#particularly about the execution of some of the individual arcs and also like 90% of series 7

[masterreborn]

the overarching narrative of eleven’s era is honestly phenomenal, and it hits harder every time i watch it. the doctor has been burdened for so long by the weight of his decision to destroy gallifrey — a decision he made out of dire necessity, but that went against the very core of his being and everything he’s ever stood for — and he’s been fighting ever since to balance the ledger. (how many worlds do you think his regret has saved, do you think?) but despite every victory, he can’t escape his grief and guilt, and they inevitably begin to turn him into someone he never wanted to become. (a nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. the most feared being in all the cosmos.) all of this leads him to TDotD, where he comes face-to-face with the single greatest regret of his life — and realizes he has a chance to change it. he makes a new decision, and every version of himself that’s ever existed comes together across space and time to try to save gallifrey instead of destroying it, because that is who the doctor is. (never cruel or cowardly. never give up; never give in.)

and in saving gallifrey, he saves himself; it doesn’t rewrite the centuries of pain that brought him to that moment, but it allows him to heal and move forward with renewed understanding of his identity and purpose. the name he chose was a promise he made, and he’s kept that promise. all the threads woven slowly throughout the plot come together after that — the cracks in the universe, the silence’s plan to kill him, the looming shadow of trenzalore and the question that must never be answered. and after trying to outrun his fate and cheat death for so long, he finally stops running. when he reaches trenzalore he dedicates what he believes are the final years of his life to defending a tiny village on this unimportant little planet, because he knows with more certainty than ever that he is the doctor, and this is what he stands for. (every life i save is a victory. every single one.) all that time, the question is repeated over and over, for hundreds of years — the oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight, and when the answer is spoken at last, it’s exactly what we’ve known from the very beginning. his “true” name, the secret he’ll take to his grave, has never mattered. what matters is the name he chose, and the promise he made. (his name is the doctor. all the name he needs, everything you need to know about him.)

when it’s time for him to go, it feels triumphant; the eleventh doctor was born in an inferno, with a youthful face and a flashy, silly personality made to conceal an ocean of pain beneath, but now he’s finally at peace. now free from the grief and remorse he carried for so long, he lays his pretense of childlike insouciance to rest, and the twelfth doctor emerges with a new lease on life and an old, weathered face — one that was chosen as a perfect culmination of the journey that brought him here. (i know where i got this face, and i know what it’s for: to remind me. to hold me to the mark. i’m the doctor, and i save people.)

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Alex ze Pirate Mini Review 2: Underappreciated and how Sam should deal with an abuser.

Last time I gave a general overview of how Sam is treated by his “friends”. Now I want to give a more specific example, that will also show how Dobson’s storytelling abilities are not really all that good, particularly when it comes to pacing or building up any sort of conflict.

You see, for the most part Alex ze Pirate is just a collection of stupid artwork (not even concept art, just random artwork Dobson makes of his characters dressed as something random) and one page strips with a stupid punchline, with Sam most of the time being the receiving punching bag.

There have however been a few individual, short stories over time. And when I say short stories, I mean short. As in 15 pages for a very cheap set up, a few jokes and a punchline. Those include stories such as All that Glitters (where everyone except Alex breaks into a fortress to steal something), The Wish Fish (the only halfway okay story of them all because it is just meant to be comedic) and Best Laid Plans. However, near the end of the initial run of AzP, Dobson did a three part story (partly) focused on Sam in that format, which started off with the chapter I want to talk in this post: “Underappreciated”.

As you can see, the chapter starts off following some basic rules of storytelling in comics. Two establishing panels for the location at which the story takes place initially and showing what Sam’s duties are. Nothing really bad yet. The only thing that sticks out being just the fact that a) Sam does not have his own bedroom and has to sleep in a useless outlook and b) he sleeps in his regular clothes. But hey, nothing to get upset about initially, perhaps he just prefers it like this at the moment. But with the next two pages…

The problems start to show. Page three establishing that Atea herself is just a cunt who can’t even have the basic decency of wishing her “friend” a good morning or giving him a thank you for bringing a morning beverage as she has other selfish priorities on her mind. Like wanting to lick the shower water of Alex’s skin.

Also, go fuck yourself Uncle Peggy. As in, get both your arms ripped off, shoved up your butthole with those hooks and then get hanged on those stomps like a chandelier. I wouldn’t even mind the fact here that Peggy left a mess, if the face he makes in the last panel was not obvious of the fact he left the bathroom like this on purpose and that he is rather happy of making Sam’s day extra miserable by the fecal matter he left behind. Combined with any previous strip of the comic showing that Peggy for no reason likes to get the boy in trouble and even wants to see him die, this just shows once more of how much of an asshole he is. If the last panel just showed him with a groogy hangover look, obviously unaware of how much discomfort he brings unintentionally to Sam, that would be one thing. But intentionally making Sam’s day miserable despite the obvious fact the boy is the first one to do anything around here, while making one of the worst drawn “HAHA, I am such a rascal faces” I have ever seen (and I have seen shitty anime en mass) makes me hate the character more than Dobson intented.

And then there is page 5…

And it is in my opinion the saddest page in the entire comic arc, even compared to the “heartbreaking” stuff Dobson wants to pull up in the last third of it. Because though it is meant as a joke, the general execution is too cruel, crossing into “dude, not funny” territory and showing just how little the crew cares for Sam. Talus, Sam’s “best friend” not even aware he is around, everyone stealing Sam’s food with that stupid “Yoink” sound (seriously, I wish the characters would get punched in the vaginas each time they make this sound in any of Dobson’s strips) and then leaving Sam behind with smug faces, ready to do whatever they want to do, while he, likely stinking of feces and not even having showered properly, has also to clean up after those pigs, who can’t even eat in a proper manner ( hey Atea, use a fork instead of holding the bowl) and silently. I mean, they are pretty much pigs when the noises they make are loud enough, they make the font of the writing change randomly into whatever Dobson has on his computer with every sound. Not to forget the mess they leave behind. And they call Sam the Slob?

Anyway, on to the next page…

And who the heck left their Hello Kitty toy in the bathtub? Also, I hate the way Alex’s face is drawn in the lower left corner. Something about the eyes in relation to the shit eating grin just looks off. Less “smug” and gleefully awaiting whatever she plans next and looking more like Dobson when someone tells him his opinion and reasoning for it is bad, but he can’t yell back at them because they are part of a minority and so he has make a “good face” to a bad situation, while internally he is already imagining how to strawman them in some fake news worthy facebook post.

And then we get to page 7. Which features the WORST addition to the “Alex ze Pirate” canon Dobson has ever thought up. An embodiment of what is wrong with Dobson when it comes to inserting internet culture related stuff into his own work. Ladies and gentlemen… the lolcat pirates

Yeah, those Hello Kitty rejects who ironically look still more like a proper cat than Spot in Danny and Spot, are essentially one of the worst jokes Dobson has ever created. Because they are a joke without a punchline. See, all there is to them is that they are sentient cats, that speak in a manner associated with lolcat posting. And that is the “joke”. Their speech pattern being based on a dumb internet meme that was popular at the time Dobson drew this page. It is like if you portray an Asian by making them talk with a shitty racist accent and that supposedly counts already as comedy. It is not funny, because there is nothing really done with it in context of the story. Like no one addresses the weird way they talk. Also, with the font Dobson uses, it is just an eyesore to any reader and the text gets aggravating the more the captain of the cats talks. It shows why lolcat pictures only had very short sentences accompanying the pics, cause reading more than 8 words written in this manner tingles a part of your brain that makes you want to shout “English motherfucker, do you speak it”?

Don’t get me even started on how the joke would get lost to anyone unaware of lolcats and how dated the joke already was back when the page was posted, which is one of many reasons why comic artists should just in general avoid memes in their work, if they hope for it to pass the test of time. Instead let me just point out the fact that though Alex said “All hands prepared for casting off” on the previous page (which is also a very unnatural way to give the order “Everyone get ready! Take off in 10 minutes”) not all hands are on board, seeing how Uncle Peggy is missing on this page (and spoilers) many pages of this afterwards. Weird. I thought he would be onboard the moment Alex mentioned they are going to hijack a ship full of pussy. Lastly, this is Alex being a “badass”? Taking over a ship full of little furballs you can defeat with a laserpointer, a squeaky toy and catnip? Sam, this is not just “almost” embarrassingly easy, this is literally on a level similar to stealing candy from a baby. That is mentally handicapped. And without supervision. In a candy story.

At least it turns out there is genuinely something worth stealing on this ship. Otherwise all Alex would have accomplished on that very day would have been animal abuse for the sake of entertainment. Though now it also gets me thinking: A place called Katsville, the revelation that the captain is supposedly the child of a high ranking military feline within the sea force of an entire species of sentient cats… how exactly does the world of Alex ze Pirate function? Look, I do not want to get into too much detail about this point here yet, because it is a bigger issue with the worldbuilding (or rather lack thereof) of this series in general, but what is the “consistency” when it comes to races and species in this world? See, One Piece for example is overall a very “cartoonish” and fantastic world (more cartoonish than what Dobson creates on average) when you think of the fact there are fish men, giant seacows and seamonsters, sentient furry creatures, islands in the sky, sentient weather phenomenons etc next to humans. And while Oda does not really spend time elaborating in very high detail how his world works, the sheer abundance of those elements and how they were established pretty early on in the story and are revisited constanly, with the cartoonish flavor and humor of One Piece on top of it, makes those oddities feel organic and a part of the world.

Not so much in AzP. Here over 90% of the time any character not related to the crew is some generically drawn human, in a very generically human setting with jokes just not cartoonish enough. So the world of AzP feels more “realistic” and less oddish, making then things like Talus, the lolcat pirates and once a giant sea dragon that looked like Elliot’s rejected cousin

Stand out like a sour thumb that looks like this

But I digress. Lets see what makes Sam, who just seems bored and wants to end his miserable life/drink his sorrows away, throw the cat captain against the wall.

Okay. Sam’s overall reaction makes it clear, the locket is important. So “kudos” for establishing this and in doing so also create within a moment a bit of intrigue for the reader. After all, why does this locket get such a reaction out of Sam, who we know so far as more happy go lucky or deadpan in parts, instead of looking genuinely distraught. Heck, the fact he even tells Alex to shut up when she commands him around should highlight how out of character finding this locket truly makes Sam.

Then there is Alex’s reaction to being told to shut up, which she takes with as much dignity as someone telling Dobson to just stop fawning about underaged lesbians in a toddler show.

Jesus Christ, she faces being told she looks like a guy with more grace than that. I mean, isn’t she used to being told to shut her trap? Cause if I were her parents, I would have told this entitled redheaded whinner a few times over the course of her childhood to shut up.

Scum sucking cabin boy… said by a butt ugly whore who would genuinely suck scum off if it means she can finally get laid instead of being mistaken for a man. By the way, with that angry face she makes in the first panel, I can totally see why others would mistake her for a dude. She just looks unpleasant and not in a funny way like that red panda girl from Aggretsuko. See, when she gets angry, it looks hilarious and cute because of the contrast to how the character looks ordinarily. This is just Alex looking even more unpleasant as usual.

Now, before I continue with the next pages, I like to point out the face Sam makes in the upper panel and Sam’s overall body language in the last one.

It is obvious that Sam is meant to be in a state of mind where he knows for what he is getting yelled at and where he genuinely reacts in a hurt manner. His body shaking, his head tilted down, not saying even a word. You would expect that the next page of this comic would be a follow up. Seeing Sam, who is pent up, lashing out in some way. Either for example by justifying why he said it, getting sad, angry, perhaps even violent in that situation. After all, so far the way this story has been structured, a lot of emphasize was put on the fact that Sam is treated not well and that finding this locket actually has an uncommon effect on him. Heck, even the title of this chapter hints on the idea, that we should get some sort of huge reaction out of Sam now on the next page, as this is supposed to be Sam’s story.

Instead it is just Alex grumbling and grinding her teeth, unable to comprehend that someone finally told her something every reader with more than 20 braincells said when reading this comic series. And this in my opinion is from a structural point, one of the biggest missteps in this story. Obviously, this is supposed to be a comic about Sam, based on title and him being the one character in it with the most emotional aspects so far. And it is also obvious that this is not just meant to be a silly gag comic but supposedly one with emotional weight. So, where is that weight so far, aside from the panels showing Sam being miserable because he gets the short end of the stick by his friends? Sorry to hijack this thing here now with my own ideas, but if I had writen this story, page 12 and 13 would have actually been an immense turning point for me in the dynamic so far. Why I would have let Alex shout at Sam for insubordination, I would have made it more than one panel of Alex calling him scum and also end likely with Sam, who obviously reaches a limit the longer she goes on about it, end punching her in the face, perhaps even knock out. Show truly just how far Sam is pushed emotionally at this moment, keeping it however ambiguous if he hit her because of her words hurting or because of something else, in doing so focusing also the attention to the reader back on the locket.

As an aftermath of this, Alex would (if not knocked out) hit Sam back, much to Atea’s and Talus horror, later implying additionally that Sam left because of being hit by whom he thinks is not just his captain but a “friend” (oh yes spoiler, Sam is gone in the next chapter)   or the next page would be of Alex waking up back in her hideout from having been knocked out. Atea and Talus informing her what happened, her deciding to deal with Sam later on after recovering (who accompanied everyone back on the island temporarily) only for the last page showing Sam deciding that he is leaving the island, ending the chapter on Sam in a small boat slowly drifting away from the island. You know, something to give the chapter the feeling that the “shut up” moment is an emotional turning point in this story and that there might be something bigger going on that resulted in Sam deciding to leave, without having him however go full Meg Griffin as in the Family Guy episode “Seashell Seahorse Party”, chewing Alex and the others out for the way they treat him. Cause honestly, as much as I like for Alex, Atea and Talus to be chewed out and face consequences for their actions, doing so would likely just be (like in that Family guy episode)  a pointless fillerbuster in the bigger picture of things, as no real consequences would come out of it.

Well that and just like the writers of Family Guy, Dobson is just equally loathsome and thinks he can write whatever sick joke he wants and can on his characters, basic decency or consistency in writing be damned.

But back to the comic, where things just “end” as shown here instead of any real emotions boiling up and a cliffhanger that may genuinely beg the question what is going to happen next to anyone involved in this thing.

 Cause really, by the time it is night and Sam says it is time to go, you are not surprised he wants to go, even if he did not have a genuine emotional outburst within this chapter. After all, who wants to stay with “friends” like this, with Talus and Atea not even trying to cheer him up and instead ignoring his obvious need for comfort in this uncomfortable way, as if they are a bunch of racists trying to look away as someone beats a black person in front of them into a pulp. The only question you may ask yourself by the time the last page is hit, is who that generic looking girl is, whose picture has been photoshopped into the locket.

 Something we may not find out by the time the next chapter and part of this review hits, but will get to eventually. Until then guys, in order to end on something happier, funnier and just genuinely more pleasant than what this story presented to us so far, have something silly and Super Sentai related here for the sake of childish entertainment.

[terramythos]

Review: Vengeful by V. E. Schwab (Villains #2)

Length: 567 pages

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction, Found Family, Revenge Narrative, Superpowers, Dark, Time Jumps, Perspective Shifts, Third-Person, LGBT+ Protagonist, Female Protagonist, Duology

Warning(s): Pretty much every previous warning applies here (violence, gore, genocidal thinking, etc). In addition, there is a VERY graphic medical torture scene, physical abuse, references to rape, implied hard drug abuse, and somewhat graphic sexual content. To reiterate: NO ONE in this story is a good person.

My Rating: 7/10

My Summary:

Five years have passed since Victor and Eli’s fateful encounter, when Victor enacted his perfect revenge. He finds himself in an unusual position; with other people to care for. There’s just one problem— his pain-manipulation powers have started to backfire on him. Every few weeks, they kill him. He comes back, but the intervals between episodes are growing shorter, and his amount of time without oxygen to the brain are growing longer. Thus Victor, Sydney, and Mitch enter a desperate race against the clock to find a cure— by any means necessary. Meanwhile, a new force rises in the city of Merit. When Marcella Riggins, wife to one of the most powerful mob bosses in the city, catches her husband cheating, he burns her alive to solve the problem. What he doesn’t count on is for her to come back as an EO with a terrifying power in her grasp. Now she’s out to take revenge and all the power of Merit for herself. As Marcella’s  ascension to power progresses, she inevitably pulls Victor and Eli back into their deadly conflict.

“How many of us do you think there are?” “EOs?” June hesitated. “Who knows? More than you’d think. We don’t exactly go around advertising.” “But you can find them.” The glass was halfway to June’s mouth. Now it stopped. “What?” “Your power,” said Marcella. “You said when you touch someone, you can take their appearance, but only if they’re human. Doesn’t that man you can tell when they’re not?” June’s smile flickered, and returned twice as bright. “You’re awfully sharp.” “So I’ve been told.” June stretched on her stool. “Sure, I can tell. Why? You looking to find more of us?” “Maybe.” “Why?” June shot her a sideways glance. “Trying to eliminate the competition?” “Hardly.” She finished her drink and set the empty glass down, running a gold nail around the rim. “Men look at anyone with power and see only a threat, an obstacle in their path. They never have the sense to see the power for what it really is.” “And what’s that?” asked June. “Potential.” Marcella tightened her fingers around the stem of her glass. “This ability of mine,” she said as her hand glowed red, “is a weapon.” As she spoke, the glass dissolved to sand, slipping through her fingers. “But why settle for one weapon when you can have an arsenal?”

For my review of Vicious, the first book in this series, please click here. 

Full review under the cut. 

I really wanted to give Vengeful a higher score. After all, the first 90% of the book is a solid 9/10, addressing most of the criticisms I had with Vicious and containing much of what I had hoped to see in a sequel. It features deeper exploration of the characters, develops intriguing themes I had wanted to see more of, and expands upon the setting and premise in interesting ways. In essence, it’s a bigger and better version of Vicious… for the most part. However, it falls apart in the ending, to such an extent that it dragged down the whole experience for me. I’ll get into the whys later. But first I think it’s worth discussing the novel in general and which parts of it did click for me. After all, I’m not lying when I say most of it is very enjoyable.

Vengeful is written and takes place 5 years after Vicious. It’s roughly twice the length of the previous entry and features an expanded cast. Three main leads from the previous novel— Victor, Sydney, and Eli— all reprise leading roles. Joining them are Detective Stell (a minor antagonist from Vicious) and two newcomers— June and Marcella, the latter of whom shows up on the cover and in most of the promotional material. I was struck immediately by the writing improvements in Vengeful— including more detailed, imaginative, and interesting descriptions. Schwab obviously improved a lot on the 5-year span between this book and its predecessor.

Basically, Vengeful focuses on where the characters have come over the last 5 years— for better or worse— and how the world adjusts and changes in the presence of EOs— superpowered humans.

Like before, the story is told in an anachronistic fashion. There is an overarching plot, but it hops around the timeline showing different parts of each character’s lives. That could be confusing, but it’s well-executed here, as it was in Vicious. Unlike in Vicious, however, this entry dedicates entire chunks of the book to individual characters. For example, the story opens up with Victor and explores him for a while, then switches over to Sydney, then onwards through the six members of the main cast. Occasionally we get guest chapters starring minor characters or “check-in” chapters with others, but for the most part it follows this pattern. I really liked this approach, because it's a deep dive into each character and their complexities and motivations. There were times I had to backtrack and remind myself what happened in previous sections, but that’s probably more on me than the book itself.

The characters themselves are interesting, and probably the strongest point of the novel. I enjoyed each to some extent. It’s fun to read a story where nobody is a good person, yet what that actually means varies quite a bit. Sydney and Eli had the most compelling stories and arcs; both dealt with identity and one’s place in life and the universe, but explored different facets of the concept. Both characters have changed a lot from their introductions, and it’s been interesting to see. Victor’s struggles and desperation are a far cry from where he finished in Vicious, so that was interesting as well. I thought June was a creative take on a shapeshifter character (more on that later), and her level of obsession with Sydney and its development over time was alarmingly relatable. While I don’t find Stell particularly interesting, I do think he was an essential perspective for the story, and he does expand the world quite a bit with his ties to EON (again, more on that later).

The (somewhat twisted) found family between Victor, Sydney, and Mitch was a big high point of the story for me; there are some indications of it in the first book, but this one goes all-in. I really enjoyed seeing these messed up people genuinely bond with each other and form a ragtag family.

There’s also some good LGBT+ representation in the novel. The relationship between Sydney and June, while ultimately pretty screwed up, is flirty and romantic in nature (and again, uh, alarmingly relatable). Victor is canonically confirmed to be asexual as well. I’m of the opinion that LGBT+ characters should hold a variety of roles, heroic and otherwise, since we’re people. I’m glad to see Vengeful make it happen.

Marcella is probably where I struggled the most (outside of the ending in general). She was initially one of my favorite characters— imagine an ambitious femme fatale turned up to eleven and literally given the power to destroy anything she touches. Her chapters are certainly fun based on that premise. However, I spent most of the novel waiting for there to be something else to her. Possibly a secondary motivation, or some kind of personal moral struggle— anything. But there really isn’t. She is just straight up a character who wants to seize power at all costs because she thinks she deserves it. Marcella is a pretty flat character, which is disappointing when she’s (1) the face of the novel and (2) in a series that focuses on moral complexity and shades of gray.

Vengeful improves upon the worldbuilding in Vicious. Before, Merit was just a generic city setting. But this entry expands upon it— especially its criminal underbelly. It also develops some setting-specific concepts. New to the story is EON, a clandestine paramilitary organization that hunts down EOs and eliminates or imprisons them. Led by Stell and built with the best of intentions, there is nevertheless a sense of dehumanization and genocidal parallels as he struggles to control the expanding organization. It’s key to both Stell and Eli’s character arcs, and there is certainly enough material to expand upon in the future.

This may sound like an odd thing to praise, but Vengeful abandons the whole superhero motif present in Vicious. Yeah, it was an interesting moral dilemma in the first novel— who’s the hero and who’s the villain— but it’s played out by now. Having a setting which features superpowers but isn’t tied down by superhero tropes is a good call and allows for more creative plot and writing decisions.

One thing I really enjoyed about this novel is how it expands upon the superpowers in creative ways. Even established characters have new and interesting developments to their powers that are still in line with previous canon. For example, Victor— whose power is manipulating pain in others— discovers he can manipulate nerves in general, and develops the ability to control others’ movements. June is a shapeshifter, but it’s a unique take I haven’t seen before. Basically, she takes on key memories of anyone she touches, which gives her enough background to convincingly mimic them. In addition, she’s a living voodoo doll. If she sustains injury while disguised as someone else, they’re the one who gets injured, not her. This is used to interesting and creative effect several times in the story.

Overall, this has the makings of a really entertaining novel with some deep character arcs and interesting themes. I should be overjoyed this even got a sequel, and for most of the novel I was. So what’s up with the ending? How could it have so strongly impacted my experience with Vengeful?

My problem with the ending isn’t that I disagree with it, or didn’t like it on a personal level. I’ve dealt with plenty of endings that didn’t go where I wanted (hell, I’ve read some by this author). But I can justify and even appreciate just about any ending as long as it makes sense with what’s been established before. Does it make sense for the characters to end up here, based on their development throughout the story? Does the ending fully realize the premise? If so, it’s an acceptable ending. Even if it’s one I didn’t picture, I can understand and even learn to like it.

That’s not the case with Vengeful. I mentioned characterization as a strong point, but out of the six members of the main cast, I’d say maybe two of them end up in places that even make sense (not even in satisfying ways, just… make sense). That means that four members of the main cast have unsatisfying or nonsensical endings to their character arcs. Considering this, is it much of a surprise the ending impacts the score so much? I finished the novel scratching my head like wow, that’s really it?

And I’ve tried to figure it out, believe me. I finished this book weeks ago and am only now posting the review. I’ve gone back and forth, tried to justify certain endings, went back to see if I missed something, but… nope. And at the end of the day, I shouldn’t need to bend over backwards to justify an ending. It should justify itself. It should make sense in and of itself.

I’ll give an example of one character, because I think it exemplifies the root of the problem. (Obviously this will be vague to avoid Mega Spoilers, but it should be obvious who I’m talking about if you’ve read the book).

There’s one character whose main conflict is they NEED to find a solution to their problem. Throughout the story they seek out and find various people who might be able to help. But nothing is working. They grow increasingly desperate and resort to more and more extreme methods to find the solution. Eventually, they find what seems to be the answer, but their hopes are dashed once again. In a moment of personal growth, this character realizes that there is no miracle coming. Since they are the cause of the problem, the only one who can solve it is THEM. They resolve to find the solution themselves or die trying.

How does this arc end? I’m not even joking— they just straight up find a miracle solution. There is some setup for it… but that setup is tied to a completely different character. And regardless, it still feels like a deus ex machina; it destroys initiative. It’s even worse because this character’s arc peaks when they realize they must SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS, then the ending hands over the solution with no strings attached. Sure, they technically find it due to their own actions, but it’s because someone unrelated to them or their arc did something. Even then, there were ways to make it work— Schwab could have drawn parallels between characters, or played up the dramatic irony. It would still be weak, but at least it would show some self-awareness. But we don’t even get that.

That’s just the clearest example. There are multiple characters whose key moments are just ignored in the ending. It would be one thing if they realized certain things weren’t that important to them, or in a moment of dramatic irony fell short of where they were meant to go. Those things make sense. But that’s not what happens— the character arcs just end with zero solution to the problems and ideas the rest of the novel spends developing. It’s very unsatisfying, and I found myself wondering what the point of the novel even was. It honestly feels like the first 90% of the book is hand crafted and polished to a mirror shine, while the ending is a first draft with minimal edits and zero continuity with the rest of the story.  

It’s possible, and even likely, that there’s more to the Villains story. Nothing has been officially announced, but certain aspects of the novel just scream it to me. One of the few characters who ends in a decent place has a very “the end… or is it?” outro. There’s a 4-page short story after the epilogue that focuses on a seemingly minor character and her origins. And some aspects of the worldbuilding, such as EON, could be explored more. In short, Vengeful sets up for a book three, or even a spinoff of some sort. But even then, the character arcs still need to make sense in the context of this novel, and they simply don’t. When the main strength and focus of the novel is characterization, the ending HAS to realize that potential. Vengeful doesn’t, and we’re left with a confusing and disappointing conclusion.  

Feel free to take this review with a grain of salt— from what I can tell, Vengeful was critically well-received and a lot of people enjoyed it. Perhaps there really is just something I’m missing. But the ending was enough of a disappointment that it affected the whole experience. It was especially disappointing to me coming from an author I really enjoy. Perhaps there is more to the story, but it’s going to take a lot to win me back on this one.

[wheatbeats]

2018 is over and I feel compelled to write a retrospective of sorts, but since I don’t feel like talking about myself I’m gonna talk about Every Anime (Series) I Watched in 2018. Each one comes with a numerical rating out of 10 and a short blurb of what I thought about it.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie - 9/10 - Incredibly sweet and heartfelt, with mature adult characters who act as such. Drama and comedy both are mined from real issues rather than petty miscommunication, and is all the more compelling for it.

Land of the Lustrous - 10/10 - A delightfully unique setting with an enrapturing story and fantastically constructed characters. The moments of levity and sweetness only serve to make the deeply engrained sadness and loneliness more poignant. The CGI animation is shockingly gorgeous, and a triumph of the medium.

Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World (2018) - 5/10 - Certainly entertaining in spots, but ultimately rings rather hollow. Not really an improvement on the original in any respect.

Princess Principal - 8/10 - An absolutely gorgeous setting brimming with atmosphere and style, and a fun ensemble cast. The series-wide arc is a little hard to follow or understand, but each individual episodic plot is really enjoyable and engaging.

The Vision of Escaflowne - 8/10 - A well-built fantasy that’s occasionally ridiculous but never not fun. The new dub is really slick and helps the series go down nice and smooth.

A Place Further Than the Universe - 10/10 - Extraordinarily sweet, earnest and heartfelt. Deftly written, smartly directed, and masterfully executed. I cried really hard, a lot. 

Tsuredure Children - 8/10 - Cute, ridiculous, and eminently relatable. If you’ve ever had a crush, you’re bound to identify with at least one character in this series.

From the New World - 5/10 - Had a glimmer of potential, but mostly ended up fake deep, poorly paced, and fucking ugly to look at. The more I thought about this series the less I realized I enjoyed it.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride - 5/10 - An extraordinarily promising start that’s disappointingly squandered by wildly inconsistent tone, static plots, nonsensical character arcs, excessive cliffhangers, and hollow stakes.

Princess Tutu - 10/10 - An expertly built deconstruction of fairy tales as well as a sweeping, gorgeous love note to ballet, classical music, and romantic storybook heroism. Wonderfully intricate plotting and stunning character work, a true gem.

Kaiba - 8/10 - Brilliantly unique and emotionally engrossing, if not a bit obscure and hard to follow at times. You never have, and probably never will again, see an anime quite like this.

Girls’ Last Tour - 7/10 - Deeply atmospheric and sometimes quite poignant, but also dreadfully, awfully, agonizingly slow.

Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto - 9/10 - A smooth and even mix between laughable absurdity and actual real emotional stakes. Somehow, I feel like I learned something about myself.

Megalobox - 8/10 - Briskly paced and action-packed, but by far the biggest draw is a classic 90s aesthetic reminiscent of pre-digital legends like Cowboy Bebop. This series lives and breathes style.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These - 6/10 - Would have the potential to be interesting if it wasn’t so hollow and boring. I wanted to get more engaged in the politics of this complicated war, but the plot is held at arms length and the characters are more like walking philosophy textbooks than actual people. That said, the ship designs are pretty cool.

Hinamatsuri - 10/10 - Sweet, pure-hearted, and gut-bustingly funny. Any moment I wasn’t laughing until my sides hurt, I was near to tearing up from actually caring about these characters so much. Each episode was a joy and I loved every second of it.

Golden Kamuy (S1) - 7/10 - Absurd, charming, and goofy, with a surprising amount of gore. Seems to care more about food than plot, but I’m kind of into it.

Revolutionary Girl Utena - 9/10 - Brilliantly dense, symbolic, and metaphorical. Sometimes hard to understand, sometimes hard to watch, but always excellent.

Dragon Pilot: Hisone & Masotan - 7/10 - Gorgeously animated and undeniably charming, but still a little awkward, garbled, and uncomfortable at times. The most earnest vore anime I’ve ever watched.

Steins;Gate 0 - 4/10 - A total, utter, crushing disappointment. Follows up a spectacular prequel with a nonsensical, contrived plot, inaccurate characters, and piss-poor visuals. This series is only carried by its relationship to the original. I will never trust again.

Princess Jellyfish - 7/10 - Charming, varied characters populating an unfulfilling narrative.

The Big O - 6/10 - Plenty of goofy, stylish fun, but slowly devolves into an inscrutable, incomprehensible mess. R. Dorothy Wayneright is the best part of this series by far. Roger Smith is a louse.

Aggretsuko - 7/10 - Fun and relatable, if a bit simple. 

TOP 3

3. Hinamatsuri - This series came totally out of left field for me. I usually don’t emotionally respond to comedies very well but this one somehow hit all the right buttons. None of the humor was mean-spirited or put anyone down, the situations were absurd but didn’t cripple me with secondhand embarrassment, and on top of it all I really started to care about the cast. I wish I could get surprised like this more often.

2. Land of the Lustrous - As you can tell if you’ve been following me at all recently, this series has been absolutely consuming me from the moment I watched it. The plot is gripping and excellently paced, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been invested in another main character quite as much as Phos. It’s plenty easy to get wrapped up in thinking about the plot and the character arcs and the meta, but then when I go back and watch the series again I’m shocked by how good it is on a technical level, too. The CG animation is beyond gorgeous and the technical grace of each scene, the pacing, the colors, the music, the character animation, the voice acting, are all stellar. If this anime had more of an ending it would absolutely be my number 1 pick, but for now I just have to read the manga (AS SHOULD YOU, YOU COWARDS. IT’S EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS THE ANIME).

1. Princess Tutu - I, like many people, I think, reacted with derision at the title of this series, but by the time I was done I was completely blown away, and every time I thought about it more I was even more shocked. Every inch of this series shows some of the smartest construction I’ve ever seen in fiction, every layer is filled with stylistic flourish, brilliant writing, and metatextual commentary. You can dig as deep as you want and Princess Tutu will always have something to offer you. It’s been less than a year, I’ve already watched it twice, and I’m still discovering new things about it. A story this brilliant would be a once in a lifetime experience on its own, but Tutu is fulfilling on the surface level, too. Even if you’re not diving deep into what the series means you can still be just as enraptured by the characters. Fakir probably has the best redemption arc this side of Prince Zuko, and I could sing the praises of every other major cast member. And the music, the music! I was doomed from the start the moment I heard both The Nutcracker and Pictures at an Exhibition in the score. Princess Tutu takes some of the greatest masterpieces of western art music and builds off them, creating a sense of atmosphere as deep and vast and dramatic as the finest opera or ballet could ever be. Princess Tutu is one of the greatest works of fiction I’ve ever consumed, and absolutely the best I’ve watched this year.

BOTTOM THREE

3. From the New World - Immediately after I stopped watching this series I actually sort of thought I’d liked it, and I think the reason for this is because From the New World tries its very best to engage in ideas a bit deeper and more ambiguous than a lot of other anime do. But the more I thought about it, the more I disliked this series. Everything about the plot was confusing and off-putting, I didn’t find the characters particularly charming, and perhaps most of all, this series is butt-ugly. It might have a high score of MAL. but my advice is to give this series a hard pass.

2. The Ancient Magus’ Bride - I wanted to like this series so fucking bad. I fell in love with the prequel OVA and waited anxiously for each new installment to come out. I even bought tickets to my local Artsy Fartsy Theater to see the first three episodes when the screened there. And I liked them! Finally, an anime engaged in Celtic and English mythology, some of my favorites, and a protagonist with a truly gripping internal struggle. I was certain from the very first moment that this series would sit in my Top 10 list, and that Chise would be one of my favorite protagonists ever. And then it... didn’t happen. As the episodes unfolded I was treated to a series that had no idea how to establish or maintain stakes, how to relate its two main characters to each other, or how to use the wealth of mythology it was referencing and drawing from. How am I supposed to care when Chise gets stabbed in the chest every 2 episodes and then just kind of shrugs it off for the sake of drama? How am I supposed to be interested in the mythology when it’s all just watered-down fantasy archetypes with giant boobs? Don’t even get me started on the main villain. I feel very betrayed by this series and honestly I’m still bitter.

1. Steins;Gate 0 - This series is as much a lesson in betrayal as Ancient Magus’ Bride, but I think this one stings worse because it’s preceded by Steins;Gate, and anime I love dearly. I sincerely believe that the original Steins;Gate is one of the best anime ever produced, and this sequel struggles to live up to even a single aspect of it. As it began I was hopeful- I liked the darker tone, I liked the idea of a story within a failed timeline. But as I kept watching, I realized something awful: I was bored. All of the charm and intrigue was gone. The characters were all acting different, all looked different (why are all the girls wearing skintight winter coats? Why have their chests all inflated three sizes??), and there was no impetus for the plot. Steins;Gate was driven by simple goals; in the first half, it was to build a time-leap machine. In the second half, it was to save Mayuri. In Steins;Gate 0 the impetus is to... watch Okabe be sad. Hope he gets less sad. There’s nothing to keep the plot moving, and this listlessness was so overwhelming that the random bits of unforeshadowed action and unprecedented (for this franchise) violence felt cheap and confusing after the doldrums we just sat through. By the time the plot finally, finally, picks up towards the final quarter of the series, the damage is done. I don’t care anymore, I can’t figure out what’s going on, and I’m just so done with a franchise I used to love. One day I’ll go back and rewatch the original Steins;Gate and remind myself why I cared so much, but for now I’m nursing wounds. If you say the name “Kagari” in my presence, I’ll probably blitz the fuck out.

Here’s to a good 2019!

[traviswritesaboutstuff-blog]

I Have a Confession To Make - 10/18/18

I’m a musical theatre junkie. I 90% of the songs on my phone were first sung on the stage, and my workout playlist will make any normal person wonder what the fuck is wrong with me (I found this out when my friend commented on the fact that Do You Hear The People Sing from Les Miz isn’t a pump-up anthem, to which I say, you’re wrong and also stupid). But I have a confession to make. It’s a secret that I’ve been harboring for three years now, and I’ve only ever discussed with my closest of friends. I’m afraid that revealing this secret will ostracize me from the rest of the musical theatre junkies out there, but it’s something that I can’t keep quiet anymore. It’s crushing me, and I need to let it out.

I don’t like Hamilton.

I know, I know. Something is wrong with me. But hear me out. It’s not that it’s a bad show. For what it is, its phenomenal, and I can see WHY people like it. I just don’t like it.

Let me just say that this has nothing to do with the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. In fact, I really frickin’ love him. Miranda’s first show (and the show that got him his first Tony), In The Heights, is one of my top ten favorite shows in all of musical theatre. That says a lot considering two of the ten shows are Sondheim shows, one is a show about anarchists at the end of the millennium that ushered in the age of musicals with any kind of gravitas, and my number one favorite show is about a family dealing with the toll that mental illness can take after the death of a child. BUT. In The Heights is a wonderful little show full of fleshed-out character arcs, heart-wrenching plot twists, and the single best love song ever written (“Sunrise”). And “Breathe,” the second song in the show, never fails to make me at least tear up (at worst, full-on ugly crying for an hour while I contemplate my life’s decisions). The show follows the various residents of Washington Heights as they navigate life, love, and heartache in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country. It’s funny and witty and honest and raw and emotional and sad and hopeful and I never fail to walk away from the soundtrack without having gone through every single stage of that emotional journey. It was also one of the first musicals to successfully incorporate hip-hop and Latin music into a score that still felt very theatrical and moving. In more ways than one, it set the stage for Hamilton, and I think a lot of people aren’t even aware of its existence.

Hamilton is... fine. But, honestly, that’s it. The music is catchy, I’ll give it that, and while I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of hip-hop, it does a good job of telling its story through this method. But so did In The Heights, and to an even better degree, I find. My biggest issue with Hamilton is that so many people view it as some sort of quintessential immigrant story. But here’s the thing: it’s not. Sure, the rags-to-riches aspect plucks some part of our hearts that still long for that American Dream, but Hamilton’s journey is so far off from anything that’s frankly even remotely possible today. A poor white (really, look it up. He wasn’t even remotely ethnic) orphan from an island in the Caribbean moves to a big city in a burgeoning new country to try and establish himself as a main player in history. Quite frankly, I just find that concept kind of boring, especially compared to the story of actually racially diverse people just trying to get by in a poor neighborhood in a system that systematically discriminates against them. What’s the personal goals of one individual when pit against the way of life of an entire community? There are just far better ways to tell an immigrant story, and it’s so frustrating to me because Lin-Manuel Miranda knows this because HE HAS DONE IT BEFORE.

Then of course, there is the show’s motif of “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” I like the concept, but the execution is questionable in my opinion. It’s not even that the story doesn’t present it in a compelling way, it’s just that I find it hard to care. Before going into the show, anyone who has graduated middle school can answer each one of those questions. Who lives? Aaron Burr. Who dies? Alexander Hamilton. Who tells your story? Well, if memory serves correctly, every single American History textbook printed after 1800 (Oh, and the $10 bill). And anyone who has somehow not heard of Alexander Hamilton has answers to all of those questions after the show’s first number. So why keep watching?

The music also drags on at far too many points in Hamilton for my liking. Somewhere after My Shot, the songs all kind of start to just blend together. Sure there are some stand outs (“It’s Quiet Uptown” comes to mind)And I don’t find any of the characters aside from the titular one and Aaron Burr particularly fleshed-out or worthy of note in any special way. It’s almost as if they’re just a hurdle we have to jump over in order to get to the main plot of the show.

Again, I can see why people like this show. The music can be catchy, I’m sure it’s a story that appeal to some, and its creator is one of the most charismatic and likable people alive today. But I just can’t get into it. And I refuse to be ashamed of it anymore. And having said that, I’m gonna go sit in my car and listen to In The Heights again. I could use a good ugly cry.

[jamesginortonblog]

It's nearly unheard of that a television series inspires a nationwide law that targets international corruption, money laundering and organized crime.

But that's what happened in the UK as a result of the James Norton-fronted drama McMafia, an eight-part series currently airing in the U.S. on AMC after completing its British run in mid-February.

McMafia delves into the incredibly profitable underworld of criminal activity including sex trafficking, drug dealing and money laundering and how the tempting tentacles of corruption reach into the highest levels of finance and government through the machinations of global organized crime.

Norton plays the British-raised, Ivy League-educated Alex Godman, the scion of a connected Russian family who moved to England to legitimize themselves after some shady dealings in the old country. He runs a London-based hedge fund, is engaged to his girlfriend, played by Juliet Rylance, is a model son to his parents and a loving brother to a troubled sister. In other words, the perfect hero, until he gets drawn into a series of scary scenarios that see him evolve from proverbial choirboy to criminal.

McMafia's tales of intrigue kick into high gear with the murder of Godman's uncle Boris, who, unlike the rest of the family, is still actively involved in the Russian mob.

To avenge the killing, Godman teams up with a powerful Russian-born Israeli businessman and politician, Semiyon Kleiman (David Strathairn) to battle the crime boss behind the killing, a brutal kingpin known as Vadim. Kleiman and Godman, first introduced by Uncle Boris and after overcoming their initial suspicions of each other, develop a sort of father-son relationship and conspire to take territories, including ports in India and Croatia, where Vadim has a "free pass" to ply his illegal commerce—and thus, take him down.

Some have compared the character of Alex Godman to that of The Godfather's Michael Corleone, the once-legitimate businessman who becomes the powerful head of a massive criminal enterprise.

But unlike The Godfather films, which were based on Mario Puzo's best-selling novel, McMafia is inspired by investigative journalism. The series is based on the 2008 nonfiction book McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny, who also serves as an executive producer.

The crime drama was created by Hossein Amini and James Watkins and is a coproduction of the BBC, AMC and Cuba Pictures. The series premiered in the United Kingdom on January 1 and created a huge amount of buzz, including the aforementioned "McMafia Law," more formally known as the Unexplained Wealth Order.

It requires that rich people who come to Great Britain from elsewhere must prove the legitimacy of their wealth. If found to be acquired from illegal activity, their assets can be seized and liquidated, with the money going to law enforcement. Great Britain's National Crime Agency estimates that £90 billion a year (about $126.5 billion) is now being laundered in the UK, twice the amount of the nation's entire defense budget.

The problem is so severe that UK security minister Ben Wallace recently wrote an op-ed in The Sunnewspaper which stated, "McMafia has brought home to millions of viewers the nature of serious and organized crime in the 21st Century. Sharp suited people swan around the nation's capital while all along they head up networks that trade on the back of the misery and suffering of others. It is time the flashy McMafia mob felt the long arm of the law."

Already, two £11 million London mansions, believed to be bought with "dirty money," were seized by court order in February.

Norton's Godman is in almost every scene of McMafia, whose story unfolds in multiple picturesque international locations including Belize, Istanbul, Belgrade, London, Prague, Zagreb, Cairo, Qatar, Russia and Israel.

"Alex Godman is not necessarily always likeable, but James brought such a sense of humanity, especially in scenes with his family, that counterbalanced the coldness of the character," says Watkins, who directed all eight episodes.

"James was very brave in committing to such a withheld character. In creating the antiheroic Alex Godman, we wanted to maintain a deliberate ambiguity as to his motivations. Is he acting out of revenge or out of survival? Or, somewhere within him, seen in occasional glimpses, is there a will to power at work, a seduction by the dark side?

"James is a very attuned actor and worked forensically at finding those little micro-details. One of the wonderful things about James's performance is the very subtle way in which he lets emotion leak through the mask, especially in the last episodes as events spiral out of control."

The 32-year-old Norton is well-known in the UK after leading roles in numerous prestige productions including War & Peace, Grantchester and Happy Valley. He also co-starred in last year's reboot of the feature film Flatliners.

Norton will appear again on the big screen toplining director Agnieszka Holland's Gareth Jones as the title character, a Welsh journalist who exposed genocide in the Stalinist Soviet Union, secured access to Hitler and Goebbels and was murdered in 1935.

We caught up with Norton by phone on location for the film in Ukraine where he said he was shivering in -15°C (5°F ) weather. The conversation was anything but chilly as we explored facets of his career and the echoes of McMafia in real life.

Tell us about the evolution of your character Alex Godman on McMafia.

It was a most exciting part to play with. During 150 days, we shot out of sequence and it was a huge challenge. Most of the conversations about Alex revolved around where we were in his arc- from clean-living man and golden boy to his fiancé Rebecca, and then how he becomes a linchpin in shady deals with Mafias.

James [Watkins] and I would try to understand his motives. We wanted to leave a lot of it open, to leave muddy his motives. You can claim to understand them but there are a myriad of reasons.

We were clear about protecting his family and then making a choice as he began moving away from fortuitous, virtuous reasons to avarice. While the creators- and audiences- are realizing Alex was being sucked in, Alex didn't realize it soon enough. Suddenly he surprised himself, and he's loving it, and it's incredibly sexy and seductive.

It was a layered role. His headspace doesn't ever stop giving you revelations about his relationship with his father and fiancé, and the associated Russians with inherent criminality. But there were a lot of commentators quick to make the connection about him running away [from organized crime] and then being seduced. It was a joy to play, right until the end of the last hour.

Many of your scenes are with David Strathairn. Let's talk about his character's magnetism, and how you are drawn into his nefarious agenda and the plot to destroy Vadim.

David's a master, and the journey Alex is on is incredibly defined by his relationship with Semiyon. He becomes almost like Alex's moral compass, kind of like Rebecca. Semiyon sort of sets it up that if he wants to protect his family, he has to take on Vadim. He became a dark, sinister individual but also becomes a paternal figure. To have a relationship with Vadim—they're so different, and corrupt, but they have their allies, children, lovers and they're not stock villains.

David played it beautifully, a real character, a likeable one if not more sinister. He's a politician we all recognize, progressive and yet he's subversive and deals in human trafficking. He brought home how close these politicians are to corruption.

Off set, David was wonderful. We went walking and swimming along the Croatian coastline. He's a lover of life and I loved hanging out with him.

That sounds fun, but what are some of the most challenging and memorable scenes that you have shot in the series?

We shot in Croatia, Serbia and London in very glamorous locations but I didn't get to Mumbai. One location was a beautifully landscaped villa with a beautiful mosaic ceiling – just unbelievably extravagant in the South of France, yet nearby was extraordinary poverty. Some of the scenes, particularly with David, felt like mini pieces of theater. James gave us time to mine those scenes.

The scenes with the parents were wonderful to play, so subtle and with the human subject so rich. With Vadim, when we crossed paths in the airport lounge, it was like punctuation marks on our respective journeys. All the other storylines were leading to this. The scene's very charged, halfway through the shoot, crackling and informed.

It was wonderful, and the reason you do this, when the story and situation take on a life on their own and memories and experiences inform it. It's like a mini explosion.

With Rebecca, the first thing we shot was the apartment stuff between them in the first week. It was incredibly emotionally charged material, when she moves out after she confronts him about travel. It was a sad day, and it was harder because we didn't have the backstory. On Alex's journey, she represents where he comes from, and you suddenly remember where he was with her. The tragedy is he does set out to protect her and it's gone way too far.

The family elements are especially resonant within McMafia - and Alex is always right in the middle of everything.

The family element allows us to explore the man, seduced by the subversive and the dark side. The family is a way of seeing that component. He ends up as a gangster, but he's ultimately a family man, a good son and brother. In one of the most tragic, heartbreaking scenes he's asked to cut loose his dad, Dmitri – it's almost self-sacrifice. I have a close relationship with my own father, and that day Alex was willing to sabotage his family was difficult.

Faye Marsay, Aleksey Serebryakov, Mariya Shukshina-- we become a real family. There was a concentrated, really fun sense of unity. All of us were so invested in the warmth and affection both and off camera, and they are all such great actors. Aleksey came in with different versions, using the Stanislavski method. We Brits were far too polite.

Aleksey would come in and say, "No, we do it like this." When Dmitri says goodbye to his brother in the morgue, he paced around and genuinely threw up in the sink. It was extraordinary.

You have had key roles in a number of series including Grantchester, Happy Valley and War & Peace. What have you learned from these experiences? Is there a throughline amongst these characters?

You learn through every role, with different headspaces, time periods and genders, you get to learn and have an emotional connection. I would hate to be typecast. If there is a throughline, the characters are very switched on and inquisitive - kind of trying to work it all out or not take life for granted. They're on some quest to understand it. Maybe I am completely confused, but they're all thinking and in existential angst.

Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming starring role in Gareth Jones with Agnieszka Holland?

Gareth knew his place, and he's on an incredible journey but also on a mission. It's a true story about a young journalist, one of the first to interview Hitler in 1932 just at the emergence of Nazi-ism. He describes being on a plane with Goebbels, and then back home to the UK where he tells the British government about the emergence of totalitarianism. They dismiss this and of course we know what happens later.

Then he takes on a mission to Stalin's USSR. He was beginning to have doubts about Communism. He decided to check out the numbers and how they're paying for planes, etc. He was on a tour, went rogue and discovered Stalin's extortion at the expense of millions of lives. At home, they accused him of lying, "fake news" and being inflammatory.

It's terrifying in 1933 when they had so much less access to communications. In Ukraine, Stalin was able to get away it and millions died [as a result of famine]. Now we are using the same language. It's a very relevant story, what is truth and what is agenda. We feel a responsibility to respect his story. It's exciting, and I'm really enjoying it.

As McMafia unfolds, what do you hope viewers take away from it?

You want the work to be entertaining as we're in the business of entertaining people. But with the last few years of Brexit, Trump and populist right-wing governments coming to power, and corporations being so powerful, corruption is no long self-contained. It's straddling everything, and we're in unknown territory.

I know in the UK they want to know what that corruption looks like. In the days of The Sopranos and The Godfather, organized crime contained an element of romanticism but did not really affect us. For a show to provide understanding of financial corruption is important, to see how a hedge fund manager facilitates a drug deal. Aside from the human-driven drama, it is also about corruption and transparency, and will hopefully bring some clarity.

With the UK McMafia Law, suddenly we are part of a much larger conversation, more pertinent and crucial. I hope for those people in the audience who are fully engaged and hungry for clarify that this is a perfect show.

[gerardwayisarchive]

Gerard Way Talks 'The Umbrella Academy' Netflix Series & Why the World is Ready For Superheroes With Demons

https://gerardwayisalive.tumblr.com/post/182279958074

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/television/8494811/gerard-way-interview-the-umbrella-academy-netflix-series-trailer

1/24/2019 by Taylor Weatherby

The official trailer for the Netflix adaption arrived today (Jan. 24).

Twelve years after Gerard Way unveiled the first installment of his comic book series The Umbrella Academy, the singer is seeing his dysfunctional superhero story come to life on screen. Netflix has adapted the comic for a 10-episode TV series called The Umbrella Academy, with the official trailer arriving today (Jan. 24).  

The show -- which debuts on Netflix Feb. 15 -- marks another dream come true for Way, as he always envisioned the comic series on a screen. The former My Chemical Romance frontman is credited as co-executive producer for the Netflix adaption, and showrunner Steve Blackman (Fargo, Private Practice) made sure both Way and The Umbrella Academy illustrator Gabriel Bá were as involved as possible. In turn, the TV series has all the same weird ideas as the comics, which was particularly important to Way.

The story's wackiness is apparent in the show's trailer, which sees six estranged super-human family members reunite upon the passing of their adoptive father Sir Reginald Hargreeves. Coincidentally the superhero reunion comes as the threat of an apocalypse arrives, with only eight days to stop it -- so the team immediately gets to work. The trailer also features Way's electric cover of The Bangles' "Hazy Shade Of Winter," setting the tone for the show's facetious vibe and extreme happenings -- as well as his own music the show has inspired.

Ahead of the trailer's release, Way chatted with Billboard about bringing The Umbrella Academy to life on screen, the musical aspect of the show, and why the world is ready for a team of flawed superheroes.

You’ve said that one of your favorite things about the series is that the showrunners "kept the weird ideas." Was that something you were concerned about when the show was first conceptualized?

That was a concern of mine way back when Universal Pictures had it as a film option. At the time, the world really wasn’t ready for something like Umbrella Academy, so there were some directions that Universal had gone with it to take some of the weirdness out, and I wasn’t really happy about that. But later on, years passed, and now the world is ready for something deeper on superheroes, and they’re ready to move past the origin story.

What makes you feel like the world is ready now for a superhero series like this?

In the 10 years that’s been out, we’ve had a lot of superhero movies, and I feel like some of them kept progressing forward and forward to the point where now we see a Marvel film and they’re really bringing Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s world to life. It’s really like a living, breathing comic book now. So people are ready to go deeper on superheroes to deal with dysfunction and demons and addiction, but you won’t really find a comic going so deep in a mainstream comic.

You've also said that comics were your first exposure to things like mental health awareness and group therapy – would you say that The Umbrella Academy TV show has brought a new layer to that?

Yes, I think in some ways it does deal with mental health, and it deals with a lot of really fractured individuals. It’s funny -- we haven’t seen it yet in the comic, but the Umbrella Academy is a group of people that can really benefit from group therapy.

Are there any characters you’re particularly excited about?

I really like how Steve [Blackman] handled Spaceboy. At first he kind of pitched me on it and I was like, “Oh, I don’t know if that’s going to work,” and then it worked extremely well. I think he made that character understandable to a broad audience. Also, Spaceboy is wearing clothes. The funny thing about that is that no only does it make more sense to me that he’s wearing clothes, it really adds to the character.

Some of the characters went in a little bit of a different direction, like Klaus in the comics is this kind of dry goth, and he’s a little bit sexier in the show. The way Robert plays him is sexier and maybe a little more rock ‘n’ roll.

But they all did a phenomenal job. And they really cared about this. It was so wonderful to watch this cast work and bring their own ideas to these roles. They all had ideas, and they made them even more fleshed out. And the cast gets along wonderfully, which I’ve been told is not a common thing [Laughs]. Apparently they were going to dinner together all the time. They have some really hard scenes together in the show, and I’m like, “Man, how are they going to dinner after this?”

The show also stars Mary J. Blige as Cha-Cha. How do you feel about how she brought that character to life, especially because it's a male in the comic book?

I was so incredibly floored and blown away that she even wanted to have anything to do with something that I was making doodles of on airplanes. I love the fact that Cha-Cha is a woman and I love that it’s Mary. She brings so much to the role. It’s amazing.

One of the really great differences of the show is that it’s more diverse in its casting than the source material. And that was something that we talked about very early on that we wanted to correct from the source material. It was the perfect scenario for that to happen because they were all adopted, so it was kind of a no-brainer. I think diversity is the best change.

How does what you envisioned for the comic when you first started writing it compare to how it ended up, both in its storyline and in the TV show?

The thing I like the most about the show is that the core of it is really there -- the dysfunction and the relationships and the characters. To me, it was always about the characters. Even back then when I was first conceptualizing these characters -- I value characters so much and they drive the story.

[As for what’s] changed, I’m writing Hotel Oblivion right now, and it reflects more who I am in my 40s than who I was in my 30s, when I was writing the last ones. I have a road map of eight graphic novels total when all is said and done, and some of these things have changed so many times. There was such a gap that every time I went to work on Hotel Oblivion again, that I needed to make it new, fresh, and reflect who I am. I think, in ways, the show really does that. It looks at this original source material, but it updates it in a lot of ways. Even though it’s a timeless thing, it feels very current.

Can you give an example of how who you are in your 40s impacted the story compared to who you were in your 30s?

[The characters] deal with trauma and their past a little differently now. You understand your childhood a bit better as you hit your 40s, and I think they’re all starting to understand their childhood a bit better. They’re starting to really ask themselves questions about Hargreeves and what he was really doing -- they’re constantly learning things about their father.

I figured fatherhood probably also had an impact on how the story has continued.

Absolutely. Becoming a parent is the key to understanding your own parents.

You've also previously alluded that real-world political events have had an impact on how this storyline has unfolded. Can you elaborate on that?

It’s crazy -- [the story] has had to change, but had we never taken a break from Umbrella Academy the comic, I think we would’ve looked like total geniuses or storytellers with where the story was heading politically [Laughs]. Politics were becoming a factor in Umbrella Academy, but all those notes and ideas were from the Obama era. We’ll still see that, but it’s not an accurate portrayal by far of our current climate and the country.

[The show] says some things, because good art talks about what’s going on in the world sometimes. But there’s a definite division that happens in the comic series, and politics become a factor in the middle of this story arc. Then toward the end of the graphic novels, it starts to shift in a different direction. So there is kind of a shift in the middle of the story that deals with America in a big way.

Well and even just in the trailer, there’s an apocalypse, and some people may be feeling like there’s an apocalypse coming with our current state of the world [Laughs].

Absolutely. That apocalypse really exists because of what I witnessed with 9/11, which is kind of another reason why I started [My Chemical Romance]. I was writing Umbrella Academy when we were working on The Black Parade, and that very first video that Sam Bayer directed ["Welcome To The Black Parade"], it kind of looks like 9/11 and Ground Zero. And then when you see the apocalypse in Umbrella Academy when Number Five goes back there, it kind of looks like Ground Zero. Reflections of real-world stuff.

And yeah, you’re totally right, people are probably afraid there might be an apocalypse at some point given the state of the world, so in that way, yeah, a decade later, it’s really relevant, the end of the world.

Also featured in the trailer is your cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter." "I Think We're Alone Now" was featured in the initial teaser for the Netflix series as well -- is '80s music going to play a role in soundtracking the show?

The soundtrack really runs this whole spectrum. If you asked me when I was writing the comic, the ‘90s were a big part of the soundtrack in my head: The Pixies and Teenage Fanclub, that kind of stuff. Steve has a very distinct idea of what he wants the songs to be, because he writes the songs into the script -- so I didn’t get to weigh in very much on the soundtrack of the show.

[“Hazy Shade of Winter”] was a situation where I got to weigh in because we needed a song for the trailer, and I suggested we do “Hazy Shade of Winter” the way The Bangles did it for the Less Than Zero soundtrack and use them as a guide, and he loved it.

We have Jeff Russo doing the score, and he did an amazing job. There were very early conversations about me potentially scoring, but there was no way given my schedule that would work. But I’m sure down the line I’ll be covering more songs for the show.

Has the TV adaptation inspired any music of your own?

It has. When I was on set the very first day and we were watching the very first shot which was a scene between Ellen [Page, who plays Vanya] and Aidan [Gallagher, who plays Number Five], it’s the very last shot of the pilot and they’re talking about the end of the world and it’s supposed to cut to black. And a song popped into my head for that, and I started writing this song that I ended up recording. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s a song I would love to give to the show.

Are you doing anything else music-related at the moment? Or just focusing on Umbrella Academy?

I’ve been writing a lot. There’s three things that are kind of the focus of my life besides family as being the most important thing. One, writing these two comics I write, Umbrella Academy and Doom Patrol. Two, making music once a week and releasing new songs -- I was trying to do it every month but it’s now going to turn into longer gaps of releasing songs. And then my well-being is the other thing, like my physical fitness and my diet, making big life changes and quitting smoking, things like that. I did not take care of myself for the last two, three years writing comic books. I’m starting to really take care of myself again.

[jacewilliams1]

Flight of a lifetime—my 8,000-mile trip around Australia

To fly around Australia was not an idea that happened upon me overnight. It was an idea hatched in childhood, and ultimately flown solo decades later. Eight months in planning and eighteen days in execution, I suspect the planning would have been somewhat quicker if it had not grown into such a public exercise with such a genuine, interested following.

The Australian centenary of flight was an appropriate milestone to commemorate, but it also provided an excellent baseline to highlight just how far aviation had come in one hundred years. True, I covered around 13,000 kilometres across both remote and overwater segments, but the task was nothing beyond the level of an appropriately licensed and experienced private pilot. With all of the modern infrastructure, technology and support at our fingertips, what would have been a major undertaking even fifty years ago, is now relatively straightforward.

That Jabiru would take the author all around Australia, including Canberra. (Photo: Paul Sadler)

With planning complete and the all-Australian Jabiru J230D aircraft assembled and decked out in her “There and Back” scheme, the planets aligned to promise an on-schedule departure on May 5. In the days preceding, there were numerous media commitments to attend to, but more importantly, technical matters to become familiar with, from spark plugs to changing a wheel. There is no substitute for “hands-on” time with your aeroplane and fortunately, I was never called upon to repeat the tasks in the field as the Jabiru happily hummed its way around the country.

The day before departure saw low, grey, and wet skies over Bundaberg. However, the synoptic weather chart suggested that the trough may move out to sea and a big, happy high pressure system would dominate at least the first few days of my flight. The chart was right, and May 5 dawned without a cloud in the sky and my departure from Bert Hinkler’s hometown was set for 10am.

After a few final formalities, I departed Bundaberg right on time and watched the country town fall away to my left as I initially set course to dawdle along the picturesque coastline. It was only when the aircraft was established in level flight and the “housekeeping” had been attended to that I actually realised that the “There and Back” journey was finally underway. It was a great sense of elation with a twinge of, “Wow, it’s a long way to go!,: when I thought of my wife and kids. Yet as I scanned the crystal skies above, I just knew that this would be a flight to remember.

The route was loosely based upon points of Australian aviation significance: from Longreach, the home of QANTAS, to Minlaton, home to the oft overlooked pioneer, Harry Butler. Yet there were places of personal significance too. From Kununurra and the Kimberleys, where I had flown as a young charter pilot, to Toowoomba, where my father was laid to rest twenty years ago. The selection of these waypoints made each leg interesting and offered a carrot at the end of each day’s flying. Rather than being merely a long-distance flight, it was more akin to unravelling a scroll, with each new page introducing fascinating words, images and people.

Dawn over Western Australia, just one of dozens of memorable views.

In fact, it was in this way that the flight most readily exceeded expectations. After such thorough planning, there were very few surprises in terms of aircraft performance, airspace or procedures. However, no matter how imaginative I may have been, I could never have grasped the intangible beauty of the land and the warmth of people that I encountered. For this reason alone, I would encourage pilots, one and all, to set course far beyond their regular boundaries at least once.

Along the way I transited most forms of airspace, varying from civil to military and strictly controlled to the wide-open spaces. Occasionally an air traffic controller would hesitate in response to the RA-Aus call-sign, but even so there is an ease about traversing this great country by air that is joyful. And at the end of the sector, the little Jabiru could be found parked beside a towering Boeing 747 or an air force F/A-18 Hornet fighter. The company it kept was as wide-ranging as the country over which it flew.

Over the course of such a flight, it is the diversity of the scenery that can leave an overwhelming impression. That is not to say that there are not individual sights that take the breath away. The majestic Lake Argyle in the Kimberley region or the serene endlessness of the Nullarbor Plain are both very moving in their own special way. However, when you can depart the coastal port of Broome over pristine aqua waters and track along pure white beaches before striking the rustic reds of the Pilbara within an hour, it is nothing short of inspiring. This diversity of colour, wildlife, and inhabitation essentially captures both ends of the Australian scenic spectrum.

To take in such a view from between 500 and 5,000 feet enables one to really embrace the richness of the terrain. The land below has real detail and the passage of the shadows as the day develops provides yet another perspective on the rich canvas below. There are long abandoned ruins of long forgotten towns and flocks of birds that give the impression of a vast blanket skimming from paddock to paddock.

Some towns almost seemed to be vanishing into the outback.

The ruins of towns would pique my interest and I would wheel the Jabiru around and look down along the line of the wing which seemed to point at the structures below me. I would ponder how it was once a thriving community of miners or farmers, now long gone. The buildings remain, blending back into the outback sands out of which they grew. Corrugated tin roofing flapped in the breeze and empty door frames, open to the drifting sands. Only the stone walls seemed to offer any resistance to the onslaught of time and nature.

From above they stood so alone and yet undoubtedly once played host to hilarity, hope, and heartache in grander times. All around the eye can see nothing but the horizon; still these pioneers staked their claim in this very spot. Now many undoubtedly lay in tiny graves on the small ridge a few miles up the road. I could not help but wonder what stories these walls once told, now fallen silent and their words lost in time.

Yet even the so-called “remote” regions stimulate the senses with their jagged, jutting ridges and gun-barrel roads between distant settlements. And within these towns are people so unaffected by the frantic pace of urban reality. Calm and content, inhabiting settlements that have changed little over recent times, yet generous beyond compare. At Murchison Station near Kalbarri in Western Australia I had one such experience.

Over 150 years old, the station had once played host to the famed aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, while I spent the night in shearing sheds of convict vintage. It was a small room with a tiny single window and locks on the outside of the door to contain the convicts who had constructed the dwelling. Nearby, two fallen aviators from 90 years ago are buried and the experience of visiting their graves will not soon be forgotten. My hosts were more like old friends, free of false pretension but long on sincerity and warmth. Their manner reflected the very honest nature of the land on which they dwell.

The next morning too was special. Woken in the pre-dawn hours by the wind rattling the tin roof, the world was still asleep as we came to a halt at the tiny country airport. The night was moonless, and the only illumination was the receding red taillights of the departing truck back to Murchison and the torch in my right hand. The aircraft was still at rest, its wings tethered against the wind and its tail jutting into the undergrowth. And then the wind stopped.

The colors of Australia never disappoint.

There I stood, alone and miles from anywhere as the first tinges of dawn teased at the horizon. I lowered down and sat on my canvas kitbag, a lone audience to the greatest show on earth. Gradually the shards of light became a glowing arc, silhouetting the Jabiru, sparse vegetation and occasional grazing kangaroo against the backdrop. Void of sound, my senses were overwhelmed by the developing canvas in front of me.

Yet beyond the beauty, I always maintained the aviator’s sense of respect. The terrain below can at any time become a landing field for the pilot of a single-engined aeroplane. To this end, the land and the nearest water were endlessly assessed in case the untoward occur. Conversely, flying over Bass Strait or the Spencer Gulf, I was continually aware of the distance to my next landfall. While hypothermia was the greatest threat over the Strait, it was the mammoth sharks that provided the challenge if I ditched in the Gulf.

As part of my preparation, the Jabiru was stocked with supplies to cater for these contingencies. From emergency rations and fresh water, to space blankets, waterproof matches and life jackets. Survival gear was packed for minimum weight, but maximum effect. Certain essential items were also very close at hand in a bright red “grab bag” should egress from the aircraft be particularly rapid for some reason. Furthermore, the aircraft was equipped with a satellite tracking system with an alert mode, dual VHF radios, transponder, and an emergency beacon. In conjunction with the submission of detailed flight plans, I was always confident that I would not perish under the wing like so many pioneer aviators had done decades before. And yet, it is sound airmanship to cater for the worst and be thankful for the best.

Along the way I was struck by the warmth of the people everywhere that I landed. They were interested in where I had been and where I was going and extended a generous hand in friendship to often help me on the way in the form of a meal or a bed for the night. Many lived far from the cities and relied on a weekly delivery of stores for their supplies and yet they still welcomed a stranger like me at their table. And everywhere the work of the Royal Flying Doctor Service was spoken of with the highest praise, always providing a common thread between me and my hosts.

Some airports were large and modern; some were not.

The weather was one variable beyond my control and planning, other than the month of May historically providing fine weather and favourable winds. However, in this area I was absolutely blessed. The high-pressure system loitered over the inland for so long, I thought it had been tethered there and not only provided fair weather, but tailwinds across the Top End of the country. From the flight’s mid-point at Perth in Western Australia, I always seemed to be a couple of days ahead of troughs, fronts and poor weather.

There was a little weather to dodge over the stretch of water between the mainland and Tasmania, but nothing significant. Low cloud near the nation’s capital, Canberra, and storms near Gunnedah provided the only real hindrance, but otherwise it was stress-free visual flying. I’d like to take credit for those clear, blue skies, but that area is well beyond my expertise.

The other variable that lay beyond my scope of influence was aircraft reliability. Like the weather, the Jabiru J230 did not miss a beat and performed at better than book figures for the entire trip. Sipping around 23 litres per hour to achieve nearly two miles per minute, the Jabiru made an efficient vehicle in which to circumnavigate the nation. Its high wing both afforded shade and an ideal view of the grand display below. With two seats, the space to the rear provided ample room for all of my equipment and never presented a weight issue that allowed for anything less than full tanks for every departure. It was like a well finished utility vehicle that never had to deal with the bumps in the road when venturing cross country.

Aside from an oil change, filters, and the tyre pressures being topped up in Perth, there was no need for additional maintenance for the entire flight. Each day I would remove the cowls for a closer look and each day I found an incredibly clean engine ready for another day’s work. From icy frosts to sweltering heat, the little machine kept on performing and I played my part by always treating the aircraft and its engine with due respect.

What a welcoming committee.

When Runway 14 loomed large in the windscreen at Bundaberg for the final landing, I reminded myself that the flight wasn’t over yet. However, when the aircraft was parked and the propeller stopped, I allowed myself a sigh of mixed relief and reflection. Beyond that there were family and friends there to greet me and media to speak with. A reception was held at the Hinkler Hall of Aviation and in the shadow of my hero’s memorabilia I enjoyed a wonderful afternoon of catching up with one and all. Along the way the flight had reached its target of $10,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and for me that was a personal goal that meant so much.

Once the dust had settled and I had retired to a house on the coast with my family, I had the first real chance to absorb what had transpired over the preceding weeks. I seemed to have endless tales and humorous anecdotes of the people and places I had encountered. My family listened intently and ultimately, they drew the same conclusions as the media and enquired, “Where are you off to next?” With all honesty, I replied that I really couldn’t say, although I would dearly enjoy stretching the borders once again.

The freedom of flight is something that is so accessible to us in this modern day. To take the road less travelled amongst the cumulus and share the experience with those along the way is something I cannot recommend highly enough. It is an experience that I would dearly love to pursue again. Yet, whatever future flights and adventures may rise above the horizon and wherever those journeys may subsequently take me, I will never forget the month of May when I decided to simply fly “There and Back.”

The post Flight of a lifetime—my 8,000-mile trip around Australia appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/07/flight-of-a-lifetime-my-8000-mile-trip-around-australia/

[aion-rsa]

New Power Rangers Showrunner Reveals Dino Fury Plans

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Back in January fans of Power Rangers learned through an IMDB post that Simon Bennett, director of many Ninja Steel and Beast Morphers episodes and producer of several well-known New Zealand dramas, had “taken over the reins as EP (executive producer) of Hasbro’s famed Power Rangers TV series.” He later stated that he was also the showrunner as well. 

At the time this left fans a bit confused since Chip Lynn, who’d worked on the show back in the 90’s and returned in 2015 for Dino Charge, was the executive producer. While TV shows having two executive producers isn’t uncommon the whole situation was further muddled by comments from former Power Rangers actor Austin St. John. At at a convention appearance he started that Lynn was “phasing out” of his role on the show. Fans were left wondering who was in control of Power Rangers’ production and could Bennett’s new position mean a new creative era for the show? 

Thankfully we were able to clear up many of these questions with Bennett who not only talked with us about how he got the role of showrunner on Power Rangers but also his plans for the upcoming season and how Lynn will be involved in Power Rangers Dino Fury.

DEN OF GEEK: What landed you the role of the new showrunner of Power Rangers?

SIMON BENNETT: Well, I didn’t make the decision. I can’t say exactly what the reason was other than I had worked as a director on the show for four years on both Ninja Steel and Beast Morphers. Prior to that, I have a long track record in the New Zealand screen industry as a director and creative producer. I think the powers that be probably thought my particular skillset was right for the role when it came up. And so, I was approached, I was shoulder tapped and asked if I might possibly be interested and I jumped at the opportunity.

Partly because as a director, you have limited control of the project you’re working on. You are given the scripts; you have two weeks to shoot them and to bring them into some sort of reality. Then you walk away again because the post production, which is long on a show like Power Rangers, is in the hands of the executive producer.

Directing is a lot of fun and I love it, but it’s only a small part of the process of making a show like Power Rangers. So I am a kind of polite megalomaniac in a way, the opportunity to have involvement with all aspects of the show, from the writing through to the final visual effects and sound mix was too good to pass up.

So for all the fans out there who’ve commented about you directing episodes with lots of fart jokes in them, you had no control over that. You just had the script and you had to do it the best you could.

(laughs) I had the script and I had to make it work. And you know, that’s a lot of fun. One of the things that I love about Power Rangers is the challenges that every script throws out. “How can I possibly make this work?” is one of the questions. You’re given the scripts; you have eight days to prep. When you first read the scripts on day one of prep, you go, “Oh my goodness, how on earth are we going to achieve that?” A lot of ingenuity in collaboration with very clever people and all aspects of the show goes into bringing these things to life and making them happen.

You had mentioned on Twitter that you and Chip Lynn are working closely together on the development of the new season. Is Chip going to be involved in the season once it starts production?

Well, Chip has been in New Zealand, as I have, pretty much for the last year or so that we’ve been developing the new season. He’s been going backwards and forth to the States until the COVID scenario made that increasingly difficult. There’s been a kind of handover going on. Once we go into production on the next season, Chip will be based in the States and I will be based in New Zealand, running the production, running the show. Chip will still be working on the show and he and I are both continuing to work closely with the writers on the scripts.

We’re well into writing the new season. In fact, we started pretty much as soon as shooting finished on Beast Morphers. Way back last May we began developing the new season. So as far as scripts for the new season goes, they’re advanced and looking exciting.

Has it always been this way where the scripts are developed so far ahead of when you actually shoot or is that a more current development?

I think that’s the case. It takes a long time. It’s not quick to write these scripts. There are a lot of complexities and also the adaptation of the Sentai is tricky as well because we have to retrofit Power Rangers around an existing Japanese TV show. We have to spend quite a lot of time looking at the episodes that exist of the particular Sentai season that we’re going to adapt, and looking at the world that the Japanese show has created, like the design and all the elements and the range of characters. Then we have to think about how what they have given us might work for an American audience and what might not work. Because there are couple of differences between Japan and the States and different levels of what works for two-to-six year olds, which is our target audience, and different cultural expectations.

Read more

TV

Power Rangers and How It Adapted From Super Sentai

By Shamus Kelley

We have to build a world that mirrors what Sentai has already created but it’s got to be fascinating and intriguing for our audience and also generate potential for the number of episodes that we’re going to write. Then once the world and the characters are designed, then we have to come up, obviously, with some arcs that run across the season, but also strong individual stories because there’s always been a directive that episodes of Power Rangers have to work on a standalone basis. There’s not a huge appetite for serial threads. Although the writers do try and sneak in Easter eggs for people who like to watch them in sequence and work out what’s going to happen next and what the clues are.

Obviously the show is made for two-to-six year olds, but then there are a lot of adult fans of the show as well. How do you balance making it for kids, because that’s whom it’s mainly for, but also knowing that there are a bunch of older fans watching it? How do you balance those two audiences or do you just focus more on the kids?

It’s tricky. It really is a challenge because you don’t want to neglect the adult fans either because they are an important and loyal part of the audience for the show. They’re also a very vocal audience because they make their opinions known loudly and clearly online, particularly. I’ve worked on other long running TV shows and I think it’s true to say that the fandom always holds the earlier episodes with a huge amount of fondness and nostalgia because it was when they first fell in love with the show and they were watching it as a kid. It’s a bit like a relationship. You look back on the honeymoon phase with a huge amount of affection and with rose-tinted spectacles, and I think that’s the case with any long-running TV show. And you do learn to accept that, however inventive you might be, whatever great ideas you think up and how modern and exciting you are? You’re unlikely to be able to measure up to the golden memories that a lot of the super fans actually have.

That’s just a given. Having said that, we always try and reward the loyal, long-standing audience members with some things that are only going to mean anything to them. They won’t mean much to the younger audience who are only watching the show for the first time but it’s a juggling act. It always is. The writers here in New Zealand, they are probably of a similar age to a lot of the long running fans and they are fans of the show themselves and they loved the canon lore. We’re always trying to throw in rewards for people who have been long running fans of the show.

In terms of Dino Fury, what do you plan to bring to Power Rangers that’s different from before?

Well, I can’t say anything about the new season and because it’s top secret, obviously. I mean, people know that Ryusoulger is the Japanese Sentai that we’re adapting and that season is dinosaur-themed.

In terms of what I intend to bring to the show? You know, there are a lot of overlords for someone in my position, I don’t have carte blanche to be able to say, okay, let’s make this show unique, different, and my vision, that’s not the way television works. It’s a very collaborative medium. And there are a lot of people who have input into the tone and what the show is. And so I certainly wouldn’t go into this wanting to reinvent the wheel or rock the boat.

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TV

The Top 54 Power Rangers Episodes That Will Make You a Fan

By Shamus Kelley

What I do hope to do is come up with an exciting world, a bunch of compelling characters, a whole lot of episodes that keep people hooked and on the edge of their seat and some surprises and twists and turns along the way.

What I will be doing is bringing my skill as a drama producer and director to bear on the show and make sure the standards in my view remains consistently high. That’s my job. What I see one of the main jobs of a creative producer being is to work closely with the writers, to completely understand the vision and the intent behind the stories. Then make sure that every single person who works on the show shares that vision so that what we end up with is consistent, rather than a hodgepodge of slightly mismatched ideas. I follow it right through to the end of the process.

COVID-19 has affected the entire world but how has it impacted Power Rangers specifically?

From a practical point of view, it has been a challenge. New Zealand went into a complete lockdown for about six weeks, which meant that we were all working from home. Luckily, we were able to stay productive because we were in the development phase of the show. So we kept writing stories and scripts. We were Zooming many times a day as part of that process. We had to delay production by a couple of months because we didn’t know how things were going to proceed.

At one stage it didn’t look as if we’d be able to shoot because of the level of lockdown, but where we’re at in New Zealand now, it’s pretty much life as normal here because the virus has been eliminated, apart from a few cases who show up at the border from returning New Zealanders. There is a 14-day quarantine for anyone who comes into the country and everyone has to be tested twice during that period so they’re finding the few cases that are coming into the country.

Read more

TV

Power Rangers Seasons We Never Saw

By Shamus Kelley

As far as anyone knows, despite a huge amount of testing, there’s no community transmission in New Zealand. So we’re very lucky in that regard and it means that we will be going ahead with the production. Though there are certain logistical issues involved in bringing people into the country.

As far as this show is concerned, I think it would be imprudent to actually try and reflect what is happening now with COVID-19 in stories and scripts that are going to be on air in a year or so’s time because the world is changing so fast. It’s unlikely to be an accurate reflection then of what is the case. And also, by the time COVID-19 happened, we were well on the way with writing the show.

Is that why it was reported that casting sides for the main characters were being posted in New Zealand? Did COVID-19 have to do with that?

I think in previous years, possibly not the last two seasons, but in previous seasons, the casting sides went out to New Zealand as well. But yes, the Coronavirus meant that we have been casting for all the characters in New Zealand, as well as in the U.S. and Australia.

Power Rangers is a very diverse series. It’s one of the most diverse series on air but how do you plan to increase the diversity, not just in front of the camera, but behind the camera as well?

That’s a tricky question. I would say that there is diversity behind the camera, as well as in front of the camera. In terms of the cast, obviously it’s a diverse group of people reflecting the diversity that we find in the world. There’s a huge range of different ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, and other forms of diversity involved in the crew and making the show in New Zealand. New Zealand is a very liberal country and issues like gender fluidity, sexuality, ethnicity, they really don’t affect the making of the show. I would say the film industry here is incredibly diverse and open. 

Are there any plans to include more representation, as you said, of different sexualities and gender fluidity in Dino Fury’s characters?

I think I would just have to say watch and wait. I can’t answer that question because of confidentiality issues. You just have to wait to see.

You’ve been directing on the show for some time but now you’re a much bigger creative force as a showrunner. What message do you have to the fans as the newest showrunner for Power Rangers?

Have faith in the strength of the Power Rangers franchise and brand. This is a very powerful and long-lived thing, and it works. The people who are working on the show, work on it with a huge amount of love and passion and attention to detail and faith in the brand and we will bring that passion to bear on the new season. I hope that the fans who watch the show who read Den of Geek will get as much pleasure from what we bring to the screen as we do in (making) it.

The post New Power Rangers Showrunner Reveals Dino Fury Plans appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2VxYgSo

[gta-5-cheats]

The X-Files, Fight Club, and More – The Weekend Chill

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The X-Files, Fight Club, and More – The Weekend Chill

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Last Friday, Syfy gave us a new image and premiere date for Krypton, the Superman prequel series set on his native planet about 200 years before his birth. It’ll arrive March 21.

Over the weekend, John Williams revealed in an interview that he’d be composing a theme for Solo: A Star Wars Story. The rest of the score is still being handled by John Powell. The standalone Han Solo film releases May 25.

The 32 Most Anticipated Movies of 2018

On Tuesday, Netflix released a brief teaser for A Series of Unfortunate Events season 2, starring Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf. The show returns March 30, and adapts books five to nine.

Later that day, Paramount announced that the next Cloverfield movie – which may or may not be called God Particle – has been moved back to April 20 from February. The film stars Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw among others.

On Wednesday, Netflix said that a Bright sequel is in the works, with stars Will Smith and Joel Edgerton along with director David Ayer all attached. This confirms the Bloomberg report from two weeks ago.

That’s all the entertainment news for this week. Welcome back to The Weekend Chill, your one-stop destination for what to watch, play, or listen to this weekend. Here are the best picks:

TV: The X-Files Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny reprise their roles as FBI special agents for an eleventh year in the second year of the show’s revival era, whose rating success (despite negative critical reception) convinced Fox to greenlit a 10-episode new season. The premiere and finale will focus on the long-arc storyline, with the other episodes being standalone.

Recurring and guest stars include Annabeth Gish, Robbie Amell, Lauren Ambrose, Karin Konoval, Barbara Hershey, and Haley Joel Osment. Scully (Anderson) and Mulder (Duchovny) attempt to locate their son at the beginning of the series, while battling a mysterious organisation led by Erika Price (Hershey).

The X-Files season 1 has gotten average to good reviews from critics, with Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff surprised “how rejuvenated it feels”, and terming it “a damn sight better than the 2016 one”. Uproxx’s Alan Sepinwall concurred with VanDerWerff that it’s not anywhere near its season-three peak, but “it’s much better than it has any business being, particularly given what we got two years ago”.

The Gadgets 360 Winter 2018 TV Guide

How to access: Hotstar Time commitment: 40 minutes

Grown-ish In the penultimate episode of the third season of ABC’s popular African-American family sitcom Black-ish, the eldest daughter Zoey Johnson (Yar Shahidi) went off to college. Usually, audiences would just see less of her from the next season – as has become the case with the ongoing season 4 – but here, she’s gotten her own spin-off.

Stylised like the original, Grown-ish follows Zoey as she begins her freshman year at Southern California University. Joining her is Charlie Telphy (Deon Cole) – now part of Black-ish’s main cast – f and Aaron (Trevor Jackson), who has a recurring role on Black-ish. New cast members include Francia Raisa, Chris Parnell, Emily Arlook, and Jordan Buhat.

Reviews for the show’s first season – critics have seen a few episode – are mostly positive, with EW’s Dana Schwartz praising Shahidi’s chemistry with her Latina Republican roommate Ana (Raisa) and the snappy dialogue, while Variety’s Maureen Ryan called it “a smart, breezy expansion of the Black-ish family”.

How to access: Freeform Time commitment: 1 hour first week, 30 minutes thereafter

Rotten Do you like true crime shows and are concerned about food production? This Netflix original documentary series is tailored especially for you then. Rotten focuses on the growing global food industry, exposing the corruption, waste and dangers of your everyday eating habits. “The food industry is under full-scale assault,” the trailer narrates. “The crisis is global.”

Episodes will look at the honey industry – a scam known as Honeygate that involved smuggling in inferior honey from China via Australia to the US – alongside the rise of severe food allergies, chicken farms, organic and unpasteurized milk, and regulation of the fishing industry. The show comes from the same production company that regularly collaborates with Anthony Bourdain.

“In a world where huge global supply-chains are increasingly intertwined and consolidated, this series starts on your dinner plate… and follows the money to the shocking consequences – intended or not – of regulation, innovation and greed,” Netflix’s official description for Rotten reads.

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How to access: Netflix Time commitment: 6 hours

Movies: Fight Club We’re going to talk about Fight Club (sorry). The film that gave the world’s youth endlessly-quotable lines, that gave the generation some good values and some screwed-up ones, and that inspired foolish individuals to start their own fight clubs, completely missing the point the film – directed by David Fincher, and based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel – was trying to make.

For the unaware, Fight Club stars Edward Norton as the unnamed protagonist and narrator, who’s disgruntled with his white-collar job. He visits support groups for terminal disease patients just to have someone to talk to. He meets Brad Pitt’s soap salesman on a flight one day, and starts a “fight club” with him, where they organise bare-knuckle boxing matches for people like them.

Fight Club was one of the most controversial films of the year in 1999, and though it received polarising reception from critics, it has gone on to become one of the greatest films of its time. Pitt’s acting, Fincher’s work, and the anti-consumerism message make it a must-watch.

How to access: Amazon Prime Video Time commitment: 2 hours and 19 minutes

L.A. Confidential Two decades on, it’s still a surprise that L.A. Confidential – a brilliantly written, powerfully acted, and gritty depiction of 1953 Los Angeles mixing police corruption and Hollywood – lost most Oscar categories it was nominated in to Titanic. (If you love Titanic, please go away.) But it did pick up two very well-deserved awards, Best Screenplay and Kim Basinger for Best Supporting Actress.

Basinger plays a call girl who looks a lot like a popular film star, and she becomes central to an investigation into a multiple murder at a coffee shop after two detectives – Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) – discover ties to the call girl service operator. The film also stars Kevin Spacey as a “Hollywood” detective, so whether that influences your decision to watch it given the recent revelations, is up to you.

L.A. Confidential is one of the best films of its era, with a 99 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 90 score on Metacritic. It’s dark, cynical, pessimistic and twisted, and it manages to craft compelling characters and wade into their psychology, while still being a taut crime thriller.

How to access: Amazon Prime Video Time commitment: 2 hours and 17 minutes

Fantastic Mr. Fox Wes Anderson has a new stop-motion animated feature on the way, and his previous venture – a comedy based on Roald Dahl’s children’s book about a fox who steals food from three mean and wealthy farmers – is a fantastic (pardon us) family adventure all-around. It’s also got a terrific voice cast: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson among others.

Clooney and Streep voice Mr. and Mrs. Fox, who’ve built a peaceful life for themselves after time as thieves. But after 12 years, Mr. Fox’s animal instincts pull him back into his old life as a chicken thief, which puts not just his family but the whole animal community at risk. The farmers are determined to catch him at any cost, which forces the Foxes underground.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a whole-hearted funny romp for people of all ages, full of personality, charm, wit and emotional undercurrents, and brought to life beautifully by set designers and animation directors, alongside a wonderful score by Alexandre Desplat.

How to access: Amazon Prime Video Time commitment: 1 hour and 26 minutes

Other mentions: For those who’ve seen every movie listed above, and want something more recent, there are a few choices on Blu-ray: the Tom Cruise-starrer American Made, based on the true story of a pilot who became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel in the 80s; Emma Stone and Steve Carrell in Battle of the Sexes, which is loosely based on the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs; and Ben Stiller in Brad’s Status, where he re-examines his life while on a college tour with his son.

If you’re on the lookout for more new TV, Showtime has a coming-of-age drama from Lena Waithe – Emmy-winner with Aziz Ansari for Master of None season 2’s “Thanksgiving” episode – called The Chi, with rapper Common as an executive producer. It’s set in the South Side of Chicago with Jason Mitchell (Straight Outta Compton) in the lead, who dreams of opening a restaurant. It starts Sunday in the US, and might be available on Hotstar in India, given the latter’s deal with CBS.

There’s also BBC One mini-series McMafia, inspired by journalist Misha Glenny’s book of the same name, which focuses on the British-raised son of a Russian mafia boss who’s trying to get away from the family business. You can watch it via BBC iPlayer.

Star Trek: Discovery, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, One Day at a Time, and More on Netflix in January

Beyond that, given it’s the start of the month (and year), all streaming services have added tons of new content. On Netflix, you can find the third season of Jane the Virgin; the first and only season of One Punch Man, the anime about a superhero who can kill anyone with one blow and how that depresses him, and both versions of Fullmetal Alchemist, the 2003 one that was made before the manga was complete, and the 2009 edition Brotherhood that’s more faithful to the source material.

Meanwhile, Hotstar now has every single episode of The X-Files, starting from the first episode in 1993 to the latest one that came out this week (as mentioned earlier). It has also brought back The Wire – one of the greatest series of all-time – in addition to all nine seasons of 24, and all 12 seasons of Bones.

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For the week of 2 October 2017

Three favourites for the week: Eugenic #1 by James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan, Punisher: The Platoon #1 by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov, and Slots #1 by Dan Panosian. Published by BOOM! Studios, Marvel/MAX, and Image/Skybound respectively.

Eugenic #1 is the start of the third of a thematic trilogy of end-world plague fictions (after Memetic and Cognetic) by James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan and it looks like this one might be the most outright horrific. 

Unlike the previous two stories, with Eugenic we start with a main pathogen or vector for the apocalypse already having ravaged the population. Tynion drops us into a society where the Red Cough has already killed or infected a sizable chunk of the population, leaving many still carriers for the virus, and effectively rendering the population sterile as all pregnancies seem to be stillborn. Into this chaos, a geneticist Dr. Cyrus Crane, has promised a vaccine to reverse the effects of the virus and allow people to repopulate.

This is when the real nightmare begins.

The premise for the series and the execution of the first issue is flawless. It makes us question who exactly is the “bad guy”, even when it seems like the monstrous acts are apparent. How far exactly would we go in order to ensure that things like birth defects or proclivity to certain diseases are removed from the genome, and what attachment to certain social stigma from phenotypes are allowed to remain? What happens when the children born from Crane’s vaccine mature is also a fascinating prospect for the rest of the series.

Then there’s Eryk Donovan’s art. He has a style that somewhat reminds me of Phil Hester and Ted McKeever, not quite as heavy on the use of ink and shadow and not quite as extreme in stylization, but still showing a good use of angularity, lines, and lanky features to put the reader somewhat on edge. His designs for the children are particularly effective. We see them as horrors, possibly monsters, but it will be interesting to see what happens when they become the norm, when they achieve adulthood. In a way, their appearance mirrors the classic Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder” in that in the future we will be the “freaks”.

This is some strong stuff and a good way to start the end of their apocalyptic trilogy on a high note. Highly recommended.

Punisher: The Platoon #1 is the glorious return of Garth Ennis to the Punisher. I’m of the opinion that everyone who loves comics should probably read Garth Ennis’ run on the Punisher. Particularly the “Welcome Back, Frank” storyline under the Marvel Knights banner, but especially his Punisher MAX. His work under the MAX imprint was some of the most mature, most harrowing war and crime comics that have been published. A highlight from that run was the Punisher: Born mini-series that Ennis did with Darick Robertson. It was essentially an original story for Frank, showing the events in the Vietnam War that truly shaped who the Punisher would become. It was basically a perfect melding of Ennis’ Punisher and his love for telling war stories.

Punisher: The Platoon acts as both a sequel and a prequel to Born. When I first read the announcement for this series, I wasn’t sure it was necessary, but having read the first issue, I’m glad it’s here. I’m glad Ennis is back on the Punisher, I’m glad that he’s telling this story, and I’m glad that he’s taken his experience of telling nuanced war stories over the course of the past fourteen years since Born and brought it back to the Punisher.

This first issue frames the narrative as an interview with members of Castle’s first command in Vietnam, by the apparent unseen author of the Valley Forge incident chronicled in Born, and switches back and forth from the present to the events in Vietnam. It’s interesting to see the trust Castle gives to his men, as well as the no-nonsense approach to completing objectives. The story also seeds a mystery as to where the author is getting information and how he knows about activities on the other side of the conflict.

The series reunites Ennis with one of his Punisher MAX collaborators, Goran Parlov, and the work is seamless. Parlov truly is one of the greats working in the medium and it shows in the seemingly effortless way that he makes everything from a simple bar set-up to the tunnels of Vietnam to fatigues interesting visually. I’m also highly impressed in the usually stunning work of Jordie Bellaire as she manages to make the endless amounts of green in the Vietnam war, from those fatigues to the fields and jungles, a veritable verdant variety.

This is a good start, and I’m anxious to see the rest of the story.

Slots #1 is further proof that somewhere over his many years in the industry, Dan Panosian has managed to advance to art god-tier level. I remember Panosian primarily as an inker on many ‘90s X-titles, but he’s come a long way since then. I noticed again on covers from the mid-aughts to present day and he’s developed a beautiful style. There’s hints of Alex Toth, echoes of Jack Kirby, and elements of Darwyn Cooke that result in a highly thought out style that is just a joy to look at.

The series follows Stanley Dance, a one-time boxer turned grifter, who has seemingly run out of luck (represented in story as a cache of keys) and looks like he may be working towards an ultimate checkout, when he’s contacted by an old friend for help. This help involves him returning to Vegas and sinking himself back into a world that’s changed with the times, and may also see some of his past sins catch up with him. The characters that Panosian populates the book with Stanley, Betsy, Mercy, Les, Alex, et al sound and look like they’ve walked out of a Donald Westlake novel and it at once makes them feel familiar and the world comfortable.

Slots is probably as close as we’re ever going to get to a Darwyn Cooke Parker adaptation in comics again. I consider Cooke’s work there to be about as close to a perfect comics as possible, so that’s high praise indeed. Not to put any pressure on Panosian, but I hope this series lives up to the promise in this first issue.

Quick Bits:

All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #11 shifts focus back again to the Talons, this time bringing in Richard Rider and the Nova Corps when they discover a distress signal from Rider’s brother. It’s pretty dark, actually. Darker than the usual tone of the series, which gives a fair amount of gravity to the story. It also has some great art from Roland Boschi.

| Published by Marvel

The Archies #1 picks up more or less from where the one-shot left off. It gives a decent recap, though, so you shouldn’t necessarily need to pick it up (although I do recommend it anyway for the story). Alex Segura and Matthew Rosenberg give us a what happens next after their first successful gig, with the band seemingly drifting apart. It’s fun.

| Published by Archie Comics

Astonisher #1 is the second of the Catalyst Prime series that I’ve sampled and it’s pretty damn good. Where I find Incidentals a little obtuse in its narrative style, Astonisher just gets right into the characters motivations and set-up for the wider premise. Alex de Campi sets up an interesting character in Magnus Attarian, a kind of silver spoon wunderkind that actually seems to have a modicum of genius to back up his arrogance, and makes it more interesting in the powers of travelling into individuals’ minds. Pop Mhan’s energetic art also helps convey the strangeness of the various mental landscapes and how some people are still being effected by things following the Event. All around a good start for this book.

| Published by Lion Forge / Catalyst Prime

Black Bolt #6 concludes the first story-arc with the cast’s final attempt at a prison break. This series is simply great. Saladin Ahmed is populating the book with interesting and compelling characters, giving them unique voices and attitudes, and even manages to make Crusher Creel likeable, noble even. Added to that, Christian Ward’s artwork is gorgeous, capturing much of the same beauty that he’s employed previously in his ODY-C series with Matt Fraction.

| Published by Marvel

Cannibal #8 is one hell of a gut punch. As the second story-arc comes to a close, resolutions again aren’t necessarily happy or optimistic. Brian Buccellato and Jennifer Young again have the characters display a kind of bleak pragmatism as they deal with the fallout of Danny’s public revelation of cannibalism and Jolene’s return to town.

| Published by Image

Eleanor & The Egret #4 is the penultimate issue in this odd and whimsical series. This issue focuses on Detective Belanger, having been fired from his position due to what they see as gross incompetence, as he encounters the art-eating egret himself. John Layman and Sam Kieth’s story is weird, but highly enjoyable.

| Published by AfterShock

Elsewhere #3 is still as good as the previous issues, but it brings to light its pacing a wee bit more than the first two issues. It’s relatively slow in advancing plot, operating more like ten minute intervals between commercial breaks of a television series. By no means whatsoever does that mean it’s bad, it’s not, Jay Faerber and Sumeyye Kesgin have something wonderful on their hands here, just that it’s a very measured pace.

| Published by Image

Extremity #7 still feels like Ronin-era Frank Miller, when he was highly influenced by Katsuhiro Otomo and Goseki Kojima and it was showing in his work. Though Daniel Warren Johnson also gives a fair bit more depth to the characters and story. 

| Published by Image / Skybound

Giants Days #31 continues Daisy’s war with her (former) roommates over her relationship with Ingrid. It’s disappointing to see her run from her problems at first and not recognize the negative impact that Ingrid has had on Susan and Esther, especially in regards to financial impositions, but I suppose often times a “first love” is blind.

| Published by BOOM! Entertainment / Boom! Box

Hack/Slash vs. Vampirella #1 has some amazing artwork. Rapha Lobosco has a style similar to Eduardo Risso and it perfectly suits the dark, bloody story that Shawn Aldridge is telling here.

| Published by Dynamite

Hawkeye #11 gives us the final confrontation between Kate and Masque!Kate and it’s pretty impressive. Leonardo Romero’s layouts and action choreography for the fights, especially atop the Hollywood Sign, are wonderful. How Kate handles the fight with Madame Masque is also interesting. Instead of just fisticuffs, Kelly Thompson presents her with reason, humour, and compassion towards Masque’s situation, that helps differentiate her from how she perceives her father and villainy in general.

| Published by Marvel

Hillbilly #8 has a nice back-up story illustrated by Simone Di Meo. At its heart it’s a ghost story, but there’s also an interesting bit of comeuppance of one’s “betters” in many morality tales. Like Eric Powell’s main narrative of Rondel, this is good stuff.

| Published by Albatross Funnybooks

Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Star Wars: Captain Phasma #3 further underlines Phasma’s willingness to do or say anything to get what she wants. The pilot compliments Phasma on a rousing speech to the refugees on Luprora, only to discover that it was empty, just words in order to get the people to do Phasma’s bidding. It’s interesting to see when you remember that Phasma’s whole reason for being here is a dogged determination to capture a “traitor” to the First Order to cover her own tracks.

| Published by Marvel

Motor Girl #9 advances both a bit of the alien plot and dealing with Sam’s PTSD, hallucinations, and remaining injuries. Terry Moore presents an interesting argument about the will and determination of wounded soldiers and what can hinder them when reintegrating into society.

| Published by Abstract Studio

Old Man Logan #29 is one tick closer to the finale, featuring the first part of thrilling confrontation between Logan and the Maestro. Much of this issue is dealing with that battle, trying to convince the other Hulk brood of Maestro’s malicious machinations, and dealing with the nuclear bombs being seeded across the world by Maestro’s minions. Ed Brisson and Mike Deodato Jr. have been doing something good with this entire arc, looking forward to what happens in the next issue.

| Published by Marvel

Regression #5 reminds me, amidst the baker’s dozen of other titles that he seems to be writing every month, that Cullen Bunn is a damn good horror writer. Danny Luckert’s artwork, weaving in and out of realism and fantastical horror, certainly helps set the tone for the series and makes it a joy to read, but the concept overall, of the terror potentially lurking in “past lives” unlocked through hypnosis and regression therapy is fascinating. And terrifying.

| Published by Image

Shadowman / Rae Sremmurd #1 is the latest in Valiant’s series of one-shots that give a different take on their properties; this time giving an updating and retelling of the Robert Johnson myth. I don’t know Rae Sremmurd, I’m sure it adds something fun for fans of the group, but knowledge of their work isn’t necessary for enjoyment of the book. Eliot Rahal also plays with the interesting idea that the nature of various afterlives are dependent on interpretation, with this particular devil shaping his according to his musical proclivities. It’s also really nice to see Doctor Mirage again, she’s one Valiant character who I’d love to see get another series. And, of course, Renato Guedes’ art is top shelf.

| Published by Valiant

Star Wars #37 is Jason Aaron’s last on the series, warranting extra pages and a second story. The main story illustrated by Salvador Larroca is told mainly from the perspective of SCAR Trooper Sergeant Kreel and it serves as a brutal counterpoint for why the Empire’s troops serve willingly to what we would consider a despotic regime. The second story, co-written by Dash Aaron and illustrated by Andrea Sorrentino, focuses on the Tusken Raiders and their almost symbiotic relationship with Tatooine’s sands.

| Published by Marvel

Star Wars: Darth Vader #6 brings the series timeline closer to that of the Star Wars: Rebels cartoon, showcasing the first meeting between Vader and the Grand Inquisitor. The battle between the two is wonderfully depicted by Giuseppe Camuncoli. 

| Published by Marvel

Usagi Yojimbo #162 gently reminds you that Stan Sakai is a master storyteller.

| Published by Dark Horse

Venomverse #5 brings this mini-event to a conclusion. Overall, it’s been pretty fun. While I think some of the Edge of Venomverse stories were better, Cullen Bunn and Iban Coello have still crafted an enjoyable story with the main series. There’s also a hint at something more to come.

| Published by Marvel

Warframe #1 is interesting. I never really got into any of the lore behind the video game, but this seems like a good starting point. The artwork from Studio Hive, though, is the main draw. Their artwork has a similar texture and style to Clayton Crain’s and it’s very appealing. Great action scenes and they capture the tone and visual appearance of the game well.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Other Highlights: Ab Irato #6, Astonishing X-Men #4, Avengers #672, Beautiful Canvas #4, Centipede #3, Cinema Purgatorio #12, Elephantmen #78, Iceman #6, Iron Fist #73, Jessica Jones #13, Manifest Destiny #31, Meanwhile #7, Moonstruck #3, Motor Crush #7, Paper Girls #16, Postal #23, Ringside #12, Rocket Girl #10, Royals #9, Spider-Man #21, Spirits of Vengeance #1, Venom #155, War for the Planet of the Apes #4, X-Men Gold #13

Recommended Collections: Hulk: World War Hulk Omnibus, Outcast - Volume Five, Planetoid - Volume Two: Praxis, Rapture, Royals - Volume One: Beyond Inhuman, The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed, William Gibson’s Archangel

d. emerson eddy welcomes you to the jungle. We’ve got fun and games. There’s Yahtzee and Monopoly over there, a row of gaming PCs and network ports are set up in the living room, and a massive D&D campaign should be starting at 6. There’s snacks and drinks in the kitchen.