http://koreanish.com/2009/04/12/this-is-not-the-superhero-film-you-were-looking-for/ Alexander Chee Fri, 25 May 2012 04:01:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://koreanish.com/2009/04/12/this-is-not-the-superhero-film-you-were-looking-for/#comment-1869 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:47:23 +0000 http://alexanderchee.net/?p=1150#comment-1869 Having started reading comics in the ’90′s, I could get that bludgeoning from Marvel/DC. (not being a diehard fan of the original comic, I still winced inside when they tossed off a ‘cameo’ of the newspaper vendor and the kid reading the Black Freighter comic at the end-like we were supposed to satisfied with that nub of a bone.) Recently reading bits of the Age of Apocalypse storyline (Watchmen’s neutered cousin?) again proved nostalgic and ghastly-I thought this was the apex of comics why? Though I’ve always been a sucker for What If?/Elseworld stories.
Checkout Alan Moore’s Top Ten comics (the first two graphic novels and prequel by him and Gene Ha)-a wonderfully entertaining romp of superhero cops policing a megatropolis where everyone has super powers. It’s densely eye popping just to look at, the characters are intricately drawn in gray areas, and I still wonder if the end to the first two tradepaperbacks was a nod to two rather well known gay artists.

]]> http://koreanish.com/2009/04/12/this-is-not-the-superhero-film-you-were-looking-for/#comment-1868 Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:09:52 +0000 http://alexanderchee.net/?p=1150#comment-1868 Everyone I’ve spoken to who loves the original graphic novel has said something to this effect. I enjoyed a moment of elucidating frisson upon reading “the film was actually another case where Zack Snyder evacuated the book’s content and inserted a narrative that is about his love of the male figure and his anxiety about openly gay men.” Oh yes, yes, yes, it IS. The fight scenes were shot with such a voyeuristic eye, which may reveal Snyder’s obsessions/anxieties but totally corrupted the meaning of the original text.

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