REVIEW: End of Month Reviews #56 - August 2008 [spoilers]
Saxon Brenton
saxonbrenton at hotmail.com
Mon Sep 15 20:15:44 PDT 2008
[REVIEW] End of Month Reviews #56 - August 2008 [spoilers]
Exarchs #13 [SG/LNH]
Jolt City #16-17, 17.5 [8Fold]
Post Modern #1 [AC]
Shadestalker #2 (2008 ver.) [AC]
Also posted:
Beige Midnight #1-2 [LNH]
Guardian Sentai Roboman #12-13 [PSP]
Running late. Having severe cranky attacks at myself for
running this late. Not gonna bother finishing off the half-
finished review of Beige Midnight, or even make more than a
cursory attempt at making sure grammar and spelling are correct
for what I have written. So there.
Spoilers below:
-----
Exarchs #13
'What Hiatus?'
A Superguy/Legion of Net.Heroes [SG/LNH] series
by Dave Van Domelen
Hurm. Once again Dvandom takes the fact that time has passed
in both real life and the Superguy setting, and made mention of
it/explained why it happened. In fact, in this case it's even
been turned into a full blown plot point rather than just an
explanation. As Hans explains to Agent Brubaker, time does not
run at the same rate between 000SUPERGUY and Sung the Stainless'
dimension of 000SUPERDRY except when the two worlds are directly
connected with a portal - and since there are technical reasons
for being unable to keep a long lasting portal up and running,
months have passed in Superguy while for the Exarchs scouting out
Sung's world only hours have passed. I'll admit that it's a
clever idea, and also that intellectually it's the type of
playing with continuity that appeals to my taste. Nevertheless,
I'm still mindful that the last time these sort of creative
handwaves became necessary (as opposed to being merely random
acts of weird inspiration) that they were warning signs that the
previous Exarchs series was in trouble because of overambitious
plotting leading to flagging creative interest. The author's
notes in #13 seem to indicate that this problem has been overcome
for the nonce - but I like _Exarchs_, so you'll excuse me if I
remain paranoid.
The plot, as such, is that Agent Brubaker gets the
aforementioned briefing from Hans about the time differential
between worlds. 'Meanwhile' the Exarchs get a bare minimum of
plot advancement as they swap information with the Duke Earl and
his tribesmen, the Suedes. Months later in 000SUPERGUY a squirrel
makes contact with Hans.
Jolt City # 16-17, 17.5
'The Sensational Character-Find of 2007, Part Five of Six: ... The
Fourth Estate!' ;
'The Sensational Character-Find of 2007 Part Six (Finale): Totem!' and
'The Costume'
An EightFold [8Fold] series
by Tom Russell
So, what can we say about this story arc? I know, how about
'crap continues to fall on Derek Mason from a great height'. Well,
at least until the end of the story arc, anyway. In issue 16 we
have the wake for Moses Mason, Erika takes Derek's advice and checks
herself into hospital, and Martin, Pam and Dani all arrange to move
into Derek's house as borders. But the A-plot is that some scheming
politicians dupe Derek into playing poster boy for a populist but
ultimately self-serving council motion. During all of this Derek
gets to play the unwilling younger counterpart to Martin's 'angry
black man'. He can see that Martin's situation isn't somewhere that
he wants to be, but he just can't seem to help himself. This allows
Tom to play with his stated liking for writing ambiguity into
character motivations, as Derek tries to manage under emotional
weights that have been with him for years in ways that keep him
from falling apart but which sure looks like anger to everybody else.
Now, to be fair it's not just Derek behaving in a prickly manner.
A large part of the time the entire supporting cast of this series
cannot help but snark and snarl at each other. Which, come to think
of it, leads neatly into the notion of... superhero soap opera.
(Or - if this were a humour title - superhero sit com.) Let's be
clear, from a practical viewpoint the idea of Martin, Pam and Dani
all renting at Derek's to help pay the housing bills is both well
intentioned and quite feasible - especially considering that
they're all in on the necessity of keeping secret identities.
However, from a dramatic viewpoint it also allows for all sorts
of storytelling possibilities as people get on each others nerves.
Which they do, even when motivated by the best of intentions.
Things continue in this manner throughout issue 17, with Martin
at a loss over how to short circuit Derek's growing alienation,
until he finally decides to take a different approach. Throughout
her hospitalisation Erika has been slipping into depression and
suicide attempts, and Martin intuits that her self-hatred is somehow
compounding Derek's. So he sets an example for rejecting cycles of
hatred by going and telling her that he forgives her. Perhaps
surprisingly this works, and Derek follows his example to cast
out the emotional pain that is troubling him. Now, don't get me
wrong, I liked this approach; but I'm trying to be realistic in
saying this is probably because I'm a sucker for happy endings and
that occurring as it does at the end of a lengthy character arc it
probably fulfils a visceral need in the reader for closure. I
suspect that in genres where the protagonist does not typically
get to save the day by implementing a Cunning Plan(tm) this
probably would not have worked, on account of being too simple a
tactic. In any case, this closure is rounded out in issue 17-and-a-
half with a vignette of the costume that Derek has chosen for
himself as the Blue Boxer.
Post Modern #1
'Rescue'
An Artifice Comics [AC] story
by Jason S. Kenney
A casual glance at the series title might cause it to be misread
as 'post mortem' - which would be thematically appropriate. Pacific
City has been destroyed by the forces of the Imperial Magistrate and
all that's left is to pick up the pieces. Longtime readers who
nevertheless only read the AC stories on rec.arts.comics.creative
will most likely be familiar with the lead-in to this setup from
the ginormous run of 'Bush43 Daily' material posted back in June
and July of 2006, where Bush43 - both in and out of costume - was
desperately trying to prepare against the Imperial Magistrate's
feared return.
The focus character here is Cassandra Trellis, sometime
girlfriend of Jeffery Carter/Bush43. The story opens with a brief
flashback to the main fight scene, then cuts to the memorial service
a year later, when Johann Weisz contacts Cassandra about helping him
track down people who may, in turn, know where Jeffery has vanished
to. This turns out to be at least somewhat deceit, as it is mainly
about tracking down and rescuing superhumans who have been captured
and held at a government facility. Diplomatic immunity and
government deals protect them from the consequences, but their
expulsion from Australia makes it look as though these leads now
run dry. Assuming this isn't a one-off story, then the 'post
mortem' investigations of where Mr Carter has gone will need to
take another tack.
Shadestalker #2
'Don't Panic' (Homes And Churches Part 2 of 3)
An Artifice Comics [AC] series
[by James Queally]
I am not completely sure what to make of the context surrounding
the posting of this story, so I'll lay my confusion out on the table.
I recalled a small handful of _Shadestalker_ stories being posted to
RACC several years ago (issues 3-5, and 8 according to google), and
while I enjoyed them, I didn't enjoy them so much as to follow up
on reading the full archive on the AC website. Partly this is a
matter of time, since I tend to focus most of my reading geekery
and emotional investment on the LNH imprint (and, okay, yes, stuff
written by Dave Van Domelen). Partly it's also a matter of personal
taste, since the noirish pulp sensibilities of the overall AC
imprint is not something I normally turn to for my escapist
entertainment. The result of this is that I am by no means familiar
with the full canon of the Shadestalker stories.
So, after reading this story I went back and checked how well
it fitted with the subsequent issues -- and discovered that there's
a difference between the arc names (compare 'Burning Bridges' for
the first three issues of the original postings with the 'Homes And
Churchs' of the 2008 version). However, this does not seem to be
a case of a second volume of the series. Comparing both versions
of issue 2 (the original versions are still on the AC website as
of this posting of the EoMR), they both involve Reggie's origin
story. So, superficially, this looks like it may be a revised/
editor's cut/possibly even reboot version, or somesuch. Heck, at
this point I'm only guessing that the author of the 2008 version
is still James Queally.
But enough of the minutiae, what of the story? Well, it's
pretty good, if somewhat melodramatic. Reggie Evans and his pal
Devon Lane have just had a robbery go wrong, and while Devon is
sanguine about killing someone, Reggies freaks. They run before
the police arrive, and while Devon goes on to do a second killing,
Reggie ends up in a church where he first manifests the eponymous
darkness powers. Along the way Reggie's parents (well, I presume
on the basis of their surnames they are his parents) argue with
similar melodramatic fervour, and some yakuza scheme.
----------
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
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