Author: Robert Greenberger

It seemed fairly inevitable that as super-heroes and graphic novels grew more prevalent for younger readers, there’d be a greater variety in presentation. Jake Bell and Chris Giarrusso have come up with something a little bit different: young adult prose books with 8-page comic sections.

Bell, an experienced writer, offers up [[[The Amazing Adventures of Nate Banks]]], comic book expert and middle school student in the new Scholastic series. The first two volumes were simultaneously released this month to give readers a chance to enter and immerse themselves in Nate’s colorful world.

The precipitating event is the arrival of [[[Ultraviolet]]]], a brand new super-heroine in the small suburban community of Kanigher Falls. Her arrival prompts speculation over who she is and why the community, which lacked its own resident metahuman. The world of Nate Banks is one filled with super-heroes and the requisite super-villains where people accept their presence.

Book one, [[[Secret Identity Crisis]]], is all set up and introductory material so we meet Nate, his family, his friends, and his teachers while also giving us the early days of  Ultraviolet. The second volume, [[[Freezer Burned]]], picks up a short time later as Coldsnap comes to town ostensibly seeking a valuable diamond on display but Nate figures out there’s more to his scheme.

The books are nicely constructed and written. While many of the twists and turns are telegraphed and therefore lack surprise, the stories move along briskly and expand this inventive world that clearly pays homage to beloved comic book creators from Jack Kirby to Steve Gerber.

Bell fails, though, to create original and interesting characters. Nate is a fine protagonist but his friends and family all come from a stock company. Most have little or anything to do or say that don’t further the story and lack any sense of dimension. The same for Ultraviolet, the town’s hero and budding friend to Nate, who actually has less to do in book two than she should.

The comic sections provide additional background and information to each story. Giarrusso, an incredibly talented and funny writer/artist in his own right, does a nice job here and on the covers.

This series is off to a solid if unspectacular start. If more arrive, hopefully Bell will deepen the supporting cast and offer up some truly interesting characters and complications.

(more…)

For geeks like us here at ComicMix, a real-life mash-up can be too good to be true. So, the notion of Captain Jean-Luc Picard sharing the same stage as The Doctor is just too good to be true, even if it means watching yet another production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

What many forget, though, is that Stewart is a classically trained actor so this is like mother’s milk to Sir Patrick. Tennant is also an accomplished performer and Shakespeare veteran who most certainly has greater range than what we’ve been familiar with these last five years (I strongly recommend you all go find [[[Einstein and Edington]]] to see what I mean).

When the two genre icons appeared on stage in London, it stirred up quite a buzz. Better yet, it was recorded and broadcast just last week on PBS’ [[[Great Performances]]].

Recognizing the new era we consume entertainment in, PBS immediately made the full show available on their website and this week, BBC Entertainment released the event on standard DVD and Blu-Ray.

I’ll confess: I am not a fan of the Bard’s tragedies, having more to do with the format and its requirements that everyone dies unhappily at the end, requiring things to happen that make little sense. Anyway, this rendition by the Royal Shakespeare Company cleverly transports the setting from 17th Century Denmark to the 21st Century with Tennant as Hamlet and Stewart as Claudius.

As directed for the screen, the three hour production is visually arresting with lots of interesting angles as selected by director Gregory Doran.

Tennant has been singled out for his interpretation of the great Danish prince, with some critics hailing this as the performance of a generation. I’ll leave that to the experts, but it was certainly engaging, making me forget all about the Time Lord, despite his loopy ploy. In jeans and mostly bare feet, he looks more slacker than royalty.

Stewart more than holds his own as the newly appointed King, who quickly marries Queen Gertrude (Penny Downie) while Hamlet is away from court. His sterling work was recognized with the Olivier Award, the British equivalent of the Tony Award.

Interestingly, Stewart played Claudius before, three decades earlier in a different television production, but is continually drawn to the character. “Claudius is a great role because it is a depiction of a gifted, intelligent, bold man destined to be a great ruler who missed out and, as a result of missing out, chose a wicked option to achieve the life he wanted,” Stewart told the press. Strutting around the nourish sets in expensive dark suits, he is every bit the master of his domain.

There are some nice extras including a 40-minute featurette on adapting the stage show for the screen. You can also gain additional insights from the audio commentary anchored by Doran along with Director of Photography Chris Seagar and producer Sebastian Grant.

If it takes a starship captain and a Time Lord to get you to watch this, so be it, but you won’t be disappointed.

I have enjoyed [[[Iron Man]]] as a character since discovering the Marvel super-heroes through the limited animation shows of the 1960s. That led me to the comics and so on. All along, shellhead has been one of my favorite characters so you can imagine my delight at the Jon Favreau film and the chance to write an original novel adventure.

I’ve been looking forward to this week’s sequel and no surprise; have been sent his animated adventures for review. When the live-action film came out two years ago, the mainstream press kept referring to him as a lesser known character and that may have been true to film critics, but he’s been a well-known television character for decades.

After all, he was seen in the 1960s series plus a guest appearance on [[[Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends]]], before gaining his own half-hour show as part of the Marvel Action Hour from 1994-1996. He has guest starred on other Marvel animated shows, had his own animated feature and most recently, the youthful [[[Armored Adventures]]] show. Not too shabby.

His 26 episode series from the 1990s is available this week as a three-disc set from Disney Home Entertainment. The two 13 episodes are quite different yet neither are very good. On the one hand, the series hews very closely to the comic book look and feel of the era.  The details, though, are very different starting with the green-skinned Mandarin as the main foe throughout. The Golden Avenger’s familiar foes all seem to be work for him as does a diminutive and poorly characterized MODOK. It’s the Mandarin who captures the injured Stark as revealed in the two-part origin story so it focuses their enmity from the beginning, not entirely unlike what Favreau is setting up in the films. Perhaps the biggest origin alteration is that slivers of metal threaten his spine, not his heart. Is it better or more plausible? Maybe.

Rather than focus the series on Tony Stark and his armored alter ego, it includes the West Coast Avengers, er, Force Works so time is given over to War Machine, Century, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and Spider Woman. Julia Carpenter becomes Tony’s romantic interest complete with engagement, so that’s different.

(more…)