First Death 2
Jan. 10th, 2008 01:17 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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lkh_lashoutsCome to think of it, since this is about a serial killer, shouldn't it be "First DEATHS"?
Oh well, I've been wanting to do a snarky retelling of the second part, and now that I have mastered the fine art of text cuts, I'll tell you what happens. Expect almost as much mediocrity as the first one -- thank God JC doesn't appear in this one.
It opens with that blonde vampire dude having part of his head blown off by Dolph while Whorenita cowers on the ground. She lets off a shot now that his brain and eye are hanging out, but it's pretty obvious he wasn't much of a threat by then. She shoots him a few more times, now that he's not moving (oh, how brave she is!), and offers more of her wisdom to the cops: "You can't kill the dead. You just make them lie down". Then she stakes him, because it takes guts to kill a vampire whose head is in pieces.
Doncha love how Anita, who is supposed to be the toughest, braininest, most hardcore vampire slayer EVAH is cowering on the grass while a big strong MALE policeman protects her? Ooooh, such a stereotype breaker. Also happens again at the end -- stay tuned.
To remind us that she has bigger balls than anybody else, she informs Dolph that they're gonna take out them danged vampires TONIGHT, because "I've got the only warrant I need." Dolph mourns that "the law works differently for you than for us," thus affirming that she is a Superspeshul Snowflake Who Can Do Whatever She Wants.
So she and Manny turn up at a nice suburban house that evening, exchanging oh-so-hardcore banter about the proper way to kill vampires. Anita, of course, is holding a huge phallic gun, while Manny says cheesy lines like "It stinks of vampires." What do vampires smell like anyway?
They kick their way into the house, property rights be damned -- I wish they had gotten the wrong house and disturbed some nice suburban family, who would have sued them. Well, they find some empty coffins, which they fill with crosses and holy water. Manny also mentions that he's gotta be home for dinner with his wife and kids, making sure that something horrible is about to happen to him. Then he smells blood, proving that he's the second most worthless vampire hunter in the world -- he smells vampires after they've left, and smells blood AFTER he's been wandering through the WHOLE house. Not during, after.
Anyway, the blood turns out to be a nude man chained to the ceiling, and Manny's generic Mexican exclaimation ("Madre de Dios!") speech bubble covers up his crotch. All I can say is, God was not generous to this poor dead guy, endowment-wise.
The cops arrive, and Anita snarls at anyone who shows concern, which would mean she is not the Toughest Person Ever. So she stomps off to her "day job," which is having a boost of business because of the picture of Anita hugging a weeping housewife she had just assaulted and slammed to the ground.
One of the most unintentionally hilarious lines ever: "Some of [the clients] weren't wanting you to raise anything dead for them either." "Then what did they want me to.... oh ick." Yes, folks, remember -- Anita is Not A Slut!
She goes into her office and finds someone in her chair. There's a non sequitur about a family farm, at which point we see it's... EDWARD. Anita claims that he's "one of" the most dangerous people she's ever met, but of course she keeps snarking off to him to show how Tough and Strong and Feisty she is. And to let us Anita is awesome, Edward adds that he doesn't lie to her, and adds "I don't know [why]."
Anyway, he offers info on the vampires. Then there's witty banter worthy of P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh -- "You're playing with me." "A little." "I hate you." "I don't hate you." I bet it took LKH hours to write that.
So Anita goes to a zombie-raising, which is a lot more boring than it sounds. And once she's finished up pops Edward again. She inexplicably gets in the car with Edward, and starts thinking about how cars at night are intimate, and she didn't ever think that was something she'd associate with him. Translation: a few more books, and Whorenita will have sex with Podward. Count on it.
She also asks him if he has a "nifty nickname among the undead set," and he confirms that his nickname is "Death." THEN WHY DOESN'T HE TALK LIKE THIS? Whoops, wrong Death. Anyway, it's kind of the precursor to all the bad goth names she uses now. He also says that he'd happily torture her and Manny for the info he wants. Oh, and he tells her she's "pretty and smart" -- pass the bucket.
The cops call her in for one of the guilty vampires, who is "dead" for the day. That's right -- everyone is so impressed because Whorenita stakes and beheads vampires (slowly and messily, I might add) WHEN THEY ARE UNCONSCIOUS AND CAN'T FIGHT BACK. It takes some big brass balls to kill someone who can't move! How impressive!
Oh, and more phallic imagery -- a machete the size of the Mississippi and a big fat stake.
At this point, Hamilton apparently realized that (cue dramatic music) comic books have a limited number of pages, and her boring ramblings, bad dialogue and infodumps have already eaten up most of the pagecount. So Anita gets a tipoff from Edward about houses that might have her vampire gang.
She, her phallic rifle and Manny go barging from house to house, presumably scaring the inhabitants out of their skins. At the fourth house, they sense vampires, so they kick in the door (there's this new invention, it's called a doorknob...) and start bullying the human servants. Course, they have no proof that these are actually the bad guys, but the law works differently for Ma Petite Fissure de Ruine. So they follow them down ito the basement, which any horror movie fan would tell you is a ragingly stupid idea, and of course some skinhead leaps out and takes Manny hostage. Predictably, Whorenita also surrenders. So the bad guys start doing the usual action-movie tortures -- they punch Manny, and magically make a fire on the basement floor (how, pray tell?) so they can brand Whorenita's arm.
Which, of course, is the cue for MORE bad dialogue: "Feisty? The best you can do is 'feisty'? Some evil henchman you are!" "You want evil. We can do evil" and "You are so dead!" "You first!". This is, like, the best dialogue outside of "Gossip Girl"!
Then "I felt power, a wash of power calling to me like a whisper in the dark." What, no spillage? It's a female vampire with a dog collar, earrings, purple lipstick, and her tits falling out of a teeny-tiny leather mini. Behind her are a bunch of very boring vampires, dressed like a schoolteacher (the woman) and an eighties pop band (all the men).
Since Ma Petite Fissure de Ruine doesn't have brains, strength or non-zombie skills, the vampires decide to let her run ten minutes ahead, "Most Dangerous Game"-style. Whorenita, demonstrating her hardcoreness, heads for yet another phallic knife that the vampires conveniently left lying around.
She blinds the human servants and starts stabbing randomly with kitchen knives. But then Valentine grabs her hair, demonstrating that as someone who fights like a little girl, he is a perfect match for Anita. But like all the vampires, he conveniently doesn't disarm her, so she stabs him. And she leaves the knife sticking in his side, while being stalked by more vampires. Smart.
Oh, and he admits to being the vampire pedo who's been attacking little boys. But he's got weird tastes in boys -- apparently he thinks that seen from behind, they have big wide asses and hips, long eighties-permed hair and thighs thicker than their waists.
So Edward comes charging to the rescue, only to get jumped by all the other vampires. Valentine -- whose injury and ripped coat have magically vanished -- tosses Anita outside onto the grass... for no good reason. Anyone who has read "Guilty Pleasures" knows the drill -- he munches on her arm and clavicle, and she grabs a conveniently placed holy-water bottle and douses his face.
There we have it, folks: the real reason why the vampires are all terrified of Whorenita. She is SO tough, hardcore and skilled that she might kill you while you're comatose, and if you're REALLY rotten, she'll show her amazing powers and THROW WATER IN YOUR FACE.
Anyway, Valentine inexplicably races back INTO the burning house, rather than the heavy woods surrounding them. Yeah, I don't get it either. Edward contributes the sole cool moment in the whole book by toasting the vampires alive with a flamethrower, including one girl who poses like a romance-novel heroine.
Afterwards, Anita carefully poses against a tree so her boobs will stick out, looking like the victim of a tomato massacre. More boring banter ensues.
That incredibly rushed confrontation apparently didn't QUITE eat up all the pages, so Hamilton throws on a one-page coda where Edward begs Whorenita to please be his partner in monster-hunting. Never mind that HE had to save her pitiful ass from the vampires, she's just so cool and tough that he wants her around.
Well, she refuses of course, and LKH tries to make her sound impressive at the end with two ridiculous lines:
"Someone might have to hold the body down, but I'd do the rest." Because, of course, the actual stake-choppy-chop is the difficult, courageous part. Pinning a superpowerful undead creature to the floor is easy and requires no skills!
And "The vampires call me the Executioner, and I'd earn my name tonight." Or she'd cower on the grass like a little whiny brat, while Dolph blows off someone's head. Either way...
Finito, thank God. EDIT: I added some boldface for the quotations.
Oh well, I've been wanting to do a snarky retelling of the second part, and now that I have mastered the fine art of text cuts, I'll tell you what happens. Expect almost as much mediocrity as the first one -- thank God JC doesn't appear in this one.
It opens with that blonde vampire dude having part of his head blown off by Dolph while Whorenita cowers on the ground. She lets off a shot now that his brain and eye are hanging out, but it's pretty obvious he wasn't much of a threat by then. She shoots him a few more times, now that he's not moving (oh, how brave she is!), and offers more of her wisdom to the cops: "You can't kill the dead. You just make them lie down". Then she stakes him, because it takes guts to kill a vampire whose head is in pieces.
Doncha love how Anita, who is supposed to be the toughest, braininest, most hardcore vampire slayer EVAH is cowering on the grass while a big strong MALE policeman protects her? Ooooh, such a stereotype breaker. Also happens again at the end -- stay tuned.
To remind us that she has bigger balls than anybody else, she informs Dolph that they're gonna take out them danged vampires TONIGHT, because "I've got the only warrant I need." Dolph mourns that "the law works differently for you than for us," thus affirming that she is a Superspeshul Snowflake Who Can Do Whatever She Wants.
So she and Manny turn up at a nice suburban house that evening, exchanging oh-so-hardcore banter about the proper way to kill vampires. Anita, of course, is holding a huge phallic gun, while Manny says cheesy lines like "It stinks of vampires." What do vampires smell like anyway?
They kick their way into the house, property rights be damned -- I wish they had gotten the wrong house and disturbed some nice suburban family, who would have sued them. Well, they find some empty coffins, which they fill with crosses and holy water. Manny also mentions that he's gotta be home for dinner with his wife and kids, making sure that something horrible is about to happen to him. Then he smells blood, proving that he's the second most worthless vampire hunter in the world -- he smells vampires after they've left, and smells blood AFTER he's been wandering through the WHOLE house. Not during, after.
Anyway, the blood turns out to be a nude man chained to the ceiling, and Manny's generic Mexican exclaimation ("Madre de Dios!") speech bubble covers up his crotch. All I can say is, God was not generous to this poor dead guy, endowment-wise.
The cops arrive, and Anita snarls at anyone who shows concern, which would mean she is not the Toughest Person Ever. So she stomps off to her "day job," which is having a boost of business because of the picture of Anita hugging a weeping housewife she had just assaulted and slammed to the ground.
One of the most unintentionally hilarious lines ever: "Some of [the clients] weren't wanting you to raise anything dead for them either." "Then what did they want me to.... oh ick." Yes, folks, remember -- Anita is Not A Slut!
She goes into her office and finds someone in her chair. There's a non sequitur about a family farm, at which point we see it's... EDWARD. Anita claims that he's "one of" the most dangerous people she's ever met, but of course she keeps snarking off to him to show how Tough and Strong and Feisty she is. And to let us Anita is awesome, Edward adds that he doesn't lie to her, and adds "I don't know [why]."
Anyway, he offers info on the vampires. Then there's witty banter worthy of P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh -- "You're playing with me." "A little." "I hate you." "I don't hate you." I bet it took LKH hours to write that.
So Anita goes to a zombie-raising, which is a lot more boring than it sounds. And once she's finished up pops Edward again. She inexplicably gets in the car with Edward, and starts thinking about how cars at night are intimate, and she didn't ever think that was something she'd associate with him. Translation: a few more books, and Whorenita will have sex with Podward. Count on it.
She also asks him if he has a "nifty nickname among the undead set," and he confirms that his nickname is "Death." THEN WHY DOESN'T HE TALK LIKE THIS? Whoops, wrong Death. Anyway, it's kind of the precursor to all the bad goth names she uses now. He also says that he'd happily torture her and Manny for the info he wants. Oh, and he tells her she's "pretty and smart" -- pass the bucket.
The cops call her in for one of the guilty vampires, who is "dead" for the day. That's right -- everyone is so impressed because Whorenita stakes and beheads vampires (slowly and messily, I might add) WHEN THEY ARE UNCONSCIOUS AND CAN'T FIGHT BACK. It takes some big brass balls to kill someone who can't move! How impressive!
Oh, and more phallic imagery -- a machete the size of the Mississippi and a big fat stake.
At this point, Hamilton apparently realized that (cue dramatic music) comic books have a limited number of pages, and her boring ramblings, bad dialogue and infodumps have already eaten up most of the pagecount. So Anita gets a tipoff from Edward about houses that might have her vampire gang.
She, her phallic rifle and Manny go barging from house to house, presumably scaring the inhabitants out of their skins. At the fourth house, they sense vampires, so they kick in the door (there's this new invention, it's called a doorknob...) and start bullying the human servants. Course, they have no proof that these are actually the bad guys, but the law works differently for Ma Petite Fissure de Ruine. So they follow them down ito the basement, which any horror movie fan would tell you is a ragingly stupid idea, and of course some skinhead leaps out and takes Manny hostage. Predictably, Whorenita also surrenders. So the bad guys start doing the usual action-movie tortures -- they punch Manny, and magically make a fire on the basement floor (how, pray tell?) so they can brand Whorenita's arm.
Which, of course, is the cue for MORE bad dialogue: "Feisty? The best you can do is 'feisty'? Some evil henchman you are!" "You want evil. We can do evil" and "You are so dead!" "You first!". This is, like, the best dialogue outside of "Gossip Girl"!
Then "I felt power, a wash of power calling to me like a whisper in the dark." What, no spillage? It's a female vampire with a dog collar, earrings, purple lipstick, and her tits falling out of a teeny-tiny leather mini. Behind her are a bunch of very boring vampires, dressed like a schoolteacher (the woman) and an eighties pop band (all the men).
Since Ma Petite Fissure de Ruine doesn't have brains, strength or non-zombie skills, the vampires decide to let her run ten minutes ahead, "Most Dangerous Game"-style. Whorenita, demonstrating her hardcoreness, heads for yet another phallic knife that the vampires conveniently left lying around.
She blinds the human servants and starts stabbing randomly with kitchen knives. But then Valentine grabs her hair, demonstrating that as someone who fights like a little girl, he is a perfect match for Anita. But like all the vampires, he conveniently doesn't disarm her, so she stabs him. And she leaves the knife sticking in his side, while being stalked by more vampires. Smart.
Oh, and he admits to being the vampire pedo who's been attacking little boys. But he's got weird tastes in boys -- apparently he thinks that seen from behind, they have big wide asses and hips, long eighties-permed hair and thighs thicker than their waists.
So Edward comes charging to the rescue, only to get jumped by all the other vampires. Valentine -- whose injury and ripped coat have magically vanished -- tosses Anita outside onto the grass... for no good reason. Anyone who has read "Guilty Pleasures" knows the drill -- he munches on her arm and clavicle, and she grabs a conveniently placed holy-water bottle and douses his face.
There we have it, folks: the real reason why the vampires are all terrified of Whorenita. She is SO tough, hardcore and skilled that she might kill you while you're comatose, and if you're REALLY rotten, she'll show her amazing powers and THROW WATER IN YOUR FACE.
Anyway, Valentine inexplicably races back INTO the burning house, rather than the heavy woods surrounding them. Yeah, I don't get it either. Edward contributes the sole cool moment in the whole book by toasting the vampires alive with a flamethrower, including one girl who poses like a romance-novel heroine.
Afterwards, Anita carefully poses against a tree so her boobs will stick out, looking like the victim of a tomato massacre. More boring banter ensues.
That incredibly rushed confrontation apparently didn't QUITE eat up all the pages, so Hamilton throws on a one-page coda where Edward begs Whorenita to please be his partner in monster-hunting. Never mind that HE had to save her pitiful ass from the vampires, she's just so cool and tough that he wants her around.
Well, she refuses of course, and LKH tries to make her sound impressive at the end with two ridiculous lines:
"Someone might have to hold the body down, but I'd do the rest." Because, of course, the actual stake-choppy-chop is the difficult, courageous part. Pinning a superpowerful undead creature to the floor is easy and requires no skills!
And "The vampires call me the Executioner, and I'd earn my name tonight." Or she'd cower on the grass like a little whiny brat, while Dolph blows off someone's head. Either way...
Finito, thank God. EDIT: I added some boldface for the quotations.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 08:35 am (UTC)I must say though, the good thing about reading the series as a comic book is that there shouldn't be any graphic sex scenes. All we'll get is the conveniently placed speech bubble of humorous sizes.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 08:51 am (UTC)On second thought... that would permanently exclude the vampire from Anita's harem so that might be a good thing.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 07:08 pm (UTC)I miss those days.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 03:43 pm (UTC)All I could think of was the scene in Buffy (the movie) where the vampire tells his minions to "kill him a lot"
I think I'd rather have Anita teaming up with Dolph and Edward, using weapons or conveniently-placed bottles of holy water than taking on everything herself with her super speshul powerz like she does in the books now.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 06:33 pm (UTC)Except that was actually funny.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 05:33 pm (UTC)Of course, the word 'first' in the title is definitively singular, which entirely invalidates my rational. Go me for overlooking that fact at first pass.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 03:59 pm (UTC)OMG, I HAD THE SAME THOUGHT. Only this nice family had a vampire around to meet the folks and Anita blew him/her away thinking it was the Bad Guy Posse, and everyone is traumatised.
Though, after reading both volumes of this thing...it's painfully apparent that Anita was totally unnecessary. The whole thing would have worked so better if she just wasn't in it. Not to mention, the retconning totally screws with the already established universe, but hey...LKH is totally not above doing that in canon, and it's not like comics have the most reliable timeline ever. BUT STILL. It's a huge case of GTFO. It's a sad day when the author epic fails at her own canon.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 05:09 pm (UTC)How very... Firefly ^__^
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 05:20 pm (UTC)I lol'd. Oh, how I love 'Good Omens'.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 05:57 pm (UTC)And you are dead on with how lame Anita looks. On one hand, I like that she's not a one-woman show and needed Dolph and Edward's help. The part that makes Anita annoying, IMO, is that she doesn't realize she couldn't have done it without Dolph, Edward or even late-for-dinner Manny. (Maybe Manny had to look bad because he would rather eat dinner with his wife than go on this door-to-door scavenger hunt with Anita.) Anita has to be all "I'm SO special cuz I got the powahz to kill the helpless vampires." In all the books I have yet to see how her necromancy has helps her kill vamps more effectively than anyone else, but whatever.
I'm kind of confused about what First Death is though. Is this supposed to be before Guilty Pleasures? Wasn't Valentine in GP, so he survived Edward's flamethrower? Gah. Sorry, I should know better than to hope the stories make sense.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 06:04 pm (UTC)And if you think you're confused now...if you read the thing, it skips around the passage of time and leads to all kinds of OMGWTF? because one moment, we're doing something, and the next page something else happens and...then my brain explodes.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 08:21 pm (UTC)What would have been cool is if she had been shown EARNING the name "Executioner," rather than being a beginner newbie who already has all the vampires scared of her.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 02:12 am (UTC)As The Executioner remains one of the lamest vampire hunter nicknames ever. I'm pretty sure the vampires are all laughing behind her back while they send lovenotes to Buffy.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-10 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 03:36 am (UTC)It also left me wondering -- if it takes no skill, talent or strength to execute a vampire, why do they need superspeshul vampire hunters? Why not just give warrants to the cops when needed, and have THEM do it?
no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 06:38 pm (UTC)WussyassHeap Big Vampire Slayer?no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 06:39 pm (UTC)PTerry reference for the win.
*delurks*
Date: 2008-01-24 12:50 am (UTC)...Just like Anita?