Monthly Archives: September 2024

Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (7) Adam Warren – Empowered

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Cover of Empowered volume 1 by creator – artist and writer – Adam Warren

(7) ADAM WARREN –

EMPOWERED (Dark Horse 2007 – present)

 

“A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn’t)”

 

The titular heroine and her series, originated from commissioned ‘bondage’ sketches of a comics superheroine ‘damsel-in-distress’, which then became the basis for the episodic shorts for the commencement of the series, illustrated in Warren’s characteristic ‘manga’ influenced style. The series started (and still continues to some extent) as a playful deconstruction of superhero comics tropes, particularly those involving female superheroes, along with (in the words of TV Tropes) “healthy doses of bondage, fanservice and comedy”.

Indeed, it’s a fantasy kitchen sink of comics tropes and more – alien doomsday technology, clans of ninjas in New Jersey, grandiloquent interdimensional hell-beings (trapped in coffee table ornaments), deals with the devil, psi powers, undead superheroes (or the ‘superdead’) and catgirls (nyaan!)

Empowered herself is a “plucky D-list superheroine”, who is precariously dependent and constantly betrayed by the fragile, fickle source of her superpowers – her skin-tight ‘hypermembrane’ suit. As a consequence, Empowered spends most of her time with her suit in tatters or various states of undress, bound and gagged by supervillains or even common criminals, a joke to her superhero peers and supervillains alike (albeit something of status symbol as arm candy to the latter).

As the series has progressed however, it has developed deeper, darker and longer story arcs – and Empowered has emerged as an increasingly formidable superheroine, relying on her wits and strength of character to overcome the flaws of her suit. On the other hand, her superhero colleagues or ‘Capes’ have become increasingly darker – beware the Superman! Remember San Antonio!

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (8) Mark Millar – The Magic Order

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(8) MARK MILLAR –

THE MAGIC ORDER (Image 2019-2023)

 

“We live in a world where we’ve never seen a monster, and The Magic Order is the reason we sleep safely in our beds.”

 

The Apocalypse according to Mark.

Mark Millar, that is.

Of course, that epithet of the Apocalypse according to Mark applies much more to his American Jesus – indeed literally but it is intriguing how often Millar gets apocalyptic in his comics, literally or figuratively.

I have two favorite particular subgenres of fantasy. The first and narrowest is what might be termed apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic fantasy, particularly if based on the actual Book of Apocalypse. The second is posthumous fantasy – not in the sense of being published posthumously, but set posthumously or fantasy set in the afterlife.

And I’ve been I’ve been a fan of Mark Millar even since his surreal and characteristically irreverent fantasy comic Canon Fodder in 2000 AD, one that was again apocalyptic in a literal sense and one of the few fantasy works to combine both subgenres. Well, apart from the original Book of Apocalypse.

The Magic Order isn’t apocalyptic in the literal sense but is in the figurative sense of its stakes. The titular order secretly safeguards the world from supernatural and magical threats – such as guarding a magic tome containing the dark spells of Old Atlantis so powerful that it is “”said to cause two world wars and can slay a deity”.

“Magic meets the mob in THE MAGIC ORDER, as five families of magicians-sworn to protect our world for generations-must battle an enemy who’s picking them off one by one. By day, they live among us as our neighbors, friends, and co-workers, but by night, they are the sorcerers, magicians, and wizards that protect us from the forces of darkness…unless the darkness gets them first.”

The first volume featured the American Magic Order while the second and third volumes move to the Magic Order in Europe and Asia.

By the way, Millar returned to posthumous fantasy in his 2017 Reborn comic.

But in a sense this entry bookmarks a place in my top ten I tend to reserve for Millar with one series or another, although The Magic Order does indeed rank as my favorite Millar title at this time. The point is that he consistently writes his own independent creator-owned comics under his unified label Millarworld, usually for Image or Icon – such that I could compile my Top 10 Mark Millar Comics.

It helps that his comics have a healthy rate of adaptation to film or television. The former include titles such as Kickass and Kingsman. The latter is particularly so after his Millarworld label was purchased by Netflix to adapt his comics for television, with my favorite so far as the animated adaptation of Supercrooks. Sadly, The Magic Order is still in production as I understand it.

He also has a very personable profile on X or Twitter.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (9) Charles Soule & Scott Snyder – Undiscovered Country

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(9) CHARLES SOULE & SCOTT SYNDER –

UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (Image 2019 – PRESENT)

 

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early…what the hell is that?!

 

Undiscovered Country starts from what might seem to be a familiar premise but one that becomes increasingly audacious…and beautifully weird. The titular Undiscovered Country is the United States or or what has become of it after it literally walled itself off from the rest of the world for thirty years (the Sealing) – land of the free and home of the brave become literal land of the lost. And by walling, I mean not just the massive physical walls but the ‘Air Wall’ of experimental force shield technology. Of course, there’s more than a few echoes of contemporary political events – and even more so in 2020 for the premise of its plot, a global pandemic that requires a team seeking a cure to breach its borders and venture into this strange and deadly ‘undiscovered’ country.

And that’s where things go “from prescient to Beyond Thunderdome: giant land sharks, tribal lunacy, jingoistic madmen galore…Forget the Land of the Free. This was Mad Max by way of the bastard son of Roald Dahl and Hunter S. Thompson. If they let the baby smoke crack a lot”. And then there’s the fact – evidenced by those mutated land sharks and jingoistic madmen – that as an effect of that force shield, much more time has seemingly passed in the lost United States than should actually be possible…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (10) Kieron Gillen – The Power Fantasy (2024)

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(10) KIERON GILLEN –

THE POWER FANTASY (Image 2024)

 

“Superpowered.” You have certain preconceptions. They’re incorrect. Here, that word has a specific technical definition. Namely, “any individual with the destructive capacity of the nuclear arsenal of the USA.”

 

Okay – I’ll admit that this entry is aspirational, in turn reflecting that it is my usual wildcard tenth place entry for the best of the present or previous year.

And by aspirational, I mean it is this year’s comic that I want to read but haven’t read yet.

In fairness to myself, the first issue was only just released in August 2024 – with issues to follow each month after that. So it will be some time before the first collected edition comes out – generally it take six issues or so before they are released together in a collected edition.

Also in fairness to myself, I have enjoyed previous series written by Kieran Gillon for Image Comics, so have high expectations for this one.

 

“You are of the Pantheon. You will be loved. You will be hated. You will be brilliant. Within two years, you will be dead.”

 

The first was The Wicked + The Divine from 2014 to 2019, a series I previously ranked in my top ten and still one of the best from Gillen or Image Comics. It featured the Pantheon, a shifting rotation of gods in the Recurrence – when twelve gods (and goddesses) return (or incarnate) as young people for a bright, shining two years before burning out, as they have every ninety years for millennia. Except, you know, God, because that would just be boring. We’re talking beautiful, sexy, pop-star pagan gods and goddesses here, although they change with each Recurrence. Or something like that because the rules are not entirely clear and keep changing.

 

The second was Die from 2018 to 2021, a series I would previously have ranked as my wildcard tenth place entry in my top ten. It featured “a pitch-black fantasy where a group of forty-something adults have to deal with the returning unearthly horror they barely survived as teenage role-players” – a concept the writer pitched as “Goth Jumanji” but was more using Dungeons and Dragons as an intriguing exploration of fantasy as a genre.

That extends to the character classes of the game in the story as an intriguing exploration of character classes in Dungeons and Dragons – Dictator (like a bard with mind control mojo), Neo (a cyberpunk mage powered by fairy gold), Godbinder (like a cleric cutting deals with gods), Grief Knight (paladin literally powered by emotion), and Fool (combination of rogue and bard powered by luck). Indeed, the classes and game mechanics were so intriguing that Gillen spun off an actual role-playing game for them.

 

“There are six such people on Earth. The planet’s survival relies on them never coming into conflict.

Come dance to the ticking of the doomsday clock…”

 

So I’m looking forward to the collected edition of Power Fantasy…although I also want to read We Called Them Giants released in collected edition in October 2024 – which also qualifies it for my wildcard tenth place entry.

 

RATING: 4 STARS**** (based on my ratings for his previous series)

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Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Poetry (1) T.S. Eliot – The Wasteland (1922)

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(1) T.S. ELIOT – THE WASTELAND (1922)

 

“And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust”

 

Apocalyptic poet. Also one of the most name-dropped poets, including in Catch-22 (“Name me a poet who makes money!”)

Also Old Possum, as in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Yes – T.S. Eliot is the origin of the musical Cats.

 

 

Also – the Warrior of the Wasteland! The Ayatollah of Rock and Roll-ah! Well, not quite. That is the Lord Humungus from Mad Max: The Road Warrior. But Eliot was the Poet of The Wasteland.

It would be interesting to adapt The Wasteland in the style of Mad Max. Except it would involve a lot less BDSM leather kink and a lot more mind-screw.

It would also be interesting to adapt The Wasteland into horror – it verges on it already. That fear in a handful of dust for one. For another, the titular theme of the mythic Waste Land as post-apocalyptic setting without redemption or resurrection – “That corpse you planted last year in your garden. Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?” The Wasteland as zombie apocalypse, perhaps? Or slasher film?

 

“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper”

 

Even The Wasteland is laid waste in The Hollow Men, a more straightforward and shorthand poem of the same themes. Shout-out also to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the third of the Eliot holy trinity. The central bathos is there in the title – the juxtaposition of the lofty “love-song” with the commonplace and ludicrous banality of the protagonist himself.

 

“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.”

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (Special Mention) (8) Peloponnesian War

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Destruction of the Athenian army at Syracuse – illustration from John Steeple Davis, The story of the greatest nations, from the dawn of history to the twentieth century, published 1900 (public domain image used in Wkipedia – “Pelopponesian War”)

 

(8) PELOPONNESIAN WAR (431-404 BC)

 

Greek against Greek – Athens vs Sparta.

There was a point when I cracked during the film 300. It was when Leonidas spoke about the necessity of Sparta fighting Persia because even “those boy-loving philosophers” in Athens were fighting Persia. “Screw you, Leonidas”, I yelled “the Peloponnesian War isn’t over!” And after the ushers bounced me from the cinema, I ruminated on this slur on the Athenians. There was of course the fact that they were the true Greek heroes of the Persian Wars.

But there was also, you know, the Peloponnesian War of Athens against Sparta (or Peloponnesian Wars, as there was first and second war with a brief peace between them).

And we’re still fighting it, in that the war between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta underlies the grand ideological conflict in Western civilization. Few things may actually have an ideal Platonic form, but Sparta did – Plato’s Republic, with its philosopher-kings or guardians who perceive the Forms of the true reality, trained from childhood to govern in the interests of the polity (by physical and moral regimen) and bound by stricter rules than the rest of the populace.

It has been argued that Plato’s Republic was a dystopian satire rather than a utopian ideal, but it is difficult not to see it intended as the latter – or worse, as Plato’s distaste for his own democratic Athens (which after all, executed his beloved teacher and philosophical mouthpiece Socrates) and idealization of a philosophical version of Athens rival, Sparta, although he and his ideas didn’t do too well when put into practice with attempts at a philosopher-king in Syracuse.

And so we are still fighting the Peloponnesian War against Plato’s mystical fascism or totalitarian Spartanism as it has recurred throughout Western political ideology – the General Will of Rousseau, the dictatorship of the proletariat and its revolutionary vanguard in Marxism or communism, the Fuhrerprinzip of fascism or Nazism, and so on.

Of course, I know this is mostly my projection. I’m not sure if Western political ideology has actually been influenced by Sparta or even Plato and his Republic to that extent (or how much Sparta and Plato influenced each other for that matter). But I’m not the only one to see such parallels and I’m sticking with it – it has a certain mythic resonance. Hence its god-tier special mention entry second to the Trojan War, which might otherwise seem extravagant for a war between Greek city-states.

And what about, you know, the historical Peloponnesian War, you ask? To paraphrase Martin Prince’s sneer from The Simpsons, I’m aware of its work – namely, that Sparta won, with a little help from their Persian friends, albeit to be humbled later by Thebes, before the Macedonians and Romans swept over all the Greek city states.

And that Athenian political ideas didn’t work too well in Syracuse either, with the disastrous Athenian Syracuse Expedition sometimes likened to the American experience in Vietnam, only a lot worse for the ultimate defeat of Athens in their not so cold war against Sparta.

As I said previously, Plato’s ideas – and Plato himself – didn’t fare too well in Syracuse, when he came closest to implementing his Republic and its philosopher-kings in practical reality through Syracuse and its tyrant. Closest that is, as in not at all, founding the time-honored tradition of how intellectuals fare when courting people in power or political tyranny – running afoul of tyrants and narrowly avoiding execution or literal slavery and imprisonment.

Of course, history is a lot messier than our black and white projections of it. Lest we think of the Spartans too much as the bad guys, while their allies wanted Athens destroyed and its population enslaved after its defeat, it was the Spartans with their warrior code of honor who declined to do so – particularly as they regarded that all of Greece owed Athens a debt of honor for its role in the Persian War. And screw you, Thebes and Corinth! I’ve got a letter for the Corinthians and this time there’s no love in it. I’m an Athenian fan.

And for that matter, even the Spartanism or mystical fascism of Plato in my projection may be more nuanced than that, given it has a recurring appeal to or arguments for it. Even I’m a fan of one of the many pop culture versions of Plato’s Republic – Judge Dredd’s Mega-City One. Mega-City One is essentially Plato’s Republic in twenty-second century America, with the Judges as its philosopher-kings or guardians and the Law as its Forms. Judge Dredd – he is the Forms!

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Mega-City Law – Judge Dredd Cities Quality of Life Rankings

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And now for the even more important question than how one ranks cities in Judge Dredd as heroes or villains – how one would rank them by where one would actually want or at least prefer to live, as an average citizen. In other words, ranking cities in Judge Dredd by the quality of life they provide for their citizens.

Yes, yes – this may seem surprising for a comic that is, after all, a dystopian SF satire. It’s a crapsack world – they all suck, don’t they?

Well, yes and no. You see, some places are more dystopian than others. And what’s even more surprising – the central dystopian setting we all know and love but are happy we aren’t living in, Dredd’s own Mega-City One, is far from the most dystopian. Mega-City One actually ranks midway through my rankings.

So here are my rankings of Judge Dredd cities by quality of life, from best to worst. Only cities still in existence get a main ranking – but some dead cities get special mention.

 

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(1) OZ – SYDNEY-MELBOURNE CONURB

 

Hands down the best place to live in Dredd’s twenty-second century world – and it’s not even close for the next best. The Oz Judges are laidback as are its citizens. Like the former United States, Australia outside the coastal cities is a wasteland – known as the Radback – but that’s not too different from Australia at present, with its concentration of population in urban cities. (Although one presumes the Oz economy is driven by robot mining in the Radback). It looks like life for the average citizen could compare reasonably well to our present world.

 

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(2) HONDO CITY

 

Look – it’s a close call between my entries from second to fourth place, but I’m going with Japan’s Hondo City in second place, with its high quality of life for its citizens a result of it being the most technologically advanced mega-city in the twenty-second century. Its Judges also appear to be among the most benevolent to its citizens, who in turn are among the most law-abiding. Sure, there’s exceptions to both – corruption among Judges and crime by the Yakuza – but that’s no different from any other mega-city and arguably better than most.

 

 

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(3) EMERALD ISLE

 

Yes – it may have been introduced as a biting satire of Irish stereotypes and essentially a glorified theme park under Brit Cit control…but ironically for all the satire, it looked like a pleasant place for the average citizen to live. A rural landscape of rustic villages as opposed to the urban hellholes of other mega-cities – or for that matter, the radioactive wastelands that had largely replaced natural or rural landscapes elsewhere. Not to mention citizens – and Judges for that matter – who just liked to take it easy and have a pint, suffering virtual culture shock when confronted with the casual brutality of Mega-City One’s Judges or criminals.

 

 

(4) BRIT CIT

 

Mega-City One lite.

No, seriously – a smaller mega-city with many of the same problems as Mega-City One but not as far advanced along the same dystopian path and therefore a somewhat more pleasant place to live, even if it is British.

 

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(5) MEGA-CITY ONE

 

Yes – I am as surprised as you are. Mega-City One may rank behind four other mega-cities for quality of life but it ranks above the others. As dystopian as it is, it’s just not that bad and life for many of its citizens is decent.

 

 

(6) TEXAS CITY

 

Pretty much like Mega-City One only, you know, if Mega-City One was in Texas…so a little worse. No, seriously – the British writers liked to play up the Texan or Southern stereotypes so of course it’s depicted as a little worse than Mega-City One. The Judges are literal cowboy cops.

 

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(7) EAST MEG TWO

 

I mean, come on – they’re the Sovs, albeit the better of the two East-Meg cities and not just because it hasn’t been nuked. From what little we see of life there, it does indeed appear to be more authoritarian and brutal than the American mega-cities, not to mention poorer and with less quality of life.

Yes, yes – there was something of a parallel drawn between the East-Meg One Diktatorat and Judge Dredd in their mutual indifference about informing their citizens of the outbreak of the Apocalypse War. No offense but as I said when looking at the Apocalypse War, that parallel just sounded like some drokking Sov-loving commie gobbledygook to me…

USA! USA! USA!

 

 

(8) SINO CIT TWO

 

The details of life in Sino Cit Two are vague but by all indications they would appear to be similar to the Sov mega-cities, only worse. It appears to be richer than its Sov counterparts but more efficient in its authoritarianism.

 

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(9) CIUDAD BARANQUILLA

 

And there you have it – hands down the worst place to live in Dredd’s twenty-second century. Unless you’re a Judge or one of its rich citizens – but even then things can go wrong. Essentially a corrupt racket or criminal gang disguised as a mega-city, alternating between brutalizing its citizens – inmates tend not to survive its prisons, at least in one piece – and extorting them.

 

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SPECIAL MENTION (1) LUNA-1 (SPACE COLONIES)

 

Essentially the Wild West frontier of Mega-City One (as well as other mega-cities), with all the pros and cons of the frontier. Mega-city citizens go to the moon to seek a better life – and the same goes for other space colonies, only more so for those on Earth-like planets in “alien space” where you don’t have to answer to the Oxygen Board for your air.

So if anything I’d probably rank Luna-1 and other space colonies in general as somewhat above Mega-City One in quality of life.

 

 

SPECIAL MENTION (2) CURSED EARTH

 

Where Mega-City One is dystopian, the Cursed Earth is post-apocalyptic.

Yes, yes – the Cursed Earth isn’t a mega-city (and for that matter has wide variations within it)…but it is an important setting in Judge Dredd, second in frequency only to Mega-City One itself. And people – not just mutants – do live there. Indeed, it is surprisingly populated for a radioactive wasteland. So how does it compare for quality of life?

Well not good, obviously – it is the Cursed Earth, after all. There’s a reason that muties are constantly seeking to get into Mega-City One – and not just as an allegory for illegal immigration in our world. So if I were to rank it against actual mega-cities, I’d have to rank it below Mega-City One…but probably above Ciudad Baranquilla.

And surprisingly, it’s not all that bad either. Parts of it appear quite decent – otherwise you wouldn’t have that many human settlements in it. For that matter, Mega-City One has its own colonies or settlements in it, that often seem better than Mega-City One itself. Heck – just like the muties desperately trying to get into Mega-City One, there are often Mega-City One residents who seem equally as desperate to get out of Mega-City One to the Cursed Earth, whether to Mega-City One’s colonies or otherwise. That was the premise of the Helltrekkers story. Mind you, the whole point of that story was the hell part of the trek – but then there wouldn’t have been a story if it was uneventful.

And similarly to Mega-City One itself compared to other cities, the Cursed Earth ranks about midway when compared to the world’s other radioactive wastelands. The Radback would appear better – just as Australia has the best mega-city, it also has the best wasteland – but it would definitely rank above the Radlands of Ji.

 

 

SPECIAL MENTION (3) MEGA-CITY TWO

 

RIP Mega-City Two

It’s a pity, as I’d actually have ranked Mega-City Two above Mega-City One for quality of life, perhaps aptly enough for the latter’s West Coast counterpart. It had nicer beachfront – the relatively unpolluted Pacific compared to the Black Atlantic – and its Judges were more easy-going. Perhaps too easy-going, given that it’s not around any more.

 

 

SPECIAL MENTION (4) EAST MEG ONE

 

RIP East Meg One

Stronger than East Meg Two, but it loses marks for the authoritarian brutality and casual callousness towards casualties, even its own, in going to war against Mega-City One while East Meg Two preferred a more glasnost approach. And of course for not existing anymore, a not unrelated fact. While it was around, I probably would have ranked it just below East Meg Two.

 

You get the idea…

 

SPECIAL MENTION (5) SINO CIT ONE

 

RIP Sino Cit One

Essentially the same compared to Sino Cit Two as East Meg One compared to East Meg Two

 

 

 

SPECIAL MENTION (6) VEGAS CITY

 

RIP Vegas City

But not in the same feel-good way as Mega-City Two, where you had something generally to mourn. Vegas City was a literal mafia state which existed solely on gambling. While it was around, I’d have ranked it marginally above Ciudad Baranquilla, because at least it looked like it could be fun if you were lucky or could keep your winning run going. And I had a soft spot for the Lady Luck character who popped up in the Missionary Man story – it sure helps to be a psi to stay lucky in Vegas.

 

 

SPECIAL MENTION (7) DEADWORLD

 

Trick mention – there is no quality of life in Deadworld because everyone’s dead, except of course the Dark Judges who are undead. Quality of life? Ha! Life is a crime and the sentence is death.

Mind you, even before the Dark Judges took over, Deadworld would have ranked below Ciudad Baranquilla in corruption and callous brutality. How else do you think the Dark Judges were able to take over?

Although, it would have been interesting to see Ciudad Baranquilla square off with the Dark Judges. Or other mega-cities for that matter – why do the Dark Judges always target Mega-City One?

 

Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics

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The famous and iconic cover of Superman’s very first appearance in Action Comics

 

COMICS: TOP 10

 

Exactly what it says on the tin – my Top 10 Comics, including webcomics (as three of my top ten entries, indeed three of the top five).

You don’t need me to explain what comics are, but I might need to explain some things.

First, comics are my guilty reading pleasure I have retained from childhood, much like animation in TV or film. And much like animation, whatever the comic, I’ll usually enjoy checking it or its characters out.

Second, perhaps surprisingly after the first, I don’t read that many comics, let alone actively follow them. For most comics, I don’t go beyond checking them or their characters out in brief overview or review to reading them in depth. Usually, my interest is satisfied by the idea of a comic – or ideas in a comic – rather than the comic itself.

In particular, I don’t follow or read any comics from the ruling duopoly of DC and Marvel, with the exception of the former’s, ah, former label of Vertigo, although I have an enduring interest in and familiarity with many of their characters – but more in their film or television adaptations (or in their art and cosplay) than their original comics.

Anyway, these are my Top 10 Comics.

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Poetry (2) Dylan Thomas – Do not go gentle into that good night

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(2) DYLAN THOMAS –

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT (1951)

 

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night”.

Wales’ leading poet, druid dude and pantheistic Jedi of the Force – “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower”. Also “prince of the apple-towns” in Fern Hill and the young dog in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

“Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

A “roistering, drunken and doomed poet”, who left the world at 39 – “I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me”. Don’t we all?

“And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (Special Mention) (7) Bronze Age Collapse

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Sea Peoples in their ships during battle with the Egyptians – relief from the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu (public domain image – Wikipedia “Late Bronze Age Collapse”and “Sea Peoples”)

 

(7) BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE

 

Styled as World War Zero by some historians.

The Bronze Age Collapse – or more precisely Late Bronze Age Collapse – was the widespread societal collapse of Mediterranean Bronze Age civilization in the 12th century BC, argued to be worse than the collapse of the western Roman Empire or even the worst case of societal collapse in human history.

Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece – the Greeks of the Trojan War – were among the most famous casualties, ushering in the Greek Dark Ages for a few centuries.

However, they are among about a dozen ancient civilizations that collapsed or declined – foremost among them the Hittite Empire that collapsed in Anatolia, while Egypt’s New Kingdom and the Assyrians clung on by the skin of their teeth, in decline or weakened. “Almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again.”

I don’t know much about the finer details of the Bronze Age Collapse, but then neither does anyone else ultimately, as it remains the subject of argument and theory.

However, war is often cited as the main culprit, typically at the hands of the mysterious and to some extent still hypothetical “Sea Peoples”, seaborne raiders to rival the more usual horse blitzkrieg of nomadic herding tribes in civilization-crushing effect.

I certainly think war played a major part, hence this special mention, although am less clear whether it was the cause of the collapse or an effect – with the latter involving the Sea Peoples and others effectively moving into the void left by collapsing civilizations.

Interestingly, the Sea Peoples are proposed to include a number of ethnic groups – one of which is identified as the ancestors of the Philistines faced by the Israelites in the Bible. The Israelites themselves rose in the vaccuum left behind by the retreat or collapse of Hittites, Egyptians and Assyrians – so that the Bible itself has origins in the Bronze Age Collapse, as does that other landmark of western culture, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Apart from Sea Peoples and war, other causes are proposed for the collapse – political fragmentation or rebellion within societies, drought or famine, natural disasters such as earthquakes or volcanic eruption, plagues, and the collapse of trade for manufacture of bronze (or the emergence of iron among adversaries).

Or a combination of all of these – “the civilizations could have endured any one disaster, but not multiple at the same time, especially not when they were feeding into one another”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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