The Mast Blogs: The Best of 2009 (Part 2: Music Awards and What's to Come in 2010).

Sup, yo?

Welcome back to The Best of 2009 with me, your hose, Da Mazt. Not really, it's The Mast. I never got that, did you? The whole idea of replacing letters in slang terms even though it's the same amount of letters anyway. It's spelled "Skills", not "Skillz". Ya can't type the S?!

...

ANYWAY...welcome back. This part of The Best of 2009 will focus on a few musical things and a somewhat semi-brief run-down of what to expect from comics, music and Welcome to the Mast in 2010. If you're joining me after having read the first part, thanks! If you've never read my blog before, take a seat right over there.

My musical top 10 end-of-year lists are somewhat legendary and have been for a long time. I used to do this every year on my journal (Still may), but now this place takes priority. So, whilst this site is primarily for comics, this music list is probably more awaited and will be more viewed. Hey, more people dig music than comics...I accept this.

Also, seeing as this is the end of a decade for all intents and purpose, I will be doing my Top 10 Albums of the Decade; a first for me. I can't remember having done this before.

I will use this moment to brief you on how this is going down. After I list the Top 10 Albums of 2009 (Obviously including the award for Best Album of 2009), I will then give the list for Top 10 Albums of the Decade (Implicitly including Best Album of the Decade). Now...here's where it may get confusing, so I've simplified it. This is how I'm going to do it:

It makes logical sense that the best 10 of the decade are the 10 previous yearly winners (This year included). However, I want to be 100% accurate, so I will be including any candidates from any year of the decade, regardless of winning. Let me give an example:

Whilst there are going to be 10 specific Album of the Year winners, there is one album that DIDN'T win album of the year, but is still better than all other contenders besides the one it lost to. That is the only exception.

Therefore there are two from the same year and, as a result, I have omitted any entries from 2002, which was somewhat of a weak year compared to others.

Whew, with that in mind, let's get this show going!

Music Awards:

• Worst Song of 2009
  
• Best Song of 2009
  
• Worst Album of 2009
• Top 10 Albums of 2009/Best Album of 2009
• Top 10 Albums of the Decade/Best Album of the Decade

I wasn't sure how to pick the winner for this first award, simply because there are so...so many candidates. I thought I had it pegged, but then I remembered a song that is so unconscionable that it HAS to win.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is the winner of the award for Worst Song of 2009...


Down by Jay Sean.

It was going to be Boom, Boom, Pow by The Black Eyed Peas until a week or two ago. The more I heard this song, the more I realised the choice was academic.

What about this song is so bad? EVERYTHING. I literally do not see a redeeming quality in either the music or the aesthetic. The music is terribly and imminently boring, it's par for the course nowadays; a man who is obviously dressed by a stylist in effort to please chicks, singing generic R&B with autotune on his voice.

The fact that he's British is what bothers me. I have no issue with anyone singing in American accents, because it's what most people are used to having been raised on mostly American music. You pick it up when you sing along, like an accent.

However, Jay Sean actually seems to wish he was an American R&B singer.

Oh, and it has Lil Wayne on it.

-+-

The song of the year doesn't actually have any artwork because it's not a single, so you'll just get a picture of who created such a masterpiece. There really was no contest for this award, as far as I'm concerned! The winner of the award for Best Song of 2009 is none other than...


Colonised Mind by Prince.

This was the first song I heard from ONE of his new albums, and I instantly just fell in love with it. It heightened my anticipation for his new work to unprecedented degrees.

You see, Prince always makes good albums, but nowadays he tends to have amazing songs more than amazing albums. His last AMAZING album was probably Musicology back in 2004. However, every year he releases an album, he usually wins Best Song.

This song is everything that the winner of Worst Song is not. Every single aspect of this song, musically, is outstanding. Most notably, Prince's guitar work is flawless. Literally perfect. The tone of the notes, the flow with which he plays and the style he plays in...it's all perfect. Colonised Mind is a tremendously slow, gorgeous piece of soulful music with a solo that could probably part an ocean.

This is why he remains the single greatest songwriter (Not necessarily album-maker) of all time, because he can write songs like Colonised Mind. If you haven't heard it, you seriously need to. I'm not about to outwardly promote illegal downloading, since I don't do that. I'm sure you can get hold of it, though.

The only song that came close this year, individually, was Heads Will Roll by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I'm sad that I can't spend time gushing about how fucking out of this world Heads Will Roll is, because it didn't win. Just...hear it.

-+-

This next award is for Worst Album of 2009. Bearing in mind that there is a lot of music I hate, I opted to interpret this category as an award for the worst album I bought this year. So, with the big categories fast approaching, let's get through this one quickly! I can hardly contain my excitement.


Depart From Me by Cage.

Now, I like Cage.

He's one of the best modern hip hop MCs there is and if you haven't heard his Hell's Winter album, DO SO. I just...can't put my finger on what went wrong on this album.

It seems like he got his head so far stuck up his own ass while trying to be introspective and angsty that he forgot to take it out. Somewhere in between slowly becoming a sellout and letting Shia LeBeouf convince him to do more commercial music, Cage is now the MC with the most appropriate name in hip hop. He's caged, and I fear he'll never break out again.

It's a shame.

-+-

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen. The time has come to unveil, in succession, the Top 10 Albums of 2009/Best Album of 2009 and the Top 10 Albums of the Decade/Best Album of the Decade!

It's been an incredibly hard list to configure. How to arrange them, what albums to include, which to omit etc. It's been killer. I do feel that I am entirely happy with the final list, especially the one covering the decade, and I do think it'll shock you if you know my tastes.

Without further stalling, and with the top five of each list accompanied by a review, here are my Top 10 Albums of 2009 from last to first!


10. Wavering Radiant by Isis.


9. The Great Misdirect by Between the Buried & Me.


8. Journal for Plague Lovers by Manic Street Preachers.


7. Crack the Skye by Mastodon.


6. Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective.


5. Lotus Flow3r by Prince.

This is a very, very good album.

I have to say that I don't necessarily think it would be this high as an album if the year had produced way more competition, album-wise, but it's still a terrific album.

A welcome return to his more funk-infused rock and gospel style sound, Lotus Flow3r came as part of a three album set. The second was MPLSoUND; a good album, but not top 10 material, and Elixer by Bria Valente. The latter isn't a Prince album, it's a Prince-written album for his latest protege (Damn good, considering Prince's proteges are usually throwaway).

Lotus Flow3r has a consistently exciting feel, but nothing that truly blows you away aside from a few songs. Those songs include the likes of Colonised Mind, the cliched-but-beautiful 4Ever and Dreamer. Trust me when I tell you that Dreamer sounds like it could have been written by Hendrix. It's such a raw, gritty guitar monster, and I love that. Prince actually packs quite a punch on that song, vocally. He sounds like he's really angry, I dig it!

Love like Jazz is a very nice, understated little gem and Wall of Berlin is a jittery, innuendo-laden, foot-tapping sing-along.

77 Beverly Park ranks as one of my favourite songs on the album. It begins with an echoey, almost menacing riff that you could put sunglasses on in slow motion to. Only then does it segue into an utterly beautiful piece of acoustic guitar music. It reminds me, quite literally, of a park during blossom season. So, so beautiful and one of my favourite instrumentals of all time.

Prince is the MASTER of the song, he is. He is THE best ever, I feel, at writing songs. Albums? Despite having an album in my top five of ALL TIME, and a few others that rank up there, he doesn't have as much consistency with making stellar albums as a whole. On the flipside, if anyone else wrote these albums as their debut, people would rave. The only reason Lotus Flow3r is only very good as opposed to AMAZING is because of the man writing it.

By anyone else's standards, it would be a lifetime high watermark. By Prince's standards, it's solid to very good.


4. It's Blitz! by Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

I do believe this is their highest ranking album in any list I've ever done!

When I listened to this album with the expectation that it'd just be another dose of fine Yeah Yeah Yeahs-esque alternative rock, I figured I was right. What I didn't know was that those two-guys-and-a-girl that comprise the band had decided to throw me a curveball. An apt title, because I did feel blitzed by the onslaught of overwhelmingly soft electronica, pinned down by an unusually docile sounding Karen O.

Far from her maniacal, Karen-Carpenter-on-crack approach to vocals that she adopted on all their work up until Show Your Bones, Karen O really establishes herself on this album as a premier female vocalist in the music world. Everyone has been raving about Zero, and it's an amazing song, but it's definitely nowhere near the best on this album.

Dull Life, Soft Shock, Runaway and Skeletons are all so impeccable, just to name a few. It's a truly lovely, hauntingly beautiful album. Heads Will Roll carries with it an uncannily accurate depiction of early '90s eurodance nostalgia, too. That's a pretty amazing song. When I say it's pretty amazing, consider that an intentionally grand understatement.

This is a truly remarkable, amazing album.

They're one of my most-liked bands, this is probably my favourite of all their work.

I recommend it, highly.


3. Red Light Fever by Hot Leg.

If you remember the extremely awesome band that was The Darkness, then you'll remember their amazing and irrepressable frontman, Justin Hawkins. Hot Leg is his new band. If you're already thinking that you know what to expect, you're probably right.

This wasn't even on my mind until the day before I put this up.

My friend suggested that we both listen to it, and I obliged to crack it out as I still hadn't given it a proper listen.

My, oh my.

The Darkness were blighted by everyone thinking they were a joke band due to their outwardly comedic appearances (Justin, really. Nobody else). What people failed to recognise was the fact that The Darkness contained one of the most legitimately talented songwriters of modern times, and one of the best guitar duos of modern times (Justin Hawkins and his brother Dan).

The band split after one insane album and another very good one. Dan formed the mediocre Stone Gods, and Justin Hawkins formed the diabolically named Hot Leg. It IS one of the worst/best names ever.

Let me cut to the chase. Red Light Fever is extraordinarily camp, it is outrageously bombastic and incomparably over the top.

It's also one of the best slices of balls-out, straight-up rock 'n' roll you'll hear...ever. Justin Hawkins has a falsetto voice that's both monumentally epic and side-splittingly hilarious, putting both to great effect on the album. For an example, see the video for Cocktails on YouTube.

The guitar work, as suspected, is paramount and full of solos. Justin manages to cram so much amazing, sing-along melody into any song he writes that it's almost sickening. Whether it's an audacious keyboard solo, whether it's from his voice or the perfectly-timed harmony vocals, or the creme-de-la-creme string-fiddling of his guitar, there's melody coming from all angles.

I had the good fortune of seeing these guys on their first ever live show and they floored the room. It was a room no bigger than my bedroom, but they floored it. As Hot Leg played every song off their album, plus more, I felt such nostalgia and deja vu. I saw The Darkness on their album release day; they were playing in HMV. They played with such enthusiasm that I truly believed they were the kind of band to give it their all whether there were 10 or 1,000 people watching.

As Justin Hawkins went around this tiny room, soloing, on the shoulders of a fan just as he did at the HMV gig...I realised something. Not only was this going to be another forgotten classic in modern rock 'n' roll, but Justin Hawkins was doomed to forever be that guy from The Darkness.

I've focused on Justin a lot, because it's essentially all him. He has a habit of making instant classics...if they got the fame. I was reminiscing to The Darkness no more than a year after their debut came out. Like that album, Red Light Fever by Hot Leg exudes an undeniable sense of tuneful and instantaneous timelessness.

I'll never, ever forget the experiences I've had with The Darkness and if Hot Leg's insatiable, tooth-achingly enjoyable debut album is anything to go by, then neither will you if you give it a chance.

Do give it a chance, won't you?


2. The B.Q.E. by Sufjan Stevens.

For the longest time, I thought this was going to win the award. Indeed, as objective as I can be, I do think this is the most genius album of the year. The difference between this and the winner is that I enjoyed the winner more.

This album is relatively different where Sufjan Stevens is concerned. It's quite different where most albums are concerned! The B.Q.E. is actually a soundtrack to a movie written by Stevens himself, as an artistic exploration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Let it not be said that the guy isn't ambitious.

For as long as I've been listening to the guy, that's one of his greatest hallmarks, his ambition. He doesn't seem to be bound by perceptions of: "Wow, I can't do that!". Mike Patton is the same way, so is Prince. Great musicians do not assume they cannot do anything; they just do it. Of course, this is thanks to the fact that Sufjan Stevens can play pretty much any instrument, thus not requiring him to hire any musicians unless it's necessary.

The B.Q.E. is a glorious, wonderfully-conceived and executed piece of orchestra beauty. It delicately and seamlessly mixes neo-classical orchestration with Stevens' trademark folk style, blended with lumps of electronica. This is no more evident than on Movement IV: Traffic Shock, which is a very stuttery piece of classical electronica. It's also very evocative! It really does sound like what it's called...whatever a traffic shock is.

The album is definitely meant to be listened to as a whole, and as such I can't really pick out highlights. I just feel that it's an album of such genius, but not only in conception, in accessibility.

Anyone, I think, with a relatively good understanding and appreciation of the arts should invest in this album/film package. You will not regret it.

Now we come to the moment most people I've spoken to have been waiting for. What is the Best Album of 2009? Who wins this award?!

The winner of the award for Best Album of 2009 is...









WAIT FOR IT...BECAUSE I'M HAPPY THIS WON AND I'M BUILDING SUSPENSE WITH CAPS AND OVER-USE OF THE ENTER KEY!












1. Liebe ist für Alle Da by Rammstein.

Yes! Fucking yes!

I BADLY wanted Rammstein to end this decade with an Album of the Year award. They barely missed out with Mutter in 2001 (Coming 3rd to what would eventually become my two best albums of the decade) and I thought they'd win in 2005 with the amazing Reise, Reise and its sister album, Rosenrot; but they missed out to the album that's 4th on the decade list.

Let me just say that Rammstein won this because this is my favourite album of 2009, I think it's the best one to come out. They beat Sufjan Stevens to the top spot and I think he's one of the greatest songwriters EVER. Do not be convinced that they won this because it was a weak-ish year, because they did not.

Liebe ist für Alle Da is the answer to a question that my friend and I have always asked: Can Rammstein write an album or a song that ISN'T epic? The answer is no.

From the very opening song - as is customary for these epic bastards - you are just overwhelmed by intimidating grandiosity. When the opening vocal of an album is a big, German man shouting: "RAMM...STEIN!" whilst backed by an orchestra that God would commission to soundtrack the end times, you KNOW you're in for a treat.

Everything that makes Rammstein one of the most consistent, enjoyable and creatively talented bands of all time is here with the dial turned up to over 9,000. Rammlied is the gigantic, metal-chugger that opens the album and it's all go from then onward.

Ich Tu De Wih is a song with a chorus so epic that you'll learn German just to sing the fucking thing. I say this, but that element of Rammstein is not new, it's just much better this time around!

I knew they meant business this year when the first single off the album - the minimal powerhouse that is Pussy - had a video that was essentially just porn. I didn't know that the immense ambition of that video and that song would filter over onto the entire album. What's amazing is that Rammstein shed the only problem they've ever had, and that's the ability to keep up the pace of the former half of their albums in the latter half of their albums.

Herzeleid, Sehnsucht, Mutter; Reise, Reise and Rosenrot all have truly amazing first halfs. They just slightly tail off toward the end. Liebe ist für Alle Da does not.

The tradition of having slow songs as a closer is still here, but it doesn't detract from the album at all. When I heard the song Spring, from Rosenrot, I got to thinking that if they could just apply as much audacity and evocative simplicity to the songs they choose to close their albums, they would be better off.

It seems they heard me, because Roter Sand is an achingly lonely piece that seems to have been blown through the roof. The whistled tune that repeats throughout most of the song is such a genius touch, because it makes the song. Somehow.

I seriously cannot pick out highlights, because I'd end up naming all of the songs contained on the album. That's a first for me with Rammstein, it's why they have been getting progressively better with each album and it's why this album is so fucking critical.

Liebe ist für Alle Da is one of my favourites ever, it's also the winner of the award for Best Album of 2009.

About fucking time.

-+-

We're down to the nitty gritty, folks. We're through the looking glass. We're beyond the threshold. If these lines aren't doing anything for you, my bad.

Here we are, end of the line and end of a decade. I'm not going to speak on it, I'm just gonna let the list speak for itself. Here are my Top 10 Albums of the Decade (2000-2009)!


10. Delìrivm Còrdia by Fantômas.
Album of the Year: 2004.


9. Liebe ist für Alle Da by Rammstein.
Album of the Year: 2009.


8. In Rainbows by Radiohead.
Album of the Year: 2007.


7. Untrue by Burial.
Album of the Year: 2008.


6. Hail to the Thief by Radiohead.
Album of the Year: 2003.


5. Come On Feel the Illinoise! by Sufjan Stevens.
Album of the Year: 2005.


4. Ys by Joanna Newsom.
Album of the Year: 2006.


3. Kid A by Radiohead.
Album of the Year: 2000.


2. Lateralus by Tool.
Album of the Year Runner-Up: 2001.

I didn't do reviews for those albums because I wanted to save all my effort in gushing over the album that won this very important contest.

Lateralus was the album that EVERYONE has been guessing would be number 1, and would you look at that...it's not! Also, it WAS Album of the Year 2001 until I had the massive revelation that caused me to amend my list.

This album changed my life, truly. Were it not for the album that won, it would be top...and it had been for eight years. That is until an epiphany happened and I was floored by a surprise entrant.

Which surprise entrant? Let me introduce you to what is, in my opinion, the very best album of the past 10 years. The winner of Best Album of the Decade is...



















IS...?!






















1. Blackwater Park by Opeth.
Album of the Year: 2001.

I never saw it coming either, and I've had this album since its release day.

I listened to it recently on my friend's ridiculously expensive mega-earphones and experienced an epiphany I'd not felt since...(Get the reference and win a comic).

For the first time, I was rocked to the core by an album I'd always held in unbelievably high regard. It felt like the first time I had heard Lateralus, that feeling that you'd never look at music the same way again, that the album you are listening to has just changed how you perceive music.

There are so many reasons that it shocks me to say Blackwater Park by Opeth is the best album of the decade, but the fact is...I believe it to be.

Albums like this don't happen often, they just don't.

It's one of the few albums that I like to call "Beamed". I refer to Blackwater Park as "Beamed" because it's essentially so good that I don't believe Opeth wrote it. I believe it was beamed down from the far reaches of Space, by aliens far greater than ourselves. Like Lateralus, like Ys, like Kid A beneath it; Blackwater Park has just, for some reason, stolen the top spot and locked me in a stranglehold whereby I see it and hear it unlike I ever have before.

It's the weirdest thing.

What I will say, without trying to pick highlights, is that it is the ONLY album to combine all the possible elements that makes something musically epic, and time it perfectly. What am I referring to? The album closer.

An album closer should always be epic, like the opener should always be something to hook you in, and Blackwater Park's closing title-track isn't an exception. The song itself ends with the most epic crescendoed sound I've ever heard, with the most epic lyric and with the most fitting title...after an album's worth of wormhole busting epic had come before it.

There really hasn't been a better album over the past 10 years, in my opinion.

Blackwater Park by Opeth, the very best that music has had to offer from 2000 to now. The scariest part? I wouldn't bet against it making a top five appearance if I were to do this in 2020, you shouldn't either.

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Honourable Mentions and Post-List Sum-Up:

With so many amazing albums this decade, you simply cannot offer them all a winning place, but you can acknowledge them. Here is a list of the albums that didn't make it, but still rank as some of the best this decade has offered us.

10,000 Days by Tool.
Damnation/Deliverance/Watershed by Opeth.
The Creek Drank the Cradle/Our Endless Numbered Days/The Shepherd's Dog by Iron & Wine.
Relationship of Command by At the Drive-In.
Permission to Land/One Way Ticket to Hell...and Back! by The Darkness.
In Absentia/Deadwing by Porcupine Tree.
Tomahawk/Mit Gas/Anonymous by Tomahawk.
The Rainbow Children/Musicology/3121/Planet Earth by Prince.
Ideas Above Our Station/Shatterproof Is Not a Challenge/Kill Your Own by Hundred Reasons.
Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven by Jimmy Eat World.
The Eraser by Thom Yorke.
Myths of the Near Future by Klaxons.
Toxicity/Mezmerize/Hypnotize by System of a Down.
Peeping Tom by Peeping Tom.
Mutter/Reise, Reise/Rosenrot by Rammstein.
The Adversary by Ihsahn.
Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise by Emperor.
Jane Doe/You Fail Me/No Heroes/Axe to Fall by Converge.
God Hates Us All by Slayer.
Remission/Leviathan/Blood Mountain by Mastodon.
White Blood Cells/Elephant/Get Behind Me, Satan/Icky Thump by The White Stripes.
The Cold Vein by Cannibal Ox.
Hell's Winter by Cage.
The Green Album/Maladroit/Make Believe/The Red Album/Raditude by Weezer.
Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lake State by Sufjan Stevens.
Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age.

Plus many more!

Delìrivm Còrdia by Fantômas is also an album I want to pay special mention to. While this album is 10th on the decade's 10 best, I actually feel it is the most genius album of all time. I truly believe there is not a more out-there, amazingly genius or otherworldly conceived album in existence.

The only reason it's 10th is because, in spite of that, there are other albums I enjoy more on a listen-to-listen basis. I cannot begin to describe this album. It contains no single songs. Instead, it is one hour and 15 minutes of nightmarish, terrifying and skin-tingling soundscape that is the stuff of bad dreams made real.

Even now, listening to it, I feel tinges of terror and foreboding. The fact that Mike Patton wrote it all by himself is another incomprehensible point. Listen to it from start to finish, with earphones in and the lights off. Prepare yourself. That's all I can say.

With that said, there you have it! My comprehensive musical bible for the past 10 years.

---

I want to take the time to thank everyone who read part of this, all of this or any of it. I don't see reading as a chore, but with people less and less willing to sit down and read, having a blog can be a difficult hobby. So, from me to anyone reading this, a sincere thank you.

Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting and thank you for the support.

What's to Come in 2010.

2010 looks like it's going to be a big year for Welcome to the Mast. I have ideas for a few interviews in the pipeline, people have been contacted so we'll see how that shapes up.

There are some very promising albums on the horizon, too. New efforts from the likes of Killing Joke, Jimmy Eat World, Sigur Rós and Mike Patton are slated for 2010 and that'll give me something to review here. Not to mention the fact that I'm seeing Rammstein in February and the legendary Ennio Morricone in April.

Iron Man 2 is coming out, I can't wait to see it and review it on here. Don't forget to go out and see this on opening day! Let's smash New Moon's record!

Obviously, the big deal for me and for this blog will be Siege. I'm madly looking forward to this event as you all know, and I really hope that it lives up to my expectations. I'm anticipating seeing how all my favourite characters develop and what 2010 holds for them all, and for comics.

As for the blog itself, I have plans. If I'm still doing this by next December and if it's gained more success and traffic, I will be purchasing a proper domain name and revamping my ENTIRE page to look like a legitimately professional website. Blogspot's layout is lovely and I can't really complain, but if I wanna make the leap, then I need to leap big.

That remains uncertain, but as of now I don't plan to go anywhere.

So, from The Mast to the readers; thank you.

See you all in 2010 and have a brilliant New Year.

-The Mast

The Mast Blogs: The Best of 2009 (Part 1: Comics Awards).

Welcome to all your faces!

I wasn't entirely sure how I would do this or in what order, but I finally figured it all out. Seeing as I've been doing my Top 10 Albums of the Year list since...2000, I figured I'd save that 'til last and get the comic ones out of the way first.

After the best of 2009 list, I'm going to do another list to follow it up; a special list. This list will be none other than what I consider to be the top FIVE albums of the past 10 years! I figured, the next decade's end will be 2019, so I should really do it now (Although, technically decades would end when 2010 ends, right? 10 years, not nine).

This is Part 1 of 2. The reason for this is because both will be pretty lengthy, so I decided to break it into two chewable chunks that you can eat while hot, as opposed to a meal you might have to start and then re-heat due to it being a bit large.

Without further ado, I welcome you to The Best of 2009! Away we go!

Character Awards:

• Most Improved Character of 2009
  
• Worst Character of 2009
  
• Most Neglected Character of 2009
• Best Character of 2009

Let's get the awardfest underway!

I've decided to begin with the award for Most Improved Character of 2009. Without wasting time...we shall commence!

Now!







No, just kidding, NOW!


Loki.

Loki is a character that was always pushed as, naturally, a devious character. A character of such unscrupulous nature that he would LITERALLY do anything to achieve his own ends. He was always pushed as an enemy of Thor, but I could never really believe it or buy it, it just didn't seem workable.

The reason Loki is the Most Improved Character of 2009 is because he finally feels like one of the most dangerous characters.

Premise-wise, Loki has come full circle. He was proposed as the tricky enemy to foil Thor's god-like immense nature, but it never felt successful and his plans to usurp Asgard never came to fruition. Over the past year or so, however, Loki has sewn seeds in a manner so devious and hair-raising that it has provided a compelling start to the mega-event of 2010: Siege.

From so cleverly getting Thor kicked out of Asgard to manipulating his way into an alliance with Dr. Doom and Norman Osborn (As much as anyone CAN ally themselves with Loki, I guess), he has perfectly placed himself to say: "I am going to achieve this. I want Asgard and I'm going to have it.". Osborn has done the same to an extent, but with his sanity forever slipping (AGAIN, thanks to Loki), he's obviously going to bite off more than he can chew in helping Loki against Asgard.

Perhaps the most sinister and bastardly act of Loki so far would be his revelation of how to get Osborn permission to invade Asgard. Tricking an Asgardian into creating a public tragedy, Loki hopes this will turn the public and the government against Asgard, much as the Stamford incident caused Civil War.

He's just SUCH a complete bastard. A man once said that the best villains, with few exceptions, are the ones that sneak up behind you in the dark. The ones who slyly reach into your mind and root around until you can't take it anymore. The ones who just cannot be second, third or fourth guessed.

They don't come more dangerous than Loki right now.

-+-

This next award is one that I found surprisingly hard to pin down, it's the Worst Character of 2009 award. Most of the characters I had short-listed weren't good at all, but I really felt like the title of Worst Character of 2009 was a bit much...until I remembered this guy. The award for Worst Character of 2009 goes to none other THAN...












Red Hulk (A.K.A. Rulk).

If there's a better example of a series that began with a good premise and then took a shit on any promise it had, then please show me.

The premise of a new Hulk with new-ish powers and a totally secret identity was a very compelling one. However, in the execution of the premise, Jeph Loeb (Trust me, he's way better than this) has repelled any interest I have with unequalled tenacity.

When you add a poorly handled character with seemingly no direction combined with ANOTHER mystery red character with no direction or purpose, what do you get? You get a shit on-going title.

I'm not sure if my thinking is correct, but I'm so sure that the reason Greg Pak took over Hulk and he was given a new continual on-going - separate from Red Hulk's - was because this one was doing so bad.

Rulk is a useless, pointless character. I'm sure this upcoming World War Hulks storyline is just a vehicle to get rid of him or lessen his role. He walks around, talking like an evil badass. Yet, he doesn't do anywhere near enough to convince you to fear his words, and neither does Loeb. Unless the big revelation of who he is happens to be Earth-shattering, it's going to piss a LOT of people off.

Even so, who cares? What has he done that would make ANY half-surprising reveal a big thing? I don't know where it's going; I don't care enough to buy the series. I'll monitor it through forums and synopses, but it's a truly disappointing character.

-+-

I don't think this next award will come as MUCH surprise, but it's surprising in context. So, it saddens me to announce that the winner of the award for Most Neglected Character of 2009 IS...












Deadpool.

I never thought I'd be calling Deadpool neglected as a negative.

I spent most of my comic-reading lifetime seeing Deadpool exist as a fringe character with unlimited potential. He was never a big seller, never a massively loved character, but that was fine for me. It was your typical cult-item following, I suppose; Deadpool fans loved that we had something that the mainstream hadn't caught onto, but simultaneously spouted out about how underrated he was.

The problem I have with Deadpool and his reason for winning this award is because, in spite of his popularity and three-comic status, he has NOT got better. Instead of having the one-comic underdog, we have a three-comic character who is getting misused in them all.

Deadpool is being paid a shitload of attention in name only. They know the name sells, but they don't care for preserving and developing his dark and layered character it seems. It sucks. His CHARACTER is neglected, that's why he's here. I figured most people would be thinking: "Sir Mast, Senor Deadpool has three comics out right now. So, by that token, how can thou ever consider him neglected?!", it's his character neglection.

It's sad when there are four or five on-going series' I like more than any three of the ones starring my favourite character ever.

I sincerely hope that 2010 sees a change for Deadpool. He has a LOT of material coming out this year and the one that most intrigues me is his involvement in the Doomwar mini-event (Not sure what Doomwar is or how it fits into anything). It seems like a fairly serious series, so here's hoping he's not gonna be used as a funny man.

One can hope.

-+-

So, here we are.

Who is the winner of Best Character of 2009?!

Why, it's none other THAN...





















James Buchanan Barnes.

I came into the year 2009 with the same opinion of Captain America as I always had, that he was a fantastic premise, but I just couldn't get into the stories or the character itself. This is no shame on Cap; I feel the same for Thor and to an extent, Batman.

I was well aware of Steve Rogers' assassination back in 2007. I mean, how could anyone NOT be? It affected most of the titles I was reading at the time. I didn't particularly care and, to be honest, I was probably more glad than anything. I had grown to dislike Captain America greatly, due to the fact that so many people were overrating him in my opinion.

Long story short, I eventually saw James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes become the new Captain America, complete with new costume and new aesthetic. THIS Captain America was for the modern day; he carried a gun and a combat knife, both things that Steve Rogers would never dream of using on another man.

Despite these changes, I really didn't get inspired to pick up the series or what not. My appreciation of Bucky came from The New Avengers, a team he eventually became a big part of during the aftermath of Civil War and during Dark Reign. The latter event being the time where he has become de facto leader of the group.

It's James's ability to combine the rather out-dated dedication to "The Dream" that comes with being Captain America and a willingness to get the necessary done that makes me gravitate toward him. He hasn't ever displayed such outright patriotism, and he definitely does it for Steve as opposed to anything else, but the mantle fits him SO well. He represents a Captain America for 2009 because that's what America feels it needs to be in 2009; vigilant and willing to use force against threats.

One could argue that he hasn't got the right stuff because he isn't an out-and-out patriot, and that would be valid. From a plucky young sidekick to a bold, brave and courageous leader-in-the-making, James Barnes has come into his own this year by leaps and bounds.

When the ORIGINAL Captain America feels that he cannot be the one to carry the shield after you've done such a good job, you KNOW you've done things right. In honour of the character's change, I will no longer refer to him as Bucky, but as James Barnes. He's changed the way I see a character I really couldn't stand for the longest time and if anyone deserves this award, it's this man (But Daredevil came within a hair, A HAIR).

-+-

Comic/Writer Awards:

• Best Artist of 2009
  
• Best Writer of 2009
  
• Best Comic Series of 2009

Due to the fact that I can't really say a great DEAL about art, you just sort of have to see it; I'll post a picture from this guy's epic work and explain why I love it so much, so here goes! The award for Best Artist of 2009 goes TO...


Roberto De la Torre.

One of the things that I can't stand in comics is when art doesn't reflect story. It really distracts me. If Deadpool is going through a rather dark period, it makes no sense to have someone draw him more cartoony than serious, for example.

The reason I have given this award to Roberto de la Torre is because he doesn't suffer from this. Having caught up on Daredevil recently, I was utterly, truly floored. Matt Murdock's life has essentially fallen apart and been pulled back together, with sacrifices along the way. The reason this story has worked so well besides the writing (Thanks in no small way to Mr. Ed Brubaker) is the art.

De la Torre paints a starkly contrasted picture of New York City and all its imperfections as Matt Murdock goes about business as Daredevil and the former alike. He makes you feel, through his artwork, that the city is as much an enemy as it is his home. It's fucking amazing, and so is he.

-+-

So, we come to what is most important, second to only the Best Comic Series of 2009 award; Best Writer of 2009.

There have been a lot of writers providing us with great quality comics this year. Although I am primarily a Marvel head, my knowledge DOES extend into DC, Image etc. So, let me say that this was a very hard choice.

As I read through comics written by the candidates, I was stuck. There are just so many I can name; Van Lente (The Incredible Hercules and The Amazing Spider-Man), Bendis (Dark Avengers, New Avengers, Siege-related goodies), Abnett (War of Kings, Realm of Kings etc), Kirkman (Haunt), Johns (Blackest Night, Green Lantern) and Straczynski (Thor). They've all produced something that I've either liked or loved. How was I ever going to narrow it down? After reading some material by the man who eventually won, I realised just what the right choice was and why.

Regardless, I want to give outstanding thanks to the aforementioned writers for giving me the most entertaining year in comics for a long time. Most notably, Bendis, Van Lente and Abnett. Some of the stuff they've produced on multiple titles is outrageous.

Without further ado, I present you to the winner of the award for Best Writer of 2009!


Ed Brubaker.

From conceiving the idea of killing Steve Rogers to bringing James "Bucky" Barnes back from the dead, Ed Brubaker has literally been a part of comic resurrection.

Despite being criticised for tweaking the back-stories of certain characters, Ed Brubaker has played a huge part in one of my favourite characters and also given me another in the process.

This year, not only has Brubaker helmed Daredevil throughout the AMAZING Return of the King storyline (The culmination of a LONG time writing the guy flawlessly), but he has produced what I consider to be one of the best mini-series' of 2009 in Captain America: Reborn. Mixing his love of crime stories with superhero sensibilities, Brubaker writes in a captivating, epic and always intriguing manner. Suspense dances throughout his titles with drama and excitement as not-too-distant dance partners.

If you need any indication as to how good he is, pick up anything he's done on Daredevil or Captain America.

He isn't as prolific as the likes of Bendis or Abnett (The former very nearly winning this spot himself), but when he does produce work he really produces something amazing. As capable of chronicling the rise of a character as he is at telling a story of downfall, it's easy to see why he is so critically acclaimed and why he is winning this place.

-+-

With this, we come to the end of Part 1 and the last award for 2009's comics. I won't spend time hyping it with a drawn-out speech; I'll just say that it gives me intense pleasure to present the award for Best Comic Series of 2009 to...










...TO...





















Daredevil.

I love Daredevil. I always have and probably always will. If it weren't for Deadpool, he'd be at the top spot.

The Man without Fear, the man born as Matt Murdock has had some killer stories over the years. From the legendary and influential Born Again arc by Frank Miller (Get it from a library or anywhere you can, trust me), to the surprisingly dark and tragic Guardian Devil arc by Kevin Smith; Daredevil has been through the wringer.

It is surely fitting, then, that the writer to have penned/started what is sure to be the next in his soon-to-be-legendary storylines is none other than Mr. Ed Brubaker.

Daredevil has yet again seen his life fall to ruins in multiple saddening fashions, but unlike before, he has changed a great deal during it and after the fact. Between being thrown in jail and having to side with his long-term enemy - the Kingpin - Matt has had a rough year. He's done things he never thought he'd do and as a consequence he's paid prices he never thought he'd have to pay. In forging alliances that left my jaw on the floor and with a thought-dead foe about to strike back at any minute, I have been hooked on this series like a crackfiend, like I used to be.

Brubaker hasn't wrote Daredevil for three issues now, he stopped at #500 I believe. The reins have been handed to the seemingly excellent Andy Diggle and with Roberto de la Torre's art you can't go wrong.

What swung me most was casting my memories back and thinking of reading Daredevil while growing up.

Daredevil often felt like a guy trying to protect his grimey, dark city from crime on a grassroots level. Now it feels like - for the first time since Frank Miller - he has to take the city back from the crime that owns it, as if HE needs protection from the city. Marvel are doing a great job of collectively making the current crop of on-goings feel villain owned, villain ruled. It's something I can't ever remember experiencing and it's evident in Daredevil as much as any.

Relatively untouched by Dark Reign, save for his entry into the one-shots, Daredevil's title puts out the idea that sometimes the worst crime comes from the least powerful. A kind of criminal-focused use of Occam's Razor.

I'm still aching for two things, two dreams:

1) A Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight etc) directed Daredevil movie.

2) One final, bloody, kill-or-be-killed showdown between Daredevil and Bullseye.

Until those dreams come true, or regardless of if they do or not, I can just rest easy knowing that at least one of my boys isn't suffocating under writers with worse handling than a cow on a tractor.

Daredevil is an utterly gripping, truly essential read and the winner of Best Comic Series of 2009.

---

Stay tuned for The Best of 2009 (Part 2: Music and What's to Come in 2010)!

Until then, peace.

-The Mast

The Mast Blogs: An Important Occasion.

This is just a quick update.

My massive end-of-year post will be a two-part epic. The first part, Comics Awards, will be posted on the 30th of December. The second and final part, Music Awards, will be posted on New Year's Eve (The 31st). I did this so that people can read and digest one post at a time as they'e quite big.

Secondly and most importantly:



Happy 87th birthday to Stan "The Man" Lee!

If it were not for you, this blog would not exist. Fact.

The characters you created/co-created have changed my life beyond reversal. They have enhanced and enriched my existence on this planet and I simply cannot say it better than Bendis did: "I'll never be able to thank you enough.".

Seriously, I can't pay enough respect to you and how much you changed my life with your characters. You're a true legend.

It saddens me to be reminded that he's 87, especially when you consider the inevitable conclusion that awaits us all near that age. I don't know what I'll do with myself when that happens...

For now, let's all pay our respects to the man on this day of celebration.

Thank you, Stan Lee.

-The Mast

The Mast Reviews: Thursday's Comics (24/12/2009).

Smash!

T'was the night before Christmas etc...

I thought I was going to have no comics to buy this week, so imagine my surprise when there were actually six...as there usually is.

Avengers: The Initiative #31 came out today and I would have bought it simply because it's a tie in to Siege: The Cabal. I just don't think it's worth it, though. That's not a major event, it's the set up, all of which was covered in the issue itself.

Six comics came out that I intended to buy, yet I only got five. This is because I either forgot to buy Dark Avengers: Ares #3 of 3, or it's not out yet. Regardless, I'll pick it up next week and just review it on its own sometime.

The comics I DID buy are very...very good, so let's crack the review's fat head open and feast on the juice inside.


Uncanny X-Men #519.

The last one ended with Cyclops going inside Emma Frost...'s mind and trying to free her from The Void. In turn, The Void possessed Cyclops. Meanwhile, Utopia's scientists were trying to figure out a way to keep the sinking island afloat and Beast was getting overly emotional.

This issue is more of that.

Emma goes inside Cyclops' mind and tries to free him from The Void but he shuts her out. She begs Professor X and Psylocke not to kill him as a safety measure, to give him a chance at fighting it. He does, and he wins...somehow. I don't get it. He basically says to The Void that due to dating Jean Grey for years, he's built up some psychic immunity. He forces The Void to remain locked in his mind and then wakes up and says: "So what'd I miss?".

I swear to fucking God, I hate that kind of dialogue. It RARELY works and just leave Cyke looking like a douchebag.

Sentry can't handle The Void, you're telling me that Cyclops just snaps his mind-fingers and locks it away forever? No, can't accept that b.s. Mr. Fraction.

Other plot points involve the continual sinking of Utopia. Magneto meets with Namor and says that they can offer each other something; if Namor builds a pillar to support Utopia, he will have a place to house his scattered race and Utopia will have support. Namor agrees to negotiate and that's all that's said.

Beast comes to Cyclops after Cyclops wakes, says he's leaving and the issue ends. I really don't know what the Hell is going on with this series, I truly do not.

Everything was awesome when they had the crossover with Dark Avengers - the only reason I even started buying this title - and there seemed to be direction. Now there's nothingness. I'll buy Uncanny X-Men #520 and then I'm dropping the series. There's probably another series I could regularly buy in its place.


Guardians of the Galaxy #32.

This series is really starting to pick up a John Carpenter's The Thing-esque vibe, and I love it. I love the way Realm of Kings is heading. I can't say I enjoy the characters much except for Star-Lord, but Abnett really does make anything readable.

After one of The Luminals - a rival team that shares a base with the Guardians - brings something terrible back from a research trip into The Fault, it begins attacking and killing people. It eventually, and grossly, infests Moondragon at her insistance (She's a telekinetic, she feels she's the only one who can contain it properly). Both her team and opposing forces want to keep her in their possession for various reasons: the Guardians want to eject the parasite back into The Fault where as The Universal Church of Truth want to worship it and have her give re-birth to the organism. They consider it holy.

Moondragon seems to be the only person - outside of Quasar in the Realm of Kings one-shot - who has forseen what lies at the end of The Fault. She says that while many fragments of many universes and realities are falling into it, there IS a universe at the very end (This being the horrifying and monstrous universe Quasar encountered).

The issue ends with Moondragon being kidnapped and the U.C.T.'s leader saying that all is right with the universe, and that the Holy One will soon be born.

I'm still a little unsure as to where Realm of Kings is going and the more I think about it, the more I feel like this would have benefitted from a War of Kings-esque central series. It's all very well and good having spin-offs and tie-ins, but it really does make things feel confusing if there's no central series. Simply because I'm having trouble seeing what each series has to do with anything. I'm not seeing how Nova is fitting into this and how the Imperial Guard/Inhumans are fitting into this. Though, obviously it will revolve around the nasty beings from The Fault threatening both the Kree and Shi'ar empires.

I have faith that it'll all come together, I just feel that it would have been easier to make a sum of the parts if there was a convergance point by way of a regular, central series.

As a result, I cannot recommend this series unless you're willing to regularly buy all the involving tie-ins. Wait to see what they do with a trade paperback release and just pick that up.

I'm very curious to see how this series turns out.


Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? #1.

Captain America: Reborn is, as I've said, a criminally late series. Due to the lateness of this series, the story has been spoiled. The story was meant to be resolved by the 5th issue, which was due ages ago, but has only just come out. The extension of the series to a 6th issue means that all the other comics are now ahead of it. We've seen Steve Rogers return in other comics that I've reviewed, so there's no suspense, but that doesn't stop it being an amazing series.

That's why it's particularly odd when you read the cover of this one-shot and it says: "The stunning aftermath of Captain America: Reborn.". It was meant to be the aftermath; a comic to resolve who would be Captain America when Steve returned. Would it be Steve or Bucky? This comic doesn't entirely resolve the issue, but it does surprise me!

The story begins with some flashbacks narrated by Steve Rogers. Flashbacks to the war, with Bucky as his sidekick. He explains to Bucky what it means for him to be Captain America and the role he has to fill.

As the comic exits the flashbacks, the story shifts back and forth between two similar scenes. We see Steve Rogers as he speaks with Sharon Carter about his horrid experiences of being trapped in time, having to re-live his life's war-time memories over and over. Then we see Bucky talking with Black Widow about making a new costume now that Steve is back, all while Luke Cage (Who I guess has recovered since his life-threatening turmoil in The New Avengers, THANKS FOR SPOILING IT MARVEL. SINCE I READ THIS FIRST) sits there flexing with weights. Oddly hilarious.

Steve muses about how he has trouble sleeping because he's just afraid he'll slip away again, then he and Sharon do the nasty off-panel. It's moments like these that really show off how amazing a writer Ed Brubaker is. The art (Butch Guise) and dialogue work hand in hand to paint a rather stark picture of how shaken up this supposedly timeless hero really is.

In a darkened apartment, being comforted by a female, you see the legendary hero speak with a hesitance more so than fear. The fear is definitely there, though. It's quite a sight to see how much this has shaken him up, especially given all he's been through in life, and through time. He mentions to Sharon that he doesn't really think he can take up the shield anymore, especially after seeing Bucky take up the mantle and what he feels it means to him. Truth be told, it must have been quite a mind-trip for Steve; seeing this kid you protected in World War 2 all grown up and performing the iconic role that YOU were born for, the role the was made for you.

Black Widow is trying to convince Bucky that regardless of who was born for it, who was made for it, he did an amazing job (He did, he's the reason I'm even into Captain America right now. He is the reason, mostly due to Ed Brubaker, that I enjoy the character of Cap more than just the idea of Cap). She even goes so far as to say that they should BOTH be Captain America. However, Bucky has just got too much respect for Steve to accept this, even going so far as to say that he never wanted to take up the mantle and that he only did it so nobody else could; emphasising the fact that he really isn't the kind of guy that could handle the burden Steve does.

Regardless, Black Widow hands him the shield and says that there was a break-out at The Raft (One of a few superhuman prisons), offering him one last hurrah in the uniform, which he accepts. As they travel off, scenes of them tackling Mr. Hyde are intercut with scenes of Steve donning HIS uniform and heading out into the night.

During the fight between Bucky and Mr. Hyde, the latter attempts to escape up the side of a building. Bucky, seeing Steve appear on the rooftop, shouts: "Cap! Catch!". He throws the shield and Steve grabs it in midair, plummeting down and crashing into Mr. Hyde, knocking him out.

Bucky rushes over and tells him that he is still as good today as he ever was. To his surprise, Steve tells Bucky to take the shield and become Captain America! They take a walk and Bucky continues to protest, though I really don't know if he's protesting in the same way you protest if someone gives you money, or if he really doesn't want to do it anymore.

Eventually, Steve asks him to do it as a favour to him, and ambiguously hands Bucky the shield.

The end of the comic cuts to Steve attending a one-on-one meeting with President Obama, and this culminates in Steve saying that he really doesn't wish to be Captain America anymore, but would do so at the request of the President and ONLY the President. In reply, President Obama says that it's not necessary, as he has a feeling that America will soon need Steve for something much bigger.

Let me just emphasis how much I smiled while reading this; A LOT. SO MUCH. There is such a degree of heroism in this comic that it's almost old fashioned, in the best possible way. I love the brilliant contrast of old vs new, despite it being a familiar premise, it is handled very well. The best way I can describe it is by referring to a conversation I had recently.

I remember discussing Avatar with someone I share a forum with, and upon saying that I think the amazing visuals do not make up for cliched and ham-fisted plot, he said that it's about more than just getting from point A to point B. As cliched as a premise is, the journey from cliched point to cliched point can still be an amazing one.

Whilst I disagree that Avatar did this, I have to say that this comic does. Old Vs New and Master Vs Student etc, these are not new premises. It is done SO well here, that it doesn't even matter. In my opinion, anyway.

There's a scene where Steve arrives on the rooftop and sees Bucky fighting below, and it's just unfathomably poignent and almost touchingly respectful. The way Steve simultaneously expresses regret-tinged shock at seeing someone else in the uniform, throwing his shield; and yet seemingly possesses a sense of unerring respect and pride for Bucky is quite wonderful to see.

It really made me like Steve Rogers more, simply because in this comic he seems to accept the idea that times have changes and he's not necessarily someone who can successfully represent the uniform anymore. It's very humble of him. Not to mention the fact that EVERYBODY knows how bad I want Bucky to remain as Captain America, so this comic satisfied me in many, many ways.

Likewise, when Bucky is denying that he should be Captain America, the reasons he cites are so respectful that he is almost angry at Black Widow for daring to suggest such a thing. To hear (For lack of a more applicable term) Bucky say that nobody can match Steve because he was the first and that he was literally engineered to do this...it's a pretty good case for Steve to retain the shield (Though I'd still want Bucky as Cap).

Since all signs point to Bucky, I'm a happy camper!

Even though this was meant to come AFTER Reborn, I can safely say this is a fitting end to an amazing mini-series. My best guess would be that Marvel will attach this to parts one to six of Reborn when they release it as a trade paperback. If you wanna pick it up, do so! I cannot recommend it enough. Just go into it knowing that you will almost definitely need ALL the previously connected Captain America trade paperbacks to get the full story arc. So it might cost a little more than you would expect, but it's so worth it.

I've read them all, and will get around to owning them. You should too, they're AMAZING stories.

This isn't part of the review, but it's connected to the latter review. Maybe I'll get some discussion going in the comments box as to where people stand on this.

There are MASSIVE issues with the continuity of Captain America as things stand. GIGANTIC issues.

We have seen Steve return as Captain America, in full uniform, at the end of The N.A. Annual #1. We've also seen Steve return OUT of uniform, with Bucky IN uniform, at the end of Dark Avengers Annual #1.

Now, somebody needs to establish when these took place and what the continuity of Captain America is at the moment, I have to say. I don't wanna be lead to believe that my boy Bucky is taking the shield, only to be flip-flopped and have him drop it to Steve again.

FURTHERMORE, it has been explicitly stated that Steve Rogers is involved in Siege as Captain America at some point. It's a very murky pond at the moment and I'm hoping that it gets resolved over the coming year. I tell you, I will be disappointed if they've gone so far as to tease without subtlety that Bucky will be the new Captain America, only to reverse it.

I'm not sure if the rumours are true, but there's talk of the most famous roster of The Avengers returning during Siege for an indefinite amount of time. This would mean a core trio of Captain America, Thor and Iron Man. Now, I fucking love The Avengers; best superhero team of all time, even just the core three. Personally? I cannot see it happening. It's a dream of mine, but I doubt it'll happen (If you're reading this and you've read spoilers, shut up).

It won't happen if they keep Bucky as Cap, because I'm pretty sure it'd have to be Steve (Although Bucky being a TRUE Avenger with Thor and Iron Man would make my heart burst with joy). If it DOES happen, that isn't good news for Bucky as Cap, so I'm not sure what to wish for here. I just hope that they don't screw Bucky over, you know? I'm inclined to root for Bucky, because a return for The Avengers isn't something I expect, where as I've seen Bucky as having a shot in Hell for a while now.

Oh well, we can only see, I suppose. Amazing comic, really.


The New Avengers #60.

With Luke Cage having recovered from surgery, The New Avengers are understandably happy. However, as we saw last issue, all is not as it seems.

Osborn attached a device to the heart of Luke Cage and nobody - not even Luke Cage himself - knew of its existence. Upon further examination by Dr. Strange and Dr. Voodoo, the device was discovered. Daredevil uses his senses to detect that it's transmitting a faint signal, but is unable to discern what kind. To grim faces, it is decided that surgery is the option yet again. Jessica Jones-Cage is especially insistent on this, but Dr. Strange doesn't want to risk touching an Osborn device for fear of greater tragedy.

They contact Henry Pym of The M.A. and he shrinks himself, as well as Dr. Strange, both of which then embark upon a voyage into Luke Cage's body, Innerspace style. Spider-Man then says: "You now have two men inside you.". I found that quite funny, it gave me a chuckle.

Osborn begins tracking the device while attempting to follow the rest of The N.A. (They laid waste to his recruitment camp - Camp H.A.M.M.E.R. - last issue) and on his way, followed by the Dark Avengers, he is contacted by The Hood (Recently rid of his powers due to Dormammu no longer using him as an avatar, but recently empowered by Asgardian Nord stones thanks to Loki). The Hood, angered at the fact that Osborn made a deal with Jonas Harrow, signs off after leaving Osborn in a sweat.

Dr. Strange and Pym discover that Osborn attached none other than a bomb to Luke Cage's heart. In a really, REALLY exciting race against time, they begin to remove it as Daredevil stresses that the signal speeds up. Osborn, distressed for an as-yet unknown reason, also makes haste toward the signal before it can be removed.

It turns out that the operation was being conducted in a rather opulent home of Norman Osborn's. As the bomb explodes with The N.A. far from the scene, Osborn is furious. Meanwhile, back at Osborn Tower (Formerly Stark/Avengers Tower), The Hood turns up to a gathering between Jonas Harrow and all his former men; and he's very...very angry.

He immediately blows Jonas Harrow's head off and lambasts his men for ditching him in favour of Osborn. They said that they were angry for hiding the fact that they were working for Osborn all along, which The Hood corrects; they were never working for Osborn. In return for Osborn letting them be free, The Hood just had them do some jobs for him. He reiterates that, unfortunately, now they DO work for him.

Osborn chimes in and very sinisterly offers them ALL freedom...in exchange for the deaths of every single member of The N.A., excluding Spider-Man. He wants Spider-Man alive.

I mentioned this in my review of Spider-Man's The List issue; I love how it ALWAYS comes down to Osborn's hatred for Spidey. He's gearing up to war with a nation of gods and happens to be juggling control of the entire superhero nation...yet he still wants Spidey's life in his hands. I LOVE it.

It also helps that the issue comes to a close with the tag: "Next issue: Siege!".

I'm excited. I'm immensely, terrifyingly excited. Bendis, man...I swear. You're making me a believer. I'm the little boy again. That little boy that discovered back issues of Mutant Massacre, Infinity Gauntlet, Fall of the Mutants and just couldn't stop reading. That's what I am hoping Siege is; the first real saga in a LONG time that I not only enjoy, but rabidly await with excitement.


Thor #605.

As the Asgardians wage battle against Doom's grotesque abominations, Thor trades a couple of long-distance shots with "Doom" (Notice the quotation marks...) after his grand entrance at the end of Thor #604.

Thor turns his focus to aiding his fellow Asgardians outside the castle walls, ever glad to see his face. The brief peace that cessation of combat brings to the Asgardian's is shattered by "Dr. Doom" appearing above. He holds the dead body of Queen Kelda aloft (He ripped her heart out in a previous issue) and tosses her to the Asgardians below.

Enraged, Thor propels himself into the air and hurls an almighty blast toward "Doom". In the wake of the destruction, it is revealed to be a Doombot yet again. In the midst of all this, Loki had convinced his watchers to grant him attendance at the battle. He shows up and proposes that Kelda is not lost. He proposes that if Endrik could last for five minutes without a heart, an Asgardian Queen is surely not beyond saving. Heimdall uses his astral sight to locate the heart; three walls inside Doom's castle.

Thor epically states: "Three walls? THREE HELLS WILL NOT STOP ME!", and proceeds to bombard his way into the castle like an armoured version of Kool-Aid Man.

Doom doesn't appreciate this and tells him that it is the last piece of property he'll lay waste to in Latveria. Thor is struck from behind, causing him to fall in pain. This is where the plot thickens.

It turns out that Doom had been using Asgardian knowledge to research the Odin-created Destroyer armour (A truely formidable piece of battle kit. Google it). Having built it himself, he realised it was lacking one final piece...can you guess what? That's correct! An Asgardian heart.

Placing himself in the Destroyer armour, Doom ominously prepares to give Thor a fight, a fight quite possibly unlike one he has ever endured before.

Doom + the Destroyer armour = ALL KINDS OF MAYHEM. So epic.

I gotta say, Kieron Gillen is really impressing me on Thor and Billy Tan's art is truly evocative. Thor still looks like a bit of an armoured farmboy in the facial area, but he's also Thor.

I'm definitely gonna start adding this to my monthly regular buys. I was only buying it for Siege's lead-up, but now I'm actually hooked. Thor is another one who, like Captain America, I LOVED the idea of. I just never dug his comics, only his cameos in events.

J. Michael Straczynski and Kieron Gillen are doing for Thor what Ed Brubaker has done for Captain America; made me a believer.

---

That's about all I've got for you guys! I'm not expecting major views or comments because everyone's got more important shit to do than read this on a Christmas eve, but thanks anyway.

My next post will be...Thursday! Monday was going to be the day of my massive End of Year Awards post, but I just remembered that there aren't any new comics coming out next week besides Origins of Siege. This gives me more time to configure, draft, re-draft and edit my huge post. Keep your eyes peeled!

Seriously, guys and girls. If you wanna get into comics, NOW IS THE TIME. If you need help acquiring a Dark Reign/Pre-Siege checklist, get at me in the comment box.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS OUT ON MARVEL'S 2010 LINE-UP! I'M TYPING IN CAPS, YOU KNOW I'M SERIOUS/EXCITED WHEN I TYPE IN CAPS!

DISCLAIMER: The Mast and all affiliated subsidiaries reserve the right to deflect any blame or guilt if Siege and it's associated tie-ins turn out to be anti-climatic or, at worst, poor.

So, thank you for reading Thursday's Comics (24/12/2009) and I will catch you guys later! Have a brilliant Christmas, make it a good one and please, if you're going to drink or do any other substances...don't drive. Ok? Good.

Until then, peace.

-The Mast

The Mast Blogs: Deadpool & Me/A Christmas Competition!

Long post incoming!

I had originally planned to do this next year, but then I started bouncing various ideas around in my head and decided it was something I wanted to do now. I'm not sure why, but I was thinking about it and I decided that as his popularity is soaring higher than Keith Richards with wings, now is a good time to say: "I WAS THERE FIRST!". I'm speaking in jest of course, but you get the point.

The title is Deadpool & Me because I've slightly altered the idea of this post.

It was going to be a massively detailed retrospective on Deadpool's entire existence up until now, someone actually raised a point to me: "I think people would be more interested in what Deadpool means to you, how you discovered him and why you like him as opposed to reading things they can just Google.".

This is true, and without trying to be pretentious, people are a lot more likely to appreciate this character if they're told why he rules in contrary to a biography.

If you would like all the details, go here:

Deadpool's/Wade Wilson's Full Biography at The Marvel Database.

It really is a tragic story, something that is all too often ignored in the modern day.

Anyway, on with the post! If you want to read about the Christmas Competition, skip to the end.

With that said, here're the ins and outs of my reading relationship with this guy:


Deadpool.

I suppose I should just start from the beginning...



That is X-Force #2 (Vol. 1); my first experience with Deadpool. It was a LOOONG time ago, and I do mean a LONG time. We're talking EARLY '90s here, 1991 actually. It came not long after I first fell head-over-heels in love with comics as a whole, actually.

I don't know precisely why we were there, but my parents and I were at a friends' place for one of their semi-regular parties/get-togethers and I was upstairs hanging out with all the kids of the parents. The much older brother of one of them was a big comics buff, but I never had much exposure to them besides thumbing through them before on a few occassions. One day, I was permitted to read a few in depth. So, I thumbed through this huge stack of comics in detail for the first time and found myself agape at just how intense these things were.

One of the comics I read on that fateful night was X-Force #2. Despite the appearance being brief, something about Deadpool just hooked me and dragged me in. The way he moved and fought whilst simultaneously making corrosive and sarcastic jokes was amazing to me. Of course, I didn't GET the sarcasm and such at that point. I just saw it as a badass (Garrison Kane) fighting a badass (Deadpool) who was so unafraid of the other badass that he was making jokes at his expense. I was just thinking: "Dude is hardcore, making jokes while fighting a guy who just broke his jaw, and doing well!".

I had no means of buying my own comics at that point, but I read them whenever I could. Thankfully, the aforementioned person bought them regularly, so even at that age I had a semi-decent grasp of the storyline that would be happening in any given comic.



Eventually, those comics were handed down to me. I fell in love with The Silver Surfer, The Hulk and Daredevil most of all and these stuck with me to this day. Deadpool was different. Being that the guy I inherited all this comics from did not continue reading comics up until Deadpool had his first series, I lost touch with the character outside of the mini-series'(The Circle Chase and Sins of the Past).

It wasn't until the end of his first main series and the start of Cable & Deadpool that I started being able to read him again. Even then, it was through someone else who bought them. I wasn't a regular visitor to the West End until early 2000s due to my Mum not trusting me to go alone (I lead a sheltered life, amazing as it was), so I couldn't keep up.

Eventually, I started going down there with a friend and began to pick up whatever Deadpool issues I could. I was still amazed at how, in a few issues of reuniting with the character, I had a love for him unlike the comics I HAD been reading for all the years past.

That's why I had only recently finished my Deadpool collection, you see. I had read them, but never really owned them. Most of them anyway.

So, in a nutshell, that's how I ended up here with a love for this character beyond any character I've known. The degree to which I have an affinity for this character has actually caused people to associate me with him and him with me, which is flattering. I even plan to get his logo tattooed on my shoulder at some point.

After hearing all this, you must be asking: "David, you handsome carbon-based lifeform, why Deadpool?".



Something about Deadpool is truly unique. I don't know what it is, but it's there.

In this day and age it's cool and marketable to be some kind of brooding, at-war-with-yourself loner, but Deadpool was an anti-hero before anti-heros were spelled with a $ on the end. He wasn't the first, but he was one of the early ones of the '90s.

Deep down, Deadpool is like me. I never really relate to anybody or any thing as such, but Deadpool is definitely a character and idea that I can relate to now, and could relate to growing up.

He doesn't really like people, but the individual folks he values he would probably die for (If he could die). He is capable of deeply loving someone, and has done so before with depressing results. One of his truest loves was killed by Sabretooth, the other one continually rejected him in an on-going "Will they? Won't they?" dynamic. It's been bad.

As cliche as it is, for someone with a healing factor he is capable of being hurt the most by emotions. The latter love interest - Siryn, then from X-Force - always loved him as a friend, and a little more, but it never really took off. One day, Typhoid Mary took the form of Siryn and slept with Deadpool, only to insult him after waking up next to him and revealing it was all a game. After he asked why, she said: "Because I can.".

He wears a mask, but when you read that scene you can honestly see how badly it fucked him up. Everyone sort of sees me as this strong, emotionally-solid person, but that's where I've always been most vulnerable and where I've endured most of my pain; chicks. Every guy and girl can probably relate to an opposite sex story, somehow.

Deadpool does things and says things that not many would agree with, but he's over looking for acceptance. Underneath it all, he is morally grounded, or would like to be. For example, I think marriage is archaic, out-dated and needless. If anything, it shouldn't exist. Yet, since it does, it should be open to EVERYONE; gay or straight. See my point? Initially that's a premise that not a lot of people are fans of me for, but I'm all for supporting the right to do it.

Deadpool is similar in that sense. Sure, he goes around killing for money (USED to anyway) and that isn't exactly a moral thing to do, but he had limits and he had boundaries he wouldn't cross (No kids etc).

What I love most about the character is that he is so drastically unbalanced that he has come full circle to being mostly accepting of who and what he is. Deadpool yearns to be a hero, he really does. Nothing would make him happier than to see his name in lights, have his picture on a kid's shirt etc. Over the years, he's tried...but due to the way he does things he is always met with scorn, rejection or self-rejection upon realising that it's not who he is to be an out-and-out hero.



He's cool with that, though. Not happy with it, but accepting of it. The man is 100% at truce with what kind of person he is. He'll keep trying for a spot on the X-Men or The Avengers, and he'll keep getting rebuffed and eventually end up doing a job for money...but that's ok with him.

Most recently he showed that if he can't be a hero, he'll make himself look bad enough that others look good. Deadpool is a total contradiction; full of things that contradict each other, and that's what makes him interesting. On top of it all, when he signed up to get his healing factor in an attempt to cure the cancer he had, it left him trapped in a horrible scenario. Not only did HE get the healing factor, but so did his cancer. His healing factor is both the only thing keeping his cancer from killing him, and the only thing keeping it in his body, as it allows the cancer to heal.

If you want a story of how shit goes from bad to worse, there's not much more of a tragedy than Deadpool. In that sense, his triumph over this tragedy (That is living with it and having a life despite it) is one of the best success stories in comics.

That's what depresses me most about how he's being handled right now. If you just started reading Deadpool over the past year, you'd never, EVER know that he had such a layered and depressingly intricate past. You'd think he was just this funny ninja-type character who makes jokes and occassionally breaks the fourth wall (Which he doesn't even do much of now, if at all).

Deadpool's popularity is massive as of 2009/2010. He has gone from being a name nobody knew to a name that comics fans can't avoid, he's Marvel's new cash cow. On one hand it's good because it means his comics are easier to buy (Unlike in the '90s when I was trying to get them) and we get awesome toy commissions like THIS upcoming bad boy:



On the other hand...it's terrible how over-exposed he is now. The only reason I'm doing this post is because, besides my love of Deadpool, I'd rather you hear about him from a real fan.

He has three series' right now, and none of them are what Deadpool deserves. Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth is very fun, his main series has been mostly poor for the last six issues and Deadpool Team-Up is a chuckle at best. I'd trade three series' for one amazing series, I really would. I do not doubt that someone in Marvel's ranks could write the main series back to the glory days (Van Lente, Benson, Yost/Kyle), but that won't happen.

You know, it's up and down with regards to the question: "Is Deadpool's popularity a good thing?". It's not good, it's not bad, it just is. It's done more negative than positive right now, but that's something that cannot be helped. One of the main positives is that Marvel are now re-releasing all of the older series in trade paperback!

If you're interested in Deadpool at ALL, I swear you will not regret picking these things up. They're called Deadpool: Classic, there are three volumes so far and they're available at most comic stores or large bookstores I'd guess. Read Deadpool as he deserves to be read, guys. With a full-length feature film coming out in 2011, get on it before he gets even bigger.



It even feels weird saying that Deadpool has an actual big-budget Hollywood movie in production. Most of me is really scared it'll suck and bitter that he's so popular now, but if the movie rules...I'll be in there with a smirk in my heart, thinking to myself: "You made them see, sir. You made them see.".

---

That's my story of life with Deadpool, I suppose. I know this post was very long and VERY self-indulgent, but I did do it with educational purposes in mind. If you read it, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

As it's Christmas, I'm going to up the ante and have a competition here. I have a few spare Deadpool comics lying around, INCLUDING the first ever trade paperback of Sins of the Past, Deadpool's second ever mini-series (The two mini-series' came before he had an actual series).

If you can answer the following question in a comment, it's yours! Free of absolutely any charge. Bearing in mind, I have an insane amount of shit to post that won't get posted until the New Year, simply because Christmas post sucks. If waiting isn't an issue, and you DO win, you WILL get it.

Here's the question:

Deadpool has one of the most unconventional and disturbing celebrity crushes of all time; who is it?

If you answer this, by any means necessary, the book is yours.

Until next time, peace.

-The Mast

The Mast Reviews: Thursday's Comics (17/12/09).

Welcome!

Only four comics today, unfortunately. Well, I BOUGHT five, but one of those is Daredevil #503, and to review that I will need to do a retrospective larger then Angelina Jolie's lipgloss bill. I'll probably just start reviewing them at #504, before which I'll have done a sort of "Story So Far..." on Daredevil right now (Speaking of which, if Andrew reads this, stick Daredevil onto my subscriptions, please!).

Also, in a rare occurance, I FORGOT to buy a Deadpool appearance! In my defence, I hadn't checked The Deadpool Bugle in ages, so I missed out. It's X-Factor #200, which I'll probably get next week and may not review unless it's worth it.

So, with that said, onto the reviews!


Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth #6.

BADASS COVER! Can you say that? Say "BADASS COVER!". I'm just wondering how many more of my favourite movies they'll nail. I know they've done Jaws and Dawn of the Dead, with The Usual Suspects to be parodied next issue. Name the parody in THIS issue and get a free Deadpool comic for X-Mas!

So, after agreeing to take Headpool back to his own time by finding the portal he came from, Deadpool, Bill and Doctor Betty find themselves in, to the best I can figure, Louisiana. Wandering through the swamp they encounter Man-Thing and a bunch of Hydra agents.

A really badass looking Hydra agent says to Deadpool, basically: "We're taking the head and you're gonna die against me, one-on-one.". Deadpool swiftly hits him with a nuts shot and decapitates him. Do you see why this is my favourite Deadpool comic?

Priceless moment: Deadpool walking through the swamp and talking in the style of a Vietnam war veteran, telling the others to watch out for Charlie. I laughed, out loud.

I...love this series. I was so unsure and in fact, I was against it when I heard of a second Deadpool on-going. Now, it's my favourite of the series' that are being produced. It reads like a throwback, as I've said, to older action and exploitation movies. It's not in continuity, which is a damn shame because I want the MAIN series to rule. Regardless, I'll take what I can get.

If you can pick the first volume of this up when it gets release as a trade paperback, I HIGHLY recommend it.


Realm of Kings: Inhumans #2 of 6.

A bit of a slow issue, this one.

After The Mighty Avengers show up (One of two current good-guy Avengers groups, look it up) and help the Inhumans fight back the people trying to cause a ruckus, the Inhumans repay them with a less than thankful response.

Now that they have risen from being a rather hidden, reclusive race into beings that have taken control of their own destiny, they don't take kindly to help at all. AT ALL. The M.A. were there to allow Quicksilver to apologise for his identity being used to steal the terrigen crystals from them (His Skrull imposter during the Secret Invasion arc), but ended up helping in battle.

Queen Medusa thanks them, but tells them that if they want respect then they need to respect the work she is trying to do in running the Kree Empire now.

What she doesn't know is that there are Kree underworlders known plotting to remove them from power with a special device. This is where things start to heat up I suppose. Two major plot points begin to converge and it's going to get quite serious for the new Queen.

Besides the aforementioned plot point, we see an Inhuman space vessel venturing into The Fault (This IS a Realm of Kings tie-in, remember) in an attempt to figure out what's going on, and a revelation is made. They pick up a vocal signature on the scanner and when asked who it is, the conclusion is none other than Black Bolt! The presumed-dead King of the Inhumans and general cosmic badass powerhouse.

Is it the Black Bolt from the different timestream that we saw in Nova #31, or is it the REAL DEAL? TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO FIND OUT!

Nothing out of the ordinary here, standard Dan Abnett quality really. This IS a six issue mini-series so I won't hold it in a negative light that things haven't started up properly yet. This is looking good, though. I definitely recommend checking it out.


Captain America: Reborn #5 of 6.

Ater Civil War, Captain America (Who will be referred to as SteveCap) was assassinated, but he didn't die. Instead, the gun (Made by Dr. Doom) sent to freeze in space and time. Not all went as planned, however. The second shooter, Sharon Carter (Under the control of Red Skull) had a unexpected effect. The tachyon particles used in the gun reacted with her blood to unstick him in time, leaving him bouncing through reality and left to experience his past time and time again with no explanation or idea as to why.

Eventually, Sharon is captured by Doom and Skull who have captured SteveCap's body in connection with their original plan; to transplant the Red Skull into SteveCap's body. Eventually, SteveCap rises from the table and is revealed to be possessed by the Red Skull as planned.

If you want a more detailed synopsis, check either of the following links:

The Marvel Database's page on the series.

The Wikipedia page on the series.

This issue sees a couple of members from each Avengers team trying to take out the Red Skull as SteveCap watches from the period in time he is experiencing currently, which happens to be Nazi-fied New York City (Implying that the Nazi won the war and the Red Skull took over). After BuckyCap and Red Skull-in-SteveCap's-body fight in front of Abe Lincoln's statue, Red Skull severs BuckyCap's cybernetic hand and the last shot is of him about to decapitate BuckyCap with his own shield, all while SteveCap is screaming at him from inside his own body, unable to reach BuckyCap.

It's a VERY, VERY good...exciting series. The sad part is, it's ruined now. The series is SO late that all the other series in which the resurrected SteveCap was scheduled to appear in, have come out and spoiled it.

Again, this is a series I would highly suggest grabbing when it comes out in trade paperback form. Not least for Ed Brubaker's AMAZING writing. That guy is Marvel's best when he's on form, and he's on form here. He has transformed Captain America into a relevant icon and compelling character again. I salute him for it.


Dark Avengers #12.

This is and has always been one of my favourite on-goings, from the second it came out. This issue does nothing to dissuade this.

After surrendering to Molecule Man, Victoria Hand requests that he return everything back to how it was, restores the Dark Avengers and she won't tell anyone he is living here in secret.

This fails.

The surrender was a ruse and just as this angers Molecule Man, Sentry returns from the "dead", more powerful than ever and gets into a fight with him, telling him that he can now control ALL the molecules in his world (Whatever that means).He sends Molecule Man into throes of agony and forces him to do as he wishes before destroying him by exploding him on a molecular level. It's about time Sentry lived up to being as powerful as he's been hyped, and this was a good showing.

Osborn is slowly losing his grip and has been suffering side-effects as a result of Molecule Man poking around in his brain. He retreats to his chamber as Ms. Hand comes to check up on him, telling him and demanding him to go get his mental health checked out. He agrees, then goes back into his room. Upon the door closing, Osborn collapses to his knees and begs for someone to stop. We then see Loki appear rather viciously behind him, manipulating and torturing him somehow.

EVERYTHING is really starting to pick up right now and it's fucking AWESOME.

This is really making 2010 look SALIVATING for Marvel, it really does. Bendis doesn't have any stellar dialogue moments in this issue, but Deodato's art is some of the most solid in comics, and it's no exception here.

Additionally, keen-eyed obsessives will notice that the cover to this issue is a throwback to The Avengers #314, an old back issue. Props, Bendis.

There are still two Thursdays left in 2009, and I say roll on 2010.

---

My massive Deadpool and Daredevil retrospectives will NOT be up until January at least. They're massive and I'll probably start out the year with them. Deadpool is my most favourite character ever and Daredevil is up there, so be sure to check those out.

Keep a look out for that and I'll catch you all soon. Before I go...

"I've successfully privatised world peace.".

BEAUTIFUL. I think trailers show too much nowadays, and the end scene should have been saved for the movie, but I'll avoid them from now on.

Thanks for reading, guys.

Until next time, peace.

-The Mast

The Mast Looks Back: Vol. 2 (Clarity by Jimmy Eat World).

Welcome!

It's only been four days, but it feels longer. I haven't updated since Friday for two reasons:

1) I was trying to decide if I should give it a rest until the next edition of Thursday's Comics, and additionally I just wasn't sure what to review. I've got a few things planned that I didn't want to do yet, simply because they're big posts and I wanted a nice, compact post between now and Thursday.

2) Assassin's Creed 2 has been the fat, compulsive over-eating male to the cake that is my free time.

With that said, I was racking my brain trying to decide on an album to review when I finally decided on something, Clarity by Jimmy Eat World. It's an album that always tends to roll around in my listening habits during the end of the year, as well as holding a crapload of memories for me. So let me talk to you about it!


Clarity by Jimmy Eat World.

Jimmy Eat World happen to be a band that either people that know them love, or people that know them hate. Although, I've never met anyone who disliked then with any good reaso, it always seems to be that they "just don't". Regardless, they're not as dividing as some bands by virtue of the fact that they aren't really known on a major scale (At least not here).

I think the reason people dislike them is because they have a specific sound that's not easy to pin down with words. A lot of bands have, or had, adopted a similar kind of saccharine, uplifting musical aesthetic and it was received with backlash. I'm guessing this is what people can't get behind.

As of right now, J.E.W. (Not "Jew"!) have refined their sound and it definitely sounds more professionally produced and polished than their sound I'm going to be reviewing. They're still very much an amazingly capable band and one could argue that 2007's Chase This Light is their best - though, most recent - album, however, I don't think they've come quite close to topping this album in terms of its place in my heart.

Clarity has a very innocent sound to it. It's the sheer, unrefined dreamy and feathery sound that one expects from the band today. To my mind, I cannot easily recall another album that captures the spirit of just playing music for the love, as a young-ish band. Listening to this album, it really feels as though Jimmy Eat World have come of age in their later albums.

There are various lyrical themes on the album (One of the few albums where I sought out the lyrics), but to my general interpretation it seems to be a meditation of just what the title says; Clarity. Covering a broad spectrum of emotions, it sends the message that it doesn't matter what you feel or believe, so long as you believe it clearly.

This message, though stated in the lyrics (From what I personally interpret, feel free to see it another way), is most evident in the tone and sound of the music. The precise - if a little sparse - snare drum patterns that underpin each song provide a concise and steady bed for the interweaving and chimey guitars to dance over the top of it.

Songs like Lucky Denver Mint and Your New Aesthetic tend to follow the masterful pattern of having catchy and repetitive, yet memorable verses, only topped by the even more unforgetable nature of the choruses. Love or hate this band, even the most stern of critic can not deny that, if nothing else. Jimmy Eat World have mastered the memorable, sing-along chorus. There hasn't been a better band to do it since Weezer and The Beach Boys.

They have mastered it, like the two bands mentioned, in the best way possible. It's not trite or stale, it's the work of great musical craftsmen; men who are not afraid to gloss their rock-based music with the sheen of pop music and make it work. Pop is a dirty word to many, and it can indeed dirty a lot of good things. If used correctly, it unites people and becomes a language that we can all use. This is never more evident than on the epic and inspiring anthem, Believe in What You Want; to this day, one of my favourite songs of ALL time. I mean that and do not say it lightly.

Throughout this album you can expect to experience chimey guitars and echoey, understated keys, delicately wrapping a song at one moment, or exploding out of it at the next. The sound shifts from the magnificently uplifting call-and-response verses of Believe in What You Want and the pop sensibilities of Lucky Denver Mint, to the cheerfully-melancholic tones of A Sunday. The rampant, caution-to-the-wind happiness that exudes from Blister is second-to-none, but it's not in any of these areas that J.E.W. earn their greatest victories.

It's on minimal soundscape of the 12.23.95. as Jim Adkins' soft voice details regret at hurting a loved-one on Christmas, and the soaring masterpiece that is the 16 minute closer; Goodbye Sky Harbour. Sometimes there'll be nothing but a whispered vocal/backing vocal combo and wispy, echo-like guitar passages. Yet, it works like a dream.

Jimmy Eat World demonstrate a completeness and an understanding beyond almost ANY band doing the same thing, and yet they've always remained on the cusp of stardom.

Futures is probably their weakest album, yet it's still an album worth your money and time. Bleed American, Chase This Light and Static Prevails are all solid-to-amazing efforts in their own individual rights, to one degree or another. Clarity, though, has always been considered a high mark.

Overlooked upon it's release back in 1999, it was looked back on with a fondness that saw it become critically acclaimed and labelled as a masterpiece, landmark album of the '90s. Even the band themselves love this album so much that they played it in its entirity to commemorate the 10 year anniversary.

The production could be better, but I look at it like an old blanket. Sure, it has a hole in it, but would you REALLY ever want to change it?

I cannot recommend this album enough. It's truly a special piece of work.

Put it on, grab a warm drink when it's cold outside and just let yourself be taken to a place that not many albums will go. You won't be disappointed. Clarity by name, clarity by nature; there aren't many albums as clearly excellent as this.

---

Coming up in the near future I plan to do a Deadpool 101, a guide to the great band known as Killing Joke and of course, my massive end of 2009 post.

Keep it fixed to this blog, ladies and gentlemen.

Until next time, peace.

-The Mast