Young Justice: Invasion - Episode One

(Spoiler warning for both the first and second series.)

So last week Young Justice premiered its second series subtitled 'Invasion'.  This isn't really gonna be a review though I will get in some of my thoughts on the episode, this is intended more as my analysis on the changes made this series.

The Series One Team

Five Years Later

No, really, this is how it starts, well, we have a brief scene set right after the events of the series one final but then we cut five years on; Robin is now Nightwing, Zatanna and Rocket are in the Justice League, Aqualad, Kid Flash and Artemis are no where to be seen and Miss Martian has had a hair cut. Another change is the size of the team, no longer are we watching a handful of young superheroes but a full team, several new members are seen to be fully fledged members such as Batgirl, Supergirl, Blue Beetle, Tim Drake as the new Robin (where last series Dick Grayson has become Nightwing) and many others.

So, what do I think of these changes, well, it's a lot to take in, all these characters are thrown at us but truth is, I like it, many other reviews I've read and watch have people complain we've been left in the dark and that this stuff hasn't been explained. To me there giving us lots of questions, where is Aqualad, Kid Flash and Artemis? How did all the new members join? When did Robin become Nightwing? Why did Superboy and Miss Martian split up and how did she end up with Lagoon Boy? (did I not mention that bit?)  I love this because I trust these writers, almost nothing happened in the first series that didn't in some way add to the bigger picture, even if we didn't know it till the final, but everything came together and thats what I expect from this series. I fully trust these writers will answer all our questions and that there is a bigger picture we can't see yet but will become apparent to us.

I'm excited to see where this series is leading!

Anyway, for anyone who may be wondering what I think of the episode itself, I liked it, sets up the alien invasion theme nicely with the Young Justice team splitting up to search different bases of these small couple foot high aliens called Krolotean's after the intergalactic bounty hunter Lobo reveals that they are on earth. One aspect I love is that we don't get a definitive answer to weather or not the Krolotean's are the aliens who will invade as I noticed at least to other possibilities; first was seeing G. Gordon Godfrey on television talking about how they can't trust the Justice League, similar to the characters comic book incarnation who did this as the first phase in an invasion plan by Darkseid, and the second was the way the Krolotean's reacted to seeing Blue Beetle in action, running with fear echoing the origins of his powers which came from a mysterious blue scarab that unbeknownst to him is the first weapon of a villainous alien race called the Reach. Are these red-herrings or are we in for a treat, only time will tell and I eagerly await the next episode.

This is Peter, watching cartoons because I'm cool like that!

Trigun to the Maximum!

This review may contain spoilers.


It's February 1996, twenty-nine year old mangaka (writer and artist of manga [Japanese comic]) Yasuhiro Nightow has submitted a story to the magazine Shōnen Captian, the story was called Trigun.

I started reading Trigun after been drawn in by the amazing cover art of Dark Horse Comics English version of Volume 1 (see below, image's taken from wikipedia). This book is everything I ask for in cover art, it's dynamic, the colours are beautiful and above all it made me existed to read the book. And how was the book, well this in a space western, the way people dress and act can be very reminiscent of a western movie, though this is actually a desert planet in the far future, the inhabitants of the world cut off from earth and forced to survive on the little resources that are available.  I love this setting, it's familiar enough for us to identify but gives the creator enough freedom to do lots of creative things, which he does constantly, many characters carry weapons that wouldn't exists in real life and in fact many characters are exaggerated to the 10th degree, you never know who or what you'll encounter in the next chapter but you know it will always be existing!

A note to point out the Shōnen Captian was cancelled in 1997, Trigun coming to an untimely end along with it, leaving us on a hell of a cliff-hanger.  These stories were collected into three books, or two oversized ones as the editions I have are.  Then Nightow was approached by the magazine Young King Ours, they wanted him to produce a new work but he asked if he could finish Trigun, so they said, OK.  So in 1998 Trigun continued under the title of Trigun Maximum and ran to the stories conclusion, later collected in fourteen volumes.  Now Young King Ours was a magazine for an older audience so Maximun takes on a more serious tone than its predecessor, and despite the story jumping two years on Nightow insists that both Trigun and Maximun are one long story and not an original and sequel.

Anyway, as for the book itself, the opening was strong, we learned a fair amount about our main charactered, Vash the Stampede, without been bogged down with information, we know he has an insanely high bounty on his head, he's suspected of murder, a topnotch gunman and also that he is a pacifist who's unwilling to kill his opponent.

Though the plot really takes off when two women, Meryl and Milly show up, there are insurance agents who inform Vash that dud to the amount of damage caused by his frequent gun battles (most damage seemingly caused by the people chasing him) that his bounty has been lifted and he's been classed a natural disaster and they now have the job of following him around to evaluate claims regarding him, weather he wants them there or not.

This is the plot for the early parts of the manga, we see Vash followed by the never relenting Meryl and Milly as he gets himself involved in various peoples affairs, writing wrongs while trying to spill as little blood as possible, then riding off into the sunset towards more adventures. That is until we meet Legato Bluesummers, our first real antagonist who challenges Vash to a game, and that game is to be the last one standing as twelve assassins are sent to fight him one at a time. This sets up what will be the plot for the remainder of the series, I don't want to give anymore away but let me say that the twists and turns that come your way will keep you on the edge of your seat.

NowI must say that I did have a couple problems with this one, first of all the action, especially in the opening volumes can be hard to follow, but Yasuhiro Nightow does improve on this and by the time of Trigun Maximus I'm seeing some of the best action scenes I've seen in any Manga. I also found that taking a break from this manga often made me loose the story a bit, and if your like me seventeen volumes isn't something your gonna read straight one after the other, so my advice is if you gonna put it down for a while wait for a point thats the end of one story arc instead of the middle, sounds obvious but hey, I was dumb enough to do that.

So in the end I must say this is one I highly recommend to fans of sci-fi, westerns or graphic novels in general.  So now I leave you with the intro to the 1998 anime series.

A Steam Driven Industrial Metropolis

That title is how I describe the first city my characters visit in my current project, it's a steampunk novel dealing with subjects of age, freedom, racism and war, at least I hope I'll be able to tackle these elements in the way I want by the stories end.  The novel is called 'A Sky-Ship Names Scarborough,' for the most part it will follow the crew of an airship as they help a wandering priestess complete her pilgrimage, or this was my original intent, so far, at least the first act docent quite follow this, we still follow the ship's crew and the priestess but they don't meat up until some ways into the story, instead we follow these two stories simultaneously until they entwine into one.

Anyway, the point to this post, for the forceable future this blog will detail my progress on this novel, i'll post some extracts ready for criticism, praise myself when i think I'm doing well and rant when things aren't going right.  I'll work on separate short stories from time to time so every so often you'll get a nice break from steampunk but for the most part Scarborough's what you get =P

Favorite Fiction: The Kitty Norville Series

That was the french trailer for one of my favourite all time books 'Kitty and The Midnight Hour' by Carrie Vaughn, a story of Werwolves, Vampires, talk-show radio and all that good stuff.  I picked this book up a while back when the shop I'd seen it is was closing, and I'm sorry to say it say on my desk for a couple months before I actually picked it up again, but from then on I couldn't put it down, and as soon as i finished I went out and bought the second book 'Kitty Goes To Washington' and then the third 'Kitty Takes a Holiday', then i took a break to read some of the other books scattered throughout my room.  Though since I have read the fourth book 'Kitty and the Silver Bullet'.

I love these books, and anyone who's interested in Supernatural fiction about the things that go bump in the night, then i highly recommend this compelling series =D



Carrie Vaughn's website: http://www.carrievaughn.com/index.html