Torchwood: "Department X"

Department X is a two-and-a-half hour Torchwood audio book narrated by Kai Owen. The story involves the organization going undercover to infiltrate a Cardiff department store where a spate of disappearances have recently taken place. Although the story itself is fairly routine action- and plot-wise, there are a couple of interesting concepts introduced: one is Firestone Bank, a long-time (secret) rival to Torchwood which collects alien artifacts and sells them abroad for a profit (I would like to see some recurring villains); the second is the Department of Curiosities, Torchwood's "longest unsolved case" which comes to a resolution in Department X. Otherwise, there's nothing particularly notable about this story, which could easily have been adapted to be a Doctor Who or Sarah Jane Adventures story--in other words, the writer didn't take advantage of the idea that Torchwood is supposed to be the "dark and edgy" corner of the Whoniverse.

Omnitopia Dawn [Book Review]

I'm a big fan of Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, which presents a more original, idea and complex concept of magic than the Harry Potter series. In Omnitopia Dawn, Duane launches an unrelated new series (trilogy?) for adults, centered around a truly massive multiplayer online role-playing game called Omnitopia. Omnitopia is a little like World of Warcraft, but with over a 100 different "universes" to accommodate far more than standard fantasy--science fiction, Second Life-style quasi-realism, player-created worlds, etc., can all be found within its ranks. The story concerns an attempt by outside rivals to destroy Omnitopia by hacking into it and bringing the entire system down. It's an entertaining, interesting story, though the main characters are a little too obviously "good guys" and "bad guys" with little moral complexity.

The Buffy Comic Project: "The Blood of Carthage" (Part 3)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer # 23

Dark Horse (Volume 1, 1998-2003)

Creators: Christopher Golden (writer), Cliff Richards (penciller), Joe Pimental (inker)

Setting: Season Four

T.V. Character Appearances: Buffy, Giles, Xander, Anya, Willow, Spike, Drusilla (flashback only)

Major Original Characters: Lucy Hanover (Slayer; as ghost only); Tergazzi (demon informant); Hiram (demon henchman); Xerxes the Blind (demon); Vraka (demon lord); Xiu (vampire twin)

Summary: Buffy goes into a funk after hearing that she slew the guardian who kept Ky-Laag from stirring. She decides to stand guard at the quarry, and intercepts vampire twins working for the demon lord Vraka (slaying one of the pair). Meanwhile, Spike tells Giles and the rest of the Scoobies that he has encountered Vraka before, in Venice hundreds of years ago. Before he can finish the story, Spike is attacked by Vraka's henchmen, Hiram, while, at the quarry, Buffy is attacked by Xerxes the Blind. Hiram is defeated and reveals Vraka's lair, while Xerxes escapes Buffy when Vraka himself rescues him. And in the midst of all this combat, the demon informant Tergazzi is hypnotically lured to the quarry and jumps in to awaken Ky-Laag.

Review: A combat-heavy issue here, as Buffy fights vampire twins, Xerxes, and Vraka in succession, and the Scoobies fight Hiram. The twist at the end involving Tergazzi was nice, as was the brief flashback to Spike rescuing Drusilla from Vraka in Venice a century earlier. Still, for the most part, this issue seemed to be mostly filler and didn't advance the story very much--we still don't really know why Vraka is here or what this Ky-Laag creature is all about.

Notes

* Cliff Richards, the penciller, does a good job drawing character likenesses, but sometimes his clothing choices and hairstyles are a little odd--Anya, for example, looks like a conservative suburban housewife.

* I'm not sure if its the writer's or the artist's fault, but the demons Vraka and Hiram have very cliched, generic fantasy-novel appearances.

Next Issue

Cloak and Dagger (1985) [COMICS]

Following on the heels of their successful limited series, Cloak and Dagger started their own bi-monthly regular title in the summer of 1985. The book only lasted 11 issues (with a double-sized finale), but at least writer Bill Mantlo was able to tell the entire first year of stories he had planned out. Each issue is part of one big story, which sees Cloak and Dagger trying to track down the source of a drug shipment from its arrival in New York, back across the Atlantic, across Europe, and ending up eventually in the "Golden Triangle" of Southeast Asia. The artwork fits the series quite well, as it gives a fairly dark and moody feel for a superhero comic. Mantlo keeps the focus primarily on urban life and challenges facing big cities: drugs, runaways, gang violence, etc. In other words, this isn't a standard title with a super-villain slugfest every issue--but this is a 1980s Marvel comic, and that means certain things: drugs and porn are bad, Spider-Man makes a guest appearance in issue # 3, a major cross-over event ties in (Secret Wars II lands the Beyonder in issue # 4), and Doctor Doom appears in issue # 10 (my favorite portrayal of the character ever, actually).

A major theme is Cloak and Dagger's sometimes strained friendship, and their difficulty in deciding what their roles as heroes should be--protecting the innocent or dealing out retribution to wrongdoers? The two supporting characters introduced in the limited series--Father Delgado and police detective Bridget O'Reilley--receive a couple of pages in each issue, though each is developed in a dark and somewhat surprising direction from their initial portrayal in the limited series: Father Delgado turns from a devoted priest trying to help Cloak and Dagger and save their souls to becoming somewhat of a pervy old man with a thing for Dagger. Meanwhile, O'Reilley goes from a "by the book" cop trying to crack down on police corruption to a cop who tortures crooks for info before being turned into a (literal) monster in the form of a super-powered vigilante named Mayhem. Mantlo is able to expand on Cloak and Dagger's backstory by introducing Dagger's mom (an oblivious, drunken bitch) and her step-father, who wants to be a good dad but Dagger keeps him at a distance.

I'm not sure why the decision was made to launch the book as a bi-monthly, as to my recollection bi-monthly books seemed to inevitably become cancelled as it was hard for fans to want to wait a couple of months to see the next chapter of a story. In any event, Cloak and Dagger would continue to receive a solo feature as one half of the (also short lived) book Strange Tales.

John Constantine: Dark Entries [COMICS]

The house where we live in Kingston in on the outskirts, so it's a bit of a hike to make it downtown. The good news is that there's a branch of the public library just ten minutes away, so I've had fun scouring their book and DVD racks for new stuff to help fill up my "night shift" of baby-watching. Unfortunately, there's pretty slim pickings at the library when it comes to graphic novels: a Sandman TPB (which I already own), a Hellboy TPB (ditto), a collection of comic strips from the 70s (doesn't look particularly interesting), and Dark Entries, a John Constantine book from 2009.

I've always wanted to read some Constantine stories and never got around to it, so this was a good opportunity. The book has a solid hook. Constantine is approached by the producers of a reality t.v. show where the premise is that contestants are locked inside a "haunted" house and whoever finds the hidden exit first wins. The problem, according to the producers, is that strange phenomena are occurring in the house that is not the product of special effects and trickery. When Constantine gets inside the house, he discovers that many of the contestants feel as if they know each other though they can't remember why, that they're having strange, terrifying dreams, etc. I don't want to spoil the ending, so I'll just say it has a clever twist and was a solid read.

Starz Announces Torchwood Web Comic

Starz has announced that the network will produce a ten-part motion comic available free online to coincide with the launch of the Miracle Day episodes premiering in July. Each part of the comic will be three minutes long and include the voices of Eliza Dushku, John Barrowman, and Eve Myles.

Boomer's First Week

Tomorrow is Boomer's one-week birthday, and he's thriving. The first couple of days we were a little worried that he was sleeping too much and not eating enough, and the last couple of days he's had us scrambling because he's been eating a ton and sleeping more erratically. Since The Wife takes care of him every morning while I sleep, I watch him on the "night shift" from about 11 p.m. to 5 or 6 a.m. It's my favorite part of the day, as Boomer snoozes on my lap and we watch classic cartoons on a channel called TeleToon Retro--everything from G.I. Joe to The Real Ghostbusters to Batman: The Animated Series. I also read to him from his first ever comic book (I picked it up on the way to bring him home from the hospital), Archie Double Digest # 217 and another comic (officially part of Daddy's collection), DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest # 23 featuring Green Arrow. This last comic has been a hoot, as it's a collection of reprints from Green Arrow throughout the character's existence. My favorite so far is when Green Arrow and his sidekick Speedy crossed over to "Dimension Zero" by hanging on to a skyscraper-sized "cable arrow" shot by a child from that dimension to our own. While there, they encounter the hero Xeen Arrow. It's kooky, goofy fun. Man, Boomer's a lucky kid!