Marvel Super Heroes = Celbrities?

Comic By Comic has a great post about celebing up the Marvel Universe. Check it out then return for my two cents.

I totallly agree with all of Rich's points, he's got the archetypes right and it's interesting that this really can't work on a total universe wide scale with DC like it could with marvel. Marvel comics has always had the aspect to its universe that there is a public at large and it may not fall in love with superheroes the way that they do in Metropolis.

The best example of using celbrity in superhero comics is Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's X-Statix. Which as I have said before is one of my favorite comic runs ever. This book really looks at the superhero life as more celebrity driven than heroic.

What no one ever talks about though is the celebrity associated with villainy. How would the world deal with some one like the Shocker or Rhino as a role model for troubled youth? Would Hank Pym go on the surreal life? Does America still root for Moon Knight after 9/11? Hasn't there also been some super hero story lines based around superhero paparazzi? Wow this post sucks I ended up rambling alot. Rich is a lot better than me.

Near Miss!

Old Man Logan #2 comes out tomorrow and I'm pretty hyped. I almost missed the first issue but thanks to a cover of the week nod by nick, i checked it out in the store and after perusing the art was sold. 

OLD MAN LOGAN! is the coolest freaking book out there. Millar is really owning the comic book industry. He's delivering a lot of fun cool stories. Between 1985, Kick-Ass and this. I think it's safe to call myself a Millar fan especially after reading Wanted. 

Imagine Wolverine as a pacifist in a post-apocalyptic Marvel Universe. The giant villain uprising that happens in Wanted is now applied to the Marvel Universe. 

 

Only Marvel's villains are too gawdy to run the world in secret peacefully. They have to own it publicy and feud against each other.

 The Hulks redneck kids were a joy.

 

Wow all of the Hulks offspring are dangerous.

 

By the way, Wolverine has a son named Scott! LOL!

pre-dark Knight

I can't believe that tonight I finally get to see The Dark Knight. This is the movie that has really become the focus of the summer. It's insane to realize that next week you'll be able to watch Iron Man, The Hulk, Hellboy, and Batman films back to back plus you can also see Wanted(which I don't recommend, but it's based on comic). Is this the best nerd summer. I think so I can't remember enjoying so many movies. Iron Man, Hulk, and Hellboy have been great. I can't imagine the Dark Knight not being good.  

Enjoy this Joker VS. Joker Vid it's not as good as the Battle of the Batmans but it reminded me of my all time favorite Joker line. 

"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moon light?"

Have you? Are you watching The Dark Knight at midnight?

I liked Batman Gotham Knight

In anticipation of The Dark Knight tonight. Here is my Gotham Knight review. 

I am not an anime fan but i really enjoyed this batman. The stories were well constructed and fun. Kevin Conroy voices Batman and Bruce and shows once again why he is the best voice for Batman ever. Nothing ground breaking but solid Batman tales with emphasis on the way that different people see what they want to to in Batman, but I'm getting ahead of myself lets break it down. Usually I break it down to 6 reasons I enjoyed it. Since this film is six short stories I'm just going to review each part on it's own.

Batman Gotham Knight

"Have I Got A Story For You" - Great Story. It's kind of a classic Batman style to show how kids imagine Batman. I espeically enjoyed the Marvel version of Batman that is in an Ironman Suit and jumps around like the Hulk. 

"Crossfire" - Crispus Allen meets animation. I like him as the spectre in the comics and he works in this short with out the ghost. Montoya isn't in this instead we get some other female cop named Ramirez. The gotham crime families are on display and the way the cops view Batman is shown in a fresh way that helps build the movie universe up. 

"Field Test" - This was one of the better stories. It showed some neat tech. It's cool to see Batman decide that he has to be vulnerable to fight crime the way that's right. 

"In Darkness Dwells" - Anime Gotham Sewers are awesome. Killer Croc was pretty lame and was just a rampaging monster. Scarecrow sported a great outfit and the scythe he was tossing around were very slick. I like the pacing in the story but I wish they had done Killer Croc better.

"Working Through Pain" - I felt this story was the weakest of them all. It was confusing. I thought the guns in the garbage can was some metaphor and that Bruce was hallucinating in his pain but it wasn't so it felt kind of lame. The parts of Bruce remembering his training is kind of lame and not very captivating. 

"Deadshot" - Deadshot is truly the anti-Batman. The two are evenly matched despite Deadshot's heavy armaments.

 

The anime Deadshot is more weaselly than the justice league version and I wasn't very impressed with his costume design.

  

The train fight was pretty cool and had a very epic feel which I dug.

 The ending is perfect with Batman looking up into the Bat-Signal pondering his parents death.

 

Also it's interesting to see Bruce admire the beauty of a gun. 

 

What did you think of Batmanime?

THE READ PILE - 6/11/08 in REVIEW

Sorry I wasn't around last week but I was working like mad. Also, Venture Bros is amazing. Long, live the venchman. Since their was no read pile last week I'm going to give you reviews. Anything I don't have much to say on will get either a GO SPPEED GO!! (which is a recommendation) or a NO SPEED NO!!(which is an anti-recommendation) 

GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #9 Go!

ACTION COMICS #866 Go! Pick this up its starting off a cool arch and Johns is fantastic. The art by Gary Frank is beautiful and perfect.

HUNTRESS YEAR ONE #3 (OF 6) Go!

 

SALVATION RUN #7 (OF 7) This series got progressively worse.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #25 Go!

TITANS #3 Go! I love this cover it reminds me of Star Wars and I like how winick is playing with the characters it's interesting watching them juggle.

TRINITY #2 Go! This series is starting off strong. 

BOOSTER GOLD #10  Go!

IRON MAN LEGACY OF DOOM #3 (OF 4) No! The totally out of character writing of Doom is frustrating. Writers nowadays right Doom like he's a pleb or pedestrian and not the monarch, aristocrat that he is. 

LAST DEFENDERS #4 (OF 6) No! 

SECRET INVASION WHO DO YOU TRUST Go! This is what regualr Secret Invasion should be. Pick this book up the Wonderman Beast story is worth the cover price alone.

 

SKAAR SON OF HULK #1 No! This didn't blow me awys but there is potential. 

TWELVE #6 (OF 12) Go! The Phantom Reporter is back!!

TINY TITANS #5 No! I enjoy it but I don't know if this book is worth what I spend on it.

Relevant Issues

Chris Schweizer has a great rundown of the Marvel Universe's biggest smokers.

My favorites that he lists are in no particular order.

GAMBIT - for obvious reasons.

REED RICHARDS - It's as if the pipe were invented for his nerdy stretchy face.

J. JONAH JAMESON - No type of smoking goes better with screaming growling menace like a fat stubby cigar and J.J. owns it.

BANSHEE - The cigarrette enhances his European-ness. It also shows of his pubby beer drinking side. Is Banshee dead?

ELECTRO & BULLSEYE - Smoking enhances their villainy and menace. It takes them from costumed clowns to realistic seedy criminals. You can easily imagine them in prison bartering for smokes or smoking a cigarette after a bank heist to relax.

Why bring this up?

Because some groups have taken offense to how William Hurts character in The Incredible Hulk was smoking. That is ridiculous the type of props and vices a character has enhances the character. It delivers quickly and clearly the type of person the character is with out to much work. This is a free speech issue. I understand not wanting to tell kids smoking is cool, but it's not the hero smoking it's the villain.

Come on?

Who are your favorite Comic book smokers?

HELL'S YEAH! I like GAMBIT.

Recently, Swinebread, who holds some what anti-Gambit beliefs, asked me why I enjoyed the character?

Also tomorrow X-men Legacy is going to feature him prominently so here's a Gambit post. 

I began my comics life with the 1990's x-men cartoon. Gambit was featured prominently on the show. He was attracted to Rogue, so was I.

 

The fact that he's a smoker is one of the reasons I like him. Not many superheroes smoke cigarettes, he's almost a villain and a bit of a cowboy. He has a unique sense of honor. H e has a wierd costume that I'm not sure serves a purpose but it does look pretty cool. 

He's like the Han Solo or Sawyer of the X-men team. He's not a boy scout he's a bad boy. He's maybe the second most bad-ass character on the X-team after Wolverine. 

He's a thief and he has skills beyond his mutation. He has so much destructive power but doesn't use it. He uses playing cards! 

He is in total control of his ability. You never hear about gambit accidentally blowing some one up. Gambit is pure Bad ass incarnate.

 

How do you feel about Gambit?

Interpreting Y-the Last Man part 2

The inspiration for the last post incase you didn't figure it out was actually the way Jules explains the Ringo Honey Bunny situation in Pulp Fiction.

Y is also as fond of Pulp Fiction as I am as you can see.

So where was I, STAR WARS! Why Star Wars for interpreting Y? If you look at the Matrix that is layed out with elements and story beats from all the faiths and philosophies of the world, it is easy to draw parallels and give a work of fiction emotional weight based on the strengths of other writings. Not only does it add weight but depth. So basically whenever I see a young writer try to tell a scifi coming of age story I have to draw as many parallels as possible from Star Wars. As I deduced last post, the Boba Fett of the story wielding the force is simply not a satisfactory ending. Hero does not deserve love, maybe it's because I read the series in a short span of time and not five years, the wounds of her first betrayal and murder still run deep for me.

Another beef I have with the story is the Sisko-ing of Yorrick. (Comic Book Weekness Made-up words: Siskoing is defined(by me) as the process by which a main character shaves his head in order to show maturity and growth. This is of course a reference to Captain Sisko of Deep Space Nine, who shaved his head halfway through the series run amking his character cooler more bad ass and open to debate on who is the better bald Starfleet Captain, but I digress.) So Yorrick at the end of his journey shaves his head, because he is going bald. He looks totally ridiculous to me with a shaved head and I'd imagine the Yorrick from page one of Unmanned would agree. Also the Sisko-ing just makes me draws parallels between Yorrick and Vaughn that I rather not make. As a fiction writer I feel like all my characters are aspects of my own personality, no one character can represent all that is me. So I really hope that Yorrick does not represent all that is Vaughn and he isn't a total surrogate for Vaughn in the story, because it makes me uncomfortable. Also making the trek move with character growth kills the Star Wars parallels and jumbles the message. If Yorrick is Sisko/Quark, the world without men is DS9, 355 is Casidy Yates/Bajoran Beliefs , Dr. Mann is Odo, Hero is the Klingon Empire/Martok/ Worf, Beth #1 is the Prophets, Beth #2 is Jake Sisko?, and Alter is Gol Dukat. Okay this doesn't work either because the Klingon Empire cannot becom the Emmisary of the Prophets.

I think what I'm trying to say is Star Wars is like the christianity of nerds and Star Trek is like the Judaism of nerds. In interpreting science fiction those are the two sources you go to for understanding and deconstructing story. Maybe I'll elaborate on this whole Christianity Vs. Judaism thing but not now.

By the way I'm a Trekkie, oy vey.

Just so you guys can prepare yourselves, next week is the debut of Y-movie lines day. Every thursday we will be looking at the best lines in Y-the Last Man.

All New Atom #23: Remender's got Nards

If you don't understand the title then you've never seen the cult classic The Monster Squad. Click the vid and get caught up.

So no one has talked about the All New Atom from a couple of weeks ago or Remender. Am I the only person who is still on this title? It's a pretty wild issue and I think he might've finally won me over but he has to tread carefully. He won me over not for character work like Gail did it's for a zany plot. It's a little dark for this Atom than were used to but it's zany. Spoilers ahoy mates! If you haven't read it and plan on reading it turn back now.

All New Atom #23

So Ryan has been sucked into the giant monster which is actually an organism or parasite or something that has infected his body. There's alot of techno babble I don't really understand. Eitherway he's stuck in some type of microverse that is all trippy and weird and filled with giant monsters.

Ryan is in  a pretty cool bio-suit and is going all John Woo on the monsters.

When he stumbles upon an interesting bit of forshadowing. 

There is going to be some chick Chronos and the Atom is going to kill her inside of this microplace. Before Ryan can process his own demise he is ambushed by some castaway type badass who turns out to be...Panda. That's right Ryan's fat, funny, sidekick is now a ripped bearded man of action.

Not only is he ripped but the chick that Ryan has been crushing on for two issues who is dressed like a sexy Wilma from the Flintstones is now Panda's girlfriend eat that Ryan. 

Rest of the issue goes on with the standards stranded in a harsh environment plot, running from monsters, fighting monstaers, and red shirts being eaten to give a little sense of danger.

Ryan interacts with Ivy Town's citizens but one a-hole citizen is very pissed at Ryan for getting him stuck there and letting his girlfriend die. 

So he shoots Ryan in the face with his own ray-gun. 

Remender even promises next issue will feature Booster Gold.

Words of caution to Remender:

By the end of your arch Panda better be fat, loveable, and totally un-badass or else I will be pissed. As far as Ryan getting shot in the face, he better not die and as for using Booster Gold next issue DON'T MESS HIM UP! Also take it easy with the technobabble and give me more floating head. Other than that keep up the good work, wild plot twists, and hot chick Chronos.