The Week In Geek 10/29/14

Okay, so the Geeky Thing That Happened This Week is obviously the big Marvel Event in Los Angeles where Marvel once again curb stomped DC like they held out on milk money. Barely two weeks after Warner Bros. tosses out a sort of lackluster (at least in reception) list of proposed titles and times for their Cinematic Universe. The blogs start making the rounds about how DC is going to be first to have feature films with female leads and/or a lead character of color (which is not true) and then Marvel suddenly hit their rivals with a surprise attack.

"I will see your Cyborg and Wonder Woman movies and raise you Chadwick Boseman as the Black Panther, the female Captain Marvel that everyone loves so much and Benedict Fucking Cumberbatch at Dr. Strange."

I went on about this before but the one reason Marvel smokes DC every time with these little stunts is because they put out a reliable product. You would think putting out some rigid schedule of movies you want to make in the next five years or so would feel stuffy, but it doesn't. Marvel has established several times that not only do they make good product but it has the capacity to get better over time (Captain America 2). When you do good work, people want to know when you're doing that good work again. Of course, when there's delays, questionable casting choices and basically a 24 hour news cycle built around the possibility of your project's failure....well, ask DC.

My reviews for the week are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. This week, I took a look at:

Batman Eternal: This was pretty epic, I'd say. From the awesome looking scene of Batman diving head first into a crater amidst gunfire from the police, the wholesale destruction of Arkham Asylum and the long awaited appearance of the Spectre which was here and gone way too soon....this is a better resolution than any to one of the book's many conflicts.

All New X-Men: Although the plot itself has begun to move in slow motion, I must say there are some things to enjoy with the current status of the book. Angel trying to teach X-23 just to be a person let alone a girlfriend is pretty entertaining. And watching Beast and Ultimate Doom in a room together has so much potential for mayhem and comedy, I can barely stand it.. Hopefully, the pace picks up next issue, but I'm okay with where it is for now.

Should One Man Have All That Power?

Since I've started working for Black Nerd Problems, the feedback for my articles and even The Blog has definitely evolved. I get my share of trolls just like everyone else, but for the most part, I like you people. Even when you don't agree, you get it. But there's always a bit of an oddball that just has to stand out. Recently, I received an email about an article I did a few moons ago on what the moral to a good Black Panther movie should be. One response I got (which my editor refuses to run and rightfully so because as well written and thought out as it is, the goddamned thing has a higher word count than War and Peace) was a letter to Marvel, griping about the direction in which they've taken the Black Panther in the past ten years or so. And yeah, it's totally valid to say he's been put through the ringer. He's lost his kingdom to his sister (by the way, I've never liked the way fans talk about that with this overtone that sounds a lot like misogynistic "you lost your throne to a girl" bullshit), he got divorced from Storm who moved onto a relationship with the dearly departed Wolverine. He became the keeper of the spirits of all Black Panthers before him and lost that. He's lost Wakanda thrice to Doom, Namor and Thanos. I get it. He's had it hard.

This section of fandom (because the guy who wrote the letter isn't the only one by a long shot) has a problem with this because the Panther, though an awesome, formidable hero, hasn't really been given a chance as a truly marquee character. They seem to think, as far as I can tell, that returning his throne to him and making him this indomitable Batman of sorts again will put him in the spotlight he deserves and...I don't know...maybe they think he'll finally be worthy of joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in his own film (which, according to some, is on the way sooner than we think).

The author of said letter also seems to believe that the Black Panther falling from grace is some kind of hazing unique to him that other characters (I'm assuming via context that he means white characters) are somehow immune to. Even though it's understandable as far as kneejerk reactions go (after all, we live in a country where it's practically a federal case if Jennifer Lawrence's boobs leak to the web but not Jill Scott's), it's still wrong.

Tony Stark, as karmic penance for being a war profiteer, has a piece of shrapnel from one of his own bombs stuck in his chest. He's also been a booze hound who has lost his company at least twice in recent memory, lost his memory, been an enemy of the state and, recently, engineered superhero death machines that he doesn't remember making.

Captain America, the Marvel Universe's greatest champion, has been on the run from his own country, shot in the chest, and even renounced his name when he didn't like the direction the country was going in.

And these are two of Marvel's biggest franchises we're talking about here. If Marvel were to absolve the Black Panther from being put through a gauntlet in his heroic and personal life (and this is what Reginald Hudlin lost sight of during his run), you're opening your character up to becoming a Goddamned Batman where the problem becomes that you've allowed your character to become too invincible in the eyes of the collective consciousness. And when was the last time that was exciting? 300? I mean, sure it was cool watching the Spartans be tougher than basically every other lifeform on screen, but that was only cool because we all knew they were going to die by the end of the movie.

"Excuse me, but you're in the shot. They can't
get my abs clearly."

(Having said that, it would be awesome to see a scene in the Black Panther movie where T'Challa is one deep against a horde of mercenaries charging towards Wakanda, giving them work like Gerard Butler did in that one scene of 300. But I digress.)

I mean, just think about Cyclops. After the years of fanwhining about how boring and vanilla Scott Summers was. Now, think about him finally losing his shit and, lately becoming the new Magneto. Who would have guessed that the Captain America of mutants would have turned into that wayward older brother who changes his clothes and rages against the machine to piss off his dead father figure? That's a much more interesting character!

It's natural to want the good guys to win. That's why comics are absorbed into pop culture so easily. No matter how cynical or apathetic our society becomes, we want to see someone triumph during those times when we don't think we can. Jerry Siegel's father was shot and killed in a department store robbery. When he created Superman, he was giving birth to the kind of hero he wished could have saved his dad, a hero who would never let us down in those times when our friends, our jobs or our justice system does.

But the connection between the hero and his/her reader can't always be so simple. Otherwise, the audience starts to resent the hero in the same way you hate hearing "I know how you feel" from your friend who gets all the pretty girls in high school. The greater the test put before your hero, the louder we cheer when they see their way past it.

Moral of the Story: It's not about the fall. It's about the climb back.

The Week In Geek 10/22/14

So, this week, the trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron got leaked which seemed inevitable considering the buzz Marvel generated by stealth bombing San Diego Comic Con with a "special sneak peek" that nobody outside of that sound stage has seen to this day. I have to say that Marvel is really taking the whole thing in stride which does nothing but help their image at this point. To the surprise of nobody, what we saw in the teaser is very impressive. In particular, the shot of Hulk fighting the Hulkbuster armor looks absolutely incredible. Marvel gets better and better at capturing the essence of the mostly CGI monster every single time.

The trailer was supposed to make its debut on the upcoming episode of Agents of SHIELD (by the way, Tuesday's episode with "Mockingbird" was fucking awesome) and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel showed the SDCC trailer instead just to keep fans happy. Also, given the bizarre ratings drop of the season so far, they could use the viewers, so my suggestion would be to watch this week's episode anyway.

My comic reviews for the week are available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. This week, I took a look at:

Batman Eternal: Okay, there's been some complaints about the book's tendency to divert from the main plotline to tell some side stories and tie off hanging plotlines, but honestly, that's no different from shows like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. After al, the purpose for Eternal is to build a universe out of Gotham opposed to Scott Snyder's Batman, which is a more focused book that only has Batman himself to center on. With that in mind, I think it's a solid book despite some of it's issues in the art department at times.

Avengers/X-Men- Axis: Decent but sloppy. I have to appreciate the step up in the art department, but still. The resolution felt so circular. Avengers Vs. X-Men was supposed to jump start the resolution of the rift between the mutant community and the Avengers. Then, we got Uncanny Avengers as a result which was supposed to be the solution. Almost three years later, we're back to this "mutants and the government will never get along" shit. The whole thread seems to have chased its own tail.

Why I Left Gotham....

Friend: Okay, you've been keeping up with Gotham, right? I have a reference question.

Me: Actually I gave up on Gotham after episode three.

Friend: Which one was that?

Me: The one that came third.

Friend: Yeah, but...good one....what was it about?

Me: It was Jim Gordon vs. Balloons

Friend: That was a vigilante whose motif was balloons. I thought you'd like that one.

Me: So, you thought I was drunk?

Friend: Are you telling me you weren't?

Me: No, I got drunk after it was over. To numb the pain.

Friend: So, what was wrong with the Balloonman?

Me: First of all, his name was Balloonman. You can't get away with a name that stupid if you're a MegaMan villain. Hell, he couldn't even get away with being a MegaMan villain because if MegaMan absorbed Balloonman's power, I'm pretty sure he'd refund it back to the guy.

Friend: "Excuse me, Dr. Wiley, I got this from your associates about a week ago. I don't have a receipt but it's just not what I thought it was and I'd like to see about getting a refund on it."

Me: "Well, young man, my associate should have made you aware of our five day policy for returns on evil robot powers clearly indicated in our terms of service....."

Friend: "Well, I'll take store credit. You don't have any free song downloads or some shit? Candy Crush lives? Nothing?"

Me: The thing about Gotham is that it's trying to be some hybrid of a Batman prequel and quirky procedural cop drama. In other words, it's trying to horde the CW and CBS audience at the same time. The problem is that it sucks at both.

Friend: But what about Kid Bruce Wayne? Batman before he even thought about being Batman. That's gotta be worth something.

Me: It would be if they actually bothered to write a character for this kid outside of "Bruce Wayne's parents got shot and he's been creepy ever since."

Friend: But isn't that how it basically went, though?

Me: Yeah, but there's a reason the other origin stories skip right to Bruce learning kung-fu and Sherlock Holmes 101. Because all an eight year old can do at that point realistically is really just pout and be a complete snot. Unless, you want to do a whole series about young Bruce Wayne solving mysteries. And Young Bruce Wayne Mysteries is essentially just Young Indiana Jones. And doing Young Indiana Jones without River Phoenix is a punishable offense.

Friend: But you write for a website that HAS to cover this kind of thing to know what's going on and all that.

Me: I write for a website where ONE of us has to cover Gotham. We are well aware of his sacrifice for the greater good. It's basically like he's Batman flying Bane's atom bomb into the ocean every Monday at 7 and we are grateful. But other than him, I think every other staff writer has basically washed their hands of the whole thing. I mean, there are just better things to do with my Monday night than wonder how much worse Jada Pinkett Smith's wig is going to be this week.

Friend: But you're not worried you're missing out on landmark comic-based media even if it's kinda bad?

Me: The last time I had that thought, I ended up watching several seasons of Smallville when three would have worked out just fine.

Friend: But Smallville was necessary. We needed to know that comic-based television could get if a show was left on the air years after its worn out its welcome for advertisment's sake.

Me: No, we didn't. We knew that already because that describes any CW show that lasts longer than two seasons that isn't Supernatural.

Friend: I'll give you that.

Me: But your point is that Gotham is necessary because we haven't had Smallville to remind us in a while?

Friend: Not really.

Me: So, what's your point in defense of Gotham?

Friend: I was defending Gotham? Oh, man, that show sucks. I just had a question.

Me: **sigh** Good talk, man.

The Week In Geek 10/16/14

Since I didn't do a week in geek last week due to time constraints and the Day Job, I'll backtrack a little bit.

-The Flash premiered last week and I can tell you without going into a whole fleshed out review since there's a perfectly good one that I kinda disagree with over at BNP....it was incredible. Honestly, if DC is keen on creating a primetime television universe (excluding Gotham because it's turning out to be a shit show that will probably on get a second season before completely tanking), this was a step in the right direction. The show really serves as the perfect counter to Arrow, which comes on the night after. Whereas Arrow has made its name on being a much more intense "ultimate" version of the Green Arrow mythos (because the idea seemed to be it to be a primetime Batman surrogate), Flash is Arrow's more earnest counterpart which, incidentally makes for hugely entertaining television. And Jesse L. Martin does this show ALL OF THE FAVORS. I mean, sure we've seen Bill Sadler and Tom Cavanaugh do pretty well, but Martin's performance does laps around the whole rest of the cast. And they've wasted no time teasing us with the promise of assembling the Rogues and even Professor Zoom. This show is definitely going to be the one to watch this season.

-Last week, Marvel announced that it would be bringing back the Secret Wars next year. They put out this epic poster done by Alex Ross (The GAWD) that features what looks like this epic showdown between heroes and a lot of their alternate versions with nods to the Ultimate Universe as well as Supreme Power. Now, I'm not going to comment on the "Marvel has run out of ideas" fanwhining because that's just a degree of circular logic where nobody really wins. However, I WILL point out how funny it is that there was NO sign of the Fantastic Four or the X-Men in the poster. With Fantastic Four having already been cancelled, this really just adds to the rumor that Disney bigwigs are attempting to completely snub Fox, who owns the movie rights to both (FF, of course, has that movie reboot coming up in....you guessed it...2015). While it hasn't exactly been an official mandate by Disney OR Marvel, the signs certainly point to some truth in the rumor more and more as time goes on. And, sure, Marvel pours too much money in to X-books to every cancel those outright, the timing for them to kill Wolverine off seems extremely convenient as well. At this point, they couldn't get anymore overt if they had Leonardo Da Vinci himself paint Wolverine giving Fox the finger while slicing through a picture of Michael B. Jordan.


Anyway, my comic reviews for the week are available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. Also, check out my reviews for episodes 2 and 3 of Nightwing: The Series as well as my opinion piece on the announcement of a Suicide Squad movie slated for 2016. This week, I took a look at.....

Batman Eternal: Okay, I glazed over this point in the actual review, but....Batgirl has become downright thuggish and I LOVE it. You can also tell DC is really making an effort (for whatever that's worth with DC) towards retooling the gender politics in their universe when you have a dope moment like Jason Todd openly admitting that Batgirl has always been the most formidable of Batman's proteges. Dope moment. As far as progress goes, you have to give credit where it's due.

Uncanny X-Men: So, Bendis had to take a departure from the familial shenanigans in favor of advancing the plot a bit faster since there's another "MostPowerfulMutantEverUnlikeAnythingWeveEverSeenExceptForTheLastTimeAndTheTimeBeforeThat" at large, but it's still a really strong story arc happening. One story I noticed they seem to be conveniently glazing over is the revelation that Charles Xavier was married to Mystique and, evident from the All New Brotherhood's attack in All New, had a kid. Are we going to sit down and have a talk about how Raven Darkholme is apparently comics' most notorious rolling stone? Seriously, man....it's just getting weird at this point.

Is Harley Quinn The New Deadpool?

So, the Suicide Squad recently got rebooted AGAIN. At this point, I think it's hot on the Legion of Superheroes' heels for "most times canceled by DC Comics." In fact, I'm pretty sure they're both at least one more cancellation away from a free Firehouse sub. I was really ready to give it a chance and decide on it myself except 1). I think I'm getting to the age where I don't have to test out every single thing that shows up out of curiosity (I still haven't seen Battleship because I KNOW it's trash) and 2). I've never seen a book that was voted off the island so unanimously. I mean, I haven't seen or heard a single positive thing about Suicide Squad this time around. And now, it's got me wondering: What is it that DC is getting SO wrong about the Suicide Squad? Honestly, the team seems to get generally positive responses in their appearances on Justice League Unlimited and, recently, Arrow. But the book never catches fire for very long.

It so happened that, as I was contemplating this, I ran into one of my readers (Yes, on occasion, I do indeed run into people who read the blog and engage them about what they've read) who'd noticed the same thing I had that the book just can't seem to get lightning to strike for some reason. Now, both of us are stumped on the franchise in general, but he had an idea about this incarnation in particular: Harley Quinn. I don't read as much DC as he does to have noticed it, but hypothesized that Harley Quinn is slowly becoming the new Deadpool. And he kinda had a point. I remember reading issue zero of her solo series and most of it was basically her breaking the fourth wall interacting with the readers and the writers, very similar to Deadpool's knowledge that he's a comic character in a fictional world. In DC's need to give her an identity aside from being the Joker's girl Friday (since Joker has been intentionally absent), she's become sort of a gag character. On one hand, if this is a mandated plot on DC's part, there is a chance it's not going to fly because the problem with DC's mandated plots is that they usually feel like mandated plots. It's as there are a bunch of old white men sitting in a boardroom listening to an intern talk about way to increase their humor quotient by 35 percent (Because let's face it, DC is the GOP to Marvel's Democrats).

On the other hand, DC could use some levity. I've remarked before that the problem with the New 52 from the start has been that it's not nearly as fun as it could be. Lobo used to be their joke character, but in keeping with the whole "the New 52 is because because it's all hardcore" thing, they've taken Lobo and allowed him to win enough pokebattles to evolve into Chris Cornell, so he's out of the "fun" column.

He just looks like he's saying,
"Lobo will sex you now."

So, in truth, there's the possibility that Harley Quinn COULD be DC's answer to Deadpool as long as they remember to value the character for actual gags and over just being there. The problem with Deadpool is that Marvel rarely uses him for actual jokes anymore. His just being on the cover of a book he has nothing to do with or appearing in the the book to break the fourth wall is joke enough for the writers even when Deadpool isn't actually doing anything funny. From what little I've read (and I invite any of you who've read more of her stuff to fill me in a bit more), it seems like she could go this route if left unchecked and, in turn, become unfunny really quickly.


They also have to put a cap on oversexualizing her. The amazing thing about Deadpool is that he is (or has the potential to be when he's not Marvel one trick pony gag) a hilarious character despite a rather depressing backstory. (Granted, Spider-Man is pretty funny despite a laundry list of horrible shit happening to him, but you can always fall back on the idea that he's laughing to keep from crying or pissing his pants that he's fighting a guy who throws exploding jack-o-lanterns. Deadpool is laughing because he's just plain crazy.) DC caught a lot of bullshit because of a fan art contest a while back where you had to draw Harley Quinn dying in these horrible ways. Never mind that DC was making light of suicide at one of the worst possible times of this generation to make fun of suicide. That's a whole other post. The problem was the context. Usually, you can get away with this shit when it's done under the "crazy" umbrella, but it wasn't. The main context was that Quinn is a ditzy blonde who giggles and squeals and doesn't know much better (although, the Bruce Timm version from Batman: The Animated Series was a big contribution to that, but that's also another post). Play up the crazy and it might work out, but we all know how horrible DC is with gender politics.

Is Harley Quinn becoming the new Deadpool? Not yet, but she could be. Then again, I could be wrong.  

Is It Time To Start Taking Fan Made Work Seriously?

So, this week, I wrote a review on the fan made project, Nightwing: The Series and I actually ran into some difficulty evaluating it. If you've read this blog before or if you've read Black Nerd Problem, you know reviewing stuff is something I do pretty often. In this case, it was sort of awkward taking a close look at Nightwing because I couldn't exactly take a jab at the project for being fan service. It's fan made, so of course it's going to be fan service. Teasing fans with Oracle's wheelchair, Nightwing's costume looking like it came out of Young Justice, the borrowed Dark Knight belt....all of this is textbook fan service.

I know this is a sin in professional circles, but where the superhero genre of film and television is concerned, you really do have to consider a whole other manner of approaching a review of its quality level. This is what I had trouble with originally and this is what I think other critics who aren't, shall we say, initiated in the comic world have trouble with. The genre itself has reached a point of variety where it's difficult to compare one project to the other. Because, more often than not, their goals are different. Agents of SHIELD is, of course, spun from The Avengers, but they're as different from one another as night and day (which seems like what fans are STILL having trouble understanding). As the production quality improves over time, Marvel gets better all the time at giving its audience the best cinematic representation of a comic book humanly possible, Guardians of the Galaxy being one of the best examples. With that in mind, Marvel films are comic book crossover events and Agents of SHIELD is a tie-in. Rarely in such tie-in comics do you ever see major characters like Captain America showing up to beat up Deathlok or Iron Man flying by to save Phil Coulson everytime he gets into something he can't get out of on his own. The purpose of The Avengers is to be the cinematic version of a superhero team-up (something I don't think had even been done before). The purpose of Agents of SHIELD is to keep Marvel on your mind and continue selling you their brand in between movies even if it's on a dog and pony level. Arrow has less of these restraints because it doesn't ever tie itself directly to any other property, but you see what I mean here, right? Nightwing's purpose, much like several projects like it (no matter how shitty they are), thus far seems to specifically be to give fans a piece of the DC Universe that live action movies and television seem to have made a point to steer around.

The other thing about Nightwing that makes it noteworthy is that its Kickstarter roots make it a good example of a trend fans should start looking at. I often hear people talking about how there's no good options in hip hop anymore. Usually, these people are waxing poetic about an easier time while listening to the radio. My suggestion to them is usually to find non-mainstream alternatives. I haven't given the radio a serious listen in almost ten years. I get along just fine. Truth be told, the same could be said for the superhero genre. Fans await their favorite hero's time in the spotlight in a feature length blockbuster film. I've written quite a bit recent about how it shouldn't be hard for Marvel to churn out a decent Black Panther film and I stand by that statement, but in The Era of Kickstarter, viable independent superhero films should really be explored.  I mean, how awesome would it be to see one of Christopher Bird's "Why I Should Write Doctor Strange" treatments brought to life with Kickstarter money? Besides, at the end of the day, a LOT of the things fans complain that their favorite superhero movies are lacking are basically things that would be considered fan service. And what venue for fan service could possibly be better than fan made shorts?

It's happened with Star Wars and Star Trek....both of which had perfectly satisfying results. Gaming culture has already tapped into this in the absence of watchable mainstream video game movies and given rise to projects like Mortal Kombat: Rebirth and Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist. At this point, there's really no reason aside from "It's Not Canon" (and even then, there's plenty of comics referred to as "source material" that aren't canon that are still considered gospel) that we couldn't start seeing more projects like Nightwing from fans.

Of course, I suppose there is always the possibility that if this did become a lucrative enough industry in itself, the Big Two (namely Marvel since they're working on exclusive Netflix content and you could imagine they're big enough at this point to just crush opposing clicks in the courtroom instead of competing if they so wanted) might intervene and step on fandom's neck by Falcon Punching independent creators with copyright infringement suits like the record industry did, but to do so would come across as a direct affront to fandom that might just move a number of readers to hit them in pockets. Marvel and DC do their share of stupid shit, but I don't see them giving fans the finger outright like that. Then again, I could be wrong.

The Week In Geek 10/1/14

So, this week, I did a review on Nightwing: The Series and honestly, it might have the best reception a superhero related project could ask for this week. And yes, I absolutely recognize that both Agents of SHIELD and Gotham also happened this week. My statement still stands. Gotham got quite a bit of chastisement for its episode, "Selina Kyle" and I'll have an upcoming post about why it was well deserved. Meanwhile, Agents of SHIELD took a bizarrely huge hit in its ratings which is really weird considering the new season improved upon its previous problems DRAMATICALLY. Hell, they even dipped into the budget to bring more black people on the show. Just goes to show how fickle a mob the Fandom Hype Machine truly is.

Anyway, my reviews for the week are available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. This week, I took a look at:

Batman Eternal: I don't know...maybe this is some kind of sacrificial tribute thing where if we're going to have the incredible James Tynion IV writing the book, we have to have shitty artwork as a trade off. I mean, it's been just unforgivable the past couple of issues. The sad thing is I love the story so much and feel so invested, I don't have the heart to put the damned book down. However, it's only fair to say that odds are we'll probably have better art coming up. On the plus side, I have to appreciate the ongoing war between the Spoiler and her seemingly Z-List father, the Cluemaster. Hopefully, we'll see more of Stephanie Brown's daddy issues sooner than later.

Thor: Honestly, this one is an open/shut case. The name and art have changed, but Jason Aaron's master class in storytelling remains the same. Bit by bit, he's giving us insight into the Future King Thor he's teased us with throughout the course of the God of Thunder series and I love it. Very few writers are capable of making me enjoy a villain I dislike as much as Malekith, but Aaron is pulling it off.