Tagged: Marvel
Comic Book Cover of The Week: Mazzucchelli Batman and Daredevil!
I think this awesome cover to Batman #405 (better known as “Year One, Part 2”) deserves to showcased here. First of all it’s proves that sometimes simplicity works best for an effective comic book cover! Second it’s drawn by one of my favorite comic book artists, David Mazzucchelli! In my opinion his version of Batman is perfect, forget the battle armor kevlar BS, this is the perfect Dark Knight stripped down and dirty. This was a great series too written by classic writer Frank Miller (now a total D-Bag) it’s considered now one of the best Batman Stories of all time.
Mazzucchelli also drew some of the best Daredevil comics of all time (also teaming up with Frank Miller), in a similar tone he proves that Daredevil is Marvel’s Batman. This has inspired me to get the full scoop on what David Mazzucchelli is up to now, so expect a post on that soon!
The Death Of Wolverine #2: The Best There Is? Hardly…
The Death of Wolverine #2 is a comic book I’ve really been looking forward to for the last week! I was super impressed with the first issue even though it was five bucks and had a bunch of useless filler, it felt in part like the old Wolverine stories I used to love! So issue two continues the story in the classic setting of Madripoor- One of my favorite places in the Marvel Universe! There we meet a disguised Logan (“hipster Logan”, I personally would have preferred “Patch”instead) who’s been hanging out there for weeks looking for Viper, with some valuable merchandise for sale. This leads Logan to an odd encounter with several villains from his past. Sounds cool huh?
Well I don’t wanna spoil anything but it all seems a bit too forced. We’ve got important characters that disappear from the pages of the story as fast as they appear. Maybe this series needed to be a six or eight parter instead of four? It already is feeling a bit rushed, issue #2 feels quite a bit different from the first. I would have liked to have seen at least two issues of Madripoor and now it appears at the end of this issue we are off to yet another “classic” locale.
The story at issue two has lost it’s flow and lost my interest substantially. I get it now, they’re trying to cram as many classic characters into this four part series as possible and it seems issue three is likely to continue doing the same. Considering that how large the panels per page are in this series so far (a lot of panels simply divide up on single drawing into multiples) it’s likely that we’re not going to get the quality story telling we’d thought we were promised with issue number one. I’m on board for the last two though, I could easily be proven wrong and might be simply dazzled by the last two.
However, with issue number two and it’s rather paper thin plot, uninspired and unnecessary fight sequences and mish mash of random classic characters coming and going I’m starting to think it’s hard to make Wolverine interesting anymore for more than a single issue. At least McNiven’s art is still beautifully rendered. Oh yeah this issue is also 5 bucks and jam packed with a bunch of dull extras that somehow Marvel thinks justify the high cover price. What I predict we’re in store for is a rushed storyline that could have been amazing. If they don’t pull this off correctly I doubt anyone will be be anticipating Wolverine’s return from the dead anytime soon…
The Death of Wolverine #1: Review
The deaths of major comic book characters have been a big trend for a long time. It usually happens when a major character becomes boring. We all know that boring most likely means that the character has been over exploited, to make money and finally because we’ve seen them so often every month in multiple titles that they just get stale. They become a weak, pale version of what used to make them so cool. Usually sales decline and comic companies start trying to figure out new ways to make the character popular again, one of the ways to generate some excitement again is to “kill” the character. This will get news online, in papers and probably on tv and generate interest and interest means dollars. This is what has happened to our once mysterious, mean mutant berzerker, Wolverine.
Let me first say, Wolverine used to be the coolest damn character ever. He was mysterious, he was a loner, he hung out at bars and got wasted, he killed people and he didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought about him. His past was a mystery and we all so desperately wanted to know who he was. Over the years his popularity grew, he was in movies, a ton of cartoons and was in dozens of comic books every month. His past was over explained, and what we all found out about him didn’t quite measure up to what we had hoped for. He was no longer a loner, he became headmaster at Xavier’s school, he appeared in dozens of X-titles. He even joined the god damn Avengers! Wolverine was officially corporate in every way. He started hanging out with Captain America for crying out loud-taking orders from SHIELD etc, ect! Everyone’s fav mutant was no longer mysterious, he was drawn more as a handsome, dashing superhero instead of a mean little hairy runt with fucked up weird ass hair. Wolverine was officially boring. A tough thing to accomplish honestly.
So now here we are, Marvel is trying the whole “Death” stunt with Logan. Let’s face it people, you have nothing to fear. Wolverine is not really dead. He’s worth too much money. Marvel does want us to miss the guy though. So I figure he’ll be gone for about a year and we’ll see him pop back up in some really ridiculous way(this will again maybe make some more money-the return of Wolverine!). But for the moment let’s just let ourselves be shocked-okay? So issue number one is actually quite impressive I must say. It’s a pretty neat little story here that’s bound to get incredibly brutal and bloody by it’s finish. Steve McNiven is easily one of my favorite current comic book artists and his work shines here.
The story is quite simple. Wolverine has lost his healing factor, he’s hiding out and there’s a bounty on his head. It seems that super powered killers are hot on his trail and the first real threat to arrive is Nuke, the star spangled psycho, who’s dead set on collecting some big time money. What we get here is a no holds barred classic Wolverine story, much like the ones I used to love as a teenager. There’s a pretty amazingly brutal sequence when Nuke and Wolverine go head to head, and I mean that literally that you’re not likely to forget any time soon. I’m on board with this one as it looks and feels much like the stories that they should have been telling all along.
I’m also looking forward to his return to Madripoor(hinted at the end of the issue), as well as seeing who else shows up to take out Wolverine. Razorfist? Wildchild? Bloodscream? Lady Deathstrike? Omega Red? I only hope it’s not Sabretooth. That guy should have stayed dead, having him kill Wolverine might be a little to cliche, though it’s certainly a strong possibility after reading issue number one. Let’s hope when they do bring Logan back from the dead, and they will, they give him one solo and one X-men book to star in. Use Logan wisely and make him more of what he used to be before. A lone wolf.
Lastly my complaints!! Okay this issue is $4.99, infact the other Marvel title I bought today was $4.99 as well, if this becomes the going rate of new weekly comic books I’m fucking outta here. This issue, though quite enjoyable was pretty thin on story. The panels keep getting bigger most pages only contain four panels, some three, some two and several full pagers. It’s got a two page splash as well.
This issue took me about five minutes to read. It looks thick, but it’s full of “Extras” a ton of random panel sketches, the “directors cut” which narrates what McNiven is supposed to draw each panel and five page interview with Co-creator Len Wein. Basically a bunch of stuff that should have been put online for free. For $4.99 an issue these comic book companies better bring MORE to the table. More story, bigger page count, and maybe smaller panels. This should have been a double sized issue. I think it’s time for the big two to pony up and give us readers more bang for our buck! I can’t afford FIVE dollar comic books every week nor do I want to spend that on any new comic book. What do you think?
Deadpool Test Footage: Does it Warrant a Full on Feature Flick?!
We all got to see the leaked footage of the test footage that was made with Ryan Reynolds voicing the character and it seems like it’s generating a lot of hype for a big screen solo adventure! I’m intrigued by this footage, as it came directly off a wretched portrayal of the character from probably the worst superhero flick of recent times, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But with that said the test footage was actually better than I expected. Fans all over are hoping that this idea will turn into a full fledged “R Rated” feature film, with a ton of gore and the typical Deadpool smart ass humor we all have come to expect from the character. However, today it’s been said that if it happens it WONT be rated R, it will be PG-13. It will generate far more money if they make it more kid friendly, that’s the motivation behind the rating.
So it really seems, with no surprise, that everything in Hollywood is indeed about money. The times are past when Hollywood just wanted to make an amazing movie and take any real risks. Today any superhero flick apparently needs to make an obscene amount of cash for it to be even considered. To me this is sad. I know it’s the world we live in today, but it’s too bad that it all revolves around making a big big buck. A movie like Blade which was rated R was made for 45 Million dollars, it made 131 million worldwide, but today those numbers just aren’t good enough. Today Hollywood is looking for four to five times that, as Iron Man made 582 million buckaroos. There’s a lot of cool movies being passed on these days (Hellboy 3 anyone?) because Hollywood doesn’t think they can make the money. But how much money is enough?!
Well in this case I’m certain that Deadpool will be made, and it just might be a damn good flick. However I miss the days when they might have made an awesome Deadpool flick without trying to market it to thirteen year olds. How many thirteen year olds do you know that read Deadpool anyway? Now let’s move on to the footage we all saw, I think it looked decent but why did we get a CG motion capture version of Deadpool?! This isn’t Roger Rabbit dammit! What’s wrong with having Reynolds in an actual costume? Is that too complex now? Designing an awesome costume that the actor actually has to put on? It seems to me that the whole motion capture thing is getting a bit out of hand, I fear that there will soon be no actual wardrobe or costuming for fantastic characters on the big screen. How about Ultron in the upcoming Avengers “Age of Ultron” did he really need to be motion capture? Have you ever seen C3PO? Or now what about Thanos? They couldn’t transform Brolin into the character with make up? I mean what if Ron Perlman didn’t get the make up for Hellboy-would he have been as convincing?
Lastly I really do hope we see a good Deadpool movie, I hope it’s wild and funny. That means that we need some good writers who know how to blend comedy with the genre. I’d take Edgar Wright on a project like that. In order to make Deadpool a success they need a lot more than him cracking wise ass jokes that simply aren’t funny. So this will all be interesting to see what comes to be with this one, they are on the right track I think, but they need to go a far distance from the movie he first appeared in to make it everything the fans love about the character…
The Incredible Hulk’s Sexual Frustration!
I had to share this rad little clip from College Humor being a huge Hulk fan i totally dug this one-Great little comedy on Bruce Banner’s frustrating sex life!! Check it out!!!
Comic Book Small Haul: The Savage Hulk #1 Goes Old School!!
Savage Hulk is a series I have been waiting for a long time and finally yesterday it graced the shelves of comic book shops everywhere. I have been seriously missing me some Hulk by way of new comic books lately. The last few Hulk titles have been pretty forgettable. I usually start off buying the first few issues and then well just don’t really end up giving a shit what happens next. That’s a problem I seem to be running into more and more with Marvel titles these days.
So here we have Savage Hulk #1 which is a pretty decent first issue and pretty cool as it ties in directly with an old X-men / Hulk storyline from 1970. So what we have here is a full on old school Hulk story, which is a breath of fresh air. We’ve got some great artwork as well by veteran artist Alan Davis, a favorite of mine in the 1980’s, which make this book even more legit. We’ve also got the X-Men in their old school 70’s costumes and The Leader in his old purple suit and my favorite look for him, his big long ass head! We also have a great alternate cover by Alex Ross which is downright amazing…
I think this series is headed for some fun, I’m not sure if they’re going to follow the old school story types but I’m kinda hoping they do. There’s a ton of fun in an old school Hulk story that’s been missing from a lot of the current stuff. So I’ll be back for issue #2 as it looks like we’re going to get some Abomination action as well. Savage Hulk is a solid start, but it by no means is gonna blow your mind as the story is very simple as we basically have the Hulk on the run from the Hulkbusters, Professor X determined to help free Banner of The Hulk and The Leader determined to screw up everyone’s plan. It’s also nice because we haven’t over the years really seen the X-men and the Hulk cross paths as much as they should. It also made me realize that The Leader and Professor X are perfect arch rivals, I hope we get to see them square off in a battle of the minds! So Hulk fans go check this one out!
Why Can’t Marvel Score a Smash Hit With The Hulk on the Big Screen?!
It seems that Mark Ruffalo has revealed that a new stand alone Hulk movie may in fact be coming sooner than we’ve all expected. It’s been a fact that Marvel hasn’t been confident that The Hulk has what it takes to be a smash hit on the same levels as Iron Man, Cap or Thor. They’ve already given the green guy two attempts and they’ve left viewers underwhelmed at the results. Personally I can’t say I’m a fan of the first one and the second one was passable, but as the full on Hulk fanatic that I am it didn’t quench my gamma thirst. His third appearance in The Avengers was by far the best, Ruffalo did an excellent job as Banner and finally Hulk looked real enough for me to not talk a bunch of shit here about him.
So what the hell is the problem here? It seems to me The Incredible Hulk should be an easy sell! I’ve been reading the hulk comic books since I was a little kid and it doesn’t seem like rocket science is involved to craft an awesome Hulk storyline! Seriously folks the Hulk and his stories should be simple and fun. There’s really no need to over think things. Perhaps that’s what the problem has been on each outing thus far? I think a great Hulk film should be jam packed with action, some cool villains and a somewhat simplistic plot. There should be equal Banner time/ Hulk time, you can’t really have too much of either or you’ll bore people with too much mindless action or too much screen time for the actor portraying Banner who thinks he deserves more face time.
Another thing that they should stop is trying to string the old 70’s series into the plot. That worked well back in the day because it was an ongoing television series and having Banner on the run was always quite intriguing. Plus Bill Bixby was a pitch perfect Banner and they need to stop trying to recreate his magic. Now if they were going to continue on with the rumored Guillermo Del Toro Hulk tv series that may be a different story altogether. However in a stand alone movie lets bring on a solid adventure for the green guy that’s fresh and not trying to rehash his Ferrigno days.
Another problem I believe with the movies, and I know many will disagree, is that it’s a hard thing for a live action movie to be driven by an entirely computer generated character who merely roars and grunts. Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk worked so well because he was REALLY there on screen acting and interacting with other people in all of his green paint and glory. He was real and you could feel real emotion there. So today trying to get the same results is very difficult with a CG lead character. Even in the Iron Man movies, much of the actual imagery of Iron Man was fully CG, however we always got those close ups of Tony Stark’s face in the armor, reminding us that yes, Iron Man is a real person. No matter how much you love modern CG it’s still poses problems for generating real characters with real emotion.
One solution to some of the Hulk’s big screen problems could be solved with giving the Hulk more intelligence, like he has often times in the comic books. Rather than just having him growl and roar, let Banner gain some control and let The Hulk speak. He can still in the heat of battle lose his cool and go into full on “Hulk Smash” angry toddler tantrum mode. But once a fully raging computer generated Hulk who can’t speak dominates the majority of screen time things the viewer is bound to disconnect a bit . So hopefully the next Hulk will have more going on in the noggin.
Finally pick some good supporting characters from the Hulk’s rich comic history. Let’s see Doc Samson with his green locks, let’s explore She-Hulk and add some Rick Jones into the mix! Most important let’s get some good villains into the mix. The Leader would be amazing and he’d also be a big enough baddie to cross over into an Avengers movie. Or how about The Absorbing Man, The Wrecking Crew, The Gremlin, The U-Foes or better yet Modok!? I’ve been itchin’ to see a big screen Modok for years and this would be the perfect platform to do so! I’m thinking the “Ms. Modok” storyline from the 80’s Incredible Hulk #286-290 would be terrifying on the big screen!
I’m also open to some classic Hulk stories, “Planet Hulk/World War Hulk” has been talked about quite a bit but might require too much set up, “Dogs of War” from 2001 would be a good one, but a good classic storyline could be from The Incredible Hulk mid 1980’s where Banner seemingly controls the Hulk. He even dresses like him for the first time (which was pretty funny) but later loses control and is cast off to a different dimension by Doctor Strange, these issues served as the actual inspiration for the Planet Hulk story many years later.
So my final thoughts are, though it might be difficult to pull of a simple, awesome Hulk adventure on the big screen I’m more than excited for them to give it another go. I felt Ruffalo did such a great job in the Avengers that I think the next Hulk movie is bound to be a hit. People clearly want it and if they don’t over think it, it’ll be the Hulk flick we’ve always dreamed of..
The Woods #1: One of the Best Debut Comic Books of Recent Times!
As far as debut issues of comic books go these days I’d say the Boom! Studios debut issue of ‘The Woods” is one of the best! It’s a great little sci-fi/horror story that involves an entire High School (yes the building and all of the students and faculty) being transported to a strange forest seemingly on another planet. That’s the least of their worries though as they soon find out they are not alone there. With no idea how or why this happened students and faculty go head to head with each other trying to figure out the best plan of survival. This is a great start to hopefully a great series, the first issue has a little bit of a “LOST” which I adore, being a giant fan of that tv series. It also reminds me a bit of the tv show because of the mysterious situation, which for the time being there is no explanation for that they have found themselves having to deal with. It leaves me wondering what’s next and longing to read the next issue. It’s a lot of fun, with fair parts of horror, gore and comedy mixed in at just the right amounts.
The artwork done by Michael Dialynas is also alot of fun here and adds to the strength of this debut. It’s a really great to find a good solid first issue and a new series to look forward too. I’m finding it harder and harder to find books I want to stick with by Marvel or DC. I actually realized that at the moment I am not reading ANY tltles by the big two. Now that could easily change at any moment, but it’s a bit shocking that I’m not absorbed into any title right now that they are offering and at four or even five bucks a pop now a comic book better be good!I am open to suggestions also because at that price it’s not exactly easy to sample the platter, as comic books can easily add up every week at these prices. So here’s a little comic I think is a safe bet, The Woods was a damn fine fun ride-check it out!
Universal Dork Weighs in on “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”!
Alright so there are a bout a billion reviews up online everywhere about the Amazing Spider-man 2, so I’m not going to spend a whole lot of energy here on this one. The movie really doesn’t need another review or any more hype at this point, but what the hell it’s my blog and I shelled out a Fandango gift card on it! Ok, so first let me state that my expectations weren’t very high for this one as I wasn’t a real big fan of the first flick. As I always do though, I try my best to go into a movie with an open mind. Besides this is Spidey we’re talking here, a guy I’ve loved dearly since being a lil’ whipper snapper!
I’m thinking now, that maybe if I’d seen this one as a little kid maybe my mind would have been blown. The Amazing Spider-man 2 is a huge ass movie. Two hundred million dollar budget. It’s close to two and a half hours long. It’s loud, flashy and jam packed with intertwining story lines. That’s my first problem with it, there’s too much going on. There’s too many subplots. The movie goes on a few too many tangents and then decides to go on a few more after that. Sony is clearly trying set up more movies (ala The Avengers syndrome) from this one and honestly it didn’t have a smooth flow to what should have been a nice tight knit compelling story.
Which leads me to my second problem, the writing. Spider-man 2 suffers from some seriously terd-tastic writing. Everything from Peter Parker’s stale on again off again relationship, to Paul Giamatti’s corny ass Rhino, to the awful Jamie Foxx Electro to Harry Osborn’s overnight meltdown. They’ve really managed to create some paper thin excuses for people to turn into supervillains these days. Foxx did his best with what he was given, but his dialogue was painful to watch and his reasoning for going evil was just plain uninspired. There was nothing believable about his character, I felt absolutely nothing for him nor cared of his motivations. His entire existence in the movie was rather idiotic to say the least.
Then we have The new Green Goblin, played by Dane Dehaan. He did quite a fine job in the role and clearly he’s got the acting chops. However his character’s motivations were also pretty flimsy. His all too quick transformation from good guy into an evil raving lunatic was a bit ridiculous. The prison scene where he recruits Electro to help him break into Oscorp was one of the worst team up moments I’ve ever seen on screen or in the comics. “You need ME? You need ME?!” Also I might note that once again I wasn’t a fan of the Goblin’s look onscreen. Sorry I just can’t get behind that robotic body armor schtick. It just well…sucks!
Lastly the action scenes, which there actually really weren’t that many of, were decently executed, but really took me out of the movie. It’s like watching a live action movie suddenly turn into Toy Story 2. The CGI in this flick was great, if the whole movie had been done that way (which they maybe should consider doing) and the last final Electro battle looked straight out of an Xbox game with not a real human actor in sight for at least over five minutes. No thank you. If I wanna watch a video game I’ll go play one at home.
On a good note I have grown to kinda like Garfield as Spidey. He’s a good actor and really did put his heart and soul into what he was given to work with. He’s a more convincing Spider-man, who’s really grown into the part. If someone could get a good script for a Spider-man film it’d be golden with him as Peter Parker. However what we get once again is an even more bloated, glittery, mindless mess of a summer blockbuster. That’s not to say I hated it, but I wouldn’t want to see it again. I like seeing images of Spider-man on a screen in front of me, but at best that’s about as far as this movie appeals to me. Oh yeah and what the fuck was that lame ass mid credit X-men advertisement?! The movie was called “The Amazing Spider-man 2” not “X-men: Days of Future Past” last time I checked….that was a low blow. Don’t do that again. Can we just hurry up on that Avengers sequel already?!!
Let’s Appreciate Bill Sienkiewicz on his Birthday!
Today is Bill Sienkiewicz’s Birthday and it’s as good a reason as any to celebrate the man’s existence as one of the best comic book artists of all time! To say his artwork is unique would probably be the biggest understatement you could come up with in the comic book universe. His jagged, frantic and often abstract work is unmistakable. Whenever you’d get a comic book cover or let alone an entire issue filled with his artwork you always knew you were in for a treat.
His work became a staple in the early 80’s where he drew black and white back up stories of Moon Knight in The Incredible Hulk magazine size comic books. He continued on with some of his most famous work for titles like The New Mutants and the legendary Elektra: Assassin miniseries amongst many others. So happy birthday Bill! Thanks for the incredibly original art all these years-Here’s hoping for much more of it in 2014! Here are a few of my personal favorite pieces of his comic book art!
Universal Dork 