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

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.

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.

Should One Man Have All That Power?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Defense of Darkman or....Superhero Movies Hollywood Could Learn Something From

With this year in superhero films wrapped up, Marvel ready to shove out their new batch and DC getting everyone's mouths watering with Arrow being a breakout success (despite mixed reviews from fanboys) their Flash television pilot, and of course the several rumors and announcements behind the casting of Man of Steel 2: The Steel Strikes Back, I thought I'd pull a few movies with cult success (despite questionable box office numbers) out of the vault and take a brief look at some of the lessons modern comic book cinema could take from them

Darkman: It sort of saddens me that we're quickly approaching (if we're not already in the midst of) a generation that will never know the glory that is Darkman. When you watch Sam Raimi's first jump into the superhero genre, it's actually a big insight into why he got tapped for the Spider-Man series in the first place. Even though, at first glance, it comes across as a teenager's ultraviolent fantasy, it's actually very indicative of what many comics were at the fringes of early comic culture: melodramatic pulp adventure. A psychotic, disfigured scientist returns from "death" to take revenge on the mobsters and crooked officials responsible? If Darkman had originated as a comic book hero, the story itself would have been more of a horror story than anything and Raimi has a far better understanding of the comic book genre than anyone gives him credit for. The movie made absolutely NO apologies for the fact that Peyton Westlake was more or less just a really demented guy who a). wanted his face back and b). wanted to kill a lot of people (basically what would happen if someone set Kanye West on fire).

Moral of the Story: The lesson that Current Hollywood can (and should but won't) take from this movie is that every superhero film doesn't have to be one of virtue because not every superhero is a virtuous one nor should they be. This is where the Punisher and Ghost Rider movies went wrong (well, they went wrong a LOT of places...Nic Cage being a notable one....but virtue was prime among their sins).


The Phantom: Now, here's a movie that holds a very special place in my heart while many others have forgotten about for understandable reasons. The 1989 Batman was something of a game changer for superhero movies. When Jack Nicholson's Joker uttered the line "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"....his reaction was one that turned out to mirror the audience's. I mean, for the time in which it was conceived, watching a hero swing onto rooftops, lob smoke bombs and evade the law in a tricked out car was pretty goddamned exciting. Then, you find yourself watching a period piece about hero you mainly only know from the comics section of your newspaper. So, needless to say, Lee Falk's jungle hero had the odds against him right out of the gate. He was an Indiana Jones-type hero at a time when moviegoers had decided they were pretty much over Indiana Jones.



Having said that, there's a lot to learn from The Phantom. First of all, there's Billy Zane's performance. With a period piece like this, it's importance not to take yourself too seriously. Zane went a different way than what would be expected from a story about a mythical hero who lives in a secret jungle surrounded by tree people who revere him as a living ghost protector. Let's face it...if you go dark and play the Phantom like a guy He dashed to and fro, punching and shooting with a wink, a smile and a "pardon me, ma'am" at every turn. We call this kind of shit "cheesy" and "hamfisted" nowadays, but it's also the sort of thing that makes us smile and induces a feeling of escape which is what we commonly go to the movies for in the first place.

One of the best "quiet as kept" scenes is when Phantom is chasing thugs who've kidnapped Kristy Swanson (By the way, Diana Palmer's awesomeness dwarfs pretty much EVERY incarnation of Lois Lane except maybe Amy Adams in Man of Steel), bumps into a woman by mistake, stops to pick up her purse like a gentleman and goes on to leap from car to car in traffic, steal a cop's horse, riding off in hot pursuit....LIKE A FUCKING BOSS.

Moral of the Story: The thing that should really translate well here for Current Hollywood is that every hero doesn't have to be edgy and dark. Granted, Ghost Rider really should be which is why that failed, but there's no reason modern day swashbucklers can't be fun.

The Rocketeer: For a movie that doesn't really get the credit it's due, maintaining a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes isn't exactly anything to sneeze at. Unfortunately, it suffered from the same societal epidemics as The Phantom where a). if a movie didn't open and sellout in every theater worldwide like Dark Knight or The Avengers recently, it's automatically dismissed as a failure (keep in mind that several failures have done very well in the box office in the same way as when you go home with the guy at the bar who seems to mean well only to wake up once you're sober and say "What the fuck was I thinking?"....I'm looking at you, Transformers 2 & 3) and b). was portraying a sort of bare bones "everyman" hero in the era of Batman.

In many ways, this was a movie that Hollywood, in fact, may just have learned something from for better or worse. I mean, honestly, Rocketeer was the epitome of a period-piece hero epic. A douchebag test pilot finds Howard Hughes experimental jet pack, battles "G-men", the mob, and Nazis all for the love of Jennifer Connelly's boobs? That pretty much sums up American propaganda heroes of the 1930's. For all intents and purposes, this was something of a blueprint that would later make the way for asshole superheroes like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man. One of the big highlights from this movie that deserves consideration (aside from a delightfully fun Timothy Dalton villain) is the dialed back usage of special effects. Don't get me wrong; it's not like they tied Bill Campbell to a big rope the whole time and told him to holler in front of a house fan the whole time, but Peter Travers had it right when he referred to it's movie magic as "the kind that charms us, rather than bullying us, into suspending disbelief."

Moral of the Story: On one hand, when you have movies about gods with magic hammers, giant green beasts, asshole space cops with magic wishing rings and....well, Superman...it's hard for visuals NOT to be a contributing factor to their success. On the other hand, special effects don't have to subtract from the story's personality. Joss Whedon understands this pretty well. So does Rocketeer director Joe Johnston which is probably why Marvel ended up tapping him to direct Captain America, which, in addition to being a pretty damn good origin story, ended up being a terrific send up of old Republic serials.

Why Superior Spider-Man Doesn't Work.....

For you to understand my take on Superior Spider Man, I have explain a thing or two about Breaking Bad and Batman.

Recently, Damon Lindelof wrote an essay for Vulture (that, due to spoilers, I couldn't read all of) in which he compared the transformation of Walter White's Heisenberg to Bruce Wayne's becoming Batman. He points out that while Walt's circumstances were certainly a factor in his evolution to a meth peddling mastermind, it wasn't really the cause. He was ALWAYS Heisenberg. Yeah, some guy in an alley orphaned Bruce Wayne and essentially robbed of his innocence at eight years old, but there are a LOT of people who lose their parents to gun violence. There are also a lot of people who contract cancer and can't pay for treatments. They don't dress like bats or resort to cooking illegal substances in an RV. Lindelof submits that these characters are special because their circumstances awaken something that's already inside of them, that their environment isn't the cause. It's the catalyst. The argument could be made that this is what we love about them. Regular shit that happens to plenty of people happened to them and they do something about it that everyday people simply don't have the balls to do.

After showing the essay to a friend of mine who is a Batman fan, she pointed out, "Yeah, but couldn't you say that about all heroes?" You could say that about most heroes, but not necessarily Peter Parker. Circumstances played a bigger part than people realize. His true transformation was more earned in a way. He had to learn how not to be a dick by being sort of a dick. He started out a mostly decent guy who people sort of marginalized and shitted on in high school. He got bitten by a radioactive spider and was improved physically.

Spider Man went on to take up a career as a television star to make money and then came the moment when he let a crook get away because...."Fuck him. Not my problem." This is kind of a dick move by any standards, really. Then, it turns out that same guy shot and killed his uncle. Granted, I'm sure more than a few kids screw up and inadvertently get someone they love hurt, but none of them had superpowers when they did it. Essentially, Peter was a good kid, got superpowers, was seduced by personal gain, failed and THEN became Spider Man. Now, this isn't necessarily a trope that has never been explored before, but it is the crux of why Spider Man works so well. He is the result of above average virtue through "everyman failure." Incidently, this is a big part of why Otto Octavius' "Superior" Spider-Man is so divisive among fans (myself included).

I should say, before going any further, that this is probably one of the most ambitious and gutsy moves Marvel has made in years. I mean....they killed Peter Parker. They didn't zap him back in time. They didn't send him off to the edge of the universe trapped inside a giant space bullet. They didn't ambiguously kill him using a crazy mutant's chaos magic so that he may or may not have really died. They killed him. It was one of the few moments in recent times I can remember a comic depicting a top tier hero's death rattle. And then, when the brain waves/ghostof/whatever came back to haunt Otto in an attempt to get his body back, they killed him indefinitely....again.

When his turn at being the web-slinger starts, Doctor Octopus has the best of intentions in carrying on Spider-Man's legacy, protecting his loved ones and a better hero than Peter was. This didn't last very long at all. First, to plant the initial seeds for his narcissism, he refurbishes his trademark "Octobots" into "Spiderbots" that survey the city for danger and alert Otto immediately via phone app. As cool (and sensible) as that is in theory, this is also sort of a dick move in a symbolic kind of way. Most apps, by nature, are tools designed for convenience, mainly making urgency an option for phone/tablet users. For example, there is a setting for the news app on my phone that alerts me to breaking stories as they occur. If there's a shooting in Bummerville, Middle America somewhere, I have the option of picking up my phone to know about it or putting it down and saying "It can wait." It's okay for ME to have that option because it's not my responsibility to go to Bummerville and stop the shooting. Spider Man shouldn't have the option of not going to fix shit. The whole point of a superhero is that urgency shouldn't ever be optional.

Nope. He went on to toss an old man (okay, yeah, it was the Vulture, but still) into a floodlight, shoot a defeated criminal in cold blood and beat up parkour thieves on YouTube. You would think he would pay some sort of price for this (someone important dying on his watch, losing his job, etc.) in keeping with the theme of power and responsibility. Nope. In fact, aside from a light tap on the wrist from the Avengers, Doctor Spiderpus faces little or no consequences for any of the douchebag things he does. He's rewarded with a grateful New York City (something Peter rarely had on his best day), a new girlfriend, a hollowed out prison as his public base of operations, his own private army and a giant spider mecha. I'm not kidding about that last part either. He has a giant robot. It could be argued that Otto is less on a crusade for justice and more looking to redeem his failed life through the same acts of arrogance and vanity that cloaked him in failure to begin with which isn't exactly the most heroic, altruistic or even likable of goals.

Batman has undergone some odd changes over the years, but a Batman fan opens up a Batman book and pretty much knows what their getting: a traumatized, paranoid obsessive zillionaire puts the fear of God into bad guys and plays the resident "Stop being a pussy" guy in the Justice League occasionally. People who read a Superman book know they're probably going to either get a superpowered slugfest or Superman talking suicide jumpers down off of ledges with hope and change. The theme of Spider-Man has gone from "with great power comes great responsibility" to "being a douchebag works." That works for Iron Man or the Punisher, but a change like that in a character like this is tantamount to Kanye West going from songs about working at the Gap to albums mainly about popping ecstasy pills and casual sex. Is that what Spidey readers of any age sign up for?

One of those parkour thieves he beat half
to death is a woman, by the way.
Real American Hero.

One can't help but feel this is indicative of Marvel giving into what Craig Lindsey referred to in another rogerebert.com essay as "jerk culture." This usually entails a book or movie entirely about intensely unlikable people you would probably not hold the elevator for in real life like the entire cast of The Hangover. And this is, more or less, why Spider-Man has fallen from grace for many readers. It's not that it's impossible to create good stories centered around repugnant assholes. Breaking Bad, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Seinfeld show that to be untrue. And I'm certain there are those who will use the argument that comics are an escape fantasy, so it's okay to live vicariously through heroes even when they're jerks, but to quote Lindsey, "We can be a crass, selfish, inhuman society sometimes." Maybe...just maybe...we could stand an escape from that, too.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 20 or If Only Troy Davis Had A Friend Like Captain America....

Hunger #1: It's unanimous (more or less) that Marvel's Age of Ultron story arc ended in surprisingly (though it shouldn't be) unforgivable manner. Seriously, reading that miniseries was the equivalent of getting halfway through Blade Runner only to have someone come in and put on Transformers 3. Anyway, what's done is done and the best we're left to hope for is that we can get some decent titles from the smoldering wreckage. One interesting thing we were left with was the introduction of 616-Galactus into the Ultimate Universe. This book is a jumpstart to exactly the kind of shake up I've been waiting for in the Ultimate books since, with the exception of Ultimate Spider-Man, the existing books have fallen sort of flat. Joshua Hale Fialkov sees you continuity fiends ready to pounce and wants you to know he hasn't forgotten about Warren Ellis' Ultimate Galactus trilogy from a while back.

In the first issue, we are reintroduced to the Rick Jones (Ultimate Nova), who has been away exploring space to get comfortable with his powers. His back-and-forth with the Watcher serves as a well written vehicle to keep us going through the story not unlike Richard Rider Nova's relationship with the Worldmind computer. Jones comes across every bit as relateable as his current 616 counterpart, Sam Alexander, reluctant at all the wrong moments and impulsive at all the right ones. Leonard Kirk's artwork is the icing on the cake here, laying out an amazing space battle seems to never get boring to look at. I'm convinced that if any other team were working on this, it would suck. That's probably the main reason this is a win in my book. That and the WTF ending. That's all I'm going to say.

Bottom Line: A well done starting point to springboard into the upcoming Cataclysm event. 8.5 out of 10.




Superior Spider Man Team-Up #1: As we trudge on closer to the end of "Superior Spider Sucks Month," Marvel shut a door and opened a window. We had to say goodbye to Christopher Yost's brilliantly written Avenging Spider Man to...well, I'm not going to lie to you, actually. We didn't have to say goodbye to anything. This is essentially the same book. They basically dropped "Avenging" from the title and replaced it with "Superior."

The main difference is that, instead of existing slightly outside of current Spider canon, this issue is up to date with the events of the most recent issue of Superior Spider Man where Doctor Spiderpus is enjoying quite a few victories in winning over the city's hearts. However, the Avengers still aren't terribly happy with the contents of papa's brand new bag and are back for another intervention. Opening up with Webhead's run-ins with the street level status quo in New York was awesome and sort of hilarious to read. Yost knows how to build tension while still keeping it light for a fun read. The fundamental problem with this particular story is that it uses Captain America's bottomless well of clemency. There's no way the Avengers could possibly so stupid as to seriously believe that there's NOTHING amiss about this hard charging, less jovial, know-it-all Sheldon Cooper version of Spider-Man. I mean, for fuck's sake....

"Sure, he's being uncharacteristically dick-ish, but he's probably just going through a rough patch, so leave him be. I mean, Wolverine's a stone cold killer and Spider-Man hasn't done anything nearly that...wait...he DID kill someone? Oh, I'm sure it's fine."

 Also, David Lopez's artwork wasn't really bad, but it was sort of a hit or miss scenario. The first half of the book is beautiful, but it's the second half that's a little off-putting because his style is a little too plain and straightforward and the Avengers should be more exciting to look at. This isn't a perfect way to transition from Avenging, but I was entertained enough to pick up another copy.

Bottom Line: If you liked Avenging Spider Man, you might not be as impressed. If you didn't like Avenging Spider Man, you might find something to like here. Either way, it's the little things that make and/or break this book. 7.5 out of 10.


Justice League Dark #22: DC is has officially entered the halfway point of their obligatory "Holy Shit Something's Happening That We Should All Do Something About" event, Trinity War. Geoff Johns has handed the baton off to Jeff Lemire in a fairly seamless fashion which might not be the biggest plus for this story. Why, you ask? Because it's halftime and I still have no earthly idea what's actually happening.

The best thing I can tell you is that Pandora's Box is out in the open and some people seem to be worried about it....for some reason. It's starting to suffer from one of the primary problems that Avengers vs. X-Men did except there are actually characters here that seems to know what this is all building to and just don't seem to feel like talking about it. It's one thing to build suspense and keep the readers in the dark, but you would think one of these mysterious good guys would make a better effort to try to get all of the other good guys on the same page. Instead, they seem to be completely fine with the various Justice Leagues beating the shit out of each other. The standout moment to look out for here is the awesome exchange between Wonder Woman and John Constantine which helps to showcase Lemire's characterization skills. Mikel Janin's pencils certainly deserve a round of applause as well. All of the action looks clean and deliberate, facial expressions look distinctive on purpose and, with such an enormous cast of characters, it's amazing that there was never a feeling claustrophobia in this issue. This isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I'd just like it a lot more if someone could explain it to me.

Bottom Line: This issue makes all three Justice League entertaining enough to watch fighting. I just wish I knew why they were fighting. So far it's less of a superhero comic and more of an old Kaiju monster movie. 7 out of 10.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 18 or Why Hasn't Apple Thought Up an Evil Version of Siri?

Superior Foes of Spider-Man #1: Okay, let me just start off by saying that I think the idea of a "Superior Spider Month" is ultimately a futile, redundant venture. Essentially, it asks us to pretend that Spider-Man (although he is a character I truly love) isn't already shoved down our throats on, more or less, every front. If Marvel characters were real people, I suspect Spider Man would locked in a sweatshop autographing action figure packages alongside Wolverine and Iron Man. EVERY month is Spider Month. And it's gotten even worse now that Peter Parker has seemingly been discarded altogether in exchange for his nemesis, Doctor Octopus. Superior Spider Man, despite some genuinely funny moments and great artwork, has limped on along its ever fraying tightrope of mediocrity, trying to convince us that Doctor Octopus in a Spider Man costume is...well...Batman. With this change is status quo being as polarizing among fans as its been, this marketing ploy just screams "Oh, come on! Remember how much you love all things Spider-y. Please. Pretty please" as if Marvel is a junkie caught in the act, offering sexual enslavement in exchange for silence.



Having said that, Superior Foes of Spider-Man is actually a good idea and, in an even more shocking twist, a well executed book. DC did something similar to this a few years back with Secret Six, basically chronicling a super-villain team working together for....umm...something. It turned out to be a really big hit and Marvel has tried to recreate the magic there a couple of times with Thunderbolts (at least when Warren Ellis was writing it) and Dark Avengers (Brian Bendis leaving that book was like the Comic Curse of the Bambino).

Now, they're taking a very promising swing for the fences with this story about a team of Z-list baddies having a go at being the next Sinister Six...even though there's only five of them. But thus far, it doesn't seem to be an all-out antihero adventure so much a comical yet sad look at a Bad News Bears type group of lowlifes trying to get out of their own ways. Think Matt Fraction's Hawkeye, but for villains. There's no real superpowered showdowns here and more hare brained caper bumbling not unlike that of Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad. This issue, in particular, focuses heavily on narrative from the perspective of Boomerang as he tries to get by while cooling his heels in jail. We don't enough fleshing out of his teammates, but given the formula of the inaugural issue, there's hope that each member of the group will be given his or her time in the sun individually.

Speaking of parallels to Hawkeye, Steve Lieber, who did pencils on a particularly awesome previous issue of Matt Fraction's Eisner nominated masterpiece, breathes a similar life into Superior Foes. Lieber is every bit as effective as David Aja at a clean but easily accessible approach to the "sucks to be me" formula that makes both books as strong as they are. It's kinda early judge whether or not this book is as awesome as Hawkeye or Secret Six, but so far so good.

Bottom Line: Funny, charming, cleanly drawn....it's a lot like Hawkeye. That's a good thing. And thank God there's not much of Doctor Spiderpus in it. 8.5 out of 10.

Avengers A.I. #1: First things first....Age of Ultron ended on a "what the fuck" type of note and not in a good "Is that the ending to the Sopranos or is there something wrong with the cable" kind of way. It was more of a "I can't believe I let M. Night Shyamalan pull this sorry shit on me again" kind of way. Essentially, acting as a newsletter for what titles and characters Marvel was going to shoehorn into our longboxes, Age of Ultron ended up doing the exact same shitty thing DC Comics did with Flashpoint except it did it while raising the bar for shittyness. I think if DC holds the book to their ears, they'll hear the sound of Marvel execs singing "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better."
However, if you look close enough, you can find a strawberry in every shit sandwich. So far, Avengers A.I. is lobbying to be that strawberry. Every few years, Henry "I'm a Superhero Who Created a Genocidal Robot and Still Gets to Keep My Job" Pym decides to pick himself up and do something to make up for nearly inadvertently eradicating humanity via the evil iPhone 4 known as Ultron or, in this case, the computer virus that killed Ultron...I think. This time, he's assembled a team of tech-oriented Avengers to fight perversions of technological advancement. Hopefully, we'll see an issue where they take on Windows Vista, T-Pain and Kanye's 808's and Heartbreaks album.

Sam Humphries offers us a fun look at Henry Pym as an adventurous, cocky douchebag scientist whose history of cocky douchebaggery is often stuck in the shadow of Tony Stark's (I'm just saying....read Civil War...hard to get more dickish than that). To the book's credit, it doesn't waste too much time getting the band together and getting right to brass tacks.

There are a few standout elements here storywise. The first is Monica Chang, who some of you will remember from the Ultimate Comics universe as Nick Fury's nigh-psychotic ex wife. This 616-continuity version doesn't seem to have that same baggage here, as far as we can tell and is all set up to be as cast-iron tough as Maria Hill. Also, there are some awesome reworkings of the Vision's powers here that make the action really fun to look at, almost like the Martian Manhunter meets Inspector Gadget. My personal favorite part of this team, however, is the Doombot. Seriously, a repurposed mechanical minion of Doctor Doom fighting for good, berating his team every step of the way....how could that possibly be anything short is hilarious? And Andre Lima Araujo's artwork does a good job of lending itself to Humpries' lighter atmosphere where the stakes aren't quite as "fate of the universe" as other titles in the franchise like New Avengers. Whether that works for the book or against it is yet to be seen, but it's a promising start.


Bottom Line: It has all the right working parts, but it's too early to call it a slam dunk. Pretty good. 8 out of 10.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 16 or Cautionary Tales for Fanboys and Crazy People....

Kick-Ass 3 #1: Okay, I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Kick-Ass needs to die. I'm not quite talking about the character. I mean this story needs to be drowned in the bathtub quickly. The thing that's wrong with everything after the first Kick Ass is that writing satire is like telling a joke. The only real rule is to just tell the joke. Don't explain it. Once you have to explain the joke, it's immediately not funny anymore. When you get bogged down on explaining satire, it becomes obvious you're trying to say something about something.

This story was awesome when Mark Millar simply saying "A guy trying to be Batman in real life would either be dead or in the ICU in a day." It's become painfully obvious that, in its evolution, this series has become a platform for Millar to shoot fanboys in the kneecaps. In parts 1 and 2, at least our protagonists were likeable. In this issue, we get Dave Lizewski standing over his parents' graves in what should have been a sobering reflective moment of character development. Instead, he and his friend are musing about how must look awesome like Batman did. Taking brooding pictures by a family member's tombstone because he thinks it looks badass doesn't make your character relatable or realistic. It makes him an extinction-level asshole. The big upside to this book is, as usual, John Romita Jr.'s artwork, offering the right amount of levity to serious moments and awkwardness to funnier moments. Ultimately, time will tell whether or not Millar can bring closure to something that's really already run its course.

Bottom Line: One part entertaining....two parts beating a dead horse. 7 out of 10.


Daredevil: End of Days #8: Considering the fact that David Mack retweeted and reposted my review of this book last month (No, I'm NEVER going to stop talking about that...deal with it, humans...), I considered the idea that the cool thing to do would be to not review the finale, that it would be like the hero in a movie who kisses the girl, says goodbye and walks away without looking back. But I'm a writer, a blogger and a comic book nerd which is, more or less, a willing forfeit of the chance to be cool. No need to break tradition now.

There are more great things to say about End of Days than there are adjectives meandering about  the English language. It could be argued that the much sought meaning of the word "mapone" came across as slightly anti climactic, but with a book like this, the last thing readers deserved was something they actually expected. Besides, much like in life, the destination wasn't nearly as important as the journey that brought us there. It could be argued (and it almost certainly is) that this miniseries ended on more of a bang than a whimper, but this series ended in a way many superhero titles wouldn't dare to: with a prevailing sense of finality. With many of Marvel's "The End" future vision concepts, although they stay somewhat true to the essence of the highlighted protagonist, at times, they have a tendency to feel dated depending on the changes that character endures. With End of Days, we are offered a story that manages to offer closure while preserving the hard truths that we've come to know of a hero who concerns himself very little with the traditional tropes of heroism when it comes to justice. No matter what crossovers and costume changes may come from other writers over the years, this book makes a timeless, definitive statement about who Daredevil is even if it's not always a trite one.

We see cast of characters who have been as much a part of defining who this character is than the character himself saying goodbye in their own ways, some of which are clear even if they're not reflected through dialogue or action beats. Having said that, one of this issue's biggest weaknesses is the absence of journalist Ben Urich's internal narrative that has been the perfect voice to carry us through this semi-dystopic wasteland of an eulogy to the Man Without Fear. Still, no matter what point of view they offer us, Brian Michael Bendis and David Mack's voices are like old friends taking you for a drive through that part of town you grew up in, showing you how it's changed as well as how it hasn't and never will. And after reviewing two other issues of this book, there is virtually nothing left to say about the top shelf artwork from Klaus Janson and Bill Sienkiewicz. Rarely is there a comic where any given panel or page, if left by itself, could be a poster or printed on a t-shirt. There are no artists better suited to help tell a story like this. If they taught comic books in high school, rest assured that Daredevil: End of Days would be required reading.

Bottom Line: This book raised the bar for comics like a school bully playing "keep away" with your lunchbox. 9.5 out of 10.

Why People Should Suck It Up and Get Over the Iron Man 3 Thing (SPOILERS AHEAD).....

Seriously, there are SPOILERS in here. Last chance.

Well, Iron Man 3 has finally come and, as I predicted within 15 seconds of seeing the big Mandarin reveal, the entire internet fell on the floor kicking and screaming like children (Bell Biv Devoe calls that "the crybaby"). For those of you that don't care about seeing this movie, but want to know what I'm talking about, here's the breakdown.

The movie version of the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is the (white) supposed head of a terrorist organization known as the Ten Rings, the same group that held Tony Stark captive in the first movie. Stark infiltrates the Mandarin's home only to discover that he is actually a drunken, drug addicted British actor named Trevor Slattery, who is just a front for Aldridge Killian (Guy Pearce) and A.I.M.'s war profiteering scam. At some point throughout Killian's final battle with Iron Man, he screams "I am the Mandarin!!!" Denzel Washington Training Day style.

As a result of this twist in the narrative, as I said before, the internet lost its collective mind because they didn't get a RDJ/Ben Kingsley superpowered slugfest even though the slugfest they got instead was FUCKING AWESOME. The thing about comic nerds is that they're very random about how and when they decide a movie's handling of the source material is careless. X-Men First Class was taken seriously, the Scarecrow got beaten up by Katie Holmes, Dr. Doom was basically portrayed as Donald Trump with superpowers and Ghost Rider got two movies. But somehow, THIS is just too much to handle. To understand why this is a silly grievance, you have to understand who the Mandarin is in the comics.

Depending on the writer, the details have changed slightly over the years, but basically the Mandarin was a Chinese man, oppressed by Chairman Mao, who stumbled upon alien technology in the form of ten powerful rings and used them to become an evil would-be conqueror. An evil Chinese would-be conqueror who looks, dresses and talks like a villain from a Shaw Brothers kung fu movie.

In other words....this guy.

Over the years, they've changed his clothes and motives for hating Iron Man, but as far as his goals and ideologies, long story short....this could be considered pretty fucking racist. In 2013, with the borderline xenophobic political climate, there is just no way in Hell you can market this to a worldwide audience with children in good conscience. None. Granted, I'm not saying that you HAVE to characterize the Mandarin this way to do it justice, but it IS racially problematic for Marvel and, ultimately, Disney. If they cast a Chinese guy, the Asian community would quite possibly maul the studio and rightfully so. If Ben Kingsley's version (dressed the way he was) had been a superpowered badass, the movie would have been accused of "whitewashing" a Chinese character and we saw how that worked out for M. Night Shaymalamadingdong with The Last Airbender. Or you can write the Mandarin out altogether, but then you have C-List Iron Man baddies like the Living Laser. Sorry, but outside of comic book, no studio exec in the universe thinks Living Laser is a good name for a movie villain.

My point here is that Shane Black handled the "Mandarin" issue in the most realistically feasible way possible. So suck it up.

Crowd Participation or Happy Free Comic Book Day

Craig "BBC" Long from Houston, TX wanted to hear my thoughts after reading the Walking Dead comics since I saw Seasons 1 and 2 first.

Well, Craig, I can say that the comic delivers better than I could have hoped. With the direction Swamp Thing and I Vampire went in, The Walking Dead is definitely one of the ONLY mainstream titles in comics that can truly lay claim to being a horror comic. One thing that is well preserved in its own way is the dichotomy of Rick and Shane. Not only do they define each other, they define the theme of the series as a whole. In the moments when it's not an epic zombie saga (easily one of the best of all time), it's essentially a morality play that constantly questions whether or not humanity is a biological or ideological state of being. Rick and Shane seem to be constantly at odds with themselves as well as each other standing on respective sides of the argument. I see where some fans take issue with the things altered in the the tv adaptation, but I think it's the aesthetically reasonable compromise network television could probably muster. No matter how iconic a comic is or how powerful a panel is, the sad truth is that there are just some things that look good in a comic that won't translate as well on television or on screen. That's why I like that geeks are actually being consulted about geek culture. Robert Kirkman works very closely alongside the production team on Walking Dead, George R. R. Martin is reportedly consulted often on the direction of Game of Thrones and Joss Whedon has more than enough nerd credit in the bank at this point to be trusted with The Avengers. At some point Hollywood decided that instead of being satisfied with the receipt for the intellectual property they bought as a stamp of approval, it might be better to actually ask the creator what they think about their work. I stand behind the "for nerds, by nerds" approach.

Johnathan Marroquin writes via Facebook: I need an honest opinion on the Amalgam universe circa 96-98. Potential or not?

For those of you who have no idea what he's talking about, in the late 90s, DC and Marvel were real fiends for cross pollinating their titles because...let's face it...nerds will never stop arguing about who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk ("...and then Superman threw the big green monkey into the sun and went back to work. The End."). So, they finally had a Marvel vs. DC miniseries where the best...at the time...of each company had a big slugfest because of some patchwork excuse like "the universes are colliding" (a writer's way of saying "for no good goddamned reason"). Anyway, somehow after the heroes kept the universes from colliding by beating the shit out of each other, the universes collided anyway. The result was a universe full of mashup characters. Sometimes, they made sense like how the "Challengers of the Fantastic" was a combination of the Fantastic Four and the Challengers of the Unknown....both Jack Kirby creations. Most of them, however, were shitty like putting Batman and Man-Thing together to get Bat-Thing. This was indicative of what the mid to late 90s was in the land of comics: a reason to sell cool covers instead of cool books. Assuming Johnathan's question is asking whether or not this same imprint would be a viable venture now, it's enough that DC treats their own artists like the mail room interns you steal ideas from without their knowing. It's enough that Marvel would hold their writers at gunpoint beneath a vat of battery acid and force them to write a "You Got Served" comic if they thought there was money in it. I shudder to think what the Big Two would do to each other.

Batman: No, Logan, I never would have guessed it was you under there.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 13 or Occupy DC Comics....Because Somebody Should

Notes from the Writer: Some of you will notice that I'm only reviewing two books this week. Well, do not fret. To make up for the slight decrease in content for this post, you will be receiving a special Free Comic Day post tomorrow and another bonus on Monday. Why? Because I love you. But I must rest. Until then, enjoy the reviews and thanks for reading.


Thanos Rising #2: I thought I'd reached a point in my life where if a book, movie or show looks awful. I can just go with my gut, not watch it and be content that way. It usually works out. It worked out with Liam Neeson vs. Board Games (I think they call it Battleship). It works out with reality shows like Bet My Baby. It should have worked out after reading the first issue of the Mad Titan's origin story. After one issue of one of Marvel's most awesome, time honored foils getting the Anakin Skywalker treatment, I should have had enough.

However, like some comic book adventurer, I stood there at the shelf of new releases, saw the second issue, shrugged my shoulders and said, "It can't hurt." I mean, with Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi working on it, there's no reason it shouldn't be able to turn itself around. After all, there are only so many feelings you can pack into one title. And, ideally, the first issue of any title should be considered experimental like a television pilot. The CW's Arrow took several hints and improved upon the obvious weaknesses of the inaugural episode. In other words, I assumed this issue couldn't be so bad. This was a flawed hypothesis.

A few years have passed from the events of the first issue to the second issue which I was certain would cut down on all the kiddie angst. Of course, that didn't stop Degrassi from happening so that makes me 0 for 2 on my guesses for this week. Thanos has gone from whiny outcast to teen prodigy. The time jump feels out of place and the pathos still feels contrived, but it's less so than the last issue. Still, this isn't what really takes away from what could have been an awesome story. The trouble here is that for a story that takes place in space, it doesn't feel very...space-like. I've mentioned before that a fun part of Brian K. Vaughn's Saga is the fact that the dialogue feels natural because they don't talk like ex-communicated Dune characters. The other side of that coin is that it's a book where big spider with a battle axe can have a conversation with a guy who has a television for a head. In Thanos Rising, two high school kids were making out and got abducted. There was no difference between this happening on ANOTHER PLANET and this happening in any movie Jennifer Love Hewitt or Sarah Michelle Gellar was in before the turn of the century. All in all, this book has several opportunities to be awesome, but to to properly show out....you have to show up first.

Bottom Line: 30 gorgeous looking pages of disengaged drivel. 5 out of 10



The Movement #1: The fun thing....or the thing that was supposed to be fun about the DC reboot was that it doesn't necessarily have to stick to a time honored script laid out by years and years of tradition (no matter how much fans actually LIKED that script). The part where it has failed in this regard is that we're getting the same things that we found stale in the first place except some people are younger, some people aren't married and...oh, yeah...there's a Muslim Green Lantern. It's like Domino's Pizza "making better pizza" even though you liked Domino's just the way it was, but they give you the same pizza and call it new and relevant because now it's Muslim.

Well, now we're getting some variation in the DC universe with Gail Simone's story of superpowered residents of Coral City standing up to the corruption eating away at their neighborhood Occupy style. One problem with this premise is that it would have been a bit more resonant with the Occupy sympathizer audience back when the Occupy movement took up more media attention. Simone's script is somewhat balanced and manages to introduce a fairly large cast without the book feeling crowded or rushed. Freddie Williams' pencils seem to convey the gritty vibe that Simone seems to be going for. Of course, some of the heroes feel a little...silly. There's a guy who controls rats. That's it. That's his whole power. There's another member who looks sort of like steampunk Hawkgirl. This has the potential to be a decent addition to DC's ranks because it's a universe from which we don't receive as much street level action. But we need a better reason to care about these characters than "people are broke and mad."

Bottom Line: Gail Simone gives us a serviceable start to book with a premise that seems relevant and irrelevant all at once. 7 out of 10.

Things I Read This Week (or Sometimes I Think Marvel Lost the Instruction Manual to Marvel)....

BE ADVISED: SPOILERS....KINDA

Avengers #4:

"Here, Hyperion. Drink. It's like vodka, but for men."~Thor

You know, I confess I was (still am) worried about the plot for this book feeling rushed because it's biweekly release, but Jonathan Hickman seems to be handling it just fine thus far. His penchant for high-minded sci-fi concepts seems to blend well with this franchise, reminiscent of Grant Morrison's handling of All Star Superman. Adam Kubert's pencils seem to barely tow the line for Kubert standards which some may not be able to engage with right away. This title seems to employ a Justice League Unlimited model, highlighting different combinations of a set pool of team members each issue.

This week seems to shine a spotlight on Hyperion from Squadron Supreme fame which leads me to my only real problem. A while back, Marvel introduced the Sentry into larger continuity, exploring the question "What if Superman were a Marvel character?" The result was....questionable at best. In fact, it felt like the writers were so frustrated with the lack of a real plan for the character, they rushed him to a early (or all too appropriate) grave, never speaking of him again. Perhaps, this was a planned statement on what would probably happen to a Superman in the Marvel universe, but I doubt it. My hope is that Hyperion is not another attempt to introduce a similar variable into the Avengers ant farm. Quite simply, Marvel already has a Superman....and it's Captain America.

Bottom Line: Thus far, this title has been Orson Scott Card meets Stan Lee in it's approach and Hickman sees no reason to deviate from that plan. Kubert's pencils leave a little something to be desired, though. 7.5 out of 10.


Superior Spider Man #2: I should mention right off the bat that after reading Amazing Spider Man #700, I am immensely skeptical about this direction and how the story would return to status quo (because let's face it...that's the only place "events" like this go). However, I made a bet with a friend that I would give Dan Slott four issues to turn this exercise in convolution into something readable. After which, I'd wash my hands of the whole thing.

Having said that, this issue of Superior Spider Man is fucking awful. This issue runs with the revelation from #1 that Peter Parker's ghost is following our new Spider Man, Otto Octavius, to make sure he doesn't completely ruin his reputation. Since it's become apparent that a character like Doctor Octopus doesn't have the personality to keep SM fans interested for thirty pages, Peter's has become a surrogate for decent dialogue, bemoaning Otto's decisions in his attempt to life the life of his former nemesis. To sum all that up, Peter Parker has become a secondary character in a Spider Man book, further proving that Slott, though handling a terrible paradigm shift in the Spiderverse as best he can, doesn't really understand the character he's writing.

Peter Parker is a great man hiding in the caricature of a "good guy." He could be anything he wants. He could be as much a scientific boon to the world as Tony Stark. He could be mayor of New York if he applied himself. But he can never truly be any of these things because he has to be Spider Man. He has to play the "good hearted yet irresponsible fool." In some ways, Peter Parker is the most noble character in the enter Marvel universe. In short, there's nothing redeeming or noble about giving your enemy a second chance in your last moments on Earth if you're just going walk around haunting him, whining about him hitting on your girlfriend.

Bottom Line: Dan Slott's doing the best he can with a terrible situation, but he needs to do better. 7 out of 10