The New Frontier
Dec. 2nd, 2007 06:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shankieThis book is so great; if you haven't read it, jeeze. Do that. And everything else Darwyn Cooke has anything to do with, while your at it. Like, The Spirit. :D
There's one part in particular of this story that gets me; Agent Faraday's attempts to capture both Barry and J'onn. Though the two don't interact much during or after directly, indirectly they end up influencing each other hugely. Mostly through television.
It's starts innocently enough, them moves swiftly through unsettling and eventually into... heartwarming, actually.
The first time I read this? I actually sighed in relief when he got away.
I was totally stunned; Barry made for a great way to hit home the Scary Big Brother feeling of it, because he's on the side of the law. Secretly a cop, but notice how the police officers react there. I also kept remembering his hamster-wheel in DKR2 in a big way.
I have to say, I like J'onn better in this series than even in his own series. Which is also great, of course, but there's something about how human and alien he is at the same time.
The art helps, too. :D
I can't blame Barry for this at all. Not that it can last, of course, but that's the sort of thanks worth quitting over.
J'onn's decision-making being inspired by watching TV and movies paired with the exploration of humans fearing what they don't understand works in such a great way. In a timelessly relevant way.
Leave it to J'onn to find the good in someone right away. Not only forgiving his would-be captor, but befriending him. I love that, so much.
And how taken aback Faraday is by it.
J'onn charms him, in his dry, honest way. :)
I so love J'onn's hand in that last panel. Hee.
I'm such a sucker for chess metaphor in comics. Like that storyarc of JLA: Classified that had Batman's thinking process as a chess board with League members and the opposition as pieces. Even Harvey's games with Batman at Arkham. It's the imagery.
Now, for Barry again.
Loving his Iris... and getting even.
::melts from the love::
Barry genuinely forgiving him makes me smile.
Like the best books tend to be, this one makes everyone great, giving everyone from Jimmy Olsen to The Phantom Stranger moments of total awesome. But for me, Barry and J'onn steal the show in this one.
Barry Allen is love. :D
There's one part in particular of this story that gets me; Agent Faraday's attempts to capture both Barry and J'onn. Though the two don't interact much during or after directly, indirectly they end up influencing each other hugely. Mostly through television.
It's starts innocently enough, them moves swiftly through unsettling and eventually into... heartwarming, actually.
The first time I read this? I actually sighed in relief when he got away.
I was totally stunned; Barry made for a great way to hit home the Scary Big Brother feeling of it, because he's on the side of the law. Secretly a cop, but notice how the police officers react there. I also kept remembering his hamster-wheel in DKR2 in a big way.
I have to say, I like J'onn better in this series than even in his own series. Which is also great, of course, but there's something about how human and alien he is at the same time.
The art helps, too. :D
I can't blame Barry for this at all. Not that it can last, of course, but that's the sort of thanks worth quitting over.
J'onn's decision-making being inspired by watching TV and movies paired with the exploration of humans fearing what they don't understand works in such a great way. In a timelessly relevant way.
Leave it to J'onn to find the good in someone right away. Not only forgiving his would-be captor, but befriending him. I love that, so much.
And how taken aback Faraday is by it.
J'onn charms him, in his dry, honest way. :)
I so love J'onn's hand in that last panel. Hee.
I'm such a sucker for chess metaphor in comics. Like that storyarc of JLA: Classified that had Batman's thinking process as a chess board with League members and the opposition as pieces. Even Harvey's games with Batman at Arkham. It's the imagery.
Now, for Barry again.
Loving his Iris... and getting even.
::melts from the love::
Barry genuinely forgiving him makes me smile.
Like the best books tend to be, this one makes everyone great, giving everyone from Jimmy Olsen to The Phantom Stranger moments of total awesome. But for me, Barry and J'onn steal the show in this one.
Barry Allen is love. :D
no subject
on 2007-12-03 12:40 am (UTC)I was relatively new to comics when my English teacher suggested this title to me. This was my first exposure to Barry and Iris and since then, I've never stopped loving them.
no subject
on 2007-12-03 12:16 pm (UTC)I first read Watchmen because it was required reading for a class and they had it in the college bookstore... kept seeing it there and figured it must be decent to be in a class. Ha.
no subject
on 2007-12-03 11:19 pm (UTC)Its fun too. He helped me embezzle school money for comics.
no subject
on 2007-12-03 08:17 pm (UTC)The attempted capture of the Flash genuinely surprised and scared me. And Faraday was so menacing when he mentioned Rex Tyler. At the beginning of the book, there was a newspaper article about Tyler, aka the Hourman, falling off a building along with several police officers when he was running from them. To know that the government had actually captured and imprisoned him for years freaked me out.
And what exactly do they do with their prisoners? The cynical part of me says "experiment on them."
I loved how each panel on Flash's TV speech had a different TV.
And Iris already knowing Barry was the Flash and her supporting him was amazing. I melted from the love as well.
(Tangently, it got me thinking of their future grand-kids like Bart, and what a Young Justice in the 1960s or 1970s would be like.)
J'onn was so awesome, from the rescue of the kid from the evil cult (where he met Batman) to his rescuing of Faraday from the rocket blast. Oh, and how he thought that Martian invasion movie was supposed to be a comedy, before realizing people actually thought that Martians were evil killers.
no subject
on 2007-12-03 09:00 pm (UTC)I'm pretty sure experimentation would be the order of the day; after all, he doesn't say a government prisoner, he says property. I wonder what would have happened if he was captured; somehow I doubt they would have let him go, at least not right away.
I also wonder if J'onn really could escape whenever he wanted or not; prolly, but...
And Batman was seriously freaky in that scene. Those missing teeth really had to hurt.
no subject
on 2007-12-04 08:58 pm (UTC)I wonder how Faraday--and by extension, the U.S. Government--justify imprisoning people with superpowers. If they're doing something illegal, they're supposed to have a trial first. But given the era this is in, civil rights aren't exactly a priority of the government.
I'm recalling the backstory of the MMORPG City of Heroes now. Waybackwhen in the game, the government passed a law in the '50s or '60s declaring anyone who had powers a national resource, and could at any time be pressed into service. If you didn't comply, you were imprisoned. This ended when several minority superheroes sued the government, and exposed the practice of sending people--mostly minorities--off on suicide missions in secret wars the public knew nothing about.
I'm guessing J'onn could escape if he wanted. Either just be too fast and too strong for anyone to catch him, or use his telepathy to make someone open his cell, or whatever. He was trying to get Faraday to trust him, and breaking out wouldn't help.
I really like the rescue scene. We get to see the original Batman costume, and how the boy was so scared of him. And then he switches to a more familiar Bat-costume and gets Robin, when he realizes he's supposed to be scaring the criminals, not the people he's trying to save.
no subject
on 2007-12-04 09:12 pm (UTC)This all makes me want to write fic about this, heh.
I love Bats in this story, I think he's best when he's in the background, around the edges doing his shadowy thing. Giving him character development like that just is like icing on the cake. :D
no subject
on 2007-12-05 01:12 am (UTC)I'll totally beta it for you, if you want. Along with that theoretical Clark/Lois/Diana fic. :D
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on 2007-12-05 01:26 am (UTC)I can't remember if you even read slash at all right off the top of my head and would even be interested, and I apologize for that. I've been, uh, drinking tonight. Heh.
Keeping it just to this one fic (that I'm pretty certain I'm going to write at this point, along with the threesome, woohoo!) would be totally awesome, but I'd like to throw that out there if you're at all interested. :D
no subject
on 2007-12-05 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-12-05 05:12 am (UTC)I totally understand being busy. I generally try to do my own editing and all that to make less mistakes from the get-go and all. Mostly I'm looking for a fairly objective "this sucks" or "this doesn't suck" sort of thing, heh.
no subject
on 2007-12-07 02:30 am (UTC)I can probably do the suck vs. not-suck thing.
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on 2007-12-07 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-12-03 09:05 pm (UTC)So am I. On the other hand, I can't help feeling that the few really smart comics characters* (Tao and Ozymandias being the only two that come to mind**) play Go at least as much as they do Chess.
* AFAIK, only Alan Moore and Mike Carey really have the knack of writing characters who are significantly smarter than they are. And both of them are plenty smart enough to start with.
** And goodness knows what John Constantine and Lucifer play - probably Cripple Mr. Onion.
no subject
on 2007-12-03 09:37 pm (UTC)Totally have this image of Constantine and Lucifer playing Hungry Hungry Hippos in my head right now. Angrily and competitively. XD
I'm not sure why, as it has absolutely no relation to cards, but there you go.
Kyer (Fanfiction[dot]net)
on 2009-05-09 08:23 am (UTC)