A Few Things About Avengers: Age of Ultron

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

Likes:

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

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

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

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

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

Dislikes:

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

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

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.