only childness

DC New 52 Review: Men of War #1

September 10, 2011 by krisis

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with G.I. Joes. A lot of kids were. They were three dollars each with a seemingly infinite amount of new line-ups to collect.

Except, my obsession was slightly different – my G.I. Joes were superheroes. Each one of them had a special power, and they formed teams and went on missions just like comic book superheroes. In fact, I even kept a binder outlining all of their story exploits, including issue summaries, origins, and deaths.

(Yes, I was an intense kid.)

Since my playtime was more about building narrative than mashing pieces of plastic against each other, I wasn’t shy about playing with G.I. Joe’s straight into high school. The toys allowed me to be a sort of writer/director, visualizing plots that found their way out of my imagination and later into short stories.

All that is to say, though I loved G.I. Joes, I never particularly cared for G.I. Joe as a concept. I don’t love war stories and gun violence. That put DC’s new war anthology on shaky ground with me, unless they managed to power it up, a la my erstwhile 3 3/4″ friends.

Men of War #1

“Joseph Rock,” written by Ivan Brandon, art by Tom Derenick
“Navy Seals, Human Shields,” written by Jonathan Vankin, art by Phil Winslade

Rating: 3 of 5 – Good

In a Line: “Anyway, I got out of the Peace Corps ‘cuz it made me realize – if you want to do good, it helps to have an assault rifle.”

140char Review Men of War #1, hard-bitten war anthology w/slightest twist of super. Not my kind of comic but I can’t deny it was well-done, esp terminology

Plot & Script

The scripts of both stories are beautiful things, in their way. Word balloons are stuffed with armed forces acronyms and special ops lingo, and they help to transport you into the world these characters inhabit without much prior knowledge.

The plot of first story about Sgt. Rock is solid but strangely unfilling. We’re treated to the grimly stubborn infantryman Rock, promoted to a special ops squad thanks to countless acts of unspecified badassness. Then he heads into an unnamed region filled with unseen insurgents, witnesses an unidentifiable super-being
wreak havoc, and watches his team die an ignominious death (not really a spoiler, since we see it in the first panel)

While all the dialog is ace, I feel as though the vaguely-detailed story depends on some foreknowledge or affection for Sgt. Rock. Without that, it’s a one-and-done tale about a brave soldier being decimated by a superior force. I don’t see much point in a second issue.

I liked the Navy Seals tale much better. We get the personalities of a core cast of characters in short order as they deal with a high pressure situation. Vankin does a great job differentiating the team in limited panel time, giving each man a smattering of personality to go with his call name.

Despite not caring for army comics too much, I found myself investing in the outcome of their story. I cared if the wounded guy died, was frustrated by the impulsive actions of Tracker, and was genuinely shocked and sickened by the story’s climax.

Artwork

The problem with army books is that everyone starts looking the same.

In the Sgt. Rock story this is a major problem for me – not so much because of the pencils, but the colors. It was like military-grade sepia tone. In a series of lowly-lit situations all of the shadowed faces begins to blend together.

While I liked the line art and colors in the second story much better, the lack of differentiation was actually worse. For white army dudes in the same uniform, and you only give one of them facial hair to help us tell them apart? The dialog does a decent job, but I wouldn’t have minded a minor visual differentiation, even if it slightly shattered the perfect adherence to real-life army code.

I love the fuzzy cover with its subtle phoenix image in the blood and gunfire – I missed that detail on the small preview image.

CK Says: Consider it.

Men of War is an anthology collection that delivers 100% on the promise of its title, with an ever-so-slight superhero skew of existing in the DC Universe.

Fans of old Sgt. Fury comics and The Hurt Locker alike will probably enjoy the on-the-ground glimpse of infantry and Navy SEALS.

For superhero junkies, the outcome is more hazy. While this is well-written and full of action, it’s less Captain America and more G.I. Joe.

Comfort Films

February 4, 2010 by krisis

I’ve been watching Star Wars for days.

Lest you wonder, “You mean, instead of going to work?,” allow me to explain: I’m home sick for the second day in the row – a relative rarity for me.

I’ll spare you the details and state simply that I’ve been relatively couchbound for over forty-eight hours, aside from when the constant heavy knocking on doors up and down my block (which I have begun to attribute to daytime drug deals), drove me to sloth up to the bed (there only having to contend with barking dogs).

My non-sleeping couch time has been spent watching Star Wars: A New Hope. Not the ooky remastered version. No. The original, unretouched theatrical cut that comes as a bonus in the box set.

I haven’t made it through it awake a single time, yet.

When I was home sick as a child – as sick as I have been this week – the Beta machine was my only comfort. On it my mother had amassed copies of every possible children’s show or movie shown on VHF, UHF, or HBO from 1981 forward. Muppet Movies, The Last Unicorn, Flight of Dragons, Here Comes the Grump, Neverending Story, Dark Crystal, and many more that I can’t remember at the moment.

And Star Wars

Being sick in college wasn’t the same. When you’re sick you just want something you like. You want comfortable clothes, comfort ford, and comfort films. I’ve seen hundreds of movies since then, but none really qualify (save for maybe Lord of the Rings – we did have a tape of The Hobbit, after all).

Having heard my stories of being home sick, E started buying me those movies on my first birthday when we were dating. We’ve continued to fill in the gaps over the years. Having just recently acquired the Star Wars Original Trilogy, all that remains outside of my grasp are the Muppet Movies.

I know this is ridiculous, but I don’t think I would have gotten better so quickly without Star Wars. It kept me couched and calm, intermittently napping – just like it did twenty years ago. Only now in my more mobile state am I interested in modern fare.

Do you have any comfort films?

– – – – – – – . (the bathroom is very nice here)

January 28, 2009 by krisis

okay. in short:

Packed up our charming Paris flat last night after one of our best days in the city, including a beautiful stroll through Montmartre at sunset and accompanying dessert courtesy of our dear friends Dante and Jennifer. I suddenly got really good at French and yammered to anyone available.

This morning made 2nd best eggs ever and called a cab while we slowly advanced our luggage into the courtyard of our flat. Cab never came. Manually hauled luggage (mine now weighing over half of my body weight) up the street and flagged a cab to take us to Gare du Nord.

Wandered back and forth, lost, in Gare du Nord just long enough that by the time we got through customs and UK border we had thoroughly missed our Eurostar. The gentleman at the gate kindly and wordlessly moved us on to the next train and waved us through.

(aside: they have tiny bottles of wine in the dining car.)

Arrived in St. Pancras and immediately found ourselves in a taxi queue with the first rude people we’ve met in Europe – they wouldn’t let a very nice non-English-speaking family by to get to the street. I mentioned it to the steward at the front of the queue and he chewed them out before putting us in an awesome cab with enough room in the back to play Twister.

Best introduction to a country, ever.

Arrived at our guest house. Neighborhood, charming, but the weird, unintelligible lady at the desk made us wary. In three words from my wife, the room was “clean, outrageously modest,” which is very kind. Apparently, British guest houses aren’t at all like American bed and breakfasts. They are more like private-room hostels with shared mess hall breakfast in the morning, which is to say that I didn’t like that using our shower WOULD HAVE GOT THE BED WET, especially because the bed may have been made of cardboard or something else especially biodegradable and might have just dissolved into the natty rug.

Also, no internet, where all of our notes, reservations, and information live. Are you feeling me on this one?

A plan was hatched. We walked down the block to a Starbucks, got properly weak American caffeinated beverages, and used the internet to find the four-star hotel closest to the middle of London that had a concierge and wireless internet.

We then were faced with the matter of getting out of our guest house reservations, and for those of you familiar with my spectrum of creative problem-solving I’m sure you can imagine the creative scenario and accompanying major fit that I invented for the situation.

Afterward, we netted a hired taxi driver who had seriously no idea where our hotel was, even when we told him it was effectively across from the British Museum, and then we met a nice lady at the front desk who upgraded us to a deluxe room with a bathroom twice as big as my cubical, and here we are.

Since we didn’t really mention once to anyone in Paris that we were on our honeymoon we are starting every sentence here with, “well, we’re on our honeymoon, and…,” which in about three minutes should net us some fantastic dinner reservations from the concierge.

More, later.

Pink Envelopes, Cheerful Weeks, Dark Knights

July 19, 2008 by krisis

I’ve been really dodging my blogging lately. Which, per usual, is indicative of life being actually full-to-the-brim of interestingness that I am simply not diligent enough to record.

Some vignettes:

I received a pink envelope in the mail yesterday, with no return address. Definitely raised some fiancee eyebrows until I opened it and realized it was from the bridal boutique where I just bought the dresses for my groomsladies.

Note to boutique: when dealing with the groom, do not send receipts to him in unmarked pink envelopes. It does not bode well for the eventual wedding.

For the last two weeks we have been slightly less yuppy / slightly more domestic with the addition to our household of Elise’s brother.

Despite my compilation of an exhaustive list of cool things to see and do in Philly, we haven’t done all that much of interest. Yet, I’ve been having a cheerful, excellent time – not just in hanging out with him but in life in general … waking up early, going to bed satisfied with my day.

I half attribute it to having a sibling around to take an interest in, and half to the novelty of having someone who I totally relate to that is not a girl.

(His best quote so far, I think, was “Dave & Busters? That’s like Chucky Cheese with beer, right?)

The downside, if there is one, is that my scant project-oriented time is bisected further than it usually is just with Elise-hanging, which has left less attention for blogging, songwriting, piano-playing, et cetera.

That, and that I finally am starting to understand what it is to have a sibling relationship with someone younger than me (as to opposed to with Lindsay or Erika), and I’m going to be really sad when he’s done with Philly for the summer, because this is definitely a one-time-only thing – next summer he’ll be looking at colleges and then he’ll be out in the world on his own and we won’t be the fun vacation from real life anymore, because real life will finally be interesting.

So, maybe I’ve learned to be a little more sympathetic towards my mother from the experience?

Last night I saw the Dark Knight with a ridiculous majority of my favorite people, the majority of whom are voracious movie consumers and critics. We left the theatre in dumbstruck silence. I’m hard-pressed to name another movie that literally left me speechless until I exited the theatre complex … maybe Seven?

I did a lot of tearing up along the way, mostly at Heath’s unbidden perfection, but really just because it was an amazing ensemble piece and sometimes great acting clicking together like a well-made watch makes me emotional.

Choosing Your Family, and Cheers

June 9, 2008 by krisis

(This is the toast I gave yesterday at my mother’s wedding, prefaced by my extemporaneous introduction of “I’m Peter, and I’ll be your toaster.”)

Every family begins as a unit. The family you find yourself born into; the family you are given.

From there, how you define your family is up to life, to circumstance, to chance, and to you.

Whoever else we may have begun with, there was no questions that E—– and I were a unit – a matched pair, mother and son, adventurer and sidekick, driver and navigator, friend and peer.

We existed as that unit for years, occasionally inviting others (who are here today) into our fold. L—, the first person to ever lay eyes on my face. A—–, hers the first babies I ever held. M— and me, holed up in a blizzard, lip-synching to MTV.

Through all of that E—– raised me to be an overachiever, and in my immediate family there were precious few. So, it was at first with trepidation and then with increasingly welcome relief that I re-met J— in our merry carpool to community college, me getting a jumpstart on the next step in my education and J— rekindling a seemingly insatiable desire for knowledge.

Nothing against E—–, who to this day has committed to memory the names of all of my favorite Thundercats, G. I. Joes, and rock bands, but that summer J— was something almost entirely new in my life: an adult peer who would follow my wandering conversations on any topic and through any debate, and who – if I may be disarmingly frank for just a moment – did not (and does not) hesitate to call me on my teenaged bullshit.

As I broke away from our unit to go to Drexel I began to find my own family, and I wondered what E—–would do with herself in my absence. But, I had no need to worry: she took a class in world religions, became a fitness instructor and a realtor, and finally purchased her own home.

I know many of these actions were inspired, supported, and appreciated by J—, because how can you help but be inspired by him? He has one of the most inquisitive minds I know, and he was one of the few people I knew with a GPA higher than my own.

L— said a very true thing to us on the way to us on the way to the ceremony this afternoon, only slightly undercut by the fact that she was wearing a glue-on-moustache at the time in her capacity as our chauffeur.

She said: She and E—– and A—- were sisters who found each other. Sisters by choice.

That concept is meaningful to me – family by choice – especially now, as Elise and I are creating a family unit of our own. Because, aside from common eyes and noses, what reason do we have to be connected to the family we are given? We have to find them, to choose each other, because the true members of your family are your sisters and brothers… your friends and lovers… by choice.

So, here’s to E—– and J—, B— and E—, M—-, D—-, L— and J–, Elise and I, and all of the other families we have chosen to be a part of, today celebrating with one voice the creation of a beautiful new unit: J— and E—–.

Cheers.