The Devil’s Heir-Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17: THE MIRROR ROOM

The kitchen was cramped as the nine temporals and one half-angel gathered around the table to plan their next move.

“What do we know about this man Darrach?” Carlos asked.

“From what Donal’s told us he’s a Sí.” said Kathy.

“Fine, what do we know about this woman, Darrach?” Carlos asked.

“No. He’s a Sí. The Sí are a race of angels who were expelled to earth because they refused to take sides in the war between heaven and hell. They live amongst humans now. This Darrach is apparently a genius at combining divine power with human technology. So if, for example, you wanted a bomb that could destroy the human soul…”

“He’d be the guy to talk to.” Eamonn nodded.

“Right.” said Kathy “So we’re going to go and have a talk with him.”

“Just a talk.” Donal growled “The Sí are under my protection and from what I see you don’t have any proof against him yet. You’ll need to convince me before I’ll hand him over to you.”

“Fair enough.” said Kathy, pointedly ignoring the growl that emanated from the direction of Junko Imai.

Magnus gently shouldered his way through Eloi and Carlos and set a tea-tray on the table and began to quietly pour cups for everyone.

“Is this going to be dangerous?” Baako asked, and instantly felt like a coward for saying it.

“Good question.” said Kathy “We’re hoping (I’ll take coffee, Magnus, thanks) that he won’t be expecting us. It depends how much he knows. Mabus might just have showed up, asked for the bomb, took it and went. But if Darrach knows that his bomb was used to kill Temporals, he might have taken precautions.”

“Let him.” said Junko hoaresly.

“So, just so we know, what are we expecting? (two sugars, thanks) Booby traps?” Eamonn asked.

“Probably not.” Mariana said “I can’t imagine someone booby trapping their own home (yes, a little milk, Magnus, thank you kindly) on the off chance that we showed up. But he might have a safe room. A hidden passge, an escape route. Something like that.”

“Maybe it would…thanks…” Aoife took a mug of tea off Magnus and took a swig “Maybe it would be a good idea if I went and scouted around first? Get the lay of the land?”

A silence descended on the table. Aoife realised that everyone was looking at her.

“Yes.” said Mariana, very quietly “I think that’s a very good idea.”

“Well.” said Aoife, suddenly feeling very nervous “I guess…I’ll go do that. Then.”

Black.

Aoife collapsed on the table with a thud, spilling her tea.

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The Devil’s Heir-Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16: A DARK SPOT

“So you’ve come to kill me at last? I can’t say much for your punctuality.”

Isabella froze. The chamber behind Nyquist’s altar was pitch black, and she could not even see five inches in front of her. But she knew the voice was Joriel’s and she felt a little sugar rush of joy. We’ve found him. At last.

“No, no. I’ve not come to kill you Joriel.”

Cold fear washed over Isabella. That voice talking with Joriel. She knew it, as anyone in New Gomorrah would have.

“I will not go back to Groethuis and his knives and poisons, Mabus. Nor will I trade one cage for another.” said Joriel.

“My, it’s dark in here.” Mabus mused, as if he hadn’t heard him “Shall we have some light?”

“I can see perfectly.” said Joriel “But by all means, if you wish. There’s a lamp on the table to your left.”

Un-oh, thought Isabella.

She heard Mabus’s hand press a switch and a small lamp flicked on, bathing a corner of the room in muted yellow light and casting shadows over everything.

Isabella looked around and breathed out in relief. The room was divided by a thick black curtain, which she was standing behind. Inside the curtain, invisible to her, Joriel and Mabus continued talking.

“Oh dear.” said Mabus sympathetically “They have not been treating you well, have they?”

“This is not their doing.” said Joriel, and Isabella realised the angel’s voice sounded so much older than when she had last heard it “Apart from keeping me here in chains, they treat me well enough.”

“I assume they found you after the battle outside my chamber?”

“Yes. I retreated to the sewers. I was badly injured.”

“Shot off a helicopter, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“I am sorry. I hope you know that there was never any malice in my imprisoning you. I needed to be sure my New Matter weaponry would work. I needed to test it on someone. I just hope you don’t think it was personal.”

“I don’t see how it could have been.” said Joriel “You stole my wife, after all. Not the other way around.”

“Well. Ancient history.” said Mabus “Quite literally.”

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Guest Reviews with Paper Alchemist: The Lorax, 2012

‘Mouse-Fans,’ she said, waving forty-eight knees,

‘I’m the 100%-Recycled-Paper Alchemist. I speak for the trees.

I speak for the trees, for the trees have no voice,

and I’m telling you, friends, that if it’s your choice

to ignore the Earth’s peril and the tree-hugger’s cry,

you won’t like my review. In that case, goodbye.

Today we’ll be taking a look at The Lorax,

a movie that fills my whole cephalothorax

with sorrow and anguish, dismay and despair.

It could have been great, but they just didn’t care.’

 

Sigh.

I wish I wasn’t so sad about this.

I approached this review raring to have a big cathartic bitch sesh. As Pixar put it in Ratatouille, snark is fun to write, and to read. But I don’t think I have it in me today. I thought I was just hangsty – a close relative of hangry – so I went for a snack…

[Comm] Unshavedmouse alt

‘Hey, have you seen Nit anywhere?’

tsqhuntsman.me

‘Um… no.’ *urp*

… but it didn’t help.

Thing is, despite my horrifying face and painful venom, my heart is proportionately huge in relation to my body size (just don’t ask where it is). And I have a terrible habit of letting things get too close to it. That’s the trouble with having an exoskeleton: you’re tougher outside than in. So if you really don’t want to be sad today, go back and check out my Snow Queen review. Or the time – ha ha – the time I made Mouse review Space Chimps with the nipple-headed alien. Because misery is takin’ the wheel.

 

spider-crying

‘Hello, darkness, my old friend…’

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The Devil’s Heir-Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15: THE LORD’S PROPHECY

A Deva, a human being who has crossed over body and soul to the afterlife, is a hardy creature. He or she will not age, will not succumb to disease and does not need to eat or drink. They do sleep, but less than when they were alive, and when they do they do not dream.

And yet, they can die. A Deva whose skin is pierced will bleed the white/pink sand that fills them. This is the remains of their bones, organs and bodily fluids that were compacted when the body and the soul fused at the crossing over. And once it has bled from them, the Deva dies. Finally. Totally. There is no after-afterlife. Those who die in Heaven, Hell or Purgatory cross into the final realm, from which even angels cannot return. The final night, that no dawn shall ever pale. They say that those who go there linger for a few brief moments over everything, and can see the whole infinity of creation, the endless lattice of light and dark, the Yoli-awhey and Goli-awhey snaking and curling and cascading over and around and through each other. It is said that from that cold perch, far above all that is, they finally know a true wisdom, one beyond the knowledge of angels and devils, even of Yol and Gol themselves. And with a sad smile, they nod, and turn to face the final night, and pass away to shadow.

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Tom Waits for No One (1979)

So remember when I was going to review ten shorts in one month? Man, I was young then. Anyway, part of the reason Shortstember came to a screeching halt after we covered the sixties was that finding a theatrical animated short released in the seventies is kind of like trying to find a shoe cobbler in 2016. Oh, they still exist. But they’re rare, boy. They are damn rare. By fortunate chance however, today’s short manages to be the absolute apotheosis of everything you think about when you hear the words “seventies animation”. It’s like they squeezed that entire decade of animation history into these six and a half minutes.

Tom Waits for No One was basically a job resume. Directors John Lamb and Bruce Lyon wanted to sell their Lyon Lamb Video Rotoscope technology to Ralph Bakshi, and created the short as a demonstration of what it could do. This probably explains why I can tell you that Ralph Bakshi did not create this short and you still won’t believe me. Hell, I’m not sure I believe me.  It’s the Bakshiest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s also a little NSFW, just so’s you know.

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Bald Frog Reviews : DOCTOR STRANGE

Well.

Didn’t expect to see ME again, did ya?

Well, I told you I’d be back.

And now I am….

back.

ANYHOW, how’ve you been? I’ve been good. Did a few plays. Went to America. Things seem pretty chill over there right now.

Hello you...

 ……………………………… ERROR:          CHILL NOT FOUND

 

But apart from the impending nuclear winter, and losing my beret in Las Vegas, what FILMS have I seen lately?

Well, a whole bunch. To make up for lost time I will be reviewing one main film but will also give you all a series of mini-reviews of the films I watched on my 13 hour long flight into the abyss of Trump’s America.

“But what’s that main review about?” , I hear you bellow.

Didn’t you read the title, friends?

 

 

*Magical Sounds*

 ……………………………………..*Magical Sounds*

 

Jesus, that’s a big poster.

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Hibernation

Okay, before I get into the nitty gritty about why there’s not going to be any reviews for the next few months there’s a few little bits of housekeeping, Firstly, a favor. I’ve started a petition to ask the Irish government to bestow honorary Irish citizenship to Barack Obama. I go into my reasons here.  If you could sign it and, most importantly, share it on your blogs, Facebook pages and whatnot I would really, really appreciate it. Next item.

Earlier this year I performed stand up in the Aviva Stadium in front of eight hundred people which sounds impressive until I tell you that it was for a talent show my work put on. Anyway, I didn’t have any decent footage until I found out that my mother had filmed the whole thing so here it is. Hope you enjoy.

Now, to the big news.

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“You shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time…”

Okay.

You know what? This year has been pretty fucking awful and we all need, nay deserve, a break. The world is a lot scarier and more uncertain than it was before (and it was already pretty damn scary and uncertain) and there  wasn’t much I could do about it then and there certainly isn’t much I can do about it now. But I can write something that hopefully you’ll find funny and interesting and maybe brighten your day a little  and I categorically refuse to believe that that’s nothing. So how about this? No more talking about politics and America and we just enjoy a review of The Winter Soldier, a political thriller starring Captain America OH GODDAMNIT!!!

Anyone want to skip ahead to Guardians? Anyone?

Anyone want to skip ahead to Guardians? Anyone?

Sigh. Okay. Let’s review the movie where the living exemplar of all that is best in America defeats the forces of tyranny and hatred.

Y’know. Escapism.

***

I remember when it was announced over a decade ago that Marvel were bringing Bucky Barnes back to life and I was opposed to the whole thing. Damn opposed!

Bucky Barnes is one of Marvel’s oldest characters, debuting all the way back in 1941. Bucky and Captain America were introduced as a twofer in the very first issue of Captain America Comics because, ever since Robin had been introduced in Batman the previous year, superheroes had to have kid sidekicks.  It was non-negotiable. In his origin story, Bucky is a kid who likes hanging around a military base and one day sees Steve Rogers changing into his Captain America costume. Bucky tells Steve that the only way to protect his secret identity is to let him be his crime fighting partner and Cap of course has the kid sent to a military lock up as a threat to national security agrees.  This, incidentally, is how Steve Rogers deals with anyone who walks in on him changing, which is how you got such storied superheroes as Clothing Store Assistant Girl and the Incredible Mom. So anyway, Bucky was a pretty blatant Robin rip-off and not even a particularly interesting one and the character was eventually replaced by the female sidekick Golden Girl, before then being brought back for the fifties “commie smasher” version of Captain America in the fifties. When that comic failed, both Cap and Bucky were retired by Marvel.

Then came the sixties, and with superheroes popular again, Stan Lee decided to bring back Marvel’s most popular character from the war era, Captain America, to take his place alongside the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Spider-Man and all the other classic characters that Stan Lee and his collaborators had been minting at a rate of around three a second.

But Stan did. Not. Want. Bucky.

At all.

Why? Well, sidekicks from Robin onwards had been conceived as surrogates for their young, mostly male audience. But Stan found the whole idea of kid sidekicks to be condescending, and so instead had created teen superheroes like Spider-Man and the new Human Torch who were teenagers but also the stars of their own stories rather than playing second fiddle. Then there was the issue of the comics industry’s brush with death in the early fifties thanks to the publication of Seduction of the Innocent  by Doctor Frederic Wertham which made the case that comics were a dangerous influence on the minds of America’s youth. Now the bulk of Wertham’s argument was against horror and crime comics but he also took aim at superheroes, claiming that Batman and Robin were clearly in a sexual relationship. Which, of course, if he had actually bothered to read the comics he would have realised that he was absolutely, totally, 100% percent correct.

batman

So yeah, Stan rather wisely decided that the last thing the newly revived superhero genre needed was little boys in tight shorts running around so when Cap was revived in Avengers #4 he revealed that Bucky had died at the end of the war trying to stop a bomb from destroying London and that they were totally just friends, you guys.

winter-soldier-bucky-barnes-death

This change gave the fairly one-dimensional character of Steve Rogers some much needed emotional shading. Steve was no longer a smiling, lantern jawed, shield-slinger but a grieving, troubled hero out of time and wholly unsure of his role and place in the world. In fact, it worked so well that Bucky was one of a Holy Trinity of dead comic book characters who it was implicitly understood would never, ever be brought back to life; Spiderman’s Uncle Ben, Jason Todd and Bucky Barnes. So when Marvel actually did the unthinkable and brought Backy buck…um, brought Bucky back as a grim and gritty assassin with a robot arm called “The Winter Soldier”, I just rolled my eyes and decried it as another lazy stunt that would be undone in a few months at most. But, credit where credit is due, Cap writer Ed Brubaker made the damn thing work and it’s already considered one of the best and most seminal Captain America stories. In fact, it was chosen as the plot for the second Captain America movie despite being so recent, thereby skipping decades of older, classic Captain America storylines.

What I'm trying to say is; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY WEREWOLF CAPTAIN AMERICA MOVIE, MARVEL?

What I’m trying to say is; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY WEREWOLF CAPTAIN AMERICA MOVIE, MARVEL?

What I find weird about the Captain America trilogy is that, while you often get movie series where instalments are vastly different from each other, it’s pretty damn rare to find a series of movies that hops between genres. This time around, Marvel followed Joe Johnston’s glorious, retro, Indiana Jones homage with a gritty political thriller that would have been perfectly at home in the seventies. How did that work out? Let’s take a look

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