A's Fandom Journal

( In which we get a closer look at the home lives of our heroes )

General Roundup:
In a word: FABULOUS.

This episode focuses mostly on Kaldur - including some of his origin story, which is nice to see because he's a character created for this show - and simultaneously introduces viewers to the Undersea parts of this Earth. We see Aquaman, his family, and other Atlanteans - interestingly diverse and very well-designed from an artistic viewpoint - and the network of relationships they have with one another. They have significant roles to play in this story and it is great. We also, as part of seeing this new part of the world in more detail, meet a water-based villain.

We do get to see the other YJers in their home environments too. We see this Bruce Wayne demonstrate (yet again) that he is a well-rounded character (and meet this 'verse's Alfred), see the Flash family in a warm and relaxed setting, see Artemis and her mother together (although they're in rather different circumstances than Dick or Wally and their folks, leaving plenty of room for story development), and see M'gann and Kon have a pleasant (well...mostly! XD) evening at Mount Justice.

Kaldur - who continues to be a firm favourite of mine - impressed me *highly* in this episode, which focuses on the characters individually while also tying nicely into the overall season's plot with a brief scene at the end.

Probably the best episode to date.

( In which we finally meet the last member of the team )

General Roundup:
Finally, finally, we meet the team's last permanent member - Artemis. I like her already - she's no-nonsense, experienced, and competent. In that way she's like Aqualad, who is proving to be a good leader for the team - who are now, much more than before, starting to behave like one.

I like the look at one of the team members' civilian life - and a certain humour aspect that's used in that scene is done very well - and the introduction of some more DCU characters (villains and civilians). We also see that one character who appeared briefly in episodes one and three isn't out of the story completely - and I think that's great. There's also a nice sense of forward movement in terms of the plot being hatched by the shadowy enemy.

I'm not keen on the new angle to the "romantic" part of the overall plot, however. But again, I believe that a lot will ride on how the situation is resolved.

And the following shots of M'gann - which panned upwards in the animation - ( really pulled me out of the scene they were in, because my first thought when I saw them was WTF ).

They were completely unneeded, unwanted, and took away my interest in an otherwise really good set of scenes.

And there wasn't even any need for it. The following scenes, that came earlier, were fine as they were ( and got the message (these kids are having fun in the water) across too ).

Thankfully the rest of the episode was much better - enough for me to say that overall, I thought this was an interesting and engaging episode. Note to the creators: just leave out stuff like that one unnecessary bit with M'gann at the beach and we're absolutely golden.

I've written reviews of #1 here and #2 here (second post at that link) and now I'm doing a post with scans!

Sigil is a four-issue limited series, the second of two CrossGen titles (the other being Ruse) to be recently revitalized by Marvel. Since the fourth issue just came out last week, I figured this was as good a time as any to do a post about it. The trade - called Out of Time - comes out in September.

I think there's a fair amount about it that makes it interesting, including the facts that the protagonist is an interesting teenage girl, that it passes the Bechdel test at some points, and that there are pirates (including an awesome lady captain) involved.

What brought it to my attention, however, were two of the names on the cover (by Jelena Djurdjevic) of the first issue - Mike Carey and Leonard Kirk. As a fan of both Carey's work on The Unwritten and Kirk's work on the first Agents of Atlas miniseries, the idea of a collaboration between the two had instant appeal for me. As I found out later, the storyline and art (including some really nice colouring by Guru eFX) would justify my interest.

13 scans from two issues - 7 from #1 (22 pages) and 6 from #2 (20 pages). The images are different sizes because some are taken from previews and some are my own scans.

Note: There are scenes of grieving (a funeral; in the second set of scans) and scenes of bullying (in both sets of scans).

( Sigil #1: In which we meet our heroine )


( Sigil #2: In which Captain Sin is awesome )

Part two coming soon!