Movie Review: The Wolverine

Posted on January 12, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

Yesterday, I watched The Wolverine. I guess you could say that I’ve been feeling like reminiscing about superheroes from my past these days. Overall, the movie was good and the story was better than I was anticipating, but Wolverine has never really been my favorite character.

Even though Wolverine has never really been my favorite character, I still tried to keep apprised of his storyline, just like I would keep track of any of the rest of the X-Men from when I was a kid. I guess the difference is that Wolverine always got a lot of time, mystery, extra storylines, extra comic books, etc., but I never chased after all those extra appearances. With that said, I was very impressed with the story in the movie. I thought it was a good combination of a variety of aspects from Wolverine’s past and I thought that it did a good job of giving him a believable mix of past and present.

A couple of parts of the movie made me vaguely uncomfortable for sheer physical sympathy sake, like when Wolverine went to cut his own heart out or when Silver Samurai drilled into his claws. I’m not sure if it was my recent surgery and time in a hospital or how my own newly acquired metal parts react to things like the cold, but seeing broken parts really made me cringe. Maybe I’m just getting to the point in my life where I’ve seen too much real violence and watching it on tv isn’t fun or amusing anymore. But the action sequences were well done and it was interesting to me to see how Wolverine reacted when he had to start adjusting some of his fighting to not just take hits. Not that you really saw that too much, as it would be a lot of hard habits to break, but I definitely got an inkling of change throughout the movie.

I’m not really sure how I feel about all the love story bits. I don’t know that I actually saw any chemistry between Wolverine and Mariko Yashida. But I do know that Wolverine and Mariko Yashida have a complicated history in the comic books, so it was nice to see some old comic book stories flushed into this movie in a new light. I’m also not much for love stories, especially right now. So maybe I was just in the wrong mindset to see whatever chemistry they might have actually had between them.

Overall, the movie was interesting, but not something for me to jump up and down about. Except the ending. The ending made me very excited for the new X-Men movie(s) that I’ve been hearing rumors about.

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Book Review: X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Prelude

Posted on January 12, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

On Friday, I finished reading X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Prelude (graphic novel 247 pages). While some people may not think that reading a graphic novel should count towards my weekly book reviews, I am not them. I will read whatever I want to read, whenever I want to read it. It was a thick collection of pages with deep characters and a binding story. It is a book. And as with all books, it will teach you a story about yourself and the way you see the world.

Back many years ago in my childhood, I read a lot of comic books, with the X-Men line being my favorite. Marvel Comics always appealed to me more than DC Comics, mostly because it felt as though all of DC’s superheroes already started out in some spectacularly special fashion. Clark Kent was Superman, but he was from an alien planet which granted him powers above and beyond normal humans. Bruce Wayne was a boy billionaire who had money and resources to spend making himself the perfect vigilante. If I had paid more attention to the DC Universe as a kid, I’m sure I could have found heroes that weren’t automatically set up to be special, like Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern. But I didn’t. All I saw was Marvel’s long list of superheroes who all started out as completely normal people and then extraordinary things happened to them. It appealed to me as no other hero stories could. Take mutants, for instance. Mutants are normal people until they hit puberty and then their life gets even worse because they develop different talents and mutations. Puberty and teenage years aren’t pleasant for anyone, no matter who you are. Add in a dose of super powers, and you get the stuff that social nightmares are made of.

I remember always using all of the money I earned babysitting and doing chores on comic books. I had my very own box at the comic book store downtown, the only place you could get comics. I mean, I had a box with my name on it. Just for comics that I wanted to buy. While I couldn’t always (or usually) afford to buy every comic I put in the box, those who operated the comic book store did the best they could to give me a month or so to be able to come up with the money I needed. Every time I went down there, I added more comics to the box and I don’t recall a time when I ever had enough money to clean out the whole thing.

I tell you all this because I’m attempting to convey to you a sense of the past. X-Men: Age of Apocalypse came out when I was at the peak of my comic book buying. I loved the stories, the characters, and even the art work. The X-Men, more so than any other comic book characters of that time, were the heroes I secretly wished I could be. They were special and they helped people and they were part of a team. A team that would never let them down, no matter what dark secrets were eventually revealed in their pasts. That was something I desperately wanted as a kid, and I guess it partly transfers into what I want as an adult. But when this series first came out, I remember collecting each and every new issue, lovingly caressing the beautiful covers and seeing how desperate times had changed the heroes I knew. Some were still heroes and some most assuredly were not. But those that were not, I kept thinking in my mind that at the core of who they were remained solid and good, the true heart of a hero.

I’ve seen and heard “literary” types scoff at comic books, and genre fiction, and everything else that they feel is beneath them. In most cases, I feel that you can learn more about life in general from comic books than you can from “literary” fiction. If you really think about it, the X-Men is a way of looking at how people are often afraid of things they don’t understand or people who are different from them. It’s human nature. One of the stories underneath the end of all things in this particular book involves Rogue and Iceman going to visit Iceman’s parents. They all sit down for dinner and it turns out that Iceman’s father is a horrible bigot. Not just against mutants, which his own son is, but also against other races, other ethnicities, anything other than what he sees when he looks in the mirror. I guess in my mind, the X-Men have always stood for some pretty basic things. Everyone of every type should work together to make the world a better place and if you have the power and skill to protect those that are weaker than you, you should absolutely do what you can to help those who are not able to help themselves.

But see, these lessons go deeper than just having superpowers. We should all be trying to help each other out, regardless of superpowers, or race, or gender, or ethnicity, or anything like that.

Another of the really interesting parts about this story is that all of it comes down to the perspective of one very troubled young man. In his view of the world, he thinks that the world will be a better place, a place full of more peace and hope, if his father’s greatest enemy, Magneto, never actually has a chance to become Magneto. He uses his power to send himself back in time in order to kill Magneto before Charles Xavier and Eric Lehnsherr part ways as friends and become bitter enemies. Only, Legion kills Professor Xavier instead. And the whole world stops.

This was originally from Marvel’s X-Factor 109, but more recently can be found in X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Prelude. Inside credits are listed as: Plot: John Francis Moore; Script: Todd Dezago; Pencils: Jan Duursema; Inks: Al Milgrom; Editor: Kelly Corvese; Group Editor: Bob Harras; Chief: Tom DeFalco.

The X-Men and those associated with them have time to see the end of all that is as it approaches them and a lot of the story talks about regrets and not taking advantage of every minute of every day with those that matter the most to you. I guess in a lot of ways, this story hit me a lot harder now than it did in my youth when I first read it on its original glossy pages, spread out over so many different titles and comics. Back then, I didn’t really know or understand how much life can hurt. I thought I knew, but all my knowledge was from the inexperience of a child who had never known love outside blood and kin. My understanding of these things is stronger, as the pain of regret, love, and loss aren’t things you ever really get over. No, it’s something that you just learn to deal with. The pain never leaves, you just learn to make it bearable, to make it through the days and try to hope for something better in the future. At one point in the story, Legion brings Mystique a message from Destiny. He says, “Beware of times not shared, hearts not loved, and destinies not written.”

I’d forgotten how powerful this story is and how many things are taught through this series. And now that I have so much more experience in my life, this story becomes even more moving to me. Overall, this is probably my favorite series of comic books that I’ve ever read, even though it hurts so much more to read it now.

My original graphic novel review of X-Men: Age of Apocalypse: Prelude happened on 12 January 2014 and I just finished rereading it again on 16 February 2018. I remember that time, four years ago, very keenly. I had just started learning how to walk again after being on crutches for three months. It would be another several months before I realized that I’d fallen in love with my best friend who was not on speaking terms with me and still, four years later, still isn’t on speaking terms with me. It would also be another several months before I learned about Asexuality and that I have never in my life actually experienced sexual attraction. I think it’s the lost and unrequited love portion from Mystique’s panel that resonates the most with me and causes me the strongest reaction because of how much I miss the most spectacular person I’ve ever met. Needless to say, when I posted my original review of this graphic novel, I was going through more than I could handle on my own and even today, my heart still loves someone to whom I am the villain of their story.  Things in my life have changed so drastically, but I’m constantly amazed at the emotional impact stories like this continue to have on me. This graphic novel talks about love, loss, passion, conviction, and hope above all things.

So to the artists and writers, to all the creators and creatives out there, thank you for what you do. The books, novels, artwork, graphic novels, fanart, and everything you create matters. Keep doing what you do and maybe we’ll all someday live in a better world, filled with more hope.

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The Garbage Disposal Epiphany: Also Known As a Frying Pan to the Head

Posted on January 5, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

This is a story about changing my perspective. And the epiphany came at the bottom of my garbage disposal.

For the last several weeks, ever since I returned early from my most recent research trip due to a broken ankle, the sink on the garbage disposal side hasn’t been draining correctly and the garbage disposal wouldn’t run. All last night, my garbage disposal gurgled and made very annoying digestive sounds. If I had been even remotely attempting to sleep, it would have kept me awake. I remember being curled up in all of my blankets and knowing that it was unpleasantly cold outside the small comfort of the couch and that I would deal with whatever was in the kitchen making noise in the morning.

After a restless night and an emotionally draining morning, I finally got out of bed to the 56 degrees in my apartment. I did my morning exercises and still had residual heat from being warm on the couch and went to take a shower. I turned the water up as high as it would go and I stayed there until the water went cold. I pulled on my fuzzy, wool socks and my fleece-lined jeans and my giant, fuzzy sweater. The cold still made its presence known and I shivered through my breakfast around noon. I have not been a fan of the cold for about the last 9 years. And now that I have metal parts in my ankle that do not like being cold, the cold has become something of a huge annoyance in my life.

So why is it that I was allowing myself to be so cold if I dislike it so much? Other than me being stupid and stubborn, I’m not really sure. The cold in my apartment was making it hard to motivate myself to get things done that I know need to get done. It was easier by far to stay curled up in my blankets on the couch than it was to face being cold and trying to get things done, which meant I would then feel crappy because I didn’t accomplish anything during the day. It’s funny how small things can combine and create bigger things. Today, I actually asked myself why I was prolonging my misery. Why didn’t I just turn on the heat and make it warm enough inside my apartment to be bearable, if not comfortable? I turned the heat on and in just a short period of time, my apartment became comfortable enough for me to look towards other tasks.

I went to wash my bowl and my spoon from my breakfast and looked down to see that the garbage disposal hadn’t actually drained at all from yesterday. I don’t know why I thought it would magically fix itself. I played with the on/off switch and nothing happened. No buzzing, no whirling, nothing. I hobbled around and turned on all the lights in the kitchen so I could better see what I was doing. I thought it might just be clogged and I stared down at it and that’s when I realized something very, very important. At some point, I was going to have to get my hands dirty. And this one thought was enough to make me realize that I’ve been going about a lot of things in my life the wrong way.

Making sure the garbage disposal was off, pulled out my trash can and dug out all of the food and bits of things that may have been living there for a very long time. It turned my hand and arm orange. More than the smell was the texture of the slimy food bits I removed from the garbage disposal. I scrubbed and pulled out every scrap of food or whatever was down there until I could feel and see no more chunks. But the water still wasn’t draining. I’d done all I could, the water was still there, and the garbage disposal still wouldn’t run. What happened? What had I done wrong? It was messy and I cleaned it. I used the switch. It should work, right?

I searched through my kitchen, looking for the instruction manual. Nothing. So I went back to the sink. Having recently spent Christmas dinner at a coworker’s house, I remembered there was a problem with their garbage disposal. A few of them worked together to take the disposal unit out and to clean it. I thought about doing that, so I cleaned out the entire area under the sink and inspected the garbage disposal unit very carefully. Tucked up in a place I almost couldn’t read was a tiny label that said, “THE RECEPTACLE TO WHICH THIS DISPOSER IS CONNECTED MUST BE CONTROLLED BY A SWITCH.”

Well, of course I knew that. There was a switch on the wall, but it wasn’t working. So I kept inspecting the disposal unit, looking for how to remove it and trying to figure out if I could do that safely. And then, at the very bottom of the disposal unit, I found a small, red button. I pushed the button. The garbage disposal whirred to life. I turned on the water and watched as it happily spun and spun and spun, adding in some dish soap to help clean out those last bits of whatever.

All I needed to do was to push the reset button. It helped that I had already cleaned out all of the crap that I could reach. But all I really needed to do was to hit the reset button.

This one, simple thing, made me realize something really, really profound. All of my friendships and interpersonal relationships have all been like the garbage disposal. I keep washing dirty dishes and putting the remains of leftover meals into the garbage disposal and letting things get all bottled up and rotten. What I really need to do is to clean things up, get rid of all the crap and chunks of nastiness that are preventing things from working correctly, and hit the reset button. Cleaning up interpersonal relationships means that I have to take all the crap from the past and throw it away. Get rid of it for good. It’s not doing me or anyone else any good. It’s clogging up the system and preventing me from working correctly.

I’m very stubborn and thick-headed, you see. Making or accepting changes is very hard for me. Many of those close to me have felt the need to figuratively hit me on the head with very large, very heavy items (like frying pans) to get me to pay attention to something. And that happened today. Between two conversations, I feel like I’ve been whacked upside the head and that I’m now awake and ready to actually start cleaning.

All I can do now is hope that my cleaning of the system works as well as I want it to and that this epiphany hasn’t come too late. Cleaning out the system and hitting the reset button will be really, really good for me, regardless of what happens elsewhere. I suspect it’s going to take time to honestly clean things out and I suspect it’s going to be nasty, ugly business for me. Please be patient and bear with me through this. I know that it’s my job to clean it all up and make things better, but I won’t say no to offers of assistance 🙂

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Book Review: Dragonspell by Donita K. Paul

Posted on January 4, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

Yesterday, I finished my first book for 2014, Dragonspell by Donita K. Paul (Young Adult Fantasy, 334 pages).

“Once a slave, Kale is given the unexpected opportunity to become a servant to Paladin. Yet this young girl has much to learn about the difference between slavery and service. A small band of Paladin’s servants rescue Kale from danger but turn her from her destination: The Hall, where she was to be trained. Feeling afraid and unprepared, Kale embarks on a perilous quest to find the meech dragon egg stolen by the foul Wizard Risto. First she and her comrades must find Wizard Fenworth. But their journey is threatened when a key member of the party is captured, leaving the remaining companions to find Fenworth, attempt an impossible rescue, and recover the egg whose true value they have not yet begun to suspect …”

The very first and most important thing I have to say about this book is that it contains tiny, adorable baby dragons! I imagined them starting out as small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and that they didn’t get much bigger during the course of the book. I’m not one of those people who reads the glossary or appendix sections of books because I would rather understand what the author means just through context. The glossary in this book only briefly mentions three of the different types of dragons, but supposedly each dragon has different abilities based on color. I have the next book in the series and I could go and look to see if there is ever a dragon glossary that tells what the different dragon color abilities are, but I think I’d rather just continue reading and find out in the same way the characters do.

The best character in the book is the baby dragon Gymn. When Gymn is first born, he faints. He then spends a good portion of the book fainting when he gets scared. This amused me to no end because who would have ever thought of a fainting dragon? The descriptions of the dragons and their personalities are fantastic and well worth the read. The characters run into a variety of dragons throughout their adventures and each one felt different to me.

The world-building in this story is really interesting. The world is a peninsula, but a very large one with a variety of different races, different characters, and different lifestyles. Most of the differences are touched at here and there, but you’re definitely given a sense of how big the world is and that it’s populated by different people and animals, both good and bad. You see a lot of the world-building as the adventure progresses because those on Paladin’s quest run into a variety of creatures that intend them harm and they have to battle each one differently.

The band of adventurers never leave any of the battles unharmed, which I think is something I haven’t seen in many of the young adult books I’ve read. Usually, the heroes are so skilled that they defeat their enemies flawlessly. Not here. The book does an interesting job of showing how battle is not glorious and not fun, but the heroes here don’t have to progress with their injuries throughout all of their adventures. I think it could have added just a touch more realism if not all wounds could be magically healed, or if there was some negative or personal cost for each healing. Instead, healing is just magic and can be accomplished at any time with no cost, even to ease the pain of sore feet.

The one big drawback to this book for me was that it was strongly religious. I’m glad I read the book for the tiny, adorable baby dragons, the characters, and the world-building, but the religious undertones were a bit too strong for me. Overall, it was a fun and interesting book to read, but one which I might not read again.

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Movie Review: Batman Beyond – Return of the Joker

Posted on January 1, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

The very first thing I have to say about this is that Return of the Joker was probably the single most depressing animated anything I have ever watched. I missed seeing some of the reoccurring characters from the series like Max who was exactly the kind of role model I think kids should look up to, but I’ll talk about her more when I discuss my thoughts about the rest of the series.

The storyline for Return of the Joker did a great job of tieing together the original Batman story with the new Batman Beyond story. Batman’s interactions with the Joker have never been pleasant, as the Joker was the prime example of the worst kind of bad guy. But the story used here in this movie was sadder and more depressing than I was prepared for. I didn’t realize that this was going to be such a heart-breaking movie. I’m not usually a very big Batman fan. In my youth, I read the occasional comic book and I watched some of the cartoons. I knew that in the comics, the first Robin was actually killed by the Joker, but I didn’t really pay too much attention to the rest of the people who Batman trained and mentored. So when Tim Drake’s story came up, I had no idea if it mirrored the comic books or not. It didn’t actually matter in the end, because the story was completely capable of standing on its own.

Watching what the Joker did to Tim Drake as Robin was terrible and heart-wrenching. The Joker had Robin for three whole weeks and in that time used all his tricks to take a person out of Batman’s life. Not just death, but torture and brainwashing, leaving a lifetime of scars and pain. And then to take over Tim Drake’s body as well? And cause the destruction of huge parts of the city as well as killing or injuring hundreds of innocents? It was a horrible thing to watch. It both pushed the lesson of why heroes need to exist so they can stop people like the Joker as well as why being a hero sucks so much. Chosing to be a hero means that you and likely the people you love will become targets for all the really crazy people in the world. At some point as a hero, you’ll suffer and be tortured, potentially made worse by being forced to watch the people you love suffer first. That’s the role of the hero – to take any action necessary to protect other people from bad guys who have selfish intent.

I am glad that I bought Return of the Joker when I bought the complete series boxed set. I think that the series ended rather abruptly and that this movies provided a nice conclusion to the series. Every time Terry McGinnis said that he wasn’t like any of the other, previous youths to work with Batman, I kept wanting him to do something really spectacular that proved that he was different. And in the end, when he mocked the Joker, that was pretty neat and made me think that maybe he really was a different type of hero.

I might type out more of my thoughts later, but right now, I really am just stuck on how absolutely depressing this movie was. It was good, don’t get me wrong. I guess that’s the mark of a well-done show is that it’s written so well that it plays on your emotions and actually causes you to feel things. But it was still super depressing.

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Goals for 2014

Posted on December 31, 2013 by C.A. Jacobs

So just like last year, I’m going to post my goals for the coming year. Some are rebooted from 2013. Some are new because of circumstances beyond my control.

1) Read ONE book per week. And it doesn’t count if I don’t post a review. Quantifiable 🙂

2) Write ONE movie review per week.

3) Listen to TEN songs or ONE album per week and then organize my music correctly.

4) Revise Affinity.

5) Participate and win NaNoWriMo in 2014.

6) Draw and color at least ONE full size pattern.

7) Run two miles in under 16 minutes. After learning how to walk again and then building up my strength and such. I could just say something along the lines of being able to walk again, but I’d rather shoot for more ambitious and healthier goals.

8) Stop swearing. It seems like such a little thing, but I feel so unprofessional every time I do it.

9) Attend one cultural event or location per month. Things like historic sites, musical concerts, plays, comedy clubs, etc., in order to increase my knowledge and awareness of things that are bigger than me and things that will hopefully encourage my mind to work.

10) Climb a 5.10 wall.

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The End of 2013

Posted on December 30, 2013 by C.A. Jacobs

I don’t even really know what to say about 2013.

I moved across the country. I did the entire drive from coast to coast in six days by myself and had a great time. I stopped at the house of a really great friend and shared a wonderful meal with all the people I knew in the area. The men folk helped me fix my brand new truck cover, which attempted to escape repeatedly during the drive across one of the more barren of the states. I also stopped at six different Lego stores and spent tons of money on the pick-a-brick walls. Some were fantastic. Some were less so. The final one in the state I live in now leaves a lot to be desired. My apartment is the best I’ve lived in so far and it feels a lot like a home should.

My new job actually worked out for the best, which surprised me in a variety of ways. I got to travel to a country I’d never been to before and was having a wonderful time there until I had to return to the states due to a very broken ankle. I broke my ankle in two places and then spent five nights and five days in a foreign hospital where they performed my first ever surgery. And I remember that first night being painful and lonely, as I spent the first night in the hospital alone and they had put my bag out of reach. I had no way of contacting the hospital staff and I couldn’t get out of the bed. That night was one of the longest I can remember.

I have a lot of really amazing memories from 2013, mostly because I met the most fantastic and amazing person I have ever known. There were a lot of adventures and a lot of really good times. I went ziplining for the first time in my life. I spent a lot of time laughing, going to movies, eating out, and being a passenger for long drives. I bought a GPS for the vehicle because I kept getting us lost. Some of my favorite memories involve climbing at our local indoor climbing gym. Or the days of just watching movies together on the couch. We watched the Perseids meteor shower from the parking lot of a church while listening to Nightvale. We tried to go hang gliding, but it didn’t work out because of the weather. So we spent the day hanging around the beach and looking for a place to play miniature golf instead. But out of all those awesome times, I think that my absolute favorite memory is the weekend from the Independence Day holiday. By all accounts, it was a very boring weekend, but it’s one where I remember being very, very happy.

As another year comes to a close, I went through my previous posts and found my goals for 2013. I didn’t complete or even start working on some of them. I only had ten things on my goals list and here they are:

1. Write 500 words a day (I really didn’t do this, but I should have).

2. Finish the first draft for Away (This I actually did).

3. Finish the TLR project (I don’t even know where this is right now).

4. Read a book a week (I’m sure I did this, I just didn’t write reviews for them).

5. Earn my Master Diver certification (It’s super cold and low visibility diving where I live now. This isn’t likely to happen until I return to a place where diving isn’t uncomfortable).

6. Take at least one class towards my Architectural Technology degree (I didn’t get a chance to start work on this for a variety of reasons).

7. Exercise for 30 minutes a day (I’m pretty sure I did this, as I am now a lot smaller than I used to be).

8. Participate in a monthly writer’s group (I didn’t even try to do this).

9. Find and reclaim the AMP (I think I found it, but I really am getting to the point where I don’t think I’ll ever see it again).

10. Build a Lego model of the cabin (I didn’t spend nearly as much time building in 2013 as I have in previous years).

So even though it appears as though I barely accomplished any of my goals and there were some really unpleasant times, 2013 was very much worth it for me. I look towards 2014 with a little bit of trepidation because no good thing lasts forever. But, ever the idealist, I will believe in hope. The hope that maybe 2014 will be even better than 2013 was and that there will continue to be many fantastic adventures and wonderful days.

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Movie Review: Batman Beyond, season 1 disc 1

Posted on December 30, 2013 by C.A. Jacobs

During my latest research trip, one of my friends reintroduced me to Batman Beyond. I remember watching some episodes every now and then when I was in college, but I’d never seen the entire series. So I ordered it and have now watched the first disc of the first season. Overall, I’m enjoying watching the series for a variety of reasons.

The first disc actually contains eight episodes: Rebirth Part 1, Rebirth Part 2, Black Out, Golem, Meltdown, Heroes, Shriek, and Dead Man’s Hand. These first eight episodes cover the background as to how Terry McGinnis assumes the Batman mantle from Bruce Wayne and how Bruce Wayne becomes a mentor for Terry McGinnis.

I liked how in Rebirth Part 1 and Rebirth Part 2, the Joker’s gang is prevalent and still causing problems in the future. I can imagine that in a big city where the Joker played such a crucial role that petty thieves and thugs would use that as a rallying card for their own gain. Not that any of them have any real connections to the original Joker, but that they can use his name as a symbol. And part of the draw of Batman is how a symbol can be far more important than a person. Stan Berkowitz, the series story writer and editor, said in the Batman Beyond book that came with my boxed series that this was a good mix of providing a solid, well-established character with a new addition that will appeal to a broad audience. And I think I agree with his assessment.

In Blackout, the main focus is that Terry McGinnis lacks Bruce Wayne’s experience in fighting criminal masterminds and super-powered villains. Terry is certainly not as good at thinking on his feet as Bruce, but Bruce spent a lot of time, energy, money, and resources becoming Batman. Terry is just falling in on a pre-established regime. Terry doesn’t like Bruce just telling him what to do without knowing why and Bruce is used to just getting his way and not having to explain himself. This dynamic really comes out in this episode and it demonstrates why the show is interesting to watch.

Golem is an interesting look at bullies. You’ve got a “wimpy” kid who is picked on by his father for being unable to stand up for himself and then the same kid is picked on by annoying jocks at school. Instead of taking positive action to deal with his situation and the bullies in his life, he turns to violence and revenge. This then makes the situation drastically worse. He takes out his frustration by destroying the lead jock’s most valuable possession, which is his car. And then he uses the Golem device to cause destruction to buildings and infrastructure, not thinking about the consequences for his actions and the damage that he causes. As soon as he was given power over others, he used that power for selfish and destructive purposes. He became the bully. I guess that also goes a bit into what makes a person a hero versus what makes a person a villain. Heroes have power and they use their power selflessly to help others. Villains have power and use their power for selfish or destructive purposes. That’s why heroes always have a crappier time with things.

I like how Meltdown shows what happens when a villain attempts to honestly reform and make amends for the damages and destruction from their previous life. Victor Fries was given a second chance to live the life he wanted and he used his resources to set up a trust fund for all the families of the people he’d killed throughout his time and Mr. Freeze. He genuinely reform, but there are those who attempt to derail him. In the end, he winds up doing at least partially the right thing by taking on the other super villain and only destroying evacuated buildings instead of destroying the entire facility and causing hundreds of additional deaths. Bruce at one point tells Terry that what Terry met was a ghost. Given a second chance, Victor really does try to do the right thing.

Heroes was an interesting episode because it showed how easy it is to be betrayed by those closest to you. The Trio has a friend and he knew that the reaction would cause fatal radiation, but he set the experiment up anyway. He was hoping to take advantage of the situation and gain the girl and the glory while removing the rest of the team. It’s a prime example of being selfish and causing destruction for petty reasons. It’s also a prime example of how easy it is for the people pulling the strings to decide that you’re a problem and switch sides on you. Lots and lots of trust issues in this episode.

Shriek is probably my least favorite episode on this disc. While the villain for this episode has a unique gift with sound and he creates a fantastic new suit, he’s also kind of whiny. He goes to talk to Powers and whines about how he can never show his face again and how he can’t go back to his studio. He never actually seems to think about the things he could do with his new suit and powers. He could have taken the route of the hero and chosen to do good things, but that’s not what he chose to do. He chose to become a villain. Though, this episode does have one neat thing, and that’s seeing Terry go undercover. I hope the series has more instances of Terry using his intellect to solve problems instead of depending on the Batman suit. That was always one of the draws of Bruce Wayne as Batman because he was a detective. He used his brain to deal with a lot of the villains he encountered.

I think Dead Man’s Hand is my favorite episode on this disc. It shows the problems between being Batman and attempting to have a normal life. Bruce never attempted to have a normal life, but Terry continues to try to lead the double life. Terry meets someone he has strong feelings for that has a compatible lifestyle, but he watches her get arrested because she made the wrong decisions. I’m kind of torn about that because I think that Melany would have reformed and become maybe a hero if given the chance. Now, she’ll spend time in prison and likely become bitter and a bigger villain in the future. This would have been a great opportunity to show a villain being reformed before becoming such a huge problem.

Overall, I’m enjoying the series and I will continue to post my thoughts as I finish each disc.

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Why I’m more interested in watching Falling Skies rather than the Walking Dead

Posted on October 15, 2013 by C.A. Jacobs

On my last research trip, I started watching TNT’s Falling Skies. The rest of the people I worked with watched the Walking Dead. I was curious about both, so when I came back from the trip, I bought the first season of Falling Skies and the first two seasons of the Walking Dead. I was then able to watch all the new episodes in season three of the Walking Dead and of Falling Skies. While both series have strong points, I find myself more drawn to Falling Skies.

The first season of the Walking Dead has some genuinely creepy moments. You know when you start watching the show that you’re watching a show with zombies, which means you have certain expectations about gore, death, creepiness, and survival. The best way that stories like this seem to work is when you have someone who is forced to discover the new aspects of the world without knowing how it got the way it is. It makes the world new and unique as the character(s) have to figure out how to survive in a strange and different version of the world they used to know. It also builds nostalgia for the way things used to be and the characters continue to strive towards the normalcy that they used to know.

As the show carries on, especially into the second season, it becomes more about the personal drama between survivors and less about zombies and horror. Granted, the scariest monster I can think of is the human monster, but also think about how much time the Walking Dead spent on the relationship between Rick, Shane, and Lori. The Walking Dead seems to focus greatly on the bad, terrible things that people do to each other in order to survive and potentially poses moral or ethical questions that many people may not find themselves suited to answering even in the world we live in now. The show wants you to focus on questions like whether or not it’s wrong that Lori and Shane were having sexual relations when Rick was out of the picture. Or how far is too far for a person to go to protect the people they love. Perhaps even the time-honored classic question of who decides who ought to live and who should die.

Basically, the Walking Dead focuses on all the negative aspects of a future without all the technology and luxury most Americans take for granted. The “good guys” make a whole bunch of decisions that they would never have made the same way before the world ended and zombies took over everything. Best friends attempt to kill each other over the affections of a woman who seems as petty as they get. Young children learn how to kill living humans better than anyone else in the group, and seem to kill without remorse. Other groups take what they need from survivors and then flat out murder the people they took supplies from in order to maintain control over their claimed territory.

All in all, it’s a selfish world. Which is part of the reason the Walking Dead can be and is classified as horror. Horror is supposed to show you the worst of the world and do it with a message along the lines of sometimes, life just sucks.

So what makes Falling Skies a more memorable show for me? I’m supposed to be a horror writer, so why wouldn’t I automatically flock to the Walking Dead‘s banner?

One of the key ingredients for me with Falling Skies is the difference in humanity that Falling Skies demonstrates. Yes, there are characters out there who are doing less than stellar things to the other human survivors, but everyone knows those people are just being human. Even though they’re not the best people, you still empathize with them because they’re human. And sometimes, life just sucks.

But here’s why there are a lot more horrific elements in Falling Skies than there is in the Walking Dead. One of the key reasons is that the different aliens in the show all have the ability to take control of situations and people. Zombies don’t. Zombies bite you and you get infected and then you bite everyone else. Or you just die and turn into a zombie. Whatever works best. But aliens can use super creepy eyeball drugs to take over your brain and body and make you do things that are counterproductive to the human race as a whole and also make you betray everyone and everything you love and believe in.

Imagine being a good, upstanding citizen and then being abducted by aliens and forced to betray your friends, family, and loved ones. Then, through some random miracle of science, all of your alien mind control is gone. Now you have to live and work with the same people who you betrayed. You’ll have the deaths of your family on your conscience for the rest of your life. And no one will ever treat you the same. Most people are likely to never trust you again. When humans as a whole are social creatures, how would that affect your psychological stability?

In a lot of ways, situations like that are far more horrifying because they’re subtle, long-term problems that will never have a true solution. And that’s a lot more like real life, which makes things a bit more unsettling.

There are some genuinely creepy moments in Falling Skies. In fact, for me, there have been more cringe moments for me in Falling Skies than in the Walking Dead. Especially the eyeball bug. And the hallucination alien facehugger thing. The ways people die because of the aliens are not simple and the people never really know who their friends are and who the enemies are.

The family dynamic in Falling Skies is also a lot stronger than in the Walking Dead. I never really felt like Rick actually cares about Carl, whereas Tom obviously cares deeply about Hal, Ben, and Mat. Even faced with the potential that his sons may not have humanity’s best interest in mind, Tom still fights for his kids, believes in them, and loves them unconditionally. But that only adds to the element of horror when his daughter starts doing some downright creepy things. So what do you do about alien babies? Do you love them? Or remove them? Or are you going crazy and your kid is actually fine?

In my opinion, the psychological impact of Falling Skies has a lot more fertile ground to grow rather than the Walking Dead. And in a lot of ways, I think the unknown or imagined horror is a lot more terrifying than the easily identified zombie or humans trying to cause problems. I do enjoy both shows very much, but if I had to choose between the two, I would easily pick Falling Skies.

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Book Review: Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko

Posted on August 31, 2013 by C.A. Jacobs

I finished reading Nightwatch (urban fantasy 455 pages) by Sergei Lukyanenko a few days ago and, as usual, am only getting around to writing up my review now.

You know how sometimes you have to be at a certain place in your life in order to really understand or appreciate certain things? Or how you look at stories differently depending on when in your life you read or heard them? I’d say this book was perfectly timed for me and where I’m at in my life. I’d seen this book on bookshelves many times before and I even picked it up to look at it every now and again but I never actually managed to buy or read it. Until a really good friend loaned it to me over a week ago. As I was between books at the time and I have a very healthy respect for my friend’s judgment concerning movies, books, and music, I started Nightwatch the day it was loaned to me.

The book consists of three stories – Destiny, Among His Own Kind, and All For His Own Kind. Each story is separate, yet still part of a greater whole. Events from Destiny and Among His Own Kind are referenced in All For His Own Kind. So while the events of the three stories are linked, I suppose it would be possible for a person to read them individually. I wouldn’t recommend it, though.

I was very intrigued by the idea that the Nightwatch is actually run by the agents of the light while the Daywatch is run by the agents of the dark. It was an interesting point of view shift for the “good” guys to be working at night while the “bad” guys worked during the day. Most fantasy or urban fantasy stories I’ve read all have the bad guys being more prominent during the hours of darkness. I guess that makes sense that the Nightwatch would be the agents of the light and working during hours of darkness when the agents of the dark would be more likely to be awake and prowling.

One of the most interesting things to me throughout the book was the continuous demonstration of how the forces of “good” and the forces for “bad” must constantly strive to maintain a balance throughout the world, but that balance is a matter of perspective. If you kill a law-abiding vampire just because it’s a vampire and take no notice of the vampire’s family or the other negative emotions released because of the vampire’s death, then even though you may believe you committed an act of goodness with positive intentions, that doesn’t mean that your actions were actually good. The concept reminded me a little bit about one of Mercedes Lackey‘s books, though I don’t remember exactly which one. But the concept there was that evil done in the name of good is still evil while good done in the name of evil is still good. It feels a little bit like the same general concept. And I think Nightwatch goes more into real world situations and approaches the modern aspect of how someone could accomplish small good acts or small bad acts and how those small actions have the potential to become something so much bigger with more extensive consequences than originally anticipated.

I really liked how the stories were all interconnected, and how it was the really small details that mattered the most. Two or three times throughout my reading, I had to flip back to previous sections because I had not been paying at much attention to the small details as I should have been. I suspect that is mostly due to never really having read books centered on such a gritty location. The setting of Moscow was fascinating and I felt as though the writing allowed me a glimpse into the foreign culture and world of Moscow, which is completely unfamiliar to me.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book and will be looking to add this to my own collection. I was most taken by the philosophical points concerning the typical notions of good and bad. I really liked how the book left me with many deep thoughts as I read it and also once I’d finished. I’m also going to see if I can find the next book so I can read it, too.

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