A yeoman’s task, but one I’m up to. The only film that I could see cracking this sucker that I have yet to see is The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, but I probably won’t be able to until 2010, so we’ll see what happens there. Obviously, there are quite a few honorable mentions for a list like this, and I might give them their own list at some point. Also, I should mention that when I put together lists like this, I like to spread the love and actively refuse to give one writer or director multiple entries on the list (sorry, The Prestige, Christopher Nolan is already spoken for). So keep that in mind. And yes, Lord of the Rings did not make the list.

Without further ado……..

10. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Written and Directed by Guillermo Del Toro)

I wasn’t a fan of the Blade movies. Didn’t really like Hellboy the first time I saw it either. So when Pan’s Labyrinth was released, I didn’t let myself get caught up in the hype. Del Toro had yet to impress me. I rented it on a lark once the DVD hit the shelves, and now I understand what the big deal is. It’s a fiendishly original film from a visual perspective, and tells a wonderful story. I can say that Del Toro’s visuals might get a little samey (you see a lot of similar monsters in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which I also still love), but as the first major time to take Del Toro seriously, I was blown away. It’s a challenging film in all aspects, but very rewarding for the patient viewer. I consider Del Toro a true filmmaker now, and this is the film that made it happen.

9. Spider-Man 2 (2004, Written by Alvin Sargent, Directed by Sam Raimi)

A hell of an achievement. They took all the good from Spider-Man and kicked it into overdrive, and it’s obvious that Raimi was having all kinds of fun making this movie. It breathes with life in every frame. It’s got a fantastic villain in Alfred Molina’s Dr. Octopus, and manages to deftly expand the Spider-Man universe. The story itself is basically flawless, and very much continues the overall story of Peter Parker. The action sequences are not overdone, and the entire train sequence still gives me chills. A true winner, and one of the best comic book films ever made.

8. High Fidelity (2000, Written by Scott Rosenberg, Steve Pink, John Cusack, and D.V. DeVincentis, Directed by Stephen Frears)

One of two films on this list that are love letters to music. Based on the Nick Hornby novel, High Fidelity is a guy’s romantic comedy. It’s certainly a comedy, Jack Black sees to that, and there are romantic elements, but it’s very much from the guy’s perspective. Which makes sense, because there are many times where Cusack’s Rob Gordon is kind of a dick to, well, everyone. Even still, it’s endearing as all hell and fiendishly clever. This is very much a monologue movie, with many scenes simply consisting of Cusack talking to the camera as he tries to reconnect with lost loves. It’s all written extraordinarily well, and manages to both idealize and denigrate the idea of working at a used record store at the same time. The music is king, and I love the bookend monologues that open and close the film.

7. I Heart Huckabees (2004, Written and Directed by David O. Russell)

A film with heavy philosophical themes mixed with a circus of the absurd. Jason Schwartzman and Mark Wahlberg are surrounded by a bunch of crazy characters as they try to combat their existential angst. Great performance by Jude Law, as you see him slowly succumb to the pressures of his bullshit lifestyle. Awesome score from Jon Brion. It’s also another movie with a fantastic opening monologue thanks to Schwartzman. Russell is excellent at this kind of movie (think Flirting With Disaster), and continues his hot streak with Huckabees.

6. The Incredibles (2004, Written and Directed by Brad Bird)

Pixar’s best film to date, and this will probably forever be the ultimate Fantastic Four movie. This is superheroes done right like we’ve never seen before. The Incredibles is vibrant. A great villain, a simple and effective story that sets everything in motion without bogging things down with origin stories, and a great hook to get you in the door all add up to make this the best animated film of the decade. I mean, Bomb Voyage? Awesome! I don’t really have much else to say other than the fact that this is the movie that makes me feel like a kid again. And that’s no bad thing.

5. Mulholland Drive (2001, Written and Directed by David Lynch)

You don’t go into a Lynch film expecting to know exactly what the hell is going on. If you do, you’re being silly, and you’re not going to figure things out any time soon. Mulholland Drive is no different. Do I know what it means? Not even close. Do I even want to know? Probably not. What I do know is that this is the film that made me fall in love with the acting ability of Naomi Watts. It’s full on David Lynch weirdness, and might be the most obscure of the films in his canon, but it’s wonderfully lush and incredibly unique in its execution. Half a television pilot, half a movie, all brilliant in its own freaky little way.

4. The Dark Knight (2008, Written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, Directed by Christopher Nolan)

The Dark Knight is not a superhero film. It’s a comic book movie, for sure, but I see no superheroes. What I do see is an inordinately dense, incredibly dark thriller that refuses to come anywhere near genre conventions for its two and a half hours of visceral emotion. Of course, we all know about Heath Ledger’s performance, and yes, it’s as good as advertised, but this film is ever so much more than one man’s movie to steal. Everything hits hard from every angle as Gotham self-destructs under the will of an insane criminal. It’s big, it’s epic, it’s suffocating, and it’s the best damned movie associated with a comic book character ever made. This is Christopher Nolan’s arrival as a true blue filmmaker to watch, and is an all time great.

3. The Fountain (2006, Written and Directed by Darren Aronofsky)

This is a polarizing film. Some hate it for being rushed and choppy, overly dramatic and designed to obscure. I see it as one of the greatest love stories ever told. Hugh Jackman’s attraction to Rachel Weisz through the centuries is captivating, and this is the film that made me realize that he is one of the actors I can always count on for a powerful performance. I’ve written about the score in a previous article on this site, and it’s a seamless piece of beauty that frames the action wonderfully. The cinematography is GORGEOUS. The emotion of the film is undeniable. Aronofsky’s films all deal with the trials and tribulations of obsession and addiction. Addiction to numbers in Pi. Addiction to drugs in Requiem for a Dream. Addiction to past fame and fortune in The Wrestler. The Fountain is about addiction to love (and no, I’m not trying to or gong to reference the song or Rhett Titus). And it’s beautiful to behold.

2. Almost Famous (2000, Written and Directed by Cameron Crowe)

The other musical love letter, though it’s more pronounced than High Fidelity. Patrick Fugit’s coming of age as a fifteen year old on the road with a middling rock band is a sight to behold. Jason Lee (making his second appearance on the list) has completely shed his Kevin Smith look and feel and come into his own as the vainglorious lead singer of Stillwater. Kate Hudson is adorable throughout, even as it all falls apart at the end of the movie. It beats with the heart of an undeniable love of music, which makes the whole film sing. Plus, it was my first exposure to Zooey Deschanel, who deftly out-adorables Kate Hudson in her few scenes.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Written by Charlie Kaufmann, Directed by Michel Gondry)

Charlie Kaufmann films usually have some kind of crazy angle they’re coming from. Often times, as is the case with Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, the gimmick becomes the whole movie, and while these are excellent films, they still feel like they’re missing something. Eternal Sunshine is the total package. A wonderful gimmick that fits the story mixed with one of the greatest love stories ever told. The fact that the film contains multiple references to Friedrich Nietzsche and Tom Waits doesn’t hurt things, of course. But what’s important is that this is the best, most well rounded and fully realized script we’ve seen from Charlie Kaufmann, and Michel Gondry is up to the task of bringing the world to life. It would be tough to describe or think of the visuals of being inside a mind that is slowly being erased, but Gondry creates such a singular vision that remains constant through the film that it just works. This is also, of course, Jim Carrey’s all time best performance, and ranks quite high on the list for everyone else involved as well. This is not only head and shoulders above anything else released this decade, but it ranks up there on the top films of all time. Flawless in every single sense of the word. It’s all designed to reinforce itself. Even the simplicity of repeating the refrain of Beck’s version of “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime” reinforces the central theme of the movie (which I still think is a proof of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence of the same, but that’s a topic for another day)

This post was written to the tune of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul

It’s tough for me some times to make lists about new music releases, especially recently. I don’t want to say that I’m completely out of touch with today’s music, though to some extent that is the case. The main issue, truly, is that I haven’t given myself many avenues to find new music. I gave up on the radio years ago. I don’t watch any music television stations or listen to Pandora or anything like that. For the most part, I have a selection of music/bands that I like, and I tend to stick to them through the years. I still discover new bands from concerts (The Exit) or Rock Band (MUTEMATH), but the pickings are slim. Still, I’ve managed to cobble together five music releases from 2009 (three albums and two EPs) that I could use to make a list. So let’s do this.

5. That Handsome Devil — Enlightenment’s for Suckers (EP; Modern Savage Records)

The first of two five song EP’s on this list. That Handsome Devil is one of those bands I know exists entirely from Harmonix Music Systems, thanks to “Elephant Bones” being featured as a bonus song in Guitar Hero 2. Enlightenment’s for Suckers is the follow up to 2008’s A City Dressed in Dynamite, one of the best albums released last year. Considering the quality of the band, this release is almost a let down. There are two excellent songs, the opener “Bullet Math” and the closer “Johnny Wouldn’t Die,” and while I enjoy the follow up to “Viva Discordia,” (“Eristocrats”) and “Stockholm Syndrome,” there is something missing here. The songs are all good, but they lack the punch of the band’s superior first two efforts. For five bucks, it’s well worth it, but there is a twinge of disappointment hiding behind the scenes.

4. Tom Waits — Glitter and Doom Live (Live LP; Anti)

If not for the unbelievably fantastic full live concert from the Glitter and Doom tour that NPR released as a free podcast last year, this would probably rank higher. It might be unfair, but there isn’t really a whole lot of new on this for me. Of course, it’s Tom Waits, and the performances caught on this album are fantastic, but I’ve heard these songs live before, so they lack the impact. Also, the second disc, which contains one 35 minute track called “Tom Tales,” is very good and enjoyable, but once again, I’ve heard most of it before on other releases and bootlegs I’ve acquired post-Glitter and Doom tour. It’s a great album for the more casual Waits fan that hasn’t heard much from this tour. Much like That Handsome Devil, I don’t regret buying it, but I probably should have gotten more out of it than I did.

3. MUTEMATH — Armistice (LP; Warner Brothers)

Ah, here we go. I fell in love with MUTEMATH when “Typical” was released as downloadable content for Rock Band and realized that it’s probably the single most fun drum track ever released for the platform. Their first album is great, and this new release might be better. “Backfire” is a blistering opening track, with lead singer Paul Meany’s distinctive part Peter Gabriel part Sting vocals in full force. The whole album is a heady mix of rock hooks and electronic samples with some fantastic drum work throughout. It is very much a full sophomore effort, as the band has quite apparently taken all steps to improve themselves, and have managed to do so in nearly every way. There may not be a song as single ready as “Typical” or as mesmerizing as “Stare at the Sun,” but as an overall effort, it is exceedingly strong.

2. Nonpoint — Cut the Cord (EP; 954 Records)

Nonpoint just sorta decided to release a five song acoustic EP about a week back. As someone who loves Nonpoint, I was tickled when I found out about this one. I can say without reservation that Nonpoint is the single best hard rock/nu-metal band to come out of the late-90’s, early 2000’s rap rock boom. Much of this, I will admit, is credited to Elias Soriano’s vocal talents. He might legitimately be the best vocalist in the rock world right now. But what I really love about Nonpoint, and by extension this album, is their refusal to follow genre conventions. Cut the Cord consists of five rerecorded acoustic versions of songs from their early career (two from Statement, two from Development, and one from Recoil) with brand new arrangements to fit the more relaxed sound. The Development tracks are the true stand outs. I love that Elias and the group can make “Circles,” a song about racing cars, into this plaintive ballad with gorgeous harmonic chords and a sparse effective drum part. Hell, I love all of it. These are wonderful versions of old gems, and the audacity of mellowing out “Victim” is a treat. This $5 EP is essential for any fan of good music and good vocals.

1. Mastodon — Crack the Skye (LP; Reprise Records)

There wasn’t really a doubt for this one. Thunderous. The single best progressive rock album released since its heyday in the early 70’s (we’re talking about Genesis’ Selling England by the Pound and King Crimson’s Red as the last prog albums as good as this one), and an absolute masterpiece of a record. I need to own this on vinyl at some point. Mastodon has reached their full potential, as the line of evolution can be easily tracked from Leviathan to Blood Mountain to this. It’s a giant, sprawling epic that twists and turns through loud and soft passages, through machine gun drum fills and shredding guitar solos, through impossibly complex riff interplay and the triple headed vocal monster of Troy Saunders, Brent Hinds, and Brann Dailor. Dailor himself is in rare form here, effortlessly laying down some of the best drums tracks of the decade. Sure, the story is completely meaningless drivel, but you could really say the same thing about The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The music is what matters, and this is the best music I’ve heard in years. “Divinations” has the power and the fury of the greatest examples of the genre, churning and swirling through three minutes of chaos. “The Czar” is ten minutes of wonder. Everything comes to a head with “The Last Baron,” the thirteen minute closing track that puts long form progressive rock songs back on the map. It feels natural at thirteen minutes, and to be honest, I couldn’t imagine it being any longer or shorter. It’s just like the rest of the album: Perfect.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks for more of the best of 2009.

This post was written to the tune of Tom Waits’ Glitter and Doom Live

A quick update. It’s been close to a month since I last posted. Nothing has happened and I have not given up on this site. Work life has gotten hectic and I’ve spent a good part of those twenty or so days of silence writing a term paper about Martin Heidegger’s critiques of Friedrich Nietzsche.

But that’s all done now. So I plan to start writing again. Here’s what to look forward to in the coming weeks:

• Best of 2009 lists for movies, TV, music, and video games
• An article about how Nonpoint is one of the most criminally under appreciated bands of the last ten years
• Something about Dragon Age: Origins, which I plan to begin playing on Saturday
• More on Magic: The Gathering
• The heavily belated final installment of Running Commentary: Fantastic Four Rising Storm
• The Many Angled Ones of Realm of Kings
• Reflections on Martin Heidegger from the class I just finished taking
• And so much more! (maybe)

So yes, we will persevere. And I will be back in force sooner than you might think.

This post was written to the tune of Nonpoint’s Cut the Cord

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.

—————————-

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

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.

————————-

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

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.

———————

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

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.

————————

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

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.

———————–

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

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.

————————-

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

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.

—————————

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