Mindless Ones

Like Nick Kent straining to keep afloat in a pool of anti-mirror (the photographer snapping a few off for the cover of The Dark Stuff before his subject’s arms give out and he’s resubmerged, the black mind-vomit of the last eon’s keepers sloshing gently on the surface the only indication he ever managed to clamber back up those cold fathoms and out into the light, albeit for a few frantic seconds of splashing and flailing), Batman # 683 tells the story of one man drowning under the weight of super-rock star excess the pressures of which us mere mortals can never hope to understand.

If a tall dark stranger approaches you with a fun, brightly coloured costume, just say no, kids.

follow the bat-pole down, down…

This list is going to be a little unconventional. It’s going to include things like websites for starters, because, hey, this is the future, and we want to let you guys know we’re not all *old media* here in the dark dimension. Also, it’s going to alternate between an ‘amypoodle recommends’ kinda thing and an actual ‘best of’ list. If it was solely the latter, then I’m afraid it would be rather boring:
‘I went to see Batman at the I-Max and it was reaaaally gooooood’, you know the score. And most of it wasn’t produced this year either. Sorry.

poodle xmas dance, poodle xmas JUMP!

I feel like the Mindless Ones have been in on a secret. Since its inception, both beasts, Lord Nuneaton Savage, Bobsy and I have all been whispering amongst ourselves about how Final Crisis is actually good.

A few thoughts from Zom:

“I noticed that Brian Hibbs, amongst others, recently commented that Final Crisis lacks weight because of the way it seems divorced from continuity. That’s a criticism that I have some sympathy with – as a reader of ongoing comics how could I not? – but it is rooted in an understanding of the DCU that differs significantly from my own. Brian is positioning continuity as central to our relationship with the fictional space, whereas I tend to approach things from another angle. It seems to me that as fans we all have a much deeper connection with the DCU. I’m talking about our relationship with our private, idealized DCUs. We all know where Gotham and Metropolis are and what’s important about them, we’ve all been to Oa, we care about our favorite superheroes even when their continuities have taken a turn down shit alley. Especially then, perhaps.

Kick it out the door, Poodle!”

Back to me. Welcome.

Stop reading the interviews, ignore the hype, immerse yourself in some Kirby, trust the creative team, stick on some apocalyptic music and you’re ready to begin.

Just a little aside before we get into this. There’s plenty of sites out there featuring balanced reviews, there’s plenty of sites out there featuring scathing reviews, and there’s plenty of sites out there drooling like a muthafucker. This site, however, is all about celebrating what we like about the comic, with a healthy wodge of gushing, but hopefully in an intelligent, infectious way.

I could write the negative review. I could write the balanced review. I could go ‘I MARRY GRANT MORRISON LOVE WEDDING!!!!11123!YOU R BASE BELONG GRANT MORRISON!’

All this would bore the shit out of me. It’s like I’ve just heard a brilliant new tune and I want to enthuse about it, regardless if it’s a bit tatty round the edges and the breakdown’s a bit overlong.

So there!

As our long term readers already know, I don’t read many superhero books. It’s not that I don’t like superheroes – I love them – it’s just, well, invariably I tend to find most titles pretty boring. I sat down with the first two Captain America trades the other day and I wanted to love that shit, only I really didn’t. The art, though pretty, was muddy and a chore to trawl through (in what’s supposed to be an action book!), the story likewise, and the thing just didn’t seem to regard itself as a comicbook. No…twas a big muddy storyboard, and a big muddy storyboard lacking in fun. Essentially the experience made me even more resolute in my Mozza-bats love. Morrison’s Batman is never, ever boring, and it knows all about the form it’s cowled in. Not great, great art, but totally what I want a monthly comic to be. Fast-paced, colourful and pulpy, with flashes of *depth*, funny, involving and, most importantly… How did Botswana Beast describe #682 in our last email correspondence? Ah yes – ‘typically berserk’.

I think that sums the run and the issue up nicely, don’t you?

JUMP!

Batman the annotated adventures the second (tho’ as Botswana Beast has pointed out in our email exchanges, this is more commentary than anything else). In case you’re interested, part the first (for 680) can be found here.

Scroll down for the jump

batannotinactionafteraJUMP!

The Vulture was the first rogue Zom and I ever discussed giving the once over, long, long before Mindless Ones was even a glint in his eye – years ago in fact – so it seems a bit weird that we’re only just now getting around to Mr. Toomes. I think of all the Rogues he’s the one crying out for a bit of understanding – perhaps even a teensy makeover – and it feels really good to get stuck into him now. Because the Vulture is spooky as fuck really, and it’s a crime nobody’s really noticed or taken advantage of just how unpleasant this guy actually is.

I suppose Peter Parker’s (like Clark Kent’s) life can be reduced to two distinct stages: High School Spidey and Big City Reporter Spidey. Whenever we think of Spiderman the eternal teenager is always present, simply because the 60’s spider-mythos is so strong. Essentially, the character has never managed to shake off all that angsty moaning and groaning, inspite of landing a fantastic job, marrying one of his childhood sweethearts and finally achieving sexytime. As Zom’s pointed out, like a teenager, he kind of enjoys playing the victim. The S&M dynamic is very strong between Spiderman and his enemies, but why do they lust after him so violently? What makes them want to play the dom, the aggressor? Is it simply because he’s asking for it – which I’m sure it sort of is – or is something else at play here? Do they covet that youthful physique, just crying out to distorted, rent, violated? Is Parker the ultimate clean and proper surface – the supreme canvas – for Kraven’s tusk-knives, the lizard’s lashing tongue and Electro’s scorching, cracking, death-heat? It’s hard to put your finger on, however there’s something of the brutalising abusive adult about the spider-villains. It’s like they want to carve their petty hatreds, their insecurities and uglinesses into Spideman’s flesh. His soul. They want to see him ravaged as they have been.

Especially the Vulture.

Why?

I always say this, but take a look at him.

More after the jump!

I don’t know if it’s a memory or if it’s a wholly original invention (something I seriously doubt), but whenever I think of Kraven this scene plays out in my mind:

PANEL 1

HIGH ANGLE. A GLOOMY BUT LAVISH AND HUGE, WOODEN PANELLED CORRRIDOR, ITS WALLS ADORNED WITH STUFFED AND MOUNTED HEADS OF ANIMALS – BOARS, LIONS, TIGERS, CROCODILES, ETC EXTENDING INTO THE DISTANCE. AN ENORMOUS DISTORTED SHADOW DRAPES ITSELF ACROSS THE FLOOR AND THE SNARLING, PETRIFIED BEAKS, MUZZLES AND MAWS. WE CAN’T GET A CLEAR HANDLE ON WHO’S CASTING IT, BUT IT’S EMERGING FROM OUTSIDE THE PANEL

PANEL 2

POV.CLOSER IN ON THE SEVERED HEADS AS WE MOVE THROUGH THE CORRIDOR. ANIMALS GET STRANGER, MORE ALIEN. NOTHING WE RECOGNISE. MYTHOLOGICAL. MONSTERS. IS THAT A GORGON? IS THAT A VAMPIRE? FROZEN, LIFELESS EYES – RED, GREEN AND YELLOW – TWINKLE LIKE MARBLES IN THE DARKNESS.

PANEL 3

ANGUISHED HEADS OF MEN AND WOMEN CAUGHT IN THEIR DEATH GRIMACES.

PANEL 4

AND NOW B LIST SUPERHEROES AND SUPER-VILLAINS. THIS IS WHERE THEY GO WHEN THEY DISAPPEAR OFF THE MAP. ONE’S POWER, EVEN IN DEATH, IS STILL TURNED ON: HIS EYE-SOCKETS AND MOUTH BLAZE WITH ENERGY, HIS FACE CONTORTED IN A FIERY BLUE SCREAM. EMPTY MOUNT COMING INTO VIEW ON EDGE OF FRAME.

PANEL 5

STILL POV. CAMERA RESTS ON EMPTY GOLDEN MOUNT ENGULFED IN THE SHADOW OF A MAN WHOSE SHOULDERS ARE DRAPED IN A DISTINCTIVE, PLUMED, MANE OF FUR. IF WE PEER INTO THE DARKNESS WE CAN JUST MAKE OUT THE WORD ENGRAVED UPON IT: ‘SPIDERMAN’.

Sergei Kravanoff is one mean sonovabitch.

Dare you brave the jump?

When I was about 11 years old my Father and Stepmother moved into an enormous Edwardian house in Surrey, owned by an eminent Buddhist scientist and a Thai Princess. The House had extensive grounds, being situated in a large wood complete with an old cottage that was now a private residence but would have been the servants lodgings a hundred odd years ago. My Father’s family rented one half – again, probably the servant’s half – of the main house, while the owners, complete with jet-setting, Lamborghini designing children, took the really posh bit. There always was, and is, something strange about moving through the main downstairs corridor that connects both family’s ‘homes’ – from the shabby, sepia tinted wallpaper that represented the world I lived in when I stayed there, and out into the clear, white, airy space inhabited by the other residents. There was a feeling of intruding, of being out of one’s depth. But as I got older and eventually got to know the entire place, I started to feel differently. In the end, the overriding feeling was simply that the way the other half tried to present itself was inherently dishonest. Not intentionally so, but nevertheless there was something anachronistic about the kind of aristocratic world that they, and the house, represented. Like a good deal of Edwardian stuff, it felt as though the house and its inhabitants somehow embodied the last, glorious, sad throws of a world that had only recently been devoured by social mobility, daytime telly and cultural relativism. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but there was something deeply melancholy about it – as though by peeling back the thick, red, draped curtains that weighed heavily on the bedroom windows, you could reach out, through, and touch that other world of bright sunny days, tennis on the lawn, and all that E M Forster crap. The place, even in the high rent bit, always felt faded, and like all proper mansions was cobwebby, the black wrought iron window-catches didn’t work properly, the grass in the orchard was often unkempt, and it was COLD. Wherever you went in the house, my abiding memory was that it was often bloody freezing. And it hasn’t changed much in that regard.

You have to kick the backdoor to open it – it’s bloody stiff!

So, it’s cool panel month and weirdly enough, because we are twins and have teh BRAINPOWERZ, Zom and I reached exactly the same conclusion regarding the panel we’d focus on next. And then we duked it out PSIKICK-BOLT style for who would get to do it.

Needless to say, I won.

Imagine Daniel-san’s special crane move – the one that finshes off that bruiser prick at the end of Karate Kid (but HAPPENING TO YOUR MIND) – and you’ve got the gist of what I mean right there. No contest.

You’ve taken the thing – there’s no going back now…