Redux - IDW's G.I. Joe

Growing up in the 1980's was awesome for many reasons. The optimism and the pure joy of the popular culture of the time is a major factor. As a child at the time in the UK I was..lucky?..enough to have Timmy Mallet and Wacaday on the TV, and thus all the wonderful cartoons (or action figure advertisments) that followed. It's funny to note that the great triumvirate (Transformers, Thundercats and G.I Joe) still exist in one form or another today...I miss Dungeons and Dragons though.

Note: Sunbow produced both Transformers and G.I Joe cartoons and so many of the same voice actors appear in both..Cobra Commander is voiced by Chris Latta ie Starscream..which is why he is awesome.

Known as Action Force in the UK (to tie in to a previous toy line..as well as add a more international touch to proceedings) G.I. Joe follows the battle of a secret military branch of the US army against Cobra..a terrorist organisation who are more bumbling idiots most of the time. It was a fun toy commercial type of cartoon which also introduced me to ninjas in the form of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow (more on them later). One of the few things to ever give me nightmare was the movie where everyone turned into snakes..or Cobra -lalalalalalalalalalalala could have done that.

Naturally with the rise (of cobra) in popularity of the cartoon and toys there came a Marvel comic to cash in on it. Written by Larry Hama for a ridiculous amount of years - GI Joe Real American Hero fleshed out the back story between Joe and Cobra and allowed further toy lines to be created past the end of the cartoon series..but who cares about that? We learnt about the Ashikage clan which Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow belonged to. We saw Joes die and Cobra win..and then fail. In all it was pretty good stuff for the time, and even had one of the greatest single issues of all time - the silent #21 showing Snake Eyes..rescuing? Scarlett from Cobra.

Skip forward to 2008. Comic publisher IDW has taken over the license for GI Joe (and Transformers) from Devils Due. A new movie is on the horizon and Chuck Dixon is out of work. IDW start work on 3 comics.
GI Joe - Origins by Larry Hama
GI Joe - Chuck Dixon
GI Joe Cobra - Mike Costa and Christos Gage

As one would expect, Origins details the beginning of GI Joe..before Cobra and before the Pit. I have only read the first 5 issues, but it's solid writing in the style of a modern action movie team being formed. Snake Eyes is naturally the stand out as he's one badass mofo.

Dixon's GI Joe details the first meetings of Cobra/the Joes and Destro. Again I have only read the first trade..and it was okay. Skipped the rest of the first volume as it didn't really interest me..until I read

I'll be honest. This blog is actually an excuse to talk about G.I Joe Cobra.
Do you like Homeland?
Do you like 24?
Did you like Sleeper Cell?

This is better. So, so much better.
The premise of GI Joe Cobra (GIJC) is simple. The Joes have heard of this new organisation and send in an undercover agent to infiltrate and return with a much information as possible. Who is the agent?

Chuckles.
Chuckles works his way in from the bottom and starts working for Tomax and his twin brother Xamot who run the mid level of Cobra...and then things start getting really messy. How far do you go to keep your cover?



The first volume sets up the premise nicely, but it's the second volume - and it's ending that really makes it worth while. The artwork is very Maleev (from Bendis Era Daredevil) and fits the espionage/noir angle of the book perfectly. They even manage to smuggle in Serpentor of all people and make it fit..and yes he does say Cobra-lalallalalalallalalalala at one point.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I read 12 issues in one go and still want more.
Following the events of the second volume of GIJC the rest of the series were...shaken up to say the least leading what became known as the Cobra Civil War. I have yet to read them but will let you know what I think.

Pulp Heroes 1: Kevin Smith's Green Hornet

I'll let you in on a well known secret (does that even make it a secret?). Before the Seth Rogan Green Hornet movie, before Copout..in 2004 Miramax had approached Kevin Smith to write a Green Hornet movie. Due to bad luck and the lack of giant mechanical spiders this, much like his Superman script, fell through..leading to the fun, but generally odd Green Hornet movie of a couple years ago. 

A year before the aforementioned Rogan movie, comic publishers Dynamite began looking into a comic book adaptation and learned that Smith had done a script..they approached both he and Miramax (then owned by Disney) to see if they would be willing to turn it into a comic book...and so Kevin Smith's version of the Green Hornet movie that never was became a comic book series.

So who is this Green Hornet guy anyway? Created by George W. Trendle for American Radio audiences on January 31st 1936, The Green Hornet was the antithesis of the highly popular The Shadow radio/book serial character. Britt Reid,  a multimillionaire newspaper publisher, decides that the streets need to be cleaned, and he's the one to do it. Along with his trusty aide Kato, Reid creates the Green Hornet persona to bring fear to the lowlifes and ne'er-do-wells in his city (as they are a superstitious and cowardly lot, dontcha know). Unlike the Caped Crusader, the Green Hornet appears to the Police and Criminals as a criminal himself, moving in on the mob operations and taking them over. Acting very much like a street level hero along the lines of Daredevil or Nightwing, this is less about supervillains and more about a guy and his ninja friend taking out the mob...piece by piece. Yes he has the gadgets and car like Batman, but nothing like Killer Croc or the Joker. As such it's actually refreshing to concentrate on the character rather than the rogue's gallery. He also seems to be the Lone Rangers great grandson or something daft like that.

So what about Kevin Smith's Green Hornet? Well much like the recent movie it's set in modern times, with Britt Reid Jr playing the wastrel son of the original Green Hornet. Naturally Jr does not know of his father's previous life. Following many similar story beats as the movie and spread over two graphic novels (10 issues), the origin of the modern Green Hornet is well written by Smith and Phil Hester (who rescripted it for comic book format)  and has some nice twists along the way. I'm bound to say that my favourite character of the series is Kato, purely because she is written with the right amount of teasing wit, and the slight twist in her tale makes her an even more interesting character. It's a shame that the villain of the piece ends up being closer to a stock comic book villain than anything really interesting, and the ending is suitably daft, with roof top escapes...one gets the feeling it would have worked better as a movie (pre Nolan/Whedon) script rather than as a comic book. It certainly is far superior to the Rogen Green Hornet movie.

The art work by Johnathan Lau sets the dark and yet vibrant scene of the Green Hornet's world perfectly. His lines are generally very clean and his work on the action sequences are clear and easy to follow. On Lau, Smith himself stated ' Lau was crushing it from the moment I started looking at the pencils, and it was clear that Phil understood the script top to bottom and could communicate the fun to Jonathan, and in the early issues I'd see him include a page broken down into panels with stick figures. It made the workflow on the book incredible.' (via CBR) 

In all Kevin Smith's Green Hornet is a great bit of fun, and a huge improvement upon the recent film. Though I could have done without the ridiculous ending, I can still recommend the book whole heartedly. Thankfully Hester picked up the continuing adventures of the Green Hornet and I will get around to reviewing them at a later date.

Score: 4 hats out of 5.

Why don't their backs all give out? Dead Or Alive Dimensions Review

Dead or Alive Dimensions
Published by Tecmo Koei for Nintendo 3ds

Kasumi and Ayane take up 90% of the storyline as one would expect

For a series mostly known for it's protagonists proportions rather than for it's fighting engine or characters, Dead or Alive (DOA) has a very unfair reputation. Fox News, in it's own wonderful way, epitomised the reaction to any DOA game with their article about the Japanese complaints (I assume it was the Japanese to be fair) about the size of the female characters' chest size.  Personally I couldn't care less about their chest size or lack thereof. DOA has always been about the combat  engine and the daft, melodramatic storyline for me...also Ryu Hayabusa (first name on google for Ryu btw). As we all know Ryu Hayabusa (of the Ninja Gaiden game series) is a god of death and cool..even Ninja Gaiden 3 can't destroy his awesomeness.

So this is the first *proper* DOA portable game, with it arriving on the 3ds. As a portable game it needs to do 4 major things to be a success:

1) It needs to capture the spirit of the original game it is based upon

2) It needs to be portable (ie playable in small doses)

3) It needs to run smoothly

4) It needs to offer more than just the basic package, something unique.

DOA:Dimensions offers all of the above in spades.

Stop trying to hit me, and just hit me:

For the uninitiated the combat DOA works upon a triangle system.

  Strikes (punch/kick) takes priority over throws which take priority over holds which take priority over strikes. Holds are a counter system whereby you press the guard button along with diagonal up away, away, or down away from the attacker. If you perform the correct hold (high,medium, low attacks) you will counter with an attack of your own. These can be done even in the middle of a combo, unless you are stunned. While it may seem complicated at first, the flow of the game is easy to master. Speaking of flow, I'm not a great fan of 3d fighters..Tekken never did anything for me and Soul Edge/Calibur are generally just okay. I think that may have to do with the speed of the matches. I'm a massive fan of Guilty Gear/Blazblue and King of Fighters..essentially I love sprite based fighters rather than the...whatever the hell has happened to Street Fighter..DOA moves and combos fast enough for me to enjoy it. The controls work perfectly well, especially considering the difficulty that I had with SFIV on the 3ds, and the touch screen shows the combo list, which you can scroll if you desire, while also giving a button for guard, hold and throw. I have no complaints regarding the combat engine or how it is controlled using the 3ds buttons.

Lemme tell you a story

One thing that has generally been ignored until recently has been the storyline aspect of the fighting genre. Street Fighter 2 brought in the talking heads and endings. Fatal Fury added overarching storylines, Samurai Showdow went further to add cutscenes at the end. My favourite of the SF games, Alpha 3, went whole hog for a full storyline (though they were pretty much identical for whoever you played as) Soul Calibur went full story mode with Voice Overs, edging towards fan fiction in many cases..however it wasn't until Blazblue hit the scene with it's visual novel, multiple endings, different characters get different storylines, did the gaming world truly understand how popular a good story can be to a bunch of fisticuffs. 

Keeping in mind that DOA:Dimensions is essentially a retelling of the first 4 dead of alive games...the story is a load of nonsense and all over the place. Known as DOA:Chronicles you have Kasumi, Ayane, Ryu and...Kasumi's brother who is head of the Mugen Tenshin ninja clan and...oh god. Look, Kasumi leaves village which is a no-no, Fame Douglas starts the DOA fighting championship to gain data for his arms manufacturing business and...NINJAS okay. It's all highly melodramatic nonsense with Ayane acting like a spoilt japanese female character in all those animes. NIIIIISAAAAAN..type thing. It's fun and completely throw away. Most of the story is there just to teach you the controls, with tutorials popping up here there and everywhere. It can be a bit jarring at times, but as i said, it's fun. I should note that you can choose between english dub and japanese dub....which is a nice thing to add. 

The story took me about 5 hours or so, though I would urge taking it slowly. There are the 4 major storylines to play through from varying viewpoints (though you cannot choose who to play as..mostly Kasumi) and a mini storyline involving everyone's favourite soprano..no not Tony. The story is mostly told in stills from the ingame engine with VOs, as well as the odd CGI cutscene. There are alot of CGI cutscenes in this game. From what I can tell everything looks great in 3d, but as I don't ever really use the 3d and I would be interested to meet someone who does and does not suffer from chronic headaches.

You want modes, you got em:

Apart from story mode you have:

Arcade

Survival

Tag Challenge (where the other player is the CPU)

Free Play (just fight the CPU but no arcade settings)

Training

Local multiplayer between two carts

Internet play

throwdown (street pass battles)

showcase (figurines, dioramas, dodgy photos..all here)

3d photo album (see above)

I have played a couple of online fights. It's difficult to get to fight anyone in the UK and there is some lag when fighting people in say..Canada, but that is to be expected. Also having you arse handed to you is to be expected. It's a good netcode otherwise. No real noticeable framedrops outside of lag.

I thought you said this wasn't about looks

 DOA:Dimensions is a really, really good looking game. While there is a large amount of jaggies (lack of AA is assume) and some of the textures can be a bit muddy, the fighters all look incredible. They all fight in a wonderfully fluid motion and the backgrounds explode here, there and everywhere. As with all DOA games, the stages are multi-tiered meaning you can knock your opponent from one area into the next dealing minor damage. Kicking Eliot through a skylight never gets old. Frame rate is stable, as mentioned before, and the 3d works well and does not cause any serious problems to the framerate. Oh and it's 60 frames per second without 3d on. All the characters have multiple costumes of varying daftness or amount of fabric if thats your thing.

Summary

So does DOA:Dimensions manage to pull of an effective fighter on a handheld? Yup. With all the additions, online play, daft storyline and fun mechanics, I cannot recommend the game highly enough. You can probably find the game for under £20 these days, so if you get the chance..pick it up.

Score: 4.5 jaggies out of 5

Aaaaand We're back

Hello to all those millions that have waited for my return..or not.

I thought that I'd start actually writing in this part of my blogosphere again as I have been drawn back into that oh so murky world of comics once again.

Why? You may ask. Well you may ask it, but it doesn't mean I'll answer you..but as we're starting again here as it were, I'll be nice. But only this once, ye hear!

Yeah I'm one of those people. No, not the ones with an ipad...no the ones with a tablet. A couple of months ago I sold my (piece of crap) 360 and some games and was able to buy a sony tablet for about £50 with the trade in value. I had messed around with comics on my iphone a couple of times, reading Snyder's 'Court of Owls' arc from Batman...which was pretty good, but the screen was too small.

Enter the tablet:

While it looks very smart there, I have to say it's not so smart in person. However reading on it is a revelation. The screen is about the size of a trade paper back...so everything is at the standard comic book page size. Double page spreads require you to turn the tablet sideways to actually be able to read them, but otherwise it's perfect. The other major selling point is that because it's digital you don't have hardcopy floppies (single issues) taking up space..which believe me is a major selling point. As someone who collects to read rather than reads to collect, I am more than happy with the compromise.

The Providers:

While there are a number of providers of digital comic books on the market, the main one is Comixology. Why? Because they had the technology, and they could rebuild hi...because they were able to sell their display technology to Marvel and then DC, which in turn allowed them (a la Steam/Valve) to act as a market place for both companies. Others soon followed, with only Dark Horse (who have their own tech and market place, and much better pricing) keeping out of it. 

The end of retail comics?

No, not by a long shot. Retail in America is still far more pervasive than digital, as many collectors still prefer hardcopy when you can just nip down the road for it. In response both comixology and dark horse are becoming more of a 'back issue' market place, with very aggressive sales (again like Steam) every week. Geeze, just earlier when I went to look for the logo picture they were having a sale on Age of the Apocalypse era Xmen book, as if they knew my weakness..$10 disappeared damn quickly. Another point to make is that all books are sold in $$ which means for chumps like me who deal in ££, while the cover price is decent ($1.99 issues are roughly £1.20, nearly half what they would be in the UK) unless you buy in bulk you're going to be hit with £1.85 conversion charge (at least i am each time) So a $0.99 sale book becomes $3.99.

So, the digital market place has games, music, movies, books and comics. With the rise of 3d printers who knows what else we'll end up with..but I digress.

After banging on about why I came back to comics (and thus this blog) perhaps I'd better actually review something. Now this will more than likely be out of date and way behind, because that's who I am generally..ask anyone who knows me, they think I was born in the 1920s...anywho he's the first review:

Note: I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but some may find their way in and I apologise in advance.

Uncanny X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution (covers issues #1-4 of UXF)

written by Rick Remender with art by Jerome Opena 

I will start off by noting 3 important things:

1. I am a massive fan of the original Cable era X-force (and new mutants before hand)

2. I am a massive fan of Remender's Fear Agent

3. I am a massive fan of Jerome Opena's (sorry about the missing accent there Jerome) art.

So it'll be pretty obvious that I am a fan of what they are both doing on this book, ne? In brief, the premise of the book is the 'xmen' black ops (tell me about the numbers mason) group. Cyclops, leader of the xmen at the time, had created a black ops team to..well kill people who need killing..but hid it from the rest of the X-men. Eventually the team was discovered and Scott decided that it wasn't such a great idea. Wolverine didn't agree and went about collecting his own team - thus Uncanny X-Force was born.

From a narrative point of view, Rememder has not only started his run with the big guns (you don't get much bigger than Apocalypse, especially now that Magneto is one of the good guys, and not Xorn) but he has also managed to create a story that builds upon decades of x-men lore. Naturally at the forefront of this is Angel/Archangel with his connection to Apocalypse (back in the 80s, Archangel was Apocalypse's Death - which involved a lot of genetic tampering and brainwashing...Warren didn't take it well) but we also see the return of fan favourite (okay, just me then) Fantomex from Morrison's run on Xmen. Rounding out the group with have, obviously, Wolverine (on his days off from the Avengers, Wolverine and the Xmen, his only Wolverine title, shit he's probably in the Power Pack as well...) Deadpool and sex on legs Psylocke. It's nice to see Psylocke as a main character again, as well as rekindling the relationship with Warren which was such a major factor in the 90s storyline..no crimson dawn tattoo though. For those who remember the 90s, she was the one who calmed Sabertooth while he was a guest of the Xmen, it looks like she's pulling the same duty now with Warren who can change from Angel (wimp) to Archangel (awesome) at will...though the Archangel persona want's to kill everyone.

Opena's Art work is exquisite. 

As for the story itself, well, it was great fun and has major implications...but the star of the show was always going to be Fantomex and he killed it (literally). His power of misdirection is at the heart of the story, be it when he uses it to trick the..sigh FINAL HORSEMEN (only to be awakened when everyone else has failed...final level boss GO!) into thinking they had won or right at the end, which I won't spoil as it really is that good. 

I would write about the artwork, but I think it speaks for itself. Dean White (the Colour artist) does a fantastic job of making the characters 'pop' from the backgrounds, while not taking anything away from the scenery itself. I often find that colourists don't get enough praise for their work, but Mr White has done a fantastic job here.

So all in all a solid effort and a great start to a solid run which will be finishing sometime next week. 

Score: 5 snikts out of 5

Next time - Green is a great colour, but that hat......