After making me wait in vain for two months, the comicstore where I get my English-language comics from told me they no longer import. This means having to wait for the trade volumes, I guess. Curses. So the question is, do I give in to the spoiler lure or don't I?

In other news, I've read The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn, which manages, among other things, a new twist on the Katherine Parr - Thomas Seymour - Young Elizabeth tale. It's written from the pov of Katherine's friend, the Duchess of Suffolk (yet another Catherine), and focuses on Katherine's last years of life. If you're not up to your Tudor history, Katherine was Henry VIII. sixth and last wife, by all acounts a very intelligent, kind woman, managed to survive him (barely - there was a moment of crisis where she could have died, but she managed to turn it in her favour)...and then married the dashing but none-too-scrupulous Thomas Seymour, whose conduct towards her fourteen-years-old stepdaughter Elizabeth later was the subject of much debate, stints in the Tower and contributed to one execution. (Though the main factor for that one has Thomas trying to get control of his nephew the boy king Edward via abduction.) Katherine didn't live to witness this, she died in the aftermath of childbirth, proving you could survive the bluebeard of your time but not a marriage for love. Anyway, this episode naturally shows up quite often in fictional treatments of Elizabeth Tudor's life, and in all the biographies; because of all the witness accounts in Tom Seymour's trial and of the reports written by Robert Tyrwhit who as in charge of interrogating Elizabeth, we've got quite a lot of details which nonetheless leave a lot of room for interpretation. What got confirmed was that Seymour certainly was amazingly informal for the times around his wife's stepdaughter, making surprise visits in the morning to wake her up, tickling her, and on one occasion cutting her dress from her (though Katherine held Elizabeth during that one). Also, something must have happened as Elizabeth left the household quite suddenly. What fiction writers previously made of this basically went in three variations:

1) The romantic version. For the most famous example, see Young Bess, in which Thomas Seymour is a romantic hero who loves two women - well, a woman and a girl, and Elizabeth's extreme youth is downplayed, as is the fact he was in loco parentis while she lived in his household and dies because of his evil brother.

2) The cynical version. For a more recent example, see Philippa Gregory. Here, Elizabeth is a ruthless teenage seductress who doesn't care that she betrays her favourite stepmother and seduces a weak but otherwise harmless man.

3) The "trial by fire for a queen in training" version. This one you can find in Susan Kay's Legacy and also in the old BBC series Elizabeth R's first episode. Here, while Elizabeth is presented as being attracted to Thomas Seymour, the focus isn't really on this but how she deals with the aftermath, which could have landed her in prison at the very least or could have gotten her executed if it could have been proven she agreed to marry Seymour after Katherine's death. (Since Elizabeth was third in line for the throne, she wasn't allowed to marry anyone without the Council's explicit permission during her younger brother's reign; it would have been high treason.) As it's not every 14-years-old who can not only withstand isolation and interrogations without breaking down and giving in but also manages to get her governess and steward, both of whom had been shown the instruments and had then made the demanded confessions, out of prison and reinstated at her side, one could say that this is indeed the most interesting aspect about the affair, but it neglects the tragedy of Katherine.

4) The modern psychology version. This one was used by Patricia Finney both in one of her novels and in her radio play about Elizabeth, and it focuses on the most disturbing aspects of the Seymour affair from a modern pov; that Seymour was basically Elizabeth's stepfather, which makes the question of consent dubious at best, and that today we'd see it as child (well, teenager) abuse. I can never make up my mind as to whether the fact 14 years then was older than it is now - it was certainly a marriagable age - should be seen as a valid counter argument or not.

The Sixth Wife, in which Elizabeth is only a supporting character and strictly seen from the outside, manages to come up with a fifth version which I haven't seen before.

( Spoilers for the novel )

The US: among other things, country where you can get American comics way cheaper than a month late and very expensive in Germany. Hence my aquisition of three trade volumes.

( Warren Ellis: Iron Man: Extremis )

( Daniel & Charles Knauf: Iron Man: Execute Program )

( Daniel & Charles Knauf: Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D )

Following a recommendation from londonkds, I've read Mark Millar's Red Son, aka the Superman AU in which his pod crashes in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas. Which was interesting to read and shared several elements with JMS' more recent Supreme Power, notably of course the idea of the Superman character raised to love the state and being driven towards the idea that assuming power might be the only way to deal with humanity's problems once the state starts to show its colours. I appreciated the twist on Batman's origin story (and Soviet! Batman coming complete with ear muffins both made sense and cracked me up), and the fact Lex Luthor is and remains an utter jerk throughout the story - defeating Superman as his only goal just becomes one sanctioned by (American) society and thus makes him everyone's hero instead of everyone's villain. Lastly, considering that likeadeuce found out, in Ultimate X-Men, that Millar seems to believe Das Kapital was written in Russian, I wasn't suprised on the, err, vague take on communism (though points to Millar for not just going the communism = bad, capitalism = good route, he just doesn't seem to have much of an idea how communist economy actually is supposed to work if he thinks Superman can make it a world wide success with superpowers.

His take on Superman goes the lonely Alien route, not suprising as this one doesn't have a Clark identity as such, either fake or real, and despite the red-headed girl from the colchose he was raised in, no real human ties. The way Lex defeats him fits completely, though one element annoys me, which is something I had problems with throughout the story - to wit, why the hell does Lois remain married to Lex Luthor? Because other than that she has to be there for the climax of the story so she can hand over that paper on which one devastating sentence is written, I can't really see a reason. No, he's not a supervillain in this universe but as previously mentioned an utter jerk, they hardly spend time together, so why? It's not that she needs the alternative of another man. Lois Lane in any incarnation should have enough spine to get divorced (in the 60s at the latest in this saga) because of herself.

I'm also not sure where Millar was going with the Luthorism at the end, because it sort of negates the point about the hubris of the assumption any one person, no matter how powerful and/or benevolent, can "save" humanity. As with Lois and her marriage, it seems more for the sake of a cool revelation (in that case, the final pages) than anything else.

Only very vague spoilers, basically just about the premise of the series; more detailed spoilers for Sandman

Recently, I read the last issue of Lucifer. Which makes it possible to look back on the series, I guess. It's the only one of the Sandman spin-offs going for a similar epic scope and succeeding, and managing the same kind of huge ensemble, various plot threads, etc. I loved many of the characters, and I think the conclusion for the various survivors was satisfactory.

But.

There is one reason why I never loved the series itself in the same way. To wit, the main character. Now, Mike Carey avoided the big mistake of making Lucifer into a misunderstood woobie (shall we call this the Lestat option?). But his Lucifer is static, and nowhere was that more glaringly apparent than in the last issue, good as it was, in the flashback that repeated the crucial Lucifer-quits-hell scene from Seasons of Mist. Lucifer there and at the start of the spin-off, The Morningstar Option, is exactly the same character he is at the end of the very last issue.

In Sandman, part of Dream's tragedy isn't that he doesn't change, but that he does and that he can't accept that, at least not while still being Morpheus. The man - err, eternal being - who frees Calliope and tells her captor that it is a poor thing to imprison someone is not the same man who condemmed Nada to thousands of years of hell for rejecting him; his own 70-something years as a prisoner have affected him. Meanwhile, Carey's Lucifer goes through some fundamental experiences himself, but as I said - he's exactly the same character afterwards.

And then there is the question of letting your main character have flaws and weaknesses. Letting him be in the wrong some time. I remember Gaiman mentioning somewhere that at least part of the origin for Sandman was that talking about Superman, some comic writers said it was impossible to write a (nearly) all-powerful being and make him interesting to the reader. (Hence Kryptonite and amnesia stories etc, I guess.) Which he took as a challenge to write a nearly all-powerful being and make him interesting. This works, among other reasons, because Dream isn't always right. Starting with the last chapter of Preludes and Nocturnes, the famous first appearance of Death in The Sound of her Wings, you have other characters pointing out in no uncertain terms he can be a prat. Flashbacks fills us in Dream having the romantic backstory from, no pun intended, hell, and this seems to be mostly Dream's fault. He absolutely can't deal with rejection, full stop, not just in the romantic sense, as his son Orpheus finds out. And his callous treatment of Lyta Hall is perhaps the ultimate example of arrogance creating its own nemesis. (Though in that case there is always the question mark of how much of it was intentional, given the outcome.)

Meanwhile, there are very few times in Lucifer when Lucifer actually loses, and when he does, he usually has a back-up plan. The narrative usually supports his point of view. If opposing points of view, such as Mazikeen's in the question as to whether the Lillim should be given the right to settle in Lucifer's dimension, are given weight, events still resolve in such a way that Lucifer wins. I remember reading The Morningstar Option and wondering whether the tricked Rachel would end up becoming Lucifer's nemesis in a similar way to Lyta becoming Dream's, but no, not only was this not true for Rachel, but the only opponent which can be said to have been partly created by oversights/actions of Lucifer's, the Balsamo's, the only one managing to really bring him down for a (brief) period, is a collective entity clearly presented as hissable in the extreme.
Michael, a positive character who for a long time does hold alternate view points, is however clearly presented as a tragically deluded idealist. Carey doesn't let him win one single argument with Lucifer.

Now I don't know what arc I wanted Lucifer to have. Not a replication of Dream's, of course. But he was the main character of his series, and I want main characters to have some vulnerabilities, be affected either negatively or positively by losses their suffer, and to change in the course of their story. Which did not happen here.

And here's an irony for you: compare the staticness of Lucifer in Lucifer as exemplified in the last issue during his final meeting with God with his last appearance in Seasons of Mist, after he has quit Hell. That short sequence with him on a beach. "Allright, you old bastard, I admit it. The sunsets are magnificent." That, in one sentence and in a story where Lucifer is a minor character, is character development (and relationship development as far as his with God is concerned) he did not get in all the 75 isuses of his own series.

The Very Quick Day Trip to London went well, save for the weather, which was abysmal, and I wouldn't have minded except that I had to spend considerable time outside. Otoh, I made a lot of British bookstores and DVD sellers richer as well. Among other things, I finally was able to aquire the second season of West Wing, which I have started to watch. Considering Ron Moore references WW a few times in the BSG podcast, I take it the idea of the season 2 opener wherein ( spoilery spoil ).


I also soothed my overseas Serenity waiting woes by buying the first issue of the comic Joss obligingly wrote to fill in the events between Objects in Space and the movie. So far, so neat. It was so good to "hear" everyone's voices again. Art-wise, there is a gender divide - the drawings of the men look like them, but alas the women look more like generic pretty women than Zoe, Kaylee, Inara and River respectively. My favourite snark of the issue belonged to Book and was his reply to a certain question of Mal's. I *heart* Book.

Speaking of comics: I also aquired the first issue of 1602: New World (not bad, but it'll take more good issues to convince me to change my "only Mike Carey should be allowed to write Neil Gaiman spin-offs" rule) and two trade collections of Fables. The later because londonkds, oyceter and kangeiko all liked it, so I put aside my Bill Willingham issues enough to buy them. The preliminary verdict: okay, I still think he ought to be punished somehow for what he did to Thessaly and should never be allowed to write her again, or any other Sandman character. But his own stuff is good. The fairy tale characters done the noir way gimmik works, and Bigby Wolf and Snow White are really entertaining twists on the hard boiled detective and the fast talking, tough dame respectively. Was also impressed that he didn't always go for the obvious, as with the entire Prince Charming versus Blue Beard confrontation. I'm a bit uncertain what the rules about the Fables are, because they aren't all fairy tale creatures. Pinnochio comes from a novel by Carlo Callodini. And in his grand remembrance speech, King Cole referenced Narnia and Aslan, also products of a whole series of novels. So can we expect hobbits any time soon? Put another way, this reminds me of Phantásien (aka Phantasia) in Michael Ende's Neverending Story, or indeed the Dreaming, where all fantasy creatures ever dreamed up coexist.

On Thursday, I saw Bride and Prejudice and by sheer coincidence the trailer for the new film version of Pride and Prejudice. I must say, the former was far more fun than I suspect the later will be. Like Clueless (updated version of Emma) and Ten Things I Hate About You (aka Taming of the Shrew), it transported the plot of the original into a different setting. So instead of inwardly ranting "they got that wrong, and this isn't how I imagine X", one sits there and thinks "wow, that's a clever equivalent" and otherwise just basks in the fun. In this case, Bollywood fun. Was very amused that the Bollywood rule, which incidentally is also an Austen rule, was kept - no kissing! Lots of dancing and songs instead. I adored this film.