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Dan Dare (2007) #1
Dan Dare’s all about the reassuring, calming presence of the capable colonialism and patriarchy (i.e., the British Empire). I have a feeling it’s going to get even more interesting once Anglophiliac Dan Dare returns to active duty.
The original series—the British Buck Rogers—dates back to the fifties, and writer Garth Ennis keeps with the mid-century British colonial mindset, just in the future. I can’t wait for the King or Queen to show up.
So, former space hero Dan Dare has retired to seclusion in a recreation of the British villages of his youth. The originals are presumably all gone because the Americans and Chinese nuked each other; the British had a shield to protect them. Instead of sticking around to help out with the Cursed Earth, the Brits took to colonizing space, presumably running into an evil alien race and getting into space fights.
There’s been peace long enough for Dan and his sidekick, Digby, to retire. Their Girl Friday from back in the day has gone into public office, so we’re not far away from when the original five-year mission ended. It’s an “Old Man Dan Dare” series, a Garth Ennis specialty; only it’s very British and not grim and gritty. Artist Gary Erskine thoughtfully updates mid-century sci-fi designs and keeps it all very English. Even when the Prime Minister is visiting an asteroid on his way to ask Dan for help, you can imagine them having tea and biscuits.
Erskine’s art is good. There are a handful of places he’s in a hurry (Dan Dare’s from Virgin Comics, which barely survived long enough to publish the whole series), but it’s good. Besides some sci-fi space action and Dan walking his adorable dogs, most of the issue is talking heads. Digby and the former Girl Friday having a chitchat on a space station, the Prime Minister and Dan having a philosophical debate about England’s place in the world (running it, if Dan Dare has a say). Erskine does well with all that talking.
Ennis does really well writing it too. Even though the Prime Minister is a dipshit, Dan’s at least a colonialist, if not a monarchist, if not a fascist. It’s going to be interesting to see how Ennis does this character development.
The ending cliffhanger’s solid, while the story is basically a combination of Star Trek 1 and 2 first acts. Got to get the captain back, best destiny, and all that business. Dan Dare’s off to an ace start.
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My Life Is Murder (2019) s03e05 – Silent Lights
It’s a Christmas episode—or the closest (I think)—“Murder” has ever gotten. From the first scene, we find out Lucy Lawless is a Grinch, which comes as no surprise. She has a series of rambling complaints about Hallmark holidays, but basically, everyone forgot about her. Except for Ebony Vagulans and Lawless didn’t appreciate it (plus, it all happened off-screen). Vagulans is back in the apartment with no information about the Paris trip. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a subplot, but I didn’t realize they were going to forget it. Not to mention since returning, Vagulans doesn’t have any character development going on. She’s just comic relief.
Ditto Tatum Warren-Ngata, as Lawless’s temporary replacement operative who’s back for a scene again. She’s gone from being part of the team to being a convenient foil; the suspect, an absolutely phenomenally bro-y Ido Drent, has never seen Warren-Ngata while Lawless and Vagulans have been around already. Rawiri Jobe’s barely around either, having Christmas-ed away. Martin Henderson, as Lawless’s brother, shows up in the epilogue, and again the emphasis is on Lawless being abandoned for Christmas. Scrooge bah humbugged one too many times.
Oddly, the lack of material for the supporting cast is because Lawless gets some more character development. The show’s first season had her constantly coming across fellow widows, but it hasn’t been a theme lately. And it’s still sort of not because even though Lawless is interested in supporting recent widow Ginette McDonald, Lawless doesn’t share her own story, just her sympathy. Great subplot, especially since McDonald’s fantastic.
She and her dead husband went overboard with Christmas decorations, pissing off the hipster bros and broettes who’ve moved into the neighborhood. They’re vegan, they’re influencers, they’ve got Ring cameras; it’s a hilariously itemized list of twenty-first century annoying. I don’t think Drent ever says “blockchain,” but only because no one wants to talk to him very long.
McDonald’s husband fell off their roof while adjusting the Christmas lights; she’s convinced Drent or his wife, played Michelle Langstone, had something to do with it. Lawless finds enough oddness—and rudeness from Drent and Langstone—to investigate.
Robbie Magasiva and Tai Berdinner-Blades play the other, sweeter but still hipster neighbors.
Drent’s a great heel, Magasiva’s good, Langstone and Berdinner-Blades are on the negative side of flat. It doesn’t matter—they’re playing caricatures—but still.
It’s another good episode for Lawless, and there’s plenty of excellent material for some of the guest stars, but the supporting cast is on the bench here.
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American Gothic (1995) s01e04 – Damned If You Don’t
Even in 1995, “American Gothic” knew not to cast an actual teenager as the fifteen-year-old Brigid Brannagh plays. It just didn’t know not to still ogle early twenties Brannagh as she plays that teenager. While, sure, it’s Southern Gothic, it’s also contorting itself to allow objectifying Brannagh, even though she’s in constant danger of rape from Max Cady-lite ex-con Muse Watson. Watson’s just out of jail and surprised to find Brannagh grown up (though he never would’ve met her before); she’s the daughter of his former employee, Steve Rankin, who’s gone on to buy Watson’s junkyard and, presumably, move into his house.
While the episode shows off its crane multiple times for the junkyard location, it never shows Rankin’s house actually being near the junkyard. So there’s a little bit of a disconnect.
Rankin has to put Watson up a few days as a favor to town sheriff and likely demon Gary Cole. Cole did Rankin a favor in his youth when he was messing around with the boss’s daughter; first, Cole wanted Rankin to let Brannagh work at the sheriff’s station as an intern under Cole’s wing. When Rankin doesn’t go for it, and there’s a mysterious household accident, Cole comes up with the temporary halfway house favor. Now, presumably, someone had an idea why Cole would want Brannagh as a sidekick (he’s not creepy to her), but since Cole’s always an enigma (or limited by the writers), the episode often feels too constrained.
The A-plot with Cole and Rankin is basically just a guided “Twilight Zone” with occasional crossover to the B and C plots. B plot is Lucas Black wanting to make a tornado machine for his science fair; it’s fantastic. He gets different offers of help from Jake Weber and Cole while weighing his new friendship with cousin Paige Turco, as well as disappointing ghost sister Sarah Paulson. Black and his friends start the episode, actually, at the junkyard. The show does a great job sharing plot points and characters, like Turco questioning Rankin about her parents’ death. Of course, Watson knows something about it, but the script seems to forget. It also misplaces Watson’s family, who presumably still exist somewhere.
Turco’s town investigating plot is dawdling, so when it seemed like Watson may pay off, it got some energy back. The stuff with Turco and Black is good, the stuff with Black and Weber is good, Black and Cole—there are no problems with the B or C plots in this episode. Not when the A plot’s got so many different ways to be problematic. In addition to the objectifying, director Lou Antonio also goes for exaggerated angles. This episode has lots of bad video editing and montages; visually, “American Gothic” ages terribly.
Thank goodness for the actors and much of the writing (script credit to Michael R. Perry and Stephen Gaghan).
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She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) s01e06 – Just Jen
Are self-contained wedding episodes a thing? This episode of “She-Hulk” breaks the fourth wall so Tatiana Maslany can tell the audience it’s one of those episodes. Those being self-contained wedding episodes, which—if they are a thing—I have many questions about. Like do they usually involve random guest stars with no bearing on the series, who’ve either never been on the show before or have no dramatic impact whatsoever?
It’s a perfectly good lawyer and Maslany character development episode, but it’s also a bizarre one if it’s supposed to be a trope.
So Maslany goes to her childhood family acquaintance’s wedding as a bridesmaid. Patti Harrison plays the bride. Eh.
Harrison’s obnoxious (getting married on a Thursday), and Maslany wants to show her up by going as She-Hulk. But then Harrison bursts into tears, and Maslany agrees to play human for the wedding. Except then powered but not super villain influencer Jameela Jamil shows up to take her revenge on Maslany. Can Maslany make it through the episode without getting angry? Will cute boy Trevor Salter still like Maslany when she’s angry? Why so many rhetorical questions?
Because rhetorical questions are a slippery slope.
Anyway.
The wedding stuff’s just okay. Kara Brown gets the writing credit, and the script goes overboard making Maslany sympathetic and Harrison terrible. I can’t remember what shitty thing Harrison’s doing, but Maslany should’ve just left at some point. Like, her only family member there is the stoner cousin, played to two or three-line perfection by Nicholas Cirillo. And then there’s a whole night with Jamil at the wedding venue (they had to get there Wednesday) where she and Maslany could bicker or something.
Plus, Jamil’s not the show’s best casting. A little goes a long way because, at some point, she has to realize Maslany can crush her head like a grape, only she never does, even though they superpower-fought in the first episode. So it’s the part too. She’s too many contradictory kinds of bad at once.
The lawyer plot has Ginger Gonzaga teaming up with Renée Elise Goldsberry to defend David Pasquesi in some divorce cases. Pasquesi’s known as “Mr. Immortal,” and whenever his wives yell at him, he kills himself to widow them and move on. Pasquesi’s great, Goldsberry and Gonzaga are an excellent team (six episodes in, and I don’t think Gonzaga’s actually helped Maslany on a case yet)—it’s the superhero lawyer show; it’s perfect.
It’s just got a weird wedding thing going on next to it. Good direction from Anu Valia at least keeps the nuptials moving along.
Then there’s a very dark cliffhanger, which again suggests Disney’s not going to shy away from the trolls in its properties’ fan bases.
Can’t wait. Hope there’s literal troll-hunting by episode nine.
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Werewolf by Night (1972) #20
I’m not sure Doug Moench read much Werewolf by Night before writing this issue, which has eighteen-year-old Jack Russell walking around talking like a cheap forties gumshoe. Moench also doesn’t seem to know the bad guys kidnapped his sister because she too has the werewolf curse; when Jack goes to rescue her, the bad guy—Baron Thunder—reveals they just want his werewolf blood to make a super soldier serum.
Pardon the expression but, like, what?
Because Moench’s not lazy. He writes a bunch of narration for Jack. Including the werewolf fighting the bad guy for four or five boring pages. Jack’s got a ring to let him control the werewolf—he grabbed it from a rich guy who offered it to Jack’s landlady as a come-on—so he (and Moench) explain why he’s making all the various wrestling moves as the werewolf.
Thunder’s got a scary house on a haunted hill. It looks like a haunted mansion from a cartoon. It’s absurdly silly; penciller Don Perlin works the fight scenes; he’s interested in the fight scenes. They’re boring and not very good, but he’s engaged. The haunted mansion on a hill? Shockingly bad. Even for Perlin and inker Vince Colletta. This issue reads like the book got told to go cheap on the art, and to compensate, they told Moench he could write 300,000 words.
There’s a little with Jack and his werewolf neighbor, Raymond Coker. The cops have it out for Coker—they just happened to have decided the Black werewolf must be the bad one—but there’s also a third werewolf in the mix now, and it’s got something to do with the magic ring.
Even with the tedious fight scene, this issue does seem like Moench is trying to resolve the loose plot threads. Not sure why he changed old lady hit woman Ma Mayhem into a Marvel seventies blonde, but it’s another change. At first, I thought Topaz was back. Nope. Bummer.
Werewolf’s rarely renamed consistent longer than a few issues, and its best days are long gone.
Will Moench do something interesting with it, or will he too fall victim to the curse of the werewolf (By Night)?
It’s too soon to tell, but it’s not looking great.