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Aeon #40-41: velvetvandal forever

  
 
penitentvandal
17:45 / 20.05.03
Okay, this is the fake thread wherein the imaginary Morrison/Quitely comic of my life gets critiqued by various fake ficsuits of mine (which will be identified as such) and anyone else who wants to take part. The idea is that by discussing the comic as if it's real, we strengthen the Morrison/Quitely invocation that I have going on.
I have informed GM about this, btw (via the crack), but he hasn't got back yet. Needless to say, if he decides this is evil messin' about wiv fings wot man was not meant to mess about wiv, it'll be closed down.

And now, let the games begin...
 
 
thefractalman's a velvetvandal memelet
17:55 / 20.05.03
Fuck me. That was pretty wild, wasn't it?

Every single Aeon storyline so far (plus a couple of Washington Chronicles nods) compressed into the space of two slightly-larger-than-usual issues. Moz at his finest, I think.

Highlights? The Cusp/Yemaya battle, Chango and Eleggua trying to put the frighteners on VV in that bar, the spy-movie games on those big Metro trains...Brilliant. And, of course, the complete revision of the entire velvet/Milena continuity in the space of two fucking pages! Quite possibly the cheekiest thing Grant's ever done in a non-creator-owned book...

And now, according to the preview sites, we have Fear and Lothian 3 next month, with hints of this 'memicide' plot further down the line. And this isn't even the full first year yet. Jesus.
 
 
Who's your Tzaddi?
22:29 / 20.05.03
The art in issue 40 rocked! I can't wait to see what happens next! The plants from the 5th dimension...brilliant!
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
22:35 / 20.05.03
And, of course, the complete revision of the entire velvet/Milena continuity in the space of two fucking pages!

I'm afraid I only started picking up this comic because Morrison was writing it. How was Grant's version different from the previous continuity?
 
 
arcboi
15:43 / 21.05.03
I thought the inspiration for the bald headed guy with the cool dialogue and bondage gear was fairly obvious though. That's right - Moby makes his comics debut as Gideon Wiggan (Get A Wig On - do you see what he did there? Mmm? MMM??).

Also, continuity error: VV's outfit clearly has 7 buttons, but on Page 23, Panel 2, Quietly has given him 5. Or was this done on purpose?

Other than that - all good stuff, but it could do with more owls.
 
 
illmatic
16:28 / 21.05.03
I think this was done on purpose - part of the slow transformation VV by Morrision from your bog standard "old aeon" saviour (7 being the number of Christ) into something more post-modern, more discordian (5 being the number of Eris). Note in the scene in the bar, VV's rejection of fish. It also fits with a couple of other changes to the costume - check out the silver buckles on the boots. We didn't get to see the stigmata this episode but I wonder, have they healed? (Nietchze - they appeared initally during the original Mileana bust up - back in, oh, Issue 20? Morrison seems to be linking her explictly back to the Jigsaw Killers mob here, which puts a whole new spin on hher motivations.
 
 
Meester7 - memelet 2
18:56 / 21.05.03
'The cheekiest thing Morrison's ever done in a non-creator-owned book'? Hardly. You need to read the Animal Man run sometime. Or the Flex Mentallo stuff in Doom Patrol, which nearly landed Grant up in court...

I hadn't spotted that bald guy in the bondage pants before, but you're right - he was on the bus on page 20, panel 3. I don't think this is gonna be that important, though - just Quitely doing a nod to the Invisibles, like Jones putting Dane and Fanny in New York during Marvel boy.

What worries me is all this stuff with the Vindicator, velvet going around cursing a lot of people. Haven't we done this before? One of the key points of Ennis' run was velvet gradually sloughing off his 'lairy mage' persona. Surely Morrison can think of more intelligent things to do with him than just rerun King Mob?

The Vindicator is the best-looking servitor we've seen in this book, though, largely due to Quitely's excellent rendition. Those scenes on the astral with the Vindy walking around like some scary-ass Dr Who monster - brilliant.
 
 
thefractalman's a velvetvandal memelet
19:15 / 21.05.03
Nietzsch - Milena's an ex-girlfriend of velvet's who had a habit of showing up at the worst possible time: she completely turned his world arse-over-tit during the Washington Chronicles (low-budget, small-press precursor to Aeon), then showed up during the early issues of Aeon (not #20, Illmatic - that was the August 2001 issue. Milena did make a brief re-appearance during the Afghan Magewar crossover - is that what you're thinking of?) as a total evilvoodoobitch and tried to hex vv with extreme prejudice.

Morrison's retcon of the whole business is that Milena literally wasn't herself during these episodes, but acted as an avatar of some magickal nemesis which seems to recur periodically in velvet's life: each time he encounters some personification of said force, his life changes massively, and he has to evolve himself magickally to cope with it. Hence Milena's initial revelations led vv to lock horns with the outer fringe of the Jigsaw Killers mob, which meant he had to get all spy-like and sneaky; her re-appearance saw him start using the Santeria pantheon and methods, etc. Morrison's retcon allows him to link Milena (as nemesis avatar) to Louise (#15 - 'The Trillians Incident') and, in Morrison's run, Vanessa. Louise and Fred's attempt to drug velvet's mate Jane - and vv's subsequent revenge - saw him develop his 'logomancy' technique, and Vanessa's arrival was followed by Cusp manifesting big-style, and velvet revealing his magickal identity to most of the people in his 'normal' life, and letting Jane in on what really happened with Milena.

And it gave Quitely a chance to draw lots of lovely girlies, even if they were mainly in flashback...

Ill - I take it that by the stigmata you're referring to that weird thing that happens to velvet's throat after encountering Milena? Its precise nature has never been explained, but it has something to do with the Things from Da'ath (Tzaddi's 5d plants). And, judging by the amount of zinc lozenges velvet's popping in issue #41, I think we can assume it hasn't really 'healed'...
 
 
illmatic
16:40 / 22.05.03
The Afghan Magewar! How could I have forgot! That whole kind of 4 way love triangle implied between Osama Bin, Milena, vv and Robert Mugabe -all those bomb-strapped feyadeen leaping off cliffs onto the 'merikan troops, in sync with their mutual orgams - that was really something, but from the looks of things this current run will top it.

Fractalman - Yup, the stigmata is defintely linked with Daath - it's the throat, after all. I wonder if, perhaps there's also a link with the Vindicator - vv's Daathian side/servitor out of control? Just a thought...and what do we make of Cusp? Those mirrored wings....

...was nice to see all them girlies, though...
 
 
thefractalman's a velvetvandal memelet
09:44 / 24.05.03
Meester7 - I think you're being a bit harsh over the Vindicator stuff. Bear in mind that the whole story is intended to be a fractal of the entire Aeon continuity up to now, and it makes sense that there should be a bit of curse-related nastiness. Besides, velvet's always more interesting when he's being a little bit bad, I think. Ennis' decision to turn him into an enlightened gnostic Cabala muffin was probably the single worst decision in Aeon ever (aside from slotting Austen in for two fill-in issues slap-bang in the middle of the Gulf War 2 Crossover; Jesus wept...)

The clue's in the name really: velvetvandal. He has to have a nice, fluffy side, and he has to have the side which just likes to go and fuck things up for a laugh. And besides, he does have a conscience about it - witness the scene in the staff room, where velvet muses about his destruction of Jim Judas. He isn't the Punisher, y'know.
 
 
Meester7 - memelet 2
09:58 / 24.05.03
Well...maybe so. I just don't want this run to turn into VV hexing people and then feeling all guilty about it afterwards. But I'll have faith that GM can keep this from flopping down into that grim-n-gritty nightmare nineties style...

Christ, those Austen issues! Weren't they the worst? 'I KNOW - I'll use THE WYRM!' 'DAMN those Ba'athist magi - it's time to free The Djinn!' Anyone who thought Austen couldn't top that shit with the werewolves in UXM was proved wrong there. I kept expecting Bob Dobbs to wander in, along with the Fightin' Jesus - it was that OTT. Dear oh dear.

I never thought I'd say this, but thank God for Morrison's sanity...

Has anyone heard the rumours that Austen's gonna take over from Ennis on The Savage Sword of Shrub? Please say it isn't so...
 
 
mixmage
21:29 / 28.05.03
... oh em eff gee! This is fecking Aces!

Just managed to find the issues and bring myself up to speed. Phew! glad I did or that whole astral/material shift might have missed me...

I agree... the Vindicator! the hairs on my arms stand up just writing the word. And "Hexin' the Ex"??!!?... the way she just slipped into that deep down French, grrrrrr!... anybody notice how she calls him "Vay Vay"? yeah Baybay! Do I need to draw a diagram? lol.
 
 
Nietzsch E. Coyote
22:01 / 28.05.03
Does anyone know how long GM is going to be working on the comic. I've heard two rumors one that he was only staying to 50 and the other that he was staying all the way to 88. Does anyone have any official word?
 
 
Meester7 - memelet 2
10:39 / 29.05.03
GM's being a bit cagey about the whole thing. From what he said in the Non-Existent-Comics Journal interview a while back, I gather that he's plotted the run for at least the next two years, which would bring us up to (quick calculation) issue 64 (anyone else think he'll try and work some kind of i-ching reference into that?), but he also says that 'Y'know though, I'm enjoyin' it that much that I might see what I can come up with beyond that, if they'll let me' (which may be a veiled reference to Ennis' 'controversial' dismissal from the title, but we'll let that pass).

To be honest I'd rather he stopped when he reckons the ending should be, rather than carrying on for the hell of it. That clearly happened on Ennis' run: for my money Ennis should have stopped his run at about issue 34, the big Hallowe'en Special, rather than carrying on for those last few issues. If Morrison has a specfic plot in mind, I'd rather he just stopped at the end.
 
 
thefractalman's a velvetvandal memelet
10:47 / 29.05.03
Yeah, 7, but against that you have to consider Grant's style of working, and the fact that he likes to shake it up a bit every now and again. So after doing the Invisibles, which was a very freeform comic book, albeit still with a definite ending, he then did the Filth, which was very precisely plotted and designed, and the X-men run, which he approached like a novel - he knew the entire plot of the run beforehand, and used each individual issue to advance that.

I think it's likely that, after such tight plotting, Morrison wants to go back to the more freewheelin' style of the Invisibles, and sees Aeon as the book on which to do that. God knows, there have been enough Invisibles hints in these two issues: the bald guy on the bus, vv's comments about language and secrets, Jim Judas as this story's Dane McGowan (rebellious kid, nervous breakdown, winds up hanging out with homless guy), even that 'Dane 03' graffito in the Metro station on page 23, panel 5. I think Grant (and Frank) are signalling what sort of title this is going to be. And Grant probably does have the final story arc plotted, but if he extends it he'll just think of new things he can put into the storyline before siccing that final arc (the return of the Nemesis Archon, fairly obviously) on the readership. It's not like the man's ever short of ideas, after all.
 
 
Meester7 - memelet 2
10:55 / 29.05.03
fractalman - I'm with you on the Jim/Dane connection, but I think Morrison meant it in a different way. By putting such an obvious McGowan into the story and then having VV essentially break him, Grant's telling us not to expect the Invisibles: Vol 4 from this book. It struck me that that scene put VV basically into a Sir Miles-type role, rather than the Invisible Liberator persona...

...although then again Sir Miles was actually an Invisible all along, and KM's initiation of Dane wasn't exactly throw rugs and lava lamps, was it? Maybe VV's Post-Invisible: willing and able to use the methods of the freedom fighters and the methods of the Outer Church to achieve his goals. Who can say?
 
 
mixmage
22:54 / 31.05.03
totally vandalised!

Seriously though, I'd be scared to bust off cusses like VV... I mean "better not to send than to slay to many, better not to ask than to overpledge"...

... then again, that bait-and-switch had me in stitches. Chuckled about that for days. The Dude's got cojones, I'll say that much: PlushRoughness!
 
 
thefractalman's a velvetvandal memelet
11:47 / 01.06.03
Yeah, that bait-n-switch manuva - offering Yemaya the souls of the people causing VV bother as an honourable way out of their contract - was a pretty sweet deal. And a nice little reference to some of Morrison's earliest American comic book work, 'Gothic', in Legends of the Dark Knight. Though with slightly happier consequences, one must say...

I think, with the first story arc over, it's probably a good idea to look at where this run's going to go. What hints have been dropped in the past two issues about the events of the coming months? Let's see...

Jane and Nathan's wedding - with Jane saying the date's finally set for August 2004, who wants to bet that that story - whatever happens - will be the culmination of GM's first long-term story on this title - sort of the way 'Imperial' was the culmination of the first years' worth of X-Men stories? It'll feature most of the main characters, it's set in Scotland - fear and lothian, anyone?

The Durham teaching job - the odd nature of Durham has been hinted at - but never fully exploited - in previous Aeon issues. With vv living and working there from September, I think we can safely assume that Morrison's going to explore this further - after all, all the Washington/Newcastle stuff's been done to death by this stage. The leafy environs of Durham also provide a suitable background for GM to muse on his pastoralist ideas.

All Tomorrow's Parties - we know, from previews and Morrison's comments, that the June issue is 'a schizophrenic wee creature: on the one hand, you've got vv partying with his teaching and poetry chums and being the belle of the ball, as per; on the other hand, you've got some private scenes with vv coping with severe mood swings as a result of sugar and caffeine withdrawal.' That sounds pretty interesting. Are we going to see a return to the straight edge vandal from the later months of Ellis' run - only even more severe? And those final parties with the student teachers should be interesting.

The Return of the Monad - vv's dream about his monad-inspired servitor was interesting. We know it went missing about a year ago, and there was some suspicion that it had gained a measure of self-awareness and slipped off into the aether to do its own thing. If it's coming back, what effect will that have - particularly with the recent creation of Vitero-san and the Vindicator?

I'm sure people can suggest lots of other ideas: what magickal framework vv'll work in now that he's finished with extant godforms, etc - but this'll do for now, I think...
 
  
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