The third issue of Farscape: D'Argo's Lament (Keith R.A. DeCandido) is a tragic squandering of fannish potential. Much of the issue is spent in flashback, as Ka D'Argo tells a shipmate the epic tale of his youth, signing up for the Luxan army, his first experiences in war and how he met his doomed love, Lo'laan. At last, an official Farscape story fleshes out the hints and teases the series' fans picked up over the show's four years on TV.
Only it isn't epic, and it doesn't flesh anything out. The plot and dialogue are bland and spare, adding little information and no emotion at all to the character's known backstory. And Neil Edwards' sketchy, underdeveloped art compounds the problem. Time and again in this issue, he's given great material to draw; however flawed the script, a strong artist could still have turned the basic set-ups into something truly special. Yet instead he turns an intergalactic war into a pedestrian affair. A two-page spread is wasted on a boxy spaceship, some warriors standing around with their hands at their side, and some faces squinting in close-up. D'Argo and his fellow Luxans, brought so fantastically to life on television by the Jim Henson Company, all look the same. The greatest tragedy in this book is that it marks the first appearance of the dreaded Scorvians, who are mentioned a few times in the TV series but kept off-camera. Edwards gets to design a classic Farscape baddie for the first time, and what he gives us are four green dudes with Bart Simpson heads in featureless black unitards. It's unitarded.*
With the infinite budget of comic books, DeCandido and Edwards somehow manage to confine D'Argo's Lament to a soundstage Doctor Who would've laughed at in the '70s.
- JC
[*Direct all complaints to me. JC asked me to take it out but I was laughing too hard to find the delete key. - RD]
Showing posts with label farscape. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farscape. Show all posts
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Farscape #2
I mentioned the Angel IDW series recently and referred to tie-in comics that have the whiff of fanfic. Farscape (Rockne O'Bannon and Keith R.A. DeCandido) is very much what I was talking about. It's an uneven blend of really great moments - those times where they just nail the characterization and it feels like you're watching the show - and the moments that feel like you're reading fanfic, complete with popular bits of dialogue quoted in an in-jokey sort of way.
Sometimes it's even disappointing because of the good parts. There's a scene where John and Aeryn are arguing over who is going to stay behind and watch their son and who will go on the rescue mission. Neither wants to stay behind, and at this point in the Farscape story John is as much a warrior as Aeryn. Ultimately they decide to take the kid with them, realizing that their life is dangerous no matter where they go, and something could just as well happen to the baby if he stays on the ship.
As encouraging as it is to see the characters being smart and acknowledging their history, the baby on board turns out to be an excuse to put the kid in jeopardy at the hands of a completely predictable "surprise" villain. Scorpius just has to jump into the plot and try to use the baby against Crichton. Scorpy written well is usually more calculating than evil, so I'm assuming he has plots within plots, but at the end of issue #2, he's just another babynapper.
While I hope there's something more going on, it's frustrating to see J&A's intelligent decision used to put them into a situation they should have seen coming. It feels like they're smart up until the writer gets lazy and can't think of a good way for the bad guys to be smarter.
It's also quite possible that my memories of the TV incarnation are somewhat idealized. This is one of the shows and fandoms that has been extremely important in my life for many reasons - the person typing this post being one of them. [He said it, not me. But ask him how we met sometime. Pure geek love. - RD] I said in my first post that I don't claim to be objective, which applies even more so to Farscape.
I'm still enjoying the series overall, but it's not something I could recommend to someone who doesn't already love these characters. For the moments it gives me the same pure joy that the show once did, it's worth it.
- JC
Sometimes it's even disappointing because of the good parts. There's a scene where John and Aeryn are arguing over who is going to stay behind and watch their son and who will go on the rescue mission. Neither wants to stay behind, and at this point in the Farscape story John is as much a warrior as Aeryn. Ultimately they decide to take the kid with them, realizing that their life is dangerous no matter where they go, and something could just as well happen to the baby if he stays on the ship.
As encouraging as it is to see the characters being smart and acknowledging their history, the baby on board turns out to be an excuse to put the kid in jeopardy at the hands of a completely predictable "surprise" villain. Scorpius just has to jump into the plot and try to use the baby against Crichton. Scorpy written well is usually more calculating than evil, so I'm assuming he has plots within plots, but at the end of issue #2, he's just another babynapper.
While I hope there's something more going on, it's frustrating to see J&A's intelligent decision used to put them into a situation they should have seen coming. It feels like they're smart up until the writer gets lazy and can't think of a good way for the bad guys to be smarter.
It's also quite possible that my memories of the TV incarnation are somewhat idealized. This is one of the shows and fandoms that has been extremely important in my life for many reasons - the person typing this post being one of them. [He said it, not me. But ask him how we met sometime. Pure geek love. - RD] I said in my first post that I don't claim to be objective, which applies even more so to Farscape.
I'm still enjoying the series overall, but it's not something I could recommend to someone who doesn't already love these characters. For the moments it gives me the same pure joy that the show once did, it's worth it.
- JC
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