[Rev] End of Month Reviews - Mar 2004
Saxon Brenton
saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
Thu Apr 1 23:07:46 PST 2004
End of Month Reviews - Mar 2004
Reviewed this issue:
Anthology 2: Bush43/Mysteria: Old Man And The Seven (Lost
Legacies pt 3)[AC]
ASH #47 [ASH]
The Continuing Misadventures of Miss Translation #11 [LNH]
Crucible City MUX: Myrmidon Special #1 [Misc]
Ultimate Mercenary #4 [LNH]
Also posted:
Limp-Asparagus Lad #52 [LNH]
Hmm. A diverse selection this month.
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Anthology 2: Bush43/Mysteria: Old Man And The Seven (Lost Legacies pt 3)
An Artifice Comics [AC] anthology series
By Jason S. Kenney
Aged former villain Doctor Richmond makes an unwelcome visit to
bring Victoria a warning that a team calling itself The Seven plan to
attack Pacific City, causing thousands of deaths as they battle the New
Mages.
That's basically all the plot that's needed, since everything else
is driven by the antagonism of Victoria and Alfonse to Dr. Richmond and
of Dr Richmond to... well... pretty much superhero-dom in general. It's
not just that he used to be The Mind and that the reason he's delivering
his warning is to fulfil a reluctant debt of gratitude to Victoria's
father, Millennium Man, but also that he knows the dirty secrets of a few
superheroes and it seems to have soured his opinion about others as well.
In any case, simply trying to deliver that message becomes an extended
exercise in posturing as each side manoeuvres to maintain the high moral
ground (or at least indignation) over the other. Meanwhile the relative
newcomer, Jeffrey, is stuck in the middle trying to use his irreverent
banter to gain the same type of advantage over Dr Richmond, and having
his gambit turned back on him.
ASH #47
'Shattering Helas' part beta
An Academy of Superheroes [ASH] series
By Dave Van Domelen (Dvandom)
The international opposition to the power play of Q'Nos the Minotaur
continues. The expeditionary force of the Moslem Confederation, led by
the Righteous Flame parahumans, move in to the Shattered Lands of Greece
- and as has been foreshadowed by the concerns of a number of characters,
it turns out to be a lure by Q'Nos to attack along the exposed line of
advance. The European Union continues to posture publicly against the
Confederaion's action which they have privately supported. Senior
government members of the North American Combine consider their options,
and seem to be leaning towards covert action. And ASH members and support
staff plan Scorch's bachelor party.
The story continues to concern itself mainly with the battle in
Greece, the international politics of that battle, and the potential
of the situation to worsen and spread in one way or another. It also
continues to do so through vignettes focussing on individual viewpoints
or discussions between small groups, presumably in an attempt to keep
the story from becoming too big and abstract an epic for the reader to
follow. Now, granted the characters in these scenes tend to be privileged
to some extent in that they know more about the situation that an average
citizen of the EU, MC or NAC, but the overall level of information
presented wouldn't have been much different if it was told by an
omniscient narrator. The closest we get to the reaction of an average
person is the battle between Base of the Pillar and a cyclops - and
that's because the details of Base's Origin and powers make her focus
more on the immediate situation than because any lack of understanding on
her part.
By comparison to all the character pieces, the author' notes have a
biography of the members of the Righteous Flame. Given Dvandom's skills
at individualising his characters, the range of personalities is to
be expected. That said, I also strongly suspect that the relatively high
proportion of non-devout muslims in the Flame passing themselves as devout
for politico-religious reasons (1 in 3) is deliberately chosen irony. It
not only reflects the literal politics of remaining hidden in the hardline
anti-paranormal MC member states, but more generally of the themes of
opposing/hiding from state repression elsewhere in the world during the
rebuilding that was highlighted most particularly by the reporter Thom
O'Ryan.
The Continuing Misadventures of Miss Translation #11
'Movin' On'
A Legion of Net.Heroes [LNH] series
By Jamie Rosen
The heroes are thrown out of the Legion as a result of their having
lost their teammate, the Normalizer (who was shown during the Flame Wars 4
crossover to have had the ability to turn the Trolls back to human). They
are contacted by a mysterious benefactor, Lamar Dunston, who offers them
a new headquarters - albeit one in the abandoned warehouse district that
shares building space with the embassy of Ereh.WAN staffed by their old
antagonist Cabell. Once in residence they are welcomed with a gift basket
by some minions of Mr Everywhere.
The events of the issue are given over to the setup of a new team
headqarters. The tone of the issue is given over to the theme of
rejection. A lot of the character focus is on Sleeps-With-Anything-Alive
Girl, probably since it's a useful parallel between being a social reject
because she's a zombie and a net.hero reject because of the aforementioned
plot reasons. Actually, of all the characters, SWAAG seems to be the one
most likely to be given over to introspection and even angst. Blue Wave
is too upstanding, Starts-Arguments-For-No-Apparent-Reason Kid is too
self-absorbed and socially clueless, and part of the fun of Miss
Translation is that she's just a little bit cryptic and people are forced
to try to work out what's going on in her head. Given SWAAG's origin as a
sex-obsession themed throw away character it's almost natural to think
that she would be in the same basket as SAFNARK, but that doesn't seem to
be the direction that Jamie's taking here.
Crucible City MUX: Myrmidon Special #1
A Miscellaneous [Misc] one-shot
By Dave Van Domelen (Dvandom)
So, Dvandom produces another story that's a role playing game tie-in
for *yet another* universe - this time deriving from an online game based
on someone else's dice and paper game. In any case, the story has the
simple premise of 'go and tell your parents you're a superhero' which is
always a good source of interpersonal drama. In this case it has the added
twist that Myrmion's parents confess to having secrets of their own that
directly relate to the origin of his powers.
On a meta-level, the explanation that the RPG character's origin
was modified because there were far too many newcomers on the MUX at the
time with mystical origins reflects an old writing adage. To paraphrase:
there are no bad origins, just bad writers. Clearly, the potential problem
of having Myrmidon's origin changed for administrative reasons has been
used as a springboard for storytelling advantage.
Ultimate Mercenary #4
'The Genetically Engineered Vegetables of Wrath: The Concusion'
A Legion of Net.Heroes [LNH] miniseries
By Adrian McClure (Time Warrior)
Ultimate Mercenary leads the tribe into battle by sneaking them into
the LNHHQ that has been the headquarters of the genetically engineered
vegetables ever since they took the world over in this particular
timeline. Then the true nature of the timeline is revealed, just in time
for the headhunters to arrive and start killing everybody and bringing
the first story arc to a close.
There is a dichotomy to this series. I am thoroughly enjoying it,
but on an intellectual level I know that this is because I'm a LNH fanboy
geek and this series is pushing all of the right buttons for me. Its
appeal for me is basically the combination of energetic comedy, wry
metatextual observations, and the regular surprise inclusions of past
elements of LNH continuity that twist the plot in unexpected directions
(I really hadn't expected the machinations of the Producer...) I'm not
sure to what extent this may be a niche market. In my opinion the
inclusion of the third type of element have been quite creative and...
not unobtrusive, since they're obscure points of continuity and have to
be explained quite explicitly... more like incorporated in a way that
doesn't cause the flow of the story to be interrupted too much. In any
case, other people might not find that balance to their liking (and at
that point the occasional spelling and grammar error might begin to
become irksome as well).
But I found myself wearing a fond smile as I was skimming
through the summary, then was caught off-guard and laughed out loud at
the first line of actual story when Ultimate Mercenary observes that
the infodump summaries aren't working out. Things just got weirder from
there...
And, no Adrian, you don't have to worry about still writing a Flame
Wars 6 tie-in. Not only hasn't Jamie finished with Flame Wars 5 yet, but
*I* haven't even caught up *that* far...
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Saxon Brenton Uni of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.benton at uts.edu.au
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