A Tiny Comic Rant

As a professional writer and editor, I feel the most embarrassment when a stupid mistake makes it through the writing and editing cycles and is given to the readers. While Justice League of America has been growing more and more stale, with Hal Jordan pronouncing what appears to be the death knell of the series in this latest issue, #31. Clearly author Dwayne McDuffie has a direction he wants to go in, and admittedly, DC has left him a pretty gigantic task—a Justice League without Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman. Black Canary even invokes the dreaded Justice League Detroit as she considers the power levels of her League, but it is pretty indicting when one of the main characters announces that the current incarnation has "done nothing."

This is all well and good, but while nothing seems to happen in the current issue either, except that a lot of people leave, the first page contains a single error that is just unfathomable. Zatanna is talking to a character who is clearly Wonder Woman (a gold tiara with a centered red star is something of a giveaway) and refers to her as "Dinah" repeatedly. Wonder Woman's name is Diana Prince and no one has referred to her as Diana when she is in costume for quite some time. And the words that Wonder Woman speaks in response clearly belong to Black Canary, Dinah Lance. Granted it's a tiny thing, but it's disconcerting enough that I had to read the first three pages a number of times before deciding it was a mistake. And while I think the editor listed in the credits of the comic do much more than copy-edit the book, such a gaffe makes me wonder if anyone copy-edited at all. They want me to care about the book, the story, and the characters, but once again they make it difficult to do when it's not apparent that they care.

DC, please see this as an official offer to copy-edit your books. Granted, I've reached pre-middle age and thus am crotchety about the silly things in this world I can't control or fix, but I take a great deal of pride in the slightest of words in my writing. Why can't you? I expect an offer in the comments section pretty soon.

Inside Straight

Last week I ordered and received nine new books from Amazon, with authors including Jay Lake and Iain Banks. It seems fairly indicative that of the nine, the one I first chose to read is the latest in George R. R. Martin's Wild Card universe. Originally begun in 1987, this shared universe captured (and captures) my imagination for a number of reasons. First, it offers an interesting science-fictional origin for superpowers. The Earth has been used as a test bed for an alien virus: 90% of those infected die immediately, 90% of the survivors become horribly mutated (a squid head or invisible skin, for some of the less disgusting examples), and the remaining 1% of the affected population become aces—exhibiting what we think of as superpowers. The second reason, closely tied to the first, is the extremely powerful and rigorous story-telling taking place in the series. I'm not sure how much oversight Martin himself has over the series, but someone has been guiding it with a steady hand for over two decades. The stable of writers has been awesome, including Roger Zelazny, and the characters and adventures in this alternate Earth (where Castro left Cuba and played baseball for the Dodgers, who never left Brooklyn, for example) are fully realized. And the third reason, again apparently closely tied to the first two, is that this series arose as an act of affection between players of an role-playing game. The camaraderie that the writers shared pervades the series; these people thoroughly enjoy their characters and stories. Nothing ever seems workmanlike and the books fly by, sometimes much to this reader's chagrin.

The books spent a great deal of time trying to catch up to their contemporary history, but Inside Straight finds the series in all-too-familiar alternative Earth. America seems totally infatuated with reality television, such that a new show, American Hero, is about to air, pitting 28 aces against one another to determine who…well, who does whatever it takes to win a reality show the best. The anthology of short stories moves back and forth among the contestants on the show, using their points of view to describe the challenges and voting processes. We find that the reasons for being on the show roughly parallel the reasons one might expect for any reality television, except that it is clear that some of these heroes want to make a difference in their world and the show is a first step to make it happen. There are, of course, a lot of folks on the show who only want the title "hero" to advance their personal goals, whether it be fame or fortune. Implicitly, this division of intent powers the action of the book, and only rarely does the difference come to a head. And when it does, it is often in reality show mode, in the form of a confession after a challenge has been completed and someone voted off the show. It's all a fascinating study of the nature of being a hero—something the series has long excelled at—taking up the same themes and examining them under a contemporary prism.

At the same time, in the background, a radical Muslim leader has decided to wage war against Egypt's jokers, in part because they just appear different and thus must be accursed by Allah and in part because a number of them worship "the Old Gods," jokers and aces who have taken on the aspect and some of the powers of the Egyptian pantheon. The Old Gods apparently never intended to be worshipped, but provided aid and succor to the jokers of the Middle East, such that those jokers' admirations crossed the line. The Old Gods also don't take advantage of this worship, at least not obviously, setting up camps and caring for those in need. But it is all too much for the Caliph, who also seeks to consolidate his new position after a murder within his ranks.

As should be obvious with this set-up, those two plotlines collide violently when the contestants in American Hero who believe in the power of heroism go to Egypt to try to put a stop to the government-supported massacre of the helpless jokers. And as in earlier books, no ace is immune to death, a distinct departure from the comic book genre from which the stories find their origin. Characters sacrifice themselves or even die stupidly, as one would expect humans to do—in distinct counterpoint to the comic clichés where most heroes that attempt to sacrifice survive and stupidity has no long-lasting repercussions. But what makes the series distinct is the voices of the characters involved in the stories, adding layers of perspective to the action taking place, and sometimes taking side-trips to unexpected places. The characters are individuals, no two completely alike, and we see them from the perspective of other characters as the various stories unwind. There are a few moments of disconcert where a character appears innocuous in some hands and inept in others. It's easy to pass this off as varying perspective, and when the conflicted character takes on the role of protagonist, those inconsistencies are fleshed out nicely.

Also part of the joy of the Wild Cards books is the imaginative powers the aces have. The primary narrator is Jonathan Hive, who has the power to dissolve his body into a swarm of wasps, all of whose perceptions become his own. The stunts that Hive performs reflects some of the best gaming scenarios I have ever been a part of, ones in which we drove the GM to distraction by completely thinking outside the box and ruining his well-laid plans with original solutions. Another interesting character is Drummer Boy, who is basically a walking drum set, complete with six arms to play himself. For most of Inside Straight, Drummer Boy is an ass, a stereotypical contestant on game shows. But when he takes over the storytelling, at the climax of the action, we get to see the confusion that drives the character such that the miserable situation he puts himself in is somewhat ameliorated.

The good news is that Inside Straight is the first of new cycle of Wild Cards book such that no previous knowledge of the Wild Cards is required. Some history is given in the backgrounds of the characters, but it isn't necessary to enjoy the stories. There are a few familiar faces, just enough to make me want to go back and reread all the books to greet old friends, but the new heroes offer something to look forward to as the series progresses. The writing remains crisp, even with some new writers taking on the challenge of their predecessors, and the characters are fascinating. I really look forward to the rest of the books in the cycle.

(Just one little complaint—the press information on the back of the book, that usually self-serving précis of the plot and quotes from admiring authors and critics, appears to be about a different book. The background established in the synopsis are only formed in the last few pages of the book, and some of the events described don't happen at all….)

The City and the City

I'm an unabashed proselytizer for China Miéville. Between, Mrs. Speculator, my book group, and a few other innocent bystanders, I've made a few converts. I've also failed a couple of times, when the subject of my evangelism decided that the New Weird, the sub-genre that Miéville once described himself as a part of, was Too Weird. For myself, between the fascinating plots of the stories Miéville tells and his descriptive (I almost used "ornate" but that's not quite right) writing style, I find that I am constantly on the look-out for his new books. He has even joined the ranks of authors for whom I will buy the hardback edition, just to get the book in my hands that much faster.

So you can probably imagine my excitement when I was offered an opportunity to read a prerelease version of The City and the City. When I received the early version, I anxiously read the description on the back cover and then shared it with a Miéville acolyte, the aviator. The press described a murder mystery in the small European/Asian (Eurasian?) country of Beszel, a crime that would lead its detective to the sister country of Ul Qoma, in some ways the opposite of Beszel. The aviator suggested that perhaps this was the first entry in a new sub-genre, New Crime or perhaps New Weird Crime. We chuckled and I dove in.

As it turns out, Beszel and Ul Qoma are not just sister countries; they are tiny city-states somewhere near Turkey that share the same space. The novel starts out being unclear about that space-sharing—inhabitants of Beszel can see inhabitants of Ul Qoma (and vice versa)but ignore them, apparently out of politeness. The impression, at first, is of some sort of dimensional rift separating the two cities, not allowing any sort of physical interaction. But as the noel goes on, the reality turns out to be far more strange: the two countries share the same physical space, sometimes sharing features and sometimes with features clearly "belonging" to one country or the other. Thus a street goes by one name in Beszel and another in Ul Qoma, while a building in Beszel may stand beside a building in Ul Qoma. The separation of the countries is purely one of the mind, but one that is strictly enforced by the mysterious Breach, such that any interaction between the two countries—even looking at a neighbor who happens to be in a different country—is subject to the strictest punishment. Those who breach simply disappear.

Against this peculiar backdrop, the novel describes the investigation of the murder of a young American student whose body is found in Beszel. Our protagonist, Inspector Borlu, is convinced the crime is one of breach and works to get the mysterious enforcers involved in the investigation. But even as he waits for their assistance, he continues to investigate and eventually is forced to believe that perhaps it is not a breach, but requires him to seek aid from the police in Ul Qoma.

However, the murder really isn't what the novel is about; it just offers a viewpoint for extended meditation on the nature of these two countries and their shared existence. Nearly every facet of Borlu's investigation serves as a way to expand on the strange circumstances or deal with fringe elements, such as ultranationalists who want the territory to belong to just one country and unificationists that want the land to belong to everyone. That the murder victim is a young archeologist with a professional interest in the history of the two countries just serves to allow Borlu to look at some of the scientific underpinnings of the strange dual existence. In fact, as a mystery story, the novel fails spectacularly—there is no way that the reader can solve the murder, as important information is left unrevealed to the reader until near the climax. Real crime happens this way, that new evidence can suddenly take the investigation into a direction that is completely unexpected. But such events rarely make good a good mystery story, where part of the fascination is in the attempt to solve the crime.

But the meditation on the dual countries, while somewhat interesting, doesn't completely work either. The novel carefully straddles the line between a history of the dualism and a philosophical meditation on the how it affects the citizens of both countries. But it never goes satisfyingly enough in either direction. How such a bizarre geographic situation could have arisen would be a fascinating story in a lot of authors' hands, especially as the novel reveals more and more details about the two countries' differences. But Miéville never takes us there, and so the mystery that really underpins the novel is never revealed. But neither does he go all metaphorical, using the symbolism of the dual countries to explore very much about the nature of the human condition. There are hints at metaphor, the barest promise that all this symbology means something, but it too is never fully fleshed out. So much of the book deals with duality—poverty and wealth, history and modernity, European and Asian—that it seems to want to carry the weight of depth, but it never happens, instead leaving the reader grasping for something beyond "Well, that's odd." The book itself appears to be an artifact of some duality, a mystery and a literary novel, but like the other dualities not really explored in either direction.

Perhaps that is Miéville's ultimate point, that living on the edge of duality is really no existence at all. The events in the story certainly seem to bear that interpretation out. But that feels so clichéd, so Aesop-y, and I've come to expect so much more from Miéville. Perhaps his insight comes from a specific source in Miéville's life, and he feels compelled to share it. But without a frame of reference, the reader can only pocket such advice and hope to remember to use it when circumstances arise. Unfortunately, there is nothing memorable about the book to cause the reader to want to remember the advice. Even Miéville's usually evocative prose is missing in this gray gray story. And as a result, this is by far his weakest fiction (I've not read his non-fiction and so don't wish to compare it).

Any Miéville is a treat, but The City and the City is missing something fundamental to make it stand out, as the rest of his writing usually does.

Watchmen, the epitaph

Second weekend out, Watchmen made 18.1 million, a drop-off of nearly 66% from the previous week. The actual sales figure is not horrible, but in comparison to what it had done the week before, it's pretty telling. It's a good film, not a great film. And it just goes too far into a culture that Hollywood thought was more pervasive.

I read a quote from Patton Oswalt (I like the "nerd mafia" idea) that, while a little more explicit in his gratefulness to Zack Snyder, does reflect my feelings on what he attempted: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=67077201&blogId=475266763.

Looking forward to the DVD!

Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?

I was waiting to write this entry until the second half of Neil Gaiman's epitaph for Batman had been delivered, but it's been delayed until mid-April. I won't remember these ideas that long, and I'll be lucky if I have remembered them from when the first part was released until now.

In a recent Permanent Damage, Steven Grant talks about "mad ideas" being a driving force behind DC's recently completed Final Crisis (http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20019). I've read a lot of the comics that Grant uses as his examples of "mad ideas" and really enjoyed most of them; I appreciate Promethea though it really drove me nuts as it seemed to careen wildly off its original course. I'm a huge fan of American Flagg, Planetary, and Authority (well not the current Authority—what has Wildstorm done with their apocalyptic setting? I guess that's fodder for another entry down the road). And Morrison's recent run of Batman seems to come out of the school of mad ideas as well.

As a coda to Morrison's bizarre and infuriating run, Neil Gaiman offers up the two-part "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" perhaps an homage to Alan Moore's brilliant "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" from (can it really be) nearly two decades ago. Right off the top, Andy Kubert's art indicates something is not quite…normal…with Gaiman's story. Using shades of sepia and architecture from the early to mid-20^th century in his panels, and an aura ethereality, Kubert suggests that the story being told is a memory, but it's not quite like any story of Batman we have seen before. And the characters attending the wake for Batman are teasingly familiar—they look right and they have the right names—but they don't quite act right. Alfred greets the foes of Batman as longtime compatriots? I particularly enjoyed the inside joke of the waif offering to watch The Joker's car for him then fearing for his life if he steals the wheels, a winking nod to the origin story of Jason Todd, who does in fact die at the hands of The Joker in normal continuity (never mind punching the walls of reality…).

But the weirdness really starts when the wake's attendees are invited to tell stories about Batman. The first belongs to Catwoman, who talks of the love that she and Batman shared, beginning with her early days as a criminal (complete with the first Catwoman costume) to her latest appearances, when she gave up crime and became a hero for his sake. But it never appears to be enough for Batman, and when he refuses to give up his own crime-fighting for her, she kills him out of spite. The wake takes this in stride, but the reader is taken aback by this revelation; it does not jibe with the still-painful recollection of Morrison's story of the death of Batman, just completed. And two shadows, their figures indistinct discuss Catwoman's story, apparently unheard by the attendees. One of them speaks for the reader, refuting the story, while the other tells the first to be patient.

Alfred then rises to tell an even more offbeat and unexpected story—that he is the mastermind behind the criminals that infest Gotham City, and that in actuality they are really just actors he has hired to appease his dull-witted boss, Bruce Wayne, who cannot see how ineffective his attempts at crime-fighting really are. To Alfred, Wayne is a lovable dullard in a stupid costume, and to protect him from harm, Alfred's actor friends keep Wayne safe away from the real criminals in Gotham City, against whom he would not stand a chance. Again, the first shadow protests and the second shadow demurs.

Gaiman's character's flashbacks do two really interesting things—first they accurately and concisely sum up years' worth of backstory about these characters in twisted and yet accurate ways. Catwoman really does love Batman. Alfred really does work to protect Bruce Wayne. But these stories also treat those characters as if they were real people. Of course a woman spurned for decades would grow so frustrated she would consider murdering her lover. Of course any sane man watching his ward put on a goofy costume and fighting criminals at night would go to extremes to protect him.

The result is an artifact that is in some ways opposite to what Grant Morrison did throughout his "R.I.P" arc. Morrison's story-telling is based on resurrecting obscure bits of Batman trivia and driving the plot with them. Without using editorial notes, he relies on the reader knowing details to move his story along. The mystery is in trying to figure out the plot points and then tie them together to figure out what's going on in the story. The story itself was fairly predictable in its broad strokes if chaotic in its minutiae. Gaiman, on the other hand, bases his mystery on why the characters are doing what they do. By genericizing the stories told at the wake, Gaiman makes his story universally approachable. By not relying on esoterica, Gaiman's story is also more satisfying, even in its incomplete state.

I ranted about "R.I.P." earlier in this blog, and perhaps the point of Morrison's story is the utter insanity of a man running around in a bat-suit. His mad idea is to deconstruct the history by over-reliance on the details, the often conflicting and never really considered in context of a person's life details, and finish off by killing off the character whose life is such a chaotic, paradoxical, unholy mess. Gaiman, on the other hand lifts up those conflicts, pointing out that such idiotic moments are exactly why readers love the characters as we do. By distilling the essence of the stories and characters down, the story allows the reader to appreciate the decades of story-telling without getting bogged down in the minutiae. And then, in what may be an ironic triumph, the one person complaining about the details, the first shadowy figure, is probably Batman himself, finding himself in the place of "reading" his own life story and disturbed because it is not the story he remembers.

There is also an ironic twist when comparing Gaiman's ideas to that of Moore. "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" sets up the framework of telling Superman's story in a way that has the façade of being the story Superman always wanted to hear—a comic version of It's a Wonderful Life—assuming for a moment that Superman is unhappy and makes his wish, only to discover (as George Bailey always does) that his current life is not so bad after all. In Gaiman's story, Batman is forced to see how his life could've played out not if he could change it, but if those around him could've changed it to suit their own issues.

Of course, none of this may have any bearing on enjoying either story arc, but it does explain to me why Gaiman's story appeals more, based as it is in his implicit background as a meta-storyteller (does he think about doing these kinds of things explicitly? I know he's a smart man but that would make him scary smart). I'm really looking forward to the second half of the story and suspect that when it is collected, it will b something to recommend to non-comics fans as another example of the literariness that is potential in comics.

The Last Argument of Kings

As I read Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy, there were signs everywhere that this was going to be different, that this would be about breaking the clichés. I've written about the first two books, how the characters and settings are generally unlikable, even though they seem to taking an upward path towards likability. And as all good final books in a series do, The Last Argument of Kings ties it all up nicely, completing the storylines by teetering on the line between cliché and groundbreaking. And at the end, though the novel successfully completes the trilogy, I am torn by how I feel about it.

To be sure, Abercrombie delivers on the promise of the first two books. These are fully fleshed characters, with ups and downs, quirks and eccentricities, personalities with as many facets as there are witnesses to their actions. And as one might expect from an epic fantasy, everything ends up on a good note. The protagonist country is saved from warfare on dual fronts by heroism and luck. A new age of enlightenment and creativity appears to be born in the Union. But to even mention this conclusion would appear in most reviews to be spoiling the story, and for the blogs I have written thus far about the books in the trilogy, something of a let-down. But, as with the first two books, the war is just the background for what the story is truly about: the evolution of the characters.

By the end of the book, nearly every character has experienced a reversal from where they started; the lowly have been raised up, the weak made strong, the selfish become enlightened. And so it would appear the classic tropes are fulfilled. But Abercrombie lingers on the characters for a bit after the otherwise natural climax of the book, so that we can see how fragile appearances are and how easily the façade can slip. And the big reveal of the book, the revelation of an unexpected puppetmaster behind all the action of the trilogy is both refreshing and completely disconcerting, because we discover that no action has taken place without the long-time planning of this hidden figure.

As the book and trilogy winds down to its conclusion, the best character (to this reviewer at any rate), Logen Ninefingers, has an existential crisis. Embodying the apparent sweeping movement of the trilogy, Logen explicitly decides to make himself into a better man. But forces beyond his control—the puppetmaster, the war he finds himself fighting in, unexpected allies, even his own demons—force him to constantly question if he is a good man at all. Why can't he keep his promises? Why can't he retain control of his actions? And when he asks those he considers to be his friends if they feel the same sort of trap he does, invariably the answer is that they do, such that they cannot help him with his own. And so he questions himself incessantly until at last he can take no more and decides to go back to where he came from.

Similarly, Glokta the torturer recognizes the evil qualities of the people around him but feels so trapped in his role that he can never quite convince himself to rise above them. And his own role as a torturer constantly causes him to be cynical about his own motives, even when he is doing "the right thing." Only when his personal safety is firmly caught between two forces he cannot contend with does he begin to break out of the pattern he has lived for years, reaching out for help. And even so, doing the right thing drives him further into despair as the puppetmaster is revealed and every cynical belief he has held appears to be proven true.

Jezal, the courtly soldier, appears to undergo the most growth of all. He is no longer cocky, but sure of himself. His interest is not in his personal well-being, but the betterment of the people around him. But by the end of the novel, that beneficence becomes a façade masking his fear of the repercussions of not doing as he is told. And because helping others is so much against the goals of the puppetmaster, the thinly veiled pessimism of the story surges to the forefront, making the last few chapters of the story painful to bear.

Even Bayaz, the First of Magi, taking on the Gandalf role in the story, is torn down through the course of this final novel. All the legends of him, especially the ones he tells, are suddenly cast into doubt, and Bayaz is revealed to be the crankiest of old men with an outlook on his inferiors much like Mr. Smith's from The Matrix: they are all vermin and it is his right to rule them as he sees fit.

Joe Abercrombie has taken the bones of the epic fantasy and taken it to places it has never been before. I doubt the epic can grow any bigger, so Abercrombie drives it inward, making it a study of character under pressure from the forces that normally drive fantasy. His characters are protagonist and antagonists, not heroes or villains. There is much ambiguity not in what they but in their reasons for doing it. There may be fantasy novels that spend as much time in the characters' heads as these do, but I'm pretty certain Abercrombie treats the characters honestly. In The Lord of the Rings, Boromir steals the One Ring because he wants to save his people—an unfortunate act done for heroic reasons. The characters that populate The First Law often do the right thing, not for heroic reasons but for selfish ones, or because no other choice of action is left to them. And so, while there are horrible adversaries, there is nothing quite so horror-inspiring as the rationale for the deeds done. And by the end of the trilogy, we can't even say that the good have one. The Union is still just the narrative framework from which the story is told. It is clear that their adversaries have plenty of cause to war against them. And yet neither are those adversaries wholly good themselves.

I understand that the next trilogy is in progress, The Second Law. I think I want to read some more. I don't know that I want to know any more about these characters, though they fascinate me, because the fascination is depressing. I have seen the antithesis of the epic fantasy, where the issues are not black and white but all sorts of shades of gray. Suddenly fantasy is not the escape it usually is, and I have a better understanding of why fantasy often goes as it does. But Abercrombie the writer is a joy, asking the questions he does and remaining unflinching in the moral uncertainty that is daily existence, even in a fantasy world. Abercrombie doesn't hint at a new paradigm for fantasy, but he has twisted the epic paradigm to the point of its shattering. I think I want to see some more of that, but I need time to cool down, to cleanse my palate.

And it makes me wonder if there is space for a new paradigm, or perhaps a return to the pre-Tolkien one. Abercrombie will likely not take us there but he makes asking the question far more relevant than it has been in decades.

Watchmen—a follow-up

I may have to change my opinion about the success of Watchmen after my second viewing last evening. Mrs. Speculator and I went with a few friends to a different theatre than we had been to on Friday. The reception of the movie was completely different; the audience was engaged, and after ti was over there were conversations in the hallway and outside the theatre about what had been seen. I'm not altogether sure that everyone got all the details of it, but if they left the theatre relatively pleased, that's better than what I had hoped for. Our companions, while not comics-savvy, are a thoughtful bunch, and they had lots of questions about why certain things had happened and how the movie differs from the comic. I was pleased to share what I knew, and I noticed some other folks listening in.

Upon seeing it a second time, my opinion of it really has not changed—it's a good film and a good comic adaptation. But perhaps the world isn't so unready for such layered and thoughtful story-telling as I had believed. The second weekend's take will be an interesting number to watch.

Watchmen

Oh, I so enjoyed this movie.

Oh, it's so going to fail at the box office, beyond fan boys seeing it over and over.

Comic lovers finally have exactly what they wanted, a movie that stays as true as possible to the source material over the length of the movie. Sure, there are some things missing—the Tales of the Black Freighter story is not even mentioned, the ending is different (had to be, keeping in mind the amount of thought most people spend watching movies), Laurie doesn't smoke—all of these make sense, and the movie is still more than two and a half hours long. But all the things that separate the comic Watchmen from the standard fare are what is going to keep mainstream movie-goers from enjoying this movie. Some will go, and they'll be unhappy, and word of mouth will just kill it. I expect this to be out of the big theatres in about four or five weeks, if the people in the audience at my showing are any indication.

Basically, the general movie-going public thinks they know everything there is to know about comics. They can name characters and maybe even identify them when they see them. And they believe that the plot and movement of stories is so simplistic that you really don't have to know very much or even THINK very much while reading. So comic-based entertainment like TV shows and movies must be the same way. And until recently, creators of those TV shows and movies did very little to dissuade that opinion. Character development is Cyclops dying or Peter Parker facing life without his Spiderman powers. (This, incidentally, is why Heroes did so well and is now falling apart. You basically tell the X-Men story using "everyday people" and audiences will eat it up. But when you start doing the time travel and relationship twists that X-Men has had over its lifetime in a period of weeks, even the most virginal of fans will see the ongoing manipulation and get bored.) But comic readers are not surprised by this kind of story-telling; these kinds of plot twists happen regularly. And so, if you will, their resistance is up and they demand bigger and better things. And Moore and Gibbons granted it, taking comics to the next level (if only briefly) by making it into literature. Steven Grant has a wonderful blog up this week on Permanent Damage about why Watchmen (the comic) is so good (http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20319). Watchmen is literary: it has character development beyond villain of the month, it has symbology, it has a freaking theme for heaven's sake. And comic fans rejoiced—Watchmen represented the potential of their medium.

Zack Snyder, director of Watchmen, is clearly one of those fans. He has lovingly recreated image after image from the comic into the movie. And the result is a daunting piece of cinema that requires its audiences to THINK about what's going on, just as any good piece of literature will. As Mrs. Speculator and I were discussing this last night, a couple of comparisons came to mind. In some ways, Watchmen is a lot like Ang Lee's Hulk, with its emphasis on developing character and relationships. And like Hulk, the focus of the ad campaigns has been the tremendous action in the movie, but viewers of the film quickly learn that such action is very rare. If you've read Watchmen you know there is not much hero versus villain action, and the commercials I have seen really do represent the better part of the action sequences in the movie. The rest of the time is spent with people talking and remembering, not what the avid fan of action fare generally pines for in their movies. And like when I saw Hulk, the people in the audience grew restive at the non-action parts. The other movie I am reminded of is The Fountain, a movie I just loved and spent a great deal of time thinking about. It was not straightforward story-telling and aggravated the generally impatient movie-goer. And the climax of the movie is brilliant, but subtle and unexpected, and movie-goers that regularly expect overtures of emotion and sound at their climax were completely lost by the movie's ending. So goes Watchmen, where the conflict that drives the story rests in the background for most of the movie, hinted at and commented on by the characters, but not brought into the foreground until everything is moving at break-neck speed.

So, as a fan of good writing and good comic books, I really enjoyed this movie. It is beautifully filmed, clearly using the comic book as its shooting schedule. Scenes are packed with details that repeated viewings will only make more delightful (in fact, that was Mrs. Speculator's biggest complaint—at least with the comic, she could stop at a panel and take in all the detail). The acting is a little mixed, but only because Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach is a tour de force. Patrick Wilson's Dan Dreiberg is played dead on, but the character, while vital to the story, is such an ordinary guy, that it feels like there is very little acting going on at all. Matthew Goode's Adrian Veidt is something of a cipher, not a major character in the story at all until he has to be, but even then he is overwhelmed by the raw intensity of Rorschach. Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the Comedian brilliantly throughout the flashbacks. If there is a weakness, it would be Malin Ackerman's Laurie Jupiter, who just seems to waft alogn from scene to scene with little direction, only showing determination in the scenes where she becomes Silk Spectre. And of course, this approximates her role in the story—only really coming to life when she puts on the costume—but Ackerman is too detached from what's going on when she is Laurie, so much so that it distracts some. Harder to evaluate is Billy Crudup's Dr. Manhattan. It's ironic that the most powerful character in the story pretty much does nothing throughout the course of the story, mostly standing around and pondering ideas bigger than humanity. And Crudup does this well, though it's difficult to tell where Crudup ends and the CGI begins. The special effects surrounding Dr. Manhattan in every scene he plays are tremendous and tend to obscure the character, a foreshadowing of the notion that we are remembered by our actions more than for our presence that resonates at the end of the movie. So, if the measure of an actor is how well they play the role they have been given, Crudup talks and ponders aloud very well…and glows blue pretty well too.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, so much so that I am going to see it again this evening. I expect that my non-comic-reading companions will be distressed by the moral ambiguity that is the climax of the film. I expect that again I will be immersed in the alternative 1985 and a word where superhero exists and have affected the culture in dramatic ways, such that being in costume, let alone fighting in one, is a crime. I look forward to more viewings of this down the line, including the director's cut DVD promised for Christmas, when The Tales of the Black Freighter will become available. But then I am a fan who has spent many hours reading the book and measuring it against the best its genre has to offer as well as yards of good science-fiction writing to compare it to. It really is pretty much all that a fanboy could ask for and perhaps an indication of why we shouldn't always get what we ask for.