Reading and watching and screwing around

So much media, so little time...

These first few came from a visit to Barnes & Noble. Thanks, as always, folks.

I started with Ultimate Fantastic Four - Vol 6, and this continues the gorgeous and impressive work from the Ultimate line of Marvel's comics. I'm starting to think that the Ultimate line might be the best thing to happen to Marvel - and comic books in general - in the past decade or two. It's given me a chance to follow Marvel's greatest characters and teams without having to know every possible thing that's come in the past. Marvel, in particular, had gotten to a point where every storyline (X-Men's being the worst) required a reader to know the past twenty or forty years of the character's lives before any possible understanding or joy was possible.

In all honesty, the Ultimate lines are somewhat along that same line, but they only require a backlog of five or six years reading to understand where things are, and all of those backlogs are readily available in trade paperbacks from the libraries and bookstores in every city 'round the country. I don't feel like an outsider coming into the movie halfway through. I feel like I've been on things from the beginning.

This Fantastic Four trade sees the team cleaning up a few loose ends that had come before - Momma Storm's work with Victor von Doom and the Frightful Four still hanging around the offices. The twists and turns of the storyline, and the tale ends with a twist that left my jaw dropped and me thoroughly impressed.

Then there's the second storyline in which a time-travelling Reed Richards heads back in time to make sure that the accident that created the Ultimate Fantastic Four never took place. Instead, the world becomes filled with superheroes thanks to an amicable meeting with the Skrulls. By the end, of course, the status quo is reset, but it's an entertaining ride along the way.

The artwork on this entire run has been gorgeous. The writing is tight and well-crafted. And the fun just pretty much never stops on this Ultimate line.

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Another entry in the fine Ultimate universe was Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 16 - Deadpool which opens with Spidey and Kitty Pryde (of the Ultimate X-Men, you know) swinging around town trying to find out how to have their normal identities date without revealing Peter's secret identity to the world. It's a nice continuation of Peter's relationship with Kitty and a really nice addition to the most teen-themed Ultimate series.

The meat of the trade, however, comes in a rumble on the mutant-hunting reality show that the Ultimate X-Men broke up a couple of trades ago. It's a pretty entertaining fight that gives the writers a chance to introduce a number of other Ultimate characters - Deadpool, the foremost among them - as well as to rant back and forth about the discrimination that the mutants are seem with.

All in all, a the touch of preachy isn't badly done. While this trade isn't up to the high quality of the Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate Spider-Man is a consistently fun read, and would be a perfect introduction for any teen comics reader.

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The rest of these are part of a backlog that's been building to such an extent that I can't manage to give every one of these a thorough review like these first few. So, short reviews are now forthcoming...

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Superman/Batman Vengance - I love the artwork in this series, and I love the huge, dopey, almost cartoony feel of their graphic novel collections, but sometimes the storylines leave me a bit cold. They're not bad (I especially like the parody of Marvel's Avengers in this edition) - and some are in fact quite good, but this one's just okay.

The artwork is fun, though, and the ride isn't a bad one. But it's prettier than it is moving by at least half and likely by more.

Skip this volume of the struggle. The first couple are of higher quality.

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Mirrormask - I'd been waiting to see Mirrormask for some time now, and finally found it at the Sharonville branch.

The film didn't, in the least, disappoint me. It was a stunning visual spectacle. The computer-generated effects that create the Dave McKean-designed dream world are phenomenal. The picture is amazingly gorgeous. The storyline is a little less phenomenal, but it certainly ain't bad. The story is a fairly typical tale of a girl slipping into a dream world and then trying to find her way back.

Pay attention to the story or not, but see the flick. Watch it, drink it in.

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HBO's series Deadwood had Karlen and me absolutely hooked from the very first few minutes of the very first episode that we checked out from the library. We're only two episodes in, but the acting and storylines are thrilling. It's a fascinating tale of a totally lawless Western town where the local saloon owner rules the town like a combination warlord and loanshark and where two of the newest men in town - come to make their fortune in the hardware business - are just a little too straight and narrow for that saloon owner's tastes.

We get a taste of the historic - with Wild Bill and Calamity Jane - and a whole heaping helping of vulgarity (swearing and swearing and swearing) and violence. People die - typically in very hard ways, but each death - each fight - each foul word - each moment - they all seem to knit this viewer in more and more tightly to the show.

It's a damn fine series, but it's definitely not one for the faint of heart.

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To Catch a Thief is an old-school classic, a Hitchcock tale of a retired jewel thief whose name comes up in suspicion of some new crimes committed in his trademark style. As could only happen in the movies, the theif decides to pretend to be a thief again in order to - ahem - catch the thief.

For some reason, I find myself having more and more difficulties watching older films. In comparison to modern films, many of the older ones - this one included - lack subtelties that I enjoy and that make for a richer experience. The story was a little flat and plain, a little too linear for me.

It does have Grace Kelly, a beautiful woman, but even her presence is little more than that of a wooden manequin.

Hitchcock had better films, and many of those have aged more gracefully.

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Apparently, Superman: Our Worlds at War was an absolutely massive cross-over event. It must've covered a fifty-plus issues of a half dozen comic series. I, being a wait-for-trader of the purest ranks, so I didn't read any of those issues until they made their way into the trades - this one being the collection of the two first attempts.

I imagine that the event that was Our Worlds at War was a huge undertaking - for writers as well as for readers, both attempting to grasp the entire storyline, and even in collecting that storyline into one volume seems to be impossible, because DC has left vast gaps and holes in what is being told. Characters act and vow to never act in another means for one issue , and then by the next time we see them, something has changed (invariably something unseen by our eyes, something the editors felt was less than necessary to our enjoyment of the tale) and that same character is acting in the very opposite of ways. Alliances are made and broken with no explanation in front of the scenes. If we're lucky, the next issue might provide some recap of the events we missed - or perhaps there's been a page of story saying "while you were away".

Admittedly, the story has enough interesting parts to keep me reading my way through, but there are too many holes putting this one closer to Swiss cheese rather than to a slice of Kraft American. It might be worth reading from tip to tale, but it'll have to be done by way of the back issues than the trades.

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I like JLA: Strength in Numbers grabs another couple of Grant Morrison's strong story arcs - the introduction of Prometheus and a second story about the loss of probability 'round the world. Plus we get an extra one-shot with Starro and Daniel, the successor to Neil Gaiman's Dream of the Endless.

The Prometheus story brought an excellent new villian to the DC universe, a solo individual who nearly takes down the Justice League at the height of their powers and fame. His defeat of each of the individuals is creative and well-crafted, and his eventual defeat - while inevitible - is also well done.

Morrison's run on JLA was an excellent one, and this is a solid middle stretch in that run.