Sep. 30th, 2010

orangerful: (Default)

 

   Ex Machina by Brian K Vaughan is another comic book series that sounds ridiclous when you spell it out on paper.  Mitch Hundred is an ex-superhero.  On 9/11, when he was flying around as "The Great Machine", he managed to stop the second plane from crashing into the tower with his power to talk to machines.  A few years later, he ran for mayor of New York City and won.  The comic book series flashes back and forth between his political and superhero career. 

In 'Dirty Tricks', the 8th trade paperback collection in the series, contains 2 one-shot stories and a 4 issue arc.  In the first story, 'The Race', Hundred attempt to convince Wylie to run for office.  There is a somewhat cheesy poltergeist story mixed in but it's designed to make the reader think about race and politics more than function as a story.  'Dirty Tricks' is a 4 issue arc that focused on a crazed Great Machine fan who threatens the 2004 GOP visit to NYC.  'Masquerade' is a Halloween issue, flashing back to before Hundred was the Great Machine, and just the days when he was recovering from his injury that created his powers. 

'Ring Out the Old' is the 9th volume of the series.  It opens with a stand alone issue with a guest appearance by Brian K Vaughan and artist Tony Harris.  Instead of just being a silly interlude, the issue felt like a personal statement from BKV about 9/11 and what inspired him to write the story.  As 'Ex Machina' draws to a close (The series ended earlier in 2010 and the final collected issue will be out in November), Vaughan begins to wrap up the story of Hundred.  In the next issue, Hundred pushes for windpower, but also brings up some interesting points about how green our society can ever be.  And the final collection is the begining of the end.  Hundred announces that he does not plan on running for re-election and he begins to suspect that his powers were not just the result of an accident.

I will be so very sad to see this series go, but one of the reasons that BKV manages to have such a solid catalog is because he knows when to wrap it up.  Y The Last Man and Ex Machina have always had end dates that were not so far off and I think that helped keep the story focused.  I'm sure however the story of Mitch Hundred ends, it will be just as satisfying as the final installment of Y. 

 

 

orangerful: (d cups of justice // snarkel)
Random things I noticed the other day that made me go "hm?" When I was at SDCC, I got a flier advertising the premiere of the new version of Hawaii Five-O. On the SDCC Free Ringtone flier was a picture of Daniel Dae-Kim (Gavin from Angel, Jin from LOST) and Grace Park (Sharon/Athena/8 from Battlestar Galactica), two other guys had I had never seen and a bit of beach. So, from that picture, I assumed that all 4 of these actors were the stars of the show. But then I saw the commercials on TV and noticed two things missing - Daniel Dae-Kim AND Grace Park! Yeah, there are two half-second shots - one of Grace in her bikini on the beach, and Daniel in the background of a scene. Neither of them gets speaking clips that would show them as main characters!

So, what's up with that? Were these two actors only featured on the SDCC promotional materials because they knew that SDCC would attract LOST and BSG fans? Are they even an important part of the cast? Is it just me or are they more interested in showing me two really boring white guys in the commercials over an attractive Korean actors and a gorgeous babe? I mean, you'd think they would WANT to show you more of Grace at least! Blah.

Today we got a copy The Berenstain Bears' Computer Trouble. It's a modern tale of the Bears familiy spending too much time on the computers. Eventually Papa Bear decrees that everyone gets 1 hour of computer time per day. So brother plays outside, Sister gets out her dolls, Mama starts quilting and Papa returns to his workshop. You'll notice these are all solitary activities. Finally, they decide to go out as a family and do something together. What do they end up doing? Going to a movie, where they sit in silence for two hours. LOL! I know the moral of the story was to not spend all day on the internet but it made me laugh that this was the family activity they did together haha.

Two very amusing patron transactions this week on the same subject: puberty. One patron refused to say "S-E-X" to me. She just kept doing the eyebrow raise and saying "I need books on...you know" and I was like "erm...puberty?" and she was like OMG! It would have been hilarious if it wasn't so sad. I feel bad for her child since she will grow up being embarrassed by her sexuality if this is how she's told about it! I had the opposite today, with a parent that was a little too excited about her child growing up, but the child demanded a book because they didn't want to talk about it.

TGIF! I'm ready for the weekend!

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