The Hundred Thirty-Fifth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

It's not just the characters who enjoy racial slurs - the narrator loves getting in on the action as well!

The Hundred Thirty-Fourth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Check it out - another in my semi-infrequent series of diagrams depicting things that aren't complicated enough to require diagramming!

The Hundred Thirty-Third Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Isn't it nice that being dead hasn't kept him from enjoying the little things, such as train explosions!

I Hate Indiana Jones: Day 72

Indiana Jones and the Accidental Trailblazer

It’s no surprise that half of the fun of this type of high adventure movie is watching the characters discovering lost civilizations and ancient cities. In world that’s essentially been mapped (save for the Oceans. And Thule) it’s a romantic idea to imagine that there still are mystical peaks and valleys that haven’t yet been seen by modern humanity. It's kind of hard to believe these conceits in modern-age fiction, our world of satellite topography and long-range helicopters has long since killed any notion that there could be a Shangri-la hiding in a mountain range somewhere, even something as basic as Man-Who-Would-Be-Kingistan has been debunked as pure fantasy.

This is why we love adventure films sent in the recent past. The technology and culture is familiar enough that we can easily imagine ourselves there, but the characters’ overall knowledge of the world is less depressingly complete than our own, so their willingness to chase the fantastic can seem admirable, rather than naïvely quixotic. It’s not like this is a recent trend in fiction, either. Even Alan Quatermain was adventuring half a century before his stories were penned.

One of the key elements that make this ‘lost civilization’ storyline so compelling is the way it sidesteps our own history. Always worried about plausibility, the storyteller has to go to extreme lengths to offer an explanation for how these people have gone undiscovered by humanity and untouched by progress. There’s a certain curiosity that the horizon generates in the human mind. Who’s to say what’s just over that next ridge, deeper into the woods, or just behind that mountain range? Why couldn’t it be an ancient city built entirely out of gold?

Intellectually we know that there aren’t any mysteries left, and that, within out own experiences, we’ll never uncover something ancient and mysterious. That’s why it’s so vitally important that this discovery, when presented in adventure fiction, come at some price. If the struggle that the characters must go through in order to find the underground empire isn’t extreme, then where’s the satisfaction in the discovery?

Consider the Well of Souls in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy has to go to Nepal to track down the key to its discovery, then carefully sneak right under the Nazis’ noses in order to confirm its location. Or the final resting place of the Grail in Last Crusade – it’s established that Sean Connery spent his entire adult life looking for information about its location, and then Indy has to struggle through a setpiece in the Venice sewers to obtain the final clue.

Compare that to Indy and company’s journey to the Valley of the Plastic Prop in this film. First off, just to reiterate, he’s not discovering anything lost to history. John Hurt already did that, but he’s not a whole lot of help just now, what with him being crazy and all. So what does Indy have to do to retrace John Hurt’s steps? Does he have to decode bizarre things the man says? Not really. Find a key to decoding a map that John Hurt makes? Nope.

All he accomplishes is getting kidnapped by the Russians who place him in a convoy, which quickly turns into a chase sequence, as Indy and company find themselves racing through a suspiciously paved jungle. During this chase sequence no one is consulting any maps, or paying any particular attention to the direction they're headed in. One group wants to escape with the skull, and the other wants to stop them. Yet somehow this chase sequence terminates with the characters all arriving at a river approximately five hundred yards from the mysterious city lost to the mists of time.

How did it stay an undiscovered legend for so long? Apparently no one had bothered to walk in a straight line through the jungle before. Fancy that.

The Hundred Thirty-Second Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

This panel, like the horse featured in it, speaks for itself.

The Hundred Thirty-First Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

I think it's the sentence construction that's confusing me this time around. 'Really Was Murdered' suggests that rather than idle threats ("I'm gonna kill that ump!") someone actually killed the man. 'Was Reaaly Murdered' just brings to mind a man being killed an especially significant amount.

The Hundred Thirtieth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Before this panel I didn't know that the gong thing was a real talent show device before the Gong Show.

Criminal Minds 724: Run

When last we left the team, Emily had run into a bank just before it exploded. For no reason. Jr and the two bank robbers were in the basement, possibly sheltered from the effects of the blast. Will either of them survive? My money's on both, but I guess we'll see!

After one of those annoying audio things where the television tries to deafen me by playing a loud high-pitched whine to simulate the after-effects of a bomb blast on the inner ear, the team runs into the building to check if anyone survives. They don't let paramedics and firemen do this, once again, for no good reason.

As they enter, there's a corpse lying on the floor that I don't recognize-

That's a blonde woman in a brown or maroon dress. I'm not sure why she's there. The people who were shot inside the bank were: White Male Security Guard, Black Father, White Male Bank Manager, White Male FBI Agent, Jr. Jr's in the basement. Everyone else charged out of the bank before the blast, so whose corpse is this? I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't in the bank with the hostages earlier.

A search of the premises reveals another corpse, this one a black woman with long hair. She was, in fact one of the bank employees in the previous episode. I guess she just didn't bother leaving with everyone else while the place was unguarded? Why not?

Xander and Reid see footage of the explosion on Xander's computer, which causes Reid to utter the Prentiss Award-Winning line of the night



Yes, because if there's one place that a technical analyst is most likely to be helpful, it's away from his computer. Genius!

After a shot of King running away through the underground, Joe announces that this wasn't a suicide pact, but rather the bomb was meant to cover an escape. He points out that 'you don't learn explosives overnight', which doesn't have anything to do with anything - one of the members of the team is a professional criminal and murderer, and she's had over seven months to teach the other two whatever they needed to know. Also, the working theory is that they just burst a gas main to full up the main floor with gas, which doesn't actually require 'explosives training'.

Inside the bank Emily is revealed to be fine - she's discovered the elderly couple of hostages, who hid inside the bank rather than trying to escape when King left. Perhaps they've been hiding the whole time? Derek and JJ head downstairs to look for Jr, but find instead the hole in the wall that the Royal Flush gang escaped through. King manages to get to a car just outside the building and drive it away because the cops set a half-block cordon around the crime scene. I'm not sure why. He takes the precaution of driving a black SUV with police lights, but still, there should be a roadblock he has to get through, shouldn't there?

Where are Queen and Jr? I guess we'll find out after the opening credits!

The Hundred Twenty-Ninth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Do fat people not have nerves? Is this a prejudice with which I'm not familiar?

Criminal Minds 723: Hit

It's morning in the nation's capital, but the show decides to focus on a reddish sun over the captial dome, so that morning isn't an optimistic one. We cut immediately over to JJ's house, where it's her day off! She and her son say bye to Jr., who heads off to work with his partner. He's a local cop, in case anyone's forgotten.

Then we cut over to Greg, whose girlfriend drops by to spend a little time with him and his son. Gosh, this is all so bucolic that everyone's day off absolutely has to be ruined by a terrible tragedy. Thanks for the telegraphing, Criminal Minds.

Things get super-awkward at the local convention center, when Garcia and Reid, who have dressed up as two Doctors-

Run into Xander and a friend, dressed as Doctor and Amy.

Yikes. Garcia immediately cancels her plans to go inside, such is the awkwardness created by her refusal to marry Xander. During their flee they run into Joe, who was at the center for a different event (or so he claims...). No, he was clearly there for something else.

It seems it's a hotel/convention centre, and their boss is leaving after an overnight assignation, probably with Joe!

Man, this episode is packed with incident and we're not five minutes in! Are they finally just going to give us a crime-free hangout episode of Criminal Minds?

There's more hanging out, this time with Emily and Derek, who are inspecting the new house she was planning to buy. She's having second thoughts because she doesn't want to commit to anything, and Derek encourages her to waffle. Because he's sensitive!

Then the plot starts to intrude, as criminals prepare to rob a bank. We see some happy people and a mother with baby enter the bank just as things are about to go down, so this is clearly going to turn into a hostage situation. Their plan was to walk in maskless, then shoot the guard before putting their masks on. I'm not sure this is a great plan. Are they going to wipe the security system? Hopefully it doesn't record offsite...

The Royal Flush gang's scheme is going just fine when someone calls the cops - and guess whose car is just outside? Man, they'd better not kill off Josh Stewart. His brief appearances are one of the few reasons I keep watching the show. Also, the promise that Xander will turn up from time to time. This is actually a great episode for me, come to think of it.

The gang tries to leave via the side door, but find Jr and his partner waiting. The partner is shot in the head (classy, show), but Jr manages to return fire, wounding one and driving him back into the bank. Things are about to get nasty... right after the credits!

The Hundred Twenty-Eighth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

So he can tear steel asunder with his bare hands, but when under a net he needs a child to chew through the rope? Is Uncle Same just humouring the kid sidekick to make him feel useful.

Boo's rampant discontinuity!

In addition to its other flaws, Boo is notable for some incredibly prominent discontinuity. Check out this brief sequence of shots.



Now let's break it down!

Criminal Minds 722: Profiling 101

We open on Joe sitting outside, going over a list of scratched-off names - all women. The list has 40 typewritten names on it, and a 41st added in pen. Might that be significant? Greg shows up to escort the distracted Joe to some kind of a large gathering where the whole team is waiting. Joe's so flustered he has to splash water on his face first. What's making this class he's going to lecture in front of so stressful?

The team announces that they're going to be talking about what makes a serial killer. They show two women from different backgrounds and classes, saying that they couldn't be more different-

(Other than the whole thin and pretty thing, I guess)

The one thing they had in common? Crossing paths with 'the most profilic serial killer the BAU has ever seen'! Wow, so they're starting an episode talking about Frank? That's amazing! This show basically never references earlier cases, so I'm excited about the twist.

The team talks about how this killer probably grew up in a monstrously abusive household, but that people shouldn't be prejudiced against the monstrously abused, since they don't all become killers. Joe furthers his point by saying 'not all' psychopaths become killers, as if that's some kind of revelation. The vast majority of psychopaths don't become killers, Joe - you should know that.

Okay, so it turns out they were lying about the 'most prolific' thing. The killer they're talking about is still out there, and he butchers women up and down the California coast. But he's only got 40 victims so far, and Frank was well into 3 digits. Still, the team thinks this is a good case to use, although I'm not sure why, since you can't talk about someone's past definitively until you know what it is, and they apparently haven't caught this one yet. I guess we'll find out what they mean (and why Joe was freaked out) after the opening credits!

How To Ruin Your Own Movie - The Barrens Edition

The Barrens opens with an important reminder of Count Vardulon's Rule of Vacations - Don't go on one with either of the Ashmore brothers. It's not going to go well for any of you. In this case, Shawn and his girlfriend are out in the Pine Barrens, walking off the official trail when they come across a pile of torn-apart animal corpses.

Things get even more unpleasant when a mortally wounded deer bolts out of the woods and collapses right on the trail - no doubt it was fleeing from whatever left the huge pile of bodies.

Then the teaser ends with a shadow passing over the girlfriend's face as she looks up and sees something enormous flying over her head. The implication is clear - there's a monster in these woods slaughtering animals, and the two of them are next!

The Hundred Twenty-Seventh Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

War or no war, everybody likes to sleep in.