Don’t you mean Mark Millar’s new lads’ mag with a few comic strips in it?

No, it’s a comic. Millar says so himself in the introduction. “It’s been a long time since someone launched a boys comic in this country”. And he later uses the words “kids” to describe its target market. It’s a kids’ comic.

Right. So if it’s a comic, why does the cover consist of photos of Frankie Boyle and two characters from a movie, instead of a piece of comics artwork? I mean, considering the fact that it’s got art from one of comics’ best ever artists – John Romita Jr – plus the not-inconsiderable talents of Tommy Lee Edwards and Steve McNiven in it, you’d think they might want to make it look like a comic. And if it’s aimed at kids, why is there a liberal quantity of “fucks” littered throughout, and a selection of articles that letch over women, and an “ADULT CONTENT” warning on the cover?

… Alright, you got me.

So yes. As you may have gathered, CLiNT is really a rather confused beast. It’s ostensibly aimed at “kids”, but contains content that clearly can’t be pitched directly to them without getting its publisher in trouble. Yet it’s not “grown-up”, either – we’re not talking a Vertigo-esque “mature”, here – the “adult” elements are simply the sort of juvenile swearing and violence you’d expect from its creators (note: I have no intrinsic problem with juvenile swearing and violence, I’m merely calling it what it is). So really, it’s aimed at lads between the ages of about 14 and 25 – exactly the target audience of the likes of Nuts and Zoo (and, to a lesser extent, Viz – but there’s none of the irony or wit of that august publication to be found here). Which makes Millar’s claim that it’s filling a desperate hole in the market rather daft, really. And it’s not sure if it’s a comic or a magazine, either. Again, despite its editor’s claims that it’s a new “comic”, it’s clearly a magazine that just happens to have a significantly high page count devoted to comics.

And therein lies its first major mistake, really – because the magazine content is, to a letter, rotten. I mean, worse than the guff in Shortlist and Sport and all the other free magazines left lying on tube trains all over London. It’s not just the subject matter – although the list of  “hot mums”, and the picture of a fully-clothed Oxfam campaigner spreading her jeans under the banner of “Deeply Moral Babes”, are simply cringeworthy – but the sheer lack of wordcount or insight devoted to it. The feature on “the Chinese Tom Cruise”, potentially interesting, runs to a whopping five paragraphs, while the Jimmy Carr interview isn’t much longer (and the Chris Mintz-Plasse one even shorter). Then there are the attempts to be edgy – a gaudy feature on “Charles Manson’s Celebrity Death List” and a tedious column about smoking weed from an anonymous “celeb” – that would have been rejected by SKY magazine in the mid-90s. If CLiNT were a full magazine of this rubbish, it wouldn’t even have made it to the printers’.

Thankfully, it’s also got some comics in it. And actually, some of them are pretty good. The big draw, of course – given that it’s the one A-list strip not previously published anywhere – is the first part of Kick-Ass 2, although it’s also arguably the section that disappoints the most. It’s not just that it seems to act more as a sequel to the film than the comic (Millar even describes it as such in the intro), so much as the fact that it’s only eight pages, and not very much happens in any of them – it’s all setup, designed to bring the reader up to speed on Mindy and Dave’s current situation, with no hint whatsoever of what the upcoming story is going to be, and certainly nothing like the cliffhanger hook that this new, shorter serialised format demands. But it’s eight pages of Romita Jr art in a slightly larger format, which is something.

The best that the issue has to offer is, somewhat inconveniently, the stuff that’s already available elsewhere – although it’s pleasantly surprising that the first issues of Turf and Nemesis are present in their entirety, as I’d expected them to be chopped up in a similar fashion to Kick-Ass 2. Considering the fact that at current exchange rates, you’d have paid two or three quid for either issue in a direct market shop, the volume presented here is a welcome plus point in the mag’s favour. Turf is the real highlight, as those who read it on first printing will also be aware – it’s no Casanova, let’s not go nuts, but it certainly feels too classy for the rest of the mag, and Edwards’ art looks great in an expanded format that also gives Ross’ dialogue more space to breathe. But let’s not discount Nemesis, either – it’s not Millar’s finest work, but it’s a neat concept, and exactly the sort of cynical, explosive action fun that CLiNT’s ideal market should go for. Indeed, the series seems to fit the mag’s core style so well, I’m surprised they haven’t made more of it – stick that distinctive character on the cover, with the “What if Batman were evil?” tagline, and I bet it’d shift a lot more copies through passing curiosity than Frankie Boyle’s bearded face (Is anyone going to look at that and think “I’ve been looking for a new British comic aimed at my demographic, and finally I have found it!”?)

The entirely new material, however, does less well. Boyle’s Rex Royd is an intriguing little thing – more rooted in comicsness than you might expect, although the Lex Luthor parody is a little too thinly-veiled – and features a couple of strong twists and turns. But it’s a little messy and incoherent in getting there, hampered by weak artwork – and ending on a “to be continued” is odd, as it feels more like an entirely self-contained, Future Shocks-esque twist story. Huw Edwards presents Space Oddities, meanwhile, closes out the issue and also feels like a 2000AD strip – albeit one that would probably be rejected for an obvious final-panel “gag” and little-to-no actual substance at all. There’s also no explanation whatsoever for why Huw Edwards’ name and photograph are included (his name is even, bizzarely, on the cover) – possibly an attempt to be “wacky”, but one that falls flat on its face. If, as I suspect, this is the first successful commission from Millar’s forum-based call for original strips, one can only hope that his later selections are better.

What baffles is the way Millar and co felt the need to take a half-decent selection of comics – at an extremely reasonable price point, at least assuming you haven’t read one or both of Nemesis and Turf – and wrap it up in this package. From the ill-advised cover to the equally ill-advised editorial content, CLiNT comes off as a pretty lousy magazine that just happens to have some quite good comics in it. It’s only a shame that the pre-launch braggadocio about coming up with something new and distinctive wasn’t followed up on – if they’d had the courage to stand behind the concept of it as a comic, rather than attempting to sell it as a magazine, it could have been great. As it is, for the moment at least, it falls halfway between two things, and doesn’t really succeed at being either of them.

With our dissection of the final book’s plot out of the way, in the final part of Comics Daily’s epic discussion of epic Scott Pilgrim epicness we get back onto the subject of the film, and how well – or otherwise – it translated our precious comics to the screen.

Part Three – The Adaptation

Seb: First off, there’s just one point I’d like to make – which is that, reading back over part two, it comes off a little like we were both fairly negative about Finest Hour, since we were largely picking apart the issues we had with Gideon and the plot. I’d just like to state for the record, therefore, that even with those issues, it’s still an astonishingly brilliant piece of work. It doesn’t quite match my favourite of the six – Gets It Together – but it’s easily up there with the other best ones (I’d put 3, 5 and 6 on about an even footing). It’s still tremendously funny, and full of great moments. Saying goodbye to those characters did make me a little weepy, the first time a comic’s done that since… well, alright, since issue #8 of Daytripper if I’m being honest, but that was the first time since probably We3. And O’Malley has developed from being a solid artist with an engagingly cartoony style and knack for amusing character expression in book one, to an absolute master storyteller in book six. So, yeah. It’s Quite Good, Really.

James: Well… to be honest, Book 6 didn’t quite live up to my hopes for it. I enjoyed it more the second and third time around, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little underwhelmed. Obviously, I love the little jokes and asides (as the panel above illustrates, that aspect of the books stayed strong all the way through) and on a technical level, I was impressed by the art and storytelling techniques – but the big arcs and plot resolutions let me down, so I didn’t get the emotional hit I thought I would. Or indeed, that book 5 gave me. Perhaps my high expectations weren’t ever going to be met, but I always think the best endings leave you with an ache where the story was, and Book 6 didn’t do that. It took me weeks to get over Genshiken Vol. 9, by comparison.

Seb: Let’s go back to the film, then. It’s interesting the way it went from an almost entirely straight (and largely perfect) adaptation of book one, but then from book two onwards gradually shifting onto its own way of doing things (and, indeed, its own primary arc) – there’s a risk it could have seemed quite disjointed. As it is, it’s weird, but I think it managed to come off well in its own right despite sitting there, as a fan of the book, and knowing how it was deviating more and more as it went on. As discussed, there’s loads I wish they’d kept in (although at the same time, certain things surprised me when they were kept – I really didn’t expect the Vegan Police to be the resolution to the Todd fight, though I’m glad they were as it was one of the moments that really got the audience going; and I’d love to know the process behind getting the scenes at the Chaos Theatre, e.g. the elevator shot, so similar in book and film considering they weren’t done at the same time), but they did a much better job of cohesively rounding it out their own way than, say, Watchmen did.

James: I agree that there wasn’t anything in the film that outraged my nerdier sensibilities. Between Iron Man and Kick Ass, it’s been a good year for respectful comic adaptations. Michael Cera was the one thing I was worried about, and I went from thinking he could do it, to worried (after the first trailer) to completely won over again mere seconds into this film. Most of my favourite moments made it into the book, although there were a lot of things I was disappointed got lost – the Xavier’s line, the repetition of “Knives Chau, 17 Years Old”, and the loss of Scott’s “I was thinking we should break up, or whatever” line – my favourite moment from book 1!

S: Losing the X-Men line was a massive disappointment (especially seeing as they used the patch and made something else out of it!), but I can’t be too disappointed when pretty much all of my favourite Wallace bits from book one (the amazon.ca line, arguing with Crash and the Boys, and – most surprisingly/pleasingly – the “Guess who’s drunk!” scene) were in there.

The exes generally came off well, though. Going into it I had concerns about how the Roxy one was going to end, given that I’d read a review that described it (and guessed, correctly, that they were nicking the “weak spot is the back of the knees” thing from Envy in book three), but it wasn’t as terrible as said description made it sound, and was instead quite funny (given that, all things considered, you couldn’t really have Scott punching or headbutting a girl to death onscreen, and you couldn’t do the sword bit because he hadn’t earned it yet). Patel was pretty much spot on, even though I wish they’d had Scott and co singing their bits of the song. The Lucas stuff was strong, but I thought the stunt guys bit was a bit of a pointless addition considering they still had him win the fight the same way. Todd was great, with Routh probably giving the best of the performances (although Schwartzmann was spot on as well) – and as mentioned, the Vegan Police just rounded it off brilliantly. The twins were a letdown, though. I mean, they were the weakest exes (quite deliberately, really) in the books, and I did like the idea of the music-based monster fight, which looked terrific; but for them not to have a line of dialogue between them, and to not even get the explanation of why they were teaming up, made them feel a bit rushed and hollow.

J: Roxy and the Katayanagis definitely suffered most. Although I loved the actual fight with the Katayanagis, it suffered massively from being nothing more than a fight scene. I suppose the idea was that the emotional investment came from the fact that we wanted them to win the recording contract, but that plot never really got enough time to make it the centrepiece of an entire fight. I actually prefer the draft script version, which has Wallace set the pair against one another after gossiping with Ramona.

I think the adaptation was fine, I’d have cut all the same stuff, and I can appreciate that if you leave out the Book 4 Lisa plot and Book 5 break-up stuff, there’s not much left to them so you have to come up with new bits (although Roxy’s fight still felt a bit perfunctory). I was disappointed they lost the stuff about Todd’s affair, but since it didn’t affect the fight’s outcome it’s not such a problem. I can see why the fight stuff was necessary with Lucas, TBH. In the book, there’s no fight, he just dares him to skateboard, and as a film trying to get its premise across, I think it needed to have an actual fight beforehand. Patel’s was the one that got cloest to being flawless, though!

S: I suppose we could go on all day about how underused Kim was – but that’s just personal preference based on how she’s a favourite character from the books, and how well-cast Pine turned out to be (despite my initial misgivings). I know there was simply no time to do all the supporting characters’ background stories (Stephen and Julie/Joseph, the Lisa stuff, etc.), but losing the glimpses at her life were a major shame.

J: I was pleased that they got all the characters in there, regardless of how thin some of them were. Since you mentioned the Adult Swim animation [in part one], I’m kind of tempted to say that there’s a potential series in animating the stuff that didn’t make it into the film alone. Only a small portion of my two favourite plot threads – Lisa and Envy’s – made it into the film at all! I’m not sure how it could be done without doing a straight, alternative adaptation, but the existing short makes me believe it’d be worth doing.

Oh, actually, one nerdrage moment, now that I think about it: “Scott, if your life had a face I’d punch it in the balls” (book) Vs. “Scott, if your life had a face, I’d punch it.” (movie) That change almost stoked a fire in me like the loss of the “Beware of Leopard” moment in H2G2. You cut a joke, or you keep it. You do not CUT THE PUNCHLINE ALONE.

But yeah, that’s literally it, and no individual who takes themselves seriously would actually get upset about that!

S: Ah. Ahaha. BUT. The initial line, as said by Kim, is indeed “Scott, if your life had a face I’d punch it”. Then, later on (I think it’s after Scott gets his job back), Stephen says it with the “punch it in the balls” addition. True, only using the first one does defeat the point a little by losing the punchline of Stephen’s altered repetition, but there’s nowhere really that a second utterance would have fitted.

Actually, in terms of fanboy disappointment, perhaps the only major one was that the credits sequence wasn’t how I imagined it – I was disappointed that the song Scott’s named after was relegated to a short appearance shortly after the titles, instead. Booo!

J: Ah, I actually loved the credits sequence, the way it let you focus on the music, with only the barest hints of what was to come (I noticed Gideon’s triforce-style logo) then revealed itself as being essentially what was going on in Knives’ mind while the song was playing. Good stuff! And I know we owe some debt to Plumtree, but let’s be realistic, they’re really not very good ;-)

S: Speaking of the music, that’s another thing worth discussing – just how bloody spectacular the soundtrack is. I’ve been listening to it pretty much constantly since seeing the film, and am also glad that I didn’t do so beforehand. The tone of the stuff Beck does for Sex Bob-Omb is spot on, the Crash and the Boys ludicrously-short-songs idea is actually translated surprisingly effectively (the performance of “I’m Sad, So Very Very Sad” got one of the biggest laughs at the screening we were at), and as for Clash at Demonhead… well, I’ve watched this more times than is probably healthy, now – it’s an astoundingly great scene and choice of music. And Brie Larson is so Envy it’s scary.

It also surprised me just how much of the music heard in the trailers was stuff that had been composed for the film – i.e. pretty much all of it.

James: Funnily enough, Brie was the one person in the cast who I didn’t immediately think was perfect as their character – until she started singing, then I realised that yes, she was. I mean, I already love Metric, so I was looking forward to hearing Black Sheep anyway, but that was a fantastic moment. As I said before, Envy’s thread is one of my favourites, from the books, so I’m a bit gutted they didn’t make more of it. I was quite worried about actually hearing Sex Bob-omb – obviously, every reader’s going to have their own sound in their head – but it worked.

I think we probably agree that the film was about as good as it could have been, under the circumstances. It seems to be getting a fair amount of 4-star reviews, most of which criticise the pacing, so it makes me wonder how things might have turned out if they’d done two or three movies instead – although given the box office numbers, maybe they wouldn’t have gotten the chance. Part of me does wonder if there isn’t a way to turn some of the cut material from the books into a sequel – the stuff about Scott and Ramona moving in together, the stuff about Sex Bob-omb breaking up, Lisa and Envy’s plots… I can almost see it working, and there’s so much story to draw on that I don’t think it’d really be sacrilege to try.

S: Yeah, it’s weird – as someone who’s been into the books for a few years – that there’s suddenly all this explosion of talk about Scott Pilgrim (I’ve been threatened with unfollowing on Twitter from friends who are sick of it!), and due to the fact that there’s only one film (although as strange as it may initially seem, your sequel idea doesn’t sound too far-fetched! I could almost see it working in an odd way… but no, it has to just be one, really. I’ll take a Kim Pine spinoff comic, though), in six months or so it’ll all be forgotten. But for us fans, the film’s going to last well on DVD as an entertaining alternative way of re-experiencing the story, and as a reminder of a time when O’Malley’s little indie comic became The Biggest Thing In The World for a few weeks. And of course, the comics are already one of the most endlessly re-readable out there.

It’s been fun. And it’s very strange to think that it’s all now pretty much over and done with.

In part one of our epic-geek-out Scott Pilgrim discussion, we looked at how the movie treated Scott’s relationships with Ramona, Kim, Envy and Knives. Now we turn our attention to Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour and the series’ antagonist, Gideon Gordon Graves. Once again, this post includes spoilers for book six. Lots of them, this time.

Part Two – Gideon’s Machinations

James: I didn’t really get what the “Gideon messing with Scott’s memories” development was supposed to be doing, in the books, so I’m not surprised it didn’t make the movie. It appears to be saying that Gideon is responsible for Scott failing to realise he’s been a dick in the past, and if that is the case, I don’t really like it. It takes the responsibility out of Scott’s hands, and I think that negatively influences his character arc.

Seb: Hmm, good point. What I like about the memories thing is that, structurally, it makes the flashback at the beginning of book two very clever. When you read it, you just assume it’s there at that point to give you the background of Scott and Kim’s relationship (and so, really, it could show up at just about any point in the first three books, in preparation for the Lisa stuff in book four – though thematically, the earlier you know about what happened with Kim, the better). But when you discover that it’s a memory that Gideon tampered with, well, it’s not unreasonable to assume that it’s been placed there as part of the narrative – in that the point in time at which we encounter it is the moment that Gideon, having just been first made aware of the presence of Ramona in Scott’s life, is going in there and screwing with it. It’s damned clever long-term plotting, really.

That said, what I’ve struggled with is the reason why Gideon did that – aside from sheer malevolence – and I think you’ve come to a similar conclusion to me – he did it as a pre-emptive weapon against Scott. Because how did Scott finally “level up” in order to defeat him? By gaining the power of understanding. So Gideon finds a way to try and prevent Scott from reaching that point, by fuzzying up his past (on a side-note – if there’s one plot thread left maddeningly incomplete, it’s the fact that we never got the full story of Scott and Envy’s break-up – the combination of Scott’s memories proving to be unreliable, and a couple of cryptic statements by Envy in the last book, suggest that there’s a LOT more to it than the “Get out of my life” conversation we’re familiar with, and I want to know what happened!) and thus denying him the opportunity to understand how similar he is, or could have been, to Gideon.

But like you say, that’s problematic, because Scott’s previous lack of self-awareness should be his own problem – when you boil it down, basically the entire plot of the series is Scott’s recognition, and conquering, of that inherent character flaw.

Perhaps, though, the reason for Gideon doing that is just another evil plan of his – no particular reason, just being a dick. Because, when you think about it, O’Malley threw in quite a good number of those – and it’s one of the things that’s to the detriment of the book. Basically, in that last book, Gideon is simultaneously:

- Preparing to fight and kill Scott
- Controlling Scott and Ramona’s minds via the “glow”
- Launching the Chaos Theatre in Toronto
- Trying to control Envy’s life
- Keeping all the girls who’ve ever rejected him in cryogenic suspension

It’s too much, basically. The last one in particular comes out of left-field, and serves no purpose other than to further drive home Gideon’s status as a creepy, possessive psycho.

J: The cryogenic stuff definitely came out of nowhere. The only reason I can think for it existing is to offer a reasonable answer to the question “how do we know Ramona wouldn’t be better off with Gideon?” – aside from the fact that he organised the league, we don’t really know much about him. At least this way,  we know that once he’s done with a girl, he locks them up so no-one else can have them. He’s just after trophies.

Having re-read the books, though, I’m still not sure how far in advance the Gideon-memory stuff really was figured out. I suppose we can’t tell for sure, but I’m not sure I feel entirely comfortable crediting O’Malley with the clever plotting you’re talking about, because I didn’t see much evidence that made me think it wasn’t figured out in retrospect. It works, but was it always planned that way? I dunno.

S: Fair point. Although if you want to talk good advance plotting – the use of the 1-UP was one of the best moments of the book (and gave it one of the best lines courtesy of Scott’s mum). And yet, when it comes to the film, it was arguably done better – although in terms of the narrative the book needed to have them resume from the same point because of the significance of the conversations earlier in the scene, the film put a good twist on it that not only made better literal sense (being more how extra lives actually work in games), but dramatically made for a great and highly amusing scene with him “replaying” the level.

Really, though, in the book it was a continue that he got, rather than a 1-UP ;-)

J: Ah, see, the 1-up is the one thing I thought definitely was advance plotting – a little too nakedly, in fact, since as soon as I saw it I was like “well, I guess he’s going to die at some point, then!” Part of me thinks that in the film, they should have used the “save point” idea from book 3 instead, actually, since that’s a little more analogous to how they played it.

The glow’s another thing that I’m not sure really got much explanation, either. I understand that it’s about people being locked inside their heads, right? But what does that actually mean? Ramona glows 3 or 4 times during the series, and Scott once or twice, but even after a re-read I’m not clear on what’s actually going on internally when that happens, or indeed, what causes it to happen. I get that Ramona can use it to travel through sub-space (even though that kind of conflicts with her comments in book 1 about how it’s strange that people in Canada don’t know how to use sub-space) but what does it mean, practically speaking, for people to be “locked inside their own heads”? And to what purpose was it inflicted on Scott and Ramona?

S: It’s tricky. I still haven’t really figured it out either. The best I can come up with is that it’s, simply, “emotional warfare” as Gideon puts it. Presumably he “made his millions” selling it for other people to use, but he himself used it on Scott and Ramona (he can clearly deploy it at will, as seen when he does so on the crowd towards the end) as another way of screwing with them. And it seems that it locks you up with your own issues, leaving you unable to express or confront them? So they just sit there in your head, slowly damaging you? Why that manifests itself in the glow, I’m not sure; and yeah, while the idea of Ramona turning it around (presumably because she has so many issues that it’s more powerful in her) and using it to ride into subspace is a nice one, it does sorta contradict that (throwaway?) line in book one.

J: Funnily, even though I wasn’t bowled over by the book’s resolution to the glow thread very much, the film’s “computer chip in spine” reveal was probably the one change which I think felt a bit lazy. The book and film have a fantasy world that’s incredibly consistent, and putting a chip in Ramona’s spine feels like a transplant from a much lamer narrative by comparison. At the very least, they could have said Gideon was, I dunno, using a cheat code or something. It didn’t ruin things for me, but it felt a bit thin. Like a placeholder that never got changed.

As you may possibly have noticed if you read, oh, any comics site in the world ever, Scott Pilgrim is currently the name on everybody’s lips – with the final book having been published a month or so ago, and the movie version out in US cinemas (with the UK release to come later this week), O’Malley’s series is exponentially more popular than it’s ever been and probably ever will be again. And at Comics Daily, as longstanding fans (alright, James longer-standing than myself) of the books, we’ve naturally got quite a lot to say about it all.

Although we’ve both read the last book, we haven’t yet got around to doing a proper “review”, as such – and since we’ve both seen the film, but have generally been bound in our roles as objective reviewers of it to treat it on its merits as a film rather than how it adapted the comic – we thought this site would be the ideal place to go into a bit more detail about how, as fans, we felt about Edgar Wright’s adaptation. And since it was also quite difficult to talk about the film without also talking about it in relation to the books – including the last one – we thought we may as well include our opinions on Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour as well. Returning to our “email conversation” format, we’ve managed to churn out a good few thousand words on the whole thing – so, to be kinder to you, we’ve split it up into chunks. And here’s part one. Be warned, of course, that the following will contain many, many spoilers for both the last book and the film – so it’s inadvisable to read it until you’ve read/seen one or both of them…

Part One – Book Vs. Movie: Scott’s Relationships

Seb: So from an objective, film-reviewer point of view, while the film is great, it’s definitely not perfect. It doesn’t do a lot to convince you of why Scott or Ramona should be considered appealing characters, structurally it’s a bit all over the place, and it does make Ramona a little uncomfortably passive in the final scenes when you feel like the stage is set for her to be the one to help Scott defeat Gideon (as in the book, but even without the book it would feel to me like that should be the case).

From a fan point of view, meanwhile, there’s lots that frustrated me regarding things that were left out or skimmed over (especially Kim), and yet… and yet… that part of me still absolutely adored it and can’t wait to see it again, and over and over and over. The normal comic-fan rage of “How DARE they do this wrongly?” just doesn’t hit me (even though I know exactly which elements it would be about if it did) because the stuff that they did do… well, pretty much all of it was just perfect, wasn’t it?

James: It’s true that Scott & Ramona don’t seem like a particularly strong pairing, but that’s as much a failure of the source material, where by the time of book 5, people were wondering why they were supposed to be together anyway. In the film, everything happens quickly, so the fact that they seem a bit like they’ve been forced together by circumstances works better for me, at least until the point where he has to proclaim he loves her – unlike the book, you don’t really feel like they’ve reached that point in the film.

S: See, I think the book did at least have moments that established something between them – moments that were generally missing from the film. One that occurred to me was when they’re in Scott’s apartment, the “You’re cool, Ramona, I like you.” “You’re lame, but I like you anyway.” bit. That could have been worked into the garlic bread scene, which itself was perhaps the one bit (well, along with their first date) that the film did to give the pair a little spark.

J: Also, I don’t think Ramona is “uncomfortably” passive. Unlike the book, the film isn’t really about Scott and Ramona, it’s about Scott and Knives. Ramona doesn’t have the same character arc in the films as the book – she’s mainly the incentive for Scott to go on his own journey – so the fact that she’s just the video-game princess to be “won” during the final fight doesn’t bother me so much. Instead, Knives gets to be the female character with her own story – and indeed, that’s why the fake-out ending worked. I admit, if it had gone down that way in the books, I probably would have been upset, but I think it’s acceptable in the film because it was never really about Ramona in the way the books were (towards the end, anyway).

S: Good point, actually, since I was next going to remark that I wasn’t hugely convinced by the ending – in that, if you didn’t know that that was how it was supposed to go because of the books, you’d simply wonder why he doesn’t go off with Knives at the end. She becomes the “there all along” figure that I thought, at the end of book five, the last book was going to make Kim into. Indeed, it’s fascinating to read that first draft script [available online] and learn that that was actually the original intent (although, as with much that was changed from that version, I’m glad they didn’t go that way)! Having changed it, though, I think they should have trimmed some of the “Ninja Ninja Revolution” stuff (as well as that worked), because leaving it in feels too much like a hangover from that plan.

But, as you’ve pointed out, the film isn’t so much about showing Scott and Ramona’s relationship, threatening it, and resolving it. Instead, Ramona exists throughout as a potential relationship – when they leave at the end, they’re basically having their first proper crack at things. Which works in the film’s context (although the books are all the richer, of course, for giving us a full year in these characters’ lives, rather than just a few weeks).

J: Yeah. I can completely see why the Kim/Envy/Lisa stuff got cut. I have to admit, if I was trying to pare it down, I’d probably have cut that stuff myself – Scott’s arc was complete enough, for a film, without needing to know more about his history with Kim and Envy – Knives can fulfill their role of “former girlfriend screwed over by Scott” quite completely, and I say that as someone who lists the Envy and Lisa threads as his favourites in the books.

S: It’s just odd that his and Kim’s relationship is reduced to a single line of dialogue. It’s clear they couldn’t fit in the flashback (instead doing it animated for Adult Swim), although it’s a shame that it couldn’t be used to bring in the “Gideon messing with Scott’s memories” thread, which was one of the better elements of the last book. But to leave all that out, and then keep in Scott’s apology to Kim, is odd – like you say, it’s Knives filling that role instead, which is fine, but he should then be apologising to her.

Next: Gideon’s Machinations!

Amazing Spider-Man #640
I have to admit, as an exercise in continuity bungs, the first couple of issues of OMIT weren’t bad, aside from the ridiculous story-logic of “I don’t want kids with you, so let’s not get married”. Quesada’s pages are brilliant on just about every level, and it kind of surprises me that he’s able to improve so consistently as an artist when he appears to draw about 6 things a year. Or maybe that’s why. Anyway, OMIT is getting into weird territory now, as it starts telling the story of how Peter went from unmasked and living with his wife/long-term partner MJ to single, unknown and living with his Aunt. I’m not really sure we needed to see these details, because frankly, “A Satanic analogue did it” was more than enough to get Marvel out of any continuity scrape. So while it’s not terrible, it’s just sort of academic at this point.

Avengers Academy #3
I kind of love Avengers Academy. It reminds me of Busiek’s Thunderbolts, from back in the day. Strongly-defined characters with strongly-defined powers, a frisson of will-they, won’t-they villainy, it’s pushing all the right buttons for me. Hazmat and Finesse are two of my favourite characters right now. The first is an angry Japanese girl whose powers have made her a walking biohazard, confining her to a hazmat suit. The latter is a potentially sociopathic genius who can replicate any action, but has trouble interacting with people. And she’s blackmailing Quicksilver into giving her secret classes in BEING EVIL. Amazing. Anyway, this issue is a crossover with the current Thunderbolts comic, and it’s the better of the two, really. There’s a hilarious scene where Valkyrie gives the girls on the team a lesson in avoiding the male-centric man-ocracy, and later the kids visit The Raft, and a few of the team decide they’re going to go kill Norman Osborn. And despite the number of times characters have proclaimed that they’ll be doing that over the last year, this time it’s actually quite good. It’s not a very Avengers-y book, but I really like it.

Thunderbolts #147
This is the first Parker/Walker issue which hasn’t massively clicked for me. Part of the problem is that it “crosses over” with Avengers Academy – the issues portray the same events from different perspectives – but where Avengers Academy is taking two issues, Thunderbolts takes one, and has to quickly wrap up the previous issue’s plot, so it’s all a bit rushed and spotty. Large swathes of story that will presumably turn up in Avengers Academy #4 are dealt with in the space of a single dismissive panel. I’m inclined to say that it hasn’t really worked, although the part of the story that involves John Walker to fight a bunch of villains into submission despite the fact he’s currently missing a hand and half a leg was completely badass, as was Cage’s encounter with the Purple Man. Always nice to see plot threads from Alias get a look in.

Uncanny X-Men #527
I don’t know what’s going on with this series, but as near as I can tell, Matt Fraction has a strong idea of what he wants the book to be like, but no-one else remotely agrees with him – least of all the people reading it. In this issue, we appear to learn for the first time that Sebastian Shaw is supposed to be a “secret” prisoner – that is, only Emma and Danger know about his presence – which doesn’t make a lot of sense, particularly given the “no secrets” talk Scott and Emma had comparatively recently. It certainly doesn’t help that Whilce Portacio is turning in some shocking work, too. I know he’s not to everyone’s tastes, but I’m sure he used to be better than what we get here. It’s a mess of ruined perspective, failed anatomy and self-consciously arty storytelling panels that don’t work. I’m having trouble remembering the story because the issue just feels like it’s ripping itself apart on a purely technical level.

Web of Spider-Man #11
I bought this on a whim because I saw it had a Black Cat story in it, and a Jackpot story by Sana Takeda, both of which are relevant to my interests, so I was even more pleased to discover that the lead was actually a Mary Jane/Black Cat team-up with nary a hint of Spider-Man in it. A shame, then, that Felicia spends most of the comic with her breasts hanging out, but it was a good enough read that I’ll probably buy #12 toget the second half. The Jackpot story turned out to be the last part of a coda to her recent miniseries (which was thoroughly risible) and this wasn’t much better, really. I think it gives some closure to the plot about Boomerang being her arch-nemesis, so there’s really no more stories about the character that demand to be told. Probably best to leave her alone for a while, now.

Now his friends and family don’t wanna see him
He ends up working in a superhero museum
A robot called Skeets is help
He travels back in time with Brainiac 5’s forcefield belt!
Wrist blasters, Legion of Super-Heroes flight ring
Became a hero in ‘85 to make a comfortable living
“Hey Skeets! Here’s Metropolis!
When we get going, there’ll be no stopping us!”

The E.P. is available to download on a “pay what you like” model, with a recommended charge of £2. I heartily recommend you buy it.

If you’ve never read the series, now would be the ideal time to start – the first trade, The First Hundred Days, is utterly corking and should hook you straight away. It’s never quite as good after the end of the devastating March to War (except for the brilliant metafiction of #40), but it’s still very worth your time checking out and sticking with.

Stay tuned for more Pilgrimness, by the way (as if the internet wasn’t already full of it) since James and I could may very well possibly be perhaps seeing the film at some point very soon, and we’ve still to talk about book six, as well.

Nevertheless, it’s exactly the sort of postmodern metafictional guff that tends to push the right buttons for me – and with the standout fifth issue, a volte face that decides to tell a self-contained story about Rudyard Kipling (it’s a move that, at this early stage, shows the confidence Carey is currently working with – he’s not afraid to invite comparison with books like Sandman that were able to do similar), the premise becomes that bit clearer. In the world Carey constructs here, fiction influences reality – and the sinister figures all-too-aware of, and capable of exploiting, that fact are the main antagonists. Meanwhile, although it’s yet to be explicitly stated, the true nature of the Christopher Robin-meets-Harry Potter Tommy Taylor is far more clear-cut at the end of this book than it was at the end of the first issue. And although I’m sure I’m supposed to at this point, I’ll lay good money on the real identity of “Lizzie Hexam”, to boot.

Still, one of the problems that struck me upon reading the first issue continues to rankle here – I’ve no problem with Tommy being his world’s Harry Potter; as an analogue, he and his friends and the Count work absolutely fine. But Carey is asking us to believe that this is a world in which Tommy Taylor and Harry Potter both exist (it’s stated as such at one point), and yet the extracts from the Tommy books are so deliberately derivative of Rowling as to be outright parody. It’s not a major issue, just one that tends to jar – and in a book that is clearly going to rely so heavily on its meticulously-constructed world, it’s a shame to see cracks already showing.

Nevertheless, there’s plenty to enjoy, particularly if you want a comic that immerses itself in the power, history and mythos of the literary. Carey doesn’t really do much in this first volume to make Taylor himself the most engaging lead – but he generally does a good job of populating the book with good support characters, even for one-off stories such as the classic-style “country house murder mystery” of issue #4. The writer’s longtime collaborator Peter Gross, meanwhile, turns in a solid if unspectacular job here – he’s a very good storyteller, and always has been, and generally conveys things effectively, but there’s little that really jumps out beyond that house Vertigo style I’ve always felt he shares with the likes of Snejberg and Camuncoli. That said, like Carey, he ups his game for that Kipling issue, coping admirably with an array of noted literary figures (just how many Vertigo artists have been called upon to draw Oscar Wilde, now?) in a historical setting.

Overall, there’s a good, solid concept here – ripe for storytelling potential and, crucially, somewhat original (metafiction isn’t new, of course, but the relationship between fiction and reality established here is something a bit different). Whether the planned longform tale – and bear in mind I’m a good year’s worth of issues behind the ongoing, so I’ve no idea how it’s gone since – will live up to this is another question, but I’m sufficiently intrigued that I’ll be onboard for the second trade at least.