{"id":1481,"date":"2012-07-22T21:28:24","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T05:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1481"},"modified":"2012-07-22T21:28:24","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T05:28:24","slug":"review-prepare-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1481","title":{"rendered":"Review: Prepare To Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a long-time comics reader, it’s been strange to watch them become so prevalent in popular culture.\u00a0 When I was a kid, something like Super Folks<\/em><\/a> was a genuine anomaly – commenting on real life through comics in a way that indicated a love of that medium was never done.\u00a0 Lately this has become a more common lens through which to get at the world.\u00a0 Prepare To Die!<\/em> is Paul Tobin’s entry.<\/p>\n

Tobin has built a world of superheroes in the 90’s comics sense.\u00a0 His heroes (and villians) sport colorful powers and celebrity stature backed with realistic characterization and real failings.\u00a0 His hook is that when confronted with the cliched command “Prepare to die!”, Tobin’s hero, Steve Clarke,\u00a0 negotiates a 2 week cease fire to do just that.<\/p>\n

From there the history of the world and the protagonist unspool as we follow Steve through his bucket list.\u00a0 Following Steve is fun and moving.\u00a0 Superheroics is mostly teenage boy wish-fulfillment and yanking his protagonist into that world at that age lets Tobin riff on celebrity and the differences between childhood dreams and adult aspirations.\u00a0 Steve’s reflections are resonant and believable while the suddenly ticking clock gives his introspection real stakes.\u00a0 This is good stuff.<\/p>\n

And then it all comes off the rails for me in the last chapter.\u00a0 The tone and what I thought was the theme all change and the world finishes in a place that makes a lot of that soul searching seem moot.<\/p>\n

That may be my limitation, of course.\u00a0 And heaven knows that so many promising comic series come to an unsatisfying conclusion that it’s practically a genre trope. But, still, the ending really felt too arbitrary and at odds with the rest of the book for me.<\/p>\n

The ending would not have disappointed me if the vast majority of the book wasn’t excellent.\u00a0 Tobin has a knack for getting inside the head of young men and putting them on the page for all to see – good and bad.\u00a0 He also puts together a propulsive adventure story and comics plot. There’s a lot to like here, but that final chapter just doesn’t work for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a long-time comics reader, it’s been strange to watch them become so prevalent in popular culture.\u00a0 When I was a kid, something like Super Folks was a genuine anomaly – commenting on real life through comics in a way that indicated a love of that medium was never done.\u00a0 Lately this has become a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1481"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}