Author: Mindy Newell

Mindy Newell: Marvel Or DC?

Isis Joker

The other day I was talking with editor Mike Gold about the political state of our country – Mike and I have marathon conversations about politics – and I asked him if he had seen and/or heard the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit Court by President Obama for a seat on the Supreme Court. “He’s into comics,” I said. Or was.

So how do I know about the comics connection? Just in case you missed the nomination or haven’t read it somewhere, here is the relevant part – at least for readers of comics and ComicMix – of the transcript of President Obama’s introduction of Judge Garland to us, the general public:

“He was born and raised in the Land of Lincoln, in my home town of Chicago, my home state of Illinois. His other volunteered in the community. His father ran a small business out of their home. Inheriting that work ethic, Merrick became valedictorian of his public high school. He earned a scholarship to Harvard, where he graduated summa cum laude.

“And he put himself through Harvard Law School by working as a tutor, by stocking shoes in a shoe store, and in what is always a painful moment for any young man, by selling his comic book collection. (laughter)

“It’s tough;” the President added. “Been there.” (laughter)

Which also means, in case you didn’t catch it, that President Obama also read and collected comics. And is still a fan. (According to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, our President has used Heath Ledger’s Joker as an analogy to what ISIS is doing:

 “After isis beheaded three American civilians in Syria, it became obvious to Obama that defeating the group was of more immediate urgency to the U.S. than overthrowing Bashar al-Assad.

 “Advisers recall that Obama would cite a pivotal moment in The Dark Knight, the 2008 Batman movie, to help explain not only how he understood the role of isis, but how he understood the larger ecosystem in which it grew. ‘There’s a scene in the beginning in which the gang leaders of Gotham are meeting,’ the president would say. ‘These are men who had the city divided up. They were thugs, but there was a kind of order. Everyone had his turf. And then the Joker comes in and lights the whole city on fire. isil is the Joker. It has the capacity to set the whole region on fire. That’s why we have to fight it.’”

By the way, Judge Garland, President Obama, and editor Mike Gold all come from Chicago. (Must be something in the water.) And there’s another little tidbit of “Six Degrees of (Comics) Separation,” which I will leave to Mike to tell you.

Do you think that Judge Garland and President Obama still read comics when they’re not (in Garland’s case – no pun intended) reading briefs, sitting on the bench, and deciding cases; or (in Obama’s case) dealing with the many and awesome responsibilities of the Presidency, like being the first President since Theodore Roosevelt led the Rough Riders over San Juan Hill to visit Cuba. But Teddy wasn’t President then, and Jimmy Carter was not a sitting President when he went to Cuba in 2011. Hmm, just checked. It’s been 88 years (January, 1928) since President Calvin Coolidge arrived on Cuban shores via the battleship U.S.S. Texas for the Pan American Conference – which, among other things, led to our perpetual lease of Guantanamo Bay, which is now home to America’s infamous terrorist detention center and naval base… ironically commanded by Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men,” the movie in which Nicholson told Tom Cruise “You can’t handle the truth!”

Back to the point, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if there were at least three comics or graphic novels somewhere in Garland’s house – or the White House. We already know, thanks to Goldberg’s interview with the President, that Obama has seen The Dark Knight. I would guess that Judge Garland has seen Nolan’s work, too.

With my writer’s mind concocting scenarios, I can imagine the judge and the President, after talking about the Supreme Court nomination, sitting down in the White House media room and watching both Avengers movies, or Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: Winter Soldier. Maybe they binged on Daredevil or Jessica Jones. Or maybe they caught up on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or Flash, or Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow. And I can easily see Obama inviting Malia and Sasha to join them for Supergirl. (Superman Returns and/or Man of Steel? Not so much. But that’s my own prejudice at work.)

Meanwhile the Repugnanticans are up to their usual obnoxious tricks. Led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who continues the party’s bigoted refusal to accept Obama as President, the bastards are vowing not to confirm any Supreme Court nominee until after the 2016 election. “Let the people decide,” they are saying. Well, first of all, we the People do not vote for Supreme Court justices. Secondly, they seem to putting all their eggs into one basket, that basket being that a Republican will win the Presidency. Thirdly, Merrick Gardner has previously been “approved” by Republicans when he was nominated to the D.C. circuit court, for example:

Orrin Hatch (R-Utah): “Merrick B. Garland is highly qualified to sit on the D.C. circuit. His intelligence and his scholarship cannot be questioned… His legal experience is equally impressive… Accordingly, I believe Mr. Garland is a fine nominee. I know him personally, I know of his integrity, I know of his legal ability, I know of his honesty, I know of his acumen, and he belongs on the court. I believe he is not only a fine nominee, but is as good as Republicans can expect from this administration. In fact, I would place him at the top of the list.”

I love it when the Repugnanticans get caught in “black-splatter,” a perfect term, coined by Bill Maher, for what’s really been going on in Congress since 2009.

But let’s say the Repugnanticans are unable to stop the process. Let’s say that I’m a member of the Senate Judiaciary Committee, and I am going to question Judge Merrick Garland on his legal views and leanings.

This would be my very first question:

Marvel or DC?

Mindy Newell: The Whole World Is Watching

It Can’t Happen Here Sinclair LewisThis is one of those times when I’ve got nothing. Maybe it’s because I spent the last week sick as a dog, as the saying goes. I wonder what the origin of that axiom is – why not “sick as a cat?” Or a horse, or an elephant? Anyway, I’m still feeling kind of tired and worn out, and I’ve had a headache all day, and I’ve sat down to write the column and gotten up and walked away about a million times, or I’ve started and deleted about a hundred paragraphs.

I keep dwelling on Donald Trump’s campaign. It reads like a political satire, doesn’t it? Or worse, a political dystopian warning, something on the order of It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, or The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. I know just what the book jacket copy would say:

A businessman who has stamped his name on many diverse monuments to American capitalism, from gleaming monolithic skyscrapers to verdantly lush golf courses to resorts for the very rich and powerful. He has written books that have topped the best-seller lists, and has hosted a successful reality show. Now he has decided that it is up to him to save his nation from the pathetic fools who sit in his beloved country’s seats of power, and for years have refused to take him seriously, though they have gladly reached out their hands and opened their pockets for his money. In a staged rally complete with hired actors, he announces his candidacy for the President of the United States.

Media pundits shake their collective heads and laugh at him on-and-off-camera, but their bosses tell them to give him plenty of airtime, because it makes for a good story. And the public is responding. Every time they feature the guy the ratings zoom through the roof.

But pretty soon nobody is laughing.

No doubt it would be optioned for a movie before the final manuscript went off to the printing press.

But this ain’t a movie, folks.

Even though we may all just end up paying for the price of admission.

Mindy Newell: It Doesn’t Know It’s A Game

American Flagg

Joshua/WOPR: “Shall we play a game?”

David (Matthew Broderick): “Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War.”

Joshua/WOPR: “Wouldn’t you prefer a good game of chess?”

David: “Later. Right now let’s play Global Thermonuclear War.”

Joshua/WOPR: “Fine.”

General Beringer (Barry Corbin): Mr. McKittrick, after very careful consideration, sir, I’ve come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks.

McKittrick (Dabney Coleman): I don’t have to take that, you pig-eyed sack of shit.

General Beringer: Oh, I was hoping for something a little better than that from you, sir. A man of your education.

Officer: Sir, it’s the President.

McKittrick: What are you going to tell him?

General Beringer: That I’m ordering our bombers back to fail-safe; we might have to go through this thing after all.

David (Matthew Broderick): “Is this a game or is it real?”

Joshua/WOPR: “What’s the difference?”

  • Wargames (1983), Directed by John Badham

Last week I watched Wargames on one of my cable channels, which was a weird bit of synchronicity because just a few days before, February 18th to be exact, the New York Times ran a very interesting article about that point on the graph where fiction and reality meet. It was called “‘Wargames’ and Cybersecurity’s Debt to a Hollywood Hack.”

Wargames, if you don’t remember – and I would be very surprised if you don’t, my fellow geeks – was a 1983 movie which starred Matthew Broderick as David Lightman, a high school student who is failing every class but also happens to be a genius computer geek in an era when it was not yet totally cool to be a high school computer geek. He accidentally hacks into the Cheyenne Mountain security complex known as NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and its super computer WOPR (War Operations Plan Response). WOPR is programmed to run numerous nuclear war scenarios and their outcomes, but David, a computer game “connoisseur,” believes that he has hacked into a games manufacturer’s R & D system, and decides to play global thermonuclear war, which is listed along with other strategy-learning games such chess, backgammon, checkers, and poker. But the computer “doesn’t know it’s a game,” as David desperately tries to tell the military. WOPR is counting down to Armageddon.

Anyway, the article tells the story of how, on June 4, 1983, then-President Ronald Reagan watched the movie at Camp David. The following Wednesday, Reagan met with his national security team and 16 members of Congress to discuss the upcoming meeting with the Soviets about nuclear arms. There he asked if anyone had seen Wargames, gave a synopsis, and if such a thing was possible. Coming on the heels of his Star Wars speech in which he asked scientist to develop “laser” weapons that could shoot down Soviet (or other hostiles) ICBMs from space, everyone in the room was thinking, to paraphrase, “There he goes again.”

But as the meeting disbanded, Reagan held back General John W. Vessey, Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and told him to look the possibility of someone breaking into the nation’s high security and top-secret computer systems.

One week later, the General returned to report that the President’s question wasn’t so off the wall and out of the box at all. In fact, to quote the New York Times, what the General actually said was, “the problem is much worse than you think.”

Reality imitating fiction.

There must have been something in the air in 1983, for that was also the year that Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg hit the comic book shops. Published by First Comics – which was co-launched by Rick Obadiah and ComicMix’s own Mike Gold – Flagg takes place in the year 2031. The U.S. government and the boards of major corporations have moved to Mars, and the Soviet Union has collapsed because of Islamist fundamentalism. The new center of power is the Brazilian Union of the Americas and the Pan-African League. America is ruled by the “Plex,” an amalgamation of the U.S. government and corporations. The population of the United States is centered around massive centers of commerce termed Plexmalls; the “Plexus Rangers,” including former television star Reuben Flagg, enforce the law.

Okay, the U.S. government is still in Washington. The Soviet Union did collapse in 1991, but Vlad Putin’s “wannabe” Soviet Union has problems with the Islamic fundamentalists living in the border states. But, can you say “Citizens United?” The 2010 Citizens United Vs. Federal Election Commission case, brought before the Supreme Court – which voted 5-4 in favor of the plaintiff – changed the landscape of our political system. Although it was originally meant for non-profit corporations, the principal has extended to private corporations – our First Amendment right to free speech as been convoluted to money as people. As in, to quote Mitt Romney, “Corporations are people, my friends.”

So I watch the 2016 Presidential campaign with a besotted eye. It does seem like some dystopian science fiction movie or comic, doesn’t it? The Republican candidates are cursing like roughnecks, complaining about television make-up, throwing bottled water at each other, tweeting and trolling like sociopathic adolescents, and a billionaire head of a corporation is leading the polls. The Democratic candidates are a woman suspected of murder and of e-mailing top-secret information on a public server and a socialist Jew from Brooklyn who isn’t Larry David.

And the current President is keen on sending a manned mission to Mars.

Mindy Newell: Annoyed, Angry, Aggravated, Apathetic

 

DC Comics Trump Cruz Chrome

“This computer will soon stop receiving Google Chrome updates because Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 will not longer be supported.” – Message on My Computer when I Open Google Chrome

“Justice Scalia was a hero. We owe to him, & the Nation, to ensure that the next President names his replacement.” – Tweet from Ted Cruz, 2016 Presidential Campaign

“The other candidates – they went in, they didn’t know the air conditioning didn’t work. They sweated like dogs… How are they gonna beat ISIS? I don’t think it’s gonna happen… You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass… My IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault… You’re disgusting.” – Donald Trump, 2016 Presidential Campaign

“At DC we believe in superheroes and what makes them great. And we also believe in the direct market and the core comics fan. Rebirth is designed to bring back the best of DC’s past, embrace the stories we currently love and move the entire epic universe into the future. We are returning to the essence of the DCU. With Rebirth we are putting the highest priority on the direct market and we will continue to create and cultivate new opportunities for retailers to thrive and prosper, grow readers, fans and customers.” – Dan DiDio, Co-Publisher, DC Entertainment

Annoyed: The Tyranny of the (Geek) Mob.

Every time I open Chrome I get the above message from Google; if I click on the “learn more” link I’m at the “Chrome Blog,” which says that those unsupported platforms will not receive updates or security fixes. In other words, Google is giving a big fuck you to consumers who are happy with their systems – including those using Windows XP and Windows Vista – and have need to go out and spend money on new computers and/or software. Norton is doing this with its security platforms as well. I’m being told on an almost daily basis that the company is soon going to stop supporting my Mac OS X 10.8 with anti-viral software; meantime every time I go on Facebook they want more and more information – which I don’t give them – and the page looks different. Apple releases a new iPhone almost every six months and is and now encouraging people to update to Mac OS X El Capitan, which is something like OS X 10.11.3.

Look, I get it – updating systems and platforms is like the car manufacturers introducing new models every year. But I have a 2004 Toyota Matrix (and I see even older cars out on the road – I know someone with a 1999 Ford Ram truck with over 250,000 miles on its odometer), and when I bring it in for an oil change (or, just recently, some major work – the steering wheel was shaking and twisting like a hula dancer whenever I went over 30 miles an hour, turned out my brake calipers kept getting locked), my mechanic doesn’t say to me, “Sorry, Min, the Matrix is no longer supported, so you have to go out and buy a new car.” What Google and Apple and Facebook and all the technology companies are doing is pure bullshit.

Angry: The Repugnantican Party.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said upon hearing of the death Justice Antonin Scalia said that the “vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” and has promised to block anyone that Obama nominates.  Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said, “that it’s been standard practice over the last nearly 80 years that Supreme Court nominees are not nominated and confirmed during a presidential election year,” which is total bullshit, because Saint Ronnie nominated Arthur Kennedy to SCOTUS, and the Senate confirmed him, in 1988, when that Presidential campaign was in full swing.

And then of course there is Ted Cruz, whose vitriol about the Supreme Court now includes Chief Justice John Roberts, whom Cruz supported. He actually said that it was “unconstitutional” for the President to nominate a justice while in his last year of office. I have a copy of the Constitution; Article III, Section 1 simply states: The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office. That’s all it says. There is nothing in there about the nominating process that I could find. (Hello, Bob Ingersoll! How did the nominating process come about?)

So, yeah, yeah, tell it to the Marines, Repugnanticans. If Obama were a Republican you’d be falling all over yourselves in your eagerness to get another justice his or her seat. And why does your bullcrap about “activist judges” only extend to those judges who were placed by Democrats?

And by the way, Repugnanticans, it’s your obstinacy against working with Obama, and your barely disguised bigotry towards our first black president, that’s created the specter of Donald Trump swearing on the Bible on the Capitol steps in January 2017.

Aggravated: Donald Trump

Y’know, I’d feel sorry for the people who support Trump if they weren’t such tremendous patsies. Trump is the ultimate con man of our times, and like any good con man, he knows how to sell it by sticking to the script. I’ve watched and listened to Trump in interviews and at televised “town halls.” No matter what anyone asks him, he never really answers the question. He repeats slogans. He avoids specifics. At one town hall that was hosted and televised by MSNBC, a woman asked him what he was going to do to help small business entrepreneurs. He said, “Did you read my book, ‘The Art of The Deal’? I hope you read it. The answers are all in there. Did you read it? If you read it you should be successful. Oh, you read it? Then you must be successful.” He said versions of “Make America Great Again” a million times in one hour. Again and again he tells us, “I’m rich, I’m funding my own campaign, I’m beholden to nobody.”

He feeds on people’s fears and bigotries, he listens to what people say, and responds by giving them what they want. Immigrants are taking our jobs and lowering our wages. “I’m going to build a wall on the border and make Mexico pay for it.” Hello, people, we have a longer and more porous 3,000 mile border with Canada, how come no one is asking him if he’s going to build a wall at that border, too, and make Canada pay for it?

And btw, Donald, how many illegal immigrants are working for you, keeping your golf courses green and smooth and playable? I lost my job when my company moved overseas. “I know how to negotiate, and I’ll make China live up to its obligations” Hey, people, you’re the ones shopping at Walmart and other cheap shit stores, you’re the ones supporting the global market. Why don’t you try a nationwide boycott for one day or one weekend instead of hauling your fat asses to buy stuff made by men and women and kids chained to their desks for 12 hours at a time without even a bathroom break? And besides, even The Donald admits to doing “business” with China.

The point is, it’s a lot more complicated than you might think, people – our cars are a hodgepodge of parts from all over the world, same with our computers; and by the way, it ain’t just Walmart and The Donald. Hell, you want to talk upscale? Our Calvin Kleins and Donna Karans and Ralph Laurens – don’t you remember the tumult that occurred when it was discovered that our team uniforms for the last Olympics were made in China? – are all made outside our borders. Go to Macy’s, go to Nordstrom or Bloomingdales or Saks Fifth Avenue or Neiman Marcus or any boutique store. Few and far between are the clothes and lingerie and handbags and shoes and belts and scarves and sunglasses with a “Made in the USA” label. And soon our Nabisco cookies – Oreos! – are going to be made in Mexico.

The globalized economy is here to stay, folks. Its ramifications aren’t going away. This isn’t your WWII veteran grandfather’s America. Hell, it’s not even your father’s America. Hell, it’s not even the America in which I grew up.  Those Americas are gone for good. Those Americas ain’t coming back. Yeah, in some ways it does make me sad. But I also realize that those Americas weren’t Utopias, either. Looking backwards is always dangerous. Rose-colored glasses and all that…

My TV is on right now. The Donald is campaigning in Atlanta. He just told the crowd that “We’re gonna be winning so much, we’re gonna get tired of winning. Make America Great Again!”

Yeah, choosing a guy who picks fights with the Pope – the Pope, for Christ’s sake! – is just the way to do it.

Apathetic: Reboots, Sequels, and still more Reboots

Who cares?

Mindy Newell, Jessica and Kara

Superman Supergirl Dave Gibbons

So it turns out that I maybe I do have a TARDIS, because I was able to finish watching Jessica Jones and to catch up on Supergirl.

You remember that basically crappy review of Supergirl I gave a couple of months ago? Well, the show is getting there, though, im-not-so-ho, they aren’t taking advantage of what could be some great story arcs. Except for Alex Danvers. And Cat Grant. And Hank Henshaw. But more on that in a bit.

I watched “Strange Visitor From Another Planet,” an hour that really could have called “Why Did You Abandon Me?” Hank Henshaw, a.k.a. J’onn J’onzz the Martian Manhunter, struggled with the personification of survivor’s guilt and abandonment in the appearance of a “White Martian,” a member of the “other” Martian race responsible for the Martian holocaust – a literal “Strange Visitor.” And while the psychological voices from beyond the grave – including his wife and two daughters – chastised J’onn J’onzz for abandoning them by not joining them in death, Cat Grant dealt with her own, different kind of survivor’s guilt and abandonment issues when her “Strange Visitor” turned out to be the child she had chosen to abandon in her drive to become a professional success, now all grown up and wanting to know why she hadn’t loved him enough to stay. “Bizzaro,” a twist on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, borrowed – well, stole – the origin of the sad creature from DC’s New52 reboot, only instead of Lex Luthor creating the “monster” from splicing Superman’s DNA with human DNA and injecting it into a teenager, it was Maxwell Lord splicing Supergirl’s DNA with the human DNA of comatose young women who “resembled” Kara Zor-El. I thought the show sorta fell down on this one – it was essentially a “monster of the week” episode with Bizzaro Supergirl dying at the end and Maxwell Lord becoming “The Man in the Glass Booth,” kidnapped and imprisoned – for now – at DEO headquarters. Which is rather illegal, and I assume will lead to further ramifications down the line.

One immediate ramification of Max hanging around the DEO, though, is that he just happened to be handy when the alien chest-hugging flower called the “Black Mercy” dug its tentacles into Supergirl’s rib cage and inflicted her heart’s desires upon her in a hallucinatory mind-game. Many of you will recognize this as an adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1985 Superman Annual #11 story, For the Man Who Has Everything.

It’s not a bad adaptation, but if you remember FTMWHE, it’s not quite up to par in comparison, especially in the Krypton sequences. Granted, the show’s budget had to be a serious factor in producing this episode, but in Superman’s dream world, we really become invested in Kal-El’s life on Krypton and in Kryptonian society. Kara Zor-El, however, never leaves her home. She just sits in the “living room” talking with her parents and Aunt Astra, who was never banished to the Phantom Zone. Oh, yeah, and we also meet a prepubescent Kal-El, though there is neither mention of nor a visit from Jor-

El and Lara. And though there is mention of a serious boyfriend, we don’t meet him nor do we see anything else of what Kara’s dream life if Krypton had not exploded entails.

In Superman’s dream state he has no memory or sense of anything wrong – well, the dream does start becoming increasingly disturbing – but Kara’s immediate reaction when waking up in her bed on Krypton is one of confusion and a sense that something is definitely wrong. But as the Black Mercy continues its psychic invasion, Kara starts forgetting, and by the time “virtual reality” Alex shows up she has accepted her life for what it is and does not recognize her “Terran” sister.

It’s a good attempt, but not one for the ages. For one thing, for a story about Supergirl’s lost dreams, it’s a fantastic showcase for Alex, who totally steals the scene(s). Alex’s quest to save her sister, her devotion to her, is really what this episode is about – and I don’t know if that’s what the writers had in mind. In fact, lately it almost seems that the title should be Supergirl’s Sister, Alex Danvers. She has become the most well developed character on the show (with Cat Grant coming up behind and Hank Henshaw/J’onn J’onzz nipping at Cat’s heels). It’s too bad, because this could have been a real showcase for Supergirl/Kara Zor-El.

And, again, wasn’t it convenient that Max Lord was on DEO premises so he could help develop the “virtual reality” psychic connection thing-a-ma-jig that got Alex into Kara’s dreamland in the first place?

However, Melissa Benoist did a bang-up job in displaying Supergirl’s anger and rage and hurt and sorrow when she woke up. Echoing Moore’s words, she spits out “Do you know what you did to me?” and then “Burn” as she lashes out with her heat vision against Non, the evil – and oh so incredibly boring – Kryptonian who’s Aunt Astra’s husband, and who exposed her to the Black Mercy in the first place.

There’s a lot more plot about Non’s plan to destroy Earth (or something – I’m not quite sure exactly what he wants to do), but there’s a twist at the end that really disappointed me, which now means that it’s 

Astra is killed by Alex.

This is right up there with the whole “fooling Cat Grant and convincing her that Kara isn’t Supergirl” storyline. I mean, Boo! Hiss! Really, Bernanti, Adler, et.al., killing off what could have been a fascinating character and story arc? Again, Boo! Hiss!

And as for JJ – it left me shaken and stirred, with that uncomfortable feeling you get when you’ve had a horrific nightmare which stays with you all day, or after you’ve made the mistake of watching a double feature of Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb) on Turner Classic Movies.

SPOILERS HERE FOR ANYBODY WHO HAS ALSO BEEN LATE TO THE PARTY!

What really got me was the straightforward and uncomplicated denouement of David Tennant’s Killgrave – a simple twisting of his neck, a quick dislocating of his cervical vertebrae, a horrific rupturing of the right and left common carotid and vertebral arteries, and he’s as dead as the Tyrannosaurus Rex that King Kong killed using the same method – only with a lot less fight than in that epic battle. It was so straightforward, not what is usually expected when dealing with the gifted, as the show’s super-powered individuals and others called them; in comic-book land fights are usually a chance for the artist to strut his stuff, consisting of many panels and sometimes many pages of balletic and brutal brawling. What I thought, as Jessica approached Killgrave, was that she was going to rip his tongue out, which would certainly, I think, have been an apt Sisyphean punishment for him – King Sisyphus of Ephyra was punished by Zeus for his hubris, lying, greediness, and self-aggrandizing by being condemned to push a gigantic boulder up a steep hill, only to have it roll back down to the bottom before reaching the top, repeating this pattern forever and ever and ever.

Killgrave with his tongue is essentially powerless, and as I said, it would have been a fitting punishment; but Jessica said she was going to kill him and she did. But though it looked simple it wasn’t; Jessica Jones literally killed her demon. But the question is: Will it be enough? Stay streamed.

I am in no way dissing Krysten Ritter or anybody else in the cast of this superb show – Krysten Ritter was nominated for a Critic’s Choice Award, but I think it’s sin that no one else was nominated (Jessica Jones was ignored by the Golden), especially David Tennant.

I now have an even bigger crush on appreciation of David Tennant.

He’s getting handsomer and handsomer and handsomer.

His acting chops just keep getting better and better and better.

Mindy Newell: Yesterday’s News?

US Japs At War

Last week, after I submitted my column to Old Man Editor Mike Gold, I made myself a cup of English Breakfast tea, sliced up some mozzarella and cheddar cheese, grabbed some crackers and got into bed – this woman has to get up way before the first rays of the sun crack the horizon during her work week – and so I didn’t read Old Man Editor Mike Gold’s e-mail in response to my submission until the next afternoon. It said something like: Jessica Jones is old news. It debuted on Netflix in November.

Well, gee, that was only two months ago, Old Man Editor Mike. Two months and 16 days, to be precise.

But I get it. In today’s hyper-streamed world, 10 weeks might as well be 1010 (or 10,000,000,000). There’s so much to watch, so much to read, so much to talk about on the information superhighway that was brought to us courtesy of the U.S. military industrial complex and Al Gore – the World Wide Web, baby – that it’s just about impossible for anyone to stay absolutely current and up-to-date unless you happen to be a green-skinned alien and Legionnaire from the 21st century named Brainiac 5. Even Chris Matthews, of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, now has a segment he calls “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” in which various reporters and pundits tell him, well, something he doesn’t know. And he has a research staff.

Sometimes I feel like the Gallifreyan, trapped in a confession dial for 7000 years while the universe just merrily keeps on expanding, minding its own business, and intelligent life and civilizations and planets and suns within it are born, thrive, wither, and die.

I can’t even keep up with my e-mail. Every day, for instance, I get at least three notifications from Comic Book Resources (CBR). I delete the ones that don’t sound interesting to me, but even the ones I want to read pile up faster than those cars and buses and trucks that were stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last weekend. Then, by the time I actually have the time to check them, they are all old news which I’ve either already heard about, or read about, or watch somewhere else on the net. And that’s just CBR. There’s also Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, Den of Geek, Bleeding Cool News, Michael Davis World, et. al. Oh, and that also includes ComicMix.

Plus my other e-mails and notifications. On Saturday it took me two hours just to clear out my mailbox. Some of the stuff dated back to November, and I never even read them. I’m telling you, it’s like reading a newspaper with the headline U.S. and Japs At War.

But…

I am up-to-date on my X-Files. (I’m thinking that it rocks!) I saw that movie its first weekend in theatres. And I’m actually ahead of the ball on Downton Abbey, having just watched Episode 8 of “The Final Season” on Amazon Prime.

But…

I missed the premiere of Legends of Tomorrow, Parts 1 and 2, and I missed last week’s Supergirl because I watched X-Files. So now I have to catch up those two shows. And I’m embarrassed to admit that Daredevil is still in my queue.

Not to mention that I have three more episodes of Jessica Jones to go.

Jesus, I wish I had a TARDIS.

Mindy Newell: Jonas And Jessica

Mindy Newell: Jonas And Jessica

David Tennent Jessica Jones

Did Jonas come to visit you last week?

If so, I hope you and yours are all healthy and safe.

Jonas, of course, is the huge winter storm that not only dumped record-breaking amounts of snow on the Mid-Atlantic States and Eastern Seaboard up to Boston, but also caused major coastal flooding in areas that are still recovering from Sandy, like the Jersey shore. An 84-mile stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike was shut down, and 500 cars, trucks, and buses were stranded in the blizzard for almost a full day, with the National Guard delivering medicine, food and water, and gasoline (to keep the cars running and warm) to hundreds of people.

Governor Shamu – I mean New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – finally got the message and left New Hampshire, where he has been campaigning to come back to the state that he ostensibly governs. Everywhere there were travel bans; Mayor Bill de Blasio even banned food deliveries. The airports, of course, cancelled all flights. The U.S. Postal Service – Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds – ignored its motto. The supermarkets were cleaned out – I walked down to my local market at about 1:00 p.m. on Saturday and the only thing left was Soylent Green. And all I wanted was Diet Pepsi and a pack of Salem 100’s.

But compared to many, I was lucky. My power never wavered, my steam radiators steamed. The most I had to worry about was digging my car out yesterday in order to go to work Sunday – and even that turned out incredibly easy, because my downstairs neighbor Lois, her wonderful husband Corey, and their kids did all of the work for me. In fact, all I had to do was clean the windshields and make sure that I could pull out of my parking spot easily. On top of which Lois saved that spot for me by parking her car so that it takes up two spaces, so that when I got home all I had to do was text her to come down and make room.

Yes, those whose cars take up two spaces in my parking-challenged city usually make me curse like a sailor – okay, that’s not hard, but otherwise I doubt I would be able to get to the hospital tomorrow for fear of driving around and around and around the blocks upon reaching home for hours, so today I forgive them and myself.

Aside from the walk to the Soylent Green store and not having to dig out my car, I basically did absolutely nothing, which sometimes is the best thing in the world. I played solitaire on the computer, I did the New York Times crossword puzzle, and then I caught up on Jessica Jones, courtesy of Netflix. I realize I’m a little behind the curve here.

The eponymous, hard-drinking anti-hero is played by Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad, Veronica Mars), who is joined by Mike Coulter as Luke Cage, Rachael Taylor as Patsy “Trish” Walker, and David Tennant as Killgrave. JJ is dark and ugly and all about the underbelly of the superhero fantasy – the trauma, the amorality, the death, the pain, the anger, the fear, the regret, the isolation. It’s the post-traumatic stress syndrome of the genre. There is no joy in this world. Booze is for dulling the memories, sex is for physical pleasure, marriage is just a road to the inevitable divorce, and love is denied – or at least suspect. Anyone and everyone connected, even incidentally, by the “power enhanced” is scarred physically or emotionally or psychologically, or left for dead or dead. No one is innocent. And no one gets out alive. Not really.

So pretend that I’m Killgrave and that I have the power to control your mind:

In case you haven’t done so yet, watch Jessica Jones.

And keep the kiddies away.

Mindy Newell is Just Ramblin’ On

Swamp Thing

Sometimes a writer can sit in front of the computer screen for hours, fingers poised on the keyboard, and – nothing happens. Not a word, not a syllable. Not a random thought, not a brainstorm. There’s not one single idea that can be expanded upon, not a hint of anything that seems at least remotely interesting.

Hmm, here’s something.

Did you read Denny’s column last week, the one about the Mighty Marvel Method? This writer came late to that particular game; in fact, I didn’t even know it existed, and the first time I heard the words “Marvel style” – another way to describe the “method” – I didn’t have a clue, though I was familiar with what a “script” was, having read numerous plays, including a whole lotta Shakespeare, in high school and college. I do think that, for novices, the best way to learn how to write a comic is by the “full script” method, which helps (forces?) the writer to understand pacing, hone dialogue, and think visually, because in the full script the writer is describing the artwork in each panel. This can be pretty easy to do in an action scene, but what if it’s basically just two people talking? Then the writer has to think like both a director and a cinematographer, and keep the “camera” moving and the “light” interesting, because otherwise a “talking head” interlude, no matter how important it is to the plot, how crucial to moving the story forward, is just plain b-o-r-i-n-g.

Either way, as in a football game, it’s a team effort. The writer may be the quarterback, but without a trusted receiver – Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Peyton Manning and Demarylius Thomas, Tom Brady and Julian Edelman, Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson, Eli Manning and Odell Beckham, Jr. – he or she won’t reach the playoffs, much less the Super Bowl. I’m thinking Alan Moore and Stephen Bissette on The Saga of the Swamp Thing, Marv Wolfman and George Perez on The New Teen Titans, Frank Miller and David Mazzucheli on Daredevil, our own Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams on Batman. Neil Gaiman and Sam Keith on Sandman. And, of course, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, Captain America, et.al. Of course, these are all classic pairings; YMMV.

Did you read John Ostrander’s column yesterday? John is rightly furious. What’s happened in Flint Michigan is a fucking disgrace. Oh, and one thing John didn’t mention. The fucking Republican Ohio Governor Rick Snyder wouldn’t ask for federal aid or for the President to declare a federal emergency because, you know, Obama’s a Kenyan Socialist Muslim Anti-American Democrat. And he’s black. Thank God for Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore, and the Detroit Free Press. And above all to Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the Flint pediatrician who blew the whistle.

Yesterday I finished semi-binging on The Man in the High Castle on Amazon – semi-binging because I didn’t watch all 10 episodes at once, but divided it up into two “showings” – so I wasn’t aware of the release of the American prisoners from Iran until about 5:30 or 6 p.m. MSNBC and CNN were both covering the story. I turned to FOX, because I was wondering what they were saying about this windfall from Obama’s policy on Iran; no matter what you think about the nuclear deal with that nation – and I’m still on the fence about it – our people have been released. Would Fox, the bastion of fair and balanced reporting” at least celebrate that? Nope. They just kept replaying and replaying the Republican debate from Tuesday night until the other stations turned to other stories. So fucking typical. Meanwhile, the sixth prisoner, Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who allegedly was in Iran on a covert CIA mission (according to ABC News) and who disappeared in March 2007 is still missing. I told Mike Gold that I think he’s dead.

By the way, The Man in the High Castle is a brilliant and engrossing adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel. I heartily recommend it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindy Newell: Review Redux

supergirl-fox-550x312-5692639

Cat Grant: One time at a party, Paul McCartney swore to me that he and Yoko were the closest of friends. He was more convincing.

Cat Grant not accepting Kara Danvers’ statement that she (Kara) is not Supergirl

Rey: There are stories about what happened.

Han Solo: It’s true. All of it. The Dark Side. The Jedi. They’re real.

Listen Up! Spoilers Abound, So If You Don’t Want To Know, Don’t Read This Column.

A few weeks ago, four days before Christmas to be exact, I said that I loved Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and had problems with Supergirl.  While I still love Episode VI of a saga that took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there are two things that bother me. Silly things, to be sure, but just enough to pick at my enjoyment a teensy bit:

I miss the 20th Century Fox fanfare that opened all the other Star Wars movies.

Composed in 1933 by Alfred Newman, head of the studio’s music department, the extended version – which is the one that became so integral to the films – debuted with The Robe, the first film to be shown in Cinemascope. But it had been phased out by the late ‘70s by the then-struggling-to-survive studio when its savior, George Lucas – who had always loved the logo, the sweeping spotlights, and the fanfare – insisted on its use in his “little space opera fantasy.” Then, when John Williams developed the theme to Star Wars, he used the same key as the fanfare, and has said that it was meant to be an extension of Alfred Newman’s work.

And so, ever since May 25, 1977, all of us have felt their heartbeats quicken, felt goose bumps prickle their skin, and felt the hairs on the back of our necks stand up in anticipation and salute as those drums, those trumpets, those sweeping spotlights acted as a clarion call to that galaxy so far, far way where an epic adventure happened such a long time ago. It became such an intrinsic part of the Star Wars universe that it’s now part and parcel of the soundtracks of the first six movies

Seeing a Star Wars movie introduced by Sleeping Beauty’s castle – a “side effect” of Disney’s ownership of the franchise – just ain’t the same, folks.

The only pilot I want to see flying the Millennium Falcon is Han Solo – with Chewie at his side, of course.

Seeing the Falcon in action again after 30+ years, soaring and doing loop-de-loops and evading TIE fighters, was almost like a religious experience, except for one thing – it wasn’t Han and Chewie at the controls. I can’t really explain it, I know it’s kind of dumb: after all, Lando Calrissian flew the “fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy” in Return of the Jedi – but I’ll tell you a secret: I always objected to that, too.

Just to get the bad taste out of my mouth, I’ll tell you what I did absolutely love in The Force Awakens:

The climatic scene between Han Solo and his son, Ben, now known as Kylo Renn, on a catwalk stretching across a seemingly bottomless abyss inside a technological marvel.

A perfect callback to the climatic scene in The Empire Strikes Back, as another father – Darth Vader, once known as Annakin Skywalker – confronted his son, Luke, and revealed truth to him as they faced off on another catwalk high above a seemingly endless abyss inside another technological marvel.

Also a few weeks ago, in the same column (four days before Christmas to be exact), I listed some of my complaints about Supergirl. Well, with the advantage of having watched new episodes of the series, I take back much of what I said:

“We met Aunt Astra and we know right away that she’s evil. She might as well have had a mustache to twirl. We shouldn’t even have known who she was – tease us, fool us. Mix us up. Maybe sometimes she’s good, sometimes she’s bad, maybe she’s somewhere in the middle. What’s her relationship with Kara? And since we’re supposed to be identifying with Kara, that should have been her deal as well.”

It’s almost as if the writers read my column, although of course that’s incredibly egotistical of me, and besides, I’m pretty sure that Astra’s back story and relationship to Kara was already in the show’s “bible.” It turns out that Astra is a villain depending on what side of the argument you hold to – is she an “eco-terrorist,” or an “eco-hero?”  Some argue – as Astra does – that desperate times call for desperate measures, that the needs of the many outweigh needs of the few, or the one. And her relationship with her niece, Kara, is becoming way more complicated as truths about Kara’s mother are being revealed.

“Kara was stuck in the Phantom Zone for years. And this hasn’t had any lasting affects? No emotional or psychological hang-ups? No anger issues at her cousin for dumping her in some strangers’ laps and flying off? No PTSD from seeing her parents, her civilization, her planet from being blown to kingdom come? Did the Danvers even attempt some sort of therapy? She should have trouble forming relationships, she should have trust issues, jeez, let’s see some anger.”

Confrontations with her Aunt, with her sister, Alex, with Cat Grant, with James and with Winn, with Maxwell Lord, with General Lane, and even her hologram mother…

The perky girl is still perky and kind and bubbly, but she’s letting the spunk and anger out, too. You go, SuperGRRRL!

“How many times and in how many ways can Kara talk about proving herself? This fast became a one-trick pony that quickly wore out its welcome and became a whine that is repeated in each and every episode as expository statements to her sister, to Jimmy, to Winn, to Hank…hey, Kara, take a tip from Yoda: “Did not you see Strikes Back the Empire Does? Do, or do not. There is no try.” Seriously, I’m waiting for somebody to tell her to just shut the fuck up already.”

She ain’t whining no more. Well, no so much, anyway. She’s absorbing Nike’s words of wisdom. Just Do It.

One thing that does piss me off big time!:

J’inn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, a.k.a. Hank Henshaw, used his morphing ability to impersonate Supergirl and paid Cat Grant a visit as Supergirl just as the real Kara walks into her boss’ office, thus convincing Cat Grant that Kara Danvers isn’t the Kryptonian Maid of Steel.

No! No! No!

The sad and hackneyed use of a friend of the superhero impersonating said superhero so that said superhero could be seen at the same time and in the same place as said superhero’s secret identity – Batman impersonating Superman to throw Lois Lane off the scent, for instance – oh, come on! That went out back in the 1960s, for cryin’ out loud!

I’m holding on to the hope that Cat Grant is only playing dumb.

Mindy Newell: Farewell, Downton?

Downton Abbey Finale

Sarah O’Brien, Lady’s Maid to the Countess of Grantham, talking about Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham (Siobhan Finneran): I’d like to giver her the old heave-ho – in a dark alley somewhere.”

Lady Sybil Crawley (Jessica Brown Findlay): No one ever learned anything from a governess except for French, and how to curtsy.

Charles Carlson, Butler (Jim Carter): We may have to have a maid in the dining room.

Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville): Cheer up, Carson. There are worse things happening in the world.

Carson: Not worse than a maid serving a duke.

Mary Crawley, eldest daughter (Michelle Dockery): Our dentist is horrid

Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith): What’s a weekend?

I’ve been binging on Downtown Abbey the past couple of weeks in preparation for the show’s sixth and final season, which premiered last night; it’s already ended over in the U.K.

I actually came “ratha” late to this period drama, picking it up somewhere in its fourth season. My daughter had been raving and recommending it for quite a while, but I had avoided it, thinking it a rip-off or tired replay of Upstairs Downstairs, the classic BBC series that had aired on PBS from 1971 to 1975. And in many, many ways, of course it is. However, the big difference, aside from the modern production values, including location shooting, is that is that Upstairs Downstairs concerned the lives of a family and their servants in London’s fashionable Belgravia neighborhood – “city dwellers” – while Downtown Abbey tells the story of a titled aristocratic family who are historic estate holders in the Yorkshire countryside.

The events of the early 20th century changed the British societal hierarchy, something that had held rigid and unbending for centuries. Social historians mark the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 as the first crack in this structure, and Downton Abbey began with this, as Robert Crawley, the seventh Earl of Grantham, is told that his designated heir went down with the liner leaving only a distant cousin, a “middle-class” untitled lawyer, as his successor. His oldest daughter, Mary, cannot be considered to follow Robert because of the long-established and legal tradition of the “entail” which endows titles and estates exclusively on male heirs. (It was only in 2013, with the passing of the Succession to the Crown Act by Parliament, that the laws of succession were changed to allow the first-born, regardless of sex, to inherit the crown.)

The British political Marconi scandal of late 1912, World War I, the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic, the birth of jazz and the “Roaring Twenties,” the formation of the Irish Free state, the Teapot Dome Scandal, the first Labor government in British history, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India – reference Richard Attenborough’s 1982 Ghandi – and the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 (in which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party first failed to seize power in Munich) all figured predominantly as the series progressed, as these historical events shaped and shoved and remolded Downton Abbey and the real estates on which it is based into either something new and thriving, or destroyed them and the villages that had grown up around them.

It remains to be seen, at least here in the United States, if the fictional Downton will also die, or, like Highclere Castle, the 5,000 acre estate and filming location in Hampshire that stands in for the main “house” on the show, will adapt to the currents of history and thrive.

I hear there are already whispers of a movie.

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