[Comic Review] - iZombie - Vol 1 : Dead to the World

iZombie

Recently I saw a television show called iZombie. I wasn't that impressed really, in fact I kinda hated it. It reminded me of The Mentalist, or Monk or Forever, Castle, Bones.. etc etc.. the list just goes on and on. A cop procedural but with some kind of quirky third party helping the cops solve crimes. The escalation from private detective to immortal highlander or in this case, physic zombie is nothing more than a natural progression of "quirky 3rd party" in these procedural cop shows but at the core they are all the exact same show and have been for over half a century.

Suffice to say I didn't like the show. What I did like though was the chick who played the main character. I used to be in the punk scene way back in the 80s and early 90s and to this day have a soft spot for the Goth / Punk look, even a watered down version of those looks like in this show.

Sizzle... . . Don't judge me!

Basically I thought the main chick was hot. So as you do when a show has a hot chick in it, you google her. In my google search I found out that this show is based on a comic. A comic written by Chris Roberson, whom wrote an engaging short story called "O One" in a scifi anthology book I read once, "Live without a Net" which I quite liked as well as a number of cool comics like Fables. Considering myself a bit of a comic guy I thought.. "Hmm.. lets give it a go."

iZombie - Vol 1 : Dead to the World

Let me start by saying loud and clear... "THE TV SHOW IS NOT ANYTHING LIKE THE COMIC". We are talking "Wanted" vs the film type level of "not the same". There are a few similar threads but pretty much 98% and more of the comic is unrelated to the TV show. So basically get the TV show completely out of your mind.

The first volume of the comic is pretty much all background and set up. While the threads of the larger world which the comic is set in is extrapolated, the general focus of this book is the characters themselves and not the events in which they exist. There is a larger plot as well as the start of what I assume will be the series wide threads but still the only thing this book concerns itself with really, is the development and the interaction of the personalities of the main players. This comic is very much like Scott Pilgrim or Ghost World, as it is a comic about 20 somethings and how they relate to others. The sardonic attitude of the main character Gwen is very reminiscent my mates daughter and one of the few things the TV show kinda got right.

The main conceit here is that Gwen (a twenty-something zombie) gains personality traits even memories form the brains she consumes. The metaphor is pretty thick, but not so heavy handed that it is off putting. A young women lost and directionless, whom has recently had huge changes in her life (becoming a zombie, or going to UNI, moving out of home) and who's entire personality alters through the influence of others, leaving her full of purpose and community only for it to fade into her "real" personality and she is then back to being as directionless as ever. Herself and a group of misfit friends hang out as she tries to avoid her fate to become a mindless zombie, or grow up and take on adult responsibilities depending on how you look at it.

Now this all sounds very boring but the comic is so well done. The art is off the chain. I mean, I haven't enjoyed art like this for a long time. I have often lamented the real loss that comics have endured by the modern habit of hyper-realism though digital art. It is so great to read a book that looks hand drawn again, that actually has some artistic stylisation to it. Saga is another great example of this, in fact there are a lot of similarities in style and humour between this and Saga, which is another comic I love. Still the drawing themselves are spectacularly good, and a special mention needs to be given to the colourist. In the trade volume there is a number of sketches before colouring, where you can really see the impact her vibrant block colours gives to the book.

iZombie has a strong humorous angle all though it. Like other comics of its type there is a kind of fatalism that is present in all facets of the comic. A character finding out his work mate is a werewolf is no more a cause for excitement than the latest computer game coming out on his console. Someone getting torn to bits in a bloody flurry barley needs a acknowledgement. The main characters have that "seen it all before" with that "nothing phases them" arrogance that is the purview of the young. I am sure people will see their own youth or their kids, probably both, in how these characters act. I found it rather charming and even had a few out loud chuckles on the way. Though the big take away is that all the monsters just want to live in peace, to be accepted for who they are and not to have to change for other, as they can't. Not really in this case anyway, you know... 'cause they're monsters.

What separates this comic and makes it readable compared to other "relationship" comics is that all this is hidden as a under-layer to the actual stories. What we in fact read in this volume is a Werewolf, a Ghost and a Zombie scoobydooing their way though a plot full of vampires, ancient mummies and watcher style monster hunters and a series of bizarre murders. The deeper implications of the subtext is exactly that, subtex and there is plenty to entertain in this one on the surface. The writing is punchy and fun and with the art being so easy to look at I found the pages turning fast and before I knew it the entire volume was done, and this is a 130 plus, page book.

I was absolutely shocked at how much I liked this comic. I mean seriously. I think this is easily one of the best comics I have read all year, with out a doubt and anyone that knows me knows I HATE zombies. I just found this fresh and interesting in a way that even the best soup comics just can never be.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

[Film Review] MCU 11: Avengers and the Age of Ultron (2015)

It is no secret to those that know me that I have a bias towards DC, but that isn't to say I am into that whole DC vs Marvel thing. One is not inherently better than the other on any real measurable level. The only thing that really separates DC and Marvel in a comparative sense is how the comics resonate with the readers on a personal level and in my case almost universally, it is DC that far outshines Marvel. I think this is important to disclose before I continue.

When MCU 6: Avengers Assemble hit theatres in 2012 I went to see it with very low expectations, partly due to my relatively unenthused interest in the source material and was really blow away with how immensely enjoyable the film was. Age of Ultron on the other hand gave me the exact opposite experience. I went in with high expectations and found a flat, lifeless tale lacking in almost all the areas that made the Avengers Assemble so great.

I think a lot of reviewers and possibly even the film makers themselves have completely missed the point as to why Avengers Assemble was so successful. This failure to understand the reasons for their own brand popularity has lead them to focus on the wrong aspects in Age of Ultron and pull focus from the very things that would assure them of retaining the audience they have cultivated. The most interesting part of all this is that between Avengers Assemble and Age of Ultron we had Guardians of the Galaxy, a film that got nearly everything right and seamed to show they understood completely why Avengers Assemble was so successful.

Avengers Assemble and Guardians of the Galaxy where so popular and so widely accepted that comic fandom can simply not account for their astounding success. For these films popularity was born through a cross appeal that struck home to not just comic fans but all film goers, that enjoy spectacle cinema. These films were record breakers despite being comic book films, not because they were comic book films. This is the crux of the problem with Age of Ultron and it is a problem I am worried Marvel will compound as the MCU continues into the future.

One of the most glaring faults of Age of Ultron stems from this misunderstanding. This lead to an indulgence of the film makers on the individual characters, banking on the appeal of the characters themselves rather than on how the characters behave. The fun interplay is nearly lost in this film, apart form some all to brief fleeting moments at the start. This film is more interested in showing us the comic book icons than in providing a actual story for them to exist in.

Gone is the large group dramatic arcs from the last outing and instead we have a number of dramas involving individuals. Of course in a film this size with so many characters and with so much time devoted to action, this collection of dramatic threads can only be sketched out in a rudimentary way. In this case the attempt is absolutely puerile, leading to ridicules mellow drama that makes the audience groan and check their watches for these sequences feel, and are, completely tacked on.

This is no more evident than the manufactured family connection given to Hawkeye where he suddenly gains a house complete with wife, kids and unfinished home improvement projects. A few thrown away lines and we as a audience are supposed to feel a human connection to the fantastic events of the film. This entire idea to ground the movie a little with some good old fashioned family values is one of the most bizarre and randomly out of context things I have seen in a blockbuster for a long while.

Yet this film is full of this same error, through admittedly less pronounced, I mean this family thing was just bizarre on a epic level. Action sequences are stopped in mid battle for brief conversational drama between to characters, the film is literally put on hold. They do not even try to contrive to have the characters in the same location, they can just speak to each other though magic communication devices. The audience feels this dead stop in the flow of the film and the rolling of eyes start as we just want them to get back to the action we were enjoying. You could fan edit out these conversations and what you would be left with would be a single long uninterrupted action sequence, these small dramas would not be missed.

Avengers Assemble got around this type of cheese ball mellow drama by having the Avengers experience a dramatic curve as a group. The main theme being about coming together in unity, as well as finding ones place and personal voice. As all the characters were experiencing the same group arc, rather than all these individual ones, any time spent on the arc affected all the leads. This gave depth to the story, as each "time out" for drama built on the last, rather than each "time out" being a small, separate and self contained.

One of its most exciting sequences in Avengers Assemble was during the main fight at the end of the film. There was a glory shot of all the Avengers on screen at once in a single dynamic action shot showing them all working together in perfect harmony framed by powerful music. This exact shot though done with more complexity, is in Age of Ultron, but without the emotional backing it completely fails to be anything more than a cluttered special effect shot.

This is Age of Ultron in a nutshell. We have more of everything in that increasing of scale that comes in blockbuster squeals, but that "everything" comes at the cost of storytelling. Drama and more importantly for these films humour is lost for exposition and action and we are left with all the sights but none of the soul, ultimately leaving us feeling hollow and unfulfilled.

You note I am talking about drama a lot, but if you ask most people about Avengers Assemble what they talk about is the humour. This is the thing that everyone seams to get wrong about why Avenges Assemble and Guardians of the Galaxy were so popular. It was that they were fun, adventure films.  There was humour, action and light themes that produced a true roller coaster of amusement. The comic angle was not the draw. I suspect that if Guardians of the Galaxy was a completely non comic related IP it would have still been as popular, as it was the "fun adventure" nature of the film that made it cross cultural boundaries.The fun is lost in this film, instead we had a focus on the comic characters at the expense of what I feel was the very thing, the style of the film, that drew the much larger non-comic reader crowd.


That is not to say there isn't a lot of good parts in this film. The action is competent, and the plot itself while rushed is decent enough for this type of film. I would have loved Ultron to have more of a arc to evil badguy mode, but there simply wasn't time to have him start good and go bad. He just appears, and is evil. Why? Well that is the soul discussion of his motivation.

Ultron in fact was sort of schizophrenically written.  He at times talks in a very casual way, other times he monologues like a James Bond villain and at other times he speaks like the Starship Enterprise computer. It seams his dialogue was tooled specifically for the scene rather than him have any real defined voice. This is unfortunate as James Spader was a real delight and for me by far, the best bits in the film was Ultron when he spoke and acted the most human.

So, this film has a lot of problems. Ones I think will compound as the MCU continues and more and more characters are crammed into the universe. Less time will be spent on anything other than action and the most superficial characterisation.

We have seen the future of the MCU and it is Transformers 3.

Yet the cast is extremely charismatic, the production values are off the chain amazing and there are moments that pepper the show which remind us of why these kind of films can be so fun. So even with its faults it is still one of the better super hero comic films and will be a strong contender as a top blockbuster of the year. I just feel that this is a clear decline in not just quality of what was produced, but the quality of what they even tried to produce.

Verdict

Recommend, with a warning.