Oedipus Redux - Peter Milligan's Greek Street

Apologies for the late posting - been busy.

Ahem. Anyways, let it never be known that we are not literate here on this blog. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be focusing on the Greek Classics. Or to be more specific, the story of Oedipus. Yes, the lad who shagged and then killed his mother. The forebear of a psychosexual complex that forms the basis of today's psychology and a huge industry of anti-depressants manufacturing.

Greek Street is a bit of a pun, something to be expected from one of DC Vertigo's pioneering writers. It's an actual street found in London, a home of vice, baklava, strippers and gangsters. Actually, no it's not, it's really just a lane filled with a slew of ethnic restaurants in Soho. But then what better home than to put a modernized version of a veritable mish-mosh of Greek stories mixing Oedipus, the Iliad, the Golden Ass and more? At the center of the story is Eddy (which for those quick on the take is a hipper version of Oedipus), a street urchin/junkie/ne're do well in trouble with the local mob, run by the Fury family, nee The Erinyes. The local crime family is itself in some kind of debt to their local House of Lords representative Lord Menon (Agamemnon). He has a clairvoyant daughter named Sandy (Cassandra) and there is a Greek chorus of strippers who bookend each chapter with a summary and a taste of the shit to befall young lord Eddy. This has cannibalism, incest, ultra-violence and drug-taking. Why it's got everything we need in our modern Greek plays!

The writing is crisp but accent-heavy. If you're a fan of Guy Ritchie films or Irvine Welsh novels, this is definitely for you. This is UK gangster to the hilt with enough Greek Classic references to make you hit Wikipedia for a couple of hours. The art by Davide Gianfelice is spectacular, much better than the usual Vertigo norm, with bright colors and sharp line graphics that show the glitz and grit of today's London. I dunno if the rest of you have been there recently, but it captures the seedy dump-quality of the non-touristy areas. Don't get me wrong, London is cool and all that. But Disneyland it ain't.

Noble Savages - Brian Wood's Northlanders

I seem to have a thing for relishing topics and themes rather unpopular by current standards. Case in point, Northlanders - a very well-written series by Brian Wood (DMZ, Supermarket) which focuses on that most trendy of subjects - Vikings. Why, you would ask, would anyone be interested in reading about folks who slaughtered each other, wore fancy helmets adorned with horns and wings, and drank themselves silly before battle? Or did I just answer my own question? First off, that horns and wings thing was just a myth, they never wore fancy helmets. Intricate hair braids, yes - but never winged helms. Second off, well unlike other hack and slash tomes, this one gets into the culture and socio-politics of the Viking era. You see, too often has that period of time been glossed over as bad-smelling barbarians leaping off a boat, gutting some hapless monks, and then getting rippingly drunk over their spoils of war. It's been few and far between that Norsemen (classifying those of Jutland, Varangian, Normans, Danes, etc) are given some depth and 3-dimensional characteristics atypical of this age. Oh sure, there are dismemberments, skull-cleaving axes, monks getting torched and all that, but without that they wouldn't be Norsemen.

Take for example the first story-arc - "Sven the Returned" (which would make a great epic film). An outcast from childhood, Sven leaves the Orkney Isles to Constantinople where he makes his fortune as one of the Varangian Guard (mercenaries in service to the Byzantine Empire). Or does he? Nevertheless he returns home to the savage Orkneys of his birth, and is disgusted by the backwards, superstitious, simple people that he had originally left far behind. No longer defining himself as one of them, he is torn between his birthright and heritage and his desire to be out where he truly belongs, being the civilized and educated man he has become. But let no one think that he is a sissy just because he shaves his beard and cuts his hair, oh no. No one gets away with that shit, lemme tell you.

Another classic story-arc that also hits its mark is the short and concise "Lindisfarne", an amazing tale of the old ways of the Norse Gods vis a vis a newfangled, slightly hypocritical and pretty impractical belief system called Christianity. Lindisfarne marks the start of the Viking Age and sets up the conflict between the Norsemen vs. the Celts and Saxons, or the Pagans versus the God-fearing. This religious conflict takes places again in "The Shield Maidens" and "The Cross + The Hammer". But Lindisfarne offers a snapshot of that special age, a Dark Ages childhood, and a unique situation when a boy has the choice between supplicating himself between Our Father The Lord, or The Gods of War and Thunder. Let's just say that he choose the practical over the pious.

Bloody Heathens! - Definitely Not for Sunday School

After recently reading how American distributors are not going to be allowing any showings of the new movie Creation due to its "controversial" topic - that of Charles Darwin and the lead-up to The Origin of Species, it got me into a fairly combative mood. Using reverse psychology: if a Gallup poll shows that 39% of Americans don't believe in evolution then it underscores how the Christian faith is obviously under attack from belief systems not in line with its own. To wit - getting defensive about someone else's POV is a sure sign of insecurity and ham-fisted judgement.

So I might as well feed a bit more tinder into the fire and show how some titles really take the piss out of misinterpreted dogma, particularly that represented by the Big Bad Institutionalized Cross. I'll sidestep Preacher by Garth Ennis, perhaps the grand-daddy of "vs-Christian" (rather than anti-Christian) comics as that deserves its own blog one of these days. Instead I'll touch on:

BLOODY MARY:

By who else? Garth Ennis. Mary Malone is a former special forces soldier who also happens to be a nun. She is literally invulnerable for part of the series, having ingested a creature that makes her immune to.... well, death, as she takes her share of bullets and even tank shells penetrating her torso. Blowing up the Vatican, killing Christian cults, bringing down fascist dictatorships - all in the name of whatever Garth Ennis believes in. The style is irreverant, as to be expected of the writer, but not so much as The Adventures of the Rifle Brigade but actually on par with say, Preacher. Ultra-violence is balanced against *some* degree of empathy for the characters but it doesn't take itself as seriously as Battlefields.

FAITH:

You either love the art by story-teller Ted McKeever or you hate it. But this series concerns itself with a concept of purgatory called Murr where the dead are sent, whether they were saints or devils. Robbed of identity and purpose, they come to realize they have a common enemy - the forces of God himself who is a corrupt landlord out to clear out Murr for unknown reasons. If you have a New Testament/Lifetime Channel concept of angels as harp-playing, blonde cherubs, this may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you are inclined to think of angels as God's mercenaries: eyeless, soulless, and unthinking as per Christopher Walken's Prophecy movies, you might get a kick out of the portrayal of brutally horrific angelic warfare. Takes all kinds. Cameos by an uber-pissed Joan D'Arc and Lucifer in a bad toupee.

BTW - this blog is NOT meant to be a Garth Ennis fan-page, just so you know.

Let's Get Ethnic - Vimanarama!

There are a LOT of stories out there that take Japanese culture and history as influence. But as far as Asian cultures are concerned, Desi tends to get thrown on the wayside despite having a longer storytelling tradition and just-as-rich context to fall upon.

Bollywood has long been regarded as not-quite mainstream enough to hit Hollywood or comic-dom shores in a big way. Slumdog Millionaire, it can be fair to say, was for many people their first encounter with Bollywood as an entertainment vehicle, despite it not being authentically Bollywood. True Bollywood remains a acquired taste what with its overacting, semi-ridiculous plot points and habit of breaking into song and dance that renders something as serious as Othello turned into Hairspray at the drop of a hat.

Grant Morrison and Philip Bond have done something special - they focus on the Indian community of England, itself the home of a rich and unique culture, (it's also the birthplace of an awfully cool musical subgenre called ethno, blending techno, breakbeat and tabla/sitar music) and tales of the delicate balance of modernity vs tradition, brown vs white, Islam vs Hinduism, etc come to the fore. Writers like Hanif Kureishi, musicians like Talvin Singh, and movies like Bend It Like Beckham all come from this not-too-little community.

Blending this modern UK culture with a Jack Kirby-esque story involving cross-dimensional meta-humans, demonic aliens and reincarnation (we think, we're never too sure) and a heavy dosage of humor is Vimanarama. The storyline is simple, a self-absorbed not-too-bright dreamer/loser named Ali is set into a modern battle in the middle of Camden, London between the ancient cosmic demigod protectors of earth and their demonic rivals who want nothing more than wipe humanity's asses from the face of the planet. But in reality, despite all this - all Ali really wants is for his arranged wife to not be too ugly upon seeing her for the first time. And who knew that she's also the reincarnation of the Lord Demigod Protector's Holy Wife? Dammit! Some guys just have no luck.

Upcoming Movie - The Losers

One of the best new things I've heard recently has been the announcement that they will be making a movie out of the DC Vertigo series, The Losers. Based on a WWII strip, the updated series by Brits Andy Diggle and Jock won a slew of awards, notably the Eisner that year for its writing and artistic style. Storyline-wise, its similar to the A-Team, except given a Hard R rating and with modern sensibilities, dealing with the war in the Persian Gulf, the Mujahadeen and your classic James Bond-style villain. A black ops team ends up getting screwed by their CIA handler and after surviving their intended assassinations declare war on the mysterious faceless entity who called in their deaths. Tagging along for the ride is a deathbitch killing machine from the mountains of Afghanistan named Aisha. Cool thing about the characters is that each person is a Jason Bourne, and given very strong personalities. I found it compelling, much moreso than many other titles and considering the amount I've read, to find myself literally sitting at the edge of my seat over a comic book is saying something. The movie apparently has Jeffrey Dean Morgan as sardonic commander Clay, Chris Evans as the motormouth special forces hacker Jensen and Zoe Saldana as the castrating, ear-cutting, machine-gunning zealot Aisha. I believe this flick is gonna come out at approx the same time as the actual movie rendition of the A-Team but if they stick to the original Andy Diggle script, they may actually win.