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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 13, 2017 15:51:36 GMT -5
I don't think I can make this a full on review thread, as there's just too much stuff in Transmet for me to do it justice. I read this first as it was coming out... I was flush off reading Ellis in Doom 2099 and Excalibur, and was pretty excited about the Helix line (which I bought all of)... this is my first time revisiting it, though I'm been meaning too for a while. #1 -  We see Spider as a mountain hermit taking to the Ellis extreme.. ebola bombs, land mines, drugs and booze everywhere. He's a mess.. naked and unshaven. He gets a call reminding him he owes two books on a 5 book deal, and we find out he was a big deal reporter back in the day the quit it all when it became too much. With a parting RPG to destroy the bar nearby, he heads into the City, and looks up his old friend Royce, who is now an Editor, who hooks him up with all he needs to live in the City again and write for the price of a weekly Column. Spider gets himself cleaned up and scans the news for his first subject, settling on the Transient movement and his friend Fred Christ. Notes: Lots of awesome Background stuff taking ribs at..well, just about everything. Mars is revolting (it always does), there's Ebola Cola, and even the Rats and the Makers are on drugs. Robertson's cityscapes are as good as the writing, IMO. I love that they have Star Trek replicators (called 'Makers' here) but yet there's still poverty and an economy.. something Trek never figured out. #2  Plot: Spider goes down to where the Transients have barricaded themselves in, to interview his friend, Fred Christ. It gets a little unfriendly, but he leaves unscathed. The next morning, he finds the police are moving in, and hurries down to the scene to write his column while it's happening.. to be continued! Notes: The Transients are actually strangely prophetic of the current Transgender issues we're having, just taken to a Warren Ellis extreme. Spider also meets his cat.. a semi-2 headed one alot like the famous Simpsons fish. Also, we get the first mention of 'The Beast', who is the President, and the fact the the election is starting to gear up. Also, in lieu of a letters page, we get an actual Spider column, which is pretty great. |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,333
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Post by shaxper on Feb 13, 2017 18:40:22 GMT -5
Much as I love Warren Ellis, I've never gotten around to reading this. I'll be following with great interest!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2017 0:15:38 GMT -5
Last time I read through this was 2002, when I was recuperating from a series of abdominal surgeries and still on morphine for the pain. It gave me a rather unique perspective on the the series and provided an interesting reading experience. I am slightly afraid to revisit it, because my memory of it may not be in line at all with what it is...  -M |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Feb 14, 2017 2:06:27 GMT -5
Never got around to reading Transmet when it first appeared. 2 years ago I was able to find all the collected volumes at the library and plowed right through them. Very much enjoyed them. Thought-provoking and entertaining. I didn't always relate to the lead character's values but it was a great ride and ended before becoming a parody of itself
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 14, 2017 10:35:24 GMT -5
I LOVE TRANSMETROPOLITAN! And since we just elected The Smiler it's very relevant.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 17, 2017 22:12:59 GMT -5
#3 Plot: As promised last issue, Spider goes to the scene of the riot, and writes his column. Sounds simple, almost boring, but this is, IMO, one of the best issues of the series. We see what Spider really is... not just a nut job that used to be famous, but rather a man who loves his City and the people in it, and refuses to let authority get away with anything. As he's heading to the scene, he realizes what he saw last issue... the City Center (the government, it is implied) bribed to transients to start trouble, so they'd have an excuse to quell them. Spider walks through a strip club (I haven't been on a stage in a strip club since I was eight, he opines), and collects a bit of a crowd (The strippers) as he finds a perch on the roof. He starts writing, and Royce realizes what he's got, and gets it broadcast live. Before Spider is done exposing the police, he's got so much sympathy and outrage going the police leave.  Drained but seeming happy, he goes home, only to get beat down by the cops for 'messing with them'. The beating makes him very, very happy, and it seems Spider is ready to take on the world.  It really amazes my how Ellis can take Spider from being a weird creepy bastard that you follow because you don't know he'll do next to being the picture of an old school investigative journalist and back in the same issue. Politically, police brutality is, of course, a major issue, both now and in 1997 (just a few years after Rodney King).. having it focused on a minority group has it ring especially prophetic. I also love how he's actually using some sort of internet capable typewriter, not a laptop. In the letters column space, Ellis opines about scifi, and science in general, which is pretty interesting. He also gives some 'required reading', which I recall he did on many of the letter columns... I really should check that stuff out |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 17, 2017 22:57:45 GMT -5
#4 Some time later (weeks, I would say, but it's not mentioned) Spider is in a much nicer place thanks to his re-found fame. Royce decides to give him an assistant to keep him in line, and it turns out to be one of the strippers that where on the roof with him, who was stripping to get through journalism school. Spider, who had his bowel disrupter ready when she arrived, seems to decide to teach her.. they put on the TV and find the Beast (the sitting President, whom Spider named) is in town trying to raise money after spending all his money of getting out of legal trouble. Spider brings Channon (said assistant) and sneaks them into the speech, where he corners the Beast in the John and works him over verbally, physically, and mentally. I know Slam thinks Callahan (the Smiler) is more Trumpian... I think it's the Beast... especially when he fights back. He tells Spider he can do bad stuff because all people want is good TV, booze, and a blow job on Saturday night... sounds like someone's demo, doesn't it? Of course, most importantly, its the first appearance of Spider's favorite weapon  |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 2, 2017 22:28:14 GMT -5
#5 - Spider watches TV. In this, Ellis didn't do as good a job predicting stuff as he does in other spots... Ellis future TV is all ad bombs, instant home shopping, and extreme sex and violence. We do get Air Jesus, though, which I love..someone really needs to invent those in real life. Robertson is brilliant in this issue... he channels a little Dave Sim in somehow using panels of Spider watching TV seem to have time passing and be interesting. Things take a turn when Spider discovers call in talk shows, and ends up being on the news, which, of course, horrifies him. Even a bucket of Caribou Eyes can't make him feel better... looks like it's back to drugs for Spider.  #6 High on drugs and sleep deprived (do to the ad bombs they replay in your dreams) Spider decided to take on a religious convention. There's some great stuff here.. religions for things you would expect (Odin, Zeus, the aliens, etc) some timely (Elvis... Jim Baker with a Credit card), some shoutouts (the 'Church of Ennis Custer) and some in story (Fred Christ has a church, as does angels 8 in general). In the midst of typical Transmet excess, Spider delivers a brilliant rant on how it's wrong for religion to take advantage of people who are so troubled they are willing to do what invisible beings say... great stuff. Meanwhile, we get some great stuff about Channon.. a good 4 pages are just her talking about her life, and Spider, in ihs drug addled haze, manages to be a little sympathetic, which is really touching in a strange way. Before that though... (Note he's wearing his new Air Jesus kicks he bought last issue)  |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 25, 2017 12:56:54 GMT -5
OK, so I got distracted from this in typical Wildfire fashion, but hey, it happens  #7: Channon gets dumped by her boyfriend, who is going to download himself and destroy his body. IN Transmet, this doesn't mean you live in a computer, but rather you become a swarm of nanobots that make you essentially an intelligent replicator.. where do I sign up?? Anyway, cool story about Spider's views on what makes a person human, and great character bits as we see Spider's soft side.  #8 A decidedly less pleasant version on another popular cheating death in the future item.. cryogenics. No Channon at all here, and, in fact, no Spider until the very end... just Mary, who is woken up from our time out of Cryo to a world where no one cares about her or the past. Unlike last issue, which was positive, almost whimsical, this one is dark and kinda scary. Great stuff. Two of the best single issues in the series, IMO.  #9: One last view of weird corners of the City.. Spider tours the cultural reservations, where ancient cultures are totally cut off from the present and serve as living museums.. sounds cool, but seems kinda pathetic in this sense, especially with Spider constantly asking people out and getting refused throughout the issue. There's also on call farsight, which basically uses new tech without restrictions and without testing. We also get some seeds for later.. the 'oppostion party' convention is coming, and Channon joins the church of Fred Christ as a nun. Not nearly as good as the other 2, but still decent.  |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 13, 2017 14:44:26 GMT -5
Transmet #10-#12: 'Freeze Me With Your Kiss'  So Spider is doing his thing, and Channon comes back from Fred Christ to quit.. he's calling Royce to get a new assistant when his phone cuts out and 3 guys try to kill him. He fights them off (by killing them first), and calls the police, only to find his 'insurance' has been cancelled, so he can't claim self defense. He's forced to go on the run. Meanwhile, Royce gets a headless kid claiming to be Spider's son in his office, and finds out his wife's frozen head has been head-napped. The kidnappers call for a ransom, and Spider tells them to keep the head.. they divorced, and his ex-wife stated she was not to be un-frozen until Spider's death. Apparently, her last night binge included violating a sensory-depravation cult's laws, who punish next of kin in an attempt to get them to assissinate Spider. They are the cause of most of the trouble, though there's also a few other bits.. an ex-assistant looking for revenge that Spider doesn't remember, and a French assassin from years back when Spider covered the 'War of Verbals' (apparently, English was made the official language of France in Spider's world). Anyway, Spider makes the sensory depravation people happy by reminding them that he's NOT his ex-wife's next of kin since they are divorced, and allows them their revenge by tossing said wife's head in the ocean. They're pretty happy. The heading child turns out to be a robotic assassin droid from the French, and Spider tackles it out the window in Royce's office before it goes off.... all in all, a pretty good day for Spider, even if he's going to need a new Apartment and a new assistant. Some fun stuff here, though not as deep as the previous issues, still great fun to read.. then, of course, there's this guy:  Stompanato is a corrupt police dog that Spider neutered a few issues back, and his half brain damaged and pissed off... apparently the name is from an actual old actor that was in cop stuff, which is fun (I had no idea until looking for a pic) |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 13, 2017 16:58:18 GMT -5
Freaking love this series, but it has been awhile. I'll do a re-read myself and then comment. (I don't own it but I think the library has all the trades.)
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