with a brand-new comic). Maybe it’s a tenuous relation (okay, definitely tenuous) but it’s just the first. And if you’ve got any ideas about other themes you’d like to see, drop me a comment!

See you tomorrow with the review of Spider-Man: One More Day!

Chatterbox Video Game Radio

Chatterbox Video Game Radio

Podcast Review

Doing a weekly, hour-long, talk-radio show devoted entirely to video games may sound like a tall order. But I'm sure that each and every week the companies that make the games release enough information, news, and PR materials that, combined with reviews of the new software actually coming out, you would have no trouble filling that hour. This, as far as I can tell, is what the vast majority of video game-related podcasts do. They gather together the latest news, undoubtedly culled from a few (or, possibly, just one) websites devoted to gaming news, throw it together with some music, and toss in an opinion on whatever games they can afford to buy. What makes Chatterbox stand out, is that they don’t do any of this.

That’s not to say that they don’t report on news, but that reading off the headlines and reiterating whatever ey can afford to buy. lated you would have no troulieralyou could have found out yourself (if you had simply bothered to visit the websites they keep telling you they go to) is not a feature of the show. And while you may also hear what they think about a game, be it new or old, reviews are also not something they focus on. Instead, the show tries to be something entirely new: an actual talk radio show devoted to discussing video games. Each week the host, Alon Waisman, and co-host Ara Shirinian (along with regular guest/intern/guy who laughs at all of the jokes, Rich Crawford) discuss topics concerning video games such as industry trends, societal effects, and how the format fits into our current concepts about art and entertainment. Rather than being just another cog in the wheel that is the industry's attempt to sell us all as many games as they can, Chatterbox tries to actually discuss that wheel, and thereby elevate this relatively new media to where it can be considered alongside others like film and literature.

The problem is that they tend to only get halfway there. Because the show is actually broadcast on terrestrial AM radio they have to take regular commercial breaks. So it happens pretty often that, just as an issue has been explained sufficiently and a real discussion is being broached, a commercial break interrupts and the momentum is lost. The best talk radio hosts (whether they are sane or not) are masters of picking back up after the break with a quick recap and reminder, and then plowing ahead as if nothing had happened. But the relative inexperience of Mr. Waisman and crew shows through each week as they flitter from topic to topic, hardly ever reaching something even resembling a satisfying conclusion. Interesting ideas, arguments, and theses are reliably raised every week, only to flounder and die when the (admittedly awesome) bumper music kicks in. Believe me, I really want to rate this show a four out of five, and I honestly believe that one day I'll have to revisit this review and change it. And I will, once the Chatterboxers learn to revisit their discussion topics.

Suitable for kids?: Ara’s regular (joking?) drug references, a habit of using abbreviations for curse words, and frank discussions of sex and violence will probably make a lot of parents balk at kids younger than high school age listening to it.

Rating: 3/5

Don't Get Too Comfortable

Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems

By David Rakoff

Book Review

I always kind of dread the moment when someone will see me reading a book and ask what it’s about. Asking me if the book is any good is perfectly fine, but if you want me to sum it up in a sentence or two I’m probably going to be hesitant. Sure, there are plenty of bits of fluff out there, and I read them from time to time, that can be explained in just a couple of words like “murder mystery” or “legal thriller”, and that really tells you all you need to know about that particular novel. But with the good stuff, the books that are really worth reading and talking about, describing the crux of the plot can be a bit more daunting and great pieces of writing can get boiled down to “It’s about a family. And stuff.” When people asked me what Don't Get Too Comfortable was about, it was even harder because the book is not a novel but rather a collection of essays really worth reading and talking about, describing the crux of the plot can be a bit that are sort of loosely tied together by their theme. So, I usually said, "Middle class America." Which is only kind of true.

Let me say, before I get into this, that the book is a great read. Rakoff is an excellent writer whose breezy style is very easy to fly right through while actually feeling like you’re reading something a bit intellectual. It’s not often you find a book that gives you the sensation of real literature, while also feeling like a bit of light reading. You might find yourself hitting the dictionary a few times (or, more realistically, just skipping past words you don’t know) but it never becomes anything resembling a slog through pages and pages of, say, The Scarlet Letter. However, it's this very breeziness that works against the book on a certain level.

Purportedly, all of the essays here are dealing with the idea that those of us in the middle and upper classes have reached a point where we yearn for a simpler, more austere life that in many ways is something of a bizarre, almost perverse reflection of how lower class people live. This paragraph from pages 28-29 (of the hardback edition) sums it up nicely:

It’s nice to have nice things. Creature comfort is not some bourgeois capitalist construction, but framing it as a moral virtue sure is. It’s what the French call Nostalgie de la Boue: a fond yearning for the mud. Two things have to be in place to really appreciate this particular brand of gluttony posing as asceticism. First, you have to have endured years and years of plenty, the mud a long-distant, nearly forgotten memory. One must have decades of such surfeit under your belt that you have been fortunate enough to grow sick of it all. …And second- and this is what really separates the men from the boys- in order to maintain a life free of clutter and suitable for a sacred space, you’ll need another room to hide your shit.

Sounds like a great point that would make for a great book, right? And it is, in those instances when that’s what the essays are about. And the essays are all great even when they stray from this point. The only problem here is that every once in a while you get reminded, while enjoying some great writing about a trip to Brazil or a meeting with the Log Cabin Republicans, that there’s supposed to be an overarching theme working here when you had pretty well forgotten about it for the past 50 pages or so.

I can absolutely recommend Don’t Get Too Comfortable because it's a fantastic read and you will undoubtedly enjoy it as much as I did. It's just a shame that the central point he seems to be making never gets made, or even focused on, for any length of time. If it hadn’t been there, I think I would have liked the book even more, but the feeling of getting cheated out of a thorough argument brought it down just a little bit for me.

Suitable for kids?: There’s a bit of cursing, as you may have noticed above, and the author is very open about his homosexuality, but overall the concern here is not if it's okay for your kid to read it but whether they're mature enough to get anything out of it. I would say wait until high school when the teenage angst kicks in.

Rating: 4/5