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BB #24 pre-review. Yeah, you heard me.
Sooo... I did promise something resembling a coherent review for BB #24. And I intend to deliver. But my squeeing resulted in Mom giving me a prelude: why get so excited over a comic book?
Here's your answer, Mom, and this issue embodied all the reasons why I adore this series. (Slightly edited for clarity.)
Comic books are still a form of escapism, but there's a need to balance that with accessibility - allowing readers to identify with the hero in question, to make sure that things don't get too easy for them. Problem is, time and time again, comic book writers decide the best way to do that is to make the hero's life suck beyond the telling of it.
Strategies for this include but are not limited to: dead parents, secret identity tearing friendships apart, complete failure at relationships, negating an interesting marriage in a Stupid Editorial Decision, and sending the hero into a downward spiral of "MY LIFE IS PAIN." And it's worse with teenage superheroes. Too many writers - hell, apparently the editor-in-chief of DC - thinks that writing teenagers = writing hormonal stupid assholes who spend more time whining than actual heroics. It's like they think that the whining and the emo and the general suck of a Real Life will balance out the superpowers, when instead it just makes me grit my teeth and put the book back on the shelf.
Then Blue Beetle came out, and from the get-go Jaime Reyes had plenty of reasons to complain. If he doesn't win for Worst Origin Ever, he's probably close. He got creepy superpowers with a mind of their own forced on him, he got dragged into space, and then was apparently left behind on an exploding satellite to die. He then crash-landed back home, nearly got killed by a Green Lantern, then had to walk through the desert naked, hitch a ride home only to discover he'd lost an entire year. His folks didn't take it well, accidentally turning on his powers made his sister terrified of him, and he still had no idea how to use his powers since they had a mind of their own, talked to him and made him sound crazy and didn't come with a manual. Normally, with a setup like this, you would expect a parade of angst and emo and bitching and misery.
But it didn't come. Sure, there was some bitching and moaning, and a LOT of (understandable) freaking out. But even in the beginning, the book was all about Jaime moving on and figuring out just what he was going to do about these powers and the missing year and lack of normal instead of whining about it. His family and friends remain not-dead, aware of his powers, awesome and supportive. And it worked.
It didn't make things too easy for him, and it also didn't make things so hard that you stopped caring about the character. So without the overdose of angst and misery and "teenage superhero against the entire world"... we got a superhero comic that actually has a sense of adventure and characters who you care about. (And, thankfully, a sense of humor. How can you hate a main character whose power fantasy turns out to be a dentist? How?)
We actually got to see Jaime getting his life back on track and growing as a person and as a hero. When he found out that his predecessor had no powers - just his own intellect - and tried to learn to fight smarter, that started to become evident in what he did; he didn't just keep reiterating that he had to think his way out of things. And he was getting better at it. A lot better. Jaime's become a character who I can't help but want to cheer on, and John Rogers, the main writer, knows how to write adventure. Knows how to actually make it exciting. You don't see that a lot in comics. Heck, you don't get such a well-developed supporting cast that you're made to care about so much in comics.
So, with that in mind, the last issue ended as follows: Jaime was captured by the Reach (the bad guys, Mom, in case you are reading this), had his powers literally ripped out of his back, was wounded and once again without pants. He'd also just watched his family's house get nuked from space (not knowing they'd been saved at the last second) and was tossed into a cell on their spaceship, still bleeding, with no powers or pants. Time for a miraculous rescue? No. Collapsing in misery? No. Deus ex machina? No.
He didn't give up hope, deciding his folks had to be alive. Then he managed to break himself out of the cell, get pants and get to the ship's engine core. In that order. Using his wits. And no powers. And it was brilliant, completely in-character, and did not require the Reach to suddenly lose 100 IQ points.
Seriously, the entire issue was up there with the best climactic scenes in any adventure film. The entire issue. It was actually exciting - something I haven't been able to say about a comic book in ages. Especially the moment where the villain realizes - too late - that he's seriously underestimated the hero. Yeah, sure, there are plenty of scenes where the hero gets the better of the villain, but rarely do you get one that inspires so much utter glee.
I got all that out of a comic book. A comic book. What do you think about that?
Other than "You're a geek, Mandi." This is common knowledge.
Yeah, yeah, real review coming. But this had to be said.
Here's your answer, Mom, and this issue embodied all the reasons why I adore this series. (Slightly edited for clarity.)
Comic books are still a form of escapism, but there's a need to balance that with accessibility - allowing readers to identify with the hero in question, to make sure that things don't get too easy for them. Problem is, time and time again, comic book writers decide the best way to do that is to make the hero's life suck beyond the telling of it.
Strategies for this include but are not limited to: dead parents, secret identity tearing friendships apart, complete failure at relationships, negating an interesting marriage in a Stupid Editorial Decision, and sending the hero into a downward spiral of "MY LIFE IS PAIN." And it's worse with teenage superheroes. Too many writers - hell, apparently the editor-in-chief of DC - thinks that writing teenagers = writing hormonal stupid assholes who spend more time whining than actual heroics. It's like they think that the whining and the emo and the general suck of a Real Life will balance out the superpowers, when instead it just makes me grit my teeth and put the book back on the shelf.
Then Blue Beetle came out, and from the get-go Jaime Reyes had plenty of reasons to complain. If he doesn't win for Worst Origin Ever, he's probably close. He got creepy superpowers with a mind of their own forced on him, he got dragged into space, and then was apparently left behind on an exploding satellite to die. He then crash-landed back home, nearly got killed by a Green Lantern, then had to walk through the desert naked, hitch a ride home only to discover he'd lost an entire year. His folks didn't take it well, accidentally turning on his powers made his sister terrified of him, and he still had no idea how to use his powers since they had a mind of their own, talked to him and made him sound crazy and didn't come with a manual. Normally, with a setup like this, you would expect a parade of angst and emo and bitching and misery.
But it didn't come. Sure, there was some bitching and moaning, and a LOT of (understandable) freaking out. But even in the beginning, the book was all about Jaime moving on and figuring out just what he was going to do about these powers and the missing year and lack of normal instead of whining about it. His family and friends remain not-dead, aware of his powers, awesome and supportive. And it worked.
It didn't make things too easy for him, and it also didn't make things so hard that you stopped caring about the character. So without the overdose of angst and misery and "teenage superhero against the entire world"... we got a superhero comic that actually has a sense of adventure and characters who you care about. (And, thankfully, a sense of humor. How can you hate a main character whose power fantasy turns out to be a dentist? How?)
We actually got to see Jaime getting his life back on track and growing as a person and as a hero. When he found out that his predecessor had no powers - just his own intellect - and tried to learn to fight smarter, that started to become evident in what he did; he didn't just keep reiterating that he had to think his way out of things. And he was getting better at it. A lot better. Jaime's become a character who I can't help but want to cheer on, and John Rogers, the main writer, knows how to write adventure. Knows how to actually make it exciting. You don't see that a lot in comics. Heck, you don't get such a well-developed supporting cast that you're made to care about so much in comics.
So, with that in mind, the last issue ended as follows: Jaime was captured by the Reach (the bad guys, Mom, in case you are reading this), had his powers literally ripped out of his back, was wounded and once again without pants. He'd also just watched his family's house get nuked from space (not knowing they'd been saved at the last second) and was tossed into a cell on their spaceship, still bleeding, with no powers or pants. Time for a miraculous rescue? No. Collapsing in misery? No. Deus ex machina? No.
He didn't give up hope, deciding his folks had to be alive. Then he managed to break himself out of the cell, get pants and get to the ship's engine core. In that order. Using his wits. And no powers. And it was brilliant, completely in-character, and did not require the Reach to suddenly lose 100 IQ points.
Seriously, the entire issue was up there with the best climactic scenes in any adventure film. The entire issue. It was actually exciting - something I haven't been able to say about a comic book in ages. Especially the moment where the villain realizes - too late - that he's seriously underestimated the hero. Yeah, sure, there are plenty of scenes where the hero gets the better of the villain, but rarely do you get one that inspires so much utter glee.
I got all that out of a comic book. A comic book. What do you think about that?
Other than "You're a geek, Mandi." This is common knowledge.
Yeah, yeah, real review coming. But this had to be said.
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::coughs:: Best comic currently being sold. End of story.
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I can't wait!! I think it was
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