Book Review: "Alpha" by Greg Rucka

For months I've been diligently and steadily working my way through all the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Frankly there hasn't been much of anything that's kept me from breaking stride with this. The volumes sit in my car and are read whenever I get a chance.  In fact I'm nearing the end of it.  The home stretch.  I'm looking forward to completing my journey through the Holmes mythos.


And then Greg Rucka just had to put a book out, and when that happens, I'm dropping whatever I'm reading and picking it up.


I've read all his Atticus Kodiak novels.  I've read all of his QUEEN AND COUNTRY work.  In fact I was eager for more Q&C, but here we have something different.  ALPHA gives us a whole new protagonist, Jonathan "Jad" Bell, and all the excitement we could want from a Rucka novel.  This book shines.  The characters are pitch perfect.  The action isn't forced.  The suspense is high.  As with every Rucka novel once it gets going its nearly impossible to put down.


The premise is straight forward, there's a suspected terror attack eminent on a major theme park, and Bell needs to stop it.  What sounds simple is given a ton of beautifully crafted twists that make this book amazingly compelling.  First off is the park.  Before you even start reading, there's a map of the park, Wilsonville.  We quickly get a feel for this park and the characters that inhabit it.  We find out all about Gordo, Betsy, and pooch; the Flower Sisters; and Clip Flashman.  All of this is laid out to the point that it seems tangible.  Wilsonville comes alive just as much as Disneyworld or Universal Studios.


As always with Rucka's work the character's are fully realized.  Jad Bell is very likable in that this man is a professional who holds his job and what is right in the highest regards.  He's lived a very rough life, which we get a brutal taste of in a flashback scene.  We get everything we need to know about this man very quickly.  He's not the only character we get to know well as we also follow his opposite number, Gabriel, in this.  Gabriel is a sleeper agent who is going to be running the attack on Wilsonville.  Here's a really nasty twist to this: you almost start to like the guy.  It would be so very easy to write this guy as a total scumbag.  Still, Rucka inserts a very sympathetic side to him.  No doubt that what he's doing is completely wrong and horrible, but there still that little bit of him that's completely in love with his girlfriend that makes you like the guy just a bit.


I do love the little moments some characters get.  We see these park employees under the worst possible circumstances and we see them doing their jobs and doing right by the park guests.  We see people in the control room that know that something really horrible is possibly happening and just by staying where they are it could mean their lives, and they keep doing their jobs.  On the other side we get glimpses of the men pulling the strings behind this operation and, oh, how we loath them.


The one thing that stuck with me just a bit was the timing of certain events and how coincidence was such a factor.  Jad's ex-wife and daughter are scheduled to visit the park when the threat is imminent.  Jad's daughter is deaf and Gabriel's girlfriend is an ASL (American Sign language) interpreter.  It seemed a bit too coincidental, but it certainly served to up the drama level and gave both players in this game a high emotional stake.  Its pretty easily forgiven too since Jad's daughter and Gabriel's girlfriend are both delightfully written.


This book moves.  Rucka gives us plenty of information to go on and conveys it interestingly.  He doesn't beat us over the head with facts we don't need, and when he gives us something extra its always entertaining.  The flow is fast paced and easy reading.  There are time in here where chapters overlap events, in that the same thing is covered in three different chapters from three different perspectives.  While I could see this going horribly wrong and getting tiresome, that's never the case here.  Every different perspective is fresh and gives us a vital new take on things to totally flesh out the events.


I loved every bit of this book, and its looking like the start of a strong new series from Rucka.  I left this book wishing I had the next one right in front of me.  He's devious like that.  Typically, when you get to the end of a Rucka chapter there's a little bit there compelling you to say to yourself "OK, I know its two in the morning and I have to be up at six, but just one more chapter..."  This whole book not only left me satisfied, but sunk a hook in me craving more.

Geek Overload!

Hang on, I'm comin'. Its Sunday, May 15, 2011, I'm limpin' like a pimp with polio, and this is The Side. Blogger was down for most of Thursday and Friday, so I'm making up for that today. As for the limp, I'm pretty sure I aggravated an old injury. I came off a roof years ago and broke my heel. Taking the down time necessary to let it heal right wasn't an option, so I kept going on with things, and typically its fine. However, work this week involved jumping over some railing repeatedly, and eventually I landed wrong.

Guess its time to put my feet up and talk some comics.

FALL OF THE AMAZON

Well, I said the Wonder Woman TV show was looking and sounding pretty bad, and it seems that upon seeing the pilot episode NBC agreed with me. I've followed this story and read a bunch of articles about it and I've looked at comments attached to the articles. No one had much of anything nice to say about it.

Look, the girl was pretty, and she might be a pretty good actress, but she looked either freaked out or constipated whenever she was photographed doing any stunts. The costume was redesigned three times based off the latest Jim lee design which no one really cares for. It doesn't look like Wonder Woman, plain and simple. Word is the script was atrocious. I heard there was a seen with Wonder Woman crying over her ice cream with Etta Candy over the stress of being Wonder Woman and running a business, which wouldn't surprise me one bit since David Kelley was behind this.

This thing didn't have a prayer.

Fans keep bitching and moaning about the lack of a live action Wonder Woman project. I still say be happy with the awesome animated feature from a few years ago. But, if you want to do this right you put Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, and Eric Kripke in a room together, and you let them have it out. Rucka and Simone understand what is great about the character of Wonder Woman and Kripke knows how to make epic TV and still ground it. You let them get the ball rolling. You then find an actress who is athletic, and preferably with a strong background in dance. Dancers perform incredible physical feats while making it look graceful and easy. Wonder Woman is as tough as they come, but she's incredibly graceful. This is important, just as much as having the acting chops to pull off a character who is elegant and caring and very compelling.

This can be done right.

COMIX!!

This week FLASHPOINT #1 came out in which DC let's us all know that Barry Allen is the greatest hero ever and without him the DC Universe would be doomed, but not in a way that made sense like "Chain Lightning". The effects of this story will be felt through out comics everywhere. In fact, Marvel's "Fear Itself" storyline concludes with Barry Allen telling everyone that 'everything will be alright' and then resurrecting Johnny Storm with the power of his awesomeness.

Let's light this candle with BATMAN INCORPORATED #6 in which we discover quite a few things, but foremost is Chris Burnham is one hell of an artist. Love his work here, right down to him drawing Bruce Wayne's eyebrows to suggest little bat wings. These previous issues have been a lot of build up. We've got an idea of what's going on. If you haven't been following but were thinking about maybe trying to jump on this train, this is the issue to do it. I've talked a lot about how Bruce Wayne is structuring this thing and here it all is laid out pretty for us. We also get a good taste of how this organization is going to operate. There's a couple of new members including a mysterious new Wingman who will be Bruce's ace-in-the-hole in the upcoming fight with Leviathan (Its Barry Allen, because Barry Allen is the awesome-est hero ever). This new foe has been creeping me out. He weaponizes children and its revealed that the youngest one is 18 months old. That pushes all the buttons I need to make me want Bruce Wayne to take this guy out. This book is flat out cool.

Moving it on over to R.E.B.E.L.S. #28. This is the book's final issue. They've had a great run. This was definitely a sleeper book which I don't think had a huge following, but everyone who got onboard really dug it. Word is this book got axed to make room for all the FLASHPOINT stuff, because Barry Allen is so awesome that there's just not enough room for all of the existing DC titles and the amount of awesomeness Barry Allen possesses. We get the conclusion of the battle with Starro. There wasn't a ton of loose ends to get wrapped up, so this book is nice and tight. Thank you Tony Bedard, Claude St. Rubin, and the rest of the creative team for a really fun ride.

In RED ROBIN #23, Time is up against assassins who are in competition to kill important people and he's got to stop them before they get to Barry Allen thus depriving the world of his awesomeness. Tim's running a nasty risk trying to get the inside track to take this group on, and its one that Commissioner Gordon and Batman don't quite approve of. Marcus To is back on pencils, and thank goodness for that. The story is pretty good. Tim's walking a fine line, and I'm hoping to see this pay off.

Things are getting thick in BATGIRL #21 as the Reapers send their latest agent, Harmony, on missiony types things which our gal Steph has to stop, which she does with a "huzzah", thus validating me for bringing back "huzzah". She also has to deal with her stalker, The Grey Ghost, who turns from annoying to creepy to jerk. I've enjoyed the dynamic in this book with Steph and Wendy, but its looking like that's coming to an end as Wendy is leaving to go to Nanda Parbat to try heal herself and start a church devoted to the Awesomeness of Barry Allen. This book continues to be consistently entertaining.

BIRDS OF PREY #12 has Jesus Saiz joining Gail Simone in this new storyline, and I'm one happy little nerd. I totally dig Saiz. I loved his stuff on the old CHECKMATE series and hes true to form here. The Birds latest case connects with one of The Questions, so we get a Question/Huntress team-up which is always a blast. We have the Birds working an infiltration, which makes it so fitting that Saiz is onboard with a superhero/espionage angle. I'm going to be honest, this felt like a Greg Rucka book. This is what I think it would be like if Rucka took a turn writing BoP. I mean this as a complete compliment to Gail Simone, as Rucka is in my eyes one of the top espionage story writers working today. I loved this. I loved this so much that I can't even slip a Barry Allen awesomeness line in here.

In HELLBOY: BEING HUMAN, HB and Roger the Homunculus head to South Carolina to investigate a weird grave robbing that takes a nasty twist. Its a nasty case with some bad voodoo involved. Roger is forced into action which he's not very comfortable with. He's not the violent sort. Fortunately, Barry Allen shows up to tell him that everything is alright. This is a fun little one-shot. If you haven't gotten a good, creepy Hellboy fix in a while, then this should be just what you need.

This has been the word of Barry Allen for the people of Barry Allen. Praise be to Barry. Allen.

NOZZ'S FAVORITE SUPERHERO MOVIES: TOP 10!!

Mike Federali wanted to know, so here we go. These are my favorites, and not based of critical reviews or how much money they made. These are also strictly live action movies, because if I start factoring in animated movies this list changes entirely.

10: The Phantom The first hero to wear tights, and purple ones at that! Billy Zane hit the weights like a champ because he refused to wear a padded costume. Same writer as INDIANA JONES AND LAST CRUSADE. Its a family friendly adventure and a great popcorn flick.

9: The Crow This movie pretty much hit cult status upon release. This was going to be Brandon Lee's star maker, but ended up his swan song. Great film with an awesome soundtrack.

8: Spider-man Tobey Maguire and Willam Defoe really brought their a games. While I'm not a big fan of Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane I'm willing to look past that for the many great scenes in this film.

7: Sin City They filmed a comic and did it well. Brilliant cast. Robert Rodriguez brought Frank miller's comic to the big screen in a way no one was really ready for. This was the big comeback for Mickey Rourke and he played Marv to the hilt.

6: Ironman 2 Speaking of Rourke, notice how the first Ironman flick ain't here? Its because Mickey Rourke drove this film like a champ. Robert Downey Jr. did his thing, but the rest of the cast were just as stellar.

5: Hellboy If you want to talk about great casting, Ron Perlman as Hellboy is spot on. This movie is a blast. Del Toro brought us right into the Hellboy world and mythos without a cop out or apology.

4: Batman Begins This is the best Batman film to date. Christian Bale is a great Bruce Wayne. And just when things got too heavy you have Michael Caine with every bit of charm you'd expect from Alfred Pennyworth. That's exactly what was missing from THE DARK KNIGHT: charm.

3: 300 No prisoners! No Mercy! This movie kicks ass on a primal level. They expanded on the comic quite a bit, but it was done so very well. This movie is one to watch when you need to get fired up to do what you've got to do.

2: Spider-man 2 Alfred Molina was remarkable here. Tobey Maguire again played an excellent Peter Parker. The train fight was remarkable. We really felt horrible for poor old Spidey making cheering him on as he saves the day that much more satisfying.

1: Thor That's right, I'm going there. Like I said when I reviewed it, this movie was a blast. Just a whole lot of fun. Good action. Funny as hell in parts. And it had a very solid plot and story. Top notch work and wasn't afraid to pull us straight into a fantasy world which it showed off gloriously.

MUSIC!!

Been a bit stressed this week. Missing Friday's post due to technical problems didn't help. Still, when you feel down, and Barry Allen is busy saving the world, there's only one thing to do.



That's my load for today. No numbers jump after the Pocoyopocalypse, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I'll see y'all Wednesday. My Barry Allen bless you and keep you.

From Deep Space with Love!

Cripes, but I would prefer crepes. It's Sunday, December 5, 2010, I'm hungry, and this is The Side. See, I typically put this thing together in the time between updates and put the finishing touches on things the morning I put it up. Most of the work is done between six and seven in the morning. In fact I can't remember the last time I slept past six in the morning in my own house. Yesterday I got nothing done, because I was busy reading. So that meant I was going bang out the entire thing this morning in one sitting because a self imposed deadline is still a deadline.

So if I was smart I would brew a pot of coffee and have some Pop-Tarts and then set to work. But I'm not smart. I got up, made sure the house was secure, came online, read today's SINFEST, checked e-mail to see that I got a nice response from Vito Delsante over at Comic Kings, and then set to work. No food. No coffee. Not yet.

Writing is best done hungry and surly.

COMIX!!

Snagged an early look at STAN LEE'S STARBORN #1 from BOOM! Studios by Chris Roberson and Khary Randolf. The comic revolves around an office worker, Benjamin Martin, who is an aspiring science fiction novelist. He seems like a nice enough fellow. We know this because this issue gives us his life in full detail. Its tough for books like this to start off and let you get to know these new characters and still have something interesting going on. There's plenty of interesting stuff here, but the only problem is that its all pretty predictable. We get so much detail as to the science fiction story Benjamin creates that I knew that it had to be real. Once I knew that, all the pieces quickly fell into place. So there were no real surprises for me.

Having said that, this book does succeed in doing a lot of really good world building and layering that in seamlessly with character introduction. That's two very tough things to do, much less do them both in the same issue. So, I wasn't terribly surprised by things, but I'm willing to trade that in because there's enough stuff going on here that it warrants further attention.

In all this comic wasn't really blowing my doors off. Still, there's a ton of potential for this book, and I think now that we've got a awkward parts over with we could be in for a great ride.

BOOK... without pictures.

Try not to look horribly shocked that I read something that wasn't a comic. I can see you through my computer. That said, put some pants on. Freak.

Just finished up reading Greg Rucka's THE LAST RUN. This novel marks the long awaited return of his award winning and best selling QUEEN AND COUNTRY series. It series debuted as a comic from Oni press and spawned a slew of comics and a few novels. The comics have been collected into four awesome definitive editions which are just awesome.

The only problem with reviewing this book is that I can't do it objectively. I can't even imagine coming into this as a new reader. Tara Chase and I are well acquainted by now. I live to see what Paul Crocker will do next. I can taste how horrible the coffee is in the Pit. I can smell Ron's cigarettes in the Ops Room at Vauxhall Cross. I have a big crush on Kate Cooke, and would completely read an entire 12 issue series all about her even if the only thing she did in it is go shopping. That is the extent of awesome that is Kate Cooke. So this book was me visiting very familiar territory, but everything is not exactly as I left it. Some people had been promoted. There's been a few other changes, but most importantly the feel of the book is the same.

This is spy-fi the way it should be: smart and surprising. These are people who leap right off the page as if Rucka was writing a biography of their amazingly insane lives. The attention to detail is remarkable, and as always Rucka doesn't beat us over the head with it. This book moves. Once it gets going it demands to be read.

Our dear Tara Chase is nearing the end of her stint as head of the SIS's Special Section. She's got a daughter now. She been doing this job for so long and done so much that the majority of the other intelligence organizations around the world either know who she is or must be limited to goat counting. So the "last run" in the title is hers. One last job before she resigns and moves on to a different position. Of course it isn't a milk run. This mission will take her straight into the heart of Iran to extradite a target too good to pass up no matter how much everything around this whole mission stinks on ice.

This book is an absolute page turner. The action is sparse, but the tension is high. The little scenes such as Paul debating over lunch who he wished to murder with his little plastic fork are classic. I now have a completely different view of the city of Tehran. Rucka writes that city as if he'd been living there for years.

Rucka only has one problem. Every time I finish a chapter of his book I am left with a burning need to keep reading to see what happens next. Sure enough he did the exact same thing with this book. Rucka has left me with my brain humming demanding more QUEEN AND COUNTRY. Last I heard the comic was supposed to return. I am, as you read this, actively resisting the urge to drive into Rucka's Twitter account and beg for details as to when it could possibly come out. I'm hoping soonish.

MUSIC!!

Bounced back to the 80s last time around, might as well hang out in the past a bit longer.



Alright, I'm going to go have some coffee now. See y'all Wednesday.

The brilliant Superman argument killer

I'm loving the SUPERMAN: WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON series. James Robinson and Greg Rucka are knocking this story straight out of the park with every issue. Pete Woods is freaking killin' it on the art. I'm loving this book.

For those who have not picked it up yet, we're three issues deep into it. It spun out of of the recent events of SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS. Superman confronted Brainiac and saved the bottled Kyptonian City of Kandor and resorted it to normal size in Antartica. So now you have 100,000 Kryptonian on Earth, all of which with the same powers as Superman. This did not go very well and Earth and the Krytonians were on the verge of war with Superman stuck in the middle. The Kryptonians left taking their city with them and formed a new planet on the other side of the Sun. Superman left Earth to live there suspecting there was something seriously wrong going on behind the scenes.

Here's the part I am absolutely loving. This book is attacking one of the key arguments of the Superman detractors. It's not attacking it directly. This is a subtle thing. The argument is: Superman is too powerful, he's nothing without those powers. Now you have Superman in a world where he is on a level playing field. The only advantage he has in terms of power is his experience using them. This truly lets the character shine. We see it's not the powers that make him the hero he is.

The latest issue also puts done one of the other arguments about Superman, that the guy can't fight. Superman get's challenged by a rival, Commander Gor, in the latest issue. Gor is just as powerful as Superman and a trained fighter. He get's some good shots in. Then Superman reminds his opponent that he "was taught hand-to-hand combat by Earth's greatest proponent" and drops Gor like it was the cool thing to do. Nicely sequenced by Woods too. Major credit there. They wisely stay vague as to who is the 'greatest proponent'. My money's on Wonder Woman.

With Batman still on hiatus from being interesting, this story has been my major DC geeking point. Next month we get Morrison and Rucka returning to the Bat-verse. It's going to be a good summer.