The Factual Opinion

Thief

Written and Directed by Michael Mann
Script based on the Novel by Frank Hohimer
Starring James Caan, Tuesday Weld & Jim Belushi
With Dennis Farina & Willie Nelson
Released in 1981

In these days of the Great Directors, The Factual finally reaches one that isn't actually a bad one.  Had to happen at some point.

Thief is often referred to as Michael Mann's first film--if you go by the standard "shown in a movie theater" definition, then yes, that is the accurate answer.  Prior to Thief, Mann had filmed a critically acclaimed piece called The Jericho Mile for network television.  In length, cinematography, acting and, most of all, preparation, The Jericho Mile could also certainly fill in as his first work.  The effort and artistry of Jericho Mile, and it's subsequent success, was what made it easier for Mann to find financial support for Thief & Manhunter, two films that are now acknowledged as classics, but experienced virtually no public acclaim upon initial release.  It was also the efficiency with which Mann delivered Jericho Mile that made it easier for him to return to television again, albeit with eventual dwindling successes.

Thief is a film made up of a lot of disparate elements, many of which are now dated to the ugly time period in which Mann shoot the picture.  Tangerine Dream, Jim Belushi, Tuesday Weld and hideous typography, Thief is a film that absorbs a lot of awful business into it's dark grip, and they are only tolerable because of the elements that still hold up: the best performance of James Caan's career, including the Godfather, the masterful cinematography of Dante Spinotti, and a director trotting out the plot horses and ideals that will stay with him the length of his career.  Thief is a simple story, and it's one that's been told a hundred times or more before and since the early 80's, but it's that besotted simple story told well. 

The legends surrounding Thief are easily hunted down, in these trivia nut heaven days of the Imdb "Trivia" links and the lengthy Wikipedia pieces:  yes, Mann staffed the film with every cop and criminal he could find, and yes, if you see it on screen, then it works, and it's real.  The gun that Caan carries has seen bodies before it, the saws and slim jims have been used to steal real diamonds, and the actors behind the side characters are men who have either done time or caught those men they're pretending to kill.  If Thief lacks anything, it's not accuracy: if anything, it celebrates it's reality for too long.  It's a film that is as in love with showing what it takes to accomplish the task at hand as it is at showing how starkly emotions have to be ignored to survive the criminal life.  Thief isn't remotely close to being the first film to ever portray an anti-hero as it's protagonist, but it certainly tread new ground in exploring how little a man who flirts with total sociopathy can escape the life he's created for himself.  When Caan's character goes from single man to one with home and family, it's with a cunning simplicity and efficiency that i's rather uncomfortable to experience: it's not that he doesn't deserve it, it's that he quite literally purchases it in a matter of hours--and then proceeds to wholeheartedly embrace the dynamic of his new wife and child so fully.  Caan's performance, and Mann's script, make it abundantly clear that there is no grey area here:  the man is so inexperienced with emotion that he can, in a somewhat insane fashion, go from emotionless to fully in love the second the opportunity allows him too.  Later in the film, when the plot dictates that he must return to a solitary existence, he calmly ends his marriage, burns his home and workplaces to the ground, and executes the men who have betrayed him.   It's a fitting end to the story Mann wishes to tell, and like any decent descent into noir-ish territories, it's the only end that could be acceptable.  While the ambiguous close might be interpreted by a more optimistic audience as a possible renewal, Mann and Caan clearly believe otherwise.  As far as they're concerned, the thief of the title is finished experimenting with social and familial networks, and will return to what he knows to be the acceptable alternative--a barren, emotionless solitude.  While the behaviors and criminal exploration that Mann deals with here are far more entertainingly addressed in his powerhouse crime-thriller Heat, Thief remains an excellent film, one that speaks to the maturity of a filmmaker who seems to have entered the business as a brilliantly professional craftsman.

-Tucker Stone, 2007

Comics Of The Weak: Following the Entrails Down The Spandex Spiral

Countdown Presents Lord Havok and The Extremists # 1
Written by Frank Tieri
Art by Liam Sharp & Rob Hunter
Published by DC Comics

Strange beast.  Nice and bloody--should DC be labeling this kind of stuff?  Marvel does, and this clearly crosses some lines--child killing, disembowelment, the whole nine of the hardcore.  Odd choice to treat it like a regular issue.  The Factual isn't a reading contingent that finds violence as offensive as we do terrible writing, so we're not going to cry hurt sensibilities, but this issue does come across as one that might have merited a little bit of warning.  The Extremists are a group of nasty off-world villains from two old Justice League stories--one that is remembered as being pretty chilling and well-down when this reader was much younger, and one that was completely awful and unreadable a few years later, during the climax of Keith Giffen's run on the Justice League.  They're being brought back now, apparently because DC wasn't sure that they had enough over-the-top and poorly written bloodshed, and they're being tied into the abominably dull Countdown series that this reader gave up on months ago.  All in all, the story itself is a total oddity, and so clearly a pastiche of ideas that were better done in Civil War.  And Civil War wasn't done that well, so one can imagine how bad this thing is.  Still, we'll probably come back for number two, if only to see more children executed in front of their parents.  Only in comics can that come across as top-notch hilarity.

52 Aftermath: Crime Bible Five Lessons of Blood # 1
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Tom Mandrake
Opening Page by Steve Lieber & Eric Trautmann
Published by DC Comics

This reads sort of like when Dr. Strange quotes from the Ancient Ones--too silly to be taken seriously, but presented in such an open, baldly sincere fashion that it has to be swallowed whole if you're going to be make it past the first ridiculous page from "The Book of Blood."  Greg Rucka is a good writer, but he's one who is so in love with minutiae and oddities that it's unlikely any of these little side projects he's involved with are ever going to be big sellers.  Whiners may tell you it's because his main character is a lesbian, but it's more likely they just aren't interested in a mash-up of super-heroes, mysticism, and creaky cultish terminology.  It's a pleasure to see some more art from Tom Mandrake--after the dipshit story he'd wasted his talents on for Batman last year, The Factual had worried he would start considering leaving the industry altogether. 

Tales of the Fear Agent
Written by Rick Remender & C. B. Cebulski
Art by Eric Nguyen & Tommy Ohtsuka
Published by Dark Horse Comics

Recommended by the same people who sent this reader down the boring Green Lantern snooze-core cross-over, Tales of the Fear Agent is a one shot connected to a series of comics about some kind of space-war.  Although it was outright stated that this issue was "a great jumping on point for new readers,"  what that really meant was "this comic is only sort of enjoyable to someone who knows nothing about the previous 15 issues."  By "sort of" we mean "not at all."  There's two stories here--one short one about a guy who sleeps with the wrong girl and then kills a bunch of natives on his way out of town, and another longer one, about a space captain with a suicidal bent and a deconstructionist take on alcoholism.  (This writer does not know the actual definition of that word.)  Not much happened that made this reader curious for more.  What distinguishes this series from any other mainstream comic went undiscovered by this reader--but if you listen to it's small (but vocal) fan base, there's a big one.  We won't be coming back to find it.

Special Forces # 1
Everything but Printing by Kyle Baker
Published by Image Comics

What kind of comic fan out there doesn't pick up new Kyle Baker the second it shows up?  Cheesecake art isn't really our cup of tea, but Felony, the lead character is probably one of the most attractive pieces of cheesecake in the last twenty years, and she is certainly far more attractive and interesting than anything DC & Marvel have going right now.  Funny, graphic, and intense, these are the sorts of comics that make the hobby worth maintaining.  War comics are rare enough these days, and they're usually too steeped in the desire to be "important" (Army at Love) or "reverential" (anything involving Sgt. Rock) to have the real edginess of the long-gone great war comics that EC published.  Whether this is Baker's attempt to fill the void isn't important--Baker's earned plenty of leeway to do pretty much anything and end up in the weekly spot of honor in the Factual's home office (next to the toaster oven, in the plastic frame where our editor keeps his passport.)  Still, it's nice to know he's not abusing the privilege he's got in our wallets.  Plot wise, here's all you need:  introduction of the platoon, all of whom have their various traits.  Kill the entire platoon, save the aforementioned Felony, and partner her up with the only other survivor, an autistic American soldier named Zone.  Then read the last page, with two scanned news stories regarding the actual recruitment of an autistic boy by the US Military to fight in Iraq.  Then go back and look at Baker's art and remember that DC canceled his Plastic Man series, because they were just so goddamned sure that there was a bigger audience for Aquaman. 

Biff-Bam-Pow!
By Evan Dorkin & Sarah Dyer
Published by Amaze Ink/SLG Publishing

He's back! But not in Dork!  Well, it'll still be really snarky and have that kind of refined vile humor that Dorkin does better than anybody, even Johnny Ryan, right?

No?  This is just reprints of stuff from Nickelodeon magazine and a new story about...what is she exactly?  A Jewish female boxer?  Okay...but it's got cursing and stuff, and some of those 4 panel gag strips where people get stabbed in their eyes at least.

It doesn't?  Okay, well it's at least drawn well, and some of the money goes to Evan & Sarah?

Well then, yeah, we'll buy it.  Seriously though, will there be some new Milk & Cheese soon?

Ultimate Power # 8
Written by Jeph Loeb
Art by Greg Land & Jay Leisten
Published by Marvel Comics

It's obvious that no one cares what happens to the Ultimate universe of comics anymore.  Besides continuing the "guess what, Jeph Loeb's a retard and Greg Land draws like Crispin Glover's character in Wild At Heart would" idiocy that's made this series such a relentlessly fascinating exercise in completely horrible storytelling, there's a new blurb on the cover that says "March on Ultimatum."  Apparently, Marvel's looked at the sales numbers for the Ultimate titles, realized that Ultimate Power isn't appealing to, well, anybody, and thought that maybe they should get that titles writer to handle even more of the comics involved.  It's an interesting business decision: take a guy who's vision for the line seems to be "making the shittiest comics possible" and put him in charge of more comics.  That way, the rest of them will all fall in line and, you know, sell a lot less.  It sure seems to be working for whoever at DC is actually producing all those idiotic spin-offs of Countdown.

Action Comics # 858
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank & Jon Sibal
Published by DC Comics

Without Richard Donner to interfere, Johns has gotten Action Comics back to what it was throughout most of the 80's and 90's--boring.  Action's history is one written in lameness, so this is actually a return to form.  Gary Frank, having jumped from the Marvel ship, shows a desire to paint Clark Kent as one of the dudes that inspires a beatdown like no other--Frank Quitely aside, it's unlikely that anybody has ever made Superman's secret identity this nerdy.  While nobody at the Factual actually wakes up and plans to endorse bullying, Frank's drawings of Clark as a teen cry out for a serious kick in the ass.  And the face.  Especially the teeth.  The story itself is more of what makes Geoff Johns a lot of people's favorite writers--it's steeped in the sort of "weren't 80's comics really fucking clever" kind of horseshit that makes it possible for Power Girl to sell titles.  If the goal of Johns run on Action was to solely remind this reader why he never should have given Action Comics another chance after dumping the title back in the Death of Superman days, than guess what? 

Success!

Batman # 670
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Tony Daniel & Jonathan Glapion
Published by DC Comics

Grant Morrison's first issue of Batman without a marquee artist, and also the beginning of Morrison's first story that will cross over to multiple titles that he won't be writing.  As can be expected, it's heavy on the foreshadowing and light on much else.  While Morrison's best work will always be on titles that are more completely his, and the best Batman stories are never the ones that cross over to Robin & Nightwing, this issue was still relatively decent, mostly because it was more of Grant making sure that the artist drew Batman big and expressive.  The zaniness of the previous storylines, with Morrison cramming in all the ideas he had left over from his "everything including the kitchen sink, and hey, why not have the kitchen sink speak in rhyming slang" days on the Seven Soldiers maxi-series, fades away here, with little Damian the belligerent asshole murderer the only thing that is reminiscent of his run until this point.  Everything else--the fights, the dialog, the this-is-all-a-big-deal attitude is all standard Batman boiler-plate.  That's fine too; if anybody can write an A-grade character by-the-numbers and still make it worth the minutes spent reading, it's Morrison.  Hopefully, things will pick up when the story gets into it's official run.

Daredevil Annual # 1
Written by Ed Brubaker & Andre Parks
Written by Leandro Fernandez & Scott Koblish
Published by Marvel Comics

Andre Parks and Leandro Fernandez are two creators who consistently do quality work on comics that rarely have any real importance to them--Punisher Max & Green Arrow are pretty standard, fluffy works that, while usually pretty entertaining, aren't anything more than decent, disposable genre works.  Fernandez work on Queen & Country was superb, as was Parks' short Capote In Kansas--since then, they've been collecting paychecks on superhero books.  This Daredevil Annual, with a story from the title's regular writer, is pretty much more of the same.  A simple, almost cliched story plot about an ex-villain who decides to pursue the straight and narrow with help from the title character; it's a pretty nice excursion from the main titles current theatrics, and a nice reminder that Marvel has done well by a character that has suffered for years as a pale imitation of DC's Batman.  It's just a little beneath the level that the three men involved have shown themselves capable of.

Legion Of Super-Heroes # 35
Written by Tony Bedard
Art by Dennis Calero
Published by DC Comics

One wants to feel some sympathy for Tony Bedard.  He has, after all, been unceremoniously removed from the Batman & The Outsiders series, a comic he seemed to be the main engine for the recent revamp, he's been treated by DC as the go-to writer for books that need somebody to fill in before the marquee named creators get their shit together, and he's stuck with Dennis Calero on Legion, an artist who's talent would be best served if he illustrated the inside of a sewage duct.  It's not like one could expect Tony to do anything that's even meagerly average: he's working on yet another DC comic that DC doesn't seem to have any interest in publishing--this Legion title is the third full revamp of the characters, and if the recent issues of Action and JLA are to be included, the concept of the 31st Century team looks headed for a fourth "let's start from scratch but not really change anything."  All that taken under consideration, Bedard probably doesn't deserve to be the perennial whipping boy that this reader consistently paints him to be.  There's only one problem:  he's yet to produce anything that's any good.  This issue of Legion, like Birds of Prey and the Teen Titans before it, is yet another nail in the coffin that is this guys future at DC.

Robin Annual # 7
Written by Keith Champagne
Art by Jason Pearson & Derek Donavan
Published by DC Comics

A totally uninteresting comic that ignores recent developments in the series it's an outgrowth of, with a needlessly complicated "prelude" to an upcoming storyline that has a merely tangential connection to the series in question:  yes, it's an Annual.  The most valuable piece of information that comes out of this issue is that it's 16 year old character doesn't seem surprised, or bothered, to find a corpse that has been disemboweled in an alley, nor disgusted or frightened that both large and small intestines have been unraveled almost completely.  The last time something that grotesque showed up in a mainstream super-hero comic was in the adults-only version of the Punisher, and even he seemed pretty freaked out by it.  Apparently, DC makes it's teenagers of stronger stuff.  Again, nobody at the office was really bothered by the imagery described--we just can't figure out how this is supposed to be appealing to anyone.  Is there really that large of an audience that shares a taste for over-the-top gore and homoerotic relationships between a child and a fat police officer?  Is that an untapped market?

-Tucker Stone, 2007

Off The Shelf: The Fat Patriot Edition

Captain America By Ed Brubaker Omnibus Vol. 1
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Steve Epting, Michael Lark, John Paul Leon, Tom Palmer, Mike Perkins, Javier Pulido, Marcos Martin, Lee Weeks, Stefano Gaudiano, Rick Hoberg, Jesse Delperdang, Frank D'Armata & Javier Rodriguez
Originally published in magazine form as Captain America #1-25, Captain America 65th Anniversary Special & Winter Soldier: Winter Kills
Published by Marvel Comics, 2007

There's no real good reason for purchasing this.  All of the stories in this book exist in a cheaper format, and that cheaper format is also far easier to carry around and read.  Even propped up on a comfortable chair doesn't work.  You either read the Captain America Omnibus at a desk or you don't read it.  In other words, it's the Acme Novelty Shareholders Report of spandex comics, and no, you don't need to know what that means.  Fortunately, this is Ed Brubaker's Captain America, the only super-hero comic that seems to have had long-range planning in mind when it came to writing a story.  Excepting an inane crossover issue about mutants, Ed Brubaker is focused on telling one very long story, one that started in the days of World War II and has yet to finish as it enters the present day, a story that will, at one point, kill off it's title character and then proceed to continue on even better for his absence.  Whether Ed Brubaker ever says it or not, his Captain America series, to steal a quote about Alan Moore's Watchmen, is a death threat nailed to every spandex book, and it's a slap in the face to every long time superhero fan.  With these 25 issues, Brubaker has done his best to prove that, in the world of super-hero comics, the heroes and the villains are all the same--and that it doesn't matter who gets the lead role.  It doesn't matter, or mean anything, to kill Captain America.  Without him, the lead falls to the Falcon, or the Winter Soldier, or the Red Skull--and yet the books still enjoyable.  Brubaker succeeded in making a Cap' that was relevant and interesting--and then he showed what a cipher, what a complete empty suit Cap was anyway.  Without him, the book is still about it's story, first and foremost, and at some point, Brubaker had known that the story wasn't about the importance of the individual character, but about the importance of the idea of the character.  A constant criticism of comics writers is that they don't write super-heroes "in character,"  an argument that assumes that there's some overall agreement to who thes echaracters are: as if Batman has always been fully developed, and to write him as a ladies man, or an insufferable jerk, is to somehow ignore his long-standing traits.  Yet any super-hero that's been around for awhile has, basically, done everything already, whether editors feel the need to incorporate it into the fictional history or not.  Pretending that Captain America, or Iron Man, or any of them, has some sort of explainable behavior that lasts throughout their history isn't just silly, it's an arrogance bred out of the idea of some kind of public ownership over a fictional corporate property.  Brubaker's solution to this, whether he acknowledges or agrees with the problem or not, is to ignore complaints and requests from fans, even fellow creators, and to tell a story that fully embraces the transitory nature of it's main character.  Captain America was created as a figurehead, an archetype:  Brubaker's version of this is the comic book equivalent of diving right in and using that as it's greatest strength.  Here, Cap is a tired, lonely man who knows that his actions have consequences; not just in a fight, but in who's orders he takes, and how far he believes those who call him their superior.  That's all--he's a walking emotional response.  From the blatant introduction of a dead character "never to be resurrected" if one believes Marvel, Brubaker's story doesn't veer, even in the slightest, from where it plans to end: with Captain America dead under a sheet.  It's a story about a man who acknowledges he may, and probably will, die because of some antiquated beliefs, and yet is willing to follow those beliefs until the end.

It's still a bit of a mystery why so many comics readers seem to think Captain America is truly dead, but it's a silly notion.  He'll return to these pages eventually, whether by Brubaker's hands or someone else, and then the current complaint will reverse itself.  If there's anything to look forward, it's the hope that Brubaker has already prepared for that as well.  If these 25 issues are any indication, the hope is well-founded.

Cages
By Dave McKean
Collection Published by NBM Comics Lit, 2002
Originally Serialized in Periodical form 1990-1996

Cages is one of those graphic novel/comic books/cartoon odysseys that gets name-checked now and then, but it's been so rarely kept in print that it rarely gets brought up except in places like The Comics Journal or one of those effusive "Some comic books aren't about Batman" articles.  It is, after all, Difficult To Process.  It's narrative is, well, somewhat fluid, and it's exact meaning is certainly up to the reader.  The characters are a diverse bunch, some artists, a novelist, a legendary trumpet player, a botanist and a man who juggles the heavenly bodies.  Besides that, it's just plain LONG.  It follows, for the most part, the inhabitants of a building as introduced by the latest tenant, a creatively-blocked painter hoping to jump start his ambitions, and a black cat who observes the goings on of everyone else.  Less welcomed than assaulted by the landlord, the painter proceeds to meet most of the characters who will keep him occupied throughout the book.  Although the book takes multiple breaks and tangents away from the painter, he remains the most openly normal of all of McKean's characters, and his normality makes him the de facto protagonist for the book's duration. 

The style of art is varied, to put it mildly.  Although the majority of its 500 pages are pen and ink, of the variety seen most often in art comics, there's multiple portions in other mediums--fully painted pages, raw pencils, photo-detailed works.  All are made exceptionally well, although the amount with which they add to the narrative can be debatable: whereas the paintings of a raving mob are brilliantly expressive, the campfire tale told in photographs of a mother and daughter seem lazy and forced.  That's not to say the work compares as something less than the majority of graphic novels:  it's a singular artists work, completely devoid of pandering or condescension, and it shouldn't be classed as anything less than a triumphant work.

Cages ends with a gorgeously painted scene of lovemaking, watched upon by a powerless God who claims himself capable of only making his creation think of "stray thoughts...like chocolate cake, and the red wine [she] had at 22."  It's a fitting end to the piece, juxtaposing well with one of the books stronger portions, where the two (soon-to-be) lovers meet, and the notes from a trumpet intersect with their conversation, as Mckean slowly begins to combine the scrawled linework until the two are dancing through words--terrible description, but there's a reason why this work is a comic, and not a novel. It's not that it's a story that works best in this medium, it's a story that would ONLY work in this medium.  Cages is, quite certainly, one of the few comics that deserves a far better treatment of it than this reader feels confident he has given.  It's a work to be immersed in, and it's one that doesn't disclose it's secrets and glories immediately upon a first read.  That being said, it's one that comes with the heartiest recommendation available.

-Tucker Stone, 2007