The New Torchwood Book Covers ...

[a_silver_story]

Okay, so The Undertaker's Gift, Consequences and Risk Assessment are all due for release in the UK on the 1st of October, and I just went over to play.com to see if they'd released the cover images yet. Lo and behold! - what a kick in the teeth!














Ianto doesn't even get his own cover this time around! Why does this annoy me so much? - aside from the fact these books are supposedly Ianto's final outing in the Whoniverse and he doesn't even get his own cover? Talk about kicking a fictional construct when he's down!


_{... and they cropped out his gun ...} THE GUN THAT HE NEVER FREAKIN' HAD!! ... come to think of it ... were any of you watching CoE thinking "Maybe he steals the gun from Johnson's men ... oh they're at an army base. Does he get his machine gun now? Okay the hand gun didn't burst the tank ... maybe he grabs his machine gun to do it ... WTF? He's dying and he didn't even get the big arse gun they've spent the past nine months drumming into us via publicity shots and photographs he's going to lay his hands on?" - anyone else, or just me?

*goes away to reminisce about Bay of the Dead and The Twilight Streets covers ... with a couple of passages from Pack Animals and Almost Perfect for good measure ...*


EDIT: Also ... in the bottom images of two of the books, Gwen is front and centre like she's the main character (something I've noticed on a couple of CoE promos). I thought Torchwood was Jack's series? Hmmmm


EDIT 2: Rile ye'selves! The original covers released in April had a Ianto cover!



Thanks goes to lawsontl

Comments

[woani21.livejournal.com]

I know I probably shouldn't but I would love to get you started on how poorly RTD uses his characters to mean anything.
Post-CoE I've felt my dislike of Torchwood growing, which is somewhat strange, but I've finally figured it out. I always saw Torchwood as a series with potential to develop its characters and the central idea of the series (see Jack's opening monologue every episode). But then along came CoE and through all of that out of the window. I also think that we could potentially spend days and days discussing how RTD and his writers redid so much of what Joss Whedon and his peeps did on Buffy (rift=hellmouth), but the difference that would quickly color the entire discussion would be that Buffy succeed where Torchwood has failed. Buffy never abandoned its initial concept whereas Torchwood first borrowed it (which I can live with) and then abandoned it for the style of another show (24 or any ridiculous film by Michael Bay). That's not just a failing of the characters to reflect anything, that's a failing of the show to ultimately mean anything.

[a-silver-story.livejournal.com]

It's not that he doesn't use his characters to mean anything - it's just they never mean what he wants them to!
Take Gwen - meant to be the heart of Torchwood. Ianto - meant to be a dogsbody and PA.

That's not what they actually are. Ianto was something huge to the public - suddenly, a real representation of a bisexual/homosexual relationship that was ... well, all it was. No massive "Am I gay, am I not? What will my mammy think?" story line, not big battle against homophobia and internal struggle. It was just a normal, healthy relationship. I can only speak for British TV, but Jack and Ianto's relationship was the only homosexual one of its kind (not a parody, not a big plot, not a problem) on television at the moment. He was a role model - a normal bloke, struggling to find himself, working to hard for too little appreciation and having the same relationship issues as the rest of us (Unlike Her Gwendom, who has her perfect realtionship - despite her affair, and drugging of the loyal boyfriend - is constantly being told how wonderful she is and how important she is, when really she does nothing other than imitate Jack. She can criticize him for going in there all guns blazing - but what about the whole issue with Flat Holm? So what if she didn't actually have a gun - she went in there all mouth and righteousness and fucked everything up for Nikki and for Jack and for herself.

I know of so many people who identify with Ianto and Jack because of their comfortableness within themselves - all other portrayals of homosexuals on telly are all going through a Huge Fucking Drama - and I speak from personal experience when I say "NOT ALL HOMO RELATIONSHIPS START LIKE THAT - shockingly, some of us are very comfortable in our realisations, and so are our families." << which is also true of Ianto, even if he was a little worried (but weren't we all?)

The Rift/Hellmouth thing I could ignore, because that was set up before Torchwood was even conceived (wayy back in DW S1), and while the female role models like Buffy (strong, independent women) have been dwindling (is it me, or are all TV heroines just interested in shopping and shoes?), Gwen does have an appeal on the feminism front - and also guys like her because she's thin, has a leather jacket and a sexy, sexy gun. Then again - now she's the perfect image of a nuclear family, what else has she got left for her in life?

I'm confused with the message RTD is sending out about Gwen now. Strong and independent - or a happy little wifey with her husband and baby. What are females supposed to take from that message? Be strong and confident, don't take shit from nobody - then get married, have babies and shut up.

*sigh* CoE was such a mess - RTD can't even write a continual character. One moment Ianto (in TTLM) is saying he's going to die young - then he mentions to Jack about dying of old age? In "The Dead Line" it makes it perfectly clear that Ianto doesn't expect to reach 30, never mind "watch his hair turn grey - or god forbid: fall out". Jack sacrificing children alllll over again. Jack and Ianto's relationship going from caring to Jack being a total bastard.

This relationship - that means so much to straights as well as GBLTs - has suddenly become very one-sided and WTF??? Suddenly it's all Ianto pining after Jack??? Have you read nikki4noo's picspams? It's pretty clear, there, that Jack fell for Ianto first. The kiss in Cyberwoman is proof enough that Jack has been pining after Ianto since day one - not to mention his open reaction to liking him in "Fragments".

I feel like I may have been typing for too long, so I'm going to give my little lecture a rest now. I can't even remember what it started as making a point of :S

Sorry if I rambled at ya ^_*

[ella-caramella.livejournal.com]

Jack and Ianto's relationship going from caring to Jack being a total bastard.

This relationship - that means so much to straights as well as GBLTs - has suddenly become very one-sided and WTF??? Suddenly it's all Ianto pining after Jack??? Have you read nikki4noo's picspams? It's pretty clear, there, that Jack fell for Ianto first. The kiss in Cyberwoman is proof enough that Jack has been pining after Ianto since day one - not to mention his open reaction to liking him in "Fragments".

My thoughts exactly.

I've already posted along these same lines somewhere else. A relationship that started as "sexual harassment" :) when Ianto was totally in love with Lisa and Jack was totally wanting to get into his pants... and when Jack was actually showing that he cared! It's obvious from Cyberwoman that Jack was hurt by the betrayal and that he took it on a personal level. As it were there and obvious all those little unspoken moments between them, as nikki4noo beautifully pointed out. And anyway Jack always cared, for Ianto, for each and every one in his team, even for strangers.

Now we have the exact opposite. Ianto went from straight to gay just for Jack! Has no self respect because he is so desperately in love with a man who he knows consider him nothing more than a "part time shag" and is suffering from teenage gay angst!?... and Jack is a cold distant callous jerk who treats him like he is annoyed to death by his clinginess???

WTF have I been watching for the past 2 seasons!?

[a-silver-story.livejournal.com]

The whole "don't like couple" thing jarred with me. Jack has been married, ffs!! as if he has issues with commitment in that sense! Yes, he tries to keep Ianto at arms length - but he learnt (As we see in the books) that keeping his lovers at arms length hurts him more because of the LOST POTENTIAL.

And Ianto's "I hate it too" thing - no way would Ianto compromise his own likes and dislikes - his personality - to keep Jack happy! If either of them wanted them to be a couple, it was Jack!

*gah*

And suddenly Gwen was WonderGwen. I mean ... even ... gah ... just ... gah.

Incoherent "gah" ...

[ella-caramella.livejournal.com]

WonderGwen: "Just leave it will you, this is high tech stuff!"
Andy: "Sorry, no. It's GPS."

LOL!

That's RTD for you. Sadly, he can only write one type of relationship, as tencrush said here:

http://tencrush.livejournal.com/201997.html

Oh, don't get me started on Jack's ability to commit. Like you said he was married. He was clearly still very fond of Estelle, to the extent that he kept in touch with her even after all those years.

He's being around for so much time and that is precisely why he should have the emotional maturity and being wise enough to know that keeping loved ones at arms lenght is not going to make things better. You'd guess he must have learned the lesson by now and act consequently to make his SO feel loved and cared for.

Otherwise we have a Jack who is a coward, afraid of having his little heart broken while at the same time is a stupid who does nothing to protect the one he loves.
According to RTD I should buy the theory that he was so afraid of losing Ianto, so very much afraid that he was trying not to get too attached and then he went and dragged him along in a death trap...

And I really don't know how certain people can drool at the idea of a manslut version of Jack. I mean, let's make him disgusting, why not!

One thing is making Jack a charming, flirting rogue, one is to make him a bastard with no feelings who treats people who love him like sexual objects. What the hell is supposed to mean that he cannot commit? So what the hell was he doing with Ianto? Taking advantage of his male, straight, vulnerable subordinate just to get a convenient shag???

And if he can't commit then don't give me that shit about him pining for Gwen!

I dread the possibility that if they're going on with Torchwood Jack is going to come back for Gwen. Just because I think what happened now in terms of angry fans backlash is nothing compared to what will happen in that case.