Review: Saga #23
Leave it to writer Brian K. Vaughn to break my heart several issues ago, then pull out a comic like Saga #23 and TOTALLY REDEEM HIMSELF!
Saga #23
I knew to trust Vaughn with his story. I knew he wouldn’t lead us too far astray, that everything was being done for a reason. I held out hope that he was going somewhere important with all of this, and finally, in Saga #23, we start to see what he’s got planned. And, as expected, it’s completely unexpected.
That’s the great thing about Saga: I have no idea what’s going to happen next, and I love it!
Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.
Mostly, I love it. I’m a sucker for always falling in love with characters and not wanting anything bad to happen to them, whereas Vaughn understands that bad things have to happen to characters; that’s what makes a story a story. It’s too his credit that he’s created such an amazing cast. I’ve just got to suck it up and keep trusting him to write one hell of an adventure. But man, some of the events of this issue are probably going to be heart-breaking all over again.
After several issues of scenery building, setting up the Circuit, Marko’s flirtations, and The Crazy Janitor, Saga #23 starts crashing all of them together in the usual glorious ways. Vaughn plays with our expectations in a way that proves he knew exactly what he was doing, and the ending hits us simultaneously with joy and fear. With an extra dash of excitement and mystery, of course.
It’s no Saga #19, but wait until you see how Vaughn twists our assumptions about that issue as well. This volume has been a bit low key in the grand scheme of things, but Vaughn is no less a master of his craft.
Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review!
Big Hero 6 is Blowing Me Away!
New Big Hero 6 trailer! It’s super sweet!
I love it! This new trailer adds some real heart to the film, which I didn’t know it had. Plus we finally get to know more about the other members of the team and where their powers/costumes come from. I did not expect that at all. Big Hero 6 should be a good flick!
Review: Gotham: “Pilot”
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume some meddling studio executive was the one who insisted on all of the name-dropping in the first episode of Gotham. Surely no sane creator with a vision for a Batman-themed TV show would insist on such silly pandering. Surely some executive was nervous about mainstream audiences picking up on the source material and insisted that Edward Nygma show up for 5 seconds to crack riddles, or that several different characters would tell Oswald Cobblepot that he looks like a penguin.
Because otherwise, Gotham doesn’t have much faith in its audience to not be idiots.
TV Rating: 6/10 – Pretty Good.
I’m going to try not to focus too much on the random character cameos because that’s what everybody is talking about (and Dorkly did it best). Suffice to say, I don’t think they make or break the show. I think they’re the byproduct of somebody higher up desperately trying to push the Batman elements of a show that can stand without them. They’re training wheels for a kid who can pedal just fine on his own.
The sort of people who are going to watch Gotham understand what it’s about, and we’re capable of being patient. We don’t need to be reminded every 5 minutes of another Batman character. I sincerely hope this was just an affliction of the pilot, and that future episodes will behave themselves.
Nobody likes a name-dropper.
I liked the first episode of Gotham, but I also think it was a very unpolished episode. A show like Gotham should crack with the energy and efficiency of an episode of Law and Order. It should establish itself as a cop show first and foremost, and then prove it’s the most interesting cop show with its characters and world. But in the first episode, Gotham seems a little bloated with clunky dialogue, bad efforts at campy humor and an all-around sense of trying desperately to live up to its own expectations for itself. It wants to be this awesome combination of cop show and superhero show, but it’s not quite sure how to achieve that.
Fortunately, being the pilot, a little shoddiness is excusable. Gotham has a whole season to tighten the plotting, the dialogue and the character development.
And I will definitely be around for the whole season.
Join me after the jump or my full review.
The 6 Best Bird Superheroes
That’s right, it’s come to this: bird-themed superheroes. Everybody loves birds, right? They can fly, so that puts them one-up on us puny humans. They’ve got feathers, which are pretty neat. They poop everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. Birds. They’re…well they’re birds.
And apparently they make for solid superhero inspiration!
I should just stop right now, list complete
I’ve already tackled sports, fire, ice, cats and Canandians in my Lists of Six, why not birds? Cats eat birds, so it kind of comes full circle. And if jetpacks are never invented, some kind of bird-harness would be our next best bet for flying – though I’m sure our arms will get tired! Zing! Anyway, bird superheroes are a thing, and at least six of them are better than all the rest!
20 Minutes is a Little Excessive
Our friends at Cinema Sins have tackled Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and apparently they went all out on what was a legitimately good film. You guys are monsters!
But I know we all have 20 minutes to spare, so I hope you enjoyed their video as much as I did! As my brother once said, these are the MST3K for the short attention span Internet generation!
