The Factual Opinion

Exterminators # 15

Written by Simon Oliver
Art by Tony Moore and John Lucas
Published by Vertigo

While nothing is less fun to read than a giving of props to one piece of cultural ephemera by way of insulting another piece that is, sadly, more popular, you might want to suck it up.

It doesn't get mentioned around these parts very often, but it should be noted that we believe Lost is a pretty lousy television program.  Like a lot of people, it was easy to get sucked into Lost.  The show is well-shot, has a relatively attractive and hard working (though not always talented) cast, and is inventive enough to convince most cynics to keep giving it chances.  (Compared to Heroes, a hideously photographed show almost universally populated with terrible acting, Lost still might fool you into thinking it's better than it is.  It's not, but your mistake is understandable.  Unforgivable, yes, but understandable.)  The problem with Lost, one that rapidly became more apparent near the end of the 1st season, and then impossible to ignore throughout the 2nd, is one that comic books have struggled with for the last twenty years.  It's one that comes up constantly in criticisms of 24, and one that never seems to affect The Sopranos or The Wire.  It's the problem of not knowing the answers to the questions that motivate the plot--it's the problem of basing a show on the premise of ratcheting confusion and expectation.  On Lost, it's become impossible to forget that very little of what's occurred has been explained, and that when it is, it's terribly unsatisfying.  Unlike The Shield or The Wire, shows that do a "13 and out" chapter every 10 months or so, Lost attempts to maintain the length of a Law & Order schedule without attempting to ever deal with the simple fact that they don't have 24 hours worth of sensible material to deal with.  So instead of resolving plot holes, they create more and more of them, hoping that the tension will mask the confusion--and the show becomes less and less rewarding, while continuing to demand more of the audiences patience. 

The difference between a comic book audience's patience and a television viewers is vast--it's been acknowledged by smarter writers than this one that in the world of television and film, you'll never find anyone comparable to a regular X-Men reader.  See, a regular X-Men reader financially supports the product despite the lack of consistency in art or writing, choosing to pay the ever-increasing amount of money, week to week, regardless of what level of quality they can expect.  Unlike Lost (and, sadly, 24) where the audience chooses to discontinue watching the show when they begin to find it enjoyable, X-Men fans, and comics fans in general, will stick to their guns and continue to soldier forward.  In one aspect, they become even more active as fans during fallow periods--take a gander at any message board regarding issues no one likes--comics fans talk a lot when something irritates them, yet are strangely silent when (one has to assume) they enjoy an issue.  You'll never find this level of commitment anywhere in a television audience, excepting the flukes of cheap science fiction programming.  This isn't to say that a product of low quality can't flourish--shows like Two and a Half Men do well, as does the masturbatory wasteland of Grey's Anatomy.  It's to say that if people actively dislike a television product, they discontinue watching it.  While cancellation should never be a barometer of quality, it is an infallible barometer of profitability.  Television shows that are well liked stick around, and ones that don't join the ones that are liked (obsessively or not) by a few in the world of cancellation.

Now that so many comics, especially the DC and Marvel variety, are totally dependent upon serialization, they're forced to enter the arena populated by shows like Lost, which finally brings us around to the Exterminators.  Like Lost, The Exterminators has been throwing out mysteries and red herrings since it's first issue.  Whether it's relationship struggles, zombie drug addicts, mythical insect gods or all-out Braveheart battles consisting of man v roach, Simon Oliver and crew have made telling weird stories their business.  (And, because good cliches never die, "business is good.")  The last few issues have heightened the freighter tension even more by going the new classic route of revealing that a supporting character isn't just rude and odd, he's also has a demoniacally evil past.  Of course, realizing that Saloth (the nasty bastard in question) had years of experience using human beings as test subjects for hideous experiments was only half as disturbing as watching him attempt to date, and then nowhere near as terrifying as watching him succeed at dating and begin to enjoy the sexual fruits.  Anybody who could tolerate watching a hideous cloven shaped man satisfy a woman the size of Lee "The Refrigerator" Perry certainly would have found themselves looking forward to reading more about Nazi-style experiments.  At least then they could finish their Cinnabon.

But if Lost teaches us anything, it's that upping the stakes and going "weird" can only succeed as long as some doors end up closed, and that's where The Exterminators is starting to pick up stride.  Only a scant few issues in, and Oliver has already started lining up his respective ducks--and he's thrown a lot out there in the past 15.  Whether or not the comic succeeds as well at shutting doors as it does opening them can't be predicted solely on the strength of the current issue, but it's a definite indication of some intention to.  The fallout from the collapsed marriage, Saloth's guilt in a back-alley murder and, of course, some kind of response to the roach onslaught of previous chapters all seem to be winding down.  In their place is a whole new brand of creepy, including a former cell-mate turned date-rapist.  Oliver could certainly teach Damon Lindelof a few things, not the least of which being punctuality.  Going crazy is fine, and so is not showing your hand--but you better have a fucking hand to begin with, cause no audience will forgive a bluff that takes up this much time.

Which I think might have been why Moonlighting sucked so hard.

-Tucker Stone, 2007, who, for this week, dictated.

But did not read.

Cries & Whispers (Viskningar Och Rop)

1973
Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Starring Harriet Anderson, Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin and Kari Sylwan

There's a point in Cries & Whispers, about 2/3 of the way through, when one comes to the sickening realization that one of the characters is too immersed in her faith to commit suicide, and the viewer is forced to accept that, unless some magical tragic turn of fate occurs, she (the character) is going to have to keep living a life that will be completely devoid of any joy or humanity until the day that age finally takes her.  It's a miserable revelation--yet it's brilliantly performed and gorgeously photographed.  Within minutes, Cries & Whispers joins The Piano Teacher in the lineage of "films that include willful genital mutilation," a category that no one really craves more examples of.  As horrific as the scene is, as unsettling as it is to watch it play out, unaddressed, it seems like such a little thing to do--like she could degrade and torture herself as much as her body could handle, and it would still hold no comparison to the empty, soulless degradation that her entire life already holds.

Cries & Whispers only resorts to this type of on screen horror in that one scene, but the movie is a grueling journey nonetheless.  There isn't a wasted moment here, not for a single of the films brief 90 minute running time.  Instead, Bergman fills the film with the type of silence that people are always telling you "speaks volumes," with blisteringly honest performances from his entire cast, and a plot that serves to keep the momentum at a refreshingly steady pace. Cries & Whispers is full of meaning, yes, but it's about one thing: death.  Two sisters and a lifelong maid gather at the family estate to look after the third sister as she succumbs to a torturous illness.  The film is about what happens, and that's it.  What it makes one think and feel is what makes it a classic.

Gasper Noe and Michael Haneke come to mind when one is asked about movies with graphic violence designed to elicit reaction in film goers--and it's reaching to put Bergman in that same camp.   Still, Cries & Whispers demands a certain amount of masochism in it's viewers, a level of courage that is near absent in most audiences.  What one sees on screen is scary, unsettling stuff, and it's a painful journey for anyone to experience.  But, unlike Noe, what appears on screen is undiluted truth--and sometimes that's exactly what anyone should be frightened by.

-Tucker Stone, 2007

BPRD: Garden Of Souls #1

Written by Mike Mignola & John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis
Published by Dark Horse

The Factual has been remiss due to some scheduling and personal details, but returns to form this coming monday, and with a Marty Brown return in a few weeks.  Sorry to any regular perusers.

Yesterday won't go down in any history books as anything more than the week where most of the people in the store were still asking for copies of last weeks Captain America, otherwise known as the one where he "died."  Yes, it's sold out, but no, it will not be worth any money.  It also won't last, so let's hurry up and let it go.  Marvel didn't get any new readers when the last time Moon Knight died, and they won't get any now.

The sad thing about yesterday was that, with all of these "potential" new readers haunting comic stores in hopes of finding a less boring stock portfolio, neither Marvel or DC had anything fresh or exciting to offer them.  Everything, across the board, was just bad, bad, and, with help, worse.  Whether it was a senseless reset button at the previously great Stormwatch,  a fight scene featuring characters know one knows or cares about at Teen Titans, or just plain irritating re-hashing at The Confession, Marvel and DC completely missed the boat yesterday.  While there may have been an audience yesterday, the big guys seemed to think that offering nothing might fool people into thinking they were getting something.  A win for B.P.R.D is sullied by this lack of competition, but that doesn't mean that Mignola's crew of Hellboy sidekicks are doing anything less than the regular blend of neo-horror adventure stories.  Yes, this was a pretty good comic, but no, it didn't have to do much to be better than a day of just plain old bad comics.  (One exception being Matt Fraction's work on the continues-to-be-fantastic Punisher War Journal, which lost solely because it had to return to carrying the weight of Marvel's Civil War storyline, which doesn't seem to have any sign of ending until Marvel goes bankrupt again.  Which, since a bunch of no-taste having assholes made Ghost Rider a hit, may not be until the next time they kill Captain America.)

Mike Mignola's work on B.P.R.D. is limited to a standard "isn't that cool, and weird, and retro" cover and his "story" credit.  How much involvement Mignola still has in B.P.R.D. is a subject little known about, and that whole line of inquiry is currently best addressed in the latest tour de force issue of the Comics Journal, but that doesn't neccessairly speak ill of anything happening in the issue.  John Arcudi and Guy Davis still put together a great comic that looks a hell of a lot better than anything else on the shelf.  Whether or not Garden Of Souls will pursue the kind of hell on earth majesty that Plague of Frogs did, or will dive without care into a more goofy "Watch this chick hallucinate" story isn't clear from the first issue.  What is clear is that whatever that old Chinese guy is doing to the Captain can't be very soothing, and it will hopefully be addressed before too long.  Massage therapy doesn't have to include Satan, and it doesn't have to include broadswords.

-Tucker Stone, 2007

Flashdance

1983
Directed by Adrian Lyne
Written by Thomas Hedley, Jr.
Starring Jennifer Beals and Michael Nouri

Say what you want--Flashdance was a Simpson/Bruckheimer production, and as reprehensible as their work often is, they made successful, watchable movies that spoke to the American box office to the tune of millions of dollars.  Trifles like quality writing and innovative film-making always took a back seat with those two, and yes, Flashdance is as guilty a candidate as most of their work.  Yet their movies are compelling enough to finish, and popular enough to merit some curiosity.

That being said, Flashdance is, without a doubt, a hell of lot odder than one expects.  Categorized, and point by point, here's some questions and confusions that Flashdance brought about in this reviewer:

A) Arc Welding

1) On what possible planet does an 18 year old, female or no, earn the qualifications to be an unsupervised arc welder?  Doesn't that require certification, or some type of training?

2) Since when is it harder to get into dance school than it is to become an arc welder?  (And make no mistake, the Pittsburgh Conservatory is, by definition, "Dance School."

3) If the main character is dedicated enough to become an arc welder, which, regardless of suspension of disbelief, is difficult, why has she never taken a dance class?  Ever?  Anywhere?

B) Hannah.

1) Who is this woman? What is her relationship to the main character?  Why does the main character have keys to her home?

2) Why does "Hannah" so fervently believe that the main character has any potential for success in the world of dance?  By her own accounts, "Alex" (the main character) has never even attempted "real" (read: ballet) dance, yet Hannah, a retired professional dancer (someone who has a very full grasp of how difficult professional dance can be) seems positive that Alex has a bright future in a world she's made no attempts to access.

C) The Club

1) For what possible reason would grown men choose to go to a club where the dancers don't strip, perform modern and jazz dance routines, and have no fake breasts?   (This isn't to imply that fake breasts are a requirement for dance, but fake breasts are a requirement for a strip club.  As is stripping.)

2) How is this club in any way successful?  Who are these lunatics who frequent the joint?  (While this is obviously an outgrowth of the previous question, it bears repeating.)

D) That Guy Who Works At The Other Club

1) He works, or possibly is in some ownership, of a very real, and from what the audience sees, very successful, strip club.  A club where woman talk off all there clothes, men get drunk, and everybody is vaguely uncomfortable.  Yet he spends most of his time at the other club, where no one likes him, so he can attempt to rape one of their dancers, spend money, and watch totally bizarre dance routines that involve a fake television and white clown paint.  This makes no sense.

2) Due to some throwaway lines that are delivered with way too much seriousness, it's made clear that he has some relationship with "Alex's" new boyfriend/boss.  As this is never dealt with for the remainder of the film, it hangs over the piece as a strange outgrowth of a clearly undeveloped storyline.  Most of all, it causes the viewer the fear that Flashdance will someday have a prequel, to explain what, exactly, the relationship between is a weird guy with bad style and a man who owns a steel mill.

E) The Actual Relationship, or, Why Any Man Would Continue To Date A Girl Who Is So Clearly Insane.

1) Okay, so he (the boyfriend) seems sort of normal.  Yet when "Alex" reveals that the thought of her weird avant-garde modern dances that she performs at some shitty dive bar bring her to tears, and that she has fantasies of "disappearing" into the music, he doesn't run away screaming.  Which leads one to believe that he to is insane.  Although he never shows it in the rest of the film.  (Don't assume you remember this scene--if it registers as romantic or sexy, take the time to re-watch it.  It's terrifyingly bizarre, and it speaks to total mental instability.)

2) To continue on the same theme, she throws a rock through his window because she sees him give a blond woman a ride home.  Is she, at this point, his actual girlfriend?  No.  Did she have plans with him that he broke that evening?  No.  That should be enough--but no, he's also totally innocent, as the woman is his ex-wife, they're both on the board, and he takes her to the "benefit" Alex sees him at once a year.  Break-up worthy?  Yes, even though there not officially together.  Yet he stays.   

    a) The next day, he says that someone broke his window, and that it costs 170 dollars to have it fixed.  If you've ever had to get a window replaced, you know what I know.  It doesn't happen overnight.  (Literally.  It's not going to happen.  Either way, you don't get a price quote in the middle of the night, no matter how many steel mills you own.)

3) To anyone with any knowledge of the world of dance, it's a universal truth that connections make a difference.  Yet when he, quite wonderfully, uses his connections to get her an audition--an audition her near blank application would have never gotten her, does she respond kindly?  No.  She screams at him and attempts to throw herself from a moving car.  After stopping the car, she screams at him some more and throws a shoe at him.  Then she walks home.  Although her behavior makes sense, solely by the fact that she's completely fucking insane, his behavior doesn't.  Because he doesn't seem crazy, yet he doesn't break the fuck up with her.

F) The Dog   

1) I only had one problem with the dog, a beautiful pit bull that steals every scene it's in.  That problem stems from the fact that there is no way in hell a lunatic like Alex could've trained a pit bull to behave as well as this one does.  Although this is one of those movie things that 99% of viewers are more than happy to ignore, I'm not, and neither should you.  If all of this drivel still makes you want to watch it.

There's plenty of other things that Flashdance gets wrong, it got enough right to win an Academy Award--of course, that Award was for the theme song that, according to Imdb.com, was written during the car ride that brought the singer to the fucking studio.

-Tucker Stone is wishing he owned that dog, 2007

 

Legion of Super Heroes #27

Written by Mark Waid
Art by Barry Kitson
Published by DC Comics

Legion of Super-Heroes has, since it's first story arc, cemented itself as one of those rare mainstream spandex comics that's gotten progressively better while, at the same time, gotten progressively unreadable to the general reader.  Safely put, if you don't keep up with Legion, it's going to be a confusing read.  The cast of characters outsizes any television show, the plots are rhythmic, sprawling beasts, and, most of all, the amount of superpowers on display is so frenetic and vast that even the regular "bio" pages each issue contains serve merely as helpful tips.  (Each issue opens with a title page that's meant to give the reader a heads up on what it is, exactly, that Phantom Lad can do, so you don't get confused when, near the last page of the book, he does it.  It's similar to how one spends the first 200 pages of a Russian novel checking the first page where it tells the reader each of the four names any character might have.)  It's arguable, by someone without a firm grip on reality, that these "bio" pages are also meant to serve the general reader who might be trying out Legion for the first time.

That argument is ridiculous.  Nobody picks up Legion for the first time without wondering why the hell one comic book has a cast of characters that numbers in the three digits, and is clearly on it's way to break the 1000 mark.  Legion has, and will always remain, a comic for the nerdiest spandex reader out there.  Even the history of these characters reads like a clusterfuck of dork heaven, stretching back through characters that have been written out of continuity, futuristic "realist" story arcs that lasted for years before they were revamped and replaced with clone based stories.  No matter where one starts with the Legion, all roads lead to confusion.  When sales forced the previous version of Legion off the racks, Mark Waid and Barry Kitson waited the prerequisite mourning period, got the blessing of DC, and got the whole ball rolling one more time.  That was 27 issues ago.

Since Waid and Kitson have taken over the Legion comic, they've consistently pulled off a non-stop entertainment festival: no, Legion ain't Tolstoy, hell, it ain't even Morrison, but it sure is a hell of a fun ride.  Designed to test the limits of any readers tolerance of soap-opera teenage angst and over-the-top super hero behavior, the Legion of Super Heroes has eked out enough sales to keep it going--no small feat when the characters have names like Cosmic Boy, Shadow Lass and, yes, The Karate Kid.  (Back off, Ralph Macchio fans.  The name predates Daniel-son.)

This months issue is, of course, just as insane as any other one--in all honesty, it may even be too much.  Once again, the Legion has become the last line of defense against the Dominators (an alien race who are breaking their peace accord with the United Planets, utilizing a techno-virus that subverts control over technology to the Dominators,) and they (the Legion) are also having to contend with the splitting up of their big guns (Supergirl is on one side of the planet, while Timber Wolf is hurt, or something, but Giant Boy is there) and they (Legion again) are also stuck teaming up with--who is that guy again?  Lightning Lad's brother?  Either way, the guys a real dick, and he's got a bunch of ex-Legion people and random superheroes on some team that he, for some god-awful reason, calls "The Wanderers," and they've got their own plans...

See?  Who reads this stuff?

Oh.

Well, you should too.

Shut up.

The issue closes with an excellent tribute to Dave Cockrum, a tribute that acknowledges what a massive debt the Legion comic owes to the man.  According to this tribute, Cockrum was one of the few artists (it's actually implied that he was the only artist) who enjoyed drawing the characters.  As one could imagine, drawing such a massive cast of characters, all of whom, for no good reason, have differing costumes, wasn't something that any artist saw as anything more than a chore.  Cockrum however loved the challenge, and took to it with such commitment and creativity that, again, according to the tribute, the Legion received it's own title and Cockrum's work "effected costume design for the next twenty years."  Considering that the Legion has, in some incarnation, been in print ever since, it's no exaggeration to give the man a lion's share of the credit.  DC Comics has a long way to go, and they'll probably never really try, when it comes to acknowledging the very real men and women that have toiled for the last sixty years putting out these comics.  The last few pages of yesterday's issue were a great start--here's hoping they have the integrity to continue.

-Tucker Stone, 2007