Reflections on Y: The Last Man

Yesterday I finally finished reading Y: The Last Man (I Know, I'm behind the times). While I enjoyed the entirety of the series, I was especially impressed with the epilogue. The choice to go with bittersweet was a good one, and raised, in my mind, the literary value of the series significantly. In fact, I was so impressed with the last pages of Yorick's story that it made some of the larger problems with the series that much more transparent.

Since I started reading the Y trades months ago and began discussing them with my upstairs neighbor (and hopefully future DorkCollective blogging partner) one of my points of contention has been the art. It suffices, and is certainly better than other books I've read in recent memory. I can't help but find it a bit dishonest, however, that almost every woman in the series is portrayed as a 30-year-old model (Super Model, in some cases). Passage of time be damned, the only thing that really changes on the characters in these books is the length of their hair.

While the art is one of my main contentions, I think it's important to spread the blame evenly across writer and artist. Specificities in the writing, including nuance in spoken language, could have forced the artist to consider the fact that a woman's age reflects in more than the color of her hair. I can only recall a small handful of women who were instantly recognizable as being older than most, but even those occasionally fell into using the same pop-culture references as Yorick (who is in his 20s).

Even the Daughters of the Amazon who disfigure themselves have nary a flaw. Perhaps Vaughan and Guerra were drawing inspiration from 1950s pulp sci-fi comics and film wherein the plot almost always devolved into male fantasy. That may explain the large number of lesbian acts depicted and discussed. It doesn't dismiss the fact that every woman shown had the same face shape to coincide with their plucked eyebrows.

I know. I know. It's a comic book. The presupposed demographic of readers is apparently drawn in by that sort of thing. I can't help but feel, however, that ten years down the road when I pick up an issue of Y: The Last Man I may be troubled by the gratuitous shots of heaving bosoms on tiny muscular women.

Fortunately, the story significantly outweighs the art in Y: The Last Man. The last issue in particular shows Guerra's true skill. When forced to draw characters as older, the choices in their appearance were much more interesting. The Abercrombie catalog physique was dismissed, and replaced with a mentally and physically weathered Yorick and Ampersand. A beautiful way to end such an epic tale.

A Spore Post Not About DRM

I haven't played Spore myself, but I've watched my wife play it plenty. In fact, as I type this, she's making her fourth or fifth trip through the game and seems intent on not letting up until she's experienced everything the game has to offer. I do not foresee that happening anytime soon, however. You see, my wife has discovered the wonders of downloading and importing creatures, buildings, and vehicles that other players have generated in their own time with the game. Her universe is now populated with icons from the Harry Potter and Star Wars universes.

For most players, this wouldn't bother them. In fact, I believe most will see it as a selling point. "You mean my creatures can fly around in an X-Wing? Schwing!" But for me, I can't help but be boggled thinking about the ramifications of incorporating characters from popular media into the game.

Spore is a cultural artifact itself. To take this significant game (It is a Will Wright creation! Say what you will, it's still important.) and transform it into a repository for other iconic members of the popular culture encyclopedia seems akin to God building an island and forcing his favorite things to live there.

Her planes are little Quidditch players on brooms for crying out loud.

The reasons this notion has perplexed me are varied:

1. This is going a step further than a player simply naming a character after something they like. Instead of calling their pixilated equivelant WolverineXX3, they're actually generating the character to carry its likeness and then letting it reproduce and attempt to eat their babies. Really, if Wolverine is in Spore, he will eat your babies.

2. Just like encountering your friends' Mii's while playing Wii Fit, having these creations in your world seems, to me, to only serve as a reminder of other things going on in your life-be it movies you could be watching, comic books you could be reading, or CDs you could be listening to (if you still listen to CDs), these items will distract and take you out of the experience of playing the game. Imagine if you were playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance and you suddenly had to fight Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. The result, as is the case with anything Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson related, would not be cool.

3. While broadening the experience of Spore, the ability to include other pop culture icons actually limits it. The surprises head out the window when you micromanage every evolution in your world. It's like biting into a Kinder Egg knowing what you're going to find. Seeing an AT-ST is cool, but doesn't lend itself to any surprises. That is, until the damn thing eats your babies.

I know the God Game genre relies heavily on manipulating your world, and Spore, truly is the embodiment of that mission. I still feel that too much customization can take away from the experience, and create unreasonable expectations for players in the future.

I recall a time, four years ago, when I was playing City of Heroes and ran into a gang of folks who'd rolled characters identical to the Fantastic Four. I can't recall my character’s garb, but I can guarantee I'd made a concerted effort to be unique. After all, if you're going to be your own hero, or create your own world for that matter, why would you want it to be modeled after someone else's?