The Week In Geek 8/27/14

So, one of this week's Geeky Things That People Were Talking About was the announcement that, Donald Glover, to the apparently overwhelming joy of Twitter, will be voicing Miles Morales in an episode of Ultimate Spider-Man. On one hand, it's cool that the social media campaign that inspired Miles in the first place gets a (kinda) win in seeing their idol on screen in some form. I'm just not entirely sure this is that much of a "win." Mainly because Ultimate Spider-Man is a uniquely awful half hour of television. The thing that makes it so notably bad is that a). Spectacular Spider-Man, a perfectly decent show got bumped for this and b). it's a titled after a Brian Michael Bendis work but follows it in the same way the latest batch of X-Men movies follow the comics (meaning there are characters with similar names and attributes, but aside from that....nope). I could go into everything this show does wrong but I digress. Donald Glover.

I'll say this for Marvel: They draw we better
edge-ups than DC (sorry, Mister Terrific).

Let me just say right away that I like Donald Glover. As this is being written, I'm actually listening to his Because the Internet album. I respect that he (as I've found out in the past couple of months) has a fanbase that is, to say the least, rabid. So, I don't have any personal distaste for the guy (I'm really trying hard to save myself any fan backlash here because I've seen them in action).

With that said, he's no Spider-Man, cartoon or otherwise. Black, white, whatever...there's a certain atmosphere of iconic, dormant heroism to everyone to play/voice Marvel's poster child. Tobey Maguire had a wide-eyed, nebbish Luke Skywalker quality to him. Andrew Garfield is a dorky smartass more like the Ultimate Peter from the comics. Even Christopher Daniel Barnes from the animated series that dominated most of the 90s had an unassuming everyman quality. Donald Glover is....well, Troy Barnes. Putting Troy Barnes in a Spider-Man costume is nothing less than fan service. And that's okay. With superhero comics, if they run long enough, it's inevitable that they're all subjected to a degree of fan service. It's just that sometimes, that works out for the better (Dick Grayson as Batman, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Wolverine being on virtually every major Marvel team possible) and sometimes you get Childish Gambino being snarky in a Disney cartoon for 30 minutes.

Then again, I really could have stopped this little analysis at "Ultimate Spider-Man is a uniquely awful cartoon" anyway.

Anywho, my comic reviews for the week are available on Black Nerd Problems for your perusal. As always, feel free to comment, like, share and troll as you see fit. This week, I took a look at.....

All New X-Men: I have to say that I like the groove Bendis has found for his take on the X-franchise. The Original X-Men are at their best when they're getting into trouble while the staff isn't around. I like the direction of the whole "different factions fighting for different aspects of the dream" thing, but the Originals, not having all of that baggage, serve as a nice break from all that without completely departing from it either.

Batman Eternal: Finally, some major plotline payoff!!! This is definitely one of the top 3 best issues of the book. James Tynion IV did a pretty good job of balancing all the plotlines he had to work with. Granted, he conveniently didn't have as many to juggle as pretty much every other writer has, but still. Masterful job getting to Gotham's big upheaval. I'm VERY excited about what's next.