Superheroes

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The errant blogger returns. Better late than never, I suppose.

I do have a topic for today, but before I get to it, I feel an odd compulsion to share with you the rather bumpy and circuitous route by which it arrived in my brain. Synapses work in mysterious ways, and this is a fairly good example.

Bear with me here. The link density in this first bit will be rather high.

One of my Twitter friends, who goes by the handle @AliasGrace (and whom I met in person for the first time at PodCamp Halifax two weekends ago), has a blog entitled East Coast by Choice, for which I wrote a guest post three weeks ago. She's had a number of guest posts over the time she's been blogging, the most recent of which, entitled "The Death of Barrington Street?" and written by Paul MacKinnon (Twitter handle @downtownpaul), was a really interesting read.

Paul's post mentioned a number of well-known buildings on Barrington Street, but the one that caught my attention was the Green Lantern building. Now, being the geek that I am (you knew that, right?), you'd think I'd have known Halifax had a Green Lantern building. For some reason, though, I didn't remember the name at all. But, of course, I was tickled by it. So I went to my dear friend Google to see if I could find some pictures.

And find them I did. The Coast (our local artsy/cultural/gritty/emo/freebie newspaper) has an article about the building, complete with historical pics from the time when the building actually housed the Green Lantern restaurant. The building's official name is the Keith building, and it currently houses Pogue Fado, a traditional Irish pub. Nice to know the green is still there, anyway.

Still with me? Good. 'Cause I'll be getting to the point any second now. Read the rest of this entry »

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I decided to wait a bit before commenting upon the whole "Disney acquires Marvel" thing. I had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to it, I will admit, and I scowled and fumed a bit. But I decided not to go off half-cocked. I thought I'd wait a while, read some articles, and let it settle into the old brain somewhat.

Okay, here's the thing. I'm not an avid researcher of things Disney. I don't scour the internet looking for information that will support one view of Disney or another. Despite that, however, I seem to have developed a mental picture, both of Walt Disney the man and Disney the corporation, that is not particularly appealing.

Why do I have the impression that Walt Disney was a racist? Why do I have it in my head that he was interested in what the Nazis were doing in 1930s Germany? Why do I have the sense that Disney employees are overworked, underpaid, and subject to near-tyrannical rules and regulations?

Did these notions just appear unbidden in my head? Have I been reading the wrong websites? Have the opinions of many ill-informed readers and writers simply overwhelmed our current zeitgeist?

Or is there something to it? Read the rest of this entry »

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Continuing with the trend I seem to be setting for Super Saturdays, I'd like to reflect upon the next in the quintet of daring defenders who comprise The Marvel Super Heroes of 1966—a gentle, agile, flexible, and articulate fellow by the name of… Hulk.

All cheekiness aside, however, I quite like the Hulk. He's been gray, he's been green, he's been a mindless brute, a semi-intelligent brute, and an articulate brute. But he's always been an exploration of our fear of radioactivity and our fear of our animal self.

Hulk has been portrayed differently by different writers over the years, but his essence has always remained the same. He's the powerful, savage alter-ego of a quiet, brilliant man. He's what happens when inhibitions fall away and instinct takes over. He epitomizes that secret desire we all have at various times to bust out of our socially-imposed shells and just… well… smash. Read the rest of this entry »

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I seem to have latched on to the old Marvel Super Heroes TV cartoon in my earlier superhero posts. Not surprising, really, considering I used to watch the show as a kid, and there's nothing quite like a childhood memory for pulling out the rose-colored glasses and the gauze-covered lens. When combined with the adult eyes of today, which can spot corniness at fifty paces, it makes for an odd mix of viewpoints.

This evening, we're battening down our hatches in this corner of the world, in anticipation of the arrival of Hurricane Bill. In honor of the occasion, I'd like to write a bit about another windy, wet, phenomenon: Namor, Prince of Atlantis, aka The Sub-Mariner.

Now, despite my having tremendous fondness for most things Marvel, I have to confess to a certain lack of enthusiasm for ol' Namor. I don't consider him a lame superhero, but neither do I think he's particularly cool. In fact, any time I've ever seen him in a story, he's been an arrogant, overbearing prick. Read the rest of this entry »

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(Here is first of the guest posts I mentioned yesterday. This is one is by my Protagonize friend Ganga, who always offers a thoughtful view on whatever subject he is tackling. No exception here. Thanks, Ganga, for contributing to Faltarego.com.)


Oh, no, not another Superhero post!

Okay, I’ll try a slightly different perspective here. When I saw a couple of weeks ago that Faltarego.com was going to feature superheroes, I was excited. Despite those capes and masks and the whole revolting idea of men wearing underpants over tights, what it is that we find ourselves attracted to in such superheroes? Why do we need superheroes?

We all have our favourites from DC and Marvel Comics. Mine is Superman. No one else comes close. And yes, I admit that, like with Eric, Smallville happens to be my guilty pleasure as well. Any flaws in the dialogues tend to get lost in the fact that it’s a story about Superman realizing his destiny. That’s enough for me.

The story of a great man born in a distant planet far more advanced than ours and possessing strength, speed and powers no man can dream of is enough to capture anyone’s imagination. But more than the superpowers, it is his noble qualities, his humility and constantly putting the needs of humanity, and the needs of a planet he wasn’t even born in above his own life time and again that made him my favourite.

Who wouldn’t be corrupted by such superior powers? Yet, he chooses to make a humble living as a mild-mannered reporter in his “real” life and continues to make personal sacrifices for the good of his adopted planet. When all such factors combine, they elevate him to something more than a superhero, to a status, of – dare I say, God? Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, I was trolling the internet, looking for information on the Captain America movie that Marvel Studios has in the works, but all I could find was the release date, the director, and the title. The release date is currently listed as July 22nd, 2011; the director is currently listed as Joe Johnston, who directed The Rocketeer, Jumanji, Jurassic Park III, and Hidalgo, among others; and the title is currently listed as The First Avenger: Captain America.

A release date is good. A solid director is good. But the title? Geez, don't these folks have a lame-o-meter? Who thought this one up? I know they want to tie in with The Avengers (which is currently scheduled for a May 4, 2012 release), but couldn't they have at least switched the title elements around to make it Captain America: The First Avenger? Admittedly it's only marginally better, but it is an improvement.

I was a bit disappointed not to find more info on ol' Cap (as he's my third favorite Marvel Hero after Spider-Man and Iron Man), but I did find more information on the Marvel Studios project that's slated to come out just before The First Avenger, on May 20, 2011.

And that project is called Thor. Read the rest of this entry »

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I'd like to talk about dialogue today. For some reason the topic just popped into my head, and I'm going to go with it.

One of the things I enjoy most about writing is dialogue. I have a good ear for it, and I'm able it write it pretty well. I can hear characters' voices as I type, and that seems to allow me to write dialogue that is fairly realistic-sounding.

Keep in mind that no written dialogue is perfectly realistic, because people don't really talk the way writers write them. If we wrote dialogue the way people really speak, it would be unreadable. People don't naturally wait their turn and let other people finish what they're saying. They also "ummm…" and "ahhhh…" a lot, and say a lot of pointless things that wouldn't really move a story ahead.

So dialogue in fiction (be it a book, a movie, or a TV show) is an approximation of how people speak. It's designed to move the story forward while allowing the characters to sound at least mostly realistic. Read the rest of this entry »

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