Characters of the Decade: Part 2

The first list was pretty heavy on animation, but this one mixes up the media a bit more and also features humans who aren't white males.

J. Jonah Jameson
J.K. Simmons - Spider-Man series


"Meat! I'll send you a nice box of Christmas meat. It's the best I can do, get out of here."

Honestly, this was the most exciting thing to see be brought to life in the first Spider-Man movie. Has there been a better comic relief character in the last decade of action movies? I can't think of one. Simmons has a unique asshole charisma that he can make work for seemingly any character, and this was the first time a lot of the world got to see it. While I don't think they quite nailed Peter Parker's personality, the personification of his most consistent detractor went off without a hitch.

Omar Little
Michael K. Williams - The Wire


"I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?"

I could name wonderful characters from this show all day if I wanted. Omar isn't necessarily my favorite, but he certainly tends to stick out more than the others. In the world where everyone seems to have an affiliation, he's pretty much out there on his own besides a revolving door of accomplices, playing the dangerous game of robbing criminals. A sort of perverse modern day Robin Hood who keeps it all for himself. While the majority of the show's cast is great because it seems so real, Marlo is great because he's a legend in his own time. Nothing quite clears the streets of Baltimore like hearing the call "Omar comin'!"

Yorick Brown
Y: The Last Man


"In the words of Thomas Jefferson... that's bullshit."

Being the last man on Earth is a large weight to carry, and luckily Yorick's up to the task. It's definitely an unusual situation for a person to be in, and he manages with the right combination of heroism and hopelessness to make him a definite protagonist but still very vulnerable and in need of the health. He makes his share of mistakes, but through the whole story he never loses his sense of humor or humanity. And while I wasn't a big fan of the epilogue, the conclusion of his personal journey was pretty perfect.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds
Nathan Fillion - Firefly franchise


"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

Another case where I could almost name anyone in the cast and justify putting them here, but as the leader of the crew Mal always stuck out. A true outlaw smuggler with a heart of gold in the tradition of Han Solo, Mal is perhaps an even better version. He does what it takes to get by, with lethal force if necessary, but in the end has what's ultimately good always on his mind. He's a bit inconsistent, sticking with his principles in some cases but running if it makes sense in others. But that's part of what makes him likable. He's unpredictable, funny, and a pleasure to watch command a ship.

Brock Samson
Patrick Warburton - The Venture Bros.


"Hank, seriously. When I get my license back I'm allowed to kill you."

It speaks to the show's quality that the recent half season was still totally great even with Brock being elsewhere for most of the episodes, but he's definitely the most fun character to see do his thing. He's the ultimate death machine, a badass with an actual license to kill and unending willingness to use it. But even when he's not on a rampage he's a lot of fun. His familial relationship with his unorthodox family, unexpected extracurricular interests, and uncommon understanding of the insane cartoon world he lives in are all big parts to the character and how he stays interesting beyond going on murder sprees.

Caleb
Nathan Fillion - Buffy the Vampire Slayer


"What can I say? I work in mysterious ways. Also some fairly straightforward ones."

And here's Fillion again already, fresh off Firefly's cancellation. I could watch him in almost anything, with his unending supply of sarcastic nice guy charisma. But this is the only time I've seen him play a true villain, and damn if he isn't good at that too. Caleb doesn't have a ton of screen time, but he's probably my favorite bad guy in a series that prided itself on strong antagonists. With a single push of a finger (well, thumb) he secured his place in infamy, and there's just something about his religious background, rampant misogyny and disarming accent that make him a lot more terrifying than any vampire or demon Joss Whedon could conjure.

George Oscar Bluth
Will Arnett - Arrested Development


"No, Michael, that's not my trick. It's my illusion!"

Arrested Development is basically the definition of a great ensemble comedy cast, but GOB was basically in a league of his own. I'm sort of getting the feeling at this point that this is the only character Arnett actually plays, but damn if it isn't an entertaining one, and it works all the better here with his unusual interests, perspective, and motives. The show was absolutely littered with transcendent moments, and GOB had more than his fair share.

Oh Dae-su
Choi Min-sik - Oldboy


"Anyone here with an AB blood type, raise your hand."

If you watch this movie again, Oh Dae-su isn't even recognizable in the first scene as some drunk at a police station. 15 years alone in a room will change anybody, but Min-sik totally sold hit in his complete transformation into who he'll be for the rest of the movie. The thing that drew me to finally seeing it was a particular action scene, but that's not really what the character's about. It's about what unbelievable circumstances can do to a man, but how at his core there's still the same guy who can still be hurt, no matter how hard his exterior's gotten. And while his final decision is somewhat mortifying, in a way I can't blame him.

Colonel Saul Tigh
Michael Hogan - Battlestar Galactica


"So take your piety and your moralizing and your high minded principles and stick them some place safe... I've got a war to fight."

Tigh is an interesting case, as a pretty good character who didn't become great until circumstances forced him to. He was always an entertaining cranky old guy with a strong sense of duty and a bit of a drinking problem, but when he's thrust into the position of leading a resistance movement by any means necessary, he really starts to shine. Ugliness is what makes pretty much any of the Battlestar characters interesting, and his decisions under stress are as hideous as they come. Of course he changes quite a bit in another way later, and it just adds to his depth as he just tries to come to grips with it all. Most of the show's cast is sort of hard to like, but Tigh was actually easy in a strange sort of way.

Illyria
Amy Acker - Angel


"I wish to do more violence."

Illyria's here half because of the character, and half because it was so mind blowing to see cute, neurotic Acker transform into the embodiment of pure, sentient power. It's really a surprising amount of range, and she pulls it off without a hitch. It's definitely a good character too, one of the few in the whole setting to subvert the normal expectations for the appearance of what's basically a newly awakened, vengeful god. One of the greatest shames in the show's cancellation is not seeing more of her. I guess I could read the comics, but it won't be the same without Acker's performance.

Al Swearengen
Ian McShane - Deadwood


"I wouldn't trust a man who wouldn't try to steal a little."

If you look up "tour de force" in the dictionary, you'll see a definition that accurately describes what Ian McShane did for three years on Deadwood. The show was more theatrical than cinematic in the stateliness and brilliance of its dialogue, and nobody presented it as well as he did. I think I would watch a show that was just him giving speeches to an empty room. That wasn't all there was to the character either, as he was equal parts hilarious and terrifying as he fought for control of the town he helped build. Absolute dynamite the entire time.

Brick Tamland
Steve Carell - Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy


"Yeah, there were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident."

One of the few supporting appearances in a comedy that basically stole the whole film and launched a career. Carell was funny on The Daily Show and The 40-Year-Old Virgin and The Office certainly helped, but I think Anchorman is when people everywhere thought to themselves, "Man, this guy's funny." Honestly, of all the movie's funny bits, Bricks are pretty base and low brow, but still humorous and important to the continuing development of what's considered funny in mass popular culture.

Continued tomorrow.

Y: The Last Man, Book 10: Whys and Wherefores

Y's final volume doesn't end the story in a way that I expected or could really be totally happy with, but it did it in its own way, fitting with how the whole comic has gone, and well enough to make being disappointed hard. It really just doesn't compromise for the sake of typical story expectations. It ends a lot less violently and action packed than I would have thought, and in some ways the resolution of all the characters makes a lot of the story seem like a waste of time, at least initially. One result of everything that goes down in particular was just weird and unsettling. But it works. After the five issue final arc, there's a longer epilogue in the future that does a solid job of tying up all the loose ends, even if you're not a fan of how they get tied, although I'm not a fan when epilogues try to shove information about characters into dialogue instead of just showing what happened. I guess it saves time, but it's rarely natural. Either way, Y doesn't do it too poorly and the last few pages are a pretty perfect way to finally finish one of the best stories I've seen in this form.

Y: The Last Man, Book 9: Motherland

The penultimate volume of the last man on earth's attempt to reunite with his old girlfriend is the most exposition-heavy yet, as we learn a ton about what happened leading up the plague, although it still isn't really clear what exactly caused it. Although what is clear is that that's not the important part, what matters is how society manages to keep going after the fact. Besides the main storyline, there are a couple issues returning to secondary characters from earlier in the series, and those go into how the world is continuing to deal with the loss of half of its workforce, including most of the people with real power. The main story is why I'm reading the damn thing though, and it's a nice mix of bizarre science fiction-esque twists, solidly done action, and genuine human emotion. A couple moments made me roll my eyes, but a few lines also reminded me that the whole thing was written with the tongue at least a little inside the cheek. It's still a really entertaining book, and I couldn't help but tear through the last one before I sat down to write this.

Y: The Last Man, Book 8: Kimono Dragons

In the second half of this series, Goran Sudzuka has done about as much pencil work as co-creator Pia Guerra, but it's hard to even notice, as his style meshes perfectly with hers. The art continues to look great, and remains a huge part of the comic's appeal. But I'm not reading for the pictures, the story's still the most important part. The eighth volume manages to develop the plot further while still featuring some entertaining action and humor, something that haven't quite happened perfectly earlier in the series. In addition to the main plot about recovering a monkey, there are a couple more issues with backstory on supporting characters. They've done a pretty good job of developing all the interesting people that pop up and keeping it relevant to the point of the story. It's a unique tale, with lots of strange elements, like ninjas, pleasure robots, and a mob run by a Canadian pop star, just in this book. But behind the outlandish cover, there's a lot going on. I might just be reiterating myself, but it's basically the perfect encapsulation of comic books as a medium. Only two more volumes left, and I can't wait to see how this ends.

Y: The Last Man, Book 7: Paper Dolls

Y has been enjoyable all the way through, but for a few volumes in the middle it seemed like I was only getting snippets of the real story in the background while the main characters were content to get kidnapped and fight people a lot. You could tell there was more there, Vaughan just hadn't shown it yet. But Paper Dolls is the first book in a while where we start to get a good look at the (wo)man behind the curtain and get a much better taste of why this is all happening. A lot of the details about why everything that's happened has happened the way it did, and it's made the story a lot more gripping. I've lost some sympathy for Yorick for various reasons, but I got some of it back seeing his renewed devotion to his personal mission and some more of his character. It's important in a story like this for him to be a really interesting character, and for better or worse, he is. 355 also gets her own flashback issue, and it's certainly worth reading. The most important issue is one about a monkey though, explaining how Ampersand came to be Yorick's monkey. Everything's starting to come to a head, and I hope to see how it ends as soon as reasonably possible.

Y: The Last Man, Book 6: Girl on Girl

Girl on Girl is one of the shortest volumes so far and not much happens in it, but that doesn't make it not as entertaining as the rest of the book. The story jumps forward in time quite a bit, skipping periods of travel to show the important confrontations that happen in between. But the main story here happens while the characters are traveling across the ocean by freighter, and quite a few things occur on the way to keep it exciting.

I like how Y plays to a lot of the cliches of the action genre, either playing it straight or subverting them, like when a character shoots an explosive tank, causing it to blow up of course, and another asking her incredulously how she managed to hit such a small primer charge. Yorick's willingness to get physical with people he meets bothers me a bit, since his whole motivation for going on this journey is to find his girlfriend, but given the circumstances it's understandable and it's clear they're setting up something with some teases at what could happen. There's another bit of backstory to his relationship, and I often find the flashbacks to be the most interesting part of the story. The writing and great art continue to drive me towards the conclusion. Did you know Vaughan has been a writer on Lost since late in season 3? That's pretty cool.

Y: The Last Man, Book 5: Ring of Truth

The fifth volume begins with a couple shorter stories, including a nice, deeper look at Hero, Yorick's troubled sister, before jumping into the meat of perhaps my favorite little story arc so far. Ring of Truth combines all the best aspects of the comic, with great writing, nice action, some big plot revelations, and more good character stuff. I don't like going into much detail about any of the stories because Y is such a fast read that doing so would take away from part of the appeal. Everything is so concise and efficient that the only thing you'd get out of reading it if you knew the important plot points is the style. That could come off as a put down, but it isn't, the comic just simply gets things done without nonsense. This volume does explain more about Yorick's survival, and as could be expected, it's not without a sense of humor or irony with regard to the real reasons for things. If Y took itself completely seriously it would be utterly preposterous, but as it is, it's a sometimes poignant comic that's usually just a hell of a lot of fun. And I still really, really like Guerra's art. It's not flashy, but that's never what I liked about comics. I'm a little past the halfway point now, and there's no turning back.

Y: The Last Man, Book 4: Safeword

Volume 4 contains two stories, the titular "Safeword", which reveals a lot more about Yorick than we ever knew before, and "Widow's Pass", penciled by Goran Parlov. You can always tell when a drawing wasn't done by regular artist Pia Guerra because Dr. Mann's features are way more obviously Asian. Anyway, the two stories are pretty different, focusing on two different aspects of the tale. The first is cerebral, and the second is action movie stuff. They're both really good, although the first was more interesting to me because it's not something you see a lot in comic books.

"Safeword" is as adult as the comic's gotten, at least in our culture's puritanical view of sex as more inappropriate for children than violence. It doesn't really get close to exploitative, but it's a little out there. I don't know why I keep bringing up the fact that Y is written for adults. It's kind of hard to make a full blog post about just six or so issues of a comic within a larger story. Anyway, the book's still on track. "Widow's Pass" is a pretty solid example of the comic's less subtle side, and it also has an important moment for Yorick. There's a pretty iconic image of him I've seen before, and seeing the scene that inspired it was pretty interesting. The book ends with another tease of what's to come, and I'm still on board.

Y: The Last Man, Book 3: One Small Step

I just found out the co-creator and penciler of Y, Pia Guerra, is a woman. It kind of makes the whole book make a little more sense. The Last Man, written by Mary Shelley, author of the original Frankenstein novel, has basically the same premise as Y and clearly served as inspiration. It is referenced in the second, smaller storyline contained in this third volume, which is drawn by guest Paul Chadwick and features the first nudity in the series, and is about a troupe of actors that decided to make a play based on the same idea, again. Certain elements of the play they make caused me to wonder if a woman had any input on this story, which focuses so much on the differences between men and women in society. The fact that one did makes me feel a little better, I guess.

That storyline was mostly a small break from the heart of Yorick's strange and fun trip through a woman-filled apocalypse, though. The third book properly introduces another important, tough Government operative who happens to be beautiful, and she joins the first we met as they fight against the second over control of the last man in existence. He might not be though, as we learned in a teaser at the end of the last volume. It's more pulpy, clever entertainment, although it's not the comic book that's going to convince the world that comic books are high art. It's an extremely well done action movie that may or may not actually work as a film when they get around to making the adaptation soon. They're also doing a film of Shelley's Last Man, which could cause some confusion whenever these things come out. The social commentary is a little obvious, but at least it's branching out from just women's rights to things like the purpose and necessity of war. Firefox' spellchecker is now telling me that "women's" is not a word, which is fucking preposterous. In any case, Y: The Last Man is still a good comic and I will continue to read it.

Y: The Last Man, Book 2: Cycles

It's been a while since I read the first volume, but the summary in the beginning brought me back up to speed, and I quickly ran through the five issues of Cycles in less than an hour. Vaughan's writing is so good and Pia Guerra's artwork so clean that it's hard not to just burn through the pages. I got two volumes at once this time to hold me for a little longer, but I'm already about to grab a couple more to satiate me. I may already be addicted after less than a year's worth of stuff. I like experiencing things as they're released, but there are advantages to waiting until they're finished and going at your own pace.

To be honest, I found the actual content of the main plot in this book to be a bit silly, and I was disappointed to see Yorick stray from the right path so early in his journey, but I still found it entertaining and smartly done. The quality of the dialogue and pacing just make the slightly kitschy plot work very well. There's an edge to the one-liners and repartee that's just unlike any thing else I've read. They reference a lot of pop culture, and it's not cheap jokes about things everyone knows, they're often obscure lyrics or quotes that just add a lot of enjoyment for people who catch them. There's a lot of cursing, but it never seems gratuitous, and neither do the other adult elements. Cycles hints at future developments and has some good twists here and there, including one that appears to be the subject of the next book, which I'll be reading shortly.

Y: The Last Man, Book 1: Unmanned

I've pretty much grown out of super heroes, but I can still appreciate a comic with a good story. Vertigo, which is owned by DC, publishes more mature, unique books, including my favorite, Preacher. I heard about the unique Y: The Last Man, checked out the first issue online which immediately interested me, and got the first trade paperback. It's a bit skimpy for my tastes, including only the first five issues, but it's still the beginning of a truly interesting story.

One day, every male mammal on the planet drops dead, except for two: a guy named Yorick and his pet monkey. Much of the planet is devastated, as the women who are left to struggle to bring order to a world that's seen disaster and is now filled with a lot of crazy people. Just in the first book, Yorick has run-ins with militant Republican wives demanding their husbands' government seats and radical feminist extremists. There are multiple plotlines going on at once as he tries to help figure out what happened and how humanity can be saved while hoping to eventually reunite with his girlfriend who was in Australia at the time of the incident. The art's pretty attractive and it's definitely the beginning of a tale I'm probably going to want to see through to the end.