Boston

Patton Oswalt says it better than I ever could.

Wednesday On Friday (Repost)

The ravens arrived and proceeded to feast on the unbeliever's eyes. Then one turned and cocked its head to the dying man hanging in the middle. "We bring a message. 'Three hours? Try nine days, boy.'" The clouds rumbled in response and the ravens fled.

Then the great silence set in.

Batman Incorporated #8 Thoughts

Batman Incorporated #8
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Chris Burnham with Jason Masters

Even the press releases to newspapers earlier this week didn't spoil it for you, there was most likely a feeling in your gut that this was coming. First there was the great character moments in last month's issue of Damian taming his new kitten and teaming up with Alfred to go out and save his father from his mother and her army. Then there's this month's cover paying homage to Batman RIP and the meta commentary that Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne made a great Batman and Robin. It was too good. It was too perfect. You knew this wouldn't end well.

Last month, the Batman Incorporated/Leviathan war continued to rage. The agents of the Bat had been divided and Talia had launched her army of children and citizens against Gotham and ensnared her beloved in a death trap. Damian was left with no choice but to violate his father's orders and don the costume and enter the fray once again. Now Damian zips through the city in a robotic flight suit, rescuing Jim Gordon and Nightwing from mind controlled children and moving towards Wayne Tower to face his mother and her brute henchman in order to rescue his father. Along the way he rescues a Morrison regular and Wayne Enterprise employee Ellie and then teams up with Nightwing once again in a moment that reminded me of both the epic Batman and Robin run and a bit of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Then it all goes to hell.

The Heretic, a Damian clone turned into a brutish henchman for Talia, arrives with the trigger to the Ouroboros bomb that served as the MacGuffin for the first volume of the series in his hands. As Damian distracts him, Ellie steals the trigger. The two brothers fight in a gruesome parody of the Batman/Bane beatdown. Meanwhile, Batman escapes the death trap and makes his way to the ground floor only to find his bloodied and broken son and clutch his body against him. The fight between father and mother has claimed a son.

There have been plenty of write ups on Morrison and his take on Batman. And before he wraps it up, there will be a lot more. So I'll be brief this once: He's hit way more than he's missed. And this final season of his run is bittersweet. But with this issue, Chris Burnham has drawn more Morrison Batman pages than anyone else. And he tears it up from the cartoonish monsters of the Children's Army to the panel work of the Damian/Heretic fight. It's been refreshing to see a consistent artist who feels like a true collaborator and an unfortunate rarity in the big moments of this run.

Damian Wayne is dead. Talia al Ghul is responsible. And now what is Bruce Wayne to do?

Quick Notes:

• Opening line: "What would you do without me, Grayson?" So cruel.
• "My dear sweet, doomed detective...Playing dress up and fight...No ambition...A man who might have ruled the world." Talia can talk shit with the best of Bond villains.
• Damian busting through the window in his flight suit recalls Batman Inc. #5's Future Damian story and, of course, the bat.
• That Damian/Dick dialogue is obviously a shoutout to the the most vocal of fans who can be found on Tumblr as well as possibly a commentary on DC's rejection of seemingly everything pre-New 52. 
• And it was awesome.
• The sound effects return ala Quitely in Batman and Robin as well as Adam West. Great job, Burnham.
• The trademark double punch has taken down Professor Pyg, Jason Todd, Dr. Hurt but fails against the Heretic.
• Hey, it's Frank Quitely's Scottish armor!
• "My brother. My twin. My rival. Now you will know me."
• "Stop! Fighting! Father!"
• "BREAK!" "No."
• "Our son was a flawed creation. Born from a bottle. A failed experiment. You lost the world that might have been yours. You lost me. You're losing everything. You're losing the game. Your move, my detective."

Mississippi Burning

Image Friday #85

Image Friday #84

Image Friday #83

Repost From Tumblr

This panel from ALL-STAR SUPERMAN is something I return to again and again. It encompasses everything about both Lex Luthor and Superman that you need to know. Luthor, the man who holds himself above everyone, finally realizes that we’re all there is. We are all that matters. The power of that revelation brings him to knees and moves him to tears. Superman lives with this information everyday. And as overpowering as the thought may be at times, he does the right thing over and over again and quietly urges us to so the same. And, most importantly, he never gives up on us… any of us.

From All-Star Superman 12 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely.

Thoughts On Elementary

Realize I haven't been writing a whole lot recently. I've been juggling a couple of different things with writing (including an actual book...maybe) as well as using my Tumblr for those ideas I want to share. Tumblr is fantastic. It's quick in that there tends to be some sort of instant gratification that shows you it is being seen by people, etc. It's also incredibly weird in that you'll find a lot of slashfiction starring James Bond and Ben Whishaw's Q. While I'm comfortable enough to admit that both men are attractive in their own ways, a sexual relationship between them isn't exactly my cup of Earl Grey.

So what to write about? Well... I caught up on the latest episodes of the CBS produced modern take on Sherlock Holmes ELEMENTARY this weekend. And it has stepped up its game. While the BBC's SHERLOCK has been focused on modernizing the classic canon (for example Baskervilles, Study in Scarlet and, most recently, The Final Problem), Elementary has been focused primarily as a police procedural. I suspect that's been the case because the procedural has become CBS' bread and butter with their CSI series as well as the uncertainty of television. Why introduce elements when you're uncertain you'll get a chance to properly explore them especially when only have 40-odd minutes a week? But with the show being picked up for the year, it's taken chances to stretch its legs. 

Earlier, it introduced a deceased Irene Adler into Holmes' back story. Her death has driven the events to allow the series to happen. Quick summary: Holmes and Adler were in a relationship for a number of months. Beforehand, Holmes had dabbled in the traditional drug use for the typical traditional reasons. But after her death, his drug use spirals into a raging and crippling addiction that forces him into rehab. Post rehab, his father (a new yet off-screen addition to the canon) hires a sober companion in Dr. Joan Watson. Holmes works in liaison with the NYPD's Captain Gregson handling mostly homicides.

While past episodes have been decent for procedurals while still embracing all of the ridiculousness of the genre (the murdered hotel manager worked in correlation with prostitutes...wait she's a Russian spy...oh, her daughter killed her upon discovering she was a spy...oh, actually her handler killed her), the latest episode focuses heavily on Holmes with his past coming back to haunt him and a new twist being added to the mythos. A serial killer previously investigated by Holmes in London has arrived in the states and made his immigration known by his signature kill of a hanging a person upside down through a tripod device with a wench, slitting their throat and draining them of blood. This mysterious M. seems to have targeted Holmes by placing a note inside his home.

This M. is played by a rugby loving Vinnie Jones. Eventually it is revealed that one of his 37 victims was Irene Adler. And once Holmes has figured out this M.'s appearance and location he moves to exact vengeance on the fiend. And stops him before he can commit another murder with a baton to the face. Next we see them with M. chained up and Holmes prepping to torture and kill him. During the usual chit-chat preceding torture, it's revealed that while he has killed several people, he was imprisoned during the time of Adler's death.  And the bomb drops that he's a hired assassin named Sebastian Moran. And his employer? Moriarty.

This is the first that Holmes has heard the name. And Moriarty has already made the mad game between the two extremely personal, murdering the Holmes loved. The episode ends with Holmes allowing Moran to live and turning him over to the police, going home and removing all the various crime scene photos, headlines and notes from his wall and replacing it with a single post-it: Moriarty while this fucking awesome song keys in.

               

Elementary has started keying in on the Holmes that everyone knows and is already working on twisting it to something new and not entirely expected. The game is afoot.

Image Friday #82

Image Friday #81

Tumblr 2.0

I'm giving this tumblr thing a second shot in 2013 for a couple of reasons. It seems fun, it's quick and, thus far, there's the instant gratification that someone actively saw the damn thing. You can follow along here. 

Resolutions

The following are resolutions that I feel willing to make public as well as resolutions I haven't had a chance to break yet.

1. Give up on talk radio.

I have a job that involves driving a vehicle for roughly 600 miles which probably averages out to 12 hours or more when you consider traffic and speed limits. I consumed a lot of media mostly from NPR or Right Wing Radio talk hosts for almost two years. I've reached the point where I'm tired of rolling my eyes or even yelling at absurd blowhards like Limbaugh and Beck. And NPR isn't always my cup of tea either. Maybe it was some type of self punishment in a vague attempt to inform myself of what the idiots believe? But it reached the point where I was concerned for my blood pressure. So I've given up Beck, Limbaugh and the like. I've also cut back on Diane Rehm doing a book review hour for a book which I'd never read in all of my damned life. Instead I've turned to podcasts where I hear from people I want to hear from or learn something I want to learn. And I feel all the better for it.

2. Read. Read what you have.

While reorganizing my book shelves, I found a number of actual book-books that I have either never read or started to read only to abandon it. So I've decided that before I buy another book, I have to read at least three books before that. As much as I want to read Gun Machine, I won't go out and buy it until I finish Team of Rivals and at least two other books. However, the jury is out over where this pertains to graphic novels and trades.

3. Produce a work.

I don't know what the worst feeling in the world is. I'd take a guess that something like working on 10 different projects and having 3 others completed only to sit on the dusty shelves of Google Drive is not the worst feeling in the world. But it's close. It needs to change and that's only going to happen by me pushing for it and more writing.

Image Friday #80

The Best of 2012

I realize I'm a couple of days late with this lookback on 2012 but no matter. Here's a handful of my favorite things from the year that was in no particular order:

Surfing With Mel
Matthew Lickona's fictional take on the real life struggle between screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct, Showgirls) and Mel Gibson (Braveheart, Lethal Weapon, California Highway Patrol Monitoring Program) looks at one of the most interesting stories in Hollywood not in front of the cameras. Mel Gibson is a charming disfunctional monster raging at his fellow man, God and, most of all, himself. 

Looper
Definitely one of the smartest sci-fi films in years and certainly Bruce Willis' best role since Unbreakable. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has become one of the standouts of his acting generation. 

Django Unchained
Holy fuck. I wrote about this earlier this week. See it. Then see it again. 

Hawkeye
Consistently the best comic published by the Big Two. Matt Fraction and David Aja (along with others) have given me several reasons to give a damn about the C-List archer schmuck and his cohorts. And with Fraction donating his proceeds from his Sandy story in Issue Seven to the Red Cross, he's doing more than Congress was willing to do last night. Hawkguy! You dig, bro? 

Batman #12
After a roller coaster ride of an opening arc, Greg Capullo took a well deserved breather while Scott Snyder took time to explore a new character toughing it out the mean streets of Gotham. Bringing along both Andy Clarke and Becky Cloonan, the first woman to ever draw for the Batman comic, Snyder gives a proper introduction to Harper Row. While we know that she's an intelligent girl based in the Narrows and is more than willing to stand up for herself and her younger brother, several mysteries remain as to how she'll factor into Snyder's run. Snyder also revisits Tiger Shark from his Detective run in a backup with the best work I think I've ever seen from Andy Clarke. 

The Avengers
The movie that shouldn't work but did. While Nolan at his best brought us a morality play based on the dark times we live in, Whedon reminded us that comic book movies are based on comics which are plenty of fun and the good guys win. 

Bane Voice
The most memorable part of The Dark Knight Rises just happens to be easily done provided you can cup your hands over your mouth and use the proper lilt. Made all the better by the instantly quotable Bane. "Ahhhh, you think darkness is your ally...." 

Breaking Bad
Starting last Christmas, I watched Breaking Bad from the pilot on and it's now become my favorite television show. There's nothing I can say that hasn't been said before. 

The Manhattan Projects
The Feel Good, Bad Science book the year starring Robert Oppenheimer's cannibalistic brother and Albert Einstein's doppelganger. 'Tis great. 

The Grey
I like Liam Neeson. I really like Liam Neeson punching wolves.