The Invisible Library

So, I was reading Pandagon yesterday when I discovered that some really weird folk think Battlestar Galactica is secretly a Mormon recruitment tool[1]. Their evidence? The show makes use of religious imagery and mythology. Which is pretty week as arguments for propaganda go. By this definition, Superman,[2] Star Wars[3] and everything Philip K. Dick[4] ever wrote is also super secret (but right out there in the open) religious propaganda.

Once upon a time, this argument might have applied to the original BSG, which was Mormon mythology dressed up in swank, quilted late seventies space opera. But the new series? Not so much. As Amanda Marcotte pointed out, just because a story derives some of its momentum from popular religious ideas doesn’t automatically mean the creators are promoting that religion. Also, religious pluralism, modern gender roles with women in leadership positions and decidedly secular attitudes towards sex, drinking and drug use don’t exactly scream, “Join The Mormons!” As with any artfully done work of storytelling, it’s not that simple. BSG can’t be broken down into simple declarative statements about its morals and message. It’s a nuanced discussion of various current ideas.

But there is one really obvious way you can tell that BSG isn’t telling it from the mountain: stories told with an ideological agenda are no fun. Whether they are serialized TV dramas, movies, comics or novels, an ideologically driven narrative stands out because the author is selling you a flat pack of easy answers to hard questions. And he (usually it’s a he) is not afraid to beat you silly with the truth stick to make his point[5]. This has some predictable effect on the way the story is told.
(more…)

All-Star Superman #10 is out now and it’s awesome in every sense of the word. This is the Superman story that should be made into a film or three, not some romantic melodrama. And it should star Bruce Campbell.

All-Star Superman gets to the heart of the Superman character and story that it is Science Fiction in the whiz bang tradition. This is the stuff of legend.

I found this via Tycho at Penny Arcade and it’s… astonishing. Who would have thought that if you removed Garfield from the Garfield comics, they would actually be funny? It ranges from the bleak and existential to schizoid absurdity, veering occasionally into the dark. Which is even better!

Is it really any surprise that Ron Paul’s favorite superhero is Batman? Every politician thinks of themselves as a crusading billionaire, out to save the world by any means necessary. But it’s especially telling that Paul, no big fan of consensual reality, would picture himself as Batman, the dark brooding, disturbed and obsessive Shadow in a world full of lunatics with crazy plots and half baked schemes. That he picked specifically Paul Pope’s Berlin Batman is even more telling, as the plot revolves around the papers of Libertarian grand dingbat, Ludvig von Mises. I seem to remember a Zeppelin in that issue as well.

How do the other candidates match up to comic book characters?

This weekend, I picked up the hardback edition of All-Star Superman, collecting the first 6 issues and, speaking as a tenured comic book nerd and a hypercritical lit geek, it’s the best dam superhero comic I’ve read in years, maybe even since Watchmen. Seriously. It’s that good.

Grant Morrison is doing a sort of remix of Superman, picking up some of the crazy ass stuff from the golden age and mixing it in with some genuinely awesome sci-fi mythologizing. This is the Superman story you’ve always wanted to read: mad scientists with amazing toys, time traveling supermen form the distant future, Lex Luthor with a genuine evil plan (rather than the lame plot form Superman Returns, where Lex’s big scheme involves a shady real estate deal and some fucking kryptonite). I’m looking forward to volume 2 to see how it all plays out but it’s hot shit, right here. Frank Quietly’s art is also amazing and the two together are doing some real fine work. Makes me wish more writers were given the freedom to rewire some old characters and see what can be done.

While cataloging some issues of The New Teen Titans from the late eighties, I noticed that the back cover advert for a few issues was for Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. I chuckled, remembering when that came out and how it was universally panned as the installment when the series crossed the line from frightening to silly. Then I realized that since then, they’ve made three more films.

Then it struck me: the true nature of horror is banality that never ends. It’s not a boot stamping on your face forever. It’s not the unknown made manifest. It’s not even the lurking fear of the infinite creeping up on you in the cold gray four o’clock morning. It’s some dick in the attic, wearing a sheet as a shroud and rattling chains. Who Never stops. Ever. Even after you’ve gone to a gun shop, filled out the paperwork, waited the three days for the license to clear, bought a gun and some ammunition, practiced at the firing range until you’re a Navy Seal sniper-level marksman and then marched upstairs and shot the bastard between the yes. The moment you get back down to your bedroom and settle into bed, he’s at it again with the chains and the moaning and the clanking. Forever and ever. Amen.

Tony Millionaire has also reviewed Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not great. I like his review better.

I was almost certain that Spider-Man 3 would be suck-proof. I was a chump.

Too many characters, all of them crying and some of the most unmotivated emotional turnarounds I’ve ever seen in a movie. It was Spider Man and his Schizoid Friends, Bi-Polar Boy and Insecure Girl.

Venom was completely unnecessary. He was on screen for maybe ten minutes and added nothing to the story. But then, that basically describes venom in the comics as well, so it should have been expected.

Gwen Stacy was completely underused as a character. She is supposed to have been Spider Man’s first great love. Instead, she’s the other woman for about five minutes, then disappears only to show up a Harry’s funeral because… she somehow knew Harry? Really? How? When?

Sandman was good. I wish there had simply been more for him to do, and there would have been, if they hadn’t decided to shoehorn Venom into the movie.

Also, half the time, Spider-Man is running around with his mask off. He wears a mask for a reason but I guess the Studio decided that seeing Toby Maguire being Emo was more important than story or continuity.

The movie would have been fine without Venom or Gwen Stacy. Focus on the Harry, Peter, MJ love triangle with the Sandman subplot (and maybe add in the Vulture, as played by Ben Kingsly as a flying criminal mastermind manipulating Sandman and also having a hand in the death of Peter’s uncle). Save Gwen Stacy as the sub plot for the next film, with Bruce Campbell as Mysterio. Number 5 can be about the wedding of MJ and Peter, as interrupted by the Lizard and Shocker. Save Venom for number 6 or better yet, number not at all.

But on the bright side, there really is no way Pirates of the Caribbean 3 will suck, right? Update: 5/28: yes, I was right. Much better!

Fantagraphics, purveyors of the greatest comics in all theUuniverse, has a trailer up for the Drinky Crow Show, set to debut on Comedy Central’s Adult Swim, May 13.
Theme song by They Might Be Giants!
Link via Boing Boing.

Um, what?:

Seriously, Marvel, WHAT THE FUCK? At what point did Spider-Man having radioactive sperm ever seem like a good idea? At what point did anyone even think about Spider-Man having radioactive sperm? Jesus Christ, I can’t believe this ever saw print, I cannot believe that no-one at Marvel thought that having a comic where Spider-Man tells the corpse of his wife - because, yeah, I meant to say that, he’s talking to the corpse of his dead wife - that he killed her with his special radioactive spider-spunk was ANYTHING that should ever be allowed to appear in a comic. And that’s before you even get to the continuation of his admission: “Like a spider, crawling up inside your body and laying a thousand eggs of cancer… I killed you.”

I can’t really improve on “radioactive spider-spunk.” Wow.