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lunasarielAs I mentioned in my previous post, everyone here in my building is really social. A lot of people prop their doors open whenever they're at home, and seem to drift out of each other's apartments pretty freely. Again, I said that this is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good, because groups aren't cohesive enough to make me feel excluded, but bad because I'm always being called out when I'd rather stay in. Case in point, I just now finished The Authority: The Lost Year, and I was looking forward to a nice, quite evening of blogging about it, reading Emma for one of my classes, doing my laundry, and heading to bed around 11:00 or midnight. Instead, I'm going out to the pub with a bunch of people, and getting (expensively) hammered with a bunch of near-strangers is not my idea of a good time. It turns out that I'm very nervous about drinking, since I've seen what my dad can be like. That's not a path I want to go down, so I find that I'm tending towards erring on the side of caution. I know that it's no fun to drink with a teetotaler, but I guess I fear the loss of control more than the disapprobation of my peers.
The thing is, blogging about obscure comic books, reading amazingly nerdy books, doing household chores by myself, and going to bed (comparatively) early actually does sound fairly appealing to me. I know that I'm an introvert, so I have to exert myself to be around other people, and I recharge by being alone. On the other hand, most of the other people in this building are extroverts, so they're happiest in a group, and find being alone trying or discomforting. So either I'm forcing myself to socialize or they're thinking I'm weird and/or standoffish for not socializing.
Anyway, I've got a little bit of time before descending into the ravening hordes, so as I said, I'm going to sit here and blog about obscure comic books to my lil' heart's content.
The Lost Year was an odd piece of work. It was a mishmash, like most of the other story arcs, but this was a(n) (at least partially) purposeful mishmash. The arcs themselves varied wildly in quality, and even within the arcs, there was a fairly wide range of attitudes and subgenres, which isn't as good a thing as it sounds. For example, the very first arc was all over the place: it started out as almost humorous, with Jack and Habib picking up a copy of Relentless in a comic book shop and allusions to the Kev Saga in Kenny, the unlucky everydude who happens to encounter the Authority in unusual and ludicrous circumstances. From there, it quickly loses originality, tiredly re-treading the same old questions of the good of one vs. the good of all and the Authority's right, or lack thereof, to make momentous decisions (with potentially catastrophic results) for humanity at large. It then veers in an unsurprising Lovecraftian direction, since apparently nothing short of eldritch abominations from the dawn of time are scary enough to make our heroes sweat. It finishes, again, on a note that we've seen a thousand times before: Angie tinkering with the ship, Shen being forced to abandon her pacifist ideals for an expedient victory, Jenny and Jack both doubting their leadership capabilities, and the Midnighter snarling at all and sundry.
Apollo seems to have taken Shen's place as the team's baffling non-entity. Time was, nobody quite knew how to deal with the Huntress, so they just left her alone, while Apollo was their easygoing big gun. But then every baddie the Authority went up against had to prove itself as a major threat by swatting Apollo down like a fly, which led to a sadly predictable characterization as a damsel in distress. Meanwhile, Shen gained some depth. Her Buddhist roots were more than just paid lip service to, and she developed a sneaky, nonchalant sense of humor. But things went a little too far, and it became a fairly standard plot device for something unpleasant to happen to Apollo, which was followed by Midnighter kicking the holy living shit out of whatever caused the aforementioned unpleasantness, while Shen is snarky and acrobatic.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Shen is finally getting to be her own character, not just the token Asian (most writers seem to have forgotten that Jenny is at least genetically Chinese), I'm just pissed that the writers of one of the very, very few positive, stable homosexual relationships in comic books seem to feel that they need to enforce the old-as-dirt dichotomy where a muscle-bound, macho hero constantly rescues his virtually helpless love interest from durance vile. The love interest then twitters and worries over the hero's putting himself in such a position of danger just for little ol' me. I miss the days of Warren Ellis, when they were true equals: the Midnighter worried that it was Apollo's job to fling himself out of moving spacecraft several miles up and then head on a direct collision course with an entire army of screaming psychopaths, while Apollo was very, very aware that the Midnighter was far from bulletproof or invulnerable.
Those last few scenes in The Lost Year at least addressed this issue, even if they didn't entirely resolve it. (One of the only things the various writers for The Authority seem to agree on is that A&M never get to explicitly resolve any of their issues. Human on the Inside and Revolution, I'm looking at you.) It was a step in the right direction that Apollo at least acknowledged that he was unhappy with being the universe's punching bag, although I though the writers made a misstep in couching it in terms of Apollo's fears for his own physical well-being instead of his dissatisfaction with his role as a victim.
On the other hand, I think Midnighter's half of that whole discussion was written rather well, considering. It's a sad given that his character has gone from what it was in The Circle (Warren Ellis' very first arc) to what it is now. That is, he was originally unafraid to show affection and/or worry for his loved ones, but now he takes an attitude more typical of black leather-clad badasses, in that he covers up any display of affection, worry, etc. with aggression and sometimes outright violence. Even given that, and also given the slightly patronizing tone I'd expected the writers to give him, he expressed his fear of what they'd seen in the alternate universes rather well. It was (again) a step in the right direction for him to even *admit* to worry or fear, especially of himself. I also liked that, at the end of the day, he was (or at least appeared to be) convinced that he was not, and never could become, the bloodthirsty monsters he saw wearing his face. It was an abrupt turnaround from the doubts he'd been voicing so loudly in the previous issue, but it's implied that those doubts were a result of the stress of interdimensional travel, and were nullified upon his return to his own Earth. Of course, they just had to play the whole scene as Apollo the querulous and emotional worrywart vs. Midnighter the belligerent but roughly affectionate reasurer (which is almost exactly the opposite of their original portrayals).
I realize that it sounds an awful lot like A) I'm just whining about the fact that kids these days can't tell a derned story to save their lives and it was so much better in the good old days, and B) I've never heard of a little thing called character development. The point that I'm trying to make is that it would be equally as bad for the characters to remain totally static as for them to develop in such a disconnected manner. My problem here is that there is little or no psychological accuracy in some of these characters' developments. I would like this series so much more if everybody developed in keeping with their original portrayals, instead of the current system of seemingly disconnected mood swings and random personality shifts. Is Jenny Quantum impatient with her team's inability to follow her orders properly, or does she want out from the responsibility too large to be resting on such a small girl's shoulders? Is Jack relieved to give up his power for a more backseat role, or does he still want a bigger piece of the pie? Is Habib a (semi-)normal teenager thrust into circumstances way to big for him to comprehend, or is he a Yoda-like dispenser of wisdom and power? Is Shen a pacifist deeply uncomfortable with the level of violence she and her teamates have shown themselves capable of unleashing, or a snarky winged huntress on a crusade against injustice? Is Angie an ascended fangirl living out her dreams of fighting evil and righting wrongs while communing with their mystically sentient shiftship, or is she an increasingly confused and disoriented woman frightened of losing her grip on her humanity? I don't know, and I don't think the writers do, either.
The thing is, blogging about obscure comic books, reading amazingly nerdy books, doing household chores by myself, and going to bed (comparatively) early actually does sound fairly appealing to me. I know that I'm an introvert, so I have to exert myself to be around other people, and I recharge by being alone. On the other hand, most of the other people in this building are extroverts, so they're happiest in a group, and find being alone trying or discomforting. So either I'm forcing myself to socialize or they're thinking I'm weird and/or standoffish for not socializing.
Anyway, I've got a little bit of time before descending into the ravening hordes, so as I said, I'm going to sit here and blog about obscure comic books to my lil' heart's content.
The Lost Year was an odd piece of work. It was a mishmash, like most of the other story arcs, but this was a(n) (at least partially) purposeful mishmash. The arcs themselves varied wildly in quality, and even within the arcs, there was a fairly wide range of attitudes and subgenres, which isn't as good a thing as it sounds. For example, the very first arc was all over the place: it started out as almost humorous, with Jack and Habib picking up a copy of Relentless in a comic book shop and allusions to the Kev Saga in Kenny, the unlucky everydude who happens to encounter the Authority in unusual and ludicrous circumstances. From there, it quickly loses originality, tiredly re-treading the same old questions of the good of one vs. the good of all and the Authority's right, or lack thereof, to make momentous decisions (with potentially catastrophic results) for humanity at large. It then veers in an unsurprising Lovecraftian direction, since apparently nothing short of eldritch abominations from the dawn of time are scary enough to make our heroes sweat. It finishes, again, on a note that we've seen a thousand times before: Angie tinkering with the ship, Shen being forced to abandon her pacifist ideals for an expedient victory, Jenny and Jack both doubting their leadership capabilities, and the Midnighter snarling at all and sundry.
Apollo seems to have taken Shen's place as the team's baffling non-entity. Time was, nobody quite knew how to deal with the Huntress, so they just left her alone, while Apollo was their easygoing big gun. But then every baddie the Authority went up against had to prove itself as a major threat by swatting Apollo down like a fly, which led to a sadly predictable characterization as a damsel in distress. Meanwhile, Shen gained some depth. Her Buddhist roots were more than just paid lip service to, and she developed a sneaky, nonchalant sense of humor. But things went a little too far, and it became a fairly standard plot device for something unpleasant to happen to Apollo, which was followed by Midnighter kicking the holy living shit out of whatever caused the aforementioned unpleasantness, while Shen is snarky and acrobatic.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Shen is finally getting to be her own character, not just the token Asian (most writers seem to have forgotten that Jenny is at least genetically Chinese), I'm just pissed that the writers of one of the very, very few positive, stable homosexual relationships in comic books seem to feel that they need to enforce the old-as-dirt dichotomy where a muscle-bound, macho hero constantly rescues his virtually helpless love interest from durance vile. The love interest then twitters and worries over the hero's putting himself in such a position of danger just for little ol' me. I miss the days of Warren Ellis, when they were true equals: the Midnighter worried that it was Apollo's job to fling himself out of moving spacecraft several miles up and then head on a direct collision course with an entire army of screaming psychopaths, while Apollo was very, very aware that the Midnighter was far from bulletproof or invulnerable.
Those last few scenes in The Lost Year at least addressed this issue, even if they didn't entirely resolve it. (One of the only things the various writers for The Authority seem to agree on is that A&M never get to explicitly resolve any of their issues. Human on the Inside and Revolution, I'm looking at you.) It was a step in the right direction that Apollo at least acknowledged that he was unhappy with being the universe's punching bag, although I though the writers made a misstep in couching it in terms of Apollo's fears for his own physical well-being instead of his dissatisfaction with his role as a victim.
On the other hand, I think Midnighter's half of that whole discussion was written rather well, considering. It's a sad given that his character has gone from what it was in The Circle (Warren Ellis' very first arc) to what it is now. That is, he was originally unafraid to show affection and/or worry for his loved ones, but now he takes an attitude more typical of black leather-clad badasses, in that he covers up any display of affection, worry, etc. with aggression and sometimes outright violence. Even given that, and also given the slightly patronizing tone I'd expected the writers to give him, he expressed his fear of what they'd seen in the alternate universes rather well. It was (again) a step in the right direction for him to even *admit* to worry or fear, especially of himself. I also liked that, at the end of the day, he was (or at least appeared to be) convinced that he was not, and never could become, the bloodthirsty monsters he saw wearing his face. It was an abrupt turnaround from the doubts he'd been voicing so loudly in the previous issue, but it's implied that those doubts were a result of the stress of interdimensional travel, and were nullified upon his return to his own Earth. Of course, they just had to play the whole scene as Apollo the querulous and emotional worrywart vs. Midnighter the belligerent but roughly affectionate reasurer (which is almost exactly the opposite of their original portrayals).
I realize that it sounds an awful lot like A) I'm just whining about the fact that kids these days can't tell a derned story to save their lives and it was so much better in the good old days, and B) I've never heard of a little thing called character development. The point that I'm trying to make is that it would be equally as bad for the characters to remain totally static as for them to develop in such a disconnected manner. My problem here is that there is little or no psychological accuracy in some of these characters' developments. I would like this series so much more if everybody developed in keeping with their original portrayals, instead of the current system of seemingly disconnected mood swings and random personality shifts. Is Jenny Quantum impatient with her team's inability to follow her orders properly, or does she want out from the responsibility too large to be resting on such a small girl's shoulders? Is Jack relieved to give up his power for a more backseat role, or does he still want a bigger piece of the pie? Is Habib a (semi-)normal teenager thrust into circumstances way to big for him to comprehend, or is he a Yoda-like dispenser of wisdom and power? Is Shen a pacifist deeply uncomfortable with the level of violence she and her teamates have shown themselves capable of unleashing, or a snarky winged huntress on a crusade against injustice? Is Angie an ascended fangirl living out her dreams of fighting evil and righting wrongs while communing with their mystically sentient shiftship, or is she an increasingly confused and disoriented woman frightened of losing her grip on her humanity? I don't know, and I don't think the writers do, either.
