Kraokoa's happy endings (while they lasted)

The Krakoan era of the X-Men is coming to a rapid end soon, to be replaced with an all-new, all-different direction that looks incredibly familiar. 

Looking back on it with the wonderful benefit of hindsight, it's obvious that a lot of it didn't work - the Arakko stuff never vibed for me; the constant deaths and rebirths were never really tackled to their full existential extent; and all the stories in fairy worlds were full of sound and fury and not much else - but there were also plenty of interesting aspects to the new mutant civilization

One of the most fascinating quirks of this new mutant world was the clean slate it offered. Krakoa was open to all mutants, no matter how diabolical they had been in the past, and for a while there, it all didn't matter. The members of the Mutant Liberation Front and various evil Brotherhoods were hanging out in the bar, and given the odd shot of redemption.

It was nice enough to see the original Hellions turn up now and again - well, apart from Empath, who was always a colossal waste of space - because the way they were originally slaughtered was always amazingly callous after their fun and games with the New Mutants, but they were also characters that I had painfully deep emotional connections to, like Rusty and Skids.

For a brief moment in the late eighties, the two looked like they could be a big part of the x-future, but were brainwashed, villainized and generally fucked over in the years that followed, to the point they were almost useless as characters.

And then, suddenly, all of that convoluted backstory didn't matter, and they could just be their best selves in a mutant utopia. All of that backstory didn't matter anymore, and Skids could have fun adventures with Gwenpool or whoever.

But all eras come to an end, and they're all back onto the same endless cycle of protecting a world that hates them, and I'm sure Skids and Rusty will be back as cannon fodder. I still hope they make the most of that clean slate, all the same. 

Oh my God, it's Timothy Carey!

It is always an absolute delight to be watching some old film like, say, The Wild One for the first time, and seeing Timothy Carey show up. He's such a weird and strange guy, like nobody else in the history of cinema.

I always knew him from the early Kubrick films, and from his devastating roles in John Cassavetes movies, and he's always instantly notable, even when he shows up in the middle of a crowd of 1950s thugs. His line readings were always unique, his body language was gawky as hell, and every movie ever made would be just a little bit better with added Carey.

Miracleman and OK Computer: The tedium of the blue sky

There are many, many pieces of Alan Moore comics that have stuck with me through the years, and one that still clings the hardest to my soul are the final pages of his Miracleman comics, drawn by the mighty John Totleben.

It's the part where the big man muses on the new society he has created with his chums, and wonders at the miracles that have been created with this brave new world, and wonders how it could have been built from the literal ashes of a super-powered rampage, and just wonders.

But as the former Michael Moran looks over the world from his Olympic perch, he also acknowledges that it isn't quite perfect, and that this is okay, because nobody really wants a diamond without a characteristic flaw, or a poem with a misplaced word. Nobody actually wants perfection. 

But this doesn't stop am unending blast of maddening demands for this perfection in our entertainment, when it's much better for everybody concerned if you just accept that you can't always get what you want.

This has been on my mind again because I've been on a Radiohead binge lately, and OK Computer is on high rotation. I was 23 when it came out, and I'd always thought Radiohead just a bit wimpy, even with the crunch of Creep, but OK Computer really did sound like music from the future, and that's exactly what we all needed at the end of the century.

It still sounds like the future, but it's also not perfect, because even after all these years, Electioneering still sticks out like a sore thumb. A jangly piece of delicious pop, it doesn't fit with the vibe of the album, like something the band outgrew somewhere between the first two records.

Weirdly, the very end of the song, and the way it suddenly stutters to a stop, is the part that does fit with the rest of the album, and the sharpness of it may be intentional, closing off that era of the band and moving into more ambient sonic waters

I don't skip past the song. It still jars to my ears, but it's part of the album, imperfect and all. That's how go forwards, not backwards.

A half century is not enough to read all my books

I turn 50 next year, which makes me officially an old fart. While I've never felt physically better, things are starting to slowly break down and it's increasingly impossible to pretend that I'm not closer to death than the other end.

So of course I'm wrestling with the usual existential nightmares about the obliteration of the self in the dead of the night. Aren't we all?

I always expected that dread to intensify with age, but I am disappointed to discover that wisdom is a lot harder to build up. I always thought that one day I'd wake up and be a wise old bastard, but I feel just as confused and foolish as I ever did.

Sadly, if there is one area where I do feel I've accumulated some kind of wisdom, it's with bullshit like movies and comic books. While I do have a few inane and illogical prejudices about certain slices of entertainment, I do think I've become wiser in my tastes, just by sampling more and more different wares over all these decades.

While I do feel like the dorky little shit I was when I was 18 on the inside, I've also built up enough experience to find the good stuff fairly easily.

None of this wisdom is of use to anybody else, of course. I'm the only one who gets any benefit out of it. And the wisdom that seems obvious to me might sound like madness to anybody else.

But the great part is that there is only more to come. This passion for new entertainments, new art, new styles, it's just as fierce as ever. There is just still so much more to watch and read, so much more to inhale. 

I might have been here for half a goddamn century, but I still have some way to go, and hope to get wiser still.

Mad Max by Dave Johnson

 

Mad Max by Richard Isanove

 

Mad Max by Rafael Albuquerque

 

Mad Max by Dave McKean

Mad Max by Celia Calle