Alright alright, no point in delaying it, let's talk about last night's shocking episode of LOST:
LOST:
Okay, I was as shocked and as surprised as anyone when I saw the closing 30 seconds or so of last night's Lost. And I think you pretty much HAD to be shocked, as ...
SPOILERS
... Michael killing Ana-Lucia and Libby in cold blood was totally random and out-of-nowhere. Certainly, it was not something that was built up in any way shape or form. And sure, I knew somewhere deep in the back of my mind that Michelle Rodriguez, with her various legal problems and apparent issues on the set had basically forced the producers' hands and put her character on the chopping block. And I also had heard that Cynthia Waitrose had some similar issues and had already signed up to be in an upcoming fall TV pilot. But nothing in this episode led me to believe that THIS is where they'd bite it, and of course nothing really foreshadowed HOW it would go down.
Now, the question is whether the writers will provide a satisfactory motive for Michael to have gone postal, or will the explanation be as random and confusing as the mursers seemed last night? It appears that Michael shot HIMSELF in the shoulder at the episode's end, and the likely inference is that he is going to frame Henry Gale for the murders and claim he was also attacked. But to what end? The obvious answer is that Michael's hand is being forced, and that he is somehow doing what is necessary to save his son. But still, why kill Ana? Okay, so maybe she was considered a danger to the Others since she had killed one already. And then, was the shooting of Libby an accident? Must have been. But then why frame Henry rather than free him or something? Well, I guess he is kind of the sacrificial lamb at this point to the others, no point in keeping him alive when he's already said too much, right? See, this show just writes itself.
Anyways ... aside from the CRAZY ending, I was pretty bored with this episode. Sure, the bried Ana Lucia - Sawyer, finally-giving-in-to-animalistic-lust-hookup piqued my interest for a minute, but man, those flashbacks were just so useless, other than to continue the seemingly pointless "look, see, they're ALL CONNECTED" theme that has permeated many of the flashbacks as of late. The other subplots or whatever just kind of dragged, with the exception of the always-interesting Locke and his interaction with Henry Gale, which seemed to actually shed some light on some of the show's mythology, with Locke being called "one of the good ones." Could this be code for "one of the ones with some kind of crazy, semi-latent meta-ability?" If so, my theory I presented a while back was so money - check it out:
http://dannybaram.blogspot.com/2006/04/lost-okay-now-im-kinda-lost-myself.html
Yes, I am the man. But I digress ... So yeah, decent if not totally decompressed and slowly-paced episode, with a few interesting tidbits of new info, somewhat saved by what is, admittedly, one of the most shocking, if not totally random, cliffhangers in a while. Sure, those of us who are fans of 24 and Veronica Mars are accustomed to awesome cliffhangers, but hey, I guess the Lost fanboy deserve a cool ending every so often as well. Okay, okay, it was a friggin' cool ending, one of the craziest I've seen - I give credit where it's due. Now next week, well, it had better be DAMN good.
My grade: B+
OTHER TV STUFF:
- Saw a bunch of new NBC Pilots yesterday. Won't go into detailed reviews, but instead I'll throw out a few bits of tantalizing info that focuses on the good of what I saw:
1.) Aaron Sorkin fans saddened by the departure of West Wing, don't get too upset, you have A LOT to look forward to.
2.) Arrested Development fans still in mourning - Jeffrey Tambor is back, paired up with another comedic veteran, and while their new show is traditional, it's also pretty hilarious.
- So long Commander in Chief. Didn't watch it, but I must root for Geena Davis, one of my favorite BU alums.
- Speaking of ABC, awesome how you can now watch the newest eps of shows like Lost on their website, for free no less. Hope that NBC follows suit.
NBA PLAYOFFS:
- Great game last night between the Wiz and the Cavs. LeBron and Gilbert each had spectacular offensive games, but in the end the Wizards total lack of D killed 'em in OT. You let Lebron beat you with a baseline LAYUP at the buzzer, after waiting to get a shot off with 3 seconds left to play? What? Bad strategic decisions and loose defense killed the Wizards last night. Looking forward to Game 6 though.
- Speaking of which, it's gonna be a slobberknocker tonight between the Lakers and Suns - can't wait. Go Suns!
- RIP Michael Redd and the Bucks - put up a decent fight but no real match for the Pistons, who are firing on all cylinders and are going to be tough to beat.
COMICS:
- So yeterday, the biggest comic book event in years reached its conclusion. I'm talking ...
INFINITE CRISIS -- final wrap-up review:
- I can liken Infinite Crisis, especially in its last few issues, and MOST especially in its final issue, #7, to a kid getting the keys to the toystore and pretty much having no idea what to do with himself. All he knows is that he wants to play with every toy at his disposal. That is pretty much my thought on this final issue in the seven-part series. It's like "oh look, there's Bane breaking someone's back!" (but didn't he forsake villainy and retire to the Himalayas?). "Oh, check it out, there's Nightwing getting nearly-killed by Alex Luthor!" (But he's healed up and fine a few pages later ...). "Hey, let's have TWO different Supermen fight Doomsday! Wouldn't that be sweet?" (I guess, except they utterly decimate him in one page - and wasn't he controlled by the conspicuously absent Dr. Psycho in Villains United, which leads directly into this issue?).
Geoff Johns' superhero epic is just all over the place by this point, and any pretension of a coherant story is pretty much thrown out the window. This series was supposed to be about "the worst day in the history of the DCU." But instead of making us believe that it really was the worst day ever organically from the magnitude of the story, we are simply told, over and over, how bad things are. The story NEVER reached a point where there was an "aha" moment and everything came together in a logical way. Sure, we knew that Alex Luthor was the mastermind behind the Society, the Omacs, etc - but what his motivation was, who this character was and why he was no longer a benevelant hero but a would-be evil conquerer was never satisfactorilly explained in a clear manner. Neither was the conversion of Superboy Prime from an innocent hero in the original Crisis to an utterly deranged, all-powerful killing machine. And the Superman of Earth 2 - essentially THE hero, the prototype that all others would follow -- WHY would he ever have fallen in league with those two, it just wasn't justified well enough.
So there's one problem - characters' motivations never made clear or coherant. Here's another: the scattershot nature of the plot made each story beat get totally lost in the fray, for the most part. All the big moments - Superboy's death last issue, E-2 Superman's death here, the final fates of Superboy Prime and Alex Luthor - did not make the impact they should have. Why? Because there was not the proper build up for these events to make a real EMOTIONAL impact on the reader. I mean, in the Villains United special, writer Gail Simone did a great job of building up the battle in Metropolis as being pretty huge. A ragtag band of second-string heroes, regular cops, and other assorted B-listers, was going to have to face hundreds of the most vile villains ever, including all the big guns of the Society - Dr. Psycho, Sinestro, Deathstroke, and the beast that once killed Superman - Doomsday. And yet in IC 7, the battle is just a bunch of random punches and kicks. Where are the great moments of heroism, the brave sacrifices, the fighting by cops and D-listers against impossible odds? The whole fight takes mere pages to complete. The aforementioned Doomsday fight is limited to one page. Batman, Robin, and Nightwing taking on Deathstroke occurs OFF-PANEL. There is just too much packed into this issue, and it means that everything feels very rushed, and also that the plot never quite comes together into a clear, coherant, overarching story. To this end, many of the series' subplots just come off as being random and useless. What real purpose did Donna Troy and her space-faring team really serve to the story? What was the point of GL Kyle Rayner changing into Ion, again?
Because of all that is happening, the art also suffers. While DC has been pretty good up until now about having great artists do the necessary fill-in work for regular penciller Phil Jiminez, issue 7 definitely has the series' most jarring artistic transitions to date, with a number of key scenes sporting very noticable shifts in art. For the first time in the series, a numberof pages just looked sloppy, noticeably the last big splash page that served as a preview of the "new" DCU, which looked very rushed and not up to the usual standards of Jiminez, Ordway, Perez, Reiss, and co. Of course, the majority of the artwork was dynamite as usual. The pages the Jiminez DID actually pencil were simply beautiful as always, and Ordway and Perez's work, and the covers by Jim Lee and George Perez, were top-tier as usual.
I also have to question the random bits of changed continuity that are expositionally explained here in a pretty awkward manner. Alex Luthor explains that in this new earth, things are different. Superman was now Superboy again in his early career. Wonder Woman was now a founding member of the JLA. Batman knew who killed his parents ala Batman Begins. What?!?! Okay, the necessity of these changes is questionable, as they negate a number of excellent stories like John Bryne's Man of Steel and Mark Waid's JLA: Year One. But also, why shoehorn this exposition into the story like this? Ugh, just awkward storytelling there. One other big example of crowded exposition - the return of Bart Allen as The Flash. While a nice tribute to the original Crisis, with Kid Flash inheriting his mentor's mantle, this was SO random and confusing. Bart comes back, is aged ten years, tells Jay Garrick that the old-timer is now the fastest man alive, and that Wally, Linda, and their twins are in some other dimension? Whaaat?Oh yeah, Bart and Jay play no other part in the story, so their appearance serves no real purpose. I'm curious to see what's going on with the Flash's, but, this was just a bit much.
And speaking of awkward storytelling - I don't know, I mean the overarching theme of this series was supposed to be the nature of heroism - can heroes be flawed or is it preferable to go back to the infallible heroes of the Golden Age. But was this them ever really organically woven into the story, from issue to issue? To a degree, yes, and Issue 1, when the Big 3 had their summit and Batman delivered his insta-classic line to Superman ("The last time you inspired anyone was when you were dead.") was a promising start to the exploration of this theme, kicked off by Wonder Woman's murder of Maxwell Lord in the Sacrifice storyline.
But where did it really go from there? Nowhere really - just a bunch of vague exclamations from Superboy Prime about how this world's heroes were corrupted and impure, with a bunch of events taken out of context to emphasize the fallibilty of the heroes onthe post-Crisis earth. And then there was the coda in Issue 7, which was just kind of out there. Batman, who of all heroes refuses to kill under any circumstance, holds a gun to the head of Alex Luthor? What?!?! The same Batman who refuses to kill The Joker time after time is going to murder, in cold blood, another in a long line of would-be world conquerers who he has thrown down with? No way. So then WW comes along, looking menacing, but smashes her sword in a symbolic way of saying that she ain't a killer no mo'. Not bad, but the Batman thing was pretty out of character - Alex was already beaten, why would Batman of all people consider killing him?
So yeah, a lot of cool moments this issue, but also a lot of stuff that felt rushed, random, or just off. Numerous continuity errors have popped up in this series as well, even discontinuity between this and other IC-tie in issues, which is pretty annoying. Also, people who SHOULD have been major players given the story and characters involved, ie Lex Luthor, were mostly absent. Sure, the Joker-Lex Luthor (they always seem to team-up at times of crisis ...) scene at the end of the issue was sweet, but also pretty random and a somewhat anti-climactic end for the big-bad Alex Luthor.
What DID I like in Issue 7? Lots of stuff. The aforementioned Joker-Luthor scene was fanboy goodness. Guy Gardner vs. Superboy. Robin's angst at seeing Nightwing then Batman getting beaten before his eyes. The final scene between the Big 3, especially the happier, old-school depiction of Bruce Wayne. Superboy Prime and his bloody S-shield. All the random characters popping out of nowhere - I mean, Wild Dog? The New Blood? Cool! The assembly of the Green Lantern Corps and the wall of sheer green willpower. Mogo, the planet GL, playing an unexpected role - and he socializes! Nice little character moments from Guy, Hal Jordan, Booster Gold, and others. The red sun idea was pretty cool. As always, Johns packed in the little "cool" moments, and the fanboy geek-out scenes were in no short supply.
But as a series, that was pretty much what Infinite Crisis turned out to be -- a 100 mph, bursting at the seams collection of cool moments. Those were plentiful, even when a coherant plot and impactful, emotional ressonance were not. And the excitement and promise of Issue 1 definitely lessened as the series failed to live up to its full potential to be a modern classic with each passing issue. And in the end, I can't say it was any better than less hyped event comics from throughout the last decade, like Final Night, for one. Was it a good read? Yes. Was it a page-turner? Definitely. Was it filled with great art, numerous geek-out moments, and big changes to the status quo? Yes, without question. But was this all it way hyped up to be, the comic book epic to end all comic book epics? Not really - it just never quite came together.
My Infinite Crisis Issue # 7 Grade: B -
My Infinite Crisis Series Grade: B
OTHER STUFF:
- It wouldn't be a geek edition of my blog without a comment on the announcment of the new Star Wars DVD sets that will finally feature the ORIGINAL, old-school theatrical versions of the oriinal trilogy, without the CGI enhancements or added scenes from the 1990's re-releases. Personally, I don't have that much sentimental attachment to the original versions as opposed to the newer ones, and I don't mind most of the enhancements. My biggest complaint with the new ones is that Greedo now shoots first, and we all know that Han shooting first is waaay cooler and more befitting of his character. So kudos to Lucas and co for finally releasing these unaltered versions, but finger of shame for not justp utting these on the original DVD release and making fans shell out a ton of extra $$$, just to get the original cuts. In any case, fanboys everywhere can now cease their complaining about not being able to buy these, and can focus on complaing about how Superman and X-Men 3 will suck.
- On that note, it's time for some lunch and I'm outta here. Until next time, may the Schwartz be with you.
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