Power of The Valkyrie, Part Four

PREVIOUSLY, ON POWER OF THE VALKYRIE...

Our heroine Suzanne is confronted by the warrior woman Emu, who was meant to inherit the Power of the Valkyrie that Odin accidentally gave Suzanne back in the first issue, though he now claims it was all part of his plan to bring the world of man into the eternal battle between Odin and Loki.  This is all according to Thor, who somehow knows all this despite knowing nothing of Odin's plans in Issue Two.  Thor also explains to Suzanne the TRUE power of the Valkyrie is raising the dead - a fact that enables Suzanne to kill Emu after she summons a horde of ghostly vikings.

Pissed off about the whole affair, Suzanne says she doesn't want anything to do with any of this and tells Odin that she wants to go home.  He agrees to open the way to Earth if she'll agree to hide the magical sword that may or may not contain the true Power of the Valkyrie somewhere Loki can't find it.  She tosses it into a lake and thinks that's that.  Unfortunately, Loki's spies (who were disguised as Agents Scully and Mulder from The X-Files) figure out that Suzanne has returned to Earth and notify Loki of this fact.  And so the comic ends with Loki planning to bring his entire army to Earth to search for the sword.

Read Parts One and Part Two and Part Three.  It won't make any of this clearer but I need the hits.


Our story opens with another flashback to Suzanne's childhood.  We see her in the hospital as doctors work to save her sister, who was hit by a car while chasing a ball Suzanne threw out into the road.  This really has nothing to do with the story except for giving Suzanne another weird speech about blood and its' importance in healing people, so I'm not going to bother showing it.

Our story actually begins several pages later as Pegasus appears on Suzanne's front lawn as she contemplates why she can't get Asgard out of her head after three days.  She quickly figures out, in grand Lassie/Flipper tradition, that Pegasus has come to warn her that Loki is close to the sword.  If you're wondering why the sword is so important since they clearly showed the power was inside Suzanne in the first issue or how Pegasus was able to travel between worlds when it took powerful magic or the power of a god to do that before, congratulations - you've paid closer attention to the story than the people who wrote it!



Suzanne arrives at the lake and summons the sword to her hand.  She is then greeted by The Valkyrie Spirit.  Yes, there's a Valkyrie Spirit now.  The Valkyrie Spirit tells Suzanne of how the first valkyries acted as healers to dying male warriors and bodyguards as they went into the afterlife, because even if you're a badass warrior woman you're still expected to be subservient to men.

...

Have I mentioned before how much I really hate this book as a feminist and as a Norse mythology buff?   


Before we can find out how there are multiple Valkyries when the comic treats the power of the Valkyrie as something that can only be wielded by one woman at a time, Gideon shows up.  You know?  Gideon?  The shape-shifting demon who was disguised as Agent Mulder?  It turns out that he was Emu's love and he's out for revenge on Suzanne. 


Wait... he was Emu's love?  But I thought she was dating Thor!  And Loki called her 'my love' as he cremated her body last issue!   Damn.  I guess Emu got around.  So much for that myth about valkyries being chaste.


Um... the Valkyrie didn't chose you!  Odin stumbled across you by accident!  Or he chose you!  Hell, I don't know anymore!  I don't care anymore, either...

Anyway, the battle goes about as well as you'd expect, given Suzanne's track record fighting demons so far.  Gideon dies but Suzanne is shot with arrows in the back while she's running Gideon through.  The sword flies out of her hand and is levitated into the hand of Loki.


Huh.  That's weird.  The artwork doesn't  match the captions at all.  Suzanne doesn't fall into the water.  And the rest of the dialogue seems like an odd non-sequitur, even for this comic.


Did anyone else hear an echo just now?  The hypothermia must be getting to Suzanne.  She's repeating herself.  Either that or she's developing Torgo-ism. I mean, the only other explanation is ...

...

Oh my gods.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am flabbergasted!

We've seen some bad continuity in this comic. This writers can't decide if the Power of The Valkyrie is in Suzanne or her sword.  The artist can't decide if Pegasus has wings or not.  Hell, for the first two issues, we didn't even know for certain what our heroine's name was or how it was spelled!  But this... this is an achievement in incompetence.  Not only did this comic go to press as a monthly title with the dialogue balloons for one page printed twice across different artwork, but Bluewater Productions couldn't be bothered to fix the mistake in the trade paperback collection of this series!

To quote Joel Hodgson, "They just didn't care!"


Suzanne jumps out of the ice and starts to struggle with Loki over the sword.  Suddenly, Odin, Thor and a bunch of burly vikings show up and begin fighting the demons.  Odin commands her to join him in battle.  Suzanne, not surprisingly, gets pissed off.  And she summon a bunch of viking ghosts who break the frozen lake everyone is standing on, sending them tumbling into the water like so many preppies in an 1980s frat comedy.


To make a long story short (too late), Suzanne orders Loki and Odin to play nice or she'll use her power to destroy them both.  Thor warns her that the peace she's created is temporary and that sooner or later the power will have to pass to another and that he and Odin will be waiting for that day. 

The comic ends with Suzanne visiting her sister's grave, where we finally learn our heroine's last name.  She says something about her memories of her sister keeping her sane through this ordeal which doesn't make a lick of sense since all they seemed to do was make her angry, but whatever.  The story ends with Suzanne having a power she doesn't really understand, no direction as to what to do with it and no particular purpose or inclination to use it to help people - not surprising since Suzanne's only consistent desire in this whole story is to be left alone and not have people telling her what to do.


Power Of The Valkyrie is a waste of time.  Poorly written, badly drawn, completely unoriginal and totally inaccurate to the mythology it is "based" upon.  It lacks continuity.  It lacks coherence.  It lacks any reason to exist, save serving as fodder for smart-ass Internet comic book critics.

You want to know the sad thing?  This isn't even the worst comic I've read that Bluewater Productions has published.  We'll get to that book another day...

Thor: The Dark World Trailer.

Ok. I'll go see this in the theaters now.

Trillium #1 - A Review

Reading Jeff Lemire's Trillium, I can't help but feel that I'm holding a relic from another time and place.  I had the same sensation when I read Lemire's earlier graphic novel The Underwater Welder.  As that story seemed to be a tribute to the stories Rod Serling told on The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, Trillium reads like a lost story by Ray Bradbury or Frederik Pohl for Galaxy Magazine or Weird Tales.  I'm not enough of a classic science-fiction geek to cite any specific influences but I do believe Trillium would not be out of place among the great pulps of yesteryear.


Trillium is two stories, told in two genres, across two chapters, tied together by the titular flower.  The first half  focuses on Nika - a scientist in the far future on a distant planet - who has been forced to step-up her timetable on making peaceful contact with an alien species.  The aliens control a flower that may be mankind's only hope of combating a sentient space plague that has already reduced humanity's numbers to mere thousands and Nika has been given only a few days to win the flower through negotiation before soldiers are sent in to take it.

The second chapter is set on Earth in the 1920's, where traumatized English soldier William leads an expedition in Peru.  Their goal?  Discover a lost temple which native legend claims houses a flower that grants health and happiness - perhaps even eternal life!  


Lemire's stories are pure pulp goodness and I'm not talking about orange juice!  Both stories stand well on their own merits and would serve as fine examples of genre writing were they to stand alone.  Put together, they promise an interesting tale to be told in the upcoming issues as the worlds and concerns of our two heroes collide. 

Readers who only know Lemire from his writing for various DC Comics projects may be astonished to discover he is as versatile an artist as he is a writer  Lemire depicts the desert wastes of a desolate world within viewing range of a black hole as skillfully as he does the jungles of the Amazon.  His characters are distinctive and his visuals memorable.       


Bottom Line: This is a damn good book and I'll be picking up the rest of the series.  If you're a fan of classic science fiction and adventure pulps or Lemire's work on Green Arrow and Animal Man, you should definitely give Trillium a try. 

Power of The Valkyrie, Part Three

PREVIOUSLY, ON POWER OF THE VALKYRIE...

Our heroine, who I think the writers have finally agreed to called Suzanne, was hospitalized after having a close encounter with the fiery demon Loki and the irate amazon Emu.  Suzanne is spirited away to Valhalla by the All-Father Odin just seconds before Agents Scully and Mulder show up, claiming they need to question her about the terrorist attack that destroyed her car.  In Valhalla, we learn that Odin has chosen Suzanne to receive the titular Power Of The Valkyrie and chosen Thor to train her.

Thor is less than pleased about this because his lady love Emu was supposed to get said power.  He is even less pleased after Emu attacks him and takes his power.  While that's going on, Suzanne is presented to "The Creature Pegasus", who immediately takes a shine to her - a sign she is meant to be the Valkyrie, according to Odin.  When a messenger brings word that Loki has been sighted nearby, Suzanne hops on Pegasus to ride off and look for trouble over Odin's objections.  She kills a demon in mid-flight, Pegasus keeps losing and regaining his wings between panels and the comic ends as Suzanne decides to explore a mysterious dark castle and is ambushed by Emu.

Confused?  Read Parts One and Part Two.  It won't help in the least but it may be amusing.


Part Three opens with... a flashback to Suzanne's childhood?


Yes - halfway through our story and we're just NOW getting our first glimpse into our heroine's past and the first sliver of a motivation for what she does and who she is.  Her sister got hit by a car chasing after a ball Suzanne threw into the street, the incident made Suzanne want to become a nurse so she could heal people and she remembers the incident every time she sees blood.  You'd think this would have come up at some point when she was going through nursing school but if I start picking apart everything about this comic that doesn't make sense, we'll be here all night.

Suzanne is stirred from her flashback by someone saying her name.  She repeats it and and Emu asks if that is her name.  It's a fair question given the lax continuity so far, but shockingly her name remains Suzanne for the moment.  Yet this comic finds new ways to disappoint us, with Thor's dialogue balloons being jacked up.

Either they messed up the word balloons or Thor is practicing his ventriloquism.

Suzanne picks up the sword and gets ready to fight Emu.  It is then that Suzanne discovers why it is a bad idea to attack someone who commands the power of lightning with a metal object.  Even if it is a magic metal object.


Actually, Odin never said a thing about Emu conspiring with Loki to Suzanne last issue.  In fact, it was pretty clear Odin had no idea Emu was conspiring with Loki.  Why?  Well, she was still at liberty in Valhalla when he returned with Suzanne.  Also, he sent Thor to go find Emu so he could tell her of his decision regarding who would get the Power of The Valkyrie. 

Thankfully, Thor is there to save Suzanne from becoming a scantily clad lightning rod.  He tells Suzanne what the TRUE Power of The Valkyrie is - raising the dead!  Suddenly, Suzanne starts hearing voices begging to be cut loose and she does so.  A horde of ghostly vikings show up and all the torches in the room go out.


In the midst of this chaos, Suzanne goes berserk.  Emu pleads for mercy, saying the was only trying to save Suzanne from corruption at the hands of a power humans are not meant for.  Suzanne impales her on the sword and Emu dies, muttering that Suzanne is now doomed to become Odin's pawn in the never-ending war with Loki.
 


Thor, who seems remarkably calm considering he just saw his girlfriend die, explains The Power of The Valkyrie and the role of the Valkyrie in Asgard's army.  He also confirms that what Emu said about Suzanne being a pawn in the battle to come... even though he had no idea what Odin's motivations in asking him to train Suzanne were last issue.

That's a rather big plot hole.  So is Thor's speaking of the role of The Valkyrie in the singular as if it were a title then going on to speak of multiple valkyries and how they gathered the souls of dead warriors.  And how could Odin have meant to give Suzanne the power when their meeting was a random accident in the first issue and he'd have had no way of knowing of Emu's plotting with Loki at that point in the story?

Continuity?  What's that?


Suzanne, showing the same even-temper and foresight we've seen throughout this series, gets royally pissed about the idea of being manipulated and forced to serve in a fight that is not hers.  She ditches Thor, flies back to Valhalla and tells Odin she doesn't need his civil war.  She also goes from being soaked in blood to squeaky clean in the span of two panels as she gives Odin a bargain - let her go back to Earth and she'll hide the sword where no one can find it. 


Why does Odin agree to this?  Can't he just take back the power?  He was holding it before!  And it's not like he couldn't find some other random woman if he's really that determined to have a human handle this power.  Heck, he could give the power to one of those dancing wenches who were performing back in the first issue.  I'm sure they'd be willing to serve! *rimshot*

Suzanne wakes up in the hospital, hastily scribbles a note to Dr. Dodson explaining that she decided to go home and gets in her car to...


... wait a minute!  Her car was destroyed back in the first issue!  And her car was a red two-door sports car with a personalized plate that said SUZY - not a bluie four-door!  Does she have two cars?  How?  Nurses don't make that much!  Is she renting a car?  Borrowing it from a friend?  These are perfectly valid questions, comic!  Answer me!

*sighs* Anyway, Suzanne drives out to some lake, where she throws the sword into the water.  Yes, this comic has already savaged Greek, Norse and Abrahamic myth.  Let's mix in some Arthurian Legend while we're at it!  Let no fandom remain unpissed! 


Speaking of pissed-off fandoms, we finally get an explanation for why Mulder and Scully having been hunting for Suzanne.  The good news is that this comic isn't about to become some horrible X-Files tie-in comic.  The bad news is that they are shape-shifting demons in Loki's employ.  We never do find out how Suzanne managed to get past them when they were supposed to be watching the hospital but we do find out that Loki is somehow aware that the sword is now on Earth and that he will be arriving shortly with his armies to retrieve it.


One issue left, kids!  Can you take it? 

Power of The Valkyrie, Part Two

PREVIOUSLY, ON POWER OF THE VALKYRIE...

Susan (no last name given) is a young doctor who somehow got through medical school without ever learning how to cope with people dying.  As she's driving home one night after storming out of the ER, a bearded man in armor falls out of the sky and creates a smoking crater in front of her.  It's the Norse god Odin and when he touches her he bequeaths some sort of power to her.

We find out in a flashback that Odin was forcibly teleported out of Valhalla by his Secret Service when Loki decides to crash the party where Odin was supposed to give this vague magic power to a skilled warrior maiden.  Said warrior maiden is not given a name. Both this warrior maiden and Loki show up on Earth the next day to kill Susan and take back a sword that Odin apparently gave her off-camera.  Also Susan is now being called Susanne. 

Suzy is knocked out by Loki, but suddenly her soul emerges from her body wearing hot pants and a steel corset.  Also, there's suddenly a bunch of other impractically-clad warrior maidens.  Then, just as suddenly, Loki and the nameless warrior woman are back in Loki's basement, where she complains about having been disgraced and named an enemy of Asgard.  Loki tells her to quit whining because the war is not yet over.

Confused?  Read the full review of Part One.  It might help, but I doubt it.  Because it's just going to get more confusing from here.

Now... Part Two!


Our story opens in the thick of the action, with our heroine fighting Loki in his demon form.  It's immediately obvious that this book still doesn't have an editor and that the writer isn't using any form of spell-check, because Sulfur is spelled with an 'e'.  And no - that isn't an acceptable alternative spelling or the British English spelling.  I checked two different dictionaries and did a Google search, which mostly brought up Slipknot fan pages where the song "Sulfur" was spelled wrong and one Marvel Comics fan page devoted toward "The Silver Sulfer".

Anyway, our heroine gets her ass kicked and Loki takes the sword.  He's about to cut her head off when she suddenly wakes up in a hospital bed.  Yes, that's right folks!  It was all a dream!  And our heroine's name has changed yet again!


So now she's Suzanne with a Z.  Fine.  Let's see how long this name change lasts.

Suzanne wants to go home but her colleague, Dr. Dodson, tells her that she's still running a fever and he wants to keep her overnight just to be safe.  He also tells her that, for some reason, the FBI wants to talk to her about the car accident.  Suzanne can't remember anything about what happened and Dodson agrees she's in no state to be talking to anyone, even if she could remember anything.

So Dodson goes out to tell the FBI agents to come back tomorrow and.... what fresh hell is this?!

I think the Fox Network will be suing somebody along with Marvel Comics.
Amazingly, nobody out in the hallway notices the sudden light show seconds later, as Odin emerges through a glowing portal.  Here we see that the writers have put the same craft into writing pseudo-Shakesperean English that they did into the rest of the script so far, as Odin thanks the gods that "thee survived".  Shouldn't that be "ye survived"?  Also, does anyone else think it's weird Odin is thanking himself and his family for Suzanne's survival?


The oddly familiar looking FBI agents get fed up, claiming that Suzanne has been consorting with terrorists and The Patriot Act gives them the right to go into a hospital room to question someone without a warrant and against a doctor's wishes.  Also, there's suddenly two extra F.B.I. Agents.  It's at this point that we find out the writers of this book are just as bad at writing proper American English as they are pseudo-Shakespearean English.


"Suzy's not working with any terrorists.  Even if she did, she would report it."

It would be okay if Dr. Dodson said "Suzy's not working with any terrorists." and just left it at that.  Or he could have said "Suzy's not working with any terrorists.  And even if she had made contact with them, she would have reported it."  But the way the two sentences are paired together makes it sound like Dr. Dodson is saying that Suzy would report herself for working with terrorists.

Meanwhile, in the opulent basement of Valhalla, Loki and the nameless warrior woman from last issue are plotting.  And lo - we finally get a name for our main female antagonist!  Emu!  Yes, like the bird....


Civil War? Hey, we don't need your Civil War, Loki! Or AvX either!   

*sighs* Where to begin?
 

 How about with the last page from last issue?



1. "They wouldn't dare suspect your true loyalties." - Given that she was fighting alongside you when you tried killing Suzanne the day before, I suspect they might.  There's a reason Odin is called "The All-Seeing" after all.

2. '"Tis not the time to reveal your true nature, Emu." -  Even if Odin didn't notice Emu's working with you the day before, it's a bit late to be thinking of that, Loki.  If she's already been branded a traitor to Asgard, I think they know her true nature.

3. "If Thor even suspects thy disloyalty, it will be our undoing." - I think this is a typo and that Emu is meant to be saying "If Thor even suspects MY disloyalty..." since apparently she hasn't been branded a traitor yet and is still somehow working with Loki in secret.  Even if the sentence is taken straight, since when does it make any kind of sense for Thor not to be suspicious of Loki?  Particularly since Loki just went into Odin's party room a day earlier and declared his hostile intent?  Thor's a bit thick but even he's not that dumb.

Speaking of Thor, the next scene takes us back to the nice part of Valhalla.  We see Odin introduce Suzanne to Thor and announce his intent to have Thor train her in the use of the Valkyrie power.  Because of course there's no way a woman could be given this kind of power without a man teaching her how to use it!  That would be silly!  Not quite as silly as Odin deciding to go ahead and let the woman who got this power by accident keep it instead of passing it on to the Asgardian warrior woman who had been training to inherit the power and was seconds away from getting it before Loki interfered.... but still pretty damn silly.

We soon find out that Thor has more than one reason for questioning his father's wisdom.  Not only does handing this power off to a mere human seem foolish but Emu - the woman who was meant to be getting the power in the first place - is Thor's girlfriend.  Showing surprising sensitivity for a Viking male, Thor does try to comfort Emu and assure her that while he must abide by his dad's wishes, he does not agree with them.  For all the good it does him...


(And yes - more bad grammar. "It's offending" should be "It's offensive."  And boy is this grammar offensive!)

Meanwhile, Odin asks Suzanne if people still speak of the gods of Asgard in the Earthly realm.  You'd think the All-Seeing All-Father would already know that but - in case you hadn't noticed - this take on Odin doesn't seem particularly wise or all-knowing.  In fact, I'm starting to suspect he couldn't find his own backside with both hands and a torch.  Regardless, the two are quickly joined by a magical beast that Odin says can only bond with a Valkyrie - The Creature Pegasus!


Is it worth pointing out that Pegasus is a specific character from Greek myth - not Norse?  Should I note that nowhere in Norse Mythology does it say that Valkyrie's horses have wings and that most of the artwork of the time seems to depict their horses without wings?  Does it really matter given that the bastardized mythology of this world has already given us the Norse god Loki taking the form of an Abrahamic demon and that Valhalla seems to be used interchangeably with Asgard to refer to Odin's land rather than his mead hall?

Yes!  It does matter!

*sighs* Anyway, a guard shows up at that point with a wolf's-head medallion he found on the borders of Valhalla.  Or Asgard.  This, coupled with reports of a black wolf being seen nearby, can only mean one thing - Loki is out and about.  Suzanne hops on Pegasus' back and announces that she'll go on a patrol to see what's going on.  Odin says she's not ready but she ignores him. One page later, Suzanne is confronting demons in midair and dueling like a pro as she thinks about how she used to ride horses and get hurt all the time as a kid.


So she went from thinking she was dreaming and not believing what was happening to riding a flying horse and fighting demons within the span of one page?

If this turns out to be another dream sequence, I'll be very put out.

Anyway, Suzanne slays the demon, leaves his corpse to fall to the ground below and suddenly notices a strange castle that is calling to her.  And it's at this point that Pegasus loses his wings.


You know, with all the continuity problems in the writing, I'm amazed we went this long without a mistake in the artwork. 


Suzanne goes inside the castle and starts prowling around as we find out that the writers have learned how to spell sulfur properly.  Granted, they seem to think that sulfur is naturally hot.  And Suzanne says that Odin said Thor was missing when he never actually DID say anything about that at any point in the comic earlier.  But credit where credit is due - at least they're spelling everything properly for the moment, even if their grasp of science and continuity stinks on ice.

While snooping around, Suzanne is ambushed with an electrical attack as she walks through a doorway.  And so our comic ends with Emu - now apparently possessing the power of Thor - demanding that Suzanne hand over the sword.  Even though she apparently has a much better power now...



I don't have it in me to outline all the reasons this comic sucks again.   Let's just say that it sucks and leave it at that as I contemplate whether or not it's worth going on and covering the second half of this abysmal storyline.