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Review: Netflix’s Stranger Things – Season Four, Vol. 1

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Stranger Things Season Four, Vol. 1 is WILD, y’all!

(This post will be utterly spoiler free up until I give you a bold warning, below!)

Stranger Things Season Four PosterI didn’t meant to do it, but somehow I managed to binge all nine hours of Stranger Things Season Four within a single 24-hour period this weekend. Honestly, I just couldn’t turn it off, even if it meant almost completely sacrificing a day of sleep.

For a moment early in the season it seems like Season Four shared the same weakness as the past two seasons: The Duffers are convinced their breakout stars need their own storylines, which often feel like entirely separate shows within the show.

For a few episodes, it does feel like this story has become too big, too discursive. The core quartet of boys are fractured across multiple plots, and there are even more plotlines that don’t include them or Eleven.

Even as the plot feels bigger than ever before, Season 4 finally acknowledges that the show has never been about singular stars. It’s not a show about Eleven, Hopper, or even Hawkins. It’s about how your circle of friends grows and changes as you change how you define yourself. It’s about how things that used to be scary are now commonplace, and how the newest hurdle in your life always feels the highest.

Stranger Things could’ve become a horror anthology series returning to Hawkins again and again without our core cast of misfits. However, this time it really feels like a story about the misfits (like S1 did) as much as it is about the horror around them… and what caused it. The show’s ever-growing ensemble of actors makes it work the best it has since Season 1 (which I crushed on back in 2016).

Be warned: Stranger Things Season 4 is bloodier and scarier than any of the past volumes. There are fewer jump scares, but more outright gore and onscreen violence.

Also, the first few minutes of the first episode focus on the aftermath of graphic violence that might be triggering for some viewers – this week, especially. It received a special content warning in the states, but we didn’t get it here in New Zealand. If you’re sensitive to images of violence against children, you can safely skip from the big “knockout” blackout at the 7-minute mark to the end of the opening credits. You’ll see the same scene again in a less disturbing fashion later in the season.

(Continue reading if you want very minor spoilers about the characters and their arcs as of the beginning of the season.) [Read more…] about Review: Netflix’s Stranger Things – Season Four, Vol. 1

30 – Adele | the expectations game

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As a music fan, consumer, and review, it’s hard for me to detach my reaction to a new album from the expectations game.

That’s especially true of fourth albums, like Adele’s 30.

Everyone loves an indelible debut record. When we love an artist’s first album, we fall in love with the songs, but we’re also deeply curious about their potential. What path will they take? How will their follow-up sound?

We applaud when an artist releases a strong second album. We are amazed when it is even better than the first. When we love an artist’s second album, we fall in love with the songs, but we’re beginning to measure a vector. They’ve moved in a direction, even if that direction is to provide more of the exact same. Will they continue to progress in that same way?

Third albums are tricky. That’s when things become interesting. Third albums are when we think we really know something about an artist. We have a reasonable sample size of songs. We have three points from which we can triangulate position and estimate future progress.We can say, “the artist usually does this or that.” We can decide if their progression has been linear or if it took a hard turn into unexpected territory.

That is why fourth albums are dangerous. They are the realm of proving or disproving all those things that we thought we understood. They have the potential take an artist’s progression from a line – or even a triangle – to some wild uneven quadrilateral that might even intersect with itself. They’re often the moment where an artist solidifies who they really are and who they will continue to be for many years to come.

I think most people navigate that musical map subtly. Unconsciously. The average listener has some expectations that might be fulfilled or shattered, but I don’t think they consider a fourth album to be particularly significant.

I’m not like that. I can’t turn off the part of my brain that dissects songwriting and production, and that draws out vectors of musical style and influences. I am graphing each release as a point on a musical map and drawing the vectors between them. I can’t help it.

Adele has had a textbook progression through these first three steps Memorable debut? Check. Explosive classic sophomore effort that raised her to worldwide acclaim? Check. Stylistically rangy third record that at once confirmed her strengths but pushed some of her boundaries. Check.

Now, 11 years after her debut but a whole 6 after her third record, we’re getting that fourth album. The dangerous one. It’s dangerous for Adele, but dangerous for me, too – because I feel the weight of all of those expectations.

I had to listen to it two different ways. First, just to hear the songs. Then, to hear them with the weight of all of that piled on top of them.

It was terrible both ways, which leaves me fearful of Adele’s future trajectory.

30 – Adele

Adele is the biggest blockbuster voice in popular music today, both in spectacle and in sales. That makes any album of hers a hotly anticipated release. 30, in particular, has been inflated even further. The first in six years! The first since she got divorced! Got thin! And it’s accompanied by a pair of pan-Atlantic concert specials! And an interview with Oprah!

I don’t know that the spectacle could get any bigger. It threatens to overshadow the features that made Adele so famous in the first place: her massive voice, her clear-eyed songwriting, and her biting sense of humor.

Adele is famous for using that massive voice to command attention on her emotional ballads just as well as she uses it to power surprising, genre-defying pop hits like “Chasing Pavements” and “Rolling in the Deep.” She has never lacked for strong material in either category. Her songwriting skills are as notable as her vocal power, even if her vocals sometimes overshadow them.

Now at a pinnacle of her popularity, 30 finds Adele coasting through a set of charmless songs without an earworm refrain to be found. Suddenly, she is putting the schmaltz at center stage rather than her songwriting acumen. I don’t begrudge her the sales, but I wish they came with a more enjoyable record. [Read more…] about 30 – Adele | the expectations game

The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

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The Pull List was slightly lighter this week than the past three, partially due to me not managing to pick up any additional ongoings from Marvel or DC. I made a heroic effort to catch all the way up with Doctor Strange, but fell an arc short.

This week’s comics felt a little ho-hum for me, with even typical standouts like Flash and Paradiso falling flat. However, it also brought not one but two near-perfect comics, plus one unexpectedly great debut.

Here’s The Pull List for the 14th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

Artwork from Infidel #1 cover by Aaron Campbell & José Villarrubia

  • DC Comics
    • Action Comics (2016) #999
    • Batgirl and The Birds of Prey (2016) #20
    • Detective Comics (2016) #976
    • *Eternity Girl (2018) #1
    • The Flash (2016) #42
    • Mister Miracle (2017) #7
    • Sideways (2018) #2
    • Suicide Squad (2016) #37
    • Titans (2016) #21
    • Trinity (2016) #19
    • Wonder Woman (2016) #42
  • Image Comics
    • Bonehead (2018) #3
    • *#Dry County (2018) #1
    • *Infidel (2018) #1
    • Paradiso (2017) #4
    • #Sleepless (2017) #4
    • Slots (2017) #6
    • VS (2018) #2
  • Marvel Comics
    • All-New Wolverine (2016) #32
    • Astonishing X-Men (2017) #9
    • Avengers (2017) #684
    • Marvel Two-in-One (2018) #4
    • New Mutants – Dead Souls (2018) #1
    • Old Man Logan (2016) #36
    • Weapon X (2017) #15
    • X-Men: Blue (2017) #23
  • Smaller Publishers: Aftershock Comics, Archie Comics, Black Mask Studios, & Boom! Studios
    • Judas (2017) #4, Boom! Studios
    • *Come Into Me (2018) #1, Black Mask Studios
    • *Vampironica (2018) #1, Archie Comics
    • *Betrothed (2018) #1, Aftershock Comics

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book and my bell curve distribution peaks at 3/5 stars! Don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. That means it’s just a hair below average (and there are a lot of those this week)

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week:
Action Comics (2016) #999, DC Comics

Dan Jurgens leaves us with a truly perfect, contemplative issue of Superman that puts a wrap on his stellar Rebirth run but also addresses his writing from over 25 years ago, as beautifully rendered by artist Will Conrad and colorist Ivan Nunes.

In Metropolis, Lois is newly reunited with her estranged Army General father after saving him from execution in the last arc. It’s his first time meeting Jon (sort of), but General Lane isn’t in on the Superman secret, so he thinks Jon is a regular kid. That makes it even more tense as Lois and her father square off across the dinner table about the philosophy of Superman. Jon has never been exposed to this kind of hatred and xenophobia about his father before – which is also, by extension, aimed at him.

Meanwhile, Superman is in space dealing with a routine chore of breaking up an asteroid that will stray a bit too close to Earth for STAR Labs liking. Superman is thinking about fathers – General Lane, his own father Jor-El, as well as Zod – all of whom were tangled in the cross-time plot he just wrapped with Booster Gold.

Superman can see the errors in the ways of each of those parents and they in turn reflect his errors back upon him. Clark Kent is good-natured to a fault, but he’s not always right. General Lane isn’t entirely wrong about him – sometimes his absolute power corrupts him, both in how he metes out justice and in how he isn’t accustomed to apologizing for his actions.

As a result, Superman decides to put right two wrongs. One is with Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, who he currently has imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. The other, eventually is General Lane. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

The Pull List: Batman, Black Bolt, Deathstroke, Dodge City, Elsewhere, Infinity Countdown, Oblivion Song, Shade The Changing Woman, & more!

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The Pull List is holding strong as 33 issues this week thanks to a huge number of new pickups – including eleven new number one issues (plus two already-running series I finally caught up to reading)!

This was an intense Marvel Comics week on my pull list and a lighter DC week for me. Marvel had only two books out from titles I’m not up to speed on, where DC had a lot of comics out in lines I’m not yet caught up on and no “New Age of Heroes” books, plus only one new number one – a relaunch of Shade.

Meanwhile, it is a big week for new debuts from independent publishers – though a few of them weren’t to my tastes (and one was entirely unreadable!).

Artwork by Becky Cloonan.

Here’s The Pull List for the 7th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

  • DC Comics
    • Batman #42
    • * Deathstroke #29
    • Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #3
    • Justice League #40
    • * Shade, The Changing Woman #1
    • Superman #42
  • Image Comics
    • * Elsewhere #5
    • *# Gideon Falls #1
    • * Oblivion Song #1
    • * Prism Stalker #1
  • Marvel Comics
    • * Avengers – Back to Basics #1
    • Avengers #683
    • Black Bolt #11
    • Captain America #699
    • Doctor Strange – Damnation #2
    • Hawkeye #16
    • Iceman #11
    • Infinity Countdown #1
    • Rise of the Black Panther #3
    • Rogue & Gambit #3
    • Spider-Man #238
    • Venom #163
    • X-Men: Gold #23
    • X-Men: Red #2
  • Smaller Publishers:
    Aftershock Comics, Boom! Studios, Dark Horse, Humanoids, IDW Publishing, Oni Press

    • *# The Ballad of Sang #1, Oni Press
    • * Dodge City #1, Boom! Studios
    • * Exo #1-3, Humanoids
    • Giant Days #36, Boom! Studios
    • * Highest House #1, IDW Publishing
    • Incognegro – Renaissance #2, Dark Horse
    • Mech Cadet Yu #7, Boom! Studios
    • # Monstro Mechanica #4, Aftershock Comics
    • *# The Spider King #1, IDW Publishing

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book! It should be my most-assigned score, but I tend to err on thinking average comics are good (confusing, I know), so 3 stars is the peak of my very distributed bell curve of ratings.

That means a 2/5 comic is not bad. That’s my rating for “uneven.” So, don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. “Bad” and “Terrible” are 1/5 and .5/5, respectively, and I’ve only given those scores to 2.35% of the comics I’ve read so far this year.

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week: 
Infinity Countdown (2018) #1

4.5 starsThis galaxy-spanning series is ecstatic – maybe the first time I’ve felt like the comics incarnation of Guardians of the Galaxy has resembled the tone of movie since the first film was released.

This book is built on a year of Guardians plot, but it could not possibly be more inviting to a new reader. All of the action is massive, all of the jokes land, and Aaron Kuder’s style of subtle figures paired with ultra detail is the perfect match for big space blowouts. It’s definitely the first time I’ve ever liked Drax, and the issue is full of amazing moments for Groot.

The Guardians have split their attention between a showdown with the murderous Gardener and defending a massive Infinity Stone along with the Nova Corps. Drax and the Corps start out faring better defending the stone than the rest of the assembled Guardians do agains The Gardener, but as both fights wear on the balance begins to tip.

With the [hugely shocking spoiler] scene on Earth that ends this issue, I understand why Duggan got this story upgraded from being just a Guardians story arc to a universe-wide event. He’s a writer who has been in Marvel’s big leagues for a few years now, and it’s terrific to see him writing an event that touches so many of Marvel’s big franchises without needlessly interfering with their ongoing titles.

I am absolutely subscribed to Infinite Countdown from this point forward, and it has moved Duggan’s Guardians run even further up my “to-read” list.

(Why in heaven’s name would you put a Nick Bradshaw cover on a book with interiors by Aaron Kuder and Mike Deodato? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.)

Small-Pub Pick of the Week:
Exo (2017) Hardcover AKA #1-3, Humanoids

This is the first English translation of this work, originally released as three French graphic albums and here released by Humanoids as three digital issues or a single hardcover.

Exo is a sci-fi motion picture waiting to be optioned. It combines two seemingly separate plots into one perfectly tense story – one of a NASA scientist on Earth, the other of a military strike force on the moon.

John Koenig is a perfectly average scientist who happens to have located a potentially habitable planet in another solar system and tasked a probe to fly its way. His announcement makes for a sleepy press conference, since any potential findings from the probe are almost two years away. The discovery is just another day at the office for Koenig – he goes for a routine physical afterward, and the heads into LA to retrieve his adult daughter, who calls him John.

Meanwhile, a projectile arcs from the moon to Earth, shattering part of an International Space Station en route to crashing into a field in Colorado before it starts to… branch out. Unfortunately, one of its findings is a schizophrenia man named Charles, who it is unable to control.

As Charles’s new crew seeks John, the military responds to the projectile by putting boots on the lunar ground – but they aren’t ready for what they might find there.

That describes just a sliver of the first 40 pages of this 120 page graphic novel, and it doesn’t even include the drug trip!

Exo has the same third act struggles as any massive sci-fi plot, but the tension that proceeds it is makes it worth a read. Even if a lot of the story draws from familiar tropes, it has the brash inventiveness to combine them in a way that we all hope to see from sci-fi films (think: Arrival).

[Read more…] about The Pull List: Batman, Black Bolt, Deathstroke, Dodge City, Elsewhere, Infinity Countdown, Oblivion Song, Shade The Changing Woman, & more!

This Week In X: Iceman #11, Rogue & Gambit #3, Venom #163, X-Men Gold #23, & X-Men Red #2

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It’s the tenth week of new comics in 2018, and This Week in X is packed with X-Men titles, including all three of the current X-Men teams … but I wasn’t too thrilled with the selection!

This week, I cover:

  • Iceman (2017) #11 is a pleasing summation to this series, rather than just a conclusion.
  • Rogue & Gambit (2018) #3 trades heavily on a continuity-obsessed love of the couple.
  • Venom (2017) #163 starring X-Men Blue is the final issue of the Poison X arc.
  • X-Men: Gold (2017) #23 has an interesting premise in need of defined character voices.
  • X-Men: Red (2018) #2 somewhat squanders the good will of the first issue.

Learn more about how each of those series reached their current issues and hear which ones I’d recommend picking up.