Thor: The Dark World

Directed by Alan Taylor

Written by Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Don Payne, and Robert Rodat

Based on characters created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby, and Walt Simonson

            The original Thor was one of my favorite Marvel movies after the first watching, but my recent rewatch did highlight some of the problems with it.  Its uneven tone, reliance on slapstick humor, and iffy camerawork stand out more, even if there’s quite a bit of good movie around it.  Nevertheless, I was still excited for The Dark World, partly because I’m excited by all Marvel movies, partly because of Iron Man 3’s wildly different approach to its own franchise.  And while TDW doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it makes the wheel about as good as it can be.

            Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is still doing her own scientific research, and when she finds a strange anomaly in London, she runs into a portal leading to another realm and the aether, a powerful substance which the dark elf Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) once used to try to take over all nine realms.  Now Malekith is reawakened, and it’s up to Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Jane, and even Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to stop him.

            One of the themes that seems to be running across the Marvel movies since Avengers is enemies that feel out of place in the world, villains the heroes haven’t prepared for.  Avengers forced normal humans against aliens, Iron Man 3 had a villain that wasn’t another guy in a suit, and here, the dark elves clash with the fantasy aesthetic.  While Asgard’s forces are in armor and fight with swords and spears, the dark elves fly in spaceships, fire laser guns, and throw grenades that apparently warp people out of existence.  And we ultimately expect good to come out of this triumphant, because after all, it’s a superhero movie.  But there’s a dark sense of foreboding throughout, a sense that maybe, just maybe, there’s going to be lasting consequences from what happens here.  It’s not a sense that’s necessarily followed through on (although there are certainly some shocking moments that leave the audience in doubt), but simply having the sense can’t help but change the tone of the movie a little.

            After all, at heart, this is a Marvel movie, and that means big action sequences and big laughs combined together.  And yes, these are some big action sequences.  While previous movies have held off on them and only deliver on them in small doses, Thor fills the screen with some great action pieces.  Standing out in particular are the assault on Asgard and the final sequence, which takes what could be a normal finale and adds in some dimension-hopping action that makes it move even better.  And the humor freely comes in during these moments, not even slowing down the action as it delivers some great jokes.  It creates a movie whose pace falters a little at the start, during some prologue and London-without-Thor action, but once it picks up, it doesn’t stop.  In fact, this may be one of the briskest paces of the Marvel movies.  It’s still a movie that clocks in just under 2 hours, but it’s so exciting it feels shorter.

            Not just another Marvel winner, but a movie that’s even better than the first and shows that Marvel Phase Two is losing none of its steam.

Mara

Written by Brian Wood

Art by Ming Doyle

            Mara is…odd.  Not weird, not bizarre.  I’m forced to think of how I want to even categorize it.  It takes place in a dystopia, but it’s not really dystopian fiction.  There’s some elements of superhero deconstruction, but no more than some standard Superman stories have.  And Mara has its moments of ups, but it simultaneously has its downs which make it hard to say how much I even enjoyed it.

            In a world of constant war, sports have become the distraction of choice, and Mara is one of the best volleyball players out there.  She can carry her team by herself.  And that takes on another meaning when she begins to develop superpowers out of nowhere.

            And I do mean out of nowhere.  I kinda have to spoil something here, but no more than saying that a work has an ambiguous ending: there’s no real explanation for the superpowers.  Or the world.  Or really anything.  You expect dystopian fiction to explain how the world got to the point that it’s at, but it goes no further than “There’s been wars”.  You might expect at least a guess at how Mara got superpowers, but it’s just a mystery that the book doesn’t even make into a mystery.  It’s just…there.  Everything is just there.  Rather than creating a rich world, it creates a world that you want to know more about, but the answer to any question is just a shrug.

            It’s a shame because the book does hit some good points, particularly in its latter half, as it starts to ask the question of whether humanity is good or evil, and Mara’s own personality changes.  Maybe in some world she would be a superhero, but here, she’s just apathetic about doing anything, and the world never gives her a reason to change.  She wants to play sports, but her superpowers suddenly prevent her from doing that.  She ends up distanced from everything.  If there’s one thing that changes this from being a standard superhero deconstruction, it’s that Mara isn’t a violent person lashing out with her superpowers at a violent world.  She’s just a person who wishes she could still just be a normal person.

            Mara uses its themes to make up for what it lacks in world-building.  But lacking world-building still ends up hurting the work, and its pluses can’t quite erase its minuses.  I can’t recommend it, but I also can’t not recommend it.

Batgirl Volume 3: Death of the Family

Written by Gail Simone

Art by Daniel Sampere

            If you know anything about Barbara Gordon pre-New 52, or hell, even if you’ve just read The Killing Joke, you know one of the defining moments in her life: the Joker showing up at her apartment door, shooting her in the spine, and leaving her paralyzed, making her Oracle for the 20-or-so years before the New 52 reboot put her back in the Batgirl costume.  But history hasn’t been erased here, and so a crossover with the Joker has big expectations, most of which are met.

            As with the main Batman Death of the Family story, the main appeal here is finding out exactly how twisted the Joker’s current plan is.  Thus, it’s hard to say much about the primary story here without inherently feeling like it’s a spoiler.  I can say that, not only is it appropriately twisted, but it works well as a Barbara Gordon story.  Not only does she get faced with some real horrors and no easy way out, but we see the difference between her and Batman in a situation like this.  Batman may hate the Joker, but not like Batgirl does.  And she gets pushed right to the line of going from justice to outright revenge.  Unfortunately, there’s one major problem: the finale is the same finale from the Batman side.  This means that the story builds up to a climax where either you’ve already read the main Batman part and thus you’ll probably just skip over it, or you haven’t read the Batman part and suddenly you’re moved over to a focus on a different character.  It just feels like a letdown, and I imagine it’s a problem with several of the other crossover books.

            This collection does feature two other story arcs.  One of them is cleanup from the Night of the Owls event.  I haven’t been reading Batgirl or her part of that event, so I don’t know if there was more meaning that I was supposed to get out of this.  It was a nice story, but kind of forgettable, and felt like it ended and then moved on.  The other story arc features James Gordon Jr., who shows up during the Death of the Family part, and Batgirl has to take care of his own plots, which can be just as twisted as the Joker’s.  I don’t know if James has shown up in the New 52 before this, but compared to The Black Mirror, he’s lost the mystery angle of “Is he or isn’t he evil?”  He is very obviously evil here.  But this doesn’t make him any less creepy.  In a book that features a reincarnated super-assassin and THE evil clown, the guy with no villain identity, no powers, just his own warped mind, has one of the greatest impacts, and where the confrontation with the Joker fizzled in the end, the ending to the James arc is stunning.  It’s the kind of moment that makes me want to read more Batgirl just to see the effect the final moments have in the future.  And that’s really good.

            Batgirl’s side of Death of the Family has its flaws which you can really feel.  But when it’s working, it’s working really well.  People who were reading Batgirl before should be pleased, people who came on for the Death of the Family crossover should have plenty of reason to stay.

Earthbound

Developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory

Published by Nintendo

Played on Wii U Virtual Console

            Earthbound’s legacy among Nintendo and RPG fans is downright legendary.  After its downright disastrous initial launch, not helped at all by the release late in the SNES’ life and the odd ad campaign with the slogan “It Stinks!”, the game gathered a cult following.  Across the fan website starmen.net, the high demand for the GBA remake and sequel, and Ness’ inclusion in the second and third Smash Bros games, it was clear that Nintendo must’ve known how much people wanted to see Earthbound again.  But it wasn’t happening, even with the inclusion of the Virtual Console on the Wii.  Until this year, when the game was finally put on the Wii U’s Virtual Console.  And after all the wait (and the $2 price mark-up over other SNES games), can it match up for those who only know the hype, not the game itself?  Oh yes.  It can.

            Ness is an ordinary boy living in Eagleland when a mysterious meteor crashes in his hometown.  Finding a traveler from the future inside, Ness learns of his destiny: he has to go to 8 sanctuaries to collect the power needed to defeat Giygas, an ancient evil which will take over the world in the future if it’s not stopped now.  Along the way, he’s joined by the psychic Paula, inventor Jeff, and the prince of Dalaam, Poo.

            A lot of Earthbound’s charm comes from its fairly unique setting.  It takes what could be a normal plot (travel the world, collect the mcguffins, defeat the ancient evil) and shifts the location.  Instead of a medieval kingdom or a dark future, it’s modern-day America.  Potions are replaced by foods like hamburgers and pizza.  The characters use weapons like baseball bats and frying pans.  The cities range from the smalltown beginnings of Onett to the giant metropolis of Fourside.  And this setting combines with the game’s unique brand of humor.  Nintendo tried to market it as gross-out on its original release, and while there are some fart jokes, it’s not gross-out.  It’s off-beat.  Townspeople are anywhere from normal but quirky to downright strange, especially in some of the game’s trippier environments, like Saturn Valley.  Enemies go from evil taxis and birds to modern art and the famous New Age Retro Hippie.  And they’re just as likely to attack you with standard attacks and psychic powers as they are to furrow their brow or measure something with a ruler.

            The combat system is one of those that’s so simple it makes Earthbound a good beginner’s RPG, but still satisfying enough for longtime genre fans.  The battles are strictly turn-based, none of the ATB system that Final Fantasy and such like, meaning it’s very relaxed.  Each of the four characters has their own abilities and roles, meaning that Paula is the heavy hitter with psychic abilities, Ness and Poo get more of a healing/offense mix, and Jeff has no psychic abilities at all, with his use of items making him potentially powerful, but with limited resources.  The game’s biggest notable feature, though, is the rolling HP meter.  If an enemy does a lot of damage to you, instead of instantly subtracting it, the game “rolls” it down, meaning it can take some time until the damage actually takes effect.  It takes some quick thinking when a character takes a mortal hit, and it’s satisfying when you manage to get a healing spell out before their HP hits 0.

            Earthbound has definitely stood the test of time.  Its clever dialogue and setting and easy-to-learn battle system make it irresistible and unique even today.

Green Lantern Volume 3: The End

Written by Geoff Johns

Art by Doug Mahnke

            It’s pretty incredible what Geoff Johns has done in Green Lantern for the nine years he’s been on the book.  Starting with bringing back Hal Jordan, he introduced the entire color and emotion spectrum of Corps, created huge events like Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night, and basically set the bar high for any writer that follows him.  With The End, his run comes to a close, and it’s a nice conclusion to the ride.

            Following on the events of the last volume, Revenge of Black Hand, the start of this volume sees Hal Jordan and Sinestro out of action, while the Guardians of the Universe are on the brink of destroying everything with their introduction of the Third Army.  And things go from bad to worse when the First Lantern breaks out.  The last hope falls on Simon Baz, a Lebanese-American who’s suspected of terrorism.

            Simon Baz definitely provides a unique viewpoint.  The previous four Earth lanterns were in pretty good circumstances when they became Green Lanterns, while Simon has to deal with government agents who are after him because of the terrorism charge and the sudden acquisition of the ring.  It’s odd that, despite this being a conclusion to a huge run, this is also a strangely good jumping on point in regards to Simon’s story, giving plenty of exposition for anybody who doesn’t know anything about Green Lantern.  And I hope we see more of him in the future.  Sadly, while he is a huge part of the majority of this book, in the final issue, he could basically be replaced with a generic Lantern as more of the focus goes on finishing Geoff Johns’ plot threads, especially in regards to Hal and Sinestro.

            And their relationship is the core here, and has been throughout the New 52 run.  Sinestro’s the easy choice villain for Hal, the yin to his yang and such, but we rarely get as good a look as Johns has given us.  Suddenly, we’ve been able to fully understand him.  Now, most of this does take place in the previous two volumes, but this does come back in a big way in the finale, as Johns puts the finale on his run with their conflict.  In fact, it seems like more of the book should’ve focused on them.  The Third Army is honestly almost pointless, and the First Lantern is a good villain, but not a great villain.  I imagine part of the problem is that both were involved in crossovers with other Green Lantern books—which aren’t collected here.  As the ARC does not collect extra features here, I wonder if the retail version will have a summary of events outside of the main book, which would help fill in the pieces a lot.

            Nonetheless, The End does tell a fine Green Lantern story, has an ultimately great ending, and satisfies on shutting the book on Johns’ run.  The epilogue truly makes the point: the adventures of the Corps will continue with other writers, but this is the end for everything Johns has done. 

Toy Story of Terror!

Written and directed by Angus MacLane

            This is one of the years I was really wary about Pixar.  An unnecessary-looking prequel and a Halloween TV special weren’t exactly filling me with hope.  But Monsters U was a success, and perhaps more surprisingly, things stay on the upside with Toy Story of Terror, showing that Pixar can do TV just as well.

            Bonnie and her mom are on the road when an accident forces them to stop at a motel for the night.  The toys go exploring, only to start getting picked off one by one by a mysterious creature.  It comes down to Jessie (Joan Cusack) as the one who has to save them before morning comes and Bonnie leaves without them.

            The focus on Jessie here is a nice change of pace.  The three movies have really been focused on Woody, and while Jessie and Buzz have certainly been major characters, it’s not their journey.  Jessie not only gets some backstory expansion (in particular, looking at the effect that being abandoned in a box has had on her), but she gets to be the actual hero here.  It doesn’t come down to Woody or Buzz or the ensemble as a whole coming together and saving things, it comes down to her own abilities and facing her fears herself.  It’s very well done.

            And it’s just a part of the fact that, even condensed down to 30-minutes-with-ads, Pixar loses none of their touches here.  The story is interesting, and similar to the Small Fry short, shows another side of the Toy Story world which we haven’t gotten to see.  The humor is perfectly done, from jokes regarding new toys that are seen to the toys themselves riffing on a B-movie at the start.  And the visuals have not diminished at all.  I remember with Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda Christmas special, there was something off with the visuals—not quite TV series bad, just not quite movie good.  Here, though, this is as good as any movie Pixar has made.  Of all things, it was a scene in a bathroom that made my jaw drop.  It was just a bathroom, but it was one of the most realistic looking bathrooms I’ve ever seen in an animated movie.  The one flaw here is the use of Mr. Pricklepants as the character explaining all the horror tropes as they apply to their situation.  There’s some humor from it, but it just feels too much like talking down to the audience.

            Overall, if this is the quality Pixar can bring to TV specials, then they can keep making them.  Yet again, they’ve managed to return to Toy Story and keep things fresh, expanding the universe and just making it a franchise that’s clearly loved and cared for by the creators. 

Batman Volume 3: Death of the Family

Written by Scott Snyder

Art by Greg Capullo

            For those not in the know on the New 52, it should be noted that one of the big early initiatives was giving many of the books new villains (Darkseid is the only old villain I know of that appeared in an initial arc).  To apparently make a point about this, in the first issue of Detective Comics, Joker got his face cut off.  Of course, old villains came back into the books as they went on, and anybody familiar with the Joker knows that it takes a lot more than losing his face to even make it appear that he’s died to readers.  With Death of the Family, Joker comes back in a big way, threatening to kill off Batman, the Robins, and Batgirl.

            There’s honestly not much to talk about storywise besides what’s already been said.  After all, this is the Joker, and part of the fun of any Joker story is finding out exactly what his plot is.  Yes, he wants to kill Batman, but you’re never entirely sure of what he’s doing.  The book makes sure that most of the information is conveyed to the reader only when Batman knows it, and that means that everything the Joker is doing just seems that much more mysterious.  Even with some side-stories in this book focusing on the Joker, we only get glimpses of how he interacts with the other Bat-villains, not any reveals about his plans.

            What this book does best is reminding us what a threat the Joker is.  Everything he does is meticulously planned, and everything is just as likely to be a joke as it is to be an actual threat.  And what makes him more dangerous than ever here is the information he has.  He seems to finally know everything about Batman, the secret identities of him and the rest of the Bat-family.  And of course, it’s teased whether he actually knows anything at all.  Batman can give everything a logical explanation, but it’s clear that even he’s starting to shake, even he fears that everything he’s built up is just going to crumble down.  Probably no coincidence that this arc comes right after the Night of the Owls, where an urban legend ended up being a major threat to Gotham.  It flipped what Batman thought he knew on its head, and again, the man who prepares for everything suddenly feels like he hasn’t prepared well enough.

            Death of the Family can take a place in the pantheon of great Joker stories.  It’s so easy for him to be overused with little thought, but Snyder has clearly crafted a Joker story built for the clown prince of crime, giving him plenty of new ground to terrorize.