Into the Longbox

Oh no. Another female super hero action movie. If you know the internet at all, the usual, lazy ass backlash of calling this film woke arrived just on time. Ignore all of that. I thought this movie was pretty good. A solid B+. I did enjoy it and I had very few issues. Per my usual, here's my lazy, bulleted format: Milly Alcock I think is the perfect choice for this newly rebooted Supergirl. She was able to carry off the whole hero arc her character HAS to go through in the movie. I liked the smart way they nerf her powers. Super people (her and Superman) are overpowered, so by having her traveling the galaxy that have different suns, you get to see the effect it has on her. Did the story dictate this? Yes. But also, it helped to show how she can be heroic without powers. On the flip side, the villain is so one note. And that is OKAY. I don't need to be invested in the bad guy. He is an obstacle to get punched into oblivion later. Normally I don't like kid sidekicks, but Rut...

I have to be honest with y'all. I didn't enjoy this as much as I wanted to. It is clear that the Punisher is a character that Jon Beranthal loves and is a passion project for him. He even gets a writing credit and producer credit. But at a certain point, you keep trying to mine depth for a character that we don't need it on. The Punisher's family was killed by the mob, so he wants revenge. That's the story. Then they layer on PTSD and his time in the special forces. They did this in the two seasons he had on Netflix, so this is ground WELL covered. In this special, we deal with all of that again. It's like seeing Batman or Superman's origin repeated in every iteration of the character. We know the back story, so let's move on to something new. I'm at least thankful this was one long episode and not a series. I  would not be able to stick around for seven more hours of the life and times of Melancholy Frank. He barely says a word for about 75% of this...

I finished Daredevil: Born Again - Season 2 a few days ago and of course I have thoughts! You would expect nothing less. Like season 1, I thought overall, this was pretty good. The show's action is brutal, but draws the line at being too cartoony (looking at you Punisher). Let's just get to my thoughts, in my lazier, bulleted format. I will have two longer thoughts at the end. The show still looks like when the show was on Netflix, gritty and not overly stylized. I love that. Loved seeing Jessica Jones show up Karen Page finally has more to do. So much tension in watching Kingpin's inner circle start to collapse in on itself This show is extremely well acted. To rephrase what I stated in the paragraph above, the fight choreography is easily the best in all Marvel projects (television). I didn't say all Marvel movies because Winter Soldier and Shang-Chi would like a word. An unhinged Bullseye is a perfect, chaotic force in this season With that being said, the physics of...

When it comes to comic books, if there is one thing I enjoy, it's being proven wrong. I was extremely skepitcal when this show was announced. Wonder Man on his best day is a D-List Marvel character. I don't care what anyone says. Yes, he's shown up in Avengers, but I was not an Avengers fan pre-2003. I felt like this was Marvel, once again scrambling with their own IP. There was no way this show would be any good. I was wrong. This show is a breath of fresh air. Instead of something flashy full of stupid special effects on a TV show budget with mind numbingly dull action, this is a character story first and foremost. You also don't have to have watched many other Marvel properties. As loathe as I am to say it, I would argue that watching Iron Man 3 is a good pre-requisite to this show. Also Shang-Chi. I'll explain why later on. I know comic fans were angrily typing away on their sad, overcomensating keyboards when Simon Williams was cast as a Black man, instead of a...

  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 and whatevers. In Memoriam Peter David  - I didn't address this when it happened back in May, but we lost writer Peter David this year. He was a stalwart in the industry. When I started reading comics in the early 90's during my formative years, he was at the helm of the Incredible Hulk and X-Factor. His run on Hulk is the very reason that the smart Hulk is my favorite version. He did numerous other titles throughout the years and he was a writer that if I saw him on a book, I picked it up. His series, " Spyboy " is an underrated gem and not known well enough. He single handedly made me like the character Madrox (X-Factor member) and that is impressive in itself. I'd seen him at a few cons, but never went over to talk to him and I regret that. His death highlights a very real problem in the comic book industry and how they don't ha...

  Life was even more crazy this year, so I consistently stayed behind on my comic book reading. I'm sure BOTH of my comic shops love me, with all the books I don't pick up often enough from my pull box. To go back a second, we finally got a comic book shop here in town, so I don't have to drive 40 minutes out of the way to the one that's been my comic book home since 2003. Out of loyalty, I still have books I pick up over there, but I've split my time between two shops. Also, I need that relationship there because comic books are a hard business to maintain and I need a foothold in a few places. I also switched to a far superior comic book tracking system that allows me to create a pull list at my local store in town, but also gives me far better metrics for tracking stuff. The site is  League of Comic Geeks . This will make this list so much easier to make this year! Let's show my metrics (that I don't have to excrutiatingly pull from my old site, put into ...

*Editors note: I wrote this over a year ago and didn't get around to posting it. I'm not editing any of my past tense because what fun would that be. Imagine I posted this in 2024. ** A year or two ago, I tried to convince my wife (and myself), that Batman Returns was a Christmas movie. I insisted we watch it, holding this movie in high regard from my childhood. We never finished it then, but a few weeks ago, we did. Let me tell you, your childhood can lie to you. Nostalgia is a potent drug. It makes you forget things. Halfway through the movie, all I could think is, "This movie is so damn stupid." Or "I think I hate this movie." I forgot that maybe a decade ago, I did this same exercise, fooling myself into thinking this was a worthy successor to Batman. It isn't. It's not close. I'm going to get into my reasoning for this. If I were to describe this movie with one word, it'd be bizzare. After the success of the first movie, it's like Wa...

I finally got around to watching the most recent Superman and I definitely have thoughts. I'm still processing them, but this I do know. I wanted to love this movie more than I did. At the end, I was like, "This was good, but not great." It's not beating Fantastic Four as my comic book movie of the year.  Before I get to my thoughts, I want to lead with this and be up front. I'm not a huge fan of James Gunn. I've liked some of his movies/shows (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, Peacemaker) and disliked others (Guardians 2 and 3, THE Suicide Squad). I haven't watched Creature Commanders and I'm leaving out previous movies like Slither and the many others I'm sure someone will call out. I don't like his music choices. I don't always love his comedy beats. I don't always love how he films action scenes. This movie had a lot of what I like from him and what I don't like.  One thing I will say and it might sound like tepid praise based on ...

What in the blue hell? Sony has just been scraping the bottom of the barrel to meet the requirements to keep the Spider-Man properties. No one in their right mind would want a Kraven movie, but here we are. Down is up, up is down.  I've said this before, I'm kind of a movie mascochist. No one makes me do this. I do this to myself. After enduring Madame Web, I had to move on down the list to this movie. It is everything I thought it was. A stupid movie, but there's something more at work here. Lemme get into it. I feel for the lead star, Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He clearly bulked up for the role and really thought it was going to be something special. This movie is not going to help his case. He's fine, but this is a dumb movie and you're the face of it, bro. Remember how I said you can tell Aaron bulked up? Yeah, he walks around like a guy that just did arm day at the gym. The way he poses and all his action scenes are there to show off his work. Good job, my guy. Do y...

I'm a deeply sick, disturbed man. Multiple people told me DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. Saying those words are like catnip to me. I was gonna watch it. All I needed was time and opportunity. Over the labor day weekend, I was doing chores. Okay, I was putting comic boards into comic bags for my haul for the last couple of weeks. I figured, I'm doing something mindless, let me watch a mindless movie. That's when I found the time for this movie. Is this movie as bad as they said? Yes. Absolutely. It was a waste of my time, but I wasn't raging at the stupidness of this movie like I thought I would. I was laughing because I couldn't believe this was a serious movie made with real money. This movie is par for the course on the terribleness of all the Sony Spider-Man properties. I'm excluding the last two Venom movies because I haven't watched them yet, but I have no doubt they are equally terrible. Let's get into my thoughts: I've never seen anyone with less ch...

Here's the show you probably haven't heard about because now Disney wants to act like they don't want to talk about any of the non-white shows that they have. If that above sentence triggered you in some way, you haven't paying attention how some big companies bury mention of their content to stay off the radar of the current administration. Never mind that the use of the word "woke" is been completely co-opted in the wrong way.  They also moved up the original release date without any warning. Ryan Coogler is big time now and if you want to make money, you announce his projects. After the next Black Panther movie, if I was him, I'd be done with the Marvel business. You were mutually beneficial to each other for a hot minute, but that time has passed. My bad, I got on my soap box, but this is my blog and I do what I want! Anyways! Eyes of Wakanda. It's a wonderfully short 4 episode series. It doesn't overstay it's welcome and there is rich, fer...

My dream as a long time FF fan has come true. They did not only a good movie, but a GREAT Fantastic Four movie. Dare I say...Fantastic?! I know the bar was extremely low, but this movie did all the things the other movies failed to do. Combined. At this point, I don't think I have to provide proof, but I will anyways. For those of you that have seen my comic book collection, you will know that it is pretty massive. Let's just say the most of one title I have is Fantastic Four comics. They are one of the very few comics I've bought every issue consistently for the past 20 years without breaks. I've endured a lot of ups and downs with the series, so I feel like I have a pretty good feel on them. I want you to trust me as an expert. Or at least someone who is speaking as a big fan and then you can still dismiss me. This movie combines the best elements of the characters for this movie. Let me get my review. I am going to gush a lot about this movie, so let me put this into...

In an effort to at least be relevant, I watched this show as quickly as my time would allow, so I could finish before it was spoiled for me. Unfortunately, it WAS, so I won't do that to you. But you come here, my tens of fans, to see what I think. I'll get right to it. I loved this show. The episodes stuck with me long after they were over and that is a rarity with these shows. This was such a black show and that is probably why. There's unsaid things that we as a people just get when watching something like this. The fact that they got Disney money to do it makes it even sweeter. Per my new format, let me give you my bullet point notes: The Ironheart effects looked REALLY good. Most of these Marvel shows try to go above what their SFX budget allows ( **cough** She-Hulk **cough** ), but that was not the case here. I was legitimately surprised. Riri was complicated and they delve as much as they can within six episodes. I don't feel like she made any moves that were inco...

I'm trying to keep up with the rest of the world in regards to the kind of movies that exist in my realm of expertise (i.e. Nerd shit), so I was only about a week late on watching the Thunderbolts*. I'm getting better at it. I'll be honest, this is not a movie I asked for from Marvel. They have been floundering since Avengers: Endgame to come up with something that will catch on. I don't know how much Thunderbolts will actually catch on, but I did enjoy it. In what is a surprising rarity for Marvel movies, it was pretty grounded and street level. If by street level we mean espionage experts that are excellent hand to hand specialists. With the exception of the Sentry showing up, the power levels of everyone remained on the same level. Let's continue in my new format that lets me get lazy and just bulllet point shit. There are spoilers so if you didn't watch the movie, you might want to wait to read this. Unless you don't care about that sort of thing. The GO...

I know that this is a comic blog and this movie is not technically a comic book movie. Let me break my own rules with these flimsy connections. Ryan Coogler directed Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. Michael B. Jordan was in Black Panther. Hailee Steinfeld is in the Hawkeye show and is Kate Bishop that will appear in other movies. Wunmi Mosaku was in the Loki series and the Wolverine & Deadpool as an agent of the TVA. In doing a quick scan of credits, Delroy Lindo was in a tv show, "Marvel's Most Wanted", a spinoff from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show. So, you know... a lot of comic book ties. Justification complete! This movie was fantastic. It was an unapologetically black movie. I'm so proud to see a movie like this doing so well. Gives me a glimmer of hope for the future as this "anti-DEI" bullshit takes a hold and manifests itself in my country. I've been thinking about this movie for days before I finally got it together and put this out.  Any...

Wow, it's been two months since I posted? Life has been lifing hard, so it has taken this series, to break me out of my slumber. Let me tell you, this took me back to those Netflix Marvel days in a good way. Daredevil was always the strongest show of that bunch and seeing the majority of the cast back has filled me with joy. Before you go any further, yes, I loved the show. Now, let's get into the reasons as to why. I'm going to do this a little differently. I tend to ramble and I want to at least break out my points so you can take them in bite sized chunks, my tens of readers.  Also, these are my OPINIONS. I want to be clear about that. But if you want to argue with me about any of this, my watch says I always have time. This should be easy to follow, so let's go. The GOOD (or what I loved) The hand to hand fighting in this series has always been unrivaled. Even with all these shows that Marvel has done since going to Disney plus, this series beats all of them hands d...