The Things I Read For Love: Captain America: Winter Soldier

Have I mentioned that I SUCK at reading graphic novels. It takes me hours and hours to get through books that your average reader can kill in one sitting. I'm a slow reader anyway, but graphic novels just kill me. All the pretty pictures activate some kind of latent ADD in my brain and I just space the heck out looking at them and I lose track of dialogue...So anyway, knowing how painful it is for me to read these things, you should never take a graphic novel recommendation from me lightly. I spent a lot of time with this book, and if I can still honestly type the words "I liked it," that means it's a good book.

Captain America: Winter Soldier is essentially the story of a prisoner of war. It's about how Cap's partner/sidekick, Bucky, was thought dead but was really captured by the enemy. The KGB finds him frozen, revives him, and decides to use him as a weapon against America and it's allies. They continually brainwash him and keep him on ice between missions so that he doesn't remember his previous life and loyalties...Except little things keep creeping back in, and he does start to question his orders. Then, Cap discovers the truth--that his old friend might be alive in some capacity--and he wants to save him.

Positive Comments

Captain America happens to be one of the super heroes that I really, really like, for a number of reasons. He represents, in my mind, that ridiculous overblown surge of patriotism that existed once upon a time (now seen only in brief glimpses), and to me there's a certain romance in that. I liked the movie, for example, because it had this hilariously uncomplex plot where Cap represents all that is good and American, and he fights the clearly evil Nazis and he wins. This book asks the question of how that exact character would fair in the modern world, having faced multitudes of personal tragedies. Suddenly the politics are more complex and things are less black and white. I liked the switch up.

This book really made me care about Bucky, if only for Cap's sake. It does a good job of convincing you that these two men were great friends, and that the loss of that friendship was devastating. With that in place, when Cap starts to realize that Bucky could be alive, but may have done some horrible things, you feel his conflicted emotions and his desire to fix everything.

Negative Comments

The art is kind of a mixed bag. There are times when the characters look too old and too rough. But I'm not expert in art, so take that with a grain of salt.

I really wanted more from the ending. I understand that this is part of a series, and not the complete story, but I was taken aback by the abrupt cut off.

The villain. God, I really can't seem to get behind comic book villains. Lukin comes across as a one dimensional guy who is already pretty evil, and then he gets kind of brainwashed into acting even less rational..yep, seen that before. And possessions and split personalities and all that crap. Bleh, boring, whatever.

Recommendation

So, yes, I would recommend this book. Even if you aren't too familiar with Captain America, there is enough of an intro to give context to the story, and the plot is interesting by itself. I found the entire story very engaging. 4 stars.

Things I Read for Love: The Young Avengers by Allan Heinburg

First of all, for those of you who are thinking "Why the hell is she reviewing comic books, and why should I care?" Please click here for an explanation. This is me stepping further outside my comfort zone, and it's freaking scary out here. Too many BOOOM!s

Young Avengers apparently serves as the origin story for a group of teenage heroes with various powers, who want to live up to their idols and save people. And blow things up. The knowledge I had of this world prior to reading the book came from watching Marvel movies, and one sentence of explanation from Fiance stating "The Avengers have split up. Just read it." But I was still reasonably able to follow what was going on. A kid who now calls himself Iron Lad comes to the present from the 30th century, finds a robot fellow named Vision, and uses him to track down other young heroes for the new Avengers team. They get together and start training themselves and fighting crime as best they can, but the minute former Avengers Captain America and Iron Man hear about it, they want to shut them down. There's time travel and there are aliens and it's very comic bookish, but surprisingly entertaining.

Positive Comments

The moment that I realized I might actually like this book came when Kate Bishop was introduced. After more or less rescuing herself from a hostage situation at a wedding, Kate follows the Young Avengers back to the old Avengers mansion, and proceeds to go through the bedrooms and find weapons to strap on over her bridesmaid dress. That is awesome.

There are a lot of great character moments like that. I really loved how the art and the story combined to portray these guys as both heroes and realistic teenagers with typical teenage problems.

I loved the casual yet positive portrayal of gay characters. Once it's revealed that Billy and Teddy (Hulkling and Wiccan) are a couple, everyone is cool with it and happy for them. Even their parents are quick to adopt the attitude of "We love you and we're proud of you." Very cool of you, Marvel.

The dialogue is fun and snappy. I laughed out loud several times.

I both loved and hated the somewhat convoluted nature of the plot. It definitely kept me interested. At the same time, my brain will always rebel at the task of figuring out time travel and time streams and alternate realities and possible futures. I refuse to even contemplate that sort of non-logic. But other than that, the plot is good.

Critical Comments

Cassie Lang, (daughter of the Ant Man, I guess), is profoundly annoying. I couldn't fathom why, in a book with so few female characters, you would have one of them be a whiny and immature fourteen year old with Daddy Issues. Did the team really need her? No.

The other character arc, involving the use Mutant Growth Hormone to give normal people super powers, was weak and pointless. It kind of seemed like they were trying to portray drug use as a bad thing, but truthfully in this universe, drugs save the day. The super soldier serum that makes Captain America a super hero is more or less a drug. Sure, it's a one time use, non-addictive, no side affects drug. The way things turn out in this book, it's a little hard to see the difference between that and constant MGH use. Are we saying that drugs are okay, for a good cause?

Recommendation

I was surprised to like this book. I don't have the time, or necessarily the inclination, to get sucked into the larger universe. But if I were curious enough, this seemed like a good book to start with. It stands alone well and is an entertaining story in it's own right. 4 stars.

Buy from Amazon: Young Avengers

Things I Read For Love: Muppet Snow White

First, A Quickish Intro

One of the great things about being in a relationship, or even a friendship in some cases, is that being around someone with very different tastes and interests exposes you to things that you would never have come across otherwise. Josh, my ever faithful fiance, has been introduced to things like Supernatural and Once Upon a Time, the joy of searching for Monster High dolls, and the awesome concept of Chinese food because of me. In turn, I've sat through Futurama and Venture Brothers, and learned lots of varied uses for hot sauce. So with this in mind, I'm presenting Things I Read For Love as a new semi-regular post, to appear perhaps once a month or so, in which I read and review something from his bookshelf. And what better choice could there be than a fairy tale retelling.

This graphic novel features all the usual Muppets in the roles of the Snow White characters--Miss Piggy as the evil queen, Kermit as the prince, Electric Mayhem as the seven dwarfs, and so forth. Gonzo and Rizzo play the Brothers Grimm and serve as narrators. This leads to a lot of "behind the scenes" and "forth wall" jokes, and makes for a fairly original and entertaining retelling.

Positive Comments

The Muppets are fun. Certainly this would appeal to a child audience, but it isn't limited to that. It's not so babyish that you feel stupid reading it. There are jokes and references that only long time Muppet fans are likely to get.

It's well drawn. I'm far from an expert in art of any kind, but my few prior experiences with comic books have taught me that bad art can be supper distracting. Fortunately that's not the case here.

I liked the humor. Gonzo has always been my favorite Muppet character, and he and Rizzo are undeniably amusing in this book. I liked some of the liberties they took with the story, and how they helped to enhance that humor.

Critical Comments

They break the forth wall too often, in my opinion. That kind of humor works for me in part because of it's rarity and unexpectedness. When you do it on every other page, it loses that unexpectedness and just becomes corny.

I also felt that there were way too many added characters. Pepe annoyed me, but I find that that's true in almost everything he appears in. Bobo shows up and is amusing, but also unnecessary. It felt as though the author wanted to cram in as many Muppet characters as possible, whether they would serve a purpose to the story or not.

Recommendation

This happens to be impossible to find at the moment. Occasionally a used copy will show up on Amazon for an only semi-ridiculous price, but that's about it. Still, if you do come across a copy and you're a fan of the Muppets, I'd recommend it. It was worth my time. 3 stars.

Josh's Footnote: The title character is played by seldom seen Muppets Tonight character Spamela Hamderson.