Post-Comic Con Thoughts

Ah, Comic-Con. The largest collection of pop culture and entertainment news all year. It has come and gone, announcements have been made, and the dust is settling. There were many surprising announcements that are really getting myself and many others excited. At the same time however, there are many things that must be picked apart and speculation that must be done. So many questions need answering, and little of them are to be answered in the foreseeable future. Guess it's up to us then. Shall we?

The Walking Dead Season 4 Trailer

As expected, we received a trailer for the next season of The Walking Dead. I gotta say, if the next season is as good as the trailer is, then I'll forgive them for season 3. It was a little lengthy, but it did what it intended to do; it got me interested. The trailer opened up with a group of survivors raiding a store, with an organized plan of attack and complete confidence. It gave the impression that they've been doing this long enough, and that they are capable. The prison is safe, organized, and thriving. Then came the worries. Walkers invading the prison, somehow getting in. Speculation of an inside traitor. Fear for their lives once more. The realization that their impenetrable fortress may not be as stable as they thought. Finally comes the doubt. People are dying, confidence is fading, people are threatening to leave. But their leader of questionable mental stability, good 'ol Rick Grimes, is stubborn. He doesn't want to leave. He believes in his fortress, and isn't going to give it up without a fight, despite public opinion swaying the other way. The brief glimpses of Tyreese and Rick fighting further support this. If it goes the direction of the comics, then Rick's leadership and mental state is going to be tested. 

The trailer ends with a speech I can't quite identify as inspirational or depressing by Hershall, followed by a foreshadowing shot of Rick firing his Colt Python without his target in view, leaving us to wonder if he's shooting a Walker, or more likely, a survivor. Finally, we get a shot of Daryl, Michonne, Tyreese, and someone new in a car, picking up a radio signal, getting fans everywhere excited. Honestly, this is looking like it could be a really riveting season. I'm glad that Tyreese is getting a far more prominent role, and that shot with him being surrounded by Walkers was a nice nod to the comic book. I figured after season 3 that they'd drift away from the comic entirely, but I may (hopefully) be mistaken. 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

How are either of them gonna get a punch in when they're standing that close together?

Boy oh boy, they are just chugging along with this Amazing Spider-Man thing. Not that planning out a humongous multi-movie Spider-Man universe is a bad thing, I just think that they may be going a little too fast. The first one was met with mixed critical reaction, yet they already have release dates for another 3 movies. I'd get a second one out before they start making preparations for the future, but hey, I'm not a movie producer (yet?). 

That out of the way, TASM2 definitely piques my interest. Never thought of having Electro as the main villain, he always seemed like more of a powered thug/villain-for-hire type guy, but since re-watching the Spider-Man 1994 animated series and seeing the Electro episode for the first time, I guess he does have main-villain-worthy powers. (Not that they should model movie Electro after that iteration of Electro, god no). Speaking of Electro's model, a lot of people seem to be ticked off about the race change and costume change. In my opinion, Electro is one of those villains whose race isn't important to his character. In fact, when I was young and read the Ultimate Comics, I started to redesign villains and heroes in my eyes, and I made Electro in a spiky-haired Asian fellow. Black Electro doesn't bother me. And as for his shiny blue skin as opposed to his green and yellow spandex, I expected as much. TASM borrows heavily from Ultimate Comics. I don't think I'll miss that hideous costume anyhow. 

Now, TASM's other villain, The Rhino. I've been hearing that he's going to be a very minor villain. Some fans are disappointed in this, but I'm rather hopeful. Spider-Man has a lot of really cool but really two-dimensional villains. In fact, most of his rouge's gallery is petty street thugs who have been in wacky science accidents. People like Rhino, Shocker, Scorpion, Sandman, they don't have much to them. I would rather see TASM take those basic villains and throw them into a cool action scene then try and turn them into interesting villains (*cough* Sandman *cough*). Have a scene an opening scene in a movie where Spidey outwits a street villain like Shocker, then have a major villain for the rest of the movie. If they really are doing Sinister Six, then they can't have it loaded with fascinating villains with compelling backstories, it makes the story cluttered and more about the villains then the hero. Spider-Man 3's problem wasn't that it had too many villains, it was that it had too many stories. Not every villain needs to be more then a bad guy with cool powers. So I'm glad Rhino is just a minor role. 

If there is one thing I'm upset about, it's the costume change. I feel like they gave into fan backlash on that one, even though the old costume was new and creative. Now that it's just a one-movie thing, it feels kinda pointless. I would've preferred it to be in this movie as well, and then maybe give it up for a more classic look in the third installment. But it seems like that's just me. 

Boy, my opinion on this movie is pretty much entirely contradictory of the general public's. Cool?

Days of Future Past and X-Force

Um....ew?

Yet another movie franchise chugging along to compete with Marvel's juggernaut Cinematic Universe. This one I'm less optimistic about. I've never liked the X-Men film universe. The first two were pretty good films, but deviated too far from the comics. The third was just bad, Origins was downright stupid, though I will say I really liked First Class, despite it creating shitloads of continuity issues. I've yet to see The Wolverine, though from what I hear it's nothing spectacular. All in all, the X-Men movies have either been terribly written or have butchered characters and promoted the shit out of Wolverine. So yeah, not too thrilled about these.

Days of Future Past sets out to correct the continuity issues created with First Class. It's based (no doubt loosely) on the famous Days of Future Past arc, one I have not read and most likely will in the future. From what little we know, it will contain Wolverine (big surprise), all the familiar faces from the previous trilogy AND First Class, with Time Travel being the theme. It will add Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Kitty Pryde to the roster. From what I hear, Kitty Pryde will be the one responsible for the time travel, and if you're familiar with comic books, you know why this makes me groan.

The movie will also somehow feature Sentinels, as seen above. All in all it sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen, but First Class was able to surprise me, so who knows. 

Along with Days of Future Past comes the X-Force, a movie based on the X-Force team. Even less is known about this film then DoFP, other than it will contain five members. You can pretty much guarantee one of those members is Wolverine. X-Force's most famous member is Cable, so they'll probably somehow work his existence into the universe with DoFP, and I hope beyond hope that one of the members is Deadpool. REAL Deadpool. Let's not talk about Origins Deadpool, please.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Thankfully, not based on the actual Age of Ultron comic

Now, this was a surprise. I, along with everyone else it seems, expected Infinity Gauntlet or something else Thanos related to be announced for the sequel. Nonetheless, I'm thrilled. Ultron is by far my favorite Avengers villain, and I'll tell you right now that I'm going to legitimately orgasm when I see him on the big screen. 

I'll get into more detail on this, theories and such, at a later time, along with the rest of MCU Phase 2. 

World's Finest

With 100% less Christian Bale

shiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeet

I can't stress how surprised and excited I am at this news. However, once more I'll be getting more into it later time. There are so many potential stories and future movies that can come from this film, and this article is already getting long, so I'll write an article on the DC Cinematic Universe (DCU? DCCU?) along with the MCU one in a bit. 

That's all folks. Just wanted to get some of my thoughts out there on all the upcoming comic book films and shows after this certainly shocking and jizz worthy Comic-Con. Till next time

Age of Ultron Thoughts

Age of Ultron is Marvel's big crossover story arc for 2013. It's main story is within a ten issue limited series and ties-in with several other Marvel books including Superior Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers Assemble and more. It tells the tale of Ultron's complete takeover of the Earth, and how the unlikely duo of Sue Storm and Wolverine must save it. This article isn't exactly an analysis of the series, as my collection is incomplete. However, I have just read #10 and want to give some of my thoughts on what I've read and what post AU is going to look like.

Age of Ultron #1

To cut right to the chase, the ending to Age of Ultron did not feel climactic enough. Nothing was really wrapped up, and the ending only created more problems for the Marvel Universe. It's great that all these stories are being set up across the various books, but I feel a major crossover event should have a much more epic, satisfying conclusion. It shouldn't just be the set up for future stories.

Speaking of those future stories, I don't really understand how they are really related to Ultron or even how good of stories they're going to be. Yeah, Avengers A.I is directly because of Ultron, but I honestly don't see a series like that lasting. Hunger seems like a cool story, but doesn't have much to do with Ultron or his takeover, it's all because of the time travel. I feel like if they're going to use AU to set up more storylines, they need to be more directly caused by Ultron and not by the 'broken space-time continuum' cliche.

And now Angela. I really got the feeling that AU's entire point was to introduce the Spawn character Angela. Now, I don't know much about Angela or even Spawn for that matter, so I don't know what kind of purpose she'll serve in the Marvel Universe. Regardless, she had nothing to do with the AU story and if it's only purpose was to give her an introduction (and a lousy one at that) then I'm really upset.

Anyway, AU as a whole (or what I've collected of it) was a good story nonetheless, perhaps just because I love Ultron so much. Just wanted to give my thoughts on some of these issues real quick. I'm going to try and finish my collection of AU and hopefully do a full analysis in the future.

Super Cinema Review: Man of Steel

Superman. The Man of Steel. The Last Son of Krypton. The Metropolis Marvel. This long awaited and much needed reboot promised a fresh take on Supes while still embodying what he's all about. Was the significantly darker Superman reboot what the world needed? Or was it's slight but significantly noticeable shift in mood blasphemous to Superman's fans?

Let's dive right in. Spoliers ahead.

The Plot

Since this is a reboot of the Christopher Reeves Superman films, there will be some comparisons to those films because everyone was looking for these films to be different yet better. That said, this was definitely a darker take on Superman, obviously because of the success of Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. Superman was a deeper character than he was in the original films, and despite him being a super powered alien he had very human, very relatable issues that he had to overcome like fitting in with the world and finding his purpose in life. I believe that was the overall goal of the film and it did so perfectly. I can watch a Marvel film if I want an enjoyable kick-butt tongue-in-cheek film because it works for their characters, but for a guy with basically every thinkable super power there is to sell on the silver screen, he needs to have a level of relatability. DC clearly gets that and I'm glad it was presented in Man of Steel, because otherwise, this wouldn't have been nearly as good a film. .

Superman's origin is arguably the most important part of the film, and it was still the classic story we're all familiar with, but not too familiar so that it wasn't interesting to watch. Though perhaps he didn't spend enough time learning and practicing his powers, (though there was a lack of super breath and freeze breath, so maybe MoS2 will delve into his breath related powers) and perhaps the Fortress of Solitude was found too easily, but for me, those things were easy to ignore. What I really enjoyed about the origin story was how each of Superman's dads, Jor-El and John Kent, played a significant but different roles in him becoming a hero. Jor-El provided him with the knowledge and tools to access his powers and be a hero physically, while John Kent gave him the emotional support and inspiration to actually do good. I found this to be one of the high points of the movie. 

I did have some issues with the pacing of the film and Supes origin, however. Things didn't necessarily happen in chronological order. Supes would be doing something and it'd flash back to a certain childhood memory, so we didn't get his whole origin story until the end of the film. I think I would've preferred everything had been start to finish, no misplaced flashbacks, but by the end of the film I didn't mind much.

Another high point of the film was the way it focused on who Superman was and not Clark Kent. It's always been portrayed in comics and previous films that Clark Kent is Superman's secret identity, when really it's the opposite. The movie acknowledged this and focused on Superman finding his place as an alien in a world full of humans, and then at the very end showing his human disguise. For a character like Superman, this makes more sense because he isn't a human with a super-powered night job as opposed to someone like Batman or Spider-man. He's an alien with a human identity, so it makes more sense to focus on the real alien and not the fake human.

And because the film focused on his alien identity and not his human one, the Lois Lane love story had to be done differently. Instead of Lois getting together with Clark and having a fangirlish crush on Superman, she has to love the lazer-shooting building-destroying alien himself. And since she always knew he was an alien, it was a little hard to sell the love story since a person typically wouldn't fall in love with an alien she knew almost nothing about, even if he looked human. Despite that, it wasn't a bad love story, just a wee bit unrealistic one. 

There is a good deal of controversy surrounding the ending of the film, where Superman is forced to choose between killing Zod or letting an innocent family die, and he chooses the former, in a rather brutal manner. However the controversy is hypocritical since Supes also killed Zod in Superman II. Not only that, but in Superman II he didn't even really care. He laughed about it, and the audience cheered. In Man of Steel, he's clearly upset by his decision, yet the audience boo'd, or in some cases tried to storm out of the theater. Honestly, I didn't care that Superman killed Zod. Maybe there was another way, or maybe the killing could've at least been less brutal, but either way the scene shouldn't have sparked so much hate. Way I see it, this could be the set up for his no kill policy. He hated the feeling of doing it and never wants to do it again. This is an origin film; Supes is still learning and he's going to make mistakes.

The Acting

Am I the only one who thought this guy's performance was one of the best?

I loved most of the performances in Man of Steel. Henry Cavill, while not having the same physically resemblance to Superman as Chistohpher Reeves did, definitely had the acting capabilities of portraying a dramatic Superman. Amy Adams and Lawrence Fishbourne also played their characters perfectly.  I especially liked Kevin Costner's performance of Superman's father figure. Very accurate, very emotional. Russel Crow made a good Jor-El too. Diane Lane's mother figure performance was almost as good as Costner's father figure. Aylet Zurer's role was nearly insignificant, but that's alright. My favorite performance was probably Michael Shannon as General Zod. He's made it on my top ten list of movie villains. Most people probably disagree with me on that, but whatever. 

I also spent much of the film trying to recognize Christopher Meloni and where I'd seen him before. A few hours after the movie I remembered, "Oh yeah, Law and Order dude!"

The Design

Gotta get me some of them Jor-El flashdrives!

Another strong point of the film is the Kryptonian costume and environment design. It was nice to actually see Krypton's environment before it was blown to bits, though it was a little too CG. Some of the little things about the Kryptonian costume design helped Superman's origin make more sense. Seeing Kryptonians wearing the same dark blue mesh and all having crests with symbols on them made Superman seem like one of them, although they never explain why his suit is more colorful. Zod's armor was badass looking, loved all the little alien details. I also really liked the floating metal that formed pictures. It was certainly better than the sci-fi hologram cliche. 

The Earth designs were fine too. Smallville was a tiny town where all people really did was either run small businesses or farm. Metropolis was a big city with tall buildings, although we really only got to see it destroyed. Overall, designs were awesome throughout the film. 

Overall

This movie was everything I had hoped it would be and more. Although there were a few nitpicky things, I felt like this was the perfect blend of fantastic out-of-this-world heroics and a realistic drama. The costume designs were awesome, the action was intense, the acting was superb, everything about this film was awesome. The comic-bookish pacing of the film knocks off a point, but I loved everything else about it. I look forward to seeing many more Man of Steel movies being made.

9/10

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-I will be doing Super Cinema Reviews for more comic book movies in the future. Next up is...