Magic: The Gathering

I’ve been thinking a lot about Magic: The Gathering lately. Blame some of it on the impromptu return of The Ring Has Chosen, a podcast dedicated to the dearly departed VS System. Cliff, one of the two hosts, has taken up Magic and been talking about it quite a bit. In addition, Duels of the Planeswalkers, an Xbox 360 arcade title, has been something I’ve played quite a lot recently, and I just picked up the expansion that adds a couple decks.

Here’s the thing about Duels of the Planeswalkers. It’s a very well designed video game rendition of the card game itself. There are a few things that took a while to get used to, and I had to go into the options menu to turn off simple targeting to allow the ability to target myself with negative spells (I understand why they did this, but any seasoned card player knows the importance of sometimes nuking your own creatures for beneficial effects). It has one glaring issue, which is the fact that all of the decks are preconstructed, and they cannot really be altered. This is a problem in many ways, but it’s not a game breaker. So when you have your solo black deck that’s focused on a mix of discard, creature destruction, regenerating blockers and flying creatures/vampires, it gets a little watered down. This is not to say it or any of the other decks are bad. In fact, they’re all quite good, really, for the sort of bare bones deck construction you have available. The biggest issue is twofold: firstly, you have no control over the lands in the deck. Each deck comes with a predetermined amount of lands, and while they’re pretty well balanced, the second issue also creates more problems from this perspective. You see, all of the decks have a sort of base deck you use at the start that is 60 cards. When you win matches in the single player campaign mode, you unlock a new card. Most of these are pretty powerful; this is where the rares usually come from, your Shivan Dragon or Sengir Vampire or Serra Angel, for example. But, you cannot alter or remove any of the cards from the base deck. So if you want to use all of the cards you unlocked (and you usually do with a few exceptions like some of the artifacts that heal based on spell color, like Demon’s Horn, which is mostly designed to let you survive until you get the good stuff), you’re walking around with a 70-80 card deck. Anyone who plays card games knows that you don’t EVER go above 61 at the most, or you’re diluting your options.

As a for instance, Royal Assassin is a fantastic tool for black decks to control decks based primarily on attacking (Green decks, for example). If you’ve got a few regenerators and a Royal Assassin on the field, no one is ever going to attack you unless they’re stupid. And the computer AI is pretty good at recognizing this. However, there is one Royal Assassin in the black deck as an unlockable card. You’re not going to see him very much. Can’t exactly consider it a mulligan condition. Would I rather take out those Unholy Strengths and Raise Deads to make sure I had playsets of Royal Assassin and Nekretaal in the deck? Sure. Does not having this completely kill its playability? No. And that’s why I’m going to continue to play the game. The decks are fun, if not perfect, and they’re actually surprisingly up to date, with some of the multicolor decks having quite a few cards from the Alara block that came out prior to M-10’s release (BLIGHTNING!!!!). It’s a lot of fun, and it’s making me want to play the actual physical card game again.

Some time this weekend, I’m going to take all my cards and sort the hell out of them. We’re talking alphabetical by color by set. I’ll be picking up some 5,000 count boxes at some point to really make this go. Once everything’s sorted, I’m going to really delve into this and see what I can do. Of course, I can’t exactly go to hobby leagues with my current cards; nobody plays Vintage, and I have about 50 cards from the Alara block, which isn’t exactly enough to make a standard format deck. Maybe I should sell some old stuff. Likely, it’s not worth a goddamned thing these days (Who needs Fallen Empires uncommons? No one? Fair enough!). I’m going to have to scrape some money together for some boxes of Alara, M-10, and Zendikar. Which is, admittedly, a lot of money. But I’ve got the itch. That much is undeniable. It’s coming.

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This post was written to the tune of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Running Commentary: Fantastic Four: Rising Storm Part 3

No, I didn’t forget. Let’s finish this!

Fantastic Four #522

Writer: Mark Waid

Pencils: Mike Wieringo

Inks: Karl Kesel

The Fantastic Four have found Johnny Storm and Galactus, and are attempting to find some way to free him from the clutches of his master without any kind of bodily harm. This isn’t exactly something that comes easily. Remember the Surfer’s knock down drag out in the Galactus trilogy? Or Frankie Raye getting an axe in the back? Or all those times that Air-Walker died (and it was a lot of times)? It’s rare that a herald leaves the employ of Galactus without suffering in some fashion beyond having the power cosmic removed (if it is removed, which usually doesn’t happen). So this issue is about saving Johnny Storm.

But we have to begin at the beginning. Johnny Storm uses his new powers to recap the origin of Galactus. Galan of Taa was a scientist in the universe previous to the one the Fantastic Four calls their own, and was out on an expedition at the center of the universe when everything died. Galan was wrapped in the cosmic egg by the sentience of the universe, and was reborn as Galactus. This origin is nothing new. It’s pretty much a blow by blow recap of the original telling of his origin, even down to a redraw of the infamous panel of Galan inside the cosmic egg as the sentience of the universe convinces him to combine and be reborn, with all that crazy green energy flying everywhere. It’s good stuff.

But the big news about this issue is the end. We’ve seen how Reed switched Sue and Johnny’s powers (which is nice from the perspective of only reading this trade on its own; it lets you know what was going on prior to 520), and there’s some crazy machine that allows this as a possibility. So Reed, in his infinite wisdom, finds a way to alter the machine to use it as a weapon against Galactus. And it works. The issue ends with Richards siphoning the power cosmic away from Galactus, and all we see is the empty husk of his armor. Is he dead? Are we going to get another Abraxas situation coming on here? Not quite, folks. Because as soon as you think the worst is coming, Galan emerges from the wreckage in his human form. And all bets are off as we head toward the fourth and final issue of the arc.

I must say, as such a Galactus fan, I loved this issue. Galan is one of those characters that I’ve always wanted to see more of. He had a VS card, and I’ve since learned that the art from that card comes from this story arc (see next issue). It’s a great way to take Galactus off the table for a bit without actually taking Galactus off the table entirely. How’s he going to interact? It’s a hell of a set up for the final issue, and the best of the issues so far. Great stuff.

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This post was written to the tune of Depeche Mode’s Songs of Faith and Devotion

The Lost Art of Handwriting

We live in a digital age. Word processors are the standard in this world. If you are going to write something, no matter what it is, you’re most likely doing so on a word processor. I guess the death of handwriting really begun with the typewriter, but regardless of when it happened, nothing handwritten really exists anymore. This, in many ways, makes me sad. And I’m technically part of the “problem;” most of my articles are written on a word processor, but whenever I write something for class, or some snippet of creative writing on my own, I always hand write it first. I don’t know if I can really explain why; it’s something I’ve always done.

Part of this is because of the Pilot pen company. I wrote exclusively with pencils for the early part of my life. The idea that you couldn’t erase pens just bothered the hell out of me. I only used pens if it was required. My dad changed everything. He would always throw random stuff in our stockings for the holidays, and one year he included some Pilot G2 black and blue gel ink pens. I had already started writing as an ongoing concern at that point, but I was doing it in pencil. Even back then I hand wrote nearly everything. I tried it for a quick little short story project I never finished (one of many, including “Going Home Again,” but I swear I’m going to get back to that one after my class ends). I’ve never looked back. The lines are smooth and vibrant, the ink is consistently strong. But the biggest thing it has on any other pen in my opinion (save fancy fountain pens, I would assume) is the way it scratches when you write with it. You can hear it and feel it. It’s tactile in a way that the standard ball points aren’t. It’s like writing with a quill, but not nearly as messy. That’s what changed things. That’s what made me a pen convert. I used gel ink for the rest of high school. Every now and then, I’d settle for something that wasn’t a Pilot G2 07 (or the dreadful Pilot G2 05’s, which is far too fine a point for aesthetic purposes), but it was never the same. I did Calculus and Physics work with those pens. My blue books were a mess at times, but they looked good. And that, to me, is what matters. You see a pen written manuscript and you see everything. I hate the fact that pencils can erase now. It hides the process. Spelling errors, syntax changes, entire paragraphs deleted, you can’t hide these in a pen-written manuscript. It’s a fascinating look into the writer’s process.

I still obviously type everything up, because that’s the age in which we live. But I think some of the charm was lost when our society stopped writing things by hand. You don’t even get the crazy doctor’s prescriptions with illegible writing these days; it’s all computerized. It’s soulless. Which is not to say I’m some kind of technophobe or anarchist when it comes to computers. Far from it. Computers and electronics dominate my life, and I’m happier for it. But I love the fact that I have an old concert band folder in my closet with almost 130 pages of handwritten manuscript for the novel I never finished when I was in high school. It’s got a different feel. You can discern my general mood or confidence level with a certain portion of writing by the way my handwriting changes. If I’m on a roll, the letters get larger, more exaggerated, sloppier, as I’m trying to get everything down as fast as possible before my notorious short term memory fails on me again. You can tell when my prose is deliberate because the writing is smaller, clearer, more cramped. It’s a sign that I’m focused on making the right choices as opposed to actively spewing things from mind to pen to paper. This is what I love about handwriting. It has its own language unto itself. Margin notes, mistakes, changes, it’s all there for the eye to see. An unadulterated look at the writer’s process.

Another thing I appreciate about handwriting things first is the fact that when you take the hand written work and type it up, it’s an automatic editing process. The mind never stops working or looking for ways to improve. As such, I always make edits when I type up something hand written. The original manuscript is very much a first draft, and while I don’t often do multiple drafts (to either my benefit or detriment depending on the situation), I am given the opportunity of improving my prose during that step. I think it’s an essential part of the process. It’s made me the writer that I am today, and I think that I’m a pretty good one, all things considered.

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This post was written to the tune of The Police’s Outlandos D’Amour

Matt Fraction: World’s Most Wanted

As I mentioned at the beginning of the Neil Gaiman entry of Heroes Week, I had originally planned to write my written word heroes week essay on one Matt Fraction, that crazy wordsmith currently trolling the metaphorical halls of Marvel comics. I decided against it at the end of things, but I still want to get something out there about the man. Not to say I needed inspiration to find a tipping point for an article, but I did read the final chapter of his twelve part Invincible Iron Man epic, “World’s Most Wanted,” and it begs to be examined and praised. This is going to be a pretty continuity heavy review, and there will be spoilers, especially dealing with the wonderful little reveal that caps the story arc. You have been warned.

There was a decent amount of time in the Marvel Universe when Tony Stark was not a well-liked guy. Blame Civil War and the Superhuman Registration Act. Tony was the head of SHIELD, and SHIELD wasn’t very popular. He would show up in books just to attempt to arrest or recruit the main character, which usually wouldn’t go too well (see issue three of JMS’ Thor run for a sterling example). As the Marvel universe moved toward Secret Invasion, Tony was still focused on the Superhuman Registration Act. StarkTech was compromised, which allowed the Skrulls to nearly take over the world until Norman Osborne struck the killing blow to the Skrull Queen and turned the tides. The Cabal took over, Osborne was the new leader of SHIELD (renamed HAMMER), and Tony Stark was suddenly on the run for crimes against the state.

Throughout this period, Invincible Iron Man, the new ongoing series by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca that launched in the wake of the Iron Man film (and by “in the wake” I mean the Wednesday after the film was released), didn’t necessarily feel synced up to the Marvel universe. This is mostly because Tony Stark was not acting like a dick to anyone and everyone the way he had so often in other books previous. And really, this book should be called The Invincible Tony Stark, because you see a hell of a lot more Tony than Shellhead. And I like that. The first arc, “The Five Nightmares” is wonderful, and took us up to issue six, with seven acting as a one and done interstitial issue before the real shit started going down. In that regard, the structure of the ongoing is markedly similar to Fraction and Brubaker’s Immortal Iron Fist. By the time issue eight rolled around, Dark Reign had taken hold, and “World’s Most Wanted” began. This might have been the first real book with the Dark Reign logo on it. It started simple enough. Tony Stark is on the run from the newly formed HAMMER. He’s scared to death of Norman Osborne getting hold of SHIELD’s database of information (and who wouldn’t be? The man’s a nutjob). So Tony did what any sane person would do and uploaded the entire SHIELD database into his brain (it’s been a while, so he might have done this previous to the beginning of the arc. Rest assured, I plan to reread these issues in their entirety very soon). But with the loss of StarkTech, he doesn’t have full access to his Extremis infrastructure. So he has to do something drastic and delete the database systematically from his brain. The only problem, of course, is that he’s also deleting everything else from his brain in the process. This will eventually kill him. This he knows.

There are others along for the ride in this story. Maria Hill and Black Widow work to take down HAMMER from both the outside and the inside. Pepper Potts is another big part of this, and this arc includes her own suit of armor, dubbed Rescue. But Tony’s the undeniable star, as is Fraction’s writing of him. Very quietly (for me, at least, since I don’t pay attention to Previews and never knew if it was announced as such), this became a monster of a twelve issue story arc, giant in scope, powerful in story and heart that feels just like a comic book should. The dumber Tony gets, the less he can control his armor, so he’s forced to go back in time to less complex versions of his armor. He runs into Namor, War Machine, and Crimson Dynamo on his way. Fraction was recently on an episode of the podcast Word Balloon, wherein he described “World’s Most Wanted” as Tony Stark’s This is Your Life. And that’s exactly what it is.

As an aside, this run also had some of my favorite individual issue titles this side of The Umbrella Academy, such as “The High-End Technology of Ultramodern Destruction,” “Kids With Guns vs. The Eternal Angel of Death,” and “Into the White [Einstein on the Beach].” It just adds to the wonder of the story.

The thing that really caught me, and this has happened before, is watching Tony Stark’s mind decay. I have an extreme empathy for the mentally challenged. I think it has something to do with my own pride for and heavy reliance on intelligence. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to my mind. It’s actually such an extreme, gut wrenching response that I feel extraordinarily uncomfortable around such people because I know that whatever I would do, I could not help them in any way that would make me feel better. Perhaps that makes me a bad person, but that part of things isn’t really germane to the task at hand. Four separate examples of such characterization from literature really stand out to me. The first is part one of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, the Benjy section. The second is from Alex Ross and Kurt Busiek’s Marvels, which features a note written by a mutant child to the family that has been sheltering her. This isn’t as good an example due to the fact that we’re dealing with a child and not a simpleton, but I got the same reaction. The third is actually another Matt Fraction book, Punisher War Journal, which features a similarly written letter as that from Marvels from the Rhino apologizing for his wantonly destructive ways. Lastly, of course, is “World’s Most Wanted,” specifically an email Tony writes to Maria Hill in issue 17 (might be 18, but I’m almost positive it’s 17). I think this is arguably the most affecting for me, thanks to the fact that Tony used to be such an intellectual giant and is now reduced to such a state that he can’t coherently form sentences. It’s one of those things where you get such a strong emotional reaction, even if it’s a negative one, that you want to experience it again. This is the hallmark of good, nay great writing.

Oh, and that ending? “Who the hell is Dr. Donald Blake??”? Gold. Absolutely perfectly timed comic gold. I foresee good times ahead.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that Invincible Iron Man is my favorite comic book currently being released monthly. It’s very close, but the overall quality and wonder of the Thors and Incredible Hercules’ of the world will usually get the nod. What I can say is that there has been no finer story arc or story line in the entirety of comicdom over the last twelve months than “World’s Most Wanted.” This is what comics are supposed to be. This is why we read them. Escapism and emotion. Vast story expanses where anything seems possible. Epic feel. This book has it in spades. I am now fully convinced that any and everyone who even considers themselves comic book readers, whether it be Marvel or DC, mainstream or independent, superhero or slice of life, should be required to read the first nineteen issues of The Invincible Iron Man. It’s not quite Casanova level work for Fraction, but it’s damned close. And it’s in many ways the best stuff out there right now. People bitch about the Eisners every year. But I have no problems whatsoever that Invincible Iron Man won the Eisner for best new series this year. It deserves it wholeheartedly.

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This post was written to the tune of King Crimson’s Larks Tongues in Aspic

New Blood

There are times when something new comes along. Something that just smacks you across the face and screams “LOOK AT ME! I’M CRAZY AND NEW AND ORIGINAL!!” The realm of the comic book medium is such that you can have these moments with an at times startling regularity. The depth of artists and writers available to ply their trades throughout the comic landscape is deep and plentiful. You’ve got the big two in Marvel and DC that have their daring stories of superhero goodness, and while they may not often have anything wholly new or fresh in their main slate of titles, both have their own imprints (MAX and Icon on the Marvel side, Vertigo and Wildstorm for DC) that allow for some flexing of the creative muscles. Of course, beyond the big two is where you start to see the really wild stuff uncorked. The second tier that rounds out the overall big five consisting of Dark Horse, Image, and newcomer to the big boy’s table IDW, have had their fair share of madness force itself upon the reader. Indeed, the two properties that are at the core of this article are new books with a similar release history that have been unleashed by Image in the last half year.

If you follow anything related to comic books online, and you manage to pay even the slightest bit of attention to the non-Marvel or DC goings-on, you’ve probably at least heard of Chew. The story that came out of nowhere from John Layman and Rob Guillory hit the stands and sold like crazy on its limited print run. First printings of the debut book were selling for $50 or more on eBay. Everyone seemed to want to read it, but no one could find it. The story is that of a not too distant future where all poultry products have been banned due to an avian flu epidemic. A chicken selling black market has sprouted in response, and chicken smuggling speakeasies are in constant danger of being raided by the FDA, who have become a sort of de facto mix of the FBI and SWAT. Enter Tony Chu, a low rent detective with a sickeningly effective psychic power. He is cibopathic, which means he can get psychic readings from anything he eats. It makes him quite the detective, but also forces him to eat any manner of disgusting things to get to the bottom of cases. The first arc, “Taster’s Choice,” wrapped up last month, focusing on Tony Chu being recruited as a new operative of the FDA while he tries to solve the mystery of the death of a food critic. Of course, something more sinister is going on underneath the scene, and we’ve just gotten a taste (pun completely and absolutely intended) of things to come.

This book is, for all intents and purposes, brilliant. Tony Chu’s power, which is also shared by another FDA agent, the gigantic and terrifically designed Mason Savoy, allows for the perfect mix of comedy and general grossness, and the key is the way Tony reacts to his power. He knows he must do what he does for the greater good, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Tony hates what he has to do. His peers and bosses are both disgusted and freaked out by him. He’s constantly harangued by everyone but Mason, and still soldiers on. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the story gets bigger and crazier over the course of these first five issues, but all of it feels genuine. I certainly can’t think of the central idea ever happening before in anything I’ve read, and sure it’s a genre book at its core, but it’s so unique and refreshing in its execution that you can’t help but fall into to whole madcap goings on of this off beat world. There have been multiple printings of the first arc, so the single issues hopefully shouldn’t be too hard to find anymore, and one would assume that a trade paperback is upcoming. Find it. Read it. Marvel at its originality. Love it.

But Image wasn’t done there. Oh no. We also get to enjoy the wildness of Cowboy Ninja Viking. I should mention something. I’m very glad I listen to comic book podcasts. I’m a busy guy on a day to day basis, and I never get a chance to look at Previews (by Previews, I am referring to Diamond Distributors catalogue that they release every month of the current comic book solicitations, which are for books being released two to three months in the future). I’ll check the text format Previews that DCBS (Discount Comic Book Service, my online comic ordering site of choice that saves me tons of money month to month), but that’s usually just to check on an ancillary book from the Big Two (ah, hell, who am I kidding? Basically just Marvel). So I miss out on a lot of books (Chew was also a good example of this). I need podcasts to tell me what I missed. Another new Image Comics release, Cowboy Ninja Viking, is a perfect example of that kind of book.

I can personally thank Comic Geek Speak’s excellent podcast for turning me onto Cowboy Ninja Viking. This is a good thing, because with a name like that, I would probably never have given it the time of day. I am a geek, and I’m very much embroiled in geek culture. However, there are aspects of the geek culture (the irrational love of ninjas being one of them) that have a tendency to irk me. So a book with a title like that just seems childish on the surface. But then you see it. You see its Golden Age style size (which doesn’t fit comfortably in my comic boxes, humorously enough). You see the art, which strongly evokes Casanova, one of my favorite comes ever, what with its somewhat scratchy style and stark, two tone color style (the fact that the color used in the issue seems to be the same shade of blue Fabio Moon used in Casanova’s second story arc presumably reinforces the comparison). You see the story concept, which consists of a shadow agency recruiting people with three split personalities (“triplets”) to be the perfect assassins. You see the way each of the titular hero’s word balloons are altered to determine who is talking (the outline of a revolver for the cowboy, an axe for the Viking, and a sword for the ninja), you see the whole package as something that’s just actively different.

The art is gorgeous. The story is engaging. The dialogue is wacky but grounded and contained. The potential is immense. The second triplet you see at the end of issue one is just a glimpse of where this book could go. It’s all about the possibilities of the future, and in the case of both Chew and Cowboy Ninja Viking, Image’s future is looking pretty bright.

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This post was written to the tune of The Beatles’ Revolver

Misconceptions

There is a strong chance that Friedrich Nietzsche might be one of the most misunderstood thinkers we’ve seen in the philosophical enterprise. What’s interesting about it is the fact that these misconceptions are almost entirely not his fault. This is not an example of vague or overly complex prose leading to a misread of a text (I’m thinking along the lines of Hegel here, whose prose is so dense that he’s easily misunderstood due to confusion more than anything). Far from it. Nietzsche’s text is clear. Some would say too clear in certain situations, bordering on polemic (or, in the case of On the Genealogy of Morals, it’s actually subtitled as “A polemic”). Even Thus Spoke Zarathustra and some of the aphorisms from The Gay Science that are designed to be parables (or parodies of parables, which might be a better fit) still have a clear topic of focus and are easy to understand philosophically.

I’m also not trying to say that some of the controversy concerning Nietzsche’s thought is unwarranted. There are moments, especially in On the Genealogy of Morals sections about the good/evil and good/bad distinction, that sound pretty scary from a Third Reich perspective (thanks, “blonde beast”). His thoughts were radical and challenging, and made many uncomfortable. Two things certainly didn’t help: 1. His sister’s involvement in his work and the publishing of The Will to Power, and 2. his eventual co-opting at the hands of the Nazi regime. These two things go hand in hand considering Elizabeth Nietzsche’s political outlook was strongly pre-Nazian, and she made obvious edits to his unpublished work.

Nietzsche’s philosophical outlook was always confrontational. I’ve long held the belief that there are two major histories in the Western philosophical tradition. The positive history of philosophy charts the progress of thought from its origins in the pre-Socratics and Parmenides through the holy trinity of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, on through DesCartes, Kant, and so on, with its apex (in my opinion at least) found with Hegel. In nearly all cases, these were philosophers that argued for the ability to understand knowledge rationally as something supersensible beyond the sensual realm. You could easily refer to it as the rational history of western philosophy, but I think that designation lacks sufficient punchiness. On the other side of the coin, you have the negative history of philosophy, which begins with Heraclitus, moves through the Greek skeptics and Protagoras, other scattered thinkers through the ages like Pascal, Hobbes, David Hume, and Kierkegaard, and finds its apex in Nietzsche. In some ways, this negative philosophy is more concerned with the sensible. Perspectivism, relativism, and skepticism are strongly rooted in this history. In many ways, the negative history is a systematic response to the positive. It builds on its predecessors in a similar way, but often takes the role of refutations or devils’ advocates of the popular positive philosophers of the time. It’s not something as simple as the division between analytic and continental philosophy, as continental rationalists certainly exist and are quite popular. Either way Nietzsche was there. And he changed a lot of things just based on how he wrote. He would call out specific philosophers in sometimes mean spirited fashion (Socrates being referred to as a demon, John Stuart Mill as a flathead, and so on). He would write aphorisms that were specifically design to elicit a response. Zarathustra as a work was a carefully constructed parody of Christianity. He was ruthless.

Because of this, Nietzsche is often considered by scholars to be not worthy of philosophical examination. He’s seen as a gimmick, a thinker who was more concerned with getting a rise out of his readers than making any real philosophical progress. While I would certainly argue that this isn’t at all true, it has led to a lot of backlash. When Nietzsche made his famous proclamation in The Gay Science that “God is dead,” he made enemies. And this was intentional. Nietzsche was constantly using such language to fend people off, to force them away. He didn’t want everyone to read his philosophy, because he was actively aware that his philosophy is not for everyone. Indeed, the “God is dead, and we have killed him” phenomenon is less about religion itself, than the values (specifically Christian values) that these religions hold have lost sway on the modern man. Science has put religion on decline. It is no longer needed by modern man. It has been overcome. It is an incendiary saying, obviously, but its design is to show us the world as it actually is. It is simply done through invective, because this is Nietzsche’s way.

What I can say is unequivocally the greatest injustice levied on Nietzsche’s thought and works is the proto-Nazi anti-Semitism that is constantly used as an excuse to pigeonhole his philosophy. What’s so annoying about it, and the work of scholars like Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale has helped allay these conceptions immensely, is that it’s completely opposite to Nietzsche’s outlook. From his first work in 1872, he warned against German nationalism. You see it again as late as Ecce Homo, one of his last published works in 1888. If anything, he was an anti-German, which is ironic considering his eventual co-opting at the hands of National Socialism. The only part of his philosophy (and when I say philosophy, I mean the works that he actively published during his life) that could be considered anti-Semitic is portions of On the Genealogy of Morals, and that was more about Judaism as a herald of Christianity than anything else. He does say that Judaism is the cause for the creation of the master/slave morality (the infamous “slave revolt of morality” that probably had some deference to Marx) that he thinks is one of the key changes in thinking that leads to the necessary revaluation of all values (i.e. nihilism), but he is also very clear that the true problem of the master/slave morality is the Christians coming in, taking up the cause and making it the dominant religion and value system of the western world. He never talks about any kind of hatred for the Jewish race or Jewish people in themselves. He simply disagreed (violently) with their values.

The will to power, the overman, the more radical nationalism that you see in his later posthumous works was not anything that anyone should legitimately take seriously as paramount to Nietzsche’s thought as such. His sister, who he actively criticized during his lucid years, took control of his works and published them with reckless abandon, actively editing his words to fit her own nationalist and anti-Semitic tendencies. His reputation unfortunately goes hand in hand with this period, as it happened so soon after his descent into madness and death, and that period was also the beginning of his rise in popularity in the early twentieth century. One wonders if Nietzsche’s legend would even be as large as it is today (for good or ill) if he had not been turned into post-hoc Nazi propaganda. What really matters, what people constantly overlook when studying Friedrich Nietzsche, is his educational roots. The man was a classical philologist. He went to university to study Ancient Greece. I still contend (and this may be controversial in its own right, but the evidence is there) that the single most important idea in all of Nietzsche’s thought that colors everything he does is the dichotomy he talks about in The Birth of Tragedy between the Apollonian and Dionysian forces from Ancient Greek culture. Above the eternal recurrence, above the overman (heh), above the will to power, above perspectivism and nihilism. He’s a Greek at heart, born in the wrong decade. It’s a shame he’s been dragged through the mud on so many occasions. I wish it would stop.

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This post was written to the tune of Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Running Commentary: Fantastic Four Rising Storm Part 2

Fantastic Four #521

Writer: Mark Waid

Pencils: Mike Wieringo

Inker: Karl Kesel

Issue two of Rising Storm consists of Johnny Storm, herald of Galactus attempting to dissuade Galactus from committing genocide while the Fantastic Four (with Quasar) frantically search the cosmos for him. We learn more in this issue about why Johnny Storm was chosen as Galactus’ new herald. Apparently there is something involved in the Invisible Woman power set that allows the ability to not only be invisible, but to see that which is hidden as well. Galactus has been trying to find a galaxy that has a cloaking device that hides them from his radar, and Johnny Storm is the perfect person to find them. And he does. What follows is a series of panels where Johnny visits various planets in the stellar system that are both fit for eating an uninhabited. Of course, any planet fit for devouring would pretty much be a life sustaining planet and thus have to have some form of life, so Johnny keeps trying to convince these folks to take up arms against the World Devourer, but they’re too busy being either scared to death, irrationally angry, and just meek to actually do anything constructive when confronted by the herald of Galactus. A very nice touch.

As it should be, the scenes involving Galactus are almost entirely silent on the Big G’s end. This is the way things should be. One of the best parts about the three issue Nova arc involving Galactus that Abnett and Lanning wrote recently was the way Galactus never spoke to anyone. He is the supreme omnipotence of the universe. Why would he ever waste the time to speak to insignificant humans? It ruins the mystique. Galactus does eventually speak in this issue, but it’s limited to the last splash page, and it’s only because Johnny’s new abilities to see beyond the veil has allowed him to see the true origins of Galactus, or should I say Galan. Talking about this origin has made Galactus intrigued, and he invites Torch to continue his tale at the end of the story.

I must say that this issue was all about Johnny. The FF frantically searching for Johnny and Quasar’s involvement didn’t really do much for me this issue. And I must say that Johnny’s manner of speaking still grates on me. I think Waid is doing an excellent job with the story, and Ringo’s art is still fantastic. It’s very much a second issue in a story arc, but not in a way that is detrimental. Good stuff moving forward.

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This post was written to the tune of Firewater’s Get Off the Cross…We Need the Wood for the Fire

Running Commentary: Fantastic Four’s Rising Storm Part 1

I’m going to start a new theme that I’ll take up from time to time where I read or watch something episodic and write about each part in order. The first series will be on the three trade paperbacks I picked up on the cheap at this past weekend’s Boston Comic Con, Fantastic Four: Rising Storm, Volume 1 of Brian Michael Bendis’ Pulse series, and Black Panther: The Client, the first volume of the landmark Christopher Priest run. I got all three of these trades for $15, which is a pretty damned good deal. I just recently cracked open the first issue of the Fantastic Four trade, and here are some thoughts.

Fantastic Four #520 – Part One of Rising Storm

Writer: Mark Waid

Pencils: Mike Wieringo

Inks: Karl Kesel

I’ve never read any of the Waid/Ringo run of Fantastic Four. I’ve heard a lot of good about it, and I’d seen quite a lot of the dearly departed Ringo’s FF art on VS System cards from the Marvel Legends set, and it’s got that perfect mix of cartoony elements (which is really essential when you’re working with characters like The Thing and Mr. Fantastic) and some realism to keep things grounded. This story was bought for one simple reason: GALACTUS. I am a Galactus fanboy. An extreme one, at that. When I went to Boston Comic Con, my plan was to make it a trip that would get me as many cheap Galactus related comic books as possible. And I think I did that. This trade, the first two issues of the Galactus: The Devourer miniseries, an issue of Fantastic Four from the Abraxas saga, a random assortment of Secret Wars and Infinity War issues. All fun cosmicky goodness. When I saw Rising Storm in the buy one get two free boxes and saw the picture of Johnny Storm, herald of Galactus on the back, I knew I had to find two more books to make it worth its while. The issue begins with the story already underway. It becomes clear quickly that at some point recently, Sue and Johnny had their powers switched by Reed Richards so Sue became the Human Torch and Johnny became the Invisible Man. Apparently because of this, Galactus has since taken Johnny to be his newest herald.

This is very much the first issue of a story arc, but not in a bad way. Sue and Johnny are shown trying to cope with their new powers, Johnny is trying to cope with dealing with Galactus, and the Fantastic Four is trying to cope with the disappearance of Johnny. There are two flashbacks during the issue that look at Sue and Ben’s fonder memories of Johnny. Both are done in a different art style (the drawing of Thing’s face in Ben’s flashback is nothing short of incredible), and they’re wonderful little slices of life that ground these characters in a real and touching way. I can say that Johnny is at times written a little too much like a punk, but that is definitely a part of his character. I think Waid overplays it slightly, especially in the scene where he confronts Galactus about the lack of a bathroom on the Worldship. That was a little on the nose.

I must say that the climactic fight between Johnny Storm and Karragan is a perfect meld of writer and artist. The point to get across is simple and clear: Johnny does not fully comprehend the power that Galactus has given him in making him a herald. Ringo perfectly captures this in the way he dispatches his foe, and the aftermath is played for laughs with an undercurrent that Johnny is in a very dangerous situation that could lead to bad things quickly if he loses control. Meanwhile, the rest of the FF with the help of Quasar is in hot pursuit. It’s about as good as a first issue as you could ask for. The storytelling is clear and concise, the art is gorgeous and strongly reinforces the story, and the characters act like they should. I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of this trade.

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This post was written to the tune of Genesis’ Archive Volume 1: 1967-1975

Heroes Week Finale: American Gaiman

We have reached the end of Heroes Week (and yes, it’s a couple days late. Sue me), and the final entertainment sphere I must cover is the written word. I originally planned to write about the comic work of one Matt Fraction, one of my favorite current comic writers out there, but I wanted to switch things up and write about books. You know, book books. Like, with words and stuff. And little to no pictures. Shocking, I know. I read lots of books. Many of them, especially these days, are philosophy related, but I still get some time sometimes to actually read a novel for fun. This year has been the year of Neil Gaiman. I love his books. And, of course, he got his start writing comics, and his prose start writing a book about Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The man was destined to be a favorite of mine. In the past year, I’ve read nearly everything he’s written. I’m amazed by the constant quality in his comic work and both his long and short form prose. I’m not really a poetry guy, so the poems in Fragile Things didn’t do much for me. What does do it for me is, well, everything else.

I think his comic work is exceptional. His little two issue run of Batman and Detective Comics (Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?) was a great, weird little aside to the massive weirdness of Batman RIP and Final Crisis, and I also managed to read all 75 issues of his Sandman run, which is just a hell of a thing. I can’t really describe it all that well, but it was certainly an experience. Within the last year and a half, I’ve also read Neverwhere, American Gods, Coraline, Anansi Boys, and Fragile Things. I think what really makes Gaiman work as a writer is his ability to set a mood. All of these works are different in their content and who they appeal to, but there is a unifying mood to all of his books. Much like the subject of day three of Heroes Week, Mr. Terry Gilliam (as an aside, I saw some footage of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus over the weekend that looks simply amazing), Neil Gaiman is a dreamer. You can see why Sandman was such a good fit for him.

There is a way that Gaiman writes his fiction that creates a general sense of unease. Things are never right. They’re usually close to being right, but there’s always something a little off. It’s ephemeral. It’s not always something blatant (though it certainly can be at times), but when you have things like Richard Mayhew slowly realizing he has lost is connection to the real world, or the buttons on the eyes of the Other Mother. It’s not played up to be actively creepy or unsettling, but it’s always there on the periphery and leads to an overall sense that something’s just not right. This is essential storytelling for the stories that Gaiman writes, and he carries it off with aplomb. To be honest, I’m not really up on the release of new novels. It’s not like comics, movies, video games, music, DVDs, etc when I know when things are coming out. But I pay attention to Gaiman. When his next book is released, it’ll probably be the first instance of me buying a novel on the day of its release since The Salmon of Doubt.

Top Five Characters from Neil Gaiman Stories

5. Other Mother (from Coraline)

Other Mother is a creepy character. That’s for sure. Her character is designed to actively subvert the conventions of the loving mother. In her first appearance, she is loving, kind and warm to Coraline, but the black buttons where her eyes should be belie the danger within. She goes through constant upheavals and eventually twists into a truly frightening visage (this is pulled off very well in Henry Selick’s film that was released earlier this year). The great villain of the piece is an excellent example of Gaiman’s ability to have things not quite right eventually lead to a big payoff.

4. Fat Charlie (from Anansi Boys)

Fat Charlie has had a rough life. He is constantly in the shadow of his father, and soon discovers a brother he never knew he had that proceeds to wreak havoc on his life. Fat Charlie is the quintessential sad sack protagonist that has to deal with life acting as an overly aggressive bully toward him at all times. He goes through quite the odyssey during Anansi Boys, and he a nice change of pace from the standard Gaiman hero. It breathes some fresh air into his prose, which was admittedly a needed change. Fat Charlie is an example of Gaiman’s well-roundedness, which is a necessity in storytelling.

3. Door (from Neverwhere)

Door has one of the better entrances for a character I’ve read in a while, and her initial frailty is soon replaced by the courage of royalty. I love her power. The ability to make anything open to her stretches beyond the simple ability to open doors. She makes you feel for Richard and his plight as he fights to get away from London Below before he finally decides to embrace his destiny. Door is the emotional center of the book (I still need to watch the miniseries).

2. Shadow (from American Gods and “The Monarch of the Glen”)

Ah, Shadow. Gruff, a bit simplistic, but so effective as a protagonist in what is arguably the craziest of Gaiman’s non-comics work. Shadow does not act to change things. He is the ultimate passive observer. Everything he does is because he was told. Everything. But in the case of the story of American Gods, this makes perfect sense. I won’t spoil things (and I’m realizing while I’m typing this that it probably actually will spoil things, so this is your official spoiler warning), but for anyone that’s played Bioshock, you’ll understand how having such a passive and susceptible main character is essential to make things move forward. Shadow is a sad individual, and it works perfectly.

1. Delirium (from the Sandman series of comic books)

Ah, The Endless. Death, Despair, Dream, Destiny, Desire, Delirium and Destruction. The family of, well, things (gods?) that are at the center of Gaiman’s magnum opus, Sandman. Dream is obviously the main character of Sandman, and he is a very strong character throughout, full of the Greek tragic mix of nobility and petty flaws that eventually lead to his downfall. But, to be honest, the real stars of the book are the other members of The Endless. Delirium is one of those mentally simple and staggeringly innocent characters that get a lot of pathos from me, and her character design is great throughout. Death was a popular enough character to continue on past the series. Destiny is a classic trope of literature, but his character design and the mood surrounding him is fantastic. They’re all great, but I do think Delirium is probably my favorite at the end of the day. Dream is the focal point of Sandman, but the rest of The Endless is what makes the book sing.

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This post was written to the tune of Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick

Heroes Week: Studio Sorkin on the Sunset Strip

Ah, television. I love me some television. I watch a lot of TV on a weekly basis, but it’s arguable that I watch even more on DVD. When the decision was made to start releasing full television seasons on DVD, the prices were outrageous (remember those old X-Files sets that were about $120 per season? Yeah). The prices have come back down to earth, and I’ve built up quite the little collection of series. It’s been fun to have older series that I hadn’t seen in a while be released on DVD to allow for me to relive some of the glory days of my youth. A perfect example of this would be when the full series of Newsradio was recently released in its entirety. I loved getting to catch up on that series, but it is not the holy grail of my DVD collection. That would be a little show created by Aaron Sorkin called Sports Night.

I didn’t see all of Sports Night when it aired. I probably saw a good 70 to 80% of the episodes, but I missed some things here and there. It’s the best show I’ve ever seen. This unassuming little two season half hour show that was billed as a comedy but was more of a drama with comedic elements (hilarious comedic elements, mind you), and it was nothing like I had ever seen. Why would anyone care about the back stage politics of a struggling SportsCenter rip off? Because Aaron Sorkin made us care. Dan, Casey, Dana, Jeremy, Natalie, Isaac, these were all extremely compelling characters with compelling stories and real growth from show to show. These were not particularly happy or nice characters either. But they felt real. In many ways, especially during this period, Sorkin is the David Mamet of television. His characters feel real, and this is very important for a show like Sports Night that is so much more about the characters than the sports they cover.

The show had a lot of fantastic humor throughout, and some of my favorite witty exchanges I’ve ever seen on a show, but what really drew you back in was the drama. This selection of heroes week is technically about Sorkin, but it’s more about Sports Night than anything. I never really watched The West Wing, and while I thought Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was generally good (loved the pilot), it was not nearly as strong as his work on Sports Night. Considering that Sorkin was involved in the writing of the vast majority of the episodes, he’s getting the love as my hero of the television industry.

Top Five Sports Night Episodes:

5. “The Cut Man Cometh” (Season Two, Written by Alex Graves)

Simple. Effective. Hilarious. Find out what happens when Dan and Casey are covering a big-time prize fight that ends in about twelve seconds. The team has to cover the aftermath of the fight for nearly an hour, and have a completely inept color commentator (the aforementioned Cut Man) to make matters worse. Dana and Casey’s relationship comes to a head, but this episode is all about the comedy. It’s probably the funniest episode they ever did, and even though it might not be up to snuff in some other perspectives, the humor makes it sing.

4. “Quo Vadimus” (Season Two Finale, Written by Aaron Sorkin)

This is a very emotional episode for me to watch, not only because it’s the last ever episode of my favorite show of all time, but because of the way the show moves forward as it reaches its climax. This is Clark Gregg’s second episode as the mysterious man at the bar constantly bothering Dana (and I love me some Clark Gregg). Rebecca returns, and everything slowly unravels as Dan and Casey plan to break up their team and move to different coasts. The ending is bittersweet with a wonderful jab at ABC for canceling them. Great episode and a fitting end.

3. “The Sword of Orion” (Season One, Written by David Handelman, Mark McKinney, and Aaron Sorkin)

You know, I didn’t even know Mark McKinney (more famous for being one of the Kids in the Hall, actually wrote for this show until I looked it up. This episode is all about the way something in your personal life can affect the way you work, specifically pertaining to Jeremy’s relationship with his parents. He becomes absolutely obsessed with understanding what happened to The Sword of Orion, a yacht that disappeared ten years in the past, which is really just an analogy to his attempts to deal with the divorce of his parents. Joshua Malina is so incredibly good in this episode, that it has become one of my favorites.

2. “Draft Day Parts 1 & 2” (Season Two, Written by Matt Tarses, Aaron Sorkin, and Kevin Falls)

Oh, Draft Day. The day that Dan and Jeremy completely fall apart (though it’s not the first time Dan falls apart, technically). Both Dan and Jeremy are heavily perturbed about having to cover the second round of the NFL draft, causing Dan to rebel and humiliate Casey live on the air, and Jeremy to scramble to attempt to save his new relationship. It’s heavily dramatic; there isn’t much comedy in each episode, and it’s all about watching this stiflingly uncomfortable drama unfold. Shows like this (and my number one choice) are great examples of why this show was so incredibly different than any other half hour show on television at the time.

1. “Eli’s Coming” (Season One, Written by Aaron Sorkin)

Remember when I said that Draft Day was not the first example of Dan completely falling apart? Well, this is the first example. His relationship with Rebecca falls apart. He’s constantly beset upon by a fill-in anchor who is convinced he slept with her (who is played by Lisa Eddelstein, better known as Dr. Cuddy on House these days). Things are going crazy all over. What’s so great about this episode is the way that Dan rises above the problems (he agrees to support Rebecca’s choice to go into couples counseling with her separated husband, and apologizes to Bobbi when he discovers she was right), but ends up getting blindsided by the revelation that Isaac had a stroke. He talks about the Three Dog Night song “Eli’s Coming” earlier in the episode and how he misinterpreted it as a song about impending doom, and the musical cue of “Eli’s Coming” is so goddamned perfectly timed that it continues to give me chills even though I’ve probably watched the episode and that scene about 30+ times. This is the best single episode for any television show I’ve ever seen EVER.

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This post was written to the tune of Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf