Something Something Hot Trailers

So, two long awaited trailers dropped this week.

The first was for Thor: Ragnarok which looks incredible. This looks like the sort of epic scale the Thor movies should have always been aiming for. Thus far, the series has been, let’s face it, a series of well produced romcoms with fantasy elements not unlike the white thirst cinema that is Starz’ Outlander. Jane and Thor make doe eyes at each other, Kat Dennings looks hot and cracks jokes, Tom Hiddleston steals the show, Kat Dennings looks hot and…..you get the idea. Rinse and repeat. Thor is one of those properties where each and every adventure should have all of existence hanging in the balance. This franchise and the Hulk’s movies should always be about super destructive epic god battles. For context, Jason Aaron’s God of Thunder series features a future vision in which an older, war worn Thor who now rules Asgard gets into a fist fight with Galactus where he thrown into the moon so hard he comes flying out the other side. I shit you not. So, a slugfest with the Hulk is more than welcome.

Until now, the movies never had that sense of scale and urgency. The trailer alludes to that and it also manages to look fun which, at the end of the day, is really the most important element to maintaining the kind of audience these movies attract or should attract (are you listening, DC?). A movie about a thunder god should go for broke AT LEAST and Ragnarok looks like it does just that.

Then, there was The Last Jedi….

Though I could geek the fuck out about every detail, I’m going to try not to go on very long about about it because I have a feeling I’m going to be talking about Star Wars a lot in the near future. First of all, the Tron inspired poster look spectacular and really gives Rey that epic hero look she needed in the Force Awakens poster.

The trailer was epic, though. I mean, it was only a minute and a half and it threw out thrills and questions to be answered faster than Janet Hubert tweeting during a Fresh Prince marathon. The part I’m most interested in is the part at the end where Luke said, “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” That line alone opens up potential for some interesting directions for Luke’s character to go. Even though the Jedi are mostly about order and learning to center your emotions and letting go of earthly attachments and shit, Skywalkers tend to have a complicated relationship with the Force. With him being literally the LAST of the Jedi, there’s no telling what secrets he learned once he found the Jedi temple. He could have learned the truth of how his father was seduced by the dark side (and how his mother was dating Anakin when he was clearly still a minor) which would be enough to give anyone resentment issues. Who knows? I’ve even heard some theories that we might get introduced to the beginning of the “Grey Order”, something we’ve never seen in mainstream canon. Also, make sure you get a good look at Poe Dameron’s black X-Wing. The ball’s in your court to pump out some quality toys and model kits, Disney. I’ll be waiting.

My review of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps is available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure.

A Brief Opinion of Civil War

So, I finally got around to getting out to the theater to see Civil War yesterday (I waited a week so there'd be less humans and crying babies to trigger my Akira-like, rage powered telekinesis) and I'm going to go ahead and skip the obvious angle of comparing to the DC's latest dumpster fire, Batman v Superman because the comparison is almost insulting to Civil War which is, undoubtedly, the better movie on virtually every discernible level. I'm going to jump out there and say that this movie is the linchpin that makes the Captain America trilogy surpass the Dark Knight trilogy which, up to this point, was the Godfather of superhero sagas.

There are spoilers after the jump. Not a lot or even major spoilers, but there are spoilers there. So, yeah.

The Week In Geek 4/20/16

So, This Week In Excuses to Move On From Batman v Superman.....It's recently been announced that Marvel/Disney's Inhumans movie, previously scheduled for a July 2019 release, no longer has a release date. That's not to say that it's no longer on the schedule but usually when things like this happen, it's because the studio has to make room for an impending franchise (**cough** Spider Man) because his appearance in the previews for a certain upcoming film (**cough** Civil War) has tested well thus far, so it's probably a good thing that they're staying flexible with this Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, they should probably have time to rethink whatever they had in mind for the film since Agents of SHIELD has spent the past two seasons mining the whole Inhumans thing with their Secret Warriors plotline (which has successfully reinvigorated the show with a new sense of identity).

Also, there's the whole rumor that Marvel might be coming to an mutual X-Men deal with Fox to use them....but I don't believe that shit just yet, so we'll move on.

This Week in Superhero Television.....It turns out there is a script in the can for Krypton, a Gotham style Superman prequel show. Apparently, the pilot is set two generations before Krypton's destruction where Superman's grandfather tries to bring honor back to the House of El. Here's why this is stupid. Why the FUCK are we doing a show about a planet we KNOW is going to die. I mean, we actually know how this is going to end. There are literally NO STAKES involved. Now, there is a chance that they could take this in a psuedo-Game of Thrones direction where upper crust Kryptonians wrestle for political and military power, which would wipe away the time honored "We were a peaceful, technologically advanced and unilaterally boring as fuck civilization that basically sets the stage to let our future protagonist grow up with abandonment issues" approach we've seen for God knows how long. However, this premise as is has the same problem Gotham has: primetime superhero television's compulsive need to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator viewer that will be perfect happy just to name drop popular names from the comics wherever possible (which, in a show two generations before anything relatively Superman happens, consists exclusively of Zod, Jor-El and maybe Brainiac depending on what version you're going with). And sure, Titanic took place in an ill fated setting too and it made tons of money, but this is primetime (probably broadcast basic cable at best) television so it's highly doubtful that any network that falls under that umbrella is willing to shell out that level of production quality to a show about Superman's grandfather. So, we'll see.

My comic reviews for the week on Tokyo Ghost, The Mighty Thor and Superman: American Alien are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure.

And don't forget about my the latest page of my comic collaboration with Katie Coats, Neverland: The Untold. As always feel free to like, share and comment at your leisure. You know the drill.

The Week In Geek 12/2/15

Last Week In Movie Stuff: The trailer for Captain America: Civil War dropped last week. If a trailer's purpose is to whet your appetite for what's to come, then GODDAMN, this was 2+ minutes that would make any Marvel fan drop to their knees and thank the geek gods. I'm not going to bother doing a whole breakdown of the trailer because a solid week has passed so EVERYONE has likely done a breakdown of the trailer by now and in the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, "if you're not first, you're last." So, I'll just point out a couple of awesome things about what I saw.

First and foremost, the best thing they could do to adapt Civil War from the comics is keep it firmly in Captain America's wheelhouse. They don't have enough established heroes (or villains) to make it a standalone Marvel event and the plot itself is flawed (giving the most irresponsible superhero in comics government oversight), but tying it directly to the existing Cap timeline is smart. "Cap loses Bucky, Cap finds Bucky, Cap fights for Bucky's freedom." That's about as straightforward of a trilogy as you can possibly get while still conveying a basic theme of the bonds of war (which is a big selling point for movies about soldiers from The Greatest Generation). Having said that, the thing that worked the best about Winter Soldier is that it worked independent of the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, free from having to sell other movies. After the middle-of-the-road response to Avengers: Age of Ultron, Marvel has to prove that they can balance a large cast of characters effectively. Sure, the pulled it off in the first Avengers movie, but now there's twice as many characters to cram into one movie (including Spider-Man's Marvel debut which, I suspect, will be a post credits scene). The only other time we've seen so many superpowers on the screen at the same time is probably Fox's X-Men movies and it's arguable that was way too many.

Also, there's the little matter of the Black Panther. We didn't get much to go on, but judging from what we're given, the Panther seems to be fighting on Iron Man's side against the Winter Soldier. I hypothesized a long time ago that he might appear to bring Bucky to justice for some former Hydra crimes committed against Wakanda. It's entirely possible that they might set Bucky up as being T'Challa's father's killer while he was brainwashed by Hydra, adding to Cap's whole "Bucky's a changed man" thing. Black Panther is such a long hyped character that we've waited for, I'm going to say that, to make the fans happy, T'Challa is going to have to dole out no less than three ass whuppings. The first is to prove that his fighting prowess is comparable to Cap (who has taken on Georges St. Pierre Da Gawd), the second is prove that he can take on Bucky, who has stood toe to toe with Captain America himself. The third is just for awesomeness' sake.

Meanwhile, This Week In Movie Stuff....The new Dawn of Justice trailer debuted and umm...I don't know if they grade trailers on Rotten Tomatoes, but if they did, the general public so far would have rated this one somewhere between Alex Cross and Stealth. Personally, I feel like the trailer is taking it in the teeth a little worse than it deserves. The whole thing was "meh" and for some reason, people in this 0 to 100 culture have decided that "meh" immediately equates to bad and it really doesn't.

I WILL say that the trailer shows way too much of the plotline even though most of us had guessed the plot long before we saw any trailer. "Heroes don't get along, they get manipulated, they fight, they join forces to beat manipulator." That's a long standing trope of superhero lore that has carried this whole Batman/Superman rivalry for ages now. So, I don't understand why fans are pretending like they're disappointed as if they didn't at least entertain the notion that this was where the movie was going. Part of the backlash is very clearly due to the underlying notion among the collective consciousness that Marvel is basically reigning supreme over this film genre and DC is desperate to play catch-up (I mean, they are), so in many ways, it's become cool to piss on DC. At the same time, I guess they're making it easy, so there's that.

My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars, Invincible Iron Man and Cyborg are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. And don't forget the latest page of my ongoing webcomic series, Neverland: The Untold.

The Week in Geek 11/17/15

This Week In Superhero Television....Jessica Jones premiered this Friday as part of the Netflix division of Marvel's Cinematic Universe. Of course, I haven't finished the series because it's 13 episodes and my geek devotion only goes so far in one day, but thus far, it rates as "pretty damn good." There have been attempts at recapturing the feminist narrative feel we got from Buffy (some of them, unsurprisingly, from Joss Whedon), but few have actually succeeded. Now, I'm not saying that Jessica Jones completely succeeds. It's not quite a perfect show and it definitely does not surpass Daredevil (because Daredevil didn't have too much of the burden of selling other possible properties), but if I had to make a list of shows that rate alongside JJ, it would probably rate in the top 5 above maybe Agent Carter. The ways the series differs from the Alias comic series are basically either minor or necessary for television, but they create so many layers for modern day gender politics and themes. From Jeri Hogarth being the catalyst for a toxic relationship or Jessica Jones herself being victimized in an abusive one, modern day womanism is alive and well in this show.

I mean, who better to play Killgrave, a somewhat charming man who is driven by his need to control everything and ends up remorselessly hurting everyone he allegedly cares about....than David Tennant, the guy who played the Tenth Doctor, a somewhat charming man who is driven by his need to control (or fix, as it were) everything and ends up hurting people he cares about.

Also, the whole thing's got me excited to see Luke Cage's show. Mike Colter is playing a very layered version of Cage. The whole hardened "Shaft with superpowers" deal works well with the version Brian Bendis established in the comics back in 2000, but it's nice (necessary, in fact) to see characters of color with multiple dimensions, who are taken out of their comfort zones while still not compromising their principles. And Luke Cage is nothing, if not a man of principle.

All in all, this makes for an excellent piece of standalone superhero noir as well as a fantastic addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Plenty of replay value.

My review for the week on The Mighty Thor is available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. And don't forget about my weekly webcomic with Katie Coats, Neverland: The Untold, which updates weekly. Feel free to like, comment, share and spread the word as you see fit.

The Week In Geek 10/14/15

This week in Superhero Television....Arrow seems to be getting back on the right path so far. Season Three's heart was in the right place even though it got a little existential "when is the Arrow not the Arrow". Granted, it looks like the writers are taking the long way around, but it's nice that the new season is getting back to the good old fashioned swashbuckling action we loved this show for originally. I also have to appreciate the fact that John Diggle's concerns about Oliver Queen coming out of retirement and his disdain for the Arrow's behavior (I mean, he kidnapped the guy's wife, for fuck's sake) basically mirrors our own. The show fell pretty far...like Robin Thicke level far...and still has a lot of making up to do, but it's off to a decent start. So, there's that. 

This Week In MCU News We Would Have Rather Been Surprised With.... It's finally been confirmed that the Mark Ruffalo will make an appearance as the Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok, scheduled for July 28, 2017. This is a big thing because up until this point, it was said that we wouldn't see the Hulk again after Age of Ultron for a long while. The rumored plot is Thor and the Hulk somehow teaming up with Valkyrie for what Marvel has promised to be the darkest Thor story yet. First of all, let me stop right there and establish that "a dark Thor story" is NOT a very high bar to clear. As much as I enjoyed the previously two movies, in the sense of the scope that Marvel builds at, they're essentially romcoms (The Dark World moreso than its predecessor). Also, I get the addition of Valkyrie in the interest of adding some spice to the already shaky gender politics, but what about Lady Sif? She's pretty badass in the comics, she's already established in the previous movies and the only real notable screentime she's seen is her basically getting friend zoned for Jane "I Don't Need Saving Until I Totally Do" Foster (not to mention her appearances on Agents of SHIELD...gotta love her referring to Agent Coulson as "Phil, Son of Coul"). Hopefully, Ragnarok makes more of an effort to shine more of a light on existing female characters before trying to bring new ones into the fold.

My comic reviews for the week on Ms. Marvel and Batman are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. Also, don't forget about my ongoing fantasy webcomic, Neverland: The Untold. As always, feel free to like and share and comment at your leisure.

The Week In Geek 9/30/15

So, This Week In MCU Excess.... The new rumor is that ABC is planning to make a comedy show based on Damage Control, the construction crew that ends up having to clean up after superhuman attacks. This has a 50/50 shot of either being outstanding or terrible. I mean, sure, Agent Carter was pretty much a win across the board, but Agents of SHIELD is pretty damn entertaining NOW, but it took them a long time and the best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Winter Soldier) to get there. It's nice that Marvel is branching out to infuse live action comedy in their Unstoppable Fan Service Engine, but it's still pretty dicey.

This Week In Female Solo Titles.... Mark Waid and Chris Samnee are going to be dearly missed on Daredevil, but it's awesome that they're going to be working on the new Black Widow series under the "All New All Different Marvel" banner. It's awesome that BW is finally getting some A list talent on one of her books. Don't get me wrong; I've enjoyed the previous runs that I've read and I appreciate that they lended a hand in expanding her backstory a bit, but they've started hitting a lot of the same beats reminiscent of the Avengers movies ("I've got red in my ledger") and it'll be nice to see some fresh eyes on this project.

This week in Music Saving the World.... Erykah Badu covered Drake's "Hotline Bling" and Childish Gambino covered Tamia's "So Into You." I don't really have any commentary about that. I just kinda wanted to put you people onto some good music.

My comic reviews for the week on Ghost Racers and Batman Annual #4 are available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. Also, don't forget the latest page in my ongoing webcomic series, Neverland: The Untold. As always, feel free to like, comment and share at your leisure.

The Week In Geek 9/2/15

So, This Week In Black Girl Magic, Netflix casted Simone Missick to play (very likely) Misty Knight in Marvel's Luke Cage series. The fact that Misty Knight is going to be in this show at all makes this one a promising venture....though I'm not counting on it being as awesome as Season One of Daredevil. But I'm more than open to being proven wrong. Luke Cage is also a great character that's overdue for another upgrade in visibility, so the show deserves a win.

This Week In Geeky Non Stories That People Lose Their Fucking Shit Over....Force Friday is a thing that happened. Basically, it was the first big reveal of the new toy line for the upcoming Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. Now, I won't talk about the fact that most toy retailers were so vastly understocked, fans almost started an uprising at their local Toys R Us. I won't talk about the fact that an 18 hour live stream of people taking toys out of the fucking box is easily one of the most psychotic thing I've ever heard of since the first Saw movie was in theaters. No, I'm going to talk about the questionable nature of some of these toys like this fucking thing, for instance....

Masque #CaptainPhasma #ForceFriday #StarWars pic.twitter.com/y6H1xdt25k

— David Popineau (@davidpopineau) September 3, 2015

Look, I'm really excited that Gwendoline Christie is involved enough in the plot to merit her own toy. I'm just as glad that they're bringing back the voice changer face masks like the Darth Vader ones they had when I was a kid. But I don't feel like kids want toys that say generic shit like "On my command, fire" or the ever iconic "Submit your blaster."

On the other hand, this is unbearably cool. It's highly promising when you go in expecting a few toys to get you hyped for what is already the most hyped movie of the year (short of Age of Ultron) and come out with a droid that could very well be the future of robotics to a certain degree. Voice commands, personality, intuitive app controls? Sign me up! Disney is pulling no punches for this ad campaign! And it's not even Fall yet.

My review for the week on Thors is available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to like, comment and share as you see fit.

The Week In Geek 7/22/15

Okay, so this week, it was announced that Spider-Man is getting another series which means Marvel is one more Spider-Man title away from getting a free footlong at Subway. This time around, it seems like they're rebooting the web-head's past...again. Spidey, will follow a teenage Peter Parker in his early years of maintaining his secret identity while balancing high school and home life, remaining in continuity with the current Amazing Spider-Man series. On one hand, I get that Marvel has to have some representation of a young Peter in the comics with Civil War less than a year away. I also understand that Young Peter Parker appeals to a super bankable demographic and that it's coinciding with ASM without actually replacing it (which is the upside in this), but come on, guys....we've seen this A LOT.

I agree that, at his core, Spider-Man has always been a modern day fable about a man in manchild's clothing, one of the archetypes for a younger superhero trying to make the Clark Kent dual identity thing work. And at his core, he'll ALWAYS be that, but I gotta be honest here....the past few years since the big Brand New Day reset, even when it was somewhat problematic for the character, have turned out to be an interesting character study of a man who has always turned away What He Could Be for the greater good finally making manhood work. Doing yet ANOTHER look at Teenage Spidey feels like a bunt when Marvel could be swinging for the fences. I mean, the allure of Spider-Man is that you feel like you know him. I get the need for Marvel to shoot for young audiences, but another great thing about comics (when it's done successfully) is when you get to grow up with a character. I know plenty of guys who juggle dozens of hats in the pursuit of happiness and making it work. Peter Parker holding down a job, maintaining a start-up, dealing with additions to his family like his step-uncle (who is Spidey's great enemy's father) and being an Avenger? That's good reading. In fact, I could see a "Hard Day's Night" style mini-series focused on Peter trying to get some rest while balancing his dozen jobs but having to deal with his personal shit (friends trying to set him up on dates, visiting Gwen's grave, trying to get in touch with Harry who we haven't seen in years). It would be not too much unlike Matt Fraction's Hawkeye except Peter isn't even CLOSE to the train wreck Clint Barton is. But these are lofty goals that dare not stand in the way of Marvel aligning the comics with the Cinematic Universe. And as I mentioned before, the teenage series isn't overriding the one about grown up Spidey so it's not that big of a deal. But as far as characters go, looking back AND forward at him, Peter Parker has come a long way....and that's worth mentioning.

My comic reviews for the week on Cyborg and Uncanny X-Men are available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to like, comment, share...you know the drill.

The Week In Geek 6/24/15

So, this week, it was announced that Marvel (and Sony) chose Tom Holland to play Spider-Man in the upcoming reboot and the next Captain America movie. For those of us keeping track, that makes three Spider Man reboots in 15 years. Two more before 2020 and Sony gets a free Subway sandwich but I digress. Clearly, by the look of him, Marvel has been mandated to appeal to Big Brother Disney's potential viewers with a SUPER young fresh face. It's actually kind of amazing that the superhero movie genre has come to a point where fans (and probably Marvel) are excited about Marvel actually getting to lay real creative hands on their own flagship character after almost 20 years of just being the hired help like DC is to Warner Bros.

Also, Marvel confirmed the theme for Season 3 of Agents of SHIELD is "Secret Warriors" which makes complete sense now that we know Skye's whole storyline has been essentially setting her up as Daisy "Quake" Johnson from the comics. You know, "Agents" is a show that has evolved in style and quality over the past two seasons quite nicely....better than its early detractors want to admit. The show does a good job of taking storylines that the movies might take too much time to develop and making them their own. And then there are times when they give you a piecemeal version of a story the movies are almost definitely going to revisit (Civil War, Inhumans) as a way of testing the waters or at least watering fan appetites for later. It's going to be very interesting to see how they modify Brian Bendis' old Secret Warriors story.

As per usual, my weekly comic reviews (this week, it's Planet Hulk) are available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to like, comment and/or share at your discretion. You know the drill.

A Few Things About Avengers: Age of Ultron

SPOILERS SPOILERS ::Okay, I'm a little too tired this week to write a full on review for Avengers: Age of Ultron, but I will say overall that I really enjoyed the movie as a whole. I thought it was "on par with" but not better than the first one which, in fairness, had a LOT less of a balancing act to pull off on many levels. For the interest of brevity, I'll just do a simple break down of what I liked and what I didn't like. :: SPOILERS SPOILERS

Likes:

More Hawkeye: Granted, we'll NEVER see a Hawkeye/Mockingbird romance thanks to Agents of SHIELD (where Bobbi Morse is a godsend), it was nice to get some more depth to Barton's character while still getting the smartass Avengers mainstay we all know and love. Not everyone liked the visit to Hawkeye's family, but I think it showed depth and agency in a character that we didn't get to know at all in the first movie because of Loki and The Shittiest Mind Control Of All Time. It also goes to show that we're at a point in the genre where people have to learn to let go and consider these movies as much of an alternative as Ultimate Marvel or Marvel Noir or Marvel Mangaverse and that's okay. Many readers like knowing that comic movies are all hitting the right story beats because it's a way for fans to evaluate what they're watching, but changing things in the narrative like Barton's family is also necessary and keeps readers on their toes so they're getting something fresh.

Anyone who didn't feel like a kid again at this
moment is lying to themselves.

Vision: Paul Bettany has always been a good fit as Jarvis, but the Vision is a great fit for him. Honestly, I never even thought a character like him would end up making it to the big screen, but Whedon really pulled it off visually.

Ultron: Anyone whose ever watched The Blacklist knows James Spader was the perfect voice for an evil robot who is, at times, a little too human for his own good. I know not everyone liked the quirkiness, but honestly, I was reading the latest original graphic novel, Rage of Ultron (amazing one shot, by the way) and the titular villain is a much more traditional version that longtime fans are used to. Even though Rick Remender did a masterful job of encompassing that classic voice for Ultron, the first thing I thought was "Thank God for James Spader." The Ultron that a lot of people were expecting, this dry yet self aware technological Frankenstein monster of sorts wouldn't have translated well. First of all, it's a hard sell that Tony Stark would create an artificial intelligence that didn't have any sense of humor. Second of all, yes, it wouldn't be hard to a more cerebral version of Ultron, but that "What am I? Why did you create me?" brand of existentialism just doesn't gel well with...let's face it...a popcorn movie. Just ask I, Robot.

Joss Whedon: You can tell there are certain points in the movie and the script where Whedon has a little more flexibility in making the film he wanted to make (You can also tell that there are points where he couldn't get the studio's foot off of his neck to save his life, but that's a whole other post). It's no secret that with these franchise blockbusters, the car is already built and the director just makes sure the thing doesn't run itself off the freeway into the river. But in this case, Whedon seems to have enough geek cred that Kevin Feige managed to climb out of his ass long enough to let him direct. This movie seemed to have more of his trademark snark and self aware characters. I think the importance of this Whedon's role in this movie is that

Dislikes:

Not enough Vision: He was pretty key to the story and the time we spent with him was worthwhile, but the downside to Whedon's balancing act of giving all the Avengers proper screentime was that we only spent a solid ten minutes with a brand new Avenger who was directly tied to the primary villain.

Widow/Banner Romance: Okay, I realize that, in attempting to humanize relatively static characters, the default way to go is usually to get them laid. But this....was a little weird. Don't get me wrong. Whedon gave them more than enough of that usual Whedon charm so that it wasn't unwatchable, but it was awkward. Bruce Banner is possibly the most self aware of all the Avengers in the same way someone with a terminal illness would be. There's really no need to keep hammering that point home by throwing a pretty lady at him. Making the Black Widow a big softie is the equivalent of making Wolverine a softie who weeps over Jean Grey's body. And don't even get me started on the problematic gender politics of that little Red Room speech where not being able to give birth somehow makes her a monster. I applaud them for trying to give Widow some layers that we're not used to because the mainstay things we as readers love about Widow could be dicey over time with a mainstream audience. But it was just odd.

The Week In Geek 4/15/15

Since Daredevil dropped last week, it's basically re-polarized the way a lot of people are looking at superheroes on the small screen. Jordan Calhoun wrote a pretty comprehensive opinion piece summing up the overall sentiment and it's really good. But I'm not so sure it's completely fair. It's one thing to say that Daredevil has altered the standards for grittiness in the genre. I mean, it really is the best superhero television show out there. It does dwarf everything else in terms of a writing, casting and production. But it doesn't necessarily make it's rivals trash. Arrow and Daredevil both draw parallels to the more hardcore aspects of Batman, but they serve very different purposes. Daredevil is an elevator ride to the ground floor, the cracks and crevices of a world that thunder gods and super soldiers can't always see because of the latest alien invasion or robot uprising. Arrow was the beginning of a universe that very much takes that same elevator up to the fantastic. I dunno. I feel like you can accept Daredevil and Arrow simultaneously the same way people accept Arrow and The Flash. But that's just me. I could be wrong.

Anyway, you can check out my comic reviews for the week on Thor, Ms. Marvel and Uncanny X-Men as well as my recaps for this week episodes of Arrow and The Flash on Black Nerd Problems. You know the drill. Feel free to comment, share or whatever. Enjoy.

The Week In Geek 2/11/15

With the day job and the overall business of self care and basic living, you'll have to forgive me for the late posting. Thanks for understanding. And if you don't understand....well, you clicked on it anyway so there's that.

Well, this week, the deal finally go inked that Spider-Man gets to come home to Marvel on lease from Sony. The only thing is that we don't know who's going to show up in the costume. Personally, I found Andrew Garfield to be a pretty good fit, but Marvel works in mysterious ways. I've mentioned this before, but the Donald Glover Spider Man talk has reached levels of annoyance beyond what I thought I could stand. I like him, but the day Troy Barnes from Community plays live action Spider-Man is the day Spider-Man has reached Looney Tunes level ridiculousness. I know there's a huge calling for a Spider-Man of color to appear in the movies because the demand for diversity in media is growing and that's a great thing to see. It's a good time to be a comic reader of color or, really, even a woman or young girl who's been waiting for palatable material like Bitch Planet.

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

Batman Eternal: The supernatural stuff always works out well for this book because they always manage to pick the perfect artist to pencil it. I've always liked how Batman just generally doesn't believe in the supernatural and yet always seems to have a plan for how to defeat them that involves magic like Nth metal. 

Thor: As if I haven't mentioned this enough, I simply cannot get past the fact that, of all comics, Thor has been made into a feminist narrative. If a troll can read the first few issues and still be salty with Marvel, then they're a troll the likes of which I've never seen before. This book comes with my highest recommendation. With Matt Fraction's Hawkeye and Brian Wood's Moon Knight going away soon, it's nice to know that Marvel still has some A+ material above the rest (which is still good) to keep my attention.

All New X-Men: Hallelujah!!! Bendis has finally gotten around to ending this story arc. The big payoff is watching Young Beast vindictively blowing up Castle Doom with that maniacal evil genuis look on his face. Between this and the Avengers "Time Runs Out" crossover into the Ultimate Universe (obviously setting up for Secret Wars), even though it's fun enough, it seems just a bit forced. On the other hand, I never hate seeing Ultimate Evil Reed Richards and Ultimate Doom show up in stuff. Part of me sort of hopes they survive Battleworld and end up in the 616 universe so their older counterparts can kick their asses (because the Ultimate versions wouldn't stand a chance).

The Week In Geek 1/17/15

So, this week, Marvel released the first of its Star Wars comic material and thus far, the reviews have been mainly positive. I'll be talking about the book itself a little further down (with the reviews), but this is a really exciting time to be a Star Wars fan. I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't a huge fan of the Dark Horse books at all. I basically regard them the same way I regard David Goyer's idea to develop a Superman show without Superman in it. The timelines usually kicked off either so long before or so long after the movies I grew up with, I didn't quite understand what I was supposed to be relating to. Disney bringing all these elements under one umbrella is a breath of fresh air. As we've seen with their handling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney likes their properties and characters being as accessible as humanly possible.

"You know Spider-Man? Sure, come on over. Don't like the movies? Don't worry about it. Here's an entry level cartoon for you. Don't like cartoons? Thinking about jumping into comics? I've got just the thing.

"Oh, you know who Luke Skywalker is? Come on in! You don't play The Old Republic? No problem. Here's this comic book you might dig."

As we get closer to Episode 7, it's going to be interesting to see what other properties Marvel can crank out.

My reviews for the week are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to like, comment and share at your leisure. This week, I took a look at....

Batman Eternal: This issue really meant well. It really did. The Bat-family going to break up a Mad Hatter caper should be some exciting shit. But it just didn't come off that way and the art was a huge reason why. As expressive as the faces were, it's strange that Joe Quinones wasn't bigger on detail everywhere else. It came across as a comic book you'd get with a 90s Batman toy. Honestly, this book can't really afford to have an issue that's this lacking visually so close to the end we've been waiting for.

Star Wars: See the problem with the handful of Star Wars I read during Dark Horse's reign was that the level of quality didn't justify the amount of material Dark Horse used to put out. You might find a decent issue once in a while, but you had to wade through a lot of crap. It's a lot like Azelia Banks. Sure, she drops jewels on Twitter once in a while about race relations but you have to sit through the stupid shit she says about everything else. And even when you do find the good books, often times, they were so far removed from the Star Wars universe I was used to (the characters and events in the movies), it only felt like it was just marginally a Star Wars book. Marvel's first new effort was the first time in 30 years I'd read a Star Wars comic that properly recreate the feeling I got at the movies. When the action starts, I was cheering out loud. Jason Aaron has a really good handle on what makes Star Wars so iconic. And it starts at a point where you don't have to feel left out. "If you watched the first movie, you're in. We'll take it from here."

My Favorite Things 2014: Movies and TV

Television

True Detective: If someone had told me a year ago that "American Horror Story For Murder Mysteries" would be one of the most awesome things to happen to television in 2014, I would have laughed heartily at them. And I would have been dead wrong. Nic Pizzolato took everything that's enjoyable about the experience of a hard boiled mystery novel and packaged it into a well-produced, streamlined series. I mean, these were some of the most beautifully shot parts of Louisiana I've ever seen. And it took full advantage of Matthew McConaughey's new season in the limelight. Rustin Cohle is one of the most compelling (at times, confounding) characters I've seen on a show like this in years. The only sin committed was that we didn't get to spend more time with these backwater super sleuths.

The Flash: I have to say this one took just about everyone by surprise. CW finally has the expanded superhero franchise its wanted so badly. The best thing about the Scarlet Speedster's series is that it never attempts to capitalize off of Arrow's success with creating a dark, gritty, Nolan-esque universe for it's lead to play in. In fact, it does the opposite. It's genuinely hopeful and intentionally trite, making Grant Gustin's Scarlet Speedster a Superman surrogate of sorts. And Jesse L. Martin playing Joe West does this show so many favors on so many levels.

Movies-

Captain America: The Winter Soldier- TWS is easily the best representation of where Marvel is in terms of production quality and representation of source material on the screen. This is what it looks like when you manage to tell a decent story and still deliver fast paced action without really compromising either element. Who would have thought the same guy who killed it as Johnny Storm (the only real standout aspect of the Fantastic Four movies) would go on to become and, basically, OWN the role of Captain America?

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.

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.

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 9/24/14

Hey, guys. You probably noticed no updates from me last week. Well, I had some paid time off from the Day Job and decided to take some personal time for R&R. It's not that I don't love you guys, but self care matters.

This week saw two primetime comic shows premiering: the long awaited, long hyped Gotham and the returning Agents of SHIELD. I was interested to see how SHIELD opened up after really turning things around in their last leg, becoming the show that it really should have been all along. It had an awkward start because of the Marvel films it tried to capitalize off of, but once its plot in the second half of Season 1 borrowed from Winter Soldier, quality stepped up by leaps and bounds. Gotham had received much hype and understandably so. I mean, there's just no reason DC shouldn't be able to sustain a show about Young Jim Gordon. The Zero Year run of Scott Snyder's Batman is proof positive that, just beneath Batman himself, Gordon is easily Gotham's foremost champion of the law.

With all this in mind, Gotham started off with kind of a mixed bag. To its credit, the show does a great job of creating the right atmosphere for dark, foggy, hopeless Gotham City. And Ben McKenzie is a great pick to play Gordon. But there are some glaring problems with this reimagining. For one, we seem to see a lot a young Selina Kyle....but it's a LOT of her doing absolutely nothing. At all. Whatsoever. So far, her entire purpose on this show seems to be feeding stray kittens and standing on top of things for NO reason. It was downright irritating how little someone who appeared so much actually mattered in the plot. And the show really should consider toning down the Batman easter eggs. I understand that without the fun tidbits for fans, this would just be a regular procedural cop drama with a famous name, but at the rate the writers were cramming in stuff from every nook and cranny, they're not going to make it to Season 3.

Meanwhile, Agents of SHIELD got off to an impressive start with their season 2 opener. For one, they're obviously spending more money on this show (at least as far as budgets for primetime network television go). It's nice that they have a bit more direction. Riding the Captain America 2 tidal wave worked out pretty well and they seem to be using the whole "new SHIELD regime" thing to their advantage. Skye is a far less annoying character now that she's a full on field operative with more to do than be a nondescript outline for a standard Joss Whedon character. The addition of some notable characters from Marvel lore certainly help the appeal of the show. Absorbing Man was a fun foil that I hope we see more of throughout the Marvel Cineverse. The possibilities for cameo appearances has always been way too wide for this show to just limit itself to being a promotional tie-in for movies And it's nice that the show is finding some focus aside from "Hey, look, it's Phil Coulson" and not leaning as much on Clark Gregg being the best actor on the show so far except for maybe Hudson's recurring gig in Season 1 (Yes, I know he's Bill Paxton but I will forever think of him as Hudson....because Aliens).

All in all, if I had to put one show or the other in the lead, it would have to go to SHIELD right now. Season 1 was an experiment and now they see where they went wrong and are improving and working out the kinks. Granted, no matter how much it improves, this is still going to end up being That Marvel Thing That's Definitely Not For Everyone. Meanwhile, Gotham just has too much uncertainty floating around it. The material they try to cram into a single hour makes me feel like they're going to blow their strongest gimmicks in three seasons like Lost did.

Then again, these two are just holding me over until Arrow and The Flash debut, so whatever.

-Anyway, don't forget to check out my exclusive interview with Christopher Bird and illustrator Davinder Brar, the creative team behind one of my new favorite webcomics, Al'Rashad: City of Myths. The book really is amazing and the guys are both class acts with tons to say on comics, movies and writing characters of color

-Also, as always, my comic reviews for the week are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. It was a light week for me in the review department since I've been taking it easy with my time off from the day job so think week, I only reviewed:

Batman Eternal: Listen. I know I've spoken before about how important artwork is when you have a constantly rotating wheel of creative talent bringing drastically varying styles and voices to the same set of plots, but fuck's sake did they ever screw the pooch visually. I'm not about to be that troll critic nobody likes. At the same time, the art was REALLY awful. I can't imagine there's anyone who was sitting around wondering what Batman would look like if he were doing a guest appearance on Bob's Burgers. I don't think R.M. Guera has worked on the book previously, but he just shouldn't. To call the art "laughable" implies that there something funny or endearing about looking at this shabby shit.

The Week In Geek 9/3/14

So, this week the announcement finally went out officially that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will be playing Black Adam in an upcoming Shazam movie. He's been screwing with fanboys on Twitter for months, posting pictures of possible characters he could have been playing, but it's nice to have officially have confimation. Arguably, this is the first no-brainer DC has actually gotten right in the casting department. Truthfully, they needed a win after a few lackluster choices that weren't necessarily bad but don't really leave anyone camping out in front of the theater.

Granted, I was almost sure he was going to end up being Shazam (because playing a 10 year old in a superhero's body is the kind of shit Johnson can do in his sleep) but I could see his Black Adam being fucking menacing. There's an argument that it's a miscast because Dwayne Johnson's thing is that he plays heroes and would be a great addition to DC's cinematic hero roster. Normally, the fact that this is an opinion that came from IGN would be more than enough to make it inadmissible evidence because most opinions that come out of IGN either come from a). bad information or b). a lack of information. The argument of "I don't want to see The Rock as a bad guy because he's not a bad guy" is, at best a sort of hilarious stance to take. Anyone who holds this logic will have to come to the realization eventually that Dwayne Johnson is, in fact, NOT an actual superhero that DC is actually adding to some list of actual superheroes. He's an actor. He's a wrestler. Even then, the Rock was actually a heel back in the day just before the pinnacle of his wrestling career. He was also a bad guy (a shitty one, but still...) in The Mummy Returns and, before eventually becoming a hero (because Universal would have been stupid to give him up), he was the guy the Fast and Furious team was on the run from. These are nitpicks, but still....to say that an actor should always be a hero just because he's done it well before sort of misses the point of acting, especially when said actor is one of the rare cases in which a wrestler has enough range and charisma to keep getting decent work. Besides, Black Adam's path in the comics has gone for unapologetically evil to kinda-sorta-antihero. And we all know how well that's worked out with Loki over in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's entirely possible that we could get that kind of popularity for this character over at DC.

Anyway, I'll talk a little about the scourge of fuckery in the nerd community known as #GamerGate tomorrow mainly because I'm in a good mood today and would like to remain so. Until then, my comic reviews for the week are up on Black Nerd Problems and available for your viewing pleasure. As always, feel free to comment, like, share at your discretion. This week, I took a look at:

Iron Fist, The Living Weapon: As much as I enjoy this book, I think they've done the whole "break the hero down as much as possible" thing enough. I think everyone reading this book should be just about ready to see the hero win a little bit. I mean, I doubt the the payoff is going to (or can afford to) suck when the titular hero has a Netflix series in production.

Uncanny X-Men: Okay, I wasn't too happy about Chris Bachalo's return to this comic. I mean, I like his style, but honestly, I felt like it served its purpose in previous issues. In fairness, it wasn't that much of a bother because there wasn't a lot of action this time around (because sometimes his action beats are difficult to follow), but Kris Anka just raised the bar so high, it's hard to forget. Aside from that, Bendis' dyfunctional family narrative is still working out well.

Batman Eternal: Let me just say....a villain called the Architect whose outfit theme is clockwork is a little silly. DC really runs the gamut of costumed villains as if there's a compendium of names versus a list of themes and they just close their eyes and pick one from each list. Other than that, this was a pretty good issue.