Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Well, nerds. The moment has finally arrived. The first real Star Wars film we've had in almost thirty years. Yes, this is me being completely dismissive to the prequels. Movies that maddeningly bludgeoned you into thinking they went from awful to, "Well, it was the best of the three I guess?".

Was I super excited for this movie? You better believe it. I have enough anecdotal evidence that shows much of a fan I am. I grew up with the original trilogy. It's one of those movies where when I hear the score, I can pinpoint which scene in the movies it was used in. It's become that ingrained into me.

Without going into too many plot details, I will explain what I loved about this new Star Wars movie. I can best describe it as a return to form. We are now back with characters we cherish and love. We also gain new characters that are amazingly fleshed out in the time that we are given. What I really appreciate is rather than showing you a character is good at something, they SHOW you that character is good at something. Was this vague? Yes. I'm trying to save you from spoilers.

To get more specific, Daisy Ridley's Rey and John Boyega's Finn are fantastic additions to the Star Wars lore. They infused these characters with so much heart that you will love them and that is because they earn it. Not because they are forced down your throat until you do. There is a real chemistry in their time on screen together. They each have character arcs that really flesh out over the span of the film. They will be carrying the following films, so it's important we get to know them here.

In a more personal note, I'm so glad to see these characters. A much ignored segment of sci-fi fandom (women and African Americans) get characters that they can get behind without it feeling like pandering. I think this will serve as an inspiration to kids especially, as they can now have favorites that feel like their own. This movie was so diverse and I know I had touched on this in a previous post. I'm so glad to see it come to fruition.

Han Solo. It's so good to see him back. I swear Harrison Ford is Han and Han is him. Just the way he delivers lines, which makes him so different from other characters you are used to seeing Ford portray. There's always something about his performance that just goes next level. It's good seeing him interact with other characters as well and he helps propel the movie forward.

One other thing I really want to highlight are the action scenes. There are a lot of big set pieces here that are well shot and exhilarating. I'd rather focus in on the lightsaber battles. In the first three films, there was an unrefined rawness to the lightsaber battles. I know they were figuring them out then, but they felt more authentic. In the prequels, they were reduced down to carefully choreographed ballet. I like my fight choreography, but to this extent, it is over planned and all the emotion is stripped away. I am happy to report that in this movie, we are back to that rawness. It's not pretty and it's not supposed to be. Characters are not good with lightsabers, so they should not be experts within two minutes of picking them up.

I could go on and on about this film and how great it is. However, I think I have said enough. Maybe as I think on this a little more, I'll have a follow up post. In the meantime, go see this movie! JJ Abrahams did a fantastic job here and I'm said he won't be helming the next one. At least he leaves this in a good place to be picked up by another director.

Marvel's Jessica Jones

Let me start off by saying that I hate myself a little for putting the full working title in this post. We get it Marvel, it's your show! Sorry, where was I? Oh right, I was going to talk about Jessica Jones, the latest Marvel TV show created exclusively for Netflix. This means I felt anticipation and an equal obligation to watch this show. Would it be a labor of love? Or would it be a drag like Agents of Shield. Sorry, I had to say it.

Anyways, I'm not going to tell you right off the bat! I'm going to make you read my possibly long post. You have to earn it.

...

Okay, Okay. Don't click away. I really liked this show. I didn't like it as much as Daredevil, but it's still really good.

I just finished the series a few minutes ago, so I'm coming into this fresh without letting it marinate. I'll try to keep from going too stream of conscious on this. As I was watching I did have a few major points in my head.

I will start with this. If you thought Daredevil was too violent or too adult, you better stay away from this show. This show is definitely more mature. I guess the idea with a Noir-ish detective show is that there will be sex and violence. I would say this show is more than that. What you have here is a show that is deeply psychological. The threat of violence is equal to the actual violence. That is what permeates through this whole show. The threat. It looms larger than anything else. It builds a whole lot of real tension.

I'll get more into the story, but I want to first talk about the actors. I've seen Krysten Ritter in other shows before and I knew she would be the perfect person to have the snark of a Private Investigator that I like in my stories. I clearly underestimated her as she is excellent in this show. At times, her character is borderline unlikeable because of how prickly she can be. Really though, she has gone through a lot of trauma and she wears it like her leather jacket. I'll be honest, I was afraid we'd have a lot of episodes where she doubts herself and someone has to constantly pick herself up. It happens a handful of times, but in her defense, she goes through a lot of stuff in this series. It's all understandable. I hate to sound like a critic, but over the years, I've become a fan of how actors portray emotion with their eyes. There's such a sadness in Jessica's eyes at many points in the show and you feel for her. You can relate because maybe you've been there before., She may not do it the right way, but she is trying to do right by people. What I'm saying here is Ritter was fantastic.

Any hero would not be worth their salt without a great villain. David Tenant plays the villainous Killgrave with such gleeful, sadistic flair. I'm glad that they do give him some back story that actually informs who he is. He is incredibly creepy, but Tenant plays it well as he bounces from annoyed, to smug, to happy, to afraid, to just wanting someone to love him. This is important for a guy who never gets his hands dirty. In this era of comic book movies and shows, it's refreshing to see a villain who doesn't actually fight with his fists, but with full on psychological warfare. You can't actually lay hands on him without there being consequences. It makes for compelling television.

I won't spend time talking about the rest of the actors as I've spent a lot of time just getting going. Mike Coulter as Luke Cage, Rachel Taylor as Trish Walker, Carrie Ann Moss as Jeri Hogarth and Eka Darville as Malcom were all great. I will say this, there was real chemistry between Luke and Jessica. The friendship between Trish and Jessica felt genuine. If there was one character I didn't like, it was the character Will Simpson, played by Wil Traval. He was all squinty eyes and smirks. You just want to punch him in the face. His character was a drag on the show.

Before I get into the story, I want to first mention some decisions made with the look and feel of the show. Jessica can fly, but they have her doing it in rare occasions, so she's not flying all over the screen. The cynic in me could say it was for budget reasons, but I feel like you lose the feel of this show if you have a heroine that can just fly all over the place. So it had to have been a conscious choice to use it very sparingly. Everything looks real gritty. I haven't been to New York, but this felt pretty authentic to me. Calling Killgrave by his real comic book name, "The Purple Man" would be really silly. So I like that they make nods to that by always having him in a shade of purple. It's also a nice touch to show Jessica having tinges of purple around her memories at the beginning of the show. I really loved that touch, but I am glad they didn't do it the whole way. It's a gimmick that is more effective when used sparingly.

The only real gripe I have with this show is the narrative arc that they take. The first few episodes build the mystery of Killgrave and then before we're even at the halfway point, Killgrave and Jessica have already met up. I felt like having this meeting so early on gave away the big showdown and then the show would have to tread water the rest of the way because it already peaked by giving you their confrontation early. In this case it worked because you then have a game of cat and mouse and more escalation between the two until the conclusion. Let's face it, the two play off each other well.

I'm a fan of serialized television, but I wish they could have spent more time showing Jessica being a P.I. The first handful of episodes start off with that and then they completely abandon that concept. I'll say this again because I want to be clear, the character of Will Simpson was a drag on this show. I didn't like his little side story, his relationship with Trish and his involvement in the grand scheme of things. I'm glad he wasn't around to ruin the climax because I was sure he'd factor in.

Hang in there because I am almost done. I finally want to chime in on a few little Marvel Easter eggs that made me smile. I will just bullet point those:

• Luke Cage saying his trademark line, "Sweet Christmas". It totally worked here!
• Trish Walker = Patsy Walker = Hellcat! C-List character getting her due.
• The nod to and making fun of Jessica Jones' alter-ego, Jewel. I love that they name dropped it and  showed her costume, while simultaneously making fun of how lame it is. Because it was.
• Jeri Hogarth (a man in the comics) has close ties to Iron Fist. The show that will come after Luke Cage. Just her inclusion here is another nod.
• References to other Marvel characters. The "big green guy" or the "Flag wearer" indeed.
• Night Nurse from the Daredevil series makes an extended cameo. I was more excited about this because I love me some Rosario Dawson. And her comments about knowing "other" heroes.
• The aforementioned use of color for Killgrave, aka "The Purple Man"

Bottom line, this was a very adult, compelling television show. You could write a book about all the psychological trauma that went on in this show. I've already taken up enough time here, but this show is worth the binge watching you will inevitably do. It's that good.

Marvel is knocking it out of the park with their Netflix shows. I can't wait for Luke Cage next!

Comic TV Show Round Up

I realized we are a few months into the new season of TV shows and I have yet to talk about all the comic book based shows out there. I don't want to make this a long post, so I will just give some quick thoughts about the deep well of shows that are out there.

Flash - Continuing the fun of the first season.  They keep bringing in more villains from the DC Universe and are now already touching on Earth-2 stuff. Also, the core team is still very likeable. It remains one of my favorite shows.

Arrow - This show has already having a much stronger showing than what we saw in Season 3. The team is now a fully costumed, functioning unit. This show has already brought in other DC characters. We just had an episode with Constantine! There has also been a teasing of Mr. Terrific. I still do not like the Felicity/Oliver relationship. I never would have shipped that, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Supergirl - I covered my thoughts on this in a previous post. I very much enjoy this show so far, but we're only two eps in.

Walking Dead - This show still frustrates me. I feel like every episode is built on what "cool" zombie effect they want to use and then they write a story around some contrived way to use it. Carol is a certifiable bad ass and holds the title of best character. This sounds like a weird complaint, but I am so tired of forests. At this point, I'm going to be hard to please no matter what they do. The shock value of this show is what keeps me coming back.

Fear the Walking Dead - I bring this up here because it is a spin off show of a comic book based show. Long story short, this first season was hot garbage. It was full of unlikeable characters doing stupid things.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The sooner Marvel stops trying to cram Inhumans down our throats, the happier I will be. This show has been better this season. I still think a lot of the sets look cheap and I don't like the way this show is filmed.  It looks like it was filmed on cheap cameras. That distracts from my enjoyment of the show. If I'm being honest, if this wasn't a Marvel show, I would have given up already.

iZombie - I have yet to watch this show. I want to, but you can see I already have a full plate as it is. Given my love of Veronica Mars, I will have to in the future.

Gotham - I have not watched the second season at all, nor do I plan to. I suffered through season one and I figured it was best to not make myself suffer through something I was not enjoying.

In a few weeks, we'll have Jessica Jones and I will do my best to binge watch that and share my thoughts.

The Star Wars "Boycott" and my thoughts on Science Fiction

I know this is really late and I really don't want to turn this blog into my personal soap box, but sometimes things happen that I have to talk about.

Surely by now, everyone has heard about the ridiculous movement to boycott Star Wars Episode VII. This is due to some labeling the movie as "anti-white genocide". Now I could go after the short mindedness of such a movement, but I'd rather go in another, more positive direction.

I wanted to talk about why I love what this movie is doing and what we're seeing in Sci-Fi as a whole.

When I was a kid, I would have loved to have an abundance of black sci-fi characters like I have seen over the past few years. The reason I hold on to Lando Calrissian so badly is because that was all I had. (And Billy Dee Williams is so cool). There are very few movies where a black character has an impact outside of being killed quickly or a walking stereotype. Although sparingly used, Lando is the good side of what we can see.

With the new movie, we get like the minority trinity of a female, a black man and a hispanic man. As you can see, none of these are white males. I am just glad to see more diversity in these movies and I can't even be cynical enough to think that these were affirmative action type hires. They have picked good actors for the roles and the race had nothing to do with it. If it did, I'm still okay with it to an extent. Besides, it's not like there won't be white characters in main roles. That boycott doesn't even make a whole lot of sense.

If we have movies about different alien species, why wouldn't there be different races of Earth (or an Earth analog) represented as well. We're supposed to see ourselves in these characters. Relate to them on some level. Now it feels like everyone can have someone to latch on to.

I've always hated when people boycott movies based on what they perceive without actually having viewed it. One day they will see that only makes people want to see the movie MORE.

Look at that, I got through this post without even getting riled up. Yes, I know there are a lot of Sci-Fi shows that have diversity (i.e. Star Trek), but I'm just wanted to focus on Star Wars here. Wait, did I mention another franchise with the word, "Star" in it? Uh oh...

Supergirl!

She doesn't need to turn around and see that fire. She knows it's there.

I know it's been a while since I wrote on this blog and I have many other topics I want to cover. Right now though, I just watched the Supergirl pilot today (a day or two late) and I just feel the need to talk about it.

Normally I would go into some brief, meandering tale about how I have always liked Supergirl, blah blah, blah. That would be a lie, so we'll skip all that and jump right in.

I really liked this pilot and that surprises me. It was a lot of fun. First off, all the DC movies are edging towards super dark, so it's refreshing to have another show (like the Flash) that is more upbeat with heroes that EMBRACE their powers. Imagine that. How uncommon it's become for a super hero show to be about a super hero that likes what they do.

Melissa Benoist is just so damn likeable as Supergirl/Kara Danvers. A super hero show only goes as far as it's leading character. Like the Flash, this show has that in spades. You want to root for her. You want to see her triumph. That's the marking of a good character.

All of the side characters were fun too, especially Jimmy Olsen. Those two have a palpable chemistry. I have to admit I never watched a show with Calissa Flockhart, so it will take some getting used to. She plays a good ice queen, but I hope she doesn't dominate the show.

What I also appreciate is this show did not waste time introducing us to Supergirl. Most shows make you wait most of the episode and try to fill in with an origin story. They accomplished this before the first commercial break. By the time you get halfway through the episode, she has her own exhilarating airplane rescue. A nice homage to just about every Superman movie.

They also provide a means to give Supergirl super powered villains to fight this season. The last thing I want is to see her wasting her time on bank robbers all the time.

Even though I really enjoyed this show, I wouldn't be a comic book nerd without having a few issues. (See what I did there?) Surprisingly, they have nothing to do with the accuracy of the source material. I'm way past caring about the minutia of the comic book origins. I look at this from a purely television show standpoint.

So the problem with super hero shows like this is that a lot of the special effects can look really cheap. I understand it's on a TV show budget, so they do the best they can. I'm still allowed to complain about bad special effects and there was some here. A lot of the budget went to that airplane rescue and I'm okay with that. That just left some of the fight scenes not looking so good.

My other tiny gripe with this show is this. What is it with all the DC TV shows (sans Gotham) having their super hero surrounded by a team of helpers. First Team Arrow, then Team Flash and now there will be a Team Supergirl. Seriously, it's as if the heroes are too incompetent to do anything themselves without some outside help whispering cheat codes into their ears. It's a trope that is starting to grate on my nerves. I feel like it makes your super heroes appear to be weak. Sure she's learning her powers, but she's SUPERGIRL. Like she couldn't figure out what to do. Also, she spent some of her childhood on Krypton. You would think that kind of knowledge would play in at some point.

Being a Marvel guy, this pains me to say this, but DC owns the TV show fight. They have Green Arrow, Flash and now Supergirl. Yes, I'm completely ignoring Gotham.

It's almost unfair to include the Netflix shows because those have a different budget and don't have to adhere to TV standards and practices. These shows are what I wish Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would be.

If you were on the fence about Supergirl, I suggest you give it a shot. You might actually like it.

New Black Panther, Power Man & Iron Fist Books forthcoming!

I know this is on the heels of me complaining about how expensive books are getting. I'm kind of a hypocrite okay? But there have been announcements that not only is there a new Black Panther comic coming, but a new Power Man and Iron Fist book as well?! It's like Marvel is writing to ME.

I will give them credit because they have talked about trying to be more diverse with their creators. They are walking the walk.

Let's turn this back to me, so I can gush about how excited I am about my three of my top five favorite marvel characters, as detailed in my previous post.

I'll start with the top, Black Panther. With his appearance in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War movie and his upcoming solo movie, I knew it was only a matter of time before Black Panther would grace us with is own solo title. That is just the way Marvel works these days. Synergy between the comics and movies, sometimes to an annoying effect. Here it was an inevitability that I am happy that has come to pass.

What makes this story even more amazing is who they got to write the book. I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent here, but for me growing up, it's always tough to read a book about a black character that is written by a white writer. In the seventies, these books were filled with a whole lot of jive talk that really didn't reflect the characters. Just because you heard it in a movie or know one person that talks like that, does not mean we all talk like that. Comics are read by many people, some of them young, and this just reinforces negative stereotypes. It's why I had such a hard time coming to grips with Luke Cage in the nineties. All I could think is that we all don't speak like that. The dialogue comes off as cartoonish and hollow.

Anyways, sorry, it is just a pet peeve of mine. This recent iteration is written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a journalist at the Atlantic. You can read this write up on him and this particular story here. It feels me with hope that someone who has a genuine passion for this project will be writing this tale. However, I will hold judgement until an actual issue has come out. It could be terrible for all I know. Right now, he's saying all the right things and I couldn't be more excited.

Then there's the recent announcement that there will be a new Power Man and Iron Fist book. Now the seventies/eighties iteration of these characters speak to the kind of problem I spoke about earlier with how they were written. However, there was always something that interested me about the buddy cop paring of a black guy from the streets of Harlem with a rich white guy raised in a mystical Chinese city. Maybe I just love the pairing of contrasting characters.

This is another title also has diversity in it's creators. Both David F. Walker and Sanford Greene are African-American. Like Black Panther, this book was probably created because there are Netflix shows coming. SYNERGY.

Don't let my cynicism fool you, I'm very excited about this book as well. I run hot and cold with Sanford Greene's art, but he's clearly a fan and is looking forward to work on this book. I'm glad that Marvel is making strides with diversity. Pair this up with the continuing Ms. Marvel book (written by G. Willow Wilson), the "Totally Awesome Hulk" book written by Greg Pak and you can see at least Marvel is trying to make inroads to following up on their promise.

Sorry if I got on my soapbox a little bit, but I just wanted to share some of the passion I have for books like this. I realize there are many books out there from smaller publishers, but I like what I like. I mean, I did say these were some of my favorite characters after all.

Rising Price of Comic Books - Rant imminent

There's a lot of other great news in the comic book industry that I want to touch on. Before I do that, I think it's time for me to have a little rant.

I hate to sound like such an old man, but I was buying comics when they were about $1.00 to $1.50 per an issue. Then for a few years in the early 2000s, they stayed around $2.99. The past few years, $3.99 has been the norm and lately there have been issues that have snuck up to $4.99, $5.99 and $7.99. It feels like the industry is starting to settle on $4.99 per a book.

I know this is such a first world problem, but hear me out. A hobby that I love is becoming more and more expensive. I will admit I've been insulated from this somewhat because I get a big discount from my local comic book store. This is because I'm a subscriber and pick up a lot of books per month. So for the past few years, I've enjoyed a nice discount.

In a previous post, I mentioned how I have cut back my DC comic buying to the bone. I've supplemented that with more independent titles, but overall I'm cutting back on my books. With these price raises, that will go down even more.

The lower prices allowed me to be more adventurous with my sampling. Now, I simply won't take a chance on a borderline book.

The sad thing is, this is an industry that is full of fans that will continue to pay these prices (myself included) and therein lies the problem. There will never be a backlash big enough to curb some of this price gouging.

You might say, "Kevin, why don't you just not buy the books then". Yeah, but that's not the point. Let's not bring LOGIC into this discussion, okay?

At the end of the day, my problem is a value proposition. My extra dollars aren't buying comics printed on better paper. The covers aren't made of card stock. It's not like I'm getting that much more story in my books. Modern day comics take about five minutes to read on average as it is. Instead, I get more ads.

So yes, I will be buying less in the future, but it shouldn't have to be this way. It's this reason that I always look forward to comic book conventions (mostly Heroes Con) because that give me a chance to pick up books at reduced prices.

Whew. My little rant is over. See? That wasn't so bad was it? It was? Yeah, well, I'm rubber and you're glue. What you say bounces off of me and sticks back to YOU.

Winds of Change in my Comic Reading

As I sat there at my desk, filling out a new subscription for my local comic book shop, I couldn't help but notice a trend. It's something that had been going on for months, but visually seeing this on my sheet really struck home the point to me. It's a trend I really don't see going away soon. Have I teased everyone long enough? I like the attention really, so I will make you wait for one more sentence.

Okay, here goes. I'm barely buying any comic books from DC. When the "New 52" event started over four years ago that effectively rebooted the DC Universe, I was all in. I will admit that like most die-hard comic book fans, I complained these impending changes. Since I've been a fringe DC fan at best, I realized this was the best thing for me. It gave me a chance to start fresh. Through a deal at another comic store (not my home base), I got all the number one issues. This helped me decide what I liked and what I didn't like. I reviewed this on my old site. For fun, I think I will resurrect that article if I can find it. Anyways, I stuck with about half the books.

Fast forward to now and I can reveal that I only put THREE DC comic books on my list. This is a far cry from where I was years ago. Over the past year and a half, I've slowly started dropping books as constant creator changes and stagnant storylines pushed me away. Stalwarts such as Flash, Green Lantern, Batgirl, Aquaman (!) and Wonder Woman fell by the wayside. Surprise darlings such as Swamp Thing and Animal Man just ended. Even Fables ended after a ten plus year run.

My list is so diluted that only Batman, Justice League and Starfire (only four issues old) remain. The reason I keep these books? The creative teams. Scott Snyder is still telling an interesting Batman story and Geoff Johns is writing a Justice League comic devoid of current continuity.

On the flip side, creative teams are the reason I left the other books. I could give you specific reasons for why I dropped all the other books, but I won't bore you with the details for each one. I will say it was a combination of inconsistent art and writers coming up with storylines that were just boring. I'll use Green Lantern as one example.

Ever since Geoff Johns left the book after his ten plus year run, I expected the worst from the book. He was the only thing keeping me around, but I still tried to give it a chance. However, I can only take so much of the Green Lantern Corps fighting even more escalating threats involving the various corps of Yellow Lanterns, Red Lanterns, etc. Hal Jordan had become so unlikeable that the thought of him being in charge of the Lantern Corps turned me completely off the book.

The most egregious example is what happened to Wonder Woman. For about thirty five issues, an intricate tale of re-imagined Greek mythology unfolded around the most powerful female comic book character in comics. It culminated in a woman that was raised as a warrior, who practiced peace ended up becoming the God of War. This is an idea that was rife with good story possibilities. Instead, the moment Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang left, that all changed. David and Meredith Finch (with DC's blessing), took over by returning Wonder Woman to her super hero roots. That meant we had to hear all about her relationship with Superman and fighting normal comic book villains. It took me all of one issue to decide this book was not for me.

To further my point, there were a couple of big time events that I found did not interest me. Even though I am suffering event fatigue, the past two big comic book events (Convergence and Forever Evil) failed to capture me. That's when I knew they had started to lose me. It's almost as if after four years, they've run out of ideas.

DC has a lot of recognizable heroes such as Batman, Superman (noticed I haven't said anything about him until now?), Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and Aquaman. Unfortunately, the stories they are telling are boring. I don't want them to go back to pre-New 52 versions of the characters. A lot of my favorite writers have moved on to other projects in other companies. I have realized that my flirtation with DC for the past few years was apparently a phase.

I will give them credit, they are trying to come up with new titles to entice the readers. It's just that siren song is not going to work with me any more. There's a slew of Marvel comics and a lot of independent books that can easily fill that void for me.

Star Wars... the comic books

The War of Stars! Wait, that's not right...

Wow. It's been a long time since I wrote on here. And what brings me back? Star Wars! There's been some rumor that there is a new movie coming out later this year. Marvel/Disney knows this (as Disney owns the franchise) and in a move of a cash grab synergistic energy, they have released a lot of new comic books. What you may not realize is that these books have taken over the industry (sales wise) by storm. I won't go into details, but those books alone have made Marvel a top seller.

So why do I bring this up? I happen to be one of those poor saps that got roped into these books hook, line and sinker. I'm a sucker for Star Wars. Dark Horse had a lot of great series a few years ago, so I can't even begin to explain why I ignored those and suddenly got super interested in these. What's that? There's a new movie coming out? Oh right. That explains it. That excitement has made me wax nostalgic for this franchise again.

Having said all of that, I have bought all the books they released so far. I'm only human, so I won't keep this up. For right now, I'm hooked. Let me give you my brief feelings on each series so far. Right up front, all of these books take place between Episode IV and Episode V. I guess it's fertile ground for storytelling.

Star Wars - Obviously this is the flagship title. As stated above, this book "fills" the gap between episodes IV and V. Besides the fact that it's Star Wars, I picked this book up because Jason Aaron is writing it. If I haven't said it enough on this blog, he is one of my favorite writers. John Cassaday drew the first arc, but I had no expectations he'd be back after that. His art no longer does it for me. I mean, the story has been good, but it steps all over the cannon of the movies. Luke encounters both Boba Fett AND Darth Vader during this time? Han Solo and Chewy go head to head with Darth Vader in an AT-AT? Han has a WIFE?! The book really is well written and it's now being drawn by one of my favorite artists, Stuart Immonen. You'll see a common theme from me and it's this: If you're a Star Wars fan, turn your brains off because it plays fast and loose with established cannon.

Star Wars: Darth Vader - You know, this book started out innocently enough. You see the dynamic of Vader within the Empire. He's basically a pariah after the Death Star was blown up on his watch. The first few issues deal with him being micromanaged by the Emperor. Then the book shifts into him finding evil droids and a scientist of ill repute. She never existed in the movies, so they shoe horn her in as best they can. One of the problems with this book is Darth Vader is so chatty. Less is more when you are Darth Vader. It just doesn't feel right at all. There's been a long drawn out tale of how he's assembling an army secretly outside of the Empire after orchestrating a heist (??). After more issues than I should, I'm dropping this book. It's just not for me. It is some of the best art I've seen out of Salvador Larocca in years though.

Star Wars: Princess Leia - So I'll be honest, it wasn't so much my interest in Star Wars that drew me to most of these books, it was the top shelf creative teams they put on them. For this book, I'm a big fan of Mark Waid's writing (re: Daredevil!) and Terry Dodson's art. The story is serviceable, but again, in that space between Episode IV and V, they tell this little tale. It was okay, but let's not get excited or anything. We already know pretty much everything we needed to know about Princess Leia. This book doesn't give us anything new.

Star Wars: Lando - My love of Lando is due solely to the fact that he is the only black character in this whole wacky universe. Oh, and he was portrayed perfectly by Billy Dee Williams. Charles Soule does a good job of recreating Lando's voice. Most of it feels like words that you would hear Billy Dee say. Lobot is a chatty Cathy, which any fan knows is unheard of. Fortunately, they are leaning him towards where he ends up in Empire Strikes back. However, it's really jarring to see how different his character is. The story itself is also serviceable. Lando on a heist mission, but at least they don't shoe horn in all the other characters in the universe.

Journey to Star Wars: Force Awakens - Well, there's only one issue out so far, but the reason I bought this book is because it's written by Greg Rucka (another one of my favorite writers). Seriously, that's all it took. This takes place like a day after Return of the Jedi. I'll stick with this for a little bit, but I really don't want any spoilers before the movie comes out!

There you have it, it's been fun to be immersed again in this world and I can't wait for the movie to come out. The books are doing their part.

Kevin Book Review - Marvel Comics: The Untold Story

Buy your copy today!

I'm going to do something I haven't done on this blog yet. A book review! Before you get all excited and think I'm cultured, I'm sure you already saw the title of this post. Of course it's a book about comic books. I'll try to be as eloquent as possible, since we're taking care of serious business here.

What we have here is an unauthorized look behind the history of Marvel Comics. This book is built on more than a hundred interviews the author, Sean Howe, had with many of the professionals that worked at Marvel Comics over the years.

I was completely engrossed in this book, but as I was reading it I kept thinking whether I would recommend this book to my non-comic friends. I'm leaning slightly towards no. Let me explain why. The audience for this book is clearly fans of comic books. The majority of the stories hinge on your working knowledge of the creators with each turn of the page. There are ends of chapters that end with a cliffhanger along the lines of something like, "And the person who submitted the finished pages was a young [insert creator here]". That's good for me, but a normal person will not get why that's significant.

This book does not take time to explain why each creator is significant within the industry. Sure it will talk about how someone was able to write a book so long because they had clout, but you won't know the cultural impact their work had or why fans hold it in such reverence. I think that's a trapping of the book that it was not be able to avoid. So to enjoy this book on many levels, you will need to do some research.

As a story about a company that has more brand recognition than ever before, it is completely fascinating. I did not realize how much of the creative process hinged on the ability of the artist when it came to the early 60's and 70's. I totally see now why creators such as Jack Kirby was increasingly bitter through the back half of his career. You know it's sad when one of the creators of Superman is relegated to being just an editor, just so he can pay the bills.

One of the main through-lines of this book is how many of the creators put their hearts and souls into creating characters, only to get nothing in return. The cutthroat way Marvel treated their creators is very oft putting. I understand that while you work for a big company like this, anything you create belongs to the company. As you read, you see a trend where artists begin to hold back and put their true passions into creator owned books. You also get a glimpse into the very ugly legal battles that ensue.

If you were ever wondering whether these creators were on drugs when creating all these stories, guess what? They were. Were there tales of office politics? Of course there were. For the comic fan, the people involved is what makes this truly interesting reading.

My only real gripe with this book as a comic book fan is this. A lot of space is given to Marvel from it's inception to the early 80's. The era when I started reading was the early 90's until now. That was the stuff I wanted to read about and that is glanced over in the last hundred or so pages of the book. That era that was deeply personal to me and it got short shrift.

In the end, this is a very good book that is full of very many fascinating anecdotes. Will you, a normal fan enjoy it? I think so, but you will probably feel lost for most of it. That's why I'm here. Ask me and I would be more than glad to nerd out for you!

My Top Five Favorite Marvel Characters

I've thought about this for a while, but haven't written about it here. Since this is a comic book blog, I figured I would take a few moments to talk about my top five, favorite Marvel Characters. I know the Avengers are the hot thing now, but you won't see one traditional Avenger show up on my list. I've long since been a fan of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, so you will probably see that reflected in my list. So here we go, in descending order.

5. Power Man/Iron Fist - I know these are two distinct characters, but I think they have done just as much good together as they did apart. This is my favorite comic book, buddy cop team. You have a black guy (Power Man/Luke Cage) who is from the streets of Harlem and was experimented on in prison to gain super strength and steel hard skin. You have a white guy who was raised in the mystical city of K'un L'un where he became a partial arts master with a technique called the Iron Fist. These two characters couldn't be more different and yet they just work together. Although Power Man's costume is really goofy and Iron Fist's oversized collar and kung fu slippers are ridiculous, they lend themselves to their iconic look. They are also very much a product of the blaxploitation and kung fu films of the era in which they were created. I honestly couldn't put my finger on what makes these two my guys. Or maybe it is because Kung Fu and blaxploitation films are among my favorites. There you go. We cracked the code.

4. Spider-Man - You may start to see a theme with my favorites, but I am drawn to characters that never quit. Spider-Man is the quintessential guy who never gives up, despite the odds. Writers have always seemed to heap the worst events on Spider-Man, but he never backs down. You know, other than that huge misstep with "Brand New Day", where he literally makes a deal with the devil to save his aunt and annul his marriage. Outside of that blight to his record, he has always remained a favorite of mine. He has an iconic look and a tragic back story. Until the Iron Man movies, he was the quintessential Marvel character. He still has a balloon in the Macy's Day parade! He is even my #1 guy in the Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel vs. Capcom fighting games.

3. Wolverine - The luster has come off Wolverine a little. There has always been an over-saturation of Wolverine comic appearances in the market, but these past few years have been unkind. Mostly because they had him on twenty different teams at any given time. His healing factor became utterly ridiculous and then disappeared altogether. My love for Wolverine comes from the version you saw in the 80's and 90's. You know, the guy that is the best at what he does. The cigar chomping, beer drinking, tough as nails 5'3'' guy from the X-Men. The one who was a mentor to younger characters (Kitty Pryde, Jubilee) and was also a samurai. He always had a cool look and cool powers. Like Spider-Man, he is a guy that never quits. His healing factor does help a lot with that, but it's about the personality behind it. Then the X-Men movies happened and they tried to make him into Hugh Jackman, growing him about a foot. Part of his charm was that he was the short guy with a chip on his shoulder. That's my version of Wolverine and why he is on this list.

2. The Thing - Over the years, I have really grown to love the Thing. Here's why. He's just a blue-collar guy with a heart of gold. Even though writers have gone to the well too many times, he is truly a tragic figure. Here's a guy who watched his friends get cool powers, but retained the look of normal people while he's trapped in a body made entirely of rock and all the problems that entails. His most steady girlfriend is a blind sculptress. Just let that sink in for a moment. At his best, he is a guy who never gives up (I told you I had a theme) and always has his friends' backs. This is a guy who although constantly outmatched, never backs down from a fight with the Hulk. I think that is where he always won me over. He knows he can't win, but he doesn't stop trying. He also has a cool, unique look. Maybe I just have a THING for bruisers, as this list has been leaning towards.

1. Black Panther - Within the past decade, Black Panther has jumped to the top of my list of favorite characters. My only regret is that I didn't appreciate him more as a kid. Somehow, I did not really know of his existence. Also, that wonderful series by Christopher Priest had not happened yet. You have no idea how hard it is to read comic books as a kid and not find a representation of yourself in those very books. It's even more rare to find someone who is not an embarrassment (i.e. Rage). This is a character I can be proud of. I like that he is a regal character who is always thinking a couple of steps ahead of his enemy. He is the leader of a fictional African nation that is at the cusp of development in the world. He is well respected by fellow heroes. His costumes have a sleek, simplistic look. I also like that he has the fighting skills to back it up. If he has a weakness, it's that he really doesn't have a rogue's gallery. I can forgive that though. Also, he is about to show up in the next Captain America and then have his own movie in 2017!

All-New All-Different Marvel!

I promise you, I was not having some stroke when I wrote that title. That is actually what Marvel is calling their brand new initiative, which is pretty much a reboot of their whole universe, but not really. Confused? Think of it this way. It's a brand new marketing ploy to release a whole slew of new #1 issues, ala DC's New 52 from a few years ago.

Admittedly, DC did the roll out a whole lot better. They were able to ship all 52 of their books in a month and on schedule. Marvel hasn't started yet, but all signs point to it not being that organized.

With that being said, I am happy for this new shake-up of their universe. I am all about continuity, but I'm glad this is happening. Things were getting stale and this is a way to make things fresh. Essentially moving all the pieces around on the board.

There are going to be a lot of books coming out and I am excited for maybe a third of those. I'm going to take a few minutes to talk about which books I'm excited about and why.

A-Force - Over the years I've become a fan of G. Willow Wilson. She alone is what has me sold on this book. Right now, the current A-Force book during this Secret Wars event is not very good. The basic premise is that it combines a lot of the strong females in the Marvel Universe on to one team. To early to judge, based on the preview art we have.

All-New All Different Avengers - I will admit that this is the book I am most looking forward to. We got a taste of this team with the Free Comic Book Day offering that came out this year. Here's what I love about this team. It's a diverse team. You have older characters mixing with the younger characters. Among these you have a mix of black characters (Sam Wilson, Miles Morales), hispanic characters (Sam Alexander) and Middle Eastern (Kamala Kahn). Plus you have the female Thor. Sure this is the book most ready to have mass appeal, but I like the make up of this team.

Uncanny Avengers - I like Ryan Stegman's art, so hopefully he can stay on a monthly schedule. Also I have a soft spot for Doctor Voodoo. Also, Deadpool is on this team! This could be a hot mess. Or it could be good. By the way, Quicksilver's new costume is stupid.  Really, a fast forward logo on his chest? That's almost enough to make me NOT want to read.

Ultimates - Okay. I'm going to put this out there. I'm a Black Panther fan, so that is reasons #1, 2 and 3 I want to read this book. Also the fact that 3/5 of the cast is black appeals to me. Now where have I heard of three-fifths before...? Anyways, I also like the Blue Marvel and Monica  Rambeau. It gives me some black characters I can be proud of. I also have a soft spot for Kenneth Rockafort's art. I'm not a fan of Black Panther on a team full of people designed to fight cosmic level threats, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Doctor Strange - Normally I wouldn't give a Doctor Strange book the time of day. However, with Jason Aaron writing and Chris Bachalo drawing, how can I refuse. Aaron made Thor interesting, so I have every hope that he will do the same for Doctor Strange. I can't believe I'm going to read a Doctor Strange book. Then again, I never thought that years ago I would be reading Aquaman either. What I'm saying is, people can change.

Sam Wilson, Captain America - As every day goes by, I feel like we're just another day away from Sam Wilson no longer being Captain America. I'll be honest. I'm surprised it's gone on this long. By this long I mean, one year. Comic books are notorious for changing the status quo for a short period of time and then changing it back. I'll stay on board because the Falcon is a cool character.

The Mighty Thor - The continuing adventures of a female Thor. Like Captain America, I'm surprised this change has lasted longer than people's attention spans. Jason Aaron is still writing this book, so count me in. Lady Thor has been good so far, I don't see that stopping now.

Ms. Marvel - One of my favorite new characters and a welcome addition to the Marvel Universe. With G. Willow Wilson continuing to write this book, it will retain that same level of fun that she's had so far, while slyly educating people on a culture they are not familiar with. Edutainment!

Spider-Man - This is not your Peter Parker Spider-Man. This is the book for Miles Morales, the other recipient of the "Kevin's favorite new minority character that isn't stereotypical". Seriously, his run with the no longer existing "Ultimate Spider-Man" series was a real treat. I love that Bendis is still writing him and Sara Pichelli is back on art duties. This is the only Spider-Man book I will be reading.

Daredevil - Although I'm sad to see the great Mark Waid/Chris Samnee collaboration end, I am excited for this book. I love that this is another book with a lawyer that Charles Soule is writing. (Charles Soule is an ACTUAL lawyer). Writing the adventures of Matt Murdock is only fitting. Wait, is that Gambit on the cover with him!? How have we never seen a Daredevil/Gamibt team up before?? Okay, now I'm super excited. I also love Ron Garney on art, so this is near the top of my stack.

Guardians of the Galaxy - I touched on the dissolving of the Fantastic Four in a previous post. So it's good to see the Thing show up in this book. Seems like an odd fit, but this new status quo is about mixing things up, so I welcome it. Also, we have Kitty Pryde as the new Star-Lord here. This should be a lot of fun.

Uncanny Inhumans - Usually I don't care about the Inhumans, but the creative team is the reason I will give this book a chance. Also, we have an odd line up that includes the Beast and the Human Torch?! I'll give this book a fair shake.

Extraordinary X-Men - Now there are going to be a lot more X-books coming, but I want let my love of X-Men make me buy ALL of them. So I've decided that this will be one of them because it has Storm leading the team. As it should be, really. This is kind of an odd team of X-Men as it includes Iceman, Nightcrawler and the "Old Man Logan" version of Wolverine. Humberto Ramos is drawing it, so I will always show up when he's on board.

All-New X-Men - Honestly, this book will be on a short leash with me. I really thought they had exhausted the concept of this time-displaced X-Men, but they're going to keep going. I'll try it out for a few issues to see if it pleasantly surprises me or not. I hate to say that Mark Bagley on art is one of the reasons I am hesitant. He is my favorite Spider-man artist from the 90's (Take that your McFarlane fans!), but I think maybe I outgrew his style.

All-New Wolverine - I'll be honest, usually I would hate the idea of a female Wolverine, because it would sound like more pandering from Marvel. Since this is X-23 we're talking about, who was practically Wolverine anyway, I'm okay with this. I do wish they could have given her a new take on the costume, not the same thing.

If you read this far, congratulations. Thanks for indulging me. Oh, who am I kidding? You knew what you were getting into if you're reading this blog.

Secret Wars

I think it's time I finally took a moment to talk bout Marvel's Secret Wars event and all the subsequent spin off books.

Jonathan Hickman's Magnum Opus of his Marvel run is playing out before our eyes. All of his Avengers work (which honestly left me cold) has culminated up to this point. The Secret Wars series itself has been really good. It's been in the classic tradition of mixing up the characters into groups that you don't normally see. There have been truly shocking moments. The spinoff books however have been mostly terrible.

Here's the premise of this whole crossover in a nutshell. Reality has been destroyed by cosmic forces (isn't that always the way) and the Marvel Universe as we know it ceases to exist. Dr. Doom, who has become all powerful, saves bits and pieces of this reality and has cobbled it together into a place called "Battleworld" where he has affixed him self as a God.

This has given Marvel a chance to mine all of our childhoods by having many books focus on returns to various eras throughout their history. A clever ploy, but you're not going to get me, Marvel. I was burned by your LAST return to the "Age of Apocalypse" universe. I do not care how you want to play out your alternate realities of Civil War, Future Imperfect, Armor Wars, Infinity Gauntlet, Korvac Saga, X-Tinction Agenda and so on. Did I miss a few? Of course I did, but I'm not going to name all of them.

What bothers me is you have all these different realities cobbled together into one world. So basically you can have 20 Wolverines running around at the same time in this new world. Of course they never run into each other because each of these stupid stories are self-contained in this weird way. Honestly, the whole thing is an absolute mess.

The true gems out of this event have been "Master of Kung Fu", "Years of Future Past" and "Runaways". Oh yeah, I also have a soft spot in my heart for "X-Men 92'". Even IF it is a mish-mash of the Blue and Gold teams! Anyways, each of these books speak to some of my comic book sensibilities. I tried some of the others and just could not muster up the ability to care. There are just way too many of these books. It's this kind of cash grab that makes me very cynical as a fan.

Fortunately, as an educated consumer I don't have to buy all of these. I definitely don't feel compelled to. To summarize my thoughts in a nutshell: Secret Wars Mini-Series = good. Everything else = bad. I just want this to be all over so we can get to our All New Marvel Universe.

Ant-Man

I give up. I give up trying to doubt Marvel with their movies right now. I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was an over reach when it was announced. I loved it so much it is in my top three favorite movies that Marvel has put out.

When I they announced Ant-Man, I was like "Really? WHO is asking for an Ant-Man movie?!" and I thought this would be the one to due them in. I really liked this movie too. So what do I know. I can't doubt these guys anymore. Everything will come up roses for these guys.

So let's talk about this movie. First off, I liked that the scale for this movie was small. (See what I did there?) By that I mean, there was not some evil villain that was trying to take over the world. You just had a d-bag business man doing bad things. At the end of the day, this was essentially a heist movie. That is about the best direction you could take with this character.

Like most of my comic movie reviews, I'm not going to compare this to the source material. That kind of thing serves no one. I look at these like I would any other films. Sometimes with rose colored glasses. So let's dive in.

First off, I want to say this movie was a lot of fun. In Paul Rudd, you had the right amount of snark and charisma to play some of the scenes tongue in cheek. You have to when a guy's power equates to shrinking down and talking to ants. Anyways, he helped to keep things light. When the movie started to sink into melodrama (one particular scene with father and daughter pouring their hearts out), he cuts the scene with a quip.

I could talk about Michael Douglas or Evangeline Lilly. They were good, but that's not who I want to give praise to. Michael Pena stole every scene he was in. He was how you use comic relief. Sparingly, before he wears out his welcome. There was such an innocence to his character that you can't help but to love him. When I first saw he was added to the cast, I didn't know what to think. He's a great actor, but I didn't know how he'd fit in. In this weird little universe, perfectly.

I do like how they did the fight scenes in this movie. The shrinking back and forth was pretty cool. I really loved the cameo they have from one of the Avengers in here. I won't spoil it.  There were also a couple of little easter egg moments, typical to these movies. It's that little bit of deep cut, nerd lore that speaks to me. At one point, the villain made a comment about "Tales to Astonish" and I broke into a wide smile.

There were a couple of things I didn't like about this movie, however. As movies rely more and more on special effects, I yearn for the days of practical effects. So I did not like seeing all these CG ants running all over the place and the CG stunt men used in the action sequences. Honestly, there's no other way you can do it. It's just that this kind of stuff takes me out of a movie.

The other thing that bothers me is that Marvel has a real problem with the villains in their movies. The heroes are always layered, fallible and well-meaning. The villains are always one note, cookie cutter caricatures. They practically twirl their mustaches. They are clearly an afterthought. I think the only good villains we've had so far are Loki and practically the whole stable of villains in Winter Soldier. I love Marvel, but you can only go on so long with crap villains weighing down your movies.

With all this being said, I think you should definitely go see this movie. If you're reading this, we both know you're already invested in these movies. Go have fun and see this one too.

San Diego Comic Con - The Past Strikes Back

So in my previous post, I talked about my journey to Comic Con. Let me give you my account of my adventure there. I won't do this in chronological order or anything.

The first important point I want to make is this: San Diego Comic Con has very little to do with Comic books, despite it's name. The convention center is massive, with gigantic booths, towering displays and tons and tons of vendors. Those that actually sell comic books is quite minute. For those that know me, I am a bargain hunter for comic books and everything else is secondary. To learn this first had was the most disappointing thing for me.

The comic book panels themselves are not really full. The big halls are reserved for TV and movie events. Some comic book based, but this convention is more about pop culture in general. And video games. Video games had such a huge presence there. I was able to go to Nintendo, Xbox, Sony and Sega events to play games while I was there. Not that I'm complaining. ALSO, we went to a free video game music concert, while really cool (did I mention it was free) had zero to do with comic books.

This little complaint pales in comparison to the one gripe I have that every con goer knows about, but the general public does not. You wait in lines...a LOT. If you are looking for exclusive items, you're waiting in a line for three hours. While waiting in one of these lines, I had plenty of time for self reflection. As in, "I'm standing in this long line for the right to BUY something." I still stood in that line, but that's beside the point. We really wanted to see go to the panel for Psych, one of our favorite TV shows. We stood in a line for about two hours and didn't come close to seeing that panel. We ended up getting out of line and doing something else.

After each panel, they don't clear the rooms out. So what happens is a little bit of gamesmanship. To get to the panel you REALLY want to go to, you try to get in as early as you can to a panel you don't care for and just sit there until the next panel starts. This is seriously a thing. I didn't want to waste my first comic con playing the odds on this. It would cause me to miss out on so many other things.

My last bit of complaints is this. It is really crowded there.

This is just OUTSIDE the convention center

We're talking, shoulder to shoulder crowds at some point. If you don't like big crowds, this is not the place for you. I just hate slow moving people and crowds is that. That's where my frustration comes from.

For all the complaining I'm doing, I really did enjoy myself. I enjoyed the spectacle of it all. The dealers room was really cool. In a rare thing for me, I kind of let myself go and treated myself. I bought most things that interested me, knowing that I would not find some of this stuff later. Mostly because I would have forgotten when I left. I didn't just shop for myself. I picked up various items for all my friends as well. It wasn't just about me. 

I did get to see a few of my favorite artists. I got to chat with Jim Cheung a little bit and bought a few pieces of art from him. I did get to go to a few panels, including a retrospective on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" which I really enjoyed.

The costumes at this convention are top notch. The best of the best show up for this. It's very easy to be impressed with what you see.

I got to play a lot of cool video games. This was right around the time the Xbox One and PS4 were about to be released, so there was a couple of rooms rented out in nearby hotels to try and grab gamers. 

At the end of the day, I just also like being around a bunch of nerds like this. I'm in my element here. However, this was a once in a lifetime chance and I got to do it. I really don't want to put myself through this again any time soon.

San Diego Comic Con - The Past

Inside the Convention Center

What's the point of having a blog about comic books if you don't talk about the single-biggest convention in the US? That's one of them rhetorical questions. I realized I have not posted in a while and I haven't said one word about this convention. To be honest, I didn't follow as closely as I have in years past. In my next post, I will do some quick thoughts on what has me excited coming out of that convention.

Instead, I thought I would write about my experience going to comic-con in 2013. I had posted about this before, so if any of this is known to you, indulge me. Maybe I got funnier since the last time.

Comic Con was a once in a life time experience. Something I can knock off the bucket list. By the end of this post, you will see why I probably do not feel compelled to ever do it again.

Getting Tickets
So anyone that has been to a big convention (Dragon Con, Otakon, PAX, etc.) knows what a pain it is to sometimes get tickets. Comic Con takes all of those and throws them out the window. To say it's near impenetrable is an under statement. So here is how it goes. You first have to sign up an account for the Convention itself. Having a login becomes important later. Feel free to get emails that get you both excited and disappointed in their frequency.

The day comes when you have to buy tickets. The ONLY place you can get their tickets is through their website. On a set day, at 9:00 am PST, the site opens up for ticket purchasing. Within 10 seconds, the site will crash with everyone trying to get tickets at once. No joke, my friend and I hit the site at the exact same time. We sat on the phone with each other fifteen minutes beforehand, so we can get ready. My nervousness and excitement was palpable.

Anyways, the site crashed for me and my journey ended. In the span of 10 seconds. So to recap, weeks of waiting for this moment and it all ended in a matter of seconds. My friend was able to get through. Four day tickets sold out almost instantly. He was fortunate to get four one day passes for each of us. In this day and age, given the popularity of this con, you would think they'd have load balancing on their servers or ANYTHING to keep it up with all the traffic that they should expect. But I digress.

Tickets were bought and this was just the first hurdle. Our stress was not over.

Reserving a Hotel
Unless you have some connection, you are going to have to pay money to stay near the con. For convenience, you want to be as close as possible. The convention has a list of hotels near by at low convention rates. Not so fast, you can't just call up and get a room for this either. On another pre-determined day, you have to repeat the shenanigans for getting tickets to get rooms. From their list of hotels, you have to pick SIX that you would like to stay in. If you're lucky enough to get into the site to reserve a hotel, you have to put down your six preferred location. Once you've done that, you MAY hear from one of your six hotels a few days later. For this leg of the journey, I accomplished this task. Surprisingly, this was easy and we got our #2 hotel. That's something.

Buying Plane Tickets
This was the easiest part of our journey. I won't detail it here. All I will say is that the convention starts on Thursday, we wanted to fly in on Wednesday so we can get a lay of the land and do some sight seeing. We expect to be busy.

Arrival and Ticket Pickup
After we arrived, we immediately went to the San Diego Zoo to do some sightseeing. We took a cab out there and cabs would be our way of getting around the city. Unlike our trip to Seattle, everything is not nearby in San Diego. Once we were done, we had to go pick up our badges. This is a ritual unto itself. While heading over, our cab was stuck in traffic for almost an hour. You see, the badge pickup is in a location nowhere near the convention center. That would make too much sense. So traffic is backed up for miles as everyone is heading over to get their tickets. This is the first of many logistical nightmares we would run into.

Once we finally arrive, we are introduced to our first line (first of many). Surprisingly, the line moved pretty quickly. Well, quickly for this convention. I think we were in and out in under an hour. It was cool to see the excitement in everyone's faces. We were all so ready to do this.

This was all the stuff before the convention. To keep this short, I will do a separate post on the convention itself.

Heroes Con 2015 - Post Mortem

Just a small portion of the Vendor's floor

Another Heroes Con is in the book. This was my eleventh straight year going and my initial excitement for the event is always the same. The past three years (the two I had to drive) ended up being times I had something happen at the Con that served to frustrate me. Two years ago, the AC did not work and that led to a hot drive back home. Oh and to top things off, there was a huge traffic delay that got us there about two hours late.

This year, there was the nearly hour long wait in the PRE-REGISTERED tickets line. Seriously, what's the point of buying tickets to avoid a line if you just end up in a line anyway?! People could walk off the street and buy a ticket and get in while we were waiting. If I hadn't already paid for my tickets, I would have got out of line and bought some tickets. However, it's not as bad as San Diego Comic was a few years ago. If I can stand in a line for three hours, I can stand in line for anything. I just like to get in during the first few hours when it's not crowded, so I can look unabated.

I digress, this will be the only complaining I will make here. Here's something you need to know about my con going habits. The first hour is magic hour for me. It sets the tone for my con, more or less. This is when I'm looking for the most wanted items on my list. I get one of the first runs at the vendors before their collections are picked over. Also, usually about 50% of my comic buying happens in my first couple of hours there.

This gives me time to get the lay of the land, find who has good deals and who I can see dropping their prices on Sunday. It also gives me time to see Artist alley and find the artists that I like. I can then come back later and buy some art from them.

On this trip, we debated why even do the full weekend anymore. I seriously do the majority of my buying on Friday. The next two days are just casual looks at vendors.

What I want to share is why I enjoy doing this. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt. I think dopamine is released every time I search through a comic bin and find exactly what I'm looking for. Words can't express how much I truly enjoy this, so I won't even bother. This is my own brand of fun.

This year, I didn't buy art from as many artists as I have in the past. Some of my favorite artists where there, but they did not have prints for sale or they had prints that had letters all over them. I don't like art that has words on them, with exceptions. I did buy an amazing Daredevil print from Matteo Scalera (who is amazing) and a cool, blaxploitation inspired Heroes for Hire print from Khary Robinson. Then I bought a couple of pieces that were art deco inspired (my weakiness) from a guy named Andrew Heath.

Per the usual, I ate well during my weekend at the con and took some pictures of some of the cosplayers. Even though I complained about the lines at the top of this post, it feels my heart with joy to see this Con doing so well. I'm glad it's growing and that it will keep growing. I definitely won't stop going anytime soon if I can help it.

It's that magical time of year...

Like the summer solstice, it's that special time in the summer. Heroes Con in Charlotte! Oh, I'm sorry, with a lead in like that you thought I would say something thought provoking? You should know me better than that.

Anyways, this is that special time of  year for me where I catch up on a few years of comic books on the cheap. However, I want everyone to know it's more than that for me. Well, not really, but let's just pretend it is.

Not everyone has been to a convention with me, so I thought I would use this post to reveal what I am typically like at a con. I've been to many cons (mostly repeats of this particular one), but I have developed a pattern that has me performing my tasks with a laser like efficiency that could probably put me in a more serious light than people are used to.

So here I am, baring my soul.

• I have a list. Yes, every year I go to Heroes Con, I have a list of books that I'm looking for. When I first started, I had slips of paper. Then I upgraded to an html table I used from my comic database. Then spreadsheets. Now, it's using an excel spreadsheet on Google Drive. What I've found is that by using the Google Drive, my friend and I can split up and mark off what I need on the sheet. No more clunky paper copies and marking things off with pens like we did in the past. Like I said, it's gotten EFFICIENT.
• I am notoriously cheap. Years ago, my friend called me "the Black Vulture". This is because I only pick off the cheap comics from the vendors. My mission is to get what I want at as cheap a price as I can get. A piece of me dies when I pay more than $5 for an issue of anything. So I usually hit the one dollar and two dollar bins hard.
• When looking for comics I have the following pattern: On Friday, I look for the books that I need the most. I will pay the most per an issue during this time. Saturday I do recon to see which vendors I want to hit on Sunday when everything is the cheapest.
• I detest unsorted long boxes. My biggest pet peeve at any convention is when someone is selling comic books and they are not sorted in any discernible order. Look, I'm thirty-five. I don't have time to spend an hour looking through boxes on my hands and knees. If a box is not sorted, I move on. Show some professionalism guys!
• I've become numb to cosplayers. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing cosplay. I've just seen so much that you have to have a really good costume to register with me at this point. Or in other words, I've seen enough Deadpools to last me five lifetimes.
• I love getting the chance to meet some of my favorite artists and buy pieces of art from them. The past few years I've spent just as much time looking around artist alley. It's always a treat.
• Since they've expanded the dealer's room, I love the vast openness this convention has. I don't have to be shoulder to shoulder with people when walking around. Personal space is pretty easy to come by.
• This convention is very laid back. Everyone is super nice, there's no rush to anything and all of the guests are very friendly. It is kid friendly and I hope to bring my kids here one day.
• Sometimes there are fun panels to go to. Unfortunately, due to the laid back nature, the rooms are rarely full and that emboldens people to ask the dreaded, "Con Questions".

To summarize it, I really enjoy this convention. It always makes me happy. This will be my eleventh straight year going to this and I have not got tired of it yet.

I will end on one fun fact: Years ago a TV crew was there filming a story about the con and I ended up in a segment that would show on the news. It was for something called Carolina Camera or something. The link has been since pulled down, otherwise I'd share it right now.

It's the small things...

I should have wrote about this sooner, but I saw something in a comic that I really enjoyed and it's such a small, innocuous thing.

I was reading "Ultimate End" #1 from Marvel comics a few weeks ago. Marvel has a big event where they are smashing together the regular (616 as it is affectionately called) universe as we fans have known it for fifty plus years into the "Ultimate" universe, which was a re-imagining of the universe for the modern era. So right now there is a mish-mash of comic characters mingling with each other. Some of the characters are so similar, it's hard to tell which universe they belonged to.

Then I noticed it. The font of the speech bubbles for the regular Marvel characters used bold, all caps font. The Ultimate characters used a more subdued font that uses proper case in the lettering. I thought this was such a cool little thing, that when I noticed it, I was surprised. At first I thought, "No way are they that clever.". Then again, it could ONLY be a deliberate choice. That made me appreciate it all the more. Such a small touch that was used so effectively. Now you can tell all the characters apart.

Lettering is like an offensive line in Football. You only notice them when they do poorly. If they're doing good, you don't notice them at all. In this case, I just thought it was a cool use.

What did I think of the rest of the issue? Who cares, it was kind of a mess. But the LETTERING, man! Let's focus on the important things in life, huh?

Archie Comics - You look away and they became progressive??

I realize I've talked about nothing but Marvel Comics since I started this blog. You must be thinking, "Why won't you talk about DC comics, you hater? It's Marvel this and Marvel that". Maybe you didn't say that, but I hear you anyway. That's why I'm going to talk about another company that's near and dear to my heart... Archie Comics!

I'll spare my personal history with Archie Comics. All I will say is that they are my guilty pleasure and one of the first series of comics I got into when I was a kid. They are one of my go to reads when I'm feeling down. So I have an attachment that will always be there. Also, the answer to the eternal question is always Betty. You know what the question is, so don't act like you don't.

Anyways, a company that has been around for seventy five years and has stories that have felt like they're seventy years too old have been one of the more daring, progressive companies out there. The cynic in all of us could think it's pandering moves, but I applaud them. I can't say that I've read all of these moves, but I will touch on them anyway because I did know they were happening.

Right now, there is a series called "Afterlife with Archie". This book is a take on the horror genre with all of the Archie characters, in a more realistic setting. By that I mean, it's drawn by the amazing Francesco Francavilla which does not fit the Archie house style at all. It has been a gut wrenching tale about the characters surviving in a world of a zombie apocalypse, ghosts and many other monsters. I mean, they've already killed a few of the characters we know and love. At the center you have Archie Andrews trying to lead his rag-tag group of friends to safety. Let all of this sink in and think about how fascinating this is. From Archie comics, right? This is easily one of my favorite books right now.

Let's not stop there. Even though it was in an alternate reality, they addressed the age old question of who would Archie choose, Betty or Veronica? The answer is both. In the "Life with Archie" series that was revived in 2010, this book followed his marriage to either women in two different stories each month. This is the first glimpse you get at what their lives would be like together. To take it further, the book ends with the death of Archie. You want more?

In 2010, Archie comics introduced Kevin Keller, their first openly gay character. It was a move that showed that this comic company that seemed to be stuck in the fifties was showing progress. It's a big deal because of how well it was received and the non-pandering manner in which it was presented. It received national acclaim. There was even an event where they showed him getting married. Kevin is his own character and has starred along with the other Archie favorites in other series, including having his own.

Finally, to continue the fresh changes this company has gone through, they have now hired top talent to write a new Archie series. Perhaps you've heard of Mark Waid and Fiona Staples? No, then let me tell you these are some big names that the company has lured. Even though their Kickstarter campaign to crowd fun a few new projects (a move they backed off of because it seemed like a huge misstep), we're still going to see books from Chip Zdarsky, Adam Hughes and Dan Parent as well. The fact that they are able to lure these creators to the company to freshen up the line is huge news.

I check in with these characters from time to time (I like to buy the digests occasionally), but with moves like these, I'm proud to stick around and read more. This was my sales pitch to get everyone to take a look. Do you trust me?

Fantastic Four Comic - End of an era

This is the End...for NOW.

With Fantastic Four #645, one of Marvel's longest running series comes to a tragic end. I won't get into all the business reasons because they are various and frustratingly stupid. They extend past the obligatory "The book doesn't sell good enough".

Instead, I'd rather reflect on why I find it sad. Like my other posts, this may be a little long, but I will attempt to rein myself in.

When I got into comic books in the early nineties, I was a huge X-men fan. That sustained me for years until I got to the point that my insatiable appetite for new comic books led me to the FF. I had watched their half-assed cartoon and knew the origin of the characters. I had even encountered them during the big events (Infinity War, Infinity Crusade) because they were always a crucial part.

However, I never read their solo title. There was a big sale at my local comic book store and I used this as the opportunity to branch out.

To say I got hooked was an understatement. The reason I like team books so much is because I like the interplay of the different characters and their personalities. When you're talking about super hero comics, there's also the dynamic of their power sets. Do they all compliment each other? Is the writer smart enough to explore these options? Is the book FUN?

For me, all of the answers to these questions were a resounding YES. The Fantastic Four was more than just a team of random characters. They were a family. The biggest knock on the book has always been that they were old fashioned. It's funny that a book about family could be considered passé. I did not mind at all. It can be argued that the birth of the Marvel Universe as we know it began with this book. Without it, one of my favorite characters, the Black Panther, would not exist. We would not have Dr. Doom (one of the best villains ever), Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Inhumans, the Skrulls, The Watcher and so many other notable characters.

To take it further, one of my favorite Marvel characters is the Thing. If you thought the Hulk was a tortured character, try being the Thing. I won't go into his back story (do that here). He has his moments where he is super melancholy, a well I think has been mined way too many times. The love of his life is a blind sculptress. The one woman that can see him for who he is turns out to be someone that can't see at all. There's something very poetic about that. Call me a softie, but that relationship never felt forced. He always keeps going no matter what, even when he's outmatched. He's like Spider-Man in that way. He's like Captain America in that way. It's the combination of his physical strength and his character that makes him one of my favorites. He's just a blue collar guy.

So am I sad this book is going away? Absolutely. It's steadfastly been one of my favorite books. I love a lot of their old stuff from the 70's and 80's, even if it is surprisingly misogynistic when it comes to the portrayal of the Invisible Woman. She was just the "Invisible Girl" for the longest time. Thankfully she grew the most out of all the characters. When it had it's down years like when it is written by Mark Millar or Matt Fraction, it's hurt me to read. Don't get me started on the Heroes Reborn saga of the late 90's. On the plus side, you get fantastic runs from John Byrne, Mark Waid and Jonathan Hickman. I even liked some of the long Tom Defalco era. Anyone that tries to make this group, "cool" clearly doesn't get what these characters are all about.

This is the comic book industry, so this book will be back at some point. It will never be gone for good. I can't wait until it does. Hopefully the industry will appreciate it when it does.

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review - Addendum

Since writing my thoughts on Age of Ultron, there were a few more thoughts that have been rattling around in my brain that I forgot to mention in my long (sorry!) post. I'll keep this short and sweet. Below are just more of my musings on the film:

• They mentioned Wakanda and had Ulysses Klaw! These are direct references to the Black Panther, one of my favorite characters in all of comics. I squealed with girlish glee.
• Maybe it was where I was sitting, but the movie seemed dark. Yeah, maybe I was sitting too close.
• I loved all the cameos. Seeing War Machine have some good moments was awesome. They've done a good job of integrating this cinematic universe. You never know who will show up! (Stan Lee!!)
• Some of the shots got too cutesy. I liked the seamless scene (like it was done in one long take) of action in the first Avengers movie. That does not mean I wanted to see it two or three more times in this movie. Feels less special.
• Now that I know there was a lot edited out, according to Whedon, I can't wait to see what the REAL movie would have been like.
• Whedon, seriously, you don't have to give us a character death in every movie you do.
• All these sneak peaks of Thanos in the past couple of movies are great for comic fans, but have no impact on the moving going public. So either explain him or don't bother.
• Seriously, what was up with Thor's personal journey? You can just tell stuff was cut out around that.
• Most importantly, this movie did not have the magic of the first one. There is no way it could, but I never envisioned such a stark drop off. See what I did there?

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

I've had a couple of days to cool down from watching Avengers: Age of Ultron. With that time for clarity, I can now reveal how I really feel. (Because I discussed it with my best friend first).

I still think Age of Ultron is a very fun movie. I really liked it, but there are a few things I didn't care for. I know I've become cynical, but we have an embarrassment of riches with comic book based films. I don't have to force myself to like everything now.

We'll start with what I really liked. This movie is one big spectacle. That's not a bad thing, it's just like the first Avengers film, ramped up to a 12. There is a LOT more action in this movie. In fact, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the movie is at least half action scenes. This movie really showcased Captain America's skill set. The last movie he was slighted, but not this time. I loved all the team up moves that were used. It was like a real life version of the "Marvel Ultimate Alliance" game from a few years ago.

Something I've always liked about a Whedon film is the dialogue. This movie is chock full of zingers and good character moments. If I had my choice, I would have loved to see more scenes of everyone sitting around having a good time than all the action scenes. For instance, an extended cut of the dinner party scene at the beginning of the movie. It's always fun to see all of the various characters from all the other movies interacting with each other. To me, this is where the movie shined.

Ultron was creepily played by James Spader. I think he's the perfect villain for the Avengers because once again, you can have multiple bad guys for everyone to have their moment beating up. With all the Ultron clones, this makes sure everyone has something to do. Overall, I do think he was an effective villain.

The actors were all top notch. I don't feel like any one person carried the movie, but there was definitely a lack of Thor. He kind of disappears for half the movie to go on a quest we don't see a lot about.

I won't go into detail about the special effects. I would expect nothing less from ILM.

Now there were a few specific things I did not like in this movie. One of the things that really bugged me was the last act of the movie, that essentially starts with Black Widow being kidnapped. We have had about three movies with the Black Widow up to this point and she has proven to be a strong, independent character. To have her get kidnapped and become a damsel in distress flies against everything they built her up to be. She literally stays trapped until her man comes to save her. It's as if the resourceful spy we all know and loved just completely disappeared. As you can tell, this really bugged me.

I was not a fan of the Hulk/Iron Man fight in the movie. Mostly because we JUST saw all these guys fight against each other in the last movie. It's a scene that didn't need to happen and seemed to bloat this movie. That scene was built around the display of their impressive special effects.

On this last point, I know many will disagree, but this movie felt like it was missing heart. In the first film, I guess it seems more apparent than ever that Agent Coulson provided that. We did not have a Coulson analogue in this film, unless you count Hawkeye, who finally became a real character. Back to my point. It was spectacle after spectacle. Normally that would thrill me, but I guess in the past few years, that kind of thing serves to impress me less. Give me a good hand to hand fight sequence (re: Winter Soldier) and you'll have me eating out of your hands.

This movie also showed that all the addition of new characters has caused this movie to become too bloated. I liked the addition of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, they just felt unnecessary because we already have six people we need to care about, plus all the ancillary people (Maria Hill, Nick Fury).

It may seem like I had really strong feelings against this movie, but I still really enjoyed it. I know it won't last, but I liked the new team of Avengers they form at the end. If only we could get a movie with them before moving onto the Infinity War stuff. I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. You've suffered enough!