Four items, three of which are not unabashed bits of Star Trek enthusiasm.
7 Comments | Posted: March 10th, 2009 | Filed under: Thinking About Comics, Thinking About Movies, What I've Been Reading, Wild Enthusiasm | Tags: el gorgo, jersey gods, marvel comics, secret invasion, Star Trek1.
The second issue of El Gorgo has been printed and is waiting for your Paypal information. Sure, you could read it in its entirety for free, but I honestly think these guys deserve your pocket change for actually printing a comic about a gorilla luchadore and making it much better than it actually had to be to keep me entertained.
2.
A second printing of the first issue of Glenn Brunswick and Dan McDaid’s Jersey Gods is hitting stands this week. I’ve been promising them a letter of comment for some time but I am quite wary of doing this as I’m afraid it’d wind up being one of those unabashed “Oh my god like you guys are so good and Glenn’s script is super-witty and sweetly romantic while managing to capture the cosmic bigness of the gods in the story and that Dan McDaid, boy, he can draw real good and when are you guys going to start a fan club with a button set and a newsletter I’d be the first member” sort of things, but suffice it to say that if your local shop has a copy of #1 and #2 in stock on Wednesday, you’d find yourself a better human being if you deigned to spend money on these books. You’ll notice them by their fine covers by Mike Allred and Darwyn Cooke, two gentlemen that you may have heard of.
3.
I got the trade for Secret Invasion because I remembered liking bits and pieces of it in single issues while being put off by the way the series hung together as a periodical. I can’t help feeling that is comes off as being really sparse despite having quite a lot of talking and punching. I read the entire 8-issue series in about an hour and didn’t feel like I was missing anything. Am I alone in thinking that there’s no real depth to the work and that thematically, it’s pretty barren? Yeah, there’s plenty of rah-rah Marvel Fan Moments that I genuinely enjoyed (Maria Hill versus Jarvis on the Helicarrier in a sequence that should have been in one issue instead of spread across three, Nick Fury stone-cold shooting aliens in the face) but it left me cold in the end, feeling like a means to an end instead of a story in its own right.
That said, that Thunderbolts crossover trade was a lot of fun, mostly because I enjoy Norman Osborne vamping it up and being all arched eyebrows and hissed commands when he’s not in the public eye.
4.
Man, that new Star Trek trailer, huh? Sure is something, isn’t it?
Jersey Gods has been my ‘oh god, guys, read this’ comic that I’ve been passing around for the past few weeks. Glen and Dan are seriously kicking ass with that first issue, and I cannot wait for #2.
Is it me or does that Star Trek trailer seem awesome because it seems so little like Star Trek?
Also, could not agree more on Secret Invasion. I saw a reading order list somewhere online and I think it had something close to 200 books you needed to read to follow the “whole story” and I.. I just.. that is not for me.
Star Trek has, in its forty-some years of existence, become downright dull in a lot of places. Going back and watching the original series (which I’ve been doing,) there’s a lot more drama and conflict on display among the regular cast (particularly in the first two seasons) than what we became accustomed to in the TNG era, where everyone got along and each week, the lovely white people came and told the blue and green people how they should live. The best TNG episodes were the ones furthest from that template and were often written by Battlestar Galactica‘s Ron Moore, who did the same thing on Deep Space 9 before leaving the Trek franchise behind after a few weeks of working on Voyager. Hell, I can argue that the last season-and-a-half of Enterprise is surprisingly good because, again, drama and action. The Earth Separatist movement storyline, the Xindi, and the Vulcan schism are among the highlights of this and they managed to feature no small amount of adventure even if they were undeniably Star Trek at their core because of the themes.
In a lot of ways, it’s nice to see a Star Trek movie that has the big-screen action and adventure I’ve always wanted to see applied to the original series. Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek II is a highly entertaining and well-made movie about the what happens when the past catches up with a middle-aged James T Kirk, but I’m excited to see a Trek movie about the young man who became the guy I grew up with.
Also, explosions.
And Chris Pine. Don’t forget the Chris Pine.
You are definitely not alone in thinking that there’s no real depth to the work and that thematically, it’s pretty barren.
I enjoyed it when I read it, but I really can’t remember too much of what I read, now that I’ve finished it.
You guys are nice guys.
Also, Star Trek looks awesome. And as a long-term Who fan, it almost hurts to write that.
Have you checked out the Black Panther Secret Invasion trade? Jason Aaron on words and an amazing cat named Jefte Palo on art. It’s good like a Hollywood blockbuster (like the main series is bad like a Hollywood blockbuster).