I caught the first two episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last week. Newsarama's Tom McLean found various things to complain about, but this is exactly the kind of TV SF I love. It perfectly captured the aesthetic of the films, and the cast is so good that I'm happy to go along with whatever character tweaking they've done bringing the franchise to TV. Summer Glau is much better here than she was in Firefly, as much as I loved that one too. My wife walked in as I was watching the last ten minutes of the premiere and caught the giant grin plastered all over my face. "What are you watching, Jim?" Time machine in a bank vault. Heehee!
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Countdown to Final Crisis #15 was almost readable. The sections with Pete Woods art managed to inject a little grandeur into what is otherwise a conceptually and visually flaccid war between Monarch and the Monitors. (Surprising no one, I enjoyed the Donna Troy splash page.) Less enjoyable was the climax of her fisticuffs with Wonder Girl of Earth Whatever. Sorry, but..."I'm Donna Troy, Bitch" is not something our girl would say--in any reality! The Brother Eye stuff was kind of exciting, though. A mixed bag.* * *
"Meet the Beetles" was a cute title for Booster Gold #6, and the issue was (as always) an enjoyable romp through DC history. Having Dan Jurgens illustrate this title is a feel-good editorial decision on many levels. It's always nice to see a creator back on one of their own characters, but even better is the genius of having Jurgens work on a time-travel book. I literally feel transported back to the eighties and early nineties every month--in a good way!* * *
Birds of Prey #114 was fun, though I've been rereading Gail Simone's run from the beginning, and was struck by how different the current book is from Simone's take on it. Sean McKeever seems to be positioning this book as more of a superhero title than the mystery/detective/kung fu/action thriller-thingy that was Simone's Black Canary epic--and that's okay with me, though I miss the tight focus on a core team of Birds. I'm a little worried about the foregrounding of Misfit, given that she's kind of a Danny Chase character, right down to the red hair and freckles. Nevertheless, McKeever is great at writing teens, so it's all working well at the moment. Loved the Zinda/Killer Shark encounter, Bonus: the next issue blurb actaully made me laugh out loud; that doesn't happen often. Nicola Scott rocks the artwork, as usual.* * *
My comic store missed my copy of Wonder Woman #16 this week, so I have that to look forward to next time.* * *
Erik Larsen has a wonderful last word on the whole One More Day debacle at CBR. I didn't read the comics, but derived a shameful amount of pleasure from the hissing and booing they elicited.
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4 comments:
Good call on Misfit-as-Danny-Chase, Jim -- now I know why she's been bugging me! I dropped BoP after McKeever's good-but-not-great first issue, though I'm beginning to think that may have been a hasty decision motivated by my impatience with three months of fill-ins. My shop didn't get, or didn't get enough of, Booster #6, but I'm pulling for more "enjoyable romp" and less "Rip Hunter tortures people."
I was pretty pleased with the first two episodes of SCC as well, Jim, and for the simplest of reasons: it held my attention. Wow, that things should have gotten to such a state! But they have. Anyway, though I questioned the need for further Terminator timeline in-filling, I found myself not minding it very much -- in truth, John's future rebellion had started to seem a little bit like a poor walking-stick, around about the time of T3 -- "send another one back...yawn". I wondered what else future-John was doing, or if that was the whole extent of his plan. What kind of fighting was going on there, down the line? How was it all getting along? Was any of it going to work?
I like the creative answers this show gives to those questions. After T2 and T3, it seems to me there's very little any point upholding the unbreakable time-loop stuff of T1...and yet there must be a good way to break it, rather than a bad way. To have them go into the vault/tomb so they can exit the old Terminator conceits made me happy too; although I was a bit disappointed that John and Sarah weren't horrified at all the ubiquity of all 2007's little interlinked and traceable communications gadgets, that 2007 is their future -- but not their main future -- and therefore, inside the suspension of disbelief, not my main future either -- made this a nice little watchable show for me. Plus Summer Glau as a beautiful robot, who might have emotions? Ha. Haven't actually seen it since then -- hopefully it continues the way it began.
And hey: you're back! But without Geo-Force, I notice.
professor - yes, less torture would be good. What an unpleasant writerly decision that was.
plok - yep, I'm back...sort of! Who knows, maybe Geo-Force will make an appearance too. :)
I've been digging on T:The Sarah Conner Chronicles alot too. It just seems to work so well for some reason that I haven't bothered to analyze.
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