7 Soldiers: Mister Miracle

14:40 / 30.12.05

Second option. I vaguely remember the first, he's sitting telepathically paralyzed at the moment, isn't he?

15:00 / 30.12.05

No clue. But it looks like someone got the Bedlams confused. Which is OK, since alliterative names are a Kirby trademark:

Virman Vunderbar, Granny Goodness, Glorious Godfrey....

01:54 / 11.01.06

Wha? My local says this is out tomorrow. Bump.

Keith, like a scientist

02:51 / 11.01.06

not according to Diamond

Or me.

It's out next week. Preview here.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:11 / 18.01.06

Better, with an extraordinarily mild connection to Manhattan Guardian. Definitely a rough ending though. I forsee it reading much better as a whole.

16:19 / 18.01.06

I hate this series.

Benjamin: The "mild connection" with Guardian also includes Klarion. Funny thing is that the overlap is on a rainy Manhattan evening that exists in all three books' third issue. Where Klarion and Jake meet their own out-of-control moment, as with Shilo.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

16:35 / 18.01.06

Ah, dang! I totally missed that!

Sharp peepers, Mr. Chad.

17:25 / 18.01.06

And what's the deal with MM being "immune" to the Anti-Life Equation? Didn't Metron knock him out of it?

17:35 / 18.01.06

Shilo is immune to the ALE? That might suggest that the theory that Shilo is Scott Free's avatar is correct, since we discovered (back in ORION #25) that Scott is ALSO immune to the ALE...because he already possesses it.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

17:46 / 18.01.06

Love is immune to the Anti-Life Equation, gang. I had to figure any proper Mozz fan had to have seen that coming.

20:54 / 18.01.06

This is a book with Morrison in full 'Filth' mode, which is a surprise to me. This is, to my eye, a book about suicidal depression.

I'm extremely interested in where the 4th issue of this is going to go.

21:04 / 18.01.06

Also, as we pull out after that brutal scene, that's Hurricane Gloriana (last mentioned in Guardian #3) hitting Florida and heading up the coast.

Spot on, Benjamin. In Morrison's world, Love is the Life Equation, positive reaction against entropy. Just like in the Filth.

The Omega Sanction is death.

21:13 / 18.01.06

Hurricane Gloriana? As in Tenebrae?

The most interesting comment I saw in this book is "You shouldn't have come into MY world".

22:42 / 18.01.06

Okay, question: What exactly is "Flat" -- have we seen this before, in the Fourth World? The mysterious inhalant ZZ seems to be ingesting from his Mother Bong? He had it in the first issue and it seemed like an odd stylistic effect, but this isn't something all together...other.

mikebee

22:43 / 18.01.06

can anyone explain to me what the thugs who were kicking the shit out of shilo, setting him on fire etc, talking about during the attack? i'm sure it's in front of my face, but i'm home sick from work and i'm just not seeing it...

23:04 / 18.01.06

It reads better if you ignore Shiloh's dialogue like they do. We come into the middle of a conversation. The thugs (Kalibak among them, looks like) are just talking about a girl and a party.

Like so:

"...she said that?"
"Nah, serious."
"I thought she hated me after I put her brother in the hospital."
"Some $#&* people."

"What was that thing you said you was gonna ask me? It was right before you got that call."
"Oh, yeah. It's no big deal."

"You down for this party over at my sister's place?"
"Yeah, I'm all over it."

Etc. Shiloh's just meat. More conflict with random tragedy and meaninglessness reinforced, humans dehumanized.

00:06 / 19.01.06

I can't think of any particular referent for the Flat in the Fourth World,

But it occurs to me that if it shows the users "how things really are" it may actually show them that their universe IS flat. That is, two-dimensional. And about 6.5" by 10".

Remember the original art for the 2-page spread in issue #1?

00:39 / 19.01.06

And Zatanna's magician's war with Zor in #4.

04:08 / 19.01.06

possible "flat" reference

04:42 / 19.01.06

But it occurs to me that if it shows the users "how things really are" it may actually show them that their universe IS flat. That is, two-dimensional. And about 6.5" by 10".

If it's a reference to anything, Mario's got it, and it was referenced earlier in Zatanna #1 as well, when the groper guy from the support group mentions his "two-dimensional plate holographic theory", which basically asserts that the universe is a hologram that only appears 3-dimensional, but is actually on a 2-dimensional membrane or plate.

Morrison's talked publicly about the idea being amusing in the past, because it means we're effectively in a comic book.

04:54 / 19.01.06

Not to mention the branes that Zee and her Wacky Band of Sorcerers (plus, you know, Terry Thirteen) were jumping on and off of, I think someone (Chad?) suggested earlier that the DCU's flat encompassing the Sheeda-side which would be more cuboid. Only Sheeda-side is just the end of time, but the idea's still intriguing. It fits together, but I'm still curious about the nature of the Mother Bong. It seems more ... image-appropriate to have some kind of flat surface, rather than a vapour. Possibly a tray to snort an powder from?

Maybe it just appears to us to be spheroid.

12:25 / 19.01.06

I may have described something wherein the different locations are subsets of each other -Fourth World contains Summer's End, Summer's End contains Avallach, Avallach contains DCU, DCU contains Qwewq.

But the only extradimensional characters are the Seven Unknown Men, according to Grant. While the trans-navigational concept has elegant parts that parlay into the overarching themes, I've given that view up.

Doesn't Flyboy or someone want to discuss the race issues/stereotypes found here?

Jackie Susann

21:39 / 22.01.06

Nobody has much to say about this issue? Surely if anyone else had written it there'd be an explosion of 'comis supposed to be fun not castrating the hero' IC style outrage?

Is it worth pointing out the obvious similarities between the anti-life equation and the butterfly hypnosis from Frankenstein? Maybe thematic, or the anti-life equation is a Sheeda weapon?

Rachel Melmoth

21:52 / 22.01.06

Surely if anyone else had written it there'd be an explosion of 'comis supposed to be fun not castrating the hero' IC style outrage?

I'm holding off on the grouching on faith that he's going somewhere brighter with this. In the unlikely event that after issue four it turns out that the comic really was about torture and mutilation and that's that, then I'll chime in with the complaining.

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:53 / 22.01.06

I've got to say that having got this today I'm a little shocked by the fact that there are less people going "Oh my fucking GOD that was horrible and traumatising!" - the hideous detail of the attack is bad enough, but Darkseid turning up to rub it in and laugh at Shilo's need to wear adult diapers just takes it to a whole other level - this is as much a horror comic as Frankenstein is, if not more. Doubtless it is all setting things up for a glorious escape, but in the meantime... Jesus.

This Sunday

22:06 / 22.01.06

If the torture/castration/generally-fucking-him-up had been portrayed in an overtly attractive or salacious manner, without any indication that the artists involved were conscious of what they were portraying, or trying to do something with it that extended past, y'know, torn-tights rapefest buggery stuff-her-in-the-fridge-when-yer-done fun.
An extended, thirty panels of Shilo spreading his legs, crotch thrust deiciously forward, moaning, flush-faced and sweaty while they went to work....
This still reads very mid to late nineties to me. Can't put my finger on it. And it can't be the art, 'cause that keeps changing, from that 'Heroes for Hire' guy forward to scratchy-ville. Anyone?
Anyhow, yes, it was cruel and vicious and mean, but it's obviously going somewhere, and it's entertaining.

22:45 / 22.01.06

I'm thinking the "nineties" feel is the Life Trap. When else would the New Gods be transformed into homeless folks and the Apokolipsians become urban royalty? There was a certain zeitgeist about taking it down a notch from the fantastic and the resulting "keepin' it real" idea translated as just a fad - or phase...

In retrospect, that HORRIBLE beatdown scene seemed too similar to the one that Allred did in his SOLO issue, so much so that I didn't really recognize it for the sheer brutality it was.

FinderWolf

01:39 / 23.01.06

>> But it occurs to me that if it shows the users "how things really are" it may actually show them that their universe IS flat. That is, two-dimensional.

And, emotionally "flat" - i.e. depressed, devoid of meaning, hope, happiness, etc. It's a drug that makes them feel like a dejected, lonely teenage who feels that nothing in life has any meaning at all and we're all just doomed scum.

H3ct0r L1m4

03:10 / 23.01.06

reverbs with the rest of the 7S. death of the wonders of Fantasy leading to birth of the dreads of Reality or vice versa.

MM's already trapped in this flat life of his, where he's impotent to the point of getting castrated [how's that for a wake-up-call metaphor?] and will eventually commit suicide in #4, I suppose/hope [if DC allows that as of today - or he'll die trying a last stunt], leaving this fake illusory plane "in a box", as per the solicitation text.

and will cross into a new bright reality... gold from shit, crossing the Abbys and all that.

it'll be pretty in the end. most 7S are apparently about discovery/recovery and I like that.

03:15 / 23.01.06

Hector: as per the solicitation text and entering a new bright reality... gold from shit, crossing the Abbys and all that.

Shilo and Zatanna get to share being Lord Fanny. As it should be.