Spider-Geddon-It? Are You Geddon It?

Remember when only DC Comics did alternate universe stories? Yeah, me, too. Now it's all this.

Spider-Geddon is a five issue series from Marvel 'We're All About Alternate Universes Now' Comics. Once again, there is a crisis that requires several alternate universe versions of Spider-Man to team up and punch at said crisis. And punch they do. And make quips. And hang out with one another. Even for a Spider-Man comic, there is a lot of hanging out.

The crisis this time is (once again) the Inheritors, a collection of goth douchebag vampires that subsist on incarnations of the Spider-Totem. Brought back to life accidentally by Otto Octavius (who is now the Superior Spider-Man), they are ready to feed once more.

I love alternate universe stories. I also love Spider-Man. I may not have loved this, but I did really enjoy it. Just as long as I didn't think about it too much.

What I liked: all the various versions of Spider-Man. From all the variations on a theme that exist on Earth 616 alone (Scarlet Spider, Miles Morales Spider-Man, Silk, Spider-Girl, Spider-Woman, Superior Spider-Man) to the alternate Earths that are apparently slacking and only provide one Spider-Man, (for the most part--there is a husband and wife team of Spider-Family, and an uncle and nephew version, and, oh, you get the idea), I enjoy them all.

The story is ridiculous. If the all the alternate Spider-Men weren't enough to draw you in---(the Japanese Spider-Man and his giant robot? Check. The hero from the recent Sony video game? Double check.) the story also digs deep into Marvel lore, pulling something that premiered way back in Micronauts to help with the final battle. I'm surprised that a kitchen sink wasn't seen flying in the background at some point.

Spider-Geddon also quietly lets you know that if you want THE FULL STORY you should pick up all the additional titles that spun out of this. So, even though I passed on picking up the tie in issues of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Girls, Spider-Force, and Vault of Spiders, I did pick  up one issue of Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider. It was fun, but didn't really add much to what was going in the main title. I don't think my enjoyment of the main story suffered that much by exercising financial restraint.

The only thing I remain ambivalent about, really, is just this multiversal approach to Spider-Man. I liked the idea that a one in a million thing happened to some nerdy student, and that he decided to use his newfound powers for good. The idea that this is a universal constant takes away a lot of that magic. The idea that all across the uncounted dimensions different versions of the same person all gain spider-powers and lose a loved one--and usually have names and relatives that correspond to Parker and his family's names--is something I applaud for its sheer comic book dumbness. But when you consider this part of the Spider-Man mythos--along with Webs of Destiny tied to the workings of the cosmos-I'm not sure that it really hangs together that well. The Spider-Man narrative framework can't hold that much weight.

And I think the writers may realize that. At the end of Spider-Geddon, when all the dimension hopping has come to an end, Spider-Gwen says:

"To be honest, it's probably better to put some brakes on it for awhile."

Then she adds:

"Unless there's a crisis."

I smiled at that.

Spider-Geddon was good at providing smiles. Overall, it was a fun comic, but like Gwen says, it's best to leave this idea alone for a while.

Zombies, Manga, and Body Horror: I Am A Hero

One of the tropes of zombie stories I had never noticed before was that the main protagonists in most of these stories are sane.

Part of the narrative arc of many zombie stories is just how the main character--usually an everyday person with a dull job and comfortable life--deals with the horror and unreality of the dead rising and feasting on the living. From Resident Evil, the remake of Dawn of The Dead and the small, rarely heard about comic and television show The Walking Dead, the trope remains the same.

But imagine if the hero wasn't sane? Kengo Hanazawa did,  and illustrated that idea with the lead character in the thrilling and very disturbing I Am A Hero.

Hideo Suzuki is a failed manga artist who messed up his one chance at the spotlight and now gets by doing support work on another artist's manga.  He suffers from a cacophony of mental disturbances, including OCD and auditory and visual hallucinations. He's in a troubled relationship with another artist, living in a cramped bachelor apartment and putting in long hours on another creator's work. He can barely get through a single day without a crisis. Every single hour for him is a struggle.

And then the dead begin to rise.

Dark Horse has collected two Japanese collections for this initial volume, and it's a wise decision, since Hanazawa spends several chapters detailing Suzuki's life without any undead horror. Which isn't to say there isn't plenty of horror in those chapters. Aside from the internal tribulations Suzuki endures, he's surrounded by people who seem just as mentally precarious as he is. In fact, everyone in this story is dealing with something.

All the time spent showing Suzuki's life makes the impact of the zombie aspect of the story all the more horrifying. Since Suzuki is so introverted--and the people he works with are equally so--the realization that something is wrong is slow to dawn on them. From small snippets on quickly ignored newscasts to strange figures glimpsed at night,  it's clear that the supernatural horror is present from the first chapter, but no one really notices until it's far, far too late.

As for the zombies, Hanazawa changes the expected trope here as well. Yes, they attack the living, but there is another degree of horror, one that gives each confrontation an added  depth of sadness. These are not anonymous monsters, but horrifically ravaged victims.

I Am A Hero Volume One is disturbing and horrific, but with a hero that makes you just sit back and go, "Oh, no. Not him." The sad truth is that Hideo Suzuki was a hero long before this story began, simply because he got through a single day.

My Favourite Film of 2018

Always late to any game, I felt the need to post the films I enjoyed the most in 2018. Which was almost two weeks ago, so my adherence to deadlines continues.

Random thoughts on those I saw:

Aquaman was pretty and technically impressive, but had a script that felt so stupid it had to be deliberate. It was the second James Wan film I saw last year--the other being The Conjuring 2--which again showed Wan's technical prowess with spinning cameras and methodically thought out scenes, but also had a script that seemed more functional than emotionally engaging. 

The Ritual was another horror film that started off so well, focusing on the after effects of a man's cowardice and the impact it had on his friendships before quickly degrading into a Viking cover of The Hills Have Eyes. It's almost as if there's a studio memo that says films can start off original and thought provoking, but they'd better heel over to something audiences have seen a thousand times before by the time the movie hits the seventy minute mark.

The Girl With All The Gifts was a good take on the please-let-it-end zombie genre that stayed true to its themes and didn't lie to the audience with a happy ending. 

Happy Death Day was a superb low budget horror movie, taking the premise of Groundhog Day and applying a serial (?) killer storyline to it. It had an engaging heroine (Jessica Rothe) and a script that allowed her to figure things out fairly quickly. A minimum of gore, a fun script, and a low budget can still make a very good horror film. Here's the proof.

Annihilation may have come across as a more powerful film if I hadn't read the novel it was based on. As it was, I still enjoyed this film very much, outside of the ending. It's not so much based on the Jeff Vandermeer novel as it picks and chooses what elements to take from it and from the second novel in the Southern Reach Trilogy, Authority. I like Natalie Portman, and she is very good in this. I think I would have enjoyed a second film in this universe if Hollywood wasn't so determined to smother intelligent films.

Mission Impossible: Fallout was just exhausting. I am a genuine fan of Tom Cruise and of this series, and this is clearly the most bold and challenging in the franchise. I still think Ghost Protocol is my favourite, but Fallout does it's damnedest to push it from the dais. Cruise just never stops in this film, and the stunts and chases are so magnificent the studio should have provided an intermission and a cool drink to let the audience gather itself before the next onslaught. A well crafted film with a script that assumes you're paying attention--when you're not wincing at the ordeals Cruise is enduring for your entertainment dollar.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is that rarest of things--a superhero film that acknowledges that someone in the audience may have read the comics. There are so many well placed nods towards comic book fans in this film that they made me smile as much as the movie did. Even despite legal contracts, Sony placing this story in an alternate universe where other alternate universe versions of Spider-Man arrive was bold, as was making Spider-Gwen the main supporting character, if not shared lead. This was a well written, well crafted, just damn fun movie that glories in the joy of the Spider-Man character. 

Bohemian Rhapsody had a bravado performance by Rami Malek and a family friendly history of one of rock's greatest bands. I enjoyed it, but it was not the cinematic masterpiece that awards shows seems to think it was. It was serviceable and gave audiences a great night out and a chance to hum along to some beloved music. 

So having said all that,  my favourite film of 2018 was Mandy.

Mandy felt like a spiritual sequel to 1981's Heavy Metal, kinda. It was also a strange movie that exists in a universe where weird, horrific supernatural shit just happens, where cults drive around dark woods in vans, and where taking revenge first means making an axe that looks like it belongs on the cover of a Dungeons and Dragons manual. Mandy was just so weird and disturbing and sad that I simply could not look away. It was such a rare creature that not to celebrate it is to let something precious fade away. It is definitely not for everyone, and that isn't to say I have some higher cultural appreciation, because I surely don't. It just hit me like no other film did this year, and that's why it's my favourite film of the year.