Dwayne McDuffie died suddenly this month, news that all but struck me between my eyes. Not yet 50, he helped diversify both the comics industry and its stories, an accomplishment which can't be understated, but which I wasn't aware of until his passing. Even without knowing that, however, what little of his work I'd read or seen meant a lot to me, for the simple fact that he was a great writer.
He was in the crew responsible for one of the greatest long-form narratives that I've had the benefit of witnessing -- the run of episodes of Justice League Unlimited concerning the Cadmus arc, on which he received the lion's share of writing credit and where he managed the ever elusive quality of epic scope that expands to fill universes with all the possibility so often merely promised by superhero stories, but now given flesh and tone and wit and humanistic affection for things that are fundamentally immortal and alien. Space opera at its best, simultaneously mature in its emotional and structural execution and child-like in its awe and wonder, the Cadmus arc, I expect, stands the test of time and shifting tastes; I've been meaning for some time to revisit it, and now when I do, the experience will have an added dimension of wistfulness.
I met him a few times, all during a weekend in 2007 at WonderCon, and he was always patient and gracious even in the face of my excessive fannishness. My favorite encounter was when I was bindiving at one booth that was holding a 50% sale of trade paperbacks, at which I was looking to pick up some Marvel Essentials. Dwayne was there, too, stocking up on a bunch of Essential Ant-Man, and while I was considering a seminal Fantastic Four volume, he pointed out that I was going to love it, though the following volume contained what was in his estimation the best FF stories ever. Maybe he offered this advice because I told him how much I loved JLU and how his story in a Fantastic Four Special had uncommonly great dialogue, and had him autograph the FF Special and a JLU boxset that I had with me.
(The other signature belongs to Bruce Timm.) Whatever the case, he was happy to take the time for my profuse thanks... and even still, I'm now wracked by the concern that I never told him just how much JLU meant to me.
I don't want to end on a note of loss, especially since there's so much of his work that I'd never heard of before and now feel obliged to track down, though I expect it won't feel like an obligation when I'm reading his stories. Instead, I'll end with a moment that demonstrated his lovely humor: he was on a panel about comics guys who were also in the animation industry, and an audience member asked them how they broke in, particularly what their academic backgrounds were. Down the line the first three guys said, "Writing." "Writing." "English." And when his turn came, Dwayne nailed the punchline: "Physics."
The guy was brilliant, funny, compassionate, and will be missed.
Actually, the fact that Aeon there was the acme of my time at SDCC speaks both to the con itself and my tastes, which together have conspired to make 2008 the last con I'm likely go to. Before making my annual hajj to Nerd Mecca, I told a few people that this would be my last Comic Con. To a person, they didn't believe me, but the hassles involved with the pilgrimmage now far outweigh the geeky euphoria that's becoming more and more remote to me. I mean, traffic was so bad inside and outside of the convention that even Spidey had to resort to public transportation.
On the surface, SDCC looks like it's becoming ultra-commercialized thanks to enormous Hollywood productions squeezing out the insular world of comics and reorienting the entire convention around pop culture in general. This summer, though, comics have reasserted themselves, infiltrating the upper echelons of Hollywood and commercial viability and reclaiming its cetnral role at the Con (e.g. lots of cosplayers inspired by the Joker of The Dark Knight). And fine, I don't mind commercialism so much, not when my enduring love for tv forces me to embrace the fruits of corporatism -- SDCC is probably the best opportunity for regular folks to be wooed so directly by actual tv producers, actors, and other sundry poobahs.
But as a result of its ever-rising profile and cachet as a pop cultural event, SDCC has at the same time been transformed into a perverse Disneyland; for popular panels that you want to attend, you have to line up an hour beforehand to make sure that you get in. Maybe I was naive, but I thought that True Blood (Alan Ball's upcoming HBO vampire series) wouldn't be hard to get into and tried to get in just before it started, but by then the meeting room was already at capacity and I couldn't get in. For especially landscape-changing pop phenomena like Heroes or Battlestar Galactica, you could hardly take any chances. I had no pretensions about getting into Heroes, but with BSG in its last season and me at my last SDCC and having missed 2007's BSG panel, I went to into its meeting room before 11am while The Simpsons panel was still in progress (BSG started at 2:30), and sat through a Dean Koontz panel (I listened to my mp3 player) and Joss Whedon's The Dollhouse panel (hey, my mancrush Tahmoh "Helo Agathon" Penikett is in it). (In the process, I had to abandon my place in line for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and any delusions of seeing WTF new recurring guest star Shirley Manson. Opportunity costs. :\)
At this point, I have to make an admission: I'm not even much of a BSG fan anymore; my interest in the show peaked in the middle of the second season, so it was hard for me to get into the "So Say We All" festivities, though my state of sleeplessness had a lot to do with how distant I felt from everything. See, I wasn't kidding about my Doctor Who marathon; I'd been slowly getting through the revived series when I actually looked at the SDCC lineup less than a week before the Con and saw that it was holding a Doctor Who panel, including outgoing showrunner Russell T. Davies. I was only through the first two seasons, though, and through a combination of dwindling credits and balky servers, I still had almost a full season (or about 10 episodes) left by the time I got settled into San Diego at 10pm Wednesday night. So I plowed through them until 6am Thursday morning, napped for 45 minutes, then went to the Con. As you'd expect, I've been paying for the sleep deprivation ever since, and I'm sure it wreaked havoc with my ability to enjoy anything.
However, even if I wasn't a zombie, in some cases, a panel might've proved to be a sore letdown. I heard that the Heroes panel, for instance, was no more than a glorified test screening for the season 3 premiere and that the audience didn't get to interact at all with the cast. Meanwhile, the BSG panel was moderated by Kevin Smith, who, while funny, bogarted the bulk of the time that could've, should've been given over to the audience in an open Q&A session.
All the same, my convention malaise was underpinned by my increasing apathy towards comics, which rendered the proposition of Comic-Con a little pointless. I used to love to get convention sketches from artists -- the most I've ever gotten at one con was, I think, 13 -- but this time I barely got five. Since my faculties weren't engaged in nerd ecstasy, I had time to think about what used to appeal to me about conventions, and I concluded that they rebalanced the relationship between creators and fans. In short, they give the audience a voice. Maybe (probably) I don't affect the official narrative of a tv show or a comic, but I was able to broadcast my own narratives (or better yet, zings) to my peers -- which is what I do on my blog, only with more stammering and sweating. But if I'm a nerd without anything over which to geek out, then I don't have any narratives to offer (or I do have a narrative -- a pithy suggestion about a possible crossover between BSG and SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER FOR YOU WHO AREN'T CAUGHT UP WITH BSG UP TO THE FINALE OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE LAST SEASON Cormac McCarthy's The Road -- but Kevin Smith made it his business to cockblock me). So as a nerd ronin, a geek without a master, or even a gathering of similarly sweaty dweebs with whom to commiserate over a fictional narrative, is it finally time for me to acquaint myself with the Whedonverse?
SDCC wasn't a total loss, of course; hottie cosplayers can go a long way.
And although he wasn't wearing that sexy Justin Timberlake hat, I was stoked to see Scott "Pete Hornberger" Adsit at SDCC.
I can confirm that he will appear in some capacity in the third season of 30 Rock. I bring you news that you can use.
As for Doctor Who, Russell T. Davies never did make it to the panel (he was locked away working on scripts for Torchwood), but I did find out that Stephen Moffat -- the new showrunner and the writer responsible for "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Blink" (aka the episode which he packs with not one but two mind-scrambling sci-fi conceits), and "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" -- speaks with the exact same inflections and rhythms as the Tenth Doctor.
I got to take a photo with one of my favorite writers from Justice League Unlimited, Dwayne McDuffie.
I also got my JLU DVD signed by both him and Bruce Timm.
Lots of Cobra this year.
And my sketches made up for the low quantity with pretty good quality.
Mike Mignola -- a vampire.
Dave McKean -- I asked if that was Satan or Pan, and he answered, "Yes."
Ryan Dunlavey -- Karl Marx.
Philip Bond -- Venus Dee Milo. I adore Bond's art, but when I asked him for a sketch, I couldn't think of anything, only that I really loved his work with Grant Morrison and Peter Milligan. "That's practically everything that I've done," he said. "Would it narrow things down," I replied, "if I suggested something you did for Vertigo?"
Steve Lieber -- Omar Little. I'd known Steve Lieber from his work with Greg Rucka, but he caused an Internet sensation with his Simpsons-style caricatures of characters from The Wire. We chatted about The Wire, too (Rucka hasn't watched it yet! But Ed Brubaker has), and he ranked his favorite seasons: 4, 3, 1, 2, 5. He also mentioned Generation Kill and how much he enjoyed Ray Person on his constant ephedra-high.
Last, but not least:
Indie rating: Paula Fraser & Tarnation - "Now It's Time"
First a desultory top 10 8 albums of the year, though with a nota bene: I don't think I've been this disinterested in putting together a year-end list in recent memory. That doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the year's releases; rather, my media priorities and critical attention have shifted unequivocally towards teevee, and I haven't felt the urge to keep up my indie cred as years past. This list makes no claims as to comprehensiveness:
* The Electrelane ménage -- krautrock and gorgeous melodies -- hooks up with sweet, heartbroken lyrics. Much rejoicing. (Come back, Electrelane! -ed.)
≈ An ambient record you have to listen to, spacious and intimate. The key is to disappear into the waves...
† Never heard anything so loud.
℘ Nothing wrong with Peej doing pretty, especially as a Civil War ghost.
∞ Baltharian reveries on the Cylon baseships.
1234 Geddit?
∪ Cheating, sure (i.e. Pink live!), but I finally get Merzbow now, he just needs to play behind a hardcore punk-metal trio shredding out the best post-Motörhead long-player ever. (Nb. the linked video isn't with Merzbow -- you'll just have to imagine the track with more industrial noise.)
∫ The most pummeling quiet record -- ever?
Enough of the music bollocks, here's the TV
If you're a regular reader, you probably have picked up my contrarian views which, I'll admit, are sometimes (oftentimes?) blatant provocations, playing the devil's advocate just for its own sake. And one of the unstated assumptions that underlies this blog (and explains the amount of energy I put into it) is that tv land always has quality, it's not the underachieving wasteland that various cultural sentinels would have you believe it is. Critics who complain about any given year's quality are these dour sentinels, or else they're deluged by the sheer volume of mediocrity that's unavoidable in any medium, and I have little time for their opinions.
That said, I compiled the 10 Best Hours of 2007 with difficulty, though to avoid historical revisionism, I had a hard time doing it last year, too. Part of the reason is that the new shows mostly disappointed (though I swear to God, Reaper delivered on its promise), while the old favorites either stumbled along during Fall 2007 (which piled additional detritus onto the sublimity of Spring 2007 that I had to mentally sort through) (also, the strike didn't help, but we'll probably never know just what could have been if things had been business as usual), or skipped this year altogether, whether by HBO's strategized scheduling practices (you guessed it, The Wire) or because their runs simply ended (Teen Titans, Justice League Unlimited).
And sometimes I'm just behind the curve. Just this year, I've caught up (and I'm still catching up) on no fewer than 5 shows of which I'm now an entrenched fan, and no doubt I'll still be discovering new shows. But for the moment, if I could propose an amended 10 hours from 2006, they'd look something like this (new entrants bolded):
10. Justice League Unlimited, "The Great Brain Robbery" (5x08) 9. Friday Night Lights, "Pilot" (1x01) 8. Survivor: Cook Islands, "People That You Like Want To See You Suffer" (13x10) 7. Heroes, "Fallout" (1x11) 6. Teen Titans, "Things Change" (5x13) 5. Lost, "Live Together, Die Alone" (2x23) 4. Veronica Mars, "Not Pictured" (2x22) 3. Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part 2" (2x11) 2. America's Next Top Model Cycle 6, "The Girl Who is Going to the Moon" (6x09) 1. The Wire, "Final Grades" (4x13)
Given that almost half of my top 10 of 2006 got turned over, anything I put together for 2007 is destined to be no less temporary. (And let's not forget that we're talking about tv here, that gloriously ephemeral and intangible medium -- at least it was before the DVD, which, like the edenic serpent, introduced to it the death of permanence and respectability, but that's another matter).
But the real reason a list of 10 was hard this year and probably will always be hard is that for all the tv I watch, I don't watch enough to compile awesome episodes from 10 different shows, which is sort of reflected in my year-end music list as well. I don't have enough time to watch that much tv, I don't have cable, I'm afraid of getting hooked on shameless trash (like, say, The OC), I don't believe in the concept of a canon -- whatever combination of these reasons is the case, I don't come close to comprehensiveness, and so if you ever read me saying "this year was a bad year in tv," feel free to launch a projectile of your choice (I suggest: a football) towards my groin.
Which is all to say that the following list is a project of simple vanity. Just because I include certain shows on an arbitrary list doesn't make them more legitimate or better than anything anyone else watches (even if I make claims to the contrary -- remember, I'm an admitted hypocrite). In addition to the vanity, a top 10 lets me reflect on some shows, to work through why I enjoyed them, with perhaps a dash of evangelism for the more ratings-challenged ones.
Finally, I should state that despite the anti-canon equivocations of the preceding paragraphs, the top five includes episodes that sent me into ecstasy -- whether of the unadulterated variety or the kind that involves endorphin-releasing schadenfreude -- enough so that 2007 was a great tv year, however you slice it.
(Nb. I realize that one of the entrants below is actually two hours, but for the sake of symmetry, shut up.)
10. So You Think You Can Dance, Week 1, Top 20 Dancers Perform (3x06; FOX, 6/13/07) The overall talent level, if not the choreography, was exponentially better than years past, and all the promise offered by the dancers was nearly as exciting as anything they actually did. Also, this was kinda hot, and a certain host put the "cat" into "lolcat."
9. Project Runway Canada, "Opposites Attract" (1x06; Slice, 11/12/07) Just as you'd expect, the Canuck version of Runway doesn't have the same bite as its southern cousin since, as we all know, Canadians are scientifically more polite than Yankees, which, when it comes to reality tv, is to sadly blander effect. (I can make this un-PC generalization because I watched an episode -- one whole episode! -- of Canada's Next Top Model.) For instance, Evan Biddell, the show's self-styled heavy, slimmed down from his pre-Runway weight of 300 pounds, then bit off the catchphrase of an infinitely more colorful American Runway contestant. Some heavy!
Yet, the most notable trump card that Runway Maple Leaf holds over Runway Crying Eagle is its host, Iman. While Runway Canada kicked off with as much empty space and personality as the Northwest Territories, Mrs. David Bowie single-handedly raised her version above any stereotypical and expected Canadian blandness. Iman owns the whole show in a way that Heidi -- bless her always-smiling Teutonic femmebotness -- never has. Iman informed the designers of their upcoming challenges and all eyes were of course on her. Her hosting style was uncompromising as she takes her sweet time with her line readings. Where Heidi bids farewell to eliminated contestants with the impersonal "auf Wiedersehen," Iman tells them what's up, "You just didn't measure up." But it was in the sixth episode of the season that she at last decided to utterly dominate the show, letting loose with charisma, humor, and an effortless strength of opinion that is captivating.
In fact, she almost single-handedly raised the show's game at the opening of the show when she reminded everyone that she can still bring the woah:
I haven't seen someone work the shadows like this since Sydney Bristow. It's safe to say that she'll always be an elegant lady.
She also combines my two favorite things: glasses, and white girls.
8. Bones, "Mummy in the Maze" (3x05; FOX, 10/30/07) Even if I never remember the procedural bits, Temperance Brennan makes science and empiricism sexy.
7. John From Cincinnati, "His Visit: Day Five" (1x06; HBO, 7/15/07) The most thrillingly weird moment on TV since the first season finale of Twin Peaks. Prepare yourselves.
Sure, this scene is pure spectacle that pointed to mythological depths at the time but instead opened up a can of worms that ultimately turned out bottomless -- but sometimes payoff is unnecessary. Some things just can't be expressed yet remain beautiful all the same. If you can let yourself be enticed by the unanswerable mystery, the unfettered unknowable, and unbounded possibility, then you'll have stumbled onto the allure of the ineffable. It's a vastness which, if I were the grandiloquent type, I'd call God. (Also if I were a blasphemer.)
Oh, and who can forget this sparkling performance? Camp (albeit unintentional) and weirdness -- John From Cincinnati really is the Twin Peaks for the '00s.
6. Reaper, "The Cop" (1x08; The CW, 11/13/07) Remember how I'm never wrong? Still the best new show of the season. Yes, a lot of Reaper's own viewers have cited the show's uneven tone or its meandering master narrative, but I could barely care less and I'm still not wrong. Look, if I acknowledge every one of my mistakes, that'd make for exceedingly dull reading. Like our own beloved president, never admit to error! So here's how I reason my way out of this quandary: for me, nearly any narrative deficiency can be compensated for by hilarious wit, especially the sophomoric variety, which Reaper has no problem with. As a for instance, peep this. (Start at about 8:30.)
5. Survivor: Fiji, "It's a Turtle!" (14x10; CBS, 4/19/07) In Fiji, the lines drawn in the sand split the would-be survivors into two principle camps: the players I adored -- Yau-Man and Earl -- and the players I hated -- Alex and Mookie, who liked to figuratively flex their muscles and kick sand in the face of slight professor Yau-Man. (There was a third camp, the people I couldn't care less about, but that describes exactly how much energy I want to spend on them.) Alex was a piece of work inside and outside the game, but I loathed Mookie, whose defining moment came two episodes earlier, during a projectiles-throwing challenge, when he ridiculed Yau-Man's unorthodox technique which, of course, had the weight of science behind it as he pwned Mookie (start at about 2:30 for the goods -- don't miss his shock and dismay that a skinny old dude could manage to outperform him). That instant crystallized the jockish presumption that typified Alex and Mookie, and when they thuggishly tried to strategize against Yau-Man and Earl and dubbed themselves (along with Dreamz and Edgardo) something as junior-high pimply as "the Four Horsemen" (of what? Delusionally Inflated Ego and Pathetic Macho Dick-Swinging?), their plans obviously and completely unraveled with the frothiest layer of schadenfreude ever on Survivor. The bad guys don't always get their comeuppance in reality tv -- much less reality qua reality -- but when it does, there's nothing sweeter.
Also, Boo's FLOZ hat is destined to be the enduring mystery of our times.
4. Friday Night Lights, "Mud Bowl" (1x20; NBC, 3/28/07) Season two has made me reconsider the fabled first season's naturalism, which is more accurately Naturalism since the situations so often were larger than life and their consequent outcomes concluded neatly by preternatural maturity (which season two tried to complicate by rolling back and/or conveniently forgetting a lot of character growth). But scratch the substance and you reach the show's real meat, its style. Don't let the vérité influences and flourishes fool you, because they're precisely the point, and did "Mud Bowl" ever bring the ruckus: Of course Dillon was going to win its regular season finale to go on to the State Championship, which would've been predictable and lifeless if the moment was anything less than heart-stopping and epic. A neutral site built days before the game. A torrential storm torn straight from YHWH's Old Testament wrath. Motherfucking Isis. Boys entering the crucible of flooded ash and the annihilation of all ego, and emerging men of character. And a television show transcending the shackles of substance and into the realm of pure aesthetics.
3. Heroes, ".07%" (1x19; NBC, 4/23/07) Wherein Nate loses out on Linderman's pot pie, and the show's nerd quotient goes through the roof. I never plotzed so much.
2. 30 Rock, "Greenzo"/"Somebody to Love" (2x05, 2x06; NBC, 11/8/07, 11/15/07) See what I did there? Together, not only were these two episodes the most riotous consecutive weeks in sitcom history (not even God, if She were a divine comedy Supercomputer with all eternity to write half-hour laff-fests, could come close to the hilarity), but they also add up to one hour! I'm smart, like Al Gore.
1. Veronica Mars, "The Bitch is Back" (3x20; The CW, 5/22/07) Loathe as I am to admit it, the fans were partly right, the third season was the least of the three. Yet for all the foul cries and spurned oaths, Veronica Mars was never a categorically bad show. Season three shifted its method; instead of one grand mystery, the season was split into three abbreviated mystery arcs (though in the end, that last arc got chopped even further into mostly standalone episodes so the CW could look for Pussycat Dolls), and as a result, the show's scope and focus consequently suffered. Not much, mind, but enough to throw fan nation into a frothy spaz.
Yet all that was erased when Veronica Mars and her father Keith became mired in a sex tape and election scandal in the Veronica Mars episode ever. Their fates were never so much in doubt, and the show was never so uncompromisingly urgent, its status quo never so ruthlessly overturned -- all of which would have still applied even if the season finale hadn't officially become the de facto series finale. Leaving the Marses -- heretofore the most self-sufficient and self-composed father-daughter duo ever to grace network tv, I'd gather -- dangling over this network show's most dangerous and uncompromising knife-edge (a show which, on a regular basis, dealt frankly with teen sex, teen drug use, and teen angst) to no resolution was as cruel of a kick in the teeth as the agony that Keith and Veronica suffered.
Just a warning: Next year, if you're still reading and I'm still blogging, expect to see an all-Wire top 10.
Justice League gets a new title sequence, plus a new focus on single-episode stories. The Justice League team gets an expanded roster. Green Latern gets the Ben Sisko makeover (shaved head, goatee).
"Initiation" Cute superheroics, the envelope is pushed a bit, animated DC D-listers, Black Canary is ogled. A fine relaunch. Grade: B+
"For the Man Who Has Everything" Batman, you gift-certificate giving varlet! I hate you! (Actually, he went with the time-honored gift of cash in a blank envelope.) (Suave bastard.) But seriously folx: Kal-El's line to his son -- "But I don't think you're real" (couresty of Alan Moore -- credit where credit's due) -- typifies the pathos of the episode. Only nitpick, from a narrative standpoint: Batman's encounter with the Black Mercy feels tacked on since it appeared so late in the episode, even though it worked Batman's primal scene to great effect (never met a "Waynes family coming out of a Zorro movie" scene where I wasn't goose-pimpled with pathos). And man! Superman's dialogue with Mongul seethed with fire. Grade: A-
"Hawk & Dove" It's Hawk & Dove. Grade: C+
"Fearful Symmetry (aka Galatea)" The Question! Singing a boy-band pop song! Grade: A-
"Kids' Stuff" Kid Lantern's imagination outrunning his power ring! HAHA. Baby Etrigan! CUTE. Wonder Girl's adolescent flirting with Batboy! TOO CUTE. Grade: A+
"This Little Piggy "Rich kid with issues!" The Singin' Dark Knight Detective! Plus, I have a serious soft spot for well-animated pigs. Grade: A
"The Return" Breathtaking set pieces, cutting one-liners, and the Green Lantern Corps flexing planetary muscle! Oh, and the return of *awk*irl! Grade: A-
"The Greatest Story Never Told" Strained humor focusing on B-Lister Booster, though cute scientist action helps. Grade: B
"Ultimatum" Lame Superfriends parody de-spiced with return of pansy Wonder Woman. Grade: C+
"Dark Heart" Warren Ellis, why you break my heart? His dialogue translates painfully, and all of the action is repetitive lasers and ugly metal-eating replicants. Grade: C+
"Wake the Dead" Shayera and Grundy! The JLU Old Yeller episode. Grade: B
"The Once and Future Thing" Parts 1 & 2 Time travel! Self-reflexivity! Alluding to the Batman/Wonder Woman shipping! CAN YOU HEAR ME PLOTZ? (Only way to top this episode would've been to include super-smart talking monkeys.) Grade: A-
"Twilight" Fourth World! Seeing an animated Darkseid blew my mind (N.B. I haven't seen Superman: The Animated Series). Grade: A-
"Tabula Rasa" I always like the idea of a group that has to fight against its own powers. I kept expecting Batman to save the day because he's the only JLer without powers, but instead, we get J'onn anticlimactically opening Amazo's mind to the empathy of humankind or somesuch sentimentality. No room for liberal ideals in a slobberknocker! Grade: B+
"Only a Dream" Batman vs. sleep deprivation appeals to me, but dream/nightmare episodes often get too bogged down in unnecessarily exploring bad, pop Freud psychology. Grade: B-
"Maid of Honor" Wonder Woman hangs out with Paris Hilton. Plays out as well as it sounds. Grade: C
"Hearts and Minds" Better space opera than Star Wars! Religious cults, romance (Katma Tui? Rrowr!), intergalactic wars, and Kilowog eating ice cream -- which is to say, EVERYTHING I COULD EVER WANT. Grade: A+
"A Better World" So the Flash is the key to democracy. Alterna-universe stories are inherently cool. Also, what's the difference between Alterna-Bats and real Batman? They're both fascists. Grade: A-
"Eclipsed" Ancient snake people whose spirits live in a crystal? Please. The Flash saves not only Earth but the episode arc when he fights the possessed JL. Grade: C+
"The Terror Beyond" Aquaman? UGH. Dr. Fate? YAY. I can't get into the fun of superheroes fighting each other for no apparent reason, then realizing that they're on the same side. But, Hawk "Bird Nose" Girl! Grade: B
"Secret Society" Yay gorillas! Batman pwning to put an early end to group training! A perfect 10, surely. Let me write the zero first... Oh noes! The story ends with the League squaring off against the Secret Society -- in a packed stadium. Yuck! Grade: B
"Hereafter" A story about the Death of an Icon™ that turns into a post-apocalyptic buddy movie? Admittedly weird, but classic if only for Vandal Savage, reader of self-help books ("I read whatever I can find; anyway, I've got issues, what with my destroying the Earth and all"). Bonus points for not showing the slobbernocker that saves Earth for once. Grade: B+
"Comfort and Joy" A Very Justicey Christmas with -- get this! -- GORILLAS. Cheerful and touching without being saccharine, and Ultra-Humanite is a big furry softy (albeit with high-blown tastes). Grade: A+
"Wild Cards" This story is Joker's last appearance? sadface.jpg Grade: C
"Starcrossed" Meat and potatoes actioner, with a twist, plus great Batmanisms (knowing the secret identy of everyone who had one, kicking Flash and J'onn out of the Watchtower so he could crash it). I love you, you noble death-driven rich kid with issues! Grade: B+
Indie rating: Thomas Fehlmann - "Making it Whistle"
Quick reviews (I'll try to limit them to incomplete sentences) and grades for Justice League story arcs, because right now I cannot get enough of CARTOONS. Usual spoiler whosits apply.
"Secret Origins" Series finding its feet, too many dead audio spots, generically faceless alien enemies, hooray for Batman. Grade: B
"In Blackest Night" Potential race allegory, punches pulled in the end. Grade: C+
"The Enemy Below" Aquaman = ugh. Aquaman chops off hand = better, because there's less of him now. Grade: D+
"Paradise Lost" Decent occult/adventure story mired by humorless Amazons. No sign of empathetic Lucifer, or of blank verse. Grade: B
"War World" Superman in meandering "reality tv is like gladiator games" aborted slobberknocker. Points for Hawkgirl and GL's married-couple bickering. Grade: B-
"The Brave and the Bold" Establishes trend: every Justice League episode that features a talking gorilla rocks. Grade: A
"Fury" Amazons don't know how to have fun, reeks of "vengeful feminist" phobia -- but first episode to air with Olivia d'Abo's delectable accent as sassy Star Sapphire. Grade: C+
"Legends" JSA analogue! And just a little bit hokey! Still can't believe they got away with the "You're a credit to your people" line. Grade: B+
"Injustice For All" Lex Luthor! Joker! Bounded Batman bides time! And, yes, talking gorillas! Wherein Ultra-Humanite is revealed to be a PBS devotee. Grade: A+
"A Knight of Shadows" A leftover Batman: TAS script? Mishmash of occult and King Arthur myths -- Batman's presence assures grade won't fall into C range. Grade: B-
"Metamorphosis" Is Metamorpho this boring and emo in the comic? Grade: D-
"The Savage Time" Wonder Woman funny when confronted with WWII-era chauvanism. Old-fashioned "Superheroes vs. the Axis" story mixed in with time-travel. For a season finale, not enough Batman (though fascist alterna-Bat (HOW CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE? HAR HAR) saying that nothing would make him happier than to no longer exist is Batman at his best) or talking gorillas. Grade: B
Indie rating: Barbara - "Septembre (Quel Joli Temps)"
