Tagged: review

Review: ‘Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics’

Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics
By N.C. Christopher Couch
Abrams ComicArts; 224 pages, $35

The early days of comic books was a vast frontier as the rules were being written and the flourished so rapidly that the demand for talent was voracious. As a result, just about anyone, of any age, who could hold a brush or tell a story was given a chance to work. The more successful ones built up a client base and then brought in others to assist, paralleling the development of comic strips.

When young Bob Kane added the costumed feature Batman to his list of properties produced for Detective Comics, Inc, he found himself in need of help. He had already been working with writer Bill Finger to take his shapeless ideas and turn them into witty adventures. But, Batman meant Kane also needed artistic help and a chance meeting led to 17 year old Jerry Robinson beginning an artistic career that begins today.

Robinson is one of the last of his generation and remains a vital talent, curating museum shows and encouraging the next generation of talent. His story is known in bits and pieces but for the first time, his wide-ranging artistic career is covered in the aptly named [[[Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics]]].

Written by N.C. Christopher Couch, a former [[[Manga]]] editor and professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, the book begins with a young Robinson learning to draw on his own while his family fell from the middle class during the Great Depression. It was while Robinson was on a brief vacation in the Poconos that Robinson met Kane and a friendship developed.

Quickly, Robinson was immersed in Kane and Finger’s world, brainstorming stories and characters whenever they were together. Robinson realized he was going to learn by doing and absorbed everything he could with Finger proving a knowledgeable tutor about all manner of fine arts, especially foreign films.

As organized, Couch’s work divides Robinson’s career into thematic chapters but you never really fit all the pieces together. While we know Batman had already debuted in [[[Detective Comics]]] # 27, on sale in the spring of 1939, and can intuit that by the time Robinson began working for Kane it was September, just in time for Finger to create Robin and add him to the feature but we’re never told which issue first featured Robinson’s work. Not long after, though, DC must have commissioned the [[[Batman]]] quarterly title which led to Robinson’s greatest contribution to comic books: creating the Joker. But Couch doesn’t lay it all out for us in a linear manner, so there are jumps and overlaps in Robinson’s career that would have benefitted from a better chronology or timeline as an appendix.

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Review: ‘Glee the Complete First Season’

[[[glee-season-11-4779684Glee]]] is frothy, delightful television that is as prone to being over-the-top as it is to be emotionally powerful. That it can successfully veer from one extreme to the other is one of the more impressive aspects of the Fox series, created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. The show burst into the public consciousness with the clever airing of the pilot in the waning days of the 2008-2009 season and got people excited with something fresh and seemingly original (at least for prime time; no doubt Fox saw its potential after Disney’s success with [[[High School Musical]]].

When the show arrived last fall, it proved it was able to blend soap opera, music, and dance with an oddball assortment of characters with several vying for breakout status before Jane Lynch’s Sue Sylvester captured pop culture’s heart. The plight of the misfits that find themselves forming a glee club at Ohio’s William McKinley High School is the overarching theme as the team grows from a sextet to a full squad and prepares for sectionals and then regionals. As a result, we see them working on numerous pieces and with the show’s ratings climb, they stuffed in even more musical numbers which has neatly resulted in several soundtrack CDs already available.

When the show took an extended hiatus, Fox Home Entertainment released Glee, Volume One: Road to Sectionals to tide fans over. Now, in time for the premiere of season two this evening, Glee; The Complete First Season is out in both standard DVD and Blu-ray sets.

The show revels in its absurdity and doesn’t once try to make us think any of these characters are real or that the high school is really a place for learning. After all, we never see the kids in any academic class nor is homework ever a factor. Apparently, few of them need jobs or when they do can take them without breaking a sweat. We know there’s a faculty because we see them in the lounge where some of the more embarrassing adult shenanigans get discussed.

Where the series fell down was properly making us care for the dilemma Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) faced with his ditzy, desperate, deceptive wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig). Her fake pregnancy sub-plot was totally wasting time for other stories and her expulsion from the marriage seemed pre-ordained and yet, she remains attached to the show like a barnacle that won’t go away.

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THE LONG MATINEE – Movie Reviews by Derrick Ferguson

  • News
  • September 21, 2010

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN

2003

20th Century Fox
Produced by Trevor Albert and Don Murphy
Directed by Stephen Norrington
Screenplay by James Robinson
Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill

       The concept of THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is so simple that I’m honestly surprised nobody before Alan Moore thought of it. Here it is in a nutshell: From time to time many of the great fictional heroes (and sometimes villains) of the past and present have found it necessary to come together to form an alliance against evil so overwhelming that it threatens to conquer or destroy the world. They do so under the authority of a special Branch of The British Secret Service, under the direction of a mysterious figure known only as M. This alliance is known as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It is rumored that members of Leagues past and present have included Dr. Syn, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Blood, Lemuel Gulliver, Robin Hood, Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Shadow, James Bond, and many, many others. But for the purposes of this review we’re going to look at a particularly unique grouping of The League, one led by the world famous adventurer Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery)

Allan Quatermain is an old man, living in Africa, drinking his days away and only wanting to be left alone. However, events in the rest of the world bring him back into action. A mysterious man known only as The Phantom is threatening the governments of the world into a global confrontation and there is seemingly no way to stop him since he has advanced weapons such as automatic weapons, body armor and tanks. Quatermain is brought to London where he is introduced to M (Richard Roxburg), The current head of the British Secret Service who informs Quatermain that he has been chosen to lead the newest incarnation of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen whose membership includes Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), The Invisible Man (Tony Curran) and Mina Harker (Peta Wilson) who has the benefit of vampiric powers due to he relationship with an infamous Transylvanian count. Quatermain and his team quickly acquire the grown up Tom Sawyer (Shane West) who is now an agent of The United States Secret Service. Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jason Flemyng) and his monstrous alter ego Mr. Hyde as well as the immortal Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend) also join up and they’re all off an adventure that takes them all over the world from London to Paris to Venice to a final confrontation at the top of the world in the frozen Artic where the secrets of The Phantom are revealed and the destiny of a new century will be decided as The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen make their final stand.

You’re going to have a lot of comic book fans that will tell you not to see THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN as they feel that the movie bastardized Alan Moore’s concept. I’ve given the trade paperback of the comic to several people whose opinions I trust and they have told me that while they like the comic and appreciate it for what it is they wouldn’t have gone to see a movie that was strictly based on the comic book. However, those people have also said that the greatly enjoyed the movie version and I think that’s because the movie version does exactly what it’s supposed to do: provide us with two hours of thrills, adventure and excitement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s not the comic books but it is a great piece of outsized, overblown, pulp action/adventure taken to the extreme and part of the reason I had so much fun watching the movie was that I could see the directors, actors and special effects guys just saying “the hell with it” and allowing themselves the room to have fun with the concept and just working with the material they were given and making sure they delivered.
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is a movie I loan out to friends and family often when they ask me what’s a good Saturday night movie. First off, you’ve got Sean Connery who’s simply great. When he made this movie he was 75 years old and he’s the only 75-year-old actor in the world who can get away with beating the snot out of actors half his age and look totally convincing doing it. Other actors look embarrassingly silly in their older years trying to do action scenes but somehow Connery can still pull it off and look convincing. There’s a bunch of great scenes he has with Shane West’s Tom Sawyer where the characters obviously build a father/son type of relationship, especially in the scenes where Allan Quatermain and Tom Sawyer are chasing down Mr. Hyde across the rooftops of Paris and a later scene aboard Captain Nemo’s Nautilus where Quatermain teaches Tom how to shoot. Peta Wilson is terrific as Mina Harker who shows a delightfully dark side to her character and I really liked how Naseeruddin Shah played Captain Nemo. As far as I know this the first time the character of Captain Nemo has been played racially correct in a movie and he supplies the team with their technological/transport support. And his fight scenes are among the best in the movie as he gives Captain Nemo a distinctive martial arts style. He plays Captain Nemo in a way unlike any other actor that’s ever played before and I think he’s probably the only actor who might have read the graphic novel the movie was based on. There’s a certain way he carries himself and the way he says his lines that make you sit up straighter and pay attention and his fight scenes are among the best in the movie. Listen to how he says: “Behold Nautilus…The Sword of The Ocean” and tell me that ain’t downright cool.

      That’s not to say that the movie is without its flaws. I really didn’t like how the CGI guys went nuts on the effects. Especially when it came to Mr. Hyde and The Nautilus. In this movie, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are more like the Marvel Comics version of Dr. Bruce Banner and The Hulk than the Robert Louis Stevenson original. And Captain Nemo’s Nautilus is huger, bigger and more technologically advanced than any modern day aircraft carrier. And the scenes in Venice make absolutely no sense whatsoever. There’s a whole lot of yelling and chasing around and fighting and shooting but when it’s all over you’re wondering: “What was that all about?” Not to mention that there’s absolutely no mollyfoggin’ way something as big as The Nautilus could navigate the canals.

     But there are a lot of little nice touches. The obvious one is where Quatermain is receiving his assignment to assemble The League from M. And if you don’t appreciate the humor of Sean Connery once again getting orders from M then you really need to go back to Basic Film School. And pay attention to the scene between M and Quatermain because in the background are huge portraits of former Leagues. I also liked how Captain Nemo’s First Mate has a running joke in the movie where he has to keep introducing himself: “Call me Ishmael”

     There’s some incredible fight sequences and plot twists that I honestly didn’t see coming and even though I felt the final fight between Mr. Hyde and The Phantom’s main big bad who has ingested a near lethal dose of the Hyde formula was yet another reason for the CGI boys to go wild I liked the relationship between Mr. Hyde and Captain Nemo as they struggled to find a way to defeat their foe as well as the ending scenes between Allan Quatermain and Tom Sawyer.

    
     So should you see THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN? I see no reason why you shouldn’t. Don’t listen to your comic book reading friends who’ll tell you that it’s nothing like the comic book. Of course it isn’t like the comic book. It’s a movie and a pretty damn good entertaining one. Go ahead and watch it and have fun for what it is: it’s purely pulp action/adventure designed to get you interested in reading the source materials and characters it’s based on. No more and no less. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time watching THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN before you read the material it’s based on.

110 minutes

Rated PG-13

  • News
  • September 21, 2010

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN

2003

20th Century Fox

Produced by Trevor Albert and Don Murphy

Directed by Stephen Norrington

Screenplay by James Robinson

Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill

The concept of THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is so simple that I’m honestly surprised nobody before Alan Moore thought of it. Here it is in a nutshell: From time to time many of the great fictional heroes (and sometimes villains) of the past and present have found it necessary to come together to form an alliance against evil so overwhelming that it threatens to conquer or destroy the world. They do so under the authority of a special Branch of The British Secret Service, under the direction of a mysterious figure known only as M. This alliance is known as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It is rumored that members of Leagues past and present have included Dr. Syn, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Blood, Lemuel Gulliver, Robin Hood, Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Shadow, James Bond, and many, many others. But for the purposes of this review we’re going to look at a particularly unique grouping of The League, one led by the world famous adventurer Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery)

Allan Quatermain is an old man, living in Africa, drinking his days away and only wanting to be left alone. However, events in the rest of the world bring him back into action. A mysterious man known only as The Phantom is threatening the governments of the world into a global confrontation and there is seemingly no way to stop him since he has advanced weapons such as automatic weapons, body armor and tanks. Quatermain is brought to London where he is introduced to M (Richard Roxburg), The current head of the British Secret Service who informs Quatermain that he has been chosen to lead the newest incarnation of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen whose membership includes Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), The Invisible Man (Tony Curran) and Mina Harker (Peta Wilson) who has the benefit of vampiric powers due to he relationship with an infamous Transylvanian count. Quatermain and his team quickly acquire the grown up Tom Sawyer (Shane West) who is now an agent of The United States Secret Service. Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jason Flemyng) and his monstrous alter ego Mr. Hyde as well as the immortal Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend) also join up and they’re all off an adventure that takes them all over the world from London to Paris to Venice to a final confrontation at the top of the world in the frozen Artic where the secrets of The Phantom are revealed and the destiny of a new century will be decided as The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen make their final stand.

You’re going to have a lot of comic book fans that will tell you not to see THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN as they feel that the movie bastardized Alan Moore’s concept. I’ve given the trade paperback of the comic to several people whose opinions I trust and they have told me that while they like the comic and appreciate it for what it is they wouldn’t have gone to see a movie that was strictly based on the comic book. However, those people have also said that the greatly enjoyed the movie version and I think that’s because the movie version does exactly what it’s supposed to do: provide us with two hours of thrills, adventure and excitement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s not the comic books but it is a great piece of outsized, overblown, pulp action/adventure taken to the extreme and part of the reason I had so much fun watching the movie was that I could see the directors, actors and special effects guys just saying “the hell with it” and allowing themselves the room to have fun with the concept and just working with the material they were given and making sure they delivered. THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is a movie I loan out to friends and family often when they ask me what’s a good Saturday night movie.

First off, you’ve got Sean Connery who’s simply great. When he made this movie he was 75 years old and he’s the only 75-year-old actor in the world who can get away with beating the snot out of actors half his age and look totally convincing doing it. Other actors look embarrassingly silly in their older years trying to do action scenes but somehow Connery can still pull it off and look convincing. There’s a bunch of great scenes he has with Shane West’s Tom Sawyer where the characters obviously build a father/son type of relationship, especially in the scenes where Allan Quatermain and Tom Sawyer are chasing down Mr. Hyde across the rooftops of Paris and a later scene aboard Captain Nemo’s Nautilus where Quatermain teaches Tom how to shoot.

Peta Wilson is terrific as Mina Harker who shows a delightfully dark side to her character and I really liked how Naseeruddin Shah played Captain Nemo. As far as I know this the first time the character of Captain Nemo has been played racially correct in a movie and he supplies the team with their technological/transport support. And his fight scenes are among the best in the movie as he gives Captain Nemo a distinctive martial arts style. He plays Captain Nemo in a way unlike any other actor that’s ever played before and I think he’s probably the only actor who might have read the graphic novel the movie was based on. There’s a certain way he carries himself and the way he says his lines that make you sit up straighter and pay attention and his fight scenes are among the best in the movie. Listen to how he says: “Behold Nautilus…The Sword of The Ocean” and tell me that ain’t downright cool.

That’s not to say that the movie is without its flaws. I really didn’t like how the CGI guys went nuts on the effects. Especially when it came to Mr. Hyde and The Nautilus. In this movie, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are more like the Marvel Comics version of Dr. Bruce Banner and The Hulk than the Robert Louis Stevenson original. And Captain Nemo’s Nautilus is huger, bigger and more technologically advanced than any modern day aircraft carrier. And the scenes in Venice make absolutely no sense whatsoever. There’s a whole lot of yelling and chasing around and fighting and shooting but when it’s all over you’re wondering: “What was that all about?” Not to mention that there’s absolutely no mollyfoggin’ way something as big as The Nautilus could navigate the canals.

But there are a lot of little nice touches. The obvious one is where Quatermain is receiving his assignment to assemble The League from M. And if you don’t appreciate the humor of Sean Connery once again getting orders from M then you really need to go back to Basic Film School. And pay attention to the scene between M and Quatermain because in the background are huge portraits of former Leagues. I also liked how Captain Nemo’s First Mate has a running joke in the movie where he has to keep introducing himself: “Call me Ishmael”

There’s some incredible fight sequences and plot twists that I honestly didn’t see coming and even though I felt the final fight between Mr. Hyde and The Phantom’s main big bad who has ingested a near lethal dose of the Hyde formula was yet another reason for the CGI boys to go wild I liked the relationship between Mr. Hyde and Captain Nemo as they struggled to find a way to defeat their foe as well as the ending scenes between Allan Quatermain and Tom Sawyer.

So should you see THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN? I see no reason why you shouldn’t. Don’t listen to your comic book reading friends who’ll tell you that it’s nothing like the comic book. Of course it isn’t like the comic book. It’s a movie and a pretty damn good entertaining one. Go ahead and watch it and have fun for what it is: it’s purely pulp action/adventure designed to get you interested in reading the source materials and characters it’s based on. No more and no less. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time watching THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN before you read the material it’s based on.

110 minutes

Rated PG-13

MOONSTONE MONDAY-TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-REVIEW!!

  • News
  • September 20, 2010
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock 
THE SPIDER-CITY OF THE BLEEDING SNOW (11 PAGE STORY)
Writer-Martin Powell
Artist-Tom Floyd

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Although this story is not newly published, it is one that bears reviewing, primarily because several people have mentioned it to me as ‘a story you just have to read’ or ‘the best Spider story ever.’  With praise like that, I had to look for myself.

Is it the best Spider story ever?  Maybe, maybe not, but it’s close.  Did it turn out to be something I just had to read.  You bet your pointed teeth and spider ring it did!

In ten pages, Martin Powell twists a tale that in all honesty comes in at the middle.  It’s a typical Spider and pulp type tale, Bad guy has the Spider’s beloved captured and is delivering chemical vengeance on the city and it’s up to the Spider to stop him.  But what Powell works into this in a short space is pathos, action, romance, and character education as well as development.  If you read this story and know nothing of the Spider, this ten pages gives you enough to say you know something about the character.

The art of Tom Floyd blends well with the storytelling in this tale.  It’s classic art on one hand, yet disturbing on the other.  The reason it’s disturbing is even though the Spider’s world is dark and scary, Floyd’s art makes it look very much like..our world.  This story because of its art and its human portrayal of this most inhuman acting character hits a really poignant note of realism.

Five out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat-Good show, gentlemen and Moonstone. Good show.

Tippin’ Hancock’s Hat

  • News
  • September 20, 2010


TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock

BLACK BAT DOUBLE SHOT REVIEW-PART TWO
Writer-Mike Bullock
Artist-Michael Metcalf
(NOTE-This review is for the second of two stories in this issue. A review of the first story has already appeared on ALL PULP! Just click REVIEWS and scroll down!

Death Angel

Pulp writers today walk a multitude of slippery slopes and fine lines. They have to be careful when dealing with established characters not to tick off hardcore fans and also not to alienate new readers. It’s even more hazardous when introducing a new character into the Pulp genre. Writers run the risk of being accused of being derivative if their creation is too similar to a pulp icon or, even worse, they get accused of not knowing what in the tommy guns they are doing, trying to shoehorn a modern idea into the pulp world.

The creators behind the DEATH ANGEL story in the second half of Black Bat: Double Shot, Moonstone Books, walk that slope. And they do it really, really well.

Death Angel, an original creation of the book’s creative team, Bullock and Metcalf, is a vigilante with a horrible visage and a dedicated mission to see justice done. As violently and as bloodily as possible. Although some would argue that the character looks to be more modern in appearance than some might like their pulp characters, make no mistake. If artists of the past could have gotten away with it (and some arguably did), then there would have been some really scary lookin’ good guys back in the day.

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The story is very fast paced, dealing with a new drug on the scene that essentially drives the user insane. Death Angel encounters a couple of these junkies and deals with them swiftly and savagely, but Bullock works in character development in this cyclone of a tale as well, with a literal ‘behind the mask’ moment, one that may surprise people who didn’t read the Angel’s debut.

The art is solid, stark, and insane. The line work is tight, yet at times, particularly when Death Angel uses some of her devices, the word ‘psychedelic’ could be used. The story moves along like a freight train out of control and out of track. It’s hindered a little by its own speed, moving almost too fast to be understood and enjoyed in a single reading. Overall, however, Death Angel’s story in this double shot stands up well against her companion, The Black Bat, and is a welcome denizen of the night seeking justice in the pulp genre!

Four out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat (usually reserved for heads of state, arresting officers, and little old ladies, which is pretty darn good.)

Review: ‘The Big Bang Theory the Complete Third Season’

1000149528brdlef1-7176949By the beginning of its third season, CBS’s [[[The Big Bang Theory]]] had crossed over from well-reviewed sitcom for geeks to a ratings blockbuster. The characters remained oblivious to this elevation in esteem while their performers and creators didn’t let the success get to their heads. Instead, the season’s 22 episodes remained sharp and funny, delving deeper into the characters, revealing back stories, and expanding on the work place dilemmas.

As seen in The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Third Season, now out from Warner Home Video, the major arc of the year was Penny and Leonard’s relationship, with her making efforts to understand his working world while he tried to socially adjust to her world. And when they broke up, the repercussions are keenly felt among the others – Sheldon, Raj, and Howard. The show nicely builds up the Sheldon/Penny relationship, which hit a dramatic point halfway through the second season and the chemistry between Kaley Cuoco and Emmy-winning Jim Parsons makes their scenes sheer delights. Penny’s romantic entanglement with Leonard also altered the roommate dynamic with Sheldon, which played out nicely throughout the season.

The four guys remain geeks that ComicMix fans recognize, for better or worse. As a result, episodes such as “The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary” and “The Wheaton Recurrence” with guest nemesis Wil Wheaton and “The Precious Fragmentation” are particularly enjoyable. But, the show begins to bring in stunt casting gimmicks such as “The Excelsior Acquisition” and the legendary Stan Lee, which is fine once a season, but can easily devolve if not kept in check. And as the third season begins, mastermind Chuck Lorre will be overseeing not only this gem, but [[[Two and a Half Men]]] and the newcomer, [[[Mike and Molly]]], so if the show jumps the shark, it could be this season.

(more…)

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Review: ‘Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide’

Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide

by Alan Cowsill
208 pages, DK Publishing, $16.99

avengers-guide1-9804420It’s a new Age of Heroes in the Marvel Universe but as always, the clarion call for champions is answered by Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers. With the hoopla surrounding the Marvel Studios’ announcements regarding the 2012 live-action [[[Avengers]]] movie, the timing is perfect for this book from DK Publishing.

Unfortunately, the book itself is already dated because they made little effort to make certain the status quo matched what was being published in the comic books. This is, of course, an exceedingly tricky proposition but thankfully, both Marvel and DC have recently hit demarcation points where you could say the information contained in these books are concurrent. (I managed to make next month’s [[[The Essential Superman Encyclopedia]]] information reflected the end of the [[[New Krypton]]] story so it can be done.) Reading through Alan Cowsill’s text, it is largely set during he events of Siege although some information is from the subsequent Age of Heroes so its inconsistent and confusing.

A book like this, especially from DK, prides itself on clarity of information and yet organizations and events are referred to and there’s no context or explanation provided, so it’s one thing to tell readers someone belonged to the Initiative, but what was the Initiative? The book also lacks any source material so you don’t have the usual listing of first appearances which is a major factual omission. Even more grievous is that for a book called Avengers, not once is there anything about the team. I was interested to see the line-up by line-up examinations along with explanations for the West Coast and New incarnations of the team.

Instead, this book features just over 200 heores and villains with information blocks, pointless power rankings, and lots of pop-ups with additional details. Visually, the material is mostly showing us the current incarnations of the character with smaller images culled from throughout Marvel history. This, though, may be the first time a book of this nature lacks substantial images culled from the first Marvel Age so Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, and John Romita are severely underrepresented. Heck, titans like John Buscema, John Romita, Jr., John Byrne, and many others are also missing in action.

Over two dozen of the entries are out of date given the end of the Siege storyline. Perhaps the most inaccurate page is the one for Ant Man which gives us the deceased Scott Lang and never mentions the current Eric O’Grady, while the callout image of Hank Pym shows him as Giant Man.

There are some other serious gaffes such as giving us Clint Barton pages, one for Hawkeye and one for Ronin, which was superfluous. Similarly, Hank Pym gets pages as both Wasp II and Giant Man. The [[[Captain America]]] page is Steve Rogers with no page for Bucky as either the Winter Solider or Captain America II. In much the same way, the Black Panther page is all about T’Challa despite his sister being the current Panther (even in comics coming out this fall) but she gets merely a brief mention.

Characters who recently died such as[[[ Hercules]]], [[[Black Bolt]]], and [[[the Sentry]]] are said to be hale and hardy and while Jessica Jones’ page tells us she and Luke Cage had a child, Luke’s page neglects that detail as does the Invisible Woman entry neglect to mention Franklin and Valeria.

Books like these are great to thumb through and make a handy reference work but this one volume is a wee bit too all over the place to be anything more than a pretty picture book.

Review: ‘Forbidden Planet’

Last week, Warner Home Video released six of their science fiction films on Blu-ray for the first time. While all were greatly appreciated by genre fans to one degree or another, it can be safely said that the most eagerly awaited one is also the best one of the set. MGM’s Forbidden Planet is clearly a class act and the loving restoration is evident in just how fabulous the movie looks in high definition.

The 1956 was one of the studio’s last major releases before its decline in quality, and it was also their first real attempt at science fiction. All the resources that made their musicals shine brightly were brought to the feature production and as a result, this is the single best science fiction movie made that decade. Its influences go far beyond imagination considering the enduring popularity of Robby the Robot and how much the film’s look and feel influenced young producer Gene Roddenberry when he conceived Star Trek only eight years later.

Sure, some of the science remains implausible, but it was a terrific story inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest transplanted to an alien world. The strong cast was anchored by Walter Pidgeon’s Morbius and Leslie Nielsen as Commander John Adams. Filling out the ensemble was Anne Francis as Morbius’ innocent daughter Altaira and familiar genre vets Richard Anderson and Warren Stevens.  The Bellerophon expedition had gone silent and Adams’ crew was sent to investigate, discovering two survivors and the remnants of an incredible alien civilization, the Krell. Morbius’ genius is evident in the robotic servant, Robby, he designed and built, but Adams is troubled by the man’s reluctance to leave the world and rejoin humanity. Menacing them, though, was an unseen horror that had to be stopped before anyone could leave the world.

The sets and costumes were unlike any science fiction film previously made and the scope and spectacle to the matte paintings and special effects also raised this film beyond so many of the low budget atomic horror films that categorized the genre that decade. Everyone took the film seriously, playing things straight, and making it a tale of humanity among the stars. Also helping us consider this something different was the electronic score, credited in the release as “electronic tonalities”, a dramatic departure from what had been used before.

Warner had previously released this in a nifty package designed for the now defunct HD-DVD format, so this has been an eagerly awaited release. The care that went into restoring it in 2007, especially boosting the fading Eastman Color stock, has been preserved here and the film has never looked better.

The disc is packed with plenty of special features, making this a true celebration of the film and its legacy. All are carried over from the HD release and none were prepared for Blu-ray so appear in standard format. Still, they are all worth your time and attention. Kicking things off is the TCM special, “Watch the Skies!” as you spend nearly an hour listening to Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Cameron, and Ridley Scott discuss what SF films were like prior to Forbidden Planet. Nice perspective, terrific clips and a solid Mark Hamill narration make this a strong entry.

There’s also “Amazing!” a well-produced 27 minute feature talking to the surviving cast and crew of the film, talking about its production. Great archival drawings are unearthed to illustrate this piece. Robby gets his due in the 14 minute “Engineering a Sci-Fi Icon”.

There are plenty of deleted scenes all of which comes with captioning to introduce each one and explain what was changed or why it was dropped from the final print. Some are missed, but most are interesting from a historic perspective only.

The robot’s popularity is demonstrated by the inclusion of the 1957 quickie, The Invisible Boy, a feature about a young boy and his robot. When the robot’s programming is altered, he becomes a threat to the Earth and Timmy, who can somehow turn invisible, is the only one who can stop it. Robby also guest starred on countless television series and The Thin Man episode from 1958 is included as an example.

Walter Pidgeon appears in two excerpts from the prime time MGM Parade series when he appeared to promote the film.

No fan of the genre can be without this wonderful film that has been well-preserved and endures the passage of time. If you haven’t seen it lately, now is the time to rediscover the marvels of intelligent science fiction at a time when paranoia ruled the day.

blackcauldron25thanndvd-1979969

Review: ‘The Black Cauldron’

blackcauldron25thanndvd-1979969Fantasy author Lloyd Alexander was beloved for his imaginative series, the [[[Chronicles of Prydain]]] so anyone who read the series, originally released between 1964 and 1968, were no doubt apprehensive to see the entire story collapsed into an 80 minute animated feature from Walt Disney.

The filmmakers decided to focus on the second book, [[[The Black Cauldron]]], and substantially altered characters, settings, and events so when it opened July 24, 1985, fans of the material were not happy. Worse, people unfamiliar with the source material were not particularly entertained leading to a box office collapse. That this film came at the tail end of a period where creativity was clearly lacking meant that it looked and felt like a generic Disney animated film. Jeffrey Katzenberg arrived on staff just prior to the film’s release and he could merely nip and tuck sequences, but recognized their most expensive feature to date, and the first to use computer-generated animation, was not working.

Now released in a standard DVD 25th Anniversary edition, the movie has been cleaned up a bit but still lacks suspense and imagination. Rather than visually embrace the Welsh mythology that Alexander mined for his novels, Disney made everything look fairly bland.

In short, the Horned King (John Hurt) is attempting to find the legendary Black Cauldron which would give him the power to rule the world. According to a trio of witches, no one had been looking for the magical artifact in over 2000 years, but now the time seemed ripe. What the tall, shadowy figure did not count on was the plucky band of adventurers to stand in his way towards global domination. Leading the charge was the teenaged Taran (Grant Bardsley), who we meet as he laments his having just missed out on participating in the last war. Instead, he works as the assistant pig keeper to a wizard, unaware the prize pig, Hen Wen, can conjure up images of the future. When the pig goes missing, Taran goes in search only to encounter a talking creature named Gurgi (John Byner), followed by a dim-witted princess Eilonwy (Susan Sheridan) and Fflewddur Fflam (Nigel Hawthorne), a broken down balladeer.

The movie barely resembles the book with characters altered beyond recognition and the Horned King a possible threat, as opposed to the malevolent force he is in the books. Instead, the standard quest story and coming of age for Taran are inserted much to the disappointment of the readers. Comical elements are there for the children but overall there’s no spark to ignite the imagination.

The new edition comes complete with a deleted scene, “The Fairy Folk”, that would have added to the exposition and you see it in semi-complete and pencil form with the soundtrack. A scene Katzenberg ordered cut, is not here. Also new to this set is “The Witches’ Challenge”, a trivia game for the youngsters. “The Quest for the Black Cauldron” game and art gallery are preserved from the previous release along with the 1952 Donald Duck short “Trick or Treat” included merely because it featured a witch.

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