Gwen | the m0vie blog

Torchwood: Miracle Day – Rendition (Review)

Posted on July 22, 2019 by Darren

Rendition serves as a demonstration of the flaws with Torchwood: Miracle Day. While some of those flaws – the flaws inherent to the production between the BBC and Starz, the difficulty with scale – were built into The New World, Rendition hits upon quite a few more. Most obviously, it’s an entire episode dedicated to filler. Pretty much the only plot line that advances in a meaningful way is that involving Oswald Danes. Otherwise, Rendition feels like a bit of a holding pattern, a time-wasting exercise designed to pad out the season to ten episodes.

Dead on arrival?

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, Gwen, Gwen Cooper, Hindu, Hutu, Immortal Sins, india, jack, jack bauer, Miracle Day, Miracle Day Torchwood, New World, Oswald Danes, Pakistan, Prime Minister of India, Rendition, Rwanda, torchwood, Torchwood: Miracle Day, United States | Leave a comment »

J. Michael Straczynski’s (and Mike Deotado’s) Run on the Amazing Spider-Man – The Best of Spider-Man, Vol. 4-5 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Darren

Opinion is somewhat divided on J. Michael Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man run. the general consensus is that started strong, but that it lost its way somewhere along, before culminating in the much-maligned One More Day arc that effectively wiped decades of character development for Peter Parker and his cast. More importantly for the author of One More Day, it also completely wiped out a large volume of his contributions to the character – which is a bit of a shame. Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man would get tied up in various crossover “event” storylines like The Other, Civil War and Back in Black, to the point where Straczynski’s run went from being driven by the author’s own ideas to being dictated by editorial whim.

The start of the writer’s work with artist Mike Deodato seems to be where Straczynski was placed on a somewhat tighter editorial leash, with Sins Past mangled in the back-and-forth between author and editorial, perhaps a sign of things to come. It’s telling that it remains one of the most controversial facets of Straczynski’s run, even today.

Is it still a blast?

Note: This review or retrospective covers Straczynski’s run with artist Mike Deodato up until the “Other” crossover event. It doesn’t take up the full fourth hardcover, but it starts with the Sins Past story arc. Just so you know.

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Amazing Spider-Man, green goblin, Gwen, Gwen Stacy, J. Michael Straczynski, marvel, Peter, robert deniro, Robert Redford, Silver Age of Comic Books, spider man, straczynski, tommy lee jones | 2 Comments »