Tagged: Marvel
My One Big Problem With ‘LOGAN’!
Holy Hell! I’ve got to make some time here to give some props to Hugh Jackman’s “last” run as Wolverine! I know everyone and their mom, dad & parakeet are talking about how great this movie is and yeah I agree it’s a glorious final chapter. They finally took the gloves off and let Wolverine be Wolverine. I find it funny how damn long it takes Hollywood to figure out what us comic book fanatics knew way back in the year 2000. We want our Wolverine to be a savage lil’ a-hole and you just can’t really do it with a PG-13 rating. So as you know by now obviously Logan is bloody, gritty and tonally different than any of the other movies. It’s a no BS affair, it’s personal and it has real heart. There are no giant CG robots or even a weak ass version of Sabretooth anywhere in sight. Nope Wolverine here is a cussin’, drinkin’, pissed off SOB and it’s great to finally see him the way he was more or less supposed to be all along. Sure he’s older and weaker here but hey I’ll take what I can get dammit!
Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier is amazing and so is Dafne Keen’s X-23. They both nearly steal the thunder from Logan time and time again throughout the movie. By now you’ve likely heard it ALL and probably seen the movie. It’s great and I’ll see it again, soon. BUT, yes there is a but here and it needs to be addressed (SPOILERS AHEAD). My biggest problem with ‘Logan’ was it’s villain/villains. That’s not to say I didn’t dig Donald Pierce and his Reavers, they were forgettably fine but let’s be honest they could have been AMAZING. When I heard that they were going up against Wolverine in this final flick I was fucking thrilled. The Reavers could have and should have been a seriously scary force to be reckoned with.
Sure Donald Pierce had a dinky lil’ cybernetic hand but he could have been a lot more like his counterpart from the comics with four cybernetic limbs & superhuman strength. They failed to make him a truly deadly opponent and the rest of The Reavers should have been modeled after the legendary comic book team. Imagine the original Reavers with an even deadlier Lady Deathstrike back again looking more like comic book counterpart. It should have been Logan and co taking on serious threats more similar to ‘The Terminator’. That would have been amazing. They missed an opportunity to really bring us the psychotic cyborgs we deserved to see. They gave us a lot of throwaway soldiers for him and x-23 to mow down sure, but none of them served any other purpose than just that.
The real threat here was X-24, a villain that to me felt as about exciting as “Deadpool” from X-men Origins: Wolverine. I was really disappointed to see a Hugh Jackman ‘clone’ as the big bad muscle of the movie. That was a serious mis-step in my opinion. I only say this because we could have gotten any number of amazing Wolverine villains in his place. Imagine for a second that their secret weapon was Omega Red?! Or Cyber? Daken? Razorfist? Heck even a bigger badder version of Sabretooth would have been welcome.
My point being we really didn’t need any of them, we already had Donald Pierce and The Reavers. They could have supplied us with all sorts of frightening cybernetic mayhem. Instead they went the overused “fight your clone / fight yourself” route. Ahhh well what can I say, I am a picky comic book bastard. It just irritates me that they got so close to me having to just shut the fuck up and admit perfection. At least they finally got ol’ Wolvie right. It took them seventeen years to figure it all out and I’m damn glad they did. This is clearly a groundbreaking movie that’ll change the way comic book movies are made from this point on. Don’t get me wrong I give ‘Logan’ a solid A-, but in the future though let’s give the same care to the villains as we do to the heroes cuz a hero’s only as good as his villain! Oh yeah one more thing I highly doubt this is the last time we’ll see Mr. Jackman in the role of Logan, this movie is a box office smash and we all know money talks…why stop now anyway when you finally figured it all out?!!
Extra! Extra! A Collection of Superheroes Punching Nazis!
Punching Nazis is all the rage these days! It’s never been a more popular thing than right now and while I really don’t want to condone punching anyone, I’ll admit that I’m not particularly saddened when I find out that it happens! This whole punching Nazis thing is nothing new, especially in comic books. So here’s some great images to satisfy that urge to kick some Racist Nazi booty! Take a scroll down and get it out of your system for the moment! Again I don’t condone violence, but hey what’s not to love about seeing a good nazi knock out in the comics?! Yeeehaw lets go!
Hellboy 3: Will It Really Finally Happen?!
Hellboy 3 has from nowhere, suddenly become a real possibility and I’m pretty damn excited about it! I’ve been ranting about getting a third movie made here for a long ass time and with Guillermo del Toro’s recent fan fueled poll bringing the movie back into the limelight it seems it now has a real chance of happening. The movie has been talked about now for almost a decade and because it didn’t make a killing at the box office, making a third movie has been a tough sell for those big greedy Hollywood Studios. Over the years however the popularity of the unique oddball superhero franchise and comic book have gained quite a bigger following than they had back in 2008. So it could it finally be time for Hellboy to get the praise he deserves? I’d certainly say so!
For me the comic book series and all of it’s offshoot titles that Mike Mignola has produced over the years remain to me the most solid superhero comics of the past decade. Though the movies and the Hellboy comic series differ in many ways, mainly in terms of comedy, I think the movies did a great job delivering the heroic demon to the masses. The characters look absolutely amazing and del Torro is likely the one responsible for that. Ron Perlman fits the part like no other could and the rest of the crew like Abe Sapien, Johann Krauss & Liz Sherman couldn’t be represented any better in my opinion. The movies perhaps give us a bit of a lighter side of things than what you will see in the comics and added some romance into the story (which I actually kind of like as the Mignola comics rarely touch on that aspect of things) while visually making the seemingly impossible come vibrantly to life. I don’t think there’s a director I would have trusted more with Hellboy. Continue reading
Comic Cover of the Week: Bill & The New Mutants!
Damn was The New Mutants was an awesome comic book of the 80’s and one of the things that adds immensely to it’s street cred were the amazing covers that Bill Sienkiewicz produced. Here picture is one of many stunning pieces of artwork that graced the series covers. Most of his artwork on The New Mutants was pretty intense, dreamlike and often frightening. New Mutants #18 is a prime example of how hard Bill was killing it back in the day. If you want a real treat check out his run on the series in 1983 starting with issue #18 and ending with #31. Perhaps I’ll compile all of the covers here in one post. They just don’t make ’em like this anymore…
Comic Cover of the Week: Marvel’s Classic Anthology Series!
Marvel Comics Presents was a cool anthology series from 1988 that really kickstarted the first Wolverine solo series that same year. This started one of my favorite eras of the character where he took the nickname “Patch” and hung out on the mythical island of Madripoor for some truly grand adventure.
Marvel Comics Presents #1 features the start of the ‘Save The Tiger’ storyline, which is pretty awesome and has some great artwork by John Buscema and features Wolverine going up against the classic Shang-Chi villain Razorfirst. The series featured four, eight page stories from four different superheroes Wolverine remaining at the forefront for most of it’s run.
This particular cover was always a favorite of mine, features some awesome artwork by Walt Simonson and has Wolverine, Shang-Chi, a gigantic Man-Thing and the Silver Surfer. It’s a full cover front and back. What a great cast and an epic cover from a great era!
Comic Cover of the Week: Rob Liefeld Gets it Right – Part 2!
So yesterday I did a post on Rob Liefeld, this time celebrating the times when he actually did a cool piece of artwork. I had a some people who challenged it and STILL claimed Rob’s work was filled with flaws. Well here’s “round 2” a more recent cover of Rob’s – a variant cover for Deadpool #13. I’m right now thinking this is cover is actually pretty good. In fact I almost didn’t believe he actually created it! I’ll admit yesterday’s Liefeld cover being one of his more solid pieces really wasn’t that incredibly impressive. So to all those out there that STILL think Rob can’t rise to the occasion and do some decent doodling what do you think of this?!
Superheroic Thanksgiving!
We never really think that things like Thanksgiving and Comic books go together, but hey comic book characters have gotta take some time off to spend some time breaking bread together right? Well here’s a few cool images of some of the icons spending turkey day together-check it out!
Justice League Dark: More Forgettable R-Rated Animation from DC?
So it seems that DC is really giving the whole R-Rated comic book cartoon thing a shot these days and after seeing how The Killing Joke turned out I’m really pretty skeptical. The Killing Joke movie should have been amazing, it really didn’t need to be a full feature film either. It could have worked as 45 minute short flick. It really tried way to hard to flesh out Barbara Gordon with a flimsy story that had little to do with the plot of the comic and an unnecessary “racy” sex scene with Batman (to give it that edge it thought it needed for some reason). Pair that with some pretty flat animation and what you’ve got is a totally forgettable cartoon adaptation to steer clear of.
Well now we’ve got another attempt from DC to get gritty with the animated Justice League Dark. Normally I’d be super pumped on the idea but after that Killing Joke cartoon I’m wondering if the R-rated cartoon is something DC really is really excelling at? There’ve been some attempts from Marvel to make more adult friendly adaptations over the years that were honestly pretty forgettable as well, so I’m not just faulting DC.
An animated Justice League Dark film should by all means be something to be truly excited about. I think the people behind these animated features should be putting some serious time behind the artwork and the detail of it all. They should be producing animation with quality and perhaps even adding more frames for a much more impressive outcome. It seems though the animation isn’t much better than a standard Saturday morning cartoon. The quality should shine in 2016, these animated comic movies should be easily on par with the classics. Think of Akira, Fire & Ice or The Secret of Nimh, these were animated movies that were unforgettable. There’s no reason why Marvel or DC can’t be creating true animated superhero classics. From this new trailer I’d say it looks like we might be in for another mediocre slice of R-rated animation. What do you think?
That Time When Captain America Ran for President?!
Well it’s officially election day and it’s been one helluva mess this election season that’s for sure! It seems like this election has been going on forever and even stranger are the two candidates at the forefront of it all. Both Trump & Clinton are the most disliked candidates in ALL of American history. It seems that the people just couldn’t find and honest or non-offensive person any where near the Democratic or Republican party in 2016 (Wait there was a guy called Bernie Sanders running at one point). It made me remember a classic comic way back from 1980, Captain America #250. Yeah that’s when Steve Rogers gave serious consideration of running for president as Captain America. Now there’s an unbeatable candidate huh? I’d like to see Trump or Hillary try to win that contest!
I really liked the idea of Cap running, and it was cool that in this issue he was hanging out with a third party called the Populist Party whom he save from a terrorist attack. He’s given the idea by them that he himself should be indeed running for President as their candidate. Cap at first thinks it’s a bit of a foolish idea but then gets to really thinking about it and starts giving it some serious consideration. The newspapers get wind and begin printing stories about his campaign, which pushes Rogers even further into thought about it.
Reporters & people are going nuts around the idea and I guess you could say the ‘Cap for Prez’ movement started going “viral”! He talks to his fellow Avengers about it and get their feedback, some supportive and others discouraging. In the end he decides against it, realizing he’d be really unable to fight for America the way he does best. Perhaps he just needs to wait until he’s like seventy years old like most politicians?!
It’s a great issue and if there’s ever been the perfect time to read it I’d say it would be tonight! It’s got a truly iconic cover & art by John Byrne and this issue always just begged for a ‘What If?’ story- “What if Captain America did indeed run for President?” Anyway check out Cap # 250 it’s a total classic. I hope in 2020 Steve Rogers finally reconsiders and comes back on the scene for the Populist Party!
Happy Halloween: The Creepiest Superheroes of ALL Time!
It’s Halloween officially today and it’s time to take a look at some of the creepiest superheroes of all time. We all know most superheroes are usually super pretty, handsome & wholesome, but not all of them folks. There are some creepy heroes out there willing to put their necks on the line for the earth against evil. They’re not enough of them in my opinion this Halloween let’s take a look at a few that deserve their time in the spotlight!
The Son of Satan
Yeah sure the Son of Satan is a bit of a pretty boy but hey who cares he’s the muthafuckin’ son of the damn Devil!! Daimon Hellstrom appeared way back in 1973 in Ghost Rider and started out as an occult investigator and exorcist. This guy is legit and even battled his dad a few times too. He had a tough time getting used to living among humans but hey props to the son of the devil for giving it an honest shot!
Lilith Drake
Here we have another sibling of evil, Marvel’s Lilith Drake is the daughter of Dracula and she vowed that her life goal would be to kill him! She’s a bit of a confused character for good reasons and has clashed with other superheroes while trying resist her blood lust. She’s also though teamed up with the likes of Brother Voodoo and Doctor Strange. At the end of the day you just really don’t wanna mess with Dracula’s spawn because you can never be sure what type of mood she’ll be in when you cross paths!
Brother Voodoo
I love Brother Voodoo, he appeared way back in 1973 and he’s gone down in Marvel history as Doctor Strange’s equal. With a real name as cool as Jericho Drumm it’s clear this guy is the real deal. Where ever there’s some creepy as shit going down you can bet Brother Voodoo isn’t far behind. In 2009 he replaced Doctor Strange as Sorcerer Supreme, Brother Voodoo is legit and needs more love in the Marvel Universe.
Spawn Continue reading
Universal Dork 