The Dark Knight Rises

It's been six long years and Christopher Nolan's vision of Batman has finally come to an end. It all started way back in 2005 with Batman Begins, a refreshingly serious and realistic take on the Caped Crusader which was a very thorough and interesting origin story which had never before been fully explored onscreen for the character. This was of course followed with smash hit The Dark Knight, which amped up the gravitas and intellectuality of the concept to whole new levels. If I would aim any criticism at The Dark Knight, it would be that as much as I enjoy it as a film it doesn't feel like Batman. Batman Begins did a good job of blending certain more fantastic elements of the mythos like the League of Assassins (or "Shadows" in this continuity) and Ra's al Ghul, plus grotesquerie like the Scarecrow with his fear toxin into a satisfyingly gothic depiction of Gotham which nonetheless felt reasonably plausible. In The Dark Knight what we received was an excellently confronting and intense crime drama but one which felt very little like a superhero film anymore. In striving for realism and grittiness Nolan possibly began to perpetuate that issue which has always shadowed comic book superheroes since the mid-80s: an element of defensiveness about the inherently ridiculous nature of the genre, an effort to hide what is integral to the concept. You can make the Joker just a nut job in makeup and have plots about mob money and turn Two-Face into a rogue vigilante rather than a crime boss but in the end it's still a film about a billionaire who dresses in a bat costume to fight crime. There's only so realistic you can make it before it starts to feel, in my view, like it's somewhat missing the point.

Unfortunately this descent into morbidity and hyperrealism only continues in The Dark Knight Rises. Following the conclusion of the previous film, Batman has retired and Bruce Wayne has spent eight years as a recluse. The film hybridises elements of the The Dark Knight Returns, Knightfall and No Man's Land storylines into a film about Batman returning to work to fight Bane who has cut off Gotham from the outside world and placed it under mob rule. The film owes a lot, narratively, to Batman Begins more than The Dark Knight, and it's obvious that Nolan was trying to make the film feel like an effective sequel to both previous instalments simultaneously. The League of Shadows is heavily referenced, Ra's al Ghul appears in a brief cameo and Batman is returned to far-flung and exotic parts of the world but simultaneously much is made of the death of Two-Face and Commissioner Gordon's efforts to cover up his killing spree at the end of The Dark Knight. What makes this jarring is the complete absence of any mention or reference whatsoever of the Joker. It was increasingly obvious to me over the course of the film that Heath Ledger's death had thrown an even more massive spanner than was already expected in the proverbial works in terms of making an effective sequel to The Dark Knight. Nolan and co excised any account of the Joker out of respect for Heath Ledger, and while this tact is commendable it feels awkward when they reference the events of the previous film. He is, to put it simply, conspicuous by his absence.

The main villain, therefore, takes the form of Bane. I wonder if, perhaps, given Joker's absence, it was a mistake for Nolan to have eliminated Two-Face in the same film, arguably Batman's next most dangerous villain, or to have reduced Scarecrow to such a secondary antagonist. It feels like Nolan was scrabbling around for another Batman foe who could be portrayed as realistic; obviously characters like Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, Poison Ivy and Clayface were out of the question and it would be impossible to make Riddler realistic without putting him in the position in which he so often finds himself as little more than a poor man's Joker. Personally I always thought that Black Mask would have been a good choice of enemy in Nolan's Batman-verse but perhaps having a skull-themed villain so soon after Captain America wouldn't have worked anyway. Deadshot might also have had potential as a supporting foe, or perhaps Professor Hugo Strange.

Nonetheless we get Bane, and I suppose he's one of the more plausible members of Batman's rogues' gallery. However instead of a luchadore-masked Venom addict criminal mastermind, this film portrays him in a rather more bland "realistic" style as a terrorist trying to fulfil Ra's al Ghul's legacy with the assistance of a mask which provides him with constant anaesthesia, necessary after sustaining never-fully-disclosed injuries in his past. Instead of being Hispanic he speaks with a rather bizarrely exaggerated English accent and always walks around the place clutching his lapels. At first I thought it was an interesting depiction of Bane as an affably evil monster, and satisfying to see him depicted as the genius brute portrayed in the comics. However as his aims as a boring movie terrorist were increasingly established and he developed a propensity for delivering tiresome, cliché-ridden monologues I became increasingly exhausted with his presence. Some would argue that it would be impossible to have another villain as successful as Heath Ledger's Joker but I believe they made a mistake in turning Bane into a jovial English gent. It would have been more effective, in my opinion, to have had a villain which contrasted to both the humorous insanity of the Joker and the collected self-assurance of Ra's al Ghul by depicting Bane as still calculating and intelligent but furious and raging. Sadly it was not to be, and Bane becomes increasingly tedious as the film continues. Tom Hardy does as good a job as he can in the restrictive mask to portray Bane but he's let down by a weak script which leaves the character ultimately unfulfilled.

The other classic Batman character introduced in this film is Catwoman. Never referred to as such, only on a newspaper headline as "the Cat", Selina Kyle is once again a master thief and cracksperson intent on discovering a device called the Blank Slate which can erase one's existence from all records. The film maintains the typical depiction of Catwoman as a relatively neutral and self-interested character who turns to good only in duress or out of affection for Batman but in this case she's also trying to start afresh by erasing her criminal past. Shame she's got to commit crimes to stop being a criminal! Anyway if any character felt like a forced love interest for Batman in this film it was her. As the ultmate successor to Rachel it seems as if they just wanted Batman to have someone with whom to settle down. She disappears about halfway through the film and seems to have been practically forgotten about by the writers until the end. To be honest, I've never been much of a fan of Anne Hathaway in anything I've seen her in and this didn't change my mind. The film takes the predictable route of making Catwoman into a hybrid action girl-femme fatale as usual and doesn't really achieve much with the character. She changes her mind about being completely selfish and saves Batman in the end. Whoop de do. Maybe if Bat-fans hadn't seen this exact scenario last year in Batman: Arkham City it would have seemed more original, but probably not.

We get a couple more new faces as well in the shape of Marion Cotillard's Miranda Tate and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake. To be honest at this point with these two plus Michael Caine, Tom Hardy and a small role for Cillian Murphy returning as ever as the Scarecrow the film starts to feel like Batception at times. Miranda Tate serves as an initial romantic interest for Bruce Wayne in a contrived and implausible love story as well as a protector of the Wayne Enterprises financial interest due to bizarre economic factors which are over my head. Of course, spoilers beware, she turns out to be none other than Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra's, out to complete her father's mission. John Blake, on the other hand, is a "hot head" police officer, a straight-edged "good cop" who helps out Batman and Commissioner Gordon and, as revealed by his birth name at the end of the film, serves as Nolan's extremely realistic interpretation of the character of Robin or effectively any sidekick to Batman. It is of course heavily implied at the conclusion of the film, in a revelation as predictable as possible due to an early scene where Bruce Wayne tells Blake that "anyone could be Batman" and in a later one where Batman suggests that he wear a mask, that he will become the new Batman. Indeed Batman himself spends a good deal of the film incapacitated, imprisoned or otherwise unavailable and as our supporting protagonist Blake fills the void of a hero very well, but it only serves to compound the impression that Nolan wants to make a Batman film which is as far removed from Batman as possible. You could believe, I think, that Nolan wouldn't have objected to making a film where Blake himself was the main character without any kind of comic book elements.

This leads me into the narrative of the film. It's all rather disappointingly simple; Bane is gathering a secret army of terrorists underground. When the time is ripe he blows up all the ways into and out of the city, has a scientist turn an experimental fusion reactor into a bomb and gives the citizens of Gotham a month or so of total anarchy before the bomb blows them all to Kingdom Come. This is all revealed to be part of Talia's effort to live up to her father's plan to destroy Gotham. Ultimately it feels far, far too much like nothing more than a re-hash of the plot of Batman Begins. Terrorists appalled at the decadence of Western civilisation want to destroy the city. Both of these plots end with a vehicle chase in which the relevant weapon of mass destruction must be hunted down and eliminated before time runs out. They both have a character twist where an associate of Batman is revealed to be orchestrating the entire plot. It is of course in the serialised nature of superhero comics to repeat some of their narrative conceits from time to time but this is ludicrously overt and, in this regard, seems to detract from Nolan's efforts to divorce the series from the less realistic aspects of superhero comics.

There's also a subplot where Bane injures Batman's back and leaves him in a prison in what appears to be the Middle East somewhere from which he must escape by mastering himself in some fashion. It's all awfully similar again to bits from the first half of Batman Begins. Once he's out he heads off to Gotham, there's a big battle and he apparently sacrifices his life flying the bomb out over the bay to save the innocents. Of course it turned out in reality he survived and is off living a wonderful old life with Catwoman in Europe. How lovely.

My point is that really it feels like a whole lot of nothing. The film drags on and on, going for nearly three hours, and at no point, in contrast to its title, does it really rise above its precursors and deliver something new to the plate. We are beaten over the head with neon signs advertising hard-edged psychological realism and character trauma but none of it feels especially profound or moving. Batman needs to recover value in life; that's about it. I realise that Nolan wanted to provide closure to his take on Batman and it's satisfying to at least see the property treated with that kind of literary seriousness; we don't end with alarm bells and someone shouting out that Killer Moth has just robbed the bank as Batman swoops back into action or anything. This feels conclusive and final, but it doesn't change the fact that it's long-winded, dull, and takes itself way too seriously. Batman Begins had, as I've said, elements of the fantastic and gothic, and while The Dark Knight moved perhaps a little too closely to the real the Joker's unique worldview was another important intrusion of the outlandish. The Dark Knight Rises lacks these elements in anything beyong a reprisal of what has gone before. The ticking time-bomb plot is devastatingly unimaginative and stale, Batman's inner journey takes him nowhere special and the other characters are underdeveloped and underused. The mere fact that Batman spends so long locked in a prison rather than out fighting crime as Batman, which is what we all want to see, is teeth-gnashingly frustrating. Perhaps Nolan understands this and wants me to be frustrated; perhaps in wanting to bring the normally endless world of a comic book hero to absolute closure he knew that we had to want it to end. Maybe in that regard the film is a success; it's an ending that left me not wanting any more, and I guess that's the best kind of ending.

Technically it's all very good and the direction is up to Nolan's usual high standard. The action set pieces and effects are all well done and the horrific unpleasantness of anarchy in Gotham is impossible to ignore. It is, perhaps, as good an end as could be expected while bringing the series to a realistic conclusion, but in this way it again reinforces the notion I can't shake that trying to make superheroes realistic is an interesting experiment but ultimately misses the point. There are a number of funny moments, although perhaps not enough, but the script is inconsistent overall and even in the time it takes it tries to do too much. It is, in my view, definitely the weakest instalment in an otherwise very good series, and feels too much like Batman-minus-Batman. If it taught me anything, it's that superheroes shouldn't be realistic - because they're not.

"The Death of Captain America" Omnibus by Ed Brubaker et al

The title of this second collection of Ed Brubaker's already-legendary run writing Captain America is something of a misnomer. Having already killed off Steve Rogers in issue #25, concluding the first omnibus but reprinted in this one for our convenience, Brubaker now sets about addressing the consequences of the death of the Sentinel of Liberty and establishing his replacement. What makes this sequence interesting is that for nearly ten issues we have no Captain America whatsoever. Brubaker instead explores the ramifications of the death of such a figure by diffracting the storyline across Steve's bereaved supporting cast in a series of related plot threads which are weaved together in a way which answers questions as much as it asks them. Sharon Carter, the Falcon and the recently-resurrected Bucky, with the later addition of the Black Widow, all have their roles in pursuing the story beyond the inconveniencing of the series' regular protagonist. The point is that while Steve Rogers is dead Captain America must live on, especially since the nefarious schemes of the diabolical Red Skull are still very much in motion.

Brubaker does a very good job of thoroughly developing this supporting cast into a leading ensemble so that despite the absence of Steve Rogers and indeed any kind of "Captain America" for many issues there's no sense of alienation from the actual substance of the story. Indeed despite the obvious triviality of comic book death and the inevitability of Steve's return it's a refreshingly mature style of storytelling in an inconsistent genre. While the characters are important it prevents the story from being excessively character-focused to the detriment of dramatic integrity. Steve is gone, but the fight must go on, and Brubaker pulls this off with his usual competence. Naturalistic dialogue peppered with useful but not condescending explanations and reminders of certain elements of Cap lore give the story a strong sense of continuity with the ever-ongoing Cap mythos but in a way that is digestible for those unfamiliar with every adventure in Cap's sixty-plus-year history. Some elements, like the reintroduction of William Burnside, aka "the Captain America of the Nineteen-Fifties" are done in a concise yet compelling manner, especially through his interactions with Sharon. Other aspects of the storyline, like Sharon's brainwashing, are less explained than they could be and seem to spring into being without a great deal of explanation beyond some undisclosed talent of Faustus. Sin and Crossbones, with the assistance of a new Serpent Society, continue to be annoying but Brubaker's writing makes these absurdist elements increasingly plausible.

A great deal of this is contributed to by the artwork. Pencils from Steve Epting, Butch Guice and Mike Perkins are all fairly consistent and layer a healthy dose of realism over the whole business which makes any potential silliness fairly easy to swallow. Someone I failed to credit when reviewing the previous Brubaker omnibus is colourist Frank D'Armata, whose colours, occurring in every issue in this collection, tie the entire series together in ways that I hadn't appreciated at first. His soft palette and painterly style are an essential component of the way in which these stories implore our suspension of disbelief. This is what I like about this series, and it's something I think benefits Captain America and Brubaker's style of storytelling in particular but could apply to many comics: a sense of solidity and rationality which makes the stories feel plausible and flow naturally. The writing and artwork are all very proficient individually, but the value of their application in this medium is how they come together to form such a complete whole. My one criticism in this regard in the art department would be Roberto De La Torre's artwork for issue #39: it's a somewhat more exaggerated and certainly more heavily inked issue which feels out of sync with all the other issues around it. It's a more impressionistic style which I feel conflicts somewhat with the tone and aims of the rest of the comic, although given the appearance of crazy Burnside-Cap in this issue maybe that's appropriate. In that regard I might also mention that I'm not sure Burnside's monologue is always written that well; he seems to think in the second person, which I suppose is interesting, but which I feel comes across as too much "tell" and not enough "show", as Burnside seems to be having a rather heavily character-expository discussion with himself for our benefit. It could be subtler.

Bear in mind however that these are minor quibbles. Brubaker's primary achievement in this storyline is the establishment of Bucky as the new Captain America. It would of course be impossible for anyone else to replace Cap and really feel "right" in the role, and Brubaker makes sure that we know it. Despite obvious misgivings, Bucky works as the new Captain America and he is well-established as a fitting bearer of Steve's legacy. Putting a character on a path to redemption is a tried and tested way of making them sympathetic and believable and Bucky's efforts to make up for the deeds of the Winter Soldier by becoming the new Star-Spangled Man provide some healthy if not entirely original character development. Giving Bucky an altered costume and a plainly different attitude and style means that we can read this series as Captain America without having to pretend that Steve is still around , although he of course haunts the storyline immensely. Steve Rogers as Captain America and "Bucky Cap" are two related but different entities, and it works as such. Bringing Bucky back and making him into Captain America also ensures that the sense of continuity is absolute: one of the two members of the original Captain America team is still very much the hero of the book.

Overall I'd recommend this second omnibus as a valuable follow-up to its previous instalment. If you just want lots of sequences of Cap beating guys up (although there is a fair bit of that) you're probably not going to get as much out of this story, especially if you only want Steve, but if you want a mature storyline with a healthy dose of intrigue and a strong cast then it's definitely worth continuing the adventure beyond Steve's apparent demise. If you want to see Tony Stark repeatedly looking like a complete moron this is also worth checking out, coming as it does right after the events of the Civil War crossover. As our eventual protagonist Bucky is likeable and vulnerable in different ways to Steve Rogers and is a worthy bearer of the shield. Brubaker plays to his strengths of fusing superheroic derring-do seamlessly with spy-fiction and political drama and the fulfilment of this with satisfying artwork is an encouraging continuation of a robust series.

Fantastic Four #605.1 by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Choi

As much as I enjoy superhero comics, I don't always fully understand the impulse towards them. Similarly, I don't always understand why comic readers should stick with the world of comics where maintaining a status quo often hinders the kind of plot progression, thematic exploration and character development which would be considered essential in other genres and other media. This is one of those comics which helps me understand that relationship.

Jonathan Hickman's run on Fantastic Four is well-regarded but one I haven't fully explored. He's made a lot of interesting moves, like killing off the Human Torch (as temporarily as can be in comics), replacing him with Spider-Man, changing the team and the comic itself into something different in the form of FF, the Future Foundation, and having Doctor Doom ally himself more permanently with his erstwhile foes by actually joining their organisation. None of these are particularly original concepts as far as Fantastic Four and comics in general go, I believe, but they've been combined and spun in such a way as to be a reinvigorating take on Marvel's First Family.

Fantastic Four #605.1 is the first single issue of Fantastic Four I've purchased, trade paperbacks and the now spin-off FF series aside, and I was surprised and intrigued by its contents. Marvel's "Point One" initiative has been an effort to bring new readers up to speed by giving a one-shot insight into the relevant backstory of their characters before the series embark upon new storylines. It's a good idea in the world of Marvel which, having never been totally rebooted like DC's Universe, now has some astoundingly complex continuity. Hickman, however, takes this concept in a whole new direction. This "Point One" is an Origin Story for the Fantastic Four, but not the Fantastic Four we may know.

Put simply, this is the Fantastic Four in a world where the Axis Powers won in the Second World War. Once again Hickman reveals his aplomb for reinvigorating old clichés with New York as a "Province of New Berlin" and Doktor Reed Richards as a ruthless Nazi scientist seeking to push the Reich towards new frontiers. Add the impulse towards a world of Axis victory as another fascinating yet inexplicable narrative convention. Why are we so intrigued by a world under Nazi domination? Of course it's an interesting idea to explore, but why do we come back to it time and time again? Maybe it's that morbid human tendency towards examining things which repulse us. The fetishisation of the Nazi aesthetic in art must certainly derive from the sense of unease and lurking horror which is an inevitable atmosphere in a world of fascist dominion. The Nazis are a disturbing item of history in themselves, yes, but they are also a regime which was utterly defeated and destroyed. The thought of a Nazi world at peace and operational is one which cannot sit well with us; it conveys a sense of wrongness beyond that of either a generic dystopia or a flashback to real Nazi history. We see this world's Invisible Woman and Human Torch, the "Sturm" siblings, brutalising competitors in a New Berlin gymnasium for their places in Reed's mission, and worst of all Ben Grimm being escorted from a Boston concentration camp in shackles, and it really hits home: the perverse, backwards ideology of an unjust regime applied sickeningly to a world which normally seems so wholesome by comparison.

Hickman achieves a master stroke in the next section by delving back into this Nazi Mr Fantastic, and what better way than by confronting him with the fifth person who is inextricably tied to the Four? Viktor von Doom has a brilliant but unconventional mind, so what does our pragmatic Nazi Reed do? He removes part of his brain and surgically adds it to his own. This is a strong method of realising the psyche of this Reed Richards, so far seen only as desiring the future achievements of the Reich, as more ruthless and horrific than his regular foe. Introducing Doom, who would seem like the perfect candidate for success in a fascist world, only to have his character immediately murdered a page later by Nazi Reed, is a disturbing revelation of just how wrong this world is. Not sure how Doom got even that far given his Romani heritage but there you go. Combine this unsettling role-reversal with Nazi Reed's intention to deliberately be bombarded with cosmic rays as opposed to the accident of the traditional origin and we have the whole drama of the Fantastic Four turned on its head.

We're confronted with more disturbing imagery as the space mission takes place. With Grimm bearing the "Yellow Badge" Jewish identification mark on his space helmet and the swastika on the shuttle partially obliterated to leave only a "4" it's haunting how subjective heroism can be. Afterwards we see the space explorers honoured, with Reed and the Sturms bearing a "3" on their costumes; the Jewish Grimm only partially included, still shackled and restrained but seemingly honoured. This scene presents us with what I felt was the one piece of weak dialogue in the comic: Jonathan Sturm describing his sensations as he is transformed, this time into an ice creature rather than a human torch: "Skin... turning ice cold. Freezing." Now there's a cliché that even Hickman can't bring back to life, but it's one rather cheesy moment in a comic of otherwise strong dialogue which bears re-reading. It's astonishing how much Mike Choi's straightforward, concise art can convey with an equally concise script, and each transition of time and place is evocatively realised. The characters in particular are strikingly represented, with the monstrous unusually Thing and the strangely grandfatherly Hitler  alongside an increasingly sinister Reed, first a youthful figure, then a bald "mad scientist" type, increasingly unshaven and scruffy-looking, and finally the sagacious bearded figure he becomes, in unsettling contrast to the story of his origins.

Reed of course encourages Grimm to kill Hitler in front of the Sturms and so eliminates his teammates and political rivals in one stroke. Just to ram the point home of Nazi Reed's despotism and villainy his soldiers now bear face plates reminiscent of Doctor Doom's mask, and when he's attacked by heroes it's the traditionally super-villainous Magneto who is in the forefront of the assault - fitting, I suppose, given his history with the Nazis. Together Hickman and Choi weave an intricate symbolism both historical and internal to Marvel Comics to convey the villainy of a Nazi Mr Fantastic and explore the ramifications of how easily great intelligence can be misdirected towards power-lust and domination.

The utmost extension of this is that Nazi Reed, under attack by both the X-Men and the Avengers, opts to use the Infinity Gauntlet to destroy the world. He creates a portal to a pocket dimension and the big revelation at the end is that he is one of the founders of the "Interdimensional Council of Reeds" who served as the villains in the pages of FF. So this tale of parallel worlds and Nazis comes to its fruition - with the desire to "solve everything". Hickman's depiction of a character "bigger than Nazism" as it were yet nonetheless still over-ambitious and villainous is well constructed, although I feel that the appearance of the Infinity Gauntlet could have used some explanation. Indeed this is far from an introductory instalment to the world of the Fantastic Four no matter what the intentions of the "Point One" initiative so it may be rather confusing to someone who hasn't read Hickman's recent run or Fantastic Four in general or, like me, done a combination of some of this with a little prior research on one's own.

Yet while not necessarily being the most accessible story it's very effectively realised, and at no point between the young pipe-smoking SS Doktor Richards and the bearded Reed-Sword in the Interdimensional Council does the narrative progression not make sense. Hickman's portrayal of this cold, calculating figure is effective in how simultaneously like and yet unlike he is to our mainstream Mr Fantastic and his depiction of a world which would bear such a man to fruition is depicted with confronting clarity. Despite the fact that this was my first acquisition of a regular Fantastic Four comic and that I wasn't really expecting this counterfactual history I was deeply impressed by what a haunting tale Hickman and Choi managed to weave over the course of a few pages. It may not be your run-of-the-mill Marvel comic but it's definitely worth a look.

This is what comics need: a succinct and sensible storytelling which nonetheless possesses an eloquence and willingness to explore or reinvent existing tropes and familiarities. The impulse of superheroes is still something with which I have not yet gotten to grips, but comics like these reconfirm my impression of the validity of the comic medium, and the superhero genre within that medium. Stan Lee once considered that superhero comics were like the mythology of the modern world: tales of larger-than-life protagonists and extraordinary events embodied in some modicum of reality; this gave rise to Thor. Tom Hiddleston, who portrays Loki in the Marvel cinematic universe, recently reinforced this notion in a persuasive article for the Guardian newspaper in which he argued for the value of superheroics as a "shared, faithless, modern mythology" through which to explore "truths". This is of course a valid argument, and one equally true of many forms of art. The value I find in comics like these, however, is in their ability to compellingly question our sense of convention and the status quo, and to invert the accepted symbols and expected dialogues of the genre to expand our perceptions. To argue that intelligence will not always lend itself towards society's conventions of justice, to explore the limits of the tension between progress and morality, and to make us see how easily the symbols and images which comfort us can be turned against us and used to reinforce something we despise is the ground which comics have so much room to explore. Good stories and good art are of course good enough for a good comic, but while we cannot expect many superhero comics to be capable of much more we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that it's all the superhero genre is capable of. Hickman's confrontation of the nature and conventions of the genre permit new insights into the purpose and value of superheroes and how the mirror of art reflects all the extremities of human nature, to press the frontiers of our self-exploration into places we may not wish to but must admit within ourselves.

On "Before Watchmen"

Hurm.

There's been a lot of back and forth lately about DC's recently announced Watchmen prequel project. Of course, the internet being what it is, which is to say the land of extremist discourse, there hasn't been a great deal of especially moderate discussion of the issue. I thought I'd try to adopt what's hopefully a not overly hyperbolic approach to the situation to see what I could make of the legitimacy of the concept and the arguments surrounding it.

My core opinion regarding the "Before Watchmen" project is that it is, above anything, pointless - no more and no less. Watchmen is entirely self-contained. Everything important in the lives of the characters, in the story itself and in the themes it addressed were presented in sufficient detail. Alan Moore compared the situation to someone else writing a sequel to Moby Dick, and while that might come across as a little self-aggrandising, his point stands. Watchmen was, as Moore pointed out, an attempt to apply the rules of serious literature, such as they are, to the comic medium. It shouldn't be surprising then that much like the canon of novels Watchmen stands as part of a rather limited set of "legitimate" comics, which is to say comics which have transcended to the mainstream readership and especially to appreciation in academic and critical circles. In general this kind of literature is indeed self-contained and self-sufficient, holistic and complete. Watchmen adheres to these principles. Producing prequels to Watchmen is really no different to what happens when other authors come along and write their own unofficial prequels, sequels and re-envisionings of "legitimate" literature. Novels like Moby Dick, Gone with the Wind, Heart of Darkness and Great Expectations have had all sorts of unofficial sequels and reinterpretations composed by various authors. It does happen, but here's the rub: it's never considered to be very legitimate. While I think it's obviously potentially clever to put a new spin on an old classic or pen a sequel or prequel which explores the issues further, there's a certain question of what really is the point. Authors would really be better served by expressing their ideas and themes through their own stories, their own characters. I know some want to specifically highlight implicit ideas in the existing texts but a lot of the time it feels like piggybacking on the fame and success of something worthy in itself, and it seems in most cases to be a pointless exercise.

What else is to be achieved by writing prequels to Watchmen? What's the point? "Good stories and good art" is hardly an adequate justification, because Watchmen itself was about a good deal more than just telling a good yarn and having nice pictures. The end product, even in the unlikely event that it is stupendously intelligent and entertaining, will always be something secondary to its source material. It will forever be doomed to riding the coat tails of a more successful work. Moore again pointed out that if DC was legitimately interested in producing something to revitalise the industry they would be encouraging writers to come up with fresh, engaging and challenging works the way things happened when Watchmen was created, rather than trying to cash in on the success of something from long before.

The argument of course is also made that Watchmen is "just a comic" and that really this project is in the nature of the medium. The problem is that Watchmen is very much the exception rather than the rule. Watchmen is very far from being "just a comic" for the reasons I mentioned above. It aspires to the concerns of serious literature in the way that normal, ongoing comics don't. It contains more challenging arguments and more textual depth than whole runs of Batman or The Fantastic Four or any "just a comic" you'd care to name. It is indeed far closer to, for instance, the serialised runs of Dickens novels published chapter by chapter from beginning to end in a magazine and later collected into whole volumes than it is to the ongoing runs of DC and Marvel, and just because it's made up mostly of panels of pictures with the dialogue in white balloons doesn't change that fact. Producing prequels is again ultimately pointless - what possible role do they have? Where do they fit in beyond published fan fiction? Fan fiction is itself a dead end, recycling other people's works rather than coming up with one's own characters and storylines in order to perpetuate something rather than appreciate its wholeness. Fan fiction is probably the closest thing to which these prequels could be compared. Besides the fact that this is an obvious cash-grab on DC's part, it embodies the immature desire implicit in fan fiction: that will to inflate a work of art into a franchise, stretch it beyond its limits. It's a reluctance to let go or to accept a conclusion, an inability to move on. It is the desire to give oneself more room to hide from reality rather than contemplating a work for its arguments and ideas. This is my biggest gripe with the "Before Watchmen" project. Watchmen is a work of intellectual might and profundity, and licensing prequels only serves to de-legitimise the comic by reducing it to a franchise. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy comic franchises a lot, but I enjoy them for what they are. Watchmen is on a different level, and breaching its ambitions of literary integrity is to act in ignorance of its primary concern, which is that of a confronting intellectual work, not purely the kind of endless saga of thrill-seeking which embodies mainstream comic franchises.

Other arguments touted about "Before Watchmen" are that Watchmen itself used characters based on the Charlton Comics characters and that Alan Moore himself writes a lot of comics these days which are mostly about taking characters from classic literature and making them behave in licentious ways. I don't deny either of these things. Nonetheless, at the risk of going all "death of the author" on you, it doesn't matter one way or the other whether Alan Moore is a hypocrite. It doesn't make Watchmen itself any less self-contained, complete or legitimate, and it doesn't make the "Before Watchmen" project any more pointless. In regards to the Charlton characters I must say that the links are incredibly tenuous. Aside from a few similarities like Rorschach wearing a hat, coat and mask like The Question, Nite-Owl having a flying ship and gadgets like the Ted Kord Blue Beetle and Doctor Manhattan being an atomic-powered entity like Captain Atom the links are both limited and superficial. In terms of their backstories and personalities they're completely invented for the work, and they're much more obviously generic superhero archetypes than they are pastiches of the already little-known Charlton characters.

The problem with the project really though is what it says about DC. Not only does this decision serve to compound the reputation of the medium as limited and artistically bankrupt but it shows a disturbing lack of faith in their ability to innovate in the medium. DC is meant to be one of the two giants of the industry and they should be trailblazing new ideas, new kinds of storytelling, new experiments in comics, but instead they've regressed twenty-five years to try to resurrect their single most enormously successful property. It is worth noting that these comics are being presented as an "expansion" to "the acclaimed Watchmen universe". If it was presenting itself simply as a tribute to the existing comic then perhaps I could understand, but obviously that's impossible considering the controversy about Moore and Gibbons' original agreement with DC. Beyond this, however, what is the purpose of the expansion, what is there to expand, and since when was Watchmen a whole "universe"? It's a comic which happens to take place in an alternate timeline but DC are conveniently portraying it as an existing franchise on the scale of their own comic universe. The reason we don't need to see the details of, say, Rorschach and Nite-Owl tackling Underboss or the Minutemen taking down Moloch or the Comedian doing Nixon's dirty work is that you can pick up any of innumerable issues of Green Lantern or Wolverine or whatever you like and see just that sort of comic any time. One of the major points of Watchmen was to explore the notion that in the real world the normal adventures of superheroes, as the genre portrays them, would be trivial and irrelevant, an ineffectual struggle against the symptoms rather than the causes of society's problems. We see so little of the action of the actual crime fighting days because they were petty and unspectacular; it's part of Watchmen's extensive deconstruction of the superhero genre. It's the same reason the book is completed, not ongoing: Ozymandias' solution, regardless of its morality, is definitive and final, unlike the vain and failed efforts of the vigilantes. As a result, trying to torture the unseen adventures of the characters out into entirely new comics is not just worthless but ignorant, operating completely against important themes and issues which, outside fan culture, are far more important to the value of the book than the characters are.

The problem is not that it's disrespectful to Alan Moore, who's disrespected the characters of a lot of other, mostly conveniently deceased, authors, but that it is treating Watchmen as something other than what it is. Watchmen is a comic but it's not a "comic franchise" or a universe or property beyond a single volume of one story; it's about superheroes but it's not in the same playing field as the ongoing adventures of Superman or the Avengers. It's the same medium but an entirely different kind of text, and this is the mistake DC and some defenders of the project are making, and it's my main problem with the idea. Sure, geeks may love Watchmen and it may be about superheroes and it's drawn panels with dialogue but it's a complete literary work. This is where people are getting confused, and the entire reason Watchmen is so sacrosanct is that its intellectuality and its composition are what has made it successful and one of DC's disturbingly large financial crutches - it transcends the normal, rather crippling limitations of the super hero comics genre exactly by subverting and averting the kinds of things which the genre normally relies upon but simultaneously hamper the industry's legitimacy: constant changes of author and artist, endless ongoing plots, floating timelines, stories composed largely of witty banter and explosive action. This is why making prequels completely misses the point.

As such the main reason I disagree with the "Before Watchmen" project is in terms of artistic principles. I can see how it might seem fun and exciting to compose new adventures of Nite-Owl and Rorschach and so on but Watchmen being what it is there's absolutely no point whatsoever, and people who can't see that are missing the point of the comic. I don't know whether "Before Watchmen" will succeed or fail and I don't begrudge the writers and artists who are working on the project but you might as well try to write and sell your own prequel to The Great Gatsby or Nineteen Eighty-Four; in artistic terms it'd be equally fatuous and an identical waste of time.

Marvel Legends: Doctor Doom

As you may know, I'm a sucker for a well-characterised villain, and when it comes to well-characterised villains, or rather super-villains, there are few better than Victor von Doom, arch enemy of the Fantastic Four and especially its leader, Reed Richards. A perfectionist with a monstrous ego, he craves power - power which he has demonstrated to be able to competently wield for the good of society in the case of his homeland of Latveria but which he believes he should wield heedless of the choice of others. Perhaps he is right, because when Latveria has been under the rule of Doom it has generally prospered, but the rest of the world isn't so willing. On the one occasion in which he did successfully conquer Doom found himself bored and frustrated by the tedium and minutiae of administration, as he constantly desires challenge and, in a sense, adventure. Hence his repeated clashes with the Fantastic Four. Much like Marvel's other great villain, Magneto, he comes from an oppressed minority, in this case the travelling Romani of Eastern Europe, and their harsh treatment has greatly motivated his desire for a just and prosperous society. Coupled with the accident which caused him to hide his body from the world and the loss of his mother to the demon Mephisto and we get a character who wants what's right but really has a bone to pick with the world. In another parallel with Magneto, he too recently found it advantageous to join his erstwhile enemies, and became a member of the Fantastic Four when they expanded into the Future Foundation. This has lately provided the opportunity for a lot of good character interaction between Doom and his opponents, although it's not the first time he's formed an alliance with the Fantastic Four in pursuit of the common good.

This brings us to the figure. Like the other Toybiz Marvel Legends figures I've encountered, this is a very detailed toy which is sure to please enthusiasts of the character. One of the fortunate things about Doom is that he wears armour over his limbs, so there's no need to disguise or worry about joints for the articulation of the figure. Nonetheless he's not quite as poseable as Magneto or the other figures I have, Captain America and Red Skull, but I can make him to an extent looking like he's haughtily crossing his arms so I think that's still pretty good. The cloth of his tunic is very detailed, as are his belt and mask. His hood and cloak are completely removeable and indeed easy to take off. His face mask is removeable too; this figure utilises Jack Kirby's original conception of the character in which he greatly exaggerates his own disfigurement; he actually only has one scar across his right cheek, which is still too much of a marring for the perfectionist Doom. I believe there's some kind of Fantastic Four combo pack in which Doom's face is completely ravaged but I kind of think I prefer this version; it's more subtle. The mask has its own set of eyes sculpted on so you don't have to worry about the face and the mask not matching up; it's maybe a bit of a cop out on ToyBiz's part but I think it works nonetheless.

The other accessories with which Doom is equipped are a Luger in a holster at his belt, which I can only really associate with the laser pistol he uses occasionally in Marvel vs Capcom 3, and a turret stand presumably from Castle Doom in Latveria. Like Magneto's stand it can be hooked onto the wall if for some reason you want your action figures to hang from the wall and it too is very nicely detailed. There's a prominent crest featuring the sombre visage of Cynthia von Doom, his mother, she of the character backstory. This way you can have Doom so that he's brooding or plotting or, depending on how you like your villain, speculating hopefully on the future of Latveria and the world, probably while concocting a zany scheme which will bring the ire of the Fantastic Four.

The paint on the figure's a game of halves. In principle, in a perfect world, the paint scheme itself is extremely impressive. The armour's given a wash so that it looks a bit battle-worn and not excessively polished and shiny. The texture on the tunic is very strong, with lighter highlights on the folds. The cape, while of course darker, has this too, along with gold on the clasps. However that being said, it's not a perfect world, and on my Doom there are a few slightly sloppy bits on the face, the pistol and in one spot on the skirt of the tunic. They're hardly dealbreakers, however. Doom's face under the mask is extremely detailed, with individual teeth and haughtily cocked eyebrows. One other nice detail is that behind his cape, on his back and sticking out from his tunic are the two little booster jets that let him fly. They really didn't miss a trick with these figures. His joints are a little stiff but he has been sitting in a plastic clamshell for ten years so I can't really begrudge him that. If I'm going to make any particular criticism it's that on his arms and legs the armour's not especially detailed. It gets the job done, but it lacks some of the ridges on the gauntlets and feet with which Doom is normally depicted.

As I mentioned earlier he's pretty poseable. The cape and tunic skirt obstruct some potentially wilder positions but he's advertised as having twenty-seven points of articulation, which isn't too bad. He's got ball jointed shoulders, hips and neck, swivelling upper arms, wrists, waist and upper legs and hinged fingers, toes, knees, elbows and feet. He's not quite at the level of Magneto because he doesn't have the hinged chest, double-jointed elbows, knees and shoulders, swivel ankles or hinged wrists which are kind of commonplace, but this is due to his unique design with the tunic and armour. It's not really a great loss. You can still pose him pretty well; some of the articulation on the really heavily jointed ToyBiz figures is kind of extraneous to be honest. He's certainly not up there with the insane levels of a toy like Face-Off Cap, who has individually poseable fingers. As I say, it's more than compensated for by the wealth of accessories and the level of detail.

It's also worth noting that like all ToyBiz figures from this era Doom comes with a complementary comic showcasing the character at his finest. In this case it's a reprint of Fantastic Four Vol 1 #247, written and illustrated by John Byrne and originally published in 1982. In support of my brief discussion of the character above it's a famous story in which Doom enlists the help of the Fantastic Four to assist him in overthrowing Zorba, the very monarch the Fantastic Four helped into power to replace the apparently-tyrannical Doom. Upon arrival they discover that Zorba's actually a good deal more unpleasant in power than Doom ever was. It marks the first appearance also of Kristoff Vernard, Doom's ward and heir apparent. I think the ending's a bit rushed but it has some interesting character moments, such as when Sue Storm the Invisible Woman notices what a dangerously competent and charismatic natural leader Doom is when he's put in charge, and when Doom remarks that the only freedom he denied his subjects is "the freedom to commit evil." It really colours Doom in an ambiguous way, culminating in his murder of the defeated tyrant Zorba.
In case you're wondering, the chase figure for this is a Doombot. As far as I'm aware the only difference is that under the mask it has a metallic, mechanical robot face rather than Von Doom's own appearance. I've heard from a couple of places that ToyBiz's original plan was to release the figure with the mask on, so that you wouldn't be able to tell if you were getting Von Doom himself or a Doombot. This was meant to mimic the recurring situation in the comics in which the Fantastic Four or whichever heroes are present, thinking they have defeated Von Doom himself, discover that it was only a robot duplicate: it was often difficult to discover which armoured, green-clothed baddie in the area was the real Doctor Doom. The Doombots were therefore going to be the main production and Von Doom would be the rare chase variant. One source I've read claim that the complaints of overly-entitled fans dashed this plan. Personally I think I'm more willing to believe another account I've heard, which was that simply common sense ruled the day - people want Von Doom himself, not a robot duplicate, and making it impossible to tell was either cruel or a money-grubbing endeavour in itself: how many figures would you have to buy until you found a real Von Doom? I know I'm the kind of slightly obsessive-compulsive person who wouldn't have been satisfied with a Doombot even though they look identical with the mask on. As intellectually clever as I think the idea is of emulating the comic scenario with the distribution of the figures, it makes no business sense. You'd either be seen as greedy, encouraging multiple purchases of the same toy, or it would backfire and people would stay away for fear of getting the one they didn't want. Buying an action figure shouldn't be a gamble, and it makes sense to me that his face is visible.
It's probably worth mentioning that once Hasbro took over the Marvel Legends franchise they produced their own version of Doom which a quick Google Image Search will swiftly reveal. While this certainly has some better or at least more accurate detailing around the legs and feet and has a perhaps slightly more standard face plate design (without attached eyes) the level of detail on the tunic and cape is significantly less and compared to this Doom the cloth looks overly smooth, shiny, plastic-like and ultimate cheap. I've avoided Hasbro Marvel Legends because their paint jobs and level of detailing are simply not up to the standard of the earlier ToyBiz figures. Despite lacking a torso hinge the ToyBiz figure is also superior in terms of articulation to the Hasbro Doom. The addition of the cracking Latveria turret stand and a nice showcase comic compared to getting a build-a-figure piece for some guy I've never heard of means that this figure, the ToyBiz one, peps the Hasbro Doom to the post completely. The thing I like about the good ToyBiz Marvel Legends, and this Doctor Doom figure in particular, is that the level of detailing in both the sculpting and the paint are combined with good accessories and articulation to produce figures which comfortably exist in the worlds of both collectable statue and toy. I see that a lot of people online think the Hasbro Doom is better but I can honestly say that when it comes to ToyBiz Doom vs Hasbro Doom, unless you like cheap-looking stuff the ToyBiz Doom has got to win the day. Maybe some kind of hybrid of the articulation and paintwork of ToyBiz Doom with some of the better details and design choices of Hasbro Doom would create some kind of ultimate Doctor Doom figure but until that day comes this one is my pick.

One last remark I'll make about the figure is that it has some very nice detailing on his head, especially the rivets of the mask and the many layers of the neck armour. Overall, like all the Toybiz figures I've encountered, I must say I'm impressed with this figure. There are quite a few floating around on eBay and they're not too expensive, all things considered. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who's a fan of the monarch of Latveria. Your shelf will assuredly look a bit more snazzy with a touch of Doom.

UPDATE in 2015
This is really late but I've meant to write this down for ages and I only just got around to thinking this would be the best way to do it. You see how up there I said that a Doom figure with the paintwork of ToyBiz plus the design of Hasbro would be good? Well in 2013 Hasbro released a re-issue of their 2007 Doom figure (the one I didn't have and thought looked cheap) with an updated paint job closer to that of ToyBiz Doom. This solved the main problem with the Hasbro figure and I bought it. It's a good one, and a fitting take on the character in my opinion. It's probably not too hard to find these days so if you want Doom, get the 2013 re-issue with the better paintwork from Hasbro if you can't find or don't want the ToyBiz one. There was a variant in Doom's white Future Foundation outfit from the Hickman run on FF but I could never find it in Australia and it's incredibly expensive online. Nonetheless, Hasbro did well by Doom in the 2013 re-issue so I guess that proves I have the power of accidental prophecy.

Marvel Legends Face-Off: Captain America vs Red Skull

Let's continue our sporadic sojourn through 2000s Action Figure history. As I stated in my Magneto review, Marvel set the standard for awesome action figures in the early 2000s with ToyBiz's Marvel Legends line. These were, in a way unprecedented for their time, colourful, characterful representations of much-loved comic personas given the attention they deserved. Although the ToyBiz line had its ups and downs, it produced a wealth of strong figures and set a high bar. One of ToyBiz's last endeavours before business was handed over to Hasbro, whose efforts have met with more mixed reception, was the Face-Off line. Really, it makes sense: package a classic Marvel hero with their archenemy and fun is pretty much bound to happen at some point. One item from the first wave was the set I'm looking at here, featuring Captain America versus his long time nemesis Johann Shmidt, the Red Skull. This is one of the oldest oppositions in superhero comic history: both Cap and Red Skull debuted in 1941, and the arch-enemy situation was only narrowly pepped by the appearance of guys like Joker and Luthor a year earlier.

Often the best archenemies are always caught in a dualistic quandary of opposites; many heroes and villains are of course great despite not being mirrors of their foes, but a truly great "archenemy" relationship usually has a good foundation in dualism. For Batman and Joker, it's order and chaos. For Superman and Luthor, it was traditionally brawn and brains. For Cap and Skull, the opposition is clear: one represents a utopian dream and the other a fascistic nightmare. Cap is famously loyal to one thing: the usefully nebulous concept of the "American Dream". He fights for freedom, justice, peace and opportunity. He is the incarnation of what America is supposed to represent, although not necessarily what it is. Cap's a guy who's both a thinker and a doer: he wants a better world, and he's fought for it many times. Red Skull, with his classic villain origins as a Nazi leader, is a harbinger of the evils of power for its own sake, of unreasoning hatred and the wilful propagation of misery and terror. Among the supervillain ranks he's a total monster. Their rivalry is a very traditional one, a classic struggle of good against evil. Steve Rogers is, even in his least heroic moments, fundamentally a good man, and Schmidt is never anything less than a completely unsympathetic abomination.

What also makes Cap interesting alongside his utopian ideals are his moments of doubt. He often finds himself struggling to be the representation of a dream in an increasingly cynical time, and to be the heroic avatar of a country with as many problems as any and with whose government he is often at odds. What's engaging about the Skull, alternately, is that in many ways he's uncomplicated, a figure of pure malice who is a fitting contrast to ambiguous villains like Magneto and Doctor Doom. Unlike cynicism or the weariness of the human spirit, Red Skull is someone Captain America can physically confront. Hell bent on causing havoc for no greater reason than sadism and power-lust, he puts himself in the unfortunate position of being the guy Cap gets to beat up at the end of the day. For what is a man compared to the evils that afflict society? For the same reason, that's why I like Captain America, even though I'm not American. I think we all aspire to the notion of a truly free society, a perfectly functioning democracy and ultimately the right to dream of such things. A lot of people who don't really know comics make the mistake of seeing Captain America as some kind of apple-pie-munching right-wing patriot nut job or a stooge of the US government but he's neither of those things, just a man who still dares to dream of, and is willing to fight for, a better world.

Anyway, that's enough of me waxing lyrical about comic characters. Let's talk action figures.

Face-Off Captain America is not the first representation of Steve Rogers produced by ToyBiz. The original version was the very first toy in the first wave of Marvel Legends. While it's gone down as a classic because of how high it set the standard from the off, it has some obvious shortcomings as the first attempt in comparison to Face-Off Cap. It's generally less detailed. The most notable element of this is that the scales on his armour are just a transfer, one which I daresay would wear down or peel off with too much use. On this one, Face-Off Cap, the scales are fully sculpted onto the figure. I believe this is because Face-Off Cap is actually based on the Toybiz Ultimate Captain America, which was an intermediary. A completely new sculpt, it represented Steve Rogers' Ultimate Universe counterpart, who lacks the wings and the swashbuckler boots and stuff. As such Face-Off Cap is basically an Ultimate Cap with new bits again. His head in particular is extremely detailed, and thankfully it doesn't use the face sculpt of Ultimate Cap. While he maybe looks a bit purse-mouthed the quality's nonetheless very high. This Cap also has the utility belt, which is bedecked with pouches and a water canteen for carrying all of Cap's useful crime fighting utilities as well as snacks and so on I imagine. This is another benefit of the figure being "reverse engineered" as it were from Ultimate Cap. The cuffs of the gloves are kind of big and the boots are too; it's really a very comic-oriented depiction, perhaps a little displaced from what you might consider "realistic" if such a term is indeed even remotely applicable to action figures of comic book characters.

The paint's good as usual, with a wash so that it's perhaps a little less bright blue and red than some depictions of Cap. Mostly it's been done with a good amount of care, although there are occasional places on the chest where the stripes are, on the back of the head and on the lower arms where it's not perfect. The white paint on the arms actually seems to have been a bit caked on which makes them a touch difficult to move. It's very good on the belt, though. The buckle and all the buttons on the pouches are done neatly in silver. Overall it's an impressive job. There are a few other sculpting elements worth mentioning, such as the creases on the pants. Cap's a big guy, and he's got an incredibly chunky back with extremely muscled shoulders and neck. This can make him look a little hunched unless you bend his upper torso all the way back but once that's done it's not really an issue. I feel like he was originally sculpted to be in a crouching pose, ready to spring into combat with dastardly Nazis and such so I guess that explains it. The wings and ears are nicely detailed too, I must say. It really is a great sculpt, and the Ultimate body has both been used effectively for its benefits and altered in a way which I think gives us a definitive Mainstream Universe Captain America.

Cap of course comes with his mighty shield, which is removable. This too is appropriately detailed and well painted. It bears two elastic bands so that Cap can wear it on his back as he often does. It also has a sort of clip hinged in the boss of the shield as it were so that it can be clipped onto his wrist but thus far I haven't really managed to do that effectively. I normally just loop one thing of elastic over his arm and one in his hand, and that seems to more or less do the trick anyway. One thing which I think is kind of a shame is that there isn't a way to position the shield so that Cap's holding it on the edge as if swinging for a throw. His fingers are all hinged though so I guess if you wanted to use some blu tac or something to try to make it work you could.

This gets us onto the last issue, the articulation. Cap is certainly the most articulated toy I've ever encountered, and I think he's up there with the most articulated individuals in the range. Let's see what we've got here: ball and socket shoulders, ball-jointed hips and head, double jointed elbows and knees, a hinged torso, ankle joints, toes and wrists, swivel waist, upper and lower arms, and thighs and ankles, and to top it all off, the piece de resistance: individually hinged fingers. Cap can be balling his hands into a fist, he can be pointing, he can be flipping you the bird or giving you the finger, he can be signing V for Victory or blessing someone in a Renaissance painting, he can be drinking a cup of tea like a gentleman, the works. It really is impressive.

I've got to say that this really is the definitive Cap figure. Combining the detail of the Ultimate Cap with the timeless, classic look of the Mainstream Universe, with a good paint job and serious articulation and you've got one well-assembled Avenger. I'd definitely recommend him, because I don't think we're going to see a better representation any time soon.

With that in order, let's move on to the dastardly Red Skull. While still a decent figure in his own right, Red Skull is definitely the lesser item in the set. One reason for this is that he's just not as articulated. The main reason in my view, however, is the design. It's fair to say that Red Skull doesn't really have a definitive outfit like many heroes and villains. Indeed in most of the comics I've read featuring the Skull, which have been in the run, ongoing as of my writing this, by Ed Brubaker, he's usually just been in a suit. If there's any really distinctive outfit it might be a Nazi uniform, obviously a hard sell for an action figure which, no matter its "collector's item" status, is by a company which sells stuff also to kids. The only other one I can think of is the rather dull green baggy jumpsuit thing he wore in the Seventies. In this version they've opted to have the Skull in the outfit he's wearing on the cover of the included comic, Captain America Volume 4 #32. The thing is, as far as I can determine, beyond this cover by Dave Johnson the Skull has never worn the outfit in which he's depicted in the toy.
It's somewhat similar, I admit, to what he's wearing inside the comic as drawn by Scot Eaton. In the story, the Skull's stolen a SHIELD exo-suit so that he can get the physical edge over Cap. The thing is, it's much more understated, somewhat chunkier, and completely black. For some reason this "cover version" of the suit is red and blue, and not only is it not especially intimidating-looking it's a bit too similar in colour to Cap. It has spiky pads on the backs of the hands and on the elbows. It looks kind of like a weird carnival outfit or something, not any kind of armour or indeed really like anything the Skull would wear. It's too ostentatious. If it was all black I think it'd be better. The other really weird thing is that the Skull comes with a sword. It's from the cover too, although as illustrated it's somewhat more like a dagger. In the body of the comic itself it's absolutely nowhere to be seen. It feels like it's included since Cap gets his shield so Skull needs some accessory too. I don't know why he couldn't have a had a gun or something, which I think would be more his style.

The compensation for this is that it completely trumps its predecessor. Like Cap, Face-Off Red Skull is not ToyBiz's first go at the character. Despite being originally portrayed in a conspicuously nonspecific military uniform including cap and pistol, the original ToyBiz Red Skull is a downright ugly sculpt and apparently has very little opportunity for posing. I think if they'd managed to blend the design of the original Red Skull with the detailing and articulation of this Red Skull they would have had the perfect representation of Cap's archenemy but sadly it was not to be. In this way I can say that despite the rather bizarre choice of design the sculpt is nontheless very nice. The outfit's extremely detailed, especially on the chest and arms. There are also realistic creases and folds on the pants and boots much like Cap. The face too is a good sculpt; it's a less exaggerated and thus more intimidating realisation of Schmidt's eponymous visage. His eyes are glowing yellow and he appears to be shouting in rage which is also applicable to this monstrosity of a villain. He really does look rather psychotic.

Red Skull's not as articulated as Cap but he's still got all the expected trimmings. We're talking ball-jointed shoulders and hips, double-jointed elbows and knees, a swivel waist, neck, lower arms and ankles, and hinged wrists, fingers, ankle joints, toes and torso. As such he's perhaps not as almost over-articulated as some more popular characters like Cap and Magneto but he's certainly sufficiently articulated for the task at hand, which may be one of his many past times of laughing maniacally, running away from Captain America, running at Captain America, and striking malefic poses. While his hand doesn't grip the sword amazingly tightly it still stays in place. Amusingly enough it stays in place the best when wedged along the length of the blade into his mouth.

So that's Red Skull for you. Not great, but he gets the job done. As I say, the real let down is the rather confusing choice of costume for the character.

What else do you get with this pack? One thing is a stand. I cannot for the life of me figure out how this thing is meant to work. It has clear plastic poles with hinges and plugs on the end. Cap and Skull have little slots in their backs for these to fit into, but I can't figure out why. When they're put in a likely position Cap and Red Skull overbalance the poles and cause the whole thing to fall over. It only helps them stand up when completely bent perpendicular at the lower hinge so I can't discern what the upper hinge is for. When this is in place they're both so far out that they can't really be positioned so that they're fighting. It also has a slot for a card insert which comes in the back of the back to form a backdrop for the figures and which I dare not remove for fear of tearing it. It depicts a bunch of HYDRA agents running around in an aircraft hangar, and so seems more appropriate for inclusion in the chase variant of this pack which depicts an unmasked Steve Rogers fighting Baron Strucker. It's a nice enough stand I guess, with some empty bullet casings and stuff on, but it's fairly unremarkable.

The next included element is some unique card for some kind of Marvel collectible card game I neither know nor care about. The last element is the ubiquitous included comic, which as mentioned earlier is Issue 32 of Volume 4 of Captain America, by Robert Kirkman, recently of The Walking Dead fame. It basically features Cap having a big fight with Red Skull. A house gets knocked down, Cap thinks Diamondback has just been killed by Skull but she hasn't, and SHIELD turns up at the end for a sort of Inspector Gadget moment where all the good guys laugh while Red Skull is dragged off fuming into the sunset. That's about it; I'd hardly call it a landmark issue. I'm not sure why they didn't pick a better comic and use it to depict Red Skull in a better costume but that's a mystery to me.

I guess the thing I have to emphasise is that this pack is really worth it for Cap. The Captain America figure is extremely good, the best Mainstream universe Captain America figure in this scale and probably in general, and any Cap enthusiast will surely enjoy it. That being said it only includes a decent but rather uninspiring Red Skull, a fairly mediocre comic and a very strange stand. I'm glad I bought it because I really wanted the Cap figure but the relatively unspectacular nature of the additional elements may make some people struggle to justify the cost. I say that because this set is very rare even though it's a late ToyBiz item, and you'll be struggling to find it on eBay for less than a hundred bucks even before shipping. If you want a Cap figure and you're happy with it maybe being a bit used then try to find a separate one because as I say the Captain America is definitely worth it. The other bits may not leave you with the same feeling but at least you'll have Cap confidently bringing the American Dream to your shelf or display case.

Mass Effect

Having dealt with Bethesda Softworks in my Skyrim review, it's now time for me to assassinate the other golden boy of modern video game role-playing, BioWare. The first time I played Mass Effect was on PC and I hated it. I was bored by both the story and the gameplay but I daresay my frustrations were compounded by technical issues on the machine I was using to play the game. When I eventually got an Xbox I decided it was time to give Mass Effect another go. It didn't annoy me as much this time around and I managed to slog my way through to the end but it didn't change my opinion that it has to be one of the most astonishingly overrated games of recent years.

As I said in my Skyrim review, big titles like this receive huge amounts of irresponsible praise. It is irresponsible in the sense that it lets the developers get away with too much. People simply love these games far more than they deserve, so the problem is really with people and not with games themselves, but it's nonetheless necessary to point out the flaws and take a moderated view not blinded by fanboyism. Of course, moderate discourse has become impossible in the age of the internet - you'd better love Mass Effect or else you're a troll. Well sadly I don't love Mass Effect. It's at best a decent game, maybe a little above average, but so much of it is cliché, generic, stock and unoriginal that I simply can't understand why it is treated with such disturbing reverence by so many people.

The much-touted story of Mass Effect is the source of a great deal of this adoration. You play as Commander Shepard, a person whose sex, appearance and past history is up to your choice, and get sent on a mission to save the galaxy from the evil Geth machine-people and their masters, the Reapers, who want to destroy all life. On the way you visit planets, accumulate a crack team of buddies from the main alien races and discover all sorts of mysteries and intrigues from around the stars. The story is okay, I'll admit. It didn't exactly blow my mind but it's decent. There's a reasonable amount of detail to the setting and some of the characters are fairly interesting. It's just not that fresh. Godlike aliens who want to kill everybody is as old as Lovecraft, aliens who are also spaceships goes back at least as far as Athur Clarke and machine people are hardly new. Just look at Terminator or something. If the Reapers reminded me of anything, actually, it was the Necrons from Warhammer 40,000. The point is it's really just an assemblage of pretty old science fiction tropes bundled together to push the right buttons. Mass Appeal would probably be an equally appropriate title. You can tell there's meant to be something in there for the Star Wars fan, the Trekkie, the Firefly enthusiast, the Battlestar Galactica fan, pretty much anyone. I've heard some people defend this and Dragon Age by saying that BioWare's current mission is to make the most generic science fiction and fantasy franchises of all time or something and I guess if that really is their intention then mission accomplished.

Some of the characters are good, particularly the aliens. My personal favourites were Garrus and Tali. Wrex too is interesting but the difficulty of keeping him alive in the Virmire mission was a frustration. Ashley and Kaiden, the two human characters, are deeply boring and when it came to the point where you're forced to sacrifice one or the other for the good of the mission I found myself challenged to decide which one of them I disliked the least. In the end even though I disliked Ashley more for being small-minded, bigoted, sycophantic and dull, I reasoned that saving her meant saving the Salarians who were with her, and I liked them. Kaiden was just one man, and I reasoned that by letting him get blown up I was really just putting him out of his misery due to those nasty incurable headaches he got from his biotic implants. So really in the end I found my conscience reasonably clear, but I wonder what it says of a game where the alien characters are far more interesting than the humans. I liked Garrus because much like my Shepard he was pretty no-nonsense and had the good old "if you want something done you'd better do it yourself" attitude due to being surrounded by idiots and bureaucrats. Tali was kind of endearing because of her quest and because her race, the Quarians, had a fairly interesting backstory. The one companion character I've neglected to mention was Liara, the Asari archaeologist "girl" you rescue. She kind of annoyed me; I tried to have a decent chat with all of the buddies between missions and she always came on way too strong. "Romantic" options are a big part of Mass Effect, allegedly, but since my Shepard was a man and Ashley was really annoying my only option was the far too intense Liara. You really get herded towards Liara's romantic plotline but I'd decided that my Shepard, being a jaded veteran whose job took up most of his personality, had a terrible anathema to romance or affection of any kind and had to shut down Liara's advances as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Indeed the only character I could fathom my Shepard possibly wanting to take things further with was Tali and that wasn't an option.

So there is the story and there are the characters of Mass Effect. Pretty standard really, with a huge dollop of escapism and the potential for wish fulfilment that I'm sure is what has accounted for a lot of its popularity among the geeky masses. Now it's time to talk about the gameplay. I hear you bleating that Mass Effect isn't about the gameplay, but blow that for a game of soldiers because it's a damn game so I'm going to review it as a game. It's not just a space opera movie with occasional thumbstick-twiddling. It's a game, and no manner of close-ups and allegedly "cinematic" use of shots is going to change that. The gameplay, frankly, is a bit arsey at times. Third person shooters have never really been my thing but I think part of that is because when you get right down to it the whole idea of third person shooting is a bit stupid. First person is good for ranged style gameplay and third person is good for action and close-quarters combat. Mass Effect uses the ever-frustrating "glue yourself to cover" style of shooting mechanics and while on Normal difficulty things are generally manageable enough I occasionally found myself having difficulty figuring out what the hell was going on, usually because Shepard's health was going down the drain due to being hit by a grenade because he wasn't in cover properly or something. You're generally just a bit slow as well and I was often begging for Shepard to run faster around the place, especially during fetch-quest type bits before action sequences. During combat you can give your buddies orders but that doesn't stop them regularly throwing themselves at the enemy and getting rapidly killed. Garrus in particular seemed to have the survival instincts of a mosquito and paper armour. One thing that really irritated me was the lack of a good party system. When you make planetfall you go out into the fray with two buddies while the rest stay behind twiddling their thumbs on the ship. I had six people in my crack team and I wanted all of them! It would have been way more fun taking down the bad guys with a group of seven rather than three, and simpler too of course, but obviously with more options and versatility. The annoying thing is Garrus and Wrex often had the best context-specific dialogue so I usually took them with me so I never really had a chance to see the rest in action. Maybe this is to encourage you to replay the game but screw that, it's not that good. I realise a memory issue might be a reason for only having a small team but dammit, I wanted all six of my buddies to be running around with me and it was always annoying that I couldn't.

Again while they occasionally have some decent storytelling behind them most of the sidequests are very repetitive. You land on a planet, drive around a confined and often difficult-to-navigate area of terrain, you find a base of Geth or other dastardly foes, you kill them, and then you get some dialogue. The spaceship boarding operations added some variety but the fact that all the ships are identical killed this somewhat too. It was easy to get stuck on planets trying to get to your destination with borderline-impassable mountains in the way and the fact that you can operate only in predefined spaces on the ground rather than anywhere your feet could conceivably go in real life is regularly frustrating. This was compounded by the Mako, your vehicle for ground driving sections. Plenty of people complain about the Mako, and the fact of the matter is that it really is rubbish. The guns are very inaccurate and the controls border on the absurd. The left thumbstick (on the Xbox) drives the Mako with a push forward and turns it with left and right. That's all fair enough. The right thumbstick adjusts your view so you can look around. Unfortunately for some reason they decided that pushing the left stick forward shouldn't mean it makes the Mako drive in the direction its front is facing but rather that it should make the Mako drive in whatever direction is "in front" according to the camera. So you can be pushing forward to drive along, spot a big Geth nasty to your left, turn the camera left for a snipe with the cannon, and then suddenly the Mako's driving on a new trajectory, usually off a cliff or into a wall. There are effectively two separate, potentially conflicting methods of steering and it's incredibly off-putting. The gameplay, or at least the combat, is definitely not the worthwhile part of the game, and the story is not good enough to completely compensate for it in my eyes. A bit of half-decent character development or an occasional mildly-interesting plot revelation often feels hardly worth the half hour of punishment you usually have to suffer in the action sequences required to achieve said goals.

The problem I feel is that there's too much delineation between the combat and dialogue sections of the game. Every action sequence feels like just an obstruction between the story bits, which are the better part of the game, and since most gameplay segments basically involving hiding behind cover and taking pot-shots at enemies on the other side of the room, and then rinse-and-repeating for multiple rooms in a row, things can get practically like a rail shooter at times. The repetition starts to grate after a while but the more story you get the more it feels like interactive fiction rather than a game. I honestly feel like Mass Effect is a fundamentally hollow experience where the unspectacular gameplay is never sufficiently payed off with a plot that's particularly original or challenging.

What else is there worth mentioning? The graphics are decent of course, but I'd be surprised if they weren't in the current generation. Character customisation is okay I guess. The physical customisation certainly encourages your character to be a bit too "Hollywood" in my opinion but maybe that's meant to reinforce the game's pretensions of cinema. Powers and abilities are all right but a bit tricky to manage on a controller and the role-playing elements don't force you down one path or the other. I was glad that 'Paragon' and 'Renegade' progression was not mutually exclusive because I wanted to cultivate a believable character of rationality around my Shepard. I've got to say that I don't think the music's particularly good at all. It's unmemorable and strives a little too hard to be futuristic. The best is probably the galaxy map theme.

Overall Mass Effect is an adequate game. It's worth playing for a reasonably long and detailed story. That being said the combat gameplay is pretty mediocre, the vehicle sections are extremely off-putting and the plot is really quite unoriginal. It's mild entertainment and nothing more. The only explanation I can give for this game's popularity and success is that modern video game players just don't know any better. Ignorance cultivates the kind of hysteria which surrounds games like this. Modern geekdom is a culture of sheep where growing need for accessibility has promoted ultimately shallow experiences as better than what they are. The depth of backstory is of course impressive but as I've stated if you've read any science fiction from even fifty years ago or more not much is going to surprise you. Maybe they're relying on people who haven't, which wouldn't surprise me in today's moron culture. Overhyped and overrated, to me personally it is an emblem of how uncritical and easily satisfied we have become as a culture. Some decently-written characters and pretty graphics aren't enough to make a game great or even especially good in my eyes. This has been a generation of overrated games in general where mediocrity is lauded as genius but I could give a few examples of games from recent years that I think do things better. Red Dead Redemption has better third person combat. BioShock has a storyline with more depth. Fallout: New Vegas has better role-playing. Mass Effect's main strength is, as I've said, it's fairly decent characterisation, coupled with some pretty respectable voice acting, but it's not a game-maker for me. I guess the thing is if you want escapism by being a space hero or you're after a generic tribute to space opera and mass-market sci fi then sure, Mass Effect is fine, but please don't act as if it's one of the best games of all time. It's not.

Oh actually one other thing that was good were the planet descriptions. This is going to sound super nerdy of me but genuinely one of my favourite bits in the game was reading all the different geological, atmospheric, mineralogical and historical details and curiosities they'd invented for the planets. I'm quite serious. I find that kind of stuff interesting.