Tor Hates Cephalopods

[Read the whole story at The Comic Book Catacombs]

Western Wednesday: Deadlands

The first of several Deadlands one-shot comics hits shops today. Thanks to its creative mixture of Westerns and Horror (resulting in awesome monsters like man-eating tumbleweeds and ghostly hangmen) as well as Steampunk, Deadlands was one one of my Top Five role-playing games back when I used to play. One of my criteria for an excellent RPG was an extremely developed world to play in and Deadlands had that in spades with its wide swaths of Indian-controlled territory, outlaw settlements (based on real, Western towns), and a maze of pirate-filled waterways where California used to be. There's a ton of story potential there for some truly awesome comics.

Ron Marz is editing the series of one-shots and has hired creators like Steve Ellis, Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Bart Sears, Steve Niles, and Francesco Francavilla to contribute. I lamented on Robot 6 that I wished it was an actual series with characters I could get to know instead of a series of one-shots, but C Edward Sellner, Creative Director for the studio that's producing the book assured me that they're "just warming up with these first one-shots, to introduce the world and the property to the comics fans. We have plans a’plenty for more Deadlands goodness, including more traditional mini-series and if sales warrant, even a monthly dose with an ongoing character you’ll meet in these first one shots." Sounds good to me.

According to the press release: "The first book out of the gate is Deadlands: The Devil's Six Gun by the Harvey award-winning team of David Gallaher and Steve Ellis. In classic Faustian tradition, a weapons maker comes to America to pursue the American dream in the former colonies. Instead, he becomes immersed in plots and manipulations to gain unearthly power through the supernatural Ghost Rock. His goal? To make a gun that can kill anything, including the powerful Hellstromme! Its a journey that will cost him everything he loves, including his soul!

"Deadlands (APR110410), the first 32 page full color one shot in this series of weird westerns, will be available in stores June 15, 2011 for $2.99."

Mysta vs. the Changeling Mutants

In Planet Comics #57, Mysta faces a plot to destroy the Earth using shape-changing mutants. Actually, the mutants are just used to steal the device that's going to be used to blow up the planet and they're not very good at it. They steal the device all right, but they're barely serviceable as morphs and Mysta's on to them before you can say, "Arrgh! Aaaa!" In fact, even incompetent old Science Council Director Garro knows the mutants are coming and has taken action to prevent it. (The action fails, but still...)

There's an interesting bit at the beginning where Garro announces that he'll be supervising the inspection of all ships from Outer Void Z, the area of space that produces the changeling mutants. You'd think he has better things to do as head of Earth's governing body, but perhaps "supervision" doesn't mean he's personally supervising each and every inspection. Hopefully he's not that much of a mico-manager and is just overseeing the entire process. Maybe the inspection we see him conduct is just a random audit.

Nah. He's a dork.

Be sure to read Sleestak's take on the story in the link above. Where I automatically read nefarious motives into the mutants' leader and saw Earth as merely defending itself against invasion, there's an alternate reading in which Earth is an economic aggressor and Outer Void Z is simply retaliating. As Sleestak explains so well, that interpretation casts a dark shadow over Mysta's resolution to the conflict.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

With Rise of the Planet of the Apes coming out in August, I figured it’s finally time to dive in and do the massive Planet of the Apes marathon I’ve been itching for these last few years. Not just the five films, but the live-action series and the cartoon as well.

It’s difficult to say something new about the original film. As awesomely cheesy as its concept is, it still holds up as a serious masterpiece of science fiction. Or social science fiction anyway, if you want to be specific. Yes, Charlton Heston overacts the hell out of this movie, but it’s got a really smart script that raises a lot of questions without feeding the audience all the answers.

Take Heston’s misanthropic Taylor for instance. He’s a man of contradictions. He signed up for a dangerous, life-changing space mission simply to get away from other people, but when forced into the role of the last member of his race (as he defines it anyway), he becomes proudly defensive of his humanity. He also casts lots of justifiable judgment on our willingness to cheat and wage war on each other, but none on the decision by his mission’s planners to send a lone female astronaut to act as “Eve” on a long journey with three male team-members.



He’s not the only contradiction. It’s challenging to watch the film through 21st-century eyes and keep track of which social issues the film actively comments on and which ones it’s blinded to. Gender equality obviously isn’t something it’s thinking about, for instance. But it has plenty to say about race, represented by the apes’ caste system with the orangutans’ superiority over the chimpanzees and warrior-class gorillas. Even in this conversation though, the film is inconsistent. In Taylor’s world, races are equal enough that having a black scientist on the crew isn’t remarkable. He’s just a member of the team. On the other hand, he’s the next astronaut to die after the woman, leaving only the two white guys left to face the apes.

One of the film’s biggest themes is the conflict between Faith and Science, but it’s here that I appreciate the (clearly intentional) ambiguity in the way the film approaches it. I almost wrote “perceived conflict,” because as one of the characters points out in the film, there doesn’t have to be a disagreement between the two values. Both seek Truth and it’s not necessary to discard Faith when Science comes up with a surprising revelation. The two aren’t mutually exclusive propositions, because they seek the Truth about two entirely different things. Or should.

But there is of course a conflict between them when advocates of either don’t understand the questions that their preferred system is equipped to answer. Faith isn’t about learning the origins of things any more than Science is equipped to determine humanity’s purpose. Because of this, they approach their quests for Truth in entirely different ways. Faith operates from a position of presupposed knowledge: “I accept this to be true, so all new information must agree with it or be rejected.” Science – good Science anyway – continually questions itself and its assumptions. If new information conflicts with old, the old is called into question.



Planet of the Apes illustrates this difference clearly. The orangutans and chimpanzees have each chosen a preference and are trying to reconcile it with the other option. The orangutans are their culture’s defenders of Faith, but in the name of Science. The chimpanzees represent pure Science, but one that hasn’t completely disregarded Faith. Each group manipulates its second choice as needed to protect the integrity of its first choice.

In discussing this, Planet of the Apes chooses a side (Drs. Zira and Cornelius, the chimpanzees are right), but it’s impressive how sympathetically the movie allows the losing side to be. After a mockery of a trial in which Faith has to literally shout down Science in order to win its argument, the movie offers further conversations between Taylor, the symbol of doubt for everything the apes believe and Dr. Zaius, Faith’s most steadfast defender in ape culture. And while the film never suggests that the audience should agree with Zaius, it presents him sympathetically. He’s wrong and makes bad choices, but he knows that he’s wrong and he knows that they’re bad choices. He struggles with it and the internal battle turns him into more than a one-dimensional villain.

It’s also because of this that Planet of the Apes avoids speaking in absolutes. It finds value in both Faith and Science. The only thing that has no value is ignorance, especially willful ignorance. That’s what Zaius truly represents.



That’s also the message behind the film’s other social issues like racism and violence and taking advantage of your neighbor. The apes believe they’ve rejected human thinking and culture (though they don’t think of it in those terms) in order to create a perfect society, but they’ve actually inherited a lot of their ideas from humanity. It takes a human’s showing up to make them realize this, but they choose to ignore him and remain ignorant. Zaius certainly chooses that. Zira and Cornelius’ decision isn’t as clear, but Zira’s nephew Lucius has seen the truth and wants to do something about it.

There’s an interesting correlation between this theme about ignorance and the movie itself. The apes are as unaware of the damaging aspects of their culture as the film seems to be of the way it treats its female and black characters. In that sense, I suppose that modern audiences are the Taylor to the film’s apes, showing up from another time to point out the movie’s blind spots.

Rasputin Doesn't Hate Cephalopods

Which explains why he has no friends.

[Art by Skottie Young]

Western Wednesday: Art Show!

By Robert McGinnis. [Illustrateurs]



By Robert McGinnis. [Illustrateurs]



By Robert McGinnis. [Illustrateurs]



By Modest Stein. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]



By Charles Copeland. [Illustraeurs]



By Leo Morey. [Illustraeurs]



By Jessada Sutthi. [CGHub]

Mysta vs. the Thought-Mites of Andros

In Planet Comics #56, Mysta unpacks her old "thought image" power from the mothballs and uses it against  insect-controlled robots, Saturn-shaped UFOs, and hideous, moving sacks of flesh. But as usual, there's a lot more going on in the story than just that. Mysta's still undercover at the Science Council and a couple of things are happening as a result.

Bron's getting jealous on the Moon, but is that about continually being stuck in the lab while Mysta's off on missions? Or does he somehow sense that she's interested in Garro, the Science Council's director? Mysta doesn't come right out and admit any attraction, but she does muse for a second about her reputation for being cold. Her tone could be regretful, but her train of thought is cut off before she can finish it.

Meanwhile Garro's certainly taking an interest in her. He dismissively calls her "just one technician in thousands," but he obviously can't stop thinking about her, partly because he thinks he recognizes her from somewhere. She's not going out of her way to disguise herself, so he can't have met Mysta before, but you'd think he'd have seen pictures or something. Garro appears to be as dense as his ego is fragile.

New Pulp

I've tended to describe the kinds of stories I love to write and talk about as "adventure fiction," but another way of labeling them is Pulp. In fact, I've pretty much abandoned the more-encompassing Sci-Fi as a genre that I like. I dig Space Pulp: robots, aliens, rayguns; that kind of thing. Jungle adventure stories started in the pulps too. As of course did Robert E Howard's Conan, and Lovecraftian horror. So many of the stories I've enjoyed my entire life fall under the Pulp umbrella. Depending on how broadly you define Pulp, maybe all of them do.

At SpringCon a couple of weeks ago I got to sit next to Mike Bullock (The Phantom, Lions Tigers and Bears), someone I've known for a long time, but didn't know that well. Mike's one of the major writers in the current Pulp revival and one of the best things about that weekend was getting to know him better and just chatting about Pulp for a couple of days. I left the weekend excited about the genre (or, more accurately, the collection of genres) and determined to do more writing in it. Especially prose, which I've been neglecting for comics projects the last few years. Comics projects are fun and I'm going to keep doing them (especially Kill All Monsters, of course), but they take a while to get going and there's no reason I couldn't be cranking out some short stories at the same time.

Something else that came from my conversation with Mike was the discovery that he and Tommy Hancock (another long-time acquaintance and current Pulp revivalist) have started a New Pulp blog dedicated to talking about today's Pulp fiction. So of course I asked if I could chip in. Mike and Tommy graciously accepted and my first post (part of a new column called "Pulptacular") went up at the end of last week. It's about some of the new Pulp TV shows coming out next season and there are some good ones. So check out the post and if you like adventure fiction, follow the site. It's going to be a great place to stay caught up on this stuff.

Angelica Malon on Stranger Tides

On Robot 6 last week, I posted some thoughts about letting the audience control artistic output. I used a bunch of quotes from famous writers to show why it’s a bad idea, including an example from Sam Raimi about adding Venom to Spider-Man 3 in spite of Raimi’s not really liking Venom very much. I’d like to add a couple of more examples to the pile.

As was pointed out to me a long time ago, Ocean’s 12 was a failed experiment at a different take on the Ocean’s 11 concept. Audiences reacted badly – and justifiably so – so in retaliation Soderbergh just remade Ocean’s 11 and called it Ocean’s 13. Which is pretty funny, but it doesn’t make Ocean’s 13 something that I’d ever want to watch again.

That also seems to be what’s going on with On Stranger Tides. Fans and critics were pretty vocal about not liking At World’s End and that distaste has colored the entire trilogy. In response, the makers of On Stranger Tides have created the Pirates movie that audiences said they wanted. And while some are pretty satisfied with the result, the movie has some big problems.



It starts out okay. Pretty good, actually. I was all ready for a movie about the new, relatively selfless Jack Sparrow and for a while it looks like that's what Stranger Tides offers. Johnny Depp’s still awesome in the role and the character is still a fun one (if over-reliant on his signature moves and catch phrases). The opening scenes in which Jack has to rescue Gibbs from prison and ends up having to rescue himself from King George's guard-filled palace are mostly awesome. Without having to explain it, the movie presents Jack as the same kind of character as Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes: always fifteen steps ahead of everyone else so that things appear to just fall into place for him.

There was one bit in that opening sequence though that was all wrong and rang the chimes of doom for the rest of the film. Jack rushes by a surprised guard who then gives chase. Jack manages to get away for a moment and as the guard runs past Jack’s hiding place, he inexplicably sets Jack's sword and pistol on a table. I suppose you could argue that the guard thought he could chase faster without them, but it's awfully convenient and of course Jack picks them up. I wish it was the only over-coincidental bit of the movie, but the story’s filled with those moments. Jack’s escapes get more ludicrous, people have superpowers for no reason, and absolutely everyone knows how to find the Fountain of Youth and what to do with it when they get there (except Jack who’s presumably been searching for it longer than anyone else).




The movie is very silly and cartoony, but that might have been forgivable had it actually done what it was supposed to do: continue the story of Captain Jack Sparrow. When last we left Jack, he’d become a kinder pirate and we do see that reflected in On Stranger Tides. But that’s what he grew into in the last trilogy. For his story to be worth continuing, he needs to go somewhere new.

The journey promised by At World’s End is Jack’s quest for immortality. He died in Dead Man’s Chest and was terrified of repeating the experience. It drove everything he did in At World’s End and made sense of his quest for the Fountain of Youth. But as Stranger Tides opens, Jack’s pretty much given up the quest and has to be pulled back into it. There’s no personal urgency to his finding it. Instead, he fills a role much like he did in the original trilogy: running around making things more interesting for the characters who actually have story arcs. Excuse me: the character who has a story arc. Because there’s only one.

Something that On Stranger Tides does have in common with its predecessors is that the actual main character is the female lead, in this case Angelica Malon (Penélope Cruz). She has a very good reason for wanting to find the Fountain of Youth: Her father, Blackbeard has been prophesied for death (a second time, since the movie takes place after his historical death) and Angelica wants to give him more time to repent so that his soul might be saved. She even brings a missionary on the trip in an attempt to reach her dad, but the movie’s never sure what to do with the priest other than throw him into a half-hearted romance with a mermaid who is herself nothing more than an element of the quest. Even Blackbeard – as cool as Ian McShane plays him – is a MacGuffin whose only purpose is to drive Angelica’s story.



Angelica is a complicated character though. Her obsession with saving her father trumps everything else, making her do and agree to some pretty heinous things. But Cruz is beautiful, charming, and injured and I wanted to like her. I didn’t excuse or forgive her for her actions, but I wanted to. That put me in an interesting predicament and is pretty cool.

The movie tries to bring her and Jack together in a meaningful way in order to give Jack’s story some weight, but it fails. To start with, it’s the old, They Were Lovers Way Back When Even Though Jack’s Never Mentioned Her Before ploy. I’d have been okay with that as long as there was some chemistry between the characters to make me believe they really were lovers way back when, but there’s not. If there were, the film wouldn’t need the long-lost lovers back-story. We'd just believe that Jack does what he does for love of Angelica. Instead, in the absence of presenting any real passion between the two characters, the film asks its audience to settle for being told that it exists. That doesn’t work.

On Stranger Tides was written by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, the two guys who wrote the original trilogy, so it’s not like Disney hired a bunch of new guys who didn’t know what they were doing to take over. Maybe it really was a case of trying to give the audience what it said it wanted and failing as a result. Whatever the reason, I hope that Pirates 5 manages to put the series back on track and turn On Stranger Tides into an unfortunate speedbump. There are elements in On Stranger Tides that suggest that could be the case and I really am interested in learning more about Angelica. I just don’t want another film like this one.

Fantasy Pirates Hate Cephalopods

By Jeff Easley. [Illustrateurs]

Western Wednesday: Comics Covers

By Chris Houghton.



By Anthony Diecidue.

[Comic Book Resources]