Who Watches The Watchers

 

Watchmen

Alan Moore

Watchmen is a comic epic.  Alan Moore creates a world straight from the crime pulps of the 30's and 40's and makes the hero's that police it outlaws.  If you want bright shiny colors and heroes that save the day with a smile and a handshake, you may want to look elsewhere.   Watchmen is dark, the heroes do not have superhuman powers (except for one), and they are not afraid to kill the bad guys, be they henchmen, thugs, or masterminds. 

The story takes place in New York City in the year of our Lord, 1985.  In the late 30's vigilante justice sprung up, inspired by comic books, to take back the streets.  As the first wave was calling it quits, a second generation came forth inspired by the first.  By 1977 public outcry forced the government to take action and make vigilante justice illegal.  New York is a cesspool of crime and corruption.  Poeple stand by and watch as neighbors are raped and killed in front of them.  Drug use, child pornography, and gangs run rampant.  The police are impotent, it is time for the heroes to make another stand. 

This story is a dystopia.  Whatever could go wrong, has and is continuing to do so.  There is no Superman, no perfect boy scout to light the way.  The heroes are flawed and some are even mentally unstable.  They are not noble and they are not kind.  This story is Dark.  Not recommended for anyone under 14.  They wouldn't really get it and it is too graphic and dark anyways.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Crisis on Infinite Earths

Crisis on Infinite Earths

Marv Wolfman

In 1985 Detective Comics(DC) set forth to make their titles more reader friendly. To do this, they wanted to get all of their characters into one universe and have a set origin story. To do this, DC had to destroy the other universes and either move or destroy the characters from those universes.

Superman, for example, existed in multiple universes. His history and origin were different in each. This lead itself to confusion amongst a new reader who would pick up a few Superman titles and see the inconsistencies. Crisis, as it is now commonly referred to, solved all of that. DC recreated their universe of superheroes in such a way that the definitive origins had to be told still. Crisis was a giant reset button.

I was eight years old when this came out. By the time I was reading comics the after shocks of crisis had settled down. All the magazines would refer to it as when DC got straightened out. I had never read it. That is until I picked it up at the library a couple of weeks ago collected in trade paper back(TPB) format.

I am pretty unfamiliar with DC continuum. I grew up on marvel stuff and only picked through some DC titles. This TPB was great though. It was reader friendly for people just stepping in. You could see the epicness of the project. It was a compelling story. It was also the beginning of cross title crossovers. Best of all, it was for the fans. Sure it made money, but it was ultimately for the fans.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

VS

 

Vs

 

Marvel

Dc

So I picked up something at a game store on Saturday.  It is called VS, and it is a trading card game.  Some will be familiar with Magic:  The Gathering and most with Pokemon and Yugio.  This game allows you to team up comic book characters and pit them against others.  You can stick with team affiliations or not.  For example, you could have an X-Men deck and you could play a Brotherhood of evil mutants deck, or you could have an X-Men deck and play against a JLA deck.  You could also mix characters.  You could put Batman in a deck with magneto, or mix Spiderman into a superman deck. 

If you are in TN you should check out Next Level Games for more information or tournaments.  They also carry Magic, Pokemon, Yugio, and other card games as well as comics. 

Read and post comments | Send to a friend