Bookish Thoughts

Ugh, this was awful. Standard Boy meets Girl, Girl gets kidnapped, Boy turns out to be a killing machine, kills a bunch of people, rescues Girl, and they live happily ever after. Except worse. But, I have now finished  Sin City . No more guilt about it sitting on my shelf unread.

Unlike the other volumes in the Sin City series, the sixth one, Booze, Broads, and Bullets , is a collection of one-offs rather than a single arc. Each story is about 20 pages long, and this made it a lot easier to get through than most of the other books. There were a few stories in here that I actually really liked. There was an awesome female assassin who appeared in two, first becoming initiated and then going on a job. There was an actual story about the Old Town Ladies seeking revenge that didn't have a single man in it, except the creep they were killing. There were a couple of great stories starring Marv, who has strangely found a place in my heart. I like Marv. He might be my favorite character in this entire mess of a series. There were other stories that were less interesting, but at least they were over fast. Next up, the final volume in the series. It's been sitting on my shelf for years, but I've never worked up to actually reading it. That ...

I was surprised by how much I liked this installment of Sin City, which concerns the ladies of Old Town as they seek revenge on the mob for killing one of their own, likely sparking a mob war in the process. The premise was good, and it's nice to see acknowledgement that this is a chosen family, with ties as strong as any other family. Something of a haven for girls and women who have it much harder than the men of Sin City. That said, it'd be even better if the entire thing weren't framed as Dwight's story. It's not his story and he really has no place narrating it or driving the action. He says he's doing it as a favor to Gail (of course), but it would have been so much better if Gail had been leading the charge. If Miho had ever gotten a line of dialogue, or if she'd managed to kill all the mob goons without her breasts constantly falling out of her shirt. The entire fight scene was like a game of "spot the nipple". But like I s...

This may have been the most disappointing story yet. I remember liking it well enough in the movie, but it may just be that I liked Jessica Alba. Because here, Nancy is nothing more than a male fantasy. Specifically, Hartigan's fantasy. And is there anything grosser than a 60+ year old man obsessing over an 11 year old girl? I can't decide whether it makes this story better or worse if you pretend the back half is just a coma dream of Hartigan's. Skinny little Nancy Callahan, waiting for him for all those years. Nancy occupies an interesting place of being both virgin and whore. She begins the story as an eleven year old kidnapping victim. A girl Hartigan saves from being raped. Then she grows up to be a stripper, the reason most of these lowlifes come to Kadie's in the first place. But as soon as Hartigan's back she flips back to innocent naivete while also seducing him. It's such an obvious, awful fantasy. The story itself also failed to come...

The third Sin City story leaves me torn. We being with Dwight, some time after the events of A Dame to Kill For , threatening Shellie's ex-boyfriend. He chases him to Old Town, where the ladies set him up and kill him, only to discover he's a cop. So they plan to hide his body, only a snitch tells the mob anyway, and then they have to deal with that. It's so twisty and turny that even right after reading it I'm wondering how all the pieces fit together. Mostly what I like is the ladies of Old Town. They protect themselves and each other. They have claimed their territory and will fight like hell to defend it from anyone who tries to tell them what to do. They're pretty awesome (if also constantly posing in scantily clad costumes, because they are also, ultimately, just here to fulfill male fantasies). What don't I like? Pretty much everything else. I hate that Dwight is even a part of this story, and that he continues to be able to commit to one ...

This story was not adapted in the first Sin City movie, which I remember throwing me off the first time I read it. Especially because its sequel, contained in the next book, I think, was in the movie. Which means that while we get Dwight interacting with Shelly, Gail, and Manute, they're at a different point in their relationships. And Dwight still has his original face. I must say that Dwight is an asshole. A killer and a monster without even the skewed moral code of Marv. Somehow he manages to string a number of women along, which is especially weird in a story about the one who got away. The one he'll never stop loving. Dwight may have a soft spot for Ava, the eponymous Dame, but he also has ongoing relationships with both Shelly and Gail. Relationships into which he seems to put nothing but apologies ("I'm a jerk. I'm sorry."), but out of which he takes cover, alibis, and extensive surgery. It's not a very flattering picture of women. ...

The second Sin City movie is hitting theaters in less than a month (finally), so I decided it was time to go back and revisit the comics. And finally read the last volume, which has been sitting on my shelf for who knows how long. I saw the first Sin City movie my freshman year of college and very quickly became obsessed. Even with all the violence, I thought it was one of the prettiest movies I'd even seen. The use of color was amazing. And it really looked like a comic book up on the screen. I started buying the comics, and was excited to see just how closely the movie followed them. The first one, The Hard Goodbye , follows a meathead named Marv on his quest for vengeance for a dead hooker named Goldie. This is made harder by the fact that everyone, from the cops to Goldie's twin sister, believes that Marv himself did it. But, as he puts it, Marv kills his way to the truth, discovering a cannibal with connections at the highest level of the church. Marv'...

The Dark Knight Returns  is another of Frank Miller's Batman mini-arcs. This one is four issues long and takes place a decade after Batman has retired. But he decides to jump back into the action because, well... Look, reading comics is a skill. One I don't entirely have. You don't just read them. You look at the art. You take it all in. You think about it. And I probably read this one too fast. I might read it again some day and then I'll have a better understanding of what happened. But here's what I think happened. Harvey Dent has been rehabilitated, according to his psychiatrist. And his plastic surgeon has managed to fix his face. So they're releasing him from Arkham Asylum. Even though Bruce Wayne publicly supports this, it seems to trigger Batman into making a reappearance. In the meantime Police Commissioner Gordon is nearing retirement and a gang of mutants are trying to kill him. Oh, and the Cold War with Russia is still going on....

Yesterday morning twitter informed me that it was Free Comic Book day.  I immediately followed the link to find a participating comic book store nearby and went off to collect my free comic book.  Well, I didn't end up getting a free comic book; most of the selection was aimed at kids.  But I did get my hands on Frank Miller's Batman: Year One  and I rounded out my Sandman  collection with Death: The High Cost of Living . Batman: Year One  was published in 1986 as part of DC's effort to reimagine some of its superheros and introduce them to a new generation.  I don't think this book does much to alter Batman's origin story, but it adds some detail. Honestly, it's interesting to start thinking about the major superheroes.  They're all familiar, but the details of the stories differ over the years.  Bruce Wayne became Batman in 1939, in 1986, and in 2005.  I'm sure there were variations on his origin story told multiple...