Geek Force Utterz #066 - 405 Gigs of NIN
Trent Reznor never seemed to be a big fan of CDs. Whereas vinyl records had felt like art to him, CDs felt like cold, disposable product. At least that’s they way I understand it. He certainly did his best to make the full package of each of his releases unique and as artistic as possible, but I always kind of got the sense that he was disappointed with the form he’d been given to work with.
When Napster and iTunes happened, and the writing on the wall all began to say that digital distribution was the way of the future, I kind of figured that he might hate that too. He did hate it at the beginning, at least as far as I can remember. But, beginning with the thumb-drives used to “leak” songs from Year Zero, and with the ARG which accompanied those leaks, it seems as if Mr. Reznor has fully embraced the future of the music industry in ways that few of his peers—Radiohead being the sole big exception—seem ready to. He released Ghosts I-IV on his own, entirely through his Website. He gave away The Slip for free. And now, within the past few days, he has given his fans the biggest gift yet (at least in terms of sheer file size): 405 gigs of raw HD concert video.
You may recall that record company politics stood in the way of a full-scale video release documenting the latest Nine Inch Nails tour. Well, this is a reaction to that. And what a reaction it is. Put the production in the hands of the fans. Let them see what they can do. If that isn’t a guy who understands what the future is going to be all about—and what the present is already all about, really—then I don’t know who is.
Check out more of my thoughts on the subject in today’s episode of Geek Force Utterz. You can listen in via the embed above, or by visiting Utterli.com.
Spoiling Season Five #04
The fifth season premiere of Lost is now less than two weeks away. The drool that I am drooling in anticipation is getting so thick and so persistent that a visit to the doctor might be in order. Perhaps they can wire my jaw shut or something. Because, seriously, when I’m not drooling thinking about how close it is, I’m picking my jaw up off of the floor. The sheer awesomeness of the spoilers leaking out at this point… Man!!!
If you can stomach some teasing, won’t you join me below the fold?
Geek Force Utterz #065 - Commute as Adventure
How many things have to go wrong during a morning commute before a curmudgeon with anger issues loses his cool and lets loose all of the hot air in his system? Find out by listening to today’s episode of Geek Force Utterz. You can do so by listening to the embed above, or by visiting Utterli.com.
Marvel Mythos and Media #6 - Ms. Marvel, Part Three
Mythos:
New to Marvel Mythos and Media? Please check out my previous columns!
Welcome to the last column covering Ms. Marvel. When we left her, Ms. Marvel was whole psychologically, but her storylines were still a mess. Despite being under the helm of Chris Claremont, her title lacked any sort of direction. Sadly, only a few issues after showing some serious promise, her title would be canceled mid-storyline. This time, we’ll be wrapping up Marvel’s shot at feminist progression and taking a look at the end to a series that was so controversial, the real world came calling for Marvel!
Ready for one more week Ms. Marvel?
After a myriad of bad storylines, Ms. Marvel’s peak came with Ms. Marvel #19. Taking Ms. Marvel back to her roots, she was confronted by Kree strong-arm Ronan, who kidnapped both her and Captain Marvel in order to return them to the Kree homeworld. At the behest of the evil Kree Supreme Intelligence, a being that has enslaved the Kree for its own purposes from time to time, they would be forced to work for the homeworld.
The art is a bit stiff, but the drama is much better than previous issues.
The chemistry between Ms. Marvel and Captain is terrific. They made a great team without a hint of romance, something that the book was already hemorrhaging. For whatever reason, Chris Claremont and Marvel continued to associate the liberation of this modern female superhero with making out with every male within New York’s various zip codes. The amount of anonymous male suitors continues to rise through the last few issues in an embarrassing fashion.
I knew a girl like you in college, Carol. The guys nicknamed her “Lipslut”. You don’t want that on your superhero resume, do you?
This little tryst occurs after Jameson ousts her from her job as editor of Woman. The issue of her unemployment was not resolved before the cancellation of the series, and neither is the reason she would make out with this shady former employee during a snowball fight. An issue or two later, though, he would be forgotten, and we’d get to see that a former flame, the psychiatrist Dr. Barnett, had not given up on her.
Way to go, Doc. Settle her down, impregnate her, and have her cook pancakes.
As seen above, Marvel continued to have the majority of males in the series voice sexist clichés. The only other good thing to occur in the last few issues of Ms. Marvel, aside from the Captain Marvel issue, is that Ms. Marvel was given a long overdue wardrobe change. This new costume would be so iconic that it is her costume to this day, having lasted a good quarter century. The reason why is apparent: it’s just an incredibly solid design that looks great on the page.
She shows less flesh in this costume, but she’s more attractive and “sexy” for it? Did somebody at Marvel have an epiphany?
With a new look and new haircut, Ms. Marvel was ready to roll into some new storylines. Unfortunately, she ran into an underground race of lizards living underneath the desert. Apparently, nuclear testing had forced lizards to evolve at a much more advanced pace until the point where they had reached an intellectual tribal equivalent on par with Native Americans of the nineteenth century. This story is as horrible as you might be imagining.
Remember that horrible dino sitcom with the baby dino screaming that his dad was not the mama? God, this panel brings up some horrible memories.
As she suffered through this litany of poor villains, Ms. Marvel was being set up with a nemesis. A shady shapeshifter was often seen guiding villains towards Ms. Marvel:
La Contessa blahblahthisseriesisalmostcancellediwonderwhy
Eventually, this nemesis is revealed to be prominent X-Men villainess Mystique. Unfortunately, the reason for her desire to harm Ms. Marvel was never given a chance to flourish in the Ms. Marvel series. It was cancelled before anything was able to truly develop. In her last issue, 23, Ms. Marvel was given a good villain to work with: noted baddie Sabretooth, the nemesis of Wolverine. Unfortunately, the storyline is horrible once more and the artist draws Sabretooth so that he looks something like John Goodman with Groucho Marx eyebrows.
A visual summarization of why this series’ cancellation was a mercy-killing.
With a whimper, the series was killed. However, the storylines would be wrapped up in a few issues of Marvel Super-Heroes. Here, we’re given Iron Man and Ms. Marvel working on the mysterious murder of Dr. Barnett. The culprit seems to be none other than Carol Danvers herself, but Carol soon learns the true form and identity of the killer. Mystique is now flushed out and has Carol tracking her after a short stint at the psychiatrist’s funeral.
Even I can’t make cracks about a guy’s funeral.
In a few short pages, we’re also given the reason for Mystique’s grudge against Ms. Marvel. Apparently, her evil mutant psychic friend has predicted that Ms. Marvel will one day harm Rogue, a young mutant she has raised as a daughter. This has proved to be a daunting task, because Rogue can steal the abilities of other superheroes through the power of her touch, albeit temporarily. Unfortunately for Rogue, she has no control over that ability and can’t touch another person. Regular humans are especially off-limits, since she can kill them with a single touch. Other than that, there’s nothing unusual about her outside of a horrible Southern accent.
Dramatic pose 12.
After much haranguing and battles with evil mutants, Rogue comes after Ms. Marvel. Unaware of Rogue’s abilities, Ms. Marvel is easy fodder for Rogue’s unusual abilities. Even more unfortunate for Ms. Marvel, an odd sort of “feedback” is caused, perhaps because Ms. Marvel is already so mentally and physically unique due to her Kree imprinting. Rogue, in essence, drains her dry. She takes her abilities permanently and takes all her memories, leaving her powerless and cursed with amnesia.
Ms. Marvel goes from “the next big thing” to “the tool used to goose Rogue’s powers.”
Eventually, Ms. Marvel would return in various ways: Binary and Warbird. Each was an attempt to remold her with a new power-set and get her relevant again, but they failed abysmally. She would only regain her fame until she became leader of the Mighty Avengers in 2007 with her original abilities, but before that would occur, she stumbled into controversy, which will be the focus of Media.
Does one really need to ask why this Binary gimmick failed?
Media
Ms. Marvel reached the mainstream in a most ignominious way after the cancellation of her series. While in the Avengers, squished between her loss of powers and the cancellation of the series, the Avengers ran afoul of a creature named Immortus that pulled a phantom accelerated pregnancy on her. Within a matter of days, Ms. Marvel gave “birth” to a creature that accelerated at an extreme pace to something resembling manhood. Ms. Marvel declared that she was in love with this creature to the Avengers, and proceeded to leave with him. This scary being went by the name of Marcus.
A couple of problems were evident. First, whatever the circumstances, this amounted to a form of incest, something that seemed gratuitously out of context for Ms. Marvel. Second, the Avengers let her run off, knowing full well that he possessed psionic powers that could be influencing her decision to run off and have sex with her pseudo-son.
The reaction from one fan led to an infamous essay called “The Rape of Ms. Marvel”, lambasting Marvel’s handling of the character and its handling of female characters in general. Carol Strickland’s essay is still accessible through online search, and in the aftermath, she states that she received horrifying responses from some male comic readers, including many that said she needed to get “laid.” Undeserving of such a puerile response, the essay is a well-written examination that raises serious questions of how comics are influencing gender roles.
Despite the response of a few fools, Strickland was entirely correct in her accusations, and Marvel agreed. Marvel was motivated by Strickland’s essay to rectify the problem in Avengers Annual #10. In this issue, Carol explains to the Avengers her anger at them and the untimely end of Marcus. It seems that he miscalculated how fast he would age once he was “born” and soon perished.
Marcus looks like a tool. No joke, there; he just looks like a tool.
Ms. Marvel becomes upset and tells the Avengers how she never loved Marcus and that his mind-manipulation powers amounted to rape. She yells that they should have known better and saved her. All the accusations are correct, but they should have been leveled at Marvel. Their attempt at feminist recognition failed miserably, ending in proof that most male comic writers at that point in time understood precious little about females. Whether that’s changed is a debate I’m not ready to tackle today!
In the eyes of many, including Strickland and myself, this was too little, too late.
Join me again next time as we give the unsung heroes and multi-part columns a rest for a week. We’re going to spend some one-off time with Marvel’s main man, Spider-Man, and things are sure to get lively!
*All black and white images used are from Marvel Comics’ Essential Ms. Marvel.
Geek Force Utterz #064 - Scorned by the JobsGod
On Monday evening, I bought all of the content I’d been collecting in my iTunes Store shopping cart over the past week. On Tuesday morning, Apple announced that all of the music in iTunes was now DRM-free, with thirty-cent upgrades available to customers who had purchased songs before the switchover.
Even to those of us who had purchased songs mere hours before.
If ever there was a sign from the JobsGod, this was it. How dare I remove Apple from my Geek Force Five? Blasphemy, my actions were. And punished accordingly, I would be.
Today’s episode of Geek Force Utterz is all about this EPICFAIL on my part. Listen in via the embed above, or by visiting Utterli.com.
