21Six.net

Good afternoon, readers of 21six (all… three or four of you). I am Mr. Black, the drug-addled and possibly homicidal excuse for a music blogger and the newest member of the 21six Team (it’s like Team Rocket, only without the Meowth). My time here is mostly going to be spent on album reviews, but I’ll probably make posts on a bunch of other mostly-music-related subjects…

…but all in good time. Let’s get down to business, shall we?

THE RESISTANCE

The first album up for review is the newest offering from Teignmouth, UK’s number one collection of prog/gloom rockers Muse. The long-awaited follow-up to 2006’s iconic Black Holes & Revelations, Muse’s The Resistance has arrived to a storm of hype, a viral internet game, a tour with U2, and a gnashing of teeth by those nice people at Pitchfork waiting desperately to chew Matthew Bellamy to pieces. But aside from all of that, how does The Resistance stack up as an album? Well.

The short answer is stupid, overblown and pretentious and most importantly, stupid. But if you’re a fanboy, you probably want the long answer.
Read the rest…

A few years ago, Neil Gaiman got together with the people in Marvel, and retold the Silver Age that Lee, Kirby, and Ditko turned into the immortal mythology that is modern comic books. What made Neil’s incarnation special was that this wasn’t a modernization of the story, that’s what the Ultimate Universe was for. Instead, this was a historical retelling of the universe.

To use the Marvel phrase “What if the heroes all first came about in 1602?” And it was a marvelous little piece of work, if you were into it. I loved seeing just how everyone had been manipulated, forced into a situation that was wholly unnatural, even for Marvel. Nick Fury as military man under Queen Elizabeth, and so on. It was a fantastic little thing that made the universe seem very real.

As it’s been known to happen, following Neil’s work, a number of spin-offs came about. One of which was like “1602: New World” and the other was “1602: Fantastick Four”. Each of them introduced a few new characters such as Namor, and Iron Man (though the 1602 incarnation of Iron Man seemed significantly more implausible than his mainstream counterpart, simply because of Marvel’s tendency to develop absurdly advanced science even in the 1960s.) as well as others that I’ve likely forgotten because the stories themselves were wholly forgettable.

However, this year, someone apparently decided to revive the franchise of 1602 by creating a Spider-Man mini series in the universe. So, the first issue is out, and I’m curious as to if it’s got any promise in this issue. I have my doubts, but it’s mostly because New World and Fantastick Four were, essentially cash-in books (I mean that as nicely as that kind of thing can be said).

And, truth be told, with the first issue down, so far that’s really all it feels like. There seems to be something lost in the transition between the writers. The writers of New World and Fantastick Four lacked the kind of whimsy that made Gaiman’s 1602 so appealing. Everything now seems to be a cross between attempting to shoehorn in various people from the Marvel universe, sometimes in unsavory ways, while other instances just seem to not make sense.

The biggest issue I’ve found so far is with costumes. Parker wears basically his regular clothes and a Spider-Man mask. There’s no attempt to make it even appear to be fitting into the era, it’s simply the same Spider-Man mask that he always wears. The covers to the comics give the impression that he has an outfit that vaguely resembles the Spider-Man costume were it placed in 1602, but he doesn’t wear that.

Ultimately, I feel like this comic is gearing up to be a disappointment. 1602 is really awkward kind of setting, since if you don’t do it right, you’re going to end up annoying everyone because you just have established something in an already decent continuity, but it’s somewhere so far removed from the original vision that you might as well make something else entirely.

However, a few of the interesting things established in this are the introduction of who I believe to be Doctor Octopus, as well as The Wasp. The Wasp being a victim of an experiment gone wrong, and in a jar. I’m curious enough about these characters, and if Spider-Man actually gets a new costume, to keep reading this series. Once it’s finished I’ll give a full write up, but at the moment it’s not something I’m really looking forward to finishing.

While browsing for things to read, I’ve come across a new comic that’s piqued my interest. The story is called “Absolution” which is by Christos Gage with Robert Viacava doing the artwork for it. This, like one of my favorite books, Doktor Sleepless, is published through Avatar Press– known more for their particularly less-than-pleasant take on various aspects of the comic book genre.

With only two issues out there, I’m already hooked on this series.

I’ve never read anything before of Christos, so I didn’t know what to expect with this book. However, I’m more than willing, after seeing this, to read more. But enough. Let’s talk about this book. This is described on the purchasing page for the comic at Comic Cavalcade as:

ABSOLUTION introduces John Dusk, a superhero in a world where they’re a sanctioned arm of law enforcement. But this veteran hero has been scarred by his exposure to man’s infinite capacity for evil, and he’s seen one too many perpetrators escape justice. One day he crosses the line…lets a murderer die…and discovers it feels good. Surrounded by sociopaths, both human and superhuman, who he knows will prey on others if they’re not stopped–permanently–how far will he go, knowing every step he takes puts him further on a collision course with his teammates Alpha and The Servant, not to mention his homicide detective girlfriend?

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a vigilante-gone-wrong comic, but there’s something about this book that just strikes me as really interesting so far. There’s just something about it that’s appealing to me, and I think part of it has to do with how the book, so far, just isn’t a generic superhero book. One of the things that’s nice, for instance, is the oddly practical look of the costume which you can see in the link I posted up there. The suit is armored, and the pants of it look kind of like jeans. The helmet is a helmet. It looks like something someone might actually wear if they needed a suit like that.

The muscle definition, then, is justified.

I can’t, given the little bit that’s been shown in issues #0 and #1 properly determine if I’m going to accurately like this book, but I think I will. The way the man seems genuinely haunted by the things he’s seen in the past, and takes it out in a brutal way while simultaneously trying to avoid being caught by his love is an interesting conflict that I’d like to see elaborated on.

He also has an interesting looking power that I’d like to see developed more. He creates something to the effect of glowing tendrils that he uses to get around, and manipulate his surroundings. It’s like a, if you’ll excuse the awkward phrasing, tangible telekinesis. Or like Doctor Octopus if it was energy instead of robot arms.

I can’t wait to see where it goes. I wholly recommend this book.

Whenever Jeph Loeb took the reigns from Mark Millar for the new “Ultimates” story, I was less apprehensive than a number of my peers. Jeph Loeb, to me, was still the man who wrote The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Hush, and Spider-Man: Blue. Great stories that I still read every chance I get. Stories that help, for me, better understand aspects of characters I wouldn’t have otherwise even considered.

But somewhere along the time something happened I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. I had, earlier, complained about how “Ultimates 3” was basically a sham, and a disgrace to the Ultimate Marvel line. Poor storytelling by means of blending 616 Marvel aspects and Ultimate into something that wholly failed to resemble anything and everything I had considered to be part of the continuity of the story. It was something that felt so unlike what I had read before that I was fairly certain (which was perpetuated by rumors on the Comic Book Resource forums among other places) that “Ultimates 3” was essentially a 616 story that Loeb had manipulated into Ultimate Marvel.

I had hoped, following that, Loeb would leave. I wanted to make sure that my image of Loeb hadn’t been tarnished. It wasn’t, completely, tainted by the story. After all I still had the stories I read first, back when I thought he had decent stories to tell. And the rest of the Ultimate Universe, barring inclusions of Greg Land and similar people, was a more or less peaceful situation with stories that were genuinely interesting, as well as surprising takes on different aspects of the 616 continuity– such as the Ultimate Clone Saga.

Loeb, of course, didn’t leave. And, in the end, I’m not surprised or disappointed or outraged or anything. I knew he was tapped to do the Ultimate Marvel event titled “Ultimatum” and, following my disappointment in the “Ultimates 3” book, I simply decided to not read the story through. I read the first issue and stopped.

Well, recently I decided to go back and actually read the story, since it has finished, and I wanted to see what happened to the characters I had grown fond of, and the actions that led to the creation of the books under the title “Ultimate Comics”.
Read the rest…

Whenever I last posted, we were discussing the events of Batman R.I.P. and how they were affecting mainstream Batman continuity and so forth. However, things have become a lot more interesting since I stopped posting two months ago for whatever reason, and I learned that there are a number of new books out that require my attention. So, I’ll continue what I was talking about– including the whole of Battle for the Cowl– and to make it nice, I’ll even briefly summarize a few of the new books that have been published since the end of that. Including, but not limited to, the main Batman book, Detective Comics, and Morrison’s new piece– Batman and Robin.

Where I last left was that Batman has just freed himself from Darkseid’s captivity and decides to haul ass to do what he can to be awesome stop the Crisis from going any further.
Read the rest…

Subtitled: Why Grant Morrison Is A Mad Scientist Disguised As A Comic Book Writer.

I have a tendency to talk about Batman a lot. It wasn’t something I intended whenever I remade this website into what it is, but I read a lot of Batman comics, so it stands to reason that Batman would be, by extension, a character I write about rather frequently. I’m also a fan of Grant Morrison, which has really only recently been cemented with things like “Final Crisis” and “Batman: R.I.P.”– as enraging to some fans as they may be.

But, then again, there are some fans who will be enraged by anything that isn’t exactly the vision they have in their minds of what the comics/movies/television show should be. I’ve been known to fall victim to that more than once, so I can’t complain too vocally about it without falling into hypocrisy. Also, that’s not what this post is about.

This is about Grant Morrison’s Batman masterpiece, his Bat-masterpiece, “Batman R.I.P.” and the event that has followed it, “Battle for the Cowl”. One of the things I’ve definitely learned, in just trying to properly get information on this event, is that you need to be at least tangentially aware of a number of things that existed within the context of the Silver Age. However, having full knowledge of them isn’t entirely necessary.
Read the rest…

It’s not very often I go into a movie with the expectation of being let down and/or so frustrated by the horrible things done to the continuity that I consider going to just so I can feel a lot of negative emotions and pick it apart in a general way that only a fanatic nerd can do. I’ve been avoiding, for this very reason, the current X-Men movie which pretends to be an origin of Wolverine, but seems to be another instance of Marvel shoving random mutants around with stories that may or may not resemble the things that actually took place in the comic.

As I said, this movie was a complete letdown, especially compared with the fantastic Iron Man movie, and the good-but-not-as-good-as-Iron-Man movie featuring The Hulk. Also, it’s not as good as The Spirit and to even consider this on par with the previous X-movies is shameful. And, as you might expect, I have more than enough nerd rage built up after having seen it, and my general knowledge of X-Men (though not on the level of some, I feel I have enough information at my disposal and knowledge of the characters to be properly annoyed by the film) to fill something that is adequate entry. But, before I go into that, I figure I can get the good parts out of the way.

The good parts: Ryan Reynolds felt, for a brief moment, like Deadpool. The specific point in that movie when I felt like he was the characters rather early on (for obvious reasons) when he said “Okay… people are dead.” Also, whoever played Gambit looked like something akin to Ultimate Marvel’s incarnation of Gambit, but with better hair. Gambit and Deadpool, it should be noted, are two of my favorite characters in Marvel.

That’s pretty much it.

Now onto the bad stuff
Read the rest…

It’s been out on DVD for a while now, but I finally got around to seeing Frank Miller’s incarnation of Will Eisner’s series The Spirit. I was skeptical about the movie when it was in theaters. I’m not a huge fan, or particularly familiar, with the character of The Spirit and his stories, but I knew a few basic things going into it. The first thing I knew was that The Spirit was a brightly colored book, which seemed sharply contrasted with Miller’s preferred style of noir-esque, high contrasting art. The second thing was that The Spirit was funny. Miller’s funny isn’t often well received (look at his most recent entries in the Dark Knight collections) and the previews all suggested that it was a very serious movie.

For a little bit of background, The Spirit is a man named Denny Colt who was a police officer. During a big to-do, he was somehow killed. But he didn’t die, not entirely. He was buried, and dead for all intents and purposes. But, Denny didn’t stay dead. Denny came back, somehow or another, and decided to become a kind of shadow, or spirit, to the city. He wasn’t Denny anymore, he was simply The Spirit. And that’s how it was, and that’s how it was always going to be.
Read the rest…

I’ve decided to do another one of these, since I need to bring SOME content back to this website, or else it’s just a waste of space on the Internet. So let’s do this. Today we’ll be covering the bathroom at Target located at 35 Computer Dr in Haverhill, MA
Read the rest…

I was, originally, going to wait until I had seen this movie again, to be able to appreciate it on multiple levels, before I started writing this review of sorts on the movie. However, I decided that the best course of action would be to talk about it now, and get it out of the way.

I have said, before, in concurrence with people, I feel there is an inverse relationship between the amount of material for a given story and how said material is used. In using Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta we see that there were a lot of instances removed. Possibly for time, possibly for reasons I neither know nor care about. I’m going for the latter, personally. Watchmen is less than fifteen standard issues long. It’s slightly longer than V, but still falls victim to the same kind of constraints of time and medium change that it’s predecessor went through.

But is it a good movie? Or is it bad?
Read the rest…