News, reviews and commentary on the artform and industry of comics. All Posts Copyright (C) 2020 by their respective authors. Trouble With Comics is (C) 2009-2020 by Comic Book Galaxy.
An in-world book from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Wakanda Files—compiled by request of Shuri (Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War) as part of her quest to improve the future for all people—is a collection of papers, articles, blueprints, and notes amassed throughout history by Wakanda’s War Dogs. In a nod to Wakandan technology, the pages of the book have a printed layer of UV ink with content that is visible only under the accompanying Kimoyo bead–shaped UV light. The book is published by Epic Ink, an imprint of Quarto Publishing Group.
Within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Wakanda has been on the forefront of what is technologically possible. Their ability to stay ahead of the rest of the world is second only to their ability to keep themselves hidden. As the architect behind many of Wakanda’s great advancements, Shuri is constantly seeking ways to improve what has come before. To aid in her search, she researches the past for context, reference, and inspiration by compiling The Wakanda Files.
Organized into areas of study, including human enhancement, transportation, weapons, artificial intelligence, and more, The Wakanda Files trace the world’s technological achievements from the era of Howard Stark and early Hydra studies to modern discoveries in quantum tunneling and nanotechnology. Weaving together the stories, personalities, and technology that are the fabric of the MCU, The Wakanda Files offers insight into the enhancements, power, and technology behind Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Stark Industries, Hydra, and much more.
About the author: Troy Benjamin is a Los Angeles–based book and comic book author who has written exhaustive fan-centric publications including the Haynes Ghostbusters Ectomobile Owner’s Workshop Manual, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Declassified book series, How to Paint Characters the Marvel Studios Way, and has been a contributor to the official Guidebook to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
When my son Aaron was growing up, he was mesmerized by reruns of the 1990s Spider-Man animated series that aired on Fox TV stations. For its time, it was unusually complex and entertaining as hell, and I would watch it along with him. The episodes that he enjoyed the most were the two that comprised the finale, Spider-Wars Parts 1 and 2.
In these episodes, the all-powerful Beyonder sends Spider-Man on a mission through seemingly endless parallel universes, where he searches for his lost love Mary Jane and meets a plethora of alternative versions of himself. Clones, cyborgs, and many variations on good ol’ Peter Parker, including one possessed by the Carnage symbiote, and another, the one Aaron was most intrigued by, the rich, armoured version of Spider-Man.
So beloved were these two episodes that Aaron insisted I put them on a VHS tape for him, so using the best of my knowledge and the top technology available in the late ‘90s, I edited them into a movie, one which he watched again and again and again, his sense of wonder never diminishing, only growing with repeated viewings. To him, those episodes contained untold secrets about the universe, and he wore that tape out after a couple of years. There’s not much that is as gratifying to a parent as seeing one’s child transfixed by something as wonderful as those episodes were, and they provide pretty direct inspiration for the best Marvel movie of the year, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
That’s a big statement, I know. It’s not a Marvel Studios film, it’s not live action, it’s a freaking cartoon. All true. At the same time, it is the very apotheosis of the superhero movie era, combining next-level visuals, mind-expanding ideas (from the Many Worlds theory down to movie MacGuffins, young minds will learn a lot here), strong moral and ethical themes and incredible voice performances from a diverse and completely engaged coterie of performers. If you’d have told me I would want a Spider-Gwen movie after seeing this, I would probably not have argued; she’s a great and inspiring character already, but this movie only increased the desire to see that happen. If you had told me I would be desperate for a Nicholas Cage Spider-Noir movie, on the other hand, I’d have told you to go lie down and sleep it off. And yet, there it is.
The visuals of this film must be seen to be believed. The animation (watching the trailer on a laptop will not tell you a thing about how gorgeous and immersive this is) combines numerous visual styles that will be familiar to readers of the comics that inspired the movie, and yet somehow they all combine into one believable story. Though the visual aspect of the film is absolutely dazzling, at no time does it call attention to itself in a way that takes you out of the wondrous world it creates.
Inside that world and all the ones existing parallel to it, we primarily focus on the journey to heroism experienced by teenage Miles Morales, who is thrust into Spider-Man’s narrative orbit by a familiar accident, and whose family life is depicted with much more detail, nuance and even emotion than Lee and Ditko managed to wring out of the original Spider-Man origin. This is a story with genuine drama and stakes, and after you see it you will understand why I was so moved by it that more than once I had to wipe a tear away.
Yes, there were some Stan Lee related moments that brought my feelings surprisingly to the surface, but more than that, seeing the untold easter eggs and stylizations that the movie manages somehow to magically accrete into a single, coherent and inspiring story really felt to me like the completion of a journey comics has been on throughout the entirety of its existence. There were a number of children in the theater at the showing my wife and I attended, and I could see and hear their delight at almost every moment of the film. On another day, at another movie, I might have found it annoying. On this day, watching this movie, I shared their delight and felt like I was privileged to be at the very dawn of their lifelong exploration of Spider-Man, of animation, and of great movies. I’ve said quite a few times in the days since we saw the movie that I think Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse will be this generation’s Star Wars. Only time will tell if I am right, but I expect many sequels in the future, and I expect many young minds experiencing this story and the expansive universes of wonder it suggests to have their destinies altered by what they’ve seen. A wild ride and a great time at the movies are delivered here, the sort of which decades-long franchises are built. There is no end to the multiverse implied by the Many Worlds theory, and I am quite certain many new worlds will be created by the children and teens who will never see comics or film the same way after their perception has been transformed by this film. And I imagine not a few of them will someday be creating future expeditions into ever more Spider-Verses for the generations to follow. So mote it be.
[Note: Contains spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War.]
“We live inside a dream,” Special Agent Dale Cooper once said on Twin Peaks. And so it has been for millions of people during the decade of Marvel Studios films that launched in 2008 with Jon Favreau’s Iron Man.
I felt we had dodged a bullet back then, in the casting of talented but troubled actor Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, after talk of Tom Cruise taking the role, and Marvel even publishing comic books with Stark drawn to resemble Cruise (a tactic which would actually work with Samuel L. Jackson, to the delight of just about everyone). Cruise was not right for the role. At that point I had been living with Tony Stark in my life for over thirty years, and I knew Downey would embody that part like no one else could. Thankfully Favreau knew it as well and convinced the studio to bet on Downey along with him.
But despite the unlimited potential in the characters owned by Marvel Comics, mostly borne out of the imagination and visual power of the late Jack Kirby, I wasn’t expecting much from Iron Man and I doubt anyone in the movie industry was, either. Marvel’s characters had been licensed time and time again to film and TV and even radio shows, and the one that gained the most traction was the TV series The Incredible Hulk, which took a few elements from Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s creation and then used them to retell The Fugitive. Similarly the less-well-regarded Spider-Man TV series used almost none of the essential aspects of that comic book’s mythology, instead using the character’s name and costume as a small part of a generic, episodic crime drama, not even bothering to steal the plot of a successful show, like The Incredible Hulk did.
The relative success of those shows hinged on a number of factors, among them the lack of alternatives – you had three commercial TV networks plus PBS back then. (Which reminds me that Spider-Man also regularly appeared on The Electric Company, a show aimed at 8-10 year olds and which managed to present a more faithful wall-crawler than a primetime network series could, even allowing for the fact that on The Electric Company, Spider-Man never spoke a word.)
The 1980s and 1990s brought even more mediocre-to-terrible attempts to cash in on Marvel’s characters. Dolph Lundgren as The Punisher. Reb Brown as Captain America. And a truly awful Fantastic Four movie made quickly and cheaply by cult film director Roger Corman in order to allow the rights holders to maintain their license. It resulted in a film so bad that it was never widely released and was only seen by most people through the wonders of bootleg VHS tapes sold at sketchy comicons. It should be noted that this Fantastic Four film is only marginally worse than the three later released by major studios, but with four films to their names, The Fantastic Four at this moment has more movies to its name than even The Avengers franchise, even if not a single one of them is worth watching.
Speaking of The Avengers, I went to see Avengers: Infinity War yesterday in the company of my wife Lora. I think we have seen most of the Marvel Studios films at the theater, although I have my doubts about the second Thor film. It’s hard to keep track now that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (as it’s called) is closing in on two-dozen full-length feature films, almost all of which are at least entertaining, and some of which have proven magical in both their mass appeal and their ability to generate revenue. Narratively, financially, and especially from the perspective of pre-2008, the continuing success of the Marvel movies is a dream that millions have been living within. It has changed the lives of many, from turning around the literal and metaphorical fortunes of actors like Downey, who no one thought would even live to see 2018 never mind be one of the most popular movie stars on the planet, and Chris Evans, whose depiction of Steve Rogers/Captain America has left far behind any memories of his participation in two of those lousy Fantastic Four movies. More interestingly this dream movie franchise has inspired and brought happiness to untold numbers of people, like that time Downey gave an Iron Man-like bionic arm to a seven-year-old boy. Or the millions of African-Americans and others who found in the recent Black Panther film an inspirational culture in which they could see themselves and their own history. These films haven’t solved all the world’s problems, but it’s undeniable that they have brought joy and comfort and more in far greater proportion than one might have thought possible before this all began.
Which isn’t to say they are perfect. I am not writing a love letter to Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, or anyone else, really. Maybe Jack Kirby, because without him there would be none of this, but also Stan Lee, who wrote the words of so many of the comics these movies are based on. And Steve Ditko, whose imagination spawned the characters and worlds of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. And so many other comics creators I never thought would get their due, and yet who are credited in the long crawls at the end of these films and who, I hope, are being fairly compensated for the translation of their work into motion picture form.
Like Jim Starlin, a writer/artist whose work blew me away in 1977. That summer I was 11 years old, and Starlin wrote and illustrated a two-part crossover featuring The Avengers, Spider-Man and The Thing (from the Fantastic Four) in a galaxy-spanning battle royale against Starlin’s most noted creation, the supervillain Thanos. The sprawling epic was made possible by the earlier work of Lee, Kirby, Ditko and others, but it felt like something entirely new. Recently going back and reading that story, I realized how direct an adaptation of that story Avengers: Infinity War is, and that realization made me even more eager to see how the film would play out.
It turns out that Infinity War is every bit as mind-blowing as those 1977 funnybooks that inspired it were to my 11-year-old self, and for much the same reason. It’s not just the epic scale of the story, or the stunning visuals, or the huge cast of very different characters being remixed in new and interesting ways. Both the comics and the movie share all those elements. No, it’s the combination of all those things, plus the charm, skill, talent and determination of the actors, writers and directors, the grand vision for these films from the producers, and other factors too numerous and mysterious to be easily tallied.
So yes, I loved it. My wife loved it. It wasn’t perfect in the way Citizen Kane or Synecdoche, New York are perfect, timeless films, but that’s not what the MCU movies are for. They are a commercially-produced dream, made for profit inside an increasingly dysfunctional capitalist system, and perhaps another essay could be written on the dangers of allowing such dreams to make one forget the injustices and dangers of the real world, but that’s not the essay I am writing today. Today I want to just reflect on the wonder of seeing this film finally come to fruition, the bringing together of franchises-within-the-franchise, and I want to state with wonder and delight that it works.
Not just for me, lover of Spider-Man and the others since 1972. It works for my wife, who didn’t know who most of these characters were before she met me, and who now loves Groot unconditionally and with profound delight. It works for millions of other people, some of whom have only the faintest idea who Jack Kirby is, although almost everyone knows who Stan Lee is. Not to diminish Lee’s contribution to this mythology – without him it almost certainly would not have existed nor endured this long – but it cannot be said enough that Kirby gets the majority of the credit. Others took the baton and ran with it once Kirby left Marvel, but Captain America, Black Panther, Thor and many other of the most endearing and exciting characters in these movies are as popular and effective as they are precisely because of the elements Kirby baked into them: Black Panther’s dignity, Thor’s arrogance and innate decency, and perhaps most importantly, Captain America’s dedication to people over politics, to good over greed. Let there be no doubt, these are exactly the heroes we need at this moment in history, and it is perhaps not a coincidence that many of the actors who inhabit these characters have used their popularity to give voice to those less fortunate than themselves, and to use their voices to critique the current wave of fascism and authoritarianism that threaten to destroy our culture. These movies are entertainment, yes, and they have made fortunes for many of the people involved, but some of those people see the responsibility their new prominence and success has given them, and they seem to take it seriously. I’m grateful for that.
And I’m grateful for the joy in so many of these films, which reaches an almost unreal level at various moments in Infinity War. Not just seeing Tony Stark bicker with Stephen Strange, or Groot heroically assist Thor in a way only he could at exactly the right moment. Not just seeing Mark Ruffalo’s sublime Bruce Banner argue with The Hulk, and therefore himself, to hilarious effect at exactly the wrong moment, only to later see him delight in having all of the power but none of the horror such power usually brings him. It’s all of these things and at least a thousand more.
Like I said, it’s not perfect. How could it be? In a story this wide-ranging, I was never going to get enough of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow to make me happy. But there’ll be a movie for that soon enough. I was never going to get everything I came to this for, but then no one is, when you get really granular and start picking it apart. But that’s missing the big picture, and in the larger sense, it’s important to note I wasn’t bored or unhappy for one nanosecond of this film, as I was for every never-ending moment of the grotesque, doomed-to-fail Justice League movie. I was uneasy and scared at the beginning of Infinity War, as intended. I was amused and laughing when Peter Parker asked for a distraction on a schoolbus to hilarious effect. I was chilled when Banner announced “Thanos is coming.” As I said on Facebook, “So many moments.”
I have seen some concern about plot holes, but I see none. The most specific concern centers on why Dr. Strange makes the choice he does near the end, with seemingly catastrophic results for the entire universe. Did the people voicing these criticisms forget that there’s another movie coming? Did they not hear Strange tell his fellow heroes that he had seen millions of possible outcomes in which they all lose, but one, and one alone, in which they succeed in defeating Thanos? To be fair, that moment is couched in dread, no doubt to conceal the fact that it is foreshadowing the ultimate outcome of the as-yet unnamed sequel, said to be the end of the book all the MCU movies to date represent in the minds of those overseeing the franchise, before the start of the next book. But I have no doubt that Dr. Strange’s decision, as agonizing as it was to see the consequences of, was the one that will somehow allow all those we lost to be returned to us in some form. Well, maybe not all.
I doubt it’s a coincidence that Tony Stark was the one to see the ultimate defeat of their efforts to stop Thanos, and to watch in helpless horror as Peter Parker and others died before his eyes. Since the first Avengers movie, Tony Stark’s bravado has masked his increasing trauma as one cosmic threat after another homicidal robot of his own design has taken chunks out of his soul. My guess is that by the end of 2019’s Avengers movie, we’ll have many if not most of the toys back in the toybox and ready to be played with another day. I watched the Falcon die, but I’m sure he’ll be back. And Spider-Man, and The Vision, and Nick Fury, and everyone we watch blow away in the breeze, to our horror and despair. I’m guessing the price of their return will be Tony Stark’s sacrifice in the next film, likely Downey’s exit from the franchise. And that would be suitable. Downey was perfect for the role of Tony Stark because in so many ways he really already was Tony Stark. Arrogant, talented, addicted. He was, and is, our gateway into this world, the reason we have been able to feel the emotions these films create in us so viscerally and so immediately. Reversing the damage Thanos does at the end of Infinity War will require a huge payment to balance the books. I will be surprised if that isn’t represented by the final end of Tony Stark’s journey in these movies.
After all, the great throughline of these movies has been revelation and change, as the universe these characters live in has, in a decade, come to be as expansive and intriguing as it was after many decades of hard work and imagination from Stan and Jack and all the other writers and artists who are responsible for the comic books that launched this dream we are all now living inside. Who has had more revealed to him, and who has changed more than Tony Stark? How fitting would it be for the next film to end with him making the sacrifice, finally, that he narrowly escaped making at the end of the first Avengers film?
I could be wrong, though. And I don’t care if I am. I’m just theorizing. How can you not? It’s fun to speculate where this gigantic story will go next. And who could have guessed, before this all began in 2008, that so many millions of filmgoers would be so thrilled by one movie after another, a series of increasingly entertaining and even diverse films that give us worlds of wonder and delight, with shocks, horrors, laughs and even love?
No, no one could have seen this coming in 2008. No one except Jack Kirby, who, if he were still with us today, might be heard to say, “I knew it all along.”
The first variant cover comic book I ever bought was DC’s Man of Steel #1 in 1986, and so it appeals mightily to me that that is the first cover presented in the gorgeous new coffee-table hardcover art book DC Comics Variant Covers: The Complete Visual History. When I was offered a copy for review by publisher Insight Editions, I wasn’t sure if the book would hit my sweet spot, as the general trends in DC’s narrative output over the last decade or so have not been at all to my taste, but I was curious what would be presented within the volume’s pages, and how it would be presented. Both turned out to be mostly delightful.
Thankfully, the book eschews any focus on story and sticks to what it claims to be, a visual history of DC’s variant cover program. We’re presented with one iconic image after another. And while some are much better than others – honestly Neal Adams has not produced artwork that I find anything less than appalling since the 1980s – the ones that impressed me impressed me mightily – and many are reproduced in a gigantic, full-page (and often full-bleed) style that arrests the eye and demands study.
Most impressive to me were the variant covers by the greatest artists in relatively recent DC history, like the late Darwyn Cooke. Whatever my feelings about his participation in the regrettable Before Watchmen catastrophe, seeing images like his incredible two-page tribute to the original Teen Titans (above) serves as a poignant reminder of just how gifted an artist he was, how suited he was to work with DC’s core characters, and how much was lost by his untimely death. Even latter-day Frank Miller looks better in this presentation, in the form of variant covers from Dark Knight: The Master Race. Detached from the fan-fiction style storytelling of that series, Miller’s most recent style can be better appreciated as a tribute to some of DC’s most well-known characters.
The existence of variant covers is of debatable value. A veteran comics retailer recently spoke to me with great exasperation of his frustrations in trying to balance the demands of customers with the sometimes prohibitive ordering requirements in order for shops like his to be able to stock the issues on which these variant covers appear. But as with DC’s often-troubling narrative missteps of the past decade-plus, the book sets aside the politics of variant covers to hone in, instead, on the beauty of the art created for these covers.
If you’re at all nostalgic for DC’s better days or hold their core characters in high regard, you will likely find something to love about this book. I never went more than three or four pages without being blown away by the beauty and design of the one of the many covers presented in the pages of DC Comics Variant Covers: The Complete Visual History. As an art book and a record of DC’s visual history, it’s a volume I suspect I will be returning to again many times in the future.
Professional
comic book artists whose work “looks professional” have likely had
extensive art training and experience, including thousands of hours of
life drawing that has given them deep understanding of human anatomy,
and the ability to depict the human form convincingly both at rest and
in dynamic action.
Additionally, they are able to create visually
appealing images that do not create fatigue or boredom for the reader,
and they understand panel-to-panel continuity and how those transitions
between images create a sense of movement on the page.
One of the best books on this subject is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics,
which provides hundreds of examples of what I am talking about. I would
also recommend studying the work of comic book artists who are
considered masters of the artform. My personal recommendations would
include Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Alex Toth, Bernard Krigstein, Gil Kane,
David Mazzuchelli (see above), Robert Crumb, Rick Geary, Alison
Bechdel, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jaime Hernandez, and Wallace Wood. You’ll
find a wide range of genres and styles, but all share unmatched visual
skill and professionalism.
If you are looking to become a
professional comic book artist, just looking at comic books will never
be enough. But if you are willing to put in the thousands of hours of
training, life-drawing and learning to truly see the world around you
and convey it in your art, you will have greatly increased your chances
of success.
Now that Twin Peaks: The Return is over, I remain mostly disappointed in it, as expressed in my previous post on the subject. The series as a whole was badly paced and a creative misfire on par with Lynch’s Dune (which holds
a slight edge because it has Patrick Stewart and does NOT have Wally
Brando).
However, the ideas and themes of the last two episodes were
intriguing, even if the bad pacing and execution were prevalent
throughout. For virtually all of the 18 hours of the series, I kept hoping that there would be a moment or a revelation that would make it all come together so powerfully that I would come to understand and appreciate what I had perceived as terrible flaws. For example:
* The copious focus on unknown characters * The criminal under-utilization of Robert Forster as Frank Truman * The largely pointless utilization of characters like Nadine, Jacoby, and the Horne Brothers * The Audrey Horne domestic bickering scenes, which seemed extraordinarily poorly executed within an entire series that seemed poorly executed * The endless teasing of the return of Special Agent Dale Cooper
In retrospect, while I think The Return was a huge disappointment, I do think David Lynch (and Mark Frost, to whatever degree his influence was a factor) produced and delivered the series he wanted to, using the skills and creative power at his disposal. I don’t think he was trolling us, as I have seen other writers state quite confidently. I just think that whatever we all got out of the original series a quarter of a century ago, Lynch had no interest in reviving or revisiting. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing – in fact, I think that’s the exact thing he intended with Fire Walk with Me, the theatrical prequel/sequel to the original series. But Lynch still had some youth and innocence of a kind in him back then, and I think The Return is Lynch with the experience and perspective of a man in his 70s revisiting his most famous creation the way he wanted to, while also ruminating on aging, mortality, and most crucially the ultimate nihilistic disinterest that the universe has in the lives of the insignificant specks that inhabit it, like human beings.
I never would have dreamed, 19 weeks ago, that I would hope mightily that this is the end of
the line for Twin Peaks on TV or in film. And yet I do. It is a profoundly powerful hope of mine that it’s well and truly over. And not for entirely negative reasons, but rather, because I think Lynch has said all he has to say about this series, and within this revival, I suspect he has said all of what he has to say about life, the universe and everything. I didn’t get what I was expecting, I certainly didn’t get what I wanted, but I got what they gave us, I loved some of it and hated a lot of it, and either way, I don’t want any more.
The final scene of the final episode of The Return, which was not
what I was expecting or even hoping for, is perfectly in tune with the
Lovecraftian nihilism Lynch has trafficked in so skillfully in much of his
other work, particularly his most recent films Mulholland Dr. and Inland Empire. Nostalgia is toxic, the universe doesn’t care, the meaning of life is determined by the individual as long as they can hold off becoming worm food.
In The Return, we see the value of
our lives is what we decide to find in it, in the fates of Ed and Norma, Nadine, Dr.
Jacoby, Bobby Briggs and the Dougie Jones family. Ultimately, though, life allots you your season in the sun and then, as R. Crumb noted, “the grave!” You
cannot win in the end. In his final act, Special Agent Dale Cooper thought he was doing something good by taking Laura
home, but that was hubris and sophistry. Every bad thing that ever happened to her started in that
house, and as hinted throughout The Return and made manifest in the final seconds, within it lurks even more horror than we ever guessed, transcending families, small towns, time, and universes. Cooper’s
instincts were wrong, perhaps fatally poisoned by altering the past, but he should have known better. He failed. The
uncaring horror of the universe won, as it always has, and always will. Nothing more need be said.
Except perhaps, in the last words we hear from Pete Martell, who as a result of Cooper’s actions finally got to do the one thing he wanted to do on the morning that he discovered Laura Palmer’s body in another time and place, “Gone fishing.”
It appears that retirement and time have given groundbreaking late night
TV host David Letterman a new perspective on his sometimes-contentious
relationship with the late American Splendor creator Harvey Pekar.
In his occasional appearances on Letterman’s late night talk shows Late Night with David Letterman (NBC) and The Late Show with David Letterman
(CBS), Pekar and Letterman often seemed on different wavelengths, with
Pekar wanting to discuss serious political and social issues, while
Letterman frequently tried to steer Pekar, who died in 2010, into
delivering a more mainstream, corporate-friendly performance. The
different views the two had on how Pekar should conduct himself on
Letterman’s programs often led to friction on the air, and Pekar
discussed his ambivalence about his minor celebrity on Letterman’s
programs in stories in his acclaimed anthology comic book American Splendor.
Speaking
today (August 16th, 2017) to Howard Stern on Stern’s SiriusXM satellite
radio program, Letterman, who has a Netflix deal in place for a new
talk show, told Stern how he would handle someone like Pekar if he were
featuring him on a TV program today:
“I’m a completely different
person now. And I would be so much more better equipped to view the
immediate surroundings of that show now, than I was [then].”
Noting
that he found Harvey Pekar very funny, Letterman reflected that “He was
great. He was tremendous. He would just go after stuff. He would whine,
he would go after me, he would go after the network, he would go after
everything, in a very committed way. It wasn’t a gag, it wasn’t an act,
he would really go to work on you.”
David Letterman’s retirement
from network TV and its corporate owners seems to have changed how
Letterman views the iconoclastic Pekar in retrospect, saying “[Pekar]
was anti-establishment in a way that you don’t see guys like that
anymore. And that used to really upset me, because I just thought ‘Come
on Harvey, don’t do this to us, just play the game, blah blah blah
blah.’ Now, jeez, I wish I could have had Harvey on every night.”
I have experienced such a roller coaster of emotions over this series, beginning with unbounded joy at the first rumblings of its return to almost uncontrolled delight as the first episode began, to a gamut of unexpected sensations including confusion, disappointment, and at this point, sadness.
Of the many hours of Twin Peaks: The Return that we have gotten, if I had the energy, skill and software I could easily edit down the parts of it I have enjoyed and want to rewatch to two hours or less. The Bobby Briggs, Gordon and Albert, Sheriff (Frank) Truman and Sarah Palmer scenes have been exactly what I was hoping for in a series reviving the original show, which was a landmark for me in my 20s. A couple of the Dougie scenes have amused me. The seemingly endless exposition, answering questions better left unanswered (Blue Rose, The Origin of Bob), has been some of the worst of it, as if Lynch did Eraserhead 2 solely to explain Henry’s haircut and the economics of a pencil factory.
But mostly, I am so, so disappointed that almost every scene goes on too long, and there is so much that is just unnecessary, unwanted, and unfocused.
I am with TV critic Alan Sepinwall in being more and more certain that the thing that would have made this all bearable, having Agent Cooper back in recognizable form, is not going to happen until the end, if at all. I don’t think it’s Lynch deliberately slapping his viewers in the face (although if he said it was, I would not be shocked, either), but I do think that whatever magic he and Mark Frost captured in a bottle a quarter century ago, they have long since either lost interest in truly reviving, or are no longer capable of bringing to life.
So we have a series that is over two-thirds complete, now, and for me, almost a complete failure. I didn’t want a nostalgia-fest, or a rehash, or fan fiction. But I didn’t want what we’re getting, either. I know people who are avidly watching every episode and enjoying it immensely, and I’m happy for them, but of late I have found myself not hate-watching, but hope-fast-forwarding through each one. It took me about twenty minutes to get through the latest episode, #13 of 18. It was nice to see Big Ed. That was the only thing that I found myself paying attention to, really, and of course we have to find out that Ed has been marginalized and pushed away, like Twin Peaks: The Return is doing to anyone who wanted this series to be a monumental moment in entertainment history, proof that a revival of this type can meet or exceed the original.
Sadly, Twin Peaks: The Return is roughly on par with the six-episode return of The X-Files. Nice to see some of the old faces back on the screen, but baffling that despite the involvement of the original creator(s), we have such an unappealing mess on our hands.
Since the original series ended, I have watched it all the way through at least three times, first on VHS tapes from the original airings, and then on DVD. It’s world I never thought I could tire of. As a Lynch fan of three decades, I wanted to love this show so much, that it hurt. I never, ever could have imagined that not only would I never want to re-watch Twin Peaks: The Return, but that I am barely interested in even getting through each episode at this point, starving for a minute or two of wonder in each hour of tedium, wondering how the two men who created the original series could so fundamentally fail to follow through on its potential, having had a quarter of a century to prepare.
I
liked it a lot. Tonally it felt like a mashup of the best aspects of
Ultimate Spider-Man with the Lee/Romita era. There’s a specific dilemma
Peter faces that strongly recalled stuff from the Romita days in a very
well-done way. You may know it when you see it, although it involves a
different character than the comics. But the tense dynamic is there and
it is note-perfect.
Michael Keaton
at The Vulture surprised me, as he often does. He is never as facile or
smarmy as I
always expect. His motivation was definitely next-level for a Marvel
movie, even if the actual mechanics of his storyline ended up being
fairly rote. One review I read mentioned it was a good fit for the Trump
era, and I can’t argue. I thought the final Peter/Toomes scene was a
decent (if likely unintentional) metaphor for where we’re headed. Robert
Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark
seemed a little off-model, likely because we are experiencing him more
from Peter’s perspective than the omniscient POV we get from the
Iron Man/Avengers films; I would have suggested making that part a bit
more
organic, but I can understand why they did it that way. A little too
much Favreau in this movie, for my money. A couple of cameos by Marvel
movie stalwarts really pleased me, and the second post-credits scene is
the best one of those they have ever done.
My biggest
complaint is that the high-flying web-slinging scenes at the beginning
look a little too videogamey. Six films in, I’m still waiting for the
movie that
convinces me this is Spider-Man leaping and swinging through Manhattan, for reals. It seems like it should be possible, but so far we’re still largely stuck in Uncanny Valley, I think,
It
wasn’t perfect, but I think it’s the best Spider-Man movie so far, and
definitely in the top 10 of Marvel Studios productions. It lacks only
the thrill of the new that Civil War gave us with this iteration of the character.
Tom Holland is just right for the role, and I would love to see him play
out the life of
Peter Parker over the next decade or so.