- I’m giving an album AllMusic gave a fairly glowing review of recently. The album is called “Cover Art”; the debut from a new Jazz-based group of musicians called The NEXT Collective. What’s interesting — considering the amount of talent and experience that comes with the group — is that this is an album of covers. But it really does not feel that way, considering it is instrumental music: jams that go on without much structure beyond, “alright, just keep in the key Drake initially had…” It’s an interesting way to do a debut, and it’ll test your opinion on how artistic covers can or cannot be. If you didn’t know it, you’d think this is a collection of 10 original and very organic songs, recorded with very few takes. This is the cover:
- That blog I spoke of last week is now up and running (though the visuals may still change). The first piece is mine. Which means you’ll know my real name. Oooohhhh… I’m definitely trying to flex some creative muscles I haven’t used in some time; I’m sure it could be better. But it was a blast to get back into more creative writing. There’s definitely a thesis, I hope it’s as clear to everyone else as it is to me. Hopefully this will turn into a good little music blog for people to RSS and follow on Tumblr, cause it’s a great mixture of people writing for it.
“A pair of psychology professors have discovered that a hockey player’s month of birth influences how scouts and coaches judge his talent, and this subconscious selection bias often puts the wrong players on the roster. The study, published online in the journal PLOS ONE, found NHL teams have long underestimated the talent and potential of players born in the second half of the year and tend to overlook them in favor of relatively older players. That is exactly the opposite of what they ought to do, said James Deaner of Grand Valley State University. For any given spot in the draft, players born in the first three months of the year are more likely to be successful than those born in the second half of the same year. “If teams really wanted to win, they should have drafted more of the relatively younger players,” Deaner said.”
“But with The Dark Knight Returns being given the full conversion treatment, this criticism of the film can no longer be the result of compression failure. The problems of the film do not come from lack of loyalty to the source. Far from it – this movie shows us, once more, that overzealous reliance on the original work is not necessarily a boon. A lot of what made The Dark Knight Returns such a good comics was, well, comics-related stuff. The movie tries to re-use some of these elements which remain inert in a medium not suited for them – there are long parts in the novel in which Batman’s actions are interjected with a point/counterpoint-style TV show, Miller and Johnson’s art scatter these discussions (along with dozens of other occurrences) all over the page, they become a representation of fragmented culture (as opposed to the more unified and direct media age that gave birth to Batman and his ilk) and watching them, we realize that Batman no longer operates in a world he was not meant to inhabit (and why the story must end the way it does).”
This is what a lot of people fail to comprehend: there are certain storytelling tropes that are completely unique to sequential art. These tropes may very well explain why (some) comics have turned out to be about the things they’re about; these tropes lend themselves very well to certain high-concepts, visual action, and narrative succession. No matter how faithfully you adapt a comic to a film, or television show, or web series… it still will never be the same thing as reading the comic. Because sequential art — though it’s been around since the Dawn of Man — is one of the most unique storytelling mediums we have, for many reasons I won’t get into here.
- Artists Ryan Ottley and James Harren have a Tumblr where they release non-comic pieces of art they’ve been conjuring up. There seems to be themes, too. Like the other week they called ‘Shadow Week’. The site is called “THEBOG“. James just posted this, as winter is not over yet:
- More comic stores are refusing to sellOrson Scott Card’s new Superman book on account of his straight-forward, clear stance on gay rights and indeed lesbians, gays, and bisexuals as people too. I love that Mark Millar came out and said something to the tune of, “that’s the thing about free speech, it isn’t always something you’re going to agree with. But that doesn’t mean you ban someone, you threaten their livelihood.” Actually Mark, that’s the thing about Free Speech, you can sell or not sell whatever products you choose as dependent upon however you feel about said products, production methods, or producers themselves. And while we’re at it, work on your dialogue please.
- Very interesting perspective here. Former ‘sex worker’, now journalist on what feminists get wrong when it comes to prostitution (from Guernica): WAGING WAR ON SEX WORKERS.
“I’ve been free in my writing to have that opinion. I’ve never been constrained by journalism in a formal way in which I have to hear both sides. I don’t even know who “both sides” would be on this issue. No, I’m not going to have a debate with you about how you feel about sex work. It has no impact on what happens tonight with the police in the streets. Our feelings alone don’t change what happens with the police, what happens in jail, what happens when someone tries to go to the welfare office, the unemployment office, or any kind of state agency where a criminal record comes up for prostitution. How we feel about the commodification of sexuality and violence doesn’t actually translate to those people’s lives. A lot of the debate is really academic and a waste of time.”
- The latest Watch Dogs video looks unbelievable. Too bad this is a PS4 game, cause I’ll probably wait to buy one of those ’til they go down in price. I still haven’t finished even 50% of Skyrim, and have Dishonored to get into. A new Playstation will guarantee one thing though, super outrageously cheap games on eBay and Craig’s List for the last system. Anyways, here’s that video:
- That Sioux Falls group Phantom Balance — I discussed them a couple posts ago — is releasing a new album called “Loser” tomorrow I believe. I’ll stream it here either tomorrow or later in the week.
- New How To Destory Angels (Trent Reznor’s latest band; his wife is the singer, and Atticus Ross co-producers/performs) is streaming. The new album is called “Welcome Oblivion” and will be released March 5th. 13 tracks at 65 minutes. On Columbia Records. Wikipedia’s labeling it as “post-industrial” and “electronica”.
Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staple’s space opera/love story has been consistently good since it’s debut last Spring on Image Comics. And it isn’t just me saying this: all over the net and in stores across the country people who have been entrenched in comics their entire lives are saying the same thing. What makes it so good? It delivers on everything only comics can do (unique, high-concept, bizarre), whilst also delivering everything a good novel or film does (beautiful, hopeful, funny, witty, with healthy helpings of heart). In this issue a character who has been mentioned before makes her proper debut appearance and definitely throws another piece into the puzzle, as she is someone with a personal connection to the new family that everyone is after. Upon second reading I’m seeing some parallels between this new, pseudo family in the corridors of The Will’s ship and the title family. And I’m starting to feel like I know Gwendolyn and Will as well as I do the main characters. Both are written and drawn with care, and definitely not painted as “bad guys”. They are real people, each with something that’s driving their hearts and actions. Staples draws brilliant expressions and gestures. She’s one of those artists that is neither highly stylized or highly detailed, just spot on. Whether it’s action or subtle conversation she’ll get the proportions and angles perfect. And Vaughan is of course a wonderful craftsman of character. Everything in this book breathes. Anyone who’s into comics even just a little owes it to themselves to at least give SAGA a try.
- NEW AVENGERS #2
While the lineup of Jonathan Hickman’s other — more popular — Avengers book just continues to expand, New Avengers is taking the opposite path, focusing solely on a very select few of the best minds of the Marvel Universe to tackle massive, mind-bending problems that have no easy solution. What’s happening in the pages of this book (only 2 issues in, mind you) is the reuniting of the think-tank type organization known as ‘The Illuminati‘: Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Namor, Black Bolt, Dr. Strange, a dead Charles Xavier, and Black Panther. The first issue saw a mysterious and other-worldly figure show up in Wakanda (Black Panther’s home country in Africa), to announce the destruction of Earth a result of a collision with another planet looming in the sky. What’s going on here is somewhat explained in the pages of this issue, though not entirely because even this team of geniuses does not understand this fully. Hickman uses his design skills (if he isn’t making money off of side graphics design gigs he should be) to present the high concept through the eyes of Reed. It’s heavy stuff, but the chart (for lack of a better word) Reed uses spells it out plainly. The team makes a decision to — if it comes to this — destroy another planet to save their own, at the behest of some of the more honorable and/or idealistic characters like Cap and Black Panther. It’s an interesting moral dilemma, and I’d like to see more of this type of conversation from this book. So far and for the immediate future it’s drawn by Steve Epting who does amazing work all the time. I still remember the days of Warren Ellis’ Thunderbolts and just being blown away by Epting’s work. I typically don’t read big superhero stuff like this, but I am very excited to see where this goes.
- THE MASSIVE #8
The Massive is easily the most plausible and realistic of these three books I’m writing about today, and I can’t stress enough how smart it is in the context of the World we live in now. When baby-boomers tell me that they haven’t seen such uneasiness and unrest in the world in their lifetimes (including the 60s) that they’re seeing now, I know that there’s something special going on with the human race. It isn’t good or bad, it’s beyond those terms. It’s beyond all previous applications of what we thought we knew. Transitional phase. The Massive takes these gigantic problems we face and cranks them forwards until they’ve snapped, and now the world is on full-on reset mode. Culturally, geographically, morally. And the organization known as “Ninth Wave” — who had in 2004 blockaded a gulf with their sister ships to protest one of the big energy companies, to give you an idea of what they do — is struggling to find their place in the new world that has emerged from the rubble of the old one. The current arc, this is part 2 of 3, sees the crew stumbling upon an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the Indian Ocean, where an ex-terrorist has supposedly found a new purpose and creating a thriving community on the decks of said rig. While they’re anchored a storm hits, and the entire rig gets put on lockdown. In this issue we really get to see new sides of the crew of Ninth Wave, beyond its leader Cal and his right hand (trigger) man Mag. Each of them have their own ideas of what their purpose is in a post-Crash society, and that is highlighted here. It’s looking as if this arc will usher in a change in the organization, for good or bad.
- This was a while ago but I forgot to share it and would like to now:
Papa John’s PR Firm Targets Bloggers. So remember when Papa John’s founder John Schnatter said that because of the “Affordable Care Act” said pizzas would have to go up in price 10-15 cents and that stores would have to close down and that people’s job’s would be cut? Well… a PR firm called Sitrick and Co. is now claiming Schnatter never said anything about the closures or lost jobs, and that the price thing was a mischaracterization of a quote from an investor call Schnatter made. Here’s the Politico article. I would never presume to tell anyone what to think about anything, especially this bill cause it is massively complicated. That’s not what this is about. This is about that ongoing struggle of power vs. freedom of information. A struggle that has been happening for a long, long time, though the internet has certainly amplified it like never before.
Aaron Swartz believed in the freedom of information.
“To call someone “deranged” or “mad” is to marginalize them, to declare that they are “not one of us.” Indeed, it is to say that he or she is not really human at all. As an adult with Asperger’s syndrome who has been marginalized all her life, I feel very uncomfortable when anyone, even someone unsavory, is summarily written out of the human race. I wonder if these sanctimonious pundits realize that the most devastating instances of mass carnage (a.k.a. “wars”) have been planned and executed by neurotypicals just like themselves who were perfectly sane—unless you consider “drunk with power” a cognizable mental disorder.
Recently it was reported that Adam Lanza, the shooter in the Connecticut elementary school massacre, may have had Asperger’s syndrome. Now it is the autism community’s turn to recoil in horror and declare that no, he could not have possibly been one of us; the Autism Society has issued a press release stating that “it is imperative to remove autism from this tragic story.”
- The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historiais, shockingly, the number one book on Amazon right now. It’s also number one on Barnes & Noble’s website, and something called Indigo. Here’s the BleedingCool post about it. I remember reading about this when it was announced, being that Dark Horse put it out and I’m pretty in-tune with what’s happening with the mainstream comic book publishers. Here’s the book’s official website.
- The classic P.O.S. album “Audition” turned seven years old yesterday. Just to give you an idea of what we’re dealing with here:
-Apparently Facebook, which as you know went public (in a much hyped disaster), made 2 cents per user last month. There’s of course a lot going on there with all sorts of complexities to a social networking giant like FB… but it does not seem like a viable business model.
- One of the shitty side-effects of war (of many) — and one that people forget about — is the dangers of large scale violence and ideological struggles on the cultural legacy of wherever it’s happening. As the Taliban took hold of Afghanistan we saw this with the ancient Buddha statues which rest in the region. What’s more is those statues were different than others: they seem to suggest some sort of ancient offshoot of Buddhism. Well now we’re seeing the same thing in war torn Mali. The fleeing militants torched the Ahmed Baba Institute, where some “30,000 priceless items of scholarship dating back to the 13th century” are… were, kept. These priceless items are a part of the “Timbuktu Manuscripts”, which were for a long time housed by private citizens of Mali whose families dated back thousands of years. The manuscripts delve into things like Math, Art, Astronomy, Arithmetic, Calligraphy, Science, Medicine, etc.
Here’s a good article on the fate of Manuscripts. It delves into the burning of Ahmed Baba, the hiding of some volumes by locals, and attempts by South African scholars to secure others.
- I’m super digging the idea of Brian Wood writing an all female X-Men team. I haven’t been dedicated (“cared” is probably what I really mean) to an on-going X-Men book since Joss Whedon’s Astonishing, so perhaps Brian and amazing artist Olivier Coipel can bring mutants back into my life. And let’s be real… the females of the X-Verse are in a lot of ways more interesting and rounded than the men. At least when they’re written well and not drawn as pieces of meat for drooling, way too old fanboys.
- Local (to me) rap group Atmosphere recently announced a new “Welcome to MN” tour. But that’s not what I wanna share. What I wanna share is the song they’ve created with each of the opening acts on the tour, it’s called “It Ain’t The Prettiest”:
- An article discussing what may happen to comic books should the government employ censorship to them. The article goes on to talk about the 1954 “psychology” book Seduction of the Innocent, a travesty of human creation that delves into — in the book’s words — “the influence on comic books on today’s youth.” The release of the book and subsequent hearings in the Senate ended in sweeping censorship across the spectrum of the art form and a decline for the business economically (until the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko era began). Here’s to hoping Mr. Biden and whoever he’s talking to about gun violence don’t touch comics.
- The idea that the military enlists (generally) the poor, uneducated, or generally lost to their ranks is nothing new. A recent article at Slate talks about a fee one could pay to essentially wave enlistment to the Civil War. “Such famous Americans,” notes the article, “as Grover Cleveland and John D. Rockefeller took advantage of [the] provision.” The substitute fee was $300, or about 5 grand in today’s terms.
- Also on Slate: Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Aaron Swartz. Swartz was something of an internet pioneer, with credits including work on RSS, Markdown, Reddit, and even Creative Commons.
“Hanging over his death is, of course, his persecution at the hands of U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz. People commit suicide because they suffer from depression, which he did, not because they’re being railroaded by the U.S. Attorney, which he was. His crime was breaking into a random closet at MIT and mass downloading academic journal articles from JSTOR. Obviously if you get caught trespassing, you’re going to face some legal consequences. But not a federal case with talk of million dollar penalties and decades-long jail sentences.”
Another excellent article, sort of a sequel to that last one, is THIS ONE. It discusses whether or not Swartz’ death will make the open-access market more mainstream. Wikipedia calls open access “the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewedscholarly journal articles. OA is also increasingly being provided to theses, scholarly monographs and book chapters.”
- On Thanksgiving I wrote quite a long piece about the infamous comic strip “Huxley was right; Orwell was wrong”. It very poorly tied the idea that Huxley was right to Black Friday now spilling over into Thanksgiving now, the day of the year we’re supposed to be thankful for what we have. The only day of the year in this country where we aren’t supposed to be consumers. It also compared and contrasted 21st Century living to what Brave New World and 1984 predicted would happen to our societies. I wrote it, edited it, and published it. For some reason the published version wiped about 3/4 of the thing clean. Probably a good thing as it was terribly written.
“In June, director Martin Scorsese tried to show his 1993 film The Age of Innocence at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s editor for the past 40 years and a three-time Oscar winner, called Grover Crisp, the senior VP of asset management at Sony, for a 35mm print. But Sony not only didn’t have a print, it couldn’t even make one.
“He told me that they can’t print it anymore because Technicolor in Los Angeles no longer prints film,” Schoonmaker recalled. “Which means a film we made 20 years ago can no longer be printed, unless we move it to another lab—one of the few labs still making prints.”
- A swath of Nordic countries (all of them?) are telling Facebook to stop unsolicited advertising of users in their countries or face legal action. Good for them. Not only did they cite the current EU on “privacy and electronic communication” in their threat, they also are looking into amending the law to uniquely tackle the topic. “It is prohibited to send electronic advertisements to consumers who haven’t given their consent, either by email or SMS… We think that some of the advertising that Facebook calls ‘sponsored stories’ is beginning to look like unsolicited electronic messages.”
- The Independent: “The Future of War Is LookingBleak“. What a spectacular title for a news article! Now we’re talking! Havard Hegre, a professor at the University of Oslo, developed a model for predicting future events and trends on a global scale this past year, his work has just been published. In it Hegre discovered that the amount of “wars” (defined as a conflict between countries in which at least 25 people die) has dropped dramatically in recent history, and the extended model shows a continuation of decline in the next 40 years. “War has become less acceptable,” Hegre said, “just like duelling, torture and the death penalty.”
This may not be “Exhibit A” of why DC’s rebranding strategy blows, though it is certainly C or D. I’m not begrudging them for what they’re trying to do with all this “New 52 Issue Zero” stuff, and I honestly think it will lead to their intended goal: attracting and keeping new readers. But in the words of many o’ Conservatives, the strategy will and does have a slew of “unintended consequences”. One is bothering people like me, who read very few mainstream DC books (umm… ONE); whether it crossed their minds or not, they’re risking the loyalty of their current readership to fish for new readership. Does the risk outweigh the consequences? But forget about numbers and market shares and all that shit and think about comics artistically for a minute. Is it good for a comic artistically to disrupt the flow of a story arc by shoving in an introductory single issue into the mix? What does it do for the comic? What does it take away? With a Grant Morrison book (especially this one), this takes away more than it gives. To be honest, it gives very little. What we see here are tropes, scenes, and iconic imagery from the entirety of Grant Morrison’s Batman opus: the Island of Doctor Mayhew, the bell and the open window, the funding from Wayne Enterprises, the recruiting. None of this is necessary. Part of the fun of getting into a Morrison comic is the wanting… the craving, to go back and re-read older issues. When you do this on your own, it’s rewarding. When someone points out all this stuff to you to get people to read what you’ve been reading for some 7, 8 years, it’s insulting. Granted, Morrison and the art team of Burnham/Irving do an admirable job with the task given. But no new revelations plus a hand-holding journey through the past just equals tediousness in the end, I’m afraid. Skip this, return with #4 (which really is #12 considering they already started into “#1″ earlier this year and not counting this #0 which isn’t really part of the run and…. see how confusing this shit is?) which promises to plow the story forward.
- Manhattan Projects #6
The title of this issue — “Star City” — refers to a sprawling metropolis of the former Soviet Union, the scientific and ideas mecca of the State. We have yet to cover any sort of Soviet ground beyond a vague propagandist notion of who they are and what they want via the Manhattan Projects leering eyes. Misunderstood by the Americans, perhaps… but they are not the good guys. This is made clear (though I find it interesting that they implore the Aldo Raine style of permanent Nazi branding; instead of a knife they opt for a cattle prod). The irony of Communist nations of the past is on full display here: even the greatest mind(s) of the State are subject to Big Brother compensation. Such is the case with Helmutt Grottrup. Grottrup, like many of the physicists and inventors in the book, was a real person. German, he worked for the Nazi’s during The War, developing the V-2 alongside Wernher von Braun (also a character in the book). After the War ended, he opted to work for the Soviets. He thought, mistakenly, that he would be his own master in The Union. That he would not be anyone’s underling, a less than desirable experience under von Braun. But things didn’t change. In the Soviet Union he worked under a man named Sergei Korolev, not so far a character. Korolev in the book might be replaced with a certain Dmitiry Ustinov. Ustinov was the Union’s Minister of Defense for years during the Cold War. Except in the book he’s represented as a brain in a jar with a large robotic body. Anyways, most of this issue involves Ustinov and Braun shoving Grottrup in corners to work and question nothing. Then there’s quite a twist at the end. I love how this book is simultaneously batshit crazy yet steeped in reality, and real people and projects.
- The Massive #4
At some point this comic will dip in quality. The interest it extracts from the reader will level off. And it will still be good, but not this good. Luckily, this peak still feels very far off on the horizon. That is because this world that Brian Wood has crafted with THE MASSIVE is so vibrant and alive the nooks and crannies to explore are next to endless. We’re still learning about “The Crash”; the series of cataclysmic natural disasters which led to a series of cataclysmic sociopolitical disasters. But forget all that for a moment. We also don’t know much about The Kapital or The Massive… the two ships of the (supposedly) pacifist conservatory non-profit Ninth Wave, or their crews. Not to mention Ninth Wave itself. Wood throws in a little taste this issue of the history of the organization and that of the main character, Callum Israel. Ninth Wave had apparently gotten itself on the shitlist of many governments when they used The Massive (the larger of their ships) to blockade oil tankers from exporting out of the Middle East. When 9/11 happened, their name was brought up vaguely, but not outright named. Ninth Wave went off grid. The organization stayed largely silent during a large chunk of the first decade of Century 21. All charges were dropped and their reputation was cleared though. So they resurfaced prior to The Crash. And now, in a post-Crash world their conservationist mission continues; as they see it as important as ever before. A post-Crash World where, as is shown in this issue, the rules and ethics of society have been swept aside. Callum knows this, and admirably (even with a gun pointed in his face in this issue) he sticks to his vow of non-violence. But he wasn’t always that way. We also get a good helping of Callum’s life pre-Crash. Very, very interesting. We learn of his history with a private military contractor (something all too familiar since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan). A glimpse at his former partner then and now reminds us that even with post/pre Crash Worlds, very different Worlds, some people never change. They only amplify. The biggest part of this issue that moves the story along is Cal getting supplies from a shady character, to say the least. The rest is backstory. But the backstory is so damn interesting, I’ll take issues like this all day long. This has got to be one of the best books on the stands right now.
Comic reviews. Not everything I my pull list, but nonetheless:
Batman Incorporated #3
Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham continue the closing arc of Morrison’s Batman opus wonderfully after — in my opinion — an unnecessary delay related to the Dark Knight Rises shooting in Aurora, CO. The culprit here is an opening scene in which a teacher pulls out a gun on her students to teach them violent revolt and revolutionist uprising. What’s really going on is she has been “replaced” by a Leviathan doppelganger. Following that we see exactly how the organization works, at least when it comes to infiltrating every aspect of Gotham society. It’s a great way to start the issue. Bruce brings back his criminal doppelganger (that must be one of themes of this issue) to get any inside information he can on the organization, which the petty criminals are afraid to talk about. Then there’s Damien being Damien. Since his introduction back in, oh… somewhere around 2005, Morrison is still the best guy to write. It makes sense, he conceived the character. And when he unveils the “web” of Bruce and co’s “lives for the past two years” you’ll be as amazed as Dick is to realize the entire time Leviathan has been in the middle of it all. And the imagery of how this book ends is pretty disturbing. Once again, we’re counting on Damien to be there. Not the best issue of the series, but a solid entry.
Scalped #60 (Final Issue)
Dang… and just like that, one of my favorite comic book series of all time comes to an end. This final issue is lighter on plot and heavier on thematic content and arc of each of the remaining characters. I’m totally fine with that, though I know some people might have a problem with it. In fact I would argue that throughout the book’s lifespan the over-arching themes were the driving force, with plot-points a simple means to an end. It should have been plainly obvious that someone was going to get scalped at the end of this thing, that happens almost immediately. In fact, the whole Catcher/Red Crow/Dash climax ends within the first 6 pages or so. Then we’re treated to some very human, and motherly, moments from Carol… along with seeing how the Prairie Rose Reservation will continue to revert back to its ways, no matter who is in charge of Her. The Rez is a character in and of itself. And in the end we realize the differences and similarities between Red Crow and Dash. Two sides to the same coin, really. The Sopranos comparisons will undoubtedly continue with the possibly controversial ending, though I do not see it that way. I see it as the only thing that can happen for Dash. Fitting ending. Beautiful artwork. Great series. A modern crime masterpiece.
The Massive #3
The Massive also ends wonderfully this week. Not the series, the series’ first arc: “Landfall”. Within we are treated to more insight on how the world has dissolved into chaos — both naturally and sociopolitically — and the inner workings of the still mysterious “Ninth Wave”, the non-profit our characters work for. We finally get some background on Mag (and a lot more if you view his biographical timeline provided by Brian Wood at the end of the issue), and the debate ensues between one character’s dedication to “non-violent resistance” and Mag’s “new world/new rules” argument. It’s an interesting debate, and one that should be the part of any post-Crash, post-apocalyptic fiction. Shit, one we may be having by the end of my lifetime for all I know. The artwork on this title continues to be some of the best on the stands. Top 3 for me, even amongst beautiful stuff I don’t read. This is a bummer, because I’m pretty sure Kristian Donaldson is done (for now) after this issue. With a lot of help from colorist Dave Stewart (also, one of the best colorists working today) the changes of tone from Crash explanations, to present day, to character flashbacks is enough for an award of some kind. We also get an introduction to a new character at the end, and Ninth Wave’s “home”, if they have one beyond their ships “The Kapital” and “The Massive”. Excited to see where this series goes.
FuryMAX #5
I have a feeling not nearly enough people are reading this for how interestingly it’s playing with real-life military history and global conflict. Yes, this is the white Nick Fury. And yes, he’s an angry old bastard. But Garth Ennis wouldn’t have it any other way. Through the series an aging Fury has been recounting his career in a dirty hotel room, wearing a robe and drinking scotch. This issue is no exception as he delves into how badly the US fucked up during the Bay of Pigs. Fury and his right-hand man, sniper trained Hatherly, and a radio man, are dropped into Cuba the night before the uprising, to assassinate Castro. Meanwhile, a bumbling, egotistical, downright ignorant Senator named McCuskey explains to the leaders of the revolutionists why they’re not getting much help. Even though they’d been previously backed. It’s kind of a chilling scene, how cold the congressman is. Fury and company finally get through to Havana when they actually get a shot at Castro, but it goes awry (obviously, unless this book is going the revisionist route), and the building literally comes crashing down. By the end we realize that Fury and his mates are in some deep, deep shit. This is probably the best book no one is reading at Marvel.
