Final Crisis (Written by Grant Morrison, Illustrated by J.G. Jones, Doug Mahnke, et al)



If you're not familiar with Grant Morrison's philosophy and his fascination with fiction as alternate realities, I have no idea how you're supposed to figure out what the hell is going on in this book.

The gist is that evil space-god Darkseid is trying to reincarnate and enslave the universe, and in the process is tearing reality apart. What ensues is total batshit insanity as Superman gets turned into a "living story" to battle a vampire, a chimpanzee tries to create an army of AU Batmen (Batmans?) using a Clayface lookalike, gods get assassinated through time and space, and other story beats that range from clusterfuck to just plain weird. Like there's a group shot of a bunch of DC heroes gathered to fight for their world including Animal Man but he, far as I can tell, never appears in the story after that.

But here's the thing: these characters' world is a story, so the narrative turning into a clusterfuck is their reality being torn apart. Morrison may have also been in a mindset where he could do whatever he wanted with the story including a move that pissed off a lot of fans because, well, if it works out it'll stick and if it doesn't, the Dreamtime will wash it away (heck, that very moment was undone two years later). Maybe it's a bit up its own ass in that regard, but I can respect the experiment, at least.

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The Little Mermaid (G)



I had not seen this movie since I was a little girl (I had one of those crappy Tiger Electronics games of it), and I found a copy at my local FYE that was having a Going out of Business sale, so I figured it was as good a time as any to revisit my childhood. And yeah, The Little Mermaid is a charming, beautiful movie about finding your place in the world for kids, and for adults it's a story about how as much as you want to protect your children from the world, there comes a point where you have to let them go and find their place in it. Not much else I can add to the conversation about it.

It's easy to see how this kick-started the Disney Renaissance and established their style through the 90s, until they sabotaged Treasure Planet as an excuse to axe their hand-drawn animation division.

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