Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By Sam Christopher

Comics are a little slack this week—good issues, just not much that really stands out at the moment—so I thought I’d start with a couple movies I’ve cleared off the DVR lately.

Grindhouse - Rating: 2 Stars

This is really two films, made in the tradition of the early ‘70s exploitation films. These two were shown, as the original grindhouse pictures often were, together as a double feature, with faux previews of coming attractions interspersed for authenticity. The first story, Planet Terror directed by Robert Rodriguez, is a kind of gross “zombie” movie that’s just too stupid to watch all the way through. I love zombie films and I love original grindhouse pictures but I just couldn’t sit through all of this. I made it to the part with the “missing reel”—which I thought was a nice touch until I realized it only meant that Rodriguez had no idea how to get the story where it needed to go—then started fast-forwarding. I did watch the end, where Bruce Willis makes like Clarissa and explains it all. Meh. The second tale, Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino, stars Kurt Russell as the diabolical serial killer “Stuntman Mike” and is much better than Planet Terror, although I didn’t think much of it either until Mikey hooks horns with his final intended victims of the piece. All in all, I didn’t like Grindhouse but I do appreciate that it was made. I only wish we had more outlets for this type of film these days made by the same kind of schlock-meisters and starving creators with often bizarre ideas who made the originals. This two star rating is given far more for the style in which this film is made than for its actual content.

Phantom of the Paradise – Rating: 3.5 Stars

“The Devil went down to Motown, he was lookin’ for a soul to steal…” Paul Williams plays Swan, a recording star who makes a Dorian Gray-like deal with Satan and becomes kind of his agent on Earth. He steals a song about Faust from a fledgling songwriter and destroys the poor guy’s life, his face, and his voice, in that order. He then convinces the guy to sign a contract… y’know what? If I describe this it’s going to sound dumb, but it’s not. Really, it’s not. This film is a very good whacked-out rock opera directed by Brian DePalma and predates The Rocky Horror Picture Show by a year (there were a lot of gooooood psychedelics floating around in the ‘70s). A fun film that didn’t do very well in its initial release but has gained a cult following over the years.

And now on to comics:

The spotlight this week falls solely on Amazing Spiderman Family #5. Let me start by saying that I don’t care that much for where they’ve taken Spiderman lately. I collected his titles until they had Mephisto “Witchblade” his marriage to Mary Jane out of existence—a move that was so bad it changed “That story was Clone Saga-bad” to “That story was Mephisto-rewrites-history-bad” (although I’m not sure it’s really worse than having Norman Osborne run the Avengers). Anyway, that kept me from buying this title before, but now they’ve taken my beloved Spidergirl there so I had to check it out. The Rundown: I loved the Spidergirl story; I could deal with “The Private Life of Peter Parker”; they need to do something else with “Screwball”; and “Swiney-Girl” should be relegated to whatever drug-induced fever-dream that originally spawned her. Only problem here is I’m not too sure about spending an extra two bucks a month for less Spidergirl than I used to get and a bunch of other stuff I don’t really care about.

Other comics:

Avengers/Invaders #10- The tenth in what should have been no more than a six issue series was all right. Further padding with no real advancement of plot is always just the right bloat for a story.

Battle for the Cowl: The Underground One-Shot- Penguin, Two-Face, The Riddler, and Catwoman: Even if Batman was alive he’d have a hard time keeping these four from ruling Gotham. But, of course, without a unifying common enemy—and even though they do still have one—they squabble amongst themselves.

Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil #4- All of Doom’s machinations come to this! I would be angry if not for the whimsical nature of this whole series.

Fringe #4- The lead story, with Bell and Bishop, is okay—even though the whole “Oh my God! We’ve time-traveled back to Nazi Germany!” thing is so 1960s. But since this story is set in the 1970s I guess that’s not too bad. The astronaut story? Yeah, whatever.

Green Lantern #40- Fatality searches for John Stewart in order to love him up for destroying her homeworld and the Guardians expand GL jurisdiction into the Vega System.

Justice Society of America #26- Stargirl’s birthday! And nothing much else. Great character development story.

Orson Scott Card: Ender’s Game: Battleschool #5- Graff recruits Valentine to help with Ender’s emotional well-being as Battleschool ends to make way for Command School.

Red Sonja #43- Sonja battles the demon Leucoth. Then he swallows her and she fights his heart—and if only there was some hot oil for this “epic battle”.

Sherlock Holmes #1- Very good first ish which really puts the reader back in the late 19th Century. The classic locked room mystery with Holmes himself as the only suspect brought to us by Leah Moore and John Reppion, with perfect art by Aaron Campbell.

Skaar: Son of the Hulk #10- Skaar surfs a light-year on Norrin Radd’s board and decides that blackmail is the better part of valor. So his mom sends him to Earth without supper. But don’t worry—Galactus gets his fill.

Superman #687- Mon-El goes back to a time-honored Supes tradition and The Guardian tries to help him work a few things out. Jimmy goes to Zatara, who tells him virtually nothing. And Mon loses his powers.

Teen Titans #70- Deathtrap Part 3 finds Beast Boy taking care of Cyborg and the Titans—older and younger set—stop the T-Wing from crashing into the streets of Manhattan. Also, Jericho and his sister, Ravager, have a heart to heart and Vigilante attempts… you really should be reading this; it’s very good.

Wonder Woman #31- Athena tells WW the truth behind Genocide as the real architect of this chaos is revealed.

Previous Quick Hits Column:

April 24th – Detective Comics, Battle for the Cowl, The Avengers, and More

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