The Factual Opinion

Music of the Weak: Bereft of Internet Connection, I Am Left to Philosophize*

Most days, I feel like I have a pretty clear definition of what I like about music:  I like compelling, rhythm-based songs built on clever ideas.  Not a lot to it.  Add a horn section to that definition, and you’ve got yourself a lock on any number of my favorite songs.  Now, there are other things out there in the world that I like—clipping my fingernails, my girlfriend’s cooking, poker, reality television shows involving P. Diddy—and on most days I have pretty clear definitions of why I like those things.  Also, there are things I don’t like—tomatoes, sweatpants, reality television shows involving Joe Rogan, brushing my teeth.

With music I can and do quantify the things I listen to (as some of who know me or read this column well know.)  I have even come up with a ten point scale to rate how well I like a given song, with ten being the awesomest and one being the least awesome.  For example, if a ten is Geto Boys’ “Mind Playin’ Tricks On Me,” and a one is Wolf Eyes’ “Stabbed In The Face,” then a four is Phil Collins’ “Sussudio” and a six is H-Town’s “Knockin’ Da Boots.”  While I don’t rank and file Diddy vehicles or hygiene issues with the same voracity as I do music, it’s fair to say that I live my life with a certain amount of order.

And then something comes along and blows my mind.

Yesterday I listened to Stereolab’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup for the first time in a long time, and I realized many things.  I don’t feel like I’ve spent a large amount of time with that album—I’ve listened to it once every couple of years, and I’ve owned it for about eight years.  Yet, each song greeted me like an old familiar friend.  No song fell below a seven (Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Saturday Night Special”), and I felt like I knew, and was excited about, what was coming even though I generally feel like I don’t know the songs very well.  Emperor Tomato Ketchup being an immaculate album, this is unremarkable except for a couple of things: First, I feel like I have this exact same experience of rediscovering that I love it every time I listen to it; secondly, I tend to forget everything about it shortly after listening to it, hence, only listening once every couple of years.

So I have no idea how to classify this kind of music—stuff that I love, but simultaneously feel totally distant from.  If it were like my girlfriend’s cooking—I anticipate it, I enjoy the experience of it, I get excited about the next time it will happen—I would know what to do with it.  If it were like sweatpants—it makes me feel icky, I try to avoid it, I ridicule people associated with it—I would know how to feel about it.  But Emperor Tomato Ketchup is a different beast altogether—the music is iconic and wonderful, but immediately forgettable.  Then, there’s the nagging feeling that I have the same experience with other albums—I just can’t remember what they are!

I suppose I should just enjoy the discovery (or rediscovery, as it were) of music that touches me in the warm places.  But the pleasure centers of my brain tell me there’s something more to it.  Does music have to etch out a permanent place in your consciousness to be good?  What does it mean when music feels familiar, but isn’t?  Is that a good thing?  Is there such a thing as iconic music, and does it exist in a realm other than what we typically listen to?  Who are you people, and what are you doing in my head?

*All opinions in this column subject to change.

-Martin Brown, 2008

The Virgin Read: In Which She Spoils Some Crap Will Smith Movie Whilst Talking About The Children's Iron Fist

The Immortal Iron Fist # 17
Written by Duane Swierczynski
Art by Travel Foreman, Russ Heath & Matt Milla
Published by Marvel Comics

I originally picked The Immortal Iron Fist because I thought, "Hey, haven't done this one before. This is so un-me." And then I was informed by another staff member that not only had I done it before, but that I attempted to re-pick it another week and was reminded then, too, that I'd already read it and thoroughly disliked it because it jumped around in time so much. I guess one couldn't characterize my last reading of this title as...unforgettable?

But, I decided to go for it again. I'm definitely less tired now than I was a few months back…..so maybe fresh eyes, fresh perspective?

Well, it certainly does jump around, doesn't it? Why? I mean, why use jumping all over time and place as a storytelling device when one has to jump so often? It works really well in, say, Michael Cunningham's The Hours, because by jumping around 3 different storylines in time, a bit of suspense and surprise is added to an otherwise already over-told, "my mother was fucked-up and that's why I'm fucked-up" story. (Okay, that's REALLY simplifying that book, but I'm just trying to make a point about Iron Fist, here.)

Whereas in this issue of the Immortal Iron Fist, we start with 10 years in the future and some FOREshadowing. Can you still call it that by basically telling us what's going to happen in the current issue by fully illustrating something? Doesn't foreshadowing require a softer touch?

Yes, I realize that this may also be a way of creating a "hook", installing a cliff-hanger right from the get-go, because we don't know whose kid this is, and who actually died in the [upcoming] fight. In the kid's picture, it looks bad for Mr. Iron Fist Danny Rand – but is it really that simple? And course we "assume" that the black woman in that sequence is supposed to be Misty the girlfriend? (I feel a little "set-up" here.) And oh yes, we are hit over the head with the whole "Iron Fist turns 33 today, and only one Iron Fist has lived past 33 in 66 years." OH MY GOD…I naive reader that I am, have this strange feeling.... this intuition....this vibe, that Iron Fist might die!

I mean, their desire for us to think that he will die soon is as obvious as the "twist" in Hancock, which I had to watch by myself. For the love of Pete, I saw so many trailers for that movie and read one review before seeing it. And no, by the trailers one has no idea of "the twist," but jeez. Charlize Theron's character all but winked at the audienced and mouthed silently "WE ARE EX-LOVERS, which means I'm a SUPERHERO, TOO." Wink, wink, wink. Nod. Nod. In Hancock, though, that IS the twist. In this issue of the Immortal Iron Fist, I feel like this is the train of thought (he's gonna die!) is what they desperately want us to believe and follow so that they can SURPRISE us with the big twist....that will come in another issue, and be something completely different.

So, let me step back and think about all of this. This may not be written for me -- my age, that is. I mean, honestly, this is one of the few comics that I've read that may truly be written for kids (Ten and up?) And in that case, I like it. For kids. It certainly does introduce them to certain conventions like foreshadowing, and cliff-hangers and "twists," which god knows they'll need if that Sixth Sense jerk keeps making movies. And if these days they are less apt to pick up Of Mice and Men or some quality literature, then it's great that they get the experience through comic books.

But then I also think, maybe because of the format of this story -- the jumping back and forth in time thing -- is less about pleasing an audience and more about pleasing the artists. It may be designed this way because they use a team of artists for this comic. And so that all involved get to work on it since they're contracted. But they're like, "Okay Mr. Heath, you're good at the West Texas stuff and we like the way you draw Kwai Jun-Fan. So, you get that story line. And um, Mr. Foreman, you get all the modern-day stuff…that's your "thang" afterall. And Mr. Milla, why don't you color it all up for us, huh?" It's cool, you can use a computer.

I was talking to a colleague about the last issue of Powers that I reviewed. And I said, "It was just so meaty! There's so much in it. The current story line, everything I need to know about the past, and a lot of forward motion of the story to a suspenseful conclusion. Whereas so many other comic books I've read seem to take a whole issue to cover all of five seconds in time."

And that's a little how this one felt. I mean, each flash to the past or the present only captured about three minutes of that Iron Fist time period. And although I grasp why they included the whole West Texas scene – did it need to be in this issue? Do they need to jump back and forth so much within one issue? Other comics, like that issue of B.P.R.D. that I read for instance jumped around, but they took a whole issue to illustrate past events and allude to future times. So, I can't help but draw the conclusion that the only need for doing this so much within the issue is to satisfy the contracts and pay checks of the artists. It would seem to serve them more than it does the story.

Nothing wrong with that. I mean, I like contracts and paychecks. I like knowing what I'll be working on and what I'm getting paid for almost as much as I like to know when. But this is a review of the comic itself – and the issue doesn't really need the whole West Texas part in this issue. Save it for the next one. It's a great looking section. I do love the way its drawn.

Meanwhile, I don't really know enough about this story to be like, totally shocked and appalled by the appearance of this character, the Servant of The Ch'I-Lin. But it all seems pretty cool. My money, though, is on the 9-year-old of the future being the Servant's son -- not Rand's as they seem to want us to believe; and that Rand kicks his Dragon-y ass. And that maybe, maybe the boy IS Misty's…meaning the Servant, well, you know. !!

So, you know, this time it is much more memorable than, apparently, last time. Even enjoyable, in a "for kids" kind of way. So...la-di-dah.

-Nina Stone, 2008

Comics Of The Weak: Let's All Buy Airplane Tickets To Talk About This Shit

Liberty Comics
Writing and Art by a Whole Lot Of People
Published by Image Comics

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a decently run charity with an agreeable purpose, but it's doubtful that anyone would've expected them to put out such a damn fine anthology as this one--not because of who they are, but because non-art comics anthologies are almost always terrible. This breaks the mold with both a clever introduction from Garth Ennis, who satirizes his own shortcomings as a writer in such a fashion that it makes further pokes unnecessary and a Criminal story by Ed Brubaker that showcases why most comic writers should never try to do anything with a moral--because they aren't as smart as Brubaker is. All that aside, the biggest surprise is probably from the quiet riff on American Splendor by way of House of Dracula, courtesy of Mark Millar. It's such a genius piece of work that it both makes one want to forgive Millar's excesses while at the same time condemn him for not writing stuff as good as this all the time. Oh, and what Dracula has to say about the Mach 3 razor? Totally true.

Dan Dare # 7
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Gary Erskine
Published by Virgin Comics

Hopefully, whenever Richard Branson gets around to looking at his balance sheets and realizes that serialized comics have absolutely no future whatsoever, the Dan Dare license will be picked up by some company like Dark Horse, and Garth Ennis can continue to throw out these goofy little mini-series that are the very definition of what entertaining comics should behave like. While totally exploitative of all of the tics that Ennis knows work, like the stiff British manner and the "sacrifice all, for God, country and the death of little green men," this is the little mini-series that could. It's everything you wish Secret Invasion could be, and everything it's incapable of becoming.

Daredevil # 109
Written by Ed Bruabker & Greg Rucka
Art by Michael Lark, Matt Hollingsworth & Stefano Gaudiano
Published by Marvel Comics

While the standard rule of thumb has always been "Don't fuck Matt Murdock unless you want to die, lady," apparently that needs to be expanded to "Seriously, if you have a vagina, don't even talk to or hang out with Matt Murdock." While Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka should be allowed to tell whatever story they'd like with Daredevil, especially if that's a story where Daredevil molests children and eats a Buick, and it totally isn't their fault that every previous Daredevil writer has made time for killing the ladies, you'd think they would know that it's getting really old. Gotten really old. Look it's just fucking old. There's got to be other shit that can happen to women in Daredevil comics. At this point, rape or dismemberment would be, while tasteless, a revelation. (Side note: What's up with the cover? Is Daredevil going to start carrying a machine gun? What do a bunch of machine guns have to do with anything?)

The Exterminators # 30
Written by Simon Oliver
Art by Tony Moore & John Lucas

Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

Although The Exterminators wasn't able to find enough of an audience to maintain whatever low threshold Vertigo has set to be labeled "success," Showtime has apparently looked at the book and said "What do comic fans know? We'll get this an audience, no problem." While time will tell if Simon Oliver's little saga will be the next Dexter (pretty decent) or Californication (jesus, terrible), it's another nail in the coffin that is "You can rely on sales figures to tell you whether a book is any good." Of course, the support of television networks doesn't necessarily mean anything either--what's up Birds of Prey and Shadowman? Hopefully Tony Moore will just as easily land on his feet--if nothing else, his full page drawing of a loser bad guy getting his throat ripped out by our hero's bare hand was one worth framing. Gross, yes. But a nice kind of gross.

DMZ # 33
Written by Brian Wood
Art by Riccardo Burchielli & Jeromy Cox

Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

Does Brian Wood know how obnoxious his main character has become? At this point, reading about how Matty Roth feels towards those ugly news corporations, man they don't understand shit about real people, or his disdainful contempt towards his father, geez Mr. Fatcat why don't you make another dollar off the working man has become the worst part of an otherwise decent comic. It's not too often in this medium that one gets the chance to actively hope that a story will continue without the primary protagonist, but considering how much more interesting absolutely every other person is in this comic, including the comatose Paco Delgado, hopefully Wood will kill off Roth and focus on something else entirely. On a completely seperate note, Riccardo Burchielli's powerhouse opening and closing of this issue is the best art DMZ has seen underneath his hand. The abject brutality and the frenetic pace of the final moments make Wood's Trustwell goons come alive in a sense that this comic has never before achieved. Despite the push-for-the-trade nature of DMZ that usually leaves the individual issues suffering a sense of incompletion, Burchielli's work here is outstanding enough that it makes the individual moments worth keeping up with.

Ambush Bug: Year None # 1
Written by Keith Giffen & Robert Loren Fleming
Art by Keith Giffen & Guy Major

Published by DC Comics

There is some funny moments here, mostly in the comics willingness to go full force towards the inside joke, but overall it's just toothless satire that probably won't age well. If this was a comic that had been passed around the DC offices at their holiday party, it would probably be a lot better--at least then it wouldn't have the altogether weak attempt at reaching the notoriously humorless DC fanboy. While there's probably more than one person who's going to find the Stephanie Brown L'il Dickens Power Tool Playkit offensive, Ambush Bug Year None just ain't nasty enough. (And God help those who find the lame references to old 60's cover design clever--that shit is just embarrassing.) Still, it's a chance to see Giffen's art again, and that's a worthy enough enterprise. Too bad it's in the service of something this tame.

The New Avengers # 43
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Billy Tan, Danny Miki & Jason Keith

Published by Marvel Comics

Yet another backstory issue for one of the secret Skrulls, this time the one about Captain America. It's no exaggeration to say that this comic encapsulates what is clearly about four minutes of actual time in the little Marvel universe, nor is it an exaggeration to say that it is so completely inconsequential to the greater story that it neither needs to be numbered, titled, or, obviously, written. What had served as a fine enough idea in theory, that the Avengers titles would serve as little movie-of-the-week type capsules of information in hopes of drawing out and explicating on the characters of Secret Invasion has instead become full length explanations of moments best left described in two panels, a page at most. While Bendis gets name-checked every time people are searching out writers who produce a large amount of monthly comics, it's clear from this one that it isn't because what he's doing on some of them is particularly that hard.

The Brave and the Bold # 15
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Scott Kolins & Rob Schwager

Published by DC Comics

Okay, we said we'd buy this because Mark Waid is pretty fucking funny. That being said, this is a pretty dull comic, and it blows it's wad completely in the first few pages, where Nightwing lies to every major and minor super-hero in the world (except for Hawkman) and convinces them to jump to another dimension. After that, it's just silly whats-it-for stuff against somebody who's evil or something. There's an argument that keeps popping up that says Brave and the Bold deserves higher sales because--oh, because the world is supposed to be fair, or because people are dumb, or women in refrigerators or whatever--but this isn't any different than anything else, really. It's just one-shot fights that feature whatever sort of plot mechanics is required to get the two featured heroes together for 22 pages. But as long as Mark Waid shows up and tells somebody to shut the fuck up on the internet, we'll make sure we check it out.

Robin # 175
Written by Fabian Nicieza
Art by Joe Bennett, Jack Jadson & Guy Major

Published by DC Comics

After the reveal in Paul Dini's latest issue of Detective Comics that Batman stories would be crossing over with Grant Morrison's RIP storyline by putting a "RIP" logo on the cover and then proceeding to ignore the story completely, the latest issue of Robin at least deserves some credit for taking things as simply as possible. It's all about Fabain Nicieza filling in the surrounding moments of Robin's few appearances in the latest issue of RIP and describing whatever Morrison is doing in the most accurate terms possible: "I think Batman's gone crazy." While it doesn't make Robin that compelling to read, it's certainly a more interesting take then to read Dini as he attempts to compete. This issue acknowledges that it doesn't really have anything to add, that, even at it's best, it's only going to be the dull ponderings of a teenager, and by embracing the more-you-read-it, funnier-it-gets "Batman's gone CRAZY," it makes for an issue that's actually worth stealing off bittorent. Sorry, paying for.

Thunderbolts # 122
Written by Christos Gage
Art by Fernando Blanco & Frank Martin

Published by Marvel Comics

Christos Gage clearly has talent, and eventually he'll either find success with one of the titles that he's constantly showing up at, or he'll write some kind of name-making work for a non Big Two company. While Thunderbolts, the Marvel version of DC's Suicide Squad concept, probably isn't going to be that book, there's some decent enough stuff going on here. Unlike The Initiative and The New Warriors, two other titles currently being handled as if they had to fit the standard archetypal book despite them being books with a small enough readership that experimentation should be encouraged, Thunderbolts is just odd enough to seem innovative. Unlike the standard villain team-up books, wherein there's never a real sense of danger, Gage's portrayal of the characters, like Warren Ellis' take before him, is one that presents them as truly evil people who care for no one but themselves--well, that and their personal perverted attractions towards violence or twin sisters. None of that adds up to enough to make it a great comic, but it's certainly got a subdued sense of uniqueness to it, and Fernando Blanco's fractured panel work is a refreshing break from the "anything goes" design sense that permeates all of Marvel's non-Icon publications. Unlike every single other Secret Invasion cross-over before it, Gage's work succeeded in convincing us that maybe this was a book worth looking into.

Justice League of America # 23
Written by Dwayne McDuffie
Art by Ed Benes & Pete Pantazis

Published by DC Comics

A little over a year ago, fans were in agreement with implications dropped by writer Dwayne McDuffie implying that DC editorial was placing all kinds of stumbling blocks in the way of his JLA scripts, a probably-true statement that served to explain why the comic was so terrible to read, while helping fans to imagine that, if only those nasty corporate honchos would leave McDuffie alone, JLA could turn water into wine, end racism and save a baby gorilla from a lumberjack. It would seem that the editors have done just that in recent months--JLA has only been involved with Final Crisis once so far--and the current story is a ripped from back issues tale of a by-the-numbers beatdown at the hands of Amazo. Which goes to show you--Mcduffie didn't need Dan Didio's help to write repetitive super-hero cock-shocks based around tired centerpieces. He had that all on his own.

War Heroes # 1
Written by Mark Millar
Art by Tony Harris, Cliff Rathburn & JD Mettler

Published by Image Comics

Whether it's an attempt to legitimize himself or just an admittance of a lack of ideas, Mark Millar's latest comics output continues to be a bunch of comics that don't carry much impact beyond the sense of a winding down--oddly enough, considering that his star in the licensed-for-film is producing a decent stream of income. (Despite the disappointing response to Wanted, he seems to be the go-to interview subject for comics-as-film besides Zach Snyder.) Whereas you used to be able to rely on Millar to at least bring the bombast, especially during his weird Enemy of the State Wolverine story, or his super-hero cum extravaganza-tique The Ultimates, now, with Kick-Ass, Fantastic Four and War Heroes as his primary output, he's just doing more of the same, and making it really boring. There's nothing at all that's compelling to deal with here: whether you're looking at the unexpressive Tony Harris art or the collected characters all lacking any distinct personality, it's an out and out shit comic in service of a bad idea. The army takes super-pills? That's what you got? While it's easy enough to get oneself mired in disgust when the concept is presented that the only reason anyone would fight for their country is if the military would develop a method of genetic wish-fulfillment, it's a lot easier to just take the entire comic at face value and ignore reading into it too deeply: this, like the abysmal 1985 mini-series, is Mark Millar attempting to appeal to the lowest possible common denominator available. He's the babysitter that will put your children into a lifetime of therapy. Hire him at your discretion.

Avengers: The Initiative # 15
Written by Dan Slott & Christos Gage
Art by Harvey Tolibao & Jay David Ramos

Published by Marvel Comics

Another Secret Invasion cross-over focusing on the background of an undercover Skrull-this one so deep undercover that even the Skrulls themselves seem unaware of his existence, which does an excellent job of making one of Invasion's entire conceits (that the Skrulls have planned their invasion of Earth for years, and the plan is, to their mind, infallible) seem hopelessly flawed. Admittedly, the plan that they are running has to fail at some point (as Marvel Comics isn't all of a sudden going to publish stories in a world run by aliens,) but it seems unlikely that one of the strands of it's future failure would be revealed in the low-selling and lacking-in-popularity Avengers: The Initiative. Either way, it all comes to naught, as the issue ends by dumping all of the characters into the meat-grinder of the primary mini-series when it ends with them going to, wait for it, Manhattan. As just about everybody else has pointed out about this storyline, nothing in the Marvel universe happens unless it happens in Times Square. Oddly, this popular and high-selling comic has done an excellent job of making the old DC alien invasion comic, aptly titled Invasion!, that much more intelligent. At least in that one the aliens started by taking over the entire continent of Australia and seemed to have back-up ideas when everything didn't immediately go by the numbers.

New Warriors # 14
Written by Kevin Grevioux
Art by Koi Turnbull, Sal Regla & Beth Sotelo

Published by Marvel Comics

This can also be labeled "the comic that broke the Factual's willingness to keep up with Secret Invasion spin-offs in hopes that, since no one here had ever actually attempted to do that with a Marvel series, there was a vague, infinitesimal possibility that the House of Ideas could do it better than DC, and even if they didn't, it would serve to provide comics that could make for funny, mean-spirited reviews, which would at least be entertaining to write." We're not sure what exactly is wrong with New Warriors--be it the inconsequential sense that the entire plot carries--there's a team, they've been betrayed by their leader, some ex-friends of the leaders dead brother think he's a Skrull, now we must do battle, and the betrayed team members show up to back up the leader, none of these characters are familiar in the least. The art certainly isn't terrible--it's nothing special, but that's to be expected for a book featuring no big-name characters. The dialog fares a bit worse--but again, it's not like this is a comic that's any worse then a lot of these Marvel Secret Invasion spin-offs, this just suffers from being populated by characters who are unrecognizable to this reader. It's just a tired super-hero comic that's completely medoicre in every aspect of it's existence. Why a writer or artist feels the need to play things so abnormally safe when they're working with material that demands no editorial interference is an interesting enough question to think about--Mr. Grevioux could, conceivably do whatever he'd like to with Night Thrasher and crew, it's not like that would affect Marvel movie deals or the sales of Spider-Man comics--but it doesn't necessitate reading a comic that inspires the question.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Economist Vs. Idiot: In Which He Supports The Eating Of Dogs And The Killing Of Elephants

If you're keeping track, we fell asleep on the week to week coverage, and this is the first Econ V. Idiot in 14 days. While excuses are fun, so is brewing up bath-tub meth, and since we can't rock the latter via the internet, we're going to hold back on the former as well. Safe to say that you missed us, we missed you, and great shakes are a-popping.

The World Last Week

-The US is enjoying the focus that an election drags away, as there wasn't too much protesting from the O'Reilly circle regarding the sending of a senior envoy to join the international talks with Iran. Sure would boil the oats of a couple of Presidential candidates if this hot-button issue got resolved before they got a chance to take a swing, but I'll take their hurt feelings over a lack of progress twice on Tuesday, six million times the rest of the week.

-Russia and China may think that Robert Mugabe is sort of a douche in private--in the United Nations, they'd rather make sure that he has plenty of guns and ammo to kill as many innocent people as possible. Go figure!

-Remember how Ireland voted no on the Lisbon Treaty? Nicholas Sarkozy is pretty sure they meant to vote yes, so he's sending them back to the polls to try again. Democrazy style!

-Somebody should tell Susan Sarandon that Canada is now deporting American war deserters. Wasn't she moving there?

-Belgian brewing company InBev bought Anheuser-Busch. Somewhere, a single tear is rolling down Toby Keith's face.

-Someday, there will be positive news about General Motors, probably around the time when they are down to four employees, they don't sell cars, and I live on the moon.

Leaders

-Similar to the oil cover story from a few weeks ago, this issue is all about the continuing financial crisis. The leaders section opens with a succinct one-pager dealing with the current state of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mac, the government bailout to save them, and why it never should have happened in the first place. Oddly, the article doesn't present one of those pie-in-the-sky type "here's how to fix the future" that this publication often drops, instead it focuses on what happened, what's happening, and why that is the right call. A little more pizazz would have been nice, but the article is decently informative. The bail-out wasn't much of a surprise, but I guess that doesn't mean you shouldn't report something just because you accurately predicted it.

-Here's your once a month reminder from The Economist going out to the rest of the world that, while they would vote for Obama, they can't, because they are the rest of the world, and not American voters. They bring this up all the time. Boring!

-This issue also contains a full ten page section on the current state of al-Qaeda, wherein I discovered many things, all of them interesting, the least of which is that unless you use the word to start a sentence, one is not to capitalize the "a" in al-Qaeda. For those of you with any curiosity as to who those people are that wish for you to be dead, this is sort of like reading the back of their baseball card.

-The Economist does one of those "shucks, here's the real world, here's the right world" op-pieces where it points out that, while it's wonderful that the International Criminal Court has requested an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, since the guy is totally guilty of genoicide in Darfur, the reality of the situation (that it isn't like he's going to surrender, that the UN Security Council could shut it down, etc.) means that it might not be for the greater good to put him on trial. As the article points out, "the heart demands justice"--but reality may need it to wait.

-Piracy hurts a lot of industries--for the most part, industries I could care less if they are being hurt--but this is an interesting enough piece about companies that have found ways to deal with piracy that acknowledge both their inability to combat it and the ways in which accepting it can help them profit from it. Smarts!

-Early on, when this little Econ project was in the gestation period, I considered the idea of doing an "article of the week" type focus, but decided against it due to the idea that it would be more interesting to take a wider shotgun approach to the magazine, making it possible to include all the articles I don't understand. (Which is usually about half of the magazine.) That being said, if I were to focus solely on an article, it would probably be something like this "Briefing" on the contemporary Turkey--it's a really well-written piece that looks at a part of the world that is more on the cusp of massive change then just about anywhere else. From a political, social and historical perspective, this is one of the most important periods of development for Turks, and I can't recall ever reading a publication that covered the situation in such depth. From the point of view of someone whose knowledge of that portion of the world is pathetic, this is an excellent piece of coverage. (This, by the way, is called "over-selling.")

Letters

-I have love for you letter section, and that love is based on the fact that the motherfucking Prime Minister of the Czech Republic wrote in. Sure, he's, telling you that you need to get your facts straight, but hey: it's the Prime Minister of a pretty serious country. Love for you. Love for your letters section.

United States

-This article about the Hispanic vote in America is an interesting one, but it's also a somewhat obnoxious example of the constant pandering American candidates involve themselves with--it's not that Hispanic's shouldn't congregate en masse, it's more the overall scope of a campaign trail that so far has just leapfrogged from pressure group to pressure group. Despite all the claims of "for the people" type speechifying, all McCain and Obama are currently showing is how little any sort of majority opinion exists in the US--they're just going from one group to another, be it the National Council of La Raza, a powerful Israeli lobbying group, Family Farm collectives and anti-NAFTA unions.  Then they just produce a speech appealing to each group, tailor made and full of empty rhetoric.  It's election by piecemeal, like assembling a world take-over in RISK by collecting all the countries in Australia and South America while leaving the other guy trying to hold onto Asia early in the game.  (Never try to hold onto Asia early--the back door is going to be wide open the whole time you're struggling with Europe.)

-As some might have expected but failed to say loudly out of concerns that they might be stabbed by those so in love with "hope" and "change" that they failed to remember that political candidates in search of higher office have pretty much always been willing to say just about anything to get elected, Obama continues to have about four or seventy plans for Iraq, and only one of those is the one where America bails out with a quickness.  As The Economist points out, even though he might've earned a nomination and a pretty dogmatic support network with some pretty steep promises, nobody really knows what the fuck his plans are for getting out of Baghdad.

-Mike Bloomberg doesn't get a huge amount of love on a regular basis, but if he continues on his current course of going after poverty with knives out, there maybe some historical recognition a-coming.  (The after-you're-out-of-office kind.)  Along with NYC, Los Angeles, Miami and Cincinnati agree that it's high time to reassess the federal poverty measure (used to determine how many people are termed technically poor), which is the first step in figuring out how the hell you help the people who have jobs, work like psychopaths, and still live at the bottom of civilization.  Whether Congress follows Bloomberg's lead (he's come up with a new calculus and already used it to push ahead his own NYC-based initiatives to combat poverty), he's done something that few mayors can lay claim too: he didn't pass the buck and hope for an angel.  Impressive shit.

-The Economist is a regular treasure trove of for collectors of things that are dying on the vine of time--now, in addition to previous articles about the Yellow Pages and college yearbooks, the USA is losing it's last proper paddle-wheeled steamboat. As a previous article about Yellowstone pointed out, there may be a loud bit of complaining on the part of some Americans, the truth is that not enough people give a shit anymore. I'd be a liar to buck that trend--see you in hell, Delta Queen.

-Lexington's article about why McCain and Obama should figure out running-mates with some complimentary and contradictory skill-sets is pretty fantastic, sure, but here's the two quotes that are pure political cocaine, and should have been taught to me when I was in 4th grade, regarding the job of vice-president:

"The most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
-John Adams

"[The vice-presidency] isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss."
-John Nance Garner, FDR's first vice-presidency.

The Americas

-Her name is Rio, and when not dancing on the sand, her streets are covered over with blood, often spilled by teenagers with machine guns.  There's a new sheriff in town though, albeit a governor less likely to rock a hat and spurs, and he's going after Brazilian crime.  Not much of an impact on it yet, but as the article points out, having somebody at least try to deal with the violence is a vast improvement over the past governor--a football commentator turned televangelist turned governor. That's just too many goddamn jobs for one life.

-When the extremist of the extreme left likes to praise Hugo Chavez, they usually ignore the fact that, since he's come into power, Venezuela's homicide rate has tripled in 9 years, giving it the second highest murder rate in the world. (After El Salvador.) Let's ratchet that disgust to puke-level with these little factoids: two out of every 100 prisoners are killed a year, and those deaths don't count towards the tripling. Nor does anybody who is killed by the police while "resisting arrest." Still holding back?

39 suspects killed for every policeman. You know, I think I just figured out how socialism works. Thanks, college!

Asia

-Good god, I'd known that the Ganges river was a stew of excrement and pollution for years, I can't even remember the first time I'd read that, but I had no idea that people where still doing that daily Hindu ritual of drinking it.  That's so unsettling and ugh, just fucking gross.  I don't buy into Hinduism anymore than I buy into Zeus, but I certainly don't mind if it's what somebody believes--still, don't drink watered down feces and industrial waste.  Especially when you've got one thousand Indian children dying from diarrhea every single day.  We've got to get past this kind of ABC level stuff if we're going to get to moving sidewalks and robot maids.

-They actually went ahead and arrested Anwar Ibrahim on charges of sodomy!  It wasn't enough that they jailed the dude for 15 years for sodomy once before, only to have him released on an overturned conviction, it wasn't enough that they've got photographs showing his current accuser hanging out with the government officials most closely involved with benefiting from Ibrahim's incarceration, it doesn't even matter that the entire world has responded by saying "you know this is total bullshit, right?"--Malaysian courts just went right along with the whole farce!  Oh, and in case you were wondering, no, it's not an accusation of rape or anything.  It's just an accusation of old school homosexual act of love, and yes, you can go to jail for 15 years for that.  So it's a completely victimless crime that carries a horrible sentence, and he's not even guilty of it!  Bananas gone crazy!

-Sorry dudes and dudettes who have made it to the top of their sport and are traveling to Beijing for the Olympics--no dog for you.  (This little snippet made me realize that, since I'm pretty much an unrepentant meat-eater and a sort of "whatever goes" guy when it comes to local culture, I think I might have to try dog when I finally make it to China.  My apologies, weak stomachs and Moby fans.)

Middle East and Africa

-I've said most of what I need to say about Zimbabwe in the past few weeks, and I'm sure the Economist will deal more thoroughly with the current negotiations between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, so I'll keep it quick--this little piece deals mostly with the continuing saga of the Zimbabwean dollar: once more valuable than the American dollar in 1980, it is now somewhere exchanging at 75 billion to one American greenback.  That's a 2.2 million per cent rate of inflation a year.

-Hey, guess what's on its way back and has nothing to do with Johnny Depp?  Pirates.  As in, avast, come starboard, ye scurvy dogs.  It would be funny if it wasn't so incredibly dangerous, expensive, and occasionally resulting in death.  Good old Somalia--always willing to stretch the boundary of what one imagined the worst possible outcome could be.

Europe

-I think it's safe to say that one of the goals of this publication is to consistently point out what a shit-awful prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is, and how grateful every civilized country should be that they don't have to sit around watching him rewrite every possible law he can find that pertains to him going to jail for being an incorrigible thief, a greedy and obsessive liar, and an overall sleaze-monger.  I also think that, at this point, it might benefit me to search out another publications take on Italy--The Economist is pretty set in their ways on this one.  (And you should thank me profusely, as I was about sixty seconds away from posting a full nude pic of Berlusconi that some paparazzi snapped at a beach trip he took, until I finally just figured--hey, you've got Google image too.)

-An interesting little article about the conflict between France and French Muslims, pointing out that some woman are choosing the burqa upon their arrival to a country less respectful towards their religious practices then the ones they left behind.  The whole burqa thing is a bed of thorns to think about--while I find the behavior of certain Muslim sects towards women to be horribly backwards and sexist, it does seem to me that the best course of action is rarely one where non-Muslims and angry white people start telling immigrants how they should behave and what they should wear.  Whereas it's easy, and for me, totally agreeable, to outlaw incinerating wives and killing spouses for infidelity, I can't see the argument in deciding what women should be allowed to wear as one that should be determined by anyone other than the women directly involved.  (Which is another difficult thing, because how many are like Faiza M, who chose the headscarf because she was uncomfortable with leering Frenchmen, and how many are in fear of a domineering husband?)

-Polish dockworkers may have changed the world at one point, but now all they're doing is showcasing how a union can destroy, almost completely, the ability for an industry to profit during a shipbuilding boom.  Like the aforementioned paddle-wheel boat, it would be a better world if the power of the Polish labor movement was able to succeed at more than being nostalgic.  (Like turning a profit.)

-Charlemagne points out an upcoming test of people's environmental mettle: the majority of Europeans have said for years that they were willing to suffer through serious changes in lifestyle for the sake of cleaning up the planet and lowering pollution, and now the intensely popular (and only a decade old) cheap flights that connect European cities will serve to see if they meant it.  If they want to keep these flights, then they may (if the new greenhouse targets are approved) have to help cover expensive carbon taxes, and a cheap trip to Amsterdam will become an expensive one.  We'll see.  This is walk the talk time.

Britain

-There's another article about the economic woes of Britain that opens the section, read it if you're really antsy and need some naptime, it's a snooze, but the second piece, about the wave of strikes going on in Britain--now that's a wake-up.  While the wages of those on strike have been going up at a stronger rate then those who can't strike (because they work in non-unionized jobs), unions keep going back to the well, seeming to miss the point that they're rapidly losing any public sympathy at all.  While it's understandable when labor protests the lack of respect shown them during a boom, the non-stop decline of the British economy points to a fundamental disconnect with reality: if nobody else has gotten a raise since mid-2002, why should they give a shit about people who have continually been kowtowed to for the last six years?  Wake up, school support staff, Land Registry officials, teachers, immigration bureaucrats and coast guardians: ain't no happiness nowhere.

-Bagehot, as Jason pointed out, will have to remain man or woman, which is totally fine with me, as I was disappointed to find that he/she wrote a column that I didn't find that enjoyable.  It's about shitty cities in Britain, and it made me want to change these weekly round-ups to a different magazine. 2000AD or something. Maybe In Style.

International (Nothing smart-alecky, I think I'm still embarrassed about missing a week)

-Are Russia and China vetoing sanctions about Mugabe to cover their own ass in the future? This long article sort of says yes, maybe and then resolves itself in the delightfully complicated work of "I don't know, broheim."  I kid, but don't we all wish super-complex international negotiations could just result in the outcome we all want?  Like Mugabe in jail, or on fire?

-Guess what prevents the poaching of elephants?  Not a bunch of commercials with celebrities and pledge drives!  The legal sale of ivory, from legally killed elephants!  While I don't particularly believe in the killing of elephants personally, it does seem that killing elephants prevents rampant poaching of elephants, so if you want more elephants, you should support people killing elephants.  Ah, real world logistics: they're all about clashing with optimistic fantasy.

Business

-The two companies not suffering from any sort of credit crisis?  Boeing and Airbus, but mostly because they are slower than shit, and all the orders they've received over the past years have them producing planes past 2015.  Good for them, industry that I sort of hate more than most industries.

-Hey, where's the rest?  I can honestly tell you that I barely understood the Finance & Economics section this week, was bored to tears by the Science section, and figured that you wouldn't be mad at me, dear reader.  After all, if you've made it this far, even if you're just skimming, you've already realized that I love you, madly, deeply and purely.  Like a monkey kissing a dolphin on the edge of the galaxy.  That much.

Books and Arts

-Bottled water is one of the more farcical success stories--it's a consistently profitable and growing industry that will, like the internet, become one of those things that the children of today will grow to have no memory of a time when there wasn't anything particularly wrong with tap water beyond claims of fluoride additions. If you're interested in more about it, then Elizabeth Royte wrote a book about it.

-It's rare that the Economist convinces me to rush out and pick up a book they review--mostly because of the various "i'm too busy" excuses used to conceal how much time I dedicate to watching Joel McHale make fun of people that I hate--but I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for any of the four books mentioned in this article about the current Russian climate, which is cold with an 80% chance of murder.

-You just know that these book reviewers are the last people on Earth who are going to give an objective review of a book on the history of trade, especially when said history is as ridden with praise as William Bernstein's A Splendid Exchange. While they make a decent case for the book, there's still a certain level of exhaustion I've begun to experience getting the daily dose of The Economists "Trade Fixes Everything" mentality. It's one of the few subjects in the magazine that they don't seem to consider debatable.

Obituary: John Templeton

-John Templeton certainly sounds like an interesting individual--a guy who first hit the map buying everything he could in 1939, eventually proving that, for him at least, buying when everybody else sold, and selling when everybody else bought, could make you rich. The oddness of devoting a decent portion of that to individual achievements in "life's spiritual dimension" only makes him that much more of a "is there a good biography on this dude" kind of...dude? He's the multi-millionaire (billionaire?) opposite of that Randi guy who pays to prove frauds--Templeton liked to spend money finding proof for God's performance in real-world issues. (Is water fine-tuned to promote life? Templeton's millions will help scientists find out! Weird!) I sometimes wonder if it's a mite ghoulish and in poor taste to write somewhat sarcastically about people who just died--but this guy was power-walking three weeks ago, and died at 95 after what sounds to be a pretty satisfactory life. The world can take it.

-Next week in The Economist--I get back on schedule, the publication confuses me, and readership of this never-say-die feature continues to drop like a stone. 

Music of the Weak: Kanye West, We Need You Now More Than Ever

Farnsworth Bentley (Feat. Andre 3000, Kanye West & Sa-Ra) – “Everybody”

Young Jeezy (Feat. Kanye West) – "Put On"

I want to preface this week’s column by assuring you in advance that I don’t have any grand, over-arching point or punchline here.  I simply want to look at these two videos, both of which feature Kanye West collecting a big ol’ paycheck for not a whole lot of work.  There’s nothing incredibly remarkable about a famous guy making some phoned-in appearances (“phoned-in,” potentially being literal in the case of “Everybody.”)  Hell, it’s possible that Kanye’s just generously trying to help these guys out, or maybe he just wanted the chance to chill with Andre 3000 and Young Jeezy.  I would buy that plane ticket.  Still, there’s something interesting here.  I have no idea what it is, but, then again, it’s my music column. 

Farnsworth Bentley is best known as the P. Diddy’s butler circa Making the Band 2 or that guy dancing funny with Big Boi in the video for “The Way You Move  In other words, he’s spent a lot of years building a rolodex, and he’s not afraid to make those phone calls.  Given what we know about him, it also comes as no surprise that the first video from his long-delayed debut album is an anonymous bit of hip-hop R&B, reliant on marquee names for even the tiniest sense of being compelling. 

It is cute, though.  Bentley, Kanye, Andre 3000 and Sa-Ra (a lukewarm songwriting duo that showed up a lot in some magazines’ front-of-book “Artists to Watch” sections a couple years ago) play members of a group called C.O.L.O.U.R.S. (Cool Outrageous Lovers of Uniquely Raw Style.)  Andre loves this playing-a-band gag, so much that he’s willing to wear an eyepatch on his forehead to convince us that this is nothing like the “Hey Ya!” video.  While the band gets pumped backstage—pumped, meaning sitting in a circle with their backs to the camera, presumably bored out of their minds—Andre mentions that the group could tour to Africa.  Kanye responds, “I ain’t tryin’ to leave my old lady.”  Notice how he stutters.  Andre says, “There’s a lot of your old ladies all around the country.”  Good one.  These are no particularly subtle clues here, people.  Seriously, Paul is dead. 

The rest of the video is… well, less clever than “Hey Ya!”  I really want to give props to the three main guys’ choreography, because it’s genuinely pleasurable to see Kanye, Andre and Farnsworth dancing together, but they probably spent about five minutes putting it together.  Which is more time than Kanye spent recording the song.  His part is this:  “Don’t stop, baby.  Don’t stop, man.”  At least, as far as I can tell.  The first time I watched the video, I thought I’d missed his appearance altogether.  Then I realized that he had, essentially, been woven into the rhythm of the song.  On the other hand, it is worth noting that Andre 3000 gives a typically off-the-meat-rack performance.  But, remember, it’s Kayne we’re interested in.  What makes a notorious egomaniac take a spot in his buddy’s song that essentially reduces him to the role of a sample? 

As far as “Put On” goes, let me start by saying this:  I fucking love Young Jeezy.  Seriously, I want to pinch his little puffy cheeks.  It’s a genuine thrill to drop Kanye into a Jeezy track, for the same reason that it was compelling to watch that chick on Top Chef try to combine tomatoes with peanut butter—because if she could have pulled it off, we would be living in a whole new world. 

The video starts out as an unglamorous vision of the inner city, with a news station sound bite stating, “Every city across America is feeling the effects of the recession.”  Jeezy’s upcoming album is called… wait for it… The Recession.  I swear I fucking love this guy so much.  The camera rolls through the streets and things are looking bleak.  When Jeezy’s on the screen, things look a little less bleak.  His rawness gives the struggle an anchor.  Or something.  But, again, we’re interested in Kanye.

Kanye's appearance on record, this time, is pretty compelling.  "I got the Jesus on a chain," he raps, "But it don't mean shit."  He uses an auto-tuner, reinforcing these videos' inference that he's trying to position himself as T-Pain, but overall?  No complaints.  But he puts in an appearance in the video as slapdash as his recorded appearance on "Everybody"--just him, alone, in front of an American flag, playing with a bandana on his face like it's some sort of a brilliant metaphor.  Notice how Kanye doesn't appear anywhere near the hood, except on television.  None of this is a big deal, but if Kanye's really trying to be an egomaniac, he's doing it all wrong.  You have to get in there, take up ¾ of the song, do the best dance.  You can't be doing videos for butlers.  You have to save the children.

-Martin Brown, 2008.

The Virgin Read: It's Late. But She's Not, Thank God.

Ghost Rider # 25
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Tan Eng Huat
Published by Marvel Comics

Okay, so Ghost Rider. Why did I choose it? Well, it was just time for a super-hero comic book. I mean, it isn't really a super-hero comic because he's not necessarily a hero – although some may find him a badass.

But, as a character, he really doesn't make any sense. (Okay, sure, neither does, say, Wonder Woman or The Incredible Hulk.) But, today's comic book writers and screenplay writers really seem to be doing their best with these super hero comics to try and make the situations plausible – presenting the why's and how's of these characters and how that translates into modern life. (I think?)

It's like Batman – if you just saw the most recent movie (and you must have since the entire population of earth saw it opening weekend), I feel like they've done some really clever things with our Dark Knight to make the story plausible. One only has to suspend the smallest bit of belief. For instance, Batman's ability to fly. You never see him run and take off like a jet plane. No. You see him drop from extreme heights and sort of hang glide or coast using his winged cape. And, it totally works. Not only does it work, my stomach would drop during those shots – in a completely thrilling way.

On the other side, here's Ghost Rider--who I first saw in a video game. And I was like, "what…how…what's the story with that guy? A flaming skull?" And the gamer told me a bit about Ghost Rider. This was all pre-Virgin Read, by about 2 years. So, my take-this-literal mind just couldn't grasp how one gets around with a flaming skull. How do you eat? How do you sleep?

Well, of course, it doesn't flame all the time. I finally saw the movie. It flames when he's really, really mad. And yet, how? How is it that your head was on fire for hours, and then you're totally back to normal afterwards? I mean, the Hulk busts through all his clothes, and has a crazy mean headache when he returns to normal. Sort of like the worst hangover in the world. But Ghost Rider…? Nah. He's just pissed he's the Ghost Rider. I mean, I would be too. But here's where I get into this issue now.

I read the intro at the beginning: "Johnny Blaze is cursed, doomed to live life as the Ghost Rider. A brutal spirit that exists only to mete out vengeance against evildoers. After years spent being a pawn of hell, Blaze has recently learned that the Ghost Rider is actually a weapon of Heaven, bonded to him by the renegade Angel Zadkiel…."

Oh! That's good! That's good, right? I mean, here, for so long, he thought he was cursed and couldn't stand it…but turns out he's on the side of Heaven! I mean, that's got to make him feel better about things…right? Oh wait….

"At long last, Blaze knows exactly who's responsible for ruining his Life. But the only question is, how does he get revenge on an angel?"

Ah, man, Ghost Rider. Isn't time for a little Acceptance? I mean, it's been years. You're the "Ghost Rider." There's nothing you can do to change it. How about a little Serenity? Accept things as they are….the good news is that you are not a Pawn of Hell, right? All that guilt you've always felt post-Rider – its okay now…right?

No. No. Ghost Rider is going to stay all Ghost Rider-y and "mete out vengeance against" this Angel.

Now, I see where my assumptions are wrong here. Because they do not say that he's on the side of Heaven. No. No. It's a "renegade" Angel. And all this Angel's followers have the goal of aiding Zadkiel "in seizing the throne of Heaven for himself."

Yo, I'm not religious or anything. But isn't this, like, crazy blasphemous? Or at the very least, totally offensive toward Angel-type-people and all that heaven-y stuff? If I have my stories straight – there was only one renegade Angel, ever. Lucifer. Right? I mean, this comic book, if nothing else, has gigantic balls. Ballz! Ballz on Fire!

And in all this writing, I have only spoken of the premise. Because, I mean, with that premise….Ghost Rider attempting to find this Zadkiel and his followers and seek revenge against well, these other vengeful people…its just a slaughter-fest.

I think the most hysterical and pun-ny thing in the book is that he defeats "The Deacon" using the Bible as his weapon and his defense. How metaphorical. And ironic at the same time.

Oy. So, did I enjoy this testosterone filled romp? No, I did not. I mean, I'm too girly for this. Seriously. I just marathoned Legally Blonde The Musical: The Search for the New Elle Woods. Ghost Rider is not my cup o' tea. Ya'll go enjoy Ghost Rider all you want. I'm gonna sit this entire series out.

-Nina Stone, 2008

Comics Of The Weak: Ain't None Of These Gonna Have A 68 Million Dollar Friday

War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle # 5
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Howard Chaykin & Brian Reber
Published by Marvel MAX

The Factual has certain projects waiting in the wings that makes it extraordinarily difficult to look at War Is Hell in any sort of fashion that's worth publishing. Basically, this recent story (of which this is the final issue) is another quality addition to the library of Garth Ennis' air combat stories, and Howard Chaykin did a fine job of illustrating it. Otherwise, Ennis fans should just keep an eye on this site for the next few weeks. You'll understand when you see it.

Captain America # 40
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Steve Epting & Frank D'Armata
Published by Marvel Comics

Ed Brubaker's biggest problem, the one that seems to touch all of his comics at some point, is that he turns in issues that are so consistent in tone and delivery that it makes each issue a little less compelling than the one prior to it--if anything, his individual chapters have a sense of suffering from lacking the ambition that's so palpable at the beginning stories. That's not too huge of a complaint--after all, Captain America is one of the few series that works in the 25 issue format, making that overpriced and heavy hardcover Marvel published worth reading--but it makes reading each individual issue somewhat dull. In other words--we probably should just wait for the trade on these stories.

Foolkiller: White Angels # 1
Written by Gregg Hurwitz
Art by Paul Azaceta & Nick Filardi
Published by Marvel MAX

The first Foolkiller mini-series wasn't what spurred the Factual's editorial board to take a look at this latest version--despite an old lady and the dead schoolchildren her malfunctioning brakepads cause, Gregg Hurwitz was just taking Punisher Max and replacing the gritty plot with Sin City swipes and a droll form of black comedy that was a little too showy. (We imagine that the biggest fans of this are the same kind of people who claim their favorite prose writer is Chuck Palahniuk.) But the prospect of more art from Paul Azaceta is the sort of opportunity that doesn't come up often enough, and despite White Angels being a story that's been done a billion times over (look, racist white people, killing black people! Don't worry, liberal white guy with muscles and guns is a-coming!), Azaceta doesn't disappoint. He's a guy who can make a terrified man whose entire cheek has been ripped wide open seem like the gnarliest thing you've ever seen in a mainstream comic. Who Foolkiller is for, we don't know, but if it keeps looking like this, we're on board.

Hellblazer # 246
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Sean Murphy & Lee Loughridge
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

There's probably some people out there that would prefer their Hellblazer stories to embrace continuity and reference all the random twisted shit that's happened in the last 245 issues of the comic--not us, but probably somebody, right? While we didn't have as much trouble with the comprehension of the story as some people might have--it's a love letter to Jamie Delano by way of Jason Aaron, and it includes a snide take on the Adverts, one of the most overrated bands few people have heard of, what's not to get? All that's working against this aside, it would've made for a relatively nice breather if it had come between one of Denise Mina's arcs, or maybe as a break during the Paul Jenkins years--but here it just served as a break in the pace that Andy Diggle had going. It's too short, and too little happens beyond the regular "creepy shit" that happens whenever idiots try to pry into Constantine's life. We didn't hate it, not at all--but it wasn't really what we were clamoring for either.

Dreamwar # 4
Written by Keith Giffen
Art by Lee Garbett, Trevor Scott, Gabe Eltreb & Randy Mayor
Published by Wildstorm/DC Comics

The best thing about Dreamwar # 4 is when it's revealed that the reason all the wacked out shit that's occurred in the previous issues--like the JSA killing old people and Batman getting his head chopped off--is because a fat loser is offended by the way the heroes in the Wildstorm universe don't behave the way he thinks heroes should behave. The rest of the comic reads like an episode of that Justice League TV show, but that part--the part where Keith Giffen takes a common message board criticism so far that he uses it as plot and makes every super-hero in attendance into terrible role models, pathetic fools the lot--that part is why Dreamwar is such a ridiculously guilty pleasure. It's not a spectacular comic, but it's mean-spirited, and considering that super-hero comics are either A) Way too serious or B) Moronic, mean-spirited is a refreshing tonic. (It's also pretty genius that the fan is overweight. Because, hey, why not? If you're going to tell someone to fuck off, why not add on a little "AND DIE" while you're at it?)

Final Crisis: Rogue's Revenge # 1
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Scott Kolins & Dave McCaig
Published by DC Comics

Here's a history lesson, courtesy of a group of people who could care a whole hell of a lot less: Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins like to team up whenever possible and write story after story about "The Rogues" which is the oh-so-cute name for the random low-rent villains that are always causing problems for the Flash, any Flash, all Flash-es, etc, you get the point. Usually, these sorts of stories are contained within the pages of whatever version of the Flash comic book DC's currently publishing, either the "here's Wally and his ever-changing personality" or the "oh-shit-we-thought-this-Bart-guy-was-more-popular-than-this" or the "look at this dudes kids they do shit." But then sometimes they slap Final Crisis on the cover so that Johns and Kolins can go back to the well to re-use the same old schtick and wrap up a bad storyline that people would probably just as soon forget. (The Bart guy getting stomped in the rain storyline.) That kind of repititive "the same, not even changed, literally, the-exact-thing again" can work when you're drawing whatever blood is left out of something that was a massive, eat your bananas (you need potassium) kind of seller--but when it's just the best-selling Flash shit (Rogues) mixed with the worst (rain dancing on dude's face), it amounts to--well, exactly what this little paragraph implies. Something you might have read before, and something you never want to read again.

The Incredible Hercules # 119
Written by Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente
Art by Rafa Sandoval, Roger Bonet & Martegod Cracia
Published by Marvel Comics

If there isn't an award for "Best On-Panel Decapitation Of A Puppy By Way Of Teeth," there really should be one, because this sets the bar so high that it's unfathomable who could top it. Maybe if Alan Moore teamed up with John Byrne, and it was Oracle doing the chomp chomp. There's probably some kind of backlash courtesy of people who should get over themselves towards comic books that depict this kind of hilarity--but here's a little nugget of fact: if every comic book on the stands included a puppy getting his head ripped off, at least half of those comic books would be vastly improved. Especially Optic Fucking Nerve.

X-Factor # 33
Written by Peter David
Art by Larry Stroman, Jon Sibal & Jeromy Cox
Published by Marvel Comics

Larry Stroman returns to the title that he sort of put on the map by providing a classic example of a balls-to-the-wall ugly super-hero comic book from a major publisher back when you still had to masturbate to that movie where Sharon Stone hired Sly Stallone to kill James Woods, and he's decided that, instead of holding on to what made him interesting (which was being really weird), he'd try to draw more like whatever asshat shit it is that X-Factor normally looks like when Ryan Sook realizes he's got better things to do with his time, like take a dump in a Bell Jar and sell it at a farmer's market. At least Peter David hasn't changed. He's a regular factory of X-Factor stories that are about as memorable as an episode of C.S.I. New York.

The Mighty Avengers # 16
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Khoi Pham, Danny Miki & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics

While there's an argument to be made that what Bendis is doing with Secret Invasion spin-offs gives a certain group of people exactly what they want by telling the backstory of the Skrull infiltration by filling in the specific gaps on story arcs from the past few years, it's the writing equivalent of watching somebody work out ideas for comic books in their dorm room/favorite Irish pub/whatever it is they tell their family should be called an "office" NO LAUGHING/nice word for "sweatshop." Mighty Avengers isn't a comic book. It's Brian's homework. Nobody gives a shit about homework. Nobody wants to watch Scottie Pippen do wind sprints in his backyard. That's why they don't sell tickets to people's backyard. But yeah, if you're the type of fan who likes to assemble everything you read into a scrapbook, here's some of the stuff you'll need to explain darkened silhouettes in comic books that came out three years ago.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Last week at Comixology we referenced Caddyshack and talked about super-hero comics, so if you want more, then go there.  If you want less--well hey, too fucking late for that.

Cameo Appearance: What "Omega The Unknown" Is Actually About

Mory Buckman blogs over at I Am Not, but he originally came to the attention of the Factual's Editors when he showed up and took us to school regarding Jonathan Lethem & Karl Rusnak's Omega The Unknown. We contacted him to see if he'd be interested in expanding on what he had to say in the comments section and he was gracious enough to send this over.

Omega The Unknown
By Jonathan Lethem & Karl Rusnak
Art by Farel Dalrymple, Paul Hornschemeier & Gary Panter
Published by Marvel Comics

(For an alternate, metafictional interpretation of the story, see Jog's review at Savage Critics.)

Imagine you're walking through a street, when you see a guy in brightly-colored pajamas shooting laser beams out of his hands. Chances are, your first thought will be "What the hell am I looking at?". Once you get past that initial shock, your reaction will depend on how you tend to deal with the unknown. You might admire the guy, and want to learn all you can about him. Or you might pity him, and take him aside for some fashion tips. Or you might just start throwing rocks. You're probably not going to understand him, though.

Imagine you run into a person with Asperger's Syndrome. He is fascinated and proficient with specific fields, but not interested in other people. He takes things more literally than they are intended. He doesn't like being touched or making eye contact with people. His perspective is impressively analytical but oddly detached. Once you realize he's for real, how do you deal with such a person? You might be intrigued, and want to help him succeed in life. You might pity him, and explain what he's doing wrong. Or you might not be so charitable. But in any event, you're not going to relate to him.

Not coincidentally, the miniseries Omega the Unknown tends to evoke roughly the same reactions in unsuspecting readers. Open it up, and you'll find: characters and plot points which don't quite seem to fit together, a disembodied hand running around, narration which takes some effort to follow, objects which attach themselves to people and turn them into mindless drones, a sentient statue, and a distinctive style of sketchy artwork. The first thought is bound to be "What the hell am I reading?". And then it can go anywhere from admiration to loathing. But in any of these reactions, the reader is still a bit lost. Like the superhero or the autist, this story isn't trying very hard to be understood.

The main character is Titus Alexander Island, a fourteen-year-old boy who doesn't relate to people. He is analytical but naïve, and doesn't understand basic social rules. He is surrounded by many characters, and while he doesn't often express an interest in them they all seem to have something to say about him. He has admirers and enemies and helpers and everything in between, all for no more reason than that he exists. But there is only one person nearby who might possibly be like him. And that's the other main character. He is an equally strange, but more experienced man who has long since made up his mind about the world: He'd rather not be part of it. He never talks to anyone, and we don't really know what's going through his head. But it's clear there is some sort of connection between him and Alexander.

In the real world, that connection would be called Asperger's Syndrome. But this is a superhero story, and so we are given science-fiction explanations for the two characters. Why are they out of touch with reality? Why, it's because Alex was raised by robots and the hermit is a mute from another planet! And their destinies are tied together through the superhero order of "Omega". When you stop and think about it, this is not just random surrealism. Omega the Unknown is a metaphor, using the bizarre "anything goes" nature of superhero comics to tell a story which is -from start to finish- all about Asperger's Syndrome.

Everyone has to wake up and deal with reality, so the story starts with both characters literally crashing into our world from their respective bubbles. And the rest of the story is about how the world deals with them, and how they deal with the world. And Titus Alexander Island needs to deal withhimself - starting out scared of his destiny, then trying to ignore it, and finally embracing it.

As in any superhero story, the world needs saving. But here the menace is not a cackling super-villain but the more subtle threat of homogeneity. Against these accidental paragons of individuality stands an army of normal people who've been sapped of their free will by nanotechnology. They get infected by all sorts of trendy adherences to pack mentality: jewelry, books about popular theories, fast food. Then they wander around, without any goal in life except eliminating those who are genuinely different. And just as Asperger people might bitterly challenge the general way of things, the superheroes fight the nanotechnology with a literal "grain of salt". (This comic does so love being literal about things.)

Hogging the spotlight more than the nanobots, but amounting to less, is popular superhero The Mink. He stages fights for the media, he makes messes while pretending to know what he's doing, he gets strength from artificial suits, he speaks in marketable catch-phrases. Everything Omega is, he is cynically pretending to be. But when he sees the real thing, he recognizes it instantly and gets scared. Right from the start, he's obsessed with Omega and Alex. He watches them, he studies them, he attacks them, he tries to control them, he prevents them from doing what needs doing. But he's never going to be like them, or be at all adequate next to them. The Mink isn't trying to accomplish anything, but his careless meddling could do real damage.

The narration itself is no less pretentious than the Mink. Not in the sense that what it says is wrong, because it's not; if you think about what's being said, it all makes perfect sense. But it is pretentious in that it adds absolutely no meaning to the story, while sounding as though it does. At first the second-person narration seems to just be an unusual style for an objective perspective, but a few chapters in the narrator is shown to be a character in his own right, called The Overthinker. He serves as the voice of rationalization, and is presented as an object of ridicule. I think he represents the tendency of Asperger people to spend time thinking about their situations as an alternative to actually doing anything.

Then there's the Nowhere Man, a little creature who gives an imaginary world to escape into. There is the politician, who might possibly have done some good for the heroes if he didn't only care about spreading his own ego around.

It is in this messed-up world, with all these destructive personalities and personified inclinations, that the Omegas find themselves. What drives the story is a question: Where the hell can they fit in? On the one hand, there's no one in the real world they can relate to, and it's a constant struggle just to be understood. On the other hand, the superhero group comes with so much baggage: having a name picked out by "experts", having to stand up as an example for their kind and as an inspiration for others like them, being mocked by the public even more than usual. Where in this crazy situation can the characters thrive? Are they ever going to effect real change on the people and society around them, or is that too much to ask for from two people? Will they ever be held up by the world as a shining example to be followed, or will the pretenders and mass herds always reign?

This is a bizarre story, to be sure. Even for superhero stories this is weird. Even by the standards of fantasy, you might think this is particularly detached from the real world.

Well, you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised.

-Mory Buckman, 2008