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 Problem With Fanboys: Batman v Superman Edition

So, the reviews are for Batman v Superman and at this point, I think we're far enough away from the release to say the overall response is somewhat mixed (which is mainly considered bad for a movie that made no bones about putting all of its eggs firmly in one basket. The most entertaining aspect so far has been the backlash to the backlash. As someone that wanted this film to be good enough to rival Marvel or at least show the potential to do so, it is hilarious to watch DC fans who bet the farm on Dawn of Justice do backflips to defend it at its most indefensible moments. 

Serioiusly, guys, it's come down to people claiming that people hating it because of their "Marvel bias" is what has caused the movie to tank. The argument is that fans are being hyper critical of plotholes that they would have let pass in a Marvel movie. Now, that could be so. After all, plenty of good movies have inconsistencies. The problem is that Batman v Superman doesn't do itself any favors. See, plotholes can be overlooked if the movie manages to be entertaining and effective in other aspects. For example, if Robert Downey Jr. is entertaining enough, it's easy to forget about some instances in The Avengers movies when logic falls apart. Now, multiply that factor times Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Joss Whedon's sarcastic self aware script (in the first movie, at least), the occasional Don Cheadle "BOOM, you looking for this?" joke, etc. It's drinking Jack and Coke; you coating something arguably hard to swallow with something that is decidedly less hard to swallow. To call Batman v Superman hard to swallow would be a vast understatement. And it's not just because sad sack ass Movieverse Superman is like the superhero version of Eyeore from Winnie the Pooh or because Batman (despite being awesome) was a walking Call of Duty killstreak or because parts of the movie require the lead characters (one of which is the World's Greatest Detective) to be utterly stupid for the barely discernible plot to make sense. It's the fact that all of these put together amount to Zack Snyder's blatant disdain for his audience. He was so obviously salty about having to tone it down and being unable to do new Superman murder, he devoted the opening to a ground level, 9/11 view of the old Superman murder. This isn't even speculation because Snyder has been trying to justify himself since Man of Steel, saying weird shit like superheroes murdering are okay as long as they don't murder as much as the First Order from The Force Awakens (for those of who didn't see The Force Awakens, Zack Snyder compared the two most popular superheroes in human history to an empire of evil space nazis capable of destroying star systems. That his benchmark for good guy murder, y'all.

Marvel has demonstrated at least some regard for doing what they believe the fans want. Even when you have to eat your vegetables (Thor 2), you're offered some dessert (Guardians of the Galaxy) when you finish them. Dawn of Justice is an marginally edible block of instant microwaveable meat loaf and Zack Snyder is the barely attentive nanny who just wants you to shut the fuck up and finish your dinner while he eats your dessert right in front of you. There's a scene where Holly Hunter looks terrified at the sight of a jar of human urine, a callback to Lex Luthor's metaphor about pissing on someone and telling them it's Granny's Peach Tea. First off, the idea of a superhero movie that features a giant jar of piss is, in itself, beyond the pale. Second, it's actually a very apt metaphor for the movie and the director's relationship with it and the viewership. Batman v Superman is two hours of piss and Zack Snyder hates you for not having the imagination to pretend it's peach tea as you choke it down. So, there's that.

Don't forget to check out my Black Nerd Problems comic review of Invincible Iron Man. Feel free to like, review, and comment as you see fit.

We Need to Talk About Batman v Superman

***MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!! THEY'RE MINOR BUT STILL***

So, I finally got around to heading to the movie theater to check out Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and umm....yeah, we need to talk about that.

The movie wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't that good. It looked fantastic. Zack Snyder knows how to create truly legendary looking moments in a way that pulls directly from comic book aesthetic. The problem is that as much as Snyder looks to the artform visually, he doesn't show that much respect for the stories structurally. Most of the actors were perfectly fine in their roles (except Jesse Eisenberg, who I'm convinced thought he was playing the Riddler), doing their very best with this Bernie Sanders hairdo of a script. Amazingly enough, Ben Affleck, who everyone was so worried about, was an awesome Batman. The issue wasn't really the cast, it was the fact that the creative team doesn't really understand the characters they're working with. In fact, I can see how Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman has been lauded by critics since she was the one character that Snyder fucked up the absolute least.  

A lot of the fanboys are on the whole "Batman doesn't kill" thing which we have to accept is bullshit and has always been bullshit in the context of Batman films. My issue is Batman and guns. To Batman...at least since the silver age, guns have always been a symbol of the crime that plagues his city and the thing that took his parents. In many ways, it's borders on a post traumatic experience for him. Dream or not, the visual of him gunning down flunkies is a little weird. Other than that, Affleck pulls off the duality of Bruce and Batman. Bruce Wayne is a damaged old man whose childhood night terrors conjure the Batman, an vengeful armored man-golem who drops down on superstitious villains like the Righteous Hand of God.

The plotline that worries me the most is this "People are scared of Superman" premise. If you're writing a story about how people are scared of Superman, you don't really understand the point of Superman. We're talking about a character who, despite being an alien, is the absolute pinnacle of human goodness. He's a beacon of hope. Hell, "hope" is literally written in a big red symbol on his chest. Superman inspires people to be their better selves. He loves humanity, sees the best in us even when we don't see it ourselves. The guy they have Henry Cavill playing has sad eyes all the time, is almost resentful of humanity (probably because his mother reinforces the antithesis of his father's idea that he owes his gifts to the world..."You don't owe this world a thing"....what the fuck kind of thing is that to say to a superhero?). The fucked up thing is that even with Snyder's Superman being tattooed with all these blantant misnomers and misunderstandings of the character, he still has to fight Batman for a plotline and some decent character development to call his own. In that regard, this movie is quite true to its title. Having said that, it's pretty obvious that Snyder is setting Batman up to be the leader of the impending Justice League which is also bullshit. Why the FUCK would a guy who commonly hides in the shadows, only comes out at night and employs fear and deception as his weapons want to lead what is almost certain to be the most visible, flashy group of peacekeepers their world will ever know?

I mean...what happened to this guy?

And I haven't even gotten to the ENDLESS plotholes left gaping wide by Snyder's compulsive need to have his characters positioned perfectly to play out the pretty scene he wants to see like a six year old setting up action figures in a playset just to bang them together and scream "BOOM" repeatedly. I think that's what I resent most about this movie: It reinforces the idea that just because they come from comics, all these sort of movies have to be is loud and obnoxious with heroes that aren't particularly heroic like Transformers. But in all likelihood, that's going to be this franchise's bread and butter if Dawn of Justice is the measuring stick.

The Week In Geek- 3/23/16: Well, That Happened....

I know this is usually where I'd offer some comprehensive review on the things I liked and didn't like about Batman vs. Superman, but I haven't seen it. Honestly, I'm not in much of a rush to see a Superman movie where the entire premise is based on "people are scared of Superman." Having said that.... 

Welp. Batman v Superman is finally here and apparently holding at somewhere around 30% on Rotten Tomatoes which is....well, bad. I'm sure it's more than a minor cause for concern over at Warner Brothers because, correct me if I'm wrong, Justice League Part One is ready to begin filming. With the myriad of criticisms about BvS, the studio has some hard decisions to make about the overall direction Zack Snyder is taking DC's cinematic universe. Then again, Man of Steel has been a target of an equal amount of criticism and it doesn't seem to have slowed Snyder's vision at all, so it's entirely possible that this could end up being one of those franchises like Transformers or even X-Men where the movies are consistently trash but not trash enough for people to stop watching them. But for that to happen, this movie would have to do Transformers numbers at the box office (if you're waiting for me to explain how Transformers keeps doing numbers, nobody's that smart), meaning that people would have to either show up to the theater because all the criticism has them curious or because they're making a conscious decision to ignore the criticism. But at this point, who knows, really?

My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars and Batman are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. And be sure to get a look at the latest page in my ongoing webcomic series, Neverland: The Untold.

The Week In Geek: 3/16/16 - Never Too Many Daredevil Posts

Yesterday, the second season of Marvel's Netflix series, Daredevil, happened. Since I had the day off and I needed something to discuss today, I got up early and binged the whole goddamned thing in a day while I cleaned around the house and got drunk. I'll admit that I was a little worried at first that the show might lose a little bit of fire in the belly since the showrunners seemed to go for broke right out of the gate in Season 1.

First and foremost, Jon Bernthal was pitch perfect as the Punisher or, as I think of him, Who I See Myself As When I Play The Division. Though there have been some good portrayals (despite being in heinously bad movies) over the years, Bernthal has Frank Castle down so well, it's actually a little unsettling to watch. In the first season, the Kingpin was mainly a behind-the-curtain type of villain for the first episodes where we didn't get to see much of him for a while. Season 2 blatantly has no time for that shit. This time around, they get right down to business, throwing us right in the middle of Hell's Kitchen becoming a pot ready to boil over thanks to the new "hero" in town. Punisher's body count in any one episode resemble Steph Curry's season average. The fight scenes are twice as brutal as the first season. Last year, there were a lot of parallels drawn between Daredevil and Batman (the Nolan version) when the show premiered. Clearly, Marvel wanted desperately to distance one character from the other since we're a week away from Dawn of Justice because this season puts Matt Murdock through twice the shit he went through physically last time.

Character development was a bit more interesting. Karen Page definitely evolved from "step into harm's way constantly" to "stepping into harm's way for a good reason or at least good intentions." She's learned a thing or two from being around two friends who are entirely capable of handling themselves despite not being conventional tough guys (as far as she knows). For a show that borrow so heavily from Frank Miller (who has always been trash with writing women), this is a vast improvement. Foggy Nelson develops into someone with a little more personal agency once he realizes his blind best friend isn't exactly the handicapped person he thought he knew in Season 1. He blithely throws himself into some wildly dangerous scenarios without thinking it all the way through, but you feel his need to prove he can handle things on his own since his good looking, confident, silver tongued partner has essentially abandoned him. Even Claire Temple is basically just trying to either a). keep her job, b). DO her job or c). give the main character what they need so they'll get the fuck out of her face so she can get back to keeping/doing her job. You can watch each one of these characters play out their particular issues and be perfectly entertained without looking at your watch, waiting for Daredevil to fly through a window beat the unholy shit out of everyone....though that is usually a plus. The Elektra storyline doesn't have as much emotional resonance as the Punisher plot does, but it's still very well developed and wrapped up about as neatly as could be expected. Scott Glenn is still an absolute godsend as Stick. There simply isn't a single scene that isn't that much better because he's in it. Also....DAREDEVIL VS. NINJAS!!!

Will there be a third season? This series certainly deserves one, but with Iron Fist happening and The Defenders soon after, I could imagine there's some uncertainty as to when they'd get to churn out another Daredevil season. Of course, that was the case with the first season and we were promptly gifted with another, so we'll see.

My comic review for the week on Superman: American Alien

as well as my article on the upcoming Black Panther comic series are both up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your reading enjoyment. Feel free to like, comment or share your leisure.

Also, we're back with part 2 of Chapter 1 of our ongoing fantasy webcomic, Neverland: The Untold. So, definitely check that out.

The Week In Geek 3/9/2016

It's been a while since I've done This Week In Superhero Television and it's seems like good time to catch up now that most of the shows worth talking about are on break at the moment.

As it stands, The Flash might still be some of the most compelling comic based television right now. The absolute best thing about this show is that it's not about to embrace its own hamfisted insanity. Usually, shows go to absolute shit when they start fucking with time travel and parallel dimensions, but Flash full on owns it in a way reminiscent of the strong points of Lost (the strong points it actually had). Delving into Earth 2 has been major fun and Zoom has been enigmatic to the point of ridiculousness and hilarity. Also, I feel obligated to point out that Jesse L. Martin has been a powerhouse as Joe West, superhero father of the decade. The way he doesn't allow himself to be overwhelmed with all the sensational superpowers and whatnot is refreshingly human almost in a Jim Gordon sort of way. I also have to applaud the writers for at least TRYING

Meanwhile, Arrow is still trying to atone for the sins of last season but it's a long way back to the top. For one thing, the Arrowverse is trying its damnedest to make Diggle a relevant character again by introducing his evil brother Itachi...I mean Andy. John trying to make what's left of his family whole again is a noble effort to re-establish him as the moral compass of thais show. And, MY GOD, does Arrow ever need a moral compass? Because TV Oliver Queen, being a Batman surrogate and all, is a great superhero but a dreadful man. And to my great dismay, Felicity Smoak has become just as bad thanks to the writing team. She used to be such a steadfast, grounded figure, but now her plotlines have mainly devolved into her crying over things that really don't deserve the tears. When Oliver admitted that the only way he was allowed to see his son was to keep him a secret, Felicity was fully aware that her fiance was placed in an impossible situation and walked out on him as he sent his son away for his own safety (since he'd been kidnapped by his nemesis and all). Now, sure, he could have told Felicity without anyone knowing, but a person trying to be a better man openly lying to the mother of his only child for his girlfriend is still asking a lot. It's the entire problem they keep creating with her character: "I know you were faced with an impossible, no-win situation where anyone else would have folded, but goddamnit, what about ME?" It borderlines on the stereotypical nagging wife of an old 50's sitcom.

As for Legends of Tomorrow, I actually haven't watched the show since the pilot episode and I'm not entirely sure if I intend to try. It's great that the Arrowverse is stretching its legs and trying things, but this particular attempt is just too much. The strong points are all there. The show is basically going to live and die off of the return of Sarah Lance, The Doct....I mean, Rip Hunter and Wentworth Miller's amazingly ridiculous performance as Captain Cold. But there were just too many problems to ignore right from the start. For one thing, I'm used to Hawkman being characterized as an asshole. But for fuck's sake, he proposed beating Hawkgirl up to settle a dispute. Also, he's supposed to be Egyptian and is as lily white as Ron Howard (as is Vandal Savage). Also, there's the matter of Professor Martin Stein giving his other half of the Firestorm matrix a date rape roofie to make him come on the trip to stop Savage. I won't even touch that.

"Where's the black guy, though?"

My comic review for The Mighty Thor is available on Black Nerd Problems for viewing enjoyment. Feel free to like, comment and share as you see fit.

Maybe We Don't Have to Be THAT Hard On Marvel

So, the story lately in the comic world has been how The Big Two's sales are down lately and everyone has their various opinions on why that is because fanboys. It's pretty much standard operating procedure to howl endless platitudes about how mainstream comics are coming to an end as we know it or whatever. The main complaint is that DC is changing their characters too much, and "he doesn't look like MY Batman" and basically everything change averse readers over 40 would whine about no matter what. And honestly, things over there aren't as bad as comic retailers would have you believe. I mean, Batman is still going strong, Superman is shaky but Superman has been shaky since before the New 52 reboot and Green Lantern has a strong premise going but Robert Venditti is just no Geoff Johns. Also, Justice League, Midnighter, Doctor Fate and Black Canary are all really strong titles that are just not getting enough press because it's cool to hate DC.

The complaint that bothers me the most actually comes from Marvel readers, though. Now, granted...it's only fair to say that Marvel DID kinda shit the bed by launching their rebooted universe before finishing the event that causes the the universe to be rebooted in the first place. And it was a bit annoying that Secret Wars was an 8 issue event that started in early Spring 2015 and didn't end until early 2016, but this All New All Different Marvel isn't as gagworthy as people are making it out to be. The main gripe seems to be that the House of Ideas seems to be throwing way too many titles at the wall to see what sticks. But the truth is THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. A year ago, the complaint was that they were so busy gender/race bending old characters, they weren't focusing on pushing existing non binary characters. Now, we have them trying out books like "Silk" (which is, in fairness, bad....last time I checked, anyway), The Ultimates, an almost completely non binary team of Avengers, David Walker writing a Power Man/Iron Fist team up book to get readers acquainted with the former Heroes for Hire before their respective Netflix shows debut. These are things that deserve mention. G. Willow Wilson's writing on Ms. Marvel has easily been some of the best in the business, redefining the superhero genre for young millenials. All New Hawkeye, though aiming a little higher than Matt Fraction's strictly everyman approach, has maintained its status as a fun, sometimes heartwarming character study of a guy who's good at being a hero and not as great at being a person. Bendis is doing compelling work on Invincible Iron Man, depicting a less morose Tony Stark trying his hand at having a normal life while facing abnormal problems. And I shouldn't even have to explain the importance of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

It's easy to get caught up in the problems, but it's important to mark the interesting things happening over at Marvel right now because there's a reawakening of the confidence in the industry to try some different things that run the risk of sucking. Or we can just go back to have ten X-Men titles and five Wolverine books. I know we all love that shit. Just thinking out loud. 

My comic review of David Walker's Cyborg is up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment.