Spoiler Alert for ... a video game? Halo.

Some people may have noticed that I'm a little wierd. I'm also a bit of a nerd, as my DragonCon reports and my JMS blog of today might tell you.



However, I want to discuss a little bit about one of the most epic bits of science fiction storytelling I've seen outside of Baen publishing.



The Halo video game franchise.



Yup. Video games can have epic writing.



If most of you are thinking "Thanks. We've seen Super Mario Brothers, there is no writing," I respectfully suggest you get your head out of the 80s. And parts of the 90s.



I've only recently been brought back into the world of video games by my friend Jason. He started by giving me a video game called Halo. It was a "first person shooter," which I always figured was short for "a game with no plot, but you get to shoot up anyhthing that gets in your way, or blow them up if you have grenades."



Then I started playing it.



It had a story. It had supporting characters with personalities. It had witty chapter titles and sarcastic one-liners. It was a space-sprawling epic played out on something that resembled Larry Niven's Ringworld -- an artificially designed planet called Halo.



The premise was simple enough: alien jihadists called the Covenant have discovered humans, and they really, really don't like us. The game starts with the player's ship on the run from an alien armada, and runs into Halo, a world that turns out to be a sacred artifact to the jihadists. The player's character is a bioengineered super soldier called a Spartan-II, and wears a Mjolnir battle suit (yes, it's named after the hammer of Thor). The humans get the bright idea to take over Halo before the Covenant do -- this artificial ring world is a moon-sized weapon, after all.



And then, the humans wake something up. Not quite an eldritch horror from beyond time and space, but good enough for government work. Let's just say that they're called The Flood and leave it there. They have a tendency to devour, well, everything.



After waking up said horror, another side to this little war comes up. The artificial intelligence of the Halo ring discovers that, "Hmm, the Flood creatures have been let loose. We have to stop them."



It turns out that the eldritch horror isn't from beyond time and space, but from one hundred million years ago. The Halo rings were built to stop them. But, the people fighting the flood back then decided to hold on to a few samples for research, and so the species wouldn't die out (I always knew rabid environmentalists would be the ruin of us).



All goes perfectly well until the player discovers how the Halo rings kill the flood-- by erradicating all life bigger than a microbe. The flood starve. End of problem. When the Spartan-II and his sidekick object to this plan, the AI that has been chattering at you for a whole level of the game turns nasty.



Did I mention that the AI is insane?



Soon, the game becomes a four-sided battle. Alien jihadists are still trying to kill you. The flood are trying to kill everyone. And the AI that you've pissed off has his own army of flying, laser-wielding drones who are also out to kill you, the flood, the jihadists, and everything else in its way.



And that's just the first game.



The Halo universe is so dense in background and in story, they've written at least half a dozen novels worth of material, and they're making more.  Comic book and Star Trek favorite Peter David has written a comic book volume from the Halo-verse, as has William C. Dietz, another author with his own writing credits -- though the first author to be offered the job was Timothy Zahn.

SPOILER ALERT.

There might be one or two people upset by the end of Halo 3.  The third game sought to wipe out the Flood, end the war with the alien jihadists, and  finally end the threat of the Halo rings.   By and large, they succeeded.

However, the character you play, the Spartan-II, is last seen drifting in space in half a starship -- bad things happen when a wormhole closes and the ship is only halfway through it.

Since Halo 3, several Halo games have been released -- prequels, side-stories, and tales that never answered the simple question: Whatever happened to Master Chief, Spartan 117

Halo Fans will be happy to know that the trail for Halo 4 starts where Halo 3 leaves off.

Guest Blog: Karina Fabian on Writing Science Fiction.

Once upon a time, very long ago (okay, April), we had a guest blogger -- Karina Fabian, author of .... a whole lot of novels, and editor of Infinite Space, Infinite God II.

Guess what: she's back, with a new book, Mind Over Mind, a science fiction / fantasy piece (and there are reasons it's a bit of both), so I decided to keep her blog topic simple.

I asked her to blog "On the joys and wonders of writing SF."

She gave me a top ten list.

Here we go.....

Top Ten Reasons to Love Reading or
Writing Science Fiction

From the Home Office in FabianSpace

1. Explore Strange New Worlds.

Whether it's traveling to another planet, exploring the future, or
even seeing how the past would change if you altered some aspect
like, say sticking a small West Virginia town in the middle of the
Black Forest in 1632, you will find something completely new.

2. To seek out new life. This doesn't have to mean alien life, either. A science fiction setting can give
new life to an old plot, or a new way at looking at our own society.
Recently, I revisited an old favorite, ALIEN NATION. A sci-fi cop
show from the 90s, it was really more about racial issues in a big
city.

3. To boldly go! It's sometimes easier as a writer to explore a controversial issue in a way that
will make people think when you put it in a setting that's removed
from the present day society. Science fiction also gives you a means
to take chances. Nichelle Nicols (Uhura from Star Trek) was one of
the first black women on television to have a substantial role, and
was as a result a role model for thousands of women and Blacks.

4. Because it's part of our culture.
How many of you recognized the lines from the first three reasons?
We know without an explanation what someone means by warp speed. Ray
guns, transporters, aliens, time travel--none of these are unknown
concepts, even when they aren't everyday objects.

5. To explore the impossible. Or at least the impossible right now. Did you know a lot of technology we
take for granted and are developing right now was first suggested in
science fiction? We have 3-D faxes--replicators! Arthur C. Clark
first talked about satellite communications years before we launched
our satellites. NASA is working on VASIMR drives for spaceships, and
Japan recently launched its first solar sail craft--ideas made known
in science fiction stories while still far-off theories in scientific
journals.

6. To explore ideas. How would humans act if a plague knocked out 90 percent of the population? What if we always fought wars through computers? What if humans could live forever? What if you could go back in time--but only for eleven minutes a shot? Some ideas can only be examined in a science fiction setting.

7. You can learn a lot while enjoying the adventure. Science fiction writers often have to do a lot of
research into everything from physics to genetics to animal sciences in order to craft convincing stories. Writing is a great way to learn things--but many times, much of that information comes out in the text, too, and not in a boring "just the facts" manner of a textbook.

8. We are a technological, forward-thinking society. Why shouldn't our literature reflect that?

9. Resistance is futile. You will be
assimilated. Science fiction and fantasy are a big genre. Eighty
percent of the top grossing movies in the US are science fiction or
fantasy (source: http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10131),
and the number of books--and readers-continues to grow.

10. It's sheer escapist fun. 'Nuff said! 

****************************

About the Author: Karina Fabian

After being a straight-A student, Karina now cultivates Fs: Family, Faith, Fiction and Fun. From an order of nuns working in space to a down-and-out faerie dragon working off a geas from St. George, her stories surprise with their twists of clichés and incorporation of modern day foibles in an otherworld setting. Her quirky twists and crazy characters have won awards, including the INDIE book award for best fantasy (Magic, Mensa and Mayhem), and a Mensa Owl for best fiction (World Gathering). In May 2010, her writing took a right turn with a devotional, Why God Matters, which she co-wrote with her father. Mrs. Fabian is former President of the Catholic Writer’s Guild and also teaches writing and book marketing seminars online.

Music blog: Tom Smith; Cheap Cyborg, Fake it better, Granito.

Some music....

First, ever wonder what would happen in the future? Ever consider that technology would enable you to have laser beams and stuff?  Well, the future is here ... what happened?

One Mr. Rob Granito is a liar, a thief, and an art forger -- only what he does is steal other people's comic book artwork and claim it as his own.

This song is rated R for language -- the only language strong enough to adequately describe the little punk.

The week in review: Casting, Video Games, Romance, and Music.

This is the second week of the "new" blog for A Pius Man.  While the new posting schedule is not even a whole two weeks old, the blog has already had over six hundred views thus far.

Which means that these two weeks have seen more blog views than all but two months of the blog's entire run.

So, something's going right.

Check out Dies Irae. Seriously

The first blog entry was a suggestion that, given the technology and the writing of video games nowadays, maybe I should try pitching A Pius Man as one. Okay, maybe not.  In music that day, there was the heavy electric guitar of Dragonforce, with the game soundtrack for Halo, followed by.... Mozart?

Yes, Mozart.

Did I mention that my music posts were going to be a little schizophrenic? No? Sorry about that.

Tuesday's primary blog was a list of my cast, and who should probably play them if the book was ever a) published and b) ever made into a movie.

I was especially interested the more I examined the prospect of Summer Glau as Maureen McGrail.  Dang, that woman can move. Why she hasn't been allowed to really dance since Serenity is beyond me.

That music blog was an introduction to the world of filk with Tom Smith, some more Halo, a bit more Dragonforce, and a heavily violin piece in Cruxshadow's Dragonfly.

And then I discussed more books I read .... Romance? Really? Yes.

But, since this is me, the romance novels I read involve automatic weapons, murder mysteries .... they boil down into novels that have romantic elements, but have been doomed into the romance sections because of lousy, flowery artwork and editors with an inability to give the novels halfway decent names.

Though I am reluctant to argue with a book title like No Mercy.

Wednesday's music blog was a little easier: Two Steps from Hell, a song about the world's first hyper beer, some more Halo and a touch more Dragonforce.

Thursday was almost a recap, musicwise. Tom Smith's Operation: Desert Storm, a new version of an old song, the theme from Doctor Who, and a movie someone made to a Two Steps from Hell piece.

All in all, it was a fun week.  I'll see what I can do about keeping it alive a little longer. The pace isn't too strenuous just yet.

However, I should mention a few things.

At Examiner.com, I did a "how to" article on escaping an arm grab, using attitude as self defense, and an article on my favorite fighting style.

Sex, DC Comics, and ... wtf?

Long term readers know my opinion on sex in writing.  I'd say my opinion on sex in general is very Catholic, but since no one understand that, I'm not even going to bother.



However, I can sum up my thoughts on sex in fiction very easily: who needs it?



As Rebekah says, we all know the mechanics. What possible reason is there for a blow by blow description? Pardon the pun, but you know what I mean.



Since my first article on sex, I've written a few sex scenes .... by few I mean two, and they were in the same book.  However, the "sex scene" was in someone's dream, and the protagonist was having a conversation with his dead wife through most of it. The sex was incidental, and mostly has to do with the fact that she was killed on their honeymoon.  The second sex scene was so vague, any less detail would be as clear as a Salvatore Dali painting, only with words.



Yes, I brought in Dali to an article on sex. I'm weird. However, there is a point.


Even during these scenes, there's no blow by blow description. (I'm going to stop apologizing for that phrase, just roll with it.).  It's not necessary, unless someone's writing porn.  Even something as intimate as noticing a tattoo on someone during sex doesn't necessitate that much detail -- the audience does not need to know what specific act the individual was doing when s/he noticed the tattoo.  It's sex. Nudity happens.  Next chapter.

So, what prompted today's rant?

DC Comics seems to be going back to the 1990s, where the artistic style was summarized by my friend Jason as "Big boobs, big guns."

The current version seems to focus on women and sexuality, with an overemphasis on the sex.

I've no problem with sexuality, or with women -- look at my model for Manana Shushurin if you don't believe me --  it's that it's bad writing.

Starfire, in costume

Take, for example, the character of Starfire.  She's an alien with red hair, green eyes (and I don't mean with two green irises, I mean the entire eye is green), orange skin, with measurements somewhere in the 36 DD battery range.

Normally, I would stop reading at green-eyed redhead (I grew up with a crush on the female lead in Riverdance, leave me alone).  The character has always been sexually relaxed, it was mostly a cultural thing.  And, for the most part, it was used properly -- as comedy.  For example, in the classic Crisis on Infinite Earths, Starfire walks in with Nightwing, meets an old friend, and introduces him as "This is Nightwing, my lover."


Nightwing's reaction is such that you suspect he's glad that he has to go and face the end of the world.

And that was it.  One panel. Move on.

I look at this and think ...Ow! My back!

In their recent reboot, DC spent far, far too long on having Starfire posing.  And by posing, I don't mean "for seducing the guy she's targeted for seduction." I mean in weird, contortionist-like ways that are only useful for modeling.  Modeling what, I'm not entirely certain, but, still ....



What was the point of that scene?  Aside from "we're pandering to hormonal males who can't buy Playboy"?  Anyone? Anyone at all? Bueller?  Bueller?

DC has landed in

Baywatch territory

Starfire is a woman who can quite literally level city blocks.  And DC decided to dedicate a whole page to her trying to jump someone's bones, with another page dedicated to "Gee, she looks good in a bikini."  Really? They couldn't think of something she could blow up?

Someone ran out of room for a plot in this issue, didn't they?

Notice I have not pointed out her barely there costume.  The "reasoning" is that she absorbs solar energy through her skin, and the less she wears, the more surface area is used.....

Funny, twenty years ago, when Superman just came back from the dead and needed an enhanced recharge from the sun, he had to wear a form-fitting black suit to increase his solar intake.  But then, that was before 300 and chiseled, CGI generates 8-pack abs were "in."

Also strange: she needs to bear more skin for more solar energy absorption, but she wears thigh-high boots, covering a lot of that surface area. If her powers honestly worked like that, it's time to invest in sandals.

So, to recap: Does this entire setup tell us anything about the character? Nothing new.  Does it add anything to the plot?  Is it amusing? No and no.

If we're lucky, comic books last 32 pages, without counting the ads.  If we're not, it's more like 25 or 27. But they'll blow anywhere from 6%-10% of the book having Sunfire posing?  Who the hell is writing this crap?

Anne Hathaway as

Catwoman

And, then, there's Catwoman. Yup, the one in the really tight-fitting outfit.  As opposed to Halle Berry, the one in no outfit ... that was more CatHouseWoman than anything else.

Granted, in some ways, I think Catwoman's outfit is more practical than Batman's -- there's no loose fitting articles of clothing to be caught on nails, screws, the vents she crawls around in, etc.  And, leather is good in knife fights (I read weird articles. I also write them). Batman's outfit seems to have only recently made the cape practical, but I don't keep up with these things.

The cat burglar and antihero has had an on again, off again relationship with Batman since Julie Newmar played her in the 1960s Batman tv show.  Maybe longer.

Green Skin? Really?

But, no, decades of jumping Batman -- sometimes literally -- is apparently, too subtle.

Let's have a full-on sex scene!!!!

Really?

Then again, I have a problem; I look at these images, and my first thought is "Why is her skin green? Has she been hanging out with Poison Ivy too much, or is it really odd mood lighting?"

So, what, exactly, does this entire sex scene add?  Another two to three pages eaten up by something that could probably be implied in one panel, and -- oh, yeah -- the next issue is called .... wait for it .... The Morning After.  Nope, still too subtle.

What do these pages add?  Oh gee, Catwoman is taking his gloves off with her teeth. She's a little frisky .... um, she dresses up in skintight leather and carries a whip, I think we got that part.

Really?

A whole splash page?

So .... what was the point of this exercise? Obviously, they're going to continue this as a story line into the next issue.  Good for them. So what? Why did they need two or three pages on this? Any one of you out there, reading this article right now, could have come up with a way to tell the audience that, yes, they are copulating. I suspect you could have done it in ... what, half a page? With some internal monologue?

That a "professional author" has done it this pathetic.

Obviously, someone at DC has decided that its readers are either (a) functionally retarded, and subtlety would go over their heads, (b) too young to get legal access to get this stuff on their own or (c) the author used to write fan fiction before this.

The author, Judd Winick, is the mastermind behind resurrecting Robin #2, Jason Todd -- a punk kid who was so despised, DC took a poll of fans, and the fans wanted him half beaten to death, and blown to kingdom come.  Winick's brilliant idea: resurrect Todd, and make him crazy. So, I suspect we can't expect too much from this guy.

In short: this is no way to treat halfway decent characters. Catwoman has had a long run by dancing on both sides of the law, and living in a gray area that makes her more interesting than Batman at times .... and more sane (I think Batman was on his fourth nervous breakdown, last I checked).  Starfire, for all the oversexed portions of her nature, has been entertaining for reasons other than that -- she had a run on Infinite Heroes, where she had some great character moments, and anytime the oversexed nudist part of her came out, it was a source of quick entertainment, and then we moved onto the plot.

You want to see a great example of using female superheroes?  Take Rebekah's latest chapter of Masks. Technically, it's a fight scene with three women -- fully clothed women who are quite intent on pursuit and capture, or escape and evasion.

There are no tight-fitting, slinky costumes, no mostly-nude women ... there's not even a mud wrestling joke -- because the moment the pursuers get close enough to grapple with our heroine, it's game over.

So, DC Comics, it's time for you to start taking some notes.  Because you've got a super powered alien, a martial artist cat burglar, and Rebekah Hendershot kicked your asses with a novice, teenage superhero who has no powers whatsoever.  There is a lesson to be learned here.

DADT, Gay Marriage: Who cares?

Last week wasn't very good as far as blog posts went. And I'm sorry for that. This week, I've got three posts already written.  This one is considered "timely," as my Examiner.com editors like to say.



A while ago, I wrote an article about gay marriage in New York.  It was entitled: Gay Marriage, so what?  I suspect you can guess what my general conclusions were.



I collect all sorts of weird articles, and magazines.  On the one hand, I could read Guns and Ammo, then the Spring catalog for a major publisher, then Time Magazine (until they went anti-Semite), the list goes on.



One such magazine is Salute, the magazine of the archdiocese for the military services, USA.



Yes, the military has their own archdiocese -- their Cardinal is the Cardinal of New York City.



In their Summer, 2011 issue, there was a statement from Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, the Archbishop for USA military services. (An Archbishop is more hands on.)



His statement was two pages long, and here's an excerpt ...

"The church is unwavering in her commitment to the pastoral care of all persons in need, regardless of sexual inclination or anything else.  All people in need are served by Catholc Chaplains with zeal and passion for bringing the reality of the Risen Lord to all.  Whether Don't ask don't tell persists or not is immaterial to that bedrock principle.  The faithful .... must never forget that those with a homosexual inclination must be treated with the respect worthy of their human dignity."  [Typed by hand, any typos are mine]

In short: that's nice, we don't care if they're outed, it doesn't matter to us.



The message then cited Federal law (1 USC subection 7)... which I believe is commonly known as the defense of marriage act (DOMA).



So, "yes, you have DADT repealed. Who cares? We don't like it, but we're not going to marry gays, and you're not going to make us. We can continue, business as usual."  Everyone can move on.



Which is pretty much what I said the first time about gay marriage.



It's so nice when the Catholic Church listens to me.

[More below the break]



Then, on September 30th, the Pentagon issued an order allowing all military clergy to perform gay marriage ceremonies ....



The response of Broglio?  It's pretty much the same. Not to mention, there is still DOMA.  It's a federal law.  How can a federal agency allow the existence of something that, legally, does not exist at the federal level?



And, come April, 2012, what will happen when all of the gay married couples file joint income tax? The IRS cannot acknowledge them -- the IRS is a federal agency.  Accountant friends (and relative) are already saying that the IRS will not accept joint filings from any of the new marriages from New York (et al) between two men, or two women.



Not to mention .... the military has bases all over the 50 states. Gay marriage is only passed in about ... Five? (CA, VT, MA, NY, HI).  Isn't that a bit of a problem? And arguing that they are federal institutions is a problem, when you consider that, again, DOMA is federal law. State laws do not matter in this instance.



Is it just me, or did someone not think this through?



As I said the first time: I'll start to care about gay marriage when someone comes after religion in its name.



I don't care just yet. Initial reports of this story said that "military chaplains are being forced to marry homosexual couples."  I cared for about five minutes, then I looked for more footnotes.



However, now that I found that it "allowed" gay marriage, instead of "requiring" clergy to perform them, I'm back to not caring. Though the legal situation is going to be hilarious.

Mozart, Halo (again)

Yup, I'm posting another music blog. Muwhahaha.



Did I ever mention that I'm a fan of classical music?

I've mentioned the Halo franchise of video games already during these music blogs. Well, here are two more. They're short, but I think they're worth it.

Music Blog: John Williams marches

I figured that this was going to be one of two items today: another character filling in another survey, or a music blog.

You're in luck: music.

First: the march of the Wedding Party at one of my friend's wedding last year .....

The theme to Superman....

Mainly because his wife forbade Star Wars. Otherwise, it would have been the Imperial March






And, speaking of Star Wars ...

The Imperial March.

Catholic news roundup: HHS, abortion and more

Well, this has been an interesting little month. Active readers to this blog know that I am the Catholic Examiner for Examiner.com.  Which means I basically report what people say. A lot. And there is a metric ton of stupid every day when it comes to subjects like "Catholics."

Seriously, I typed it in as a search term on Twitter a few times, it was like spelunking into a troll cave. And this month, it got even worse.  Or better, if you want to view it that way -- I got a lot of writing done.  However, while I usually have a Catholic review at the end of the month, this month already requires a massive column dump.

 It started simple. In Obama to churches: drop dead, I reported that the government program commonly known as Obamacare was going to be making Catholic churches pay for abortions, and sterilizations, and contraception, even though the church preaches that all of those are immoral.  And, since the first one was "Drop dead," I had to be a smartass and follow it up with Churches to Obama: and on the third day, we struck back. -- there is a petition against Obama's little mandate.. After that, I figured I should ask a common question -- didn't the church support Obama? And Obamacare?  Not only that, but wasn't Obama pro-abortion before he ran for the Oval office? So, I asked if the Church is still gullible after all these years? The next predictable FAQ ... why is the Catholic church against abortion, and contraception, and all the other stuff.  What is the big idea, after all?  So I had to call it the Catholic church, abortion, and natural law ... you'll see what I mean.

And then Nancy Pelosi earned her thirty pieces of silver ... in this case, she came out to stand with the Catholics ... who supported Obama, declaring it an act of courage to stand against the church. Let's just say I used The Princess Bride a lot. Given that this is consistent with her stance for her entire career, I had a lot of people asking if Pelosi was to be excommunicated.  It was a little sarcastic. Even my editor caught up on it.  

He who takes the Catholic vote takes the election. Guess who ... may not?  I ran some electoral math on the 2012 election. You might be surprised at the problems here.

After a while, as you can imagine, this got kinda stupid. And I was tired of all of it.  So, I discussed the Million-dollar ripoff of the New York archdiocese -- and you thought the priests were the problem. I then did a brief examination of Occupy wall street and the revenge of the Vatican ninjas -- just when you thought you were safe, huh? Then Proposition 8 was overturned -- my only note there is that it might be a little soon to pop the champagne.

Then the government did something stupid, and the Army censored the Catholic church over the issue of -- you guessed it -- Obamacare.  Oy.  

And then, Chris Matthews stood with Catholics against Obama ... and that was strange.  And what was even stranger? So were a lot of other people in the news media, and I covered that in my News roundup: Catholics and the HHS mandate.  Then, even  Rand Paul defended the Catholic church .... and he's not even Catholic!

Then, last Friday, there was a press conference.  I listened, then wondered: Has Obama compromised on churches? The answer .... probably not.  But you'll have to read that and decide it yourself.

Be well all.

Inspiring Authors: J. Michael Straczynski

Every once in a while, I look over my writing style, and I look at what I've taken away from the authors I've been exposed to.


The first, and most important writing influence is someone named J. Michael Straczynski (JMS).

JMS, who I have mentioned once or twice, was an executive producer on Murder, She wrote, created Babylon 5, and writes almost anything else he can get his hands on. He's written comics, TV, novels, science fiction, battling demons....

Just look him up on amazon, buy everything except for “Rising Stars” and “Supreme Power.”

I'm not joking. Go now.

If you saw Thor -- and who didn't? You didn't? Go see it. I'll wait..... Back now? You liked it? Good. -- JMS had a cameo in the film as the first fellow to find Thor's hammer, and organized that big sequence with trying to drag out the hammer with a truck.

There is Tribulations, a book about demonic possession in modern LA. Surprisingly well put together and very religious ... And he's an atheist. So, he at least knows how to appreciate religion, even if it's only for use as fantasy fodder.

I first experienced the writing of JMS a very long time ago, before I even knew who the man was. Originally an author for television, he worked his way up from cartoons and into prime time. He penned the only episode of The Real Ghostbusters that I can remember.  Twenty years after the original airing of Murder, She Wrote, all of the episodes I knew off the top of my head happened to be written by him (if you remember an episode in the Psycho house, that would be Joe).

I first became aware of Joe Straczynski with his television show Babylon 5; at the time, it seemed to be a rip-off of a Star Trek program that had just come on called Deep Space 9. Then odd things started happening. To start with, the show had character. The characters on the show had personalities. They had backgrounds. They had character flaws. When there was fighting, there were actual military tactics, and the science fiction .... had science.

If you are not a follower of science fiction, you may not be aware of this, but to find military tactics in most science fiction filmed media is almost as rare as finding science in a Star Trek film. As mentioned during our week of Infinite Space, Infinite God II, most sci-fi will resort to technobabble before using actual science. Babylon 5 is the first science fiction television show that ever explained how their artificial gravity worked.

With military tactics -- how much in the way of tactics did anyone see in Star Wars or Star Trek that did not amount to "Watch two armies. See them ram into each other. See them ignore that space is three dimensional."

With Babylon 5, NASA has asked permission to use some of their designs, because they can't come up with better ideas.  If you ever hear about a NASA space construction craft called a "Star Fury," it's because JMS allowed them to use it on the condition that it shared the name it had on the tv show....

Constant readers of this blog will see the fingerprints of JMS all over it. The most popular blog post Disasters to Marvel At was made possible by Joe Straczynski. After Babylon 5, JMS went on to writing comic books; in particular, Amazing Spider Man (ASM). Being a fan of Straczynski's, I followed. It was the first time I had picked up a comic book in about five years. At least.

And it was a gloriously enjoyable run. If you ever saw an issue of ASM that involved Spider-Man dealing with the 9-11 attacks, that was JMS' doing. It was a throwaway issue in a grand story arc that had Peter Parker questioning his own origins, pondering whether or not he was part of a larger plan, and finding himself embroiled more and more with supernatural problems. The solutions became more cerebral and scientific than requiring an ability to pound someone into dust.

Also, in pure JMS fashion, he took the marriage of Peter Parker and made it work -- after all, Straczynski's strong suit is having two people interact with each other. And it's nothing like having a reconciliation in the middle of a super-powered smackdown at Denver airport.

And then there was the surprisingly epic ASM 500, where JMS managed to condense the entire 500 isues before into one, simple question.

Which is why I was somewhat enraged when editorial mandate came down from a clear blue sky and decreed that every Marvel comic would be dragooned into the Event of the Week. The story arc for Straczynski's Spider-Man run was stomped on by the far inferior Civil War. And, while I liked what JMS managed to do with it, despite editorial mandate (it was the only part of the Civil War I remotely enjoyed), and he managed to make the follow-up Back in Black, a fun read, at the end of the day, management came down and destroyed, literally, every achievement JMS wrote over the course of his six-year run.

When I saw JMS at New York Comic Con, he had a running phrase: "Joe, you suck." He even had the audience repeat it back to him.  However, between the links above, there's a reason why I think it should be "Joe (Quesada), you suck."

JMS would also take over duties on Thor, where he placed the Norse deity in the middle of New Mexico (Thor movie fans, sound familiar?)

After Marvel and he had a falling out, he went direct to DC. He did some spectacular Team-ups of the Brave and the Bold, tried to work on a new arc for Wonder Woman, and even a Superman arc called Grounded. Right now, he's heading the bestseller list with his graphic novel Superman: Earth One.  If Warner Brothers is smart, they'll reboot the Superman movie franchise with Earth one as a model.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM JMS.

I learned how to write people. Taking a cue from Rod Serling, JMS knew how to make a conversation be dramatic with just two people in a room, no ticking bomb required. He knew how to work dynamics with different characters for different results. He even went so far to lock two people in a room together, he literally trapped two characters in an elevator.

If you wondered why my short story One Way to Stay out of Jail consisted mostly of two people in a room just talking to each other, you can probably guess. It's the joy of having characters (some of whom are deeply flawed) interacting with each other.

Another thing I got from JMS -- how to take cliche's and turn them inside out.

For example...

Situation: Two people who hate each other are trapped in an elevator; fires are burning outside. If they don't work together, they will die.
Hollywood standard procedure: The trapped duo will overcome their grievances in order to stay alive.
JMS: One character says to another "I'm not going to help. This way, I can watch you die and I won't be prosecuted."

It's fun.

In A Pius Man, there is a reason that the book has plenty of deep, in-depth conversations between people who have some obvious flaws .... although a lot of it revolves around Sean Ryan, who is, himself, really weird.

Further Reading.

Other works by JMS include.

Demon Night (I haven't read it yet, but it should be fun)



Othersyde: Another book I loved. High school, meet demonology 101.

Two high school nerds, "losers," tormented and tortured on a routine basis, buy curiosities -- two telegraph signal senders.

And then, the devices start tapping out Morse code on their own.

It was elegantly written, and even made the angst of high school tolerable. And, no, there is no Twilight level, whiny-angsty BS. I would take a power drill to my head before I even read anything remotely like it, to heck with recommending it.

Book of Lost Souls: A late, lamented comic book series JMS wrote while at Marvel. While there were only five issues of this run, I think it has a good, solid story arc. that reads well even though Marvel pulled the plug on it early on.

 Straczynski Unplugged: A collection of short stories, mostly novelized versions of screenplays JMS did for The New Twilight Zone back in the 80s. I can only assume these few were all he did, otherwise the show would have done much, much better. These were all awesome.

Under the heading of both "touching" and "I never saw this coming," was Silver Surfer: Requiem. The premise: the Silver Surfer originally made a devil's bargain to save his home planet, becoming the Surfer, herald to a planet-eating being called Galactus. Years later, the Silver Surfer's own body is turning against him. Everything that makes him the Surfer is breaking down. The story arc is broken down into four parts. Benedictus, Sanctus, Kyrie, and Agnus Dei. All parts of the funeral mass.

Let's put it this way: I never liked Silver Surfer, and this brought me to tears ... yes, I'm a nerd.

Bullet Points: Another Marvel project. A simple "What if?" If the assassin who killed Captain America's creator completed his task 24 hours earlier, and, at the same time, killing one of the bodyguards, a Ben Parker, what would the world look like. The only thing that I've read that compares to it in comics is the ASM 9-11 issue ... also by JMS.

Midnight Nation-- Okay, this was pure, unadulterated awesome. An LA cop finds himself caught in the crossfire between Heaven and Hell, and loses his soul, becoming one of the lost people of the Midnight Nation.

In order to get his soul back, he has to cross all of America to New York City to face the Devil himself.

Squadron Supreme and Rising Stars -- the only works I can honestly not endorse. Even JMS has complaints about Squadron Supreme.

Update: Sorry, I'm from New York, the Midwest, unfortunately, does look alike to me -- New Mexico or Oklahoma. Especially since the artwork in the JMS Thor comic and the images in the Thor movie looked the same to me. I suspect Kenneth Branaugh looked at the comic and said "This doesn't match Oklahoma, where does it match? Nex Mexico? We're there."