Jack’s a pretty understanding guy. For instance, before he dropped the ball and was totally the cause of his wife’s death, he used to make her pancakes. And then this week, he proved to be a genuine Sir Lancelot. At the end of the episode, he was totally okay with consoling a crazy chick who when she isn’t mauling Russian rapists and attempting suicide , apparently likes to stab him.

Jack, you fucking Romeo.

When Dana Walsh is walking through CTU in her slinky dress, everything is right with the world. No, seriously. When she was on the screen this episode, for but a moment, I remembered why I loved her so much. Why they don’t have her running around with a gun, or at the very least, not dealing with an ex-con boyfriend is beyond me. But no such luck, she’s involved with helping some guy she should have turned in a couple of hours ago with some bank heist, which goes understandably poorly.

This entire subplot is written so predictably, you can actually just walk away from the screen while it’s going on. Go take a shit and make a sandwich. Then wait for that sandwich to digest, and shit that out. You’ll still be waiting for the Goofy Band of Yokels and Starbuck to get off the screen.

Of course they fuck everything up, probably because they were mesmerized by indoor lighting which they don’t have in their shacks in Alabama or something.

The President of That Made Up Country continues fucking things up for his people the entire episode. The guy is a complete douchebag. He goes from being someone you hope Freddie Prince Jr. can save to someone you actively campaign to get shot. He’s just running around having people taken in for questioning and not being given any rights. In fact, he has his Security Detective Guy taken in for questioning, just because the dude was all “Hey, you shouldn’t be doing this, these aren’t the principals I agreed to when I voted for you or something.”

And then he patted Security Guy on the head and told him he was cute for thinking political figures actually had principals.

Meanwhile President Taylor is all “Hey, you can’t just interrogate everyone without due process! Only we do that!”

An what the fuck is up with President The Guy From Slumdog Millionaire’s glasses? Is he secretly a hipster? Is he twittering something and trying to order some tight jeans? I’m confused. At least Jack took off his glasses, those things were distracting.

Ah fuck, never mind.

I actually resent how awesome the last four minutes or so of the episode were. Yeah man, they were fucking out of control. After three episodes of having Vladimir dry-hump her, storm in on her improbable showers, and ask her to cut bread – what the fuck – Renee finally stabs the living shit out of him. And how! I mean, holy shit. Listen chick, take it from someone who takes it, you need some Lamictal. Your mood swings are making me look stable, and that’s no small feat.

I hadn’t been shocked by something that happened on 24 in a long time, but the fact that she stabbed poor Vlad in the eyeball and then used him as a pin cushion had me aghast. And then she stabbed Jack! Holy Jesus Christ! Now this is what I’m talking about.

Thankfully it was only Jack Bauer she stabbed, and not a mere mortal. If she had stabbed me, I would have been rolling around on the ground screaming “My fucking guts! My insides! Are they still inside!? Do I look like Mel Gibson in Braveheart! Ow, oh shit! Just ’cause you got crazy ass titties don’t mean you can stab me!”

Jack though? Naw, he wasn’t even sweating it.

Though they’ve only gone into it in fanfiction, it’s well known that Jack Bauer was trained by an army of chimpanzee ninja assassins in his early teenage years. Henceforth, his precision aim and dexterity are unbelievable, which is why he was able to pull that dang knife out of his belly and throw it into the throat of Vlad’s crony without blinking. It was god damn impressive. As for the wound itself? Don’t even mean a thang. Bauer kicked a heroin addiction in season three, and self-resurrected after being tasered to death in season two. I guarantee by the end of the next episode, his stomach is actually stronger than it was previously.

Also little known fact? Jack Bauer’s dad was Wolverine. Healing factor like woah.

Here’s hoping Bauer gets to put the stink down on some more Russian stormtroopers next episode, while Renee does god knows what. She’s probably going to stab Bubba Gump Hastings back at CTU and try and hang herself with Chloe’s phone cord. I approve.

• LOST Valentine’s Day Cards
  Epic LOST-themed Valentine’s Day cards.
• DC Unveils The Last Covers to Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne
  Yeah, gumshoe detective Bruce Wayne isn’t doing much for me.
• Prog Dorks Like Me: Listen to The Alaya Conscious
  If you don’t play World of Warcraft, worship John Petrucci, or imagine yourself gallantly crossing a stream of time and space aboard a beautiful intergalactic horse while doing math equations, this band probably isn’t for you. But for the rest of us? Hell yeah!
• World of Warcraft Has Lost Half A Million Nerds
  They’re probably dead underneath their computer desk, covered in crumbs and crusty fingers. That’s where you’ll find me.
• The Spider-Man Reboot Will Be In 3D
  Executives figure if it saved Dancing With the Alien Wolves, it can help Emo Parker.

Welcome to a special mid-week edition of the Friday Brew Review! As a high school teacher, my life seems to include a number of regularly-scheduled compromises — meager wages, hours spent on projects for students who couldn’t care less, the frustration of not being allowed to swear for eight hours a day, etc. But every now and then, an occupational perk seems to hop out of the shadows and give me a hug.

Today’s embrace comes in the form of a snow day.

Keep Reading »

[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

I love comics — honestly and earnestly, at that. As such, I definitely spend more money on Wednesdays than I should. Not only do I pick up  titles that will be remembered for years to come, but some of their more timid brethren as well.

It is with this preface that I present OL’s comic of the week: Ultimate Armor Wars #4

As the final issue of a limited series taking place within the Ultimate universe, this book is hardly “mandatory reading.” In fact, I can’t even remember whether or not I’ve read all three of the preceding issues. Fortunately, this isn’t really of consequence and the comic could work fine as a one-shot about Tony Stark.

How can this be? Three word answer — Warren fucking Ellis.

While I’m sure that the story would’ve made more sense if I had carefully followed the entire Ultimate Armor Wars series, Ellis demonstrates his complete mastery of paneled images in a mere twenty-two pages. Unlike most comic book writers, Ellis can create works of legitimate merit (such as Doktor Sleepless and Transmetropolitan) and still triumphantly return to the world of capes and superpowers. So even though I can imagine Warren Ellis banging out the script for Ultimate Armor Wars in a thirty minute haze of Red Bull-induced freneticism, it’s still stronger than most of the garbage released on hump-day.

So, what’s the plot? Again, I’m not even completely sure. I know that it involves Tony Stark fighting people who wear knock-off Iron Man suits, having sex with a babe who double-crosses him and realizing that his grandfather is a cyborg. And not just any cyborg, but one that threatens his life in the hopes of learning the secret of some technological wonder. It’s chaotic, kooky and all over the place, but somehow it works.

Again, what makes the book work is the writer’s grasp of the Tony Stark character. While it seems easy for  creators to make  Stark either too much of a hero or too much of an arrogant playboy, Ellis has stumbled upon the perfect balance. Take note of the following bits of dialogue, muttered by Iron Man in the midst of battle;

“I quite literally cannot afford for you all to get killed. I’m not as rich as I used to be.”

“Dammit — everywhere I go, people in metal suits trying to turn me into dog food–”

Hell, Ellis even gives Stark a great line to describe his grandfather;

“Like Ernest Borgnine in an ill-advised love triangle with farming machinery and the wreckage of a Lincoln Continental.”

If you’re weary of spoilers and think you might  buy this book, stop reading right now. But Ultimate Armor Wars #4 gets the feature in Images & Words because it ends with one of the best monologues I’ve seen attributed to Tony Stark in awhile. Having saved the day, the billionaire-genius heads to a bar to toss back a few shots and shed a tear.  Below are the words of a man who realizes that his capacity for good is only rivaled  by his capacity for evil.

Here’s to killing things.

Here’s to stamping out evil. Heh.

Here’s to liars and cheats and what they deserve.

Here’s to the life of a bachelor and an orphan.

Here’s to saving the world.

From me.

Oh, God.

Ellis knows just which question to ask – Is Tony Stark a sad superhero or an inspiring drunk?

Fortunately (for the readers), he seems to be both.

Remember last week on LOST when the show returned to the events of the original season, albeit in what may be a different universe? Yeah, unfortunately this week it also returned to the narrative structure of the first season. It went nowhere, featured pointless and painful dialogue, and predominantly featured the Whorey Freckled Chick being whorey and freckled. Oh yeah, and waving a gun around on the run, again.

I knew this episode was in trouble when my friend Dave asked what the episode title was. I fumbled around with the remote and brought up the episode info, “What Kate Does”. I should have known we were fucked at that moment. For starters, even if they were trying to be cleverly simplistic, the title wasn’t nearly as intriguing as LA X, and secondly, no one in their right mind gives a fuck about what Kate does, even if it takes place in Dimension YYZ, where she shoots laser beams out of her nipples.

The main portion of the storyline in 2007 was dedicated to torturing the crap out of Sayid and drilling the viewer into misery with insipid dialogue. Sayid’s back from the dead, but because they needed some fluff to fill an episode with, they beat around the bush the entire time and don’t tell you what’s up. After Jack finds out that Sayid has been seared with a hot poker and had his nipples electrocuted, he storms into Dogen’s mystical and beautiful laboratory. Listen, I’m all for mysterious guys, but he’s always standing around playing with something just to get me to be like “Oooh, you’re so mysterious and clever! At first it was some potions for your LARPing, and now you’re spinning a basebal!”

Jack calls him out on his bullshit, and there’s actually a great scene coming about. Dogen brings up the various pains that Jack has been responsible for inflicting on others. Dogen just seems to want to guilt-trip Jack, but nevertheless it resonates with him, and compounds the guilt he’s been feeling about failing as a leader, letting people he cares about down, and getting Juliet and Sayid all dead and stuff.

But then? Then the scene’s dialogue turns into something out of one of the putrid Matrix sequels.

Dogen tells Jack that he must give Sayid a pill, and the expository conversation made me want to kill myself:

Jack: Why should I give him this pill?

Dogen: Your friend is sick.

Jack: Huh? Dude just came back from the dead.

Dogen: He is sick.

Jack: Uh, with that?

Dogen: He’s infected.

Jack: With what? Jesus fucking Christ, TELL ME.

Dogen: An infection.

Jack: Let me get this straight, we just wasted the viewer’s time drawing out the idea that Sayid is infected…with an infection? You’re fucking with me, right? This can’t really be the script.

Thematically, the scene doesn’t bother me. It calls on Jack’s concept of noble leadership, and asks him to once again entrust in faith to guide him to the right answer. As we find out though, all it was really guiding him towards was poisoning his friend. I can’t help but think that Dogen the Mystical Asshole is actually correct, but the manner in the plot device is structured is retarded. He has to have Jack take the pill, because the pill will only work if Sayid takes it from him willingly, and only Jack can get him to do that, and uh, and uh, and uh.

The whole “overwrought and painful mystery” device was overdone in 2005. It’s the last season, there’s no need for it.

Brief Aside: There’s no need for Mac to be on LOST. None. I couldn’t stop imagining him doing sweet karate moves and teaching them to the Others. Good thing I have a DVR, because everyone in my room was laughing.

The centerpiece of LA X saw Kate and Claire rocking out in Dimension X. Kate goes from being on the run to sitting in a hospital room with Claire while Ethan assures her that her baby is going to be alright. Again the theme of destiny is brought up, and we’re left to wonder why the two of them are even trusting one another. One moment Kate is holding a gun to Claire’s head, the next moment she’s walking up to the Adopting Family’s house with her. It seems far-fetched at first, until you begin to wonder if there is a residual trust bleeding over from the dimension where Oceanic 815 went down. It’s the only way I can fathom there being any semblance of trust between the Crazy Chick with the Gun and Claire. I may be reaching, but there seem to be distinct moments where Kate searches trying to figure out if she recognizes Claire, only to give up on the thorn in her skull.

Throughout the storyline, they also swing the Destiny Hammer. It strikes anyone with a pulse with an emphatic reverberation, and you’re like “Okay, I get it, it’s destiny.” After all, I mean, what are the chances that the adoptive family doesn’t want to take Aaron, because they broke up? Dur, it’s like Claire was supposed to take care of Aaron! OMFG.

Here’s my problem with them using Claire and Kate as a means to interweave the two realities: I don’t care about either of them. Kate is a whore who is trying to get into Sawyer’s pants moments after his girlfriend died. And Claire? Claire disappeared awhile ago, and I didn’t really care about her then. She was just sort of there. It’s neat to see that these characters have an interwoven destiny no matter if the plane crashes or not, and it’s neat to see that Aaron and Claire were meant to be together, but as far as characters go, it just wasn’t that exciting for me.

Which makes the idea of Claire returning on the Island not that spectacular to me. That said, I am intrigued by the idea of an infection being spread throughout the Island. You got me, writers. Claire looks oh-so very Rousseau wielding her gun and shooting the punks trying to take down Jin. And if you consider the similarities – they’re both women who birthed on the Island, then it gets even more intriguing. Was Rousseau infected as well?

I don’t assume the rest of the episodes are going to be as drawn out and as uneventful as this one, Christ I hope not. I rationalized the first few seasons as laying the groundwork for the fireworks for the rest of the show. Pepsibones brought up that this is one of “those episodes that wouldn’t be so bad if you were watching on DVD”, and I agree. But the problem is that we’re rushing towards a climax at this point, not setting the stage for the series. There’s only a handle of episodes left, and I hate seeing one being wasted without more to show for it.

Here’s to next week.

• The 24 Movie is Real?
  Here’s hoping Billy Ray is better than the glue-huffing monsters writing this season.
• Final Fantasy XIII Is Receiving Xbox 360 Bundle in North America
  Jesus Christ, it’s hot. Not as sleek as the PS3 bundle, but it still gets the parts engorged.
• Haters Gon’ Hate: My Top 10 Nicolas Cage Movies
  My friend Patrick Cooper discusses the utter genius that is Nicholas Cage. Dude gave me Adaptation, Raising Arizona, and The Rock. He can churn out all the Ghost Riders he wants after that.
• Bioshock 2 Came Out Today
  I won’t be able to play it for roughly a zillion years, but I can’t help wanting to see how they pull off the sequel to a rather tightly-bound story, needing nothing added to it. Other than a more satisfying ending to the original. Oh, I said it!
• Bruce Wayne Looks Really Dumb As A Pirate and Cowboy
  Yo, listen. Between LOST and Captain America: Reborn, I’m officially fatigued with time-warping, trans-dimensional takes on my favorite characters.
• Now Us Men Can Count Our Own Sperm!
  Welcome to the future, may you be fertile!

For your enjoyment — Devin Townsend Project performing By Your Command

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing Devin Townsend in concert. To put it mildly, it was one of the most inspiring performances I’ve seen in a long time. Thanks to YouTube user superskum, you can sample the wonder that is the Great Canadian Metal/Nerd Hero.

While most of HevyDevy’s catalogue is worthwhile, Ziltoid the Omniscient is one of my all-time favorite records. At times, I think it may have been written just to suit my tastes –  a concept album about alien invasions, black coffee, metaphysics and puppets? What’s not to love?

Even without the skullet, Devin Townsend is a goddamn hero.

Choker #1

The first issue of Choker is coming out this week, and I’m jazzed because I’m a huge glutton for Ben Templesmith’s work. You may know him as the artist and co-creator of 30 Days of Night, or the co-creator of the barely-ever-released but no less awesome Fell. There’s something about his artwork that I can really get into, and so when I heard that he was putting this out with writer Ben McCool I was stoked. And if that wasn’t enough, McCool’s explanation of what the title was about sounded as though it came from the rotting canals of my own brain:

I guess I’d better lay down the disclaimers, then: language used is dastardly goings-on are repellent, and the characters are so lewd you’ll feel like only an industrial-strength jet wash will be able to rinse your tarnished conscience clean. Put simply, we’re hoping to give Bill O’Reilly a Rush Limbaugh-resembling hernia.

It’s a rotting, filthy noir fable. How the fuck can you not get amped for that? Wait, you mean you’re not a glutton for perversity and depravity? I can’t relate to that.

Batman and Robin #8

It really saddens me that Batman and Robin, a title that was created for Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne couldn’t twelve or so issues before delving back into the monotonous resurrection of Bruce Wayne. And if that isn’t enough, consider the fact that we know the actual return is coming in a stand alone title, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. So what the fuck is going on in the pages of Batman and Robin? Why, they’re trying to bring Bruce back to life! It all just screams of redundancy and lack of progress.

Who the fuck knows, I could be wrong.

It is upsetting to me that an interesting storyline involving Grayson trying to wear the cloak and embrace the burden of filling his pseudo-father’s shoes has been canned so quickly into its run. Whether or not the timeline was intentional or not, I am the unhappy because everything is switching so quickly back to the Bruce Wayne type thang. There’s some speculation that Bruce could return and not be Batman, or even that the dude’s displaced spirit is going to be caged in the body of Damian and, and, and…I don’t fucking know, I don’t care.

So this week we find the emaciated, laser-blasted corpse of Bruce rising from the Lazarus Pit. I don’t need ingenuity or textual analysis to figure out that it isn’t going to work, I only need to look at the list of DC events this year to figure out that this attempt is going to be a steaming failure pile.

That’s the bad. The good? Well, the storyline is being written by Morrison, who has been Batman’s curator for the past few years, and as usual, I dig it. If you want to look aside all the annoying seemingly financial aspects of the storyline, Morrison continues to drill into Grayson’s psyche for interesting examination. While reading this newest arc where Grayson so badly wants to succeed in bringing Bruce back, there comes a debate. Is Grayson really bringing back Bruce out of a promise to be there and protect him always, or is it a selfish motivation, because he can’t handle manning the wheel of the Batmobile himself?

Grayson’s motivations have been interesting throughout. The dude had to don the Cape almost out of necessity, to prevent a pack of assholes from Damian to Jason Todd inheriting it. And since wearing it, he has been fumbling through the motions, trying to distance the symbol of the Cape from the symbol of the Man who previously wore it.

Hit-Monkey #1

Listen, it’s a fucking Monkey Assassin. You’re not sold? You’re saying it isn’t worth your three-dollars? C’mon now! I don’t know anything about Hit-Monkey, other than the cover features a monkey dual-wielding pistols in some dramatic pose. Apparently he’s from one of the seventy-three Deadpool titles that I don’t read. I’m so out of touch. I’m like the Awkward Uncle of comic book readers, I think I’m still hip but I’m sitting here in an Age of Apocalypse t-shirt covered in chunky peanut butter and wearing no pants.

That said, I bet it’s somewhere between “entertaining” and “not worth my money”. I’ll give it a whirl, since I’m comics-curious. And when I say I’ll give it a shot, I mean I’ll buy it and it’ll sit in the rest of my backlog, gathering dust and grimy fingerprints.

The entire week in Marvel seems dedicated to variant covers featuring Deadpool, and I’m on a nostalgic trip. I remember the good ole days when everything had a variant cover. If it wasn’t a tin-foil, ultra-rare, holographic, four-dimensional cover featuring Savage Dragon, I didn’t want anything to do with that shit! And it seems the good days have returned! Yes! This week you can get Deadpool variant covers of shit like Amazing Spider-Man, Invincible Iron Man, Wolverine Savage, X-Men Forever, and yes, more.

This will cure the ailments of the comic book industry! Variant covers! It’s all so simple, why didn’t they try this like fifteen years ago. Oh, they did. Collect them all to be a true asshole!

I’m going to let you guys in on a little secret. I text, eat, write, and occasionally fantasize while driving. So when I read this news while driving and eating a crumb cake, I almost veered off the road more than usual. Every nerd with half a hard-on for comic book movies worships at the altar of Christopher Nolan.   He gave us Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and kicks unfathomable amounts of ass. This news has me running around in a frothy geek insanity:

Via Deadline Hollywood:

Warner Bros is trying to ready  its DC Comics stalwart Superman to soar again on the Big Screen, and the studio has turned to Chris Nolan to mentor development of the movie. Our insiders say that the  brains behind rebooted Batman has been asked to play a “godfather” role and ensure The Man Of Steel gets off the ground after a 3 1/2-year hiatus.

…

Let us emphasize that Superman 3.0 is in the early stages of development. And we doubt Nolan would direct.  This wouldn’t be a sequel to Superman Returns but a completely fresh franchise.

It doesn’t even matter to me that he probably won’t direct it. If you were like me and hated the last Superman movie, Superlifter: Guy Who Lifts Shit While Kevin Spacey Acts Like An Asshole, you know how much I dreaded seeing Bryan Singer take another crack at the franchise. Just the name alone inspires faith and revelry in me, and it has to be better than a movie where Superman is an emo absentee Dad who gets shanked by Lester Burnham.

Do you know what I did on Friday evening? I spent seven hours reading Millenium Hall. What, you say that you don’t have a thing for eighteenth-century British women’s literature? I say to you, neither do I! Jesus Christ with a Guitar, get me the fuck out of here. Getting into my graduate program late, I didn’t have the luxury of picking classes. Rather, it was “Here is what’s available to you, and they’re still open for good reason – you’re going to want to kill yourself.” As someone who spent his entire undergraduate career focusing on ethnic, African-American, and philosophical readings, this shit is from outerspace for me.

When I haven’t been doing that, I’ve been playing Mass Effect 2 and consuming too much caffeine.

Monday Morning Commute. Every Monday I’m going to detail the various things I’m either currently or will be watching, reading, playing, and listening to in the next seven days. It’s Monday. You’ve got a long week of school, work, or compulsive masturbation to get through. Tell me the arts that you’re indulging in, to stave off suicide.

Keep Reading »