Down/Not Down: For Countdown

FSD’s very own Brady and Erik, regarding Countdown. Part One of a Two Part discussion.

BRADY: I’ve been reading D.C.’s Countdown since it started a few weeks ago, right after the end of (soon to be classic and entering the halls of fandom’s most revered comics) 52. I admit that I got going on Countdown after the high of living and breathing 52 for the previous year. How could I quit now? A weekly comic had become an addiction.

Countdown is totally different, but it’s also simply not as good. I’ll get into the less superficial stuff about it later in this conversation, but let’s run through some of the reasons why I am sticking with it for now.

1) Mary Marvel and Marvel Junior. The latter is on a quest and the former has gone to the dark side. Just what is going on? All we know is the Marvel family is in some sort of internal fight and it’s the first time they’ve been really dynamic in a long time. The question is, which side will Mr. Tawky Tawny come down on?

2) Jimmy Olsen faces front. I’m a sucker for minor characters getting lead roles. Solving the mystery of the murder of a New God is a pretty sweet story. I love it when comics approach superhero stories in the way of other genres, like the reporter stories in Frontline or the crime stories in Bendis’s Daredevil. We loved Ralph Dibny’s mystic detective story in 52 and I think this promises to deliver in a similar fashion. Like Dibny, a part of the mystery here is inside Olsen.

3) The Rogues. I think big things are ahead for Pied Piper and Trickster, coming off the big end of the Flash series and the death of the Flash. They are rapidly becoming three dimensional in this book, and I am intrigued.

Most importantly, though, Countdown represents an effort to tie the whole of DC continuity together with some big, overarching themes. It’s almost a literary endeavor. Countdown has not been as fun or as engaging as 52 was, granted, but it’s also a different effort.

I’m still in.

ERIK: I’m totally out. The year that 52 spanned was one of the wildest and worst and best years of my life — my actual life — and the one thing that kept me sane was the wildest and worst and best year in the DCU: the missing year that 52 covered in all its ragged and crazed glory. I can’t think of a book since Claremont’s X-Men where I truly felt like I was checking in (on a weekly basis no less!) with my friends; albeit friends as truly weird as Adam Strange, the Question, Black Adam, and Egg Fu. Countdown just feels like Paul Dini playing with a bunch of action figures in his bathtub: even Superman’s pal Jimmy Olson doesn’t feel remotely like my pal when I read this thing. Yes, the Rogue’s gallery seem cool, but dude they’ve always been cool. And if this was 52 we’d have have seen a full on Rogue’s reunion, with dusted off zanier Rogues like Weather Wizard, Gorilla Grodd, and the Turtle (“the world’s slowest villain.”)

52 proved why DC is not Marvel (and doesn’t want to be) and why that is awesome, because DC has a massive history of Truly Far Out characters and they’re no longer afraid to admit it. And sure, only DC would do Countdown — a story (I guess?) about a Pan-Galactic Police Force trying to manage 52 realities and punishing those who jump from one to another.

But let’s face it Brady: the art is mediocre and the writing sucks. 52 wasn’t exactly Eisner-Award winning artwork either, but the writing is some of the best I’ve read in comics, anywhere. Paul Dini’s story for Countdown is certainly compelling and ambitious, but the actual scripts seem literally phoned in and some of the fights remind me of the worst of 90’s Image.

Finally, you can’t kill my boy Lightray if you’re going to do it in a comic book this shitty. Seriously. Dude deserves like Death of Captain Marvel treatment.

(Of course we all know he’s not dead. He’s like the 5th World Lightray, not the 4th World one. Right? Right?!)

Mirror, Mirror

Hey gang, FSD here. Platform is wrapping up here in town and boy, what a ride. Your humble narrator unfortunately worked through most of it, but that’s alright because a good portion of it occurred where he works:

Highlights, for the author, included a totally fun-freaky and insanely complicated performance by Anna Oxygen, mind-numbing video installations, plus all free food (perks, perks.) Place was crazy packed, a marching band invaded the street and a block party exploded (seemingly?) out of nowhere. Scott McCloud has been here all weekend, woah! Even Gus Van Sant stopped by, just to feel it.

Woulda have liked to have seen the 35mm screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (the lady who did the choreography for this is amazingly still alive — the movie is 70 years old, you know — and was at the screening!), or the Hannah Barbara tribute, but what the heck, the bills gotta be paid, so we saw what we could. Which was a lot.

Summer Sci-Fi

The Ecotrust Building here in Portland is showing FREE sci-fi movies all summer, every Tuesday at 8pm, outdoors!  This Tuesday was the original War of the Worlds. Next Tuesday it’s Forbidden Planet! We’re so there. Located in the Pearl between 9th/10th and Irving/Johnson.  Robby, where have you been? I’ve beamed and beamed.

THE SPINNER RACK Marks Well The Words Of Thor — She-Hulk #14 Is Worthy

So you guys know, Brady is now the official East Coast Fort Saint Davids Office Manager now. What does that mean for you, the reader? More than you can ever imagine. But for now, it just means that you’re gonna get a whole lot more Brady here on the Miltonian. And by Brady we mean SERIOUS COMIC BOOK CRITICISM, aka the Kind we like to Read. Here’s the big B on She-Hulk #14. Ready when you are, Brady!

Okay, so there’s the story about the bad guy who turns to good because someone believes in him. And there’s the story about the talented guy who feels worthless until someone sees his gifts. And there’s the story about the outcast guy who feels lonely until he finds somewhere to belong. And then there’s the story that’s all of those stories only the main character is a giant robot with a head that looks like pristine play-doh and it’s called She-Hulk #14. Wow.

Basically, the idea here is that The Awesome Android reforms during a fight with Thor when he’s able to lift Thor’s hammer. See, you can’t lift Thor’s hammer unless your heart is pure and your soul is silky and you always recycle on recycling day. Or whatever. But The Awesome Android is able to pick it up, and, while his boss says its because he’s not a person, Thor says it might just be because the Android is really good after all.

So the big lug listens to Thor and checks out. He gets himself a job as a paralegal and, what do you know? He falls in love.

But love is cruel.

Love will rip into you like She-Hulk tearing down your door to stop you from building a gigantic android that you plan to use to hold an entire city hostage with. The She-Hulk hates giant androids and she tears them apart on Sunday mornings and calls it her light workout. Unless that robot is The Awesome Android, then she calls him “Awesome Andy” and she sort of loves him because he happens to be a paralegal at her law-firm and he lookes really cute in his great big ties.

But man-o-man, even Awesome Andy isn’t ready for the vicissitudes of unrequited love ripping through him. I mean, this guys got the thick skin of Colossus and the speed of Quicksilver, but heartbreak still hurts him and he can’t escape it.

So this is also a story about the guy who thinks he has it all until it stops making sense so he walks away from what-he-has to find out why-he-is. Only with an android.

Bye Andy, and good luck! I hope we all here from you when you get back!

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

ITEM: The Platform International Animation fest is happening in Portland! Go here for the complete schedules.

ITEM: The latest apology: things, as usual, are slow here at the Miltonian. Slow, that is, for you the reader. Fact is, it’s officially summer now. Time for reading novels in the park (any parks, all parks), drinking Oregon pinot at sidewalk cafes, swimming (any streams, maybe creeks, definitely ponds, perhaps lakes?), tennis (we’re terrible, but perhaps we’ll get better), music (everyone is putting out great albums all of a sudden and now they’re all playing shows and we want to see them all), hikes (woods, fields, never a mountain — next summer maybe a mountain), bike rides (preferring down hill to up hill but in this town what goes down must come up), and for your humble narrator: writing a new book, tentatively entitled The Crack Ups (with all due respect to Fitzgerald’s singular essay with the dash).

Add on there a full plate of summer blockbusters to be viewed in comfortable and air-conditioned theaters, being helplessly hooked on HBO’s The Wire (we’re on Season Three), trying to catch up to Laura on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (she’s on Season Four, we’re not), reading piles and piles of comic books (can’t be helped!), and of course, having lots of fun. (And oh yeah: going to work every day, to pay for all.) None of the above is conducive to blogging, i.e. keeping you all, our friends, entertained electronically. But don’t give up. We’ll still check in as often as we can. We still like you, and enjoy keeping you company, here on our respective computer screens.

ITEM: The Comics Reporter has an awesome interview with Brett Warnock of Portland’s own Top Shelf Productions. Indie Comics fans, you must click immediately.

ITEM: Remember that we’ve got our own email address now: dailymiltonian@hotmail.com. Don’t forget to write in any questions for us, or tips, submissions, as well as advice inquiries from both Lexie and Crooks. We’re all here for you.

Novellas-As-They-Happen: Fiction In Yummy Chunks

Ladies and germs, once again let us pass the mic to our Resident-Comics-Critic-At-Large, Brady.  Brady, are you there?  Brady?  We’re rolling — huh?  I said this is live!  

Bader’s gone and let me get on here to let you all know about my newest on-line venture, Novellas-as-they-happen!

N.a.t.h. is really, really focused. It’s a fiction blog for novellas. I’ve got two hot stories that I’m going to post piece-by-piece. You’ll get to read a few more pages every week, at your leisure.

What a deal!

All the works on N.a.t.h. are in the scope of “Novellas.” It’s a form I really like. I want this new blog to promote the form of the Novella, perhaps resuscitate it a little. If there are any other scribes out there who have some novellas they’ve written that they’d like to rework and post live, feel free to contact me about posting it on Novellas-as-they-happen.

If you go to the blog and you want to read one novella from the beginning, all you have to do is click on that novella’s title under “Categories.” The page that comes up will show all the posts under that title in Chronological order. So you can start at the start, which totally makes sense!

I’ve already put up an introduction and a first entry for both of the novellas. If all goes according to plan, each novella should take a little less than a year to cover completely on the site, before I have to move on to something else. Here’s a super quick summary of the two books:

The Stylemaster Protocols: this one is about a guy named Beau who makes a bet with his friend Morgan that he can start his own cult. Beau dresses and lives by a set of rules called ‘The Stylemaster Protocols,’ and he intends to use them as guidance in winning. But, just because you start a new religion doesn’t mean you can control it once it gets moving.

Blue Hoodie and the Pretty Girl Theorem: a trust-fund girl named Tuesday decides that she needs more meaning in her life and sets out to find this rumored creep that’s been sneaking into girls’ bedrooms and watching them sleep. Tuesday has a lot to learn and she knows it and she is a kinesthetic learner. Feel it all with her.

Okay, are you sold yet? Go. Now. Dig on it.

Signed, BradyDale

Lexie’s Back

Oh dear!

I was hoping it wouldn’t come down to this so soon! This is a “bad” versus “badly” letter…“Bad” versus “badly” is a horrible, frustrating battle, with both sides ending up bloody.

A kind reader from the great Tundra of Alaska writes:

Dear Lexie,

This may not be the biggest dilemma which will require your assistance, but it has been a thorn in my side for some time now.

When I wish to express regret about something, for example: eating all your Funyuns, do I say: “I feel badly about eating all your Funyuns,” or do I say:

“I feel bad about eating all your Funyuns.” It seems to me that “feeling badly” implies that the sensitivity in my fingers is impaired, or that I am not emotionally functional–which, in fact, could not be further from the truth.

“I feel bad” seems like it should be right, but it sounds so wrong.

If it is proper to say “I feel badly,” then why doesn’t anyone say “I feel goodly?”

Am I doomed to a life of saying: “I rue the day I ate the last of your onion flavored snack food?”

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

-Grammar is not so Fun-yuns

Dear GINF,

Simply put:

Badly is wrong.

I feel bad is correct.

Here’s the grammar rub for you.

Bad is to good as badly is to well.

Bad and good are adjectives, while badly and well are adverbs.

Bad and good describe the noun, while badly and well describe the verb.

So, for example, in the statement: I feel bad about eating his Funyuns, “bad” is describing “I”. You could say: “I am bad person because I ate his Funyuns.” Whereas, in the statement: I feel badly about eating his Funyuns, “badly” is describing “feel”.

You could say: “I feel badly because I’m allergic to onions and eating all his Funyuns made my fingers numb.”

See what I mean?

It’s a slippery and tricky slope.

On the flip side, when describing feelings I guess you’d want to say things like:

I feel good, but I am well.

(You can of course be good or be bad, but these reflect your character and thus are still describing a noun; being well is still reflecting the state of being, which is the verb [so you need an adverb].)

Verbs and nouns can be tough, but compared to gerunds and participles, they are a piece of cake!

I hope you learned something today. I certainly did. And I feel goodly about it.

Actually, goodly is an adjective. So although the definition doesn’t fit here (large amount or comely), a person can feel goodly.

Damn you Webster!

Now I should do my homework and see how many punctuation mistakes I’ve made in this column. A fair few, I’d imagine…

Keep ‘em coming!

-L.

World War Hulk

Let no man tell you otherwise: here at Fort Saint Davids, we read comic books, lots of comic books, all the time, and we often think that you do to. “What I assume, you shall assume,” wrote Walt Whitman, “for every comic book belonging to me as good belongs to you.” At least, that’s how we THINK the old poem goes. Annnnywho, fact is: the Hulk is back, and so is our resident Comic Book Commentator, Brady Dale Russell.  Pretty much the entire FSD gang is HELL EXCITED about Marvel’s new Summer Blockbuster, and our good pal Brady is no exception. And so, without further ado, take it away, Brady:

Okay, now imagine a sort of Shakespearean play, right? It’s about this king, this Great King. At the start of the play, he’s just conquered six tyrants and granted freedom to the people of their six kingdoms. He’s at this huge party where he’s feted by delegations from the six newly freed lands, and beside him stands a young minstrel he found in a dungeon in the sixth kingdom. The great king took that minstrel under his wing and brought him back to his kingdom where he could live in comfort and sing freely the rest of his days. Pretty nice, right?

That’s Act One, and it ends with the King going into conference with six more kings, and those six kings all sign a compact of peace with the six delegations of the newly freed lands. Now there are thirteen lands at peace and secure and united against the threat of … I don’t know, England or whatever, and everyone is happy. Except there’s this guy who wears a lot of black.

Then in Act Two, it’s a few years later and everything is peachy and the Great King goes on parade somewhere and he’s met outside of town with only a show-army of his best warriors because he still thinks everyone loves him and they get run into the hills by this huge army made up of soldiers from the six kingdoms and separated from his favorite minstrel. Both are very sad.

In Act Three, the great King storms about with a big mad on and people come from all over to say how great his and maybe his daughter loses her chastity to some asshole duke from one of those bad kingdoms but it doesn’t matter because he also has a good daughter and she’s a really good Archer or something, only the guy who wears a lot of black finds out and has her killed when she runs off to one of the freed Kingdoms and tries to talk them into doing some justice by her poor father and his destitute army. Plus, everyone’s tired of hearing the same folk songs over and over but none of the other minstrels will go near the homeless army.

Because homeless guys are smelly.

Then there’s Act Four, when the King goes out in secret and finds out that all the people still love him (because he set people free, gosh darn it) and they think people who wear black all the time are creeeeepy and, meanwhile, the minstrel goes around singing about the king and he’s till really sad only he’s hatching a plot to assassinate one of the bad kings… then another bad king kills the minstrel because, well, what a stupid idea. He’s a minstrel. He doesn’t know anything about killing anyone. So now that he knows everyone loves him and he’s still got a good mad on, the Great King starts raising an army and things are looking pretty good the more pissed he gets but one night in a fever dream he grabs a knife by his bed and shoves it through the heart of his own wife, the queen, but — fuck all — he can blame that on the bad Kings too.

Then Act Five comes along and he pretty much rips the crap out of all the rest of the bad kings and any of the Dukes in the freed kingdoms who thought they could get feisty too, because, goddammit, he’s the Great King who set everybody free and he’s got really big shoulders. So nevermind the fact that he burnt six capital cities to the ground and nevermind the fact that he took to wearing human skulls on his battle armor and nevermind the fact that most of his army got killed along the way and it pretty much ends up him alone on a pile of dead bodies, covered in stinking blood, raving mad and roaring at nothing because there’s nothing left to roar at after he crushed everything in sight. This is Shakespeare and this is vengeance and he freed everybody and he never wore lots of black and he’s still sort of a hero even if everyone (and I mean everyone) is dead now and it was him and his army who killed them.

If you can picture that, then you sort of have an idea of what Mavel Comics is going for with their new Summer blockbuster, World War Hulk.

Except there’s also a big talking insect with a mad on for the X-Men.

And Rick Jones – teen idol.

Hulk. Smash.

Did You See The Words

God Bless the Internet: there’s some leaked (or dropped? or shared?) tracks from the upcoming September 2007 Animal Collective album, entitled Strawberry Jam.  Here in the FSD/NW Offices, we’re playing these three songs a lot, and not just often but often with the volume kinda way up.  Having discovered these three songs, and having had these three songs make our day for three days in a row, we figured that since the only thing we like more than New and Great songs is you, our faithful and trusty reader, well…here’s the link:

http://tunes.bluesummers.com/index.php/2007/06/strawberry-jam-surfaces/

Oh boy!

Come Together

ITEM: We hope you had a happy Father’s day. Perhaps you have a father, or know a father; perhaps you are one. The night before father’s day I had one of those moments where I couldn’t sleep because my mind was too busy composing and editing silly lines. This particular night it was busy working out funny “get laid on Father’s Day” jokes — don’t ask me, the midnight hour is never when my imagination does what I tell it to do. Here’s two:

Nothing makes a father feel more like a father than when you make him a grandfather. Or better: want to make a grand father’s day? Make him a grandfather.

ITEM: We also hope you had a great Bloomsday. This was our first Bloomsday not in Philadelphia, thus we were unable to attend the yearly festivities at the Rosenbach Museum. It was also our first Bloomsday without our trusty library (which is now in a basement in Wilmington, DE), thus we were not able to read a passage from our Ulysses. But we sure thought long and hard about how when you “think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”

ITEM: There’s fresh Life Lessons With Lexie and Ask Crooks columns on the way. Way we see it, you folks need all the advice you can get. Looking to ask either of these luminaries a question? Contact them through us, because get this…

ITEM: We’ve got an email address to write to! Finally! Here it is, gang:

dailymiltonian@hotmail.com

Send us your questions, your contributions, your gripes, your needs, and best of all: your tip-offs. Think the Miltonian Society at Large needs to know about something? Write us and it’ll be on here for all to see.