TV Series Review: Community

by Rogue

The Basics:

Community is not your typical geeky sitcom. It’s a show by the great Dan Harmon (cocreator

of the Adult Swim animated television series Rick and Morty) and it stars an

ensemble cast. The premise of the show is a group of seven different personalities form

a study group for a Spanish class (taught by a Chinese professor) in Greendale

Community College. The comedy of the show is fresh and original and literally

indescribable. It’s aired on NBC for five seasons, while the sixth will air on Yahoo!

Screen.

The Cast and Characters:

1. Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) - a con artist at heart, he got caught at his law firm lying

about having a bachelor’s degree and enrolls at Greendale Community College for a

“quickie” degree.

2. Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs) - a high school drop out, former anarchist and social

activist.

3. Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi) - a Palestinian-Polish film student suspected of having

Asperger’s syndrome but has an encyclopedic knowledge of TV shows and movies.

4. Shirley Bennett - a recently divorced single mother and vocal Christian.

5. Annie Edison (Allison Brie) - the youngest, people pleasing and over achieving

student who lost her scholarship to a prestigious university when she became

addicted to Adderall.

6. Troy Barnes (Donald Glover a.k.a. Childish Gambino) - a former high school star

quarterback who lost his scholarship due to injury, he instantly bonds with Abed and

embraces his geeky, goofy side

7. Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase) - an old, racist and sexist millionaire who enrolls at

Greendale out of boredom

8. Ben Chang (Ken Jeong) - the slightly deranged Chinese Spanish teacher. Together

they study for Ben Chang’s ridiculous Spanish class and have to put up with the

antics of the exuberant and lively Dean Craig Pelton.

9. Craig Pelton (Jim Rash) - the exuberant and lively Dean who desperately wants

Greendale to be taken as a university, instead of a community college.

My Top 5 Episodes:

1. “Modern Warfare” (S01E23) - after the Dean announces the prize for the winner of

the school paintball game, it breaks out into an out all war. The episode heavily

references and parodies action movies and post apocalyptic films such as Die Hard,

Terminator, Rambo etc.

2. “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” (S02E11) - a freaking STOP MOTION Christmasthemed

episode. STOP MOTION ANIMATION!

3. “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” (S02E14) - the study group notice a fellow student

nicknamed “Fat Neil” is lonely and suicidal so they play a game of Advanced

Dungeons and Dragons with him, but Pierce feels left out and does his best to ruin

the game.

4. “Digital Estate Planning” (S03E20) - Pierce’s father has died but in order to claim his

inheritance he and the study group have to play an 8 bit console game reminiscent of

Nintendo and Sega systems, with a bit of Minecraft thrown into the mix.

5. “G.I. Jeff” (S05E11) - A FULL animated episode stylized after the 1980’s show G.I.

Joe.

Other Fun Bits:

These are just MY top 5 episodes, but there’s TONS more. Zombie themed episodes, an Apollo 13 episode, a glee parody episode, conspiracy theory episode, a Law & Order episode, hidden jokes and easter eggs everywhere. This show is genius and EVERYBODY needs to go check it out now!

Comic Review: Avengers vs. X-Men 0-12 (April to October 2012)

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Language: English

The Writers:

1. Jason Aaron

2. Brian Michael Bendis (winner of 5 Eisner Awards)

3. Ed Brubaker (winner of 4 Eisner Awards)

4. Matt Fraction (winner of 1 Eisner Award)

5. Jonathan Hickman

The Pencillers:

1. John Romita, Jr.

2. Oliver Coipel

3. Adam Kubert

by Rogue

Synopsis:

The Phoenix Force is approaching Earth, and in the events of Avengers: X-Sanction we

learn Hope Summers is its next host. Unfortunately the X-Men and Avengers have very

different ideas on how to handle the situation and it breaks out into a war.

*NOTE: This event closes an arc that started with House of M in 2005 and it launches

Marvel into their Marvel NOW! relaunch initiative.

Review:

Story:

The concept is not particularly original since we’ve already read heroes battling heroes

(Civil War), but AvX does contain some unexpected twists and turns. It should not be read

as a stand alone, it has a poor introduction to the events and characters, and references

past events. I suggest reading the “Dark Phoenix Saga” (The X-Men #129-138), Avengers:

Disassembled (Avengers #500-503), House of M, Messiah Complex, X-Men: Second

Coming, and Avengers:X-Sanction. The event starts out action packed and well written,

but as it reaches the middle it loses focus, it gets boring and drags on forever. If the writers

would have used a couple more issues for the set up and premise of the story instead of

rushing headfirst into the action and conflict, they wouldn’t have had a climax at the 5th

issue and then had to drag out 7 issues of falling action. It’s not a bad story, it simply didn’t

need 12 issues to be told.

Execution:

Some issues were more successful than others. Issues by Brian Michael Bendis (#0, #1,

#8, and #11) were the best executed in my opinion, but sometime after issue #6 it gets

messy. Everything from issue #7 to #10 is the equivalent of a Zack Snyder movie (300,

Watchmen, Man of Steel), loud, lots of explosions, and could be done in one issue. It was

just too much. The most worrying thing was that I could identify which writer wrote which

issue, they had their stamp all over the page making it impossible for the story to flow. One

writer (or two at the most) should have done the script for the entire 12 issues to keep the

event clean and consistent.

Artwork:

Out of the three artists that illustrated AvX, I would have to single out Oliver Coipel as the

most successful, and occasionally John Romita, Jr. They were able to illustrate clean and

concisely a battle between a cast of 78+ characters. Unfortunately Adam Kubert wasn’t as

successful and it shows in his panels, they’re crowded, muddled and inconsistent.

Characterization and Character Development:

For an event called Avengers vs. X-Men, there’s not a whole lot of Avenger action going

on with the exception of Captain America and the Scarlet Witch (who is not exactly an

Avenger at this moment). On the other hand the X-Men are everywhere; Cyclops, Hope

Summers, and a random cast that I still don’t understand why they were chosen.

Personally, the only character who I saw change throughout the event was Cyclops, who

despite not being a favorite of mine, I was glad in the shift in his demeanor after 48+ years.

Issue #11 is my favorite out of the entire event, because it illustrates the relationship

between Cyclops and Xavier that has been strained since the events of X-Men:Deadly

Genesis (I highly recommend this title). Other than that, the characters weren’t nearly as

interesting as they have been in past events.

Conclusion:

This event is not essential for anyone interested in reading Marvel NOW! I appreciated

some aspects of it but it is not at the quality that it should have been. It’s not awful, but it’s

not great either.

Web-comic Review: Supernormal Step

By Temper

Magic, face punching and a robot or two; that is the tagline for this month’s web comic recommendation, Supernormal Step. Written, drawn, and colored by Michael Lee Lunsford; Supernormal Step centers on the misadventures of the blue haired heroine Fiona Dae. The plot starts when she gets transported to an alternate dimension Earth where magic is prevalent and where a man named Henderson is the lifetime leader of the United States.

Fiona doesn't care much about her current situation.  The plot mostly centers on her getting used to life on this new version of Earth while also trying to find a way back to her old life on the “normal” Earth. However, Fiona doesn't have to go on this adventure alone, she will have many allies. They will range from the wandering mage that sort of summoned her into this word, to a man trapped in the body of a stuffed bunny because he was a prick. The world of Supernormal Step has diverse characters from various mythical races along with the wonderful art of Lunsford.  During the evolution of the series, each character is portrayed beautifully.

What first attracted me to Supernormal Step was, believe it or not, Lunsford’s involvement with the Create a Wrestler Community that surrounds VGCW. SNST, as he is known over on Twitch, created some of the best looking wrestlers. So naturally, when he announced that he would no longer be making any more CAWs to concentrate more on his art, my interest was peaked. 

I Googled Supernormal Step and it led me to the web-comic. As I usually do with new web-comics, I read from the number one publication to the most recent page at the time. I thought Lunsford’s art was awesome. Fair Warning! Lunsford is also known as Zet13 and he does draw NSFW material, so Google him at your own risk.

Supernormal Step has a fun story, comedy, action, romance, and one of the most comprehensive portrayals of an asexual character I have ever seen. I won’t spoil who it is, but you can go on over to http://supernormalstep.com/ and find out. I highly

recommend it.

Series Review: Fargo

By Snow Drift

Fargo (2014) is an American, crime-drama television series inspired by the 1996 film of the same name directed by the Coen brothers. Created and written by Noah Hawley, the show stars actors such as Billy Bob Thornton (Lorne Malvo), Allison Tolman (Deputy Molly Solverson), Colin Hanks (Officer Gus Grimly), and Martin Freeman (Lester Nygaard). The story centers on assassin-for-hire Malvo, who arrives at the town of Bemidji, Minnesota and influences Lester to indulge in violence and malice. When a series of murders happen in a short time, Deputy Solverson puts it upon herself to investigate and find the real culprits of the crimes.

One of the aspects I loved most about this mini-series, along with the original movie, is that the situation is self-contained and low-key, to an extent. While in the movie the murders were exclusively contained within the boundaries of the small towns and its few characters, the TV series lifted its limits a bit to indulge itself in more out-of-town characters, from the FBI to a mafia-like organization in the town of Fargo. However, it is still within certain limits, the mini-series giving the viewer the opportunity to observe the few characters of the show. It is with these limits that each character can be explored to its completion without the show worrying about having to develop dozens of them at a time. The self-containment, furthermore, assists in not over-complicating the plot, which may distract the viewers from what is important.

While multiple TV series and/or films attempt to portray every murder as fantastical, exaggerated, and even surreal, Fargo decides to ignore those tropes and leave each murder as simple and to the point. It is with this technique that the mini-series could guide the viewers’ attention away from the grotesqueness and gore of the murder victim and towards the living characters themselves. The fear and interest is not on how many people have died and the manner in which they did: it is in the worry of what might happen to the rest of the characters. After watching various murder-related stories, one would believe that everything would become a sort of murder-fest or free-for-all. However, Fargo concentrates more on the emotions and mentality of the characters and how these are affected and developed as the series progresses. It is not about Deputy Solverson’s possibility of dying or of uncovering a complex conspiracy: it is about her investigation, her determination, her horror, and her disbelief at what she is witnessing. Along with the other characters, it is not simply about saving or killing or an end-justifies-the-means situation for heroes, villains, and anti-heroes: it is about the concept of inaction; the willingness to not only do what’s right, but to face the horrors of reality, accept their truth, and still be willing to fight against dangerous men. It is also an exploration of how small-town people deal with extreme situations without turning the story too overly dramatic. Although Malvo, Mr. Numbers (Adam Goldberg), and Mr. Wrench (Russell Harvard) give the story an aspect of the extraordinary, they are limited within their own boundaries too: they are highly trained assassins, but are clearly mortal and vulnerable to any attack. It is in fact their personalities that make them unique and not particularly their skill-sets.

Furthermore, the dark comedy of the series helps avoid submerging the series into an extreme level of psychological “grim and gritty.” With the humor, the viewer will not have to always perceive the world as a constant stream of death and lies. It is within this dark reality that people can still laugh and have joy, even if it’s just an attempt to levy their fears. This humor is accompanied by a sense of realism that the story has, seen how many of the characters react to their particular abnormal situations with a sense of confoundment; there is no exaggerated or extreme reaction to what is happening in their lives. Instead, each character attempts to access the situation with what they perceive is rational to them. Instead of screaming and having hysteria, the characters get to go through shock. Additionally, it is in this silent observation of their situation that the audience can see the characters project their inner fear: for with just a few heavy breathings, widening of eyes, mumbling and stumbling in their speech and particular choice of words is enough for the viewer to understand who these individuals are. 

All in all, Fargo is a fascinating series for the type of viewer that enjoys self-contained and low-key crime dramas that concentrates heavily on the character development than on the murder victims and their mode of dying. It is short and to the point, without delving too much in multiple subplots.

(Warning: Fargo contains violence, blood, gore, and sexual scenes.)