Tradio #11 - The Pro

This week's Tradio is a little Christian, G-rated comic called The Pro by writer Garth Ennis and artist Amanda Conner and published by Image Comics.

Yes...that's a condom...

The Pro.  It's vile, it's perverted, it's graphic, it's over the top, and most of all, it is hilarious.  Not a book for the under 18 crowd...seriously...it's about a super-powered prostitute.  The Pro tells the tale of a hooker who is given super-powers by an alien and chronicles her short-lived career as she teams up with the League of Honor.  The work is a parody that looks at the super-hero business from a whole new light and pokes more than a little fun at DC comics characters.  Ennis and Conner craft a tight, fast-paced tale that takes a character from her birth as a "hero" to her inevitable fate and the legacy that her short career leaves behind.  Like I mentioned, it is hilarious along with way, but it is definitely not for the easily offended given the amount of nudity and swears within.  Here is just a taste...

Yes...that is exactly what you think it is...

All in all, it is a very enjoyable romp.  If anything, it is a little brief and I kind of wish there had been more than just the obvious subjects explored.  But that may have in the end made it out-stay it's welcome and not been the taut work that it is.  It pushes the boundaries and it's depiction of the Justice League-like group the League of Honor is more than worth the price of admission.  Pick it up if you are over 18...seriously...this puts the graphic in graphic novel.

Brothers Till The End - A Gears of War 3 Review

Gears of War.  It is a game that holds a lot of fond memories for me.  It was really the first game that I got into when my wife bought me a XBox 360 back at Christmas time in 2006.  I had really been out of gaming for a while and had been too busy to put a lot of time back into it.  With the online multiplayer component of the system overall and of this game in particular, she thought it would be a good way for me to reconnect with friends who I hadn't gotten to see a lot of since we had the triplets.  It was my opportunity to really get into a hobby that I had really loved at one time. The game blew me away.  The last games I had really played with any regularity were the Resident Evil games with Code Veronica being my last and the Metal Gear Solid games all on the PSX and early PS2.  This was just...wow.  Big and bold and brash.  I hate to sound this way, but it was an American game, made for American tastes and without a lot of "weirdness" that those Japanese franchises I had grown up on seem to have to always squeeze in somewhere.  The single player was amazing, especially in Co-op, which was something I had never done before, and the multiplayer was smooth and seamless and, most importantly, fun.  That game above all others launched me back into gaming and here I am, 83747 gamerscore and five odd years later at what can be argued as the end of the series.  Here is what I thought as I finished the campaign tonight.

Be warned...this isn't going to be spoiler-free as much as it is going to spoiler-light.  Not going to reveal anything major, but read on with caution.  The original Gears was amazing and for many, Gears 2 was a big letdown.  While it was bigger and more badass in many ways, the pacing was off at times and the story...well...it was thinner than goose poop.  Epic experimented with a lot of things which didn't always work, but I always gave them props for trying.  The one big thing that came out of it that practically every other triple A title has copied in one form or fashion was Horde Mode and if it weren't for that, I don't think it would remembered as fondly as it is today by many.  With Gears 3, Epic seemed to put a lot of loving care into everything and used what it learned from those first two games.  Amazing visuals, great story, and a minute to minute gaming experience that will suck you in and before you know it, it is 2 in the morning.  The graphics, textures, and lighting have all been overhauled and upgraded and you get to see so much more diversity in Sera and you never spend a chapter underground at all during the whole of the game.  There is a lot more than greys and browns to the world and you fight, oh and you will fight a lot, in much more varied locations this time around.  You are even underwater for a chapter...and it isn't bad.  The story centers around this group of characters that you have known from the beginning and sure, they are loud and curse and have machismo to spare, but if you have stuck with them, you will know what all they have gone through and you really feel the pain and suffering that they have endured.  I almost teared up in a spot about midway through...yeah...it really is that kind of game.  It totally caught me off guard and wasn't forced...was really cool...but oh so bad.  Overall, the gameplay is great.  You get to see the return of some old favorites that you might...or maybe might not...have missed and some of the new experiences are invigorating.  Perfect game?  No, but overall the missteps are minor.  I played through on Normal difficulty and since you are part of four man (and woman - Hello, Claudia Black!) team through the whole of the game, there were occasions where I really didn't have to do much in the way of fighting.  I am sure this changes as the difficulty ramps up, but still, I would have liked for them to have depended on me...at least a little.  Oh...and I got tired of fuel finding based missions...a little more variety there there for my motivation would have been nice. 

Look...you can play as a strong, non-sexualized woman or two!

As for multiplayer, I haven't played a lot, but the match making issues from Gears 2 are gone and the Horde and new Beast modes (where you play as the bad guys) are addicting and a lot of fun with friends.  Tons of the things to unlock and customize with.  Ribbons to earn for completing certain tasks.  Collectibles to find in the campaign that actually add to the overall story.  There is a ton of things to do for your $60.  Oh...and it comes with a sheet of stickers in the box...STICKERS! Last in the series?  Well, it sure does wrap up a lot and I am not sure where it would go from here, but who knows.  If you own an XBox 360, you owe it to yourself to pick this game up and get some friends together on line and have a blast.  Either with the campaign or the multiplayer in one form or fashion...you will be very, very happy that you did.  Brothers to the end, indeed.

Thanks Cliffy

Tradio #10 - Elmer

With this week's Tradio we continue with the creator owned love with Elmer, a comic book, by Gerry Alanguilan and published by SLG Publishing.

If you have heard of Elmer, then you are a very select group. It is not that it is a bad work, it is just that comics about chickens suddenly becoming intelligent and struggling to attain rights like any other intelligent species is a little off the beaten path. The graphic novel collects all four issues of the series which is both written and drawn by Gerry Alanguilan. Alanguilan has done a lot of his own creator owned work, but has also done inking on such titles as X-Men, Wetworks, Fantastic Four, and Superman: Birthright. Through his amazing black and white line work, we get a glimpse into the struggles of chickens as they become sentient beings capable of talking and reasoning and demand rights just like any other group of intelligent beings. Most of the story is told through the eyes of Jake, a hot-tempered chicken with a big chip on his shoulder. His father, the titular Elmer, is a big influence on him and a lot of the back story of how the world got to the point that it is in is told through his stories. We get to see how the world handles a world with no more fried chicken and see the struggle chickens have to win their equality and then eventually lose it. I won't give anything away, but this is definitely a mature title with nudity, brutality, and language that gives the work a weight that you won't expect given it is a work with more than a few chicken chockings.

I really liked the work. It is smart and will make you think. There isn't the amount of comedy that you would expect in a book about chickens, but over the course of the work, you see how horrible it would be to be in the situation that these poultry are put in. It is a work that will make you think, make you cringe, and ultimately, make you smile. I highly recommend it.

The Fallout (or how I stopped worrying and loved the bomb)

As I have mentioned before, I have been playing Fallout 3.  It is my second time playing it.  Before, it just wasn't what I needed and though I enjoyed it, it just never clicked with me.  For some reason, I decided that the end of summer was the perfect time to start over with it again and I am glad I did in many ways but it just didn't click with me as to why until the other night.  In the game, I meet up with my father.  It seems to be the entire crux of the game is getting to and there it was...middle of the game, I meet up with Liam Neisson.  It was one of those things that I wasn't expecting so soon and I figured that this would cool and we would have adventures together.  Not so much.  A mission later, he was dead and there I was left to either finish his work or walk away from everything.  It was pretty emotional for me for a lot of reasons.  First off, just from the point of the game, your father is built up as a great, smart man who is trying to make the wasteland a better place for everyone...his son included.  He is really the first character you meet in the game and his kind, loving nature really sets the tone for who you want to become in the game.  I honestly found it hard to be a dick in the game because I was afraid that my fictional dad would find out and not be proud of me.  The other reason it hit me so hard was that I did in fact lose my father last year after a long struggle with a blood disorder.  Though he didn't sacrifice himself to bring clean water to the wasteland, he was a very principled man who devoted his life to his family.  He was constantly putting others before himself and it was an odd parallel between fantasy and reality that I wasn't expecting to find in the middle of a RPG involving nuclear holocaust.  I ended up losing some sleep for the next few nights after, just thinking about and missing Dad.

Where am I going with all this?  I think that too often the story of some video games are too throw away.  I am not saying that all games need to be classical literature, but I think that when a game gets it right, it is one of those moments in your life that make you stop and think about your own existence and think about things other than shooting or racing.  Needless to say, this is a gaming experience that is going to stick with me for a long time and I can't wait to see where things go in the remaining parts of the game and I am hoping that I get to make a mark for my digital dad and that my actual Dad would have been proud of in some way.  I think that if more games tried to connect with people on a more intimate level, the genre as a whole to ascend to the level of respect that it rightfully deserves.

Manny Both-Hanz Died To Bring Us This Information

So, Star Wars is out again.  This time on Blu Ray!  In all it's extended, special edition, HD, deleted scene added, Greedo shots first glory.  The only thing it seems to be missing is having it in 3D, but wait...that is coming to theaters starting next year, so in a couple years we will get a newer edition, I am sure, that will include even more tweaks to movies and you will be able to watch them in 3D in the privacy of your own home.  There is a big part of me that wants to run out and get the movies on Blu Ray now...and who knows, it may still happen...but I am starting to wonder what the point is anymore.  Don't get me wrong, I love Star Wars.  A huge chunk of my nerdiness is based on those original three movies.  The movies, toys, comics, books, posters, stickers, lunchboxes, cartoons, video games, t-shirts, and other assorted swag have made me the man I am today in many ways and I feel that The Empire Strikes Back is one of the greatest movies ever, but I am beginning to lose my touch with these works of art.  Yes...I said it...art.  And like all art, it lives in the moment that it was created and reflects back to that time in history.  For the original Star Wars, it was very much a movie of the seventies.  It was a technical marvel of it's day, but over the years it's seams began to show as compared to movies of time and Mr. Lucas in all his wisdom has continued to tweak his masterpieces.  Like other works of art, a good cleaning isn't a bad thing and is welcomed in most cases, but he took it too far...and then continued to take it further.  Adding characters that weren't there, changing scenes totally around, taking out puppets to put in lifeless CGI characters have all made the works of art that the original Star Wars trilogy was into a mish-mash of changes that have only taken away the richness of those original works.  It has turned something timeless into something you can't really pin a time on.  The prequel trilogy suffers from this and always will given so much of the movies are made of sets and characters that aren't really there and hollow performances.  My point?  I guess I wish we had a choice.  I know Mr. Lucas has never been satisfied with his movies, but that doesn't mean that the people who grew up with them weren't.  Stop trying to force (see what I did there?) your vision on people who aren't asking for it.  The vision of your youth was better...aren't they always for most of us?

Tradio #9 - Skull Kickers

Welcome back!  Sorry about the day off, but the surgery really screwed with my plans for the day.  This week, we continue with the indie love with Skull Kickers: 1000 Opas and a Dead Body by writer Jim Zub and artists Edwin Huang and Chris Stevens published by Image Comics.

Since the comic book world seems to be hung up on mainstream relaunches of characters that in many ways had started to break down under the weight of their own continuity, I wanted to continue with the indie love that I started last week with another creator owned property.  Skull Kickers tells a tale about a pair of mercenaries and their adventures that focus on earning a days wage through brawling and drinking.  The two characters, one a hulking strong man and the other a cantankerous dwarf, fight there way through this swords and sorcery tale with swords, fists, severed limbs, and guns...yes...guns.  Oddly out of place, but a nice twist all the same.  Fighting through legions of the undead and double crosses at every turn, our two protagonists inject a lot of humor into some pretty grim circumstances that harkens back to the best of the Conan works, but with a modern spin that doesn't feel tacked on, but rather very refreshing.  Zub crafts a great tale that sets up events for the series to come and the main art by Huang sets a great tone that is comical and yet visceral. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the book.  The characters are likable, the bad guys are really bad, and the action is a lot of fun.  If anything, I like some scantily clad women in my fantasy stuff...maybe that is to come.  Anyway, it is a great read and I really recommend it.  Oh...but you don't have the money to try it you say?  Well, this is another one of those give aways.  Just send me an email to paleriderofdoom@gmail.com before next Wednesday (the 21st) and I will pick someone at random to receive this trade.  Here is hoping that the US Postal Service does a better job than it did last time.  grrrrr  Anyway, thank you for reading and talk to you again soon, imaginary readers.

Broken Face = No Tradio

Very short post.  I had sinus surgery today and there won't be a Tradio post today.  Will see how I feel tomorrow.  Hope everyone is doing well.

Tradio # 8 - I Kill Giants

This week's Tradio is a trade for a series called I Kill Giants...you've probably never heard of it.  But you SHOULD!  Seriously...

I Kill Giants is the collected version of the of the seven issue series by the same name written by Joe Kelly with art by J.M. Ken Niimura.  If the name Joe Kelly sounds familiar, you may know him from his various Marvel and DC projects including runs on Action Comics, X-Men, JLA, Amazing Spiderman, and Deadpool, as well as his excellent series Four Eyes with Max Fiamura and Steampunk with Chris Bachalo.  If you have heard of J.M. Ken Niimura, well then you have a leg up on me, because I had never heard of him before reading the trade.  He hasn't done a lot of stateside work, but is of Japanese and Spanish decent and his style looks to me to be a very manga infused European style.  Not typically what I would go for, but it works so well in this title that I can't imagine it any other way. 

I Kill Giants tells the story of Barbara.  She is in the 5th grade and loves Dungeons and Dragons and is more than a little bit of a social misfit.  She tends to favor living in her fantasy world and throughout the story the lines between fantasy and reality blur as we see how she deals with her day-to-day life and her destiny to kill giants.  Are the giants real or are they metaphorical?  Are her struggles real or all in her head?  Through the course of the story you will have to come to some of these answers yourself as you get to know Barbara and her family and what passes as friends.  It is high fantasy that is closer to reality than you may think.  Oh and she has bunny ears...at least for a little while...

I loved this trade.  Seriously, you need to go find a copy and read it.  I must warn you though, it will be close to impossible to put down once you get started.  I would by lying if I said that I didn't tear up as I read the end of the story.  If it doesn't touch you in some way, than you weren't paying attention and/or have no soul.  The art compliments the story so well and the manga stylings give the whole piece a fanciful tone that helps blur the lines of what is real and what isn't.  Go find it...seriously.  If you haven't or won't read anything else I ever recommended...read this.  You will not regret it.