Vids!

Having discovered two excellent ones yesterday, I feel the need to pimp.

Firstly, a Star Wars one, a fantastic Anakin-Vader vid, which captures the character perfectly. It also uses Prequel and OT footage in a united fashion, which pleases me to no end.

Secondly, New Whovians, if you want a not so serious take on the backstory that person who showed up in the last episode has with the Doctor: I Will Survive (yes, using the Gaynor song) says it all. (Really, someone did the "bitter exes" brilliantly.*g*)


Not a vid, but great meta: astrogirl2 on Utopia .

Civil War: Iron Man

Still working my way through various Civil War titles in English and German. With Millar's run, I've arrived at issue 4, aka the one with the Thor Clone. As I told likeadeuce, I had assumed this would be the one where Millar starts to portray Tony Stark as the unquestioned bad guy, so I was somewhat surprised this wasn't the case; Tony S. gets a brooding scene during the ( spoiler )

.

However, I can see why Millar's way of writing Sue Storm and her (temporary) break-up with her husband Reed Richards made people furious. Greato Scotto, as Hiro would say. But then, bearing in mind how Millar wrote Lois Lane in Red Son, I'm not the least bit surprised.

On to better titles: the trade collection Civil War: Iron Man which arrived at my doorstep today is so far the best assembly of Civil War related titles in one volume I've read. (The others being Road to Civil War and Civil War: Spider-man, reviewed in these ramblings earlier. Oh, and I also read Civil War: Frontline, which is very uneven, sometimes very good and sometimes dull as dirt in its caricature-ness.) It consists of the following invidual stories: Rubicon (Casualities of War), a Captain America/Iron Man crossover (written by Christos Gage), Iron Man #13 and #14 (by Daniel and Charles Knauf, who are still writing the Iron Man titles), and The Confession (Brian Bendis). Despite thus employing four different writers, the characterisation of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, remains consistent. (Which contributes to the quality of the collection to no end, seeing as Iron Man is the Rashomon of the Marvelverse right now, being either hero or villain depending on who tells the story, which can be either interesting or confusing.) It also avoids going in the opposite direction of sympathy direction: while it makes an eloquent case for Tony Stark's atittude towards the Registration Act and the Act itself, there is an ongoing red thread in which the (human) cost of this is pointed out, and the concluding devastating question and answer from The Confession, which bookends this volume. is a far more effective way of tearing Tony's self justification apart than any of the OMG EVIL characterisation in the later Spider-man issues or as I hear in Dan Slott's run does.

( In Detail )