Avatar photo

flaggthecat

Name: Gregory Green

Bio:


Reviews
flaggthecat's Recent Comments
August 13, 2008 11:00 am

Music recommendations open up more possibilities than comics, as it can be directly enjoyed with friends (listening together, singing the lyrics or making parodies of them, going to shows).  Even there, though, unsolicited recommendation feels like it's seeking validation and also to make friends more like oneself.  It's cultural colonization.  How much of your mind can I take over with things that I like?  The more me-like my friends are, the better they seem as friends.  One soul in two bodies, right? 

This seems even shallower than seeking validation, but perhaps these cultural objects are substiting for something deeper.  If not colonizing my friend's brain, then looking for those parts of my friend that resemble mine the most and trying to highlight them.   

August 11, 2008 11:06 am

General question: is there any relevent material featuring the New Gods that's not in the Fourth World Omnibus?  Having just finished that (through the magic of Interlibrary Loan), the only thing it adds to Final Crisis for me so far is knowing meta-comics things like, for example, that GMo got "super muk muks" from a single line of Kirby dialogue, or that Sonny Sumo had a bit part in Forever People and hadn't been heard from again until FC#2 (and why is he in the present day again?).  Other than that, the only effect reading the Fourth World stuff has had is that I feel more confident that we're not SUPPOSED to know more than we can deduce just by reading FC over and over again.  I still want to read Seven Soldiers, 52 and the other things that are mentioned as being significant precedents, but I'm pretty sure now that even if I don't read them before FC ends, I'll still be able to follow everything.

As for the New Gods, I'm sure the mythology of The Pact and such could eventually come into play, but nothing has suggested it so far.  Anyway, is there anything Kirby didn't write that added to any of the characters?  I know that, for example, the 1986 crossover event Legends featured Darkseid and Glorious Godfrey, but it doesn't seem likely that it expanded the mythos.

August 7, 2008 3:55 pm Or maybe Matt Fraction is so good that he did all this in someone else's book
August 7, 2008 3:53 pm I was actually excited about this series when I first saw it, but I've never gotten an issue.  Sounds like I should find them and read them.
August 7, 2008 3:50 pm Emo-Dad.  Ha!  The way you describe it, this issue had sort of a tired Ingmar Bergman feel.  Like he was drifiting off to sleep with a pen in his hand, and when he woke up and read what he'd written, he was so embarrassed that he crossed off his name and wrote "DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI" instead, and then submitted it to Marvel Comics and maybe smoked a pipe and stared at the ocean for a while.  That's leaving out the question of how he came back to life, and why he knew about comic book characters.
July 24, 2008 11:52 am @Wade: No it is not worth chasing down a copy.  No it is not.  No one here has yet mentioned the ridiculous narration to go with the horrible art and mediocre story.  "Each of us knows, in some form, to a degree most deep and burrowing, what it truly means to be afraid."  Jesus Christ, Joe Harris, spit it out!  "Close your eyes.  Go on.  Block it out.  That's what most will try, only to discover the awful truth . . . that the smallest space we often occupy is inside our own head."  So we sometimes occupy a space smaller than our own head? 
July 22, 2008 4:39 pm

Hmm.  I think the "knife" he was holding to the cop's throat was a piece of broken two-way mirror from when Batman pounded his head against it. 

 I don't remember where Joker was when he burned the cash, and I definitely don't remember a raid that allowed for the chance to seize him.  Anyone else?

July 22, 2008 4:08 pm

Something that impresses me the more I think about the movie: everything that I didn't get upon the first (sleepy) viewing turned out to make sense.  What's with the dogs being set up as Batman's big weakness? I asked at first.  They represent the Joker, an unpredictable entity not bound by human reason.  Why did Batman call out "Rachael" to Gordon, and then go save Harvey instead?  The Joker was lying because he wanted him to save Dent and feel awful about it. 

Actually, there was one thing that still doesn't make sense: Batman found a thumb print on a reconstructed bullet, which is pretty damn odd already.  It had three partial matches, one of which was along the funeral parade route.  And the Joker knew that he would figure out which apartment to go to, and that he would get to the window of that apartment just as the alarm clock was going off? 

Suspension of disbelief: thunk.

July 22, 2008 11:25 am My that cover's . . . odd.  With Robin's left arm reaching over Batman's legs, his fingers grasping what looks like the middle of Batman's thigh, it looks more like he's carrying a cardboard cutout.  I wonder why it's drawn that way.
July 17, 2008 11:02 am

@conor: Huh.  Yeah, I definitely wouldn't know if Wally was being written OOC.

 @llash: I also thought Peyer's writing was really good.  It actually made me interested in the guy, and his interviews show him to be unique for a comic book writer.  In addition to comic books, he also writes occasional political humor pieces in Slate, and he co-edited a book of "found poetry" from Phil Razutto broadcasts of Yankees games.  As for his writing of Flash, I thought his dalogue read very well, the characters seemed to have minds, and the story idea was both a great satire of cable news and something really fun for a superhero to fight.  That said, I didn't care for this last issue much.