Uncute machine freak
May. 19th, 2009 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexsarllThe villain stands triumphant in the House of Commons, bloodied corpses on the benches to either side; comics are done about three months in advance, minimum, so when this was being written and drawn, there's no way anyone could have known that by the time it came out last week, that would not be the mid-story 'oh no, how can our heroes save the day now?' moment. That is no longer a cliffhanger, it's a feel-good moment. And, given the villain in question is the bloodsucker Dracula, one rich with poetic justice.
Marvel's version of Dracula seems to be deeply unpopular with readers of a certain age, but I don't mind him; more than I can say for the recent-ish Marc Warren version, which I foolishly attempted to watch over the weekend (vampirism is a bit like an STD and Victorians are hypocrites, DYS?). And I wish that were where I could leave the vampire topic, but over the weekend, I was cajoled into doing a very bad thing. Having been drinking for some hours, I was convinced to watch Twilight, and for all my ire at the very principle of a True Love Waits vampire story...it's not that bad. Though it left me with far more longing for a) the Pacific Northwest b) vampirism for myself than for that self-loathing pillock Edward Cullen.
Yesterday, a small group of those of us with whose services British industry has inexplicably and temporarily decided it can do without went for a lovely little wander around Bloomsbury, looking at comics and small blue hippos and getting bvkkaked by those fluffy seeds which are everywhere this spring. But in case that left everything too cheery, we finished it off with a couple of episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist, an anime based on a manga which had always looked to me like it was at the fluffy, Naruto end of the market. And yes, it has someone who goes all stylised and cute when people call him short...but it also appears to be a harrowing tale of magical misadventure, fascist government and implied genocide. Which is obviously brilliant. Plus, it has a camp alchemist called Alexander Armstrong, who had better declare it Pimm's o'clock by series' end or there'll be trouble.
And then home for the last ever episode of the police corruption horrorshow that is The Shield. I wasn't satisfied with every beat of it; for starters, bringing back Andre 3000's crusading comic shop owner as a mayoral candidate out to derail Aceveda seemed too strange and sudden a new development for an episode that should just have been wrapping up what was already in play. And there was a slightly Victorian sense of injustices being redressed; in a series which has always taken a certain glee in punishing the good guys, I was expecting Dutch to go away from being framed by the teen serial killer, not to be on the road to exoneration *and* finally getting a date. Similarly, when hopeless rookie Tina was celebrating a year since graduation, and how she'd become a better cop...how could that not end with her taking a bullet? But Vic Mackey...oh, that was just cruel. Finally, these past couple of episodes, a dirty cop who opened the series by shooting a clean cop in the face made us stop liking him, because he let down a friend. And I was sure that friend, poor bloody Ronnie, was going to flip and be the one to take Vic out. But they didn't feel that would be punishment enough, so instead Vic and all his old colleagues get to watch Ronnie screaming in disbelieving anguish as he's arrested and led away. And then Vic goes to his new berth with the Federal agency that gave him immunity from prosecution before they realised the enormity of his crimes...and he's got a desk job, in an office, with HR's number if he needs anything.
Marvel's version of Dracula seems to be deeply unpopular with readers of a certain age, but I don't mind him; more than I can say for the recent-ish Marc Warren version, which I foolishly attempted to watch over the weekend (vampirism is a bit like an STD and Victorians are hypocrites, DYS?). And I wish that were where I could leave the vampire topic, but over the weekend, I was cajoled into doing a very bad thing. Having been drinking for some hours, I was convinced to watch Twilight, and for all my ire at the very principle of a True Love Waits vampire story...it's not that bad. Though it left me with far more longing for a) the Pacific Northwest b) vampirism for myself than for that self-loathing pillock Edward Cullen.
Yesterday, a small group of those of us with whose services British industry has inexplicably and temporarily decided it can do without went for a lovely little wander around Bloomsbury, looking at comics and small blue hippos and getting bvkkaked by those fluffy seeds which are everywhere this spring. But in case that left everything too cheery, we finished it off with a couple of episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist, an anime based on a manga which had always looked to me like it was at the fluffy, Naruto end of the market. And yes, it has someone who goes all stylised and cute when people call him short...but it also appears to be a harrowing tale of magical misadventure, fascist government and implied genocide. Which is obviously brilliant. Plus, it has a camp alchemist called Alexander Armstrong, who had better declare it Pimm's o'clock by series' end or there'll be trouble.
And then home for the last ever episode of the police corruption horrorshow that is The Shield. I wasn't satisfied with every beat of it; for starters, bringing back Andre 3000's crusading comic shop owner as a mayoral candidate out to derail Aceveda seemed too strange and sudden a new development for an episode that should just have been wrapping up what was already in play. And there was a slightly Victorian sense of injustices being redressed; in a series which has always taken a certain glee in punishing the good guys, I was expecting Dutch to go away from being framed by the teen serial killer, not to be on the road to exoneration *and* finally getting a date. Similarly, when hopeless rookie Tina was celebrating a year since graduation, and how she'd become a better cop...how could that not end with her taking a bullet? But Vic Mackey...oh, that was just cruel. Finally, these past couple of episodes, a dirty cop who opened the series by shooting a clean cop in the face made us stop liking him, because he let down a friend. And I was sure that friend, poor bloody Ronnie, was going to flip and be the one to take Vic out. But they didn't feel that would be punishment enough, so instead Vic and all his old colleagues get to watch Ronnie screaming in disbelieving anguish as he's arrested and led away. And then Vic goes to his new berth with the Federal agency that gave him immunity from prosecution before they realised the enormity of his crimes...and he's got a desk job, in an office, with HR's number if he needs anything.
