Seth Harris

Comic Book Review – Hawkman by Robert Venditti

Hawkman: The Awakening (2019)
Reprints Hawkman v5 #1-6
Hawkman: Deathbringer (2019)
Reprints Hawkman v5 #7-12
Written by Robert Venditti
Art by Bryan Hitch

Hawkman: The Darkness Within (2020)
Reprints Hawkman v5 #13-19
Written by Robert Venditti
Art by Pat Olliffe, Tom Palmer, and Will Conrad

Hawkman: Hawks Eternal (2021)
Reprints Hawkman #20-29
Written by Robert Venditti
Art by Fernando Pasarin

How do you solve a problem like Hawkman? As I laid out in my Superhero Spotlight on the character, when you take on Hawkman, you are taking on a writing chore. There have been so many conflicting attempts to “simplify” the hero that led to him being a toxic continuity bomb. DC Comics are obsessed with continuity, so this results in a conundrum. I can’t say I am a fan of Robert Venditti. I read his X-O Manowar revival for Valiant, which was fine. I definitely didn’t enjoy his Green Lantern run, but he immediately followed Geoff Johns, who raised the bar so high it was nigh impossible to top. As this Hawkman series went on, I began to hear some surprisingly positive buzz, and when it was announced, it was coming to an end; I realized it was the perfect time to read through it.

TV Review – The Best of Batman: The Animated Series Part 4

Sins of the Father (Season 3, Episode 2)
Original airdate: September 23, 1997
Written by Rich Fogel
Directed by Curt Geda

Batman: The Animated Series came to an end on Fox Kids in 1995 as a new network came to prominence. The WB was to be a home for Warner Brothers programming, including expanding the DC superheroes animated universe. The New Batman Adventures was run by the same people that worked on BTAS, but the character and production designs were tweaked. Batman’s costume was more in line with his simpler Year One style, and the villains took on more gothic, monstrous looks. Catwoman had pale skin, Joker’s hair looked like a boomerang, and The Scarecrow was a pure nightmare.

Rest in Peace, Clyde

When was that moment in our history when the fate of man and dog became so closely intertwined? When did our hearts & minds become so tightly linked to these creatures? They are the only large carnivore that we have this relationship with, the first species on the planet that became domesticated. Fossils records show humans began living alongside dogs four thousand years before the husbandry of goats and pigs occurred. Somewhere along the way, in Europe-Asia, hunter-gatherers began to work with dogs to take down prey, each partner getting what they needed to survive the harsh conditions of the land. In that struggle to survive, a love was born, loyalty and devotion that will thrive until the last embers of our sun burn out.

Movie Review – Kundun

Kundun (1997)
Written by Melissa Matheson
Directed by Martin Scorsese

When I was eleven years old, I watched the Oscars and saw actor Richard Gere come out to give an award. Instead of going into the teleprompter text, he spent thirty seconds talking about China and its occupation of Tibet, imploring then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to move his soldiers out and allow Tibet to be free. I had no idea what he was talking about, but it certainly left an impression on me. All I knew about Tibet was that it was close to the Himalayas at the time. I certainly didn’t comprehend the history of Tibet and China. I also had no idea who the Dalai Lama was.

Documentary Round-Up – February 2021

Scandalous: The Untold Story of The National Enquirer (2019)
Directed by Mark Landsman

While this documentary is clearly inspired by The National Enquirer’s connections to Donald Trump, that only comes into play in the third act. Most of the film is about telling the chronological story of the tabloid’s rise to prominence and the moment in American culture that sparked its rocket-like trajectory. At the center of the paper’s inception was Generoso Pope, Jr. His father was a New York powerbroker who used his papers to influence politics in the state. His son took over upon his father’s death but went in wildly different directions. He bought The Enquirer and turned it into a reasonably salacious rag that featured gory pictures of the aftermath of car accidents and murders. It was a lot like some of the chan boards are on the internet now, a place for people to get sick thrills.

Movie Review – Casino

Casino (1995)
Written by Martin Scorsese & Nicholas Pileggi
Directed by Martin Scorsese

After the success of Goodfellas, both with audiences and critics, it was reasonably sure Scorsese & author Nicholas Pileggi would collaborate again on something. Five years later, they told another true story of organized crime and its deleterious effects on people’s lives in Casino. Like Goodfellas, the movie focuses on an outsider to the Italian Cosa Nostra, a Jewish man with a remarkable ability to gamble and win big. Unlike Goodfellas, Casino feels more epic in scope. These people deal with amounts of money that are far beyond what Henry Hill ever got his hands on. The story is also more balanced with its three central cast members in a way that Goodfellas never really did.

Movie Review – The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence (1993)
Written by Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese
Directed by Martin Scorsese

New York City has played a central role in almost every Scorsese film. I think Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Cape Fear were the only movies at this point that didn’t take place in and around NYC. Mainstream perceptions about Scorsese probably think he’s most concerned with a specific NYC era, but I’ve found he’s interested in the city at all stages of its development. Other than Temptation, this is the film that had occurred the furthest in the past in the director’s filmography. The movie adapts Edith Wharton’s novel The Age of Innocence, set when New York City had a very prevalent aristocracy with its own subculture of ritual & performance in public. This creates tension between our characters’ relationships and their inner thoughts, and it’s on that tightrope the whole film rests.

Weekly Wonderings – February 22nd

It has been an interesting week since my last wondering—ups and downs with quite a bit of snow for this area on the ground in the meantime. Yesterday we had a big melt, so it’s almost as if it never happened at all. Feeling my writing brain working again but still taking it slowly, I feel the ideas percolating, which is the first step. I’m taking David Lynch’s advice to write everything down. He does a convincing job conveying what it feels like to have had an idea and then lose it. Before we get into all that, here’s the playlist for the week:

TV Review – Moonbase 8

Moonbase 8 (Showtime)
Written by Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, Jonathan Krisel, & John C. Reilly
Directed by Jonathan Krisel

On the surface, I should love this show. I’ve been a big fan of Tim Heidecker’s whole career, John C. Reilly is terrific, and I have enjoyed all the Armisen/Krisle collabs (Portlandia, Documentary Now). Krisel has also directed episodes of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule and Baskets. All of this is precisely in my comedy wheelhouse, mainly through the 2000s and 2010s. Ultimately, I enjoyed Moonbase 8 but didn’t necessarily love it.

TV Review – Wandavision Episode 7

Wandavision Episode 7 (Disney+)
Written by Cameron Squires
Directed by Matt Shakman

Episode seven of Wandavision reveals many things, but I would argue it is not one of the best-written episodes in the bunch we’ve seen. It’s honestly a little clunky and awkward at moments and clearly was flagged as one to push the plot forward without doing much character development. These sorts of episodes are likely to be the standard from now on in the MCU shows because I doubt they will spend much time letting characters sit around and talk. While I love the reveals we got, it also felt like The Vision’s delay was as much a part of the in-universe mechanisms around Wanda as it was the writers padding out the show to hit nine episodes.