Two-Face Tuesday! T-F:Year One: The Hefner's Cut!

[thehefner]

Two-Face: Year One was a mess.

I don't know any other way to describe the most recent retelling of Harvey's origin, released to coincide with the release of The Dark Knight. The odds were against it from the start, as the main problem with retelling origins is that you've got to interest people in reading a story they already know, or at least think they know.

They may have read it multiple times in flashbacks and expositions, or maybe they just have one specific version they adhere to as the definitive version. For me, the definitive Harvey story is Eye of the Beholder, by Andrew Helfer and Chris Sprouce. For most others, it's The Long Halloween, by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Either way, TF:YO was met with opposition and apathy before it was even released, and in the years since, it's shown no signs of being embraced by fans nor creators nor canon any more than Michael Green's recent Joker origin Lovers and Madmen (BUNNY!) managed to escape the shadow of Alan Moore's Killing Joke.

This isn't to say there shouldn't be new attempts at retelling origins. When it comes to Harvey, if they held steadfast to the classic Golden Age origin (or even the tweaked Bronze Age origin), we never would have gotten Eye of the Beholder in the first place. The question is always "What's this new take going to bring to the old story?"

To its credit, TF:YO had a couple novel and intriguing aspects to bring to the table. Unfortunately, for a slew of reasons, the final story was problematic to say the least. Maybe that's why it was seemingly ignored upon release, getting virtually no coverage from comic sites/blogs (I don't recall seeing a single review), or maybe the truth is more depressing than that: maybe people just didn't care.

But while I certainly cared, I also found myself alternately annoyed and bored, particularly by the poor pacing and awkward misuse of flashbacks. It read like a movie hacked apart and frankensteined together by a bad editor.

So in the interest of a cohesive story, I've decided to try something a bit different with this Two-Face Tuesday, and present the story edited into chronological order. Thus today, I offer you Two-Face, Year One: The Hefner's Cut!






( A different look at a different look at Harvey Dent, behind the cut )

Tech-related heads-up, guys and gals. (Crossposting from noscans.)

[seawolf10]

Long story short, someone worked out a simplified way to take advantage of open wi-fi connections...and released it as a Firefox add-on for mass consumption. There are security options that help with it, though.

I figure anyone who was planning to use the add-on already knows about it, but our folks don't, and wouldn't be inclined to use it in any case. (Mods, if you disagree, feel free to pull the post.)

( Read more... )

For legality, have three old pages from Digger...which I seem to have posted before. Eh, it was over a year ago.

( Deer-headed man + anthropomorphic sapient hyena = trouble. )

Who's the most ass-kicking-est DC woman? Elite 8 Match-ups 1 & 2

[thebigapricot]

( It's on! Don't steal away, I've got the scoop on a furious battle of Amazonian proportions. )

Mimi's Ghost Stories part 3

[kamino_neko]

Once again, we look in on poor Mimi. (First is here, second, here.) At least she's out of her apartment this time...

( On the other hand, there's no doors to lock out of doors... )

Heroic Age: One Month to Live

[stolisomancer]

One Month to Live is a five-issue limited series from Marvel, set in mainstream continuity, and all five issues came out in September of this year. The idea came from a conversation between Stephen Wacker and Rick Remender, and each issue has a different creative team. (John Ostrander wrote issue #3, which is what originally got my attention.)

It's very much the kind of project that's characteristic of modern Marvel: it's got decent writers, decent to good art, and it's an okay read, but it's gotten very little exposure and it sold like a juice box full of Ebola. (Each single issue did between 12,000 and 14,000 copies, which is actually better than I thought it did before looking it up.)

The book is a "man on the street" view of life in 616. Dennis Sykes is a bank manager, dealing with a job he despises and with becoming, as his wife puts it, the "instant parent" of his ten-year-old niece Kelly. His life is about to get worse.

( four pages from issue #1 after the cut )

Halloween!

[cyberghostface]

( Scans under the cut... )

Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers #1 Preview

[goggle_kid]

The fine folks at Boom Studios just released a 5 page preview of their upcoming Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers series. Writer Ian Brill is largely to thank for making Darwking Duck one of the best new books of the year so lets see how handles this Disney Afternoon Property.

( A Gadget Origin Story? )

ESPN Marvel covers

[sherkahn]

As previewed earlier this week, the ESPN / Marvel cross over is here. ESPN has the entire NBA squads in Marvel covers. Some highlights under the cut.


Warning! Big images!
( Superheroes and superstars. )