Area 51 was a bad idea for a school field trip.
The Incredibles movie adaptation #3
Dark Horse (January, 2005)
SCREENPLAY: Brad Bird
ADAPTATION: Paul Riden
PENCILER: Ricardo Curtis
INKER: Ramon Perez
COLORIST: Dan Jackson
LETTERER: David Nestelle
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Katie Moody
EDITOR: Dave Land
MechWarrior (role-playing game) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Battletech RPG was popular enough to spawn a cartoon, comics, novels, (I’ve discussed or plan to discuss each of these on this site at some point) and of course video games, including the spin-off video series Mechwarrior. It’s a tale of a far future where colonies are involved in a civil war until the arrival of the Clans, a group descended from a famous group of warriors who play by very odd rules. Now the game returns to its roots with a new paper RPG that serves as a jumping-on point for the games.
Longtime readers may remember my reviews of Love & Capes, a superhero romantic comedy about a woman dealing with being the wife of Supermanesque hero The Crusader. In one issue of the IDW run one of Crusader’s colleagues dies. Why do I bring this up? Because it’s how it’s handled that’s important. While the death is off-panel (rarely do we get to actually see any of the superheroics…kind of like the kid superhero sitcoms on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon) he does so saving lives. We see the heroes morn, how they cover for his secret identity, how his family (the ones that know anyway) deal with it, all of the work the heroes go through to make sure all the usual “coming back from the dead” tropes are unlikely, especially the evil ones. There’s a sense of loss and grief that so many superhero comics fail do, and without the usual reason–shock value to prove “@#$ just got real, yo”.
Compare that to the JLA issue I reviewed yesterday, where nobody showed up at Metamorpho’s funeral because death has become meaningless even with in the DC Universe. There are no morning civilians, not even his friends. None of the superheroes show up either. Everyone seems to think that he’ll be restored eventually (and I think he was), making even the pastor wonder why they’re bothering to bury him. It’s a death without meaning (although he does try to save the other heroes trapped on the falling satellite), a funeral without loss…and this is been par for the course with so many hero deaths. It’s because everybody wants to write “Doomsday/The Death Of (X)” but nobody wants to go through the rest of it.
“Funeral For A Friend” is the second arc in the Death Of Superman storyline. It features Superman’s friends and family each having to deal with not only his loss but the loss of Clark Kent, missing and presumed dead since he was supposed to be in one of the areas Doomsday rampaged through. While we the audience knew Kal-El would return the characters did not. How they dealt with that loss is an important part of this storyline and this next section of the novelization focuses on those 11 issues of the comic. How well does Stern showcase this part of the story? We begin to find out today.
“Can’t you just buy a compact?”
Iron Man: The Iron Age #2
FINAL ISSUE
Marvel Comics (September, 1998)
“Bodyguards”
WRITER: Kurt Busiek
PLOT ASSIST/CO-SCRIPTER: Richard Howell
PENCILER: Patrick Zircher
INKER: Bob McLeod
COLORIST: Glynis Oliver
LETTERER: Emerson Miranda
DESIGN: John Marrsigan
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Brian Smith
EDITOR: Bobbie Chase
The Return of Godzilla (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Fansided’s “Hidden Remote” feature is reporting that the release date for the new American Godzilla sequel set in Legendary’s kaijuverse is being moved, which will put it in a better position without fighting the conclusion to the Avengers’ Infinity War two-part movie. Meanwhile the anime Godzilla sequel just hit theaters in Japan and should be available soon in the US on Netflix while you’re waiting.
I was listening to a talk radio show last week and the guest host told the story of when he brought his young daughter to a memorial monument. They saw some soldiers there and she asked one if he was a hero. The soldier replied that the real heroes were the ones who didn’t come back. On Veteran’s Day we honor those who took the greatest risk but on Memorial Day we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
I worry that we don’t acknowledge that enough. Some radio stations will drop a military tribute song somewhere in a flashback marathon, we gather for picnics or whatever the weather allows, and stores have big sales. The TV stations used to have big war movie or documentary marathons but there are so few this year. So I hope you take some time now if you didn’t earlier today to consider what those who died for our country did, and to those widows, widowers, fiances who never got to marry, and family and friends lost…so that you and yours could live in peace and freedom. Don’t give up those rights, and respect those who ensured you don’t have to.
Well, I couldn’t avoid Electric Superman forever.
JLA #5
DC Comics (May, 1997)
“Woman Of Tomorrow”
WRITER: Grant Morrison
PENCILER: Howard Porter
INKER: John Bell
COLORIST: Pat Garrahy
SEPARATIONS: Heroic Age
LETTERER: Ken Lopez
EDITOR: Rubien Diaz
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
