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Neat Little Analogy, Huh? (The Last War in Albion Book Two Part Twenty-Five: Scenes from The Nativity)

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Figure 923: The signatures upon the contract that led Dez Skinn to go to a seedy bar to pick up a couple thousand dollars in cash.

This installment of The Last War in Albion contains graphic images of childbirth below the cut. 

Previously in The Last War in Albion: In a comedy of errors, Alan Moore’s Marvelman series, originally published in Warrior, was republished under the title Miracleman by Eclipse Comics in the US. But with the reprints running out, Eclipse had to clear the way to commission new material from Moore, which required appeasing Dez Skinn.

Eclipse’s solution, ratified in a new contract dated February 1986 (the same month that Miracleman #6 is dated), was to buy the right to produce new Miracleman material from Skinn for a further $8000, payable in three installments, one of which Skinn recounts was given to him at a meeting “with Jan Mullaney – Dean’s brother – in New York, in some really seedy bar. He turned up looking like a real hippie with a couple thousand dollars in cash in a brown envelope. And I’m sitting there, this sort of funny Englishman in this really scary place and he comes in and this is like some dodgy transaction taking place as he slides the envelope over to me with a couple thousand dollars or more in cash and he says, ‘you will count it, won’t you?’” This contract also seemingly marks the point where Skinn abandoned his support for Alan Davis’s objections to having his work reprinted, noting simply that “Eclipse also assumes the sole responsibility of payment to and for the creative talent on all issues of Miracleman or any such other titles featuring “Miracleman” and the Characters, including payment of artistic royalties to Alan Moore and Gary Leach representing Alan Davis on the stories reprinted from Warrior Magazine,” and transferring all of the design copyrights Skinn had previously asserted that Davis held to Eclipse.

This is perhaps unsurprising – the fact that Skinn had chosen to direct his letter regarding Davis’s objections to Moore suggests that the position was more about trying to force Moore back into playing ball with Dez Skinn than about concern for Alan Davis. Whereas the entire point of this agreement was to clear the way for Eclipse to hire Moore directly (as opposed to the obviously unworkable plan of having Skinn/Quality employ him). For the purposes of filling out Miracleman #6 and publishing #7, Moore’s involvement was minimal – he’d been ahead in scripting for Warrior, and had three installments written but not drawn. But the problem of getting them drawn was more substantial, since it’s not as though Alan Davis was going to be returning to the gig. Unfortunately, Eclipse’s stable of available artists did not come close to matching that of the major companies. They presented Moore with a few options, and of them he picked an neophyte named Chuck Austen, though he was at the time still going by his birth name of Chuck Beckum on the grounds, as Austen put it, that he “didn’t draw everybody so that they looked like they were superheroes in street clothes.”…

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“Misery Loves Company”: Liaisons

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There’s a scene near the beginning of “Liaisons” that kills the entire episode for me. It’s where Worf and Commander Riker are putting on their dress uniforms and Worf grumbles about the outfit being “too feminine”. This earns him a deserved reprimand by Riker, which I still hate for two reasons. One, I hate any scene like this where one character upsets another, especially a friend. Two, it’s impossible for me not to read the narrative as siding with Worf: Worf is manly and grumpy and the writers love him because of that, and they hate this lame stuff about “utopianism” and “equality” that constrains their beloved “conflict”.

You know what? Fuck off. This one scene is emblematic of absolutely everything that has ever been wrong with Star Trek: The Next Generation since these guys took over in 1989.

I’m really not motivated to look further into the episode after that, frankly. It’s not like “Liaisons” is a particularly beloved episode and it’s not like I’m missing a whole lot: The entire premise of “alien dignitaries trying to experience strange and unfamiliar human emotion by deliberately pissing people off” sounds like a brief for a particularly weak Original Series episode (or at least memorably weak, as they were, to be blunt, *all* weak). Bad Original Series knock-offs were passé in the first season. To have one show up in the seventh is frankly astonishing, and that’s another indication of something that’s always been wrong with this show: Nobody seems willing to take it on its own terms. Nothing can ever escape the shadow of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, even (especially) when it’s already been explicitly killed off.

The original pitch for this episode was apparently for a “Let’s Do” take on Misery, the Stephen King story about a famous author who is kidnapped by an obsessive, murderous fan after getting badly injured in a car accident. I am dumbfounded the team even bought the pitch, because for the life of me I cannot figure out how in the universe that *wasn’t* going to turn into a horrific disaster. Misery is frequently read as being about the perils of fan culture, and in the context of Star Trek: The Next Generation in its final year that could only be projected onto Star Trek fans. And applying that to Trekkers, even indirectly, seems like a crateringly awful decision that could go wrong in a myriad of different, equally appalling ways.

For one thing, it’s staggeringly hypocritical for a show made exclusively by and for Star Trek fans to be criticizing other Star Trek fans. Oh, so it’s bad now to be an overzealous Star Trek or science fiction enthusiast? I’m not disagreeing, but who in the hell are the biggest, most overzealous and overenthusiastic Star Trek fans in existence if not the people currently writing this show and using it as methadone for their sexually frustrated creative impulses sparked watching the Original Series as little boys (and yes, I’m using deliberately gendered language here)?…

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Forward, to the Past! – Episode III: Rebel Yell

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Or ‘American History X-Wing’

 

Yes, it’s the third and concluding episode in my trilogy of posts about Star Wars. I’m going to be making all sorts of generalisations about ‘America’ in this post. Please bear in mind, I don’t mean them to apply to all American people. Far from it. I’m talking about mainstream historical narratives, and the culture industries, and ideology, and so on. Also, in keeping with tradition, I’ve included an unnecessary and irritating (but also rather cute, if you’re honest) teddy bear. Oh, and in twenty years time I’ll come back and reissue these posts with crappy extra passages edited in for no good reason.

 

Three political categories dominate the Star Wars galaxy: Republic, Empire, and Rebellion. This is the arrangement in The Force Awakens just as much as in the original trilogy. Indeed, it is the apparent impossibility of telling a Star Wars story in which the galaxy is arranged any other way which determines the inevitability that The Force Awakens will be, and has to be, a ‘structre’ (as covered in previous episodes).

Galactic politics is in a constant state of fluctuation, but the fluctuation is between these three poles. Republic breeds Empire, Empire attacks Republic, Rebellion destroys Empire and restores Republic. And then the whole thing begins all over again. It unfolds with the inevitability of a Hegelian triad (but that joke isn’t funny anymore, so we’ll leave that there).

The three modes correspond to the way in which America conceives of its history and its future. America sees itself as always in a state of being one or the other, becoming one or the other, splitting away from one or the other, redeeming one or the other, fighting one or the other, falling from being one or the other into being one or the other. Left and Right agree on this, though they inflect it differently (natch).

Tied to this is the perennial idea of America ‘losing its innocence’ whereas, as James Ellroy put it: “We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can’t ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can’t lose what you lacked at conception.” Interestingly, he still seems to think that a ‘fall from grace’ did happen.

Hollywood has been playing with these three categories for some time actually. What are the great Hollywood Biblical epics but negotiations of the political and moral valences of republics that become empires, and rebellions against empires. In Ben Hur, Spartacus, Quo Vadis, The Robe, Cleopatra, etc, there is Rome as the great republic-turned-empire, dominating the world; and there are the Christians and/or slaves bravely defying her. The Ten Commandments does something similar with Egypt and the Hebrews. Star Wars reiterates these old Hollywood testaments in many ways, most especially the prequels with the slaves of Tatooine (slavery exists in pockets alongside the benevolent Republic… notice and store for later use), and in the religiose choral moments in the score of Return of the Jedi.…

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Comics Reviews (February 3rd, 2016)

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Mercurty Heat #7

A really strong issue that continues the momentum from the end of the first arc, is genuinely funny at several points, and has a thoroughly fascinating cliffhanger, not just for the double-page spread/reveal (which is a great hook) but the issue’s final line, which takes the reveal and puts it in a new light that’s full fo questions, all of them good ones. Really quite excited for this arc. So why is it at the bottom of the list? Because of that fucking awful pun on the issue-ending title page, of course.

Batgirl #48

As with many Marvel books in 2015, this is suddenly much harder to enjoy knowing that Rebirth is coming to reboot or relaunch or whatever this title, presumably with something that isn’t the Fletcher/Stewart/Tarr team or, for that matter, the attractive $2.99 price point. Anyway, it hangs over this perfectly adequate issue like an unpleasant cloud. Liked the end twist here, but this was oddly structured, and it’s tough to get invested in the current arc, not least because the book itself is forced to admit repeatedly how much of a retread of an earlier one it is.

Incinvible Iron Man #6

Mike Deodato joins temporarily for his usual habit of double page spreads that in no way indicate that you should be reading across two pages. Seriously, any artist who does a two-page spread that does not have any panels crossing the middle should be slapped. Deodato also brings his expressionless faces and his comically “moody” shadows, while Bendis brings a slow-moving but in no way unenjoyable script that mostly serves as a recap of the first five issues. I admit, I’m eyeing Civil War II as a great jumping off point right now.

Digital code: FCM6VBCCYLS4

Spider-Man #1

Perfectly adequate and standard Bendis-Spidey, which feels slightly shy of good enough for the third #1 that Miles has gotten and yet another new status quo that doesn’t actually feel particularly different from any of the old ones despite being in the not-the-616-anymore Marvel Universe. Still, it’s an issue #1 and pretty good, so someone should probably snag the digital code on it. 

Digital code: FCMV6CHUQ49D

Klaus #3

The surprise of this has largely faded since its sublime first issue, and at this point I admit I have no idea how Morrison thinks there’s four more issues of this to do. Still, this has several “bring a smile to your face” moments and remains a fun premise. Hoping it manages to keep the momentum up to remain one of Morrison’s best titles in years, but as I admit, I’d be a lot more excited about this at a four-issue mini than the projected seven.

A-Force #2

My fears about this going to a co-author again appear unfounded, which I shouldn’t be surprised by given that Kelly Thompson has long been one of the very intelligent people of comics fandom. Numerous laugh moments, and a real meatiness to the issue that feels well longer than its twenty pages.…

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“Legend”: The Homecoming

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“The Homecoming” opens on one of the more triumphant notes Star Trek: The Next Generation/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has done in recent memory. There’s a slow pan across the new set for the Promenade upper level into Quark’s, where the man himself in engaged in one of his classic verbal sparring matches with Odo. The energy carries through to the scene where Quark visits a brooding Kira in her quarters to deliver Li Nalas’ earring. Finally, we get a jovial and upbeat Ben Sisko having a charismatic father/son moment with Jake, followed by a friendly and breezy lunch date with Kira. Well, up until she springs the news she wants to take a Runabout to Cardassia 4 to spring a jailbreak.

The sense we get is of a show that’s on top of the world, elated by its recent success. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is *back*, refreshed and energized to continue the creative high it came off the previous season on. And it has every reason to be comfortable and pleased with itself: Late 1993 into early 1994 was the critical, creative and commercial high point for Star Trek as a franchise, and it’s on Deep Space 9 that this is manifesting the most visibly and effortlessly. This must have been around the time I started taking serious notice of the show too, because it’s “The Homecoming”/“The Circle”/“The Siege” that’s among the first crop of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine stories I can recall having an active understanding of the plot and character details from, as opposed to merely faint recollections of dissociated images and scenes. Most of this was due to my having recently getting into Starlog’s official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine around this time (or really, the following Spring) to catch up with the series, but that warrants its own chapter later down the line.

The ironic thing is that by definition, a peak is a high as one can possibly go, and there’s nowhere to go from there but down. And while this second/seventh season is in many ways just as good as the crop of episodes that came out the year before, there’s an impossible-to-ignore shadow hanging over all the proceedings here, and as good as this opening volley was and is, it also marks the beginning of the end of Star Trek’s imperious phase. This won’t become clear for another few months though, nor will the plans being drafted behind the scenes that will conspire to make life a living hell for cast and crew alike over the next year, and ultimately bring about Star Trek’s end.

For the moment though, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is riding high. The first half of “The Homecoming” is truly iconic to me-There’s Kira and Chief O’Brien in undercover civilian attire in a fierce shootout to liberate Bajoran POWs on one of the very few alien planets where it makes absolutely perfect sense that it’s plainly a quarry.…

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Let’s Kill Hitler Again

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Hi all, sorry about the extended time away. Think of it as a winter hiatus, a polar opposite to, say, the summer hiatus preceding Let’s Kill Hitler. Anyways, I’m back!  And I’ve six thousand words to share.

I just happened to rewatch Series 6 recently with very good friends, so it’s on my mind, esepcially Let’s Kill Hitler. It’s one of those episodes that, for me, gets better every time I watch it – it’s very amenable to esoteric exploration, and being so familiar with all its beats, I no longer notice the tonal whiplash and the jarring pace. “Plus, she’s a woman” still sticks out like a sore thumb, but still, that’s a relatively minor complaint compared to all the wonderful stuff going on in this story, and even more so in the context of its production.

For those unfamiliar with the production schedule for Series 6, many of the stories were shot or placed out of order. Black Spot, for example, was repositioned to the first half of the series, switching places with Night Terrors. Let’s Kill Hitler, on the other hand, started production after they’d already filmed The Girl Who Waited, The God Complex, and Closing Time, even though it was meant to precede those stories in the broadcast schedule. So there’s a sort of foreknowledge to the production of this story – as if it were traveling backwards in time and inserting itself into a flow of events that had, in effect, already happened.

And I think this is important to understand when decoding LKH, because the show itself seemed to fully realize its aesthetics with Nick Hurran’s direction of The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex, where the visual elemt to the storytelling is every bit as (if not more) compelling as the stories themselves. Which is not to say that Moffat’s tenure was never about visual storytelling prior to Hurran, only that Hurran really took it to a stratospheric level. And surely Moffat and his production team realized this as Hurran’s work was already done by the time they got around to making Let’s Kill Hitler. As such, I’m inclined to consider LKH primarily in terms of its visuals and aesthetics, because that’s where a huge part of the storytelling occurs, though there are many thematic layers worth exploring as well. Which we will.

 

The Wheatfield

The very first scene of this episode was actually the very last one shot for the entire series – after The Wedding, in fact, because the production team needed to let the wheat grow. So I’m not surprised that the visuals and aesthetics and thematics of this scene are impeccable, helping it to function as a microcosm of the episode as a whole. Consider the fact it’s filmed out of order, and travels back to be inserted at a particular time and place, which is true for LKH, but is also true for the conceit of Melody “inserting” herself into her parents’ history, not to mention how the character of Mels is inserted into the show’s mythology itself.…

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A Very Rough Initial Take on Rabid Puppies 2

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Back in August, in response to Vox Day crowing about how his Xanatos gambit had come off so perfectly or something equally stupid, I made a stab at predicting how he’d play things in 2016:

I think we can safely assume that the Rabid Puppy slate in 2016 is going to consist of five nominees in every category, to try to maximize the number of categories with no non-Puppy nominees. I suspect he’s also going to pointedly include nominees that exist to dare the left to vote against them.

Vox is, of course, nothing if not banally and irritatingly predictable, having just released the first chunk of his Rabid Puppies slate for the year, his picks for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. And sure enough, his five picks include not only a writer whose sole publications have been through Castalia House but Andy Weir, author of The Martian, who would have been on the ballot last year were it not for the Puppies, and who I’ve had penciled in on my balloting spreadsheet since November.

First of all, then, my sincere sympathies to Andy Weir, who I’m sure had absolutely zero desire to be put on the Rabid Puppies slate, who self-evidently doesn’t and didn’t need Vox Day’s help and who really should have been allowed to enjoy his Oscar season in peace and without any of this nonsense. Now an award that he would have been up for anyway (if not ineligible on the basis of having won it last year) is fundamentally tainted. This should serve first and foremost as a reminder that Vox Day is a complete and utter dick, and that the only reason anyone would support him is that they are too.

Second of all, then, my initial thoughts on how to reply to the tactic. For one thing, I’m still going to nominate Weir. He deserves it. Frankly, his breakout success is literally the exact sort of thing the Campbell Award exists to honor. He stormed on the scene and got a Ridley Scott movie for his trouble. I’m going to carry on with my ballot in all other categories, and if Vox turns out to make some of the same picks as me, so be it. I’m perfectly at peace with that.

Because, you see, when it comes to voting?

I have a plan.…

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 3.04: And Now His Watch is Ended

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Daenerys sees the tower through the trees

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

Lions of King’s Landing: Tyrion Lannister, Cersei Lannister, the Hand of the King Tywin Lannister

The Lion, Jaime Lannister

Dragons of Astapor: Daenerys Targaryen

Bears of Astapor: Jorah Mormont

The Direwolves: Catelyn Stark, Bran Stark

Roses of King’s Landing: Margery Tyrell

The Kraken, Theon Greyjoy

Direwolves of Winterfell: Sansa Stark

The Direwolf, Arya Stark

Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarly

The Stag, Gendry

Stags of King’s Landing: King Joffrey Baratheon

The Dogs, Sandor Clegane

Spiders of King’s Landing: Varys

Bears of the Wall: Lord Commander Jeor Mormont

Winterfell is abandoned and in ruins. Riverrun is silent. Harrenhal is barren.

The episode is in eleven parts. The first runs three minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The opening image is of Jaime Lannister’s severed hand hanging around his neck.

The second runs four minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by family, from Jaime to Tyrion Lannister.

The third runs three minutes and is set at Craster’s Keep north of the Wall. The transition is by image, from Varys closing the crate over the sorcerer who cut him to a door closing.

The fourth runs two minutes and is set in the North. The transition is by hard cut, from Samwell turning away from Gilly to Bran running in a dream.

The fifth runs six minutes and is in two sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is two minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Bran’s face to Varys and Rosalyn talking. The second section is four minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Varys speaking of prodigies in odd places and Roslyn to Margery.

The sixth part runs five minutes and is set in the North. The transition is by hard cut, from Cersei scowling to Theon and Ramsey riding through the woods.

The seventh runs two minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by allegiance, from Ramsey Snow to Locke, also serving Roose Bolton.

The eighth runs ten minutes and is in three sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is three minutes long; he transition is by family, from Jaime to Cersei and Tywin Lannister. The second is four minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Tywin to Olenna. The third is three minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Varys and Olenna talking about Sansa to Sansa, and by family, from Olenna to Margery Tyrell.

The ninth part runs five minutes, and is set at Craster’s Keep north of the Wall. The transition is by hard cut, from Sansa and Margery to a funeral pyre. It features the death of Jeor Mormont, stabbed in the back by his own men.

The tenth runs five minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by hard cut, from Rast to the Brotherhood Without Banners riding.

The eleventh runs six minutes and is set in Astapor.…

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“And the stars are old”: Descent, Part II

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Last time on Star Trek: The Next Generation…

“’Descent’ marks an important turning point in a number of respects. Up front, it’s the first time Star Trek: The Next Generation has done a cliffhanger season finale more or less only because this is the sort of thing it does to close off filming block seasons; in other words, the first time the cliffhanger finale structure is implemented as a matter of course and functional habit instead of being the result of unexpected necessity.” 
“This is not the same as critiquing, say Captain Picard’s specific actions in that episode: In fact, the whole reason Alynna Nechayev is here is to further reinforce that he acted wisely and correctly-Let’s not forget that Nechayev is the first Starfleet Admiral *overtly* coded as actively evil. Her very condemnation of Picard’s choice lets us know that he made the right one. Rather, what “Descent” is attacking is the notion that moral choice was ever necessary: There is no moral dilemma in regards to the sanctity of life; it should be preserved and respected above all else no matter what, end of, and ‘I, Borg’ was stupid to insinuate that wasn’t the case and to put Captain Picard and Guinan in the position of neglecting that.” 
“Because what the Borg have done here in ‘Descent’ is, terrifyingly, assimilate the very concepts of individual positionality and human empathy themselves. They’ve taken two of the most sacred tenets by which Star Trek operates, ground them into the engines of capitalism and turned them back against us in an attempt to quell any resistance we could offer before we reached a point where we were prepared to effect change. 
The Borg’s endgame is, and always has been, to kill off Star Trek as Star Trek: The Next Generation before it transitions to the form that will do battle with them on their own terms. And even if they were to fail here, they’d still be ready for us in the future. Either way, they win.”
“And who better to mastermind it all than a psychopathic fascist android?”

And now, the conclusion…

It’s hard not to go into “Descent, Part II” without acknowledging that this is the beginning of the end for Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s televisual voyage. The news had broken over the summer, so there’s no point in pretending the shadow of cancellation wasn’t looming long over the seventh season. Let’s clarify a few facts first and foremost then: Yes, Star Trek: The Next Generation was prematurely canceled. Yes, it was canceled because Paramount wanted to launch a film series with the Next Generation cast. Production costs had gone up and, with the show as popular as it had ever been, they thought it would be more profitable to start a new film series than to continue the TV one. They were wrong.…

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