Lead Up to Avengers Shake Up.

If you've been paying attention to internet "news" about comics you may have seen everyone browning their trousers over a woman being Thor and a black guy being Captain America.  There's been calls of torches and pitchforks and all the typical internet stupidity that one would see from those outraged about comics that they don't read.

For those who saw these stories and are curious about what is going on and haven't been keeping up with the books, the whole thing is revolving around a storyline that Jonathan Hickman has been doing.  There's going to be a time jump, and what's the point of the time jump if everyone is exactly as they are now.  So, we get to see some fun change ups.

The problem is that this is getting some interest from people who haven't been reading the Avengers books and its honestly a lot to catch up on.  So, here's a really horrible recount of everything.

Illuminati: "We be the smart dudes that make big heavy choices, and don't tell no one."

Black Panther: "A parallel Earth almost crashed into us!  What's up with that?"

Illuminati: "We don't know.  Join our club?"

Black Panther: "OK."

Reed Richards:"The multiverse is dying.  We're all screwed."

Ironman: "We got this."

Reed Richards: "Another parallel Earth!"

Illuminati: "Get the Infinity Gauntlet!  Who's gonna use it?"

Ironman: "Get Steve to do it!"

Infinity Gauntlet goes blooey.

Namor: "You dumb-ass!  You wrecked our Gauntlet!"

Ironman: "We may have to blow up the parallel Earths to save ours."

Cap: "Not cool!"

Ironman: "Gotta do it."

Cap: "Don't be a dick."

Ironman: "You're out of the club.  Enjoy your mindwipe."

Later.

Ironman: "Hey Steve, help me build a really awesome Avengers team."

Cap: "OK."

Weird stuff happens on Mars.

Weird stuff happens of Earth.

Spider-man gets turned into a douche.

White Event.  Cause New Universe is cool.

Thanos: "Child support sucks!  Killin' all my bastards!"

Ironman: "Something is kicking everyone's ass in space and is heading this way."

Cap: "We'll go help!"

Thanos: "The Avengers have split!  Let's wreck their shit!  Is my Gauntlet here?"

"Its busted, but the Time Gem may be around."

Thanos: "Cool.  Go find it while we're here."

Gladiator: "The Builders are dicks.  We're gonna kick their asses."

Cap: "We'll help."

Gladiator: "Whatever."

...

Gladiator: "Oh shit!  The Builders are dicks and are kicking our asses!"

Cap: "OK, I've got this."

Namor: "Black Panther is a dick and has your Time Gem.  Go kick his ass."

Thanos: "Hey, BP, all your base belong to me.  Now, where's my kid?"

Black Bolt: "You're a dick!"

Thanos: "Screw you!  Gimme my kid!"

Black Bolt: "Terrigen bomb!  Suck it, you purple-faced douche!"

Thanos: "Dick."

Gladiator: "Thanks for kicking the Builder's asses.  Thanos done took your planet."

Cap: "Well, guess we gotta kick his ass too."

Gladiator: "Got your back, homie!"

Thanos: "Gonna kill my kid."

Thane (Thanos's kid): "Nope."

Ironman: "More parallel Earth keep wrecking each other and some of them have people on them."

Reed Richards: "We got a bomb."

Hulk: "I know what you've been up to."

Ironman: "Join our club."

Hulk: "OK."

Reed Richards: "Here comes another Earth."

Ironman: "We gotta destroy it."

Dudes from parallel Earth: "Not cool!  Y'all are dicks!"

Doctor Strange loses his shit.

Illuminati: "We really don't want to kill a bunch of people to save everyone."

Namor: "Y'all are pussies.  Imperius Rex, bitches!"

Parallel Earth go boom.

Illuminati: "Not cool, Namor!  You're a dick."

Namor: "Whatever."

...

Namor: "Got me me a new crew.  Gonna wreck some stuff."

Cap: "I remember now!  Tony is a dick!"

Ironman: "Chill!"

Cap: "You're a dick, and I'm gonna kick your ass!"

Time Gem.

Time travel things.  

Cap gets back.

Cap: "Ironman is a dick and so are the rest of the Illuminati.  We're gonna kick their asses."

Illuminati: "Oh shit!"

And that's pretty much where we're at going into the next issues.  Its going to jump ahead about eight months and the separate titles will be catching up over the next eight months.  If you want you can go ahead and hunt down the trades to get a better idea of everything that's going on.  Its good reading.

Have fun.

TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

There's been a whole lot of hype around this show, but in case you've been living under a rock, here's the breakdown.  Marvel has been releasing movies that all tied together and culminated in 2012's THE AVENGERS.  Marvel is continueing to release movies, and has now released a TV show on ABC tha exists in the same shared universe as the films.  This TV show is being helmed by Joss Whedon who is also overseeing the Marvel movie projects.  This is not a knock off show with a couple of characters that you may recognize the names of from a successful movie.  This is a continuation of what we saw in theaters.  This is what happened after the credits rolled.

This delivered on all the hype.

Gregg Clark returns as Agent Coulson who we all saw die in THE AVENGERS.  The details of how he's still breathing are gone over and its fairly satisfying for five seconds until we get a major hint dropped that all isn't what it seems.  Coulson assembles a team that is going to be specializing in containing the emerging superhumans that are appearing.  If you're going into the first episode expecting huge action and stuff blowing up left and right, you're going to be disappointed.  What you will be getting is a very thoughtful, very careful pilot episode that does exactly what its supposed to do.

If you never saw any of the Marvel movies you can get through this with no problem.  Sure, you may miss a reference or two but the story does not hinge around the viewer's knowledge of the Marvel flicks.  Brilliant move.  This is about expending the audience, not just catering to the established fanbase.  Yes, THE AVENGERS happened, and is referenced.  IRONMAN 3 is referenced as well, and pretty heavily, but again, you don't have to have seen that movie (and if you didn't, you can Redbox that thing soon, but no rush) you're still good to go to keep up.

The cast was great.  The writing was sharp.  The action scenes were very nicely done.  There was a lot of heart to this.  Some of the scenes really grabbed me, and yes, I did gasp out loud at one point.  I had a lot of expectations going into this, and I can honestly say they were exceeded.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Hey gang.  Its Wednesday, April 8, 2012, and this is The Side.  The Missus's trip to Kansas has gotten extended a bit.  I'm pretty much exhausted, so I'm not terribly clever today.  Being sick doesn't help either.  Right now I'm functioning on vitamins, pills, and caffeine.

MOVIES!!!

THE AVENGERS knocked it right out of the park.  Pretty much the only people who didn't like this movie are snobby twit critics who take their jobs way to seriously.  It broke the box office record, and a sequel has already been green lit.  This is going to follow sequels for Thor, Ironman, and Captain America.  There's a lot of expectations going around, so I'm going to share mine.


As far as over all, I like how they've handled things.  Going into the next sequel cycle, I'd like some build up to a show down with the big bad they showed during the first extra scene in the credits.  The Infinity Gauntlet was shown during Thor, so maybe play with that a bit.

As for the Thor movie, I think an obvious choice in villains is The Enchantress along with the Executioner.  I'm not too stoked with piling on villains for movie sequels, but these two go really well together.  The Enchantress can be a fun foil to the Natalie Portman played Jane, and make for an interesting pseudo-love triangle bit.  Meanwhile you've got The Executioner there for the big time throwdowns that are a must for these flicks.  And if during a big battle a certain glove gets lost and the six certain gems get scattered, I'm seeing no problem with that.


The Ironman movie is a bit trickier.  Marvel isn't wanting to use Chinese characters as major villains in these movies for fear of a possible backlash and maybe accusations of racism.  This sucks because a lot of fans are wanting to see the Mandarin, especially with everything they hinted at in the first movie.  This also rules out The Radioactive Man.  My next thought would be The Titanium Man, but using him right after the Whiplash/Crimson Dynamo gestalt seems too soon.  Back-to-back Russian armor wearers might not go over very well.  This is where we hit tricky ground because we're ruling out a lot of top flight opponents.  I'm thinking its about the right spot to put in M.O.D.O.K. and introduce AIM.  Probably won't have the goofy yellow jumpsuits, and the M.O.D.O.K. design will need a bit of tweaking, but I think that would make for a fun ride.  Might also be a good place for a missing gem or two to be recovered.

The Captain America movie has no shortage of bad guys to pull from.  The great thing is he's got a ton of Neo-Nazi baddies, and if you can't kick the crap out of a Nazi, then there's just no point anymore.  Still, I think it would be a good idea to have the main baddie be someone more current, and not a WWII hold over.  At this point, as we saw in THE AVENGERS, Cap is still getting adjusted to the modern world.  Having a modern villain can really build conflict, not just between the two foes, but with Cap's whole situation.  I'd like to have Crossbones for this.  He's got ties to the Red Skull, and would be a good bridge character.  Taskmaster trained him, so having him in there for a bit would also be fun.


After Mark Ruffalo's brilliant performance there's been a bit of buzz about a possible Hulk movie.  I'm game for it as Ruffalo was really, really good in THE AVENGERS and the Hulk had many of the best scenes.  Since I'm picking villain's here, I'd go with The Leader.  Some of us got to chatting about this on Google Plus, so I've thought about it a bit.  I'd have Banner up north, and have him run afoul a Wendigo.  This way you get some good monster on monster violence.  Have the Leader be behind the scenes a bit looking to tap the power of the Wendigo, but he goes after the Hulk instead.  His quest for the Hulk's power turns him into the big headed green guy we all know.

There's also been a lot of call for an Ant-man movie.  I really don't know about that one.  Sure, I'd love to see The Wasp, but I don't think Ant-man as a character has enough to him to carry a movie.  Yes, I do know he was one of the founding members of the Avengers.  However, that's not quite enough to warrant getting your own major motion picture.  Thor, Cap, and Ironman are the Marvel Trinity characters.  Hulk as been immensely popular for decades.  They make sense.  Ant-man just doesn't rank up there.  Introduce him in one of the sequel flicks and work him in there.  The next Ironman film would be the best fit.


There's a lot of characters I think of when I think of The Avengers: Wonder-man, The Vision, Ms. Marvel, The Scarlet Witch, Beast, and The Black Panther.  I doubt you'll be able to had too many more characters into the sequels as it would make AVENGERS 2 an unwieldy mess.  We don't want that.  Work in Ant-Man and The Wasp, keep the cast they have.


For the sequel, everyone's looking to have the team take on Thanos.  May as well give the people what they want.  Whether or not they use the Infinity Gems as a plot device is fine with me.  My favorite Thanos stories involved the gems so I'm obviously biased here.  Either way, it should be a bunch of good summers coming up if you're a fan of what Marvel's been up to the last few years.


That said, if you're wanting to check out the movie and haven't, go to a theater, and don't be a dick downloading the thing.  The studio makes more money that they can use to continue to entertain us.  besides which, watching these flicks on the big screen is completely awesome.

MUSIC!!

Yeah, been a rough few weeks, so I'm tossing this one on out there.







Off to work.  See y'all Friday.

Weekend of Nerd!

Howdy!  Its Sunday, May 6, 2012, I'm getting my geek on, no surprise, and this is The Side.  Got a bunch of reasons to be nerding out this weekend.  Yesterday was free Comic Book Day and I took the girls up to Kings.  We got up there pretty late so most of the free releases were already gone.  Heard they went fast too.  Still, there were some boxes of old comics out and you could grab 10 each.  The girls loaded up, quite pleased with their hauls.  I didn't grab anything, because I think Free Comic Book Day should be about getting new readers, not guys like me who already have a pretty regular reading list.  Sure, if there were some of the releases out that looked interesting I'd have grabbed one to check it out and maybe add something new to my reading list, but first come, first serve, and I certainly wasn't early.


Other big reason for nerding out.  SHERLOCK season two is coming on PBS!





If you haven't seen season one yet, shame upon you.  Netflix instant streaming is your friend, however, and you can watch them on there.  Brilliant series, and I can't wait to sit and enjoy this new season.


So that's more nerding out.  Wasn't there something else?  Some movie coming out this weekend?

MOVIE REVIEW: MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS

Which I'm glad they clarified in the title because I might have gone in expecting more adventures with Peel and Steed.  But no, this is indeed Marvel's big guns gathered together for the movie fans have been waiting for.  Now, at this current time, we are at a point in which we have multiple comic book based movies coming out in theaters every year.  This was absolutely not the case for me growing up, so unlike in my youth I'm not as forgiving of them.  I used to feel a definite need to defend comic book movies even if they weren't very good, because I feared they'd become fewer and further between.  Now, they're a hot property, and they don't seem to be slowing down, so I have no qualms about calling out a movie's flaws, even if the majority of comic book fans loved the films.  Its refreshing to be able to be completely honest about a movie and reviewing it based on its merits, and those alone.


So I can be completely honest in my opinion of this movie.  Let's face it: this is an unprecedented move by a any studio.  They've released separate films introducing these characters to movie going audiences.  They made these movies with big budgets, and very talented actors, writers, and directors, not sparing anything in terms of quality if they could help it.  Multiple individual franchises have been launched, and the intent has been there since they really started rolling with this to eventually make the movie that was released here in the States this weekend.  Expectations from fans were through the roof.  Joss Whedon was signed on as writer/director.  Expectations rose higher.  It was to the point that there did not seem to be any way that the fans' expectations could be met.  I had to make a conscious effort to go into this movie and try to leave my personal expectations for what I'd want this movie to be in the lobby and try to form an honest opinion of the work.


So, with that out there I can say completely honestly, and checking my nerded up expectations at the door: this was one damn fine piece of work.


Let's start this out with the writing and directing from Whedon.  What he did that was really amazing here is take these characters from their separate franchises and place them in one film and still had them ring completely true to how they were depicted in their separate films.  This didn't feel like Whedon's take on these characters.  It felt like the separate writers all had gotten together to handle their particular characters.  At the same time, Whedon managed to have these character playing of of each other beautifully.  It was as if he had had a hand in everything from the beginning of Marvel's big movie push.


This is a long movie at two and a half hours long.  It didn't feel like it because of the excellent pacing.  Its kinetic, without being rushed.  The quiet moments are still packed with juicy, fun conversations that really give you a good feel for these individuals.  Certainly you have to have suspension of disbelief when in this genre, but that's not taken for granted here, as Whedon keeps the story on track.  Its fairly straight forward. Loki is back and he's ticked over what happened in the THOR movie and he's got a plan for some big time revenge and looking to take Earth in the bargain.  There's not a lot of twists, but that's fine because the speed this roller coaster moves at, any hairpin turn in things could easily send it right off the rails.


On to the performances, and here's where this movie shines.  Everyone brought their "A" game to this.  There's been a lot of buzz about Mark Ruffalo coming into to playing Bruce Banner.  Initially there was some dismay from fans who were miffed about having a different actor for the role when every other role was being reprised by the actors from the separate movies.  This has shifted to glowing praise of Ruffalo in his work in this role, and that praise is completely justified.  He was remarkable, especially in his scenes with Robert Downey Junior.  Downey delivered the Tony Stark that the fans love with style, wit, and panache.  Chris Evans was a really fun Captain America.  Chris Hemsworth gave us the Thor we know and love, albeit with a bit less humor than in his movie.  That's easily forgiven considering the circumstances of the story.  I didn't get quite enough Jeremy Renner.  It seemed like Hawkeye got the short end of the arrow this go around, although he did have some really cool moments.  Scarlett Johansson was amazing in this.  Whedon shines at writing strong women, and his Black Widow is no exception.  Some fans have sort of rolled their eyes at her inclusion in this with a "What's she gonna do?  Flash her boobs at the bad guys?" attitude.  To say she holds her own in this is an understatement.  Samuel Jackson's portrayal of Nick Fury is slick and stylish with enough gravity to it to really anchor the film.  We can't forget Tom Hiddleston as Loki.  He's gotten a lot of praise for his performance, and its well earned.  This is a very nuanced character, and and it shows down to every little facial expression.


Big props to Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson.  He's been around since the first Ironman movie, and is really great here.  He may not have had the flashiest moments in the marvel movies, but he's always kept things very grounded, and I've found myself really liking the character even though he's been a bit antagonistic in previous films.  He had all these great little moments in this, and it was really made things fun.


Overall, this movie gave me everything I could have asked for.  It got me engaged in the story.  There were parts that totally cracked me up.  There were parts that made me grin like a child that has been thoroughly indulged.  The movie had a definite purpose and didn't fall into the trap of having unneeded and distracting sub-plots.   The action was incredibly over the top and was still easily followed.  You could see and appreciate every impossibly blow in these battles.  The fast clip editing that is completely annoying in many fight scenes is used very sparingly, and when it comes to the big hits, the camera hides nothing.


I'd pay full price to see it again.


Also, make sure you stay through the credits for some fun little Easter eggs, and a hint as to where a possible and probably sequel will be heading.

MUSIC!!!

Yeah, I'm sticking with my theme today.





I think that'll do it for me today.  Time for some coffee.  See y'all Wednesday.

For Now I Shall Smite Fed-Ex!!

FOR ASGARD!! Its Sunday, May 8, 2011, I'm one happy nerd, and this is The Side. Spent the day cleaning up around the house, so no Free Comic Book Day for me, but last night I was totally getting my geek on.

MOVIE REVIEW: THOR

Marvel's first movie of the year opened this weekend. Chris Hemsworth plays Marvel's Norse god of thunder with Natalie Portman playing love interest Jane Foster. So, right off the bat: is this movie any good? Well, now we've got so many superhero movies out there that I, as an avid comic book reader and lover of movies, can be discerning about what I think about superhero flicks. I don't feel any need to try to defend a superhero movie like I'm circling the nerd wagon from those who like to mock geekdom. In fact geek chic is currently hanging in pretty well in pop culture. So, that said: THIS MOVIE WAS FREAKING AWESOME!!! This is easily, EASILY the best comic book movie I have ever seen.

The scale and magnitude of this movie can only be described as epic. The effects in this movie were remarkable. This is one of those movies in which you have to use CGI to pull off what the vision of this movie is. I'm not a fan of CGI, but they used it so well here. As good as the effects were, the acting was better. Hemsworth is amazing as Thor. You see such amazing character growth in him through this movie. People were a bit surprised by the folks signing on to this project. Anthony Hopkins playing Odin? Believe it. He completely owns the role. There's been a bit of guff towards Portman as Jane Foster, but I thought she was great. She was fun, feisty, and pretty sharp. There's been a bit of controversy over some of racial casting in the movie, specifically Heimdall being played by a black guy when the character in the comics and in the mythology is white. Many were saying its a bit of forced diversity, but damn was this guy good!

The story is a bit different from the classic comic stories. Jane isn't a nurse here, but a scientist studying a strange phenomenon in the desert and (literally) runs into Thor who has been banished by his father from Asgard for his arrogance. She's not sure what to think of him, but he's a big, charming stud so she's digging him. Meanwhile, Thor's brother Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston) is up to no good and making a play for power. Hiddleston is so brilliant here that I could tell whether whether Loki was being portrayed as a jealous brother questioning his own origins, or just a completely manipulative bastard. The answer is somewhere in the middle, but he's so good at this role its nearly impossible to nail it down. Thor does a lot of growing up on Earth as Loki makes his play in Asgard. There's huge battles and great fight scenes. We get to see a really powerful guy become a really great, and likable hero.

SPOILERS! Hawkeye makes an appearance. He doesn't do a whole lot, but its pretty damn sweet that he showed up. Lots of SHIELD stuff going on. Stan Lee's obligatory cameo was hilarious and a good old boy who tries to move Thor's hammer with his truck. Sif and the Warriors Three are there in full force, well maybe not full force as it looks like Volstagg did a stint on The Biggest Loser. Make sure you sit through the credits!!! Marvel has been putting in little scenes after the credits to get folks hyped for their next movie. Its always been something kinda cool, like Sam Jackson showing up in IRONMAN or seeing Thor's Hammer in IRONMAN 2. Not this time! This was major!! This has me wanting to time travel into next year and see THE AVENGERS right now! Nick Fury has the Cosmic Cube! Holy crap!!!

END SPOILERS. The wrap up? Best movie I've seen in a long time. I'd go see it again today if I could. Flat out great from start to finish.

YOU SUCK!!

I draw things from time to time. Haven't done it lately, but I probably should be getting back to it. I have drawn one thing lately and that's a picture for a vlogger I follow to put on his wall. Right now there's not much behind him when he shoots his videos, and some folks have complained about it, and I've chatted with the fellow a bit and told him I'd draw him something. I finished the picture and got his address, and he's in the UK, which I already knew because he has a little bit of an accent.

Now, I've done artwork for people and sent it to a few places. I usually use Pak Mail, and have had nothing but great results. Well, its been a while since I've send anything and they're now closed. Crap. But there was a Fed Ex/Kinko's right by there so I went in. Sure they could send it. It would get there Wednesday. The price?

$91.87

I thought they were joking. Its basically a large envelope they're sending. I've sent bigger stuff to Hawaii, which is further away from me, for a fraction of that. So I walked out, obviously.

Lee will be getting that picture one way or another even if I have to find the biggest, baddest carrier pigeon in existence. Moral of the story? Fed Ex: you suck.

YOU SUCK: PART DEUX!!

The Nozz Compound fell on a bit of hard times last year. The Missus lost her job, and I was scrambling to make up for it. We contacted our mortgage company to see about getting a loan modification, because we could pay our principle, but the interest rate was a bit high. We were told that there were programs just for people in our situation who have hit a bit of a rough patch, and we would be put through for a loan modification. The process would take about three months, and we were told not to make a payment until its put through, which was great because we would need to bank whatever we could.

Couple of months later we were told we were not approved for the modification and they wanted their money. You see, even though we were hoping to get a modification because were were in a rough spot, we didn't make enough money to get a modification. Since then we haven't missed a payment. We wouldn't have missed the ones we did if they hadn't told us not to pay them. Of course now they say that they never said that.

There's law firms of course to help with these matters. They're all useless. Most of them are scammers anyhow.

So Suntrust Mortgage: you suck. Thanks for lying to us and putting us behind the eightball. Jerks.

MUSIC!!

Theme song from THOR by the Foo Fighters!



That's it for me. I'm going to out and get some breakfast for one hard working mom. Happy Mother's Day to to all the Mom's out there! See y'all Wednesday.

Whedon on The Avengers: sounds good on paper

The nerd community is buzzing about the possibility of Joss Whedon directing The Avengers movie. And after reading this sentence there are probably a few people absolutely giddy at the prospect. Settle down, kids. As of this flurry of pecks on my keyboard no deal had been met. And I'm a bit thankful for thank.

No, not because I want to do it. I couldn't direct traffic, much less a film.

I posted previously about how its pretty scary that Christopher Nolan plans of taking on Superman after he's done with his Batman trilogy. Now, it would be a good thing for him to grow as a director in handling such a different character. However, it is a very different character and the same things Nolan did to make the current batman franchise a success would not work with Superman. The tone of the entire concept is different and while the two characters are often used complimentary to each other its the differences that make the dynamic work and it is those differences that Nolan must understand if he's going to make Superman work for him on screen.

Back over to Whedon. I love his work. I'm really a huge fan of the guy, but I'm not too sure about him handling The Avengers. I could see him doing an X-Men movie. I could see him directing the Spider-man franchise relaunch. They're planning on doing a Runaways movie and that's definitely in Whedon's wheelhouse.

But The Avengers?

Whedon definitely has the love of the characters. I'm sure he knows a lot about the team and its history. However, this movie is going to be the culmination of a lot of build up and hype. The Thor and Captain America movies that are in production seem to only exist to get The Avengers on the silver screen. This movie won't be about clever dialogue, melodrama or intense interpersonal relationships. Its going to be, and should be, completely unbelievable, stuff blowing up, saving the world from an impossible threat kind of movie. Otherwise what's the point of having them all there? This thing needs to be able to blow the doors off of everything else out there.

Can Whedon do it?

The answer is a potential 'yes', but he's really going to have to go in with a clear vision of where this project needs to head and what it has to accomplish. He'll have to push further than any project he's done before. Also, there's a good chance that he'll be handling a script from someone else. This may not be the big 'YAY!' everyone thinks it is.

Well, I'm not overly excited for this movie to begin with. I'm barely caring about Ironman 2 at this point. So let's try to stay calm. They'll be enough fanboys screaming that our ears will hurt, even if this movie is a bomb.