Hello and welcome to an unscheduled appearance of The Comic Shop!
I had a chance last week to check out the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie. While I find it to be an extremely flawed film I think that it got the essence of the "TMNT" franchise right. Let's bang through this movie in the good, the bad, and the ugly style.
The Good:
Nothing will ever change my love of the Jim Henson crafted suits in the original movie. They were the stuff of "movie magic" legend. If you have the old movie on dvd, or pop it up on netflix take a minute to appreciate the tiny intricate details of the original suits. They are a true work of modern day art and should not ever be forgotten. That said, I did not mind the CGI in the new movie. While CGI is a medium that dates itself faster than old school puppets and wires ever could it gives filmmakers the chance to do things with the characters that would be next to impossible for a guy in a rubber suit.
I also like the individual renderings of the brothers, as they now have more personality than before. It's a little thing but it helps to give further definition to the turtles. In previous movies one major complaint was that Raph was the only one that went through any character development, but that is not the case here.
I'm more surprised to be writing this than you are reading it but I did not mind Megan Fox as April O'neil. While she is not the best actress in the world I didn't think she was any worse at the role than Judith Hoag or Paige Turico. In fact April really was given a lead role in this film and helped to drive the events of the movie. They made some really convenient and odd choices about her history with the turtles and objectified her constantly but that will be filed under UGLY and we will get to that later.
Sure the humor was juvenile at best, but it fits what one would expect from a group of teenagers so it wasn't too out of the ordinary. I thought a lot of it was actually quite good considering the source, but I can see why people would take issue with it. A lot of jokes in the original film were more keyed to the adults in the audience, but this version is complete fan service to the young people.
It was cool to actually see them use their weapons and once again that they each had their own particular set of skills. I really like the team aspect that they each brought something unique to the table. It has what we have come to expect from these types of movies with the team dynamic being done so well in "Avengers" & "Guardians of the Galaxy".
The Bad:
Who in their right mind thought casting Johnny Knoxville as the voice of Leonardo was a good idea? While I could say the same about Corey Feldman's Donatello in the original I thought he actually did a good job of getting down the innate humor of the super intelligent turtle. Knoxville's voice was a constant distraction for your humble blogger, and I found it quite grating as the movie continued on. I would hope in future movies they hire a more nondescript actor to voice the lead turtle, hopefully someone that isn't as much of a jackass.
I did not like the character design of Splinter in this movie one bit. He looked like some kind of rat/dog/horse hybrid, and while plausible due to mutation (I guess) the prehensile tail was a bit much. While what I said about the CGI turtles is still true, because we saw Splinter go toe-to-toe with the Shredder, Splinter is a character (much like Yoda) that was leaps and bounds better as a puppet. I can't really explain it, because it's more of a personal preference.
Speaking of the Shredder, I probably would've filed it under good if their original intent was to have the Oroku Sake Shredder in the movie instead of the Eric Sakks (William Fichtner) reinvention of the character. I love William Fichtner as an actor, and I completely expect him to take the Shredder mantle at some point in this new franchise. I just think the way they shoehorned "japanese guy in the shadows" into the movie was cheap and clumsy.
The Ugly:
First.....This is a pretty full category because there are a LOT of things that I had gripes with. The main problem that I had with the movie was that it falls under the pretty common nowadays problem of having the "sin of convenience". Oh, April had the turtles as pets and they were injected by her father and Eric Sakks with alien ooze to concoct a mutagen that would cure a disease that Sakks planned to release in a false flag attack on NYC. I've written here before that I am absolutely fed up with this lazy version of storytelling. It's hard to explain why April cares about the turtles...lets just make them her pets. It's stupid. Granted it's no worse than a rat learning ninja skills from his owner and then happening upon the turtles and the mutagen in the sewer. A LOT of convenience for my tastes, but I try not to nitpick too heavily because the turtles were created to poke fun at the absurdity of comics in the 80's. It's just frustrating for me that they feel it is necessary to create these emotional and relational tethers between characters. Sometimes in life just random shit happens and people have to react to it, and guess what it makes for interesting stories.
Second.... Sakks' dialogue is about the dimmest crap I have ever heard. He literally says "I want you to drain all of their blood even if it kills them". I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure it'll 100% kill them to have no blood. There are many more examples, but this was the first one that came to mind.
Third.... The objectification of April was inappropriate and unnecessary in my mind. We all get that Fox's best attribute is her good looks, but it is not needed in the plot to call constant attention to it. Whether it's Verne (Will Arnett) staring at her ass at an inopportune moment, or April's former pet Mikey oogling her like a horny teen there is wayyy to much of this movie in service to objectifying April's looks.
Fourth...The plot of this movie is an amalgam of the unnecessary parental back story from "Amazing Spider-man", the release of a toxin from a tower to threaten a city from "Amazing Spider-man", the false flag we have the cause & the cure scenario from "Mission Impossible II", "V for Vendetta", and many others. The magic blood from "Star Trek: Into Darkness" also made an appearance. So more or less it seems the writers took all of their ideas from semi-recent movies that they saw.
Wrapping up.....That's all about I have left to say about this film. I have seen sites like Kinja, and Rifftrax call "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" the worst movie of 2014, and I can understand where they are coming from. I will say; however, despite it's faults it captures the essence, and the inherent silliness of the franchise. I went out and bought a cheap copy the week it came out, and I am happy with my decision. Ultimately, dear reader it is up to you what you like and don't like. This was the only remake I saw in 2014 and it was totally worth it for me. Watch it for yourself and make your own decision!
P.S. I took some time on Xmas day to get into the first issue of IDW's mega TMNT-Ghostbusters crossover event, and I loved it. I will have to give IDW some of my money love in the future to catch up with two of my favorite things from my youth.
Happy reading and I will see you next time at The Comic Shop!!
Friday, December 26, 2014
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Tales from the SpiderVerse and other news of little importance
Hello all and welcome to the 12/16/14 edition of The Comic Shop!
As I mentioned last week the 2nd annual Shoppies are on their way before the year is out so keep an eye out for that.
First....The web (pun unintended) has been set abuzz with rumors and tidbits from the hacked Sony internal e-mails. Much of that news that has gotten fanboy ears to perk up for miles around has to do with discussions to create a shared universe in which Spidey could be an Avenger. While I think it would be a great get for Disney/Marvel I will remain cautiously optimistic.
There are a lot of concerns that would need to be addressed, and Sony would have to get their house in order immediately to have a successful partnership. There was also talk that Avi Arad would have to be dismissed before Disney/Marvel would even enter discussions with Marvel.
Other discussions concerned possibly letting Spidey's rights go back to Marvel, which would still put a superhero with 5 movies to his name back to square one, but I digress.
Probably the juiciest tidbit to come out of the email hack was that Andrew Garfield reportedly was supposed to have shown up to meet investors, but called one hour prior to the meeting to cancel. He was then essentially fired. I hope it comes out that this is not the case, because despite a lot of the faults of the ASM movies Garfield was a solid PP/Spidey in my opinion.
We will see what happens, but I would not count on seeing Spidey sling a web in "Captain America: Civil War" or any other Marvel movie any time soon.
Second.....I have a long tradition here at TCS of being dead wrong about things. I have to say that the mega-Spidey event "Spider-verse" is no exception to this rule. While I was dismissive of it at the outset I picked up the issues to keep my run from TASM #700 going. When I actually read the books I was blown away by a lot of what Dan Slott had brought to the page. This is an actual good event of significance, but most importantly IT IS FUN. Books like this are the reason why I love comics, and continue to read and collect as a 30+ year old man. Like I said the story has serious consequences; however, Slott does not take that fact too seriously in the storytelling. It is a self-aware story that stays away from the Christopher Nolan trap of having to constantly remind everyone how important the story they are reading/watching is.
One example of what I consider fun is when Miles Morales teams up with a young version of Peter Parker to travel through a portal to a universe that is.....The 1960's Spider-man cartoon. "I guess that's the Bugle right there" "How do you know?" "It's the only building that has any writing on it". I'm not one to LOL or overact to things in comics, but this had me in absolute stitches. Just the subtle humor to poke at how absurd the whole thing is. Point being that there are a lot of "events" in comics now, but so far this one has been the right amount of bang for this blogger's buck.
Third.... This may just be the Dad in me, but I saw a post in a comic collecting site where a guy paid $10-$15 to go to see the new Hobbit movie on the off chance that there was a "BvS" trailer. If you pay that much to watch something that will likely be free the next day you are a M-O-R-O-N. I feel like this is something that you shouldn't need to tell another adult, but in case you were wondering yes that is idiotic.
Fourth.... Don't forget in this holiday season that comics, trades, statues, figures, cards, etc. all make really great gifts. You win twice by buying these from your LCS because they are small businesses that will only survive as long as we support them. Let's make sure our local comics guys have a very happy holiday!
Fifth.... It appears that Barbara Gordon's move to Burnside was not without controversy. The transgendered community is outraged by the characterization of a new villain that happens to be transgendered. While Gail Simone was praised for the way she brought in a down to earth "normal" character who was revealed to be trans the new creative team was thrashed because they revealed a fake Batgirl to be a glittered, mascara masked, walking stereotype of a transgendered person. DC has issued a public apology even though segments of the community have stated their support. I really don't have an opinion on the subject.
In the end I think if we focused more on getting to know one another as people instead of determining which groups define us I think our world would be a much better place (this is my Miss America Speech BTW).
Wrapping up...... That's all I really have for today. I will probably get one more post in before the end of the month. Excelsior to you all and I will see you next time at The Comic Shop!
As I mentioned last week the 2nd annual Shoppies are on their way before the year is out so keep an eye out for that.
First....The web (pun unintended) has been set abuzz with rumors and tidbits from the hacked Sony internal e-mails. Much of that news that has gotten fanboy ears to perk up for miles around has to do with discussions to create a shared universe in which Spidey could be an Avenger. While I think it would be a great get for Disney/Marvel I will remain cautiously optimistic.
There are a lot of concerns that would need to be addressed, and Sony would have to get their house in order immediately to have a successful partnership. There was also talk that Avi Arad would have to be dismissed before Disney/Marvel would even enter discussions with Marvel.
Other discussions concerned possibly letting Spidey's rights go back to Marvel, which would still put a superhero with 5 movies to his name back to square one, but I digress.
Probably the juiciest tidbit to come out of the email hack was that Andrew Garfield reportedly was supposed to have shown up to meet investors, but called one hour prior to the meeting to cancel. He was then essentially fired. I hope it comes out that this is not the case, because despite a lot of the faults of the ASM movies Garfield was a solid PP/Spidey in my opinion.
We will see what happens, but I would not count on seeing Spidey sling a web in "Captain America: Civil War" or any other Marvel movie any time soon.
Second.....I have a long tradition here at TCS of being dead wrong about things. I have to say that the mega-Spidey event "Spider-verse" is no exception to this rule. While I was dismissive of it at the outset I picked up the issues to keep my run from TASM #700 going. When I actually read the books I was blown away by a lot of what Dan Slott had brought to the page. This is an actual good event of significance, but most importantly IT IS FUN. Books like this are the reason why I love comics, and continue to read and collect as a 30+ year old man. Like I said the story has serious consequences; however, Slott does not take that fact too seriously in the storytelling. It is a self-aware story that stays away from the Christopher Nolan trap of having to constantly remind everyone how important the story they are reading/watching is.
One example of what I consider fun is when Miles Morales teams up with a young version of Peter Parker to travel through a portal to a universe that is.....The 1960's Spider-man cartoon. "I guess that's the Bugle right there" "How do you know?" "It's the only building that has any writing on it". I'm not one to LOL or overact to things in comics, but this had me in absolute stitches. Just the subtle humor to poke at how absurd the whole thing is. Point being that there are a lot of "events" in comics now, but so far this one has been the right amount of bang for this blogger's buck.
Third.... This may just be the Dad in me, but I saw a post in a comic collecting site where a guy paid $10-$15 to go to see the new Hobbit movie on the off chance that there was a "BvS" trailer. If you pay that much to watch something that will likely be free the next day you are a M-O-R-O-N. I feel like this is something that you shouldn't need to tell another adult, but in case you were wondering yes that is idiotic.
Fourth.... Don't forget in this holiday season that comics, trades, statues, figures, cards, etc. all make really great gifts. You win twice by buying these from your LCS because they are small businesses that will only survive as long as we support them. Let's make sure our local comics guys have a very happy holiday!
Fifth.... It appears that Barbara Gordon's move to Burnside was not without controversy. The transgendered community is outraged by the characterization of a new villain that happens to be transgendered. While Gail Simone was praised for the way she brought in a down to earth "normal" character who was revealed to be trans the new creative team was thrashed because they revealed a fake Batgirl to be a glittered, mascara masked, walking stereotype of a transgendered person. DC has issued a public apology even though segments of the community have stated their support. I really don't have an opinion on the subject.
In the end I think if we focused more on getting to know one another as people instead of determining which groups define us I think our world would be a much better place (this is my Miss America Speech BTW).
Wrapping up...... That's all I really have for today. I will probably get one more post in before the end of the month. Excelsior to you all and I will see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Upon further review....rebooting the Marvel Universe & other news.....
Hello and welcome to the 12/11/14 edition of The Comic Shop!
Since most of you know how calendars work you realize that the end of the year is rapidly approaching. That means one thing around these parts the 2nd annual "Shoppies" my year-in-review of all that is good with the two biggest comic publishers on the planet. (I'd love to do indie awards, but with my limited budget I have to be pragmatic about what I try and what I bring home). You can read last year's version here http://gothamcitycomics.blogspot.com/2013/12/big-two-comics-year-in-review-1st.html . I will try to keep with the same categories as before; however, if there are things you would like to see shoot me an email (johnnyleffler1116@gmail.com), post on my FB page (The Comic Shop), or shoot me a tweet (@johnnyboy1116). As have always said if you have something you'd like to discuss I'm willing to post guest submissions as well, and those are the best ways to reach me.
On to the news.......
First....There was a lot of huff and puff on the internet and from your humble blogger as well when Marvel announced the upcoming changes to their comic universe. Lady Thor, FalCaptain America, and Evil Tony Stark gave a lot of people pause. Recently, I had the opportunity to pick up all three of the #1's from the respective reboots and I have to say so far I have a favorable impression.
I think my favorite out of all of them at this point is the "All-New Captain America". Sam Wilson is in many ways drastically different from the previous men that have wielded the shield. Whereas the most recent Cap-lacement Bucky Barnes was not all too dissimilar from Steve Rogers himself Falcon is a stark contrast. Cap & Bucky were both World War II era soldiers that were experimented on, frozen, and then brought into the real world. While there paths diverged a bit with Bucky being a highly skilled assassin, and Cap more or less keeping his hands clean they were virtually different versions of the same character. Sam was raised in Harlem as the son of a minister. He refused religion and his parents supported him and offered him alternatives, and then sadly his father was killed trying to break up a fight. Two years later he loses his mother to a random street crime.
For this reason I have found myself rooting for Sam in his new role as Captain America. I think he embodies the things that we, as Americans, tend to idealize; second chances, overcoming adversity, picking yourself up by your bootstraps, etc & so forth. It doesn't hurt that I absolutely loved Anthony Mackie's take on Falcon in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" either.
I have to say I'm really only reading "Superior IronMan" because of how much I love Daredevil, and he is a key figure in the first part of the arch.
In all fairness I don't care "who wields the power of Thor", because quite frankly I haven't been the biggest Thor fan in my life. I read quite a bit of the run before the Marvel NOW! relaunch, and I have heard that Jason Aaron did a wonderful job, but it's something I'll have to take a look at later on down the road.
My parting thought on the current state of Marvel is that I applaud their effort to push away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It could be easy to serve their film masters, but they have made the bold choice to take the comic line in a different direction. Kudos to the editorial staff and I hope they continue to move forward with the changes even when they have "Avengers: Age of Ultron" on the horizon.
Second.... (POTENTIAL SPOILERS) It's time to discuss where we are with the three shows that I watch religiously that are based on comics "Arrow", "Flash", and "Agents of SHIELD". .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
We have reached the midseason break for all three (I believe), and we've got some answers and certainly a whole new slew of questions.
The "Flash"- "Arrow" crossover arch was some really great television in my opinion. The writers did a wonderful job capturing the juxtaposition of the two characters & their teams (for instance Barry's light happy-go-lucky nature vs. Ollie's dark-grizzled nature). I found it very entertaining, and I hope that they do it again at a proper time.
I continue to be impressed by the writing, the cast, and the direction of "The Flash". It is clear to this humble blogger that they understand that Barry is the "hope" character of the DC universe. While the Kryptonian alphabet may most assuredly state that "S" is a symbol for hope I have always felt that hope came in a Flash of lightning.
If we look back at the history of Barry Allen we will se a man that sacrificed his life during the original "Crisis", and no one even knew he did it. Then, when Wally was over his head in the "Final Crisis" event Barry emerged from the speed force to help Wally save the day. Even in "Blackest Night" Barry literally became a symbol of hope as he became a ring bearer for the blue lanterns and helped to defeat Nekron. In the interest of full disclosure my love of "The Flash" goes all the way back to the first tv series with John Wesley Shipp when I insisted on going as Flash that year for halloween, and that I get comics about him etc. and so forth.
I found it fitting that in many ways "The Flash" mid season finale mirrored the mid season finale of the first season of "Arrow". As both heroes found themselves overmatched by a similarly skilled individual (Reverse Flash & the Dark Archer).
"Arrow" has been more of a mixed bag this year because it seems as if they are trying to further define Ollie's character by pitting him against his alter ego "The Arrow". If this weren't enough they have tried to resurrect the mystery angle from the first season, and blend it with the hardcore action from the second season. So far it's been hit or miss, but certainly landing more on the hit portion. I really liked how they introduced and portrayed Captain Boomerang during the FLARROW event, and I hope to see more of the same in the second half of the season.
I follow Katie Cassidy on Instagram and it has been very cool to see her transform herself for this role and her ultimate goal of taking on the mantle of the Black Canary. She has been putting in work at the gym, and it is really awesome to see her take it as seriously as she has. I feel like this season will have a lot of surprises in store, so we will have to wait and see what happens.
Full confession mode again here; I was NOT a fan of Agents of SHIELD when it first hit my television screen. I felt that it was just a cheap, red-headed step-child, discount product of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Everything that happened on the show seemed to be in the background of bigger events and just out of line of the things that actually mattered. This season; however, the crew has used the show to drive upcoming events within the MCU. I don't want to go into too much detail, but suffice to say they have been digging the trenches so to speak for all the big things happening at Marvel. I have to give the crew credit too, for making the characters much more than 2 dimensional ambercrombie models this season. Skye, for one, has been lightyears more interesting than she was in the first go round on the show.
Third (& final for tonight)..... BUYER BEWARE WARNING.... On this very blog I shared that I was interested in the fact that "Arrow" tv writer Andrew Kreisberg was taking over the helm for the New 52's "Green Arrow". While the jury is still out on Kreisberg's contribution only a couple of issues in I have to say that the art is absolutely atrocious. Characters are not even drawn the same from panel to panel, and some even appear to have spontaneous lazy eyes. It is just some of the worst art that I have ever seen. I may give the story one more chance, but you'd be better off spending your hard earned dollars on the Jeff Lemire & Andrea Sorrentino run with the Emerald Archer. Some of there best moments are highlighted HERE ( http://www.comicvine.com/articles/the-best-moments-in-jeff-lemire-andrea-sorrentinos/1100-149723/ ) .
Thanks for reading! I tried to get through my backlogged thoughts, but I still have a lot to go so I will be back as soon as I can! Look for my letter to Dick Grayson here in a few days, and then I'll be back at the end of the month live from the back of an abandoned Ames store for the Shoppie Awards!
Since most of you know how calendars work you realize that the end of the year is rapidly approaching. That means one thing around these parts the 2nd annual "Shoppies" my year-in-review of all that is good with the two biggest comic publishers on the planet. (I'd love to do indie awards, but with my limited budget I have to be pragmatic about what I try and what I bring home). You can read last year's version here http://gothamcitycomics.blogspot.com/2013/12/big-two-comics-year-in-review-1st.html . I will try to keep with the same categories as before; however, if there are things you would like to see shoot me an email (johnnyleffler1116@gmail.com), post on my FB page (The Comic Shop), or shoot me a tweet (@johnnyboy1116). As have always said if you have something you'd like to discuss I'm willing to post guest submissions as well, and those are the best ways to reach me.
On to the news.......
First....There was a lot of huff and puff on the internet and from your humble blogger as well when Marvel announced the upcoming changes to their comic universe. Lady Thor, FalCaptain America, and Evil Tony Stark gave a lot of people pause. Recently, I had the opportunity to pick up all three of the #1's from the respective reboots and I have to say so far I have a favorable impression.
I think my favorite out of all of them at this point is the "All-New Captain America". Sam Wilson is in many ways drastically different from the previous men that have wielded the shield. Whereas the most recent Cap-lacement Bucky Barnes was not all too dissimilar from Steve Rogers himself Falcon is a stark contrast. Cap & Bucky were both World War II era soldiers that were experimented on, frozen, and then brought into the real world. While there paths diverged a bit with Bucky being a highly skilled assassin, and Cap more or less keeping his hands clean they were virtually different versions of the same character. Sam was raised in Harlem as the son of a minister. He refused religion and his parents supported him and offered him alternatives, and then sadly his father was killed trying to break up a fight. Two years later he loses his mother to a random street crime.
For this reason I have found myself rooting for Sam in his new role as Captain America. I think he embodies the things that we, as Americans, tend to idealize; second chances, overcoming adversity, picking yourself up by your bootstraps, etc & so forth. It doesn't hurt that I absolutely loved Anthony Mackie's take on Falcon in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" either.
I have to say I'm really only reading "Superior IronMan" because of how much I love Daredevil, and he is a key figure in the first part of the arch.
In all fairness I don't care "who wields the power of Thor", because quite frankly I haven't been the biggest Thor fan in my life. I read quite a bit of the run before the Marvel NOW! relaunch, and I have heard that Jason Aaron did a wonderful job, but it's something I'll have to take a look at later on down the road.
My parting thought on the current state of Marvel is that I applaud their effort to push away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It could be easy to serve their film masters, but they have made the bold choice to take the comic line in a different direction. Kudos to the editorial staff and I hope they continue to move forward with the changes even when they have "Avengers: Age of Ultron" on the horizon.
Second.... (POTENTIAL SPOILERS) It's time to discuss where we are with the three shows that I watch religiously that are based on comics "Arrow", "Flash", and "Agents of SHIELD". .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
We have reached the midseason break for all three (I believe), and we've got some answers and certainly a whole new slew of questions.
The "Flash"- "Arrow" crossover arch was some really great television in my opinion. The writers did a wonderful job capturing the juxtaposition of the two characters & their teams (for instance Barry's light happy-go-lucky nature vs. Ollie's dark-grizzled nature). I found it very entertaining, and I hope that they do it again at a proper time.
I continue to be impressed by the writing, the cast, and the direction of "The Flash". It is clear to this humble blogger that they understand that Barry is the "hope" character of the DC universe. While the Kryptonian alphabet may most assuredly state that "S" is a symbol for hope I have always felt that hope came in a Flash of lightning.
If we look back at the history of Barry Allen we will se a man that sacrificed his life during the original "Crisis", and no one even knew he did it. Then, when Wally was over his head in the "Final Crisis" event Barry emerged from the speed force to help Wally save the day. Even in "Blackest Night" Barry literally became a symbol of hope as he became a ring bearer for the blue lanterns and helped to defeat Nekron. In the interest of full disclosure my love of "The Flash" goes all the way back to the first tv series with John Wesley Shipp when I insisted on going as Flash that year for halloween, and that I get comics about him etc. and so forth.
I found it fitting that in many ways "The Flash" mid season finale mirrored the mid season finale of the first season of "Arrow". As both heroes found themselves overmatched by a similarly skilled individual (Reverse Flash & the Dark Archer).
"Arrow" has been more of a mixed bag this year because it seems as if they are trying to further define Ollie's character by pitting him against his alter ego "The Arrow". If this weren't enough they have tried to resurrect the mystery angle from the first season, and blend it with the hardcore action from the second season. So far it's been hit or miss, but certainly landing more on the hit portion. I really liked how they introduced and portrayed Captain Boomerang during the FLARROW event, and I hope to see more of the same in the second half of the season.
I follow Katie Cassidy on Instagram and it has been very cool to see her transform herself for this role and her ultimate goal of taking on the mantle of the Black Canary. She has been putting in work at the gym, and it is really awesome to see her take it as seriously as she has. I feel like this season will have a lot of surprises in store, so we will have to wait and see what happens.
Full confession mode again here; I was NOT a fan of Agents of SHIELD when it first hit my television screen. I felt that it was just a cheap, red-headed step-child, discount product of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Everything that happened on the show seemed to be in the background of bigger events and just out of line of the things that actually mattered. This season; however, the crew has used the show to drive upcoming events within the MCU. I don't want to go into too much detail, but suffice to say they have been digging the trenches so to speak for all the big things happening at Marvel. I have to give the crew credit too, for making the characters much more than 2 dimensional ambercrombie models this season. Skye, for one, has been lightyears more interesting than she was in the first go round on the show.
Third (& final for tonight)..... BUYER BEWARE WARNING.... On this very blog I shared that I was interested in the fact that "Arrow" tv writer Andrew Kreisberg was taking over the helm for the New 52's "Green Arrow". While the jury is still out on Kreisberg's contribution only a couple of issues in I have to say that the art is absolutely atrocious. Characters are not even drawn the same from panel to panel, and some even appear to have spontaneous lazy eyes. It is just some of the worst art that I have ever seen. I may give the story one more chance, but you'd be better off spending your hard earned dollars on the Jeff Lemire & Andrea Sorrentino run with the Emerald Archer. Some of there best moments are highlighted HERE ( http://www.comicvine.com/articles/the-best-moments-in-jeff-lemire-andrea-sorrentinos/1100-149723/ ) .
Thanks for reading! I tried to get through my backlogged thoughts, but I still have a lot to go so I will be back as soon as I can! Look for my letter to Dick Grayson here in a few days, and then I'll be back at the end of the month live from the back of an abandoned Ames store for the Shoppie Awards!
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
"Flash" & "Arrow" new season thoughts...and more
Hello and Welcome to the 10/21/14 edition of The Comic Shop!
Lots of big comic news hitting the web here in the last few days as mega-distributor Diamond has released previews for what's coming up in the next few months. Big news for "Iron Man", "Uncanny Avengers", "Batman & Robin", and many more. I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say there are plenty of interesting twists coming up, and the info is out there on the web if you want to know.
First.......As you know my last column was regarding my first impressions of Fox's superhero entry "Gotham". I have to say as we sit here after 5 weeks with another 15+ episodes to go I am still on the fence. It's not a bad show and the plan is rather ambitious to try to go ten years with this cast and this premise. I just don't get this obsession with having to have everything be relative in storytelling now.
Not every character has to know one another, and our hero and villain don't have to be old friends to tell a powerful story. Sometimes mystery is good, sometimes it's good to have a stark contrast in ideals & upbringing, & many times the most real danger is what we do not know. Gordon doesn't have to be involved in the Wayne investigation to make the show go.
I also would've been happier with a 20-something Bruce traveling the world while a late 30's Gordon struggled with the corruption in the GCPD. It's a small criticism, but I think it's something that would've made for a more compelling show. What we have gotten to this point is not really that clever and more or less a paint by numbers picture of who will become what villain/hero.
One of the common defenses is that "It's not a Batman show...it's about Gotham". That's not a bad defense, but it has a big hole in it when Bruce and Alfred are shoe horned in to every episode. Like the with the Ballonman and Bruce made the not so subtle realization that Ballonman was a bad vigilante because he killed people. It would've been even more compelling for the creators of the show to have the origins of Gotham itself play a pivotal role in their storytelling. It's just my feelings on it at this point and it is just an opinion.
Second....In contrast I am in absolute love with what they are doing with the new incarnation of "The Flash" on television. It's not the drab, dark, superhero story that we have come to expect from WB. In contrast it is bright and a lot of fun. Grant Gustin was absolutely wronged by the big wigs at WB when they passed him over to play Flash on the big screen, but I digress. This is a fantastic show that introduces a lot of new characters and concepts to the DCTVU, and is a contrast to the dark world of "Arrow" (not that I'm complaining). I am only left to wonder which character they will choose as the third figurehead of this powerful CW alliance. Here's hoping for GL because the three shared so much time and friendship in the pre-52 universe, but it could be difficult to do GL on a TV budget.
Third....Arrow returned for third go-round and it was fantastic as usual. Brandon Routh has stolen the show early on as genius, billionaire, playboy Ray Palmer. Ollie's journey to becoming a true light and hero continues to be the driving force of the show, and each week brings with it a little more character evolution. Along with Mr. Queen the city itself is going to be changed from the Starling name to Star City as it was in the comics. While New 52 Ollie is operating out of the Emerald City, Seattle, Star City played home to the vigilante billionaire for years.
Fourth....It has come to my attention that some of the things that I have suggested on this blog have come to pass (the return of pre-new 52 continuity, x-men television show, the rumored punisher netflix series, and others). So to anyone reading this and benefiting from it in the words of Paulie from "Goodfellas" "Fuck you, pay me".
Fifth.....RDJ has really agitated me in his tour of support for his new film "The Judge". In sequential days he claimed he would return for "Ironman 4" if.....Mel Gibson Directed....if.....Howard Stern produced....that negotiations were underway....and finally that superhero movies were reaching a point of over saturation. This is a man who's career was revitalized by his success as Tony Stark in Ironman, that has made a LOT of money from his appearances in Marvel movies, and has continued to ask for more. I'm not saying he owes the fans anything, but it would be nice if he could just not jerk us around so much.
Sixth....Breaking the BvS rule here, but the Jena Malone news has got me fired up again. <pulls out soap box> WB knows what they are doing. It's as simple as that. Not everyone has to do their movies "the Marvel way". This is a company that has managed the likes of "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit". They understand how to manage their properties and to make them successful. I know that I have complained about their decisions in the past, but I even have to remind myself sometimes that WB has been around a long time and they have the benefit of experience. They have a bonafide leading man for the Justice League going forward with the A+ star/Director of "Argo" and "The Town", and the leading man of current hit "Gone Girl" in Ben Affleck. I believe in Ben and I hope that you will too.
Seventh.....This one is straight from the rumor mill, but you may have seen by now that Sony has suggested that if "Sinister Six" does not perform well at the box office that they will use that film to reboot Spidey so that he could cross over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I love Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spidey, but I think they should not hesitate to make this move. It would bring a proven winner to the Marvel Universe and it would help to legitimize Sony's endeavors. Also it would finally prove to Avi Arad that he is a moron, and that's just good for everybody.
I know I had more to discuss, but I'm spacing on what that might be. Pull list is a little light the next few weeks, but I will be back some time in November to discuss issues as always.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Lots of big comic news hitting the web here in the last few days as mega-distributor Diamond has released previews for what's coming up in the next few months. Big news for "Iron Man", "Uncanny Avengers", "Batman & Robin", and many more. I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say there are plenty of interesting twists coming up, and the info is out there on the web if you want to know.
First.......As you know my last column was regarding my first impressions of Fox's superhero entry "Gotham". I have to say as we sit here after 5 weeks with another 15+ episodes to go I am still on the fence. It's not a bad show and the plan is rather ambitious to try to go ten years with this cast and this premise. I just don't get this obsession with having to have everything be relative in storytelling now.
Not every character has to know one another, and our hero and villain don't have to be old friends to tell a powerful story. Sometimes mystery is good, sometimes it's good to have a stark contrast in ideals & upbringing, & many times the most real danger is what we do not know. Gordon doesn't have to be involved in the Wayne investigation to make the show go.
I also would've been happier with a 20-something Bruce traveling the world while a late 30's Gordon struggled with the corruption in the GCPD. It's a small criticism, but I think it's something that would've made for a more compelling show. What we have gotten to this point is not really that clever and more or less a paint by numbers picture of who will become what villain/hero.
One of the common defenses is that "It's not a Batman show...it's about Gotham". That's not a bad defense, but it has a big hole in it when Bruce and Alfred are shoe horned in to every episode. Like the with the Ballonman and Bruce made the not so subtle realization that Ballonman was a bad vigilante because he killed people. It would've been even more compelling for the creators of the show to have the origins of Gotham itself play a pivotal role in their storytelling. It's just my feelings on it at this point and it is just an opinion.
Second....In contrast I am in absolute love with what they are doing with the new incarnation of "The Flash" on television. It's not the drab, dark, superhero story that we have come to expect from WB. In contrast it is bright and a lot of fun. Grant Gustin was absolutely wronged by the big wigs at WB when they passed him over to play Flash on the big screen, but I digress. This is a fantastic show that introduces a lot of new characters and concepts to the DCTVU, and is a contrast to the dark world of "Arrow" (not that I'm complaining). I am only left to wonder which character they will choose as the third figurehead of this powerful CW alliance. Here's hoping for GL because the three shared so much time and friendship in the pre-52 universe, but it could be difficult to do GL on a TV budget.
Third....Arrow returned for third go-round and it was fantastic as usual. Brandon Routh has stolen the show early on as genius, billionaire, playboy Ray Palmer. Ollie's journey to becoming a true light and hero continues to be the driving force of the show, and each week brings with it a little more character evolution. Along with Mr. Queen the city itself is going to be changed from the Starling name to Star City as it was in the comics. While New 52 Ollie is operating out of the Emerald City, Seattle, Star City played home to the vigilante billionaire for years.
Fourth....It has come to my attention that some of the things that I have suggested on this blog have come to pass (the return of pre-new 52 continuity, x-men television show, the rumored punisher netflix series, and others). So to anyone reading this and benefiting from it in the words of Paulie from "Goodfellas" "Fuck you, pay me".
Fifth.....RDJ has really agitated me in his tour of support for his new film "The Judge". In sequential days he claimed he would return for "Ironman 4" if.....Mel Gibson Directed....if.....Howard Stern produced....that negotiations were underway....and finally that superhero movies were reaching a point of over saturation. This is a man who's career was revitalized by his success as Tony Stark in Ironman, that has made a LOT of money from his appearances in Marvel movies, and has continued to ask for more. I'm not saying he owes the fans anything, but it would be nice if he could just not jerk us around so much.
Sixth....Breaking the BvS rule here, but the Jena Malone news has got me fired up again. <pulls out soap box> WB knows what they are doing. It's as simple as that. Not everyone has to do their movies "the Marvel way". This is a company that has managed the likes of "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit". They understand how to manage their properties and to make them successful. I know that I have complained about their decisions in the past, but I even have to remind myself sometimes that WB has been around a long time and they have the benefit of experience. They have a bonafide leading man for the Justice League going forward with the A+ star/Director of "Argo" and "The Town", and the leading man of current hit "Gone Girl" in Ben Affleck. I believe in Ben and I hope that you will too.
Seventh.....This one is straight from the rumor mill, but you may have seen by now that Sony has suggested that if "Sinister Six" does not perform well at the box office that they will use that film to reboot Spidey so that he could cross over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I love Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spidey, but I think they should not hesitate to make this move. It would bring a proven winner to the Marvel Universe and it would help to legitimize Sony's endeavors. Also it would finally prove to Avi Arad that he is a moron, and that's just good for everybody.
I know I had more to discuss, but I'm spacing on what that might be. Pull list is a little light the next few weeks, but I will be back some time in November to discuss issues as always.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
"Gotham": First Impressions and other morsels
Hello and welcome to an unscheduled edition of The Comic Shop!
FIRST......"Gotham" made it's highly anticipated television debut last week with the second episode airing this previous Monday. I will preface all my thoughts by saying it is EARLY in the life of the show and these are snap judgements and impressions. As with all things I reserve the right to change my opinion based on the strength of future episodes (the "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." amendment in The Comic Shop Constitution).
The Good:
I think that overall the performances are on par with most network tv. I think Ben McKenzie carries himself well as Gordon, and he is well suited to carry the brunt of the load for this series. Nobody really stands out at this point per se; however, I did really like the casting of Robin Lord Taylor as a young Oswald Cobblepot. Taylor fits the off beat look of the future Penguin, and it will be interesting to see what develops with his character in the run of the series.
The Bad/Ugly:
My main gripe is that for a series like this the Wayne's are not needed as an integral part of the plot. In my honest opinion I think it does a disservice to have Bruce, Alfred, or even the murder of Thomas and Martha as a central focus in this adaptation.
The thing that makes Batman's origin so powerful is not that it's a mystery that needs to be solved, but that it's a mystery that CAN'T be solved. In several interpretations of the history of Batman "Joe Chill" is a pseudonym for a faceless man. Bruce dons the cowl and wages everlasting war because every criminal is potentially the one that killed his parents. Now obviously this is tweaked with every adaptation of the source material for instance in "The Dark Knight Trilogy" Joe Chill was a flesh-and-blood man that was caught, and in "Batman" Jack Napier would eventually become the clown prince of crime The Joker.
Batman the stoic loner takes on wards like Dick Grayson so that they may find the justice that he never will, so that they do not become a brooding obsessed vigilante like the Batman. In making the Wayne's murder a mystery that is integral to the series the creators have to this point made it a bland intrigue story rather than the origin of the Dark Knight that we all know and love.
In my mind a better narrative for the show would have been to have a twenty-something Bruce Wayne in his travels around the world making sporadic appearances on the show while the main story featured a young Gordon fresh off the train from Chicago fighting corruption in the GCPD.
Like I said it is early in the life of this show and I'm going to give it some honest time, but these are my first impressions and nothing else. Judge it however you wish, because after all this is an opinion piece
SECOND.....I'm mostly done discussing Fox's next adaptation of the "Fantastic Four", but it has been confirmed that in this version Sue will be an adopted sibling of Johnny Storm. Take it as you will.
My honest feeling is that we are just seeing the beginning of an epic pissing contest between Fox and Marvel. As you may have read Marvel is planning on ceasing publication of Fantastic Four in the near future as to not lend support to this project, and there are rumbles they may do that with the X-men as well. I look at this as Fox saying "okay well then we are going to do whatever the hell we want with this adaptation because we can".
Nothing is confirmed at this point, but I think we are starting to see where everyone stands. With a hot property like "X-men: Days of Future Past" hitting the theater last summer one would have expected to see toys, licensed t-shirts, lunch boxes, and everything else under the sun, but because Marvel owns the rights to the license they put the kibosh on that. This all is allegedly due to Marvel wanting the rights back to the X-men & FF properties. Which as you may or may not know only came about because Marvel came on hard times, and needed some quick cash. This lead to the movie rights to X-men and FF being with Fox, and an actual split ownership of Spider-man with Sony.
LASTLY......Depending on your reading habits it could be a light or heavy day at The Comic Book store tomorrow. Lady Thor will be making her debut in the wake of the events of "Original Sin", and Bucky Barnes will become a space ranger due to the same event. Wolverine will continue his march toward death, and the Justice League will fight something or the other. As for your humble blogger I'm looking forward to "Green Arrow" as we pick up with a new arch from the creative team of the successful show "Arrow", and I will trudge through another issue of "Grayson".
Thanks for reading! See you next time at The Comic Shop!
FIRST......"Gotham" made it's highly anticipated television debut last week with the second episode airing this previous Monday. I will preface all my thoughts by saying it is EARLY in the life of the show and these are snap judgements and impressions. As with all things I reserve the right to change my opinion based on the strength of future episodes (the "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." amendment in The Comic Shop Constitution).
The Good:
I think that overall the performances are on par with most network tv. I think Ben McKenzie carries himself well as Gordon, and he is well suited to carry the brunt of the load for this series. Nobody really stands out at this point per se; however, I did really like the casting of Robin Lord Taylor as a young Oswald Cobblepot. Taylor fits the off beat look of the future Penguin, and it will be interesting to see what develops with his character in the run of the series.
The Bad/Ugly:
My main gripe is that for a series like this the Wayne's are not needed as an integral part of the plot. In my honest opinion I think it does a disservice to have Bruce, Alfred, or even the murder of Thomas and Martha as a central focus in this adaptation.
The thing that makes Batman's origin so powerful is not that it's a mystery that needs to be solved, but that it's a mystery that CAN'T be solved. In several interpretations of the history of Batman "Joe Chill" is a pseudonym for a faceless man. Bruce dons the cowl and wages everlasting war because every criminal is potentially the one that killed his parents. Now obviously this is tweaked with every adaptation of the source material for instance in "The Dark Knight Trilogy" Joe Chill was a flesh-and-blood man that was caught, and in "Batman" Jack Napier would eventually become the clown prince of crime The Joker.
Batman the stoic loner takes on wards like Dick Grayson so that they may find the justice that he never will, so that they do not become a brooding obsessed vigilante like the Batman. In making the Wayne's murder a mystery that is integral to the series the creators have to this point made it a bland intrigue story rather than the origin of the Dark Knight that we all know and love.
In my mind a better narrative for the show would have been to have a twenty-something Bruce Wayne in his travels around the world making sporadic appearances on the show while the main story featured a young Gordon fresh off the train from Chicago fighting corruption in the GCPD.
Like I said it is early in the life of this show and I'm going to give it some honest time, but these are my first impressions and nothing else. Judge it however you wish, because after all this is an opinion piece
SECOND.....I'm mostly done discussing Fox's next adaptation of the "Fantastic Four", but it has been confirmed that in this version Sue will be an adopted sibling of Johnny Storm. Take it as you will.
My honest feeling is that we are just seeing the beginning of an epic pissing contest between Fox and Marvel. As you may have read Marvel is planning on ceasing publication of Fantastic Four in the near future as to not lend support to this project, and there are rumbles they may do that with the X-men as well. I look at this as Fox saying "okay well then we are going to do whatever the hell we want with this adaptation because we can".
Nothing is confirmed at this point, but I think we are starting to see where everyone stands. With a hot property like "X-men: Days of Future Past" hitting the theater last summer one would have expected to see toys, licensed t-shirts, lunch boxes, and everything else under the sun, but because Marvel owns the rights to the license they put the kibosh on that. This all is allegedly due to Marvel wanting the rights back to the X-men & FF properties. Which as you may or may not know only came about because Marvel came on hard times, and needed some quick cash. This lead to the movie rights to X-men and FF being with Fox, and an actual split ownership of Spider-man with Sony.
LASTLY......Depending on your reading habits it could be a light or heavy day at The Comic Book store tomorrow. Lady Thor will be making her debut in the wake of the events of "Original Sin", and Bucky Barnes will become a space ranger due to the same event. Wolverine will continue his march toward death, and the Justice League will fight something or the other. As for your humble blogger I'm looking forward to "Green Arrow" as we pick up with a new arch from the creative team of the successful show "Arrow", and I will trudge through another issue of "Grayson".
Thanks for reading! See you next time at The Comic Shop!
Friday, September 19, 2014
All sorts of news...
Hello and welcome to the 09/19/2014 edition of The Comic Shop...
I have decided that with changes in my work life and the continued challenge of raising a baby I will likely be limiting these posts to a monthly entry. In the end I think this new time frame will give me a chance to decide what I want to discuss, and to have strongly formulated opinion on the various items. I love writing this blog, but it can be time consuming and I have other concerns at this time. As always I appreciate your continued support, and I will do my best to bring the best entries that I can to the table.
First........ Off of the strength of the "leaked" test reel footage "Deadpool" will be getting a feature film from 20th Century Fox. Given the reaction and the quality of the footage this is not a huge surprise. One can only hope that with the retcon of the Fox X-Universe we can keep Ryan Reynolds as the titular Merc with a Mouth, but ditch the awful characterization from "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". While Reynolds was not a good fit for DC's "Green Lantern" I think he is the ideal candidate to continue to portray Wade Wilson.
Second.....The producers of "Flash" and "Arrow" have announced that the last daughter of Krypton will be flying onto the screen at CBS. It will be interesting to see if this is a stand alone project or if it ties to either the DC movie verse or the DC Arrow-verse. I don't have a lot more to say about it at this point, but it is intriguing to say the least.
Third.....The Russo Brothers have teased that Frank Castle AKA The Punisher has been introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a blink-and-you-miss-it role as the driver of the Penske truck that struck SPOILER when the Winter Soldier threw him from a vehicle. While it seems unlikely that this is the case, because vehicular homicide is not Castle's SOP it is probable that he might show up in an adjacent Marvel One-Shot on a future home movie release. I would still; however, argue that Frank would be the absolute perfect candidate for a Marvel Netflix show because they could do the character justice.
The Comic Strips (Beware Spoilers for Comics Released on 09/17/14).
I took a small stack out of my local comic shop this week with "Daredevil" and "Batman & Robin" (Futures End tie in) on my pull list.
"Daredevil" - This was the start of a new arch with a terrifying new enemy for hornhead. It turns out that the mind control powered Purple Man decided to start a family, but it comes to a horrifying end for the PM and a new powerful group of mind control experts comes to forefront.
"Batman & Robin" - I have made my reservations known about the Futures End event and tie ins, but I have to make a caveat that the Bat books (this and the titular "Batman") were absolutely fantastic. I have made it known that I am a huge fan of "The Dark Knight Returns" and these books are more to the tune of "The Dark Knight Never Left". It is the same level of madness, but he has never quit being Batman. It is disturbing and interesting at the same time to watch him push his body past normal human limits with the use of dangerous science. I still feel that the event and tie ins are wholly unnecessary, but this is a very cool glimpse into the future of the caped crusader.
That's it for today. Unless something changes I will see you around the same time next month. Thank you for your continued support, thank you for reading, and I will see you next time at The Comic Shop!
I have decided that with changes in my work life and the continued challenge of raising a baby I will likely be limiting these posts to a monthly entry. In the end I think this new time frame will give me a chance to decide what I want to discuss, and to have strongly formulated opinion on the various items. I love writing this blog, but it can be time consuming and I have other concerns at this time. As always I appreciate your continued support, and I will do my best to bring the best entries that I can to the table.
First........ Off of the strength of the "leaked" test reel footage "Deadpool" will be getting a feature film from 20th Century Fox. Given the reaction and the quality of the footage this is not a huge surprise. One can only hope that with the retcon of the Fox X-Universe we can keep Ryan Reynolds as the titular Merc with a Mouth, but ditch the awful characterization from "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". While Reynolds was not a good fit for DC's "Green Lantern" I think he is the ideal candidate to continue to portray Wade Wilson.
Second.....The producers of "Flash" and "Arrow" have announced that the last daughter of Krypton will be flying onto the screen at CBS. It will be interesting to see if this is a stand alone project or if it ties to either the DC movie verse or the DC Arrow-verse. I don't have a lot more to say about it at this point, but it is intriguing to say the least.
Third.....The Russo Brothers have teased that Frank Castle AKA The Punisher has been introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a blink-and-you-miss-it role as the driver of the Penske truck that struck SPOILER when the Winter Soldier threw him from a vehicle. While it seems unlikely that this is the case, because vehicular homicide is not Castle's SOP it is probable that he might show up in an adjacent Marvel One-Shot on a future home movie release. I would still; however, argue that Frank would be the absolute perfect candidate for a Marvel Netflix show because they could do the character justice.
The Comic Strips (Beware Spoilers for Comics Released on 09/17/14).
I took a small stack out of my local comic shop this week with "Daredevil" and "Batman & Robin" (Futures End tie in) on my pull list.
"Daredevil" - This was the start of a new arch with a terrifying new enemy for hornhead. It turns out that the mind control powered Purple Man decided to start a family, but it comes to a horrifying end for the PM and a new powerful group of mind control experts comes to forefront.
"Batman & Robin" - I have made my reservations known about the Futures End event and tie ins, but I have to make a caveat that the Bat books (this and the titular "Batman") were absolutely fantastic. I have made it known that I am a huge fan of "The Dark Knight Returns" and these books are more to the tune of "The Dark Knight Never Left". It is the same level of madness, but he has never quit being Batman. It is disturbing and interesting at the same time to watch him push his body past normal human limits with the use of dangerous science. I still feel that the event and tie ins are wholly unnecessary, but this is a very cool glimpse into the future of the caped crusader.
That's it for today. Unless something changes I will see you around the same time next month. Thank you for your continued support, thank you for reading, and I will see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Thursday, September 4, 2014
WB/DC WTF?
Hello and welcome to the abbreviated 09/04/14 edition of The Comic Shop!
First........
Yesterday was a pretty amazing yet astoundingly frustrating news day. At long last it was confirmed that WB has picked Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to play Black Adam in an upcoming "Shazam" film. This news was welcomed by your humble blogger; however, the accompanying news not so much. WB followed up stating that they had hired Darren Lemke to script the Earth's mightiest mortal film debut.
That wasn't bad, but then it got worse. Warner Brothers in their infinite wisdom has stated that the Shazam movie will have humor and be fun (as it should), and that IT WILL NOT TIE IN TO THE GREATER DC UNIVERSE INCLUDING "BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE". Pardon my language but WHAT THE FUCK?! They hire a box office heavyweight like Johnson and then immediately snuff the possibility of him showing up as the big bad in a Justice League movie, or joining the justice league to stave off an ultimate evil. This is just the most recent in a long line of head scratching decisions if we consider the huge popularity of "Arrow" and anticipation for "Flash" and that those were also treated like they weren't part of the greater universe. It makes no sense to me why WB wouldn't cash in on well-liked, and successful properties. Time will tell and this is certainly a snap judgement, but it is frustrating to say the least.
I certainly don't expect them to do everything like Marvel does, but it would be better to have a coherent product that doesn't confuse the masses.
Add to that Evil media Emperor Rupert Murdoch tried to recently purchase AOL/Time Warner, and that it's rumored that Disney may also soon make a bid it's not looking likely that we will see true competition between the studios after all.
Second..........
In keeping with the theme here "Futures End" has crossed over to the individual titles of DC comics. Being the idiot that I am I picked up "Green Arrow", and found that the cliffhanger would be resolved in the "Futures End" weekly comic. Sorry, but that is not going to happen. There are too many other things to pay for each week without having to delve out an extra $2.99 each for the weekly release of "Futures End" and "Batman Eternal". It feels like DC is trying to manipulate their sales numbers by having a weekly title.
Third....... (Original Sin Spoilers)
Original Sin came to a climax this week and I have to say overall it was not a very satisfying story arch. It felt more like a side dish to the meat and potatoes that will play out over the next year at Marvel. It showed how Thor became disgraced and depowered, and laid the groundwork for other happenings. I enjoyed some of the earlier issues, but I think overall I regret buying the whole arch. Marvel has been great at the big event with "Civil War", "Secret Invasion", "Avengers v. X-men", "Siege", "Dark Reign", and others they changed the landscape and implemented a new status quo. With "Original Sin" it felt like it was an eight issue ad that said "what's new at Marvel Comics!". I think if given the ball Jason Aaron could do a great job in the future I just think this event set him up to fail.
That's all for today trying to keep it short since tonight we are #Back2Football...Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
First........
Yesterday was a pretty amazing yet astoundingly frustrating news day. At long last it was confirmed that WB has picked Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to play Black Adam in an upcoming "Shazam" film. This news was welcomed by your humble blogger; however, the accompanying news not so much. WB followed up stating that they had hired Darren Lemke to script the Earth's mightiest mortal film debut.
That wasn't bad, but then it got worse. Warner Brothers in their infinite wisdom has stated that the Shazam movie will have humor and be fun (as it should), and that IT WILL NOT TIE IN TO THE GREATER DC UNIVERSE INCLUDING "BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE". Pardon my language but WHAT THE FUCK?! They hire a box office heavyweight like Johnson and then immediately snuff the possibility of him showing up as the big bad in a Justice League movie, or joining the justice league to stave off an ultimate evil. This is just the most recent in a long line of head scratching decisions if we consider the huge popularity of "Arrow" and anticipation for "Flash" and that those were also treated like they weren't part of the greater universe. It makes no sense to me why WB wouldn't cash in on well-liked, and successful properties. Time will tell and this is certainly a snap judgement, but it is frustrating to say the least.
I certainly don't expect them to do everything like Marvel does, but it would be better to have a coherent product that doesn't confuse the masses.
Add to that Evil media Emperor Rupert Murdoch tried to recently purchase AOL/Time Warner, and that it's rumored that Disney may also soon make a bid it's not looking likely that we will see true competition between the studios after all.
Second..........
In keeping with the theme here "Futures End" has crossed over to the individual titles of DC comics. Being the idiot that I am I picked up "Green Arrow", and found that the cliffhanger would be resolved in the "Futures End" weekly comic. Sorry, but that is not going to happen. There are too many other things to pay for each week without having to delve out an extra $2.99 each for the weekly release of "Futures End" and "Batman Eternal". It feels like DC is trying to manipulate their sales numbers by having a weekly title.
Third....... (Original Sin Spoilers)
Original Sin came to a climax this week and I have to say overall it was not a very satisfying story arch. It felt more like a side dish to the meat and potatoes that will play out over the next year at Marvel. It showed how Thor became disgraced and depowered, and laid the groundwork for other happenings. I enjoyed some of the earlier issues, but I think overall I regret buying the whole arch. Marvel has been great at the big event with "Civil War", "Secret Invasion", "Avengers v. X-men", "Siege", "Dark Reign", and others they changed the landscape and implemented a new status quo. With "Original Sin" it felt like it was an eight issue ad that said "what's new at Marvel Comics!". I think if given the ball Jason Aaron could do a great job in the future I just think this event set him up to fail.
That's all for today trying to keep it short since tonight we are #Back2Football...Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Thursday, August 21, 2014
News & other random thoughts...
Hello & welcome to the 08/21/14 edition of The Comic Shop!
Thank you so much for your continued readership! We are about to pass over 2000 pageviews, which I never thought would be possible. Be sure to share the blog, and feel free to like the facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thecomicshopblog?ref=hl . As a wise man once said "Tell your friends about me"....On to the news.....
First.... Chris Pratt dressed up as Star Lord once again to entertain children in a hospital. I do not have a lot to say about this, but that it is admirable that someone in such an enviable position has chosen to use it to be an everyday hero. He has also used his influence to garner participation from his "Guardians" co stars in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Suffice it to say definite man crush engaged from this blogger.
Second...The lovely Evangeline Lilly unveiled her look for the upcoming Marvel "Ant-man" film. While the character Hope Van Dyne is an invention of the film world and left the collective uber-nerds feeling "Lost" it appears that she has taken on a very Wasp-like look. I'm hedging on this project because of the turmoil with the original director Edgar Wright, but I enjoy the work of Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, and Michael Douglas. It's hard to doubt Marvel at this point, because each movie seems to be an improvement upon the previous one.
Third... "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" has opened to a lukewarm reception from critics with a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 44%. Not to say that an RT score is the end all be all for whether a film will be good or not, but early reviews reaffirm some of my concerns about the project. Eight years is a LONG time to go between sequels. Not to say it's unheard of, but it does not exactly inspire confidence. That coupled with the death or recasting of some of the ensemble roles (Michael Clark Duncan & Brittany Murphy RIP)(Clive Owen- career DOA) makes this a wait-and-see for this blogger.
Fourth....November solicitations started a bit of a firestorm with an alternative cover for an upcoming issue of Spider-woman as drawn by former erotic/soft core artist Milo Manara. I'll spare you the pictures, but it was quite upsetting to a number of paying customers as the cover featured Jessica Drew baring her assets to the city (and also quite a shovel face IMO). Make of it what you will, but I can't speak to a woman's point of view on something like that.
Fifth.... Dark Horse has released a trailer for the upcoming "Prometheus: Fire and Stone" which will be the first in a series of books ("Aliens: Fire & Stone", "AVP: Fire & Stone", and "Predator: Fire and Stone"). While I thought the "Prometheus" film was quite entertaining it was one of those movies that is so filled with holes you can't look at it the same way after you think about it for five minutes. That said I love comics, and I love that they are crossing over these franchises so I might give it a cursory look.
Sixth....Vince D'Onofrio has shaved his head and looks to be a fantastic Kingpin for the upcoming "Daredevil" Netflix series. D'Onofrio appeared at the outset to me to be an odd choice, but now I'm looking forward to his portrayal of the nefarious Wilson Fisk. As you can tell from my Frank Miller list I'm a big DD fan so I'm hoping Marvel hits another home run with this project.
A final note...I will be keeping my "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" speculation/discussion to a minimum until we at least see a real trailer for the project. I have found often in my life that reading too much about a movie beforehand can really ruin the experience, so to that end I will not participate in ruining it for my readers.
The Comic Strips - Beware Spoilers for comics released on 08/20/14
This week's pull list was a bit lean for your humble blogger with just "Daredevil" and "Batman & Robin" being purchased.
Daredevil - This issue was the continuation of a tie-in to the "Original Sin" event that features Murdock traveling to a newly hostile Wakanda to rescue his nun mother Sister Maggie. I've noted before that I'm a huge fan of what Mark Waid has done with DD; however, this issue lacked any kind of satisfying conclusion and was more or less a PSA for postpartum depression. As noble as that may be it's not exactly why we pick up comics.
Batman & Robin - Another chapter in the "Robin Rises" saga unfolded, but in actuality not a whole lot happened. In truth this single issue just completely deballed the "Death of the Family" event from last year by having Batman apologize the the Bat-family, ensure them of total truth in the future, and then embark on a suicide mission to Apokolips to rescue/resurrect his son. The total truth thing gets thrown to the wolves when the dead-to-the-world Dick Grayson shows up to have a PB & J and offer to help with Bats mission.
That's all for this week...I will see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Thank you so much for your continued readership! We are about to pass over 2000 pageviews, which I never thought would be possible. Be sure to share the blog, and feel free to like the facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thecomicshopblog?ref=hl . As a wise man once said "Tell your friends about me"....On to the news.....
First.... Chris Pratt dressed up as Star Lord once again to entertain children in a hospital. I do not have a lot to say about this, but that it is admirable that someone in such an enviable position has chosen to use it to be an everyday hero. He has also used his influence to garner participation from his "Guardians" co stars in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Suffice it to say definite man crush engaged from this blogger.
Second...The lovely Evangeline Lilly unveiled her look for the upcoming Marvel "Ant-man" film. While the character Hope Van Dyne is an invention of the film world and left the collective uber-nerds feeling "Lost" it appears that she has taken on a very Wasp-like look. I'm hedging on this project because of the turmoil with the original director Edgar Wright, but I enjoy the work of Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, and Michael Douglas. It's hard to doubt Marvel at this point, because each movie seems to be an improvement upon the previous one.
Third... "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" has opened to a lukewarm reception from critics with a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 44%. Not to say that an RT score is the end all be all for whether a film will be good or not, but early reviews reaffirm some of my concerns about the project. Eight years is a LONG time to go between sequels. Not to say it's unheard of, but it does not exactly inspire confidence. That coupled with the death or recasting of some of the ensemble roles (Michael Clark Duncan & Brittany Murphy RIP)(Clive Owen- career DOA) makes this a wait-and-see for this blogger.
Fourth....November solicitations started a bit of a firestorm with an alternative cover for an upcoming issue of Spider-woman as drawn by former erotic/soft core artist Milo Manara. I'll spare you the pictures, but it was quite upsetting to a number of paying customers as the cover featured Jessica Drew baring her assets to the city (and also quite a shovel face IMO). Make of it what you will, but I can't speak to a woman's point of view on something like that.
Fifth.... Dark Horse has released a trailer for the upcoming "Prometheus: Fire and Stone" which will be the first in a series of books ("Aliens: Fire & Stone", "AVP: Fire & Stone", and "Predator: Fire and Stone"). While I thought the "Prometheus" film was quite entertaining it was one of those movies that is so filled with holes you can't look at it the same way after you think about it for five minutes. That said I love comics, and I love that they are crossing over these franchises so I might give it a cursory look.
Sixth....Vince D'Onofrio has shaved his head and looks to be a fantastic Kingpin for the upcoming "Daredevil" Netflix series. D'Onofrio appeared at the outset to me to be an odd choice, but now I'm looking forward to his portrayal of the nefarious Wilson Fisk. As you can tell from my Frank Miller list I'm a big DD fan so I'm hoping Marvel hits another home run with this project.
A final note...I will be keeping my "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" speculation/discussion to a minimum until we at least see a real trailer for the project. I have found often in my life that reading too much about a movie beforehand can really ruin the experience, so to that end I will not participate in ruining it for my readers.
The Comic Strips - Beware Spoilers for comics released on 08/20/14
This week's pull list was a bit lean for your humble blogger with just "Daredevil" and "Batman & Robin" being purchased.
Daredevil - This issue was the continuation of a tie-in to the "Original Sin" event that features Murdock traveling to a newly hostile Wakanda to rescue his nun mother Sister Maggie. I've noted before that I'm a huge fan of what Mark Waid has done with DD; however, this issue lacked any kind of satisfying conclusion and was more or less a PSA for postpartum depression. As noble as that may be it's not exactly why we pick up comics.
Batman & Robin - Another chapter in the "Robin Rises" saga unfolded, but in actuality not a whole lot happened. In truth this single issue just completely deballed the "Death of the Family" event from last year by having Batman apologize the the Bat-family, ensure them of total truth in the future, and then embark on a suicide mission to Apokolips to rescue/resurrect his son. The total truth thing gets thrown to the wolves when the dead-to-the-world Dick Grayson shows up to have a PB & J and offer to help with Bats mission.
That's all for this week...I will see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Monday, August 18, 2014
A Book to Kill For...my favorite Frank Miller stories so far
Hello and welcome to the 08/18/14 edition of The Comic Shop!
After my last post I want to reiterate that I always welcome well-thought-out responses to my various topics. After all I am more than willing to participate in the debate/discussion and I never want to give the impression that I do not value the opinion of others as much as I value my own. A lot of our contemporary problems could be solved if people were more willing to hear out the other side and try to understand that not everyone has the same upbring/values/experiences/views/environment/socioeconomic background/etc. I am as guilty as anyone else at being stubborn about opinions that I hold, but I always try to at least hear what the other side has to say.
With the impending release of "Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" I thought it might be fun to look at my favorite Frank Miller stories that I have read.
So on to the column.....Let's be Frank....
1. The Dark Knight Returns - This novel was a watershed moment for comics in that it showed publishers that there was in fact an adult audience. Published on gloss paper and released in maxi-series format "TDKR" was a turning point in the marketing in comics (along with "Watchmen" and other comics of the time). "TDKR" features an older Batman that returns to action after a long absence to rid Gotham of the new scourge of the mutants. He also has one last fatal tussle with the Joker, and beats the ever-loving hell out of the big blue boy scout. I've written at length about how much I love this book before so it goes without saying this is my unquestioned number one.
2. Born Again - What is the secret identity of a superhero worth? If you are a junkie/prostitute/ex-girlfriend of Matt Murdock it's worth an arm full of heroin. When the Kingpin gets his hands on the information all hell breaks loose. With a premise like that "Born Again" is one of the more fantastic Daredevil books. Truth be told "Daredevil" is not even in the book until the 3rd act, but this story sets in motion the "I'm not Daredevil" narrative that was the cornerstone of hornhead storytelling for decades. The events of "Born Again" also laid the groundwork for Kevin Smith's stellar "Guardian Devil" story several years later.
3. Wolverine......When Marvel comics decided to give Wolverine his own title there were a lot of options for writers, but they chose Frank Miller. Frank introduced a lot of new concepts for the character including placing him in Japan, his catchphrase "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice", and introduced characters like Yuriko, Mariko, and the Silver Samurai. This story was picked from with some liberty taken to craft the narrative for "The Wolverine" film that hit theaters last year.
4. That Yellow Bastard.....My favorite of the "Sin City" stories features Detective Hartigan fighting to protect the innocence of a young girl in a city filled with Sin. This was an integral part of the original "Sin City" film with Bruce Willis playing the aforementioned Hartigan.
5. The Hard Goodbye....Another story from the "Sin City" feature film this one features Marv avenging the death of a prostitute "Goldie". Equal parts Rasputin and hard boiled storytelling this is one of the better narratives in the "Sin City" universe. In truth I became more of a fan of this story after Mickey Rourke brought it to life on screen. Bonus points for the fact that Frank Miller played a tainted priest in the live action adaptation.
6. Batman: Year One.....The follow up to "TDKR" this story showed Bruce Wayne's first adventure as Batman, and gave a full blown origin to the caped crusader and Jim Gordon. I have mixed emotions about this book, because I like that it is the set up for the dark and brooding tone featured in "TDKR". My issue with it is the pacing, which is extremely slow and frustrating. It still makes the list though because of what it means to the origin of Batman and Gordon as I mentioned before.
7. Daredevil Comics.....As a more general entry I own two trade paperback collections of Miller's first run with hornhead. While it starts out kind of rough you can tell while reading when Miller got more creative control. The stories take a darker turn, and he introduces characters like Electra and Bullseye to the story. Once again Miller built the framework for how Daredevil stories would be presented for future decades with this run.
In full disclosure I have not read "Ronin", "Man without Fear", and I refuse to read ignorant bile like "Holy Terror". I do; however, intend to read the first two at some point in the near future.
In a related story the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (which were created to quasi-parody Ronin and Daredevil stories from Frank Miller) movie won two weeks in a row at the box office. While "Guardians of the Galaxy" continues to rake in the cash (now over $200 million) it somehow has not beat the mixed reviewed turtle flick.
That's all for today!
See you next time at The Comic Shop!
Sunday, August 3, 2014
The FF reboot is in the can...
I've written at length about this before, but please spare me your complaints about Michael B. Jordan. He & Kate Mara are likely the best members of the cast speaking generally.
I fully support this not because I have "liberal" allegiances (I Dont), or that I'm PC (I'm not), or white guilt or whatever dismissive garbage a person would want to attribute this to.
It is an accurate representation of the families of today rather than the "nuclear family" from the 60's when these characters were introduced. If director Josh Trank wanted to make a FF film based in the 1960's I would agree wholeheartedly, but he's not so I don't.
Let's not pretend that these studios are 100% loyal to the source material on anything. I mean I didn't see a giant squid at the end of "Watchmen", but I, not unlike many of my comic loving brethren glossed over it because it wouldn't sell to a wider audience. In my rational this is no different in that it's a tweak that could play to a wider audience. It's not a given, but there is reason to believe that it could impact the box office.
As "fanboys" it can be hard to digest the idea that not everything the studio does is for us. It's hard to pan or praise this project without seeing a single film cell. I will say the production model of a Thing was leaps and bounds better than anything they've done in the past.
It is not my intention to get on the soapbox on this issue, but it gets a little old as a comic fan to get lumped in with the ignorant bile that is spewed when casting news like this comes out. I get a little embarrassed for people that react by saying "when do I get my white so & so?" Don't worry one day you'll get a white superhero on film other than; Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye, the Fantastic Four, He-man, Dick Tracy, Nick Fury (Hasselhoff), the Lone Ranger, the Punisher, Green Lantern, Star Lord, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Green Arrow (TV), Flash (TV), most Agents of SHIELD (TV), Agent Carter (TV), Wolverine, a few of the X-men...and so on.
As I said I do not intend to be negative or condescending, & it appears now that fans have become more accustomed to these cosmetic changes. I did not see as much of the negativity flooding the net when Jason Momoa was cast as Arthur Curry/Aquaman or when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson teased being cast as Shazam. For that I give the fanboys credit, because those casting choices are very different than their comic lineage.
I will try to keep it more positive in the future, but it is tiring to hear & read so many complaints about a second-tier hero being played by an underrated actor in a movie from a studio that many people already hate.
Thank you for reading & I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
I fully support this not because I have "liberal" allegiances (I Dont), or that I'm PC (I'm not), or white guilt or whatever dismissive garbage a person would want to attribute this to.
It is an accurate representation of the families of today rather than the "nuclear family" from the 60's when these characters were introduced. If director Josh Trank wanted to make a FF film based in the 1960's I would agree wholeheartedly, but he's not so I don't.
Let's not pretend that these studios are 100% loyal to the source material on anything. I mean I didn't see a giant squid at the end of "Watchmen", but I, not unlike many of my comic loving brethren glossed over it because it wouldn't sell to a wider audience. In my rational this is no different in that it's a tweak that could play to a wider audience. It's not a given, but there is reason to believe that it could impact the box office.
As "fanboys" it can be hard to digest the idea that not everything the studio does is for us. It's hard to pan or praise this project without seeing a single film cell. I will say the production model of a Thing was leaps and bounds better than anything they've done in the past.
It is not my intention to get on the soapbox on this issue, but it gets a little old as a comic fan to get lumped in with the ignorant bile that is spewed when casting news like this comes out. I get a little embarrassed for people that react by saying "when do I get my white so & so?" Don't worry one day you'll get a white superhero on film other than; Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye, the Fantastic Four, He-man, Dick Tracy, Nick Fury (Hasselhoff), the Lone Ranger, the Punisher, Green Lantern, Star Lord, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Green Arrow (TV), Flash (TV), most Agents of SHIELD (TV), Agent Carter (TV), Wolverine, a few of the X-men...and so on.
As I said I do not intend to be negative or condescending, & it appears now that fans have become more accustomed to these cosmetic changes. I did not see as much of the negativity flooding the net when Jason Momoa was cast as Arthur Curry/Aquaman or when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson teased being cast as Shazam. For that I give the fanboys credit, because those casting choices are very different than their comic lineage.
I will try to keep it more positive in the future, but it is tiring to hear & read so many complaints about a second-tier hero being played by an underrated actor in a movie from a studio that many people already hate.
Thank you for reading & I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Comic-con "Dawn of Justice" thoughts..
Hello and Welcome to the July 31st edition of The Comic Shop Blog!
Each time I check I am astounded by the sheer number of page views. Thank you so very much for taking the time to read my humble opinions! I'm very grateful and it has emboldened me to take on a few other challenges like my Breaking Bad Fan Blog "All the Remains" and my rasslin' blog. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for your continued support my dear readers. That's enough sap for now onto the topic of the day!
By now you hopefully have seen at least screenshots of the comic con footage from the "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" panel. If not it's most definitely worth a google search. It's hard to get too excited when the movie is almost two full years away, but that stoked the flames of this DC fan for sure. I remember in my youth (when I didn't understand how aging worked) I longed to see Adam West fight crime along side Christopher Reeve, and then much later I longed to see Michael Keaton suit up with Reeve. Nevermind that stylistically, at least, the latter pair wouldn't have worked it was an obsession of mine to see the world's finest united. I've read most of the major crossovers for the two titans, if not all. It's a powerful juxtaposition of ideals, methods, & processes that are ultimately to achieve the same end.
"Dawn of Justice" despite some of it's outward flaws and concerns represents the end to a lifetime of waiting for a fan like me. I have my concerns about the foundation for sure, but I'm hoping they use this film to right the course.
Borrowing from "The Dark Knight Returns" makes perfect sense in this scenario because in that piece of literature Superman was a government lap dog that had actually torn one of Green Arrow's arms off. The "Man of Steel" Supes hasn't torn any arms, but he's pledged a terse loyalty to the government, destroyed a city, & might have twisted a guy's head off. This all gives Batman, who in this narrative has layed low, cause to be skeptical of Krypton's last son.
As an aside I've made my feelings known about the ending of "MOS", but I will give credit to the fact that it does not insult the audience in the way that say spinning the earth backwards really fast would. I love the innocence & fun of the Donner films, but I also appreciate how WB/DC can say "we've done camp/fun. Disney/Marvel has the market cornered on that in this new gen so let's go dark at first." It makes sense to try these characters in a different setting instead of rehashing old storytelling.
To summarize the comic con footage it features Batman in his "TDKR" armor turning on the bat signal with Superman hovering with his red glowing eyes. Pretty straightforward, but also somewhat telling. WB also released a still frame of Gal Gadot in her Wonder Woman attire, and it looked fantastic! The only real question/concern for your humble blogger would be Jesse Eisenberg's take on Luthor, but that's yet to be seen.
I'm very excited to see what comes of this movie, but as I stated we are a ways away from the finished product.
That's all for today, but I'll be back to give my two cents on some of the other comic con happenings.
Happy reading and I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Each time I check I am astounded by the sheer number of page views. Thank you so very much for taking the time to read my humble opinions! I'm very grateful and it has emboldened me to take on a few other challenges like my Breaking Bad Fan Blog "All the Remains" and my rasslin' blog. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for your continued support my dear readers. That's enough sap for now onto the topic of the day!
By now you hopefully have seen at least screenshots of the comic con footage from the "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" panel. If not it's most definitely worth a google search. It's hard to get too excited when the movie is almost two full years away, but that stoked the flames of this DC fan for sure. I remember in my youth (when I didn't understand how aging worked) I longed to see Adam West fight crime along side Christopher Reeve, and then much later I longed to see Michael Keaton suit up with Reeve. Nevermind that stylistically, at least, the latter pair wouldn't have worked it was an obsession of mine to see the world's finest united. I've read most of the major crossovers for the two titans, if not all. It's a powerful juxtaposition of ideals, methods, & processes that are ultimately to achieve the same end.
"Dawn of Justice" despite some of it's outward flaws and concerns represents the end to a lifetime of waiting for a fan like me. I have my concerns about the foundation for sure, but I'm hoping they use this film to right the course.
Borrowing from "The Dark Knight Returns" makes perfect sense in this scenario because in that piece of literature Superman was a government lap dog that had actually torn one of Green Arrow's arms off. The "Man of Steel" Supes hasn't torn any arms, but he's pledged a terse loyalty to the government, destroyed a city, & might have twisted a guy's head off. This all gives Batman, who in this narrative has layed low, cause to be skeptical of Krypton's last son.
As an aside I've made my feelings known about the ending of "MOS", but I will give credit to the fact that it does not insult the audience in the way that say spinning the earth backwards really fast would. I love the innocence & fun of the Donner films, but I also appreciate how WB/DC can say "we've done camp/fun. Disney/Marvel has the market cornered on that in this new gen so let's go dark at first." It makes sense to try these characters in a different setting instead of rehashing old storytelling.
To summarize the comic con footage it features Batman in his "TDKR" armor turning on the bat signal with Superman hovering with his red glowing eyes. Pretty straightforward, but also somewhat telling. WB also released a still frame of Gal Gadot in her Wonder Woman attire, and it looked fantastic! The only real question/concern for your humble blogger would be Jesse Eisenberg's take on Luthor, but that's yet to be seen.
I'm very excited to see what comes of this movie, but as I stated we are a ways away from the finished product.
That's all for today, but I'll be back to give my two cents on some of the other comic con happenings.
Happy reading and I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy review!
Hello and welcome to the July 29th edition of The Comic Shop!
Lots of news coming out of the San Diego Comic Con, but I'm not going to get into any of that today. Let's jump right into the review shall we? As always I will try to avoid spoilers and specific plot points, but read at your own risk.
The Good: There is a lot to love about this film. The soundtrack is fantastic and integral to the film's storyline. Director James Gunn uses the soundtrack several times to nod to the audience in a bit of fourth wall chicanery. The humor in this film is also top notch with almost every character having their moment to shine on that front.
Chris Pratt absolutely owns his role as Star-Lord/Peter Quill in this film, and I would say he's Marvel's best casting job since Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. Pratt definitely has the leading man material and he absolutely does not miss a beat. Zoe Saldana is good as Gamora but I'll get into my issues with the characterization of Thanos' adopted daughter later on in this review. Dave Bautista certainly doesn't act like he is a former professional wrestler as he makes the very literal Drax the Destroyer his own. If it weren't for Pratt; however, Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon and Vin Disel's Groot would have absolutely stolen the show in this movie. I realize they are CGI rendered characters only voiced by the actors, but they bring a lot of the fun to the movie. Michael Rooker plays Michael Rooker in blue make up as Yondu, but he's good enough as that as well.
A certain mad titan may or may not make his film debut in this movie, and it may or may not be absolutely glorious (wink, wink).
The Bad: I often have a hard time being overly critical about a film after my first viewing. It often takes me a while to digest the information and really think about which things I have issues with. With this film my issues became a little more apparent initially.
My biggest problem is the way Gunn, his partner in writing the film Nicole Perlman, and Saldana chose to bring Gamora to the screen. In her history Gamora is the adopted daughter of a certain Mad Titan, and she is quite powerful. With superhuman agility, healing, and superhuman strength to boot she was trained by Thanos to be one of the more gifted warriors in the galaxy. With that history in mind it was quite disheartening to see her portrayed as incompetent at times, and as love fodder for Quill. Now it's not terrible, but when you give your warrior princess character dialogue that explicitly states "I am no helpless waif...." you should probably have the character live up to that on screen. It's safe to say that there will be several sequels to develop this character and I hope to see her become more of a brooding bad ass warrior in the future.
I also had a bit of an issue with Lee Pace's Ronan the Accuser and Karen Gillan's Nebula who went to the "bad guys are bad because they are bad school". Meaning they had enough motivation, that we learned about through exposition, but they were rather flat characters outside of that. They are good enough in their perspective roles; however, I feel like this movie was trying to accomplish a little too much to flesh out these characters. That said they still weren't on the crap level of marble mouth and "Batman Forever Electro" from "The Amazing Spider-man 2" but there is really nothing that stands out otherwise.
The Ugly: We have to wait three years to get the next installment of this wonderful movie!
The Verdict: Disney/Marvel has hit a home run with this out of left field film property. This film doesn't have a ton of exposition and the they get through a lot of it rather ingeniously. The humor and the action are top notch, which has come to be a common expectation from these Marvel releases. "Guardians of the Galaxy" is this summer's must-see, and it is accommodating to those that may have not seen other Marvel movies because it does not really tie-in to the other films at this point. The only real thread to the greater Marvel universe is a certain mad titan that made a post-credit cameo in "The Avengers".
That is all for today I will be back as soon as I can to talk about comic-con news, but get out Friday and see "Guardians". I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Lots of news coming out of the San Diego Comic Con, but I'm not going to get into any of that today. Let's jump right into the review shall we? As always I will try to avoid spoilers and specific plot points, but read at your own risk.
The Good: There is a lot to love about this film. The soundtrack is fantastic and integral to the film's storyline. Director James Gunn uses the soundtrack several times to nod to the audience in a bit of fourth wall chicanery. The humor in this film is also top notch with almost every character having their moment to shine on that front.
Chris Pratt absolutely owns his role as Star-Lord/Peter Quill in this film, and I would say he's Marvel's best casting job since Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. Pratt definitely has the leading man material and he absolutely does not miss a beat. Zoe Saldana is good as Gamora but I'll get into my issues with the characterization of Thanos' adopted daughter later on in this review. Dave Bautista certainly doesn't act like he is a former professional wrestler as he makes the very literal Drax the Destroyer his own. If it weren't for Pratt; however, Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon and Vin Disel's Groot would have absolutely stolen the show in this movie. I realize they are CGI rendered characters only voiced by the actors, but they bring a lot of the fun to the movie. Michael Rooker plays Michael Rooker in blue make up as Yondu, but he's good enough as that as well.
A certain mad titan may or may not make his film debut in this movie, and it may or may not be absolutely glorious (wink, wink).
The Bad: I often have a hard time being overly critical about a film after my first viewing. It often takes me a while to digest the information and really think about which things I have issues with. With this film my issues became a little more apparent initially.
My biggest problem is the way Gunn, his partner in writing the film Nicole Perlman, and Saldana chose to bring Gamora to the screen. In her history Gamora is the adopted daughter of a certain Mad Titan, and she is quite powerful. With superhuman agility, healing, and superhuman strength to boot she was trained by Thanos to be one of the more gifted warriors in the galaxy. With that history in mind it was quite disheartening to see her portrayed as incompetent at times, and as love fodder for Quill. Now it's not terrible, but when you give your warrior princess character dialogue that explicitly states "I am no helpless waif...." you should probably have the character live up to that on screen. It's safe to say that there will be several sequels to develop this character and I hope to see her become more of a brooding bad ass warrior in the future.
I also had a bit of an issue with Lee Pace's Ronan the Accuser and Karen Gillan's Nebula who went to the "bad guys are bad because they are bad school". Meaning they had enough motivation, that we learned about through exposition, but they were rather flat characters outside of that. They are good enough in their perspective roles; however, I feel like this movie was trying to accomplish a little too much to flesh out these characters. That said they still weren't on the crap level of marble mouth and "Batman Forever Electro" from "The Amazing Spider-man 2" but there is really nothing that stands out otherwise.
The Ugly: We have to wait three years to get the next installment of this wonderful movie!
The Verdict: Disney/Marvel has hit a home run with this out of left field film property. This film doesn't have a ton of exposition and the they get through a lot of it rather ingeniously. The humor and the action are top notch, which has come to be a common expectation from these Marvel releases. "Guardians of the Galaxy" is this summer's must-see, and it is accommodating to those that may have not seen other Marvel movies because it does not really tie-in to the other films at this point. The only real thread to the greater Marvel universe is a certain mad titan that made a post-credit cameo in "The Avengers".
That is all for today I will be back as soon as I can to talk about comic-con news, but get out Friday and see "Guardians". I'll see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Saturday, July 5, 2014
These things I think....film & page edition
Hello and welcome!
I have a lot I'd like to cover since I've been gone for quite some time.
First..... Lots of different news items in the last couple of months about WB's big "Superman v. Batman: Dawn of Justice". Jason Momoa was cast as the trident wielding Aquaman which makes for an interesting choice just from the basic look. While Arthur has typically been a blonde fella Momoa is definitively not that with a more exotic look. I'm excited for the casting, but I hope that they do not take too many liberties with the core story of the character. There have also been recent set shots of Henry Cavill in Clark Kent garb, and a studio shot of him in front of what appears to be Gotham city. Lot of little tidbits, but no main encore at this point. Newsworthy, to this blogger at least, is that director Zach Snyder has stated he has no interest in delving into Batman's origins. I'm happy that someone has finally had the courage to say "hey everybody knows the story of the god damned Batman if not they have the internet". While I have my concerns about this project I'm excited to see what a polished, grizzled, war-worn Batman looks like. The additions of the Bat-family will really open up the WB cinematic universe to ample opportunities for new film ventures.
Second.... The scoundrels over at Latino Review have a juicy rumor about the finale of "Avengers: Age of Ultron" with regards to Mark Ruffalo's Hulk. I won't go in to spoiler territory, but suffice to say it would make for a very interesting Hulk solo film. I quite enjoyed "The Incredible Hulk" and I think it is criminally underrated in it's place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I attribute this to the fact that Edward Norton was shown the door and the role was recast for the first team-up masterstroke. As with all Latino Review news I wouldn't put money on it's voracity, but it makes for interesting conversation.
Third... A short time ago on a movie set not so far away Harrison Ford broke his leg while filming the highly anticipated "Star Wars: Episode VII: The Search for more Money." I'm clearly a Ford fan from my "Indiana Jones" hero worship, but I have to say I think the poor guy is snake bit (pun so not intended). Seems like every movie that requires action ends up with the poor guy in traction, or he gets sick on location during the filming. The early word was that the injury would possibly delay the project again, but it appears that JJ Abrams and crew are going to try to work around and get some other things done while Ford is out. Early reports are that Han Solo will be a main focus in this first entry into the new trilogy.
Fourth..... On the page there are a lot of interesting things going on. At Marvel the big hit, in this blogger's opinion, is "Original Sin". Written by Jason Aaron this epic focuses on the impacts on the Marvel universe after the Watcher is murdered and someone uses his eye to release a plethora of deep, dark secrets. After several big event outings with Brian Michael Bendis Marvel gave the keys to Aaron and so far he has hit a home run. He has introduced new and unheard of pairings (Doctor Strange and the Punisher for example) and put them in otherworldly settings to investigate the Watcher's death. Aaron's wit and respect for the history of the Marvel library comes through in his work. For instance, during one tense interrogation scene (with Hulk & Wolverine as the interrogators) the subject asks "what is this the good cop bad cop routine?" To which Logan replies "More like the Stab Cop Smash Cop routine". Lots of good nuggets like that and other new editions to the canon make it a totally worthwhile read.
A lot more hit and miss with DC as production issues delayed the "Nightwing" and "Forever Evil" finales to the point that they started spoiling the ending to their own event in a sneak preview of the stellar first issue of the Johns/Romita Jr./Janson "Superman". Bleeding Cool ran the original edition of the final "Nightwing" in an art only form and I found it to be superior to the finale they ended up going with even with no dialogue. As I said "Superman" was pretty awesome out of the gate, but I always have to approach the big, blue, boyscout with cautious optimism because his success doesn't seem to last. Scott Snyder is winding down his "Zero Year" opus before Batman is kicked five years into the future in conjunction with "Future's End". I'd like to read "Batman Eternal" and "Future's End" but there is no way I'm buying a weekly comic. It would be really awesome to see Snyder add on to another Frank Miller work with a supplement to the "Dark Knight Returns" (much like "Zero Year" is an addition to the phenomenal "Batman: Year One"), but I imagine that is wishful thinking at this point.
Finally..... Lot of great things going on now for comic fans! Pretty soon "Arrow" will return to the small screen along with "Constantine", "Flash", "iZombie", and "Gotham". Not to mention "Marvel Agents of SHIELD" season two, and the first season of "Agent Carter" as well. We also have two more summer blockbuster releases with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" set for August releases. We are living in an unprecedented era for comics and related media and I encourage you dear reader to live it up to the fullest.
Thanks for reading and I will catch you next time at The Comic Shop!
I have a lot I'd like to cover since I've been gone for quite some time.
First..... Lots of different news items in the last couple of months about WB's big "Superman v. Batman: Dawn of Justice". Jason Momoa was cast as the trident wielding Aquaman which makes for an interesting choice just from the basic look. While Arthur has typically been a blonde fella Momoa is definitively not that with a more exotic look. I'm excited for the casting, but I hope that they do not take too many liberties with the core story of the character. There have also been recent set shots of Henry Cavill in Clark Kent garb, and a studio shot of him in front of what appears to be Gotham city. Lot of little tidbits, but no main encore at this point. Newsworthy, to this blogger at least, is that director Zach Snyder has stated he has no interest in delving into Batman's origins. I'm happy that someone has finally had the courage to say "hey everybody knows the story of the god damned Batman if not they have the internet". While I have my concerns about this project I'm excited to see what a polished, grizzled, war-worn Batman looks like. The additions of the Bat-family will really open up the WB cinematic universe to ample opportunities for new film ventures.
Second.... The scoundrels over at Latino Review have a juicy rumor about the finale of "Avengers: Age of Ultron" with regards to Mark Ruffalo's Hulk. I won't go in to spoiler territory, but suffice to say it would make for a very interesting Hulk solo film. I quite enjoyed "The Incredible Hulk" and I think it is criminally underrated in it's place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I attribute this to the fact that Edward Norton was shown the door and the role was recast for the first team-up masterstroke. As with all Latino Review news I wouldn't put money on it's voracity, but it makes for interesting conversation.
Third... A short time ago on a movie set not so far away Harrison Ford broke his leg while filming the highly anticipated "Star Wars: Episode VII: The Search for more Money." I'm clearly a Ford fan from my "Indiana Jones" hero worship, but I have to say I think the poor guy is snake bit (pun so not intended). Seems like every movie that requires action ends up with the poor guy in traction, or he gets sick on location during the filming. The early word was that the injury would possibly delay the project again, but it appears that JJ Abrams and crew are going to try to work around and get some other things done while Ford is out. Early reports are that Han Solo will be a main focus in this first entry into the new trilogy.
Fourth..... On the page there are a lot of interesting things going on. At Marvel the big hit, in this blogger's opinion, is "Original Sin". Written by Jason Aaron this epic focuses on the impacts on the Marvel universe after the Watcher is murdered and someone uses his eye to release a plethora of deep, dark secrets. After several big event outings with Brian Michael Bendis Marvel gave the keys to Aaron and so far he has hit a home run. He has introduced new and unheard of pairings (Doctor Strange and the Punisher for example) and put them in otherworldly settings to investigate the Watcher's death. Aaron's wit and respect for the history of the Marvel library comes through in his work. For instance, during one tense interrogation scene (with Hulk & Wolverine as the interrogators) the subject asks "what is this the good cop bad cop routine?" To which Logan replies "More like the Stab Cop Smash Cop routine". Lots of good nuggets like that and other new editions to the canon make it a totally worthwhile read.
A lot more hit and miss with DC as production issues delayed the "Nightwing" and "Forever Evil" finales to the point that they started spoiling the ending to their own event in a sneak preview of the stellar first issue of the Johns/Romita Jr./Janson "Superman". Bleeding Cool ran the original edition of the final "Nightwing" in an art only form and I found it to be superior to the finale they ended up going with even with no dialogue. As I said "Superman" was pretty awesome out of the gate, but I always have to approach the big, blue, boyscout with cautious optimism because his success doesn't seem to last. Scott Snyder is winding down his "Zero Year" opus before Batman is kicked five years into the future in conjunction with "Future's End". I'd like to read "Batman Eternal" and "Future's End" but there is no way I'm buying a weekly comic. It would be really awesome to see Snyder add on to another Frank Miller work with a supplement to the "Dark Knight Returns" (much like "Zero Year" is an addition to the phenomenal "Batman: Year One"), but I imagine that is wishful thinking at this point.
Finally..... Lot of great things going on now for comic fans! Pretty soon "Arrow" will return to the small screen along with "Constantine", "Flash", "iZombie", and "Gotham". Not to mention "Marvel Agents of SHIELD" season two, and the first season of "Agent Carter" as well. We also have two more summer blockbuster releases with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" set for August releases. We are living in an unprecedented era for comics and related media and I encourage you dear reader to live it up to the fullest.
Thanks for reading and I will catch you next time at The Comic Shop!
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
"SNIKT" "SNIKT" super short "X-men: Days of Future Past Review" (Spoilers)
Hey gang welcome to an abbreviated edition of The Comic Shop! Trying to write this while my son is sleeping so forgive me if I'm a little unorganized in my thoughts. I would like to address a lot of things on the page and coming to the screen, but that will have to wait for another day.
To get me out of the house my wife had me go see "DOFP" with a friend, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the finished product of this film. Things that at the outset that I thought I would hate like Evan Peters' Quicksilver were actually pretty entertaining. His prison break scene was one of thing that stole the show for sure. I continue to be in absolute man-love with Michael Fassbender as Magneto. Casting does not get much better than that, and as much as I've rallied against X-men solo movies I would plunk down $10 to watch Fassbender play Magneto all by his lonesome.
I would like to give credit to the director of this film, but I'm going to hedge on that because he has some serious pending legal troubles that I'd like to see pan out before heaping praise upon him.
While this was by no means a faithful adaptation of the source material it was an entertaining and fun journey that served the absolute purpose of making "X-men: The Last Stand" a distant memory. Kudos for Fox and company wiping the Ratner off of their rug, and having one of the biggest Memorial Day openings in history.
While I'm usually a J. Law fan I kind of got the feeling that this was a paycheck job for her. She didn't seem too enthused in doing anything other than delivering lines. I could be wrong, but we all know that she has other aspirations that do not involve wearing blue body paint and pasties.
Otherwise McAvoy and Jackman really carried the film with emotion and range. There was a TON of character development for Xavier in this film even though it was character development in reverse.
I would recommend this movie because it is that good, and it is that entertaining.
That's all for now...check me out next time at The Comic Shop!
To get me out of the house my wife had me go see "DOFP" with a friend, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the finished product of this film. Things that at the outset that I thought I would hate like Evan Peters' Quicksilver were actually pretty entertaining. His prison break scene was one of thing that stole the show for sure. I continue to be in absolute man-love with Michael Fassbender as Magneto. Casting does not get much better than that, and as much as I've rallied against X-men solo movies I would plunk down $10 to watch Fassbender play Magneto all by his lonesome.
I would like to give credit to the director of this film, but I'm going to hedge on that because he has some serious pending legal troubles that I'd like to see pan out before heaping praise upon him.
While this was by no means a faithful adaptation of the source material it was an entertaining and fun journey that served the absolute purpose of making "X-men: The Last Stand" a distant memory. Kudos for Fox and company wiping the Ratner off of their rug, and having one of the biggest Memorial Day openings in history.
While I'm usually a J. Law fan I kind of got the feeling that this was a paycheck job for her. She didn't seem too enthused in doing anything other than delivering lines. I could be wrong, but we all know that she has other aspirations that do not involve wearing blue body paint and pasties.
Otherwise McAvoy and Jackman really carried the film with emotion and range. There was a TON of character development for Xavier in this film even though it was character development in reverse.
I would recommend this movie because it is that good, and it is that entertaining.
That's all for now...check me out next time at The Comic Shop!
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Spoilery "Amazing Spider-man 2" review
Hello & Welcome to a surprise entry to my blog! No baby yet equals lots of nervous energy for your humble blogger. In the interest of brevity I'm going to keep this review to three distinct classifications: the good, the bad, & the ugly.
The Good: The lead acting in "ASM 2" is spectacular (beware there are puns a plenty coming). While I had my qualms with Garfield's "Spidey Humor" in the first go round, I found him to be more of an asshole than charming, he absolutely nails it in this go round with the character. His delivery is top notch & shows some comedic flair. His chemistry with Emma Stone is one of the more endearing facets of the movie, but it unfortunately is not something to look forward to in future installments.
I also quite enjoyed the overall tone of the movie which shed some of the darkness from the original, & some of last summer's entries into the superhero movie genre. It was light, hopeful, & has the humor and color that seems to be lost by some Hollywood studios.
The Bad: You should know this already but the "dumb Aunt May" routine was a distraction and undermined everything they tried to accomplish with Sally Field's take on the maternal figure. I also never really "bought in" to the whole Parker's parents mystery. I know it was taken from the comics, but the dead parent angle has been done to, well, death in superhero movies. I'm hoping this is the last we see of the Parker parents. The final bad for me is that Gwen's death would've been more powerful, poignant, & tragic if it had occurred like the comic from the bridge. In this instance with the added twist of having the "I love you" webbing still in play. I didn't not care for a central figure like Gwen being killed by a hailstorm of CGI sprockets & clock parts.
The Ugly: The worst parts of the film for me were the ham-fisted portrayals of Electro & Rhino by Jaime Foxx & Paul Giamatti respectively. Foxx's "Max" was a spot on copy of Michelle Pfeifer's Selina Kyle & Jim Carrey's Edward Nigma. Excessively cliched characters who may as well have had no dialogue & just walked around with a "loser" sandwich board hanging around their necks. Then they have their inciting event & they are all the sudden cool yet crazy. It's mind numbingly predictable, & really just a waste of everyone's time. Foxx's Electro was not much better, but it was not bad enough to stick out. I put Giamatti here because his "Russian accent" is less discernible than asthmatic despot Bane's mechanical voice. The final "ugly" has to be the marketing of this film. Wanna see the Rhino in "ASM 2" just watch the commercials, wanna see Chris Cooper watch the trailer, wanna see major plot points watch the commercials, & so on. It is embarrassing Sony had such little faith in this movie that they gave away much of the $7,$8,$9,$10 ticket price for free on television. The box office may end up being the final "ugly" for the underrated web slinging affair.
I can't rate Dane DeHaan or Chris Cooper for this. I'm not crazy about the choices they've made with the Osborn crew, but I'm willing to give them another chance.
That's all for now! I hit over 1,000 page views this week so I'd like to thank everyone that's come to see what I have to say! Thank you all! See you next time at The Comic Shop!
The Good: The lead acting in "ASM 2" is spectacular (beware there are puns a plenty coming). While I had my qualms with Garfield's "Spidey Humor" in the first go round, I found him to be more of an asshole than charming, he absolutely nails it in this go round with the character. His delivery is top notch & shows some comedic flair. His chemistry with Emma Stone is one of the more endearing facets of the movie, but it unfortunately is not something to look forward to in future installments.
I also quite enjoyed the overall tone of the movie which shed some of the darkness from the original, & some of last summer's entries into the superhero movie genre. It was light, hopeful, & has the humor and color that seems to be lost by some Hollywood studios.
The Bad: You should know this already but the "dumb Aunt May" routine was a distraction and undermined everything they tried to accomplish with Sally Field's take on the maternal figure. I also never really "bought in" to the whole Parker's parents mystery. I know it was taken from the comics, but the dead parent angle has been done to, well, death in superhero movies. I'm hoping this is the last we see of the Parker parents. The final bad for me is that Gwen's death would've been more powerful, poignant, & tragic if it had occurred like the comic from the bridge. In this instance with the added twist of having the "I love you" webbing still in play. I didn't not care for a central figure like Gwen being killed by a hailstorm of CGI sprockets & clock parts.
The Ugly: The worst parts of the film for me were the ham-fisted portrayals of Electro & Rhino by Jaime Foxx & Paul Giamatti respectively. Foxx's "Max" was a spot on copy of Michelle Pfeifer's Selina Kyle & Jim Carrey's Edward Nigma. Excessively cliched characters who may as well have had no dialogue & just walked around with a "loser" sandwich board hanging around their necks. Then they have their inciting event & they are all the sudden cool yet crazy. It's mind numbingly predictable, & really just a waste of everyone's time. Foxx's Electro was not much better, but it was not bad enough to stick out. I put Giamatti here because his "Russian accent" is less discernible than asthmatic despot Bane's mechanical voice. The final "ugly" has to be the marketing of this film. Wanna see the Rhino in "ASM 2" just watch the commercials, wanna see Chris Cooper watch the trailer, wanna see major plot points watch the commercials, & so on. It is embarrassing Sony had such little faith in this movie that they gave away much of the $7,$8,$9,$10 ticket price for free on television. The box office may end up being the final "ugly" for the underrated web slinging affair.
I can't rate Dane DeHaan or Chris Cooper for this. I'm not crazy about the choices they've made with the Osborn crew, but I'm willing to give them another chance.
That's all for now! I hit over 1,000 page views this week so I'd like to thank everyone that's come to see what I have to say! Thank you all! See you next time at The Comic Shop!
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Sabbatical
Baby Leffler is due sometime in the next 4 weeks, so I will be spending my time preparing for his arrival. I appreciate everyone that has read what I have to say and I assure I will return!
Thank you for reading!
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
New Comics 04/16 & other news.....
Hello and Welcome to the 04/16/14 edition of The Comic Shop Blog!
First....
Due to budget concerns connected to the impending birth of Little Leffler I was only able to pick up two titles this week. I had to choose wisely so I went with Scott Snyder's "Batman" and the final issue of Dan Slott's "Superior Spider-man".
I have made my concerns with the current Zero Year storyline very clear in one of my recent posts. Overall, I have been quite fatigued with the pace of this story and it's overall length. That said the first chapter of the Zero Year finale reengaged me in the series. Finally getting to the "boss level" per se gives this issue a downhill running start, and makes it more engaging to me as a reader. I would definitely recommend picking up this issue.
I have been a real fan of the "Superior Spider-man" storyline from the very beginning. I am very disappointed to see it go, but I think it was brought to it's natural conclusion. I will say I was a lot more emotionally invested in the events of issue #30, and issue #31 honestly fell a little flat at the end. Obviously I'm being very vague, but I certainly do not want to spoil the Superior happenings for anyone.
Second...
Couple of news items from Marc Webb's "Amazing Spider-man 2" today.
First, one of the initial reviews of the movie was not favorable likening the second entry to the "Batman and Robin" of the Spider-man franchise. One of the main sticking points for the reviewer was the corny humor which I have expressed my own concerns about with the "dumb Aunt May routine" that we have seen in the tv spots. While reviews are a subjective prose it does send up a red alert when the early ones are not favorable from a nerd friendly source like IGN.com. I will still see this movie, but thankfully there are such a thing as matinee prices.
Secondly, several news outlets are reporting that there will be an "X-men: Days of Future Past" stinger at the end of "Amazing Spider-man 2". This isn't due to any intellectual property sharing between the studios, but because Fox allowed Marc Webb to do this follow-up instead of "500 Days of Summer 2".
Third.....
It's been a couple of weeks now, but as the Indy fan that I am I would be remiss to not address the rumors surrounding the future of that character. Several media outlets reported a few weeks ago that Disney would be interested in casting hollywood favorite Bradley Cooper in the title role for future installments. The more I think about this possibility the more I am honestly open to it. I think that despite "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" being a huge disappointment it did bring Indy's story to a close.
Future film installments could borrow from the "Young Indiana Jones" television show and have an elder Indy (played by Ford in this version) recounting stories from his younger days to his grandchildren to set up the new adventure with Bradley Cooper. I think doing it this way would placate the Ford fans, and introduce Indy to a new generation. One thing I continually bitch about; however, is that I would hope that they use more practical effects in future Indy installments because they are what made the original trilogy so very special.
Fourth....
One news item and one rumor from Disney/Marvel's "Daredevil" Netflix series. The news item is that the studio confirmed that they do in fact own the rights to the Kingpin himself Wilson Fisk. I think it would be smart to start incorporating mentions of Fisk right away in the Marvel Cinematic and Television universe. He is a big baddie that the Marvel Universe is sorely lacking as we have seen heavyweights like the Mandarin and Red Skull be underutilized. Rumor-wise Michael C. Hall (my personal favorite for Matt Mordock/Daredevil and formerly the star of "Dexter") said that he would be open to starring in the first installment of the Netflix Defender's series. Hall has the physique and the acting chops to pull off Hornhead, and I would hope he would join the Avengers for future adventures.
Fifth..... "FOREVER EVIL SPOILERS"...................................................................................................................................................
So, post-Forever Evil the "Nightwing" title will be cancelled and replaced by a new ongoing called "Grayson". A news item this week confirmed that much like Bucky post "Fear Itself" the world will be left to believe that Dick Grayson is dead as he adjusts to his new life as a super spy. I am a long-time fan of Dick Grayson, and I have followed him from Robin to Nightwing to his time as Batman with much fanfare. I have a bit of trepidation about this move, but I am more than willing to give it a chance.
That's all for today! For you rasslin' fans check out my Wrestlemania XXX breakdown over at my new blog site Turnbuckleblog.blogspot.com! It will in all likelihood be a monthly publication because I invest a lot more of my time and energy into comics, but if that is something you are in to please be sure to check it out!
First....
Due to budget concerns connected to the impending birth of Little Leffler I was only able to pick up two titles this week. I had to choose wisely so I went with Scott Snyder's "Batman" and the final issue of Dan Slott's "Superior Spider-man".
I have made my concerns with the current Zero Year storyline very clear in one of my recent posts. Overall, I have been quite fatigued with the pace of this story and it's overall length. That said the first chapter of the Zero Year finale reengaged me in the series. Finally getting to the "boss level" per se gives this issue a downhill running start, and makes it more engaging to me as a reader. I would definitely recommend picking up this issue.
I have been a real fan of the "Superior Spider-man" storyline from the very beginning. I am very disappointed to see it go, but I think it was brought to it's natural conclusion. I will say I was a lot more emotionally invested in the events of issue #30, and issue #31 honestly fell a little flat at the end. Obviously I'm being very vague, but I certainly do not want to spoil the Superior happenings for anyone.
Second...
Couple of news items from Marc Webb's "Amazing Spider-man 2" today.
First, one of the initial reviews of the movie was not favorable likening the second entry to the "Batman and Robin" of the Spider-man franchise. One of the main sticking points for the reviewer was the corny humor which I have expressed my own concerns about with the "dumb Aunt May routine" that we have seen in the tv spots. While reviews are a subjective prose it does send up a red alert when the early ones are not favorable from a nerd friendly source like IGN.com. I will still see this movie, but thankfully there are such a thing as matinee prices.
Secondly, several news outlets are reporting that there will be an "X-men: Days of Future Past" stinger at the end of "Amazing Spider-man 2". This isn't due to any intellectual property sharing between the studios, but because Fox allowed Marc Webb to do this follow-up instead of "500 Days of Summer 2".
Third.....
It's been a couple of weeks now, but as the Indy fan that I am I would be remiss to not address the rumors surrounding the future of that character. Several media outlets reported a few weeks ago that Disney would be interested in casting hollywood favorite Bradley Cooper in the title role for future installments. The more I think about this possibility the more I am honestly open to it. I think that despite "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" being a huge disappointment it did bring Indy's story to a close.
Future film installments could borrow from the "Young Indiana Jones" television show and have an elder Indy (played by Ford in this version) recounting stories from his younger days to his grandchildren to set up the new adventure with Bradley Cooper. I think doing it this way would placate the Ford fans, and introduce Indy to a new generation. One thing I continually bitch about; however, is that I would hope that they use more practical effects in future Indy installments because they are what made the original trilogy so very special.
Fourth....
One news item and one rumor from Disney/Marvel's "Daredevil" Netflix series. The news item is that the studio confirmed that they do in fact own the rights to the Kingpin himself Wilson Fisk. I think it would be smart to start incorporating mentions of Fisk right away in the Marvel Cinematic and Television universe. He is a big baddie that the Marvel Universe is sorely lacking as we have seen heavyweights like the Mandarin and Red Skull be underutilized. Rumor-wise Michael C. Hall (my personal favorite for Matt Mordock/Daredevil and formerly the star of "Dexter") said that he would be open to starring in the first installment of the Netflix Defender's series. Hall has the physique and the acting chops to pull off Hornhead, and I would hope he would join the Avengers for future adventures.
Fifth..... "FOREVER EVIL SPOILERS"...................................................................................................................................................
So, post-Forever Evil the "Nightwing" title will be cancelled and replaced by a new ongoing called "Grayson". A news item this week confirmed that much like Bucky post "Fear Itself" the world will be left to believe that Dick Grayson is dead as he adjusts to his new life as a super spy. I am a long-time fan of Dick Grayson, and I have followed him from Robin to Nightwing to his time as Batman with much fanfare. I have a bit of trepidation about this move, but I am more than willing to give it a chance.
That's all for today! For you rasslin' fans check out my Wrestlemania XXX breakdown over at my new blog site Turnbuckleblog.blogspot.com! It will in all likelihood be a monthly publication because I invest a lot more of my time and energy into comics, but if that is something you are in to please be sure to check it out!
Friday, April 11, 2014
Ultimate Warrior R.I.P. & Comic News...
Hello and welcome to this week's third edition of The Comic Shop....
First....I was saddened to hear about the untimely passing of Jim "Warrior" Hellwig better know by his WWF/E moniker The Ultimate Warrior. My Dad took me to Wrestlemania VIII when I was a young fella. The thing that saved an abysmal main event that night was the return of the Ultimate Warrior (mainly because there was a lot of speculation that he had died).
Now you may be asking yourself "why talk about a wrestler on a comics blog?" I think for a couple of reasons it is important to talk about. First, Warrior was a very broad & bright character much like what we find in comics, and second there is an important life lesson that we can learn from his passing.
Speaking of comics the "Warrior" comic has skyrocketed in value since his passing. So what lesson can we learn from Warrior? The main thing I took away is that no matter what we do on this earth we will have to one day pay a price. Steroids, stimulants, obesity, and many other things can overwork and overtax the heart. Unfortunately, I had a great uncle who passed in his early 50's from a massive heart attack, and my very own Paternal Grandmother passed at 59 years of age due to complications from smoking for several years.
We live in an era where modern medicine will protect us to a point from the consequences of our poor health choices, but we have to work in tandem with them. To meet them halfway so to speak. Warrior may have not done steroids for years, but his increased body mass and years of drug abuse likely contributed to his death. I often worry about the adverse effects of my own choices. How has basically abusing stimulants like caffeine, weight loss drugs, energy drinks, my time smoking, and other poor choices adversely impacted my ability to see my unborn son grow and mature into a man?
I don't say these things to scare anyone, but it's important to take inventory of our daily decisions to make sure that they don't negatively impact our future.
It's tragic that Warrior died, and it's not because he was a big wrestler or a known personality. It's because that although he leaves behind a legacy he has two daughters left without their father.
THE COMIC STRIPS.....
First....Word is that Fox is interested in having Jennifer Lawrence star in a Mystique solo film. As much as I enjoy J. Law I hope this does not happen. The X-men have a deep and diverse roster; however, time and time again Fox has chosen to make their movies the "Wolverine, Prof. X, Magneto, Mystique, Storm" show. If we are going to do solo films let's focus on characters that either have not been introduced into the Fox universe (Cable for example) or characters that have had one moment in the sun and not been brought back (Deadpool, Nightcrawler for example).
Second...Staying with Fox Bryan Singer has stated that 2016's "X-men: Apocalypse" will incorporate elements from the "Age of Apocalypse" storyline. It's hard to say what those elements will be; however, this blogger is hoping that the film focus will remain on the young X-men established in "X:Men: First Class".
Third...."Arrow" is well known for their abundance of clever easter eggs, whether, it's art in the Queen gallery by Curtis Swan, or the voice of Harley Quinn (Arleen Sorkin), Marc Guggenheim and company have packed each episode with a lot of little clever tidbits. Evidently an upcoming episode will be no exception as the Green Lantern is supposed to be referenced for the very first time in the Arrow-verse. Here's hoping Hal and Ollie set off on a cross country learning experience akin to Denny O'neal & Neal Adams 70's run with the Emerald Bros.
Fourth...I have been no fan of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", but I have to admit that post Jaime Alexander's experience in the Sif episode the show has become remarkably more entertaining. This past one tied into the exploits from the hit movie "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and was excellently cut to fit into the narrative from the film.
Finally...One thing I neglected to mention in either of my "Winter Soldier" reviews was how much I enjoyed that they actually gave Cobie Smulders' Agent Maria Hill something to do. She has largely been used as an exposition piece in her previous outings, but in this film she has some good action. Very happy to see that happen for Nick Fury's long-time number two.
That's all for today...working on topics for a new column so please submit suggestions to the Facebook page...thank you all again for reading and see you next time at The Comic Shop!
First....I was saddened to hear about the untimely passing of Jim "Warrior" Hellwig better know by his WWF/E moniker The Ultimate Warrior. My Dad took me to Wrestlemania VIII when I was a young fella. The thing that saved an abysmal main event that night was the return of the Ultimate Warrior (mainly because there was a lot of speculation that he had died).
Now you may be asking yourself "why talk about a wrestler on a comics blog?" I think for a couple of reasons it is important to talk about. First, Warrior was a very broad & bright character much like what we find in comics, and second there is an important life lesson that we can learn from his passing.
Speaking of comics the "Warrior" comic has skyrocketed in value since his passing. So what lesson can we learn from Warrior? The main thing I took away is that no matter what we do on this earth we will have to one day pay a price. Steroids, stimulants, obesity, and many other things can overwork and overtax the heart. Unfortunately, I had a great uncle who passed in his early 50's from a massive heart attack, and my very own Paternal Grandmother passed at 59 years of age due to complications from smoking for several years.
We live in an era where modern medicine will protect us to a point from the consequences of our poor health choices, but we have to work in tandem with them. To meet them halfway so to speak. Warrior may have not done steroids for years, but his increased body mass and years of drug abuse likely contributed to his death. I often worry about the adverse effects of my own choices. How has basically abusing stimulants like caffeine, weight loss drugs, energy drinks, my time smoking, and other poor choices adversely impacted my ability to see my unborn son grow and mature into a man?
I don't say these things to scare anyone, but it's important to take inventory of our daily decisions to make sure that they don't negatively impact our future.
It's tragic that Warrior died, and it's not because he was a big wrestler or a known personality. It's because that although he leaves behind a legacy he has two daughters left without their father.
THE COMIC STRIPS.....
First....Word is that Fox is interested in having Jennifer Lawrence star in a Mystique solo film. As much as I enjoy J. Law I hope this does not happen. The X-men have a deep and diverse roster; however, time and time again Fox has chosen to make their movies the "Wolverine, Prof. X, Magneto, Mystique, Storm" show. If we are going to do solo films let's focus on characters that either have not been introduced into the Fox universe (Cable for example) or characters that have had one moment in the sun and not been brought back (Deadpool, Nightcrawler for example).
Second...Staying with Fox Bryan Singer has stated that 2016's "X-men: Apocalypse" will incorporate elements from the "Age of Apocalypse" storyline. It's hard to say what those elements will be; however, this blogger is hoping that the film focus will remain on the young X-men established in "X:Men: First Class".
Third...."Arrow" is well known for their abundance of clever easter eggs, whether, it's art in the Queen gallery by Curtis Swan, or the voice of Harley Quinn (Arleen Sorkin), Marc Guggenheim and company have packed each episode with a lot of little clever tidbits. Evidently an upcoming episode will be no exception as the Green Lantern is supposed to be referenced for the very first time in the Arrow-verse. Here's hoping Hal and Ollie set off on a cross country learning experience akin to Denny O'neal & Neal Adams 70's run with the Emerald Bros.
Fourth...I have been no fan of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", but I have to admit that post Jaime Alexander's experience in the Sif episode the show has become remarkably more entertaining. This past one tied into the exploits from the hit movie "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and was excellently cut to fit into the narrative from the film.
Finally...One thing I neglected to mention in either of my "Winter Soldier" reviews was how much I enjoyed that they actually gave Cobie Smulders' Agent Maria Hill something to do. She has largely been used as an exposition piece in her previous outings, but in this film she has some good action. Very happy to see that happen for Nick Fury's long-time number two.
That's all for today...working on topics for a new column so please submit suggestions to the Facebook page...thank you all again for reading and see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Spoiler-filled "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" review
Hello all and welcome to the Spoiler-laden "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" review here at The Comic Shop!
For the purposes of this review I will be speaking mainly about the character development that I have seen out of this movie and "Iron Man 3" that will lead to where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going in and after "Avengers: Age of Ultron".
As we know from the events of the Cap sequel SHIELD as we know it is no more. This makes it much more incumbent upon Earth's Mightiest Heroes to defend and avenge the earth. Shell-head and Cap are the two central figures in this film universe & in Avengers history in general. While Thor is important as well I would argue that his last film entry is a self-contained story that had a beginning, middle, and end.
Cap & Iron Man have a lot in common when you really consider their history. Cap wanted to make the world a better place he was scientifically altered to become a living weapon and an unstoppable force. Tony Stark wanted to make the world a better place so he engineered a suit that helped him to become a living weapon and an unstoppable force.
Furthermore in the film franchises both of these characters have come back from the dead in a manner of speaking. Cap was frozen for decades and then thawed to become a man out of time and a hero for a new generation. Tony made a sacrifice play to end the Chitauri invasion.
The two heroes reacted to these events very differently. In "Iron Man 3" we saw Tony Stark inch further and further away from his Iron Man persona over the course of the film. We even saw him develop an intelligence source that allowed him to not be in the suit at all for it to run. This says to me that he no longer has the desire to be put in a position to make a sacrifice. If the reports are accurate Tony will take over as Ultron's creator in the "Avengers" sequel, and if that is true this would make absolute sense.
In "The Winter Soldier" we saw Steve Rogers throw himself further and further into his mission. It was quite noticeable that the status quo love angle was not shoehorned into the plot of the movie, and I found that refreshing. It also shows where Cap's mental state is in the cinematic universe. While Black Widow tried repeatedly to get Cap to open up and go out socially he denied the opportunity again and again. To me, this shows that while he is open to understanding this world he finds himself in he's not entirely ready to assimilate and become a part of it. I think a big part of this is because he has shown time and time again that he is more than willing to make the sacrifice, as he attempted to yet again in "The Winter Soldier". This give's Rogers a lot of places to go in future Captain America films, because we have yet to see him assimilate.
This stark contrast between the characters should also serve to further the underlying animus that is almost standard for these two legacy Avengers.
I will definitely say that I appreciated that there was not a ton of melodrama in "The Winter Soldier". As I noted there was no real romantic interest to speak of which again I found really refreshing. The main source of overt drama was the final climactic scene with Cap trying to save his life-long friend through allowing Bucky to beat him to a pulp, but it was an effective way to end the film.
As a fan of the Winter Soldier character I am looking forward to the journey that Sebastian Stan is going to take from brain-washed assasin to a hero in his own right.
That's all for now...I'm sure I will add more after my second viewing but these are my main thoughts right now.
For the purposes of this review I will be speaking mainly about the character development that I have seen out of this movie and "Iron Man 3" that will lead to where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going in and after "Avengers: Age of Ultron".
As we know from the events of the Cap sequel SHIELD as we know it is no more. This makes it much more incumbent upon Earth's Mightiest Heroes to defend and avenge the earth. Shell-head and Cap are the two central figures in this film universe & in Avengers history in general. While Thor is important as well I would argue that his last film entry is a self-contained story that had a beginning, middle, and end.
Cap & Iron Man have a lot in common when you really consider their history. Cap wanted to make the world a better place he was scientifically altered to become a living weapon and an unstoppable force. Tony Stark wanted to make the world a better place so he engineered a suit that helped him to become a living weapon and an unstoppable force.
Furthermore in the film franchises both of these characters have come back from the dead in a manner of speaking. Cap was frozen for decades and then thawed to become a man out of time and a hero for a new generation. Tony made a sacrifice play to end the Chitauri invasion.
The two heroes reacted to these events very differently. In "Iron Man 3" we saw Tony Stark inch further and further away from his Iron Man persona over the course of the film. We even saw him develop an intelligence source that allowed him to not be in the suit at all for it to run. This says to me that he no longer has the desire to be put in a position to make a sacrifice. If the reports are accurate Tony will take over as Ultron's creator in the "Avengers" sequel, and if that is true this would make absolute sense.
In "The Winter Soldier" we saw Steve Rogers throw himself further and further into his mission. It was quite noticeable that the status quo love angle was not shoehorned into the plot of the movie, and I found that refreshing. It also shows where Cap's mental state is in the cinematic universe. While Black Widow tried repeatedly to get Cap to open up and go out socially he denied the opportunity again and again. To me, this shows that while he is open to understanding this world he finds himself in he's not entirely ready to assimilate and become a part of it. I think a big part of this is because he has shown time and time again that he is more than willing to make the sacrifice, as he attempted to yet again in "The Winter Soldier". This give's Rogers a lot of places to go in future Captain America films, because we have yet to see him assimilate.
This stark contrast between the characters should also serve to further the underlying animus that is almost standard for these two legacy Avengers.
I will definitely say that I appreciated that there was not a ton of melodrama in "The Winter Soldier". As I noted there was no real romantic interest to speak of which again I found really refreshing. The main source of overt drama was the final climactic scene with Cap trying to save his life-long friend through allowing Bucky to beat him to a pulp, but it was an effective way to end the film.
As a fan of the Winter Soldier character I am looking forward to the journey that Sebastian Stan is going to take from brain-washed assasin to a hero in his own right.
That's all for now...I'm sure I will add more after my second viewing but these are my main thoughts right now.
Spoiler-Free "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" review
Hello all and welcome to the 04/08/14 edition of The Comic Shop!
To avoid spoilers for the hottest April movie release of all-time I will mainly talk about the performances, and direction of the film in this review.
To start it is hard to believe that the Russo brothers have never directed an action film before. The majority of their previous directorial work was on comedy tv shows ("Arrested Development" & "Community") and comedy movies like "You, Me, and Dupree". While they do have a fair amount of humor in "The Winter Soldier", which at this point is the norm for Marvel films their action direction is absolutely stellar. The movie is filled with tightly-cut, waist-up, fast moving action and it rarely takes a break for anything other than bare minimum exposition.
Chris Evans really has a stranglehold on the Steve Rogers character. He is equal parts heroic, comedic, and is the type of go-for-it-all leader that will inspire.
Anthony Mackie brings a lot of youthful exuberance, loyalty, and humor to his role as The Falcon. This was a star making performance for Mackie, and I could totally see him in the lead in his own future Marvel film.
Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow gets the ultimate respect from the Russo's in this appearance for the character. Instead of being reduced to eye candy or a scared helpless woman as we have seen at moments in her previous appearances ("Iron Man 2" & "The Avengers"). This Black Widow is a fully functioning ass kicker who can hold her own with the other heroes. In this portrayal I feel that the Russo's have set the template for the most effective use of super heroines. I, for one, would much rather see a Ronda Rousey-style ass kicker than another damsel in distress. For that reason I applaud what the Russo's accomplished in this movie.
My only complaint on a base level is that there was not enough Winter Soldier in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier". For sharing the title he is not in it much and says even less. Part of that is by design, but I still could've done with a few more minutes of Winter Soldier screen time.
While the first entry "Captain America: The First Avenger" was a WWII movie that had a superhero in it this entry is a spy-thriller that also happens to be a superhero movie. As with the original it successfully captures the essence of the chosen genre and serves to further the development of the title character.
Overall I have to say this is one of my favorite superhero movies to date. I hesitantly place it in the company of "The Dark Knight" and "Spider-man 2" at the top of my list.
For more discussion check out my next entry where I will get into spoiler territory and I will tie it together with "Iron Man 3" to talk about how the stage is now set for "Avengers: Age of Ultron".
To avoid spoilers for the hottest April movie release of all-time I will mainly talk about the performances, and direction of the film in this review.
To start it is hard to believe that the Russo brothers have never directed an action film before. The majority of their previous directorial work was on comedy tv shows ("Arrested Development" & "Community") and comedy movies like "You, Me, and Dupree". While they do have a fair amount of humor in "The Winter Soldier", which at this point is the norm for Marvel films their action direction is absolutely stellar. The movie is filled with tightly-cut, waist-up, fast moving action and it rarely takes a break for anything other than bare minimum exposition.
Chris Evans really has a stranglehold on the Steve Rogers character. He is equal parts heroic, comedic, and is the type of go-for-it-all leader that will inspire.
Anthony Mackie brings a lot of youthful exuberance, loyalty, and humor to his role as The Falcon. This was a star making performance for Mackie, and I could totally see him in the lead in his own future Marvel film.
Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow gets the ultimate respect from the Russo's in this appearance for the character. Instead of being reduced to eye candy or a scared helpless woman as we have seen at moments in her previous appearances ("Iron Man 2" & "The Avengers"). This Black Widow is a fully functioning ass kicker who can hold her own with the other heroes. In this portrayal I feel that the Russo's have set the template for the most effective use of super heroines. I, for one, would much rather see a Ronda Rousey-style ass kicker than another damsel in distress. For that reason I applaud what the Russo's accomplished in this movie.
My only complaint on a base level is that there was not enough Winter Soldier in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier". For sharing the title he is not in it much and says even less. Part of that is by design, but I still could've done with a few more minutes of Winter Soldier screen time.
While the first entry "Captain America: The First Avenger" was a WWII movie that had a superhero in it this entry is a spy-thriller that also happens to be a superhero movie. As with the original it successfully captures the essence of the chosen genre and serves to further the development of the title character.
Overall I have to say this is one of my favorite superhero movies to date. I hesitantly place it in the company of "The Dark Knight" and "Spider-man 2" at the top of my list.
For more discussion check out my next entry where I will get into spoiler territory and I will tie it together with "Iron Man 3" to talk about how the stage is now set for "Avengers: Age of Ultron".
Monday, March 24, 2014
The Comic Shop Deux: The Electric Boogaloo......movie talkin' edition
Hello friends and welcome to the March 25th edition of The Comic Shop!
Lot of topics to cover today predominantly film, but I might branch out into a couple of on the page thoughts...
First I'll say this....I have not been a fan of 70-80% of what I have seen come out about "X-men: Days of Future Past". The release of today's trailer gave me a little bit more positivity about the project. I can't say precisely what it is that I like about it, but I have a more favorable opinion of it nonetheless. To give Bryan Singer & crew credit there are some things I feel that they have gotten right in the series as a whole.
Off the top of my head I like what they have done with the Magneto, Mystique, and even Ellen Page's Kitty Pride. I really like the star power in this ensemble cast with Michael Fassbender & Sir Ian McKellan as Magneto, Patrick Stewart & James Mcavoy as Xavier, Hugh Jackman, Ellen Page, Jennifer Lawrence, and many others. I will give credit where credit is due, but I do expect them to address the glaring continuity errors and reestablish Scott Summers if not Jean Grey as well.
I like Evan Peters in his roles on the anthology horror series "American Horror Story", but I feel that in costume and look his Quicksilver does not pass the eyeball test. Time will tell with this project, but I'm more willing to give it a chance now.
Second.... Really cool set photos hit the net today for "Avengers: Age of Ultron" I love the costume choices that they have made for Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver in this iteration. I can see the twins being a fantastic addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I give Aaron Taylor Johnson a lot of credit for getting himself into a heroic shape for this film and his other vehicle "Kick-ass". In other news with this project the "Building a universe" special teased an appearance of the Hulk-buster armor, which makes this blogger tingly all over.
Third... Exciting times as we sit a little over a week away from the release of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier". I feel somewhat alone as a huge fan of the first entry, because I have heard some negativity about the project. Overall though I think that was the only way to introduce Cap, and it had the right formula of sci-fi, intrigue, and military service to capture the essence of what makes Steve Rogers the greatest hero of multiple generations (in the Marvel Canon). I'm really looking forward to this movie because I love the Winter Soldier character, and it will be nice to see Agent 13 & Crossbones introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In other news with Cap talks about the heavy in the third installment of the franchise have started up with it being suggested that a deranged Cap clone from the 50's MIGHT be the next villain. I enjoyed what Ed Brubaker did with the Cap Clone in his run with the character, but I'm not sure how a clone story would play with a large audience.
Fourth...FROM THE PAGES OF DC: I have to admit that even with the Batfan that I am I'm going through a little fatigue with Scott Snyder's "Year Zero" as in my opinion it has lived past it's sell by date. I will continue to buy the book because it's by no means terrible, but I am ready for the time to shift back to "current" day. I'm also not a fan of the "Batman: Eternal" weekly series that is coming up, and as much as I love Batman and like Snyder I hope it fails.
Fifth...FROM THE PAGES OF MARVEL: Mark Waid ushered hornhead into Marvel NOW! officially with the release of "Daredevil #1". Essentially this was a new volume of Waid's DD run, but he has drastically changed the status quo for the character. I was not initially a fan of the move out West and away from Hell's Kitchen, but it is fun to see Murdock adjust to life in a new city.
Lots of big news for Spidey as creator Dan Slott announced his November event "Spiderverse" that will feature every Spider-man EVER. Not to be outdone Brian Michael Bendis has promised a sequel to his universe crossing tale "Spider-men". I'm not sure what to think about either at this point, but it looks like Spidey is in for a big year.
FINALLY..... As promised on my Facebook Fan Page I want to delve a little into the choices made by the crew attached to the "Fast 7" movie. Specifically the choice to hire four body doubles and use CGI to complete Paul Walker's role in the film. Allegedly, there is still over half of his role to film. I have conflicted thoughts about this proposal, because on it's face value I think it's a shameful grave robbery. I realize that it has been done before like Brandon Lee's role in "The Crow" in example; however, I think that was intended to be a one shot project (and I'd like to pretend that it is) and not the latest installment in a annual franchise release. I think if the family is okay with it and it gets money to his foundation and his daughter that would be okay as well. To hedge though I have a sneaking suspicion that the CGI won't look real. That could make for a very awkward & uncomfortable viewing experience. It's a different thing to digitize a fantasy character like the Hulk or Smaug than to digitally manipulate stock footage of a person's face.
That's all for today I apologize for my long winded rants, but I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and write so I had a lot to get out.
The good news is I will be back on my regular schedule next week. Which means more time to plan, prepare, & write.
Thank you for reading and see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Lot of topics to cover today predominantly film, but I might branch out into a couple of on the page thoughts...
First I'll say this....I have not been a fan of 70-80% of what I have seen come out about "X-men: Days of Future Past". The release of today's trailer gave me a little bit more positivity about the project. I can't say precisely what it is that I like about it, but I have a more favorable opinion of it nonetheless. To give Bryan Singer & crew credit there are some things I feel that they have gotten right in the series as a whole.
Off the top of my head I like what they have done with the Magneto, Mystique, and even Ellen Page's Kitty Pride. I really like the star power in this ensemble cast with Michael Fassbender & Sir Ian McKellan as Magneto, Patrick Stewart & James Mcavoy as Xavier, Hugh Jackman, Ellen Page, Jennifer Lawrence, and many others. I will give credit where credit is due, but I do expect them to address the glaring continuity errors and reestablish Scott Summers if not Jean Grey as well.
I like Evan Peters in his roles on the anthology horror series "American Horror Story", but I feel that in costume and look his Quicksilver does not pass the eyeball test. Time will tell with this project, but I'm more willing to give it a chance now.
Second.... Really cool set photos hit the net today for "Avengers: Age of Ultron" I love the costume choices that they have made for Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver in this iteration. I can see the twins being a fantastic addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I give Aaron Taylor Johnson a lot of credit for getting himself into a heroic shape for this film and his other vehicle "Kick-ass". In other news with this project the "Building a universe" special teased an appearance of the Hulk-buster armor, which makes this blogger tingly all over.
Third... Exciting times as we sit a little over a week away from the release of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier". I feel somewhat alone as a huge fan of the first entry, because I have heard some negativity about the project. Overall though I think that was the only way to introduce Cap, and it had the right formula of sci-fi, intrigue, and military service to capture the essence of what makes Steve Rogers the greatest hero of multiple generations (in the Marvel Canon). I'm really looking forward to this movie because I love the Winter Soldier character, and it will be nice to see Agent 13 & Crossbones introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In other news with Cap talks about the heavy in the third installment of the franchise have started up with it being suggested that a deranged Cap clone from the 50's MIGHT be the next villain. I enjoyed what Ed Brubaker did with the Cap Clone in his run with the character, but I'm not sure how a clone story would play with a large audience.
Fourth...FROM THE PAGES OF DC: I have to admit that even with the Batfan that I am I'm going through a little fatigue with Scott Snyder's "Year Zero" as in my opinion it has lived past it's sell by date. I will continue to buy the book because it's by no means terrible, but I am ready for the time to shift back to "current" day. I'm also not a fan of the "Batman: Eternal" weekly series that is coming up, and as much as I love Batman and like Snyder I hope it fails.
Fifth...FROM THE PAGES OF MARVEL: Mark Waid ushered hornhead into Marvel NOW! officially with the release of "Daredevil #1". Essentially this was a new volume of Waid's DD run, but he has drastically changed the status quo for the character. I was not initially a fan of the move out West and away from Hell's Kitchen, but it is fun to see Murdock adjust to life in a new city.
Lots of big news for Spidey as creator Dan Slott announced his November event "Spiderverse" that will feature every Spider-man EVER. Not to be outdone Brian Michael Bendis has promised a sequel to his universe crossing tale "Spider-men". I'm not sure what to think about either at this point, but it looks like Spidey is in for a big year.
FINALLY..... As promised on my Facebook Fan Page I want to delve a little into the choices made by the crew attached to the "Fast 7" movie. Specifically the choice to hire four body doubles and use CGI to complete Paul Walker's role in the film. Allegedly, there is still over half of his role to film. I have conflicted thoughts about this proposal, because on it's face value I think it's a shameful grave robbery. I realize that it has been done before like Brandon Lee's role in "The Crow" in example; however, I think that was intended to be a one shot project (and I'd like to pretend that it is) and not the latest installment in a annual franchise release. I think if the family is okay with it and it gets money to his foundation and his daughter that would be okay as well. To hedge though I have a sneaking suspicion that the CGI won't look real. That could make for a very awkward & uncomfortable viewing experience. It's a different thing to digitize a fantasy character like the Hulk or Smaug than to digitally manipulate stock footage of a person's face.
That's all for today I apologize for my long winded rants, but I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and write so I had a lot to get out.
The good news is I will be back on my regular schedule next week. Which means more time to plan, prepare, & write.
Thank you for reading and see you next time at The Comic Shop!
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Magneto: Mutant Messiah, Movie release dates, Indy Comic con, and other topics
Happy Sunday everyone!
Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Comic Shop!
Lot of topics I want to get into today so I'm gonna jump right in................
First.....
Cullen Bunn's "Magneto" is nothing short of phenomenal. Bunn has a unique aptitude for stripping down this character to his most integral traits. This Magneto is in stark contrast to other iterations of the master of magnetism. In years past we've seen him cast as the leader of a nation, the leader of an anti-human faction, the leader of the X-men, a zealot, and a terrorist. While in days gone by we might have seen Magneto travel through the skies in a magnetic field this one tools around in a beat up old suburban. We've seen Magneto be usurped in both status and influence by Cyclops and others. This is Magneto in the post-AvX Marvel Universe and it is rather enjoyable. I don't want to spoil too many plot points, but I will say that it was a fantastic read and a worthwhile addition to any buy pile.
Second....
Many a wave were made earlier this week when Disney/Marvel announced that they will release "Captain America 3" up against WB/DC's "Batman vs. Superman still unofficially titled project" on May 6, 2016. New-comic-movie-fan-dude-bros and even prestigious publications like "Forbes" are already claiming victory for Disney/Marvel. What they fail to realize is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY both of those movies will be on the same day. The rising comic film tide has raised all ships, but this would be potentially damaging for both studios. I will tell you now that someone will either experience "production problems" or have to do "reshoots" that will alter the release schedule. As a movie fan it would be cool to go to one at midnight and the other the next morning, but I don't think the head to head competition is necessary or beneficial to anyone.
Third...
I am a very proud Hoosier after this weekend. Indy Comic Con on many fronts was an amazing success. While I do have to say that there is a lot of room for improvement I think it was a great first effort. Event planners anticipated about 10,000 visitors for the entire weekend and received over 15,000 on Saturday alone. The event planners have already committed to having more room and a vastly improved Indy Comic Con for 2015. I would suggest that they have it at a different time of year where they don't have the intersection of St. Patty's day, the Big Ten Tournament, and what I believe was a library convention. This weekend was also the time that Las Vegas was having their Con so that probably kept some celebrities/artists/etc. from coming. Things are definitely looking up for the future of the Indy Comic Con. Very exciting! I'm happy for the businesses downtown as well that have toiled through a brutal winter. They surely experienced an outstanding sales day on Saturday.
Fourth....
This week in the "Superior Spider-man" turns - The "Goblin Nation" storyline carries on. I don't want to spoil anything but it brought a smile to my face when Otto had to stop to ask himself "What would Parker do?"
I know there were other things that I wanted to cover, but I'm blanking on them at the moment so let's call it a day.
Thank you for reading!
See you next time at The Comic Shop...
Thanks for taking the time to stop by The Comic Shop!
Lot of topics I want to get into today so I'm gonna jump right in................
First.....
Cullen Bunn's "Magneto" is nothing short of phenomenal. Bunn has a unique aptitude for stripping down this character to his most integral traits. This Magneto is in stark contrast to other iterations of the master of magnetism. In years past we've seen him cast as the leader of a nation, the leader of an anti-human faction, the leader of the X-men, a zealot, and a terrorist. While in days gone by we might have seen Magneto travel through the skies in a magnetic field this one tools around in a beat up old suburban. We've seen Magneto be usurped in both status and influence by Cyclops and others. This is Magneto in the post-AvX Marvel Universe and it is rather enjoyable. I don't want to spoil too many plot points, but I will say that it was a fantastic read and a worthwhile addition to any buy pile.
Second....
Many a wave were made earlier this week when Disney/Marvel announced that they will release "Captain America 3" up against WB/DC's "Batman vs. Superman still unofficially titled project" on May 6, 2016. New-comic-movie-fan-dude-bros and even prestigious publications like "Forbes" are already claiming victory for Disney/Marvel. What they fail to realize is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY both of those movies will be on the same day. The rising comic film tide has raised all ships, but this would be potentially damaging for both studios. I will tell you now that someone will either experience "production problems" or have to do "reshoots" that will alter the release schedule. As a movie fan it would be cool to go to one at midnight and the other the next morning, but I don't think the head to head competition is necessary or beneficial to anyone.
Third...
I am a very proud Hoosier after this weekend. Indy Comic Con on many fronts was an amazing success. While I do have to say that there is a lot of room for improvement I think it was a great first effort. Event planners anticipated about 10,000 visitors for the entire weekend and received over 15,000 on Saturday alone. The event planners have already committed to having more room and a vastly improved Indy Comic Con for 2015. I would suggest that they have it at a different time of year where they don't have the intersection of St. Patty's day, the Big Ten Tournament, and what I believe was a library convention. This weekend was also the time that Las Vegas was having their Con so that probably kept some celebrities/artists/etc. from coming. Things are definitely looking up for the future of the Indy Comic Con. Very exciting! I'm happy for the businesses downtown as well that have toiled through a brutal winter. They surely experienced an outstanding sales day on Saturday.
Fourth....
This week in the "Superior Spider-man" turns - The "Goblin Nation" storyline carries on. I don't want to spoil anything but it brought a smile to my face when Otto had to stop to ask himself "What would Parker do?"
I know there were other things that I wanted to cover, but I'm blanking on them at the moment so let's call it a day.
Thank you for reading!
See you next time at The Comic Shop...
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