You Gotta be Fresh - AVX so far

Earlier in the year, during one of my sporadic periods of updating this, I proclaimed that I was more interested in AVX than Before Watchmen, and I stand by that, mainly due to my Marvel Zombie-dom and my fetishistic need to complete story arcs.  While the Darwyn Cooke crafted Minutement piqued my interest in the store, I have kept to my resolve, for once, and have not given DC my money, yet.  During this same brief period of diligence, I made some claims as to what would happen, which I was totally wrong about.  This is mainly because I don't think any of us saw what was going to happen, which is a nice twist for a summer event.  At the same time though, I, as a reader and consumer, have a slight issue.  Not to belabor the point with purple prose, which I am loathe to admit that I do engage in (the most opulent of garrulousness calls to me), I'm kinda bummed out that the they've pretty much combined two of the more recent-ish summer events into one big ass summer event.

Okay, the Phoenix Five, Oceanic Six (I'm working on a Lost porn parody called Oceanic Dicks btw...well I have a treatment written), are fundamentally "The Worthy".  You take a group of characters; you jack them up and possess them; this time the twist is that they're feel that trying to save the world instead of destroy it.  More plainly stated though is the connection to House of M what with the "No More Avengers" tagline.  I find this one far easier to swallow as it is a plain allusion to one of the more "game changing" (I die a little bit every time I type it, or really half of these posts about comic books) events in the previous decade.   Anyway, my issue with the book is just that they're aping plot beats from last year's event, which I did not particularly care for, although I do loves me some Immomen and Fraction.  I like the talents on AVX, as there is less vitriol here than any comic book blog ever.  I'm looking forward to the Copiel art as I don't see enough of it for my tastes, and it makes the House of M connection, beyond the ads, Scarlet Witch, Pax-Whatever, even more salient.

So we'll see I guess.  As mentioned above, I'm going to give Marvel my monies until the end of this thing in September.  I'm curious to see what happens at the end of it after they kill Cyclops, they kind of have to, as it would in turn mirror the events of Civil War, as the losing general must die.  I'm hoping that this Phoenix Five bit is winkingly self-referential.  I'm hoping, in all honesty, that this loose bastard amalgamation (Hey, who wants a new issue of JLX?  Just me?  How's about Generation H for H.E.R.Oor whatever they called it) chimera of previous summer events leads to a legitimately refreshing Re:X:Genesis:Fatal:Blood:Attraction:Cutioner's:Future:X-Tinction:Complex-topia.  As I do enjoy comic books, they're a nice light read.  Granted they may be infuriating at times due to myriad inconsistencies which are discussed at length throughout the blogosphere.  That said, I don't know why Cyclops is wearing red BVDs over his outfit.  I am wondering how absolute power will corrupt and how absolutely.  Also, let's just hope that everything doesn't get retconned immediately after the event, like last year, I do enjoy Winter Soldier, so it's all good I guess.  So that's really it.  Overall, everything I said earlier was wrong; it happens.  The book overall is okay.  Some of the stuff in the AvX: Versus book is pretty fun.  Thank God that they didn't create a bunch of 3-4 issue ancillary titles that do not really serve the main book, as has been rampant in the past (Frontline: I'm looking squarely at you).  So as far as summer event books go, You've bought way worse imaginary reader.  I know it sounds like faint praise, but this is someone writing about comic books on the internet; anything short of excoriation or proclaiming that Creator X be ritually sacrificed/sodomized by the aforementioned chimeras should be considered the most gushing of praise.  So that's the verdict, main book pretty good.  Some of the tie-ins have been good, although I did think that Avengers #27 jumped around a bit, and I was confused as to how everyone ended up on Hala.  Although in fairness, I'm not even sure which Supremor it is or any of that as I thought he got murked (black people talk for killed) by the pan-dimensional, and not dead, Black Bolt with the 5 wives (I enjoy Fantastic Four, yet at times cannot cogently tell you what the hell has happened during Hickman's run.  Save the Willie Lumpkin issue (obviousness of twist/odd questions about playing God and morality raised/ illustrates the "why do people have cancer when you have a "God Mitten" thing floating around and routinely punk out a galactic force of nature, have a prison in a sub-dimmension/everything Reed Richards does and you've got cancer running around killing mailmen) it's been a solid read the entire time.  Massive digression aside it's fun stupid punching with massive stakes.  IT takes me back to my youth when fun stupid punching was the thing and it's got Gambit fighting Captain America (although in my youth I would have said Gambit would win, but everyone loved Gambit then.  Many of us still do.)  So there you have it. The most longwinded way to say that a comic summer event is pretty all right/ you're already buying it/ you've bought way worse. 

Quick pics: Cyclops dies.  The Blue team, realizing the error of their ways un/schis and reconvene in NY... probably not, Red Hulk dies, one of two things happen: Emma Frost realizes that Cyclops has gone too far militant and ends him 2) she gets in the way, he kills her, remorsefully sacs himself to put things right.  More mutants.  The Phoenix brings rebirth of...Maggot (A boy can dream)! But yeah, it's looking like the new new may be rooted in 2005 (more mutants).  But that's the nature of the medium: what's old is new again.  I mean there's only so many times that you can change the status quo in a certain direction, which both companies have had to do in the last two decades (Especially the New 52...which I guess more on that later).  Sometimes though, that big new direction is taking things back a couple of years.  It allows us older, wistful fans to reminisce while reading a new product, and it provides a jumping on point for the new..I can't say it with a straight face...there are no new readers coming in in droves.  Not due to the quality of the work, but kids don't fucking read anything.  I teach them; they don't.  I mean I guess if you relaunched X-Men as a monetized Twitter account you could get them in... maybe the children kids will get into it, but these helicopter parents and combining that with all of these new found concerns over violence in... it's just look people sometimes get back into the books after a hiatus; some kids are being brought in, but they'd rather watch Teen Mom  than Thundercats....it's a rambly pambly Friday... Anyway, a return to an entirely alien yet largely familiar (it's as non paradoxical as anything if you think about it) isn't really that bad of a thing.  It's how the medium works.  It's how it functions.  If anything, AVX is the beast in nature: it's a new, but familiar, story that has fooled you into thinking it's new, but has kept your interest by engaging you through the craft of those involved.  Finally, that's about it really. 

Oh no, Promotheus... Prometheus - reviewed (not by Jay Sherman)

As you, imaginary reader, may have noticed there has been a fair amount of controversy surrounding Ridley Scott's summer film Prometheus: based mainly on inanity and decision making.  Yes, while some may argue that the baffling at times idiocy of the film's principles as a wanton betrayal of the franchise (I guess?) I would argue that these forays into dullardry are at the crux of the franchise.  Before addressing that hyperbolic statement though, there must come an actual review of the film based solely on my experience in the theater.

I dug it.  It's an incredibly well shot film with the sort of breathtakingly shot vistas and Gieger-esque set design that you would expect.  However, Guy Pearce does look like a low rent Old Lo Pan in the make up they have him in.  By and large I enjoyed the creature design.  It was as pointedly, terrifyingly vaginal as anything else in the series and kept with the established aesthetic.  The performances were solid with Michael, if this was a regular conversation- you know Magneto? ohhh, Fassbender and Noomi, Swedish Dragon Tattoo... it's in my queue, Rappace being at the forefront of it.  Everyone else in the film brings the convincing acting (they sell those terrible decisions dammit), and Idris Elba talks like Cowboy Curtis but is still cool.  I would also recommend seeing the film in 3D as, for once, it was not an after thought.  While the technical elements, I felt, were all beyond satisfactory, we are left with the actual plot of the movie and it is a whole.  This is, obviously, where the contention arises. Fuckin' Spoilers ahead. 

So pretty much we were created by giant, irritable, space men who drink black shit fell in a river and spawned life.  They hung out on Earth, left a map to a bioweapons planet, and  decided to kill us about 2000 years ago.  I say to this, okay.  You see the thing for me, if you really do think about it is that the Alien films were originally envisioned, we're talking Starbeast here, as really good B-movies.  It just so happened that Alien happened to be an incredibly well done and atmospheric sci-fi monster picture.  Aliens peppered in action movie tropes and engaging characters, especially Bill Paxton.  However, the crux of Aliens is poor decision making: let's go round up the perfect killing machine for crowd control.  Alien 3 is itself just a poorly conceived film, in my opininon: let's say fuck the last movie that everyone liked and put her in spacejail with ROC and a single Alien.  Alien Resurrection, which I feel really gets shat on unnecessarily, is based around the incredibly ill  advised plan of growing mother frenching Xenemorphs for fiscal gain. 

Moreover, yes, the characters in Prometheus get into unbelievably dumb situations, like getting lost in a thoroughly mapped cave or trying to touch an unknown life form for shits and giggles and not knowing how to strafe and the rest.  And sure, it annoys me to know end when characters blithely talk about their faith in Christ in the face of resounding evidence to the counter.  And yes, the ham fisted inclusion of the debate reminded me that I was watching a big budget summer film (as you must repeat the thematic elements these days) However, these movies, and countless other genre films, are based around allegedly educated people doing the fucktardingest things imaginable.  I mean when you think Alien franchise you should be thinking A) vaginal imagery which belies concerns over fertility/ procreation (check) B) Horrible deaths (Check) C) Rock solid production values (Check) D) Protagonist succeeding in spite of the terrible decisions of everyone involved in the proceedings (check).  The thing is though, it's a movie made for today's all inclusive big budget explosion summer, which I enjoy the explosions of. As such, it must blatantly reiterate any higher concept beyond explosions, America, and valor/comradery/ whatever the end of Con-Air was about.  And I think that may be part of the issue.  The other part being that back in olden times we had to get our spoilers from our dickish friends that are incapable of not discussing a movie's ending in front of you because they feel that whatever pithy observation they feel they are making is more important than human decency.  As is to say, you can have a negative reaction to the film's content without seeing it in execution, which is a detriment to Prometheus as it beautifully tells a story that's kinda dumb at times.