These straight to video comic book movies are really a crapshoot. The first one I saw was The Ultimate Avengers, which was the first one Marvel produced. It was pretty decent, and was similar to the actual storyline of The Ultimates comic book series. The other films that I’ve seen have only loosely, if at all, followed any specific storyline. I had heard reviews of this one being exceptionally better than most other straight to video movies, whether it be Marvel or DC. It took me a while to get around to watching it, mostly because Rampaige kind of hates cartoons that aren’t family friendly, and she also hates Batman. This was a double whammy, because, ya know, Batman is in it and it’s PG-13. That was exactly what got me excited about it, when I finally found the courage to stay up past her bedtime.

Batman with the Red Hood. I can’t remember which one is which though.

The movie starts by recreating a scene from the storyline of the classic Batman tale A Death in the Family, which can be summarized by saying the Joker is beating the living SHIT out of Robin. To be fair, this is the second Robin, who is Jason Todd, and the Joker is using a crowbar. Between the savage crowbar beating and explosion, Jason Todd dies. Five years later, Batman is fighting crime, as usual. A bad guy arrives on the scene known as the “Red Hood”, and the interesting thing about that is that drug trafficking is going up, yet crime is going down. Apparently Red Hood is climbing the ranks of bad guy activities, and Batman wants to get to the bottom of it. Despite being attacked by Batman, with help from Nightwing, Red Hood still manages to get away. Ra’s Al Ghul, who is a bad guy, contacts Batman and let’s him know that he has information about Red Hood. Since Ra’s felt bad about being partly responsible for Jason Todd’s death, he used a Lazarus pit to resurrect Jason, only for Jason to go kind of insane and missing. Well, guess what? Yup! Red Hood is Jason Todd who has been resurrected to fight crime in his way, which involves a lot more violence than Batman can handle. There’s a showdown involving Red Hood, Batman, and the Joker, that results in an explosion, as well as the Joker being returned to Arkham Asylum along with Jason Todd. Poor thing! Maybe next time, Bruce!

Poor, poor Jason Todd. That’s what you get for having your last name be a first name.

I remember a few weeks ago a frequent commenter who goes by the name “JD” telling me he openly wept in the beginning of this movie, and I now realize it’s because he had to see a character with his name getting beat up. I guess I don’t really blame him, because the beat down was pretty brutal, especially considering it was a cartoon. It was pretty cool to see that part of A Death in the Family on-screen, even though it was only a small tidbit. The twists and turns in the story kept you engaged in what was happening, but there wasn’t really anything that was “silly”, so this movie isn’t at all geared towards kids. Considering this wasn’t based on one specific story, both readers of Batman and non-readers can enjoy this. There were things like the Black Mask, Ra’s Al Ghul, and Jason Todd that could appease the Batman fans, but they explained these characters well enough that even had you not known who they were beforehand. If this kind of quality keeps up, hopefully the quality of theatrically released films will go up as well.

Wolfman Moon Scale

Official Site
IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

What a weekend! Big difference between this year and last year? This year I wasn’t alone! Whoa! Friday I brought a friend from work who is just getting back into comics and Saturday and Sunday was joined by my brother, who has the disadvantage of not having a comic book store near him. This provided a great opportunity for him to not only buy a bunch, but to also be really confused during panels and have no idea what was being talked about. I don’t really remember how I discussed C2E2 last year, and I know I could click my previous posts and find out, but instead of doing that, I’ll just talk about what happened, and randomly toss in some pictures.

I saw a woman walking by holding Tom Servo and I asked for a picture of him. I was honored to have her ask if I wanted a picture of me HOLDING Tom Servo, and sure enough, here he is. He touched my dick.

I got there on Friday pretty much as soon as it was open to the public. It was in the same convention center this year, but was in a smaller part. The drawback to this was that there wasn’t quite as much room to walk around as there was last year. This might have been due to the fact that this year was also a lot more popular, but either way, it was more difficult to navigate. The biggest things I made sure to locate were where Marvel was, where DC was, and where Dark Horse was. I also made sure to find the comic shops I visit, so that when I got bored, I could stop by and shoot the shit and see if I was missing anything.

I figured that I harassed Agent M, a.k.a. Ryan Penagos, of Marvel through Twitter, that the least I could do was say hi to him. We decided to let the palms of our hands do that talking, and the conversation sounded something like “SLAP”.

Another difference between this year and last year was that there weren’t quite as many panels this year that I was looking forward to, as well as not as many entertainment guests. The part about the guests isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there were less times where I would go over just to see what a person looked like standing in front of me as opposed to on TV or in movies. The first panel wasn’t until later in the afternoon and was about Green Lantern. It was kind of, well, not too exciting. Not sure if this is because I’m not as familiar with their continuity, their panel not being too exciting, or the fans being disinterested, but we only stayed about 20 minutes. We then went to the Nerd City panel, mostly because I knew they’d be drunk. I wasn’t sure what was talked about, but there was yelling and cursing, and, yes, they were drunk. After that I went to an X-Men panel, and once again, being a few months behind in their story was a little confusing, so I called it a night and headed back home.

Being the big brother that he is, after I said, “I WANT THE SHIELD”, he made sure to grab it, and not let me have it. Fun fact: This picture was taken by Marvel editor Tom Brennan. It made me feel like Steve Wacker to boss Brennan around, despite not making him cry.

What I was most excited for on Saturday was the chance to meet Danny McBride, who had only been announced a few days prior and was only supposed to sign for an hour. We stopped by the booth he was signing at, Dark Horse, an hour ahead of time to ask when the line was starting. Turns out you needed to pick up some secret ticket, which resulted in not meeting him, and having to settle for seeing him sit there signing stuff. The next thing on our agenda was to watch a real Quidditch match, and by real, I mean people throwing dodgeballs through hoops while running with brooms between their legs. Then it was time for the Avengers panel, which had Brian Michael Bendis, C.B. Cebulski, and Matt Fraction. Highly entertaining and relatively informative, but mostly entertaining. Then it was time for the Ghost Hunters panel, so it was another opportunity to see Steve Gonsalves answer questions, this time with Dustin Pari. After 20 minutes of hearing all the same questions asked as last year we decided to get in line for the Cup O’ Joe panel, and it was a good thing we did. Probably the most packed panel, but luckily we were there early to get good seats. This panel was Joe Quesada, C.B. Cebulski, Jeph Loeb, Brian Michael Bendis, and Matt Fraction. It was awesome to just see these guys shoot the shit with their fans, no matter how genuine or cringe-worthy the questions were.

I attempted to compliment Ben Templesmith by claiming that even after wearing a suit for multiple days, getting it all shitty and disgusting, would be nicer than my clothes. The results of complimenting his wardrobe ended up sounding something like: “Can I have your used, shitty, soiled clothing?”. He still allowed me to take a picture with him and Molly McIsaac.

It was announced on Twitter that there was a surprise Garth Ennis signing on Sunday, so we made sure to get there really early, since we had missed out on Danny McBride the day before. I was going to have him sign the first issue of The Boys, but luckily my brother was in search of something, and we were both able to get single issues of Preacher for him to sign, and we were on our way five minutes after the signing had started. We mostly meandered around the show floor for another hour or so, just double checking to see if there was anything we missed. Rampaige was coming to meet us to take our passes, since she wanted to try to meet Steve Gonsalves. Once we left, I got text messages from her about him being there, walking by, her crying, and then she stopped responding. However, she did tweet about meeting him, just didn’t have enough time to talk to me, other than to get picked up.

Believe it or not, Rampaige started the conversation by saying, “My boyfriend got your autograph for me last year…” Rookie mistake, Rampaige, rookie mistake.

Despite not getting to see Patton Oswalt do standup, and not meeting Danny McBride, I’d say it was another successful year. My favorite part about any convention is just seeing so many people who are so incredibly passionate about anything, no matter what it is. Obviously with comic books, you’re going to get a lot of people interested in “nerd culture”, but with an event like this, there are just so many different aspects. From comic books to videogames to Dr. Who to anime to paranormal investigation. It reminds you that no matter how weird or dorky you are for liking those things, there are tons of other people out there who like all of that stuff, and might even be dorkier than you, which ends up making everyone feel a little bit more comfortable with how you’ve decided to spend so much of your time and money. Enough of the touchy feely stuff though, as I’ve got some movie to get back to watching, but as a friendly reminder, if anyone ever wants to talk about comics at any time of day on any day of the week, make sure you get in touch.

The closest I got to getting a picture with Matt Fraction, far right, was getting a picture of him in a panel with C. B. Cebulski, Jeph Loeb, and Brian Michael Bendis. Not much of an accomplishment? Well, he also happened to be the only one in the photo not tweeting. But his tweets all weekend were hilarious anyways.

Nope. Maybe that’s not fair to completely discredit DC and everything they’ve done, but things aren’t looking too good. I recently read in the back of a DC comic that Dan DiDio, Co-Publisher of DC Comics, claimed he would bring DC to the top and be the number one publisher. This stuck out to me, because he didn’t say “best” publisher, because that’s subjective, but he said “number one”, which is a lot more subjective, depending on which aspect you’re looking at. However, DC is pretty awesome, and despite not really being number one, in quite a few ways, I figured I’d take this opportunity to compare the two in the various realms in which they compete with Marvel.

Comics

This is what these two companies are about, so it’s important to look at the numbers and see who is winning. As far as units sold, Marvel is typically a big chunk ahead of DC, month after month. However, as far as quality goes, it’s really up to who is reading the books. What I’ve always said about DC is that they have a smaller roster of substantial characters than Marvel has, but the amount of titles you can milk out of those characters is a lot more than with Marvel. For example, one of the strongest characters from DC would be Batman, who currently has over a half dozen titles that focus on him. Compared to a character like Iron Man or Spider-Man, who only have a couple of titles with their names on it, yet make appearances in quite a few other books. Marvel’s advantage is the amount of characters that they can pull from, and whenever you need a new team, just put a bunch of characters together, use the word “Avengers“, and you’ve got yourself a few years worth of stories. However, DC has recently started a campaign about “holding the line at $2.99″, or in other words, they aren’t increasing the prices of any of their comics, compared to Marvel, who sells books anywhere between $2.99 and $4.99. The price difference doesn’t mean much to me, because I’m still going to buy this stuff, no matter what it costs. Also, the price on the cover doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the work inside the pages, and I’d rather pay more knowing I’ll enjoy it more, despite that not always being the case. Another issue I typically have with DC is the way their major events and crossovers are handled. With most Marvel events, to get every issue of everything involved with that event, you are looking at buying dozens of books. However, if you only like one character in that event, you can read their title and learn what their role was in that event, for the most part. Even though DC doesn’t necessarily have more tie-in issues for their events, they seem to link the storyline to other books too regularly. For example, if I am only reading Batman, I don’t want to get to the back and read “Look for the conclusion in next month’s Batman Detective Comics!” Not a major issue, and I’m sure some people will defend that format of storytelling, but it’s just kind of annoying to me.

Advantage: Marvel

Movies

It’s going to end up being the same result here as with the comics themselves, in that there is a larger pool of entertaining characters with Marvel than with DC. Nobody can argue the fact that the original Superman movie series, the Tim Burton directed Batman movies, and most recently The Dark Knight were some of the best movies that were released in the times they came out, let alone the fact that they were movies based on comics. Then again, out of those 11 movies, they were about two different DC characters. Conversely, since the release of Blade in 1998, Marvel has released 22 movies theatrically, with another two coming out in the next few months. They didn’t necessarily all do that well, some of them were just terrible, but these generally aren’t considered losses for the company. For every Elektra, you have two good Spider-Man movies. For every Ghost Rider, you have two good X-Men movies. I don’t think there has been a single Marvel film that has been as critically or financially successful as The Dark Knight, but they continue to produce quality films every year, sometimes even twice a year.

Advantage: Marvel

Television

Let me just clarify that my use of the word “television” should define weekly, live-action series, their success, and longevity. I think once again, we can refer to DC and the depth of their characters for being able to make multiple installments into the continuity of one television universe. In the 50′s, there were Superman TV shows, in the 60′s, there was the campy Adam West Batman series, the 70′s had Wonder Woman, the 90′s had Lois & Clark, and only recently did Smallville have its series finale after ten seasons. DC characters have spanned multiple decades and had quite a few years of successful franchises. Compare that to Marvel, who has attempted this format, yet really only found success with one, which was an Incredible Hulk series in the late 70′s. I’m sure they will be attempting more in the future, but as of right now, they haven’t found their stride.

Advantage: DC

Cartoons

Whether it be Saturday mornings or weekday afternoons, these cartoons are the ones that are syndicated and play on multiple channels frequently, and are shown for quite a few years after no more new episodes were being created. In recent memory, both Marvel and DC had success with critics and fans with X-men: The Animated Series and Batman: The Animated Series. I’m gonna say these two cancel each other out, just to make things easier. There haven’t been too many long running series, or at least, series that last more than two or three years, but it once again comes down to quantity over quality. Since these cartoons are generally geared towards a younger audience, it’s hard to accurate judge how good the cartoon is, based on faithfulness to comics, writing, and animation style. When it comes to quantity, we are going to have to once again hand this one to Marvel and their rate of production.

Advantage: Marvel

Home Video

The term “home video” seems a little antiquated, but I am referring to the movies that are produced by these companies that go straight to DVD or Blu-ray and are typically at least 60 minutes each. It seems as though Marvel tried to set the bar by starting things off a little earlier with an animated adaptation of The Ultimates with the movie Ultimate Avengers back in 2006. They generally release one or two a year, but they are fair, at best. I haven’t seen all of them, but I’ve seen a fair amount, and I’d say the only one I’ve seen that holds up to repeat viewings would be Hulk Vs., but that’s it. DC had a few back in the 90′s, and then didn’t really start up again until Superman: Doomsday in 2007, and every release since that has been quite entertaining. One standout was Batman: Gotham Knight, not only because of the animation styles, the writing of the stories, or the mature subject matter, but also because it filled in gaps between the Batman Begins movie and the events in The Dark Knight. It was a great link for fans and novices alike who were pumped to see Batman beating up bad guys.

Advantage: DC

Toys

I’m not talking about special edition figurines that are sculpted out of marble and placed on a shelf after being purchased for hundreds of dollars, I’m talking about toys, the things you see at Toys R’ Us or Target. Yes, I am a grown up who frequently checks the toy aisle at Target and drags Rampaige along to Toys R’ Us, and it’s evident that DC needs some new toys. The toys themselves are a weird size and look awkward, and I wouldn’t really want anyone to look at them on my shelf. I really do want to buy more DC toys, but it’s hard to find anything worth purchasing. Marvel, on the other hand, is constantly rolling out new toys with new colors and new packaging and variant costumes. They give you a reason to want to buy them, because they just look so fucking cool. The Marvel Select figures come with sturdy bases and the packaging art looks awesome, and the Marvel Legends figures are released in a series, and each toy in that series comes with one part of a larger figure, so if you buy the whole series, you get a bonus large figure. Another advantage might also be that with more movies and cartoons coming out, Marvel can make more toys related to that, but they are still in the lead. However, I must admit that compared to Thor and Captain America toys versus the Green Lantern toys I saw, the Green Lantern ones were a lot cooler.

Advantage: Marvel

Kids

This one is a little bit harder to quantify, trying to figure out which characters kids like more. Working in a public place where I see thousands of people every single day, there’s one thing I know for certain…KIDS WEAR MARVEL SHIT. Whether it be shirts, shoes, backpacks, lunchbags, water bottles, whatever it is, I see plenty more Marvel. I think there are a couple of reasons why, one of them being the subject matter of their characters. Plenty of kids like Batman, but after seeing a movie like The Dark Knight, most parents don’t run out and throw their 5-year-old in a shirt with the Joker on it. Older audiences wear these things, but as far as little kids, it seems as though parents are a lot more willing to toss their kid in a Spider-Man shirt, because he is a high school kid, or Iron Man shoes, despite the fact that he is an alcoholic. Big surprise that the company who is now owned by Disney has a lot more kid-friendly products. I also think another factor in this is just the licensing rights, and with Marvel overseeing the production of more of their movies, TV shows and cartoons, that shit can just get pumped out nonstop without being slowed down with paperwork. Even though I don’t have any statistics to back it up, it appears that kids support Marvel more than DC.

Advantage: Marvel

Videogames

I have played my fair share of comic book based videogames, however, it’s mostly just shitty sidescrolling games where all I am expected to do is mash buttons and kill things. I do own Arkham Asylum, which was extremely successful and has a sequel coming out, but I haven’t beaten it yet. I also own Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and quite enjoy it, but it’s basically an updated button masher. I think both publishers have success and failures in this area and it might be too close to call. In case you would like to chime in with your opinion on that, you can check the list of Marvel related videogames here and DC related videogames here.

Advantage: Draw

It’s like picking out which one is funnier!

There you have it, the official score is Marvel – 5 and DC – 2. Granted, these are just my interpretations of these two publishing companies, and I wouldn’t have felt it necessary to compare the two, being two completely different companies that just happen to have similar goals, but that’s Dan Didio’s fault for claiming they were going to be “number one”. I still think both companies are awesome and will support pretty much anything they attempt, I just want DC to do more stuff with Green Arrow. I mean, that guy’s awesome! He doesn’t even have a movie yet!

And by DC, of course I mean the comic book company. I almost typed out “DC Comics”, only to realize that it would be like saying “Detective Comics Comics”, which is as dumb as “PIN Number” or “ATM Machine”. So when I say DC, I mean the Batman guys. You know, those guys! The word from Dan DiDio is that “In direct response to a post that was made on The Wolfman Cometh blog, which, by the way, is our favorite blog here at DC, in which the Wolfman claimed we couldn’t become number one (which can be viewed right here, by the way), we are starting over with more than 50 titles being renumbered to issue one, therefore, making us number one”. Well, that was a synopsis of what he said, basically. I can’t help but think I was foreshadowing this event when I did talk about the specificity of saying “number one” as being different from ”the best”. Along with renumbering their comics, they’re also going to supposedly change characters identities, backstories, uniforms, and even some of their origins. For example, Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, who is currently wheelchair bound and is known as “Oracle”, will become the new Batgirl, who has the use of her legs. How can she use her legs? Because fuck it, it’s number one, we do what we want. Also, I read that Supergirl will no longer wear a skirt, and that a few other female heroines will get costume changes that are more modest. I hope I get to see Power Girl in more pantsuits. I see two results with this direction, and neither are that good. One option is it sticks and is successful and a whole bunch of new readers pick up on the number ones, only to eventually reach pinnacle numbers like Action Comics or Detective Comics #1000 within the next few years, and not really acknowledge those landmarks. DC claims they won’t be doing this, and maybe issue numbers don’t matter, but when you are claiming to be starting over, you should at least stick with it. The other option, which doesn’t seem as likely, is that after 6-12 months and not gaining any readers, they renege on the whole thing completely, and switch back to the old numbers. Anyone remember the death of Superman? Yeah, that didn’t last long. It’s not like it would be strange for DC to go back on their word or anything, it just comes across as indecisive. I guess I would prefer the first option, or a third option that I don’t know about, but those are my predictions. As I’ve mentioned before, I love some DC characters more than Marvel, and I really hope things work out for them.

Going into this movie, I had pretty low expectations. This summer, we already had Thor, which was good, and X-Men: First Class, which was a lot of fun, and I was highly doubtful about if this could be better than the previous comic book movies I had seen. Add to that the fact that I didn’t really think the movie would work quite that well, and the early negative reviews, I was nervous that everything would be completely fucked. The last DC movie that had come out had been The Dark Knight, which took Hollywood and the general public by storm, so how the fuck could this follow that up? Let’s just say that this version of the movie was better than the original concept that was being passed around a few years ago. Did you know that this movie was originally going to be a comedy starring Jack Black? I shit you not, that a few years ago, before the “gritty realism” of most other comic book movies, Green Lantern was going to be funny. Thank fucking Cthulhu that someone realized how dumb that was, and how much better Ryan Reynolds would look in a skin-tight suit.

Yes, Ryan, everyone is still pissed at you for marrying, and DIVORCING ScarJo.

Since the Green Lantern mythos is kind of confusing to explain to anybody, the beginning of the movie had to give you a crash-course in Green Lantern-ness. These really powerful aliens harnessed an energy force in the universe, that was green, and was powered by an individual’s sheer force of will. That green energy was transferred to rings, and the wearer of the ring could construct anything their mind was capable of, as long as they had the conviction of will. Once a ring had “chosen” the bearer, they would be assigned a sector. The one responsible for the sector that Earth was in, named Abin Sur, was well-renowned after having defeated an entity who is the antithesis of will, and who was powered by fear. This entity, known as Parallax, literally sucked the fear from individuals, draining them of their life force. Unfortunately for Abin Sur, Parallax escaped and hunted him down, and critically wounded him. All of this shit happens in probably the first five minutes, and is aided by a narration by Geoffrey Rush, so if you got confused, I wouldn’t be surprised.

If you use SPF 100, you can avoid the weird purple color next time you go to the beach.

The ring wearers are referred to as “Green Lanterns”, and after his escape from Parallax, Abin Sur landed on Earth. In Abin Sur’s last moments, his ring left his finger in search of the replacement Green Lantern, and found its way to Ryan Reynolds. Well, not Ryan Reynolds, the character is named Hal Jordan, but he’s played by Ryan Reynolds. Hal is a hotshot Air Force pilot who is cocky, brash, and irresponsible, but aren’t all good superheroes? Once realizing the power of his ring, Hal is transported to the home-base for all the members of the Green Lantern Corps, a planet called “Oa”. Once there, a powerful Green Lantern named Sinestro, played by Mark Strong, expresses his doubts and concerns, and through a brief boot-camp sequence, Hal claims to quit and heads back to Earth. Peter Sarsgaard plays Hector Hammond, the scientist who gives Abin Sur an autopsy, where he is inadvertently infected by what remains of Parallax in Abin Sur’s corpse, which causes Hector’s head to swell grotesquely as well as amplify his mental prowess, giving him the power to read minds and control objects. Because of his powers and his jealousy over Hal’s relationship with Carol Ferris, played by Blake Lively, Hal realizes he must defeat Hector. As if Hector being a dick wasn’t enough, the amount of Parallax inside him causes Parallax itself to head towards Earth in hopes of destroying what remains of Abin Sur’s legacy. Hal stops his pity party and takes on Hector, defeats him, then takes on Parallax, and destroys it. The rest of the Green Lantern Corps take notice, and Hal Jordan rejoins them, as a peace keeper in the universe.

I don’t really know who this Blake Lively bitch is, but based on Rampaige’s hatred for her, I feel like I am obligated to like her.

What the fuck was everyone complaining about? The movie wasn’t great, but it really wasn’t that bad. In fact, I enjoyed myself. Granted, there were moments where I felt like I was watching the Hulk movie from 2003, where there was way too much shit going on to figure out what the point was. They were, for the most part, able to set the stage for the role of Green Lanterns, while remaining relatively faithful to the comics. I thought Ryan Reynolds was fine as Hal, but possibly a little too self-conscious. Hal Jordan is known for his cockiness and how self-centered he is, but I understand that this was just one story where you need to introduce the character to millions of oblivious people. As far as acting goes, Reynolds couldn’t compete with the two supporting actors, Sarsgaard and Strong. Sarsgaard went from a vulnerable, intelligent character who you were sympathetic with, all the way to a grotesque, disgusting person that you couldn’t bring yourself to look at. Strong portrayed Sinestro as regal, powerful, and commanding, and despite Sinestro currently being regarded as a bad guy in the comics, he still has elegance to him that Strong conveyed wonderfully. Blake Lively? Well, yeah, she existed in this movie as well.

Ugh, that veiny forehead looks so sensitive that even I have a headache now.

What really set this movie apart from any other comic book movie that has been released was the visual look of this movie. First off, Parallax is the embodiment of fear, which even in comic books is difficult to portray, but typically has a fluidity to it. On the screen, we saw a being who fluctuated in size, shape, and density, that was constantly moving, smoking, melting, and burning. In my opinion, they really nailed it. I also enjoyed the portrayal of the Guardians, the beings who originally harnessed the energy, lived on isolated thrones on Oa that were hundreds of feet tall, and commanded respect and inspired awe in anyone who spoke with them. The robes they wore draped over the thrones and were almost as long as the thrones themselves. Any time the constructs were used, courtesy of the rings, they were believable and creative, making for quite entertaining action sequences. I really feel as though the creative design of this movie gave you the sense of scale of the vastness of the universe in which Green Lantern exists, which might have alienated some viewers, but entertained me tremendously. And I’ll admit, that Hal Jordan’s suit didn’t look all that cool, but it was the proof of concept. Every member of the Corps has a slightly different suit because the suit itself isn’t fabric, it is constructed from the power of the ring. It served its purpose, and won’t stop anyone from buying a Green Lantern costume this Halloween. Also, I commented on how shitty his mask was at disguising two inches of his face, and there was a scene where Blake Lively realizes it was Hal, and lets him know that hiding his cheekbones won’t fool her.

Why don’t more superheroes wear uniforms that emphasize every muscular fiber in their body?!

Maybe I’m being a little too lenient after having such low standards, but I am pretty sure that I really was as entertained as I claim. There were moments where I doubted the quality of the movie, but the final action sequences really turned me around and made me a fan. There were also a few references for comic fans to pick up on, like the inclusion of the notorious Green Lanterns Kilowog and Bzzd, and Carol’s call sign of Sapphire, referencing the fact that currently she is a member of the Star Sapphire Corps as well as using that Corps’ insignia on her helmet. Without spoiling it, shortly into the credits we see where Sinestro’s fate is headed, which goes in line with the comic book lineage as well as sets us up for a sequel. In the current state of comic book movies, where everyone is trying to compare things to reality, it was nice to see a movie that called for the attitude of “FUCK IT” and go all out with its ambitions. Despite your Iron Mans and your Dark Knights and your X-Mens trying to relate to things you know, Green Lantern really shot for the stars and showed you something a lot more majestic and astronomical, which I feel people probably haven’t seen since the original Superman. Granted, I am not saying this movie was as good as that movie, but it brought a refreshing tone to comic book movies. However, there’s no fucking way I could ever picture a team-up movie featuring Christian Bale as Batman trying to help Green Lantern fight fucking fear monsters.

Wolfman Moon Scale

Official Site
IMDb

SHUT. UP. I’m really not sure if there are a bunch of babies crying right now, but it seems like every damn day, Marvel editor Stephen Wacker is posting tweets that he gets from irate fans. It seems that comic book fans are cranky…about something, all the time. Add to that the whole “controversy” over the DC relaunch of all of their titles, and you get a bunch of people acting like stupid babies. I think the biggest problem with any sort of subculture, and possibly every “culture” in general is a sense of entitlement. People think that because they like something that puts them in the minority, they are the only ones who get to enjoy them and the creators of those things better do things the way they want them done. Before we get to comics, which has one too many ways to disappoint fans, let’s try something a little more polarizing: REMAKES. Not even just remakes, but also adaptations. The announcement of pretty much any sort of remake of a movie or adaptation of a comic generally causes an immediate reaction from people of “HEY THAT’S SOMETHING I LIKE, AND HAD NO INVOLVEMENT IN THE CREATION OF, BUT I’M CRANKY FOR WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING WITH IT!” Goddammit. As an example, a movie like John Carpenter’s “The Thing” has a prequel/remake coming out later this year and people are fucking pissed. I’ve loved the movie since I first saw it, which, admittedly, has only been a few years. Imagine how pissed the people are who have loved this movie since it originally came out decades ago finding out that some “new jack” likes the same thing he likes. I’m sure I could do a Google search and find plenty of people who would have that response, and completely dismiss that a classic film that John Carpenter made was FUCKING BASED ON A MOVIE THAT WAS MADE DECADES EARLIER. Not nearly as many people talk about the original as much as the Kurt Russell version, so if people protested what John Carpenter was doing, we wouldn’t have the classic he produced. I understand that this is an exception to the rule, but to me, it shouldn’t matter. I’m sure there are people who love the Adam West Batman movie and were pissed at both the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan movies which most people would argue were creative and interesting films. So why did I use the word “comics” in the title of this post? It’s all about entitlement. If hearing horror movie fans bitch and moan about people in Hollywood making decisions that they don’t agree with wasn’t bad enough, comic book fans seem to be even worse. Even though characters like Batman or Spider-Man are some of the most well-known characters in the world right now, it’s typically because people have seen movies or cartoons, as opposed to gaining knowledge through the media that spawned these characters. Of course comic book sales fluctuate over the decades, but despite the fact that some of the characters were created before they were even sperm in their father’s balls, comic book readers find the need to insult the people bringing comic books to the forefront of pop culture. I thoroughly enjoy Watchmen and knew that there didn’t need to be a movie based on it. I still went to see the movie, and though it was visually interesting, it felt hollow. Did I furiously type a thesis towards Zack Snyder for how he ruined Watchmen? No. Okay, well of course I talked shit about it here and there, but that’s besides the point. The point is, having a shitty movie based on something I like doesn’t make me enjoy the comic book itself any less. Seeing a shitty Ghost Rider movie didn’t make me enjoy the comics any less. Why can’t people understand that film, TV, and literature are all mediums that existed before these people could vent their frustrations relatively anonymously on the internet? I apologize for using movies as specific examples, but I feel as though that’s a little bit easier to grasp, allowing more people to understand my point. In a few months, every single DC comic book is ending, with many of them starting over from zero. Let’s say, in theory, someone has every single issue of Action Comics ever printed, which is over 900 issues. Just because there will be new numbering on the issues, what’s stopping someone from enjoying all of their 900 issues? How does a title, or different artist, or different writer, or different storyline stop ANYONE from enjoying what they loved so much, other than out of spite? What causes people to send messages of anger to the people who created some of their favorite issues of comic books, proclaiming how they will never buy anything from Marvel ever again, just because the story is going a way that they don’t approve of? Do you think that anyone cares how long you’ve been collecting comic books for or the fact that you’ll never give a company any money? They don’t. For every one person who throws a tantrum and leaves comics behind, there lies the possibility of gaining people who get turned onto comics. This is not at all to say that creators don’t care about their fans, I know they do, but it’s always the people who are cranky that feel their voice needs to be heard because somehow it was THEIR face that was spat upon. But, then again, I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH CREATING THE THINGS I ENJOY AND HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT’S RIGHT OR WHAT’S WRONG. If any company employs people to make executive decisions about their characters or stories, and that person with the decision-making power pitches an idea to kill off every character for good, and other people who work at the company agree with the idea, how do I have any right to start saying mean things about them on the internet? It’s the same kind of insanity that exists with people sitting on their couches talking about what they would do if THEY were the coach of their favorite team, but rather than applying themselves in any way, shape, or form, or left shouting at a television. Maybe the creators of all of these stories know how insane the “fans” are and choose to only highlight the negative ones because if they only showed off the good ones, it might seem like they were bragging. I feel like I might be getting a little off-track or possibly redundant, but ultimately I think all of this boils down to the fact that people who are fans of anything, whether it be music, movies, books, or comics, think that something is owed to them. Nobody owes me anything, because they already gave me hours upon hours of enjoyment. What is comes down to is there’s really just one thing I’d like to say to anyone who had anything, no matter how minimal, to do with creating the movies, comics, TV, and art that have given me hours of entertainment: THANK YOU.

First off, I am probably three months behind with all comic books because I am trying to save money. Secondly, I only read a handful of DC comic books anyway, so I didn’t really care all that much. However, after realizing there are 52 new titles coming out soon, I might actually be interested in some of them being placed in my slot so I can buy them in December. The following is a list of the comics I might look into to see if they are any good. Before I go any further, keep in mind that these are merely ones I’m interested in, and doesn’t mean I’ll buy them. I’ll probably pick them up, look at them, and ask someone for help.

Justice League

Formerly known as the Justice League of America, and sometimes known as “the comic that I’ve never really paid any attention to” to some. Mainly me. I really like Geoff Johns, and it’s got some characters I like, so I might check it out. This is also the first of the new 52 and is intended to be a flagship title with Geoff Johns writing and Jim Lee as the artist, so hopefully it lives up to that combination.

Batman/Detective Comics/Batman & Robin/Batman: The Dark Knight

Don’t really know which one to go with here and will wait and see what people are saying. I currently only read Batman as well as Batman and Robin, but was at one point reading all four. Now that everything is starting over, I have no allegiance to any of the titles, but like to read Batman and will hopefully keep up with at least one of these. Also, I totally thought I used the same image twice, then just realized the artwork for Batman & Robin is quite similar to Batman: The Dark Knight. You assholes.

Green Lantern/Red Lanterns

Will definitely be reading Green Lantern, as it is still Geoff Johns, and will hopefully hear some good things about Red Lanterns. Not necessarily the characters themselves that I enjoy, but the idea of their spectrum being based on rage and the angrier they are, the stronger they are really hits close to home. I’ve heard there is a Red Lantern cat though which is bullshit because cats are shitty.

Green Arrow

This is one that I want to be good, but will not be surprised if I don’t read it. It looks like Oliver Queen will be younger and “edgier”, and I enjoyed the cranky old liberal with a goatee. Who knows, this book might take that town, but it seems as though he might be shaping up to be more similar to Marvel’s Hawkeye.

Birds of Prey

I don’t know too much about these characters, but I like Black Canary, possibly only because I like Green Arrow. Anyways, this is a series I have wanted to start reading for quite some time, but never found an easy enough starting point and just got lazy. Hopefully this will change that.

Swamp Thing

 I’ve only ever read some of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, but I liked it. I wished I had read more! I’m hoping for monsters having sex with ladies.

Justice League Dark

Again, I’ve only ever read some of Hellblazer, but John Constantine seems like a cool dude. And despite the fact that her fishnets now look like she bought them at Hot Topic, I think Zatanna is pretty neat, too. And it’s got “Dark” in the title, which implies that the subject matter will be less bright! Easy decision.

Well folks, that’s it. I don’t know when any of these come out, so I guess I’ll resort to just going to my local comic book store and asking what came out that week, and then buying it. Sounds simple enough that even a moron like me won’t be able to fuck it up! 

You fucking got me, okay!? I can admit that DC tricked me into reading this series. I tried to avoid reading it because I don’t have very good luck reading the DC events. My most recent experiences were with Blackest Night, which I enjoyed, but both Final Crisis and Brightest day just confused the shit out of me. I guess that’s the issue I have with DC events, which is that I’m just not familiar with enough characters that when one of them pops up, I know nothing about them. My recent confusions are what made me blow off Flashpoint, but it was also because I wasn’t reading much about The Flash and didn’t want to be more confused. The reason I decided to read it was because of how annoyed I was trying to figure out what had happened the day after it had been released, that I figured I’d say “fuck it”, read it, and see how confused I got. So here we go, filled with spoilers, is what happened in Flashpoint. As a warning, I’m going to skip some details for the sake of brevity.

I think this image is somehow important, but I can’t really keep track of what’s going on. Other than The Flash is running, of course. And he’s running F-A-S-T.

Barry Allen, who some might know as The Flash, wakes up at his desk at the police station. When he tries to use his super power, he falls down the stairs and sees his mom looking at him. Flash Fact: Barry Allen’s mom is dead. Clearly something wacky is going on, so Barry goes after Batman, the best detective ever. When confronting Batman, we learn that Batman is not Bruce Wayne, but is instead Thomas Wayne. Clearly there is something wacky going on in this universe, and it seems that Barry Allen is the only one who knows it. I know that Barry’s mom being alive and Bruce Wayne being killed instead of Thomas might not seem like some big issue with this universe, but I should also mention that in this universe Wonder Woman and Aquaman are about to tear the world apart in a big death war fight thing. After Barry gets his powers back through lightning, he decides that he needs to find Superman, only to learn that Superman is locked in some basement and has never seen the Sun. In addition to being on the brink of war, all of Barry’s memories are changing to fit this new universe and he realizes that to correct things, he’s going to act quickly. When Barry determines that Reverse Flash is to blame and confronting him, Thomas Wayne kills him in order to have Barry run back in time to set things right. Thomas is critically wounded, but gives Barry a letter to deliver to Bruce, and then Barry says his goodbyes to his mom before running back in time to correct the universe. After setting things back to being more similar to what they are and delivering the letter to Bruce Wayne, Bruce starts crying over what his father said, and thus ends the DC universe.

Aw, Batman, you poor baby!

As far as five issues miniseries go, I was quite entertained. The whole story was relatively condensed to just a few characters, with Flash and Batman being at the center. I’d like to point out that I didn’t read any of the one-shots of tie-ins for other characters, so I’m sure there’s a lot more stuff that happened while Flash was running around, but the story itself was pretty easy to understand. Maybe because I only read those few issues of the series itself I missed out on the sense of how widespread or “epic” these events were, they seemed a little underwhelming. I understand the idea of Barry going back in time to change one event and how that will resonate throughout history and change lots of things in all sorts of different ways, but it didn’t sink in that the DC universe was hitting the “RESET” button. It was somewhat melodramatic seeing Bruce Wayne cry, but I understood why his entire character would end right after that event happened. I’ve also already read the first issue of the new universe, Justice League #1, and enjoyed it, but I’m still confused. I guess after all of the marketing around the end of this series, I expected something a little more, either with a longer series or maybe more emphasis on the whole world changing. After I read the final page and it said “The End” on the bottom, it was hard to believe that they meant the end of the entire DC universe. I can understand fans that are upset over this series, but I feel like any fans of Flash or Batman can appreciate the series, and would even recommend it to anyone looking for a prelude to any of the new number ones.

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DC Comics
Flashpoint on Wikipedia

Green Lantern

This title caused me a little bit of confusion, because I know that Hal Jordan had his ring taken away from him at the conclusion of the previous Green Lantern title, but I thought that the events of Flashpoint changed a whole bunch of stuff? Maybe if I do some more internet searching I’ll find the timeline, but Sinestro is the titular Green Lantern of this series, and even he doesn’t seem happy about it. We see Hal Jordan being forced to pay rent, and when he thinks he sees a domestic dispute, he jumps through a window of another building to stop it, not giving a shit that he didn’t have superpowers. It was pretty cool. Hal has to adjust to life without these powers, until of course the end of the issues where Sinestro implies he can get him his power back. Geoff Johns is kicking ass writing Green Lantern and this might be what I’ve been most excited about so far with the New 52.

Red Lanterns

The first member of the Red Lantern Corps that we see is a cat…I was willing to set the book on fire and I was only a few pages in. We then got to see some of the other Red Lanterns, and even though I enjoy the idea of the Red Lanterns and that they are driven by rage, I don’t really connect to deeply with any one member of the Corps. The cat left long enough for me to enjoy the rest of the issue, but this might be one that I drop.

Batman & Robin

It’s good to see a little brat as Batman’s sidekick, which I guess will happen when you are Bruce Wayne’s son Damian. Rather than a Robin who is constantly trying to impress Batman and view him as some sort of deity, it’s nice to see Damien acting like a little asshole who doesn’t really give a shit whether or not he has Batman’s approval. Not a bad story, but I think I liked Detective Comics more than this as far as Batman titles are concerned.

Suicide Squad

This is a title I didn’t mention being interested in when I made that big post of what I was looking forward to, and mostly just picked it up on a whim. I figured it would be similar to Marvel’s Thunderbolts, which took a team of lesser-known villains and offered them the chance to reform. I was right about the lesser-known villain thing, but wrong about the idea of reform. Instead, the Suicide Squad is a force of death and destruction for hire. Some of the characters are annoying me already though, but this issue teased the death of a team member and I really hope it’s King Shark, because that guys makes no goddamned sense.

Batman

This title set the internet on fire when it was released this week, if by “internet” I am referring to “comic book websites”. A lot of people were claiming that this was the best title of not just the week, but of the entire DC relaunch. With that sort of expectation, it was kind of hard to judge this book on its own merits. I read it, I liked it. Do I need to say more? This story didn’t reinvent the wheel or anything, but it was definitely quite enjoyable. I feel like with all of these new DC books, I am just rating them based on “like” or “didn’t like” and haven’t been able to say which one I enjoyed the most. I liked seeing the detective aspect of Batman, and it made me feel like I was back playing Arkham Asylum, with all these gadgets the Batman has and almost a tutorial of how he could use them. I think this title will be going in a good direction, but then again, I also liked Batman & Robin, as well as Detective Comics, so it might be too early to pick my favorite Batman title.

Birds of Prey

This is another book that I couldn’t judge quite accurately because of the internet, even though the attention didn’t really fall on this title. The internet lost its mind, and rightfully so, over the way women were portrayed in two specific titles that came out this week. One of these titles was Catwoman, who is a character who has no problem using her womanly powers to make men weak in the knees. Here is the opening page from the Catwoman series:

Before we even see Catwoman’s face, we see her tits. Okay, most comic book women are drawn with the same endowments, so it’s not that she has giant knockers, I think people were just upset at how blatantly they were trying to exploit her “sexiness”. Okay okay, maybe this image isn’t that bad, but here are some pages from the end of the issue:

NOPE, THIS ISN’T EROTIC FANFICTION, THIS IS SOMETHING PRINTED BY DC. IN A COMIC BOOK. FOR PEOPLE TO LOOK AT. IT’S BATMAN FUCKING CATWOMAN. I mean, for fuck’s sake, tone it dont a little, will you? I’m no prude or anything, but it’s one thing to imply this behavior, but it’s another to put it out there, right in the opening, for what appears to be the sole purpose of getting pervert weirdos to buy this instead of paying someone for a commission sketch. And this is only ONE of the two titles. The other title was Red Hood and the Outlaws, which I wasn’t too familiar with. I knew that Jason Todd was the Red Hood, and then there was the knockoff Green Arrow character, but there’s also some weird lady. I guess her name is Starfire and she is an alien or something, and, well, just take a look at this scene…

WHAT THE FUCK. Talk about trying to be as slutty as you can be in five seconds. Kind of reminds me of someone from a movie I recently reviewed. All this character wants to do is fuck, and doesn’t even give a shit that she is married because she “can’t remember”, which seems convenient. Also, I like how the guy is so shocked that he spits out his soda, and five seconds later is all “Oh, okay! Tell me more about this ‘sex’ thing you speak of!” This scene was after we were introduced to Starfire, which of course was an introduction involving a bikini. I’ve included what the original illustration was that was supposed to be printed, which comes from the artist’s website. WARNING: image is mildly NWS, because it’s a cartoon lady drawn “sexy”. You might not get fired if someone sees you looking, but they’ll definitely think you’re a weirdo creep.

SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE, THOUGHT IT WAS APPROPRIATE TO HAVE THIS ALIEN WEAR SARAN WRAP AS A BATHING SUIT. They did “tone it down” for the actual printing of the issue by coloring the bikini a solid color, but still, what the fuck guys. Is this what it’s come to? Saving people the time it takes them to draw their favorite characters in erotic situations by doing it for them? Ugh. All of this almost made me embarrassed to buy Birds of Prey, considering I was only trying it because I liked Black Canary from her time with Green Arrow, and considering I am not going to read that, wanted to see what she was up to. Luckily, the females in this book are far more approrpiately well-dressed and I don’t fear that their tits will bounce up and cave in their skulls. I think I’ll keep reading. I’d also like to send you in the direction of this article onNewsarama by Jill Pantozzi on the difference between what can be considered “sexy” art vs. “sexual” art.

I DON’T LIKE SUPERMAN. I know, that sounds relatively cliché to say, but it’s true. There haven’t really been any Superman stories or movies or anything that I’ve really connected with in any way. I like some of the concepts brought up in Kingdom Come, and I like the “What If?” elements of Red Son, but that’s about it. The only weakness that the character has is a physical object, so as long as he stays away from that object, he can do almost anything. Most other heavy hitters in the comic book world have some sort of psychological issue that can get in the way of how to rescue someone, but Superman is pretty level-headed, making him a little less interesting in my opinion. The main reason that I decided to revisit Superman Returns was that it came out in the summer and it was a warm, breezy night and I wanted to watch something that reminded me of the summer. It hadn’t even dawned on me why it might be a great time to review a Superman movie when Man of Steel comes out in just a few weeks! Oh man! It’s almost like I planned it this way all along! Sadly, it was just a coincidence. Seven years later, there are still some things about this movie that just don’t seem to connect, but to my surprise, there are things that hold up better than anticipated.

Wait, so does he wear underwear over AND under the tights, or does he freeball it? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

After leaving Earth and just kind of exploring the universe for five years, Kal El (Brandon Routh) has returned to the family that raised him from the time his spaceship crash landed in their backyard as a baby. Resuming his job as a reporter at the Daily Planet and under the name “Clark Kent”, he finds that his old girlfriend, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), has moved on and had a child with someone else and has written articles about why it’s a good thing that Superman just up and left. That doesn’t stop Superman from stepping in to rescue Lois and the plane she’s in when there’s an EMP explosion that knocks out the ships navigation, caused by an experiment by Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey). Having been gone for so long, Superman feels the need to make up for lost time and spends most of his time flying around the planet trying to save as many people as superhumanly possible. Lex, on the other hand, has spent five years developing a plan that involves using elements from Superman’s home planet, fused with kryptonite, to create a brand new continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Do you think this will actually work out for Lex? No, of course not. Even though he is weakened by the kryptonite on the emerging continent, Superman is able to supercharge his powers by flying that much closer to our Sun, the source of his power, and is able to lift up the entire continent and throw it out into outer space. His personal life might be a little complicated with Lois Lane having a new man in his life, but Superman proves he’s still fucking got it!

There’s no way Clark can be Superman! Clark wears glasses, Superman doesn’t. Duh.

Let’s try to be positive and focus on the things that this movie does well. The whole movie looks fucking great. Everything is in soft focus and there are a lot of really warm colors and tones to the whole thing and the whole feel of the movie is reminiscent of the 1950’s. Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor is far more comedic and dastardly than he is maniacally evil, but it really fits the tone of the film and his performance is really fun. Also, Sam Huntington as the Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen is also really entertaining to watch, as well as Routh’s bumbling and goofy Clark Kent. Routh’s Clark Kent plays really well with Lois Lane and that relationship feels like movies from the 40’s and 50’s where no matter how handsome or debonair a leading man might be, the lead female still won’t give him the time of day. The action sequences, especially the first one involving a plane crash, are really, really cool. Especially considering how the entire feel of the movie is that of an older time, the action feels really spectacular. Even though I mentioned one reason I don’t like Superman is because he feels too perfect and invincible, I don’t think I’ve ever quite grasped his power until one sequence in this movie where a robber is using a GIANT chain gun against Superman, who merely walks confidently into the gunfire. This not only deflects the bullets back at the criminals, shielding innocent bystanders, but also allows the viewer to see what happens when a giant bullet is shot DIRECTLY into Superman’s eye. Well, being bulletproof, Superman doesn’t even blink as the bullet crumples onto itself and falls to the ground. No matter how much shit this movie might get, that segment is fantastic.

“Just think of all the doors this will open for my career!” – poor, poor disillusioned Kate Bosworth

Sadly, a lot of the other shit that this movie gets is completely justified. Although Routh’s Clark Kent works well, he looks and feels a little too young to pull off the Superman personality. Even if his Superman is a little lackluster, it is FAR more engaging and interesting than Bosworth’s Lois Lane, which is absolutely forgettable. I could see that the filmmakers approached the movie by intentionally casting relatively unknowns, but in this instance it just didn’t really pay off well. The biggest problem is just the entire premise of the movie. There’s a lot of talk about what the world was like when Superman was gone, but we never really saw whether or not that world was good or bad. It was like the movie wanted to be a remake but felt like it would be disrespectful to all the previous movies by hitting the reset button. A big complaint with Superman stories is that he always wins, so I could see what they were doing by trying to make Superman “lose” Lois Lane, but she still had HIS child, so did he really lose her?  Oh, and the master plan of Lex Luthor building his own continent and having that continent thrown into the Sun as your climax was really underwhelming. It sucks, because the action sequences were good up until then, and I guess that scene was able to show just how powerful he was, but lifting a giant rock into the sky wasn’t all that exciting.

I do have to give this movie credit for making Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey on on-screen couple.

I mentioned that the scene where a bullet crumples up against Superman’s eye is one of the best sequences in all of the movies when it comes to showing his powers, but Superman Returns had another really powerful scene towards the end. Considering he had been stabbed by a shard of kryptonite, immediately after Superman throws the continent into the Sun, he collapses back on Earth and is immediately rushed to the hospital. Doctors remove the shard of kryptonite from his side, but when they try to give him injections, the needles just keep breaking against his skin. Even though the audience knows that there’s really not much these human doctors can do to help an alien, the scene was much stronger at showing the lengths that humanity was willing to go to save Superman. Remember the scene in Spider-Man where New Yorkers all started throwing trash at the Green Goblin? This hospital scene was very similar to that, except with a much more serious, somber tone that fit the mood of the film. There are a lot of strong things this movie has to offer, definitely a lot more than I remember, but there’s still a lot of flaws that stand out more for people than the strengths can.

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IMDb
Netflix
Amazon Blu-ray

As you may or may not remember from my review of Superman Returns, I have never really had a strong connection with either Superman as a character or in any sort of cinematic experience. Obviously I’ve seen that film, and I’ve definitely seen the original Superman film at some point, maybe I’ve seen parts of the second movie, but I’ve just never had enough interest in the character to seek out all cinematic versions of him. If that wasn’t reason enough to have doubts about Man of Steel, the fact that the movie was directed by Zack “The Hack” Snyder didn’t get me super excited about seeing it either. Even though Snyder does have an interesting visual style, all of his films lack depth of character and story. Even though I had my doubts about this film being any good, I was actually quite intrigued by how Snyder would take a character that I had no connection with to see how he’d make Superman look “cool”, and from some reviews I had read, Snyder seemed to make a pretty good movie. Although the more good reviews came out, the more negative ones came out, so I was totally willing to let this movie either completely blow me away or be a steaming pile of shit. Ultimately the film ended up not really making me feel much of anything, with a slight edge being given to the “pile of shit” end of the spectrum.

See? Even Superman knows that dogs are the best.

With the planet of Krypton being destroyed, scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) puts his baby into a spaceship and sends him out to a distant planet. Decades later, we see a man working on a ship fishing for crab jumping onto a burning oil drilling rig and saving everyone on it, despite it being on fire. That man, as you could expect, was Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), despite the fact that he doesn’t tell anyone his real name and quickly gets out of town after the rescue. Clark is a drifter, going from one job to the next and never revealing his identity to anyone. Clark is able to get involved with the mysterious discovery of a ship that’s been discovered frozen in the arctic that is from his home planet, and a hologram of his father explains who Clark is (his real name is Kal-El), where he comes from, and information about his people. This information is also seen by a reporter who has sneaked onto the ship, Lois Lane (Amy Adams), but Clark seems to trust her, despite then abandoning her and keeping his distance. While Lois tries to track down the origins of the mystery man, everyone on Earth is sent a mysterious message from former Kryptonian warrior General Zod (Michael Shannon) about how they need to turn in Kal-El or their planet will be destroyed. Even after Kal-El willingly turns himself in, Zod knows that Earth must be destroyed if there’s any chance to keep the Kryptonian species alive. Kal-El, a.k.a. Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman doesn’t really agree with this and the punching commences! After the punching is over, the movie ends. Yeah, I’d say that about covers it.

Very nice of Michael Shannon to bring his own armor to the set.

Speaking strictly from the plot, the movie follows more of a science fiction tone with the fact that Superman is an alien and the general public reacts to him as such. In that respect, it’s definitely a much more interesting origin story than most other comic book/superhero movies currently being made. I didn’t really mention the flashbacks that were shown to help give you a better sense of who the character of Clark was and his upbringing on a small farm in Kansas with Kevin Costner and Diane Lane acting as his parents. Well, those actors play the roles of the parents, it’s not like Clark Kent’s dad was actually Kevin Costner. Anyways, Clark parents want Clark to be safe so they emphasize how important it is that he refrains from using any of his superpowers, even if it means other people could get hurt from his inaction. I really, really liked the tone of some of the opening sequences where Clark has chosen a life of isolation so that way he can rescue people as necessary without bringing unwanted attention to his personal life or anyone Clark Kent might hold close to him. I also really enjoyed the character of Zod, as he wasn’t necessarily a figure of anger and vengeance, but merely as a character who was destined to do one thing and one thing only. In fact, some of the mythology of children who grew up on Krypton was that they were all biologically designed to fulfill one destiny, and in Zod’s case, it was to be a warrior. The ONLY thing he cared about was the survival of Kryptonians and he didn’t care what planet or species slowed him down. When it got towards the end and Zod’s plans were ruined by Superman, it was only then that he acted out of rage, and when he did, who better to have pulled that off than Michael Shannon? The character of the drifter and Zod’s character were both really strong, and the tone of the character who is a product of two worlds but feels alone in both were things I really enjoyed, but for as much as I enjoyed those aspects, they things I didn’t enjoy felt all the more terrible.

This cape must drag on the ground a lot. Nobody respects a man with a dirty cape.

I mentioned how I can generally enjoy Snyder’s films at an aesthetic level, but this movie looked terrible. I get it Zack, you can reduce the color saturation to get a “gritty” effect, but it’s become such a cliché with all of your films and it’s lost its appeal. There were sequences that were so washed out that it felt like I was watching something in black and white. I understand the departure from the more bright, colorful Superman films, but everything felt so unnatrually colored that it brought more attention to how fake everything looked. Superman and Zod are practically gods on Earth, so I appreciate the attempts made at showing the mass amounts of carnage and destruction that would result in the two colliding. When these two finally duke it out, everything looks so bad that I felt like I was watching one of the Transformers films or The Matrix Revolutions. OH MY GOD IT WAS SO BORING TO WATCH. In the climax of The Avengers, you have just as much carnage and collateral damage happening, but you see the active attempt to clear out the city so these people could stay safe, and every time you see a building get destroyed, its clear of people who were presumably evacuated. Not so much the case with Man of Steel, as you’re constantly seeing people running around the city, most likely dying by the thousands as Metropolis crumbles around them. Speaking of fighting, the opening sequence shows Jor-El and Zod going toe-to-toe with one another, and if Jor-El wasn’t designed to be a warrior, how did he get to be so good at kicking the shit out of Zod? Also, why was the scene where Jor-El opened up a closet and basically told Kal-El “Hey put this Superman suit on because I told you to,” so lame? Why didn’t Kal-El mind that a random lady just saw him learn his true identity after spending so much of his life avoiding the public’s attention? Hopefully without spoiling anything, why are we supposed to feel anything for Superman and how difficult it is for him to handle Zod without any prior information as to why it’s so difficult for him? Unfortunately, there are so many questions like that about simple things where, similar to Superman Returns, get you really frustrated at the good ideas and concepts that were presented, only to have them abandoned.

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It was a magical time for comic book movies back in 2005. Spider-Man had been released to record-breaking numbers back in 2002 and The Dark Knight hadn’t yet been released in 2008 which necessitated a more serious tone in which comic book movies were approached. Seeing how much money there was to be made, there was a huge surge of comic book movies in these years while every studio thought they would be the ones to hit it big. You had bigger name characters like the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, The Punisher, and Catwoman, all of which were relatively successful at the box office but weren’t received well by critics. Luckily, we also had lesser-known characters and titles being made, which gave us movies like Hellboy, 300, V for Vendetta, and Sin City. Caught in between the mainstream and independent world would be Constantine, named after the main character John Constantine in the Vertigo comic Hellblazer. Even though Constantine wasn’t all that well received by movie critics, comic book fans, or audiences, and somewhat deservedly so, there are still quite a few really cool things about the movie that I hope might cause people to give it another look.

Jumping to grab a piece of that 47 Ronin cash.

After an opening sequence establishes that a sacred object has fallen into the hands of a regular person, we cut right to seeing John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) doing what he does best, which is exorcising a demon from a little girl. Maybe that’s not what he does best, but when it comes to the supernatural, there’s really not much that Constantine doesn’t do. Unfortunately, Constantine always saw demons walking the Earth since he was a child, to the point that he even attempted suicide. His body might have been revived, but the act of suicide meant his soul was damned. He figures that if he’s fucked anyways, he might as well try to send as many demons back to Hell before he’s dragged down there with them. When she gets word that her twin sister has killed herself, Angela (Rachel Weisz) contacts Constantine to try to figure out why her incredibly religious twin would damn herself with suicide. Turns out that there’s some funny business involving the birth of the Antichrist, which results in a movie full of demons, bugs, cats, an angel, holy devices, bibles, the lead singer of Bush, and an over-the-top performance from Peter Stormare as Satan himself.

Looks like your face got covered in……glycerine.

Keanu Reeves is a shitty John Constantine. Essentially, that’s what all of my criticisms boil down to. Two characteristics of John Constantine are that he’s blonde and he’s British. Keanu Reeves is not blonde. Okay, sure, hair color isn’t necessarily intrinsic to someone’s personality, but it instantly causes backlash. Keanu Reeves is not British, he’s Canadian, and he’s like…Chinese or something? Or Hawaiian? Who knows. We saw with Michael Clarke Duncan in Daredevil that if you have the right actor, the ethnicity of a character is only one aspect of who they are, so it’s possible to change things about them to fit a movie. Unfortunately, Keanu Reeves just wasn’t a good John Constantine. Although being British isn’t the important part of the character, his sense of humor and the way he carries himself is. John Constantine is an “arse-hole” and he knows he’s an “arse-hole”. To the readers, his dickhead attitude is what makes him cool. Keanu Reeves seemed to think John Constantine was cool, which gave him liberty to be a dickhead. WRONG, KEANU. Constantine being British means the reader can quickly tap into a British sense of humor and attitude, and that attitude never came across in Reeves’s performance. The lines that could have been delivered with intensity within this world were delivered laughably because you knew that Reeves was pretending to be Constantine who was pretending to care. When your entire film revolves around a shitty performance of a good character, it’s easy to see why people dismiss the film, but I see a lot more in it.

YOU’RE SO COOL, KEANU!

Visually, there are a LOT of really cool things that this movie has going for it. The ways in which time will slow down/stop when a character travels to Hell, seeing Angela get sucked out of the side of a building, or Constantine’s body looking like it weighs thousands of pounds when Satan tries dragging him down to Hell. Granted, there’s a scene in which Constantine shoots bad guys while the sprinkler system is going off that reminds you of the blood rave in Blade and a scene where Constantine lights a handkerchief on fire while in total darkness to kill demons was reminiscent of a scene in Pitch Black, but there are plenty of other unique visuals that made the whole thing feel very stylish. This being the first movie based on Constantine, the film has to introduce you to his universe which can be taxing on the viewer. There are demons made out of bugs that are defeated in that very scene, there are powers given to Constantine in the film that he doesn’t have int he comics, and Tilda Swinton plays an asexual angel. Even though all of these new ideas and concepts might be disorienting to the audience, from what I’ve read of Hellblazer, the tone is similar. Constantine doesn’t know everything about the supernatural, so he sometimes has to track down being he didn’t know existed, exploit them for one thing, and then moves on. Similarly to the tone of Hellboy, I think Constantine helped establish how vast the universe of the comic book is and sets things up well to explore sequels down the road. Yes, ten years later, Keanu is still shitty, but maybe if the sequel had another visually interesting director (please not Zack Snyder) and maybe a convincing lead actor, we could see John Constantine kick the shit out of demons and be excited about it.

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Why the fuck would you care what movies I’m planning on going to see in theaters the next few months? Great point, sir or madam! Why would you care in the slightest? You probably don’t! However, keeping in tradition, I sometimes have a habit of forgetting about all the movies I want to see when it comes to summer movie season. Even though this list might partially be to put some movies on your radar, it’s mostly a checklist for me to quickly look back at to remind myself when movies are coming out and to not miss any of them. Most likely I will be seeing them all on opening morning so that it doesn’t cost as much and there aren’t as many people around and so I can get pizza for lunch right afterwards. I live a pretty cool life, huh? On that note, without further ado, here are the movies I plan on seeing in theaters over the next few months!

Bears - April 18th

FUCK. I am already blowing it. It has passed the 18th, so I could have seen this on opening day, but I fucked up and hope to amend that situation ASAP. What’s not to like about bears? My only worry about going to see Bears is that, being distributed by Disney, the movie will just be another compilation of footage from nature specials filmed by the BBC and edited together to give a “story” about “family”, but even if it is, it’s still a goddamn movie about bears.

The Quiet Ones – April 25th

Holy shit, I have NO goddamned idea what this movie is about. I know that it’s a horror movie that’s getting a major release and it might have something to do with ghosts and I don’t think it’s found footage. I like ghosts and I like movies not attempting to cash in on a popular trend, so I will probably check out The Quiet Ones. Unless, of course, it gets terrible reviews and then I realize why I don’t know much about it.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – May 2nd

I did a fair amount of shit talking about The Amazing Spider-Man, but enough time has gone by that I don’t really remember much about the movies or any complaints I had about the movie. Plus, Man of Steel has come out since then and that helped swing (hahahaha) some of my negative comic book movie emotions DC’s way. I’m not looking forward to this movie because I think it will be good, I’m looking forward to this movie to try to find what silver linings there might be in a movie that already appears to be 10 pounds of web fluid crammed into a 5 pound web fluid canister.

Godzilla – May 16th

Finally! I cannot WAIT to see what Matthew Broderick and hank Azaria have been up to! Okay no, I’m kidding, but have you seen the 1998 Godzilla lately? Holy fuck. I’m sure that all of the terrible things you remember about that movie are still there, but do you also remember how fucking LONG that movie is? I remember buying it on DVD just for jokes and then watched it with my friend immediately afterwards and fell asleep two different times. I don’t have much connection to any form of Godzilla but I did really enjoy Monsters, directed by Gareth Edwards, and this movie looks pretty badass.

X-Men: Days of Future Past – May 23rd

So X-Men: First Class was pretty great, right? Well, Superman Returns was not. I think one of the exciting things about XM:FC was getting to see characters/stories that seemed somewhat familiar to both the comic book novice and expert alike without knowing exactly how all the pieces are going to come together. I’ll be interested to see how things play out when it comes to a specific storyline and if this movie also suffers from having too many characters all trying to get their own chunk of screen-time. Also, I should note that this was written when Bryan Singer’s sexual assault is only alleged as opposed to confirmed. Don’t want to open up that can of worms just yet.

Guardians of the Galaxy – Aug. 1st

The who? The what? Who the fuck are THESE guys? Even though I read a lot of comics, I can’t really remember so much as a cameo from any of the cores members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. The initial trailer hasn’t really done much of anything for me, as the trailer mostly serves as an opportunity to introduce America to all of these weird characters, toss in a few action montages, and then a few punchlines. I’ll be very interested to see what happens with the next trailer, but I’ll be checking this movie out either way. It looks like fun kinda!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Aug. 8th

First it was comic books and then it was a cartoon for kids and then it was a movie and then it was two shitty movies and then there was another cartoon and then another movie and then another cartoon and maybe some more comics. Point is, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been re-introduced to the general public countless times to varying success, so why are you all complaining that it’s happening again? Oh, because Michael Bay was involved? See, you have a point there, because that guy sucks. Being alone in thinking the most recent movie, which was all CGI, was better than the two live-action sequels, I know I’m in the minority. I can be hopefully about this movie, but unfortunately, it just looks shitty. Add the painfully bland Megan Fox into the mix and this could be a steaming pile of dogshit, but, ya never know, I’m always super optimistic about everything! Right?

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – Aug. 22nd

Wow, has it really been almost ten years since the first movie came out? Where does the time go?! I haven’t been keeping up with all things Robert Rodriguez since this movie came out (with the exception of Planet Terror), but Sin City is one of my favorite comic book movie adaptations to date. Granted, that’s mostly because it has come the closest to accurately recreating dialogue, characters, and look of the comic book, so let’s say that I’m still impressed by what that movie was able to accomplish when so many other comic book movies really only try to capture one of those things. With my love of the books, I’m excited to see these characters in a theater again, and if this movie is as successful as the first, hopefully I can like Rodriguez more after how dumb the Machete movies are.

THAT’S IT?! Jesus, it seems like every year the amount of movies I’m excited about seeing gets smaller and smaller. Oh well, I’m sure that all of these movies, whether I go see them or not, will make millions of dollars for all parties involved. I should also point out that this list doesn’t include things that might only get released on VOD, but you probably knew that already, didn’t you? Why am I not watching Bears right now?