Inanna (Emily H. Wilson) – Book Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

'Stories are sly things…they can be hard to catch and kill. Inanna is an impossibility, the first full Anunnaki born on Earth. Crowned the goddess of love by the twelve immortal Anunnaki who are worshipped across Sumer, she is destined for greatness.

'But Inanna is born into a time of war. The Anunnaki have split into warring factions, threatening to tear the world apart. Forced into a marriage to negotiate a peace, she soon realises she has been placed in terrible danger. Gilgamesh, a mortal human son of the Anunnaki, and notorious womaniser, finds himself captured and imprisoned by King Akka who seeks to distance himself and his people from the gods. Arrogant and selfish, Gilgamesh is given one final chance to prove himself.

'Ninshubar, a powerful warrior woman, is cast out of her tribe after an act of kindness. Hunted by her own people, she escapes across the country, searching for acceptance and a new place in the world. As their journeys push them closer together, and their fates intertwine, they come to realise that together, they may have the power to change to face of the world forever.'

Mythology is filled with amazing stories, tales that have existed for thousands of years across multiple cultures. Because of this, mythology often gets used as inspiration for other tales. Whether that’s simply taking mythological figures and slapping a new coat of paint on them, such as comic book characters like Thor, or changing things so much that folks don’t even realise it’s a mythological retelling, like O Brother, Where Art Thou? (an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey), myths and legends are everywhere in modern storytelling. Inanna by Emily H. Wilson, draws upon an area that most people would probably be less familiar with though: Sumerian mythology.

Inanna tells three interweaving narratives, each drawn from mythological figures and stories. The first of these is the titular one, Inanna. Inanna is the first Anunnaki child born on Earth, a child with the same powers as and abilities as the twelve Anunnaki gods that rule over man. Other Anunnaki have had children whilst ruling on Earth, but these have resulted in demi-gods, and mortal children, making Inanna something special and new. Crowned as the Goddess of Love, she grows up wanting to be friends with other children, not understanding why her being a god means that she can’t. Her parents try to impart lessons about detachment on her, grooming her for her adult role of Goddess. Part of this is them arranging a marriage for her with the demi-god son of another Anunnaki; an arrangement that will change the course of her young life forever.

The second character is Gilgamesh, the great warrior of legend, mortal son of the gods. However, the Gilgamesh we meet here is less of a great hero, and more of a drunken womaniser. It’s his whorish behaviour that gets him in trouble when held captive by King Akka, an enemy in the war he’s fighting in. Forced to flee in the night with the help of his faithful friend, Gilgamesh finds that the favour of the Anunnaki is waning, and that he has one last chance in which to prove himself. Luckily for him, he has the wild warrior Enkidu by his side.

The third narrative focuses on Ninshubar, a powerful and skilled young warrior woman from a distant land. Elected to take over for her father upon his death, an act of kindness on her part brings her mother’s wrath down upon her, and she’s cast out and hunted by her former people. Ninshubar is forced to flee her homeland, and searches out a new place to call home where she might be accepted.

One of the issues that can plague a book based upon mythology is that people can know the source material, and your work will get compared to other adaptations, and be picked apart by folks who think it’s not going the right way. Even I’ve come across stories based upon myths and legends that have failed to excite me because little has surprised me in them. Fortunately for me, I have practically no familiarity with Sumerian myths, and have only heard of two of the characters featured here in passing (any Trekkie worth their salt will remember the names of Gilgamesh and Enkidu – thanks Jean-Luc). This resulted in a reading experience that felt incredibly fresh and new.

But this isn’t just down to lack of familiarity that makes Inanna such an engaging read, Wilson makes these ancient stories feel new thanks to the focus on the characters and their experiences. A lot of mythological stories were focused on the big events, the spectacle, but in Inanna every moment is told through the eyes of one of these characters, and every moment is personal to them. It grounds the events in their experiences, their emotions, and it ends up drawing you in more than you expect. Wilson also does fun and unexpected things, such as introducing the legendary hero Gilgamesh on his back on the ground, being poked in the chest with a spear. He doesn’t rouse himself and beat his foe, but runs away in a very undignified manner. It’s these moments of subversion that help to build out more rounded and believable characters.

Despite all this praise, the book did take me a while to get into. The beginning felt kind of slow, despite giving the reader a lot of world building and characters. Once I reached a certain part of the book my interest was definitely grabbed and I found that it became a book that was hard to put down; but it took me a while to get there. There are also some parts of the story that are incredibly unsavoury, and I’m quite disappointed that the book (or the advanced copy I read anyway) didn’t include trigger warnings. This may start that ‘you don’t need trigger warnings’ debate, but when a book includes rape, incest, child grooming, and child abuse it should contain some degree of warning as these are incredibly difficult topics that some readers may have had to deal with in their life.

Inanna is an interesting and well written book, one that’s taking ancient stories and making them feel fresh and interesting thanks to the skill of the author. The characters are engaging, and you enjoy spending time with them. Whilst this is the start of a new series (Sumerians) it doesn’t end on too much of a cliffhanger, so you can easily give the first book a try without having to worry about massive unresolved story lines. Definitely worth a read for fantasy and mythology fans.

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Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Before 2011 The Flash was a character who runs really fast, who has some neat powers, and who has a silly group of villains. He was a fun character with a lot of stories to be told.

But then Flashpoint happened, and since then it seems like DC and their various branches of entertainment media look at The Flash (Barry Allen specifically) as little more than a cosmic reset button. To say that Flashpoint has damaged the character of The Flash is an understatement, as this okay-at-best short time travel story with The Flash at the centre of it has been beaten beyond death with adaptations and remakes. But before it was put onto the small screen on the TV series, and before the latest flopbuster movie, it was the DC animated universe who first brought Flashpoint out of the comics.

DC began producing animated movies unconnected to previous TV shows and series in 2007 with Superman: Doomsday, which loosely adapted the Death of Superman story. It would adapt pre-existing graphic novels in styles similar to the art in the books with Justice League: The New Frontier and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, whilst also creating new stories in films such as Batman: Gotham Knight and Green Lantern: Emerald Knight. Each film sat alone and separate from the others for the most part, but in 2013 the decision was made to create an interconnected animated universe. In order to do this, the studio decided to use Flashpoint as a starting point, to wipe away anything that had come before, to discount notions that perhaps these other projects were already part of a shared universe, and to start making animated New 52 movies.

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox was the result; a film that would actually be the closest adaptation of the source material to be made, and one that admits that this is not really a Flash story by naming it after the collective heroes of the Justice League. With DC trying to push the popularity of the New 52 (they had to do something at this point), making a shared universe based upon its key stories wasn’t a bad idea, as it could encourage viewers who might not normally pick up a comic to give the source material a try.

That being said, this would prove to be an inconsistent thing, as not only would these shared universe movie change voice cast on occasion, but two films after Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox they’d already started throwing in standalone movies that weren’t part of the shared universe. This new universe would continue on until 2019, at which point DC destroyed that world in Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, which ended with Barry performing another Flashpoint, and resetting the universe yet again. Because god forbid the character be used for anything else.

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox follows a similar ground to the book that it’s based upon. However, before jumping into the new timeline we get an opening scene of The Flash (Justin Chambers) taking down his Rogues with the help of the Justice League. This was a smart move on the film’s part, as it shows what the universe is like before Barry breaks everything (something that the original book didn’t really touch upon). The next day Barry wakes up having fallen asleep at work, and finds that the world has changed around him. In this new world the Justice League doesn’t exist, half of Europe is dead thanks to a war between Wonder Woman (Vanessa Marshall) and Aquaman (Cary Elwes), and that he has no powers. But the one good thing for Barry in this new world is that his mother is still alive.

Whilst Barry is spending time with his mother, who was killed when he was a boy in the original timeline, Cyborg (Michael B. Jordan), the top superhero in the US, tries to recruit Batman (Kevin McKidd) to his team to help stop the war; an offer Batman refuses. Having learned that Batman still exists in this new world, Barry heads to Wayne Manor to find Bruce, knowing that he’s smart enough to be able to help him figure out what happened. When he arrives, however, he finds an older, more violent Batman, and realises that in this timeline Bruce was the one who was killed and that this new Batman is actually his father, Thomas. Eventually convincing Thomas to help him, Barry regains his powers, and the two of them set out with Cyborg’s help to try to fix the world.

For the most part the movie sticks pretty close to the comic, though it does make a few changes here and there. Most of the time these are small things, such as the reason why Atlantis and Themyscira being at war, and don’t really affect the main narrative too much. There are a few places where the changes made for the movie actually improve things slightly, such as the way in which Thomas Wayne dispatched The Reverse Flash (C. Thomas Howell), changing it from a sword in the back to a bullet through the head in a wonderfully revealed moment. The film does drop the ball in a few ways too, and is far from perfect. Removing the scene in which Barry says goodbye to his mother before undoing the Flashpoint timeline is a major misstep, and misses a big point of what the story was even about.

It seems with Flashpoint adaptations we’ve had ever increasing returns, with the animated film doing as good, if not perhaps a better job than the original, the TV series moving away from universe changing spectacle to focus on the character and emotions at play, and The Flash movie getting everything it could wrong. At this point I’d like to hope that DC puts Flashpoint away for a good long while (hopefully forever), and instead elevates some actually good Flash stories. But if you really have to experience this story on the screen then the animated outing is the best way to go about it.

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The Wolverine – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

If you’re here reading about The Wolverine there’s a good chance that you’re a fan of the character, and that you’ve seen the images of Hugh Jackman in the yellow and blue suit on the set of the next Deadpool movie. Excitement for the character of Wolverine has perhaps never been higher now that fans are finally getting the iconic costume after two decades; but ten years ago Wolverine was a character that a lot of people had given up hope on. The last time he’d been seen was a brief cameo in X-Men: First Class, and before that was the abysmal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and the barely better X-Men: The Last Stand. A lot of fans had stopped hoping for a good Wolverine movie; but then the trailer for The Wolverine landed.

The version of Wolverine presented on the big screen had always been a watered down version of the character, thanks in large part to them having to sanitise him in order to make the films accessible to the biggest audience possible. Any film that depicted Wolverine honestly would have to be ultra-violent to do so. But there were also large parts of the character’s personality and past that the main X-Men films just didn’t touch upon. When their first spin-off movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine tried to do this it managed to get a lot of things wrong, and ended up being what fans consider to be the worst X-Men film ever made. As such, when it was announced that there’d be another Wolverine movie fans were somewhat nervous about what we might be getting.

The first sign that perhaps this film might be better than what came before was the announcement that director James Mangold would be working on the film as both writer and director. Having directed films such as Copland and Walk The Line, Mangold was seen as something of a bold choice, a director who’d made ‘real’ respectable movies. When it was also revealed that the movie was going to be taking influence from the highly acclaimed Chris Claremont and Frank Miller Wolverine limited series, the excitement was palpable. The first trailer for the film would then show fans the character in Japan, fighting against foes with samurai swords, and ninjas. Geeks were hyped.

Taking its ques from the Wolverine limited series, The Wolverine took Logan (Hugh Jackman) to his home away from home, Japan. The character has had a long history with Japan, and the film explored this by introducing the character of Ichirō Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), a Japanese soldier in World War II working at the prison camp that held a captured Logan. As the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Yashida tried to free Logan, and Logan in turn helped him to survive the blast.

Decades later, following the events of X-Men: The Last Stand Logan is living in the Canadian wilderness as a hermit, but is approached by the young mutant Yukio, who’s been sent to bring him to an elderly Yashida. Travelling to Japan, Logan finds his old friend dying of cancer. It’s here that Yashida offers Logan a gift, a release from the healing powers that prevent him from ageing and dying. Asking Logan to transfer the powers to him in order to save his life, Yashida believes that both men will get what they want.

Logan refuses, however, seeing his powers as a curse that he doesn’t want to transfer to another. After Yashida dies Logan finds himself caught in the middle of a power struggle within the family as Yashida’s children fight over the estate. With a young woman’s life under threat, Logan puts himself in harm’s way to protect her. Unfortunately for him, something has begun to go wrong with his powers, and he isn’t healing the way he should be.

The Wolverine put Logan in a situation that fans of the characters had been calling for for years, and introduced characters from the comics such as Shingen Yashida (Hiroyuki Sanada), Mariko (Tao Okamoto), and The Silver Samurai. After the disaster that was the previous Wolverine movie it was a huge breath of fresh air, a film that not only felt like it respected the original work, but was just competently made by someone who likes to make good movies.

It’s not surprising then that the film out-grossed the previous one, and that The Wolverine would even go on to become the third highest grossing X-Men film at that point. The success of the film all but guaranteed that another Wolverine movie would be made, and James Mangold returned to give fans another adaptation of one of the characters most iconic stories, turning Old Man Logan into an even better story with Logan four years later.

The Wolverine also gave audiences a small tease of the iconic costume in a deleted ending scene where Logan was presented with the yellow and brown suit, complete with the mask. With Deadpool 3 putting the character in the yellow and blue there’s one thing that fans are still waiting to hear, if it has the mask or not. With the love that the film has, and with it being the first of the Wolverine films to get things right hopefully the creators of Deadpool 3 will take a look at the fan reaction to it and bring that aspect across too. Until then, however, we’ve still got a great Wolverine film to keep us going.

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The Comic Cave – Marvels

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Comic Cave is a bi-weekly feature where we spin the Wheel of Comics and see what graphic novel story it brings up for us to deep dive into! This week we take a look at Marvels, a book often held up as one of the finest examples of the medium, and a great celebration of the Marvel Universe.

There a few names in comics art that are instantly recognisable for people who read comics, even if they’ve never read a book that they’ve worked on. People like John Romita, Jim Lee, and Todd McFarlane usually bring pretty clear images into your mind. But one artist whose work stands apart from even some of the most recognisable comic art, an artist whose work gets those who don’t care about comics to pause for a moment and take a long look at it, is Alex Ross. Ross’ hand painted work has gone on to produce some truly iconic pieces in comics history, and his style is instantly recognisable; no one questions if his work is another artist. Having worked on the biggest characters to ever exist in comics it can be hard to imagine a time when the name Alex Ross meant nothing, and that his work was unknown. That was the landscape into which Marvels was released in 1994; a book that was seen as something of a gamble before release.

Marvels was conceived to be a history piece, a celebratory look back at the history of the Marvel Universe, focusing on several key events from the publisher’s early years. The project was initially pitched by Ross, who wanted to create an anthology series, one that would follow ten different characters that he considered to be some of the best in Marvel. There was no real connective tissue for the project, nothing that would tie these moments together; and this is where writer Kurt Busiek came in. Busiek has said in interviews that growing up reading comics it was the interconnected world of Marvel that tended to interest him the most. He’d spend time looking for the connective dots in the various books, and would try to make everything fit the best he could. As such, when Ross showed him the idea for the book he was excited to be able to explore the Marvel Universe as a whole.

With help from editor Marcus McLaurin, the idea was scaled down and given a more human figure to follow. Instead of looking at several different heroes across decades the book would follow one man, a photo-journalist, who would encounter the heroes of the Marvel Universe at key moments taken from existing comics, giving readers an alternative, human, perspective on some memorable issues. Ross’ art helped with this too, with its more photo-realistic painted style not only looking unlike anything else in comics at the time, but giving the world created within the pages of Marvels a very grounded feel.

Marvels begins in 1941, where we meet young photo-journalist Phil Sheldon, a man looking to make a name for himself in the business, and hoping to be sent across to Europe to cover the events of the war. He’s one of the journalists sent to cover the unveiling of a new project from scientist Phineas T. Horton, who reveals to the world his synthetic man, an android that when exposed to oxygen sets on fire and becomes The Human Torch. Thanks to the press coverage of the event, the android is seen as a danger, and is buried beneath the Earth. However, an accident occurs that allows him to escape out into the world. As time goes on The Human Torch begins tackling crime across the city, making a name for himself; but he’s not alone.

Over the coming months another Marvel, as Phil names them, appears: Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Something of a frightening figure, Namor spends time as both a hero and a villain, even battling the Human Torch. And Phil is there every step of the way, taking photos of them. It’s not until America enters World War II, however, and the two Marvels join the fight against the Nazis that the world begins to see them as potential heroes. Public support rallies behind them, and even Phil comes to admire them. His belief in the Marvels is cemented when Captain America joins them. Not even losing an eye taking photos of one of their battles can dissuade him of that.

The second issue of Marvels jumps forward in time to the 1960s, where Phil is now a married man with two young daughters. It’s also a time of great wonder in New York, as the Avengers and the Fantastic Four protect the city. Celebrities in their own right, the costumed heroes are on the covers of magazines, and have their own clothing lines in shops. Despite these wonders, the world has started to turn against one group of Marvel, the mutants. Treated as a danger, anti-mutant propaganda is everywhere, and Phil even ends up joining in with a mob to attack the X-Men. As the mutant hate increases, Phil discovers that his daughters are hiding a young mutant girl named Maggie in their basement.

Having been surrounded by mutant hate for so long, Phil initially worries that the girl might have somehow contaminated his daughters, and keeps thinking of Maggie as an ‘it’. But then he stares into her strange features, her large eyes, her sunken face, and he sees the victims of the concentration camps he saw as a war photographer and the reality hits home for him. She’s a girl, just a little girl lost and afraid and hated by everyone, and he’s wrong to fear and hate her. This is easily the most moving and impactful part of the entire Marvels series, and it hammers home a more grounded and realistic version of mutant bigotry.

The rest of that issue depicts two starkly different events in Marvel that happened at the same time, the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, and the activation of the Sentinels. The city is mad with Fantastic Four fever, and the wedding is a huge party for everyone, but then the mutant killer robots are unleashed and the city plunges into riots, violence, and hate. The scene in which Phil is standing amidst the chaos, taking photos of people as proof of ‘what we did in our nightmare’ is perhaps one of the best for showing the human reality to these big comic moments.

The third issue of Marvels does this again, though in a different manner. By now the world has begun to sour towards its heroes. Spider-Man has been labelled a menace, the world still hates the X-Men, and even its beloved Avengers have changed. The amazing has started to become the banal. And then Galactus comes from the heavens. A towering, world-ending horror, the people of Earth are on the brink of extinction, unable to do anything, forced to watch without any context for what’s happening. Eventually the Fantastic Four save the day, Galactus leaves, and the world goes on. And then the world begins to call it a hoax, it begins to question what Reed Richards did to get rid of a god, and people become bitter again.

It’s interesting to see the final page of the issue, where Phil loses it with a group of people who are complaining about the heroes, yelling at them to actually just be grateful for once, to be happy that the world is still there and to not dismiss it because the press are cruel. This is perhaps a scene that lands differently now, whilst we’re living in the middle of Covid, where we’ve all seen people call it a hoax as others die, where the press has downplayed things, and where those who were true heroes during that are treated with disdain. This is perhaps the most realistic moment in Marvels, and one that I think most of us will admit we’ve seen.

The final chapter of Marvels focuses on Phil as he comes closer to retirement. His book of photos and writing about the Marvels is a best seller, and he’s got himself an assistant to help out with his ageing hands. This chapter focuses on Phil looking into the death of police captain George Stacy, who died whilst Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus were fighting, with the press labelling Spider-Man as the culprit. Phil is sure that Spidey had nothing to do with the murder, and sets out to find the truth. This journey leads him to taking to Doc Ock in prison, and eventually to him becoming friends with Gwen Stacy. The two of them talk about her father, and Spider-Man, and Gwen even admits that she doesn’t think Spider-Man is responsible. It’s in their times together that Phil begins to see the wonder in their fantastical world again, by seeing how much wonder Gwen sees in it all.

Phil is going to meet Gwen to get her father’s journal to help with his investigation when he sees Gwen taken by the Green Goblin, snatched into the sky. Phil follows behind in a cab, chasing the villain to the Brooklyn Bridge, where Spider-Man battles against the Goblin. During the fight Gwen is thrown from the top of the bridge, and Spider-Man webs her to try and save her. Phil is there to see it, and even hears the snap as Gwen dies. He watches in stunned silence during the aftermath, as the police arrive, as Gwen’s body is loaded into the ambulance, standing alone as the crowd leaves. The next day Phil sees that Gwen’s death barely made the paper, and then his belief in the Marvels dies. Phil hands his camera over to his assistant, and leaves the world of the Marvels behind.

Marvels is a book that was unlike anything else when it was released, and its mission to take a look at the history of these characters and the world they live in from a different point of view was one that hadn’t really been done until that point. The book was, unsurprisingly, a hit upon release, and would win three Eisner Awards. Most notable for the book, however, is that it immediately made Alex Ross a star artist. It’s not hard to see that coming, thanks to Ross’ hand painted art and unique style, he brought a level of reality and gravitas to the book, and the events that they depicted. Ross would spend a year working on Marvels, with each issue taking close to four months to complete.

Ross would go on to work on many other books over the years, mostly providing cover art, though would also provide the interiors for the DC book Kingdom Come, which is similar to Marvels in a number of ways. Both books use an older regular human character as their main point of view, interacting with the world of heroes as major events happen (though Kingdom Come focuses its narrative on an alternate future and tells an original story). This wouldn’t be the only time that Marvels‘ formula would be emulated, however, as even in Marvel they tried to do more of the same. A year after the release of Marvels a dark, cracked mirror version of the book would be produced in the form of Ruins, a two issue story with a different creative team. In this book readers would follow Phil Sheldon in another version of the Marvel Universe, one where everything goes wrong. Ruins would take the concept of Marvels but completely miss the point of it, revelling in nastiness and moments designed to upset.

Despite multiple imitators Marvels has never really been topped for the kind of story that it told. Even as recently as 2021 when Busiek returned with a year long series The Marvels the book just wasn’t as close to being as well received. Much like books like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, Marvels is a book that has been much copied, but never bettered. It’s a book that came out at the right time with the right concept and made big waves in the comic world. It might not be a perfect book, and you might have others that you find more enjoyable, but you’d be in the wrong if you didn’t consider Marvels one of the all time greats just for what it did.

Marvels was first published from January 1994 to April 1994 by Marvel Comics.

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Pokemon Ruby & Pokemon Sapphire – Throwback 20

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Pokemon is a series that sometimes gets some criticism for not really changing much between each generation of games. Yes, they’ll introduce a whole host of new monsters to catch and train, but the core game play often remains the same. But each new game does try to bring something new to the mix in some ways. The second generation games would bring colour, animations, and breeding, Generation Seven would get rid of Gym battles for special trials, Pokemon X & Y brought in Mega-Evolutions, and the latest games gave players an open world to explore. They might not be huge changes, but they always bring something, and the third generation games were no different.

Set in the island region of Hoenn, the third generation games, Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire, put players in control of a young character just moving into their new home in the quiet Littleroot Town. Your character has barely stepped foot outside their house to have a look around when you hear a call for help from the nearby grass. Rushing over, you find your neighbour, Professor Birch, under attack from a wild Pokemon. Grabbing one of the three Pokeballs dropped on the ground, you come to his aid in your first Pokemon battle; a battle that results in you being able to keep the Pokemon you picked.

Once you’ve received your Pokemon you get to meet your rival, the child of the Professor whose gender is determined by your own, and get to set out on your quest to fill the Pokedex and become the region’s Pokemon Champion. This closely follows the basic premise of the games that have come before, and other than a few tiny changes such as being new to the region, and your father being one of the Gym Leaders you have to battle, there’s not much that separates this from previous games. But slowly the two games begin to reveal more details that make the third generation something a bit different.

The main difference here is that as well as having version-exclusive Pokemon to capture, each game has a slightly different story. This is the first time that the versions have changed in such a way, and is something that the series would repeat rarely over the years. Depending on which version you pick up you’ll find yourself fighting against one of two different villainous gangs.

Pokemon Ruby will see you challenging the red hoodie-wearing Team Magma, who set out to free the ancient Pokemon Groudon in order to change the world to their liking by expanding the amount of land mass. Pokemon Sapphire replaces Team Magma with the pirate themed Team Aqua, who seek out the legendary water Pokemon Kyogre, who they hope will expand the amount of water in the world. Both stories run along similar paths, but are different enough that you and your friend with a different version will have subtly different experiences playing.

The games also introduced some new features that would be available in both games. The first of these is the DexNav system, which displays important information for the player including their map, the condition of their Pokemon, and information on trainers who want to rematch you. There are also a few new Pokeballs, including the Premier Ball (which would become one of the more well known in the franchise), the Dive Ball, Net Ball, Timer Ball, and others, all of which were designed to be used in different circumstances and have their own unique designs.

The third Generation was also where Abilities and Natures wold be introduced, features that have become a core part of the series. In an attempt to vary Pokemon somewhat, each Pokemon would have its own Nature, which would dictate its personality type and could shift their stats slightly depending on that Nature. Abilities also gave Pokemon their own little twist, such as allowing immunity against certain types of attacks and boosting attacks in certain circumstances. Even the same types of Pokemon could have a variety of Natures and Abilities, which encouraged players to catch multiple of the same Pokemon in order to find the best one to meet their play style and tactics.

In order to break up the monotony of Pokemon battles the game also introduced Pokemon Contests, competitions where players could enter a Pokemon into what is basically a pet show. Your Pokemon would be required to compete against others, and would be judged based on categories such as cuteness and toughness. These Contests made for a fun distraction from the main quest, and also allowed another arena in which to compete and think about Pokemon in a different way.

Initially released in Japan on 24th November 2002, Europe would have to wait an additional six months to receive the game, and would be the last territory to do so. Despite this staggered launch, the game received positive reviews across the press, and the new additions helped to outweigh criticisms of it being similar to what came before. The game was also a commercial success, and sold 1.25 million copies in Japan in its opening weekend alone. With combined sales of 16.22 million copies, the third generation of Pokemon became the biggest selling games on the Game Boy Advance (though these numbers were drops from previous generations).

The love for Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire would continue over the coming decades. It helped that it was the only new Pokemon generation on the Game Boy Advance, and the drop in quality and critical reception for the next two generations made them games that people remembered fondly. The two of them would be remade in 2014 for the Nintendo 3DS, where they would receive several new features, updated story and graphics, and incorporated elements from the third game in the generation, Pokemon Emerald. Along with their remakes, Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire have become highlights of the Pokemon franchise.

Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire were released in the UK on 25th July 2003

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Wild Spaces by S.L. Coney - Book Review

 

'Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life meets H. P. Lovecraft in Wild Spaces, a foreboding, sensual coming-of-age debut in which the corrosive nature of family secrets and toxic relatives assume eldritch proportions.

'An eleven-year-old boy lives an idyllic childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and his dog Teach. But when the boy’s eerie and estranged grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain.

'The longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the more the boy feels something within him changing —physically—into something his grandfather welcomes and his mother fears. Something abyssal. Something monstrous.'

It seems like cosmic, unknowable horror has become linked with the sea, and the odd creatures that call it home, thanks to the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Whilst I do like Lovecraft's work, and the things that he created (and were inspired by his mythology) sometimes it feels like authors try to stick too closely to what he did when crafting their own horror tales. Wild Spaces is much like this, and the sea plays an important role in this story of a destruction of a perfect, loving family.

Wild Spaces introduces readers a to family living in South Carolina, an 11-year-old boy and his dog, Teach, along with his mother and father. None of the family receive names, and are referred to only in their roles within the family, and as such it's sometimes hard to see them as actual characters rather than just roles in the story. That being said, Coney does take some time to flesh the parents out a little, at least telling us what they do outside of their family roles, with the father studying endangered clams,  and the mother writing pirate history books.

The four of them, the tree humans and the dog, have settled into a decent life, and are happy. However, when the mothers father, the grandfather, arrives one day things begin to change. The narrative gives the impression that the mother and the grandfather are somewhat estranged and that they haven't seen each other in a while. Inviting himself to stay, the grandfather slowly begins to disrupt their lives and their happiness. He makes thinly veiled insults and jabs, and fractures begin to form within the family. When the boy begins to 'change' it starts a series of events that will result in tragedy.

Wild Spaces often times felt like a vague book to me, the family weren't given names, the histories that play an important part in the story are only implied, and the horror is breifly touched upon and never explained. I'm sure that this was done in a way to make the horror feel more real, that the unkowable parts were made in order to get under the readers skin and upset them, and that the family not having names was done to make it feel like a story that could happen to anyone. But, to me, it felt like I was reading something partly finished, something that wasn't quite fully formed.

The book is very short, just over 100 pages, and with the lack of any real depth in the characters and the story I kept feeling like I was reading a rough draft, something that was yet to be filled in and fleshed out. Because of this, I failed to connect with the story, and by the time the horror elements were introduced I was already too bored to really care. I know that this is an issue with myself, and that there are a lot of positive reviews and ratings for the book online. I think this is just a case of me not being the right audience for the book; which does happen from time to time.

As such, my final score represents only my own personal experience in reading Wild Spaces, and your experience could be completely different. The writing itself is decent, and S.L. Coney clearly has a lot of talent, the writing just wasn't what I like. If you're interested in cosmic horror, strange occurrences, or simply want to read something a bit different give Wild Spaces a try. If you don't like it it's only a short commitment, but you might just end up loving it.

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Crow by Nicola Skinner - Book Review

 

'When lonely Hattie feels out of place at her new school, she creates a scarecrow - Crow. Hattie wants him to guard the den she finds in the playground, the only place she feels happy and comfortable. Poor Crow really just wants to have fun with the other children, but he takes his job for Hattie very seriously and is behaviour starts to get scarier and scarier. Will Hattie realise that Crow is ruining her chance to make new friends before it's too late?'

I remember when I moved school when I was eight, despite only having move from one side of my town to the other it changed my life completely. I had to move school to one closer so that my parents could easily walk me down the road for five minutes rather than drive across town, and it resulted in every single friends I'd made being gone. Coming to a new school midway through the year, with a class that had been together for years and had already made strong friendships was a daunting situation. It's something that I think parents who haven't gone through that can assume isn't going to be too big a deal, but to the children involved it's scary. This is the central theme of Crow, and Nicola Skinner does a wonderful job at bringing it to life with a magical twist.

Crow tells the story of Hattie Mole, a young girl who's moving to a the small village of Little Plug along with her dad and older brother Oliver. Hattie decides before they even get there that the move has ruined her life, as she's had to leave all of her old friends behind. Except for her pet rat, Sid; except that doesn't really count. After moving into their new home, a pink cottage, Hattie faces her first day of school. Despite some of the students trying to make friends with her she's very nervous, says odd things, and doesn't know how to act around the others.

During the lunchtime break Hattie is off playing on her own and finds a hollow tree. She decides that the tree is now her den, and sets about crafting decorations inside it, including hanging flower chains, and decorative hedgehogs made from mud and leaves. However, when a couple of the kids find it and accidentally break several of her creations Hattie decides that she needs something to protect her den and keep the other kids out. She builds a scarecrow out of some old clothes, a cushion, and some straw. But when a thunderstorm rolls into the village that same night it seems to bring the scarecrow named Crow, to life.

Crow is a wonderful story thanks to the very realistic and grounded start, and the sudden shift into the supernatural and the fun. If you go into the book without reading the back cover there's zero here to hint at what's the come, and the moment that Crow comes bouncing up to the cottage and knocks on the door with his wooden arms is a delightful surprise. And from this point on the book kind of becomes one with dual protagonists, as Crow gets as much of the spotlight that Hattie does.

Crow is almost the oppisite to Hattie, in that he's outgoing and fun loving, and is quick to try to make friends with the other children in Little Plug. However, Hattie doesn't want him to be friends with other people, as she made him to guard her den where she can be alone and do things by herself. As such, making Crow stick to that mission she sees how people go from liking Crow to kind of hating him, knowing that he's going to cause trouble and disruption wherever he goes. The slow transformation from happy scarecrow into a mean and sullen individual is almost like holding a mirror up to Hattie, and it seems like she realises that if she continues to isolate herself people will react to her the same way they do to Crow.

Eventually, Hattie not only realises that she needs to come out of her shell a little and try making friends with the other kids in the village, but realises that she needs to try to find a way to help Crow too, so that he doesn't become meaner and meaner. 

The book has a number of really lovely illustrations throughout, provided by Rebecca Bagley, an example of which is on the front cover. The artwork is very nice, and has a wonderfully cartoonish and larger than life feel to it that absolutely suits where the story is going. The early illustrations are grounded enough that you don't expect a living scarecrow to pop up, but once he does he fits into the other characters perfectly. The moments of the book that are illustrated also help to convey the emotional moments and journey that Hattie goes on, with the artwork capturing the expressions in big bold way that young readers will enjoy.

Crow is a lot more fun than I was expecting. With Barrington Stoke producing books that are wildly fantastical, and very grounded, a book that sits nicely in the middle, and almost tricks you into thinking it's going to be one thing, and deals with a topic that some kids might feel they can't talk to their guardians about, makes this a wonderfully fun and potentially helpful read for younger kids. Definitely worth checking out.

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The Ghost Cat Who Saved My Life by Pamela Butchart - Book Review

 

'The flat upstairs from Sav is empty, so who or what is making the strange yowling noises she can hear at night? Could it be a ghost cat?! Sav and her best friend Liam decide to investigate, but their ghost hunt takes a very strange turn when Liam gets stuck in the stinky bin room of the flat and it's a new feline friend who helps to get him out. Nothing is quite as it seems in this brilliant new addition to the Little Gems list.'

The latest addition to the Barrington Stoke Little Gems line is the wonderful The Ghost Cat Who Saved My Life by Pamela Butchart, which tells the story of two young friends who set out to find out where a mysterious meowing noise is coming from in the empty flat above them.

The story begins with Sav and Liam, two friends, hanging out in Sav's flat, playing games, when they hear a faint meowing noise coming from the flat above them. Sav mentions that she's heard the noise for a few nights now above her room, and is starting to get worried that her elderly neighbour above them might be in trouble. The two of them head up stairs and knock on the door, but receive no response. Sav's mother tells them that the neighbour moved out days ago, and that they must be imagining the noise, she jokes that it might even be a ghost cat.

With the news that the flat above them is empty, the two kids start to formulate a plan to go inside to trap the ghost cat. Sav's always wanted a cat of her own, but her mother is allergic, so a ghost cat would make the perfect pet. When the two of them manage to get inside the flat, however, it sparks a series of events that will see Liam trapped, and the ghost cat having to come to his rescue.

The Ghost Cat Who Saved My Life is the perfect kind of book for kids (and parents) with a love for cats. There's something about Sav's desperation to have a pet cat, even willing to have one that's a ghost, that I think a lot of cat lovers will recognise. It's fun to watch the two friends trying to formulate a plan to catch the ghost, and figuring out the mystery of what's making the strange noises that will keep little readers entertained throughout the early stages of the book.

Whilst there is some peril involved in the story it's pretty mild, the kind of situation that kids would imagine is a 'I'm doomed' scenario, yet there's never really any real risk or anything too frightening to be worried about. Plus, the adorable rescuer will grab kids imaginations more than any thoughts that one of the lead characters is in any kind of danger.

The book comes with a number of illustrations throughout, and unlike the books aimed at older readers, the Little Gems line has full colour illustrations. The art has been provided by Monika Filipina, and it has a wonderfully hand drawn quality to it. It looks almost like it's been made using coloured pencils, and has a ton of energy and detail to it that makes the pictures jump off the page; it's sure to capture the imaginations of younger readers and draw them in. 

The Ghost Cat Who Saved My Life is a fun story with a lot of heart to it. It has mystery, fun, and an ending that tugs at your hearts a little. I think anyone who's ever had that super special connection with their cat will fall in love with the book a little, no matter your age.

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Rich and Famous / Tragic Hero – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Hong Kong cinema has produced its fair share of crime movies over the years, and a decent amount of cop movies too. They’re genres that seem to work well in the Hong Kong setting, and the people making them are able to infuse a lot of personality and style in them that makes them unique to Hong Kong. So when Eureka Entertainment released Rich and Famous and Tragic Hero with the description ‘influenced by The Godfather and Once Upon a Time in America‘ I was left wondering if these two films would still feel distinct, if they’d still have the same kind of flavour that makes Hong Kong cinema so enjoyable. Needless to say these fears were unfounded, as both movies proved to be an absolute delight.

Rich and Famous tells the story of Yung (Alex Man) and his adoptive brother Kwok (Andy Lau) who his father took in when they were children when Kwok was orphaned. Having grown up together, the two see each other as brothers, and Kwok treats Yung’s sister and father as his own. So when their father falls sick and medical bills need paying the two of them try to trick a local bookie into paying out on a fake ticket. When they’re caught they’re able to talk their way out of Yung losing a finger, but they are both landed in serious debt. Soon they find themselves caught up in the world of gangsters and serious crime as they try to get enough money to pay off their debt.

Luckily, they catch the attention of gang leader Li Ah Chai (Chow Yun Fat), who takes pity on the two brothers, seeing that they’re in over their heads and trying to help their family. Chai gives them jobs in the organisation, and over the coming years they rise through the ranks, becoming Chai’s friends and trusted enforcers. Unfortunately, events come into play that will see a violent rift form between the two brothers.

It’s easy to see the comparisons to The Godfather with Rich and Famous, as the stories of Yung and Kwok are similar to that of Michael Corleone. The pair don’t set out to become criminals, and it’s through wanting to help out other people that they find themselves being slowly drawn into a world of crime and violence. Unlike The Godfather films, which show the uglier side of the Corleone family and makes it clear that they’re not good people, Chai and his group are very much painted as the good side here. Yes, they engage in criminal activities and kill people, but they’re always shown to be the reasonable people, who try to keep the peace, and who only kill in self defence. There’s very little talk about how they get their money compared to the other crime families, and you never see them engaging in torture or beatings like their enemies do.

This clear line of good and bad is mostly to illustrate the different journeys that Yung and Kwok will go on during this film, as one of them sticks with Chai, whilst the other will turn against him. It wants you to see one of the brothers as more inherently bad, more corrupted by their lifestyle; and it works well. It’s ironic that the word tragic is used in the title of the second film, as the first is very much a tragedy too, and seeing Yung break his bond with his brother, murdering people in cold blood, torturing his friends, and performing vicious acts has you feeling sorry for him as much as you hate him.

That being said, Tragic Hero shakes things up quite a bit, and makes a much starker distinction between the two sides in the conflict. Set several years after the first film, Yung has served his time in prison and has now risen up the ranks to become his own crime boss to rival Chai. So far the peace has been kept between the two, though everyone knows that Yung is waiting for an excuse to kill Chai. When Yung begins his machinations to take down Chai it begins a series of bloody events that will see innocent people brutally killed, and Chai losing everything. Fleeing the country, he goes to the one friend he has left, Kwok, who left the criminal life behind years before. But when Yung’s crazed lust for violence comes after them it will see the two brothers once again at odds.

Rich and Famous is a film that focuses on the relationship between Kwok and Yung, and charts Yung’s slow descent into evil. In contrast, the sequel goes arch in its depiction of him, and Yung goes from a man slowly corrupted by crime into an unadulterated psychopath who finds joy in murder. It can at first be a bit jarring, but it’s actually a pretty interesting look at how hate can twist someone so completely. Yung has lived with his desire for revenge for years, and it’s turned him into a complete monster. It also makes the lines of good and bad so much starker here, and you’d be hard pressed to describe Chai as a bad guy in this film at all. He, and Kwok, are the heroes described in the title.

I can see that this change might not sit well with everyone, and it might be too drastic a shift, but when watching the two films together it does feel like a believable progression of these characters’ stories. Perhaps the most jarring change isn’t in the characters, but in the way the film is presented. The first film is a slower affair, more focused on characters, and is a crime drama with some smattering of action in a couple of scenes. In contrast, Tragic Hero is a dark action movie. The characters are well formed at this point, and there’s no more development for them to be had; Kwok and Chai are the heroes, and Yung is the villain, and that doesn’t change. So the film leans into the violence and the action more.

There’s a point in the film where you can feel the change, an event that means that everything changes, and it sets our heroes on a road that will lead to a sequence that feels like the Hong Kong equivalent of Commando, with explosions, gunfights, and extreme violence. Honestly, I kind of loved this shift. The moment that changes the movie literally made my jaw drop, and I couldn’t believe that the film had just done what it did. And as a fan of 80’s action films, seeing this character-driven gangster drama turn into one of the most intense action movies I’ve seen was a surprise and a joy. Tragic Hero will be the more divisive of the two films here, but for me it was a delight to watch, and a surprisingly interesting end to the entire saga.

The performances in both films are great, and Chow Yun Fat makes for a wonderfully charismatic gangster. He’s a kind and caring guy, and it never once feels like him being kind towards the people under him is an act. As such, when he needs to turn on the anger it comes across as much more surprising and intense. That being said, Alex Man is by far the actor you want to watch here. The first film sees him go from a kind young man out to help his family into someone who starts to be out for himself, eventually broken and twisted by his hate for others brought about by his own actions. His downfall is a tragic one, and because of how well he played Yung at the start of the film you can’t help but still care for him at the end. That being said, he’s absolutely chewing up the scenery in the sequel, leaning heavily into the role of villain. It feels like he’s having a lot of fun playing a character so openly bad, and you can’t help but love seeing him on screen even though you absolutely despise the character at that point.

Along with the two films, presented in new 1080p restorations, the discs feature a couple of extras, including archival interviews with Manfred Wong and Michael Mak (both clocking in at 20 minutes), and a new short feature looking at the dubbing of Hong Kong movies in the 80s, again clocking in at around 20 minutes. Other than that there are new audio commentaries on both movies by Asian film expert Frank Djeng. Sadly, that’s about it, and both discs end up feeling quite light on extra material. This has been something that regular viewers of Eureka’s Hong Kong film releases will have noticed, however, and the lack of behind the scenes materials made at the time is really felt now, decades later. Whilst it would be nice to have seen more stuff included here it’s not really the reason why folks are picking up these new releases, and the films themselves carry the set well enough.

Rich and Famous and Tragic Hero are both enjoyable and entertaining movies with some great actors in the central cast. On their own both movies are entertaining and well made, though offer slightly different things. However, watched together the two movies make for a truly interesting story about these two brothers and the crime lord who forever changes their lives. Fans of crime movies, those who love character drama, and action movie buffs will all find amazing moments to enjoy in this new set.

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Sakra – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The wuxia genre is one that often gets a bit muddled when it comes to the big screen, especially when it comes to martial arts movies putting on impressive stunts. Whenever a character flies across the screen, leaps over their adversary in an impossible way, or lands a blow that sends their foe flying out of shot you can be left wondering if the film is just going a bit over the top, or if it’s supposed to be a fantasy story. Luckily, Sakra makes it clear very early on that the events of this film are in no way supposed to be realistic, and you’re able to relax and enjoy the spectacle.

Sakra, which both stars and is directed by Donnie Yen, tells the story of Qiao Feng, who was left on his adoptive parents’ doorstep as a baby. His parents, who live in the Song Empire, raise Qiao Feng as their own, and teach him to be a decent, honourable young man. Over the years he ends up becoming part of the Beggar’s Sect, a gang of heroes that wander the land. As one of the Sect’s chiefs, Qiao Feng makes a name for himself and does some good in the world.

However, Qiao Feng’s life is shattered when he is accused of murdering one of the Sect’s leaders. It is revealed that the leader had discovered Qiao Feng’s true origin, a child of the Song Empire’s enemies, the Khitan, and it is believed that Qiao Feng murdered him to keep the secret. After escaping the gang and returning home, Qiao Feng finds his adoptive parents and his Shaolin teacher murdered, and is blamed for these crimes too. With four murders against his name, Qiao Feng sets out to discover who committed the crimes.

Sakra makes it clear within the opening minutes of the movie that this is a fantasy film; one with arch characters, extreme action, and a complex plot. The first time we see the adult Qiao Feng is in a scene where he is fighting a group of monks at a tea house, a scene that has the combatants flying across buildings, smashing through statues, and producing fire around their fists. It’s an impressively put together scene, one that not only lays out the kind of things that you can expect from the setting, but also the beauty of the film.

Sakra is an impressive looking movie, one that goes out of its way to make each shot look good. The level of detail and attention given over to the sets and the costumes makes this a film where you’ll find your eyes wandering around the screen trying to take everything in. The action sequences also look incredibly well done, and it seems like a lot of effort has been put in to make them as interesting as possible. The camera isn’t just content to sit stationary as the fighting goes on in the centre, and moves and flies around the environment like it’s also possessed of enhanced abilities. There’s a level of fluidity and scale to the film because of this, and it feels as though camera position and movement were planned into the fights with painstaking detail, working to give the audience the most dynamic experience possible.

Based upon the novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, the film adapts a small part of the large narrative, focusing on one of three central protagonists in the book. The film seems to be hinting that there could be more to come from this story, with an extensive mid-credits scene that plays into the history of the events of Sakra as well as building towards a future narrative. As nothing has been confirmed towards a sequel actually being made at this point, these scenes make for an interesting move, as they take a film that feels pretty well finished and complete and make it clear that there’s a lot more happening. If no sequel comes out these moments are unlikely to ruin the experience of the film, though it may leave viewers somewhat frustrated if it gets them excited for more.

When it comes to art there are many discussions about separating the art from the artist. Often times these discussions end up getting muddied and heated, especially with fanbases that can be described as ‘intense’. One need only look at the recent discussions of Ezra Miller being brought up in relation to The Flash, and how fans shouted down comments as being some kind of hit piece, in order to see how these things can sometimes go. As such, it does feel somewhat risky to mention Donnie Yen’s links to the Chinese Communist Party in relation to Sakra. That being said, with there being scenes in the movie where his character confronts the ill treatment of people described as animals and stands against it, this does end up feeling a bit odd and even hypocritical of him considering the human rights violations in China against the Uyghurs.

Sakra is an interesting, and well made Wuxia martial arts movie with some fantastic action sequences and inventive fights. It manages to make a pretty dense narrative, filling the two hour run time with a lot of background info, romance sub-plots, political intrigue, and small character moments. In a lot of ways Sakra feels like the kind of films that the martial arts movies of the 70s and 80s were trying to be, but with the budget to finally bring the grand sense of scale and epicness to proceedings.

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