Good Morning Semantinkers!

First, I want to say how excited I am about our first trade paperback, MYTHOI Book 1: Birth being released tomorrow! It looks great, and for those who have ordered your copy, you will not be disappointed. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s move on shall we? The other night I was reading through my STARMAN omnibi (I think thats the plural of omnibus) and came across the magnificent HELLBOY/BATMAN/ STARMAN crossover at the end of omnibus #4. I know what you are thinking, “Why were you reading STARMAN again? You read that book too much!” Well let me just say that some books are always going to kick ass, no matter how many times you read them (like, oh, say MYTHOI). However, I digress. Reading the crossover got me to thinking about how much I used to really love the inter-company crossover event, so today I am going to share my favorite crossover books.

Hellboy/Batman/ Starman: This crossover is just straight up fun. James Robinson (writer of STARMAN at the time) wrote this two-parter, with Mike Mignola (HELLBOY creator) providing the art. If you love angry ancient gods, witty dialogue, mystically powered super-Nazis, moody art, towns with large telescopes pointed at them, or random super-teamups, then you should definitely give this book a look.

Spider-man/ Batman: To be fair, I haven’t read this book in a few years, but I have fond memories of it. THere were actually two SPIDERMAN/ BATMAN crossovers that I know of, but the one that I am speaking of here was titled “Disordered Minds” and featured Spidey and Bats taking on The Joker and Carnage. The creative team was J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Bagley (who really should be considered as one of the seminal SPIDER-MAN artists). At the time I thought this one was dark and moody and cool. I’m afraid if I go back and re-read it I will be disappointed.

X-Men/ Teen Titans: This comic actually got me into X-men and the Teen Titans as a kid (well this and the “Pryde of the X-men” cartoon I got from Pizza Hut with Aussie Wolverine). Chris Claremont channeled his inner Marv Wolfman (TEEN TITANS writer at the time) and the always amazing Walt Simonson made both teams look amazing. This was a case of two books in their prime meshing perfectly. Darkside hunting for the phoenix force? Awesome. Wolverine vs. Deathstroke? Whatever is better than awesome, that’s what it was. Today, the book is somewhat dated, but still a fun and nostalgic read.

WildC.A.T.s/ Aliens: This one gets a mention for the sheer fact that I can’t think of another crossover that actually led to proper comic book continuity being effected. In the story (penned by Warren Ellis with art by Chris Sprouse), Aliens wind up on the Stormwatch space station and wreck house, only to be stopped by the WildC.A.T.s . Without this crossover, we never would have gotten THE AUTHORITY. So thank you Aliens, without your acid blood and face-hugging love, we might never have gotten one of the greatest comics of the last 20 years.

Batman/ The Darkness: You might notice that there are a ton of Batman-centric crossovers on this list. Why? Because they just seem to be the best. Deal With it. This one makes the list because David Finch and Marc Silvestri both draw a crazy good Batman AND an even better Darkness. The story is “meh” (Jeph Loeb and Scott Lobdell aren’t Alan Moore) but damn is it pretty.

Batman/ Planetary: Probably the best book on the list. This one shot from the regular PLANETARY team of Warren Ellis and John Cassaday chasing after a guy who can’t control his rather violent ability to change reality around himself. The hunt happens in Gotham City, so when the reality shifting guy starts to freak out and change reality, we get to see the Planetary team square off against several versions of Batman, including “Dark Knight Returns” Bats, “Adam West” Bats, and super-futuristic Batman. This is actually still available in the PLANETARY trade “Crossing Worlds”, so pick this up if you get a chance.

Spawn & Cerebus: Macabre and magnificent all at once, this special early issue of spawn was actually guest written by CEREBUS creator Dave Sim. In the book, Cerebus shows Spawn the “Hell of Comic Book Characters”. It’s basically a poke at Marvel and DC, but how can you go wrong with a Sim/ Todd McFarlane team up?

Superman/ Muhammad Ali: This isn’t really an inter-company crossover so much as an inter-awesome crossover. Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams (heavyweights in their own right) put together this titanic tale of triumph. The art is beautiful, and some of the script must have been written by Ali himself (“It’s the sweet Science, and I’m the professor!” “Im gonna whup him and spank him!”).  If you ever get a chance to check this one out, do yourself a favor and do so.

That’s it for today folks. If I missed your favorite crossover, please share! Did you love Darkseid vs. Galactus? Have a soft spot for Cyberfrog vs. Creed? Still have your signed copy of Warrior Nun Areala/Avengelyne? Let me know. Thanks for stopping in, and if you haven’t reserved your copy of the MYTHOI Book 1: Birth TPB yet, do so now! Oh, and make sure you cruise on over to entertheletters.com to play our MYTHOI BIRTH game. Great prizes await the winner!  Ill see you all next week!

This week, I thought I would try to assemble some of the thoughts that abound around the internet regarding aliens. No, not the political debate that is raging in the Mexico-US border states, but aliens that could potentially exist outside the planet Earth. There are a couple of different angles that I’ll cover in this article, but you can expect that I’ll look at what some of the leading scientists think about the probability of life developing outside the planet, the popular culture assumptions about extra terrestrials, and the theories that are far out there in the ether and take a little more faith to believe in.

To begin, let’s look at what scientist think about life that exists outside our own planet. There are several qualifiers that should be pointed out before embarking upon a discussion of this nature. There are two major avenues of thought that are concerned with the existence of life on other planets: scientific and religious. Both of these studies have the most to contribute to this conversation. The question should not really be read as, “Is there life on other planets?” So much as, “Is there intelligent life on other planets that we can communicate with?” Here is an interesting video that gives you an idea of the scale of the Universe as we know if it now; here is the millennium simulation:

So how do we go about searching for other lifeforms in all that space and matter? The first place to look would be to hunt for a planet that is like our own. The only difficulty in pursuing this train of thought is that it is incredibly difficult to find out if a star even contains planets. Up until 1995, no one was really sure that there were other planets outside of our own solar system. Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered the first extrasolar planet circling a like-sized star. This was really one of the first true advancements for the advancement of a legitimate possibility of intelligent life on other planets. The math works something like this: every planet exerts a pull on the star that is orbiting. Scientists are able to calculate the residual blue and red shifts that occur in the object relative to our position to determine whether or not the star contains planets. As you can imagine, this is a very difficult process that requires a lot of patience and a super-computer.  In 2009, MSNBC ran a story in their Science section by author Clara Moskowitz that entertains the possibility of life on other planets. This particular argument is aimed at looking at different arcs of time in which life could develop on other planets. On a more theoretical side, the man who invented the  Drake equation is another believer that intelligent life must exist on other planets. If you’re unfamiliar with the Drake equation then click on this link. This theory gets to the core of the mathematical possibilities that would need to be true in order for their to be life on other planets. Part of the problem with this model is that many of these variables are unknown. Some scientists are even beginning to make claims that the origins of life on this planet are from extraterrestrial sources. Here is one such article that depicts an origin of life on this planet that is from above. From a religious standpoint, there are a few different trains of thoughts on aliens. Here is a website that depicts a Catholic priest’s opinion about the existence of other life as a possibility in religion. Here, by contrast, is another link that shows the possibilities of aliens as the manifestation of an evil force. There are a lot of intelligent arguments out there that are able to answer questions about the origins of humans and the impact that the possibility of extra-terrestrials would have on those beliefs. Stephen Hawking  offers an interesting perspective in this article. Essentially, he is arguing that humans should do their best to avoid contact with extra-terrestrials. His reasoning for doing so has to do with the resources available on the planet along with the aliens superior technology in their ability to travel toward us. He believes that they would not acknowledge our culture and civilization as anything that would be worth preserving. What do you think?

As far as popular culture goes, aliens seem to run the gambit between hostile, friendly, devious, helpful, and everything else in between. Films like Star Wars show aliens operating on both sides of the war, and the value of an alien is judged through their actions. By contrast, the aliens that are encountered in Battlestar Galactica are bent on the destruction of human civilization at all costs. Star Trek probably had the widest array of alien-human interactions and possibilities. Though often metaphorical as the racial equivalent of our planet, these relations may one day become truth. Will we oppress aliens like the ones from District 9 or the show Alien Nation? Or will we work together with aliens to form our own federations and inter-stellar connections?

The final consideration that I will leave you with today is about the theories that are on the fringe. Next week, I will cover some of these theories in more detail, but consider these questions: if aliens existed, what would their goal be with humans? What kinds of communities would aliens arrange themselves in? Would aliens try to use human DNA in any way? Would aliens even care about us? Or are we the aliens, long descended from another place of existence?

Sgt. Angle reporting for duty!

This weekend, most everyone in the USA and the world got to see Robert Downey, Jr. and Don Cheadle whip some ass in Iron Man 2. But what also graced the screen was the eyeful of deliciousness Scarlett Johansson in a skin-tight black uniform as she twirled and drop-kicked a hallway full of bad guys.

She is watching you watching her…

The sexy action girl is nothing new to cinema — Halle Barry did tried it a few years back with Catwoman; Angelina Jolie nailed it with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Ann Perillaud perhaps started it all (thanks to Luc Besson’s imagination) in Le Femme Nikita. Since the early ‘90s, sexy women with big boots, big guns, and the flexibility of Gumby’s younger self have taken cinematic screens by storm. One needs only to think of Catherine Zeta Jones (whatever happened to her?) easing her tight body through the red laser sensors in Entrapment…where was I? Are these “strong” characters, or simply sexy women who can maneuver their bodies to seduce you into falling in front of their bullets?

For a strong female role, one would look most naturally towards a Katherine Hepburn character (Bringing Up Baby, Adam’s Rib) or Meryl Streep or Ellen Burstyn or Diane Keaton. A woman who is as smart as the man, a woman who is even in control of every event unfolding whether we know it or not. Strong women know what they want, or if they don’t, they have a strong motivation for remaining unsure. Oh, and they can control the hell out of a scene.

For the action-oriented women, a strong role one should always refer to is Ellen Ripley, of the Alien franchise. For a role originally written for a man, Sigourney Weaver took the depth of the character to new heights. She is a woman in a man’s world, she doesn’t emanate sexuality, and she can kick ass while getting the job done. She doesn’t need skin tight dresses, high heels, or nudity to show that she is a strong woman. She uses her smarts and her skills, NOT her sexuality.

Not that there’s a problem with women who use sexuality as a means to an end. But it is becoming too large of a crutch.

Sarah Connor, of the Terminator franchise (hmm, yet another written by James Cameron…) is also an example of a strong woman, a bad-ass who doesn’t thrust sexuality in our faces as a means to get what she wants. Sarah is a pawn in her own fate, and the fate of the world, and rather than succumb to the helpless situation of defeating a machine that will not stop, she fights, sometimes brutally.

A woman who fights is not necessarily a strong female, but a woman who fights with a greater purpose, an honorable purpose, is much more powerful.

And then you have women like Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) in The Fifth Element, who runs around in the movie mostly in little to no clothing. But her innocence as a character, as a being who rarely exists, is enough to overthrow the overt sexuality in the character and bring her to a new level, a respectable level of a person lost in a conflict, unaware of her surroundings.

In The Matrix, Carrie Ann Moss opens the entire series in a skintight black leather suit, kicks ass using back flips and forward flips, shot in cool matrix-cam slow-mo, then casually leaves the room. The rest of her time in the overall story is spent looking cool within the matrix, and appearing to be innocent and “just” sexy on the ship. As a character, she is a freedom fighter, but as a movie presence, she is eye candy. Just like Monica Belluci was in her few seconds of screen time.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The female Indiana Jones, some might say. Tight shirts, highlighted curves, oozing with sexuality as she climbs a rope or flips into a secret passageway. Like her character in Wanted, Jolie simply overflows with sexuality, such that any hope of character development or interation is entirely lost. Look at her in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, yet again, for evidence that her own sexuality is her only weapon. Again, it’s not necessarily a weak thing for a woman to use sex to get past obstacles. It’s just a crutch, one used far too often these days.

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth does, at one point, use sex as a defense mechanism, as a weird way of putting up a wall between her and a guy that she likes. But it works, only because we see her use sex in a much more cruel way as a defense against abuse. Her motivations are set up, and her experiences — as we’ve seen them — make the use of sex understandable and a part of her character, not just eye candy on the silver screen.

She will not sex you up. Only mess you up.

And what do all these lovely ladies bring us to? I would say the hybrid, the woman we saw this weekend. ScarJo played  the Black Widow, and fights in the ultra sexy body suit, using moves that would make a gymnast cringe. And she does it all without seducing, without thrusting cleavage in our faces (make no mistake, there is cleavage, there is an amazing body, but her body is not the weapon, nor is she trying to seduce anyone). One could chalk this up to Scarlet’s screen presence, or lack thereof, but I think she’s smarter than that.

I guess I’m just making the case that we don’t need a woman who looks good and uses herself just because she looks good. I’d rather a woman be a fighting machine and oh, by the way, she looks great, too, rather than “let’s try to bang her and hope that she can fight, too”.

A woman with a gun is a powerful woman, and can give you a sexy look, but a woman with only her fists who doesn’t waste time looking you up and down is a much more confident, stronger, and powerful woman.

What do you think? What makes a strong female character to you, either in action films or in other films? Sound back below, privates!

You are dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

I haven’t had sympathy for an alien like this since E.T.…

I know it doesn’t show it too much in the trailer, but the emotional portrayal of the aliens in District 9 is as engrossing as the action is. I’m sure you’ll be hearing much, much more about this film in the next few months.

District 9, a film written and directed by Neill Blomkamp (yes that Neill B. from HALO film fame), is a guaranteed “sleeper hit” for 2009. Blomkamp has almost crafted a new genre in the industry, “docu-action” films. The movie starts as almost a straight up documentary and then seamlessly moves into an action/adventure/sci-fi. The young film maker worked hard under the wing of Peter Jackson throughout the whole process. Peter Jackson felt bad that Neill was unable to get the HALO feature film on its feet so he helped back him in a new venture. (Peter Jackson’s WETA DIGITAL helped in the production of the HALO short films.) While looking through Neill’s older short films (a recommended viewing for sure), he and Mr. Jackson both agreed “Alive in Joburg” (watch before seeing District 9 to see the inspiration) was the strongest and lent itself to a rich universe for storytelling.

District 9 takes place in present day South Africa. Aliens have been living in amongst humans for about 20 years. Over the years the aliens have developed a small community known to the public as, “District 9.” Illegal acts and general hatred towards the “prawns” have surrounded the area.

Once the government decides to move the aliens to a new area outside of Johannesburg, chaos ensues.

I won’t tell much more, for fear of ruining the film for you. If you hate spoilers as much as I do, you’ll appreciate me keeping my mouth shut. The beauty of District 9 is its ability to show just enough for you to enjoy the film. It doesn’t explain the full back stories of the aliens, it doesn’t explain much of the technology, it doesn’t even explain what happens to some of the characters at the end of the film. The great thing is, I don’t think it needs to. The digital effects and story line are woven together so well it’s believable without having to over explain itself. All you know is that these alien creatures, who once had a purpose, are now misguided, confused, and stuck on Earth. There are so many little nuggets of goodness in District 9. The movie is well made in almost every way. The story is well written, the directing is great, the digital and sound effects are amazing, the acting is believable (rare for such an effects heavy film), and the little sprinkles of humor are a delight. There are moments where you actually feel sad for the aliens in their persecution from the humans. Look at the aliens themselves. The locals in Johannesburg give the nickname “prawn” to the insect/crustacean race. “Prawn” is almost a play off the word, “pawn.” Pawns are useless without their king or queen in chess. These aliens are mindless without their leader on Earth. Genius writing!

You would think, “Well, if Peter Jackson if helping produce this then it must be big budget, and it HAS to be good.” Wrong. This film could of been as lame as any of the other independent sci-fi films out there. D-9 was made with a virtually unknown director, a small time actor in a lead role, and only a $30 million budget. (Peanuts my friend, peanuts for Hollywood sci-fi films.) To put it into perspective, Transformers 2 was said to have been made on a budget of over $150 million budget, and all the eye candy of a cast on Gossip Girl. Some of the special effects in D-9 rivaled Transformers 2, I think. The creature effects were fluid and the action never felt like watching a video game.

There really isn’t much more to say except that if you like: Sci-fi’s, documentaries, special effects, Peter Jackson, alien technology, South Africa, “sweeties,” mech’s, pig launching, vomit, baby aliens, or just GOOD MOVIES… GO SEE DISTRICT 9!! Support good indy films and an upcoming director (Neill Blomkamp) and actor (Sharlto Copley)!

-“Ash”

Some sites to check out:

http://www.district9movie.com/
http://www.multinationalunited.com/training/
http://www.d-9.com/
http://www.multinationalunited.com/
http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/
http://www.mathsfromouterspace.com/

P.S. August 21st is AVATAR DAY! Don’t forget to go check out a sneak peak (in glorious IMAX 3D) of one of the most anticipated films from James Cameron since T2!!

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