See Ya'll

Though this is my first post in a month, this will most likely be my last post for a while. But then my last post was my last post for a while.

So let's get started.

Where I'm going: Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be living on STU residence as a part of my work with the English Language Programme. Basically, I'll be taking part in SUBMARINE, a program that teaches English to those who know little or no English. The students ages will range from greatly from 18 to... whenever people die. As to my understanding there will be students, business men and people from all walks of life to learn English for whatever reasons (in most cases for work and school).

It's going to be pretty hard on them because when the lessons begin, they will sign an agreement to speak English for those five weeks, and nothing else. There will be word games, social situations, singalongs and all sorts of activities to make sure they are completely saturated with English. Also there will be almost no access to TV or the internet for both teachers and students, so that should make communicating difficult for a while. Still, I'll probably be able to get on the internet once or twice a week. Also, though I leave tomorrow, I lessons don't begin until Monday, so I don't know what exactly is happening on those days (I was told it was a workshop, but what kind remains a mystery.

After the first five weeks, I'll have about a week or so off and then the next 5 weeks starts (assuming they still want me), so I'll pretty much be gone most of the summer. Since there won't be much to do after work, I'm stockpiling some comics to read. And I got a lot, since I'll likely just tear through them after a long work day.

What I've Read Recently:

Switchblade Honey: This one-shot by Transmetropolitan creator Warren Ellis was created when he imagined what it would be like if British foul-mouthed character actor Ray Winstone was the captain of the Starship Enterprise. Though it started out as a dumb joke in his head in which Winstone, a blue collar man's man, was a captain who played dirty, constantly belittled his straight-laced crew and refused to solve problems in a manner that required some bullshit technical explanation.

The final product of Switchblade Honey, however, turned out to be a lot smarter than that. The premise is that the an alien herd-mind (who we see only in silhouette), has declared war on humanity (after some humans ate their kind in what can only be described as a diplomatic faux pas) and humanity is losing. Badly. So badly in fact, that mankind is forced to ask for help from two former high-ranking officers arrested for treason. They are given a fast and powerful ship and their choice of prisoners to make up their crew. After forming a crew made up of talented but screwed up individuals, they are sent out on their own to act as guerrillas. Other Earth ships won't recognize their call sign and they won't answer to anyone, meaning they could run out on this losing battle at any time.

What I like about this one-shot is that it perfectly demonstrates what Warren Ellis is all about: cynical optimism. Like the crew of the Switchblade Honey, Ellis seems to have a low opinion of mankind, but at the same time he begrudgingly loves humanity, despite all of their countless faults and sins. The crew of the Honey know it's humanities' fault that the war started and that they were all arrested for doing the right things when it's inconvenient to their superiors (such as stealing another officers thunder in a manner that saved civilian lives or biting the dick off the rapist), but still, they think humanity is worth saving, even if it means throwing away their own lives in a suicide mission when they could just escape.

I also appreciate Ellis brings back the sense of wonder to sci-fi without resorting to sci-fi technobabble. That's not to say there aren't scientific explanations for the various sci-fi concepts (such as a spaceship capable of turning the sun into a weapon and hacking into enemy ships to open all the air locks), but the creator clearly knows what he's talking about and explains his concepts pretty clearly. As I said Ellis is a cynical optimist and that's generally how he approaches his sci-fi: when we get the big reveal about the sci-fi concepts he's toying with, we are presented with the wonder of discovery and what is possible as well as the ugly side, such as how such beauty can be tainted by mankind's arrogance or selfishness. That's not too say he makes things black & white or even simplistic in their shades of grey. But while his optimistic attitudes in his books usually follow the joy of discovery, this series seems to be more about the redemptive qualities of mankind. Mankind might suck most of the time, but we're still worth saving.

He has a great cast and the story is very entertaining, but I would have also liked to see this as a series. I hope he makes more some day.

Civil War #1: This is the first part of the huge Marvel crossover which begins with the hero team New Warriors (who are supporting themselves with their own reality TV series) hunt down a bunch of escaped super-villains in the town of Stamford, Connecticut to boost their ratings. But it ends in tragedy when the villain Nitro defends himself by blowing up a good part of the town, killing over 800 people.

The reaction to this forces a Superhero Registration Act (which had been floating around the Marvel universe for a couple months) to be passed, splitting the hero community. One side feels it makes perfect sense for super-heroes to work in the employ of the government and become a legitimate part of society. After all, they'll even be provided with training, a paycheck and a license to do what most of them have been doing for free. One of the other side, many heroes feel that this takes something away from them and by giving their real names to the government, they're leaving their loved ones open for attack. Many heroes would rather work for the rights of the people rather than become government tools. Captain America chooses the latter side (he may be Captain America, but it's the people that Cap fights for, not the government) and quickly becomes targeted by an overzealous new head of SHIELD (Nick Fury is MIA). When he escapes it becomes obvious that Cap will become the leader for the renegade heroes, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and Yellowjacket become the leaders of the governments heroes. Meanwhile the watcher shows up, acting as an omen of bad things to come.

Civil War is good, but it's big problem is that it didn't exceed my expectations. Though I agree with both sides to a certain extent, the supporters of the Registration Act seem to be the antagonists so far. Still, that's mostly because of the overly extreme reactions of SHIELD and the actions of the government. I like the fact that writer Mark Millar really captures the kind of reaction of the public would have in the wake of this catastrophe (freaking out and immediately looking to place blame) and the last meeting the heroes have before the war begins is also interesting. It kind of gives readers a chance to see who is picking what side and how this will effect the Super-hero world as a whole (expect a lot of teams breaking up). Still, as I said, it sort of meet my expectations in that there were no surprises. Hopefully, that will change will later volumes. Still, at least the Steve McNiven art looks fantastic.

52 Weeks 1-2: Though there have been weekly American comics in the past, most didn't last very long and none of them had this scale. In the wake of DC's most recent giant crossover, Infinite Crisis, the DC Universe was saved and the Earth is still standing. All of DC's series skip ahead a year after the Crisis and it gives all the series to have a fresh start, all while adding some mystery (where has Batman been the last year, who the new Wonder Woman is and are why Superman has spent a year without super-powers).

52 is a weekly year-long series which covers the events of the "missing" year through the eyes of 6 characters: Renee Montoya (a Gotham Detective who was fired and spends her nights getting piss drunk), the Question (a creepy objectivist vigilante obsessed with the truth), Black Adam (a god-like super-villain with a sense of justice who now rules a country in the Middle East), Booster Gold (a disgraced athlete from the future who travels back into the past to become a famous hero), Steel (a engineering hero planning to use his knowhow to help rebuild the world after the crisis) and Ralph Dibny (an ex-detective hero with stretching powers and some suicidal tendencies due to his wife's recent murder).

The epic 52-part story is only begun, but the first two issues are pretty good. Still, I'm going to wait for the trade paperback, but these issues are really bringing the fun back to the DCU. Definitely, this series is about reinventing the DCU, and while Crisis was sort of a commentary on the grim and gritty story telling and the arguments about what super-hero comics should be, this series seems to be about leading by examples of what super-hero comics should be. It's all over the map (in a good way) hinting at many stories to come, all of which seem epic. Booster Gold's future seeing robot seems to be giving Booster bad info, hinting that someone is screwing with the time stream. Meanwhile, Montoya is being stalked by the Question, who may have big plans for her. Plus, someone is kidnapping mad scientists and Steel has denied her daughter access to her supersuit until she proves she's worthy of it. This isn't just a dark super-hero tale or a light one, but it's a little of everything, showing the strength of what super-hero comics are capable of: blending in perfectly to any other genre and storytelling style.

With four of the biggest writers in comics (Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns and Mark Waid) working on one weekly series seemed like all sorts of problems. Firstly, weekly series has, for the longest time, has been though of as undoable. The other is the "too many cooks" scenario and finally the scale of the project, but despite all of these potential faults, the series is looking very good and should read very well when all collected.

Good stuff. And I've also got lots of good stuff to read while I'm gone.

What I will read:

Sandman Vol. 9-10: My Sandman collection is finally complete. I'm finally going to read the last two volumes of the Neil Gaiman epic and finish off this amazing series. Unfortunately, I kind of know how it ends but still it's really the journey that's important. I kind of wish I had time to reread the previous volumes since most of the stories will probably tie together and it's been a long time since I've read certain volumes. Still, I ca't wait.

Spider-Man's Tangled Web Vol. 4: Another one of my series is complete. This one is an anthology in which tales are told from the point of views of Spidey's friends and enemies and just people who are effected by is existence. This final volume is mostly the humour issues, though there's a nice looking J. Jonah Jameson origin issue. It also includes "Alphabet City", one of my favourite humour stories about about a loser villain named Typeface (who has a spelling theme) who finds himself stalked by a grammar-obsessed creep named Spellcheck. Hi-larious.

Fell #1-4: An experimental comic series by Warren Ellis where he makes cheaper comics by limiting the page number to 16 and adds more panels to his pages to cram as much story as he can in each self contained issue. I haven't read it, but I like Ben Templesmith's art and, from what I understand, it's never made clear what genre Fell is (even after reading several issues) it seems interesting. It follows a detective in a small, corrupt and creepy town which may or may not have paranormal activity.

New X-Men Vol. 3 Hardcover: The final volume of Grant Morrison's much praised run on X-Men with some great art. Not much to say about this except it's a shame that some far inferior writers did some of the best plot points in X-Men history.

Batman: The Long Halloween & Dark Victory: I always heard these were good, but I never read them.

Well, that's my life. See ya, later.