I like to draw parallels when it comes to Marvel and DC. I like to take a character and find his or her equivalent in the other publisher’s universe. Compare, contrast, pick my favorite and try to understand the reason behind the choice. I don’t know why I do it. I think it might just be a compulsion. One more quirk on the road to insanity. I do it though. For instance, Marvel has Norman Osborn. Strong business man, staggering leadership, questionable code of ethics, goes crazy from time to time, fixated on domination. Well you head over to DC Comics and you see the parallel in Lex Luthor. They’re pretty compatible. Osborn is probably a little more unstable but Luthor built a Lois Lane robot and is obsessed over all forms of power. Sometimes you just can’t compare crazy.
[It has been brought to my attention that there may be closer connections between Norman and Max Lord while Doom is closer to Lex. It's a compelling argument. Thoughts?]
I love both of these characters. Like a lot. I like their superior intelligence, their radical thinking, their desperation. They are the smartest people in the room but they understand people and their weaknesses. That’s why they’re mega-villains. They know how to manipulate others. You get a writer that knows how to harness that power, it makes reading them an absolute treat. I teeter back and forth on which one’s my favorite. Right now with Kelly Sue DeConnick behind the man, Norman Osborn wins the title.
You remember Siege, right? Sure you do. Norman Osborn ran the world, started a war between Asgard and Midgard, got his butt handed to him by Captain America? Well, they didn’t exactly let him free after that but the government doesn’t know what to do with him. So they put him in the maximum…est security prison with the hopes that it would all blow over. But elsewhere, there were tropes of people that viewed Osborn as their Messiah. They formed a cult around him and his ideals and want to bust him out. He’s a born leader and now he’s surrounded by super-powered and super-dangerous criminals that need a leader. How fortuitous for all parties. Read the rest of this entry »
Internet, I stand before you with my tail tucked between my legs. I have a confession to make. I was an asshole. There’s no two ways around it. I went back on all my beliefs and got sucked into the hate-fueled knee-jerk responses that come with being a comic book fan. I was unfair to that which I love most and I’m sorry. Okay, I may have gotten a bit excited over the apology. Let’s start from the beginning:
I hate stereotypes. Hate them. I hate them because they limit natural impulses. For example, I feel sorry that a cop can’t walk into a donut shop without contributing to the stereotype. Donuts happen to be delicious. And in walks this person and they can’t enjoy their fried doughy goodness without thinking, “This is just what these people want to see.” More to the point, I hate that a female character can’t have a fun book without it seeming like a waste of time. It’s perceived as simply another throw-away girl book and when are we going to get back to men blowing things up? Now I love things blowing up but this is where I fell off. I’ve done it before, I did it again. I wrote off a book simply because it was a fun story. And evidently, fun stories aren’t worth telling.
Is this a review? Is this a rant? Who the hell knows anymore. I live in a very grey area. However, the book in question is She-Hulks written by Harrison Wilcox with pencils by Ryan Stegman. This four-part mini series follows Lyra the new Savage She-Hulk and her acclimation to a normal teenage life in New York. Superhero needs to fit in and keep a secret identity in high school all the while fighting evil with the help of some super powered mentors. It’s been done before. It’s not new, but with Ryan Stegman on art-I read it. That’s really all it takes for me to jump on board. Read the rest of this entry »
I wanted to be Jubilee for Halloween this year. I had to settle on Velma from Scooby Doo. You would not believe how hard it is to find an awesome yellow trench coat. It’ll happen though. Mark my words. Someday.
Anyway, I’ve always liked Jubilee. She was definitely one of my favorite characters on X-Men: The Animated Series. Second only to Rogue, my favorite big-haired, southern twang wielding mutant. You have to keep in mind, that cartoon was probably one of the most influential shows I watched as a child. So when I tell you that I like someone from it, that means I have some major emotional attachments to the character. Because of that, I picked up the first issue of the Wovlerine and Jubilee mini series by Kathryn Immonen with art by Phil Noto.
I’ll be among the first to say that the market has been totally flooded by vampires. It was like there for a while, you couldn’t turn around without seeing some fangs. It invaded my movies, my television, my comics (more so than usual). Like, for instance, the X-Men/vampires story line. And all this time I thought the zombies were Marvel’s thing. Anyway, my point is that Jubilee (void of powers) was turned to a vampire (thus getting different powers) and then she turned Wolverine into a vampire. And that didn’t even last as long as Frankencastle. But Jubilee’s still a vampire, she’s just a vampire with babysitters. So she’s all angst-y and mad at the world for obvious reasons.
This had all the implications of a storyline that was going to suck. (haha punny puns) I was pleasantly surprised. There wasn’t much of a “You just don’t understand” theme, it was more “I just don’t understand”. An understandable response when the powers you’ve grown accustomed to are gone and now you’ve got a thirst for blood and all your friends went from pity to fear. That’s a trait of Immonen’s writing. She understands legitimate character emotion. A lot of writers seem to regurgitate cliched responses in the their writing. Unfortunately, it’s a go-to technique that often pulls me away from the character and, subsequently, the story. That’s not how the brain works. Not everyone is going to play the victim; not everyone is going to rebel. Most importantly, no one is consistent in their responses. Sometimes you just have to be a loose cannon. Sometimes you’re going to use sarcasm and humor as a defense mechanism. And sometimes you’re going to end up in the fetal position in a sea can on a port in Oakland surrounded by dead bodies. Read the rest of this entry »
Have you ever read a book, listened to a band, saw a movie and thought to yourself, “This is completely original.” You may not like what you see/hear, you may love it. At any rate, you can appreciate that what you’re experiencing is so unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. It’s refreshing. It’s like a glimpse of light that says things are going to be okay. Creativity isn’t dead. We’re not getting stuck in a rut.
I had that moment today. With Nick Spencer and Christian Ward’s The infitinite Vacation. Holy crap, guys. It’s something else.
Here’s a weak synapsis of the book. We are all familiar with the multiverse? There is an infinite number of alternate realities in which you live. In theory, there’s a you in each one of these worlds (not true in all cases, but roll with me on this). So, we’ve seen characters meander in and out of these realities. Why not make a profit? What if you could essentially time-share your life and purchase some time in other realities? You just travel through reality visiting a different you or living another life.
We meet Mark. A guy that is so underwhelmed by everything that he’s constantly taking another journey through reality. The problem is, he’s noticing that all of the alternative Marks that he has visited, wind up dead shortly thereafter. Nobody seems to care. I’m not even sure Mark does, it’s just something that has him a little shook.
That’s one hell of a plot base. You hear storytellers talking about the delicate balance of the time-space continuum, so it’s never really touched on that this could be a casual encounter. You could move in and out of a reality with the help of a phone app. People are dying though. So obviously, there’s a little more to it than that. Read the rest of this entry »
I try to be fairly optimistic when entering into the entertainment world. I want to enjoy movies. I’d really like to find a new tv show that excites me. I go into a show with all the faith in the world. And it hurts me when I find that I’m experiencing just another soulless, corporate, waste of time.
It’s no big secret that I love superheroes. It would thrill me to no end to have more people share my love; for children to be introduced to characters beyond a Spider and a Bat. So each time I see a new movie or tv show that deals with the idea of masked vigilantes and super villains, I think “Yes! We’re making progress! People will see this and recognize the value and merit of the superhero. This could be the turning point that saves the comic book industry. This could spawn a new generation of creators and readers. Greater success within the live-action sector can only spur more interest in the content!” I think that. Because I am a schmuck that enjoys disappointment.
David Lyons stars as Vince Farraday-a good cop. He’s got a wife and kid. He tries to do the right thing. There are some on the force that have fallen by the wayside. Crooked cops are becoming more and more prevalent. Society has started to turn to privatized protection, more specifically the ARK corporation. When Vince comes aboard this new-style of police force, he soon realizes that they may not be out for the people’s best interests. While attempting to find answers, he is framed for the crimes committed by the murderer known as “Chess”. (Chess is actually Peter Fleming-head of ARK). Vince is pegged as Chess, brought down by ARK, and assumed dead.
Well, guess what. He isn’t dead. He’s rescued by a band of thieving circus misfits. If he makes it known that he isn’t dead, he puts his family in danger. So he does what any desperate man would do. He learns the trade of the circus and throws on a fancy outfit…to fight crime. Naturally. He also meets up with quirky blogger and amateur investigator Orwell, played by Summer Glau.
This show is garbage. The Cape stands as a reaffirmation to the general public that superheroes are silly and childish. I sat in front of the television for the entire two hour premiere, watched a glorified Mercedes Benz commercial and received nothing but an insult to my intelligence. Read the rest of this entry »
When I was but a wee lass, I used to watch these Disney sing-along VHS tapes. They just had the catchy tunes from the old movies/tv shows but they have the words and the bouncing ball. I would watch the crap out of those. One of which had the theme song to the 1957 tv show Zorro. Want your heart to melt? Hear a five-year-old me singing about Zorro. I still do it, but now it’s just annoying.
I watched the The Mask of Zorro in 1998. I don’t actually remember if I watched The Legend of Zorro in 2005. If I did, it obviously didn’t make an impression. Anyway, that’s where Zorro and I parted ways. It wasn’t until today that I had given much of a thought to the masked man. I found myself reading a new Zorro comic, and kids-it was a lot of fun.
Somewhere down in the lovely city of Sydney, Australia is a new independent publisher called Silver Fox Comics. Their debut? A new take on Zorro by Sorab Del Rio. It’s got sex, drugs, supernatural gypsies, the undead, Samurais-everything you need to get my attention. I don’t know too much about classic Zorro, but I know I would have paid more attention if it had more Samurais. Read the rest of this entry »
Do you ever wish that you could have a do-over? Something didn’t work out exactly as you had hoped and you just want to try again? Obviously, it can’t happen but it would be nice. You forgot your anniversary? Do-over. You bombed that job interview? Do-over. You spilled an entire glass of orange juice on your original NES? Do-over. Please, please do-over. Now, those are things that a good-natured person would do, but what if you were crazy and evil? What kind of do-overs would you commit? Why don’t we ask Professor Zoom?
WWPZD? He’d kill you. Right where you stood. It doesn’t matter who you are: he’d want you dead. Or he’d just really mess you up in the head. Because he’s a super villain. It’s what he does.
Flash #8: Reverse-Flash Rebirth is an origin story by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins. And you’re saying to yourself, “Why in the world do we need another origin story? Is there actually a person out there that hasn’t heard of Wikipedia?” Well, calm down. This is not your mother’s origin story; this is one of the coolest origin stories I’ve ever read. It’s the origin of Eobard Thawne A.K.A. Professor Zoom/Reverse-Flash. But Thawne can go back in time, so he’s constantly rewriting his origin story, tailoring it to his preferences. First we get to see how things originally went down, then we see how he managed to change his history. So instead of going back in time to save that beautiful gaming console, you go back in time to make sure the brother that annoys you was never born. Whoa. Or that the guy that wouldn’t give you a job ended up dying which left his position open for the taking. This is what a crazy person would do. It’s horrific but it’s awesome story-telling. Read the rest of this entry »
Most of you know I get the warm and fuzzies around this time of year. Once December 1st hits, I’m living in a world of Christmas movies, music and decorations. Right up until December 27th and I’m ready to move on. But for now, let’s strap on our jingle bells and get this show on the road.
I’ll be right there along with you if you want to argue that Christmas is just an over-commercialized marketing ploy. It certainly can become so. But that’s really an individual thing, right? Just because I’m taking the credit card for a spin instead of making homemade gifts doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s all about. I can just accept the fact that no one wants my jar of hot cocoa mix. No one. Not even Santa. But there are hundreds of tales that preach “The True Meaning of Christmas”. Including this one.
It’s the Green Lantern Larfleeze Christmas Special one-shot! I reviewed the DC Christmas Special last year (but this year’s special wasn’t any good). So I’m doing the Green Lantern one this year. Tis the season, baby. This little holiday nugget was written by Geoff Johns, art by Brett Booth and a backup story by our friends over on Tiny Titans Art Baltazar and Franco.
Maybe you don’t know Larfleeze. Maybe you just like reading the sweet, sweet postings of this comic book reader. Bless you, kind person. Remind me to give you a kiss. Larfleeze is the only Orange Lantern. The Lantern of avarice. Or “greed” if you don’t want to be pretentious. He’s a furry muppet-like creature created by Geoff Johns. He lives in a dump. He’s got a little buddy Glomulus (actually a lantern construct that was once a living creature) and he’s just a goofy character.
He gets wind of this new all-knowing, all-seeing Guardian named Santa. He writes his list, he tried to be good all year, he’s left some cookies as a barter for the presents, he’s ready for some gifts. And Santa doesn’t come. That’s right. Santa has denied him his material possessions. And Larfleeze goes on the hunt. After a couple of parade and shopping mall debacles, Green Lantern Hal Jordan shows up and tries to show Larfleeze the true meaning of Christmas. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not a big fan of Black Panther. His whole secluded high-tech village of people with a bunch of resources just never quite connected with me. He’s all high and mighty, super secretive. He’s kind of an asshole. Now, before this gets turned into something racial, I’ll have you know that my BEST friend is a panther. So there.
I do, however, like Daredevil. Did. Before he went crazy. Most recently. So, naturally, I figured I’d give the whole Man Without Fear title a chance to change characters. Matt Murdock has moved on and passed the Hell’s Kitchen guardian torch to T’Challa.
So David Liss is writing while Black Panther assumes a new identity and patrols the street at night. First of all, his way of getting in touch with the land and the people of Hell’s Kitchen is to manage a restaurant? Look, Buddy, I work in the service industry. If you work around these people long enough, you’re going to want to kill them. There’s only so many times you can handle taking somebody’s food back. But he doesn’t care, he’s hunting down a Russian mob boss named Vlad and he’s fighting small crooks to get to the man.
The book fell flat. The “Big Bad” is very stereotypical. Poor immigrant kid made it good in America through crime and becomes a mob boss. The opportunity comes up to run this town and he’s going after it because he’s got the world all figured out. A regular rags to riches story. But dis new guy’s on da street and messin’ up ah plans, see? (Not a very Russian reenactment, I know.)
We kind of get to know T’Challa’s neighbors but not enough to actually care about them. Then one of them gets killed off by Vlad. And who cares? Well, obviously T’Challa seemed to but I sure didn’t. Two meetings in a stairwell does not really make me want to storm the Russian gates with Black Panther. Couldn’t we have waited maybe an issue to make some kind of attempt at emotional connection? Guess not. Now all I can think is maybe that guy should have taken T’Challa up on his self-defense offer. Liss might have this planned out to be one giant emotional roller coaster of interpersonal relationships and this is just the tip of the iceberg. That may happen, but I doubt it. Read the rest of this entry »
Hola lords and ladies! I know it’s been a while since we’ve last chatted, personal commitments and novel work have kept me pretty busy over October and November. Before I hunker back down into novel-mode I thought I’d put out one more e-soapbox rant for you all to enjoy!
We’re quickly heading into the holiday season, oh joy. Nothing fills me with more dread, bile and hatred than the madness of the holiday season. The only real respite is the seasonal movies that can take some of the Xmas rage away. But I’m not talking about ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’, ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and ‘Santa Claus: The Movie’, movies and specials so disgustingly sweet they make your teeth fall out of your head. No, the following list of holiday movies are for those of us that had our hearts shrink five sizes. Lords and Ladies, I faithfully submit for your enjoyment:
The list of Christmas movies and Specials for the cynic!
1) Santa’s Slay – Wrestler Bill Goldberg stars as a Santa Claus that kills people! The story goes that Santa was a virgin birth produced by Satan and Christmas was a ‘day of slaying’ for him until he was defeated by an angel in a curling match in 1005 and forced to deliver presents to children for the next 1000 years. Well, time’s up on the agreement and Saint Nick goes on a killing spree! It’s up to a crafty kid and his smart-assed grandfather to find a way to bring him down. Any movie that has Santa’s sleigh being pulled by ‘hell-deer’ is worth watching in my book!
2) Black Christmas – This proto-slasher film was directed by Bob Clark (Porky’s, A Christmas Story) and starred Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey and John Saxon as a group of college students face off against a deranged serial killer that lurks in the attic of their sorority house. This is the story where the now-infamous ‘the calls are coming from inside the house’ trope in later horror films would come from. It even goes against the much later horror stereotype of the virginal college student surviving to the end, as the lone survivor was pregnant and was considering having an abortion. Watch this one with the lights on people!
3) Jack Frost – No, I’m not talking about that Michael Keaton vehicle about the dad who is reincarnated as a snowman to be with his son on Christmas. This Jack Frost is a serial killer being driven to his execution when he is in an accident involving a truck carrying genetic material, mutating Jack into a killer snowman! Featuring the ‘acting’ debut of Shannon Elizabeth, this heckle-worth film will keep you laughing all night long!
4) Dennis Leary’s Merry F*ckin’ Christmas – This one’s really self-explanatory. Dennis hosts a holiday special featuring Charlie Murphy (Eddie’s comic brother), Carmen Electra asking for donations to ‘Tits for Tots’ and The Barefaced Ladies singing holiday classics. This special is always a must-see for me!
5) Die Hard (and Die hard 2) – Yippee-Ki-Yay motherfucker! Bruce Willis’ star making turns as Det. John McLane are the perfect holiday movies! You have terrorists, guns, explosions and Reginald Veljohnson (Carl Winslow from ‘Family Matters’)! What more could you possibly want out of a holiday film!
There you have it, my list of holiday classics to watch with a nice bowl of popcorn and a hot chocolate. Alright lords and ladies, time for me to get back to novel-writing, so this’ll be it until the New Year.
Happy Holidays from Giant Killer Squid and the Asylum!
I have always wanted to be the proverbial Guy In the Van. No, not the creepy, “Hey, kids-I’ve got some candy in my van” guy. The guy with all the tech that hacks into security systems and gets intel for the operatives in the field. It’s like being one of the most important members of the team without the risk of being shot. But now that I think about it, I guess I don’t really want a van and I certainly don’t want to be a guy. Well, that whole intro went to shit…
Marvel’s Heroes for Hire is a pretty sweet premise. Need a superhero to help you out? If you’ve got money, they’re there. If you don’t, that’s okay because I’m sure you’re a good person that’s just fallen on hard times.
It all started with Powerman Luke Cage and now it’s evolved all the way into Misty Knight behind computers and communication systems calling in favors and hiring new help. It’s like Birds of Prey, only guys are allowed and it has 100% more afro. (Yes, I know Hank Hall is considered a BOP-don’t go correcting me).
So in the latest reboot of HFH, Misty’s the guy in the van and has recruited Falcon, Black Widow, Moon Knight and Elektra to stop a shipment of illegal narcotics from messing up the streets. But where is Misty getting her leads from? A strange and mysterious voice. Weird thing is, we totally get the voice’s reveal at the end of the issue. And it’s the first issue.
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning sure don’t bother burying the lead. And why would they? If Marvel Cosmic taught me anything, it’s that Abnett and Lanning know how to write a damn fine comic book. If they want to give me a big reveal right in the first book, then I’ll happily take it. For the most part, the first issue of any book is a lack-luster book. You get the setup of the characters and the story and wait for the end of issue 2 or even 3 to hit anything of substance. Not with these guys. Now the story actually has to go somewhere. Whoa. Read the rest of this entry »
I believe that animated shows and movies appeal to very different demographics. Sure, you’ve got to keep the kids happy. It’s a cartoon-if you don’t market towards kids, then you won’t have their parents dishing out money. You’ve got to market it towards parents too because they want to know that Timmy and Sally are watching something that won’t turn them into psychopaths. But somewhere in the dark corners of the animated demographic is the single adult with no children. The one that looks forward to animated movies and has loads of cartoons on the DVR. I am that single adult with no children. I like cartoons. I like super heroes in comic books. I like cartoon shows about superheroes based on comic books.
Like Young Justice on Cartoon Network? This soon-to-be series premiered tonight with the tv-movie bearing the same title. It simply serves as an introduction to the cast of characters. I can get behind anything that’s going to show kids that comic books go much further than Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and Iron Man. This show looks like it will do just that.
Our Young Justice is made up of Dick Grayson’s Robin, Wally West’s Kid Flash, Jackson Hyde as Aqualad, Superboy Conner Kent, M’gann M’orzz/Megan Morse/Miss Martian, and Artemis. Now you may be asking yourself, “Why Dick and not Tim? Why Wally and not Bart?” My guess is that they want to stay close to the originals. That does not explain the existence of Jackson Hyde instead of Garth. But, although introduced in Brightest Day, Jackson was created specifically for this cartoon so who’s to say? They’ve also opted to use Artemis over Arrowette. The short answer? I have no clue why they chose these representations of the characters. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve made it no secret that I like Scott Synder. The man has brought down the thunder on American Vampire and his Iron Man Noir story was the best from the Marvel Noir minis. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to hear he would be taking the helm on Detective Comics. His first, issue #871, hit stands today. How’d the guy do?
‘The Black Mirror’ fits into the current continuity of the Batverse with the aftermath of the return of Bruce Wayne. Batman Inc. is in full swing and Dick’s still trying to find his place in this crazy spandex-laden business. The Bats have a really nice crime lab now. So there’s that. They’re even trying to offer it up to the G.C.P.D. as an extra resource. Curiously enough, only Commissioner Gordon has taken up the offer. Maybe because no cop wants to come to some free-lance lab and say, “Hey, our equipment and scientists kind of suck. Could you maybe help us out?” In fact, the only reason the Commish came over was because he’s got evidence from a recent crime that was already evidence in a previous case and should have been locked away. Seems like quite a few things have mysteriously left the evidence room. Whoops. Maybe it isn’t just the equipment and the scientists.
So I’m reading this issue and I’m saying to myself, “Good Lord, there are a lot of weird birds making appearances in this story. Not enough to be important, but enough to make you wonder what the hell is going on. And then Snyder answered me with the bonus story ‘Skeleton Cases’. Somebody has let all the exotic birds out of the aviary. Who could it be? Could it be the umbrella-clad villain with an affinity for birds? No actually. It isn’t. Yet. But it looks like Jim’s other child is back. Oh yeah, the one that wasn’t a red-headed superhero. I totally forgot about him.
Have I ever seen that before? Where the main story goes hand-in-hand with the bonus story? I don’t think I have. It’s typically completely unrelated and random. It probably has a lot to do without he fact that Synder wrote both. I don’t care; it was a nice touch. I hope I see it more often.
Although I must admit that the story has yet to grab me, I like the feel of the book. Sad as I was to see the Batwoman storyline come to a screeching halt (Batwoman #0 hit this week too, kids!), I can’t think of another writer that I’d rather see being given the opportunity to take over Detective Comics. When we switch from Dick’s internal monologue to Commissioner Gordon’s, you can tell just how much Snyder enjoys the cast in Gotham. His characters are very introspective here but it’s an endearing quality.
The art on ‘The Black Mirror’ is done by Jock. What am I supposed to say? Did you ever pick up The Losers? Can you tell me the art is less than awesome? He’s just good at what he does. And it isn’t just the way he puts a pencil to paper. The man is bold in his screen shots. He takes chances. You very seldom see Jock doing a page covered in face-front panels. He changes up the angle, the light, the point of focus. It makes for some serious impact.
Then we have Franco Francavilla on ‘Skeleton Cases’. So creepy. Well, birds are pretty creepy on their own. Add a kid in glasses out in the rain? Creepy times a million. It really isn’t fair. Detective Comics goes from J.H. Williams to Jock and Francavilla? Think of all the other titles out there that don’t get decent artists because they’re all working on Detective. Ball hogs.
$3.99 and this book could be yours. A boy bites another boy’s hand off. There are creepy birds. C’mon now. That’s a pretty easy sell.
We don’t do book reviews here at GKS, unless they’ve got pictures, but having read Joe Schreiber’s Star Wars Death Troopers I felt compelled to break with tradition and write about the best Star Wars book I’ve read.
Death Troopers takes place roughly ten years before Episode 4 in the SW canon, set aboard an Imperial prison barge named Purge, home to 500 killers, rebels and thieves. The barge breaks down in a distant part of space and it’s only hope of salvation seems to lie within a derelict Star Destroyer found drifting and abandoned. A boarding party is sent to the Star Destroyer to scavenge for parts, but only half return. And they have brought something back with them. A very lethal, horrific disease that kills nearly everyone on the purge within hours. But death is only the beginning.
Death Troopers is the first Star Wars horror novel penned, and though we now know it’s not the last (Schreiber has recently completed work on Star Wars Red Harvest), I hope that this fresh take on the SW pantheon continues for many years. It combines two things that are hot commodities in today’s film and literary world; Star Wars and zombies.
Joe Schreiber seems incredibly comfortable within the Star Wars world. His words and descriptions fill the pages with images that fit well within the Universe, creating new characters that would have no problem fitting into future novels set within Star Wars. We have the young brothers, prisoners, who watched their father die under mysterious circumstances aboard the Purge. The surly Barge Commanding Officer, who has become so disenfranchised with his role that he only see’s the evil around him. The Barge doctor who, because of her kind nature and natural disposition to heal, has become friend to some of the Barge’s nastiest inmates, and enemy of every guard on the ship. The caricatures are fairly stereotypical on paper, but the cast of characters become so few by the mid-point of the novel that we really care about these people. I felt a genuine sense of loss while reading when tragedy strikes the major players of the tale.
Where Schreiber excels is at his ‘horror’ story-telling. This is a grisly book. I was shocked at some of the imagery portrayed and had to remind myself that this isn’t your five year-olds Star Wars. This book is definitely aimed at a more mature audience. Descriptions of violence, gore, dismemberment and zombie atrocities would fit in with any of the current zombie genre films. In fact, I would say this book goes further in description and visuals than a lot of the current films I’ve seen.
These aren’t your Night Of The Living Dead lumbering zombies. These are grotesque, transformed, decaying rotting corpses, that move fast and have the ability to learn. And all of this only helps to mount the tension during the third act, which takes place on the drifting Star Destroyers, home to thousands of zombies. Schreibers zombies communicate via screams and shrieks, and as he describes such an exchange it is so vivid in your mind that you have no choice but to shudder. The third act is filled with so many of these horrific creatures, and is paced so frenetically that I literally could not put the book down, and found myself holding my breath during some of the more intense passages.
As I was reading I felt the elements of the best parts of space/zombie thrillers were being utilized perfectly. 28 Days Later, Aliens and Dead Snow all feel like they are getting sentimental nods from Schreiber, as he effectively weaves all the horror, dread and fear from those films into the crafting of this world.
I’ve read a ridiculous amount of books set in the Star Wars Universe and I can safely say that Death Troopers stands among the most original of them all. You don’t have to know anything about Star Wars, hell, you don’t even have to LIKE Star Wars to really appreciate what Schreiber is going for. He has pulled off an amazing feat. He has crafted one of the best zombie-horror novels I’ve ever read, he’s thrown into the Star Wars Universe, a daunting enough task on it’s own, and with all that he has managed to write an amazingly graphic, disturbing and thoroughly enjoyable read.
Oh, and did I mention zombie Wookies? ‘Nuff said.
Read my original review, circa April of this year, here.
Of all the films of 2010 (so far), I’ve probably debated the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street the most. Not because the films is unusually controversial or boundary-pushing, but because I seem to be in the minority. I really liked it.
As with any horror remake, the deck was stacked against this one from the beginning, especially considering the cultural impact Wes Craven’s film had on us and the horror genre. The original – and to a lesser degree its long, bumpy franchise – is considered a classic. And rightfully so; even though revisiting Craven’s 1984 film might show more cheese than you remembered, the Freddy character – his means, his methods and his mouth – is indelible. Did the remake even have a chance?
Hardly.
To me, Samuel Bayer’s re-imagination of the Springwood slasher does what every successful horror remake, as few as they are, strives to do: twist the film to be its own, in some way. Gone are the quips, the one-liners and the PG-13 cursing, and are instead replaced with a vile child-molester. Jackie Earle Haley’s Krueger plays out like the Freddy we all love, mixed in with a little To Catch A Predator.
The story is pretty much the same this time around, with exception to an added sub-plot questioning the validity of Freddy’s guilt; the film goes where the original only hinted, confirming Krueger to have dabbled in the diddling. The origin of the character, and the way he dispenses of the children of Elm St. is intact. Many of the scenes, like the bedroom murder of the post-coital blonde girl, are still in the film, albeit with a slick polish and modern teens (complete with dialogue that no youth would ever really spout). The film has been under plenty of fire for being saturated with unlikeable characters with no depth (or, in this case, Depp… har har). Not to defend this claim, but I ask, did the original? Has any big franchise slasher or remake (the original Halloween excluded) really shown any character development?
Whether you liked the film or not, you can’t refute the film has balls for taking such an iconic character and portraying him in a different way. Whether that’s the right way or not, this is a very different Freddy, both tonally and physically (though the trademark sweater, fedora and glove remains). The film is dark and gritty, with a layer of filth you’ll have to wash off afterwards. But it is also quite predictable and suffers from a rushed and anticlimactic third act. Jackie Earle’s Freddy is worth the watch alone though, if only to see how different the portrayal of one of the most iconic characters in pop-culture.
The Blu-Ray – complete with DVD and digital copy – features a fantastic video transfer with acceptable audio quality. If you enjoyed the film, it’s well worth the extra dollars to pick up in hi-def.
Available NOW on Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD, On Demand and for Download! http://bit.ly/nightfb
