Into the Longbox

This image is as dumb as the movie itself I'm not going to bury the lead here. This movie is extraordinarily stupid. It should not exist. For those not in the know, Sony has the rights to a number of Spider-Man characters, but share actual Spider-Man with Disney right now. So in an effort to keep the rights, they pump out Spider-Man adjacent nonsense like the Venom movies or THIS movie right here. A movie absolutely no one asked for. Morbius is a C list Spider-Man villain on his BEST day. A sign that Sony should have moved on. Yet, here we are. I'm sure the egotistical Jared Leto thought he could somehow elevate this property. He is sorely mistaken.  Part of my main problem with this movie is they take a stupid comic book concept and try to play it straight like it is believable. A guy is like, "Imma go get bit by a bunch of vampire bats cause science blah blah something something" and they just roll with it. Then he gets powers but is like a vampire, but not. The bat...

Hi there. It's that friend you have that is in to comics. I know this blog should talk more comic stuff, but there's SO MANY SHOWS based on comics, my focus has shifted a little. So the topic of this post is that Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday special that popped up on Disney+ a week ago. What I am going to say is independent of this review, but I gotta say it. I don't love the exponential increase in Marvel content Disney has been pushing out. This is going to accelerate people's super hero burnout. We have long ago reached a oversaturation point. Have they been good? Mostly, yeah, but they have not paced themselves. By the time they get to the bottom of the vast list of characters, no one is going to care anymore. Sorry. This special. James Gunn has been hit or miss for me. I loved Guardians of the Galaxy and Peacemaker. I hated Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and The Suicide Squad. What did I think of this? I think it falls in the middle. It was fun and I liked it a l...

I'm going to save my usual pre-amble nonsense and just jump into my review of the movie while it's fresh in my mind. Did I love the movie? Yes! Was it better than the first one? Well, no, but that's not a bad thing. It's different. I would give it a 9/10 if we want to put numbers on things. That first movie was fueled by the unmistakable charisma of the late Chadwick Boseman. We are at a unique moment right now. I've never recalled an actor being so closely tied to a character that his actual death was tied into a movie that felt like a loving eulogy. Chadwick Boseman is clearly missed and this movie does not shy away from it. There is such a palpable sadness in the beginning of this movie that is really a gut punch. There is a long moment of silence for when the Marvel logo pops up and I want you to pay attention to it because it is different.  Let this be a warning to you, there is a lot of emotional, gut punches in this movie. Did I cry a bit? I would be lying if...

Y'all know I'm a die hard Black Panther fan. I own almost 90% of his solo stuff that's ever been released. I've read some great stories and some not so great stories. Through it all, I never felt the way I do now. A few months ago I shared my thoughts on the first issue of this new run. Has it gotten better? No. Instead of giving this blanket statement, let me share my reasons why. Over the past year or two, they've transformed Wakanda into a democracy. A modern take on an old comic book mythos is okay. I don't mind this. I've been reading comics for a while and something is going to happen where this is going to revert back. It's just the nature of the beast, so I don't sweat changes like this. Where I have a problem is with the writing. I get that Marvel wants synergy between the comics and the movies. Black Panther was a C List character at best about fifteen years ago. Now he's become more prominent and is among the A-Listers. To try and bui...

I put season one, because there is no way this doesn't get a second season. It is more than deserving. Oh, hello. Welcome to my review of the recently finished She-Hulk series on Disney+. Another in an exponentially growing list of Marvel properties getting TV shows. The money train left the station a long time ago and it seems just about any and everything is getting green-lit. Fortunately, they have all mostly been successful in one way or another. I think this show falls in the success category. I will put this out here. I'm a little biased. I've been reading every iteration of She-Hulk for almost the last twenty years. She does the fourth wall breaking that Deadpool does, but less annoying. Correction, Deadpool does the fourth wall breaking SHE does. It's just his property got released into the public first. Anyways, I was excited for this show when I heard it was happening. I was even more excited when I heard that the talented Tatiana Maslany was cast as the titul...

Sneaky Marvel. This just snuck out to Disney+ with little fanfare, but what a nice surprise it was. I remember seeing a trailer for this a while back and then instantly forgot about it. Being as we're in Halloween season, it's perfect timing. Let me get right to it. This is the Marvel short we didn't know we needed. It was a lot of fun. It harkens back to the old days of monster films. It's in black and white for the most part, with pops of color here and there to accentuate things. There's the cigarettes burns in the top right corner of the screen as if it was on a projector. The way some of the shots are framed and just the general vibe of it had an old monster feel. However, the action and special effects were not. There was some great hand to hand action mixed in here and that kind of stuff is my bread and butter. There were legitimate moments that made me go, "Oh SHIT", which is the space I like to be in when I see some cool martial arts moves come ou...

Life got in the way, but I finally saw Thor: Love and Thunder a few weeks ago. Since it's now on Disney+, this review can be relevant. I'll dive right in and try to keep this short. First off, I love the goofy, bumbling persona they have created for Thor in the MCU with the last few movies. This was the right direction to go in because he was so self serious, that he was boring. This direction breathed new life into him. Did I enjoy this movie? Yes. Was it as good as Thor: Ragnarok? No. But that's not a bad thing. It's still easily one of the better Thor movies. One of the criticisms you may have heard about this movie is that some of the jokes don't work. I agree that it's true. My only defense is, what movie that has comedy had ALL the jokes work in it? None. So let's set that expectation. One running joke that specifically annoyed me are the pair of screaming goats that Thor gets. Yes, we remember this meme or whatever from a few years ago. I feel like th...

I finished up Ms. Marvel a few days ago and what a delight it was. I have so many things to say about this show, so I will just jump right in. I'll spare you the requisite "I've read the character since she came out, blah blah blah". Before I dive into other stuff, I really like how Marvel is getting creators from the ethnic backgrounds their shows are representing. Furthermore, we get to spend times in those locations as opposed to New York. For Moon Knight, it was Egypt with an Egyptian showrunner. For Ms. Marvel, we spend time in Pakistan with actors and directors from Pakistan. Furthermore, it delves into the everyday life of a Muslim. Portrayed in a positive light, which as you can imagine in America, is not common. Let's be honest about that. Each of these shows had a unique, authenticity that is new for main stream TV. I'm glad that a wide audience will be able to watch these shows and potentially learn something. If Marvel plays it's cards right, i...

A month after it's release, I finally got to see Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. To be honest, I thought it was okay. This phase of Marvel movies and TV shows has been haphazard at best. I don't want to hear how the pandemic changed things. There are important people that can figure this out. I am glad that Marvel is at least trying to reach into their toy chest and see what works. Right now, they are coasting on the goodwill they have built up over the last decade.  Admittedly, it's hard to see where this movie and all their other recent shows fit into the larger tapestry. Unlike the other movies (Black Widow, Eternals, Shang-Chi) though, this movie at least feels like it will have some larger implications for the MCU. I think this movie and the last couple of shows (re: Wandavision) have been negatively affected by our expectations for cameos or easter eggs that are going to change the Marvel Universe. We KNOW Disney bought Fox movie properties, so we are ex...

Even though I finished this show weeks ago, I haven't gotten around until writing about it until now. At first, it was to search my feelings. Did I like the show? Am I only liking it because it's a Marvel product and I'm such a fanboy? Then it turned into, "Man, I don't want to talk about this, I don't remember anything." However, I have an obligation as "that guy that loves comics" that you know, so here we are. Ultimately, this show is kind of a mess. Before I go further (and I will probably say this a lot), Oscar Isaac is fantastic. He and he alone is the reason to even give this show a chance. I'll spare you my thoughts on what I know about Moon Knight. Like most of the audience, barely enough. He has always had a cool look, but in the Marvel Universe, there is a glut of characters all based out of New York, fighting crime. Not all of them are winners. Marvel has spent a lot of time trying to get a guy over that has a cool look, but not m...

A few months ago, I reviewed the first issue of The Thing mini-series written by Walter Mosley. It's been a few months and the series has wrapped. I thought it was time to come back to this and share my thoughts. Overall, I thought it was really good. As much as I like Mosley, I always worry when a novelist comes to write a comic book. It's a completely different medium and some writers understand that better than others. Less is more. You can convey actions in the panels without having to explain everything. You can be shown. Here, Mosley clearly understood the assignment. There were many pages without dialogue, so that the action could happen. What was most surprising to me is that Mosley is a huge fan of old school Marvel. He fondly remembers those comics from when he was a kid. So with that kind of aesthetic and thinking, I thought this would harken back to those days of overwritten comic books where the pages were chock full of exposition and clunky dialogue. That was not...

Wow. I didn't realize I hadn't written about this yet. The Peacemaker show on HBO Max. The show I didn't ask for, but didn't know I needed. After his appearance in THAT Suicide Squad movie last year, more of anything related to that movie is the last thing I wanted. However, like some invisible rope tied to me, I feel obligated to watch any comic book related thing. So I watched this show. I have never been more wrong about my pre-conceived notions. I like James Gunn's sense of style and jokes in his movies. With Suicide Squad, I felt like it was a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Too much James Gunn and too cute for it's own good. Here, it feels like he's more restrained, oddly enough. Maybe because of budget reasons he couldn't film big sweeping battles with CG everywhere. I don't know. He found the right tone with this show. There are so many genuine, laugh out loud moments. This is a band of regular people who are screw ups, not the super p...

When I heard this movie was announced a few years ago, I rolled my eyes pretty hard. Here we are with yet ANOTHER Batman movie. We were starting to get diminishing returns with this franchise. I get that they want to keep trying to make money, but maybe we need to let Batman take a rest. Then I watched this movie and I take it all back. I only saw this a week ago, so I'm still in hot take mode, but this is EASILY one of the best Batman movies I have ever seen. Right now, I have Dark Knight first, this movie second and the 1989 Batman movie coming in at number 3. There are just so many things this movie does right. It is almost a master class in how you juggle multiple villains. We also get to see Batman be, *GASP* a detective and try to solve a crime. Not in the ham fisted ways that we've seen in the past either.  In no particular order, let me talk about what I loved about this movie. First of all, we don't have to get an origin story about Bruce Wayne/Batman. It's a s...

Let's carry on with Part II of my year in review. Now we get on to favorite writers, mini-series, events and favorite series. I have also started to read more graphic novels, so I now have a category for that as well. Favorite Writer of 2021 Gene Luen Yang - Shang Chi (Marvel)  - I have absolutely loved what Gene has been doing with his Shang Chi series that started in the middle of the year. I won't act like Marvel put this book out with good intentions. It was to coincide with their movie. I get that. However, Gene has taken his obvious love of the character and is doing something meaningful with him. I've said it before somewhere, but for characters that are non-white, it makes sense to have someone of that similar background write their stories. I'm not saying that white people can't, but there is a lot of nuance that they can never capture. This book has been a fun ride as Shang Chi interacts with the larger Marvel Universe once more. For years he's been re...

I think we can all agree that 2021was ALSO a crap year. I had some big personal changes in my life during the year. I also read a TON of books. Probably more in a year than I ever have. Good thing I use a service to track my collection and I made a conscious effort to track all my books this year, specifically. Looking over the list, I forgot half of this stuff came out and I read it. For instance, DC had this Future State event that I completely forgot. I forgot that Marvel had it's King in Black mini-series as well! This year did feature a return of movies to movie theaters, so I did venture out to see a few. As you can guess, they were all Marvel movies. There were also a lot of TV shows. I have been crushed under the weight of them, specifically DC. So I am way behind all of them except for Superman & Lois. Overall, I probably picked up the same amount of DC books, if not a little more due to more Bat Family stuff. I still buy an insanely high volume of Marvel comics. My Im...

Read past this point at your own peril. There will be spoilers When this show got announced, I was like, "Okay. Thanks Marvel. Give us a series that literally no one asked for." I like Hawkeye in the comics just fine. I hate him in the movies. He's just this bland ass, flat character and Jeremy Renner's performance hadn't changed my opinion. I also feel like Marvel has, to use wrestling terms, tried to get him over. "Look, he's got a FAMILY. He's a family man." "Look, he's lost his family and now he is RONIN". Side note, Ronin is a character only the most hardcore of fans would even know or care about. So using him seemed to be throwing a bone to fans or something. In Avengers: End Game, when it came down to him and Natasha, I was actively mad it wasn't HIM that died. So yeah, not a fan of this guy. I was not excited about this series, but I am resigned to my fate to watch every Marvel Cinematic Universe offering. I'm flawed...

I wanted to sit with this for a few days. Mostly because I didn't want to let my rose colored glasses color my opinion of this movie. Now that I have waited and thought on it... It is still a great movie!! I'm still wrestling where it sits in my list of Spider-Man movies and Marvel movies as a whole because let's face it, Marvel's hand in these movies is what has made them great. Let's dive right in. I want to warn you, there will be spoilers! I can't talk about some of the things in this movie without spoiling things. So if you haven't seen it yet, stop right here!