ASM 649: BND 2.0?

On the whole, the BND era of Spider-Man was a personal disappointment.

Don't get me wrong. The stories were rarely bad, sometimes brilliant, but never consistent. It felt more like several loosely connected miniseries rolled out consecutively than Amazing Spider-Man. You could rarely trust the good or bad developments to go anywhere. The most apparent evidence? After going to devlilish extremes to remove the marriage, Peter Parker's romantic life went virtually nowhere for three years. With the thrice-monthly format, that's closer to nine years worth of ASM where nothing came of Peter's single status. So there's a bit more than passing-of-the-torch symbolism involved in the fact that Peter could only get together with Carlie in the final BND era story.

I was already predisposed to prefer one writer per title, so I was excited by the news that Dan Slott would be the sole writer of a twice-monthly ASM. The buzz surrounding Slott's BIG TIME arc only fed my excitement much more. And for anyone who's had the privilege of chatting with Dan online, it's pretty clear just how excited he is about this gig. You want someone writing ASM who has dreamed about this their whole life. (Now if we could just get Mark Waid on Superman, but that's a different story...)

So even before the first issue of BIG TIME hit stands, I really felt as though Slott's run would be much closer to what Marvel originally promised with BND: a back-to-basics fresh start. I'd like to say I wasn't disappointed with Slott's first issue, but I can't.

The $%^ thing sold out.

But hey, I'm a charitable guy. I'll take a hit for the team if it means that ASM could be Marvel's flagship title again during my lifetime. On a related note, I couldn't find a copy of Spider-Girl #1 either. Good news for Dan Slott and Paul Tobin, bad news for me.

Luckily, I was able to snag a copy of ASM 649 yesterday, and it was....yeah, I'm not beneath going for the cheap pun. Amazing Spider-Man...feels amazing again. Or at least this issue did.

So here's why I think Slott's run is so promising, based on what little I've seen:

1. Big Ideas. Slott's wanted to write ASM since before he was born, and he's reportedly got notebooks full of plots. So Slott just might be attached to ASM for the rest of his natural life, and he could conceivably be a co-plotter years after he's shuffled off this mortal coil. In two issues, Slott has given Peter a really cool job as a scientist, brought the Bugle back into play under the direction of Robbie Roberston, returned the Kingpin to Spider-Man's world, given us the return of the Hogoblin, and then something really wild. We're only a little ways in, but I'm genuinely excited (and intrigued) for the first time in a while.

2. Supporting Cast. Slott has utitlized so many cast members in such a short amount of time that I won't even try to summarize it. Suffice to say the supporting cast is not only a nice blend of new and old, but they genuinely feel connected again. Norah Winters is dating Randy Robertson, but Phil Urich is back and he's got his eye on her, too. And he's just a tad...well, he's got issues. That's just one example of how Slott is making Spider-Man's world a tangled web again, and I love it.

3. Bang for Buck. Remember the old comics, where characters had a lot of interaction, and panels were crammed full of witty dialogue? And it took you more than five minutes to read it, and you could it read it twice and pick up on stuff you'd missed the first time? Yeah, good times, and by good times I mean yesterday when I read ASM 649.

It's still early in Slott's run, but it looks as though we finally got our Brand New Brand New Day.

$#*! My Dad Says: "Sooner than Later"

Last night's $#*! My Dad Says featured a recurring punchline that's relevant to every new show's attempt to find itself: Ed likes things sooner than later. Viewers do, too, and that's why a show only has so long to prove itself. If last night's episode is any indication, audiences won't have to wait any longer.

Last week I talked about some of the problems the show needed to overcome. It's been enjoyable, but uneven at best, a show that felt more like the sum of its parts than something whole. The takeaway moments tended to call attention to themselves rather than building to a satisfying resolution. It's all symptomatic of the show's seeming reliance on Shatner to carry it. The scripts were generic, if decent, and the chemistry between Shatner and Sadowski was practically nonexistent. I'm thrilled to say "The Truth About Dads and Moms" addresses all my concerns.

First off, Sadowski's improvement is remarkable. The chemistry is suddenly there. I don't know whether to attribute that to the smarter script, a shift in tone, or the learning curve.Most likely it's combination effect, but regardless, he's gone from showing up to having screen presence.

Looking at the script, it's no wonder that Sadowski should feel energized. This time around his issues with his father dip deeper than money or technology. Henry feels like he's carrying his mother's burdens because his father wouldn't. Ed's refusal to admit this carries over into Henry's feelings about another apology Ed owes. Apparently Tim, the DMV worker from the pilot, was fired for fudging Ed's test results. It ultimately leads to a revelation that challenges Henry's assumptions about his childhood. Sadowski hits all the right notes, so maybe all he needed was something more to do than waiting around for Shatner's punchlines.

In talking about the show's tonal shift, it's worth comparing this week to last. Like last week's "Wi-Fight," this episode finds another third party caught between Ed and Henry. Last week Ed threatened a hapless, stoner technician at gunpoint while Henry egged him on. It was over-the-top in the worst possible way, a power struggle devoid of romance or humanity. The "DMV Tim" subplot turns the same kind of struggle into something much more meaningful, and I can't help but feel it's due in part to Tim Bagley.

Bagley was the only actor who held his own with Shatner in the pilot. He brought a quiet humanity to his character that freed Shatner to be more human, too. It's no wonder, then, that as the entire show last night echoed the tone of the DMV scene, Bagley's character took on a bigger role. It's seems like a sure sign that $#*! My Dad Says' creative team is paying attention to what works.

I know some people felt frustrated with the pilot and swore the show off altogether. It's worth remembering that even Seinfeld took some time to find its footing. If $#*! My Dad Says can keep the momentum going from last night, I have a feeling it will be a success. When that happens, you're going to want to catch up.

Why not sooner than later?

"The Future in the Instant..."

Will Leitch has an interesting article up about Zack Snyder directing the new Superman film. Among other things, he speculates why Hollywood hasn't been able to make Superman work since Superman II:

Superman projects have vexed filmmakers as varied as Tim Burton, Kevin Smith, McG, J.J. Abrams, and Brett Ratner. The main problem with "Superman" is that we have turned into more of an antihero culture. We like Batman because he's human and flawed and full of rage and guilt. We like Tony Stark because he's selfish and vain and a party guy.



RAGE!! Because sculpted, plastic and filled with joy never caught on.


I think Leitch's argument, while thoughtful, is flawed on several counts.

For one, I object to his definition of antihero. I don't think it's "wrong," it's just not very accurate or useful in this context. Antiheroism is relative to the values of the community being represented. Wayne might be bitter and Stark's an alcoholic, but they still embrace traditional superhero values. They seek noble ends like justice and redemption. And while they push boundaries, they rarely step outside them.

If you want a more accurate representation of antiheroes, I'd look to the Punisher and Deadpool. Punisher works outside the boundaries and Deadpool doesn't even acknowledge them. Anger, guilt and womanizing hardly compare to unrelenting homicide and madness. If they're all lumped together under the heading of "antihero," the terminology is taxed to the point of irrelevance.


"Tony didn't say anything about a cover charge!!!"


If Mr. Leitch means only to say that we like flawed heroes, that's been true at least as far back as Moses, and it was equally true of Christopher Reeve's Superman. His motives, while pure, are still mixed. He rebelled against his father's commandment not to reverse time because of his obsessive devotion to Lois, then turned his back on humanity for the same reason in the second film. This doesn't make him bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it does highlight how we tend to pass over Superman's flaws even when they're as pronounced as Batman's.

Leitch goes even further:

Superman is, by his very design, perfect and cheesy - he's a relic, Ward Cleaver in a blue skintight suit.



"Golly, Lex, I don't know. How can we hold Metropolis hostage when we promised Superman we'd do our homework?"

 I think Leitch is confusing perfection and idealism. Perfection is essentially completion or fulfillment. Saying we can attain perfection (Idealism) isn't the same as being perfect. By that same token, Superman can't be perfect until we're perfect, because he exists to remind us we have a destiny. Yet Veitch's Superman seems indelibly linked to the past rather than the future:

Singer attempted to capture that naïveté and bring it to today, but his Metropolis seemed as steeped in the '50s as the Steve Reeves films were. The reason the first two "Superman" films worked was that they were rooted in a recognizable place: Metropolis was late-'70s New York City, with all the grime and cynicism that came with it. Superman was an alien (he's the one who was out of place), an actual hero here to save the day, to give everyone faith again. To believe a man can fly, you must at first believe a man cannot.

I'm agreed with Veitch that Superman's faith in humanity is the root of his alienation. That's why Superman ultimately comes into conflict with Luthor, who sees Metropolis and humanity as mere extensions of himself. If Superman were half the relic Veitch thinks him, Luthor wouldn't feel so threatened. But Luthor understands what even Metropolis can't, because he fears it. Luthor has always believed a man can fly, which is why he devotes himself to clipping humanity's wings. And he knows where Superman really hails from: the future.

Lex Luthor just became irrelevant.

One of my favorite lines from Macbeth is, "Your letters have transported me beyond this ignorant present, and I now feel the future in the instant." Superman is Lex Luthor's window into a future where power struggles are obsolete. Lady Macbeth goes mad because she cannot help but bring the future to pass; Luthor because he cannot hold it back.

If Snyder wants to make Superman work, I think he needs to tap into "The Man of Tomorrow" vibe. That's been critical to most incarnations of Superman, but the one we're most familiar with is Donner's. His Superman can't be with Lois because it's still Today, which makes their relationship tragic and uplifting all at once. It's a metaphor for where humanity finds itself now, where we've always found ourselves, somewhere between the Fall and Redemption, Impossibility and Infinity.

When the time comes to bridge that gap in Hollywood...

$#*! My Dad Worked On Last Week

The second episode of $#*! My Dad Says , "Wi-Fight," is showing signs of improvement, but there's still a lot of work to be done.

They took one step toward correcting the show's biggest problem, which is its reliance on Shatner to carry every scene. Will Sasso (Vince) and Nicole Sullivan (Bonnie) had more script to work with this week, as Ed's blunt way of putting things carried over into their bedroom. Vince convinces Bonnie to let his dad examine her breasts when she develops a rash. Ed makes the mistake of casually describing the culprit, a fungal infection, as looking like "spaghetti and meatballs under a microscope" to his son Vince. This leads to a relatively funny scene where Bonnie makes advances and Vince tries to get around his breast/fungus/meatballs hangup.

It's not the most ingenious concept or even the best execution, but it accomplishes a few things. First off, it establishes how the $#*! Ed says actually has bearing on his family even when he's not in the room. If the show is going to work, Ed's words should be as much of a character as Ed himself. This was absolutely a step in the right direction.

Second, it gives Sasso and Sullivan a chance to establish chemistry, which they pull off pretty well. Maybe a little too well, in fact, if the rest of the show can't keep pace. Compared to Jonathan Sadowski's uninspired performance, it makes one wonder if the show couldn't be about them living under Ed's roof and dispense with Henry altogether.

"Who's Henry?"

And that brings us to some of the continuing problems. The fact I'm talking about the fungus subplot and not the "Wi-Fight" the episode gets its name from shows just how uneven the show can be. Ed's most memorable interaction in the pilot episode wasn't with his children, but rather the unnamed DMV character. The good news is the DMV character is set to return this week.

So what's really going to need to happen to take the show to the next level? Sadowski needs to find his voice. The producers would have been better off if Sasso and Sullivan were the weak link, seeing as how the show's crux is Henry's relationship with Ed. So far, Sadowski hasn't illustrated the comedic timing or emotional depth the show needs.

"Dad, my back hurts. Can you carry the show tonight?"

That said, Sadowski's material isn't exploring his character's potential to its fullest. For instance, the script seems to call for a pretty bland relationship with half-brother Vince. I tend to think that Henry, unemployed and trying to make up for the life he didn't have with his father, would be a tad jealous of Vince, who lived with Ed growing up, and is now successful and married.

So all in all, not a bad week, and reason to keep watching. But the producers need to look into ways to make Henry work.

$#*! CBS Taught Me Last Night

I'm kind of ambivalent about the new Fall lineup for Thursday.

For one thing, I liked The Big Bang Theory right where it was. CBS' Monday night lineup lost momentum with the shift to Mike & Molly, a decent enough pilot that still suffered by comparison. It felt like following up three headliners with the warm-up act.

But I can see the logic behind the shake-up, because I'm still into CBS Monday but they blew the lid off my NBC Thursday. When it came to TV, I was like the guy who wouldn't let the entree touch the side dish. There was CBS Monday Night, ABC Wednesday Night, and NBC Thursday. I'm not opposed to channel surfing, but my sensibilities just grativated toward one-channel, one night last year.

So I sacrificed Community to watch Big Bang Theory last night. It was a little stressful, sure, but only as much as sacrificing a pawn to capture a queen. The real problem came with the 7:30 Central matchup. There's no question in my mind that 30 Rock is the best NBC comedy out there. The Office has been sinking for a while, but 30 Rock gets better every season. So what could CBS possibly counter with?

I didn't think Bleep! would be anywhere close to 30 Rock quality, but I figured it was worth a shot just to see Shatner in his first sitcom. I was right on both counts. And that's left me feeling even more ambivalent about Thursday nights.

Bleep! was pretty much everything you'd expect when you've got that kind of talent experimenting with a new format. Shatner occassionally blew some of the better lines with awkward delivery, but he single-handedly saved the weaker material, too. I laughed out loud more than I expected. The emotional core, an aging absentee father trying to reconnect with his son, is solid. If Bleep! can find the proper balance between cariacture and real human emotion, I suspect we'll see a second season.




"#$* it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a !@# network censor!"


Where does that leave Thursday? I'm not ready to say. But one thing I am sure of: CBS came out a winner for shaking things up. Sure, I'd have been happier if they'd left well enough alone on Monday night. But CBS is in the business of keeping audiences engaged, not comfortable. They didn't lose me Monday, and they might just have gained me Thursday.

And that's $#*! CBS taught me last night.

Wide H50pen Spaces

"We've got to find a way off the Island!"

Okay, so Hawaii Five-O is a little before my time. I was two when the show ended its recordbreaking run in 1980, and I honestly can't say I've seen a single episode in its entirety. That said, CBS has done good work with the hype. So much so that I felt a little pumped going into this premiere Monday for a variety of reasons.

"Respect the shades, McGarrett."

First off, H50 grabbed the 9 Central timeslot that's been held by CSI: Miami for nearly a decade. While the CSI, Law & Order, and NCIS franchises are well-crafted, I find myself longing to return to a more romantic take on law enforcement. Numbers is my personal pick for the best crime drama from the past decade.

You could transplant the setting to Arthur's Camelot, make Charlie a wizard instead of a mathemetician, call the FBI the Knights of the Round Table, and it would essentially be the same show. The math is mystic, the characters are fun, and the action felt larger than life.

The crime procedural dramas, by contrast, feel claustrophobic after a while. The characters are dwarfed by the science. They view law enforcement through the lens of professionalism rather than adventure. There's nothing inherently wrong with that take, which actually skews closer to the reality, but that's precisely the problem for me.

So I entered the H50 pilot already somewhat invested in its success. The advertisements promised big action, an expansive setting, and an old-school buddy cob vibe. As someone who came of age at the height of the 80s action franchises, this naturally appeals to me.

So did it meet my expectations? Absolutely. The teaser sequence feels like something straight out of a Schwarzenegger or Stallone film. Within a minute there's a hostage situation, a military grade helicopter attacking a federal prisoner transport, and a cold-blooded murder. H50 is built for widescreen.

The characterization keeps pace with the action, too. McGarrett's partner, Det. Danny "Danno" Williams, is a "mainlander" who hates Hawaii. He's only here to be closer to his daughter, who lives with her mother and very rich stepfather. His divided loyalties pave the way for conflict with the single-minded McGarrett. This leads to some humorous exchanges, like when a sulking Williams reminds McGarrett that it's common courtesy to apologize when you get someone shot. It's a classic complementary mismatch in the vein of Lethal Weapon's Riggs/Murtaugh dynamic, if a bit more subtle.

While it will take some time to see where the group dynamic goes, Detectives Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) and Kona "Kono" Kalakau (Grace Park) round out the task force nicely. Kelly's motivation as a cop on the outs looking for a way back has potential, and "Kono"'s easygoing nature offsets McGarrett, Williams, and Kelly's brooding ways.

H50 still has room for some slight tweaking. Nearly every chase ends with lethal force. While I have nothing against these scenarios in moderation, I do see a need for balance. A chase is typically more fun because the bad guy gets caught, not killed. The commercials made use of the nostalgic, feel good "Book 'im, Danno" line. Unfortunately, that line loses something coming right off yet another dead perp.

The pilot deals with McGarrett's quest to avenge his father, though, so it's likely the tone will balance out by the next episode. Here's hoping they can take down the body count a notch without losing H50's edge.

Regardless of that minor criticism, this show's off to a strong start in the race to make my "can't-miss" list. It's not quite Numb3ers good, but it might fill the "fun-factor" void left by that show in time. Here's hoping H50 is just the beginning of a programming shift that takes crime drama out of the lab and back into the wide open spaces.

Back-to-Back to the Future

This weekend I watched the entire Back to the Future trilogy in a single sitting. I'm not sure if devoting this much time to television is something I should brag about, but it certainly didn't feel like wasted time when all was said and done. I was a huge BTTF fan in the day, but this was the first time I experienced it as a trilogy.

When I was seven, BTTF blew my mind in the best possible way. It ignited my lifelong love affair with time travel, dopplegangers, alternate universes, paradox, and the music of Huey Lewis. The final sequence is still one of the most memorable moments in movie history, one that held out the promise that the real adventure was just beginning.

And so it was.

By the time BTTF II came out in 1989, the Delorean had already shattered dimensional barriers forever. Doc Brown and Marty McFly's adventures carried over into my readings of shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Quantum Leap.

So did it live up to my exploding expectations? The difference between seven and eleven is a big one, after all. But man, did it ever. Hoverboards, a dystopian 1985, and the overlap between Marty's future/past selves blew my mind all over again. And then taking it into the Old West for one final adventure? Heaven.

BTTF was at the forefront of my thoughts for several years. BTTF: The Animated Series followed Doc Brown and his family's misadventures for two seasons. Here's a clip from the intro to the first season, and here's the intro to the second.

I also spent a lot of time playing two BTTF video games. The first game followed the events of the original BTTF:



It's a fast-paced game that's worth looking into if you're a fan of 8-bit gaming.

This was followed up by another that covered the rest of the trilogy:



It's a crawling monstrosity of a game that's worth forgetting (and heaven knows I've tried).

My BTTF kick probably ended around 1991, a year or so after the final film. I'm not sure I ever watched the second or third films again until now.

I rented the first installment about a year ago and it became a massively disappointing experience. The DVD was scratched and I never reached the end of the movie. To make matters worse, I got disapproving glances from my wife every time Marty cursed and my son thought the whole thing was lame.

So when I happened upon the trilogy this Saturday on Ion, I was playing for big stakes. This was the first time I had ever watched the trilogy as a unit. Would it succeed as one continuous storyline? And would my son feel differently this time around?

Thankfully, the answer to both these questions was a resounding yes. My son was as enthralled as I was for the next six hours. He has a habit of repeating lines he likes over and over, and it was halfway through the second film before I got him to stop yelling, "It's not you, Marty! It's your kids! Something's got to be done about your kids!" That in itself was interesting (if a bit annoying). I got more mileage from the line, "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!" when I was his age. But we're clearly not getting our hoverboards by the year 2015, so who can blame kids these days if they're a bit jaded to the whole flying cars thing?

But on to why I think the films benefit that much more from viewing them as a whole.

1. The Compression Paradox. When you view the films independently, it's easy to forget the action takes place in the span of a few short weeks. I know both sequels make it clear we're just coming off the events of the last, but there's a huge gap between intellectual assent and experience. When you watch the films as a unit, the result is a delightful paradox that contrasts the way we measure Time with the way we feel it.

Eastern sages have long held that Time is an illusion, and a Christian sage tells us that a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years a day to God. But it was Gale and Zemeckis' vision that first opened me to the possibilities that go far beyond a life ticked out one second at a time.

As Marty would say, "That's heavy."

2. The Marty/Doc Brown Dynamic. Taken individually, both characters would be eminently watchable. But the real joy is the bond they share, and more than that, the way it deepens with (dare I say it) time. That comes across even more forcefully in a single sitting.

There's a real sadness in the sequence when the oncoming train wrecks the DeLorean. It truly feels like the end of an adventure. But it's not so much about the time machine for Marty as the implication that he'll never see Doc Brown again. The centuries are merely the landscape where the real adventure-- Marty and Doc's friendship -- plays out.

Which makes Doc's return in the final scene that much more enjoyable. It's a thoroughly satisfying conclusion, and yet one that's as open-ended as the first film. The possibilities of friendship are endless.

3. The Uwritten Future. There's a core message to the trilogy that's as relevant today as it's ever been. The future isn't written in stone. For that matter, neither is the past. It's a message that rings true wherever I find it. Around the same time I was watching BTTF II & III in theaters, I was thrilling to the adventures of Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap. Two years later I also dug it when T2 reversed Judgement Day and put the future back in our hands. Of course, they went and screwed that up with T3...but that's another story for a crankier blog.

It occurs to me that BTTF AS trilogy might get shortchanged because we tend to attach epic expectations to that label. If you're not taking down the Death Star or storming the Gates of Mordor, it's just a boxed set. But it's precisely this focus on the human side of history that makes BTTF such a substantial accomplishment.

Compare the philosophy of BTTF with that of, say, "City on the Edge of Forever," and you'll see what I mean. In the latter, McCoy inadverently alters history for the worse when he saves the life of pacifist Edith Keeler. Her philosophy will delay America's entry into WWII and lead to Nazi rule. Even though he loves her, Kirk is forced to prevent McCoy from saving her yet again to set the timeline right.

In BTTF III , Doc Brown has a similar "right time, right place" experience with Clara Clayton, a teacher destined to plunge to her doom. While Doc expresses some concern over the implications of saving her, it only amounts to the ravine where she died going by a different name in the future. It's the difference between a universe where man meets the needs of history or vice versa.

I can't say with any certainty where the idea we transform history at the local level first struck me, but it's a safe bet it had something to do with the BTTF trilogy.

So that's what I took away from the films this time. Like any other form of storytelling, movies are an experience. There are different ways to approach (and transform) that experience.

So go ahead. Watch them again for the first time. You'll need six hours, some popcorn, and a couch. But you won't need roads where you're going.

And by all means, let me know what you think. Do you see BTTF as a cohesive trilogy, or a diluted brand? Is my "City on the Edge of Forever" comparison way offbase? And did you ever get past the DeLorean stage in the original Nintendo game????