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alias_sqbrAnother Hugo nominee, this one from the library since it's not in the packet afaict.
On the whole, I really liked it. Probably my favourite Hugo nominee so far.
EDIT (having read Wikipedia): This is actually the end of a run, which I'm going to go find the previous issues of. This post may be spoilery for previous issues of the comic.
I have a few issues though:
1)It's part of an ongoing superhero comic narrative, and gives huge amounts of exposition-y backstory, yet also assumes the reader has some context I was obviously missing. I don't know that all of it was necessary either.
2)The plot moved very fast, and a lot of things weren't so much story as illustrated plot summary. This plus the previous issue made a lot of it feel like the storyboards for a much longer story.
3)Every now and then I got a skeevy vampires=Jews subtext. I definitely don't think it was deliberate, nor that Paul Cornell is necessarily particularly anti-Semitic, just that the particular plot choices he made combined together unfortunately. YMMV.
Anyway, basically Dracula decides to take over Britain and the British superheroes + Blade (EDIT: who is apparently English!) band together to try and defeat him. And it's very Marvel, but it's also intelligently written and exciting and interesting.
The art etc was competent-but-generic superhero-y, but was up to the challenge of the more dramatic/emotional bits.
I liked that Dracula was a classist racist islamaphobe (because he totally would be) without being over the top about it, and while he was moustache-twirlingly evil here and there was mostly fairly sensible and understated for a supervillainous vampire.
The advantage of the cracking pace was that it was very exciting, with lots of ideas, and I didn't have time to ponder the plot holes. It makes me curious to read up on all the characters, since the only ones I was even vaguely familiar with (other than Dracula :P) were Blade and Dr Doom, plus some of the MANY cameos.
A few pages in, when Dracula was talking about his long standing issues with Muslims I had a vision of an ancient order of Central European/Central Asian vampire hunters with an Islamic bent equivalent to the Christian bent to most vampire hunter groups (so, you don't have to be a member of the religion to join, but the religion is kind of..there as a thing) And vampires would be symbolic of Western Europe and the capitalistic oliogarchy. But then I decided that could have a weird subtext. The comic didn't go there, though it did have a Muslim superhero who was a member of an ancient British Order fighting vampires with Excalibur(*), which is also pretty awesome.
(*)I think? She was certainly using a sword, and is next in line to wield Excalbur. Or something. I got confused at various points. EDIT: Yes, she was. And my lord. One of her superpowers is she's a comic book nerd. That is, she knows lots of about superheroes from having grown up a fan before she became a superhero.
On the whole, I really liked it. Probably my favourite Hugo nominee so far.
EDIT (having read Wikipedia): This is actually the end of a run, which I'm going to go find the previous issues of. This post may be spoilery for previous issues of the comic.
I have a few issues though:
1)It's part of an ongoing superhero comic narrative, and gives huge amounts of exposition-y backstory, yet also assumes the reader has some context I was obviously missing. I don't know that all of it was necessary either.
2)The plot moved very fast, and a lot of things weren't so much story as illustrated plot summary. This plus the previous issue made a lot of it feel like the storyboards for a much longer story.
3)Every now and then I got a skeevy vampires=Jews subtext. I definitely don't think it was deliberate, nor that Paul Cornell is necessarily particularly anti-Semitic, just that the particular plot choices he made combined together unfortunately. YMMV.
Anyway, basically Dracula decides to take over Britain and the British superheroes + Blade (EDIT: who is apparently English!) band together to try and defeat him. And it's very Marvel, but it's also intelligently written and exciting and interesting.
The art etc was competent-but-generic superhero-y, but was up to the challenge of the more dramatic/emotional bits.
I liked that Dracula was a classist racist islamaphobe (because he totally would be) without being over the top about it, and while he was moustache-twirlingly evil here and there was mostly fairly sensible and understated for a supervillainous vampire.
The advantage of the cracking pace was that it was very exciting, with lots of ideas, and I didn't have time to ponder the plot holes. It makes me curious to read up on all the characters, since the only ones I was even vaguely familiar with (other than Dracula :P) were Blade and Dr Doom, plus some of the MANY cameos.
A few pages in, when Dracula was talking about his long standing issues with Muslims I had a vision of an ancient order of Central European/Central Asian vampire hunters with an Islamic bent equivalent to the Christian bent to most vampire hunter groups (so, you don't have to be a member of the religion to join, but the religion is kind of..there as a thing) And vampires would be symbolic of Western Europe and the capitalistic oliogarchy. But then I decided that could have a weird subtext. The comic didn't go there, though it did have a Muslim superhero who was a member of an ancient British Order fighting vampires with Excalibur(*), which is also pretty awesome.
(*)I think? She was certainly using a sword, and is next in line to wield Excalbur. Or something. I got confused at various points. EDIT: Yes, she was. And my lord. One of her superpowers is she's a comic book nerd. That is, she knows lots of about superheroes from having grown up a fan before she became a superhero.
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Date: 2010-05-12 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 01:51 pm (UTC)