COMIX!!
"Motherland" concludes in BATTLEFIELDS #9 with Anna put in a position she's very uncomfortable with: being in charge of six untrained pilots. In World War II Russia was hoping to crush the Nazis by sheer numbers, but that meant a lot of deaths. Garth Ennis is at his best writing these war stories so I can really recommend this series. Captain Anna Kharkova is a tough and talented pilot with the weight of the war weighing heavy on her. She's already lost her best friend. However there is hope as she's fallen for her commanding officer, who is quite smitten with her as well, but if they want to be together they have to survive the war. Its a tough, smart story and beautifully illustrated.
In BATGIRL #14 we get a stand alone story. This is the second in a row on the book, and its obvious that they're kind of biding their time until the big Grant Morrison Bat-epic comes around the bend because this book is going to have to deal with that. In the meantime, Batgirl teams up with Supergirl to confirm what I've been saying for months: 3D is the work of Satan. OK, maybe not, but a weird science glitch brings a bunch of "Draculas" off the screen, and so a merry adventure insues as the girls must stop them. Its a fun, light read. I'm not completely stoked with how Miller wrote Supergirl. He made her a bit more naive than I felt she should be. Still, this book is packed with a bunch of fun little moments that left me satisfied with the read.
On to the big one this week: BATMAN AND ROBIN #14. The Black Glove and Professor Pyg are looking to take over Gotham by way of a viral narcotic and the only one who can stop him is... The Joker?OK, great issue top to bottom, now here's where I go completely down the rabbit hole.
This entire series has had The Joker moving against the Black Glove. He turned on him in "R.I.P." and has been actively looking to take out Doctor Hurt. The big question is: why the hell would he want to do that? Juxtaposing this to everything else that has been going on with the Grant Morrison "The Once and Future batman" epic, I have answer. And that answer gets very clear in this issue.
"I'm not mad at all. I'm just differently sane."
Darkseid created the "hole in things" with his fall. The "hole in things" is Doctor Hurt/The Black Glove/the Hyper-Adapter from the Ancestor Box. Time has been used against Bruce Wayne to create the ultimate trap, a trap that is his life. Circumstances have been altered to destroy him. However, Wayne has been actively fighting this programming the area that would become Gotham City making it possible for Batman to be created. Take all this information and apply it to Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke".
"Sometimes I remember it differently."
Could it be possible that The Joker was the first to see the "hole in things"? What if the origin we were presented by Moore is accurate? Could it be that the Hyper-Adapter somehow caused his pregnant wife to be electrocuted? The Hyper-Adapter, in an effort to make Bruce Wayne's life a horrible tragedy, created Wayne's greatest adversary who time and again brought misery upon Wayne and those he cared about.
But could The Joker have somehow realized this? Could the real root of his insanity be not being able to cope with seeing the hole in things, and now that he's seeing a physical manifestation of it he's fully focused on avenging himself against it for destroying his life as well? As Bruce Wayne programmed Gotham City to turn him into Batman to fight the Hyper-Adapter, The Joker has developed a "super sanity" which has turned him into a vicious terrorist able to strike at it. Sensing the trap was starting to close, he became "The Clown at Midnight" strike at the Black Glove. Now he's become "The Gravedigger" masterminding the siege against Doctor Hurt's efforts.
While I don't have any complains against this book or story, I do have one against DC and their announcement of BATMAN INC which will feature Bruce Wayne and Dick Greyson both as Batman. We're in the middle of a story in which we saw last issue Dick Greyson getting shot in the back of the head. This death was foretold all the way back in BATMAN #666. Now with this announcement we see he's safe. That's dropping the ball, pure and simple. This is akin to when DC announced the IMPULSE comic while Waid was writing "Terminal Velocity". Would it have killed them to talk to the staff and ask if announcing this book and giving certain details might put a damper on the high suspense that is going on in the book? I honestly thought that Greyson was going to get bumped off, or was in serious danger of that happening. Well, I guess I don't have to worry about that now. Gee thanks.
DOUBLE DOUBLE!!
Years ago, my buddy was enjoying his vacation on a beach in Florida when a couple of girls came up to him. They seemed pretty nervous.
"Can we ask you a question?"
"Whatever it is, the answer is 'yes'." He replied with a big grin which comes from being on vacation, having two girls talking to you, and likely a bit of alcohol. At that point the girls start to flip out, surprising my friend a bit. "WAIT! What were you going to ask me?"
"Are you Joshua Jackson?"
No, I'm not friends with Joshua Jackson. However a guy who lived with that very same buddy was on an episode of Dawson's Creek (He got decked by Pacey for trying to mack on Joey. Yes I just said 'mack on'. Shut up.). Yes, my friend does indeed resemble Joshua Jackson a bit. I did have to explain who Joshua Jackson was after he got back from vacation as my buddy doesn't watch much TV. This works out pretty well for him. He doesn't get mistaken for Joshua Jackson probably because he's a bit bigger that the actor. I'm pretty sure the actor in question isn't a contractor who's over six feet tall. Its also nice to have double that's successful and doing cool things. Jackson has that awesome show FRINGE in which he gets to be a bad ass. It would suck to have a lame double.
I don't really have a double. I used to. I used to be the spitting image of Dave Grohl from the bands Nirvana and later the Foo Fighters. It was too the point that a friend saw a picture of Grohl and thought it was me and I was playing a prank on him. However its been years since those comparisons held much water. I did once get told I look like John Cusack, but that was by a girl who wanted me to buy her drinks at a bar. Which I did. Because I'm stupid. This is the point where I'm supposed to turn it over to you people, post a picture and ask you which celebrity I look like. That won't be happening because I don't come out well in pictures. I'm best film at a distance, with poor cameras, like the noble Bigfoot.
MUSIC!!
On of my students was reading a book before class. He said it was part of a trilogy. Being a nerd, I likes me some trilogies. He said each book in the trilogy has 'killer' in the title. And I said, "You mean to tell me someone wrote a trilogy about Jerry Lee Lewis!?"
That's it for Sunday. See you Wednesday. Unless my celebrity double takes over. He'll probably post more. He'll probably be on Facebook too.
I alright hate my celebrity double.
Whoever he is.
No comments:
Post a Comment