Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

by Tom King and Bilquis Evely

Woman of Tomorrow has been on my list for a while, and the recent summer movie inspired me to complete it.

I wasn't really sure what to expect, but had heard overwhelmingly good things about it, and that was enough for me. If you need more, here's a bit of a premise: it's kind of a space fantasy epic, told in episodes.

Ruthye is this little girl from this large family, whose father was murdered by what you could call a bandit, or a pirate. Ruthye vows to go on a quest for revenge to kill her father's murderer, and enlists Supergirl. Somehow, Supergirl agrees. Not the least of which being the bandit, Krem, beat up her dog.

Ruthye and Supergirl play off each other really well, and it comes off as a travel buddy story. What's unique about this story is the take on Supergirl: somehow Tom King found the dimension of Supergirl that's never been told before, yet rings true in a way you would never have thought. She is a survivor of losing her entire family and birthright. She is among the last of the Kryptonians, and she carries that with a gruff cynicism and minimal communication. Pair that with Ruthye's naivete and flowery wordiness, and they make a great pair.

It's been long enough that I don't have many more specifics about the story, but here's some pretty pictures.

A great 'thesis statement' for this Supergirl:

Coolest comic book moment here: Krem gets ahold of a 'Mordru globe,' which just teleports someone (your enemy) way, way far away so that it'd take years for them to get back to you. Supergirl gets through the first one with time, but for the second one, she rides her space horse until science loses meaning, and the Mordru globe dissipates. I guess you could say it's the point where she travels faster than light, and the principles of modern science do not apply?

SPOILERS ENSUE BELOW:

I think that ending is worth talking about. While Ruthye herself narrates that Supergirl kills Krem, they show Ruthye releasing Krem from the Phantom Zone after millennia of punishment and theoretically, reformation. Krem says that he's learned the error of his ways and is likely reformed.

However, that doesn't stop Ruthye from whacking him upside the head.

That's a real nuanced take that you don't always see in comics. First off, they don't kill him. They punish him, for millennia. And when he comes out of it, he's considered reformed. But even so, redemption doesn't necessitate forgiveness. That's still Ruthye's choice to make, and she does not forgive him.

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Night of the Ghoul (2023)

by Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla

Back in 2022 I started exploring "comiXology originals," original comics published by comiXology. Amazon has now purchased comiXology, so maybe you would have to call them "kindle originals," but it's all the same. Night of the Ghoul was a standout single from the bunch, and that next day I binged the rest of the series.

I'm saying goodbye to Amazon Prime, and as a result wanted to give the sendoff that Night of the Ghoul deserved. I re-read it again this week, and it's a hell of a suspense/thriller/horror comic, utterly sold by the words from Snyder and the atmospheric paints by Francavilla. Once I picked it up again, I just had to read through it all that night. It carries this feeling of dread that's so enthralling as a reader.

It's about a father and son who masquerade as insurance auditors for a dying old man in what looks like a hospice facility. Only, that old man is responsible for the greatest horror film never released, and the father is hellbent on completing the missing parts of that horror film.

Alongside this "A" story are various black-and-white clips from that film, "Night of the Ghoul," a post-World War II story about a ghoul that may have conceived all of the great horror tropes. The ghoul is this lanky, dead-eyed creature that feeds on necrotic material, and the idea is that it begat the blood plague that created the legend of vampires, and a brain-eating infection that created the idea of zombies. The ghoul in this movie is "the one true monster," what a delicious idea!

Scott Snyder is a genius at retcons, whether it's writing vampires into American history itself, in "American Vampire," or rewriting the history of Gotham City. Night of the Ghoul is no different, and every chapter dives deeper into the mythology of the ghoul. You're left wondering who's on whose side, whether it's the hospice facility, the original filmmaker, all the way down to the ambulance in the sixth and final issue. It's a creature feature masterpiece brought to life on the printed page. From the dread manifested to the climactic creature battle, it has everything you want in a horror experience. Comic books aren't exactly known for their horror stories, but it ought to be known for this one.

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Thor: God of Thunder Reborn and Inferno: Warzones!

Thor: Vol 1: God of Thunder Reborn

Collects Thor (2018) #’s 1-6
by Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo

I started Jason Aaron's Thor run in 2014, with the Esad-Ribic-drawn God Butcher and Godbomb. We last left it at Jane Foster's turn with Mjolnir, in 2021. We pick up the hammer once again, with a newly-worthy Thor Odinson, in God of Thunder Reborn, in this year of our Lord, 2024. A whole decade later, and 6 years after its original publication date! Thor is a whole new book today. I am a whole new person. What have I missed?

Well, not much but I can’t say it was a great experience coming into this series cold, for all intents and purposes. You’re expected to know about all these Thor side characters and what they’re going through in the 6 issues told. Thor has a new arm, a new hammer and a new dog but those are backstories at this point, told in other stories.

For the uninitiated, the primary backdrop of the story is Queen Cinder’s war on the realms, these 6 issues focusing on her attempt on Niffleheim, the cold and misty land of the dead of Asgardian legend. Thor and Loki reunite with their other brother (which I guess has always been around?), and attempt to save the realm from the Queen. There’s a wedding somehow shoehorned into the story, along with a side-story set at the end of times, with King Thor, Old Man Logan as the Phoenix and a Sorcerer Supreme Doom. It feels like a mash-up “What If?” Story that’s allowed to be canon because it’s so far in the future.

Serviceable, and it has all the dry humor you’d expect from Jason Aaron, but without being immersed in the story for so long, you feel behind right from the start. The art feels “premium,” and matches the lofty themes of the magical world of the nine realms, though I didn’t find the painted art to my liking. Shapes blend into each other and digital effects take away from the painted feel of the art.

I’ve already collected all the way to the War of the Realms. See you in Volume 2, which, at my rate, could take another half decade!

More Thor? I say thee...yea!

Thor: God of Thunder -- The God Butcher and God Bomb

Thor: God of Thunder -- The Accursed and the Last Days of Midgard

Original Sin

Thor: The Goddess of Thunder and Who Holds the Hammer

The Mighty Thor: Thunder in Her Veins and the Lords of Midgard

The Mighty Thor: Asgard/Shi'Ar War and The Unworthy Thor

The Mighty Thor: The War Thor

The Mighty Thor: The Death of the Mighty Thor

Thor: God of Thunder Reborn

Inferno: Warzones!

Collects Inferno (2015) #’s 1-5

By Dennis Hopeless and Javier Garron

This is a small side-story that's part of the mega-event Secret Wars from 2015, but it's a whole lot better than it needed to be. Inferno: Warzones! is a strong, character-focused story that reads like a “What If?” that you just want to keep following after the last page. The original Inferno was a crossover X-Men event in 1989 that opened the gates of Hell to Manhattan, unleashing hordes of demons while unlocking new powers for Magik, AKA Ilyana Rasputin, a New Mutant and the younger sister of Piotr Rasputin, AKA Colossus of the X-Men, and Madelyne Pryor, a clone of Jean Grey. Magik learned about her demon half in that story, and Maddie channeled her magical powers and became the Goblin Queen.

Wow, talk about backstory. If you are or can get familiar with the three mutants above, you're in for a good time. The primary focus is on Colossus and his annual attempt to free his sister Ilyana from the clutches of evil, but it's really an arc: Ilyana is too far gone, overtaken by Darkchylde, her demon persona, and Colossus needs to learn when to let go. There's tragedy in that.

Plus, that arm later becomes a bad-ass demon arm that allows Colossus to wield the Soulsword.

Cue in some great side characters in a post-apocalyptic Mr. Sinister, a snarky wisecracking Boom Boom, and a darkly ambitious Goblin Queen, and you're in for a good time. Nightcrawler joins the gang, and is woefully/awesomely transmogrified into a teleporting demon dragon. It's glorious.

What makes this comic so great is that it tells such a refreshing story with fan-favorite characters that I've been reading for years. The fact that it's an "Elseworld" means that you can take liberties with the characters -- turn them into badass creatures, kill off adversaries that you couldn't kill off in the mainline universe, for the catharsis. The story feels brand new, and I just want it to keep going after the last page. The stuff of great comics.

And by that, I mean SPOILER: The Goblin Queen takes the throne of Inferno, absorbing the Hellfire from Darkchild's smoldering body and becomes something new. Glorious.

Bonus content: The Goblin Queen introduces her son, and, proves why she would fare much better in Battleworld than Jean Grey.

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The Uncanny X-Men: From the Ashes

In the 1990's, just like there was Marvel vs. DC, there was FOXKids vs WB studios. They both competed for the precious Saturday mornings of 9-year old chezkevin, mining the decades of comic book storytelling before them. Batman: The Animated Series begat Justice League: The Animated Series begat Static Shock. X-Men: The Animated Series begat Spider-Man: The Animated Series (and that kick-ass metal theme song), begat Spider-Man Unlimited, begat me losing interest and moving on to video games.

Point being, this was the utter water I swam in. I had Spider-Man: The Animated Series action figures. I wore BTAS sneakers. I had a deck of X-Men playing cards, with the kick-ass Jim Lee art on them. I never watched the series religiously, being a fan moreso of the Spider-Man series, but I'll be damned if they roped me right back in with X-Men '97, the semi-sequel to the series that started in 1992.

X-Men '97 released this summer on the Disney+ streaming service, dropping new episodes on a weekly basis, and as an adult in 2024, it's a completely new experience from watching the original series as a kid in the 90's, but it's the same post-racial bigotry, the same melodrama, and the same bad-ass theme song that makes this show so great. Waiting for the new episode to drop every week was its own pastime. Skimming the Reddit boards for new theories, and watching YouTube to relive the episode highlights, was like being on the schoolyard again arguing about who would win in a fight. More than a nostalgia grab, the X-Men don't pull their punches. All the soap opera elements you'd expect are here, with sharp storytelling and bombastic action scenes. I was sold from episode 1.

It's the kind of content that inspires you to find the source material, and that's exactly what I did. X-Men '97 introduced Madelyne Pryor to me, a Jean Grey-lookalike that bewitches Scott Summers, leader of the X-Men and falls in love with him. They collected her "first stories," so to speak in the poorly-named trade paperback, "From the Ashes." As far as I can tell, it was merely meant to be a comic book end-of-issue bait-and-switch in terms of Maddie's uncanny resemblance to Jean Grey, but the TPB unfortunately makes that the top billing, making the Phoenix costume front and center on the cover and titling it "From the Ashes."

The Uncanny X-Men: From the Ashes

by Chris Claremont, Paul Miller, John Romita Jr and more

collects Uncanny X-Men #'s 168-176

This TPB is so much more than that, and it's absurd that Chris Claremont covered this much in a mere nine issues. The way he juggles subplots and solo character stories in this ensemble book is masterful, and his mark on the X-Men is invaluable, reaching decades after their original telling. The amount of depth he imbues in 9 issues is enough to shame some modern comics. Here're some highlights:

1. Wolverine's raw Chad energy when he murders a Yakuza boss, participates in a traditional shinto wedding to marry the boss's daughter, only to get rejected by her under the psychic control of a mysterious villain.
   
   
   
2. Kitty Pryde proves her worth against a basement invasion from some aliens, earning her place as an X-Man. She continues to explore her powers and a budding romance with Colossus emerges.
   
3. Ororo Munroe (Storm) keys in to her powers and begins to unlock a cruel side of her powers. That reflects in her personality, as she takes over from Scott Summers, stricken with grief over the death of his girlfriend Jean Grey. Storm has no choice but to fight to the death in combat against Callisto, leader of the Morlocks for the safety of the X-Men. The wordless final page of the fight scene is just brilliant.
   
4. This further reflects in Storm's costume change a few issues later. Wouldja believe: Punk Rock Storm!
   
5. Xavier extends a hand of goodwill to Rogue, inviting her to join as a tentative member of the X-Men, despite her ties to the evil Brotherhood of Mutants. Rogue struggles with adjusting to the team, and fighting against the perception that the X-Men have against her. In a display of trust, Wolverine lends his healing factor to her and incapacitates himself after a nasty fight.
   

Scott Summers and his new girl, Maddie Pryor get the top billing in this collection. Since all of these issues released monthly, each story provided the framework for a larger story to develop in the background. The mysterious villain that sabotaged Wolverine's wedding is none other than the Mastermind, AKA Jason Wyngarde, a mutant humiliated by Jean Grey in the past, and motivated to take revenge on her by torturing the friends that have survived her. It results in a double-size issue where Jason uses his illusionist powers to convince the X-Men that the Phoenix has returned, in the form of Maddie Pryor, seemingly wiping out the Avengers, the other heroes of the Marvel Universe as well as killing the world's leaders.

It's secretly a Scott Summers issue: he's the one that figures out what's actually going on, and when all the X-Men turn against him, convinced that the Phoenix has possessed him, he uses his tactical skills to turn them around, without harming them (too much), so that they can all band together to fight the actual threat. Finally, to make a statement on Storm's evolving personality, she whips up a vicious storm to flush out Jason Wyngarde, and Scott has to revive his lover back to life:

Claremont gets how to make an ensemble book. He understands the dynamics of these character's relationships with each other and with themselves. He allows the characters to grow and evolve, and what a sight to behold. What a great X-Men trade, and I can't wait to read more.

More highlights:

An instant classic, Kitty Pryde tells it like it is:

This issue cliffhangs on the first appearance of Maddie:

Their relationship evolves as Scott reveals his superpower to her:

Scott says goodbye to Jean:

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JLA: The Deluxe Edition Volume 3

by Grant Morrison, Howard Porter and more

collects JLA (1997) #'s 22-26, 28-31

"Perchance to Dream," 22-23: Starro the alien conquerer returns! The world falls under a spell, trapped in their dreams, when the Sandman appears to warn the JLA of this psychic attack. In order to wake everyone up, the JLA must send a team to sleep and find the boy dreaming of something other than "It", It that conquers, It that sees all, It that enslaves.

It's a pretty easy problem for the JLA to solve, once they know what to do, but a nice cameo from the Sandman, and a unique, suspenseful build-up to a seemingly indomitable foe make this one unique.

"Executive Action," 24-26: The Superhuman arms race begins as USA General Eiling unveils his thrilling "Ultramarine Corps," a team of 4 Marines who travelled to an alternate dimension and came back with super-powers! Sound familiar? While majority Americans, the JLA has sworn to protect the whole planet and not a single nation, so, this team is born of the idea, "what happens when the JLA assists a nation hostile to America?"

What a concept, but it's all a cover-up for a military coup anyways with Eiling transferring his consciousness to the body of the immortal "Shaggy Man," shaving himself and rebranding it as "The General." Great conceit that leads to a bombastic battle. I think they could have gone farther with the idea, but it went far enough for a great story.

"Crisis Times Five," 28-31: Apparently, there was a founding member of the Justice League, who was wiped from everyone's memories and became destitute -- Triumph. As a form of income, he stole JLA paraphernalia for cash, and one of his relics was an interdimensional imp with the very power to shape reality -- a Djinn. Another Djinn appears and the two of them wage war on Earth! It's a battle between colors, and these two DON'T mix!

There's a lot of dense world-building in this storyarc: the idea of 5-dimensional beings, the "original" founder of the JLA wishing his new future into existence, as well as the various team-ups between the members of the JLA and the Justice Society of America. That leads to several subplots as the JLA scramble to save the world, but the payoff is well worth it. Another world-shattering crisis averted by the JLA. 

These are some very tightly-plotted super-comics that are sometimes hampered by their density, but well worth the read at least once.

JLA #1,000,000 is collected here, but only perfunctorily. It's part two of some line-wide crossover event, where the JLA of the year 1,000,000 have appeared in the year of our JLA to save the world from a techno-virus. It's not even a full story, but a place to show off the "look what these new guys can do while they fight the guys we know, and then team up" formula.

BONUS:

Flash and Aquaman work together to beat Flow, the living liquid:

How do you depict 3-dimensional beings in a 5-dimensional world? Well, here's their take as 2D characters that can interact in a 3D world:

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Batman Volume 10: Epilogue and Blanc (2023)

We here at chezkevin have always been a Batman comic book blog first, everything else second. So, today we conclude the 2011 "New 52" run of Batman and include a recent video game I finished.

Batman Volume 10: Epilogue

by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, James Tynion IV and more
collects BATMAN #51-52, BATMAN: FUTURES END #1, BATMAN ANNUAL #4 and a special preview of BATMAN: REBIRTH #1

These are mostly non-stories that wrap up the the series, putting a bow on the whole package. It's a collection of several standalone stories and tie-ins to other Batman events, much like Volume 6: Graveyard Shift.

1. Remains: A Future's End tie-in, a heist story in which Batman risks his life for one last go, to steal a major component from Lexcorp for his clone machine (what clone machine? See Volume 9). There's some pithy dialogue from a hologram Lex as Bruce infiltrates the facility, and if it weren't for the cloning thing, would be a pretty good timeless Batstory.
2. Madhouse: If it weren't for the whole losing-his-house thing, would be a pretty good timeless Batstory. In the aftermath of Superheavy, Bruce reclaims his Manor from the city, which somehow repurposed it to Arkham Asylum, but not before he has to kick out some of the inmates. It's a nice closed-door detective story that demonstrates how Batman is more than a suit: it's the man underneath. 
   
   
   
3. Gotham Is: This is the "timeless" story you're looking for. This feels like a story that you could read at any point in the history of Batman. It's mainly centered around a journalist whose whole column is about how he takes reader suggestions for what "Gotham Is," a kind of collaboration between reader and writer about their shared city, in the midst of a city-wide blackout. Of course, Batman is on the case along with his extended family, and we visit a host of supervillains, including the Penguin, the inmates at the Asylum, and the Society of Owls underground, but they all admit that they weren't behind it. The twist is that it was just a freak natural occurrence that resolves by daybreak, giving us one last chance to tour the Gotham City of Snyder and Capullo. A solid slice-of-life Batstory.
4. The List: A flashback story of Bruce's healing process as a child, into adulthood. He makes a checklist of things he needs to do in order to move on from his parents' death. It's a cutesy but very nice way to put a pin on the series: ending on issue #52 and checklist item #52: Remember that your parents will always be proud of you.

In the end, they did a great job of showing something new about Batman in an increasingly repetitive and derivative genre. They told us the whole time when they showed in the very first issue of Batman facing down another jailbreak of villains from Arkham Asylum, with a smile: Batman is hope. Batman is insanity. Batman is fighting a battle, knowing that it will never end, but knowing that the fighting itself is victory.

Read all my New 52 Batman reviews:

Volume 1: The Court of Owls

Volume 2: City of Owls

Volume 3: Death of the Family (bonus: Joker: Death of the Family)

Volume 4: Zero Year -- Secret City

Volume 5: Zero Year -- Dark City

Volume 6: Graveyard Shift

Volume 7: Endgame

Vols 8 & 9: Superheavy & Bloom

Volume 10: Epilogue

Blanc (2023)

by Gearbox Publishing, played on Nintendo Switch

I ran into this game last year and was easily taken by the charming, artsy style. It was recently on sale for $7.50, down from $14.99 and when my wife said she was willing to partake, it was a no-brainer for me.

We finished over the course of roughly 2 weeks in 30-minute play sessions, for about a total of 3 hours total playtime. It's quite a short game, but that might have been the only way we would have been able to digest it. Between putting the kids down for bed and various "me time" things, it wasn't always easy to get the two of us to sit down together and apply our brains at the end of the day.

As for the game itself: there are ten chapters, never really marked or called out during play. The screen itself is very minimal and there are no "HUD" aspects you'd expect in a "traditional" game, ie, a map a health bar, progress bar, and so on. This really emphasizes the background itself, and it's gorgeous. For some reason I have an affinity for black and white: our dog is black and white, our sheets are black and white, and the sheer visual imagery of the game is in black and white. I found myself taking screencaps every now and then; it was such a beautiful game.

The "game-y" aspects of it come in when your characters are able to do certain actions, ie, jog, slide down a snow-covered hill, jump to a certain terrain or help a character or call for help. Other specific puzzles come into play when you need to interact with other characters in the game: IE, providing a windshield from the snowstorm so that little ducklings can get to their mother duck. There are various NPCs in the game, and it's a little heartbreaking how some of them conclude (spoiler: the ducklings AND the baby goats get pissed at you after they miss a jump and that's just the end of your relationships!)

The mechanics are not always smooth. Sometimes you have to be in just the right position to get the right prompt, and there was a variety of puzzles that were difficult not because they were a puzzle, but because the mechanics of the game just prevented you from seeing the puzzle itself. This is the largest failure of the game, buttressed by just utterly gorgeous hand-drawn views.

Blanc isn't a perfect game, but it doesn't need to be. I got my money's worth and in this case the style really was the substance. The lack of "game-y" aspects lifted a barrier for my wife to play, and it was fun to figure out puzzles together, and occasionally, just roll down a hill and take in the views.

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Shang-Chi Volume 2 and Legion (FX) Season 2

Shang-Chi by Gene Luen Yang Volume 2: Shang-Chi vs the Marvel Universe

collects issues 1-6 of Shang-Chi (2021)

by Gene Luen Yang, Dike Ruan and more

Shang-Chi, Marvel's greatest fighter, was raised by his dad to take over the family business, a criminal empire. He finally did! But he wants to use the empire for good, and seeks to right the wrongs of the past as the Supreme Commander of the Five Weapons society.

In this volume, Shang-Chi tows the line between Supreme Commander and Avenger as he encounters a different avenger in each issue. He teams up with Spider-Man to investigate a drug/weapons ring originally instituted by Shang's father. He infiltrates the auction of a cosmic cube with the help of Captain America. Some of it seems pretty clear, and then others don't -- he breaks into the Baxter Building to get access to the Negative Zone and learn what a recurring dream means to him, and his brother steals the Cosmic Cube from under his eyes, forcing Shang to choose between truth, and family.

Part spy-comic, part super-comic, and part crime drama, this book deftly navigates what it means to be a good bad guy or a bad good guy, under the backdrop of family trauma/drama. While formulaic, this has just enough familiarity to hook you in and enough flair that it tells a unique story.

Legion (FX) Season 2

Directed by Noah Hawley, starring Dan Stevens, Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza and more

What's more terrifying...fear or the frightened?

I generally don't write about television series, because there's so much about the medium that you can't capture on the written word. It's much easier to write about comic books when you can point to a specific moment, word-bubbled and sound-effected. But I'm also at about that point in my life where I'm consuming more television than comic books -- at the end of the day, it's easier to veg out on a couch in the basement than grabbing ahold of a book/tablet.

All that said, Legion is not the kind of TV series you should read about. It's TV you have to experience, and that carries over into Season 2. There are whole episodes dedicated to a single emotion -- and these are some of the strongest episodes. For example, there's an episode that gives us 3 alternate timelines that David Haller could have lived, all amounting to what his relationship with his sister means to him. Completely unneeded to the plot, but that was never the point. It's about a feeling, an experience. Season 2 is so brilliant at this. The opening episode is such a great way to start it off. There's a time skip, and a fog of distrust that keeps you from telling what's really real or not. As David stews in the sensory deprivation tank he remembers...telepathic dance-off:

If you must know, Season 2 was billed as a "race." With the Shadow King at large, he's poised to reclaim his original body and restore his full power. It's up to David and co, now working with the governmental shadow agency Division 3, to stop him. The season is told in three acts mainly:

1. Find the body
2. Who's that body?
3. Stop the body

And no, I'm not going to elaborate :) Season 2 doesn't reach the highs of Season 1, where they spent a 3-episode arc on a single moment in time, and the S2 finale really doesn't stick the landing, but that doesn't discount the strength of the individual episodes. If I could edit out a portion of the S2 finale and call it a season, I would, but it's going to leave you with a lot to think about either way. While the season didn't need to be this long, the time that they spent on each episode was valuable and a testament to the creative strength of the show. Style just oozes out of every moment here.

----------Spoilers follow. You've been warned.----------

1. Why didn't David's schizophrenia manifest until...the final few episodes?
2. Is David the villain, or the villainized? I really struggled with this after watching the season finale. I'm sure it's somewhere in between, but it's pretty obvious that Farouk had meddled with the group's minds -- he whispered a delusion into the rat which spread itself across the entire building. (Or was the delusion the truth?) By the time they were going to start Farouk's trial, it 180'd and became David's trial. This ties into the previously narrated "Ship of Fools" segment, where if all the apples are bruised, then it's the unbruised apple that is bad, the sane man who's crazy, David the only one not under Farouk's influence. It took me so long to find this, but the clip is here. Here's my other supporting argument that ties into the narrated sequences: when Shadow Melanie shows Sydney the "truth," David torturing Oliver, she's literally showing her pictures in a cave, directly tying into the allegory of the cave. While I don't think David is completely without fault, the season completely glosses over the influence of Farouk, who is clearly manipulating others for a certain outcome.
3. I loved the mind maze as a two-episode set of character pieces. Sydney's portion in the second part could have been a whole indie movie by herself.
   
   
   
4. David, the rapist? I think this was enough to turn off a lot of people from the show for good. I think what I really needed to get through this was to try to understand where David was coming from. He was in a hurt place and looked for help from the only person who loved him, now turned against him. By no means does it excuse what he did, but within context, it's possible to understand why he did it.
5. I was really rooting for David and Syd -- their relationship was the heart of Season 1, but sometimes it just doesn't go that way.
6. Lenny, played by Aubrey Plaza, was brilliant as the Shadow King. I get why they brought in a real person to play Farouk, but this is kind of the beginning of the end for Lenny.
7. The Jon Hamm-narrated segments, plus the final one by Cary, were pretty out there, and eerily reminiscent of the political climate at the time. I only have kudos for the fact that they chose to devote screen time to this.
8. The telepathic battles were endlessly creative, culminating in an animated scene similar to Community's foosball anime battle. It was dope.

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Batman Vol. 7: Endgame and Legion (2016), Season 1

Somehow we've become a Batman blog and I can't say I mind it all that much :)

Batman Volume 7: Endgame
by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

The last we saw Joker, he was de-faced and left for dead in the infinite cavern system beneath Wayne Manor. He thought that he could show Batman how the Bat-family of superheroes had made him worse, a weaker person and wanted to show him how he could be a true Bat-king, with the Joker as his jester. Obviously, it failed but now he's back with a vengeance.

Things lead off with the Justice League turning on Batman, thanks to a new Joker serum that's individualized to each member of the Justice League. It climaxes in a sweet fight between Superman and Batman, and the underlying backdrop that Joker is going to release the serum to all of Gotham City, to get revenge at Batman for rejecting him.

There's some interesting beats here: ideas like the Joker being this immortal being that's been responsible for numerous tragedies in Gotham City, Batman allying with his rogues gallery to prevent the spread of the serum, and Batman attempting to bargain with the Court of Owls for the sake of the city. But it's all dressing on top of a story salad as old as time: Joker threatens city, Batman saves city. This time, it's Batman too who is left for dead in a final battle scene, along with the Joker, presumably setting up a future "Who will be the Bat" storyline.

This story turned out to be a lot like the Joker: a whole lot of bluster, plenty of fanfare, without much substance. More blockbuster than anything else, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Follow along for more New 52 Batman:

Read all my New 52 Batman reviews:

Volume 1: The Court of Owls

Volume 2: City of Owls

Volume 3: Death of the Family (bonus: Joker: Death of the Family)

Volume 4: Zero Year -- Secret City

Volume 5: Zero Year -- Dark City

Volume 6: Graveyard Shift

Volume 7: Endgame

Vols 8 & 9: Superheavy & Bloom

Volume 10: Epilogue

Legion (2016) Season 1

Directed by Noah Hawley, starring Dan Stevens, Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza and more

----------This review is spoiler-free but mentions the names of characters and some plot points. Most screencaps are from this excellent tumblr series https://wellntruly.tumblr.com/----------

Ah, comic book adaptations. We've come such a long way since the box-office super-smash, Howard the Duck. It's crazy that we're at the point now where there are new comic book adaptations on streaming services, on a monthly basis with a superhero movie releasing on the regular, multiple times a year. Legion presented by FX came out sometime in the middle, maybe before all of this, and it's only secretly a comic book adaptation. At least, as far as Season 1 goes.

“Please keep talking. So we can all pretend that our problems are all in our heads.” - Sydney

Legion is about a man with paranoid schizophrenia, in his fifth year at a psychiatric hospital named Clockworks, until he meets a girl, Sydney Barrett. She opens a new world to him where he discovers that maybe the voices in his head aren't really a disease -- they're part of his super powers. Season 1 explores this idea in a myriad number of ways, from flashbacks to dream sequences, to musical montages and more.

Legion didn't do all that well commercially, and concluded after three seasons. In my opinion, it was ahead of its time and the world just wasn't ready for it. There are all these jarring, nonlinear cuts that could really turn a viewer off, but in my mind that's not a bug. It's a feature. The mind doesn't work in a linear fashion, at least not always and not all minds. Binging is an ideal format to experience the show, when you can go straight from one episode to the next, but I can imagine that it took the right kind of person who was going to watch it serially, as it came out.

The penultimate episode is this amazing set of  musical sequences, capped by a silent film rendition of the action climax. It's not about the fisticuffs in this series, and sometimes the show will just skip right to the aftermath of an intense action sequence -- such as when we view the aftermath of David's visit to Divison Three. The action isn't just on the screen -- it's in the mind, and it's conveyed so creatively here, whether that's through a dance montage or dream hike up to a floating ice cube.

I've never seen such an eclectic, brave show like Legion. It addresses mental illness and childhood trauma in a unique fashion, that in my opinion feels so right. The mind isn't linear. We jump back and forth between memories all the time at a whim. Legion predates similar Disney+ series like Moon Knight and WandaVision, yet it feels miles ahead of them. And I adore these shows! I can't recommend Legion enough -- I can only guess that, when it did come out maybe I wasn't ready to appreciate it, but now that I have, I'm so freaking glad to have experienced it. 

-------------Spoilers follow, with/without context. You've been warned-------------

1. Ep 1: The bollywood dance scene set to French music. This might be in my top 3 this season. I love returning to it, and did you know, the DVD for Season 1 actually has an extended version that they didn't use? What a travesty!
2. Ep 4: The slow reveal is a fantastic use of the medium -- where we slowly see what Amy's, David's sister, prison cell looks like.

1. Ep 5: Where Sydney learns what's going on in David's head. He's provisioned out a "mindspace" where they can actually touch ('just electrical signals in your brain'), but even that isn't a safe space from the terror living in David's mind. What's normally a beautiful song turns to horror.
2. Ep 6: Lenny puts Sydney to sleep. This is lowkey my favorite scene in the season and it took me so long to find it on YouTube. Under the guise of music therapy, Lenny as the psychiatrist of the mind Clockworks hospital suggests listening to some music on her headphones, all the while there's a throbbing, bleeding piece of flesh on the wall. Sydney's hesitant but agrees, cueing a haunting but beautiful musical sequence. She seemingly floats away and gets tucked into David's childhood bedroom, like Lenny is tucking her away into a corner of David's mind, to get her out of the way. It's such a quiet scene with a mountain of style and a confident atmosphere. Certainly my favorite scene.
3. What a fantastic sequence in Ep 6 led by Aubrey Plaza, as "Lenny," the parasite living in David's mind. Context is everything here -- it's a wordless, musical dance sequence that conveys what Aubrey is doing in his mind, now that David is imprisoned in a small corner of his own mind. Lenny goes through his memories one by one, devoid of David and has her way in each room-memory. Brushstroke wipes appear as she dances, conveying each time in David's past that Lenny was a part of it, all along. This TV show is so good at "showing," not telling, and it's bits like these that make me love it. Scenes without dialogue are just as important, if not more so than scenes with dialogue.
4. Ep 7 -- The silent film scene. Sydney and Kerry attempt to break David out of his mind-prison, when Lenny attacks them. Honestly there's so much going on here that needs explaining that I'm just going to save it here for myself

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