REVIEW: End of Month Reviews #69 - September 2009 [spoilers]
Saxon Brenton
[REVIEW] End of Month Reviews #69 - September 2009 [spoilers]
Reviewed This Issue:
New Exarchs #15 [SG/LNH]
Jolt City #18 [8Fold]
Pigs In Time #4-5 [LNH]
Superhuman World 2009: The Trillions [Misc : Contest] {High Concept 3}
Also posted:
A Singular Fire [ASH]
Beige Midnight #5 [LNH]
The Doggie Conversationalist #1 [LNHY] {High Concept 3}
Haiku Gorilla Super-Special of Special Awesomeness! #1 [LNH]
High Concept Challenge #3 [LNHY : Contest] {High Concept 3}
Journey Into... #7 [8Fold : Contest] {High Concept 3}
Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron In The Return Of
The RACCies! #3 [LNH][RACCies]
Spoilers below...
====
New Exarchs #15
'Execute Plan B!'
A Superguy/Legion of Net.Heroes [SG/LNH] series
by Dave van Domelen
Hmmm. Okay, perhaps a bit abrupt as endings go, but that's under-
standable under the circumstances of the writer having flagging interest
in the Flash Gordon style stories that inspired this story arc in the
first place. If motivation was otherwise I'd have expected a few more
issues of sneaking into the city and doing reconnaissance and having
close shaves and contacting the inevitable city based rebellion and
suchlike before the climactic showdown with Sung. I say this not just
because that's the way stories tend to be structured and paced (which
means yes, I'm probably thinking in cliches again by indulging in the
conceit that there's only one 'proper' way for a story to be paced), but
also because Dvandom has in the past showed a liking for mega arcs based
in multiples of twelve. It might seem like there would need to be
padded to cover the seven episodes needed to get to issue 24, but throw
in ongoing subplots for the kids of the Preteen Patrol and the squirrels,
and I think it would have worked okay.
Ahem. Anyway. Full marks for the clever use of the concept to
scare Sung away from trying to conquer 000SUPERGUY with marketing. The
notion that a superhero class universe will inevitably have suffered so
many crises, catastrophes and sundry destructive Events that it is very
tough, in the sense of what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger, works
not just on the meta level but also on a literal, non-fourth wall
breaking level as well. It's a rationale that is far more plausible
than many other tactical threats, since it's a simple enough concept
that it remains fresh in the reader's mind when other, more complex
strategic situations have been overlooked (or been overridden by troop
and weapon build-up). It is especially more plausible than most plot
devices and deus ex machina, since by their nature made-up resolutions
are easily retconned away or trumped with some new and more powerful
made-up widget.
Jolt City #18
'War of the Balloonists!'
An Eightfold [8Fold] series
by Tom Russell
If you conceptualise the progress of this series in terms of ongoing
development of the status quo of its protagonists, then metaphorically
this would be the start of a new trade paperback. Or perhaps more
literally as the start of a new novelisation, if Tom decides to publish
this story in deadtree format as well. Anyway, it's a jumping on point.
Derek makes his debut as the Blue Boxer, sidekick to the Green Knight,
and it doesn't go all that well. He gets mockery, and because we're
talking about the internet age not only does it happen in real time and
propagate virally, but also a lot of it involves people just being
smartarses rather than just being mainly the tub thumping of demagogues
who see an opportunity to exploit something for their own ends. And to
be fair, apparently he's not the first person to be inspired by the
return of the Green Knight to take up four-colour heroing, so it's quite
probable that there's internet mockery of others as well. Needless to
say: anyone who has enough drive to regularly dress up in costume and
fight crime also has enough pride to be wounded by this sort of thing.
At the end of the day he'll simple have to build up his rep. On the
other hand his private life is going pretty well, even if he's not
particularly found of Dani's cooking.
Meanwhile Jolt City is caught between the antics of two villains
claiming the name 'The Balloonist'. One an aerialist and the other a
creator of living inflatable animals. (Now, me, I would of forgone
calling them Balloonist One and Balloonist Two and instead used flying
Balloonist and squeaky toy Balloonist, but that's a nitpick.)
The squeaky toy Balloonist is used to particularly good effect.
Now, both Balloonists provide memorable characters and the opportunity
for investigative work and perhaps some heroing action - although in
the Blue Boxer's case its more an opportunity for embarrassing faux pas,
such as the rogue telephone pole incident. However, investigating the
mechanics of the squeaky toy Balloonist's abilities also brings up
discussions of the moral consequences of creating and dealing with
living things. Things like the sanctity of naimal vs human life, and
the treatment of non-protein life forms. In other words, it's an
example of Jim Henley's thesis that superheros are a 'literature of ethics'.
Pigs In Time #4-5
'Invasion of the DaLEDS' and 'Bareback To The Future'
A legion Of Net.Heroes [LNH] miniseries
by Martin Phipps and Tom Russell
Well, crap. My Geek cred is in tatters. Despite my *decades* of
being a _Doctor Who_ fan, and musing on things like (LNH reference here)
how Occultism Kid could defeat the Daleks with a Monty Python skit, it
never *once* occurred to me that the Daleks should have nonexistent
depth vision because of having only one eye. To the extent that their
poor shooting consciously registered at all I assumed that it was just
major character plot invulnerability. Thanks a lot guys.
Okay then. Issue three has been skipped over and will probably
never be written. Let's move on. Issue 4 has Master Blaster and
Sarcastic Lad raking around 16th century England. And by 'raking'
I don't mean they're doing gardening, I mean they're acting like rakes.
Debauched lotharios interested in carnal intercourse - in this case
with King Henry VIII's wives. While pursuing this goal, they become
involved with the proverbial pointy end of an invasion by DaLED robots
from the future, and are able to defeat them by means of a time paradox.
Well, no. Actually they're able to defeat the DaLEDs because
Master Blaster has lots of Big Guns that he can hand out to the King's
guards for the big fight scene. The time paradox comes into play when
Master Blaster and Sarcastic Lad need to escape from the King's guards
after the battle.
This story particularly highlights the way that Master Blaster is
a linear thinker who thinks with his main head (which would not be too
much of an exaggeration nor too much of an unkindness to describe as
the one that doesn't sit on his shoulders). It isn't that he's stupid
(although he *is* an idiot). Rather, he doesn't worry much about
anything other than sex and guns until it directly affects him. At
that point he can work out without too much trouble what's going on (if
only because he's seen enough SF films to recognise the plot elements),
and pull off a convincing line of fast-talk. As evidence, notice the
way that he doesn't start engineering the time paradox until after it
happens to them. Otherwise, as seen in issue 5, he views time travel
as a way of getting to exotic new locations.
Speaking of which, issue 5 starts with the two of them not-quite-stuck
in Japan in the future, enjoying VR porn. Not-quite-stuck because, as
the series premise stands, the time cycle works but can't be properly
steered. However, to reiterate, Master Blaster is sanguine with this
state of affairs: from his point of view the time cycle is simply a means
of tourism: cross-time sex tourism, that is.
Anyway, at Sarcastic Lad's instigation they move on. They arrive
in ancient Sumer and decide to debauch around there, becoming involved
with the local queen, Ishtar, who refuses to let them leave when even
Master Blaster has had enough. She claims to be a goddess, but
fortunately for the two LNHers the surprise arrival of a time cop to
reveal that she is in fact a human from the future masquerading as a
goddess. The time cop has been... kind of pursuing, kind of waiting
for the right moment to act... for all three of the temporal miscreants
for a while, and has now reached the appropriate moment to act without
risking an inconvenient paradox (as opposed to the convenient paradox
used last issue against the DaLEDs).
Superhuman World 2009: The Trillions
A Miscellaneous [Misc] posting {High Concept 3}
by Scott Eiler
The third High Concept contest theme was a hero who talks with
animals. In this story (which is presented in the form of a press
release) the Dunevoy Laboratories develops and then deploys a mechanical
means to control mosquitoes to attack one of two alien spacecraft. As
Scott points out in the author's notes, the various concepts of 'hero',
'talks' and 'animals' were all interpreted loosely.
I recall reading Neil Gagman making the observation that the most
basic thing that a story must do is keep the reader interested enough to
keep turning the pages and upon reaching the end not feel ripped off with
what they had read. In that regard I think this story works in two
significant respects.
Firstly there's thelling of the story: the presentation of a
problem and its solution. In this case the problem is an alien incursion
(since the press release is so obviously a piece of propaganda I'll
refrain from assuming it's a literal invasion, but I'll get to that in
a moment). The solution is an innovative biological attack using
mosquitoes. Of course, at heart this is a reprise of HG Well's _War Of
The Worlds_. I mention this neither as condemnation nor praise, since
to my mind the execution of the details is sufficiently different to make
it an interesting variation in it's own right. Rather, the comparison
helps me segue to the point that like _War Of The Worlds_ this story
reads on a superficial level as more like science fiction than superhero
fiction. This should be obvious since it's quite overt that there are
no costumed crime fighters. Now, this is fine. As I have had reason to
note in the past (and I am certainly not the first to do so) comic books
are a medium, not a genre. They don't *have* to be about costumed heroes.
However, an important point is that this is a function of the story's
presentation rather than the setting per se: 'The Trillions' is a sequel
to the previous High Concept Challenge story by Scott, 'Cry For Iran',
and that *did* have superhero elements.
The second aspect is more subtle. The press release is quite
obviously a piece of propaganda, and I found myself going over it to
try and pick apart any inconsistencies or even minor details that could
be used to infer what might really be going on. So, for example, there
is talk of an 'alien occupation', harvesting Earth's oxygen, and
obsessing about the number of aliens both in the ships and off planet
- but there is never any clear statement other than possibly/probably
untrustworthy accusations as to what the aliens were doing on Earth.
Resource harvests? Colonisers? Crashed convoy? It's not clear.
Since the premise was intriguing enough to get me to read through
several times times, I'd count that as a good sign for an opening issue
or chapter, but that in turn suggests that this story would best be
served by further development of the hinted at/dangling story elements.
----------
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon....@uts.edu.au
The Eyrie Archives of Russ Allbery which collect the online superhero
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Tom Russell
> [REVIEW] End of Month Reviews #69 - September 2009 [spoilers]
>
> 'War of the Balloonists!'
> An Eightfold [8Fold] series
> by Tom Russell
>
> � � �If you conceptualise the progress of this series in terms of ongoing �
> development of the status quo of its protagonists, then metaphorically �
> this would be the start of a new trade paperback. �Or perhaps more �
> literally as the start of a new novelisation, if Tom decides to publish �
> this story in deadtree format as well. �Anyway, it's a jumping on point.
::nods::
This is definitely intended as the start of another arc or story; if
the GREEN KNIGHT mini and JOLT CITY # 1-11 could be considered one
long story charting the evolution/growth of Martin Rock from the loner
vigilante to the brightly-clad and occasionally more gregarious Green
Knight, and if # 12-17 could be termed a somewhat shorter story about
anger and forgiveness, then # 18-25 is the story of... well, I'm not
going to say, just yet. Though I think it wouldn't be too hard to
extrapolate some expectations from the end of #18.
But I definitely think your referencing Henley's argument about
superheroes being a "literature of ethics" is apt, and hints at what
I'm attempting to do with this next big story. The more digressive
incidents in "War of the Balloonists"-- the guy with the cocaine, the
domestic abuse sequence, the blow-job scene-- are certainly meant to
reflect on those elements that are more crucial to the plot in a
thematic/moral/ethical fashion. And there'll be more of that thematic
stuff in the remaining seven issues.
There'll also be more villains: one thing that bugs me about the
series thus far is, excluding the thirty-plus that debut in # 10,
there aren't really all that many villains in the series thus far, not
much by way of super-conflict. And while I avoided that pretty
deliberately in #12-17-- instead mentioning villains and adventures in
passing so I could focus more on what Derek was going through-- I
fully intend to have each installment of this arc feature a different
villain or group of villains. Next up, assuming nothing changes
between now and whenever I finish writing it, will be The Little
League of Doom. (Draw your own conclusions.)
# 18 was, as I'm sure many people noticed, a little long; it was, in
the end, as long as that particular story needed to be, and that'll be
the case for the remaining seven installments. Which also means,
however, there'll be more of a wait between installments; I'll see if
I can't get two done next year.
> Pigs In Time #4-5
> 'Invasion of the DaLEDS' �and �'Bareback To The Future'
> A legion Of Net.Heroes [LNH] miniseries
> by Martin Phipps and Tom Russell
>
> � � �Well, crap. �My Geek cred is in tatters. �Despite my *decades* of �
> being a _Doctor Who_ fan, and musing on things like (LNH reference here) �
> how Occultism Kid could defeat the Daleks with a Monty Python skit, it �
> never *once* occurred to me that the Daleks should have nonexistent �
> depth vision because of having only one eye. �To the extent that their �
> poor shooting consciously registered at all I assumed that it was just �
> major character plot invulnerability. �Thanks a lot guys.
The thanks is all Martin's, as that was his extrapolation; he was very
generous to give me co-credit for two issues that were all his
writing.
==Tom
Andrew Perron
> Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron In The Return Of
> The RACCies! #3 [LNH][RACCies]
Aw, man, I was hoping you'd review this one. ``
> Jolt City #18
> 'War of the Balloonists!'
> An Eightfold [8Fold] series
> by Tom Russell
Why haven't I read this yet *throttles job*
> Superhuman World 2009: The Trillions
> A Miscellaneous [Misc] posting {High Concept 3}
> by Scott Eiler
> The press release is quite
> obviously a piece of propaganda, and I found myself going over it to
> try and pick apart any inconsistencies or even minor details that could
> be used to infer what might really be going on.
I liked that, even despite the propaganda aspect, they were obviously
wholeheartedly proud of their genocidal tactics. It was nicely disturbing.
Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, blaaaaaaaaaaaaar
Scott Eiler
> [REVIEW] End of Month Reviews #69 - September 2009 [spoilers]
>
> Superhuman World 2009: The Trillions [Misc : Contest] {High Concept 3}
Thanks for the kind words, Saxon. If all goes according to plan, The
Trillions will be the biggest thing to happen in my fiction in the
last three years. I already have a follow-up chapter planned, so I'll
keep the group posted.
Saxon Brenton
On Sat 31 Oct 2009 Andrew Perron replied:
> On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 Saxon Brenton wrote:
>> Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron In The Return Of
>> The RACCies! #3 [LNH][RACCies]
>
> Aw, man, I was hoping you'd review this one.
-----
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex
world of jet-powered apes and time-travel." - Superman, JLA Classified #3
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Andrew Perron
> On Sat 31 Oct 2009 Andrew Perron replied:
>> On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 Saxon Brenton wrote:
>>> Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron In The Return Of
>>> The RACCies! #3 [LNH][RACCies]
>>
>> Aw, man, I was hoping you'd review this one.
>
> Oh, I think I can go better than that. Like... POSTING PART 4!
Oh um wow o.ov
Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, that's a delicious wrench in the works!