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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 16, 2022 17:02:28 GMT -5
Top 10 #2 Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Gene Ha-pencils, Zander Cannon-inks, Todd Klein-letters, Wildstorm FX-colors, Scott Dunbier Scott Dunbier almost found himself rechristened "Scoot," for a minute there! Synopsis: Tuesday, Oct 6, 1999. Sung Li, aka Girl One, stops to pick up Irma Geddon, from her home. We meet Irma's husband, Ron, and her two girls Cherry Bomb and Cerebra. The dialogue tells us that Ron is precognitive, but there are restrictive laws that limit where he can work, so he is unemployed. We also learn that the images we see on Girl One are not tattoos or weird clothing; the are holgrams she projects via her skin pigments, which she can control. Essentially, she is always naked! They get sideswiped by Bob "Blindshot" Booker, zen taxi driver. The radio in for help. Meanwhile, Det. Wanda "Synethesia" Jackson and Lt Cathy "Peregrine" Colby consult with the police pathologist, Charon, who is examining the body of Prof Gromolko, who blew his own head off, in issue #1, while being interrogated by the police psychic, Alexi "Spaceman" Glushko. They are trying to determine why he shot himself. Jackson fills Peregrine in on the case and says she will have to be off the Libra Killer case. Peregrine replies that it is okay, it doesn't look like Libra will be active this year. However, Shock-headed Pete and Dust Devil have been assigned to watch the prostitutes from Large Marge's operation. They head in for the morning briefing, conducted by Sgt Caesar "Hyperdog" Kemlo.....  Det Corbeau (aka King Peacock) and Jackson are on the Gromolko case and everyone is advised to keep a lookout for Marta "Boots" Wesson, the partner of Stefan "Saddles" Graczik. Smax and Robyn "Toybox" Slinger are assigned to provide backup to Irma Geddon & Girl One, while a tow truck takes in their vehicle. He reminds everyone of the continuing problem of the Ghostly Goose molesting women and asks if someone can't catch him and haul him in. Smax and Slinger ehad to South Green, where we see corner drug store, called RX-Menn. A group of gang youths hurl a molotov cocktail at their car. Slinger puts it out, while Smax gets a situation report from Irma. The gang are the Famous Five and their leader is Ernesto Gograh, son of the 50s monster, Gograh, who attacked Neopolis and nearly smashed it flat, because he was blind drunk and fell down! Ernesto gets aggressive and Smax passifies him with his blue light beam and takes him into custody. The rest are scared off. Blindshot is also taken into custody. Elsewhere, Shock-Headed Pete Cheney and Duane "Dust Devil" Bodine roust a john and a prostitute, in the middle of a transaction. The girl is called Immune Girl and the john is Andy "Airbag" Soames....  Immune Girl claims her powers protect her from contracting AIDS and STORMS ( Sexually Transmitted Organic Rapid Mutation Syndrome). Soames tries to run and gets shocked by Pete. The girl is underaged and taking care of a bedridden mother. Pete tells her to get moving and never let him see her here, again. Soames is also let off with a warning. They also run off a couple of more hookers and then head back to the station, where Captain Steve "Jetman" Traynor wants to see Dust Devil. We cut to the precinct (where we see a vehicle towing two giant Kirby-style heads, a fender bender that has resulted in a super-powered fight, and a billboard for Zander Cannon's The Replacement God). Smax turns over his suspects to the duty sergeant, Hector "Monsoon" Lopez. Ernesto is an old friend, but Blindshot Booker is a new face. Robyn tells Smax she knows Blindshot and his zen abilities may be real. They lock up Ernesto and grab some lunch. Smax insists oneating alone. Robyn joins Irma and Sung Li, who immediately asks if Robyn is gay, since Irma is curious, since she went out for a beer with Jackie "Jack Phantom" Kowalski. Robyn tells them it is none of their business, but she isn't gay. Irma apologizes for Li and says she was just trying to rile Irma, like waiving a red flag in front of a bull. Robyn remarks that bulls are colorblind, like dogs, so that makes no sense. Girl One asks what she just said, about animals being color blind. Robyn replies that some are, including bulls and dogs. Girl One storms off and decks Sgt Kemlo....  Sgt Kemlo, aka Hyperdog, is a talking doberman, in an exo-skeleton, which means he can see Girl One's naked body, while the others only see the color holograms. Duane Bodine goes into seeing the captain, thinking he is going to be chewed out and immediately takes responsibility for Gromolko seizing his gun and shooting himself. Captain Traynor says no one holds Duane responsible, but says he wanted to let him know that they can set him up with counselling, if he wants it. Duane is relieved and says he is fine. On Traynor's desk is a model of his jet aircraft, which resembles the HL-10 experimental lifting body plane, as seen in the Six Million Dollar Man pilot and opening credits.....  Duane and Pete receive a call about a body found on their beat and head out to survey the scene of the crime. They are met by a flying kid, a child-size mechanical being and one with his head in a fishbowl helmet. they bring them to a decapitated body, which is wearing the clothing of Immune Girl. They radio the station that they have a new victim of the Libra Killer.  At the precinct, Peregrine takes the call and heads out to see the body. meanwhile, Robyn tells Det Jackson about Blindshot and she decides to test him and have him take them to "Where they are meant to be." He takes the wheel of the police cruiser and proceeds to take them on a wild ride....  He finally stops in front of the derelict Neopolis Museum of History, which features displays of the mad Nazi scientists who designed and built Neopolis and they also find Mart "Boots" Wesson....  Thoughts: Like last issue, we get a lot thrown at us; but, we are getting more into the meat of the central cases. We continue to learn more about the cast of police officers at Top 10 (Tenth Precinct, Neopolis Police Department). Sung Li, aka Girl One, is an artificial being, created by two boy geniuses. She can control the pigments of her skin and create designs on it that appear to be clothing. However, anyone who is color blind can see her real body, like Sgt Kemlo, who is a talking dog. Irma Geddon is married to a precognitive and has two children. Based on their names, Cherry Bomb shares her mother's interests and Cerebra takes after her father. This world has laws limiting the types of jobs precogs can hold and Ron is unemployed, because of it. So, this super utopia has plenty of social ills. We see Ernesto and the Famous 5 street gang and learn that some neighborhoods are more dangerous for the police than others. Moore also introduces a super-STD, in the form of STORMS, which causes wild mutations. All of this is like a police procedural drama, which is essentially what this series is, except all of the police are superheroes, as are all of the citizens of Neoplois. That or they are monsters, mythical creatures, artificial beings, robots or what have you. The drugs of choice also cause super-powers, particularly of the speed variety. Capt Jetman Traynor is shown to be a quiet but strong leader, who cares about his officers. Irma is a bit brash and puts her foot in her mouth. Sung Li likes to goad her, and they have a close working and personal relationship. Irma's two girls seem to love their Aunt Li and ask her to do tricks. Shock-Headed Pete Cheney and Duane "Dust Devil" Bodine are a pair of beat cops. Duane feels down about Gromolko getting his weapon and he also obsesses about seeing Stefan Graczik's high-tech saddle, thinking it fits his gimmick. Pete is a bit of an ass, but has a good heart. Moore has ome fun with Sung Li's holograms and the fact that Kemlo is a dog, which leads to the beautiful scene of her realizing he can see her naked body and her decking him because he never said anything. There is also comedy in dialogue, when Smax runs in Ernesto and plenty of it when Blindshot takes Robyn and Det Jackson for their ride. There is a lot of goofy stuff about zen and the cosmos, but he is proven right, as he takes them to where they will find Marta Wesson, to learn more about the connection between Graczik and Prof Gromolko and why both are dead. Marta seems pretty scared, which seems to fit right in. Meanwhile, Neoplis is plagued by a serial killer who cuts the heads of its victims. Pete now has to deal with the fact that the girl he was supposed to run in, for protection, but let go, is now dead and it looks like the Libra Killer. So, are two central cases are the mystery at the heart of the deaths of Stefan "Saddles" Graczik, who was a drug runner for prof Gromolko, who committed suicide in a police interrogation room, rather than reveal more about Graczik's death. Thoughout this, we get a sense of the epic and fascist grandeur of Neopolis. When Girl One collects Irma Geddon, we see massive support beams flanking Irma's house, which lead up to the next level, while we see a barrier, on the edge of the elevated roadway. This is a massive city, filled with towers and levels, elevated roads and flying people and vehicles. It has slums and the high live in the towers, and the low live in the bowels of the city. Gene Ha and Zander Cannon really give this thing scope, both in the backgrounds and in the characters. There is an attention to detail that is refreshing. There are little touches here and there, like Kemlo's Hawaiian shirts or Monsoon's costume have weather symbols on it, reflecting a monsoon storm system. Smax looks like a traditional superhero, Iram Geddon is laden with weapons and armor. Dust Devil has high tech cowboy gear and a ten gallon hat, while Shock-Headed Pete has old school antenna and tubes. Det Jackson looks the most normal, but her powers are about sensations. Peregrine is another who looks more like a traditional superhero, with her wings and bird costume and cowl. A lot of thought went into character designs, right down to the citizens and perps. There is also fun to be had with signs, logos, graffiti and brand names, with all kinds of easter eggs and in-jokes. At one point, we see Shakespeare sitting at one of the typewriters/computers (which are Robby the Robot heads), eliciting the idea of a 1000 monkeys at a thousand typewriters and producing the work of Shakespeare. Sgt Kemlo eats his lunch from a dog bowl (and it looks like kibble). The police vehicles are based on the design of the police Spinners, in Blade Runner. When I originally read the series, as it was released, I almost stopped getting this one, as so much was getting thrown at you, I felt it was getting bogged down. However, I didn't cancel it and soon found that I was laughing at the comedy, pouring over the images, looking for easter eggs, and loving the characters. The series does reward patience. It was the Ultra-Mice that hooked me and we will be getting to them, in the near future. Next: Promethea #3
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Post by commond on Nov 17, 2022 19:41:48 GMT -5
I've been following along at home, and Top 10 is definitely my favorite series so far, followed by Promethea. It's impressive that Moore was able to produce so many series simultaneously, especially considering he's using (mostly) original characters.
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Post by berkley on Nov 17, 2022 23:23:25 GMT -5
Promethea and League were the standouts for me at the time and I would still rate those two as the best of ABC today. Top Ten didn't attract me at first because I had long since had my fill of superheroes and hadn't yet reached the stage where I felt much nostalgia for the genre, though that did happen not too many years afterwards. So I read Top Ten a few years later in trade form and was able to enjoy it, though it'll never be one of my favourite Moore series. Twomorrow Stories I used to pick up only occasionally as, like many anthology comics, it felt a little hit and miss to me.
But with hindsight, and now that Moore's comics-writing career seems to have come to an end, I think I should have been a little more of a completist: I wish I had just gone ahead and bought everything, even the stuff I didn't rate that highly - it's Moore and even his lesser work is worth looking at - at least for someone like me, who thinks he's possibly the best comics writer there's ever been. So I'll probably try to find Tom Strong and Twomorrows Stories in collected form, eventually.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 21, 2022 18:22:40 GMT -5
Promethea #3 Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, JH Williams III-pencils, Mick Gray-inks, Todd Klein-letters, Wildstorm FX-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Synopsis: Promethea goes to the hospital and converses with Barbara about what happened at the club and Stacia being pulled through a vortex. barbara says she is in the Immateria and that isn't good. She tells Promethea how to travel there, with her mind and that it is also the key to switching back to Sophie. She guides Promethea and she imagines the columns that mark the entrance to the realm and finds herself in the Immateria, where she runs into Red Riding Hood....  ...who tells her that Stacia is probably in the Dark Woods, because all stories of lost kids involve dark woods and wolves and that leads to meeting The Big Bad Wolf, because Promethea imagined it. Red pulls out an Uzi.......  ...based on a drawing that Sophie had made, but tossed aside. TheWolf blows, then disappears. Red says they won't see him again unti Grandma's house and goes to find a woondsman, with an axe. This is starting to sound very Stan Freberg.... Promethea finds Stacia, who is sitting, talking to Weeping Gorilla, from the comic books. Problem is, she is doing so without the ironic viewpoint of adults. Promthea starts to be affected and becomes depressed. She figures out that she has to cling to hope and then decks the ape and takes Stacia out of range of his power. They walk, but Stacia disappears and the Wolf is back. Promethea grabs Stacia and imagines their return to New York and they travel back to the streets. They go off somewhere private and Stacia helps Promethea recall Sophie by rattling off various things about her, in sarcastic fashion. Slowly, Sophie's personality starts to emerge....  Thoughts: So, we see the Immateria, or Misty Magic Land, as it was called, in the Promethea comic strip. The name is a bit of an homage to Little Nemo in Slumberland, a magical place that Nemo visited in his dreams, only to wake up at the end of the strip, to see the dreamworld reflected in his reality, like travelling through a sideways building and then waking up to find himself hanging out of the side of the bed. Promethea's imagination is the key to her powers and she can travel to and from the Immateria because of it and manifest her abilities, provided she can think it. Sophie's research and connection to the stories of Promethea have made her a stronger vessel for the idea, because she has become so immersed in it. The Alice in Wonderland style of this matches similar things Moore did in the other ABC series, from The Sundered World of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to Tom Strong's various homages to different comic books and genres, to even Top Ten's Godz bar, filled with mythological beings (not to mention the Smax mini-series, where we see where Smax came from). Moore is playing around with the world of imagination and the power of it in creating stories and also how those stories inspire or serve as metaphors for other things. Academics have studied Grimm's Fairytales and other versions, looking at the metaphorical themes within, where they find connections to all kinds of things; but, more often project their own meaning into the allegories. People bring their own perspectives to stories and icons, giving them meaning, which is how one person can see Captain America, for instance, as upholding good "Conservative Values" and another can see the character as a classic "New deal Liberal." We see ourselves and our beliefs in the metaphor and ignore that which doesn't fit, to different degrees. Some themes are obvious, but people often miss the obvious, because the project something else into the metaphor. For instance, in Watchmen, Moore demonstrates how psychotic such a "black & white" worldview, as espoused by Rorschach is; yet, many people latched onto Rorschach as a hero and miss the irony of the character, including Zack Snyder. Viewers of A Clockwork Orange can often miss the commentary about the violence of Alex and the corruption and decay that produced him and his kind and latched onto the idea of him as a rebel, doing and taking what he wanted, in a repressive society. Some turned him into a hero, rather than a dark and tragic figure. The opening hospital scenes presents what appears to be another science hero group, though they are all dressed in professional attire and the female member is called Roger, which gets confusing. They speak of abilities, though they do not demonstrate them. We don't even learn if they have a name. I suspect we will come back to them. The use of red Riding Hood and the Wolf predates Fables by a couple of years, though that is hardly an original idea, as cartoons, stories, comics and other media have used fairy tale characters in ironic fashion, going way back, as illustrated in Stan Freberg's comedy record, Little Blue Riding Hood (done in the style of Dragnet, for those too young to get the reference). Right now, Promethea is very much about the nature of stories and the creative process, as well as the power of symbols, when given context. Tom Strong is a look back at the earlier archetypes of the superhero, then exploring their descendants, through their perspective. Tomorrow Stories are satirical pieces aimed at all kinds of subjects, while Top 10 is a police procedural, with a twist. LOEG looks at other ancestors of adventure heroes, in an ironic fashion, in the style of Moorcock and Farmer, using them to make comment on the period of their adventures. In all, the ABC line is like a college class in comic book history and storytelling. others have dabbled in this, like Warren Ellis' Planetary and Grant Morrison has played in similar realms. That is part of what set the ABC line apart from the mainstream, as they were still doing the same old thing, regurgitating the same plots with new window dressing, but missing the deeper parts of those stories. The better creators were adding their own stamps and exploring the mechanisms and the history. Which do you think is likely to hold up longer?
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Post by mikelmidnight on Nov 22, 2022 11:52:01 GMT -5
The opening hospital scenes presents what appears to be another science hero group, though they are all dressed in professional attire and the female member is called Roger, which gets confusing. They speak of abilities, though they do not demonstrate them. We don't even learn if they have a name. I suspect we will come back to them.
It wasn't obvious these are the Five Swell Guys from issue one?
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 24, 2022 1:23:46 GMT -5
The opening hospital scenes presents what appears to be another science hero group, though they are all dressed in professional attire and the female member is called Roger, which gets confusing. They speak of abilities, though they do not demonstrate them. We don't even learn if they have a name. I suspect we will come back to them.
It wasn't obvious these are the Five Swell Guys from issue one?
Didn't exactly look the same; but, I also didn't pour over the details. I've been a bit distracted by life events. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 11, 2023 17:43:46 GMT -5
Tom Strong #4 The cover is meant to invoke the old men's adventure pulp magazines....  Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Chris Sprouse-pencils (main story), Art Adams-pencils (backstory), Al Gordon-inks, Todd Klein-letters, Tad Ehrlich-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Synopsis: It's the morning of July 6, 1999 and the residents of the Stronghold are waking up to breakfast and a new day. Pneuman has brought in the mail, dropped off by the USPS cable car, and he and King Solomon starting sorting through the fan mail and requests to join the Strongmen of America. There is a package, addressed to Tom, on his anniversary. Solomon delivers it with breakfast, to Tom and Dhalua's bedroom. Dhalua knows nothing about it and Tom gets a bad feeling, as we see airplanes approaching the tower, fromt he distance....  They continue strafing the building and Tom suits up and grabs his heli-vest and takes to the air to stop the attack.  The pilots and gunners are all women, and all Nazis, which means blond and "Bouncing Betties" 'til the cows come home, if you get my drift. Tom punches a few Nazi frauleins in the mush and realizes it is the anniversary of his battle with Nazi uberfrau Ingrid Weiss. We now cut to a flashback, as Art Adams draws cute and sexy Nazi airmaidens and dominatrices. Berlin is burning from the attacks by the Red Army and Tom Strong is hunting for Ingrid Weiss, the Nazi super-woman who has stayed behind. She finds him first...  He smacks the b@#$% around, but gets shot with tranquilizer darts, from behind. He awakes to find himself chained to a slanted table, in an underground hangar, where Ingrid and the girls are going to use him like a pogo stick.  Tom breaks free and swats Ingrid into a brier, setting things on fire. She tells the girls to get out and head for Paraguay. She walks through fire and attacks Tom. It's a brutal fight, until he reminds her of her armory, which explodes. Tom crawls out of the wreckage, banged up, but alive. There is no sign of Ingrid. Back in the present, Tom chases the planes back to their flying aircraft carrier.....  (5 years before Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) Tom fights his way through the crowd of Nazi she-devils and runs into a very alive Ingrid. They fight, but she is fast and maneuvers him over a swastika painted on the deck, which opens up and dumps Tom inside, into a bank of white lights. Before you can say "carbon freezing," Ingrid sets off the tachyon accelerator and Tom realizes he is in a time machine. Ingrid's parting words are "Say hello to Pangea!" Thoughts: Exciting issue, filled with a lot of action and some Nazi-smashing fun, and a bit of BDSM shenanigans, to stick with the men's adventure theme. Those magazines were fileld with images of sweaty beefcake, battling monsters, Nazis or Commies, with scantily clad women either being tortured or administering the torture, while dressed in berlin's finest SS wear. It was Ilsa the She-Devil writ large, on cheap paper, with some of the best story illustrators you would find, in magazines. Ingrid is pretty much a pastiche of every evil Nazi woman, from Baroness Paula Von Gunther to Warrior Woman, complete with leather dominatrix outfit and swastika armband. This is pulp at both its lowest common denominator and its finest. Cheap T&A, Nazi imagery, beefy hero, and an all-girl flying squadron, straight out of Airboy and Valkyrie. Moore , Sprouse and Adams have some fun, along the way. At the beginning, as the cable car rolls up to the landing for the Stronghold (a hiant deco skyscraper), we see a sign for Ferris & Donio Construction. Ferris is a reference to Hugh Ferris, whose Metropolis of Tomorrow, a book collection of architectural renderings of the city of the future, was a big inspiration to architects and filmmakers, including Kerry Conran and Sky Captain. Donio I haven't identified; but, suspect it relates tot he Italian futurist movement, which inspired similar architecture, as well as philosophical underpinnings of the Fascists, as the glorification of war was one of the elements of the Italian futurists. It would fit in a story of Nazi super women. This is Tom's first extended storyline, as it will continue over the next several issues. In the next chapter, we meet the Pangea and pay tribute to Wally Wood.
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Post by james on Jan 12, 2023 21:16:40 GMT -5
I want to read Top Ten again. My first issue was #6, I got the issues I’d missed almost immediately and I thought it was one of the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. I used to read it every so often but I haven’t read it for a while. I was thinking the same thing and just downloaded the 12 issue series. I remember in 1999 when it came out I too found it the best thing Moore wrote( yes liked it better than Watchmen at the time) and the art was so detailed. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 26, 2023 16:55:15 GMT -5
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #4 Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Kevin O'Neil (RIP)-artist, William Oakley-letters, Benedict Dimagmaliw-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor The credits page is a hoot....  We open in Wapping, in 1898, as Captain Nemo discusses his new colleagues, with his first mate, who says to call him Ishmael (see Moby Dick) and Broad Arrow Jack (star of the penny dreadful, Broad Arrow Jack, by E Harcourt Burrage). They think Quatermain and Mina Murray are fine, but don't trust Jeckyll or Griffin, especially Griffin. They are more concerned about Campion Bond, though nemo says he is aware of Bond's attempts at misdirection and he is watching him carefully. Elsewhere, Mina and Allan continue their exploration of the abandoned Rotherhithe Tunnel, where the Devil Doctor has hidden his war machine, where the seek the stolen Cavorite. The scale down a scaffold (while Quatermain looks up Mina's skirts) to the ship. They observe Chinese laborers bowing in reverence, then spot the retinue of the Devil Doctor, as he comes aboard. They are discovered by two of his men and Allan is unable to get his rifle free. Suddenly, the man's machete is pulled out of a scabbard and sliced across his throat. It is Griffin, who has been shadowing the pair. Quatermain objects to slicing a man's throat from behind; but, mina is more practically minded. She dispatches Griffin to get Jeckyll and create a diversion, so that she and Allan can steal back the Cavorite. Griffin walks out through the Doctor's lair and finds Jeckyll outside. he goes inside to demand to see the manager and Griffin tells him to just hit the man. The Chinese attendant thinks Jeckyll is nuts and summons two thugs to toss him out. This gives jeckyll the correct emotion to change and Mr Hyde makes his appearance, with gruesome results.  We learn that Hyde can see Griffin's heat signature, but Hyde does not reveal this fact to Griffin. Hyde's actions have started a fire, which gets everyone out of the homeless shelter, which acts as a cover for the Doctor's operations. Griffin & Hyde head into the tunnel, as Hyde reveals more enhanced senses, as he says the tunnel smells of "Chinamen and the river." The diversion pulls the workforce away from the war machine and Quatermain searches for the Cavorite. Quatermain gripes, but locates the amazing engine that runs the machine and the Cavorite power source...  He takes it and heads out. he meets up with Mina and the flee the Doctor's Si fan assassins. They soon find their path blocked by a mound of bodies, as they find Edward Hyde in full rage. Mina is able to penetrate the bloodthirst, with her commands and Hyde follows. They are in a room with a glass ceiling, with the Thames above them. Mina gets an idea. She has Hyde hold the pair of them, while she takes hold of the Cavorite. Quatermain shoots out the glass with his elephant rifle and the Cavorite propels them skyward, through the volume of water...  The flooding water drowns the Si Fan and the trio are rocketed in the air. Quatermain yells for Mina to close the container, which she eventually manages, dumping them into the Thames. They are rescued by Nemo and the Nautilus. Campion Bond takes possession of the Cavorite and tells Mina that their payment has been deposited, as agreed. Campion departs and the group is suspicious. Allan notices Griffin is quiet and nudges him and his bandaged head falls off. His clothes are empty. Griffin has gone after Bond. Bond goes through a secret door, which has a Masonic symbol, into the headquarters of Her Majesty's Military Intelligence Division 5 (aka MI-5) and hands the Cavorite over to the mysterious M, who proves not to be Mycroft Holmes, as Mina expected.....  ....but Prof James Moriarty, "The Napoleon of Crime!" Allan and the Sundered Veil- When we last left, The Time Traveler had rescued Allan, Randolph and John Carter. He told them that a flaw in space and time had created a hole across realities and threatened to let in evil forces from the other side. His headquarters and machine are attacked by Morlocks. Allan knocks a Morlock off the time ship, but it damages it. The plunge into the time stream, towards the abyss, when they are stopped by pure geometric shapes. They see a vision of a time period, witnessing Mina locating Allan, in the opium den, at the start of the series. Thoughts: So, we see the Devil Doctor's operation, as he uses the stolen Cavorite to power a fantastic war machine, of the air. This is an homage to such pulp air pirates as Captain Mors and Robur the Conqueror, as well as the fiendish plots of Dr Fu Manchu, aka The Devil Doctor. Fu Manchu had not yet entered the public domain, so Moore could not outright use the name, hence the sobriquet. In the film The Face of Fu Manchu, the first of the Christopher Lee films, Fu Manchu has a similar base, under the Thames. He is believed dead, but Nayland Smith has traced a consignment of poppy seeds, from which a poison could be extracted, to a warehouse, owned by a man called Hanuman. He recognizes Lin Tang, Fu's daughter, as the secretary and knows the Doctor is involved. Later in the film, the Doctor escaspes with his minions and floods his base, to kill Nayland Smith. This pretty much reverses the scenario, as the heroes flood the underwater base, to escape with the Cavorite. The reveal of Moriarty isn't that big of a surprise, though this is set after his supposed death, at Reichenbach Falls. However, if Holmes survived, it's not much of a stretch to presume that Moriarty could. Moriarty was a mathematical and organizational genius, which fits into the picture of M we were given, earlier on. However, don't expect someone of Moriarty's ambitions to settle for serving the British Empire. Moriarty appears in just one story, "The Final Problem," where he confronts Holmes, at his Baker Street apartments, to warn him away from interfering in his operations. Later in the story, Holmes and Moriarty meet in Switzerland, at Reichenbach Falls and a fight ensues, which appears to dump them both over the falls. In "The Empty House," Holmes is revealed to be alive, and is hiding from assassins from Moriarty's criminal organization, led by Col Sebastian Moran. Moran and Moriarty are the subject of British writer Kim Newman's The Hound of the D'Urbevilles, where they act as consulting criminals, in a series of stories which echo the Holmes stories, but from the criminal perspective. They even pull off a Martian invasion con, to put a scientific rival of Moriarty's into disrepute. Meanwhile, we learn that Hyde's abilities exceed the normal, as he can see the body heat emitted by Griffin, but he hides the fact. He also has heightened sense of smell; and, likely, hearing. Griffin proves to be a sneaky SOB and the others do not trust him. Well they shouldn't as Griffin was driven mad by a lust for power, power brought to him by his invisibility. We also see that, despite hyde's rages and foul manner, he responds to the command of Mina Murray. There is a humorous scene, as Allan and Mina descend the scaffolding and she remarks that Allan should not look up, after he has warned her not to look down, lest he see up her skirts. It is clear from the expression that O'Neil draws on Allan's face that he is doing just that and he later shows Allan looking at her petticoats, as she steps down from the ladder. Even the honorable Hero of Empire can succumb to temptation, especially in a repressed society such as the Victorians. The Chinese Sif Fan henchmen and laborers speak in Chinese characters and Jess Nevins' annotations contain translations, from Mandarin (aided by Terence Chua). There are a couple of Easter Eggs, when the poor residents flee the shelter, as we see a family that appears to be the Cratchits, from A Christmas Carol, as well as Silas Wegg, from Our Mutual Friend. The location of the MI-5 building is an homage to the modern MI-6 building, along the Thames. There are more advertisements (some real Victorian ads, some newly created) and the letters page includes one from Col Sebastian Moran. At least two readers spotted M being Moriarty, two issues into the series. O'Neil's art is perfect for capturing the Steampunk wonder of the technology, both with his Nautilus and Fu Manchu's war machine. The glowing look of the Cavorite engine suggests Nemo's power source, which the Disney film version depicted as a nuclear reactor, which isn't far off what Jules Verne describes, in the original. The annotations remark that Cavorite glows blue, in the Wells story; but green here. Nevins suggests that Fu might have altered it, causing the green glow. I would suggest it was to suggest the idea of nuclear radiation, as the Hulk established the idea of a green glow for radioactive material, in comics. We have two more issues, so suggest a lot of action over the pair of them.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 8, 2023 19:04:49 GMT -5
Tomorrow Stories #2 Looks very EC, though Greyshirt is a riff on The Spirit. Creative Teams: Alan Moore-writer, Rick Veitch (Greyshirt), Kevin Nolan (Jack B Quick), Melinda Gebbie (Cobweb), & Jim Baike-art, Todd Klein-letters, David Baron, Ben Dimagmaliw, Wildstorm F/X-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor GreyshirtSynopsis: In an homage to Eisner (if he took copious amounts of drugs and had a murkier line), we see the history of Sonny, the caretaker of a building, owned by "Spats" Katz, a mobster, from the time that Sonny's father took the job as caretaker, to provide them a new home, to Sonny taking over the job, after his father's death, to the present, where Spats has just had someone roughed up.....  We watch the parallel stories of Sonny and his father's arrival there, Sonny returning after his divorce, Sonny taking over as caretaker, and Sonny being confronted, point blank, with Spats' crimes. In the past, the building is new and Spats hides his business, though the father knows what is happening. he is too small to make a difference. Sonny sees a dog fall from the top floor and finds it dead, in the back. Spats tells him to bury it and they might get to stay, while he shows the father the boiler room. Sonny makes a silent vow, over the dead animal. Later, after Sonny is forced to come back and stay with his old man, they see Spats' goons carrying out a body. Spats claims the man is drunk and passed out, but Sonny can see he is dead. The father wants to stay out of it and tells Sonny to keep quiet. Sonny finds the man's hat, with bullet holes and blood and the father throws it out the window. Still later, Sonny takes the caretaker job so that he can stay, since he has no regular income. Spats forces him to give up his saxaphone and the sheet music he wrote for it. Sonny is forced to give up his dream of playing in a jazz band and throws the sheet music out the window. In the present, Spats has Greyshirt held captive and his goons are administering a beating. he calls Sonny in to clean the blood of his rug. He openly displays his work to Sonny, because he is too small to matter. Sonny grabs his sax, from the janitorial closet and hits the goon over the head with it, saving Grayshirt. As the goon falls, he hits Spats' wheelchair and sends him hurtling through a window, to his death below. Finally, Sonny has made good on his vow. Jack B QuickSynopsis: Jack has been thinking about the nature of things, again, and the town is in trouble, again....  Jack ponders why white light is made up of the other colors, yet mixing the various colors of Playdoh, you get brown? He also wonders about light cirving, around black holes and things and comes up with the theory that the erratic behavior of light is due to being drunk! He alerts the mayor of Queerwater Creek to the danger of speeding photons, in this here town and Officer Pete decides they have to put a stop to this. With the help of his souped up motorcycle (thanks to Jack giving it a faster-than-light drive), Officer Pete and Jack are able to overtake the light images of themselves, waiting behind a billboard and force them to stop. They haul in the photons, but they won't answer any questions. Jack knows that sound is like light, though on a wider stretched wavelength; so, he puts the images into his handy patented light stretcher and the photons start talking and confesses to drinking (why do you think light leans to the side , in the late afternoon?) The ohotons are put on trial and convicted and then sentenced to 90 days in jail. It is then that Jack and Officer Pete notice that you can't see anything, outside the jailc ells. There is no light. they have boycotted Queerwater Creek, because of the speeding laws. Jack and Officer Pete find their way to the edge of the darkness and realize they have to make a change. They get the mayor to make a compromise, which the photons accept: they keep it down to 30 mph and the mayor gives them the run of the town. the only side affect is that you get a lot of light images from the recent paths, duplicating things, until they move on. CobwebSynopsis: Cobweb is in orbit, around a large asteroid. She confirms that it is highly magnetic and uses her special boots to cling onto it, while she surveys it. She finds evidence of a past civilization of totems, representing the sun and the other planets (she believes the asteroid is the remains of a destroyed 10th planet). She sees patterns on the ground, representing orbits, like dance steps, then the totems come alive and creatures of light dance in the air. Cobweb removes her boots to join them....  ...and finds herself floating in space, with no tether to her ship or the asteroid. Luckily, her aid, Clarice, has acted quickly and grabbed her with a tether. She says Cobweb suffered a mild stroke, thanks to the magnetic field's influence on her temporal lobe and she imagined everything. Cobweb reflects on the amazing dance and how, like all dances, it ended when the lights went down. First AmericanSynopsis: First American and US Angel are battling Dozier D Daze and his Nostalgitator, which is causing everything to revert to past shapes and forms......  As they are distracted by the page turning over, he hits them with the ray and they revert to 80s fashions and an obsession with FA's stock portfolio. US Angel dances 80s style (halfway between a robot and a constipated mime) and pokes Dozier in the eye, making him drop the ray. FA starts to deliver a lecture, but US Angle warns him it is too early in the story and they get hit again, plunging them into the horror of the 70s, with platform shoes, disco and malaise. FA trips him with his shoes and lectures again and gets zapped again, plunging them into the hippie 60s, where they desire to try drugs and wander America, in search of themselves. US Angel is ready to go with it, but FA warns of the bad things of the 60s, like Herman's Hermits, Payday candy bars, and Petticoat Junction (Hey, I liked Petticoat Junction!). It breaks the spell and they attack Dozier with their protest signs (Make Macrame Not War!). FA starts lecturing again, and we aren't quite at the end, so we get plunged into the 50s. Angel asks what Dozier is rebelling against and he says virtual pets, reality tv, fun size products and the like. he zaps them again and they are in the 40s, bathed in wartime patriotism and Golden Age heroes, but FA warns that we have to learn from history, otherwise we repeat its mistakes and overpay for cheap facsimiles. One more go and they end up in the Depression, with breadlines and massive unemployment. We see heroes with signs saying they will save the world, for food, as they try to cook a measly meal over an open fire. Dozier says he didn't create this as we see the broken Nostalgiator and the newspapers reveal it is the present, that the Dotcom boom has gone bust and the Millennium Bug has destroyed society. FA and Dozier try to repair the ray, while Angel tries to join the circle of costumed heroes, burning comic books to keep warm, who tell here to scram, they were there first! Thoughts: Greyshirt captures the flavor of a typical later era Spirit morality story, as some poor schlub has to rise to the occasion and stand up against an oppressor and save Greyshirt. The parallel stories continue across each page, separated by a floor. We see the building deteriorate over time, as does Sonny's life, as he goes from young boy, confronted with harsh reality, to an adult, crushed by harsh reality, until he has lost his dreams. However, he is able to restore some honor and dignity by unboxing those very dreams, or at least by retrieving his saxaphone to whack a goon over the head. Moore and Veitch get Eisner far more than Miller ever did (certainly at the movies) Jack B Quick is more fun with science, taking things to absurd conclusions and letting the fun spill out. Through it all, his parents react in horror to their son trying another experiment and the local authorities are a bit too enthusiastic to listen to a child, with a theory. This is what comes of thinking too much! Cobweb is a nice little dream story of planetary dance, with a bit of cheesecake, for the punters. Most of these stories are dreamlike, while Moore and Gebbie stick the arrested adolescent desire for comic book cheesecake directly in the faces of readers. This is tame, as some of the other Cobweb stories get a little kinkier in the imagery, which has a long history in the comics. The difference is that Gebbie never lets Cobweb be pure pin-up and Moore never lets her be a vacuous agent in the stories. First American is a rather biting satire of the force of nostalgia in modern comics, blinding readers to change and reducing things down to cliches, forever longing for a past that never was and paying ridiculous prices in the vain hope of recapturing something that never really existed. Along the way, he savages various decades and the culture of the times, while also serving up lessons in the history of those times we ignore. The end note of the Dotcom bust and the depression wasn't too far off, a investment bubbles tended to burst into deep recessions, as we would see a few years later, when the sub-prime mortgage bubble collapsed and nearly plunged the planet into another Depression and we continue to be distracted from real world concerns by sideshows. Moore and Baike could extend this one into a full mini-series by adding what followed this, 20 years later. Tomorrow Stories seemed to be the red-headed stepchild of the ABC line, probably because it was satire and some of it was rather pointed. However, like the best of Mad or Monty Python, it lands quite accurately and with a ton of humor.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 16, 2023 18:48:22 GMT -5
Top Ten #3 Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Gen Hapencils, Zander Cannon-inks, Todd Klein-letetrs, Wildstorm FX-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Synopsis: Top 10s pathologist, Dr Sally-Jo Jessell, aka Micro-Maid, completes her examination of a prostitute, the latest victim of the Libra killer. She confirms their suspicions that this fits the Libra pattern, which means they can expect two more victims, before the month is over. Elsewhere in the station, Det Wanda "Synaesthesia" Jackson , Det John "King Peacock" Corbeau, Officers Sung "Girl One" Li and Robyn "Toybox" Slinger and "Irma Geddon" Woronov have brought in Marta Wesson, but she is resisting arrest, with her power boots. Sgt Kemlo "Hyperdog" Caesar lends a paw....  Caesar gets her to calm down and they are able to remove her boots. Sung Li makes a remark to make sure that is all he removes and he tells her to meet him outside the lockers, in 15 minutes, to clear the air. Robyn goes to let Blindshot off the hook for reckless driving, since he proved his zen driving skills by taking them to Marta Wesson. Wanda takes care of booking Marta and the wait for Corbeau, so they can start her interrogation, with Alexi Glushko. Corbeau arrives and he and Wanda talk to Marta, while Caesar goes to see Sung Li. marta doesn't like him leaving the room, but she answers their questions. She says she and her late partner Stefan "Saddles" Gracik were small time drug runners, Hyperdrine, some Mongoose Blood ("speed" drugs). Stefan got involved in something he said would be big. Corbeau tells her that Prof Gromolko is dead, suicide. He tells her that they were questioning him about Stefan, when he grabebd a gun and shot himself. Corbeau wants to know why. Marta clams up and asks for her lawyer, which is the same as Gromolko. They leave the room and Jackson mentions the Beethoven music she sensed around Grazcik's body. Officers Duane "Dust Devil" Bodine and "Shock-headed Pete" Cheney go to fetch Alexei Glushko (at an apartment, above a shop called Power Rings & Things). They are met at the door by his telepathic chimp companion, Tanya. Pete excuses himself while Duane rounds up Alexei. he is hung over and the place is littered with empty liquor bottles. Tanya makes him toast and coffee, as the pair remark about Gromolko's suicide, while Glushko was scanning him. They head downstairs and find Pete engaged in a shouting match with members of the Fabulous 5 streetgang, who are angry about their leader, ernesto Goograh, being arrested by Officer Jeff Smax. Alexei's head can't take it and he sends out a mindblast that takes out the street thugs and nearly topples his colleagues. They depart, as we see a billboard for the band, Sidekix and a man peddling "Rolex" Signal Watches, on a street corner. They approach the station and are nearly run down by Blindshot, as he departs the station. Inside, Kemlo and Sung Li hash it out and he admits he can see her naked body; but, being a dog, it doesn't mean anything to him. He says he is actually dating a borzoi. Sung Li forgives him. Kemlo takes Alexei to the interrogation room, while Robyn goes looking for Smax and Duane goes to check out Stefan Grazcik's hover-saddle. Pete begs off, saying he has to see Lt Peregrine. Robyn finds Jeff sparring with Ernesto at the cells, making Monsterist cracks about Ernesto and his father. She takes him away and tells him about the threats of violence, from the Fabulous 5. Smax isn't impressed. They walk past a guy who looks like OMAC, holding a big eyeball....  Lt Colby (Peregrine) and Jackie Phantom chew out Pete for letting the hooker go, leading to her becoming the victim of the Libra killer. He says he fell for her plea to see her sick mother. They yell at his stupidity then tell him the recap the previous hours. he tells them about rousting her after she was paid off by Andy "Airbags" Soames. Lt Colby tells Jackie to get onto him. She pulls up an address and they dismiss Pete and go to talk to him. They pass Marta's lawyer, Larry "Frenzy Fischmann (a shark), demanding to see Captain Traynor. Lt Colby and Jackie Phantom arrive at Soames swanky Jerusalem Heights home and the door is answered by his wife, Susan. Andy comes in and sees the cops and starts panicking. They start to ask him about prostitutes. He becomes agitated and suddenly expands in size...  Lt Colby is trapped against the wall and is injured. Jackie calls for backup, while threatening Susan Soames with arrest as an accessory, if she doesn't stop interfering. Janus passes the call to Duana, who rounds up Captain Traynor, who is dealing with the lawyer, Fischmann. He has an affidavit that calls Glushko a danger to his client and he wants him banned from any interrogation. Traynor is forced to go along with it. Meanwhile, Kemlo is talking to Alexei, and he tells him about his talk with Sung Li...  Everyone is interrupted by a loud rumbling.....  Gograh is here for his boy! Thoughts: Excellent police procedural stuff, as we see them haul in Mart, conduct an initial interrogation and go looking for a witness, which leads to an emergency situation. i feel like I am back in the 70s, watching Starsky & Hutch or The Rookies, but everyone has super powers. They have confirmed that the Libra killer is back and hunting. They have a short time to try to find Libra, before two more people are killed, according to past patterns. Marta Wesson is deeply scared, as Gromolko was. Wanda puts forward a theory that Gromolko and Grazcik were contracted by a special client to provide a special commodity, which got Grazik killed and scared Gromolko enough to kill himself, rather than reveal it to Alexei. Alexei is an interesting take on a telepath. he is shown to be a Russian cosmonaut, from the 60s and is pictured with Tanya. It suggests that something happened during their space shot that gave them telepathic abilities, which Alexei uses to interrogate prisoners. Tanya seems to care for Alexei, but we see the toll of being a telepath, as Alexei drinks himself into oblivion. It sort of reinforces the Russian stereotype; but, it is warranted with the character, as a telepath would be plagued by stray thoughts. The easter eggs continue, with signage (Power Rings & Things) and music (the youth band Sidekix, made up of young sidekicks, who have a hit song, "Boy Wonder."), as well as street trading ("Rolex" Signal Watches). Micr-Maid's helmet is inspired by the flight helmet of John Cabal, in the film Things to Come....  Her examination of the Libra victim brings to mind the film Fantastic Voyage, where a team of doctors and scientists are shrunk down and injected into an ailing scientist, in a submarine, to repair damage to his brain. We also see another computer terminal shaped like the head of Robby the Robot, from Forbidden Planet. A billboard has a vehicle that looks like the Batmobile, but it is the Fjord (cute) Vigilante Kemlo uses logic to make peace with Sung Li, saying a human body holds no attraction for a dog; but, later we see that he was lying, as he talks to Alexei. The dirty dog! Pete is shown to be somewhat quiet and begs off with illness, when they collect Alexei. He then gets into it with the Fabulous 5 members, particularly the robotic member, who he calls a "clicker," which is an AI slur, in this world. Pete is feeling guilt, as we see, when he is chewed out by the lieutenant and Sgt Kowalski, "Jackie Phantom". He let the victim go, when he was ordered to haul in all prostitutes, for their safety. He F-ed up, big time! The dialogue and Andy "Airbag" Soames' home verifies that the dead woman was not his first prostitute. Jackie doesn't think he is a suspect, but he is a connection with prostitutes. All of this builds to Gograh, a Godzilla stand-in, coming for his boy. this Godzilla has a beer gut, developed from drinking tanker trucks of beer, as we see them dangling near his waist. he acts as a kind of stand-in for a career criminal loser, whose son is headed down the same path. The letters page is introduced in this issue, titled The Donut Shop ("If you want to find all the cops/they're hanging out in the donut shop...") Given how the feeding frenzy for comic properties has gone, how this hasn't ended up a streaming series is beyond me. Imagine Hill Street Blues, with a touch of Barney Miller, in a world where everyone is super-powered; a world created by ex-Nazi scientists and futurists? It's a sure-fire hit! Of course, they didn't exactly do Powers justice; so, maybe we were lucky! It is hard to pick a favorite, between Tom Strong, Top 10 and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Tomorrow Stories is fun and Promethea provocative; but, these were my favorites). Tom Strong is good old fashioned adventure, with nods to different eras in comics and related areas (pulps, sci-fi, etc) and has some of the best characters; but, there is a terrific cast in Top Ten, liberal sprinklings of humor and sight gags (and puns) and a great mystery. league is just a brilliant meta-fiction, with all kinds of easter eggs for a book lover. It's part of why I promoted the movie so heavily in Barnes & Noble, as I thought we could use it to highlight the related books. Too bad it sucked and tanked. Still, we had the trades and the original works to display. This is why the turn of the Millennium was mostly Alan Moore, for me. This stuff fed my love of literature and comics, while everyone else was stripping the long dead carcasses of past stories and upping the violence and sex. The America's best Comics line was mature, because it treated you like a thinking adult, instead of pandering to adolescent desires and fetishes, or just plain nostalgia. Also, Moore attracted artists who could draw their @$$es off! Gen ha and Zander Cannon pretty much handle anything and everything Moore throws their way, from hover saddles that look cool, to an upscale home, to shark lawyers and telepathic chimpanzees. No matter how fantastic it looks, the characters all seem like real people (or beings, if you prefer). The world is lived in and alive. They also handle the sight gags and easter eggs well and with subtlety. Some are pretty up front; but, there are a lot of background gags that you have to kind of absorb, like the Robby computers or Micro-Maid's helmet. If you have seen Things to Come, you instantly recognize it; if not, it just looks like a cool costume feature, and a practical one. In one panel, there is a background advertising billboard going up, about a hair conditioner, with Wolverine. At the precint station, there is a large mural, depicting the first officers of the police force, when the city was founded, included Robyn's father (Col Liliputt), done in the style of Jack Kirby. It has that epic quality that Kirby brought and it fits, like if Kirby had done WPA murals, in the Depression, of mythical figures. We haven't even gotten to the really great easter egg stuff, yet!
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 9, 2023 15:40:59 GMT -5
Tom Strong #5 Some old fashioned sci-fi her vs squidgy, tentacled creature action for you! Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Chris Sprouse-pencils (main story), Jerry Ordway-pencils (back-up story), Al Gordon-inks, Todd Klein-letters, Tad Ehrlich-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Starting with the previous issue, we will see a trend of Sprouse handling the present day adventure and guest artists illustrating past adventures, related to the main story. It served to give Sprouse some breathing room (though they were publishing these as they were finished, not on set deadlines) and it gave a clear indication of time differences. Synopsis: In our last issue, Tom Strong was battling Ingrid Weiss and her squadron of Aryan Angels. He first met Weiss in 1945, in Berlin,. Weiss is the broduct of German breeding experiments and a physical match for Tom, but with pure Nazi indoctrination and a total amoral outlook. He defeats hwer plans in 1945, but she launched an attack on the Stronghold, on the anniversary of that battle. After fighting off the attack, Tom came face to face with Ingrid, but is suckered into a tachyon accelerator....a time machine, and sent back to Earth's pre-historic past, to Pangea, the mega-continents that existed before the Continental Drift.  We then shift to the past, to the 1950s, when Tom and Dahlua Strong were testing the new time machine invention of their friend, Professor Fingel Parallax, and ended up in ancient Pangea. It is a green, unspoiled world, though it isn't yet set to sustain human life. It turns out to be not so safe a place to visit....  Dahlua is grabbed by something and duplicated, buck nekkid and the doppelganger entices Tom to play Adam & Eve. However, before Tom can let the serpent loose in the Garden of Eden, fake Dahlua gets all pseudo-poddy and Tom fights it off and finds real Dahlua. He blows up the thing, but it starts to reconstitute and communicates, as it is all part of one consciousness that is Pangea. Before they get too far, they are pulled back to the 50s, by Prof Parallax. We learn that Tom fought the Pangean in 1969, as they brought a fragment back with them, which grew (Great shades of Quatermass!), which he defeated and imprisoned in his volcano fortress, only for it to break loose, In 1975, using the time machine, Tom sent the fragment back to the past to rejoin the collective form. Tom realizes that this brought future information back to the host form, making it far more intelligent and dangerous, than when he last encountered it. Tom learns that it has outgrown his thinking....  The Pangean adopts a more relatable form and communicates with Tom, telling him it is in league with Weiss and her associate, who created the tachyon accelerator. The Pangean was to delay Tom until his 100th Birthday Present was ready, but the Pangean wants to have the fun of destroying Tom. He gets all oozy and monologues, then Tom reveals that it has been duped by Weiss and her partner. The Pangean intends to use the time terminus to recreate Pangea and destroy human life, leaving only his own from, in the future. Tom reveals that Weiss and her friend wanted the Pangean there, at that precise moment, to double-cross it....  Tom escapes back to his time, as the meteors bring a firestorm that destroys the Pangean, as had happened in past, transforming the Earth's environment, allowing new life forms to evolve. Tom returns to his time and finds himself in a building and explores it, which brings him to a room, with a model of Millennium City, adorned is swastikas. Standing next to it is Ingrid Weiss' partner, a man known well by Tom. Thoughts: Interesting chapter, though it is an odd diversion in this storyline. It almost feels like those old fill-in issues, at Marvel, in the 70s, when they were going to miss a deadline. Tom is flung to the past, only to end up right back where he left. Mostly, this is an excuse to do an homage to Wally Wood and EC Comics, as the whole past story is a pastiche of those Wood tales of creepy planets and tentacled monsters, such as Weird Science #10, "The Maidens Cry." A group of astronauts land on a planet and are met by hot chicks; but, they hide a secret about how they procreate....  A lot of these issues will feature homages like that, to things like Western comics, Silver Age hero stories, 70s feminism, Golden Age adventure, etc. Here, Ordway gets to trot out his best Wally Wood, complete with bubble helmets and oxygen hoses trailing off of them, as well as lots of belts and straps. Moore homages himself with the reveal that the Pangean is the land , itself, borrowing from his Green Lantern story, "Mogo Doesn't Socialize.", from Green Lantern #188. That story features a similar reveal about the Green Lantern Mogo and his true nature. We are left in the dark about the man Tom sees at the end of the story; but, it is someone who knows him well and has a grudge against him.. Although this is a fairly pointless diversion from the plot of last issue, it does demonstrate, as a single issue, how great this series was, as Moore just plays with past comic stories, with a more modern perspective and from a different tangent. He simultaneously feeds the nostalgia craving, while giving us a new twist on the familiar. He also brings in other collaborators to play in his sandbox and tailors things to their strengths. With Art Adams, last issue, it was Nazi amazons and dungeons (uh-huh....kinky) while Ordway gets to do Wood sci-fi and oozy monsters and tentacles, to creep us out. Well get back to the main plot, in the next issue of Tom Strong; but, our next installment features more single issue fun from Tomorrow Stories.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 14, 2023 23:54:31 GMT -5
Tomorrow Stories #3 Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer; Kevin Nowlan (Jack B Quick), Melinda Gebbie (Cobweb), Jim Baikie (First American) & Rick Veitch (Greyshirt)-art, Todd Klein-letters, Bad@$$-color separations, Scott Dunbier-editor Nothing says "professional" like a company (rap/porn/pro wrestling?) name that sounds like a 14 year-old trying to be naughty. Synopsis: Jack B Quick- After a pre-emptive strike on the Quick Family's combination grain/missile silo, Jack's parents decide he needs to learn a valuable lesson about caring for animals. To that end, they give him a cat, which he names Spark Plug and upon which he promises not to experiment. He runs outside, where his neighbor, Mr Johannsen, calls him over to have a word. Jack apologizes for the collateral damage of the nuclear strike on Mr Johannsen's pigs, but the farmer says he is more worried about the way they are acting, as we see them marching in ranks, on two legs, carrying rakes and other tools, at Shoulder Arms. Jack doesn't have time to stop, as he wants to test a theory of anti-gravity. He runs to the local general store to get some butter and demonstrates his melding of two scientific principles: cats always kand on their feet and toast always lands butter-side down. He butters the back of Spark Plug, the drops him from shoulder height....  The end result is that Spark Plug spins in the air, unable to land on his feet or butter-side down. However, Jack underestimated the propulsion effect of a spinning tail and Spark Plug flies away. Jack is afraid of getting into trouble, but he pulled off some of Spark Plug's whiskers, when he tried to grab him and he thinks he can clone the animal. As he runs past the Johannsen farm, we see the pigs wearing clothes and the farmer is now naked, and he says the pigs have arranged a show trial for him, that afternoon. Jack runs into the bathroom and mixes up a concoction from toilet bowl cleaner, aspirin and hemorrhoid cream and clones Spark Plug; but, his dad calls after him, to make sure he isn't dissecting his cat and Jack shows him the newly cloned cat, through the doorway, but misses that more clones are emerging from the ooze in the tub. Figguring he used too much toilet cleaner, Jack sneaks them out via an upstairs window, and runs past the Johannsen farm, where the pigs have declared the farmer an "enemy of the Revolution," and are about to hang him, as they chant "Two legs bad! Four legs good!" Jack gets more butter and the cloned cats fly away, except for one, to fool his parents. He returns home to find the pigs have spread their revolution and have his parents at gunpoint. jack decides to confess to his father about the clones and the anti-gravity, before they are executed, when Jack's mom says that the feline anti-gravity method is untenable, as the cats will groom themselves until the butter is gone. Sure enough, cats come raining down from the sky, ending the porcine pogrom. Cobweb- Eurydice Tollemand is on the run from her mob boyfriend, with a suitcase and blouse full of his stolen cash. She tries to run via the sewer drains and water run-offs, but runs into Cobweb. Thinking she is trying to take her in, she swings the case and knocks the gauze-clad adventuress over the rail of a bridgeway.....  The heroine is able to recover from the shock and make it to the shore, only to find Eurydice cornered by a mob friend of her beau. Cobweb leaps and tackles Eurydice, carrying her into the watery current, to safety. She sucks in too much water and Cobweb administers mouth-to-mouth, reviving Eurydice. She explains that she was there to warn her about the boyfriend, not arrest her. She sends Eurydice on her way, telling her she is too smart to stay trapped in the life she was escaping. Eurydice moves on, with new confidence. The First American- With the rise in juvenile crime, the police are having trouble infiltrating their ranks and have recruited The First American to be their undercover man, with a new gang. He goes through a line-up, with some kids, including one who doesn't say much, and they let him know they need a good water balloon man. TFA joins the group and when they are sprung, they go to pay their respects to Don Tubbit, the Capo Di Tutti Bambino....  They offer their loyalty and aks if he has anyone what needs their sandcastle kicked over. he sends them off to straighten out his First Grade teacher, for putting his finger painting on the wall, at the back of the classroom...a complete insult to family honor. They go to make the hit and Jimmy "The Bedwetter" reads from a sacred text, before delivering judgement upon "Miss "Stinky" Finkelbaum. "Se Dick ruin...." he quotes, but she isn't going down easy and grabs some chalkboard erasers and hurls them at the Recess Reservoir Dogs. TFA is badly chalked and Jimmy drags him to the gymnasium, to rest. TFA admits to Jimmy that he is an undercover agent and Jimmy goes berserk. He grabs TFA's pistol and they fight over it, with TFA saying it is his and shows the nametag his mother sewed on it. They are going back and forth when US Angel turns up with the cops, who remark that TFA got in too deep. Greyshirt- We get a glimpse of the past, as the police have surrounded the abandoned Indigo City train station, where Johnny Apollo and Franky Lafayette are holed up. Thing is, the cops may have the outside covered, but, inside, Johnny and Franky are at a standoff. Their partnership was failing before the cops showed up. In fact, Franky was the one who called and tipped them off. Gunshots ring out, as Johnny Apollo tries to kill Franky, who hides near an old fortune telling penny arcade machine...  He uses his lighter to see better and reads a sign that says "Fuel Depot." An explosion rings out, destroying the building. The cops go in and find the robe Johnny was wearing. They remark about the fuel storage and walk out, figuring that the two hoods are in Hell. However, Franky wakes up in an underground tunnel, the home of Rockefeller Patel (Rocky, to his friends) who rescued the injured hood. Frank's nose and lower face are covered in bandages. Rocky remarks about the chainmail that Franky wore under his clothes, for an edge and says he found him still alive and brought him there. Franky stays a while and recovers, while he decides on a new name and identity, for his return. We then see newspaper accounts of a new mystery man, in Indigo city, who who fights devil cultists, rampaging gorillas, rescues baby Einstein and steals kisses from Lapis Lazuli, the living jewel. The man is Greyshirt and this was the story of his birth. Thoughts. More fun from Alan and his friends and one of the best issues, so far. It's hard to pick a favorite, though Jack B Quick is probably the funniest (though the First American comes close). The progression of Farmer Johannsen's pigs, as they re-enact George Orwell's Animal Farm, is a hoot....     Cobweb is less funny than a pastiche of both crime pulps and lesbian pulp stories, as Eurydice is on the run, after double-dealing her abusive mob boyfriend, an old crime pulp cliche. Cobweb's arrival turns it into lesbian fiction, as she rescues the damsel, while stirring feelings in her, though everything is couched in coded terms. They part, with Cobweb telling Eurydice she is too smart to be exploited by abusive men and that she will find her way,, suggesting that if she accepts her true self, she will find true happiness. Meanwhile, the pages are done like the pulps, with text juxtaposed by line illustration and much purple prose, with fetishistic detail about Cobwebs filmy, skimpy attire (see-through, in some lighting and angles) with much attention to high heels and stockings and, or course, the "kiss of life." Cobweb continues to be an exploration of light erotica, which is unsurprising, as Gebbie and Moore were/are lovers and Moore has a history of an interesting romantic life (polyamorous relationships, etc) and Gebbie also had her own history, starting out in the Undergrounds, while also having her auto-biographical comic, Fresca Zisz banned in the UK, for obscenity. Cobweb both satirizes the fetishism and soft core cheesecake sex of comic books (especially superheroes) while also reveling in it, for titillation, to (thinly) disguise feminist themes. The First American has some fun with recent gangster movies, satirizing The Usual Suspects, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and a bit of The Godfather. One of the pint-sized criminals is an homage to the mute comic strip character, Henry (called Hank, in the story). Meanwhile, our Godfather is none other than Tubby, from Little Lulu, whose bodyguard is Bazooka Joe, from the bubblegum comic strip. Tarantino gets his in severl spots, but most prominently in the school hit, as they first engage in 80s pop culture (discussing what "Like A Virgin" is all about, without any of the pre-pubescents having any idea, including TFA), then quote from Dick and Jane (comparable to Janet and John, in the UK). TFA becomes more and more childlike, the longer he is around the kids. Baikie makes it all look fantastic and hilarious, such as using a child's height chart for the police line-up, which throws the crooks together (ala The Usual Suspects) and graffiti in the playroom, where they are held, with things like "We know where you live, Culkin!" and "You are what you won't eat!" A sad piece of pointed satire shows how easily the kids obtain firearms, from a gun dealer. It was a little scary in 1999 and it is more terrifying today, because the joke isn't that far from truth. Greyshirt continues the Spirit homage, with the splash page, but then delivers an origin that speaks more to an Eisner contemporary, Jack Cole. Greyshirt's origin, as Franky is double-crossed and left for dead, only to be rescued by a quasi-religious figure, leading to a life of redemption, as a crime fighter, is note-for-note the origin of Plastic Man. We even have Franky's nose and lower face bandaged, matching how eel O'Brien's face becomes distorted, as his powers manifest. It then suggests the origin of Greyshirt's scarf facial covering (itself an homage to The Shadow), while we then get a montage of wild exploits of our hero, most of which are left to our imaginations, as we see robot apes, the knives of death cults, a child genius, and a woman transformed into a living jewel. Later, Moore will give us an actual Plastic Man analogue, in the form of Splash Brannigan. More fun than a barrel of robot monkeys!
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 19, 2023 16:39:55 GMT -5
Top 10 #4 "In English!"  Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Gene Ha & Zander Cannon-art, Todd Klein-letters, Wildstorm FX-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Synopsis: When we last left the team, Gograh had turned up (drunk) in Neopolis, looking for his son, Ernesto, who was run in by Officer Smax, after he mouthed off to him. Everyone is fleeing, except one woman, who seems in a daze, walking towards the Tenth Precinct building...  Captain Steve "Jetlad" Traynor attempts to talk Gograh down. meanwhile, the woman faints at the feet of Sgt Kemlo, after handing him her severed finger. Kemlo attends to her as everyone else reacts to the crisis outside. We soon learn that there is something even worse than atomic breath.....  Traynor dispatches Officer Cheney (Shock-Head) to get Dr Jessell (aka Micro-Maid) to assist. He has a plan. Meanwhile, he details others to get chemical foam down on the reptile spew, as it is probably radioactive. Kemlo asks Pete for help; but, he tells him he has to get Doc Jessell. Robyn Slinger and Jeff Smax arrive at the station and Robyn lends a hand in applying a tourniquet, while Smax decides to stick his big blue nose into the Gograh situation, which he pretty much triggered with his heavy-handed policing. Smax gets Gograh riled up again and Traynor tells him to get back inside or he will be walking a beat by the morning. Dr Jessell sees the unconscious woman and checks in, saying she will be right back. She goes outside, establishes the spacial coordinates of Gograh, then shrinks him down to the size of a chihuhua. She then has Kemlo bring the woman to her lab, so she can reattach the finger. Just then, Peregrine and Jackie Phantom show up, with their prisoner, Andy "Airbags" Soames. Peregrine has a broken rib from Andy's panic-stricken attempt to flee and is not in a good mood. She has Jackie get a statement from Somes, while she sees the doc, for some first aid. Meanwhile, Det Corbeau (King Peacock) and Jackson (Synesthesia) interrogate Marta Wesson, now that her lawyer, the shark, Fischmann (Prof Gromolko's lawyer, when Alexi Glushko tried to read his mind), has arrived. Marta is uneasy with him and cooperates with the detectives, despite his entreaties to not speak. She tells them that Stefan Graczik was tasked to deliver a special drug to a special location, but decided they could make more money if he sold it himself. he wanted the cash so he and Marta could get married. They hid out in the museum, where Robyn Slinger found her and Jackson thanks her for cooperating and then gathers officers. She, Corbeau and Alexi will check out the museum, while Robyn and Smax go to the destination for the drugs, Chemicals & Lightning, a rave joint, to carry out a raid. Meanwhile, the woman, Annette "Neural 'Nette" Duval regains consciousness and panics. Only Kemlo seems to be able to calm her down. Dr Jessell tells Lt Peregrine that Annette's finger was severed by a precision instrument, like a knife through butter and physical traces suggest alien origin. Annette says it came up out of the sewer drains. At the museum, Alexi gets psychic traces that lead them to Stefan and Marta's hiding place, where they find comic books (Businessman) and a metal cylinder. Inside is what looks like a metal ingot, but which causes Alexi to get anxious. He says he has seen the psychic glow before....  Ay chihuahua! (Which is Spanish for "Oh, my little rat dog!") Meanwhile, at C&L, Toybox (Slinger), Smax, Irma Geddon and Girl One prepare to raid the joint. Robyn wonders why they can't hear any music and Irma says they can, and points to a high pitched whine that is just audible. The bust in to what appears to be an empty space. Smax doesn't buy it and unleashes a blue beam of light, from his chest symbol.  It stuns the entire crowd of teenagers, who are hyped up on Mongoose Blood. As they round everyone up, Sung Li (Girl One) tells Robyn to be glad they weren't on Hyperdrine, otherwise they would ne knee deep in pixies and imps (apparently, it causes hallucinations, which become reality). Back at the station, Captain Traynor tells Ernesto Gograh that he is releasing him, with no charges, provided he takes his father back to monster Atoll. Ernesto gets mouthy and his father (still chihuahua sized) tells him to shut up of he will kick his tail across the city. As they leave, Micro-Maid informs Jetlad that they have a break in the Libra Killer case. They dispatch officers to the site where Annette was attacked. They find the grating where the killer came out, while they also receive information from the station. The killer is definitely an ET, from Anatares and their DNAmatches a M'Rrgla Qualtz, from data at the Trans-Solar Registry. They believe the instrument that severed the finger (and Immune Girl's head) is a monofilament appendage and to be careful. Jackie Phantom starts fazing and tells Duane "Dust Devil" Bodine to move back from the grating. She says she will go down, unless someone else wants to volunteer. She waits for a moment and asks, "Anyone?....." Thoughts: Exciting issue, with some fun stuff peppered in to keep it from being too dire. We've already done the shark lawyer jokes; but, we get some new ones as Synesthesia remarks that she can't understand why Fischmann makes people uneasy, what with the popular reputation of sharks. Gograh losing his lunch is set up well, as we are inside the precinct, hearing him roaring about not feeling well and burping, then we hear the "ralph" before the full page shot of him leaning against a building, with a foul green mess all over the street and everyone's disgusted reaction. Ha and Cannon are great with the timing of things. They also get to indulge their inner weirdness with the crowd fleeing Gograh. This is a city of super beings, which means superhero costumes and odd shapes and sizes. We see one person with 1950s car tailfins for ears and another with a faucet, for a head. Annette wears a skull cap covered in what looks like electrodes, suggesting a neuron. Gograh, himself, is a middle-aged Godzilla, with a paunch and a t-shirt that says "No Fat Chicks." Probably copied from something seen at a comic convention. Cannon and Ha have fun in other parts, as we see the display of Nazi mad scientists who designed Neopolis, after the war (ala Project Paperclip and the Nazi rocket scientists who helped develop the US space program, like Werner Von Braun). We see guys in lab coats, a Teutonic godlike figure, a suit of tech armor with a swastika, and a couple of others. Then, when they find the hiding place, they mess around with the comics. Businessman does sound like something in a comic, in a world where everyone is a super powered figure. We also get a good look at the entrance to the precinct house, which is modeled after the Hall of Justice, from the Super Friends (which is modeled after the Union Terminal, in Cincinnati, OH). Outside C&L, we see Little Orphan Annie & Sandy, while the Golden Age Huntress (later renamed Tigress) crosses the street. There are X-Rated theaters, showing movies like "Stretchabale Sluts" and "Quadruple Lass, in 'Fourplay.'" One of the ravers wear an outfit like Mr Terrific, except the front of his jacket says "Xtrem Play." Another is the singer from the Schoolhouse Rock cartoon, "Suffering 'Til Suffrage".... This issue exemplifies why this series was one of my favorites. Nice bits of police procedural drama, the continuation of a major case, some comic bits, some easter eggs to see if you are paying attention, and some character moments. We also come to find out that Jeff Smax is really powerful. We have seen his physical strength, now we see the power of his "pulse." Hector "Monsoon" Lopez, the desk sergeant, is seen with a little storm cloud and lightning over his head, after Smax turns up and starts to egg Gograh on. Smax is an idiot and exemplifies the kind of jerk cop who gets on a power trip and is hostile to the public, rather than realizing his job is to " serve and protect." We learn a bit more about King Peacock. He can "talk" to inanimate objects and learn their secrets, as he listens to a fallen statue, to determine how to move it out of the way. he worships Melek Taus, the devil, who was left behind by God, to rule over the Earth. Corbeau, who appearances might lead you to believe is a follower of a some kind of African/voodoo belief, is actually a Yazidi, a cultural group from the Kurdistan region of Iran, who had a monotheistic faith that predates even Zoroastrian belief. The adherents believe that God entrusted the world to seven Holy Beings (translated as "angels"), the most prominent being Melek Taus (also Tawuse Melek), the Peacock Angel. Hence, Corbeau's nom de guerre and adornment. He describes his ability as as "All stone is matter, all matter is Melek Taus. Melek Taus talks to me." So, he's got that going for him. One of the things I noticed here, and in the next issue, is a subtle little visual detail that I had missed , in past. the police vehicles, which are modeled on the Spinners, from Blade Runner, have a single rear wheel. The enxt issue shows Jeff Smax with a futuristic convertible, aslo with a tri-wheel arrangement (third wheel in the rear) and I think I saw another like that. This is likely a nod to the Dymaxion Car, designed by R Buckminster Fuller, and unveiled at the 1933/34 Chicago World's Fair. The vehicle had a similar wheel arrangement, which allowed it to make very sharp turns (90 degrees, even). However, it was difficult to steer at higher speeds and the prototype, notoriously crashed at the World's fair, though two more prototypes were developed. Here, you can see one of the later prototypes.... Good stuff!
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 26, 2023 16:41:54 GMT -5
Promethea #4 Running late, on this one (3 months since the previous issue). Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, JH Williams & Mick Gray-art, Charles Vess-additional art, Todd Klein-letters, Jeromy Cox-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor Vess drew pages 8-15. Synopsis: Barbara is in the hospital and appears to be dying. The part of her that is Promethea travels...elsewhere....and visits with other forms that were Promethea. They tune in on Sophie, who wakes up, in bed, with Stacia, though not in that context (though Stacia reacts like Sophie engineered it, for that purpose). The girls part and Sophie goes to the library to look at a memoir of Charles Sennett, one of the writers of Promethea stories, in a fairy tale version. The scene is watched by Barbara and Anna, the host for Promthea, in that period. Sennett is married to Emily, yet inspired by a servant, Anna. She becomes the basis for the leader of a group of faeries, and Charles reads to her what he has written, and she is transformed into that queen, as the passage is filled with obvious love for the Queen, and Anna. Anna becomes Promethea and they have an affair.  Time passes in a different manner and Charlton and Anna are found in bed, by Emily, who leaves her husband. Anna is pregnant with his child, though she doubts his love for her and not Promethea The baby is born, but is not entirely "real" and passes to another world. Anna dies and Charlton falls to pieces, with drink. Sophie is interrupted in her reading by a dark figure, in the library....Jack Faust. Faust is an old enemy of Promethea, who claims to be there before Sophie becomes prejudiced by the others, but Promethea claims he is a trickster and there to get to Sophie before she is too powerful for him to handle. Faust is a magician, yet he seems to be of a side of his own, rather than with the temple, hunting for Promethea. he warns her of Benny Solomon, the hitman coming for her. Stacia arrives and interrupts and we can see that she sees through Faust's "glamour," to the nasty, ugly man underneath.  It breaks his hold over Sophie and he leaves in a huff, revealed for the petty little jerk he is. Sophie is confused and Stacia tries to tell her about other versions of Promethea...one from a lesbian writer and another from a heavy metal band, but Sophie is confused and scared and asks her to drop the subject and just go to classes, to try to regain some "normalcy." Barbara sees that Sophie is vulnerable and questions whether Promethea isn't more of a curse, from her father, than a champion of Light. the other forms were killed in the process of things, but barbara has not, though it doesn't look good.  Thoughts: This is getting very confusing and very Moorcockian. Like the Eternal Champion, Promthea lives in many forms and most live a rather tragic life, suggesting being a hero isn't all its cracked up to be. I love Alan Moore as a writer; but, this chapter, to me, suggests that Neil Gaiman is better at the concept of stories breathing life into the world, as they have done similar things as this issue and I find that Gaiman's comes through clearer. Part of it may be the sexual element that Moore brings to his work (and his personal life) and also his own beliefs (or purported beliefs) in Magick. I say purported, because I am not convinced it isn't an act to get him attention. Both he and Grant Morrison, to me, always come across like they are feeding a line of BS to gullible interviewers and readers. Maybe I have watched too much old school pro wrestling, where everyone is working everyone else, or maybe I'm from too straight-laced a background to buy into the whole esoteric thing; but, it smells of a con, to me, and I have a pretty well developed nose for BS. Gaiman has his act (more in his younger days of writing comics than in recent years, since moving into more mainstream circles); but he doesn't trip my alarm as much. Maybe I'm a grumpy old cynic; but, then, I was a grumpy young cynic, too. Having your morning viewing of Rocky & Bullwinkle, Underdog and Space Angel interrupted by the Watergate Hearings will do that to you. Anyway, I'm not big on "esoteric" stories, though I don't mind having to do a bit of mental work to understand a story. There is something to be said for interpreting vague things for yourself, such as the tv show The Prisoner or how old Wolverine was and where he really came from, before they spelled it out in a less than interesting fashion (my opinion...your mileage may vary). Too often, esoteric means the writer hasn't really thought it through and is unable to clearly communicate the concept to the reader. It can be shorthand for being too lazy to think of a good plot resolution and just an attempt to cover it up with weirdness and mystery, which never gets explained. In the right hands, it is mystery to draw you in deeper and find new layers underneath, adding to the richness of the fictional world. In bad hands, it becomes plot convenience. This particular issues, taken on its own, treads dangerously in the territory of the latter. It is only the previous issues and hints dropped that there is more going on here that make me want to keep an open mind, though it ain't easy. This is part of why I never really got into this series and only glanced at a couple of issues. Supernatural and esoteric mystery don't do much for me, and this is loaded with it. By the same token, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen started losing me when Moore started messing with that, in the Black Dossier (though the Sundered World text pieces started that trip). luckily, Moore kind of pulled back from that a bit, after Black Dossier and got back to the parts I liked, crafting pulp stories around the central group of characters and a bunch of easter eggs to decipher, for increased fun. Moore is still in an introductory phase, with this book; so, I am hoping that once he starts moving into the meat, I will connect more. Otherwise, these segments are going to be a slog, which will lead me to neglect them for the other parts of the ABC line. To be honest, it has been that way from the start; but, I liked some of what came across in the first couple of issues; so I am curious to see it develop. However, curiosity does have its limits. Buckaroo Banzai sounded right up my alley and it took three attempts to sit through the entire film and I still didn't like it. It still felt like a cool concept, bet a bad execution. This is giving me vibes of that, but I have more faith in Alan Moore than I did WD Richter & Earl Mac Rauch.
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