TestosteRohne

Crap I forgot about that, and mine are nerdishly countersigned by Erskine.

Bugger.

Yeah even that quote from the Book of changes regarding the superior man, pops up or his heralded in the Morrison penned prelude issue of The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul.

Lou you may as well read The Resurrection, there are enough narrative and surprisingly thematic links to warrant it, even if it's personally poor overall.

I suppose it also gives you a good enough update on where both Robin and Nightwing are at before their respective appearances in RIP if that matters.

My tweaks were for as much fuck-me-he's-dead-and-never-coming-back impact for the less than devout comic book reader.

Therefore anything that hints at him being alive and lost in time (barring the final page of Final crisis ending of course), I placed after it's revealed in Blackest Night and Batman & Robin 9.

The crucial reveal in Blackest Night is for all intents and purposes revealed in a sequence of Batman & Robin, although i think both are unreconcilable.

I'd place DC Universe 0 directly before RIP/Final Crisis actual and i'll post my interwoven Return of Bruce Wayne later if it helps.

Bugger that's actually 6-7pm.

And yeah personally Animal Man is Morrison's most complete emotional work.

Agreed.

Although R.I.P itself's series of cliffhangers work far better with the monthly intervals, they are rendered somewhat inert in trade.

On a dramatic level some of R.I.P really doesn't work for me.

The big ideas are all there but I feel some of the dramatic points conveying them don't work anywhere as well as they should or the ideas themselves promised.

[ Spoiler : Who was ever really going to think that Alfred was dodgy, even under Morrison? I would have loved to have entertained it, but to really make that effective at all would require a massive build up of prior doubt. All in all Jezebel Jet didn't take hold either. It probably would have been better had it transpired that she was infact innocent. And even dropping the idea that Bruce himself was the Black Glove would require a body of prior dramatic seeding. On a minor note the mystic encounter with the homeless man jarred. He wasn't part of Bruce's mental defenses as other people had seen him recently. ]

Rogan's reading order is pretty much sound.

I recently reread and subsequently lend out RIP through to the Return.

I included one of the 52 issues where bruce undergoes the Thogul.

Batman issues 701 and 702 came before 700.

And much of Bruce Wayne the Return can be shuffled in healthy chunks into the Batman and Robin run.

I'm curious about placement of The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul (Which is missing that Peter Milligan prelude Batman Annual i think that introduces the White Ghost) and DC Universe 0.

And it's Gaiman's two parter connected to Morrison's run in any real narrative way?

I agree however I've got the individual issues of all the above though.

The first Morrison opening issues on Doom Patrol were somewhat hard to find.

I sense I'll need special lady friends, friends and family as mules in the queue.

Same as Lou - I reckon by the time i get my way to the UK, Alan Moore will be dead, so Morrison is my best chance of meeting a comics-writing idol.

I was lucky enough to have Mr Moore recently stumble into my local coffee house and be invited to the table to have a prolonged babble on about 4d mathematics, demonology, Shakespeare and the School of Night etc.

I'm glad I'm not the only nerd who has to give serious consideration to which Morrison titles require his smudge.

My Flex Mentallo's (Already signed by Quitely) for sure.

All Star Supes (Already signed by Quitely).

WE3 (Again already co signed)

First Animal Man, and Doom Patrol, JLA, X-Men, Arkham Asylum?...Sigh.

Forbidden Planet Wednesday 8th 1-2 PM.

Any of our London contingent going?

I'm probably going to try and lick his cranium.

I don't think there's anything else to really recommend or even bother reading between Ennis and Aaron.

Although Mayberry's "The Marvel Universe vs The Punisher" four parter was far better than it's premise promised and was really all about Frank himself.

It also had Goran Parvlov(?) artwork.

 

 

I love me some Parlov. When did Aaron pick up the title?

On the title relaunch.

There's a Max fucking Christmas annual he did previously to test the waters.

It bizarrely has a Chris Bachalo cover I moaned about way back then and all in all it's just the nativity story filtered through the Punisher.

Far from essential but it does feature an nice little subtlety regarding the "Castellano" aspect of the Punisher mythos.

Given that this thread was started by Mick, I think I read its title and subtitle about 10 times, laughing hysterically each time.

Still true.

What's good, everyone? I'm back and older than ever.

Fuck Trace where's Nightpunch and his Coralys personae?

I myself recently hit the big 30 years of age and hit me harder.

Although Twilight/Mercury and I are Playstation lovers has he been kicking it around these here parts?

And Slickevil?

Yeah, Ennis's take on the "deal with the devil/death/DID" in Born and Valley Forgex2 was a bit strange, considering the effort he took to divorce Punisher from the (horrible, horrible) supernatural backstory the title had been stuck for the past few years prior to Welcome Back Frank.

 

 

Will seek out recent MAX issues based on the fan gushing in this thread, I gave up two or thee issues after Ennis left, felt like the writer was trying too hard.

I don't think there's anything else to really recommend or even bother reading between Ennis and Aaron.

Although Mayberry's "The Marvel Universe vs The Punisher" four parter was far better than it's premise promised and was really all about Frank himself.

It also had Goran Parvlov(?) artwork.

Don't know how i feel about the MPD/DID Punisher, especially if they intend to keep some of the humor in the book, it'll skirt too close to Moon Knight/Deadpool territory.

Agreed it would need to be tonally balanced, a bit of a perilous knife edge really, but I feel it's better than the alternative supernatural intervention reading of Born and Valley Forge.

And of course the whole possible DID reading thing is-just-like-my-opinion-dude and I really wouldn't want it to be become a prominent feature of the Punisher character.

As an aside I could also do with less Max interpretations of Marvel characters in the actual Punisher Max series itself and more original characters instead.

So far the results have been fine but on a whole it's open to abuse.

We've already had Nick Fury, Jigsaw, King pin, Bullseye and references to Fancy Dan and the Ox (of Daredevils the enforcers) aswell as the Hand.

I haven't been in for awhile but as far as I'm concerned Frank is in very capable hands again.

Aaron's run so far is an odd and possibly unbalanced amalgam of Ennis' Black Toilet comedy Marvel Knights and his later superior Max incarnation.

The emphasis on Bulleye's Manhunter style profiling over the usual gimmicky object tossing is quite inspired.

Sure that aspect has been present in the regular Marvel U Bullseye but is usually underused.

If you recall it's how Bendis' Daredevil really defeated Bullseye after having done the personal background research on him.

Aaron's approach to Bullseye creates a nice parallel with his writing on The Punisher.

There's a nice synergy there, it's as if Aaron and Bullseye are both discovering and unravelling Frank.

It's a great writing tool and elevates Bullseye as a character/concept, he's almost meta-textual or some such.

So what is Frank's ultimate dark secret then?

I bet it's that that Black voice, Death or the actual Punisher itself is for all intents and purposes a split-personality of sorts (Hinted at in Valley Forge, Valley Forge).

Hence the title "Frank" (And of course being Frank/honest) I think.

And that that Valley Forge creation willingly let his family die?

Obviously all that MPD/DID stuff is quite hard to balance tonally.

For my money I'd prefer more of the MAX style artists and I absolutely miss Bradstreet, but otherwise the whole thing works well enough so far.

All in all with his wolverine, Punisher Max and Astonishing Spider-man/Wolverine Aaron is soundly in my good books.

That bit you slip in there that your girlfriend points out from her natal language understanding, wouldn't that have been much more effective using a language more people are fluent in?. I mean, you know that I applaud the use of it, but ten times (or maybe one hundred times), the number of people would get it, if the reference had been in Italian or French, no?. Smacks of elitist auteur wankdom. Why not make your sly references in Easter Island dialect, then no one alive will see it the first time, and the only people who ever get it will be ones who have it pointed out to them.

Probably, but he may have just used it as a writing to tool to create a spinal chord for his script.

Much as the, groan, Ang Lee Hulk script was constructed from some spiffy middle eastern saying "The desert is where memory is buried".

Again I really enjoyed, with a more of a push it might have ranked up with my all time favourites and would have topped that special teenage feeling I got when I first saw the Matrix.

If you had any problems with the Dark Knight's length, occasional lapses in pacing and well solemnity those are all still here.

Extra kudos to the film because so adverse am I to the idea of people-entering-other-peoples-dreams that i usually get the intellectual shits.

In execution and tone Nolan pulls it off.

Well "Inception" lived up to it's hype - for me anyway. This movie was great all around: the direction, the visuals, the story, and the cast (although I had a little annoyance with Ellen Page). I don't think that if Nolan had tried to tackle this script before his Hollywood status after the Batman reboot it would have been as worthwhile. So hard to review too without giving too much away. I suspect some of you will see this anyway so I'll wait and see what you guy think.

Well I enthusiastically enjoyed it even for all it's problems and a narrative, that very much like a dream, makes less sense in the waking light of day.

It's BIG, Brainy, Beautiful and almost Brave.

My friends and I fealt Inception to be be ultimately anti-climatical when held to the very, very high standards it sets in the first two thirds.

The mind blowing bits [ Spoiler : that the posters and most of the film itself guarentees never actually come.

There really isn't much trippy mind bending shenanigans. ]

Nolan has astutely kept it real where possible, but there are sequences that later demand it.

[ Spoiler : For instance the tantalizing architectual paradox (the staircase) was merely used as Chekov's gun.

Even the nifty mirrored Paris sequence never returns.

Crucially Limbo itself and the use of limbo was quite underwhelming.

For all it's scope the four level cross cutting renders the stunning Level 3 slightly confusing and it's action oddly unexciting no matter the scale. ]

Generally wiser for being more of a heist film (at least tonally) than Sci-fi, [ Spoiler : the lack of Mamet style Genre twists and betrayals are a bit glaring.

Gordon-Levitt's character Arthur was such a cypher that I presumed he was a double agent or a traitor.

Everyone I went with expected some sort of twist/action on the plane/reality bit. Although on one hand it was nice, even refreshing to see a cessation of events, it was still similarly and equally disappointing for it. ]

There are some promising meta-textual bits though.

My favourite was Nolan's fusing of the jump cut cinematic convention [ Spoiler : with that of the forgotten beginnings of dreams (the exploding Parisian cafe sequence).

Frustratingly so ingenious that it's deflating not to see any more of this film and fim language commentery.

Also the fact that Inception is practically ripped from everything (Hell you name it) is almost the embraced point.

The film's plot is about the influence of others and the stealing and re-application of original ideas.

It's interesting to see how self reflexive this may be to Nolan.

Nolan should have subtlely embraced and articulated this fully into the film itself, it would surely have covered his arse.

It's malformed but there (Take the Tokyo vista which focuses on their Japanese Eiffel tower rip off etc).

My new japanese missus pointed out that cleverly the Japanese word for Cobb's totem, the spinning top, is the same of that of the young girls's pawn/chess piece totem. And that like the english word "pawn" it can be used for the piece and the role itself.

Ergo Cobb is Saito's pawn and Ellen page is Cobb's pawn with the three roles of course become cleverly blurred and inverted.

Apparently there are further meanings with Caine's appearance during a class "recess" being covered too.

Additionally the word also apparently accounts for the slow motion/juttered animation used in some of the action sequences.

According to her Nolan has cleverly based much of the film on the multiple interpretations of the word.

With large sequences set in Japan and Watanabe as a core protagonist this seems to hold weight. ]

Also the "No regrets" "La/Ma Vie en Rose" in joke was both a nice touch and quite apt.

I can't fucking wait for the next Nolan auteur film.

I found 7 Psychopaths charmingly bad as far as story went, I wonder if its supposed to be taken as a homage-parody of WWII crack-team stories.

 

 

I bet the Professor turns out to be the a figment of the Colonel's imagination

 

I was shocked to see that it is only three issues long.

I'm enjoyed the last issue, thinking it a decent beginning to a 6-8 issue yarn, however the leaps in narrative and pacing were far too evident here.

It's not good no, but as you say it is charming and expanded upon it could very well have been good (The Sean Phillips art helps though).

Your spoiler sounds more interesting than the actual story really is, unfortunately other

Yep Avatar was one big techno wank, Holmes was actually quite entertaining or atleast inoffensive (Probably because Ritchie didn't write the script.)

A bit of a run of the mill Sherlock portrayal but the revamped Watson Begins worked well enough.

You all need to see "Men Who Stare At Goats".

 

That's all for now,

I'm looking forwards to that one. If nothing else it has the best title of any film ever made.

"No Goats no Glory!"

Can't be bothered to link to a trailer, but they actually went and made The Boondock Saints II, which looks tackier and Bily Connolier than the original.

 

People (especially in the US I've noticed) adore that first movie but I never got that. Aside from funny Willem Dafoe, I found it to be terrible!

 

don't get it either, I hated it.

I'll throw my lot in with you guys there.

Planetary wasn't as bad as I feared.

Sure it was cut from the same cloth as the last poor few.

The build up to the perceived timetravel apocalypse worked well enough for me.

It was a new and quite ominous take in a quit worn Time Travel Genre.

Ellis didn't quite make enough of the irony of how the Team were able to avert it.

The team find themselves withholding technology as the four did.

Additionally Snow's anguish and frustration over the past year are not well conveyed.

The time loop reference or contrivance to the Planetary/JLA was a nice touch.

Of course this closing issue needed more than a few nice touches.

Some good sci-fi trickery but no real heart.

It's a benchmark of a truly bad day that I find myself quite riled up over this instance of truly miserable pedantism.

Yes I am guilty of an across-the-page-rather-than-on-the-lines approach but as long as my points are lucid enough I honestly couldn't give a smooth fart.

Of course your point stands.

However you took the time to actually discuss the subject of my post so I'll reply in kind.

As a viewer Mcfayden epitomised the idea of the modern MI5, so it's quite ironic that although losing it's popular actor Spooks really became more galvanised from the 5th season on.

As a show Spooks definitely found it's voice after a somewhat uneven fourth series.

Having watched the first I'd recommend the second and the third, they form a grand meta narrative with more character work in the latter.

Failing that start fresh from the Fifth.

Seasons 5 through to 7 have been taut, cohesive and the finest example of modern spy fiction in any meduim that I'm aware of.

It's a series that is well known for not only it's topical content but often it's alarming tendency to predict the news headlines themselves.

It's an entertaining and morally complex show that given the political climate and focus on the uncomfortable idea of MI5 really shoudn't have happened at all.

Were it MI6 we'd be in the safe territory of James Bond.

But creating a show around those who spy on their own citizens becomes hard to digest food for thought.

That it's incredibly popular and respected amongst my muslim friends is testement to it's depth of political and social consideration.

It's a show that could only happen in Britain.

Sans adverts each episode is a 90 minute film crammed breathlessly into a solid hour.

It's Damon Bourne by way of the Guardian newspaper some years ago with a classy yet light arthouse touch.

Overall it's a distant second to the Wire for me, because the Wire is one of those wonderful works that appears to have been written backwards such is it's cohesion.

It appears to have been concieved from beginning to end, whereas Spooks had to battle from one series blindly to the next with some admittadly shaky transitions.

Additionally the Wire not only dusts off it's genre cliches but in many instances transcends it completely (Im thiking of the third seasons focus on the American schooling system).

This isn't always true of Spooks which although free of most cliches can still feel like a genre work.

As a whole the Wire trounces it, but episode for episode especially the fifth season on Spooks is up there.

Which relatively long running television show would you place in second Mark?

I honestly haven't watched that much and they beat the Prisoner!

As much as I've enjoyed Battlestar Galactica it was ultimately too uneven for this accolade.

And as fine as the Sopranoes that I've seen is, it's not fine enough.

Thank God Spooks(Or MI5 in the States) is back on soon, personally the show second only to the Wire.

I'm giving Flashforward (Not a patch on Spooks) a chance for the interesting initial premise, but now that we're dealing with time travel and probably superheroes it's hopefully not going to run aground.

Still David Goyer can't direct well.

Arlington Road

I've seen this film at least four times already in multiple languages, and I still was left shaking my head in disbelief, shock and horror when the credits ran, even if it ventured pretty heavily into clichéd-thriller-camp occasionally.

I finally got to see this part, it's always eluded me somehow.

But your mentioning it way bcak galvanised me.

It's a quite good thriller just about sidestepping most of the genre traipsings you mentioned, Jeff Bridges is almost always on form.

But it's points were quite incomplete.

Attacking Bridges' and modern suburbia's irrattional insular fear-thy-neighbour attitude only to build it up again seems quite pointless.

And Bridges' talking to the camera lectures on homegrown terrorism were awkward and ineffective.

It really just is a thriller.

Finally that stunning twist and the film's overall damning of the lone gunmen theory really were taken straight out the Parrelax View without any of it's 70's art.

Check out the film, you might find it interesting.

It does have that 70's detachment to it and it's deliberate overuse of dehumanising modernal architecure makes it somewhat alienating to watch.

Also Warren Beatty just isn't engaging at all in his role.

But it's really more intersting than it is good.

The Best Years of Our Lives

They sure don't, Rhone.

A

Glad you responded to my post and the film.

 

I know that Twilight saw The Hurt Locker, anyone else?

It's a nigh masterpiece.

 

I saw it. It was great but I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. Some wonderful individual sequences (loved the sniper bit with Fiennes) and some great performances. And it's always great when Bigelow puts her spin on genres and plays with their masculine tropes. However, the end wasn't anything special and - in fact - felt a little cheesy. That said, I did like it very much.

See I didn't like that sequence within the context of the film.

But I suppose our differing points were the feeling of individual scenes.

The sniper sequence on it's own was grand but ironically it stuck out too much as an individual scene to me.

I know it was a great bonding scene, and perhaps it helped to show just how wide or large the psychological "Hurt Locker" itself is.

Personally why the Hurt locker is elevated above the rest of her work (Which I've only appreciated for her genre tinkering and as you said prods on gender) is just how it takes those seperate individual sequences and makes them cohesive(Sniper sequence aside) which was the stylistic expression of the unrelenting Hurt Locker.

Style and subject/content were in perfect unison.

If the film's countdown of days mechanism hadn't been active throughout(The film's overall bomb), then the ending wouldn't have worked as well for me, but seeing the[ Spoiler : timer reset ]so was just gruesome.

The Best Years of Our Lives

They sure don't, Rhone.

A

Glad you responded to my post and the film.

I know that Twilight saw The Hurt Locker, anyone else?

It's a nigh masterpiece.

Ultimate Armor Wars #1-I was hoping the Ghost would feature in this, as the Ghost is a character I could see Ellis liking. I really like the way the Ghost has been written in Diggle's Thunderbolts (about the only thing I really enjoy about that book now actually).

I'd really like to see a mini-series about this Ghost, away from working for Osbourne, after Diggle finishes his run on Thunderbolts, in fact.

I don't like how the Ghost was portrayed in his first appearance, but the second story-arc with the Ghost from the very late-80s was very good.

Well, I'll be around for issue #2 now.

Oh, and for those worrying, yes, the comic does feature nanotechnology.

 

God don't they all...

Didn't like it myself, complete comedy Stark with no real character and unsuprisingly far too decompressed.

The Armour Wars was a signifigant chapter in Iron Man's history, this deserves a larger and passionate Ultimisation.

Hell it should have been an entire season of the Ultimates with all the political ramifications and fallout.