[REVIEW] End of Month Reviews #34 - October 2006 [spoilers]

[Tom Russell]

Saxon Brenton wrote:
> Jolt City #3
> 'My Enemy Myself!'
> An Eightfold [8Fold] series
> by Tom Russell
>
>      Oh my goodness, that cover!  That cover... dripping with Silver Age
> angst!  I kept expecting art credits by Steve Ditko, in homage to stories
> where the protagonist would be walking down the street and have to pass
> by people bad mouthing his heroic identity.

Well, I think everyone knows what a big Ditko nut I am, and I was
certainly going for a Silver Age feel on the cover/symbolic splash.  I
think this one was a little closer to the type you'd see in an old DC
story, like a story for THE FLASH or SUPERMAN-- only in those stories,
there would actually be two people, the hero somehow split into ego and
alter.

<<snip>>

>      And then there's the angst.  Okay, yes, I agree that Green Knight
> may have allowed himself to be somewhat distracted by the euphoria of
> operating as a four-colour hero, and as a result seems not to have
> thought through all the steps needed to be taken for properly setting
> up a secret ID.  This, then, leads to the topic that there's a
> difference between introspection used for critical analysis, and just
> straight brooding.  The big question is always: how do you tell the
> difference?

Hmm.  I might have laid the angst on too heavy there.  I'm no big fan
of it myself, though I do enjoy introspection.  I guess it comes down
to-- if the introspection is interesting, than it's introspection.  If
it's not, it's just plain angst.  As to whether this particular story
was introspection or angst, I guess that's for the reader to decide.

Something Martin pointed out in his review was that he wonders why
Martin has a secret identity at all.  And that's something we'll be
angsti-- er, introspecting (?) about in the next issue, which will
arrive on a newsreader near you in December (skipping a month because
of the massive size of the JOURNEY INTO... ANNUAL.  It won't be quite
the 80-pg giant I intended, but it's still a big sucker).

And, on the topic of Marvel's CIVIL WAR, <plug> you might want to swing
by www.monitorduty.com and seek out my review. </plug>

==Tom