Alright folks, I’m back. And before I forget, I want to say “thank you!” to everyone who asked how I was doing. I sincerely appreciate your concern, even when it came in the form of a note that said, “Dude! Are you still alive?”
Heh. I know you meant that in love. And yes, I am still alive. I’m still here. Unfortunately I’m also still in a cast, but at least I’m here.
And so, without further ado, let’s have a little Friday Mad Science.
FX
Issues
3, 4, & 5
Story & Script by Wayne Osborne
Pencils & Inks by John Byrne
Letters by John Workman
Colors by Greg & Gerry’s Color Shop
Published by IDW, 22 pages for $3.99
I took a break, and that’s not good, but it did have the virtue of letting my backlog get so big that I now have no choice but to review some of these comics two or three issues at a time. Which is good in a way because it gave me a chance to read several issues of a bunch of different series as a single piece. I wouldn’t want to make a habit of that, but this week I really liked seeing what these guys are doing with their work over time. With FX, seeing it that way just confirmed for me that these guys are making a comic in a style that’s just not done anymore, and that the loss is ours as readers because of it.
In case you’ve forgotten, FX is an adolescent superhero comic. Which is to say that Tom, the series's protagonist, is a high school student, and that he and his friends Jack and Vicki work to occasionally save their city from a variety of terrible super-powered menaces, all while dealing with the more familiar menace inherent in any high school. The series works because it revels in its characters’ age. In the tradition of the best young-adult fiction, FX and crew face real, adult-sized dangers but from the perspective of a bunch of horny, confused teenagers. Issues 3, 4, and 5 make the best use of that reality yet, showing us in quick succession: a glimpse of the series’ eventual antagonist (confronted in an afternoon matinee), a tormented nerdy genius, a team-up with the FX-verse Avengers (who, of course, turn out to be not only heroes to our hero but also fans of his), and a rather beautifully drawn—and drawn out—allusion to The Chronicles of Narnia. As a piece, these three issues were outstanding, telling a series of stories connected only lightly through the personal lives of our heroes. That’s why I say this series is a bit of a throw-back. It’s not that John Byrne is drawing it—though that is awesome—it’s that every issue is its own piece: accessible, self-contained, wonderful. This is the kind of book that used to succeed on the stands of your local newspaper shop for good reason.
Zipper #6
Written by Tom Waltz
Pencils by Casey Maloney
Inks by Marc Rueda
Colors by Joan I. Guardiet
Letters by Amauri Dsonrio
Edits by Chris Ryall
And so, my favorite original sci fi comic comes to an end—not, as I expected, with a bang, but with a question mark. Throughout its run, Zipper has been marked by smart, streetwise dialogue and a fast-paced, action-packed plot. In this final issue, the talk’s still there, but the plot slows way down. Instead of wrapping things up, Tom closes o repercussions, setting up the next set of story-problems. Denizen Xeng Ral has defeated the Hunters from his homeworld, leaving both his planet and ours in turmoil. Now what? Is Zippy a terrorist? If so, who’s he terrorizing?
Unfortunately, we may never know the answer. This series’ continuation depends on its showing in the Bookstore market now, which is fitting, I suppose, if not perhaps comforting. Zipper is a series that, at its heart, is about challenging conformity. The evil marches in lockstep; no individual thought is tolerated. And if Zipper is cancelled, that’s basically what it’ll mean. Difference isn’t tolerated. Uniqueness isn’t rewarded—no matter how “good” it is.
Man, I hope that doesn’t turn out to be true.
Don
Pendleton’s
The
Executioner
Issues 3&4
Written by Doug Wojtowicz
Illustrated by SL Gallant
Colored by Luis Antonio Delgado
Lettered by Robbie Robbins
Edited by Tom Waltz
In issues 3 & 4, The Executioner finally stops looking like the Punisher and becomes—at last—his own man. It’s a welcome change, especially considering that Don Pendleton’s work predates Marvel’s by at least a decade. These latest issues form, I think, the penultimate piece of this first story arc. Mack Bolan and company have taken down a significant part of the Russian mafia’s gun-running enterprise—enough so that now the Russians are ready to strike back! Can Bolan and company survive?
I like three things about this series: its art, its pacing, and the fact that it makes frequent use of its source material as back story. In fact, the only thing that I really don’t like here is the heavy-handed narration. Though it’s probably nothing more than a reflection of Pendleton’s prose, the fact is that in this comic, especially in Issue 4, Bolan’s internal monologue is deafening. The Executioner, like most fiction, is at its best when the characters carry the story through their actions and their dialogue. That was done effectively in Issues 2 & 3, but at least for me, Issue 4 kind of hearkened back to what didn’t work in Issue 1.
Still, there’s a lot to like here. The art is gorgeous, the story moves quickly through it paces, and the villain is a sadistic prick who genuinely has it coming. And I dig the fact that we’re only slowly getting into Mack Bolan’s head. He seems like complicated guy. It should take us some time to get to know him.
The Executioner is a very good piece of genre fiction. I recommend it whole-heartedly to fans of hard-boiled action, especially those readers who don’t need their heroes to have a cape. This series delivers exactly what you expect. Enjoy it!
Friday
Mad
Science
So despite all reason and logic to the contrary, your Main Event is Obama v. McCain. Y’know, honestly, who’da thunk it? Americans by nature HATE electing senators to public office—even to the Senate!—especially liberal senators from non-Southern states. And yet here we are, less than a half-year away from the presidential election, and your two finalists for American Idol are the two most-liberal mainstream major-party candidates. Not that John McCain is overly liberal, but he IS a good deal to the left of, say, Rudi Guiliani—or our current American Idol. And Obama, if perhaps not “the most liberal man in the Senate” as he’s tagged these days by Republicans, is still demonstrably left of one time would-be’s Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd. All in all, it’s an interesting race, and not just because Americans have only elected TWO sitting senators to the Presidency in our nation’s history.
Because,
bottom line, there’s a
lot going on. With
gas at $4/gallon,
suddenly a lot of choices that were heretofore unattractive have become
feasible. For
example, at $4/gallon it’s
economically viable to drill for oil off the coast of
What’s after the car?
What comes after the internal combustion engine?
The truth is that we won’t know for a few years yet, but even as we can see that and acknowledge it as truth, still we must recognize that the choices of today will define the society of tomorrow. Somewhere out there, the next great innovator is working in his basement. The fruit of his labors might define transit and bulk power for the next hundred years. Because for $4/gallon, a lot of folks will take a lot of chances to see what else might work.
broken
hand
Blues
So look... I broke my left scaphoid and badly sprained the cartilage in my left wrist. On top of that, I sprained my right wrist, though not nearly as badly. I did it biking. So now I’ve been in a cast for almost two months, despite surgery and the associated miracles of modern medicine. Along the way, I realized that, yes, I am indeed out for the entire triathlon season. I could be happier about it. In fact, after taking a layoff after surgery and then going light for three weeks on doctor’s orders, I’m now lucky even to hold eight-and-a-half minute miles for thirty-five minutes when I run, and I had been holding straight eights for almost an hour—and that was after biking! And along the way, I got an unexpected bill from my (surprisingly) not-in-network anesthesiologist, despite my considerable attempts pre-surgery to assure that EVERYONE involved was actually in-network. That made me wonder whatever happened to full disclosure in medicine. Which reminds me that the next time I see a utility pole down in front of a doctor’s house, I’m not gonna put that fucker back up until the doctor clears it with his municipal insurance provider and then pays his co-pay! Screw the high voltage! I mean, what the Hell, right? They sure as shit don’t care when it’s my health on the line! Next time, doctor, you’re gonna have to find out if my crew is in-network first... or just take your chances with the stray voltage. It's your choice, really.
*sigh*
Like I said,
I could be happier
about it. After two
months, it’s messing
with my mind. Granted,
it could have
been a
lot worse, but
still... getting that bill was just the fucking living end
of it. It actually
made me nostalgic for
Army medicine. I
mean, yeah, the Army’s
docs were 100% quacks, who were just as likely to operate on the wrong
hand,
but at least that was honest incompetence.
They’d never intentionally screw or mislead a
patient just because they
needed the money. But
civilians?
With gas at $4, I guess I should have expected it.
But I didn’t.
Ah... Money makes the world go ‘round!
Meanwhile, I’m in a bit of a funk, and I’ll admit that I’m having a little trouble working out of it. That’s partially why I’ve been gone so long. I didn’t mean to be; my break just sort of got out of hand—in both senses. Hell, I even owe Alan Evans a script for Rival Angels—which is going fucking GANGBUSTERS, by the way—but I haven’t looked at it at all. And let’s face it: that can’t be good. It just can’t be.
Jerry tells me that I just need to get back on the horse, and considering that the last thing he wrote was a Father’s Day article about his daughter, I think that he’s probably right. That’s real courage. For me... yeah, it is way past time that I manned up and started writing again. It really is. He's absolutely right.
Battlestar
Galactica
How ‘bout that ending? Huh? They went all Charleton Heston on us! I kept waiting to see the Statue of Liberty buried in sand. How cool was that? I was throwing things at my TV! I was!
“Get your damn hands off me, you dirty ape!”
Man alive, I LOVE that movie. AWESOME!
But seriously, where the Hell do we go from here? And I got another question, David. Is Laura Roslin the final cylon, or is that so obvious at this point that it just has to be a swerve? I used to think I was clever for thinking that the President was a cylon, but they’ve made it obvious, no? I mean, maybe just a little toooooo obvious?
What say you? Is it a conspiracy, or are they just out to get me?
That’s
a Wrap!
Yo! That’s all I got this week. I’ll be catching up on email tonight and hopefully this weekend, so if you wrote me... well, odds are you haven’t heard from me in quite a while. I’ll try to rectify that as soon as I can.
Until next week, stay safe.
Vote: none of the above!
***
Dan Head is a utilities analyst and freelance
writer. You can
learn more about him and
his work on his ComicSpace Page
or by visiting
the Friday Mad Science forum at AwesomeStormJustice.com. His graphic novel Bronx Angel: Politics By Another Method
is available at WOWIO.com. You should read it. Just click the cover;
it’s free!
To get your comic reviewed here, email Dan at dan@paperbackreader.com.
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