Broken Voice Comics

Kingdom of Amalur: Skyrim slayer?

2012-01-25T09:27:00.031Z

[This post is a work in progress. Pics and formatting will be added and final edits will be made shortly.]

Yesterday I played the XBox 360 demo for Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning. And, whilst there are still plenty of ways in which the full game could fail to deliver, based on the demo, I'm inclined to believe this could well be the next big thing to hit the world of fantasy RPGs.

Let me put that in context. Ever since Dragon Age: Origins (which I loved) and Dragon Age 2 (arguably the most disappointing game of 2011), I've been eagerly devouring fantasy-themed RPGs in the hope of finding a game that could recreate the kind of immersive, fun-filled experience I first enjoyed as I wandered the vast expanse of Ferelden as a Grey Warden.

Nothing came close. I've tinkered with the likes of Dungeon Siege 3 (not a stellar solo experience but reasonably good fun in co-op), dabbled in numerous Japanese styled hack-and-slash epics, and dipped my toes into the horribly uninspired waters of lacklustre efforts like Venetica and D&D: Daggerdale.

Towards the end of last year, the RPG community fell in love with Skyrim. Sadly, I didn't. Sure, it looked stunning but, when I've played a game for several hours and I'm still having a harder time battling the game's controls than I am battling the game's monsters, I find the word "tiresome" comes to mind far more readily than "immersive".

Low expectations

I stumbled upon the Kingdom of Amalur demo by chance and, to be honest, I wasn't expecting much. It labours under a typically cumbersome title, takes place in a setting already far too familiar to devotees of Tolkien or the Brothers Grimm, is populated by a number of races with generically unpronounceable names (the Ljosalfar?) and is being marketed primarily on the reputations of those behind it, rather than the game's own merits.

Am I likely to buy a game just because it can boast contributions from Todd Mcfarlane (creator of the demonic comic book hero Spawn), R A Salvatore (fantasy writer) or Ken Rolston (games designer on two Elder Scrolls games)? Nope. The aimless wandering of Morrowind and Oblivion make those two of my least favourite RPGs of all time and, as for Mcfarlane and Salvatore ... well, we all know that success in one medium is no guarantee of quality in any other. So what won me over?

Visuals

The first thing that struck me about the demo is its look. The world may be made up of fairly staple components (expect winding tunnels, gloomy dungeons and quaint mediaeval villages), but the colour is extraordinary. There is a hint of this in the opening section (an underground system of tunnels peopled by gnomes and infested with - yes, you guessed it! - giant rats and spiders) but, unlike so many other games of its type, the pillars that support this subterranean network glow bright green. Not spectacular, but a small hint of what lies ahead.

Make it through those tunnels and step out into the sunlight and the colours of the world that awaits are vibrant - think Fable 2 with the colour settings on your TV turned up to 11! Reds, yellows, greens, purples and blues are there in abundance - each one incredibly bright, radiating an inner warmth. This is a million miles removed from the pin-sharp but relentlessly bleak beauty of Skyrim's graphics. After only a few minutes in Amalur's countryside, the greyish shades of blue, the greyish shades of green and - let's be frank - the greyish shades of grey that characterise Skyrim's undeniably detailed landscapes start to seem just a little too ... monochromatic!

Combat

The demo gives the player a chance to complete a number of minor quests but the focus in something of this length is inevitably on combat. Two features struck me here. The first is the character's ability to block attacks with a shield. As a player, this is a function I rarely use in games. Blocks are typically too easily overcome and, if attacked by more than one enemy, they tend to be pointless, since they do nothing to protect the character from attack by flanking enemies. Not so in Kingdom of Amalur. Raise your shield to block one attack and, if you keep it raised, your character will automatically turn to face whichever direction subsequent attacks are coming from - again and again and again. Finally - a blocking move that actually does what it says on the tin!

The other feature I liked was the ease with which the player could use a bow. Just as I very seldom use a block function in combat games, I almost always use bows when I get the chance. In Kingdom of Amalur, your bow automatically locks onto a target. This, of course, is by no means an innovation (many games do this and have done for years), but it's in marked contrast to the manual aiming required in Skyrim. I can understand the argument that having to aim manually is more "realistic" but, let's face it, these are meant to be story-driven games, not hardcore archery simulations. I found Skyrim's system made it a matter of luck as to whether you could actually hit anything with a bow (or even impossible in the case of moving targets) and, eventually, I gave in to my frustration and stopped using the bow all together. Now, with Kingdom of Amalur, I can look forward to picking up my quiver again!

Back story

In a short demo, like this, it's impossible to get a feel for the bigger story that will eventually unfold in Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning although, predictably, it does include such fantasy staples such as a hero with no memory, a looming war and the growing presence of orc-like bad guys (the "Tuatha"). A nice touch, however, is the inclusion of mythical creatures drawn from ancient Celtic lore, rather than exclusively from the more usual Germanic/Nordic sources. Alongside familiar monsters such as trolls and a number of game-specific creatures are references to, for example, the "fae" and "boggarts". Ultimately, this may amount to little more than a change of nomenclature but, combined with the gloriously colourful surroundings, I found Amalur reminiscent not so much of a world created by Todd McFarlane, as one created by Neil Gaiman.

Of course, a pretty world and an efficient combat system are not enough to make a game worth buying. The success of the game will ultimately depend on whether the story and characterisation are strong enough to draw players in and make them feel invested in the fate of the character they control. We won't know whether that's the case until the full game is released in February but, on the strength of the demo, it appears that Kingdom of Amalur will, at least be a fun game to play, with easy to use controls.

My initial reservations have already proved completely unfounded and, contrary to my expectations, I'm now looking forward to this game immensely. I know this will be blasphemy for the many millions of Skyrim players but, in the couple of hours I spent playing the demo, I had more fun than I did in days of wrestling with Bethesda's behemoth. Go try the demo now!

Abhorrent Practices - Chapter 2.3

2011-12-04T15:59:00.020Z

Tremayne (Part 3)

By midday the market square was alive with shoppers bustling about their business, forming queues at the shops and crowding around the stalls, now festooned with banners, pennants and flags of every size and shape; mostly orange and blue, the colours of Tremayne's city crest, but punctuated here and there by the greens, purples and reds of the banners flown by foreign traders.

Perrick was in a good mood now. Around him traders from a dozen different island states barked, cajoled and entreated potential customers to examine their goods. This was what he lived for.

He'd been doing a brisk trade all morning, and had even managed to sell a particularly ugly vase he'd been forced to buy in order to secure some much needed food supplies some three months earlier, back on Sharrow's Bluff. A local antiques dealer had given him thirty-six shillings for it, more than twice the sum he'd paid. That trade alone had almost banished the distasteful memory of the woman who'd purchased the globe earlier in the day.

"All the way from the exotic String Islands," sang Perrick to the elderly man poring over a bundle of yellowing sheets of parchment. They were tied together at one corner by a ribbon of black lace. "Exquisite, aren't they?"

"Are they genuine?" grunted the old man, holding the pages up to his face, scrutinising the simple black illustrations closely. He had his nose pressed against a drawing of a landscape, a grassy plain lying scorched under a setting sun.

"Can't you tell?" enthused Perrick. "Just look at the penmanship. You won't find artistry like that anywhere in this hemisphere." He hesitated. A member of the City Guard was approaching the stall-holder to his right. Keeping the guard on the edge of his field of vision, he turned his attention back to the old man. "Every page a masterpiece in miniature. But you already know that, I can tell. A distinguished gentleman like yourself ... You have an unsurpassed appreciation of the fine arts."

The old man raised his eyes briefly, exchanged a glance with Perrick and turned his gaze back to the yellowed pages in his hands.

"You got a licence to trade here?" The guard stood before Perrick's neighbour, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

"Again? Really?" The trader threw his hands out in a gesture of exasperation. "You know damn well I've got a licence. I showed it to you just yesterday. Is it because I'm from Brael? Is that what this is about?"

The guard tightened his grip on his sword.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, sir. But I still need to see your papers. It's nothing personal. We'll be asking to see all the traders' licences."

A young servant girl handling the vegetables on the trader's stall looked up. She wiped her hands on her apron, already streaked with the grime and grease of a hard morning's work in the kitchens of one of the Hillside mansions.

"Is it about the Grand Marshall?" she asked. "Down in the Shanties, they're saying he's dead. That his nurse found him. Is that true?" The guard shifted uncomfortably under the woman's questioning.

"I can't comment on that, miss. Our investigation is ..."

"So, he is dead, then?" The merest hint of a smile flickered across the trader's face. He wouldn't be shedding any tears over Harlan's death but here, in the centre of Tremayne, wasn't the safest place to show the sense of satisfaction he felt. Harlan had been responsible for so much suffering. "Well, he'd been ill for a long time, I suppose."

Perrick allowed himself a discreet glance at the group gathering by the stall next to his. The prospect of overhearing scandalous gossip was already beginning to attract quite an audience. The trader was rummaging among the contents of a leather satchel slung low over his left hip. He withdrew three folded sheets of beige paper and passed them to the guard who squinted at the merchant’s name.

“Aker Dunbridge,” he said, reading the merchant’s name from the first of the permits. The merchant shrugged.

“Same as it was last time you guys checked it,” he muttered. The guard grunted something in reply that Perrick couldn't quite hear. Whatever he'd said, his irritation at the trader's casual attitude was evident.

"No, I mean is it genuine?" repeated the old man, turning another page of the bundle of parchment in his hands. "These pictures; do they work?"

Perrick didn't answer. His attention was focused entirely on the servant girl now. She was clearly excited, her eagerness to share what she knew growing with every person who joined the group around them.

"Illness had nothing to do with it," she replied. "Old Minette who works at a mansion just across the street from his, she said he was found with an eighteen inch blade stuck right in his chest. Had both his hands wrapped around the handle, she said."

"You're kidding!" Aker’s shock was clearly genuine. "He committed suicide?"

The guard shuffled his feet uncomfortably and glared at the girl. Loose talk at a sensitive time like this could easily lead to more serious unrest.

"We don't know that," he growled at her. He lowered his eyes from the trader to scrutnise the crumpled papers in his hand. They'd obviously been inspected many times before. "As I say, the investigation is ..."

"As if!" scoffed the maidservant. "He was weak as a kitten. Couldn't even hold a soup spoon, Minette said, so there's no way he could stick a bleeding great knife in his own chest. The blade went in six inches, I heard!"

Perrick felt a tugging at his sleeve.

"The pictures," persisted the old man. "Do they work?"

"Hmm? Yes, yes," confirmed Perrick. "Of course they work." Perrick was torn now. He did not wish to risk losing the sale, but he dearly wished to hear what more the girl had to say.

"You're not saying he was murdered?"

"Well, it looks like it," continued the girl. "But here's the funny thing: there was no sign of a break-in. Minette says ..." She cast her eyes around her audience, enjoying her chance to play to the crowd. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Minette says the guards suspect witchcraft!"

A gasp ran around the assembled onlookers.

"Superstition!" snapped the guard. "Tremayne hasn't had a confirmed case of witchcraft in over thirty years!" He thrust the trading permits back into Aker Dunbridge’s hands and turned to Perrick. "You!" he snapped. "Show me your papers."

Perrick obediently handed the guard his permits and licences.

"Still," he said," they do say it's quite common on some of the more remote islands."

"I know," grumbled the guard. "Like Grielle. Supposed to be rife there. But we don't get many visitors from those parts. If there are any in the city, they'll be rounded up soon enough." He ran his eyes over Perrick’s papers. The necessary stamps and signatures were all in order. "You know these are only valid for two more days?" he said.

"Sure," nodded Perrick. "I have to meet a buyer in Canto by the weekend. If I don't leave in the next couple of days, he'll be gone before I get there."

"Fine." The guard returned Perrick's papers. "Don't miss the tide," he said, and marched briskly off to question the stall holder standing to Perrick's left.

As the guard moved, Perrick's gaze fell on the cafe opposite. The owner had placed a few wooden tables outside, and a motley selection of individuals sat drinking the kind of coffee they only sold in self-important states like Tremayne: overpriced, as thick as treacle and strong enough to dissolve the lining of your stomach. At one of the tables a small man wearing a pair of round spectacles had lowered the newspaper he was reading to watch the guard's progress.

"Show me," muttered the old man, thrusting the sheaf of parchments in Perrick's face. "If these are genuine, you show me how they work."

With the guard gone, Perrick took barely a second to compose himself.

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure!" he said, his face beaming. "It's not often my humble wares attract the attention of so discerning an art-lover as yourself!" He glanced at the top drawing in the man's hands. It was a clever rendition of two ferrets, caught in the coils of a large and very menacing reptile. "Ah, one of my favourites! I'm always astonished at just how deftly a few simple lines can capture a moment like that. The look of ecstasy in the hunter's eyes; the fear and anticipation on the faces of his prey ..." He then leaned towards the old man, bringing his face so close, they were almost touching. "Now, turn the page anticlockwise and look at the picture again. Don't look at the lines. Focus on the spaces between the lines ..."

The look of consternation on the old man's face slowly gave way to a salacious grin.

"I can see two women!" he chortled, his delight at the discovery obvious. "And they're ... Oh my!" He looked hurriedly up from the parchments and offered them back to Perrick. "Oh, I don't think I could buy these!" he said apologetically. "They're a little too ..."

"Racy?" suggested Perrick. "I can see how they might seem that way. At first. To someone without the benefit of your obvious sophistication. But to an educated man, to a truly enlightened connoisseur of the fine arts such as yourself, to one who appreciates such things solely for their artistic merit ..."

"Ten shillings," said the old man.

"Twelve, and I'll gift-wrap them for you. Anyone seeing you carry them home will assume you've just bought a box of Sharrovian sweet meats."

"Eleven," whispered the old man, his eyes darting around to see if their conversation had been overheard.

Perrick took up a pair of scissors and drew out a length of scarlet ribbon from a spool hanging just above his head. He motioned for the old man to place the sheaf of parchments in the centre of a large sheet of paper lying on a stool to one side.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," he smiled, his quick hands already at work wrapping the parcel.

(C) David A J Berner, 2011. All rights reserved.

Arkham City - I'm Batman ... again!

2011-10-31T10:10:00.030Z

Batman may be DC's biggest brand, but even with the plethora of gadgets at his disposal, it took the caped crusader a long time to make a video game which was actually fun to play.

His breakthrough game was Arkham Asylum, a game which grasped the fact that it wasn't enough to feature the character and rely on die-hard comic fans buying it. When moving into a new medium like video games, the gameplay has to be fun and absorbing in its own right; the fact that the main character also appears in a dozen different comic titles should be almost irrelevant. Or at least the icing on - rather than the whole of - the cake.

Arkham Asylum did that. Sure, a lot of us bought it because it was a Batman game. But a lot of other gamers bought it even though they'd never read a Batman comic. Just as non-comic audiences went to see Nolan's The Dark Knight because they'd heard it was a good film, so gamers bought Arkham Asylum because they heard it was a good game.

The problem with a runaway success, however, is how to follow it up. As Bioware found with Dragon Age, there are a lot of expectations on a sequel and if the game is in any way inferior, the backlash can be bitter and - thanks to the internet - voluble. So, how does Arkham City compare to its predecessor?

Story

Unless you've been hibernating in your own Batcave for the last few months, you've probably read about this already. In short, however, a portion of Gotham City has been fenced off and turned into a huge "open plan" asylum, overseen by Hugo Strange. Various factions led by a wide assortment of Batman's classic foes vie for supremacy or simply pursue personal agendas, while the Joker still has plans for the titan formula which featured in the main plot of the first game. What this scenario provides, therefore, is a logical extension of the first game and a significantly larger game area. Exactly what you'd want from a sequel!

Gameplay

Again, Arkham City follows the tried and trusted sequel formula. Most of the gadgets Batman had at his disposal by the end of Arkham Asylum are gifted to you very near the beginning of the game. From the start, therefore, the game feels familiar. As the story progresses, however, he acquires more gadgets, providing new ways to navigate the city, combat villains and tackle the Riddler's many devious puzzles. And this time, the puzzles are more diverse and more , well ... puzzling!

Indeed, "more" seems to have been the watchword for the designers. There are more buildings to explore, more streets to clean up, and the villains provide more side quests, enabling them to break out of the "blink-and-you-miss-'em" cameos to which most of them were relegated in Arkham Asylum. Batman's decoder gadget is used in a wider variety of ways and its use seems less random and more logical.

Playable Characters

For most of the game, you play - not surprisingly - as Batman. And, as with the first game, Arkham City really does make you feel as if you are in the pointy boots of the world's greatest detective and martial arts expert. If you download the Robin add-on pack, you can also play as Tim Drake (the third Robin) but, since I haven't, I'm not sure how much of the story mode is actually playable as the Boy Wonder. Sorry.

The main game, however, does enable you to play a small number of levels as Catwoman. Again these levels have to be downloaded, but the game currently comes with a code enabling you to download them for free.

The most surprising thing about the Catwoman levels, perhaps, is how well they work. Introducing a new playable character can be a risky move for a game which features an instantly recognisable lead character. Both Lara Croft and Solid Snake have tried it in the past and were widely criticised for it. In this case, however, playing as Catwoman actually leaves you wishing she featured in even more missions than the small number she does.

The reason it works, I think, is because the developers and designers have given her a complete set of customised moves without requiring the player to learn a whole new set of button-mashing combos. Her attack button is the same as Batman's attack button, but the attacks she performs when you press it are different. The button to launch Batman to the top of a building is the same as the button to launch Selina, but - where Batman will respond by firing a grapple - Catwoman will pounce, climbing the side of the building with effortless feline ease. Despite the potential disaster that a new playable character can inflict on a game, the introduction of Catwoman in Arkham City may well be one of its greatest innovations.

And the bad?

So, does the game have any flaws? Well, I haven't finished playing the whole game yet but, so far, I've only found one. For the most part, gliding over the Gotham rooftops is a joy, but in one respect I found it a source of considerable frustration. To move quickly while gliding, it is necessary to alternate between dive-bombing and rising. This is essential to complete certain sequences of the game but, if you have the flight controls inverted (as I did), the manoeuvre simply fails to work. This is incredibly frustrating and, since it's impossible to progress without it, I began to think I'd have to give up on the game all together. And, judging from the internet forums, I'm not alone in having hit this particular brick wall.

Fortunately, I eventually discovered that the problem can be solved quite simply, by resetting the flight controls so they aren't inverted. A small adjustment when you know about it, but one which is flagged nowhere and which really shouldn't have been necessary.

Conclusion

If you've already played Arkham Asylum, you don't need me to tell you to buy this game. You'll have had it on pre-order for the past six months and, unless you've got your flight controls inverted (in which case you'll still be stuck on that damned gliding level!), I imagine you'll have already played far more of it than I have. If, on the other hand, you are still undecided, I can't recommend this game highly enough.

If you're not a comics fan it doesn't matter. This is an action-packed video game with an absorbing story line and a slew of puzzles which will really get you scratching your head. Plus, if you are a comics fan, this is the nearest you'll get to being the Big Bad Bat, without actually draping a cape around your shoulders and patrolling your city's seedy underbelly after dark!

Abhorrent Practices - Chapter 2.2

2011-10-10T19:20:00.015+01:00

Tremayne (Part 2)

"Perrick said that?" Naylor laughed, loud and full heartedly.

"He did! He did!" giggled Skrawl, his four eyes darting nervously around the deck lest Perrick should suddenly appear behind him. "He said he hated towns like Tremayne because ... because ..." Skrawl did his best to stifle the explosion of mirth welling up inside him. "Because the people are so ... are so ..." He swallowed hard. "So antisocial!"

The two of them burst into a fit of conspiratorial laughter. They'd been travelling with Perrick for many years now and, as obsequious as his trade required him to be with potential customers, he'd never made any attempt to hide his true nature from his crew mates on board the Jennie Seaholme.

"So, what brings you out on deck?" asked Naylor. "You avoiding Marla?"

"Oh, oh no!" Skrawl replied, genuinely taken aback. "Why - why would I ever want to do that! Marla is ... Marla's ... Well, she's ..."

Naylor laughed his loud, good natured laugh. He was hanging upside down from the yardarm, painting an elaborate design on the Seaholme's main mast. He was held aloft by a single rope twined around one of his legs.

"Relax," he grinned. "I'm just pulling your leg. Or legs. We all know how devoted you are to the lovely Marla."

Skrawl eyed Naylor suspiciously, unsure of whether he was still being teased. He raised one of his four arms in the air and stabbed a bony finger in Naylor's direction.

"You sh-shouldn't joke about things like that," he chided him. "What Marla and I have is ... is ... well, I w-wouldn't expect someone like you to understand!"

Naylor sighed. He'd never get used to just how quickly Skrawl could take offence. He looked down at the indignant preen below him. Covered in rust-coloured scales and balanced on four scrawny legs, his coiled tail wound around one of his four arms, Naylor had always considered Skrawl a comical figure but, upside down and wagging a long, skeletal finger in the air, it was impossible to take him seriously.

"Calm down," he said, grinning even more widely than usual, "and tell me what you came out here for. It wasn't just to laugh at Perrick, I take it?"

"Ha!" Skrawl snorted. He could never stay angry at Naylor for long. "I just w-wondered if ... I mean, Marla w-wanted to know if you were, um, hungry? Are you? Hungry, I mean?"

"Nope. Give my thanks to Marla, but I really need to finish this logum."

Skrawl turned his attention to the mast. Every inch below the spot where Naylor was painting was covered in strange words painted in a script he couldn't read. Each word comprised a sequence of gold letters, some presumably phonetic symbols, others apparently intricate pictograms. They were all interlaced with a delicate background pattern painted in a deep crimson, an intense green or a rich purple. The patterns appeared to be as much a part of the meaning of each word as the letters themselves.

"So that's what they're called," murmured Skrawl, his interest piqued. He ran his finger tips lightly over one of the designs at his own height. "They're beautiful."

"Logums tell the history of the ship," explained Naylor. "All turlish ships have them. Each one represents a port we've stayed in; places we've seen. Things we've done; fish we've caught; people we've ... met."

"So Marla and I are on here? Somewhere among all these ...?" Skrawl gestured widely at the logums decorating the entire lower half of the mast, excitement mounting in his voice. "One of these designs tells the story of how we came to be on board?"

"Of course!" beamed Naylor, his eyes twinkling. "The crew is the most important part of any ship. What kind of a captain would I be if I didn't keep proper records of all my new members?"

"Which one?"

"I just said. All of them."

"No, I mean ... which logum is about Marla and me?"

"The green one. About six feet up. The first letter looks a bit like a rabbit."
Skrawl walked around the mast.

"I see it!" he squealed. "I see it!" He pressed his fingers against the gold letters and breathed deeply as if trying to inhale their meaning. "It's as beautiful as Marla herself. What does it say? Exactly? What does it ...?"

"Well, the letters are just your names and your roles on board the Jennie. But the background patterns add the context."

"Context?"

"The circumstances of our meeting. Where it happened; what I thought about you both; how that felt."

"No!" Skrawl could barely contain his excitement. "You put your feelings on here? Really? What does it ... what does it say about us? No, wait. Maybe I'd better not ... But you've got everyone on here? Even Perrick?"

"Especially Perrick!" Naylor chuckled. "There are things about Perrick on this mast that even his mother doesn't know!"

"And Sandrine?" Skrawl was in full flow now. He couldn't have stopped himself if he'd wanted to. "You've got logums on here about Sandrine?"

And, suddenly, Naylor wasn't laughing any more. An awkward silence descended over both of them. It was Naylor who eventually broke the silence. He still wore a broad grin, but the muscles in his upside-down face were noticeably strained.

"Not as much as there is about Perrick," he said simply.

(C) David A J Berner, 2011. All rights reserved.

Abhorrent Practices - Chapter 2.1

2011-09-23T08:17:00.016+01:00

Tremayne (Part 1)

The cold, early morning sunlight cast a watery amber sheen over the grey tiled roofs of Tremayne. The light hadn't yet managed to seep into the narrow alley ways of the Shanty District, and even the wide open area that was the market square seemed reluctant to cast off the dank shadows that clung to its eastern side.

The sun had been up for barely an hour, but already a few early morning customers were beginning to drift into the square. They hugged their capes tightly around them, hunching their backs against the sharp bite of the early salt breeze that wafted inland from the harbour.

Perrick knew these people. They were the same in every town. Always the first to leave their houses, they threaded their way like predators between the stalls which had been set up while the market square still huddled under the blanket of the previous night's darkness. They'd peer and prod inquisitively at the colourful merchandise on display. These were not casual shoppers. These were men and women with business to conduct: local shopkeepers looking to replenish their stocks; keen-eyed collectors hoping to spot a rare item before any of their rivals; and the occasional government official on the lookout for anyone attempting to trade illegally.

"Fifteen," said Perrick, trying to sound welcoming but finding his voice not quite able to shrug off the gruffness he felt at having to be up and about at that unnatural time of the morning.

The woman who'd been handling a glass ball among the jumble of curiosities at the far end of his stall looked up at him, apparently startled. In sharp contrast to the other grey-shrouded shoppers, she wore a full-skirted dress and had a lace shawl pulled over her head. The shawl was a deep shade of green, beaded with tiny red stones. The dress was golden and, even in the pale grey light of the early morning, it shimmered as she turned to face him.

"Shillings?" she asked. "For this? Fifteen shillings for a paperweight?" She was, even to a Tharn like himself, strikingly attractive. A mane of wild, black hair tumbled out from beneath the shawl and nestled around her shoulders, as sleek as if newly painted in ink. Her skin radiated an inner warmth at odds with the time of day.

Perrick smiled as warmly as he could. If there was a trade to be done here, he needed to be a lot sharper than he was currently feeling.

"Ah, but that isn't a paperweight," he corrected her with a practised smile. "It was made in Grielle, a small island far to the north of here. A rich, luxuriant island full of exotic mystery. What you have in your hand there, is known locally as a witchglobe."

The woman laughed, and his head filled with the sound of a dozen tiny bells strung on a fine silver cord.

"Well, now I know you're teasing me," she said. "You surely don't mean to tell me you believe in witches? A well-travelled man such as yourself?"

"I'm just telling you what I know," Perrick protested, his face a picture of hurt. "I assure you, I bought that globe from one of my most trusted trading partners. And he'd just returned from Grielle, not three months before." He was a thin man but tall, perhaps a little under seven feet and, like many other men and women from the island of Tharn, had turned bald before the age of thirteen. In a sweeping, theatrical gesture, he bent at the waist and bowed low, bringing his angular, bird-like face closer to hers. Then, in a low, conspiratorial voice he added: "You know, it's said the women of Grielle use witchglobes to enhance their natural beauty. Now that's worth fifteen shillings, surely?"

The woman laid one hand on his arm. As heavily wrapped against the cold as he was, he could feel its warmth through the sleeve of his long, leather coat. His skin tingled. Then, with graceful ease, she slipped the shawl from her head and let it drape over her shoulders. She was shorter than Perrick, barely reaching his shoulders, and she had to tilt her head to look up into his eyes. Hers, he noticed, were green; her pupils large, impossibly black and speckled with tiny points of light like stars.

"Are you saying my beauty is in need of enhancement?" she chided him. "Don't you think that's a mite ... ungallant?"

"No, I ..." Perrick groaned inwardly. Instinctively he knew he'd allowed her to seize the advantage. He was on the defensive now. He couldn't afford to let the other traders see him bested, or he'd be a target for every chiseller looking for an easy mark. He needed to get her away from his stall as quickly and as quietly as possible. "Look," he countered, "you can have it for twelve, okay? Twelve shillings and not a penny less. Even as a paperweight, it's worth that."

"Ten," she said, still smiling. "And that's only because I liked your story about witches. Why, Tad Lerman's got a stall full of pretty objects I could use as paperweights, and not a one of them costs more than eight."

Perrick looked down at the woman's face. He couldn't remember the last time someone had so comprehensively outmanoeuvred him. There was no denying her eyes were exceptionally beautiful, but he'd been in the game long enough to be on his guard against a pretty face.

"Fine," he conceded. "Ten. But don't come back tomorrow looking for more bargains. Go do your shopping at Tad Lerman's. Ruin his business instead."

The woman dropped the globe into the small green bag hanging from her wrist. She took a ten shilling note from her purse and folded it into Perrick's hand.

"It's been a pleasure," she said and pulled her shawl back up over her head, the red stones glinting briefly, like so many eyes winking mischievously at his scarcely concealed irritation. With a swish of her skirts, the woman turned on her heel and began walking away towards the stalls lined up on the far side of the square. Perrick felt his mood blacken as he watched her go.

This was one trade he had no intention of sharing with the rest of the crew. If Naylor heard he'd been out-haggled by some over-dressed woman from a backward island like Tremayne, he’d make his life a misery all the way from here to Brael.

(C) David A J Berner, 2011. All rights reserved.

DC's Fifty-two Number Ones

2011-09-16T18:42:00.043+01:00

Generally speaking, I'm not a buyer of pamphlet comics. I'm one of those annoying "wait-for-the-trades" type of people. I'm with those who believe the vast majority of mainstream monthly titles are poor value for money, containing far too few pages and far too many splash pages; that they are constrained by far too rigid an observance of continuity; and that they rely far too heavily on gimmicks, crossovers, and "events" in place of good story-telling.

When DC announced its intention to repackage all its titles and relaunch them as fifty-two new "Number 1s", I was as sceptical as anyone that the editorial teams really understood what they needed to do in order to grow their readership; to attract readers like me and - more importantly - new, younger readers. But I wanted to be wrong. I wanted so much to be wrong that I even broke the reading habits of several decades and sought out a whole bunch of the new Number 1s launched this week. I've not read them all yet, but here are my thoughts on those I have. As you'll see ... I've yet to be convinced that anything has really changed!

Action Comics - At the very end of Justice League #1, Superman made an entrance. He only had one line but that line seemed to characterise him as an arrogant jerk. Not as arrogant a jerk as Green Lantern was in that title, but then GL had more pages to show just how arrogant a jerk he could be.

Here, Superman has many more lines and far more pages to show us his real personality. And guess what? He's not only every bit as arrogant a jerk as GL, he's also every bit as psychotic and heavy-handed as Batman. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that his first story arc will see him dropping those personality traits and becoming more like the nice guy he was pre-relaunch. If he doesn't, I can see this Superman failing miserably. As it stands, this title is going to have readers rooting for Lex Luthor and booing and hissing every time Big Blue makes an appearance.

Oh, and just as an aside, why bother dressing the main character in every day jeans and a t-shirt, if you're also going to tuck a red cape into his collar? Awful. 3/10

Green Arrow - solid but, ultimately, very ordinary superhero fare. Essentially this is one extended fight sequence, but one which also delivers a whole bunch of exposition, introducing us to GA's alter ego as Oliver Queen and two members of his support team. (I do like my super heroes to have a support team!)

The only other feature of any note is that this comic possibly has more women in micro-skirts than anywhere outside of a Bruce Timm cartoon.

Overall, it's passable enough, but does nothing to answer the big question: did a second-string hero like GA really warrant his own title or, the editorial decision having been made to launch no less than fifty-two new titles, is he just there to make up the numbers? 6.5/10

Detective Comics - completely lacking in originality and seemingly designed specifically to alienate young readers.

The dialogue and artwork in this title are both far too reminiscent of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. One or two panels, I'm sure have simply been copied wholesale from DKR. A deliberate homage, or just an uninspired piece of plagiarism? I'd like to go with the homage theory, but the comic borrows so heavily in just about every department, that it's difficult to be charitable.

It's hard to believe that, a quarter of a century after Miller's seminal book, DC's editors and writers are still trying to copy its "grim and gritty" violence, and still haven't learned anything that it had to offer in terms of wit, characterisation and story-telling. 3.5/10

Batwing - one sign of just how stale the superhero universes of both DC and Marvel have become is the fact that they continue to rely on resurrecting age-old characters and seem to have little success in introducing new characters. Batwing is a reflection of DC's self-doubt. Nominally, he is a new character but, in reality, he isn't. He's just Batman in Africa.

He's mentored by Batman, dresses like Batman and, in this first issue, the writing is so sparse he isn't even allowed to show any kind of individual personality. When characters are allowed to speak, they spout the kind of risible similes that haven't been attributed to native Africans since the days of Rider Haggard. Where a western murder victim would cry simply "No!" or "Don't!", the writer here apparently believes an African would be more likely to say: "I do not want to be butchered like a cow."

The presence of gratuitous gore, including close-ups of a bloody machete thrust through a chest and severed heads, will ensure that this title does little to open up the DCU to newer, younger readers. 5/10

Batgirl - the best of the Bat-books (so far). There are problems with this title but, compared to the very low standard of the others, they're small.

Gail Simone has the unenviable task of persuading us that, just three years after being shot in the spine, Barbara Gordon is now able not just to walk again, but to swing from rooftops and trade blows with the scum of Gotham's underworld. (Oh, well, at least she isn't returning from the dead!) Ironically, this ludicrous premise is also a source of the book's strength. It means that - unlike Batwing or the Batman in Detective Comics - Batgirl has a backstory which adds depth and context to her actions.

It's not perfect. Some of the scene shifts are clumsily handled, and Batgirl's admission that she feels fear comes far too late in her opening battle to be credible. By then, the cocky, self-assured comments she's already made during the entire fight, make the admission sound like an afterthought on the part of the writer, rather than an integral part of the character's mindset. Still ... at least she says it. 7.5/10

O.M.A.C. - like GA #1, this is very ordinary stuff. Despite the glossy digital colouring, the artwork is very reminiscent of Silver Age Marvel. Facial expressions and body shapes all seem to belong to an earlier time. One huge panel even features vast laboratory tanks filled with a glowing green liquid and - wait for it - Kirby dots! Nostalgics may get a buzz out of that but, sadly, the storytelling is as dated as the artwork.

By the end of the issue the reader has only really learned one thing: mild mannered Kevin Koh is the incredible Hulk. Or at least a version of the Hulk called OMAC that's part machine and controlled by a sentient space station known as (yes, you guessed it!) Brother Eye. A Brother Eye which, despite being the most advanced mechanical brain ever invented, rather annoyingly still spells "I" as "Eye", just as its equally annoying pre-relaunch predecessor did. You'd have thought a genius inventor might have installed a rudimentary spell-checker among all that other software that must be in there.

Oh, and OMAC sports a hairstyle that's part mohawk and part mullet. I've taken an extra half a point off for that. 4.5/10

Fireball XL5

2011-09-13T04:52:00.064+01:00

Back in 1962, before Thunderbirds had put an orbiting space station around the Earth, before Captain Scarlet had ventured as far as Mars and incurred the wrath of the Mysterons, before Dave Bowman and HAL had embarked on Kubrick's epic odyssey to Jupiter, and before James T Kirk had taken the U.S.S. Enterprise out to explore the final frontier, Earth was protected from all manner of alien invaders by the puppets of the World Space Patrol and its flagship Fireball XL5.

Now mostly forgotten by all except the most avid fans of scifi-themed TV and those of us of *ahem* a certain age, Fireball may well be the reason I'm still a fan of all things scifi to this day. At five years old I may have been too young to be aware of Kennedy's historic "We choose to go to the moon" speech, but I was certainly old enough to be captivated by the adventures of Colonel Steve Zodiac and his crew.

And what a crew! As well as Zodiac himself (the "greatest astronaut of Space Patrol"), the ship boasted a beautiful French "doctor of space medicine" Doctor Venus, resident boffin Professor Matt Matic and a wonderfully perspex co-pilot Robert the Robot. At some point they also seem to have acquired an alien pet, Zoonie the Lazoon, an obvious forerunner of Debbie, the monkey-like pet acquired by Penny Robinson in Lost in Space.

Viewed through today's eyes, the show is very much a product of its time. Not only was it initially made in black and white, it had only the most fleeting of relationships with scientific fact. A simple "oxygen pill", for example, was sufficient not only to allow the crew to breathe outside the ship, but also to protect them from the cold and every other rigour associated with surviving in the vacuum of space!

In addition, some of the dialogue seems designed specifically to outrage even the most non-militant of feminists. In the first episode Doctor Venus is seen preparing the crew's meal and is frequently asked to make coffee. By episode 4, we learn she spends her off-duty hours "sewing on buttons and doing the laundry" for Steve and Matt. Wow. Imagine Star Trek's Doctor McCoy being asked to wash the unmentionables of Kirk and Spock!

But the selling point of the show was never meant to be its realism or its characters. As with Gerry Anderson's other shows like Supercar (which preceded it), Stingray and Thunderbirds (both of which came later), the real star was the vehicle: Fireball XL5 itself. Fireball was a spaceship. Not a flying cruise liner like the Enterprise or Voyager; not a utilitarian hulk like the Nostromo; Fireball was an honest-to-goodness 1960s cylindrical rocket, complete with a detachable bullet-shaped nose-cone, wings and a tail fin. It was Thunderbird 1 - but even more cool; a space Cadillac with missiles!

Thanks to the modern miracle that is DVD, all 39 episodes can now be seen again. As indeed can the puppets' strings! If you thought Team America was only spoofing Thunderbirds, the Fireball XL5 box-set will really open your eyes.

Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet may represent the high-point and best-known of Gerry Anderson's creations featuring scifi-themed marionettes but, as these episodes demonstrate, all the key ingredients were already in place as early as 1962. The corny dialogue, the jerky movements, the laughable foreign accents ... yes, they're all there.

But most of all, so are the wonderful machines and the sense of excitement; the sense that Anderson was creating a brand new form of entertainment for children and instilling in them a fascination with the future that would last a lifetime. A sense, as Kennedy might have said, that Anderson was choosing to send his puppets to the moon, not because it was easy; but because it was fun!

Justice League #1

2011-08-31T14:13:00.052+01:00

Okay, so there are no prizes for identifying that this picture is taken from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This classic rolling boulder scene has to be one of the most iconic scenes in any movie in the history of cinema. But what's it doing here in a post about the relaunched JLA?

I'll get to that.

First, let's add a little context. A few months ago, DC announced all its titles would be refashioned, repackaged and relaunched as 52 new titles, all numbered from Issue #1. Familiar characters would have their costumes redesigned (again) and, in some cases, their origins rebooted (again) but - for the most part - it would be the same old DCU made more accessible to new readers. And in both print and digital formats.

The first of the 52 new titles, the relaunched Justice League, went on sale today and the initial reaction online has been ... mixed. The consensus is that Jim Lee's art is outstanding, Geoff Johns's writing is fairly average and the story, overall, is underwhelming.

The principal area of contention has been that the story concerns itself with the initial meeting between Batman and Green Lantern. There is action, but it's not spectacular. There are other characters but they're relegated to minor supporting roles. There are signs that the seeds of a larger, more complex story are being sown, but the issue itself spends far too much time showing GL and Bats in conversation.

In short, the view seems to be that JLA #1 is a perfectly adequate (if unexceptional) first chapter in a slow-building story, adequate for existing JLA fans but completely lacking the dramatic, extravagant splash that's required to give new readers a taste of what the title will (hopefully) become.

The kind of splash which, you may remember, was delivered so successfully by Indy's now classic encounter with that rolling boulder.

Johns may be patiently laying the groundwork for several wonderful issues of this title but, unless your ambition is to appeal exclusively to an already established fan base (as with a long-running TV series) or selling the complete story in a single instalment (as with most novels or movies), then you need to open with something that also grabs the attention of your new target audience.

The opening sequence to Raiders of the Lost Ark is a text book example of how that should be done. It's easy to forget now that Indy has become part of our collective cultural consciousness but, when Raiders first hit cinema screens, nobody knew who Indiana Jones was. Nobody knew that an Indy adventure was supposed to be about archaeology, arcane relics, Nazis, impossible stunts and edge-of-the-seat, heart-in-the-mouth thrills and spills. Sure, there would have to be a lengthy exposition sequence somewhere near the beginning of the film, but Spielberg appreciated that - even before that - there needed to be something to introduce the flavour of the movie. Something like a huge rolling boulder.

By the time that boulder had finished careering through the cave, the audience knew that Indy was an archaeologist with a bull whip, a battered fedora and a tendency to land himself in danger. In addition, they'd been given a taste of the adrenaline-fuelled, over-the-top action and humour that would come to characterise his adventures. And what's more, it had all been done without a single word of exposition.

Geoff Johns may have a great story lined up for the rest of his run on the new JLA title. But, having missed his chance in the first issue, it seems that - if he wants to share that story with anyone other than DC's existing fan base - then judging by the initial online reaction to JLA #1, he badly needs to introduce a rolling boulder. Soon.

Abhorrent Practices - Chapter 1

2011-08-24T13:15:00.022+01:00

A Death in the Night

Death. Every time it's the same. Every time it's different. Tonight's would be just another.

The wrappings around her feet made no sound as she moved swifly across the tiled roofs of the decaying, mud-brick structures that passed for houses here in the Shanty District. Squat, ugly buildings that huddled together in fear. Fear of the open plazas of the Market District to the west with its shops and stalls, now deserted and skeletal but waiting to be dressed in extravagant banners and piled high with goods that only the Elite could afford. Fear of the gaudily painted mansions that rose up high into the hills to the south of the city. High enough to allow their inhabitants to feel both safe from and superior to those in the squalid districts below.

Inhabitants like the Grand Marshall. It was his mansion she would be visiting tonight. His death she would be delivering.

She felt a tile crack and loosen under her foot. Without missing a step, she continued to move effortlessly forward, seeming to glide across the tiles, ice grey in the moonlight. She heard the broken tile skitter down, across the roof; was aware of the second or so of silence as it fell; and noted the metallic clatter as it shattered against the cobbled street below.

No one would come. The residents of the Shanty District knew better than to brave the narrow streets at night. They'd cast a nervous eye towards the door, take some comfort from the fact it was bolted and barred, and look away. Probably a cat, they'd say. The City Guard never patrolled here either. The Shanty District was a dangerous place after dark, even for armed, trained militiamen. No, they'd focus their patrols in and around the Market District as they always did; partly because the open squares made an ambush unlikely, and not least because the Merchants' Guild made it worth their while to do so.

If there was anyone in the streets of the Shanty District they'd be conducting business of their own. The kind of business that can only be conducted in narrow, unlit streets after dark.

Behind her she could hear the faint cries of the last of the gulls still haunting the docks she'd left barely fifteen minutes earlier. Ahead of her she could see she had just three more terraces to go before the grey slate roofs of the Shanty District began to give way to the first modest mansions at the foot of the Hillside.

Without breaking her pace, she calculated the number of steps she needed to reach the end of the terrace, adjusted the length of her stride to ensure the last would take her to very edge of the last roof and, in one fluid, unbroken movement, launched herself off into the void between the houses. Stillness. The air that, just seconds before, had been rushing coolly past her face as she ran seemed to stop. She gave no thought to the drop below or to the hard stones that would smash her as surely as they'd smashed the tile if she'd mistimed her jump. For the briefest of moments she seemed simply, impossibly to hang, suspended in the air, unable to move. At peace.

Was this what death was? A stillness? A silence? She'd brought so many to their deaths but, after years in the service of the order, she was no closer to understanding its true nature.

And then, instinctively, her legs were moving again, cycling through the air, preparing themseves for the best possible landing; flexed, just enough to cushion the shock of her feet hitting the grey tiles of the next terrace; tensed, to allow her to spring forward, immediately continuing her sprint across the Shanty District rooftops. She felt the hard tiles once more under her bandaged feet, adjusted her balance to compensate for the slope of the roof, and was instantly on her toes, propelling herself forwards.

Grand Marshall Harlan would be alone, she knew, for less than an hour. She had to time her arrival precisely. Too soon and she'd never get past the mansion's security. Too late and she wouldn't have enough time to finish the job and escape before someone came to check on him. He was a sick man and never left unattended for very long.

Did he deserve to die? To most of the general population here in Tremayne, Harlan had been a hero, but there were many in the neighbouring island state of Brael who still considered him a war criminal. The war with Brael had ended more than thirty years ago, but the prominent role played by Harlan in the city's political life in the years since had ensured that diplomatic relations between the two islands had remained strained. There were undoubtedly many who would be gladdened by the news of his death.

As she reached the end of the terrace Sandrine put these thoughts from her mind. She had a contract. She'd see it fulfilled. She allowed her momentum to carry her off the roof of the final house in the terrace, rolled deftly as she hit the ground and came silently to a halt, pressing her back against the perimeter wall surrounding a tall house opposite.

Made of white stone and decorated with a dazzling array of multi-coloured glazed tiles, the house was modest by the standards of most that studded the Hillside. Her research had told her it belonged to a minor government functionary. From here the houses wound their way up the hill in an uneven, ragged line. The higher they climbed, the more expensive were the materials used in their construction. At the highest levels the walls and pillars were clad in white marble, and many of the decorative tiles were rumoured to contain precious stones and metals.

She would have to be careful now. Private security forces patrolled the streets in Hillside. Paid for by the wealthy residents, these forces were heavily armed and well-trained. Protected by their influential patrons, they were completely unfettered by the rules that constrained the activities of the City Guard. Avoiding their patrols wouldn't be easy. The steep slopes and private grounds that surrounded each property meant she'd be unable to use the roofs as she had in the Shanty District.

The Grand Marshall's residence was among the houses peppered around the top of the hill. She had a long climb ahead of her and limited time. She allowed herself to pause for breath, made the Sign of the Circle as she'd been taught as a child, and pulled herself up to the top of the wall. She knew the way. She'd prepared well. She always prepared well.

Noiselessly she dropped into the garden on the other side of the wall and was already running as her feet touched the grass, grey-black in the darkness. The government functionary's house was in the centre of the garden to her right. Lights had been lit inside the house but she would not be observed. Green wooden shutters had been locked shut across the doors and windows. A dim light seeped between the slats and cast uneven golden stripes across the lawn, marking her path. The ground rose up away from her as she ran.

On the far side of the garden was another wall. She computed its height, adjusted the length of her stride and hurled herself up at the wall. She reached out towards it, barely brushing the top with her finger tips, gaining just enough leverage to allow her to clear the top, and drop weightlessly to the other side. She did not stop. She was in a street now, paved with white stone bricks. The street wound its way up the hill and Sandrine followed it, crouching low.

The mansions of the Elite lined the way, each hiding behind a higher wall than the one before. She counted them off, one by one. She was getting closer. There was a narrow side street just up ahead. If her calculations were correct, and they always were, she would have just enough time to reach it and take cover before the next security patrol passed by.

It would be close. Already she could hear the boots of the patrol grating against the stone paving. Another forty-two seconds and they'd be upon her. She could see the side street coming closer. Thirty-six seconds. She ducked into the side street and picked up her pace. There was a wall on either side, and another directly ahead. A dead end. Her research told her the wall ahead was sixteen feet high. Too high to leap. Twenty-three seconds. Without breaking her stride she calmly reached into one of the small pouches that hung from the sash slung diagonally across her chest and took out a small ball. Green and red clouds swirled across its surface. Fourteen seconds. It would be very close!

She threw the ball at the foot of the wall. Two more strides and she'd be there. Her eyes hardly left the top of the wall, but she was aware of the ball shattering as it hit the ground, exploding into a dozen tiny shards and releasing a sudden swirling vortex of muddy brown gas. She leapt into the gas and felt the swirling currents lift her high into the air. The top of the wall passed beneath her and she dropped to the ground on the far side. Six seconds. She could hear the boots of the security patrol as it entered the side street. Her calculations had been a second out.

She paused. The sound of marching had stopped. Had the gas cleared? Had the patrol seen it? She remained still, crouching down on one knee. She didn't breathe.

Finally she heard the patrol return to its regular route, the boots once more grating against the stone floor. This time the sound was receding. Good. She had a contract to fulfill.

The Grand Marshall's mansion rose up in front of her. A white marble colonnade ran down one side. Above that, three windows opened onto a balcony topped with an ornate balustrade. The middle window, she knew, was Harlan's room. She padded across the lawn to the mansion, unwinding a rope from her waist. She stopped below the balcony and threw one end of the rope around one of the pillars. With one end of the rope in each hand, she braced her feet against the pillar and began to climb.

She hauled herself over the balustrade and crept cautiously towards the centre window. The curtains were closed but, between them, she could see Harlan lying on a large four-poster bed. A number of bottles stood on a table nearby, some full of strange liquids she didn't recognise, others half-full of pills of every colour. She opened the window just enough to slip in and conceal herself behind the curtain. Once she'd satisfied herself there were no medical staff in attendance, she walked towards the bed, her bound feet making no sound on the rich, carpeted floor.

"Grand Marshall?" she whispered.

With some effort Harlan opened his eyes. His skin was pale grey, almost colourless, and blue veins were clearly visible beneath the surface. His eyes were hollow, sunken deep into his heavily shadowed sockets. Only his moustache marked him out as the war hero he'd once been. Although now streaked with grey, it still grew full and it had clearly been recently groomed.

"What ..." the Grand Marshall struggled to speak. "What do you ... want?"

"I hear you're dying," said Sandrine. "I've come to help you on your way."
The Grand Marshall closed his eyes and took a few shallow breaths, the interval between each slightly longer than the one before. For a moment Sandrine thought perhaps he'd died without her assistance. But she waited. Eventually his eyes blinked half open again and rolled towards her.

"About ... about time," he rasped. "I was beginning to think ... you wouldn't make it."

(C) David A J Berner, 2011. All rights reserved.

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - Batgirl

2011-08-18T13:01:00.029+01:00

I have mixed feelings about Batgirl. On the one hand she just doesn't "fit" into my adult view of what the Bat-universe should be. On the other hand, having grown up with the 1960s Batman TV series, the Barbara Gordon Batgirl will always be a part of it.

These days I'm fully subscribed to the idea of Batman as a lone vigilante, and very few of the many costumed assistants, sidekicks and allies he's acquired over the years really seem to fit into his world.

The succession of Robins, the various replacement Batgirls, Azrael, the shallow marketing gimmick that is Batwoman - none of them ring true, for me. None of them convince me that they really belong in Batman's Gotham.

There are exceptions. I love that Dick Grayson was allowed to grow into his own man as Nightwing. I love that Huntress is at once a mirror of Batman's own scarred psyche, and a reminder of the tightrope he walks between justice and revenge. And, most of all, I love that Barbara Gordon was able to reinvent herself as Oracle.

I first encountered Oracle in the opening chapters of the "mega-series" No Man's Land, taking charge of the GCPD as everyone else around her fell apart. I hadn't read A Killing Joke back then and so I had no idea how the Barbara Gordon who'd been the original Batgirl had come to be confined to a wheelchair, but her resolve and strength of character captivated me immediately.

It was entirely right that someone who had already had to overcome so much personal tragedy in her life should be the one person with the strength of will to force a sense of order onto the chaos of a Gotham destroyed by earthquake. The moment of emotion she allows herself when Harvey Bullock finally declares he's going to look for her missing father James Gordon is one of the very few comic book moments that has stayed with me ever since that first time I read it.

But, however much I love Oracle, and however much I may tell myself that Barbara Gordon's perky, plucky and cheerful Batgirl is as out of place in Batman's world as, say, Stephanie Brown's ditzy Spoiler ... I like her! I'm sure it's partly down to nostalgia for the 1960s TV series, but it's not only that. I also think she was one of the best characters in the recent animated series The Batman (and far less irritating than Robin!) So, when I saw that Eaglemoss had added a Barbara Gordon Batgirl figurine to its DC Comics Super Hero Collection, I couldn't have been more pleased.

Yes, I know there are a lot of Cassie Cain and Steph Brown fans out there who won't be happy to see Babs reclaim the Bat-mantle when the latest DC reboot launches in September, but that's a discussion for another day. For now I'm just happy my collection of Bat-family figurines will finally have the Batgirl it's been missing. You know ... the real Batgirl!

Black Canary reboot: Damned if you do ...

2011-08-02T16:04:00.025+01:00

You know who this is? As far as I can tell it's the new costume for Black Canary, redesigned as part of the much vaunted DC reboot that launches next month.

I stumbled across this by accident a few days ago and thought: hey, if that is Black Canary, DC have done a pretty good job on this particular redesign. I won't pretend I'm a fan of Wonder Woman's new blue longjohns or Superman's jeans, but this one works.

Well, that's what I thought, but apparently I was wrong. I trawled the web today trying to find this particular image to post here. It took me a while and, when I did find it again, I must admit I was surprised to find it was in a forum in which disgruntled fans were nominating it as a contender for the worst of the new costumes in the rebooted DCU!

This really did take me aback. To me, it keeps everything that's iconic about Canary (well, insofar as anything can be "iconic" about a B-list character!) but updates it in a way that's far more ... now.

She still sports a flowing mane of blonde hair, of course; she still wears what appears to be black leather; her 1980s cropped biker jacket has gone but only to be replaced by a more modern jump-suit tunic (reminiscent of those worn by the X-Men in their recent movie incarnations); and, most importantly, she may now be wearing some kind of quilted or reinforced leggings instead of her trademark black fishnets, but the criss-cross patterning very elegantly manages to pay homage to her former leg-wear of choice. How could anyone object to that?

I don't often feel sorry for Dan Didio and DC but, on this occasion, I really do feel they've fallen foul of Bart's Law: you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't!) After years of being regaled for keeping the character's outfit fetishistic, they've finally changed it only to find that they're just as much under fire as they ever were. No one cares that the new look is both modern and respectful to the character's traditional appearance. The only thing they care about is that it's changed. At all! Fandom, it seems, just isn't happy unless it's having a good moan!

Personally, I think we should all be grateful. This redesign could have been so much worse. Remember this laughably atrocious look they gave her when Black Canary appeared in Smallville? Part Formula 1 driver, part bondage model: now that was a redesign worth complaining about!

Dragon Age 2

2011-07-28T15:44:00.051+01:00

As a huge fan of Bioware's now ancient Knights of the Old Republic games and their more recent offerings (Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect), I was willing to believe that - when it came to RPGs - Bioware could do no wrong. But that was before I'd played Dragon Age 2.

Having now played that game all the way through several times, I have to admit this is probably going to take the prize for Most Disappointing Game of the Year.

Don't get me wrong - there were far worse fantasy RPGs out this year. Venetica and even D&D's Daggerdale spring to mind. But with such a strong pedigree behind it, expectations for Dragon Age 2 were high. And, whilst those expectations may have been impossible to live up to in every respect, it seemed inconceivable that Bioware could miss the mark in quite so many crucial ways and by such a huge margin as it did with DA2.

One commenter online said it seemed as if it had been put together by Bioware's B-Team and it's hard to argue with that assessment. Compared to DA:O, it has to be said, the game was ... lacklustre. Uninspired. Pedestrian. It was as if Bioware had forgotten everything they knew about what made DA:O successful.

So what exactly was wrong?

Well, there were three major factors that stood out for me: the characters, the story they were taking part in, and the setting in which that story took place. There were other niggles and many online critics have already moaned about the lack of costume options for your companions, for example, but - for me - these were the three areas in which the game failed so miserably that it would have still been a disappointment even if everything else had been addressed. Let's take them one at a time - (WARNING: some fairly detailed spoilers follow!)

The characters

In a game like this there are two things that give characters personality: the quality of the scripted dialogue and the quality of the voice acting that delivers it.

Mass Effect was universally (and rightly) lauded for giving a voice to all its characters, including the player-controlled hero. Clearly inspired by the success of ME, Dragon Age 2 tried to do the same. Unfortunately, its script writers just weren't up to the task and the voice actors were decidedly second rate. If your choice of hero (Hawke) was male, he sounded as if he'd been lobotomised (or, in the parlance of the game, made Tranquil). If you played as a female Hawke, your character had the prim, perfectly accent-less delivery of a BBC newsreader. The effect, in either case, was a character without personality.

Sadly, the supporting cast of companions fared little better. Some were just so unpleasant (notably Fenris and Carver) that you'd never willingly choose them to join your party unless their skills were absolutely essential for the completion of a quest. Others, like the female soldier Aveline or the buxom pirate wench Isabela, also suffered from BBC-announcer syndrome. The only characters to display genuine and endearing personalities of their own were the dwarf Varric (who also narrates the story) and the elven blood mage Merrill (superbly voiced by Torchwood's Eve Myles).

How could Bioware have seemingly not realised that it was the characters' individual personalities which had made DA:O so much fun to play? Where was the playful banter which had given Morrigan her sneering air of superiority? Or Shale's condescending disdain? Where was a character with a fraction of Wynne's matronly warmth? Or Leliana's coquettish French lisp? Or Zevran's libidinous Spanish charm? Hell, I even found myself feeling nostalgic for Oghren's drunken buffoonery and Alistair's pitiful whining - at least they had personalities of some description!

Given the apparent "scrimping" that seems to characterise almost every aspect of this game, it's difficult to escape the conclusion that Bioware had tried to save on cost by using British voice actors instead of their more expensive US counterparts. If this is the case, they got what they paid for. A collection of indistinguishable, RADA-trained, middle-class nondescripts, more preoccupied with pronouncing every vowel and consonant with precision than they were with breathing life and individuality into the characters.

The story

The story divides into three chapters. In the first, you must undertake a succession of minor quests in order to earn enough gold to be able to join an expedition to the Deep Roads. These quests all take place in and around the city of Kirkwall, an ancient fortress-city ruled with a rod of iron by a certain Knight-Commander Meredith. In the third and final chapter, you'll perform some more quests (again, in Kirkwall) before coming face-to-face with Meredith herself for a final showdown.

So far, so good. Just about. The problem with the story is that, in between those opening and closing chapters, the middle section of the game also requires you to undertake a succession of minor quests (again in Kirkwall!) before having to defeat one of the game's big, bad bosses: a Qunari chieftain.

Now, not only is this particular Qunari ridiculously difficult to defeat given the level you've reached by this point, but he's totally irrelevant to the plot. This of course means that the whole of this second chapter has no relevance to the main story either. It's padding.

Maybe it will have some bearing on DA3 but, as far as this game is concerned, the whole second chapter serves no narrative purpose whatsoever. It's there purely to make the game longer. Admittedly, there is a connection between the Qunari and one of your companions, but no attempt is made to tie this development into the main plot. The whole of the middle section of the game could be removed and no one would be any the wiser. It's the kind of episodic story-telling you'd expect from a twelve year old.

The setting

Did you notice we referred to Kirkwall three times in that discussion of the story? Yes? Well, that's because you never get to go anywhere else! Okay, so there is a mountain path just outside the city (but it is only the one mountain path!) and there is a coast road nearby (but it is only the one coast road!) and that's it. The whole game is played pretty much inside Kirkwall and along those two roads. Does that sound boring? Well, yeah ... it is!

There are some quests that can only be undertaken at night time and some which can only be carried out during the day. Bioware have described this ability to toggle between night and day as an "innovation". In reality, though, it's all still Kirkwall and, given the shoddy production elsewhere, it really does seem like a feeble attempt to persuade we poor players that we're not really playing every quest in the same three or four streets ... Except, of course, we are!

Remember the variety on offer in Dragon Age: Origins? Some quests in the Brecilian forest, others in towers and dungeons; some in the dwarven city of Orzammar, others in the human stronghold of Denerim? Remember the surreal environments of the Fade? The labyrinthine tunnels of the Deep Roads? The dozen different landscapes in which random encounters and side quests could take place? Apparently oblivious of everything that made DA: Origins so absorbing, Bioware have jettisoned that entire world and trapped you inside a single city for the whole of the game.

It's another example of the total lack of imagination which pervades every important aspect of DA2. Whether that stunted development is due to short-sighted management cost-saving or the development team having simply exhausted its reserves of creativity, I have no idea. Either way, it reduces much of the game to a repetitive slog.

Let's be honest, most computer games are built around a number of combat sequences. During the course of a game you might upgrade weapons or acquire new skills, but most quests will still consist mainly of trying to kill a slew of enemies in a relatively enclosed space. Giving the player a variety of different environments in which to battle those enemies is one of the key ways in which a games developer can make each battle seem different to the one before. Did Bioware somehow forget that?

Now, to end on as positive a note as I can, if you've never played a Bioware RPG before and you haven't experienced the highs of Dragon Age: Origins, you may still get some enjoyment out of DA2. It's certainly better than many other RPGs out there just now. But that, I'm afraid, is about as positive as I can get. In fact, if you really haven't played DA:O before, I'd have to recommend you get hold of a copy of that instead. It's looking a little dated now, but it's cheap at the moment and it's a far superior gaming experience in almost every respect.

Post script: I understand there's an expansion pack due to be released about now - Dragon Age 2: Legacy. Apparently, it will take you outside Kirkwall (gasp!). I suspect it will be too little to make much difference to the overall enjoyment of the game and, for me at least, it's already far too late. I have no intention of paying for an expansion that, by introducing a degree of variety, is effectively little more than a patch for one of the game's fundamental design flaws.

Shades Volume 1 in print and on the PSP

2011-06-12T09:11:00.016+01:00

Towards the end of last year, I finally got my act together and completed all the necessary stuff I had to do in order to get the first volume of my graphic novel Shades available in print. I'm sure you don't need to see the front cover again, so - just for a change - here's the back cover!

See all those nice comments being quoted by Stan and Doug? Those are quotes from all the wonderful online readers at Drunk Duck. How could you possibly read those and not want a copy of your own?!

Readers in the US can buy the print version of Volume 1 from Indy Planet - just $24.99 (plus P&P) for 144 full colour pages! Readers outside the US can also buy from Indy Planet, obviously, but - given the high cost of US international postage - you guys might just find it cheaper to buy direct from me - the same 144 pages for a paltry £14.99 (plus P&P)!

Of course, if you're one of those hip kids with a Sony PSP, you probably think dead-tree comics are old hat, right? You want a digital version that you can keep in your pocket and read on the move. Well, now you can have just that - Shades Volume 1 is now available at the PSN Comic Store and is available for download to your PSP. And the best part? The digital download costs only £3.19 (and no P&P!)

Now, I know what you're wondering. How can a full size comic page work on a PSP screen? It's too small, right? Nope - not at all! Digital publisher Orb Entertainment has done a bang-up job of converting every panel of every page specifically to work on the PSP, and it looks fantastic!

CLiNT #1 - Review (Part 2 of 2)

2010-09-13T12:28:00.010+01:00

In Part 1 of this review, I concluded that the non-comics content of Mark Millar's new magazine CLiNT was more likely to alienate readers (even its target male readers!) than to attract them. If this venture is going to be successful, therefore, then the comics inside will need to be good enough to persuade people to buy it in spite of the non-comics features. So ... are they?

So far, it has to said, the reaction to the comics hasn't been overwhelming. The main criticism, however, has been less concerned with the quality than with the fact that most of the stories have either been published elsewhere already, or soon will be.

As a casual comics reader who hasn't read any of the comics previously, perhaps I can try to gauge what the average magazine buyer (as opposed to a die-hard fanboy) might think of them.

Kick-Ass 2
Plot summary: A sequel to Kick-Ass. Potty-mouthed pre-teen vigilante Hit-Girl is now attempting to build a new "super team".

First up is this eight-page extract from Millar's own yet-to-be-released Kick-Ass 2. This seems like a shrewd enough move. Obviously Millar has a vested interest in promoting his own work but, from a commercial perspective, it means the magazine also gets to ride on the wave of publicity that is accompanying the current DVD release of the Kick-Ass movie.

The artwork here is fairly cartoonish which suits Millar's jokey dialogue, but I couldn't help thinking it would be better suited to a smaller size page. Blown up to fill a magazine page as it is here, the simple lineart (pencilled by John Romita Jr) looks as if it needs more work. The writing is designed to amuse rather than engage the brain and I did enjoy what was here. Bizarrely, the art style and the emphasis on the gags reminded me of a foul-mouthed Peanuts strip, and I had no problem imagining Lucy as Hit-Girl and poor old Charlie Brown as the long-suffering Kick-Ass! The problem, for me, is that with only four panels per page and only one or two lines of dialogue per panel, there really isn't enough story revealed in these eight pages to help newcomers decide if this is something they'd want to continue reading.

Turf
Plot summary: Vampires meet gangsters in Prohibition-era New York. Oh, and there are aliens, too!

Turf is the first graphic novel written by Jonathan Ross and, before I read this extract, I must admit I'd pretty much made up my mind not to buy it. Like anyone looking to make a living in any field of the arts, it's hard not to feel a certain peevish resentment towards those for whom doors automatically open, just because they've already achieved celebrity status doing something else. Admittedly Ross is a self-confessed comics reader but, let's be honest, that hardly makes him any more qualified than the average non-celebrity fanboy.

It was a surprise then, to find that Turf is actually pretty good. It has a huge advantage over the Kick-Ass 2 extract in that all twenty-six pages of its first chapter are printed here - more than enough to allow readers to decide whether or not they're going to like the story and the style. The hugely detailed artwork (by Tommy Lee) and muted, nicotine-stained colours successfully evoke the feel of 1920s prohibition-era New York. Compared to Kick-Ass 2, it has almost twice as many panels per page and each one is filled to overflowing with Ross's verbose dialogue. That might not suit the average comics fan used to leafing through a DC or Marvel title in less than five minutes, but for anyone who - like me - enjoys reading a comic rather than simply looking at the pretty pictures, Turf is a fine effort.

Its one flaw, I'd suggest, is a very heavy over-reliance on third party narration. To some extent this is simply a matter of stylistic preference, but I've never thought this device was well-suited to modern comics. First person voice-overs are fine, but the inclusion of a third party narrator seems like a throwback to the days when the art of creating comics was trying to shake off the techniques used in illustrated stories but had still to develop the techniques which would be better suited to the new medium. To me, every third party caption takes the readers out of the comic's world, and reminds them: "Hey, this isn't real, you know!"

That aside, there's a lot to like in Turf and, from having been previously determined not to buy the graphic novel, this chapter has already persuaded me that I'm going to have to put my prejudices aside and give it a try!

Rex Royd
Plot summary: Ummm ... man builds army of clones and/or robots to act as body guards and/or take out super heroes? Oh, Hell, who can tell?!

Frankie Boyle, one of the co-writers behind Rex Royd, is on the cover of the first issue, suggesting that this comic is meant to be one of the magazine's high points. It isn't. At least not for me. There's a simplified "blockiness" to Michael Dowling's artwork, vaguely reminiscent of Mike Mignola but leaving far too much empty space on each page. The writing is basic. Minimalistic, even. In eleven pages there are very, very few lines of dialogue at all and those there are seem to be grunted, rather than spoken. There certainly aren't enough to build either atmosphere or character, and there are barely enough even to convey what on Earth is supposed to be happening. One to miss!

Nemesis
Plot summary: In a world without super heroes, a super villain embarks on a campaign to humiliate and then murder some of the world's leading police chiefs.

Oh, come on - you can't blame Millar for putting in another of his own stories. It is his magazine after all!

The artwork in Nemesis (by Steve McNiven) has a more realistic slant than the gag-strip style of Kick-Ass but, again, seems to lose something by having been printed on a magazine size page. While there are undeniably some very intricately detailed panels here, many of the pages taken as a whole still seem quite "empty" - as if they are waiting for someone else to come in and finish them off. I suspect this would be less of a problem in a standard "comic size" edition.

Like the Kick-Ass 2 excerpt, there are very few panels per page and only a limited amount of dialogue per panel, so it's hard to escape the feeling that this is going to be a very slight plot, stretched out over far more pages than is really necessary to tell the story. There's far more padding than substance. Nevertheless, there are twenty-three pages in this first chapter so, unlike Kick-Ass 2, it is at least possible to get a feel for just what that story might be, and for one or two of the characters involved.

Nemesis, it seems, is Millar's attempt to be Garth Ennis. Characters swear excessively, blood and gore are splattered gratuitously across every page and the overwhelming impression is that this is designed to shock first and to tell a story second. It could appeal to a few twelve year olds still going through their Beavis and Butthead phase, although - if they've already read Preacher - Millar's tendency to stretch out three pages worth of story over ten may become apparent even to them.

In short, shock-comics have been done before (ad tedium!) and, I'm afraid, they've been done much, much better than this.

Space Oddities
Summary: Intended to be a regular slot to showcase 3 - 5 page stories by new writers and artists.

This is billed as a "Huw Edwards presents ..." feature. I have no idea why. Is the gruff but affable Welsh BBC presenter known to have an interest in space? Or in comics? I don't know, and the magazine makes no attempt to explain it. If it's intended to give by-lines to apparently random celebrities, the magazine really needs to add some kind of an explanation, even if it's only a cheeky, self-mocking nudge and a wink.

Anyway, the story in this issue is The Diner, a three page humorous piece by Italian artist Manuel Bracchi. If you've ever tried to write a comic story in five pages or less, you'll know how hard that can be. It's to Bracchi's credit then that the artwork here is clear and professional, opening with two easy-to-follow pages (notwithstanding the almost complete absence of dialogue!) and ending on a genuinely amusing punchline. In short, this as good a light-hearted SciFi spoof as anyone could put together in the space available, and it easily puts Frankie Boyle's far longer effort to shame!

Conclusion
So ... the million dollar question: is the first issue of CLiNT worth buying, notwithstanding the God-awful attempt at magazine features? Well, yes. Just about!

Ignore Rex Royd and the dire magazine content and, at £3.99, the 26 pages of Jonathan Ross's Turf and the lightweight but fairly amusing eight-page slice of Kick-Ass 2 are worth the cover price alone. The other comics are at best middling but, if you regard them as bonus "supporting material" rather than core content, then you're still getting value for money. It still has a long way to go but, if Nemesis can step up its game (or if a better title can be found to replace it), future issues of CLiNT could even become something to look forward to.

CLiNT #1 - Review (Part 1 of 2)

2010-09-03T12:16:00.047+01:00

If you haven't heard of this yet, CLiNT is the new British comics magazine put together by Mark Millar, writer of Kick-Ass. The first issue has had mixed reviews at best, most critics welcoming the fact that there is a new comic magazine of any description daring to brave the choppy waters of the UK's comics market, but being less than enthusiastic about the contents.

In its favour, it's generally acknowledged that conceptually CLiNT is trying something new. It isn't, for example, aimed solely at existing comics fans and is designed to sit on the shelves of newsagents like WH Smith, sharing shelf-space with other "hobby" magazines, rather than having to fight for attention among the glut of DC and Marvel titles in a specialist comics shop (although I did, in fact, buy my copy in London's Forbidden Planet!)

With a view to capturing that "non-comics" audience, its contents are something of a mixed bag. As well as five comics stories (more on those in Part 2 of this review), it has an interview with stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr and a selection of magazine style one- or two-page "novelty" filler items. For me, these were CLiNT's real Achilles heel.

The Jimmy Carr interview is no more probing or entertaining than an average fluff piece in a weekly TV guide (and there's not even a token question relating to comics!) The shorter fillers include a Top 10 of Hot TV Mums, a list of Charles Manson's other intended celebrity victims and the tongue-in-cheek Deeply Moral Babes - Overdressed Porn for the Religious Right. I know the magazine is aimed primarily at a male demographic, but these features seem deliberately designed to alienate completely any potential female readers. Worse, from a commercial perspective, the writing lacks the one thing that this kind of 1980s faux-laddishness needs if it's going to have any appeal even for a male audience - personality!

A successful magazine needs a voice of its own. It builds and retains its audience by speaking to its readers in a language they understand; by sharing their interests and enjoying the same sense of humour. Jeremy Clarkson is successful not because he knows more about cars than anyone else, but because he shares the fans' passion for them. Loaded (before it abandoned wit and irreverence for simple-minded crudity) was successful not because the writers were interested in most of the subjects they covered, but because they covered them in a way that shared their fans' sense of self-mocking, youthful exuberance.

Millar's CLiNT has no voice of its own. It seems to have a very clear idea of who it doesn't want to appeal to, but no clear idea of how to address those it does - if, indeed, it even knows who they are! Having alienated most of the female demographic, it must surely be even more important to ensure your offering will have twice the appeal for male readers. The non-comic features here, however, are random at best and covered in a way which is dry and humourless - hardly a house style likely to appeal to any male, old or young, fanboy or not.

Ironically, given the way it's been marketed, if CLiNT is to achieve any kind of success, then - based on this first issue - it will have to be in spite of its non-comic content, rather than because of it. So, are the comics strong enough to carry the magazine until it can sort out its problems in other areas? Answers coming up in Part 2 of this review!

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - Hawkgirl and Hawkman

2010-08-24T13:22:00.037+01:00

With all the retcons, reboots and reimaginings that DC regularly subjects its characters to, quite a few have back stories that even its most devoted readers have trouble unravelling. Few, however, are as muddled or confused as those of Hawkgirl and Hawkman.

The irony here is that, although it can be argued some characters need to be retooled every decade or so simply to remain contemporary, the back story of the "Hawks" is one that should have ensured it would never have to be rewritten.

Essentially, the original characters - Carter Hall and Shiera Sanders - are the reincarnations of a ruler of Ancient Egypt, Prince Khufu, and his wife. They are destined to continually die and be reincarnated, continually rediscovering their love for each other only to die again. It should, therefore, have been perfectly possible to invent a new identity for each of them whenever it was felt the old ones were becoming dated. There should never have been any reason to rewrite any of the history that had gone before.

But DC, of course, is not exactly renowned for its ability to resist the urge to fix what ain't broke. The stories of Hawkman and Hawkgirl have been added to, subtracted from and otherwise rejigged to such an extent that the current "official" position as detailed in the DC Comics Super Hero Collection magazine (which accompanied Eaglemoss's excellent Hawkman figurine on this page) is virtually incomprehensible.

For my part, I must admit I find it it easier to just ignore the many confused and conflicting revisions of the past forty or fifty years. Despite the efforts of Geoff Johns and others to reposition Hawkman at the centre of the DCU (a position he hasn't held since he regularly chaired JSA meetings in the 1940s), my childhood memories of him are as a distinctly second-tier character. And, although I know she was his partner as far back as the Golden Age, I have no memory of ever having seen Hawkgirl at all before her wonderfully feisty incarnation as part of the Justice League animated TV series.

I have no idea whether, in the current continuity, they are supposed to be human or Thanagarian. I really don't care why, despite the fact that their wings are artificial devices (made, inevitably, from the now ubiquitous "nth metal") and held in place by a harness, the characters are seen without them even less often than Batman is seen without his cowl. The core story created for them by Gardner Fox back in 1939 is so strong that, as long as I keep that in the back of my mind, it enables me to ignore everything else and make some sense of even the most convoluted modern version of their lives.

Look! Up in the sky! It's super lesbians!

2010-08-07T09:58:00.024+01:00

If you have any interest in mainstream superhero comics (even if, like me, it's a level of interest that seldom seems to get much further than a despairing shake of the head!), you'll have googled your favourite good guys and bad guys from time to time. Let's be honest, as a way of keeping up-to-date with what's happening over there in Mainstream Land, it's far more economical than buying every single issue of every single title that DC or Marvel have shoe-horned into their latest Universe-changing Crossover Event.

And, if you have googled your favourite super humans, you'll know that it's virtually impossible to do so without stumbling across a whole slew of fan fiction and super hero porn. Perhaps inevitably, lesbian sex features prominently. More surprisingly, however, is the extent to which certain of those lesbian relationships seem to have taken such a hold on the collective online consciousness that it's sometimes difficult to believe that they aren't in fact part of the publisher's mainstream canon.

The three most widely "accepted" of these imaginary relationships are between the Teen Titans' Starfire and Raven (presumably boosted by the success of the animated TV show), Batman's foes Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn (fuelled by a comic mini-series in which Ivy took Harley under her protection and the Gotham Girls animated web-series in which the two are shown sharing an apartment) and, arguably two of the most iconic super heroines of all, Batgirl and Supergirl.

Google for more than a minute or two and you'll find depictions of these three pairings in pretty much every situation you could possibly imagine (and quite a few you probably couldn't!) Some are obviously designed to titillate and arouse; others are, frankly, quite sadistic and disturbing; and one or two are even, well ... kinda cute and affectionate.

And then there's this:
This is clearly an extract from a larger story. Sadly, I've no idea where the rest of it can be found or who the creator is but, if anyone knows, do tell me. I'd like to credit them properly.

Strictly speaking, of course, it's not porn at all (you'll find more bare flesh in pretty much any real DC or Marvel title!) but it just succeeds on so many levels. Without showing anything remotely "naughty", it manages to reference so much. The characters' body language and facial expressions are spot on, entirely in keeping with both their official mainstream personalities as well as their fan-fiction alter-egos, while the subject matter and dialogue says even more about their fans.

I know it's wrong, but it makes me smile!

Watchmen 2 - and they said Rorschach was crazy!

2010-07-23T11:22:00.040+01:00

Have you ever worked in an environment where, every once in a while, your boss would come up with the most ridiculous idea ever, but - because he's the boss - everyone else had to pretend they thought it was really great? Yeah. I'm guessing that's how most of the staff at DC must be feeling right now.

There's no doubt that Jim Lee ranks among the best artists ever to work in the super hero genre but, let's be honest, some of his ideas since he became the Big Stilton at DC stink like ... well, stilton. Can you imagine how many jaws must have hit the floor when he announced his idea for a sequel to Watchmen? No, nor can I. The sound must have been masked by the simultaneous clunking of heads hitting desks.

Not that any of that matters, because you don't have to imagine. The following is a transcript of the meeting between Lee and a group of his story editors at which Big Jim proposed Watchmen 2. (Well, okay, it's not. But it must have gone something like this, I'm sure!)

Lee: You know why super hero comics aren't as well regarded as they once were?

Editor 1: Er - because they've been around for seventy years and most of our writers just aren't good enough to do anything more than re-hash old plot lines?

Editor 2: I don't think it's entirely the writers' fault. The commissioning editors are at least partly to blame, because they only know how to commission stories that do re-hash old plot lines.

Lee: Hmmm - interesting theories, both of you. What you seem to be saying is, there's something wrong with the stories themselves; that we need something new and vibrant; something that really takes the genre back to its basics; that re-examines what a super hero story should be and tries to make it relevant to today's readers.

Editor 1: Exactly. Like Alan Moore and Frank Miller did back in the Eighties. The industry needs another DKR or another Watchmen.

Lee: Another Watchmen? That's a brilliant idea! I can see it now ... Watchmen 2: Revenge of the Squid!

Editor 1: Ah, no ... I didn't mean -

Lee: This will revolutionise the industry! An entirely new adventure starring Rorschach -

Editor 2: Umm - Rorschach's dead.

Lee: What?

Editor 2: He died. At the end of Watchmen, he ...

Lee: He died?! What kind of a clueless writer kills off one of his main protagonists?

Editor 2: Well, in a way, that was kind of the point of -

Lee: I've got it! We can resurrect him! Fanboys love it when we resurrect dead characters! Nite Owl can take Rorschach's mask to his lab, extract a single ginger hair and take that to a Lazarus Pit!

Editor 1: A what?

Lee: A Lazarus Pit. Lots of characters have been brought back from the dead by using a Lazarus Pit.

Editor 1: Yeah. I know what a Lazarus Pit is. I just meant ... don't Lazarus Pits only exist in the DCU?

Lee: So? What are you trying to say? That Watchmen doesn't take place in the DCU?

Editor 1: Well ... yeah. That's kind of the point of -

Lee: Hey, you know what? Nevermind. This would be a great chance to bring it into the DCU. We could call it Watchmen 2: Crisis on a Not Quite Infinite But Still Pretty Large Number of Parallel and Alternative Earths!

Editor 2: Well, we could. But -

Lee: Okay, okay. Forget the Lazarus Pit. What about that big blue guy. Doctor Manhattan. He said something about wanting to create life, didn't he? Maybe the first life he creates could be Rorschach's! Wow - that is fantastic!

Editor 1: Ah ... isn't that a little ... you know. Out of character? I mean, at the end of Watchmen, Manhattan is supposed to have become so powerful and his vision so all-encompassing that he really struggles to appreciate the value of human life at all, let alone any one single life. Why would he choose to reanimate someone? Especially someone as warped as Rorschach?

Lee: Well ... hey, here's an idea. Supposing Rorschach was never killed in the first place?

Editor 1: What?

Lee: Big Blue can teleport, right? Supposing he just teleported Rorschach somewhere else and - at the same time - teleported a bucket of offal to where he was standing? Nite Owl only thinks Rorschach is dead.

Editor 1: But what about Ozymandias and his grand plan? Rorschach's death is necessary otherwise -

Lee: Jeez, I can't believe you guys are being so unimaginative! Okay, so Rorschach's dead. Here's another idea. What about ... a legacy hero?!

Editor 2: You mean, like a Rorschach 2?

Lee: Exactly! Nite Owl and Silk Spectre were getting it on in Watchmen, right? Well, what if they have a son and that son grows up wanting to be a super hero too? He could find Rorschach's mask among Dan's old belongings and ... well, his parents were both legacy characters, so they'd be delighted if -

Editor 1: I - I'm not really feeling it, Jim.

Lee: Mr Lee.

Editor 1: Sorry. Mr Lee. You see, if you mess around with Rorschach's character, he -

Lee: Okay, okay. You're not crazy about resurrecting Rorschach. I get that. Let's park it for now and come back to it later. Let's talk about the Comedian instead. What do you think about him?

Editor 2: Umm - he's dead.

Lee: He's what? You mean the damn fool writer killed him off at the end of the book, too?

Editor 2: Ah, no. At the beginning.

Lee: The beginning?

Editor 1: Yeah. The book opens with the death of the Comedian.

Lee: Jesus! What cheap, two-bit hack wrote this stuff?! Doesn't he know anything about writing for comics?! Hey, but you know what? We could let Death give all the characters a reprieve from death.

Editor 2: Death?

Lee: The character Death. From Sandman. She's going to be in the DCU from now on, right? So, as soon as the Watchmen's world is integrated, she can give a reprieve to Rorschach and the Comedian. It's perfect!

Editor 2: You want Death to be in Watchmen 2?

Lee: Absolutely. It all fits!

Editor 1: Look, I'm still not sold on this. The fact that two of the most popular characters are dead is obviously a big issue here, but it's about more than that.

Lee: Look, I know you think that, although I'm widely acknowledged as one of the best super hero artists alive today, my story ideas aren't always exactly top notch, but don't worry. I know what the fans' real concerns are and I'm determined to be very sensitive about how we deal with those.

Editor 1: You are?

Lee: Of course! We'll put some clothes on Doctor Manhattan and bam! Problem solved!

Editor 1: Clothes?

Lee: Sure. I'm thinking a short leather jacket with lots of straps and buckles; maybe even a pocket or two, and ... oh, I know - he could wear black leggings!

Editor 1: The problem isn't about leggings -

Lee: Of course it is! You can solve any problem with leggings!

Editor 1: No, the point I'm trying to make is that the reason Watchmen has become a classic is because it's a novel. Part of what makes it work is the fact that it has an ending. It sets out to make a point, progresses through a number of story twists and finally presents the reader with a conclusion. If you make a sequel, if you turn it into a continuing series, you don't just make an inferior follow-up, you weaken the ending of the original story and diminish that in the process.

Lee: Hmm - look I can see you're not convinced. Well, never let it be said I pushed through ideas even when everyone else was against them. I'll tell you what I'm prepared to do ... let's put it to a vote. If you all decide Watchmen 2 is the worst idea in comics history, then we won't do it, okay?

Editor 2: You mean that?

Lee: Absolutely. We'll scrap that and I'll greenlight DKR 3 instead!

Shades - five thousand years in the making!

2010-07-16T07:06:00.014+01:00

If you've been reading this blog, you'll know by now that Shades is the graphic novel we've been working on for, oooh, simply ages! And, if you've been following Shades at any of the sites where it's been serialised, you'll also know that it's now finished. (Hooray!) This is a press release we've circulated to a number of comic news sites to spread the news!

Broken Voice Comics is pleased to announce that its graphic novel Shades is now complete and available to read online in its entirety, at the Broken Voice Comics website.

Written by David A J Berner and illustrated in full colour, Shades is a contemporary action/adventure fantasy, in which a small group of quasi-historical British heroes, struggle to find their sense of purpose in the modern world. The action takes place both in the physical and the spirit worlds as the story unfolds against a backdrop of five thousand years of British history.

“I’ve been working on Shades for around seven years now,” Berner told us. “We’ve had a great reaction to the individual instalments we’ve released online during that time, but this was always a graphic novel with the emphasis on the word “novel”. The story works on a number of levels and is therefore best appreciated when it’s read through from beginning to end in one sitting. Now readers are finally able to do that!”

Central to the story is retired tailor Stanley Miller. As he tries to repair his fractured relationship with his daughter, Miller is reluctantly drawn into a sequence of events that threatens to strike at the very soul of the nation. His allies in facing this threat will include the First Century warrior queen Boudicca, a WW2 fighter pilot and a prehistoric shaman.

It’s a very British collection of characters and, it seems, they’ve been responsible for much of the book’s appeal amongst its online fans. “Most of the characters are inevitably larger than life – part mythical and, in modern terms, even superheroic,” explains Berner. “My concern as the writer, therefore, was to make their individual personalities as credible as possible. I didn’t want them to be generic action heroes.”

The feedback from fans suggests that this approach has been appreciated. “Readers have said they’ve really been able to empathise and identify with the characters; that – even when the story is at its most fantastic – they still come across as real people. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the project’s artists have made them look pretty terrific too!”

Artwork on the first half of the book (up to and including Chapter 8) is by Harsho Mohan Chattoraj. Chapters 9 onwards were pencilled and inked by E.C. Nickel with colours by Muamal Khairi. “All the artists on Shades have done a brilliant job,” says Berner. “There can’t be many projects that require the artists to be equally proficient at drawing Spitfires engaged in aerial combat, prehistoric villages, cobbled Victorian streets and fantastical demon landscapes. But – whatever my scripts threw at them – these guys were always exceeding my expectations!”

So, now that it’s finished, is Shades ever going to appear in print? Berner says yes. “Some of our online fans have already expressed an interest in one, so we will be looking at ways to make that happen. Of course, given the very British nature of the story, we’d ideally like to find a UK publisher, but that remains to be seen.”

Shades is available to read online now at the Broken Voice Comics website.

Wonder Woman - wardrobe malfunction

2010-07-01T07:09:00.079+01:00

It's an odd thing about Wonder Woman. It seems no one wants to buy her comics (sales continue to fall, despite several changes of writer), but tamper with who or what she is in order to make her more "modern", "relevant" or "relatable" and it stirs up a level of fan outrage wholly disproportionate to her sales figures.

The image on the left is DC's recent redesign for the Amazon princess. As I'm sure DC hoped it would, it's caused a storm in the Worldwide Wonderweb's teacup. The vast majority, it seems, are against the new costume with bloggers, twitterers and forumites queueing up to heap derision upon Jim Lee (who designed the new look), JM Straczynski (writer of the story arc in which it's being debuted) and Dan Didio (for letting it happen at all).

Straczynski has been singled out for particular scorn. This is partly because he is held largely responsible for many of the least popular changes visited upon Marvel's character roster and partly because his attempt to explain why the changes were made is so laughably flawed.

Whether you like the costume or loathe it, it's difficult to call it 21st Century (as Straczynski did), and fans have been quick to make comparisons with Black Canary, Rogue and even Madonna. Overall, the general feeling seems to be that it's just sooo 1990s! He also described it as being more "armoured" as befits a warrior. Really? A cropped leather jacket and a pair of spray-on leggings constitute armour? Maybe we should send some out to our tragically under-equipped troops in the Gulf.

The worst of Straczynski's arguments in defence of the redesign, however, are not simply flawed, they demonstrate that DC is still suffering from a fundamental failure to understand either the appeal of its own properties or its fanbase. The costume needed a redesign apparently because "what woman only wears one outfit for 70 years?" Wow - that wasn't patronising at all, was it? For all the talk about the costume's suitability for a warrior, it seems it was really about ensuring the princess had an outfit to match her new Jimmy Choo's.

No doubt the next redesigns will be for Superman and Batman. Baggy jeans and a hoody should ensure they look contemporary, and with all those pockets ... well, you wouldn't even need a utility belt.

DC has also tried to play the feminist card. By covering up her legs and wrapping a jacket around her (gasp!) bare shoulders, it believes Wonder Woman's new look should at least appeal to her female fans who, we're told, have been wondering how she could possibly fight without her "bits falling out". And maybe it will. At least to the more Puritanically prudish of them anyway. But will they actually be more likely to buy Wonder Woman comics as a result? I have my doubts and, if the internet reaction is anything to go by, the small numbers that do will be more than offset by the number of existing readers who are now prepared to drop the title.

The real problem with trying to pander to a specific lobby group in this way, however, is that not all women and not even all ardent feminists believe that women should be covered up like a Victorian table-leg. Sure, there are very vocal prudes in the various feminist and fangirl groups, just as there are loud-mouthed reactionaries in any men's organisation. But prudishness and women's rights are not synonymous. The swim-suited Wonder Woman has been a flag-waver for the cause of women's rights ever since her creation in the 1940s, and it's a little ironic that - as ordinary women have become more comfortable wearing increasingly little in real life - so DC should have come to the conclusion that its flagship super heroine might somehow appeal to those women by wearing more.

In fact, it's not ironic, it's hypocritical. Does anyone really believe that DC genuinely thinks its female characters should be more modestly dressed? Really? The same DC which continues to exploit the cleavage-baring peep-hole in Powergirl's costume? The same DC which has, in recent years, removed the midriff section from the perfectly adequate costumes of Supergirl, Hawkgirl and Huntress? Whatever reason DC may have had for wanting to redesign Wonder Woman, it certainly had nothing to do with a belief in modesty.

And that, surely, is part of what's fuelling the distaste that so many fans feel towards this costume - the dishonesty with which it's been presented. It's been trumpeted as a fundamental redesign, an approach that simply begs for a knee-jerk fan reaction, when in fact you only need to read the small print in the interviews with Dan Didio and Straczynski to realise that this is only a temporary costume.

Yes, it's uninspired; yes, it looks dated; and - worst of all - no, it's not Wonder Woman. But that hardly matters. By the time Straczynski's current story arc comes to a close, everyone's favourite Amazon will be back pummelling bad guys in her iconic swim-suit, the arguments for a redesign conveniently brushed aside and her "bits" as securely contained as they ever were.

The dramatic announcement of the new costume is just a cynical marketing ploy, up there with the deaths of Batman and Superman and Batwoman's sexual orientation.

Whether sales of Wonder Woman comics will be up or down at the end of that story arc remains to be seen. One thing's for sure, though. The backlash against the redesign has been almost universal and, to overcome it, Straczynski's story is going to have to be pretty damn good. Well, more convincing than the flimsy explanations he's given for changing her appearance, anyway!

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - Green Lantern

2010-06-30T10:35:00.022+01:00

Like the Flash, for me Green Lantern was one of the Silver Age characters who defined the super hero genre. Neither of them were as iconic as Superman or as cool as Batman but they were at the centre of it all. If you weren't gifted with super powers or rich enough to invest in a utility belt and a fleet of customised super vehicles, you could still play with the Big Boys. All you needed was a magic ring!

Again, like Flash, I never really knew Green Lantern's Golden Age character. The fact that Alan Scott would sometimes turn up, calling himself Green Lantern and dressed in red was a source of some confusion. But, wow - if I was confused back then, the mind boggles to think what newcomers to the DCU must think of the current continuity!

There are at least five Earth-born Green Lanterns. Eaglemoss have made figurines of three of these for the DC Comics Super Hero Collection and, much to my delight, the first of these to be released was my Green Lantern: test pilot Hal Jordan (pictured). I've long since learned to ignore the fact that Alan Scott wielded the ring before him and, fortunately, I was no longer reading the comics when DC decided to kick Hal upstairs to assume the role of the Spectre, in order to make way for a whole string of lesser individuals to take turns at being planet Earth's official ring bearer.

I therefore know next-to-nothing of Kyle Rayner (the first to wear the black-and-green after Hal) and, in all the comics I've read since, Guy Gardner has been portrayed as such an obnoxious clown that it defies belief that anyone at DC could have convinced themselves he would ever have been recruited by the little blue men of Oa! I can just about accept the stiff-necked Jon Stewart in the role (although only in the Justice League animated TV series), but - to be honest - even he will always seem like a substitute to me. Someone who was just "filling in" until DC came to its senses and realised that shunting Hal sideways into the role of the Spectre was a mistake.

Which, it appears, they finally did a few years ago. Hal is now back but, in true DC fashion, it seems no one could quite bring themselves to take that opportunity to sort out the messy continuity and do away with all the other pretenders to the role. Even the bloated and over-hyped Infinite Crisis, a book specifically designed to streamline the DCU, failed to get rid of a single one. Pick up any comic book featuring the JLA or the Green Lantern Corps and you're quite likely to find a whole legion of Earth-based Green Lanterns littering its pages.

And they wonder why they can't attract new readers!

Shades - the end is nigh!

2010-06-27T11:38:00.007+01:00

Well, we've finished the main course now. The climactic battle in which the heroes of our graphic novel Shades face off against the bad guys is over and all that remains is to add the epilogue, to summarise just what happened to everyone afterwards. And, in case you were wondering, that epilogue is already underway! You can see a reduced size version of the first page below. Just click on the image to see the full size version.
It's fairly obvious that the epilogue is taking place against the backdrop of a wedding and that Stan and the Shaman, at least, have survived. There are, however, eleven named characters on this page. Admittedly some are not so easy to identify from this page alone, but all will be made clear. Just go join the party!

Dragon Age: Origins (Awakening)

2010-05-27T14:15:00.026+01:00

If you're anything like me, you enjoy a good story with interesting characters you can really empathise with - not just in the obvious media like books, TV, comics and cinema, but also in video games. And, if you are like me in that respect, you don't need me to tell you how good Dragon Age: Origins was. You'll already have played it. Two or three times, probably!

Dragon Age: Origins (Awakening) is the add-on pack for that game. It was released back in March but, having read a few reviews which essentially declared it good but flawed, I decided to wait for the price to drop before buying it. Well, the price has now dropped (£20 on Amazon!) and so, as from today, I've beome the proud owner of Awakening and I can once again re-enter the world of darkspawn and do some more slaying of ogres, archdemons and dragons!

So, what about those flaws? Well, I'm only just over an hour in but the first thing that struck me was that the graphics are certainly not state-of-the-art. That's to be expected, of course. The original game was so long in development that, especially on the console versions, improvements in graphics capability simply passed it by, leaving it looking a little last generation. And, being an add-on pack rather than a fully fledged sequel, Awakening uses the same engine. It's a flaw, yes, but not one that should spoil your enjoyment of the game.

Much has also been made of the fact that, with one exception (Ohgren the dwarf), the party members from the original game do not appear in this instalment. Maybe it's because I left a long gap between finishing Origins and buying Awakening but, to be honest, so far I haven't missed them.

You start the game with one companion (Mhairi, a pretty uptight female warrior) and I don't think I'm giving away any critical spoilers if I tell you that, within the first hour or so of play, you gain two more additions to the party: Anders (a mage) and the returning Ohgren.

The inclusion of both these members has been criticised: Ohgren because, for many players, he seems to have been their least favourite character from Origins, and Anders because he's too similar to Alistair. Again, from what I've seen and played so far, I'd say those criticisms are exaggerated. Ohgren is a lot more humorous this time round and Anders has a nice line in sarcasm. His problem, I think, is not so much that he really is like Alistair (his personality is far more cynical and less weak-willed), but that he looks very much like Alistair (bad design on Bioware's part!) and that he's voiced by the same actor, blunting the effect of some of his more biting observations.

As a starting party, these characters are more than adequate and, from the reviews I've read, even the game's critics seem to agree that the party members I've yet to recruit are the more interesting ones. All in all, then, as far as the characters are concerned, the game seems poised to live up to the high standards set by its predecessor.

At this stage it's too early for me to say anything meaningful about the story. The darkspawn are still abroad and, from the very first minutes of the game, you're thrown into combat with them. Game play is unchanged from Origins and, especially if you import a character from that game, these early nasties won't present you with any problem at all.

Inevitably, however, there is a suggestion that they're being led by something new. Quite what that "something" is will doubtless have to be unravelled as the game progresses but it's probably safe to assume that, whatever it is, you'll be doing battle with it before the closing credits roll. Adventure beckons!

So, as far as I can tell from the limited amount of the game I've played so far, it seems to me that the early reviews were a little harsh on Awakening, a fair assessment of the game's merits possibly being affected by the cost. The console versions were priced at £30-£35 on first release and, if you price an add-on pack that close to the price of a full sequel, every minor complaint is going to irritate all the more. For my part, having bought it for £20, I've enjoyed every minute of my first hour's play and I can't wait to play more. Highly recommended!

Shades - death and the maiden!

2010-05-19T07:51:00.007+01:00

Oh, look. It's another page from my online graphic novel Shades. Just click on the image below to see the full size version!
I think earlier entries in this blog have introduced you to all these characters already. For those in need of a quick refresher, however: The girl is a psychic teenager called Becky Allen. In the second panel, she is about to be sacrificed (for reasons you'll really have to read the full comic to understand!) Her spirit, meanwhile, is trapped in the spirit world. That's it there, in Panels 2 and 4. The naked character sporting tattoos and fighting a nasty green monster-thingy is the spirit of a prehistoric mystic known as "the Shaman". He's fighting to save poor Becky. Oh, and the nasty green monster-thingy is a spirit known as a "Lure". See - that wasn't so hard to understand, was it?!

Etta Candy - the disappearing woman

2010-05-16T15:33:00.048+01:00

There's a lot written about the way female characters are portrayed in mainstream comics and, for the most part, it's pretty negative and very confused. The most common complaint is that the women all tend to have idealised body-shapes, conveniently glossing over the fact that the male heroes also have physiques that look as if they'd be very comfortable on the set of a porn movie. Since she was first created as Wonder Woman's loyal sidekick in the 1940s, however, Etta Candy has been a notable exception to the rule.

As created by William Moulton Marston, Etta was plain and ... well, not to put too fine a point on it, fat. She was seldom seen without a box of chocolates (candy) under her arm and much of her dialogue consisted of saying she'd much rather be eating candy than ... well, whatever it was she was actually doing at the time. She was the comedy sidekick.

But she was also much more. She was courageous, bold and fiercely loyal. Her more attractive and slimmer companions at the Holliday College readily accepted her leadership and frequently followed her into danger. While Steve Trevor regularly needed saving by Wonder Woman, Etta Candy was far more likely to be leading a charge of her own, beating up Nazi spies and helping to thwart their evil schemes. Yes, as the title character, Wonder Woman was inevitably the ideal of feminine beauty but with Etta Candy, Marston was telling us that ordinary women could also be just as brave and resourceful - inspirational even.

Following a confused series of reinventions through the 1960s, the character became known to people outside the closed little community that is comic fandom, as a result of Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman TV series of the 1970s. The TV version of Etta (played by Beatrice Colen) was plump rather than fat and, although she was still clearly there to provide comic relief, the show decided not to make fun of her weight. Instead, the writers portrayed her as a woman of very limited intelligence, presumably in the belief that - in an age when women's rights were the order of the day - ridiculing women for being stupid was more acceptable than mocking their size! The saddest thing about the TV version, however, was that she was completely stripped of her bravery and willingness to stand at Wonder Woman's side in battle. She was still a likeable character but there was little to her other than the comedy trimmings.

With George Perez's relaunch of the Wonder Woman title in 1987, he re-established Etta Candy as a courageous, resourceful woman every bit as willing and able to fight side-by-side with the rest of the Wonder Woman cast. She was still plump and was described as unattractive, but these traits were no longer used as a device to elicit cheap laughs. She worked for the military, no longer obsessed over chocolate, and was comfortable with who she was. She had, in effect, come of age.

Apparently, however, the powers at DC now believe that Marston and Perez both got it wrong. In the Wonder Woman animated movie, Etta is a slim and attractive secretary who gets what she wants by using her feminine allure rather than her own abilities while, in her latest comics incarnation, Etta has been recast as a super-spy, complete with stereotypical porn-star physique and spray-on cat-suit.

Now, I've nothing against idealised women in comics, any more than I have anything against idealised male characters. They are and, as in any other mass medium, probably always will be the norm. If DC had wanted to create a new female super-spy and had made that character drop-dead gorgeous, it would have been pretty unimaginative but I'd have had no complaint. The shame here is that someone has made a conscious decision to take an existing character who did not fit the standard mould and has deliberately changed her into something bland and derivative. The message, it seems, is that the feminist critics were right all along. DC really does have no place for heroines who aren't beautiful and brimming with silicon-enhanced sex appeal.

The most surprising aspect of this change, however, is that it's happened on Gail Simone's watch. When it was announced that Simone would be assigned to the Wonder Woman title, much was made of the fact that she was the first woman writer to be given the post on a permanent basis. Implicit was the idea that only women could really understand how to write female characters. As laughable as that argument was even at the time (just imagine the outrage there'd be, if anyone dared suggest that only men could write male characters!), Simone had built up a strong reputation on Birds of Prey and so hopes for the future of the title were high.

Now, I don't claim to have read everything Simone has written for Wonder Woman but, from what I have seen, she's done a good job. Nothing to justify the wild optimism that followed her appointment, perhaps, but certainly as good as anything produced by the other writers assigned to this title in recent years. The glamming-up of Etta Candy, however, stands out as a huge step backwards for female characters and, given the writer's credentials, is especially ironic.

We'll probably never know whether it was Simone's own decision to rob Etta of her individuality, or whether it was yet another decision forced on a writer by an imagination-impaired editor. Either way, if you're a female reader whose body-shape fails to match up to the Amazonian ideal, you're no longer going to find a kindred spirit in the pages of a Wonder Woman comic. And, if you can't find one there, I guess you're going to be hard-pressed to find one anywhere within the DCU. She's just ... disappeared!

Ashes to Ashes - funk to funky!

2010-04-29T17:57:00.005+01:00

The third and final series of the BBC's Ashes to Ashes is about half way through now and, from the outset, it's been one of the highlights of my viewing week. I wasn't sure it would be. Like its predecessor show, Life on Mars, it has an unlikely premise and the previous two series had both taken some time to get into their stride.

Life on Mars told the story of Sam Tyler, a modern-day police officer who, having been hit by a car, is left in a coma and/or, depending on your viewpoint, is spirited back through time to 1973. There he finds his modern, forensics-driven policing methods are completely out of step with the politically incorrect views and methods of his DCI, Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister). The show made a star out of John Simm (possibly better known now as the latest incarnation of the Master in Doctor Who!) and the thought of having to recreate the success of the show without him must have been a daunting prospect.

When the new show, Ashes to Ashes, was finally unveiled Simm's character Sam Tyler was replaced by D.I. Alex Drake (played by Keeley Hawes) and, this time, she was thrown back only as far as the 1980s. Gene Hunt was still her DCI and he had just as little time for her psychological profiling as he'd had for Tyler's forensic evidence. But ... something wasn't right. The first two series of the new show began with a couple of very uncertain episodes. In a bit of a funk, if you will. The writers and producers seemed to have forgotten just what had made the original show work.

The problem, I think, was that the reviews of Life on Mars kept saying how funny the show was. They were right, of course. The exchanges between Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt were often laugh-out-loud funny as Tyler's methodical approach and belief in restraint ran headlong into Hunt's belief in doing whatever was necessary to secure a conviction, even if that meant breaking down doors, trampling rough-shod over a suspect's rights and indulging in more than a little police brutality.

The humour, however, was only a part of the reason for the show's success. Life on Mars was never a comedy. Beneath the superficial banter, it was actually a very dark drama with layers of subtlety - a fact which seemed to escape the show's writers when they came to script the early episodes of Ashes to Ashes.

Unduly influenced by the critics, perhaps, they lost sight of the dark, edgy vein of reality and put all the emphasis on the humour. It became, in effect, little more than a substandard sitcom based in a police station. The low point was surely the sight of Keeley Hawes leaning over a desk and urging her colleagues to date stamp her backside. So far so Carry on Constable but, when her mother walked through the door at exactly that moment, the whole thing was reduced to the level of a woefully tired Brian Rix farce.

As the first series progressed it did become more serious and, by the end, it had successfully recaptured the spirit that had made Life on Mars such gripping TV. Good solid drama, made amusing by the sharply observed interactions between a group of cleverly drawn characters, rather than by the forced inclusion of a few moments of gratuitous slapstick. It was all the more surprising, then, that the second series chose to repeat the mistakes of the first. Once again the first few episodes seemed determined to play it for laughs. Fortunately for those viewers prepared to stick with it, the series rediscovered its sense of drama (again!) in time to treat us to a nail-biting finale in which Alex was shot by Gene Hunt.

Which brings us back to Series 3. I wasn't especially looking forward to it. After two series of Life on Mars and two of Ashes to Ashes, hadn't the premise of a 21st Century police officer running up against 20th Century police methods already run its course? Also, on past performance, at least the first two episodes were bound to disappoint. And, although the hype surrounding the programme had made much of the fact that this final series would reveal everything about Gene Hunt and his "role" in the whole time-travelling phenomenon, wouldn't that be better left unexplained?

Well, we'll have to wait a little longer for the answer to that last question but the one thing I can say is that, unlike its two predecessors, this final series has wasted no time in finding the right balance of humour and drama. From the very first episode it has tried to keep us wrong-footed and has shone a light on some very dark recesses of its characters' lives. And, as dark as it gets, it's never more than a couple of lines away from another classic Gene Hunt quote to lighten the tone.

There are four episodes of this series still to go and, since it's been billed as the final series, we can probably be confident that - just like Life on Mars - it will end properly, rather than leaving us to guess about the characters' fates. Leaving aside the question of just who or what Gene Hunt is supposed to be, the big question is whether Alex will succeed in escaping the 1980s and returning to the present. Unlike Sam Tyler (who chose to stay in 1973), the decision that Alex has to make in Life on Mars is far less clear-cut. Even if she did come to the conclusion that things were better in the past, she has a young daughter, Molly, waiting for her in the present. Whatever she decides, the series finale is promising to be a very bitter-sweet mix of tragedy and comedy. Now that's something really funky to look forward to!

The Hero Machine

2010-04-23T14:38:00.007+01:00

Have you ever wanted to design your own super hero, fantasy or SciFi character but been daunted by the fact that you scarcely know one end of a pencil from the other? Yeah, me too!

Fortunately, however, I've just been pointed in the direction of The Hero Machine, a fun little gizmo that lets you design your own characters even if you can't draw like Jim Lee.

To test it out I took one of the pre-existing characters, Boo (from my online graphic novel Shades), and tried to replicate her look using The Hero Machine. The result is there on the left. It's not perfectly accurate in every detail, of course, but it's pretty close and it was a lot of fun to do. Just click on the image there to see what Boo actually looks like in the graphic novel!

So, next time you feel like designing a character of your own, give it a try. Even if you end up changing the design you come up with, it's a fun place to start and the variables you get to play with might just help you to start thinking about combinations you wouldn't otherwise have considered!

Shades - look to the skies!

2010-04-21T07:33:00.004+01:00

A little later than usual this week but, in case you thought we'd forgotten, never fear - the latest page of our online graphic novel Shades is up and waiting for you! There's a reduced size version of it below. Just click on the image to see the full size version!

Shades - stealing the show!

2010-04-12T13:43:00.008+01:00

Here's a reduced size version of this week's instalment of our graphic novel Shades. Just click on the image to see the full size version.
So, now to the introductions. Even if you weren't reading Shades before we began this blog, you should recognise Stan (the older guy stealing the show in the top two panels!) from the previous page. In the remaining panels, the guy in the brown and black is a WW2 fighter pilot by the name of Doug Chamberlain (or, occasionally, "Spitfire"). How he happens to be flying without a jetpack is a fairly long story but he's a kind of super hero and that's probably all you really need to know to get started. The youngster in the green and brown is Ryan Allen, a fan of Doug's and one who would dearly like to be known as Harrier. There - you can go read it properly now!

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - Huntress

2010-04-09T07:15:00.008+01:00

Although she'd been around (in one universe or another) for years by then, I first became aware of Huntress in the pages of the five volume "maxi-series" No Man's Land. In that series she spent much of her time dressed as a would-be Batwoman, patrolling the streets of a Gotham reeling from the after-effects of a massive earthquake.

Now, I've always been quick to criticise the number of allies who seem to dog Batman's footsteps but it was immediately apparent to me that Huntress was different. She belonged.

Like Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, her childhood had been torn from her by the murder of her parents, the mafia Bertinelli family. Just as importantly, however, like the best of the Bat-villains, Huntress added something to our understanding of Batman himself. Without the moral compass of an honest father, she had become the kind of vigilante that Batman could so easily have become - vengeful and lethal, with no qualms about killing or maiming her opponents.

Her own psychological issues were also painfully clear to see. As much as her pride prevented her from admitting it, she desperately wanted to be accepted by Batman. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think she was looking for him to be the father figure she'd needed all those years before. Yes, she opposed him, scorned his methods, insisted on doing things her own way and remained fiercely independent. And yet, for all that, she wanted his approval; to have him recognise that she was one of the good guys. When DC announced that they were introducing a new Batwoman to Gotham, I shook my head in disbelief. Not only did this scream of a failure to understand that the last thing the Bat-universe needed was yet another costumed crime-fighter on the streets, it demonstrated just how little the writers and editors understood the property they already had.

By the end of No Man's Land, Huntress had abandoned the bat-suit and reverted to her own purple and black costume. Not the one the figurine created by Eaglemoss for the DC Comics Super Hero Collection is wearing (see image above). That came later, introduced during Jeph Loeb's incredibly mediocre and hugely over-hyped Hush. This was an unnecessary redesign prompted, I can only assume, by the belief that the sight of a bare midriff and thighs might titillate the more immature fanboys enough for them to overlook the shortcomings of the story.

Since then, Huntress has moved on to other things, most notably as one of the key members of Oracle's Birds of Prey team. I can't help thinking, however, that DC missed a trick with this character. Unlike the newly created pretender Batwoman, Huntress lurks in the darker recesses of Batman's psyche just as much as she haunts the back-alleys of Gotham City.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan - space sickness!

2010-04-08T11:17:00.006+01:00

For my money, the "reimagining" of Battlestar Galactica wasn't just one of the best SciFi shows in years, it was one of the best TV shows in any genre. It had intelligent story-telling, intense political drama, moral ambiguities and a great cast of characters forced to question not just who they were but whether they were anybody at all; whether they were even human.

The spin-off mini-series Razor may not have been able to live up to the glories of its parent show but it was entertaining enough for what it was (a fairly pedestrian expansion of a sub-plot already revealed during the main show), while the prequel that nearly never aired Caprica is so far proving that, at times, it can be every bit as thought-provoking as BSG itself.

So, with that kind of a pedigree, you could be forgiven for expecting the latest spin-off, the feature-length "movie" Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, to have something to offer. Sadly, you'd be wrong!

It's a strange animal. Supposedly telling the story of the attempted annihilation of the human race from the Cylon point of view, it has no coherent narrative of its own. Instead, it's little more than a series of largely unconnected and very fleeting glimpses of scenes which supposedly happened just before or just after events with which we are already familiar - Boomer agonising over her mission to plant a bomb; Starbuck promising to return for the Caprican resistance fighters; Six engaging with Baltar, etc etc. Sadly, none of these scenes are properly developed or given any kind of context. In short, watching this is like watching a series of out-takes. In a feeble attempt to convince us that this is actually new material, Dean Stockwell is brought back to provide a few words in between each sequence, slowly persuading each of his co-conspirators to do their bit and die for the Cylon cause. It's dreary, unconvincing stuff.

And, I should think, the producers must have known this. Why else would they have inserted a scene at a topless bar and a Starship Troopers style nude shower-room scene?

I have no problem with nudity on TV (I can't help but love True Blood!) but considering that, over five full-length seasons of BSG, there wasn't so much as a square inch of naked flesh, the producers must have made a very conscious decision to include it here. The fans wouldn't have been expecting it; I've never heard any internet forums call for it; and it added nothing either to the plot or to our understanding of the characters. The nudity was entirely gratuitous and can only have been included in the desperate hope that, in the absence of anything resembling plot or character development, a couple of naked bodies might just persuade a handful of viewers to watch to the end.

All in all, this is a dire movie, hardly worthy even of being consigned to a premature DVD release. It's not exactly unknown for desperate producers to try to milk a franchise for every last dollar but the crime for which The Plan can never be forgiven is that it is so dreadful that it even sours the memory of just how riveting BSG was. The sooner someone collects all copies of this movie and jettisons them from the nearerst airlock, the better.

Shades - where's a super hero when you need one?

2010-04-06T08:41:00.006+01:00

The latest page of our online graphic novel Shades went live yesterday. If you didn't see it, there's a reduced size version below. Just click on the image to see the full size version.
If you've only been following Shades since we started this blog, then you probably won't have met these characters before, so let me make some introductions.

The nice old guy with the glasses is Stanley Miller. He's retired now but used to make "exceptional clothing for some extraordinary people - people the popular press would call super heroes". He is, I suppose, a kind of down-to-Earth version of Edna Mode (although I invented Stan first - honest!) The girl is his daughter Jill and the young boy is her son Sunil. All you need to know about the guy with the gun is that he's not very nice. But, once you've read the page, you'll probably realise that!

Doctor Who - saved by Amy Pond!

2010-04-04T10:36:00.041+01:00

Somewhere in the dim and distant recesses of my childhood memories, I can just about remember William Hartnell playing the very first Doctor in Doctor Who. Despite the myths that have grown up around the show since then, I was never the kind of kid to hide cowering behind the sofa, frightened by the mechanical menace of the Daleks. I just loved the fantasy and one ancient B&W episode in particular has always stuck in my mind. Set on an alien planet, it featured some giant ant-like creatures (possibly known as Zarbi?)

I have clearer (and less fond) memories of Patrick Troughton prancing around in check trousers and whistling on a flute but, for me, the actor who will always be associated with the role is Jon Pertwee. By then, of course, the series was already being hit by budget constraints. The TARDIS was trapped permanently on Earth; the sets were noticeably cardboard; the costumes and SFX were of a laughably low standard and the acting of the supporting cast distinctly "children's TV". But I liked it. For all its absurdities, Pertwee's intense focus made the Doctor himself a credible character and that was enough for me to overlook everything else.

After Pertwee, I lost interest in the series. Looking back, I can see that production standards did continue to fall but, in reality, I think I just outgrew it. Had I been younger, I suspect I might have bought into Tom Baker's Doctor but we'll never know. For my generation, by the time Pertwee left, Doctor Who had become something of a joke, and the surprise wasn't that the BBC eventually cancelled it but that they hadn't done so many years earlier.

When Russell Davies resurrected the show, I had mixed feelings. The nostalgic in me wanted it to be a success but, despite the advent of computer-generated SFX, I never found Christopher Ecclestone convincing as the Doctor. To me, he always seemed to be hamming it up slightly; as if he couldn't quite rid himself of the idea that the show was meant for kids. He was okay, but he always seemed to be self-consciously acting rather living the role.

And then came David Tennant. For the first time since the 1960s, when Tennant took over the role as the Doctor, the show made the jump from "watchable" to "must-see" TV! He was the Doctor. He didn't just put on a costume and act slightly eccentric, he became the Doctor. Tennant's wide-eyed irrepressible enthusiasm was the Doctor's wide-eyed irrepressible enthusiasm and, like Pertwee, he brought an intensity to the role that enabled us to swallow even the most ludicrous of plots. And it was contagious. For the first time since William Hartnell, Doctor Who wasn't just a show that adults could watch with their kids, it was a show that adults could enjoy as much as their kids. No wonder both the BBC and the show's fans were worried about having to replace him.

Which brings us to the first episode of the new series starring Matt Smith. So, how did he measure up against his predecessors? To be honest he was not bad as the Doctor. Following Tennant was always going to be a difficult task and, for most of the episode, Smith seemed to be still in his shadow, imitating Tennant rather than playing the role his own way. He still has time to grow into the role, of course, and he may yet make it his own. In fact, I suspect that part of the problem may well have been that the script was written with Tennant's Doctor in mind, making it difficult for Smith to play any other way. We shall see. On the strength of one episode, I can't quite give him two thumbs up yet, but one thumb is certainly raised. The episode's frantically fast pace careered from pathos, to slapstick, to action and back again, without missing a beat. It was in short ... fun.

And much of the credit for that fun belongs to the performance of Karen Gillan as the Doctor's new assistant, strippergram (sorry, kiss-a-gram!) Amy Pond. Perhaps more than any other of the Doctor's assistants, Amy seems to be a refreshingly complex character. Having seen the Doctor as a child, she has something of Martha Jones's starry-eyed infatuation with him. Having been entranced by his seemingly fantastical stories she has something of Rose Tyler's star-struck wonder. But, most importantly, having spent years in therapy as a result, she has more than a little of Donna Noble's combative feistiness. She is, in short, all of her predecessors and yet none of them. She is a worthy successor and yet very much her own person. It may take a few episodes for Matt Smith to become his own Doctor but it seems that, while we're waiting, Karen Gillan is going to give the kind of performance that will ensure we hardly notice!

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - Superman

2010-04-03T09:45:00.031+01:00

By most accepted definitions, Superman is without a doubt the first and most iconic super hero. Fanboys may like to debate whether he or Batman is the best, the most successful or the most inspirational character in the DCU but, to the world at large, Superman defines the very concept of what a superhero is. Without him the comics industry would be very different to the one we know today.

The figurine made by Eaglemoss for the DC Comics Super Hero Collection is rather more caricatured than most of the other figurines, a huge barrel chest tapering down into an impossibly slim waist. This seems an odd decision given the realistic proportions of the other figurines in the series, but I suspect very few will complain. The Big Blue costume is such an instantly recognisable brand that you could dress pretty much anything in it and it would still be identifiable as belonging to Kal-El, the last son of Krypton.

The skin tight body-suit, the "underpants" worn on the outside, the insignia emblazoned across the chest and, of course, the cape - back in 1938, Siegel and Shuster supposedly based the costume on that of a circus strong man. These days, that's all but forgotten. It has been imitated so often by the rest of the super hero community that it now defines the entire super hero genre. Modern creators may try to vary the basic template by dropping the cape or losing the underpants but they seldom stray far from it.

If there's one thing that defines the super hero more than his costume, however, it's his superhuman "powers". And, over the years, Superman has acquired more than enough powers to equip a whole super team. The core abilities originally given to him by Siegel and Shuster are summarised neatly in his now legendary tag line: "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!" You'll notice there's no mention of his various ocular abilities. No telescopic vision, no heat vision and no x-ray vision. Even more notable, however, is the fact that, back in the day, he leapt rather than flew. The power of flight was added to his array of powers later, when Superman was given his own radio show.

And this is where many, myself included, start to lose interest in the character. There is a feeling among many comic book fans that Superman is simply too powerful. His only weaknesses are kryptonite (also introduced by the radio show) and that weakest of all plot devices - magic. He is, in effect, a god. A character for whom no enemy is too powerful to defeat, no problem too difficult to resolve. Compared to the threats faced by other heroes, the dilemmas dreamt up by Superman's writers are ridiculously artificial and contrived. They have to be. What else could challenge a god?

That Superman remains so popular today is due in no small part, I think, to the fact that he clings to his secret identity as mild-mannered reporter (now editor?) Clark Kent. Readers might have difficulty relating to a man who can fly, but we can all relate to a socially inept Mr Average who never gets the girl (although why anyone would want to win the acid-tongued Lois of the 1930s is a mystery!) You see, as much as today's writers try to say otherwise, Superman is Clark Kent. Even when in costume, Clark's "nice guy" persona still wins through. The fashion may be for heroes to be dark and gritty but somewhere, inside all of us, we all want to know there are still people out there who are as good and as brave, as honest, as loyal and as decent as Clark. After all, even without the "super", that pretty much defines a hero.

Shades - sneak peek!

2010-04-01T14:08:00.008+01:00

I've been serialising my graphic novel Shades on the Worldwide WonderWeb for a good few years now but, as it draws to an end, I'm having to give more and more thought to how I'm going to get this thing into print. At present, I'm planning two volumes: one with all the chapters drawn by Harsho Chattoraj and one with those by E.C. Nickel and Muamal Khairi.

This is a reduced size version of the design for the cover of Volume 2. To see the full size version, just click on the image. Pencils, inks and colours are all by E.C. Nickel (and don't they look marvellous?!)

True Blood - time for one more?

2010-03-31T15:02:00.029+01:00

I'm starting to become a little nervous about True Blood. Not nervous that there might be vampires lurking in the shadows, of course, but nervous that the show is starting to show signs of Heroes-syndrome.

Remember how, in the first season of Heroes, the original premise kept us glued to the screen? How it was possible to believe that - if there were people with superhuman abilities - then that was how life would be for them in the real world? Well, that's essentially where True Blood began, too. Okay, so it had vampires instead of super-powered humans but, like Heroes, one of the things that made it such compelling viewing was the fact that it presented us with a wonderfully detailed and entirely plausible picture of how the world might really react to the news that these extraordinary people/creatures exist.

About half-way through Season 1 of Heroes, the premise changed and the show began to show signs of fatigue. The problem was that there were just too many characters with too wide an assortment of special powers and abilities. Every time a new character was introduced, it was a foregone conclusion that they would eventually be revealed as being yet another super-powered individual. It became boring. As The Incredibles so neatly put it: "when everyone is super, no one is."

But what does this have to do with True Blood? When the show started we cared about Sookie Stackhouse and the difficulties she faced because of her mind-reading ability. She had a loving grandmother and a brother who was as thick as two short planks; an ordinary family trying to live ordinary lives despite an extraordinary ability. And then came vampire Bill Compton, a Southern gentlemen soldier, a veteran of the American Civil War. He may have been part of the exotic world of vampires but paradoxically, because Sookie was unable to read his thoughts, he actually gave her a chance to experience something close to a normal relationship for the first time. An intriguing premise, and we were hooked!

Later we learned that Sookie's employer, Sam, was a shape-shifter. There was a mention of werewolves. Then, the mother of Sookie's best friend Tara went to visit a witch (although, admittedly, she was later revealed to be a fake). Now, in Season 2, we have a bull-headed creature like a minotaur roaming the woods and a woman who appears to be able to use the sexual energy released in Bacchanalian orgies to turn people into pigs (some connection to Circe from Homer's Odyssey perhaps?) It's reaching the stage that, whenever a new character is introduced, we no longer wonder what their stance on vampire rights might be, or what their relationship with Sookie could become. Instead, we automatically assume they must be some form of supernatural entity and try to guess which one the writers have chosen this time. It's becoming ... predictable!

But don't get me wrong. I haven't given up on the show just yet! For the time being it's still up there with Caprica as one of my two favourite shows currently on TV. What keeps it alive, for me, is the witty script and the excellent supporting cast. Anna Paquin's Sookie and her brother Jason may have been the initial route into this show but, during Season 1, Sookie's best friend Tara outgrew her given role as comedy sidekick and developed into a complex character in her own right; one with real emotional depth, and who we could care about. Tara has continued to grow in Season 2 but, from the first few episodes, it's already beginning to look as if she might yet be upstaged by her cousin Lafayette. After an entire season of shamelessly hamming it up as an over-the-top gay drug dealer, the scenes in which he is imprisoned, waiting for death in a vampire's basement have shown that Lafayette is developing into a far more subtle and nuanced character.

Even the smaller supporting roles are played to perfection. The pathos of the lonely ex-alcoholic Detective Andy Bellefleur makes him an ideal partner for the long-suffering Sheriff Bud Dearborne. Together they form a hilarious double-act that outshines anything in most shows which actually bill themselves as a sitcom!

The story in True Blood may be showing signs of getting tired, of falling prey to Heroes-syndrome, but with a script as witty, characters as interesting and performances as fine as we've seen so far in Season 2, I'm guessing it'll be able to keep me entertained for at least one more season after this!

Shades - rumbled!

2010-03-29T16:44:00.006+01:00

What's that? A new page of Shades has been uploaded? That must mean it's Monday already! There's a reduced size image of the new page down there. Just click on it to see the full sized version!

We've already introduced you to Boudicca, Becky, Arturos and Thrawn in previous blog posts. The other character in this scene - the tattooed guy in the long red robe - is one of the story's chief villains. (Yes, it's okay to hiss!) His name is Bedlam and, to cut a very long story incredibly short, he's summoned Thrawn from the demon realms to use in his plan to seize contol of the country. There - now you can go read!

Shades - play a game with Becky!

2010-03-26T10:45:00.014Z

If you've been following our online graphic novel Shades, there's now a new way for you to enjoy it. Yes, those nice people at the Difference Games website have put together a game based on the experiences of Rebecca Allen in the spirit world - just click the image to start playing!

But don't worry if you haven't been following Shades. You can still play the game anyway!

First, though, just one word of warning for our regular readers: if you play the game through to the end, there's a bit of a plot spoiler since it shows what happens to poor Becky. Of course, some of you may consider that an added incentive to play!

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - The Flash

2010-03-25T15:26:00.021Z

With or without a "The" as part of his name, there's something about The Flash that has always appealed to me, although - in saying that - I realise now that I'm going to have to explain which Flash I mean.

I don't, for example, mean the original Golden Age character, Jay Garrick (the one who wore a wok for a hat). Like many of the original JSA characters, by the time I got into comics his costume was already looking old-fashioned, like it should have been a discarded design concept. Nor do I mean Wally West who took up the mantle in the 1980s or Bart Allen, who began as the sidekick Kid Flash. (You see what I mean about the confusing state of DC continuity?!)

No, for me, the real Flash - the one I first discovered - was Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash. Of course, I never knew much about his backstory (something about an accident while working in a police lab and having a girlfriend called Iris, as far as I can remember), but that didn't matter. It was enough to know that he could run fast (faster than Superman!) and that his costume was red and gold - an unbeatable colour combination! He just looked so cool!

I was delighted then that the first Flash made by Eaglemoss for the DC Comics Super Hero Collection was the Barry Allen Flash - my Flash - and that they'd captured his look perfectly!

Of course, these days, my appreciation of the character is a little different. I rediscovered the Flash as part of the Justice League animated TV series. This was the Wally West version and, although I had no idea what had happened to Barry Allen at that time, Wally had a personality that was kind of hard to dislike. He was the class clown; the lovable joker, always ready with a goofy quip to lighten even the direst of situations. I don't know if Barry Allen ever had a distinct personality as such (those things never seemed very important back in the day!) but, since Wally's costume was pretty identical to Barry's, it was fairly easy to take Wally's personality and graft it onto my memory of Barry Allen!

The other reason I've rediscovered my fondness for the Flash is because of his lack of powers. Over the years I've become one of those people who believes that the more powerful a hero is, the less interesting he becomes. With only one power (the ability to move incredibly quickly!) the Flash poses a real challenge for his writers. They can't simply have him racing a rocket-powered car every month and so they are always having to be more inventive; always having to find new and creative ways for the character to use the one power he has. What began, therefore, as an ability to run fast has now become the ability to create whirlwinds, to run up walls and across water, to vibrate through solid objects, to create vacuums, centrifuges and cushions of air ... in effect, they've extended his range of abilities and, unlike Superman, they've done it without adding a single extra super power to his arsenal. Now, for a writer at least, that's the way to make a character really interesting!

Shades - mind the tentacles!

2010-03-22T15:21:00.012Z

Our online graphic novel Shades updated this morning and, this time, our fiery heroine Boudicca is again coming face to face with the demon spirit Thrawn. You can see a reduced size version of the latest page below. Just click on the image to see the full size version.
For those of you not familiar with Shades, Thrawn has a very nasty habit of subduing an opponent by telling them half-truths. Now that may not sound so bad but his tentacles ensure his words strike at the heart of his victims' self-belief by simultaneously bombarding them with a spirit energy known as "phisma". Yeah, it all sounds pretty convoluted but - thanks to the terrific artwork by E.C. Nickel and Muamal Qoiri's colours - it always looks fantastic!

Webcomic gold - Simply Sarah

2010-03-21T10:03:00.067Z

In an earlier post, I said I intended to highlight some of the webcomics which I think are good enough for you to spend time reading. And, since they say you should lead with your best shot, the first one I'm going to flag up is Simply Sarah by Sarah Skye, a comic which has been at the top of my favourites list for a couple of years now.

So, what's it about? Well, at the most obvious level it's a comic about two girls in a lesbian relationship but, having said that, I really can't tell you any more without also telling you what it's not.

So, here goes: Simply Sarah is not a tawdry erotic comic with graphic close-ups of "hawt" girl-on-girl action; neither is it a hopelessly idealised romance in which the main characters spend pages gazing into each other's eyes and whispering sweet nothings because, after all, no one else could possibly understand what they're going through; but, most importantly since this sub-genre seems to be everywhere just now, it is most definitely not a manga-styled yuri comic with pre-teen heroines discovering their mutual attraction through a series of improbably wild and wacky adventures. Nope - there's not even a whiff of a cloyingly cute or maniacally hyperactive chibi!

So, if seeing the words "lesbian" and "comic" in the same sentence makes you think of any of those, then put your preconceptions aside and prepare to be enlightened!

Simply Sarah is the story of a teenage girl coping with life, adolescence and the onset of adulthood. She goes to school, sits exams, finds first love, parties, confronts bullies, makes and loses friends and wants to get away from her quarrelling parents. Any of that sound familiar? Of course it does. They're the kind of issues we all face when growing up, irrespective of gender or sexual orientation.

For me, that is one of the real strengths of this comic. The excellent writing ensures that the main character Sarah is not presented as a lesbian first and a person second. She is a person first, as real and as strong, as shy, caring, confused and vulnerable as anyone you know in real life. Yes, being a lesbian does create certain additional issues but these are not presented in the form of an aggressive misandristic or LGBT agenda.

By focusing on Sarah's feelings, even issues such as parental acceptance are dealt with in a way that anyone can identify with. Many, many teenagers - gay and straight - have had the experience of trying to explain the attraction of a partner deemed unacceptable by their parents. Maybe they were the wrong colour, the wrong background, the wrong age, the wrong religion ... Parental acceptance is obviously a major issue for gays and lesbians but, by keeping the focus on the personal rather than the political, Simply Sarah allows us all to relate to the characters' dilemma.

And, of course, it is so very often the characters which make the difference between a passable story and a great one. This, then, is a great one!

The characters are superbly drawn - all different and yet all believable. Just like you, me and all the people we know in real life. Sarah herself is shy but growing in self-confidence, while Janey, the object of her affections, is more forthright and self-assured (if occasionally a little self-centred). Then there's Dawn, Sarah's dowdy but inquisitive friend; Gerry, the tomboyish artist who loves horses; Stacey, the irredeemably envious and resentful school bully; and Leo, the wild-child wannabe punk-rocker. Each one has a personality of her own and convinces us that she has a life beyond the pages of the comic.

If there is a criticism to be made of the cast, it's that it contains very few male characters and that those there are, almost without exception, are distinctly unsympathetic. The few teenage males in the story are mostly jerks (and, in one case, a would-be rapist) while Sarah's father, the only adult male of any importance, is abusive to his wife, usually verbally but occasionally resorting to physical violence too. There's nothing especially wrong with these characterisations (most of us know someone who would fit at least one of those descriptions!) but, in an age when the male-dominated mainstream media is so frequently criticised for its lack of positive female characters, the tendency to exclude or stereotype either sex is something I believe indy creators in particular need to guard against.

The artwork in Simply Sarah is another of its strong points. The colouring on one or two pages is perhaps a little too vivid, but this isn't something that's serious enough or happens often enough to detract from the overall presentation. The page composition is clear and never leaves the reader wondering which panel to read next. The real selling point, however, is Sarah Skye's linework which is a joy, complementing the story perfectly.

In many ways the simple, uncluttered style reminds me of the artwork in 1960s girls' comics like Bunty or Judy (they were my sister's, I swear!) or the illustrations in an Enid Blyton novel (yes, they were mine!) In the early chapters particularly, when the girls are in their school uniforms, I had no difficulty imagining them creeping around the darkened corridors of a 1950s boarding school, solving mysteries and raiding tuck-boxes by torch light.

And that, I think, is a large part of what makes this comic shine! The sensitive and heartfelt writing ensures that we recognise the very real, contemporary problems these girls are having to face, but the echoes of times past which are evoked by the artwork add to the story and its characters an air of innocence which makes us feel for them too. We want to protect them and tell them that, no matter what the world may throw at them, it'll be okay; that, as long as they love each other and hold true to that, they can cope with anything.

Because, male or female, gay or straight, that's what we all want to believe about our own relationships. Isn't it?

Legend of the Seeker - just no fun!

2010-03-20T12:17:00.038Z

Given the number of excellent and/or promising shows that don't get renewed or, worse, aren't even allowed to make it to the end of their first season, I'm frequently amazed at the shows which do get a chance at a second or third series. Shows like The Legend of the Seeker.

Now, don't get me wrong. I do watch the show and I'm glad it's there because, let's face it, there's little enough sword and sorcery on TV, but - subjected to any kind of serious scrutiny - it's not exactly riveting stuff. Certainly no better than any one of a dozen shows that have been cancelled; shows like The Bionic Woman or My Own Worst Enemy or the infinitely superior Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

It's not that there's anything especially bad about The Legend of the Seeker, it's just that there's nothing especially good about it, either. The plot is routine fantasy fare: a young man of apparently humble origins (Richard Cypher - and, yes, that really is the hero's last name!) discovers he has a past shrouded in mystery and a destiny to save the kingdom from all manner of nasty monsters and, of course, a bloodthirsty tyrant. He is aided in his quest by a wizard (Zeddicus) and the obligatory attractive female, a "Confessor" (effectively a warrior-nun) called Kahlan.

The individual episodes hang tenuously from this hackneyed plot but most add little to it. They constitute, instead, a series of unrelated adventures linked, like the episodes in a 1960s Western, only by the fact that they feature the same lead characters. The acting is uninspired but acceptable, the writing distinctly average and the special effects - whilst falling far short of what we've come to expect in the post-LotR/Matrix world - are not too bad considering the show has to make-do with a TV budget. Crowd scenes rarely seem to include more than a dozen people and the sets bear a remarkable similarity from one isolated village or castle to the next. It is, in short, a nearly show.

It's nearly good. It has a number of elements that nearly work but, somehow, neither the plot nor the characters have enough of a spark about them to make it more than the TV equivalent of those lacklustre movies based on Dungeon Siege or Dungeons and Dragons. So what's missing?

The series is, of course, produced by Sam Raimi and therein, I think, lies the answer. Although he may have made his name with big screen horror features, the success of those films has surely been eclipsed by Raimi's two huge TV hits, Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. So what made those two shows such compulsive viewing, when The Legend of the Seeker is so eminently missable?

In a word: "humour". Now, fantasy doesn't have to be humourous. Fans of the sword and sorcery genre (and I do count myself among them!) will be well aware of the fact that, before Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies dragged it kicking and screaming into the mainstream, virtually every fantasy film was a self-conscious spoof, the actors hamming it up, as if embarrassed to be seen slumming it in such low-brow fare.

To make a serious fantasy epic, however, you do need a budget large enough to hire only the best actors, the best writers and the best special effects team in the business. If you don't have the budget for those (and what TV series does?!) then you need to find something else to make up for it. Xena and Hercules did. They had leads who were not cookie-cutter stereotypes, excitable but engaging sidekicks and a self-mocking but affectionate approach to the shows' premise.

I doubt that Kevin Sorbo is a better an actor than Craig Horner but he played Hercules as a lovable lug, making him endearing in a way that Richard Cypher (oh, that name!) simply ... isn't. The appeal of Xena (despite what the tabloids may want us to believe) wasn't Lucy Lawless's leather-clad physique, it was that sparkle in her eye and the smile that said she was going to enjoy teaching a lesson to the latest fool who'd dared to challenge her. In short, they had "personality"! The shows stopped short of being parodies of the genre (usually!), but they weren't afraid to have fun with it either.

And that, I think, is what's missing from The Legend of the Seeker. It doesn't have the budget to take itself as seriously as it does and so it needs Sam Raimi to inject something else. A sense of personality. A sense of fun!

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - Batman

2010-03-17T13:49:00.013Z

The powerless super hero par excellence, Batman will always have a special place in my affections. As I've said many times before, Adam West's Batman was partly responsible for getting me into comics as a kid, Tim Burton's Batman was responsible for making me want to read them again as an adult, and Frank Miller's Batman was responsible for making me want to write my own!

Armed with nothing more than a sharp mind and well-honed fighting skills (oh, okay, and enough cash to fill the subterranean network of caves beneath Wayne Manor!), Batman has always stood apart from the rest of the super hero pack. He wears dark greys and black rather than bright primary colours, he makes a virtue of keeping to the shadows rather than showboating in the glare of the limelight and, compared to those of his JLA comrades-in-arms, his methods have always been a little ... close to the edge!

The figurine made by Eaglemoss for the DC Comics Super Hero Collection (pictured) shows Batman with his arm raised, drawing his cape up to his face in the pose which has been one of his trademarks ever since he was first drawn by Bob Kane back in the 1930s.

In my comments on the Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn figurines, I mentioned that I felt the writers had failed to do those characters justice and set out the way I'd have written them in order to make them more interesting. In the case of Batman, I have no such axe to grind. Sure, many of his supposedly classic stories have been ludicrous (Knightfall) or run-of-the-mill (Hush), but the character himself is everything he should be and even the worst writers don't seem to have been able to dent his appeal.

Gruff, surly to the point of rudeness, conservative, right-wing and reactionary, violent and with little time for fools, he continues to be driven by a desire not simply to punish criminals, but to save others from the pain he had to endure following the murder of his parents. Long may he continue to watch over us from the rooftops of Gotham!

Shades - oh, you mean that Murlynn!

2010-03-14T14:18:00.012Z

Hey, welcome to Monday morning and the latest page of our graphic novel Shades! There's a reduced size version of it below but just click on the image to see the full size version.
If you're not already familiar with Shades, suffice it to say that the character hanging upside down in Panel 3 is called Arturos (a demon hunter from the spirit world) and the face mirrored in the sword (Panel 4) is called Murlynn. Any similarity between these names and those of the legendary King Arthur and his mentor Merlin is, of course, anything but coincidental!

Lost - the polar bear's escaped!

2010-03-14T10:50:00.017Z

Is anyone still watching Lost? Or, more to the point, is anyone who is still watching it, watching it for any reason other than that this is the last series?

The heady days of Season 1 seem a long time ago now. Remember the thrill of first seeing a polar bear on a tropical island? Of wondering how Jack's dead father appeared to him? Or how Locke had regained the use of his legs? Remember how much fun it was trying to guess what could possibly explain all those weird and wonderful plot twists?

Were the characters dead and serving their time in purgatory? Was everything happening inside Hurley's head? There seemed to be so many possibilities!

By Season 2, watching the series was already becoming a bit of a chore. Setting 50% of the show inside a concrete and steel bunker where the most excitement on offer was wondering whether the latest character-of-the-week would remember to push a button was hardly gripping television. But we kept watching, right? After all, there was always just the merest hint of a possibility that something might happen to explain what the Hell was going on.

It didn't, of course. As each successive season came and went, the main characters started to be killed off (some to add much needed tension, others presumably because the actors no longer wished to be associated with the show) and a variety of increasingly improbable methods were used to introduce new characters to replace them: the Tail-enders, the Others, the Rescue team, the Dharma initiative ... They all came, and they each added one or two replacements to the permanent cast before being whisked away and almost instantly forgotten. Now, as the climax approaches, we have the Temple-dwellers. Forgive me if I stifle a yawn at this latest deus ex machina.

Anyway, for those of us who are still looking in every week, there is at least the chance of an explanation at the end of this season, and that'll make it all worth while, right? Well ... kind of.

The trouble is that I don't think anybody cares any more. The writers have written so many inexplicable twists and turns into the previous five seasons that there simply is no single explanation that can satisfactorily bring all the threads together in one big "Ah, so that's it!" moment. We know this because of the glimpses we've aleady had: the bland and uncharismatic Jacob, nuclear explosions, the island moving through space, the characters moving through time, Locke becoming the smoke monster ... In the frantic scramble to tie all the lunatic plot twists together, the final series is already on course for one of the messiest and most contrived endings ever.

I knew this was coming. Hell, we all knew this was coming. But, if I'd needed any proof, it was given when - as the Dharma settlement's camp was being torn apart - one of the characters could just be heard shouting over all the confusion: "The polar bear's escaped!" Honestly, if that's the best explanation the writers could come up with to justify a polar bear being on a tropical island, what hope is there that they have anything better in mind to explain all the other 2,003 paradoxes and plot holes?

For all that, I am watching the last series. I'm not entirely sure why. I suspect it's because part of me wants to be proven wrong. Part of it is also because I have a theory about where the series seems to be heading and, I suppose, I just want to see if I'm right. (I do hope I'm not!) But mainly, I think, it's because I'm quite enjoying the glimpses of the characters' "what if" lives, back in the US. If it wasn't for those sequences, I'm sure I'd have given up by now, because - as far as everything that's happening on the island is concerned - I really don't care any more!

Webcomics - in search of gold!

2010-03-11T09:51:00.032Z

Although webcomics have definitely become more accepted and less ghetto-ised over the past couple of years, there's still one huge obstacle for them to overcome. How on Earth do you find the good ones?! The top lists are largely dominated by those with the cash to advertise heavily, the mainstream press (when it looks in this direction at all) can't see beyond the half a dozen gag-strips that kicked things off back in the Dark Ages and new readers find it hard to hear anything over the noise made by the big PR guns brought in to promote DC's Zuda. Stray off those beaten tracks looking for real quality and you'll pretty soon realise it's a jungle out there!

There are tens of thousands of comics on the web and, even as a webcomic creator myself, I have to admit that most of them are simply not worth reading.

Many of them are written and drawn by kids taking their first steps into creating comics. There's nothing wrong with that; I've done it myself. The only difference is that my own early attempts were pre-web, drawn in biro on school exercise books and never seen by more than a dozen class-mates. (See The House that Drac Built by way of proof!) Today's kids, on the other hand, are able to post their first fumbling efforts on the web and have instant access to a potential audience of millions. Well, good luck to them, I say! I'm just jealous that I wasn't able to do the same! Sadly, though, it's the fact that this type of comic is so commonplace that has detractors crying that there are no decent comics here in webworld!

Then there are those with beautiful art but poor writing. Or strong writing but substandard artwork. It's only natural for artists to want to be able to tell their own stories, of course, but the sad fact is that very few of us have the ability to write and draw up to a professional standard and putting together a whole team of specialists is an art in itself. A mainstream comic has a whole army of very creative people working on it: writers, editors, pencillers, inkers, colourists, letterers and probably a few more that I don't even know the names of. With the best will in the world, even the most talented webcomic creator can't be expected to master all those disciplines!

Regular webcomic readers know this and most will make allowances if a comic falls down in one or two areas. For potential new readers in search of good webcomics, however, it's only natural that they will expect the good comics to be as professionally produced as the mainstreeam comics they see on the shelves of their local newsagent. And, as like as not, they won't find any - not, I hasten to add, because there aren't good webcomics out there but because, as I said at the outset, they're just so damn hard to find!

Now, as well as being serialised at my own Broken Voice Comics website, my graphic novel Shades also appears at a number of webcomic hosting sites (Graphic Smash, Drunk Duck and Smack Jeeves) and, through them, I've discovered one or two real webcomic gems (like the two pictured here!) So, whilst I make no claims to know where all the treasure is buried, I plan to use this blog occasionally to highlight a few webcomics which are really something quite special.

I'll be posting something about the first of these shortly so, if you want to read webcomics that are worth reading but can't be bothered to trawl all around the net, make sure you look out for it. Just don't expect me to be flagging up tired old gag-strips banging away about video-gamers or beautifully illustrated fantasy comics populated by elvish characters who like to speak in thees and thous. I'll just be looking at the comics I like. You know ... the good ones!

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - Poison Ivy

2010-03-08T14:16:00.026Z

We featured Harley in an earlier post, so it seems only fair that the second figurine that we're highlighting from the DC Comics Super Hero Collection should be her gal pal Poison Ivy.

As you can see from the image there, the Poison Ivy figurine is absolutely stunning. Whether you like the character or not, it's hard not to agree that this may well be one of the best figurines that Eaglemoss has created for this collection!

So, what of the character? For me, Ivy is one of those characters who seems to fare better outside the comics than in (Uma Thurman's dreadful movie outing excepted, of course!) As far as her "official" character is concerned, Ivy is essentially a classic 1940s femme fatale. Despite being as much plant as human, she's bad to the bone (or sap?) and, thanks to a certain type of plant spore she is able to produce, she can make herself irresistible to any man. Her kiss, of course, is deadly. So far, so Lauren Bacall.

Away from the twisted labyrinth of DC continuity, however, she's often far more interesting. Her persona in the various Batman animated series is far more openly hostile and deranged. This makes sense to me. She has, after all, been quite literally dehumanised. And yet, whenever there is talk of her appearing in a Batman movie, the possible casting choices always gravitate towards the latest up and coming, sultry Hollywood sex symbol. Why? The character is a plant, for Heaven's sake! Forget about making her yet another stereotypical seductress!

It seems to me that both movie and comics writers would do well to focus on reinventing Ivy as a character totally detached from all human emotion. Cast a Summer Glau or a Christina Ricci and make her unfeeling, irrational, quirky, cranky and tenacious. Deadly, yes - but, like a force of nature, in a way that can crush the life out of a man, and with a touch that can make him writhe in agony. There are plenty of other "traditional" femmes fatales in the DCU. Would anyone really mind if one was removed in order to make Ivy more true to her ... roots?

Shades - raise shields!

2010-03-08T08:07:00.000Z

It's Monday and so that must mean the latest page of our graphic novel Shades is up! You can see a reduced size version of it below. Just click on the image to go to the full size version!
If you're not familiar with Shades, the rather fetching redhead doing clever things with a spear and a shield is the First Century warrior queen Boudicca known, in our story, as "Boo" (but only to her friends!)

Quite why and how she's still alive and running around in the 20th/21st Century would take far too long to explain. But the answers are all in the comic so, if you haven't already, please do go and read it!

Wonder Woman - animated man hater!

2010-03-05T15:16:00.051Z

The Wonder Woman live action movie may have been put on hold (again!) after Joss Whedon was relieved of script-writing duties last year but, in case you missed it, 2009 did see the release of an animated feature which, despite a few small niggling flaws, was pretty damn good.

So, let's get those niggling flaws out of the way first. Number one has to be the invisible jet! One of Wonder Woman's most iconic accessories, the invisible jet is - like the Batmobile - such a ludicrous plot device that, if it's going to be used at all, it must be handled with extreme care. Sadly, in this case, the writers failed. Miserably!

It's included here because, just as in her early incarnations, this version of Wonder Woman cannot fly. Which is fine except, if it cannot be seen, it doesn't make sense for anyone else to be able to see it or fly it just because that happens to suit a particular action sequence (spoiler withheld!) Nor, incidentally, is there any attempt to explain how such a device came to be developed by a society which has otherwise failed to develop any form of weaponry more advanced than the spear, the sword and the bow!

My second niggle would have to be Wonder Woman's strength which can most generously be described as ... variable! At times she seems to possess just enough to overpower common or garden street thugs, soldiers and fellow Amazons, while - in other scenes - she is perfectly capable of holding her own against Gods, Demigods and the very elements themselves. I don't mind which version a writer wants to opt for, but you can't have it both ways, guys.

Then there are a number of inadequately explained plot developments. The most irritating of these is probably the question of who first reveals Themiscyra to the outside world, allowing Steve Trevor to crash land there. The movie hints at a number of possible suspects, but no one is ever named.

Okay - I said this movie was good, so let's leave the negatives for now. There are more but they are small. Instead, let's look at what actually won me over. Well, there were several things. For a start, the voice acting is pretty solid throughout. Nathan Filion's distinctively lazy drawl, in particular, brings real character to Steve Trevor, a character who is so often portrayed as bland and uninteresting. The plot moves along briskly, telling the story of Wonder Woman's origin and her first visit to "Man's World" in a way that dovetails neatly with the story of how the Amazons first came to be custodians of Themyscira. (No Herculean rape in this version!)

What I liked especially, however, was the fact that this movie was prepared to tackle the conflict which - to my mind - lies at the heart of the Wonder Woman character. Most writers avoid this. Instead they try to convince us that her inner conflict has something to do with having to reconcile her dual roles as warrior and ambassador, conveniently ignoring the fact that many, many military men have moved on to pursue successful careers in politics. What this movie grasps is the fact that the real conflict for Wonder Woman to overcome lies at the very heart of her origin story: despite its more commonplace name, Themyscira - the island which gave her life - is no "Paradise Island" but an unnatural place where no child could possibly be raised without it warping their view of the world.

The Amazons, the people who have raised and educated Diana, are a society built on and around a fear and a hatred of men. Since the very earliest Wonder Woman comics, the Amazons have ascribed all human faults exclusively to men even though they are quite clearly guilty of the same; they are tasked with bringing female virtues to mankind and yet have shut themselves off from it; and they see no injustice in a legal system that condemns a man to death for nothing more than setting foot on the island (however inadvertantly!)

I know some women reviewers have found it difficult to accept the anti-male version of Wonder Woman we see throughout most of this movie but, raised in that environment, of course Diana is going to be suspicious and wary of men, all too ready to condemn the entire sex for the merest hint of a human frailty, and to ascribe the darkest intentions to the slightest show of attraction or, indeed, even courtesy. For me, the fact that the movie isn't afraid to acknowledge that reality is its strength, giving the character room to grow and to develop.

And develop she does. Although the action side of the plot is all about Wonder Woman the super heroine doing battle with the big bad God of War (Ares, obviously!) the real story here is the story of Diana the person, out-growing the preconceptions and prejudices which have shaped her every thought on Themyscira and reaching a far more realistic and balanced understanding of the true nature of men. To me, this portrayal of Wonder Woman isn't about her being a man hater. It's about her overcoming the forces which could have made her one.

Caprica - so far, sooo good!

2010-03-05T09:51:00.023Z

The remake of Battlestar Galactica was never really a science fiction show. Or rather, it was never just a science fiction show. Sure it had robots and it was set in space but, in reality, it was an intense and intelligent political drama that just happened to be set on board a space ship. The SciFi trappings were almost incidental and that, more than anything else, was responsible for the breadth of the show's appeal.

I therefore had mixed feelings about the prospect of a spin-off charting the rise of the Cylons. I mean, prequels are almost all universally bad, aren't they? And a show about inventing sentient robots? Surely that was just pandering to the hardcore SciFi fanbase and ignoring everything that had made BSG such a success in the first place.

Well, based on the first five episodes, I have to say Caprica has confounded my every expectation. This is not SciFi. Or, to be more accurate, like BSG this is not just SciFi! This is a different animal all together. Forget the robots - this is a family saga. This is Dallas (with the Graystone family standing in for the Ewings) meets The Godfather (with the Adamas donning the guise of the Corleones).

Having just watched the episode There Is Another Sky, I do have one reservation. In that episode we were introduced to New Cap City, a virtual world with buildings and people made entirely of computer code. Oh, and one character who can manipulate that code at will, thereby having what are in effect superhuman powers. Hmmm - isn't there a little known movie franchise that did exactly that?!

We shall have to see whether that blatant act of plagiarism is an indication of whether the writers have already run out of original ideas but, putting that aside for now, everything in the four episodes leading up to this point has been gripping TV. The show's appeal is due in no small part to Alessandra Torresani (pictured) who manages to be entirely convincing both as the wayward teenager Zoe Graystone and her confused virtual avatar, trapped in the metal shell of the first Cylon.

Overall, it's still early days for this series and there's plenty of time for it to lose its way. So far, however, Caprica is shaping up to be a worthy successor to BSG. One of the few shows that have me looking forward to the next episode!

DC Comics Super Hero Collection - Harley Quinn

2010-03-03T09:04:00.012Z

Surprisingly enough, I don't buy much in the way of comics merchandise or - to be totally honest - even in the way of comics. As much as I love the potential of the medium, so much of the mainstream comics output is badly written that I don't rate it any higher than a movie by Uwe Boll or a novel by Dan Brown. I have, however, become smitten with the figurines in the DC Comics Super Hero Collection made by Eaglemoss.

This figure of Harley Quinn is the latest to be added to my collection. Harley is one of the many DC heroines that I don't feel has ever been treated well by her writers. I believe I'm right in saying she was originally created for one of the animated Batman series and, the way she's been written ever since ... it really shows!

This woman should be psychotic. Evil. Every bit as bloodthirsty and malicious as the Joker: the Bonnie to his Clyde. Why else would he want her hanging around? Harley could be a great addition to the Bat-universe but, all too often, she's relegated to the role of slapstick comic relief or frivolous sex symbol.

Anyway, back to the Eaglemoss figurine: the glossy but sadly superficial booklets that come with the figurines are not especially informative. Rather than drawing on the rich history of its characters' development since the 1930s, DC has chosen to use these books as a way to summarise only what is currently canon in each character's backstory. What this does is to highlight just how ludicrous those backstories are. Convoluted beyond reason and weighed down by the baggage of an overly strict adherence to continuity, the characters stop seeming heroic and very quickly start to appear laughable.

Still - at least by reading the magazines you can avoid having to read the comics. And, of course, the figurines themselves are just sooo cool!

Shades graphic novel - updated!

2010-03-02T16:23:00.006Z

Our graphic novel "Shades" has been updated. Below, you can see a reduced size version of the latest page. Just click the image to see the full size page!