review – Page 19 – Triple Take

J’s Take on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill and some other people has a really good premise. England? In the 1800s? Well-known fictional characters forming a band of super-agents for the British government? What’s not to like?

Unfortunately, the execution leaves much, much, much, MUCH to be desired. I recall being intrigued by the movie, and liking it fairly well. Though it did have problems, even if I can’t now necessarily put my finger on the problems. Well, the comic/graphic novel has a lot of problems.

Plot: Wilhelmina Murray (whoever she is) takes on the mission of assembling a team. First she tracks down Quartermain (whoever he is.. I gather some sort of long-lived, possibly immortal, dead? adventurer dude) and together with Captain Nemo, they get Dr. Jekyll and the Invisible Man. Then they set out to find some substance called ‘cavorite’ that’s some anti-gravity substance. And if they don’t retrieve it, the evil Chinese will take over the world. Or something.
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Doubletake: The Laughing Cavalier (Emmuska Orczy)

Sometimes there are books that two of us want to read, but one of us isn’t really interested in. In that case, instead of a triple take, we’ll do a doubletake instead.

The Plot
The year is 1624 and a plot has been hatched to kill the Prince of Orange. Gilda Beresteyn, the former fiancee of the lead plotter has inadvertently found out about their plans, and in order to prevent her alerting the authorities, the conspirators hatch a scheme to force her silence. Hired for the job: Diogenes, penniless mercenary, otherwise known as the Laughing Cavalier.

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Planetes 4 (Makoto Yukimura)

The Plot
With Hachimaki off to Jupiter, his former crewmates (and current wife) are left to deal with the garbage in orbit around Earth on their own. Fee, the captain of the Toy Box, is feeling adrift. Some time spent with her family gives her a new perspective and she begins trying to prevent an environmental disaster threatened by a war between two factions on Earth. Meanwhile, the trip to Jupiter continues and the crew is aware of how momentous their journey is. Sort of.

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J’s Take on PLANETES Volumes 4.1 and 4.2

The last two volumes of the manga series “Planetes” by Makoto Yukimura are numbered 4.1 and 4.2. As for actual manga content, they really are one volume. Roughly a quarter to half the content of each is text, background information on space and the world of the story.

Volume 4.1

Hachimaki, the person I thought was our main character, is completely absent from this (half)-volume. He’s off on his way to Jupiter. Meanwhile, we get some side stories and backstories for other people he collected space junk with. One of them gets to know a creepy dude with an Elvis bouffant hairdo and poor grammar. He claims to be an alien. Which fact is supposed to explain why he grabbed another woman’s boob in greeting. Is he an alien? We never know for sure. But his apology for the boob-grabbing seems to go down all right.

Another story is about landmines planted by.. I’m never quite sure. The US government? Maybe. I have to say the politics of the whole thing left me baffled. I don’t know if it was partly the translation’s fault, as there seemed to be several names for one faction. Continue reading “J’s Take on PLANETES Volumes 4.1 and 4.2”

Planetes 1-3 (Makoto Yukimura)

The Plot
In the not so distant future, humankind has made orbital space-flight relatively routine. Hakimachi, who dreams someday of the freedom of owning his own space ship, works as a space trash collector, clearing dangerous debris from orbit. But he knows that won’t ever earn him enough to fulfill his dream, and he has his sights set higher. His shipmates aren’t sure whether to encourage him or convince him he’s being a fool.

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