mercurial_g

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060306

Girl Genius is srsly the perfect story of "Adventure, Romance, and Mad Science", Agatha is the most awesome narrator ever, but even though she can solve her own problems - it's still romantic for Gil to scheme and threaten on her behalf anyways:



When I come to her, she will be safe, unharmed, and free. Because I will come to her - and if she is not-

I will DESTROY "Her Undying Majesty" - Melt what is left of your miserable island to SLAG - AND BOIL THE SEAS AROUND YOU FOR THE NEXT THOUSAND YEARS!

If something is a destruction porn piece with nothing 'new' to say other than death happens and/or humanity sucks, such as Final Destinations and Torchwood:Children of Earth, I think it is a waste of space.

I do read very dark works though, by authors that can tell a good story, with a point that we can learn from and therefore get better. I love Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, Valerie's letter still makes me cry every time. V is about finding strength wherever we can, holding onto what's the most important of all, our integrity, and fighting for what we believe in, what we need, when we do have the means to fight, instead of trusting someone else to do it. V for Vendetta also shows, even in bad times, even if the heroes in question comes to tragic ends, there will always be heroes anyways, people who hold onto their convictions even when it cost them, even when their happiness has been taken away. There is hate and apathy, but there is also love and courage that even defeat cannot destroy. "It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and apologized to no one."

Black Summer tells the story where a superhero, John Horus, who, in deciding that in fighting evil, it is also his duty to execute the President of the United States, for starting an illegal war, and he suspects, for stealing the previous elections. Horus kills the President, and then he commands that there shall be another election, one that he shall monitor to ensure that fairness.

Horus takes the fate of the country into his hands through the unilateral act of killing the sitting president, and the country, do not follow his lead. Immediately, along with his friends and comrades, the rest of the Seven Guns (all unaware of the assassination plan), they became Wanted by the police and military, and people begins fleeing to the borders.

The ongoing story is interlaced with black and white flashbacks, most of them featuring various members of the team planning the future with Tom Noir. The first page of the story is split between the scenes of Noir's self-recognition that the day is his thirtieth birthday, standing in his run-down bathroom on his remaining leg, and Horus walking into the White House. The two of them are the oldest of friends, who started the Guns vigilante group together, but it is heavily implied that they are no longer on regular speaking terms after Noir lost his leg in the explosion that also killed the woman he loves.

The flashbacks are never jarring, they fit into the story in the way they give depth to how a character have acted the way he or she did before, and foreshadows what which way they will now turn. It all started with Noir and Horus, in the scene on the second page, Noir telling Horus about how he has this idea that could give him more than five senses, tap into data clouds, and with powers such as these, "we could be heroes"...but the last is shown being spoken by Noir as he is now, crippled and drunk in the lost of the woman he loves (with their technology, Noir actually didn't have to remain crippled).

Frank Blacksmith is the one who is concerned with where they could be going.

Zoe Jump is fascinated with how she can achieve superspeed as much as being superfast herself.

Angel One wants to fly so much that she put her own legs up as the first subjects.

Kathryn Artemis is so angry at the bad guys she wants to kill them.

Dominic Atlas Hyde has a big brain, but what he prefers using more is big muscles.

John Horus 'wants everything to be good', the way he believes in, 'too much'. "the hearbreaking thing...is that John Horus always acted for what he saw was the common good", he isn't out to be loved, but he sees his quest as one of him versus the world, being King Kong on the Empire State building, one that the world must see as monstrous, even if he's only protecting what he loves. He wants the world to be better, but he chose to make the decision himself for everyone else.