Diana's Adventures in TV Land: Supernatural

I'm still drowning in exams and final papers, but all Austen and no play makes Diana a cranky girl. So "Supernatural" gets the honor of kicking off my Summer of TV.

As I've mentioned before, I'm interested in this series for four primary reasons: first, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are cute individually and mega-cute together. Great chemistry means I can sit through episodes about ghostly racist monster trucks just for their interactions. Second, it's Buffy-Lite, and I find myself nostalgic for the old monster-fighting genre that's fallen a bit to the wayside in recent years. Third, while it's not especially deep or complex, it does make somewhat interesting use of urban legends and mythology. And finally, it has one of the most peculiar fandoms I've ever seen (more about that in a bit).

"Supernatural" is the story of Dean (Ackles) and Sam (Padalecki) Winchester, brothers whose lives were shattered in childhood when their mother was murdered by a demon. Their ex-Marine father then devoted his life - and the lives of his children - to hunting supernatural creatures. This goes on until Sam starts craving normalcy; he abandons his family and runs away to Stanford. Things go rather well for him until Dean crashes back into his life, reporting that their father has gone missing. To make things worse, their mother's killer resurfaces, and Sam gets dragged back into his old life, road-tripping across the country with Dean in search of supernatural threats to destroy.

Let's start with the acting. I had somewhat mixed reactions to both Ackles and Padalecki; Ackles plays Dean as an alpha male bad-ass, and my God does he pull it off, but that particular character type doesn't offer a lot of range - he's tough, he's lecherous, he's hot, and that's about all we get on a regular basis. Considering Ackles' resume, though, I give him points for nailing a part that goes so completely against the pretty-boy typecasting he usually falls into.

Padalecki's a bit more problematic. Obviously, Sam is Dean's foil, so he's kind and considerate and intelligent and sympathetic. But if still waters run deep, Padalecki should be in China by now, because he's so low-key it's nearly impossible to get a handle on the character. There are moments where he bats it out of the park (finding Jessica at the end of the pilot, or his last prank on Dean in "Hell House") and moments where he should be acting out more than he is. He slowly improves towards the end of the season, though, so if he's completely thawed out by September, more power to him.

The biggest problem this show faced was its structure. Like most series, "Supernatural" was patterned on a comibination of mytharc episodes (progressing the overall seasonal storyline) and standalone stories. The standalones followed a very strict and repetitive formula: a bunch of hapless Red Shirts get themselves killed by the Weekly Evil, more or less telling us exactly what's going on. The Winchesters arrive, stumble onto the case via a surviving Red Shirt of varying acting skill/appeal. They argue whether it's "their gig" and research, basically spending a big chunk of each episode catching up with what we already know. The research will inevitably reveal that every culture in the world has a lore that matches the Evil (which seems to be a constant attempt to "justify" the existence of the monster, though I'm not clear why it's necessary each week), leading the brothers to track it down and kill it.

The mytharc is quite different, because it's barely there at all: only four episodes really deal with John Winchester and the Big Bad, with three of those constituting the season finale. It's the result of having a relatively thin seasonal plot - there was a vague idea of the brothers finding both their father and the monster that killed their mother, with no leads or clues or plan. Fortunately, the writers at least understood that this couldn't sustain an entire season; unfortunately, their solution was to just mention it every other episode, bring the whole thing to a head during the finale, and end the season on a cliffhanger stalemate that apparently took everything back to square one. I see that move as treading on very, very thin ice; for its own sake, the second season had better wrap that story up halfway through at the latest, because if it wasn't enough for twenty-two episodes it certainly won't do for forty-four.

Plot problems wouldn't be such a big deal if we could focus on characters instead, but with Sam and Dean being the only recurring characters on the show (aside from Meg, but she's folded into the mytharc)... well, they're interesting figures, but again, the minimalist approach has really narrowed the field of possibilities. The set-up is partly to blame - with the brothers driving all over America, it's just not plausible that they'd bump into anyone more than once. Which makes it all the more irritating when someone like Loretta Devine guest-stars, makes a great impression and then vanishes.

Still, I found the first season to be quite entertaining, warts and all. There's a certain washed-out, gritty feel to it that makes for a nice contrast with its fantastical premise, and I'm genuinely curious to see what comes next. It's a bit in danger of wearing out its main storyline, but there's still a ways to go until that becomes a serious problem.

Now, onto the fandom. Most fanfic writers tend to draw the line at incest as the one taboo even they don't dare break, either because it's a personal squick or because it's nigh-impossible to pull off believably. As far as I know, the last fandom to even conceive of an incestuous pairing as a remote possibility was "Firefly", and that was hardly met with unanimous approval. "Supernatural", on the other hand, appears to have encouraged a massive influx of writers who have no trouble with the idea of Sam and Dean expressing their love horizontally.

It's an interesting phenomenon to analyze, not least of which because the writers point to the show as setting up the foundation for that specific type of relationship. I don't necessarily agree; there's no subtext I could use to support that interpretation aside from a handful of characters occasionally mistaking them for lovers. But since that usually highlights the naivete of the Red Shirts, we're probably not supposed to read too much into it.

On the other hand, I can see a case being made where the writers inadvertantly left themselves open to this the moment they disconnected Sam and Dean from the rest of the world. For all intents and purposes, the Winchesters don't actually exist in society, they've been raised from childhood to live beyond the fringe, below the radar, outside any kind of social context. And since incest (specifically of the brother/brother variety) is a social taboo rather than a biological one, it's just one more rule they're in the perfect position to break. Beyond that, it's simply the default: there literally isn't anyone else who could factor into a romantic equation. Dean has his various flings, but if you're aiming for emotional attachment the only viable candidate is Sam. Sure, it's deeply fucked-up, but then, so are the characters.

Purely on a creative level, there's something appealingly challenging about trying to write The Incest Scenario. After all, it requires much more plausible justification than your average erotica/homoerotica. The subject matter may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I certainly appreciate the fact that it forces writers to work harder at selling the pairing, simply because it's so outrageous. Hell, I'll probably end up taking a stab at it myself if I ever get the time to continue "From The Ashes".

The Shows Must Go On

Okay, so for a long time I just didn't watch TV, you know? Too much going on in my life, and typically only one show has ever held my interest at a time ("Lost", "Joan of Arcadia" before that, and "Buffy" before that). I've decided my palette needs a little more variety, so here's what's going on with me right now. Prepare ship for ludicrous speed (and some rambling)...

1) "Lost" is dropped as of season 2, episode 20. I adored the first season largely because of its characters, so naturally the second season focused almost entirely on the hatches and the buttons and the Others, and I just don't care. The subplots dragged on and on, and you know a show's in deep trouble when Foxy Matthew and Holla-My-Way Josh aren't enough to keep me interested. This being a JJ Abrams production, I wouldn't be shocked to learn that the writers (which include Jeph Loeb, God help us all) are making it up as they go along. Has "Alias" taught them nothing? Other than "changing your hair color will not make you any less of a loser"? Or "Close-ups of Victor Garber recall The Head That Ate Texas"? Now, I was willing to ride out the slump in the hopes that things would improve towards the end of the season. And then they killed off Ana-Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), either because she got a DUI (according to the fans) or for shock value (according to the writers). Whether it's one or the other, it was a cheap way to dispose of a very interesting character, and practically the only woman on the show who wasn't a whimpering twit most of the time. To hell with it, then. They can stay lost for all I care.

2) "Veronica Mars": Oh my GOD, how did I miss this when it first started airing? I just finished the first season a few days ago and was utterly blown away. See, I always felt I would've enjoyed Nancy Drew if she wasn't such a bloody girl scout, and here comes Kristen Bell with a whole bunch of astonishingly good actors to pull off one of the most enthralling TV mysteries I've ever seen. It was truly phenomenal; I was watching four episodes a day towards the end of it. I'll be receiving the second season in short order, but if it's half as good as the debut, I'm in for some solid television right there.

3) Okay, I admit that "Supernatural" is more of a guilty pleasure than genuinely good. It hits my Buffy Nostalgia button (mind you, in The Canon According To Diana, that show ended with its third season), plus the main characters are hella hot and the writing only sucks a little bit (I've seen far worse, which probably says more about my tolerance levels than about the actual quality of the show). Sure, the fandom seems unusually preoccupied with The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Zip Code, but it's not a "Smallville" thing where the subtext practically overwhelms the text (yes, RedKryptonite!Clark, tell us again how you want to run away to Metropolis with Lex and how you like the way your names sound together. Zod no longer desires you to kneel, son of Jor-El - he can't be sure where you've been).

4) I've got "House", "Freaks and Geeks", "Hex" and "Prison Break" on the way - all shows with very good reputations, all very different. I'll probably post a comment or two on each as I get into it.

Movie Review: Jacob's Ladder

Or: "Hey, seeing Tim Robbins butt-naked would drive anyone crazy."

Ugh. No cookie for this one.

Once again, my taste for "rubber reality" psychodramas has led me to a film that starts up well enough and falls painfully flat at the end.

Jacob Singer is a survivor of the Vietnam War - he was seriously injured in a mysterious attack, and left for dead. An unknown amount of time later, he's in New York, working at the Post Office, living with a woman after divorcing his wife, and dealing with the premature death of his youngest son. Things seem to be going well, until Jacob starts seeing creatures that can only be described as demons - they follow him, they terrorize him, they get into his head and trap him in horrific hallucinations. And his flashbacks keep leading him back to that attack in Vietnam.

From what I've seen, this movie gets a lot of praise for going against the convention of delivering a straight denouement to the mystery. But that's not what actually happens - we do get a perfectly reasonable, rational explanation for what's going on, and then it's tossed out the window in favor of a decidedly less-straightforward resolution. And... well, it just doesn't work. The penultimate revelation makes too much sense, as it were: we're led to believe that Singer and his troop were exposed to a mind-altering substance, causing them to turn on each other - that substance is also responsible for his waking nightmares, his temporary bouts of insanity, his sudden fevers... all very nice and neat. Then, in the last five minutes of the movie, everything goes spiritual, and we basically get a "Sixth Sense" ending where Jacob's visions were actually delusions within delusions. And it's just too much to attribute to a single man's mind.

The acting is generally okay; Tim Robbins plays the part of the hysterical and tortured veteran rather well, though I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing his flabby ass. Most of the other characters don't hang around long enough to leave any kind of impression except for the uncredited Macaulay Culkin, who was young enough (and silent enough) to still be considered cute.

It would have made a great movie, if Adrian Lyne hadn't insisted on pulling a David Lynch on us at the last minute - as it stands, "Jacob's Ladder" is guilty of being deliberately obscure for the sake of pretense, of appearing to be more unfathomable than it really is.

Kingdom Hearts 2

Or: "I have to kill Xemnas how many times?!"

Well, I've beaten "Kingdom Hearts 2". Not completely - I didn't do the journal missions, and Sephiroth cut me to pieces with five blows - but I figure that'll give me something to do when I replay it. The big surprise here is that I really, really enjoyed it.

It's not that I disliked the first game, mind you. I thought it was a lot of fun. But I tend to prioritize story and characters over gameplay (big surprise, huh?), and "Kingdom Hearts" fell a bit flat in that respect. But the sequel provides a much more intricate storyline; it's not sophisticated on the level of a "Final Fantasy" game, but it certainly holds its own. This is largely because - in contrast to the previous game - "Kingdom Hearts 2" actually follows the basic plots of the Disney films it appropriates, inserting Sora and his companions into stories rather than trying to twist the setting to suit their presence. Ariel makes her deal with Ursula, Belle and the Beast are falling in love, Mulan is trying to infiltrate the Chinese army as a man, etc. At the same time, the Heartless are active on every world, and serve to tie all the separate narratives together. We also have the introduction of the Nobodies and Organization XIII, which serves to thicken the plot. In fact, they practically double the game's length: after defeating the Heartless on every world, you have to go through the sequence again, as Organization members arrive to cause more trouble. On top of that, we have body-switching, false identities and memories, revelations about the past and, of course, the unforgettable Battle of Hollow Bastion and the final fight against Xemnas... a lot's going on.

Character-wise, practically everyone gets bigger and better roles this time, from the Final Fantasy characters to Mickey to the inhabitants of each world. Even Kairi is marginally less annoying this time around, by virtue of actually doing something. Pete is an excellent choice for main villain in the first part of the game, considering the character's history. My only complaint is the return of Maleficent - considering she only plays a minor part that could have been assigned to anyone else, and also taking into account the fact that her resurrection is never properly explained, I don't see the point. We don't even learn what happens to her and Pete, which is a major disappointment. I do have to admit, though, that this game actually moved me to tears on two separate occasions: the first is when Sora boards the "ghost train" at Twilight Town, and the second is during the conclusion, the last time we see Roxas and Namine. There's a deep, understated poignancy in those moments that really got to me.

I still find the whole fortune-cookie-philosophizing to be annoying, though it's less amorphous than the previous game, in which Ansem's door to darkness turns out to be a door to light that's somehow infested with millions of Heartless (so, is it light or darkness? Pick one and stick to it).

All the basic gameplay elements of the previous game are present, but much improved: the Gummi Ship sections were refreshingly simple and enjoyable, the boss fights were all the more interesting thanks to the addition of Reaction commands, and leveling up is still a relatively painless process. I did think all the Drive Forms and Summons were a bit over the top - I doubt I used a tenth of the available support, simply because I didn't need it.

It's plainly obvious that the creative team went all-out in providing new and enthralling game worlds, specifically worlds you wouldn't necessarily expect to see based on the first game (Port Royal, the Pride Lands, and especially Space Paranoids - side note, Corey Burton does an amazing job recreating David Warner's voice for Commander Sark. I could barely tell the difference). There's a section called "Cornerstone Hill" where you go back in time to Disney circa "Steamboat Willie", and it's just the cutest thing ever. Atlantica was... well, it was different, which counts for something in a game already full of diverse elements. The musicals were tolerable, but hard to enjoy considering you have to be focused on reflexive button-pushing.

Final thought: this might be the slash addict in me talking, but someone should really tell Tetsuya Nomura that Sora seems to be much more interested in Riku than Kairi. For future reference, the hero should save the crying and the hand-holding and the drop to his knees for the girl, his supposed love interest. Unless you're trying to say something else. Which you probably aren't. But still, that's two games now where Kairi's pretty much an afterthought.

"Kingdom Hearts 2" is a fantastic game, one that tries (and succeeds) to give its players a wide array of experiences for a solid 36 hours of fun - and it's worth every minute.

Movie Review: Tron

I hadn't actually heard of "Tron" until the character and his world appeared in "Kingdom Hearts 2"; it looked fun, so I decided to check out the original.

And... well, it is fun. Flawed, but fun.

There's a bit of repetition throughout the movie, though I tend to wonder if that's part of the point (ie: the interactions between the MCP and Sark follow the same patterns over and over again, but they're programs, what else could they do?). The plot's also a touch on the simple side; it might have worked out better had the "real world" been ignored completely, thus making Tron the actual protagonist of the story. One of my favorite television series, "Reboot", did just that, and you never really knew if the "Users" existed, or what kind of entities they were. Here, the programs' quasi-religious belief in their creators is deflated because we see them, and we know they're only human. At the same time, Flynn's presence does create an interesting parallel between the real world and the digital world - as he tells Tron and Yori, things aren't really much better where he's from. The MCP is just another tyrant who wants everything to go his way, a human creation exhibiting human traits.

I think I was actually more impressed with the computer effects here than in something like "The Matrix" - for a film produced in 1982, "Tron" manages to do much with relatively little resources. Oh, I suppose it's crude by today's standards, but there's an aesthetic quality to the way the digital world was designed that still holds up today.

It's not a cinematic masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination; that said, it's enjoyable in its own way.

Webcomic A Go Go - UPDATED MAY 29

Or: "The Journey of a Thousand Strips Begins With Bloody Eyes"

(New thread: the old one got a bit messed-up during a recent edit.)

My progress report thus far:

* NeverNever
* Kara, Kali and the Wind
* Return To Green Hollow
* A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible
* Irrational Fears
* Evil Inc.
* Bad Blood
* The Jaded
* Alpha Shade
* The Green Avenger
* Nahast: Lands of Strife
* RPG World
* Something Positive
* VG Cats
* Queen of Wands
* The Order of the Stick
* Road Waffles
* Sinfest
* Nukees
* Diesel Sweeties
* PVP
* Mnemesis (My Paypal paranoia triumphs!)
* 8-Bit Theatre
* Gunnerkrigg Court
* Nausea
* Boy Meets Boy
* Basil Flint, P.I.
* Friendly Hostility
* No Rest For The Wicked
* 8/12 By Eleven
* Jack
* The Spiders
* Angst Technology
* Bob and George
* Questionable Content
* Demonology 101
* Kid Radd
* Unicorn Jelly
* Cutewendy
* Girly
* The Starship Destiny
* File 49
* 1/0
* Paper Eleven
* Exploitation Now
* Captain Spectre and the Lightning Legion
* Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire
* The Coffee Achievers
* Fallen Angels Used Books
* Mozhaets
* PHD Comics
* Least I Could Do
* Nana's Everyday Life
* Greystone Inn
* A Modest Destiny
* 319 Dark Street
* Bobbins
* Scary Go Round
* Arthur, King of Time and Space
* The Dreamland Chronicles
* Hellbound
* Starslip Crisis
* Wish3
* Lifelike
* Antihero For Hire
* Flatwood
* Captain SNES
* The Wandering Ones
* Strange Attractors
* Atland
* Dubious Tales
* Awesome Marcus Ninja
* Alien Loves Predator
* Everything Jake
* Checkerboard Nightmare
* Supernatural Law
* Femme Noir
* Kalmer Unwritten
* The Class Menagerie
* Roomies
* Coming Full Circe
* Boy Meets Hero
* Tom Sparks, Atomic Detective
* Home on the Strange
* Inverloch
* Nannah Laveaux
* Scandal Sheet
* Butterfly
* Weirdlings
* Mindmistress
* Achewood
* You'll Have That
* The Architect (when completed)
* The Hook (when completed)
* 5ideways (when completed)
* Avalon (if it's ever completed)
* RPGWorld (if it's ever completed)

Some reviews - though I won't be covering everything I've read:

UPDATED:

"Boy Meets Hero" (http://www.boymeetshero.com/): This could have worked. The most popular superhero in Golden Bay City is living a triple life - he's Blue Comet, defender of the people; he's Derek Maxwell, unassuming civilian; and he's Derek Maxwell, homosexual. But his closeted status is threatened when he falls in love with Justin Summers, an ordinary guy with a bit of a hero worship complex. So far so good, but the dialogue is simply atrocious. It reads like an especially corny romance comic from the '50s - "I can't believe I'm dating a superhero! He's so strong and muscular! I'm so lucky! I wuv you! No, I wuv you!" Gag me with a red-hot spoon.

"Home on the Strange" (http://www.homeonthestrange.com/): You know, the first thing that came to mind while reading this was Aerie's "Queen of Wands". It has a very similar style of humor, with the pop culture references and the gentle satire of geek culture, and the characters are entertaining both on their own and in their group dynamics. It's relatively new, so there's still plenty of room to see where it's going, but so far I like it a lot.

"Tom Sparks, Atomic Detective" (http://www.atomicdetective.com/): This is a perfect example of one thing I simply adore about webcomics - the willingness to experiment with genres and forms. "Tom Sparks", for example, combines noir murder mystery, superheroics and B-movie sci-fi to create an intriguing story that smoothly merges its various inspirations into a cohesive whole.


"Checkerboard Nightmare" (http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/): An absolutely hilarious strip by Kristofer Straub, poking fun at webcomics, celebrities, pop culture and more. Chex is a glory-hungry (and slightly reality-challenged) webcomics creator who wants to make it big, no matter what it takes. Unfortunately, his crazy schemes tend to cause more problems than solutions. This series is pretty impressive on a technical level, as Straub really manages to work every angle of the parody, from breaking the fourth wall to satirizing the very cornerstones of the medium - it's also a lot of fun to read.

"Supernatural Law" (http://www.webcomicsnation.com/supernaturallaw/): The high concept works - sort of an "Ally McBeal meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer" scenario where the lawyers represent "unusual" clients - but the writing falls flat, with the actual court cases being far too short and not taking enough advantage of the premise.

"Femme Noir": (http://www.supernaturalcrime.com/comics.html): According to the author, "Femme Noir" is a sort of female answer to Will Eisner's "The Spirit". This is true, but it works both ways: on the one hand, yes, there is a competent appropriation of the quasi-noir environment and tropes, and the unnamed protagonist is every bit the '40s femme fatale... on the other hand, the series lacks any particular depth in either plot or characterization - in line with the Eisner tradition, certainly, but perhaps geared more towards fans of that classic style than other readers.

"Awesome Marcus Ninja" (http://www.marcusninja.com/): "Meh" about sums it up. Some nice gags with the ninja stereotype, but nothing particularly remarkable, and it felt pretty inconsistent while reading it through.

"Dubious Tales" (http://www.dubious-tales.com/): Now this one is just plain fun. It's a bizarre soap opera, focusing on the lives of six quirky university students all living in the same house. The characters seem pretty weird at first, but it quickly becomes clear that you can identify with them all: they're very sympathetic and compelling despite of (or perhaps because of) their quirks. There's a bit of fantasy here, a bit of humor, a bit of romance... and it's all quite well-written.

"Captain SNES" (http://www.captainsnes.com/index.php): A massive disappointment. The hook for this series is that it's an indirect parody sequel to the '80s cartoon "Captain N: The Game Master" - decades after that champion brought peace to Videoland, a new threat arises, and a new hero is recruited to fight it. The time gap is represented by the use of Super Nintendo games such as "Chrono Trigger" and "Super Mario World", as opposed to the Captain N adventures which took place in settings such as "Castlevania" or "Kid Icarus". The only problem is that Captain SNES, also known as Alexander Williams, is a foul-mouthed, washed-up college student who's a far cry from the squeaky-clean hero of yesterdecade. It's a good premise, and the first few storylines are actually quite amusing (especially the "Weakest Link" parody), but it goes off the rails quite dismally after that. The plot loses all cohesion, bouncing back and forth, and the author's repertoire of humor turns out to be rather limited. It's a shame, because the ideas behind the execution had a lot of potential.

"Antihero For Hire" (http://www.antiheroforhire.com): Hmm. This one's on the borderline, really. On the one hand, it's interesting enough that I'm sticking around to see what happens next; on the other hand, aside from a few clever tricks there's not a lot here that isn't being done elsewhere. It's a superhero story, except the characters are largely aware of the conventions - you have the stereotypical mystery man who leaks bits of information, but here he acknowledges that yeah, he's doing it to be annoying and to drive the hero crazy. And the protagonist is in a rather amusing situation where he has one major nemesis completely out of his grasp, while every other villain he fights is comically incompetent. It's nice, I suppose, but not much more than that for now.

"Starslip Crisis" (http://www.starslipcrisis.com): An excellent sci-fi comedy by Kristofer Straub, about the crew of the first starship museum in the 35th century. Straub does a really good job poking fun at the conventions of science fiction and satirizing 21st-century pop culture, and his quirky characters are quite endearing.

"Arthur, King of Time and Space" (http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/): Hands-down, one of the best high concepts I've ever seen. King Arthur, having pulled Excalibur from the stone, finds the sword's power to be so great that his destiny is spread across various time periods. The author uses this premise to create a multi-genre retelling of the Arthurian legends: contemporary teen drama, space opera, fairy tale, western, hospital drama... each with parallels and differences, each telling the myth of Arthur in its own way. It's a magnificiently ambitious project, one that makes apt use of the enormous creative potential and even manages to squeeze in a daily gag.

"The Dreamland Chronicles" (http://www.thedreamlandchronicles.com/) is relatively new, but so far I really like what I see: when he was a child, Alexander Carter dreamed of adventures in a magical land of fairies and golems. Then one day the dreams stopped... until eight years later, when a token from his youth suddenly propels him back into the fantasy. Is it just wistful nostalgia for lost innocence? Or is Alex really moving between worlds?

"A Modest Destiny" (http://www.enderak.com/squidi/archive/zipfiles/archive_amd1.zip to archive_amd3.zip): Another "mixed feelings" webcomic. The first book, "Maxim Saves The World", is actually very good; cohesive adventure plot, strong humor, and a cast of very interesting characters. The rest is more problematic because the series makes a rather abrupt change in tone from comedy to dark fantasy midway through, and the shift hinges on a series of plot twists that come off a bit awkwardly. The third book is also incomplete, due to a lengthy hiatus on the author's part; however, production has recently resumed, so apparently it's going to be concluded at some point. I'm not too clear on whether we'll actually get closure to the entire series, though, so I recommend sticking with the first book - it stands nicely on its own.

"Greystone Inn" (http://www.greystoneinn.net/d/20000214.html) is the predecessor of "Evil Inc.", exhibiting much of the same style of humor, albeit modified to suit the different setting and characters. In fact, the two series are very similar indeed - they both work in a lot of allusions to pop culture, webcomics, movies and so on, they both use running gags to great success, and they both read very easily, whether they're mid-storyline or presenting standalong gags. Quite entertaining.

"Nana's Everyday Life" (http://manga.clone-army.org/nana.php): Easily the most disturbing webcomic I've ever read (pages 10-11 are particularly sickening). I'd love to be able to dismiss this as another excess of the anime/manga fandom... and yet... There's an almost naturalistic, Zola-esque flair to Nana's misfortunes - she sinks lower and lower and lower, and there's no real reason; people are ugly and depraved, but there's no psychology to explain it. You can't help being simultaneously revulsed and morbidly curious to see how bad things are going to get. It's not much of a tragedy because Nana isn't a very complex character - it's almost impossible to identify with her on an individual level. But as an icy, heartless story of a fall? Upsettingly compelling.

"The Coffee Achievers" (http://www.coffeeachievers.net/): Very frustrating, because while the story itself is good, the abrupt and unfulfilling conclusion pretty much blows the whole thing to pieces. When writing an ongoing series, it's no big deal to misfire on an arc or two; finite stories, on the other hand, carry a lot of weight towards the end, and this one dropped the ball in no uncertain terms.

"Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire" (http://www.dominic-deegan.com): A fantasy epic by Michael Terracciano that hits all the right marks and makes a few new ones of its own. Deliberately bad puns, demons, sex, magic... it's all here.

"1/0" (http://www.undefined.net/1/0/): There's a very nice idea at the core of this strip, but I found myself losing patience with the story, which seemed to just drag on without ever really taking off - by the 150th strip I just tuned out. It just didn't click for me.

"Kid Radd" (http://www.kidradd.com/): Excellence in a delightful little package. This original sprite-style comic dealing with video games, cyberspace and the quest for free will is, in my eyes, perfectly representative of the great strength of webcomics: the capacity to do so much with so few resources. Imagination is the only limitation, and Dan Miller certainly demonstrates how far you can go by providing such a funny, action-packed, well-constructed saga.

"Demonology 101" (http://faith.rydia.net/101.html): This webcomic borrows heavily from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in terms of character dynamics, philosophical debate, the mix of action and banter, and tight, cohesive plotting with a strong emphasis on foreshadowing future developments. The protagonist, Raven, is a 16-year-old demon girl trying to find herself in the human world. At the same time, she's at the center of a complex plot designed to tip the scale in the ongoing conflict between humanity and demonkind. Author Faith Erin Hicks does a remarkable job of appropriating Joss Whedon's strengths: recurring characters intrigue us and excite us when they reappear, Raven herself is very sympathetic, her human best friends provide much-needed comic relief, and while the mythology of the series is a bit less coherent than the Lovecraft-oriented Buffyverse, it nevertheless stands well on its own. Hicks manages to improve upon the formula by having her villains stick around for more than a single storyline - one of the very few flaws in Whedon's early seasons was the tendency to allocate one archvillain per season, severely limiting our exploration of these figures. Conversely, "Demonology 101" falters when it comes to depicting Raven's school life; aside from the evil principle and her two best friends, it often seems as though there isn't another human soul attending high school. Taking it all into consideration, though, I recommend this series for a highly enjoyable read.

"Questionable Content" (http://www.questionablecontent.net/): http://dianakingston.livejournal.com/23200.html

"Bob and George" (http://www.bobandgeorge.com/): Lunacy. Utter, total, glorious insanity. And I loved every minute of it. Who knew time travel and alternate dimensions could be so funny? :)

"No Rest For The Wicked" (http://www.forthewicked.net/) is a lovely "remix" of popular folklore - a bit like Vertigo's "Fables", but much darker and with a much more concentrated scope: small cast, one primary plot rather than several competing for page space... it reads very easily, and I find myself intrigued by characters who, by all rights, should annoy me terribly.

"Friendly Hostility" (http://friendlyhostility.com/) is K. Sandra Fuhr's follow-up to her previous webcomic, "Boy Meets Boy". The series stars BMB veterans Fox Maharassa and his borderline-sociopathic boyfriend Collin Sri'vastra, along with a host of secondary characters including Nyarlathotep the Crawling Chaos, underage slave Bootsie and Fox's "uncle" Rafi, a con artist who moonlights as a Satanist priest. Fuhr's skills have developed nicely over time; "Friendly Hostility" retains its predecessor's range of humor, but it moves out of the romantic comedy genre BMB was so deeply embedded within. Granted that the latter was a great success, but as Fuhr herself discovered, you can only take the story of two people so far. Conversely, the first storyline of "Friendly Hostility" (titled "Problematic") begins years before either Fox or Collin are born. That's Fuhr's mission statement: this series isn't about Fox and Collin, the way "Boy Meets Boy" was about Mikhael and Harley. Here the emphasis is on a collection of quirky, funny characters; it's about the Maharassa family, and Collin's oppressive parents, and the demon living in their fridge and the slave they won at poker, and nobody really cares that Fox and Collin are lovers - least of all Fox and Collin themselves.

"Queen of Wands" (http://www.queenofwands.net/): I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, Kestrel is a very engaging protagonist, the humor is almost always dead-on, and author Aeire successfully tells a big, complete story in a relatively small amount of time (the strip runs from July 2002 to February 2005 on a tri-weekly basis, about 450-ish strips in total). On the other hand, I did sometimes run into credibility problems, as characters occasionally got entangled in some pretty unbelievable situations (ie: the revelation about Felix and Marie, which really came out of nowhere and ultimately wasn't necessary). As the series progressed, a heavy dependence on "DRAMA!" came about; I honestly lost count of the number of times Shannon was hospitalized, and Kestrel's joy de vivre gradually dies out, which hurt the overall atmosphere IMO. Granted that people grow and change - that's probably the most important theme of the work, and the crossovers with "Something Positive" accentuated it brilliantly by juxtaposing Kestrel and Davan, the man who will never change - but I think where Aeire went wrong was having almost everyone change in the same way, for largely the same reasons. It's a bit reminiscient of the sixth season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", in which Marti Noxious interpreted the idea of "growing up" as "making everyone miserable", an umbrella that has to be bent rather out of shape to affect diverse characters in the same way. Angela is almost unrecognizable by the time the story ends, even though (by her own admission) nothing's actually happened to her that hasn't happened before. All in all, though, it's a rather enjoyable story, and the ending is particularly strong.

"Boy Meets Boy" (http://boymeetsboy.keenspot.com/) is another one that needs its own post, both because it's really good and because I have a lot to say about it. http://dianakingston.livejournal.com/18729.html

"PVP" (http://www.pvponline.com): I understand why so many people like this. I see how it works. But I don't think I'm the kind of reader Scott Kurtz is targeting.

"Something Positive" (http://www.somethingpositive.net/index.html) has its own post here: http://dianakingston.livejournal.com/18314.html

"Nausea" (http://www.jacobmercy.com): Okay, I can't be objective about this, since it's written by a friend of mine. It's minty-new (only three strips so far), but it's got the zing the best humor strips are made of.

"8-Bit Theater" (http://www.nuklearpower.com/) is another parody of RPGs, this time using actual game sprites from "Final Fantasy". It's pretty funny, and the author does some very inventive things with a handful of pixels, but the gag storylines have a tendency to run too long and wear the jokes thin.

"Gunnerkrigg Court" (http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/index2.php): Eric Burns describes this webcomic as "Harry Potter as written by Lemony Snicket and set in an Industrial Complex designed by Lewis Carroll." That about sums it up, really: a surreal, steampunk-esque series that tells its stories in a very, very low-key fashion, which suits it perfectly.

"Sinfest" (http://sinfest.net/strips_page.htm) is a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, it's certainly got a streak of irreverent humor that makes it fun reading... but if you read a month's worth of strips, you pretty much get everything and anything "Sinfest" offers. It's very, very repetitive in terms of the gags used - more or less the same five or six jokes told in a cycle, with mild alterations. Which makes it not exactly the kind of series you want to follow in perpetuity. I recommend reading the first month or two, but don't go further if you're looking for anything more... well, more.

"The Order of the Stick" (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript) is a thing of utter brilliance. It's based on the "Dungeons and Dragons" paradigm, with which I'm not very familiar, but the humor works for non-gamers as well. The premise concerns a band of adventurers living in this RPG world of fantasy - but they're aware of the "rules" of D&D. It works far, far better than it has any right to, and while the structure may be a bit confusing (the strips aren't clearly divided in terms of chapters or storylines, even though there is a clear chain of successive plot arcs), it's one of the best webcomics I've come across so far. EDIT: This is so good I actually went to my LCS and asked them to order the two OotS trade collections currently available. I paid for an otherwise-free webcomic. That's how good it is. :)

"Kara, Kali and the Wind" (http://www.webcomicsnation.com/mcohen/kara/series.php?view=archive&chapter=363&mpe=1&step=1) is a short but evocative fairy tale that ends exactly at the right place.

"NeverNever" (http://www.mopsy.com/archives.html) is a bit problematic because of what was going on behind the scenes. Basically, it's a comedy story where the Faeries have declared war on humanity, but because of the size difference, no one's actually noticed. It's very lighthearted, and makes rather interesting use of Arthurian iconography. The problems started when the creators lost interest, bringing it in and out of publication several times until finally ending it mid-story. Fortunately, the second-to-last strip still allows for some kind of conclusion, and it's still a fun read.

"Return To Green Hollow" (http://www.webcomicsnation.com/gc/greenhollow/series.php?view=archive&chapter=1047) is another short story modeled after fairy tales, but in a much more symbolic way: a young girl is enacting a bedtime story her late grandmother told her, while trying to move past her grief. It falters a bit because of the boy's presence - he's not really necessary to the plot because it comes down to the confrontation between the girl and the Forest Queen, and the emotional/mental subtext involved. Not a fatal flaw, though.

"A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible" (http://www.alessonislearned.com/lesson001.html) is too fucking weird for my tastes.

"Irrational Fears" (http://www.webcomicsnation.com/uvernon/irrationalfears/series.php?view=archive&chapter=787&mpe=1&step=1): WOW. This was absolutely amazing. Ursula Vernon, writing herself as a female chupacabra with a beret, embarks on a delightfully surreal quest to learn about the monsters she's afraid of. What lies in the shadows under her bed? Excellent story.

"Bad Blood" (http://badbloodcomic.com/) starts off well enough, but falters in the second act when additional players are brought in. There's also a slight disconnect between the various subplots, in that the main character does some pretty terrible things one moment but seems to completely forget about them the next.

"Evil Inc." (http://www.evil-comic.com/) is a comedy series about corporate supervillains. It's highly intertextual (the secretary keeps getting calls from Kang demanding a refund on a time machine, Dr. Druid complaining about the typo in his "Summon Two Huge Beasts" spell, etc.), but even if you don't get the references, it's still quite funny. A few gags don't work, but most of them do, to great effect.

"The Jaded" (http://www.graphicsmash.com/series.php?name=thejaded) didn't really work for me; a bit too pedestrian, and featuring characters that weren't very distinct or easy to tell apart.

"Alpha Shade" (http://www.alpha-shade.com/www/index2.htm) also didn't click with me, though I'm having a hard time pinning down why. It's certainly highly stylized, but it failed to speak to me.

"VG Cats" (http://www.vgcats.com) can be very, very funny... provided you're familiar with the various video games they're spoofing. If you're not, don't bother - the jokes don't work otherwise. Fortunately, the archives list the games the strips are based on, and there's no sequential narrative, so you can pick and choose.

Taking A Stand on "The Last Stand"

Okay. I've seen it. My thoughts, in no particular order:

What's clearest to me is that this film is an intentional dismantling of the previous Singer movies. The characters he built up, Ratner tears down: they get passively killed off anticlimactically and with little follow-up, or they get depowered and wander about, or they become incredibly unsympathetic, or they just barely turn up at all. We don't get much closure for anyone - love triangles go unresolved, and do we even find out if Pyro survived? Or what happened to Jean's parents? Nope.

Had this been balanced out with the ascent of some fresh blood, it probably would have been a bit more acceptable. But Ratner's additions aren't particularly fleshed out either. Kitty's a cipher, Juggernaut is obnoxious, we don't know anything about Madrox, and I never would have guessed Dania Ramirez was Callisto because her name isn't spoken once. This is a recurring problem for a lot of cameo characters: their powers and appearances are changed, and no one speaks their names, so the effect of their presence is muted at best. Angel - supposedly the character around whom the plot is constructed - has no real presence to speak of. The only new character who really stood out was Beast, played surprisingly well by Kelsey Grammer. The problematic situation is hardly a shock, of course - the writing was on the wall the minute this movie was revealed to have a core cast twice the size of its predecessors. There was no way any character would be explored for more than a scene or two.

As I'm sure was obvious to any readers of the current comics, the plot is an odd mix of Claremont's Dark Phoenix Saga and Whedon's "Gifted". The basic premise actually works a bit better than Whedon's story by basing the mutant cure off Leech, a character we already know can cancel out mutation. It's a nice touch. Unfortunately, having set up the whole ethical dilemma surrounding the cure and its use... well, it doesn't really go anywhere. Magneto duly stirs up resentment while Storm is vehement that they can't be cured because there's nothing wrong with them, and that's all well and good, except that by film's end the X-Men are using the cure against other mutants. Okay, one mutant specifically, but still. It's a moment that should be fraught with emotion, because they're basically doing something that's anathema to them, but nobody particularly seems to mind. Hell, some of them gloat over it.

The Phoenix... well, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that the introduction and explanation are glossed over, and fail to convince: we're supposed to believe Jean Grey had a split personality from childhood, caused by Xavier, which somehow never manifested itself, and that only the Phoenix persona could access her full potential. Since this is the third movie in a series, it's inevitable that we look back in light of this new info, and it just doesn't mesh - the implication in the prior films was that Jean's enormous power boost was caused by her exposure to Magneto's machine at the end of the first movie. Granted, this was never made explicit (presumably because that was how Singer was going to explain the Phoenix) so Ratner isn't going against anything that's been established, but he doesn't manage to address this issue. Jean was already using Phoenix-level power in the previous movie, and she wasn't going all psycho then.

The good news? When the Phoenix takes action, it's magnificent. Again, the size of the cast and the shoddy plotting ensure that she only has two major displays of power, but those displays give us a Phoenix we've never seen before: majestic, silent, destructive and utterly terrifying. A lot of it is due to Famke Janssen, whose rendition of a statuesque goddess rings true. CGI also helps elevate her look, and the use of her power, to disturbing levels. I really liked it, and in my mind this proves that Ratner and Avi Arad were very, very wrong when they insisted that the Phoenix plot couldn't sustain the whole movie. In point of fact, Ratner doesn't quite manage to overcome the absurdity inherent in Phoenix's alliance with Magneto. As the primary villain in the film, he's required to make all these grand gestures of power... except we already know Jean can do better. But until Magneto's out of the picture, she just stands there staring into the distance. Had the film been more about her confrontation with the X-Men, and less about Magneto's crusade to make things go boom, there might have been space for more in-depth characterization, and more spectacular use of the Phoenix.

All in all... about average, I suppose. A major step down from the subtle complexities of the Singer films, and I think one big reason for the mixed opinions I've seen so far is that "The Last Stand" requires you to put its predecessors aside, but doesn't break from those predecessors completely. Fans of the Singer movies have to watch it all get ripped apart here, but these are still the same characters, even if they're going nowhere near where Singer might have taken them. Personally, I feel a bit cheated - this is not the film the Dark Phoenix Saga deserved, and might have been under different external circumstances - but it's not an incompetent train wreck, either. If Ratner can be accused of anything, it's of ending a rather good film trilogy with a concluding chapter that can best be described as "okay".