In Which Trai Reviews 'Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra'

The Book: Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra

The Author and The Artists: Greg Rucka (author); Salvador Larroca, Danny Miki, etc. (artists)

How I Found It: Spider-Man may have been the great superhero love of my childhood, but Daredevil was the movie that got me loving superheroes in the first place, and the Daredevil/Elektra love story was always one of my favorite parts. Once browsing Daredevil comics told me this existed, I had to go for it.

The Review: Elektra Natchios is 17 and arriving at Colombia University for her freshman year of college. Her father is a businessman who owns a small dry cleaning chain in Queens; her mother died of breast cancer when she was young. Elektra's a normal girl in all but one respect: she's been extensively trained in martial arts, and she can defend herself quite well if need be--which is a good thing, considering the events of the year to come.

There's good and there's bad: good, she hits it off with Phoebe, her roommate, and a fellow student, Melissa. Bad, Melissa has attracted the negative attention of Calvin Langstrom the Third, known around campus as "Trey." Good, Elektra's set her sights on Matt Murdock, an attractive pre-law student whose physical abilities rival her own, and who also happens to be blind. Bad... Trey rapes Melissa. Even more bad: the police won't take action, due to Trey's family's status. Elektra might have to take matters into her own hands--except that Matt, who has a secret or two of his own, might not let her get away with it.

I really like the conceit behind Ultimate Marvel--younger, more contemporary reimaginings of Marvel heroes and heroines. This is my first acquaintance with the line, and I'm definitely curious now to try more--I like that the line reworks characters and storylines from the originals and doesn't try to confuse new readers with the complex history of the original imprint. I know just enough of the original Daredevil and Elektra characters to make sense of what's been changed here: Elektra's family is more middle-class, rather than rich; Elektra's mother's death was pinned down to a specific cause rather than left negligible; Matt and Elektra meet in college, instead of when they're older. I liked this idea of Matt and Elektra as college students: reading about kids my age, in an environment like the one I live in now, made this story easy to relate to, current, and compelling.

The art was really excellent; I think this is the most impressed I've been with any of the Marvel comics I've read so far. Sometimes Marvel women--even women like Aunt May!--look too much like supermodels for me to take them seriously, but Elektra, Phoebe, and Mel looked like normal girls, the type of girls I would see around my campus. Elektra's outfit was made into something more practical, the type of thing that a teenage girl--yes, even a teenage girl taking up secret vigliante work--would wear. Same with Matt's costume, although like many reviewers, yes, I did find it hard to believe that all Matt needed was a strip of cloth over his eyes and the top of his head to keep Elektra and others from realizing it was him.

Admittedly, part of the reason I found this story so compelling was that yes, I like to occasionally read something where a rapist gets what's coming to them. When I assembled my list of Top 10 Villians last year, I realized that most of mine were rapists. It's one of those crimes I can't forgive. So when Lisbeth Salander tattoos Bjurman, or when Tess Durbeyfield slams Alec's hand in a window casement, yep, I cheer. Rape on college campuses is a sad reality, and I was glad to see it addressed here and taken seriously--it wasn't sensationalized just because it was part of a superhero comic. Harsh reality is presented here--the police being hesitant to press charges, because of how prominent Trey's family is; Elektra being not-so-subtly told that Melissa might have to stay silent; Trey's family exerting pressure on the legal system and taking revenge on Elektra and her father.

Matt and Elektra's romance is intertwined with the vigilante subplot, and although it moves a bit too fast, I blame that on the arc only being four issues. The story skips ahead months at a time, at least in the beginning. It basically ends up being love after a few dates, which I'm never too fond of in fiction. But I liked their dynamic nonetheless. Matt tries desperately to keep Elektra from heading down the dark path of revenge and even murder. Elektra gets the feeling she doesn't know quite as much about him as she thought she did. Despite all the deceit and desperation, Matt and Elektra are still, when it comes down to it, a teenage couple--they get physical at some slightly inappropriate times, Elektra dishes with Phoebe once the date ends, and so on. The romance was fairly light compared to the darker themes of sexual crimes and dirty politics, and provided a nice contrast. I do think that the story could have been expanded and fleshed out--we don't get to see much of Matt outside his scenes with Elektra, and his backstory is left out entirely--but nonetheless, I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to checking out the sequel, Ultimate Elektra: Devil's Due.

Overall, this was a graphic novel that wowed me visually and one that was easy for me to relate to, and I was willing to overlook the minor flaws in pacing and character development because of that. Recommended for older teenagers (15 and up, I'd say), especially girls who liked the movies and might be intimidated about where to start in trying the comics.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Left Bank Gang'

The Book: The Left Bank Gang

The Author and Artist: Jason (colored by Hubert)

How I Found It: My Graphic Lit professor passed it around in class and was kind enough to let me borrow it when I expressed interest. Thanks!

The Review: In the world Jason presents, the most valuable art isn't books--it's comics. In Paris' Latin Quarter in the 1920s, struggling artists F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingay, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce are fighting against artistic blocks and marital problems.

Scott is trying to deal with Zelda's fits of instability and infidelity. Ernest doesn't have the money to support his family. With this in mind, Ernest proposes a radical scheme for how they can get money. The scheme doesn't exactly go off without a hitch, and it's only seeing it from everyone's perspectives that helps the reader come to understand what really happened.

Having just finished discussing Pound, Stein, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway in my American Lit survey, I thought this would be an interesting read. What did it have to say about art, and what did it have to say about the artists? How would the artists, real people of the period, come across on page? I'd seen fictional representations of these people before (this summer's Midnight in Paris was lovely), and though I only have a passing acquaintance with the work of most of these artists, I'm very much interested in them. After reading this, I'm certainly curious to finally dig in to Tender is the Night and A Moveable Feast, to get glimpses of the truth behind their lives.

The choices Jason made were really interesting to me. I can't say I think I fully understand it all, but I'm certainly willing to think about it. The characters are represented by anthropomorphized dogs, which I see now is a trademark of Jason's style. I don't think he does it for the same reasons as Spiegelman did in Maus, say, but I found myself thinking about the reasons anyway. Each character is only distinguished by a color--Fitzgerald is a white dog in a red suit; Hemingway wears orange; Pound wears green. By having the protagonists look so similar, was Jason raising a point--were the members of the Lost Generation really all treading the same path, essentially the same person? (Given what I've read of hers, I think Gertrude Stein would say they were.)

I found myself taking particular notice of the silent panels. Silent panels are probably one of the things I've most enjoyed learning about in the course of my studies this semester, and there are several that have really made me think (a tragic escape from an illegal party in Persepolis, a closeup on a Rorschach inkblot that resembles an abyss in Watchmen), and this book added several more. Scott, alone and devastated, sits contemplating the bottle of alcohol next to him. Hemingway feeds a pigeon and then stealthily kills it, desperate for food for his family. Pound draws a fellow customer at the coffee shop and seems to wonder about her. Often, these sequences carried on for several panels, with characters whose capacity for emotional expression was limited by how they were represented, but I never lost sight of what their thoughts were or what was going on. I give Jason a lot of credit for that.

I really appreciated and enjoyed the commentary on the writers-turned-artists--Tolstoy is criticized because all his characters "look the same." Zelda used to help Scott with his artwork; from what I can remember, Zelda helped him with his writing at times. Gertrude Stein offers the young Hemingway some harsh but helpful advice. The choice to have everyone be comic book artists rather than writers was another thing that made me think. Was Jason positing the idea that comics are something to be valued as highly as we value novels? Was he being ironic?

Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the shifting perspectives towards the end. I've said before that I'm a sucker for multiple narrators or perspective shifts (only when done well, though), and it worked perfectly here. Nothing truly fits together until you see that final piece, and even if parts of what went on were obvious, I was captivated by how minute shifts of perspective made all the difference.

I couldn't find anything at all to dislike in this book, and I'd even like to own a copy someday. It's a fast read, but one subtle enough that I'd like to return to it a few more times--knowing more about Jason, about Fitzgerald and Hemingway, about the other artists mentioned, or just to appreciate the craft and skill that went into it. Recommended to fans of the Lost Generation!

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Complete Persepolis'

The Book: The Complete Persepolis

The Author and Artist: Marjane Satrapi

How I Found It: I saw the film in theatres upon its release, but didn't get to read the graphic novel until it was assigned for my course.

The Review: I'm sure I'm not the only one to have seen a movie long ago, not having read the book first, only to read the book years later, realize it's amazing, and then find the movie doesn't quite measure up to it. I had that experience with this book and its movie. I vividly remembered loving the movie and being outraged that it didn't win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature that year, even when I knew that as an animated film, Ratatouille far outclassed it. I loved the book just as much as I remembered loving the film, fortunately, and was more than pleased to talk about it in class.

Persepolis is the story of Marjane Satrapi's girlhood and then her teenage years, all taking place during the tumultuous years of the Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Her parents are somewhat more modern than their countrymen, and Marjane grows up surrounded by rock music, forbidden parties, and a certain knowledge about what's really going on in the country, contrary to the filtered version given to her by teachers and even the television.

Marjane grows up among the horrors of war; before she is even fourteen, she will see her friend's dead body following an explosion, learn some painful truths about class differences, and eventually have to leave Iran to live in Austria, when her parents decide she could have a better and brighter life ahead of her. In Austria, Marjane is faced with unraveling the complexities of her identity: in Austria, she is too Iranian; in Iran, she is too Western. Not only that, but she must begin to make sense of boys, politics, and her emerging artistic sense.

There are just certain things, I've realized now, that can only be conveyed by a graphic novel, by words and images combined. Silent panels, as I will mention in a forthcoming review of another graphic novel, have been the thing that most captivated me thus far in my coursework. There's a few here that really strike me: Marjane's horror upon seeing her friend's body in the rubble, or the silent chaos of a party interrupted by the guardians of the revolution. There's nothing that can match a series of wordless panels, frozen images of terror or nothingness, in emotional power or intellectual stimulation. Satrapi uses the graphic novel format to great effect.

It's one thing to have a recurring motif in a novel; it's another to have a visual motif in a graphic novel, so that the reader can see the repetition of certain images and how they change over time. The raised fist, the all-seeing eye, a farewell at an airport--all of these images are repeated more than once, and the meaning is different each time. That was another thing I found worked better in a graphic novel than straight prose. Even the color scheme was effective--the black and white color scheme meant, to me, not to get hung up on the details of what someone looked like, what that might mean for their nationality, and to instead look at the characters as people.

Technical considerations aside, Marjane's story was an emotional ride and an eye opener, one I'm not sorry to have read. Marjane's parents explain the truth behind the Shah's rule to her, but it also serves as an insight for Western readers, a look into what went on "behind the scenes," so to speak, the things that occurred in Iran that didn't make it to the Western news-watching public. This isn't always about the grand narrative of the revolution--it's about the lives of the individual people caught up in it. Marjane's parents, who risk their lives several times by protesting. Marjane's grandmother, full of wisdom and often helping the young Marjane on her path to self-discovery. Marjane's Uncle Anoosh, a former political prisoner Marjane becomes attached to. It's clear how much Marjane cares about these people, and how much we should care, and as a reader, I became emotionally invested fast. I cried several times as Marjane lost friends and family members, or came to some sort of revelation about herself or her country.

There are several incidents that will really stay with me--Marjane learning about class differences as she sees that poor young men are being sent to war (99-100), her grandmother's life advice (150), Marjane telling off some guardians (301), Marjane's mother's reaction to her impending marriage (317). Even if the story was painful at times, it was still an unflinching look at growing up, one that I could even relate to at times, despite not having gone through nearly as much as Marjane had. I'll certainly want to reread this in the future.

The movie was a good representation of the story, for sure, but so much was condensed or cut out entirely that it just didn't stack up in my mind. There's none of the graphic novel's insight into the ideology of the veil, and we barely see anything of Marjane evolving into an artist, which perhaps the most fascinating section, to me. Moments like the lineup in the second volume, where we see the hair and clothes each girl has under her veil, highlighting her individuality, are gone, and I felt that a good portion of the story's meaning went with it.

This graphic novel is an especially good choice for teenage girls as well as older women, and educational to boot. If someone is hesitant to read it, I'd say show them the movie first and see how they react--if they like it, be sure they read the graphic novel to get the full story. If there's a teenage girl in your life who might not appreciate graphic novels just yet (or a boy who's interested in history, or vice versa!), I'd say give them this one and see what happens.

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'Spider-Man: The Death of Captain Stacy' and 'Spider-Man: Reign'

Hi, all! I'm short on time and still have a backlog to get through, so in the interest of time, I'm doing two Spider-Man mini-reviews in one post! This month has been a bit graphic novel-heavy due to my coursework and slight obsession with Spider-Man, but there will be more diversity on this blog soon, I promise!

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Captain Stacy, by Stan Lee (author), Gil Kane with John Romita (artists): Before Gwen Stacy met her demise at the hands of the Green Goblin, her father was killed trying to save a child in the path of a battle between Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man. Unbeknownst to Peter, Captain Stacy had known for quite some time that Peter was Spider-Man, and, with his dying breath, made Peter swear to protect Gwen. Peter swears he will, but that might be a problem--believing the accounts of the passerby who thought Spider-Man taking Stacy's body away from the crowd meant he went to finish him off, and with Peter unable to tell her his side of the story, Gwen swears that she hates Spider-Man, and joins forces with a corrupt D.A. candidate who wants to stop Spider-Man for good.

Having read the Gwen's death story arc earlier this year (review here), I wanted to read the issues where her father died, to see a bit more of Peter and Gwen's relationship as well as Peter's mentor/mentoree relationship with Stacy. I don't think this arc did as much for me, emotionally and as a story, as that arc did, but it was still touching, and still had some very worthy moments. One of them: Doctor Octopus is a very menacing villain; I can see why he was picked for the second film adaptation. It's tough to beat titanium tentacles that basically keep fighting no matter what. It was nice to see a glimpse of one of Spidey's most famous foes.

Another: Stacy's death scene is very touching. "Be good to her, son! Be good to her... she loves you--so very much..." Knowing Gwen's eventual fate compounded the emotional impact. There wasn't as much direct interaction between Peter and the Stacys as I thought there would be, but there's a cute scene where Peter collapses from overexhaustion and Stacy has Gwen take care of him at their home. The art was somber when it needed to be, like when Peter is cradling Stacy's body, but bright and colorful during the battle scenes.

The subplot involving the smear campaign against Spider-Man by the D.A. candidate just didn't do it for me. I didn't care about the guy's political maneuverings. I did, however, like seeing more of Robbie, Peter's only ally at the Daily Bugle--he gets a lot to do, and it was so awesome to see who my research tells me was the first major supporting black characters in comics. I also really enjoyed the last issue, where the X-Men's Iceman first thinks that Spider-Man is the enemy, but then comes to realize he's the good guy, leading to their teamup. The two of them taking down the bad guys together was fun to see.

I'm going to be interested to see how the Stacy family dynamic is handled in the 2012 reboot, and to see if Stacy's death will make it on screen. I was a bit bored by the smear campaign subplot and didn't see enough of Stacy to get too attached to him, but this one is worth reading if you want to see some of Doctor Octopus, or if you want to learn a little more about Peter and the Stacys.

***

Spider-Man: Reign, by Kaare Andrews (author and artist) with Jose Villarrubia (artist): In the future, New York City has outlawed vigilante activities. Masks are forbidden and citizens are cowed and controlled by a brutal police force known as the Reign. Print media is tightly regulated. Peter Parker is an aging man working as a flower seller and haunted by the ghost of Mary Jane, deceased for quite some time.

J. Jonah Jameson shows up on Peter's doorstep on the eve of a new program, the Webb, being initiated that would contain the City in a sort of electrified bubble, preventing the intrusion of criminals from other areas. He wants Peter to become Spider-Man again and fight the government, but Peter refuses. One spark, though, is all that's needed to light a fire, and when Peter dons the costume again, he becomes the City's only chance at salvation.

There was some influence from Watchmen here, with the outlawed superheroes and the perpetual night, and I've heard that this is apparently heavily influenced by the classic Batman graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, which I've not yet read. I was curious to read this because I've never really seen the concept of a very elderly superhero played with before, and because I wanted to see how the impact of Mary Jane's death on Peter would be handled.

In that regard, this book made me weep. Not as hard as Gwen's death, not as hard as Blue, but it made me realize how much Mary Jane means to Peter in a way I hadn't before considered, even when I read the major points in their history. Sebastian Mercer over at SpiderFan puts it eloquently: "Peter's religion is his wife." Mary Jane's death is the big symbol here; losing her makes Peter lose his faith, and it symbolizes the downfall of the City. Yeah, there were things I could have done without, and Peter cradling Mary Jane's long-dead corpse was one of them, but there are some truly beautiful scenes where Peter imagines conversations with Mary Jane, or when he remembers sitting by her bedside as she died, that really touched me. "I remember the day we met. You already knew it and you told me. I hit the jackpot. Your face was so beautiful… the sky cracked like ice. And I could feel the sun pour down on me like rain. It was all I could do to stop staring. You were so… my chest was too small for what you did to my heart. I wanted to tell you so much, but words didn’t have enough. So I tried to show you. But just when you meant the most. Just when I thought I could do it. I screwed up." That passage alone really made me feel how badly Peter needed the faith and love Mary Jane gave him.

As for the elderly superhero angle... well. I was a bit nonplussed. Elderly Peter fights with far too much ease. I kept expecting the scene from Up where Carl and the villain duke it out, only to be thwarted by their backs going out. Instead I got a Peter who basically had every bit of strength and agility the young Peter had, with wrinkles. I guess you could chalk that up to super strength, but I don't know if it should work like that. If you're in your sixties or seventies and haven't been a superhero for quite some time, I don't think it should come as easily as it did here. I'm also not quite sure how Jonah was still kicking, but he had an awesome role here and he was probably my favorite of all the side characters. He can be a jerk in the original continuity, sure, but there seems to be some good in him.

I admittedly don't think I knew quite enough about old Spidey villains to keep track of what was going on here. The art was a bit dark and it made me muddled at times. I was deeply confused and wondering what the hell was going on at one point; that might have been because I hadn't paid enough attention to some things, as reading the recaps on SpiderFan cleared me up. (In one of the few parts I could keep track of, Peter's joint taking down of Hydro-Man and Electro is priceless, and his knocking out Mysterio was applause-worthy.) I've seen people say there's some post-9/11 commentary in here, what with the panopticism going on and the control on the press. I don't really look for politics in what I read, so I couldn't say, but having just reread Watchmen recently, I caught a hint of that same political commentary and that who watches the watchmen? attitude.

Overall, as a Peter/Mary Jane fan, it was touching and exactly what I wanted to see of a graphic novel exploring the impact of her death on Peter. On the other hand, without as much knowledge of Spider-Man villains as I'd thought, I was often confused and needed a plot synopsis to help me keep track of the action. Despite that, I was really moved and haunted by some of the imagery of a city in chaos and the people who rise up to try and fight that, and I'm glad I read it.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Daredevil: Yellow'

The Book: Daredevil: Yellow

The Author and The Artist: Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

How I Found It: My love for Spider-Man: Blue (review here) and a nostalgic fondness for Daredevil made me seek this one out; big ups as ever to my local library.

The Review: "Dear Karen, I'm afraid... Just when I think it is all going to get easier, I close my eyes and I see you in my arms. It's as if a hole were torn open in the center of my chest. After a while, it starts to close up and... something has a laugh that sounds like you or wears a perfume that smells like you and... it tears the hole wide open again."

Matt Murdock is a man defined by loss. The loss of his father spurred the creation of his vigilante persona Daredevil, and as this volume posits, Karen Page is the one who inspired Matt to change his costume from yellow to red. These two losses have shaped Matt into a deeply remorseful man, and it is this remorse we get a glimpse of in this chronicle of Daredevil's early outings.

Matt's father, Battling Jack Murdock, was a boxer seeking to regain some of his former glory. It's just unfortunate he went to the wrong man looking for it--a manager whose name is Sweeney but whose nickname is "The Fixer." As Matt says in his voiceover, "A fight manager named 'The Fixer' and my Dad, over the hill when he was forty, kept winning. I can't imagine which one of us was more blind." When Jack is murdered by the Fixer and his associate Slade after he refuses to throw a fixed fight, a crime they get away with, Matt sews his father's old yellow boxing robe into a costume and takes on the nickname childhood bullies used to taunt him with--"Daredevil". He "had seen how the law--which [he] still steadfastly believed in--wasn't always the same as justice." So justice he became.

Even as Matt is busy seeking justice for his father's murder, his professional life is beginning to shape up. His best friend and partner, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, has established a law office and is looking for a secretary. Just when the search seems fruitless, in walks Karen Page--young, blonde, and beautiful, understanding exactly what the rigors of the job will be. Foggy's smitten. Soon enough, so is Matt. But there's nothing New York's villains love more than a pretty girl, and when Karen is drawn into danger, protecting her becomes Matt's job.

I will admit that I preferred Spider-Man: Blue to this volume, although this one does still have its merits. Blue was more of a romance, the story of Peter, Gwen, and Mary Jane. Yellow, to my surprise, seemed to lean far more on Matt's relationship with his father, despite the framing device of Matt's letters to the now-deceased Karen. It was an interesting change, but given that I went into this expecting what I got in Blue--a better understanding of Matt and Karen, like the one I attained for Peter and Gwen--a tiny bit disappointing.

I did, however, like that this comic focused on Matt's relationship with his father as well. I felt the scenes immediately following Matt's father's death were the best, the most affecting. I teared up as Matt says a belated "I love you" to his father's corpse. You can feel Matt's desperation as he tears down the fire escape and runs through the city blocks all the way to the site of his father's murder--no mean feat, as Matt is blind, and this one act could expose his abilities (every other sense is extremely heightened, to compensate for his blindness). You can practically smell the aftershave and talcum powder as he digs Jack's robe out from his footlocker. You can hear the subway approaching as Matt contemplates how to kill the Fixer. Atmospheric is the word here.

Matt's relationship with Karen, as well as his friendship with Foggy, were perhaps not quite as fleshed out as Peter's relationships with Gwen, Mary Jane, and Harry were in Blue, but there were scenes here I found more memorable. My particular favorite was Matt, Foggy, and Karen's night out at a local bar. Foggy challenges some college kids to a game of pool, and the kids make a few ill-advised cracks about Matt being blind, including one of those ever-popular Helen Keller jokes. Matt tells Foggy to rack the balls--and proceeds to win the entire game with just a shot or two due to his heightened senses, cracking Helen Keller jokes all the while because, as Foggy says, he's "heard them all in Braille before." I was delighted by this scene and even surprised at the fairly subtle condemnation of ableism.

Another striking scene is Matt's rescue of Karen after she's abducted by a client of theirs known as the Owl. Tim Sale gives us a stunning, almost full-page panel wherein Daredevil stands atop a spire on a city skyscraper, looking out over the entire city and listening for Karen's voice. Not even the bright yellow of Daredevil's costume is visible; the choice to have Daredevil in shadow against such a dark night, in front of such a landscape, made the panel breathtaking. The colors really pop off the page here. When Matt tries to drown the Owl, when he attacks the Purple Man who's abducted Karen, the colors are so vivid and gorgeous to look at.

The "voiceover," as it were, here is our main insight into Matt's relationship with Karen. The love triangle between Matt, Karen, and Foggy never felt overdone and was done so subtly; I really do applaud Jeph Loeb's skill at writing things like this (I gushed over his handling of the Gwen/Peter/Mary Jane triangle last time). That one scene where Foggy quietly turns around and throws out the bouquet he had in hand is entirely silent on Foggy's part, but gets the point across so eloquently. And it really is easy to see why both Foggy and Matt fall for Karen. She's hard-working (taking down dictation even while distracted), lively (she's thrilled by Daredevil's antics), and very beautiful. Her banter with Daredevil during one of his rescues of her, while she's unaware he's her boss, was so much fun to read. I'd like to see more of their relationship, for sure--a gripe I had with this volume was that it cuts off so abruptly. In Blue, it was made pretty clear what and who led to Gwen's death. Here, there's an oblique reference or two and that's it. If I hadn't read up about Karen on the Marvel wiki, I would've had no idea what led to her death or how her and Matt's relationship ultimately ended up.

Overall, though the story didn't have the focus I was expecting and the villains seemed to take a sideline to the story of Matt, his father, and Karen (there's only the Fixer, Slade, the Owl, and the Purple Man), I did enjoy the graphic novel and felt it was a good companion piece to Blue, if not quite its equal. It certainly reminded me what I loved about Daredevil, whose film adaptation was the movie that got me loving superheroes. Matt is an unconventional superhero--a blind man, a man with a great deal of faith... but what makes him a superhero is his unyielding search for justice. If you'd like a glimpse into the life and loved ones of the Man Without Fear, I feel this is a good place to start.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Spider-Man/Mary Jane: ... You Just Hit the Jackpot!'

The Book: Spider-Man/Mary Jane... You Just Hit the Jackpot!

The Author: Stan Lee, et al.

How I Found It: As I've said in my other Spider-Man reviews, I've been a fan of Peter and Mary Jane since childhood, thanks to the movies. I found out earlier this year about this compilation of their finest moments as a couple and had to buy it so I could see their courtship and marriage as it was in the comics.

The Review: Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson were married in 1987, after an often turbulent courtship. Before they finally met, they'd both steadfastly avoided their aunts' attempts at setting them up. Eventually, Peter started dating Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane, the perpetual party girl, started dating Harry Osborn. Peter only started to realize Mary Jane had depth beyond her party girl personality when she stayed with him the night of Gwen Stacy's funeral, despite his efforts to make her leave. Their romance wasn't all roses--Mary Jane was commitment-shy, and Peter's duties as Spider-Man left her in constant danger. An infamous and widely hated storyline in 2007 finally erased Peter and Mary Jane's marriage in a deal with the devil to save Aunt May's life. But before then, Peter and Mary Jane were a sometimes troubled but very much in love married couple.

This book compiles some pivotal moments in Peter and Mary Jane's relationship, both before their marriage and after. (Oddly, the issue where the actual marriage takes place isn't included, but it's shown in the included full graphic novel Parallel Lives.) There are people like me that choose to believe that Peter and Mary Jane's marriage was never erased. I might not have read the comics to see that storyline for myself, but from what I've heard, I don't want to. I prefer to dwell in the continuities where Peter is a loving husband and not a basement dweller in Aunt May's house, and Mary Jane is the girl who matured and fought her way past her emotional issues to become Peter's wife. This book was great for giving me insight into the story behind Peter and Mary Jane's relationship, and I loved seeing how they worked through various conflicts on their way to a life together.

The Amazing Spider-Man #43: The issue before this ends on Peter finally meeting Mary Jane, after years of trying to avoid her (having only heard from Aunt May that she has a "great personality," and he knew what that was supposed to mean). She's a red-headed bombshell who walks into his life with the famous words "Face it, Tiger... you just hit the jackpot!" When we open, Peter is already dazzled by Mary Jane. When they see on TV that one of Spider-Man's nemeses, The Rhino, has broken out of prison and is rampaging through the City, Mary Jane suggests they go and check it out--helpfully supplying Peter with an excuse to head down there and defeat the Rhino. This was a fun story that I'd seen recounted in Spider-Man: Blue, so it was nice to see the original story of Peter and Mary Jane's first date, and to fill in what that story illuminated. You get a real glimpse of the surface aspects of Mary Jane--that party-loving personality Peter sometimes condemns her for--that later issues reveal is all just a front. The issue ends on a touching scene when Peter realizes that he's been so wrapped up in himself that Aunt May has been quietly suffering, and a bit of that age-old conflict between the duties of Spider-Man and the duties of Peter Parker emerges.

Untold Tales of Spider-Man #16: This story reveals something pivotal to Peter and MJ's relationship--that Mary Jane knew Peter was Spider-Man even before she met him. Staying with her Aunt Anna the night Ben Parker was killed, she witnessed Peter going into the house... and Spider-Man subsequently climbing out a window. It suggests that the reason Mary Jane avoided meeting him was an inability to reconcile her love for Spider-Man's dashing antics with the reality of him being a kid with responsibilities just as huge as her own. "He's science-geek Peter Parker. He's a laughing, joking adventurer. He's the boy next door. He's a hero who saved the city. I just--I just don't know..." It was interesting to see some light shed on why MJ might have really wanted to avoid Peter, besides her insistence about not wanting a date with a geek who couldn't get one on his own (hence the aunts' set-up). There was also a look into Peter's love life before Gwen and Mary Jane--his friendship with Liz Allan complicates his budding relationship with Betty Brant. Oops.

The Amazing Spider-Man #259: Just after Mary Jane reveals that she's known Peter's secret identity all along, Peter hedges, wondering whether or not it's safe to own up to it--he only knows Mary Jane as the irresponsible party girl, after all. Since Mary Jane knows Peter's most painful secret, she decides to confess hers: her childhood growing up with constantly fighting parents, how her sister's unhappy marriage to her high school sweetheart gave her a glimpse of harsh reality, and her escape to her aunt's after her mother's death. The art in this issue really wowed me. There's a glimpse of who Peter used to be that transitions into who he is now. There are heartbreaking tableaux of Mary Jane's passionate but doomed parents. There's despair on Mary Jane's face as she sees her sister's young husband and realizes that how trapped he feels isn't how she wants to feel in a few more years. I'm sure that for readers back in the day, the revelation of Mary Jane's inner life was a shock, but it couldn't have been better done, and Peter and Mary Jane's final conclusion--that they care for each other, but aren't in love quite yet--is touching and true to form. Mary Jane still has commitment issues; Peter is still Spider-Man. Let's see how long it takes for things to change...

The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #19: Through a mishap with a hat bearing a tracking device from a local supervillain (... yeah), Mary Jane ends up caught in the snare of a supervillain, Smythe and his robotic Spider-Slayer, who thinks she's Spider-Man! Fearing for her life and her aunt's, Mary Jane has to rely on her own wits to mislead Smythe, even as she quietly tries to signal the real Spider-Man for the help she so desperately needs. It was so fun to see Mary Jane take action and actually manage to hold her own against Smythe, for a time. She might not be a match for him physically, but she's quick-witted enough to hold her own in the crisis and figure things out. She finally recognizes how much Peter has to go through when he fights supervillains, but she's got a fight of her own ahead of her: not long afterwards, Peter spontaneously proposes. Uh oh.

The Amazing Spider-Man #291-2: This two-part arc was sweet and even a little heartbreaking. It was nice to include it just after the Annual, because it marks the return of Smythe, who follows Peter and Mary Jane all the way to Pittsburgh (supervillainry gets you mileage, you know that?). Mary Jane has declined Peter's proposal and taken off to visit her long-lost father and sister, only to get caught up in a criminal plot perpetuated by her father. When Peter joins her, he and Mary Jane have to figure out what the line is between having to help family and having to do what's right--and they just might have to figure out whether Mary Jane really meant it when she said she wouldn't marry him. Mary Jane gets a pretty substantial amount of growth here, and we get more insight into her family. (Peter's confrontation with Gayle, her sister, is a real plus.) Mary Jane gets to help fight Smythe, and it's the thought of MJ in danger that gives Peter the strength to keep fighting. How awesome is that? Very.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives: Oddly enough, the issue where Peter and Mary Jane got married (Annual #21) wasn't included, but Peter and Mary Jane's wedding is recounted here. Really, this was a bit of a rehash of what we'd learned in the Untold Tales issue and #259--that Peter and Mary Jane had a lot more in common than they initially thought. But seeing it laid out side-by-side was really stunning. Aunt May cradling baby Peter, just dropped off by Richard and Mary Parker before their final, fatal departure, mirrors Gayle holding Mary Jane and begging her to be quiet in the midst of their parents' fighting. Peter's aunt and uncle don't understand just how much is going on with him, just as Mary Jane's friends don't see under her carefree exterior. The section that takes place after the marriage offers a sweet glimpse into Mary Jane coming to terms with her husband's propensity for getting into dangerous situations, and how it's possible to calmly and maturely hash that out. I could've done without the recapping of all we'd already learned, but it was really interesting to see it side-by-side, so I let it go and enjoyed the different perspective.

The Amazing Spider-Man #309: This was the only story I could have done without, although I could see why it was put in: more reason for Mary Jane to be badass. In this one, she's been held captive by a deranged stalker who's obsessed with the character she plays on TV. She was undeniably clever in how she handled things and I appreciated seeing that resourcefulness, but it seemed like an excuse to have her running around doing badass things in a skimpy outfit, to cater to that male fantasy. The art style was also jarring, compared to the other issues--very faintly drawn, very muted. I got so used to the bright colors of the other issues that I almost had to squint to see this one. Bit not good.

The Amazing Spider-Man #491: I'm enough of a sap that this one had me crying! It was the perfect place to end the collection. Peter and Mary Jane are reuniting after a painful estrangement, but their reunion is marred by an attack on the life of Dr. Doom, who is acting as a foreign diplomat. Peter and Mary Jane are shown to have the same quibbles as any other couple ("You never introduce me to your friends!") , as well as more serious issues, mainly seated in Mary Jane's long-held fear of ending up like her parents or her sister. Their final reunion, in which Peter admits just how much he not only loves Mary Jane, but needs her, was beautifully done and perhaps my favorite moment for them so far.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who's interested in the history of what was once a great comic book marriage, or to someone who needs convincing as to how marriage can work in a comic book. Fans of the Peter/Mary Jane relationship on film are encouraged to check it out as well; I know that I've been enriched and enlightened by acquainting myself with the source material for the couple that was a substantial part of my childhood. Go get 'em, tiger!

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Complete Maus'

The Book: The Complete Maus

The Author/Artist: Art Spiegelman

How I Found It: This is the first of the new-to-me books assigned in my Graphic Literature course at college. Before then, it had been recommended to me by a friend or two.

The Review: This is one of the most difficult-to-classify books I have ever seen. We had a long discussion about it during one of my classes. I found this, along with Persepolis (one of the future texts), at a Borders closing sale, but not without agonizing over where to look. First, my mother and I checked the graphic novel section. No dice, although surely it should be there. I go to check nonfiction. No luck. History. Nada. Finally it dawns on me: memoir! And there they were. Look at the tags for this post, and you'll see my dilemma still. How many categories does this work fit in? A whole lot.

Maus: A Survivor's Tale, a two-volume comic (Volume I: My Father Bleeds History and Volume II: And Here My Troubles Began), is the story of Art Spiegelman's father and mother, Vladek and Anja, and how they survived the Holocaust. Vladek was in Auschwitz; Anja was in Birkenau. Often, their survival was a matter of luck. Though Vladek and Anja survived, their family was torn apart, and Vladek and Anja are forever changed. Vladek, to Art's dismay, becomes a cantankerous caricature of the Jewish miser; Anja commits suicide when Art is twenty.

It is Art's idea to write his father's story, to make it a graphic novel. Here is where the story differs from other tales of Holocaust survivors--not only is it a graphic novel, the central metaphor is to equate the people involved with animals. The French are frogs. The Americans are dogs. Germans, particularly the Nazis, are cats. And no matter where they are from, the Jews are mice--they are vermin, just as Hitler sees them.

Maus is the only graphic novel to ever receive a Pulitzer Prize--it was so rare an event that a special Pulitzer Prize had to be created. Undoubtedly, the work has a complex history. The work went through many forms (its earliest appeared in 1972) and there was a five-year gap between the first volume and the second (1986 to 1991). Vladek died in 1982, and so probably never saw the work as it came to be. The history behind the book is so complex that Spiegelman has just released a book about its creative process, MetaMaus. I went into this work with only a vague idea of the conceit behind it, and came out staggered by just how complex it was. This is so much more than a Holocaust story--not only is it a rumination on a man's complex relationship with his father, it is a commentary on the process of creating art and how taxing it is for the artist.

Vladek's story is framed by what went into the book's creation. We see Art coming home for the first time in years, wanting to ask his father about his story and Anja's, allegedly recorded in her diaries. The book is transcribed from Art's notes and, later, his tapes of Vladek talking--almost all of it is in Vladek's own words. It's so hard to describe the effect this has, when coupled with how Art chose to represent the story in drawings. For example, Vladek's story as he tells it to Art is in somewhat broken English, but whenever Vladek is shown in his younger days--when he would be speaking a language he knew fluently and did not have to learn later in life, like English--he is very eloquent, as he would be. It's something you barely notice until it's been pointed out to you, but when it is pointed out, it's something that makes you pause and really consider how much thought and time Art had to put into his representation.

One of the most interesting parts of the book, for me, was how hard Art struggled to put down his father's experiences. At one point, he even goes to his therapist with his agonies over getting every detail right (eventually, he settles on a few compromises when his father's account contradicts documented facts about the camps). A favorite exchange of mine is early in Volume II, when Art talks to his wife about his difficulties:

Art: There's so much I'll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics... so much has to be left out or distorted.
Francoise: Just keep it honest, honey.
Art: See what I mean? In real life you've never have let me talk this long without interrupting.

Spiegelman's art is done in stark black and white, and though it seems cartoonish and rudimentary (though not nearly as much as his early drafts did), he really did make some fascinating artistic choices. One panel shows Vladek and Anja at a crossroads, looking for a place to seek refuge--and they stand in the center of a road that forks outwards like a swastika, symbolizing that no matter what path they take, the Nazis will be waiting. Another shows Vladek and Anja trying desperately to disguise themselves so they won't be recognized as Jews--they were pig masks, trying to pass as Poles. Vladek has no problem, but Anja's physical appearance hews more closely to traditional Jewish features, and it's easier for her to be recognized. Spiegelman represents this by having her mouse tail sticking out of her coat. Often, the choices he made were clever and really interesting to think about; I certainly found myself poring over different panels.

Vladek himself is a complicated, flawed person. He is highly prejudiced, for one thing, though Art tries to point out to him that he is essentially harboring the same attitudes towards other races that the Nazis held against Jews. He is cheap enough that it infuriates his second wife--he even returns a half-used box of cornflakes to the local supermarket so that the food doesn't have to be wasted. What he chose to do with Anja's diaries, when it is revealed, is a shock. It is often easy to see why Art had such a difficult relationship with him, but despite that, Vladek's story of survival and of his love for Anja is truly amazing.

While I was fascinated by the book's insight into its own artistic process, and by the insight into Art's relationship with Vladek, I think that what ended up dampening my appreciation of the book just a bit was its central conceit. Having the characters pictured as animals, as brilliant an idea as it was, left me feeling perhaps a bit too distant from them, and I couldn't feel as much emotion as I should have. There were definitely some emotional moments still--the first time Vladek and Anja see a swastika on display, when Anja makes the conscious choice to go to the camps since Vladek will be there, when Vladek hears in Auschwitz that Anja is still alive: these moments had me crying. I just wish there could have been more emotion towards the end, for me.

Though I felt the book was not as emotional as it could have been, I still really appreciated the story it told, and it did move me. The way Spiegelman chose to tell his father's tale reminded me at first, in the best way, of my favorite song from my favorite musical, Cabaret. By portraying the Jews as mice, Spiegelman makes the reader confront not only how the Nazis saw the Jews, but how the Jews still see themselves. He strips the story of the Holocaust down to its most human elements and does so in a way I don't think I'll forget anytime soon. Recommended for someone with an interest in a seminal work of graphic literature or in Holocaust stories.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Spider-Man: Blue'

Yet another delayed review--this semester doesn't like me! In the interest of time (and because it's been more than a month since I've seen it, by now), I'm delaying my review of One Day until the DVD comes out, so that I can watch it again and have it fresh in my mind, rather than go by the muddled memories I have of what I liked and disliked. Sorry, all!

The Book: Spider-Man: Blue

The Author and The Artist: Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

How I Found It: My interest in the relationship between Peter and Gwen Stacy, soon to be portrayed in 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, led me to this.

The Review: "So, it's Valentine's Day and there's a place I stop by once a year... It's about remembering someone who was so important to me I was going to spend the rest of my life with her. I didn't know that meant she would only get to spend the rest of her life with me."

Even years later, Peter Parker still mourns the loss of his first love, Gwen Stacy (I reviewed the original issues of that storyline here). The first few pages depict Spider-Man going to the bridge where Gwen was killed and leaving a single rose in the water, and the "voiceover" in the panels lets us know that Peter is recording a sort of love letter to Gwen, wanting to tell their story for posterity's sake.

Peter has realized, with hindsight being what it is, that in his life, things have to get very bad before they can get very good. His courtship with Gwen Stacy was one of those times. When our flashbacks begin, Peter is being held captive by the Green Goblin--who just so happens to be his best friend's father, although the man himself is unaware of that. There's a dilemma: how do you protect yourself from an archvillain who knows who you are but who's near and dear to your best friend? You can't kill him. So Peter does the best he can: knocks the Goblin out, triggering the amnesia that acts as Norman's safeguard, and saves Norman from a fire. Maybe, Peter reflects, if he'd left him for dead, Gwen would still be alive.

With the Goblin neutralized, other foes want a piece of Peter--the Rhino, the Lizard, two Vultures, and Kraven the Hunter. Our hero has enough on his mind already... and that's not even counting the two women vying for his attention. One is Gwen Stacy. The other is Mary Jane Watson. Peter is going to have to pull off one complicated balancing act.

Given how invested I'd become in the love story of Peter and Gwen, as well as in Peter as a character, I expected to like this graphic novel, to appreciate the story it told, to get a small glimpse of the romance between the two of them. I reminded myself, however, that this was a romance written by men for a predominantly male audience. In The Death of Gwen Stacy, I took note of and often enjoyed the cheeky little remarks about Peter and Gwen's romantic monologues being tiring for a young male audience. I expected more of the same here.

I was so glad to be proven wrong. What I got was a very moving, very human meditation on lost love, on memory, and on what impact a death can have on those left behind. When I saw those first few pages, where Spider-Man drops a rose off the bridge to commemorate his fallen love, I already had tears in my eyes. Jeph Loeb's writing is beautifully done, but Tim Sale's artwork works with it perfectly. There's so much vivid color (showing the liveliness of the girls as well as the garishness of the villains) but also such subdued tones, reflecting Peter's mental state. I thought I understood Peter as a character well before I read this, but there was a layer revealed to me here that I'd never anticipated. Peter is many things--a geek, a hero, a son without parents, a loving nephew--but here I came to appreciate him as a man in love.

It's Peter's relationships that are important here. We get to see him with Aunt May, the cornerstone of his life and someone who always looks out for him. (There's a touching scene where both she and Peter contemplate moving in with friends of theirs, and neither one wants to go first, not wanting to hurt the other's feelings--only to realize what they've been withholding, and to be fully supportive of the other's decision.) We get to see him with Harry Osborn, who's more appreciative of Peter after he rescues his father, and who starts becoming a good friend to him. We get to see him with Flash Thompson, his biggest bully, who, ironically, worships Spider-Man. We get to see him with Curt Connors, otherwise known as The Lizard, a tragic villain in every sense of the word (his efforts to regrow his amputated arm are what causes him to turn into the Lizard, isolating him from his wife and young son).

Most importantly, we see why Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane become the two great loves of Peter's life. I was so pleased with the handling of the love triangle; I wish more material involving the trope worked like this. Neither side is villified, as is so common in romances involving a love triangle. Heck, Gwen and Mary Jane are actually pretty good friends. When both of them come to nurse Peter as he lies ill, there's a bit of tension there, but it doesn't turn into a cliched catfight--it's more of a friendly rivalry. Peter is attracted to Gwen because she matches his personality; she is into science just as he is, and he likes making her happy (indeed, he buys the aforementioned motorcycle to impress her). He's attracted to Mary Jane because she's the life of the party, a counterpoint to his own personality (I love the scene where she helps Peter get past the police blockade so he can take his pictures).

His relationship with Gwen is portrayed through a lot of longing and a lot of inner monologue. Like any young man, Peter worries about how he'll measure up to Gwen's expectations. He worries about money that he doesn't have, that he'd need to go on dates. He worries about what she'll think of him becoming friends with Mary Jane. Through all this worry, though, Peter truly appreciates Gwen as a person, so much so that he can remember so much so vividly even years later. He loves her smile and her kindness, and Gwen loves how daring he is, which intrigues her enough to finally take the jump and ask him to be her Valentine. And just as Peter says, that's when she had him--all of him.

My favorite scene in the entire graphic novel comes towards the end, when we get a glimpse into Peter's married life post-Gwen. Mary Jane finds the visibly upset Peter in their attic, having heard a good part of his monologue for Gwen, and she just wants to make sure he's all right. Before she leaves, she makes a request: "Will you do me a favor, Peter? Say 'hello' for me... and tell Gwen I miss her, too." I saw at least a few reviews that couldn't understand Peter's desire to remember Gwen, viewing it as "cheating on Mary Jane with a memory." I think this scene proves that it wasn't that at all. Gwen's death is what changed Mary Jane, what got her to realize that life wasn't always a party and that everything must come to an end. Peter recognizes this, and so does she. For me, someone who's recently come to love Peter and Gwen's relationship, but who's always been a fan of Peter and Mary Jane, this scene was everything I'd wanted to see. It proves that when moving on after a loss, one doesn't necessarily have to forget the person who passed away. You can remember that person and love them all the same, and so can your loved ones, and it doesn't mean you love your current partner any less.

All in all, the graphic novel was a compelling exploration of Peter's psychology, as well as a touching account of his relationships with Gwen and Mary Jane. I'd most definitely recommend it to readers who want to know more about Spider-Man's early history, as well as someone like me who's interested in both of the major romantic relationships in Peter's life. This was a deeper and more romantic graphic novel than I expected, and I anticipate turning to it often over the next few years.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Gwen Stacy'

The Book: The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Gwen Stacy

The Author: Gerry Conway (and a whole team of writers and artists)

How I Found It: I'd heard for years about this immortal story arc--the death of Spider-Man's first true love--and finally decided to go for broke and read it once it became apparent that Gwen will be Peter's love interest in the impending franchise reboot. As ever, big ups to my local library.

The Review: I was perhaps not the ideal reader for this volume. I have little experience with the Spider-Man comics, if any; my only knowledge has been gleaned from the films, Wikipedia article-skimming, and a novelization of, I'm given to understand, the Peter/Mary Jane plotline in the Ultimate comics. (Mary Jane by Judith O'Brien, for anyone wondering--it actually remains a favorite novel of mine to this day, because it so accurately reflected high school life, and because it made me an eternal lover of Peter/Mary Jane.) Since I've been a devout Peter/Mary Jane shipper since childhood--they're one of the first fictional couples I remember really loving, before even Roswell's Max and Liz or The X-Files' Mulder and Scully--I just wasn't expecting to get so wrapped up in the death of Peter's first love. After all, he moved on and found happiness eventually with Mary Jane, so I knew it would be okay. That would negate the emotional impact, I thought.

Except that it really didn't. Even knowing next to nothing about Peter and Gwen's history together, next to nothing about the storyline in the comics up until then, I was still emotionally devastated by the story and surprised by how effective it was even years later. I can see now why this is such a landmark story, not only for Spider-Man but for comics in general. It's truly a feat.

At first, I admit, I got a good laugh at the artwork. One of my favorite Doctor Who episodes has a moment where the Doctor's former companion reveals K9, the old robot dog that used to assist her and the Doctor in the classic series, now worn out and broken. Rose, the current companion, looks at the very out-of-date robot and says, "Why does he look so... disco?" That was pretty much my reaction. When Peter's walking around wearing gold chains and painfully Technicolor suits, and Harry looks closer to thirty than college age... yeah. Stack that on top of Peter's habit of exclaiming that old-school expression of annoyance, "Nuts!", and calling Gwen "Gwendy" and I was... well, there was a lot of cheese apparent in some parts of the story. As a modern reader, it was a little hard to get past some of the more dated aspects.

That said, though, the plot itself still felt relevant. From what I understand, from context and Wikipedia readings, Peter begins the story broken up from Gwen, who has fled to Europe after the death of her police captain father. He was killed trying to save a child from a falling building cornice, and Gwen blamed Spider-Man. Her grief pushed her and Peter apart and led to her going overseas, and now Peter is left alone in New York with his best friend and roommate, Harry Osborn.

Peter's day is about to get pretty eventful. His Aunt May, at least, seems to be recovering well from the death of his Uncle Ben, going out on the town with Anna Watson. On his walk through the City, Peter, as Spider-Man, follows speeding cop cars to the site of a building where a man, stoned on LSD, is about to jump off. Spider-Man saves the jumper, but drugs are about to hit much closer to home. Harry, seething with jealousy over the way Mary Jane's been flirting with Peter (ostensibly to make Harry jealous), decides that LSD and pill-popping would be a great solution to his problems, a way to forget about Mary Jane.

Though Peter worries about his friend's seeming pill addiction, he's got bigger problems. Harry's father, Norman, is the Green Goblin--unknowingly. When he's Norman, his memories of being the Goblin are safely buried, but could be triggered at any time of undue stress... which would lead to him remembering that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, something Peter can't risk. Unfortunately, over the course of the next few months, Norman is about to remember, and when he does, the Goblin will rob Peter of the love of his life... and maybe even Peter's own principles.

To start with, I'd read a bit about the anti-drugs angle in this story, but I was surprised at just how strongly it was present. I will give the writers credit for knowing that they were in a position to reach many, many kids, and that they probably did so admirably. In 1973, drugs were still as big an issue as they are today, apparently. Yes, it gets a bit soapbox-y, but Spider-Man saving the jumper was admirable, and seeing Harry's spiral into schizophrenia as the result of his taking LSD was heartbreaking.

Reading this, never having had much experience with "old school" comics, I was surprised at how knowing the creators were, occasionally throwing in little metafictional notes (reminders to the reader about certain things from issues past, for one thing). I got a giggle out of the third issue, where Peter and Gwen separately philosophize about missing the other, and when we finally get back to the action, the panel notes, "And now that the longest soliloquies since Hamlet have come to an end..." It was fun to see the writers really knowing their audience, probably thinking that the young (predominantly male, I'd assume) audience reading the comics just wouldn't care about Peter Parker's romantic life. I haven't read many comics at all today, so I don't know if those little nods still exist. Somehow I get the feeling they don't, that these are charming remnants of a bygone era. For one thing, the cutesy, knowing tone is at an end by the time Peter arrives in his apartment to find Gwen's purse and a weapon of the Green Goblin's.

What a confrontation it is. What a death scene. What aftermath. I knew the outcome, of course I did, but I was holding my breath as soon as Peter swung up to the bridge to see the Goblin with an unconscious Gwen. There's so much at play here that it stunned me, and the pages immediately following Gwen's death left me sobbing.

"I saved you, honey. Don't you see?... I saved you." These are Peter's denial-ridden words when he realizes his beloved has died... and sadly, that it might have been his fault. No one will ever confirm or deny, it seems, as it's been debated in the decades since the storyline wrapped, but it might have been Peter's heroic actions that caused Gwen's death. He caught her by the ankle with his webbing, and the telltale SNAP! effect by her head seems to indicate that whiplash killed her, although the Goblin says a fall from that height would have killed anyone.

Was Peter at fault, for more reasons than one: because the Goblin knowing his real identity put Gwen in danger for associating with him, because his catching her might have killed her after all? Was he at as much fault as the Goblin? That's the question that seems to drive his downward spiral. The fifth issue chronicles Spider-Man's vengeful pursuit of the Goblin, and it's just breathtaking. That's the only way I can describe it. Even not knowing much of Spider-Man outside of these few issues, I could see just how much he'd been driven off the deep end by Gwen's death.

"'No?' Do I hear you begging, Goblin? Don't make me sick, friend--why should I show you any mercy? What mercy did you show Gwen? Answer me that, Green Goblin--ANSWER ME THAT!"

Those are Peter's words as he attacks the Goblin, tormented with grief. It's the same standard thing you see in nearly any TV show or movie that features this sort of a confrontation after the hero's loved one has died at the hands of the villain, but what astonished me is that all of the emotion is conveyed through words, not even so much the artwork. We don't see much of Peter with his mask off after the death happens. He's in the suit nearly all the time, leaving us blind to his facial expressions. A medium which can use art to show emotion chose not to, instead leaving nearly all the weight on Peter's anguished words--that was incredibly brave, and perhaps made it even more moving to me, someone who's touched by words more than anything.

After the confrontation is finished and Peter's still standing, the groundwork is seemingly laid for the future. Mary Jane is profoundly affected by the death of her good friend, and stays to comfort Peter. I think it was a wise choice to include a small snippet, after the close of the final issue, of a recently-penned Peter/Gwen story. A glimpse into one of the last nights Peter and Gwen would ever share, it's a moving meditation on regret and remembrance after loss.

"How many moments in our lives go by like that? 'We'll do it tomorrow,' we say. 'No, I don't feel like it... you go without me.' 'Maybe some other time.' But those tomorrows we take for granted... don't always come."

I don't think that many comics can claim to have made their readers think so much, to feel so deeply, as this one did. With a still-timely anti-drug message, a moral struggle for the ages, and a landmark death in the history of comics, this volume, scarcely over 100 pages, still packs a powerful punch over thirty years later. I've emerged from this reading experience with a better appreciation of the Spider-Man mythos as well as the history of comics, and for that I'm grateful. For any Spider-Man lovers or even doubters, for anyone who wants a glimpse into comic book history, see if you can find this one--if you can, it's well worth a read. Peter loves and misses you, Gwen. I think I will, too.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel'

The Book: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel

The Authors / The Illustrator: Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice), Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice plus zombies), Tony Lee (adapter), Cliff Richards (illustrator)

How I Found It: I was asked to review it for Austenblog, given that I tolerate the monster mashup craze more than most.

The Review: I was asked to include that Del Rey publishes this book in the United States, whereas Titan Books does in the UK.

If you're a Janeite, or even if you're not, I'm sure you know about the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies craze by now. I'm sure that many of these mashups were in development before PPZ and were released once it was known there was an audience, but many of them have not had the same success as the original. I'm one of the more accepting of the craze myself, but I still find myself rolling my eyes as more and more books join the fray. Having read this graphic novel adaptation of the work that started it all, it seems like an attempt to join in on the cash cow--one that doesn't seem to have worked quite that well.

So we all know the schtick by now: it's Pride and Prejudice, plus zombies. The original author, Seth Grahame-Smith, worked closely with Austen's text to figure out which parts he felt needed more action--mainly, the parts that he found boring. I can't speak for myself--a few other Jane fans I know and I agree that if you've read the original, PPZ can be quite slow going--but of the (mostly men) non-Jane fans I know who have read it, they all seem to be in agreement that the zombies help them get through and actually enjoy the book. To each their own, one supposes.

The thing is, Grahame-Smith seems to have paid more attention to the original text than the adapter did here. This is the third Austen-related book I've read this year where Elizabeth has been referred to--repeatedly!--as Miss Bennet, when only Jane should be referred to as such. The audience it's targeted to won't even notice, but if the adapter wanted to be taken semi-seriously by Janeites, these things should at the very least be fact-checked. You'd think you could gather that etiquette just from watching a movie adaptation. In an effort to make the speech sound formal after he (from what I could gather) dumbed it down somewhat, Mr. Lee managed to have a glaring etiquette mistake.

As I said, the speech did at times appear to be "dumbed down" (for lack of a better phrase), though most of the recognizable lines seemed to be present. At times, it was clear that this was to make it fit into the speech bubbles; at others, it wasn't immediately apparent why it needed to be dumbed down. For example, "let at last" in the very first sentence about Netherfield is changed to "is occupied again." I would have at least given the readers enough credit to be able to work that one out contextually, but it was not to be. Some scenes from PPZ were cut and led to slightly awkward bridging dialogue (instead of showing Lizzy and Jane playing "Kiss Me Deer", Mrs. Bennet scolds them when they come in dirty, leading to a sentence's worth of explanation as to what "Kiss Me Deer" is, when Mrs. Bennet would have already known this). Also, without chapter breaks, we are left with constant cuts to scenes with the headings: "One Week Later" / "The Wedding of Charlotte and Mr. Collins" / "Pemberley" / etc. The story seemed disjointed and lacked a flow without those chapter breaks and text explaining what had happened in the intervening time.

The graphic novel could also have benefited greatly from being in color--the illustrations were black-and-white and I'm assuming that that decision was made for expense reasons, as coloring can get expensive. However, the black-and-white drawings made it difficult to tell the characters apart--all the Bennet sisters (and even Mrs. Bennet, at one point) looked far too similar; hair color would have helped greatly. (Jane is given dark hair, whereas Lizzy and the rest are, I assume, blonde, but the differences stop there. It was also a slight break from the fanon tradition of Jane being blonde and Lizzy being brown-haired.) Even Darcy and Bingley were becoming difficult to tell apart based on the drawings, and this would most definitely be a hindrance to someone not familiar enough to the original text to know who is speaking. The faces are also only sketchily done once the person is further off, as well, to give the impression of distance, but it was distracting and led to far too much "well, who is THAT?" on my part.

One of the good things about this adaptation is the ability to see all the fight scenes from the original in a more detailed fashion than the original's illustrations. We get to see the zombie battles in all their gory goodness. For this reason, I probably wouldn't recommend this one to anyone younger than 15--reading a description of the violence and gore is different than actually seeing a drawing, albeit a black-and-white one, of it. Anyway, all the bloody scenes well-known to PPZ aficionados are there--Darcy and Lizzy taking down the zombies feasting on Netherfield's servants, Lizzy eating the heart of one of Lady Catherine's ninjas after a battle, Lady Catherine and Lizzy's fight in the dojo, etc. There's also a nice scene, not originally in the novel IIRC, of Mr. Bennet teaching Bingley how to kill "the unmentionables."

Overall, the book receives only a marginal recommendation from me--it could have been much better handled by an adapter who paid more attention to P&P as well as PPZ, and color would have been a great help to those confused by the drawings, myself included. I would recommend this only to those who might wish to see the zombie battles depicted in more detail than we received in PPZ. If you'd like to introduce someone to the mashup craze, however, or to P&P in general, you're better off sticking with the actual Pride and Prejudice and Zombies--or, you know, the actual Pride and Prejudice.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Supernatural: Origins'

The Book: Supernatural: Origins

The Author: Peter Johnson / The Illustrator: Matthew Don Smith

How I Found It: I'm a Supernatural fan, which should be obvious by the fact that I read this. :)

The Review: Okay, so I don't know why anyone would have any interest in this comic if you're not a Supernatural fan, unless you're just in it for the art or something. But I'll try to recap briefly the background information that leads up to what happens in this comic.

Okay. So initially, in the first season, Supernatural was about two brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester (Dean's the older brother; Sam the younger) driving across America, searching for their missing father, John. John raised the boys to hunt and kill evil supernatural beings, with the goal of finding the creature that killed his wife, the boys' mother, Mary. Not much was known about the creature, other than the fact that it left Mary bleeding on the ceiling of Sam's nursery when he was just a few months old, and that it caused a fire that killed Mary.

The problem is, John's obsessive hunt led to Dean and Sam's childhoods being less than idyllic. Part of the tension between Sam and Dean in the early days came from the fact that Dean blindly obeyed John in everything, fiercely defending him, while Sam resented that John's quest led to his inability to have a normal life. He leaves John and Dean before the series to go to law school at Stanford, but when Dean comes to him to tell him John's gone missing and Sam's girlfriend is killed in the same way Mary was, Sam agrees to join in the search for John.

Since 2007 or so, the CW has licensed products to go along with Supernatural, either to fill in little gaps in the show or explain the things that went on prior to the series. I recently started collecting these novelizations and comics as a little project for this summer. It's recently been speculated that Supernatural will come back as a midseason replacement next year for its final season, and with that in mind, all this stuff will have to hold me over. This comic, Origins, was the first released and charts John's transformation into a hunter and his first steps towards finding out what killed Mary. (The other two comics are Rising Son, when John starts to speculate about what could be wrong with Sam, and Beginning's End, currently being issued, which explains how Sam left John and Dean to go to Stanford.)

I'm pretty sure this one had a lot of issues--mainly with the years and other such continuity problems. I looked it up and I saw that Johnson had to make a whole lot of revisions. I'm not a super-obsessed fan that would immediately notice if a date was off, so I'm not sure if anything's really glaringly wrong, but from glancing over the Supernatural wiki, it looks like all the dates were fixed for the trade paperback, the edition I was reading.

It didn't always have that sort of Supernatural feel to it, but that's probably because I'm used to the boys and not John solo. I think it did a pretty decent job. Right away, we get a sense of John's obsession and how desperately he wants to know what happened to Mary. We get a glimpse or two of John as a widower attempting to find his way. The fact that Dean and baby Sam are on the cover is a teensy bit misleading; we don't see all that much of them, but they are, very obviously, a presence in the story. It was actually what made the comic a little poignant: seeing the very beginning of John putting the hunt before his kids, and how that affected them (mostly Dean, since he was the only one old enough to understand).

John is helped along the way by Missouri, the female psychic we met in one of the very early episodes, and a mysterious hunter friend who teaches him the basics. A familiar location, the Roadhouse, crops up, and Ellen appears for a few pages (Jo is mentioned). It is what the title says: an origins story. So for that, it did a pretty decent job showing John becoming the person we meet in the show. We see how hesitant he is to kill someone the first time, and then at the other end of the spectrum, how he becomes ruthlessly efficient when it comes to dealing with supernatural threats. We see his doubts about the boys as he has to leave them with relatives, friends, and even strangers. We see how this affects his relationship with Dean, who questions his father at some points and sees something he wasn't meant to see. The one thing that gave me pause were two very brief scenes taking place in 1991, where we see young Dean contemplating leaving and then reading John's journal, which makes him decide against it. I couldn't quite figure out why those scenes were there, honestly.

Origins itself was pretty good, but I think what made it worth it was the inclusion of a mini-story at the end, "Speak No Evil". It's what would be, on the show, a flashback to young Sam and Dean. We get to see how clueless Dean and Sam were raised to be in the early days, as Dean believes Mary died in a car crash and Sam is just scared and upset by the glimpses he and Dean get of John's darker side. I was really touched at this little scene of the brothers bonding and Dean starting to take care of Sam, and it was a sweet little bookend to the comic. Overall, the story was decent and the characters were pretty faithful to what has been shown on the show. But like I said before, I'd only really recommend it to fans of the show, not a casual reader.

In Which Trai Reviews 'On the Origin of PCs'

The Book: On the Origin of PCs

The Author (And Illustrator): Rich Burlew

How I Found It: Carrie Vaughn plugged the online strip in a blog entry. I spent the entire weekend glued to the archives. I've been caught up since the summer and ordered this book-exclusive prequel.

The Review: I don't play Dungeons and Dragons, but I do enjoy epic fantasy stories a whole lot, and I'm game for parodies of the things I love. I started reading the comic as a way to kill time, but I soon found myself absorbed in how it took on the cliches of epic stories and roleplaying games.

The basics of OOTS is that it follows the exploits of six adventurers, The Order of the Stick, on their quest to defeat Xykon, a "lich". The Order consists of Roy, a Fighter with an MBA, whose father's Blood Oath is what leads to the quest to destroy Xykon in the first place; Haley, a Rogue who acts as the second-in-command; Elan, an annoyingly peppy and slightly dimwitted Bard; Durkon, a Dwarf Cleric who's been with Roy the longest of all and is convinced trees are out to destroy us all; Vaarsuvius, an androgynous Elf obsessed with arcane power; and Belkar, a Halfling Ranger who's pretty much psychotic.

They're a ragtag bunch, but they're wildly funny. Burlew made this book to explain their backstory, and though it's short, he does a great job of keeping the backstory true to the characters. We learn how Haley abandoned the thieves' guild, how Roy came to take his father's challenge of defeating Xykon, why Durkon left the Dwarven lands, just why Belkar joined the Order, how dense Elan could truly be, and how Vaarsuvius was still ranting away prior to joining the Order.

My only complaints about the book are that I wish it was longer, and that I'm STILL waiting on an explanation of why Haley and Vaarsuvius are so close.

Anyway, if you're a fan of the series, it's definitely worth a read, even though I'm late to the OOTS bandwagon and most have read it already. But if you've never read the comic, I have to agree with Mr. Burlew and say read the online strip first-- Origin of PCs will be so much funnier when you know the little jokes, such as an ink blot covering Vaarsuvius' answer about his gender. ('He' is just an arbitrarily assigned pronoun-- what I believe V is. Word of God states that just like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world will never know.)