Marvel recently put up a batch of early Golden Age comics on the digital site. Reading these got me to thinking about relative power levels.
Superman quickly comes to mind. Ever wonder why someone who flies would ever need to "leap tall buildings in a single bound"? It's because he couldn't fly when that line was written. He could run very fast (faster than a speeding bullet) and leap great distances but he could not fly. That came a few months later. Captain Marvel made the same transition. Early on he needed a space ship to travel to Mars (or Venus - I'm doing this from memory). Later he could make the trip under his own power.
Superman gained some powers along the way. He didn't have heat vision at first but it occurred to someone that strong x-rays heat things. Later writers explained that he actually projected heat from his eyes. Somewhere along the lines he also developed telescopic vision and super hearing. He could even throw his voice to a location hundreds of miles away (through solid objects) using super ventriloquism.
Given the world's strongest lungs, it made sense that he could blow harder than others. This turned into super breath. Superman was able to store huge quantities of air in his lungs and expel it at hurricane force. He could even provide an atmosphere for an earth-like planet with a few trips from a gas giant.
Until I read the Human Torch's early appearances I hadn't realized that he had made the same power gain. In his first few appearances his flames made him lighter than normal which allowed him to ran fast. He could outrun a fast car or a train. But he could not fly. His second appearance was fighting someone with an airplane who kept leaving the Torch behind.
Power levels can go both ways. The Sub-Mariner started out as Timely's strongest (anti-)hero but he got weaker. Eventually there wa a story where he was summoned by Atlantis's Emperor who pointed out that Namor was barely stronger than an ordinary Atlantean. Atlantis's scientists had devised a treatment that returned him to his original strength level.
By the Silver Age, Superman had unlimited power. You name it and he could do it. The same was true for Supergirl and Mon-el. They could move planets or re-light suns. In Superman's world, super-strength was a binary value. You either had it or you didn't. If you had it then it was a waste of time trying to overpower someone else who was super. It would cause too much collateral damage.
Marvel was much more restrained. Originally the Thing could only lift a few tons and falling from a great height would hurt him. He kept getting stronger until the Marvel Universe Handbook topped him out at 80 tons. At the same time he got a lot tougher. You could knock him through several buildings followed by a fall and he would get up again.
The Hulk was always the strongest there was but that didn't mean that much at first. He could be imprisoned in a cave. When they were first created both the original Abomination and the Red Hulk were stronger than the Hulk but both were eventually beaten.
Spider-Man started out pretty strong but seemed to get weaker in the 1970s. It got to the point where a thug with a fancy name (such as Man-Mountain Marco) could give him a fight. A change in writers and artists fixed that and by the 1980s he could hold his own against Mr. Hyde or Firelord. His webbing also got weaker and this was fixed by mixing a stronger batch.
When DC rebooted the DC Universe they weakened Superman. He could be hurt if you hit him hard enough. He needed oxygen. He could no longer fly faster than the speed of light or travel through time. Super ventriloquism was never spoken of again. This lasted for some time but writers kept stretching his powers a bit at a time until he was close to his original power levels.
Some heroes had their power levels changed as plot points. At first Ghost Rider could create solid objects out of flame including his motorcycle. He lost most of those powers and could only project flame. This started increasing again. Apparently it was tied to the strength that his inner demon had. The more control it had the stronger his powers were.
Then there are the heroes whose power levels constantly change. Originally the Dazzler could turn sound into light. She could use this as a light show while performing or she could distract an opponent with it. If she had enough sound she could turn it into a laser. At first she could not store energy so she had to find sources of sound. One time she made Spider-Woman sing (badly) in order to cut them out of a trap. A few issues later she absorbed Klaw who was made of solid sound and gained enough power to be recognized as a peer by Galactus. That changed her and she was able to store sound but she used up the energy she got from Klaw.
With Daredevil, it wasn't enough that he was blind. He kept running into situations that interfered with his radar sense. He got over that around the time he changed from his yellow and black outfit to his red one.
Similarly, Iron Man's transistors kept running down in the middle of a fight. This is one place where a hero gaining power over time makes sense. As technology improved, Iron Man got stronger.
There is an art to keeping heroes weak enough to build suspense. Often a hero got too strong and an artificial weakness had to be introduced. Superman had kryptonite, Thor had to keep hold of his hammer. Green Lantern had to avoid yellow. While these can make an interesting story, they are easy to overuse.
The same is true for villains. A villain may start out as powerful but each time he is defeated he becomes less menacing. The writers in Dr. Who decided to retire the Daleks. They started out as the ultimate killing machines but they have appeared more often than any other Dr. Who villain which means they have been defeated more often. I'll talk about villains later.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
The Curse of Continuity
Up until the 1960s, comic books seldom had any sort of continuity. Some major events were remembered like the time Lex Luthor saved a planet and the grateful residents renamed it in his honor and made him ruler. For years after that he would occasionally visit. More often, the events of a story were forgotten as with the last panel.
This was partly because of the way that comics worked at the time. Comic book publishers kept an inventory of stories. Since any story could be published at any time, it could not refer to any other story unless it had already been published and was memorable. TV was the same way. The characters in the Superman TV show in the 1950s wore the same clothes in every episode so that they could film multiple episodes at once. Most episodes had a scenes in Clark Kent's office so they could do those scenes for multiple episodes while the set was in place.
Marvel and Stan Lee changed that. Stan and his brother, Larry Lieber, did all of the writing and Marvel didn't have enough money for much inventory so stories were published as soon as they were finished. That meant that events could spill from one issue to the next. At the end of the second issue of the Fantastic Four, the Human Torch quit, feeling that he was not given enough respect. The third issue began with the rest of the team looking for the Torch who returned to the team after accidentally discovering the Sub Mariner. Similarly, the Hulk quit the Avengers at the end of the second issue. In the third issue he joined forced with the Sub Mariner. The fourth issue began with a cameo of the Sub Mariner and the Avengers searching for him.
Continuity in Spider-Man was more subtle but more important because it introduced real time. People remembered events from the previous issue and referred to them as "last month". This included little things like arguments.
Things got more complicated when Stan started accounting for villains and how they returned from their last appearance. Fans started noticing discrepancies. Stan grew tired of complaints and started offering "no prizes" to the fan who came up with the best explanation for a seeming goof (after Stan called the Hulk "Bob Banner" a fan suggested that his full name was "Robert Bruce Banner").
All of this was great for the reader. It gave the impression of a single, seamless "Marvel Universe".
But time passes and things happen. The Marvel Universe stopped running in real time. Otherwise Spider-Man, the Torch, and the X-Men would be in their 60s, Reed, the Thing, and Professor X would be in their 80s, and WWI veteran Dum Dum Dugan would be well voer 100. But slowing the character's aging causes problems with continuity. If Tony Stark is only in his 30s then how could he have been injured in Viet Nam? The Black Widow started as a spy for the Soviet Union which disintegrated more than 20 years ago.
So some events have to be ignored or the continuity has to be retroactively changed (retconned).
A bigger problem is that changes that seemed like a good idea at the time can become a burden later on. Spider-Man's marriage is an example. It seemed like the natural progression of his relationship with Mary Jane but later editors felt that he worked better as a loner. So Mary Jane left and was presumed dead. Then she came back. Then Mephisto changed time so that they never wed in the first place. Except later they remembered their relationship. But no one else remembers that he revealed his identity.
Things were worse at DC. Instead of simply referring to the Golden Age versions of different heroes as being from the past, they invented a parallel universe for them (Earth 2). This would have been a simple curiosity except they started setting stories in Earth 2. This became confusing to new readers (If the Huntress was Batman's daughter why was she a similar age and why did she think her father was dead?). They "solved" this with the Crisis on Multiple Earths limited series. By the end of that, there was only one reality. They spent the next few years trying to tidy up the new continuity. Then they gave up and had another reboot to fix the first one. Rinse and repeat.
Enter The New 52. DC is doing yet another reboot. Decades of continuity is being thrown out the window. Superman is back to being single. Batgirl was never crippled. Other characters will get ethnic make-overs.
I don't really care. I stopped reading DC comics precisely because they do so many reboots. It's too much trouble keeping up with them.
One good thing to come out of this - digital comics will now be available at the same time as print editions. I still subscribe to Marvel's digital comics but their policy is that digital comics lag the print editions by months and series are hit-and-miss on being digitized.
This was partly because of the way that comics worked at the time. Comic book publishers kept an inventory of stories. Since any story could be published at any time, it could not refer to any other story unless it had already been published and was memorable. TV was the same way. The characters in the Superman TV show in the 1950s wore the same clothes in every episode so that they could film multiple episodes at once. Most episodes had a scenes in Clark Kent's office so they could do those scenes for multiple episodes while the set was in place.
Marvel and Stan Lee changed that. Stan and his brother, Larry Lieber, did all of the writing and Marvel didn't have enough money for much inventory so stories were published as soon as they were finished. That meant that events could spill from one issue to the next. At the end of the second issue of the Fantastic Four, the Human Torch quit, feeling that he was not given enough respect. The third issue began with the rest of the team looking for the Torch who returned to the team after accidentally discovering the Sub Mariner. Similarly, the Hulk quit the Avengers at the end of the second issue. In the third issue he joined forced with the Sub Mariner. The fourth issue began with a cameo of the Sub Mariner and the Avengers searching for him.
Continuity in Spider-Man was more subtle but more important because it introduced real time. People remembered events from the previous issue and referred to them as "last month". This included little things like arguments.
Things got more complicated when Stan started accounting for villains and how they returned from their last appearance. Fans started noticing discrepancies. Stan grew tired of complaints and started offering "no prizes" to the fan who came up with the best explanation for a seeming goof (after Stan called the Hulk "Bob Banner" a fan suggested that his full name was "Robert Bruce Banner").
All of this was great for the reader. It gave the impression of a single, seamless "Marvel Universe".
But time passes and things happen. The Marvel Universe stopped running in real time. Otherwise Spider-Man, the Torch, and the X-Men would be in their 60s, Reed, the Thing, and Professor X would be in their 80s, and WWI veteran Dum Dum Dugan would be well voer 100. But slowing the character's aging causes problems with continuity. If Tony Stark is only in his 30s then how could he have been injured in Viet Nam? The Black Widow started as a spy for the Soviet Union which disintegrated more than 20 years ago.
So some events have to be ignored or the continuity has to be retroactively changed (retconned).
A bigger problem is that changes that seemed like a good idea at the time can become a burden later on. Spider-Man's marriage is an example. It seemed like the natural progression of his relationship with Mary Jane but later editors felt that he worked better as a loner. So Mary Jane left and was presumed dead. Then she came back. Then Mephisto changed time so that they never wed in the first place. Except later they remembered their relationship. But no one else remembers that he revealed his identity.
Things were worse at DC. Instead of simply referring to the Golden Age versions of different heroes as being from the past, they invented a parallel universe for them (Earth 2). This would have been a simple curiosity except they started setting stories in Earth 2. This became confusing to new readers (If the Huntress was Batman's daughter why was she a similar age and why did she think her father was dead?). They "solved" this with the Crisis on Multiple Earths limited series. By the end of that, there was only one reality. They spent the next few years trying to tidy up the new continuity. Then they gave up and had another reboot to fix the first one. Rinse and repeat.
Enter The New 52. DC is doing yet another reboot. Decades of continuity is being thrown out the window. Superman is back to being single. Batgirl was never crippled. Other characters will get ethnic make-overs.
I don't really care. I stopped reading DC comics precisely because they do so many reboots. It's too much trouble keeping up with them.
One good thing to come out of this - digital comics will now be available at the same time as print editions. I still subscribe to Marvel's digital comics but their policy is that digital comics lag the print editions by months and series are hit-and-miss on being digitized.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Dr. Who - What's been going on
The second part of Matt Smith's second season premiers tomorrow. This is a good chance to point out some of the background plot threads.
There are two major threads that have spanned multiple seasons. The first was River Song. When we first met her we learned that she would marry a future version of the Doctor. In her next appearance we found out that she was in prison for killing "a very good man." This was never explained but the implication was that she would kill the Doctor himself.
The second thread is the Doctor as a dangerous being. There were a few hints of this earlier but Smith's Doctor spent a lot of time saying it. In his first episode he saved the Earth with just a borrowed cell phone. Afterwords he warned some powerful aliens that they should avoid the Earth because he protected it along with the implication that he was someone to be feared.
Later he told a group that the Weeping Angels made a mistake by trapping the one person in the universe that they should not want trapped. Statements like this were peppered through the season. There have also been reminders that he killed his entire race.
In the season's two-part finale, the Doctor traveled to Roman Briton to see the Pandorica, the ultimate prison, opened. He didn't know who was inside but he wanted to protect the universe against that person. Multiple races encircled the Earth for unknown reasons.
Surprise - the Pandorica was meant for him. All of these races considered him the most dangerous being in the universe. Things got confused when an unknown entity also tried to destroy the universe by exploding the TARDIS. The Doctor rebooted the universe and reappeared in time for Amy's wedding party.
In the season opener we saw a much-older Doctor gather a few friends including Amy, Rory, and River. He and River compared diaries and he had already experienced all of their shared time. Then he was killed by a figure in a spacesuit. And killed a second time to prevent regeneration.
But this was a future Doctor. His younger version was still running around. Amy and River put him on the trail of the figure in the spacesuit. This turned out to be an unusual girl who could regenerate. The girl looked a bit like a young River but her effects and the attention of some aliens hinted that this would be Amy's daughter.
At one point Amy told the Doctor that she was pregnant which she later denied. The Doctor took some readings which he kept secret but kept referring to.
Eventually we found out that the Amy on the TARDIS was a reproduction linked with the real one. The real Amy was pregnant and being kept prisoner somewhere.
It all came together in the Demon's Run episode when we found out that Amy's daughter Melody Pool was also River Song.
So, here's what happened. Some aliens took the Doctor seriously when he said that he is the most dangerous being in the universe and decided that they needed a weapon to kill him. Only a fellow Time Lord could do this but he already killed all of them so they had to create a new one. Because she was conceived in the TARDIS while it was traveling through time, River shared many of the mutations that make up a Time Lord. So the aliens kidnapped Amy between seasons and left a decoy to keep the Doctor from suspecting. They raised the child and eventually she fulfilled her destiny and killed the Doctor.
But, since River was a partial Time Lord, things were not that simple. She and the Doctor met at multiple points of their lives, often in opposite directions. The first time he met her was just before she died. The first time he kissed her was the last time she kissed him, etc.
It is unclear if Amy will ever see River again as a child. It looks doubtful since River didn't recognize Amy or Rory as her parents when they first met. She had to be introduced.
BTW, the space station is misnamed. It isn't "Demon's Run". It should be "Demons run" from the 'old' saying "Demons run when a good man goes to war."
There are two major threads that have spanned multiple seasons. The first was River Song. When we first met her we learned that she would marry a future version of the Doctor. In her next appearance we found out that she was in prison for killing "a very good man." This was never explained but the implication was that she would kill the Doctor himself.
The second thread is the Doctor as a dangerous being. There were a few hints of this earlier but Smith's Doctor spent a lot of time saying it. In his first episode he saved the Earth with just a borrowed cell phone. Afterwords he warned some powerful aliens that they should avoid the Earth because he protected it along with the implication that he was someone to be feared.
Later he told a group that the Weeping Angels made a mistake by trapping the one person in the universe that they should not want trapped. Statements like this were peppered through the season. There have also been reminders that he killed his entire race.
In the season's two-part finale, the Doctor traveled to Roman Briton to see the Pandorica, the ultimate prison, opened. He didn't know who was inside but he wanted to protect the universe against that person. Multiple races encircled the Earth for unknown reasons.
Surprise - the Pandorica was meant for him. All of these races considered him the most dangerous being in the universe. Things got confused when an unknown entity also tried to destroy the universe by exploding the TARDIS. The Doctor rebooted the universe and reappeared in time for Amy's wedding party.
In the season opener we saw a much-older Doctor gather a few friends including Amy, Rory, and River. He and River compared diaries and he had already experienced all of their shared time. Then he was killed by a figure in a spacesuit. And killed a second time to prevent regeneration.
But this was a future Doctor. His younger version was still running around. Amy and River put him on the trail of the figure in the spacesuit. This turned out to be an unusual girl who could regenerate. The girl looked a bit like a young River but her effects and the attention of some aliens hinted that this would be Amy's daughter.
At one point Amy told the Doctor that she was pregnant which she later denied. The Doctor took some readings which he kept secret but kept referring to.
Eventually we found out that the Amy on the TARDIS was a reproduction linked with the real one. The real Amy was pregnant and being kept prisoner somewhere.
It all came together in the Demon's Run episode when we found out that Amy's daughter Melody Pool was also River Song.
So, here's what happened. Some aliens took the Doctor seriously when he said that he is the most dangerous being in the universe and decided that they needed a weapon to kill him. Only a fellow Time Lord could do this but he already killed all of them so they had to create a new one. Because she was conceived in the TARDIS while it was traveling through time, River shared many of the mutations that make up a Time Lord. So the aliens kidnapped Amy between seasons and left a decoy to keep the Doctor from suspecting. They raised the child and eventually she fulfilled her destiny and killed the Doctor.
But, since River was a partial Time Lord, things were not that simple. She and the Doctor met at multiple points of their lives, often in opposite directions. The first time he met her was just before she died. The first time he kissed her was the last time she kissed him, etc.
It is unclear if Amy will ever see River again as a child. It looks doubtful since River didn't recognize Amy or Rory as her parents when they first met. She had to be introduced.
BTW, the space station is misnamed. It isn't "Demon's Run". It should be "Demons run" from the 'old' saying "Demons run when a good man goes to war."
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Windows 95
The PC turned 30 a couple of weeks ago but it really took its current form 16 years ago when Microsoft released Windows 95.
Prior to Windows 95, Microsoft sold MS-DOS and Windows separately. Both had some serious competition. DRDOS was as good or better then MS-DOS and IBM's OS/2 was better at Windows. Windows 3.1 was clunky and suffered from some serious limitations. The biggest one was memory. The original IBM PC used a chip that could only address a megabyte and the designers reserved memory above 640k for system calls and hardware mapped interfaces.
By 1995, most games and business software needed more that 640k. There were several ways of getting around this but the were mutually incompatible. It was common to have to use a different boot disk for each game in order to get the memory drivers correct. MS-DOS also suffered from a file system that only allowed short file names - eight characters followed by a dot and a three character suffix.
OS/2 got around these problems and supported superior multi-tasking. And it could run Windows programs.
Windows 95 was years late. There were jokes about Microsoft merging with the Catholic Church in order to gain control of the Gregorian calendar. That would allow them to extend 1995 until Win95 was ready for release.
Microsoft solved the problem of DRDOS by bundling MS-DOS and Windows and claiming that they were inseparable. Actually, the PC still loaded DOS then loaded Windows but the process was seamless. Other features were much more important. Win95 had a new interface, the basis of the one still used in Windows 7. It allowed long file names. It had a built-in memory manager which would emulate the main alternatives so nearly anything would run on it.
It also had basic networking built in which was something that OS/2 did not have. Overnight OS/2 became irrelevant. If you wanted to connect to other computers you had needed Win95.
This also became the high-water mark for Microsoft's market dominance. Prior to Win95, most people used 3rd party programs like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. There was some question about these running on Win95 and most analysts recommended switching to Microsoft Office. Within a couple of years the previous market leaders were gone.
At the same time that Win95 came out the public suddenly became aware of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Win95 could handle these out of the box although Win98 did a much better job.
While a big improvement over previous versions, Win95 had some serious limitations. It did not have real multitasking and its security was a joke. Microsoft solved some of these problems with Windows NT but that platform did not have the performance for games and CDs. Windows XP married the two platforms in their most successful product to date.
Prior to Windows 95, Microsoft sold MS-DOS and Windows separately. Both had some serious competition. DRDOS was as good or better then MS-DOS and IBM's OS/2 was better at Windows. Windows 3.1 was clunky and suffered from some serious limitations. The biggest one was memory. The original IBM PC used a chip that could only address a megabyte and the designers reserved memory above 640k for system calls and hardware mapped interfaces.
By 1995, most games and business software needed more that 640k. There were several ways of getting around this but the were mutually incompatible. It was common to have to use a different boot disk for each game in order to get the memory drivers correct. MS-DOS also suffered from a file system that only allowed short file names - eight characters followed by a dot and a three character suffix.
OS/2 got around these problems and supported superior multi-tasking. And it could run Windows programs.
Windows 95 was years late. There were jokes about Microsoft merging with the Catholic Church in order to gain control of the Gregorian calendar. That would allow them to extend 1995 until Win95 was ready for release.
Microsoft solved the problem of DRDOS by bundling MS-DOS and Windows and claiming that they were inseparable. Actually, the PC still loaded DOS then loaded Windows but the process was seamless. Other features were much more important. Win95 had a new interface, the basis of the one still used in Windows 7. It allowed long file names. It had a built-in memory manager which would emulate the main alternatives so nearly anything would run on it.
It also had basic networking built in which was something that OS/2 did not have. Overnight OS/2 became irrelevant. If you wanted to connect to other computers you had needed Win95.
This also became the high-water mark for Microsoft's market dominance. Prior to Win95, most people used 3rd party programs like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. There was some question about these running on Win95 and most analysts recommended switching to Microsoft Office. Within a couple of years the previous market leaders were gone.
At the same time that Win95 came out the public suddenly became aware of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Win95 could handle these out of the box although Win98 did a much better job.
While a big improvement over previous versions, Win95 had some serious limitations. It did not have real multitasking and its security was a joke. Microsoft solved some of these problems with Windows NT but that platform did not have the performance for games and CDs. Windows XP married the two platforms in their most successful product to date.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Deadliest Warrior vs the Shark
Spike TV's series Deadliest Warrior is in its third season. The premise of the show is figuring out what would happen if two prime examples of different warriors fought. This is done by testing an equal selection of weapons, running the results through a computer simulation, then staging a fight. At first the staged fights were between individual warriors but half-way through the first season they started mixing in teams. They also included a few famous individuals.
Most of the winners were justifiable.
There have bees some warriors who were questionable. They had a 2nd season episode with Somali pirates. While these guys certainly exist, they are mainly untrained fishermen with guns. The presentation of them as trained warriors was a stretch.
Which brings us to the August 17, 2011 episode: Saddam Hussein vs. Pol Pot. The idea was to match two mass murderers. My complaint is that neither side had warriors. Most of Pol Pot's victims were unarmed civilians who were starved or otherwise killed as part of a forced relocation program. Saddam Hussein's troops did fight a long and bloody war against a technologically inferior Iran and overran Kuwait but their performance against US troops was almost comical. During the Gulf War they surrendered in droves, sometimes surrendering to unarmed reporters. Much of the unrest following our invasion of Iraq happened because the army melted away the day after US troops made a "thunder run" through Baghdad. To represent either side as warriors is an insult to the real thing.
Then there is the season finale - vampire vs zombies (one vampire, 63 zombies).
Clearly this show has jumped the shark.
Most of the winners were justifiable.
There have bees some warriors who were questionable. They had a 2nd season episode with Somali pirates. While these guys certainly exist, they are mainly untrained fishermen with guns. The presentation of them as trained warriors was a stretch.
Which brings us to the August 17, 2011 episode: Saddam Hussein vs. Pol Pot. The idea was to match two mass murderers. My complaint is that neither side had warriors. Most of Pol Pot's victims were unarmed civilians who were starved or otherwise killed as part of a forced relocation program. Saddam Hussein's troops did fight a long and bloody war against a technologically inferior Iran and overran Kuwait but their performance against US troops was almost comical. During the Gulf War they surrendered in droves, sometimes surrendering to unarmed reporters. Much of the unrest following our invasion of Iraq happened because the army melted away the day after US troops made a "thunder run" through Baghdad. To represent either side as warriors is an insult to the real thing.
Then there is the season finale - vampire vs zombies (one vampire, 63 zombies).
Clearly this show has jumped the shark.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Conan
A new Conan movie comes out this week. I don't have high expectations for it. August releases are often second-rate movies that are dumped at the end of the Summer. More important, the character as created by Robert E. Howard is difficult to translate to other media.
I read all of Howard's Conan stories as well as most of his other works in my teens and 20s. This summer I reread Red Nails and some of Howard's Solomon Kane stories so I am up on the material.
Howard is credited with inventing the Sword and Sorcery genre. He saw it as a precursor to the modern world filled with archetypes. Even though it took place thousands of years ago, it was still an old world. Atlantis had risen and fallen well before Conan's time. Other horrors had populated the world before the rise of humanity and some of them were still lurking in the shadows. Howard often corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft and incorporated some of the same otherworldly monsters in his fiction.
Conan himself is a complex character. Howard saw him as the embodiment of vitality, untamed by civilization. He was bigger, stronger, and faster than civilized men. His senses were sharper and his mind keener. He was a master of languages although he spoke most with an accent. He was a born leader. He was amoral but trustworthy (for the most part). If you hired him he would put his life on the line for you but he would kill you in an instant if you betrayed him.
Conan was not always the central character of the story. Red Nails, the last story written, features Valeria, a female pirate, more than Conan. This is a classic Howard story with a lost city peopled with a dying race who stole the city from its builders but do not know all of its secrets. Everyone betrays everyone and Conan and Valeria are the only survivors.
The character was briefly popular during the days of the pulp. In the 1960s, Howard's stories were resurrected and collected into a series of paperbacks. In addition to this, story fragments were finished and non-Conan stories were altered to fill out around a dozen books. They were very popular.
Because of the popularity of the books, Marvel Comics bought the rights and began a long, successful series of Conan comics. It started slow. British artist, Barry Smith, was selected on the basis of a sword and sorcery horror story he had drawn. At first his art was uninspiring. He quickly grew as an artist. Smith left the book after a few issues but came back almost immediately. His return marked the full flowering of his talent. He had been inspired by the pre-Raphaelites of the 19th century. Their focus on Arthurian themes worked perfectly with Conan and Smith became a fan favorite.
He eventually left for the more lucrative field of limited edition art and was replaced by John Buscema. Buscema's first issue began with an adaptation of a King Kull story so Conan didn't appear until ten pages into the book. While Buscema's version of the character looked quite different from Smith's, he was instantly recognizable. The first time I read that comic I was two pages past Conan's first panel before I notices how different he looked.
Coupled with various inkers from the Philippines, Buscema became a fan favorite on his own.
Marvel was trying to expand into the more adult-oriented black and white tabloid comics and Conan began appearing in both formats (plus some over-size reprints of the Smith comics).
Roy Thomas wrote all of Conan's appearances. He was a huge fan of Howard and some of his adaptations were excellent. Thomas's original works were less successful. In the stories, Conan never had a sidekick. At most, he got the girl at the end but there was never any long-term commitment.
Thomas felt more comfortable introducing various supporting characters. Some of them came from Howard's stories. Most were either implied or original. This made story-telling easier but the stories lost Howard's feel. Also, as time went on, Thomas began over-writing his stories. He often felt the need to add a dialog box where none was needed or to have a character explain a plot twist. There was also the problem of creating new challenges for Conan. After you have killed a dozen wizards in a year, what do you do next year?
By the mid-1970s the Conan craze had faded. Marvel shut down its black and white line. Thomas and Buscema left the strip and it declined.
The most lasting contribution from the Roy Thomas Barry Smith days was Red Sonia. This was adapted from a non-Conan story set during the early 16th century. This featured a Conan-style character and Red Sonja (with a "j"), a military commander. Sonia originally wore a full mail shirt over average breasts but the character was later given a scale mail bikini and more generous cleavage.
The big screen version of Conan tried to be memorable by lifting the most memorable scenes from Howard's stories. These included Conan killing a vulture with his teeth while being crucified and a slain lover appearing long enough to save him. Since The Empire Strikes Back had just come out, they also threw in James Earl Jones telling Conan, "You are my son." The action was slow and the movie is not very good. The sequel is faster moving with a plot by Roy Thomas but is generally inferior to the first movie or the stories.
The character has been revived in comics a few times but was never the hit that it was in the 1960s and early 1970s. A syndicated Conan series was produced for a while. I only saw a few episodes. They were not memorable.
Which brings us to the new movie. The first review I saw panned it and the trailers do not resemble anything Howard wrote. Interested parties would probably be better off watching The Scorpion King again.
I read all of Howard's Conan stories as well as most of his other works in my teens and 20s. This summer I reread Red Nails and some of Howard's Solomon Kane stories so I am up on the material.
Howard is credited with inventing the Sword and Sorcery genre. He saw it as a precursor to the modern world filled with archetypes. Even though it took place thousands of years ago, it was still an old world. Atlantis had risen and fallen well before Conan's time. Other horrors had populated the world before the rise of humanity and some of them were still lurking in the shadows. Howard often corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft and incorporated some of the same otherworldly monsters in his fiction.
Conan himself is a complex character. Howard saw him as the embodiment of vitality, untamed by civilization. He was bigger, stronger, and faster than civilized men. His senses were sharper and his mind keener. He was a master of languages although he spoke most with an accent. He was a born leader. He was amoral but trustworthy (for the most part). If you hired him he would put his life on the line for you but he would kill you in an instant if you betrayed him.
Conan was not always the central character of the story. Red Nails, the last story written, features Valeria, a female pirate, more than Conan. This is a classic Howard story with a lost city peopled with a dying race who stole the city from its builders but do not know all of its secrets. Everyone betrays everyone and Conan and Valeria are the only survivors.
The character was briefly popular during the days of the pulp. In the 1960s, Howard's stories were resurrected and collected into a series of paperbacks. In addition to this, story fragments were finished and non-Conan stories were altered to fill out around a dozen books. They were very popular.
Because of the popularity of the books, Marvel Comics bought the rights and began a long, successful series of Conan comics. It started slow. British artist, Barry Smith, was selected on the basis of a sword and sorcery horror story he had drawn. At first his art was uninspiring. He quickly grew as an artist. Smith left the book after a few issues but came back almost immediately. His return marked the full flowering of his talent. He had been inspired by the pre-Raphaelites of the 19th century. Their focus on Arthurian themes worked perfectly with Conan and Smith became a fan favorite.
He eventually left for the more lucrative field of limited edition art and was replaced by John Buscema. Buscema's first issue began with an adaptation of a King Kull story so Conan didn't appear until ten pages into the book. While Buscema's version of the character looked quite different from Smith's, he was instantly recognizable. The first time I read that comic I was two pages past Conan's first panel before I notices how different he looked.
Coupled with various inkers from the Philippines, Buscema became a fan favorite on his own.
Marvel was trying to expand into the more adult-oriented black and white tabloid comics and Conan began appearing in both formats (plus some over-size reprints of the Smith comics).
Roy Thomas wrote all of Conan's appearances. He was a huge fan of Howard and some of his adaptations were excellent. Thomas's original works were less successful. In the stories, Conan never had a sidekick. At most, he got the girl at the end but there was never any long-term commitment.
Thomas felt more comfortable introducing various supporting characters. Some of them came from Howard's stories. Most were either implied or original. This made story-telling easier but the stories lost Howard's feel. Also, as time went on, Thomas began over-writing his stories. He often felt the need to add a dialog box where none was needed or to have a character explain a plot twist. There was also the problem of creating new challenges for Conan. After you have killed a dozen wizards in a year, what do you do next year?
By the mid-1970s the Conan craze had faded. Marvel shut down its black and white line. Thomas and Buscema left the strip and it declined.
The most lasting contribution from the Roy Thomas Barry Smith days was Red Sonia. This was adapted from a non-Conan story set during the early 16th century. This featured a Conan-style character and Red Sonja (with a "j"), a military commander. Sonia originally wore a full mail shirt over average breasts but the character was later given a scale mail bikini and more generous cleavage.
The big screen version of Conan tried to be memorable by lifting the most memorable scenes from Howard's stories. These included Conan killing a vulture with his teeth while being crucified and a slain lover appearing long enough to save him. Since The Empire Strikes Back had just come out, they also threw in James Earl Jones telling Conan, "You are my son." The action was slow and the movie is not very good. The sequel is faster moving with a plot by Roy Thomas but is generally inferior to the first movie or the stories.
The character has been revived in comics a few times but was never the hit that it was in the 1960s and early 1970s. A syndicated Conan series was produced for a while. I only saw a few episodes. They were not memorable.
Which brings us to the new movie. The first review I saw panned it and the trailers do not resemble anything Howard wrote. Interested parties would probably be better off watching The Scorpion King again.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Bert and Ernie
There is a proposal that Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street declare their love and marry. Before you express an opinion on that, answer one question: Do you think that preschool boys should be allowed to marry?
Bert and Ernie are puppets on a TV show targeted at preschoolers. They act like their target age group. Anyone who worries about what these Muppets are doing off camera should go back to fantasizing about Batman and Robin.
Bert and Ernie are puppets on a TV show targeted at preschoolers. They act like their target age group. Anyone who worries about what these Muppets are doing off camera should go back to fantasizing about Batman and Robin.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Beauty and the Beast
The Disney Channel is showing Beauty and the Beast in preparation for its release on Blu-ray. The movie will be 20 years old this November.
It holds up well as befits its status as one of Disney's most important movies. Who Framed Roger Rabbit renewed interest in classic animation and roved that Disney could still do it. The Little Mermaid proved that they could produce a hand-animated movie as good as the classics done under Walt himself but its audience was still limited to kids and their parents. Beauty and the Beast changed that. It made many critics' best list for 1991 and it was the first animated movie to get a best picture nomination. It won several other best picture awards. Eventually it was made into a Broadway play with the 8th longest run on record.
It made a lot of money. It was followed by Aladdin and the Lion King. These made even more money. In-between, Disney rereleased some of their classics like Snow White. Suddenly it was ok for adults to see an inimated movie, even without kids in tow.
Of course it didn't last. Disney ran out of fairy tales and the Disney spin didn't work as well with other properties. The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas took liberties with classic literature and history. Hercules and The Emperor's New Grove went with a more cartoonish look. Their reinterpretation of Tarzan as a confused adolescent marked the end of Disney's revival. The movies went from sure-fire blockbusters to risks. The animators unionized, raising the cost of production.
At the same time, the adult market for animated movies migrated to CGI.
Ironically, one of Beauty's most memorable scene, the ballroom dance, was CGI as were some of the dancing silverware.
In some ways CGI has left me jaded. I know that Beauty was a marvel of animation but it no longer looks like it. Hand-drawn background just can't compare to CGI ones. The recent Disney release, Tangled, was a nice throw-back to the hand-animated look but it was CGI and far more detailed.
It holds up well as befits its status as one of Disney's most important movies. Who Framed Roger Rabbit renewed interest in classic animation and roved that Disney could still do it. The Little Mermaid proved that they could produce a hand-animated movie as good as the classics done under Walt himself but its audience was still limited to kids and their parents. Beauty and the Beast changed that. It made many critics' best list for 1991 and it was the first animated movie to get a best picture nomination. It won several other best picture awards. Eventually it was made into a Broadway play with the 8th longest run on record.
It made a lot of money. It was followed by Aladdin and the Lion King. These made even more money. In-between, Disney rereleased some of their classics like Snow White. Suddenly it was ok for adults to see an inimated movie, even without kids in tow.
Of course it didn't last. Disney ran out of fairy tales and the Disney spin didn't work as well with other properties. The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas took liberties with classic literature and history. Hercules and The Emperor's New Grove went with a more cartoonish look. Their reinterpretation of Tarzan as a confused adolescent marked the end of Disney's revival. The movies went from sure-fire blockbusters to risks. The animators unionized, raising the cost of production.
At the same time, the adult market for animated movies migrated to CGI.
Ironically, one of Beauty's most memorable scene, the ballroom dance, was CGI as were some of the dancing silverware.
In some ways CGI has left me jaded. I know that Beauty was a marvel of animation but it no longer looks like it. Hand-drawn background just can't compare to CGI ones. The recent Disney release, Tangled, was a nice throw-back to the hand-animated look but it was CGI and far more detailed.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
The Shakespeare Controversy
Next month a new movie, Anonymous, will show the Earl of Oxford actually wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. I just finished Contested Will by James Shapiro which covers the subject rather well. Shapiro admits that it is impossible to cover every claim. There are too many and new ones pop up several times a year. Instead he covers the history of the controversy.
The book begins with Shakespearean scholarship in the late 18th through the mid-19th century. This is when Shakespeare went from being a talented writer to a literal deity (complete with shrines). People wanted to know more about the man who wrote the plays. Unfortunately, most surviving records were business records from Stratford. Not only did they reveal nothing about the plays but they showed that Shakespeare was interested in (shudder) making money. This led some people to create forged records. Others simply recommended that interested parties look to the plays and sonnets for clues to Shakespeare's personality. This advice was later taken literally.
In the mid-19th century a woman named Delia Bacon was pondering Shakespeare and Francis Bacon (no relation). At the time, Bacon had his own pedestal that rivaled Shakespeare's. How was it possible, Delia wondered, for England's greatest thinker to have lived at exactly the same time as her greatest playwright? To Delia, the obvious answer was that there was a single genius, Francis Bacon, who wrote the plays in secret. Delia was a respected lecturer and teacher and her theory was noticed. Others added their own refinements. One author noticed that Shakespeare seemed to know so much about law that he must have been a lawyer. This convinced others including Mark Twain and Helen Keller. Twain's last book was about how Shakespeare could not have written the plays. He included the law argument (plagiarizing entire chapters to buttress his argument).
Most of Twain's output was based on his own life experience and he reasoned that the same must have been true about the plays.
Twain was the last major supporter of Bacon. Around the same time that Twain's book came out a new theory was advanced. A man named J. T. Looney felt, as Twain did, that the plays must have been based on personal experience so he looked through ancient biographies until he discovered a nobleman who wrote some poetry and sponsored some players - Edward D'Vere, the Earl of Oxford.
This has been the major theory for the last hundred years although it lost popularity for several decades. It was revived in the 1980s and has remained popular since then, even inspiring the movie Anonymous.
Contested Will follows these theories as well as giving us a glimpse into the lives of the proponents of the theories. It ends by making the case for the man from Stratford. He shows how small the circle of theater people was and how impossible it would be to keep the authorship a secret. He quotes contemporaries, and he finds evidence in the plays themselves that only someone who was a member of the company could have written them.
The biggest question when disputing the authorship of the plays is why the real author would not openly proclaim himself? The Oxfordians have an elaborate explanation. Oxford was Queen Elizabeth's half-brother and lover. The plays and sonnets were written to express his feelings at different points in his life. If people knew who wrote the plays then they would figure out their real meaning. This convinced Sigmund Freud who used Hamlet to analyze Shakespeare (this only worked if the author of the plays had a traumatic event in his life). When the Oxford theory made a resurgence in the 1980s, talk of D'Vere's real heritage and his son, the secret Tudor prince, was suppressed in order to make the theory sound less far-fetched.
One question that Shapiro never addresses is why the authorship matters? The answer to this does show up in his book. There is only a controversy because the historic Shakespeare does not meet expectations. Oxford and Bacon are preferred because they match preconceptions. This is rewriting history and once you start where do you stop? The Oxfordians a new heir to Elizabeth. In order to explain the decade between Oxford's last published poem and Shakespeare's first, they decided that Oxford wrote under other names, also. Some Oxfordians believe that nearly the entire output of the English Renaissance came from Oxford's pen.
The old maxim is that extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof but the anti-Stratfordians have turned that on its head. There is no proof strong enough to convince then that Shakespeare wrote the plays. If someone found a letter in Oxford's own hand congratulating Shakespeare on his latest play, they would see it as proof of the conspiracy.
While Shapiro's book will not convince the skeptics, it is a good read. It not only gives insight into Shakespeare and the process of producing Elizabethan plays, it also gives details on the lives of Twain, Helen Keller, and Sigmund Freud that are seldom heard.
The book begins with Shakespearean scholarship in the late 18th through the mid-19th century. This is when Shakespeare went from being a talented writer to a literal deity (complete with shrines). People wanted to know more about the man who wrote the plays. Unfortunately, most surviving records were business records from Stratford. Not only did they reveal nothing about the plays but they showed that Shakespeare was interested in (shudder) making money. This led some people to create forged records. Others simply recommended that interested parties look to the plays and sonnets for clues to Shakespeare's personality. This advice was later taken literally.
In the mid-19th century a woman named Delia Bacon was pondering Shakespeare and Francis Bacon (no relation). At the time, Bacon had his own pedestal that rivaled Shakespeare's. How was it possible, Delia wondered, for England's greatest thinker to have lived at exactly the same time as her greatest playwright? To Delia, the obvious answer was that there was a single genius, Francis Bacon, who wrote the plays in secret. Delia was a respected lecturer and teacher and her theory was noticed. Others added their own refinements. One author noticed that Shakespeare seemed to know so much about law that he must have been a lawyer. This convinced others including Mark Twain and Helen Keller. Twain's last book was about how Shakespeare could not have written the plays. He included the law argument (plagiarizing entire chapters to buttress his argument).
Most of Twain's output was based on his own life experience and he reasoned that the same must have been true about the plays.
Twain was the last major supporter of Bacon. Around the same time that Twain's book came out a new theory was advanced. A man named J. T. Looney felt, as Twain did, that the plays must have been based on personal experience so he looked through ancient biographies until he discovered a nobleman who wrote some poetry and sponsored some players - Edward D'Vere, the Earl of Oxford.
This has been the major theory for the last hundred years although it lost popularity for several decades. It was revived in the 1980s and has remained popular since then, even inspiring the movie Anonymous.
Contested Will follows these theories as well as giving us a glimpse into the lives of the proponents of the theories. It ends by making the case for the man from Stratford. He shows how small the circle of theater people was and how impossible it would be to keep the authorship a secret. He quotes contemporaries, and he finds evidence in the plays themselves that only someone who was a member of the company could have written them.
The biggest question when disputing the authorship of the plays is why the real author would not openly proclaim himself? The Oxfordians have an elaborate explanation. Oxford was Queen Elizabeth's half-brother and lover. The plays and sonnets were written to express his feelings at different points in his life. If people knew who wrote the plays then they would figure out their real meaning. This convinced Sigmund Freud who used Hamlet to analyze Shakespeare (this only worked if the author of the plays had a traumatic event in his life). When the Oxford theory made a resurgence in the 1980s, talk of D'Vere's real heritage and his son, the secret Tudor prince, was suppressed in order to make the theory sound less far-fetched.
One question that Shapiro never addresses is why the authorship matters? The answer to this does show up in his book. There is only a controversy because the historic Shakespeare does not meet expectations. Oxford and Bacon are preferred because they match preconceptions. This is rewriting history and once you start where do you stop? The Oxfordians a new heir to Elizabeth. In order to explain the decade between Oxford's last published poem and Shakespeare's first, they decided that Oxford wrote under other names, also. Some Oxfordians believe that nearly the entire output of the English Renaissance came from Oxford's pen.
The old maxim is that extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof but the anti-Stratfordians have turned that on its head. There is no proof strong enough to convince then that Shakespeare wrote the plays. If someone found a letter in Oxford's own hand congratulating Shakespeare on his latest play, they would see it as proof of the conspiracy.
While Shapiro's book will not convince the skeptics, it is a good read. It not only gives insight into Shakespeare and the process of producing Elizabethan plays, it also gives details on the lives of Twain, Helen Keller, and Sigmund Freud that are seldom heard.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Reboots - Spider-Man and Superman
We are seeing the first views of the new Spider-Man and Superman movies. So far I'm not impressed. I was half-way through the Spider-Man trailer before I realized that it wasn't for some new Twilight take-off (or possibly it was). In the comics and the original movie, Peter Parker was always a likable nerd with bad luck. The new movie seems to be remaking him into a misunderstood heart-throb.
Over at Marvel, they have killed Peter Parker and replaced him with someone else. Again!!! This plot device was over-used by the time they brought back the Spider-Clone. I can't believe that they are doing it again. Not that it matters to me. I stopped caring about the character after they erased 30+ years of continuity. The Peter Parker they killed isn't "my" Peter Parker. He is a creation of Mephisto.
It doesn't matter what the ethnicity is of Peter's replacement. They will bring Peter back by the time the movie comes out.
Wired has a first look at the new Superman. I notice that he is in another textured rubber costume. I assume that they do this because it is easier to reproduce digitally.
The last Superman reboot left such a bad taste that I don't have much interest in this one. When I think of a Superman movie I now think of the bullet-in-the-eye, torturing dogs, Superman-as-Christ, Superman-as-stalker/rapist, and "Truth, Justice, and all that."
Over at Marvel, they have killed Peter Parker and replaced him with someone else. Again!!! This plot device was over-used by the time they brought back the Spider-Clone. I can't believe that they are doing it again. Not that it matters to me. I stopped caring about the character after they erased 30+ years of continuity. The Peter Parker they killed isn't "my" Peter Parker. He is a creation of Mephisto.
It doesn't matter what the ethnicity is of Peter's replacement. They will bring Peter back by the time the movie comes out.
Wired has a first look at the new Superman. I notice that he is in another textured rubber costume. I assume that they do this because it is easier to reproduce digitally.
The last Superman reboot left such a bad taste that I don't have much interest in this one. When I think of a Superman movie I now think of the bullet-in-the-eye, torturing dogs, Superman-as-Christ, Superman-as-stalker/rapist, and "Truth, Justice, and all that."
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Looking back at Captain America
I haven't bothered looking things up. This is just my personal recollections abut Cap in the comics.
The Silver Age of comics is usually defined as beginning when the Flash was created as a new character but inspired by the Golden Age version. He was followed by Green Lantern and some others. All of these were published by DC but Timely Comics decided to follow DC's lead. At the same time they changed their name to Marvel Comics.
Marvel's first creation, the Fantastic Four, included a Silver Age version of the Human Torch. By the third issue of the FF, the Sub-Mariner had been introduced but, in this case, it was the original character instead of a new version.
It didn't take Stan Lee long to test the waters for bringing back the third of Timely's big three heroes. Captain America made a guest appearance in the Human Torch's solo strip. As it turned out, it wasn't the real Cap, just an acrobat using Cap's identity to get close to a car that he wanted to steal.
The real Captain America finally appeared in Avengers #4 when the Sub-Mariner chanced on some Eskimos worshiping a figure frozen in ice. The Sub-Mariner threw a temper tantrum and tossed the figure into the ocean where it drifted south and began melting. It was found by the Avengers who were hunting the Sub-Mariner. The figure was, of course, Captain America, who had been in suspended animation until the heat of the Avengers' submarine thawed him out.
Cap joined the Avengers and became the leader a couple of years later when the founding members quit. Cap also received a solo strip, sharing Tales of Suspense with Iron Man.
Cap made a guest appearance in an early issue of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. This was also the first real appearance of his side-kick, Bucky. Stan Lee hated side-kicks so Bucky died in the same event that froze Cap.
When Cap first appeared, Iron Man added some gimmicks to his shield so that it returned automatically. He could even control its flight. This only lasted a couple of issues. Cap explained that he threw that stuff out because it ruined the shield's balance.
At first Cap struggled to find a direction. In his first few appearances he fought groups of criminals. This was followed by an origin issue and a return to WWII (complete with Bucky).
The strip returned to the present with Cap realizing that it was the anniversary of the Red Skull's death. Sure enough, some of the Skull's agents activated the Sleepers - three robots that were designed to destroy the world. Obviously, Cap stopped them.
It eventually turned out that the Skull had also been preserved in suspended animation. Just think of the irony if his Sleepers had succeeded in avenging his death when he hadn't actually died.
Cap began running into a SHIELD agent called Agent X who reminded him of his lost love, Peggy Carter. She eventually turned out to be Peggy's sister Sharon.
After Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD was canceled, the whole organization moved in with Cap for a while with Cap taking the unofficial role of special troubleshooter.
At one point Rick Jones became the new Bucky in a few issues done by Jim Steranko. Stan still didn't like teen side-kicks and dropped Rick as soon as he took over the writing again.
The Cosmic Cube began in Captain America. It was created by AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) but the Red Skull managed to get it a couple of times. The second time he used it to exchange bodies with Captain America. Then he watched Cap run from the police and some ex-Nazis who had a grudge against the Skull. Along the way Cap ran into Sam Wilson and convinced him to become a super hero - the Falcon. At first the Falcon was just an acrobat with a trained falcon but later his costume was redesigned so that he could fly.
The book became an official team-up between Cap and the Falcon. Sharon Carter was the unofficial third member of the partnership.
Stan finally left the comic for good. Steve Englehart took over and answered the burning question of who was the Captain America during the 1950s? (Actually, I think that Roy Thomas was the only one who really cared. Thomas spent years working out the exact chronology of who wore the Captain America costume when.) It turned out that the government used a new version of the Super Soldier Serum to create a new Captain America and Bucky during the 1950s. The serum was defective and they became irrational so the government put them in suspended animation until the 1970s.)
Englehart made some significant changes to the characters. At some point Cap's identity as Steve Rogers had become public so he adopted the identity of Roger Stevens and got a job with the NYCPD. He also gained mild super strength (Englehart insisted that he was returning Cap to his original levels).
The most significant event came when Cap and the Falcon foiled an attempt by President Nixon to take over the country. Cap resigned as Captain America and became the Nomad (the 1950s Bucky later took this role). There was a sub-plot with various people attempting to take Rogers's place as Captain America and failing. Eventually Steve Rogers returned to the role.
The Red Skull captured the Falcon and revealed that he was really "Snap Wilson", a petty criminal. The Skull had given Snap a new personality when he had the Cosmic Cube. Honestly, I'm not sure how this was resolved.
Jack Kirby returned to Marvel and took over Captain America as writer/artist. The Falcon was dropped along with the Snap Wilson plotline. Sharon Carter vanished (even though she was a Kirby creation) and Cap's strength returned to normal. Kirby didn't stay long.
In the late 1970s, writers were figuring out what made Captain America unique. In the Avengers, Jim Shooter defined him as the hero who would never give up. Other writers added that he was the one man who would fight for dreams. By the early 1980s, Cap had changed from an acrobat wrapped in a flag to a real symbol.
After a stint with writer J. M. Dematties which I didn't care for, Cap came into his own. Publication was increased from monthly to fifteen issues per year with biweekly issues during the Summer. This was a very productive time with writer Mark Gruenwald writing the comic from 1985-1995. DeMatties had killed off the Red Skull but Gruenwald brought him back in a body cloned from Steve Rogers. He also invented Crossbones, the Skull's principle agent (get it: Skull and Crossbones?).
Sharon Carter disappeared and was presumed dead so Cap began a relationship with Diamondback, a reformed criminal.
In one of the Summer story arches, some drugs bonded with Cap's blood, making him perpetually angry. The only cure was a complete blood transfusion. This meant that Cap tied at a normal rate.
In one plot that now seems trite, someone in the White House discovered that the government owned the trademark to "Captain America". They informed Cap that he would be answerable to them. Instead he resigned and began calling himself "The Captain" and carrying a silver shield provided by Tony Stark. A new Captain America was recruited. Eventually President Reagan found out what was going on and ordered the Captain America identity be returned to Steve Rogers. (In an issue of the Avengers, an alien erased all knowledge of Captain America's secret identity.)
Cap also lost his shield for a while. It dropped into the Atlantic.
Eventually his Super Soldier enhancements began to break down and Cap started to die. Tony Stark provided a version of his Iron Man armor to provide life support but Cap eventually died.
He got over it, of course and was reunited with Sharon Carter who was peeved that he forgot all about her for a decade. They fought the Red Skull who had gotten the Cosmic Cube for the third time.
This incarnation lasted five or six years before Cap died again. This time he was blown up. He returned, of course.
Marvel's cross-continuity event, the Civil War, starred Captain America as the leader of the forces that resisted registering with the government. At the end of the war he was killed again, this time by a brainwashed Sharon Carter.
For decades there were only a few constants in the Marvel Universe. The biggest one was that Bucky died. That was finally reversed. It turned out that he was saved by the USSR, given cyborg parts, and kept frozen until they needed him to kill someone. He became the new Captain America.
Steve Rogers was brought to life, yet again and currently heads SHIELD.
The Silver Age of comics is usually defined as beginning when the Flash was created as a new character but inspired by the Golden Age version. He was followed by Green Lantern and some others. All of these were published by DC but Timely Comics decided to follow DC's lead. At the same time they changed their name to Marvel Comics.
Marvel's first creation, the Fantastic Four, included a Silver Age version of the Human Torch. By the third issue of the FF, the Sub-Mariner had been introduced but, in this case, it was the original character instead of a new version.
It didn't take Stan Lee long to test the waters for bringing back the third of Timely's big three heroes. Captain America made a guest appearance in the Human Torch's solo strip. As it turned out, it wasn't the real Cap, just an acrobat using Cap's identity to get close to a car that he wanted to steal.
The real Captain America finally appeared in Avengers #4 when the Sub-Mariner chanced on some Eskimos worshiping a figure frozen in ice. The Sub-Mariner threw a temper tantrum and tossed the figure into the ocean where it drifted south and began melting. It was found by the Avengers who were hunting the Sub-Mariner. The figure was, of course, Captain America, who had been in suspended animation until the heat of the Avengers' submarine thawed him out.
Cap joined the Avengers and became the leader a couple of years later when the founding members quit. Cap also received a solo strip, sharing Tales of Suspense with Iron Man.
Cap made a guest appearance in an early issue of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. This was also the first real appearance of his side-kick, Bucky. Stan Lee hated side-kicks so Bucky died in the same event that froze Cap.
When Cap first appeared, Iron Man added some gimmicks to his shield so that it returned automatically. He could even control its flight. This only lasted a couple of issues. Cap explained that he threw that stuff out because it ruined the shield's balance.
At first Cap struggled to find a direction. In his first few appearances he fought groups of criminals. This was followed by an origin issue and a return to WWII (complete with Bucky).
The strip returned to the present with Cap realizing that it was the anniversary of the Red Skull's death. Sure enough, some of the Skull's agents activated the Sleepers - three robots that were designed to destroy the world. Obviously, Cap stopped them.
It eventually turned out that the Skull had also been preserved in suspended animation. Just think of the irony if his Sleepers had succeeded in avenging his death when he hadn't actually died.
Cap began running into a SHIELD agent called Agent X who reminded him of his lost love, Peggy Carter. She eventually turned out to be Peggy's sister Sharon.
After Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD was canceled, the whole organization moved in with Cap for a while with Cap taking the unofficial role of special troubleshooter.
At one point Rick Jones became the new Bucky in a few issues done by Jim Steranko. Stan still didn't like teen side-kicks and dropped Rick as soon as he took over the writing again.
The Cosmic Cube began in Captain America. It was created by AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) but the Red Skull managed to get it a couple of times. The second time he used it to exchange bodies with Captain America. Then he watched Cap run from the police and some ex-Nazis who had a grudge against the Skull. Along the way Cap ran into Sam Wilson and convinced him to become a super hero - the Falcon. At first the Falcon was just an acrobat with a trained falcon but later his costume was redesigned so that he could fly.
The book became an official team-up between Cap and the Falcon. Sharon Carter was the unofficial third member of the partnership.
Stan finally left the comic for good. Steve Englehart took over and answered the burning question of who was the Captain America during the 1950s? (Actually, I think that Roy Thomas was the only one who really cared. Thomas spent years working out the exact chronology of who wore the Captain America costume when.) It turned out that the government used a new version of the Super Soldier Serum to create a new Captain America and Bucky during the 1950s. The serum was defective and they became irrational so the government put them in suspended animation until the 1970s.)
Englehart made some significant changes to the characters. At some point Cap's identity as Steve Rogers had become public so he adopted the identity of Roger Stevens and got a job with the NYCPD. He also gained mild super strength (Englehart insisted that he was returning Cap to his original levels).
The most significant event came when Cap and the Falcon foiled an attempt by President Nixon to take over the country. Cap resigned as Captain America and became the Nomad (the 1950s Bucky later took this role). There was a sub-plot with various people attempting to take Rogers's place as Captain America and failing. Eventually Steve Rogers returned to the role.
The Red Skull captured the Falcon and revealed that he was really "Snap Wilson", a petty criminal. The Skull had given Snap a new personality when he had the Cosmic Cube. Honestly, I'm not sure how this was resolved.
Jack Kirby returned to Marvel and took over Captain America as writer/artist. The Falcon was dropped along with the Snap Wilson plotline. Sharon Carter vanished (even though she was a Kirby creation) and Cap's strength returned to normal. Kirby didn't stay long.
In the late 1970s, writers were figuring out what made Captain America unique. In the Avengers, Jim Shooter defined him as the hero who would never give up. Other writers added that he was the one man who would fight for dreams. By the early 1980s, Cap had changed from an acrobat wrapped in a flag to a real symbol.
After a stint with writer J. M. Dematties which I didn't care for, Cap came into his own. Publication was increased from monthly to fifteen issues per year with biweekly issues during the Summer. This was a very productive time with writer Mark Gruenwald writing the comic from 1985-1995. DeMatties had killed off the Red Skull but Gruenwald brought him back in a body cloned from Steve Rogers. He also invented Crossbones, the Skull's principle agent (get it: Skull and Crossbones?).
Sharon Carter disappeared and was presumed dead so Cap began a relationship with Diamondback, a reformed criminal.
In one of the Summer story arches, some drugs bonded with Cap's blood, making him perpetually angry. The only cure was a complete blood transfusion. This meant that Cap tied at a normal rate.
In one plot that now seems trite, someone in the White House discovered that the government owned the trademark to "Captain America". They informed Cap that he would be answerable to them. Instead he resigned and began calling himself "The Captain" and carrying a silver shield provided by Tony Stark. A new Captain America was recruited. Eventually President Reagan found out what was going on and ordered the Captain America identity be returned to Steve Rogers. (In an issue of the Avengers, an alien erased all knowledge of Captain America's secret identity.)
Cap also lost his shield for a while. It dropped into the Atlantic.
Eventually his Super Soldier enhancements began to break down and Cap started to die. Tony Stark provided a version of his Iron Man armor to provide life support but Cap eventually died.
He got over it, of course and was reunited with Sharon Carter who was peeved that he forgot all about her for a decade. They fought the Red Skull who had gotten the Cosmic Cube for the third time.
This incarnation lasted five or six years before Cap died again. This time he was blown up. He returned, of course.
Marvel's cross-continuity event, the Civil War, starred Captain America as the leader of the forces that resisted registering with the government. At the end of the war he was killed again, this time by a brainwashed Sharon Carter.
For decades there were only a few constants in the Marvel Universe. The biggest one was that Bucky died. That was finally reversed. It turned out that he was saved by the USSR, given cyborg parts, and kept frozen until they needed him to kill someone. He became the new Captain America.
Steve Rogers was brought to life, yet again and currently heads SHIELD.
Friday, July 15, 2011
EReaders & the Future
I saw a column on ZDNEWS (which has since scrolled off) predicting that ebook readers (ereaders) may be available this year for Christmas but they will be gone by next year, displaced by tablets. I don't think so.
Tablets have a lot to offer readers. They have a larger, back-lit, color screen and they are not tied to any particular seller. I have read several books on an Android tablet.
But, tablets also have significant drawbacks. They are heavy, they don't work well in bright light, and, most important, they have limited battery life. After using my tablet for several hours to keep up on email and Facebook and for light browsing, by the end of the evening I had to make a choice - do some reading or charge my tablet. Even if your tablet gets ten hours of life, that will not last two evenings.
I suppose that I could use it with the charger plugged in. Or I could leave it plugged in overnight. I don't do that because I worry about shortening battery life by overcharging it. My phone loses some of its charge if it is plugged in too long so I expect my tablet to do that also.
So, neither device has a clear advantage over the other. Instead there are a series of trade-offs.
What really made me decide on getting an ereader was an upcoming vacation. We will have limited access to power and I expect to be reading outside part of the time. Those are conditions that really favor an ereader.
Since getting one I find that I appreciate the weight difference a lot. I like the look of the page on the tablet but the ease of handling is a bigger factor than I expected.
Another factor is price. Just a year and a half ago ereaders cost a few hundred dollars. Now you can get a Kindle, Nook or Kobo for less than $150. That's not quite an impulse purchase but it is cheap enough that you do not have to choose between a tablet and an ereader. You can get both.
And that is the biggest reason why dedicated devices will continue. It is the same reason that people are still buying iPods. They are cheap and convenient enough to justify on their own.
Tablets have a lot to offer readers. They have a larger, back-lit, color screen and they are not tied to any particular seller. I have read several books on an Android tablet.
But, tablets also have significant drawbacks. They are heavy, they don't work well in bright light, and, most important, they have limited battery life. After using my tablet for several hours to keep up on email and Facebook and for light browsing, by the end of the evening I had to make a choice - do some reading or charge my tablet. Even if your tablet gets ten hours of life, that will not last two evenings.
I suppose that I could use it with the charger plugged in. Or I could leave it plugged in overnight. I don't do that because I worry about shortening battery life by overcharging it. My phone loses some of its charge if it is plugged in too long so I expect my tablet to do that also.
So, neither device has a clear advantage over the other. Instead there are a series of trade-offs.
What really made me decide on getting an ereader was an upcoming vacation. We will have limited access to power and I expect to be reading outside part of the time. Those are conditions that really favor an ereader.
Since getting one I find that I appreciate the weight difference a lot. I like the look of the page on the tablet but the ease of handling is a bigger factor than I expected.
Another factor is price. Just a year and a half ago ereaders cost a few hundred dollars. Now you can get a Kindle, Nook or Kobo for less than $150. That's not quite an impulse purchase but it is cheap enough that you do not have to choose between a tablet and an ereader. You can get both.
And that is the biggest reason why dedicated devices will continue. It is the same reason that people are still buying iPods. They are cheap and convenient enough to justify on their own.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
More on Phone Spam
Yesterday I wrote about AirPush, an Android add-on that allows applications to send spam to the notification bar, even when you are not using the affected app. I consider this to be the worst kind of spam.
Someone commented on my post pointing out that AirPush has an opt-out function. So, does that absolve them?
Hell no. It would if the ads included a link to the opt-out. They do not. In fact, there is no clue to where they come from. It took me a few tries with Google to figure it out and I'm a lot better at this than most people.
Without a notification you first have to figure out that AirPush is to blame then you have to do further research to find out that there is an opt-out. If you go to their web site you have to enter as a developer and check the FAQs. That's a lot of digging.
I double-checked the app that carried AirPush. It actually includes three different products that push ads. It has a detailed explanation of why it needs different permissions but it never comes out and says that you will get spam notifications or that you can opt-out. Further, all of that was changed since I installed the app last year. A more ethical developer would have included the changes to the advertizing policy at the top along with instruction on how to opt out.
To summarize, there is a way to opt-out but no one volunteers it. You have to dig to find it. That is as bad as not offering an opt-out.
If AirPush wants to be ethical then their contract should require that the developer make it clear that spam will be delivered and how to opt out. Without that they are just another shady operation that should be shut down by Google.
Someone commented on my post pointing out that AirPush has an opt-out function. So, does that absolve them?
Hell no. It would if the ads included a link to the opt-out. They do not. In fact, there is no clue to where they come from. It took me a few tries with Google to figure it out and I'm a lot better at this than most people.
Without a notification you first have to figure out that AirPush is to blame then you have to do further research to find out that there is an opt-out. If you go to their web site you have to enter as a developer and check the FAQs. That's a lot of digging.
I double-checked the app that carried AirPush. It actually includes three different products that push ads. It has a detailed explanation of why it needs different permissions but it never comes out and says that you will get spam notifications or that you can opt-out. Further, all of that was changed since I installed the app last year. A more ethical developer would have included the changes to the advertizing policy at the top along with instruction on how to opt out.
To summarize, there is a way to opt-out but no one volunteers it. You have to dig to find it. That is as bad as not offering an opt-out.
If AirPush wants to be ethical then their contract should require that the developer make it clear that spam will be delivered and how to opt out. Without that they are just another shady operation that should be shut down by Google.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Phone spam
What would you think if you installed a program on your PC and once or twice a day it popped up an ad, even if the program wasn't running? There are several possible terms, none of them complimentary.
That is what started happening with my phone several days ago. Once or twice a day I would see a star in the notification bar with a link to a questionable site. My first thought was that I had installed a new program that caused this. I tried uninstalling my most recent programs but that did not work. I also did a virus check of my phone but that didn't find anything, either.
Eventually I tracked it down thanks to some Googling and message boards. It turns out that there is a new player in the Android marketplace called AirPush. They make an add-on. A developer adds this to an existing app and it starts delivering ads. AirPush says that it can substantially increase a developer's income. That is because it separates the ad from the app so ads are delivered even when the app is not being used.
Now, I don't have any problem with a free app displaying an ad at the bottom when I use it. I figure that is no different from ads on broadcast TV. But, I really object when the ads appear when I am not using the app. This would be like having my TV turn itself on and showing an ad at random times.
Fortunately someone wrote a free app called AirPush Detector. This identifies any installed apps that use AirPush. With the help of that I determined that BloggerDroid was the culprit and removed it. It was a small loss - I installed it a year ago and only used it a few times.
BloggerDroid did not include AirPush when I installed it. That was added later and pushed out as an update. This is pretty sneaky since in made it nearly impossible to identify the offending app without AirPush Detector.
Until now I have strongly preferred Android over Apple because I don't like giving so much control of my technology over to as capricious a company as Apple. This may make me rethink my position. I don't like giving control of my phone over to Steve Jobs but I like AirPush even less.
With luck Google will come out with a policy forbidding this. If not, I can get a new phone next year.
That is what started happening with my phone several days ago. Once or twice a day I would see a star in the notification bar with a link to a questionable site. My first thought was that I had installed a new program that caused this. I tried uninstalling my most recent programs but that did not work. I also did a virus check of my phone but that didn't find anything, either.
Eventually I tracked it down thanks to some Googling and message boards. It turns out that there is a new player in the Android marketplace called AirPush. They make an add-on. A developer adds this to an existing app and it starts delivering ads. AirPush says that it can substantially increase a developer's income. That is because it separates the ad from the app so ads are delivered even when the app is not being used.
Now, I don't have any problem with a free app displaying an ad at the bottom when I use it. I figure that is no different from ads on broadcast TV. But, I really object when the ads appear when I am not using the app. This would be like having my TV turn itself on and showing an ad at random times.
Fortunately someone wrote a free app called AirPush Detector. This identifies any installed apps that use AirPush. With the help of that I determined that BloggerDroid was the culprit and removed it. It was a small loss - I installed it a year ago and only used it a few times.
BloggerDroid did not include AirPush when I installed it. That was added later and pushed out as an update. This is pretty sneaky since in made it nearly impossible to identify the offending app without AirPush Detector.
Until now I have strongly preferred Android over Apple because I don't like giving so much control of my technology over to as capricious a company as Apple. This may make me rethink my position. I don't like giving control of my phone over to Steve Jobs but I like AirPush even less.
With luck Google will come out with a policy forbidding this. If not, I can get a new phone next year.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Alphas
Syfy has a new superhero show - Alphas.
The concept mixes elements of the X-Men, Heroes, and No Ordinary Family. You have "Alphas", people born with special abilities. Some of these have been gathered into a team to investigate special crimes. In the pilot, the crime being investigated involved other alphas and that may be the direction the show takes.
The Alphas themselves might as well be called mutants. They are born with special abilities although not on the level of the other shows. Also, many of the abilities have a built-in downside. The guy with super strength can only turn it on for a few minutes before harming himself. When the woman with super senses concentrates on one sense, she shuts down the others. In addition, they have some normal human failings. The strong guy is a former FBI agent and treats the others as amateurs.The hypnotist has few morals. The guy who can see the electromagnetic spectrum has all sorts of issues.
Not surprisingly, the leader of this group is a psychiatrist. Part of his pitch for new recruits is that he can help them adjust to the problems that come with their abilities.
There are a few problems with the science, especially with the guy who sees broadcasts but it is easy to ignore these and just go with it.
The show follows Eureka and Warehouse 13 but it has a much harder edge than either of those shows.
The concept mixes elements of the X-Men, Heroes, and No Ordinary Family. You have "Alphas", people born with special abilities. Some of these have been gathered into a team to investigate special crimes. In the pilot, the crime being investigated involved other alphas and that may be the direction the show takes.
The Alphas themselves might as well be called mutants. They are born with special abilities although not on the level of the other shows. Also, many of the abilities have a built-in downside. The guy with super strength can only turn it on for a few minutes before harming himself. When the woman with super senses concentrates on one sense, she shuts down the others. In addition, they have some normal human failings. The strong guy is a former FBI agent and treats the others as amateurs.The hypnotist has few morals. The guy who can see the electromagnetic spectrum has all sorts of issues.
Not surprisingly, the leader of this group is a psychiatrist. Part of his pitch for new recruits is that he can help them adjust to the problems that come with their abilities.
There are a few problems with the science, especially with the guy who sees broadcasts but it is easy to ignore these and just go with it.
The show follows Eureka and Warehouse 13 but it has a much harder edge than either of those shows.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Nooking it up
I find that reading books on my tablet is easier than carrying a book around with me. The main problems are that the tablet is still a little large and heavy and the battery life. With a vacation coming up in a situation where I might have trouble charging, I decided that a dedicated reader might be a good idea.
At the same time, my wife decided to try a reader.
We went with different models of the Nook. I went for the new touch-screen version. It is small, light, and has great battery life. My wife wanted something that was lit instead of depending on ambient light so she got a Nook color. This is a stripped-down tablet.
We went with these because, at this time, Amazon does not have a Kindle to match either unit.
I found my Nook to be exactly what I expected. It is light-weight and still fairly easy to read although not as easy as my tablet. I charged it, loaded it with some books, and was off.
My wife's experience is not quite as good. She has never gotten along well with touch screen and we haven't finished configuring everything on her tablet.
I can say that the Nook Color seems fairly responsive even though it uses an older and slower chip than others. It is surprisingly light-weight and it is able to play video files, at least the ones provided by Barnes and Noble.
One of the selling points to me was the existence of a program that stripes books from Amazon of their DRM (Digital Rights Management). I tried this Sunday to be sure that it works. Keep in mind that I am only using this to load books that I purchased on alternate devices.
Surprise. On Monday, Amazon sent an update to the Kindle for PC program that stopped the program from stripping the DRM. Fortunately I had an easy fix - remove the updated program and re-install the earlier version. I also turned off the auto-update setting.
Even with this, it is complicated moving a book from Kindle to Nook. First I have to download the book onto my PC. Then I have to copy it to a different directory and use a command-line function to remove the DRM. Then I use a program called Caliber to reformat the book in EPub. Finally, I copy this to my Nook. The whole process requires three programs and four directories. This is a strong incentive to make future purchases from Barnes and Noble instead of Amazon.
At the same time, my wife decided to try a reader.
We went with different models of the Nook. I went for the new touch-screen version. It is small, light, and has great battery life. My wife wanted something that was lit instead of depending on ambient light so she got a Nook color. This is a stripped-down tablet.
We went with these because, at this time, Amazon does not have a Kindle to match either unit.
I found my Nook to be exactly what I expected. It is light-weight and still fairly easy to read although not as easy as my tablet. I charged it, loaded it with some books, and was off.
My wife's experience is not quite as good. She has never gotten along well with touch screen and we haven't finished configuring everything on her tablet.
I can say that the Nook Color seems fairly responsive even though it uses an older and slower chip than others. It is surprisingly light-weight and it is able to play video files, at least the ones provided by Barnes and Noble.
One of the selling points to me was the existence of a program that stripes books from Amazon of their DRM (Digital Rights Management). I tried this Sunday to be sure that it works. Keep in mind that I am only using this to load books that I purchased on alternate devices.
Surprise. On Monday, Amazon sent an update to the Kindle for PC program that stopped the program from stripping the DRM. Fortunately I had an easy fix - remove the updated program and re-install the earlier version. I also turned off the auto-update setting.
Even with this, it is complicated moving a book from Kindle to Nook. First I have to download the book onto my PC. Then I have to copy it to a different directory and use a command-line function to remove the DRM. Then I use a program called Caliber to reformat the book in EPub. Finally, I copy this to my Nook. The whole process requires three programs and four directories. This is a strong incentive to make future purchases from Barnes and Noble instead of Amazon.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Horror Night on TV
When I was young the big thing on Friday night was Double Chiller Theater. One of the local TV stations would show two horror movies starting at 11:30 Friday night. Later a Cleveland station started their own horror movies on Saturday. This was so successful that they expanded to Friday. They also had a colorful host called the Ghoul. He wore a bad wig, sun glasses with one lens punched out, a fake mustache and goatee and a lab jacket. I always suspected that he did the show drunk. His movies were usually bad and he livened them up by adding sound clips.
Those days ended a long time ago but cable channel TCM has been showing horror movies on Thursday night. Last week they included the Village of Giants (which had a surprisingly good cast). This week they are starting with The Blob.
I wish they did this on the weekend but it makes Thursday more fun.
Those days ended a long time ago but cable channel TCM has been showing horror movies on Thursday night. Last week they included the Village of Giants (which had a surprisingly good cast). This week they are starting with The Blob.
I wish they did this on the weekend but it makes Thursday more fun.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Tablet Wars
ZDNews has a couple of columns on tablets. Their conclusion is that Apple owns the market and that no one can catch up. The only thing left is to fight to be a distant number two, fighting for a tiny market of people who do not like Apple. Is this a valid assessment? I don't think so. We've been here before with the iPhone.
Remember how young this market is. The iPad started shipping less than fifteen months ago. That gives Apple a big head start but not an insurmountable one.
Fifteen months after the iPhone was released Apple had no competition at all. The first touch-screen competitors like the Blackberry Storm were unimpressive. Even the Android phones released before 2.1 had serious problems. At that point the release cycle was so fast that some phones were outdated by the time they hit the shelves. Despite that, more Android phones are sold than iPhones.
Yes, Apple has advantages. They have a head start, a big app store, and low production costs. They are also tied to one form factor. The head start will become less important over time. Android's app store is smaller but growing. It is also more open. People who want adult content on their device will have to go to Android or settle for a browser-based experience. Besides, just how many fart applications do you need?
The basis of Apple's low production costs is coming under fire. A plant in China makes all of their hardware and working conditions there do not meet American standards.
The forms factor is Apple's biggest weakness. Many companies think that a 7" screen is desirable. It is lighter and easier to carry and it can be sold for less. Also, most tablets are more open. You can plug in a memory chip or possibly a camera.
The iPad has one advantage over the iPhone. Originally you were locked into AT&T if you wanted an iPhone. That gave Verizon and Sprint an incentive to push their own hardware. Base models of the iPad do not need a wireless contract so there are no big wireless retailers pushing alternatives (although some tablets have data plans).
Come back in a year and see how the market has shaped up. I expect that Apple will still be the leader but will have some worthy competition.
Remember how young this market is. The iPad started shipping less than fifteen months ago. That gives Apple a big head start but not an insurmountable one.
Fifteen months after the iPhone was released Apple had no competition at all. The first touch-screen competitors like the Blackberry Storm were unimpressive. Even the Android phones released before 2.1 had serious problems. At that point the release cycle was so fast that some phones were outdated by the time they hit the shelves. Despite that, more Android phones are sold than iPhones.
Yes, Apple has advantages. They have a head start, a big app store, and low production costs. They are also tied to one form factor. The head start will become less important over time. Android's app store is smaller but growing. It is also more open. People who want adult content on their device will have to go to Android or settle for a browser-based experience. Besides, just how many fart applications do you need?
The basis of Apple's low production costs is coming under fire. A plant in China makes all of their hardware and working conditions there do not meet American standards.
The forms factor is Apple's biggest weakness. Many companies think that a 7" screen is desirable. It is lighter and easier to carry and it can be sold for less. Also, most tablets are more open. You can plug in a memory chip or possibly a camera.
The iPad has one advantage over the iPhone. Originally you were locked into AT&T if you wanted an iPhone. That gave Verizon and Sprint an incentive to push their own hardware. Base models of the iPad do not need a wireless contract so there are no big wireless retailers pushing alternatives (although some tablets have data plans).
Come back in a year and see how the market has shaped up. I expect that Apple will still be the leader but will have some worthy competition.
Monday, June 13, 2011
X-Men First Class - Quibbles and Complaints
First off, X-Men First Class is a much better movie than X-Men 3 was and possibly better than the original X-Men movie. That said, it does have some problems.
The first problem is its length. It is a long movie and I kept wanting them to get on with things. It was probably too ambitious. It included full back stories on Magneto, Professor X, Mystique, and the founding of the team plus a major sub-plot on the Beast and mutant acceptance in general. And that doesn't even include Sebastian Shaw and his plans. That's a lot to cram into a single movie.
The second problem is that they already used all of the A-list mutants and a lot of the B-list ones. The few A-list mutants who do appear have already been in the other movies, played by older actors.
On to quibbles.
I didn't like the casting on Beast at all. The original character was drawn to look almost like a Neanderthal. He had huge hands and feet that let him find a grip on almost anything. He was also fairly strong and able to bounce around. The movie's version is tall and thin with prehensile feet. There is only one quick training scene that hints that he has other abilities besides ugly feet.
The movie is set in 1962 but most of the 60s references are from later in the decade. Professor X uses the word "groovy". The women are wearing miniskirts. Not only did miniskirts come later but no CIA agent would wear one to a debriefing. The women's underwear is wrong. The did remember to use garter belts instead of pantyhose but Moira MacTaggert should have been wearing "granny panties" and a girdle instead of sexy bikini briefs.
There was a major spy craze during the 60s and elements of the movie are drawn from that. Shaw's submarine and nightclub booth that hides a secret entrance to the villain's lair are examples. But, the spy craze was inspired by the James Bond movie, Goldfinger which came out in 1964.
The first problem is its length. It is a long movie and I kept wanting them to get on with things. It was probably too ambitious. It included full back stories on Magneto, Professor X, Mystique, and the founding of the team plus a major sub-plot on the Beast and mutant acceptance in general. And that doesn't even include Sebastian Shaw and his plans. That's a lot to cram into a single movie.
The second problem is that they already used all of the A-list mutants and a lot of the B-list ones. The few A-list mutants who do appear have already been in the other movies, played by older actors.
On to quibbles.
I didn't like the casting on Beast at all. The original character was drawn to look almost like a Neanderthal. He had huge hands and feet that let him find a grip on almost anything. He was also fairly strong and able to bounce around. The movie's version is tall and thin with prehensile feet. There is only one quick training scene that hints that he has other abilities besides ugly feet.
The movie is set in 1962 but most of the 60s references are from later in the decade. Professor X uses the word "groovy". The women are wearing miniskirts. Not only did miniskirts come later but no CIA agent would wear one to a debriefing. The women's underwear is wrong. The did remember to use garter belts instead of pantyhose but Moira MacTaggert should have been wearing "granny panties" and a girdle instead of sexy bikini briefs.
There was a major spy craze during the 60s and elements of the movie are drawn from that. Shaw's submarine and nightclub booth that hides a secret entrance to the villain's lair are examples. But, the spy craze was inspired by the James Bond movie, Goldfinger which came out in 1964.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Green Lantern
I never really got the character in the 1960s. He created big balloon hands and other objects out of his ring. And the whole yellow thing. His ring was powerless against anything colored yellow. How does that work? Yellow is a primary color. Green includes yellow. Just how yellow does something have to be? What about in the dark? Could he carry some spray paint around to neutralize yellow?
I did get excited about the comic when Denny O'Neil and Niel Adams took over and teamed GL with Green Arrow. Green Arrow was a second-rate hero at best. He was a rich guy who dressed up in green and fought crime with trick arrows. Hawkeye did the same thing but with more flair. Green Arrow was mainly chosen because both characters had "green" in their name.
For the team-up, they reworked Green Arrow. He lost his money, grew a beard and mustache and adopted a darker colored costume. He moved into the ghetto and developed a social conscience.
Green Arrow mainly acted as Jiminy Cricket to Green Lantern.
The team-up began when people in a ghetto started throwing trash at Green Lantern. An old black man explained that GL had been doing a lot for blue-skinned folks, some red skins and some green skins but not enough for the black skins.
Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and one of the Guardians of Oa who created the Green Lantern Corps went on a tour of America. Many of the stories were over the top in their social commentary but they were head and shoulders better than most comics of the times. Plus there was Neil Adams' artwork.
Spider-Man was the first comic to really tackle drugs with a trio of issues revolving around his roommate's drug addiction. The Comics Code was rewritten because of this and drug use was allowed for anti-drug stories. The Green Lantern/Green Arrow version was to show that Green Arrow's teen age sidekick was addicted to heroin. It was a powerful story.
Relevance did not equal sales. The comic was canceled. The last issue featured an early eco-saboteur who was crucified along with GL and GA on the tail sections of some airplanes.
The pair resurfaced a few years later as a backup strip then in their own comic. They split up and the book went back to being Green Lantern.
Then it got complicated.
There was a craze in the 1980s to replace the title character. Green Lantern was one of the first in this trend. Hal Jordan, the original Green Lantern was replaced by two Earthlings and eventually a small cadre of Green Lanterns. During this period the comic was renamed Green Lantern Corps.
Hal Jordan eventually took over the staring role only to run into the end of the replacement hero trend. Superman died and his syborg replacement was actually evil. The evil Superman blew up Green Lantern's home city. This drove Hal Jordan crazy and he decided to turn time back to the original event then roll it forward again so that Central City survived.
Along the way the Green Lanterns were eliminated except for a single new Lantern named Kyle Rayner who eventually killed Hal Jordan. As penance, Hal became the Specter for a while before returning to life as Green Lantern.
The only times I really followed the strip were during the O'Neil/Adams run and during the Green Lantern Corps. I think I bought one or two of the Kyle Rayner issues.
The only Green Lantern appearances that I really liked were the ones in the animated Justice League. That had John Stewart, one of the replacement GLs. Presumably they chose Stewart because his character is black. Regardless, he was one of the more interesting character. The animators did a great job of showing glowing green energy when he used his ring.
I did get excited about the comic when Denny O'Neil and Niel Adams took over and teamed GL with Green Arrow. Green Arrow was a second-rate hero at best. He was a rich guy who dressed up in green and fought crime with trick arrows. Hawkeye did the same thing but with more flair. Green Arrow was mainly chosen because both characters had "green" in their name.
For the team-up, they reworked Green Arrow. He lost his money, grew a beard and mustache and adopted a darker colored costume. He moved into the ghetto and developed a social conscience.
Green Arrow mainly acted as Jiminy Cricket to Green Lantern.
The team-up began when people in a ghetto started throwing trash at Green Lantern. An old black man explained that GL had been doing a lot for blue-skinned folks, some red skins and some green skins but not enough for the black skins.
Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and one of the Guardians of Oa who created the Green Lantern Corps went on a tour of America. Many of the stories were over the top in their social commentary but they were head and shoulders better than most comics of the times. Plus there was Neil Adams' artwork.
Spider-Man was the first comic to really tackle drugs with a trio of issues revolving around his roommate's drug addiction. The Comics Code was rewritten because of this and drug use was allowed for anti-drug stories. The Green Lantern/Green Arrow version was to show that Green Arrow's teen age sidekick was addicted to heroin. It was a powerful story.
Relevance did not equal sales. The comic was canceled. The last issue featured an early eco-saboteur who was crucified along with GL and GA on the tail sections of some airplanes.
The pair resurfaced a few years later as a backup strip then in their own comic. They split up and the book went back to being Green Lantern.
Then it got complicated.
There was a craze in the 1980s to replace the title character. Green Lantern was one of the first in this trend. Hal Jordan, the original Green Lantern was replaced by two Earthlings and eventually a small cadre of Green Lanterns. During this period the comic was renamed Green Lantern Corps.
Hal Jordan eventually took over the staring role only to run into the end of the replacement hero trend. Superman died and his syborg replacement was actually evil. The evil Superman blew up Green Lantern's home city. This drove Hal Jordan crazy and he decided to turn time back to the original event then roll it forward again so that Central City survived.
Along the way the Green Lanterns were eliminated except for a single new Lantern named Kyle Rayner who eventually killed Hal Jordan. As penance, Hal became the Specter for a while before returning to life as Green Lantern.
The only times I really followed the strip were during the O'Neil/Adams run and during the Green Lantern Corps. I think I bought one or two of the Kyle Rayner issues.
The only Green Lantern appearances that I really liked were the ones in the animated Justice League. That had John Stewart, one of the replacement GLs. Presumably they chose Stewart because his character is black. Regardless, he was one of the more interesting character. The animators did a great job of showing glowing green energy when he used his ring.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Steampunk Conventions
I'm not an expert, I've only been to two but I can make some observations on steampunk conventions.
First as an aside I will define steampunk. My definition is science fiction as it might have been conceived by Victorians. Steampunk appears independently in different media. In literature it started as dystopian views of a parallel world with steam-powered mechanical computers. More recently examples are considerably lighter and are set in a parallel world where scientific advances and/or magic exist. There are also people who make steampunk devices - computers with lots of brass and typewriter keys. Steampunk fashion is sort of an offshoot from goth with lots more color plus goggles. Steampunk music still defies definition.
So, what does a steampunk convention consist of? A normal science fiction convention has guest writers and media stars and panels who talk about trends in the field. People dress up as characters from comic books and movies. None of that happens at steampunk conventions.
The biggest thing is giving people a chance to dress up and show off. There are no steampunk movies to emulate (there are movies with steampunk elements but no one copies them). Everyone creates their own styles. Most of it is based on Victorian or military styles but you also have belly dancers and Utilikilts mixed in. There are lots of top hats and nearly everyone has goggles, most of them non-functional).
The most creative people have made accessories - brass jet packs with folding wings or powered gauntlets. Nerf guns are easily converted into formidable-looking weapons.
Panels tend to be on how to do things: how to make costumes, where to find raw materials, etc. Other topics usually cover background knowledge like Victorian industrial design or the history of airships.
Vendors mainly sell clothing. There are no reproduction light sabers or clever T-shirts. Instead you find corsets, hats, jewelry, and gears. Plus goggles.
So far, steampunk music is undefined. I have seen maybe a dozen acts an none of them are remotely similar. The biggest name, Abney Park, came from a goth-industrial background. Others play world music or traditional 19th century music with some sort of a twist. One band played outright headbanger music but sang about Tesla coils. The only similarity was how the bands were dressed. To hats, corsets, and kilts are common.
I suspect that over time more tv shows and movies will include steampunk elements and people will begin copying them instead of inventing their own characters and the genre will become less creative but in the meantime it is nice to see hundreds of people come together to celebrate creativity instead of fandom.
Goggles are the defining trait of steampunk. Engineers need them so everyone wears them, presumably to protect the eyes when running the steam machinery that powers the convention. Some people have attached extra lenses to their goggles.
First as an aside I will define steampunk. My definition is science fiction as it might have been conceived by Victorians. Steampunk appears independently in different media. In literature it started as dystopian views of a parallel world with steam-powered mechanical computers. More recently examples are considerably lighter and are set in a parallel world where scientific advances and/or magic exist. There are also people who make steampunk devices - computers with lots of brass and typewriter keys. Steampunk fashion is sort of an offshoot from goth with lots more color plus goggles. Steampunk music still defies definition.
So, what does a steampunk convention consist of? A normal science fiction convention has guest writers and media stars and panels who talk about trends in the field. People dress up as characters from comic books and movies. None of that happens at steampunk conventions.
The biggest thing is giving people a chance to dress up and show off. There are no steampunk movies to emulate (there are movies with steampunk elements but no one copies them). Everyone creates their own styles. Most of it is based on Victorian or military styles but you also have belly dancers and Utilikilts mixed in. There are lots of top hats and nearly everyone has goggles, most of them non-functional).
The most creative people have made accessories - brass jet packs with folding wings or powered gauntlets. Nerf guns are easily converted into formidable-looking weapons.
Panels tend to be on how to do things: how to make costumes, where to find raw materials, etc. Other topics usually cover background knowledge like Victorian industrial design or the history of airships.
Vendors mainly sell clothing. There are no reproduction light sabers or clever T-shirts. Instead you find corsets, hats, jewelry, and gears. Plus goggles.
So far, steampunk music is undefined. I have seen maybe a dozen acts an none of them are remotely similar. The biggest name, Abney Park, came from a goth-industrial background. Others play world music or traditional 19th century music with some sort of a twist. One band played outright headbanger music but sang about Tesla coils. The only similarity was how the bands were dressed. To hats, corsets, and kilts are common.
I suspect that over time more tv shows and movies will include steampunk elements and people will begin copying them instead of inventing their own characters and the genre will become less creative but in the meantime it is nice to see hundreds of people come together to celebrate creativity instead of fandom.
Goggles are the defining trait of steampunk. Engineers need them so everyone wears them, presumably to protect the eyes when running the steam machinery that powers the convention. Some people have attached extra lenses to their goggles.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Renewals and Cancellations
The Human Target was canceled for next year. This is no surprise. Its ratings kept dropping.
This show shows the signs of network tampering. The first season featured fast-paced action with a lot of humor. Stories were told in non-linear fashion. An episode would open on Chance in a tight fix then alternate scenes between advancing the plot and showing how he got there in the first place. The comedy Grounded For Life did the same thing its first season then switched to normal linear plots.
I'm betting that someone at Fox decided that Human Target was too hard to watch and needed to switch to linear stories and add some women to the cast. The second season lost a lot of its light humor in favor of more character interaction. It slowed the episodes down and they just weren't as much fun to watch.
On the other hand, Chuck was picked up for a final 13 episodes. I'm a little surprised at this. The writing for the 4th season seemed a little off. The premise of the show - Chuck gaining knowledge or martial arts skills from flashes was largely forgotten and he has become too capable in his role as a spy. The whole season centered on Chuck's mother who spent years in deep cover working for a criminal named Volkoff. It was not a strong enough storyline to sustain itself across an entire season. They should have had more non-Volkoff/non-mother episodes.
Chuck's ratings were not very good, either. It says a lot about the state of NBC that it carries shows that have fewer viewers than some of Syfy's offerings.
This show shows the signs of network tampering. The first season featured fast-paced action with a lot of humor. Stories were told in non-linear fashion. An episode would open on Chance in a tight fix then alternate scenes between advancing the plot and showing how he got there in the first place. The comedy Grounded For Life did the same thing its first season then switched to normal linear plots.
I'm betting that someone at Fox decided that Human Target was too hard to watch and needed to switch to linear stories and add some women to the cast. The second season lost a lot of its light humor in favor of more character interaction. It slowed the episodes down and they just weren't as much fun to watch.
On the other hand, Chuck was picked up for a final 13 episodes. I'm a little surprised at this. The writing for the 4th season seemed a little off. The premise of the show - Chuck gaining knowledge or martial arts skills from flashes was largely forgotten and he has become too capable in his role as a spy. The whole season centered on Chuck's mother who spent years in deep cover working for a criminal named Volkoff. It was not a strong enough storyline to sustain itself across an entire season. They should have had more non-Volkoff/non-mother episodes.
Chuck's ratings were not very good, either. It says a lot about the state of NBC that it carries shows that have fewer viewers than some of Syfy's offerings.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
More on Superman's Citizenship
Action 900, the issue where Superman tells the President's national security adviser that he plans on renouncing his citizenship, was a sell-out. The moral ramifications remain.
Superman's reason for doing this was that he is too big to be confined to one nation's politics. He put it in terms about how small and interconnected the world is but the meaning is the same - he is bigger and more important than the US.
Before I go any further I should point out that Superman is not actually a citizen. He is a alias. Clark Kent is the one with the citizenship (courtesy of a forged birth certificate). The Silver Age Superman was known to have a secret identity but the world accommodated the caped version by treating him as a separate entity. It also solved the current problem rather neatly. Instead of renouncing his citizenship, Superman was given citizenship in every member nation of the UN. He was also deputized by all of these nations.
That is where the Silver Age Superman was different from today's model. The Silver Age one was a policeman. He stayed out of politics. He might show some favoritism about where he enforced the law, centering on Metropolis, but he was neutral otherwise.
If we are going to have a near-omnipotent protector, this is what I would prefer.
Think about how much trouble Superman could cause if he started exceeding this mandate. In Action #900, he supported a freedom protest in Iran. What if the government of Iran fell and the country collapsed into sectarian violence? It happens all the time when a government falls. Look at Yugoslavia or Somalia. Egypt is in some danger on this happening. 500 years ago, Machiavelli wrote about how revolutions always make things worse.
What if Superman took a more direct hand? It took the US army three weeks to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Superman could have done it in a fraction of that time. But what then? It took hundreds of thousands of troops and years to stabilize the country after Saddam's government fell. What would be his responsibility after overthrowing a dictator? Superman cannot be everywhere. Would he be up to this challenge?
As a newly-minted citizen of the world, how much does Superman share that world's values? Most of the third world practices some form of slavery. Homosexuality is banned in large parts of the world. Uganda is considering legislation that mandates the death penalty for HIV-positive gays under certain circumstances. Is Superman planning on enforcing Western values? What if he sees a woman driving a car in Saudi Arabia? Western values say that this is good. Saudi law says that it is wrong. What would Superman do?
A few years ago a Spanish judge claimed jurisdiction over the world on human rights violations and ordered the arrest of President Bush and other members of the US government. Would Superman enforce this judge's orders? Or will he give himself similar standing to judge and enforce human rights?
The Silver Age Superman never had to struggle with any of these questions because of the limits he put on his activities. Once you start inserting yourself into international events everything becomes a moral issue.
I admit that I am not in the target audience for these books, anyway. I haven't been a regular Superman reader since the 1960s. I followed the John Byrne reboot for a while but eventually got tired of it. This was a Superman but not my Superman. I feel the same way about this event. My Superman would never judge himself too big for US citizenship.
Superman's reason for doing this was that he is too big to be confined to one nation's politics. He put it in terms about how small and interconnected the world is but the meaning is the same - he is bigger and more important than the US.
Before I go any further I should point out that Superman is not actually a citizen. He is a alias. Clark Kent is the one with the citizenship (courtesy of a forged birth certificate). The Silver Age Superman was known to have a secret identity but the world accommodated the caped version by treating him as a separate entity. It also solved the current problem rather neatly. Instead of renouncing his citizenship, Superman was given citizenship in every member nation of the UN. He was also deputized by all of these nations.
That is where the Silver Age Superman was different from today's model. The Silver Age one was a policeman. He stayed out of politics. He might show some favoritism about where he enforced the law, centering on Metropolis, but he was neutral otherwise.
If we are going to have a near-omnipotent protector, this is what I would prefer.
Think about how much trouble Superman could cause if he started exceeding this mandate. In Action #900, he supported a freedom protest in Iran. What if the government of Iran fell and the country collapsed into sectarian violence? It happens all the time when a government falls. Look at Yugoslavia or Somalia. Egypt is in some danger on this happening. 500 years ago, Machiavelli wrote about how revolutions always make things worse.
What if Superman took a more direct hand? It took the US army three weeks to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Superman could have done it in a fraction of that time. But what then? It took hundreds of thousands of troops and years to stabilize the country after Saddam's government fell. What would be his responsibility after overthrowing a dictator? Superman cannot be everywhere. Would he be up to this challenge?
As a newly-minted citizen of the world, how much does Superman share that world's values? Most of the third world practices some form of slavery. Homosexuality is banned in large parts of the world. Uganda is considering legislation that mandates the death penalty for HIV-positive gays under certain circumstances. Is Superman planning on enforcing Western values? What if he sees a woman driving a car in Saudi Arabia? Western values say that this is good. Saudi law says that it is wrong. What would Superman do?
A few years ago a Spanish judge claimed jurisdiction over the world on human rights violations and ordered the arrest of President Bush and other members of the US government. Would Superman enforce this judge's orders? Or will he give himself similar standing to judge and enforce human rights?
The Silver Age Superman never had to struggle with any of these questions because of the limits he put on his activities. Once you start inserting yourself into international events everything becomes a moral issue.
I admit that I am not in the target audience for these books, anyway. I haven't been a regular Superman reader since the 1960s. I followed the John Byrne reboot for a while but eventually got tired of it. This was a Superman but not my Superman. I feel the same way about this event. My Superman would never judge himself too big for US citizenship.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Thor
I was worried about this movie. Director Kenneth Branagh has made some overblown movies. Publicity photos were not encouraging. Asgard looked too sci-fi. Still, I sent on opening weekend.
Surprise! The movie is really good.
Minor spoiler alert.
At its heart, the movie has the same plot as Iron Man. We start with some people in a car. There is an accident followed by a flashback showing us that our hero is an arrogant jerk. We are brought back to the present where the hero has a life-changing experience. Eventually he recovers and fights the real enemy who was someone he trusted.
With both movies, the action scenes are great but the main character is vital. He has to be likable enough to carry the movie. Iron Man was so much fun because you just liked watching Tony Stark. It didn't matter if he was testing a new suit of armor or crashing a party. If the central character isn't interesting then the movie becomes an exercise in marking time until the climax.
Fortunately, Chris Hemsworth's Thor is interesting enough to carry the movie. He isn't as captivating as Tony Stark but his relationship with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her crew makes up for it.
The movie's interpretation of Loki is interesting. For decades the comic book version has simply been evil. In the movie he is a lot more complicated, especially after he learns that he is adopted.
There are some rough spots. The movie has a much larger cast than Iron Man. It includes Thor, Odin, Loki, Jane Foster and her two assistants, the Warriors Three, Sif, Heimdall, Frigga, Laufey the King of the Frost Giants, and Agent Coulson. That's a lot of people to introduce. The Warriors Three, Sif, and Heimdal all get introductions that are too short. Also, why the Warriors Three and Sif? Why not the Warriors Four? In the comic Book Sif was Thor's on-again/off-again love interest. In the movie she is just another warrior (she did have this role in some limited-series "young Thor" books).
High points - the sweeping vistas of Asgard are directly inspired by Jack Kirby's art.
Disappointments - the Rainbow Bridge is not a rainbow, it is a bunch of colored pieces of quartz. Volstagg should be a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier. He looks too much like a (very tall) dwarf from LotR.
Surprise! The movie is really good.
Minor spoiler alert.
At its heart, the movie has the same plot as Iron Man. We start with some people in a car. There is an accident followed by a flashback showing us that our hero is an arrogant jerk. We are brought back to the present where the hero has a life-changing experience. Eventually he recovers and fights the real enemy who was someone he trusted.
With both movies, the action scenes are great but the main character is vital. He has to be likable enough to carry the movie. Iron Man was so much fun because you just liked watching Tony Stark. It didn't matter if he was testing a new suit of armor or crashing a party. If the central character isn't interesting then the movie becomes an exercise in marking time until the climax.
Fortunately, Chris Hemsworth's Thor is interesting enough to carry the movie. He isn't as captivating as Tony Stark but his relationship with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her crew makes up for it.
The movie's interpretation of Loki is interesting. For decades the comic book version has simply been evil. In the movie he is a lot more complicated, especially after he learns that he is adopted.
There are some rough spots. The movie has a much larger cast than Iron Man. It includes Thor, Odin, Loki, Jane Foster and her two assistants, the Warriors Three, Sif, Heimdall, Frigga, Laufey the King of the Frost Giants, and Agent Coulson. That's a lot of people to introduce. The Warriors Three, Sif, and Heimdal all get introductions that are too short. Also, why the Warriors Three and Sif? Why not the Warriors Four? In the comic Book Sif was Thor's on-again/off-again love interest. In the movie she is just another warrior (she did have this role in some limited-series "young Thor" books).
High points - the sweeping vistas of Asgard are directly inspired by Jack Kirby's art.
Disappointments - the Rainbow Bridge is not a rainbow, it is a bunch of colored pieces of quartz. Volstagg should be a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier. He looks too much like a (very tall) dwarf from LotR.
Monday, May 02, 2011
Looking Back at Thor
One of the first Marvel comics I looked at was Journey Into Mystery #93 staring the Mighty Thor. I remember seeing a group of comics by some off-brand company (not DC). A guy with long hair and a red cape attacked some tanks. I remember thinking, 'He talks about his hammer too much,' and stopped looking before the feature villain, the Radioactive Man, even appeared. A few months later I read X-Men #3 (featuring the Blob) and was hooked on Marvel comics. Being an instant X-Men fan, I just had to buy Journey Into Mystery (Thor) #109 which featured Magneto with sort of a cameo by the X-Men. I missed the next issue but started buying it regularly with #111. When Thor met the Destroyer the following year I thought that it was one of the most exciting cliff-hangers ever. I also picked up enough back issues and reprints to fill in my knowledge of the character.
Looking back, I started reading Thor just as the character really came into his own. The first several issues were clumsy. The story often revolved around Thor turning into Don Blake without his hammer and having to retrieve it before wrapping things up fast. The supporting cast consisted of Blake's nurse, Jane Foster and the strip was only given 13 pages so stories had to be streamlined.
The big change came when Jack Kirby became the regular artist and co-plotter. A whole new element was added - Asgard. Don Blake's life never got any more interesting but Thor's relatives, friends, and enemies were slowly introduced giving the strip a fairly large cast. This is also when the character moved from being about a regular guy who could become a superhero to being about a god who could disguise himself as a human. Jane Foster was written out of the comic in #136. Finally in issue #159 Thor finds out that Blake was nothing more than a construct to teach Thor humility. After that revelation, Don Blake pretty much ceased appearing unless needed for his medical knowledge.
The team of Lee and Kirby continued until Kirby left in 1970. The great Neil Adams took over for two issues followed by John Buscema., The quality of the comic continued until Stan Lee left around 1971. He still wrote a couple of issues after that but Gerry Conway became the regular writer. As time passed, the stories seemed to be going through the motions rather than capturing new glory. This was a general problem in comics at the time as a new generation of creators struggled to find their voice.
Marvel went through a set of revolving editors in the 1970s with the result that few comics had a regular creative team. Thor saw stories written by Conway, Roy Thomas and Len Wein and art by John and Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, and Walt Simonson. Somewhere in there Jane Foster returned and merged with the goddess Sif. For a while Jane and Sif could switch places like Thor and Don Blake. One memorable plotline involved a false Ragnarok.
Jack Kirby returned to Marvel briefly in the late 1970s, creating some ultra-powerful characters called the Eternals. The book lasted less than a year but many of the plot threads moved on to Thor. Most of the stories over a two year period combined the Eternals and ancient Norse myths into a single plotline.
Quality continued to decline in the early 1980s. The comic was on the verge of cancellation when it was turned over to Walt Simonson as writer/artist. Overnight Simonson revived the character, making Thor cool for the first time in a decade. I reread some of his stories last week and they hold up very well.
Simonson began his run by introducing Beta Ray Bill, an alien demon-horse thing who was judged worthy of Thor's powers. Eventually he was given his own hammer. The spell that let Thor change into Don Blake is transferred to Bill allowing him to transform back to the humanoid he was before being re-engineered into the protector for his people.
Thor returned to Earth and took up the identity of Sigurd Jarlson, a construction worker so that he could be closer to humanity. Simonson did the art for two years between issues #337 and #353. After that Sal Buscema took over the art with Simonson continuing to write and doing around half the art. Along the way Thor's face is scarred and he grows a beard. The death goddess Hel curses him with fragile bones and he has to wear armor to support his broken limbs. The whole thing came to a climax in Thor #382 which marked Simonson's departure from the comic.
Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz took over and the quality of the book began another decline. An architect named Eric Masterson was introduced and merged with Thor replacing Don Blake as Thor's mortal identity.
In the late 1990s the big thing was reviving sales by replacing a hero. This was done at one point or another with Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Captain America, Spider-Man, and Iron Man. Thor's turn came after he "killed" Loki (he got better). Thor's identity was submerged and Eric Masterson became the new Thor in 1991 in issue #433. In issue #440 they introduced the Thor Corps - Eric Masterson's Thor, a Thor from the future, and Beta Ray Bill (Beta Ray Thor). The real Thor finally returned in issue #457 and Masterson was spun off as Thunderstrike with an enchanted mace.
After his return Thor went crazy and fought most of the other cosmic heroes in a mammoth cross-over.
At the end of this Thor got a new costume and Roy Thomas took over writing. I remember hating this period.
Warren Ellis wrote memorable four issue run reviving the character once again and starting a long affair with the Enchantress. Bill Messner-Leob took over as the regular writer. Thor lost his powers, shirt, and helmet. He worked as a free-lance hero with the also-powerless Enchantress handling the billing. He got his powers back just in time for the Onslaught plotline. This was a cross-continuity event where all of the major non-mutant heroes vanished to another world and were presumed dead. Thor's last regular issues was #502, printed in 1996. It was a nice send-off as Thor and a second Thor (leftover from a Roy Thomas plotline from 1979) prepared for one final fight to the death. It was only marred by a brand-new costume which just looked strange.
Thor was replaced with the Lost Asgardians for a year. Somehow various Asgardians had been transported to Earth and given human identities. It was really nothing more than a way of marking time.
The whole thing led to a massive reboot of the Marvel universe. Old plotlines and dangling plot threads were ignored and the various characters started with fresh creative teams and #1 issues. Thor was joined (again) with an emergency medical technician named Jake Olsen.
Dan Jurgens was the writer and the quality stayed fairly high. After around fifty regular issues the book got into really interesting territory - what if the gods took a more active role in humanity's affairs? Odin died and people started praying directly to Thor. Starting in issue #68, the comic jumped 17 years then 200 years into the future. Thor and the Asgardians have conquered the world and turned it into a paradise ruled over by Thor (who lost an eye, an arm and his hammer along the way), the Enchantress, and Loki. It eventually turns out that to be a hollow paradise and Thor uses his power to turn back time and undo most of the events. This is followed by a six-part version of Ragnarok and the cancellation of the comic.
Thor was revived again, three years later in 2007. The series has been separated into different story arcs which are easy to package as graphic novels. The first was is about the revival of the gods and their new home, floating above a small town in Oklahoma. The second arc was about the machinations of Loki and Doctor Doom, leading up to the Siege event. The Siege of Asgard itself was a major cross-continuity event involving nearly everyone in the Marvel Universe. That was followed with Thor's attempts to save the Asgardian dead.
All of these have been strong stories, especially the first set written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. They are best read as graphic novels instead of individual issues.
So there we are - nearly 40 years of Thor. Long stretches of creativity punctuated by longer stretches of mediocrity.
Looking back, I started reading Thor just as the character really came into his own. The first several issues were clumsy. The story often revolved around Thor turning into Don Blake without his hammer and having to retrieve it before wrapping things up fast. The supporting cast consisted of Blake's nurse, Jane Foster and the strip was only given 13 pages so stories had to be streamlined.
The big change came when Jack Kirby became the regular artist and co-plotter. A whole new element was added - Asgard. Don Blake's life never got any more interesting but Thor's relatives, friends, and enemies were slowly introduced giving the strip a fairly large cast. This is also when the character moved from being about a regular guy who could become a superhero to being about a god who could disguise himself as a human. Jane Foster was written out of the comic in #136. Finally in issue #159 Thor finds out that Blake was nothing more than a construct to teach Thor humility. After that revelation, Don Blake pretty much ceased appearing unless needed for his medical knowledge.
The team of Lee and Kirby continued until Kirby left in 1970. The great Neil Adams took over for two issues followed by John Buscema., The quality of the comic continued until Stan Lee left around 1971. He still wrote a couple of issues after that but Gerry Conway became the regular writer. As time passed, the stories seemed to be going through the motions rather than capturing new glory. This was a general problem in comics at the time as a new generation of creators struggled to find their voice.
Marvel went through a set of revolving editors in the 1970s with the result that few comics had a regular creative team. Thor saw stories written by Conway, Roy Thomas and Len Wein and art by John and Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, and Walt Simonson. Somewhere in there Jane Foster returned and merged with the goddess Sif. For a while Jane and Sif could switch places like Thor and Don Blake. One memorable plotline involved a false Ragnarok.
Jack Kirby returned to Marvel briefly in the late 1970s, creating some ultra-powerful characters called the Eternals. The book lasted less than a year but many of the plot threads moved on to Thor. Most of the stories over a two year period combined the Eternals and ancient Norse myths into a single plotline.
Quality continued to decline in the early 1980s. The comic was on the verge of cancellation when it was turned over to Walt Simonson as writer/artist. Overnight Simonson revived the character, making Thor cool for the first time in a decade. I reread some of his stories last week and they hold up very well.
Simonson began his run by introducing Beta Ray Bill, an alien demon-horse thing who was judged worthy of Thor's powers. Eventually he was given his own hammer. The spell that let Thor change into Don Blake is transferred to Bill allowing him to transform back to the humanoid he was before being re-engineered into the protector for his people.
Thor returned to Earth and took up the identity of Sigurd Jarlson, a construction worker so that he could be closer to humanity. Simonson did the art for two years between issues #337 and #353. After that Sal Buscema took over the art with Simonson continuing to write and doing around half the art. Along the way Thor's face is scarred and he grows a beard. The death goddess Hel curses him with fragile bones and he has to wear armor to support his broken limbs. The whole thing came to a climax in Thor #382 which marked Simonson's departure from the comic.
Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz took over and the quality of the book began another decline. An architect named Eric Masterson was introduced and merged with Thor replacing Don Blake as Thor's mortal identity.
In the late 1990s the big thing was reviving sales by replacing a hero. This was done at one point or another with Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Captain America, Spider-Man, and Iron Man. Thor's turn came after he "killed" Loki (he got better). Thor's identity was submerged and Eric Masterson became the new Thor in 1991 in issue #433. In issue #440 they introduced the Thor Corps - Eric Masterson's Thor, a Thor from the future, and Beta Ray Bill (Beta Ray Thor). The real Thor finally returned in issue #457 and Masterson was spun off as Thunderstrike with an enchanted mace.
After his return Thor went crazy and fought most of the other cosmic heroes in a mammoth cross-over.
At the end of this Thor got a new costume and Roy Thomas took over writing. I remember hating this period.
Warren Ellis wrote memorable four issue run reviving the character once again and starting a long affair with the Enchantress. Bill Messner-Leob took over as the regular writer. Thor lost his powers, shirt, and helmet. He worked as a free-lance hero with the also-powerless Enchantress handling the billing. He got his powers back just in time for the Onslaught plotline. This was a cross-continuity event where all of the major non-mutant heroes vanished to another world and were presumed dead. Thor's last regular issues was #502, printed in 1996. It was a nice send-off as Thor and a second Thor (leftover from a Roy Thomas plotline from 1979) prepared for one final fight to the death. It was only marred by a brand-new costume which just looked strange.
Thor was replaced with the Lost Asgardians for a year. Somehow various Asgardians had been transported to Earth and given human identities. It was really nothing more than a way of marking time.
The whole thing led to a massive reboot of the Marvel universe. Old plotlines and dangling plot threads were ignored and the various characters started with fresh creative teams and #1 issues. Thor was joined (again) with an emergency medical technician named Jake Olsen.
Dan Jurgens was the writer and the quality stayed fairly high. After around fifty regular issues the book got into really interesting territory - what if the gods took a more active role in humanity's affairs? Odin died and people started praying directly to Thor. Starting in issue #68, the comic jumped 17 years then 200 years into the future. Thor and the Asgardians have conquered the world and turned it into a paradise ruled over by Thor (who lost an eye, an arm and his hammer along the way), the Enchantress, and Loki. It eventually turns out that to be a hollow paradise and Thor uses his power to turn back time and undo most of the events. This is followed by a six-part version of Ragnarok and the cancellation of the comic.
Thor was revived again, three years later in 2007. The series has been separated into different story arcs which are easy to package as graphic novels. The first was is about the revival of the gods and their new home, floating above a small town in Oklahoma. The second arc was about the machinations of Loki and Doctor Doom, leading up to the Siege event. The Siege of Asgard itself was a major cross-continuity event involving nearly everyone in the Marvel Universe. That was followed with Thor's attempts to save the Asgardian dead.
All of these have been strong stories, especially the first set written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. They are best read as graphic novels instead of individual issues.
So there we are - nearly 40 years of Thor. Long stretches of creativity punctuated by longer stretches of mediocrity.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Should Superman be a free agent?
In Action 900, Superman informs the national security adviser that he plans to renounce his American citizenship. He decided to take this action after catching flack from the administration for supporting pro-democracy protests in Iran. In a bit of cross-over from the real world, the Obama administration was roundly criticized for not supporting the Iranian protesters. Even though his action was on his own initiative, Superman's support was taken as a sign of US policy.
This is a tricky question. It openly rejects the idea of "Truth, justice and the American Way" following the last movie, "Truth, justice, and all that." The American way is no longer good enough for this citizen of the world. But where to go from there?
This question has real-world parallels. As I write this, former President Carter is engaged in negotiations in Korea. Granted he cannot move mountains but his stature as former president his presence implies official authority. Similarly, Jesse Jackson has engaged in private negotiations with foreign governments.
Since Superman is going to inform the UN, presumably he plans on submitting himself to UN control. Will this be the General Assembly or the Security Council? The General Assembly includes Iran, Libya, Syria, and Liberia. Does Superman really plan on limiting himself to actions that this assembly sanctions? The Security Council is little better. Both Russia and China are permanent members who practice human rights abuse. Russia tends to support Iran and would certainly have vetoed and actions against its government by Superman.
In fact, nearly every nation in the UN would be leery of letting Superman support the overthrow of a recognized government. the reason that NATO is acting in Libya is that the UN refused to become involved (Russia again). This underscores the problem that the governments of the world do not necessarily represent the peoples of the world. Most of the 3rd world is ruled by corrupt governments. Superman could find himself supporting dictators rather than upholding liberty.
What if Superman gave up all citizenship and asked the UN to just trust him to do the right thing? In the movie Superman 4 The Quest for Peace, Superman decided on his own that the world needed nuclear disarmament. Personally, I found that scary. Superman is not infallible. What if he decided on his own that nuclear power was bad and took it upon himself to destroy all nuclear reactors? That would cut off power to millions. It is the arbitrariness that is scary. We would have to hope that a free-agent Superman would do the right thing but the "right thing" is often a complex subject. Where would he draw the line? Personally I find the idea of someone with unlimited power and no accountability to be scary. Personally, I prefer omnipotent beings to be responsible to elected leaders even ones I didn't vote for.
The easiest thing is to avoid policy issues altogether. That is what Superman traditionally did. If you limit yourself to defending the Earth, preventing natural disasters, and upholding the law (mainly in Metropolis) then no one will complain. But he went beyond that which is what brought us to this point. This is probably an issue that comic books should avoid.
In some ways this is just DC catching up with issues Marvel confronted decades ago. Their heroes have been accountable to their governments or treated as outlaws. Truly free agents like the Silver Surfer were treated as menaces.
One final question - what happens to Clark Kent? It seems hypocritical for Superman to renounce his citizenship but then get it back by putting on a pair of glasses and combing is hair differently.
This is a tricky question. It openly rejects the idea of "Truth, justice and the American Way" following the last movie, "Truth, justice, and all that." The American way is no longer good enough for this citizen of the world. But where to go from there?
This question has real-world parallels. As I write this, former President Carter is engaged in negotiations in Korea. Granted he cannot move mountains but his stature as former president his presence implies official authority. Similarly, Jesse Jackson has engaged in private negotiations with foreign governments.
Since Superman is going to inform the UN, presumably he plans on submitting himself to UN control. Will this be the General Assembly or the Security Council? The General Assembly includes Iran, Libya, Syria, and Liberia. Does Superman really plan on limiting himself to actions that this assembly sanctions? The Security Council is little better. Both Russia and China are permanent members who practice human rights abuse. Russia tends to support Iran and would certainly have vetoed and actions against its government by Superman.
In fact, nearly every nation in the UN would be leery of letting Superman support the overthrow of a recognized government. the reason that NATO is acting in Libya is that the UN refused to become involved (Russia again). This underscores the problem that the governments of the world do not necessarily represent the peoples of the world. Most of the 3rd world is ruled by corrupt governments. Superman could find himself supporting dictators rather than upholding liberty.
What if Superman gave up all citizenship and asked the UN to just trust him to do the right thing? In the movie Superman 4 The Quest for Peace, Superman decided on his own that the world needed nuclear disarmament. Personally, I found that scary. Superman is not infallible. What if he decided on his own that nuclear power was bad and took it upon himself to destroy all nuclear reactors? That would cut off power to millions. It is the arbitrariness that is scary. We would have to hope that a free-agent Superman would do the right thing but the "right thing" is often a complex subject. Where would he draw the line? Personally I find the idea of someone with unlimited power and no accountability to be scary. Personally, I prefer omnipotent beings to be responsible to elected leaders even ones I didn't vote for.
The easiest thing is to avoid policy issues altogether. That is what Superman traditionally did. If you limit yourself to defending the Earth, preventing natural disasters, and upholding the law (mainly in Metropolis) then no one will complain. But he went beyond that which is what brought us to this point. This is probably an issue that comic books should avoid.
In some ways this is just DC catching up with issues Marvel confronted decades ago. Their heroes have been accountable to their governments or treated as outlaws. Truly free agents like the Silver Surfer were treated as menaces.
One final question - what happens to Clark Kent? It seems hypocritical for Superman to renounce his citizenship but then get it back by putting on a pair of glasses and combing is hair differently.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is returning to TV in a new series being filmed for NBC. Superheroes have had a mixed reception on TV. Clark Kent has had a long run in his "no tights, no flights" Smallville. Heroes lasted four seasons. On the other hand, The Cape and No Ordinary Family have seen declining ratings and neither is likely to be renewed. The Bionic Woman started strong but may have set a record for audience loss.
Wonder Woman has already had some controversy. When the character was unveiled, everyone hated her new costume. Instead of blue shorts spangled with white stars, she had long blue pants and matching boots. Some people thought that the network was trying to downplay the patriotic angle. Others simply hated the vinyl look. NBC seems to have listened. Pictures taken during shooting show that her pants are a different material with a row of yellow stars down the sides and red boots. They also changed the cut so the crotch is not so tight.
Wonder Woman is one of DC's big three characters - the only three to remain in continuous publication from the Golden Age to the Silver Age. That said, she is the least of them. By the 1960s Superman and Batman each appeared in multiple comics. Wonder Woman only had the one and it was struggling by the late 1960s.
For a time DC reworked the character completely. The Amazons left our dimension. Dianna Prince stayed behind, losing her powers. She bought a "mod" boutique ("mod" was slag for the youth-oriented fashions in the 60s) and took on a second job as an undercover agent under the tutelage of a character named I Ching. That phase didn't last very long. The Amazons returned and Wonder Woman regained her powers.
There was an attempt at updating Wonder Woman for TV in the mid-1970s. This version was blond and wore a different outfit. Her bracelets were full of gimmicks. She didn't seem to have any special powers. At one point the villain asked how she got there so fast. She replied, "I have an invisible airplane." That line was the main thing proving that the producers of the movie even knew who Wonder Woman was. The pilot was boring and the fans hated this version. It made the list of 100 dumbest events in television.
They tried again with the famous Linda Carter version. This one kept the Wonder Woman mythos intact. It was set during World War II. Parts of it bordered on camp, especially the pilot, but it was played straight and the characters' earnestness played well against the war. Ratings were fairly good but the expense of doing a costume show kept ABC from renewing it. CBS picked the show up and moved it into the present (1977) where it ran for two more years.
Wonder Woman also became a feminist icon during the 1970s. A collection of Golden Age stories was published with an introduction by feminist leader Gloria Steinem stressing Wonder Woman's independence from men. This aspect was also central to the comic when it was rebooted in the 1980s by George Perez.
Wonder Woman has already had some controversy. When the character was unveiled, everyone hated her new costume. Instead of blue shorts spangled with white stars, she had long blue pants and matching boots. Some people thought that the network was trying to downplay the patriotic angle. Others simply hated the vinyl look. NBC seems to have listened. Pictures taken during shooting show that her pants are a different material with a row of yellow stars down the sides and red boots. They also changed the cut so the crotch is not so tight.
Wonder Woman is one of DC's big three characters - the only three to remain in continuous publication from the Golden Age to the Silver Age. That said, she is the least of them. By the 1960s Superman and Batman each appeared in multiple comics. Wonder Woman only had the one and it was struggling by the late 1960s.
For a time DC reworked the character completely. The Amazons left our dimension. Dianna Prince stayed behind, losing her powers. She bought a "mod" boutique ("mod" was slag for the youth-oriented fashions in the 60s) and took on a second job as an undercover agent under the tutelage of a character named I Ching. That phase didn't last very long. The Amazons returned and Wonder Woman regained her powers.
There was an attempt at updating Wonder Woman for TV in the mid-1970s. This version was blond and wore a different outfit. Her bracelets were full of gimmicks. She didn't seem to have any special powers. At one point the villain asked how she got there so fast. She replied, "I have an invisible airplane." That line was the main thing proving that the producers of the movie even knew who Wonder Woman was. The pilot was boring and the fans hated this version. It made the list of 100 dumbest events in television.
They tried again with the famous Linda Carter version. This one kept the Wonder Woman mythos intact. It was set during World War II. Parts of it bordered on camp, especially the pilot, but it was played straight and the characters' earnestness played well against the war. Ratings were fairly good but the expense of doing a costume show kept ABC from renewing it. CBS picked the show up and moved it into the present (1977) where it ran for two more years.
Wonder Woman also became a feminist icon during the 1970s. A collection of Golden Age stories was published with an introduction by feminist leader Gloria Steinem stressing Wonder Woman's independence from men. This aspect was also central to the comic when it was rebooted in the 1980s by George Perez.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Superman and General Zod
It was announced over the weekend that the new Superman movie, Superman: Man of Steel, will have General Zod as the villain. I'm not sure what to make of this.
The biggest flaw of Superman Returns was the lack of originality. The plot and many of the scenes were remakes of the original Superman movie. The new movie is supposed to be a reboot. The fact that they are recycling villains from Superman II is a bad sign.
On the other hand, Superman II was the best of the Chris Reeve movies. It pushed the envelope beyond anything in the comic books (at the time) with Superman giving up his powers in order to sleep with Lois only to find out that he had to sacrifice his personal happiness for the greater good. It also had the first real fight between super-powered characters.
But, Zod was never a great villain and his presence in the movie was more plot point than anything. He could have easily been replaced with any powerful character. His second-in-command, Ursa, was actually more menacing (and a lot sexier).
The biggest problem with Zod as a character is that he is also from Krypton. While this puts him on an equal footing with Superman, it also dilutes Superman's status. For decades, Superman was at the top of the food chain and the only way that a villain could match him was to come from Krypton or another red sun world. Since then DC has introduced villains such as Darkseid and Mongul who are more powerful than Superman without being from Krypton.
Zod has never been a first-tier villain. I'm sure that the only reason he was included is because he was in Superman II. That is a strike against the new movie since most superhero movies try to use the strongest villains possible.
The biggest flaw of Superman Returns was the lack of originality. The plot and many of the scenes were remakes of the original Superman movie. The new movie is supposed to be a reboot. The fact that they are recycling villains from Superman II is a bad sign.
On the other hand, Superman II was the best of the Chris Reeve movies. It pushed the envelope beyond anything in the comic books (at the time) with Superman giving up his powers in order to sleep with Lois only to find out that he had to sacrifice his personal happiness for the greater good. It also had the first real fight between super-powered characters.
But, Zod was never a great villain and his presence in the movie was more plot point than anything. He could have easily been replaced with any powerful character. His second-in-command, Ursa, was actually more menacing (and a lot sexier).
The biggest problem with Zod as a character is that he is also from Krypton. While this puts him on an equal footing with Superman, it also dilutes Superman's status. For decades, Superman was at the top of the food chain and the only way that a villain could match him was to come from Krypton or another red sun world. Since then DC has introduced villains such as Darkseid and Mongul who are more powerful than Superman without being from Krypton.
Zod has never been a first-tier villain. I'm sure that the only reason he was included is because he was in Superman II. That is a strike against the new movie since most superhero movies try to use the strongest villains possible.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Radiation and the Super Hero
Wired found a 1953 article on radiation and mutation and speculates that this is where all of the superheroes with radioactive origins came from. The article was written and illustrated by people long-associated with Superman comic books - Otto Binder, and Kurt Schaffenberger. Case closed, right? Well, not exactly.
DC was not the company that used radiation to explain everything. That was Marvel under Stan Lee and they didn't start appearing until the 1960s. The Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Daredevil as well as several villains received their powers from direct exposure to radiation (or close exposure in Spider-Man's case). In addition to these characters, Professor X explained in X-Men #1 that the amount of radioactive fallout in the air was causing an increase in mutants.
On the other hand, the Parasite is the only DC character I can remember who got his powers from radiation (he opened a container of nuclear waste) and he wasn't created until the mid-1960s by Jim Shooter who was only two years old when the Binder article appeared.
Stan Lee has admitted that he used radiation as a short-cut. He knew that it can cause genetic mutation but didn't know much beyond that.
I think that the 1952 article was only one aspect of the general culture of the 1950s. After all, radiation was also used to explain giant monsters such as the ants in Them! and Godzilla, both appearing years before the Fantastic Four. Also the article shows mutants who look like the common depiction of aliens with enlarged heads and long limbs. These mutations do not look a bit like superheroes. So this is just a cultural footnote rather than the basis for a stable of superheroes.
DC was not the company that used radiation to explain everything. That was Marvel under Stan Lee and they didn't start appearing until the 1960s. The Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Daredevil as well as several villains received their powers from direct exposure to radiation (or close exposure in Spider-Man's case). In addition to these characters, Professor X explained in X-Men #1 that the amount of radioactive fallout in the air was causing an increase in mutants.
On the other hand, the Parasite is the only DC character I can remember who got his powers from radiation (he opened a container of nuclear waste) and he wasn't created until the mid-1960s by Jim Shooter who was only two years old when the Binder article appeared.
Stan Lee has admitted that he used radiation as a short-cut. He knew that it can cause genetic mutation but didn't know much beyond that.
I think that the 1952 article was only one aspect of the general culture of the 1950s. After all, radiation was also used to explain giant monsters such as the ants in Them! and Godzilla, both appearing years before the Fantastic Four. Also the article shows mutants who look like the common depiction of aliens with enlarged heads and long limbs. These mutations do not look a bit like superheroes. So this is just a cultural footnote rather than the basis for a stable of superheroes.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Rango
In honor of Rango being the first movie of the year to break $100 million (plus we finally got around to seeing it this weekend), here are my observations on it. I will avoid spoilers.
This is the first full-length CGI movie by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). Their experience in ground-breaking special effects really shows. This is an amazingly ambitious movie. Where Tangled went for a hand-drawn animation look, Rango is photo-realistic. No other CGI movie has come close to this level of detail.
It is also the first movie shot in what director Gore Verbinski calls "performance capture". Normally the voice work for animated movies is done with each actor recording his lines by himself in a sound booth. The other end of the spectrum is motion capture where the actors wear special suits that follow their movements. This is something in-between. What Verbinski did was to gather the entire cast and have them act out their parts using minimal costumes and props. In addition to recording their voices, their performance was captured on video tape. This became a reference for the animators.
So, it was a great technical triumph. But how is the movie? Hilarious.
The movie has a constant stream of jokes on multiple levels. Rango himself is funny as are the inhabitants of the town of Dirt. The town is a clever mixture of old west sets mixed with some modern items. Since the inhabitants are all small animals, items from the human world are oversized. For example, a five gallon tank from a water cooler becomes a water tower.
Finally, there are numerous references to other movies. Many of these are very subtle and you don't have to get any of them to understand the movie (except for the Spirit of the West).
The movie itself is a Don Knotts-style movie complete with references to one bullet. A hawk has a silver beak just as an evil gunslinger in Cat Ballou has a silver nose. One character is on a Don Quixote-style quest and carries a walking stick that looks like a lance. When we first see Rango he is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. One of Johnny Depps' earlier roles was "Raoul Duke" who wore Hawaiin shirts and saw talking lizards.
The result is a movie that works for all ages. Adults need not be ashamed to see it but the kids will love it, too.
This is the first full-length CGI movie by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). Their experience in ground-breaking special effects really shows. This is an amazingly ambitious movie. Where Tangled went for a hand-drawn animation look, Rango is photo-realistic. No other CGI movie has come close to this level of detail.
It is also the first movie shot in what director Gore Verbinski calls "performance capture". Normally the voice work for animated movies is done with each actor recording his lines by himself in a sound booth. The other end of the spectrum is motion capture where the actors wear special suits that follow their movements. This is something in-between. What Verbinski did was to gather the entire cast and have them act out their parts using minimal costumes and props. In addition to recording their voices, their performance was captured on video tape. This became a reference for the animators.
So, it was a great technical triumph. But how is the movie? Hilarious.
The movie has a constant stream of jokes on multiple levels. Rango himself is funny as are the inhabitants of the town of Dirt. The town is a clever mixture of old west sets mixed with some modern items. Since the inhabitants are all small animals, items from the human world are oversized. For example, a five gallon tank from a water cooler becomes a water tower.
Finally, there are numerous references to other movies. Many of these are very subtle and you don't have to get any of them to understand the movie (except for the Spirit of the West).
The movie itself is a Don Knotts-style movie complete with references to one bullet. A hawk has a silver beak just as an evil gunslinger in Cat Ballou has a silver nose. One character is on a Don Quixote-style quest and carries a walking stick that looks like a lance. When we first see Rango he is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. One of Johnny Depps' earlier roles was "Raoul Duke" who wore Hawaiin shirts and saw talking lizards.
The result is a movie that works for all ages. Adults need not be ashamed to see it but the kids will love it, too.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Nook on Android - further thoughts
After reading a few hundred pages on the Nook app for Android I have a better feel for what works and what doesn't. This has not changed my initial impression that the Kindle app is more mature.
My biggest complaint is with the app losing my place. It I just close the app and come back it often takes me to the start of the chapter. I have taken to bookmarking pages every time I put the tablet down or end the app. I can get back to this place but it is a three-step process. First I have to bring up the menu and select "GO TO" then I have to select "bookmarks" before I can select the proper bookmark to get to where I was. Unfortunately, the app does not synchronize bookmarks between devices so I cannot alternate reading with my tablet and my phone without having to hunt for my place.
The app also has trouble keeping the place when I change orientation. I have the landscape mode set for two columns which is much more readable than a single wide column. Landscape shows more text than portrait which requires the app to recalculate my position. If I turn the tablet over completely then it recalculates twice and loses my place, sometimes going back two pages. When in landscape mode, my tablet has a slightly wider margin at the bottom. When in portrait, it is easier to hold this side. The app starts up in portrait mode with the larger margin on the right so if I want to hold it in my left hand I either have to hold the narrower margin or lose my place. Also, the power button ends up on the bottom in the default position and it is possible to put the device to sleep if I rest it on my leg the wrong way. There is a noticeable lag while it recalculates my position and it does this twice when I turn it over. All of this is probably made worse because I am reading a long book (The Lord of the Rings).
In contrast, the Kindle app reorients very quickly (although I was testing on a shorter book) and never loses my place. If I open the same book on a different device it offers to take me to the last place I was reading and it gets it right, even when switching between the large screen on my tablet and the small screen on my phone.
My previous post mentioned that I have to use my right hand to turn the page (or my left hand if I am paging back) regardless of which hand I am holding the tablet with. Kindle uses a swipe gesture so I can use either hand.
There are some good points about the Nook app. It offers more fonts than other programs and four themes - white, egg, sepia, and black. Bookmarks are done by touching the top right corner and shows as if the corner was folded over.
The page turn animation looks good but is sluggish, especially in landscape mode. My tablet is as fast as any Android tablet in the market so the animation itself is slow. This can be turned off. Then it resembles a Kindle page turn.
The app supports footnotes but these are not implemented very well. They work like a regular web link but there is no way back. The "back" key takes you out of the book. The only way to use a footnote is to bookmark the page you are on then go through the "goto bookmark" process to return.
My overall impression is that the app needs a few more releases before it catches up with the Kindle in usability. Since both run on my tablet, I only have to live with the Nook app when a book is not available from Amazon. I have no idea how well the Nook app works on other devices but I expected it to work better on Android since that is what the Nook branded readers run on.
My biggest complaint is with the app losing my place. It I just close the app and come back it often takes me to the start of the chapter. I have taken to bookmarking pages every time I put the tablet down or end the app. I can get back to this place but it is a three-step process. First I have to bring up the menu and select "GO TO" then I have to select "bookmarks" before I can select the proper bookmark to get to where I was. Unfortunately, the app does not synchronize bookmarks between devices so I cannot alternate reading with my tablet and my phone without having to hunt for my place.
The app also has trouble keeping the place when I change orientation. I have the landscape mode set for two columns which is much more readable than a single wide column. Landscape shows more text than portrait which requires the app to recalculate my position. If I turn the tablet over completely then it recalculates twice and loses my place, sometimes going back two pages. When in landscape mode, my tablet has a slightly wider margin at the bottom. When in portrait, it is easier to hold this side. The app starts up in portrait mode with the larger margin on the right so if I want to hold it in my left hand I either have to hold the narrower margin or lose my place. Also, the power button ends up on the bottom in the default position and it is possible to put the device to sleep if I rest it on my leg the wrong way. There is a noticeable lag while it recalculates my position and it does this twice when I turn it over. All of this is probably made worse because I am reading a long book (The Lord of the Rings).
In contrast, the Kindle app reorients very quickly (although I was testing on a shorter book) and never loses my place. If I open the same book on a different device it offers to take me to the last place I was reading and it gets it right, even when switching between the large screen on my tablet and the small screen on my phone.
My previous post mentioned that I have to use my right hand to turn the page (or my left hand if I am paging back) regardless of which hand I am holding the tablet with. Kindle uses a swipe gesture so I can use either hand.
There are some good points about the Nook app. It offers more fonts than other programs and four themes - white, egg, sepia, and black. Bookmarks are done by touching the top right corner and shows as if the corner was folded over.
The page turn animation looks good but is sluggish, especially in landscape mode. My tablet is as fast as any Android tablet in the market so the animation itself is slow. This can be turned off. Then it resembles a Kindle page turn.
The app supports footnotes but these are not implemented very well. They work like a regular web link but there is no way back. The "back" key takes you out of the book. The only way to use a footnote is to bookmark the page you are on then go through the "goto bookmark" process to return.
My overall impression is that the app needs a few more releases before it catches up with the Kindle in usability. Since both run on my tablet, I only have to live with the Nook app when a book is not available from Amazon. I have no idea how well the Nook app works on other devices but I expected it to work better on Android since that is what the Nook branded readers run on.
Friday, March 11, 2011
EBooks on Android
I've been having fun with my tablet but I have not found the experience as magical as advertised. Using touch with a web browser does not "make the Internet disappear" as some of the more breathless accounts of the IPad claimed. But that isn't why I bought a tablet. I mainly wanted it as an EBook reader. For that, it is great. So far I have read all or parts of several books using various readers. As I hoped, I find reading much easier on a tablet. It is smaller and lighter than a hardback and the print is larger and better lit than reading a paperback. Also, I can carry multiple books with me at once in case I finish a book while on a trip.
Plus, of course, it is really easy to get more books. All I need is WiFi access.
The experience does vary by reader. All of them are usable but some are more mature. Here are my experiences.
This is the most mature product. It automatically orients which ever way you hold it. Page turns only take a short swipe. I can easily hold the tablet in my left hand, balanced on my leg and turn pages with my thumb. The page flip shows as new text replacing the old text from right to left. The app lets me adjust the font size and margins. It has three viewing options - black on white, black on sepia, and white on black. I can read for a while on my tablet then open the book on my phone and the Kindle app will automatically offer to sync the position in the book. I can tap on the screen and see a progress bar at the bottom showing how far I am into the book. the bookshelf view also gives an indication of how long a book is and how far you are into it with a row of dots beside each book.
The Kindle store (Amazon) has a wide variety of free books that are out of copyright. It also has some deeply discounted books. Some books offer a free sample. When you buy a book you can specify which device you want it sent to and it will appear there. Other devices can download the book on request.
This is not quite as mature but it is close. It offers more viewing options than the Kindle app. In addition to changing font size, you can also change the font itself. Nook also offers more color options: white, sepia and eggshell plus white on black.The sepia option in Kindle is subtle. With Nook, it is more pronounced and closer to the color of old paper. Using an older-style font with sepia is very close to the experience of reading a real book. This is enhanced by the page-turn animation which is more pronounced than the Kindle. By touching the upper right-hand corner you can add a bookmark which looks like a folded over corner. It also shows the current page number and the total page count at all times.
There are a few things I don't like. The opening screen does not auto-orient. It has a fixed portrait orientation. To turn a page forward you tap the right side. This means that I cannot turn the page with my thumb. I have to hold it with my left hand and turn the page with my right hand. The animation is also a bit slow. Making the app look and feel like a book is a good thing but it should not affect usability.
Unlike the other readers, the Nook app opens on a menu instead of your current bookshelf. It does sync books between devices.
The Barnes and Noble store is not as tightly integrated. Buying a book does not push it onto a selected device. You always have to pull it in a separate step. Also, you have to enter your billing information and credit card before you can download a free book. There are differences in the books carried. I considered getting a digital copy of the Lord of the Rings so that I can reread it without carrying a big hardback. Amazon offers the individual volumes separately at $10 each ($30 for all). Barnes and Noble has a single-volume collection for $19. B&N also has a selection of recent books that are either free or $0.99.
Borders was late to the EBook market and it shows. They do not have a proprietary device. Instead they use a reader from a third party called Kobo. I think that this is where their desktop and app versions come from, also. Page orientation works but there are fewer display options. You can change font size and choose serif, sans serif, or monospace. There is no sepia option, just black on white or white on black. You can flip pages with your thumb but there is no animation. The whole page just changes. I have used this the least, partly because the lack or page flip animation make it difficult to tell that you changed pages. The app does sync between devices.
The Borders store is very similar to B&N's store in set-up and content.
Unlike the others, this is an open source reader that is not associated with a book seller. You can buy books through it. You can also use it to search Project Gutenburg. You have to manually rotate the screen with this reader and it does not sync between devices.
This is an app for reading files in RTF format. I have a copy of The Hobbit in this format so I tried it. This app uses a background that looks like paper complete with texture. It does not sync between devices and does not support any library.
Bottom line - I listed these in order of preference. Assuming that I can get the same book for the same price, I would choose the Kindle app first and the Nook second. I am avoiding the Borders app because of the page turn.
Plus, of course, it is really easy to get more books. All I need is WiFi access.
The experience does vary by reader. All of them are usable but some are more mature. Here are my experiences.
Kindle
This is the most mature product. It automatically orients which ever way you hold it. Page turns only take a short swipe. I can easily hold the tablet in my left hand, balanced on my leg and turn pages with my thumb. The page flip shows as new text replacing the old text from right to left. The app lets me adjust the font size and margins. It has three viewing options - black on white, black on sepia, and white on black. I can read for a while on my tablet then open the book on my phone and the Kindle app will automatically offer to sync the position in the book. I can tap on the screen and see a progress bar at the bottom showing how far I am into the book. the bookshelf view also gives an indication of how long a book is and how far you are into it with a row of dots beside each book.
The Kindle store (Amazon) has a wide variety of free books that are out of copyright. It also has some deeply discounted books. Some books offer a free sample. When you buy a book you can specify which device you want it sent to and it will appear there. Other devices can download the book on request.
Nook
This is not quite as mature but it is close. It offers more viewing options than the Kindle app. In addition to changing font size, you can also change the font itself. Nook also offers more color options: white, sepia and eggshell plus white on black.The sepia option in Kindle is subtle. With Nook, it is more pronounced and closer to the color of old paper. Using an older-style font with sepia is very close to the experience of reading a real book. This is enhanced by the page-turn animation which is more pronounced than the Kindle. By touching the upper right-hand corner you can add a bookmark which looks like a folded over corner. It also shows the current page number and the total page count at all times.
There are a few things I don't like. The opening screen does not auto-orient. It has a fixed portrait orientation. To turn a page forward you tap the right side. This means that I cannot turn the page with my thumb. I have to hold it with my left hand and turn the page with my right hand. The animation is also a bit slow. Making the app look and feel like a book is a good thing but it should not affect usability.
Unlike the other readers, the Nook app opens on a menu instead of your current bookshelf. It does sync books between devices.
The Barnes and Noble store is not as tightly integrated. Buying a book does not push it onto a selected device. You always have to pull it in a separate step. Also, you have to enter your billing information and credit card before you can download a free book. There are differences in the books carried. I considered getting a digital copy of the Lord of the Rings so that I can reread it without carrying a big hardback. Amazon offers the individual volumes separately at $10 each ($30 for all). Barnes and Noble has a single-volume collection for $19. B&N also has a selection of recent books that are either free or $0.99.
Borders
Borders was late to the EBook market and it shows. They do not have a proprietary device. Instead they use a reader from a third party called Kobo. I think that this is where their desktop and app versions come from, also. Page orientation works but there are fewer display options. You can change font size and choose serif, sans serif, or monospace. There is no sepia option, just black on white or white on black. You can flip pages with your thumb but there is no animation. The whole page just changes. I have used this the least, partly because the lack or page flip animation make it difficult to tell that you changed pages. The app does sync between devices.
The Borders store is very similar to B&N's store in set-up and content.
FBReader
Unlike the others, this is an open source reader that is not associated with a book seller. You can buy books through it. You can also use it to search Project Gutenburg. You have to manually rotate the screen with this reader and it does not sync between devices.
Cool Reader
This is an app for reading files in RTF format. I have a copy of The Hobbit in this format so I tried it. This app uses a background that looks like paper complete with texture. It does not sync between devices and does not support any library.
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Bottom line - I listed these in order of preference. Assuming that I can get the same book for the same price, I would choose the Kindle app first and the Nook second. I am avoiding the Borders app because of the page turn.
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