Crapping on Holmes and Watson: A Review of Netflix's "The Irregulars" Series

 created for TV by Tom Bidwell

This is the first review of a television show I've written in the time of the pandemic, and even though I've binged hours' worth of Netflix programs, many of them old, this is the first time I've felt the need to really speak out about one. I've already reviewed a handful of their movies, but this is the first series that I've had particularly strong feelings about ... because it's a giant, stinking turd.

I'm departing from my usual practice of looking up the names of cast and crew on IMDB, save for series lead Thaddea Graham who plays Bea, whose performance, in my opinion is probably the sole redeeming factor of the series, and series creator Tom Bidwell, for the simple reason that I need someone on whom to pin this desecration. I just don't feel like naming anyone else. 

For the uninitiated, the "irregulars" are an unspecified group of street children who periodically appeared in Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" books and stories. They helped Holmes and Watson gather much-needed information on their cases because they could go places that the famed detective and his loyal colleague could not. The potential for stories of their adventures was there; a good writer could imagine all of the tales between tales that the irregulars could tell, how they helped Holmes solve this case or that.

Rather than fulfilling that potential, however, this series brings the titular "irregulars" front and center in the only way that lazy, incompetent revisionists know how: by pulling down their britches and taking a steaming dump on Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. 

It starts off well enough, the irregulars are a plucky bunch, consisting of street urchin Bea (Graham), her half-sister Jessie, their friends Billy and Spike, and, oddly enough, crown prince Leopold who sneaks out of Buckingham Palace to join their group after being smitten with Bea when she picks a fight with his bodyguard. It's an interesting enough set-up, and the presence of a royal who conceals his identity among commoners, if a little bit hackneyed, creates a fair amount of intrigue.

When Watson recruits Bea and her crew to help solve mysteries, however, none of which have anything to do with Conan Doyle's stories, it all starts going horribly wrong. 

The mysteries center around a supernatural event that the characters dub "the rip" which refers a tear in reality, and deal exclusively in paranormal events. This deviation from the source material, which instantly identifies this series as a period-piece knock-off of Netflix's own hit show  Stranger Things, was a bit eyeroll-inducing, but it was not the real problem.

No, the real problem is that almost from his very first appearance, John Watson is depicted as a thoroughly unlikeable, antagonistic character who spends the majority of the series' eight episodes butting heads with Bea. He becomes an obstacle the characters must overcome, and even late in the story when he is supposedly redeemed, it seems very clear that the writer just doesn't like him. 

Holmes is depicted as an over-the-hill drug addict who spends most of the series laid up in bed in a drug-addled stupor, occasionally vomiting, but given that it's not that far-removed from his addiction as depicted not just in the books but in other, more faithful adaptations like the BBC series written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and starring the incomparable Benedict Cumberbatch, it's not that far a stretch. 

The vilification of John Watson, however, is basically unforgivable, and while I was almost willing to recommend this series on the basis of the appealing female lead in the form of Bea and her plucky crew, the fact that the writer needed to trample on existing property to make their leads stand out means this series deserves a hard pass. 

4/10

  

  

Nick Spencer's Long Game: A Late Review of "Last Remains" (Mild Spoilers)

 written by Nick Spencer

illustrated by Patrick Gleason, Mark Bagley and various

This is my first post on this site in over a year, which strikes me as somewhat ironic considering that for several months  of that year I was on lockdown with little else to do but write.  I guess the pandemic has done an even bigger number on me than I thought.

Having just finished reading the last issue of "Last Remains" or Amazing Spider-Man #57, I have to weigh in on this saga considering how long I've been waiting for Nick Spencer to finally pay this particular story thread off.  It's been equal parts disappointing and intriguing, I must say.

The first major story thread Spencer paid off was "The Hunted" nearly two years ago, in which Spencer and a gaggle of artists tried (and, in my opinion, failed) to craft a follow-up story to the legendary story "Kraven's Last Hunt," and more importantly, to undo the mistake that Marvel made of resurrecting Kraven some ten years ago.  It seems undoing editorial mistakes is something of a personal mission for Spencer.   In "Last Remains," he pulls at arguably the most controversial stories of the Spider-Man mythos over the last several years: the unmitigated disaster that was "One More Day." 

In this story, Spencer finally reveals the identity of the mysterious, supernaturally powerful villain, known up until this point only as "Kindred." He digs deep into Spidey's history, literally resurrecting the 80s villain Sin Eater to help Kindred fulfill his unholy mission, which, of course involves inflicting untold amounts of pain on Spider-Man, perhaps more than he has ever known. Kindred, after all, is not just any villain, but one whose hatred for Spider-Man runs deep because apparently, a decision Spider-man made has caused him great suffering. To get back at him, Kindred is willing to strike at just about everyone Peter loves. 

The revelation of Kindred's identity was, I confess, slightly disappointing because the character in question was not someone who had been out of circulation for years but who had been quite visible during Dan Slott's run, just before Nick Spencer took over.  

What makes the story intriguing is how Spencer seems to have intimately tied it into the events of "One More Day," a story dreamed up by the idiots at Marvel editorial for the express purpose of "unmarrying" Spider-Man without "aging" him through something as mundane as divorce.  Now, it seems, that Peter's decision to sell his marriage to the devil (which sounds even stupider now than when Joe Quesada and his gaggle of morons dreamed it up) has had a severe unintended consequence for a major member of his supporting cast.  While "Last Remains" does not deliver the payoff I had hoped for, it features, in at least some of the issues, some of the stronger writing Spencer has shown since he took over this book two and a half years ago.

Like "The Hunted" this story is quite sprawling and takes place over two story arcs, including a prologue featuring Sin Eater. It also features "LR" supplement issues.  I haven't really been keeping count, but all told, I'd estimate that the story covers about twenty-four issues or so.

Of course, that's where the problem lies; having to stretch out a story over such a long period of time inevitably diminishes the effectiveness of Spencer's twists and turns, and the fact that so much is left unresolved also dimishes the effectiveness of the story.  Also, the fact that Spencer still hasn't retconned "Sins Past" out of existence continues to irk me. 

While the crew led by Humberto Ramos did a disastrous job trying to recapture the moodiness of "Kraven's Last Hunt," this story, led by relative newbie Patrick Gleason and long-time Spidey veteran Mark Bagley, has a stronger, more consistent look even though the story spans as many issues as it does. In particular I rather liked the style of newcomer Federico Vincentini, who illustrated the supplemental "LR" issues and who deserves to be seen more.  Still, having at least three different art styles weave "Last Remains" has a jarring effect on the storytelling.

I miss the days when Spider-Man writers could tell stories in four to six issues.  Some of the very best Spider-Man stories were six-issue affairs, whether it's J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck's "Kraven's Last Hunt" or J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr.'s "Coming Home."  I could even get into stories that lasted eight to twelve issues, but what mattered was how the storytellers managed the pacing.  Suffice it to say, I am not a fan of this super-sized, "event" approach to storytelling, even though I get its commercial appeal, because when stretched out over too many issues, stories inevitably suffer.  

What's sad, for me, is the fact that Spencer knows how to tell short and sweet stories. He knows how to tell four to six issue stories. These are not only easily digestible, but they also manage maximum impact without meandering, which is something that has happened time and again withn these mega-arcs, first with "The Hunted" and again with this story arc.

I'm still sticking around, though, because I really want to see how this all pays off in the end, and in that, I suppose, Spencer's writing is ultimately successful. 

6.5/10

  

A Refreshing New Take on an Old Trope: A Review of Miles Morales: The End

written by Saladin Ahmed
drawn by Damion Scott
colored by Dono Sanchez-Almaral

Since Marvel started publishing its post-apocalyptic "The End" books at around the turn of the millennium, I've picked a couple of them up, namely the Punisher one-shot and a reprint of the wildly popular Hulk one-shot. I had no interest in following the others, which seemed less like canon and more like the bleakest vision possible that the writer could imagine for that particular character. In terms of tragic characters like Hulk and Punisher, the endings crafted for them by Peter David and Garth Ennis, respectively, felt quite appropriate, and while the endings were exceedingly bleak, as someone who grew up with Mad Max and other works of fiction set after the imagined apocalypse, I was okay with that. Also what else could one expect from a book with "The End" on the cover?

When I picked up Miles Morales: The End, therefore, I was somewhat stunned by what I actually saw, and even more so by th3e fact that despite a radical departure from some (but not all) of the usual tropes of a "The End" story, it actually worked.

So, like all "The End" stories, MMTE takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. Here, the world has been overrun by what are only described as "germs," and few places have been spared. One of them, fortunately, is Brooklyn, where a diverse community manages to thrive in an environment that has been, through the efforts of Miles Morales and the late Ganke Lee, been rendered impervious to the germs. Even though Ganke has long since given his life for the community, an aged Miles now presides over it as mayor, with Ganke's daughter serving as his right hand. Even living in the apocalypse, however, doesn't get Miles' spirits down, though the group of white supremacists known as One America emerge and pose a threat to the peace that Miles and Ganke have sacrificed much to obtain.

As "The End" stories go, this was one surprisingly brief compared to the other two I'd read, but was an enjoyable read just the same, and, oddly enough, managed to give a new flavor to such stories with Miles' inexhaustible optimism as conveyed by the script and Damion Scott's energetic illustrations, ably supported by Dono Sanchez-Almaral's vibrant colors. Ahmed, who's been writing the Miles Morales monthly book for over a year now, wisely eschews some of the more overused tropes of the "The End" subgenre and gives us a lead character who refuses to lose hope in the face of an unrelentingly bleak situation, to the extent that, even though plot-wise, the story plays out like a "The End" story tends to do, the overall tone of the book feels like something altogether new.

This was a pleasant read that should go down fairly well as a "The End" story with its own distinct identity.

8/10

Back from the Abyss: A Review of "Daredevil: Through Hell"

written by Chip Zdarsky
drawn by Marco Checchetto, Francesco Mobili and Jorge Fornes
colored by Nolan Woodard

I'll be honest; I have not been the biggest fan of Chip Zdarsky's run on Daredevil, which began a little over a year ago. Picking up where Charles Soule left off, Zdarsky continued the tradition of putting Matt Murdock, who had just come back from the brink of death at the end of Soule's run, through the wringer. I was vaguely disappointed by his first five-issue arc, which left Matt a wreck yet again, but what Zdarsky did in his next arc incensed me so much that I didn't even bother to review a single issue. Long story short, the arc ended with Matt having sex with a mobster's wife.

Now, Matt Murdock (and other superheroes for that matter) have done some pretty crappy things over the years as a reflection of the reality that comic book creators face. Heck, Hank Pym was a wife-beater at one point, which Marvel either explained away with a Skrull impostor or bipolar disorder syndrome (I forget which) but having Daredevil, an avowed Catholic who, for all of his bad decisions over the years, has avoided from truly egregious ones, do something truly heinous and antithetical not only to his religion but even his ethics as a lawyer is just so far out of character that I was just well and truly turned off to that story and the overall direction Zdarsky was taking with this book. This is on top of the fact that under Zdarsky's watch, Daredevil has gone from reckless to just plain incompetent, which has been a bitter pill to swallow after Mark Waid's sublime run on this book and Charles Soule's engaging one. Having Daredevil walk away from his identity, only for a bunch of copycat vigilantes to pick it up, was an interesting enough idea, but I was not a fan of how Zdarsky executed it, especially since the artist he was working with at the time was not very good at all.

Fortunately, after all of this, Zdarsky recovers a little bit with this arc, with the help of the returning Marco Checchetto and newcomers Francesco Mobili and Jorge Fornes. Here, after walking away from everything that once mattered to him, Matt gets back into action, with the help of his old flame Elektra, no less, after having retired his Daredevil identity. Interestingly, of equal if not greater focus in this story is the one-time Kingpin of Crime and present Mayor of New York, Wilson Fisk, still desperate to shed his life of crime, who hobnobs with New York's "old rich" only to discover they are every inch as corrupt and powerful as the man he hopes to no longer be,and have no compunctions about unleashing this power on him even despite his stature of as mayor. It's an interesting bit of comeuppance from an unexpected source, but as with the case of Daredevil, the story only works by having Kingpin act a bit out of character.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem I have with Zdarsky's writing. Although he's pretty good at capturing the voices of these characters, he's still a noticeable step down from Mark Waid and even Charles Soule because in the service of his story, making his work a bit plot-driven for my taste. Waid brought a much-needed breath of fresh air to the book after Andy Diggle's gruesome "Shadowland" storyline which was ultimately explained away by mind-control, but even in spite of the complete change in the book's tone, Waid always stayed true to the character. The same could be said for Soule, even as he revisited the character's more popular gritty, noir tone, and he even went a step further by applying his knowledge and training as a lawyer to Matt's skill set, making for some really interesting stories that went behind chop sockey action and gritty crime drama. He knew what made Matt who he was.

To my mind, the same cannot be said for Zdarsky, who to my mind has taken quite a few liberties with Matt Murdock and even Wilson Fisk to advance his story which, while not bad in its own right, definitely feels disrespectful to these characters. In particular, having Matt screw the mobster's wife is gratuitous and while it's not a complete surprise, coming from the co-creator of a book like Sex Criminals, it still feels like a distinctly false note in this character's history. Fortunately, while Matt's indiscretion is now canon (until otherwise retconned) Zdarsky appears to have walked it back a bit, and hopefully he and that character will part ways for good, as Matt has done with just about every other woman in his life bar Elektra. Also, Zdarsky's humiliation of Wilson Fisk, while satisfying in its own way and not nearly as out of character as his complete demolition of Matt, also relies on the meticulously prepared Wilson Fisk being completely out of his element, which feels distinctly out of character for someone who's spent most of his life manipulating people and having fingers in everyone's pies. There may be some justification to it, but it still feels off.

Honestly, I really hope Zdarsky moves on soon, as I think there are other writers who could do better with this character.

6.5/10

Saying Goodbye to One's Real-Life Heroes

Within the course of one week, two people who have made an impact in my life in completely different ways have passed away. One was the renowned comic-book creator Gerry Alanguilan and the other was the revered lawyer Sabino Padilla, Jr. Most of the people who read this blog will no doubt be familiar with the former, though not the latter, but even though this is my "pop culture" blog I thought it fitting to give an obituary for both of them here, because as different as they may have been, in one way they were strikingly similar people.

To get straight to the point, both Gerry and Atty. Bing, hugely successful in their own areas of professional expertise, devoted their lives to advocacy far bigger than themselves and their own personal advancement. Gerry, an incomparably talented illustrator, will just as likely be remembered for the fact that he championed the preservation of Filipino Komiks as an art form, and fought for the rights of creators to a just share of the money earned by their creations. Atty. Bing, for his part, shunned big corporate accounts and defended the interest of clients who, generally, couldn't fight for themselves.

Both these men, in short fought for causes bigger than themselves; they took a stand on issues, not always the most popular one, but always the most principled one. They were utterly inspiring to me, both for their consummate mastery of their craft and their I may have known Atty. Bing a lot better than Gerry, but I will remember them both fondly, always.

May you both find your eternal reward, gentlemen.

Still Going Strong: A Review of Runaways (2017 series) Vol. 4: "But You Can't Hide"

written by Rainbow Rowell
illustrated by Andres Genolet (with Niko Henrichon)
colored by Matt Wilson

As much as I had enjoyed this resurrection of the Runaways ongoing so far, with the departure of series "co-resuscitator" Kris Anka, I was quite saddened and not really looking forward to the next volume without him. I was pleasantly surprised, then to find that his replacement Andres Genolet (who gets an ever-so-slight helping hand from Niko Henrichon) did a more than adequate job filling in his shoes.

Following their nearly lethal encounter with the children of the Gibborim, the Runaways manage to return to a semblance of their normal lives. Molly chases after Alex, who leaves the group dejected after having briefly rejoined them to fight the Gibborim, Chase tries to figure out how to repair the Doombot that one of the Gibborim destroyed, unaware that Gert, his nominal girlfriend whom he rescued from dying in the past, has started a relationship with Victor. Victor still has nightmares about his past and potential future, and Karolina, whose misadventures have resulted in her dropping out of college, experiences an existential crisis and decides on a new path, one she hopes Nico will join her on. Meanwhile, the remaining child of the Gibborim remains with the team, unable to eat anything they try to feed him and yet suffering from hunger pangs that, apparently, only millions of sacrificed souls will satisfy.

The book is packed to the gills with story and character development, and Rowell keeps things both engaging and brisk. As in the previous volume, what really keeps things engrossing is how she plumbs the depths of the characters. In particular, Rowell takes us inside the heads of Chase, Victor, and to a lesser extent, Alex. This story arc marks the first time, since Chase rescued Gert from her death back in the very first incarnation of the series when Brian K. Vaughan was still writing it, that Rowell has finally given Chase a away out of the extremely awkward situation he's been in for the last two years, as a 20-year-old with a minor for a girlfriend. It's a nice little sequence involving a supermarket attendant that played out innocently enough, but when Chase dismissed the girl's advances with "I have a girlfriend" as a reader who knew what Chase didn't, I found myself wincing, almost out loud. There's always been something distinctly tragic about Chase not being able to act on his feelings for Gert despite having saved her from the dead and despite the fact that she still loves him, and Rowell finally has this come to its awkward head.

Speaking of which, Victor, having survived the Gibborim attack, nonetheless still has nightmares about it, and vague visions (or fears) of the future. As a character, he used to be defined by his fear of what he could be, and in a sense, he still is, but now he carries the guilt over what he's done, in particular to Vision's deceased son Vin. Fortunately, he rises above both fear and guilt to save the relationships he values, in this case his friendship with the Doombot. But the specter of what he's done, and what he may yet do, still loom over him.

Speaking of people who've done some pretty terrible things, Alex Wilder's appearance may be brief, especially when compared to the last story arc, but Rowell manages to leave an impression with it nonetheless.

As strange as this may sound, even though he is clearly the same kid who betrayed his friends back in the BKV days, Alex is as engaging a character as he has ever been. Having kept him around for the entirety of the last volume, Rowell only keeps him around for a single issue as a sort of epilogue to the last arc, but manages to drop a nice tease for the first time: apparently Alex, being sort of undead, now has a kind of super power. It's not quite as spectacular as the demonic powers he put on display in his brief, ill-advised (in my opinion) turn as a supervillain over in Heroes for Hire (which, it turned out, weren't even really his), but it could have interesting implications in the future. Also, because of what has happened to him, Alex doesn't have a grand plan, whether it's to be a superhero or restart the Pride (again) or anything like that. He basically just finds his parents' old home and kind of just settles in. He still has basic human decency, as he shows when he gets a sexual predator to leave Molly alone (not that she needed the help) with his macabre powers, but Alex is clearly neither hero nor villain at this point, but just someone living with the aftermath of some really bad decisions, a trait he actually shares with some of Marvel's most celebrated characters (and with much of humanity, for that matter). I honestly can't wait to see what Rowell has in store for him.

It helps quite considerably that, contrary to my expectations, the artist who succeeded Kris Anka on this title, Andres Genolet, is not only hugely talented, but by and large he also captures the youthful vibe that has made the runs of not only Anka but the likes of Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa and even Humberto Ramos memorable. Genolet had some fairly big shoes to fill, and with the exception of one of the later issues in which the quality drops ever so slightly, he does it in fine style.

I had thought my collecting this series would wind down with Anka's departure, even though I've enjoyed Rowell's writing, but it looks like with another talented artist on board, I'm staying around for quite a bit longer.

8.5/10

Making Amends: A Review of Ms. Marvel, Vol. 11, "Destined"

written by Saladin Ahmed
penciled by Minkyu Jung
inked by Juan Vlasco
colored by Ian Herring

It seems somehow wrong that I regularly review comic books as a hobby, and yet have neglected to review so much as single collected edition of the adventures of Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, the publisher's very popular Pakistani-American superhero, whose adventures I have been following quite diligently since 2015. However belatedly, I intend to right that particular wrong with this review. It's just a pity, though, that the volume I am finally reviewing happens to be the first one not written by Kamala Khan's co-creator G. Willow Wilson.

In essence, Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel and her family are kidnapped by aliens, who believe her to be a great being destined to free them from her oppressors. Of course, things are not quite what they seem and Kamala has to take a stand when she learns the truth. Also, one of her family members has a terrible secret which, when revealed, will shake Ms. Marvel to her very core.

I'll be honest; of the eleven volumes of Ms. Marvel that I've read over the years, I have to say this is among the weaker ones. Ahmed gets a lot of the core aspects of Kamala Khan right, like her kindness and brashness, but he does her no favors by dropping her into a story that can only be described as hackneyed, including the "twist" which is telegraphed from the word "go." I've seen very little of Ahmed's work, such as his Amazing Spider-Man annual from last year (which I quite liked) and his first volume of "Miles Morales" which I found to be just O.K. This ranks well below both of them in terms of creativity and storytelling craft, though I do think he has a gift for snappy dialogue. The art by Minkyu Jung is decent but a far cry from the renderings of the series' best, like co-creator Adrian Alphona and Takeshi Miyazawa.

Still, Ahmed does pick up the various threads that Wilson left hanging and opens up one heck of a thread of his own, so it'll be interesting to see where he takes the character and her cast from here. Still, I had kind of hoped for a better first effort from this writer, whose work I genuinely liked.

6.5/10