Thor, Goddess Of Thunder

The second greatest sin of both DC and Marvel Comics is their unfortunate fondness for stunts.

These often take the form of the deaths of popular characters, which alerts mainstream media that hey, someone is still making comic books and by God they're adult because there is murderizing.  Robins are very popular in this regard. But, this being Marvel or DC, the heart rending deaths only last a bit, the characters recover from mortality, and everyone looks away, whistling, pretending it didn't happen.

Then there is the gender swap of popular characters, as evidenced in this collection. Apparently, making a guy character a woman character infuriates a certain amount of the population, who one suspects sit around all day already in a seething froth of anger and this sort of thing is the last thing they need.

As stunts go, this is a win/win for the publisher. By making an iconic male character not be male anymore, they can smile and say how progressive they are. If the aforementioned rage addicts start filling the internet with expletives and exclamation marks, they can shake their head sadly, silently nodding about those people.

Creating female variations of popular male characters is nothing new. Currently, the Spider-Man franchise has several: Spider-Woman (of course), Spider-Gwen, and Silk, just off the top of my head. The Batman family has had two Robins (one of which died, of course, before getting better), Batgirl, and Batwoman. Flash has Jessie Quick. Mary Marvel has pride of place in the Shazam family. And of course in the Superman corner we have the -girl and -woman variations. But none of these replaced the main character, so apparently that's alright.

Personally, I don't care. I just want good stories. I tend to gravitate to female characters, so I have no issue with any of this. I am bothered, though, by how little courage publishers have when it comes to these characters. If a publisher is going to make a change, then stick with it. But they rarely do, be it character deaths or gender changes. Thus, stunts.

Which brings us to this collection.

The Goddess of Thunder collects the first five issues of the 2016 relaunch of Thor. In it, Thor loses his hammer Mjolnir, which no longer wants anything to do with him. Instead, the hammer cosies up to a mysterious woman who transforms into a female Thor when she grabs the mystic weapon.  Which is good, because a bunch of Frost Giants have invaded Earth, and the new Thor's first day on the job is saving the planet from their blue skinned rage.

There's a lot of fun things here, from Thor's cool costume (her helmet reminds me of the old Bulletman doll from the Seventies G.I.Joe line) to just how a normal person learns to speak in the 'thees' and 'thous' of Asgard speak.  The new Thor's joy at her new powers is very refreshing as well.
The story does link back to events before the book, which I hadn't read, but it doesn't really impact on the enjoyment of the story.

The art by Russell Dauterman for the first four issues is wonderful, with gorgeous colours by Matthew Wilson. Really good, eye popping stuff. Some of the sound affects are lost in the art, though, and Mjolnir's new powers sometimes make the panels look a little too busy. Jorge Molina does art and colours for the final issue, and he brings a much warmer feel to the pages. His use of light in a twilight battle in New York was very nice, as was his depiction of starlight in Asgard. Exemplary work.

Jason Aaron is one of my favourite writers, and he doesn't let me down here. When Thor meets an old Marvel villain, she is surprised that she's actually called Thor, and not 'She-Thor' or 'Lady Thunderstrike'. It was a nice moment.

So the new mysterious Thor is a cool character, with a cool costume and a refreshing take on an old classic character. So she's the new Thor, right?

No. This turned out to just be a temporary thing.  Again, stunts are one of the greatest sins the two major comic publishers commit. It's even more sad when the stunt has all the ingredients to have been a solid replacement and well founded continuation of a mythology.

See Doctor Who in two years for more evidence of this.

Bohemian Rhapsody

I was born in the Sixties, so of course I have a relationship with Queen. They provided the soundtrack to a few slow dances at high school, a few late night car rides through the back roads of Southwestern Ontario, and a few purchases at the record store. I had the cassette tape of Queen's Greatest Hits and I played it incessantly.

The song Bohemian Rhapsody freaked me out as a kid. It mentioned demons, which frightened me, and the song's story of a man destined for execution really stood out from the other Seventies offerings of undying love and ballroom blitzes. When I heard the song at night--I could never sleep because of nightmares, and listened to the radio instead--I would turn it off. Bohemian Rhapsody was a day time song. Too creepy at night in a darkened house.

Which brings us to the film Bohemian Rhapsody, which I saw last night. It's a film that demands a certain approach. If the producers were aiming to create a soft focus, crowd pleasing biography of Freddie Mercury, then they succeeded. If  you as a Queen fan were expecting a movie about the band, of how they created their albums and what life was like for them as they crawled from obscurity to performing at Live Aid, then you will be a little less pleased.

First, I will say that Rami Malek is superb as Freddie. He captures the swagger and charisma, as well as the underlying empathy. Yes, he's lip synching the songs, but he's lip synching his motherfucking heart out. It's a credit to Malek's performance and to the make up/costume designers that he owns the screen whenever he walks into a scene.

Second to Malek, the musical interludes are a joy. Hearing Queen being blasted across a theatre, seeing audience members smiling and clapping along to these classic songs, was an unexpected delight.

The movie itself, though, felt light. Aside from several veerings from reality, the story makes weird time jumps, leaping forward over events that we only hear about in lines of dialogue. It seems the band goes from fixing broken vans in the middle of nowhere to having had a first hit single in the blink of an eye. We get a montage of the recording of Bohemian Rhapsody, we get a montage of their first American tour, and we skip over albums that I would have appreciated even a slight nod towards. It's all very fast and general audience friendly, stopping only to show the occasional band dispute (slightly raised voices and threats to throw household appliances, all quickly defused) and Freddie beginning to understand his homosexuality.

Before you know it, the band has broken up (never happened), Freddie is in the depths of illness and rock star debauchery, and a gig at Live Aid offers up redemption for the band and Freddie himself.

As a result, so many plot lines are left dangling, blown away by the next musical number. Freddie's relationship with his family goes from rocky at the beginning of the film to forgiving at film's end, with nothing in between. Freddie's  relationship with Mary Austin also gets the same time jump gloss, with the two of them being engaged to being distant friends, yet still buying apartments across the street from one another. Their relationship is a movie in itself--how do two people who clearly love one another maintain ties with the challenges they face? Mercury left everything to Austin in his will--surely she should play a far larger role here? But no--after being an anchor for Mercury in the beginning of the film, Austin fades into the background, only to reappear to remind Freddie of what he lost when he embraced his homosexuality.

Which brings us to the treatment of homosexuality in this movie. Bearing in mind that this movie seems aimed at a general audience that has fond memories of Queen but maybe can't name an album or more than one song--(and may potentially have less than liberal ideas about LGBTQ people-)-Freddie's homosexuality seems tied inexorably to his decline. When he was involved in a straight relationship with Mary, we have scenes of them cuddling in a warm apartment or laying beside one another in a healing,  post-coital glow. But once Freddie takes male lovers, we have scenes of him leering at truckers in bathrooms, of rent boys being thrown out of hotel rooms, or Freddie eyeing up man candy in BDSM clubs. The message here is that if Freddie had only stayed with Mary, he'd still be happy. Being gay means losing all of that, replaced by social parasites and loneliness.

The film offers some course correction when Freddie meets up with Jim Hutton, with promises of a more healthy relationship, but it feels like a rushed afterthought suggested by a script doctor. Hutton appears very near the end of the film, and his inclusion at Live Aid seems unearned in terms of story. For all the time Bohemian Rhapsody spends showing us unhealthy gay relationships, it would have been nice to balance that out with something more than a late character inclusion and a note in the final credits.

And for a movie about Queen, it would have been nice to see more of the other three members. They seem to drift through time (and the movie) without aging, being affable and only slightly grouchy to Freddie's excesses, with wives and children popping up here and there. We see very little of Freddie's relationship with them outside of band related issues, aside from Freddie showing a time pressed Roger Taylor his new mansion.

But I think I'm looking for another film.  Bohemian Rhapsody is a crowd pleasing trip down memory lane with some great music and stellar acting from Rami Malek, not an analytical or hard look at one of the world's most popular bands. And perhaps a light, crowd pleasing spectacle is exactly what Freddie Mercury would have wanted.

Stumptown Or How I Learned To Forget Rockford Files And Embrace Dex Parios

I grew up in the Seventies, when every other show on network television was about a private investigator or cop. Cannon, Barretta, Police Woman, Mannix,  and of course the best of them all, The Rockford Files. This explains why I have an affection for these stories, even as I creak past my mid fifties. Which brings us to Stumptown.

Stumptown would have been a great Seventies PI show. All the components are there: a private investigator who is as quick with the quips as she is down on her luck. A vintage car. A heart of gold hidden beneath scars of cynicism and bad experiences. And, most important of all, the genetic ability to get into situations waaaay over her head and paygrade.

This volume, which covers The Case of The Girl Who Took Her Shampoo (But Left Her Mini), introduces us to Dexedrine Parios, a private investigator who likes to gamble a bit too much. In hock to a local casino, she is forced to take a job finding the granddaughter of the casino's boss. Of course, it isn't as easy as it may sound. Dex runs into a few complications, many of which leave contusions with  promises of more to come. What should have been a simple job quickly turns into a shit show, with Dex doing her best to survive it.

The true strength of crime fiction is character. Writer Greg Rucka excels at this, especially with Dex. Her lack of impulse control is an interesting twist on the trope of the private investigator, coupled with her need to protect and care for her family. Dex is no angel, but she's trying.

The supporting cast is briefly introduced here, including a challenged brother and various contacts on the police force. The hints of back story don't automatically qualify Dex for sainthood, let's say.

The core mystery itself is fine, a basic missing persons case that of course is more than that. It's a decent framework to hang the main impetus of this story, which is to introduce Dex to new readers. Rucka handles that well, showing us the world Dex careens around, from the quiet domesticity of her home, her comfort with seedy bars and glitzy casinos,  to the long hours spent in her aging Mustang, watching out her side window on stake outs. It's a comforting read, with Matthew Southworth's artwork capturing the dirty and sordid atmosphere quite well.

I love these types of stories, and Stumptown reminds me why.

Lovers In A Dangerous Time: Shards Of Honor

Having read this book, I can truthfully say I did not imagine any of the lead characters to look that way. I imagined Cordelia with a much more pronounced chin and thinner face, for example, and Vorkosigan to look more like a burly refrigerator.  I do like that space ship thing, though, because I have no clear idea how it works.

I've started reading the Vorkosigan Saga, starting here with Shards of Honor.  Debates exist that this may not be the proper place to start, but I'm going with publication order, so here we go.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect. At first glance, this book looked like a space age Harlequin romance. For some reason, I had forgotten how much I loved the only other Bujold book I've read: The Curse of Chalion. So while I was expecting a space romance, I wasn't surprised when Shards revealed itself to be that, but also so much more. It's Bujold, after all.

Shards of Honor is a love story playing out through a war, the romance generated by two people who genuinely care for one another.  It also focuses on the cost in human suffering the machinations of governments can create, the type of suffering that can go on for years, courtesy of events that happen in seconds, pain that will never be posted in history books or in the speeches of the victorious. The dead pay the cost for the egos of the living.

Yet for all that darkness, the relationship between Cordelia and Vorkosigan--two combatants on opposite sides of a war, of course, because if you're going to fall in love, make it as difficult as possible--shines in this story.

Shards of Honor looks like one sort of story, and it is, but it's much more than that.  And perhaps that's why I loved it so much.

Paperbacks From AWESOME You Mean

I recently finished a glorious tromp through this treasure trove of delights.

Grady Hendrix provides a guided tour through the screaming halls of 70s and 80s horror fiction that should not be missed. Paperbacks From Hell brought back so many memories. Memories of spinner racks, memories of Coles and W.H. Smith horror sections, of days when new novels seemed to overflow from the shelves every week.

The world was different then, before the advent of the internet, social media and decaying attention spans. Publishers would throw anything at the wall in hopes that it would stick the way King did.  So we received stories about demon children, homicidal frogs, evil dolls with knives, and vengeful Indian spirits. Put together in this collection, it all feels like the best guitar solo from the best Alice Cooper inspired rock and roll band that never was.

These days, with the death of the B-list, you'll find the children of these books languishing on Kindle Unlimited, hoping to be noticed, praying to the dark gods to be read. The horror section of my local Chapters is one and a half shelves, with three quarters of it being taken up by King and Koontz. It's clear Hendrix is chronicling an era that will never come again, an era that we were too entranced with Jordache jeans and feathered hair to notice how wonderful it all was.

Hellfire Girls

Finished this recently. I am that rare creature who looks for and often enjoys spin off media. I don't hold my nose about it, either. Writing a story is writing a story. It's difficult. It rarely pays, and even more rarely pays well. Few people do it, and even fewer do it well. I don't care whether it's  your sandbox or someone else's--all I can ask is that you entertain me.

Brimstone Angels entertained me. It's a Dungeons and Dragons novel, set in the world of the Forgotten Realms. It tells the story of a tiefling called Farideh, who becomes a warlock by accident kinda? Because of this, she, her twin sister and her adopted Dragonborn old man have to amscray from their home and make their living as mercenaries. Following this unexpected career path, they run into new friends, old conspiracies, and a devil who--despite giving Farideh her powers--may not have her best interests completely at heart.

Erin M. Evans goes above and beyond the expectations of the genre here. She gives Farideh more depth than you'd find in a Salvatore novel, even if at times Brimstone Angels slides into YA novel territory, with its focus on crushes and bad boy boyfriends. With a devil as a supporting character, it's no surprise that she works in the Realms version of Hell and all the politics simmering away down there. This was darker than I had expected to be, to be honest. Evans ties it all together quite well.

While the novel feels like it wanders a bit in the middle, Evans brings things to a satisfactory conclusion. The story continues in a second volume, which I have yet to pick up.

The only problems I had with the book are really just problems with the source material. I'm not a fan of easy magic in novels, and this being Dungeons and Dragons, fireballs and healing spells fly around like nobody's business. I also find myself wondering just how the economy works in this place, since everyone seems to be either out on a quest, hiding their true identities, or plotting some epic malfeasance. Aside from a few guards and shop owners, no one seems to have a job. How does anyone eat in this place?

These are the questions that plague me.

Having only read on Dungeons and Dragons novel before, Brimstone Angels was a definite improvement.

Lovers In A Dangerous Time: Batman #40

As the concluding chapter in a wonderful story, I could just say see below for my thoughts.  Suffice to  say Tom King sticks the landing. Jones' art continues to make me sigh. So instead of just mindlessly praising this issue I found myself thinking how impossible this kind of story would have been twenty years ago.

A Batman story about time mechanics and sexual temptation all set against the hopeless backdrop of an eternal Hell dimension. Back then, the story would have been twelve issues long, all leading up to a major dramatic climax and then ending on the last page with a narrative reboot button or a hand waving It Never Really Happened Suckers. Zatanna made a spell! The Anti-Monitor had created a pocket dimension! It was all a dream! You can't believe we were actually serious!

Burned.

Which isn't to say DC won't do the same with this ongoing arc. I've been burned before. If you've read comics for any length of time, you've been burned before. For example, the Dick Grayson as Batman stories were a joy and made such narrative sense, such mythological sense, and it ended with all the gravitas of a needle scratch across a record.

If they do this with King's arc--or in any way not go through with the marriage--I will be very disappointed. But as sure as I am that will happen, I will just enjoy these issues for what they are.

Another thing: I really enjoyed Wonder Woman's depiction here. I don't read her current series and am a few years behind on JLA so I'm not sure what she's like these days. Here, I like how she speaks as if English isn't her mother tongue, eschewing contractions. Her sense of humour is also delightfully odd and individualistic. While King uses banter here for comedic effect, each interchange between Batman and Wonder Woman shows who they are as well as being amusing. There's a scene where they discuss their pets that is especially effective in this regard.

I'm guessing the current Wonder Woman is based on the movie version since that really won many people over, but I haven't seen it yet. But if this is how she's shown these days, I think it's perfect. Just like the rest of this comic.