SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Hullo hullo.  My name is Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld] - welcome to my blog.

It’s finally here!  Astonishing X-Men (vol. 3) was Joss Whedon’s take on the X-Men.  It started off back in July ‘04 as part of an X-Men relaunch.  Grant Morrison was done writing New X-Men and he finished with a bang!  Jean was dead.  The mansion was destroyed.  Xavier was off to Genosha.  And Scott Summers and Emma Frost were the new headmasters of the Xavier Institute.  Brand new teams were formed in the pages of X-Men and Uncanny X-Men.  A new class of student joined the school in the pages of New X-Men (not the new X-Men Grant Morrison was writing though - how confusing can you guys be with these titles and the renamings of everything?)

And a new team was formed by Joss Whedon in the pages of Astonishing X-Men (vol. 3).  (Nobody calls it volume three, but it is the third series titled Astonishing X-Men - the first was part of the Age of Apocalypse crossover in 1995 and the second a three issue mini back in 1999.)  This team was Cyclops, Beast, Emma, Wolverine, Kitty, and joining up in issue 4 - the no longer dead Colossus.  (That doesn’t count as a spoiler because if you didn’t know that Colossus is alive in the current Marvel U, then I’d bet major dollars you didn’t know he was ever dead.)

So that’s my first praise of the series.  Joss brought Colossus back to life right in the beginning in a way that I felt was believable and didn’t deny his death the power it held when he sacrificed himself to cure the Legacy Virus.

In general, I was a big fan of the series.  The entire arc takes place quickly - all 24 issues happening BEFORE Decimation - which allowed Joss to slow down and go into detail about how these characters were feeling.  Joss has always been great with character - but that has never (and doesn’t in this arc) detract from some excellent action sequences.  Joss even introduced a few new characters that I liked (including Agent Brand - who is now busy fighting Skrulls in the pages of Secret Invasion.)  I like the arcs that he took with the characters - Kitty dealing with Colossus’ return, Beast dealing with his… beastiness… and Cyclops dealing with the death of Jean and his love for Emma.  They did some GREAT stuff with Emma’s character and her ties to the Hellfire Club.

But there were a few parts that strain credulity.  The Danger Room became sentient, which was a bit… weird.  Especially since they still have a Danger Room in the other titles.  They dealt with Cassandra Nova who is a character I have never liked (Xavier’s twin that he killed in the womb but somehow managed to live on?  What was Grant Morrison thinking?)  The slow pace occasionally made things difficult to place in continuity.  And after the first year, the publishing became erratic (only coming out every few months) which made following the store more difficult - I suppose that won’t be an issue for you.  But in general I liked it.

Until the conclusion.  I feel like Joss didn’t really put a lot of effort into his final issue, Giant Sized Astonishing X-Men.  Sure he finally wraps up his arc - and it’s always fun to have a conclusion.  But… well… the issue was just bad.  I did not enjoy reading.  I kept looking for explanations for things that weren’t there.  Almost nothing is explained.  I don’t want to ruin it by saying WHAT isn’t explained, but know that finishing the issue will NOT answer your questions about WTF is going on.  I also felt that there were some major secrets revealed that didn’t really work for me.  Like… if THIS was the secret you’d been keeping I feel like this character would have been acting differently.

[MAJOR SPOILER ALERT]

And then the ending… was just… bad.  Kitty “dies”.  Okay - I can agree that there is nice emotional power in her death - and some great symmetry since she saved Colossus at the beginning of the arc.  But she “died” by “fusing” with a giant planet sized bullet that she phases through the Earth.  And… well… that’s kind of stupid.  No explanation was given about how she had “fused” with it.  They just said she was fused.  And the worst part is - this was all taking place in the past (before Decimation) and Kitty is QUITE alive in Decimation.  She’s even at the Mansion during Messiah Complex.  So they either need to release some sort of mini-series that brings her back or… I don’t know… pretty messed up.

[END SPOILER ALERT]

And that is my review.  Overall, definitely worth reading.  Just remember that the ending is going to be disappointing.

Hullo hullo.  My name is Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld] - welcome to my blog.

I know I promised you guys a review of Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men.  I’ll get to that - I swear.  Maybe tomorrow.  But today I really want to mention something that I saw on the telvision.  Good ol’ Jon Stewart of The Daily Show was interviewing Maggie Gyllenhaal of The Dark Knight.  He was asking if she was at all into comic books.  She said this movie had made her start liking the Batman mythos, but that she never sits down and reads comics.  Too bad for her.

But Jon Stewart does.  He has a four year old son whom he takes to comic book stores.  He likes Spider-Man and X-Men.  And specifically, I know he is into X-Men because of a reference he made to the M’Kraan Crystal (the nexus of all realities.)  This was not in the movies.  It was in the 90’s cartoon show - so that may be where he knows it from.  But I think it’s more likely that he actually reads X-Men comic books (and probably others) and that is why he is familiar with the M’Kraan Crystal.  So hooray for Jon Stewart.  The more awesome people who actually enjoy comic books, the further away we can move from the stereotypes that comic books are a trashy horrible medium for geeks and kids.  Comic books are a medium in which some of the greatest stories ever have been told.  And I wish more people could realize that.

Hullo Hullo - my name is Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld] - wecome to my blog.

Today I am going to give a review of The Dark Knight without giving away any spoilers.  Hooray!

Really - all you need to know is “Go see it!”  Overall it was an incredible movie.  It was a great thrill ride that also had serious drama and very real character moments.  I know I’m biased because it’s a comic book movie, but I loved it.  You should absolutely see it.

Now some nitty gritty.

Heath Ledger’s performance was incredible.  I never once thought about him as an actor while watching the movie.  The actor disappeared behind the make-up and WAS the joker.  He was a psychopath and you believe that he IS a psychopath.  Obviously the make-up and music and cinematography and directing all help to bring his performance to life - but the performance itself was also SPOT ON.  So, you ask, how would you compare it to the “original” Joker played by the incredible Mr. Jack Nicholson himself?  That’s hard to do.  They were different characters.  Heath’s Joker was more psychotic and lives in a much darker world.  The world around him really helped me feel and believe his character as a dark psychopath - and I really like the Joker as a dark psychopath.  But does that mean is PERFORMANCE was better than Jack’s?  Certainly comparable.  But may I suggest that if you haven’t seen Batman in the past year that you go back and watch it again before you make up your mind on this comparison.  Jack is Jack my friends.  And his performance was killer.  So your next question is, “Does Heath deserve an Oscar?”  Well I can’t say because I haven’t seen all the other performances of the year.  But SO FAR from the movies I have seen, YES.  Not because he’s dead - and I hope that when the time comes that has no bearing on the decision - but his performance is the best I have seen all year.  We’ll have to wait and see how the rest of the year goes.  I HOPE that another performance is as good as his was - not just to give him some competition - but because I want to see another INCREDIBLE performance.

So what didn’t I like about the movie?  There’s always something - right?  Unfortunately, yes.  Towards the end, I did feel that the movie dragged on a bit longer than it should have.  Remember Lord of the Rings: Return of the King?  Remember how it had a great ending… but then kept going… and had another great spot to wrap things up… but decided to add just one more scene… followed by another… and then 45 minutes later, NOW the movie is over.  I’ve done some extensive film studying along with my comic book studying so I can tell you what this problem is.  Once the climax is over, it’s time to get out and end the movie.  The audience feels that the story is over so it’s time to quickly wrap up the loose ends and get out - so that the leaving audience still has that sense of “everything is right with the world” satisfaction that they get at the end of the climax.  But when you drag on AFTER the climax, you get this feeling of dragging.  Return of the King - a great movie - did it.  So did The Dark Knight.

There were a few techno gizmos that I didn’t really buy and one of the fight scenes I thought was pretty lame.  I also hoped that the movie would have been a bit darker than it was - revealing more of the dark side of human nature.  But alas - PG-13.  Don’t get me wrong - it’s a plenty dark movie.  I’m just slightly psychotic and intrigued by humanties capability for evil -  so I would have enjoyed something EVEN darker.  Finally, the last bad thing I have to say - Christian Bale.  Great actor.  I love him.  He’s going to be in the new Terminator movie and I think he’ll be great in it.  And he’s a perfect Bruce Wayne.  But his deep Batman voice is terrible.  And everytime he talks in it, all I want him to do is shut up.  It was jarring and made me remember that he is an actor PLAYING Batman - which takes away from the rest of the movie that otherwise drags you into its world so that you forget you’re even watching a movie (which - in my opinion - is the best compliment you can give a movie.)

I want to mention one other great thing.  There are twists.  I’m sure you’ve all seen the preview so you have a basic idea what the movie’s about.  But then there are twists that even I - the most cynical of all persons - didn’t see coming and thought were great.  This movie really took me for a ride.  Despite it’s minor flaws (and Christian Bale’s terribly-cheezy-way-too-deep Batman voice) I LOVED the movie and HIGHLY recommend it.

Hullo hullo. My name is Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld] – welcome to my blog.

Soon to come - a review of Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men. Today, I’m gonna do another dream blog today because I had a WEIRD dream last night. Enjoy the story!

Backstory. I have a friend. Let’s call him John. He recently met a girl who joined our D&D group (who’s a nerd? I’M a nerd! Thus the expertise in comic books.) Let’s call her Ally. Oddly enough, this girl went to high school with some of John’s college friends. And she goes to college (and lives across the street from) John’s best friend from high school, Richie. MORE odd – Richie’s roommates ALSO went to high school with Ally.
After much turmoil, John decided to ask Ally out. He was rejected. Now on with our story.

I don’t know where I was. It was some house. Not a real house. And apparently it belonged to Ally – but I’ve never been inside Ally’s house. A whole bunch of my friends and I were hanging out there. Like – untold fathoms of us. I couldn’t even name everyone who was there. What’s important is that John was there. And so was Ally.

So we were all just sort of chilling. There wasn’t any sort of organized activity going on. There were even a few people there I didn’t know (I’m sure they were friends with SOMEBODY who was there.) I went off looking for Ally (just to say ‘hi’ cause I hadn’t seen her in a while.) I walked into the OPEN bathroom, and there she was, taking a bath. I was drinking a Mountain Dew. A bit dumbfounded, all I could think to do was chug the Mountain Dew and avert my eyes to the window above the bathtub (which… oddly enough…. led directly back into the house. Not great placement for a window Mr. Subconscious Architect.) Here’s another weird thing. Ally’s body was being played by the part of another unrelated friend’s Norwegian cousin (whom I’ve only met once.)

So some time passes. I’m a bit vague on the details. Somehow I managed to get out of the bathroom and close the door. John was playing video games with some friends I didn’t know. I went to go watch, and Ally came up behind me wearing nothing but a white shirt that she put on before she bothered drying off. More awkward tension. I find that in this dream, my reaction was frequently to sit or stand still and be dumbfounded. What do you think – should that be my reaction more frequently in real life, too?

Ally suggests to dumbfounded me that I go check out Myspace. This confuses me, but I follow her to what I can only assume is her room, sit down on the bed next to her, and she hands me her laptop. I start to look at my Myspace (simply because she told me to) and she starts kissing my ear. Well you can guess what my reaction was, right? I sort of sat there dumbfounded. John was still within eyesight in the other room. And I don’t necessarily want to Ally to stop – for a bit more selfish reason than not wanting to hurt her feelings. So I sit there, looking at my Myspace, ignoring her completely in fear of reacting wrong.

Eventually, John and company all pile into my friend Robert’s car (I know it was his car because it’s small and blue – though I don’t recall Robert actually making an appearance at the party.) I’m fairly certain they were going to the video store. I’m not sure how I knew that. I use this as my excuse, “Oh, looks like it’s time to go.” Then Ally’s mother (whom I’ve never met in real life) comes in. She looks at us. And says, “Either all three of us have sex on this bed right now or it’s time to go.” Ally thought about for a moment before changing clothes. I started looking for my pants because they had my cell phone and wallet in them. (When did my pants come off? I don’t know. But they were by the front door on top of my shoes.)

Then Ally, her mother (who’s body was played by the part of my friend Richie’s – remember him? – landlord. Of course this didn’t phase me because I knew that her mom was Michelle Pfiefer. (Yeah – I have some pretty ODD dreams. Just imagine what my real life is like.) So we were driving away from the house. This was the first time I got a good look at it (as the dream started already inside it.) Let’s just say gigantic is too small a word to describe it. And right next to it – a GIANT pile of dirt that was apparently about to get turned into their neighbor’s house. Well on the drive, Ally’s mom (Michelle Pfiefer who looks JUST like my friend’s landlord) starts talking about how hard it is for her husband the fire man to make money. To be polite, I turn around to make eye contact while I’m listening to her. Wait a minute… she’s driving. Why am I sitting in front of her? Weird.

So then we get to our destination – at the EXACT same time as our other friends. What are the odds of timing that good? Apparently our other destination was another house. And standing outside it are a bunch of my friends from my Jr. High Youth group (whom, by the way, I haven’t seen any of in like 10 years.) I get out of the car and am like, “Dudes – what are you doing here?” And Stacey (one of the old friends) is like, “This is the house we have our meetings at.” I give them all a big hug, including the midget Siamese twin version of my friend Dopey’s parents. Then I got a phone call and woke up.

I STILL feel a little guilty towards John for not rejecting Ally’s advances.

I think I’m going to start posting my dreams here. That’s something interesting - right? Getting inside somebody’s subconscious brains?

So last night I dreamed that I had recently been hired to work at the grocery store my friend’s dad owns. (I may have to add some parentheticals every once in a while since you don’t know me. My friend’s dad doesn’t own a grocery store in real life - he owns a copy shop. But in my dream, he owned and always had owned a grocery store.) I don’t go shopping in my dreams very often, so this was quite an experience. I had bought a whole bunch of stuff yesterday (I did not go shopping yesterday in real life) and I wasn’t going to eat it, so I brought it back. And since I worked there now, I figured I’d just go ahead and restock it myself. I was doing things like putting up spaghetti-os and fruit roll ups (I have a very healthy diet.)
Suddenly, I realized that these items were non-perishable. Just because I hadn’t eatten them yesterday didn’t mean I couldn’t eat them later. And I hadn’t returned them at the register - which meant they were still legally mine. So I went around grabbing all the stuff I had put back, trying to remember exactly what it was. Then I saw it. Salami. And I was like - oooo, I’d like some salami. So I added it to the cart. Then I found some fruit juice I really wanted (also not something I had bought yesterday)… and I added it to my cart too. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time for my subconcious to deal with this moral quandry, because I got called in to work. As in, one of my co-workers (who was actually an old co-worker of mine, but obviously we never worked together a grocery store…. since I’ve never worked at a grocery store) she saw me shopping and told me to stop being lazy and get to work. So I did.
After work was over (I don’t actually remember working… mayhaps my dream allows for time travel) a bunch of us were hanging out. It was about 7:10pm and we close at 10:00 - so those of us who wanted to get out early were ready to start the close-out procedures. But our supervisors would have none of it. I asked one of my co-workers to teach me how to use the computer, but she didn’t want to. So I started wandering the isles, resuming my shopping (while on company time - I never would have had the guts to do it if my friend’s dad didn’t own the place.)
I made my way to the front of the store where Lindsey Lohan was standing. Which was nice because I hadn’t seen her in a few days and it was good to catch up. (I’m going to let you believe what my subconscious seemed to - that I’m actually old friends with Lindsey Lohan.) So she and I were talking and a few other female employees came over and we were all chewing the fat (what in the world is the origin of that expression?) For some reason, I was leaning on one of the employees, not supporting my full weight. And the leaning made me shorter than I am, so I was looking up on Lindsey, and this made me remember way back to those days when we were twelve or so and Lindsey was actually taller than I am.
I mentioned that yesterday I saw a few pictures of her. And for a moment she was worried I was talking about the naked pictures she did for New York Magazine. That would have been incredibly awkward. But I reassured her that they were just a few picture from when she was young, causing me to reminisce about our childhood.

And that was my dream. Peculiar - huh?

Hullo hullo. My name is Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld] - welcome to my blog.

Today I have three thoughts. Maybe four. We’ll see how things go.

First - ummm… hi. Who are you? I’m serious - leave me a message or a response to this blog if you’re reading it. I’m very curious who my target audience is as that greatly affects the types of things I write. My personal interestes lie in the realm of comic books. And I am greatly qualified to critique and recommend them. So that’s sort of what I’ve been doing. I’ll also probably make some comments about various TV and Movie adaptations of things (prepare for all of this weekend’s posts to be about The Dark Knight.) Is that cool with yal? Is that what you want to read? If not - what DO you want to read? I’m genuinely curious.

TWO: Remember those days when you could find comic books at grocery stores and on news stands and how they proliferated American culture? I don’t because frankly I wasn’t alive back then. But my dad just finished telling me the tales of how he used to buy comics at grocery stores - and I’ve read other similar tales - and I miss those days (mostly because I never got to be a part of comics as main-stream culture.)

THREE: This is fairly unrelated to comic books (which I suppose is my main topic being as I am a self-proclaimed expert on that subject.) But it’s on my mind so I’m gonna write about it (can I use improper grammar on these things? Are yal cool with that? Okay then.) Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme are terrible at DVD commentary. And that bothers me. Because I love West Wing - one of if not the best show ever on television. And I think they’re both creative geniuses. But they get so engrossed in WATCHING the episode they’re supposed to be talking about that they forget to talk about it. And I wish they would say more because I am intrigued by all of the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into creating a television show as great as West Wing.

Okay - those are my three thoughts for today. Thanks for reading!
Seriously - let me know what you’re interested in having me talk about.

Hullo hullo. My name is Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld] - welcome to my blog.

So - mayhaps you have garnered from the title of today’s blog what I’ll be talking about. If not, go back and re-read the title and extrapolate.

Those of you who read yesterday’s blog may start noticing a pattern in my opinions - I am subject to extremities and overstatements. I don’t actually think that Secret Invasion - Runaways/ Young Avengers is the worst comic book ever. But… it wasn’t that good. The reason why is pretty simple - you have to know too much for it to make sense. The beauty about New Avengers #42 (see yesterday’s blog) is that you didn’t have to know what was going on to understand/ enjoy it. Even if you hadn’t read the first 41 issues of New Avengers, you could still understand the Skrull queen’s plots to take over the world.
But with Secret Invasion - Runaways/ Young Avengers… you have to pretty familiar with these characters and their happenings to understand it. I’ll admit - I’ve only read the first volume of Runaways and no New Avengers. So I’m not familiar with these characters. And I couldn’t really follow what was going on.
[SPOILER ALERT]
I got the most BASIC plot, that the faction of Skrulls that are attacking Earth are trying to kill an ostricized prince who is on the Young Avengers team. But then at the end of the issue, a Skrull shows up and saves him. Unfortunatley, Takeshi Myazawa’s (this issue’s penciler) rendetion of the Skrulls made them difficult to keep track of. I got the feeling that I was supposed to know who this mysterious savior was. But I didn’t. Had I seen him earlier in the issue? Was he one of the guys on the Runaways team? I didn’t know - and that was jarring for me.
In general, it was just hard to keep track of all of the characters from two entire teams AND an invading army since I wasn’t already familiar with them. I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve had so much difficulty picking up and enjoying a DC comic book - I only know the very basics about the universe, and anytime I’ve tried to read something (as I did with Countdown) it was mostly just confusing.

Same thing with Secret Invasion - Runaways/ Young Avengers. Mostly just confusing.

Hullo hullo. My name’s Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld]. Thanks for checking out my blog.

Today I’d like to give my comments about a recently published issue of New Avengers. Specifically, issue #42. In my humble opinion, it is one of the best comic books ever published. Why? Of what awesome things does it tell?

Well… to go into that, we’re going to need one of these:
[SPOILER ALERT]

Alright, the issue is about the queen of the Skrulls whom we recently learned has been impersonating Spider-Woman. The reason this issue is so great is the way that it goes back over the past five years of New Avengers stories and sheds new light on them without damaging their original integrity. Now knowing that Spider-Woman has (this entire time) actually been a Skrull agent, Brian Michael Bendis goes back to the beginning of the New Avengers (42 issues ago) and shows us everything that happened from the secret point of view of the queen of the Skrulls. This is done brilliantly. Normally, this would be a horrible horrible ret-con that would make everything that had happened in the past 42 issues seem silly and out of character. But it was written so well I have to assume that Mr. Bendis has known THIS ENTIRE TIME that Spider-Woman was actually a Skrull agent. That’s 5 years. Can you imagine setting something up for that long without the tiniest of reveals? It’s incredible. It was written so well I almost peed myself.

Okay - that’s an exaggeration. And maybe “Best Comic Book Ever” is a bit of a stretch. But it was a great read - incredibly insightful - funny - and the art didn’t suck either. Not to mention the cliff hanger of an ending as good as any cliff hanger I’ve ever seen. Just in case you forgot:
[SPOILER ALERT]

It seems that next issue is going to deal with the Skrulls inside the House of M universe. And that is something I am holding my breath for. I can’t wait. Great job Bendis. Keep it up!

Salutations my friend.  My name is Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld].  Welcome to my blog.  Thanks for reading.  See you next time.