#theme: Adam was actually really excellent in the comics thank you very much

[augment-techs]

[popculturebuffet]

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 3: Imperial (NXM #121-126)

To me all you happy people! And welcome back to my X-Citing look at Morrison’s Masterwork on Marvel’s Merry Mutants!  Part One is HERE, Part Two is HERE if you feel like it. 

If not... to catch you up on last time....

All Caught up? Good. Join me under the cut as our heroes head into this old woman’s hedd to see what’s wrong and fight off an alien army while horribly ill. 

Silent, Psychic Rescue in Process:

So we pick up not long after we left off: Thanks to Beast waking up from his bat induced coma, the X-Men now know Charles is trapped in Cassandra’s body and she pulled a Freaky Friday on him, with marginally less bullets. 

And thus we get this issue. This one was part of Nuff Said, an incredibly clever theme month by Marvel and one I wish they’d try and do again at some point in some form. 

The gimmick was simple but amazing: Every issue would be mostly silent, with at most some dialouge at the start and finish to bookend it. So far i’ve only read two issues of this, this one and the X-Statix one, but it is a genuinely great idea. I do think forcing it on the entire line was a bit much, but as I said I do wish they’d do this again just make it optional: have some books opt in or do some annuals with the theme. It’s just a fun break from the usual and with this issue resulted in one of the best single issues of x-men period. 

Naturally given the name, which is cleverly displayed on a sign the x-men have because of course they do, it’s exaclty that: Emma and Jean after readying themselves (Jean kisses Scott goodbye and Emma downs a bottle of jack because why not do an alchol before doing delecate mental surgery), head in. 

Inside they find horrific old lady head doors, stone ol dlady heads around a tower that shoot lasers, and said doors also bite and puke weird goop because it’s Grant Morrison. This is his chance to just go full balls out weird.. and given last time involved skin flake golemns.. and this isn’t even the weirdest he’s done. As mentioned last time he once had a supervillian run for president using a super LSD Bike that made everyone high. 

And just to prove he can reach that level of weirndess we find charles alone, naked and with an overenlarged brain.. before he transitions Jean to a field of sperm. 

Yeah... but this DOES have a point.. as it turns out it’s a meaphorical transition into his gestation as a baby.. and how he had a twin. Yeah turns out Cassandra was not lying he did try to kill her.. but as you can probably tell by the fact she’s a genocidal sociopath, she lied by omission to screw with Hank: In the womb she tried strangling Charles to death with his own umbilical cord..only for him to use baby’s first psonic blast to send her reeling and his mom tumbling down the stairs and well.. you can probably guess the rest. Yeah.. Cassandra’s entire origin story is concentrated 

And I love it. The sheer audacity is nice and everything but what makes it really work for me is the simple concept: An evil version of charles, one almost born at the same time whose every bit as evil as he is good.. granted there’s a TON of Morally Grey in Charles Xavier ESPECIALLY post decimation and even more so now with Krakoa. But he’s sitll at his heart a well meaning person, while Cassandra at her heart is a racist genocidal nightmare. She is pure evil, with enough personality to not make her boring.. and more importanlty all the power charles has but NONE of his restraint. Part of what makes Charles noble is he only uses his powers when necessary. Cassandra.. has no such restraint and will happily mentally snap necks all day. 

So with this our heroine’s leave and we end on the iconic line “Professor Xavier killed his twin sister in the womb. We Really ought to talk. 

This issue is an utter classic. It finally explains Cassandra a bit while still leaving a ton of questions, Frank Quitely is at his best here, and he and morrison are incrediby good at non verbal storyteling. The result is surreal, unsettling and awesome. Check it out. Seriously seek this one out it’s worth the trip. It’s so famous it was homaged with a spirtual sequel in the recent Giant Size X-Men one shots. It’s excellent stuff

Imperial:

So with our first issue we open with things going terrible on that flag ship Cassandra took off on with Lilandra, empress of the Shiar and Xavier’s space wife. She’s revealed herself, is ravaging the ship and mind rapes a the helmsman into crashing it, so with no other options Lilandra sends Smasher, not the one from the avengers run earlier version, to earth to send a warning to the X-Men. 

At the School things are actually going well for a second. In an intresting move the school is changing things up with no officla timetable.. which I think means there’s no rigid class schedule and you can just do them as you please or as necessary for your power. The plan’s the same, they just want to learn from each other in building mutant society and the future. It’s ideas like this that are the bedrock of the current run and were sadly never fully realized here.. but I don’t blame this run for that. Morrison had 2-3 years and it was cut short early, leading to a rather disapointing ending we’ll get to. They never had a chance to really dig in because they were kicked out by morons and then their whole grand design was undone until Hickman un-undid it in 2019. And even then some of this like the idea of mutant culture and what not hasn’t been picked up on yet. I do mean YET, as given the sheer NUMBER of x books touching on all sorts of subjects, it’s only a matter of if not when. 

As for who’s behind this it’s a combination of Jean and Charles: Jean is using charles notes and is going at full tilt. Scott is concerned though.. both about her since she went Phoenix and Logan told him about it and because these plans may alarm the humans. ON the former Jean just brushes him off which is not right.. given what happened with the phoenix force copy of jean, which granted had her personality, memories and powers and Jean later got a set of her memories so it might as well of been and only MAYBE the genocide is something Jean wouldn’t of done under the same circumstances, he’s understandably concerned. He lost her to it last time and it did weird shit to poor Rachel, who hif you don’t know is their daughter from an alternate timeline... because the Summer’s family tree is a WAKING NIGHTMARE. Thankfully I don’t have to untangle it because there’s a handy chart right here to do it for me that was recently released in X-Men Legends, a new series featuring legendary x creators telling stories in the cracks... and given we’re getitng storys by the simosons and peter motherfucking david, yeah good stuff.

And why yes there are more than one clone in this tree and several alternate timelines. , not to mention several clones and a sexy cat lady, it’s complicated is understnading it and i’m not sure what properly states it honestly. Also if your wondering about Adam there he’s the genetic son of Cyclops mom and the ma Shiar empreror who killed her for not sleeping with him through. Again it’s complicate REALLY feels like understatement. 

Point is he DOES have a right to be worried about the thing that lead to her being cocooned for a while and left their daughter in the future at the time of this... just in case you needed a reminder after that wonderful clusterfuck of a chart up above athe x-men are really fucking weird. 

So Jean brushing that off is not okay. She does however call him out on the second one and rightfully so: This isn’t some dominate the humans manifesto: this is simply changing the course of the future and how they teach their students to create a better one instead of adhering to human norms to try and appease “the republicans’, as jean puts it.. which has only gotten MORE RELEVANT, 20 years on: Attempts to appease the norms of society and things “just because that’s how it’s been” have never been a good thing. It’s why the very writer of this comic took several decades to properly identify themselves as non binary because people were too stuck int heir ways to try and see if there really were just two genders. Fighting against the grain, finding new ways to express things that have always been there... it’s what humanity needs to do and certainly what comes after us would need to do. i’ts how we get better as a race. If something’s not working we change it, quickly or slowly. And given Scott’s huge amount of emotoinal repression lately.. I can see why she’d see the former complaint as just him being a dick as opposed to the genuine concern it is. 

Short Version: Jean Grey is fucking awesome and while he’d be the last to write her for decades, no one did it better than Grant and no one has since.  Hopefully Gerry Duggan can clear that bar. 

After this fight we get a fuller verson of what happened both at the end of issue 120 and in the big reveal last issue: Turns out Hank awoke because Charles piloted his body like a truck and needed it revealed fast. Hank’s regained control of his body and facilities by now, but in a twist of irony he helpfully points out, had Cassandra not gone a needlessly cruel and sociopathic tangent and had Beak beat Beast into a coma, Charles wouldn’t of had a body. 

As for Charles in cass’ body he’s now in a tub of goo created by it. 

It acts as a shield as well as melding him with Cerebra so he can talk to jean telepathically as his thoughts are very weak.

Thanks to this and her psychic Jaunt, Jean now knows just what the hell cassandra is: She really is Charles twin sister. As for how the hell she surivied outside of the womb and how Charles never knew, she created herself a clone body using his cells and didn’t fully manifest till now. And while she has plenty of intellegence, at an emotional level she’s fully convinced, much like an infant that only she and charles are real and thus destroying him means gaining domance over her world. So in short she’s both utterly insane and now has an interstellar empire at her fingertips. 

And the news SOMEHOW get sworse: She booby trapped her body and charles only has days before he’s vegatable, having put every psychological disease possible in there, and she’s probably responsible for their colds and the u-men. So in short their pretty scrwed but at the very least Charles plans to try to flip things, use the fact their now public (a clear tactic to weaken them) to share his manefesto, his last will and testiment if you would. 

Scott meanwhile figures since their sick a healer might be a good idea and goes solo to fetch Xorn... who just sorta disappeared after the annual and didn’t return till his arc. 

We get an utterly touching scene after this: With Logan staying on his hobbit like toes in case of another attack, Jean goes to talk to hank. Hank is still throughly traumatized from the attack, fearing Cassandra is right and he’ll just keep devlovling until he ends up in a metamoprhisis type situation. I mean it’s not ALL bad hank,.. I mean going through that guarantees a musical about you. 

But Jean reassures him: It’s okay to be afraid of her, they all are.. but as she puts it...

It’s a really powerful inspiring scene... and really afirms how well Morrison writes Jean from the previous arc onward. She’s confident, powerful.. but also caring and compassionate. Here hank’s at his lowest, disparing that this might get worse.. and she reaffirms that htis evolution is an upgrade.. he may not be the same.. but that’s okay. He’s better. It really speaks to the core message of the X-Men as a whole and why they’ve stuck around all this time: It’s not just okay your diffrent.. it’s WONDERFUL. Your wonderful for being you. Whatever meataphor you read into it, it’s at it’s core a message that no matter who hunts you or trys to shame you for what you are, they are wrong and you are wonderful. And you are not alone... your people are out there.. and they will go through hell to protect you. It��s moments like this that remind me despite the bad parts, the accidnetal transphobic metaphor last time, a subplot with Hank coming up, the affair storyline and Planet X, just.. Planet X.. this run is special to me for a reason. It has heart, character and truly gets how the x-men should work, what makes them great... while making something NEW AND FRESH from it’s bones. Pushing envelopes, chanigng things for good and shaking things the hell up after far too much stagnation. It’s just pure good comicy goodness and i’m proud to finally be talking about it after having always wanted to. 

So as we end the issue Scott grabs Xorn, whose been at a budist temple all this time, and Smasher arrives to warn earth... but his warning missed his intended target. 

Well at least he got to Hellcow’s coven.. maybe she can call in Man Eating Cow and the Chick Fill A Super Cows.. thought hey might not help. Their parent company IS pretty homophobic.. I doubt their high on mutants either. 

Testament Emma and Jean talk over things how i’ts going etc, with Emma unsuprisingly annoyed with most of the students and Jean optimsitc.

But Emma soon has bigger issues to deal with: TEEN ANGST!

Yeah 4/5 of the Cuckoos are upset Esme has a boyfriend. Their concerns in part are because without her their apparently powerless.. which given one will die and another will leave and they’ll be left with three is just factually not true, and either Morrison changed his mind later, or more likely their simply exagerating like teens do. Emma points out it’s pointless to fight this...

So... their in a domestically abusive relationship rife with sexual tension? Are you sure your not htinking of Sam and Diane, Ross and Rachel, Garfiled and Odie perhaps?

Meanwhile Angel’s sulking in a tree talking about how all the kids are stupid and she dosen’t fit in. That sort of thing. Wolverine naturally has a tactful and understandable response to this:

It’s here Angel goes from understandable, a bit hard edged and obnoxious becuase of a very rough life.. and just becomes annoying.  I do get what Grant was trying to do: he was trying to play with Wolverine’s habit of taking sassy teens under his wing by giving him a more hardscrabble one with a harder life pre-xaviers.. not that Jubilee’s was easy, but I get what he was going for.. he just dosen’t succeed. Instead of a realistic version of a teen sidekick she just comes off as an obnoxious brat whose rude to everyone including her one friend Logan and her later boyfriend.  It dosen’t help that ONCE AGAIN, Morrison flew directly into unfortunate implications without meaning to, by having the only major POC character (Bishop guest stars later and there are two significant characters during the Riot at Xaviers arc but both aren’t relevant before or after), be an abused teen with gross fly based powers and a teen pregnancy subplot. Seriously this isn’t even the LAST time Morrison shoves their foot in their mouth like this in this run. While I do like this run a lot, it’s still 20 years old and it’s still going to have a bunch of bits that have aged like harvarti left on a sidewalk, and handing out unfortnuate implications like their candy is tied for the biggest with their handling of Magneto when he finally shows up in person. It’s THAT bad a take on the character that it’s up there with accidental racisim and transphobia. 

So moving on from.. that we get Jean comforting the professor before meeting the press, giving a throughly lovely speech about how Charles got his powers 30 years ago and despite seeing the worst in humanity, used his telepathy to allow him to see past it and see deep down just how scared and alone we all felt. So she takes them into a psychic conference room and we get a very interesting exchange. 

It’s an interesting parallel to how real world disinfranchised groups, how it takes time.. but soon being a POC or LBGTQ+ goes from unrightfully perscuted to celebrated. How a group starts with hates whipsers on the fringe of things but grows to be accepted, like it always SHOULD have been. Take representation of Trans people in the media. It started with Trans people being almost entirely punchlines and sources of fucking horendous “DID DEY USED TO BE A MAN.” storylines and hurtful jabs at people who had transitioned, treating them as a sideshow instead of you know as fucking human beings. But now coming out as what you always were ont he inside is celebrated. Sure the right are dicks about it but they always will be: but most media gladly celebrates when someone comes out as trans. Same with being gay, or bi or pan or polamorus or nonbinary.  Hell I admire grant for showing i’ts not even 100% perfect once you are popular: you still have to grapple both with people wanting to copot your culture and those who still don’t understand you trying to speak for you. 

She also gets the standard question calling the X-Men an army, shoots it down with the normal global peacekeeping operation stuff.. then we get this bitch. 

Who quickly realizes she’s outclassed by Emma Frost, professional that bitch. And while Jean is understandbly going to have to erase that.. I can’t blame her for snapping her.

Just to tear this shit down.: The privacy thing is not something she’s doing. All she’s doing is spcyhic teleconfrencing, you harpy. They fight greek gods and monsters to protect your sorry ass and the last one.. just makes me absolutely livid and feels so much like a real world comment i’m suprised there isn’t a fox news logo next to her bigoted head. 

Trouble follows them everywhere they go.. because their mutants. They can’t help it. A LOT of shit like the demons, aliens, and gods and what not, I do not know if they actually did fight the greek gods but i’m not going to say for sure they did not, the norse gods defintely, not sure on greek. But the point is allt his stuff HAPPENS TO THEM half the time, or is a consequence of trying to PROTECT PEOPLE. I’m so nettled by this because this is how the marvel unvierse acts all the fucking time towards ALL super powered peoples. Mutants esepcailly but they blame the heroes and what not for being chased and harassed by guys in costumes or alien invasions or all the stuff they FIGHT. Sure sometimes they caused it but it’s either because of a monsterous person with a grudge or just because their powerful and some douche took an intrest. I’m just.. so fucking tired of asshole civlians in comics. It’s realisitc I know but it’s just hard to stomach after so many have turned their back on so many for such DUMB reasons. 

Jean recovers well pointing out the genocide and how 16 million people, 16 million possible einsteinss or mozarts are just GONE, and that their trying to focus on the future. She also brings up autistic savants who can talk to atoms and while I don’t like the use of the savant thing, as it brings to mind stuff like rainman I very badly want to see this autistic kid who can talk to atoms as someone on the spectrum myself. Also I just want the crew of HIckma’ns books in general to pour over this because there are a lot of intresting powers and personalities only MENTIONED we never saw proper that could be great characters. Just saying. 

Jean cocludes her speech to the world, including Logan whose wisely getting hammered at anearbye bar.. while Hank finds out what’s going on with their sickness.. nanonscopic sentnels in the blood. 

But while the press confrence ends well with Jean having won over the press.. things go sideways as not only is it clear Esme’s boyfriend is in fact something sinister.. but Jean falls over due to the nano snetinels, and senses Scott being taken in tibet, taken down by a group of the Shiar’s imperial guard.. picutre the legion of superheroes but blindly loyal to the goverment and far more likely to get killed. And the rest are preparing to attacking including Gladiator who if you don’t know him, has all the powers of superman as long as he retains his confidence. 

And it turns out Esme’s boyfriend is an advanced Scout, the shapeshifting amoeba blob thing Stuff, a new addition by morrison and good on him. And the Imperial Guard are here but with one goal

 Superdestroyer

On the Ship we find out both wha’ts going on with Scott and Xorn, they’ve been taken and why the shiar are attempting mutant genocide: Cassandra is puppeting ALL of them, has convinced them the mutants are infected and since Lilandra is a puppet, Scott’s words fall on deaf ears. 

Meanwhile Wolverine ambushes one of the squads, kiling one named Dinosaurer via claw to the brain, while Emma has had a dome thing put over her head and isn’t transforming into diamond to counter it because...

But the Cuckoos fight back, taking out oracle before easily handling stuff since his brain is fairly simple.. and given he’s racist against solid people and unlike the others reveling in the genocide just a tad.. yeah what he deserves. So now with a living weapon the Cuckoos make peace with Angel as they need all the help they can get. 

Jean ushers the press into the panic room, not happy about it but not having anothe roption for their saftey. Hank tells her to self distruct crebra if cassandra get sclose and goes off to join the fight and let off some steam over the situation. Hank easily routes two of them, and one , Manta tries to just fly right ot jtean wince their TK proof. How does that go?

Jean gets to saftey after that, not that she needs it and hank is quickly taken down by a batch of Superguardians.. only for Wolverine to arrive in the Sknitt of time and chop them up.. oh and as one of the puts it...

Bad. Ass. I also like the addition of the flight patch, a nod to the Legion, who the Imperial Guard were based on as those kids used flight rings. 

But while Logan and Hank easily tag team these assholes...

The SHiar call in the big guns.. Gladiator.. and I wasn’t kidding abotu the superman thing. While Logan TRIES to talk him out of it, the murders only confirm Cassandra’s bullshit and Gladiator breaks into the panic room throwing hank and wolverin’e before them having utterly decimated them off panel. I mean Wolvie is a badass.. but even he has limits. I also like recontecullizing the guard as a whole here.. showing just how TERRIFYING they SHOULD be as enimies to the x-men. Yes our heroes did win.. but barely and only till Gladiator showed up. In most cases thier clearly holding back out of affection but here hteir just at errifying unstoppable force, and also apparently used to doing genocides like this. It takes what was a cheesy shout out to David Cockrums other big artistic work, and makes it horrifying and it is AWESOME. I admit to not having liked this arc as much for the longest time but this reread, the sheer teror and hopleessness as an interstellar superman easily cuts through our mighty mutants like tissue... it’s awesome. 

Thankfully one of the Guard found smasher.. and thus the truth comes out so our heroes are given a stay of execution with Gladiator clearly horrified at what he almost did and our heroes now so sick they can barely move and Hank can’t think them out of this. 

Thankfully he dosen’t has to as back in space, Cyclops tires of it and points out something Xorn, not being as experinced nor having delt with the guard ahd thought of: G-Type, the glowly guy about to execute them, is made of solar energy.. and xorn can manipulate that thanks to his star brain. He does, they take out the rest.. and prepare to go save the day.

Losers: PIcking up shortly before where we left off we see Cassandra murder Lilandra’s advisor who figured out what she was just as our heroes escape.. and as Cassandra is having Lilnadra order all of the shiar ships to immolate themselves. 

WIth Lilandra not being any use, Cass tries to psychically force her to commit sucidie but jumping off a space ledge but Xorn saves her. Cass tries another turn at mentally breaking an x-man, pointing out all scott’s recent flaws, his increased repression his faling marriage and while it gets him to stop it dosen’t quite work as well as it did on hank, likely because at his heart Hank is simply a more emotive person. Though his REAL reason for stalling is he can’t kill charles.. which he muses just as the ship blows up real good. 

Meanwhile back at Campus the kids initaiate their plan, having Angel break in and take a dna sample. She also finds beak naked in a tank and decides eh why not and brings him with her. This ends up paying off as Beak suggests the obvious to get emma free.. just force the space guy they have over in the corner to do it. They do and it works

Back in the mansion our heroes prepare for Casssandra... but Jean and Logan object to saving her body, pointing out that getting hank to repair it is exactly what she wants, and that Jean feels she can save charles without uit, with Hank being understandably doubtful given their current condition.. but Jean’s real plan is to put charles in her head and it’s already too far in actoin to stop now: she’s been saving his memories as they flaked off and if she dosen’t do this now there will be no charles left. 

Hank evacuates the civlians to teh danger room, and has an encounter with trish who tries to apologize and get him back.. only for him to rightfully regjecter her..a and then goes a step further by capping it off with:

Yeah on it’s own it’s not TERRIBLE. Still very dated to claim your gay just to spite someone, but for the time it was acceptable and compared to some of Morrison’s other gaffes in the run it’s minor at best. But it leads into a rather annoying subplot we’ll naturally get to that’s a much bigger issue, so i’ll save talking about it in full for when it comes up again. 

Jean manages to shove Chuck into her head, but is naturally leaking a bit and barely holding it or him together and may of overestimated herself just a tad.. while on the lawn Cassandra easily takes out the guards. That said the scene of Jean taking Chuck into her head is REALLY damn awesome. Jean is the arc MVP by a mile and Hank is pretty dang good competition. 

All Hell: We open the final issue of the arc with Scott and Xorn escaping the spaceship using some teleport tubes taking Arakai and Lilandra with them. 

We open with Cassadra utterly humilating gladiator while the kid team prepares to fight her despite you know, the 8 billion to 1 odds against them. 

Jean, despite hte discknes and trying to keep an old man in her brain marches out , prepared to fight, for the kids sake. For the world’s sake. But Logan’s easily taken out and with Jean barely holding it together.. the kids prepare to fight.. likely being slaughtered even if they mean well.. onlyf or help to finally arrive with Scott and Xorn glowy porting in. We get a really sweet , short moment with scott and jean...

Scott not knowing the situation tries to have Xorn heal charles first but since Cassandra’s body is dead and unoccupied that’s a no go.. he’s still usefult hough, curing Jean of her nanosentital sickness and moving on to Scott and Hank while there’s still time. 

We find out more about cassandra: She’s a murrmadi, a bodyless parasite.. eseetinally the dark first test a person faces... she just stuck around because she was one for a telepath.. the world’s STRONGEST telepath. But really other than that part the rest just feels like stuff we alreayd heard LAST TIME, mildly repaackaged and seems enitrley like filler to pad the issue out. 

So while Jean takes cerebra, both to keep it away from Cassandra’s plans of mutant genocide and for whatever she has planned, Scott, Hank and Xorn prepare to hold the line.. and as Jean mentions.. emma’s still out in the wild. 

So we get our climactic showdown.. logan, hank and xorn veruss cassandra, with Cassandra trying to do eveyrthing she can, tear them down mentally, throw out the students with our heroes fighting back best they can. It’s good stuff.  

Eventaully Cassandra gets to Jean.. but she’s already inacted her plan, putting a piece of Xavier’s mind in EVERY mutant, and giving Cassandra one ohell ofa reason you suck speech. 

It’s an incapsulation of what i said earlier and what the runs about: alone we are weak but together.. we just might make it. More on that as we go. But thanks to Cass naturally going fo rcerberba.. she accidently restores charles and is left bodyless.

Emma finishes the fight with her own brilliant gambit, presending cassandra her body.. but it’s actually stuff , reprogrammed into a sentient brain for her to inhabit and leaving her trapped, with Charles hoping t teach the now mentally reset Cassandra.  So Cassandra is beat, the virus is stopped, and our heroes have one.. but naturally for this run.. there’s one last suprise in store. 

Charles can walk again.. and going forward will be a far more active member of the team. The team is complete, Cassandra is beaten, and the future.. is bright. 

Final Thoughts:

This arc is a mixed bag.. it has really good scenes with the first and last issues being the standouts, with the former being an utter classic with an intresting gimick and the latter being a rousing climax with tons of awesome moments, with some good mometns scattered throughout.

But that’s the arc’s issue.. it has good moments and ideas.. but they don’t quite work togehter. The idea of teh Shiar Imperial Guard nearly doing a genocide is good, but the Shiar are such flat characters.. it’s really hard to care. They just don’t have enough connection to the x-men to really have the betryal sting but aren’t callous enough for genocide protocols to maeks sense. It’s a good idea, I still support it being terrifying.. but not enough is done with it and it feels liek Grant is more concerned with throwing weirdos at the x-men than actually saying something. 

The biggest issue however is the art. While inconsitant art is an issue as they’d rotate artists.. but in previous arcs it was usually pretty evenly split but here it’s sloppy: Quitely does the first issue, van Sciver the second.. and the worst of the three Igor Kordey does most of the art. I gave him the beinfit of the doubt last time.. but this time not so much. His art is muddy and tries to be stylized but comes off confusing,ugly and not great. He’s probably a lovely guy but given he’s up against two legendary artists, his lack of style comapred to both shows badly.  And given the arc is alreayd a bit overly complicated, it makes things WORSE by giving us muddled art in a very complex storyline. The flip flopping art makes a fairly intricate story very hard to follow. It’s easily why this arc didn’t grab me in the past and even seeing some better moments, it’s not the series best. It’s not the worst either, Planet X easily takes that ground despite having far better art. It’s an incredibly muddled incredibly long feeling arc and really needed to be compressed by one or two issues but instead is just hard to get through. It’s owrth it for the rest of the runa nd the good moments within but all in all easily one of the weakest points in the series. 

Next Month on New X-Men:The X-Men soak in the new world order, and we meet fantomex, dust and the last surivivors of genosha. 

Next on this blog:Green Eggs and Ham is back!

If you enjoyed this review PLEASE join my patreon. The end of hte month is coming and I need eveyr cent I can get so join at patreon.com/popculturebuffet and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[jezfletcher]

The Oscars 2020

The last two years (2018 and 2019), I've managed to watch every single Oscars feature film, partially at least due to being in the US in the lead up to the Oscars, so being able to capture those last few films that seem to be nowhere else in the world besides a few bespoke cinemas in New York or Los Angeles.

This year, however, I knew well ahead of time that I wouldn't be able to do this, and as a result, my completist tendencies were broken enough to make me not even bother seeing all the films I could see. In fact, this year, I missed 7 films, 3 of which I couldn't find by any legitimate means, and 4 of which I could have seen but just went "eh...". Missing from the former category are the foreing films Corpus Christi and Les Misérables, plus Richard Jewell, which infuriatingly comes out in cinemas here in Australia on Thursday. The films I actively decided to skip were Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (I'd subjected myself to the first one, which was enough for me), the "live action" remake of The Lion King, Frozen II (only up for Best Song), and Breakthrough, an evangelical Christian film again only up for Best Song. I feel comfortable with my choices here.

I also, as usual, watched the short films, which I'll talk about at the end. This time, I watched all the Live Action and Animated films, and 3/5 of the short documentaries. The other two I couldn't find before the Oscars.

I'll probably be a bit briefer in my write-ups of some of these films than I usually am, mostly due to time pressure. But some which deserve it (both good and bad), I'll give the regular treatment to. Anyway, let's get started:

1. Knives Out

Topping my Oscars list this year is Knives Out, which was an absolute delight of a film. Often times, I enjoy finding the hidden treasures in the Oscars list: films like Away From Her, First Reformed, On Body & Soul or The Broken Circle Breakdown. But this year I have to give Best Film to one of the actual Best Film nominees. Because this was just a brilliant piece of filmmaking. At times, it delivers the best whodunnit story of the past decade, at others it feels like it's lampooning every whodunnit since Agatha Christie, but it's done with such joy and love with every frame that I couldn't help but watch this with a permanent grin on my face. It's an excellent cast they've assembled here, and you could talk about the pitch perfect performance from anyone, but you have to single out Ana de Armas as MArta Cabrera, the suspect who throws up when she tells a lie (I mean, what a concept), and Daniel Craig as the "southern gentleman" detective Benoit Blanc (I will watch a hundred movies revolving around him solving cases, please make this a franchise). What's more, the film kept me guessing right up to the end, thanks to a whip-smart script from writer-director Rian Johnson, one of the most inventive and exciting directors working at the moment. I wasn't exactly sure, before I started this writeup, what would actually end up at #1 this year, but seeing Knives Out at the top of the list I realise it should have been obvious.

2. Little Women

Another truly wonderful film this year was Greta Gerwig's Little Women. I'd seen Gillian Armstrong's adaptation from 1994, and loved it, but this is better. Taking the smart choice to tell the tale in non-linear time, it manages to cleverly pull together contrasts between the youth and early adulthood of the characters, and play on our sympathies in new and revelatory ways. In many respects, this film makes you see the story in a different light to any adaptation that's come before it, and it's a rare thing to be able to do that with such a canonical text; the result is honestly very moving in a way I'd not found from this story before. The performances throughout are excellent, of course, Saoirse Ronan is always very strong, of course, but I also loved the support, especially from Florence Pugh and Emma Watson, who is genuinely putting her early-years-of-Harry-Potter far behind her. Timothée Chalamet honestly always feels like he's playing the same character to me, but somehow it continues to be charming on screen. All up, an excellent, affecting film. Oh, and can we just mention how hard done by Gerwig can feel for not getting a Best Director nod? Hmm?

3. The Lighthouse

Thirdly, we have The Lighthouse, a nightmarish comic horror, which is completely predicated on being compelled by Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson. And I'm only human, so of course this worked for me. The two leads are brilliant here: Dafoe's lighthouse supervisor is a thrilling antagonist, with enough mystery to engage you. Pattinson's newcomer is unsettled in a way that mirrors the audience, especially as the film progresses. It's shot in stark, wonderful black-and-white, with a cinematic style that dovetails perfectly with the desolation and destruction of the film, while the 1:1 aspect ratio adds to the overall sense of claustrophobia. It's a quite singular film, one of the most original and interesting pieces of cinema I've seen in many years.

4. For Sama

Topping the documentary stakes this year is For Sama, a film set during the siege of Aleppo, from the point of view of a mother narrating the early life of her young daughter, born as the regime forces encircle, and ultimately recapture the city. It's quite a brilliant, emotional and affecting piece of filmmaking; one, I must admit, that I had to pause half way through to get myself together again. There are scenes here that are stark and harsh, such as the parents exiting the city for Turkey, avoiding the encircling army via back roads, all with Sama strapped inside a baby carrier on her father's chest. It was a beautiful exposition of life under siege, because it brought to the fore that shared human experience. It was an extremely powerful film, and one which I truly hopes ends up taking out the award in its category.

5. Pain & Glory

Next up we have a truly excellent film from Pedro Almodóvar, his best in many many years. Helming the performances is Antonio Banderas as an aging director dealing with a lack of creativity and a degredation in his health. Reconnecting with the actor with whom he most famously collaborated, he takes up heroin, and reminisces about his early life as a young boy, and the discovery of his sexuality. It's such a rich film, without an easy narrative. It's a film that, like life, shows the many turns and dead-ends that lead us to the present. Like I said, I think this is one of Almodóvar's best, and for a director with such a rich oeuvre, that's no small thing.

6. Parasite

Eveyone in the world seems to have been absolutely blown away by this film, in a way that I was not. That's not to say that this isn't a good film, because here it sits at #6 in my list of Oscar movies. But this feels like another entry in what's a really strong cinematic tradition coming out of South Korea at the moment. It doesn't help that I find Bong Joon-ho one of the less subtle directors from the country (for example, I deplored Snowpiercer, admittedly, a much, much worse film than this one). But even compare this film against another Korean film from last year, Lee Chang-dong's Burning, and this feels like an almost cartoonish portrayal of similar themes. I know, this writeup talks mostly about not-this-film, but I'm probably mostly talking about how much better Korean cinema is than this one example. Anyway, when Parasite inevitably wins Best Internation Feature this year, it will hopefully get more people interesting in the excellent cinema coming out of this country. And that's nothing but a good thing.

7. The Two Popes

I honestly found this film to be thoroughly engaging and amusing, and found myself rapt in the machinations of the elections of Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, as well as the theological debates between the two when Benedict was considering his resignation. It helps that the pairing of Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins is perfect, with each an ample match for the other. And the script sparkles with a cleverness that often wrings a wry smile from your lips. I very much enjoyed it—and while it feels like the kind of film which just rounds out the numbers come Oscars time, I hope that it will have the longevity it deserves.

8. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Another charmingly unassuming film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood follows the story of an investigative reporter, known for being hard on his subjects, who gets assigned the task of interviewing beloved children's entertainer Mr Rogers. In this latter role, Tom Hanks is brilliant: so warmhearted and human that you get a sense of Mr Rogers both on and off screen (subtly different but no less magical in either). It's perhaps fair though that Best Supporting Actor is this film's only nod. Otherwise, it's fairly straightforward, but no less affecting for it.

9. Harriet

I was really pleasantly surprised by this film: a biopic of abolitionist Harriet Tubman from Kasi Lemmons, which has been received in fairly lukewarm terms by critics more generally. It follows something of a standard biopic format, but it always manages to ensure the story ticks along. I was thoroughly engaged throughout the film, and always enjoyed wherever the film was taking me. At least part of the appeal comes from the strong central performance from Cynthia Erivo (an O away from an EGOT, I'll point out), who presents the strength of Tubman with a human realness. A much better film than you've probably heard, if you've heard about it at all.

10. Marriage Story

Another very affecting film, that explicates the trauma that divorce can be, even when undertaken in the most amicable situation imaginable. It's the kind of film which feels a bit like an emotional workout. There are good performances throughout, especially, I feel from Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver in the leads, and weirdly, less so from Laura Dern, who actually gets a nod for Best Supporting Actress here (she was better in Little Women). She’s the short priced favourite to actually win it though, so good for her I guess.

11. 1917

Apparently the front-runner to take out Best Picture, this is indeed a good film, and a technically excellent one. It tells the tale of an impossible mission of two young men sent from the trenches into enemy territory, and does so in a carefully edited way to make it look like one continuous take. As a result, it gains a senss of immediacy and power that other films lack (especially ones which rely on rapid fire cuts to capture the madness of a battle). It's honestly one of the best war films I've seen in, well, probably ever. It's not a genre I generally like all that much, but the fact that this managed to find itself so high on this list is a testament to its quality.

12. Klaus

I found this an utterly charming animated film. It's from a new studio, created from ex-Disney animators whose goal apparently is to see if they could capture what traditional animation would have become had the big studios not all switched to computer animation instead. The answer is that it is quite beautiful, in particular the way they integrate the characters and the scenery. The film itself tells an alternative origin story of Santa Claus, and a redemptive tale of a rich playboy sent to prove his worth in the world (which doesn't work out exactly as you might expect). It's honestly just a lovely piece of film making. It perhaps feels like it's from a different age, and that's both to its advantage and disadvantage. But there's certainly something worthwhile in it. I'll honestly look forward to what Serio Pablos does next.

13. Toy Story 4

Hot on the heels of Klaus is Toy Story 4. You know the deal by now. Just when you think there's a nice easy place for ending the Toy Story franchise, they come up with another way to extend it, and it fits perfectly. Where 3 explored the themes of what happens to toys when their children grow up, 4 explores what happens when toys get lost or forgotten altogether. It also amusingly touches on the whole concept of toys becoming alive—what is a toy, and what is garbage becomes a key question of the film. It's also beautifully animated, with a level of detail which is exquisite—and yet it still feels like it's suitably within the style of the franchise overall. A good film. I feel like Toy Story as a whole could finish here happily. But I've felt that since the first film, and I've always been proven wrong. So, Toy Story 5, have at me.

14. American Factory

An interesting film, about a Chinese corporation which opens a factory in the midwest USA, thereby bringing back the vaunted manufacturing jobs to working class America. The conflict comes from the cultural disconnects between the expectation of the corporation and the workers, especially as there are moves to unionise the workforce. There's a lot to unpack here, especially when you consider the incentives that were given to the corporation to open where they were. But it's not overly political either—rather, it is, but it's presented in such a way as to appear neutral; letting you the audience make up your own mind. The fact that this is the first film produced by the Obama's production company is not lost on me.

15. Ad Astra

I'm honestly surprised this is as high as it is, because in many ways this is a bad film. There's some truly shockingly poor science and plot points in this, and the emotional connection of the film is weak. But what I honestly loved, and which I kept coming back to, is the world building. As we move out through the solar system, we see the wilder and less civilised reaches of space come through piece by piece. From the genteel comfort of a Virgin Galactic flight to the moon, to the rough and rugged outpost of Mars, to the isolation of a solo flight to Neptune. There's something so believable and meditative about it. But, like I said, the brilliance of this doesn't eradicate the bad parts, and if you don't particularly enjoy what I did in this film, it's easy to focus on jumping between spaceships through Neptune's rings using a door as a shield. I mean, jeez.

16. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I really, really wish that Tarantino would realise what he's really good at as a filmmaker. And it's not violence or shots of women's feet, like he thinks it is. He is truly excellent in managing to extract tension and drama from otherwise benign and potentially overextended conversational set pieces. It's most infuriating in this film, because in so many ways, this film is excellent: one of his best, right up until the last sequence, when you feel as though Tarantino lost the will to resist his natural urges. It's such a shame, because it could have been the moment when you feel like Tarantino has matured as a film maker. But no, let's have a flamethrower, yeah?

17. I Lost My Body

An interesting animated film about a young man in Paris finding his own path in the world, juxtaposed with the bizarre counter story of a dismembered hand searching for its body again. It's beautifully animated, and actualyl quite emotional when it gets to its conclusion. Not the best animated film this year, but another that shows the interesting places animated film can go.

18. Rocketman

Another fairly straight forward biopic, but I feel one which does its job admirably. It's honestly a fairly intriguing story, and one which director Dexter Fletcher tells admirably. Especially good is the integration of the music into the picture, which is often something that feels janky, or else cops out by ensuring that all music is diegetic. Anyway, I thought a pretty good film all up.

19. The Edge of Democracy

Another good documentary, this one explicating the fight for democracy in Brazil, in particular the threat of corruption tainting otherwise socially responsible politicians, and the rise of the far-right in recent years. There are a lot of parallels to be seen in this film and other western democracies, and the story of Brazil is told to be both personal and universal.

20. Jojo Rabbit

I was honestly more disappointed in this than anything else, because the premise is wack, and I trusted Taika Waititi to pull it off. But it's tonally very odd, in a way that is obviously intentional, but which often means that its impact is blunted. I really wanted to be pummelled between the extremes of the humour and the horrors of the end of the Nazi regime, and this film feels like it pulls its punches at every turn, possibly because each element numbs the other. It's not all that funny, nor is it that emotionally impactful as a result, as much as it probably wants to think it's both. Anyway, it's a shame, because I wanted more from this.

21. The Irishman

Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Martin Scorsese. But I can appreciate his craft, and there's certainly something to be said for a film like this, which is genuinely very much the kind of picture he was making in his heyday. It's also a fine moment to get Pacino and De Niro back together, as well as a technical achievement in their de-aging, which is seamlessly done. But what you'll find I'm not talking about is the plot, or the characters. They're fine, but they don't grip me on a human level, and while it's kind of fun to watch the endless stream of gangsters arrive and depart, they leave very minimal impact. That's generally my problem with it, I guess. Epic in scope, but no space for real human connection.

22. Judy

A reasonable biopic, documenting the latter period of Judy Garland's life, leading up to her last marriage and death. It's a sympathetic portrait, in particular when engaging with Garland's early years (told in flashbacks). The main draw, of course, and the sole nomination it receives here, is Renée Zellweger in the lead, who can be quite challenging as an actress to me, but who here completely disappears into the role of Garland. The rest is only so good, but it's a fair nomination for Best Actress.

23. Ford v Ferrari

This film honestly has some things going for it, and I'm going to probably malign it unfairly for being too much of a banal historical drama in the way that biopics often can be. Partly, the choice of story is poor, because there's a true sense that Henry Ford Jr the Fourth or whoever he is, is a really nasty piece of work, and for too long in the story he is at least the force behind the protagonists, if not the protagonist himself. That really put me off to some extent, and managed to completely detach me from any true emotion in the story. Otherwise, it's a fairly straightforward, stock-standard success-against-the-odds underdog story. There's a place for that, but not a place near the top of my list.

24. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Eh, the discourse has already covered this for me hasn't it? This was a disappointing end to the Star Wars trilogy, especially after Rian Johnson had managed to inject something meaningful into the previous episode. But, there's still at least the spectacle to be had, and there's always something intrinsically enjoyable about spending time in this universe, even when it's done as blandly as this.

25. How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

I'm honestly not a huge fan of this franchise, although I have a soft spot for this particular film now, as it's the first film I've managed to watch all the way through with my son Hal (he is now an avowed fan of all things Toothless). This particular outing sees the village grappling with the question of what is truly best for the dragons themselves, especially as Toothless starts to find himself enamoured of a female Night Fury. It's perhaps an interesting place to take the film, thematically, but as with all of these films, what happens in between the big strokes of the idea is largely interchangeable.

26. Honeyland

It's probably actually a bit surprising that this is so low, because this is a very much acclaimed documentary, about a woman who lives off the land in North Macedonia, in particular using traditional techniques for gathering wild honey. The conflict arises when a nearby family tries to modernise the process, thereby damaging the natural hives on which the woman relies. There's things to enjoy about it, but aside from the obvious thematic elements, I found the film rather dour and tired. It's one of those films which has merit for merely showing that there are stories everywhere in life. But that wasn't enough for me this time around.

27. Joker

I was quite ambivalent about this film when I first saw it, but my ambivalence has turned one way rather than the other as time has passed, so it finds itself down towards the bottom of this list. Firstly, the good: Joaquin Phoenix is always a compelling presence on screen, and even when his characters are inscrutable as Arthur Fleck, there's something engaging about watching him doing his thing. But thematically, this film is a mess, especially in its engagement with violence, and its questions about the underlying discontent in the populace at large. You could read this as an indictment of the masses' willingness to be spurred to evil through a charismatic leader and bit of misinformation. But I'm more inclined to believe that director Todd Phillips just doesn't really know what he's doing, and so the film is unintentionally ambiguous on this. I haven't even gotten into the fact that plot-wise, it, shall we say, "borrows liberally" from Scorsese's The King of Comedy (actually, one of his best, despite my lukewarm Scorsese appreciation above). So yeah, in the end, the more I thought on this film, the less I liked it. Betting wise, you'd be a fool to go against Phoenix to take home the award though.

28. Bombshell

I was quite surprised at how much I didn't like this film, because I feel as though there was the potential for this to be a wonderfully astute indictment of a whole world. But instead, this took the very disappointing route of taking down Roger Ailes and not what he represents. There's a sense at the end of the film that everyone can dust off their hands and say "good job, sexism is solved forever". And this is not something that they engage with in this film—that is to say, they don't examine the fact that this is a potential interpretation. In fact, at the end of the film, the tone is more celebratory because "yeah, we won! The good guys won!". It makes the film feel overall very shallow or hollow.

29. Missing Link

Lowest of the Best Animated feature films, is this very underwhelming stop-motion number. Animation-wise, it's quite nicely done, and technically very strong. But the plot and the characterisations are very bland. Zach Galafianakis's sasquatch is annoying to the point of tears, and the other characters are stereotypes. There's not enough that's interesting in the film. That's the problem. I do feel a little bit bad for the film, because this was also an amazing box-office bomb. And it feels more like it just "wasn't for me" than it feels like it deserved to fail spectacularly. But, to be honest, I do think it has itself to blame for both.

30. Avengers: Endgame

A perennial entry towards the bottom of my Oscars list is the latest Marvel film, in particular the Avengers films. The problem with all of the Avengers films is that they cannot at all give enough screen time to any character to warrant their inclusion in the film, and as a result the whole film feels pointless. This is never more obvious than in Endgame, where they're attempting to both wrap up an entire era of the Marvel enterprise, and include all of the characters they've introduced to this point. I really, really, don't get the appeal, and I honestly think this is one of the messiest examples of the Avengers films. I would have thought the time travel aspect would have given me something to enjoy at least. But, no.

31. The Cave

Bottom of the list this year is a very surprising entry, but one which ultimately I felt I could justify being this low. It's another film from Syria, again telling of doctors working in a beseiged region of the country, this time Ghouta, as the forces of Bashar al-Assad bomb and attack. But this film was honestly, so unbelievably dull. It very much has the philosophy of "point a camera at something and see what happens", but very much misses out on constructing anything interesting from the resulting footage. There's a sense of, yes, claustrophobia and anxiety as the bombs come ever closer. But there's almost no narrative thrust. There's no human connection. There's not enough focus on any character to feel like you're connecting with them. I was unsurprised after this film, when I discovered that its director also directed Last Men in Aleppo, a documentary short I watched a couple of years ago, which also managed to turn what should have been an excellent idea into something boring. I think it's extremely telling that when there are two films covering such similar ground in the same year (as For Sama above does), one can be so emotionally devastating and one can be so dull.

Anyway, that's it for the features. As always, I also attempted to watch the short films. I didn't manage to see all of them this year, as two of the documentary shorts (St. Louis Superman and Learning To Skateboard In A War Zone (If You’re A Girl)) weren't available before the Oscars telecast. But the rest I'll present in order here from favourite to least favourite. But as always, all of these are excellent, and all (maybe apart from the bottom) worthy of your time:

1. Une Soeur (A Sister) (Live Action) 2. In the Absence (Documentary) 3. Hair Love (Animated) 4. Sister (Animated) 5. Brotherhood (Live Action) 6. Life Overtakes Me (Documentary) 7. Nefta Football Club (Live Action) 8. Memorable (Animated) 9. The Neighbors' Window (Live Action) 10. Saria (Live Action) 11. Daughter (Animated) 12. Walk Run Cha-Cha (Documentary) 13. Kitbull (Animated)

And, last, but not least, is my annual Oscars ballot. How would I vote if I could, and the only things I could vote for are the nominees? Read on:

Best Picture: Little Women Best Actor: Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory) Best Actress: Cynthis Erivo (Harriet) Best Supporting Actor: Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) Best Supporting Actress: Florence Pugh (Little Women) Best Animated Feature: Klaus Best Cinematography: The Lighthouse Best Costume Design: Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood Best Director: Sam Mendes (1917) Best Documentary Feature: For Sama Best Documentary Short: In the Absence Best Film Editing: Parasite Best International Feature: Pain and Glory Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Judy Best Original Score: Little Women Best Orignal Song: "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" from Rocketman Best Production Design: Parasite Best Animated Short: Hair Love Best Live Action Short: A Sister Best Sound Editing: Ford v Ferrari Best Sound Mixing: 1917 Best Visual Effects: The Irishman Best Adapted Screenplay: Little Women Best Original Screenplay: Knives Out

And we're done. See you again next year.

[warninggraphiccontent]

5 April 2019

Ok, I'll bite

Highlight of the week (which also included opining on national television and extensively on Twitter about ministerial resignations and why you should care) was undoubtedly the IfG's inaugural Data Bites event.

Four brilliant presentations against the clock (or, more accurately, against the PowerPoint presentation made to look like a timer) - from Louisa Nolan on faster data about the economy, from Paul Maltby on digital land, from David Divitt on detecting fraud, and from Sophie Adams and Jon Downing on data analytics in a regulatory body - got the series off to the best possible start. Four very different projects, but some unmistakable themes: data sharing and access, better data infrastructure, how you build teams, the power of good visualisation and what all of these things mean in the real world. Watch or listen back here.

Good discussions followed in real-life and on Twitter (with thanks to an excellent audience, in person and online). The next one will be on Wednesday 1 May, so put a date in your diary now.

From last week: 'So busy has it been this week that I haven’t quite got around to posting a small sporting data side project... I’m sure next week will be quieter.' I think you can already guess how well that went.

Until next week,

Gavin

Today's links:

Graphic content

The never-ending carnival of fun

Indicative votes (Marcus for IfG)

Ministerial resignations, again (me and Alasdair for IfG - Guardian version,BBC version)

MPs’ Brexit votes reveal myriad divisions among the Tories* (The Economist)

Public opinion on Brexit (Anthony Wells)

By-elections (me and Aron for IfG)

The Westminster Twitter bubble — an illustrated guide (Politico)

How much time has the Commons actually spent on Brexit since the EU Referendum? (Alice for IfG)

The Government must not continue delaying the social care green paper (Graham for IfG)

UK’s Brexit options — an illustrated guide (Politico)

Theresa May's Government was defeated 5 times in the Commons yesterday (Telegraph Data)

Visualisation showing the cumulative support from each MP across all Indicative Votes (Emojiocracy)

Gender

Gender Pay Gap: women still short-changed in the UK* (FT)

More than 100 NHS trusts have a worse gender pay gap than a year ago(The Guardian, via Johnny)

WOMEN’S ISSUES within political party platforms (The Pudding)

The gender pay gap in many countries is exacerbated by parenthood—you can hear it in the data* (The Economist)

Geography

BILLIONS OF BIRDS MIGRATE. WHERE DO THEY GO? (National Geographic, via Johnny)

When it comes to sports, men and women don’t play on the same fields(Brookings)

Heatmaps are cool (mySociety)

What remains of Bears Ears* (Washington Post)

Everything else

A busy week in @ONS data viz towers (Rob Fry)

Has the yield curve predicted the next US downturn?* (FT)

The cost of living alone (ONS)

Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections.* (New York Times)

Gaza border protests: 190 killed and 28,000 injured in a year of bloodshed(The Guardian)

A day in the life of Americans: a data comic (Matt Hong)

About #dataviz

National Geographic and Reuters win Endesa Best of Show Award(Malofiej)

Empathy through visualization (Alberto Cairo)

Introducing Activation Atlases (OpenAI)

How good are FiveThirtyEight forecasts? (FiveThirtyEight)

When We Say 70 Percent, It Really Means 70 Percent (FiveThirtyEight)

Data Visualization in Europe: A Short Introduction (Martin Telefont)

Meta data

Government

Data Bites: Getting things done with data in government (Institute for Government, see also @ifgevents, #IfGDataBites)

New digital projects will be signed off by NHSX (HSJ)

NHSX to mandate health tech standards (Health Tech Newspaper)

2 Years in the Grip of the Justice System (John Fitzpatrick)

A Brief Introduction to Digital Government for Public Sector Leadership Teams (Eddie Copeland)

The grim reality of life under Gangs Matrix, London's controversial predictive policing tool (Wired)

The only way is... oh

Why I have accepted the invitation to advise Google about the ethical challenges posed by AI (Luciano Floridi)

Exclusive: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry (Vox)

Google scraps ethics council for artificial intelligence* (FT)

'Bias deep inside the code': the problem with AI 'ethics' in Silicon Valley(The Guardian)

It's all going very well

The internet needs new rules. Let's start in these four areas. (Mark Zuckerberg for Washington Post)

We Built A Broken Internet. Now We Need To Burn It To The Ground.(BuzzFeed)

YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Letting Toxic Videos Run Rampant(Bloomberg)

Social media bosses could be liable for harmful content, leaked UK plan reveals (The Guardian)

Facebook is partnering with a big UK newspaper to publish sponsored articles downplaying 'technofears' and praising the company (Business Insider)

Inquiry launched into data use from no-deal Brexit ads on Facebook (The Guardian)

Still, it could be worse

A quarter of Europeans want AI to replace politicians. That’s a terrible idea. (Vox)

Stained in Red (London Review of Books)

Opportunities

JOB: Data Scientist (National Theatre)

EVENT: Democracy Club | Elections data party (LSE!) (Democracy Club, via Tess)

Voters are crying out for better information about elections – here’s your opportunity to help (Democracy Club for Democratic Audit)

Everything else

Why bother with What Three Words? (Terence Eden)

Exploring how to measure social integration using digital and online data(Demos, via Johnny)

#InConfidence

Can OS map Britain’s high streets? (Ordnance Survey)

DIGITAL SELF-CONTROL: ALGORITHMS, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND OUR DIGITAL SELVES (NEF)

The history of machine learning (BBC)

Plants and Birds Need Privacy Online, Too (Slate)

And finally...

An irrational date for an irrational number* (FT)

There are a few problems with this pie chart. (via Martin Stabe)

Emoticons were born on this day in 1881... (Brain Pickings)

New poster to celebrate 70 years of Britain’s National Parks (Ordnance Survey)

Dive in: aerial shots of German public swimming pools (The Guardian, which put me in mind of this)

Jon Snow is fan favourite to win Game of Thrones (YouGov)

M25 Man

[comicteaparty]

February 4th-February 10th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from February 4th, 2019 to February 10th, 2019.  The chat focused on Offshore Comic by Stefan Gasic.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Offshore Comic by Stefan Gasic~! (http://www.offshorecomic.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PST), so keep checking back for more! You have until February 10th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite strip in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 3. Given the comic’s focus on financial markets and all that composes them, what is something this comic has taught you about the subject? Alternatively, what is something you wished you understood better to understand the comic’s comedy?

QUESTION 4. How do you think the comic’s illustrative style and choices help the comedy of the comic? What is one moment where a particular design or image really stood out to you and helped the point the strip was trying to convey?

QUESTION 5. The comic features several recurring subjects like the legitimacy of IQ scores, LLCs, and more. Which of these recurring topics did you like the most? What about it caught your interest?

Stefan G

Hello everyone, 1) Just updated www.offshorecomic.com with a new strip. Check it out. 2) RebelVampire, are your questions intended for me or any new reader? Ciao, Stefan the creator of #Offshorecomic

snuffysam

They're intended for both (still working through the archive)!

keii4ii

Is there a way to get permalinks for individual strips, so I can come back to specific ones at a later time?

Stefan G

Thanks & okay, snuffysam keii4ii, unfortunately there’s no way to get permalinks for individual strips ... I coded the website myself as a side project and am not that good a coder

keii4ii

Oh man, I can relate to that... If I ever get rich, comic website coding and maintenance stuff is the first thing I'll hire someone to do for me

I do like how it loads and makes it easy to read through the archive, for what it's worth.

Stefan G

Thanks for the feedback ... and I totally, totally agree. One could spend a fortune for a coder to take care of all the fixings and stuff ... now I’m learning on the side whenever there’s time left over from work & family.

Stefan G

Answer to Q1 => readers have found the “happiness” strip the best. It’s also one of my favourite ones [succinct & clever & relatable] ...I truly don’t have a favourite strip, but the attached Reto & Urs -strips make me chuckle whenever I read them [I appreciate below-the-waist-humour and/or humour where people are really, really selfish].

lomcia (princess_lom)

1. The newest one is so funny

2. Trader

3. i dont work in office but i cant find nothing to improve that comic, i think the design of characters and humor is on really high lvl 12/10 for me

4. Style is perfect ffor that comic, i wouldnt change it

Stefan G

Answer to Q2 => at the moment my favourite character is the Economist. He’s a genuine IYI [intellectual-yet-idiot] ... which the world is full of and the finance industry in particular. The Economist is easy to write for because I’ve discovered a never ending source of humorous material called the daily financial newspaper ... please find attached also one of my favourite strips

Thank you, lomcia (princess_lom) for your feedback.

lomcia (princess_lom)

your welcome I hope i didnt misunderstood question 3 xD

Stefan G

I think you got everything just right

lomcia (princess_lom)

cool

Stefan G

Answer/comment to Q3 => I’ve spend my professional life in finance, hence, I know every nuance of the industry. However, for the layperson the finance industry [money, banking, insurance, etcetc...] is a big black box of unnecessary complication. My humble attempt with #Offshorecomic is to untangle this complexity and make money related topics more accessible/understandable to anyone ... using humour as my main tool. Finance is more stupid than you think; trust me

I’ll answer the rest tomorrow. Gotta go to now. is like in a totally different time zone and all that Thx again y’all !

RebelVampire

QUESTION 6. Which joke not related to finance did you enjoy the most? What about it made it stand out to you among all the others?

RebelVampire

1) i really enjoyed the life coaching strip about facing reality and lying to yourself. i just really enjoy the bluntness and simplicity by which the self-deception line is delivered. A+ comedy right. 2) i like p-bird because i consider him a much needed counter balance to many of the other characters. he at least has more feet planted in reality. 3) hedge funds. not that i understand them perfectly from the comic, but now theyre more than just a financial word i see tossed around. and despite the very negative absurdist humor regarding them, was still interesting to get some insight into what they actually involved. 4) i think the style overall really balances well with the comedy. a lot of the comedy is reliant on the dialogue, so keeping the illustrations clean, bold, and somewhat simple really helps direct attention to the words. i also really just enjoy the character designs cause every single one really hits that idiot or absurdist mark that needs to be hit. 5) actually i really liked the address of IQ scores. because literally these characters seem like the type whod wind up on r/iamverysmart and use their IQs to talk about how cool they are. so it was kind of nice to see some evidence for that with the subject. that and i always like seeing the concept of IQ being torn apart. 6) i actually liked a lot of the jokes that pertained to the academic sphere in regards to things like publishing and teaching. selfishly it most just stood out to me because academia is something im more familiar with in regards to its simultaneous setup of worthless class structures and cutthroat profs trying to further their careers.

Stefan G

Thank you, RebelVampire, for your thoughtful analysis & feedback I believe that the writing is the most important part in comics ... and the best humorous writing is often blunt & simple [you hit the nail on the head with that comment]. Furthermore, I intentionally designed the strip in a simplistic style in order to A) highlight the writing/gag, B) to save time and C) cuz simple drawings are funny I love to make fun of pompous, self righteous folks ... academics are thus some of my main targets [due to the same reasons I make fun of financial professionals].

Stefan G

Answer to Q4 => My childhood inspiration and spark for cartoons/drawing came from F.Ibanez [Clever & Smart] ... very funny yet simple style. Nowadays I enjoy Dilbert by Scott Adams or the political cartoons from cartoonist Jari Elsilä; also both of them are hilarious without wasting unnecessary lines. I believe a straightforward style highlights the writing and that’s what I’m trying to achieve. Moreover, I love to have backgrounds in my comics [to steer the reader to a particular thought or mood] but hate to draw them and/or dislike it when they clutter the cartoon ... I’m rather happy with a style that I’ve developed over time where I draw the background but reduce the opacity to 25 %. I think that works pretty nice

Stefan G

Answer to Q5 => My favourite themes are 1) anyone predicting the future, 2) mistaking luck for awesome skill and 3) incompetent yet pompous professionals ... there is so much hilarious material right there

Answer to Q6 => I often use the characters Reto und Urs for jokes/strips that are not necessarily financial because they are so endearingly stupid [well, mostly Urs is]. This one makes me chuckle

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. In what ways have any of the strips changed the way you think about life, finances, or any other topic covered in them? Alternatively, what have the strips portrayed that you wish more people knew?

RebelVampire

(the archive for the chat on Poco Adventures is now available https://comicteaparty.com/post/182650076295/january-28th-february-3rd-2019-ctp-archive)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 8. Of all the parodies and jabs at financial markets and life, which do you consider the most on the nose as far as its representation in the comic goes?

RebelVampire

7) the strips have made me realize in a way that this is another industry where basically theres lots of ridiculous junk going on in the background cause you can never remove human faults completely. cause when it comes to finance theres lots of advanced vocabulary and concepts being thrown around usually, so for someone untrained it can sound intimidating and hard to follow. i think these strips do a great job of humanizing things tho and showing that the concepts arent all that alien cause at the end they were created by humans and reflect the desires of humans in a way. 8) one of my faves that i think is totally on the nose is this one where the economist is telling p-bird about ppl on twitter debating him being ignorant. and that his facts and stuff will prevail but p-bird points out that wouldnt even work on the economist. and the economist goes home confused. i think this is way too true for what its like to argue on the internet and how facts and logic get infinitely buried for the sake of narrative.

Stefan G

Excellent analysis/comments, RebelVampire really constructive. The human element is everywhere and money is such an emotionally laden topic that it’s easy to get confused even without the unnecessary complicated vocabulary ...which is often misused even by so-called “professionals”. If my strip has helped you understand all of that and un-demonised the beast, you’ve made me a very happy man Yeah, the Twitter-Fact-Confusion strip is one of my more relatable strips ... I’ve given up on trying to change people’s minds with facts; if changing minds is possible, it can only be achieved through via emotions. It sounds more logical the other way around but that’s not how we work. Here’s a special academically oriented strip just for you, RebelVampire Enjoy

snuffysam

haven't been able to get all the way through the archive yet, but my answer to both #2 and #8 is the Regional Manager. I love all the characters, but there's something to be said for the simplicity of having a guy literally run around headless.

Stefan G

Thanks , snuffysam. I almost forgot about the regional manager. I have to bring him back to life; I also like him ... by the way, there are 308 strips in total.

Answer to Q7 => I can’t claim that any one strip has changed the way I think about life and/or other things ... however, I do believe that writing & drawing Offshore strips has reinforced in me some of the main ideas from my favourite author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who’s books have influenced me deeply [e.g. Black Swan, Antifragile, etc etc] ... luck versus skill, thinking about risk and stuff like that. I regularly come back to his books for inspiration and recommend his books & Twitter -feed. Here are two strips that highlight my point ...sort of

Answer to Q8 => wow tough question ... with 99 % of my strips I genuinely try to convey some message about basic human quirks and/or outright stupidities that actually take place on a regular basis when handling money + and then I add my own personal humours twist to it. Here are a few strips with the message never to buy something you don’t understand [a hint: they always have complicated names]...

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What other finance related topics are you hoping to see the comic explore? Which characters are you hoping to see involved with the topic?

Stefan G

Answer to Q9 => As the creator of the strip I’m obviously biased to answer this question, but I’d love to hear what the new readers have to say. I don’t have a particular preference for any topic [except make fun of pompous forecasters ] ... but I feel myself wanting to write & draw more strips for the Markets-Weasel and Reto und Urs. And that’s surprisingly hard to do; forcing it doesn’t work [at least not for me] ... Offshore’s main characters were supposed to be Reto und Urs and somehow P-Bird and the Economist and the trader stole the show. I guess that happens when you get to know your characters better. Funny how that happens ... here’s one nostalgic strip from my early work that I really enjoy

Stefan G

Addition to Q9 => ... I’ve steadily build up an audience on Twitter [@NonMeek] which consist mainly of likeminded financial and/or other professionals ...hence, hearing the viewpoints from anyone outside that sphere would be awesome

RebelVampire

QUESTION 10. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

RebelVampire

9) idk about specific topics, but id like to see the CEO who i think appeared in like one strip. I'm really interested to see the CEO dynamic with the other characters in terms of finance. learn how they view what theyre doing, how they view what the others are doing, etc. but im all for bringing the regional manager back too cause i enjoyed that character as well. a lot of great humor picking fun at how some managerial positions are kind of ridiculous to even exist to a degree. 10) learning more, mostly. overall its nice to see a harder to cover topic in comics. ive enjoyed how approachable and humanized the strips make finances, and how they remind you that professionals can be like this and actually have no clue what theyre doing. @Stefan G that academic oriented strip you shared was actually one of my faves. not necessarily in college, but i see this a lot in the blogosphere where ppl do a thing once and try to pass themselves as qualified experts to deliver advice. XD

Stefan G

@RebelVampire Thanks again for your opinions. Those really help with the development of the strip ... finance is a hard topic indeed and there are no really finance oriented strips out there [that I know of anyway], which is funny cuz the industry is filled with emotions and mind blowing mental errors. I guess people still believe finance & investing is some sort of scientific discipline which it’s really not ... there are hardly any black & white answers to anything even though there’s lots and lots of historical data ... it’s time to fix that myth with Offshore I’m glad you enjoyed that academic strip. It resonated rather well on Twitter too

@RebelVampire [adding to my previous answer] ... I agree that the managers need to be reanimated and given another chance. I’ll try to do that and see how they resonate. I never know beforehand which characters will work and which will fizzle out; e.g. der Compliance Offizier is one of my favourite characters, yet, resonates weakly outside the banking circles ‍♂️ [I love the strip below ].

keii4ii

I would like to see more strips that cracks jokes about this very specific context of finances! Things like that strip about funds blowing up on day 252. I think that gives this comic its own flavor. Readers get to laugh about not just any kind of incompetent people, but incompetent people in this specific field. Readers with no background in finances don't know the context, so more strips that shed light on the context of the jokes would be great.

Stefan G

@keii4ii All valid and excellent points ... I genuinely try to write & design my cartoons in such a way that the joke is understandable even though you don’t know the context. It’s a hard thing to do ... my wife is my toughest critic and she tells me the same as you ... but keep following Offshore and I promise to come up with more stuff like that 252 strip

Answer to Q10 => My ambition with Offshore is to 1) amuse myself first and see if anyone shares my sense of humour [if a cartoon doesn’t amuse me, I don’t publish it]. It’s a splendid way of letting out some frustration from work ... and 2) to make investing & finance more approachable to the layperson by infusing some humour into it in the form of cartoons ... which by the way nobody thought of doing on a serious basis. Weird. However, to produce material on a semi-regular basis I figured that writing only gags/jokes is too much work and/or too shallow of an approach, hence, the characters in the strip need to be interesting/relatable enough in order to create humorous material by mere interaction with each other. That’s easier said than done. I’m quite satisfied with my characters so far but am continuously looking for new interesting characters to add to the strip [either permanently or impermanently]. Like Scott Adams once told me: “The trick with comics is to reflect the reader's own experience. To allow people to say, "That's me!" I’ll conclude with this sneak peek strip [only for you guys] that should relate to the experience of anybody working in a big corporation.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Offshore Comic this week! Please also give a special thank you to Stefan Gasic for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Offshore Comic, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://www.offshorecomic.com/

Stefan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonMeek

[lawrenceop]

Further thoughts on Scorsese’s ‘Silence’

My first post (not really a review as such) was just a few initial impressions hurriedly typed up as soon as I returned from watching Scorsese’s ‘Silence’ on Tuesday. I was rather overwhelmed, therefore, by the positive response to it – almost 900 shares on social media so far. Thank you! 

Once again, in what follows, there will be ‘spoilers’ so do not read on if this bothers you.

Since then I’ve had a chance to talk to my Dominican brothers about it, have a few online discussions, and in between working on my STL thesis I’ve had time to reflect a bit more. Part of what I really enjoyed about this movie is that it engenders lots of discussion and it’s of sufficient complexity to warrant several interpretations of its themes and ideas over a multitude of disciplines. A friend of mine, an anthropologist who I met in Oxford, made a particularly astute observation which I’ve since developed a little bit, and I thought it might resonate with other people’s observations of the film perhaps.

This time my focus is on the main character of the story, Padre Rodrigues, who is the antihero of this movie for me but his story highlights an area of Christian spirituality and moral theology that is seldom talked about. It seems to me that the story of Rodrigues could be seen as a parable of God’s pedagogy; a story that tells of how in the mystery of divine Providence one is led through sin by grace from vice towards virtue. 

St Thomas Aquinas in his Commentary of 2 Corinthians notes that “pride, properly called, separates from God and is the root of all vices and the worst of them”. And we see how Padre Rodrigues was in danger of falling deeply into this vice. Firstly, a certain arrogance led him to Japan – he was very sure of himself and confident that he would be able to rescue Padre Ferreira. He was also very sure of his faith and his fortitude. But faith is a gift from God, and fortitude even to the point of suffering martyrdom is an infused virtue. In other words, these virtues do not come from our own efforts but are received in humility from God. Pride, however, as St Thomas says is “an inordinate desire for one’s own excellence” and if one seeks such excellence independently of God, then, St Thomas says, “he can even fall into other vices, such as ambition, avarice, vainglory and the like”. Hence, for example, Rodrigues exhibited ambition – he longed for the glory of finding Ferreira – as well as vainglory – he loved too much, perhaps, to be revered and be indispensable to the villagers and so he easily succumbed to being lured out of hiding because he believed he was needed. I grant that he may not have acted out of these vices but as a priest I recognise how subtle and prevalent these spiritual vices are for us. 

Certainly, Padre Rodrigues’ vice of pride becomes evident in his contempt for Kichijiro. As an aside, let me observe that Kichijiro is presented as a somewhat comical figure but, as I think about it, he is an interesting figure of the habitual sinner and I can recognise myself in him. Through weakness and habit, many will fall into the same sins repeatedly, and each time we go to confession with regret and contrition. However, if we step back and look at ourselves, I think we will also recognise something comic in this. And the ability to laugh at oneself and one’s stupidity when falling again and again into the same sin can be a good thing. It can lead to a certain humility for it is said that the Devil never laughs because he takes himself too seriously; he’s too full of pride and self-regard. 

In any case, as Kichijiro comes to the priest for confession yet another time after having stamped on the image of Christ again, we hear Rodrigues’ interior monologue. Shockingly, just before giving absolution to Kichijiro, Rodrigues expresses his prideful disdain for the Japanese apostate. And yet, humility would remind us that any good we do comes about because of God’s grace, including our avoidance of sin and preservation in virtue. His grace prompts, sustains and brings to perfection every good work, and we are co-operators but without Christ we can do nothing (see John 15:5). Therefore, St Paul says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God – not because of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:8-9). It is in this moment that we see the height of pride that grips Padre Rodrigues. And so begins the divine pedagogy in which God applies a remedy against pride.

As we say, “pride comes before a fall”, and so, Padre Rodrigues falls into apostasy. Many people have commented on the apostasy of the priests in ‘Silence’ but I do not think that the movie encourages it, even though it might provide an apologia for it. Rather, it seems to me that Padre Rodrigues is allowed to fall into the sin of apostasy - for which he had once held Kichijiro in such disdain - and they become, as it were, kindred spirits. Indeed, they become friends and companions. Padre Rodrigues is thus humbled by his fall into apostasy and in taking on this sin, he begins to empathise with the tragicomic figure of Kichijiro. And empathy is the first step towards friendship. 

Now I say that God allows Rodrigues to fall into this sin because it is by God’s permissive will that we sin. God doesn’t directly will that we sin, of course, but because he desires that we have free will and so learn to love the good and the true, so, in his Providence, he permits sin. Moreover, God desires that we learn to love and so there is an intriguing thread of Christian spirituality that recognises that sin is part of the divine pedagogy because we learn from our mistakes, so to speak. I first came across this idea as a novice and it has stayed with me. In ‘The Way of the Preacher’, Simon Tugwell OP observes that “sin itself is a form of suffering, which, paradoxically, purifies a man”. This teaching he traces to St Irenaeus, “for whom sin is an important aspect of divine pedagogy – not that God actually instigated sin directly, but he set up the world in such a way that sin was extremely likely to take place, and could be treated as one possible way of making Adam realise his dependence on God. It comes to be fairly standard doctrine that God permits people to fall into the more obvious kinds of carnal sin as an antidote to pride”. Hence, St John Damascene says in ‘De fide orthodoxa’ that in God’s Providence, a man might be “allowed to fall at times into some act of baseness in order that another worse fault may be thus corrected, as for instance when God allows a man who takes pride in his virtue and righteousness to fall away into fornication in order that he may be brought through this fall into the perception of his own weakness and be humbled and approach and make confession to the Lord.”

So, too, St Thomas in his Commentary on 2 Corinthians says that “God sometimes permits his elect to be prevented by something on their part, eg: infirmity or some other defect, or sometimes even mortal sin, from obtaining such a good, in order that they be so humbled on this account that they will not take pride in it, and that being thus humiliated, they may recognize that they cannot stand by their own powers”.

It seems to me that Rodrigues is definitely humiliated and humbled by his sin of apostasy. For he effectively loses his priesthood, and as a notorious apostate he becomes something of a freak show for Japanese and Europeans alike, whose only friends are his fellow apostates. From the moment of his apostasy, we see him in a bit of a daze, practically speechless, and totally dispirited; unenthusiastic and robotic in his censorship of imported Christian materials. It seems he descends into a death-like silence and in this silence perhaps he finds the One who he once accused of being silent. This idea of the kenosis of Christ whereby he encounters the sinner in the depths, in any event, is proposed by the theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, who had been a Jesuit.

It is from the depths of this nothingness, it seems then, that Rodrigues can learn to depend once more on God and his grace. This is what his clinging to the little Crucifix appears to symbolise. In the end, finding himself to be weak and undependable, he depends totally on the Crucified One, or at least, clings to him for mercy. And, if we think about it, isn’t that the one great spiritual lesson each one of us has to learn? For as St Benedict said: “we descend by self-exaltation and ascend by humility. And the ladder thus set up is our life in the world, which the Lord raises up to heaven if our heart is humbled”.