My list of the Twenty Greatest Episodes of Star Trek continues!  Click here for numbers 20-16, and here for numbers 15-11.

10.  All Good Things (ST:TNG season 7, episode 25) — The two-hour series finale of Next Gen is not just a phenomenal finale but also one of the greatest episodes of the series.  Picard finds himself moving back and forth through time, bouncing between the present day, a time just before he took command of the Enterprise D (in the series premiere, Encounter at Farpoint), and 25 years in the future.  It’s fascinating to take a look back at the show’s early days (the mimicry of the costumes from that first season is particularly fun, as is the reappearance of deceased security officer Tasha Yar), but it’s the peek at the future of the Next Gen crew that, I think, really captured the fans’ imaginations.  A wonderful reappearance by Q further strengthens the “full circle” connections to the show’s premiere.  The episode boasts some terrific visual effects and a wonderful sci-fi paradox mystery makes the whole enterprise (sorry, couldn’t resist) truly compelling.  Finally, there is the magnificent last scene, which ends the show and the series on a perfect note.  The sky’s the limit, indeed.

9.  Sarek (ST:TNG season 3, episode 23) — In its early years, the Next Gen writers strove to avoid any mention of characters or storylines from the Original Series in an effort to make sure this new show could stand on its own.  But fans were delighted when, in this third season episode, Mark Leonard reprised his role as Spock’s father Sarek.  That guest appearance alone would make the episode a winner, but it’s shot into the stratosphere by a terrific storyline about Sarek being affected by an Alzheimer’s-like disease that begins to weaken his mental controls, and by the absolutely amazing performances by Mark Leonard and Patrick Stewart.  Stewart’s monologue (after Picard has mind-melded with Sarek and is being affected by the ragingly intense emotions that the elderly Vulcan has kept bottled up for almost two centuries) as the camera slowly circles around his face and Picard is pummeled by a roller-coaster of rage and grief is absolutely magnificent.  My favorite moment:  Picard/Sarek’s one subdued, lonely cry for his estranged son: “Spock.”

8.  The City on the Edge of Forever (Star Trek season 1, episode 29) — One of the most well-known episodes of Star Trek, and for good reason.  Harlan Ellison wrote the script for this, one of the most powerful and moving episodes of the original (or really ANY) Trek series, one that is also filled with a lot of terrific, unique sci-fi ideas.  The Enterprise discovers the existence of the mysterious Guardian of Forever.  When a crazed McCoy (driven mad by an accidental drug overdose) leaps through the time portal and changes history, it is up to Kirk and Spock to follow him back and set things right.  This has become a much over-used sci-fi TV storyline these days, but not so in 1967.  The episode is also raised above and beyond all of the time-travel imitators that have followed by the moral dilemma at its core: Spock discovers that, in order to set history back on track, Kirk must let the woman with whom he has fallen in love, Edith Keeler (guest star Joan Collins), die.  The morose, somber ending is a heart-stopper.  ”He knows, doctor.  He knows.”

7.  Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges (ST:DS9 season 7, episode 16).  Julian Bashir attends a medical conference on Romulus (tentatively allied with the Federation against the Dominion), and finds himself embroiled in a web of political intrigue and treachery.  The episode has a wonderfully mind-bending plot, as the viewer races with Julian to figure out just what the heck is going on, and who can really be trusted.  Like all the best Trek episodes, it also poses a fascinating moral quandry.  The latin quote means “in time of war, laws fall silent,” and Bashir must discover how far he is willing to go during a time of desperate struggle.  Ron Moore’s clever script is filled to the brim with lots of little references to past DS9 episodes as well as episodes of the other Trek series and movies (Bashir travels to Romulus on an Intrepid class starship like Voyager, and many scenes take place on the Voyager sets; in several scenes the characters wear the new dress uniforms introduced in Star Trek: Insurrection; the Romulans ask Bashir about the deadly Quickening disease, which Bashir and O’Brien encountered in the 4th season of DS9; etc. etc.).  I loved the way the writers in the later DS9 seasons weren’t afraid to slide in those references (which all of the other Trek series seemed to avoid) — it really made the Trek universe feel like a cohesive whole.

6.  Call to Arms (ST:DS9 season 5, episode 26) — The season 5 finale is another stand-out DS9 episode.  The show is filled with great little character moments for so many members of DS9’s enormous supporting cast (Rom and Leeta’s wedding; Garak and Ziyal’s burgeoning relationship, etc.) as well as terrific, energetic visual effects action sequences as the Dominion/Cardassian fleet attacks and captures DS9.  This episode marked a major turning point for the show, as war finally breaks out between the Federation and the Dominion, and our characters are forced to flee the station.  Extra points go to the terrific final shot in which the Defiant meets up with the enormous assembled Starfleet, heading back to DS9 to kick some ass.  In all of the Trek shows and movies that had come before, we’d never really seen a fleet of Federation starships assembled (the writers always found some excuse not to go that route — even in this episode, we hear of Starfleet’s attack on a Dominion shipyard but don’t see it), so this moment was a jaw-dropping one that made fans desperate for season 6 to arrive.

Come back tomorrow for the end of my list, numbers 5-1!

Yesterday I began listing the Twenty Greatest Episodes of Star Trek.  (Click here for numbers 20-16).  Let’s continue, shall we?

15.  Treachery, Faith, and the Great River (ST:DS9 season 7, episode 6) — The title of this episode sums up everything that DS9 was about — character, faith, and politics.  It’s a small episode, with little of galactic import happening, and yet it is a critical episode nonetheless.  A familiar Vorta offers Odo important information about the Dominion in exchange for Odo’s protection if he defects, and back on the station Nog utilizes all of his Ferengi wiles to help Chief O’Brien track down the equipment he needs to repair the Defiant despite shortages caused by the war.  In this seemingly minor episode, we learn an enormous amount about the cultures, history, and beliefs of the Ferengi and the Vorta, as well as so much about many of DS9′s regular characters.  

14.  The Measure of a Man (ST:TNG season 2, episode 9) –Not only is this one of the few watchable episodes from Next Gen’s first two seasons, it is also (as you can see by its inclusion on this list) one of the finest Trek episodes ever crafted.  A Starfleet scientist wants to disassemble Data in order to learn how his positronic brain works, in order for Starfleet to construct more androids like him.  When Data refuses to submit, he is ordered to do so.  What follows is an emotional, thought-provoking examination of what makes someone a sentient being. Is Data a man, or is he a piece of property?  Witness tour-de-force performances by Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart as well as Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan (in one of the best Picard-Guinan scenes of the entire series).

13.  The Way of the Warrior (ST:DS9 season 4, episode 1) — After three somewhat uneven seasons, DS9 reinvented itself with this amazing two hour episode that turned the show around and set the stage for the ground-breaking storytelling of seasons 4-7.  The Klingons send an enormous task force into the Bajoran sector, ostensibly to help defend against the Dominion.  But several troubling incidents make clear to Captain Sisko that the Klingons have a hidden agenda.  In order to help him  ferret out the truth, Starfleet assigns Worf (without a posting after the destruction of the Enterprise D in Star Trek: Generations) to DS9.  Worf’s discovery tears apart the Federation-Klingon alliance (which had been a centerpiece of the 24th century Trek shows), and leads to what was by far the best sci-fi action sequence ever televised at that time (and still one of the greatest today) in which the Klingon fleet brutally attacks the station.  But the best thing in the whole show?  Well, that would be Garak and Quark talking about root beer.

12.  Necessary Evil (ST:DS9 season 2, episode eight) — One of the first episodes that made me sit up and take notice of how amazing DS9 could be.  An incident on the station seems to connect to a murder investigation from years prior that Odo had never solved.  The episode tells parallel stories of Odo’s present-day investigation as well as a series of flashbacks that shed light on life on the station during the terrible years of the Cardassian occupation.  We learn how Odo first stepped into his role as head of station security, and we get to see his first meeting with Kira.  It’s a great character-building episode and also a terrific mystery, suspenseful right up until the brilliant, hauntingly open-ended final scene.

11.  The Trouble with Tribbles (Star Trek season 2, episode 15) — This comic romp was, right from its original airing, rightly considered one of the finest hours of the Original Series, and it is also one of the original Trek episodes that holds up the best today.  Kirk and the Enterprise are summoned to Space Station K-7 where they must confront a Klingon plot, a disreputable merchant, poisoned grain, an irate politician, a double agent, and lots and lots of tribbles.  David Gerrold’s sharp, hysterical script is absolute gold — each and every scene is a gem filled with memorable one-liners (such as the results of McCoy’s analysis of the tribbles: “They reproduce at will.  And brother, have they got a lot of will!”).  Special note also goes to William Ansara for his terrific guest-appearance as the Klingon Captain Koloth.

Come back tomorrow for episodes #10-6!

I have watched a lot of Star Trek in my day.  A LOT of Star Trek.  And quite a lot of it was pretty damn good!  Here’s what I feel is the best of the best.  (Hmm, no episodes of Voyager or Enterprise to be found on this list…!)

20. Unification Part I (ST:TNG season 5, episode 7) — A high-ranking official of the United Federation of Planets is believed to have defected to the Romulans, and Captain Picard is sent after him.  The individual in question?  Ambassador Spock.  Having Leonard Nimoy reprise his role in this Next Gen two-parter was an astounding moment, something the fans never thought would happen.  But as great as all the Spock-Picard-Data stuff is in part II, I’ve chosen part I (in which Spock only actually appears at the very end) for the brilliance of its gripping build-up in Picard’s, ahem, search for Spock.  My favorite moment?  The late great Mark Leonard’s show-stopping scene as Spock’s father Sarek, at death’s door and suffering from a debilitating neurological disease, who delivers a monologue that is one of the most powerful and emotionally devastating things I have ever seen on television.

19.  Rocks and Shoals (ST:DS9 season 6, episode 2) — In the middle of the Dominion War arc, Sisko and his crew have commandeered an enemy Jem’Hadar warship behind enemy lines.  In the exciting opening moments of the episode, they are shot down on a desolate planet.  But a small group of Jem’Hadar have crashed on that planet with them.  The focus of this episode isn’t on the action — it’s on a fascinating exploration of the Jem’Hadar.  Phil Morris (most famous as Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld) is fantastic as the central Jem’Hadar character.  (”Then we will hold this world for the Dominion.  Until we die.”)  But what really gets this episode onto this list is it’s cold, tragic ending.

18.  Penumbra (ST:DS9 season 7, episode 17) — Deep Space Nine’s “final chapter” (the last nine episodes of the show’s final series) begins with this engaging installment, in which so many long-running character story-lines and plot developments begin to weave together for the show’s denouement.  Worf is lost in the Badlands after a Klingon attack group is destroyed by the Jem’Hadar, and Ezri Dax sets off on a desperate mission to find him.  The female changeling in charge of the Dominion’s forces in the Alpha Quadrant succumbs further to the plague that has stricken the Great Link.  A weary Damar sinks further into a daze of alcoholism, but is spurred into action by a visit from Gul Dukat.  And Captain Sisko finally proposes to Kassidy Yates, although a warning from the Prophets states emphatically that such happiness “is not for [him] to have.”  Every minute of this episode is important, right up to the heart-breaking ending.  ”Stay on the path, Benjamin.”

17.  The Defector (ST:TNG season 3, episode 10) — One of the first scripts by Ronald Moore (the man who would go on to be a major writer for Next Gen and DS9, and the creator and show-runner of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica), this episode is a tense, taut thriller.  The Enterprise rescues a high-ranking Romulan military official, who claims that he wants to defect to the Federation.  Can he be trusted?  What are his real motives?  This twisty story is a highlight of Next Gen’s early years, and one that has aged remarkably well.

16.  The Siege of AR-558 (ST:DS9 season 7, episode eight) — One of the best things about the later seasons of DS9 was the way that the show explored the idea of a terrible WAR in the Star Trek universe, such as had never been done before.  A lot of times this meant episodes about politics and strategy, and large-scale starship battles.  Those were cool, no question.  But one of the real stand-outs is this gripping episode about a land-based stuggle for a tiny, uninhabited planetoid valuable only for the piece of Dominion technology placed there that Starfleet has captured and the Dominion wants back.  A terrific ensemble of guest-stars including Bill Mumy (Lost in Space, Babylon 5), Patrick Kilpatrick (Minority Report), and Raymond Cruz (NYPD Blue, 24, The X-Files, Clear and Present Danger, Training Day) brings to life the Starfleet “grunts” assigned to defend AR-558.  The depth of their characterizations lends great power to the episode, as does the terrible injury that befalls one of the DS9 regulars.  No Trek episode ever tried to tackle the horrors of war like this one.  

Come back tomorrow for numbers 15-11!

On May 15th, 2005, the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise (entitled “These Are the Voyages”) was broadcast.  Thus began the longest drought without any new official Star Trek movies or TV episodes since Star Trek: The Next Generation began airing way back in September, 1987.  

And that drought comes to an end next week, on Friday, May 8th!

In anticipation, I have all sorts of fun Star Trek-related content to share with you here at MotionPicturesComics.com.  New updates will be posted pretty much DAILY between now and May 8th.  That’s right, daily, so check back often!  

(And for you non-Star Trek fans out there, don’t worry, it won’t be ONLY Trek content here for the next two weeks!  I also have a bunch of DVD reviews coming for some terrific films that I have seen recently, including the phenomenal documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.)

To whet your appetites, I hope you enjoy this little fan-made video (which I first saw posted at aintitcoolnews last week):

It is 58 years “before the fall.”  Life on the twelve colonies is peaceful and prosperous — especially on Caprica.  And yet, amongst the elite of society, there is decadence and decay.  The new direct-to-DVD movie Caprica focuses on the patriarchs of two families.  Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) is a wealthy inventor — part Bill Gates, part Steve Jobs — who seems to have everything he wants in life.  But his artificial intelligence project is at a stand-still, and he’s in danger of losing his military contract to a rival company.  Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) is a lawyer, struggling to balance his desire to find his own way in life with his obligations to the crime family that helped pay for his education.  A terrible tragedy that involves both Daniel and Joseph’s daughters brings the two of them together and sets in motion events that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons… and 58 years later, the near-annihilation of the human race.

This Caprica direct-to-DVD project is something of a weird entity.  As the pilot for a TV show that we won’t get to see until 2010, Caprica isn’t a complete movie in and of itself — it’s more of a tease for what we’ll eventually get to see next year.

Despite whatever complaints I have with Battlestar Galactica’s final run of episodes (and you can read my thoughts in more detail here), there certainly was a tremendous high of excitement and anticipation just a few months ago as the final hours of BSG were broadcast.  I wonder if Ron Moore and the makers of Caprica wouldn’t have been wiser to hold off on showing their pilot until next year, to let the memory of BSG fade and to build more anticipation for new stories within that universe.  As it is, it’s very difficult not to compare Caprica to that intense final run of episodes of BSG, and I think Caprica pales in comparison.

For better or for worse, Caprica is an entirely different type of show than BSG.  Whereas Galactica was intense and action-packed, Caprica is much colder, much more leisurely paced.  There’s one explosion (and it’s a doozy — one of the most dramatic moments of the pilot), but other than that Caprica’s focus is not on action-adventure but on drama.  Now, that’s not a bad thing, necessarily.  You can have very compelling television without space-ship battles… and if Caprica had set out to be just like BSG, it would probably would have wound up being derivative and lame.

I remember when Star Trek: The Next Generation launched back in 1987.  In its first few seasons, the writers (for the most part) bent over backwards to avoid bringing back characters or storylines from the original Star Trek, their thought being that they wanted the new show to stand on its own.  While Caprica’s title and setting casts it as a prequel to BSG, it seems as if Caprica’s writers and producers have decided to follow that Next Gen path.  Other than the names of some of the characters and locations, a few mentions of a secret belief in “the One True God” (a blasphemous idea in Caprica’s polytheistic society), and of course the very familiar-looking design of Greystone’s creation, there is very little to connect Caprica to BSG.  (So don’t go looking to an answer to the question of the mysterious Cylon # 7 named Daniel — at least not here in the pilot!)  Ultimately, this might turn out to be the right move, as it was with Next Gen.  But based on the pilot alone, I think I’d be more supportive of the decision by the makers of Caprica to go their own way if I thought more highly of what they that produced here.

Because, as I watched the pilot, there really wasn’t any moment when I truly felt myself hooked into the goings-on I was watching.  The acting was fine, the script was good, the visuals were lovely — but I just wasn’t all that excited by any of it.  Now, I don’t want to be too negative.  The show is remarkably well put together.  But forget for a moment any comparisons with BSG’s final episodes.  Let’s think back to that original BSG mini-series.  I remember how blown away I was the first time I saw it.  I went in with incredibly low expectations (I don’t even recall what on earth compelled me to watch it).  But, like so many other viewers, I found myself immediately gripped by the dark, exciting story and the amazingly charismatic group of actors.  I think about that mini-series, and I think about Caprica, and there’s just no comparison.  While I enjoyed all the actors in Caprica, I didn’t find any of them to be as compelling as any one member of BSG’s huge cast of characters — all of whom I found to be amazing and engaging right from BSG’s original miniseries.  I did enjoy Eric Stoltz’s performance in Caprica quite a bit, and there were some fine actors in other major roles (Alessandra Torseon as Daniel Greystone’s brilliant-but-up-to-something daughter Zoe, Magda Apanowicz and Avan Jogia as Zoe’s friends Lacy and Ben, and Paula Malcolmson as Amanda Greystone, to name just a few).  But not a one of them equals Bill Adama, Colonel Tigh, Kara Thrace, Lee Adama, Laura Roslin, Baltar, Tyrol, Dee, Gaeta, Helo, Boomer, or any of the other phenomenal characters introduced in those opening hours of BSG.

I am encouraged that Ron Moore and so many of the writers and other behind-the scenes talents from Battlestar Galactica are involved with this prequel spin-off, and rest assured I will be tuning in when the series finally launches next year.  But I do hope they take things up a few notches when Caprica season one begins.  I would like to see the culture of the twelve colonies explored in much more detail (this was something really only hinted at in BSG).  What is life like on the OTHER eleven planets?  How are their people different from Capricans?  (The pilot hinted at some racial issues between Capricans and Taurons… and in BSG we saw some of that in Baltar’s desire to repress his roots and assimilate into Caprican society, but I’d love to see more.)  I’d like to learn more about the sub-culture of belief in the One True God (an intriguing story-line that was so important to BSG and that was teasingly hinted at in Caprica’s pilot).  Where did this belief originate, and what is the ultimate goal of the One True God’s hidden followers?  I could go on.  There’s a real wealth of stories that can be explored in this universe.

Make it so!

Um, I mean, so say we all!

Set in 1987, Adventureland takes place over the course of one summer in the life of James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), just out of college, whose dreams of traveling Europe with his friends have been dashed by his family’s financial problems.  Seeking a summer job instead, Jesse quickly discovers that his degree in literature doesn’t really qualify him for any sort of employment back home in Pittsburgh.  Thus, he winds up working at Adventureland, a somewhat tired old local amusement park.

Jesse befriends Joel (Martin Starr, who, as with most of the talented alumni of Freaks and Geeks, I would happily watch in anything), an intellectual loner, and quickly becomes smitten with the mysterious Em (the terrific, beguiling Kristen Stewart).  The self-contained universe of Adventureland is fleshed out by a variety of other interesting, quirky characters: park owners Bobby (Bill Hader) and Paulette (Kristen Wiig), handsome park mechanic Mike Connell (Ryan Reynolds), Jesse’s not-as-funny-as-he-thinks-he-is childhood friend Frigo (Matt Bush), the flirty Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), and many others.

Taking place in the eighties, Adventureland is a “period piece,” but it never beats you over the head with obvious references.  Rather, the movie uses the setting to lend the story a sweetly nostalgic feel.  I love the care with which the movie explores the sub-culture of the summer staff experience at Adventureland, with all of its unique peculiarities.  I’ve never worked at an amusement park, but I certainly have spent many summers working at a summer camp.  And while the specifics of my summer camp jobs didn’t resemble in any way the specifics of working at Adventureland, I did really connect with the way the film captured the way in which these summer jobs can be transformative experiences for young people, and the way a short summer can be an epic of highs and lows and experiences of all kinds.  I have warm feelings for my summer camp experiences, and the film creates a similarly warm glow around Jesse’s experiences, even the painful ones.

Credit writer/director Greg Motolla (who also directed Superbad) with doing a terrific job in setting that tone.  The film is funny, but I wouldn’t call it a comedy.  However, the shifts from humor to drama never feel out-of-place.  Rather the film feels like a true-to-life picture of the ups and downs of a kid’s summer.  I never seem to get tired of a good coming-of-age story, and this is definitely a winner in that category.

The film only makes one teensy tiny misstep, in my mind.  I don’t want to spoil anything about the ending, but suffice it to say there’s a dramatic moment between two characters in the rain that is the only moment in the film that felt a bit “movie-fake” to me.  I think writers and directors just need to be forbidden, from now on, from having climactic moments where one character declares his/her feelings for the other in the rain.  It’s just a ridiculously over-done cliche, and rings very false to me.  ’Nuff said.  (Credit the terrific Jesse Eisenberg & Kristen Stewart for saving the scene and keeping me in the moment.)

It was an interesting contrast to watch this film after seeing Observe and Report, a movie whose shifts from comedy to dark, dark drama felt much sharper to me.  While Observe and Report is probably the braver, more innovative film, in terms of my enjoyment I had a much better time watching Adventureland, and that is the film I most look forward to revisiting.

About two-thirds of the way through Observe and Report, the new film written and directed by Jody Hill (who also wrote & directed the criminally under-seen The Foot-Fist Way), one character observes to another: “I thought this would be funny, but it’s just kinda sad.”  A more perfect summation of this film, I could not imagine.

Seth Rogen stars as Mall-Cop (excuse me, Director of Mall Security) Ronnie Barnhardt, who sees himself as top dog in the kingdom that is his mall.  Ronnie is completely smitten by Brandi (Anna Farris), who works in the cosmetics department of one of the mall’s department stores.  Brandi, of course, wants nothing to do with him.  But when a pervert prowling the mall’s parking lot exposes himself to Brandi, Ronnie sees his moment to be a hero by solving the case and catching the pervert.  The two other major players in the story are Ray Liotta as the police detective assigned to the case (of whom Ronnie is immediately suspicious and dismissive), and Ronnie’s “right-hand man” Dennis (played magnificently by the almost totally unrecognizable Michael Pena).

I knew going in that this wasn’t going to be a laugh-a-minute comedy like Seth Rogen’s other recent films (The Forty-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, etc.).  Nevertheless, I was caught somewhat off guard by just how sad this story is.  Not sad in terms of being a get-out-your-handkerchief type of film.  This isn’t The Pianist or anything like that.  But rather than being laugh-inducing, I found watching that most of the exploits of Ronnie Barnhardt were just rather pathetic and sad.  If that’s what the film-makers were going for (and it very well might be) then bravo, mission accomplished.  But I can’t say that I got an enormous amount of enjoyment out of watching the movie.

Even the moments when I really laughed during the film weren’t moments of clever dialogue or humorous situations, but more from Borat-style “I can’t believe I’m watching this” shocks, such as Ronnie and Dennis’ brutal crack-down on the group of kids skateboarding in the mall’s parking-lot, or Ronnie’s chase after the pervert in the film’s climax.  Again, this isn’t necessarily a negative.  It just wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

This is a film that, as I think about it now, I RESPECT more as a well-made film, and one that is very brave for going to some extraordinarily dark places, as opposed to a film that I really LIKED.  If I can’t recommend it whole-heartedly, it’s mostly because some of those dark places that the film visits aren’t so much fun to watch!  On the other hand, Observe and Report is certainly a unique film, not at all a Hollywood cookie-cutter comedy.  And it’s a film that I’m sure I won’t mind revisiting some day on DVD, to see if my reactions change now that I know what type of tone to expect.

IDW has published a four-issue prequel to J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek movie called Countdown.  I picked up the four issues, but decided right away that I would wait to read them until after seeing the new movie.  I didn’t want to be spoiled about any of the film’s story-lines, and frankly I didn’t have great expectations for the quality of the comic series.  (I have seen quite a lot of movie “tie-in” material — books, comics, etc. — for all sorts of big-name movies of the past decade or so, and most of them have been pretty wretched.)

So what changed my mind?  Well, I’ve been reading pretty rapturous reviews of Countdown on-line over the past few months.  People really seemed to be digging the series, which raised my excitement level.  And as my own anticipation of the new Trek film has grown over the past months and weeks as the release of the film inched ever closer, I found myself looking quite eagerly at the four issues of Countdown sitting in my “to-read” pile of comics.  I also realized that, while I have for the most part been successful in avoiding major spoilers about the film, my repeated viewings of the trailers, in addition to everything that I have read about the film for the two years that has been in-the-making, have certainly meant that I have a pretty good basic idea about the film’s storyline, and where/how it branches off from established Trek continuity.  I didn’t think the comic would reveal anything I didn’t already know, it’d just hopefully connect the dots a little bit more for me.

And so I took the plunge and read through the series.

And I am pleased to report that it is very, very excellent!

Story credit for Countdown is given to Roberto Orci & Robert Kurtzman, the writers of J.J. Abrams’ Trek film.  I don’t know exactly who is responsible for what in this comic, between Orci & Kurtzman and the credited writers, Mike Johnson & Tim Jones, but based on what I read here I am very, very encouraged about the upcoming movie.  My biggest fear about the film is that it has been made by people who didn’t really know and love Star Trek, and thus has abandoned too much of established Trek continuity that is important to the fans who have invested in this universe for over 40 years now.  But Countdown was clearly written by people who really love Trek, and who are steeped in its lore.

OK, I’m going to avoid any MAJOR spoilers as I proceed, both for what I know about the upcoming Trek film and for the Countdown series itself.  So most of you should feel comfortable in continuing to read.  But if you have managed to avoid learning ANYTHING about the upcoming film, and if you want to try to keep things that way, then maybe this is the time for you to move on.  (Maybe pick an interesting older post from my archives to read, instead?)

Still here?  OK, here we go.

Countdown is set in the Next Generation timeline, several years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis.  It tells the story of Spock and Nero, how their paths cross in the 24th century and how they both eventually wind up thrust back in time.  When I wrote above that Countdown was written by people who clearly love Trek and are steeped in its lore, I wasn’t kidding.  Countdown is full of little details that demonstrate that the writers really know their Trek.  I was also very, very happy that this “official” story undid many of the most egregious storytelling mistakes of Star Trek: Nemesis, such as the death of Data (whose “resurrection” is explained away in one sentence in which the writers took advantage of the extraordinarily obvious “out” left by the end of Nemesis) as well as Worf’s return to Starfleet.  (Although, minor quibble, Countdown’s revelation that Worf now commands a Klingon battle-group didn’t suit me any better than Nemesis, which had him back in Starfleet with no explanation.  Maybe I’m just a hard-core Deep Space Nine fan, but I thought that show left Worf in a perfect place, as the Federation ambassador to the Klingons.  It felt like the perfect ending for Worf, who throughout Next Gen and DS9 had always felt himself torn between those two worlds.  I wish the writers had stuck with that.  But anyways…)  Data and Worf aren’t the only familiar Next Gen faces to pop up (but I’ll keep those secrets safe).  Countdown is set many years after Nemesis, and part of the fun is seeing where so many of the characters have wound up.  With the small exception of my complaint about Worf, everything feels “right” (as opposed to all the out-of-character behavior seen in Nemesis).

I should also pause here and remark about the art, which is gorgeous.  David Messina is able to capture the likeness of all the characters while still maintaining his own very distinct style of thick lines and deep, deep blacks.  His characters feel alive, not like stiff, traced copies of the actors’ publicity stills.  Messina is also able to illustrate beautiful and highly-detailed alien vistas and landscapes (with his depiction of the Romulan capital in issue 1 being a particularly impressive example) as well as some terrific space-ship combat sequences (like Nero’s battle with the Klingon fleet and then his showdown with the Enterprise E in issue 4).  I must also compliment the very subtle color art.  There are lovely gradations on all the characters’ faces and clothing, and some beautifully atmospheric outer-space imagery.  There were also a lot of presumably computer-assisted touches, such as the depictions of the Enterprise computer-control graphics that we can see are being holographically displayed over the crew-members’ consoles.  This is a really nice touch — it’s a cool little detail that looks awesome if you notice it, and is also a neat way to show that Starfleet tech has advanced since the last time we saw it.

Do I have complaints?  Well, sure, I do.  As someone who is very attentive to Trek continuity, there were a few things that threw me a little bit.  There’s a scene in issue two which takes place in the Romulan science council.  But Mr. Messina has illustrated the space so that it is a dead ringer for the Enterprise’s stellar cartography lab (as seen in Star Trek: Generations).  I was confused as to why Romulans were in a Starfleet facility, until I realized that it wasn’t meant to be a Starfleet facility at all.  Also in that issue, Spock returns to Vulcan and meets with the head of the Vulcan High Command.  Spock addresses that individual as “Praetor,” a term that has often been used in Trek books and comics for the head of Romulus, but never Vulcan.  Now, the Romulans are offshoots of the Vulcans, and so maybe the writers were trying to draw a connection between the two cultures.  Still, I thought it was an odd choice, and one that just confused me for a minute as I was reading.  (”Wait a second, is Spock actually meeting with Romulans??” I thought.)

But my biggest complain is with the catastrophe (I’ll keep vague on the details) that strikes Romulus, thus bringing Spock and Nero together and then driving them bitterly apart.  It comes out of nowhere, and for something capable of wreaking such havoc on the galaxy, I needed more of an explanation than I got as to just what the heck it was.  And, despite any distrust the Romulan Senate might still have for a Vulcan like Spock, it seemed totally ludicrous to me that Spock was the only individual on the planet who could detect what was happening.  Surely ONE other Romulan scientist somewhere else on the entire PLANET could have checked Spock’s data to see what he saw??  Spock and Nero seemed very much like Jor-El on Krypton, warning fruitlessly of what was to come.  This should be the key event of Countdown, and yet to me it felt totally silly and out of left field.  That really weakens the over-all story.  (It is possible that the Trek movie will give us more information that will answer some of my questions, although I sort of feel that the film will give us LESS information than Countdown, not more.  Providing background detail is a major point of the Countdown series, after all…)

But I don’t want to be too negative.  I really did thoroughly enjoy the comic.  It’s a great Trek tale, filled with exciting action and space adventure, some fascinating arcs for characters old and new, and best of all it provides a firm link between J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie and the established Trek universe, particularly the 24th century Next Gen characters.  I sort of wish we could see some of this on the big-screen, in some sort of prologue to Abrams’ film!  But of course I understand his desire to make a clean break and start things fresh.

One of my favorite things about Countdown was its ending.  Spock and Nero disappear (no surprise there), and the surviving Next Gen characters have no idea that they have traveled back in town.  But there are a few pages of the comic that take place AFTER Spock and Nero disappear.  Rather than having the Next Gen universe wink out of existence at the end (because of the changes to history that one presumes Nero makes in the Trek film) the Next Gen characters continue.  My supposition about the Trek film, as I have mentioned here before, is that Nero’s actions are going to result in an altered timeline, thus allowing J.J. and his team to make lots of future Trek adventures with their new cast, without having to worry about hewing precisely to established Trek canon.  We’ll see in a few weeks if I’m right.  But if I am, then I was very pleased to see the writers acknowledge that the Next Gen universe remained.  Maybe now it’s an “alternate” universe, but who cares.  I hope that J.J.’s Trek movie is an enormous success, and that we see lots more films with his new cast.  But I also hope to see lots more adventures of Picard and co. in the 24th century.  If it’s not on-screen, then books and comics will have to suffice!

As for Countdown, it did exactly what a prequel “tie-in” should do — it got me even MORE excited to see the Star Trek film.  Just a few more weeks!  I’ve got lots more Star Trek stuff to discuss with you all as the movie approaches, so stay tuned!

I was excited, last month, to finally sample one of the best-reviewed new shows of the past several years: Mad Men.  No surprise, Steph and I made pretty short work of the 13-episode first season on DVD.

Mad Men depicts the lives of the men and women who work at Sterling Cooper, a Madison Avenue advertising agency in the early 1960’s.  It’s a tough business, but one in which the successful have the opportunity to taste great wealth and privilege.  It’s also a rapidly changing world, as social mores shift and the concepts of traditional “family values” and the strictly defined roles of men and women begin to adjust.  

Mad Men is notable for its sharply-written dialogue and its extraordinary ensemble of actors.  Jom Hamm plays the lead character, Don Draper, a enormous success both as an ad man in the office and with the women in his life, although as the season progresses he finds himself struggling to cope with the secrets of his past and to adjust to the new world of the 60’s.  The aforementioned women in Don’s life include his wife Betty (January Jones), who is devoted to Don but also beginning to chafe at the edges of her housewife life, and Rachel Menken, one of the few Jewish clients of Sterling Cooper to whom Don finds himself immediately attracted.  Much of Mad Men focuses on the hierarchical structure of the Sterling Cooper ad agency.  There are the men on top, like Don and Roger Sterling (the absolutely terrific John Slattery, a real stand-out).  There are the younger executives beneath them, looking to get ahead in any way that they can.  These include Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis), Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Stanton), Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) and the head of the design department, Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt).  Then there are the secretaries.  The show’s pilot takes us through the first day at work of Don’s new secretary Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss, Zoey Bartlet from The West Wing).  One of the first people she meets is the queen bee of the office, Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks, a familiar face to fans of Firefly).  The complex interactions between these characters (along with a variety of supporting players and guest stars), each fighting in some way against the confines of his/her job and obligations, each looking for some way to get ahead, and each flawed in his/her own way, make up the meat of the show’s drama.

Of course, along with the talented writers and actors, we must also praise the amazing production team for the great success of the show.  From the sets, to the wardrobe, to the hairstyles and make-up, Mad Men is extraordinary in its ability to capture the unique feel and flavor of this particular time in this particular place.  The attention to detail is astounding, and really helps sell the reality of the show.

It was interesting, as the first season unfolded, to pick up on some of the topics that the writers were interested in exploring.  Certainly, it is clear right from the first moments of the first episode that the show was designed to paint a picture of the changing roles of women and men, both at home and in the office.  But I was also intrigued by other themes that became apparent as the season progressed.  One of these was the idea of repressed homosexuality, which we saw in the character of Salvatore (something that came to the fore during his dinner with a client in “The Hobo Cobe”) as well as Joan’s roomate (in “The Long Weekend”).  It was also interesting to see the way the writers kept bringing Judaism into Don’s world — first through his interactions with Rachel, then through devices such as the arrival of potential new clients from the Israeli Tourism Bureau (in “Babylon”).  Judaism kept sneaking into the show to such a degree that I half expected that we’d find out by the end of the season that one of the deep dark mysteries in Don Draper’s past would be that he was Jewish!  (Spoiler alert: that did not turn out to be the case.)  Nevertheless, it’s always rewarding to watch a show that has serious things to say and interesting issues to explore.

If there is any place that this much-lauded show fell short for me, it is that I found pretty much every single character to be, well, pretty much completely unlikable!  Now, it is certainly not a requirement of good TV that all the characters on a show be heroic and noble.  Quite the opposite, really.  It’s great for characters to have rough edges, to be the types of flawed human beings that all of us really are, no matter what we might prefer to think.  (And the idea of making characters more “likable” has the mark of cowardly network executives — in a recent interview about Observe and Report, Seth Rogen and his interviewer from HitFix.com scoffed at the very notion of being worried about whether or not one’s characters are “likable.”)  But I don’t think that having characters who are terribly flawed, and having characters who are likable for an audience, are two mutually exclusive ideas.  Look at the terrificly flawed,imperfect characters of Battlestar Galactica — or, even better, the many scumbags on The Wire — for great examples of how audiences can fall head-over-heels in love with even the worst of characters.  But with Mad Men, I never felt that affection for any of the characters.  (Well, maybe for Roger Sterling, but that’s pretty much it.)  And I think that hurt the show, ultimately, for me.  It prevented me from really engaging with the stories being told.  

I respect Mad Men as a truly well-made show, and I definitely want to get my hands on the second season.  But beloved, at least by me, this show is not.  Not yet, anyways.

In my review of season one of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as well as my review of the season two premiere, I indicated that while there was a lot that I enjoyed about the show, I also felt that it was far from living up to its potential.

Now that season two has drawn to a close with the airing of “Born to Run” this past Friday (which just might turn out to be a SERIES finale, not just a season finale, as the Fox has not yet announced whether it will renew this ratings-challenged show), do I still feel the same way?

There is so much to enjoy about this exploration of the Terminator franchise.  The acting is solid, both amongst the main cast (particularly, to my great surprise, 90210’s Brian Austin Green as Derek Reese, brother to the ill-fated Kyle Reese from the first Terminator film) and a high caliber group of guest actors that includes Richard Schiff (Toby from The West Wing), Dean Winters (Oz, 30 Rock) Stephanie Jacobsen (Battlestar Galactica: Razor) and, in the finale, Joshua Malina (Sports Night, 30 Rock).  The action and special effects are terrific, quite consistently impressive for a weekly television series.  We got to see a lot of great Terminator-on-Terminator combat, and some exciting peeks into the post-Judgment Day devastated future.  

The writers were ambitious in their story-lines, bringing back all sorts of characters and story-threads from the first two Terminator films (the show’s continuity ignores the third one), and taking viewers along on some fascinating explorations of the Terminator world and mythos.  I was overjoyed when the very first episode of season two introduced a new liquid metal T-1000 (like Robert Patrick’s fearsome character in T2).  That was a development I never expected to see.  One of my favorite episodes of the season also had one of the show’s most direct ties to the Terminator films — “The Good Wound,” in which a grievously wounded Sarah Connor hallucinates visions of the long-dead Kyle Reese. I mentioned above that we got some fascinating looks at the post-apocalyptic future that was briefly glimpsed in the two Terminator films, and I loved that the show wasn’t afraid to explore that time-line along with Sarah and John Connor’s adventures in present-day.  Stand-outs in this respect would be the episodes “Allison from Palmdale” in which we learned some of the background of Cameron, the female Terminator played by Summer Glau, as well as the really excellent two-part “Today is the Day,” which depicted an ill-fated submarine expedition lead by a Terminator that had been reprogramed by John Connor.  Or so everyone thought.

What was neat about the show was its central conceit that Skynet’s mission of eliminating Sarah and John Connor (which was the focus of the first two Terminator films) was but a small piece of a much larger puzzle, with lots of machines and humans traveling to various periods of time with all sorts of competing agendas.  I find formulaic, everything-resolved-at-the-end-of-the-hour shows to be pretty boring, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was anything but a show like that.  Yes, most episodes did have a central theme or focus to that week’s story that would come to some sort of resolution by the episode’s end, but each episode also seemed to fit into a much larger mosaic (with only a few exceptions, such as the terrible waste-of-time Sarah-goes-to-a-sleep-clinic episode “Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep”).  That is very cool, and gave the show great momentum throughout the 22-episode season.

But this is also the show’s greatest weakness.  As season two (and, if the show is not renewed, the entire series) drew to a close last week, I found myself left with a frustratingly lengthy list of unanswered questions.  Just whose side was the mysterious Weaver (Shirley Manson) really on?  What was she hoping to accomplish with John Henry (Garret Dillahunt)?  Was she the same T-1000 that turned down John Connor’s offer on the submarine in the future (as seen in “Today is the Day”)?  What exactly was John Connor’s offer to her/it?  Who was the entity that hacked John Henry’s systems?  Was it the missing son of Miles Dyson (who was mentioned briefly in the finale)?  Is that mysterious individual (or group) the one responsible for the ultimate creation of Skynet, or is it Weaver?  Will John  Henry become Skynet, or will he become the key to its ultimately defeat?  How exactly did Derek’s girlfriend Jessie manage to access a time machine to travel back in time?  We were given glimpses, over the show’s two seasons, of the machines in the future working on some sort of project — was it just stuff that we already knew about from the films (the creation of Terminators that can masquerade as human beings; the creation of a time machine that John Connor and the resistance will ultimately capture), or was something more going on?

I could go on and on.  So many questions remain, and so many of the characters on the show had motives that are still unclear.

While I have been thrilled by the way that a number of great dramas of the last few year have really broken away from the old-school style of formulaic, episodic story-telling to embrace longer-running, serial stories (shows like Lost, The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) I wonder if shows like Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles aren’t showing us a bit of the dark side to that sort of serialized TV writing.  I love a good long-running, inter-connected tale, but I found myself getting frustrated, all season long, by the many questions that this show would pose and then never answer.  (These are problems that I must admit to having with Lost, and with season 4 of BSG, as well, and those are shows which I otherwise adored.)  It’s one thing to have story-lines continue from episode to episode, so that viewers feel like we’re watching adventures that could happen in someone’s real life, with events one week having repercussions in the weeks to come.  But it’s quite another thing to be so obtuse and obscure with one’s story-telling that a viewer seldom really understands why any particular character is doing what he/she is doing.  And that, I think, has been the biggest problem with The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The season ended with a bang, no question, in these last few episodes.  A lot of the season’s story-lines came together, several characters that I didn’t expect to see again re-appeared, one character met with a SHOCKING demise (and high praise to the show, by the way, for catching me totally off guard with that particular twist), and there were a lot of really exciting moments.  And the finale’s cliffhanger ending was a stunner, providing what would be a fine oh-my-god-I-can’t-believe-that’s-the-end conclusion to the show, but also presenting a delicious amount of story-telling possibilities should we get to see a third season.  But if this is the end, I will admit to being, on the whole, a bit disappointed with this enterprise.  With so many questions still hanging, these first two seasons of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles don’t feel like a complete story — they feel like the first acts of a much longer tale.  I hope that, should Fox choose to renew the show, the writers take advantage of the opportunity to bring some closure to the show’s many hanging story-lines.  If they can do so while continuing to give us some great Terminator future-war action, then I’ll definitely be along for the ride.

Let’s begin the day by my pointing your attention to two great pieces recently from The Onion A.V. Club: this article about 25 great albums that work best when listened to from start to finish, and a spirited defense of the recent seasons of The Simpsons that lists 10 episodes from the past 5 seasons that stand among the series’ best.

If you haven’t seen it yet, click here to watch the new trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie Bruno.  For a little more detail on some of the sequences that you get glimpses of in the trailer, click here for a terrific write-up of the 25 minutes of footage that screened a few weeks ago at SXSW, the theatre-owners convention.  How is he able to still fool people with this stuff after all the publicity that surrounded Borat?

I am not a big fan of Broadway musicals.  That is putting it mildly.  So I’m not exactly doing cartwheels at the news that there is a Spider-Man musical in the works.  And I was completely befuddled to read that they’re working on a musical based on Groundhog Day!  What a bizarre notion.

By the way, speaking of Spider-Man, has director Sam Raimi admitted what was immediately apparent to discerning movie-goers about an hour into the film — that Spider-Man 3 was just terrible?  Well, sort-of.  Click here to read his interesting comments.  Since a Spider-Man 4 seems inevitable, this gives me a smidgen of hope that perhaps we will see a return to the high quality of the first two Spidey films.  What could possibly go wrong, right?

Harlan Ellison is a brilliant Sci-Fi author.  He’s also responsible for one of the finest hours of Star Trek ever committed to film: the Original Series episode “The City on the Edge of Forever.”  He is now suing Paramount and the WGA.  You have got to read his hilarious press release all the way to the end.

So there’s going to be a James Bond museum?  And I thought Christmas only came once a year.

Finally, did you know that some people are getting all bent out of shape about a Chuck Jones Looney Tunes print that parodies Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper?  Well, they are.  In these troubled times, aren’t there more important things that we should be worrying about?  Like the enormous size of the nacelles on the U.S.S. Enterprise in J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie??

Over the past two days I have listed several of my favorite graphic novels.  (Click here for part I and here for part II.)  You’ll notice that most of them had nothing to do with super-heroes.  This was purposeful — although super-hero stories dominate the American comic book scene, there are so many other types of stories that can be told using the comics medium.  That’s something I wanted to highlight.

But that’s not to say that I don’t also love a terrific super-hero story, because I certainly do!  Here are some of my favorites, that are available in graphic novel or collected-edition formats:

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns — Following the death of Robin, Bruce Wayne retired his Batman persona.  It’s been 10 years, and Gotham City has sunk into an urban decay of crime.  Bruce Wayne is a broken man, empty and lost.  But when something drives him to put on that mask one more time, everything changes.  (Although not necessarily for the better!)  Along with Watchmen (which was also released in 1986), Frank Miller’s magnus opus changed the comics industry forever, demonstrating without a doubt that it was possible to tell sophisticated, mature stories with super-hero characters.  (It also was a tremendous influence on the look and tone of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film.)  This story is intense and shockingly brutal.  It is also a gorgeous work of art, filled to the brim with overlapping narratives that tell the stories of an enormous cast of characters, all struggling to make their way in the brutal urban jungle that Gotham City has become, and all of them somehow affected by the shadow of the bat.  The Dark Knight Returns is also infamous for Miller’s depiction of an almost fascistic Superman, and his battle with the Batman in the series’ final chapter is a show-stopper.  (I should also mention that I am quite fond of Miller’s Batman: Year One, illustrated by David Mazzucchelli, from which a great deal of the story of Batman Begins was adapted.)

The New Frontier — Darwyn Cooke’s brilliant series re-tells the origins of many of DC Comics’ most familiar characters, albeit set in the years in which they were originally created.  Similar to the way in which The Right Stuff showed how American fighter pilots gradually became our astronauts, The New Frontier tells the story of how the pulp heroes that came out of the second world war gradually became the costumed super-heroes of a brave new age.  Cooke’s somewhat retro, simplified art style is stunningly gorgeous and absolutely perfect for the story being told.  The New Frontier captures the innocence and wonder, as well as the growing dangers, of the 1950’s and 60’s.  It is an epic saga, filled out by an enormous cast of characters, all of whom Cooke wonderfully brings to life.  I only discovered The New Frontier about two years ago, but it immediately became one of my absolute favorites.

Astonishing X-Men — Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) and John Cassaday crafted the greatest X-Men story of the past decade, which I wrote about at length here.  A scientist declares that she has discovered the cure for mutants (that storyline was incorporated into the lackluster third X-Men film), Professor X’s mutant-tracking system cerebro attains sentience and threatens the students, and an enormous extra-terrestrial threat is revealed.  But all of that takes a back seat to the characters’ story-lines.  Whedon has a quite a gift for creating vibrant characters, and his stories are intense and also filled with delightful humor.  Whedon & Cassaday’s entire story is available in four softcover editions or two hardcovers.  

Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt – I probably read this at too-young an age, but it certainly captured my imagination at the tim.  I am pleased to say that it also holds up today as one of the most compelling Spider-Man stories ever told.  In the ultimate tale of revenge, Spider-Man villain Kraven the Hunter shoots Spidey, buries him, and then, in order to prove his complete superiority over his foe, puts on his costume and takes his place.  And that’s just in the first chapter.  This jaw-droppingly grim and serious story takes the reader on a powerful journey through the haunted past and disturbed psyche of Kraven, while also giving us great insight into the mind of Peter Parker as he faces his mortality and struggles to overcome a seemingly impossible situation and an indomitable enemy.  J.M. DeMatteis’ wonderful prose (which follows the inter-weaving narratives of several major characters) and wonderful, over-lapping dialogue was way ahead of its time, and Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod’s art is dense, atmospheric, and truly gorgeous.  I can’t tell you how many times I have read this story, and it never ceases to amaze me.  

The Ultimates by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch and Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross — I recently re-read both of these, and I have longer posts in the work about them both that will be coming in the next few weeks.  For now, let me just say that they are both true masterpieces, and must-reads for any comic fans.  

OK, whew!  This has been a fun look at various amazing comics over the past three days.  I like being reminded about just how terrific this medium can be.  Did I leave out one of your favorites?  Let me know!  And if you’ve never read a comic book and are just bewildered as to what the heck I’ve been going on about for these past few days, I do hope that you’ll give one of these great works that I have listed a try.

Yesterday I wrote about several examples of my favorite graphic novels.  Today I’d like to share a few more that represent longer works:

Bone — Three cousins stumble into a mysterious valley filled with wonderful and dangerous creatures.  What begins as a whimsical, fun-filled fantasy romp gradually grows into an epic, Lord of the Rings type of adventure filled with action, death, greed, and a beautiful story of unrequited love.  The Lord of the Rings comparison does Bone a disservice, actually, as Bone is a brilliantly unique work unlike anything else I have ever read.  At times hilariously funny and at times deeply intense, Bone is a truly wonderful tale that (unlike many of the other graphic novels I have listed) is perfectly suitable for all ages.  It’s available in nine collections.  Start off with volumes I & II, Out From Boneville and The Great Cow Race, and I guarantee you won’t look back.

Cerebus — If you read 300 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man (heck, if you read 50 or 100 issues!) you would probably be struck by the cyclical nature of the story-telling.  The characters don’t really change, villains return again and again… you might enjoy the stories, but it’s not remotely a chronicle of what could really happen in one person’s life (even someone bitten by a radioactive spider!).  With his comic Cerebus, writer/illustrator Dave Sim set out to do something entirely different.  What began life in the late 70’s as a parody of Conan the Barbarian became something entirely different when Sim decided to create the ultimate 300 issue “limited-series.”  His comic would chronicle the life and adventures of one character, Cerebus (an aardvark living in a medieval world of humans).  It would be told at a realistic pace (with stories unfolding slowly and action only occurring every 30 or more issues, as opposed to having complete adventures every month), and it would end with Cerebus’ death.  (And in 2004, when Cerebus #300 was finally published, that’s exactly what happened.)  Although some have said, only half-jokingly, that Dave Sim went insane over the almost 30-years of working on his epic (and having read the bizarre and erratic final volumes I’m not sure I disagree), for much of its run it was truly magnificent.  Skip the first collection and start with the phone-book sized volume II, High Society, and volumes III & IV, the two-part Church and State.  These are extraordinary works, sophisticated commentaries on the nature of politics and religion that are also terrifically fun adventure stories filled with an extraordinarily rich cast of characters, and set in a fully realized fantasy world that has been fleshed out by Sim (and collaborator Gerhard) to an amazing degree.  Like Bone, this is truly a unique work — there has never been anything like it, and I don’t know that there ever will be again.

100 Bullets — The mysterious Agent Graves visits average people to give them an attache case containing incontrovertible proof that they have been grievously wronged by someone, along with a gun and 100 completely untraceable bullets.  With the assurance that no law enforcement agency on the globe will hold you in any way accountable for any actions you take with that gun and those bullets, what would you do?  It’s such a simple, gripping hook, and at first this hard-boiled crime series tells a series of stories in which Graves visits different people and we see the wildly varying ways in which they react to what they are given.  But as the series proceeds, a much larger story of secret societies and powerful, warring families comes to light, and the seemingly unconnected events that we have witnessed begin to come together in astounding ways.  Brian Azzarello’s mastery of dialogue and character combined with Eduardo Risso’s beautifully detailed, unique art creates a dizzying world of moral ambiguity filled with one wonderfully distinct character after another.  The final volume comes out this summer, and I can’t wait!  You should start with volume I: First Shot, Last Call, and prepare to have your mind blown.

Akira — The lives of Tetsuo and Kaneda, two tough, biker friends living in Neo-Tokyo (a metropolis built after Tokyo was annihilated in World War III) change forever when strange, powerful abilities begin to awaken in Tetsuo.  Suddenly Tetsuo becomes the target of a variety of groups and government agencies eager to control his power, and the mystery of the force that destroyed Tokyo gradually is revealed: the little boy known as Akira.  Katsuhiro Otomo’s sprawling story is an intense, action-packed epic.  Its exploration of a dystopian future in which technology might have outpaced humanity is reminiscent of Blade Runner, while the fierce, violent action, rendered in Otomo’s stunningly hyper-detailed art, gives the story a unique flavor all its own.  Dark Horse Comics has collected the saga in six enormous volumes.  Start at the beginning with volume I and then start screaming Tetsuo at the top of your lungs!  (That’s a reference to the extraordinary animated film of Akira, which although it was released back in the 1980’s remains the unbeaten masterpiece of animation, in my opinion.)

If you’ve ever wanted to understand why people like me are so in love with comic books, just try any one of the masterpieces that I have described over these past two days.  I guarantee you won’t regret it!

Click here for part III of this article, in which I describe some of my favorite Superhero graphic novels.

Recently I’ve had a number of conversations with friends about graphic novels.  A lot of this was prompted by the Watchmen film.  People have been asking me what I thought of the original Watchmen graphic novel (it’s a masterpiece!), if they should read it (YES!), and if I could recommend other graphic novels that might be of interest (read on!).

Which brings me to today’s post.  While this is by no means a comprehensive list of my all-time favorite graphic novels, below are several extraordinary works that I think anyone who is interested in seeing what comics might have to offer would really enjoy.

A quick note, before we begin: I am using the term “graphic novel” to refer to any comic book story available in “book” format (as opposed to 24-32 page “pamphlet-style” single issues).  I am not distinguishing between a collection of comics that were first published as single issues or something that was originally published in this longer format.  I’m talking about any sort of collection that you could pick off your book-shelf and read as a complete story.

V For Vendetta — It is November the 5th, 1997, and a young girl is rescued by a mysterious vigilante wearing a Guy Fawkes mask who calls himself V.  Set in an alternate history in which Britain has become a fascist state, this towering work by Alan Moore and David Lloyd explores issues of identity and individuality.  It also turns the entire idea of the super-hero vigilante on its head.  When the figure of V first appears, we readers are conditioned to root for him as the clear hero of the tale.  Subsequent events cause one to question that thinking, as Moore and Lloyd pose difficult questions about the nature and necessity of the use of violence.  This is a beautiful, haunting work, a true masterpiece of the comics medium.

Give Me Liberty — Like V for Vendetta, this is a story of a slightly-alternate world, in which individual freedoms have become a thing of the past.  In Give Me Liberty, the cause is the unchecked spread of enormous corporations that have long-since co-opted the American government. Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ tale begins in 1995 with the birth of Martha Washington, a young, precocious African-American girl who grows up in the horrifying squalor of “The Green,” an extension of Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project.  Her brains and her courage help her escape the projects and join the military, where she finds herself embroiled in a much larger conspiracy.  This astounding mix of social commentary and sci-fi adventure rises above other works of speculative fiction mainly because of the compelling lead character of Martha.

Jinx — This was the first work I ever read by Brian Michael Bendis, well before he became one of Marvel Comics’ go-to writers, and it remains my favorite.  A dark (but also very funny in places) tale of a young bounty hunter (the titular Jinx) and her hunt for $3,000,000 in loot and all of the trouble that ensues.  Bendis’ gift for dialogue and the rhythms of conversation is immediately apparent, but the twisty story of crosses and double-crosses is also compelling.  Bendis doesn’t do much drawing these days, but I must confess to quite enjoying his unique art style, filled with dramatic page layouts and a lot of what look like photo-copy tricks in the backgrounds.  It gives the work a unique flavor.

Ocean — I just loves me a good sci-fi story, and Warren Ellis, along with illustrators Chris Sprouse & Karl Story, spin a great one here.  UN Weapons Inspector Nathan Kane is sent to a space station orbiting Europa.  The team there has made an astounding discovery: what look to be ancient caskets floating in the ice-covered oceans of that moon.  As Kane struggles to determine the origin and purpose of the amazing find, it quickly becomes apparent that one of Earth’s software conglomerate has its own plans.  Filled to the brim with many of Ellis’  fascinating ideas about science and the universe, all wrapped up in a gripping mystery, Ocean feels a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey — only a lot more exciting!  The beautiful art is just the icing on the cake.  (Warren Ellis has written several other magnficent sci-fi tales, such as Orbiter and Ministry of Space.  Both are also phenomenal!)

All of the above are one-volume tales that represent complete stories, start-to-finish.  I’ll be back here tomorrow to discuss some other fantastic graphic novels that represent pieces of much longer, more elaborate tales.  See you then!  (Click here for Part II of this article, and here for Part III!)

This is unbearably cool.

I’ve been reading for weeks now about a special screening this week of a pristine new print of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX.  Seeing the magnificence of Khan on the big screen would be awesome enough, but the screening was also scheduled to include 10 minutes of footage from J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek film.  

But in one of the coolest bait-and-switches in history, apparently just 5 or so minutes into last night’s screening they swapped out Khan to show J.J. ABRAMS’ NEW STAR TREK FILM IN ITS ENTIRETY!!!

How wild is that??  I am literally beside myself with envy.

Click here for a spoiler-free review of the flick.  This is a VERY POSITIVE review, which is very encouraging!

Click here to read a fun break-down of exactly what went down at the Khan screening, including the surprise appearance of a very illustrious guest.  (I’ll warn you, though t,hat I stopped reading this piece once the description of the actual film begins because it was getting a tad too spoilery for me.)

But wait!  That’s not enough detail, you say?  How about some video?

Finally, in the interest of keeping our expectations in check, click here to read the thoughts of someone who enjoyed the film but wasn’t quite so head-over-heels in love with it.  (This is fairly spoiler-free, but I still sort of skipped through it to avoid reading too much about the film.)

I can’t believe it’s still a MONTH away…!