Tuesday, May 02, 2023

Four-Color Wonders...


None has become quite as lethargic in the last few years than the... four-color world. Really. None.

Seeing, from the sidelines, what horrific and inane things they are dishing out, rehashing and belching (all packaged with attractive art, granted - but without the slightest substance at all) the exact same drivel that is, supposedly, meant to make fanboys marvel at these imaginary feats...!




And to think that hot new artist Ivan Reis (AQUAMAN)
pretty much started out with this sort of four-color thing...
The true culprit for this is, of course, the wretched writer
and the one responsible here 
is one Chuck Austen -
evidence that even the seasoned veterans
can commit atrocities to paper.
An embodiment, an incarnation of 
Sodom & Gomorrah -
in space suits, to boot.
Wow, Chuck - that one topped 
absolutely all the blunders
EVER made by Dan Jurgens, Jeph Loeb, Kurt Busiek
and all the rest, all at once...! 
But it is dwarfed by those blunders committed by
the current roster and the Didiot -
so, fret not (too much) Chuck! 
Just read on...! 


In 2012's issue 819 of the old Action Comics series (old because DC has put the emphasis on ''the new 52'' at this point in their tortuous history - so this has to be made clear now that, this one, is not part of the ''new 52'' but is, really, one of the old, er, two? The big two - sort of.)

Sodom... and Gomorrah... versus Superman. 

Was this somehow inspired by Kevin Smith's absurd take on DOGMA...? 

And to think that everyone thought Cary Bates was a boring dud with his ideas of pitting the so-called Man of Steel up against Alexander The Great and super-folk such as... Microwave Man. 

Why can't they just bring back THE GALACTIC GOLEM instead? 

At least they fit the bill a hell of a lot more than incarnations of decimated twin cities renowned for their considerably less-than-PG-13 attributes...

The jokes about Sodom going mano-a-mano with Superman must have fused... Maybe it is an in-joke, too, on the cover: the way Supes is looking over his shoulder and Sodom is there, with his loving wife looking on approvingly... Ahhhh! Why did you have to give this the green light, DC?!?

And why did you have to pen this, Chuck?

Of course, the pressure of producing a monthly story rife with sub-plots and entertainment value takes its toll on just about every scribe in that wretched business. There comes a point where you have no ideas left at all on what to do next, what is left to do or what ideally can be done! If you don't have a master plan, a major storyline guiding you and leading up to some kind of climax, you are doomed to commit such atrocities as this.

However, having said all this (and valiantly pleaded Chuck's case here) they are doing things these days that quite simply boggle the mind and makes one wonder, quite simply... ''what the hell are they thinking''...? Again.

Enough defending Chuck - it's not like he's Gerry Conway anyway!
Let's go on the accusing bench now!





They got out of their way, now, to get a ''real author'' (Paul Cornell - who? Never mind now: PC's at DC! Yay.) to pen the further adventures (yawn) of our Super-duper-man here, see? And all that said author, editors around him and the DC brass can come up with then is something as nonsensical as the ''Reign of the Doomsdays'' - culminating with a showdown between Soupsesy and some even bigger-than-Doomsday monster called... Doomslayer.

Doomslayer. My, is this Supes borrowing from Dungeons & Dragons like he borrowed from Astérix, back in the day...?

Fan Tony has much more common sense than the guy who commented on the previous issue: his comment starts with ''this is sooooooooooooo annoying'' - and it undeniably is!

A Sodomman and a Gomorrahwoman - or a bunch of ''Doomsdays'' stumbling around, not living up to their names...
 
What is truly worse here, I ask you?

This 'Reign' storyline can only be taken as a farce then - and maybe that is exactly what it is too! Place yourself in this author's shoes: Cornell... He's signed on to be the Super-writer. Hurray. He glances through the fabled history of the character: one storyline stands out and that is the one in which he DIES and is replaced by four virtual clones of himself: the ''Reign of the Supermen'' of the mid-90s. Like all other forms of make-believe, four-color crap is reduced to this now, of course: simply rehashing its old stuff in the vain hope of capturing lightning in a bottle once again - only problem is, they simply can't.
 
And it wasn't lightning the first time around, either!



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Saturday, February 16, 2019

T.U.A. ~ Not T'n'A (but almost)

Imagine the disappointing bit 
of lethargy/apathy/contempt 
developing here now: 
when it is tumblr that reminds us 
of an old, forgotten piece of 
smut cinema (!) 
(allegedly celebrating 
50 years now, too...) 
--- and not IMDB!!! 









It is - it really is a 1969 film! 
Along with The Color of Pomegranates... 
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie... 
The Milky Way, 
The Wild Bunch, 
Guns of the Magnificent Seven, 
On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 
Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 
The Laughing Woman, 
The Madwoman of Chaillot, 
Shark, Queimada, 
Venus In Furs, 
Fellini Satyricon, 
The Extraordinary Seaman, 
Age of Consent, 
Cactus Flower, 
Hello Dolly, 
Sweet Charity, 
Goodbye Columbus, 
Goodbye Mr. Chips, 
The Big Bounce, 
The Big Cube, 
Justine, De Sade, 
Medium Cool, 
Midnight Cowboy 
AND 
Putney Swope 




But... What was the problem? 
TWO 
Undercover Angels?
Jess Franco couldn't afford a 3rd one? 
He couldn't bring himself to bring in, 
for the umpteenth time, 
his wife 
"RoRo" (whatwashernameagain) 
to be the third angel 
(fallen, clearly) here?!? 
Granted, she could do vampire 
or whore - 
but she wouldn't have been 
all that believable as an angel... any kind of angel!



 
Luckily, here
YouTube 
has graciously provided 
the missing third undercover angel: 





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