The Angel of Death

     Ergo Proxy is not the usual kind of anime I watch.  I tend to like very cerebral shows with a nice balance of humor and action, with some great plot twists and a kick-ass girl or two.  Okay, so technically, I just described Ergo Proxy, though not so much with the humor.  The main difference is that this show is DARK.  If you’re looking for a happy show, this is NOT something for you to watch.  Ergo Proxy takes place in a highly polluted world where the majority of the human population lives in various domed cities scattered across the globe.  One such city is Romdeau, where Re-l Mayer, member of the Citizen Intelligence Bureau and granddaughter to the city administrator, lives and works.  She’s a very work-oriented girl who spends most of her time with her autoreiv, Iggy.  Autoreivs are humanlike robots that assist humans in various aspects, be it work or companionship.  When an immigrant to the city, Vincent Law, gets caught up in a heaping mess of trouble, Re-l starts to investigate.  And she ends up learning about Vincent’s mysterious nature and the dark underside of Romdeau.  Eventually, she, Vincent, and a young companion type autoreiv named Pino, the latter of whom has caught a “disease” called cogito which gives an autoreiv real emotions, travel to a distant dome city called Mosque to try and recover Vincent’s memories.  In the process, they find friendship, a touch of love, and the truth behind the gods of their world, the Proxies.

     The best part about the show is that, even though it’s really dark, the main characters are quite likable.  Re-l is stiff, tough, and womanly, though she softens over time, Vincent is sympathetic and well-meaning, and Pino is the most adorable robot ever.  By the end, you love all three of them, though Pino’s innocence won me over a bit more.  The show touches on all sorts of philosophical ideas, primarily the concept of self, the question of what constitutes life, and the concept of the creator, or God.  The second of those questions is left partially unanswered, since we never really find out the truth behind cogito or get a resolution to that sub-plot.  But that’s really the only problem.  This story is a great examination of a dark world and in particular the Proxies, these bizarrely godlike figures that seem to control everything.  It really gets into the heads of both Re-l and Vincent, as well as some of the cool and creepy supporting cast, like Raul Creed and Daedalus Yumeno, and it fleshes out this postapocalyptic world quite well.  The music is appropriately dark, as is the animation, and the voice acting is superb.  Admittedly, Re-l’s face isn’t quite as beautiful as it should be all the time, but that’s only a minor problem.  All in all, this is a great series for someone looking for something dark and thought provoking.  And it’s got one of the toughest female protagonists in anime history.  Remember, don’t muss her blue eyeliner.  She might shoot you in the face.

Story: 8.8      Artwork: 8.0      Soundtrack: 8.2      Acting: 9.5      Overall: 8.8

There Once Was a King

     Half a year into his run on Mighty Avengers, Dan Slott decides to pull out his first major story arc.  It revolves around a character named the Unspoken, a king of great power whose origins are hidden in history.  The first issue reveals that he is the previous king of the Inhumans, who chose to get rid of an object of great power, called the Slave Engine, since it gave his people too much strength.  Black Bolt and his kin challenged this decision and defeated the Unspoken, and, as punishment, they struck his name from the history books and sent him off to live in exile, followed by some of the Alpha Primitives he treated so well.  In the present day, Quicksilver, U.S. Agent, and Ban-Luck, the G.R.A.M.P.A. agent, find the Unspoken in China.  He’s the reason Ban-Luck called them there.  Quicksilver panicks when he realizes who he is looking at.  Meanwhile, Wasp shows the rest of the Mighty Avengers around their grand new headquarters, and Jocasta shows off her new looks.  When Stature spots the “Scarlet Witch,” she chases after her.  Back in China, the People’s Defense Force, China’s resident superhero team, comes to fight the Unspoken.  And the Unspoken annihilates them in a second.

     The Unspoken is a massive retcon that is trying to make itself legitimate through its nature, and I don’t like it.  Even considering the fact that Inhuman history would have been rewritten to ignore this pivotal period, the whole reason Black Bolt became king, which was the death of his father, Agon, would have to be eliminated.  That’s cutting out a chunk of Black Bolt’s origin story.  Additionally, Dan Slott made a major boo-boo.  Karnak never underwent Terrigenesis.  His powers come from intense martial arts training, not the Terrigen mists.  I assume that the only reason that Quicksilver knows who the Unspoken is is that he was technically a member of the royal family when he was married to Crystal.  But it kind of ruins the idea that only a small number of people know who the Unspoken is.  I like the new headquarters, I like the Jocasta revamp, and I still like Dan Slott’s dialogue, especially with Quicksilver.  But I just do not like this idea.  And I really don’t like that he destroyed an entire superhero team, just like Alpha Flight, and even made a joke about that in the comic itself.  Radioactive Man is a cool character, and I really hope he’s not dead.  But the entire existence of the People’s Defense Force is just a tool to prove how powerful the Unspoken is, and I don’t like that either.  And Khoi Pham’s pencils look a lot worse because of John Rauch’s colors, which are too light for my taste.  All in all, this is an unfortunate beginning to what should be a much better arc.  I hope that Slott and his writing partner, Christos Gage, can pick things up with the next installment.  I’ve ended up liking bad story ideas before because of good writing, and I hope that this will turn into another one of thoes instances.

Plot: 7.2      Art: 8.5      Dialogue: 8.4      Overall: 7.6

Back in the Day

     As something to occupy the extra time between issues of Captain America: Rebirth, the newest issue of Captain America is a large flashback to World War II.  Some time after Civil War, but before Bucky became Captain America, he, as the Winter Soldier, and Nick Fury meet in an undisclosed location.  They chat about heroes fighting each other, prompting Bucky to tell the story of a vampire hunt he and Cap had back after the Battle of the Ardennes.  That’s a tiny little goof, since the Battle of the Ardennes took place in World War I.  I think this is really after the Battle of the Bulge, which took place in the same area.  Vampires were springing up among the recently dead American soldiers in Bastogne, and Cap and Bucky had to get to the bottom of it.  They find out about a Nazi vampire who was allied with Baron Blood, though neither of them are there at the time.  They end up realizing that an actress who came there for a U.S.O. performance was a vampire, sired by a local “young girl.”  They end up killing both, though they and all the soldiers around them feel the pain of seeing their friends turned against them.

     This is a cute little inconsequential story that you can just enjoy without having to worry too much about continuity or the current plotline.  That’s why it’s so nice.  It’s also a great example of Ed Brubaker’s superb character work, which has been typical of basically every issue of his run on this series.  As someone who is a big fan of vampires, I can’t say that I like how they look in the Marvel Universe.  Baron Blood looks more like a circus attraction than a credible villain.  But Brubaker still does great work with what he’s given.  The artist is Gene Colan, one of the oldest and most storied artists in the business.  I won’t comment on his usual work, but due to the inks by Dave Gutierrez and the coloring by Dean White, the whole issue just looks muddy and unclear.  I’d say it’s a rather unfair way to treat such a famous artist, as the end result is rather unsatisfying.  The art is really the only problem with the issue, though that’s a rather big problem.  However, I can safely say that fans of Ed Brubaker’s run on Cap and of Cap in general won’t be disappointed.

Plot: 8.8      Art: 6.2      Dialogue: 8.7      Overall: 8.4