"INVASION" by deathink
A little illustration to accompany my recent mini-rant about the glut of invasion plotlines in sf.
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"INVASION" by deathink A little illustration to accompany my recent mini-rant about the glut of invasion plotlines in sf. |
 (Art by Steven Ray Brown) Gonna check out the new Avengers flick tonight. Judging by the reviews it sounds like it's a competently made action movie, which is good enough for me. Personally. I've always been more of a Justice League fan, so I've been reading some of the old silver age Avenger comics to get up to speed. I've noticed a few curious bits of trivia that don't get a lot of attention. There's a passing reference in one issue to the characters being "licensed" crime fighters. That begs a lot of questions. Wouldn't they have to carry their licenses with them all the time? Is there a Department of Superheroes that they have to register with? What kind of test do you have to take to get the license in the first place? Another issue makes mention of reimbursing the city for the damage caused by the heroes from a special fund. Even so I bet insurance rates in a superhero infested city are sky high. "Does this policy cover damage caused by vigilantes with a Lycra fetish?" One nice touch is that the Avengers have a rotating chairmanship. When he Wasp comments that it's a silly system, Iron Man retorts, "Silly, perhaps, but more democratic!" Given the authoritarian overtones of much of the superhero genre it's nice to see Stan the man raising the issue of democratic principles. |
I stopped by the library today planning to check out the tankobon of Nihei's Biomega, but I couldn't find it on the shelves even though it was listed as in. So I grabbed Shirow's first manga Black Magic instead since I haven't read it yet.  So this weekend I'm going to go ahead get a double dose and watch Shirow's Black Magic M-66 OVA again.  How can you not love this classic? Not only is it the only anime he had direct involvement in, but with the US's ever increasing reliance on drone weapons its story about a rogue killer robot is disturbingly relevant. Maybe I should round things off by reading Haldeman's thematically similar Forever Peace (1998). The future is now -- for better or worse. |
 After his mind meld with Jimi Hendrix, Spock had a purple haze all in his brain. [via dangerousminds.net] |
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It's strange playing a VHS tape these days. It's almost like being a techno-archeologist, exhuming forgotten relics from the analog dust. Popping the big, blocky black cassette into the bulky black plastic player leaves me feeling like I'm handling some oversized toy that was designed for colorblind children. The screen comes alive, streaked with static and I'm treated to a playlist from days gone by. Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers (2002), one of JMS' failed attempts at a spin-off of B5. The pilot introduces us to David Martell (Dylan Neal), a Jeffry Hunter handsome leading man who puts together a misfit crew of Rangers to man a moth-eaten starship, the Liandra, and fend off threats to the Interstellar Alliance. Not a bad effort, but it suffers from a case of more of the same since the threat of The Hand is too much like the Shadow menace. Next to assault my optic nerve is the MD Geist OVA (Director's Cut, 1996), subbed not dubbed. This short and intense anime relates the tale of a super-soldier who is too good at his job. While the basic plot dynamic is derivative of Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) this terse and stylish film drives home in a visceral way the nihilistic consequences of war. The animation doesn't stop there, as Heavy Metal (1981) follows. It's a patchy but psychedelic head-trip that stitches together a series of unrelated sf/fantasy tales from the eponymous magazine with the rather contrived device of an evil green orb that thinks it's Ahriman, or something. The parts are more entertaining than the whole in this stoner classic, but it's still a trippy ride. My analog adventure ends with The Road Warrior (1981) that post-apocalyptic extravaganza that put the pedal to the metal and left tire marks right across the face of the genre. Mel Gibson's taciturn Max Rockatansky is a wasteland Hopalong Cassidy, a hard-boiled egg who follows his own star but who has a good heart. The crazed punk-rock marauders that ply these wastelands spilled over into dozens of knock-offs and pastiches, and they still prowl around the popular imagination. These VHS cassettes are now as rare as the gasoline in Max's wasteland, but nowhere near as valuable. How much longer will they remain? How long until they join that growing pile of technological detritus and become forgotten curiosities of the past? Will it be left to techno-scavengers to unearth and replay them, and what will they see when they do? |
 Here's some public domain fantasy for the weekend. Thalaba the Destroyer is an 1801 epic poem composed by Robert Southey. The poem is divided into twelve "books" with irregular stanza structures and unrhymed lines of poetry. The story describes how a group of sorcerers work to destroy the Hodeirah family in an attempt to prevent a prophecy of their future doom from coming true. However, a young child named Thalaba is able to escape from the slaughter. After one of the sorcerers hunts down Thalaba in order to kill him, the sorcerer is defeated by a great storm and his powerful magical ring comes into Thalaba's possession. With the ring, Thalaba travels across the Middle East in order to find a way to defeat the evil sorcerers. In the end, Thalaba is able to stay true to Allah and is guided by the prophet Mohammad in destroying the sorcerers. Though the main character is portrayed as a Muslim, the story actually takes place thousands of years before Islam, in ancient Babylon. (summary via Wikipedia) |
 It's finally here. The much anticipated indie sf dark comedy Iron Sky has dropped down from the far side of the moon and landed on our screens. The wait was well worth it and this grimmly satrical little gem is guaranteed to be a fan favorite. Brought to us by the same irreverent Finns behind the standout fan flick, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, Iron Sky displays the same top-notch SFX and biting humor you'd expect. This trippy mix of moon Nazis, flying saucers, a wisecracking protagonist, political shenanigans, a cruel and vicious antagonist, and a capable and sexy female lead is rich with sardonic humor. Although never taking itself too seriously it also manages to subltly make an important political point by highliting the evils of nationalism. While the film isn't likely to win the plaudits of the velevet rope film critics it's sure to win a place in every fen's heat. It's wicked humor puts it in the ranks of such classic dark satires as A Boy and His Dog (1974), Delicatessen (1991), and Idiocracy (2006). In short, Iron Sky is an instant cult classic. |