The Ballad of Halo Jones, Volume 1
Feb. 13th, 2022 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losFinished reading the first Halo Jones collection. It used a neat team dilation concept to flesh out its Vietnam war analogue arc. While highly critical of the war, the story sort of did that thing 2000 AD sometimes falls into where nothing is ever about UK imperialism, let's all go look at America! This was an antiwar treatment, but its emphasis was always primarily on white subject(s). In that atmosphere, even if the war as a project is being criticised it can seem as though the problem is primarily that this particular invasion is a shitty, unsuccessful field trip.
There is a lot Happening with the trans nb character in the second arc, but it feels extremely like Alan Moore has never so much as chatted with a trans person at this point.
Really a mixed bag. I can see why people say it's a blatantly feminist piece, they're not wrong. That's perhaps its greatest strength.
Ratwar delivered in a satisfying way. (The dog thing shocked me, wtf.) There was a queer psychological intensity (combined with a floaty detachment) to the double-betrayal of the love affair with the war-criminal general. I'm not sure how seriously we're supposed to take the idea that the dolphins aren't at all culpable for the war--that's an interesting wrinkle. Oh and bloody of course we introduce a lesbian theme only to kill said lesbian off inside the same story. You lose some, you lose some.
There is a lot Happening with the trans nb character in the second arc, but it feels extremely like Alan Moore has never so much as chatted with a trans person at this point.
Really a mixed bag. I can see why people say it's a blatantly feminist piece, they're not wrong. That's perhaps its greatest strength.
Ratwar delivered in a satisfying way. (The dog thing shocked me, wtf.) There was a queer psychological intensity (combined with a floaty detachment) to the double-betrayal of the love affair with the war-criminal general. I'm not sure how seriously we're supposed to take the idea that the dolphins aren't at all culpable for the war--that's an interesting wrinkle. Oh and bloody of course we introduce a lesbian theme only to kill said lesbian off inside the same story. You lose some, you lose some.
