FausticCaust

Name:

Bio:


Reviews

Jonathan Hickman’s S.H.I.E.L.D. is a mildly disgusting wank of a comic book. I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised at this…

Read full review and comments

I have to confess a bias in my evaluation of various Fantastic Four entries: my principal litmus test is how…

Read full review and comments
FausticCaust's Recent Comments
October 1, 2010 12:02 am I pick "paper"
August 31, 2010 11:42 pm Is that Ray Terrill? Poor guy. It must suck to get farmed out to the B-teams.
August 14, 2010 2:19 pm Between this issue and last month's, the real Rhodey seems to have vanished and been replaced w/ Terrance Howard.
August 8, 2010 7:38 pm

@Howl4Me Thanks for the link. Hickman has always struck me as a pretty cool guy in real life. I met him once at ComicCon way back when he was promoting Nightly News.

 

@jabroniunc h/t

 

@JumpingJupiter I don't think I've understood your point about well-intentioned individuals in Hickman plots. Do you mean sarcastically that they're well-intentioned in the sense that they have designs that they think are in the best interest of the human race? Of Hickman's indy work, I've only read Nightly News and Pax Romana.

August 8, 2010 7:27 pm @froggulper To clarify, I didn't say that the organization is anti-intellectual, but rather that the book as a whole is in spite of its agenda. It's not only a matter of these historical characters having unrealistic technology, but also of how the acquisition of knowledge is depicted.

S.H.I.E.L.D. shows us a world where knowledge is not discovered, but is rather appropriated and acquired through unreasoning means.

All of the tech we see is shrouded in ritual trappings. When Newton decides to find something out, he doesn't experiment or deduce; he goes off on a quest to a hidden, snow-covered city and consorts with what is, for all intents and purposes, a demon, before stealing the information he was after.

Nostradamus (who possesses knowledge of the future by virtue of being, well, Nostradamus) is introduced as a source of narrative prophecy, and is tortured.

The great scientists have been reduced to cargo cultists using science words.

On another note, "maudlin" is exactly the word I've been groping for to describe Reed Richards' speech. Thanks!
August 4, 2010 7:39 pm The pacing and humor of Cary Bates has been missed. Pick of the week.
July 20, 2010 8:36 pm Stay tuned for the end of this sente--
July 12, 2010 2:39 pm I've been idly wondering about this since I was eleven years old.
July 12, 2010 2:35 pm They might as well throw the Final Crisis banner back on the cover too. For good measure.
July 11, 2010 12:51 am Initially I thought that he had finally gotten Spawn.