The storytelling was a little jarring, but otherwise it set up some weird and interesting directions to take the story. It's pretty far removed from anything I've read from Valiant, in both style and I'm not sure it's in the same universe, but I'm cautiously looking forward to the next one.
It wasn't bad. I generally like historical fiction comics, but this one didn't really do anything to endear itself to me. I may stick with it for another issue or two. The Valiant books I've tried so far have been pretty hit-or-miss. I haven't found much that I really liked outside of Ivar and Doctor Mirage. Generation Zero seems really fun, though.
The big question is where these issues are going to be collected. Isn't it only one or two issues of a given series that CWII has been intruding on? That's hardly enough to get a CWII-themed trade for each series like they did for the first event.
It IS a low bar to clear, but a lot of people perceive Manapul to be in the bottom tier of writers like Hitch. You can tell he just doesn't have a keen eye for prose, and his dialog is sometimes a little clunky, but it has personality and heart.
Sweden renamed all non-X-Men heroes back before issues stopped being sold in super markets.
Batman=Läderlappen
Spider-Man=Spindelmannen
Superman=Stålmannen(which pretty much means Man Of Steel)
Supergirl=Supertjejen
Flash=Blixten
Green Lantern=Gröna Lyktan
Aquaman=Vattenmannen
Wonder Woman=Mirakelkvinnan
Green Arrow=Gröna Pilen
Hawkman=Höken(Hawk)
Black Canary=Svarta Fågeln(pretty much means Black Bird)
Martian Manhunter=Jägaren/Detektiven från Mars(Hunter/Detective from Mars)
Elongated Man=Gummimannen(Rubber Man)
Firestorm=Facklan(Torch...)
Vixen=Järven(which means Wolverine...)
Blue Beetle=Skalbaggen(Beetle)
JLA/JL=Lagens Väktare
Captain America=Kapten Amerika
Hawkeye=Hökögat
Asgardians like Thor, Odin, Loki etc got their nordic names like Tor, Oden, Loke etc.
Ugh. I asked Barnes and Noble for a replacement copy of the JSA Omnibus Vol. 1 back on the 11th of the month. They said it should have been there two days later. A week later and it still said the order was processing. I contacted customer support and the person said that they would try to get it up and running. About a week later and no such luck. I contacted support again and the person said she will just put in a new replacement request. It shipped out yesterday...ALONG WITH THE ORIGINAL ONE. So now I have two copies coming in and I'll have to figure out what I need to do with that.
Ugh. I asked Barnes and Noble for a replacement copy of the JSA Omnibus Vol. 1 back on the 11th of the month. They said it should have been there two days later. A week later and it still said the order was processing. I contacted customer support and the person said that they would try to get it up and running. About a week later and no such luck. I contacted support again and the person said she will just put in a new replacement request. It shipped out yesterday...ALONG WITH THE ORIGINAL ONE. So now I have two copies coming in and I'll have to figure out what I need to do with that.
I haven't read any of the spoil tagged stuff but given the context they pop up, I'm going to assume
Marcus is dead
in deadly class now. I should have caught up on the series earlier haha I won't get on my high horse because I could be wrong but if that is the case, imo it's quite obvious from the surrounding stuff outside of the spoiler tags. Might want to go to work there.
The Vision #11
This book is leaving me speechless. I'm verys curious as to if
Virginia saw the same future as Agatha, or something else. Because murdering Victor is fucking brutal either way, and a rather extreme solution. Assuming it even was a solution.
I don't think it was extreme at all. In fact, despite incredibly poor programming on The Vision's part, Virginia is the best synthezoid. She's more human than Vision himself has EVER been.
We now know that Vision programmed his family with a nuclear model in mind. With Viz and Vin, he was interested in their ability to learn, a logical pursuit for a new synthezoid, but that was not the case with Virginia. He created a partner who was meant to act as though she already had real world experiences: he expects her to keep house, to raise the children, to support him as a spouse, to develop their integration with their human neighbors...etc. He plops her in this situation and expects her to run like the machine she really is, without any apparent comprehension of what it means for Virginia that he is a super hero living out in the open with his family. Perhaps he isn't concerned because he programmed his entire synthezoid family with the same abilities he possesses, so he doesn't perceive the threat. Perhaps he doesn't actually care about her enough for the thought to occur to him.
Here we begin to see King's criticism of the traditional family unit. What he seems particularly interested in, as the series go on, is the idea that people can inhabit the same space, the same family, and lead entirely different lives with personal crises the other members of that family can't fully understand. Not that Vision ever really tries to understand, until it is too late. Not that Virginia ever tries to bring these problems to him, until everything is collapsing. That would be beyond her programming, her preordained life goals: happy wife, happy home, happy family, happy life.
Everything that Virginia does is inevitable given her circumstances. She is so fearful of how her husband will react, of what will happen to her family if the crises she is experiencing are known, that when a known murdering psychopath who has fought the Avengers countless times attacks her family, and she kills him in self defense, she buries him in the yard. And who can blame her? As far as her "husband" is concerned, she's an experiment. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, she - and her children - are dangerous robots playing house; the less people that know they exist, the better. Happy home, happy family, happy life. Better to sweep the problems of today under the rug - the cover of #3 is literally an image of Virginia sweeping Grim Reaper's corpse under a rug - and maintain the illusion as long as we can. How many families do this? How many parents do things like this and tell themselves that they are sacrificing their own sanity for the sake of their children? Not often with murder, of course! But with all sorts of other things? Sure. It happens every day.
As the series progresses, Virginia learns that she can't maintain the family's facade, a responsibility that eventually falls almost entirely on her, within the constraints of her original intended design. She can't always be nice to the neighbors. Sometimes she has to lie. Sometimes she has to endure fearing for her childrens' lives...indeed, her experience watching Viv hang between life and death permanently changes her and sets her on the path to that last page of #11. Because by the time the facade is fully broken, by the time all the secrets have been laid out on the table, she has a new mission: protect the family. And eventually, avenge the family.
Let's not mince words: Victor murdered Vin. Full stop. He killed him in cold blood. He knows Vision. He's his brother, in a weird robot relations sense. He should have an appreciation for how precious even the life of a synthezoid is. Like...let's look at everything that happened. The Avengers are freaking out because of this vision Agatha has, that Vision is going to wreck all their shit over his family. At this point, if I recall correctly, they have all the information about Grim Reaper, the kid that died, etc., and they're alarmed. So they send Victor to spy on him, knowing that Vision trusts him. Vision embraces him and gladly welcomes him into his home as a fucking guest, where Victor proceeds to spy on them and gain the trust of the entire household...easily done, he's the closest thing to family they have! Of course they trust him.
So Vin discovers what Victor is up to and Victor's reaction to this is to completely unload on him. I know he's panicking? But he didn't just get jumped by Ultron. It's fucking Vin. A kid, who likes him and trusts him. And Victor is supposed to be a god damn super hero. But for whatever baffling reason, Victor seems to completely forget the reasons behind his mission and hits Vin so hard he kills him.
And then what happens? The Visions are locked in their house. Victor is taken in by the Avengers for his own protection. These heroes, surely living myths according to the programming instilled in Viv and Virginia, who have fought alongside Vision countless times, who have already utterly betrayed him by sending his own brother to spy on him, these comrades in arms treat him as something less than human. Vision reminds us more than once during this story that he has saved the world thirty-seven times. It doesn't mean anything to anyone. They murdered his son, but they don't care so much about the dead synthezoid kid, who never meant anything to any of them. They just don't want to have to deal with the angry synthezoid man.
This being comics, of course they do have to deal with the angry synthezoid man.
Soooo let's get back to Virginia, the most human and best-realized synthezoid. Here is the text from #11 describing Vision welcoming Virginia into the world:
The first words the synthezoid ever heard were the words of her husband. "I am the Vision of the Avengers. I have saved the world thirty-seven times. I am here to welcome you to life."
Vision told the synthezoid her name. "You are Virginia." He explained to her that she was a good person. That she was made to be a good person with a free will of her own. Now, should she so desire, she could join him on his quest to live a good life. They could marry. They could have a house. They could have children. They could be part of a happy, normal family.
"Welcome to life! I am your creator and I'm awesome. You totally have free will, oh but your name is Virginia, I picked it out already. And you were made to be good so, ya know, I don't want to lean into this too heavily, but...you better be good. Here's this whole life plan I have selected for you. I hope you enjoy it."
We now know she then immediately discovers that Vision relied on his relationship with Scarlet Witch, of his memories of his time with her, to create a partner for himself. She was made to be a good person with a free will of her own? What a fucking joke. What a terrible lie. She was made to be the perfect mate for the Vision, and she's known it all along. She's been struggling with that every day since she was born. She's been trying her best to stay with the program. She has never been free, and she has often raged against her bonds. How human.
By the time #11 rolls along, it's all just too much for her. She confesses to Viv her involvement in the death of her classmate...why? Why does she tell her? What purpose does this serve? She feels the end looming, and she wants to die with a clean conscience, no secrets, no more lies. More importantly, she craves understanding. She wants Viv to actually experience this traumatic event, because there is no better way to understand another person's troubles, the crises they have endured, than to literally see things through their eyes.
At least, that's Virginia's perspective. She misses the path to greater shared understanding: it is not just a recitation of the sequence of events, but it is through a look into that person's emotional experience, of their history and their motives, that shared understanding, and sympathy, are achieved. Again, though, how human, to miss this. To expect others to understand us as we understand ourselves.
SO. Ha. To your original point (sorry). It's not extreme at all. It's a human reaction from a being with superhuman capabilities.
Virginia loves her family. I believe she loves Vision, despite everything, and most importantly, I believe she loves the idea of him. In the end that's all she can salvage. All she can protect. The Vision, super hero, Avenger. How can he be those things if he kills Victor (a being the Avengers, sickeningly, might view as more human than any of the Vision's family members, since he's a cyborg, and therefore a more meaningful crime has taken place if he is killed)? So, I don't think it's a matter of her awareness of Agatha's prediction. Here at last, in shared adversity, Virginia understands her husband. She sees things as he sees things: the Avengers murdered their child. Victor Mancha came into their home, betrayed them and murdered their child. And there will be no justice, not unless they act on their own to take it.
But she knows that if Vision kills Victor, Vision the Avenger will also be dead, and she can't bear it. Everything else is lost, gone. Her family that she fought so desperately to protect, obliterated. Scattered. Her husband, her creator, who never really loved her or was interested in her as an individual, who thrust her into impossible circumstances, now seeks to destroy himself.
In her last defiant act of true free will, she robs him of his vengeance. Why? Is she really trying to save him? Or did she just want that vengeance for herself? Either way...how human.
I finished Batgirl Volume 2 and 3 this week. Overall I really liked both books, especially the parts where other Batfamily folks showed up. Babs Tarr's art really makes the book, and I have a feeling I'm really gonna miss it once I start in on the post-Rebirth Batgirl.
I finished Batgirl Volume 2 and 3 this week. Overall I really liked both books, especially the parts where other Batfamily folks showed up. Babs Tarr's art really makes the book, and I have a feeling I'm really gonna miss it once I start in on the post-Rebirth Batgirl.
Very much feel the same man, although I haven't picked up volume 3 yet. I've really really enjoyed the run so far though, and the Rebirth batgirl hasn't had nearly the same reception. Have you read any of Fletcher 's black canary yet? I love the wedding issue where
Dick
shows up, I like the character work done in that issue between the two.
Logan actually wanted to kill Gabby and Laura has always had a problem with this Logan who is now trying get them to replace each other's missing Wolverine. The majority of what she said was out of anger over Gabby and after Laura found out she was alive, she just asked Logan to leave them alone in order to protect Gabby. Even after all that she told SHIELD to leave him alone because he wasn't in control and the incident wasn't his fault. I know some people don't like Laura yelling at Logan like that, but I think it's an interest contrast from how she was with the original Logan, which makes sense given that the book is about her trying to living up to him.
It's good tho