This week's Enterprise.

[khaosworks]

Too tired this week, so Trip's foray into "Enemy Mine" territory will get off lightly from me - I won't do my usual snark fest. All in all, John Shiban (who sucked terribly in "The X-Files", really), doesn't do all that badly in Enterprise. It's the usual predictable stuff, but relatively enjoyable due to a virtuoso performance by Connor Trineer, who doesn't get to play Trip as the redneck moron for once. They really need to get Bermaga away from the writing chores.

I think Star Trek is suffering the same fate for me as is comic books. The current crop doesn't interest me anymore, and I look back on the old days for better times and better stories. In my comic stash today came the archive edition of Wally Wood's "T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents", collecting the 1st four issues of that classic run, recolored and all. DC put a superb reproduction together, and even made the pages a little off white so it felt like an archive. The stories are cheesy, but the art is slick, gets the job done, and it feels and reads FUN. Trek , like the current comics, just ain't much fun anymore, and I wish they felt like were like when I was a kid again. I think to myself it can't really be my fault because when I pick up the old stuff I still get that same rush, but I don't know.

I've read comics for thirty years. Been a Trek fan for over twenty. Maybe that's too long. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I am old.

Comments

[jost.livejournal.com]

Last night's episode wasn't bad surprisingly. It just showed me that Shiban has watched "Arena". I mean, come on...couldn't you at least have made the alien something other than reptilian?

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Yup, yer old. Anybody older than you is ancient. My name's Dirt :-)

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Hello Dirt :-) I'm not as old as Dirt so call me Scum :-)

(hey, you've flown a lot more miles than me...)

[sumtt.livejournal.com]

Dude,

With respect to comic books, I used to feel the same way (jaded, bored) until I figured out that now that I'm an adult, with a lot more life experience under my belt, the type of comics that I liked as a sec 3 student just don't hit me the same way. I find that I've been veering away from the superhero stuff towards other genre.

I still read comics - just different ones. Have you checked these out:
Top Ten
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The Ultimates
Optic Nerve or Summer Girl - Adrian Tomine

That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Admittedly, not a very long list, but these days, I tend to go more for quality, rather than quantity.

Alan Moore is holding up very well - I still like his recent works as much as I did when I was reading miracleman all those years way back when (yes, I am older than you.)

Frank Miller has gone to the dogs. The second Dark Knight series sucked.

sumtt

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've seen or read all of the above - I'm not overly enamored of Optic Nerve, but I enjoyed Top Ten and LOEG. Ultimates I liked for the first few issues, but it's wearing on me. And Moore's ABC line hasn't really impressed me much except for Top Ten and LOEG - and even LOEG is more for the pastiche value.

Quantity and quality is a problem, because in the old golden days of my 70s and 80s youth, both were not exclusive to each other as they are now.

I don't think I've outgrown superhero comics, because I can still pick up old issues of Avengers and JLA or LSH from my collection and still enjoy those thoroughly. I think it's a question of the writing these days - it just does not produce the same thrill anymore they did when I was a kid... because they're not writing for kids anymore. And that I think is the major failing of the industry today and one that will eventually spell its doom. There are comics for kids - the ones based on the animated series, or the Cartoon Network line, but those are the minority. They shouldn't be.

Take this: the latest Green Arrow has him coming across the beat-up truck that he and Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan used to cross America during their classic "Hard Travelling Heroes" run in the 60s by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams. Speedy (Arsenal) regards the truck with awe, saying it should be in a museum. I regard it with awe and remember that classic run, which I read as a kid from second-hand bookstores, with fondness and think to myself, "Yeah, those were great days."

Then I think... isn't it sad, though, that I'm feeling this rush, this thrill, not because of the comic story as it is, but because it's making reference to the immortal past? Shouldn't I be reading a comic just as good as the one they're referencing?

Very, very few and far, far between.

I was interviewed recently by a reporter from the Straits Times about the way comics are changing, and I told him some things along these lines... maybe when it comes out I'll do a more thorough commentary on what I'm feeling.