C-c-c-c-COMBO! Friday Bowie

No, like he was really into 1984:

Unbroken Friday Bowie!

Did you know that David Bowie really liked Orwell’s 1984?

Anyway, getting back to our seminar…

I had what I think to be a pretty good idea for our next discussion seminar.

I was re-reading Watchmen the other day — for the first time since high school, I think — in anticipation of the upcoming I-refuse-to-get-excited-until-I-see-if-its-any-good film. Like any good book, I noticed things that I had never really paid attention to before, specifically the rivalry between The New Frontiersman, to the right, and Nova Express, to the left.

So I suggest a discussion of politics and the press in Watchmen,  which, in Moore’s fictional 1985, hadn’t yet witnessed the serious jump in opinion-entertainment-news we have today with the birth of the 24-hour news network or the blog. Possible sub-questions: Why is it the left-leaning Nova Express that drives Dr. Manhattan into exile? Why set the final scene in the offices of The New Frontiersman? The right-leaning publication tends to support the masked vigilantes more, is Moore saying that is something intrinsically right-wing about the concept of the superhero? Depending on how much mileage we can get out of this, maybe we segue into a discussion about what the film gets right and wrong, since, apprehensions aside, I’m sure we’re all going to see it anyway.

What do you think?

Superman: Beyond confusing.

Time to address what I feel is an almost obligatorily necessity: a review of Final Crisis: Superman Beyond issue # 2 (of 2).

Grant Morrison is beginning to fail to live up to my expectations for him, which is sad. I was genuinely looking forward to this book after the high-concept, widescreen-and-popcorn, summer-blockbuster-thrillride of the first issue, but this one seemed mired under the weight of its concepts.

Spoilers follow:

Super-women in bondage

Ok, so now another issue in my continuing – and increasingly less sycophantic – coverage of Final Crisis up to and including Issue 6. So far, I have read every issue at least four times, though some of those times were more like excited skimming between pages drawn by Jones, Manke or Pacheco. Not thrilled with the other artists, but meh, I’m a journalist, I get deadlines. I’m also awaiting with bated breath Superman Beyond #2, which is really the only other tie-in besides “Submit” that I’ve cared about.
In speaking with friends and reading other blogger’s takes on the story so far, I’ll agree that it’s a bit disjointed and the plot a bit frenetic. I wish that Morrison and co. could have followed a better plan/schedule, but I think I will lay this at the feet of DC editorial (DiDio!!!) who strayed from Morrison’s original, cooler idea of having the Big Seven leave this plane to transform into the New Gods of the Fifth World. Besides that, Countdown to Final Crisis was a fucking atrocity, especially after they were able to make 52 interesting at least half the time, and finish in an incredibly strong way that made me forgive them bringing back the multiverse.
But I digress.
The real point I wanted to make here is this: I’m displeased with the way the female characters have been used in this story. Really displeased.
And most of my ire focuses on the visually interesting but emotionally devoid battle between Supergirl and Mary Marvel. Honestly, Jones’ art is fantastic, but I could not care less about this battle, and especially because of the sorority-girl manner of speech they display. I don’t want my super-folks to resort to calling each other “slut” while pillow-fighting with buses, buildings and innocent bystanders. While I nearly had a geek-gasm over the deliberate visual references to Miracle Man issue #15 – the single greatest superheroic dust-up ever. Period. Don’t pretend you haven’t read it, Grant. – And I like the (attempted) reversion of traditional gender roles by staging the climactic physical battle between two female characters, something about this wasn’t working for me. It was way too much like foxy-boxing, or a match between two WWE “Divas.” There was no emotion.
I love the unnecessarily Judeo-Christian overtones in having the “evil” combatant – a very-literally demonically possessed Mary Marvel, who is usually as chaste as a nun – dressing like a dominatrix with a stupid punk-rawk-grrrrrl hair cut and making numerous, uncomfortably sexual comments. I feel like Grant could do something a bit more cerebral to make her a threat to the reader’s sense of right and wrong.
Tie this in with the already increasingly unnecessary treatment of Mary Marvel-as-sex-object by, you know EVERY CREATOR IN THE DCU, and it just pisses me off. It’s not like she was ever anything but a symbol for traditional female virtue, but again, if she’s going to become a bad guy, it’s too obvious to make her evil-superwhore.
Supergirl also is under-utilized. She doesn’t do anything except beat on Mary without any apparent sense of concern to damage she might cause to Bludhaven, which still has living residents. While this again is a story of superheroes at war, and a deliberate nod to Miracleman, I feel like if you are going to have Supergirl in a story, let her stand for things as well as her cousin would, or at least let her try. Don’t have her threaten to break the bad-guy’s neck. (This I actually would be willing to forgive in the sense that “evil is winning,” and superheroes who stand for Truth, Justice and … you know, are acting like Jack Bauer).
Still, Freddie Freeman has to save the day. Though we’ll give Supergirl the chance to bend gender roles by becoming a macho super-bruiser, we won’t let her worry her pretty blonde head about morality or a rational solution to a threat.
Grant I thought you could do better than this.

This is better than it should be

Crossing the Line – The Last Temptation of Christ

Time to look at a film made by a Catholic (Martin Scorsese) about Jesus that pissed off every God fearing man woman and child on earth, or near enough. “The Last Temptation of Christ” was made in 1988 and based on a book by Nikos Kazantzakis, and is the closest you’ll see in this column of a review of “Passion of the Christ”.

Tagline: The life of Jesus Christ, his journey through life as he faces the temptations that all humans face during their lives, and his final temptation upon the cross.

Synopsis: You know that basic story of Jesus, let’s not waste time on that. A few things that Last Temptation supposes: That Jesus had made crosses for the Roman crucifixions of Jews; that Mary Magdalene was a whore; that Judas was Jesus’ best friend and a militant Jewish freedom fighter; that Jesus was confused and occasionally terrified of God’s actions in his life; that Jewish freedom fighters killed Lazarus to remove any evidence of Jesus’ powers; that Pontius Pilate was David Bowie; that Jesus asked Judas to betray him because it was God’s will. The movie attempts to reconcile the discrepancies in tone of the various stories of God, some of which are violent and some of which are all forgiving and loving. The film’s ending, which sparked the most controversy, has an angel (Satan in disguise!) appearing and allowing Jesus to escape crucifixion. He then goes on to live a normal life first with Mary, then with two other women he met in his ministry, bearing many children with them and dying an old and happy man. On his death bed some of his disciples appeal to him and Judas shows him that the angel is Satan, Jesus realizes it’s a trap (!) and returns to die on the cross. Fade to white.

Interesting Fact: On October 22, 1988, a French Catholic fundamentalist group launched molotov cocktails inside the Parisian Saint Michel movie theater to protest against the film. This attack injured thirteen people, four of whom were severely burned.

Objectionable material: Nudity, Crucifixion, Blaspheme, Depictions of Jesus kissing a man, depictions of Jesus as a polygamist, depictions of Jesus as a white guy, depictions of Jesus questioning God, depictions of Jesus having children, depictions of Jesus not dying for anyone’s sins, misogyny, murder, some of that good old time religion

Disturbing Quote: “I created the truth out of what people needed and what they believed. If I have to crucify you to save the world, then I’ll crucify you.”

Cormac McCarthy’s “The Cat in the Hat.”

Here’s something I wrote a little while ago, I think the title is pretty self-explanatory, not unlike Charles Bukowski’s “Peanuts.” This is probably going to be more amusing if you’ve read “Blood Meridian.” But hey, if people like it, maybe I’ll follow it up with something like Chuck Palahniuk’s “Goodnight Moon.”

***

The sun did not shine. Shrouded in cold darkness, Heaven let forth her torrential wetness and all hopes for play suffered a drowning death. They sat in the house.

The boy sat with Sally. Wish we had somethin to do said the boy. I reckon it’s too wet to go out and too cold for playin ball.

Sally spat. Sally and the boy sat in the house and did nothing at all.

Fiction!

As we start reworking the site and what-not, I feel like it would be good to get back to what Blurred Productions used to be about: poorly written short stories. Since I have the awesome responsibility of writing about anything and everything, I have no problems with distracting from comic talk for a minute. This is a short story I never finished, a companion to one I wrote in March. The idea was to write a series of stories about the possible effects of good intentioned powerful beings without much control. I stopped because I felt it might be getting repetitive, but I’ll write a few more if these are well received. This one is based on the Lovecraft Mythos. If you ask for more I’ll finish the story and post the finished super hero one.

Collaboration

Since it was requested, and it pleases me to do so, I’m posting one of the old columns I did with Smith Michaels.  If he doesn’t want the screenname he never uses reveald, he can wake himself up from whatever Scandinavian  hell hole he’s passed out in and edit this damn thing himself.  I have nothing to hide.