Rhinhart Reads: Maximised

One of my all time favorite comics ended (again) this week and I felt that i needed to mention here so please indulge my ramblings (or just skip to another blog). The comic in question is The Maxx.

The Maxx is a dimension spanning tale of Dave, a homeless man with a purple lampshade on his head who thinks of himself as a hero, his job is to protect his social worker, Julie winters from the evil Mr Gone and his strange black Izz. Julie and Maxx also exist in another world known as Pangaea as the Jungle queen and her faithful protector. The story is part 'slice of life' following Julie, Maxx and her friend Sarah. It's part super hero as Maxx fights Gone to protect Julie. It covers the nature of reality, the human psyche, existence an reality. Oh and there is also a chance that Maxx is really a giant rabbit. Much of the first half of the series is narrated by Mr Gone but he often contradict's himself or just changes what he said int previous episode/issue and, as he seems to be the only character that knows what is happening it added a new level of uncertainty to the story.

                                                         Mr Gone

I first found the Maxx as a cartoon on MTV's Oddities, a late night section on MTV that showed some more unusual cartoons back in the 90's. I think the most famous of these shows is Aeon Flux, there was also The Head which was about a man with an alien who had take up resident in his head to fight other aliens of the same nature. The other series was the Maxx which was, in my opinion the best of the 3. The Maxx was based on a comic book written by Sam Kieth.

The T.V. series and the first half of the comic series can be seen as an unusual spin on a superhero comic with Maxx as the hero and Mr Gone and his army of Izz as the villain but, as I've said it is much more that that.

A few years after seeing the T.V. show I first found the comic but is was about 10 issues from the end and a lot had changed form the events in the show. I managed to find a few back issues and found that the series was faithful to comic in art stile as well as the story so, between the show and the comics i could find I could put the first half of the story together but this just made me want to find out what happens between the end of the show and where i had managed to collect the comics from but unfortunately I could never find all the back issues and for the story of the Maxx, the way the characters interact and the truth about Pangaea(s) you need to read the whole thing and anyway I needed to know why Mr Gone now seemed to be a good guy.

Skip ahead a few years (decades) and comixology comes along and then one week I notice in the new comics The Maxx: Maximised, a digital reprinting of the Maxx so of course I started collecting, this time from the beginning and now, 35 issues on have the complete series. It was definitely worth it to have the full story. As i previously said the Maxx starts out as a slightly odd superhero story but it soon becomes more than that making the reader question the Maxx's reality and how it it is linked to the characters psyche and in some way making the reader look at their own reality. The story goes from being the superhero story to a story about life, broken childhoods, and dealing with the decisions the characters had to make, even those they felt they had no choose in.

Before Comixology The Maxx had a place in my hart as great cartoon and a quest to find the missing issues, always with the slight dread that some part of completing the story would ruin it.

After the comixology run the Maxx is still one of my all time favorite comics and reading it is a journey I would (and will ) willingly take again.

Even after all that my Maxx quest is still not over as I'm trying to find a UK copy of the MTV series on DVD, Bluray or digital. Not sure if that exists though..

Chappie

Title - Chappie

Language - English

Genre - Sci Fi, Crime,

Set in South Africa in the near future where crime rates have rocketed. To combat this the police have boosted their ranks with robot police called scouts. The scout robots were chosen over a robotic tank called the moose. Vincent (Huge Jakeman), the creater of the moose has taken it's rejection badly and is still trying to get it to replace the Scout robots but the police are against this as they feel the moose would be overkill. Deon, the creator of he Scouts want to take his creation tho the next level and when Michelle (Sigourney Weaver) his boss refuses to let him he steals a damaged Scout and the master key needed to program it. He his kidnapped by a group of criminals who are looking for a way to turn off the Scouts whilst they carry out their final heist. Finding the damaged Scout the criminals (Ninja & Yo- Landi Visser, also known as the rap/dance band Die Antwoord) deiced to make Deon repair it and make it work for them. Deon convinces them that the only way to get the scout to work for them is if he loads his artificial intelligence program into it and then they can teach the Scout how to behave. Whilst this is going on Vincent starts looking for the master key so he can make the Scouts malfunction and force his Moose to replace them.

Chappie is a multi layered film. On the surface it has two main storie lines, Ninja and Yo-Landi trying to get the money they owe & Vincent trying to get his Moose tank to replace the Scout robots but the film also has a lot of depth covering family, life and human nature.

I feel that the Vincent story line owes something to the original Robo cop. In fact when i first saw the Moose I couldn't help thinking that it was nice that ED-209 had found work after so long. (ED-209 was a robot that was also designed for the job Robo cop took) and the whole 'wanting to replace the Scouts with the Moose' did seem to echo the ED-209 vs Robo Cop. This isn't a bad thing as the story line isn't necessarily the main focus of the film, it is just one of the two events which are there to move the story along by causing conflict.

The main story of the film follows how Chappie, the name given to the now sentient Scout, affects the three main leads, Deon, Ninja and Yo-Landi, as he learns what he is and what humans are. Through their interaction with Chappie Deon, Ninja and Yo-Landi form an odd kind of family which, by the end of film has an almost biblical feel to it (we even get a resurrection of sorts). Deon, who refers to himself as the creator to Chappie is, for the first part of the film not present in Chappies life much but when he is around he is attempting to guide the way Chappie run's it's life by giving it instructions and commands that affect it even when he is not around, all the while the is telling chappie not to let People stop it from doing what it wants. Yo-Landi quickly becomes a mother figure to Chappie and is torn between caring out the planed heist with Chappie or protecting it and helping Deon nurture it. Ninja's Part in the family takes it time to show. For a long time he just wants to use Chappie and is frustrated by it's unwillingness to use guns. However he slowly takes the farther role fighting and protecting the others when the Moose tracks them down. Ninja was the character I thought i was going to have a problem with at the beginning of the film. He starts off as an almost generic 'Gangsta' character which was alright as Chappie is, in many ways a gangsta film but to begin with his character did seem a bit to generic an just a bit blah. There are plenty of films with the 'criminal needs to get money to pay pay some one off/ get out of trouble with' and Ninja could easily have fitted in any of these but he did seem to grate against the other characters. This is until he starts to take on the farther role and we see his character changed, more slowly than the others. This is one thing Chappie does well , the four main characters affect each other and change. Even at then end of the film when characters who are forced together normal go their separate ways, the new family stay together. There are two characters who don't really develop, Michelle who apart form say no Deon and Vincent eventual lets Vincent use the Moose and then just seems to disappear and Vincent who just gets more angry and then sulkily try's to set Deon up when his plan fails.

Chappies development stats off as he is taught how to behave by the three leads and then develops into trying to understand. He could easily have become a 'Pinocchio' type character, trying to become human and fit in (Like Data from Star trek The Next Generation) but instead he try's to understand why humans do the things they do (Fight, lie and manipulate) and in doing so he understands more about himself and gains the desire, not to be human but to live, which makes him a more human character than some other robots.

One thing that initially put me of watching Chappie was the fact that Die Antwoord was in it, not because I don't like their music, in fact i have recently started to listen to them, but because i have found that films with bands in seem to become affected but the band mainly because the band is trying to get it's self as much screen time as possible, an example of this is Lordi's Dark floors which seemed to add unnecessary scenes just give every band member screen time. This is not the case with Die Antwoord in Chappie, although there is a little bit of self promotion, mainly by the band wearing there own t shirts, this does not affect the film as Ninja and Yo-Landri keep in character and don't seem to fight for screen time .

Chappie is an interesting film, part sci-fi, part gangsta with themes of family and the nature of humanity and it handles all the subject with out creating a mess.

Suicide squad

Title - Suicide Squad
Language - English
Genre - Super hero, Comic

Spoiler warning

Suicide Squad is the third film in the new D.C. comics universe after 'Man of Steel & Superman vs Batman, Dawn of Justice .  The film is set in the wake of the second film, mentioning how the world has changed since the appearance of Superman.  It is felt that a team is needed to combat any future meta human threat and so a group of villains are 'recruited' to 'Task force X', also know as the Suicide Squad.  When there is an attack by a super power the Squad are called into action but, of corse when you are dealing with a group of villains and misfits things never run to plan.

Like all films that deal with a group of characters some get more screen time than others and the two main players in suicide squad are Deadshot and Harley Quinn.  A lot of the characters seem to be there for one little plot piece each, using there unique skills to help with there mission and some characters are fleshed out more than others, most have some backstory but some, such as Slipknot don't get much screen time which does make it a bit obvious what his part is if you have seen/read any other Suicide Squad first story's.

Deadshot Is well fleshed out and is used as the non official leader of Task Force X and is one of the more emotional parts.  Harley Quinn is there partly for the comic relief and to drive a sub plot which could be continued in a future film other than that  (and acting as a bit of eye candy) her part in Task force X is a bit of a puzzle, If you have scene the animated film 'Arkham Assault', Harley's purpose is made clear but in Suicide Squad  her reason for being in the team  until near the end of the film.  It was nice to see that Harley Quinn was portrayed as being intelligent and not just a crazy, she was a psychiatrist at Arkham  and does user her training a couple of times.

There were times when I was reminded of the original 'Ghostbusters' mainly by the character of the Enchantress who switches for a someone who would be well at home in a Japanese ghost film to Goza the Gozerian from Ghostbusters, the building she is in has a stream of light surrounded by swirling mass which I though was reminiscent of where the ghost storage system is broken.

There have been a few complainants about the Joker, some who do not like the way the character was portrayed and some who think he needed more screen time.  I know that Joker is a fan favorite but this was not a Joker or even a Batman film and Joker was not the villain of the main story.  Also Suicide Squad is a different type of film to the two previous superman films, they both spent a lot of time on the story and world building which has done some of the work for the set up of Suicide Squad which allowed it to be more of an action film, this and the number of characters involved  who needed to be introduced  leaves less time for subplots.  A similar thing happened with the X-Men film days of future past.  In that there were a number of scenes shot involving the character of Rouge but it was later cut as it was not thought to add the film and just added extra plots and this would probably have been the same with the Joker in Suicide Squad, his role in the film had some point in the film, adding to the emotional of the film  and  helping build up to Harley Quinn's actions.

As for the portrayal of the character.  There have been many different versions of the Joker over the comics, TV and Film and in computer games and this version of the character had to fit into the existing universe and distance it's self from the last cinematic version.  If it was to close to the last version then people would be comparing the two for longer and it would make it harder to separate the two sets of films which are not really

connected and this may cause confusion in this and later films.  This Joker had to fit into the new universe and there was a more 'Gangster' feel to some of the characters that were in Suicide Squad. It had also been established that Batman had been dealing with gangs in Batman vs Superman so this version did fit into the film.

As with the other D.C. films Suicide Squad is dark in parts, darker than the X-men films and there were people who thought  that it should have been a higher rating but I think that that would have been unnecessary, it would have just made it to violent and, unlike films like Deadpool that would have been unnecessary and would have made harder to fit into the existing universe.

Suicide Squad is a good film with more action that the previous two in the series, it takes on an emotional journey through the pasts of some of the characters and has a couple of humerus moments.  It has a good soundtrack  and is well worth  a watch.

Superman vs Batman, Dawn of Justice

First off this will contain spoilers so if you haven't seen it yet be warned.

Title - Superman vs Batman, Dawn of Justice

Language - English

Genre - Superhero 

Superman vs Batman, Dawn of Justice is D.C. comics second film in their 'joint cinematic universe', the first film being Man of Steel.  After a short montage showing the batman origin the film moves to the final battle of 'Man of Steel' but from the perspective of Bruce Wayne as he travels through he devastation being caused, trying to get to one of the Wayne Enterprise  offices and we see scenes the are reminiscent of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that happens in America.  After this we are shown both Superman and Batman in action and are also shown how the public reacts to both hero's and are also shown what Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne think of their opposite.  Alexander Luthor and Diane Prince are then introduced although I think Diane is only named once by anyone.  The main plot then starts to fall into place with Batman going after a peace of Kryptonite that Alexander Luthor has.  Both characters want the Kryptonite to make anti Superman weapons.  After losing the Kryptonite to Batman Alexander manipulates Superman into fighting Batman and, when Superman fails to kill Batman Alexander releases a new weapon against him, Doomsday.  Superman and Batman team up and, with the help of Wonder Woman defeat Doomsday.

Superman vs Batman is a long film, it takes a lot of time to build up the characters and the situation and doesn't just rely on the action scenes (although there are plenty of these).

Superman vs Batman has had some bad reviews (as did Man of Steel) but I don't feel that they are deserved, some of what I've read seem to be nit picking and others seem to be people missing  or not understanding something, obviously  some people just didn't like the film (or it wasn't what they were expecting) and that's OK,  you can't please every one.

One of the main points people have a problem with is that Luther has hair.  It is a big part of the Superman comic myths that one of the reasons that Lex Luther hates Superman is that he caused Lex to lose his hair.  Now it is possible that D.C. thought that hair loss is pretty silly idea for a rivalry the size of Superman s with Lex Luther but they have used in other recent Superman shows like Smallville so it is unlikely to be that.  The one thing that you do notice is that Luthor is only called Lex once, every other time he is called Alexander and this could be that the character may not be Lex Luther.  In the comics there have been a few a characters who were called Alexander Luthor who were not necessarily Lex Luthor.  Most of these were Lex from other reality's but there was one Alexander who could be the character in the film.  For a time Lex Luthor was dead and Lex corps was run by his son, Alexander.  This might also be backed up in the film by the way Alexander  keeps referring to his dad.  In the comics Alexander eventually turns out to be Lex's mind in a clone of his old body which could be represented by Alexander  getting his head shaved in the prison.

Another explication for Luthor having hair could be his.  Alexander doesn't yet hate Superman, if he was sincere in what he said then the Kryptonite was going to be used as a precaution against Superman,  which is the same reason Batman wanted it.  Alexander also says that he set up the fight between Superman and Batman to prove a point, that Superman was not some infallible god and that he would do whatever he needed to to save the people he loved, even if the ad to kill. This would also explain why he released Doomsday, he knew that if anything went wrong with his plan the Superman would have come after him so Doomsday was a defense against this.  Otherwise releasing Doomsday would have been of no benefit to Alexander, and it had has been shown that Alexander only does things that benefit him, even his choice of appointment for Superman,  Batman was because he had taken the Kryptonite  from him.

The other complaint about Superman vs Batman  that l've heard is about the way the title fight ends.  Batman has Superman down and has he opportunity to finish him off with a Kryptonite tipped  spear when Superman says that 'Martha' would be killed, Martha being Clark Kent's adopted mother but also the name of Bruce Wayne 's dead mother.  A lot of people have said that stopping the fight just because the two character's parents  have the same name is a stupid reason and, if any other character had stopped the fight then I may have agreed  but part of the driving motivation behind Batman is his obsession with his parents so any mention of his mother's name, especially if her life is threatened would at least make him pause.

As I said at the beginning Superman  vs Batman  is the second film in D.C.'s shared universe which will combine the characters from their comics in the same way that Marvel comics are currently doing.  To this end there are some parts in Superman vs Batman that are setting up things for future films.  As well as Superman and Batman we are introduced to Wonder Woman.  We are also shown clips of Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg.  There is also Alexander 's parting warning that "The bell has already been rang and they are already on their way" hinting that there is a threat on it's way.  There is also a scene which may or may not be a dream of Bruce Wayne, if it is not a dream the a time traveler comes to give him a warning of something that is going to happen in the future.  Knowing the comics, the way I do I can see that there is also way for at least one new character to be introduced, that would be Superboy.

The One reservation I had before watching this was the character of Superman.  I find that, if he is used right then he can be a good character but sometimes he can be a bland goodie goodie who tends to be over powered.  The plot line of Alexander trying to prove that Superman wasn't some kind of a god, combined with the normal people's reactions to him and he possible conspiracy to use him in the dessert made him a good character.

The one scene that didn't sit quite right with me was the scene at Alexander 's party where Bruce Wayne  plants the USB drive on television computer and the reason is this, we know that Bruce is Batman and therefore is used to sneaking around and is aware of his surrounding and yet he misses the fact that he is spotted by at least two people and is followed by one of them.

D.C. do seem to be aiming their films more towards people with some knowledge  of their comics than Marvel are.  I'm spoken to a couple of people who don't know who some of the characters are, such as cyborg and although it doesn't matter in this film I think that it my have had more impact if people knew more about the characters  when they appeared.

The only other thing to say about Superman vs Batman  is the it is quite long at just over 2 half hours and there is a lot less action then people may be expected and because of this I'm not sure how well it would have worked in the cinema, it would have been easy to miss something.

With all that said I found Superman vs Batman  enjoyable and have high hopes for the next few films.

Wolf Cop

Title – Wolf Cop

Language – English

Genre- action, werewolf

Inept and alcoholic policeman, Lou Garou goes out to investigate what he thinks are kids drinking in the woods and wakes up the following morning with a pentagram carved in his chest and no memory of what happened.  Things only get worse when, at the next full moon Lou finds himself turning into a werewolf. As well as having to cope with his new transformations Lou has to work out if his new situation has anything to do with the upcoming eclipses and the events around his father's death.

So, as the title says Wolf cop is about a cop who becomes a werewolf. In some ways it is similar to Teen wolf.  At the start of the film Lou is inept and useless at his job, he is constanly drunk and would rather spend his time at the bar than go out to do proper police work.  As the film goes on and thanks to the wolf transformation Lou starts to change and follow up on the calls that come In, he even takes it upon himself to start to investigate his transformation and any connection it may have to the events leading to his dad’s death.  I must state that the similarly to Teen wolf only go as far as the wolf’s effect on the main character (and may be the odd Easter egg), wolf cop is not a kids film and even with his new attitude Lou is still a useless cop (and never one plays basketball).

One of the more original things about Wolf cop is how the curse is passed on, unlike most other films the curse is not passed on by the bite of  another lycanthrope but by a ceremony.  There is a reason for the change but due to spoilers I can’t say why.

Of course we have to speak about the most important part of any werewolf film and this the transformation and wolf cop doesn’t disappoint. They change itself is more ‘Hemlock Grove’ than ‘American werewolf in London’ in that Lou sheds his skin ripping the wolf form out of his human one as a pose to his physical form actually changing and he leaves his shed skin at the scene of the transformation  He does however show the the change is very painful, like the transformation  in ‘ American werewolf’.  The wolf form itself is more humanoid looking like the wolf man or Beast from the X-Men movies.  It is nice to see the change more than once as there are a few films out there which seem to pore most of their budget into the first transformation and then it is never seen again.

The effects in the film are of a good standard overall, as well as the wolf we have the main villains (I’m not going to say too much about them for spoiler reasons) but also the hole feel to the film is good.  Again I have found with some films that the budget seems to get spent on the monster and nothing else but wolf cop looks the part all the way through.

Wolf cop could have been an over the top gore fest which would have taken away from the film,  there is a bit of gore and blood, it is a werewolf film after all  but it felt like the right amount

Schwarzesmarken

Title – Schwarzesmarken

Language – Japanese

Genre- Anime, War, Sci Fi

Schwarzesmarken is a 12 part anime series focusing on the 666^th battalion of the East German army

An alien invasion by a race known as BETAs in the 1980’s meant that east and west Germany never united.  East Germany is now on the front line of the war with the 666th battalion leading the defense.

On the face Schwarzesmarken looks like it’s going to be a generic alien invasion anime.  The 666th battalion (and a few others) pilot mech, which struck me as odd being as most of the other technology (except a couple of advanced missiles) are contemporary.  Most of the 666th pilots are familiar looking female characters complete with big breasts and skin tight flight suits and the remaining pilot is a loan male.  There is a second battalion( the werewolf battalion) that would normally act as the competition found in a lot of other amine and the invading aliens seem to be an unbeatable onslaught that, in most other anime would release bigger and stronger attacks, forcing the heroes to use a super weapon or they would keep pressing forward until the last couple of episode until a brave hero would sacrifice himself to find the secret to defeat them.  There is also an episode where the series almost turned into a ‘harem’ series.

As you watch Schwarzesmarken you begin to realize that it’s not going to be what you expect, the BETA invasion, although ever present mostly takes a back burner, acting as a plot device to add tension and as a way to bring in characters from other countries.  Instead of Mechs vs aliens we have politics, suspicion, conspiracies and incest.  The 666th battalion are the strongest defense force and one of the only mech squad that East Germany has.  Most of the army consists of the normal contemporary weapons, tanks, missiles & solders but these are not always effective against the BETA and this is when the mech forces are called in.  The 666th soon come into conflict with the Werewolf battalion who are the main force of the Stasi (the German secret service) and doubt is thrown on  Irisdina Bernhard, the leader of the 666th who is accused of killing her brother on the order of the Stasi.

The Stasi use the chaos of the BETA attack to make an attempt to take over East Germany and the 666th and some of the other characters need to decide who to trust and whether to side with the Stasi or to fight them and whether they should should try to stop the Stasi or put all their efforts in fighting the BETA.

Schwarzesmarken was a pleasant surprise with a strong story, a lot of action and good characters.  At some times Schwarzesmarken can be a bit hard going but it is well worth sticking with.

I watched Schwarzesmarken on Crunchyroll.

Justice League; The Flash point paradox

Title – Justice League; Flashpoint Paradox

Language – English

Genre- superhero, animated

On the anniversary of his mother's death/birthday Barry Allan (the Flash) wakes up to find that he has lost his powers and that a war is raging between the Atlantic's,  led by Aquamarine and the Amazon's,  lead by Wonder Woman that will destroy  the world.  Confused Barry goes looking for answers only to find his mother alive and that a lot of his friend don’t know who he, or the flash are.  To try to regain his powers Barry goes to find Batman for help only to find that it is not Bruce Wayne who is in the role but Thomas Wayne, Bruce’s father.  Thomas and Barry then set out to recruit a group of heroes to stop the war and find out why everything that Barry knew has now changed.

Flashpoint Paradox, which is based on the D.C. comics miniseries Flashpoint, could easily have become a standard ‘Time traveler tries to put history right’ storyline but most of the film centers  on the effects the war is having on the rest of the world and the underlying message is that no one wins in war.  We see that the war is causing suffering to anyone who is not involved in, England has been turned into the new Amazonian homeland and we don't see any of the original population.  Most of the world are living in fear of the Atlanteans new secret weapon and nether side consider any of the effects their actions have on anyone else.

We are given an interesting look at alternative versions of the D.C. characters although I’m not too sure about the reason given for changes made to the characters before the change in the timeline.  Overall Flashpoint Paradox is a great film and D.C. do seem to be able to do alternative universe stories well.  It was also nice to see a D.C. story with a main character other than Batman, Superman or Wonder woman.

I wouldn’t recommend Flashpoint Paradox for younger children as it is quite  violent and some of the more well know characters do get  killed off.