All Men Must (And Probably Will) Die

Okay, guys...so, this post is mainly about the first episode of Game of Thrones. I have a feeling I'll be writing a LOT about Thrones considering that I have an unhealthy obsession with this show and these last two seasons are going to be pivotal. Anyway, there are HUGE spoilers after the jump. Just so you know. Big spoilers after the jump. That's twice I warned you about spoilers after the jump. Three times, now.

Whole squad decked out in that Maleficent spring line.

....On Captain America, Secret Empire and Nazi Punching.

Y’all. Marvel’s latest event, Secret Empire is good AND bad all at once. I say that because it’s handling a unilaterally stupid and insulting premise very well. I’m not going to elaborate on the “insulting” part of the concept of a designated Nazi punching superhero created by two Jewish men (one of which was an official Nazi puncher himself) being a secret Nazi so….well, I kinda just did, but moving on.

From this point on after the jump, it's spoilers all the way down. If you care about actually reading how this clusterfuck works out in the comics, go ahead and stop here. Otherwise, details after the jump.

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.

The Obligatory Iron Fist Post

So, in case you haven’t heard, Marvel’s long anticipated Netflix series Iron Fist….is garbage. Even by Arrow season 4 standards, it’s pretty rough. The worst part about wasn’t even that Iron Fist was a white guy. Matt Fraction’s version was pretty awesome and featured a white guy but also many Iron Fists of color that, Marvel seems to have completely overlooked for reasons unknown. It’s a bad thing but not the worst thing.

It was that it was painfully obvious that Marvel had been putting the development off because they had no idea what angle they wanted to approach the story from so they went with a paint by numbers origin story that, good or bad, just didn’t feel genuine at all. Granted, I realize that “heart” isn’t really quantifiable but you can definitely tell when a writer has something to say and the writers for Iron Fist didn’t.

No matter what you think of any given Spider-Man film, it’s very clear in each installment that the writers have a clear understanding of the fact that Spider Man’s most prevailing themes is “doing the right thing even when it sucks.” Hell, even Kung Fu Panda seems to run with the theme that “Being a hero isn’t about where you come from so much as who you choose to be.” Nothing about Iron Fist seems to convey an overall theme aside from “because kung fu” which is pretty rudimentary considering how far along we are in telling of the superhero myth.

Honestly, Marvel had a chance to beat DC to the punch of something they do well because they’ve been doing legacy stories forever (Reminder: There have been four Flashes, three Batmen and three Green Lanterns in one sector). They could have easily done a Book of the Iron Fist series about various wielders of the power throughout the years. Introduce a new Iron Fist, preferably an Asian one and have the show be about him returning to the world to fight the Hand when someone else emerges who controls the Iron Fist simultaneously, a white man named Danny Rand (because there is precedent in the comics of two people having the power at the same time), let them do an obligatory team up and have Danny go away and let Lewis Tan or Collin Chow or whoever be in the Defenders.

So yeah, I’m not as mad about Iron Fist being racially problematic and silly. There’s plenty of that. I’m salty because it’s structurally silly and full of missed opportunities. No matter WHO plays Iron Fist….the show would have still been bad. The only difference is that we’d be drowning in think pieces about how (Enter Much Better Actor Here) is way too good to be in it.

The Defenders seems promising, though. So, there’s that. Check out my review on the Green Lantern/Space Ghost crossover on Black Nerd Problems

The Week In Geek: 3/4/17

So, this week in Star Wars, as if the cast for the Han Solo movie wasn’t already cartoonishly awesome, Michael K. Williams (Omar from The Wire) has officially been added to the cast. I don’t know how big his role is. I don’t know what character he’s playing. As far as I’m concerned, he could reprieve his old role as Omar from The Wire and my ticket would still be guaranteed bought. I love that we’re getting so much Star Wars content out of this run. I would be in Heaven if we could get a non episodic movie in between every episode. We’re at a point where the budget and the technology exists to send this franchise in so many different directions. The official episodes represent the “space drama” and Rogue One had the feel of a “greatest generation” war movie that showed a more visceral, ground level side of this conflict. We don’t know much about the Han Solo movie but I could totally envision this being a space caper film. Either way, my ticket is bought so that’s that.

In other geeky ass news, nobody really knows for sure what’s going on with Tron. A few years ago, we production for Tron 3 got cancelled. I’m assuming Disney put the brakes on it to pay for all these Marvel movies being relentlessly pumped out (not that I’m complaining about more Marvel but TRON) on top of liberating Star Wars from George Lucas’ wooden ass dialogue. Since then, there have been rumors that more Tron might still get made. Hell, Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski even gave us some insight into what Tron: Ascension would have been (or might still be about). Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney might be looking to reboot Tron all together….with Jared Leto at the center of it. There is virtually no version of me throughout the multiverse that could be convinced to not watch a Tron movie. If the only thing standing between me and my seat in a movie theater to watch a Tron movie were a dozen heavyweight MMA fighters, I guarantee they’d all end up on their asses. No amount of anything could keep my nerdy black ass out of the seat for a Tron movie….except maybe Jared Leto, the dude who took his role as the Joker so seriously, he showed up to a hospital in full Joker garb with a tarantula on his face, scaring the shit out of terminally ill children. But the idea of a reboot isn’t terrible. I’m really excited about what Kosinski had in mind for Tron 3, but even as a Tron fanatic, I realize that a lot of time has passed and it’s not unreasonable for a studio to want to just start over. If that’s what it takes to get these light cycles back in effect, so be it. I just wouldn’t count on seeing it until a few years after the Avengers defeat Thanos.

My comic review for Star Wars is available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment and don’t forget about Chapter 2 of Neverland: The Untold

Dear Logan: Thanks But No Thanks

Since I’ve been away working on other projects, one of the main things I’ve had people asking me about is the Logan, Fox’s final attempt at making a respectable Wolverine movie (since Hugh Jackman is finally tapping out after playing Wolverine for 17 years...feel old yet?). What do I think? Am I going to go see it? Does it look like it’s any good to me?

No. I’m not going to see it. Well...I’m not going to spend money on it.

Yes, I see that it’s rated R since (in the wake of Deadpool’s success) Fox has decided that the problem with their movies is that there isn’t enough blood and cursing. Yes, I see that they’re borrowing bits and pieces from the Old Man Logan graphic novel. And yes, I see that it’s gritty and Wolverine’s all bloody and explosions and desert and X-23’s in it.

The problem is that these Wolverine movies are like a terrible ex lover that keeps coming back, telling you it’s going to be different this time. They show up at your door with a different haircut, better clothes, a new job and they don’t smell like cigarettes and whiskey anymore. They even talk a little different, remembering everything you like. They spend a few minutes convincing you of how aware they are that they fucked up their last two chances with you. They swear up and down that if they had their chance they’d show you just how much they’d appreciate you. Then you let them in just a little bit for “just one drink”. The next thing you know, you’re alone at the bar while they’re in the entirely too small bathroom in the pub next door, going down on your best friend (terribly, by the way). That’s what these Wolverine movies are. They promise that the new one isn't going to be like the last one and oftentimes, it's not, but that doesn't stop it from being worse.

Maybe it’ll be fantastic. Maybe Fox has truly gotten its shit together. Maybe this will be the thing that turns the X-franchise around for the better. Hell, maybe we should just be happy Hugh Jackman is getting one last enormous check out of this shit sandwich. Maybe things’ll get better when they reboot and get wooden ass Sam Worthington to start playing Wolverine.

Either way...I’m pretty sure I’m not ready to love again. I’ve been hurt before. Also, my review of The Mighty Thor is up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment.

My GAWD, Shame On Me For Not Talking About Westworld

Originally, I was going to do a post about the current state of The Walking Dead, but there’s probably nothing new I can add to that conversation other than the fact that this season is probably the most divisive I’ve ever seen among fans. 

Then, I was going to do a post outlining each part of the yearly Arrowverse crossover which now includes four separate shows, two and a half of which are particularly terrible. However, I could only sit through two episodes and it doesn’t feel right railing on a story when it’s entirely feasible (but probably not) that the conclusion featured in Legends of Tomorrow could have turned things around and made this event tolerable. So we’ll mark that as “to be continued.” 

Then I was going to update you about how Civil War II is going, but I don’t think anyone will be surprised to know that it’s still pimpled butt cheeks. The past three issues have been going over the same three points over and over: 1). Captain Marvel is strong and wrong; 2). The young heroes are sick of the old heroes and their shit and 3). Spider Man really doesn’t want to go to jail. So yeah, still awful.

And then I realized that while I’ve been looking one way, HBO’s sci-fi mind bender, Westworld has been low key becoming the best show on television. It hits all the obligatory markers of an HBO show….obscene budget, brilliant A list casting, first class writing. Clearly, the network is aiming for this to be the successor to the crown currently occupied by Game of Thrones which is officially on its way out. But the show goes a little further than that, ambitiously reaching past the story’s roots from the Michael Crichton movie. 

There are spoilers after this point. They are really MINOR spoilers but I'm still obligated (by the fact that I don't want to hear whining about spoilers) to tell you that there are spoilers after the jump. That's four times I've mentioned spoilers. Five now. So I don't want to hear any bullshit about it.