Want some action? We’ve got plenty from two guys who know to create it. From SPAWN to FALCON RISING, Michael Jai White has never shied away from the heat and he proves it again with his new film, SKIN TRADE. Plus Christian Kane balances the thrills in THE LIBRARIANS, but proves his musical side in the new project 50 TO ONE. Now, think about it – wouldn’t he make a great Wolverine? WE ask for his reaction to that.
Lucky for me, it was the “friends and family” screening of <a href=”
Age of Ulton.
First of all, I was lucky because I got to go. I was lucky to hear Joe Quesada introduce the film, not only because he was amusing but he was gracious enough to thank the event planners before he thanked the Hollywood bosses. Trust me, as someone who has worked events for more than 20 years, it’s unusual when someone says “Thank you.” He also thanked all the people who worked on the books, the source material for the movies.
And I was lucky because of the audience. The people in Manhattan’s Ziegfeld Theater on Tuesday were Marvel (and Disney) employees, freelancers, and their plus-ones. It was the kind of audience that cheered the coming attractions (Ant-Man), of course. They cheered the created-by credits. They cheered Stan Lee. From their cheers, I could tell that I picked up all the Easter eggs, thrown in for the fans in the audience by the fans who made the film.
The film. How was it? There may be SPOILERS, depending on how you define the term, although I will try to avoid the big ones.
If you haven’t seen the first Avengers movie, you might have some problems jumping into the plot of this one. If you haven’t seen any of the Iron Man, Thor or Captain America movies, you may miss a few key character developments. And if you didn’t watch Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this week, you missed the set-up.
None of this was a problem for me. I’m going to guess, given the name of this site, that it isn’t a problem for you either.
The plot, as you might surmise from the title, concerns the creation of Ultron, using the Infinity Stone from Loki’s staff (from the first Avengers movie) and Tony Stark’s tech. Ultron runs amok, and the rest of the movie involves our heroes trying to stop him/it. As they do, they first fight and then team-up with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. In the process, many, many places suffer severe damage, including Wakanda.
(During the fight in Wakanda, our heroes must deal with the local police and, later, the military. In both cases, the first faces we see in uniform are white. Given <a href=”
events, this took me out of the narrative for a beat.)
If I approach this review with my English class lessons, it is difficult to describe. There is no single protagonist, no character who has a transformative story arc. My future husband, Robert Downey, Jr., and the other heroes with their own film franchises (i.e. Captain America and Thor) do very little other than fight and trade quips, once they get past the exposition parts of the dialogue.
Instead, the revealing character moments belong to the Hulk, to <a href=”
, and the Black Widow. If anything is going to rile up the fanboys, it is the changes the movie makes to Hawkeye. Since I haven’t followed the character in the comics (although I’ve enjoyed a bunch of the new version), I wasn’t offended. I think it works for the character in the movie. It explains a lot about his relationship with Black Widow.
Here’s my favorite thing about the version of the Black Widow we get in these movies, a part of her character I credit to Joss Whedon (based on Buffy and Firefly): she not only holds her own with the male characters, but she has relationships with them that are collegial, not romantic. She is, first and foremost, a friend and an ally. While there seems to be some suggestion that she and Bruce Banner might click, even that possibility comes from the trust and respect they have for each other as teammates, not hot bodies.
Ultimately, The Avengers: Age of Ultron suffers from the fate of most middle films in a trilogy. There can’t be a real resolution because then there would be no need for the third movie. Still, there are a lot of pretty people doing a lot of pretty spectacular things, with plenty of explosions and lots and lots of fight scenes in exotic scenery.
Go. You’ll have a good time. Just don’t try to write an English theme about it.
It’s not like we don’t fight — because we do, all sisters do — but we usually don’t have any problems with our pop culture picks. We like a lot of the same things most of the time.But Jem seems to start a lot of arguments.Maddy absolutely adores Jem, while Anya does not.So, even though reviewing the new Jem comic from IDW risks a potential Tweeks Civil War, we did it anyway. So, yeah, you might sense a little friction in this week’s review — but actually, surprisingly, Jem and the Holograms Issue 1 written by Kelly Thompson was universally Tweeks Approved!
I guess I should put some kind of SPOILER WARNING right here, up front. Isn’t that a rule?
So Arrow has made a devil’s deal with Ras Al Ghul and, in exchange for his sister’s life, agreed to become one of Ras’s League of Assassins. What next? I’ll be watching the CW on Wednesday night to find out, but in your time zone, that was yesterday.
The storyline is based on one that appeared in Batman some years ago. Adapting a Batman plot to the Arrow really isn’t much of a stretch – the characters, though impressive, are both thoroughly human and operate pretty much on the same scale. (I’m tempted to call it “mythic” but that might be edging toward pomposity so let’s settle for “primordial” and get on with it. Or is “primordial more pompous than mythic?)
The Arrow creative folk are basing their drama on the old Batman continuity to which I contributed, but they’re taking the basic ideas further and in the process making improvements. As I was watching the show I wondered if those improvements occurred to me, way back when. Almost certainly not. Why? Well, uh…maybe because they break, or broke, some of the rules of superhero writing. And where, exactly, did I learn these rules? Were they written down, maybe on the walls of the publishing office? Given to me as part of a “welcome aboard” package? Or did some paternal executive, kindly eyes twinkling behind rimless glasses, take me aside and explain the facts of life to the new kid?
Nope, nope, and nope.
My best guess is, I intuited them, or figured them out, from the comic books I’d read. This, obviously, was how things were done. I’m not talking about sex or violence – we knew those had to be approached gingerly because of the times we were living in and that was no problem; I didn’t, and don’t, yearn to splash hormones and blood across the pages of comics. (The mandate, as always, is if the elements in question don’t serve the narrative, they probably don’t belong in the story.) No, the kind of unwritten taboo we’re discussing might have been broached if I’d had my masked vigilante reveal his real identity to the world, or had him ally with the villain, as Arrow apparently did last week.
Would rebellious li’l ol’ me have gotten away with such transgressions? Hard to say. Might have depended on who I was working for. Editors have their individual foibles. And there seemed to be no one way of reading and interpreting the Comics Code, the industry’s self-censoring tsar which was, presumably, the real rule setter. But nothing in the Code’s protocol mentioned double identities (though there was, if memory serves, a provision that dictated that the bad guys had to be in custody by story’s end.
(I did get away with depriving Green Arrow of his fortune and sending both the original Batwoman and Black Canary’s husband, Larry Lance, to their eternal rewards. Maybe nobody noticed.)
I guess the overarching commandment was: This Shall Not Change.
Some form of that is probably still The Commandment, but the enforcement is much more generous.
Alas, there was no rule, written or unwritten, that guarantees a great story every time out. There still isn’t. If I’m wrong about that, somebody please let me know.
This was originally written for ComicMix. The perfect storm of self doubt (Me??) my paranoid thoughts (yeah, that one fits) prompted me to send it to Bleeding Cool instead.
ComicMix has an article of mine sitting in its cue that’s been sitting there for weeks.
No doubt because of another perfect storm fueled by Murphy’s Law. Just one of those things I’m sure was no one’s fault.
When I saw it still wasn’t up today, my willingness to be THIS forthcoming evaporating like the last vapors of a meth pipe I pulled the trigger and sent it to Bleeding Cool instead of a kick ass article on Brotherman that will have to wait until next week.
As is my policy I don’t duplicate the same article for BC and CM but if something’s important enough to me I want it t be seen on both sites so I’ll go back and add or edit things accordingly.
I don’t see why this isn’t a common practice (is it?) attitudes and points of view change with the wind and if writers are honest and are given the chance why not go back in and write what the hours or days have brought since the original piece was written.
If by chance you’ve read this on Bleeding Cool, it’s the same article with added insight and perspective. I hope you give it a read also.
This story begins with me sitting on the floor of my bedroom. How long ago is really to chilling even for me to write so y’all will just have to use your imagination. After enduring yet another night of uncontrollable pain, fueled by severe insomnia, migraines and painful memories, I was convinced putting a bullet my head was the only way to stop the agony.
Not wanting to give up hope I started to pray. That will come as a surprise to many but I’m trying to get closer to God. Yeah, freaks me out also.
After praying for the usual, deliver me from etc, etc, I prayed for a Cosmic Cube.
Clearly I was desperate.
The Red Skull wielding the Cosmic Cube: Tales of Suspense #80 (Aug. 1966). Cover art by Jack Kirby and Don Heck. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
For those reading this not aware of what a Cosmic Cube, is allow me to enlighten you. Captain America first encountered the Cube when fighting the Red Skull back in the good old Lee and Kirby (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) days of the sixties.
You’re seen the cube, it’s the shiny, energy box thing in the Avengers and other Marvel movies. That’s a Cosmic Cube, although they call it some other silly ass name.
What does it do? Simple, the Cube can make anything real.
Yep, desperate.
When you’re in the kind of pain I was in it makes perfect sense to pray for something you know doesn’t exist but I wasn’t doing that. It does exist. I know, because I have one, or I did.
All I needed was a minute, hell, less than a minute with the cube and all would be right in my world. Throughout the day, no cube materialized. Nah no cube, I did however, have a gun.
And ironically, that’s really a shame. Because it turns out there was a really great science fiction movie that year that showed us where we were heading. I’m not talking about any of that year’s actual Hugo nominees– Carrie, Loganâs Run, The Man Who Fell to Earth, or Futureworld.
I’ve been spending time reading a lot of blogs lately. Reading the comments section on any website is always a dubious and risky venture. People are so willing to put anything out into the Internet without any regard for who might see it. It seems that most people believe there is anonymity in a username.
We are in a very different age of computers. Now, anything said by anyone can be heard around the world instantly. And yes, I know you’ve heard that a million times over. So, why does it seem like people keep forgetting that everything is accessible to everyone?
The police aren’t the only ones who need to be aware of everyone with a smartphone watching them. Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner “joking” about Black Widow in an interview last week; did they really forget once more that this was worldwide? Yes. Yes they did. Just like Marvel forgot that those Iceman pages could be outed before the issue went on sale, or that Disney’s industry-only Avengers toy list wasn’t going to be rehashed on the web.
We are watching the world figure out how to exist in a place where we are all constantly under watch, even if we don’t realize it. These celebrities and companies need to remember that they are being “Big Brothered” all of the time. It’s not fair either. People always want a chance to relax and be themselves.
Us regular people would do well to remember that too. Every time we put a piece of ourselves on the web, there is a chance that it will be seen around the world. I’ve written things quoted in Malaysia (which is a trippy experience) and I’m small fry. Others have been quoted from Twitter on late night TV. And those crappy, derogatory comments on the Internet might just come back to bite you back.
Gone are the days of complaining to your friends about something a celebrity said or what a comic did. Now, we can all complain together worldwide. Complaining comes with a cost now. You can be a target too now. And always remember, the Big Brother Internet is always watching.
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when superhero movies were kiddie fodder and proud of it.
Yes, I know. The Avengers: Age of Ultron opens this Friday (which is really Thursday night; Hollywood exists in a different time/space continuum). Everybody’s stoked to see it; well, everybody but ComicMix’s own Martha Thomases, who has already seen the movie. That’s just about the, what, twelve thousandth superhero movie to open in the past decade? I’m not complaining, as these days most of these movies – dare I say it? – are more entertaining than their source material. However, I’m not here to praise this crop of superhero movies for being adult-accessible. I’m here to wax nostalgic about the first time I saw a superhero movie in a real, honest-to-Crom movie theater. Or theatre, for those who drift towards the pretentious.
Let’s go back to late July, 1966. I was at the palatial Uptown Theater on the mid-north side of Chicago. I wasn’t quite 16, so I was old enough to know better. By this time the glow of the Batman television phenomenon had faded for my friends, even those who were comics fans. But I was a hard-core comics fan, and I wanted to see the movie as nature intended: at an old-fashioned Saturday matinee.
For those of you who are too young to have experienced such a thing, the purpose of the old-fashioned Saturday matinee was to serve as a baby sitter. Mothers dropped off their precious darlings at the theater so they could get some much-needed quiet time with their friends. The kids would sit in the darkened theater and watch four hours of cartoons and Three Stooges shorts, or, perhaps, a “real” movie that was accessible to children.
A “real” movie like Batman.
Peculiarly, the good folks at the Uptown Theater decided to schedule a double-feature, and the opening flick was Paul Newman’s Harper. I love that movie, but I was a bit surprised to see it at a Saturday matinee. Even in those days, I thought Harper was a bit too violent for kids who were already gifted at hurling Jujubes at their peers. The most violent parts were at the end, or, for these purposes, right before the beginning of Batman.
Clearly, many kids were traumatized. During those final scenes damn near each and every one of them was silent. Think about that: a couple thousand unsupervised kids between the ages of maybe 8 and 12, staring wide-eyed at a movie that would make Fredric Wertham shit his pants. It put the kiddies in the perfect mood for the upcoming campy cape caper.
Kids are a resilient lot, and as Adam West and Burt Ward were doing their opening tribute to the cover of Batman volume 1 number 9, the tykes had shed all thoughts of bloodied movie superstars and settled into the moment for which they’d been waiting. The teevee show already had grown a bit tiresome for a guy as old and sophisticated as I, but I loved watching Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith work. Thanks to the kiddies, I quickly got caught up in the spirit of the film and had a great time. So great, in fact, that I still enjoy that movie.
Will I have a similar experience when I see The Avengers: Age of Ultron? Maybe. I hope so. Given the nature of the previous Marvel Studios movies, I think there’s a pretty good chance.
Call me a starry-eyed optimist (although others may laugh at you), but that’s why I’m going to see this movie. Hey, it worked with Guardians of the Galaxy. I’ll be with friends, including my daughter, so I’m bringing my own environment to the multiplex.
Sadly, Frank Gorshin is no longer with us. He lived nearby and I ran into him a few times at local restaurants. But just imagine what a hoot it would have been had he been in the theater next to us.
I have every reason to expect a great time at The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Let’s see what happens.
It’s Round 5, starring the Elite Eight of ComicMix’s April Armageddon 2015 Webcomic Tournament. Driving forces in webcomics standing toe to toe, going head to head. Being pitted against each other, fans standing together voting for their favorite until there is just one winner. Who will it be?
Stand Still. Stay Silent, The Property of Hate, and Shotgun Shuffle having an excellent show from their fans this week, But every survivor has chance at the brass ring. All they need is your vote.
Speaking of votes…give yourself a round of applause for the strong support for The Hero Initiative, with donations totaling $81.00 in round 4.
The Elite Eight will narrow the field yet again, So vote soon and vote often… and tell your friends. Polls close 12 midnight, April 30th EDT!
Much like the slow moving menace that stalks its protagonists, It Follows had a slow, steady walk to being a cult horror hit. The kind of movie, if recent surprise successes in the genre are any indication, could lead to a rush of imitators looking to get a piece of quick horror cash. It Follows is refreshing in how different it is than the mainstream of the genre these days but it is also so arrestingly scary that it easily ranks among the least comfortable movie going experiences I’ve ever had. It’s also maddeningly opaque with how it dispenses exposition or even meaning to the events of the film.
Horror films in recent years have fallen in to a predictable pattern and I don’t just mean they’re overwhelmingly about demonic possession hitting young families. The way they choose to scare you always feels like the same jump scare. The music shifts to a faster tempo and the camera movements get slower and then something comes out of nowhere and is accompanied by a big string hit on the soundtrack. It’s effective but it’s boring and worse than that it’s obvious. I know nothing of consequence will happen in a movie like Annabelle until the last 10 minutes. It Follows has a different, more of a throwback, style of generating tension. They still kick the score in to high gear, they might even do it more but the tension comes from static shots, from first person perspectives of some flowers or the morning sky. Most of the time nothing happens and it doesn’t matter; I’m still zipping up my hoodie and looking at the ground. It gives all of the effect with none of the cheapness that comes with a cheap thrill for a child’s toy falling out of a closet. It feels more earned even if it might not actually be.
I hate when movies hold my hand too much, when they keep telling me things that would be so easy to show me. It Follows certainly doesn’t tell when it could show but also doesn’t tell when it refuses to show. There’s a very brief explanation of the rules for the monster in this film and then we never get any more information. We never get any why or any how. We’re just given a menace that slowly walks toward its victim and then kills them in a nondescript way that leaves a terribly mangled corpse. Then at the climax that stops and we get a suddenly much more clever whatever it is capable of evading the trap that our heroes have set with no indication that the trap would be successful. When the film ends, as all horror movies do, by teasing us with the possibility that the danger is still out there it isn’t the least bit surprising because I had no sense that this thing could be defeated as easily as they dispatch it in the previous scene. I was plenty scared in the moment but it’s the kind of movie that unravels as you pull at the threads in the hours and days that follow.
I want more horror movies to be like It Follows but I know that even by wishing that I am destroying the chances it will ever happen. Horror is so reactive I’m sure there have been dozens of conversations in Hollywood over the past month or so about how to capture this lightning in a bottle and get three movies just like it out by this time next year. None of them will get it right though, they’ll take the wrong things. Maybe one studio will think the secret is teenagers, or the speed of the ghost, or the techno-throwback music. The way studios saw Paranormal Activity and thought everyone wanted a bunch of found footage movies. What I want more of is the earnestness and the experimentation and even the flailing attempts at finding an underlying philosophy that give It Follows its charms. Oh well, see you all back here next year for a harsh review of Stuff Will Eventually Get You.
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In the current contretemps over the Hugo Awards (including coverage from, among many others, 
, 
