Bookish Thoughts

Calamity  was an excellent conclusion to Sanderson's Reckoners trilogy. It's just as exciting and fast-paced as the previous two installments, with tons of new powers and exciting twists. The city it's set in this time, a wandering Atlanta, seems even more implausible than a drowned Manhattan or metallic Chicago. This one is made of salt and crawls across the country, completely rebuilding itself every week. But Sanderson is less concerned about the logistics than the opportunities they present. And he takes full advantage of a half-built city that can never be completely wrecked to create some really thrilling scenes. Sanderson continues to play with the ideas of trust and redemption, while arguing that it's important to face your fears and that most humans are basically good but easily corrupted. Which I can't really say I disagree with. And the trilogy as a whole serves as a nice coming-of-age tale for the main character, who even gets a happier ending than ...

Most of Brandon Sanderson's books are really long, which helps disguise just how quickly I read his work. Even from myself. I was surprised when I read this 400+ page book in less than two days. But between Sanderson's fast-paced plots and straight-forward language, it makes sense that I would basically inhale this book. The second Reckoners book continues the story from the first one. By killing Steelheart, David and the other Reckoners have changed the world order. And now they have to keep going, lest it all fall apart. They've more or less declared war, and if they don't follow through now things will be worse than they were before. Unfortunately, there's another Epic who knows them too well and is one step ahead of them, which lets her lead them all straight into a trap. Sanderson does a great job of expanding the world here, leaking out enough information to keep me happy and hooked and asking more questions. I'm glad that there is some reasoning behin...

Someday I will have read everything that Brandon Sanderson has published. Steelheart  brings me one step closer to that goal. While most of Sanderson's writing takes place in his epic fantasy Cosmere-universe, he also has a scattering of novels that aren't connected to that massive series. The Reckoners trilogy, of which Steelheart  is the first novel, takes place on our world, more or less. It's a post-apocalyptic version of our world, where a bunch of people were granted superhero powers. Rather than becoming benevolent guardians of society, they quickly too over the world, transforming it into a collection of city-nations, each with its own tyrannical ruler. David lives in what used to be Chiago, which is ruled by the eponymous Steelheart. He's able to transform nearly anything into steel, which he did to half the city. He's impervious to bullets or any other attempt to kill him. Plus he can fly and shoot energy and he kills at random to maintain his control....

Ms. Marvel continues to be a perfectly executed coming-of-age story. In this volume, Kamala finally has to confront the people in her life. She comes clean to her mom about her dual identity and she confronts the feelings between her and her friend Bruno. She also teams up with Captain Marvel to save her brother from her ex-crush. And it's all set against a backdrop of the end of the world, which gives Kamala the motivation to get a lot of this off of her chest while also providing a neat metaphor for the end of childhood. This was a pretty satisfying end, at least to Ms. Marvel's first main arch. And I think it is an end. Marvel recently revamped their entire universe. There is a Ms. Marvel Volume 5 available for pre-order on Amazon, but it starts back over at issue 1, which has me wondering how much of a reset we're looking at. Which is to say, that I'm not sure yet whether or not I'll continue with Ms. Marvel. I'll have to wait and see where the story pi...

The final installment in Matt Fraction's Hawkeye  arc provided a thrilling conclusion and as much closure as you can expect from what will probably be an ongoing story arc, even after Fraction moves on. Although it might have worked better if I had a better memory of the previous arcs. I'll probably need to go back and read the entire story at some point to appreciate it all. Which I hope to do this summer. This volume introduces Hawkeye's brother and reveals the ultimate plan of the tracksuit bros. I'm still a little unclear how it all ties together with Kate's adventures in LA, but it was nice to see her ride to the rescue just in time. There's a big shoot out and a siege in an apartment building. The good guys win, mostly, and everything is all right in the end. On a deeper level, there's a really great storyline in here about Hawkeye losing his hearing. Hawkeye is canonically (usually, not in the movies) deaf, so it was nice to see that come around h...

In the third volume, Kamala deals with first love, first betrayal, and a sudden expansion to her world view. The first issue takes place at the Valentine's Day dance, which Bruno invites her to and Loki crashes. There's some really cute stuff about the disappointment of finding out that your best friend doesn't want to be romantically involved and how friendship isn't a zone to try and get out of, but a great thing in its own right. Then the book moves on to the bulk of the story, which introduces an old friend of Kamala's family. A good, smart, successful Pakistani boy they're trying to set her up with. And when he turns out to be just as geeky as Kamala and an Inhuman to boot, she starts to think this could be the future for her. Unfortunately he's part of a faction of Inhumans who would rather rule over the humans, who think their mutations make them better. This isn't a terribly novel story line, especially for anyone with even a passing familiarit...

The third volume of Hawkeye backs up a bit to redo the last few pages of the last issue, which was largely free of dialogue, as it was shown from the point of view of Hawkeye's dog, Lucky. In the opening pages we get to see the argument between the two Hawkeyes, which ends with Kate Bishop storming out and continuing to storm all the way to LA, where he life promptly disintegrates. This volume collects the issues that chronicle Kate's time in LA, looking for a place to live and a job, battling her nemesis Madame Masque, and uncovering some truly horrific secrets. Watching her find her feet as she has to work for money for the first time in her life is a lot of fun. She makes some cool friends along the way, acquires a cat, and continually pisses off a detective. In the end, she heads back to New York to pull Clint Barton out of a tangle he likely doesn't know he's in. She's smarter and faster and more determined. The next volume is the conclusion to this comic r...

The thing I love most about Ms. Marvel is that it takes a very common story and does it really well. There's nothing that unique about the bones of this arc. It's a fairly classic hero's journey mixed up with with a coming of age story. We've seen it time and time again. But this story hits each beat perfectly, and all the little details get a chance to really shine. The second volume is comprised of a 2-issue arc and a 4-issue arc, which are connected by the main bad guy. The Inventor is revealed at the end of the first volume, and now it's time for Kamala Khan to take him down. Along the way she meets up with Wolverine. When she's not fangirling all over him, she's busy saving both his ass and hers. Then the Inhumans send her a teleporting dog to help her out and she gets busy inspiring everyone to team up and take out the Inventor. She goes from wanting to do it herself, to realizing she can't and building a team to help her. The arc is starting t...

One of my favorite things about warmer weather is being able to spend a few lazy hours outside reading comic books. I'm not sure how or when I got it into my head that comic books are better enjoyed out in the sun, but it definitely stuck. Which puts me in a weird place where I hear about all these great comics and then wait forever until the weather is actually warm enough (for me) to read them. All this to say that I've been looking forward to  Ms. Marvel  for over a year, and I finally got around to it. I'd seen a few scenes online and read more than a few gushing essays about this or that aspect of the story. When you wait that long to read something, absorbing all the hype in the meantime, there's a very, very good chance that it will let you down. But  Ms. Marvel  didn't. It was exactly what I expected and wanted it to be. And there's something special and perfect about that. This is the story of a teenager who is already struggling with her identity w...

The second volume of Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run contains the much lauded Pizza Dog story, an issue told entirely from the point of view of Clint Barton's dog. But that episode comes last, and it's so much sadder than I expected it to be. The thing is, Barton is kind of a fuckup. He tries to do the right thing. He tries really hard. He's an avenger after all. But he has a tendency to get in over his head. And in this volume, some of his mistakes from the previous volume come back to haunt him. There's the gang he forcefully bought the apartment building from, to save the tenants' homes and the girl who he probably shouldn't have gotten involved with. Both show up again, bringing more trouble and leaving Barton with even more danger hanging over his head. Even worse is the slow disintegration of his relationship with Kate Bishop, the other Hawkeye. Their relationship seemed rock solid in the first volume, but in this one cracks start to app...

My only complaint about the first volume of the new Hawkeye series is that it doesn't contain the infamous Pizza Dog issue, which is half the reason I decided to start reading this series in the first place. The first volume contains the first five issues, which cover three stand-alone adventures followed by a two-part story. The point is to get a sense of who Clint Barton is when he's not being an Avenger, so the stories are pretty low-key. Barton isn't super-powered like the rest of the Avengers, he's just a regular guy trying to do his best. His adventures have less to do with saving the world and more to do with helping his neighbors fight an eviction. Barton is something of a modern day Robin Hood. He's got a ton of money, enough that he doesn't have to worry about it. But he lives in a low-rent apartment, using the money to help others instead. Or pay his hospital bills, because without any super powers his choices land him in the hospita...

The third installment in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series is a collection of short stories, rather than a cohesive arc. However, a line from Death in the final issue helps tie all of the stories together thematically [M]ythologies take longer to die than people believe. They linger on in a kind of dream country that affects all of you. Each of the stories concerns an old mythology. Beliefs and figures that have passed into the realm of stories. Calliope : In the first tale, an author kidnaps the youngest muse and holds her hostage. He rapes her in an effort to get ideas and grows prosperous on his projects. She appeals to Morpheus to free her. He does this by flooding the author's mind with ideas, so many that he can't sort through them in any meaningful way. After Calliope is released, she elects to retire to the dream realm, to continue only in the minds of men. This may be my favorite story of the four collected in this volume. It's certainly the most ...

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....

Comic book super heroes are everywhere. I never read comic books growing up, but I definitely knew who Batman and Superman were. I knew the origin stories, the costumes, the main villains. And I learned most of it by osmosis. There was always some sort of Batman cartoon on TV, along with those wonderfully cheesy movies from the 90s. And I loved Smallville in high school, though I didn't make it through all ten seasons. The heroes were larger than life. The details ultimately didn't matter that much. All that really mattered was that Bruce Wayne dressed up as a bat with high tech gadgets and saved Gotham City from the likes of The Riddler and Two-Face. Or Clark Kent took off his glasses and put his underwear on the outside and saved Metropolis from Lex Luthor while seducing Lois Lane. Or Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider and, um, liked redheads? I know less about Spiderman. Of the classic superheroes, Batman is my favorite. It may be because I was exp...

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...

But first, some background.  Back in the summer of 2008, a spectacular show debuted on ABC Family.  That show was The Middleman  and if you haven't seen it, you should grab a copy of the DVD and start watching it ASAP. Middleman:  You know how in comic books there's all kinds of mad scientists and aliens and androids and monsters, and all of them either want to take over or destroy the world? Wendy : In comic books, sure Middleman:  Well it really does work like that In the first episode, The Middleman recruits Wendy Watson as his sidekick/middleman in training.  Together they fight evil, so you don't have to.  Wendy is a struggling artist who lives with fellow artist and best friend Lacy Thornfield.  They have a highly unreasonable loft apartment (which the show comments on regularly) and get into all sorts of art-related shenanigans together.  Their friend Noser lives in the hallway and knows more about music than you do. ...