As I was writing about the Union Dues stories, I was wondering when we would get the next one. Turns out, the next one came out three days before I wrote that article!
EP128: Union Dues - Send in the Clowns is written by Jeffrey R. DeRego and read by Dani Cutler. It is the fifth in the Union Dues podcast stories. In this fifth story, Send in the Clowns shows how hard it can be to be a super-hero and obey the Union's rules at the same time. As a super hero, you have to deal with the people on the ground, but the Union sets rules to do with image management that make it hard to work out what action is right sometimes. Even the Union's hypnotically embedded training cannot provide all the answers. The characterisations are relatively personal, and you care about Megaton and Chrome as super-heroes who care more about doing the job, but Chrome gets caught up in the rules. Dani Cutler's reading is good - but has she got a blocked nose or something? Her voice was very nasally, which was somewhat distracting.
This series is strong because it portrays super heroes in a very different light. It eschews the comic book mandate of super heroes battling super villains, showing off super powers and (literally) paper thin plots. Instead, this series focuses on the moral dilemmas that might arise in a world where super-heroes get organised into a union. A union that looks after the interests of super heroes as individuals (training, supplies, marketing) and groups (marketing, legal frameworks, deployment of super heroes where needed).
Iron Bars and the Glass Jaw reveals some of the dichotomy involved in trying to live as a super human among normal humans, and the notion of "super-hero as a job". Off White Lies gives a little hint about where the bad guys might be really coming from. The Baby and the Bathwater explores even further the dichotomy of being a super human among normal humans by showing one reason why the Union is needed and hated at the same time. Cleanup in Aisle Five explores how hard it is to manage the image of super heroes in a prejudiced, greedy and short sighted world.
In this fifth story, Send in the Clowns, which focuses again on image management, this time showing how the machinations of "the greater good" can affect the individual - and how important it is to still try and be yourself.
I notice two common themes in these stories which are worthy of note.
Big Brother. In order to look after the greater good, you need someone to make hard decisions, someone to take in all the ambiguity of real life and decide what "greater good" really means. Inevitably, this leads to decisions that will chew up and spit out, as easily (but hopefully less often) as adopt and nurture. Big Brother means more than that though - it also means ulterior motives, which comes down to whose definition of the "greater good" is really driving the show. This gives the series a touch of X-Files: you have plenty of super (natural/human) and just a few Cancer Man plot devices to keep you wondering.
Dichotomy. This is what I like most about the series so far. Being a super hero is hard. You have to leave behind your family and your community, because they become liabilities. You can't always protect them from yourself when you have powers that might kill as easily as save. You can't protect them from all the baddies that know who it is you love (thought the Union Dues stories have yet to explore this aspect). And you can't protect yourself from the fear many of them will have, fear of you. Being super means being different, it means having awe and jealousy inspiring powers. It also means being held up to a whole new set of double standards: you are not normal like us, but you still can't prevent every crime or catch every villain.
In my opinion the strongest of the series is still the first - Iron Bars and the Glass Jaw - because it gave me my first glance into this new vision of super hero-dom, of a society trying desperately to integrate supers and normals in a world where most of us identify ourselves with our job.
In further super-hero fiction news, another player has just hit the presses! Mur Lafferty is releasing her new superhero podcast novel, Playing for Keeps - look for it at http://www.playingforkeepsnovel.com and Podio Books. I have sampled the first chapter thanks to Escape Pod, and I am dying for more.
Showing posts with label super hero fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label super hero fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Union Dues
Earlier today I wrote about Path of the Bold, a collection super hero fiction I finished reading this weekend. This post is about a series (four so far) of podcast super hero stories on Escape Pod called Union Dues.
Two elements of super hero fiction engage us by making the heroes accessible, turning them into characters we can understand and identify with in terms of our own lives: awakening and strife. Awakening is the hero discovering something special about themselves and finding the courage to do something good with that power. Strife is the conflict that inevitably follows, in their personal and 'professional' lives. Most adults have awakenings of some sort or another, any time we find we have some skill or talent and slowly test it out. Heroes have the same thing, only their skills and talents are flashy, giving us something to look upon with awe. We all have strife. I once heard a comedian describe life as 75 years of getting kicked in the bollocks in various interesting ways. Like the awakening, a hero's strife is markedly more exaggerated. The key to "Path of the Bold" is that it showed the personal strife as being much the same. Each story struck a chord in this way.
Union Dues is a magnificent set of Super Hero Pod cast stories written by Jeffrey R. DeRego, hosted on Escape Pod. It plays upon the same elements of awakening and strife, tones down the former and tweaks up the latter in a way I have never seen before in other fiction. Like "Path of the Bold" and so many comic books, "Union Dues" is set in a world where heroes are common, almost 'every day'. But whereas "Path of the Bold" and so many comic books show groups of super heroes in small groups like "The Guard" and "Justice League", in the Union Dues world, the heroes have a union!
Being a super hero is hard enough.
Heroes might be super agile, super strong, energy manipulators, mind readers or super strategists. Cool huh? The strife starts young: powers develop early, sometimes while the child is a toddler or baby. An energy manipulator might electrocute their parents to death in a simple temper tantrum. Like a caring Big Brother, the Union looks after heroes by taking them in as soon as their powers manifest (read: legal, mandatory adoption). It indoctrinates the young heroes so that the Union rules and regulations are imprinted on their minds. The Union is a law unto itself, and operates much as other services like the police or fire fighters. The Union provides a valuable service: with thousands of super heroes, who is going to cater to their special needs? Who can train them, provide the equipment, costumes and legal protection for when innocents are hurt? The Union.
Here is the crux of the strife. As much as people like super heroes for all the good they do, we dislike them in almost equal measure. We fear them. They are different, not like us, they think they are so much better than us! And so the stories work by putting the heroes into a contemporary scenario - a government size bureaucracy with unknowable leaders pulling strings - and throwing in a hefty dose of "X-Men" 'scary mutant' xenophobia.
This makes for a lot of well thought out tension, and the protagonists are put through their mental paces. They have to control themselves, and somehow placate themselves into dealing with the normals nicely. Like us, they are trapped - all of us, trapped, in our work-aday lives. This is a very different style of conflict to the gritty gothic darkness of Batman, the edgy uneasy balance of power and romance in Spiderman, and more cerebral than the xenophobia of X-Men. I like it a lot... yet.. I am ready for some action. We need to see the heroes kickin' ass and takin' names a bit more - that tension has to change a bit, develop and grow.
Find all the Union Dues podcasts by searching Escape Pod with key words "Union Dues". Below is a brief synopsis of the four so far in the series.
EP027: Union Dues - Iron Bars and the Glass Jaw. By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Jonathon Sullivan. The introduction story to the Union Dues world. super heroes.. have a union?! I will have to ask my boss for a comic book of my own! Features an excellent intro by Stephen Eley, where he iterates over some of the differences between for a writer when choosing to set a story in an alien world or a world "like ours". This story provides a detailed exposition about the separation of super heroes and other heroes, and how hard it is for all of them to get along.
EP049: Union Dues - Off White Lies. By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Scott Sigler. Now I know where the bad guys came from. I swear I saw an episode of X-Files covering this topic. With a bureaucracy as large as the Union, you have to wonder, where does all the work come from?
EP062: Union Dues - The Baby and the Bathwater. By Jeffrey R. DeRego Read by Mur Lafferty (of I Should Be Writing and Geek Fu Action Grip. Tells of the harsh cost to family of having a super-hero baby, damned either way. Somehow, us normals don't accept the realm of super heroes too well - "X-Men" anyone? What would happen if we tried to live together, I wonder? Could normals and supers really integrate?
EP080: Union Dues - Cleanup in Aisle Five. By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Rich Sigfrit. Carries the same muted, somewhat dark undertones as the other three. Again, this story shows us that being a hero really isn't all that glamorous and that super powers don't make it easy being accepted.
This is a brilliant series and I am eager to hear more. Jeffrey R. DeRego, if you are listening - well done, but I do have a suggestion. I get the gritty "hard to fit in" message. Now can we have some flashy "I love to kick butt" messages? Please? *grin*
Two elements of super hero fiction engage us by making the heroes accessible, turning them into characters we can understand and identify with in terms of our own lives: awakening and strife. Awakening is the hero discovering something special about themselves and finding the courage to do something good with that power. Strife is the conflict that inevitably follows, in their personal and 'professional' lives. Most adults have awakenings of some sort or another, any time we find we have some skill or talent and slowly test it out. Heroes have the same thing, only their skills and talents are flashy, giving us something to look upon with awe. We all have strife. I once heard a comedian describe life as 75 years of getting kicked in the bollocks in various interesting ways. Like the awakening, a hero's strife is markedly more exaggerated. The key to "Path of the Bold" is that it showed the personal strife as being much the same. Each story struck a chord in this way.
Union Dues is a magnificent set of Super Hero Pod cast stories written by Jeffrey R. DeRego, hosted on Escape Pod. It plays upon the same elements of awakening and strife, tones down the former and tweaks up the latter in a way I have never seen before in other fiction. Like "Path of the Bold" and so many comic books, "Union Dues" is set in a world where heroes are common, almost 'every day'. But whereas "Path of the Bold" and so many comic books show groups of super heroes in small groups like "The Guard" and "Justice League", in the Union Dues world, the heroes have a union!
Being a super hero is hard enough.
Heroes might be super agile, super strong, energy manipulators, mind readers or super strategists. Cool huh? The strife starts young: powers develop early, sometimes while the child is a toddler or baby. An energy manipulator might electrocute their parents to death in a simple temper tantrum. Like a caring Big Brother, the Union looks after heroes by taking them in as soon as their powers manifest (read: legal, mandatory adoption). It indoctrinates the young heroes so that the Union rules and regulations are imprinted on their minds. The Union is a law unto itself, and operates much as other services like the police or fire fighters. The Union provides a valuable service: with thousands of super heroes, who is going to cater to their special needs? Who can train them, provide the equipment, costumes and legal protection for when innocents are hurt? The Union.
Here is the crux of the strife. As much as people like super heroes for all the good they do, we dislike them in almost equal measure. We fear them. They are different, not like us, they think they are so much better than us! And so the stories work by putting the heroes into a contemporary scenario - a government size bureaucracy with unknowable leaders pulling strings - and throwing in a hefty dose of "X-Men" 'scary mutant' xenophobia.
This makes for a lot of well thought out tension, and the protagonists are put through their mental paces. They have to control themselves, and somehow placate themselves into dealing with the normals nicely. Like us, they are trapped - all of us, trapped, in our work-aday lives. This is a very different style of conflict to the gritty gothic darkness of Batman, the edgy uneasy balance of power and romance in Spiderman, and more cerebral than the xenophobia of X-Men. I like it a lot... yet.. I am ready for some action. We need to see the heroes kickin' ass and takin' names a bit more - that tension has to change a bit, develop and grow.
Find all the Union Dues podcasts by searching Escape Pod with key words "Union Dues". Below is a brief synopsis of the four so far in the series.
EP027: Union Dues - Iron Bars and the Glass Jaw. By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Jonathon Sullivan. The introduction story to the Union Dues world. super heroes.. have a union?! I will have to ask my boss for a comic book of my own! Features an excellent intro by Stephen Eley, where he iterates over some of the differences between for a writer when choosing to set a story in an alien world or a world "like ours". This story provides a detailed exposition about the separation of super heroes and other heroes, and how hard it is for all of them to get along.
EP049: Union Dues - Off White Lies. By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Scott Sigler. Now I know where the bad guys came from. I swear I saw an episode of X-Files covering this topic. With a bureaucracy as large as the Union, you have to wonder, where does all the work come from?
EP062: Union Dues - The Baby and the Bathwater. By Jeffrey R. DeRego Read by Mur Lafferty (of I Should Be Writing and Geek Fu Action Grip. Tells of the harsh cost to family of having a super-hero baby, damned either way. Somehow, us normals don't accept the realm of super heroes too well - "X-Men" anyone? What would happen if we tried to live together, I wonder? Could normals and supers really integrate?
EP080: Union Dues - Cleanup in Aisle Five. By Jeffrey R. DeRego. Read by Rich Sigfrit. Carries the same muted, somewhat dark undertones as the other three. Again, this story shows us that being a hero really isn't all that glamorous and that super powers don't make it easy being accepted.
This is a brilliant series and I am eager to hear more. Jeffrey R. DeRego, if you are listening - well done, but I do have a suggestion. I get the gritty "hard to fit in" message. Now can we have some flashy "I love to kick butt" messages? Please? *grin*
Path of the Bold
This book has been released into the wild!
Edited by James Lowder, this anthology contains fifteen short stories about super-heroes, centred mostly around Empire City.
I was never much into comic books, but I love super-hero movies like The Hulk, Spiderman and Superman. The stories in this collection are set mostly in the same 'reality' and include some heroes and villains in common.
I enjoyed this book's consideration of heroes, as people with fears and hang ups as well as super powers and super images. They seem real in a way that Tobey Maguire's Spiderman captured well. These heroes have concerns such as how they are going to make a living and protect the ones they love.
"Fanboy" by James Lowder depicts the making of a new super villain, showing again how easy it is to find yourself on the path from Anakin to Vader. It is really hard to break into the super hero business when the market is already swamped. They really should have published his comics.
There are powerful themes echoing in different ways throughout these stories.
The theme that found most resonance with me was the awakening. Ordinary people, down-trodden people, crushed heroes or dis-heartened heroes discovering or re-discovering their special power and, more importantly, finding the desire and courage to do something with their gifts. This is what make heroic fiction so endearing. We all want to feel like we are special, and most of us want to make difference in some way.
If you are going to be caught on the news flying through the air and catching falling cars using only the power of your mind, you might as well do it while looking good, or at least .. shiny. Clothes maketh the super hero, as they say. The "Sir Spandex" image of a super hero in bright skin-tight costumes was played upon. Super-heroes are portrayed as living constantly in the spot light of media attention. Some comic books about real life heroes are created by the real life heroes themselves! A costume is important. Apart from whatever enhancements or super powers a costume grants you, it is a focus point that fuses actions with image, ego with a visualisation of self. Costumes become icons, which have a power all by themselves. There was a cool image in "R.A.O.K." by Joe Murphy: Raymond puts on a crude Sentinel mask, and the icon in place he feels like he can help out, "Do what you can...".
"Forever Young" by Lucien Soulban was something different. It stepped far away from Empire City and showed heroes of a different sort. It showed them as reflections of old myth and recent fairy tale, subtly pointing out that we have had heroes for a long time. Only recently did they start coming in skin tight spandex.
This book is one of the most enjoyable accessible and least comic book like source of super hero fiction I have ever encountered. 9/10.
Review by Nathan Brazil at SF Site.
Get a copy of this book at Amazon.com.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Spiderman 3
I have also put this review on IMDB.com and Escape Pod.
I saw Spiderman 3 recently and enjoyed it greatly for the special effects and for the new bad guys it introduces.
Most of all I empathised with and cheered for Thomas Haden Church's Sandman. His creation scene was sad and poignant: a poor man battling so much bad luck. He couldn't keep his family together and now cannot even keep himself together! I found Sandman's creation scene emotionally resonant with the sand blown scene in Altered States - which I imagined to be an allegory for two people who loved each other but were growing apart so slowly they didn't notice it any more.
An aspect of the first and second Spiderman movies that I most enjoyed was the emotional wrangling Peter Parker went through with his love for MJ. He loves her, but he feels as though he should reject that love, because he cannot protect her from the evil in his life. Ironically, he has brought the evil into his own life by choosing to "fight crime", to be a hero.
By implication, he is choosing the life of a hero over the life of a lover, a partner.
Why does he make this choice? What can make Spiderman reject the love of a good woman? Does he find the draw of being a hero, of having power and glory to be greater than the joy and satisfaction of having a partner? I won't mention the sex. Or does the emotional and moral imperative to help people form an irresistible urge that draws him to the inevitable conclusion that since he can't both help people and have a lover whom he can protect, helping people is what must win out.
I think the first and third movies present different answers to this question. In the first movie I felt that Peter Parker was irresistibly drawn to helping people. But in the third movie, he was after the glory! He fights so hard to make sure Spiderman gets good news paper coverage. Sure, he was under the influence of the black gunk - but it just exaggerates what is already there, so Peter loves the power and glory too.
Escape Pod has a very thoughtful review of Spiderman 3. It questions how easily Peter Parker rids himself of evil. He can strip off the black gunk and is immediately absolved of the evil he has committed (at least in the eyes of the audience). "We always have a choice", Peter says, yet in the words of the reviewer Jonathon Sullivan, Peter Parker paid the smallest price for his own evil.
The problem, Sullivan says, is that true evil comes from humans, not from external objects like black gunk from the sky. By relegating the source of Peter Parker's evil actions to the black gunk, we don't get to examine the true source of evil - the dark thoughts and desires in our hearts.
I find this to be a valid and important point. I was thrilled when Spidey managed to wipe the gunk off himself and "gong it to death", and I enjoyed the resolution he found with Sandman at the end.
However, as I was walking out I wondered "how many people died in the scenes they portrayed?" The movie showed lots of buildings and property getting destroyed - but surely all that damage would have taken quite a few people out as well. The aspect of "Collateral Damage" wasn't addressed - did Peter Parker have nightmares about the innocents who died while he was wearing the black suit? Perhaps this is common enough for all superheroes (or police, or soldiers..): in trying to do good deeds, sometimes innocent people get hurt.
Something I really wanted from Spiderman 3 was a bit more acknowledgment that tearing off the black suit doesn't mean Spiderman has torn all evil thoughts from his heart. It just means they aren't being amplified anymore. Some people will say that was reflected by his statement that "we always have a choice" - the choice to follow through with our dark desires or not. That is true, but I still wanted something more: something I see in shows like Law & Order. That final look on the face of the main character, a lawyer, cop, DA, coffee boy etc: thoughtful but uncomfortable. They are thinking: "something bad has happened, unavoidable, necessary perhaps, but bad - and it can never be taken back.. I hope I can live with myself."
I saw Spiderman 3 recently and enjoyed it greatly for the special effects and for the new bad guys it introduces.
Most of all I empathised with and cheered for Thomas Haden Church's Sandman. His creation scene was sad and poignant: a poor man battling so much bad luck. He couldn't keep his family together and now cannot even keep himself together! I found Sandman's creation scene emotionally resonant with the sand blown scene in Altered States - which I imagined to be an allegory for two people who loved each other but were growing apart so slowly they didn't notice it any more.
An aspect of the first and second Spiderman movies that I most enjoyed was the emotional wrangling Peter Parker went through with his love for MJ. He loves her, but he feels as though he should reject that love, because he cannot protect her from the evil in his life. Ironically, he has brought the evil into his own life by choosing to "fight crime", to be a hero.
By implication, he is choosing the life of a hero over the life of a lover, a partner.
Why does he make this choice? What can make Spiderman reject the love of a good woman? Does he find the draw of being a hero, of having power and glory to be greater than the joy and satisfaction of having a partner? I won't mention the sex. Or does the emotional and moral imperative to help people form an irresistible urge that draws him to the inevitable conclusion that since he can't both help people and have a lover whom he can protect, helping people is what must win out.
I think the first and third movies present different answers to this question. In the first movie I felt that Peter Parker was irresistibly drawn to helping people. But in the third movie, he was after the glory! He fights so hard to make sure Spiderman gets good news paper coverage. Sure, he was under the influence of the black gunk - but it just exaggerates what is already there, so Peter loves the power and glory too.
Escape Pod has a very thoughtful review of Spiderman 3. It questions how easily Peter Parker rids himself of evil. He can strip off the black gunk and is immediately absolved of the evil he has committed (at least in the eyes of the audience). "We always have a choice", Peter says, yet in the words of the reviewer Jonathon Sullivan, Peter Parker paid the smallest price for his own evil.
The problem, Sullivan says, is that true evil comes from humans, not from external objects like black gunk from the sky. By relegating the source of Peter Parker's evil actions to the black gunk, we don't get to examine the true source of evil - the dark thoughts and desires in our hearts.
I find this to be a valid and important point. I was thrilled when Spidey managed to wipe the gunk off himself and "gong it to death", and I enjoyed the resolution he found with Sandman at the end.
However, as I was walking out I wondered "how many people died in the scenes they portrayed?" The movie showed lots of buildings and property getting destroyed - but surely all that damage would have taken quite a few people out as well. The aspect of "Collateral Damage" wasn't addressed - did Peter Parker have nightmares about the innocents who died while he was wearing the black suit? Perhaps this is common enough for all superheroes (or police, or soldiers..): in trying to do good deeds, sometimes innocent people get hurt.
Something I really wanted from Spiderman 3 was a bit more acknowledgment that tearing off the black suit doesn't mean Spiderman has torn all evil thoughts from his heart. It just means they aren't being amplified anymore. Some people will say that was reflected by his statement that "we always have a choice" - the choice to follow through with our dark desires or not. That is true, but I still wanted something more: something I see in shows like Law & Order. That final look on the face of the main character, a lawyer, cop, DA, coffee boy etc: thoughtful but uncomfortable. They are thinking: "something bad has happened, unavoidable, necessary perhaps, but bad - and it can never be taken back.. I hope I can live with myself."
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Eric Bana and the Incredible Lycra Shorts.. err, Hulk!
Saw this in 2003 and loved it!
My IMDB review from 2003! (Text below.)
thought The Hulk was an amazing movie.
I nominate it for First Prize in all movie awards in the `Make-Up and Special Effects' category for the most stunning effect in the whole movie: Eric Banna/Bruce Banner's Super Stretchy Lycra Shorts!
I grew up with Lou Ferrigno's Hulk and it was a wonderful surprise catching his cameo.
Even though I never read The Hulk comics, I greatly appreciated the added color (apart from green!) brought to the movie by the comic book style `split screens, wipes, fades, and boxes'. The story told by the movie shows a warm compassion for my favourite main characters, Eric Bana (Bruce Banner), Jennifer Connelly (Betty Ross), Sam Elliott (Betty's Military Dad) and Nick Nolte (Bruce's Father - a most satisfying anti-hero).
The Hulk effects were very exciting on the big screen, and it fit perfectly with the efforts made to fill in the story of Bruce and his father.
I was getting a tad restless in some parts towards the end of the movie when the energy of the film starts to slide a bit, but I was just too hyped from the action scenes!
My favourite scene: watching Eric Bana's charismatic face made huge, green and angry and then sad, lost, confused and somewhat love struck by the tender face of Jennifer Connelly (Betty Ross). (For some reason, it reminded me of a very funny Eric Bana in Channel 10's Full Frontal - used to be on Australian TV 1992 to 1994.)
My IMDB review from 2003! (Text below.)
thought The Hulk was an amazing movie.
I nominate it for First Prize in all movie awards in the `Make-Up and Special Effects' category for the most stunning effect in the whole movie: Eric Banna/Bruce Banner's Super Stretchy Lycra Shorts!
I grew up with Lou Ferrigno's Hulk and it was a wonderful surprise catching his cameo.
Even though I never read The Hulk comics, I greatly appreciated the added color (apart from green!) brought to the movie by the comic book style `split screens, wipes, fades, and boxes'. The story told by the movie shows a warm compassion for my favourite main characters, Eric Bana (Bruce Banner), Jennifer Connelly (Betty Ross), Sam Elliott (Betty's Military Dad) and Nick Nolte (Bruce's Father - a most satisfying anti-hero).
The Hulk effects were very exciting on the big screen, and it fit perfectly with the efforts made to fill in the story of Bruce and his father.
I was getting a tad restless in some parts towards the end of the movie when the energy of the film starts to slide a bit, but I was just too hyped from the action scenes!
My favourite scene: watching Eric Bana's charismatic face made huge, green and angry and then sad, lost, confused and somewhat love struck by the tender face of Jennifer Connelly (Betty Ross). (For some reason, it reminded me of a very funny Eric Bana in Channel 10's Full Frontal - used to be on Australian TV 1992 to 1994.)
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