Month: April 2011

Why Superman is the best.

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It’s been a while since I’ve done so, but I’m getting a hankering to write about superheroes.  At first I was going to write a defense of that most unlovable of heroes, Marvel’s Ant-Man, but if I’m going to write about superheroes, I should write about the best superhero.  Since I can do that and write about the best comic at the same time, I decided to write about Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman.  Specifically All-Star Superman #5, my personal favorite comic book ever.

As everyone should know, the only superheroes that actually matter are Superman, Batman and Spider-Man.  Sure, lots of the others are great–I like Guy Gardner and Thor– but the three I mentioned are the ones that set the standards for the rest.  Spider-Man is the perfect teenage superhero, with a simple reading being the spider powers stand in for puberty.  Batman is the man who makes himself a myth, with one of the greatest fictional locales to run around.  But Superman is the original and best superhero.  He represents the best that humanity–and in some ways America– can hope to be, an ideal to strive to.  No story better illustrates this than All-Star Superman.

All-Star Superman #5 is a story titled “The Gospel According to Lex Luthor.”  On the surface, it is a simple comic; Lex Luthor, condemned to death, allows Clark Kent to interview him in prison, to give the world his side of the story of his war on Superman.  The irony immediately obvious to every reader is that Clark Kent is Superman, which despite being the smartest man on Earth Luthor has not figured out.  However, there is much more going on here than that.  While this comic is about Luthor’s side of the story, is as perfectly contrasts the values and principles of Superman and his greatest enemy.

First, a brief explanation of Lex Luthor.  Whether in his original identity of a standard mad scientist or his revised (Post Crisis on Infinite Earths) power-mad CEO, Luthor has generally been Superman’s foremost adversary.  He has appeared in every modern Superman movie.  Luthor is, simply, Superman’s opposite in most ways.  Luthor is smart, rich and powerful as well as completely self-centered.  While his is undeniably intelligent, Luthor’s real defining trait is his narcissism.   If not for Superman, Luthor would be the most powerful person on Earth.  Superman’s superiority, instead of being an example to follow, makes Luthor insanely jealous.  While he is smart enough to gain any accolade he desires, he cannot accept Superman’s supreme physical advantage over him.   Luthor is easily one of, if not the, best comic book villains.

The Gospel According to Lex Luthor starts with Lex being sentenced to death for his recent (Issue 1) attack on the first manned mission to the Sun.  His defense?

He is so blinded by his personal war with Superman that he believes he needs no defense for his actions.  Before his execution, he allows one reporter to interview him: Clark Kent.

The Clark Kent of All-Star Superman is not the competent figure that he has been since John Byrne’s reboot in the 80’s. Morrison’s Kent takes the mild mannered reporter shtick much further than just mild-mannered he is a complete pantywaist.  While I prefer the version of Superman where Clark Kent is who he is and Superman is the disguise, in order to really believe no one suspects he is Superman the other way actually works a little better.  I can see why no one suspects, or even believes when confronted with it point blank, that Clark Kent is Superman.  But one of the most amazing things about All-Star Superman is how Kent’s clumsiness is just another tool in his crime-fighting arsenal.  Case and point page 4:

This also illustrates one of the fundamental differences between Superman and Lex Luthor:  Luthor spends all of his time trying to destroy his enemy; Superman goes out of his way to save him.

The next few pages really show how Luthor thinks, both about himself and about Superman.  He calls his guards “fat girls” and asks Clark if he feels “diminished by [Superman’s] very presence.”  While in the midst of a strenuous work our routine, Luthor focuses on questioning Clark’s masculinity.  He displays his own insecurities about Superman’s physical prowess, with the focus on Clark’s masculinity and his own hard exercise regimen.  There is some validity to Luthor’s anger here; there is no way that any person could match Superman’s strength.  But he is so focused on it that he can’t even begin to fathom that Superman could be posing as a man that appears as feeble as Clark Kent does.

We then move on to the communal area of the prison, where Lex outlines his utopian vision of society, which he calls “survival of the smartest”, while being completely oblivious to the angry stares he is getting from every other inmate. He has no fear; even of the occasionally super powered Parasite (he sucks the power out of other people, including Superman).  “Brain beats Brawn every time,” Luthor says, which he believes makes his victory inevitable, though it proves to be the opposite.

Parasite starts to absorb Superman’s powers and breaks free from his restraints, which starts a riot.  While pretending to blunder into the fray, Clark manages not only to save Lex’s life again; he also saves all the guards caught up in the riot.  All while not breaking his cover as Clark Kent.  While Lex and Clark make their escape to Luthor’s cell, they are pursued by the increasingly immense Parasite.  Superman causes a convenient earthquake, and Lex:

Note how quickly Luthor abandons brains for brawn.  He doesn’t even question the earthquake, he doesn’t try to think of an escape from the Parasite, he hopes for a miracle.  Then as soon as his enemy is down, he starts kicking him. Once they get to Lex’s cell, he simple continues on his tirade against Superman.  His petty grudge has completely consumed him.  He gloats about how he’s turned the newspaper and the prison against Superman, and then shows Clark his escape route.  Lex has no intention of escaping; he merely wants to show how little power the law has over him.  Here Clark almost loses it.  He does not understand how Luthor can focus only on his personal war with Superman, when together they could do so much to help the world.  But Luthor is determined to throw his life away in his maniacal quest to destroy Superman.

He also drops his final bomb:  Superman is dying.  The readers already know this, but they did not know that it was an intended part of Luthor’s plan.

While this comic defines Lex Luthor, it also defines Superman.  While incredibly intelligent, Luthor thinks only of his own quest for power.  Superman on the other hand, despite having no reason to feel anything but hate for a man who has spent his life trying to kill him, does everything he can to save Luthor from himself.  Superman’s faith in humanity is such that he thinks even the worst of us are worth saving.

The Quest

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I am tired of playing my PS2.  My PS2 has certainly seen better days.  It no longer plays DVDs, it has trouble with some games despite their pristine conditions.  It won’t recognize the lid is closed unless there are several games sitting on top of the system.  The system in definitely on its last legs.  As much as I love the old guy, I am ready to move on.  Honestly, for much of the last 2 years I have been done with it.  I have played my Wii and DS and recently my brother’s PS3.  But that PS2 stayed hooked up right next to others, waiting for me to finally come and finish off my PS2 library.  Well, that time is now.

Here is the list of PS2 games that I own but haven‘t beaten:

  1. Unlimited Saga
  2. Mark of the Kri
  3. Okage: The Shadow King
  4. ChoroQ
  5. Phantom Brave
  6. Chaos Legion
  7. Forever Kingdom
  8. Silent Hill 2
  9. Darkwatch
  10. Gungrave
  11. Shining Force Neo
  12. Genji
  13. Maximo
  14. Marvel Ultimate Alliance
  15. Front Mission 4
  16. Grim Grimoire
  17. Killer 7
  18. Star Ocean 3
  19. SMT Devil Summoner 2
  20. Shining Tears
  21. Growlanser 3
  22. Drakengard 2
  23. Castlevania:  Lament of Innocence
  24. Gun
  25. Tsugunai: Atonement
  26. Wild Arms 3
  27. SMT: Nocturne
  28. Rogue Galaxy
  29. Steambot Chronicles
  30. Bully
  31. The Thing
  32. Eve of  Extinction

32 games.  My goal is to beat or just remove every game on the list.  I intend to beat most of them, but I am sure there are some on the list I will never be able to.  I’m not just going to exclude games so that I can say I cleared the list, but neither am I going to spend a lot of time playing a game that I hate.

It is quite a list, but I can already thin it.  I beat Bully and Steambot Chronicles in the last week or so, so that removes them from the list.  And there are a couple to simply remove.  I have tried on at least 4 separate occasions to play Unlimited Saga, and every time quit frustrated.  It may be a worthwhile game once you get the hang of it, but I have wasted enough time on it already.  It is off.  And Phantom Brave, while a perfectly fine game is off as well.  I am removing Phantom Brave because I already played almost 2 thirds the way through it only to lose my save.  The day may come that I decide to replay Phantom Brave, but I did not like it well enough to play it through again.  So that is 4 games off the list, with 28 left to go.

I hope to have this list finished before the end of summer.  While there are quite a few RPGs on that list, I have played most of them extensively, so that is not an outrageous goal.   Right now I am playing Gun, a decent western GTA clone and Tsugunai: Atonement, an RPG from early in the PS2’s life from Atlus that is, through the first hour, completely mediocre.  Here I go.

Thoughts on Mizzou’s coaching hire and baseball

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The Tigers hired a new coach and after a week of thinking about it, I’m still not too happy with the hire.  It is not necessarily a bad hire, Haith had Miami competitive if not consistent and Miami is not really a basketball school, but the flirtation with Painter and Tubby Smith made me think they were going to get a big-name, proven coach.  But they apparently could not lure any big name to Columbia.  Which is okay.  I’m surprised that the talk with Painter got as far as they did, considering the situation Painter was in.  He has is alma mater is great shape, why would he leave that for a school that is at best equal in standing.  Other than money, which Purdue matched when they heard Mizzou had Painter’s ear.  It was a worth chase, but I’m not sure Mizzou ever had a chance at success.

Frank Haith coached Miami for 7 mediocre seasons, with only one trip to the NCAA tournament.  He apparently (i.e. according to wikipedia) ran a clean program off the court, with success in getting his players to graduate, which is definitely good thing.  However, that will not help him keep his job if the Tigers do not win on the court.  The big problem is that it is a small-splash hire when the fans were expecting a big one.  I hope he is able to overcome everyone’s doubt, but I’m not confident.

I am glad Mizzou did not go for, or get, VCU’s Shaka Smart.  I know he is the hot name, along with Brad Stevens, after the Rams great Final Four run.  He got VCU deeper in the tourney than Mizzou has ever been.  But his record at VCU has not been exactly stellar.  They have been good, and I hope that they continue to do well, but I do not think it would be a good idea to pay him the money they were offering when he has only 2 years of head coaching experience and his team hasn’t finished higher than 4th in the Colonial Athletic Association.  Maybe the potential of Shaka Smart would have been better than the known talents of Haith, but I a little glad Mizzou played it safe.  I’m at least confident the program will not fall apart under Haith, I’m not so sure about Smart.  At worst, MU looks like they did this year for the next 3 or 4 before trading up for a good coach and maybe hitting a home run with that hire.  At best, Haith works out and the Tigers maintain what Anderson has built over the last 5 years.

 

It is also the start of the MLB season.  I don’t watch much baseball, usually only opening day and the playoffs.  This is because, as a Royals fan, I kind of hate baseball.  I am unfortunately just old enough to remember the days when the Royals were not only relevant, but also actually good.  They won their only World Series about 2 weeks after I was born.  The first baseball I watched was the waning days of the George Brett era.  The amount of attention I pay to baseball correlates directly with how good the Royals do, which means I usually pay little to not attention to baseball.  I don’t think I was ever going to be a big baseball fan, but the complete collapse of the Royals organization didn’t help.  But hey, through the first 2 weeks of the season, the Royals have at least been entertaining, though I do not expect their success to continue.

So I hope all the baseball fans enjoy the season.  I’ll keep watching as long as the Royals are in the picture and check out when they inevitably trail off into irrelevance.  But I’ll be back in October for the World Series.

Last Month in Reading: March

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This was not a good month for me, reading wise.  Mostly because all the new handheld games I intend to buy this year came out this month and I used time that would normally be reading time as Tactics Ogre and OkamiDen time.  But I still got four books read, so it wasn’t a complete waste.

Fer-de-Lance Rex Stout

This is the first of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries.  I can see why he is considered one of the greats of the genre.  This is a terrific mystery.  Nero Wolfe seems to be a progenitor of the irascible, eccentric detectives popular today, like TV’s Monk or House (Doctor, yeah, but House is totally a detective).  Wolfe’s eccentricities, for those unfamiliar, has him refusing to leave his house to investigate, leaving it all to his assistant Archie Goodwin, who is the narrator.  Archie Goodwin does all the legwork, but Wolfe uses his findings to solve the case.  It is an interesting, workable good set-up. The actual case they solve is not exactly complex, but it is not too simple.  The brother of an acquaintance of Wolfe turns up missing, then a respected man turns up dead with little explanation.  Wolfe puts the two together and realizes that they are connected.  So he sends Archie to look around.  It follows in the standard manner of mysteries, with Archie and Wolfe getting closer and closer to the truth.  Though it ends with Wolfe crossing the line from eccentricity to sociopathy.  I’d recommend it, and I’ll be reading more of Stout’s mysteries.

Napoleon’s Wars An International History 1803-1815 Charles Esdaile

Charles Esdaile’s Napoleon’s Wars is a thorough account of the Napoleonic Wars.  I should have known how annoyed I get with this book when I purchased it.  Esdaile is British, I am a Napoleon apologist;  should have known his take on Napoleon would be one I did not like. Don’t get me wrong, the book is well written and accurate, but he seems to be trying to equate Napoleon with Hitler and cajole readers into thanking Britain for saving the world from him. Every good thing Napoleon did is set as merely a ploy to get to more war and killing.  While no one can argue that Napoleon was not inclined to battle, I do not think the rest of what he did is easily swept aside.  The wars of the time were almost as much the fault of the leaders of other nations as Napoleon.  Still this is definitely a worthwhile read, though possibly more dense that a casual reader would appreciate.

Mariel of Redwall Brian Jacques

Mariel escapes from the pirate Gabool the wild, journeys to Redwall and then goes back to rescue her father, Joseph the Bellmaker. (Remember the Joseph Bell from Redwall?)  Joined by new friends from the Abbey she treks back to the fortress of the increasingly insane Gabool.   I actually like the cast of this book more than the ones from Redwall or Mossflower.  Martin is kind of boring in life, but as a ghostly protector, he is great.  But here we get Mariel and the first more nautically themed Redwall book.  Also, the first female main character.  It is kind of hard to separate these books after a while, because they all are very similar.

Martin the Warrior Brian Jacques

This is my least favorite of the Redwall series so far.  The bad guys are ridiculously incompetent, and the knowing what happens next makes the book is predictable.  It seems like Jacques realized that Martin did little in his previous book (Mossflower) and needed another book to make him seem as important as he does the books where only his spirit appears. This book details an adventure of Martin’s before he comes to Mossflower.  As usual, there is a horde of vermin and imperiled good animals.  The most interesting thing in this one it the troupe of traveling performers, who sadly get to do little performing.  Martin and his newly met friends escape from  , then bring an army back to take him down.  You know, the usual Redwall stuff.  The fun of these books is not in their plots, which are standard adventure fare, but in the execution.  And Martin only slightly under delivers on that.

Wolf Pups and Trotmobiles

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I want to fully recommend OkamiDen to anyone who owns a DS, but I can’t.  Not because OkamiDen is not a great game, it is, but because it too similar to its prequel Okami.

The original Okami, whether on the Wii or PS2 version, is one of the best games of the last ten years.  It is one of the few games that not only uses the Zelda action/adventure formula, but also uses it as well as the Zelda games do.  Aside from playing perfectly, Okami also looked and sounded wonderful.  It looked like a Japanese watercolor painting come to life.  Okami was just a joy to play and even to watch.  Video game consumers upheld their reputation for ignoring wonderful things by ignoring Okami.  Twice.

OkamiDen, part sequel, part remake, part port, is just the same as its predecessor.  Capcom did a terrific job fitting the game on the DS.  But in the first 5 hours or so, I have seen nothing that was not present in the first game.  It is arguably the best Zelda-like game on the DS; the only actual complaint I have with the game is that the first few dungeons are a bit too simple.  However, if the original Okami is available you should play it instead.  But that little wolf pup (Chibiterasu, the main character) is just so damn cute.  I can’t help but love him.  Play OkamiDen.  Buy it right now and play it.  Just don’t expect the same mind blowing experience as the original Okami.

I also beat Steambot Chronicles this week.  I need to write a big long love letter to this game, but I can’t.  Not right now.  Maybe it’s the fact that I played most of the game more than 2 years ago and it’s a little fuzzy.  Or maybe that fuzziness comes from the fact that I just had my wisdom teeth removed and am currently taking Vicodin.  Either way, I don’t have it in me right now.  But Steambot Chronicles is a very good game. Made by Irem and published in America by Atlus, Steambot Chronicles is a somewhat clunky sandbox game (GTA) with a great hook:  you control a mech (called a Trotmobile in the game) through a Miyazaki-esque world.  About half of the game is played by piloting a mech.  The controls take a little getting used to; one control stick controls the left leg, the other the right, L1 and R1 attack with the left and right hand respectively.  But once you master them, stomping around in a giant mech is just delightful. Your mech originally called the Earl Grey II but you can change it to whatever you want, is highly customizable.  There are all kinds of weapons/arms, legs and bodies, as well as different headlights and roof attachments.  In it, you can do all sorts of things: fight in arenas, transport people and goods, go mining, etc.

There are plenty of things to do outside the mech.  You can choose the amnesiac main character‘s, named Vanilla Beans, dialogue.  You can play him as a cocky jerk, a shy hero or anything in between.  It can make each playthrough slightly different.  One of the first things the player does is join a band with the people who found him on the beach.  By playing a Guitar Hero-esque mini-game, you can play a dozen or so instruments.  The songs are cheesy, but they fit the general tone of the game. That tone is earnestness.  This is a very earnest game.  It is somewhat sloppy, somewhat unfocused, but very earnest.  It is not a game for everyone; someone could easily be put off by the somewhat clunky nature of everything in the game.   But the world and tone make it a game that is easy to love in spite of its flaws.

Sucker Punch Review

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If you have read the reviews of Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch you have no doubt heard that it is insultingly bad, a complete failure of filmmaking.  While the glee some reviewers seem to be taking in eviscerating the movie is disgusting, there is some truth to them.  Sucker Punch is largely a failure.  But many of the reviews seem to miss the point entirely.  Roger Moore‘s, of the Orlando Sentinel, review called it “an unerotic unthrilling erotic thriller.” While I am sure he pleased with his wittiness, the quote exposes just how much he missed the point.  Sucker Punch is something of a thriller, it sits in between that and about five other genres, one thing it is definitely not, nor is it intended to be, is erotic.  Though someone judging the movie based on its trailers could be forgiven for thinking so.  Sucker Punch appears to be cotton candy; light and sweet and wholly insubstantial, but it is not.  It is cotton candy wrapped around a corn dog; there is substance there even if you maybe wish there were not.

Sucker Punch tells the story of “Babydoll”, a young girl whose evil stepfather has her committed to an insane asylum and scheduled for a lobotomy in order to get his hands on her inheritance.  With the help of some fellow inmates, Babydoll masterminds an escape attempt.  Instead of this simply occurring in the asylum, the movie takes place in two levels of imagination.  The first, which is seen through the bulk of the movie, is the asylum as a bordello.  The corrupt orderly becomes a ruthless pimp and the doctor trying to help the girls becomes the Madame.  When the women attempt to retrieve one of the items needed for their escape the world becomes a fantastic battlefield, where the characters become soldiers.

Problems arise with the exact relationship among the three levels of reality.  Sometimes it works great, like the lighter (with a dragon on it) needed becoming a fire-breathing dragon.  Sometimes the parallel is not clear.  In the bordello, Babydoll entrances everybody with an implied striptease, but what is she doing to draw attention in the asylum?  The concept is interesting, but the execution is less confusing than confused itself.

The missions, each set to a different song that it just too meaningful, are the films highlights.  Whatever problems Snyder may have with storytelling, he knows how to film an action scene, slow motion notwithstanding.  The mission’s settings are not believable because the settings are intentionally and inherently unbelievable.  They take place in fantastic, but coherent worlds.  These are the cotton candy.  The young stars, Emily Browning, Abby Cornish and Jena Malone, do a great job in the action scenes.  The enemies they face are delightfully unbelievable.  20 foot-tall samurais and clockwork zombie German soldiers.  They are beaten by barely more than teen girls, but these scenes are expressly fantasies, they are deliberately unreal.  Though the movie may falter in other places, the actions scenes are great.

The bordello/asylum parts are less good.  It seems like parts of it were not completely thought out.  Dr. Gorski’s position is particularly problematic.  If she is a doctor, shouldn’t she have a better idea of what is happening with her patients, especially is she is supposed to care.  It does play with the viewers expectations.  Positioned as a “geeky” movie, shown at comic conventions and whatnot, Sucker Punch is not what they expected.  While the characters are dressed in somewhat skimpy outfits, and I’m being generous to call them somewhat so (I mean really look at how much skin is showing), Snyder makes sure never to titillate.  While the setting and outfits may suggest sexiness, the movie is deliberately unsexy.  It is the same with Babydoll’s dances.  We know they are sexy due to everyone else’s reactions, but we never see her dance.  Babydoll and friends are put into the most powerless position possible, then take control of it.  We are supposed to know they are exploited, but not given a chance to revel in the exploitation.

The problem is not with these scenes empowering intentions, but with the clumsiness of their execution.  Snyder knows neither subtly nor irony, (I once heard that somebody tried to explain subtly to Snyder, but Snyder punched him the face until he exploded.  I assume that is why no one has had the courage to try with irony.) which is often a strength (the action scenes) but here it is a weakness.   The setting of the asylum and the bordello is poorly explained and poorly resolved.  Sucker Punch wants to be deep and meaningful, but its message is not particularly deep and its meaning is not clear.

Sucker Punch is admirable in its failure.  It could have just been the action scenes, and possibly been a better movie for it, but Snyder tried to do more.  It does spectacle, and does it well, but the depth it strives for just is not there.  It is that corn dog in the middle of your cotton candy; it may be more filling, but it clashes with the sugary sweetness of outside and is not particularly good on its own.  Still, you have to admire the audacity of trying to put a corn dog in the middle of some cotton candy.

**

That’s just Bully

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I recently beat Rockstar’s Bully and surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying it.  My enjoyment is a surprise because I don’t really like Rockstar’s big franchise Grand Theft Auto and Bully does not stray from its famous brother’s legacy.  But Bully does fix one of the two big problems with GTA, which allows me to more easily ignore the other one.

As mentioned above, I have 2 major problems with GTA.  The first is that while GTA has tons of different things to do, it does not do any of them particularly well.  You shoot people, if you can manage the crappy targeting and controls.  The same goes for driving, though it is better than the shooting.  I would rather play a game that does one or two things well than a game that does lots of things badly.  For most players the sheer variety of gameplay options seems to outweigh their relative quality, but I don’t like it.  The other problem I have with GTA is the overall tone.  Sure the game is rated M for Mature, but Grand Theft Auto is mature in the same way that a 14-year-old is mature.  It has a fondness for dirty words and sex jokes but lack anything resembling actual maturity.  This juvenile vulgarity permeates the world of the game and makes the experience largely unenjoyable for me. I do see why most gamers love GTA, but I have concluded that it is just not for me.

I could easily have assumed that Bully was the same thing, like the moronic people who protested the games release did.  (I do like that they assumed that since the title was “Bully” the game would be about the main character bullying other students when it is really the opposite.)   But the setting seemed interesting enough for me to try it out, though it did put it on the shelf for about 2 years after I purchased it.

Bully is just like GTA in its variety of gameplay options.  It is maybe just a bit more focused, but in large part, it is the same.  There are tons of missions with all sorts of objectives, but none of it is really outstanding.  Where it does greatly improve on GTA in the setting.  Not that the juvenile humor is gone or has added a layer of sophistication; the big change is that it feels more right in this game.  The crude “maturity” fits right in with a pack of rabid High Schoolers.  I would say that the characters are still drawn much more broadly than they could be, but the simple school stereotypes work.  The switch from outright crime to schoolyard pranks replaces the feeling of general menace from GTA with something more playful, which I would call an improvement.

Honestly, the game fully won me over with the last boss.  (Spoilers I guess)  When your fight through the various gangs of students culminates in a fight on top of the school I can’t help but see the whole thing as a tribute to the greatest of greats River City Ransom.  There is nothing a game can do to make me enjoy it more than echo River City Ransom.